In the east, Athenai and Sparta duel over the destiny of all Hellas. In the west, great city-states rise and fall like reeds, the ambitious vanquishing the weak. But upon the farthest shore of Greater Greece, a new and extraordinary power rises. Eretria Eskhata, a new city founded upon the ashes of the old, emerges onto the stage.
The fates watch you, o citizens of Eretria. Will you emerge victorious and enter the annals of history, or fail and be buried in the dust as a ruin and a curiosity? Will you build a legacy to stand the test of time, or fade away as an obscure memory? Will you triumph or will you end in tragedy?
The year is 431 BCE, 345 years since the first Olympic Games. Sparta, once hegemon of all Hellas, now faces the rising polis of Athenai. With its silver mines at Laurion, its unbeatable fleet, and its vast Aegean empire, the city has gained power beyond all in Hellas. Now, a dispute between the city of Korinthos and its former colony Kerkyra in the Ionian sea has developed into a deliberate provocation as Athens has closed its ports to the Spartan ally Megara, destroying its economy. Declaring the peace broken, Sparta has called together its allies and rallied its armies.
Away from all of this, at the boot of Italia, lies the region of Magna Graecia. Wealthy Greek city states from Syrakousai to Taras battle for dominance over the wealthy hinterland. In the interior lurk feathered warriors, waiting for their opportunity to strike, for the Greeks to grow weak and divided. In the northwest, a little city by the name of Rome battles for survival on the bloody banks of the Tiber. To the southwest, the wealthy phoenician city of Carthage bides its time, waiting, expanding its empire across the western Mediterranean.
Among these states rises the city of Eretria Eskhata, once a city of exiles and now hegemon of Epulia. Controlling a small empire of subordinate cities and barbarian tributaries, Eretria Eskhata has carved a home for itself through blood and cunning.
Blessed by the Divine Marriage of Athene and Apollon, the citizens of Eretria have become wealthy and strong. Their democratic constitution guarantees the freedom and liberty of every citizen. Their armies are unique among those of Hellas for the skill of their cavalry and infantry. Their rowers, trained in their naval barracks, propelled forward by legends of battles of three masts against fifty, expertly sail the wine-dark sea.
But all is not well in the city. Hateful of mass slavery, the citizens of Eretria have instead inadverdantly created a vast class of immigrant freemen, the metics. Some are brilliant craftsmen or weavers of sea silk. Others are tenant labourers who work on estates alongside native serfs. Still others are wealthy merchants with large fortunes. All are aware of the contradiction between the city's professed ideals and their subordinate position. All are aware of the burdens they pay to live in the city, the treatment they receive as those of lesser status. All are also aware of their numbers. Indeed, if Eretria is a city of the people, it is not a city of all its people.
And there are many terrors that the city must face. To the south is strong Taras, with its domination over the Sallento. To the southeast, Korinthos seeks to regain the prestige and power of its archaic empire, and Eretria stands in the way. To the southwest, the city of Syrakousai seeks to avenge former disgrace and rebuild its hegemony.
Now, amid all this, the city's Xenoparakletor brings grim news from abroad. The Peloponnesian War has begun.
Magna Graecia: Titanomachia is a continuation of a popular quest run from 2015 and 2017 in two iterations. Those two quests covered around 25 years between them, from the landing of the Eretrians in 490 BCE after the Persians invaded the city to the election of famed war hero Herodion in 465 BCE. The game is focused on combining intuitive and interesting mechanics for managing a city and its characters with the flavor and historical context for the era. In this case, we have taken a 34 year timeskip forward to the start of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Players will begin by choosing which particular vision of the city carried them through the interim, and then we will transition to beginning the game, year by year. The game's mechanics are influenced by Civilization, Total War, and Imperator: Rome, but I have taken great pains to alter many of these mechanics and create historically accurate numbers for revenue and expenses. Everything will cost approximately as it did in this era, as much as possible.
Though not really required reading, especially given the timeskip, here are links to the previous two games: Original, Followup.
Now, let's move onto the mechanics.
Ekklesia
The city of Eretria Eshkata is a city of the people, and you are the people. The Ekklesia, as the formal assembly of the people, is the final authority on all matters in the city; tyranny is not even considered here, such is the confidence of the people in their own decisions. All adult male citizens regardless of property or wealth have an equal voice here.
When you vote you are literally placing a vote on behalf of the people; you may even want to roleplay as a member of the ekklesia and it is certainly encouraged (named characters have been acknowledged in the quest if their voice is loud and influential enough, and even win minor offices). Since the voters directly represent the people, their discussion might affect the course of the city even if what they voted on does not win. Huge majorities or pluralities will reflect on how the citizens of Eretria see decisions.
The assembly is the ultimate authority in the city, but there are a number of factions and offices that have emerged over time to help the assembly fulfill its role.
User Motions & Write-ins
One of the things that I value in Magna Graecia is user input. Some of the most fantastic concepts of the past were entirely user-inputted, but the usual "write-in" system can also allow for some stupendously stupid outcomes. To that end I've designed a more formal system that allows better write-ins.
The rock-obsessed democracy of Eretria believes in the value of standing on top of boulders when proposing something, and for that you need five kleftes, your lifters. If, during the discussion phase of voting you feel you have an alternative to a currently proposed vote, you can propose a user motion by first tagging me to approve it. If I do, then it moves to the lifting phase. If five people "lift your rock", then it will be included as a user motion when the vote is created. I reserve the right to not approve motions if I feel they infringe on the authority of executive offices or I feel they're not historically accurate.
The other type of user motion is usually for bigger decisions that don't necessarily have to do with the current vote options but can be voted on anyways if the person gets five kleftes. Examples include removing the current proboulos, starting a war (a user motion to start a war began a major conflict that ended with victory over the neighboring tribes) or repealing some previous decision. These kinds of user motion can be made at any time but will only be voted on separately from the main vote for that year.
Finally, there are the special user motions to reward specific characters with the wreath of Apollon and the an inscription on the painted rock of Athene, the foremost rewards for public service, a new mechanic introduced by player user motion. These motions can only be introduced during an election year, require five lifters for the Wreath of Apollon and 10 lifters for the rock of Athene before it is even put to a public vote, ensuring that only the truly worthy will be able to obtain these crucial awards. The inscription on the painted rock can only be granted after a person's retirement from politics, and represents their permanent legacy.
Factions
The Demes are the three major factions of Eretria. Loose, broad-based coalitions of people from every single class, the demes have formed out of the most famed historical leaders in Eretria's history: Drako, Herodion, and Antipater. Even though all these leaders have passed, their memory lives on in the people who have been molded by them and their beliefs. Each of the three factions has its own vision and project on how the city should be and what the citizens should aspire towards. The Demos Drakonia look to the sea and trade for the city's prosperity. The Demos Exoria, Herodion's faction, seek to strengthen the city's army and secure its borders. The Demos Antipatria encourages Hellenic immigration to the city and pursues diplomacy that seeks to build coalitions of its neighbors.
At game start, players will choose which factions most influenced the city in the 34 years since the previous game. Each faction will come with its own powerful starting bonuses, and will influence how the city is seen around the Mediterranean. After the beginning of the game, the factions will compete for influence and power in the city. There is no measure of civil stability or influence; instead, players will have to think through what the city's mood and stability is like, and factions will have their influence represented through which offices they control.
Offices
Every four years Eretria holds an election for the next Proboulos and Xenoparakletor, as well as lots for each of the more minor offices. The Proboulos is the city's domestic minister, managing its finances, constructions, and administering the ekklesia (as well as carrying out its will). The Xenoparakletor is the city's voice to outsiders, dealing with other states. They not only host the Epulian League, a small collection of city states surrounding Eretria and under her hegemony, but collect information from Eretrian citizens and merchants from across the Mediterranean, compiling a report for the assembly of what is going around them turn-by-turn. The Strategoi are elected, but a head strategos is only elected from among the ten strategoi in a time of war. Finally, there is the Metic Assembly, elected not by the assembly but by metics outside of player control, and only when the Metics are called to speak.
However, this is where chance comes in. When players elect a proboulos and xenoparakletor they are signalling how influential that faction is at a given time. The faction that gains control of these esteemed office swill have a greater chance for their candidates to be chosen for lot in the minor offices, such as the master of the mint, the grand mantis in charge of festivals, the chief of public lands or the Agoranomos who manages trade in the city. When factions take control of these offices they have special powers to present issues to the ekklesia and will do so, raising issues and putting forward suggestions they would not otherwise. If a faction has control of all or most of the city's offices, then the Ekklesia will only be presented with the issues that faction wants them to be presented with.
Characters
A Greek city is much more than just an abstract symbol or a border on a map. It is built out of people and personalities. Great figures such as Dionysius of Syracuse, Archytas of Taras, Alkibiades or Perikles cannot be forgotten or pushed to the side. Indeed, it was the characters that brought flavor to the original Magna Graecia, but in time it became difficult for new characters to break in to an old stable, and a few personalities became entrenched. In Titanomachia, to represent this, each character running for an election (to Xenoparakletor, Proboulos, or in times of war, for Strategos) has six stats drawn from Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics: Glory, Lawfulness, Friendliness, Courage, Magnificence, and Wisdom. Unlike in other character systems, more of a stat is not always a good thing; someone too glorious may become over-mighty, while someone too friendly yields too much to others, but a high or low score can remain an advantage depending on the combination. The purpose of these statistics are to give citizens a better idea of who these people are, rather than how good they are; competence is difficult to judge except in the heat of battle, while character is easier. Citizens can only trust that the people they have chosen for their virtues display those virtues in war as well as peace. A mix of traits can create a number of intriguing characters; someone can be extremely lawful but unfriendly, or wise but cowardly. Character stats can also change over time; old men may become less friendly or more glorious, and young men may find their courage in the heat of battle.
There is an eight-point scale for character stats. 1 means very low; 8 means very high. 4 is in the middle.
Glory (Kleos): The virtue of glory is renown for a man's accomplishments in life. A man with high kleos is more likely to be respected among his peers and enemies and to be able to unite the people in a crisis but may in turn become over-ambitious if their glory is not tempered by modesty. Those who come from notable families will have higher expectations for reaching the glory of their ancestors.
Lawfulness (Isos): The lawful man is just to a fault. He will be as fair to the ordinary people as to the aristocrats. At times, however, consistency in fairness can become displeasing to the polis, as the aim to be fair above all can disturb the peace which maintains the unity of the people together, and such fairness can manifest itself as cruelty if wedded to a respect for harsh laws and a hate for change.
Friendliness (Phillia): Friendliness is the quality of compromise and cooperation. The man with philia believes primarily in the necessity of working with others and having a pleasant and genial life. However, although the friendly man may become beloved by the people and respected, if his friendliness is a front for deception, or else he becomes a man who yields too much to insult.
Courage (Andreia): The courageous man is confident in himself and his honor. Courage is necessary both on the battlefield and in oratory, and without it the man is little more than a mewling calf, afraid of the whispers of others. However, the man who is too courageous becomes foolhardy and stubborn, a rash person of explosive temperament, sometimes too willing to tread over others.
Magnificence (Megaloprepeia): The magnificent man gives great things and receives them. He spends his fortune or effort on public works and public ceremonies, contributing to the city he calls his home, whether with his labour or his wealth. A man with an excess in magnificence spends inappropriately or for his own glory, while a man with a lack of magnificence is a miser or a pauper.
Wisdom (Sophia): The wise man has worked hard to achieve the knowledge and understanding needed to grasp the world around them in theoretical terms. Wisdom is an extraordinary virtue, but even it can go too far. A man without much wisdom is a practical, simple-thinking man, whereas one with too much wisdom may prefer the theoretical and the abstract to the real, and be better for drafting laws than enforcing them.
