Carthage had done much to advance their war in Sicily while Pyrrhus was away battling Rome. The Carthaginian Fleet under the command of Hampiscora the Elder, had won a great victory off the coast of Sardinia utilizing fire ships and an ambush from hidden sea caves to force the Epirote Fleet into disarray and then rout. This allowed certain reinforcements to be ferried to Sicily, both garrisons from Sardinia and Corsica, as well as mercenary troops from Gaul, Iberia, and among the Nuragic Peoples of Sardinia and Corsica.
Gisgo's army, once having dwindled by around a third of its initial thirty-thousand-strong number, now ballooned into a force roughly equivalent to the one the Greeks had, buoyed on a wave of mercenaries and fresh troops brought in from the Islands and the West. While the Greek General Kleon of Pydna had arrived in Syracuse to take command from the Greek Forces, much of the local Greeks had not been organized into a cohesive fighting force, allowing Gisgo to win victories at the Himera River and the City of Himera itself.
Now, the last Poleis left in Greek Hands on the Western half of the Island was Gela. Far from being the powerhouse it once was, Gela was now a city living in the shadow of others it had once dominated. The walls of the City had been destroyed in a prior war with Carthage but had been rebuilt more defensible than ever by Timoleon of Syracuse shortly afterward. Had Gela the funds to maintain those walls, they would have been extremely formidable, requiring a lengthy siege to knock down before the Town could be taken.
However, the Greeks were nothing if not a fractious lot, and the bulk of trade that had once gone to Gela had been supplanted, first by Syracuse, then by Epirus. The Timoleon Walls of Gela had been left to crumble in the elements due to a shortage of funds. It was this weakness that Gisgo planned to exploit, for he had induced local Sicel Tribesmen to tell him of any weak points in the Timoleon Walls with good silver. That gambit had paid off, and the tribesmen had informed Gisgo that there was a section of walls near the ancient Necropolis of Gela that was weak enough that a strong strike from a ballista could do serious damage.
First, however, Gisgo would have to defeat the Greek Army placed in front of him. Thirty thousand Greeks under the joint command of Hicetas, Strategos of Syracuse, and Eumenes, Tyrant of Gela. To face them, Gisgo had some sixty-five thousand troops from half a dozen backgrounds and fighting traditions. Cavalry-focused Numidians and Gauls mixed with Libyan Spearmen, Balearic Slingers, Celtiberian Swordsmen, Nuragic Peltasts, and Ligurian Light Spearmen. The core of this army, though, were the five thousand Carthaginian Phalangites.
Of course, Gisgo mused, the problem with sharing command amongst equals was that it created a certain amount of confusion. That was one reason that Gisgo had sought to become Malik of Carthage, to begin with. Only with a strong leader at the head of a solid chain of command could Carthage have begun to reverse her decline. In truth, even with that advantage, it had been a series of peaks and valleys, the initial success in Iberia and Gaul had been followed by failure in Britannia. However, things had clearly swung back in favor of Carthage, given they were on the cusp of securing a full half of Sicily at the moment.
Clearly, Tanit had turned her gaze upon him here. With that in mind, how could Gisgo lose? He ordered the battle to begin with an attack from his cavalry on the Gelan flank of the Greek Army. Gelan peltasts attempted to strike fast-moving Numidian Horsemen with their javelins but only succeeded in dealing a small amount of casualties due to the speed at which the Numidians attacked. Suddenly, the Numidians fired javelins back breaking up the formation of Peltasts before drawing swords and charging in. This caused many of the peltasts to be cut down, and more to run for the safety of the phalangites.
The Numidians followed, cutting down as many as they were able before they flung their second set of javelins into the flank of the phalanx. They did not have as much success with them as they did with the Peltasts, however. The Phalangites stood firm and refused to break their formations, even as several went down to javelin fire. The follow-up charge bounced off the Sarissa wall and the retreat was called for.
On the Syracusan Flank, however, something interesting was developing. The Gallic heavy cavalry had run into a wall of spears from local Sicel mercenaries after scattering the Syracusan peltasts and reaping a large toll on them. The Sicels tended to wear padded leather armor, similar to that worn by his Nuragic Peltasts and carried wooden shields, but the Gallic Cavalry's Spatha swords were carving through said armor as if it were but a tunic. Intrigued, Gisgo leaned over to one of his captains, a Greek named Alcibiades of Masillia, and inquired about it.
