Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 123: Izam of Corduene

The Thurians were no longer angry at the moment, and they could only nod helplessly.

On the way back to Thurii, Kunogelata rode at the front in a distance, which made the heart of Nianses who was following him felt cold. He tried to stop Kunogelata several times, but he got ignored every time. He was able to become a strategos of Thurii due to the strong support of Kunogelata, who had proposed that he should be in charge of the treasury and trade on the ground that he was good at financial management and accounting. However, today, without consulting with Kunogelata, he arbitrarily changed the decision that they have discussed earlier, and based on his understanding of Kunogelata, this strategos, who has never been soft on his opponents, must hate him very much! What should I do? Nianses asked himself anxiously. He had finally become a city-state strategos and doesn't want to be remove from being a city-state strategos.

Kunogelata does indeed hate Nianses. If it was in the past, he might have made the same choice as Nianses, just like how he had opposed Friis in the city hall last time. However, their defeat on the last battle had aroused the fear in his heart, as he kept on waking up from his dreams countless of times due to the ferocious face of the Lucanians. After this war, he found his weakness, War – it's a very different world from politics. His political tactics were totally useless in this bloody battlefield, and what was more terrible is that, he found out that Thurii is just strong in appearance but weak in reality, and so he had to maintain the employment agreement even though they are having financial difficulties. As long as he strengthened their ties with the military genius, Davos, he believed that for the next six months, the alliance between Thurii and Amendolara will stabilized, but Nianses, a “traitor”, destroyed it all!

Kunogelata was angry, and at the end of the meeting, this idiot, who was only a lowly employee of a huge merchant have the guts to say to Ansitanos, “In any case, it's all the same alliance. Why the need to engage in employment and waste money?” He knows nothing! Can an alliance and employment have the same binding force on Amendolara?! Did he not see that the shrewd young archon of Amendolara wished that we would scrap this agreement earlier, so not only did he not refute it, but he even voluntarily gave it up! This political idiot must not stay in the city hall anymore! He must be remove!

Ansitanos was still angry that Davos refused his request for an audience. So now he was currently thinking on how to find a reason to come to Amendolara after the signing of the agreement and learn about the situation of Persia from the new citizens of Amendolara who had gone on an expedition to Persia. Therefore, he did not notice the irregularity of the two strategoi.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Davos came home, he thought of an important thing and pondered it for a long time, but he was still at a loss.

So he called for Asistes and said, “Now that we are about to sign the alliance agreement with Thurii. We must start preparing our plan for Lucania in advance. First of all, we need to know what is the current situation of Lucania is, so that we can devise a precise strategic plan and make targeted preparations according to the actual situation. But the problem is that the Lucanians have little contact with Thurii and Amendolara, and it is even more impossible now, so we can only send someone to scout. However, a Greek certainly won't be able to do it, because the difference in their appearance is too obvious, while I'm afraid that if we send those capture Lucanians, they will take this opportunity to escape, and they would instead, reveal our situation! Alas!…this is too difficult! Asi, do you have any suggestions?”

Asistes also thought about it for a while, and suddenly smiled and said, “Milord, you have forgotten someone. I think he is quite suitable.”

“Oh! Who is it?!” Davos was just asking, but he didn't expect that Asistes thought of a candidate.

“Izam!”

“…the son of the chieftain of the Carduchians!” That's when Davos remembered him. In Byzantium, Izam was in the camp of Timasion, and at that time, the Carducian had no value, so he just regarded him as an ordinary soldier. In addition, they were longing for the future and the morale of the troops were fluctuating, so no one cared about his movements. It's just that Davos vaguely remembers someone saying to him that Izam later joined his mercenaries, in the company of Hieronymus. Now that he thought about it, Izam is full of curiosity, cleverness, and ability to learn language, which left a certain impression on Davos. Besides that, he grew up in the mountains.

“Does he look like a Lucanian?” Asked Davos.

“He looks like them!” Affirmed Assistes, “Their size and body shape are similar, but the color of his hair is slightly different, but this can be dyed. The most important thing is that he married a Lucanian woman, and he can learn the language from his wife.”

“Oh, just like you!” Davos finally relaxed and joked after finding the right person, “I didn't expect that you really married a Lucanian woman, and she is even the sister of Bagul!”

Now Asistes became shy and stop talking.

