Chapter 276: The Meetings Undercurrent
Instead of following the fleet, Davos instead sailed ahead through the second water-gate towards the main port of Taranto.
Although it is currently wartime, the port of Taranto was still very busy, and even more so than usual, as the continuation of the war had increased the demand for all kinds of goods in Taranto, and despite the full assistance of the port staff, it had still taken a long while for Davos’ ship to dock.
Davos was not in a hurry, he carefully observed the port and compared it with the port of Thurii…
Once they got ashore, the Tarantines were attracted by the sight of Davos and his party, especially by his guards that were in full military uniform and were led by Martius, that had made them even stop what they were doing and watched curiously. And some people who knew what is happening had guessed that they might be the reinforcements from Theonia, but none of them expressed their welcome, let alone the cheers that are common in the port of Thurii. They just looked on coldly, and some had even shown sadness in their eyes. Davos noticed that many women were wearing black cloth on their heads, and the shadow of defeat had shrouded the people of Taranto.
The group of statesmen of the council of Taranto, out of reserve as an old and powerful city-state, did not go to the port to meet them and had instead waited at the gates of the city.
“Here they are!” With this shout, the crowd shook themselves to their feet and looked forward.
The one approaching them is a young man, he has a calm look with a steady gait and a sense of steadiness far different from that of ordinary young people. However, as an archon of a city-state, he is indeed too young.
Umakas nudge on Diaomilas, who was still lost in his thoughts, and was about to remind him.
Diaomilas understood what Umakas about to say and said, “I understand…who told us to ask for help from others.”
After speaking this, he strode forward and said, “Welcome, the young archon of Theonia. We had been waiting for the arrival of our closest ally, Theonia, like a dry field waiting for rain. Thank the gods that you have finally come at last!”
Umakas frowned and was worried that Davos would not be happy from hearing that.
Then Davos immediately said with an apologetic expression, “I apologise! As you know, it is only less than two years since the establishment of Theonia Union, and this is the first time that we sent nearly 20,000 people as reinforcements, which is almost two-thirds of the number of citizens of Thurii, and it is also the season when the autumn harvest is about to start, as well as the first time that so many soldiers are being transported across the sea, all these matters are too complicated and we are too inexperienced, so we have only arrived today, and I hope that we have not delayed anything important.”
“You are not late! You are not late! In fact, you are just in time!” Said Umakas hurriedly, “I honestly didn’t expect that Theonia would send such huge troops, which really helped us a lot! Lord Davos, we, the people of Taranto, thank you very much for your generous help!”
At this time, Polidorus finally had a chance to interject and started the introduction, “Lord Davos, this is our archon of Taranto, Lord Umakas.”
Judging from what he said just now, the archon was at least somewhat accommodating for Theonia, so Davos paid him respect.
“This is Diaomilas, the other archon of Taranto.” Polidorus continued on the introduction.
Davos glanced at him: Narrow eyes, thin nose, thin lips, a serious expression with a mean gaze, which is obviously due to his prejudiced against Theonia, according to the information of Aristias, there are a lot of such people in the council of Taranto, but Davos had still paid his respect seriously.
Next, they would meet the statesmen of the Council of Taranto in turn, which have been derived from the Spartan’s Gerousia, but they have much more statesman than the Spartan’s Gerousia, which has only 30 seats, and the council of Taranto is elected annually by all citizens, just like the archons.
“This is-” Before Polidorus could finish speaking, the old man in front of him raised his eyebrows and glared then pointed at Davos and cursed, “You still have the face to come to Taranto! When you promised to promote our school in Amendolara, we had sent our apprentices to Amendolara to help you. But who knew that not only have you let them betray the school, but you had also let them use money to lure more apprentices to leave Taranto! My son still regarded you as his friend, even though this is how you repay the Pythagorean school for its selfless help to Theonia! The only thing I can say to you is that Taranto does not welcome you!”
Davos didn’t expect to meet a Pythagorean here, so he was rather embarrassed. He then looked back at Polidorus and asked, “Who is he?”
“Histiaeus, the father of Archytas.” Replied Polidorus.
Davos countenance obviously changed, no matter how unhappy the old man was, Davos still paid his respect, “Archytas is my good friend and I will avenge him by repelling the Messapians and bring back his body so that you would be able to mourn him, uncle!”
“Even without the help of Theonia, we Taranto can defeat the Messapians and take back my son’s body!” Histiaeus’ had tears in his eyes, but he remained stubborn.
