As we lined up opposite the enemy near Coronea, I couldn't help but realize how backward much of the Boeotian and Athenian Allied Force was. Very few of them possessed weapons of high-quality iron, and those that did generally did so only based on trade with parties acting as middlemen. If that wasn't enough, they appeared to not have updated their tactics since the days of Alexander. Whereas my own phalanxes were alternated with Thorakitai, ensuring that the fatal weakness of the phalanx was covered, the Athenians still used the Macedonian model, which covered their weaknesses with lightly-equipped peltasts or Companion Cavalry, neither of which would be capable of doing much to my Thorakitai.
Their Cavalry too was older-style. Made up of Boetian Cavalry trained and equipped in the Companion Style made famous by Alexandros Megas. Against the steel-clad juggernaut of my Kataphractoi, they had already come off worse once. They would be in for a repeat performance of that beating on a much larger scale now. Looking at the enemy ranks, I realized that we were about to witness a massacre rather than a battle.
Sure, there were more of them than there were of us, but they could have half again our number of forces and still not do enough damage with their equipment and tactics to beat us. With only five-thousand more troops? It wouldn't even be close, we'd slaughter them.To attempt to win this fight bloodlessly, without having to utterly annihilate a force still using tactics and equipment that I had made obsolete years ago, and which had refused to, or been unable to, update their tactics and equipment to match, I decided to raise a flag of Parlay. Strategos Polyarchos of the Aitolian League and I rode out under a white parlay flag to meet with the Athenian Commanders in the field between our armies."There is no point in fighting us. Your equipment and tactics look to be almost entirely unchanged since the days of Alexandros Megas. Surrender your armies and I will offer terms of leniency. No man will have his property infringed on or confiscated, any with positions in their home cities will be found new positions in the new administration, and those who surrendered will be permitted to keep their panoply. All that needs change is who your Poleis pledge fealty to." I offered.
"These are generous terms. More generous than I would offer, however, Pyrrhus King is a more merciful man than I am. Let us be frank, if you give battle here, you will be slaughtered to a man and scarcely delay us. The fields of Coronea will run red with your blood. Take the deal." Intoned Polyarchos, we'd settled on Good Cop, Bad Cop as a strategy here."Bold words from an Aitolian Mountain Bandit and Honeyed Words from the Tyrant of Epirus will not sway our resolve. Athens will not be cowed, we dare to fight for our Freedom and the Freedom and justice of our peoples." Scowled the Athenian Commander, Chremonides.
"And who will gain justice for you and the men you led into slaughter this day, Chremonides? I know you to be a follower of Stoicism. Is leading your men into a massacre truly just? Is rejecting a proposal that would see you and your men remain free and unmolested with property and position intact out of hand truly possessed of temperance? Is your insistence on fighting a hopeless battle truly courageous? Does it show wisdom or is it simple folly? Is this how you attempt to attain Eudaimonia?" I pressed.
"The function of virtue is not to be set aside when following them is inconvenient." Scoffed Chremonides.
"Then you have made your choice. I hope, for your sake, that the Gods will forgive you for such a blunder. For surely the Women and Children of Athens will not." Intoned Polyarchos.
And with that, I wheeled my mount around and headed back to my lines, Polyarchos in tow. Chremonides and his Athenians did so as well, but I couldn't help but notice a distinct lack of representatives from the Boeotian League or the Achaean Contingent from Megara. That had been a good move on Chremonides' part since I was fairly certain that at least some of the Boeotian and Megaran Contingents would agree to surrender to such terms. After all, for all intents and purposes, they would simply be switching allegiance from Athens to Epirus or the Aitolian League, lines on a map as far as they were concerned. With that gambit having failed, however, the battle would begin.
It would wind up being a complete slaughter. . .
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Apollodorus of Megara was a wealthy Nobleman, the son of the Oligarch Menander of Megara, one of the Ruling Council of Megara. At over two and a half decades old, he was the most senior of the Megaran Officers that the Council had sent to lead the Megaran Contingent that had been sent to aid Athens in their war against the Aitolian League, Sparta, and Epirus. Most of the Council of Twelve had sent their sons as well to be officers, expecting the Athenians to handle most of the senior command decisions. The council had believed that this would be a good way for their heirs to gain military experience, as part of a wider coalition that could cover for any blunders they made.
