Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
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- ancient greece alternate history empire builder civ quest democracy gods save us granary management hubris it's an eretrian thing. let lose the weasels of war lithocracy lithocracy is my fetish maximum hellene my big fat greek divine wedding this granary aint gonna fill itself cetash unwinnable
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Well, Carthage doesn't pull you into the Peloponnesian war and has more resources to bear than Athenai given it is not fighting a Peloponnesian War.
The Atlatl was replaced by the amentum in Europe for javelins and by the bow and arrow for lighter projectiles. If they know of it, it's been rendered obsolete in the eyes of Mediterranean javelin-throwers.
You're running into a contradiction based on a modern conception of what an army is. In this period we are talking about militia armies, sometimes supplemented by smaller professional units like the Theban Sacred Band or your Hieroes Ekdromoi and Kleos Exoria. When a citizen soldier is expected to supply most of his own equipment, the divisions in an army are based on class distinction. The psilloi are not professionals by definition; they are the citizens too poor to afford a basic hoplite panoply, who are light skirmishers. So of course they're looked down upon, even if their role is seen as vital, because there is no opportunity for courage and glory as a sling-thrower or peltast in the eyes of the Greeks, and all of the competition for heroic positions during a time of war is where in the hoplite phalanx you are placed, with the far left being the most honorable position (as it collides with the enemy first) and the far right being the second-most (because it has an exposed side).
One of the funny things about etymologies for cities is that they sometimes have very random origins. Think about the districts of New York. Some are fairly self-explanatory; the Hudson Yards, the Garment District, Upper West Side. But others are based on some obscure event or past purpose of that district which no longer exists; Hell's Kitchen, Tenderloin, Battery Park. Similarily, the Illyrian District in Eretria Eskhata is not named for Illyrians who live there but because it was the site where Eretria placed the slaves it had taken from the city of Bare right after landing in Italy. After the Peucetii rescued their fellows, the plain became called the "Plain where the Illyrians were", and eventually just "the Illyrian plain", and then in time the city grew to encompass it and it became the Illyrian District, even though there are few, if any, Illyrians there.
An ancient example of funny etyomological origins is the Campo Martius in Rome. Originally a rallying ground for Roman soldiers during the early Republic (literally a Camp of Mars), the Campo Martius eventually became part of the city but never lost its original name, and later became the center of the medieval city of Rome after the Forum was abandoned due to its swampiness.
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- Location
- Mists of Albion
I have some questions @Cetashwayo, mainly about the apparent Second Divine Union, as well as some questions about any further unique developments for Religion and Myth in Eretria, it seems really interesting to see how our cultures developed a bit and I would very much appreciate some more info if that's okay.
A. How did the Second Divine Union, the one between Poseidon and Demeter, Occur?
B. Why did the Second Divine Union Occur, the first started because of a dispute in who to make the cities patron god, what prompted it this time?
C. How has this impacted the separate Myths of the two. The First Union has Athena and Apollo grow to love each other via several meetings or long conversations, or fighting a Sea Monster, how is the tale of this Union told?
D. Have their been other godly unions? There's mention of Eretria 'Need to pair up gods', is this indicative of a growing cultural trend? Is it just a shipping joke?
E. Has this Second Union spread as the first one did? I recall the First Divine Union becoming especially popular in Sicilian Greece, and amongst Democratic nations around the Ionian Sea and Southern Italy. Has the Second Divine Union made headway similarly?
F. Have the Iapygians and Illyrians been influenced by Eretrian culture? I recall Gnatia, now Egnatia, especially was becoming more Hellenic, and the Messapii had already adopted Artemis directly as a patron. Have our tributaries and the other Barbarians in our sphere become more Hellenic? And the Epulian League, have their religious beliefs converged with our own?
G. Bit of a divergence, but how has the Eretrian veneration if the dead affected its religious culture, most specifically, has it started to affect the Greek Hero Cults That were once so influential in Greek Society?
A. How did the Second Divine Union, the one between Poseidon and Demeter, Occur?
B. Why did the Second Divine Union Occur, the first started because of a dispute in who to make the cities patron god, what prompted it this time?
C. How has this impacted the separate Myths of the two. The First Union has Athena and Apollo grow to love each other via several meetings or long conversations, or fighting a Sea Monster, how is the tale of this Union told?
D. Have their been other godly unions? There's mention of Eretria 'Need to pair up gods', is this indicative of a growing cultural trend? Is it just a shipping joke?
