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Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

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Droman said:
So what I'm considering is we use talk no jutsu against Rhegion, Thurii and Taras by getting all of us against Lokri.

Preferably when we can pit Syrakouse and the Sikelians against Carthage, of course.

Thoughts?
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Honestly, and with all due respect, starting a war alongside the evacuations seem like a terrible idea. The only reason rescuing Kimay is feasible is because, after the Congress of Gela and the Battle of Pharos, Eretria is reasonably free of any pressing concerns and the greeks of Italy and Sicily are at peace for the time being. Starting a war would disrupt all that and potentially overtax our ressources between fighting it, since I strongly doubt Rhegion and the others are gonna fight at our instigation if we don't join, organising the rescue and paying for the great work, as well as making a mess of the very region we need to be in good order to make the evacuation work/limit any incidents that might occur in the process.

If we are gonna go and try to redraw the map of Italia to better fit our interests we are better to wait for the evacuation to be dealt with and then see if the geopolitical skies are still clear. Even then I remain less then convinced it would be the right move as having an hostile Dauni kingdom on our northern flank seem like a greater concern then poor relationship with Lokri and, assuming no other threat and/or pressing concerns emerge in the meantime, we should probably do something about the former before the latter.
 
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There's very little to be gained by having a war with Lokri. Cultivating their enemies so that they're kept in check, and ensuring the italiote cities are divided rather than united in telling us to stop winning? Sure, that's good. Orchestrating a war against them? That would just increase our perceived threat. And make their enemies start looking for a new city to hate on.
 
I have a question, which is related to something I'm writing. Is it possible for someone from outside Eretria to acquire land in the polis and then settle there? Like, say, if a merchant from Krotone decides he wants to live in Eretria instead, could he then just buy a house and then live there? As a follow-up, if such a thing was possible, would that make him a metic?
 
NuclearConsensus said:
I have a question, which is related to something I'm writing. Is it possible for someone from outside Eretria to acquire land in the polis and then settle there? Like, say, if a merchant from Krotone decides he wants to live in Eretria instead, could he then just buy a house and then live there? As a follow-up, if such a thing was possible, would that make him a metic?
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Non-citizens cannot own property in Eretria.
 
Metics are millenials, Citizens are boomers, it's confirmed. :V

What next, make them take loans to study in our universities?
 
Oshha said:
So where do the metics live?
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The vast majority of Metics are tenant farmers who live on leased plots as peasants. The ones who are not generally work in the skilled trades or in urban labour and either rely on long term employment by the city or a merchant or on their craft to make them enough money to pay the rents for their tenement housing in the southeast end of the city.

If Metics can't pay off their debts then they become part of the city's roving labour force, and is part of why the city can afford to be constantly building new Great Works. As players decided in a previous iteration, if a citizen or metic cannot pay their debts then the city pays the debt back in part and employs them in public labor to work off their debt. Given that Metics have taxes twice as high as citizens (give or take) and given their limited room to create stable wealth for themselves, they are often more likely to join this mass of public debt servants. The city's heavy and consistent expenditure in public works is the best way for metics to pull themselves out of debt.
 
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Cetashwayo said:
The vast majority of Metics are tenant farmers who live on leased plots as peasants. The ones who are not generally work in the skilled trades or in urban labour and either rely on long term employment by the city or a merchant or on their craft to make them enough money to pay the rents for their tenement housing in the southeast end of the city.

If Metics can't pay off their debts then they become part of the city's roving labour force, and is part of why the city can afford to be constantly building new Great Works. As players decided in a previous iteration, if a citizen or metic cannot pay their debts then the city pays the debt back in part and employs them in public labor to work off their debt. Given that Metics have taxes twice as high as citizens (give or take) and given their limited room to create stable wealth for themselves, they are often more likely to join this mass of public debt servants.
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So we're basically running an antique debt fueled prison industrial complex? :V

Though that's probably miles better than alternatives like straight up enslavement for defaulting on debt.
 
Nyvis said:
So we're basically running an antique debt fueled prison industrial complex? :V

Though that's probably miles better than alternatives like straight up enslavement for defaulting on debt.
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Well, it's not that horrible. As far as employers go, the city isn't the worst, and it sets up specific rules and obligations to the foremen that it contracts out debt servant labour to.

And because Eretria is still a growing city, wages are relatively high (we're not talking high in the modern context, just compared to more established cities, and comparable to Taras, Thurii, and Rhegion) and so most Metics are able to make a living. This was beginning to change and you were seeing issues cropping up with citizens going into debt and losing their land, but the colonial policy is likely to take some of the edge off.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Well, it's not that horrible. As far as employers go, the city isn't the worst, and it sets up specific rules and obligations to the foremen that it contracts out debt servant labour to.

