Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

[Cetashwayo]

Then I misunderstood how Greek religions work and will have to think further on my choice

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Well, I mean, to put it specifically, you should almost dispense with the idea of "religion" as we understand it. There is no single canon or theology for Greek religion. In fact, many Gods are only regionally popular. Hera is only popular on her own in the Peloponnese for example, and there are regional cults of heroes. If Greek Gods appear schizophrenic then it's because they often had multiple iterations even in the same city. There were four different iterations of Athena in Athenai at the same time, separated by their epiphets.

If there is a disagreement about how a specific God or Goddess is represented then that God or Goddess will just have a different local epiphet. For example, Artemis Amarysia, which the Eretrians worship, has a function as liberator-and-democracy-protector as well as huntress. Apollon and Athene, meanwhile, present themselves as a singular object of worship, whereas they're firmly separated elsewhere.

So you're going to get actual hundreds of different cults of various Gods, and some can grow in popularity and become very prominent over time. Dionysos' wine cult, for example, was popular across Hellas for its association with the outsiders of society- slaves, women, those marginalized by the ruling class, and in turn it was seen distastefully until the late classical era. And then in the Hellenistic Era, the Diadokhi, themselves crazed party fiends, re-appropriated what had been a God of Madness and Wine and Parties into the God of Parties and co-opted his image.

Furthermore, until the collapse of the polis system at the end of the 4th century BCE, all of this is intrinsically tied up into the polis and region. And so when an Epulian city swears upon the Divine Marriage, they're indicating their cultural commonality with Eretria, and when Kymai adopts it they're coming culturally closer to Eretria, even if they're likely to put their own spin on the marriage.

Another great example of this is Aphrodite. Aphrodite had a number of different epiphets. In Sparta she was a war goddess, Aphrodite Areia, and was directly drawn from Kythira and then from Kythira from the Phoenician Astarte (though it was just as likely to be a fusion as an outright import). But in much of the rest of Hellas she was either Aphrodite as mother figure (especially popular among the Romans) or Aphrodite Pandemos, the people's Aphrodite, who was the love-related Aphrodite.

It is fundamentally different from a Christian conception of God. The division between east and west was a division in rite, custom, and interpretation on a number of issues, and it could only have emerged due to the universalist claim of Christianity combined with the exclusionary nature of canon and dogma. Greek cults have no such claim; most Greeks have common forms of worship, common forms of belief, and common forms of ritual, even if the Gods they focus their worship on and how they interpret them varies wildly by region. By contrast, the Greeks were quite clear that they saw other Gods as foreign- the cult of Kybele was an early trailblazer that caused much consternation and anxiety when it spread west, because it was obviously not Greek and had entirely different rituals. And despite sops like the cult of Serapis, the Greeks weren't generally big on worshiping foreign Gods; it's why Selinous' worship of Herakles-Melqart is such a big thing and a major divergence, because it reflects the greater influence of Carthage in western Sicily but also the greater connection between Sicily and Carthage. It draws on an earlier archaic tradition where the west was a continuum in which Italians, Greeks, and Phoenicians freely mixed together, rather than the more closed off reality of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

Now the Romans on the other hand, the Romans loved foreign Gods. They loved them so much they would steal them. The Roman ritual of evocatio is very old and involved luring away the deities of the opposing city to the Roman side, basically taking away the divine protection of these cities. When Rome takes Veii in 396 BCE it also takes home Juno Regina, Etruscan Uni, and literally deprives the city of its spiritual patron. If Rome besieged Eretria and the city fell, they would probably head straight for the Hill of the Marriage and take home the Divine Marriage, performing a ritual by which the Divine Marriage abandoned Eretria and came to Rome, probably under a different name.

 

[Undead Martyr]

[X] [Motion] Phokion's Amendment. The Xenoparakletor will have one deputy chosen at their leisure and approved by the Popular Tribunal.
[X] [Missions] Flexible diplomacy prioritizing breadth and the ability to address multiple issues over focus. [2 missions from winning Demos, then ability to choose 1 more from the losing slates per term].
[X] [Oligarchs] Kymai must be made anew and bury old hatreds [+400 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, city may have more wealth and political conflict in early years].
[X] [Prophecy] A Tree of Stone, growing in a newly planted grove upon the ashes of ancient monuments [-250 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, -70 talents, Sibyl will go to Eretria Eskhata, Eretria Eskhata will gain an oracle and cultural influence].
[X] [Oaths] Make Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros swear oaths to the Divine Marriage [Cities will be unhappy but Epulian League oath will be preserved].
[X] [Lands] Grant additional lands to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros [Both cities will be granted new lands by Eretria and grow in population, both will be very happy].


