Chapter 208: Battle of Trionto River (IV)
Although the light armored soldiers are “light armored”, they still have “armors”. Moreover, with a leather shield and a spear in their hands, how could they catch up with an enemy who was only wearing a single piece of clothing. However, if they were to stop chasing, the enemies’ range attack will come.
What’s more problematic is that the enemy in the center has gradually divided into three groups, when the light armored soldiers are advancing, one of them will draw the light armored soldiers into the formation, and the other two will go to the flank of the light armored soldiers.
As the light armored soldiers advance, their flank will get attacked by the enemy. If they focus their attention at the front, they won’t be able to take care of their flanks, and if they were to take care of their flanks, then they won’t be able to defend against the enemy at the front. The light armored soldiers of Crotone could only recklessly charge like a wild boar, and as a result, not only did they fail to do anything to the enemy, their own casualties have gradually increased.
“Where are the cavalries?! Why haven’t they come yet! What is Alexias doing!!” Seeing his soldiers fall one by one, Philederus became impatient and couldn’t stop himself from shouting. This was the first time that he realized how hard it was to fight an enemy who was all light infantry with only just pure infantry. They couldn’t even catch up with them, let alone fight them, and they have instead become living targets of the enemy.
“Retreat to the left! Retreat to the left!!” Exclaimed Philederus, and his escorts echoed what he shouted. If in the previous pursuit the excited soldiers could not hear what Philederus was shouting, but now that they are all gathered together and are carefully avoiding the arrows and stones, and was already a bit afraid and tired, they manage to hear the orders of Philederus and it is exactly what they wished, and so, the light armored soldiers retreated in a hurry.
Who knew that the light infantry of Theonia are like maggots on a bone and won’t let them go.
Philederus had initially meant to retreat back to the left and join up with their hoplites who were on the left-wing, so that they could protect the flanks of the light armored soldiers and reduce their casualties before the cavalry returned from their victory. (Philederus is still convinced that Crotone would win.)
However, he didn’t know that the hoplites that he originally thought would still be in his left rear were actually diverted by the right-wing light infantry of the enemy. The enemy had actually deliberately retreated slowly to the northwest, and the slow moving hoplites had unknowingly changed from facing north to northwest, and as a result, the distance between the center and the left-wing of Crotone had widened.
The light armored soldiers retreated quickly for a period of time, but not only did they not meet their left-wing, their casualties had quickly increased because they could not protect themselves well while retreating, and now, they are forced to turn around again and protect themselves with just their leather shields, and slowly retreat to avoid the rain of arrows. They could only watch as the number of injured and fallen comrades on the ground and getting slaughtered by the enemies increased, and the morale of the light armored soldiers was shaking.
At this time, they suddenly heard the sound of horse’ hooves at their rear, but they could not look back as they had to focus on avoiding the arrows. However, they still exhaled a sigh of relief, “Cavalries! Our cavalry has arrived at last!!”
Philederus wondered how the cavalries of Alexias got to their rear, because he had told him that after defeating the left-wing of the enemy, he would lead the cavalry to attack the center of the enemy from the other side. When he started to feel annoyed, someone shouted in a hurry, “Javelins! Be careful of the javelins! They are enemies!!”
Accompanied by this cry, hundreds of javelins howled from the rear.
Philederus, who was at the rear of the formation and was wearing a brightly colored helmet of a strategos, had naturally become the target of their attack and he immediately got struck by three javelins. When Philederus fell, he still could not understand how the superior cavalry of Crotone lost!
The cavalry that they had high hopes turned out to be the enemy! This has become the last straw to crush the light armored soldiers. Their morale vanished and they all fled in different directions, and the light infantry and the cavalry of Theonia had taken advantage of this situation to chase them. The light armored soldiers of Crotone were unable to run faster than these poorly equipped light infantry, let alone the speed of the cavalry. After the Theonians caught up with them, most of the Crotonian soldiers had chosen to surrender.
After dealing with the cavalry of Crotone on the right-wing and the light armoured soldiers at the center, the Theonians then concentrated on dealing with the difficult hoplites.
When the more than 3,000 Crotonian hoplites were surrounded by the more than 7,000 light infantry and cavalry of Theonia, these hoplites has soon understood that their center and right-wing might have encountered a disaster, specially after seeing the head of Philederus being held up by the cavalry of Ledes and circling around the hoplites and shouting for their surrender. The blow to the hearts of these Crotonians could only be imagined.
The strategos in charge of the hoplites was Philos of Crotone, and his adjutant was Batrius of Scylletium, and the two of them had a dispute in the face of such a critical situation.
Philos believed that the light infantry could not do much damage on them. So as long as they could keep on advancing and reach the main force in front of the river fording, they could then get their aid to defeat the army of Theonia, and the final victory would still belong to Crotone.
