Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 345 Suppression
Athens had been in decline for hundreds of years. Culturally, it was still a central city, and its economic status was decent, but militarily, it was not very impressive. At least in the last one or two hundred years, Orville could not remember any great wars fought by the people here.

At this point, Orville was still a little hesitant: "If we split our troops into two groups and the distance between them is too far, it will be easy for the enemy to seize the opportunity and besiege us."

Trajan asked in return: "Don't you trust your soldiers? The Greeks are just a bunch of rabble. One reorganized legion can deal with at least 20,000 Greeks at the same time. If two legions act together, the enemy may not be able to win even if they come out in full force. What's more, it is impossible for the enemy to come out in full force. Mithridates needs to defend many positions."

In fact, he understood this truth as well as Trajan, but Orville was under a lot of psychological pressure now. He couldn't afford to make mistakes that would result in a complete loss, so his strategies and tactics inevitably tended to be overly conservative.

After thinking it over again and again, Orville gritted his teeth and made up his mind: "Let's do it this way."
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After arriving at the city of Phaselis, Orville divided his troops into two groups. He led two legions to Athens with the navy, and they had to capture the severely damaged and chaotic Rhodes along the way. The remaining three legions were led by Trajan and Lucius, and the Egyptian legion was left behind. Orville appointed Trajan as the temporary commander, and the order was naturally accepted.

After arriving at Rhodes Island by boat, Orville and his companions discovered that the situation there had changed dramatically. The reinforcements sent by Vespa had arrived, and their first target was the isolated Rhodes Island. They thought they would encounter a fierce battle, but unexpectedly they ran into Rhodes Island which had just been attacked. They were landed by a large-scale navy, and the Rhodes Island army's will to resist was immediately lost. The reinforcements occupied the island almost without bloodshed.

Upon learning that Orville's next plan was to land directly in Athens on the Antika Peninsula, the naval commander felt that this was somewhat risky, but considering the current situation, he did not say much and agreed to help escort Orville.

In this way, the navy, which was even larger after the merger, landed in Athens, and Orville began an offensive and defensive battle with the Athenian defenders.

Athens has city walls, but the wall system is very old, and can even be traced back to the Peloponnesian War. It is definitely not enough to face the Romans today, and can only be said to be barely adequate.

Due to his naval advantage, Orville was not in a hurry to attack the city. After landing, he first built a camp. After waiting for two days to ensure that the camp was completely stable and impregnable, he ordered the army to start attacking the city.

There is actually not much to describe about the siege process, because Orville has experienced similar sieges many times, and this time is no exception. It is nothing more than the same steps - battering ram, siege tower and earth embankment.

With Athens' relatively low walls, there was no need for siege dikes; wooden bunkers covered with mud were basically enough, and the soldiers could directly use catapults and crossbows to shoot into the city.

The first thing that made progress was the battering ram. The sturdy sheep-head hammer smashed the structure of the city wall. The Romans held up their shields, resisted the enemy's shooting, and used pickaxes, chisels and hammers to remove the bricks and stones of the city wall piece by piece. This process was not even very difficult.

After several key pieces of bricks and stones were removed, the battering ram hit the wall again, causing it to collapse. The legionnaires filed in and began to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Athenian defenders, whose training levels were uneven. The result was disastrous for the Athenians. The first battalion, carefully trained by Orwell, led the charge. These soldiers wore two layers of armor—plate armor on the outside and a solid chain mail on the inside, with many reinforcements to enhance their defense. This made these soldiers almost like walking iron cans. Facing the defenders who were not prepared with weapons such as war hammers and halberds, these people were almost impossible to kill.

In the narrow terrain of the city, these heavy infantry formed into a square formation, took turns, and slowly but unstoppably advanced forward. After seeing that the other side tried to resist in vain, Orville persuaded them to surrender in time, guaranteeing that the surrendered city would not be looted, no one would be killed at will, and that the mastermind was Mithridates and so on.

The situation was hopeless, and there was not much point in continuing to resist. Many people did not actually have the courage to fight to the death, so their choice was obvious: five days after the siege began, Athens announced its surrender and was back under the rule of the Roman Empire.
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After taking the city, Orville spent two days figuring out the situation in Athens.

First, he protected important books and scholars. He did not want the incident at the Library of Alexandria to happen again (although he was also responsible for the fire at the Library of Alexandria). Then, he arrested the particularly outstanding rebels and prepared to transport them to Rome to await the emperor's decision. After that, he simply counted the losses, disbanded the Athenian defense forces, and replenished supplies.

After completing a series of necessary tasks, Orville left a legion in Athens to block the Antik Peninsula, and he took the remaining legion to cooperate with the navy to recapture the Peloponnese Peninsula.

There were remnants of the Greek governor's army on the peninsula. Orville cooperated with these people and successfully recovered the land. Then, Orville did not rush north to cooperate with the Danube Corps, but instead remained silent.

He always sought to be cautious in fighting wars, and after the navy transported several brigades from mainland Italy, he handed over the local security work to these people, and then he felt at ease to lead his army north to deal with Mithridates.

The enemy did not choose to fight a decisive battle with the Danube Legion outside the city of Byzantium. Instead, they took the initiative to withdraw from the outside of the city. Seeing this, the Danube Legion wanted to take advantage of the situation to pursue them, but Mithridates led his army to retreat until the enemy suspected a trap and dared not move forward.

At this time, Mithridates did not take the opportunity to withdraw. Instead, he started to send a large number of small teams to harass the Romans, making the two legions unable to sleep and eat. After a long time, they suffered considerable losses.

This seemed to be the common solution of these rebels. When facing the Romans, they all chose to avoid direct battles and instead adopted some kind of sticky tactics, aiming to annoy the Romans to death.

It has to be said that this tactic is definitely useful in most of the time. Not everyone has the military ability of Aurelian to do bold and skilled things. Most commanders will only be cautious and continue to waste time with the opponent, with both sides competing with each other's strength.

(End of this chapter)