ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 1274 Mobilization to declare war on Persia
In the marathon, nearly half of the runners failed to finish the race, and many runners even fell to the ground and fell into coma midway and were sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, which made the audience sigh.

That night, the celebration banquet held at the Palace of Dionysia was the final arrangement for the games, and it also followed the traditions of various Greek games. However, Dionysia made it extra grand, not only inviting the champions of all competitions to attend and also invited important envoys from all friendly city-states participating in the Games.

King Davos personally hosted the banquet, and the atmosphere was very warm.

At the banquet, he clinked glasses with Kalalistratus, Iphicrates, Epamilondas, Agesilaus and others.Now, being aloof and holding the authority over the entire Greek world, he treats these historical celebrities from previous lives just like he treats other people. He does not have much curiosity and does not talk too much with them to avoid causing misunderstandings by envoys from other city-states. This made Agesilaus's idea of ​​making some requests to King Davos, whom he finally met, come to nothing.

At the end of the banquet, Davos announced two things: First, in view of the success of this sports meeting, the sacred kingdom of Dionysia will hold a sports meeting in summer every four years in the future, and will try its best to make it the best place for the entire Mediterranean world. The grandest celebration; secondly, the Greek Parliament will hold an important enlarged meeting tomorrow. Not only will the envoys of the Greek city-states who participated in the Games be invited to participate, but also envoys from other allied states will be invited to participate, and they will discuss important matters with them.

Something important? ! ...The envoys returned to the hotel where they were staying with all kinds of speculations. Some of them didn't even sleep well all night.

At the Greek League meeting on the second day, Davers also attended in person and presided over the meeting.

Facing the envoys and parliamentarians from various city-states gathered together, he solemnly proposed the suggestion of "declaring war on Persia and forming a coalition to attack Asia Minor", which really surprised all participants.

In fact, King Davos was not the first person to make this suggestion in front of envoys from various Greek city-states. As early as ten years ago, the Athenian orator Isocrates had repeatedly declared at Greek games and other public occasions that "the various Greek cities" The city-states should stop all conflicts and internal strife, unite, and while defending against the threat of Dionia in the west, bravely launch an attack on the mortal enemy Persia in the east, and completely eliminate the culprit that has caused the civil strife in Greece to continue. The Greeks were given enough land to support a larger population..."

Although Isocrates' speech was scorned by the top leaders of Greek city-states, it had a certain impact on the Greek people.However, after the Greek War, the initiator said because of rumors in Athens that "without the continuous instigation of Isocrates, Athens would not have joined the anti-Dionian alliance, which eventually led to the current dilemma"... Therefore A few years earlier he had been banished by the citizens with pottery tablets and fled into exile in Asia Minor.

Now after King Daves made this suggestion, he immediately announced: Regardless of whether the Greek Conference agrees or not, the Holy Kingdom of Dionia will dispatch more than 10 troops to attack Persia!
This gave the messengers a great shock.

At the same time, Davos made a suggestion: As long as the allies send troops to form a coalition, after each victory in the battle, Dionia will share the spoils equally with them, and after defeating Persia, it will also be based on the contribution of each alliance in the entire war. A portion of the conquered Persian territory was divided as overseas possessions of the allies in Asia Minor...

As we all know, Persia is a wealthy kingdom, and the king of Persia is the richest in the world. For the small and impoverished Greek city-states with financial distress, it is of course a good thing to be able to earn wealth and nourish themselves from Persia.

For Greek powers such as Athens and Thebes, Dionia's control of the Greek Alliance has left them with no room to expand their power. If they can defeat Persia and gain possession of Asia Minor, it will give them another development The path to national strength... So most of the Dionysian allies were moved by Daves' proposal, not to mention that Dionysia has some unswerving supporters in the Greek Parliament, such as Messenia, A Cardia, Zakynsus... So the resolution to "declare war on Persia" was finally passed.

The next step is to carefully discuss the formation of the Greek coalition and formulate a plan to attack Persia.

A few days later, the news that "Dionia declared war on Persia" spread throughout the kingdom, and the people's enthusiasm that had not completely faded because of the kingdom's successful hosting of the sports games was rekindled.

When people were discussing this important kingdom event in the streets of various towns, Davos summoned Leoticides in the palace office.

"Have you watched this sports meeting?"

"Because many competitions were held at the same time, I only watched part of them."

"how do you feel?"

