Chapter 560: With strength and to spare, one must pursue the quivering foe

Macias led the soldiers to forcibly enter the village and ordered the villagers to prepare food.

After barely filling up their stomachs, the exhausted soldiers went to sleep, except for Macias, who couldn’t sleep as he tossed and turned around in his bed. The report about the revolt in Syracuse made him worried about the situation of the mercenary’s villages outside the city of Syracuse, and the tragic situation of the villages under the mercenary in Catania alarmed him more. Yet he could only hope that the hundreds of mercenaries he left behind in the village could defend their homes! After all, he could only lead his troops back to Syracuse tomorrow. By then, more than a day had already passed since the revolt, and many things could happen at that time. Once the rebels occupy the whole city, they would expel the mercenaries, who have a close relationship with Dionysius, making them landless. Thus he prayed for Philistus to quell the revolt. But if he couldn’t, he must at least control and hold on to a part of the city and wait for their arrival!

Apart from worrying about Syracuse, he was also worried about how to lead the army back safely. On his way to Megalos, he led the army northward along the flat coast, passed through Taunis, then passed through Leontinoi to recruit soldiers and then passed through Catania to finally reach Sikuri. Thus it is reasonable to say that he was the one who took away the defenders of these city-states and allowed the rebels to lead a large-scale revolt.

But now wasn’t the time for him to regret that. From what happened today, the rebels should have completely occupied Catania. Otherwise, how could they have spare strength to send troops out of the city to attack them? While Sikuri, even though it wasn’t fully occupied, was so close to the Theonians that it was only a matter of time before it fell. Leontinoi, on the other hand, had half of their population forcefully transferred by Dionysius, and those who were left behind had long held a grudge against Syracuse. So even if there were no freemen and slaves to rebel, the citizens would automatically revolt to overthrow the tyrants supported by Dionysius. Thus, Macias didn’t think Leontinoi, that was near Syracuse, could resist the large-scale revolt.

On the contrary, Macias had some confidence in Taunis as they had always been a subordinate ally of Syracuse and had never betrayed them. Although they were dissatisfied with the tyrant that Syracuse supported, they wouldn’t rashly attack the Syracusan army. Moreover, the Syracusan fleet had anchored in Taunis’ port after their defeat in the Gulf of Naxos, so the revolt’s chance to succeed wouldn’t be too great, even if there was one.

Thus Macias finally decided that starting tomorrow, his team would bypass Catania, avoid Leontinoi’s possible attack, walk along the coast, pass Taunis and finally arrive at Syracuse… Although it would be a long journey filled with unknown risks, he still had to take the risk to get back to Syracuse as soon as possible. On the other hand, the safer path would be to bypass the coast and detour the almost uninhabited mountainous area on the west side of Leontinoi. Although the mountain isn’t too high, the roads are rugged and complex, which will undoubtedly slow their travel and food would also become a big problem…

Macias continued to ponder, but he still couldn’t resist his drowsiness and finally fell asleep…

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

Late morning of the next day, the guards woke up the still sleeping Macias to report that something had happened during his sleep: When the soldiers woke up in the morning, they noticed that dozens of their horses were gone, and more than half of the villagers had disappeared. Naturally, the soldiers became angry and suspected it was the villagers, so they immediately arrested and interrogated the remaining villagers. In the process, the former mercenaries, who had recovered their energy, began looting, raping, killing…and other common evil things they did during their conquest of Sicily with Dionysius had now recurred in the village.

That naturally provoked the resentment of a small number of the mercenaries from Catania as this village belonged to them. So when the two sides broke out in conflict, the angry Catanian mercenaries left the group, which sharply reduced the number of the whole army to 3,000.

Macias didn’t do anything when faced with such a difficult situation. On the contrary, he even thought that without the Catanians dragging their feet, their marching speed would be faster, and their food consumption would be less, not to mention the other annoying problems. Although they were once comrades and fought side by side until today and had a deep friendship, they could only look after themselves when faced with great difficulties.

Macias then ordered the soldiers to take all the food in the village and depart at once.

Under Macias’ urging, this team of more than 3,000 men, almost all former mercenaries, hastily departed with the expectation of returning to Syracuse and defending their land as soon as possible.

On their travel southeast, they met with scattered groups of soldiers from time to time, so Macias took this opportunity to include them in his team.

