At this moment, a surprising news came: a large Spartan army entered the Arcadia region from the north!
The members of the city-states of the Arcadian Union were shocked, especially the Mandinians headed by Lycomedes.
Isn't Sparta in the southeast of Arcadia, how can its army appear in the north
It turned out that Sparta had hired a lot of soldiers in northern Greece, Ionia and Asia Minor with the gold and silver provided by Persia. Persia also provided ships to transport them to Greece, but they did not land on the coast of Sparta. , because it has been blocked by the Dionysian fleet, but with the acquiescence of Athens and Corinth, it entered the Saron Gulf on the east side of the isthmus, and entered the port of Corinth to dock. After the mercenaries came ashore and assembled, they were led south by Archidamus.
Lycomedes was anxious, because Mandinia was located in the northeastern part of the Arcadia region, which was the only way for the Spartan army, and Mandinia, as the advocate of the Arcadia Alliance, It is a thorn in the eyes of the Spartans and a thorn in the flesh.
Lycomedes cried out in the alliance: "The army of the Spartans, formed with the help of Persia, entered Arcadia without permission, and they did not come for peace, they came to destroy what was seen by Sparta. For the threatening Arcadian alliance, they want to re-enslave the Arcadians to fight for the interests of Sparta! If the Arcadian alliance does not form an alliance with Dionia soon, let the Dionian army To stop the merciless Spartan mercenary army, then the alliance that has been established for a short time will soon perish, and everyone who supports the establishment of the alliance will also become the ghost of the Spartan club!"
Lycomedes' words moved the councillors, and then they got the news that the soldiers of the Spartan army who had invaded Arcadia had wreaked havoc and ravaged the land of Flios.
Finally, the Arcadia Alliance passed this agreement with a slight advantage.
In the early spring of 370 BC (the twenty-fourth year of the Kingdom of Dionia), the Arcadian League and Dionia formed an alliance, and then Clotokatax led the 1st, 4th, and 6th legions , Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade, 1st Cavalry Corps, half of the 7th Corps (with 3,000 soldiers stationed in Messenia), a total of about 32,000 soldiers marched north, into the Arcadia region.
At this time, the Spartan mercenaries led by Archidamus were already attacking Mandinia. The news that they will form an alliance with Dionia", they hate the leader of the alliance, Mandinia, because the timely arrival of the mercenary army has boosted their confidence. Forcing it to fall back to Sparta.
The reason why the Spartans dared to make such a decision is because this hugely expensive army has 8000 heavy infantry, mainly hired from Miletus, Ephesus, Samos, Chios, Lesbos , Aeolia, etc. belong to the Greek city-states in the western coastal area of Persian Asia Minor; 4,500 Thracian light shield soldiers are mainly employed from various Thracian cities located north of the Kingdom of Macedonia, near the Aegean Sea, and near the Rhodopi Mountains. Tribes; 1500 cavalry mainly hired from the Kingdom of Macedonia; 1200 archers and slingers from Crete and Rhodes, in addition to more than 4000 light armoured soldiers from the Ionian islands in the Aegean Sea... a total of 2 More than 10,000 soldiers need to pay at least 10,000 Dalic gold coins every month, and consume countless food. Of course, these are provided by the Persians.
Archie Dames led such a large and well-equipped army for the first time, and he was confident in taking Mandinia in a short period of time.
But when he led his army into the territory of Mandinia, all the people of Mandinia had already hid in the city, so Azidamus began to storm the city of Mandinia. He originally thought that with the superior force he had, he should be able to quickly capture Mandinia City, but he did not expect to hit a hard nail.
The former city of Mandinia was swept away by Spartans. After the Mandinians who had been in exile for many years returned to their homes, they would never let their city be captured by the Spartans again. clever design.
The Mandinians chose a high place on the Orpheus River as the construction site, and then dug a new channel nearby, so that the Orpheus River was divided into two upstream of the construction site, bypassing the new city site. , meeting downstream, the river, which was originally a great threat, has been so transformed into a natural moat for the city.
They also laid a solid stone foundation for the whole city, and the city walls are all made of bricks, but the city walls are not complete and continuous, because the whole city is divided into 10 separate parts, each part of the city wall and the other part They are not connected, but they overlap each other. There are gates in this overlapping place, so the new city of Mandinia has 10 gates.