“How does she look? Does she look like his brother?” Davos smiled and asked curiously.

“She is…not…bad…” Asistes awkwardly mumbled for some time before he could squeezed out a sentence.

“Not bad?! That's good!” Davos, who knew his herald better than himself, said positively, “Vespa is the leader of the whole tribe, so he will of course, choose the most beautiful woman in all the tribe to be his wife, and the daughter she gave birth to is certainly not bad. As for Bagul…he is ugly.”

Davos continued to tease him, “However, your brother-in-law is also very amazing, with how the first beauty of Amendolara still loves him and is willing to wait for him for five years.”

Seeing that Asistes didn't speak and just laughed, Davos then said, “Asi, I'll give you a piece of advice. You should have a better understanding and a tolerant attitude, learn from your wife, and get to know the Lucanians seriously. Maybe one day, when you have enough ability, I will be able send you to Lucania.”

“Lord Davos, can we really conquer Lucania?! I heard from my wife that there are 5~6 major cities in Lucania, with hundreds of tribes and a population of more than a hundred thousand…” Asked Asistes, worriedly and doubtingly.

“As long as you have the guts to think of it, and prepared meticulously and have a precise plan, then everything is possible!” Davos encourage him.

Asistes was lost in thoughts.

“You go and get Izam.” Said Davos.

“Roger!”

“Wait a minute!” Davis thought of something and stopped Asistes, who was about to leave, “I have an important task for you! I need you to keep an eye of the movements of the surrounding city-states, such as Taranto, Thurii, Heraclea, Crotone and so on. As well as the new laws and changes that they made regarding trade, politics and military, as well as the situation of the people in the city-states and so on. Special personnel should be specially assigned to organize the manpower, collect intelligence, make a brief summary and report it to me in time, so that we can timely formulate a corresponding laws and measures according to the situation of our neighboring city-states. You are responsible for this, and I will supplement you with the needed money and manpower.”

“By your will, milord Davos.” Asistes agreed without any hesitation.

Seeing that he was very enthusiastic, Davos reminded him, “It is a tedious task to collect intelligence of city-states, and requires patience and alertness. You currently don't have experience, so you can start with Thurii first…” Davos then told Asistes in details about the principles and experiences of intelligence collection that he had seen in books and on the internet in his previous life.

Asistes listened and remembered it carefully. He was very excited because this will be the first time that he will be independently responsible for a specific thing. It was obvious that this is more interesting and important than what he was doing before when he is just calling people and delivering orders.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Izam and his Lucanian wife were working on their farm.

As a Carduchian, Izam doesn't follow the Greek tradition of not allowing his wife to appear in public. When his wife asked him to go to do farm work with him, he not only agreed but was also very happy. In Corduene, when people are in short supply, the women will have to throw spears to hunt or even fight. His wife taking the initiative to go work with him, showed that she had gotten use to her new family, which naturally made Izam very happy. Although the citizens of the city-state who met him on their way to the farm looked at them strangely, he was still very happy and kept talking to his wife in broken Lucanian.

Since Izam joined the mercenary very late, the land that was allotted to him was not very good. Not only was his land only 2 hectares, but it is also far away from the river, and it is closer to the mountains, so the quality of the land is not high. Fortunately, when he chose to serve as a guide for the Greeks and had expressed his desire to go out on a journey to his strict father, Kangmoro, the chieftain of the Carduchian had given him a lot of money, and he can now finally use it. At the suggestion of his close comrades, he bought three slaves from Taranto at once, two of them were Egyptian slaves and were responsible for farming his fields, and another one is a Greek slave that was responsible for herding the animals for him. After all, his land is close to the mountains, so it is more convenient to graze*. In fact, if Cheiristoya had not opened a bank to provide loans at a low interest rates, many of his comrades would have borrowed money from him. (*the mountains are the public property of the city of Amendolara, anyone can go in and out to graze, but cutting down trees must first be approved by the city's financial officer, and a certain fee will be charged according to the situation. This is the proposal that Davos had proposed and was passed by the council, it is mainly to prevent deforestation) (T/N: Rich boy Izam)

Izam, with an open mind, went to ask one of his Egyptian slaves to teach him how to hold a sickle and plow. While his wife pulled weeds in the wheat field with her hands, another Egyptian slave went to the river to fetch water, and the Greek slave went to the mountain with more than ten cattle that had just been bought for a few days.