Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 1013: Infiltration

Tolmides was stunned; he truly hadn't considered this angle.

Davos stood up and said decisively, "It seems we must send more reinforcements to Selinus. We won't feed them in piece by piece. Dispatch the Sixth Legion, the Roman Reserve Cohort, Potentia, and the Samnite Reinforcements directly to Selinus. Place them under the command of Amyntas."

Tolmides was startled. "Your Majesty, if you send both the Sixth Legion and the Roman Reserve Cohort to Selinus, you will only have the Fourth Legion of Theonia and the Ninth Legion left at your side. What if Mago sends his main army to attack Minoa..."

Davos replied calmly, "I do not think Mago will readily abandon all the effort he has poured into Selinus lately. If he truly throws caution to the wind and leads his army against Minoa, I would welcome him wasting what little time he has left. Furthermore, we can now have Alexis execute our plan."

"But doing this leaves Minoa's defenses even more—" Tolmides raised his voice to warn him again.

Davos smiled faintly. "If Mago dares to throw the troops he originally meant for defending Segesta into a siege, we can hardly leave Lizarus and Epithenes sitting idle. We can transfer them to Minoa."

Hearing this, both Tolmides and Plintors felt a jolt of shock. Just days ago, His Majesty was talking about not pulling the noose too tight lest the Carthaginian army fight back like cornered beasts. Now, barely a few days later, he was ordering the trailing Third Legion of Theonia and the Lucalian Reserve Legion to advance to Minoa. Was the final decisive battle about to begin?!

Looking at Davos's tranquil face, the two men responded forcefully, "Yes, Your Majesty!"

...

By noon, the earthen ramp built by the Carthaginians finally connected with the walls of Selinunte. Fortunately, the Daionian defenders had raised the wall's height at the junction with pre-prepared wooden barricades, preventing the Carthaginian soldiers from immediately surging onto the battlements.

However, the wooden barricades were ultimately not sturdy enough. Driven forward by their officers and braving a rain of javelins from the city's watchtowers, the Carthaginian soldiers relentlessly burned and battered the defenses with rolling logs. After suffering heavy casualties, they shattered the wooden walls in the afternoon and flooded onto the ramparts.

The Daionian defenders were stretched to their breaking point. They had to endure ranged attacks from the earthen mounds outside the city, repel the enemies swarming up the walls from below, stay vigilant against sudden sapper tunnels, and commit heavy forces to block the enemies rushing the battlements via the earthen ramp. Their manpower was so depleted that even Amyntas took up a shield and spear, preparing to join the fray himself.

At this critical juncture, the Sixth Legion and the Roman Reserve Cohort—totaling sixteen thousand men, including the Roman Aristocracy soldiers integrated into the legion—arrived by sea. Together, they finally beat back the exhausted Carthaginians.

Though the Carthaginian army had been repulsed, Mago did not feel discouraged. In fact, Daionia reinforcing Selinus excited him. His original plan—to draw out the main Daionian Army for a decisive battle by assaulting Selinus—was beginning to materialize. Judging from today's battle, once the walls of Selinunte were connected to the ramp, the Theonians' defensive advantage plummeted. Tomorrow, when he mustered the entire army for the siege and unleashed the Celts and Lusitanians to scale the walls, would the Theonians still be able to hold them back? Would they send even more reinforcements? Should he build a few more ramps connecting to the wall so more soldiers could storm the battlements and fight the Theonians head-on?

Sitting in his command tent, Mago pondered the siege plans for the following day.

Just then, his Adjutant entered the tent and reported, "Lord Mago, news has arrived from Segesta. The Theonians have launched a surprise attack on the Sicanian Territory. The Sicel forces and the three thousand Numidian soldiers we stationed there have all been routed."

Mago furrowed his brow. "When did this happen?"

"This afternoon."

Originally, the Sicanian Territory was garrisoned by Hasdrubal and his force of over thirty thousand troops, primarily to keep an eye on the Daionian Army coming from the eastern mountains. However, after the Sicels—led by the Taknian tribe—entered their sworn enemies' lands, some conflicts erupted with the Sikanoi. With Hasdrubal present, these disputes were always smoothed over.

A while ago, when the Theonians attacked Palermo, the Sicels had been unwilling to march with the army. Before Hasdrubal led his troops to reinforce the city, he specifically separated the Sicels' encampment from the Sikanoi and left behind a few thousand Numidian soldiers, hoping the area would remain peaceful until he returned. Unexpectedly, Hasdrubal's troops were later recalled by Mago to the Carthaginian camp at Selinus, and the Sicanian Territory seemed to become a forgotten corner for the Carthaginians. Because the three factions within the territory could hardly present a united front, it was only natural that they were swiftly defeated when ambushed by the Daionian Army.

Mago's brow smoothed out. "Do we know how many men the Theonians mobilized?"

"According to the cavalry scouts, roughly ten thousand."

"Only ten thousand or so." Mago felt a pang of disappointment. He had deliberately left the Sicanian Territory vulnerable to lure the Theonians into attacking. "Where are these Theonians now?"

