Chapter 30 Mission to Syracuse

"Young man, don't be so angry." Ancitanos sat still, comforting his students gently, he pointed to a clay pot on the table next to him: "Come, have a taste Quench your thirst by tasting the mare's milk honey syrup from Carthage. It tastes good, sour and sweet, and it's very special. I just asked my entourage to buy it at the market in Syracuse."

"Don't drink!" Henepolis angrily sat down on the wooden chair, and the wooden chair made a painful "creak" sound.

"Herny." Knowing the student's temper, Ancitanos didn't take it seriously, but said in a childish tone: "You will be the consul of Laos in the future, so you can't do things on impulse. If we didn't even see Dionysius, we would go back like this, not only would the mission of the envoy not be completed, but we would also be blamed, and the Syracuses would laugh at us for not knowing etiquette— "

"Obviously it was Dionysius who didn't understand etiquette and didn't meet us in time, so how could he blame us instead!" Henepolis shouted in dissatisfaction, interrupting Ancitanos's words.

"They can say, 'Because they are busy negotiating with the Carthaginians, they can't make time to meet us...'. After all, to the Syracuses, Carthage is more important than our Dionysians. Much more." Ancitanos said calmly.

Henepolis snorted coldly and looked at Ancitanos: "Teacher, in fact, Dionysius just wanted to snub us and make Dionysian make a fool of himself, right?!"

"If Dionysius was really such a small-minded person, he wouldn't be able to sit in the position of the tyrant of Syracuse. I'm afraid it's just that he treats different things with different degrees of emphasis." Ancitanos felt a little gray in himself. His beard, with a wise light in his eyes: "So we don't need to worry at all, just wait... just to see what the weight of the Dionysius Alliance is in Dionysius' heart."

Henepolis is young and vigorous, but not a fool. On the contrary, his talent is the reason why Ancitanos is willing to let this student accompany him on his mission to Syracuse: "Well, let's compare our patience with Dionysius and see who I can't stand it! In the afternoon, I will go to the theater in the city to watch a play. To be honest, although the city of Syracuse is bigger and more populous than Turui, it does not have the liveliness of Turui. There is no football game to watch here, no food to eat, so we can only go to the theater." Henepolis said jokingly, picked up the clay pot on the table, took a sip, and then he " "Pfft", all vomited on the ground: "This thing is sour and fishy, ​​it's too bad to drink, much worse than beer!"

"Young people don't know how to taste." Ancitanos hurriedly took the clay pot, for fear that he would spit out all the water in it: "You know, this water came from the Carthaginians from the Numibians. It has been learned, and has undergone some small improvements to make the taste more suitable for sailors at sea. In Numibia, this thing is not only used to quench thirst, it is part of the food..."

"What does Numibia have to do with us? Listening to your tone, it seems that you want to study the history of this race." Henepolis said disapprovingly, he thought he knew his teacher better.

"It's not me, it's the owner of the house where you usually live who is very interested in this. He has asked me about Numibia many times." Ancitanos said after taking a sip of water.

"You mean Lord Davos?!" Henepolis immediately became interested: "What did he ask Numibia for?! You must know that the Dionysian Union and Numibia are separated by sea, Sicily, Carthage, there can be no direct contact at all."

Ancitanos pointed to his chest and said slowly: "There are always one or two people in this world who think about problems from a height that others can't reach, because their place is extremely vast."

"Lord Davos is indeed an amazing person!" Henepolis said sincerely, suddenly he remembered something,

Said: "Teacher, now that the Carthaginians have chosen a truce, I am afraid that it will not be good for us to meet Dionysius, and it will be bad for Dionysius!"

Ancitanos looked at his student with admiration and asked, "Why?"

Henepolis knew that the teacher was testing himself again, so he carefully straightened his thoughts before saying: "In the Western Mediterranean, Syracuse has always been the most powerful Greek city-state, but it has always been confined to the island of Sicily. , The biggest reason is the Carthaginians. The powerful forces of the Carthaginians in Sicily not only kept the Syracuses always on alert, but also threatened its survival many times. Syracuse dealt with Carthage. It is very difficult, and there is no energy to care about things outside Sicily.