I think I'd prefer to keep the oracle.

 

[DeAnno]

Aniketos the Philosopher:

I ask those that would send the Oracle to New Kymai to imagine a future. Eretria Eschata lies at a crossroad, with riches and victory down one path and destruction and ruin down another. The wise citizens debate, the clever strategoi plot, and the noble Xenoparakletor agonizes over the decision, but our way is unclear. Would you let the fates of your children rest in the capricious hands of Tyche? Would you make them go voyaging to New Kymai, begging for insight there?

I say that Eretria has done much and more for Kymai. We rescue them from danger, we respect their laws and traditions, and we even compromise dangerously on the world stage. Must we give everything to the children of Kymai and keep nothing for our own?

 

[Wellhello]

[X] [Motion] Phokion's Amendment. The Xenoparakletor will have one deputy chosen at their leisure and approved by the Popular Tribunal.
[X] [Missions] Flexible diplomacy prioritizing breadth and the ability to address multiple issues over focus. [2 missions from winning Demos, then ability to choose 1 more from the losing slates per term].
[X] [Oligarchs] Kymai must be made anew and bury old hatreds [+400 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, city may have more wealth and political conflict in early years].
[X] [Prophecy] A Sapling of Wood, growing in a primordial forest looming over waves lashing the crags of a rocky coast [+1000 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, Sibyl will go Nea Kymai, Nea Kymai will become a new center of the Divine Marriage].
[X] [Oaths] Make Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros swear oaths to the Divine Marriage [Cities will be unhappy but Epulian League oath will be preserved].
[X] [Lands] Grant additional lands to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros [Both cities will be granted new lands by Eretria and grow in population, both will be very happy].

 

[Simon_Jester]

(EDIT: OK this was very ninjaed by the QM)

We can also see it in the various Protestant religions which lacking a strong central authority have splintered into hundreds if not thousands of slightly different sects.

But as Cateshwayo said, that's not how Greek religions worked.

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Greeks- at least in this period- don't go around having elaborate philosophical arguments about the nature of divinity and whether God is One or Three or One-in-Three or Three-in-One or whatever. That kind of fixation is almost unique to Christianity and Islam, neither of which is on the scene.

The norm in Greco-Roman culture is for everyone's gods to sort of mish-mash together. For example, the Romans worship Mars, the Samnite Oscans worship Mamercus (it's Mamercus-veneration that's driving a lot of the activities of the Oscans besieging Kymai), and the Greeks worship Ares... and while the precise nature of the three cultures' rites are different, it's all the same god. A citizen of Rome visiting Eretria would see any rites we performed in honor of Ares as our way of worshipping Mars, and vice versa.

The ancient Greeks sometimes (not always, very not always) even extended this to the gods of other, entirely different civilizations, sometimes even having arguments about which Greek god corresponded to whatever god a bunch of Scythians or Egyptians or Phoenicians worshipped.

Basically, the Mediterranean basin prior to the triumph of Christianity in the late Roman Empire (roughly 700 years from now) was ridiculously tolerant. The thing that was distinctive and unique about any particular place's religion wasn't its gods, it was the precise manner in which those gods were worshipped, and the stories that were told about them.

For example, Sicily has a big cult of Hercules. Eretria probably doesn't. I bet there are shrines to Hercules and no one would think you were weird for praying to Hercules occasionally, but Hercules isn't Big Deal Religion in Eretria the way the Divine Marriage is. Sicily will have sacred 'cult mysteries' that the initiates believe in about Hercules- but those are property of the Sicilian Hercules cult. Other people can worship Hercules or even have their own cults about him, but it won't be that Hercules cult.

Basically, Christianity was the first widespread religion in the West that took the question "how can my soul be saved" seriously, and that made the penalty for getting your religious beliefs wrong- not just your actions but your opinions- something like "spend eternity in Hell." This made it very important in the minds of Christian religious leaders to settle theological questions, so that nobody went to Hell for getting the wrong answer. It led to the creation of the first...

Canon.

But we're 450-700 years before that time. When it comes to traditional Hellenic religion and the worship of the Olympian pantheon... there is no canon.

To be a bit deliberately silly about this, yes, there is no canon. You can write your shipping fanfiction about how Athena and Apollo would totally make a great couple and they meet cute and get married. You can initiate people into a cult that passes these stories around and has funny little rituals wearing weasel masks involving the Divine Marriage. And while other people may make fun of you a bit, they on some basic level respect your right to do this. If you can lend enough prestige to your shipping fanfiction about the Greek gods, other people will start taking it more seriously. Eventually it catches on. It spawns second-order fanfictions of its own, but they still on some basic level honor your core idea. And even if there are some other authors within the Apollo&Athena shipping community and its associated cult who have slightly different ideas than you, you're still part of this cool little thing-within-a-thing that is the larger Hellenic world.

