"POLYXENIDAS REGIUS PRAEFECTUS, ERAT AUTEMEXUL RHODIUS, COM ADUISSET PROFECTAM AB DOM O POPULARIUM SUORUM CLASSEM, ET PAUSISTRATUM PRAEFECTUM SUPERBE QUAEDAM ET CONTEMPTI IN SECONTIONANTEM DIXISSE, PRAECIPUO CERTAMINE ANIMI ADVERSUS EUM SUMPTO NIHIL ALIUDDI ES NOCTESQUE AGITABAT ANIMO, QUAM UT VERBA MAGNIFICA EIUS REBUS CONFUTARET."
"Polyxenidas, the commander of the king's fleet, (but he was an exile from Rhodes), having heard that the ships of his countrymen had sailed from home, and that Pausistratum, who commanded them, had, in a public speech, uttered several haughty and contemptuous expressions respecting him, and having concieved a particular jealousy against him, considered nothing else, night or day, than that by his acts he shoud refute his boastful words."
TITUS LIVIUS, AB URBE CONDITA, XXXVII, X, I
The third battle of the campaign sees the seleucid admiral trapping his ex-compatriots in the bay of Panormus having lured them there with promises of his defection in order to capture or kill his hated rival, the rhodian Pausistratum, and teach the people that exiled him a lesson too!
We played it with my Corona Navalis rulebook, giving the rhodians the ramming doctrine and the seleucid the boarding one. Both sides sacrificed the monoremes to include fire cauldrons in some ships (marked by a cotton puff in the prow) with which to set fire to rammed enemies.
The rhodians deployed inside the bay in a crescent
While the seleucids deployed in pairs with a strong center around the deceres
The seleucids move half the fleet onwards while all the rhodians go ahead
The seleucid right turns inwards
First blood goes to the rhodians that sink a galley with a frontal ram
Conflict erupts in the center while the flanks keep calm
A rhodian galley is set on fire by catapults
Now the seleucid form a wedge, with the idea to cut through the center
The rhodians retreat to lure them in Cannae style
The rhodians keep on ramming
And having the edge the enemy galley sinks!
Rhodians rushing forwards on the exposed flanks of the enemy galleys
The seleucid center is being surrounded
After losing several ships the seleucid right falls back
In the seleucid left the king's galleys board with great sucess
The seleucid ships, with their sides exposed once the line is broken, fall prey to skilled rammings
The seleucid right and center are mauled, and only their left retains some strength
Polixenidas, aboard his burning deceres beats a hasty retreat heavily outnoumbered
The boarded rhodians on the left also retreat
The deceres will not die: nor fire nor ram can strip any damage points
A multiple boarding sees a rhodian five lose some crew
As does this one
A trirreme tries a ramming but fails to hole her prey
Another unsucessful ramming that only incendiates the target
The seleucid right is doubled in number but manages to survive
Two rhodians gang up on a damaged seleucid and manage to win a boarding at last
With most of his fleet sunk, Polixenidas retreats, promising vengeance on his way out
Seleucid left
Center
And right
The rhodians lost no ships while the seleucid 8.
Outcome 40-0. Quite different from the actual one where the rhodians lost almost all the fleet.
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