Volume 5: The Hegemon of Southern Italy, Chapter 31: The Post-War Senate Meeting (Part 4)

The crowd thought it over and shook their heads. Athens might be the wealthiest, but it couldn’t offer its citizens so many benefits. As a city-state with a long history, too many vested interests, deeply entrenched legal systems, and traditional ways of thinking prevented it from achieving what the newly rising city-state alliance of Daonia had done. Even so, among Greek city-states, it was already considered quite generous to the common people.

“Can the Mediterranean power of Persia do these things?” Pleisinas asked loudly again. The crowd directly shook their heads: Persia was a dictatorship where the nobility oppressed the common people and the Persians oppressed other races.

“Then Daonia is the Elysian Paradise among Greek city-states! I believe that when the Greeks learn of the rights enjoyed by our citizens, they will flock to Daonia with even greater enthusiasm!” Pleisinas said firmly.

“Pleisinas’s guess should be correct. Before the war with Croton, the number of freemen in the port of Thurii had been steadily increasing… And after the war, we kept our promises, even allocating land to preparatory citizens. There will surely be even more immigrants pouring into Daonia. We must be prepared to settle them.” Kynogoratas took over the conversation, offering a preemptive reminder to everyone.

The crowd listened, both pleased and somewhat concerned.

“Now, allow me to add another right for the citizens of Daonia,” Davos continued. “I just noticed that when everyone heard Kynogoratas say ‘there will be more immigrants coming to Daonia,’ you all looked somewhat worried. Worried about what? I think it’s more about the fear that the Daonia Alliance will find it hard to maintain good urban order! Fear that with so many immigrants coming in, most of them commoners without education, once they all become Daonian citizens, the overall quality of our citizens will decline! It will decline sharply!—”

“Lord Davos is right!” Massisacus, the Thurii senator, immediately stood up and loudly declared: “There are already signs of this in Thurii now, especially at the port. Those new immigrants with various accents are rude and uncouth, constantly cursing, fighting, and brawling. I hear the port patrol has to deal with dozens of conflicts a day. Is that true, Kynogoratas?”

Kynogoratas shook his head and seriously corrected: “It’s not that serious. The freemen who want to smoothly become alliance citizens wouldn’t dare break the law and cause trouble. According to statistics, at most five incidents a day, and most are resolved on their own before the patrol arrives.”

Massisacus, having put himself in an awkward position, muttered: “Three or four conflicts a day is still quite a lot…”

Polyxides looked at Massisacus, his eyes flickering.

Davos smiled and said: “It is precisely because of these problems that my next proposal is—to establish a school in Thurii. After paying a modest fee, all Daonian citizens can send their children to the school to learn literacy, arithmetic, drawing, music, athletics…”

School?! The crowd pondered this novel term. At this time, the Academy of Athens had not yet been established. The way Greeks were educated mainly relied on wealthy nobles and rich people hiring private tutors or purchasing learned slaves to teach their children, or famous scholars running private schools charging high tuition and taking on disciples. But for a city-state to fund the construction of a school and collectively educate the children of its citizens—this was unheard of! Yet the senators were very interested; most felt it would indeed help solve the problem of the low cultural quality of Daonian citizens. So they stood up one after another to ask questions.

Davos was very familiar with schools. Combining his past life experience with the current reality, he answered their questions easily and naturally. For example, Amyntas asked: “What if citizens also want to enter the school to learn?” Davos replied: “Set up a special class for educating adults within the school, with curriculum and teaching methods different from those for children, to quickly eliminate illiteracy.” For example, Kynogoratas asked: “Children are of different ages and have different levels of previous education. How can they all benefit and improve in the school?” Davos replied: “Establish three levels of education: elementary, intermediate, and advanced. Children who have learned nothing enter the elementary class to start learning to recognize characters, arithmetic, reading texts… For children who can already read and have some arithmetic foundation, they enter the intermediate class to learn how to use words to form sentences, write essays, and perform complex calculations… The advanced class mainly focuses on mastering rhetoric, speech, debate, and calculating large amounts of complex data… This is to prepare for cultivating lawyers, accountants, middle-level officials, and other high-level talents for the alliance…”

The senators were satisfied with Davos’s detailed explanations. Even Kynogoratas, who rarely praised others publicly, couldn’t help but exclaim: “Lord Magistrate, I truly believe now that you have been favored by the gods; otherwise, it would be impossible to come up with so many brilliant ideas and at the same time have a complete implementation plan!” Kynogoratas’s words were acknowledged by the senators.