In theory, your version of the fanfiction can even catch on and become everyone else's idea of what canon is; this is what eventually happened to the Athenian version of the Olympian gods.

 

[dontpressenter]

[X] [Motion] Phokion's Amendment. The Xenoparakletor will have one deputy chosen at their leisure and approved by the Popular Tribunal.
[X] [Missions] Flexible diplomacy prioritizing breadth and the ability to address multiple issues over focus. [2 missions from winning Demos, then ability to choose 1 more from the losing slates per term].
[X] [Oligarchs] Kymai must be made anew and bury old hatreds [+400 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, city may have more wealth and political conflict in early years].
[X] [Prophecy] A Tree of Stone, growing in a newly planted grove upon the ashes of ancient monuments [-250 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, -70 talents, Sibyl will go to Eretria Eskhata, Eretria Eskhata will gain an oracle and cultural influence].
[X] [Oaths] Make Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros swear oaths to the Divine Marriage [Cities will be unhappy but Epulian League oath will be preserved].
[X] [Lands] Grant additional lands to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros [Both cities will be granted new lands by Eretria and grow in population, both will be very happy].

Quick vote before I go to work. May elaborate later.

 

[Dutch]

Hmm. *Thinking Raptor*

Would the Kymaiean(?) version of the marriage would be a reversal of the Eretrian tale? IIRC the original is Apollo aiding Athena, who he found wounded on the coast. Given circumstances, one could interpet this whole rescue as Athena finding a broken Apollo on the shore and saving him.

I wonder how such symbolism would influence both cities.

 

[BrainInAJar]

[X] [Prophecy] A Sapling of Wood, growing in a primordial forest looming over waves lashing the crags of a rocky coast [+1000 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, Sibyl will go Nea Kymai, Nea Kymai will become a new center of the Divine Marriage].

Actually, I've changed my mind. I fully trust the decision-making capabilities of this wise ekklesia and I am absolutely sure it will make the best possible decision at all times; truly, it was foolish of me to even entertain such concerns.

 

[Cetashwayo]

The norm in Greco-Roman culture is for everyone's gods to sort of mish-mash together. For example, the Romans worship Mars, the Samnite Oscans worship Mamercus (it's Mamercus-veneration that's driving a lot of the activities of the Oscans besieging Kymai), and the Greeks worship Ares... and while the precise nature of the three cultures' rites are different, it's all the same god. A citizen of Rome visiting Eretria would see any rites we performed in honor of Ares as our way of worshipping Mars, and vice versa.

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Well, we can't go too far here. Roman Mars is actively worshiped as the ultimate representation of disciplina and virtus, but there's no Greek equivalent to this; all of the positive aspects of warfare are generally associated with other Gods like Athena or Nike. Instead, Ares is seen as a force of nature and not subject to much worship.

Further, they aren't actually the same God. While Mamers, Ares, and Mars share common attributes, their connection is a later phenomenon. Although Zeus and Jupiter come from similar origins, by the time we see iconography of Jupiter the Romans have already been fully Hellenized. We don't know how Jupiter actually was in Early Rome, but from the few really ancient Roman festivals and rituals there is some stuff in there which is very different from the Greeks, and it is only because of the obsessive reinterpretation by the Romans to be more Greek that obscures this. Minerva, for example, didn't start out as Athene- she was later analogized to Athene.

It's hard to emphasize enough that we have zero pieces of Romans writing about Romans until the 3rd century BCE. The archaeology we do have indicates a very different Rome.

Basically, the Mediterranean basin prior to the triumph of Christianity in the late Roman Empire (roughly 700 years from now) was ridiculously tolerant. The thing that was distinctive and unique about any particular place's religion wasn't its gods, it was the precise manner in which those gods were worshipped, and the stories that were told about them.

Click to shrink...

Again, let's not go too far. Until the Hellenistic period there are ethnic barriers to worship and significant differences. Even then, the average Egyptian probably didn't care at all about the worship of Zeus or Serapis by the Ptolemies, and Gods like Baal or Melqart were tied to the Phoenicians and Carthage. Selinous is an aberration in this respect and looked upon as odd by the other Sicilians.

It's not just all syncretism all the time. That's a very Roman mode of thinking. The Greeks were far more exclusionary, and opened up only after the central pillar to religion, the polis, collapsed after the end of the 4th century BCE. Citizens across the Greek world, disenfranchised, their festivals deprived of their former meaning, and their Gods increasingly subject to scrutiny or foreign influences, turned to other forms of worship instead. The rising importance and interest in the individual person and their autonomy over the collective also helped change religious patterns in the Hellenistic period and in many ways paved the way for Rome in this respect; the Romans were already walking into a more religiously fluid world than the classical period.

