Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

It's possible that Taras or Syracuse turn out very bad for us if we don't act on them now. But I don't think the odds of that are huge. And I feel the gains of pacifying them for now are mostly treading water. Syracuse will definitely keep this up and force us to keep paying attention to them regardless, and Taras may or may not relent, but they may calm down even if we diplomance them later (possibly more easily - being too early is as bad as being too late) and they may stab us later even if we diplomance them now, so we'll probably need to keep an eye on them anyway.

Kerkyra offers fine opportunity at, admittedly, significantly higher risk. Taras and Syracuse, I feel, offer comparatively little (and aren't really a route for us to focus that feels as interesting for me personally to see happen) at little risk. I prefer the high risk option here.

"Having considered the matter further I believe things are as Arktos son of Arkadios urges. The regulation of the sacred festivals is a measure of devotion to the gods. It is justice to provide to all men their due. So it is with the gods. And their due must be delivered at the proper time and season. That we have had festivals and sacrifices at the wrong time is a scandal. Thus we have much to praise and venerate the gods for that they have shown us such patience.

And even more so when I think of this good peace with Taras I credited the gods with a boon. We have to be sure already committed to rebuilding the hill of the Divine Marriage, and its temples. But we began this war by necessarily delaying the construction. I do not think Zeus would have been benevolent toward our city merely for holding to what we had promised. Instead some other reason must have been behind the intervention of the gods to favor both the success of our arms and of our peace.

We did not, it is true, wage war upon Taras at our own initiative. They declared war on us by their spiteful ultimatum. But our alliance with the Messapii was to shield them, and ourselves, from Tarantine aggression. We sought to bring the Messapii under our guidance and tutelage as we have the Peuketti. It is a noble aim to protect the defenseless and guide the ignorant. And who among the Olympians is the patron of the tribes we have sheltered? None other than Artemis, she of the swift and deadly bow. Only the pleas of the daughter of Leto, favored among the children of Zeus, could have swayed the All-Mighty from his anger at our impiety. And she has blessed our efforts to protect her wayward charges with success at every turn.

Thus it is fitting to honor our benefactress with a temple of her own to honor her for her aid in our late victory. We need as well her favor for our midwives, that our wives and daughters should not die in childbirth. And further let such a temple serve as a concrete symbol of our commitment to taking care of the Iapygians as a stern but benevolent tutor and father as nothing less than a charge blessed by Artemis herself."

[X] Proboulos: Theron Archippos (Demos Exoria)
[X] Xenoparakletor: Obander Eupraxis (Demos Antipatria)

phil03 said:

edit: I do still believe we need to make some serious work on the hill itself at some point, tough. The Divine Mariage is too important for our soft power for us to not take better care of its main center of worship.

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We're still finishing the Hill of the Divine Marriage itself, regardless of what additional temples we may complete.

[X] Proboulos: Theron Archippos (Demos Exoria)
[X] Xenoparakletor: Obander Eupraxis (Demos Antipatria)

The fact that Artemis is the favoured Goddess of the Iapygians is another reason why I strongly favour the Exorian slate, as @Cavalier puts it so well.

We have faced a crisis of faith here, and terrible augurs that the Gods were unhappy with us. We then went to war, halting construction on our temples, to save the Mesapii. What better way to turn this into a triumphant act of piety than to honour their patron Goddess?

By bringing the Iapygian tribes closer to us in faith, through joint devotion to Artemis and celebrating a cult of the Divine Union of Artemis and Orion, at the same time we bring them together through trade, we create a really strong foundation. Our large numbers of hellenised barbaroi allies are probably the single biggest advantage we have over most cities of our size. In the long run, they promise some very interesting things.

When they come to trade their cattle, the Iapygians can also make sacrifice to Artemis with us, and celebrate local festivals which may be adopted from their own traditions.

There is a beautiful synergy there, between the trade, the Temple, and the festivals. Every policy works well in tandem with every other policy, and reinforces it.

Moreover, now is the best time, in fact the only time, as it is now we can establish the Cult of Artemis, and now that the Mesapii and Dauni are both at a decision point. If we delay here, we won't just have lost five years of trade revenue and time to build stronger bonds. We will have lost the chance to strike whilst the iron is hot.