E. Has this Second Union spread as the first one did? I recall the First Divine Union becoming especially popular in Sicilian Greece, and amongst Democratic nations around the Ionian Sea and Southern Italy. Has the Second Divine Union made headway similarly?
F. Have the Iapygians and Illyrians been influenced by Eretrian culture? I recall Gnatia, now Egnatia, especially was becoming more Hellenic, and the Messapii had already adopted Artemis directly as a patron. Have our tributaries and the other Barbarians in our sphere become more Hellenic? And the Epulian League, have their religious beliefs converged with our own?
G. Bit of a divergence, but how has the Eretrian veneration if the dead affected its religious culture, most specifically, has it started to affect the Greek Hero Cults That were once so influential in Greek Society?
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Cetashwayo Why isn't the quest called Megale Hellas?
HanEmpire
Delicious
Could be that Rome was the protagonist all along, and @Cetashwayo's been running a long prologue game to change Roman culture from the outside. With the example of Eretria right there, Rome might not turn out as aristocratic/oligarchic as it did in RL.
When Eretria gets conquered he'll tag switch us to Rome and GM a modern-esque representative democracy.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
And THEN do we finally invent the Egyptian Steam Kettle?
- Location
- Central Europe
@Cetashwayo I have a question regarding the Rival votes: Are the descriptions true regardless of whether we end up picking them?
For example, based on the map I assume the subordination of Aufidenos will have happened even if we don't choose Korinthos as our rival. Same goes for Syracuse's designs on the Sikeliot League.
So, will our dispute with Taras and subsequent the exile of our citizens also have happened? Even if they are not picked as our rival?
Also a second question regarding this:
For example, based on the map I assume the subordination of Aufidenos will have happened even if we don't choose Korinthos as our rival. Same goes for Syracuse's designs on the Sikeliot League.
So, will our dispute with Taras and subsequent the exile of our citizens also have happened? Even if they are not picked as our rival?
Also a second question regarding this:
What Italiote League are we talking about here? The OTL 5th century Krotone led alliance against Thurii and Lokris? Or something non-historical resulting from the butterflies of our arrival in Magna Graecia?
NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
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- Places
Because Magna Graecia is a much better known term for modern people?
- Location
- Austria
That's cause modern people use words of some swamp hicks too much.
Bunch of barbarians, those "modern people".
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Did Leontios manage to get someone like himself to succeed him? We need to keep an eye on them if he did. He caused (or assisted) a lot of problems, even if it was hilarious.
Story of Demeter & Poseidon's Marriage
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
A. The wedding of Demeter and Poseidon comes from the myths of Arkadia, a region in Greece where some of the metics that immigrated to Eretria came from. However, in that story Poseidon, uh, rapes Demeter first, and so that was not very popular among the Eretrians, who saw it as a boorish and improper interpretation of the hallowed God of the Sea. And so, in the more popular version in Eretria, instead, during the period in which Persephone descends into Hades for the winter, Demeter is struck by grief and mourns the loss of her daughter. Poseidon is struck by her deep sadness and wishes to cheer her, but knows little of how to speak with a woman, and even less a Goddess of land and fertility. And so he attempts instead to impress her with the bounty of the sea.
Standing by the sea one day, Demeter comes across a beautiful shell, but is unable to appreciate its beauty because she is a creature of the land and it is one of the sea. The next day, she returns to the shore, and now a golden seahorse emerges from the water, dancing and splendid, and Demeter only gets annoyed and kicks the horse back into the sea. Outraged, Poseidon throws himself into a rage, storming and bellowing, causing the whole ocean to curdle with waves and the land to shake, but it does nothing for him; instead it simply makes him more angry and unhappy and he disavows her, wishing never to see her again.
At last, this spate of misery causes Athena and Apollo to grow irritated with the inconsolable mopers and devise a plan. Athena, known to be crafty and cunning, works out a place where the sea and the land might yet meet. At the top of Italy, amid the swampy waters north of the Pados River in the Adriatic's head, there is a vast, low desert of salt, but as it is neither land nor sea, it is barren, without fish or foul. Apollo, meanwhile, being much the same as his wife, works out a way to get the two together. He tells Demeter that there is a place at the head of the Adriatic where she will find an end to her current troubles, and tells the same to Poseidon. Demeter, believing this is a way to stop being harassed by random sea creatures, and Poseidon, believing this is a way to finally rid himself of his obsession to this woman, both proceed to the lagoon, only to find each other there.
