Chapter 216: The Suggestion of Kunogelata
“We’ll just wait and see.” Davos said with a smile, without paying attention to the threat of Lysias at all, “But I also want to remind you that the next time you come, my conditions will not be as good as now! Besides, I also want to remind you that we are not the only enemies of Crotone…if the war continues, who knows what will happen?!”
Lysias was shocked by his words.
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By noon, the first batch of supplies arrived at the camp.
With this, Davos breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time a letter written by Kunogelata was brought to him mentioning that an envoy of Locri has arrived in Thurii and had proposed to the senate about “Locri and Theonia forming an alliance against Crotone”. However, the statesmen did not give a reply to the proposal on the ground that the archon was not present. Afterwards, the envoy fell ill with a high fever due to the exhaustion from his journey and was currently hospitalized for treatment, and so, he could not go look for Davos.
At the end of his letter, Kunogelata had also put forward his own suggestion, “Whether milord archon has the confidence to defeat Crotone independently or not, please consider that the strength of Locri is second only to Crotone, and behind them is the strong support of Syracuse. Destroying or seriously weakening Crotone will lead to Locri annexing the allies of Crotone and they will then become a stronger enemy for Theonia….”
After reading it several times, Davos picked up another letter, in it was the confidential report from Aristias and was sent through a special channel. The report mainly mentioned what happened in Thurii these days, including the arrival of the envoy of Locri. Besides that, it also mentions the events around Theonia, such as: ‘After Diaomilas, the archon of Taranto, led his army to capture Manduria, Archytas led his army to attack the city of Brindisi and continued to fight fiercely with the Messapians.’, ‘Potentia is now gathering the nearby tribes and seems to be preparing to attack Grumentum….’
But the last piece of report had caught the attention of Davos, ‘Dionysius, the supreme strategos of Syracuse, had led 80,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 400 warship to fight against Carthage’…at the beginning of the year, the whole Greek world in the western Mediterranean was filled with wars, including the war between Theonia and Crotone.
‘80,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, 400 warships?!!!’ Davos widened his eyes and carefully confirmed the number on the letter. Although he knew before that Syracuse was the leading Greek power in the western Mediterranean, the powerful strength it showed at this moment still made Davos worried. After all, Syracuse was located in Sicily, which is not that far from Thurii, as it only needed 2~3 days of travel by boat to reach. And Syracuse has a precedent of interfering in the internal affairs of other city-states in Magna Graecia when Hieron, the brother of Gelon, the tyrant who had created the glory of Syracuse a few decades ago, succeeded as the tyrant. So Davos had to be vigilant.
He then picked up the letter of Kunogelata again, and once more carefully read it and then pondered for a long time….
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After returning to Krimisa, Lysias naturally talked with Milo about his meeting with the archon of Theonia, Davos. Milo was angry at Theonia for daring to put forward such harsh conditions for the peace negotiation with Crotone, but he also felt extremely guilty.
Throughout the whole morning, Milo just watched the situation in the camp of Theonia on the city wall, thinking about ways to break through the enemy. Whether it’s on the south or the north bank, the soldiers of Theonia continued to build their camps, and pushing their defensive line forward, trenches, abatis, traps, and so on…and had laid them at intervals, it feels like they are not the one going to attack, but instead the Crotonians were the one going to attack.
Milo could only sigh while thinking what method did the commander of Theonia use to make such brave and opinionated citizen soldiers willingly continue doing this kind of hard and dirty work. If it were the soldiers of Crotone, they would have already given up and started making trouble.
At noon, Askamas, the commander of the fleet of Crotone, arrived at the port of Krimisa. Which made Milo to finally become excited, because Askamas is part of the ten strategoi of Crotone, and was also the friend of Milo and is a representative of the radicals. Milo believed that he would agree to his plan and help him.
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After seeing Askamas off and getting his positive reply, Milo can finally relax.
Just as he was about to lie down and rest for a while, the guard came in and reported that the situation of the enemy outside of the north gate had a change.
Previously, the soldiers of Theonia had been working hundreds of meters away from the north gate, but at this time, they suddenly pushed to within 100 meters, and were just outside the range of the archers of Crotone. They then began leveling and tamping the ground, and sorting out a large piece of flat land. At the same time, they were guarded by heavily armed infantry on both sides to prevent the Crotonians from attacking them.
