Volume 5: The Hegemon of Southern Italy, Chapter 52: The Occupation of Grumentum and Elea Attention

Part of the mercenaries on the east gate, holding shields and spears, charged down the wooden wall to attack the Potentian warriors inside the city, supporting the Grumentum men who were nearly overwhelmed. The remaining mercenaries ran to the gate tower, turned the locked winch, and opened the east gate, allowing the following soldiers to pour in. The Potentian soldiers defending the east gate, caught between two attacks, struggled to hold on.

Lussau received Pollet’s order and was truly startled. He had not expected that these tribes within Grumentum would revolt again. His first reaction was not worry about the situation at the east gate, but fear that his own warriors—many of whom were tribesmen who had surrendered to him after entering the city—might also cause trouble. Coupled with the fierce enemy assault on the south gate, he dared not split his forces and thus refused to send reinforcements.

However, the Potentian soldiers stationed on the hillside, upon receiving the order, immediately descended to help. By the time they arrived, their comrades in the east gate district were already in dire straits. Without a second thought, the leading commander charged into the enemy ranks.

The Potentian reinforcements complicated the eastern battle: the mercenaries and Grumentum tribal warriors were attacking the east gate garrison from front and back, while the Grumentum warriors themselves were caught between the Potentian forces from both sides. Four forces clashed in a chaotic melee in the narrow area between the city district and the entrance to the mountain path…

The first to react was Xanthiparis. Thanks to the Daonian Military Code, during this period of training Xanthiparis had been repeatedly instructed that, except in special circumstances, a military commander should not fight on the front line. So during this assault, he followed in the rear. Faced with such a chaotic battle, his rich battlefield experience led him to make a quick decision: he ordered the mercenaries to slowly retreat toward the wall, while simultaneously instructing Kxima to lead his soldiers around the houses on both sides and encircle the enemy.

The mercenaries’ retreat gave the hard-pressed Potentian warriors hope. They thought the enemy was about to break, and their morale surged. The Grumentum men, on the other hand, felt despair. Originally a ragtag force, their fighting spirit nearly collapsed. But as the Potentian warriors advanced and gradually surrounded them completely, unable to escape, they had to fight desperately for survival.

Up on the hilltop, however, Pollet watched with a trembling heart. What he saw was this: the enemy was retreating in an orderly fashion, their formation mostly intact, while the enemy pouring through the gate slipped around the houses on both sides, gradually forming a large encirclement that clamped the Potentian garrison and reinforcements—along with the Grumentum men—in a pincer. Meanwhile, some enemies climbed onto the wall, raising javelins. Positioned high above and at such close range, they could hardly miss…

Pollet closed his eyes in anguish. Now he was certain: the enemy came from that fearsome Daonia Alliance. The Lucanian warriors were full of battle fervor but their formations were always loose; they never possessed such strong organization and tight discipline. Cursing the disobedient Lussau under his breath, Pollet hesitated, wondering whether to commit his last remaining forces to this eastern battlefield, which already seemed hopeless…

The deadly rain of javelins and the fierce charge of the mercenaries finally caused the east gate garrison to collapse. The shrinking circle tightened like a noose around the necks of the Potentian reinforcements. In despair, they ultimately chose to surrender.

Hesitant and calculating, Pollet in the end did not send out his remaining 500 warriors, but held his position on the hilltop.

Next, Xanthiparis and Kxima led their forces south to attack. Lussau, already struggling to hold on, could not withstand them. During his retreat westward, he was killed by out-of-control Grumentum warriors.

By nightfall, the Daonian army had routed the defenders on the east, south, and west sides, occupying all of Grumentum’s city district. Only Pollet’s 500 warriors atop the hill remained, trembling with fear as the great army drew near.

At this moment, Hemon raised a torch high and climbed the hill alone, ready to persuade Pollet to surrender.

Pollet, wishing to preserve the lives of his tribesmen, ultimately agreed to surrender. His warriors had no choice but to lay down their arms, open the mountain gate, and descend empty-handed with Hemon.

Pollet said to Hemon resentfully: “You help the Greeks slaughter your own people and seize their land. Are you not afraid of the wrath of the God Asinu?!”

Hemon turned back and said meaningfully: “You are mistaken. I am not helping the Greeks; I am helping the Lucanians. The God Asinu will only be pleased by this!”

Daonia captured Grumentum at the cost of 600 casualties. Lussau and his followers were all slaughtered.

A few days later, Potentia signed a truce with Daonia. The more than a thousand captured Potentian warriors were safely returned to Potentia city.

