Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 185: The prosperous port of Piraeus

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Why Athens pottery is loved by the rich Dionian people is not only because of the unique and high-quality pottery with red painting on black background, but also because of the exquisite pictures on the pottery. Athens has gathered many outstanding painters from the Greek world. Almost all of them are engaged in the career of bottle painting. Oniximos is one of the best. He has won two prizes in the Pan Athena bottle painting competition. Hesklau Si spent a lot of money to hire him.

In the face of Hesklaus’s compliment, Oniximos’s performance is not much different from other Athenians: "I hope the Dionians can fully appreciate the beauty of my work! Ah... …There are too many pottery in this batch, I am a little tired and need to rest for a while."

Looking at Oniximos, who was pretending, stretching, and yawning, Hesklaus murmured in his heart, but he agreed: "Yes, yes, you really should take a good rest... It seems, This order of mine can only be postponed temporarily."

"Why are there orders?!" Oniximos said impatiently, "Wait until I have a good rest!"

"Then I can only push this order with the buyer, because they want it in a hurry." Hesklaus said unintentionally, "It is said that it was ordered by the royal family of Dionia. They want to This batch of pottery was placed in the palace and used to entertain guests from all over the world during the Games."

"What are you talking about? The goods that the royal family of Dionian wants?!" Oniximos suddenly asked seriously.

"Yes, I can swear to Athena, it's an order from the Royal Family of Dionia!"

"Uh...I think I can wait until this batch of pottery is finished before resting." Oniximos immediately changed his mouth cheeky. Don’t look at him looking down on the appearance of the Dionians, but he fully understands that the Dionian Kingdom is the overlord of the entire Western Mediterranean and the Greek world, and how noble its royal family is. If his works can be possessed. The powerful King Dionia loved it and was used to receive VIPs from other city-states. Then he will be famous throughout the Mediterranean (Athens pottery has a characteristic, and the pottery has the signatures of potters and bottle painters).

A teasing smile appeared at the corner of Hesklaus's mouth, and he said: "Okay, I will arrange it now."

"Wait a minute, what are the requirements for the content of the bottle painting?"

"It must be the relevant content of "The Codex of Hades", after all, the royal family of Dionia is the descendant of Hades."

"I see, buy me a copy of "The Book of Hades" as soon as possible." Oniximos said without hesitation.

There is another reason why the Dionians like Athens pottery. Unlike other city-state pottery vase paintings, most of them are still life. Its vase paintings are narrative, such as wars, legends of heroes, gods, etc. And so on, and often have a tragic sense of epic, which may be related to the Athenians' love of drama.

The demands that Dionian buyers often make to the Athenian pottery merchants are mostly related to the war during the rise of the Kingdom of Dionian, the miracles of Hades, and the great works of King Davos. When requested, the bottle painters had to obey. Later, a wise man opened a bookstore in the town of Selesia, selling books about the sacred kingdom of Dionia: "Long March" by Xenophon, "History of Great Greece" by Ansitanos, "The War of the Western Mediterranean" by Hernipolis, "The Chronicles of Northern Italy" (by Ansitanos in the restricted area of ​​the Turiy Library, the clerk of the Ministry of Information of the Kingdom Ma The intelligence written by Sims in the Etruscan Border Corps back then was adapted)...Of course there is also (The Code of Hades). This also makes Selesia the only place in Greece where "The Codex of Hades" is sold publicly except Messiania, New Sparta, and Thessaly.

"Be careful! Be careful! If you break one, your three-month salary will be gone!..." The foreman cried out loudly to remind the slaves who carried the pottery, each piece of exquisite pottery was Put it in a wooden box covered with straw and thick wool.

Before setting off, Hesklaus repeatedly urged the foreman to start the production of the next batch of pottery as soon as possible, but he must keep improving and making no mistakes.

There is a port not far from Selesia, which specializes in the transportation and export of pottery, but Hesklaus first transported the pottery to his house on the outskirts of Athens. Said it was his own house, but he was actually renting it for a long time, because Hesklaus was a Gentile and had no right to buy real estate in Athens.

If it were 4 years ago, Hesklaus would not have the guts to settle and do business in Athens, because he was a small businessman from Thessaly, which was once regarded as a barbarian land by the Athenians, but Thessaly Became an area of ​​the Holy Kingdom of Dionian, the Sesari became citizens of Dionian, and Hesklaus was fortunate to know a large Turíy businessman, who was supported and funded by him, and he was able to raise his family. Moved to Athens to engage in pottery industry.

