Chapter 253: Attack on Grumentum
Thinking of Davos’ possible strategic plan in the future, Xanticles took a deep breath, “Tolmides, it seems that I won’t be able to escape from the battlefield for the rest of my life!”
“At least you don’t have to worry about not getting a chance to be a legatus of the army or even a statesman of the Senate! ” Tolmides said excitedly.
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Grumentum is a mountain city, and unlike the mountain occupied by Amendolara which is just under 200 meters high, the mountain occupied by Grumentum is about 300 meters high.
Initially, the wooden walls of the city of Grumentum were built at the foot of the mountain, then during the reign of Akpir as the Great Chieftain, he expanded on a large scale, annexed and reorganized the surrounding small tribes and moved them into the city. However, because of the lack of accommodation, he had to expand the city further, thus doubling the area of Grumentum and dividing the city into three parts: The majority of the outer part of the city is inhabited by the newly assimilated tribes; The inner part is inhabited by tribes that originally belonged to Grumentum; And the core area which is at the top of the mountain, also has wooden walls and inhabited by the tribe of the great chieftain. At its peak, there were nearly 30,000 people living in the city alone.
However, after the defeat of the Lucanian tribe alliance at the hands of the mercenaries of Davos and Akpir being seriously injured, and with Lusau lacking prestige and could not unify the tribes of Grumentum, and a war with Pyxous breaking out, some of the tribes in Grumentum began to flee. After Cincinnag captured Grumentum and in order to control the whole city, he had killed the chieftains of the various tribes and the people who didn’t obey him, which led to everyone fearing for their lives and so they had to leave the city, which caused the population to be greatly reduced. And with the number of people not being enough to defend the city, and after the declaration of war of Potentia, Cincinnag moved all the inhabitants into the inner part of the city and burned the houses and walls in the outer part of the city.
After the Potentians became the new master of the city, they did not rebuild the outer part. At this time, the inner wall had three gates, east, west and south, and the north was near to the cliffs.
Polet’s initial deployment was for 500 Potentian warriors to be stationed in each of the three gates, followed by the scattered tribes of the former Grumentum and further up the mountain is the tribe of Lusau who not only served as the reserve force in the event of a war but also to monitor the movements of these tribes. Once there were signs of riot, they would easily pacify it, while Polet would be at the core area at the top of the mountain together with 500 elite Potentian warriors, commanding Grumentum from the top.
However, the implementation of this set of deployment was destroyed not long ago, and the saboteur was Lusau. After he had grown stronger, he no longer wanted to follow Polet’s order, especially when Polet lost badly to Cincinnag and nearly trapped in the city. Therefore, he strongly demanded to guard the area of one of the gates.
Polet was finally forced to let Lusau defend the south gate. Because of the oppression of Lusau to the people, the tribes in the city were reluctant to live in the southern area and began to concentrate more on the area in the east gate.
Polet was well aware of the current situation of the city, but his prestige and strength are not enough to deter the increasingly overbearing Lusau, and due to the recklessness of Lusau, the Potentians started to become unhappy with him and he was now losing control of his warriors and the anger of the residents in the city of Grumentum is growing day by day. Polet felt like he was sitting in the crater of a volcano, and this sense of crisis made him finally decide to send someone to return to Potentia to complain about his current predicament to his elder brother, Pamot, and ask for Lusau to be transferred. And at the same time, to send more Potentian warriors to stabilize the situation in Grumentum.
After finally making this decision, Polet seems to have relaxed considerably and spent the last two days actively patrolling the city, as well as reprimanding the chieftains for the sloppiness of the guards at the eastern gate.
On that day, Polet returned to his residence at the top of the mountain. It was almost dusk and was feeling hungry, so he asked his guards to roast a leg of a lamb and to bring a jar of wine.
When suddenly, he heard the sound of shouting and killing coming from down the mountain. One must know that he is currently hundreds of meters high, and to still be able to hear the sounds from below means that the commotion was not small.
Polet’s expression suddenly changed. He immediately ran out of his residence and met the guards who came in a hurry to report, “Chieftain, the enemy is attacking the city! The people of Grumentum started attacking our warriors!”
“What?!” The words of the guard were like a bolt from the sky, which made Polet pale.
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At dusk, it was the time for the warriors to have dinner. The Potentians were eating cheese, beef and mutton while venting their dissatisfaction on their leader, Polet because he had tormented them over the past two days.
When they were finally satisfied with their food and drink, the horn suddenly sounded. And when the chieftains of the various tribes led their warriors out of the camp, many of them could not believe that a war had come suddenly without any warning.
They hurriedly took up arms and reorganized their formation.
