Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece
chapter-793

“Excellent!” Litom patted Miltiades on the chest and said sincerely, “Thank you for trusting me, Miltiades!”

“This is all for Theonia!” Miltiades responded with seriousness.

“Rest assured that I won't let your marine suffer losses!” Litom also gave his promise and then said to his adjutant, “Immediately rush and call Ulasa!”

He would leave the command of the entire Third Legion's offensive to Ulasa, while he himself would lead two infantry brigades and two thousand marines of the Third Fleet stationed at the camp to meet the Roman reinforcements. After all, the Marines would have an easier time accepting his command as the legatus.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Veii is a city built by the Etruscan and was one of the twelve city-states allied with Etruria; located on the north bank of the middle reaches of the Tiber, just northeast of the city of Rome and was only about twenty kilometres apart. They have been a great enemy of the Romans since the founding of Rome, with both sides fighting multiple wars over the control of the land on both sides of the middle reaches of the Tiber for centuries.

Initially, the Romans could only be beaten passively, but they began winning and finally gained the upper hand. After that, Camillus, after a decade-long siege, triumphantly led his army to conquer the city of Veii over twenty years ago. Motivated by a combination of hatred and self-interest, the Romans mercilessly slaughtered all resisting Veientes, enslaving women and children, and fully annexed the land of Veii, transforming it into a Roman colonial city-state.

Shortly thereafter, the intense conflict between the nobles and plebeians forced most of the plebeians to leave the city in anger and settle in Veii. Following that, the Gaul invasion and their occupation of Rome came. But after Camillus gathered the Romans and Latins to expel the Gaul, the Roman nobles and plebeians had once again bridged their contradiction and rebuilt the city of Rome, with many Roman plebeians that had settled in Veii also returning.

Afterwards, the Senate passed a law that designated the fertile land near the Tiber in the south of Veii as the public land of Rome to prevent Veii from becoming the place of refuge for the Roman plebeians when the conflict between the nobles and plebeians erupted again, which would weaken the city of Rome. As a result, the great Etruscan city-state, with a population similar to and even more prosperous than Rome, turned into a medium-sized colonial city-state of Rome.

Since the residents in Veii were all Roman citizens, they were the first to respond to the call of Rome(it was to follow Camillus to attack Hernici). Then after hearing the city of Rome was getting besieged, they had once again squeezed out more than five hundred soldiers to rescue Rome.

Apart from Veii, Caisra had also sent soldiers to rescue Rome, another allied city-state of Etruria, which was situated on a hill some eight kilometres from the sea and nearly thirty kilometres away from the northern shore of the Tiber estuary. Moreover, its iron ore and the production of high-quality clay pots made it famous in north-central Italia, which made the city prosperous and wealthy.

Caisra was a city-state adept at getting along with other forces, so while the relationship between most Etruscan city-states and Rome was tense, Caisra maintained a good relationship with Rome. Even during the Gaul's invasion and the destruction of Rome, the Caisrians had also sheltered many Romans who fled due to Rome's fall into various mountain villages. So when Rome recovered its strength, the Romans didn't invade Caisra when they started attacking the Etruscan territories in the north. Instead, they had invited the Caisrians to join the Roman alliance.

At the same time, the Caisrians maintained a good relationship with the Greeks. But what is surprising the most is that they are one of the few non-Greek city-states that had erected their own treasury at Delphi, which usually wasn't allowed to non-Greek city-states.

This time, Caisra had also sent over five hundred soldiers to rescue the alliance leader, Rome.

Besides them, there are other reinforcements from two city-states of the Etruscan League, Volch and Tarchna. Although Volch and Tarchna are two city-states close to the coast, they had instead built their cities on the hills rich in mineral resources and had large ports and a thriving maritime trade.

Especially Volch, which had become the maritime trade centre on the west coast of the Apennine peninsula as early as a hundred years ago, with its pottery, bronzes and wine exported to the eastern Mediterranean. But apart from being the maritime power, it had also controlled numerous neighbouring Etruscan tribes and small towns.

On the other hand, Tarchna, like Veii, were bitter enemies with Rome, and they had even supported the overthrown Roman king Tarquin to confront Rome. However, these two powerful city-states have declined over the past few decades due to the continuous invasion of the Gauls and the harassment of the Romans. Then during the massive Gaul invasion a dozen years ago, both cities were left devastated with their people plundered…

But before they could recover from the invasion, Rome, which had chased away the Gauls and received strong support from Carthage, had invaded their territory with a large army. So after suffering successive defeats, the people of these two cities chose to surrender.

