Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 275: Leotychides

“Well…the Tarantines don't show it clearly as what Hybaterus said, but they do not like to associate with our city-state.” Sitares, who knew Taranto very well, answered thoughtfully, “It is only in the last few years, because of the Messapians’ constant invasion, that they propose to build a South Italia defensive alliance in Magna Graecia to resist the aborigine barbarians jointly! Although city-states like Thurii and Crotone have joined previously, they are not that active…”

“Why do the Tarantines look down on us?” Exclaimed Hybaterus, “Brothers, you should all know about the Tarantines saying that they are descendants of Sparta, but in fact, it is all a lie! They are the descendants of bastards, children born of Spartan women and slaves*-” (T/N: Not really slaves but Perioeci aka freemen.)

As soon as he spoke these words, the soldiers went into an uproar as most of them were poor people with little education, so they naturally do not know about the history of Taranto, which made them surprised and asked, “Hybaterus, is that true?! The Tarantines were descendants of Spartan women and slaves-”

“Of course it is true! Any soldier who is a citizen of the old Thurii should know about this. I heard that hundreds of years ago, when the Spartan men fought outside of Sparta for a long time, the women…hehe…felt lonely, so they got together with the slaves! After the children were born and had grown up, the Spartan men who came back and found out about it could not bear the humiliation and drove them out of the city-state. Therefore, the Spartans built Taranto not because they had too many people and not enough food, but for the stability and reputation of Sparta, so it should not be Taranto who is looking down on us, but it should be us who is looking down on them! They are just a bunch of bastards! A group of-” Hybaterus was laughing triumphantly when he suddenly heard the people around him shouting, “Be careful! Get out of the way!”

Before he could react, a heavy blow struck his face, and he fell forward with his surroundings darkening; fortunately, his comrades supported him from behind.

“Hey, why did you hit him!” Shocked, the soldiers rushed forward to stop the enraged soldier.

“Shut your mouth! Shut up! If you dare say it again, I will beat you to death!…” The soldier's eyes were red, and his face was furious as he roared towards Hybaterus.

“Prosous, shut up, you are mad!” Sitares, who was the squad captain, rushed forward to angrily reprimand the soldier, “For your provocation and assault on your comrades, you will receive punishment according to the military law!”

At this time, Hybaterus woke up and became enraged once he saw the man clearly, “How dare you hit me! Brothers, let's beat him up! Beat this disgusting stone*!” With that, he dashed over, pushed Sitares aside and wrestled with Prosous, and several other soldiers were encouraged by him to join in the fight. (T/N: Will be explained later.)

The ship became a mess, and the noisy shouting had naturally alerted the platoon captain, who was on the same ship. By the time he arrived with his men, Prosous had already knocked the soldiers, including Hybaterus, to the ground.

“Prosous, do you want to be driven out of Theonia?!” Prosous, who was still angry, shuddered by the shout of Pamanius. Thinking of something, he immediately stopped fighting and just stood in the same place.

“Go and tie him up!” Ordered Pamanius.

The soldiers hesitated to come forward, while Prosous remained motionless, which allowed them to pin him down on the deck.

“Platoon captain, he was the one who started it. I did not provoke him when he suddenly rushed forward and struck me!” Hybaterus points to the bruise on his face and complains to Pamanius.

“Don't speak for now.” Pamanius ignored him and had instead asked the squad captain – Sitares for the reason, which immediately made his face darken.

“Why did you beat your comrade?!” Asked Pamanius.

Prosous was pinned to the ground with his hands tied behind his back; however, he still did not say a word as Pamanius continued interrogating him.

Pamanius is now feeling a headache.

Previously, the first and second legions had to expand their recruitments to make up for the shortage of troops because many of the soldiers had moved to Krimisa and Aprustum, where the fourth legion would be established.

Prosous, a registered foreigner who applied to become a preparatory citizen, was said to have come from Argos. After entering the camp, his performance in the training had soon surprised the instructors, as this young man is not only physically strong but also highly skilled. He is good at using shield, spear, sword and javelin, and he is also adept at marching in formation and listening to orders. He even managed to learn some of the unique Theonian tactical movements and easily won first place in the camp's recruit competition.

The instructors were amazed by his military talent, and the officers of all ranks have also heard of his deeds and scrambled to have him join their team. Matonis is also one of them, and it is said that he had even used his connection with Davos to eventually get him to his team, and he reminded Pamanius several times to focus on him.

However, Pamanius soon discovered that Prosous had a huge shortcoming – he was not sociable. During training, he performed very well, but he doesn't like to talk during their rest, and he even seldom talked with his squadmates, always sitting alone and not knowing what he is thinking, so his squadmates nicknamed him “stone” and was accused of being arrogant, which is why many had helped Hybaterus in the fight just now, it was clear that the soldiers in his squad did not like him.

“Very well, there is no need for you to say anything now, as the military inspector will make you say it once we get ashore!” Pamanius angrily left this sentence as he still had to figure out how to mention this to Matonis.

