- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Accidental X Wonder of the World? And assured inconvenience to the besieged city that will last for decades if not centuries. And bragging that we can build a mountain?
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Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
- Start date
- Original Alt. History
-
- 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
Accidental X Wonder of the World? And assured inconvenience to the besieged city that will last for decades if not centuries. And bragging that we can build a mountain?
dontpressenter
Irrational Philosopher
- Location
- An alternate universe not unlike our own...
Oh, that Hermesdora. What will he think of next?
- Location
- Austria
We can't though. Look at the project of increasing hill height for temples, and consider that it utilizes manpower of the whole city, is done on friendly territory with no logistical line at all and still takes up massive funds and time.
What you are proposing is essentially impossible in any siege, and project of such magnitude would probably take decade(s) at home soil. If there were a point in doing it, and there isn't, I think.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Its only taking up time and funds because we're making sure the hill doesn't landslide into town. And we are moving structures off the hill before we add more soil to it, and move the structures back to the hill.
An artificial siege hill landsliding? Just make sure landslides occur in the city's direction. Besides, we are burying them alive! Landslides are a feature.
Where to get the soil? Why there are all the plowed soil right there ready to be used to bury the enemy city alive. Doing this also makes sure they can't farm ever again if all the loam is outside their walls, landsliding into the city every time it rains.
And for the bragging right of we can make a mountain.
@Cetashwayo a thing about the map.
On the island of Ischia there is a town called Aknaria. I don't know where have you taken the name, but that town is called Aenaria, a Roman colony famous for the production of manufactured goods and foundries.And Aenaria was also the name used by Romans for the entire island. But the roman town of Aenaria was founded probably much later, because the first "colony" on Ischia was a greek trading center called Pithecusae or Pithekoussai, inhabited both by Greeks and Etruscans, and famous for the processing of gold Pithecusa - Wikipedia (fun fact, the name means "inhabited by monkeys")
In this town we found also the Nestor's cup Nestor's Cup - Wikipedia , proving the importance of the trading center.
Another thing, also in Campania there is another greek colony called Dikaiarchia or Dikaiarchea (modern Pozzuoli) on the west of Neapolis, founded by political refugees from Samos, and conquered by Samnites 10 years after the current year of this quest. We have few information about the colony itself, the town became more important as a Roman town much later.
Source of my autism: I am from Neapolis and I love the small histories of my region lol
On the island of Ischia there is a town called Aknaria. I don't know where have you taken the name, but that town is called Aenaria, a Roman colony famous for the production of manufactured goods and foundries.And Aenaria was also the name used by Romans for the entire island. But the roman town of Aenaria was founded probably much later, because the first "colony" on Ischia was a greek trading center called Pithecusae or Pithekoussai, inhabited both by Greeks and Etruscans, and famous for the processing of gold Pithecusa - Wikipedia (fun fact, the name means "inhabited by monkeys")
In this town we found also the Nestor's cup Nestor's Cup - Wikipedia , proving the importance of the trading center.
Another thing, also in Campania there is another greek colony called Dikaiarchia or Dikaiarchea (modern Pozzuoli) on the west of Neapolis, founded by political refugees from Samos, and conquered by Samnites 10 years after the current year of this quest. We have few information about the colony itself, the town became more important as a Roman town much later.
Source of my autism: I am from Neapolis and I love the small histories of my region lol
- Location
- in the trash
I don't think you are appreciating how much labour, time, and energy it would take to make an artificial hill and then deliberately collapse it. And no, it's not just because "we're making sure the hill doesn't landslide into town".
If you really want to ruin the farmland, it would be easier to salt and burn the fields rather than embarking on an idiotic endeavour to literally dig up hundreds of fucking acres of soil and then transport it all the way to the walls of Taras.
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Himmelhand
Giant Sinkhole 2020
- Location
- Midwestern US
So I've been lurking this thread now for quite some time, and it has been a very enjoyable read! I need to delve deeper into the previous threads to get some more context on some of the older traditions of the polis.
One foreign note that I found interesting and possibly significant but didn't seem to get much commentary was the apparent setbacks of Carthage's Iberian colonization. If that becomes a more protracted situation rather than a temporary speed bump we may see Carthage turn eastward in a way we otherwise might not have.
One foreign note that I found interesting and possibly significant but didn't seem to get much commentary was the apparent setbacks of Carthage's Iberian colonization. If that becomes a more protracted situation rather than a temporary speed bump we may see Carthage turn eastward in a way we otherwise might not have.
