Chapter 3077 Libation Bearer (8)

 Attica is the region where Athens, the capital of Greece, is located. It is also the name of this region in ancient Greece.

Because the land is barren, it was not coveted by other city-states and had to live a settled life early.

As Pomona walked along the stairs, she was inexplicably reminded of Rita Lestrange’s expression in Père Lachaise Cemetery—full of dramatic numbness facing her final fate.

Maybe Themistocles was like this when he explained the Oracle of Delphi to the Athenians... No, it shouldn't be like this. It should be the look on his face when he accepted the order of expulsion from the Ostracian tablets and was expelled from Athens, even though he used impassioned "It is said that what builds a city-state is not gorgeous houses or strong city walls, but people who dare to meet challenges. As long as the citizens of Athens are still there, there will be no worries about being unable to make a comeback. And the powerful Sparta has neither beauty nor beauty." temples and no solid city walls, but this did not prevent them from dominating the Peloponnese Peninsula."

Language is indeed powerful, but don’t believe it too much. When it was decided whether the patron saint of Athens would be Athena or Poseidon, whoever could provide the most useful things to humans in Athens would become the patron of the city. god. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and conjured a war horse. And Athena transformed into an olive tree.

In addition to the so-called war and sorrow, peace and prosperity, the most critical thing is the terrain of Athens. Hector is called "the one who tames horses". The terrain of Troy is a wide plain, so that there is enough space for the coalition forces to Get into formation. Athens is mountainous, and the olive trees can provide olive oil and honey, which were very valuable in ancient Greece.

It is not surprising that in ancient Greek city-states, 80% of the population was engaged in agriculture. However, the land in Attica was not fertile, which forced people in this area to engage in maritime trade, sell olive oil and honey, and then buy Return food and handicraft raw materials, etc.

The Battle of Salamis was not only a victory, but also marked the formal transformation of Athens from relying on heavy infantry formed by wealthy farmers to relying on a navy based on the urban bottom.

In 487 BC the first banishment was carried out against a relative of the tyrant, who fled to Persia.

Even Egypt, which was once powerful, has become a province of Persia and is being exploited by the Persians. What can Athens do to resist Persia?

The citizens' assembly at that time, after Solon's reform, was no longer held to divide the spoils like it was at Troy. The citizens gave up the dividends from the Laurion mine of 10 drachma silver coins per person, and used the proceeds from the Laurion state-owned silver mine to build more than 100 triremes with angles of attack, increasing the number of Athenian warships from more than 70 to 200 ships. In terms of scale, the Athenian navy was not much different from the Persian navy "at that time".

 Solon’s reforms included the abolition of debt slaves. Before the seventh century BC, people did not understand the benefits of “citizenship” to them. Politics was a matter for the top, and people at the bottom were already doing their best to think about food and clothing.

Sometimes some members of the Athenian tribes who had lived in Attica for generations became slaves because of debts. Solon defined "freedom" as Athenian citizens and slaves.

This can solidify something and avoid status downgrade, but it also means that the people at the bottom lose the ability to use their bodies as collateral in exchange for the minimum living security.

  In other words, this dividend was important to some Athenian citizens who did not have a fixed income. Themistocles persuaded these people to become oarsmen on warships and let them become members of the "ship of the state".

 In 480 BC, after the death of his father, King Xerxes of Persia led an alliance of more than 1,200 warships, more than 3,000 auxiliary ships, and a total force of more than 200,000 troops by land and water, and invaded Greece again. After being blocked by the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persian army headed straight for Athens.

At the critical juncture when the country was ruined and the family was destroyed, the Athenians remembered the predictions made by the Temple of Delphi about the future of Athens:

When the enemy plunders the land of Cycolops and plunders the sacred valley of Cytheron, the visionary Zeus will give the people of Athena a wooden wall as a barrier to protect your descendants. .

 There are different opinions among the Greeks as to what wooden walls are. Those priests and elders who advocated the wooden wall were referring to the wooden palisade fortifications on the hill of the Acropolis in Athens.

At that time, the coalition of Spartans and Argives also built a wooden wall in Troy, but that wall was not as protected as the Troy wall.

So Themistocles "flexibly interpreted" the wooden walls as Athens' powerful navy - ancient ships were also made of wood. And Themistocles deliberately guided the priests to let go of Athena's sacred relic - a big snake kept in the Acropolis, and disappeared with the big snake, telling the Athenians: The goddess has abandoned her city, everyone should retreat temporarily.

It is an open secret that the Spartans wantonly misinterpreted the Delphic oracle and manipulated the predictions, but no one in Athens had ever heard of what the Athenians did.

Retreating means giving up everything you already own, including the wealth accumulated over generations. The Persians did not even leave any sculptures behind, and moved everything from Athens.

When some people think about whether they want money or life, some people think that there are no eggs left in the nest. After completing the retreat, a few days later, the Athenians saw from a distance that the top of the Acropolis, the pride of Athens, was on fire. Thick smoke billows. Those old diehards who stayed behind in Athens eventually died heroically in battle, and the rest of the living, although still alive, became homeless refugees. At the Greek Allied Forces Conference, the city-states from southern Greece, represented by Sparta, prepared to rely on peninsular defense and arbitrarily abandon the remaining parts of Athens to the Persians. They also ridiculed the Athenians as refugees who had lost their land. Themistocles Threatening Athens to withdraw from the coalition forces forced the Peloponnesians not to abandon the city-state of Athens.

After the naval battle of Salamis, the Athenians returned to their hometown and found that the city they had lived in for generations had been reduced to scorched earth and rubble, but the Athenians still rebuilt their city.

Within Athens, Themistocles also began to be jealous of his compatriots, and people chose to expel him. Not only did some say that he looked like a dictator. The Athenians who came to their senses, regardless of whether his motives were good or not, banished him for blasphemy.

When the center of Athens' activities moved from the mountains and forests to the ocean, Poseidon brought much more benefits than Athena.

At the time of the Peloponnesian War, all Athenians retreated within the long wall. No matter how barren the land in Attica was, it still supported half of the population of Athens.

At this time, the benefits of maritime trade became apparent, but the Athenians needed to go to the Black Sea to buy wheat.

 Is it really prosperity that comes from settling down, rather than from wandering around the world?

Some things are like rocks under a glacier, which cannot be changed even by the power of the glacier.

Pericles witnessed the rise and fall of Athens, and not just because Thucydides said that none of his successors could compare to him.

Mayflies are just mayflies, they only live one day and one night, and they cannot see the change of winter and spring.

 Eventually Themistocles was exiled, but his political strategies were passed down, and this is the meaning of the existence of the community.

Perhaps Themistocles was not a native Athenian and did not have such deep feelings for this land.

 But he became a lamentable tragedy. Greeks love tragedy, although they spend a lot of money on various events and festivals.

 “Let her go!”

Pomona shouted, raising her wand.

In the end, she still felt that Rita Lestrange's "Grindelwald" voice was very powerful.

 If life is a continuation at any cost, then destruction is a priceless luxury.

The idea of ​​destroying Paris, a city full of entertainment and glitz, is very creative, and at the same time using one's "useless life for meaningful things" is also creative.

How can that be destruction? That is obviously creation.

 Just “get”, not a suitcase made by a tanner, or anything else that can anchor an “identity”.

 As for what you got?

Maybe it’s nothing, just a dream.

 (End of this chapter)