Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

In order to maintain his friendship with Sparta, Dionysius had to move the Messenians out of the city of Messina and built the Tindari in an inconspicuous place not far from Messina City, to settle these Mesenians.

The reconstruction of Messina and the new construction of Tyndares made Lijim on the other side of the strait, and the Lijim felt that Dionysius coveted their city-state, and they even felt that it was not very safe to join the South Italian Alliance. , Because at this moment Syracuse not only unified the Greek city-states in the eastern part of Sicily, but also basically conquered the Sikers. The strength is too amazing. Are other city-states in the South Italian Alliance willing to fight against the powerful Sira for Lijim. Kuza, that's a big question! The only one who dares to challenge Syracuse is probably only Dionia, the overlord of southern Italy, who has this strength.

As a result, the Lijim held a citizens' assembly, and the discussions were unsuccessful for several days.

At this moment, a Syracuse fleet sailed into the port of Messina. Originally, this fleet was to escort the Syracuse army to continue its westward expedition to the north coast of Sicily. Unexpectedly, it stimulated sensitive interests. The Jim, the Citizens' Assembly quickly passed the bill, and emissaries were quickly sent to Turii.

In the Dionysian Senate, when Lijim's messenger proposed that Lijim is willing to join the Dionysian League, the senators, including Davos, were quite shocked. You must know that in the Dionysian League, Laos, Castron, Metapontum, Elia, Heraklia, and Galaguso are all small and medium-sized city-states in southern Italy. Although Asia is a big country in the alliance, it was forced by the situation at that time and was forced to join in the face of Dionysian soldiers. Governing Brute and Picocis, there is no time for Potentia, far to the northern edge of the mountains of Dionia.

And now Lijim actually voluntarily asked to join the Dionysian League! You must know that Lijim is not only a powerful state in Greater Greece, but also ranks first among the city-states of Greater Greece in terms of maritime trade wealth. With Lijim's participation, Dionia's merchant ships and fleets can smoothly pass through the Strait of Messina, which not only facilitates trade with Iberia, Gaul and other far-western Mediterranean regions. At the same time, it is also more beneficial for the naval escort Dionia to connect the territorial waters of Dionia in the cities of Knapetia and Picossis on the west coast of Italy, as well as the allied city-states of Laos and Elia.

Of course, the elders of Dionia were very happy to accept Lijim's participation, but Lijim's messenger put forward a prerequisite: Davos, the consul of Dionia, must marry a Lijim woman, and this A woman, the Lijim people have also chosen, her name is Agnes.

Who is Agnes? Known as the Rose of Lijim, she was born very beautiful at the age of 16, and even attracted the proposal of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, but was firmly rejected by the vigilant Lijim people.

The angry Syracuse messenger threw a sentence: Our almighty general will open his eyes to see who is more qualified to marry Agnes than him!

Then, Dionysius turned to marry the woman of Locri, and decorated the passenger ship that greeted his wife with jewels and dazzling gold, which became a hot topic in Greater Greece at that time.

In Lijim, due to the words thrown by the messenger of Syracuse, Agnes has never been able to marry, because as Syracuse continues to expand and becomes stronger and stronger, not only Lijim's men, The entire city-state did not want to provoke Dionysius, thus making Lijim the target of the wrath of the tyrant of Syracuse.

As a result, just a few years later, Agnes is already a 21-year-old single woman (Greek women generally marry after the age of 14, that is, they can get married after puberty), and no one dares to marry, so she has to become a Greek woman. Priestess of Artenis, the famous virgin goddess of the gods.

Now facing the threat of Syracuse, the sophisticated Lijim people believe that Davos is the real ruler of Dionia, so they want to tie Davos and Lijim together through Agnes.

Together against Dionysius.

Davos saw through the minds of the Lijim people and immediately refused.

Who knows that a few days later, the Lijim messenger actually persuaded most of the elders of the Senate, including Mersis, Mariji, Kunogolata, Cornerus and others, to visit Dai Firth, hoped he would accede to Lijim's request, and also refuted Davers' claim to obey the Dionysian monogamy law, which does not contain this rigidity This is just a customary habit. Even in Athens, which once explicitly stipulated monogamy, during the great plague period before the Peloponnesian War, polygamy was advocated because of the sharp reduction in the population.

At the same time, they also emphasized that Dionysius of Syracuse and other Sicilian city-state tyrants married many wives, so of course the life-long consul of Dionia, the overlord of southern Italy, could also.