Athens is an open city-state with a large number of Gentiles in various industries, but most of them have low status. Although the citizen of Athens hates the status of Hesklaus, the status of Dionian citizen guarantees that he will not be too biased towards the locals when he is in trouble. Of course, he must also abide by the laws of Athens, in addition to paying a certain amount on a regular basis. In addition to his taxes and occasional public welfare contributions, as a Gentile businessman, he also had to pay a small market tax that Athens citizens were exempt from.

Of course, these expenses are only a fraction of the profits he earns. What makes him most assured is that because of his identity, he will not be arbitrarily recruited by the Athens government to fight as a heavy infantry. Of course, since the establishment of the New Hellenic Alliance, there has been no war in Greece, and the days when the people were frightened have passed.

Now Hesklaus has no desire to return to Thessaly, and prefers to stay in this commercial Athens life.

In the evening, Hesklaus hosted a banquet at home and invited several Thessaly merchants who were doing business in Athens like him.

Everyone sat at the banquet, eating delicious food, drinking wine, and chatting about the great changes that Dionian had brought to Cesare in the past few years.

Not to mention other things, the form of their banquet has changed a lot. It is no longer like a traditional Greek banquet. Each guest has a bed, half-lying eating, drinking, and talking, but sitting on a wooden table. On the chair, there is his own dining table in front of the body. This is due to the increasingly frequent exchanges between the native Dionian and Thessaly, and the impact of some native Dionian citizens moving to the Plain of Thessaly. The Thessarians originally had a sense of inferiority compared to the native Greeks to the south. Now they have become Dionian citizens. Although this sense of inferiority is gradually disappearing, another sense of inferiority is quietly growing, that is, facing As a citizen of Dionia, the Sesari people who had close contacts with Dioria have been trying their best to learn. For example, the merchants have been trying to imitate their customs and habits in order to narrow the distance with each other.

The atmosphere of the banquet was very warm. Everyone drank a little too much. Hesklaus also called his eldest son Lirias and told him drunkly: Tomorrow, I will take him on a boat to Turei. .

The 9-year-old boy was so excited that he didn't sleep well all night.

As a result, on the morning of the second day, Hesklaus, who was awake, did not remember the incident at all. Lirias cried and made troubles. Finally, with his wife's persuasion, Hesklaus had to nod and agree.

After breakfast, he took his son and led the pack team to the port of Piraeus.

Piraeus is the largest trade port in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thousands of cargo ships enter and exit the port every day, which is extremely prosperous.

Hesklaus came to a remote pier. Although it was still early, the place was full of cargo ships, and the ground was full of various commodities. Numerous pier laborers and slaves were busy carrying cargo on the ship. Fortunately, at the banquet last night, several Thessaly businessmen agreed to set off for Turíy today. They have booked cargo ships and found laborers (Piraeus port regulations: non-port-owned pack crews) Don't enter the dock, so as not to disturb the order of the dock and cause losses), Hesklaus hurriedly asked the labor to carefully move the wooden boxes containing pottery one by one to the warehouse of the dock, and then the labor foreman led him into the warehouse.

In the center of this huge room full of cargo is the office of the Athens port officials at this terminal. After they confirmed the type and quantity of the cargo Hesklaus wants to ship out of Athens, they asked Hesklaus to register and Sign, and calculate the value of the entire batch of goods based on market prices, and require them to pay 1/10 tax on exported goods immediately (Athens stipulates that whether it is exported or imported goods, they must pay 1/10 tax, which is simple and rude and saves trouble. , But the tax is too high, which will naturally lead to the high price of goods sold. Once the goods are unsalable, the owner will face losses).

Hesklaus carried a large sum of Hades silver coins (the Dionian coin, since the establishment of the New Hellenic Alliance, it has been popular in Greece because of its high silver content and exquisite production. Due to the exhaustion of the Laurione silver mine and the massive consumption of the national treasury during the war, the silver content of the Athens Owl silver coin has dropped again and again. It is no longer as popular as it used to be. Even many Athenians are more willing to use it. Diss silver coins) and delivered immediately as required.

There is also a set of official measurement tools in the office. The clerks carefully tested the coins and confirmed that they were correct before approving Hesklaus’s cargo ship to leave the port.

When the goods were all loaded onto the ship, the ship left the dock, it was almost noon.

Hesklaus and the others took the largest cargo ship. After the entire fleet left the Salong Bay, the wind turned south, and the sailing fleet drove as fast as wings on. Hesklaus and several other businessmen all showed joy, because the help of the sea breeze meant that the fleet could reach Turri earlier.