Chapter 601: Recalling the Messapi-Peuceti Event (I)

Even though the two race has the same ancestry, they have irresolvable hatred because of this river. But after the strength of the Peucetians grew rapidly due to Peuceti and Messapi casting aside their previous prejudices and forming an alliance, King Telemani quickly recaptured the town of Canusia that they lost and crossed the Ofanto river several times to invade the land on the north bank.

While the Daunians worried about their increasingly powerful rival to the south, shocking news came from the south six years ago: Their century-old enemy, the Peucetians, was defeated by a kingdom called Theonia and killed King Telemani in battle! After a few more years passed, the territory of the Peucetians changed ownership.

Although the Daunians knew about this powerful kingdom called Theonia, whose territory was the whole of southern Italia, they always treated them calmy. Some Daunians even thought the Theonians were their friends because they had fought the Peucetians many times and even defeated the Messapi-Peuceti alliance seven years ago.

And when the Daunian envoy walked into the Grand Senate Hall of Thurii, the king of Theonia received him warmly and gladly agreed to sign a two-year peace agreement with Dauni.

With that, the Daunians put aside their worries and passed the two years safely. But when they offered to renew the treaty again, the Theonian Senate requested the Daunians to transfer the lands along the north bank of the Ofanto river to Theonia. Their reason is that the Peucetians insisted that they owned these lands, but the Daunians seized them. And now that the Peucetians had become a member of Theonia, they had to seek justice for its citizens.

The Daunians naturally couldn’t agree to this request, which resulted in the agreement’s renewal failing. After the negotiation broke down, the war started.

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

As a Peucetian, the turbulent changes that Alemus witnessed in the past few years were far beyond the peaceful first half of his life.

More than ten years ago, King Telemani launched the greatest attack against the Daunians but ended up suffering a crushing defeat and even lost the important town on the south bank of the Ofanto river, Canusia. Fortunately, Telemani recognised the reality of the situation and took the initiative to surrender and signed a truce with the Daunians. Afterwards, they allied with Messapi, allowing them to gain half of Brindisi and defeat the Tarantine army one after another.

But just as they began thinking their good day was coming, the Theonian army appeared. In the Battle of Anlen Hills, the Theonians defeated Alemus and his comrades despite their advantageous position. Although their loss wasn’t significant, they began fearing the Theonians, who forced the Messapi-Peuceti alliance to sign an armistice agreement with Taranto. Only when the Theonians left the Apulia region did the Peucetians and Messapians become relieved.

In the following years, the Peucetians regained their strength with the help of Messapi and the nourishment of Brindisi’s maritime trade. Then King Telemani immediately waged war against the Daunians again, so Alemus took up arms and went to war…this time, they were victorious and retook the city of Canusia and drove the Daunians back to the northern bank of the Ofanto river.

And just as Telemani was about to lead his army to continue attacking the north bank of the Ofanto, a Messapian messenger came and invited their king to send troops to attack Taranto. From them, he learned that Taranto foolishly broke their agreement with Theonia and sent troops to attack, which resulted in a terrible defeat that almost all their soldiers who went to war didn’t escape. Furthermore, another more powerful force attacked Theonia, and it was difficult to say whether they could win. If even the common people thought this was a great opportunity, it was only natural for king Telemani to readily agree to the Messapians’ proposal. After finding out about it, Alemus and his comrades cheered as the Tarantines are much easier to deal with than the Daunians and are much wealthier.

Thus Alemus marched with the army again; the Messapi-Peuceti alliance managed to capture a large part of Taranto with ease and push their way towards the city. Although a siege battle was a headache for them, the Tarantine soldiers in the city were only a few while they had a large army of 40,000. In addition, Alemus saw with his own eyes that even elderly and young people had to serve as soldiers in the city’s defence, so Alemus and his comrades became confident in capturing the city of Taranto. But ten days after their attack, Taranto remained standing still, which was a strange phenomenon. Especially later, whenever they attack at dusk, they could sense the Tarantines could no longer hold on and would be about to be overwhelmed by the Messapi-Peuceti warriors. But on the next day, the defenders seemed to have changed as they were filled with fighting spirit and strength.

