Chapter 670: Battle against the Caudini (I)
Chapter 670: Battle against the Caudini (I)
Since the Neapolitan strategoi didn’t know much about the Theonian military system, they thought Theonia would only send a few thousand soldiers because Carias, the Theonian envoy, said that Theonia would send the Third Legion to join the war. But to their surprise, the other side easily dispatched ten thousand men, which was already half the number of the Campanian league’s army.
Carias hurriedly explained, thinking the Neapolitans thought Theonia had sent too many soldiers, “His majesty Davos was furious with the Caudini’s refusal to change their ways. Thus he sent the entire Third Legion to utterly decimate the Caudini’s invasion and teach them a heavy lesson so that they will never dare to invade the Campanian league’s territory again!”
“That’s great! We look forward when that day arrives!” said Orosius and the others as their feelings overcame them.
Suddenly, Litom impatiently asked, “Where should we camp?”
“The camp is just outside the city to the east. However…we don’t have enough tents.” Aeolus said with embarrassment since they didn’t expect Theonia to send so many soldiers.
“We have enough tents; you just need to ensure we have enough food supply.” Although Litom said that calmly, he worried about their provision the most.
“You can feel relieved; we don’t have a problem with the food supply!” Orosius continued, “Since we have just finished the autumn harvest, the citizens have enough grains in their homes. And after they heard the Theonian warriors would come to help defend against the Samnites, each of them donated their grains to supply your Theonian army that our city hall didn’t even need to buy them. In addition, we also prepared dozens of jars of wine and many livestock to celebrate the Third Legion’s arrival.”
But Litom waved his hand and said, “There’s no need for those; the Third Legion doesn’t have that time since I need to lead the soldiers to construct the camp now. Instead, call the leading strategoi of the Campanian league over to discuss how to deal with the upcoming Samnite invasion.”
Although Litom said those words too frankly, which could easily hurt their feeling, his vigorous and decisive actions shows that the kingdom of Theonia was taking this battle seriously. So instead of causing dissatisfaction, Neapolis’ high-ranking officials were beaming with happiness.
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Since the Samnites are mountain people, they like living in the mountains and would find living in the plains uncomfortable and vulnerable.
But everything isn’t absolute. Caudini, one of the four major Samnite tribes, has many villages and towns on the eastern plains of Campania. That’s mainly because the increase in their population had forced the Caudini located west of the Samnite mountain to migrate to the western plains to obtain more land to feed their people. And after decades of efforts, the Caudini had wholly occupied the eastern part of Campania, capturing foreign city-states, such as Capua and Suessula, and founding new towns, such as Nola.
Hence some of the Caudini tribes began growing plants instead of grazing livestock for a living, which made the overall strength of Caudini to catch up with the Hirpini tribe, which had remained the leaders among the four major Samnite tribes.
Unfortunately, the war more than a decade ago hit the ambitious Caudini hard, with many of their tribal warriors dying or being captured. In addition, the approach of the Theonian army forced the Caudini to lower their arrogant heads, sign a humiliating alliance treaty and stop their westward march.
But once they restored their strength, its new chieftain, Segobani, no longer wished to be bound by this treaty, not because they liked to plunder but because the spread of Theonian religion and economic culture undermined the Samnite’s tradition and shook the solidarity of the tribes. At the same time, the Caudini had tasted the benefits of the plains’ arable land after occupying the eastern Campanian plains, so they wanted to take the whole of Campania for themselves.
Naturally, Segobani also had personal reasons. He wanted to use this war to increase his prestige and deal with Nuceria’s chieftain Kinduk, who kept defying him and relied on Theonia’s support.
Thus the frequent invasion of the Caudini tribe wasn’t just to plunder goods and people but to attack the enemy’s morale, increasing the Campanians’ fear so that they would never dare to plant and graze. At the same time, as they strengthen their army by plundering people and spoils, they are also constantly weakening the other side’s strength and finally achieving their goal of occupying the entire Campania through war. That’s how they obtained the major cities of Capua and Suessula! So how could the Caudini be willing to have their ambitions tied up by their treaty with Theonia?!
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In the early morning of that day, the chieftains of the Caudini tribes gathered in the three towns of Capua, Nola and Suessula. They then led their young and middle-aged men armed with weapons and began rushing westward into the Campanian league’s territory.
