“One…obol.” Alemus said in stiff Greek.
The young man then pulled out a drachma from his money pouch and threw it to Alemus, then squatted down and held up the wooden cylinder, which was made by simply hollowing out the centre of a fist-thick tree trunk, polishing it and painting it. Then a milky white juice filled the wooden cylinder, which was quite heavy in his hand. Without minding its crudeness, the young man first took a small sip, tasted it, and amazement showed on his face, “It tastes terrific; It seems you had mixed goat’s milk and grape juice. In addition, you should have also added honey, but the most surprising is that this goat’s milk is not musty. So how did you do it?”
The young man who spoke was Adoris, the adopted son of King Davos of Theonia. Since he had already turned eighteen, he would now participate for the first time as a legion soldier in the war against Dauni. Although he doesn’t have much interest in cooking, he has more or less experience in this area after tasting the food in his home daily.
But Alemus pretended he couldn’t understand by looking down for a change.
Seeing that, Adoris no longer questioned him. Instead, he threw another drachma and said, “Don’t bother looking for a change; just give me ten more.” He then looked around and said, “Since my brothers have worked hard in their training, this would be my treat and have them drink some juice to quench their thirsts.”
His comrades immediately cheered, “Thank you, Adoris! O generous Adoris!…”
Alemus and his wife quickly filled each wooden cylinder with the juice and handed it to the thirsty soldiers.
“Prince, don’t just invite your squadmates to drink juices! We are also thirsty!” A soldier not far from the market entrance shouted.
‘Prince?!’ In his memory, the one with the title of ‘prince’ was Vadalka, the son of the former king of Peuceti, Telemani. But after Telemani died in the battle of Brindisi, the royal family’s power was significantly reduced after the tribal warriors directly under Telemani were almost wiped out. With Peuceti becoming chaotic, Vadalka, even though he was the prince, couldn’t become the new king because he didn’t have the support of any large tribes. And once the Theonians invaded, Vadalka took his family and fled by ship to Epirus on the other side of the Adriatic.
Although the young man in front of him is tall and sturdy, with big eyes and thick eyebrows, the remaining boyishness on his face conceals his nobleness, so Alemus doesn’t know if his title of a prince is true or not.
Adoris turned around and cursed, “Amphias, if you keep on shouting, I will make sure you won’t be able to drink any today!”
The soldier, however, remained fearless as he replied with a smile, “I will stop shouting as long as you treat me.”
Although Adoris glared at him, he couldn’t do anything to him. After the South Italian war, with Theonia almost occupying Magna Graecia, Crotone was forced by the situation as they had to rely on Theonia to rebuild a new city and restore their past prosperity. Hence the Crotonians finally chose to merge into the kingdom of Theonia, with Lysias, Milo and other high-ranking members of Crotone’s council becoming a statesman of Theonia. And Amphias, being the son of Lysias, followed his father to Thurii and became Adoris’ classmate in the school in Thurii. Wanting not to be taken care of too much, Adoris specifically asked Davos to allow him to serve as a legion soldier in the fourth legion that was based in Crotone as he thought that no one would know him after coming out of age. Who knew that he would meet Amphias in the fourth legion, who had not set his registered residence in Thurii after becoming an adult and instead chosen his birthplace Crotone, which thus revealed Adoris’ identity.
Knowing Amphias’ brazen personality, Adoris looked around the market, turned and pointed to the pottery jar beside the stall and asked, “How much is this jar of juice?”
Alemus’ heart jolted, and he quickly replied, “Two drachmae.”
“You still have 15 more jars here, and I’ll buy them all. However, can you give any soldiers who come here a cup of juice to drink?!” Adoris said directly and counted out 30 drachmae from his pouch.
“Yes! Yes!…” Alemus nodded again and again.
Then a bigger cheer erupted in the market, mixed with an abrupt shout, “All hail prince Adoris!”
‘Damn Amphias!’ Adoris became so angry that he immediately shouted, “Brothers, Amphias just told me that since I would invite you all to drink juice today, he would invite you to drink beer once we won the war and return to Thurii!”
“I didn’t-” Amphias was about to argue, but the soldiers already shouted excitedly, “Amphias, I didn’t expect that you would be more generous than Adoris!”
