Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 433: Victors Vigilance

If there is a loser in a battle, there will be victorious. If there is pain, there is naturally joy. While the alliance soldiers tasted the bitter fruit of defeat, the Syracusans enjoyed the joy of victory.

In Dionysius' quarter, candles burned brightly as all the strategoi gathered together to have a meal and talk about today's battle…

“Stop arguing! The most important hero for our victory today should be Phidias!” Dionysius sat at the head seat, glanced at everyone, and then pointed to Phidias. Then he said loudly, “I truly didn't expect that the commander of Theonia had arranged so many soldiers on their left flank. If Phidias didn't take the right response, I fear that our right flank would have collapsed before our reinforcements arrived!”

“You are right, milord!” Phacipessas immediately agreed and continued, “When I led our troops to attack the enemy's flank, we were surprised at their formation’s thickness where it even reached more than 50 columns, which I have never seen before…and the length is long enough…long enough-” Phacipessas couldn't think of an apt description for a moment, so he instead gestured with his hand and said, “Its length is longer than this quarter! But such a powerful force couldn't defeat our right flank. Instead, the enemy became exhausted! Thus I led the soldiers into a small charge, easily breaking the enemy apart!…”

Everyone gasped in admiration.

Although Phidias was somewhat proud, he didn't boast about himself to everyone. After all, the Spartans don’t like such superficialities. Besides, he is just fighting for the Syracusan, so he doesn't care whether he gets the glory or not that much. He is just enjoying the fun of this kind of battle. And since he was at the forefront of the battlefield, he is now too exhausted even to speak.

“Leptines, your performance this time is beyond my expectation!” Dionysius looked at his brother and said happily, “When the mercenary led by Enamenus was blocked, you did not escape and instead took responsibility to repel the enemy who came to intercept, ensuring the smooth attack on the rear of the enemy's right flank. We won this battle, and your contribution is indispensable! Furthermore, your fleet also boldly attacked Terina and won our first city after our battle!”

Dionysius did not hesitate to praise Leptines due to his performance.

“Milord, it is all thanks to the help of navarch Leptines this time!” Enamenus took the opportunity to praise Leptines while he tried to justify his mistakes, “I didn't expect that even though the battle was so fierce, the Greeks still retained an army and did not send them into battle. And they instead made a sudden attack on us…”

“It just shows that this battle was not easy for us to win and that the commanders of Theonia are not simple!” Dionysius sighed a little as he witnessed how the Theonian legion forced his elite troops to retreat step by step. Moreover, from the statistics after the battle, they suffered more than a thousand casualties among the soldiers in the centre, which really surprised him and still haunted him, “Unfortunately, we failed to capture more Theonian soldiers…”

As soon as he uttered these words, the two mercenary cavalry leaders became slightly ashamed. The straightforward Celtic leader, Gaba, explained using strange Greek pronunciation, “We tried our best, but the Theonian soldiers did not escape. Instead, they lined up in a formation and fought us. We lost…many men…”

“Those Theonians stretched out their formation, guarded the riverbank and forced us to fight them head-on. And it is challenging for cavalries to fight heavy infantries…” Acilita also added.

Dionysius glanced at the two of them. He just wanted to knock the two unruly foreign leaders and did not want to tear their faces yet, “In any case, you have held back more than a thousand Theonian soldiers and eventually destroyed and captured them, including a legatus. This would be the biggest military loss of the Theonia Union since its establishment!”

“Milord, it is just because Theonia was not even as old as my youngest son!” Astagoras, another strategos of Syracuse, sneered, “Next, we will give them more defeat until we completely destroy their union!”

Astagoras' words caused everyone to laugh.

Amidst the laughter, a cold voice sounded on the seat to the left of Dionysius, “I have inspected the weapons the Theonians left on the battlefield. To tell you the truth, I don't think you will have much of an advantage even if you engage the infantries of the Theonian legion once more.”

These words naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of everyone in the quarter.

“Spartan, you think too highly of the Theonians! Astagoras shouted with impoliteness.

“I am telling the truth.” Phidias said impolitely, ignoring everyone's dissatisfaction.

