Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 1189: Spartan Landing Operation (1)

Xenophon strolled over, and the Spartan Warriors greeted him one after another. "Xenophon, you're back!"

"Don't worry, old man! With us standing guard, the Theonians won't even touch the shore. You elders over sixty can rest easy at home."

"I bet you come down here every day not because you think we'll lose the beach, but because you're afraid we'll capture a horde of Theonian prisoners and won't share any with you!"

"Hahaha..."

Xenophon took the ribbing in stride. He laughed and said, "Do I need you to hand them to me? I'll catch my own."

"No, you won't get the chance," a Spartan Warrior teased. "The Council of Elders decreed that men over sixty have to stay home as the final reserve. You'd better head back to the city and wait for our good news!"

The warriors burst into laughter again.

Xenophon enjoyed the atmosphere. He could feel their absolute confidence in defeating a powerful enemy. Thumping his chest, he declared loudly, "I might be over sixty, but I'm just as good as you young men! If you don't believe me, step up and prove it!" With that, he hoisted his tunic and dropped into a wrestling stance.

The warriors hooted, shoving each other back and forth, but no one stepped forward to take him on. They all felt that wrestling an old man was beneath them.

"Enemy spotted!" the warriors shouted to one another. They sprinted back to their tents, swiftly donned their armor, and snatched up their shields and spears. Falling into squads of ten outside their tents, they rushed out of the camp under the command of their squad leaders and bolted for the beach.

In barely fifteen minutes, the space around Xenophon was completely empty. He couldn't help but sigh. If only the entire Spartan army defending the coast was made of warriors like these!

Unfortunately, there were only a little over three hundred highly trained, young, and vigorous Spartan Warriors here. While there were also more than five hundred older veterans between fifty and sixty whose combat prowess remained sharp, they had been assigned to serve as officers among the perioikoi and the helots in the camp.

So, as Xenophon walked on, he witnessed a chaotic scene: old veterans screaming orders while the perioikoi soldiers and helots scrambled in all directions, their armor haphazardly strapped on.

Frowning, he quickened his pace, cut through the camp, and climbed to higher ground to gaze out toward the horizon. Beneath the sunlight, the swelling tide sparkled. Aside from the soaring seagulls, the sea looked perfectly calm. There seemed to be no sign of danger.

But Xenophon didn't drop his guard. The Spartans had built several five-meter-tall watchtowers along the beach; the sentries at the top would naturally spot the enemy sooner than he could.

Sure enough, a few moments later, tiny black dots appeared at the very edge of his vision. Soon, those dots blossomed into sails, and then into warships, rapidly blanketing the waters ahead and driving straight toward the gulf...

As the fleet closed in, columns of Spartan soldiers poured onto the beach. Under the shouts of their officers, they formed a sweeping crescent formation along the flat shore.

...

The Daonian Warships halted less than a li from the shore. They fanned out into a single horizontal line, lowered their sails, dropped their anchors, and fought to hold their positions...

It looked exactly like yesterday's formation. Was this just another feint by the Daonian Fleet? Xenophon wondered in confusion. But then, slipping between the towering Daionian Trireme Warships, dozens of small, mastless boats appeared. Packed with soldiers, they rode the crest of the rising tide. Thanks to their shallow draft, the boats cleared the underwater Anti-Ship Wooden Stakes with inches to spare and pushed toward the beach...

The Spartan commander by the sea clearly realized the enemy's intent as well, and the bugles blared once more.

Hundreds of perioikoi sailors swarmed the dozen or so small and medium warships beached on the sand, shoving them out into the water.

Sparta had suffered a disastrous naval defeat against Athens the previous year. Their remaining twenty-odd warships had been moored in the Laconian Gulf, but when the Daonian Fleet arrived, they were forced to drag the vessels ashore to save them from being completely annihilated.

When the Spartans planted massive numbers of Anti-Ship Wooden Stakes to keep the Daonian Warships from docking, they deliberately left a hundred-meter gap along the shoreline so their own ships could mount a defense. During the previous skirmish against a Daionian landing, the Spartan warships had proven highly effective, and now they were repeating the exact same tactic.

The Spartan warships were pushed off the beach. With the sailors rowing furiously, they angled out to intercept the small Daionian boats bearing down on the shore.

However, the leading Daionian boats suddenly halted about two hundred meters from the beach. Fleet infantrymen carrying leather shields and helmets on their backs, with short swords at their hips, leaped over the sides into the sea. The water here was over two meters deep, but the men didn't have to waste energy treading water. The dense cluster of Anti-Ship Wooden Stakes actually served as an aid; by simply clinging to the thick timber, they could float in place and rest.

