Chapter 527: Researching Colossal Siege Tower
Damocles paled when he heard that and protested loudly, saying, “Ares is the witness of the ongoing war between Syracuse and Theonia, and any tragedy in the war is normal. Even after the Athenian navy ravaged the coasts of Sparta’s territory, the Spartans did not slaughter the Athenians after they won. Even we, Syracusans, did not wipe out all the Carthaginians in Sicily after defeating Carthage, even after their repeated slaughtering of the Sicilian city-states. Thus Theonia shouldn’t make such harsh demands, which is not according to the Greeks’ tradition!! ”
“So is it an ancient Greek tradition to allow the Syracusans to hire foreigners to slaughter defenceless Greek women, elderly, and children?!” Henipolis bared his fang and glared at him. Then he shouted, “Since you say this is a war, we Theonians are willing to continue fighting until we conquer Scylletium and cut off the heads of these foreigners whose hands are soaked with Theonian blood! Otherwise, we can only watch these murderers strut away once the peace treaty is signed, and his majesty Davos would not accept that! The brave soldiers of the legions would not accept that!! The entire Theonian population would not accept that!!!”
‘…once the peace treaty is signed, we can only watch them leave…’ These words struck Damocles, but he could only pretend to be helpless, “Your condition is too harsh! Can’t you change them slightly, like just the heads of some of them or just the lives of their leaders?”
“No! This is our most basic condition!!” Henipolis replied unyieldingly.
Damocles had no choice but to say, “Uh, I can’t decide this matter. I must go back to lord Dionysius and let him decide.”
With that, he looked at Phidias next to him. Then with the permission of Henipolis, he was blindfolded and sent out of the camp.
Phidias, however, did not leave and asked to meet Davos as Sparta’s envoy.
Hence Henipolis could not refuse, so he could only ask him to wait here and inform King Davos himself.
Phidias had to wait for some time, but it wasn’t because Davos was deliberately making it hard for him. Davos was really not near his tent as he went to the engineering camp.
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The Theonian army harvested a lot of supplies when they captured the Syracusan camp, which also included some siege equipment.
It was needless to say that Theonia copied the ballista from Syracuse. However, they later made further improvements and made Theonia’s ballista more refined and accurate by applying the parabolic theory.
The gastraphete was another Syracusan invention, and its principle was similar to that of a ballista, so the engineers could roughly replicate it after looking at its structure. After all, the most challenging part of a gastraphete was the pulley, which happened to be what the Theonian engineering brigade was best at.
Others like the battering ram, siege wagons…and so on could easily be copied. However, Davos still looked at them carefully as he needed to understand the siege methods and ideas of the Syracusans from these various siege engines. After all, it really shocked Davos when Syracuse captured the enormous city of Crotone. Compared with Syracuse, who attacked numerous cities in Sicily, the Theonian army, even though they were great in the field, was still inexperienced in siege battles, including Davos himself. So the quickest way to improve was to learn from the enemy.
Of course, the most eye-catching and complex to make among these siege engines is the siege tower. Theonia can also make siege towers, but their siege tower is simply small when compared to the one Syracuse made. Although the siege tower in front of them had only its base and the first floor constructed, its scale alone is already quite impressive: It is 20 metres long, six-seven metres wide, and it’s more like a wall than a tower.
Davos went around it several times and looked at one of the best engineers in the engineering camp, Oropos, and asked, “Can you replicate it?”
The Theonian legion’s engineering brigade’s structure is unique. Its officers don’t need to understand engineering construction as long as they can manage to lead soldiers and have some battlefield experience because their duty is to serve the engineers, ensure their safety, and provide them with the various materials they need. Moreover, when the legion issued construction orders, they were responsible for coordinating with the other troops and recruiting soldiers to serve as labourers. Thus the officers of the engineering brigade would mostly be veterans who were somewhat disabled after being wounded on the battlefield.