Demography & Levies
In the classical period, Greek states did not rely on vast professional armies or mercenaries, but levies of their own freemen. In Eretria, every freeman, Metic and Citizen, can serve. There is a set ratio of citizen men to metic men, and this has a significant effect on the city's finances. At any one time, 75% of the city's adult men are ready to be levied into its armies, though the full levy, or Levy Pandemos, can only be raised in an emergency. The city draws on a large cavalry force (especially for its size) and a large number of hoplites, with ratios to the total number of troops that can alter if circumstances change. In Ancient Greece, society determines the military, and not the other way around; social distinctions are also often military ones. Aristocrats ride and hoplites march, while light-armed psilloi throw javelins, rocks, and sling bolts.
This also means that a city losing manpower can be disastrous. Casualties here are not defined as anyone injured but those who have been taken out of the manpower pool; they are either gravely crippled or killed, and are a direct subtraction from the city's number of adult freemen, reducing not only its tax revenue but its manpower.
The city's navy is determined by its number of trained rowers. Navies are extremely intensive not only on manpower but the city's finances, and if the city were to deploy its triremes all at once filled by all its trained rowers, it could find itself running a deficit. Navies are thus the preserve of manpower-rich, wealthy states, and Eretria can be proud to call itself among that group. Rowers are drawn from the ranks of the lower-class psilloi, and since many of the psilloi are too poor to be at war much anyway, it is in the city's interest to fill up the ranks of the rowers as much as it can afford.
The cost of war is represented in two ways. The city has a maintenance cost for its permanent units (the medium-infantry Hieros Ekdromoi and the elite cavalry Kleos Exoria). In addition, since trireme rowers are professionals, they are given a reduced but still substantial pay at all times, and have a direct incentive to agitate for war because of their increased pay during wartime. During a war, the city's militia forces of hoplites, cavalry, and light infantry become available, and cost the city a substantial sum of money to conduct in the field even for a few months. However, because of the realities of militia warfare, campaigning is seasonal; an army can only sustain itself in the field for a few months before it melts away, its constituent parts going home.
Changes were made to the military system in Turn 8, so new players coming in and reading through should not worry about the discrepancy in military numbers before and after turn 8.
War
Eretria will sometimes be confronted with wars it must fight against its neighbors or even hegemons. In a war the city elects a head strategos who will lead an army; the city can appoint additional strategoi and create separate armies. Rarely will the city's entire possible levy be called at once, and even rarer will be the case when the city decides to increase the proportion of men called to fight, pulling in the old, the sick, and the weak. In a siege, the city has strong walls and the supplies to resist for three years, and perhaps indefinitely if it retains naval supremacy. The city being sacked may not be a game over, but will result in the damage of buildings, the loss of income, and the loss of citizens, even leaving aside the probably punitive peace deal afterwards. It is thus not usually advisable.
The strategos controls the army in the field, not the ekklesia, and they must merely trust in the judgments of a strategos on the field of battle. If the strategos fails, however, the city is free to recall or execute them for their crimes, but one must beware of generals who gain too much power or are reliant on mercenaries, for they may not take such a response lying down...
Mercenaries are special units recruited as political units. In the ancient Mediterranean a mercenary band was a political community united by a single leader guiding his men to honor and glory. Well-paid mercenaries can sustain a city against superior enemies for years on end and allow it conduct a more permanent campaign with unparalleled strategic depth and choices that other cities could not dream of. However, at the same time, mercenaries who are not well-paid, or who have loyalty to a specific general, may instead turn on the polis and snuff out its democracy, claiming power for themselves. So, long and short of it, pay your mercenaries.
Finances
The city of Eretria has specific incomes and expenses. Your primary income is from taxation, both direct and indirect (unique among cities, Eretria taxes some freemen directly). Taxation comes from your number of male freemen; the more you have, the more you get from taxation. However, there is one important caveat; Metics are taxed at almost twice the rate of citizens, and are a massive portion of your tax revenue. There is thus a very clear incentive not to provide more citizenship to your metics, as once they become citizens the number of taxes they pay will significantly drop. However, one must be careful with treating them too much like a cash cow, for they may eventually become fed up.
Aside from that, the city makes money from taxing trade (see Trade), receiving income from the members of the Epulian League and its barbarian tributaries, and public revenues representing state-owned farms and mines as well as the revenues of public works. Loot in times of war can be an extraordinary boon for the city, enriching its citizens and providing enormous and instant influxes of talents into the treasury.
In terms of expenses, the city has to upkeep its army and navy, pay to construct buildings (see Great Works) and pay salaries and subsidies. The city not only has to pay for its more elaborate governmental apparatus (much more complicated than most cities its size) but also for subsidies to playwrights and actors in order to encourage the city's culture, which remains austere and abysmal.
Finally, there is also the city's Sacred Treasury. Established by Kallias the Wise, a noted reformer who held many important positions throughout the city's early history, the sacred treasury takes 10% of the city's gross income and puts it aside into an emergency fund. Now more than 1,200 talents, the Sacred Treasury is the city's emergency fund. Only allowed to open in a crisis or a time of war, the treasury is the city's last line of defense, allowing it to recruit mercenaries, repair walls, or rebuild fleets.
Trade
In Titanomachia trade is quite simple. The city has a set number of trade routes which it cannot control, representing the fact that ancient cities rarely intervened directly in trade policy except in times of war. The trade routes will go to various regions and can be both geopolitically important and lucrative; Eretria begins the game shipping grain to the city of Athens, which could affect the Peloponnesian war and draw more attention to the city. There are also luxury trade routes; far more lucrative than normal ones, these trade routes represent special luxury goods, such as the famed Attic pottery or Kyrene's Silphium, a natural abortifacient so popular it would later go extinct from over-exploitation. At game start, Eretria's main luxury trade route is in its famed Byssos cloth, a fine silky linen sourced from a special Adriatic shell. The city has the opportunity, either through growth, naval dominance, or the construction of trading posts and the expansion of its harbour, to gain more trade routes.
To portray the weakness of the 5th century BCE polis in collecting revenue from trade there is tariff efficiency, which represents how effective Eretria's agoranomoi are at taxing trade. Higher tariff efficiency will mean higher revenues from individual trade routes, and can eventually mean that the majority of the city's revenue comes from trade rather than domestic sources, giving it an additional edge on its neighbors. In times of war, some trade routes could be temporarily cut, or the city could cut them, to strategically deny resources to enemies. The only type of trade route not subject to the tariff efficiency modifier are monopoly trade routes, which have the full value of that type of trade route from the start and and are both rare and immensely lucrative for a city to gain.
Great Works
At game start Eretria is a rather shabby city. Although it is the center of a strong state, a tier below the most powerful Greek states, the city is a messy web of streets and small temples. One of the first tasks of any faction will be to develop the city by improving its beauty through great works. Great works are special constructions with unique bonuses that players will be able to see transforming the city with a map of the polis that will dynamically change as new works are constructed. Great works allow you to make your mark on the world, with cultural works influencing the city's relations and neighbors, military works strengthening its defenses, and commercial works improving its ability to make money. Indeed, some great works may become so great that they are remembered not only in the city but across the Mediterranean, magnifying the city's prestige and respect among other Greeks.
Diplomacy and the Wider World
The quest begins at the start of the most momentous conflict in the Greek World to that point. The Peloponnesian War spread far beyond Greece, with an Athenian expedition to Sicily and fighting as far as the city of Byzantion at the opening to the Black Sea. As a result, diplomacy will be important. The Xenoparakletor, responsible for the city's foreign affairs, will provide yearly updates of what is going on in the Mediterranean and how the war is progressing, as well as any other notable events. The world outside Eretria is ever fluid and never static, a dynamic and terrifying place full of enemies aplenty. Players will be presented with many important choices on how to respond to diplomatic dilemmas ranging from local border wars to intervening in vast conflicts.
These days, neutrality is a dangerous thing in the Mediterranean. In Greece, the clash of titans makes neutrality ever less of an option. In Sicily, a resurgent Syracuse threatens peace on the island, while a looming Carthage looks on with interest. In Italy, the interior tribes grow ever more restless and populous, growing bolder, staging raids on Greek territory and carrying away captives beneath banners of feathers. Interstate anarchy rules the Mediterranean, and all are against all. Eretria can use the opportunity of fluidity and dynamism to take a more active role in Magna Graecia, build an Illyrian Empire, or intervene decisively in old Hellas. Or, perhaps, it may fail and burn, its citizens enslaved and treasure stolen, another ruin to be pondered over, forgotten and desolate.
Adult Freemen: 24,181 (Census of 353 OL) Citizen Ratio: 42.0% Adult Male Citizens: 10,156 Adult Male Metics: 14,025 Total Free Population: 84,254
Patron Gods: Divine Marriage of Athene & Apollon Other Major Gods: Poseidon & Demeter, Zeus, Ploutos, Artemis
Political Offices
Next Election is 357 OL.
Proboulos: Epiktetos Linos (Demos Drakonia). Xenoparakletor: Obander Eupraxis (Demos Antipatria). Lead Strategos: Only appointed in times of war. Metic Prytanis: Timotaios Herais (Demos Antipatria).
Agoranomos: Itheos Akadios (Demos Exoria). Assembly of the Mint: Krethon Ibykos (Demos Exoria). Popular Tribunal: Sosibios Kineas (Demos Drakonia). Chief of Public Lands: Kebes Bisaltos (Demos Exoria). Grand Mantis: Parmon Polyeides (Demos Drakonia). Elder Ekdromos: Austesion Sabyllos (Demos Exoria).
Great Works
Wide Walls: Proud stone walls that protect the city from enemies. Sea Wall: Protect the city from any sea-based attack. Arkadion: A Temple to the Divine Marriage of Demeter & Poseidon. Temple of the Divine Marriage: A temple to the Divine Marriage of Apollo and Athena. Temple to Zeus Olympios: A temple to the supreme God of the Hellenes, Zeus Olympios. Temple of Artemis Amarysia: A temple and attached grove to the huntress Artemis. Naval Barracks: Where the city's rowers train. Hill of the Divine Marriage (Great Work): An artificial hill that looms above the city and holds its most important temples. Byssos Harbor: (Under Construction, done 359 OL).
Treasury & Income
Treasury in 356 OL: 294.4 Talents Income: 313.6 Talents Taxation: 191.0 Talents Commerce: 98.1 Talents League Income: 11.3 talents (Melaina Kerkyra & Epidauros) Tribute: 11.2 Talents Public Revenue: 2.0 Talents
Expenses: 309.5 Talents Navy Upkeep: 78.9 Talents (New Ships) Army Upkeep: 44.0 Talents Construction: 110.0 Talents (Great Harbor of Byssos) Misc: 40.0 Talents (Grain Subsidy to Kymai, Expedition to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros) Salaries & Subsidies: 24.0 Talents (Registry of the Merchant Fleet) Sacred Treasury Contribution: 31.1 Talents (10% into Sacred Treasury)
Sacred Treasury in 357 OL: 1597.9 Talents (+31.4 Talents per turn) Treasury in 357 OL: 298.5 Talents
Levy Pandemos: 14,286 (75% of all Adult Freemen minus men in special units and navy)
4,094 Hoplites (19% of all Adult Freemen)
675 Cavalry (3% of all Adult Freemen)
9,516 Psilloi (53% of all Adult Freemen)
Deployed Levy
Standing Army (Eretria Eskhata)
500 Sacred Ekdromoi (deployed at all times for 38.5 talents a turn)
50 Kleos Exoria (deployed at all times for 5.5 talents a turn)
City of Thurii: Full alliance with the city of Thurii cultivated in opposition to potential ambitions by Taras or other Italiote powers. Freemen & Ships: 14,000 Freemen, 20 Triremes.
