"Nope! I didn't say that! Seeing the sudden change in the judge's face, the merchant hurriedly retorted. Suddenly there was an angry scolding behind him: "Dare to discriminate against us Lucalians, don't you want to live!" ”

"Izzam is the warrior of our alliance, and you dare to insult his wife! Your Excellency, please punish this pervert severely! ”

……

The merchant secretly complained, he originally thought that this woman was a fairly good-looking Lucanian slave girl, and he never bought it just by asking the price, it took too long, and he was dizzy for a moment before he said those words, but he did not expect that it was the wife of a citizen of the Dionian League who was provoked. In fact, it was because he had just arrived here for a few days, and he did not know the customs here, because most of the wives of other city-state citizens stayed at home and could go to the market to buy and sell things, and they were foreign women, so they must be female slaves, and they took advantage of some language, and even stroked twice, and no one cared. However, Dionya is different, many of its citizens are married to Lucanian women, and many of Theoria's Greek women are married to Lucanian preparatory citizens, these foreigners do not have as many cumbersome etiquette as the Greeks, and they are bold and open-minded, which naturally gradually influences and changes the conservative atmosphere of the original Greek citizens of Dionia. In addition, the revered consul Davers also allowed his wife to appear in public, and even opened banks and restaurants in the market, which naturally further promoted the change of Dionian customs, so it is now common to see the wives of Dionian citizens in the market.

"Defendant, what the plaintiff said is the truth?" Proxilaus asked, and when he saw that the merchant was about to open his mouth to speak, he reminded in a loud voice: "If it is only discrimination against foreigners, the most you can do is pay fines and corporal punishment." But if you still lie after taking an oath before God, you are guilty of blasphemy and will be punished with a cruel tongue plucked! So you have to think clearly before you speak! ”

The merchant was shocked when he heard this, and was silent for a long time, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and finally he whispered, "What did she say...... Most of this is true...... But...... But I didn't know in advance that it was a crime to discriminate against foreigners! ”

"Really?" Proxilaus looked serious: "When you rented a stall, didn't you familiarize yourself with the "Regulations that must be followed in doing business in Dionia" written by the market management office? ”

"No ......" the merchant wanted to deny, but suddenly remembered the rule of the Dionian Market Administration: if you are not familiar with the rules, you cannot rent a shop. Therefore, he could only nod: "Understood." ”

"In that case, you are breaking the law! First of all, the law that 'Dionya cannot discriminate against foreigners' is to pay a fine of ten drachmas and two corporal punishments, so that you can deepen your memory and not repeat it in the future! As for the fact that you blasphemed the accuser with words, but did not put it into action, this ...... Does our coalition have a bill on this? Plotsilaus asked Fraucleon.

Fraucleon thought carefully and shook his head.

"It looks like I've got something to do at the next Senate meeting." Proxilaus muttered to himself, he thought about it for a moment, and then said: "As to what punishment you will be given for blaspheming the plaintiff with words, I give this right to the plaintiff, and she will decide. ”

The merchant looked at the plaintiff with a pleading gaze, but the young Lucanian woman did not shirk it, and said simply: "Then punish him to be the guide of the market management office and do five days of voluntary labor." ”

"Okay, that's it!" Proxilaus applauded the plaintiff's suggestion: "Defendant, you may choose not to accept the 'five days of compulsory labor' offered by the plaintiff, but you will be expelled from the Union and will never be allowed to do business here!" Proxilaus said in an accentuated tone: "You think about it, are you willing to accept this punishment?" ”

As a merchant, dignity is not important, what matters is whether or not he can make money, and his pottery business in the Turiyi market has been very prosperous these days, and he certainly does not want to be expelled from the alliance for this little thing, and of course he finally accepts the punishment.

The next dispute was the opposite, a conflict between a registered freeman vendor and a Gentile trader. The freeman insulted and beat the merchant, the facts are clear, the evidence is conclusive, there is no dispute, and it is enough to be punished directly in accordance with the market management law that "does not discriminate against foreign merchants" and "brawls and disturbances", but the freeman has always denied the beating during the trial, and constantly hinted to Proxilaus that he was a confidant of the senator Polyxis and had been doing things for him, hoping that the judge would settle the matter perfunctorily.

The young and vigorous Proxilaus, who was not accustomed to seeing Polyxis who often showed that he was born noble in the Senate and occasionally despised them as non-Turian senators, seized the opportunity at this moment, and would not let it go, and loudly rebuked: "The bold defendant dares to destroy the reputation of Lord Polyxis!" Not only did you oppress the accuser, but you also hurt people with your hands, and you behaved badly! If you still refuse to admit the facts, and break the oath you made before, I sentence you to blasphemy, and carry it out immediately! ”

The freedmen were shocked and hurriedly forgiven, while the onlookers shouted for Proxilaus.

