Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece
chapter-267

The area of the city of Motya is small, and it can be used as the most important stronghold of Carthage in Sicily, however, it has a large population and in order to let everyone have a place to live, the residents of Motya build their houses tall, which are generally six or seven storeys-high, just like a spire.

When the soldiers of Syracuse rushed into the city, they were surprised to find that the residents of Motya not only had no intention to surrender but also tenaciously guarded every street and house. When the soldiers want to break through the barriers in the streets, the residents of Motya throw stones, javelins and even boiling water and hot oil from the top of their houses, causing a lot of damage to the soldiers in Syracuse.

Due to this, Dionysius had to suspend his offence and had to summon countless engineers to spend time building a siege tower of the same height as the houses in Motya. The siege tower they built was six storeys-high, with wheels under it and was huge…when everything was ready, the Syracusans resumed their attack.

The ten siege towers were then pushed by a large number of labourers. From the east, west, south and north of the city, along the widened gap on the city wall and the road, into the city of Motya, once they are near the houses, they would then lower the top bridges to the roofs of the houses, and the Syracusan soldiers would then climb the wooden ladder in the tower, reached the exit and entered the houses via the bridges. While the inhabitants of Motya threw burning woods and tars at the siege towers and fought to the death to prevent the enemy from entering.

Thus, the strangest battle in the city of Motya happened. Both sides fought in mid-air, with limbs and blood pouring from the air, and the soldiers and the residents falling from floors more than ten meters high, covered in fire, screaming and corpses scattered on the ground…

Due to the desperate struggle of the residents of Motya, the attack of Syracuse had only made little progress, and the battle then fell into a stalemate…

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In Sparta, the new king Agesilaus and the elders are no longer in the mood to pay attention to the war in Asia Minor, because a plot that threatens their rule has surfaced.

Kinadon, a former Spartan citizen who no longer enjoys the privileges of a Spartan citizen, was relegated to a second-class status because he could no longer afford to pay for the Syssitia. In the beginning, he just wanted to get revenge on the Spartan nobles out of hatred, but after a long-term observation and constant contact with other ruling classes in the territory of Sparta, he gradually realized how terrible the Spartan system with its inhuman slaughtering and oppression of the Helots and the terrible treatment to the Períoikoi who has also contributed their sweat and blood to the city, and so he decided to overthrow Sparta's oligarchy.

During this period with the frequent wars, the citizens of Sparta and the Períoikoi and even the Helots were constantly being enlisted to fight, and the land was becoming desolate for the lack of labour, but the tax burden of the city-state has instead increased, causing the discontent of all the classes of people on Sparta to increase sharply. Therefore, under the secret communication and propaganda of Kinadon at every opportunity, a large number of people in the territory of Sparta were inspired by his ideas to join his organisation, which even included the dissatisfied Spartan citizens.

As time went on, the number of this rebel group was increasing, but just as they were ready to take certain actions, some participants, out of fear, had reported to the Gerousia.

The king, the ephors and the Gerousia were shocked by the news, and because of this, they hurriedly held an informal meeting. Afterwards, they decided to send Kinadon to lead some young men to carry out the “clean-up operation” in the outskirts of the town. The so-called “clean-up operation” is an open and legal official action proposed by the Spartan government so that they could kill some helots regularly every year, due to their fear of the excessive population of the helots that could threaten the rule of the Spartans, not only to remind them of the cruelty of Sparta but also to temper the young Spartan citizens.

Kinadon wasn't suspicious about received the order, rather, he was pleased, but it wasn’t because he was excited about having the right to kill any helots he encountered at will, but because he felt that with this right to roam freely, he could take the opportunity to contact the organisation and start a riot.

But his simple thought and lack of vigilance had led to his arrest shortly after leaving the city by the Spartan warriors, who had been lying in ambush and was then taken to a cell. After getting severely tortured by the Spartans, who are very experienced in extracting confessions due to torturing and oppressing the helots for many years, Kinadon finally revealed some of the organisation's key leaders.

While searching for the rebels in the whole city, the inspector escorted the wounded Kinadon around the city to make a public display, while declaring to the people that are watching that Kinadon is a despicable traitor who wanted to incite the helots to start a riot to overthrow the Spartans and rob them of their wealth and become king himself.

