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the posters in thread are the real oligarchs
Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
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- Original Alt. History
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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
the posters in thread are the real oligarchs
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
I mean those Athenians arent wrong
- Location
- his hidden lair
Considering we've seen a number of would be slaves, Illyrian descendants, and otherwise impoverished individuals like Korydon becoming politically relevant how would you describe upward mobility for our citizen class compared to other Greek city states?
It seems like it would be substantially better than most with the demes acting as a support network, and our aristoi seemingly less interested in forcing and maintaining the gulf between them and the poorer citizens. Combine that with a substantial percentage of the poor being able to find constant work as a rower or a trireme, and it doesn't seem that bad.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
It's quite fluid. There aren't really many barriers to becoming wealthy that aren't practical as the official class designations are a census division for conscription and tax purposes, not a formal status with its own privileges. Unlike most other Greek democracies besides Athenai, further, all classes can hold all public offices, rather than those in the lowest class being barred (Athenai only opened up public office to the Thetic class, wage laborers, in 450 BCE).
Obviously it's difficult to just become wealthy in a pre-modern economy because much of wealth is tied up in stable commodities like agricultural goods and land, but you can still do it, or be patronized. The obvious caveat is that this all applies to citizens, and metics have significant limitations in their upper bound of mobility due to not being able to purchase land, which is the most stable form of wealth around.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Eretrians:
"ELECT the inspector of public buildings? ELECT him? And ensure that only men chosen and vetted by the elites could ever hold the position?"
[drag suggestor up Hill of the Divine Marriage]
"CHECK! YOUR! PRIVILEGE!"
[kick suggestor off Hill of the Divine Marriage]
...
Like, seriously, it's actually interesting to imagine a world where (for example) legislators were chosen randomly by sortition and the United States' legislature was just a random sample of 435+100 people drawn from all over the country.
Obviously it'd be a disaster if it were instituted ex nihilo, but with the right supporting institutions it might actually work better than the system we have now.
The birth of modern bureaucracy was caused by the surging power of the state and the growth of the resources obtained by rising productivity and technological innovation.
Bureaucracy in this era is useless, because administering a city... Is not so complicated actually. Sortition is fine for addressing all the problems.
Bureaucracy in this era is useless, because administering a city... Is not so complicated actually. Sortition is fine for addressing all the problems.
I mean the important word here is "formal" power since I believe that despite the best efforts of the Athenian their politics continued to be dominated by aristocrats and the wealthy for pretty much its whole existence. I mean yes there are exceptions like the famed Themistocles (who btw is an ideal example if you want to talk about marriage outside the original polis) but I think even he was at best lower middleclass and certainly quickly rose to the higher classes and at least in my memory he is very much the exception with the vast majority of important figures of Athenian politics coming from the higher classes.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
The power of the wealthy in Athenai is significantly reduced in the 4th century BCE, and we cease to hear of figures like Perikles with singular power in the city.
The lower class are able to wield significant power through the assembly, even if they are less prominent as individual figures themselves due to the lack of resources. Major institutions like juries and the ekklesia were dominated by the poorest citizens, and they could wield enormous power there, even if the formal realm of rhetoric was ruled by the wealthy and powerful. It is a continuum which includes, say, the middle Roman Republic, where Plebeians had their own institutions like the assembly with considerable power, but the truly poor were never in the driver's seat; instead, they influenced and decided who would be. Mary Beard has the right of it when she points out that although the Republic was never a people's republic, it was a popular one, in the sense that popularity mattered and leaders needed to curry favor and support from ordinary people if they wanted to remain prominent.
Well, now you mention it, all squid dishes I've had have been spicy. Some were rubbery and awful, some were yummy. But at no point was I getting pure unadulterated squid flavour.
It's worth noting that at this point even war isn't bureaucratic. Leadership positions are available only through election, birth or nepotism.
And while professional workers aren't inherently bad, Eretria would have to invent professionalism from scratch, and likely we'd muck it up. Because being the first to do something always means things are unrefined.
Sure. The Ekklesia rules over an amazingly small number of people at the end of the day. The population of our whole league doesn't even add up to the population of a small city nowadays. And the civic spirit fostered by sortition more than counters the weaknesses of any individual candidates.
fasquardon
- Location
- France
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- She/They
One of the most interesting medieval bureaucracies was Venice. Bureaucracy in large realms took a lot longer to emerge because it competed with feudalism. Cities can definitely reap large benefits from bureaucracy, especially if they're involved in trade and want to ensure they take advantage of the money flowing through them.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
In that specific case we would probably want a lot more than 435+100 legistators so as to reduce the probability of being screwed over by random chance.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Actually, when you randomly choose several hundred people out of an arbitrarily large population, you usually get, like, a really good sample in practical terms. Any deficiencies in the legislature would probably be direct mirrors of deficiencies in the public.