Davos smiled and continued: “I propose that Antistanos be the head of this school.”

“Agreed!” The senators expressed their approval one after another. In the Senate, the most erudite was undoubtedly Antistanos, a former student of Herodotus. Of course, there were also those who thought that Davos—rumored to have once been illiterate but having received divine revelation from the Lord of the Underworld and always appearing mysterious—had knowledge that was hard to assess.

“Ah? I…” Antistanos, who had been sitting in the back row lost in thought, was startled awake and hurriedly shook his head in refusal: “I can’t, I don’t have time! The Athenian Thucydides has completed his *History of the Peloponnesian War*, and it is said to be highly praised by the Athenians. But my *History of Magna Graecia* hasn’t even been started yet?!”

Under the repeated requests of the senators, and with Davos even promising that all senators would do their best to contribute materials to his work and that anyone he wanted to interview would fully cooperate…

Only then did Antistanos reluctantly accept. But he immediately began to complain: “Honored senators, it wasn’t that I was unwilling to manage the school. You need to know that just for the city of Thurii alone within the Daonia Alliance, there are over a thousand children of Daonian citizens! And Lord Magistrate, you just said they need to learn Greek script, arithmetic, drawing, music, and so on. How many teachers would that require?! The Daonia Alliance simply cannot find that many teachers to instruct the children!”

At his words, everyone immediately realized that this was indeed a problem. But Davos had obviously thought about it well in advance. He said unhurriedly: “The Daonia Alliance doesn’t have enough teachers, but other city-states do. We are in urgent need of silphium. We can specifically reduce tariffs on it significantly to encourage merchants from Cyrenaica to transport large quantities of it to the port of Thurii for sale. We lack teachers, so of course we can also enact a favorable law for them to encourage outstanding scholars from other states to come actively to Daonia… Don’t you think so?”

The senators seemed thoughtful. Antistanos asked eagerly: “What kind of law?”

“My proposal is… any foreigner who comes to Daonia to take up the profession of teacher, even a slave, will immediately obtain Daonian citizenship! But the prerequisite is that they must first pass an examination by a special body of our Senate to confirm that they have the ability to serve as teachers… Hmm… this examination can be led by you, Antistanos. However, once they have citizenship and become teachers of the alliance school, they must devote their entire life to teaching children knowledge. If they change careers midway, their citizenship will be immediately revoked, and they will be expelled from the territory! Furthermore, alliance citizenship applies only to the teacher himself; their children cannot inherit it unless they also take up the teaching profession…”

The crowd was moved by Davos’s proposal.

Antistanos, who had initially been indifferent about being the school administrator, now said somewhat excitedly: “Since before, Lord Pleisinas and Lord Kynogoratas believed that Greeks envy Daonian citizens and want to become Daonian citizens, then I think the shortage of teachers in Daonia will soon change!… I recall there was previously an alliance law specifically for doctors, and now we have a proposal favorable to teachers. Honored senators, doctors and teachers are two sacred professions apart from the priests of the gods. One heals the body, the other elevates the mind. I thank the Lord Magistrate for his foresight! And I hope to gain your support! The Daonia Senate has fully demonstrated its respect for knowledge! It will make our alliance not only prosperous in trade and strong in military, but also brilliant in culture! The Daonia Alliance will become a great alliance of city-states!!”

The meeting proceeded until dusk, and two more people indicated they had proposals to make. The senators had no choice but to ask the guards to light candles and continue.

The first to rise and speak was Scombrus. He first said apologetically: “I’m sorry to delay everyone from going home for dinner. I just consulted in detail with Lord Davos, Capus, Hieronymus, and others. I learned that there is a large marsh north of the city of Crimissa, especially in spring when it rains heavily, the marsh expands outward, affecting roads and traffic, and encroaching on farmland… I was thinking, could we invest a large amount of labor to fill in the marsh and build dikes for the River Lacoeli? This would ensure the safety of the territory, prevent the occurrence of plagues, and also add a large area of fertile land!…”

“You’ve just been elected Chief Magistrate of Crimissa and haven’t even taken office yet, and you’re already implementing your management of Crimissa!” Protesilaus joked with a smile.

“What? Do you have a problem, young man?!” Scombrus glared at the younger man from Amendolara, whom he had watched grow up, with a frown.