Chapter 132: The Situation in Lucania
Every people who have witnessed this cheered, while the Lucanian slaves, who were involved in the digging of the canals and building the waterwheel, were taken aback and suspected this to be a supernatural work.
“Lord Davos, this is an amazing gift from Zeus! Great! With…this…waterwheel, Amendolara will have an additional 300 acres of land.” Said Cornelius excitedly.
“It’s not only the increase of land, but also the convenience in using water for the people in the future!” Scambras was also happy.
“Everyone, this is not the gift of Zeus! So we have to thank our lord, Davos! The waterwheel is designed and provided by Lord Davos himself. If this is really a gift from the gods, then it must be from Hades!” Mariji’s impolite words embarrassed Cornelius.
Davos did not stop Mariji’s impoliteness or show any modesty, as he needed to have these native citizens know that under his control, Amendolara would leave the past and shine brilliantly!
There is a sharp contrast between the jubilation of the people and the uneasiness of several native citizen statesmen!
Just then, Asistes came to tell him that Izam is back!
So Davos then immediately assigned the task of hosting the ceremony to Cornelius, who took over this glorious task with a complicated expression.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Davos rushed back to his house together with Asistes.
Izam, with his dusty face, long shaggy hair and beard, and wearing a tattered Lucanian leather robe, stood in front of him barefooted, which made Davos barely recognize him.
It turned out that after Izam came back to the city, he immediately came to see Davos without even going back to his home first. As his superior, Davos praised Izam’s enthusiasm for work, but he could not stop himself from expressing his concern, and so, he asked the female slaves to take Izam to take a bath, cut his hair and shave his beard (the Greeks and Romans have different style of beards). Then Davos arranged a sumptuous lunch and invited Izam for a talk.
In the relaxed mood that Davos had created and after several glasses of wine, Izam gradually relaxed and said, “Lord Davos…uh…” Izam belched due to the wine and continued on, “In accordance with your orders, I dressed up in disguise and crossed the mountain path in the western mountain area of the Sybaris plain. I went to Laos first, it was located at the estuary of the river which the natives call the “Lao River”. The city was not big, but it was made of stone, and it has a port. Therefore, they weren’t strict on their guard, so I manage to mixed in and worked at the port by carrying goods every day, and I manage to get to know several slaves in the port, try to guess who they are.”
“They should be Greeks.” Davos was not surprised due to the Lucanians managing to invade the area of Thurii many times, and capturing many Greeks.
But the answer of Izam manage to surprise him, “To be precise, they are the descendants of the Sybarites, and Laos was built by the Sybarites. According to these people, the reason why the Sybarites built Laos was to use it as the transit port for Sybaris to trade with Naples, Etrusca, and also Messana. At that time, Laos was very prosperous…but with the destruction of Sybaris, Laos lost its support, and was soon occupied by Nerulum that went south.”
“Oh, really…” Davos did felt surprised, and asked, “So, the old Sybarites became slaves? How many Greek slaves are there in Laos now?”
“I don’t know how many Greek slaves there are, but when the Lucanians attacked Laos, some Greeks have voluntarily surrendered and joined the Lucanian…Avinoges, one of the chieftain of Laos, is a descendant of these people, and the tribe that he leads is also the descendants of those Sybarites. The Lucanians don’t trust them because they are not pure blooded Lucanians, and so they often insult them and suppress them. Although these Greek slaves also hate these people and thought that it was due to their betrayal that had lead to the fall of Laos, they do not hate Avinoges that much, and most of them thought that he was a good man, because he often helped them…”
Izam took a few more sips of wine and excitedly said, “At present, the city of Laos is not stable because some of the Lucanian tribes headed by Tula, the great chieftain of Laos, left Avinoges to stay behind and to not participate in the invasion of Thurii in order to prevent Avinoges from sharing the spoils. But they didn’t expect that you would lead us to wipe out almost all the Lucanians that have invaded Thurii! Haha…Tula, the great chieftain of Laos, fled back to the city with only a few dozen warriors. On the contrary, Avinoges became the most powerful leader in Laos. As a result, Lord, guess what happened?”
Izam seemed to be a bit drunk, and did not pay attention to his speech anymore, but Davos did not care about it. His mind jolted at once and said, “He wants to annex the tribe of Avinoges?”
Izam slapped the wooden chair and said, “My lord, you are amazing and you manage to guess it!” He grabbed a piece of bread, tore a large part of it and put it into his mouth, and chewed it loudly.
