After spending Friday afternoon with Helen, I told her I would see her later at the restaurant and gave her a kiss goodbye and then went home to get dressed in my formal wear. Taygete looked stunning in the evening dress we’d purchased for her Wednesday, and was excited about tonight’s dinner engagement. Father’s driver brought the carriage around at half past six and we left to first pick up Alcibiades and his girlfriend Hipparete before heading down to the restaurant in the seaside Piraeus area.
Mikrolimano, also known as the "Little Port," was a picturesque and lively harbor in Piraeus, known for its scenic beauty, vibrant atmosphere, and the surrounding Kastella hill with its amphitheatrically built houses. One of the three main harbors of Piraeus, known for its crescent-shaped waterfront, it served as a naval dockyard characterized by colorful fishing boats, private yachts and merchant vessels.
The carriage driver let us off in front of 14 Akti Koumoundourou Street, where the Zorbas Mikrolimano was sandwiched between a kabob shop and a steak restaurant. The mocha-colored entryway lead into the restaurant right off the street with a covered porch supported by three Ionic columns. The second story had a balcony with ornate railing and balusters across the entire front. The third-floor balcony across the front of the restaurant had four colonnades supporting the roof, and a solid railing, but provided a view of the stunning scenery of the entire Mikrolimano port. Across the street was a covered outdoor eating area, right off the water where the children of parents who came to dine could entertain themselves by feeding the fish that congregated by the seawall.
After getting dropped off, with the carriage driver leaving us to wait at the parking lot at the end of the street, we walked up to the Prince, Princess and the rest of their party who were waiting for us in front of the restaurant.
Getting the pleasantries out of the way, I performed introductions “This is my sister Taygete Alcmaeonid who is a freshman that attends Athena Academy with us.” Then I went through and introduced Prince Cleomenes, Princess Helen, the bodyguards Brasidas & Gylippus along with their two wives, giving some background on each of them.
While I was introducing Helen, Taygete teasingly interjected “Princess Helen, you look incredibly beautiful in that evening dress. How did my brother manage to capture the heart of a great beauty such as you?” finishing sarcastically.
Curtsying, Helen replied “Why thank you, you also look fantastic in that evening dress.”
Butting back in, I asserted myself “Helen you do look amazingly beautiful and seductively alluring in that red evening dress, the color really suits you.” And indeed, Helen was provocatively sexy in her risqué red evening dress with a deep V-cut lacy front going down below her breasts and her cleavage clearly on display, spaghetti straps over her shoulders barely holding the dress up. The hem length of the skirt part of the one-piece dress reached down to just above her knees, with slits on both sides clearly putting her thighs on display. The front and back of the dress were held together with black interlacing and strategically placed black bows. She also wore blue tear drop earrings and a gold necklace with a broach, adorned by a blue gemstone the color of her eyes, hanging down as if to point at her cleavage. Calling her sexy was an understatement, her appearance would be better described as erotically sensual.
Continuing to defend myself, I added “Why are you so surprised, Taygete, all the women in my life are beautiful including you?”
When I finished my introductions, Cleomenes approached, taking Taygete’s hand in his and introduced himself “I am Prince Cleomenes Agiad of Sparta, you do look stunningly beautiful in your evening dress. You remind me of one of the Pleiades, that transformed into a deer to escape the pursuit of Zeus. If you marry me, I’ll rename a mountain in Laconia after you. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” And then he kissed the back of her hand, evoking a blushed reaction from Taygete.
Entering through the open double doors, we approached the hostess and asked for a table for four and another table for six close to the windows on the third floor. The hostess confirmed that this was for the reservation by Prince Cleomenes of Sparta, and given an affirmative nod led us upstairs to the third floor to two tables side by side next to the windows with an amazing view of the entire harbor and its picturesque seascape.
I suggested that Helen sit beside me and Taygete sit next to Cleomenes at the four-person table. With everybody getting seated, the hostess left the menu and told us the waitress would be by soon.
The waitress came by shortly after with a pitcher of water to pour in our water cups and took our order. We ordered a couple carafes of white wine and Handmade flatbread for the table with olive oil, fleur de sel, and olives, which was to be pared with an order of Sea bream ceviche made with grapefruit and corn.
Everybody ordered the Rockfish Soup with bisque and Scorpionfish as the fish of the day, which is known for its firm, meaty texture and rich, slightly sweet flavor, thus being prized for soups and stews (take care with its venomous spines).
