And at this moment, an astonishing news came: a large Spartan army entered the Arcadia region from the north!

The members of the city-states of the Arcadia Alliance were shocked, especially the Mantinians led by Lucomedes.

Isn’t Sparta located southeast of Arcadia? Why does its army appear in the north?

It turned out that Sparta had used the gold and silver provided by Persia to hire a lot of soldiers in Northern Greece, Ionia and Asia Minor. Persia also provided ships to transport them to Greece, but they did not land on the coast of Sparta because it had been blocked by the Dionys fleet. Instead, in Athens and Corinth's acquiescence, they entered the Saron Bay east of the isthmus and entered the harbor of Corinth. After the mercenaries got ashore, they led the south by Achidams.

Lukomedes was anxious because Mantinia was located in the northeast of the Arcadia region and was in the only way for the Spartan army. Moreover, Mantinia, as an advocate of the Arcadia Alliance, was even more thorny in the Spartans' side and thorn in the flesh.

Lucomedes shouted loudly in the alliance: "The army formed by the Spartans with the help of Persia entered Arcadia without permission, and they did not come for peace. They were here to destroy the Arcadia alliance, which was regarded as a threat by Sparta. They wanted to reslave the Arcadia people to fight for the interests of Sparta! If the Arcadia alliance did not form an alliance with Dionia as soon as possible and let the Dionia army stop the brutal Spartan mercenary army, then the alliance that was established not long ago will soon perish, and everyone who supports the establishment of the alliance will also become the wronged souls under the Spartan club!"

Lycomedes' words moved the members of the parliament, and then they received news: the Spartan soldiers who invaded Arcadia destroyed and ravaged Frios' land.

Finally, the Arcadia Alliance passed this agreement with a narrow advantage.

In the early spring of 370 BC (the 24th year of the Kingdom of Dionys), the Arcadia Alliance and Dionys formed an alliance. Then Crotokataks led the First, Fourth and Sixth Legion, the Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade, the First Cavalry Legion, and half of the Seventh Legion (3,000 soldiers were stationed in Mesenia), and a total of about 32,000 soldiers marched northward and entered the Arcadia region.

At this time, the Spartan mercenaries led by Achidams were already attacking Mantiniya. The Spartan Elders Council had learned from the pro-Spartan faction among the northern neighbors that "the Arcadia Alliance will form an alliance with Dionya". They hated Mantiniya, the leader of the alliance. Because the timely arrival of the employed army has fueled their confidence, they decided to take the lead in severe damage to Mantiniya, shock the Arcadia Alliance, and force it to turn back to Sparta.

The reason why the Spartans dared to make such a decision was that this army, which was formed with huge sums of money, had 8,000 heavy infantry, mainly employed by Militu, Ephesus, Samos, Chios, Lesbos, Ioria and other Greek city-states belonging to the western coastal areas of Persia Asia Minor; 4,500 Thracian light shield soldiers were mainly employed by the Thracian tribes located north of the Macedonian Kingdom, near the Aegean Sea, near the Aegean Sea, and near the Rodopi Mountains; 1,500 cavalry mainly employed by the Macedonian Kingdom; 1,200 archers and stone-piked soldiers were from Crete and Rhode Island, and there were more than 4,000 light armor soldiers from the Ionian islands in the Aegean Sea... There were more than 20,000 soldiers in total, and at least 10,000 Dalik gold coins were required per month, and countless food was consumed. Of course, these were provided by the Persians.

For the first time, Archimas led such an army of numerous men and fully equipped troops. He was confident in capturing Mantinia in a short period of time.

But when he led his army into Mantinian territory, all the Mantinian people had already hid in the city, so Azidams began to attack Mantinian City. He originally thought that he could quickly capture Mantinian City with his superior forces, but unexpectedly he encountered a hard nail.

The former city of Mantinian was destroyed by Sparta with floods. After the Mantinians who had been in exile for many years returned to their homes, they would never let their city be captured by the Spartans again, so they cleverly designed the new city.

The Mantinians chose a very high place on the banks of the Orpheus River as the city building site, and then dug a new river nearby, so that the Orpheus River divided into two in the upper reaches of the city building site, bypassing the new city site, and meeting downstream. The originally huge threat river was transformed into such a transformation and became the natural moat of the city.

