Volume 5: The Hegemon of Southern Italy, Chapter 83: The Battle of the Anleen Hills (Part 2)

“I guarantee my men can cut through in the shortest time!” Matonis, remembering the purpose of his visit, summoned his courage and raised his voice.

Davos’s face darkened. “Nonsense! Do you think this is a rugby game, where you can do whatever you want?! Get back to your battalion immediately. If you affect the entire Army Corps’ assault, the Military Code will not spare you!”

Watching Matonis slink away, Davos turned to Tolmides. “Go tell Amyntas that Matonis asked to replace his battalion, claiming the Third Battalion could do better. Let him handle it.”

Tolmides immediately understood Davos’s intent and spurred his horse away.

Eumachus watched Davos command his officers and soldiers as if they were extensions of his own arm—a stark contrast to the hastily appointed generals of Tarentum. A complex feeling stirred within him.

“Lord Eumachus, let’s head to that hill.” Davos led his guard toward the slope behind them.

“Eh?” Eumachus asked in surprise. “Lord Davos, aren’t we joining the attack?”

“If I join the attack, who will command the battle?” Davos chuckled.

“After the battle starts, is command still necessary?” Eumachus, who had fought many times in his youth, couldn’t understand why a magistrate wouldn’t lead from the front but instead “hide” behind the troops. Yet seeing the soldiers behind Davos—all with expressions of complete normalcy—it was clear they didn’t think their magistrate was a coward.

Eumachus had no choice but to follow, full of doubts.

“Commander, what… what is the combat mission for my battalion?” Izam caught up and directly asked Davos. His men had just finished scouting and were returning from various directions.

“Your battalion…” Davos turned his head and looked at the mountain reconnaissance battalion gathering not far away. He had almost forgotten this important force. After a moment’s thought, he said, “For now, act as reserves. Have them hide in the pass we came through and rest.”

“Ah… reserves?!” Izam was visibly dissatisfied.

“Don’t worry. Mountain combat is your specialty. You’ll have your part to play once the battle starts,” Davos reassured him.

Izam let out a chuckle.

…

“See? I told you it wouldn’t work! You’ve followed Davos this long and still don’t understand him? Once a fight starts, he’s like a different person. No matter how close you are to him normally, he’ll strictly demand you obey orders—otherwise, hmph hmph…” Olivus half-teased, half-comforted Matonis as he returned dejected.

Matonis ignored him and walked straight to his battalion’s military banner.

“Battalion Commander, all companies are formed up!” the adjutant reported.

“Call all company commanders over. I have something to say!” Matonis said with a stern face.

Soon, the five company commanders arrived.

“Listen to me. I have only one demand: every soldier must attack with full force. Our Third Battalion will be the first to break through the enemy’s line!” Matonis looked them straight in the eye and said decisively. “If any company, platoon, squad, or soldier performs poorly, I won’t just scold them—they won’t see a good side of me ever again!”

“Understood!!” The company commanders answered loudly. Instead of feeling pressured, they looked invigorated.

“Brothers, listen up—helmets off!” the platoon leaders ordered.

Though the soldiers complied and removed their heavy Corinthian helmets, some recruits were puzzled. “We’re about to fight—why take off our helmets? Won’t that make us easy to get hurt?”

The veterans, who had been through the Persian expedition and many mountain battles, explained: “We’re climbing up, attacking while looking up. The helmets are too heavy; they make us fall easily. Also, the eye slits are small—when you tilt your head back, the helmet slides and blocks your view, which is bad for fighting…”

“But without helmet protection, we’re vulnerable!” the recruits still worried.

“Aren’t there round shields?” An old soldier demonstrated, propping his round shield above his head and leaning forward at a sharp angle. “See? With the shield and the slope protecting your body, you won’t get hurt!” He sighed. “Too bad we can’t wear our new helmets this time—if we could, climbing and fighting would be no problem!”

…

“Great King, look at the enemy’s right flank!” Pulro, a Peucetii general, pointed down the mountain. Behind the Greek ranks lined up like “blocks,” more troops were flowing steadily toward the far end of the right wing…

“Their right wing has clearly more men than our left! We don’t have that many on our side. To match the length of their line, we’d have to thin out our formation’s depth, weakening our defense. But if we don’t, their soldiers will outflank us from outside our left wing and attack our side…”

Trellemoni frowned deeply, watching the changes below. He understood the enemy’s intent. Seeing that the enemy had only formed preliminary “small blocks” and hadn’t yet linked them into a large phalanx, he thought there was still time to adjust.