Murska said:

It's possible that Taras or Syracuse turn out very bad for us if we don't act on them now. But I don't think the odds of that are huge. And I feel the gains of pacifying them for now are mostly treading water. Syracuse will definitely keep this up and force us to keep paying attention to them regardless, and Taras may or may not relent, but they may calm down even if we diplomance them later (possibly more easily - being too early is as bad as being too late) and they may stab us later even if we diplomance them now, so we'll probably need to keep an eye on them anyway.

Kerkyra offers fine opportunity at, admittedly, significantly higher risk. Taras and Syracuse, I feel, offer comparatively little (and aren't really a route for us to focus that feels as interesting for me personally to see happen) at little risk. I prefer the high risk option here.

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Treading water is better than active degradation, keeping the status quo is much preferable to our archenemy Syrakousai overcoming the Sikeliote League and shattering one of our few alliances as we do nothing to help; how much more difficult will it be to establish a coalition then? Yet it is not all about keeping the situation static, the Italiote diplomacy option will provide a lasting benefit in that we'll have resident proxenoi to advocate for Eretria and provide for communication without having to have the Xenoparakletor drop what they're doing and dash around as was going on in our war with Taras which led to a choice of Metapontion being suspicious of us or the Dauni rampaging on a second front. In effect, doing this diplomacy right now enables us to keep on influencing them even should we decide on another focus in the next elections.

I agree that Syrakousai will keep on doing this. That's no reason to ignore it. As it is now, we know that Thurii and the Sikeliote League will oppose them and it is not so hard to bribe other cities into a general coalition against the Syrakousai. However, if our alliance gets damaged or the Sikeliote League crumbles, how much more support do we need to replace what was lost- let alone to also match what Syrakousai gained? That makes what we'll need to do in the future even more painful and requiring work. It's not as fun as Adriatic colonization and I really wished we'd chosen any other permanent enemy or for our ally to be solid Carthage and not some squishy cities that will die if left unattended, but we can't turn back the clock on our choices and must deal with what the situation is.

So, those who stated they wanted to make Eretria into a centre of culture have decided to try and convert to the Exorian slate, for the temple of Artemis, ignoring the fact that a larger Divine Marriage Temple specifically gives us a large bonus on our culture, to the extent it's noted it will allow us to make ourselves a cultural centre even more.

If you want to pick the option which misses out on Military reforms, the option that only reaches out to our Vassals, not increase our culture and it's influence, pick Exoria.

@Cetashwayo Quick question; How likely is it that, if we have an Antipatrid Proboulos and an Exorian Grand Mantis (or vice versa), the two Religious Policies (Pythagoreans & Calendar Reform) will merge/interact?
These two seem to have quite some potential for symbiosis in my eyes.

McLuvin said:

So, those who stated they wanted to make Eretria into a centre of culture have decided to try and convert to the Exorian slate, for the temple of Artemis, ignoring the fact that a larger Divine Marriage Temple specifically gives us a large bonus on our culture, to the extent it's noted it will allow us to make ourselves a cultural centre even more.

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One of the seven wonders of the ancient world was a temple of Artemis.

I'm not saying that the "Artemis" option MAXIMIZES our cultural victory score or whatever, but combined with other benefits (like helping us to Hellenize the surrounding barbarians and integrate them into something resembling an Epulian state), it may still be good enough.

We are greatly strengthening the influence of our culture by strengthening our religious ties to the barbaroi. We are laying the foundation of bringing them into much closer alignment with our cultural sphere, not just tributaries, but allies.

Remember the other notable Mediterranean power who, as we've discussed, achieved great things through her ability to continuously bring in new allies?

It also not true that the Exorian slate does not improve Eretria's culture. In fact, it enriches it and strengthens it. By regularizing our sacred calendar of festivals, and adding in our new, local, syncretic festivals, we are both making our worship coherent and not a massive car crash, and also supporting new culture and customs which are distinctively Eretrian.

Artemis and Orion also offer a Divine Union, let's remember, and one which may greatly strengthen our ties with our allies.

Well we are renovating and improving the temple dedicated to Apollo and Athene (housing I presume the beautiful statues offered as a liturgy by Drako) as part of the overall improvement of the hill, as well as burnishing the up the Arkadion and the temple to Zeus. I'm certainly in favor of greatly enlarging the temple of the Divine Marriage and gilding it enough to make it a truly impressive structure. But that would require a lot of talents and I'd like the reserve the option for that for another decisive victory over some pressing foe. As it is the temple of Artemis just seems most appropriate at this particular moment.

By the way, what calendar is being used for the year numbers in the updates?

