Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 970: Defending the Fortress

"No, don't send any more troops!" Phalecus, who had been standing idly by, finally spoke up. "The terrain around the Euryalus Fortress is too narrow to deploy large numbers anyway. Given the situation, the Theonians couldn't have captured it with a large force. As long as Steisikos arrives in time, he has every chance of retaking it. What worries me is whether the Daionian Army will use this opening to launch another attack on us."

Those words sent a jolt of alarm through the room.

"What happened?" Hicetas, the last Syracuse general to arrive, demanded as he rushed in.

"Always the last to arrive!" Kuchillas snapped. He knew perfectly well that Hicetas lived by the port, the furthest distance from the Council, but he couldn't hold his tongue. "If a real crisis hit Syracuse, what good would a general like you be?"

Normally, Hicetas was used to his colleagues speaking to him in that tone. Over the past few days, however, such barbs had started to grate on him. His expression visibly darkened.

Sympathizing with him, Theagenes hurriedly interjected, "The Theonians have captured the Euryalus Fortress. We are discussing how to retake it."

"What?" Hicetas looked astonished. He didn't say another word, but his mind was reeling.

At that moment, the faint blast of military bugles drifted in from outside.

The sound startled the group once again.

He returned to the hall a moment later, fraught with anxiety. "The sentries from the Western Sector just reported in. Daionian soldiers are massing outside their camp. They're preparing to attack!"

Everyone tensed.

"I'll head to the Western Sector right now and organize the camp's soldiers for defense," Theagenes responded immediately. "Parnissus, organize the mobilized citizen soldiers and reinforce the Western Sector as quickly as possible."

"Understood!" Parnissus followed Theagenes out of the hall.

"The Theonians will likely launch a simultaneous attack from the east! Kuchillas, go immediately and gather the citizens responsible for the eastern defense. Hurry to the East Wall and hold the line," Phalecus urged.

Kuchillas accepted the order and left.

"Hicetas, lead the citizen soldiers from the port and hold the line here. If anything unexpected happens, rush to support them!" Phalecus continued to issue commands.

The majority of the people from the Syracuse port primarily served as fleet crewmen, but four thousand of them had been drafted for the city's defense. Because most lived in poverty, they largely served as light infantry and were lightly regarded.

Hearing this, Hicetas's mind spun, and he failed to respond immediately.

Phalecus frowned in dissatisfaction. "Hicetas, did you hear me?"

"I heard you," Hicetas replied coldly.

Phalecus shot him a look but had no time to argue. He ordered another general to organize three thousand citizen soldiers to reinforce the north. At the same time, he decided to personally rally the city's populace to rush north and hastily construct a defensive line. That way, even if they failed to retake the Euryalus Fortress, they could at least prevent the enemy from easily marching south.

...

The Euryalus Fortress was a small, square stronghold enclosed by stone walls. It contained residences, warehouses, cisterns, and other facilities, capable of supporting a long-term garrison of at least three hundred soldiers. Furthermore, the wall along Euryalus Peak served as one of the fortress's own boundaries. In the event of an attack, the soldiers inside could quickly mount the battlements to intercept the enemy. However, days of tranquility and the treacherous terrain had lulled the Syracuse soldiers—long accustomed to peace—into a false sense of security. As a result, the soldiers of the Daonian Mountain Reconnaissance Battalion successfully launched a sneak attack.

After Tarentus successfully led his soldiers in capturing the Euryalus Fortress, he did not press the assault toward the city proper of Syracuse. Instead, he firmly secured his position within the stronghold and actively prepared to receive reinforcements.

Originally, the western slope of Euryalus Peak had been relatively gentle and densely forested. Years ago, Dionysius had led the populace in a lengthy, painstaking effort to alter the terrain. They had burned away the trees and brush at the base of the wall, giving the sentries above an unobstructed view of any enemy movement below.

Following the death of Dionysius, however, Syracuse had fallen into constant turmoil. Coupled with a relatively secure external environment, no one paid much attention to the city's defenses. The base of the Euryalus Peak wall had once again grown thick with weeds and trees. This provided cover for the soldiers of the Mountain Scout Corps to sneak up to the wall, but the narrow terrain meant that only a few soldiers could approach the base at a time. Therefore, the bulk of the Mountain Scout Corps, along with two heavy infantry battalions and one light infantry battalion from the Eighth Legion, hid in the dense forest at the foot of the mountain to avoid detection.

Only when the assault troops scaled the wall, seized the torches from the sentries, and waved them according to the prearranged signal did the Mountain Scout Corps, followed by the legion's light and heavy infantry, accelerate their climb up the mountain.