 

[Cavalier]

It will grow in different directions and ways, and have a slightly different flavor. But it will certainly grow faster because it is no longer just an ethnic cult of Eretria but a more general cult that cuts across cultural differences.

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Uh, no? I just said it would grow faster in Kymai.

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Look, if you want Kymai to be closer to you than it is now, then obviously you should pick sapling! You're literally getting a new cult center for the Divine Marriage. I'm not sure I can make it more obvious than that that this is helpful for cultural commonality.

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I am quoting because there have been a number of perversely wrong arguments that allowing Nea Kymai to retain the Sibyl will somehow weaken the Epulian League when in fact it is completely the opposite case.

As it stands now the Divine Marriage is purely an Eretrian thing. It has seen significant take-up in the small cities of the League that have long been dependent on Eretria. That is the core of a strictly Epulian ethnic religion. Bringing the Sibyl to Eretria will strengthen Eretria as a center of the Divine Marriage among those who already accept the Divine Marriage. At the moment that is just existing members of the Epulian League. It is known and maybe has a little currency in Italia, while its popularity in Sicily seems to have decisively crested in favor of an indigenous Sikeliote cult of Heracles centered on Gela. It's possible the Divine Marriage might spread over to the Italiotes and Taras if Eretria becomes a great cultural center, if we're willing to put off investment in other areas to address our cultural deficiencies, but then again it would definitely be the ethnic cult of Eretria so takeup would have a political edge that might or might not favor us.

The Sibyl by itself will also bring in greater contacts from the natives of Italia and perhaps give us a better idea of what is going on in the interior. Note that didn't save Kymai from being overrun by Oscans.

But as a consequence of the Divine Marriage being an ethnic Eretrian thing it does not have pickup right now in Kymai and will not have it in Nea Kymai right away. It certainly doesn't in Epidauros or Melaina Kerkyra. This is what makes me frankly angry at the insinuations that letting Kymai keep its Sibyl is just a pointless give-away to a bunch of ingrates who will try to usurp our League. Because right now the eastern Adriatic is not Epulian in any meaningful sense. It is not connected to us by culture save for Pharos and Issos, and we diluted them with settlers from Lykai. The Divine Marriage is just a weird Eretrian thing they're willing to pay lip service to because it is in their interest, but it does not inspire fellow-feeling among them. Perhaps that will change anyway, but we have absolutely not guarantee that is the case. And a Nea Kymai which does not have any cultural connection to Epulia and does not particularly respect or care about the Divine Marriage is far more likely to be willing to tug away than one which does.

So giving the Sibyl back to Nea Kymai is a way to integrate the new members of the Epulian League into a greater sense of common identity. It also transitions the Divine Marriage away from being the weird Eretrian ethnic cult into something with more legitimacy. Cetashwayo outright confirmed it would spread faster if we planted the Sibyl on the other side of the Adriatic. And after all, crossing the Adriatic is a dangerous voyage compared to hugging the coasts. The Sibyl has greater reach to Hellas (and our eastern Adriatic colonies and League members) on their side of the Adriatic. And I am perfectly willing to say there's an opportunity for it to spread further, because we've already had that happen once before with the way the Divine Marriage reached Sicily in the middle of a greater upheaval.

If nothing else Kerkyra and Epidamnos are in a position to reach for the Divine Marriage as an instrument of resistance to the Corinthian oligarchy and Athenian occupation. They'll be far more likely to do so if the Sibyl is in Nea Kymai. Given how unsettled Greece is, I wouldn't rule out further inroads either. People saying it won't eclipse Delphi are making a rebuttal to a claim no one ever made; but there are certainly opportunities to make inroads in the north of Greece where hellenization is still an ongoing process and a cult center like the Sibyl Oracle could have a disproportionate impact. Given the way that Eretria is also accepting of Artemis as a patroness of barbaroi and even more of a war-goddess than she was, we perhaps have a cultural package that can spread among the peoples north of Hellas proper along with the Divine Marriage.

In any event we're looking at trading the Divine Marriage's deep association with Eretria as an ethnic cult in favor of a broader religious and cultural ideal that can cross over the natural divides within the Epulian League between west and east, as well as Dorian and Ionian; and it might even open doors in Epidamnos and Kerkyra that will help us secure the Adriatic against Corinth for good, to say nothing of the cult spreading further and faster ultimately enhancing the prestige of Eretria as its birthplace and site of the marriage-hill.