Kipeci said:

We can perfectly well have hunting out in our relatively wild lands further off without having people trampling their way through a sacred grove from year to year. Are ritual hunts even a big component of Artemis worship?

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I'm working under the assumption that they would be when what we're actually doing is a combined Artemis/Orion thing, given how the both of them are renowned as hunters and archers.

EDIT: As for the issue of the slates, I would say that two of the Exorian programs (the barbaroi cattle assessment and the calendar reform) will be more effectively accomplished if we've first imported Pythagoreans to assist in such math-heavy tasks, and their immigration program will bring in a population of menial laborers with no loyalty for our ideals at a time when we would be hopefully tying the barbaroi to us by employing them for such tasks where our existing metic population would not suffice.

Were we likely to take on the Drakonid project of encouraging more colonial settlement and greater population growth in said colonies, then an argument might be made that we would have somewhere to put a vast new influx of metics who are menial laborers with no attachment to Eretrian ideals. But right now, all we'd be doing is importing a large impoverished population that would remain both impoverished and shut out of political power, with no real hope of improving either state, while also pushing barbaroi laborers out of their jobs at a time when we have a new barbaroi dependency we need to tie to us.

This seems to me to be a terrible, terrible idea on pretty much every level.

Simon_Jester said:

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world was a temple of Artemis.

I'm not saying that the "Artemis" option MAXIMIZES our cultural victory score or whatever, but combined with other benefits (like helping us to Hellenize the surrounding barbarians and integrate them into something resembling an Epulian state), it may still be good enough.

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Except this is adding a single, normal temple, that was a massive specialised temple.

The only option that explicitly allows us to export our own, Eretrian ideals and culture is the Divine Marriage, saying because someone else made a large temple to Artemis means a normal temple to her will be just as good as a Massive Temple Of our own ignored the entire point of what made that Large Temple of Artemis so effective and a wonder of the world.

They put extra effort into it, it wasn't the goddess alone that did it.

We want Eretria to be culturally influential. Artemis is not the path to exporting our culture.

Cavalier said:

Well we are renovating and improving the temple dedicated to Apollo and Athene (housing I presume the beautiful statues offered as a liturgy by Drako) as part of the overall improvement of the hill, as well as burnishing the up the Arkadion and the temple to Zeus. I'm certainly in favor of greatly enlarging the temple of the Divine Marriage and gilding it enough to make it a truly impressive structure. But that would require a lot of talents and I'd like the reserve the option for that for another decisive victory over some pressing foe. As it is the temple of Artemis just seems most appropriate at this particular moment.

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Okay, you talk about it costing more Talents, that's not been implied at all, and you have repeatedly stated you want to avoid war and turn to internal matters and boost our culture, so what victory will we have to reconstruct the temple? Your goals do not match your statements.

You say you want to make us a cultural centre, yet refuse the Eretrian based culture option

You say you want to avoid war to focus on development, yet then talk about the next great victory when we've just beaten Taras itself directly now.

You say it'll cost extra Talents to guild it and make it more impressive, yet building an entirely new temple will cost just as much money, and in fact take up more space.

We don't know when we'll gain the option to build up the Temple again, but you act like it's something we'll get anytime, alongside a victory as major as beating Taras like we have.

Do you want culture boosts and peace? Because that's not what you're actually saying.

Given @Cavalier has been a guiding force in this game since its founding, and is one of our better experts on Greek history and culture, I think taking that kind of tone is a bit silly, @McLuvin. I believe he well understands why he is voting and what he is trying to achieve.

We can likely decide to gild the Divine Temple through a user motion if we want to, or dedicate a victory, which there will be plenty of opportunities for just with small undertakings like the anti-piracy mission or cooperating with Taras on Lykia. @Cavalier's statements match his goals perfectly well. We don't need to engage some kind of large war to find an opportunity for expanding a temple. Any excuse will do.

The Divine Marriage is as far as I'm concerned, probably the least interesting of the temple options. Given the entire hill is dedicated to the Divine Marriage, and we already have a perfectly good temple, it also brings the least new to Eretrian culture.

"Ah, I can do just the same in my rhetoric. The only true way to improve the glory of Eretria is with Demos Galê! The finest way to spread our ways far and wide is to spread our people far and wide!"

(Because at this point, Theophilos is just going to be taking the piss out of everyone who is a strong proponent of any particular deme as being the "one true choice" for anything.)