The straight-line distance between these three cities and the west coast is about 20 kilometres, especially Nola, which is directly east of Neapolis. Thus these tribal warriors could reach Neapolis in just more than two hours as long as they ran fiercely. That is also one of the main reasons these city-states of the Campanian league feared the Samnites, as they were too close to Caudini, making them too defenceless.
“Faster! Faster!…” Taruk, a chieftain of the Caudini, urged his warriors loudly.
His tribe came from Avella, a small town less than 10 kilometres east of Nola, which is located in a mountain pass. And since they were guarding the pass into the mountain area, they had a small land that wasn’t good for farming and with the mountains on both sides being too steep, they also couldn’t graze. Thus they mainly live through plundering.
Although the great chieftain of Caudini, Segobani, proposed to use this invasion to teach the arrogant kingdom of Theonia and the Campanian league, Taruk was more interested in the grains that the Greeks piled up in their homes. And now that the autumn harvest had just ended, the Greeks who had gotten a good harvest couldn’t take that many grains with them in their escape even if they heard about their invasion in advance. Thus Taruk wanted to get ahead of the other tribe and plunder enough grain to get through the winter.
Due to chieftain Taruk and two hundred warriors running on a plain, they soon reach Neapolis’ territory. Once he could see the farmland not far ahead of him and smell the scorching smell of burning grain stacks in the air, he became even more excited.
Since Taruk often brought his people to plunder, he was quite familiar with the situation in this area and knew that there was a Greek village a few kilometres ahead. As he became more excited, he quickened his pace while urging his men, “Faster!”
“Chieftain, enemy cavalry ahead!” A tribal warrior shouted.
Taruk naturally could see these Greek cavalry and how they immediately turned around and ran back after seeing them.
“Leave them be! We need to hurry up!!” Taruk shouted without feeling any worry. From his experience, he knew that these cavalries would run back to Neapolis to rally their soldiers. But by the time those iron shells (Greek heavy infantry) arrived, they would have already returned to Avella with a full harvest. And if they dared to chase them, the Caudini warriors coming from all directions would give them a taste of a rain of javelins. And since those timid Greeks would always gather in a tight phalanx formation that would slow their movement, they would become an even easier target for their javelins.
And just as Taruk expected, the village was already empty when Taruk led his warriors inside.
Thus he immediately sent a small group of warriors to the south of the village to serve as sentries to check the Greeks’ movement while leading most of the soldiers to break open the locked doors of each house, rush inside and begin their plunder.
But then, a warrior hurriedly reported to him, “Some Greeks are fleeing with pack wagons not far from the village.”
Hearing the news, Taruk became overjoyed, ‘They must be the residents of this village. Then that must they are loaded with goods!’
But what worried him the most was that he had too few pack animals to use to transport them.
Still, he immediately gathered some of his warriors and rushed out of the village as they headed south.
Seeing them, the Greeks immediately increased their speed. However, with their group carrying too many things, the distance between them gets closer and closer.
Then Taruk was soon surprised to see dozens of Greek heavy infantries appearing in front of the fleeing Greeks. But unlike the Greek heavy infantries he had seen before, these heavy infantries wore uniformed black armour as they rushed towards them.
‘Retreat?’ that thought only flashed in Taruk’s mind, but he immediately put it out. Apart from having experience dealing with Greek heavy infantry, he also has more than a hundred warriors following him, which is twice their number! So how could he retreat?!
“Quick, spread out!” Taruk commanded his warriors to form a more spread-out formation, like the wings of a wild goose spreading out, while they continued advancing towards the enemy.
The heavy infantry on the other side continued their advance, passing through the fleeing Greeks and gradually forming a compact phalanx formation while advancing.
Seeing that, Taruk laughed inwardly, ‘These stubborn Greeks already suffered losses so many times, yet they still kept using their old formation. I’ll just have them continue experiencing the power of the javelin, then!’
Once the enemy phalanx formation was within 30 metres, Taruk raised his javelin. However, he saw the Greeks suddenly slow down and lift their long shields one after another…in the blink of an eye, their shields protected their front, back, left, right and even the top of the small phalanx formation. But even with that, they still advance towards Taruk’s group.
Even after getting surprised, Taruk still managed to throw the javelin in his hand. Then his warriors followed it by throwing their javelins towards the enemy in the centre.