Unlike the earlier fall of Nerulum, news of Grumentum changing hands spread quickly across Lucania, stirring great waves among many small tribes and even multiple powers.

Daonia, however, did not take further military action. Instead, according to a pre-arranged plan, it gradually implemented the following: Bacule was appointed City Administrator of Grumentum; Hemon was made Intermediate Judge of the city; Asiastes was transferred to Grumentum as Intermediate Ephor; Kxima was appointed Captain of the patrol—a series of official positions.

Bacule’s first task upon taking office was to take over the pass camp between Nerulum and Grumentum. Next, he left only 2,000 warriors in Grumentum, sending the remaining 3,000 warriors and the mercenaries under Xanthiparis back to their respective home cities of Nerulum, Thurii, Asperustum, etc., to ease the strain on food supplies. Traveling south with them were several tribes from within Grumentum.

The next step was to fulfill the promises Vespa and Hemon had previously made to the small tribes around Grumentum: to accept them into the Daonia Alliance, assign them settlements and pastures, and abolish the various exactions previously imposed on them by Grumentum and Potentia…

When Sicinag learned that the Daonia Alliance had occupied Grumentum, he cursed them as treacherous and cunning. But openly, the badly battered Pyxous had no choice but to send envoys to Thurii to express goodwill for peace.

Even Garagusus, which rarely involved itself in Lucanian tribal disputes, sent envoys wanting to know the intentions of this powerful new neighbor.

Potentia, forced by the issue of prisoners, signed a truce with Daonia. But as the dominant northern Lucanian tribal alliance, Daonia’s surprise attack wounded its pride and enraged the tribal leaders of Potentia. Only the steady Great Chief Puamote managed to suppress the anger, choosing to endure.

The Daonia Alliance’s strong Greek character was so unique in Lucania that it immediately drew the attention of another Greek city-state in the region: Elea.

Elea was also one of the many Greek colonial cities founded on the Italian peninsula during the great Greek colonization, a few decades later than the earliest city, Cumae. Three adjacent coastal cities—Elea, Pyxous, and Poseidonia—were established in succession. Compared to the other two, Elea, sandwiched in between, remained somewhat obscure. A century ago, during the great southward migration of the Lucanians, Poseidonia and Pyxous fell one after another, while the weaker Elea stubbornly survived. But Elea, surrounded by Lucanians, was on the verge of destruction at any time. If not for the later conflicts among the Lucanian tribal alliances—such as Potentia versus Pyxous, Potentia versus Grumentum—which made Elea a buffer zone, the Lucanians would have launched full-scale attacks against it.

Nevertheless, for decades, Elea’s situation had been difficult. Parts of the land outside the city were occupied by alien tribes, and raids occurred frequently. Leaving the city became extremely dangerous; it was easy to be captured by sudden Lucanian raids and sold into slavery. Thus, Eleans barely managed to sustain their city-state and the livelihood of their citizens by manufacturing and processing handicrafts, developing maritime trade, transshipment of goods, port services, and so on.

Now, the emergence of Daonia gave the Eleans a glimmer of hope.

Therefore, after deliberation among all the citizens, they decided to send an envoy to Daonia—this rising Greek city-state alliance—to express their desire for an alliance.

Canios, a member of the Council, gladly accepted this honorable mission.

But traveling by land to Daonia was clearly impossible; Potentia and Pyxous would not allow him to pass through their lands. So he had to go by sea. A passenger ship did not need to go around the Strait of Messina, because the Eleans knew that Laüs was an ally of Daonia.

The passenger ship carrying Canios, driven by a strong south wind, sped south like an arrow.

Canios stood at the bow, pondering his mission. His Etruscan slave Ino, pointing eastward, suddenly shouted: “Pyxous!”

Canios looked up. In his view, the distant eastern land was nothing more than a thin green ribbon with a small white dot on it—that was Pyxous, once Elea’s sister city, now a den of aliens, a nightmare for Elea.

Canios, while grieving for the former Pyxous people, inwardly resolved: never let Elea suffer the same fate!

Because of the favorable wind, the ship reached Laüs after sailing for two hours.

Canios had been to Laüs before and knew the port well. In those days, although Laüs was occupied by Lucanians, they did not forbid trade with Greeks. But the Lucanian habit of raiding and racial discrimination made its reliability poor, so direct trade between Greeks and Laüs was not very frequent.

But today, what Canios saw at the port of Laüs was this: merchant ships coming and going in a steady stream; each dock packed with laborers loading and unloading goods without pause; the sea surface in the harbor, with its foaming waters, was floating not only ships but also scraps of food and garbage, attracting countless seabirds circling and pecking overhead.