Davos calmly reached into his tunic and produced a papyrus scroll. “The people of Thurii are truly forgetful,” he said with a cold sneer. “Fortunately, I have a copy.” He passed the scroll to the nearest senator. It was handed from one man to the next, and they all saw that it did, indeed, contain Davos’s promise of freedom to the slaves, along with the signature of Burkos as a witness, and below that, the signatures of two of Thurii’s own generals: Kunogelata and Neanthis.

At the time, the generals of Thurii had been desperate to keep the mercenary army from abandoning the Sybarite Plain. They had been willing to agree to any condition. In their experience, it was unlikely the mercenaries could hold their camp for long. They had simply hoped to wear down the Lucanians as much as possible, and they considered the two thousand slaves an acceptable loss. They never imagined the mercenaries would dare to attack the enemy, let alone win.

Now, with the notoriously frugal Neanthis in power, he was naturally unwilling to lose over a thousand slaves by granting them freedom. But there was a more critical concern: if these slaves were freed, what about the others? The slaves toiling in the mines numbered nearly nine thousand. If they were to get any ideas, any kind of unrest could be difficult for Thurii’s depleted citizen body to handle. And that was to say nothing of the freemen at the port, who were still locked in a dispute with the city over their own citizenship rights.

So when the scroll finally reached Praexinas, he didn’t even look at it. Steeling himself, he tore it to shreds with both hands. “This is a forgery! A forgery!” he bellowed.

The brazen, thuggish act instantly enraged everyone in the hall. The hot-tempered Scombras was the first to react, lunging forward and seizing Praexinas by the collar. He landed a solid punch to the envoy’s face. “You’ll tear it, will you?!” he roared. “Faithless Thurians! You deserve to be sent to Hades, all of you!”

One punch, then another… If the others hadn’t managed to pull Scombras away, Praexinas would have been beaten senseless. As it was, he staggered back, screaming in terror, “Murder! They’re trying to murder me! Does Amendolara wish to go to war with Thurii?!”

“Throw him out of Amendolara,” Davos commanded with disgust. “And don’t forget to stuff his pockets with the silver coins owed for the manumission of every last mine slave who fled here. We wouldn’t want Thurii to accuse us of stealing their property.”

“Yes, my lord,” Mersis replied with a pained expression. “But… we may not have enough money.”

Davos thought for a moment. “Then write a promissory note in the name of the Senate of Amendolara. We will pay them when we have the funds.”

“But if we do this, the other slaves who fought in the battle will likely all flee to Amendolara!” Cornelius warned.

“Then let them come. They helped us win the war against the Lucanians. They paid with their blood and their lives. By the justice of Hades, in whose name we swore our oath, we will honor it,” Davos declared, his expression solemn.

“We’re letting the Thurians off too easily!” Mersis grumbled.

“The gods always deliver their punishment to those who break their sacred oaths,” Davos said lightly. He turned to Aristocrates, who had been stunned into silence by the preceding chaos. “You are now free. You may go wherever you wish.”

Aristocrates never imagined the outcome he had prayed for would come so swiftly. He trembled with emotion. “Thank you, my lord! We… we wish to remain in Amendolara! And… I personally pledge to repay the money that Amendolara has spent to secure our freedom!”

Davos looked at him, saw the sincerity in his eyes, and gave an appreciative nod. “Very well.”

***

Upon his return to Thurii, Praexinas naturally put on a grand performance, embellishing the tale of Amendolara’s “wicked actions” in an attempt to stir the citizens to fury.

Amendolara, however, had its own countermeasures. They used the Thurian patients traveling to their city for medical treatment as conduits, spreading their own version of what had transpired in the Senate among the populace of Thurii.

For a time, the citizens of Thurii were caught between the two conflicting stories, unable to discern the truth.

But the city hall of Thurii acted quickly. They issued a harsh demand: Amendolara must immediately return the fugitive slaves. Failure to do so would be considered a breach of the alliance, an act to which Thurii would not turn a blind eye.

The Senate of Amendolara refused, reminding Thurii that it should honor the promise it had made and grant freedom to the benefactors of their city—namely, the slaves who had fought in the battle.

In response, Thurii declared an embargo. Its own citizens were forbidden from traveling to Amendolara. Foreign merchants who did business in Amendolara would be subject to heavy taxes if they tried to trade in Thurii.

Since Amendolara’s storage facilities were not yet complete, there were few merchants traveling there to begin with, though the number of foreign patients was high. The embargo had a negligible effect on Amendolara’s trade. Nevertheless, Amendolara took action. They moved their citizen-soldiers’ military drills to the banks of the Saraceno River, conducting them with great fanfare. The massive display of military force made the Thurian farmers and slaves working in the Sybarite Plain extremely nervous.

Aside from lodging a formal protest, the Thurian city hall took no further action. A tense silence fell between the two cities.