...
And the sortition's advocate would point out that any deficiencies in the public as a whole will tend to be duplicated in the legislature. A pack of uneducated fools won't necessarily vote in someone who is more effective at pursuing their interests than they themselves would be in person. They may do worse if there's an organized attempt to exploit the fools' votes demagogically.
Besides, a Congress chosen by sortition would hardly be less representative of our society as a whole than the Congress we have now, which is something like 70% "white guys in suits."
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sure, but given how popular jury duty is, can you imagine the contortions people will go though to avoid legislative duty
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
That's what I meant when I talked about supporting institutions being needed to make it work. For example, congressional salaries, while not great given the statutory requirement we have that legislators maintain two residences and DC cost of living, would look pretty good to most people- and further increasing them would probably not be so unpopular if literally anyone was equally likely to be earning them five years from now.
The vast majority of Americans wouldn't turn down "be a legislator for two years" if it came with a $200,000/year salary.
Of course, you'd also need things like FBI background-check level scrutiny to ensure that public offices were not abused- but if we wanted to have such institutions, and if there'd been systematic pressure to implement them over long periods of time, we probably could.
I mean, I'm not saying it would auto-insta-work-great, but it probably wouldn't fail as hard as we think it would, and it's not like representative democracy as we know it is free of failure modes, is the point I'm trying to make here.
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That's because you don't get paid for jury duty, or if you do, it's a pittance. Before governments banned it or otherwise made allowances, a lot of people lost their jobs or their houses because jury seclusion took so long that they started to miss payments.
If the legislature had a big fat paycheck, you'd probably get a lot more people who are interested in doing it. For members of the Canadian Legislature make $167,400 per year in base pay; if you're elected Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Cabinet or any other official position, you make more. That's in addition to any subsidies they get for living expenses.
Considering that base wage is already 2.25x the median income — that's top 5% for the population as a whole — the average person would love it.
People say that money doesn't solve your problems, but that's a trite cliche. Too little money will definitely cause and exacerbate many problems. More money solves it; up to a point, at least. After about ~$70,000 (USD) in income, personal happiness doesn't increase in correlation with income nearly as much.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Yeah, drop the digression.
- Location
- Central Europe
Here is something I wanted to comment on from before the deputy/bureaucracy/sortition debate:
In my eyes outright force-vassalizing the Dauni, like we did with the Peuketii, is a suboptimal choice. By doing that we would only make them less motivated and capable to resist Samnite expansion. No, IF we want to bring the Dauni into the fold we should either 1) Look for a credible chance to flip their leadership, I remain unconvinced that Salapia and Herdonia would have the required influence; or 2) Wait until the next time one of the Samnite tribes aims to expand into Dauni territory, at which point we try and take on a similar role as we did with the Messapii.
My biggest objection to an outright conquest is the amount of commitment such a war would create. It would probably take us 2-3 Exorian diplo missions to conquer, administer and boost relations until we can be sure the Dauni won't betray us, their new overlords, to the Oscans. While I could see it being profitable to just grab the territory around the salt lake, I worry that this would also make the Dauni see the Greeks as the greater threat than their Oscan neighbors.
@Cetashwayo What do we know about Dauni-Oscan(Frentani, Samnites and Lukanians) relations? How do the compare to Dauni-Greek relations?
I think the first question we have to ask ourselves is what do we want from the Dauni? We "force-vassalized" the Peuketii because they kept attacking us, now they guard our Oscan frontier to the west. We "diplo-vassalized" the Messapii because they needed to be protected from Taras, now they guard our southern border. The Dauni already function as a unwilling bulwark between the Greeks in Epulia and the Samnites (incl. the Frentani).
In my eyes outright force-vassalizing the Dauni, like we did with the Peuketii, is a suboptimal choice. By doing that we would only make them less motivated and capable to resist Samnite expansion. No, IF we want to bring the Dauni into the fold we should either 1) Look for a credible chance to flip their leadership, I remain unconvinced that Salapia and Herdonia would have the required influence; or 2) Wait until the next time one of the Samnite tribes aims to expand into Dauni territory, at which point we try and take on a similar role as we did with the Messapii.
My biggest objection to an outright conquest is the amount of commitment such a war would create. It would probably take us 2-3 Exorian diplo missions to conquer, administer and boost relations until we can be sure the Dauni won't betray us, their new overlords, to the Oscans. While I could see it being profitable to just grab the territory around the salt lake, I worry that this would also make the Dauni see the Greeks as the greater threat than their Oscan neighbors.