They also countered concerns that Davos thought Dionysus would be dragged into the war with Syracuse by Liegem. Felixus, Antonios and others thought: Don't look at Syracuse's seeming power, the Carthaginians will always be its great enemy, how could Dionysius risk the danger of fighting on both sides and rashly offend the same Mighty Dionia.

In fact, the news from Sicily seems to prove this: the army of Syracuse swept westward along the north coast of Sicily, began to approach the city of Solus, and finally let the army besieged because of Dionysius. The enraged Carthaginian senate of Tauromenion finally made up its mind and appointed Marco, the younger brother of Hilmic, as commander-in-chief, recruited soldiers, and prepared to lead the army to Sicily again to resist the attack of the Syracuses.

For the elders in charge of political affairs in the Dionysian Senate, the risk of accepting Lijim is not high, but on the contrary, the benefits are very large; for the elders in charge of the military, Lijim has a stronger naval fleet, which can just make up for Dai Lijim. Onia's weakness.

Under the persuasion of everyone, Davos was a little hesitant. At this time, his wife Cristoia stood up and expressed her support for the Senate's wish for Davers to marry another Lijim wife, and persuaded Davers to accept Agnes.

Cristoia, who was born in Miletus, Asia Minor, was influenced by Persian culture since she was a child, and was not very resistant to polygamy. At the beginning, Cyrus had a dozen favorite concubines. And she is already a successful businessman, and she knows the importance of Lijim's surrender to Dionia's business.

Davos was finally persuaded to marry Agnes, a 21-year-old Lijim woman, into the residence of the Dionysian consul, and Lijim joined the Dionysian Alliance smoothly.

This incident shocked the whole of Greater Greece.

When Dionysius learned the news, he was leading an army to besiege Solus. He had already ordered to retreat, but he ordered again: sound the bugle of the attack...

……………………

In the past two years, in the land of Asia Minor, the Greek coalition led by Dekyridas caused great trouble to Persia.

So in 396 BC, the Persian King Artaxerxes, at the suggestion of his mother, appointed Konon, an Athenian who temporarily lived in Persia, as the Admiral of the Persian Navy (Konon was the commander of the Athenian navy, who was defeated in the Battle of the Yanghe River. to Lysander of Sparta, which eventually led to the surrender of Athens to Sparta).

Konon fled to Persia, and has been diligently taking revenge against Sparta, so he often went to please Persia's queen dowager Paluzadis. Now that the military power was finally in his hands, he immediately led 300 Persian warships and actively cooperated with the Persian land forces, which soon caused a lot of casualties to the Spartan army and put it in trouble.

So, Persia proposed a truce and peace talks, but Sparta refused.

At this time, Sparta, who was already the overlord of Greece, was unwilling to accept peace talks when the war was passive. Not only would the terms of the peace talks be very unfavorable for Sparta, but it would also damage Sparta's prestige among the Greek city-states. As a result, the Council of Elders decided to send King Agesilaus to replace Dekyridas to start a bigger war in Asia Minor.

Agesilaus has always shown his approachable and humble side to the Spartan people, but under the mask of obeying Spartan traditions and laws, he hides an ambition that has never been known. He longed for great glory, worshipped ancient heroes, and hoped that, with unprecedented victories, the world would forget his lameness and only remember his exploits. So when he received the order from the council of elders, he already regarded himself as the Agamemnon of this era, to conquer the new Troy, that is, Persia.

So he led a part of the army to the city of Oris (it is located in the region of Piosia, the most famous city-state in this region is Thebes), just as Agamemnon, the king of kings, commanded the entire Greek army He made offerings to the Temple of Artemis there, as he had done before crossing the sea to attack Troy.

But during the solemn worship, the Thebes appeared, who forcibly interrupted the ceremony by claiming that Thebes had not been informed of the Spartans' actions.

This incident cast a shadow over the already tense relationship between Sparta and Thebes. For the extremely self-respecting Agesilaus, this is simply a great disgrace! From then on he remembered Thebes.

In the end, Agesilaus led an army of 2,000 new Spartan citizens and a military council of 30 including Lysander headed, quietly crossed the sea to Asia Minor and settled in Ephesus.

Lysander thought he was the Agesilaus he had supported. After arriving in Asia Minor, the gentle king would surely rely on him, the real king who conquered Asia Minor in those years, and would hand over the command of the Spartan army to him. in his hands.