For Davos, a hostile relationship with Thurii was the last thing he wanted. But when forced into a corner, he had to make a choice. Siding with Thurii would have been beneficial to his future plans to attack Lucania, but it would have meant breaking his promise. Choosing to free the slaves upheld his oath but endangered the alliance. In the end, Davos believed that a broken alliance could one day be repaired, but a reputation for faithlessness—even a promise made only to slaves—would be a stain on his honor that would be difficult to wash away in the eyes of Magna Graecia. Upholding one’s word was a matter of his personal integrity, and more importantly, the integrity of Amendolara itself. The success of the many new laws being enacted in Amendolara depended on the trust of its citizens and of foreigners. They had to believe that Amendolara would honor its commitments under any circumstances. This, he believed, was the very foundation upon which his new state must be built.

And just as the relationship between Amendolara and Thurii reached a stalemate, a new guest arrived in Thurii: an envoy from Croton.

***

In late June, the Amendolaran Senate met to discuss holding a qualifying competition to select athletes for the Isthmian Games, which were to be held the summer after the Olympic Games. It was one of the four great Panhellenic Games, and though not as ancient as the Olympics, it was still a highly prestigious event. Davos and the Senate hoped that their athletes could showcase the vitality of the reborn Amendolara to the Greek world.

Davos was even considering traveling to Corinth, the host city of the games, with the chosen athletes. In his previous life, he had never had the money or the time to see the Olympics in person. But in this era, he could attend as an honored guest and witness the classical games in their most authentic form.

Just as the senators were excitedly debating how to organize the trials, a shocking piece of news arrived: a major incident had occurred in Thurii.

It turned out that the envoy from Croton had come to Thurii to denounce a crime. He claimed that Thurii, by previously establishing a camp on the ancient site of Sybaris, had violated a long-standing treaty with Croton.

Neanthis and the other generals quickly offered an explanation: the Lucanians were mounting a major invasion, and out of necessity, they had allowed their mercenaries to build a temporary camp there, which had since been dismantled.

But the Crotoniate envoy refused to accept this excuse. He insisted that Thurii had breached the treaty and must offer compensation to avoid serious consequences for the relationship between the two cities. In reality, the true reason for the envoy’s accusation was this: Croton had just concluded a war with the Bruttians, and its treasury was severely depleted. Someone on their city council had proposed this as a way to refill their coffers. With Thurii now greatly weakened, the Crotoniates believed their neighbor would not risk offending a powerful state like Croton by rejecting their demand. At most, they would haggle over the price. And so, the envoy from Croton presented a list of demands for an enormous sum in compensation.

When the Thurian senators saw the list, they immediately understood. Croton had not come to seek justice; they had come to extort them.

An uproar erupted among the generals. Neanthis, though he had adopted a broader perspective since becoming strategos protos, had not changed his fundamentally frugal nature. He had been willing to risk a breach with Amendolara rather than free a thousand slaves; he certainly was not going to accept Croton’s extortion. He told the envoy, “The council of Thurii must discuss this matter before we can give Croton an answer.”

After the envoy left, Neanthis secretly instructed Praexinas to leak the news to the public and incite them to protest at the inn where the envoy was staying. Neanthis had two objectives: first, to show the envoy the anger and resolve of the Thurian people, thereby creating a better negotiating position; and second, to reduce the blame on the city hall if they were eventually forced to sign a compensation agreement.

Neanthis’s calculations were shrewd, but he had made a fatal misjudgment. After the recent incident with Kunogelata, the Thurian populace had become more radical and irrational. Goaded on by certain people with their own agendas, the mob quickly spiraled out of Praexinas’s control.

These instigators were the descendants of the original Sybarites. A century ago, Croton had defeated Sybaris and razed the city to the ground. A few years later, the homeless Sybarites rebuilt their city and quickly restored its prosperity. When Croton learned of this, they sent another army to conquer Sybaris and destroy it completely. The exiled Sybarites appealed to the city-states of mainland Greece for help, and eventually, Pericles of Athens answered their call, leading a pan-Hellenic effort to rebuild Sybaris. The elite of Athens and immigrants from all over Greece flocked to the Sybarite Plain and founded the city of Thurii. Not long after, however, conflict erupted between the Sybarites and the other colonists. The Sybarites wanted to make Thurii a city for Sybarites alone, a notion the other immigrants would not accept. The dispute ended in bloodshed, and the Sybarites were driven out. But they were, after all, natives of this land, and a few managed to remain in secret. In their hearts, they nursed a bitter, undying hatred for Croton, the city that had destroyed their home and ruined their lives. They passed this hatred down through the generations, and when an opportunity for revenge finally presented itself, how could the descendants of the Sybarites possibly let it pass?

The mob, numbering over a thousand enraged citizens, could not be stopped by the handful of soldiers guarding the inn. They stormed the building and brutally beat the Crotoniate envoy. By the time Neanthis received the news and arrived with a large contingent of guards, the envoy was already dead.