ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 509 Battle of Crotone ([-])

Davers obviously did not have the patience to wait for the opponent to finish, and immediately gave the order: "Attack!"

Dozens of buglers, evenly arranged behind the huge array, blew their bugles one after another.

"Woo!!!..." A majestic trumpet soared into the sky.

"Avenge Commander Drakos and the brothers who died in the battle!" The soldiers of the Fourth and Fifth Legions located in the middle of the huge phalanx shouted first, and soon received responses from other troops. The cry of revenge replaced Hades. When the voices of the same enemies echoed together, the morale of the Dionian soldiers had risen to its peak.

"Cunning Davos! Damn Davos!" Dionysius yelled angrily. The superior Syracuse army was repeatedly taken over by the Dionians. This made it difficult for them since they landed in Magna Greece. , he felt suffocated while going smoothly on land.Before the soldiers of Syracuse finished praying, the enemy had already begun to attack. Due to the tactical arrangement, he could not wait for the soldiers to finish praying before moving forward. Therefore, this would inevitably have an impact on the morale of the soldiers, and he could only comfort himself. : That young man can only play tricks, and the real decision to win or lose depends on strength!
"Attack!" He shouted angrily with a hideous face.

On the afternoon of the last day of 394 BC, on the Croton Plain, a major battle began to determine the overlord of the Greek city-states in the Western Mediterranean.

戴奥尼亚联盟一方拥有第一军团5000多人、第二军团7000多人、第四和第五军团1万两千多人、第六和第七军团14000人、长枪大队6000人、希罗尼穆斯所征召的布鲁提战士5000人、克罗托内与特里纳援军5000人、再加上骑兵军团约1500人、山岭侦查大队1000人、还有护卫队300人，戴奥尼亚总兵力为58000多人。

Davos placed the seventh legion led by Martonis on the far right, near the Tachinadi River, and then arranged them to the left in sequence, including Olivers' sixth legion and Hieronymus's Brutian warriors. , the fourth legion of Epithenes, the fifth legion of Felicius, the second legion of Amyntas, the first legion of Antonius, Crotone-Trina reinforcements, Ledes's The cavalry corps was located on the far left, and the pike brigade led by Cappus was arranged in columns, perpendicular to the phalanx, behind the Cote reinforcements.The left flanks of the Cutter reinforcements and the First and Second Corps formed a row with a thickness of 15 columns in accordance with Davers' special instructions, and the thickness of the other troops was 8-10 columns.

The cavalry regiment is the most special. They try their best to spread to the left and back in a loose formation, trying to occupy a large area. They not only cover the enemy's detection of their own long-haired brigade, but also achieve another goal before the battle.

When the Syracuse army landed in Magna Graecia, it had 80000 infantry, 2000 Numibian cavalry, 800 Celtic cavalry, and 1000 Sicilian League cavalry. It lost about 4000 people in the Battle of the Ramato River. Later, it was considered Rennia surrendered and provided 4000 soldiers. Coupled with the addition of some troops from Locri's allies, Syracuse's army strength exceeded 9.

However, the two newly conquered city-states of Xiliting and Trina need to arrange garrison troops. In particular, the number of garrison troops required by Xiliting as a logistics supply base for the army cannot be small to prevent Dionia from attacking from the direction of Bruti. and its naval raids from the sea.The camp facing Asprostum also needed to be garrisoned to prevent the enemy from attacking the rear of the army from Asprostum during the battle.In this way, a total of nearly 3000 people were separated.

After capturing the city of Crotone, the Syracuse army later counted about 7000 dead and seriously injured soldiers.The Dionysian Navy fought on the sea surface of Crotone. Leptinis listened to the advice of Dionysius and sent 9000 elite soldiers to fight on the warships. The result was a disastrous defeat, with the loss of about 7000 soldiers. Therefore, the total strength of the Syracuse infantry who finally participated in this battle was 62000, plus 3500 cavalry (lost in the Battle of the Ramato River and the looting of the Dionian land), a total of 65500 people, a full 7500 more than Dionia's troops.Among them, there are more than twice as many cavalry as Dionysia cavalry.

Therefore, after Phoebidas had a preliminary understanding of Dionia's military formation, he discussed with Dionysius: to send the weaker coalition forces of other city-states in Sicily, plus the troops of the Locri League, about 18000 people from France. The commander of Sipesas was placed on the left; there were 1 Campania mercenaries and 9000 Syracuse citizen soldiers, led by Dionysius himself in the center; while the right wing was composed of 15000 Campania mercenaries and 1 Syracuse militiamen who had been following Dionysius for many years. There were 3500 elite soldiers in the battle (mainly mercenaries, who were later given citizenship and land to Syracuse by Dionysius, and they were the most loyal to Dionysius), and [-] Syracuse citizen soldiers were led by Phoebe. Das led; the far right wing was [-] cavalry. Since the mercenary cavalry did not act according to the prior plan in the last battle, not only did Dionysius repeatedly warn the two foreign leaders before this battle, And let the grumpy and fierce Astagras serve as the temporary commander of the cavalry from three different forces to facilitate the execution of the plan.

