Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Polidorus narrated, “…in ancient times, Lycaon – the king of Arcadia, was arrogant and disrespectful to Zeus. One day, he came up with a malicious idea to test Zeus, so he killed a servant*, cooked his meat into a soup, and invited Zeus to dinner. Zeus saw through his trick, destroyed his palace with lightning and turned Lycaon into a wolf, and then destroyed his kingdom…” (T/N: The most famous variant of the myth is Lycaon roasting one of his children and serve it to Zeus)

“I know about this legend, that the king of Arcadia was sacrilegious to the great god, so it is only natural that he and his kingdom were punished by Zeus, but what does this have to do with the Messapians?” Philesius interjected curiously.

Polidorus glanced at Davos and saw that he was also interested, so he said with a smile, “Yes, everyone in Greece knows the story of Lycaon, but his story is not yet over…Lycaon had three sons*, when the kingdom was destroyed, they took their own people and slaves, crossed the Adriatic Sea by boat then settled down on the south of Italia.” (T/N: Lycaon has 50 sons and almost each of them has founded a city in Arcadia.)

Polidorus looked at the crowd and said in a deep voice, “The names of these three sons are Daunius, Peucetius and Messapius.” (T/N: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/cparada/GML/Lycaon2.html)

“Oh.” Philesius was slightly surprised.

“After hundreds of years, the clansmen led by these three sons have grown, and they have named their tribes after the first three leaders to distinguish themselves from each other…this has been passed down among the Messapi, and due to us Tarantines being at war with them long enough, we manage to find out about it.”

When Polidorus finished speaking, Kapus asked anxiously, “And there is also a Daunian?! These three races were originally of the same race, so once we go to war with the Messapi-Peuceti alliance, wouldn't the Daunian suddenly join?!”

Polidorus hastily explained, “Although they used to be of the same race, after hundreds of years of development, whether it is the Messapi, Peuceti, and Dauni, they are now all big races with dozens of tribes with more than 100,000 people, each of which has its own fixed territory. Not only do they have different political systems, but they also have conflicts of interest and have even become mortal enemies.

The Daunian are to the north of the Peucetians, and it was said that they have a large river and fertile land, and they have at least 5 big cities. While the Peucetians are sandwiched between the Daunians and the Messapians, and they have neither fertile land nor excellent port cities and trade channels like the Messapians, so they have a much more difficult time in developing. Therefore, they used to compete with the Daunians for land on both sides of the Ofanto River, hence why the two races were mortal enemies and could never unite. And to the south, the Peucetians and the Messapians have also clashed from time to time, and it is only because of our, Taranto's, presence that the fighting between them has not been so fierce…”

Davos bowed his head and looked at the sketch of Taranto and the surrounding forces that Polidorus had roughly drawn at his request while listening to his narration. Then he suddenly asked, “What's the difference between the political systems of Dauni, Peuceti and Messapi?”

Polidorus did not expect that Davos would ask this. He frowned and thought for a long time before saying, “Uhm…at present, the government of the various city-states of Messapi now is somewhat similar to our Greek city-states, but more than ten years ago, they were still a unified kingdom under their king – Artas, who offered hospitality to those Athenians who were going to attack Syracuse, and had even sent a large number of their warriors to join them…” Speaking of this, Polidorus sneered, “The territories of the Messapians are surrounded by our Greek city-states with frequent trade contacts. Therefore, the Messapians have long been influenced by the Greek's democratic ideas, due to this, their nobles, tribes and cities have been clamouring to limit the power of the king, while Artas was a fool who had still chosen to have close contact with the Athenians. He knew nothing of the insidiousness of the Athenians, and just within a few years after the destruction of the Athenian army at Syracuse, the Messapian nobles revolted and the rule of Artas was overthrown, while he had lost his life…then, all the cities of the Messapi became independent one after another and were now largely ruled by the nobles who then elect an archon each year to rule the city-state along with a council of nobles, these Messapian city-states then formed a Messapian League with Rudiae at their head, and rarely fought with each other and are relatively united-”

When Polidorus said this, he spoke it in a somewhat lower tone instead, making Davos realise that this emerging Messapian city-states alliance seemed to give Taranto an even bigger headache.

“While Peuceti and Dauni are still ruled by a king…” Polidorus quickly changed the topic to the other two races, “The difference between them is that the king of Peuceti has more power, while the king of the Dauni…is said to be constrained by the various city lords…”

Davos listened thoughtfully, then asked, “Since Messapi and Peuceti have been in conflict, so why have they now formed an alliance?”

Polidorus said with a bitter smile, “You are asking me…however, according to the council's analysis, the reason why the Messapians are willing to ally with Peuceti is that they are afraid of the offence of Taranto!”

