Chapter 286: Battle of Anlen Hills (III)

“Archers, prepare!” Once Pulo saw the Greeks coming into range, he immediately gave the order. The height difference of tens of meters not only extended the range of the archers and enhanced the lethality of the arrows, and at the same time, it shortened the range of the archers on the other side. As a result, the long-range firepower of the Messapi-Peuceti alliance was at a great advantage, such as the benefit of having the high ground.

But just as the Peucetians pulled their bows, countless black dots whizzed from the foot of the hill, hitting the Peucetians with inferior equipment and causing the archers to scream in pain.

‘The Greeks have slingers!’ A chill rose in the heart of Telemani.

Unfortunately for Davos, the two light infantry brigades of the two legions – Epiphanes and Cid, only had about 400 slingers under their command, which was not enough to suppress the enemy, and the only thing they can do is disrupt their shooting.

The arrows continued to fall like raindrops, prompting the soldiers to hold their shields above their heads and advance slowly step by step. Unfortunately, the terrain had limited them from using the hoplite’s killer weapon, “charge”, and they could only endure the noise of arrows pecking at the bronze shield and making “clang clang clang” noise.

When they began climbing the mountain, javelins hit their shields fiercely, causing some soldiers to be injured.

The wounded soldiers then fell to the ground, huddling together and covering themselves with the shields as they wait for the medical camp to rescue them.

In the middle of the battlefield, the hoplites of Alytia were stationed at the place where Theonia focused their attack – the lowest point of the terrain.

“Come on! Hurry up!…” Amintas kept urging the soldiers, as he did not want to lose to Matonis, a junior in the mercenary. Therefore, he broke the rules of Theonia’s military law and took the lead in fighting at the forefront of the brigade, which made the soldiers who had been tired after a long march be excited and followed closely behind.

While charging through the rain of arrows to a distance more than 20 metres from the enemy, the whole brigade suddenly stopped their advance.

“Defence!” Timogeras gave a loud order as he thought that the enemy was about to charge.

Even if the gentle slope here is only a few metres high, this height is still enough for the Greeks to pay a heavy price!

However, what came was not the Greeks’ charge, but nearly a thousand javelins, which to the horror of the Messapians, drove powerfully into their phalanxes with whistling wind, raising a chorus of screams.

Timogeras had no idea that the Theonian hoplites could throw javelins, he shouted in exasperation without even caring about his surprise, “Shields up! Use your shield to defend!…”

Amintas quickly took out his second javelin and roared, “Rush with me!” With that, he was the first to rush to the enemy with a shield in his left hand and a javelin in his right.

The soldiers followed.

Timogeras was surprised: Normally, the Greeks hoplites would have broken up from their formation when charging, but the enemy on the opposite side still managed to maintain a basic formation, charging in fast like a thick wall of iron which made him feel suffocated.

“Defence! Defence!” He hoarsely shouted in a somewhat panicked voice.

However, the soldiers were not able to recover from their panic due to the javelins, while the brigade of Amintas arrived in a flash, stepping on the gentle slope a few metres high, took a few strides and with the help of momentum, they pushed forward with their left arm that was holding the shields, “Bang!…” After the sound of continuous metallic impact, the Messapian soldiers, who were unable to defend themselves together due to the chaotic formation, were forced to retreat unconsciously to ease the impact.

This retreat made it impossible for the dense mass of Messapian soldiers to take care of their comrades who fell to the ground from either getting stabbed by javelins or tripped by those at their back. On the back was the panic shouting of their comrades while only on the front were javelins stabbing towards them like poisonous snakes. For a moment, they were in a mess and could only continue to fall back, which allowed most of the soldiers of Amintas’ brigade to step on the slope.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

As the leader of the seventh brigade of the second legion, Cid has a habit of praying before a battle.

He is not the only one doing it but also asks his men to do it together. In the past, he prayed to Ares, the god of war, but after following Davos, he changed his worship to Theonia’s patron god – Hades, the god of the underworld. After singing the ode of Hades, he stood up and said, “The slingers are to continue attacking the enemy here, while the archers will follow the infantry closely. Once in range, shoot the enemy on the hill. Peltast, follow me!”

The peltast captain, Satirus, quickly advised, “Strategos, you should continue commanding and let me lead our brothers to attack.”

Cid glared at him, “Now is a good chance for us to prove our peltast. So how can I hide behind!” In recent months, opinions sprung up in the army that the role of peltast has become dispensable as we already have the archers and slingers for long-range attacks and the hoplite throwing javelins for close-range attacks, so it is better to abolish this branch and replace it with light-armoured soldiers similar to the mountain reconnaissance brigade.