The girls both ordered Greek salads with tomato, cucumber, pickles, onion, carob rusk, Cretan myzithra cheese, and olive oil. Cleomenes went with the Rocket salad with parmesan flakes, raisins, sun-dried tomato, roasted nuts, and caramelized balsamic dressing. For myself I chose the Caesar salad with baby gem, iceberg, cucumber with flame-roasted corn, and panko shrimps. To pare with the salads, Red mullet tartare was ordered with Florina pepper, raisins, and bottarga.
The wine and Rockfish Soup came out first, along with the flatbread and surprisingly the Sea bream ceviche also. As we all were finishing up our soup, the salads came out along with the Red mullet tartare.
As we were finishing our salads, I broached the main topic behind the purpose of this dinner “I don’t have anything against the two of you getting married, but I do have some preconditions that I’ll require you to satisfy, that should be completely in your best interest.
“First, regarding you as individuals, I want Taygete to finish her education at Athena Academy regardless what happens. The training and social contacts will be invaluable in life. Additionally, the two of you should date, get to know each other and make sure you truly want to spend the rest of your lives together before you marry, preferably after Taygete graduates. No sense getting married if the two of you find that you don’t get along, or hate each other.
“Secondly, I want Taygete to marry a ruler who is lord of politically stable lands that aren’t constantly under threat of slave uprisings. Along those lines, I want you to advance Sparta from a tribal monarchy over a land of slaves, to a Feudal society that rules over a land of happy, prosperous serfs that are willing to fight for their lords. The biggest challenge Sparta faces is the large population of enslaved people known as Helots, who work the land and outnumber the Spartans 7 to 1. With these people being subject to strict control by the Spartans, they are regularly beaten and not even allowed to have children, and thus are always on the edge of rebellion. Sparta can’t even go to war without leaving a force behind to ensure control is maintained.
“I want you to be the Spartan ruler who goes down in history for your government reforms, turning the helots of Sparta into serfs responsible for farming their lord’s lands rather than being forced to. Typically, serfs get half the harvest after all costs are extracted. Thus, if they work harder, they gain personally, giving them an incentive to produce more and improving everybody’s standard of living. This would mean that Spartans wouldn’t have to micro-manage them anymore, and after they get used to the system, as an elite military force, the Spartan warriors could train them to be the rank and file of a military force underneath them.
“Lastly, to strengthen you as a stable Spartan ruler, I want Sparta to enter into an agreement of mutual defense and open untaxed commerce with Athens. That obviously means if either of us gets attacked, the other will come to their aid. More importantly, this agreement would require that we improve are internal transportation network and roads between each other. Effectively, for Sparta this mean improving the road from Sparta to your port Gytheion, and to the other small towns along your rivers. This will not only improve the swift movement of troops, but also dramatically reduce the cost of commerce with less transportation costs, improving everybody’s standard of living.
“If Spartans do this, I would like to put an Alcmaeonid General Store in the capital of Sparta to not only facilitate trade between Sparta and Athens, but also provide a place for your farmers to sell their excess produce and the population to have a store where those products are sold and distributed at a reasonable price. It would be modeled after our family general store here in town, if you want to see exactly what I have in mind.
“Additionally, I would want Sparta to hire as a consultant one of our Alcmaeonidae agricultural experts that have been involved in the Alcmaeonid farming and crop rotation system to teach the king’s helots, and soon to be serfs, farming techniques to vastly increase farming productivity and crop yields. We’ll also make available farming implements in our company store that will technologically advance Spartan farming practices that the consultant can explain the advantage of and use.”
Smiling over at Helen, I mentioned “I was planning to use the Dowry your father provided to capitalize the store, transportation means, and to purchase equipment and products available for sale. This business idea was my plan for supporting my beautiful new Spartan bride.” I said with a wink, getting a laugh out of her.
At this point Taygete chimed in “Cleomenes, you really should come to the family’s country estate, not only could you meet my mother Agariste and grandfather Ariphron Alcmaeonidae, you could see the family farming operation first hand, it’s really quite something!”
In the background Brasidas & Gylippus, who had been quietly listening to the whole discussion, were worriedly stammering “Does she mean General Ariphron?!”
To which Alcibiades quipped “Don’t worry, he won’t eat you! That’s what the pigs are for!” being the only one to laugh at his own joke, but being rewarded with grim looks from the two Spartans.