They also laid a solid stone foundation for the entire city, and the city walls were all piled up by bricks, but the city walls were not complete and continuous, because the entire city area was divided into 10 independent parts, and the walls of each part were not connected to the other part, but there were overlapping points. The overlapping points were provided with city gates, so the new city of Mantinian had 10 city gates.

For the Spartan army, such a unique and irregular city must be captured one by one in order to completely occupy the entire city. The Mantinian walls are independent of their own characteristics based on the height of the terrain, which not only prevents the Spartans from fully deploying their superior forces, but also causes the siege soldiers to be attacked from multiple sides of the defense, not to mention the Orpheus River as a barrier.

Achidams launched several attacks on Mantiniya using the traditional Greek siege method. Not only did he make no progress, but he instead suffered some soldiers, forcing him to change his attack to siege, and sent messengers to Sparta to report the war.

At the same time, Crotokatax has led his army into the southwestern part of Arcadia, which belongs to a rare hilly area in the Arcadia region. The Helisen River runs through the entire area from south to north. In the mountains east of the middle, there is the main holy mountain of the Arcadia people who hold religious sacrificial rituals - Lycaen. The newly built central town of the Arcadia Alliance is located between the east bank of the Helisen River and the Holy Mountain of Lycaen.

As the war with the Spartans broke out, the construction of the new city of Magalopolis had stopped. The city wall, which was the outline of the city, was only half built. The Temple of Zeus, the most important thing for the Arcadia, had just been erected... Scaffoldings and stone piled up on the ground can be seen everywhere in the city area. Only one building, although simple, has been completed, was the chamber of the Arcadia Alliance. It is the basis for the existence of the entire alliance. The three members elected by the people of various city-states lived here for a long time, and in accordance with the rules set by the alliance, they jointly discussed and decided on diplomatic and military affairs within the alliance.

At this moment, dozens of congressmen of the alliance walked out of the city of Megalopolis, stood at a high place and looked south: I saw countless soldiers from the distance wearing exquisite and consistent armor and weapons, arranged in neat columns, crossing the pontoon bridge they quickly built on the Helisen River. Although the footsteps and the sound of armor collision were quite noisy and dust filled, few people complained loudly. The entire army was like a silent black dragon, swimming forward constantly...

The Arcadia MPs stood and looked at each other for a while, and could not see the head of the dragon or its tail, and they felt a little excited.

At this time, the long dragon split another group and headed straight north. When they were about to approach them, the young general riding a tall horse in front of them and wearing a golden crown raised his right hand and waved it down again. Then the army behind him stopped advancing instantly, and the soldiers stood silently... This situation surprised the members of the parliament once again.

Lucomedes immediately stepped down the high ground and went to greet him, with other members of the parliament following closely.

Crotokataks also got off the horse and led Printols, Mukru and the palace guards to meet him.

"General Crotokataks, thank you very much for your timely support!" Lucomedes solemnly bowed to Prince Dionia.

Crotokataks quickly supported him and said sincerely: "Mr. Lucomedes, now the Arcadia Alliance and Dionia are allies, which is what we should do! Please rest assured that according to Dionia's military laws, our soldiers will not do anything to destroy the friendship between the people of the two countries on the land of their ally! If there are soldiers who violate the violation, they will be severely punished!"

As soon as these words were spoken, many Arcadia MPs breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, someone among the MPs asked loudly: "How many soldiers have you sent?"

Priintols took over the conversation: "Considering that Arcadia has many mountains and is not easy to expand, we only brought more than 30,000 soldiers, and more than 10,000 garrisons remained in Mesenia (Printors counted both the Mesenians and the First Fleet's fleet infantry).

Most of the MPs gasped and then sighed: More than 40,000 soldiers with complete equipment! They had never seen such a huge army in their lives! No wonder the marching troops of Dionia are so long that they can't see the beginning and end at all!

You should know that the last time such a number of troops appeared in Greece was during the Hippo War a hundred years ago. More than 100,000 soldiers (heavy infantry were two-fifths of the total number) in Greek city-states gathered with the Persians in Platia; the second time was the Peloponnese War decades ago. It is said that Athens sent an army of about 30,000 to expedition to Syracuse in Sicily, and finally suffered a crushing defeat.

But these two times have passed, and they have not seen it with their own eyes. The only few members of the parliament experienced the Battle of Luctra that happened not long ago. The Peloponnese coalition led by Sparta was more than 10,000, and the total number of people on both sides of the war was about 20,000. In their eyes, it was already a large-scale battle.
Chapter completed!