At this moment, a cavalry came galloping and shouting repeatedly throughout the way, “The fleet is back! The fleet is back!…”
After hearing him, the statesmen immediately left Davos and his party behind and ran to the port.
Polidorus hurriedly explained to him, and Davos listened with understanding and offered to go along to see what was going on.
Standing high outside the port and looking down at the beach: At the central dock of the port of Taranto, a line of warships slowly entered…
Polidorus opened his eyes wide and counted the number of ships. The more he counted, the more flustered he became. Finally, he said with a trembling voice, “There…there are only 19 warships and 25 transport ships…”
If Davos hadn’t helped him in time, Polidorus would have collapsed.
Davos had also frowned. According to Polidorus, when the fleet of Taranto left the port, it had 80 warships and 100 transport ships and 4000 soldiers on board. But now, only a quarter of the ships have returned, which is definitely a huge loss for Taranto, not only in ships and men but also in sailors, with a trireme needing close to 200 sailors for it to be fully manned, anyone can imagine how much loss this has caused to the manpower of Taranto’s port.
This has also given a warning to Davos: Before gaining absolute control over the sea, they must be cautious when transporting soldiers across the sea by ships!
All the people in the port were in great grief that even though Davos was far away, he could still hear the sound of mourning.
Polidorus was still stretching out his neck to look, hoping that there were still some ships that were just lagging behind which caused them to not be able to enter the port in time. In the end, he gave up and grip his hands tightly and repeatedly said, “Lord Davos, Taranto truly need the full help of Theonia!”
Davos nodded and thought to himself: Counting this naval battle, he feared that the war between Taranto and Messapi had resulted in tens of thousands of casualties among the soldiers of Taranto which had really hurt them.
As the Council of Taranto is still busy dealing with the aftermath, the upcoming meeting can only be postponed.
Davos did not care, so he just went back and started the construction of the camp with the soldiers.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The defeat of a major naval battle has repercussions in every war. Compensating for the casualties was just the bare minimum, it is also necessary to repair the remaining ships, speeding up the rebuilding of a new fleet, reassuring the merchants in the port and making sure that the sea trade routes had not been cut off by the enemy…however, the pressing war situation forced Taranto to put these complicated aftermaths aside for the next day as all of these could not be resolved in just a day or two, as it is necessary for them to immediately start the joint war meeting in order to launch a land-based counter-attack against the Messapi-Peuceti alliance as soon possible so that they could reduce the enemy’s threat to the city of Taranto.
Considering that Theonia’s archon was left out in the cold yesterday due to unforeseen events, Umakas decided to invite him personally.
Umakas then rode to the northwest corner of the bay and got surprised by the sight of a huge military camp, with trenches, fences, gates, guard towers, tents…everything was there, and it had only taken the Theonians one day to build a “city” in this relatively sparsely populated area!
Umakas was naturally not aware of Theonia’s emphasis on the importance of camp construction during wartimes that they had even standardised some of their camp facilities after being repeatedly researched and tried by the army engineers at the initiative of Davos, such as the materials needed for the camp gate and guard tower were already made in Thurii in advance and transported by the logistics camp. After arriving at their destination, they would only need to assemble it according to the actual situation, which saved them time and effort, and they would then take it back after the camp was removed. Of course, the premise is for them to have a strong logistics and transportation capacity and better road conditions.
Umakas became startled when he heard someone calling him. When he looked carefully, it turned out to be Timias, a theatre owner in the city of Taranto, which naturally made him asked with curiosity, “Why are you here?”
“Business of course.” Timias then pointed to the women dressed up around him and said helplessly, “When we lost in the war with the Messapians, the citizens didn’t have the mood to go to the theatre or play with the girls, which has caused me to not gain any profit for two months now. When I heard that nearly 20,000 reinforcements from Theonia have come, I came here to see if there is any chance to earn money. However, the guards here wouldn’t even allow us to get inside!”
When he heard this, Umakas was slightly embarrassed: Timias’ theatre mainly attracts people to earn money by performing some vulgar and obscene plays, and at the same time, he also worked part-time by providing male and female prostitutes for the rich, as they were mostly actors, they were more popular because of their high quality, but he didn’t expect that he would even come to the camp of Theonia. So he persuaded him, “A war is about to break, so you should not disturb the rest of the Theonians.”