In this era, there were no catapults, and there is a moat and a wall that blocks the enemies, so it is impossible for them to do any harm to the city of Krimisa, so the soldiers of Crotone just watched curiously on the wall without much nervousness.
Milo was also watching all of this, and he already started feeling tired and just wanted to figure out what the Theonian wanted to do.
The soldiers of Theonia then began carrying a 5 meter long tree trunk, then placing them on the edge of the flat land, and drove the tree trunks into the soil one by one. Afterwards, they connected and fixed them with ropes, and soon made a wooden frame of about 30 meters long and 5 meters wide.
“Do the Theonians want to build houses here? Are they not afraid that we would burn it?!” A Crotonian soldier cracked a joke, which immediately caused a burst of laughter.
But he then saw the Theonians carrying heavy sacks and putting them into the edge of the wooden frame and stacked them neatly.
“Hahaha…I think the Thonians don’t just want to build houses, they also want to bake bread(because it’s a sack for grain and flour)!” Another Crotonian soldier caused a burst of laughter.
As thousands of Theonian soldiers participated in the work, a wall of sacks was then built in a twinkling of an eye, and the height of the wall is leveled with the wall of Krimisa, and it is still continuing to rise….
Seeing this, the expression of Milo changed and the adjutant beside him cried out, “Not good, the enemy is building a taller wall in order to attack us!”
Seeing such a thing in front of them, the Crotonian soldiers who were just watching had realized something and began to panic: There are many powerful slingers in the Theonian light infantry, and they have a longer range, and now, the Theonians had use an ingenious method to quickly build a platform nearly two meters higher than the four meter city wall of Krimisa. This means that once the enemy starts besieging the city, their light infantry can just climb this tall platform and use their height advantage to let their arrows and stones rain on the soldiers on the wall of Krimisa, which will make the defending soldiers at the top of the city wall to be too busy avoiding the attack and not be able to defend…Milo then felt cold, ‘We have to destroy this platform!’
But he also knew that the enemy would be on guard, so he decided to attack at night.
Soon after, he saw that the Theonians began digging trenches around the platform, and filled the gaps in the middle of the platform with the excavated soil….
Milo then started to somewhat lose his mind, ‘Those Theonians are simply just rats, the only thing they could think of is to dig holes to protect their lives!’
At dusk, the Theonians built a small camp around the tall platform.
With this, Milo could only give up his decision to attack at night, because he didn’t want to waste the lives of his soldiers on this hopeless endeavor.
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In the early morning of the next day, the salpinx on the north camp of Theonia sounded, and the soldiers of the centurias of the second legion carried ladders and formed a small phalanx formation, which was a hundred meters away from the city wall.
Davos then stepped on the platform for the first time, and subconsciously stamped his foot twice, and felt that it was quite stable.
When he first saw the city of Krimisa, he had the idea of building such a platform, because a four meter high city wall is indeed too short. However, it’s not easy to build an earthen wall taller than the city wall, because it is easy to collapse. Fortunately, the engineers have come up with a good idea, using the tree trunks and ropes as the frame, then using sacks as support and then filling it with soil…which is not only fast to build, but is also firm.
Davos then looked at the panoramic view of the northern wall of Krimisa, seeing the soldiers standing on the city wall, he then said to Epiphanes who was next to him, “Can our archers hit the enemy?”
“Grand legatus, our archers won’t have a problem hitting them!” Epiphanes said confidently.
Davos nodded, “Then start the attack.”
“Archers, shoot!” At the command of Epiphanes, the archers on the platform began shooting the first round of arrows, and the slingers who were in the rear also began their attack.
At last, the siege has finally begun! Milo, who was standing at the top of the northern gate, is now filled with determination. Facing the flying arrows and stones, he shouted, “Defense!”
He had specially arranged for the hoplites to defend the section of the city wall facing the high platform. They then began raising their round shields one after another in order to cover their head….
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On the south bank of the Crati river in the Sybaris plain, is a new village. Aguilas is the head of the village, which is the lowest ranking official in the Theonian administrative system. According to the newly promulgated law, the head of the village is elected by the citizens of the village with a term of one year.
However, it is not easy to be a village chief, because candidates have to meet several necessary conditions: First, they must be a formal citizen of Theonia. Second, they should pay taxes on time and have no record of breaking the law and are disciplined. In addition, those who have served in the army and have made great contributions to the Theonia Union are much more preferred.