As soon as Kinadon tried to open his mouth, the Spartans whipped him and also hit him with a club that has an iron spike. Kinadon was bathed in blood all over his body, and in the eyes of the people were anger and disdain, which had made him falter and stumbled to the ground and in the end, he died.

The Spartan government succeeded in eliminating Kinadon, while also discrediting him and making the Spartans who did not know the truth hate these rebels. However, there were too many people involved in the conspiracy, and the incident was far from over. Hence why the two kings, the Gerousia and the ephors were busy stabilizing the domestic situation in the ensuing period.

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The rugby tournament in Theonia lasted for more than ten days, and the exciting games and fierce rivalries not only drove the people of Theonia and the distinguished guests from their allies crazy, but even the foreign merchants who had come to trade in Thurii became fascinated. When it came to the quarter-finals, not only was the arena packed, there were even countless people shouting outside the arena.

Kunogelata even needed to urgently increase the number of patrols to strengthen the maintenance of the order to avoid accidents.

And in the final, it was still between the two strongest teams, Thurii and Amendolara.

From the whistle to the end, the audience stood and cheered for the two teams…

In the end, Amendolara won a narrow victory and avenged their defeat last year.

When the unsatisfied audiences were about to leave, the tournament host announced loudly, “Next, a football exhibition match will be held to thank the people for their full support!”

Football, as the name suggests, it is to kick a ball, but how do you play a game by just kicking a ball? Many audiences who had not yet seen the sport sat back down to watch with confusion and curiosity.

Then the staff in the arena moved up to the goal and redrew the lines with lime powder.

Just as the audience began whispering with their friends who knew the situation, the players of both sides came on the court and the referee stood in the centre with a round ball in his hand.

With a whistle, the game began.

The audience was surprised to find that the round ball managed to bounce on the ground, while the players used their feet and other parts of their bodies to touch the ball, but not with their hands, which is the exact opposite of rugby.

When the players use their feet to control the ball, and make all kinds of wonderful movements and dribbles the ball past the opponents, the audience becomes surprised. When the players run like the wind with the ball and shoot hard, the audience couldn't stop themselves from cheering.

When the audience began to immerse themselves in the game, they realized that the Theonians had invented another ball game no less fun than rugby, and it is without a doubt would take Theonia Union and Magna Graecia by storm!

At the end of the match, the host announced, “A football tournament will be held in Theonia next year to celebrate the day of the founding of the union!”

The audience left the arena with their interest being unsatisfied, and for some time afterwards, their conversation would revolve around the rugby tournament and the football tournament that will be held next year. While the merchants started pondering about the business opportunities of this great tournament and took these novelties to other ports and cities, which will make the fame of Theonia’s ball games slowly expand its influence in Magna Graecia…

At the end of the football match, the statesmen in the Grand Senate Hall have a dignified expression. Initially, they were just discussing whether to launch a war against Bruttii, but unexpectedly, Taranto had sent an envoy…

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Earlier this year, Taranto had assembled a large force to capture Manduria, a stronghold city of the Messapians built specifically to attack Taranto, while spending several months and paying a huge price to also conquer Brindisi, an important port city of the Messapians, which greatly doubled the territory of Taranto.

In their elation, the people of Taranto still did not dare to be careless. Although they had badly beaten the Messapians, they would never give up. Centuries of fighting with the Messapians had given Taranto a deep understanding of the habits of this race, hence why Taranto had sent more soldiers to the newly captured cities while stepping up the repairs on the city defences.

Over the past few months, the area of Apulia (the “heel” of Italy) has been calm.

And based on the estimated strength of the Messapians and the geographical locations and importance of Brindisi and Manduria, the council of Taranto had given detailed consideration in advance. Therefore, they asked the young Archytas to lead more soldiers to defend Brindisi, which is farther and more important to Taranto, while only deploying not too many men on Manduria, due to it not being too far away from Taranto, and also because the troops on Taranto and Brindisi can come to reinforce Manduria at any time, and it is impossible for the Messapians to attack both cities at the same time with their strength.

On the morning of the fifth day after the celebration of Hades, Archytas, who was inspecting the construction process at the port of Brindisi, had received a herald from the council of Taranto.

“Manduria has been attacked by the Messapians?! How many people do they have?!” Archytas was slightly surprised.

“According to the scouts, the enemy is many, no less than ten thousand men, and are fiercely attacking! The council sent two thousand men to Manduria to temporarily suppress the enemy's offence for the time being…”