Chapter 244: Peace in South Italia under the leadership of Theonia
The Locrians were shocked and alarmed by what they have learned. For decades, Locri has been unable to beat Crotone, while the newly established Theonia Union had beaten Crotone twice in a row.
Naturally, the most important thing for Locri was that Crotone had suffered heavy losses and was still in a bitter battle with Theonia, which is a great opportunity for them. Unable to wait for the report of their envoy, Locri began to plan their attack on the Crotonian Alliance, and in order for them to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop, they mobilized for war within the Locrian League and at the same time, the elder brother of Dionysius’ wife and the polemarchos of Locri – Demodokas, asked Syracuse for help. At this time, Syracuse had launched another war against Carthage and their powerful land army was capturing towns one after another, and only their navy had not met the enemy for the time being, so apart from some ships escorting the army along the coastline, the rest had stayed in the port of Syracuse for standby.
On one hand, out of their friendship with Locri and on the other was to make preparations for the future, so Dionysius sent more than 20 Triremes to assist the Locrians.
With Syracuse as their backing, Locri could no longer wait to start the war.
Who knew that Theonia and Crotone made truce again, and they had not only signed a defensive alliance agreement, but had also released all the captives. Metelophes felt that he was played a fool, and so he returned home in anger.
The Locrians were angry at Theonia for ignoring Locri’s good intention over and over again, and intentionally or unintentionally hindering the plan of Locri. It is only because they were currently fully engaged in dealing with their rival Crotone that they did not want to create complications and temporarily held back their anger for now. And at the same time, Locri began to be wary of Theonia.
After that, although the battle with Crotone had a small setback, they were still able to completely win a naval battle with the reinforcements from Syracuse. While the Crotonian army, which has lost the protection of the navy, was not strong enough and was forced to move back and forth by the Locrians and was put in a passive situation.
Just when Locri saw hope of victory, the news came that the envoys of the Crotonian Alliance had gathered in Thurii to ask Theonia for reinforcements!
The thing that Locri was worrying the most has happened. Given that the previous performance of Metelophes was unsatisfactory, they immediately sent Phantepes, who was the most eloquent in Locri. However, his arrival had not only failed to change the mind of Theonia, but had also accelerated the establishment of the South Italia Alliance.
As he left Thurii, Phantepes said angrily to the statesmen of the Senate of Theonia, “Apollo had bear witness at how we Locrians had always paid respect to the Theonians, but every time we offer an olive branch, we instead get the malicious deception and fooling of Theonia. From this day forward, Locri and Theonia will be enemies! The next time we come, there will be no more envoy of peace, but the wrath of Ares and a powerful army!”
The statesmen’s expression changed slightly, however, Davos calmly replied, “Previously, when the Crotonians launched the war last time, their envoys were standing where you are now and said similar things as you have, but now?”
Despite Davos’ calmed appearance, he knew that the Locrians were dominant on sea, so after the declaration of war on Theonia, they would likely repeat what the Crotonian fleet had done to Theonia. Due to this, he had to reorganize the cavalries of Ledes to patrol the coastline, while resuming the measures taken by Philesius in response to the Crotonian fleet’s raid, and the Senate to suspend the immigration to Aprustum and Krimisa.
But a few days later, nothing happened.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
When the first legion arrived at Aprustum, the more than a thousand soldiers that were stationed there had joined the army, which increased the number of soldiers involved in the war to more than ten thousand.
Five days later, the army arrived in the city of Caulonia without any accident. The reason why they arrived two days longer than the previous plan was that they had not expected the bad condition of the roads in the south of Magna Graecia, and the warm hospitality of the people when they passed through Scylletium.
After the reinforcements from Theonia arrived at the battlefield, the Caulonians were elated, but they still waited for the Theonians to finish their rest before immediately launching an attack on the camp of Locri in the south of Caulonia. However, they did not expect that the Locrians would send an envoy to talk about an armistice before their plan could even be implemented.
A hundred years ago, Crotone won the war against Sybaris and quickly became a powerful city-state in Magna Graecia, and had the ambition to dominate southern Italia and had launched an attack on the south many times. The most serious case was when Locri and the neighboring city-states were under Crotone’s attack and were defeated. Finally, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of Sybaris, Locri and Rhegium joined forces to launch a counterattack against Crotone and had taken advantage of Crotone’s carelessness to severely hurt the Crotonian army.