 

[Professor Vesca]

Consider the names of the Prophecies.

A stone tree. It will last forever sure, but a stone tree bears no fruit, casts no seeds. No stone saplings will sprout at its roots. There will be no stone forest. The stone tree will sit there, forever, eternal, but unmoving, unliving. For it is not in fact a tree, it is a stone. When the people who built it have long since left this place, when they have all died and barbaroi dwell in their place, the stone tree will still be there. It will remain even when all forget who placed it there, and what arcane purpose it once had.

The other prophecy is of the sapling of wood.

It is a living thing. A growing thing. The stone tree will outlast it by a thousand thousand years. When the stone tree finally begins to crumble, the sapling will have long since turned to dust. But in its place? A forest. A forest of trees that will outlast even the stone tree, each one bearing fruit and casting forth their seeds from which ever more trees will sprout.

They are apt metaphors I think.

 

[Deadly Snark]

A stone tree that lasts forever is also a monument that will last as an imprint of our legacy for eons. A reminder that we existed and we ruled and laughed and lived.

A sapling can be torn off. Stomped down. Its leaves burnt into the ground by war long before it bears any fruits. And certainly long before it ever grows into a forest.

Do not be mislead by the promised of future glory that cam all too easily be turned into ash.

 

[McLuvin]

A stone tree that lasts forever is also a monument that will last as an imprint of our legacy for eons. A reminder that we existed and we ruled and laughed and lived.

A sapling can be torn off. Stomped down. Its leaves burnt into the ground by war long before it bears any fruits. And certainly long before it ever grows into a forest.

Do not be mislead by the promised of future glory that cam all too easily be turned into ash.

Click to shrink...

A sapling can birth an entire forest, which can spread and last for millennia if tended to by nature and wise hands, whereas stone can birth nothing and remains alone, until it is worn down by time, stuck in a single place until someone spends great effort to move it, even then, there's only truly one of the stone.

And you forget, a stone tree is just as capable of being torn down as a sapling, all it takes is one man with a hammer. When it is gone, it's destroyed, but if a sapling is torn apart? It can be regrown.

If we abandon ideas of future glories, then what's the point in our planning? What's the point in trying to slowly build the League into an Empire.

What's the point in any of it if we can't look to the future and plan for it?

 

[Void Stalker]

The oracle being in Etria though allows us better access to exert religious influence, in Nea Kymai we do not have that same level of influence and it becomes a potential competing culture node for the divine marriage.

Also the oracle in Etria will increase our interaction and influence with the Italoites if I read things correctly, something we have been trying to work on.

 

[Chehrazad]

Now the Romans on the other hand, the Romans loved foreign Gods. They loved them so much they would steal them. The Roman ritual of evocatio is very old and involved luring away the deities of the opposing city to the Roman side, basically taking away the divine protection of these cities. When Rome takes Veii in 396 BCE it also takes home Juno Regina, Etruscan Uni, and literally deprives the city of its spiritual patron. If Rome besieged Eretria and the city fell, they would probably head straight for the Hill of the Marriage and take home the Divine Marriage, performing a ritual by which the Divine Marriage abandoned Eretria and came to Rome, probably under a different name.

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Ironically, the worship of Uni in the first place was likely imported to the Etruscans from Rome, which means that Uni being taken home as Iuno Regina was more like a homecoming in reality, lol.

 

[Deadly Snark]

A sapling can birth an entire forest, which can spread and last for millennia if tended to by nature and wise hands, whereas stone can birth nothing and remains alone, until it is worn down by time, stuck in a single place until someone spends great effort to move it, even then, there's only truly one of the stone.

And you forget, a stone tree is just as capable of being torn down as a sapling, all it takes is one man with a hammer. When it is gone, it's destroyed, but if a sapling is torn apart? It can be regrown.

If we abandon ideas of future glories, then what's the point in our planning? What's the point in trying to slowly build the League into an Empire.

What's the point in any of it if we can't look to the future and plan for it?

Click to shrink...

You take the metaphors too literally and forget the reality behind them.

The Sapling is Nea Kymai, being planted in the Adriatic. A young City that shall have an significant population on landing, but with us excluding them from the Linean Laws, its growth in the future is limited. The forest involves the smaller polis around the Adriatic. The Fire that threatens to burn them is the Hegemon of Korinth, which even now rages to render our project into ash out of spite. Our hands are wise and caring, but in this world our hands are not the only ones which shall prowl about the forest.