They hadn't expected the Athenians to throw them to the wolves like they had. In retrospect, however, they probably should have. Athens would always do what it took to save its own skin, even throwing away Allies. Come to that, Megara herself had done that a time or two before as well, but never like this.
It had started with an exchange of javelins. Most of the Megaran Contingent were Peltasts, and though Apollodorus was leading their sole phalanx of Phalangites, he had seen what had occurred as the Peltasts dueled. How their iron-tipped javelins would bounce off the burnished steel shields of the enemy Peltasts. How the enemy's own steel javelins punched through the bronze, iron, and wood of their own shields like knives through cheese. The Peltasts had barely thrown a couple of volleys before they'd been forced to pull back, leaving hundreds to thousands of dead and wounded behind them on the field.
Apollodorus had seen Nicanor the Younger, one of the seven other officers whose father was on the Council of Twelve go down in the exchange, a steel Epirote Javelin punched through the shoulder of his Linothroax. Even if the Epirotes deigned to heal him, if Nicanor kept the arm it would be a miracle. Fortunately, it seemed that Alcibiades and Eubotas, the other two Megaran Officers with Councilmen Fathers had withdrawn with the ragged remnants of the Peltasts.
Apollodorus hadn't had time to gawk at that, however, because the Companion Cavalry had been sent to charge in an attempt to stall the advance of the enemy, now that they were closing without being subject to javelin fire. Another three of the others, Tolmides, Cleisthenes, and Diodoros were with the Companion Cavalry. As he watched the Companion Cavalry attack, however, he was dismayed to see the larger, better equipped, better trained Kataphractoi of Epirus head them off, slamming into their sides.
The Cavalry was having it even worse than the peltasts had. While there were still the same problems with the differences in armor, the Epirotes had also completely retooled their cavalry tactics. Companion Cavalry was trained to charge once into the enemy and crash on them like a great wave. They would then have to fight their way out of the enemy. Meanwhile, the Epirotes had used the greater control over their mounts gained by the saddled and stirrups they had invented to practice a method of wheeling about to charge again and again. It was conceivable that they might never lose the momentum of their charge unless they were forced into it.
What that effectively meant was that Companion Cavalry could charge in and do some damage, but the Kataprhactoi never stopped charging. Accordingly, the Companion Cavalry was massacred as the impact of their countercharge into the Epirote Kataphractoi was blunted by the steel armor that they draped even their horses in. Meanwhile, the Epirotes charged them multiple times, leaving hundreds dead on the field behind them, including the Boeotian Strategos, Aristides of Thebes. Unfortunately, both Diodoros and Tolmides would be wounded, with a large chunk of Tolmides' bicep having been cut into by an Epirote Falcata and Tolmides having suffered a blow to the head that left him blind in one eye.
By that point, however, the lines had closed and Apollodorus had been forced to defend himself. The Megaran Contingent was to the left of the main Athenian Contingent and soon, they found the Thorakitai of the Epirotes and the Thuerophoirai of the Aitolian League picking away at their flanks and isolating them from the Athenian Phalanx to their right and the Boeotian Phalanx to their left. He managed to keep enough cohesion that his Megarans would stay in formation instead of unraveling, but there was no keeping cohesion forever when flanked.
Twenty minutes after they were cut off, the Phalanx order unraveled. Apollodorus managed to get his men to drop their pikes, draw falcatas, and circle up, but by that point, it was too late, after another hour of fighting, the Athenians had withdrawn and Apollodorus found himself being battered about the head with an Epirote steel shield and knocked unconscious.
When he awoke hours later, he found himself and the other Megaran Noble Scions had been given spaces on cots and a Physic to tend their wounds. That included Laertes, who had been back at camp assisting the Athenian Quartermaster. They were all captives of Pyrrhus of Epirus, it seemed, though of their supposed allies, he saw a few Boeothians, but no Athenians.
"I suppose I should be grateful that we all made it." He grumbled.
"Indeed. Hopefully, you can spare your city even more strife." Came a regal voice from the tent flap.
Apollodorus of Megar looked over and beheld the form of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the man who had soundly thrashed them, still in armor and walking over to him. He likely wanted to finagle some agreement out of Apollodorus, and honestly, based on the performance, Apollodorus was inclined to go along with it. It wasn't as if the Athenians had done well in the fighting, after all.
