CHAPTER 190: CHAPTER 190 – THE THURII MARKET COURT

Spartan law was clear: the throne went to the king’s eldest son—unless that son had been born before his father became king. In that case, the eldest son born during the reign took precedence. If the king died without sons, the crown passed to the closest male relative by blood. If the heir was still a child, a regent would rule in his place—just as Lycurgus, the founder of Sparta’s current system, once had.

King Agis had only one son: twenty-three-year-old Leotychides. By all rights, he should have inherited the throne. But ever since the Peloponnesian War, gossip had swirled about whether he was really Agis’s son at all. Back then, the Athenian general Alcibiades had defected to Sparta. Agis valued him greatly—until the charming and notoriously seductive Athenian seduced the queen. The whole city knew. Humiliated, Agis swore to tear Alcibiades limb from limb, but the Athenian caught wind of it and slipped back to Athens. Not long after, the queen was pregnant. Small wonder the Spartans doubted whether Leotychides had any right to the throne.

Agis’s younger brother, the forty-five-year-old Agesilaus, was another matter. A model Spartan in the eyes of the people—upright, disciplined, and pure-blooded—he had won considerable support despite his lameness.

It was clear the succession would keep the Spartan elders far too busy to worry about minor matters like the Dyonian League.

The Corinthian merchant Theos was visiting Thurii for the second time. In just a few months, the port had changed dramatically. The Dyonians had dredged the north bank of the Crati River’s mouth, enlarging the harbor. Two long stone breakwaters, like the arms of a giant, embraced the incoming merchant ships. The wharves were no longer the rough, makeshift structures Theos remembered—wooden piers now stretched into the water, while the shore boasted neat rows of stone buildings, broad paved roads for carts, and organized storage areas.

Despite the constant bustle of ships entering and leaving, harbor officials moved with calm efficiency, directing mooring and unloading with practiced order. The dockworkers, too, were quick and disciplined, showing little of the laziness, cheating, or bullying that plagued other ports.

Every so often, Theos noticed men in white chitons walking the docks with pen and parchment in hand. Wherever they passed, the laborers worked faster. A fellow merchant explained: these were officials from the Dyonian Registry, sent to observe free laborers who hoped to become citizens. A bad work record could ruin their chances when the time came to apply for probationary citizenship.

Armed patrols, two or three squads at a time, marched the harbor’s perimeter, keeping order.

Past the gates, Theos discovered the League had built a tall, thick wall enclosing the harbor itself, with the market outside it.

The market was as noisy as ever. The original walls were gone—there simply wasn’t enough room. Shops and workshops crowded together, eating up every bit of space, leaving only wide lanes for buyers, porters, and the city’s firefighting crews.

Two notable buildings stood apart from the market.

One was a hospital. The skill of Dyonian doctors had become famous across northern Magna Graecia—some claimed they even surpassed the physicians of Croton. Davos had founded a kind of comprehensive hospital the Greek world had never seen before: well-equipped, strictly run, and entirely unlike the old private clinics. Patients felt a strange reverence stepping inside—sometimes half-cured by the order and dignity alone. For doctors, it was a magnet. Were it not for the sour relations between Croton and the League, many Crotonian physicians would have come to learn here. Every day, the entrance teemed with patients.

The other building drew a crowd for a different reason: the Dyonian League had established a special court here, dedicated to handling the endless trade disputes and quarrels that arose in the market and port. No other Greek city-state had anything like it, and Theos was intrigued enough to push into the throng.

The post of judge was created only that past November. The flood of newcomers had left city governors overwhelmed with routine administration, never mind legal cases. Davos proposed— and the Senate approved—appointing a High Judge to oversee lower judges in every city and hear appeals. In most Greek states, generals or magistrates handled trials, and Athens didn’t even have judges—jury panels made the decisions. In Dyonia, Davos held ultimate judicial authority as sole archon, but had no time for ordinary cases, so the power had been delegated to city governors—until now.

The Senate’s shortlist for High Judge included Polyxius, but Davos remained silent and instead championed Proxilaus, who ultimately won the post.

Proxilaus should have been presiding at Thurii’s main court—which was still under construction—while his subordinates handled the market court. But in these early days of the League, there were few complex or high-profile cases. Energetic and underworked, Proxilaus decided to take over in person.

"What’s the next case?" he asked eagerly, having just resolved a dispute.

Lower judge Phraucleon gave him a sour look. Once a legal aide under Kunogorata, Phraucleon had just been promoted to judge when the legal office was separated from the administration. His joy hadn’t lasted long—Proxilaus had swooped in, and there was nothing to be done. As a High Judge, a senator, and Davos’s own pick, Proxilaus ranked just below a city governor and held the power to evaluate and recommend his subordinates to the Senate’s Civil Service Committee.

"It’s a case of discrimination," Phraucleon said. "A League citizen’s wife against a merchant from Rhegium."

"Discrimination?" Proxilaus frowned.

"The woman is Lucanian," Phraucleon explained quietly.

"Oh." Proxilaus nodded. "Bring both the plaintiff and the defendant."

The market court wasn’t large—just enough space for the judges, clerks, scribes, and guards. The plaintiff and defendant stood outside, in an enclosed space behind an iron railing. Beyond it, the public could watch freely—a way to teach citizens and foreigners about the law, and to keep judges under public scrutiny.

A man and woman stepped forward. Led by the court usher, they began by swearing before the names of the underworld judges—Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus—that they would speak only the truth.

The plaintiff, a young Lucanian woman, spoke in accented but fluent Greek:"Honorable judge, I am the wife of Izam, a citizen of the League. Today I came to the market to buy an olive-oil jar. I went to his shop—" she pointed at the merchant—"and saw that his pottery was varied and beautiful. I decided to buy there. But because I took a little time to choose, he suddenly became angry and said: ’Damn barbarian! Are you buying or not? If you can’t afford it, stop touching my jars with your filthy hands. If you break one, even selling you as a slave won’t pay for it!’ And then he said... he said..."

"He’s lying, Judge! I never said any such thing!" the merchant shouted.

"Silence," Proxilaus barked. "You’ll speak when it’s your turn. Go on, madam."

The woman flushed red, glaring at the merchant. "He also said: ’A barbarian woman like you doesn’t deserve such fine pottery. You’d be better off as my slave, so I could... so I could enjoy you. Maybe then I’d reward you with a jar.’"