Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 1017: The Naval Battle of Carthage (2)
The Magonid faction opposed continuing the peace talks. They argued that the terms proposed by the King of Daonia fully exposed the greed and ambition of the Theonians. Daionia intended to seize the lands and wealth controlled by Carthage, shatter its hegemony, and reduce it to an ordinary city-state—an outcome no citizen could accept! The Senators had to abandon their illusions of peace, steel their resolve, and throw all their might into supporting the Carthaginian army in Sicily. If they fought Daionia to the bitter end, time might just bring a turning point in the war!
Meanwhile, the Neutral Faction led by Adrusbal argued that negotiations could continue, but without any rush. They proposed dragging the talks out while ramping up military support for Mago and Morbal. A victory or two, they hoped, would curb the arrogant attitude of the Theonians and pave the way for smoother negotiations.
For days, the Senate had been embroiled in bitter debate over the prospect of peace, unable to reach a final resolution. However, the tide was increasingly turning in favor of the Magonid faction. Word of the peace talks had leaked, and as the public learned of Daionia's harsh demands, their outrage eclipsed their fear of the Daunian Navy's threat to Africa. The people passionately demanded that the Senate fight Daionia to the bitter end.
The City of Carthage had been in an uproar over the past few days, with crowds gathering on every corner to denounce Daionia's shameless greed. Thus, when the Daonian Fleet attacked today, numerous Carthaginian merchant ship owners banded together and sought out Morbal, eagerly volunteering for battle. This was particularly striking given that, despite the Carthaginian Fleet's victory in the previous naval engagement, their merchant vessels had suffered devastating losses; more than half of the owners and crews had never returned to port.
“Hmph! If we win this naval battle, why even bother with peace talks?” Pretasdrubal declared loudly from the sidelines. “Our fleet can keep fighting, claiming a second and then a third victory until we finally wrest back control over the waters of Western Sicily. Once we do, Lord Mago's forces won't have to worry about grain shipments anymore. They'll be free to wage an all-out war against the Daionian Army, and the entire tide of this conflict will turn in our favor!”
Okriton opened his mouth to argue, but Hanno interrupted, his voice ringing with solemnity. “We all hope so! May Baal Hammon bless Carthage!” With those words, he actually closed his eyes and began to pray.
Seeing this, the surrounding Senators immediately bowed their heads in devout prayer. In a matter of seconds, the atmosphere along the city walls descended into deep, solemn reverence.
Their prayers, however, seemed to have little effect. Although the Carthaginian merchant vessels successfully disrupted the Daonian Fleet's formation and granted the Carthaginian Fleet the upper hand in the initial clash, this advantage was minor. In its standard Starry Sky formation, Daionia invariably positioned its Corvus Warships at the very vanguard of an assault, and today was no exception. The chaotic formation did hamper the advancing speed of all the Warships, but utilizing speed to ram the enemy was never the Corvus Warship's strong suit anyway. Its true lethality lay in the twelve-meter-long, highly maneuverable drawbridge mounted at its bow. Even if the Warship sat completely stationary, merely sweeping its bow back and forth posed a grave threat to any approaching Warship.
The broken formation did mean that the rear Warships could not promptly reinforce the vanguard Corvus Warships, particularly when their drawbridges were locked onto enemy hulls. The Carthaginian double-column formation was perfectly designed to exploit this—using speed to slice straight into enemy lines and relentlessly isolating vessels to outnumber them in local skirmishes. Pulling this off required supreme sailing prowess, which happened to be the very thing the Carthaginians excelled at most.
As a result, a brutal cycle repeated itself across the battlefield during the early stages of the engagement. A Corvus Warship would slam its drawbridge down, locking onto a Carthaginian Trireme Warship. The Daonian Fleet Infantry would flood the enemy deck—only for their own Corvus Warship to be violently rammed by a trailing Carthaginian Warship before any friendly reinforcements could arrive, sending it slowly to the bottom of the sea. Moreover, the Carthaginian oarsmen, ignited by the heroism of the merchant vessels and the desperate hopes of their families watching from the shore, refused to cower before the forty Daonian Fleet Infantry storming their lower holds. Grabbing their wooden oars and drawing their recently issued daggers—a cheap, easy-to-supply weapon that did not encumber their rowing—they put up a ferocious, unyielding resistance.Even heavily armored and forged by years of rigorous military training, the Daonian Fleet Infantry found it nearly impossible to defeat almost two hundred highly motivated Carthaginian sailors and completely secure a vessel without suffering casualties and losing precious time.
The Daunian 3rd Fleet found itself at a disadvantage in the opening phase of the clash. However, tempered by years of grueling training and their harrowing experiences during the naval battle of Sardinia, the crews maintained an unwavering faith that no matter how dire the situation appeared, victory would ultimately belong to them. Thus, they fought with equal ferocity, doing everything in their power to correct their earlier mistakes.