Immediately, just as planned, they begin screaming at each other. Poseidon lets it be known that he has been the one sending the gifts in the hopes this will enrage Demeter, and it absolutely does. The two commence to get into an absolutely rancorous fight, to the point where even Zeus peers over and asks what's going on, only for Apollo and Athena to beg him not to intervene. And indeed, by the time they are done fighting, the desert has been flooded full of fish, and the remaining islands have been stuffed full of fowl and reeds, until it is a mess of green and blue, a grand lagoon. It is at this point that Athena and Apollo intervene and show the two what they have created together, and that this lagoon is something that they have in common and perhaps they could just talk to each other. And so, it is said, that Demeter and Poseidon, though still skeptical, attempt to use the opportunity to talk to each other during the winter months, and indeed, over time they begin to learn of one another, and Apollo assists Poseidon in crafting poetry for Demeter and creating islands like pearls in the sea, whilst Demeter rears salty reeds and carpets of kelp, bringing beauty to the ocean and forming the modern Venetian lagoon. And it is from this gardening routine that the two eventually fall in love for the rest of time.
The story is especially popular among the poorer of Eretria because it is a much more humble story, about the necessity of the man and the woman crafting a home together, rather than Apollo and Athena's high-flying adventures.
B. Cultural evolution. It's an important shift which reflects the city's multicultural atmosphere as a home for many types of Hellenes, a syncretic development.
C. See A.
D. Partly a joke, but Eretrians like to think of the world in binaries. There is free and unfree, citizen and metic, man and wife, earth and sea.
E. No, it's mostly an Eretrian thing. The Divine Union also has limited success in Sicily; it was popular back in the day but although it still has currency the lack of real cultural cachet that Eretria has nowadays means it hasn't been as strong as it could be, or has diverged into separate directions entirely.
F. Egnatia's name change is part of its shift towards hellenism. All of them have become more hellenic; the Messapii give tribute to Zis and Aprodita (Zeus and Aphrodite) and so do the Dauni. The Epulian League holds to their own beliefs, especially because of Eretria's poor cultural cachet.
G. It remains an Eretrian thing.
As HanEmpire said, this is actually all just the prologue for a Rome Quest.
More seriously, NavySeel has the right of it. I wanted a name that people knew more, and Megale Hellas isn't actually an accurate name for the region. The Romans called it Great Greece or Greater Greece because they were the first wealthy Greek cities they encountered, and Greece itself had been in decline for some time. The Greeks of Magna Graecia call themselves Italiotes, part of Italia, but I can't really call the region Italia without seriously confusing people.
Although events might still happen, the way in which they are handled is different. Eretria does not anger or insult the rival as much, or else draws less attention to itself as a major obstacle or the one to beat.
Thanks for noticing that. In an earlier draft of this update I had the Italiotes as a single unit, but decided against it. I've removed the reference to the Italiotes.
"Akakios" died and was replaced by his son Leontios the first as petty tyrant of Lykai, because the man has nothing if not a sense of humor.
1. Turai was a city of Peuketii who were settled in the area by Daxtus. When the Eretrians took the city they let the people of Turai live if they helped them against Daxtus, and they agreed. The King of the Peuketii wanted them out, but by this point Harpos had died and been replaced by his son Batavorta, and Batavorta was a weak king who argued poorly and did not impress Eretria, so he was ignored.
2. Monopolis was founded by Akhaians who had the express permission of Eretria to land there so that the city would gain another ally and an anchor to their south. Both it and Aufidenos are very small so it has never been a great concern to Eretria, since they contribute tribute and levies regardless.
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Yeah, I think it could lead to some rather interesting dynamics. Another point of comparison here might be Venice.
The merchants and noble families who have invested in trade will have a great deal of wealth, and political power will flow from that. But on the other hand, it's very much dependent on a class of rowers and dockworkers who can decide to essentially tip over the applecart if they really want to. That means they have a fair bit of negotiating power. Combined with Eretria's unique political culture and strong democratic traditions, and the fact that we've already seen political figures speaking for certain trades (like your own persona Sideros in the last quest), we may well see the equivalent of trade unions forming. Very interesting.
The merchant bloc might end up in opposition to the rowers at points, as well, because war is probably bad for business. Actually, thinking about that, encouraging some form of merchant marine might be a good way to help unemployed rowers find something productive to do...
- Location
- Mists of Albion
Eretria is literally the best at shipping people.
We really need to build our culture up some more, it's sad to see our cities influence and impact has fallen so low, some new temples, of especially grand design are definitely going to be the first major domestic buildings I vote for.