With a sigh, Cleomenes remarked on all this with “Yeah, that’s terrifying on multiple levels…”
At that point in time the waitress came up to clear the soup and salad plates. After Cleomenes put in the order for a couple more carafes of wine, we ordered more flatbread, and White taramosalata topped with carob rusk crumbs, made from salted and cured fish roe, olive oil, lemon juice, and breadcrumbs to spread on the flatbread. The girls also wanted the Shrimp saganaki featuring shrimp cooked in a rich and flavorful tomato sauce, with ouzo, oregano and salty feta cheese for dipping the bread in to sop up the sauce. For appetizers, we put orders in for Grilled octopus, with aromatic lemon-olive oil and Fried calamari with tartar sauce.
With the waitress leaving I elaborated “Continuing our discussion from earlier, by implementing advanced farming techniques, Sparta will be able to grow more food, allowing the serfs to start having families and enjoy a more prosperous life than that of slaves. This will solve the Spartan problem of continuous rebellions by Helots. More importantly, with the greater availability, and sustainability of the food supply, the population of Sparta will be able to begin growing again. Once the general population of Sparta sees the success of the new farming techniques on the King’s lands, they’ll naturally want to partake in the farming revolution as well. As for any excess produce grown, Athens will happily absorb the exports in its bottomless hole of demand, increasing Spartan wealth and prosperity even further. Of course, with greater personal wealth, Spartans will also be able to be able to buy imported products from Athens, creating a virtuous circle of commerce.
“Secondly, I’m deeply worried that the bickering and warring tribal city states of Greek peoples are surrounded by more powerful Kingdoms and Empires with more people than us, because they don’t have the rocky, mountainous terrain that is ill-suited for farming, and thus restricting our population growth.”
With the flatbread, the two dips and the appetizers having arrived while I was talking, I Dipped a piece of flatbread in the Shrimp saganaki before popping it in my mouth along with the shrimp piece on top. After thoroughly enjoying it, I continued “In light of that, I want to get your commitment to essentially turn my sister in to the Queen of the Peloponnese, and Greece into a nation under one king, rather than a bunch of squabbling tribes, with each leader of every dung-heap proclaiming themselves a king. It’s only a matter of time before we Greeks get overrun by one of those kingdoms or empires confiscating our lands, and enslaving our women and children along with us men, provided we aren’t killed.” To which, Taygete sucked in her breath, surprised by my comment about wanting to make her a queen.
Forking a piece of Grilled octopus, I downed it before continuing “My plan for implementing this is along the same lines as that between Sparta and Athens. I want us to pull them in by means of mutual protection and commerce alliances, essentially conquering them through commercial prosperity, and the promise of food security and abundance, spreading advanced farming techniques to the city states and political entities that ally with us.
“As such, there will be challenges, such as city states that are hostile to us, and want nothing to do with this plan. Messenia, who are openly hostile and belligerent to Sparta, comes to mind as one such place. Though I really don’t want to see Greeks crossing swords with Greeks in the struggle to unify as a country, Sparta might be forced to affect a ‘Change of Management’ if you get my meaning.” To which Brasidas & Gylippus both had adopted a look of fierce determination on their faces.
Tossing a piece of Fried calamari into my mouth and chewing it before swallowing, I continued “There are parts of this plan that I haven’t completely fleshed out, but under a feudal system, the political entity that is leader and responsible for the Peloponnese would essentially be a Dukedom, with you and Taygete being a Duke and Duchess of Greece if you were able to accomplish it. Athens would need to take responsibility for Corinth and the lands around its gulf, and to some degree, the islands of the Aegean. There are a lot of political entities there, so it’s going to take some thought along with the determination of political hierarchy of feudal states based on population and military power. We’ll have to work that out later, but in a kingdom, there should be only one king, you crazy Spartans aside, and nobility should be determined by hereditary descendance from the Greek gods, which is the basis behind having the divine right to rule.”
With a final thought on the long-term issues, I espoused “I really see Sparta as the core of the Greek army, with Athens as the foundation of our navy. I want to incorporate Thebes as the core knights of the calvary, with the horse lords of Thessaly making up the majority of it. I can see this whole process taking a long time to reach fruition, but regardless we’ll all be stronger for it. The increase in population alone would realistically take generations. Anyways, that is my expectation of you Cleomenes, if you are to marry my sister, I will give you my help and full support to accomplish it.”
After a period of deep thought, Cleomenes responded “I never thought you had such high aspirations, Pericles, that’s quite the ambitious plan. The whole purpose of marrying each other’s sisters is to establish a military and economic alliance, so I don’t see that part being a problem. My father and uncle the other king undoubtedly wouldn’t have a problem with improving farming techniques that resulted in greater quantity and reliability in the production of food, but changing the political status of the helot slaves to serfs is going to take some convincing. We’ll have to proceed on a trial basis and see what kind of results are achieved. As for road building, the military advantages alone will be enough to convince them.”
