Leptines of Syracuse did not like soldiers.
It wasn't just soldiers that he wasn't a fan of. The whole concept of war he thoroughly disapproved of, and went to great lengths to avoid it. As King of Syracuse, he was able to observe the Romans and Punics constantly fighting each other. They would launch their armies at each other, slaughter thousands, call a truce and be back at each other in a few months. Nothing would come of each campaign other than thousands of slain men, thousands of ruined families.
Hiero was by any measure a soldier.
A former general in the Armies of Pyrrhus, he married the eldest of the three daughters of Leptines, and therefore became heir to Syracuse. He was definitely out of place in the noble courts; where the others would avoid dealing with the soldiers, and would only take a few discreet spearmen as their bodyguard, he insisted on a full squad of the most impressively equipped horsemen in the known world.
The oratory chambers of Syracuse were filled with disagreement. There was no question that Syracuse and its children were the finest example of Greek culture, and the rest of the world should benefit from it. The disagreements came from how Syracusian influence should be spread.
Leptines and the majority of the nobles insisted that Syracuse should not take part in wars. They argued that if they were to attract the ire of one of the military giants surrounding them, like the Romans or Punics, they would be exterminated in a heartbeat. They argued that the funds required the field even a modest army would completely drain their coffers, leave the civil services unfunded, and tax the citizens into slavery.
Hiero disagreed. He argued that Syracuse, with its unmatched armouries, could field units of men that could kill ten times as many as they lost. He argued that one could achieve military victory without slaughter. He argued that the spoils of conquest could more than fund and civil project imaginable.
This manner of debate continued for quite some time, until Leptines issued an ultimatum to Hiero.
"There is but one way to resolve this issue. If you are so confident in your ways of butchery and instruction by the spear and sword, then prove it. Prove it, and you and your descendants will have the world. Go to the ends of the earth, where no Greek man has gone before. Show them the glory of Syracuse in your manner. Bring back proof of your success, and you and your kin will have none question their authority over others. But I must demand an oath of you. You must swear that you will not harm innocents. If you must kill, then kill only those who oppose you. Do not kill or enslave the unresisting, the women or the children. You may be a soldier, but the people of Syracuse are not. Do not ask them to fight and die for you. Promise me this, and you shall leave with my blessing.
And so, Hiero prepared to leave Syracuse, and Leptines could remake it in his image.
And this is the might of Syracuse before the reforms of Leptines. It had a decently-sized army of mighty Greek warriors, but it could not afford even six months of their wages. The fleet and each of the armies was recalled, and disbanded.
And with every soldier retired and placed into the general population, trade rights obtained with the roman rebels and Punics, this was the state of Syracuse. Only two men and their bodyguards, a spy in Syracuse on the lookout for foreign spies, and a diplomat trying to avoid war. When the rebels had split from the main roman group and started the civil war, the Punics had allied with the rebels against the central roman population. Our only two allies, however, were the Ptolemaics and the Sarmatians.
Also gone in the reforms of Leptines was the Temple of Artemis. He said that in his great nation there was no need to worship a goddess of the hunt, and said that Hermes would guide them to prosperity instead.
Syracuse was a city in a fine state. Its citizens were delighted at the governors, and the population was booming. Construction on a new port was underway, and also on a Syracusian Quinquireme, the finest ship in the known world, to transport Hiero on his journey.
The family tree, though, was sparse. Only two men of age, one of which would be leaving soon. Leptines still had two unmarried daughters, though he would not accept anything other than a Syracusian being added to his family.
And so in summer of 274 BCE, Hiero of Syracuse and his retinue left its gates of his home for the last time, and started on a journey that would greatly alter the course of history. Leptines watched him leave, and declared that it would be the last time an armed force left his beautiful city.
In the winter of 274 BCE, Hiero passed the Greek city of Cyrene, and started approaching Ptolemaic lands.
Six months later, he based the settlement of Paraetonium, not far from the Nile delta.
In the meantime, fair Damarata, Leptines's second daughter, had suitors approaching her, but Leptines would not accept a man from one of the lesser Greek cities.
In the winter of 273 BCE, Hiero has reached the far border of Ptolemaic lands.
And a few weeks later, Hiero made land. From here on out, food supplies would be limited, and he would have to get used to an empty stomach.
And so, Hiero began his Herculanean trek by foot. Through the seemingly endless deserts he went, often going weeks at a time without seeing another living soul, but it was still made clear to him that he was a stranger in this land, and his presence was not welcome.
