Chapter 219: Rome’s Counterattack 2
Chapter 219: Rome’s Counterattack 2
The defeat at the Larissa rout was not a simple loss of a battle.
It was a painful defeat that meant the complete loss of Rome’s influence over Greece.
There were many humiliating defeats in the history of Rome, which fought countless wars.
A typical example was the Battle of Cannae against Hannibal.
In this battle, the Roman army, which had deployed more than 86,000 troops, suffered a near-annihilation defeat by Hannibal’s Carthaginian army, which had only about 50,000 men.
The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 45,000 and up to 60,000, the worst defeat ever.
It happened more than 150 years ago, but since then, Rome had never experienced such a terrible defeat in a single battle.
But this time, the disaster at the Larissa rout resulted in more than three times as many casualties as the Battle of Cannae.
Out of 200,000 legionaries, less than 20,000 managed to escape with their lives.
This terrible outcome was due to the location where the rout took place.
The Larissa plain was nearly 100 km away from Demetrias, the nearest Roman city.
Moreover, the terrain itself was wide open for tens of km in all directions, so the infantry could not avoid the eyes of the cavalry.
The only reason that this many people survived was that Sextus desperately drew attention and helped his allies retreat.
If it weren’t for him, there might have been only a few hundred survivors.
Bayatur, who won the battle, calmly conquered the Greek cities as if he had nothing to worry about.
He did not hurry at all.
He needed to collect the usable equipment from the Roman army first, and he also needed to give his subordinates some rest.
“There are some good quality equipment, but not as much as I expected. I guess the army of the South Emperor was the most inferior one.”
He was disappointed even though he expected it.
He wanted to arm all his elites with weapons of the same quality as the new ones he plundered from the Roman army in Germania, but unfortunately he still fell short of that level.
In fact, Sextus’ army’s equipment was inevitably inferior to that of Marcus and even Caesar.
Marcus did not leak any of his own equipment such as pila and plate armor at all, and only supplied plate mail (lorica segmentata) to Caesar and Pompey.
And he limited the supply amount to a level that they could easily defeat their enemies with careful calculations.
He had to consider the worst case scenario where they might have a military conflict in case something went wrong.
As long as the front-line soldiers wore new equipment, they were unbeatable against ordinary barbarians.
The exchange rate was almost 10 to 1 even if he was conservative.
He thought it was more than enough, and it was true.
If he had known that the Huns would invade in advance, Marcus would have made a different choice, but this part was also beyond his control.
No one but Marcus could have foreseen such a historical change unless they were gods.
Moreover, Sextus inherited Pompey’s legion that had lost a lot of equipment after fighting successive civil wars with Gnaeus and Caesar.
So it was inevitable that there were not enough high-quality equipment for Bayatur to get his hands on.
Bayatur nodded his head slightly with a tongue click after listening to his subordinate’s report that they had finished collecting all the weapons.
“It can’t be helped. If their equipment had been much better, our casualties would have been higher. I’ll have to be satisfied with getting this much usable weapons.”
He entered Demetrias almost bloodlessly and threw an annoyed look at the port that was ruined beyond repair.
The subordinate who reported to him seemed puzzled by his displeasure after achieving a great victory.
He asked him curiously.
“Is there anything that bothers you?”
“I’m surprised that Rome didn’t lose its meticulousness even after losing the battle. I wanted to get hold of the port and ships first, but they destroyed them thoroughly.”
What the Huns lacked most was ships and sailing skills.
The nomadic people were invincible on flat land, but they were different on the sea.
Many of them shivered or vomited as soon as they got on board.
No, some even believed that they would be cursed and die if they went out on a boat.
Bayatur didn’t have any crazy idea of getting ships and fighting naval battles with Rome either.
But having ships or not made a huge difference.
If he had ships, he could go from Greece to Asia Minor by sailing only 3 km, but without ships, he had to go around thousands of km to enter there.
Even if he didn’t intend to fight naval battles, just showing signs of landing by using ships would make Rome more worried.
So Bayatur ordered his subordinates to capture the city as quickly as possible and secure the port, ships, shipbuilders and sailors as a top priority.
But Rome didn’t comply.
They had no choice but to hand over the city after losing their entire army in the rout, but they didn’t leave a single ship behind.
They loaded the shipbuilders and sailors on the warships and gathered all the remaining defenders in Athens.
This was also the last order that Sextus gave before he died.
“Demetrias is in this state, so Thessalonica must be no different. The same goes for the major cities of Byzantium and Thrace.”
“But isn’t it most important that we took the city without much damage?”
“That’s true… We have achieved more than half of our success. We have dealt a fatal blow to Rome’s economy.”
Bayatur minimized the plundering of the Greek cities that surrendered voluntarily, unlike in Gaul.
He only took the treasures piled up in the temples, and avoided touching the ordinary citizens as much as possible.
He needed to conquer and stabilize the local area as quickly as possible.
The Greek cities, terrified by the infamy of the Huns, breathed a sigh of relief at barely saving their lives and entered under the Huns for now.
They didn’t really surrender, but just by doing this, it would be a burden for Rome.
Bayatur drew a big plan here.
He ordered the three Sunwoo who attacked Ephesus to continue their advance to Dalmatia and secure the way to Rome.
He told Altan, who conquered Thrace, to guard the main cities there.