@Cetashwayo What do we know about Dauni-Oscan(Frentani, Samnites and Lukanians) relations? How do the compare to Dauni-Greek relations?
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
They don't have any relations. The Samnites and Frentani aren't organized states and haven't moved against the Dauni for more than a generation.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
As I recall, part of the dynamics that led to the vassalization of the Peuketii was that after fighting us repeatedly, losing their coastal cities and being driven inland, and then losing again a few more times, the Peuketii were so reduced in strength that they became more vulnerable to the Lucani, who started raiding them more aggressively.
At which point they were caught between hammer and anvil, and a subservient alliance with Eretria to avoid being pillaged by the tribes of the interior started looking better, I suspect.*
If we take over 'just enough' of the Dauni territory to secure our access to Lake Salpi for the salt trade, I suspect something similar is going to happen. Based on events before the war with Taras, we might hope/expect to integrate Salapia and Herdonia relatively peacefully as vassals, but there would surely be a war against the Dauni further inland- at least one, probably more than one unless the war is very decisive.
Assuming this goes well for us, the Dauni will be weakened enough to become a more inviting target for future raiding by their neighbors, who may start growing at their expense until the Dauni are either outright conquered and destroyed as a people, or forced to ally with us in self-defense. Either way, it ends with us bordering the Samnites, not with the Dauni acting as an unwilling buffer state- because the reduced strength of their kingdom/confederation won't be able to survive in that role while also trying to get revenge against us and against the 'traitor' Dauni towns.
Another issue I foresee is that large-scale salt extraction is proverbially unpleasant work, usually not performed by freemen- "just bring in more metics" isn't necessarily going to cut it, and there may be demand for more slaves or serfs among whoever is running those salterns. That could drive some ugly activity.
_________________
*[ @Cetashwayo , was there any fighting between the Peuketii and various inland Italian natives during the timeskip? I'm curious, if nothing else.]
At which point they were caught between hammer and anvil, and a subservient alliance with Eretria to avoid being pillaged by the tribes of the interior started looking better, I suspect.*
If we take over 'just enough' of the Dauni territory to secure our access to Lake Salpi for the salt trade, I suspect something similar is going to happen. Based on events before the war with Taras, we might hope/expect to integrate Salapia and Herdonia relatively peacefully as vassals, but there would surely be a war against the Dauni further inland- at least one, probably more than one unless the war is very decisive.
Assuming this goes well for us, the Dauni will be weakened enough to become a more inviting target for future raiding by their neighbors, who may start growing at their expense until the Dauni are either outright conquered and destroyed as a people, or forced to ally with us in self-defense. Either way, it ends with us bordering the Samnites, not with the Dauni acting as an unwilling buffer state- because the reduced strength of their kingdom/confederation won't be able to survive in that role while also trying to get revenge against us and against the 'traitor' Dauni towns.
Another issue I foresee is that large-scale salt extraction is proverbially unpleasant work, usually not performed by freemen- "just bring in more metics" isn't necessarily going to cut it, and there may be demand for more slaves or serfs among whoever is running those salterns. That could drive some ugly activity.
_________________
*[ @Cetashwayo , was there any fighting between the Peuketii and various inland Italian natives during the timeskip? I'm curious, if nothing else.]
Droman
𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍
I believe the state has the largest roster of slaves as far as Etretian slave-holding is concerned. So it might be good synergy for the state to assume ownership of the saltworks, funnel their slaves (current or purchased) there and then have a management team in place (possibly licensing that out to multiple bidders to prevent a monopoly attempt?).
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
The issue is that this is likely to be pretty hard labour and if you put slaves in it, the conditions are going to be awful.
The other option is to pay the people doing it well enough they think the hard work is worth it.
Regarding the rest of Simon's post, I think peeling off the willing cities and the coast would be a great plan yes. Gives us vassals more interested in integrating than one we conquered and as he says, the remnant will drift in our orbit once their neighbours start to prey on them. I like it better than just conquering them outright and having to deal with a big restless confederacy. It's easier to rule a bunch of separate cities looking to us for protection.
Droman
𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍
I'm not sure why this is an issue. We're in the Age of Antiquity, life and living wasn't exactly easy for slaves for the most part.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Eretria doesn't exactly have a lot of slaves, right? So keeping the ones it does have alive and relatively healthy should be pretty important. More can always be purchased of course, but that takes money which could be better spent elsewhere.