Asistes’ eyebrows twiched and was about to reprimand him, but Davos waves his hand to stop him.
“I heard from the slaves at the port that Tula had invited Avinoges to a dinner, they didn’t know what happened, but when he came back, they saw that several of his guards were wounded. From that day on, Avinoges hid at his home and never went to the city to discuss business. I then went to walk around his house, and saw that it was now surrounded by warriors armed with weapons, and they said that the reason why Avinoges did not fought back was to observe the situation of Nerulum.”
“Nerulum?” Davos listened seriously.
“Yessir.” Izam scratched his head in embarrassment and said, “I had planned to go north and explore the central region of Lucania, but Nerulum controlled the passage to the north in the upper reaches of the Lao river, which is now heavily guarded and can not be passed by strangers. Laos originally obeyed the orders of Nerulum, but all the warriors who went out to battle had died, and I heard that Wudlei, the great chieftain of Nerulum, had died in our hands, and their strength was greatly damaged.” At this point, Izam became a bit complacent, “Several chieftains in the city of Nerulum are busy fighting for the position of the great chieftain, and I heard that they almost fought with each other.” Said Izam, then he subconsciously picked up the glass, but found that it was empty, and so Davos got up to refill it.
Izam sat still and just said thanks. Davos did not take it seriously and sat down to continue listening to him, “My Lord, I remember that after wiping out the main force of the Lucanian alliance and rushed to their camp. Didn’t we see that the camp had been burnt to ashes and there were still many corpses? At that time, many have speculated that it was caused by the internal strife among the Lucanians, and now I know who did it.”
“Who?” Davos leaned forward to show his concern.
“The Vergaeans!”
“Vergae?”
“My lord, the city of Vergae is to the south of Laos, and it is not too far from it and it is a city of the Brutti. Because of the strength of the Lucanians, they were forced to join their alliance, but because they were outsiders, they were often bullied, so…”
“Hmm, the Bruttians…” Davos rubbed his chin. For this native race, who is also a neighbor of Thurii, he knew less about them, and only knew that due to their geographic location, they posed only a little threat to Thurii, but they cause huge trouble to the several Greek city-states in the south.
“When the Vergaeans fled back, they announced that they had separated from the Lucanian alliance and they then started building walls and had sent many warriors to patrol their borders, and blocked the passage south of Laos.” Izam took a few more sips of wine.
“You only know how to drink and talk so much. Is there any information about Grumentum?” Said Asistes impatiently.
“Izam went alone to explore Lucania, an unfamiliar place. After a lot of hardship, he brought back valuable information, so him drinking wine is nothing, but you should not just drink alcohol, you should also eat more fruit, which is good for your body.” Said Davos with concern.
“Okay.” Izam responded with gratefulness, so he immediately put down his glass, coughed a few times, and said seriously, “Although I didn’t go to the city of Grumentum to scout, I still manage to get some accurate information.”
On hearing this, Davos and Asistes both roused their attention by 200%. After all, Grumentum was the main culprit of the last war and the leader of the Lucanian alliance, and their every move is related to Davos’ offensive plan.
“Pyxous, another port city in the region of Lucania, and it is a strong city in the Lucanian alliance and was only second to Grumentum, and I heard that it is also a city made of stone.” Instead of mentioning Grumentum first, Izam brought the topic to Pyxous.
City made of stone! On hearing this, his mind jolted. According to his understanding over the past six months, the Greeks love to build cities using stones, while the mountain tribes use wood to build their cities. There is already the precedent, which is Laos, and it is also a port city, so he suspect that Pyxous was also captured by the Lucanians from the Greeks.
“Pyxous and Laos had maritime trade, so some information came to Laos from the merchants and sailors of Pyxous. They said that most of the warriors of Grumentum had died in our hands, and though Akpir, the great chieftain, had manage to escape, he had lost his consciousness, even now. After this information spread out, many tribes that Grumentum had forcibly annex began to leave the control of Grumentum, and Grumentum was powerless to stop them, because the chieftains of Grumentum were busy fighting for the position of the great chieftain. Originally, the strength of Akpir’s tribe was still the most powerful among all the tribes in the city, but his son Lusau met a strong opponent, which is Gennat, the son of Cincinnag, the great chieftain of Pyxous-” Then Izam stopped talking, twisted a dried fig and stuffed it into his mouth.