City of Krotone: Full alliance with the city of Krotone cultivated in opposition to Syrakousai. Freemen & Ships: 10,000 Freemen, 10 Triremes.
Sikeliote League: Full alliance with the Sikeliote League cultivated in opposition to the main power in South Sicily, Syrakousai. Freemen & Ships: 22,000 Men, 15 Triremes.
Treaties
Treaty of Phaidros: Signed in 348 OL. Enforces peace between signatories. Signatories: Thurii, Eretria Eskhata, Taras, Metapontion Duration: 20 Years (Expires 368 OL)
Treaty of Eupraxis: Signed in 351 OL. Reconciles signatories, places permanent embasses in each city, and bars alliances with Mainland powers until end of Peloponnesian War. Signatories: Taras, Eretria Eskhata
Below are recorded some of the major institutional customs or laws that have seen alteration since the beginning of the quest.
Eretrian Festival Calendar
The festival calendar was reformed in 351 OL by the assembly on the prompting of proboulos Theron Archippos, adding the Courting of Ploutos and the Conquest of the Sea as official festivals.
Spring
The Courting of Ploutos (Mid Spring). A more humorous and commercially oriented women's festival, the courting of Ploutos tells the story of Ploutos' attempts to flee from the bounds of marriage and love in favor of commerce. Celebrated in Eretria as the source of the city's trade wealth, Ploutos is surprisingly popular among widows and wealthy women because of this particular tale's affirmation of the importance of women to wealth. After fleeing from every potential mate, Aphrodite grows incredibly frustrated and crafts Nomisnia, a demigoddess who is good at creating wealth as Ploutos; the two immediately become competitors, further frustrating her. Finally, at last, Hermes intervenes, and convinces the two that they would have double the wealth if they were married, and at last the two accept, finding love in mutual success at business. The festival is celebrated through a dramatic re-enactment, dances between lovers, and a literal shower of drachmas given to the poorest women of the city.
Procession of the One Marriage (Late Spring): A massive three-day procession that starts at the Gate of Heroes and stops at the temple of the Divine Marriage at the end of the processional way. At the end of the way, a young man representing Apollon and a girl representing Athene are "married", after being carried through the city on a chariot driven by the ekdromoi in place of horses. The festival also includes bull running on the first day, added to the enterprising hooliganry of a young man many years ago. Bulls are slaughted during this festival and no work allowed in the city.
Summer
Holiday of the United City (Early Summer): The foremost civic holiday in Eretria. A celebration of Apollo & Athene, the Holiday of the United City is also when young men are ordained as adults and welcomed into the rolls of men who can be called to war. It is a bellicose and festive occasion, full of wrestling, favored most by the men, and is also when Metics are given the reward of citizenship if they are judged to have served the city enough in some capacity. Speeches are made, the youths dance and chase one another, and there are two days of dancing. Many bulls are slaughtered during this festival, and it is the premier source of beef for many poorer citizens.
Festival of Apollon & Artemis (Late Summer): The premier festival for barbaroi outside the city. Tribute is collected from all of the tributary vassals, athletic games are held, a contest of plays is held in the Theater of the Thunderbird, the barbarian agora is opened up to any and all from within and without the city. With the arrival of the cattle drive along with the ceremony of the barbaroi swearing sacred oaths, this festival has become extremely popular.
Autumn
Running of the Weasels (Mid Autumn): A folk festival that has been incorporated into the new calendar by Theron Archippos. The Running of the Weaels is most popular among the young, especially young men and women, who hope to find lovers and marriages at the festival; its situation after the end of a summer campaign is not accidental. Usually presided over by an honored citizen, the festival is one day and consists of young men chasing women wearing weasel masks through the Gate of the Weasels while being in turn chased by their elders who scream at them that weasels are a poor animal to keep as a pet and beat the ones who fall behind with sticks. Afterwards there is a communal feast and a singing competition of the women, voted on by the men. The festival is dedicated to Demeter.
Winter
The Conquest of the Sea (Mid Winter): A grand festival involving mock sea battles and swimming contests which celebrates Poseidon's subjugation of all the creatures of the sea. Poseidon is a popular god across Italia and Sicilia, in sharp contrast to his sometimes muted worship among Ionians on the Mainland. The Conquest of the Sea, conducted in the chilly mid-winter, promises to bring fantastic seafood to the mouths of hungry Eretrians and celebrate the city's naval and commercial traditions as well as thank the Gods for the first voyage that Eretria ever undertook. The greatest part of the festival is the battle between rowers in painted boats representing the dolphins allied to Poseidon and the krakens who oppose him, who conduct a mock ram battle with their boats, trying to tip each other over in the harbor of the fifty masts.
Metic Laws
The Metics are the disenfranchised underclass of Eretria. Unable to own property or vote in the assembly, they are permanent Hellene residents in Eretria who are mostly concentrated as tenants across the large and small farms of Eretria's citizens, while others are skilled craftsmen. Metics are also required to wear straw hats to identify themselves at all times and distinguish themselves from citizens. With a tax burden double that of the citizenry despite their numbers, Metics are the main source of revenue in Eretria, but may also be the greatest threat to the city's internal stability. Metics still serve in the city's military, mostly as light infantry, as few can afford a hoplite panoply. Most Metics are immigrants from Hellas, though a few are slaves who purchased their freedom.
Following a reform in 346 OL, Metics present their grievances to the citizens through a citizen representative in the assembly every eight years. The same reforms granted Metics citizenship if they were truly exceptional in their heroism, allowed metics to go on juries if they the defendant was a metic, and gave Metic fathers the same rights over their daughters as citizen fathers.
Colonial Laws of Linos
Passed by the ekklesia 352 OL and named after their main advocate, Epiktetos Linos. For the first twenty-four years after a colony's foundation by the Epulian League, that colony, as a member of the Epulian League, will grant any Hellene willing to settle there a parcel of land and citizenship. In Eretria this passage is actually subsidized for poor citizens or Metics. The founding of colonies is centrally controlled by Eretria Eskhata.
Epulian League
Emerging from the expansion of Eretrian hegemony to the surrounding Epulian colonies, the Epulian League is both a blunt extension of Eretrian power and an experiment in cooperative diplomacy and mutual defense. From this contradiction has emerged a network of cities stretching from the south of Epulia to the northern Adriatic beholden to Eretria and restricted in foreign liberties, and yet feeling enough affection to their overlord that they are willing to accept the fiction that they exist in a league of equals under a protective mother city. They meet annually in Eretria at the city's Epulian Synedrion, a squat and unimpressive building near the city's older harbor.
Eretria has a permanent presidency over the league, and occupies a special status among its members. Alone among the members of the league it can form outside alliances, though if this alliance was judged as against the interests of the league by 2/3rds of its members the alliance could be overrode. However, to test the patience of their overlord would be a foolish move indeed for a group of cities who lives in fear of both the interior barbaroi who despise their existence and the bloodthirstiness of an Eretria with its back pressed up against a wall.
Most egregious of the league's stipulations is the collection of a 10% due by Eretria, which theoretically is to be used in the league's common defense but more often goes into the energetic and unprecedented building projects that the Eretrians use as an an alternative to wealth redistribution and an exercise in the glory of their planners and architects. Without a common treasury or even rules on how the money should be used, there is little accountability for Eretrian to pilfer the money for its own parochial purposes.
But common bonds of culture, faith in the Divine Marriage and the fundamental reality of Eretrian domination keep the league together, and the relative leniency of the Eretrians combined with the awareness that this leniency comes at the price of compliance has meant that the league has remained stable and without rebellion throughout its history. The fact that all members of the League are also either colonies of Eretria or were subordinated soon after their foundation in an atmosphere of mutual danger has softened the otherwise prideful and autonomist attitude of the polis, as there is no history of independence to remember and yearn for.
Reforms in 348 OL, spurred on by the careful Pylonos of Pylona, have been made to shift the league away from a simply exploitative model and accepted by the Eretrians as a reward for loyalty and a necessity for maintaining allegiance. Members of the League now:
Elect a strategos who leads the cities under Eretrian command in war and presents the concerns of the cities at the Synedrion in peace
Hold quadrennial Epulian Games hosted outside Eretria Eskhata, celebrating both the Divine Marriage of Athene and Apollon and the
A system of common weights and measures based upon Eretrian measures, one also popular throughout Italia
League ceremonies, including an Oath to the Divine Marriage for new members and sacrifices to Zeus Olympios
Have the ability to wage independent wars, but can keep no outside alliances
A designated section of the Eretrian Agora where they can ply their wares
Can veto Eretrian proposals to the league if 2/3 of all Epulian League Cities refuse the proposal
The Lithokratia
Lithokratia is among the most dire and serious laws that can be invoked in Eretria. Introduced in reforms during an interruption in the Drakonian dominance, though based on a precedent dating back to the city's founding, Lithkoratia means literally "the rule of stone", though might be better translated as "rule of stones", as it refers to the boulders of the assembly upon which citizens must stand if they wish to be heard.
Lithokratia, inspired by the period directly after the city's founding in which there was no institution except for the assembly and the city was controlled by a radical and energetic citizenry reveling in its newfound power while battling for its survival, can only be activated during a crisis in which an enemy has crossed the boundary stones separating Eretria from the tributary Peuketii and Messapii. Upon news of this reaching the city, a member of the assembly can request that both the proboulos and xenoparakletor complete the act of cession, in which their powers are temporarily subsumed into the assembly. If both agree, then lithokratia begins, and can only be ended by the assembly.
During lithokratia, normal elections are suspended. A black stone, perhaps from a falling star, is taken from its resting place in the back of the Temple of the Divine Marriage and placed in the center of the assembly field. From among the people a Klefton, or lifter, is elected, who will help guide the assembly through the crisis and stand upon the stone. The Klefton is vested only in veto authority of intemperate assembly laws, but can also propose new laws to the assembly andand has far less limits on the subjects on which he can speak on in the assembly than any ordinary officer. Ten Kleftes are chosen by lot to hold him up, and can restrain him by majority vote, as well as being able to propose laws to the people. A strategos is elected per usual, but with the assembly taking direct control, the government reverts to a state of popular supremacy until the crisis has ended. Lithokratia can be lifted by a simple majority vote of the assembly once the crisis appears to have passed, or if the war has ended; it cannot be held for more than a two-year period, and once lithokratia has ended the situation in the city will revert to normal and elections will be held in the following year.
The purpose of Lithokratia as a law was to allow for an end to all factionalism and distraction during a period of grave danger. With the assembly empowered to make all the decisions, lithokratia represents an unprecedented opportunity for an ordinary citizen to make their voice heard, but if it is maintained for too long, the happiness of the city's aristocracy will erode, the city's traditional institutions will lose their influence, and the city's position in other spheres will suffer as the lithokratia is necessarily limited in focus to ending an existential crisis to the city's safety.
A lithokratia is an extraordinary opportunity for citizens to implement wide-ranging reforms in responding to a crisis, but it is also a tool used sparingly and carefully only in the most dangerous circumstances for a short period of time. Since its introduction, Eretria has been blessed to have never been in a situation where its use has been necessary.
Inevitably, questions come up with a game as grounded in real life history as this one. In order to avoid repetition of basic questions about history, I have included this FAQ (based off real questions people have asked) to answer the ones that come up the most often. These are generalizations and thus have many exceptions; they are mainly here so people can get a good broad look at how things worked in Ancient Greece.
Q: How did Citizenship work in Ancient Greece?