The Stone Tree is Eretria. Strong and Mighty Eretria. Guarded by Stout Walls build upon the Sacred Treasury. Surrounded by compliant Barbaroi Vassals and their armies as our loyal hounds. Guarded by the swift Heirs of Eusebios. Shepherded by the Clever Students of Herodion. It is a stone tree the size of a mountain. It is the temple to the Divine Marriage, first build as a weak thing, but rebuild by us to be a towering Titan A single man with a hammer could never destroy that, it is an Sisyphean task by its lonesome. Impossible with the giants that guards it.

I wish for the glory of Eretria, for the eternal nature of the Divine Marriage, build upon a mighty polis and supporting said mighty polis till the end of the age, where none shall and none will come close to threatening it and where its glories will allow the glory of Apollo and Athena to persist. But a sappling out in the wild when a man with hate in his heart and fire in his hands is coming for it with an fleet behind him? That would simply not have the time to grow. It is hubris to think otherwise.

 

[Gworn]

[X] [Motion] Phokion's Amendment. The Xenoparakletor will have one deputy chosen at their leisure and approved by the Popular Tribunal.
[X] [Missions] Flexible diplomacy prioritizing breadth and the ability to address multiple issues over focus. [2 missions from winning Demos, then ability to choose 1 more from the losing slates per term].
[X] [Oligarchs] Kymai must be made anew and bury old hatreds [+400 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, city may have more wealth and political conflict in early years].
[X] [Prophecy] A Sapling of Wood, growing in a primordial forest looming over waves lashing the crags of a rocky coast [+1000 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, Sibyl will go Nea Kymai, Nea Kymai will become a new center of the Divine Marriage].
[X] [Oaths] Make Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros swear oaths to the Divine Marriage [Cities will be unhappy but Epulian League oath will be preserved].
[X] [Lands] Grant additional lands to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros [Both cities will be granted new lands by Eretria and grow in population, both will be very happy].

I've actually been swayed back and forth between Wood and Stone since shortly after the update. It's really hard to decide. People have made really good arguments for both sides. I'm going with Wood (for now).

 

[Dutch]

The oracle being in Etria though allows us better access to exert religious influence, in Nea Kymai we do not have that same level of influence and it becomes a potential competing culture node for the divine marriage.

Click to shrink...

Did you just miss the thing about how Greek religion works?

 

[McLuvin]

You take the metaphors too literally and forget the reality behind them.

The Sapling is Nea Kymai, being planted in the Adriatic. A young City that shall have an significant population on landing, but with us excluding them from the Linean Laws, its growth in the future is limited. The forest involves the smaller polis around the Adriatic. The Fire that threatens to burn them is the Hegemon of Korinth, which even now rages to render our project into ash out of spite. Our hands are wise and caring, but in this world our hands are not the only ones which shall prowl about the forest.

The Stone Tree is Eretria. Strong and Mighty Eretria. Guarded by Stout Walls build upon the Sacred Treasury. Surrounded by compliant Barbaroi Vassals and their armies as our loyal hounds. Guarded by the swift Heirs of Eusebios. Shepherded by the Clever Students of Herodion. It is a stone tree the size of a mountain. It is the temple to the Divine Marriage, first build as a weak thing, but rebuild by us to be a towering Titan A single man with a hammer could never destroy that, it is an Sisyphean task by its lonesome. Impossible with the giants that guards it.

I wish for the glory of Eretria, for the eternal nature of the Divine Marriage, build upon a mighty polis and supporting said mighty polis till the end of the age, where none shall and none will come close to threatening it and where its glories will allow the glory of Apollo and Athena to persist. But a sappling out in the wild when a man with hate in his heart and fire in his hands is coming for it with an fleet behind him? That would simply not have the time to grow. It is hubris to think otherwise.

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You were one of the ones speaking in metaphor.

You want to hear what I meant? You want to understand what it all meant?

Okay.

The Divine Marriage is an Epulian thing, and not even a major Epulian thing, the other Epulian states don't revere it nearly as much as we do. We literally just saw that the oaths we rely on to make a shared cultural bond? Means didily squat over there. They don't even know what the Divine Marriage is. Said Marriage has also lost its influence in Sicily.

Now you can sit there and speak constantly on its 'glory' but the truth of the matter is, Leagues are built on religion historically, and culture and politics and religion are closely bound here in this period. If we do not spread the Divine Marriage, it will be less effective as the tool to bind together our Empire.

If we want to spread, if we want to prosper as a large polity, a United Polity, we need to create a united culture, and Nea Kymai exporting the Divine Marriage and Eretrian Style cults to the area our future Empire will partly be based is absolutely crucial.

You want the glory of a city state.

I want the glory of a United Empire.

And I know which one will truly leave a mark on history, more permanent than any mere stone.

 

[Void Stalker]

Did you just miss the thing about how Greek religion works?