The attack bugle sounded, and Dionia's left, center, and right armies advanced steadily forward at the same time. The light infantrymen of the seventh brigade of each legion quickly passed through the intervals of the "checkerboard" small square formation. In front of the formation, rush towards the enemy's formation in a loose formation.Another reason why they are advancing so fast is to force the enemy cavalry wandering in front of the formation to retreat, so that they can no longer observe some subsequent movements of the Dionian army.The mercenary cavalry also retreated to the right wing of Syracuse's formation as they wished, taking a short rest to prepare for the next attack.

Syracuse's light infantry had long been deployed in front of the array, and they stepped forward without showing any weakness.

When the main force of the heavy infantry of the two sides was still 500 meters away, more than 1 light infantry of the two sides had already started fighting.For a time, on a horizontal line about eight or nine miles long from west to east, arrows were like rain and javelins were like hail. They collided continuously in mid-air, and then stabbed the bodies of the soldiers and took away their lives...

Compared with the left, center and right of the Dionysian army formation, which all advance at almost the same speed, the situation in Syracuse is different. Its left and center main army formations advance at a slower speed. The right road is making great strides forward.

Phoebias was the leader of the front line on the right wing. This powerful right wing with a thickness of 25000 rows, composed of 25 elite soldiers from Syracuse, faced the enemy in front at twice the pace of the soldiers in the center. Gradually, Begin to break away from the middle.

The cavalry on the far right was faster.As soon as the trumpet sounded, more than 3500 cavalrymen accelerated forward with a front that was more than a mile long and wide. The horses with four hooves quickly increased their speed.

800 Celtic cavalry are at the forefront. This group of fierce races from the foot of the Alps and living on the Po River plain. Their cavalry tactics are different from the fast and erratic Numibian cavalry. They disdain to lure the enemy, harass, and throw. He used a javelin to kill the enemy, and he was better at face-to-face charging and fighting, especially driving a chariot to attack the enemy's tight military formation. It was only because he was hired by Syracuse and the distance was long that it was inconvenient to transport chariots, so he did not carry it.But even without chariots, the impact of Celtic cavalry is still terrible. Most of their cavalry are armed with swords instead of spears, which makes it easier to cut the opponent's neck in cavalry battles, so Astagras will Arrange at the forefront and use its powerful lethality to disrupt the enemy's cavalry formation.

Subsequently, more than 1800 Numibian cavalry inflicted heavy losses on the enemy cavalry. The last Sicilian cavalry, led by Astagras, just cleaned up the mess, restrained these mercenary cavalry, not to pursue, and attacked the rear of the enemy's left wing together. .Thousands of war horses galloped, raising dust and mist all over the sky again, as if hundreds of war drums were beating at the same time, and the earth was trembling.

The more than 1500 cavalrymen of Dionia are also moving forward, but not as fast as the enemy. What is particularly special is that the cavalry horses at the rear are dragging branches on their tails, making it easier to stir up dust on the ground.

When he was still more than 200 meters away from the enemy cavalry, the commander of the cavalry regiment, Ledes, looked back at the dust and mist that had begun to spread behind him, and nervously shouted to the several trumpeter cavalry who were following him: "Retreat!"

Even if several bugles are blown at the same time, there is no guarantee that the Dionysian cavalry, which is also in a loose formation and has a frontal formation length of nearly a mile, can hear all of them on the battlefield where the thunderous sound of horse hooves is heard. Fortunately, they have passed through many times before. During the next training session, the cavalrymen were always paying attention to the movements of their teammates nearby.

Just when all the Dionysian cavalry turned their horses and ran back, the Syracuse cavalry had already approached within [-] meters. The roaring hoofbeats behind them struck Leders' nervous heart. He urged his horses forward while staring ahead. , when he saw the wall of people, his heart suddenly jumped up: "Turn!" He shouted, turning his horse to gallop to the left.

There was no need for him to shout. All the Dionian cavalry who could see this scene quickly separated to both sides based on their previous training.

The cavalry in the rear are always watching the movements in front, and when they see their comrades changing direction, they immediately follow the change.

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

When Dionia's attack bugle sounded, the spear brigade did not immediately advance with the other armies, but quickly lengthened the column and immediately moved to the position of the original cavalry, forming a mile-long, thick A phalanx of ten columns stood alone behind the entire army.

Although Capps, who was at the rear of the phalanx, was already a battle-experienced general, he was also feeling extremely nervous at the moment: although the tactics used to deal with the enemy cavalry this time were similar to those during the Battle of the Trionto River, the scale of the war was much larger. Several times, the enemy's cavalry is also more powerful, but the quality of the soldiers he leads is not as good as that of the original group of soldiers from the Persian Expeditionary Force. Can they withstand the thousands of enemy cavalry charging forward? !

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(End of this chapter)