Chapter 546: Attack and Defence of the Camp in Scylletium (II)
“Heni, don’t be in a rush. It’s Tolmides’ job to call the officers, so he’ll be upset if you beat him to it.” Davos smiled, patted Henipolis’ shoulder, and said softly, “As you just started serving as my clerk, you need to adapt slowly. Now, I will give you your first task-”
Henipolis quickly straightened his posture as he waited for Davos’ order.
“Have breakfast with me.” Davos said mischievously.
“Ah?! Your majesty, the enemy is about to attack, yet you still want breakfast?!!” Henipolis cried in alarm with rebuke in his tone that made the servant stare at him.
Davos, however, didn’t mind it. After signalling the servant to bring the breakfast, Davos walked towards the tent’s entrance, looked at the weather outside and said, “If you don’t eat your breakfast, you won’t have the strength to fight the enemy. Currently, the soldiers outside might be chewing their bread and drinking hot soup to warm their bodies up… Remember, a battle has its own rule and rhythm; we can neither be slow nor in a rush. Only by mastering the battle’s rhythm can we better maintain the soldiers’ strength and morale!”
Henipolis nodded without fully understanding it.
Unlike the calm atmosphere in the tent, the camp was tense. Because of the thick fog, it was impossible to see where the flag of platoons and centuria belonged, so the squad leader’s position was crucial. Besides gathering the nine soldiers under them and checking their weapons and equipment for any problems, they would also have to distinguish their superiors’ shouting in the noisy camp and lead their men to rendezvous with the platoon. At the same time, they would need to avoid getting squeezed out of the crowded passage.
As the campfires lit one after another, it not only brought light to the foggy and grey weather but also the chefs of the logistics camp began cooking bread, soups and hot porridges for the soldiers of each platoon.
The Theonian soldiers didn’t rush their mobilisation near the eastern wall of the camp to defend against the enemy’s attack as the Syracusans did not yet appear in front of the trenches. In the past few days, the Theonian soldiers worked tirelessly to lay various traps and fences more than 60 metres long in front of the camp to hinder the rapid advance of the enemy.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
While the Syracusans took advantage of the dense fog to speed up the removal of these sinister and vicious traps, Theonia gathered their nearly 40 ballistae in the central camp. (The Theonians moved these ballistae from the camp on the north bank of the Neto river on the second day after the Theonian army surrounded Scylletium.)
Kurdorus, the ballista spotter of the siege brigade of the fourth legion, was the most experienced in the use of ballista and had an excellent performance in Crotone’s defensive war, so Davos appointed him as the commander of the whole ballista unit.
Currently, the only thing in front of Kurdorus was endless whiteness. Although he could not see any suspicious target and could not judge the distance, Kurdorus had a plan. That is, to use the information in his mind: How far was the ballista’s position from the eastern wooden wall? How high are the wooden walls? How long is the area of traps outside the camp?…
After a bit of computation, he began giving orders, “Elevation of 50 degrees; load 5 kilogram stone projectile; pull by three units; ready!”
The herald quickly passed the order on to all the artillerists in the area.
Immediately after, they began setting the ballista’s supporting rod, lowering the chute, increasing the elevation, and drawing the pulley. Then a creaking noise sounded with the drawstring pulling and setting it in place. Afterwards, they place a five-kilogram stone projectile into the chute. But because of the limitations of the craftsmanship and materials, 50 degrees of elevation was already the maximum elevation angle the Theonian ballista could achieve. The pulling by three units means that the spring torsion made of several twisted tendons was only pulled halfway. At the same time, the five-kilogram stone projectile was the smallest weight the Theonian ballista could fire for this type of projection. (The maximum weight was 15 kg, which was different from the Syracusan ballista. The Syracusan ballista required a high degree of destructive power due to their frequent attacks on other city-states in Sicily, resulting in a large and heavier ballista, capable of firing 26 kilogram stone projectile to nearly 300 metres.)
Kurdorus planned to first warm up the ballista with a small weighted stone projectile while testing the enemy’s main force. Because the foggy, moist and cold morning of Scylletium would significantly impact the ballista’s structure, especially the spring torsion made of cattle tendon. Kurdorus then predicted the landing point of the stone projectile would be about 80-120 metres outside the trench, so if the enemy attacked in force, then this area should be where most of the enemy was. However, firing a five-kilogram stone projectile would often reach more than 500 metres, so he needed to adjust the elevation angle, reduce the spring torsion’s tension, and hope to achieve the range he wanted.
