Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 233: Senate meeting after the war (IV)

Everyone thought about it and shook their heads. Athens may be the richest city, but they can't provide so many benefits for its citizens, as a city-state with a long history, they can't do what Theonia, a newly established city-state union, does because of having too many vested interest groups, deep-rooted legal system and traditional ideas. However, they still manage to take care of the common people in the Greek city-states.

“Can Persia, the great power of the Mediterranean, do this?” Asked Plesinas in a loud voice.

Everyone shook their heads. Persia is a dictatorship where nobles oppress the civilians and the Persians oppress the other races.

“Then Theonia is the Elysium of the Greek city-states! I believe that when the Greeks know the rights enjoyed by our citizens, they will certainly be more active in pouring into Theonia!” Said Plesinas positively.

“Plesinas' guess should be correct. Before the war with Crotone, the number of freemen in the post of Thurii had been growing…and now that the war has ended and after we fulfill our promise and even allocate lands to the preparatory citizens, it will cause more immigrants to flow into Theonia, therefore, we need to be ready to resettle them.” Kunogelata took the lead and gave them a warning.

After hearing this, they were both happy and worried.

“Now, let me add another right to the citizens of Theonia.” Davos then continued, “I just noticed that when you heard Kunogelata say that ‘more immigrants will come to Theonia’, you all seemed worried. What are you all worried about? Are you worried that Theonia will have a difficult time maintaining the city order?! Worried about so many immigrants entering and most of them are civilians with no education, and after they become citizens of Theonia, the overall quality of our citizens will decline?! That it will decline sharply!-”

“You are right lord Davos!” Marsyas, a statesman of Thurii, immediately got up and criticized loudly, “Thurii has now such an omen, especially in the port. Those new immigrants with all kinds of accents are rude and uneducated. They often curse and start a fight. I heard that the patrol of the port has to deal with dozens of conflicts in a day. Isn't that right, Kunogelata?”

Kunogelata shook his head and seriously corrected him, “It is not that serious. If the freemen want to successfully become a citizen of the union, they will not dare to violate the law and be disciplined. According to the statistics, there are no more than five cases a day, and most of them solve the problems by themselves before the patrol team could even arrive.”

Marsyas brought contempt to himself and could only mutter to himself, “There are only three conflicts in a day….”

Pollux looked at Marsyas fiercely.

Davos smilingly said, “Because of these problems, my next proposal is to set up an akademia in Thurii, where all citizens of Theonia can send their children to learn literacy, arithmetic, painting, music and sports after paying a small fee….”

‘Akademia?!’ Everyone pondered over this new word. At this time, the Athenian Akademia had not yet been established, and so the way for the Greeks to receive education was mainly to rely on the rich nobles and rich people to hire private teachers and buy educated slaves to educate their children. Or famous scholars setting up private schools, collecting expensive tuition fees and recruiting disciples. It was unheard of having the city-state to fund a school to educate citizens' children collectively! But the statesmen were very interested, and most of them felt that it would truly be of help to solving the problem of low cultural quality of the citizens of Theonia, so they began asking questions one after another.

Regarding the akademia, Davos was very familiar with it and with his experience of his previous life, combined with the actual situation of this life, he easily answered their questions.

For example, Amintas put forward, “What if the citizens also want to study?”

Davos answered him with, “We will set up a special class in the akademia to educate the adults. Its curriculum and education method are different from that of the childrens, which will make it easier for them to become literate quickly.”

For example, Kunogelata's question is, “Children of different ages have different levels of education, so how can they benefit and advance?”

Davos answered him with, “There are three levels of education: Primary, Secondary and Advance. Children who have never learned anything will join the primary class and begin to learn how to recognize words, count and read…for the children who are already literate and have a certain foundation in arithmetic, they will enter the secondary class to learn how to use words to make sentences, write and be able to perform complex calculation operations…while advance class is mainly to master the rhetoric of words, speech, argumentation, and to be able to calculate a large number of complicated equations…this is to prepare for the training of logographer*, accountants, intermediate civil servants and other high-ranking talents of the union….” (T/N: logographer – is a title applied to professional authors of judicial discourse in Ancient Greece. In Ancient Greece, the law required the litigant to make his care in front of the court with two successive speeches. So if a litigant does not feel confident to make his own speech, he would need to seek the service of a logographer to whom he would describe his case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logographer_(legal))

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The statesmen were satisfied with the detailed answers given by Davos, and even Kunogelata, who rarely praised others in public, could not help but marvel, “Milord archon, I now truly think that you are favored by the gods, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to put forward so many wonderful ideas and have a complete plan to implement it at the same time!”

