H38

It took twenty-eight days for my engineers to build the trebuchet according to the plans we'd drawn up together. Veteran Engineers from the medieval period were known to be able to assemble a trebuchet in twenty-two days, on average, but given how the machine had only just been conceptualized in this timeline, I was willing to forgive the longer time period. It would take far less time to break down and reassemble now that it was built, after all. Regardless, we had finally managed to assemble the siege machine and added its power to the ballistae that were already bombarding the walls of Panormos.

The difference in power was clear from the beginning of the bombardment, whereas it was taking months for the Ballistae to have a measurable effect on the walls, the Trebuchet adding its weight of fire to the bombardment could already be seen to have an effect. The stone walls of Panormos had weathered the hail of Ballistae fire well enough, as the thirty-five-pound stones would bounce off them doing small chips of damage in the process. However, the four-hundred-fifty-five-pound stones hurled by the Trebuchet were thirteen times heavier than the smaller ballistae stones.

It took two weeks for the increased weight of fire to batter down a breach in the walls of Panormos but by the twenty-fifth of August, Two-Eighty, the walls of Panormos, which even Pyrrhus of the original timeline could not breach, finally cracked. It was, predictably, a trebuchet stone that finally opened the gap in the walls. A four-hundred-fifty-five-pound monstrosity of granite that was hurled via counterweight-powered might into the already battered base of the walls, breaking through and collapsing a section of wall that was large enough for a single formation of one hundred men to pass through at a time. It wasn't large enough for the entire army or even a significant fraction of it to pass through at once.

It was still something, and as the following four days helped widen the breach with further bombardment to the point where a syntagma of two-hundred-fifty-six men could pass through at once, various regional officers began to jockey and lobby for the honor of their men being the first Greeks to enter Panormos in anger. It wasn't just my brother-in-law either, as Anaxalos the Third of Rhegion was loudly insisting on the honor, among others. Anaxalos was the loudest voice, however, and most likely to argue against any choice but him.

In the end, I was forced to offer it to a Syntagma of Hoplites from Akragas, under the command of Tellios, son of Phintias who had previously been Tyrant of Akragas for all of six months before the Carthaginian Invasion. Tellios had commanded the Allied Forces against Gisgo last year in an attempt to save Akragas from Carthaginian occupation but had been defeated after a spirited attempt. This cut the Gordian Knot, as none could deny that Tellios did not have the right of vengeance on Carthage for the death of his father, who Malik Gisgo had ordered slain once Carthage had seized Akragas. It was, however, a sign that the various allied leaders of Magna Graecia would need careful managing if the twin leagues were to last.

Tellios and his Syntagma moved into the breach, clearing the rubble and pushing hard against the group of Iberian Swordsmen that held the gap. However, after four months of siege, the defenders were weakened compared to their normal selves and without the room to maneuver that gave the lighter formations of the Iberian Swordsmen an advantage over the Hoplite Phalanx, closed in as the fighting was via the confines of the city, the Syntagma of Tellios pushed the Iberians out after less than an hour of hard fighting.

Immediately my forces rushed for the gap, Thorakitai moving to stream into the city. The Carthaginian Army fought for every square foot of ground, but they were weakened by months of siege while my own troops were fresh. It was still a bloody day, with two thousand killed or wounded, but by sunset, Panormos was ours, the Carthaginian commander, a Masillian Greek named Cleander, offering the surrender of the remnants of the army shortly after we had pushed into the main market square. The reason why was quickly discovered to be disease.

It seemed that a large part of the Carthaginian forces, mainly among the Iberians, Gauls, and Sardinians, but also among the Garamantian contingent, had contracted dysentery during the siege, with several thousand literally shitting themselves to death over the course of the last month and the remainder weakened enough by the disease to not be able to put up an effective fight. We took around nine thousand prisoners, having slain five thousand in the fighting, with the remainder having been lost to disease. Needless to say, we stuck to our camp outside the walls while helping to deal with the bodies and the sanitation efforts in Panormos.