As time wore on, the Third Fleet steadily reversed their early decline. The primary reason for this shift was that both sides' Warships were now fully engaged; the battle had devolved from an initial tactical contest into an all-out melee. This chaotic reality vastly favored the Daonian Fleet, whose crews trained relentlessly year-round. A deadly synergy began to manifest between the Corvus Warships, which excelled at boarding actions, and the Fast Trireme Warships, which specialized in nimble, high-speed assaults.
Conversely, the Carthaginian Fleet fielded only a single type of Trireme Warship. Because the Carthaginian Senate wanted to build more Warships as rapidly as possible for their new fleet, they had temporarily excluded more time-consuming models like the Quadrireme and the Double-Headed Dragon Warship from their construction plans. This uniformity made their tactical coordination inherently monotonous. The Carthaginian crews found themselves stretched thin—forced to constantly evade the devastating drawbridges of the approaching Corvus Warships while simultaneously guarding against the sudden, ghost-like ambushes of the Fast Warships. Attempting to manage both threats often left them fatally exposed.
As the naval battle reached a fever pitch, the majority of the Carthaginian merchant vessels had already sunk. The few survivors did not dare linger in the killing zone. The waters were simply too choked with Warships. Sailors on both sides were entirely consumed by a life-and-death struggle—charging, circling, pivoting, and ramming without pause. No Warship was going to swerve to spare a merchant vessel, and a mere glancing blow was enough to capsize one. Even the fiercely arrogant Baricus had been forced to steer his merchant ship away from the slaughter and retreat to the coastline.
The moment he stepped ashore, the Carthaginian crowds bowed to him in deep reverence. Applause and deafening cheers followed as they chanted his name, showering him with the welcome befitting a true hero.
Swelling with inevitable pride, Baricus basked in the adoration of the swarming crowds. He animatedly boasted of his harrowing exploits, recounting exactly how he had steered his merchant ship through the chaos to make fools of the Daonian Warships.
Just as his tales were pulling the portside crowd into a state of awed rapture, a sudden commotion rippled down the length of the beach. Shocked voices began to cry out, “Our fleet! I think they're retreating!”
“That's impossible!” Baricus bellowed, eager to shut down such loathsome voices. He refused to believe that the golden opportunity purchased by the blood and sacrifice of his fellow sailors was being thrown away.
Yet, out on the distant waves, every single Carthaginian Warship was undeniably retreating.
The battle had raged on for so long that even Midorades had committed his Flagship into the fray. The sole vessel that remained unengaged was the Carthaginian Flagship carrying Morbal. It hovered safely just outside the battlefield, where the lookout on the mainmast constantly relayed the flow of the battle to Morbal down on the deck. Relying on these reports to assess the tactical situation, Morbal realized that the Carthaginian Fleet had lost its initial advantage. Once the clash devolved into a gridlocked melee against the Daonian Fleet, he knew the tide had turned against them.
Without hesitation, he ordered a dozen buglers to sound the retreat.
Having received strict instructions from Morbal before they ever set sail, the Carthaginian captains did not hesitate for a second upon hearing the blaring horns. They immediately spun their helms and began to withdraw.
Naval combat was not like land warfare. Even in the midst of a chaotic melee, Warships required sufficient space to fight. The gaps between the vessels remained relatively large; if a captain chose to retreat, it was exceedingly difficult for the enemy to actually encircle them.
Furthermore, the Daonian Fleet suffered from a minor weakness: its core Corvus Warships simply could not match the raw speed of a standard Trireme Warship. If an enemy fully committed to fleeing, they were very difficult to catch. Meanwhile, the Fast Warships—renowned for their agility and speed—were smaller and possessed weaker defenses than an average Trireme Warship. They did not dare stray too far from the Corvus Warships to pursue the enemy for long, lest they suffer a counterattack. Thus, after paying a certain price, the Carthaginian Fleet managed to break away from the battlefield and retreat toward the east.
When Midorades grasped the sudden shift in the battle, he was absolutely unwilling to let the Carthaginian Fleet—which he had worked so hard to lure out—safely escape into port without major casualties. He immediately ordered the fleet to maintain its general formation and launch a relentless pursuit!
As the Carthaginian Fleet retreated, the Third Fleet dogged their tails relentlessly, leaving no time to pause. The original battlefield was left littered with sailors floating in the sea, shattered timber, oarsmen killed or wounded by the Daonian Fleet Infantry, and heavily damaged Warships sitting dead in the water...
From the beach, Baricus watched the aftermath unfold. Though worried that the fleet might suffer another defeat, he was far more concerned for his countrymen soaking in the sea. Raising an arm high, he roared, “Follow me! Let's go rescue our brave warriors!”
With that, he and his crew shoved their beached cargo ship back into the surf and steered toward the battlefield. The few remaining merchant vessels quickly followed suit.
Inspired by his actions, numerous civilians from the port scrambled to launch their own fishing boats, rushing out to the battlefield to rescue their compatriots.