Kunogelata's words were approved by the statesmen.

Davos continued with a smile, “I propose Ansitanos to be the one in charge of the school.”

“Agree!” The statesmen all agreed. Because the most knowledgeable one in the senate is without a doubt, Ansitanos, who was a disciple of Herodotus. Naturally, some people think that Davos, who was rumored to be illiterate but was enlightened by Hades, and has always been mysterious and whose knowledge is hard to estimate, is also knowledgeable.

“Ah? Me….” Ansitanos, who was sitting in the back row and with his thoughts wandering in the sky, shook his head and refused, “I can't, I don't have the time! Thucydides has completed his ?History of the Peloponnesian War? and was said to be highly praised by the Athenians, but my ?History of Magna Graecia? hasn't even been written yet!”

At their repeated request, and with Davos and the other statesmen even giving their promise to try their best to contribute materials to Ansitanos' creation and to seriously cooperate if he wanted to interview them….

Only after all of these did Ansitanos reluctantly accepted it, but he immediately began to complain, “Milord, it's not that I didn't want to manage the school, it's just that Thurii, who is only one of the city of Theonia, has thousands of children! And lord archon, you had even said to teach them Greek, arithmetic, painting, music and so on. How many teachers do you think it would need to teach them all of these?! We can’t find that many teachers in Theonia Union to teach the children!”

After saying that, everyone immediately realizes that it is indeed a problem. However, Davos had obviously already thought about it and said calmly, “There are indeed not enough teachers in Theonia Union, but there are in other city-states. When we were in urgent need of Silphium, we specially reduced the tariff for it in order to encourage the merchants of Cyrenaica to transport it to the port of Thurii in large quantities for sale. So since we are short of teachers, we can naturally make a preferential bill for them in order to encourage foreign scholars to actively come to Theonia!”

The statesmen were lost in their thoughts and Ansitanos asked, “What kind of bill will it be?”

“My proposal is…all foreigners that come to Theonia as teachers, even if they are slaves, will immediately acquire citizenship of Theonia! But the premise is that they should first pass the examination of our senate to make sure that they have the ability to serve as teachers…erm…Asitanos can be the one to lead this assessment. But once they get their citizenship and become teachers in the union's schools, then they must devote their whole life to teaching their knowledge to the children. And if they were to change their professions, then their citizenship will be immediately cancelled and be deported! In addition, the union's citizenship only applies to the teachers themselves, and therefore, their children will not inherit it unless they also become teachers….”

Everyone became interested at the proposal of Davos.

Ansitanos, who didn't care about being the school administrator at the beginning, excitedly said at this moment, “Since Plesinas and Kunogelata thought that the Greeks envied the citizens of Theonia and wanted to become Theonian citizens, then I think the situation of Theonia of lacking teachers will soon change!…I remember that there was a union's bill for the physicians before, and now, there is a proposal that favors the teacher. Milord, physicians and teachers are two sacred professions besides the priests of the gods. One is to heal the bodies of people, and the other one is to improve the minds of the people. I thank the archon for your foresight! And I also hope to get your support! With this, the senate of Theonia fully showed their respect for knowledge! And will make our union not only have prosperous trade, powerful military, but also a cultural brilliance! Theonia Union will then become the greatest city-state union!!”

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In the evening of the meeting, two other people said that they had a proposal to say and had made the statesmen to order the guards to light the candles in order for them to continue the meeting.

The first one to speak was Scambras, who had first given his apologies, “Everyone, I am sorry for delaying all of you from going home for dinner. Just now, I had consulted lord Davos, Kapus and Hieronymus in detail and I had learned that there is a large marsh in the north of Krimisa, especially in spring, when the rain overflows, it will make the marsh to expand outward, which will affect the road traffic and will occupy the farmlands….I wonder if we can use a lot of labor to fill up the marsh and build a dam for the river, which will not only ensure the safety of the territory and prevent the occurence of epidemics, it will also increase the fertile land by a large area!….”

“Old man, you have just been elected as the praetor of Krimisa, yet before you could even take your office, you have already begun carrying out your management of Krimisa!” Protesilaus jokingly said while laughing.

“What? Kid, do you have a problem with that?!” Scambras then glared at the Amendolaran junior that he had watched grow up.