Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 997: Another Surprise Attack

Meanwhile, Leotychides ordered his soldiers to lay out the corpses of over a thousand Lusitanian Warriors in front of Palermos. He also had men shout up at the walls in the Phoenician language, demanding the people of Palermos open their gates and surrender, lest they suffer the exact same fate.

Witnessing the horrific fate of their reinforcements firsthand, the threatened citizens of Palermos panicked. They hastily convened an urgent meeting to discuss whether they should surrender to the Theonians. After all, they had surrendered once before, over twenty years ago, when Dionysius led an army of a hundred thousand to conquer Western Sicily. Since both were Greeks, if they could surrender to Dionysius, why couldn't they surrender to Daionia?

...

While the people of Palermos agonized over their fate, a triumphant Midorades led his Fleet south.

The port from which the Third Fleet departed was neither Saedium nor Messina, but Tharros on Sardinia Island. Two days prior, after concluding discussions with Secilian and finishing his escort duties for the Fleet, Midorades had sailed straight for Sardinia. They docked at the Tharros Outer Port and received a warm welcome from Tagetinos, commander of the Ninth Legion.

By this time, the new administrative official of Tharros had already assumed his post. It was Stromboli, the veteran Senator from Amendolara. He had long since abandoned any intention of taking up a provincial office, but after half a day of deliberation, the five Rotating Chairmen of the Senate unanimously agreed that among all the idle Senators in Thurii, he was the most suitable candidate. Thus, Cornelius had paid him a personal visit to persuade him as an old friend.

To ensure the kingdom's ultimate victory in this war, Stromboli had accepted the appointment. Accompanying him to Tharros were 3,000 reserve soldiers from the Thurii Region and the Bruttii Region.

Bolstered by these reinforcements, Tagetinos swiftly led his army north at the new administrator's suggestion and easily captured Sant'Ibinia. This time, the Ninth Legion refrained from a widespread massacre. Instead, they made every effort to take the citizens alive as prisoners, while carefully avoiding damage to the facilities inside and outside the city.

When Midorades arrived at Tharros, Stromboli was restoring order in the city and working to convince the captured people of Sant'Ibinia to serve the kingdom by continuing to mine and smelt precious metal ores. Meanwhile, Tagetinos was drilling his troops, preparing to strike the surrounding Phoenician towns.

Compared to the Island of Sicily, the southern tip of Sardinia Island was slightly closer to the Continent of Africa; it simply didn't face Carthage directly. Therefore, it lacked Sicily's strategic importance. However, this exact geographic quirk—being close to Africa yet relatively far from Carthage—created perfect conditions for the Third Fleet's surprise attack.

The burning of Hadrumetum had indeed put Carthage and its allies on high alert, but this vigilance was largely concentrated on the coast facing Sicily. Naturally, the Carthaginian Fleet focused its patrols and defensive efforts there as well, since two Daionian fleets had already appeared in Sicilian waters.

As a result, the Third Fleet's surprise attack was a resounding success. They burned down another Phoenician city-state on the African Coast and captured a number of its citizens. The ships returned fully loaded with prisoners, fulfilling what Stromboli had told Midorades: Sant'Ibinia was in desperate need of manual labor.

News of Igilgili's destruction quickly spread across Africa. Repeated attacks on the Phoenician City-States left the Phoenicians in sheer panic. Envoys from various cities rushed to the Carthaginian Senate in droves, fiercely demanding that Carthage fulfill its duties as their hegemon and guarantee their security.

Carthaginian citizens gathered as well, protesting outside the Senate once again to demand action that would prevent such tragedies from recurring.

The Carthaginian senators came under immense pressure. After a heated debate, the Hanno faction's arguments prevailed, and the Senate reached two decisions. First, they issued strict orders forbidding Morbal, the naval commander, from leading the fleet into Sicilian waters for the time being. Instead, he was required to patrol the African Coast daily to secure Carthage and its allies. Second, they dispatched a messenger to Sicily to pressure Mago, their military commander, demanding that he conquer Selinus as soon as possible. Failing that, Carthage would be forced to negotiate a peace treaty with Daionia.

...

Back in Selinunte, the bitter struggle between the Daionian garrison and the Carthaginian army dragged on.

The Daionian defenders constantly launched long-range attacks with ballistae and gastraphetes, occasionally dispatching troops out of the city for sudden raids to kill the Carthaginian soldiers building the siege walls. Yet Mago fended off the Daionian strikes while urging his men to accelerate construction on the Inner Wall. Drawing on their sheer numbers, the Carthaginian army completed the Inner Wall of the Carthaginian Camp despite every attempt by the garrison to thwart them.