Charging at the very front was the Mountain Scout Corps. These soldiers, specially trained year-round, moved swiftly up the slope with very few slipping or falling behind. Upon reaching the base of the wall, they didn't even pause for breath. Instead, they grabbed the ropes dropped by the vanguard and rapidly hoisted themselves up.

Once on the battlements, they unslung their leather shields and short swords, plunging straight into the fortress where the sounds of slaughter were already ringing out.

The successive arrival of these reinforcements finally crushed the remaining Syracuse defenders who were still putting up a fight.

While securing the fortress and waiting for the rest of the reinforcements, Tarentus carefully inspected the interior. Much to his headache, he found two archways cut into the southern stone wall facing the inner city, neither fitted with wooden doors or any other mechanism to close them.

When Dionysius had constructed this fortress, he intentionally designed it so the stronghold could only defend against attacks from the outside, leaving it vulnerable from the inside. His planning was thorough, but he never anticipated that later sentries, for the sake of their own comfort, would craft two large wooden planks to cover the archways at night so they could sleep undisturbed. Because of the high altitude, freezing mountain winds would occasionally kick up, howling through the archways and severely disrupting their rest.

Tarentus discovered these two large planks near the archways. He immediately ordered his soldiers to gather timber and stones from the warehouses to firmly block the openings with the planks.

Still uneasy, he came up with an additional measure in his urgency.

Only when the soldiers of the light infantry battalion began trickling into the fortress did Tarentus finally breathe a sigh of relief.

...

In his prime, the ambitious Dionysius had incorporated areas like the Epipolae Plateau and Achradina into Syracuse, expanding the city's total footprint several times over. To ensure this newly expanded city had an ample population, he aggressively recruited as many mercenaries as possible to become citizens of Syracuse. At the same time, he forcibly relocated the populations of conquered neighboring city-states, such as Leontini and Catana, into the city.

However, after the War of Southern Italy, the mercenaries were expelled, and the majority of the forcibly relocated citizens returned to their homelands. Compounded by years of political instability, Syracuse's population had dropped by more than half. As a result, the expansive Epipolae Plateau became sparsely populated, practically turning into a wasteland where the people of Syracuse grazed their sheep and cattle. Thus, the routed soldiers fleeing the Euryalus Fortress could not find any immediate help nearby. They had no choice but to run all the way south to the main city, report the crisis to the on-duty member of the Executive Committee of Generals, and wait for him to dispatch an army to retake the fortress.

The flaws of Syracuse's massive size and lack of manpower were laid bare at this moment. The Euryalus Fortress was seven or eight li away from the main city. Given the dead of night and the suddenness of the event, by the time Steisikos led two thousand soldiers to the front of the fortress, nearly an hour had passed since its fall. The meticulously prepared Daionian assault force, especially the two heavy infantry battalions, had already filed into the stronghold.

Under the illumination of the firelight, Steisikos saw the top of the fortress swarming with Daionian soldiers, many of them wearing gleaming armor. What shocked him even more was that the two archways had been blocked with wooden barricades. Having rushed his troops over in a hurry, he hadn't brought any siege weapons.

Steisikos felt a headache coming on. According to Dionysius's original design, the Euryalus Fortress was the center of defense for the northern stretch of the wall, and sentries could only access the battlements by passing through the fortress itself. Consequently, the sentries on the walls in this vicinity were all dispatched from the stronghold, while the nearest stone stairs leading up to the battlements were located halfway down the East Wall and Western Wall.

Dionysius had likely designed it this way for security reasons, but now it put Steisikos in a difficult position. If he ordered his army to turn around and head for the stone stairs to scale the wall, it would give the enemy too much time to dig in.

Steisikos made a prompt decision. He ordered his soldiers to launch a swift charge toward the fortress, race to the base of the stone wall, and ram open the sealed archways. At the same time, he sent a messenger rushing back to the main city to report the situation to the Executive Committee of Generals.

Because the Euryalus Fortress was situated on high ground, the Syracuse soldiers were forced to hold their shields above their heads as they charged up the slope.

The Daionian infantry on the fortress didn't even need to fire arrows. They simply hefted the stones and logs they had brought from the warehouses and hurled them downward. The rocks and timber bounced and rolled down the slope, crushing several men with each strike. The attacking Syracuse soldiers groaned in misery, and before long, their formation was completely shattered.

Steichidas had no choice but to rally the soldiers once more, personally leading the charge from the very front. He managed to guide his troops to the base of the wall with great difficulty, only to be instantly met with a fierce barrage from the Daionian soldiers above. Javelins, arrows, stones, and logs rained down upon them. A massive number of Syracuse soldiers were wounded, and even Steisikos took a sharp arrow to the arm.