Chapter 515: Battle of Crotone (VIII)
But Ledes quickly reacted. However, instead of ignoring the danger, Ledes drove his horse and spear to fight the enemy charging from the south. At the same time, he shouted, “Brothers, hold your ground! Never let the enemy escape!!”
Ledes took the lead so that even if the enemy attacked the Theonian cavalry on both sides, they would not get demoralised and instead rise to resist them.
Before the battle, Kapus had already expected the Sicilian cavalries, Numidian cavalries and Theonians cavalries to be entangled in a fierce battle, so he had made arrangements for it. Thus he did not hesitate to send out the 500 light-armoured reserves beside him.
The light-armoured soldiers, wearing leather shields and armour, quickly rushed to the left side of the sarissa phalanx and immediately launched a fierce attack on Syracuse’s cavalries. Now, it’s their turn to be attacked on both sides.
On the other hand, Astogaras wasn’t willing to be outdone, so he ordered the cavalry to fight boldly.
As the four units entangled in a bloody dogfight battle, it became the most tragic area of this battlefield.
Finally, the Numidians could no longer endure and began to flee after seeing the area behind them becoming less crowded because of the withdrawal of their companions and the sarissa soldiers stabbing the people in front of them.
And the situation of the Sicilian cavalry became harder after they were left alone, so Astagoras tried to retreat after seeing the situation. However, the Theonian cavalry and light-armoured soldiers didn’t let them go. In the end, only 300 Sicilian cavalries managed to escape.
On the other hand, the Celts were almost completely wiped out, with their leader – Gaba dying, and their resistance buying more time for the Numidians.
With only about a thousand Numidian cavalries being able to escape the collision with the sarissa phalanx, it resulted in the usually arrogant race from the African Desert being frightened. Thus even if there were only 600 or so Theonian cavalry on the right side of the sarissa phalanx pursuing them, they did not dare to return to fight back or even throw javelins. Instead, they fled south with their leader – Acilita taking the lead.
After the battle on the left was over, Ledes fell from his horse, startling his men to come to his aid immediately. They then saw that blood and wounds covered Ledes’ body, especially his left leg, which was stabbed by a spear and had a wound the size of a date, with his blood kept on flowing.
Although his guards busily dressed his wounds, he still shouted pantingly, “Quickly…quickly call Kurcius…call Kurcius.”
Kurcius, formerly the cavalry’s squad leader, has become a senior centurion with rich combat experience. When he rushed to Ledes, he heard his legatus say, “I order…order you to lead the remaining cavalry to continue the pursuit…chase the enemy…do not give…them a chance to breathe.”
“Yes!” Kurcius saluted firmly and turned around to leave. But he suddenly stopped and said with concern, “Legatus, get well and wait for my good news!”
Ledes waved impatiently, “Go…go…”
Kurcius got on his horse and shouted, “Brothers! Let’s go kill the enemy!”
Although the remaining more than 400 cavalries were tired, the victory gave them new strength. After shouting, they followed Kurcius to pursue the fleeing Syracusan cavalries.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Captain, we won! We beat back the enemy cavalry!” The soldiers’ cheering rang out beside Tapirus’s ears while he watched the enemy’s blurry figure as they fled in a mess. After he felt relieved, he noticed his arms holding the sarissa were sore and swollen, his sweat had soaked his clothes, and the dust sticking to him made him uncomfortable. However, he knew that it was still not the time to relax as there was still a battle to be fought according to the pre-battle deployment.
“Regroup! Regroup!…” Just as he shouted to his soldiers, the salpinx loudly sounded again, making the excited sarissa soldiers who wanted to continue pursuing stop moving forward.
The heralds galloped around the phalanx, called out the officers and made them reorganise the formation.
At this moment, Kapus took a look at Ledes’ wounds after rushing over.
“Don’t worry…I still can’t die.” Ledes tried to squeeze out a smile, but the shock he felt when the guards lifted him onto the stretcher made him grimace and showed a pained expression.
“Be gentle! Be gentle!” Kapus shouted in discontent.
“Kapus.” The pale Ledes didn’t call his old comrade’s position as he whispered, “Our cavalry…has completed our task…you can rest assured that the Syracusan cavalries will no longer come again…I will leave the following task to you…”
Kapus nodded solemnly, got on his horse and saluted, “Recover well. Victory belongs to Theonia!!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
After the sarissa brigade regrouped, they no longer faced the south but directly on Syracuse’s right-wing’s rear, a hundred metres away.
