Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 1145: Landing in Messenia

Half an hour later, the Daionian soldiers sighted the coastal city. Though dubbed a vital stronghold, it was merely a small stone town wedged onto the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea. A row of warriors draped in red cloaks stood atop its walls, sunlight glinting off their spears. From a distance, it was impossible to tell if their faces held fear or excitement; they simply stood perfectly still. This motionless posture seemed to provoke the Daionian legionaries, causing their battle intent to surge.

"Quiet down!" Max shouted from the deck of the troopship, reprimanding the overexcited soldiers. "We'll be landing on the Messenian beaches soon enough! You'll have plenty of chances to fight the Spartans. But for now, sit still and conserve your strength. When this ship hits the shore, I want you to be the first ones charging up that beach!"

"Don't worry, Squad Leader!" a soldier yelled back. "We definitely won't fall behind the others. We'll be the first to break the enemy lines!" The rest of the men immediately cheered in agreement.

"I hope so," Max replied, feigning nonchalance. In truth, he was thrilled; their morale was exactly where it needed to be.

Resting a hand on the ship's rail, he looked down at the deep blue water and remembered the miserable state he had been in during his first time riding a Warship to the Terina Naval Base. After following the army to land in Sicily, routing Carthage's hundred-thousand-strong army, and later landing in Africa to conquer Carthage itself, he had long since cured his seasickness.

After the end of the Western Mediterranean War, Max and several soldiers from the Roman Aristocracy were assigned to live in the Thurii Region. Fortunate enough to be drafted into the First Legion, he later marched north to conquer Gaul, where his battlefield exploits earned him a promotion to squad leader and elevated him into the ranks of Daionia's military officers.

Even luckier was his seamless adaptation to life in Daionia. He refused to associate with the former members of the Roman Aristocracy who still harbored resentment toward the kingdom. Because of this, when the treasonous plot in Thurii led to the arrest of many from the Roman Aristocracy a few years prior, he remained entirely untainted. He wasn't subjected to a single interrogation or review—an exemption his superior had played no small part in securing.

Adoris was his direct superior and the commander of the First Legion's third battalion. After bouncing around various postings, Max had found himself back under his command. It truly felt like fate, and Adoris did indeed look out for him...

Max was still reminiscing when the cheers of his soldiers snapped him back to the present. "We passed the cape! The Fleet is turning around! We're almost there!..."

Countless troopships gradually spread out as they sailed north, blanketing the waters of the gulf. Combined with the supply vessels trailing close behind, the entire gulf was practically choked with ships.

Max's ship was near the front. Gazing ahead, the scenery snapped into sharper focus as they advanced: lush, green mountains framed both sides, flanking a broad, flat plain and white sandy beaches in the center. A winding ribbon of white water cut through the middle from north to south. Despite being such an excellent natural bay, no coastal towns had been built here. There were only scattered villages, a rudimentary dock, and a handful of boats, though flocks of seagulls soared and dived overhead, their cries adding a touch of rustic charm to the view.

Accustomed to the prosperity and clamor of the great harbor of Thurii, Max's eyes lit up at the sight of this practically untouched bay.

The feeling was fleeting, however, as Spartan soldiers had already begun to appear down on the beach.

...

The Spartans had fought three separate wars during their conquest of Messenia. In the first two conflicts in particular, the Messenian soldiers had relied on their fortresses and cities to mount a stubborn defense against the Spartan invasions. This dragged the wars out and caused massive headaches for Sparta. As a result, once they completely conquered Messenia, the Spartans demolished every single town on the plain. This was why this area—arguably the largest stretch of flatland on the Peloponnese Peninsula—was home only to scattered villages, without a single town in sight.

However, a relatively large Spartan Camp sat in the center of the plain. It served as a training ground for the Spartans and a permanent base from which they could rapidly assemble an army to crush any rebellion by the helots.

During the war with Thebes, Athens's entry into the conflict had allowed the mighty Athenian Navy to threaten the waters controlled by Sparta. To secure the Messenia region, Sparta had initially dispatched additional warriors as reinforcements. However, immediately after the signing of the Peace of Callias, Sparta recalled those extra citizens. Now, fewer than five hundred Spartan Warriors remained in all of Messenia.