However, the enemy’s attack was very quick. As soon as they burst out of the dense forest and were revealed to the city’s guard, they quickly approached the eastern, western and southern gate of the city of Grumentum….
The guards on the top of the wooden wall on the eastern gate just watched helplessly as the enemies in front of them converged into a few narrow paths leading to the various gates, and couldn’t do anything due to the undulating hills and dense wooden fences.
If a large number of arrows and javelins had been thrown at this time, then the dense mass of enemies would have been badly wounded, however, only a dozen arrows landed in the enemy line, making no significant splash at all.
“Come! Come on! Hurry up!! The enemy is getting closer!!” The warrior on the top of the walls anxiously turned around to urge his comrades who are still wandering under the city wall. Suddenly, his voice stops: At the camp of Potentia, a group of several hundred people, armed with spears and in a column, rushes down.
It’s reinforcements from the people of Grumentum! The warrior at the top of the city wall felt slightly relieved, but what happened next left him frozen.
This group of Grumentums rammed straight into the rearguard of Potentia below the city wall, who were hastily preparing to go up to the city wall, and shouted, “DIE! DAMN POTENTIA PIGS!….” and thrust their spears at the Potentia warriors who were still at a loss….
Shouts and screams of death mixed and the city became chaotic….
While taking advantage of the chaos inside the city, the enemies outside have already reached the bottom of the city wall. They then throw their sacks filled with soil into the trenches and soon make a path, then they rush under the wooden walls to erect long ladders….
The warriors of Potentia resisted tenaciously, but most of them were fighting fiercely with the tribesmen of Grumentum, and while there were few warriors on the city walls, the enemy continued to attack upwards, regardless of their life and death, and it wasn’t long before the enemy reaches the top of the city wall….
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Polet, who was at the lookout tower at the top of the hill, saw that the enemy kept on pouring in on the eastern wall below the mountain and the defence line was in danger, which had made him extremely anxious, “Take my wolf’s teeth and immediately go and tell Lusau that the eastern gate is in danger, and ask him to send some warriors to help defend, otherwise, the enemy will enter into the city and everyone will not be able to escape!”
“Yes, chief!” The guard nervously accepted the order.
Seeing the guards rushed down the mountain, Polet is still not at ease, so he also ordered the 500 Potentian warriors to go to the eastern gate.
After giving the order, Polet took a moment to calm down and think about where the enemy had come from.
‘Pyxous? Are they still able to send out so many warriors even after suffering a great defeat?’
‘Is it the Theonians?’ The thought of the powerful union of Greek city-states in the south made Polet hold his breath. Even though Potentia is not adjacent to Theonia, they still feel the pressure from the south from time to time, not only because it is powerful, but also because the Lucanians were not adverse to this union dominated by the Greeks, which is the most terrible! This terrible situation had made it impossible for the Lucanians to work together against this outsider! This is the reason why Pamot had to finally make up his mind to conquer Grumentum, because only by strengthening themselves can they compete with this powerful city-state with amazing expansion speed. Therefore, when Pamot left, he repeatedly urged Polet to focus on the movements of the Theonia Union. Of course, Polet attached great importance to this, so he sent 200 warriors of his tribe to guard the mountain pass, and at the same time, he also sent spies to the south to monitor the movement of Nerulum. It was only due to Nerulum being heavily guarded and a lot of guards were set up to block the northern passage that made the spies unable to return.
Now, there is no unusual news coming from the camp that is guarding the mountain pass, and the enemies that are sieging the city are all dressed in the clothes of the Lucanians, which made Polet’s suspicion to the only stay on Theonia for a while and then move to his last suspect – Garaguso, as the most traditional tribe in Lucania, they preferred to live in the mountains rather than on the flatlands, away from the heart of Lucania. The city of Garaguso was built in the mountains to the north-east of the region, and for decades, had rarely involved themselves in the disputes among other tribes, and refused to unite with other tribes, except for some Lucanian tribes. When Akpir united the south of Lucania, he didn’t bother them either. ‘Could it be that Garaguso had changed their traditions this time?’
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By this time, the eastern wall had been occupied by the Theonian soldiers and continued to march into the city without even resting.
At the front were the 500 mercenaries led by Xanticles, while the other 500 mercenaries led by Tolmides stayed to guard Nerulum.
Immediately behind the mercenaries were the 1,500 Lucanian warriors led by Litom, one of the senior centurion of the third legion. 2,000 soldiers led by Kesima were at the western gate, and 2,500 soldiers led by Bagul himself at the southern gate. Bagul had distributed his forces almost equally and had no choice but to do so, because the city of Grumentum was built close to the mountains, with crowded houses and narrow mountain paths. Therefore, with so many troops concentrated in one place, not only will they not be able to exert their strength, but will also easily cause congestion and affect their attack.