Naturally, Epiphanes and Cid, who grew up as peltast, strongly opposed this opinion and always expressed their thoughts to Davos that the peltast can never be replaced, that they can’t be replaced!

Now is the time to prove the value of the peltast.

Epiphanes and Cid led nearly 500 peltasts; they scattered in pairs and in groups of three as they pass through the gaps in the “fish-scale formation” of the hoplites.

Leotychides’ platoon was at the forefront of the front line, and he himself was in the middle of the first column of the platoon’s phalanx. On that day, he was locked up for half a day for assaulting his comrades, originally, he had to be punished by the military stick, but considering that the war was about to start, the military inspector postponed the punishment until after the war and allowed him to atone for his crime by doing meritorious service.

At this moment, Leotychides had already started climbing. Although he was not wearing a helmet, he was still carrying more than 40 kilograms of equipment and even had to carry weapons in both hands, so it was not easy to stabilise his body. Fortunately, it was early autumn, it was warm and dry, and grasses overgrew the hills; even though it hadn’t rained for ten days, the soil was still soft, and when you take a step on it, it will leave a small pit. Leotychides and his teammates slowly made their way up, one step at a time.

While the Messapians attacked them with even more ferocity, throwing their javelins from more than 30 metres high and directly hitting the shields, causing huge impacts. Most of them could pierce the bronze shields, and the remaining force had even pushed Leotychides backwards, so he quickly trusted the end of his spear into the soil to stabilise his body.

Some of the soldiers had already lost their balance from what he could see due to the impact. They slipped down and had even dragged down their comrades that were behind. Fortunately, the Theonians’ peculiar offensive formation is like a sawtooth, neither continuous nor dense, so it did not affect the orderly advance of the whole army.

Since Leotychides entered the training camp, he became interested in Theonia’s unique formations and found that these formations were more complex than the traditional Greek phalanx formations; not only was it very effective, it was also very suitable for all terrains. After analysing it privately, he thought it was more ingenious than Sparta’s tactics, which he had received training since childhood. Later, when he learned that it was the archon, Davos, who had invented this unique formation on his own, he had an impulse to discuss his views regarding formations. Unfortunately, it was only a fantasy, because Davos was the highest power of Theonia, while his current status was not the crown prince of Sparta, but only a freeman of Theonia, so he could only watch Davos from a distance whenever Davos gave lectures on the training ground’s stage.

At present, the Peucetian’ javelin came again.

Leotychides put aside his distracting thoughts, bent down and fixed his heels, and opened his eyes wide to see the direction of the flying javelin. He tilted his shield slightly, causing the javelin’s tip to make a string of sparks on the shield causing most of the momentum to be negated, which reduced the impact on him. 

As soon as Leotychides breathed a sigh of relief, he heard a cry from a comrade on the right. He was shaking and was about to fall, so Leotychides quickly released his spear, stuck out his right hand in a flash and grabbed the man’s arm.

The man was Hybaterus. Hybaterus hesitated a bit and immediately shouted with sincerity, “Prosous, thank you!”

And Leotychides only nodded at him. Although there are contradictions between them, the battlefield is the melting pot of men’s friendship.

At this time, he looked up and saw someone running to the front of the formation.

A peltast! Leotychides blinked as he understood this type of unit. During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta had employed many Thracian peltasts as an auxiliary to the hoplites. However, in the battle sequence of the Theonian army, the peltasts are regarded as an important force. Therefore, their status is not lower than that of a hoplite.

These peltasts with leather shields in their left hand and rhomphaia on their right, while wearing thin cloth robes, approached the enemies on the hills in the form of scattered soldiers while deftly avoiding the javelins of the Peucetians.

Why can they be so fast and agile? It is because they are holding rhomphaia, an odd weapon with an almost curved blade that they could plunge into the earth, which would easily provide strong support to their climbing.

When Cid soon got close to the enemy, five to six spears came at him simultaneously.

Cid was very calm; he squatted down suddenly that his soft leather armour had almost stuck to the ground along the slope, with the leather shield protecting the top of his head blocking the spear.

Standing on the top of the hill, the Peucetians found it difficult to stab the enemy, who was almost on the ground and at such a low angle. And the ground sloped downward so much that they needed to move forward.

Quick as a flash, Cid pushed his legs back and slammed his whole body into the enemy, quickly reaching out to his rhomphaia and hooking one of the Peucetian warriors feet with it and pulling down hard.

Rhomphaias were weapons used by the Thracians with a straight or slightly curved single-edged blade attached to a pole, which in most cases was considerably shorter than the blade.

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