In Ancient Greece, citizenship is a status, not a privilege. This means that unlike in Ancient Rome, there is no partial citizenship. Greeks saw citizenship almost as an ethnicity and an important part of their identity, and thus held it highly and guarded it jealously. Only Greeks could become citizens in a city, and citizenship was granted only very rarely. Citizenship is hereditary, passed through the male line (and in Athens through both parents) Although theoretically it is possible to "marry in" to citizenship, many cities tightened citizenship rules in the classical period to make it so both parents had to be citizens.
In most ancient Greek cities (referred to as a polis, or poleis in the plural) only a certain class of men could vote on important matters. Some cities such as Athens had universal male suffrage, allowing male Greeks in the city of all classes to vote. However, this still left out the metics and women, who were not allowed to vote. In the archaic period citizenship was still malleable, but by the Persian Wars (so our setting!), it had become firmly established in most cities. Citizenship is no laughing matter and is the primary identifier for many citizens beyond their tribes, clans, and oikos (or family). Although in later periods citizenship became again more malleable as the polis declined as the primary organizer of Greek life, it still retained an importance into the Roman period.
Q: What are Metics?
Metics are permanent residents in Greek cities who are disenfranchised. They might have no lineage of citizenship, are immigrants, or are non-Greeks who are not slaves but live in the city. Metics are a sort of second class in the city; they are exempt from any political debates, cannot own property, and have to pay a special poll tax. They still serve in times of war, however, which can create some tensions.
It is important to understand that metics are essentially "citizenless" for the most part; although some residents might be citizens of other cities, most metics tend to be without any citizenship and form their own communities within Greek cities. In Athens and other cities with larger metic populations, they have their own separate courts and judges which allows them to live in a society parallel to that of the citizenry.
Metics cannot be "naturalized" or granted citizenship in a Greek city except in exceptional circumstances. The nature of citizenship as an exclusive status and important identifier means that keeping metics separate is an important part of what forms a city's identity and keeps citizens confident of their own superiority even if they might be in actuality poorer than the metics of the city. Although in the late 4th century BCE the designation of "metic" disappeared totally, in the 5th century BCE it was still an important identifier in many cities and cannot be removed without extreme unrest. Attempting to grant the metics mass citizenship or introducing a regular process to gain citizenship would go against the very conception of Greek citizenship.
In many cities Metics had representatives in the ekklesia to at least nominally acknowledge their existence and vouch for them. Importantly, the term "metic" is actually a specifically Athenian term, but they tended to exist in other cities as well during the time period. It is simply that the largest wealth of information that we have is from the city of Athens.
Q: How did ancient justice systems work?
It is important to understand that Greek justice systems that we know of are based on a very shallow archaeological record because besides Athens and Sparta (who had its system written about mostly by others) most Greek justice systems have not been investigated in detail. However, it is important to understand that in general, Greeks did not put a high amount of emphasis or interest in legal advocacy; that is to say, there were very few, if any lawyers.
Instead, defendants and plaintiffs would represent themselves in a court before a panel of judges or a jury. The ones presiding over the case would depend on the government in the city; in many oligarchies it would be "Archons" or other powerful leaders of the city who would decide on cases, while in democratic cities it would be before very large juries to prevent corruption; Athens could have as many as 6001 jurors on a single case.
However, the justice system in many cities was only mildly respected at best, and only in Athens and a few other cities did anything approaching a "rule of law" appear. Instead, arbitrary and corrupt decisions would be provided for larger cases by heavyhanded aristocrats and nobles, or there would be no trial at all beyond a sham.
The only notable exception to this were ancient constitutions, which were not the same as modern ones. In the ancient sense, a constitution is simply the accreted collection of legal customs, not a singular document that sets out the highest laws in the land. Most city states in the Mediterranean in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE adopted legal constitutions establishing basic principles of the city, although how much this was respected depended from city to city. In Greek cities (one should remember Carthage also had a constitution, though we know little of it) the laws would be displayed in the central square, called an Agora, which would also generally be the gathering place for political meetings and philosophical debate.
Q: What was the status of women in Ancient Greece?
Most of our sources from the period focus on the two outliers, Athens and Sparta. What we can say from the writings of early poets like Hesiod and later writers is that women in Greece did not have a very good position to say the least. The best way to describe it is a sense of latent paranoia; men in Greece thought that although man was limited, he was at least rational, but the woman was inherently irrational and had to be controlled by her peers. This is best exemplified by the legend of Pandora's Box; entrusted with the most important box in the history of the world, Pandora, being a stupid woman, bungles it up. In that, the Greeks are perhaps not unique, but how they implement this is.
The consequence is that although there are some legal safeguards for women, for the most part they are beholden to their husband, becoming in effect the property of the oikos; they are in effect "tamed" by their husband and exist at his service. This is not nearly as domineering as the Roman Pater Familias, but there are expectations they she will tow the line to her husband's expectations and take care of the children.
None of this prevented many brilliant women like the famous oratory teacher Aspasia (who taught Perikles) from becoming prominent, but it did mean that the position of Greek women was considerably curtailed. Sparta is a bit of an "exception", but not in the way one might think. The reason why Spartan women were allowed to be more free than other women is because there was an expectation they would use this freedom to turn themselves into exemplars of the Spartan citizenry; the legend of the Spartan hoplite killed by his mother because he was the sole person to come home from a battle is there for a reason. Spartan women were expected to be good broodmares, and like any broodmare were thus allowed to go about the pasture to their heart's delight.
In Athens, the opposite existed. Extremely concerned over the morality of women expressed by Hesiod and Pandora's Box, as well as a need for the male citizenry to affirm its identity, produced one of the most oppressive atmospheres for women in Greece both at home and overseas. Women were veiled and had to be with a chaperone in public; the citizens of other cities complained about this, in fact, showing how far Athens had gone. However, this did not preclude women from participating in festivals like that at Eleusis. The dimensions are a bit more complicated than one might expect, and that women may have disliked this position does not mean that many did not help support it. Overlaying modern morality will have poor results.
Q: What is the status of the aristocracy in Ancient Greece?
As the Greek Dark age began, a group of men who were able to acquire relatively more land than their peers (relative being the keyword, as this was tiny by later standards) began to distinguish themselves by their ability to graze horses on their lands and acquire wealth through the produce of their fields. This group, emerging from the mists of the early dark age as the aristoi, or Best Men, appeared all across Greece and came to primacy; over the course of the Greek dark age, they acquired ever more power, overthrowing or subverting the earlier "kingdoms" that were likely little more than hereditary warlords. Developing a group identity, the aristoi sought to emphasize the right to rule that they had by virtue of their superior birth and upbringing expressed in the term of arete, or excellence.
Arete justified all of the arbitrary abuses and controls that the aristocrats placed upon the peasantry and smallholders. However, as the emergence of the hoplite phalanx in the 700s and 600s BCE disrupted traditional military arrangements, the more prosperous but non-aristoi landholders began to demand more power. In some cities, the aristocrats were able to create a power-sharing arrangement that allowed them in, as well as for the first time allowing those who had gained their wealth through commercial means, circumventing the traditional route of landholding as the means to power.
In other cities, uprisings and political chaos as well as feuding between aristocratic families and clans brought their rule to an end as tyrants, usually populist rulers who exploited the divisions of aristocrats to take control, overthrew the aristocratic-dominated assemblies in their favor. Other than in Sicily, which remained politically chaotic until the rise of Rome, the tyrants only lasted a generation or two, whereupon they were overthrown by oligarchies that incorporated all elites including those that had gained their wealth by commerce, and even threw bones to the hoplite "middle class", as it was. However, this arrangement proved unstable for the reason that it re-opened the old wounds of feuding (that the tyrants had based their social contract upon preventing) and destabilized the whole polis. Rising debts and demands for land reform from landless laborers and small farmers resulted in massive social disruption in the last years of the 500s BCE, with the emergence of democracy.
However, many aristoi did not actually ingratiate themselves to democracy but stayed outside of its bounds, participating only in order to secure their rights but acting as though it was simply an interregnum on their rule. As a result, there remained an intransigent class in the poleis, the aristoi, that could wait in the wings if democracy proved to be a failure, as for many cities it did, at least in the opinion of its most distinguished members. This disdain for democracy can be best exemplified by Plato, who preferred the idea of the Philosopher King over what he saw were the irrational wiles of the democratic body.
This is of course, not the whole story, but for a generalization that ignores obvious outliers like Sparta, it works well enough.
Q: What is the ethnic divide between the Greeks like?
It is difficult to generalize because the complexity of Greek life was, well, complex. The idea of a united Greece was clearly subscribed to; it was clear that there were Hellenes and there were Barbarians. However, the natural state of this united conception of the Greek people was to be divided, and it was unquestionable that the Greeks were divided. It is difficult to talk simply of "ethnic" considerations because the arrangements that divided the Greeks could be far more complex.
To some extent, however, there existed clear boundaries of dialects and such that the Greeks themselves agreed with. The Athenians, for example, identified themselves as the father of all the Ionian Greeks, and as a result took control of a pan-Ionian festival at Delos at the end of the 6th century BCE. Certainly, Greeks of different dialects would have had different ways of saying things, and the Athenians were doubly unique because Attic was a sub-dialect of Ionian. Although these emerged as divisions in politics as well as in language, they were most likely to be expressed in different styles of art and architecture as well as some religious differences and emphasis.
The Ionian-Dorian divide is the most notable one for us, although obviously others existed, and the identification with polis tended to trump that of ethnic consideration. It was only when ti came to internal divisions between Ionians and Dorians, most obvious in the Greek colonies where many different groups mixed, that things could become violent. The Dorian Gelans were notorious for expelling and deporting vast amounts of Ionians from their lands.
Q: How did Greek slavery work?
Modern conceptions of slavery are somewhat colored by the fact that we have a vivid imaging of the racially based chattel slavery of the Antebellum South in the United States. However, this slavery is far removed from that used by the Greeks and other ancient peoples. Greek slavery tended to be for two main purposes; as a manual labor force and as servants in the house. Their treatment varied on the time, place, and their line of work.
Greek slaves that were utilized in manual labor generally were imported to make up for labor shortages in cities like Athens, where the involvement of debts by Solon at the beginning of the 6th century BCE meant that the traditional cheap labor force, indentured servants, were no longer available. Slaves were almost never used in galleys in the ancient world because the galley was seen as a place of honor and a respectable profession. Instead, they would be used in the home or in the field, although the most famous use of slaves in classical Greece was in the horrendous conditions of the silver mines of Laurium in Attica, where slaves worked to short deaths in a dreadful working environment.
The ethnic makeup of slaves tended to depend on place to place; Thracians and other peoples from the north of Greece were popular because of their accessibility, although the enslavement of other Greeks was hardly uncommon in wars. Slaves could gain their freedom through manumission and unlike in the antebellum south where such freedom was extremely difficult to get, it was accessible to slaves lucky or hard-working enough to buy their own freedom. Once free, slaves were non-citizens, although there are a few historical cases of slaves who did a service to the polis being freed and made citizens en-masse. Freedmen were rarely discriminated against on the basis of their former slavery; it was more that they were non-citizens, metics.
Q: How did Greek colonies work?
The modern conception of the "colony" conceives of a peripheral area tied to the metropole that provides it with raw materials and has little political representation. Greek colonies were named after these because of the pretensions of 19th century Historians to connecting their own civilization with that of the Greeks, but the colonies of the Hellenes were extremely different from those of the European colonial powers in the age of imperialism. Greek colonies tended to be, almost all of the time (there are exceptions which we will get to!) self-governing bodies that were formed specifically as independent political units away from the mother city. Although the mother city and the foundling had a special relationship, this hardly extended to any sort of political control of the mother city over the foundling.