As he left the endless desert into greener pastures, he hoped that he would find something other than such hostility. These were the lands of the Seleucids he entered, and he knew them to be a Hellenistic peoples, and so expected some basic respect from them, but none was coming.
As Hiero trekked though a wild and hostile land, relations in Syracuse were starting to turn sour.
The Punics had turned traitor, blockading the great port of Syracuse, and therefore cutting off the naval trade, the blood which kept the nation alive. The Quinquireme, on its triumphant voyage home to be decommissioned, was unable to make port and instead waited in the nearby ocean for the diplomats to sort matters out.
As this standoff happened, Hiero continued deep into the Selucid Empire. Here the land was more fertile than in the great desert, but it was mountainous and treacherous underfoot. He was acutely aware of how easy an ambush might wait, and of how much slower his progress would be than it was before.
The naval dispute finally came to an end, though not in the way that Leptines would have wanted. The Punics left port to attack, and despite superior numbers were fended off easily.
The navy returned to port, and was promptly decommissioned, though it left a bitter taste in Leptines's mouth as the news that his son-in-law was a world away came at the same time as a declaration of war.
Meanwhile, Hiero's situation was getting worse. His rations from the ships had run out, and he was having to survive on what he could find. The mountains in this region were funnelling him into a narrow path, and although he had not met with any Selucid forces yet, he was aware that he could easily be surrounded with no retreat here.
He carried on, making use of the roads in region, but still wary of the Seleucids. They had not attacked him outright, but their reaction to him was not friendly.
Hiero's food situation got even worse. He was desperate now, scavenging any food he could on his journey. As he did so, he came dangerously close to a Selucid town.
A suitable husband was finally found for Damarata.
As Hiero prepared to move out, he found an army cutting him off, exactly what he had feared. He considered the forces in front of him, the forces behind him, and deemed that it would be a less dangerous risk to try and sneak around Harmozia. That way, he would also be able to take advantage of the quick coastal path.
He was delighted to find that the army did not try and follow him, and stole away along the coast with glee. As he travelled further ease, he noticed that the land was become more and more barren and inhospitable. That all changed in the summer of 267 BCE, though.
The barren desert suddenly gave way to lush, fertile grassland.
The discovery of this new land of fertility was welcome.
As he continued, he realized that this was the river Indus. This was the farthest reach of the known world, the land that even Alexander himself could not conquer. If he was to fulfil his oath, he would have to be the first civilized man in history to conquer this place, proving himself greater even than Alexander.
There it was, the foundation on which the Syracusian Empire would be founded, the oasis of prosperity and wealth in the surrounding desert. Guarded by only a few men with crude spears and shields, it was ripe for the picking.
It did, however, have stone walls. Hiero was a man of Syracuse, he was no stranger to siege combat, and knew that he would need towers to get over the wall. He recruited a squad of the local spearmen the construct such a tower, and open the gates. This was war, and the first offensive military action taken by Syracuse in living history.
After a year of waiting, it was time for battle. This would be the first opportunity for the strength of the men of Syracuse to be tested in an invasion.
They attacked on a rainy night. The walls had no defenders, the few troops inside huddled in the town square, so it was a trivial manner for the Indian mercenaries to capture the gates and the walls.
The Indian spearmen and the cavalry stood, facing each other across the expanse of the square.
There was only one order that was appropriate.
Charge.
The cavalry impacted on the men with great force. Scores were killed in a manner of seconds, and the strength of Greek arms was etched into their bodies. They retreated, and the defending force thought they were going to get some reprieve from the attack.
They were wrong.
And as the makeshift captain fell, so did the city. It was a clear Greek victory, and the start of many.
It was a city with a lot of potential, but it would need a lot of work. The current governing system would have to be scrapped, and replaced with military occupation, with a local governor administering the process. Only then could Greek culture be imposed on the city.
Even as the moment of victory in the east came, however, there was a moment of despair in the west.
Syracuse was under siege by rebels. Two squads of hoplites, one of peltasts, and one of cavalry. Inside the walls were just two men and their bodyguards. In an open battle they would have been slaughtered, but the walls allowed them to survive, at least for now, though they could not say what would happen in the future. Not only that, but a Punic army had left Lilybaeum, marching in the direction of Syracuse, likely with similar intent.
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Topic: LP: RTW XC - I - A Syracusian in India (Read 3896 times)