Click to shrink...

That with the Oracle are status as center of the divine union cult is enhanced, and our ability to use that to influence other areas that follow the Divine Union cult are increased.

Nea Kymai spreads the cult further, but our ability to use our influence where the cult has spread is greater if we have the Oracle in Etria as that is a powerful influence in and of itself.

 

[cokerpilot]

[x] [Motion] Leander's Amendment. The Xenoparakletor will have two deputies explicitly subordinate to them drawn from the two losing candidates.
[X] [Missions] Flexible diplomacy prioritizing breadth and the ability to address multiple issues over focus. [2 missions from winning Demos, then ability to choose 1 more from the losing slates per term].
[x] [Oligarchs] Kymai must be made anew and bury old hatreds [+400 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, city may have more wealth and political conflict in early years].
[x] [Prophecy] A Sapling of Wood, growing in a primordial forest looming over waves lashing the crags of a rocky coast [+1000 Kymaians go to Nea Kymai, Sibyl will go Nea Kymai, Nea Kymai will become a new center of the Divine Marriage].
[x] [Oaths] Make Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros swear oaths to the Divine Marriage [Cities will be unhappy but Epulian League oath will be preserved].
[x] [Lands] Grant additional lands to Melaina Kerkyra and Epidauros [Both cities will be granted new lands by Eretria and grow in population, both will be very happy].

 

[Deadly Snark]

You were one of the ones speaking in metaphor.

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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.

The Divine Marriage is an Epulia thing, and not even a major Epulia thing, the other Epulia states don't revere it nearly as much as we do. We literally just saw that the oaths we really ok to make a shared cultural bond? Means didily squat over there. They don't even know what the Divine Marriage is. Said Marriage also lost its influence in Sicily.

Now you can sit there and speak constantly on its 'glory' but the truth of the matter is, Leagues are built on religion mainly, and culture and politics and religion are closely bound here in this period. If we do not spread the Divine Marriage, it will be less effective as the tool to bind together our Empire.

If we want to spread, if we want to prosper as a large polity, a United Polity, we need to create a united culture, and Nea Kymai exporting the Divine Marriage and Eretrian Style cults to the area our future empire will partly be based is absolutely crucial.

You want the glory of a city state.

I want the glory of a United Empire.

And I know which one will truly leave a mark on history, more permanent than any mere stone.

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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 shall 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, to oppress and to diminish. The Medes squeezes their satrapies until the stone themselves cry red with blood and finally shatters. The Silver Fleets of Athens extracts an extraordinary amount of tributes from their allies at the point of the sword, such it is that that once mighty and proud cities, with swift-footed Hoplites and solid ships to carry their will. Now are 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.

Eretria is a Polis that is respectful, that is generous, which is filled with compassion. I will not throw that away to chase the fools dream of Empire.

 

[gutza1]

Honestly, the Classical Period of Greece was unique just because of how nationalistic it was compared to other periods and other locations across the globe. In few other areas did people have such a strong notion of "belonging" to a certain "tribe," and the cohesiveness of institutions within said tribe. One of the reasons why both the Roman Empire and Christianity were revolutionary to the ancient world was that they transcended previous ethnic and national boundaries and united millions behind shared values and a shared identification. In some ways, it can be argued that Roman and Medieval Europe were its most "internationalist" periods, especially compared to the preceding eras of city-states and tribes, and the following eras of the rising absolutist nation-state.

 

[dontpressenter]

The oracle had seen a prophecy about the future in her secret tablets. There was a single tablet shattered in two, containing two versions of the future which had not yet come to pass; a point where the cords of fates went in two directions. One half described a city which was destined to become great, and become known across the world. It was a city that had a tree of stone in its center, situated in a grove of trees. This was interpreted by the Grand Mantis to be Eretria. The Sibyl had come to the grove, and lived there for the rest of her life, and the tablet would merge once more, and from it would grow a cult not of Apollon but Apollon and Athene. In the second half of the tablet, the tablet described a city that had not yet been born, but would rise to power on the waves. It was a city that had a sapling of wood growing among an ancient forest on a rocky shore, and this was interpreted as the harbour of the Daorsi. The Sibyl had come to the harbour, and brought Apollon and Athene with her, and with it, a powerful new cult which would spread across the Adriatic.

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Come now, let us not misrepresent what was said. The stone tree is hardly a decaying relic, but rather a part of a grove of trees, nurtured and protected. The sapling, too, is not not alone, but is joining a wild and ancient forest. Both have their good sides and bad, and neither are clearly 'worse' than the other.