I left behind some twelve-thousand men at Panormos to continue aiding with those duties, as well as to form a Garrison, before marching west for Lilybaeum with my remaining fifty-thousand men. There were only twenty-thousand Carthaginian Troops on the whole island of Sicily remaining, and all were at their last toehold in Sicily on Lilybaeum. With Sea Access blocked off, and my trebuchet able to add to the weight of fire in a bombardment, I would be able to take the City eventually. Malik Gisgo had to know that and had to also have known that Panormos had fallen. The smart thing to do in his position would be to ask for terms while he still had leverage to negotiate with.

Instead, he chose something reckless. I shouldn't be surprised, recklessness had practically defined his reign, first with the invasion of Britannia and then with his late entry into the War with Rome. When I arrived at Lilybaeum on the eighth of September, it was to find that an attempt to break the blockade had been made by Malik Gisgo, using fire ships from ambush and a number of small, Liburna-style ships that had been hastily converted from merchant and fishing ships that had been stuck in port due to the blockade.

It seemed that Gisgo had hoped to scatter the blockading ships with his fire ships and then board them with his Liburna while the crews were still reeling and score a victory against the blockade fleet that would allow his forces to escape from Sicily. It hadn't worked as well as he had hoped. While Malik Gisgo had managed to escape with some of his Punic Phalangites and Balearic Slingers, breaking through the blockade in his mad dash to escape from the oncoming storm, the vast majority of his forces hadn't been as lucky, having been slain in boarding, had their converted merchant ships sunk before they could board, or been captured.

All told, it seemed Gisgo had managed to escape from Sicily with some eight thousand men on a combination of converted merchants and captured Quadriremes while three thousand of his troops had been captured, three thousand slain and six thousand managed to limp back into port to be bottled up once again after their failed Sortie. We set up our siege camp, still preparing to besiege Lilybeaum, and had the Trebuchet unpacked by the sixteenth of September. We began bombarding the walls, but after only thirty-six hours of bombardment, a messenger came out under a flag of parlay, asking me to meet with the Commander of the City.

The Commander of the forces within Lilybaeum was a Sardinian named Bodo the Vast, who wished to discuss the surrender of the City. Apparently, Bodo was named as such due to his large frame, and even having been worn down by combat, he stood over six feet tall, an anomaly for the time and location. Large as he was, however, he clearly had no more stomach for fighting, as evidenced by this meeting.

"You see, Pyrrhus King, it is not that those of us remaining are cowards, but that Gisgo left many of us mercenaries behind while he fled with his Punics and Slingers. I have heard that many of the men you captured in Panormos were likewise mercenary troops and that the Numidians have also already withdrawn from the war. The way I see it, this war is lost, and should the Shophets deign to keep Gisgo as Malik, he will have a difficult time keeping control of the remainder of Carthaginian Territory, much less reclaiming Sicily." Intoned Bodo.

"Indeed, somehow, I very much doubt the Assembly of the Shophets will be keeping Gisgo around much longer. His recklessness may have gained Carthage new Emporia in Gaul and new Clients in Iberia, but it has lost them Sicily. That is not something the Assembly will forgive. So, what are your terms for surrendering the city?" I questioned.

"There you have us in an awkward position, as many of us have yet to be paid for this campaign. We will not be so paid in captivity, and I doubt we will be paid should we gain safe passage home." Frowned Bodo.

"I won't be shipping you to Africa or Iberia for Gisgo to simply return you to the fight." I warned.

"We would not ask such. You would not be willing to buy out our remaining contract, would you? The wealth that Epirus has gained these past years is well known, surely you can afford such an expense if the prize is Lilybaeum?" Queried Bodo.

"How much does Gisgo have yet to pay you?" I asked.