I don't think we're just going to be given a choice to improve the Temple of the Divine Marriage further except as a choice for a Great Work, and unlike a grand Temple to Poseidon and Demeter (which can logically be combined with an expansion of the harbor) or a grand temple/sacred grove to Artemis and Orion (which can logically be combined with building our water/sewer infrastructure), the Great Work that a grand temple to the Divine Marriage can be combined with... is the one we're currently in the process of doing. If we want to go back and do it later, I expect it to be a choice that flat replaces the slot for a new Great Work rather than just adding a bit of expense and time to a new one.

Plus, again, the Divine Marriage is the patron dyad of our city. It would make sense for us to focus on giving them a properly impressive structure before we create similar homes for deities a bit less central to our identity.

Spacegnom said:

@Cetashwayo Quick question; How likely is it that, if we have an Antipatrid Proboulos and an Exorian Grand Mantis (or vice versa), the two Religious Policies (Pythagoreans & Calendar Reform) will merge/interact?
These two seem to have quite some potential for symbiosis in my eyes.

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Yes, it's quite possible there'll be a synthesis if you get that mix.

Oshha said:

By the way, what calendar is being used for the year numbers in the updates?

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Years since the first Olympic Games, which is seen as the founding event for Hellene society, and everything before it is legend.

The Divine Marriage is something we already have a nice Temple dedicated to, and it's also what the entire hill all of the Temples are standing on is dedicated to. Personally I don't think there's any danger that we will fail to pay it proper homage. Also, whilst the Divine Marriage is important, I don't want us to become one-trick ponies. A new Divine Union adds distinction to Eretrian culture, and is a fascinating example of growth and symbiosis with the local traditions of our allies.

The next time we win a victory which brings in a bit of loot, I'm certain we can do a User Motion to gild the roof of the Temple of the Divine Marriage with the spoils or something. Greek cities would do that kind of thing all the time.

I'm talking like a temple that blows at least 1000 talents and hits up artists from Athens all the way to Carthage, bringing in as much innovation and beauty as we can as a true Great Work in its own right. That's what I'd like to eventually see in a Grand Temple of the Divine Marriage, dedicated after we yet again trounce Syracuse or whatever paid for in part with a generous war indemnity and maybe rivaling the Parthenon or other wonders of the ancient world. A work of art and piety and engineering that will draw visitors for hundreds of years across the known world and linger in the consciousness of history for thousands more.

For context, the structure of the Parthenon cost about 700 talents and the statue of Athena about the same amount.

Yes, if we want to make a truly impressive monument to the Divine Marriage, one for the history books as it were, that is really the kind of ballpark we need to be aiming in.

In the context of our circumstances right now, a late addition of a Temple of Artemis, the Goddess of the people who we went to war to save, makes sense as a really clever turnaround to turn our impiety in pausing construction into an act of piety. It works really nicely together with building bridges.

The main Great Work here is the expansion of the whole Hill of the Divine Marriage, let's remember. Which we are doing, so it's hardly going unforgotten.

I mean. It seems like we can solve this with a simple question.

@Cetashwayo Can we choose to pimp/expand/build the temple of the Divine Marriage at a later date?

Dutch said:

I mean. It seems like we can solve this with a simple question.

@Cetashwayo Can we choose to pimp/expand/build the temple of the Divine Marriage at a later date?

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Well, obviously, but when you'll be able to do that and the scale of the expansion will be determined later.

The temple is already being expanded regardless of the outcome here, the Antipatrid option just makes it bigger and better, a truly notable temple in the region.

McLuvin said:

Except this is adding a single, normal temple, that was a massive specialised temple.

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Look, we are building literally an entire hill full of temples here.

Eretria is not such a supremely wealthy and powerful city that it can easily erect something on the same scale as the Parthenon or the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus as a single temple. That's okay. This is still a work in progress.

Stubbornly insisting that building one temple, specifically, rather than another, will turn the project into a success? Not a good plan.

The only option that explicitly allows us to export our own, Eretrian ideals and culture is the Divine Marriage, saying because someone else made a large temple to Artemis means a normal temple to her will be just as good as a Massive Temple Of our own ignored the entire point of what made that Large Temple of Artemis so effective and a wonder of the world.

They put extra effort into it, it wasn't the goddess alone that did it.

We want Eretria to be culturally influential. Artemis is not the path to exporting our culture.

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We're going to have ample time and opportunity to commission an amazing temple at future times. Right now we're still finishing the acropolis on which we can put the amazing temples.