I simply view this choice thus. Do I wish to spread the cult of the Divine Marriage, or do I want to elevate Eretria to an even higher excellence? Of course, the polis and the marriage are closely bound. Elevating Eretria will spread the divine marriage, and spreading the divine marriage will elevate Eretria. The reason I wish to have the Sybil not be just of Kymai, but of Eretria as well is...

I truly believe Eretria is destined to become great, and become known across the world. I truly believe this, if only if it would choose it. That is why I have to choose the first destiny over the second. How great is Eretria's generosity, that it would forsake its destiny so that it would let an unborn polis rise to power on her waves!

Yes, Eretria's generosity is great, and it is part of what makes it great. But if we cannot do what is good for us, then soon we won't be good for anybody. Let our generosity not neglect our children, or our children's children, or our descendants after that.

For the chance of having a Sybil of Eretria will not come again.

Thus says Heliodoros, son of Giorgios.

 

[fasquardon]

there are certainly opportunities to make inroads in the north of Greece where hellenization is still an ongoing process and a cult center like the Sibyl Oracle could have a disproportionate impact.

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In the here-and-now, you aren't talking about Greece, you're talking about Illyria.

Also the oracle in Etria will increase our interaction and influence with the Italoites if I read things correctly, something we have been trying to work on.

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If that's so it turns me more against the option. I'm not a fan of these ideas of becoming hegemon of Italia. Or even going far out of our way to boost our prestige among the Italiotes. In my view, our focus should be on the Adriatic. Dominate the Adriatic and we'll have the wealth and power that we MUST be respected. Get drawn too deeply into the games between the other Greek cities, and we'll draw jealous eyes against us that will work harder to oppose us the more successful we are.

I wish for the glory of Eretria, for the eternal nature of the Divine Marriage, build upon a mighty polis and supporting said mighty polis till the end of the age, where none shall and none will come close to threatening it and where its glories will allow the glory of Apollo and Athena to persist. But a sappling out in the wild when a man with hate in his heart and fire in his hands is coming for it with an fleet behind him? That would simply not have the time to grow. It is hubris to think otherwise.

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On the other hand, our best path to building up the naval power to tackle Korinthos head on is to have more colonies with decent fleets. So you want to turn away from such investments in actually being able to tackle Korinthos and turn towards vanity projects?

Yeah, look, there are arguments in favour of the oracle coming to Eretria, but this really isn't one of them.

I want the glory of a United Empire.

And I know which one will truly leave a mark on history, more permanent than any mere stone.

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Rome and Macedon are about to demonstrate why unified foreign policies are a must in this time period. Eretria actually doesn't have much time to evolve away from the city-state model before the swamp hicks - or something like them - comes to wreck our faces.

Look at the history of the Samnite wars. Rome spends like 40 years fighting both the Etruscans and the Samnites (though at the end, they're so successful that basically everyone in Italy except the Greeks in the south unite to fight against them) - so why are they the Samnite wars instead of the Etruscan wars? The Etruscans were richer, had the greater population - but at no point do the Etruscan cities ever effectively work together. So Rome just picks them off one by one. The Samnites, by contrast, despite being a tribal hill people, had an effective system for uniting all the tribes under a unified leadership in times of war. So the Samnite league are the ones who organize the other peoples of Italy against the Romans.

The Samnite example also shows why we don't need to copy Macedon or Rome and become an imperialist state, so long as the Eretrian league can do focused foreign policy, the rest of the systems can work in a wide variety of ways.

That with the Oracle are status as center of the divine union cult is enhanced, and our ability to use that to influence other areas that follow the Divine Union cult are increased.

Nea Kymai spreads the cult further, but our ability to use our influence where the cult has spread is greater if we have the Oracle in Etria as that is a powerful influence in and of itself.

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We already have pretty near total ability to influence the cult that currently only really exists in Eretria.

Well, I mean, to put it specifically, you should almost dispense with the idea of "religion" as we understand it.

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To put it mildly.

The Nicean branches of Christianity really embraced Platonism. As far as I am aware, applying Platonism in this way was also unique to Christianity at the time. The man himself, if he's even alive in this alternate history, is currently 5 years old or thereabouts at best - at worst he's going to be born this year. So not only is there no Plato the philosopher yet, there's no Platonism since many philosophers added to his work during the 800 years between when the game is set and the emergence of Christianity in a recognizable form. (Including many Christian philosophers, who generally don't get the respect they deserve since Voltaire and his mates made up that whole "dark ages" bunkum.)

Or to put it another way, we're more than 800 years away from the logical framework that people in the West use to think about religion. Applying modern ideas about these things to Greek religion isn't just wrong, it is wildly and hilariously wrong.

So yeah. That's a thing.

fasquardon