"I thought you might ask, so took the liberty of asking around the various captains. We are still owed around forty-thousand Drachmae, roughly half of the wages promised to us by Gisgo and the Shophets." Informed Bodo.

I paused at that, it was a bargain price for what was essentially all of Sicily and it wasn't like I hadn't made buckets of money before this war. Even taking expenses for the war into account, I could afford that price over a dozen times over before I would have to watch my spending, though there was still room to haggle. They couldn't win if it should come to blows, after all. By all accounts, it was a steal, but there was one thing that caused me to hesitate.

The only thing stopping me from agreeing outright was that I did not want to establish a precedent of being a spendthrift for future rulers to follow. Between writing off the overwhelming majority of the Roman Loan Repayments as part of their treaty and spending forty-thousand Drachmae to gain control of Lilybaeum, it would set a precedent for those who came after me to throw money at problems. That wasn't a solution that would work long-term and set a problematic tone going forward. If my heirs were to avoid the pitfalls that would characterize empires like Byzantium, I couldn't agree to this outright.

I begged off to consider his proposal, claiming I needed to speak to the treasurer back in Epirus to make a decision. A message was sent back east with questions about what the treasury would bear, just to see if Bodo would relax his guard enough that a surprise assault might take the city. He did not, and the sentries atop the walls still maintained wartime discipline during this time. Fortunately, it seemed that events would conspire to overtake the negotiations. Ten days later, on the thirtieth of September, a messenger arrived from Carthage bearing news. The Shophets were willing to discuss terms of peace, ceding control over Carthaginian Sicily, the Aegadian Islands, and the Carthaginian Province in the south of Sardinia. In exchange, they wanted the return of all Prisoners captured in the war and a pledge of peace for no less than fifteen years.

The messenger also had a message for the Mercenaries, payment in full in exchange for continued service in Africa. It seemed that the Assembly of the Shophets had attempted to revoke Gisgo's title of Malik, and Gisgo had taken the troops he yet commanded into Numidia with him rather than relinquish his army, where he joined the remnants of the Massylii in beating back an attack on Cirta by the Masaesyli. The Shophets were worried that he planned to make himself king of a unified Numidia and then attack Carthage with his forces to reclaim his title. A civil war was now nigh in Carthage, and I was to be the beneficiary.

The Treaty of Lilybaeum was signed on the third of October, Two-Eighty, and brought an official end to my wars. The Italiote and Siciliote Leagues were under my influence, I had gained control over Zanclo, the Aegadian Islands, Southern Sardinia, and Carthaginian Sicily, and my enemies would be licking their wounds for over a decade at least. For the moment, I was on top of the world. As the celebrations of our successes rang out into the night, and the Carthaginian Messenger withdrew with his prisoners and mercenaries to fight in Africa, I only had one thought. I'd won the war, expanding greatly in power, territory, and influence.

Now, I would have to keep it. . .

XXXX

AN: Here we have the official end of the First Pyrrhic War. It ends in a massive Epirote Victory, with Rome needing to lick its wounds for more than a decade and Carthage descending into civil strife between Gisgo and the Assembly of the Shophets, with the Barcids waiting in Iberia to squeeze the eventual victors. By every metric, this was a huge success.

Of course, winning wars and conquering territories is only half the battle, now he has to manage it all. With the Greeks of the Italiote and Siciliote Leagues notoriously fractious, that might be easier said than done. Fortunately, he has local allies in Syracuse and several others who are all staunchly pro-league, while others, most notably Rhegion, are more lukewarm and might attempt to wrest control of the Leagues away from Pyrrhus in the future.

For now, though, all are riding high on the victory and still at least outwardly behind Pyrrhus. For how long that remains the case, you'll just have to keep reading to find out, but it likely won't start with outright revolt. It will likely start with opposition in the League Synedrion to various proposals Pyrrhus puts forth and escalate over time. That's in the future, though.

At any rate, I'll have a map up at some point next, as I know many of you have been asking for.

Stay tuned for that.