In response, I admitted “Truthfully, I’ve only discussed with my father that you and I were having talks over dinner about marrying each other’s sisters. I haven’t brought anything up about combining the Greek city states together into a country. Though, honestly, since it would drastically increase commerce, I don’t see him or the other 9 Archons having a problem with it.
“The other thing we need to discuss is that during my talks with my father, we talked about an arranged marriage that he and the King of Thrace put together between me and his daughter Princess Pallene. I’m supposed to take her on a date Sunday afternoon and get to know her.”
With consternation, Cleomenes asked “So who will you marry then, her or my sister?”
Smugly replying “It depends, if she is as beautiful and as amazing of a woman as your sister Helen, I might marry them both! The advantage behind all these politically independent city-states and kingdoms is that I can marry Princess Helen in Sparta and this Princess Pallene in Thrace. It just means that I have to make sure I give them both the attention they need and take care of their physical and emotional needs.”
From the other table, Alcibiades sniped in “You dog…”
Next to me, Helen thoughtfully said “As long as I am loved, and treated equally with respect, I have no problem with my King having a harem. It’s only natural. As far as making an alliance through marriage to a foreign Kingdom, that could only be a good thing.” To which Alcibiades and Cleomenes reacted with surprise and concern to the unintentional slip of her describing me as King. To me, I couldn’t help but conclude that she obviously was having delusions of seeing herself as Queen of Greece, like anybody would make me King...
At that point, the waitress came up to the table, bringing more flatbread, along with a couple more wine carafes, and took our orders for dinner. For the table we ordered Seafood spaghetti with herbs and lemon zest. Helen ordered the Sea bream fillet with seasonal greens and saffron-lemon sauce. Taygete went with the Grilled Lobster which was also served with grilled vegetables. Cleomenes and I went with the grilled Sea Bass and Red Mullet as the Fresh Fish of the Day, which came with seasonal boiled vegetables.
Striking up conversation, and tired of talking myself, I queried Prince Cleomenes “So, Cleo this is our Senior Year, what do you see yourself doing after you graduate?”
Taking a swig of his wine, Cleomenes laughed heartily “Funny you should ask that after giving me several years’ worth of diplomatic work! Besides, my main duty while father still rules is to be ambassador to Athens. I’ll be here for the next four years at least until my future queen graduates.” Evoking a guarded smile from Taygete.
Pausing briefly to enjoy some of the remaining flatbread dipped in the White taramosalata, Cleomenes continued “I wouldn’t mind going on a little adventure after graduating though. Pericles, what do you think about going on an adventure with me to slay the Lernaean Hydra?”
Surprised I responded “You’re talking about the serpent lake monster with a lair at lake Lerna in the Argolid? As I understand, it has poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent is deadly. According to the stories, The Hydra possesses many heads, for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads. So, if you cut off one of the monster's heads with a sword, you must then burn the neck with fire to keep it from regenerating.
“The other thing that we have been told is that its lair is reputedly a cave that is an entrance to the Underworld. We must ask ourselves why did the gods put such a monster there? Is it preying upon the surrounding area, or is it feeding on the foul denizens of the underworld that would then spill out to afflict the entire Peloponnese like an evil plague if it wasn’t there. You ask me, challenging that beast is a fool’s errand, and I don’t want to lose my new brother-in-law to such an endeavor.”
With a hearty laugh, Cleomenes responded “Hahaha! Point taken. So, what are you planning to do after graduation, Pericles?”
Thinking a little about how to respond, I answered “Well, before I settle down to work in the family business, and raise a family, I would like to see a little bit of the world. I’m thinking about undertaking a merchant voyage to the Kingdom of Typhon and possibly journey the other direction all the way to Atlantis on a separate trip. If all goes well, I’ll be able to make some ambassadorial connections and open new trade routes in order to make money to support my wives and mistresses.”
With that dinner arrived, and everybody began focusing on their food.
For dessert, everybody ordered the Chocolate soufflé with salted caramel and rich, creamy, and intense vanilla flavored whipped cream. While we were enjoying it, the bill for both tables came. Offering to split it with Prince Cleomenes, I was firmly rejected “If we do that, I’ll lose this opportunity to show off to my new fiancé that I can provide for her.” To which I humbly retracted my offer. With a 20% tip, the dinner bill for ten people came to just under 3 large and 5 small silver.