If there is one industry I would want to promote it would be chain makers.
Making a usable chain is hard but at the same time stronger than ropes. I understand that it is unrealistic as even by the time steamengines were developed the inventors had trouble finding blacksmith skilled enough to for the parts. Not uncommen was that nails were to hard to make and iron chains are harder...
Making a usable chain is hard but at the same time stronger than ropes. I understand that it is unrealistic as even by the time steamengines were developed the inventors had trouble finding blacksmith skilled enough to for the parts. Not uncommen was that nails were to hard to make and iron chains are harder...
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
IIRC, historically Carthage's Iberian holdings were less "colonies built to enrich the city" and more "Hamilcar Barca's private empire built to support a war against Rome." I wouldn't be expecting the Carthaginians to be accomplishing that much in Spain at this point.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Oooh. Idea.
How about digging trenches from the sea shore into the fields of Taras, and let sea water flow into said fields, thus genuinely salting their agricultural fields rather than a ceremonial ceremony of sowing a few pinches of salt on top of a destroyed city? Or bucket brigade watering the fields within sight of Taras with sea water to make them come out of the city themselves if they don't want to lose their fields permanently?
Permanent Environmental Destruction achieved. No more Hoplites forever for Taras because everywhere around it is an environmental desert no one can make a farm out of.
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The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Or, and I'm just spitballing here, we could not do that.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Is it too much of an escalation?
- Location
- United States
@kilopi505 - Just to clarify for everyone here: Is this an idea you're legitimately proposing and think is plausible, are you just spitballing whatever comes into your head, or is this a joke? Because I cannot tell.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
The plausible one. Or at the very least making any besieged city think we are serious about doing so. It appears that one path to victory is outpsyching anyone we besiege into coming out of their walls to start talking peace.
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dontpressenter
Irrational Philosopher
- Location
- An alternate universe not unlike our own...
I think what's confusing everyone is that your proposals are going about things in a highly convoluted and needlessly difficult manner. The reaction isn't going to be "oh, what badasses these Eretrians be" but more "what are these idiots doing? I dunno, let them waste time, money, and men doing it."
And, though I repeat myself, what's probably going to be the best way to break a siege is good old treachery and bribes.
And, though I repeat myself, what's probably going to be the best way to break a siege is good old treachery and bribes.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Leukos the Accountant:
"OK, Hermesdora, I've got this."
[looks at one of the other men present]
"Hold my wine."
[takes a deep breath, starts gesturing in the air]
"Suppose that the wall of Taras is twenty feet* high. Further suppose that your hill is in the shape of a great ridge, a half-mile* or two thousand, four hundred feet long. This hill you have drawn is ten times the height of the wall, or two hundred feet high. In the natural course of things, a pile of soil that is made too steep will decline, earth tumbling down the sides until it lies at a certain angle... one might call it the angle of repose, haha. From the last fifty piles of dirt I've seen, I'd say that the angle between the side of the mound and the level ground beneath is, oh, between five and seven sixtieths of a circle. Let's call it six sixtieths... no, a little more, a little more than that and it's a three-four-five triangle."
"So, if your two hundred foot hill is the three side, then that means the four side will be two hundred and sixty seven feet long, and that's just the front side, double that for the back and you get five hundred and thirty four feet. We could shave a little off the front because it stops against the wall of Taras- let's say we can cut the thirty-four feet and call it five hundred. Pretend that a cross-section of your hill is a triangle two hundred feet high and five hundred feet wide. That makes it five myriad square feet in area, times two thousand, four hundred feet wide, times about half a medimnos to fill a cube one foot on a side, is six thousand myriad medimnoi of earth."
"Now, at our strongest, the army had six thousand, four hundred men- I think. The Messapii were milling about so much and coming and going so often that we could never keep the count straight two days in a row, I'm pretty sure at least some of the names on the rosters were just random fools, or the Messapii making a joke. Plus if you asked some of those Messapii to carry a shovel they'd probably accidentally beat themselves to death with the flat end. Call it six thousand men."
