Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 875: Facing the Caudini Reinforcements

“Push forward! Hurry up and push forward!…” The Campanian officers urged the distracted soldiers.

On the other hand, the long-prepared Theonian heavy infantry shouted in excitement. While shielding their heads to deflect the stones and wooden blocks the defenders threw, they rushed in a loose formation toward one of the gaps in the wall. Simultaneously, the Campanian light infantry in front of the trench intensified their attack on the defenders atop the city wall.

With the city wall collapsing, a slope was formed on both sides of the gap. The Theonian soldiers stepped on the rubble and jumped onto the gap that was only wide enough for three people to pass through. Meanwhile, the defenders at the southern wall of Nola immediately separated some of their men to intercept the enemy once they saw the wall collapsing.

The Theonian soldiers had the advantage in the clash with their short swords, yet the Nolan warriors disregarded their casualties to defend their homeland. Furthermore, the narrowness of the gap made it impossible for the Theonian soldiers to pan out.

Just as the Theonian and the Campanian soldiers rushed towards the two gaps in the wall, they could hear a military horn sound from outside the western wall.

The Campanian light infantry in front of the trench immediately lowered the arrow-blocking boards and laid them on the three-metre-wide trench. At the same time, the remaining allied soldiers rushed up from the rear carrying siege ladders and stepped on the ‘wooden bridges’ made using the arrow-blocking boards, and easily bypassed the sparsely arranged abatis and set the ladders on the city wall.

With a portion of the original defenders from the western section reassigned to reinforce the southern wall and some directed to descend to block the gap in the wall, the few defenders who remained atop the wall still needed to assist in attacking the enemy at the gap. However, they could not cause substantial damage to the foes near the walls and struggled to prevent those enemies from climbing like ants. In the end, they had to seek help.

Unfortunately, the Theonians and their allies' attack on the southern wall became more fierce, and with the Nolan warriors wearing armour that had less protection than their opponent, they often lost more in the frontal clash and could barely support themselves. Meanwhile, the defenders on the eastern and northern walls mainly relied on the civilians in the city to continue fighting back and stop the enemy from breaching, which resulted in the civilians paying a great sacrifice. With the entire city of Nola attacked on all sides, the Samnites were now in a tight situation where they didn’t have troops to dispatch.

The battle lasted until noon, and Xanticles, who was monitoring the war development from outside the southern wall, received the long-awaited good news of them capturing the western wall!

Xanticles suddenly breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed as they were finally about to take the city of Nola!

Despite this was his first time leading a battle independently after joining the Kingdom of Theonia, he managed to achieve such excellent results that might allow him to realise his initial wish to become a true supreme commander of the army and wash away his previous shame(Refers to the Ladician case where he failed to fulfil his duty when he served as the grand inspector in the Ministry of Military, resulting in him failing his supervision and allowing some incompetent officers to be promoted).

However, he was unhappy at this moment as from the start of the siege until now, his army had suffered more than five hundred casualties. Despite most only getting wounded, this was already a very high percentage for a force of only four thousand men. He was afraid that he would get blamed afterwards.

Thus, he ordered a herald, “Inform all brigades that they shouldn't advance too aggressively after entering the city. They should instead slow down their advance and pay attention to protecting themselves so that we could reduce the casualties!”

‘Sigh, we can only remind the new recruits constantly as they lack experience…’ Xanticles sighed while watching the herald leave. After rubbing his somewhat sore waist, he said, “Go bring me a chair.”

Despite the defence of the city of Nola being like a bloated pig bladder that would easily break and quickly collapse on all fronts, Xanticles' concern soon arrived as the Nolan defenders and civilians who retreated from the city didn't surrender. Instead, the enemy continued to resist their advance stubbornly. As a result, the soldiers became angry as they had already suffered considerable casualties during the siege, especially the Campanian soldiers who had suffered from the tricks of the Samnite army. Thus, they not only increased the intensity of their attack but also regarded the men, women and children in the city as enemies to be killed.

With the people of Nola outnumbered and no Acropolis, as commonly found in Greek city-states, serving as a final defence, almost all of Nola's inhabitants perished in the battle. By afternoon, the Theonians and their allies completely occupied the city.

Yet the army leaders didn't have the joy of victory as an Abellinum scout brought them terrible news: Thousands of Caudini warriors left Beneventum early in the morning and headed westward.

Xanticles, Aeoles and the other strategoi immediately became nervous, fearing that the Samnite army was coming to rescue Nola. Fortunately, they didn't need to worry about the instability of the city.