Greek colonies were founded in two main phases; the first was in the early dark age with a migration across the Aegean to the western edge of Anatolia, creating the future Greek political region of Ionia; there was also some expansion to Cyprus during this period. During the 700s, 600s, and 500s, however, population pressure, political chaos at home, economic demand for raw materials like grain, and other problems compounded to push migrants further and further afield from Greece, colonizing everywhere from Italy to the Black Sea coast to Libya. Greek colonists would usually gather around a founder, the oekist, who would have considerable political power over his charges, a location would be surveyed and chosen, and then they would embark.
The Greek colonies proved to be enormously successful, allowing for the transplanting of Greek culture, art, and trade to a variety of different environments. Colonies were on the surface near-identical in political organization to their counterparts in the Mainland, but some subtle differences pervaded, and the influence of indigineous peoples which the colonists either intermarried or expelled from their lands was clear in many regions. This allowed for a cultural exchange that was important for the development of many peoples, such as the Etruscans whose exposure to Greek art and culture, although overstated, did cause important changes in their art and political arrangements largely concurrent with the expansion of Mediterranean trade.
The scene of our story is one of the most densely settled regions, known in ancient times as Italia (only the south of Italy was referred to in this way) or Magna Graecia, Great Greece, an acknowledgement both of the wealth of its inhabitants and the similarity of climatic and agricultural conditions to the homeland. These colonies would be powerful, acting as patrons to art and culture as well as philosophy (the Greek Mathematician Pythagoras ran a cult in the city of Krotone that was immensely influential) until pressure from indigenous peoples and eventually the Romans would end their efflorescence.
Q: How did Greek morality work?
The Greeks conceived of themselves as the heirs to the Homeric tradition. The Iliad and the Odyssey pervaded their thoughts and education in a way that seems incomprehensible to us; even the nearest analogue of the Bible does not really begin to cover it. The heroic stories of the Iliad would provide a kind of guiding line for the Greeks to follow, even to the point where it might have limited progress or caused folly. The Greeks were bound by their conception of creating an image of themselves that proved true to the Homeric ideal, even if their poleis and battle arrays were in fact extremely contradictory to the content of Homer. In this context, the Greeks saw themselves constantly in competition with their peers.
That does not begin to cover it, though. That they were in competition is an easy statement to make, but the reality is far more pervasive than we might imagine; in every field, the Greeks sought to compete. Even in the presumably cooperative field of the Hoplite Phalanx, each of the hoplites sought to outdo the others by being the most valiant in the field while also keeping within the phalanx. It was a competition to see who could be the most orderly, in effect. The famous divisions of the Greeks stems from this kind of conception; the Greeks never thought themselves as a united people politically.
All of this led to the defining feature of the Greek man's life that would distinguish him, arete, excellence, which we have already encountered in the context of the aristocrats. To have arete is the most important thing, and arete can be won in competition, whether martial, or athletic, or rhetorical. There is no conception of discipline as we might imagine or even authority as the Romans might have imagined, because everything is competition, everything is contest. The great irony of the famous Olympic games was that the most unitary event in Greece was a competition.
In terms of philosophy, by the time of the game Greek philosophers had mostly abandoned supernatural explanations for phenomena, instead preferring to focus on the idea of man's relation to the natural world. This did not mean they were not religious, but that they preferred to understand nature in the manner of empiricism. This is a generalization, though, and a grand one; the hokieness of some aspects of Greek science, if it could even be called that, should not be forgotten. Certainly, though, their thought was considerably advanced when it came to considering nature in terms of a purely natural, non-spiritual construction. However, the disdain that Greek aristoi had with working with their hands and working in general (leisure was the preferred state for Greeks) meant that practical and applied science was a poor field. Combined with a bias towards things which could be justified within the context of the Iliad (thus excluding war machines), Greek science never left the realm of the theoretical except in some spectacular exceptions usually in the field of warfare.
Greek disdain towards merchants was also part of it, although it should hardly be overemphasized; many Greek cities such as Korinth were much less biased than we originally assumed. However, even the cities amiable to commerce never developed a very coherent economic theory, and for philosophers and writers, economic phenomena could be described in the form of arete, or moral failing. If a city has superseded another city, then the first city is not economically dominant because of its superior trading networks, it is dominant because of the excellence and austerity of its people. This did not prevent the development of powerful tools such as sophisticated maritime insurance, but it did mean that the field of economics, and connecting commerce to the pursuit of science, lagged badly.
Q: What about Greek Religion?
Most of what you know about Greek religion is Athenian propaganda.
It is sad but true. The Athenians, in an attempt to elevate Athena above many of the other Gods, wrote many of the patron gods of other cities as slovenly and blundering. This is not to say that the reality of Greek religion was radically different than what we think, but that our limited evidence means that it is difficult to say what many cities thought of their Gods. What we know is that the idea of the Gods as anthropomorphic and somewhat human goes back at least to Homer and his works, so it is not entirely an Athenian smear campaign at work. However, what we do know is that the Greeks certainly held their Gods in great reverence and explained events through the omens and punishments of the Gods.
Cities had their own local deities and patron Gods as well as more universal Gods that were known by practically everyone. Discussion about the Gods was, as with everything else in Greece, extremely fractious, with differing legends and interpretations (the Athenian one, or rather one Athenian one, being the most known today). There were many different festivals, such as the aforementioned Festival at Eleusis that celebrated Demeter returning the spring when Zeus had Hades return Persephone. Such festivals could give political power to the cities who controlled them, and thus when Athens seized control of Eleusis in the early part of the 6th century BCE it proved an important tool for Athens to mold the "mysteries" of Eleusis into an expression of popular religion.
People in Ancient Greece were not casual about their feelings about the Gods. Although later writers in the Hellenistic Period could go as far as to reject the old pantheon because of the loss of faith that the collapse of the Polis as the center of Greek life had on Hellenistic society, in the classical period faith remained as strong as ever, even if there was no "codification". Oracles such as those at Dodonna and most famously at Delphi acted as important ways for Greeks to get advice; do not think of Delphi as the expression of a foolish people who thought that reading entrails was an acceptable method of prediction, but a system of wise advice-givers who for very high prices could give excellent information to those who want it. Delphi was most often consulted for things such as colonial expeditions; this was hardly mystical stuff. People did believe it, they truly did, but that did not mean that they did not expect the advice to be helpful.
Q: Did racism exist in the ancient world?
Racism in the modern conception certainly did not exist. The Hellenes, even as they disdained barbaroi, the Barbarians, who could not speak Greek, hardly discriminated on the basis of skin color, and even their language-based bigotry was not nearly as virulent as American racism. The Greeks thought themselves superior to everyone, it is true, but this was not a racially based superiority, but a culturally-based ones, and peoples who adopted Greek culture would be to some extent accepted into the larger Greek community. This was never quite the whole story; the Greeks disliked the Macedonians because they thought them half-Greek. Still, Greek writers wrote approvingly of peoples who had "gone Greek" and had been transformed into Hellenized peoples. This process actually proceeded most not under the Hellenistic rulers (where it was mostly superficial) but in the adjacent peoples to the Greek colonies. The Elymians, for example, a people in Sicily, had by the 400s BCE become so Greek that they were building splendid temples in the Greek style. Other peoples like the Etruscans adopted the Greek alphabet.
So was there prejudice? Absolutely. Was there rigid skin-based racism? Not at all.
QUEST BIBLIOGRAPHY
Academic Papers & Textbooks
Asheri, David. Laws of Inheritance, Distribution of Land, and Political Constitutions in Ancient Greece. Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 12, no. 1 (1963): 1-21.
Boardman, J. (1999) The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade (4th ed.) Thames and Hudson.
De Angelis, Franco. Estimating the Agricultural Base of Greek Sicily. Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000): 111-148.
Hall, Johnathan, "How 'Greek' were the Early Western Greeks?" in Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean, edited by Kathryn Lomas, 35-54.
Morris, I. and B. Powell (2009) The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society (2nd Ed.) Pearson.
Wonder, John. The Italiote League: South Italian Alliances of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. Classical Antiquity 31, no. 1 (2012): 128-151.
Books
Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times by Thomas R. Martin, (2nd edition) 2013.
Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome by Arthur Eckstein, 2009.
Rise of the Greeks by Michael Grant, 1987.
Soldiers and Ghosts by J.E Lendon, 2005.
The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome by Robin L. Fox, 2006.
Numerous other minor sources on things like the Samnites and Etruscans. Extensive use of the admittedly weak wikipedia when nothing else can be found.
Eusebios, victor of the Battle of the Fifty Masts, five-times admiral of Eretria, hero to the city, reformer of its navy, explorer of distant shores, brother-in-law of Drako the Elder, father to seven, died modestly. Surrounded by family and friends, the eighty-four year old Eusebios listened intently to the favorite grand-nephew who recounted Eusebios' own journey west to Carthaginian Sicily with verve and excitement. After the tale was finished, the ancient sailor reclined in his seat, closed his eyes, and smiled. He had wanted to hear the story one more time.
Eusebios was the last of a generation that had passed into legend before the flowers had begun to sprout from their graves. Drako the Elder, who had been first proboulos and seen the city through many tribulations, had died of a sickness in his country estate. Herodion, who had fought in the city's battles as commander and performed legendary deeds in Sicily as a Carthaginian mercenary, slipped from his horse on a country ride and declined to get back on, dying on the grassy field. The elder Antipater had died in battle as he wished, brawling with Ares on a bloody Italian plain, surrounded by his fellows. Lesser heroes, from the wise Kallias to the crafty Sideros who had reformed the Eretrian constitution and prevented the rise of a tyranny, had died years before in peaceful circumstances, happy at the achievements they had garnered.
After the familial ceremonies had been observed, Eusebios' body was put on display and guided on procession throughout the city. Starting from the Hill of the Divine Marriage, where the squat temple of Apollon and Athene, the finer Arkadion, and the rotund shrine of Zeus surrounded the coffin, the procession guided him down the hill and out to the district of Old Bare. Here and there one could see the foundations of old Peucetii buildings girdled by Eretrian houses, a last memory of the city's founding hypocrisy. As the procession guided him onto the processional way, it crossed the Agora, where merchants from Hellas and the west haggled and sold wares. All were silent as the procession passed; it was never wise for a foreigner to disturb Eretrians during their memorials for the dead. Sometimes, indeed, it seemed that the Eretrians had more reverence for their heroes than their Gods.
The procession stopped at the assembly field. Here, rocks were rolled and boulders lifted. A number of citizens spoke. Athenagoras Symmachos Drakonid, speaker for the Demos Drakonia, spoke of Eusebios in familial terms; after all, the sailor had married into his family. Here, Athenagoras said, was the greatness of Eretria; that the poor and the rich mingle together, that they marry together, that they work together, for the good and the glory of the polis that honors them in turn. Obander Eupraxis Antipatrid, chief speaker for the Demos Antipatria, spoke of the man's glory for the city, of the immense skill at sea that he had, of how he never once in his life coveted power, that he respected the city's traditions and worked to uphold them at sea and on land. Finally, there was Mnemnon Keylonos Kleanderid, speaker for the Demos Exoria. He said that Eusebios was a man who had always been austere, awesome in his modesty, that he had done whatever had to be done for the sake of the city and its domination. All three, of course, were running for Proboulos, and among the citizens there was a sense of skepticism, that all three were in some way impinging on this festival by campaigning so clearly in the way they had presented their speeches.
