ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 655 Farewell
Behind "Hercules" were herdsmen driving 20 cows, followed by not only a huge procession composed of men, old people, women, and children, but also flutists, drummers, and trumpeters playing cheerful melodies. , the whole team was talking, laughing and noisy, just like Hercules driving his cattle throughout the Western Mediterranean. They walked around the whole city of Thurii, filling the whole city with a lively atmosphere.

The end of the parade is just the beginning of the celebration, followed by various competitions.

The most important competition in the celebration is the Strongman competition: contestants must carry a five-meter-long, thigh-thick cedar log and walk a distance of 40 meters in order to pass the preliminaries.In the next elimination round, the contestants need to pick up increasingly heavier stone pillars, lift a five-kilogram shot put horizontally, and see how long they can hold on... The most important difficulty is to pull the carriage. Countless spectators cheer for the contestants. Come and cheer, watch them pulling a huge carriage with a certain load, tensing their muscles and using all their strength to pull the carriage forward like strong horses.

The final winner will be awarded the title of this year’s “Kingdom’s Strongest Man”. After receiving the blessing from the priests of the Temple of Heracles, he will wear a flower crown and parade around the city surrounded by enthusiastic people, and will also receive The honor of being received by King Davos and dining together, and he will also be given considerable material rewards.

Another important competition during the celebration is wrestling.Everyone knew that Hercules was a great wrestler.Especially his battle with the giant Antaeus was well known to everyone.After nine years of development, the wrestling competition held at the Hercules Celebration in the Kingdom of Dionia has become as large as the four traditional Greek games.Compared with winning in the four major sports games, the main thing you get is honor; winning the championship in the wrestling competition in Turiyi can also get a lot of gold and silver awards. Therefore, there are many participants, and every game is quite worthy. Intense tension.

The wrestling competition lasts for nearly a month, which happens to be the end of the celebration, and its champion also enjoys the same treatment as the winner of the Strongman competition.

It is said that military personnel and corps commanders are often among the spectators of these two competitions.Because these two games not only allowed citizens and pre-citizens to participate, but also allowed freemen, foreigners, and even slaves to participate.Those who get good results will be lobbied by the Ministry of Military Affairs to join the Kingdom of Dionia or break away from slavery, because such outstanding players will generally be excellent soldiers.

In addition to these two competitions, the celebration also features other interesting competitions.For example: bull riding competition, sheep racing, pig driving competition... This is also to show respect to Hercules, the patron saint of livestock.The fun mountain climbing race shows the adventurous spirit of Hercules, while the hilarious running race with his wife in his arms pays tribute to this romantic god...

Therefore, unlike other celebrations, the celebration of Hercules was always full of laughter.While they were having fun, Plato and the others also discovered that at least half of the contestants and spectators in various competitions were non-Greeks, and they could fully feel their deep respect for the Greek god from the bottom of their hearts, and they were enjoying themselves to the fullest. Enjoy the joy of competition and harmonious interaction with Greek citizens.

Plato did not stay until the celebration was over. In early June, he bid farewell to King Davos and the Dionysian Academy, and prepared to return to Athens. After all, there was still a lot of affairs waiting for him to deal with in the Akademi Academy. .

Davos held a farewell party for him.

At the banquet, Plato said happily: "During this period, I am very grateful to His Majesty Davos for your great help to me! It gave me enough time to observe the operation of the political system of the Kingdom of Dionia. I found that Dionysus Asia had many advantages over other Greek city-states.

First of all, Dionia attaches great importance to education, and the government funds the construction of schools in various cities. The low admission fees allow children over the age of six in the kingdom to implement almost universal basic cultural education.This kind of education is all-round. It not only teaches children mathematics, literature, rhetoric, logic, philosophy... but also teaches sculpture, music, and dance to cultivate their souls, and performs physical exercises to strengthen their bodies.When they become adults, they will be the gold and silver species of Dionia, and they can easily become excellent citizens of the kingdom.

Secondly, although Dionia emphasizes the role of law, it actually emphasizes moral education.Otherwise, you will not believe in Hades as the protector of your kingdom.Promote Hades's fair and strict Hades punishment to guide people to do more good deeds during their lifetime... You also admire Hera in the same way, guiding people to love marriage and family, which plays a very important role in the stability of the kingdom.Dionia uses gods to guide citizens to be good. This is a very novel but very effective method, and it is completely worth learning from other city-states.

