Chapter 599: Praetors Election (I)
Chapter 599: Praetors Election (I)
“Now, I invite the statesmen who wish to assume the position of Irna’s Praetor.”
Just as Cornelius finished speaking, a man quickly stood up and said loudly, “I want to run for office!” which caused Davos’ eyes to narrow slightly.
The man was Milo, the former polemarchos of Crotone and had fought Davos once.
After Crotone’s integration into Theonia, Milo first assisted the then praetor of Crotone, Cornelius, in rebuilding the city of Crotone while successively holding several middle-ranking positions in Crotone, such as the Aedile, Agricultural Officer and Vice Praetor…
Then with Milo’s outstanding performance in Crotone, Davos personally named him the praetor of Rudiae, the central town of Messapi, after Theonia’s conquest of Messapi, which shows Davos’ complete trust in him. Milo also lived up to his expectation by acting vigorously and calming down several riots and uncovered the several tribes who were unwilling to surrender, including Pasimeus’* family, after taking the position. (Pasimeus died shortly after their defeat in the Battle of Brindisi, but the reason for his death varies: Some believe that he felt Messapi’s future was hopeless and committed suicide, some say that his family assassinated him to seize power, while others think that the other tribes of Rudiae had long been dissatisfied with his dictatorship and took the opportunity to kill him.) Milo treated them mercilessly by executing some, imprisoning some, and even expelling some of them. He turned the whole Rudiae region into a clean slate, and it even resulted in the people of the nearby town of Messapi becoming much more obedient.
But after his term ended half a year ago, Milo returned to Thurii but didn’t ask to be re-elected.
However, even if Milo applied to go to Irna now, Davos wasn’t too optimistic about him. After all, Irna needs a good relationship with Campania and Samnites, so he needs someone with flexible political means but without softening. But Milo’s ruling style was too radical and made the people of Rudiae call him Executioner.
Suddenly, another statesman stood up in the crowd.
‘Adrian’ Davos’ eyes widened.
After the war in South Italia, the kingdom of Theonia integrated with many city-states. Even though the Senate added many new statesmen from those city-states, they could not be appointed immediately to manage a city independently as their loyalty still needed to be verified. In addition, they did not know Theonia’s political system and laws, so they needed some time to familiarise it.
Since there aren’t many statesmen in the Senate, these new statesmen soon become the majority. Therefore, the Senate urgently promoted many middle-ranking civil servants with outstanding performance to become statesmen, such as Asistes, Olivos, Matonis, Giorgris, Aristocrates, Praxileos, and even Martikoris, Metoticles, and Stesichodas of Theonia’s Akademia…have all joined the Senate during that period.
But at that time, only a few statesmen had experience as a city’s praetor. Yet, many vacant city praetor positions in the kingdom urgently needed statesmen to take up positions. Hence Davos and Kunogelata had to mobilise the statesmen that were former mercenaries to take up the important role and volunteer to be the praetor of these new territories while being assisted by the newly promoted local statesmen as that would make the older statesmen learn how to govern. At the same time, the new statesmen would learn about the kingdom’s operation through their assistance, and Davos saw this as a win-win situation. So during that time, it was common to see Antonios becoming the praetor of Naxos, Alexius ruling Irna and Hielos taking over Locri. Although there were some problems, they could guarantee the order, stability and functioning of the kingdom’s political system on the whole.
Adrian was also one of the statesmen who were forced to do something beyond his capabilities. But after getting called the laughing stock at the Isthmus, it stimulated him to learn from his mistakes and intensified his knowledge and culture. He even attended Theonia’s Akademia to listen to Lysias*’ lectures on eloquence. Thus when he first became a praetor, he did not ask the Senate to send the new local officials to assist him. Also, he could easily manage this town as it was Roscianum, a small town right next to Thurii and was influenced by Theonia that its population’s admiration for Theonia made Roscianum, which had not yet been integrated into Theonia, look like a colony of the city of Thurii. (Lysias, the orator and a lecturer in the Akademia.)
Consequently, Adrian was successful in his three years of rule in Roscianum, and his most outstanding achievement was to lay the foundation for Roscianum to become another town under Thurii (the other one is Besidice). Adrian then made a lot of efforts, from making the transportation convenient to the port’s expansion, as well as the participation of the people of Roscianum in the rugby and football games in Thurii. He also wrote to the Senate several times to transform the beach in the north of Roscianum into a military port and invited the first fleet of Theonia to settle there.