And because Eretria is still a growing city, wages are relatively high (we're not talking high in the modern context, just compared to more established cities, and comparable to Taras, Thurii, and Rhegion) and so most Metics are able to make a living. This was beginning to change and you were seeing issues cropping up with citizens going into debt and losing their land, but the colonial policy is likely to take some of the edge off.
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I watched a video recently about how debt cancellation was pretty common through history. Do we do any of that directly? Or do our people think the repayment through labour is enough and we don't need to do sporadic society wide debt cancellation because people always have a way out?
 
Nyvis said:
I watched a video recently about how debt cancellation was pretty common through history. Do we do any of that directly? Or do our people think the repayment through labour is enough and we don't need to do sporadic society wide debt cancellation because people always have a way out?
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The city used to periodically cancel debts but under the long rule of the Demos Drakonia it stopped doing so because it was damaging the finances of merchants who felt that they could not securely provide loans. This led to the development of growing debts among farmers and smallholders, but in order to prevent growing public backlash, the Demos Drakonia made it so the city, and not the merchant, took possession of lands when a smallholder could not pay, so at least then they could claim a public interest in the matter. Then, when that wasn't enough, the Demos Drakonia started giving out public handouts to debtors and paying back their debt in full.

Chopak said:
What if citizen does marry a metic. Will their non-citizen child be able to inherit the prooerty?
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No, that non-citizen child is a Metic and can't inherit property. If there is no living relatives who are eligible the property will pass to the state.
 
Cetashwayo said:
The city used to periodically cancel debts but under the long rule of the Demos Drakonia it stopped doing so because it was damaging the finances of merchants who felt that they could not securely provide loans. This led to the development of growing debts among farmers and smallholders, but in order to prevent growing public backlash, the Demos Drakonia made it so the city, and not the merchant, took possession of lands when a smallholder could not pay, so at least then they could claim a public interest in the matter. Then, when that wasn't enough, the Demos Drakonia started giving out public handouts to debtors and paying back their debt in full.
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So basically, we removed it and ended up backdooring into reimplementing debt relief in a manner more profitable for the state. Ouch.

Cetashwayo said:
No, the two-parent citizenship thing is special to Athenai and Eretria Eskhata and maybe a few other cities.
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Ah so we crapped out and share the same nonsense Athens do. That's a shame.
 
Nyvis said:
Ah so we crapped out and share the same nonsense Athens do. That's a shame.
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It's a fundamental reality of the decision to restrict slavery in order to preserve distinctions between different kinds of labour and the cohesion of the citizenry. Taras doesn't really need as much free agricultural labor as they can purchase slaves and have a number of Messapii serfs they've seized and carted back in wars from Messapia, and so in Taras there's more of a willingness to allow Citizen-Metic marriages and one-parent citizenship because the fundamental distinction is between free versus unfree labor and wealth is more emphasized.

Which is to say nothing of Sicily in which cross-city marriages are becoming more commonplace among the aristocracy in the Sikeliote League; even if their children have a loss of status technically, their influence in their home cities means that they will sometimes be willing to grant citizenship to these children even if it's against the law. Just as in Athenai, the illegitimate child of Aspasia and Perikles, Perikles the Younger, was granted citizenship despite it being against Perikles' own law to do so. There is willingness to bend the rules in edge-cases.
 
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Cetashwayo said:
It's a fundamental reality of the decision to restrict slavery in order to preserve distinctions between different kinds of labour and the cohesion of the citizenry. Taras doesn't really need as much agricultural labor as they can purchase slaves and have a number of Messapii serfs they've seized and carted back in wars from Messapia, and so in Taras there's more of a willingness to allow Citizen-Metic marriages and one-parent citizenship because the fundamental distinction is between free versus unfree labor and wealth is more emphasized.
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That makes sense in relation to the tenant farmer Metics yes.

A bit less so for the skilled labourers though.
 
Nyvis said:
That makes sense in relation to the tenant farmer Metics yes.

A bit less so for the skilled labourers though.
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The Hellenic ideal is not being a skilled laborer; it's not having to work at all. Skilled laborers aren't very high status people in the city, even if they're more well-respected than elsewhere. And in this case it's a matter of the city's founding families and overall citizenry very jealously guarding their privileges and rights. It's not all economics, after all.

And even there, there's a money component- craftsmen metics pay far more in tax than tenant laborers and so are the main moneymaker for the city's metic taxation cash cow. Even more cynically, the tax load on metics makes it hard for them to compete with citizens.
 
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