ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 231 The Senate Meeting after the War ([-])

Hieros thanked Cornelus for the disguised praise.

Davos said: "Let me ask Amendolara to recommend a suitable patrol leader."

Cornelus immediately cheered up and said, "Lord Archon, please speak."

"Epythenis, he will become an excellent patrol leader." Davos pointed to the back row and said with certainty.

"Huh?!" Epithenes, who was talking in a low voice with Tsipit, did not expect that he would be named, and replied in surprise: "Why me?!"

"So that you can focus more on the administrative affairs of the alliance and set an example for your soldiers, instead of harming the young people of Dionia all day long!" Daves said half-jokingly and half-seriously. .

Everyone laughed.Everyone knows that Epithenis likes beautiful boys. In fact, many senators also have this hobby, but Epithenis shows it more obviously.It is not only a fashion but also a tradition for Greeks to like and support young people.Although Davos personally felt uncomfortable, he still expressed respect and did not want to force changes.Apart from Epithenes, what Davos admires most about him is that on the battlefield, he can think calmly and deal with complex situations flexibly.He always completes the tasks assigned to him and exceeds expectations.

Under the pressure of Davos and the repeated requests of Cornelus, Epithenes finally had to agree.

The helpless expression on Epithenes' face once again made Amyntas and the others burst into laughter.

At this point in the meeting, it was past noon, and Cornerus adjourned the meeting for half an hour. The slaves who had been waiting outside the Senate immediately came in and brought water to their masters to fill their stomachs.

Even if he takes a half-hour break, Davos will not have free time. While chewing bread, he discusses with Scombbras and Hilos the problems they need to solve after taking office and how the two cities cooperate with each other. , Strengthen contact to cope with situations that may arise at any time in the south.

Then Kunogorata came to him to discuss how to arrange the five new senators.As a senator of the Senate, naturally his family should be resettled in Thurii to facilitate the performance of his duties. Even if he becomes the chief executive of another city, he will not move out of his residence in Thurii. After all, the city chief executive's term is only two years, and The elders are for life.

There are still many idle public lands in Thurii City, which are controlled by the Senate and will not be granted easily.Of course, it is impossible to allocate a small piece of land to build a house for the new senator for free. The "Dionia Land Law" clearly stipulates this. Even if Davos buys land, he still has to pay according to the market price.Due to the massive influx of population over the past year, the price of residential land in Thurii has been rising repeatedly, and after Dionia defeats Crotone, this rise should rise sharply.

Kunogorata hopes that the land given to the new senators by the Senate will be sold at the original price in order to show the sincerity of the Dionia Senate and appease these newcomers.

Davos agreed, and he also considered that if any of the five new Crimesa senators really couldn't afford the money, they could advance it from the treasury and repay it later.

The half-hour break ended and the Senate meeting continued.

Davos stood up and made his first proposal: "Although Dionia won this war with Crotone, it exposed some problems. The most important and urgent one that needs to be solved is the navy. !”

As soon as Davos finished speaking, he immediately aroused strong resonance among the elders.

"The Consul is right! In this war, the biggest loss caused to us by the Crotones was that their fleets kept coming ashore to plunder, burning many villages in Thurii, and killing many of us. People, and public officials in Thurii are still having a headache to resettle people and rebuild their homes!" Kunogolata complained.

"If we in Dionia also have a navy and are as powerful as our army, then when the battle is won, Crotone should have surrendered long ago, and there is no need to surround Crimesa!" Aminta Si emphasized.

"The trade of the Dionia Alliance is becoming more and more prosperous, and the territory of Dionia is also expanding rapidly. We need a powerful fleet to protect our maritime trade and prevent our long coastline from being attacked by enemy fleets. Our port is blocked by enemy warships!" Mariji reminded loudly.

"That's right! We need a powerful navy to protect the safety of the Dionia Alliance!" Everyone agreed.

"Now that we have all reached a consensus, my proposal is -" Davos looked at everyone and said: "In addition to speeding up the completion of the three triremes under construction, we will also build seven more triremes this year. For paddle warships, I asked Enanilus that the shipyard in Thurii does not have enough docks to complete such a large order, and there are also larger shipyards in Crimesa that are capable of manufacturing tri-layer paddle warships. We can give them a small number of orders to complete. From now on, we will build ten triremes every year until we have 50 triremes in five years. At the same time, we will also be equipped with medium-sized warships (i.e. 20 hundred-man warships) and ten small warships (50-man warships), thus having a relatively powerful Dionian navy of 80 warships."

Everyone believed that this plan was feasible, except for Melses who objected: "No! No! In this way, the alliance will spend more than 100 talents every year. This is too much!"