The strength of Crotone was greatly hurt that made them unable to attack the south for a while, and in order to prevent the Crotonians from regaining their strength, Locri and Rhegium began a long-term attack on the Crotonian Alliance, and had even work together with the Bruttians in the north. For decades, Crotone has been beset by the threat of the Bruttians in the north, Locri and Rhegium in the south and was struggling to cope with them, which have exhausted them greatly and are unable to regain their strength. Therefore, when Athens wanted to establish the city of Thurii in the Sybaris plain, they could only make concessions and sign the agreement.
However, the cooperation between Locri and Rhegium was not close, so after the threat of Crotone had waned, the conflict between the two emerged. Their biggest conflict was due to the two city-states being both coastal cities and their proximity to each other had inevitably caused a rivalry in the sea trade. But due to Rhegium controlling half of the Strait of Messana, they had gained the upper hand in the sea trade, while Locri opened up a trade route from Locri to Medma and Hipponion (both of which were cities on the west coast of Magna Graecia), allowing the Greek merchants to reach the west coast by land-based trade routes without having to go through the Strait of Messana and paying higher toll fee, and thus robbed a lot of profit from Rhegium’s port that serve as a transit for the trade in the western Mediterranean….
These conflicts added up and finally burst out a few years ago.
Dionysius, who had just become Syracuse’s supreme military commander, had his wife killed by angry mobs in a previous power struggle. He was widowed and wanted to remarry, and as a tyrant this was also a political union to secure his power. So after marrying the daughter of a prominent nobleman who supported him in Syracuse, he had also wanted to marry another wife and his eyes were set on another house in Rhegium, which was only a strait away from Sicily. On the one hand, it’s because Rhegium’s geographical position is too important, and on the other, there is a woman in the city of Rhegium whose reputation was spread in all directions.
But the people of Rhegium refused, as they were full of vigilance against Dionysius, who was the tyrant of Syracuse, and they had not forgotten that the tyrants of Syracuse since the time of Gelon had coveted Rhegium, which have forced Rhegium to make an alliance with Carthage to protect itself.
However, due to their refusal, Dionysius had no choice but to propose to the Locrians, and Locri agreed, which led to the complete breakdown of the alliance between Locri and Rhegium.
As for why Dionysius did not go look for Crotone? It is because during the Peloponnesian War, Crotone and Thurii were on the side of Athens and even provided assistance when the Athenian army attacked Syracuse. While Taranto, the city-state created by the Spartans, had always been close to Sparta and was only of small significance to Dionysius.
However, the departure of Rhegium made it difficult for Locri to create trouble for Crotone again with only their strength. So it wasn’t until Theonia beat Crotone twice that their hopes were rekindled.
During the mobilization for war, Locri had also sent envoys to the Bruttians, and the Bruttians, who had always accepted the invitation of Locri before, had refused their request this time, and gave the reason that due to their attack on Terina last year, it had resulted in heavy losses and so they needed to recuperate.
But the Locrian envoy found that the Bruttian tribes in Cosenza seemed to be making some changes.
With the help of the Syracusan Navy, Locri then attacked the Crotonian Alliance. However, it turned out that even though Crotone was greatly weakened, a skinny camel is still bigger than a horse. Although the Locrian had the upper hand, they could not win quickly.
Now, Theonia had joined the war, and for Locri, the situation has taken a sharp turn.
After the diplomacy with Theonia had failed, the first thing the Locrians did was to go to Syracuse, and Dionysius then met the Locrian envoy in a hurry in the newly occupied city of Selinunte.
After hearing the envoy’s request, Dionysius frowned and thought for a moment and bluntly said, “The war between Syracuse and Carthage is at a critical time, so I have no reinforcements to send! Go and ask for a truce! Once I have pacified Sicily, I will help Locri get back this debt!”
Therefore, the envoy could only reluctantly return to Locri.
The Locrians were not fools. Without reinforcements, they have no chance to win, so their only way out is to ask for peace. After decades of entanglement with Crotone in which fighting and truce was a common occurrence, the Locrians were already used to it and will not insist on a hopeless battle just because of honor.
Therefore, when the first legion of Theonia came with great momentum, but there was no battle that occurred and they had instead become a mediator.
Fortunately, the South Italia Alliance were greatly impressed by the Theonian army, especially the Caulonians, who were surprised to find that the Theonian soldiers who had set up camp outside Caulonia had just stayed quietly inside their camp during the negotiations without making disturbing behavior, which was even better than the Crotonians who had been the allies of Caulonia for decades.
Syprus the envoy of Terina had arrived in Caulonia together with the army. Therefore, he had a more detailed and comprehensive assessment of the Theonian army when he returned to Terina after the negotiations and reported it to the council.