The Grand Mantis, Dardanos Pydamon, now spoke to the intent of the Gods. The Divine Marriage had blessed the city; the citizens agreed, mumbling among themselves that this was true. The Divine Marriage had also been a union of land and sea, for Demeter and Poseidon had been similarly married in the Arkadion, and to this the citizens also agreed, pleased that their insatiable need to pair up Gods was respected. Eusebios, then, was the perfect union of pauper and aristocrat, the union of land and sea, the union of father and son, the union of all these many other things which the citizens could not help but agree he was a union of. In the end, the unionizing came to a close, and the Grand Mantis hopped down from his stone. A few citizens, perhaps a better versed in the art of oratory, hoped that in the future Dardanos would think of other things to put in his speech besides analogies to the Divine Union.
A bull had been slaughtered and both poor and metics were allowed to partake. Forced to wear hats, the metics looked much like a sea of mushrooms, watching in crowds the procession. Some wept for Eusebios, others not; he was not known for being good to them, and so those that remembered him well did so because of their service in the navy, where he was known as a stern but kind commander who inspired extraordinary loyalty in his men. Others did not remember him at all, and simply came to watch.
At the monument to victory the procession was stopped by the rowers. Hundreds had come to see the man who had created the navy. They wept over him and tore their clothes. Some painted themselves blue and donned goatskin caps to look as if they were Illyrians, then carried makeshift masts of ships over their backs, guiding the procession past the Gate of Heroes. The few barbaroi that loomed around in their agora gazed on in resentment or fascination. Few liked the Eretrians, but they still had business in the agora and so turned their backs away. The procession reached the cemetery, the sarcophagus of stone was carried forward, and then at last laid down within the compound. More words were spoken, and then, at last, silence. The old men were reverent, wondering where the world had gone where even Eusebios had died, while the young bounced away in excitement. At last, they said, the hero is dead. At last, they shouted, it's our time.
And so retired the city of Eretria, dispersing to and fro, laying flowers upon the grave of the great mariner and then returning to their business. Heroes were heroes, but among the living there was still work to be done.
Welcome to the City of Eretria Eskhata. You are a proud and wealthy people, among the wealthiest of all the Greeks. Although your city remains underdeveloped compared to your size, that has little reflection on the size of your finances and manpower. You begin with 21,721 Adult Freemen out of a state of 75,683, all according to this year's census. Of these, 9,774 are male citizens and the rest metics, spread out over a large territory in southeast Italy. Thanks to innovations in taxation and your capable citizen administration, you will pull in 168.3 talents this year in taxation, with an additional 29.8 talents from the taxation of commerce coming to and fro. You receive 11 talents from public revenue, drawn from the city's extensive public lands, mining, and minor taxes. All the Greek cities of Epulia are subject to you in the Epulian League, bringing in an additional 8.2 talents. The Peuketii Kingdom, ruled by King Deipartos, pays tribute to you, along with the small Peuketii town of Turai and the Messapii town of Egnatia. All together, you have a gross income of some 229 talents.
In terms of expenses, the main cost are your professional rowers. Trained at the Eretrian Naval Barracks, rowers subtract from your overall manpower pool and receive a professional pay at all times; during campaigns, their pay is tripled. At the moment, your 3,060 sailors cost you 61.2 talents, with no triremes active and 18 triremes inactive. Most of your army will only be paid during a campaign, but your special units, the Hieros Ekdromoi composed out of the best hoplites in the city, and your Kleos Exoria, composed out of your best horsemen, are active at all times and cost you 44 talents at all times. You pay out 15 talents every year for the various salaries, subsidies, and positions you must fill. Finally, you are paying 10% of your income into the Sacred Treasury.
At the moment, your treasury sits at 259 talents, while the Sacred Treasury sits at 1245 talents.
At the moment you would be able to field a total of 7,251 soldiers besides your special units in a war. 2,900 would be hoplites, 544 will be cavalry, and 3,807 will be Psilloi, or light infantry. In addition, you can count on the support of your allies and tributaries in a war, with 816 League Hoplites, 948 Peuketii Skirmishers, 229 Peuketii Cavalry, 94 Egnatian Skirmishers, and 47 Egnatian Cavalrymen.
You currently have four staple trade routes and one luxury trade route. You have a very poor tariff efficiency of 35%, owing to your historically non-trade oriented stance.
There are four major offices in Eretria: The Proboulos and Xenoparakletor are elected positions, the Strategos is elected in times of war, and the Metic Prytanis a citizen elected by Metics to represent them and conduct their assembly. There are six minor positions, chosen by lot. The Assembly of the Mint controls the city's money supply and coinage, the Chief of Public Lands the administration and distribution of public property, the Popular Tribunal, that administers juries and creates new laws to be voted upon by the Ekklesia, the Grand Mantis, chosen by lot among the city's priests and responsible for the city's temples and festivals, and the Elder Ekdromos, chosen by lot from among the oldest of the Hieros Ekdromoi to lead them and admit new members, supervised by the Grand Mantis.
There are three Demes, or tribes in the city, representing the city's political groupings. These are the Demos Drakonia, the Demos Antipatria, and the Demos Exoria. All three run candidates and compete for positions; it is expected that citizens running for office will fall into one of the three groups, as it allows the citizens to better gauge their mission and beliefs for the sake of the city. However, political neutrality is more of an expectation for some offices, such as the Elder Ekdromos, the Grand Mantis, and the Strategos, and it is expected that those who align with a given deme will not leverage their power inappropriately. If they do, the ekklesia has the power to eject them.
The City of Eretria is a dirty, messy city. It has few great works and the citizens have been clamoring for years for there to be renovations or expansions of the city's temples. Others suggest that the athletic field outside the city should be transformed into a full stadium so that the summer festival of Artemis and Apollon can become a true Panepulian celebration, and still others recommend instead that the city focus on expanding its larger western harbour for the sake of the city's security and commerce.
This is the sum of Eretria's history to the present, told by Eurasmos son of Aristides.
Eretria Eskhata founded itself on the ashes of the local town of Bare. The surrounding kings, who were very wroth at this, sent forces to destroy Eretria, but the city chose Herodion to defend it and he crushed the barbaroi. Crafty, the Barbaroi used this distraction to save their brethren we had enslaved on landfall, but the actions of the valiant women of Eretria prevented them from doing damage to the city itself.
In the ensuring years there was great strife and discord as the citizens thought themselves wronged by the nobles, the citizens grown haughty and confident with the expansion of the franchise to all men regardless of property. One citizen, Lykurgus, was exiled and attempted to raise a great host of pirates to seize the city, but was defeated in an extraordinary battle by the great Eusebios, who defeated fifty ships with three. This battle has been subject to much dispute, but my father had seen it with his own eyes and agrees it is as I have said. Eusebios saved a barbaroi city, Gnatia and its king became the friend of Eretria.
Afterward, the city enjoyed peace till a plot by the barbaroi slaves was discovered, and they were killed. The city decided on war with its many neighbors, and were able to triumph thanks to the good heroes Eusebios and Herodion who wrought terrible vengeance at sea and on land upon the barbaroi with the aid of their ally, Taras, in the south, led by a good king favorable to Eretria. After this, the city reformed its institutions and an aristocrat, Drako became the first true leader of Eretria, steering the ship fairly and justly so much that many would emulate his manner later.
The city helped fight against the Mede in the cataclysm of the battles of Salamis and Mycale, and fair Herodion, finding himself unliked at home, departed abroad for Carthage. Drako lost a challenge to swift-thinking Timaeus, who ruled erratically and was removed in favor of Antipater, a compatriot of Drako's. Antipater was seen unfairly as brutish and stupid, but his time was stable and peaceful. However, many new poleis came upon the Barbaroi to Eretria's north, and they threatened the peace. Wise Drako made a League of these cities and went to war with the Barbaroi. The war had its failures, as strongheaded Eustarchus, a patriot, was elected strategos on promises of glory, but only fell in battle ignobly.
After, Drako became strategos, and brokered a good peace wherein the Barbaroi fled inland and the coast was Eretria's. He cultivated good government and good relations, and replaced Antipater as leader of the city. However, years of praise combined with personal tragedy to risk his reputation when he made moves towards the tyrannical; it was only the wise moderation of the city that prevented such a thing.
Quelled from his ambition by the city, Drako now once more ruled justly and nobly. In the south, there was chaos in Taras, but the city of Kerkyra used trickery and scheming to make Eretria abandon its alliance and favor it instead. The city found itself with many new serfs after hunting supported by its barbarian tributaries, and set laws for the serfs. It also forged a defensive pact with Kerkyra, in lieu of anything better.
After many years abroad, fair Herodion now the one-eyed returned home and was welcome with much fanfare. Becoming victory as the proboulos, he took the city to war with the Peuketii town Azetion and forced its surrender, allowing its people to flee to the barbaroi king Daxtus of the Messapii in exchange for an oath of peace.
In the interim between the rise of Herodion and the death of Eusebios a great many events happened, some of them terribly confused. The city of Eretria fought a war against the Messapii following a breach of the peace signed by Daxtus provoked by the city of Gnatia. In cooperation with Taras Eretria defeated the Messapii but elevated its southern rival. Gnatia became Egnatia and was forced to become an Eretrian tributary, whilst a war with the Dauni provided the city the opportunity to seize most of the coast. However, to understand the history of the city, one must first grasp the dominance of the demes. Forming after the end of Herodion's time as proboulos and the reforms of Kallias and Sideros, the demes competed for power over the city. Ultimately, a single deme dominated the affairs until the death of Eusebios, the...
Pick one of three.
[] Demos Drakonia
..Demos Drakonia, formed out of the followers, family and friends of the elder Drako, son of Eugenius. Drako had always advocated a more commercial naval city, and this emphasis became greater upon the marriage of his sister to Eusebios, hero of the Battle of the Fifty Masts. The Demos Drakonia transformed Eretria into a trading city, waging naval war over the Illyrians and achieving trading dominance in northern Italy against both them and the northern Etruscans. Not all was well, of course, as some have complained that the city's growing wealth has created new inequities between the rich and poor. The most notable achievements of the Drakonians were...
...the new Illyrian trading network, anchored to the colony of Ankon and trading posts in the Etruscan city of Adria, the Liburnian townof Iadar, and the Illyrian town of Rhyzon near Lissos. [Begin the game with an additional 3 staple trade routes, 1 new luxury trade route, 45% tariff efficiency, and a small outpost at Ankon, modern Ancona].
...the innovations in trireme construction, creating the Eretrian trireme, a ship that could be built faster and at cheaper cost with a smaller crew complement without losing too much of its combat ability [Start with 3,300 sailors and 22 triremes as well as a crew complement of only 150 per trireme rather than 170, allowing you to crew more triremes with less men along with a stronger naval tradition and more experienced rowers].
[] Demos Antipatria
...Demos Antipatria, formed out of the followers and comrades of the deceased Antipater the Elder. Although once associated with the aristocracy, the Antipatrids changed their position following his death and transformed into an advocate for the people, and especially, for the necessity of immigration from Hellas and the need for alliance with fellow Greeks in Magna Graecia. During their long dominance, the Antipatrids presided over an extraordinary migration of thousands of Hellenes to Eretria, enlarging the state and making it ever wealthier. Antipatrid Eretria has become well-known and respected among all the Western Greeks, but in turn, her strategy has drawn her into conflicts abroad, and her policy of immigration has made the metics an even larger majority. Their greatest achievements were...
...Populating Eretria by leveraging the city's contacts abroad to encourage ever more metics to come and serve in the city, reforming the metic assembly to be stronger as a consequence and selling off public lands to encourage citizens to settle in the countryside [Freeman population starts at 25,000, Citizen ratio decreases to 40%, Metics have stronger political representation]
...Strengthening the city's ties abroad, allowing to gain more respect and prestige in both Hellas and the west. The Antipatrids forged careful alliances and coalitions against their enemies that prevented one power from getting too strong, and encouraged the continuation of the Sikeliote League. [City will begin far more respected among its neighbors, reducing diplomatic incidents and encouraging enemies to negotiate before going to war. Start with an alliance with Metapontion, a city to the west of Taras].