After a discussion, the strategoi urges the soldiers to quickly recondition themselves and eat their ration to recover their strength as soon as possible. Meanwhile, they left the cleaning of the entire battlefield, the deconstruction of the camp outside the city and the counting of the spoils within the city over to the officials of Irnia who would command the people of the three places of Irna, Campania and Nuceria, which in fact was tantamount to handing over the management of Nola to Theonia.

For the Campanians, they had no say about it. After all, they simply lacked the population to fill up these areas due to the massive invasion of the Samnite army, resulting in the death and capture of a significant portion of their population. In addition, their towns and villages were destroyed, and even the city of Neapolis, dozens of kilometres away, became almost a wilderness. Hence, none of them covet the land in the eastern plains of Campania, especially considering this place is close to the mountains, making it more susceptible to Samnite attacks.

As far as Theonia was concerned, they had already devised a punitive plan to seize Nola, Suessula, and Capua after the Third Legion successfully repelled the Caudini invasion of the Campanian League. Now, they were simply resuming this plan. Adrianus had dispatched Irna's officials to partly guide the populace here, intending to assist in the city's assault and, simultaneously, to swiftly assume control after capturing Nola.

The Kingdom of Theonia and the Campanian League naturally reached a tacit agreement, each taking their own needs without hesitation. But the potential arrival of the Samnite reinforcements would likely turn the victory they earned with the blood of their soldiers into nothing.

Fortunately, the distance from Beneventum to Nola is approximately forty-five kilometres, half of it being a mountain path. Thus, the several strategoi of the Campania League believe that the Caudini wouldn't reach Nola in a single day.

As the saying goes, what you fear comes to you. It was almost dusk when the scouts they sent to the north to keep a close eye on the enemy's movement came back in a hurry, reporting that a Samnite army had come out of the Abella Pass and was on its way to Nola and that they numbered about ten thousand.

The strategoi of the Campania League were shocked as they had heard from the Abellinum scout that the enemy only had a few thousand people before, so how could they suddenly have ten thousand men just a few hours later?!

A strategos immediately questioned, “Did you properly check the number of enemies?! Go and confirm it for me again!”

Another suggested, “With the Samnites coming fiercely while our soldiers have just gone through a fierce battle that is not only exhausting but also sustained many casualties and in urgent need of recuperation, plus the walls of Nola are now too broken to hold on to, so why don't…we lead our troops to retreat first, and then return once we are all well prepared…”

Surprisingly, his suggestion gained the approval of several strategoi, with even Aeoles hesitating. Unable to decide, Aeoles could only turn to look at Xanticles.

Xanticles looked around at these Campanian officers and understood that despite capturing the city of Nola and gaining a victory over the Samnites, the constant defeat suffered by their Campanian allies over the decades had made them afraid of the Samnites that once the situation became unfavourable, the first thing they thought was to retreat. Thus, he needs to give them the courage to fight!

Xanticles pondered momentarily and said, “Everyone, we must first consider a few issues if we are to retreat. Firstly, what about the tens of thousands of civilians here? They are not soldiers who are young, strong and disciplined; many of them are women and elderly who can only move slowly and lack organisation. Once we let them retreat, our situation is bound to be chaotic. In addition, with the Samnites marching fast, it will be a disaster once they catch up to them!

Secondly, this war waged by the Samnites had already caused the Campanian League to suffer significant losses. Now that we are shifting our focus to keeping the Samnites in the mountains and preventing their invasion again after managing to capture Nola with great difficulty, we find ourselves giving up Nola. Once we take this step, it would be challenging to recapture the city once again. After all, the Samnites will likely learn their lesson and place sufficient defenders, leading to a potential stalemate.

Currently, the main force of our Theonian army is fighting in the mountains in the east, which is the home of the Samnites. So, the battle there is bound to be severe, and there will be no results in the short term. Furthermore, I could not receive new reinforcements here as the kingdom was also engaged in larger wars in Sicily and Latium.

So once there is a stalemate in the war, it will not be in your favour because the Samnite can then use their best offensive strategy – raiding. But what you need to do now after experiencing a massive Samnite invasion is lead your people to rebuild their homes, harvest and plough the destroyed farms, and graze the few livestock… But once the Samnite return to the Campanian plains, will any of your people even dare to leave their towns? Remember, you don't have enough food and accommodation. If the people cannot return to their homes, it will inevitably lead to their discontent and complaints, making the next step in the governance of your city-state even harder…”