Chapter 71: Reconnaissance (IV)
Chapter 71: Reconnaissance (IV)
Originally, he only intended to take this opportunity to plunder Amendolara and Thurii, but his scouts reported that the people of Amendolara were leaving the city with a lot of baggage.
How could Vespa and his people let go of such a good opportunity, they immediately caught up and started attacking the city of Amendolara. For Vespa, this is the blessing of the mountain god, Asinu! Their tribe won an easy victory, they not only seized a large number of materials, but also occupied a city and it is a mountain city that the Lucanians like to live in, and also captured a large number of “slaves”.
But he soon realized that it was quite difficult for his tribe with only a thousand warriors to occupy a city. First of all, he had to assign hundreds of his warriors to look after the thousands of prisoners. Then he had to prevent the Thurians from taking back the city of Amendolara. And then, the most troublesome is Grumentum. After all, at the beginning, Vespa did not want to accept the annexation of Grumentum. However, taking advantage of the bloody battle and victory of the Lucanian alliance, it didn’t take much effort to get the results that should have belonged to Grumentum, so how can Akpir, the great leader of Grumentum, spare them! However, making Vespa give up Amendolara and running back to the mountains again..how could Vespa and his people, who have had enough of the hardship of wandering places to places without a home, give up the comfort that they have obtained.
Just as he was hesitating. A few days later, a good news came that the Lucanian tribal alliance that was preparing to besiege the city of Thurii, was forced to withdraw due to the outbreak of a plague.
Vespa was overjoyed and had even praised the mountain god, Asinu.
In the following months, because of the great decline in their strength, Thurii did not send troops to retake the city of Amendolara which gave Vespa and his people a rare period of stability.
In the spring of this year, a messenger from Grumentum crossed the mountains and came to the city of Amendolara, bringing the order of Akpir, in which he is strongly asking him to join the Lucanian alliance and to prepare the second invasion on Thurii.
Vespa promised, but he sneered in his heart, because the messenger didn’t mention the ownership of the city of Amendolara after the war.
He now understand that if he wants to keep the city of Amendolara, he can only hope that the Luanian alliance and Thurii will both lose in order for his tribe to get a chance to survive. He can then use the time to slowly integrate the power of Amendolara and restore the vitality of his tribe. Therefore, he wasn’t worried when he find out that the mercenaries were constantly coming to Thurii, instead, he was happy.
He restrained his people from going out of the city as much as possible, it is not to stimulate Thurii, but to let the Greeks prepare for the war.
Today, the spy reported that there is a Greek army with more than 100 people have invaded the territory of Amendolara.
He was quite suprised. This is the first time that a Greek army has appeareed in Amendolara since the war last year. Did they came to attack the city? Why only a hundred people? Are they the vanguard? Despite the threat of the Lucanian alliance, Thurii wants to deal with them first? From his careful observation in the past few months, this isn’t like what the Thurians do!
With a lot of doubts, Vespa stepped on the wall and look down from the mountain. More than 100 Greek soldiers stood alone on the river Sisno for quite some time without moving, and there was also no movement from their back.
‘’They came here to investigate the situation!’ Vespa is sure about it.
Therefore, he decided to show their strength in order to dispel the illusions of the Greeks. He asked his son, Bagul, to lead a thousand warriors out of the city, and only leaving a hundred warriors to guard the captives.
Bagul led the Lucanian warriors and rushed out from the gate.
“Leader, look at their weapons!” Shouted Asistes.
Armor, shields, spear, they are all dressed as Greek hoplites. No wonder Asistes was shocked, as he had thought that Amendolara had been taken back by the Greek army!
Davos look at them carefully and said while smiling, “They should be Lucanians, who have looted the weapons and armor of the citizens of Amendolara and equipped it themselves. Unfortunately, they are just like that, and they are far from being a real hoplite.”
The Greek hoplite formation is tightly packed, and before a battle, they will basically slowly move forward and maintaining a straight line. They watch those Lucanian warriors on the opposite side, their formations are not only loose, but also varied.
