Chapter 83

The Tarentine reinforcements on the Greek right wing were also forced to retreat. Fortunately for them, they had two hundred cavalry standing by on their flank. The Lucanian warriors opposite them did not dare to pursue too aggressively, fearing that if their own formation became too scattered, the Greek cavalry would take advantage. As a result, the Tarentines’ withdrawal was also relatively orderly.

Only the Greek center had completely collapsed into a scattering of sand, all organization lost.

“General Pheresus, we’re defeated! We’re defeated! What do we do? What do we do now?” Kunogelata, the general who was normally so clever and eloquent in the bouleuterion, was now completely consumed by panic.

“What else can be done?” Pheresus said with a bitter laugh, his voice filled with regret. “I failed to stand by my convictions. That was my mistake. I underestimated the enemy. That was my mistake. I was stubborn and failed to listen to the advice of others. That was my mistake. For Thurii to suffer this defeat today, the fault is mine and mine alone!”

He looked at the routed soldiers streaming past him, and his expression became one of unwavering resolve. “You, go back to Thurii at once! Tell the citizens to prepare the defenses! I will buy time for Thurii, and in doing so, I will atone for my sins to Apollo!” With that, he raised his shield and spear with his withered arms, pushed his way through the fleeing soldiers, and faced the surging tide of the enemy. The personal guards, slaves, and kinsmen at his side all raised a cry: “For Thurii!” A hundred men, with the old general at their head, turned and charged against the tide. As they passed, some of the fleeing Thurian citizens, inspired by their courage, stopped running and joined their ranks.

Kunogelata hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he wheeled his horse around and fled, comforting himself as he rode: Pheresus is right. If we all die here, who will be left to protect Thurii?

By the time he faced the enemy, Pheresus’s contingent had grown to eight hundred men. The old general, over sixty years of age, raised a final, defiant cry: “Apollo!” He was the first to charge into the enemy ranks. His men followed, launching a desperate counter-charge. They fought with the courage of men who no longer feared death, and their ferocity took the warriors of Grumentum, whose own formation had become scattered in the pursuit, completely by surprise. The small band of exceptionally brave and stubborn Thurians nearly punched through their line, forcing the Grumentum warriors to regroup and surround them.

The most tragic scene of the battle thus came to its end. The eight hundred Thurians, with Pheresus at their head, were all killed in action. Not a single one escaped.

***

Kunogelata, desperate to reach Thurii as quickly as possible, was nearly knocked from his horse several times by the fleeing soldiers. His heart was torn between worry for the city’s safety and a sliver of regret: I should never have joined this battle just to gain prestige.

***

The city of Thurii was no more than five or six miles from the battlefield. The entire populace had been watching the great battle that would decide their fate, every family praying for their soldiers, either at home or in the public squares.

When a scout galloped back to the city, his face a mask of terror, and cried out, “We are defeated! We are defeated!” the news spread through the city like a thunderbolt. It felt as if the sky itself was falling. The faint of heart collapsed on the spot. The suspicious, believing the scout was spreading false rumors, tried to drag him from his horse and beat him. The pessimistic declared that Thurii was doomed and that everyone should flee the city at once. The lawless, in their despair, saw an opportunity to stir up trouble and fish in troubled waters. The entire city, especially the public squares, was filled with the sound of wailing, a scene of utter chaos.

With the two most important of the nine generals still on the battlefield, the city was leaderless. Fortunately, the experience of last year’s defeat had taught the remaining generals something. In the moment of crisis, a few of them, led by Neanthis, stepped forward. They first dispatched patrols to maintain order in the city. Then, in the public squares, they called upon the people—men and women, old and young—to take up arms and defend their homes. They led by example, taking their own kinsmen and slaves up onto the city walls.

Just then, a group of horsemen, with Kunogelata at their head, charged across the drawbridge and into the city.

The citizens, hearing the news, immediately swarmed them, desperate for word of their loved ones. Kunogelata, knowing the urgency of the situation, seemed not to hear them. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “The Lucanians will be here at any moment! Close the gates! Close the city gates! Don’t let them get in! Otherwise, Thurii is finished!”

Neanthis frowned. “If we close the gates, our own soldiers won’t be able to get in.”