"Ah, yes, the Gallic Swords. We call them Spatha, but they have their own word for it in their barbarian tongue. They call it a Cladebos, which I'm told translates to Broad Sword, an apt description. They are cumbersome weapons, best used from horseback, but absolutely devastating to a man in lighter armor." Informed Alcibiades.
As the Gallic Mercenaries put an entire contingent of Sicels to flight, Gisgo could only agree with that sentiment. Unfortunately, the Syracusan Thorakitai that filled in the gaps left by retreating Sicels were anything but lightly armored, with their Linothorax reinforced with steel scales. Some of the Gauls decided to charge again anyway, and to their credit, they slew more than Gisgo had thought they would, but that charge also bounced. The dual charges had served their purpose, however. Now the Nuragic Peltasts and Balearic Slingers were free to fire away into the enemy ranks without risking return fire from Greek Peltasts.
More Greeks went down, softening up the ranks for the main attack as Gisgo's mixed phalanxes of Libyan Heavy Spearmen and Carthaginian Phalangites, linked together by serried ranks of Celtiberian Swordsmen and Ligurian Light Spearmen clashed with Greek Hoplites, Phalangites, and Thorakitai. Gisgo had been paying close attention to Pyrrhus of Epirus' military reforms, and though he could not replicate the innovations without an enormous amount of work, the tactics were an entirely different matter. Indeed, his army was proving quite adept at using them, likely due to having had sources of lighter infantry to pull from for a century while Pyrrus was still a babe at his mother's breast.
The Sicilian Greeks had even less time to work with Pyrrhus' tactics than Pyrrhus himself had. It showed now as the Carthaginian Formation outfought its Sicilian Greek Counterpart. Both sides were taking heavy casualties, and though Gisgo knew that both Carthage and Syracuse would tough it out, the Tyrant of Gela was another matter. His troops were less well-drilled and less professional, being mainly Citizen Hoplites levied for this specific war. With joint command, there would be confusion as to whether to retreat back to the fortified city of Gela or not.
An hour into this vicious period of fighting, what Gisgo had been waiting for happened. Eumenes of Gela ordered his forces to withdraw back to the City without consulting Hicetas of Syracuse. Before Hicetas could sort out the contradictory orders, a gap opened in the Greek Army's formation. Gisgo ordered his elephants forward and his troops formed an alleyway for the thundering beasts to charge through. The gap was smashed open wider by the elephant charge and in the confusion, Eumenes of Gela was slain. Hicetas of Syracuse had no choice but to cede the field as the Forces of Gela began to rout. Gisgo ordered his Numidian cavalry to harass them with mounted javelins, but Syracuse refused to rout and withdrew in good order from the field.
They left behind them some four thousand dead and wounded, meanwhile the forces of Gela, who had numbered some ten thousand strong, only managed to return to their Polis with three thousand men. Gisgo followed behind them, leaving only four thousand of their own troops dead or wounded, to place Gela under siege. The siege did not last very long, as the information on the Timoleon Walls he had purchased proved out, forcing a breach near the Necropolis of Gela that Carthaginian Troops streamed through. Within five days of fighting and siege, Gela had fallen to Carthage. Two days later, news of the Peace between Rome and Epirus made its way to Sicily.
Pyrrhus was coming south personally to put a stop to Carthage's spate of victories. . .
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AN: So yeah, Carthage is doing well so far, but that's all about to change. Here, Gisgo, whose best skill is in politics rather than generalship, managed to correctly identify a weakness in the Greek Force facing them that was there due to politics. He knew that if he could just get the Tyrant of Gela to act stupidly, he could break the army due to the confusion having two, equal, commanders at the head of an army would cause. Syracuse would have no choice but to stay and fight, losing this entire army, or withdraw.
Either way, Gisgo would be free to attack the Polis of Gela in the aftermath. Thankfully, Hicetas decided to withdraw rather than fight, and not even mounted javelin attacks from the Numidian Cavalry could get his troops to rout. Syracuse saved some eleven thousand troops from destruction to withdraw in good order and wait for Pyrrhus' Arrival. Meanwhile, Gela lost seven thousand troops, and all five thousand Sicel Mercenaries have fled back to their interior hillforts.
With the fall of Gela, the situation in Sicily at the time of Pyrrhus' arrival is that Carthage controls the entire western half of the Island. Pyrrhus is hoping to reverse that and begin pushing on Panormos and Lillybaeum to push Carthage entirely out of Sicily.
We'll see the beginning of that next chapter.
Stay tuned. . .