Rome then decided to split the land of these two cities and established two colonial cities – Sutrium and Cosa – as Rome's base to control the southern Etruscan while monitoring the movements of these two cities. Thus when Rome sent messengers asking for help, these two cities sent reinforcements.

Naturally, Sutrium and Cosa had sent reinforcements, increasing the number of soldiers to more than two thousand. And with the addition of the soldiers sent by other Etruscan tribes and towns that had surrendered to Rome, the total number would reach more than four thousand.

While the reinforcements from city-states such as Veii, Caisra and Volch gather one after another, with scattered soldiers arriving later, they suddenly receive a report from the scouts about the Theonian besieging Rome and the situation no longer allowing them to wait here—especially the Romans in the city of Veii, who kept clamouring about rushing to rescue Rome. So after the generals from the Roman colonial city-states and the Etruscan city-states reached an agreement, they quickly led their respective soldiers and hurried towards Pons Aemilius.

When they were only two kilometres from the Theonian camp, they once again received a report from the scout: About four thousand Theonian soldiers were marching rapidly towards them!

That had surprised several generals, ‘Aren't the Theonians besieging Rome with all their strength?! How come they still have enough soldiers left to fight with us in the field?!’

But they didn't have much time to think as they hastily began to move into formation.

Since these over four thousand Roman reinforcements had come from multiple Etruscan city-states, tribes and Roman colonial city-states, it took them some effort to determine the affiliation of each unit and properly arrange them. Thus before they could go into formation, the Theonian army had already appeared in their sight.

Since the army Litom led had two thousand marines and a light-armoured brigade, they managed to move rapidly, with only one heavy infantry brigade slightly trailing behind.

Upon reaching the battlefield, Litom discovered the Roman reinforcements. As he had anticipated, they were caught off guard by their unexpected attack and failed to prepare adequately. With the enemy forces still tightly packed together, it was an opportunity he couldn't afford to miss. So without waiting for the arrival of the heavy infantry brigade, Litom promptly issued the order to attack: the marines would assault the enemy's left flank, while the light-armoured brigade would engage the right flank, reserving the centre for the lagging heavy infantry brigade.

Although neither of his soldiers on hand is heavy infantry, the mounted scouts reported that the number of heavy infantry in the Roman reinforcements was far less than half (they had all conscripted the elite citizen soldiers earlier to attack Hernici). Hence Litom believed that these two well-trained units could completely suppress the enemy with their attacks and hold out until the arrival of the heavy infantry brigade.

Upon the sound of the attack, the two units, initially advancing in a column formation, swiftly adjusted their formation, transitioning into a row. With no further repositioning, they accelerated forward.

The marines' weapons and equipment are the same as the light-armoured soldiers, which are leather helmets, leather armour, leather shields, and short swords, with the biggest difference being the size of the shield and carrying javelins. Since the light-armoured soldiers fight on land, their leather shields are larger and carry two javelins, just like the heavy infantry. On the other hand, the marines had smaller leather shields and didn't carry javelins to maintain their balance better since they were fighting at sea.

Since the heavy infantry of the Third Legion was unable to hurl javelins while ascending the embankment through the corvus warships to engage the enemy, they had to leave their javelins in the camp. Remembering this, Litom had instructed the Marines to carry the javelins when he called upon them to confront the enemy. Although they typically do not use javelins in naval battles, the marines had to familiarise themselves with it during regular training, as proficient javelin throwing was one of the four essential skills expected of Theonian infantry (the other three being unarmed combat, sword and shield fighting and spear thrusting with a shield).

The rapid approaching Theonian army forced the Roman reinforcements to no longer smoothly go into formation. Of course, they could not shrink into a group and get attacked passively. As a result, they forcefully blow the sound of attack with the generals of each reinforcement leading their own city-state armies to attack the rapidly approaching Theonian army.

The distance between the two sides, which was several hundred metres apart at the start, was quickly shortened amid the noise of the battlefield.

“Javelins! Javelins! Javelins!….” Responding to the command of the squad leaders, the Theonian Marines and light-armoured brigade quickly halted their advance. Followed by launching two rounds of javelin attacks, effectively disrupting the enemy charge and throwing their formation into disarray. Then after shouting the name of Hades, they quickly charged forward…