On the other hand, the legionary soldiers just sat on the ground, chewed their bread, and watched as one stone projectile after another flew into the air and disappeared into the thick fog…
But in just a few moments, screams and shouts sounded in the thick fog outside the camp. Thus they had confirmed once and for all that a large Syracusan army was approaching.
“Elevation of 50 degrees; ten kilogram stone projectile; pull by one unit; ready!” Kurdorus, the once gentle and elegant student of the Theonian Akademia, had now a murderous aura after the nurturing of battle. However, the report from the first hit of the ballista force did not make him rejoice like his subordinates. Instead, he continued giving orders calmly.
Retribution had come too soon! Just after the Syracusans bombarded the first legion of Theonia with nearly 100 ballistae and gastraphetes in the town of Megalos yesterday. The Theonian paid it back in the same way today.
It’s not that Dionysius didn’t want to fight back with their ballista; it’s just that when he attacked Crotone, he brought all the ballistae to the camp on the Targines river. So when they lost the battle, they abandoned all the siege equipment in the camp as they fled for their lives. In the end, it fell into the Theonians’ hands. But with the help of nearly 1,000 engineers, craftsmen and apprentices under his command, it wouldn’t be a problem for them to make dozens of ballistae in a short time. However, there is one key component they couldn’t immediately make: the ballista’s spring made of cattle tendon. Besides the Theonians surrounding the city, they didn’t even have enough cattle as most of their pack animals were lost in the camp in the Targines river, and only a few people kept cattle and sheep in the city. Moreover, it would take nearly half a year to make a good quality set of springs, even if they have cattle. Hence Dionysius gave up making ballistae and concentrated his workforce on making other siege equipment.
As thousands of Syracusan slaves and freemen seized the time to destroy the traps and fences and then tamp the land to lay planks, stone projectiles suddenly fell into the dense crowds, breaking their skulls, bones and blood splashing.
In fact, the high parabola of the stone projectile made it rarely bounce again after landing, and the total casualties would be just over 20. However, such bloody and tragic sight frightened the people around the landing area that the Syracusan officers could barely calm them.
Since the Theonians had already noticed them, the Syracusans stopped hiding and started pushing the siege engines they made out of the city. In order to make these siege engines, the Syracusans stripped almost all the residences in Scylletium, collected the door panels and wood and even cut down all the trees in the port…
The largest of whom was undoubtedly the nearly six-metre-high movable tower. Dionysius even decisively ordered his men to organise manpower to covertly pull out a small section of the city wall until last night to completely turn it into a passageway from the inside to the outside of the city in order to transport these towers out.
Dionysius dared to do so because Locri’s warning made him realise that the cunning Theonia had built the camp and besieged Scylletium was not to attack the city but to blockade the Syracusan army while attacking Syracuse’s weaker allies. The young Davos even used peace negotiation to keep him in the dark to achieve this sinister goal! (Naturally, he ignored the fact that Syracuse was also using the peace negotiation to buy time.)
Syracuse naturally could not allow Theonia to achieve its plan successfully. Since the Theonian army attacked the Locrian alliance, the number of troops stationed in the camp outside Scylletium would naturally decrease. Furthermore, the Theonians had also built a vast camp stretching for five kilometres to surround Scylletium, which further thinned their strength…
Davos’ arrogance had given Dionysius an excellent opportunity to defeat the Theonian army. So in the last few days, the Syracusan soldiers gradually recovered from their defeat, and Dionysius even spent a lot of effort convincing the tens of thousands of freemen and slaves to join the soldiers with high expectations of getting their freedom, citizenship and even land… These methods were not only done by Theonia but also by Syracuse. However, he mainly offered them to the mercenaries. This time, Dionysius expanded it to the freemen and slaves in order to defeat Theonia and escape the danger they were facing. Of course, the most important reason for them to take up arms is that everyone wants to return to Sicily alive without encountering any problems.
The nearly two thousand Theonian light infantry arrived at the wall and shot countless arrows at full force outside the camp filled with fog, which caused Syracuse to suffer countless casualties. However, the enemies still did not panic and continued with their task of removing the obstacles. But since the trap-filled area was less than 100 metres in length, they quickly filled it in under the intensified efforts of tens of thousands of people.
Then someone shouted the order, causing these freemen and slaves to dodge the incoming rains of arrows and stone projectiles. After hastily retreating to the rear, they arrived hundreds of metres away from the Theonian camps where thousands of Syracusan soldiers stood in a row around a kilometres long, with piles of crudely made spears and shields on the ground.