Chapter 70

After crossing the Saraceno River, Davos noticed the terrain beginning to rise. The mountain range ran north, parallel to the coast, but the distance between the two had narrowed considerably. This constricted space increased the security of their small party, but Davos did not let his guard down. He had Axistes and Laedes act as scouts on their left flank, keeping a close watch on the mountains to prevent an enemy force from circling around and cutting off their retreat.

On the next leg of their journey, Davos saw no soft, sandy beaches along the coast. Instead, there were steep cliffs and jagged reefs, with the sea beating against the shore in a rhythmic and surprisingly thunderous display.

It’s unlikely Amendolara has a port, Davos thought, a pang of disappointment rising from his gut.

Just then, the guide called out, “Look, that’s Amendolara.”

Following the direction of his pointing finger, they could see a city in the distance, appearing and disappearing through the haze.

Davos’s spirits lifted. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks, urging it into a gallop, and his soldiers hurried to keep pace.

Now he could see it clearly: Amendolara was a mountain city, which went against Greek tradition. It was built atop a mountain of no insignificant height, facing east and looking out over the Gulf of Tarentum. The morning mist swirling through the forests wreathed the city in a gauzy, indistinct veil.

To get a better look, Davos pressed onward.

The guide followed close behind, trembling. They were less than a miles from the city now. Though they hadn’t seen any Lucanians yet, that didn’t mean the natives wouldn’t come out to offer a ‘welcome’ now that they were on their doorstep.

Another river, less than ten meters wide, now blocked their path. The water was clear enough to see the bottom, and it was obviously fordable.

“This is the Sisno River,” the guide said, his voice pleading. “A bit further north is another river called the Brano. Amendolara is between the two. Let’s stop here. We can’t cross this river.”

Davos couldn’t help but marvel at the abundance of water on the Apennine peninsula. It was no wonder the citizens of Magna Graecia lived more prosperous lives than their counterparts in the Greek homeland. The snowmelt from the Apennine Mountains fed the rivers, which in turn washed soil and rock down from the heights to the lowlands. Year after year, how could the land not become fertile? Compared to the gravelly soil of Greece, it was the difference between heaven and earth. His only complaint was that the plains were too narrow.

During a war, a mountain city was generally easy to defend but hard to attack. However, it had to solve two fundamental problems: food and water. Since Amendolara was surrounded by rivers, water was clearly not an issue. As Davos mulled this over, he continued to observe the city. It didn’t look very large. It stood at least a hundred meters above the plain, but the slopes were gentle. A stone wall encircled its perimeter.

The guide, seeing that Davos was neither crossing the river nor leaving, but simply standing on the bank staring at Amendolara, began to grow anxious. He was about to urge him to leave again when Davos spoke.

“What is Amendolara’s relationship with Thurii? Was it a city founded by Thurian colonists?”

This guide was no ordinary slave. As a house-born slave, he had grown up with Burkos, learning and playing alongside him. As an adult, he had become an important assistant, traveling far and wide with his master on business ventures. He was well-informed, and Burkos had likely sent him as a gesture of apology for breaking his promise to Davos. After a moment’s thought, he answered the surprisingly deep historical question. “It is said that Amendolara was built by the natives here long ago. Later, the Sybarites occupied it. After Croton destroyed Sybaris, they never conquered this city. When Thurii was founded, Amendolara voluntarily entered into an alliance with us and even fought alongside us against the attacks from Tarentum to the north.”

An alliance? Looking at the small city of Amendolara and thinking of the scale of Thurii, it was clear they were not of the same magnitude. It would be difficult to have a dialogue between equals. It was likely an alliance in name, but a vassal state in reality. Still, Davos thought, a wave of relief washing over him, as long as it’s not a colony of Thurii, that’s all that matters.

He had been in this era for over half a year and had made a special effort to understand the reality of the Greek city-states, which had completely overturned the concept from his past life that a city-state was just a single city. When Greeks founded a city, they would expand outwards as much as possible, establishing villages and towns and bringing the surrounding land under their control. When the territory became too distant for direct control, they would found a colony or conquer another city, both to continue their expansion and to provide a protective buffer for the main city.

Initially, such colonies would follow the orders of their mother city. After all, the colonists had come from there, and even their magistrates might be appointed by the mother city. But over time, the Greek love of freedom and independence would take effect. This, combined with the closed political model of the city-state, which naturally resisted unification, led to the colonies inevitably becoming independent. However, due to geographical and blood ties, as long as the mother city maintained its strength and did not act too tyrannically, the colonies would often form a natural alliance with it. But if a colony was separated from its mother city by an ocean or a great distance, after a few decades, the relationship could wither, and they might become two entirely separate states, or even enemies, as was the case with Corinth and Corcyra.

Clearly, Davos thought, Amendolara was a colony of Sybaris, and to Thurii, it was merely a subordinate ally. Therefore, this land does not belong to Thurii. Having settled this in his mind, he asked aloud, “How did the Lucanians conquer this city?”

“I’m not entirely sure about that. It seems very few of Amendolara’s citizens escaped. At the time, Thurii was consumed by the grief of its own disastrous defeat and was busy preparing its defenses against the Lucanians. They ignored Amendolara’s pleas for help. I don’t know what happened to their people afterwards,” the guide said nonchalantly. Davos, however, committed every word to memory.

Just then, Axistes shouted, “General, someone is coming out of the city!”

***

Vesba, the leader of the Lucanians in Amendolara, had been on edge for some time. An envoy had arrived from Grumentum, demanding that he and his tribe participate in the Lucanian tribal league’s upcoming second invasion of Thurii.

Vesba’s tribe had originally lived on the banks of the upper Agri River, southeast of Grumentum. His was one of the larger tribes in a region of many settlements, and for decades they had lived peacefully as pastoralists and simple farmers. But two years ago, after the powerful city of Grumentum formed an alliance with Pyxous, their strength grew, and they became even more aggressive. No longer constrained by their powerful northwestern rival, Potentia, they began a campaign of expansion, attacking and absorbing the smaller tribes and mountain strongholds around them. Faced with the might of Grumentum’s army, Vesba’s tribe, unwilling to be swallowed up, had no choice but to flee further southeast. They took refuge in the forests bordering the territories of Amendolara and Heraclea. There, tormented by hunger and disease, his people began to die, including two of Vesba’s own sons. Just as he was on the verge of surrender for the sake of survival, he heard news.

Grumentum’s expansion had brought it more people and greater military strength, but it had also created a new problem: food. The Lucanian mountains were not particularly fertile, and the people relied more on herding, which was itself at the mercy of the weather. The winter two years ago had been much colder than usual, and a great number of their livestock had frozen to death. Food had become the critical factor in whether Grumentum could maintain its hegemony in southern Lucania. And so, last winter, Grumentum had allied with Pyxous and led a great army, joined by the forces of the tribes and cities that recognized its leadership—Nerulum, Laos, and others—to attack Thurii.

Vesba decided to play his own game. He hoped to fish in troubled waters during the great war, to pull his tribe back from the brink of annihilation. He mobilized his entire people to build rafts and stockpile food, preparing to raid eastward.

It was at that moment that he received the good news: the great army of Thurii, numbering ten thousand men, had attacked Laos and been completely wiped out.

Vesba was overjoyed. He believed his moment had come. He immediately ordered his entire tribe to board their rafts, and they rode the river downstream, braving the dangerous rapids, until they finally entered the territory of Amendolara.