OOC: Okay wow, getting a little aggressive here. I merely said you were taking the metaphors too literally. Also I didnt start the metaphors talk, I was replying to someone else who started using the metaphors as an argument.
So please lets not start the ''You started this'' bullshit and let the RPing get personal.
Okay, so that wasn't aggressive, not at all, if you misread that as so aggressive, I apologise.
But here's the problem, after accusing me of being aggressive you then miss what I said, to them accuse me of 'you started this bullshit'
Read:
You were one of the ones speaking in metaphor.
I clearly identify you as one of
several people, at no point did I accuse you of instigating the original use of metaphor or claim you were the only one using it, my main complaint was that you accused me of ignoring the realities behind the metaphor, whilst dismissing the argument I was laying out via my metaphor completely and utterly.
After looking back, and reading your first reply, which addressed not a single one of the points I put forward in my metaphor I then realised I had to go completely OOC and spell out what I meant, because you didn't seem to understand, despite having been willing to use metaphor in retaliation to someone else already.
Do you think that the Renovated Temple of the Divine Marriage is a pointless thing of stone? No it isnt. Its a monument to the glory of the gods which will spread our prestige. The Sybil is the same. Her presence alongside the temple will simply add to our prestige and allow its spread amongst our neighbors. For all across the known world understands the importance of an Oracle and take her words and her beliefs to heed, through her presence and her words and the able leadership of our deme our influence will increase so long as we work upon it.
This much is known. Unless you wish to say that the glory of the Temple of the Divine Marriage matters not, but I shall not accuse you of such a crime, for all here knows of your piety Ajax.
But I will counsel you to take a step back. For you now talk of dreams of Empire, beyond that of Hegemon. You speak of a path that will see us walk down the same path as the hated Medes, when their fleets burned a path of destruction through Hellas, leaving our fathers homeless. And then lossing hundreds of thousands of fathers, brothers and sons when the fury of the Hellenes united crashed down upon them. Already we see in Mainland Hellas the folly of Empire seize the Athenai, and now look upon them. Their Polis afflicted with the plague by the gods for their Hubris. Their allies revolt by the scores. Their citizenry and treasury bleeding dry in their endless war with Laikedaimon. Perhaps they shall win that war, perhaps not, but in the end Athenai will be devastated all the same.
That is not a fate I wishes for the Sons of Eretria.
An Empire does not build noble Ajax. All it knows is to consume. The Medes squeezes their satrapies until the stone themselves cry red with blood. The Silver Fleets of Athens extracts an extraordinary amount of tributes from their allies at the point of the sword, to the point that once might and proud Polis, with fleet footed Hoplites and solid ships to carry their will. Now reduced to famished skeletons who can only gnaw uselessly at their oppressors.
That is not a fate I wishes for our brothers and friends in the Epulian League.
You claim the Medes will run out, Athenai will fall, that we will be here when they are gone, you crow you victorious and self aggrandising, ignoring the realities.
Athenai, Laikdaimon, The Persians, all of them will be here when we are gone, just as they were here before us, we even now send a delegation because we are weak and need assurances we will not be swept aside.
You claim they do not build, but I Look at the great temples, harbours, cities and monuments they have made, ones grander than even our Hill, ones that we cannot yet match. And I name you false.
You speak of these Empire's inevitable destruction, yet they are older and more powerful than Eretria is, both old and new combined. You criticise their hunger, but is not that hunger already inside us? Did we not already break the Iapgyians for our own hunger? Did we not spill Illyrian blood for our own hunger? Did we not slay Tarantine Hellene for our own Hunger?
You speak of the glory of the Temple, of the prestige it has given the Divine Marriage and Eretria, where then are the flocking pilgrims? Even just across the Adriatic they know not of the Union. They know not of the matrimony if Athena and Apollon. They ask to swear oaths upon
Zeus!!!
You make many assumptions, many promises, many harsh words for those stronger than us. Yet none of them have yet been shown to be true.
You call Athens slave masters. Mayhaps, but what of Sparta, are you so quick to speak of their tyranny of their fellow subjects? How long has the League of Laikdaimon stood, an Empire in all but name, but built in the back of better kindness and cooperation. You spit on Empire, yet use only Athens tyranny, not its prosperity, nor Sparta's Hegemony for your words. And though the Medes are tyrants, they have accomplished more than us, I recall tales of our shame, forced to flee by their hand, forced to prostrate before them to beg for our captured kinsmen.
Never again.
Eretria has the potential to be mighty enough to need never flee again, Eretria has the ability to spread its good nature and strength across the Adriatic and Epulia, to create a Union Of Greek sons and Barbaroi servants that can withstand any new invader, wether they be Mede, Phoenician or Hellene.
I want a strong Eretria, so we may never have to leave our home again.
I want a strong Eretria so we may never have to beg and scrape and now again.
I want an Eretria with many friends and children and servants under its aegis, so that we can stand united under the light of the Divine Union. One Union, One League, One Eretria