The guide was extremely nervous when he saw that the Lucanian warrors had left the city. He then notice that Davos was still in the mood to joke around, which made him to swear at him.
At this time, Davos said, “Retreat, let’s go back!”
If the guide could be pardoned, he would take the horse and galloped.
The soldiers turned around in unison and began to jog.
Davos remained until the soldiers had left him behind, and then he started to walk slowly together with Asistes and Ledes, which made the guide awkward.
The Greeks were slow to retreat, while the Lucanians were slow to pursue. Therefore, the two sides kept a certain distance.
It wasn’t until Davos and his entourage crossed the river Salaqieno that the Lucanian stopped on the north bank.
“A thousand men…a thousand men…” Davos asked while deep in his thought, “Asi, do you think the Lucanians in Amendolara wants to fight us or not?”
“Of course, they don’t want to. You can just look at their posture.” Said Asistes without thinking.
“I heard from Burkes that there aren’t many Lucanians in Amendolara. How many are there?” Asked Davos to the guide.
“There is indeed a talk in Thurii, but it seems that no one knows exactly how many Lucanians are in Amendolara.” The guide was confused.
With a mysterious smile, Davos change the topic, “What is the north of Amendolara?”
The guide became more calm once they returned to the land of Thurii, “10 kilometers to the north is the river Sinni, then further north is river Agri, and on the other side is the city of Heraclea, where the plain of Siris is located and it is a fertile land. Decades ago, there were wars between Thurii and Taranto due to that land.” (T/N: This is Heraclea Lucania, ancient name of the river is Aciris and Siris which is now Agri and Sinni.)
“Who won?” Asked Asistes curiously.
“We Thurians won twice, but Taranto is a powerful city-state in Magna Graecia, they had kept on sending troops and made the war last a long time. At last, the two sides signed an agreement to jointly build Heraclea.” The guide said with a bit of pride.
“Oh, I didn’t think Thurii was strong before.” Said Asistes.
“That is because Thurii had the strategos, Cleandridas. He was a Spartan!” Said the guide reverently, and then he thought of something. He was not reconciled and curled his lips, “Last time, even if thhe Lucanians defeated Thurii, it was because they had ambushed Thurii with trickery. If they fought head-on, they would not be the opponent of Thurii at all.”
Asistes also wanted to argue, but he was stopped by Davos, “While it’s still early, let’s hurry to the south of Thurii and take a look.”
The guide didn’t understand what the young mercenary leader was doing all day long. The west and north, it was understandable since there are Lucanians, but there are no enemies to the south. However, it also reassured him because these mercenaries were too brave and made him tremble with fear of having an accidents.
Davos and his party crossed the floating brige not far west of the city of Thurii, and reached the delta between the two rives. Here, they saw carts going back and forth on a road leading to the west…
The guide told them that this is to transport copper ore and stones to the city of Thurii. Recently, due to the war, the city is in urgent need of stones and bronze ware.
“Are there copper mine and a stone mine to the west of Thurii?” Davos blinked as he watched the uneven dirt road through the hills.
“Yeah. Due to the Lucanians not being able to cross the river Coscile.” The very talkative guide didn’t want to say much at the moment, and he hurriedly ended the conversation and took them to the pontoon on the river Crati.
The river Crati is at least 50 meters long, and because it is currently spring, the water current is fast and the floating bridge swings back and forth. Davos was afraid of having their horses fall into the water and so they had to lead the horses on foot.
After crossing the river Crati, the land was still a part of the plain of Sybaris. This is a green and flat passage between the mountains and the coast, which is obviously much wider than the coastal passage of Amendolara. Here, you can see a lot of Thurians working in the farmland, which is obviously the only safe area in Thurii.
About 5 kilometers south, the passageway abruptly narrowed, this is because there is a large area of beach near the sea.
The guide stopped the horse here and said, “Ahead is the territory of Castellon. Do you still want to see it?”
Note: Castellon (卡斯特隆)
Heraclea: It was originally a city-state called, Siris, that was founded by a Greek colonists before Heraclea. Siris may have been destroyed in 550 BC by the joint force of Sybaris and Metapontum.