Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

"By the way, how has that Macedonian regent Ptolemy, who married the widow of Amintas (the stepmother of Alexander, Pardicus, and Philly), been doing lately?"

"Sire, I was about to report to you. The spies at Egai have discovered that merchants from Asia Minor have been coming in and out of Ptolemy's mansion from time to time for more than six months."

"The merchants of Asia Minor..." intoned Davos, "are you saying that Ptolemy may have been in cahoots with Persia?"

Aristeiros said cautiously: "In order not to arouse Ptolemy's attention, the Ministry of Intelligence did not investigate further into the merchant from Asia Minor. Pactylus had publicly accused Ptolemy of taking on too much power because he wanted to be king, and Ptolemy had publicly retorted that 'Pactylus was childish and unfair, and without his supervision, Macedonia would have been in chaos'". ........

It is said that when Fili stole away to Tului, Pardicus once suspected that his brother was being held hostage by Ptolemy, and had sent guards to his door to inquire. I think the powerful Ptolemy might have rebelled had it not been for the protection of our Deionia."

"You're right. Didn't the Ministry of Intelligence find evidence that Ptolemy had colluded with the rebels after our troops helped put down the Macedonian rebels a few years ago, which means that he has long had ambitions for the Macedonian throne, but only kept it hidden because he was afraid of us Deionians, and now that he has dared to clash with Pardicus and is no longer afraid of our Deionian interference, who gave him the courage to do so? It could only be Persia!" Davos finished with conviction, and then focused on the reminder, "But all you need to do is have someone from Intelligence watching him, and don't worry about the rest."

Davos said this with his hand, but in his heart he was thinking: wouldn't it be just as well if the kingdom's only powerful enemy and a potential danger could be dealt with at the same time!

"Yes..." after Aristillas responded, still not intending to leave, Davos couldn't help but ask, "Do you have anything else?"

Aristillas hesitated for a moment and said softly, "Your Majesty... I have a request!"

"You said." Davos was intrigued: the ever-prudent intelligence chief, however, rarely asked him for anything.

"Sire, since I have served you, I have never left Tullye! This time I hope to follow you on your expedition to Persia!" Aristeiras said earnestly.

Davos looked at him, momentarily silent, wondering if Aristillas' main purpose in making the request was to resign as head of intelligence in disguise, especially since he had just vetoed his resignation.

"Your Majesty, this is a little bit of my personal wish. If I can follow you and share a little of the glory of conquering the eastern powerhouse Persia, I can at least be proud to tell in the future when I face inquiries from my children and grandchildren. And my going to Persia will allow me to more easily and quickly mobilize the Ministry of Intelligence to spy on Persia and disrupt its domestic order..."

Aristiras once again looked earnest and said, "You don't have to worry about domestic security either, in fact, I've basically been sitting on my hands for over half a year, and the specific affairs of the Intelligence Department are all under the specific responsibility of the Deputy Head of the Department, and with the full assistance of the Clerk, Maximus, the efficiency of the Intelligence Department will only be stronger than ever!"

Davos gazed at him and burst out laughing, "Good for you Aristillas, it's rare to see you speak so much from your heart! You're willing to belittle yourself just to get out of the house! How can I disagree with you when you've made it this far? But in the meantime while the Games are being held, you'll have to get the affairs of the Intelligence Department in order, oh, and... when the plans for the expedition to Persia are made public to the people, you'll have to admit to Asuna that it was you who wanted to go, not me, hahaha.... "

Watching Aristiras' back as he left, Davos thought: it seems that Aristiras has seen his desire to replace his old ministers and pave the way for Crotokatacus. If he agrees to go to Persia, then the positions in the important departments of the kingdom have basically been taken over by older and more powerful ministers... Oh, and there's also Sedorum, who has always been a lover of the past, it seems I need to find the right person to enlighten him at the right moment...

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Perhaps because most of Crete's inhabitants are immigrants from Lagonia, leading to some similarities between the various city-states on Crete and Sparta's system of government, such as the fact that they all have councils of elders, they all have civic assemblies, they all have a system of ombudsmen, and the boys in the city-states of Crete are required to study (mainly for military training) from an early age....