The perioikoi sailors watched in astonishment. Once the Daionian soldiers jumped into the sea, they stayed put, while their small boats turned around and rowed back. If the Spartan ships wanted to attack the floating Daionian infantry, they would have to navigate through the thicket of wooden stakes—an incredibly difficult maneuver.

While they hesitated, they suddenly spotted dozens of small black dots launching into the sky from the distant Daonian Warships.

"It's the Theonians' ballistas! Take cover!" a sailor screamed.

"Don't worry, the distance is too great! They can't hit us!" another sailor shouted to reassure them. The Theonians had used ballistas during their last landing attempt and had dealt almost zero damage to the Spartan ships, so the majority of the crews weren't particularly afraid.

But to their horror, dozens of stone projectiles shrieked through the air, plunging directly over the two foremost Spartan warships. Thick geysers of water erupted all around them, and eight or nine stones slammed squarely into the hulls.

Amid a cacophony of booming crashes, some stones snapped the masts in half while others smashed right through the decks. Wood splinters exploded like shrapnel, and the sailors' terrified yells intermingled with screams of agony.

As sheer panic engulfed the two stricken ships, another volley of stone projectiles shrieked overhead. They rained down with even deadlier precision around the nearly stationary warships. In moments, the remaining masts buckled, and the vessels began to capsize.

Secilian had learned from the previous battle's failures. After brainstorming with his squadron commanders, he had specifically chosen today—when the wind and waves were relatively calm—to launch the assault. Furthermore, the forty ballistas borrowed from the army were no longer scattered across forty different warships. Instead, he ordered the five Corvus Warships closest to the center of the beach to turn broadside and draw near one another. Using their Corvus boarding bridges to link together, they formed a single, massive floating platform. All forty ballistas were concentrated on their joined decks under unified command. By firing the smallest stones available—which maximized their range—and focusing entirely on a single target rather than firing at will like last time, their accuracy skyrocketed.

Landing direct hits in the first two volleys massively boosted the morale of the Daionian ballista crews. Under the command of their officers, they shifted their concentrated fire to systematically bombard the scattering Spartan ships one by one.

The commander defending the Spartan territory was Eudamidas, the brother of Phoebidas, and an illustrious general in his own right. Standing on the shore, he closely monitored the developing situation at sea. He had never expected the Daionian soldiers to jump overboard so far from the beach and linger among the Anti-Ship Wooden Stakes, waiting to link up with the troops arriving on subsequent boats. Because of their position, neither the Spartan warships nor the archers in the shore towers could attack them yet.

He was even more shocked by the devastating accuracy of the ballistas on the Daonian Warships today. Less than half an hour after setting off from the beach, seven or eight Spartan warships had already been sunk or crippled beyond use.

He had no choice but to order the few surviving warships back to the beach to run aground.

To his dismay, he then saw the Daionian ballistas unleash another volley. Their target was no longer the fleet—the stones were screaming straight toward the Spartan Warriors on the shore.

He bellowed frantically, "Scatter! Get out of the way!..."

Having experienced this during the previous landing defense, the warriors remained relatively composed. Tracking the incoming projectiles, they swiftly broke formation and scattered to avoid them.

The massive stones plummeted down with a terrifying roar, blasting geysers of sand and mud into the air, but they failed to inflict a single casualty.

However, the moment the Daionian ballistas shifted their fire toward the other troops stationed along the beach, sheer panic erupted, and casualties immediately followed.

Faced with this chaos, Eudamidas was forced to issue an order: "All units, fall back beyond ballista range!"

As a result, a gap of roughly a hundred meters opened between the Spartan army's lines and the water's edge.

Eudamidas made up his mind: the moment the enemy was about to step ashore, he would rush his army forward and engage them in close combat while their formations were still tangled. Once the two sides were locked together, the ballistas would naturally be rendered useless.

Just as the Daionian Army's new landing tactics were giving him a headache, two disastrous reports arrived back-to-back: the Langada Pass Fortress was under a ferocious assault from the west by thousands of Daionian soldiers. At the same time, a large contingent of Daionian troops had appeared on the coastal path along the western promontory of the Laconian Gulf, attempting to conquer the fort south of the Port of Ision.

Because Agesilaus had marched north with the main army and Messenia had remained relatively peaceful, those two vital defensive strongholds had been left with less than a hundred guards each, the vast majority of whom were perioikoi.