Chapter 675: Declaring war on Theona? (II)

Eshmounadon immediately stood up to try to remove the impact of the other part's words on the elders, "Pretasdrubal, do you not know that the current Theonia is much more powerful than the previous Syracuse?! They have at least ten legions and four fleets. Moreover, there's a report their population reached almost two million, and their territory is far beyond the scope of the land and city-states that Syracuse controlled previously. Hence they can easily form an army of a hundred thousand men. Can we do that as well?! Thus we shouldn't fight the Theonians now. Instead, we should speed up our expansion in inner Africa and strengthen our forces, allowing us to fight Theonia in the future!"

Pretasdrubal sneered, "In the future? When will that be?! When Theonia finished taking over all of Italia?! Rather, it is now the best time for us to go to war with Theonia as they are experiencing drought and lacking food, so I doubt Theonia could even organise fifty thousand soldiers, let alone a hundred thousand!

In addition, we have the western part of Sicily, Numidia, southern Iberia and also Rome, a powerful city-state in central Italia, and Mauretania in west Africa as allies. There's also a report that the Samnites are dissatisfied with Theonia as they forced them to join their alliance after defeating them. So we might be able to recruit them, as well as the Spartans who fear Theonia's might...as you can see, even though Theonia is powerful, they, in fact, have many enemies. Thus our chances of winning are quite high!"

Pretasdrubal's words made the elders discuss among themselves.

Hanno, who had remained silent, frowned when he heard southern Iberia.

Then he saw the head of the neutral faction, Adrusbal, standing up with a severe expression, "Everyone, you all know that I do not like war since I lost my son in the war with Syracuse. However, I want to remind everyone that our trade with Sardinia has sharply declined over the years! What's the reason?! I think everyone here knows how we sent people to the various city-states in Sardinia. After their investigation, they discovered that these city-states' citizens secretly sailed their boats to the Theonian cities of Irna and Poseidonia just across the sea from Sardinia to buy pots, olive oil, wine, livestock...and so on.

Although the people we sent urged the Sardinian city-states to tighten their control, they still went there because the price of goods sold by the Theonians was much lower than ours. But unlike the Campanian league, Theonia simply ignores our protests. On the contrary, they even impose restrictions on our merchants within Theonia, such as the recent situation where Theonia's commerce officials punished several of our merchants in Locri simply because they sold grains at higher prices than Theonia had imposed. It is unacceptable for Theonia to punish our merchants just because they are following the trade principle of 'The price of goods is determined by demand' that the merchants of the Mediterranean followed!"

Elders, our ancestors, came here from Tyre to make a living through trading, gradually prospered and finally became powerful. So without a prosperous trade, our mighty Carthage wouldn't exist; Trade is our root! I don't care if Theonia occupies more land, but since they are intentionally restricting our trade and trying to dig out our roots, we must become more vigilant! We must also fight back! We must make the Theonians give concessions on trade!"

Adrusbal's resounding speech aroused the elders.

"Lord Adrusbal is right! I had to stop my caravan from selling wine to Sardinia because only a few of them still buys it, all because of the Theonians!"

"Making the Theonians give trade concessions is still not enough! As long as they continue their expansion, the city-state and routes available for us to trade with will only lessen, resulting in us having to yield to Theonia in the future because of our trade collapsing! So if we want Carthage's trade continues to prosper, we must eliminate the kingdom of Theonia!"

"Indeed, we must join forces with Rome to launch a war against Theonia! And win back our hegemony of the western Mediterranean!!"

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Listening to their discussions made Hanno's expression turn more gloomy. Although he knew that Theonia's continuous expansion in recent years was the greatest threat to Carthage's security, he still didn't want to start a war at this time for two reasons: First, their occupation of the Numidian region remained unstable. Second, even though he managed to send Mago away to the Iberian Peninsula, he managed to occupy a large area of land there, built several towns and appointed his own men as officials. In addition, he kept disobeying the Senate's order, which made Hanno want to repeatedly strengthen Carthage's management of those newly occupied areas. And even after taking some measures, they ultimately failed and just gave him headaches. But if they were to launch a war against Theonia now, it would allow those warmongering families to return to the Carthaginian Senate!