“Have them go around the walls and jump into the Crati River! We can use boats to pick them up! The Lucanians can’t swim!” Kunogelata had already worked out a plan on his way back.

In this moment of panic and crisis, the appearance of Kunogelata and his decisive suggestion gave the people a pillar to lean on. After a quick discussion, they agreed it was a feasible plan. They raised the drawbridge, shut the city gates, and began to shout from the walls to the routed soldiers below: “Jump into the river! We have boats to pick you up! Jump into the river!”

***

Davos had sent Axistes ahead to the camp to report on the battle’s outcome. He himself led his army in a rapid retreat, with Laedes beside him, holding the company standard high to guide the column.

The warriors of Pyxous, having been bloodied by the light infantry, had kept some distance from the mercenaries. The warriors of Grumentum, their pursuit delayed by Pheresus’s last stand, were also lagging behind. The mercenaries’ retreat was therefore orderly and without great risk. However, along the way, a constant stream of routed soldiers from the Thurian center crashed into their ranks. The mercenaries, without ceremony, used their shields to knock them aside. But the organized retreat and relatively intact formation of Davos’s army naturally attracted the panicked fugitives. Even when the mercenaries treated them with violence, they endured the blows and curses, following meekly behind them like well-tamed hounds.

By the time the column passed the city of Thurii, Davos’s force had become somewhat bloated, but he paid it no mind. He glanced at the countless routed soldiers gathered at the base of Thurii’s walls, then looked back at the pursuing enemy. He took the standard from Laedes, handed it to Axistes, and said to his cavalry captain, “Go to the walls of Thurii. Tell those soldiers that the Lucanians are almost upon them. Our camp is very strong. They can take refuge there for now.”

Laedes took the order and galloped off.

“Entire army, to the right!” Davos roared. The red battle standard, fluttering in the wind, guided the column away from the camp’s western gate and toward the southern gate instead.

Gnaenat and his warriors from Pyxous were in hot pursuit of the mercenaries. Ever since he had become a warrior, in dozens of battles big and small, he had never been so humiliated, so close to losing his own life. The fact that these Greeks, after slaughtering his kinsmen, now intended to slip away filled him with an even greater rage. His eyes were fixed on one target and one target only: Catch them! Slaughter them!

Though the routed Thurian soldiers at the city walls were a closer and easier target, he ignored them in his single-minded pursuit. As a result, the warriors of Pyxous crashed directly into the warriors of Grumentum, who were pursuing the Thurians. By the time the two Lucanian forces had untangled themselves, Davos’s army was already safely inside their camp.

***

The Thurian senators, led by Kunogelata, with their limited battlefield experience (the only truly experienced one having just been killed), had oversimplified the problem.

It was true that the shouting from the walls had convinced some of the soldiers to leave the city gates and jump into the Crati River. But many of the fugitives refused to leave. The gates were right in front of them, and in their exhausted state, they were unwilling to make the long detour to jump into the cold river. They pleaded and cursed at the base of the walls. In the time they wasted, the warriors of Grumentum arrived. After a brief chase and slaughter, the routed soldiers, who had been unwilling to jump, now had no choice. But in their panic and haste, they had no time to shed their heavy armor. Many of them sank straight to the bottom of the river and drowned.

The citizens on the walls, forced to watch as their loved ones were cut down or drowned below, broke into heart-wrenching sobs. Some women, seeing their husbands killed, even threw themselves from the top of the walls, their bodies shattered on the ground below, to join their dead husbands in the underworld.

The ferocious visages of the Lucanian warriors and this bloody, tragic scene would become a nightmare that would haunt the people of Thurii for the rest of their lives.

***

The Lucanians’ failure to pursue immediately gave Davos a moment to breathe. His decision not to enter through the west gate but to circle around to the south had been to avoid a slow, congested entry. His fears had been well-founded; in fact, the situation had been worse than he had imagined. The panicked fugitives had completely disrupted the order of his column as it entered the camp.

Davos had no time for regret. He rushed up onto the wooden wall and personally directed his soldiers to knock a dozen of the most disruptive fugitives unconscious. This finally intimidated the terrified mob, and the rest of his army was able to enter the camp in an orderly fashion.