[] Demos Exoria
...Demos Exoria, formed by the Kleos Exoria who had been fellow exiles with Herodion the Mercenary in Carthage. The Demos Exoria exalted strength and courage above all, and in power they wished to ensure that Eretria would be a place where heroes could live. Not only did they prosecute war against their barbaroi neighbors and finally and decisively crush the Dauni Confederacy, but they also conducted a series of military reforms that, while expensive, would ensure that the city's hoplites, cavalry, and psilloi, would be better prepared for the wars ahead. At home, they pursued a moderate policy, preferring mostly to deal with negotiations with the Barbaroi and ensuring that they remained loyal and subjugated. Their greatest achievements were...
...the subjugation of the Dauni, costing thousands of Barbaroi lives, killing their king, and putting an end to their confederacy. The capital at Auscula was sacked, and although it has been a generation, the Dauni still resent the action. However, now divided into cities once more, they are no longer in as much of a position to protest, weakened and fractious as they are. [Start with the Dauni tribe subjugated, paying tribute and contributing levies to Eretria, with a larger barbaroi mass both more lucrative and more difficult to manage].
...the Herodian reforms, which increased the amount of public expense shouldered by the polis in order to pay its citizens during long campaigns, as well as military reforms that improved the effectiveness of their permanent units, the Hieros Ekdromoi and Kleos Exoria. [Start with improved land levies and a 20% rise in the cost of all army upkeep].
...During this long period from the time of Herodion to the death of Eusebios, the city also collected major allies and rivals. Those who the city could count among their friends became their closest friends, while those the city could count among their rivals became fierce and terrible in their opposition. Such was the way of the world, in which all fought against all, and the city had to contend both with those who wished for it to help them with their troubles and those for whom the city was the source of their troubles.
Among the city's shifting alliances during this time, one ally stood out among all others. Perhaps they were not always assisting the city, or the city only assisted time in dire crises, but this was usually because these allies were of such stature that all those around Eretria did not even think to attack her. This ally was...
Pick one of three.
[] ...The City of Carthage. Proud Carthage, the colossus of the west that ruled from the Libyan desert to the Pillars of Herakles. Though Carthage could sometimes be an inconstant or preoccupied ally, when it intervened to save Eretria from an attack planned by Taras, it did so in a grand and terrible fashion. Carthage remembered the service of the mercenary Herodion, and remembered him by the title, "Best Among Greeks", though this was no great honor as the Carthaginians thought little indeed of the Greeks. However, of course, to have such great friends brings danger, for to ally with Phoenicians was seen as cowardly and outrageous among some of the western Greeks, and those who were not friends of Eretria became her enemies.
[]...Athenai. One might have wondered what it was that brought Athenai and Eretrian together. Was it a mutual guilt over the failure of the former to save the latter, who promptly fled, when Darius the Mede came with his terrible ships? This common history bound the cities together, but it was Eretrian support to Athens during their first great conflict with Sparta, and their shipments of grain to the city, that truly ingratiated Athens to the Eretrians. Now no longer seeing Eretria simply as a potential ally for its incessant wars with Sparta but as an affectionate friend, the city may look less with covetous eyes at rich Epulia. In turn, however, this alliance and friendship has also created the potential for much risk, as Eretria could now be pulled into the Peloponnesian war...
[] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League. Thurii was a new state, founded by Athenians only fifteen years prior, yet like Eretria it had propelled itself to the pinnacle of power in its region. Thanks to negotiations and diplomacy between the two Italian powers, and the addition of the Sikeliote League composed of a number of free Sicilian cities, an Ionian alliance has formed in Italy. The alliance was also forged on bounds of mutual respect; the Sikeliotes remembered Herodion's battle against the Carthaginians and the Eretrians were aligned against Thurii's enemy, Taras. Though not necessarily as powerful as Carthage or Athens, this alliance still holds much strength, more reliability, and allowed Eretria to avoid the threat of being pulled into major conflicts, except for those conducted solely on Italian soil...
Of course, such times cannot be discussed without also discussing the enemies that Eretria faced. After all, there could be no peace between equals who fought over the same territory, or between those who coveted allies and those who coveted land. Conflict would be inevitable and it was virtue and courage that determined the stronger of the two. Although Eretria faced many enemies in this period, it had only one great rival, with both cities wishing the other would turn to dust, and with which there could be little compromise or peace until one or the other had been subjected, or another had come to take their place...
Pick one of three.
[] Taras. There is an old Italic story from the northwest of the twins who, once so similar in manner and close in friendship, turn on one another in jealousy, until a fratricide ensues. Animosity between Eretria and Taras had not been guaranteed by history, but by the active decisions of each country. Though they were too close in power, strength, and distance to ever be friends, the burning hatred the two feel for one another was borne from a dispute that emerged from the war against Daxtus' confederacy, and the Tarentines suspecting that the Eretrians were plotting with Daxtus to turn against them after they had seized the city of Gnatia, now Egnatia. In response, the city of Taras ejected Eretria's citizens, and has quietly built a hegemony opposing the city in central Magna Graecia.
[] Syrakousai. There are many reasons for Syrakousai and Eretria to despise each other. From the exploits of Herodion, who rode with Carthage against this great Sicilian city, to the harboring of Ionian refugees from Syrakousai by Eretria after the refugees were expelled from their cities, the two regional hegemons have become implacable enemies. Syrakousai, though a democracy, seeks to restore its empire in Sicily by making war against its neighbors; Eretria has, time and again, prevented that by funding its enemies and promoting the formation of new coalitions against it. Now, with new leaders in Syrakousai and a stronger diplomatic focus in the city, it aims to turn Sicily against Carthage and the Sikeliote League in order to finally break its power, and perhaps, to cross over into Italy and take revenge...
[] Korinthos. Once one of the greatest cities in Greece, Korinthos has suffered from political instability and economic decline. Still a trading center, the city has become eclipsed by Sparta on land and Athenai at sea, making it into a second tier of Hellene power. Frustrated at the loss of its former colony of Kerkyra and the danger this poses to its Adriatic empire, Korinthos has been further infuriated by the very presence of Eretria. In the past, Eretria went so far as to subordinate a small mixed colony of Akhaians and Korinthians, Aufidenos, to the Epulian League, preventing Korinthos from gaining a foothold in the region. Now, with its war against Kerkyra and its seizure of the Illyrian colony of Epidamnos, Korinthos has gone so far as to cause a major war in Greece for the sake of its ambition.
Warning: Map below is large. If you can't access it there will be regional screenshots next turn (Note: Map was updated after Player choice was made, ignore Ankon if you want the original map before players chose Demos Drakonia).
frankly I don't know why anyone is surprised, claiming I'm done with this quest and then returning randomly without telling anyone a few years later is my specialty
The allies and enemies you choose has no effect on their starting position beyond their alliance or opposition to you. This is their relationship with you more than you with them.
Personally, I'm inclined to pick Carthage as our ally and either Korinthos or Taras as our enemy, given our history with them. Not sure about the Deme yet.
[] Demos Drakonia ..Demos Drakonia, formed out of the followers, family and friends of the elder Drako, son of Eugenius. Drako had always advocated a more commercial naval city, and this emphasis became greater upon the marriage of his sister to Eusebios, hero of the Battle of the Fifty Masts. The Demos Drakonia transformed Eretria into a trading city, waging naval war over the Illyrians and achieving trading dominance in northern Italy against both them and the northern Etruscans. Not all was well, of course, as some have complained that the city's growing wealth has created new inequities between the rich and poor. The most notable achievements of the Drakonians were...
...the new Illyrian trading network, anchored to the colony of Ankon and trading posts in the Etruscan city of Adria, the Liburnian townof Iadar, and the Illyrian town of Rhyzon near Lissos. [Begin the game with an additional 3 staple trade routes, 1 new luxury trade route, 45% tariff efficiency, and a small outpost at Ankon, modern Ancona].
...the innovations in trireme construction, creating the Eretrian trireme, a ship that could be built faster and at cheaper cost with a smaller crew complement without losing too much of its combat ability [Start with 3,300 sailors and 22 triremes as well as a crew complement of only 150 per trireme rather than 170, allowing you to crew more triremes with less men along with a stronger naval tradition and more experienced rowers].
So Ankon is going to be a bit north of Numana in Picentini territory to the north. If we take Korinthos as an enemy we probably want to grab this as Korinthos is both a strong naval power and is on Sparta's side during the coming war. This does give us the potential for a large fleet and likely opens up naval reforms easier than the other options. Plus trade, lots and lots of trade.
[] Demos Antipatria ...Demos Antipatria, formed out of the followers and comrades of the deceased Antipater the Elder. Although once associated with the aristocracy, the Antipatrids changed their position following his death and transformed into an advocate for the people, and especially, for the necessity of immigration from Hellas and the need for alliance with fellow Greeks in Magna Graecia. During their long dominance, the Antipatrids presided over an extraordinary migration of thousands of Hellenes to Eretria, enlarging the state and making it ever wealthier. Antipatrid Eretria has become well-known and respected among all the Western Greeks, but in turn, her strategy has drawn her into conflicts abroad, and her policy of immigration has made the metics an even larger majority. Their greatest achievements were...
...Populating Eretria by leveraging the city's contacts abroad to encourage ever more metics to come and serve in the city, reforming the metic assembly to be stronger as a consequence and selling off public lands to encourage citizens to settle in the countryside [Freeman population starts at 25,000, Citizen ratio decreases to 40%, Metics have stronger political representation]
...Strengthening the city's ties abroad, allowing to gain more respect and prestige in both Hellas and the west. The Antipatrids forged careful alliances and coalitions against their enemies that prevented one power from getting too strong, and encouraged the continuation of both the Italiote and Sikeliote Leagues. [City will begin far more respected among its neighbors, reducing diplomatic incidents and encouraging enemies to negotiate before going to war. Start with an alliance with Metapontion, a city to the west of Taras].
So an alliance with a good sized city west of Taras (which combos well with picking Thurii as our allies as they are just further down the coast) and more people. I do wonder if this may lead us to a path of citizenship for metics down the line or if that is still too extreme. A larger population is always useful though.
[] Demos Exoria ...Demos Exoria, formed by the Kleos Exoria who had been fellow exiles with Herodion the Mercenary in Carthage. The Demos Exoria exalted strength and courage above all, and in power they wished to ensure that Eretria would be a place where heroes could live. Not only did they prosecute war against their barbaroi neighbors and finally and decisively crush the Dauni Confederacy, but they also conducted a series of military reforms that, while expensive, would ensure that the city's hoplites, cavalry, and psilloi, would be better prepared for the wars ahead. At home, they pursued a moderate policy, preferring mostly to deal with negotiations with the Barbaroi and ensuring that they remained loyal and subjugated. Their greatest achievements were...
...the subjugation of the Dauni, costing thousands of Barbaroi lives, killing their king, and putting an end to their confederacy. The capital at Auscula was sacked, and although it has been a generation, the Dauni still resent the action. However, now divided into cities once more, they are no longer in as much of a position to protest, weakened and fractious as they are. [Start with the Dauni tribe subjugated, paying tribute and contributing levies to Eretria, with a larger barbaroi mass both more lucrative and more difficult to manage].
...the Herodian reforms, which increased the amount of public expense shouldered by the polis in order to pay its citizens during long campaigns, as well as military reforms that improved the effectiveness of their permanent units, the Hieros Ekdromoi and Kleos Exoria. [Start with improved land levies and a 20% rise in the cost of all army upkeep].