At the same time, he strode out of his seat, put on a heavy infantry attacking posture regardless of everyone's strange gaze. He then said with seriousness, “According to the traditional battle habit of the heavy infantry, the left-hand round shield can be used for both defence and impact while raising the spears in the right hand over the round shield to stab the opponent. And once the spear is broken, we could pull out our kopis to slash…however, the soldiers of the Theonian legion fight differently from ours. I brought the long shield and short sword used by the soldiers of the Theonian legion. Unfortunately, it was forcibly left outside the quarter by the guards.”

Speaking of this, Phidias also did not forget to satirise Dionysius covertly. After all, even though Dionysius is good at using assassination, he is also on guard against being assassinated by others. In the past, many tried to assassinate him. He became so cautious that he stipulated that if anyone wanted to meet and discuss with him, he had to be searched by the guards, and they were not allowed to carry any weapons.

Once another brother of his (whom he had sent to serve as a tyrant of a neighbouring city-state) came to the palace to see him, and while they were talking about an important matter, he asked the guard for a spear to draw a map on the ground. As a result, Dionysius became so furious that he immediately ordered the guard to be executed.

At this time, Dionysius didn't care about Phidias' irony as he was more interested in what he would say next. Thus he magnanimously gave the order, “Go and get Theonia's short sword and shield.”

Once the short sword and long shield were placed in front of Phidias, he picked up the long shield in his left hand and placed it on his chest and explained, “Theonia's long shield is big enough to protect the soldier's bodies, so they don't have to worry about defence and could instead focus on killing the enemy.”

As he spoke, Phidias used the short sword to stab. After a few stabs, he thrust the short sword into the wooden table, where they heard a sound as the whole tip of the sword completely pierced in.

“What a sharp sword!” Leptines, sitting next to Phidias, exclaimed. Curious, he pulled out the short sword and inspected it carefully: The blade of the short sword has some small gaps, and the tip of the sword was slightly bent. However, it still gave everyone a chill.

“This sword is too short! We would have already stabbed the Theonians with our spears before they could even stab my soldiers with it!” Astagoras retorted.

“It is indeed short. But the Theonian soldiers have this long shield to protect them from the thrusting of our spears. On the contrary, once both sides clashed, we could no longer use the spear to stab while this short sword can easily stab us…” Phidias wearing the long shield, felt unsettled as he stared at the short sword on Leptines' hand. The Greek phalanx with a round shield and a spear was a set of heavy infantry tactics passed down through centuries. It's so effective that it was hard to march among other nations in the Mediterranean. Yet, a newly established city-state union managed to develop another set of heavy infantry equipment and tactics in such a short time that could compare to the traditional tactics!

‘It's due to their weapons and equipment!!’ Dionysius became a little excited after listening to the analysis of Phidias. After all, he had thought that his most elite army was inferior to the newly created legion of Theonia, which made him upset. Now he realised that he could make up for their disadvantage as long as it is not a problem of the soldier's quality.

“Phidias, what do you think we should do if we meet the legion infantry of Theonia next time?” Dionysius asked the Spartan for his advice.

“Judging from the Theonians' weapons and equipment, they would have no advantage when facing them in mid-range. But once the two sides are close to each other, the short sword and the long shield would play their greatest role. Hence we should not adopt the clashing tactics when fighting in a phalanx formation. Instead, we should leave a certain distance for the soldiers at the forefront to use their spear formation. It would make Theonia legion’s infantry dare not get close so that the Syracusan soldiers can use their spear thrust technique to gain the upper hand…” Phidias used this battle as a reference to carefully think about how to deal with Theonia’s new tactics. After all, he had not actually fought the Theonian legion head-on and was only making speculations based on his years of combat experience.

But it was enough to let Dionysius sigh a breath of relief. He then said to the strategoi opposite of him, “Did you all hear that?! The next time we fight the Theonian soldiers, we will follow Phidias' method!!”

With the Syracusan strategoi such as Phacipessas and Astagoras taking the lead to say yes, the others also followed. Naturally, they agreed with reluctance.