"So with six thousand men to move six thousand myriad medimnoi of earth, each man must move a myriad of medimnoi. That means you, personally, moving- imagine a stack of big amphorae, each of them big enough to hold enough grain to feed a man for a month and a half. Imagine the stack being twenty, no, twenty-one amphorae tall-"
[Leukos points to the top of a nearby tree, about fifty feet high]
"And twenty-two amphorae wide, and twenty-one amphorae deep. Only they're not in amphorae. The dirt is on the ground. Take the dirt. Shovel it into a sack, walk the sack over to the pile, tip it over. Shovel it in, walk it over, tip it over. Walk a mile or two for each sackful, until the job is done. Day in, day out. For... how many days? Most of the farmland is far from the hill. We'd have to do a lot of walking. Figure we could make maybe twenty round trips into the fields and back each day, and I think that's stupidly optimistic. Especially with- well, a medimnoi of dirt weighs about three talents."
[for reference that is about 170 pounds or about 75 kilograms]
"Work at it for five hundred days, carrying twenty loads, twenty three-talent loads of dirt a day, and I'm pretty sure we'd all fall over dead on the first day from trying to run the Marathon race and carry a man's weight worth of dirt at a time, but if we didn't, we'd be done, or close to it. After five hundred days. Assuming no rest, and no days off for the weather. Rain or shine."
"So. Five hundred days, laboring like a Hercules- and seriously, I don't think Milo could do even a day of such work, let alone you or me- but hauling dirt. And I didn't even mention the part where the Tarentines try to kill us, or the part where we're climbing up a hill on each trip, or the part where... I don't even know all the parts of how much of a pain this is!"
[sighs]
"I don't know about you, but if I were mighty enough to do my share of a work that big, I wouldn't bother. I'd leap over the walls in full armor and drive the Tarentines before me like Achilles drove the Trojans. They'd probably spontaneously combust from me flexing at them or something. If the whole army was mighty enough to do that, the Tarentines would be dead, if only because we'd probably have ripped the city wall out of the ground with our bare hands and beaten them to death with it."
Leukos the Accountant:
"Wait what why the fuck would you even-"
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Satar
Xetares, Third Redeemer; World Drinker
- Location
- Sesh
SKANTARIOS: And that isn't in keeping with the traditions of our polis?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Leukos the Accountant
"I think Hermesdora's taking it a bit far even for Eretria."
dontpressenter
Irrational Philosopher
- Location
- An alternate universe not unlike our own...
Look, my dad told me before he died that the best traditions of Eretria were badass beards, arguing about weasels, and standing on rocks.
Also something about how being the master of the mint was the manliest thing anyone could do. I admit, that one escapes me.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
Not exactly.
Imagine for a moment that our enemy was in possession of a brain of some sort. One that works even! Then, imagine why we didnt do that at all, or our neighbors, or Sparta and Athens? Even assuming that they were using a functioning human brain, and not an empty void in the middle of their skull, there was probably some sort of reason.
Some sort of reason...
I dont know, its an enigma. You should go build a giant hill of dirt at the walls of Taras. Get back to us when you are finished and let us know the results that the Ekklesia might vote on it.
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- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Ah. Now I understand.
So they can't threaten Eretria ever again?
I wonder about that too up to now. When I read about Rome salting the place where Carthage used to be, the first thing I thought was they must have either bucket brigaded seawater into the agricultural fields around Carthage or they dug canals at sea level to flood the area with sea water because that is the only way I could think of to put enough amounts of salt in the area in Ancient times. Imagine my surprise to learn that wasn't literal.
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- Location
- Austria
Eretrian liftocracy at its finest.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
...
Did you actually research the history of the city of Carthage? Carthage was one of the breadbaskets of the Roman Empire. It was the capital of the Roman province of Tunisia, and was controlled and inhabited well into Late Antiquity and into modernity. Like hell they would salt good farmland!
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- Location
- Finland
True enough. I do feel wealth leads to manpower and military might more than the other way around.
[somewhat tongue-in-cheek]
Both manpower and security are bad for anachronistic science though. [/s t-i-c]
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Leukos the Accountant:
"Okay, I know you haven't gone in for a lot of sea voyages, but you talk to sailors. Have you ever heard of Nineveh? Because this sounds like how you end up like the Assyrians. Everybody you've beaten comes after you for revenge. All at once. Pisses the gods off, hubris does. Not a good idea to disgrace yourself just to hurt your enemy that much more."
[The Assyrian Empire only fell around 180 years ago, so I imagine it was known of, at least in passing, by a fair number of ancient Greeks who were plugged into the Mediterranean trade network]