A stronger army and another subjugated tribe, though potentially traitorous as well. Dauni if loyal secure our north leaving us free to work on the Messapii and Taras to our south, plus give us some more income. Though our army is more expensive but we are starting down military reform this way on land at least.
Allies
[] ...The City of Carthage. Proud Carthage, the colossus of the west that ruled from the Libyan desert to the Pillars of Herakles. Though Carthage could sometimes be an inconstant or preoccupied ally, when it intervened to save Eretria from an attack planned by Taras, it did so in a grand and terrible fashion. Carthage remembered the service of the mercenary Herodion, and remembered him by the title, "Best Among Greeks", though this was no great honor as the Carthaginians thought little indeed of the Greeks. However, of course, to have such great friends brings danger, for to ally with Phoenicians was seen as cowardly and outrageous among some of the western Greeks, and those who were not friends of Eretria became her enemies.
So a very strong if not reliable (other concerns and we are a minor power to them) friend that can frighten off our enemies, on the flip side most of the Greeks that are not our friends currently are now marked as enemies, plus Sicily conflict guaranteed. Pair with Syrakousai enemy for maximum fun time.
[]...Athenai. One might have wondered what it was that brought Athenai and Eretrian together. Was it a mutual guilt over the failure of the former to save the latter, who promptly fled, when Darius the Mede came with his terrible ships? This common history bound the cities together, but it was Eretrian support to Athens during their first great conflict with Sparta, and their shipments of grain to the city, that truly ingratiated Athens to the Eretrians. Now no longer seeing Eretria simply as a potential ally for its incessant wars with Sparta but as an affectionate friend, the city may look less with covetous eyes at rich Epulia. In turn, however, this alliance and friendship has also created the potential for much risk, as Eretria could now be pulled into the Peloponnesian war...
So this pulls us into the war vs Sparta and Corinth (a strong seapower in our enemy list below), all while being on the opposite side of Sparta and their alliance from Athens and her alliance, I dislike this choice. Besides they will be busy with Sparta in the coming time to worry about too much intervention in our region.
[] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League. Thurii was a new state, founded by Athenians only fifteen years prior, yet like Eretria it had propelled itself to the pinnacle of power in its region. Thanks to negotiations and diplomacy between the two Italian powers, and the addition of the Sikeliote League composed of a number of free Sicilian cities, an Ionian alliance has formed in Italy. The alliance was also forged on bounds of mutual respect; the Sikeliotes remembered Herodion's battle against the Carthaginians and the Eretrians were aligned against Thurii's enemy, Taras. Though not necessarily as powerful as Carthage or Athens, this alliance still holds much strength, more reliability, and allowed Eretria to avoid the threat of being pulled into major conflicts, except for those conducted solely on Italian soil...
On the same coast as Taras but further south, this keeps us out of conflicts further afield unless they follow Athens into the war and gives us a local ally if we chose one of the two local enemies. Also due to being closer in both strength and location they will be more reliable. As it is if we want to go for Italian domination this may be our best choice.
Enemies
[] Taras. There is an old Italic story from the northwest of the twins who, once so similar in manner and close in friendship, turn on one another in jealousy, until a fratricide ensues. Animosity between Eretria and Taras had not been guaranteed by history, but by the active decisions of each country. Though they were too close in power, strength, and distance to ever be friends, the burning hatred the two feel for one another was borne from a dispute that emerged from the war against Daxtus' confederacy, and the Tarentines suspecting that the Eretrians were plotting with Daxtus to turn against them after they had seized the city of Gnatia, now Egnatia. In response, the city of Taras ejected Eretria's citizens, and has quietly built a hegemony opposing the city in central Magna Graecia.
With one of the options (Antipatria) we could have an ally to pen them in, more so if we take Thurii as an ally. They above all else are closest to us.
[] Syrakousai. There are many reasons for Syrakousai and Eretria to despise each other. From the exploits of Herodion, who rode with Carthage against this great Sicilian city, to the harboring of Ionian refugees from Syrakousai by Eretria after the refugees were expelled from their cities, the two regional hegemons have become implacable enemies. Syrakousai, though a democracy, seeks to restore its empire in Sicily by making war against its neighbors; Eretria has, time and again, prevented that by funding its enemies and promoting the formation of new coalitions against it. Now, with new leaders in Syrakousai and a stronger diplomatic focus in the city, it aims to turn Sicily against Carthage and the Sikeliote League in order to finally break its power, and perhaps, to cross over into Italy and take revenge...
On the East side of Sicily they may have to deal with Carthage from time to time, on the other hand they are going to want to eliminate us and are relatively local.
[] Korinthos. Once one of the greatest cities in Greece, Korinthos has suffered from political instability and economic decline. Still a trading center, the city has become eclipsed by Sparta on land and Athenai at sea, making it into a second tier of Hellene power. Frustrated at the loss of its former colony of Kerkyra and the danger this poses to its Adriatic empire, Korinthos has been further infuriated by the very presence of Eretria. In the past, Eretria went so far as to subordinate a small mixed colony of Akhaians and Korinthians, Aufidenos, to the Epulian League, preventing Korinthos from gaining a foothold in the region. Now, with its war against Kerkyra and its seizure of the Illyrian colony of Epidamnos, Korinthos has gone so far as to cause a major war in Greece for the sake of its ambition.
Strong navy and fights with Sparta against Athens so we will need strong allies with this choice, though they may be distracted by more local concerns. Either way we need to keep a strong navy to defend ourselves. Located in mainland Greece between Sparta and Athens.
Something to consider with the Demos Antipatria is the question of the increased political power of the metics, and whether that is truly desirable. I feel like it may limit our options in negotiating with them, considering the Antipatrids would have already reinforced the Metic assembly and granting them greater political freedoms may not actually be achievable within the cultural framework of the city. To me, it may be wiser not to have previously strengthened the Metic assembly so that it remains a viable option when and if problems arise.
Much of the charm for the original quest for me was that the quest was fundamentally rooted in the ongoings of Italy. Syrakousia meanwhile is in many ways a dark mirror to Eretria in its large population of non-citizen freemen and its reforms in the direction of public services, which would make a struggle for hegemony between the two poleis particularly fun and thematic.
So also as far as I can tell Athens population was 200,000 before slaves, 300,000 with , and we are at 75,000 total a fourth their size. So a good idea of how we stand in comparison to the largest of the Greek cities. Big but there are those that are much bigger.
Something to consider with the Demos Antipatria is the question of the increased political power of the metics, and whether that it truly desirable. I feel like it may limit our options in negotiating with them, considering the Antipatrids would have already reinforced the Metic assembly and granting them greater political freedoms may not actually be achievable within the cultural framework of the city. To me, it may be wiser not to have previously strengthened the Metic assembly so that it remains a viable option when and if problems arise.
frankly I don't know why anyone is surprised, claiming I'm done with this quest and then returning randomly without telling anyone a few years later is my specialty
[ ] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League. Thurii was a new state, founded by Athenians only fifteen years prior, yet like Eretria it had propelled itself to the pinnacle of power in its region. Thanks to negotiations and diplomacy between the two Italian powers, and the addition of the Sikeliote League composed of a number of free Sicilian cities, an Ionian alliance has formed in Italy. The alliance was also forged on bounds of mutual respect; the Sikeliotes remembered Herodion's battle against the Carthaginians and the Eretrians were aligned against Thurii's enemy, Taras. Though not necessarily as powerful as Carthage or Athens, this alliance still holds much strength, more reliability, and allowed Eretria to avoid the threat of being pulled into major conflicts, except for those conducted solely on Italian soil...
[ ] Syrakousai. There are many reasons for Syrakousai and Eretria to despise each other. From the exploits of Herodion, who rode with Carthage against this great Sicilian city, to the harboring of Ionian refugees from Syrakousai by Eretria after the refugees were expelled from their cities, the two regional hegemons have become implacable enemies. Syrakousai, though a democracy, seeks to restore its empire in Sicily by making war against its neighbors; Eretria has, time and again, prevented that by funding its enemies and promoting the formation of new coalitions against it. Now, with new leaders in Syrakousai and a stronger diplomatic focus in the city, it aims to turn Sicily against Carthage and the Sikeliote League in order to finally break its power, and perhaps, to cross over into Italy and take revenge...
Rationale for these choices: In Greece, Eretria the Furthest is a powerful city-state, but ultimately a second in the order of the giants, which makes sense, but is not exactly what I'm aiming for here. With the Demos Exoria and the Thurii, we have established ourselves as a significant Italian power in Megale Hellas, not to be toyed with. It will let us establish a significant hegemonia over the local tribes, which shall serve as excellent buffers for further expansion and tools of Eretria the Furthest's rise in this part of our Megale Hellas. It shall serve us well to keep on good footing with our Sikeliote friends and Thurii; it would be most unfortunate that this Epulian League of ours be hindered by local Hellenes rather than barbaroi. The more we involve ourselves with the politics of the Hellenes of Megale Hellas, the more ready we are for taking our rightful place as hegemon of all the Italian poleis.
Being able to field a large and effective navy will be critical should we ever be attacked. In the era of the Peloponnesian War, taking a defended, walled city by storm was extremely difficult, and with a strong navy we can survive a siege potentially indefinitely by supplying the city from the water. This option also gives us a stronger economic base to fund our military for the coming conflict.
[X] ...The City of Carthage
I have to admit that I feel a certain historical connection with Carthage here given the history between them and our city, and the connection they have with some of our most famous heroes. The Carthaginians may also scare off the western greek states from attacking us so long as we stay away from the conflict for fear of drawing them into the Peloponnesian War. Carthage is probably not a great ally to have in an offensive war, but I'm not sure we should be getting into one of those anytime soon regardless.
[X] Syrakousai
On second assessment, Korinthos as an enemy brings us too close to the Peloponnesian War for comfort, so I'd like to avoid that if at all possible. I can't say that I have any huge preference between Taras and Syrakousai as our mortal foe, but if we do ally Carthage I'd say conflict with Syrakousai is essentially inevitable, so we may as well formalize it.
I will say this: I am greatly disappointed we cannot make Taras at least neutral to us (at least not out of the gate). It makes sense considering we backstabbed them. But I do want a shot at redemption.That was certainly amongst the most scummier things we did. For money no less.
[x] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League. Thurii was a new state, founded by Athenians only fifteen years prior, yet like Eretria it had propelled itself to the pinnacle of power in its region. Thanks to negotiations and diplomacy between the two Italian powers, and the addition of the Sikeliote League composed of a number of free Sicilian cities, an Ionian alliance has formed in Italy. The alliance was also forged on bounds of mutual respect; the Sikeliotes remembered Herodion's battle against the Carthaginians and the Eretrians were aligned against Thurii's enemy, Taras. Though not necessarily as powerful as Carthage or Athens, this alliance still holds much strength, more reliability, and allowed Eretria to avoid the threat of being pulled into major conflicts, except for those conducted solely on Italian soil...
[x] Syrakousai. There are many reasons for Syrakousai and Eretria to despise each other. From the exploits of Herodion, who rode with Carthage against this great Sicilian city, to the harboring of Ionian refugees from Syrakousai by Eretria after the refugees were expelled from their cities, the two regional hegemons have become implacable enemies. Syrakousai, though a democracy, seeks to restore its empire in Sicily by making war against its neighbors; Eretria has, time and again, prevented that by funding its enemies and promoting the formation of new coalitions against it. Now, with new leaders in Syrakousai and a stronger diplomatic focus in the city, it aims to turn Sicily against Carthage and the Sikeliote League in order to finally break its power, and perhaps, to cross over into Italy and take revenge...