But in fact, the people of Syracuse have always been interested in our Greater Greece. I remember that the tyrant of Syracuse, Hieron, sent troops into Greater Greece decades ago. But in recent years, the situation in Sicily has been very different from before. Two large-scale military operations in Carthage were disastrously defeated. I heard that this time more than 20,000 people were injured or killed, so they had to propose a truce. I am afraid that it has no more power to pose a threat to Syracuse. "

Ancitanos nodded approvingly of the students' insights, but he did not think that Syracuse would conduct a military operation against Greater Greece, so he said: "The Carthaginians were defeated because they seemed to be fighting Syracuse. The people who fought against the people were actually fighting against the power of the entire Greek city-state. How could the Peloponnesian League headed by Sparta and the city-states such as Napoli in Campania allow foreigners to completely occupy Sicily? Thereby cutting off the trade routes of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, and even threatening their rear (referring to Sparta). It is believed that after these two fiascoes, the Carthaginians will become wiser and will not easily provoke wars in Sicily. Its strength in Africa, it will remain the greatest threat to Syracuse."

"You are right, teacher! However, at least now, Syracuse's power is much stronger than that of Carthage. After their peace talks with Carthage this time, I am afraid that the Carthaginians will definitely There will be a significant retreat to the west of Sicily, and the unification of Sicily by Syracuse is something that anyone can see and may happen in the near future." Henepolis said worriedly.

"Yeah, this is an issue that our alliance will continue to focus on in the future." Ancitanos said ponderingly.

"You can't just pay attention. I don't think Dionysius will be satisfied with dominating Sicily. Dionysius is a greedy person. These two wars with Carthage were caused by his initiative to expand his territory. If Sicily stabilizes, he will probably target Greater Greece."

While Ancitanos disagreed with Henepolis in exaggerating the threat of war in Syracuse, as a scholar he enjoyed debating with his students, which served to inspire him. So he frowned and asked, "Why must it be Great Greece?"

"Because Sicily is south of Carthage, no matter how arrogant Dionysius is, he would not dare to go wild in the real territory of Carthage; and to the east, that is the sphere of influence of Sparta; to the west is the Iberian Peninsula, Not only is the voyage far away, but I heard that there are many colonies established by the Carthaginians there. Unless Dionysius is in a daze, he will never be able to go on an expedition and make the mistakes of Athens. Therefore, it can only be the Great Greece to the north. , and Sicily is only separated by a narrow Strait of Messina, Dionysius can send 100,000 troops to the land of Great Greece in half a day.

And I think Dionysius would have coveted Great Greece long ago, otherwise he wouldn't have married a Lochli woman and made an alliance with Lochlee. Now, when he was fighting against Carthage, he did not forget to send spies to disturb Dionia, and his ambitions for Great Greece were already very obvious! "

"Heney, you have to understand, it's one thing to have ambition, it's another thing to be able to wage war. Dionysius may have coveted Great Greece, but Great Greece now has our Dionysus Union." Ancitanos said, a strange thought suddenly popped up in his heart: If Turii is still the previous Turii, and the city-states of Great Greece, big and small, face the giant Syracuse, its prospects Really unimaginable. Thanks to Hades for sending Davos, he established the Dionysian Alliance and almost integrated the power of Great Greece, which made Dionysius have to be careful about this!

"And Syracuse has been fighting every year. I heard that the national treasury has already exceeded its means, and the people are very dissatisfied. I believe you have felt it when you wandered in the city these days. In such a bad situation, Syracuse can launch A war of the same magnitude as the previous one against Carthage? I don't think it's possible. And this time we're in Syracuse to let Dionysius know the resolve of our Dionysian alliance , completely dispel his unrealistic ambitions!" Ancitaros said confidently.

Henepolis was infected by him and nodded cautiously.

At this time, the entourage walked into the guest room and said, "Lord Ancitanos, someone is looking for you outside, saying that it was sent by Philistos."

Philistos, the chief minister of Dionysius? Ancitanos and his students looked at each other...

…………………………

Ancitanos has been invited to tonight's banquet hosted by Philistos.

Just before dusk, the carriage sent by Philistos arrived at the hotel, and Ancitanos took Henepolis into the carriage.

The embassy of Ancitanos lived in the city center of Syracuse. The original colony of the Syracuses was Ortigia Island. Until a few decades ago, Dillon became the tyrant of Syracuse. He led a large number of immigrants and began to expand inland. This expanded urban area is Syracuse. In the current central area of ​​the city, most of the temples, theaters, markets, etc. are concentrated here. But this already sizable area made up only a tiny fraction of the urban area that the Syracuses subsequently expanded.

In the decades after the tyrant Dillon's reign, the Syracuses extended the urban area to the northeast, and incorporated an area near the coast three times larger than the central area into the city of Syracuse, calling it the city of Syracuse. "Akradina", this coastal area also includes a rich quarry.