At that time, it coincided with the expansion of Thurii, so the military port temporarily built on the lower reaches of the Crati River for the war in South Italia was no longer suitable for the fleet to stop. And with Adrian providing a place for the fleet first, it was equivalent to asking the Senate for funds to renovate this troublesome beach for free and promote the development of Roscianum’s port and some small businesses. Although the continuous expansion of Theonia and its strategic needs of the kingdom made them relocate the main force of the first fleet to the great port of Taranto, Roscianum’s military port is still one of the important military ports in the Gulf of Taranto, and the Roscianum still talks about his works to this days.
Later, Adrian was transferred to become Heraclea’s praetor, which is another city-state in Magna Graecia. Although governing it wasn’t difficult, Adrian didn’t remain idle as, during the three years of his term, he led the people to vigorously clean the rivers, build bridges and fill up the marshes…that by the time he left, the annual floods the Heracleans suffered had also been significantly reduced.
Then he became the praetor of Uzentum. As a coastal port town in the Messapi region just across the sea from Krimisa, and due to its small population and the frequent maritime trade with the Greeks in Magna Graecia, the people of Uzentum were not as wary of the Greeks as the people of Rudiae. As a result, Adrian has not encountered any major trouble in his administration. Still, he took advantage of Uzentum’s geographical location of being close to the Gulf of Taranto and Rudiae and expanded the port and constructed a road leading to Rudiae, making Uzentum a transit point between Thurii and Rudiae, which brought great benefits to the people of Uzentum.
With Adrian’s three times dazzling achievements as a praetor, the Kingdom’s Civil Servant Management Committee gave him ‘excellent’ marks for his governing during his terms. They even evaluated him for being good at urban construction and improving people’s lives.
However, Irna’s situation is more complicated than that of Roscianum, Heraclea and Uzentum, so Davos was still uncertain if Adrian could handle it well.
Then another statesman raised his hand, but most of the statesmen around showed a complicated expression as he was Nicomachus, a statesman from Locri.
In the war in Magna Graecia, Locri became an accomplice of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, even though it was a city-state of Magna Graecia. They were even suspected of trying to assassinate Davos, which made the people of Locri like rats in the streets and were looked down upon by Magna Graecia. But after Locri surrendered to Theonia and to stabilise the once Magna Graecia’s power and its allies, they elected several members of Locri’s council with high prestige as statesmen of Theonia, and Nicomachus, who was the first to propose surrender and the first to drive out Demodokas, was naturally one of them.
Like Milo, Nicomachus stayed in Locri to assist Hielos in governing Locri. And thanks to Nicomachus, the people of Locri soon accepted Theonia’s rule. Of course, another reason was that Locri’s culture was compatible with that of Theonia, as they had taken Persephone, the wife of Hades, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as the patron deities of the city-state, so they had a natural affinity to the Theonians. Apart from those, Locri’s harsh laws made it easier for the Locrians to obey authority.
And in the sixth year of Theonia, Davos made Nicomachus the praetor of Otranto.
Otranto was also a coastal town in the Messapi region, but unlike Uzentum, Otranto was located at the southeastern end of the Italian peninsula. Due to its fertile lands, the town has a large population, and since it is located at the exit of the Adriatic Sea, it is the closest to Greece as a hundred kilometres from the other side of the Adriatic Sea is the famous Island of Kerkyra(Corfu). Hence Otranto was also the town that was influenced by native Greek culture the most in Messapi. In its port, you could even sometime see Athenian merchants and merchants representing Sparta.
After the conquest of the Messapians, Otranto was the second most chaotic city after Rudiae, which shows the difficulty in governing it. However, within three years after Nicomachus took over, Otranto’s political situation became stable, and the people gradually submitted.
In fact, Davos thought that Nicomachus was the best candidate for the position of Irna’s praetor. However, he had already stated earlier that he would not appoint a candidate, so the possibility of Nicomachus succeeding was slim because the Locrians were not popular with the statesmen of Magna Graecia.
Then another statesman participated in the election. He was a statesman from Sicily, but he was different from the other statesmen of Sicily in that he came from Syracuse.
After the war in Magna Graecia and after Syracuse and Theonia reached an agreement, a group of Syracusans and slaves strongly demanded to leave Syracuse. It turned out that when Dionysius conquered eastern Sicily, he forcibly relocated the people of other city-states to enrich the land of Syracuse; among them were the people of Leontinoi.