In the end, the freedman did not want to accept the torture of "tongue pulling", but chose to receive the equal punishment of 40 strokes, and was beaten to his breath and carried out of the court, while the scribe recorded his deeds, and even if he eventually recovered his health, the registry would expel him from Dionia.

In the markets and in the ports, there are minor disputes and conflicts, and the adjudication process is very quick and does not require cumbersome legal procedures, lawyers and juries......

Theos looked outside the court for a while, and saw some mystery: it was clear that this little court was a practical demonstration of the impartiality of the Dionian League to citizens, slaves, aliens, and Gentiles, and to defend the legitimate rights of all law-abiding people in the Dionian realm, especially for merchants like them.

When doing business in other city-states, the local citizens often acted out of jealousy, with the mentality that "this foreigner wants to make the city-state's money", and the city-state's high-ranking officials often favored the citizens of their own city (because elections require the support of citizens). Among the Greek city-states, Athens had the best attitude towards the Gentiles who settled and did business in the state, because its super-developed trade and handicraft industry required it to be open to the technology, capital investment, and employment brought by the Gentiles, and it gave the Gentiles considerable power in law, in addition to not being able to own land and hold public office, the layman could even contract Athenian minerals, monopolize shipping, and so on.

Athens' generosity was certainly rewarded with kindness from the Gentiles. In normal times, they would make charitable donations such as repairing temples, holding theatrical ceremonies, and giving them free access to Athenian citizens. When Athens was in crisis, they also stepped forward like Athenian citizens, acting as hoplites or buying weapons and equipment, or even three-layer oars, to donate to the Athenian government.

Now Dionya has a tendency to look up to Athens, and in some respects is even bolder than Athens. Theos came because the Senate of the Dionian League had passed a new law, allowing the land between the Saraceno and Sisno rivers to be leased to foreign merchants for a period of 20 years.

This news immediately caused a sensation among the Gentile merchants in the market of Turii and quickly spread throughout Greater Greece. Most of the merchants who had visited Turiyi were optimistic about the trade prospects of the Dionian League, not to mention that Dionia had added Laos to its alliance, so that any merchant who traded in the alliance could enter Laos at a favorable price and open up trade with Naples, Massilia, Gaul, the Iberian Peninsula, Mauria and other regions. In particular, the construction of the Tourii-Laos Avenue has already begun, and with the quality of the road built by Dionia, the completed highway will certainly make the transportation of goods between the two cities more convenient, and it is estimated that it will be possible to reach Laos from Turii in two days at the earliest, which is about the same time as it would take to travel by sea by cargo ship. Moreover, it is risky to travel by sea, because any pirates or storms can destroy the effort and risk lives. At the same time, when crossing the Strait of Messina, the city-states of Messina and Ligem, one south and one north, charged a lot of tariffs, which greatly reduced the profits earned.

The land that Tios passed through on his last trip to Amendolara was flat, but due to the hard ground (mostly gravelly), it could not be used as agricultural land, so it was not allocated as a 'share' to the citizens of the Alliance, except for a small portion of the land that was used to build the Amendora military camp for the training of citizen soldiers. For Theos, such a barren land is also full of value, and he wants to auction off the next plot and open a weapons workshop.

After making money from his last trade, Theos became interested in the fledgling alliance. He found that Dionya was an alliance that admired force, otherwise it would not have held a triumphal ceremony to give so much glory to the victorious generals and soldiers, so that there would be no shortage of wars in the future, and the citizens of the Dionian League, which was increasing dramatically, had a great need for weapons. As far as he knows, there is a large weapons shop in the port market in Turiyi, which is said to have been opened by the alliance to pay for the families of soldiers killed in battle and take care of disabled soldiers.

Corinth's most famous commodity now is weapons, and the weapons and equipment it produces are famous throughout Greece, and Theos has done this business before, and has more experience, and he can hire highly skilled Corinthian blacksmiths to set up a weapon workshop in the alliance, which not only saves freight, but also makes it easy to obtain raw materials, and the cost is also low, because there are copper mines in Turiy and iron mines in Lucaria. He could tailor high-quality armor and weapons to the citizens of the Alliance, or he could sell them in bulk to the Alliance, or even to the natives (the Dionian Alliance did not restrict the export of weapons), an industry that was more profitable and stable in Dionia than the grain trade, so he was a little impatient when the decision was made.