Chapter 583: Suspicion
Chapter 583: Suspicion
Back when Davos led the mercenaries to recapture the city of Amendolara, Galademus’ had already lost the support of his family as his parents had already died at the age of 15. And since he didn’t choose to be adopted by others, he lost the opportunity to have a supporter. But due to fewer Amendolaran men surviving the invasion of the Lucanians and even fewer of the next generation Amendolaran citizens managing to serve as civil servants and out of fear that Amendolara would lose its influence in the kingdom, the Amendolaran statesmen such as Stromboli, Scambras and Cornelius had deliberately care and focus their attention on the next generation, such as Arsinis(who unfortunately died young), Melisander, Galademus and so on.
However, even though the kingdom’s city’s praetor has much more authority than when they first established Theonia, there are still two and a half departments they couldn’t manage: First is the Taxation Officials – Both junior and mid-level taxation officials are under the Kingdom’s Ministry of Finance and are only answered directly to the Chief Financial Official and the king. The other is the Judges appointed to each city by the Supreme Court of the Kingdom – They are free from the interference of other people and departments, both in the hearing of cases and in their judgments. The other half is the military training officers assigned by the training camp of each legion and under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Military Affairs. The praetor wasn’t allowed to interfere in military matters, but organising a massive-scale military training would involve numerous citizens putting down their farm work and leaving behind complicated official duties that would inevitably create disruptions in local matters. Thus the two sides must coordinate and solve the problem, which is why the training official and the praetor could be regarded only as half each.
Although Stromboli couldn’t interfere in the taxation, he sent his men to arrest the troublesome people and warned the demarchos to end the disturbances in the demos immediately. Otherwise, he would get forcibly removed from his post on the charge of ‘incompetence’.
At the same time, he also reported directly to the royal palace of Thurii about the details of the incident to King Davos.
After reading it, Davos didn’t react much but simply called for the Chief Financial Officer Mersis and gave the letter to him to read.
Mersis, who had guarded the treasury for Davos for more than a decade, wasn’t someone anyone could easily provoke. Thus he immediately sent his trusted subordinates to Naxos to thoroughly investigate the truth, collect evidence, and prepare it to charge Ladician at the Senate meeting.
But before Mersis’ men could board the ship, Ladician already learned about the problem and immediately rushed to the palace to beg to see Davos and sincerely stated that because he himself had stayed in Thurii for a long time, he didn’t know about the situation in his residence in Naxos and wasn’t too clear about the details of the taxations. But since the taxation official pointed out the problems, he was willing to comply with the Taxation Law and double the compensation.
Thanks to Ladician’s timely concession, the storm was quickly put to rest. On the other hand, after asking Davos for his instructions, Mersis removed Naxos’ mid-ranking taxation official on the charge of dereliction of duty and strongly praised Galademus as a model for adhering to principles and being loyal to his duties, and gave him generous rewards.
Once the matter spread to Naxos, many people began thinking that King Davos favoured Galademus. Hence there was no longer anyone making trouble for him since then.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Currently, Galademus had taken the two tax collectors onto the gentle slope and entered Ladician’s field.
It is now the end of August, and the matured wheat dyed half of the mountainside a golden yellow shade. The stalks didn’t bend even with the hot sun and heavy wheat ears. On the contrary, the gurgling water between the fields gave them the strength to stand firm.
Seeing this, Galademus couldn’t help but feel happy, “It seems we will have another bumper harvest this year!”
“Since the reconstruction of Naxos, we have mostly gotten good harvest these ten years, which just shows that Demeter and Persephone had blessed us!” Kabanus sighed with relief.
“It is all due to his majesty Davos! As he was a descendant of Hades, it is only natural for these two goddesses to bless our kingdom!” Emphasised Gabrinus, a young man of Naxos but has a stronger sense of identity with the kingdom of Theonia.
The Hades faith had also spread with the integration of the kingdom of Theonia with eastern Sicily. Furthermore, due to the Greeks of Sicily revering Demeter and Persephone, the priest of Hades incorporated these two goddesses* into Hades’ pantheon by making a Temple of Demeter beside the Temple of Hades in the Theonian territory in Sicily while placing Persephone’s statue inside the Temple of Hades. (Persephone was the Queen of the Underworld, while Demeter was both Hades’ sister and mother-in-law).
The Harvest Festival would follow after Hades’ Day in September, where the people would offer sacrifices to the two goddesses to thank for their blessings. Later, this festival would spread to Magna Graecia.