Prosous was tied to the mast, and even with the strange looks that the soldiers around him give, it still did not bother him, and he did not even care about the punishment of the military inspector. His eyes were still red as he bowed his head and tried not to let his tears fall because, at this moment, he thought of his mother.

Prosous is not his real name, his real name is Leotychides, the son of Agis, the previous king of Sparta, and his mother had ended up choosing to commit suicide because of the rumours, and so he finally made up his mind to leave Sparta.

In search of a shelter, he found that there were not many places for him to choose from. The eastern Mediterranean is now the world of Sparta, and Persia, which is at war with Sparta, could be one of the places he could go, however, although Leotychides wanted to get his revenge on Sparta, he did not want to discredit himself and his father and make the people think that they made the correct to choice in choosing his uncle, Agesilaus, to inherit the throne. The western Mediterranean is beyond the reach of Spartan forces, and there are many Greek city-states, however, he hopes that one day, he could give Sparta trouble for his humiliation and making his mother die, so there are only a few city-states he could choose from.

Syracuse is one, but they are allied with Sparta. Carthage is another, but they are a foreign race and could not speak Greek, which made Leotychides not understand them. In the end, he chose Theonia because of the accusation of Phidias of them not having any respect for Sparta when he went to report to the Gerousia, which made him very curious about this rare union of city-states who dared to look down on Sparta. Before that, the inspector – Cheirisophus, had even recommended to the Gerousia a person he called “A Greek with extraordinary military talent”, and this man is now the archon of Theonia

When he sought the opportunity to flee Sparta and came to Magna Graecia, he discovered that Theonia's influence was great in Magna Graecia, and they had almost become the most powerful city-state in South Italia, just less than two years after its establishment.

Amazed by the rapid rise of Theonia, Leotychides took up residence in the port of Thurii to observe the city. After learning about Theonia's past, its unique system of governance and city atmosphere, and especially after seeing the triumphant return, he had a hunch that one day, this city-state would be able to make his wish come true. Leotychides felt that he had come to the right place and so he decided to stay in Theonia while remaining anonymous.

With some of the wealth that his father, Agis, had secretly stored in Crete to support himself, he then applied to the union to become a Theonian citizen. And thanks to his childhood training in Sparta's cruel “Agoge”, he stood out from the rest of the Theonian recruits and was granted full citizenship before he could even become a preparatory citizen.

But he was still despairing about the loss of his mother and with his unforgettable hatred of Sparta, he was unable to integrate into this new group. And the word “bastard” has become so taboo to him that it had made him mad just by hearing it.

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

The Gulf of Taranto is similar to a gourd in shape with two naturally formed circular bays that are stacked together; it not only expanded the capacity of the port but also made it more secure. The Tarantines had fortified both the opening and the narrowing of the gourd-bay and had even built two watergates to strengthen the defence of the port even more.

At this moment, the first watergate was wide open, and countless transport ships carrying troops entered and were guided and supervised by dozens of Tarantine patrol boats, and sailed one after another to the northwestern corner of the bay. The coastline of the whole bay is quite long, and the city of Taranto, being in the southeastern corner of the bay, could not hold all the land defences of the bay, so Taranto placed the Theonian reinforcements in the northwestern corner of the bay, which was the weakest point of Taranto's control of the bay and also out of a desire to have Theonia help in its defence.

When Davos' ship passed the first watergate, he was struck by the fact that the rough sea, was not rough here at all, which made him sigh at this marvel: He was surprised to learn that despite the breakwater and the inward excavation and widening of the port, the port of Thurii was still somewhat crowded and in case of a storm, the ships will inevitably be damaged, but unlike here, they don't have to consider these problems at all, as their port is an excellent natural port. And he wondered about another famous port in Magna Graecia, the port of Crotone?

Author's Note: I have a little time today, so I want to discuss Archytas in history. The information I collected is mostly about his achievements in mathematics, but in other aspects, there are only a few. He is known as “Pericles of Magna Graecia", after becoming the archon of Taranto in his middle-aged year, Taranto has become prosperous and powerful in Apulia for more than a decade, but please note that even during this period of prosperity, they had never occupied Brindisi and Manduria, which means that Taranto's prosperity was still defensive. When Plato was rejected by Dionysius II, Archytas had invited him as a guest of Taranto, and Plato had considered Archytas to be his ideal philosophical king, because the Pythagorean School succeeded mathematics, but also had their own philosophy. Archytas eventually died in a shipwreck, and his body is said to have only been retrieved a century later.

At the beginning of this book, I have no plan to write about his death at this time, but the butterfly effect of the MC has made the Tarantines, who always take defensive measures against the attack of the Messapians on a large scale, take the offensive, and eventually, it has come to this point as I was writing it and became out of my control. And it is better for him to die on the battlefield than to sleep on the bottom of the sea, and his achievements in mathematics can only be accomplished by others, and I hope that it would be the Theonian Akademia.