Mago then deployed troops to garrison the Inner Wall. Copying the defenders' tactics, he hauled ballistae up onto his own fortifications to exchange fire with the garrison, reversing his previously passive position.

Amyntas stood on the city wall, gazing forward with a grave expression. A seemingly endless line of Carthaginian heavy infantry snaked its way out from the newly completed gates of the Inner Wall. Carrying neither weapons nor shields, every man bore a dirt-filled wooden frame on his back. One by one, they packed these frames tightly into the open ground between the Inner Wall and the walls of Selinunte, then filed back behind their own wall to repeat the process. Like stacking building blocks, it wasn't long before they had erected a broad-based earthen rampart nearly three meters high.

While the Carthaginians toiled, the ballistae atop the walls of Selinunte never ceased firing. The stone projectiles easily shattered the wooden frames, but when the wood splintered, the loose soil spilled into the gaps, ironically making the burgeoning "hill" even more solid.

Some ballistae aimed directly at the Carthaginians, but the enemy was too close to the wall—only about sixty or seventy meters away. For the wall-mounted ballistae to hit them, their elevation angles had to be raised so high that the stone projectiles dropped almost vertically. While the plummeting stones looked terrifying, their actual lethality was limited and they were easy to dodge.

The arrows fired by the Daionian light infantry posed little threat to the Carthaginian heavy infantry, failing to inflict lethal damage. Prodded relentlessly by their officers, the heavy infantrymen braved the incoming volleys to finish laying the wooden framework for their earthen rampart.

The gastraphetes proved far more dangerous, but the Carthaginians had pushed out dozens of Mobile Mantlets early on. Stacked in overlapping rows, they formed a protective screen in front of the human chain. An iron bolt carrying terrifying force might punch through one or two thick wooden planks, but it struggled to truly threaten the lives of the Carthaginians behind them.

"Legion Commander, should we send soldiers out for a surprise attack?" Adjutant Aristonos prompted from the side.

Amyntas shook his head. From his vantage point on the wall, he could clearly see a Carthaginian reserve force standing guard behind the Mobile Mantlets, while their Inner Wall bristled with light infantry waiting on standby. Since the Daionian garrison wouldn't hold a defensive advantage in the open, sending soldiers out would only drag them into a bloody war of attrition. Fierce warrior though he was, Amyntas knew perfectly well that the Carthaginian forces outnumbered his own four or five to one; trading lives in a brutal grind worked against him. Furthermore, Carthage had a massive contingent of cavalry ready to pour out from the other gates of the Inner Wall at a moment's notice, easily sweeping around to encircle his men.

"Bring up the slingers and let them deal with these Carthaginians!" Amyntas's command made Adjutant Aristonos's eyes light up. Among all the Daionian legions, only the First Legion Light Infantry Cohort boasted over four hundred slingers. Hailing from Rhodes, these soldiers threw lead bullets with vicious speed and pinpoint accuracy within a hundred meters, capable of inflicting severe blunt-force trauma even on heavy infantry.

"How should we distribute them?" Aristonos asked, as the enemy was piling up earth not just outside the North Gate, but also outside the eastern and western walls.

"Concentrate on wiping out the enemy here first!" Amyntas pointed forward, his tone unwavering.

"Commander Amyntas, I have a suggestion," Chalcides interjected suddenly from the side.

"Oh? Speak, Chalcides." Amyntas turned to the commander of the Selinunte garrison, his tone softening with politeness. Over this period, Chalcides had assisted him with utter dedication, providing tremendous help and earning his deep respect.

Chalcides chose his words carefully. "...The Carthaginians are relying on their numbers to build this earthwork at all costs. The most we can do right now is delay their progress. Just like the wall they built, they will eventually finish this rampart. Their purpose in building it is likely to let their ballistae and light infantry attack our men from a higher vantage point, supporting an infantry assault. We could just raise our own walls higher and completely ruin their plan."

Raise the walls? Amyntas was caught off guard.

Gesturing toward the walkway of the battlements, Chalcides continued explaining. "The stone walls built by the people of Selinunte are incredibly sturdy, and the walkways are wide and flat. Right where their rampart faces us, we can easily build a wooden wall upwards from our own walkway. We can add at least five to six meters to this seven-meter wall..."

Amyntas's eyes lit up as he listened.

However, Adjutant Aristonos voiced an objection. "But the Carthaginians have ballistae. A wooden wall won't withstand a bombardment of stone projectiles. If we build it, it might just shatter before it's even useful, causing even more casualties among our men!"