While the two people were chattering, Galademus carefully checked the boundary marker beside the field and estimated the area with his naked eye.
“Ladician’s 52,000 square metres of land had a good harvest…” After Galademus confirmed it, Gabrinus busily wrote it on a booklet made with papyrus.
Galademus looked at Ladician’s field again and became slightly surprised that most of the labourers in the fields were Sicels!
As the wheat harvest approaches, they would need to guard the place: First, to drive away the birds that came to steal; Second, to prevent wild animals and man-made damage; Third, to rush to harvest in case of continuous cold wind or other natural disasters.
Even though Ladician’s massive farm had a lot of labour to guard the area, Galademus could distinguish the difference in the clothes of the Sicels and the Greeks at a glance.
“Sir, many families of Naxosian citizens will more likely hire Sicels as labourers during the harvest season. Even the craftsmen in the city like to hire them and the port…because they are cheaper and are not bound by the kingdom’s law.” Seeing Galademus’ doubt, Kabanus hurriedly explained as his family lived in another demos located in the northwestern part of the Naxos, bordering the Sicels. Thus he knows more about the situation, “Unlike us, the Sicels’ land is in the hands of the nobles and their leaders while the common people could only become labourers on their farm. Moreover, the rations they earn in a year aren’t enough to feed a family, so they might as well come to Naxos as hired workers. I heard that some Sicels even wanted to register at the city hall to become a citizen of our kingdom. Unfortunately, the friendship agreement signed between the Sicels and the kingdom stipulates that ‘Theonia shall not accept the Sicels as citizens’…”
“That isn’t the case in all Sicel towns. I heard that the town of Kephaloidion in central Sicily had also allocated land to all its people as we do in Theonia, resulting in many Sicels from other towns rushing to join Kephaloidion.” Said Gabrinus.
Kabanus retorted, “Kephaloidion is just a small town, so how much land could it have?! Besides, it would already be nice if they could settle their own people’s share of land. That’s why more Sicels still serve as labourers and helpers in Naxos, Sikuri, Catania and Leontinoi. But due to that, several tribunal officers in the city protested to Lord Stromboli many times as they believed that these Sicels were robbing the livelihood of the registered freemen of Naxos. Hence they demanded the deportation of the Sicels…”
“Those tribunal officers always protest every year about the Sicel problems. I even heard that they proposed to his majesty Davos at the Senate meeting in Thurii but didn’t see much change-” Galademus then interrupted Gabrinus and said, “Let’s only do what is within our duty and not discuss these irrelevant matters!”
“Yes, sir.” The two men came to their senses not because they were talking about the mighty King Davos but because they fear of getting heard by the tribunal officers of Naxos. In order to show their worth, the tribunal officers would often try their best to defend the rights of the commoners, preparatory citizens and even the free men that they would even quarrel with the local council and the city hall from time to time. And the two of them didn’t want to mess with those ‘crazy dogs’.
“Let’s go back.” Galademus turned around and was about to go down the mountain.
But suddenly, Gabrinus pointed to the front and said, “Sir, two slaves are coming out from behind the mountain.”
Galademus turned to look at it and saw two almost naked dark skin men rushing down from the top of the mountain. But when they reach the middle point of the mountain and see Galademus and his men standing in the field wearing chiton*, they immediately stop as panic showed on their faces. Afterwards, they turned around and ran back to the top of the mountain. (The kingdom official’s chiton has unique colours and stripes, which could be easily distinguished at a glance).
“Stop!” Galademus immediately shouted.
Unexpectedly, the two ran even faster. But with the three wearing a chiton, how could they catch up? Thus in a flash, the two slaves reached the top of the mountain and disappeared without a trace.
“Damn it!” Gabrinus looked at the lush, rolling mountains. After cursing, he pulled up the corner of his chiton, wiped away the large drops of sweat on his face and handed Galademus the leather bag around his waist.
Galademus removed the stopper. But instead of immediately drinking it, he asked, “Whose slaves are those?”
“It must be Ladician!” Kabanus explained, “Sir, the mountainside to the foot is Ladician’s field. So with Ladician’s field completely blocking the way up, the slaves of other households wouldn’t be able to come here at all. Yet before they saw us, these two slaves were heading straight towards the fields without fear of being stopped by Ladician’s slaves!”
Galademus nodded and pondered, “Why did they run after seeing us?”