So far this was merely a case of robbery on all sides. The young Republic had taken isolated colonies from the Hellenic peoples on their main peninsula – which, since they had little in the way of trading goods were not considered of importance. The Hellenic states, for their part, blocked trade to the grain rich empires of Ursumer and Ankheliopolis, because they controlled the only ways south, and the other way of trade, up around the northern tip of the Ur subcontinent was long and arduous. They also could blockade such few Latin island colonies. For 3 annae (792.4 – 792.7) there was total stalemate, and it seemed a truce was going to be negotiated.
However, it was at this moment with auspicious signs that the Hellenes decided in Long Count year 792.8 that they would have to not only drive the Latins from the few islands they held, but to blockade their ports and attack with all of the weapons at their disposal. The Hellenes had a secret weapon the aeolinaus – a ship powered by steam which could launch Greek fire. The Hellenes built 12 in secret, and when the winds would normally have been against a blockade in Latia, coming from the north in that south facing harbor, they steamed (lit. atmosed) northward.
The aeolipile is an engine which burns heavy dry woods, and uses this to heat water, the heated water gives off steam, which pushes a piston out. This much had been known for some 15 trisdecads (15 long count cycles). But their cleverness had found that if a small valve let cold air or cold water back in, the boiler would remain efficient for a very long time. And more over, they found that some of the wood around Teloikopolis was very heavy with sulfur, and thus burned very, very well. This new aeolipile was much more efficient, and they could harness it to a series of oars arrange in a circle. Each of these would be set in pairs on the ship.
When at Latia the great disaster began, on Long Count 792.9.6, the commander, Hipposemnos of Arinth, gave the city a day to surrender. Nothing in the Latin Republic takes less than several days, and so their Senate begged for more time, having one Consul who was dead, another who was still fighting on land against the Hellenes diversionary attack. Their request for time was rebuffed, and, as with many commanders who believe that they have an overwhelming advantage, began his attack. The Latin navy, thinking that with the wind behind them they had control off the engagement, sailed out to meet them, at which point the danger of the new ships became apparent: the aeolinaus scattered, and when the Latin sailing ships went to chase them, they were meat by the second weapon in the Hellenic arsenal: aeolieupresis – hurling buring chemicals with steam cannons. While the fire arrows of the Latin’s had, somewhat, better range, they had only enough priests to oversee a few ships of them. The Hellenic fleet burned the Latin’s to the water line, with several going up like torches.
It was at this point that a decision was made that many will long think on, and wonder if an spirit had been there, whispering to Hipposemnos what the results would be, whether he would act as he did. On one hand (Men) most would assume that no one would willfully inflict the terrors which followed on an unwitting world; on the other hand (de) Lauprosedes, who has written the long biography on Hipposemnos maintained that, to his death, Hipposemnos claimed he would neither have his victory robbed, nor the insolent and uncultured Latins, who he believed to be brought by Lucifer, and not of their own knowledge, to remain on land, and that his only sorrow was that what followed was not enough. But this is ahead of the story.
The maker of the decision was described as a tall, proud, and handsome man, who had used the extreme force of his personality to drive the actual building of the fleet. All agreed he was a poor orator, and prone misspeaking, and that he seemed to be immune to responsibility. However, he pressed the case that the Latins had to be destroyed, and that there was a clear danger from their being present in the world. He urged his fellows to cleanse the Central Sea of them, and to restore the old order. At first he and his comrades were seen as extreme, and of no account, but with successive elections they bought one city after another under their sway, many accused them of buying elections with favors in building the fleet,
When the time came to choose a commander for it, his backers – because of his great wealth he had many – pressed for him alone to be the commander of the whole attack. He, in an aggressively optimistic plan, had cast every ship to the attack and had used the minimum ships in each attack.
The bombardment began, and Latia, begin made as much of wood as of stone, exploded. The Latins had gained the chemical formula for mixing burning chemicals with pitch from a spy, whose name we do not know, and had begun to manufacture it in quantity. The city exploded, and for the first time, a cloud in the shape of a mushroom was seen that had been made by human efforts. The conflagration caught the Hellenic navy which was burned almost to a ship. Strangely Hipposemnos himself was hurled by the explosion of his ship into the water, where he drifted to a beach later on. He would lose both arms and both legs to the wasting disease, and his sight as well, but he lived on, a prisoner of the Latins, until his death in 794.2.
What follows is confused, because of the lack of documentary sources: the Hellenes had attacked not only Latia but several other cities as well, and the results were similar – the city exploded, the natural volatility of woods heavy with sulfur causing great death, but the explosions often destroying the attacking ships. By the second wave of he attack however, the Latins had found the counter measure, using their great mechanical weapon of war, the horse drawn Ballista, they could puncture the boilers of the aeolinaus from a great distance, causing the ship to explode, and often destroy many others. At the harbor of Capopoli, which passes between two hills, they laid an ambush and firing several of the heavy ballista bolts, destroyed the entire Hellenic fleet that remained.
Mad with revenge, and meeting in the scorched Senate building – which, made of stone had survived, along with the forum and much of the “heart” of Latia – the Senate vowed revenge, and ordered the construction of a ballista armed fleet to attack the Hellenes.
In Helos, the council of cities met, and instead of being panicked or turning for sensible advise to the wise or the priests who could have explained the error of using open fire, they sent their last ships, including sail and aeolinaus, north. The two fleets met on 792.10.6 – the exact anniversary of the attack on Latia. The result was complete annihilation of both sides at the battle off of Greater Rhodes. There are no surviving accounts of the battle, because there were no confirmed survivors, other than a few sailors who clung to logs, of these all died of their horrific burns, and spoke only of an immense clash which set both fleets afire.
However the gods, colloquially, were not finished with us yet, for the long count 792.10 is remembered as the beginning of the Eupresis…
Logos Eupresis, Sophadora, Long Count 842.6