Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece
chapter-288

The Peucetians had sent a herald to the place where they ambushed the Tarantine. However, he could not find the archons of the city-states of Messapi as Pasimeus led them in engaging the Tarantine army to surround and annihilate them.

The Greek hoplites have a strong defence and are powerful in close combat, but a hoplite that could only defend and does not attack is only a hard shell, and it would only be a matter of time and energy to break them.

The Messapians’ initial ambush had cut off the serpentine column of Taranto into more than ten sections. However, surrounding each section of the enemy had caused the Messapian soldiers to be outnumbered, but as the battle progressed, the casualties of Taranto increased, causing each encirclement to shrink smaller and smaller.

If they had not heard the salpinx of Theonia, then the Tarantines might have already given up fighting, and now, the only thing supporting them is their belief to live. But with the gradual elimination of a small encirclement after another, the shackles around the remaining soldiers’ necks began to tighten.

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Hybaterus had heard of Prosous' excellent performance in the recruit training camp, but he did not expect that Prosous was not soft-hearted in killing in a real battlefield, and he felt like this was not his first battle (it was not). His shield defence, slash and thrusting were skilful and ingenious, even though he does not swing his spear randomly, but as long as he strikes, it would cause an enemy to scream, which is truly cruel and accurate. The ruthlessness of Prosous made the fierce Peucetians afraid that they subconsciously avoided his attack.

Under the lead of Prosous, his teammates competed against each other, causing the Peucetians’ defensive line to be in danger.

Matonis, who was in the middle of the brigade and was in charge of supervising the battle, was overjoyed to see such sight and asked excitedly, “Who is the warrior rushing at the front?”

Pamanius, the platoon captain, replied quickly, “Prosous!”

“He is Prosous!!” His teammates had also rushed to answer.

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“Lord commander, Matonis' third brigade has broken through the enemy's line of defence!”

“The fourth brigade of Amintas has also broken through!”

“The light infantry brigade of Epiphanes and Cid has defeated the enemy's flank!”

“Izam's mountain reconnaissance brigade together with the troops of Heraclea and Metapontum had defeated the enemy's flank!”

One good news after another had come. When Tolmides reported it to Davos, Umakas could not help exclaim excitedly, “Great! We finally won!”

Davos also showed a relieved smile, “Order. Blow the salpinx again and defeat the enemy in one fell swoop!”

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“Retreat! Retreat! Go!” Even though Telemani's expression looked bleak, he was still calm. After all, it is not like he had not experienced defeat, in the last war with Dauni, he had lost a lot of lands, yet he still survived.

In fact, there was no need for his orders as the whole army had collapsed and the Peucetian soldiers fled for their lives.

Before leaving, Telemani did not forget to take a look at the top of the opposite hill again, as if to keep the dazzling flag firmly in his mind.

“My king, do you want to warn the Messapians?” Reminded Pulo.

Telemani was in low spirit and wasn't in the mood to speak much and just watch at the defeated soldiers all over the hills. He might as well give them a favour at a small cost, “Send someone to tell them that the Theonians had attacked fiercely and that we could not hold them off. Whether to retreat or continue fighting, let them decide for themselves.”

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One after another, the soldiers beside Diaomilas fell, and he himself was wounded in many places and felt that he would return to the underworld this time. Suddenly, the Messapians surrounding them went into commotion.

He heard the enemy shouting something. Unfortunately, he could not understand the Messapi's language, but someone among the soldiers was already shouting excitedly in a tired voice, “The Messapians says that the Peucetians were defeated! The Theonians have won! We are saved!!”

The despairing soldiers had immediately cheered up from hearing these words and shouted the news of victory to each other, and finally merging into one, “Hold on! Hold on!! The Theonian reinforcement will be here soon!!!”

As time pass by with difficulty, the attack of the Messapians gradually weakened and in the end, they retreated.

In the face of the retreat of the Messapians, Diaomilas has no intention to chase them. In fact, he could not command any soldiers at the moment as all the Tarantine soldiers, like him, had exhausted their strength and energy for more than two hours.

He sat down on the ground and no longer wanted to stand up. The joy of surviving could not match the unhappiness at the sight of the soldiers’ corpses and the groaning of the wounded.

In this battle, the Messapians have suffered 1,200 casualties, mainly from the near-total annihilation of the cavalry reinforcement and the heavy infantry of Alytia.

