Before the herald of Crotone arrived, Milo had already received a report from the warships cruising along the coast of Krimisa, ‘The Theonians have invaded the plains of Crotone!’
Milo was startled, and exclaimed, ‘We got fooled by the Theonians! It’s no wonder that they didn’t fully attack us, it turns out that they just did this to attract my attention! And the Theonians in the southern camp had already gone south!’
However, he hesitated on attacking the southern camp of Theonia. After all, the army of Theonia is still sieging the city. So once he mobilizes his troops, the Theonians will easily see it on their high platform. And if they take this opportunity to launch an attack, Crotone will lose Krimisa, and will become a greater trouble!
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The siege of Aprustum was still going on fiercely. Phragris didn’t expect that the Theonians would attack as soon as they arrived, without fearing death.
The ladders were overturned by the push rod and were quickly set up again. The soldiers climbed up the ladder one by one, if one of them was pushed down, the next one would speed up without any hesitation. And the light infantry brigade approached the city without fearing the arrows, while fighting back with their own javelins and arrows at the defenders on the city….
The fierce attack of the Theonians soon achieved results, the defense on the top of the city wall was broken through many times. When the Theonian soldiers reached the top of the city wall, the defenders soon noticed that these Theonian soldiers in Greek armor were tall, strong, with long hair and strange battle cries. It was obvious that they were not Greeks. They are fierce and powerful, and in order to kill or drive away one of them, the defenders had to pay the lives of several soldiers.
Due to this, Phragris needed to send his reserve forces many times to help the frontline defenders to drive down the enemies who had managed to reach the top, specially in the far right section of the city wall, where the Theonians attacked the most fiercely.
Strategos Phragris, who had some experience in guarding a city knew that it is impossible for the Theonians to maintain such a fierce offensive momentum. So as long as they manage to last through this period, the Theonians will soon be helpless. So while he sent all the reserves, he yelled at the soldiers and encouraged them to fight bravely.
But he didn’t expect that at the most chaotic moment of the battle, the commander of the third legion, Hieronymus, who was below the city wall, had ordered his guards to line up and collectively rocked their shields at the left side of the city wall.
The defenders at the leftmost end of the city wall were concentrating on defending against the enemy’s attack, when suddenly, a shout came from behind them, “Attack!!!”
Those “Crotonians” that they had regarded as comrades had stabbed them with their swords and spears and easily gotten rid of the defenders. Without waiting for the soldiers of the third legion to come up, these dozens of soldiers of the reconnaissance unit had immediately launched an attack on the nearby defenders….
When Phragris, who was still commanding the battle on the right side of the city wall, got the report, the Theonians had already captured the left side of the city and a large number of soldiers had quickly climbed up the city wall, then rushed through the walkway and fiercely killed their way towards the center….
As soon as the Crotonians saw that the situation was not good, they immediately dropped their shields and spears and ran desperately into the city.
This desertion had immediately induced a domino effect. Under the attack of the Theonian soldiers in the front and the side, the defenders finally collapsed. They then scrambled to get out of the city, but the passageways were blocked. The terrified soldiers then directly jumped from the seven meter high city wall to escape, and fell drastically, which resulted in their feet and legs breaking and they all lay down on the ground wailing.
While the people in the city were also terrified and shouted in horror, “The enemy has entered the city! The enemy has entered the city!!….”
They supported the old and the young and hurriedly tried to escape to the south gate and flee to Crotone.
In the middle of their journey, the reinforcements of Crotone had ran into the people who were in a hurry to escape. When they learned that the city of Aprustum has fallen, they were so surprised that they didn’t even dare to go any further, and had immediately turned around and ran back.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The herald of Crotone arrived in Krimisa and had brought the council’s order to attack.
Milo, who is no longer the polemarchos and was just a sinner, had finally ended his hesitation and sent his 7,000 soldiers, including more than 2,000 infantry, to attack the camp of Theonia on the south bank of the river.
Davos, who was observing the movement of the enemy on the high platform, had immediately asked Adrian, the senior centurion of the first brigade of the second legion, to lead 2,000 hoplites and 500 light infantry to cross the river to replace the third legion and to reinforce the 2,000 soldiers led by strategos Matonis of the first brigade of the first legion that was stationed in the southern camp. With a strong camp and reinforcements from the north camp, Matonis has the confidence to repel these large numbers of enemies.
However, though the offense of Crotone was thunderous, the rain is small. In front of the camp of Theonia, they ate small losses due to the “iron thorn nail trap”, “meat hook” and other traps, and had made them to immediately retreat back to the city. Naturally, Milo would not waste Crotone’s only fighting force to clash with the heavily fortified camp of Theonia, when they are already lacking the courage to attack. So as soon as they found that the camp of the enemy was well defended, he immediately sounded the signal to retreat.