Even so, the Spartans firmly believed that such a small garrison was enough to keep Messenia stable. Decades of brutal rule and annual campaigns of bloody slaughter had taken their toll: during designated periods, Sparta allowed its young warriors to freely hunt and kill any helots they came across—a practice meant to blood the youths and build their courage while simultaneously culling the helot population. Under this tyranny, the helots had long since been domesticated like cattle and sheep. In fact, when faced with foreign invasion, the Spartans could even conscript the helots into auxiliary forces, inflating their army's size to mount a defense.

This was precisely the situation now. A Spartan patrol boat had frantically retreated to Messenia, reporting to the camp that a massive Daionian Fleet had appeared off the coast. They were advancing aggressively, clearly harboring hostile intentions.

Dorieus, the camp's commander, had endured the brutal Agoge military training from a young age, emerging as one of its finest warriors. Upon reaching adulthood, he was selected for the Royal Guard. Over a twenty-year military career encompassing dozens of battles, he had earned numerous commendations and amassed a wealth of combat experience. The year before last, he had been appointed as the military commander of Messenia, tasked with overseeing the region's defense.

The news immediately put Dorieus on high alert. He swiftly mustered the warriors within the camp and sent messengers to notify the magistrates of the surrounding villages. These magistrates were aging, physically declining veterans retired from the ranks of the Spartan Warriors, appointed to govern Messenia's various settlements. Their duties were threefold: supervise the helots' labor to prevent slacking, confiscate the bulk of their harvest during autumn, and monitor their daily lives, instantly reporting any anomalies to the camp so the offenders could be hunted down. Dorieus ordered these magistrates to round up all the young, able-bodied helots.

Envoys dispatched from the Spartan Camp rowed out in small boats to intercept the Daionian Warships entering the gulf. They intended to demand an explanation for this sudden, unannounced intrusion into Spartan territory.

However, the envoys never even managed to board the Daionian Warships. Their small boats were ruthlessly rammed and capsized. The Theonians had made their hostility unmistakably clear.

Upon receiving the news, Dorieus immediately led his Spartan Warriors toward the coast, simultaneously ordering the village magistrates to bring their squads of helots to the beach as quickly as possible.

Rushing to the shoreline, Dorieus fixed his eyes on the horizon and was struck dumb. His entire field of vision was swallowed by Daionian ships, stretching endlessly across the water...

The sheer, overwhelming scale of the armada made even a battle-hardened veteran like Dorieus feel his scalp prickle with dread.

It wasn't as though the Messenia region had never suffered an invasion during its decades of Spartan rule. During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian Fleet had raided the area multiple times. However, their landing parties had always been small. Most of the time, they fled back to their ships before Spartan reinforcements could even arrive. On the one occasion they did launch an assault on the camp, they were decisively defeated by Spartan Warriors who were outnumbered by the attackers...

In those days, the Athenian army rarely engaged Spartan Warriors in pitched land battles. This was the first time Dorieus had ever faced an amphibious assault of such monumental scale. Fortunately, the helot units began arriving one after another, swelling his army's ranks to three thousand men. Even though the vast majority of the helots were armed with nothing but simple spears—lacking not just armor, but even basic shields—their sheer numbers brought Dorieus a measure of relief.

But his brow quickly furrowed again. The ships on the water were fanning out so widely that they were clearly preparing for a massive, full-scale landing. The traversable coastline stretched for over twenty

Dorieus dared not take the risk. Choosing to keep his forces concentrated, he decided to focus his initial defense on the stretch of beach west of the Pamisus River Mouth.

...

"It looks like the Spartans have a fair number of soldiers!" shouted Tisias. He had already followed Leotychides in transferring from the First Fleet's Flagship to another Warship. Their current vessel was less than two

"Many of them are helots! They won't fight to the death for the Spartans!" Ionicus shouted, shielding his eyes with his hand as he peered ahead to warn them.

Standing to the side, Staff Officer Muklu pointed toward the coast, alerting the military commander as well. "My Lord, the Spartans are clustering together. They haven't dispersed to defend the beach."

Leotychides stared intensely at the shoreline. The impending battle had thoroughly suppressed whatever faint emotional turbulence he had been feeling earlier. "Signal the Warships to attack," he said, his voice slow and even. "Have the soldiers prepare to land!"