While the Peucetians’ casualties were less than 600, the reason for their low casualties was that in a frontal confrontation between infantries, they tended to only suffer few casualties, and the primary loss comes are after their defeat. For example, in the second battle between Theonia and Crotone, they relied on the light infantry and cavalry to pursue and capture most of the fleeing Crotonian hoplites. However, such a good opportunity did not appear in this battle because the Peucetians are familiar with the terrain and have simple equipment. These characteristics have made it impossible for the Theonian hoplites to catch up with them once they fled, and the Theonian cavalries did not even join in this battle. Even if they were to appear on the battlefield, there was still no way for them to defeat the Peucetians in the mountains.

On the other side of the war, the Tarantine has suffered more than 4,000 casualties, nearly one-third of its military strength, most of which had died in the battle; The Theonians have 600 casualties, but most of them were the result of getting injured by falling from the hill; While Heraclea and Metapontum have more than 800 casualties. Thus, although it was the Messapi-Peuceti alliance who had eventually retreated, the Greek allied force was the one actually suffering the more severe losses. Moreover, the Messapians and the Peucetians have lost a large number of cavalry, while Theonia had gotten nearly 400 high-quality horses.

When Davos saw Diaomilas, he did not assume the attitude of a saviour and continued to face him in his usual manner while enthusiastically directing the medical camp to aid the wounded soldiers of Taranto, much to Diaomilas' shame.

The Messapi-Peuceti had withdrawn from the Anlen Hills, entered the territory of Taranto and soon retreated northward.

However, the Greek allied troops were unable to chase them due to fatigue and having too many wounded soldiers. For the time being, they settled in a few nearby villages to rest while sending men to the city of Taranto to report the war situation and escort the wounded soldiers back to the camp.

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On this day, the Senate of Theonia received a man.

His name is Mithrobates, and he had come to ask Theonia for help. However, he had not come from any of the allied city-states of Theonia but from the Siro tribe in the territory of Brutti.

It turned out that the Bruttii tribal union in Consentia was in the process of unification. In the process of their unification, they began to accelerate the incorporation and merging of the small and large tribes within their borders; with the general trend and force submission, most tribes had chosen to comply, but few tribes led by the Siro tribe refused the integration.

According to Mithrobates, they are Greeks, and most of them were only forced to flee into the mountains to avoid disaster after the destruction of Sybaris. They have the pride as a Greek, so how could they be incorporated by barbarians and live a barbaric life?!

After several unsuccessful attempts by the envoys sent by the city of Consentia in Bruttii to persuade the Siro tribe, there was no longer any movement, so the people of the Siro tribe thought that the matter was over. However, a few months later, after Consentia completed its authority over most of the tribes of Brutii and was effectively ruling them, they had sent another envoy to Siro.

But this time, the envoy demanded that the Siro tribe immediately submit to the rule of the tribal union, else they would send a large army to eliminate them.

It was then that the Siro tribes panicked and hastily sent Mithrobates to Terina for help.

Terina admitted that they had no ability to intervene in this matter. Fortunately, they had already let Siprus communicate with the archon of Theonia, Davos, beforehand, so they had Mithrobates go to Theonia to ask for help.

On this day, the Senate’s rotating chairperson was Cornelius. He looked at the envoy that claimed to be Greek but looked nothing like one, so he was puzzled.

Seeing the doubts of the statemen, Mithrobates explained, “I inherited my Bruttian mother's face, and it is because I do not look like Greek that the chieftain of Siro chose me, as only in this way would I not arouse the suspicion of the surrounding Bruttians.”

Cornelius murmured to himself: Before going to battle, Davos once raised the issue of Bruttii but was interrupted because of Taranto's request for help before they could conduct a detailed discussion.

At this moment, Pollux stood up and said, “What could Theonia do? Protest to the Bruttians to stop annexing this small tribe? I am afraid none of you here will believe that just one word from us would make the Bruttians stop what they have been preparing for so long. What will we do if the Bruttians refuse? If we give up, we will only lose Davos' prestige of Theonia being the most powerful union! But if we want to take further action, I can't think of any other measures besides war.

However, the Theonian citizens have enough war this year! Now our archon is still leading our citizens to fight the powerful Messapians and Peucetians in Taranto!” Pollux then pointed to Mithrobates, and looked at him with pity then said, “And look at this envoy of Siro, just because he had said that they are Greeks, it would be better to fight than to kick them, but who knows if it's the truth! Are we willing to send our citizens once again to an unfamiliar and terrible battlefield to fight against the fierce Bruttians for a race that does not even look like Greek at all?!”