"Very well. I can write letters to the Council of Twelve, but it will be up to them if they agree to whatever terms you come up with." Sighed Apollodorus.
"I would expect no less. I have to wonder, however, why you did not accept the offer I gave to Chremonides of Athens? It would have saved you much pain and dead soldiers." Questioned Pyrrhus.
"What offer, Pyrrhus King? We were not informed of any offer?" Queried Apollodorus.
When the King of Epirus told Apollodorus of the Offer he'd made for the surrender of the army, he was furious. To think that Chremonides, the renowned Stoic General, had kept such a thing from his allies. Was that virtue? Or was that simple Athenian Perfidy? For the life of him, Apollodorus did not know. He did, however, write to the Council of Twelve, lending weight to Pyrrhus' offer.
And once their wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, the others did as well. . .
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Honestly, when I said that the Battle of Coronea was going to be a slaughter, I'd meant it. The Athenians and their allies hadn't stood a chance, really. Out of sixty-thousand troops, they'd left ten-thousand dead on the field. Another twenty-nine-thousand had fled back to Athens, while twenty-one-thousand wounded and captured had been rounded up and given medical treatment, and told they would become prisoners of war.
We'd even managed to storm their camp outside the city walls, which had served a dual purpose of forcing the retreating Athenians and their Attic Subjects to head east instead of moving to withdraw into the city, while also capturing enough supplies to keep our large amount of prisoners fed and watered. The paychests we captured also didn't hurt either.
That wasn't the best part, the best part was that eight of our highest-ranking captives were the officers of the Megaran Contingent of the Athenian Army, all of whom had fathers sitting on their Oligarchic Council of Twelve. I had the High-Ranking prisoners seen to first, and while one of the Megarans would be blind in one eye, and another would have to have his arm amputated, they would all live and be able to take up administrative positions in Megara at the war's end.
Notably, they all seemed absolutely livid that the Athenians hadn't told them of my terms and all had written letters back to their fathers urging them to make peace and simply to switch their fealty from Athens to Me. Those letters had been ferried by courier to Megara over the next week or so as we finalized our control over Boeotia. Thebes surrendered, likely hoping to spare themselves a second sack, something I granted, while by the end of the week, much of Boeotia had done likewise, all save Plataea, which had dithered until my army arrived there on the Sunday of the Week after the Battle of Coronea. When we showed up, however, they threw open their gates to the Aitolian League and myself, completing the Conquest of Boeotia.
We stayed one day to arrange a garrison before we moved once again, this time into Attica towards Eleutherae. However, just before we reached the City and its fortress, a courier arrived from Megara with an urgent dispatch. He knelt down in front of me and held aloft a scrollcase sealed with the seal of the Council of Twelve of Megara. Intrigued, I opened it and looked at the contents.
Inside was the submission of Megara to the King of Epirus. Not only had it taken us thirteen days to conquer Boeotia, but we had obtained the submission of Megara in that time as well. It was with these victories on my mind that I drew up for battle outside Elutherae, another Athenian Army having marched out to attempt to defend the City. I was resolved to crush it and take the fortress beyond.
Then, I would be free to storm into the soft underbelly of Athens and force a favorable end to this war. . .
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AN: The next chapter is already up on the site-which-shall-not-be-named. If you feel like reading it, you can search my name on there to check it out. I can't link to the page thanks to site rules, though.
All right, so here we have the Battle of Coronea. It's a curbstomp specifically because the Athenians hadn't updated their tactics and equipment to keep pace with what Epirus had been putting out. Instead, Athens went with what had always worked for them before. Besides, they had the advantage of numbers, so surely the tactics they had used to defeat Macedon and regain their independence decades ago would still work here, right?
As you can clearly see, they did not. Not only that but their refusal to let their allies know about Pyrrhus' generous terms for their surrender out of fear that the Megarans and Boeotians would take those terms backfired on them in a big way. You can expect that to impact the war in Crete and Achaea once it becomes known.
At any rate, the next few chapters will be interludes showing how things are going on Euboea, Crete, and Achaea. Then we'll be back with Pyrrhus for the Battle of Elutherae.
Stay tuned. . .