“Amphias, we can’t wait to go to battle and win, then go home and drink your beer!”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
As laughter rang in the market, Alemus, who was busy distributing the juice, lamented at how fearless these young soldiers who didn’t know the cruelty of war, which reminded him of his youth.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
In the central camp of the Theonian stronghold, Alexius, the commander in charge of this attack on Dauni, was pondering about a letter from King Davos. And the reason was that at the end of the letter, Davos wrote, “…a glorious battle happened on the north bank of the Ofanto river in the past, so I hope you will also win a magnificent victory that is not inferior to our !…”
Alexius thought carefully but still couldn’t recall any major battles taking place in this vicinity. Thus he asked his adjutant, who had just graduated from the school of Thurii with honours, “Umateseus, do you know of any fierce battles that have taken place near the Ofanto river back then?”
Umateseus, the eldest son of Bagul, thought for a moment and immediately replied, “I don’t know.”
‘Could it be that battle had occurred here so long ago that it wasn’t recorded? But since his majesty was the god’s favoured, he would certainly know it through Hades’ enlightenment…’ Alexius could only think like that. Still, the encouragement in Davos’ letter made him ambitious.
It is only natural for him not to know about the ‘glorious battle’ mentioned in Davos’ letter as it still hadn’t yet happened but had happened in the history of his previous life. Back then, the great commander Hannibal led 50,000 troops across the river and met with the 80,000 Roman soldiers in a battle. But through clever formation, he eventually defeated the Roman army using smaller numbers and created one of the most glorious examples in the history of ancient western warfare. This also made Davos have the impulse to rush over to personally command this war and compete with Hannibal. However, he had to give up now, after all, the difference between Dauni and his previous life’s Rome was too great that it wasn’t worth him to do it himself.
Moreover, Davos, who wasn’t too knowledgeable about his history, was not aware of another battle that took place in the following decades of his in the south of the city of Asculum on the northwest bank of the Ofanto river, which was also quite famous – the Battle of Asculum. King Pyrrhus of Epirus led the army to fight the Romans for the second time, but even though he won the battle, he suffered heavy losses. As a consequence, Pyrrhus lost his desire to fight the Romans anymore, so he led his army to leave Italia and go to Sicily.
“Legatus Amintas has arrived!… Legatus Olivos has arrived!… Legatus Giorgris has arrived!… Legatus Ledes has arrived!…” The guards outside the main quarter kept announcing.
After entering the quarter, the legatus of the several legions saluted at Alexius and sat down.
“O Legati.” Alexius sat on the main seat and solemnly said to them, “We had stayed here for seven days now, and all the legions, auxiliary troops, and military supplies had arrived. With the Daunians already gathered on the other side, I decided we would cross the river tomorrow and launch an attack on the enemy.”
“We are finally going to attack! We have stayed here for so long that our soldiers felt suffocated!” Amintas immediately raised his hands in favour.
“Lord Amintas, I think it’s only you who felt suffocated.” Olivos smiled.
“You Olivos dares to make fun of me?! Since there will be a rugby match in the afternoon between the first and fourth legions, you and I would play as the quarterbacks, and whoever loses would have to jump around the training ground! Do you dare?!” Amintas shouted.
“I don’t fear you!” said Olivos. But he politely refused, “I need to go out tomorrow, so I don’t have the time to fight with you as I need to assign tasks to the legion and prepare the soldiers in the afternoon!”
“Excuses!” Amintas spat. But since he knew Olivos was right, he no longer bothered him.
“Lord commander, will the Daunians come out to intercept us while we cross the river tomorrow?” Giorgris asked cautiously.
“That’s very likely!” Alexius continued, “From our information from the north, the king of Daunians was unwilling to face us outside his city. However, the great chieftains of Asculum, Sipontum, Herdoniae…and several other towns insisted on blocking us out of Dauni territory, so that’s why they encouraged their king to finally gather his army on the opposite side of the Ofanto.”
“In that case, we should set out early tomorrow morning and cross the river at the fastest speed. And since the Daunian army wouldn’t be as fast as our Theonian army, we would’ve already crossed the river by the time they arrived at the opposite bank.” Olivos put forward his own proposal.
“If that’s the case, it is very likely that the Daunians wouldn’t come out to fight us if they hid in the city of Herdoniae on the opposite bank. That is not favourable to our mission to eliminate the main force of the Daunians immediately, and will also delay our conquest of the entire Daunian region and would just increase the casualties of our soldiers.” Alexius shook his head.