With Hanno managing the Senate for over a decade, he has completely controlled it. Hence he wasn't worried even if Pretasdrubal and Adrusbal's words managed to temp the elders in the meeting hall as those elders who depended on him wouldn't easily vote in favour of their proposal as long as he didn't give his approval. And because their proposal doesn't have enough supporters, it wouldn't become a resolution.

Seven days passed, and Hanno still didn't make a statement even though he was under pressure.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Gadir was a colony founded by the Phoenician powerhouse Tyre in the southern Iberian Peninsula. It was said that a high-ranking official of Tyre discovered this place after encountering a storm while he was heading to the Balearic Islands. After the storm blew his ship off course, they stopped on a beach after sailing past the Pillars of Heracles. After giving their thanks to Melqart, these people who managed to survive found the place they were at was located at the end of a narrow isthmus, with three of its side surrounded by water that made it difficult to conquer by land while easily accessible from the sea. Since it is such an excellent natural port, they established a colony here and named it Gadir.

And after discovering numerous silver veins, iron and other metals in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, the Phoenicians started strengthening their trade with the Tartessos kingdom. Once they effectively controlled the mining and metal ore processing industry throughout southern Iberia, Gadir soon became prosperous and became the main transportation hub for the Phoenicians' trade and commerce activities in Iberia and perhaps even the entire Phoenician colony in the western Mediterranean. With a large amount of silver mined, melted and processed from the Iberian Peninsula and sent to Tyre to meet its suzerain city-state's need, Assyria, they managed to give more freedom to the people of Tyre.

But in the following centuries, the war waged in the eastern Mediterranean caused the hegemony to keep changing. With the decline of Tyre, Carthage soon rose to take Tyre's place. And throughout hundreds of years, Carthage soon took all Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean under their wing, including Gadir.

As a result, they first needed to ship the silver and other metal ingots that they processed in Gadir to Carthage, as the Carthaginians were the ones who controlled all trade matters with their motherland in the eastern Mediterranean.

And when the Carthaginian Senate sent the Magonids to the Iberian Peninsula, they didn't allow them to interfere in the matters of Gadir. However, after more than ten years since the Magonids set foot on the Iberian Peninsula, the Magonids manage to bring Gadir under their control secretly.

On this day, a battered merchant ship came to the port of Gadir. But to the surprise of the people in the port, these people were a group of Greeks.

Once the city hall of Gadir learned about that, they immediately sent out their guards to detain the people on board. But they find out afterwards that this merchant ship had come from the kingdom of Theonia and was planning to go to the Greek colonial city-state of Saguntum in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula for trade. Unexpectedly, they encountered a storm that resulted in their ship being blown near the coast of Gadir.

In the friendly treaty between Carthage and Theonia, there is a clause that forbids Theonians from trading directly with other colonial or affiliated city-states of Carthage, except when dealing with Carthage; otherwise, they will receive punishment, with both sides handling the case. But if they were to enter Carthage's territory by mistake for some reason, they would be allowed to leave after explaining their situation as they aren't allowed to stay there.

So after understanding their situation, the people of Gadir urged the merchant ship to leave. But a problem occurred: With the merchant's ship too severely damaged, they couldn't go out to sea until they finished its repair, so the people of Gadir sent the ship to the shipyard for repair while placing the Theonians under house arrest in the inn. Naturally, the Theonians had to pay for the ship's repair and food.

But during this period, someone quietly slipped into the room of the owner of the merchant ship, Aeonis. That person claimed to be a Phoenician from Huelva and said that his master was a prominent merchant with thousands of mining slaves and controlled the mining rights of several silver mines. So every month, his mine could produce several tons of silver order, allowing him to earn more wealth. However, Carthage forced them not to sell anything to the public except the metal ore extracted from the processing, while they had to sell the silver to Carthage for less profit. Because of that, his master was quite dissatisfied with the situation and hoped to find a secret channel to sell his pile of silver at a higher price...

Hearing that, Aeonis became somewhat tempted.

Aeonis was a liberated slave of Kunogelata's family and later obtained citizenship. Since Sostratus' had supported him in becoming a merchant, he knew the concerns of the Ministry of Commerce of the kingdom of Theonia.