Volume 4: The League of Dionia, Chapter 34: Oh, Sparta!

“Shut up! Drag this Lucanian traitor away and chop him up to feed the dogs!” Sicinag roared. He could not allow Hemon to loudly extol the benefits of the Greeks here, which might break his people’s will to fight.

“Kill me? Fine! Davos, the magistrate of Daonia, is most protective of his own! When you attacked his camp, he annihilated the Lucanian coalition! When the men of Croton invaded his territory, he took all of them prisoner! If you kill a citizen of the Daonia City-State League, don’t you believe that tomorrow the Daonia League’s army will be at the gates of Grumentum!” Hemon let the soldiers come up and seize his arms, shouting fearlessly.

Sicinag’s face twitched a few times. He changed his words and said: “Throw him… throw him out for me!”

Hemon laughed inwardly. He had long heard that the Great Chief of Pyxous was a coward who bullied the weak and feared the strong, and indeed it was so. If it had been Acipirus, he would not have dared to volunteer for such a suicidal mission. “Don’t you want to hear the good news I’ve brought?!”

Sicinag’s hand, which he had been waving, froze in mid-air.

“What good news?!” the leaders asked urgently.

Hemon pushed aside the guards and said loudly: “As an envoy of the Daonia City-State League, appointed by the Senate, I have come to discuss the possibility of achieving peace with Grumentum and Pixis!”

Sicinag’s heart trembled greatly at these words.

“The Greeks won’t attack us?!”

“Great! We don’t have to abandon Grumentum!”

“Can’t trust the Greeks! If they want peace, why did they occupy Nerulum?!”

…

The leaders’ heated arguments carried a tone of relief.

“Foolish men of Pyxous, have you forgotten the old saying of us Lucanians: ‘If you hold a big stick in your hand, you don’t fear the wolf.’” Hemon laughed heartily. “If the Daonia League had not occupied Nerulum, would you have been willing to sit down and negotiate peace with the League?! The Greeks who love the sea are actually not interested in the land of Lucania at all. This place is full of mountains, the soil is barren, and the roads are terrible. Whether for trade or travel, it is very difficult. If it were not for the Lucanians always attacking Thurii through Nerulum, the League, in order to protect its territory from invasion, occupied Nerulum and blocked your southward path…”

The leaders thought about it, and indeed it was so. They fell silent.

Sicinag asked uncertainly again: “Are the Greeks really willing to negotiate peace with me?!”

“Of course it’s true! Why else would I come?!” Hemon said irritably.

Sicinag immediately felt relieved. He leaned back in his chair and said: “Is it that Nerulum is still chaotic, and you’re afraid I’ll attack while the opportunity is ripe?”

“Great Chief, you’ve got it backwards,” Hemon mocked.

Sicinag coughed awkwardly and said: “Alright, let me hear the conditions of your… Da… Daonia City-State League.”

Both sides had the will for peace, so negotiations proceeded very smoothly.

A day later, an agreement was reached: The Daonia City-State League and Pyxous and Grumentum would take the pass between the two rivers as the boundary, with mutual non-aggression; both sides could open markets at the border; the Daonia League could not support the enemies of Pyxous; if small tribes not under Pyxous’s jurisdiction or wandering mountain folk defected to Nerulum, Pyxous could not intercept them…

The agreement was valid for one year. Originally, Sicinag had hoped for five years, but Hemon refused, on the grounds that many in the League doubted whether the people of Pyxous would keep the agreement. If Pyxous used one year of good behavior to win the trust of the Daonia League senators, then the next renewal period would be extended.

Sicinag was furious, but there was no help for it, because he needed this peace agreement more than the Greeks did, so that he could focus on dealing with the hostile tribes within Grumentum without any worries, and then deal with Potentia, which had taken in Lussau. As for the Daonia League, that would at least wait until after he became the overlord of the Lucanians…

Before the Daonia City-State League signed the agreement with Sicinag, Avinogis of Laüs had already reached a new accord with the League: First, Laüs agreed to build the Thurii-Nerulum-Laüs highway, and was willing to provide a large number of laborers (in Laüs city there were originally many Greek slaves, mainly descendants of Sybaris, who had now become freemen, but Avinogis could not give them land, so they could only sell their labor to make a living. Moreover, the earlier Lucanians in Laüs city had either been killed or become slaves). At the same time, Avinogis also intended to provide all the funds for road construction. On this point, Davos politely declined his goodwill and finally proposed that both sides share the cost equally.

