Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Okay, that definitely feels like something that Eretria might spin up, with how relentlessly romantic the city happens to be.
Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
- Start date
- Original Alt. History
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- Tags
- 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
Chaos Blade
Procrastinating Writer
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ah, the four humors, never understood why with such a name a "theory" could be so not funny!
But how to make that nonsense go away?
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Not possible in the scope of this quest, full stop.
- Location
- Hell
Ritual human sacrifice
Or you know, give people a reason to look at and experiment with the insides of a human body. Which as Godwinson, not really in the scope of the quest.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Humorism doesn't gain dominant currency until Galen during the Roman Empire. Here, it is one of a competing number of theories in a period of philosophical efflorescence.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I like it. Refine it a bit to something you're happy with and I'll threadmark it as a sidestory and incorporate it in the next update.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
the fact that we made a whole civilisation of shippers crazy for romantic comedy is agony to me.
godsdamned Eretrians
godsdamned Eretrians
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
We are the Hallmark channel of ancient history.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
There is a practical component to the city's marriage obsession. It is one of the reasons why Eretria is culturally the way it is; because the city has an innately unifying spirit and tends to abhor division. Even the factions are seen as social clubs, not official parties or factions, as to do so exacerbates social and political division. Everything is seen as a series of relationships and unions between the city and its people, the aristocrats and the commoners, the citizens and the metics, the city and the league, the city and the Iapyges. See the explicitly familial language employed by Mnemnon about the Messapii which is frankly unprecedented except in self-serving rhetoric given by the Athenians and Spartans about their own leagues which effectively served as extortion vehicles for empires and in which any opposition was both functionally impossible and suppressed when it happened anyway.
In fact, the most popular use of such familial terms tends to be between a king and his people, as he uses it to convey his immense power in personal and comprehensible terms. For a city to use it reflects both its institutional confidence that a city exists as an institution beyond the various factional squabbling, and that it is willing to extend the bounds of empathy far farther than is normal for Hellenic city states to do so practically (even if rhetoric could fly high and even became pan-Hellenic in the 4th century BCE regardless of the fact that a pan-Hellenic state came no closer to existing before Philip II).
In fact, the most popular use of such familial terms tends to be between a king and his people, as he uses it to convey his immense power in personal and comprehensible terms. For a city to use it reflects both its institutional confidence that a city exists as an institution beyond the various factional squabbling, and that it is willing to extend the bounds of empathy far farther than is normal for Hellenic city states to do so practically (even if rhetoric could fly high and even became pan-Hellenic in the 4th century BCE regardless of the fact that a pan-Hellenic state came no closer to existing before Philip II).
- Location
- Canada
Well we could mimic what they did so there is a second library then.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
Is that why Pylonas wept when we agreed to the Leagues requests? Considering that they are likely more classically hellenic then we are.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Well, it was partly just dramatic flair. But there was honestly fear that they had overstepped and that Eretria might punish them for doing so.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
I mean, the Ekklesia I think, has a habit of, if you are asking for greater privilege, or are asking for things in general, as long as you have a reason, and its a reasonable reason, and a reasonable thing to ask, we take your argument seriously.
Otherwise, we would just say no. I don't know how other polities would react to a subordinate overstepping their bounds, but I don't see why a simple 'no' wouldn't be enough. I don't think the Ekklesia, or Eretria in general, has a reputation for spite and cruelty.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
The defining early-game event in Eretria's history is when we found out the Iapyges were conspiring against us and reacted by slaughtering all of our Peuketti slaves before launching a brutal war that shattered the demographic base of our neighbors. We probably do have a reputation as a very ferocious and bloodthirsty city when pressed.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
We shattered the native tribes to the point of causing permanent demographic decline.
Hellenic Leagues are pretty tyrannical. Subordinates/League members that gets too uppity can get punished through things like Sacking and then escalating.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
Yes, but that was a conspiracy. Pylonas brought their grievance before the Ekklesia. Granted slaves arent allowed anything to do with the Assembly, beyond perhaps cleaning it, but still.
We are generous to our friends and cruel to our enemies. Pylonas brought the grievances before us as a friend might, and did not attempt to twist our arms but allowed us due consideration of the issues at hand. I dont see how that might make them afraid we would retaliate against them for making such requests of us.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Because the balance of power is skewed heavily in our favor. They have no way of defending themselves if we turn violent. We could sack the entirety of the League and sell everyone into slavery and it honestly wouldnt hurt us that badly. They have little leverage and are entirely at the mercies of our whims.
- Location
- Space
The question isn't just what we would said, it is how they would react to it. If we said no and they decided to withdraw army or throw a Veto on our war with Taras i could see Eretria going out of its way to punish/make an example of them.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It really just takes two philosophers -- one to create an accurate map of Eretria; and one to add points on the map during the next cholera outbreak.
And, like, even if an Eretrian philosopher does come out and put down on paper "disease is caused by tiny invisible seeds, transmitted through contagion, and spread through contamination" -- we have no way of proving that that's the case until real microscopes are invented, and no way to turn that knowledge into useful medical advice.
At best, we can end cholera in Eretria. That's a lot -- but it's not really revolutionary.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Cholera doesn't exist in Europe until the 19th century.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I thought Hippocrates documented a case, which is where we get the name?
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
That's the source for the name, kholera, drawn from khole, meaning bile. But as with many later diseases that aren't present in the classical period there isn't any evidence of its existence outside of India until the 19th century.
One thing that's interesting to know is that the disease load in Europe actually went up considerably over time until the 20th century. It wasn't a constant; people in the 16th century CE had a lot more to contend with than those in the 3rd BCE. Pathogens tended to arrive, and then stick around, especially if they weren't so virulent that they burnt themselves out, or had animal reservoirs.
There are a few nasty bugs we see described in various ancient sources which may have died out in the interval, or could be identified with pathogens known to us, and it's the sort of thing historians of a certain stripe argue about. But they're greatly outnumbered by the number of really nasty diseases which had not arrived yet; smallpox, plague, cholera, typhus, probably measles, and others. Even malaria is probably not yet in the swamps around Rome right now.
This is not an incidental or insignificant thing, especially when you're thinking about how deaths from disease amongst armies seem to be less than you'd expect in Classical and Roman accounts. Not all of that was because the Romans knew how to dig latrine pits in straight lines.
There are a few nasty bugs we see described in various ancient sources which may have died out in the interval, or could be identified with pathogens known to us, and it's the sort of thing historians of a certain stripe argue about. But they're greatly outnumbered by the number of really nasty diseases which had not arrived yet; smallpox, plague, cholera, typhus, probably measles, and others. Even malaria is probably not yet in the swamps around Rome right now.
This is not an incidental or insignificant thing, especially when you're thinking about how deaths from disease amongst armies seem to be less than you'd expect in Classical and Roman accounts. Not all of that was because the Romans knew how to dig latrine pits in straight lines.
Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
Mission accomplished.