Then rumours began to spread in the camp that “the Theonians had completely defeated their enemies” and that they saw a Theonian envoy entering the camp of the Messapi-Peuceti alliance. Only later did Alemus learn that the envoy had come to give them an ultimatum for their troops to immediately withdraw because Taranto had become Theonia’s free city.

Even now, Alemus still didn’t understand what a free city was, but he knew that King Telemani and the archons of Messapi must have become upset as they had launched a massive attack on Taranto the next day. Yet Taranto’s defenders seemed to double, resulting in their defeat. And the act of the Messapi-Peuceti allied troops had obviously angered the Theonia as they soon received the bad news the following day, “The Theonian navy attacked their combined fleet in the Gulf of Taranto, and only five ships managed to flee the battlefield.”

In the end, King Telemani and the Messapians decided to retreat before the Theonian army returned to Thurii. And once they learned about it, Alemus and his comrades became relieved as they were already tired of the constant climbing of the walls yet unable to fight the enemy head-on. And deep down, they did not want to fight those terrifying Theonians.

In the following years, apart from the occasional trip across the river with the chieftains to invade the Daunians, Alemus lived a peaceful life. But he knew that King Telemani and the chieftains were tense. Even though Theonia didn’t act on Peuceti, they repeatedly refused Peuceti and the Messapi’s messenger’s request to form an alliance or sign a friendly agreement with Theonia.

Four years after the Battle of Taranto, Theonia declared war on Peuceti and Messapi. The reason for the declaration was to seek justice for breaking the armistice agreement and jointly attacking Taranto.

And every time Alemus recalled it, he found it amusing because didn’t Taranto also break their agreement and attack Theonia back then? Yet Theonia now wants to get justice for them?! But considering Taranto has become a city of the kingdom of Theonia, it is only natural for the Theonians to aim their revenge on the independent Peuceti and Messapi.

With the phrase ‘defend the homeland’, Alemus, who was almost forty years old, became motivated and took up his shield and spear again to go to the front line.

After a period of preparation, meeting, marching, scouting, and small-scale battles, the Messapi-Peuceti alliance finally decided to fight the Theonians in Brindisi.

Alemus could never forget that day. The Messapi-Peuceti allied army had made elaborate preparations for the past few years, and their warriors numbered more than 60,000, a massive army that Alemus had never seen in his life. Even though the warriors that lined up from north to south seemed endless…the Theonian soldiers on the opposite side were much more, with everyone wearing uniformed armour and weapons, standing there quietly like a solid black reef on the sea, which was quite daunting…

With the atrocious defensive ability of the Peuceti and Messapi warriors, they could only roar and charge forward as soon as the horn sounded…

Then endless rains of arrows that covered the sky were shot from the opposite side…

Followed by the more powerful rain of javelins…

Alemus could only watch helplessly as his comrades fell to the ground with the arrow, resulting in a large gap appearing on the dense formation, like the bark of a tree that the insects gnawed.

Then he heard the enemy roar in unison and began to charge, just like the dark clouds before the coming of the storm. Alemus became so nervous that he almost stopped breathing, and sweats soaked his palm.

As the two armies collided and fought a bloody battle, the young and vigorous Peucetian warriors constantly attacked with their blood and courage the steel military formation formed by the Theonian soldiers. However, it was all in vain, just like a raging tide striking the reefs.

After more than an hour of fighting, the Theonian army remained standing while the Peucetians and Messapi slowly retreated. Alemus, who was in the rear, could hear that most of the screams came from the Peucetian warriors, which terrified him.

Then when they heard the warriors panickily shout, “The enemy is coming from the flank!” Alemus did not hesitate to turn around and run away at that time, with his comrades making the same choice.

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