The Peucetii army was all positioned on the hilltop, so Davos couldn’t clearly see the total number of the Messapian-Peucetii Allied Forces. In fact, Trellemoni’s army was less than twelve thousand, plus over three thousand Messapian soldiers led by Igrathia, totaling only fifteen thousand. In contrast, the Daonian reinforcements—just the two Daonian Army Corps numbered fourteen thousand, plus a mountain reconnaissance battalion of a thousand, and the three thousand from Heraclea and Metapontum—were fully three thousand more than the opposing Messapian-Peucetii Allied Forces.

Trellemoni’s greatest advantage when outnumbered was the hill; he could not lose the high ground. So he made a swift decision: “Pulro, take fifteen hundred men immediately to reinforce the left wing!”

Just as the Peucetii began hastily pulling troops to move to the left wing, the war trumpets sounded from below.

Trellemoni was stunned: The Greeks are attacking before they’ve even formed their phalanx?

In his puzzled gaze, the “small blocks” formed by the Daonians had already started moving forward slowly. He turned his head to look at his own army. Though the Peucetii didn’t have the tightly packed phalanx of the Greeks, they still had orderly formations. But now, because of the troop redeployment, the soldiers were in complete chaos.

“Pulro, stop the redeployment immediately!” he ordered urgently.

“Yes! But what about the left?”

Trellemoni thought for a moment and said, “Go tell Timocrates to bring all the idle cavalry from the rear to support our left wing!”

Triphyas was equally surprised that the Daonians had started their attack so soon, while his own troops were still on their way to the right flank.

“Lord, what do we do?!” his men asked anxiously.

“First, get to our positions,” Triphyas said, trying to keep calm.

Fortunately, because the Daonian army had moved forward, the mountain pass had become less narrow, making their march easier.

Davos heard the war trumpets and praised, “The First Army Corps is fast!”

Then, trumpets sounded from the right as well.

He nodded. “The Second Army Corps isn’t slow either!”

“Supreme Commander!” Tolmides came up from below, panting. “The forces from Heraclea and Metapontum haven’t reached their designated positions yet. They can’t launch the attack.”

“No worries. A later attack might actually be better,” Davos said calmly, as if everything were under control.

Tolmides was sharp. At Davos’s hint, he immediately understood: The Heraclea and Metapontum soldiers were weaker. If they attacked simultaneously, facing the fierce Messapian-Peucetii Allied Forces from a disadvantageous upward position, they might fail and drag the whole army down. Their lateness would confuse the enemy opposite them, who might get drawn into fighting the Second Army Corps, making Triphyas’s three thousand men a surplus—an unexpected force on the battlefield!

Eumachus couldn’t be as relaxed as Davos. As the trumpets sounded, his heart began to race. His eyes followed the movement of the troops below. A battle of nearly forty thousand men was about to begin—and its outcome would decide the fate of the Tarentine army…

And the Tarentine army, whose fate was to be decided, was not far from this battlefield. On the narrow, winding mountain pass, their six-mile-long marching column had been ambushed by the Messapians, thrown into chaos and panic, completely losing organization and command, each man fighting on his own.

Diomilas no longer had time to regret not listening to Davos earlier. He shouted loudly, trying to rouse the nearby soldiers to fight bravely for survival. But in the chaotic battlefield, his voice was like a pebble thrown into a raging river—it had no effect.

The Messapians’ attacks from both sides gradually squeezed them tightly together on the pass, making it hard even to swing their spears.

Diomilas’s ears were filled with the screams of his soldiers, and despair slowly set in…

Just then, commotion rippled through the battlefield, friend and foe alike.

“War trumpets! War trumpets! Our reinforcements are coming!!” The soldiers’ cheers reached Daiomelas’s numb ears, jolting him. He listened carefully.

The overwhelming noise could not drown out the sharp war trumpets, which broke through the din, faintly echoing through the valley of shouts and slaughter…

Daiomelas’s mind immediately conjured Davos’s image. At this moment, he felt no aversion—only joy. He shouted, “Citizens, hold fast! The Daonians are coming!…”

He didn’t need to say more; the soldiers had already seen hope of survival, and their morale surged. But the Messapians intensified their attacks…