Eretria's take on religion, romance and the gods is so interesting, especially as most Greeks portray the gods as particularly cruel and petty, with the romances of the Two Divine Unions being rare outside of Hades and Persephone. So it'd be very nice to spread our religion and culture, if it leads to this more 'kinder' view on the gods being spread about more
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- Location
- U S of A
It occurs to me that our (apparent) current selection of options may lead to an "all of the above" type scenario with regards to enemies and allies. For our allies, the Demos Drakonia projects power into the Adriatic, putting a check on Korinth and pleasing the Athenians. Our continued opposition to Syrakousai will also surely incline the Carthaginians towards us, since we were allies against Syrakousai once before.
On the enemies side, our closeness to Thurii won't endear us to Taras much at all and as mentioned above, our presence in the Adriatic is a threat to Korinthian ambitions there.
So this could be interesting.
On the enemies side, our closeness to Thurii won't endear us to Taras much at all and as mentioned above, our presence in the Adriatic is a threat to Korinthian ambitions there.
So this could be interesting.
Supposing that we do go the way of Athens in terms of a naval focus, what would our trade income need to look like for us to implement subsides (bribes) on our not-enemies and potential allies.In other words, what would we need to take in so that we could bribe other Italian Hellenes?
We did subsidize the Messapii breifly, but I'm not quite sure what's an appropriate amount for bribing another polis with. Of course, I assume we would need dress up said bribes as something more palatable.
We did subsidize the Messapii breifly, but I'm not quite sure what's an appropriate amount for bribing another polis with. Of course, I assume we would need dress up said bribes as something more palatable.
- Location
- U S of A
Arcus did some quick math on it.
I was concerned more with what we might want to give out in terms of bribes
We gave the weak king of the Messapii a out 10 talents as a subsidy. With our trade money, we could probably bribe Metapontion for an alliance or better relations. Or maybe another round of subsidies for the Messapii.
Greece: The Rom-Com
My understanding is that the large majority of merchant ships in this era aren't exactly Tireme's requiring hundreds of rowers but mostly sailing ships requiring little crew (because as ever crew costs a lot) so I am unsure how useful such a move would be. Though on the other hand I guess with the Peleponesian war starting pirates will become a bigger issue which could lead to a stronger focus on armer trading ships and of course there is always the option of privateers (I think that quite a few Athenian nobles were active in that during this timeframe or earlier) should we get involved in the conflict.
- Location
- United States
[X] Demos Antipatria
[X] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League.
[X] Syrakousai.
[X] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League.
[X] Syrakousai.
Most merchant ships definitely carry a smaller crew than triremes, you're absolutely right. On the other hand, we probably have a lot more than twenty two merchant ships coming in and out of Eretria's harbours. Not all of those may be Eretrian ships, of course, but this is part of what I mean by encouraging a merchant marine. On top of that, as you rightly note, we might encourage a small guard to ward off piracy.
Ultimately even if a merchant marine that we encourage or sponsor only represents a part-time job for our rowers, given they're getting half-pay, it still represents a significant shift in the incentive structure for them between war and peacetime. Suddenly it changes from a choice between full and half-pay, to a choice between full pay, and half-pay plus a part-time (fairly safe) side job.
Actually my suggestion was more or less the opposite of that - let some our rowers get used by "private" privateers.
- Location
- Philippines
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Also it's jarring to see the Hellenization of Italia, and I cannot wait for the Latinization that will occur in the future.
It must be Rhomanoi in the blend of Rome and Greece.
Eretria-Roma here we come!
Fair enough, sorry for the misunderstanding!
Personally, I feel that if we want to target another city's trade at some point, then we would probably do best form and detach a naval squadron to do that. Hiring out our own valuable rowers out as pirates risks them dying or disappearing, as well as potentially a diplomatic clusterfuck of the highest proportions if they attack a city we're friendly with. Piracy is also well, a skillset, and not one our rowers necessarily have; if we want privateering via proxy at some point we'd probably do better to hire some Illyrians.
In comparison, a handful of our rowers acting as guards on an Eretrian merchant ship is sort of like the equivalent of a police officer taking a night security job to bring in a little extra cash. It's a skillset they're familiar with, it involves very little actual work, it's relatively safe and comfortable most of the time, and it brings in a nice little bit of extra income. It also makes them somewhat happier with peace rather than agitating for war, which was the idea- if our rowers were acting as pirates, they're still kind of picking fights.
All this may be getting a tad ahead of ourselves, anyway.