I've gotten intrigued about the idea of picking up a campaign and starting an AAR just using one unit. Only taking control of that one unit during battles, maybe expanding it to a couple if they get attached to another one later on. But putting all the other units under AI control. Have had some fun so far - just a couple of test battles and then one that I'm recording for this AAR. It will be a brief one, and not heavy on the graphics as I've got other stuff elsewhere to work on, but I had so much fun that I consider this a little like advertising for other folks to see that this is a quite different way to approach either an AAR or campaign (or at least a way I haven't seen yet), but it's a fun one. So, anyway, on to the show:
==============================Eight obols a day: it sounded like a good idea at the time.
Winter, 264:
Not that it would concern you much, but before I begin the story that will explain how I have come to this point, I should say that my name is Diores, son of Hyrtakos. My ancestors were Korinthians who founded Potidaia, but when Philippos destroyed it and dispersed our people, my father came to Dion, under the shadow of Mt. Olympos. He did not fight for the Makedones, as he was injured while still a young man. But my grandfather’s armor and shield he preserved for me and my children. When I was younger, I made my way into Aitolia and fought as a misothophoros for seven years in that rocky place. I took a wife when I found myself in Lamia for a year, and three years later I brought her here to Dion after she bore me twins. One child lived and another was born here last year, but my way in life is a miserable one and I will spare you the mundane details of the unsuccessful efforts I have undertaken to increase my wealth here since I returned.
Three months ago I had made up my mind to buy passage to Mysia, and hire myself out as a hoplite there. But a few days before the last ship of the fall was being prepared to sail east, word arrived that Demetrias had suddenly fallen. Remnants of a Makedonian army poured into Dion and the wounded were treated here and many of them were forced to remain. The healthy men continued north and probably are in Pella now, waiting out the winter rains with some measure of comfort. The ones still here are miserable, but one fellow I befriended had told me the Athenian army that sailed into the gulf and laid siege to the city was heading north in the late spring. It was pretty obvious something was going to happen soon; stores were being hidden, lots of land were being sold off, cheap, and some were taking their families further into the hills, away from the coast.
Then, last week, early one morning as I was talking to my brother in law in front of his house, if you can call it that, a man familiar to him rushed up and told him that the Athenians were a few stades from the city. Word spreads fast, and other incredible details followed: the Athenian strategos, a man I had never heard of named Chremonides, had arrived with chests of Aigyptian silver, looking for any men who were able bodied and willing, and could handle a spear. He had with him, to my amazement, several Spartiates and mercenaries from Boiotia and Krete, even more than a few men from Demetrias and still carrying Antigonos’ royal emblems upon their uniforms. The lure of silver is great indeed, too great for me certainly. Before the day was out I had made up my mind that this was my opportunity. My property was not worth saving here, and my wife and children would probably be happier staying at my sister’s house than they would in the place we were in, even if she was likely to be treated badly by my sister.
The rivers have just now slowed enough to cross without much danger, and these men are anxious to go north. There will be no waiting for harvest time and drier weather. The army marches out of Dion tomorrow and only the gods know what will await us when we leave the protection of this city’s walls. Whatever it is, if I live through it, maybe I will have enough silver to live the rest of my life in some comfort.
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