Kapus then made the soldiers with broken sarissa withdraw from the battle, leaving only about 4,000 soldiers in the phalanx. At this moment, Tapirus’s centuria had only 170 men left from his 200 men, with only 112 sarissa’s remaining intact.
“Traaaa!!!” When the salpinx sounded the attack, they waved the flag and pointed it forward.
Tapirus and the other officers then shouted, “Advance!”
The soldiers advanced steadily after getting enough confidence from the victory. This time, their opponent will be heavy infantries.
On the left side of the sarissa phalanx were two thousand light-armoured soldiers, whose duty was to do their best to protect the phalanx’s flank, which is their biggest weakness.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
As the battle continued and the number of wounded increased, the Crotone-Terina reinforcements could no longer hold the enemy as they had at the start. Moreover, the dense phalanx of Syracuse began showing its strength, straining the Crotone-Terina reinforcement more and more that they were forced to retreat to relieve the pressure. However, they could not control the pace of advance and retreat of the whole army as skillfully as the first and second legions of Theonia, resulting in the pressure increase.
Under the loud shouting of Milo and Siprus, the soldiers fought with all their might with their burning emotions…
Suddenly, a loud salpinx sounded behind the right end of Syracuse’s right-wing.
Milo and Siprus, unsure of what happened, asked each other, “Is it Theonia’s salpinx?”
Antonios, who accurately judged that it was indeed Theonia’s salpinx even though it was hundreds of metres away, was shocked because he knew that Davos’ plan, the sarissa brigade, must have defeated Syracuse’s cavalry and was now preparing to flank the rear of Syracuse’s right-wing. Then the first legion also blew their salpinx to signal the attack.
Immediately afterwards, Amintas, the legatus of the second legion, even led his horse close to the rear of his legion and shouted, “Brothers, attack! Attack! It’s time for Syracuse to know our strength!…”
Due to the sarissa brigade’s attack could not cover the entire rear of Syracuse’s right-wing, they could only help the Crotone-Terina reinforcements. Thus the first and second legion’s attack had to hold the enemy they were facing so that they would not dare to draw out too many soldiers from the rear to stop the sarissa brigade.
“Enemy! The enemy is attacking from the rear!…” The soldiers behind the rightmost end of Syracuse’s right-wing heard the sound of salpinx and the roaring behind them, leading them to turn to look back one after and panic. The officers then hurriedly organised the soldiers to turn around and fight.
Just as the Syracusan hurriedly organised the right-end of their right-wing, Theonia’s sarissa brigade soldiers began to increase their pace and speed up. Then the sarissas they held began to lower in turn: The first row, the second row, the third row, the fourth row, the fifth row…formed a dense wall of spears in front of the Syracusan phalanx.
“O Apollo, their spear is too big!” The Syracusan soldiers watched in horror as the approaching enemy stopped advancing three metres away from them, and the countless shaking sarissas began stabbing at them. Yet they couldn’t even reach the enemy with their spear, which resulted in the Syracusans panicking as this was the first time they encountered this situation.
“Shield wall! Erect a shield wall!…” Some Syracusan officers panicky shouted. But the Syracusans lacked a unified and effective command and emergency measures in such a chaotic situation.
How could Milo and Siprus let go of this opportunity now that Crotone-Terina reinforcements’ pressure was easing? So they immediately ordered to charge. With their anger for vengeance, the soldiers rushed again to the enemies who burned their homes.
When the Syracusan soldiers at the forefront of the phalanx couldn’t feel the support of their comrades at the rear after hearing the noisy shouting and fighting, they couldn’t stop but think in their hearts, ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Are they surrounded?’ ‘Did they flee?…’ resulting in their morale dropping, and they couldn’t fight wholeheartedly.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Your majesty, the sarissa brigade led by Kapus has repelled the Syracusan cavalry and is now attacking the enemy’s right-wing!” Tolmides excitedly reported to Davos.
Davos breathed a sigh of relief, dispelling his nervousness. After calming down a bit, he immediately ordered, “Tolmides, immediately inform Izam to lead the reconnaissance brigade to detour and attack the rear of Syracuse’s left-wing!”
Tolmides was surprised when he heard this order as he knew that: In Davos’ plan, these 3,000 soldiers were either intended to be sent to the left-wing and strengthen their defence if they couldn’t withstand the enemy’s attack. Or once the sarissa brigade attacks the enemy’s flank, they would immediately send them to the left-wing to hasten the defeat of the enemy’s right-wing. ‘But now, they would send the reserve to attack Syracuse’s left-wing?!’