Chapter 79: The Battle of Thurii (I)

The signals for the attack and retreat of the Greek city-states are almost the same. Thurii’s military arrangement hasn’t change, except that 200 cavalry will be allocated to Archytas, which made Archytas have a favorable impression on Davos and thanked him.

Burkes stood not far away and watched them discussed. He doesn’t understand why Davos would have a good opinion on the Pythagorean School right now, as he hadn’t heard of it before. Doesn’t he know that no city-states in Magna Graecia have a good opinion on the Pythagorean School besides Taranto, which made this mysterious group having a hard time surviving in Magna Graecia. I’m afraid that due to this, it will affect the perception of Friis and Kunogolata on him.

Just as Burkes started worrying about Davos, the meeting would soon be over, and Davos jumped on his horse, and trod slowly to his own troops, while he observed the other troops that were going to fight together with them. The reinforcements of Taranto that is led by Archytas, all of whom are strong young men in their twenties and thirties, they are full of energy as they carried their round shields on their left shoulders, spears on their right, marching while talking with their companions and have relaxed expression. However, most of the citizen soldiers of Thurii have a serious expression, many of whom have gray hair and also have their back slightly bent…

Davos frowned while looking at them, and suddenly felt that there is something wrong. He pointed to them and asked Burkes who was besides him, and said, “What’s going on? Why are these soldiers in leather armor?…and some of them are even half naked, and there are a lot of soldiers who are like this…not right, your troops should only be more than 4,000!”

Burkes answered, “Those are free men and outsiders(foreigners) that are living in Thurii. After discussing about it, the citizen assembly of Thurii adopted a resolution, ‘All free men and foreigners who took part in the war will become citizens of Thurii after we win the war.’, it is thanks to your suggestion that made us remember. Currently, the number of troops that Thurii have is about 6,000 men.” Burkes is a bit complacent.

This slightly eased Davos’ uneasiness, and he exclaimed, “I didn’t think that there are a lot of free men in Thurii!”

“In fact, this is only a part of them, and there are still more than half that are just watching and didn’t join the war.” At the same time, Burkes’ words surprised Davos and made him think about it.

The Thurii alliance is divided into 3 parts, namely, the left wing, center, and right wing, and they lined up on the plains of Sybaris, and slowly advanced westward along the river Crati, and sending scout cavalry to and fro, reporting the movements of the Lucanians.

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A herald came rushing and said to Davos, “Strategos Friis has ordered you to stop advancing and to stay your ground here!”

“Understood.” Davos nodded in response, then said to the bugler, “Blow the bugle, and halt the advance!”

When the bugle rang, the mercenaries soon stopped advancing.

“Formation!” Daveus ordered again.

The bugler sounded the round brass bugle again.

Immediately, the mercenary column’s head move to the right, and its tail advance forward. Davos’ army is based on units as the basic of combat (squads are only for management role, and can’t fight independently). When arranging the columns, it would be arranged according to four columns of one unit, and then turned to row. Therefore, when the “long dragon” of the whole troops turned and faced the west, the formation is basically completed, and the speed of completion is very fast.

Davos put the first hoplite unit on the far right, because this side is connected with Thurii on the center, so the stable first hoplite unit leader, Kapus, will take command of the attack and retreat of the team to prevent the disconnection from the center. At the far left is the third hoplite unit’s that is led by Amintas, considering the large number of enemies, the flank at the far left have a chance to get surrounded. Therefore, a captain who dares to fight will keep the morale of the soldiers high. In fact, Davos was thinking of Hieronymus, who is also brave and has a more experience in battles to be more suitable for this task. However, Davos is not sure because he is the only leader who had joined from the former expeditionary troops, and there are too many recruits (who joined Davos’ troops in Byzantium). Fortunately, there are 2 peltast units behind Amintas, and Davos thinks that he will have no problem in stabilizing the defense. Traditionally, the Greek’s phalanx has at least 8 rows, while Davos’ only has 4 because of the small number of his troops, and also to ensure the length in the front, and so the thickness can only be thinner. But Davos believes that the experienced mercenaries are capable of blocking a large number of enemies.

The left wing has finished with their formation, while the center are still in the middle of arranging. The shouts of the officers and the orders of the heralds, and the reminders to the soldiers are all mixing together, just like a noisy market… Friis placed the 1,000 mercenaries of Drakos at the forefront, and the citizen soldiers of Thurii is in the middle, afterwards are the free men…

The right wing is also fast with their formation. Archytas placed the citizen soldiers of Taranto in the front, and behind them are the mercenaries, while the 200 cavalry are placed at the far right. And his phalanx is 8 rows thick.

Finally, the center’s formation is completed, and the left wing, center, and right wing’s formation forms a line. The priests of Thurii carried the statue of Apollo, the sun god and the protector of Thurii, and came to the front of the phalanx and began singing hymns. They then offered blood and food to pray for their victory, the soldiers also began praying silently to Apollo for his protection. The soldiers of Taranto are also praying, but not to the sun god, as their city-state had their own patron god, Poseidon, and the city-state even have a legendary demigod, Phalanthus. Most mercenaries believed in Ares and Zeus, but Davos’ soldiers are different, they used to believed in Ares, but after Davos led them to victory one after another and created many miracles, they then began believing in Hades…

When the whole army is busy in their prayers to their gods, the scouts returned one after another, bringing news that the Lucanians are coming. The scouts of the Lucanians also appeared in front of them and were forced to quickly retreat due to the large number of Greek cavalry.

“The Lucanians are less than 2 kilo-meters from us…we should start preparing!” Kunogelata said nervously.

Friis waved his hand and said, “Don’t worry, the Lucanians won’t attack immediately. Their army has not yet appeared and even if it does, it would take them a while for them to arrange their battle formation.”

Kunogelata bitterly backs down.

After a while, they saw a golden light shining all over the distant field, like a golden flood surging to the east.

Kunogelata took a deep breath and nervously said, “It’s just as the young mercenary leader had said, the Lucanians did indeed replaced their weapons and armors with ours, which will make it a bit troublesome!”

“Don’t worry, even if the Lucanians change their equipment, they won’t be able to learn the troops formation of us Greeks in such a short time, rather, they have abandoned their own strengths. Perhaps this is a good thing for us instead.” Friis calmly reassured them, and then face the herald and said, “Go inform the officers of all units quickly, so that they don’t feel anxious, and have the soldiers continue to rest.”

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“Damn it, the sun is on our backs, and it’s shining on them, which makes our eyes uncomfortable. During the battle, it will affect the javelin throwing of Epiphanes and Cid!” Matonis felt a bit uneasy.

“What can we do about it, who told us to be located in the east. Isn’t Apollo the patron god of Thurii? Make them pray to Apollo so that he won’t come out today.” Olivos cracks a joke.

“It’s better to go ask our leader, Davos, and have Hades turn the day into night. Then, there is no need to fight this war.” Bantered Epiphanes.

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The mercenaries are resting, while the officers gathered around Davos and joke around, as they didn’t take the large number of Lucanians in front of them seriously.

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