The engineers are the most valuable thing in the engineering camp. If the system was relatively rough when Davos just established the engineering camp, it now has formed a fixed engineer assessment system: Besides requiring the engineers to be able to read, draw and have a solid hands-on production ability, they also need to have deep knowledge of mathematical theory to be able to pass the exam to become a legion engineer. In addition to farming their own land, these engineers have also become a sought-after commodity for the citizens of Theonia to hire to build houses, workshops, making furniture, equipment, and so on…though the pay is not cheap. Moreover, they would also be invited to participate in the construction of large-scale public works in various cities, but their salary is small. However, their names would be engraved on the completed stone tablets, which is a great honour.
Besides the engineers, there were also the skilled artisans, carpenters and blacksmiths in the engineering camp, who were the engineers’ assistants in making various equipment needed for warfare. In addition, there were also some slaves, mainly to serve the engineers.
With the legion’s requirements for the engineers getting stringent, and after the standardisation of the engineering examination and because of its higher requirements for knowledge and practical skill, more than half of the engineers of each legion came from the Theonia’s Akademia. Except for Oropos, who was a former mercenary in the Persian expedition and was recruited by Davos after establishing the engineering brigade due to his knowledge of carpentry. However, even though he eventually became a skilled carpenter after studying hard, he still took the initiative to participate in the adult class of the Theonian Akademia and soon removed the hat of illiteracy. Afterwards, because of Davos’ agreement with Metoticles, the legion’s artisans entered the Institute of Mathematics and became resident scholars, while Oropos took the opportunity to learn advanced mathematical knowledge and eventually got Marticoris’ appreciation and became his disciple, and passed the examination to become an engineer. Thus Oropos became a talent through studying hard and was deeply respected by the Theonian craftsmen and encouraged them to learn from him.
“Your majesty, it is possible to replicate it, but it will take some time.” Oropos said cautiously. He then squatted and laboriously picked up a large wooden wheel, “The greatest difficulty in making this siege tower is in these wooden wheels and axles. These wooden wheels and axles had to support such a massive and heavy siege tower, so the requirements to make them would be high. Like how big is the axle’s diameter? How thick and wide should the wooden wheels be? How many groups of axles and wheels were needed to ensure that we could push the siege tower smoothly?… These are all the things needed we needed to test repeatedly.
And as you can see, your majesty, the size and width of so many wheels are basically the same, but it is difficult to make without numerous highly skilled carpenters. Otherwise, the siege tower may tilt and collapse due to imbalance if these wheels are even slightly different in size! Yet with the engineering camp’s current ability, it is still difficult to do it.”
Oropos said with slight regret. He then stood up, looked at the siege tower in front of him with fascination, opened his arms, gestured with his hands and continued, “Your majesty, the tower walls on both sides of the siege tower are not upright but inclined inward. Although we can’t see the overall picture, I am sure it must be a trapezoid to enhance the base’s stability. However, what’s the most appropriate inclination of the tower wall’s angle? How high is the horizontal plate built to ensure that the force on the tower wall is evenly spread and stable?…”
Davos was not too concerned with these technical details that Oropos said as he understood Oropos’ meaning, “In short, you need to repeatedly calculate and experiment in order to make a functioning siege tower.”
“Yes, we need time, your majesty.” Oropos answered truthfully. He then looked at the others behind him and added, “We have a bit fewer people, and it is the first time for us to make such a massive siege tower…”
Although the legion’s engineering brigade has no less than 500 people, Davos understood the implied meaning of Oropos: There were not enough excellent engineers and artisans.
Remembering that the Syracusans had built three massive siege towers in just a few days, Davos became jealous of the thousands of engineering teams in Scylletium, which was the wealth Davos yearned for.
“I’ll give you time to research it, so try to make this siege tower. However, you don’t need to worry too much. Study its technology thoroughly and finally master it completely!” Davos encouraged them.
“Thank you, your majesty!”
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Sitting inside the tent was Phidias, with four guards watching over him. Although he could not walk around and could only use his eyes to survey the tent, he still managed to find something: Davos’ tent’s layout was very similar to Dionysius’, except it wasn’t as spacious, and it was rather simple. Besides several armours, weapons, and a bed covered with straw mattress and fur, the most noticeable thing is undoubtedly the scrolls of papyrus, cloth, and silk piled up on the top of the table, which made him understand that this archon is still dealing with the many matters of the union even while marching to war…
‘These two tyrants of the western Mediterranean!’ An inexplicably feeling rose in Phidias’ heart.