"Although Greek city-states have achieved some good results in traditional athletic events, in any competition closely related to military affairs, the championship, second and third place are almost all won by athletes from our kingdom. This shows that Dionia The military quality of the citizens is far superior to that of other allies.”

"You! You!" Davos laughed dumbly: "Three words cannot be separated from military affairs."

"Your Majesty, you came to me this time not just to chat with me, right?" Leoticides asked calmly.

"I can tell that there is resentment in your words. Isn't it because you are still dissatisfied with me for transferring you from the First Army to Camp Turiyi to serve as the chief instructor of the reserve army commanders?" Daves half-joked, right? , Said half seriously.

Leotychides was silent.

In the year before last, Davers issued new instructions to the Ministry of Military Affairs: to establish the position of commander above the corps commander. As the highest level of front-line officers, corps commanders who have commanded multiple corps or joint forces and won many victories are appointed by Military Affairs. This position can be promoted after passing the ministry inspection. It is not only a big improvement in salary and position for the officers of the Kingdom of Dionia, but also has the honor of entering the Senate directly without being elected. In the event of war, the kingdom can These commanders were directly appointed as commanders-in-chief of the armies.

This is a great incentive for all the kingdom's officers, but Davos knows that transferring those generals with outstanding military exploits and high prestige out of the army during peacetime and taking up some idle positions will definitely make people like Leotic Generals like Des who don't care much about their positions and devote themselves to the army are dissatisfied. However, in order to maintain the stability of the royal family and the kingdom in the future, he must try his best to improve the kingdom's army system while he is still in office and reduce the burden of Crotoka Tower. A burden for future generations.

Of course, Davos would not express these secret thoughts at this time. He just coughed a few times, and then said in a gentle tone: "Have you heard the news that the Kingdom has officially declared war on Persia?"

"I already know. Your Majesty's visit to me this time may have something to do with it." Leoticides said calmly.

Davos said slowly: "After discussing with the Ministry of Military Affairs, I think you are the best candidate to commander the coalition forces that are about to be formed. I just don't know what your wishes are."

Leoticides' dull face suddenly changed, and he immediately said: "Your Majesty, I am willing to take on this important task!"

A smile flashed across the corner of Davos's mouth. He picked up a booklet on the table and said, "In this case, the candidate to be the commander-in-chief of the Greek coalition is you! This has been initially determined at the Greek Alliance meeting in the past few days. You should take a look at some matters first."

Leoticides immediately took it and looked through it carefully. Suddenly his face changed slightly and he asked: "Your Majesty, why is there a separate line after the line that Sparta sent 3500 troops and 40 tons of wheat... … Agesilaus sent out 500 Spartans?!”

Davos looked at him and said meaningfully: "That was added after Agsilaus discussed with me alone. Agsilaus will personally lead all the Spartan fighters on the land of Laconia to participate in the battle." For this military operation, he hopes that after the complete defeat of Persia, the kingdom can give the real Spartans a separate territory in the west of Asia Minor..."

"Agesilaus wants all the people of Sparta to move out of Laconia and colonize Asia Minor?!" Leoticides, who had always been calm, showed some surprise.

"Yes." Davos nodded, and said softly: "After Laconia formed a new government, the political situation was relatively stable at the beginning, but when the original black laborers gradually got used to the new citizenship and eliminated After the fear of the Spartans, their hatred for Sparta is also increasing day by day... Hey, this is what I didn't think about at the beginning! After all, the people who have been persecuted by the Spartans for so many years and died at their hands There are countless helots, and this kind of hatred cannot be eliminated easily!

Although the helots did not dare to have an open conflict due to the regulations of the kingdom, they could suppress the Spartans through citizens' assemblies or other political means. After all, their citizens accounted for more than half of Lagnia. , and the Pilians also had a grudge against the Spartans, so for more than a year, the Spartans had a hard time, and colonizing Asia Minor might be a better choice for them..."

In the past few years, Leoticides deliberately blocked the news from Sparta, and did not know that the lives of the people of Sparta were in distress. After hearing Daves' words, he couldn't help feeling a little guilty, but at the same time I am also very sad: After all, Laconia is the homeland where the Spartans have lived for hundreds of years, and they just left like this? …

After a moment, he returned his attention to the roster and raised his own question: "The Spartans are very powerful in combat. I have no problem with them sending out troops alone, but why should Agesilaus be the leader? He is almost 80 years old, can he fight?"

(End of this chapter)