However, the herald of Crotone was angry at the immediate retreat of the troops and forced Milo to continue to attack, and threatened to dismiss Milo from his position as commander if he did not attack. However, the soldiers expressed their support for Milo one after another, and the envoy could only leave Krimisa and return to the council of Crotone to complain.
However, the council of Crotone was now in a mess due to an astonishing report, “Theonia has captured Aprustum!” it was like a bolt from the sky and had made all members of the council to be dumbfounded. And outside the council hall, the people had gathered in the square, while shouting to let the council to quickly come up with a solution to this crisis.
And this time, the call for peace negotiation is far stronger than before, and some people even said that the conditions of Theonia can be accepted as long as peace is restored in the northern plain of Crotone.
While the council was still debating about the peace negotiation, two things happened in succession that have prompted them to make a decision at last: First of all, the 500 soldiers of the Theonians third legion had crossed the Neto river and enter the core area of the plain of Crotone when they were pursuing the Crotonians, and they have even manage to get close to the city of Crotone, even though they soon retreated back to Aprustum, this astonishing sight had still shocked the defenders and the people in the city. Just when the whole city was in a state of panic, a transport ship from Caulonia entered the port of Crotone, and the envoy of Caulonia then came down from the ship and brought a bigger bad news – Locri has declared war on Caulonia! Their army had moved to Caulonia and the envoy had come to request help from Crotone.
The thing that the council of Crotone had most worried about finally happened: While Crotone fell into the quagmire of war, their mortal enemy, Locri, will then fiercely attack the allies of Crotone. And Crotone, as the leader of the alliance, was duty bound to send reinforcements, but at this moment, the manpower of Crotone was not even enough to deal with the attack of Theonia. So where else could they get extra troops to help Caulonia? And without the support of Crotone, it is impossible for Caulonia to block the attack of Locri, which means that Croone will face the worst situation of being attacked on both sides, and Crotone is in danger of being destroyed!
All members of the council had immediately stopped quarreling and quickly reached an agreement: ‘To reach an armistice agreement with Theonia as soon as possible!’
Lysias had to go north again, and in order to prevent him from being too unyielding and leading to the failure of the negotiation, he was accompanied by another envoy, a member of the council – Sisticos. (He is the one who had previously said that “regardless of what conditions Theonia promised, as long as the peace in the northern plain of Crotone is restored, they should agree to it.”)
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
At this moment, the central army camp of Theonia was filled with a happy atmosphere. Because the news of “The third legion captured the city of Aprustum” had cheered them up.
“Grand legatus, we should take advantage of this great opportunity while the Crotonians are in panic and launch an attack on Krimisa, and we will surely capture it!” Said Drakos eagerly, as the legatus of the second legion, his legion’s achievement must not fall behind the third legion.
“The city of Aprustum is already ours, so it doesn’t make much sense for the Crotonians to stick to Krimisa. I am afraid that they will give up Krimisa soon. And we can then easily capture, so there is no need to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers to storm Krimisa.” Kapus said cautiously.
“However, allowing the more than 10,000 Crotonians to retreat will only increase the difficulty of our attack on Crotone!” Drakos retorted loudly.
Kapus couldn’t talk back for a while. Indeed, Crotone is a big city, not only with a vast land and a large population, but also with a ten meter high wall and a six meter wide moat. According to the conventional way of sieging, they are doomed to do a protracted siege. However, the water is not under the control of Theonia, and so they cannot completely block Crotone, and the only thing they could do is to attack it with force, but how many soldiers’ lives will it take to face such a formidable city? Can they even capture it? Almost all of them felt uncertain in their hearts. If the strength of the defender is further strengthened, the chances of their victory will be even more slim.
But with a calm expression, Davos turned and asked, “Lord Avinoges, what do you think we should do next?”
After entering the army tent, apart from congratulating Davos on his victory again, Avinoges, who has been observing silently, faced the gaze of Drakos and Kapus, and said, “Why do we have to attack Crotone? Now that we have such a great advantage, why can’t we force Crotone to make peace with us?”
“The Crotonians are about to lose, wouldn’t it be too good for them to negotiate peace now?!” Drakos immediately objected.
Kapus was pondering deeply.
Then a smile appeared in the corner of Davos’ lips: An archon’s angle of thinking is still different from that of a simple strategos!
Just as he was about to speak, Martius, the captain of the guard, requested to enter and then brought two letters.
One is from Philesius. After reading it, Davos frowned and pondered. Then he looked at the second letter with a special mark – it was from Aristias.