"They retreated to the west."

"What? They ran?!" Mago scowled again. Just moments ago he had been hesitating: should he send Hasdrubal with tens of thousands of troops to devour this enemy force? Or should he simply ignore them, lure even more Theonians into the Sicanian Territory, and perhaps wait until they attacked nearby Segesta before massing his army to annihilate them? Yet the Theonians had simply slipped away after their ambush.

Feeling as though he had punched thin air, Mago glared at his Adjutant and roared, "Next time you report, do not give it to me in pieces! Say it all at once!"

The Adjutant felt wronged, but he could only nod and agree.

Mago made up his mind, then told his Adjutant, "There's no longer any need to garrison the Sicanian Territory. Gather the routed stragglers and bring them all back to camp."

...

When Alexis led the Tenth Legion and a portion of the Fourth Legion of Theonia in their surprise attack on the Sicanian Territory, the scouting cavalry relayed the news back to the camp. At the time, Mago was leading the siege, and the Adjutant hadn't dared to interrupt him during such a critical moment of the battle. However, there was one unit that held the autonomous authority to deploy: the cavalry.

Mago had a full seven thousand cavalrymen under his command. The vast majority of them were Numidian Cavalry, moving as swiftly as the wind. They preferred to kill their enemies by hurling javelins and rarely engaged in head-on melee combat. Ever since Mago had retreated with his army to Western Sicily, the Daionian Army had entrenched themselves and refused to come out. Instead, they leveraged their naval superiority to frequently dispatch fleets and harass his rear. Consequently, Mago ordered his cavalry to patrol the western coast every day. If they spotted the enemy, they could launch a preemptive strike to delay their movements, allowing the main army time to arrive and wipe them out. Given the characteristics of the Numidian Cavalry, he wasn't worried about them suffering heavy losses.

Thus, upon receiving the news that the Theonians had attacked the Sicanian Territory, the idle cavalry in the camp rapidly rushed to the scene. To their surprise, the Theonians quickly retreated into the mountains. As a result, the cavalrymen—who had intended to slay enemies and earn merits—were forced to perform the menial chore of rounding up stragglers.

Just as Mago was returning to his command tent, on the northwest side of the Carthaginian camp, a routed Numidian soldier stood before Tinum, the chieftain of the Massylii Tribe, inside a tent in the Numidian cavalry encampment.

"I wondered who wanted to see me. To think it was you, Ginomus! How could your father bear to let you join such a terrible war?" Tinum said with a hint of surprise.

"In the eyes of the Carthaginians, we Numidians have no distinction between noble and common. We only have one identity: their slaves," Ginomus said indignantly. "Our tribe's population has been shrinking year after year. Just to meet the troop quota the Carthaginians forced upon us, I had to come, even if I didn't want to fight in this war!"

Chieftain Tinum fell silent for a moment. After a long pause, he simply said, "Carthage has indeed been somewhat harsh toward your tribe!"

Ginomus looked at him and sneered inwardly. He knew the chieftain's resentment toward Carthage fell far short of his own deep-seated grievance. This was because Tinum was a West Numidian, whereas he was an East Numidian.

In truth, the Numidia region was divided into East and West entirely because of Carthage. The Carthaginians referred to the Numidians living inland from Carthage and the coastal Phoenician Allied States of Africa as East Numidians. Meanwhile, those living further inland to the west, far beyond the reach of Carthaginian influence, were called West Numidians.

Long ago, because the East Numidians lived close to Carthage and the Phoenicians, travel between them was convenient and interactions were frequent. Not only did they trade regularly, but under the influence of Carthaginian culture, the various tribes of East Numidia had gradually transitioned from their original nomadic lifestyle to a semi-agricultural, semi-pastoral one. With relatively abundant food and richer material wealth, East Numidia boasted a large population. Conversely, the West Numidians had remained entirely nomadic. They suffered from poor food supplies and a smaller population. Furthermore, their tribes frequently warred with one another over pastures. Sometimes, driven by climate shifts, shrinking pastures, and food shortages, they had no choice but to beg the East Numidians for grain aid. This was precisely how the Massylii Tribe had become acquainted with Ginomus's tribe.

However, starting twenty years ago, the Carthaginians were no longer satisfied with limiting their territory to the coast. Coveting the vast inland expanses, they gradually changed their previous strategy toward the Numidians. They constantly employed tactics of provocation, division, and alienation against the tribes of East Numidia, and initiated military conquests from north to south—a campaign of force that reached its peak after Hanno took power. Toward the West Numidians, on the other hand, Carthage adopted a policy of bribery and co-optation. They provided the western tribes with cheap grain and hired their people as auxiliary cavalry to fight in Carthaginian wars. They even deliberately inflamed the tensions between the East and West Numidians (since the East Numidians had historically been wealthy while the West Numidians were impoverished, and because the westerners frequently had to ask the easterners for help, the easterners often treated them with arrogance and disdain). The Carthaginians even involved the West Numidians in the war to conquer East Numidia. Thus, despite being of the same race, it was not surprising that Tinum held such an attitude.