"Although it is a bit more, I think our treasury can fully bear it. Last year, the treasury collected more than 200 talents from land tax, land rent tax and trade tax alone. This year, Mariji gave me the lowest amount." It is estimated that the treasury income will be at least doubled." When Davos said this, many senators were surprised. Unknowingly, Dionia's treasury income was almost the same as that of Tarantum and Crotone. Even if it's even, spending a small amount of money to build a fleet should be more than enough.

"Everyone, Lord Melses, it actually costs less than 100 talents to build ten triple-layer propeller warships every year." Marij stood up and reminded everyone: "The cost of building warships mainly consists of two parts. One is wood. , the second is the manufacturing cost. In the mountains of our alliance territory, especially the mountains of Lucania, there are countless high-quality cedars that are most suitable for building tri-layer paddle warships. I heard that Athens had specially cooperated with Tu There was an agreement between Thurii and Thurii to provide Athens with a certain amount of shipbuilding wood every year."

"There is indeed such an agreement. Every year, Thurii must provide Athens with at least a thousand logs of ship timber, and it will be doubled if necessary." Enanilus said.In order to complete this agreement, the Thurii people cut down a large number of trees for decades. Although they made some money for the wood, there were fewer and fewer older cedars in the mountains around Thurii, and there were ten large shipyards in Athens. Several companies do not need to build ships in Thurii, and the family of Enanilus has always complained about this.Later, due to excessive logging, many barren mountains appeared around Thurii. The people discovered this shortcoming and began to buy wood from other city-states in Magna Greece and resell it to Athens to earn the difference.

"We were forced to cancel this agreement later in the war between Athens and Sparta, after the Spartans' navy gained the upper hand," Kunogorata added.

Davos nodded. After serving as the governor of the alliance, he understood this agreement.He even believed that the Athenian general Pericles had agreed to build Thurii and called for the establishment of a great Panhellenic city-state only for high-sounding reasons. One of the real strategic purposes was for wood.You must know that Athens was born with two major flaws. First, it did not produce much food locally and had to rely on imports to maintain the city-state's huge population. Therefore, it built many colonies along the coast of Greece leading to the Black Sea or controlled key areas. City-states in this position, such as Byzantium, needed a powerful navy to ensure smooth shipping routes for food transported from the Black Sea. Moreover, the Athenians were ambitious to establish a powerful alliance of Mediterranean Greek city-states, and even more needed a powerful navy.But the second biggest flaw of Athens is that there are not many forests in its own land, let alone trees that can make high-quality warships. Moreover, with the size of Athens’ navy and merchant ships, the amount of wood required must be a huge amount, so looking for ship wood is a must. It became a strategic issue related to whether Athens could maintain its power.There are no forests in Egypt, but there are timber in Persia, but they will not be sold to the enemy Athens. There are forests in northern Greece and Thrace, but they are located inland. Cutting and transportation are problems and the cost is high, so the Apennine Mountains run through the entire territory. Magna Graecia became an important place for Athens to purchase wood, and Thurii, established by the Athenians, was naturally the main place for wood supply.

"So, I ask the Senate to discuss a plan to approve the felling of a certain number of cedars by alliance slaves every year to use as warship wood. This does not need to cost an Obol. As for the manufacturing cost-" Mariji looked at N'anilu Si, seemingly jokingly said: "I think Sir Anilus will not charge too high a fee from the alliance."

Anilus smiled helplessly.

Everyone felt that what Mariji said was reasonable, and their worries about the cost dissipated a lot.

"But have you ever considered that the maintenance and upkeep of these warships after they are built is also a considerable expense!" Melsis said unconvinced.

"Enanilus and I have discussed this issue." Davos said, and Enanilus nodded, indicating that it was true.

"When there is no war, of course we will not leave warships idle at the dock. Except for a small part that patrols the coast of the alliance and a part that is repaired in the dock, the rest can serve as escorts for merchant ships, especially Adriatic ships. Pirates and ship robberies occur frequently on the route from Haikou to mainland Greece. You can also temporarily serve as a large cargo ship to transport goods to friendly city-states... You see, it not only earns maintenance costs for our navy, but also exercises the crew. Isn’t his sailing skill pretty good?” After Davos finished speaking his thoughts, Merses stopped talking.

"In addition, we also need to find a qualified commander for the soon-to-be-established Dionian Navy. His current task is to assist military officer Felicius and supervise the construction of warships; to cooperate with financial officer Melses, Review the funds; after the warship is built, he will also recruit sailors, equip the crew, conduct regular military training, arrange coastal patrols and -" Davers said with emphasis: "Winning the naval battle. Do you have any qualified candidates to recommend? "

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(End of this chapter)