There was a trace of pride on Polidorus' face, while Davos nodded as he looked at the map again, but in his mind, he was thinking: Some time ago when Taranto attacked the Messapians, he heard that Taranto had suffered a lot of casualties, but they still manage to capture Brindisi and Manduria, and once they secured their newly captured territory, they could cut off the Messapians from the north, and with Taranto's naval strength being one of the best in Magna Graecia, they could surround the Messapians and slowly swallow them. And even if Taranto lost men, they would still be able to supplement it with freemen, but the Messapians who have their people die one after another would only become weaker and weaker. This is probably the original plan of the statesmen of Taranto.

“As for Peuceti, perhaps they would rather have the Messapians who have the same blood as them be next to their territory than a foreign race! Besides, with the alliance with the Messapians, the Peucetians could fight against the Daunians with all their strength…”

This was only Polidorus' guess, and Davos thought that there must be other reasons, otherwise, why would the Peucetians who are in a bad situation be willing to take risk in offending a powerful city-state in Magna Graecia?!

“The Peucetians sent out a large army to war, aren't they afraid that the Daunians would take this opportunity to attack?” Asked Kapus.

“I heard that the Peucetians had attacked the Daunians last year and were defeated, and lost the land they occupied on the south bank of the Ofanto River, and the Peucetians eventually signed an armistice agreement with the Daunians.”

“Can an armistice agreement guarantee that the Daunians will not attack?”

Polidorus shrugged his shoulder and said angrily, “Who knows what is going on in the minds of these idiot barbarians. The Peucetians are already on our land anyway!”

Drakos yawned as he was not interested in what Polidorus was saying, but he was too embarrassed to interrupt once he saw that Davos was listening carefully.

At this time, he saw that Polidorus stopped talking, so he could not wait to ask, “What are the characteristics of the Messapians and the Peucetians' army?”

When it comes to this issue, Polidorus had naturally become emotional again, “The Messapians used to have a lot of cavalry like the Peucetians, but their infantry was bad as they not only have no good armour, their formation was also loose, with the Messapians lacking discipline that they don't even know how to arrange a phalanx formation, so they never dared to fight with us head-on, and they only know how to do sneak attacks and harassment, just like cowardly bandits! But the Athenians-” Polidorus increased his tone, “We are the children of Sparta, so during the Peloponnesian War, we naturally were on the side of our mother-city, but the Athenians went so far as to help a foreign race by supplying the Messapians with armour and weapons, and had even sent men to help train their heavy infantry and encouraging the Messapians to fight against us! The Messapians, having mastered our Greek tactics and with the support of Athens, did more harm to us than ever before! If it had not been for Archytas-” At this point, Polidorus became slightly gloomy.

Drakos did not care at all about the change of Polidorus' mood and continued to ask, “What are the combat characteristics of the Messapian cavalry?”

Polidorus glanced at the others helplessly, but seeing that everyone was all interested, he could only say, “The Messapians are good riders. They could control the direction of the horses only by their legs even without holding the reins, moreover, they are good at throwing spears while on horseback, which is a threat to our hoplites.”

Davos and Philesius then looked at each other.

Polidorus noticed it, so he hurriedly said, “Although the Messapian cavalry is more powerful than our cavalry, is after all just a supplement in battle, and it is the heavy infantry that really makes the difference on the battlefield. And even if the Messapians had once had the help of the Athenians, their heavy infantry is still no match to a real Greek hoplite!”

Drakos once more asked, “How many men do the Messapian-Peucetian alliance have? How many citizens can Taranto send to war?”

Polidorus looked at him, he then spread both his hands and said, “I am just an envoy. It is up to the Council to decide how many citizens they would send to war, and I can't make the decision. As for how many men there are in the Messapian-Peucetian alliance…we don't even know whether Archytas is alive or dead, let alone the enemies' number of troops. However, I estimate that there should be no more than 30,000 men, while among the citizens in Taranto who can fight now, including the garrisoned troops in Brindisi and Manduria, there are at least 16,000 young citizens and together with your own troops of 14,000, plus the 3,000 men from Metapontum and Heraclea, the total number of our joined troops is well over 30,000. Therefore, we should be able to defeat the Messapi-Peuceti alliance without difficulty!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

After seeing off Polidorus, Davos returned to his mansion and continued the discussion.

“Lord Davos, if, it is as the envoy said that Taranto can send tens of thousands of men to join us, then we should rescue Manduria first.” Drakos then pointed to the map and said confidently, “With our troops being twice as the combined Messapi-Peuceti troops, we can not only defeat them, but we can even consider swallowing some of them. Which would make it much easier once we advance to the north to reinforce Brindisi.”