While Batrius thinks that under their current circumstance of getting fully encircled and being attacked and the morale of the soldiers is very low, and the destination they want to reach is at least more than 3 kilometers, so it is almost impossible for the soldiers to keep going forward to the western reach of the river.
Neither side could persuade each other, and in the end, they parted ways. With the 1,700 soldiers from Scylletium and Terina, Batrius began to retreat and prepare to return to the south bank of Trionto river, while Philos led the 1,400 Crotonian hoplites and began to head west at a fast pace.
The sudden division of the troops of Crotone had caused trouble to the several high-ranking officers of Theonia.
Ledes and Cid believed that they should surround the hoplites that are heading west with hoplites and chase the retreating enemy with a small number of troops.
Epiphanes objected. He thought that since the enemy is already retreating, it shows that their morale is already low, and as long as they continue pursuing and attacking them, they will surely surrender. After that, they can just re-encircle the remaining hoplites and completely wipe them out, which will make the next part of the strategy to be implemented easier. And his opinion was supported by Xanticles.
The situation is urgent and there is no time for them to argue. So the force of Theonia was also divided into two, with Epiphanes and Xanticles leading their troops to pursue the retreating hoplites.
Although the citizens of Scylletium have suffered many casualties from the attack of Theonia half a year ago, they are not Crotonians and do not have much conflict of interest with Theonia, and the main reason for them joining the war was because of their treaty and avenging their dead citizens was only second, but when the situation of the war worsen and have started to threaten their lives, they will certainly no longer fight so hard. So when the troops were divided, they were greatly in favour of it, because they think that the attention of the Theonians will be focused on the Crotonians who are heading west. However, they did not expect that the Theonians would continue to pursue them in large numbers, they got flustered and once they arrived at the lower reaches of the Trionto river, they suddenly remembered how they had paid a great price when crossing this river before, and now that there are more enemies, their attack will certainly be more fierce.
The Terinians were the first to surrender, then Batrius led the Scylletiums to surrender afterwards.
The hoplites of Crotone had said to quicken their pace, but their speed was not much faster than before. Although the hoplites have good protection, it does not mean that they are not afraid of the long-ranged attacks of arrows, javelins and stones. The impact of the stones on their helmets will make them dizzy, while they would need to be careful of the arrows because their thighs, toes and hands are not protected, and their armor can’t completely block the short-range attack of an archer. Naturally, their big round shield with a diameter of one meter and covered with copper plate can indeed completely resist the attack from the front. However, the enemy is not only in the front, but also in the flank and rear. So how will they be able to protect themselves from them?
The distance left till they reach the main army of Crotone is only a few kilometers away, which usually takes an hour when marching normally. Now that half an hour has passed, it is only less than a kilometer away…but some of their comrades are constantly falling down from getting struck by arrows and javelins, they are like a giant beast that are constantly getting bitten and bloodied by the agile wolves, and are getting weaker and more exhausted. There is no hope ahead and the arrows and javelins of the enemies seems to be infinite(Davos asked the Roscianums to donate all the arrows and javelins that they had been accumulating for many years, and carried them to the rear of the battlefield.) When Epiphanes and Xanticles, who had returned together with their troops, threw the captured flags of Scylletium and Terina to the front of the hoplites of Crotone, who were surrounded. The morale of the Crotonians that was already crumbling due to them trying to defend against the long-range attack of the Theonians for so long, had finally shattered. At the time of their surrender, there were only less than a thousand soldiers left.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Arsinis who was a recruit half a year ago, is now a squad captain of the first legion, and he is in charge of nine soldiers, six of whom are preparatory citizens and recruits.
The rapid expansion of the Theonian army in the past six months has brought about many problems, especially in such a fierce war where the quality of hoplites on both sides has gradually shown over time. The hoplites are not only a qualified heavy infantry with armor, shield and spear, but they also have trust and tacit understanding with each other. On a compact formation, a hoplite holds a shield in his left hand and a spear in his right hand. The heavy copper plated round shield will naturally make him lean to the left, which will not only make him protect his left chest but will also protect the right chest of his comrade on the left, and his right chest will be protected by the shield of his comrade on the right. In this way, the surface of the shield will form a line to defend against the attack of the enemy and they will only need to move the round shield back and forth to defend. Such movement not only consumes less physical strength, but it makes it easy for the formation to be disrupted. But with this, they will only need to focus on two actions, to stab continuously with their right hand and to keep pushing forward. And they will need to trust their comrades to protect themselves. This is the key to a successful hoplite phalanx.
A city-state has at least a few thousand citizens and at the most tens of thousands. And the citizens were either neighbors or their relatives, and they played together since childhood. When they are young, they will receive hoplite training from their elders, participate in competitions and study together, once they become adults, they will work together and attend parties together….although there is not much public collective military training every year, the trust have already formed from their childhood training, and as long as they stand on the battlefield, they will naturally stand together and twist into a rope.