Between the Mountains and the Sea [DeI: Pontus Grand Campaign]
Between the Mountains and the Sea
A Pontus AAR
Prologue
Chaos is the mother of opportunity. Mithridates knew this. It was out of chaos that he had founded his kingdom. Hunted, marked for death, he had fled to the mountains. At a fort there, Cimiata, men marched to his side to support him, to fight for him. So many men knelt to his rule that he had become a king.
A kingdom carved out from the land between the mountains and the sea, Pontus was always going to be the child of different worlds. Mithridates was a Persian noble. The only ruler left from that great family of the Achaemenids, the heir of Cyrus himself. But it was a Greek world on the coast. With towns and colonies birthed by those ancient cities that Homer had sung about. The bow and the spear were celebrated equally.
In the ninth year of his rule as king Mithridates looked around and he saw chaos.
And chaos is the mother of opportunity.
I: Sinope, 272 B.C.
The court in Sinope was busy with the sounds of feet. Ambassadors from all over Anatolia could be seen walking through its Greek colonnades, providing shade from both the rising spring sun and the wind which blew in off that hospitable sea from which Pontus drew its name.
Pontus in 272 B.C.
‘Get me Praxiteles’ the king’s voice echoed between the columns. Old now, sixty one, and after nearly ten years on the throne this was perhaps the first time the king had been publicly annoyed. He had founded his kingdom on co-operation, diplomacy and steadfastness. It was these qualities that had won him the people’s support and first set him on the road to his throne when he his life was threatened by his master, Antigonus the king of Macedon. Mithridates had spent three decades carving out a little corner of the world in which he could rule and be safe. Bithynia to the west was made friend by the fear both kingdoms felt from the Diadochi, the generals of Alexander who had split his empire up after the death of the great conqueror. To the east lay Trapezos, a Milesian colony like Sinope and other cities of Pontus, and their common descent made them easy allies. From chaos came opportunity, and the dynastic wars which followed Alexander’s death allowed all three kingdoms, perched on the northern shore of Anatolia, freedom and latitude while the great empires of Seleucus, Antigonus and Ptolemy fought each other to a standstill.
Times had changed though.
‘Those damned barbarians!’, a king doesn’t rant. Mithridates only shouted at length about something he had only recently realised he felt passionately about. Praxiteles listened calmly. He had inherited his uncle’s tranquillity though it wasn’t much evident in this moment.
‘Raids by their prince near Amaseia. They think because we don’t want war that we will allow for such transgressions.’ Mithridates was pacing a little slower now, and had wiped the spittle away from his mouth, but was still only repeating what Praxiteles had already known. In fact he knew a little more than his uncle. A declaration of war had been received at the summer court in Amaseia. He had been on his way to inform the king of it when he had been summoned.
The armouries were opened once again. New shafts had been hewn for spears, green bronze shields had been polished. Pontus was going to war. Praxiteles had spent the summer visiting smiths, fletchers and mustering grounds. He had spent the autumn riding over the mountains of deep Anatolia, ensuring provisions had been laid down. While men had been made into soldiers in the valleys, he had spied on Galatians. While the crops in the fields had been harvested, he had sat with maps. Now he was ready. A little surprise for those who had surprised Pontus. Praxiteles thought it was a good surprise; he had nearly being able to see the shock on those pale Celtic faces as his army had descended from the passes and marched toward Ancyra.
The Battle of Ancyra
The Galicians were always up for a fight. When they had heard of the coming of the Pontic army there was no doubt that they would march out and meet it. Magurix and his raiding bands had hoped they would not be bored as they overwintered in Ancyra.
The Battle of Ancyra, 271 B.C.
Good order. That was what Praxiteles had prayed for. As long as his men marched in step and obeyed his orders he had no doubt they would win. Against the rabble the Celts liked to think of as an army only good order was required to win. No doubt every Celt that could be seen coming across the horizon was a better fighter than whoever they would face that day, but they fought alone.At the same place, the same time and against the same enemy sure, but they fought as if they imagined themselves as Achilles. Praxiteles had faith instead in stout shield, long spear and, above all, good order.
Praxiteles's army in good order
Hoplites in the middle, swords on the flanks, archers behind and skirmishers out in front, to melt away as soon as the Galatians got close. It was a simple plan, but this newly raised army could only hope to carry out a simple plan.
A simple plan
‘They have raided. They have pillaged. They have burnt you and your brothers out of hearth and home. They come together like water and melt away like snow. But now we meet them outside their homes and they shall crash against us like waves breaking on rock. Look to your shield and your brother beside you and we will know victory today. Do your part and every man here will be a mountain hero, remembered in song for how you defeated these barbarians.’
When he thought back to that battle, the first he had fought with his Mountain Heroes, as they called themselves afterwards, he always smiled. It was planning that had won it for him, or perhaps the unplanned attack the Galatians had launched. The militia of the city had been summoned, but it was not ready before Magurix’s own band had marched out. They had put trust in their own skill at arms, not having faced a civilised army before.
Hoplites hurry to meet the charging barbarian cavalry
His horseback skirmishers had met them first. Their javelins didn’t do much to the barbarians. Not many wounded or killed. However they had made them run. They ran chasing those men they could never hope to catch. The ran with shield and sword and armour, and by the time the cavalry had lured them onto the hoplites, arranged in close order with interlocking shield, they were tired. Tired men did not fight well. The cavalry of Magurix had been the toughest test. Hoping to swing in a loop around Praxiteles’s own men, turn them around, let their backs be stabbing practice for the swordsmen who lagged behind. He should have anticipated as much, but he had made a mistake. However, these were barbarians eager to fight, and as their horses kicked up the dust from the dry grassland he had enough time, nearly, to order spearmen out to the flanks, ready to meet their charge. Bogged down in that fight and unable to make the hoplites turn, the Galatian footmen met a shield wall of bronze, bristling with iron tipped spears. Horse was driven back, and Praxiteles had brought his own horse guard around. Charging again and again with lance lowered they had broken the band of Magurix, the Brazen Bears as they liked to sing about themselves.
The cadavers of the first wave litter the battlefield as the Pontic army reforms its line
Bloodied and bruised they broke. Fleeing toward the walls of their city. They must have passed through the militia which was only now ready to fight. What had they said to each other?
‘Softened ‘em up for you, lad, it’ll be an easy fight for you’? Something like that, at least, since the militia still came. Again the javelins egged them on, and they charged for half a mile over the plain to where those unbroken shields, blood spattered for the first time, stood ready. In good order. This fight was longer, but easier than the first. Men who couldn’t put their hand to spear or sword came with sling and stone. They were driven off by the javelin men who had spent their javelins. Drawing sword they kicked their heels and drove fresh horse and raw steel through sweat soaked linen.
A final charge to break Galatian spirits
More men than the first wave, but less armour, and the reorganised army, with its centre of hoplites and wings of swordmen encircled the barbarians. Praxiteles charged into their back again and again. Those farmers and artisans, men much like that made up his own army, shattered. The field was his. Now came time to take the city.
And his army marched toward it in good order.
The Battle of Ancyra, 271 B.C.
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