Of course due to the small terrain of Crete, lack of supplies, and the failure to unify Lagonia like Sparta, the city-states established alliances but still maintained their independence, so they did not have enough financial and material resources to develop heavy infantry, but instead focused on training archers according to the island's realities.

Chapter 5.

After the formation of the New Greek Union, peace and tranquility had finally returned to mainland Greece in the past few years, and Cretan citizens were no longer drafted by the city-state to get involved in wars on Greek soil, and many Cretan citizens were still grateful to Dionysia.

And the year before, when King Dionysian announced "a great sporting event" and sent invitations to the cities and countries of the Mediterranean, the Cretans were surprised to find archery among the sports listed in the letter.

In the past, the Cretans had participated in games held on Greek soil, but more often than not the sons of nobles had participated, as their wealthy families had been able to provide enough money for professional training in the public gymnasiums, and the level of competition of the commoners had been far from theirs.

Since Daoria had only given a total of five slots for archery in the Cretan city-states, a great archery tournament was held for this purpose by the Cretan League, and the five best performers were finally selected, and together with those competing in the other events, they would form the Cretan team that would take a boat to Turey in early June, as some new rules would be imposed for this Games, and they would need to get there first! Adaptation.

McGargides, a young man of 20, a civilian from the city of Heraklion on the island of Crete, won this Cretan all-island archery tournament, and the people of Crete had great expectations of him, and he himself was full of confidence.

But when he arrived in Turii and began to acclimatize himself to the field, he discovered that the targets used in the archery competitions at the Dionysian Games were not head targets, but rather a novel circular target with five concentric circles, and that the closer the arrow hit the center of the target, the higher the score, which required the archers who wanted to win the championship to improve their accuracy even further.

When he first started practicing, McGakides wasn't scoring very well and he was panicking a bit, but as he continued to practice over the past 20 days, he was getting used to it.

At this moment, he took out an arrow from the arrow bag, placed it on the bowstring, hooked the string with his right two fingers, and slowly pulled backwards, while holding the bow straight out with his left hand and raising it Xu Xu, his eyes always focused on the target 50 meters in front of him, until the bowstring was half full, his arm was still, and his breathing was steady.

"Nine rings!" The target announcer shouted ahead.

McGonagides shakes his head slightly in displeasure, rubbing his left hand on his right arm which is a little sore.

"This time the three arrows shot a total of 26 rings, which is pretty good to still have this kind of training after four rounds of shooting!"

Hearing the target announcer's praise, Megakides wasn't happy, and he unconsciously turned his head to look at the participants who were training hard at the other targets.

Originally, he had come to the games with the intention of winning, but during the days he had been practicing, he realized that many of the archery competitors were highly skilled, and most of them were from various regions of Deionia. As far as he knew, these Dionysian athletes also participated in military training since they were young, and the youngsters who excelled in archery would have special teachers to help them strengthen their training in this area, and when they reached adulthood, the military camps in various regions of Dionysia would test them in archery, and the ones who performed the best would be selected to join the Light Infantry Brigade first, while the ones who did not perform well would become members of the reserves, and then they would continue to do so year after year and day after day. Military training, sometimes rushing to the battlefield with his regiment to take part in combat....

He once asked a competitor from the Deioria region of Eastern Sicily, who told him that there had been an archery competition in Eastern Sicily two months earlier, and that since there was no age limit for the archery competition, more than 5,000 people had applied, and that the competition had lasted 10 days, with three competitors selected through an extra competition (there were only three archery slots in the Deionian regions)....

Daonia alone had more people participating in the Archery Trials than Crete, but Daonia had dozens of regions, and the participants selected from such a large number of people were naturally exceptional, and their performance on the training field was really putting pressure on Megakides.

"One more round!" He said in a deep voice.

The target announcer, however, did not hand him an arrow, but looked up at the sky and then advised him warmly, "You've already shot five rounds, if you continue to practice, you'll easily strain your arm, and you won't be able to compete then. Besides, the games will be held tomorrow, so go home early and rest well so that you'll have the energy to attend the ceremony the kingdom is holding for the games tomorrow..."