Davos looked up at the trireme beside him and saw someone waving from the gunwale.
“Hey, Xenophon! I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye to you!”
“Davos, I accepted Anaxibius’ request and rushed to Byzantium to reassemble our mercenaries and hurry to Asia Minor. I never expected you to be heading to Magna Graecia already! Stay—let us continue fighting side by side!” Xenophon spoke earnestly to Davos.
Davos thought to himself, *That was close*, then shrugged and said seriously, “I’m sorry, but I’ve already signed an agreement with Thurii and sworn an oath to Hades!”
“Then… what a pity!” Xenophon, a man who respected the gods, showed his regret. “We can’t fight together anymore…”
“It seems Sparta is about to go to war with Persia. I can only wish you the protection of Zeus in the coming battles.” Davos meant those words sincerely.
“I wish you the same!” Xenophon said earnestly. “I was hoping to invite you to Athens to meet my teacher, Socrates. He would definitely be very interested in your novel ideas. And one of his students, my good friend Plato, holds views somewhat similar to yours. The two of you would certainly become close friends! What a shame…”
“One day I will go to Athens. By then I trust you’ll have finished writing the story of our battles in Persia. Don’t forget to send me a copy.” Davos only knew that Xenophon later wrote the *Anabasis*, but he couldn’t recall the details of Xenophon’s life—after all, in his previous life he was not a historian.
“Don’t worry, I’ll copy an extra one for you.” Xenophon smiled.
Davos vaguely remembered that Socrates had been sentenced to death by poisoning by the Athenian authorities; he didn’t know the exact time, but he recalled that Socrates could have chosen exile from Athens. Instead, he insisted on staying, hoping to awaken the numb Athenian citizens through his death. So Davos gave up the idea of warning Xenophon and simply waved his hand, saying, “Farewell!”
“Farewell!”
Who would have thought that after this wave, when they met again, the world would have changed so much that friends became enemies. The twists of fate are unpredictable and lamentable…
The fleet sailed on, and the Spartan war vessels gradually disappeared beneath the blue horizon…
Bourkos saw Davos still standing at the stern and walked over to ask, “Still thinking about your Athenian friend?”
“Xenophon is a man of talent and ability!” Davos felt a sense of loss. After all, Xenophon was the first famous historical figure to link this world to his previous life.
“It is thanks to generations of such talented people that Athens achieved its brilliance!” Bourkos said with deep feeling. “Even we owe a debt to Athens—it’s because of them that Thurii flourished as soon as it was founded!”
“Oh, really?” Bourkos’ words successfully piqued Davos’ interest.
“At the time, the two leaders responsible for founding Thurii were very capable Athenians, Lampon and Xenocritus. The famous Athenian scholar Protagoras drafted the laws for Thurii, and Athens also invited the renowned Greek engineer Hippodamus to design and oversee the city’s construction… Moreover, two distinguished Athenian guests moved to Thurii: one was Herodotus, the scholar who wrote the *Histories*, and the other was the famous rhetorician Tisias. Even the Spartan Cleandridas came to command Thurii’s military forces. Thus, Thurii was able to maintain peace with Croton to the south, contend with Tarentum for the Siris plain to the north, defend against Lucanian and Bruttian raids to the west, and strengthen trade with Greece to the east. As a result, it became a powerful state in Magna Graecia!” Bourkos spoke with animation as he recalled the past.
Davos listened attentively.
Then Bourkos’ proud expression darkened. “Unfortunately, Athens lost to Sparta. Now Sparta is the hegemon of Greece…”
“Does that affect Thurii much?” Davos asked urgently.
Bourkos didn’t want to say more, only replying, “When you get to Thurii, you’ll find out gradually.”
Davos smiled comfortingly and said, “Don’t worry. Sparta’s hegemony won’t last long.”
Davos’ startling remark immediately drew Bourkos’ attention. “Why?”
“Because the Spartans have started taking bribes.” Davos half-joked, half-seriously said. “Lycurgus created a unique system for Sparta with the intention of training every Spartan citizen into a fierce warrior—capable of suppressing the much more numerous Helots at home and dominating Greece abroad. To achieve that, all Spartan citizens were to maintain a simple, frugal life to ensure basic equality. Otherwise, some Spartan would protest, ‘Why should you have good food and warm clothes while I have to endure brutal training from childhood and can’t leave my barracks bachelor life until I’m thirty?’ So they closed their borders, banned commerce, banned the use of easier-to-carry currency, banned debate, banned drama, banned poetry, and banned writing or selling any books except those on military matters… Everyone says Spartan warriors are terrifying because Spartans have no other pleasures—fighting and killing are their only joy! But now that Sparta has become the hegemon of Greece, they have to garrison strategic sites and patrol with their fleet. Spartans leave their homeland and stay abroad for half a year or a year, inevitably encountering things they never experienced before. Cultivating a simple, frugal lifestyle is hard, but destroying it is all too easy! Once the fighting spirit that made Spartans dominant in Greece is completely eroded, how long can Spartan hegemony last?!”
Bourkos had never heard anyone analyze Sparta’s political system in such simple, vivid language—like a sharp dagger stabbing straight at the fragile core of the Spartan system. It sounded very convincing. He stared blankly at Davos, feeling a hint of awe toward this young man. Suddenly, he remembered the rumor that Davos was the “God-Touched One.” He opened his mouth, found his throat dry, coughed a few times, and asked, “If… if that’s the case, then who will be Sparta’s rival in Greece?”
Davos shrugged. “I’m not a god. How would I know?” With that, he looked up at the seagulls soaring in the azure sky. Thebes, Macedonia… a long list of city-state names flashed through his mind. For some reason, a sense of pride swelled in his heart…
…
After the encounter with the Spartan warships, Bourkos, afraid of further trouble, ordered the fleet to sail day and night.
A few days later, they reached Euboea, where they went ashore to replenish food and fresh water. Then they sailed through the Cyclades and rounded the Attic peninsula of Athens. Since there was no time to stop, Davos could only regretfully look westward from the ship, straining to see the Athens he knew from his previous life, though it was out of sight.
Next, the fleet passed Argos, carefully rounded the Peloponnese, and did not go ashore to rest until they reached Zakynthos for one night. The next day, they continued north to Corcyra, where they finally turned west, entering the Gulf of Taranto—named after the powerful Magna Graecian city of Tarentum.
It was a calm harbor. The damp sea breeze stirred barely a ripple; the azure waters lay as still as a smooth, translucent sheet of blue silk. Countless ships, like silver shuttles constantly weaving, created beautiful patterns on that enormous blue fabric.
The mercenaries, their bodies worn out from the long sea voyage, suddenly became excited at the sight of this beauty. They started laughing, talking, and roughhousing loudly.
Bourkos’ sizable fleet also caught the attention of certain parties. Several triremes with “man riding a dolphin” motifs painted on their sails approached.
“It’s nothing. Those are Tarentum’s patrol ships,” Bourkos said to Davos, just as the fleet’s lead ship went out to meet them.
“Have we entered waters controlled by Tarentum?” Davos asked curiously.
“Not yet. It’s just an agreement among the city-states of this gulf to keep each other informed, just in case,” Bourkos explained.
The Tarentine warships then turned and departed, and the fleet continued…
About an hour later, Bourkos pointed ahead and said, “Thurii is just ahead.”
Davos quickly grabbed the gunwale and strained his eyes to look: about five hundred meters ahead was a green coastline, with a white “ribbon” stretching from west to east, straight into the sea. At the end of the ribbon, countless white sails gathered like specks, and thousands of seagulls circled in the sky—but there was no sign of the city itself…
Arrival