At the same time, enemy scouts were watching them. Yet Macias could only send the cavalries to drive them away while urging the soldiers to speed up their march.

Then his premonition came true. Soon, a team of more than seven hundred armourless men, armed with bows and javelins, came from the northeast and launched range attacks on Macias’ army.

Macias was almost sure that the enemy was from Catania, so he hurriedly ordered the soldiers to strike back.

But just as the Syracusan soldiers started to form up and attack, these light infantry from Catania retreated. But as they resumed their column formation and continued their march, the enemy appeared again.

After this incident happened several times, Macias understood that the Catanian rebels only wanted to assault them but didn’t want to fight a head-on battle.

With the javelins and arrows continuing to take his soldiers’ lives and destroying their already low morale, Macias could no longer ignore them. Hence he arranged the remaining 50 cavalries and nearly 500 light infantries in the rear to resist the enemy’s attack. However, he did not allow the soldiers to pursue the enemy as that would only consume their stamina, separate them from the main group and make them vulnerable to ambushes. Besides, their only goal was to return home.

In the afternoon, the Syracusan army stopped after exiting the Catanian plain. A flat and narrow coastal path appeared in front of them, with the sea to the east and mountains to the west.

Macias was worried about the Leontinoi rebels appearing, but thankfully they did not. And probably because the narrowness of the terrain limited the mobility of the Catanian rebels, they stopped attacking the group’s rear, which relieved the Syracusan soldiers.

Then the Syracusan army stepped up their march as the city of Taunis was only 5 kilometres away.

But once the city of Taunis came into the defeated Syracusan’s sight, who had thought they had escaped a great disaster, they were surprised to see that not far north of Taunis, a force of more than 4,000 men arranged in a neat phalanx formation, blocked the coastal path. Furthermore, the full black armour of most of the soldiers made their excitement plummet down to the bottom, ‘It’s the Theonians! It’s the Theonian legions! How come they are in front of us?!!…’

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

Yesterday’s bitter battle had ended with the defeat of the Syracusan army.

While Theonia’s first legion pursued the enemy, Antonios went to meet Antrapolis’ messenger and learned that they had captured Catania and the revolt in Syracuse was successful. Thus Antonios became relieved after knowing that the first legion had finally gained a firm foothold in Sicily after paying the price.

But while rejoicing, he still could not relax as Antrapolis hoped that the first legion would be able to intercept the Syracusan army from returning to Syracuse and bringing significant variables to their operations.

However, Antonios really didn’t want to listen to his advice. Although the first legion won in the end, they suffered nearly a thousand casualties, with several senior officers dying and even his close comrade Cid had remained unconscious. Out of the 8,000 men before the outbreak of the war(which excluded the auxiliary troops), only around 4,000 men remained. So with the number of people dropping by more than half by paying a huge sacrifice, it is indeed the time for them to take a rest and replenish. Unfortunately, their current environment doesn’t allow it, and the danger hasn’t passed with them only missing one last step.

Antonios, of course, did not want the first legion’s expedition to fail just because those defeated soldiers fled back to Syracuse. And the habit of the legion, “The Theonian legion always took advantage of the victory to pursuit until it ends”, made him reluctantly agree to Antrapolis’ proposal to join forces with the Catanians and wipe out the Syracusan army, who were on the way back to Syracuse.

After seeing off the messenger, Antonios was lost in his thoughts until he arrived at the port, where the Theonian fleet’s sailors guided the exiles’ families off the ship.

Antonios soon met and discussed with Fulalios, who took over Seclian’s place in commanding the fleet. After Fulalios agreed,  the fleet no longer returned to Rhegium. Instead, they would spend the night in Megalos to participate in the military operations the next day.

However, the port of Megalos had no military port or a dry dock for berthing. Thus they could only take a risk* by pushing the ships of the Theonian fleet onto the beach. (One of the main reasons Lysander could completely wipe out the Athenian fleet in the Battle of the Aegospotami was that the Athenians moored their ships on the beach. Hence when the Athenians encountered a surprise attack, they didn’t have the time to sail to sea to escape…)

For this reason, Fulalios led the sailors and, with the help of the exiles, towed the ships to the beach one by one, then set up a strict sentry post and asked the lookout of the lighthouse to monitor the sea closely, and arranged all the boats to patrol the bay in turn throughout the night.

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