Second, without Laüs’s permission, the Daonia League could not turn Laüs residents who entered or fled into the League into League citizens, and was responsible for sending them back.

At the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese peninsula, there is a land that was called Lacedaemon in ancient times, and is now the region called Laconia. This land is surrounded by natural barriers: to the east and south it faces the sea, to the north rise dark and fearsome mountains, and to the west stretches the barren and lofty Taygetus Mountains. Its five peaks, rising like claws, are often covered with snow even in the hot summer. The small plain protected by these dangerous terrains is traversed from north to south by the muddy and swift Eurotas River. At the sea cliff of its estuary, within the red rock, lies the tomb of Helen, who once dazzled all of Greece and sparked the ten-year Trojan War. Going up along the river mouth to the middle of the river, there is a city without walls on its bank. Its name is Sparta.

It was a somewhat rustic city. Although it seemed to cover a large area, apart from the temples, the other buildings were all low and crude. Yet there was a rural tranquility and peace, without the noise of market vendors or the bustle of theater actors. At dawn, the people of the city would rise early. Helots went to the fields to farm, housewives managed household chores, and the men went out either for military training or to participate in government affairs.

The Council of Elders and the Board of Ephors were Sparta’s two most powerful institutions. On this day, both were simultaneously handling affairs concerning Asia Minor. For the extremely powerful Board of Ephors, Thibron’s arrogant words to Cheirisophus in Ephesus were destined to be nothing but a joke. The evidence of his dereliction of duty was conclusive. Moreover, envoys from the allied states in Asia Minor were still in Sparta awaiting the trial’s outcome. No one dared to speak on his behalf. He had almost no chance to defend himself before he was fined and sentenced: exile.

Thus, Thibron was to be driven out of Sparta.

In the Council of Elders, apart from King Agis, who was unable to attend due to serious illness and had entrusted his brother Agesilaus to temporarily take his place, the remaining twenty-nine elders all arrived on time. First, they discussed the aftermath of the city-state of Elis.

The city-state of Elis is located near the Olympia region of the Peloponnese. It had long enjoyed Sparta’s support in order to wrest the hosting rights of the Olympian Games from another city-state, Pisa. However, during the Peloponnesian War, it defected to Athens, and two years earlier it had prevented the Spartan King Agis, who was following an oracle from Delphi, from going to Olympia to make a sacrifice at the Temple of Zeus…

These events finally enraged the Spartans. Six years after Athens surrendered, they declared war on Elis and sent the humiliated King Agis to lead an army to invade Elis. If not for an earthquake, which Agis considered an ill omen and voluntarily withdrew, the war would have ended early in the year. Urged on by the ephors, a few months later, Agis led his troops to successfully invade Elis again, burning and looting, destroying fields and buildings, and capturing a huge number of livestock and slaves. Eventually, they approached Elis—a city also without walls—which trembled under the threat of Sparta’s powerful military. The populace rioted out of fear, and though the revolt was eventually suppressed, the city-state of Elis was greatly weakened.

Agis did not take the opportunity to capture the city of Elis. After all, it was an ancient Greek city-state, and as the host of the Olympian Games, it enjoyed a reputation among Greek city-states. Agis withdrew his troops and returned home, but soon fell ill.

After discussion, the elders unanimously believed that Elis, greatly weakened, would surely come to negotiate peace if it did not want to be attacked by Sparta again next year. Sparta must force Elis to allow the towns of Phrixa, Epitalium, Epeum, and others to become independent from its control, further weakening it so that it would never again be able to resist Sparta. If Elis agreed, then Sparta would still allow it to retain the hosting rights of the Olympian Games and the jurisdiction over the site of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

The reason the Spartan elders were unwilling to return the hosting rights of the Olympian Games and the jurisdiction of the Temple of Zeus to Pisa (since Olympia and the Temple of Zeus were originally within Pisa’s territory) was that they believed Pisa had harbored resentment towards the Spartans ever since Sparta separated the region of Olympia from Pisa’s territory a hundred years ago. Moreover, the people of Pisa had always had good relations with Sparta’s mortal enemy—Argos.

After dealing with the affairs of Elis, the elder Lysander stood up and said: “Honored elders, I believe you have all read the report sent by Cheirisophus from Ephesus. The Board of Ephors hopes we can produce a decision as soon as possible.”

An elder muttered discontentedly: “The Board of Ephors is becoming too overbearing now, actually ordering us around!”

Everyone present seemed not to hear. Only King Pausanias said abruptly: “That’s only because they have Lysander’s support!”

Lysander also acted as if he hadn’t heard.