Finally, he moved his army to besiege Athens, which was still resisting in Greece.
He couldn’t enter the Peloponnese peninsula without capturing Athens, so Rome was concentrating all its remaining defenders there.
Even though their surviving forces were too small to defend, they were lucky enough that Antony’s troops sent by Marcus arrived in Athens.
They came in a hurry, so they brought only 30,000 men instead of 40,000 as planned, but it was enough to defend Athens.
Caesar’s reinforcements that were supposed to come to Greece also changed their plan urgently and turned their direction to set up a defense line in Dalmatia.
Bayatur surrounded Athens calmly and didn’t take his eyes off the enemy’s movements.
He didn’t intend to wage a siege war.
He never had such a mind in the first place.
Even though Antony’s troops were defending Athens, they were only desperately holding on and couldn’t step out.
If they did, they would be slaughtered by the Hunnic elite cavalry led by Bayatur.
Using ships to retake other cities was also impossible.
The speed of ships in this era could not match the mobility of Hunnic cavalry.
Galley ships, which mainly sailed along the coast, could not secretly retake other cities, and even if they could, Athens would fall as soon as they took out a lot of troops.
In other words, all the Roman army in Athens could do was to receive supplies through the sea and stay in the city.
But with almost all of Greece and Thrace devastated, Rome couldn’t just let this situation go on.
If this situation continued for a few years, the Mediterranean economy would suffer irreparable damage.
The Roman army had no choice but to move to reclaim Greece.
And the main actor would naturally be Marcus, who had the most powerful army.
Bayatur intended to fight with Marcus’ army in Greece and decisively determine the victory of this war.
If he avoided a rout and stayed in the city for defense only, that was fine too.
Then he would pour all his troops into Dalmatia and break through the defense line and advance to Rome.
Now that Sextus’ legion was annihilated, Rome could not use its original tactic of pressuring the Huns from three directions.
“I’m looking forward to it. I wonder how the East Emperor will come out. I hope he doesn’t disappoint me.”
Bayatur organized his army and smirked at the walls of Athens that stood precariously.
He felt the atmosphere of the city that had collapsed even though it was far away.
The bitter smell carried by the wind was heavily mixed with the scent of death.
Bayatur thought this was also a good sign.
Thinking of the upcoming battle, death was what suited best for that scene.
He felt his blood boil as a conqueror when he faced an opponent worth fighting for.
He prepared for his greatest prey in his life.
All he had to do was wait for the time of battle.
※※※
Marcus sent Antony as a vanguard and quickly gathered all the troops he could mobilize.
And soon after, a messenger from Greece arrived to find him.
The news he received was as expected.
The fact that nearly 200,000 troops were almost wiped out was just the beginning.
Almost all areas except Athens fell into the hands of the Huns, and they stole huge amounts of cultural assets and treasures from the temples.
More than anything, the aftermath of such a historic defeat affected not only Greece but also Rome itself.
Rome panicked, and its allies doubted Rome’s power that they had never questioned before.
If he left it like this, cracks would spread throughout every field of economy, society and politics.
“I guess I have no choice but to go to Greece myself.”
Marcus listened to the messenger’s story with a bitter expression.
He felt an indescribable regret in his heart when he heard of Sextus’ last moments.
‘I’m sorry, Pompey. I couldn’t keep my promise.’
He closed his eyes and kept them shut for a while.
He did it to calm down the emotions that were rising up.
After some time passed, he opened his eyes again and asked Septimus about the readiness of the troops.
The answer was the same as before.
150,000 troops were fully prepared, but there was one thing missing: the ships that could carry them all were not yet completed.
But luckily, or by the will of heaven, Sextus’s will gave Marcus a way out.
Sextus’s will, which stated that he would transfer all his authority and clients to Marcus, was officially made public.
And not long after, Gabinius showed up with all the ships he had gathered from Greece in front of the coast of Bithynia.
If Marcus added the ships he had built so far, he would have enough to transport 150,000 troops.
“Although he made a huge mistake, Sextus did his best to correct it.”
Marcus sent a report to the Senate that started with these words to honor Sextus’s memory.
Of course, the main content of the report was that he would take over Sextus’s place and reclaim Greece and settle this chaos.
The reply was not expected.
This was not a request, but a notification.
And it was also a declaration.
“Let all the troops gather at the port. From now on, we will go to Athens and take back Greece from the hands of the Huns!”
The soldiers did not waver at the words that they were going to fight against the enemy who had annihilated 200,000 Romans.
Rather, their eyes sparkled with a firm will and determination to avenge their compatriots.
They were Marcus’s army.
They had never lost a war or failed to subdue their enemies in front of them.
Finally, a huge fleet of ships that filled the sea left the port and started moving.
A few days later.
Bayatur’s army could clearly observe the endless ships coming from across the sea entering the port of Athens.
They couldn’t interfere because they were blocked by thick walls.
That’s how Marcus’s 150,000 troops landed in Athens as if they were showing off.
Naturally, neither commander had any intention of avoiding a fight.
From Bayatur’s perspective, if he defeated Marcus, he could practically take over Asia Minor, and from Marcus’s perspective, if he killed Bayatur here with only 70,000 irregulars, he could end the war right away.
The Larissa rout was painful, but Rome still had enough power to counterattack as a superpower.
Now it was time for the Huns, who had only been taking away until now, to defend what they had taken from Rome.