For such a unique and irregular city, for the Spartan army, it was necessary to capture the entire city one by one in order to completely occupy the entire city. The Mandinian city walls are independent of each other according to the level of the terrain, which not only prevents the Spartans' superior forces from being fully deployed, but also makes the siege soldiers suffer from long-range attacks from multiple sides of the defending side, not to mention the There is an Orpheus River as a barrier.
Archidamus launched several attacks on the city of Mandinia using the traditional Greek siege method. Not only did he fail to make any progress, but instead killed some soldiers, forcing him to change the attack to a siege and send a messenger back to Sri Lanka. Bada reports the battle.
At the same time, Clotokatax has led his army into the southwest of Arcadia. This area is a rare hilly area in Arcadia. The Helisson River runs through the entire area from south to north. In the mountains to the east of it, there is Lycaon, the main holy mountain for the Arcadians to hold religious rituals, and the central town of Megalopolis, which is being newly built by the Arcadian Union, is located on the Helisson River. Between the east coast and the holy mountain of Lycaen.
Due to the outbreak of the war with the Spartans, the construction of the new city of Megalopolis has stopped, the city wall, which is the outline of the city, is only half-built, and the most important temple of Zeus to the Arcadians has just been erected more than a dozen times. A colonnade... Scaffolding and stones stacked all over the city can be seen everywhere. There is only one building that has already been built, although it is simple, and that is the council hall of the Arcadia Alliance. It is the foundation of the existence of the entire alliance. The three members elected by the people live here for a long time, and in accordance with the rules set by the alliance, they jointly discuss and decide on foreign and military affairs within the alliance.
At this moment, dozens of members of the Alliance walked out of the city of Megalopolis and looked south from a high place: I saw countless Dionian soldiers wearing fine and consistent armor and weapons in the distance, lined up in neat rows. The column crossed the pontoon they quickly built on the Helisson River. Although the footsteps and the collision of armor were quite noisy, and the dust and mist were flying, few people complained loudly. The whole army was like a silent black dragon. Swimming forward without stopping...
The Arcadia Senators stood and looked at it for a long time. They could neither see the head nor the tail of the long dragon, and they were a little impressed.
At this time, the long dragon branched out again and went straight north. Approaching them, the young general riding a tall horse and wearing a golden crown in front raised his right hand and waved it down again. Then the army behind him stopped moving in an instant, and the soldiers all stood silently... This scene once again made the councilor They were surprised.
Lucomedes immediately stepped down from the heights and went to meet him, followed by other members of parliament.
Clotokatax also dismounted, and led Printols, Mukru, and the palace guards to meet him.
"General Clotokatax, thank you very much for your timely assistance!" Lucomedes solemnly bowed to Prince Dionia.
Clotokatax quickly supported him and said sincerely: "Lord Lucomedes, now that the Arcadia Alliance and Dionia are allies, this is what we should do! Please rest assured. , according to Dionia's military law, our soldiers will not do anything on the land of our allies to destroy the friendship between the two peoples! If there are soldiers who violate the rules, they will be severely punished!"
As soon as these words came out, many Arcadia Senators breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, someone in the assembly asked loudly, "How many soldiers did you send?"
Printoles took over the conversation: "Considering that Arcadia has many mountains and it is not easy to deploy troops, we only brought in more than 30,000 soldiers, and there are still more than 10,000 garrisoned in Messenia (Prince). Thors counts both the Mesenians and the fleet infantry of the First Fleet).
Most of the deputies gasped, and then sighed: more than 40,000 soldiers with complete equipment! They had never seen such a large army in their lives! No wonder Dionia's marching troops meandered so long that they couldn't see their head and tail at all!
You must know that the last time such a number of troops appeared in mainland Greece was during the Hippo War a hundred years ago. The Greek city-states gathered more than 100,000 soldiers (heavy infantry accounted for two-fifths of the total number) in Platia and The Persians fought decisively; once again was the Peloponnesian War a few decades ago, when Athens is said to have sent an army of about 30,000 people to expedition to Syracuse in Sicily, and finally suffered a disastrous defeat.
However, they have not seen it with their own eyes. Only the battle of Leuctra that happened not long ago, and the Peloponnesian coalition led by Sparta more than 10,000 people, was only experienced by a few parliamentarians. There are about 20,000 people on both sides of the war, and in their eyes, it is already a huge battle.