Again, Your Majesty Davos, you said to me before, 'You will not carry out a strict division of labor for the citizens of the kingdom', but Dionia has carried out a strict division of labor for the kingdom's public officials through a method called "assessment" .Let those who are proficient in law serve as judges, let those who are good at making be supervisors, let those who are good at making money manage trade, and let those who are good at statistics manage money... Even your generals are promoted through soldiers and team officers. Yes, most of your city chief executives also have rich experience in urban management.This is completely different from most Greek city-states, including Athens. Most of the city-state’s senior officials elected by the people through citizens’ assemblies are hypocrites who only use rhetoric and cater to the people. They don’t know how to manage a city-state well, let alone how. Lead your troops to victory.The blind ignorance of the people allowed these people to take over the power of the city-state. How could it be possible to make the city-state strong?

Also, Your Majesty Davos, you allow girls and boys to receive the same education and physical training from an early age, and give them more property and freedom of life when they reach adulthood, although you have not yet allowed women to hold some public positions in the kingdom. , but compared to other Greek city-states, you have done very well on the issue of gender equality.

In addition, Dionia has also achieved fairness in the distribution of property.Each citizen of the kingdom can be allocated five acres of land. Later, land and other property rewards can be redistributed according to the citizen's contribution to the kingdom, instead of letting most of the kingdom's public property be earned by the nobles and the rich. Pick……"

After hearing these words, Davos felt relieved, and half-jokingly and half-seriously said to the other senators who came to the banquet: "Did you hear that, we Dionia have so many advantages, you should have more confidence in the kingdom, Just work harder!”

Others laughed in response.

Plato did not smile. He looked at Davos and said seriously: "I found that Dionia has one of the biggest advantages, and that is you, Your Majesty Davos!"

"I?"

"Yes." Plato said loudly and excitedly: "As the king of a country, you are not above the law, but act in accordance with the law. You do not spend lavishly and pursue a luxurious life, but keep a low profile. According to I know that the political system of the Kingdom of Dionia and these bills that amaze me are mostly based on your suggestions. Without profound knowledge, profound observation and good judgment, it is difficult to do it. And to be able to do this All can only be philosophers! Philosophers do not necessarily have to write treatises and be widely known. My teacher Socrates always only talks but does not write. But Your Majesty Davos, you only do but do not talk. You are a true The philosopher king!"

Having said this, Plato looked excited and his eyes shone: "My previous judgment was wrong. It is not that my Utopia cannot exist in reality, but that it is being realized, right in Dionia!"

In his previous life, Plato had traveled to Tarantum, which was in its prime at that time. Plato fell in love with Archita, who had been a consul for a long time, at first sight because he was an important figure in the Pythagorean school. , Archyta is exactly the typical image of the "philosopher king" that Plato expected, so he highly praised Archyta in his works.But in this life, Archita died early, and Tarantum was reduced to a free city in the Kingdom of Dionia, but Plato turned his attention to Davos, who created more glory than Archita.

Of course, Plato, who was proud of himself at the farewell banquet, did not admit that there was an obvious flaw in his book "The Republic" compared with the current situation of Dionia. That is, his vision was a bit narrow before and he only focused on one city. He even believed that the population of the city-state was 5040 people, and Dionia had a huge population and vast land, and could also be managed well, which touched his heart a lot.

With reluctance and longing for the future, Plato left Thurii and returned to Athens.While focusing on teaching, he also devoted most of his energy to more in-depth thinking about the political system of the city-state. A few years later, he wrote "Davos" and claimed that the value of this article was far greater than what he had previously written. He wrote "Lysis", "Gorgia", "Hipias"... and other articles, and they are no less than the book "Utopia". This is a later story.

Note: Finally finished this volume!I have never dared to write about Plato, philosophy, or academic debates before, because I am not very good at it. Some book friends once advised me to avoid it, but then I thought that since I was writing about ancient Greece, how could I not have the culture of the classical era? The scene of a hundred schools of thought contending, so I bit the bullet and wrote it. I read several books about it. Although the writing was relatively superficial, I at least defeated myself.

The next volume will be even more exciting, because there are things you want to see: Rome, Carthage, Etruria, Egypt, Celts, Iberia...

So the name of the next volume is "Western Mediterranean"!
　Dear brothers and sisters, I will stop updating for a day tomorrow to sort out my thoughts so that I can smoothly start writing the next volume.

　　Thanks to Yijian68 for the reward!Your support is my biggest motivation for writing! !

　　
　
(End of this chapter)