On June 1, 393 B.C., after the war in Magna Graecia ended, countless Theonians flocked to Thurii, the centre of Theonia, to witness the official enthronement of Davos as king in front of the Temple of Hades.


    On that asion, the whole city fell into celebration.


    And at this moment, the Theonia City-State Union was renamed the Kingdom of Theonia, and King Davos dered that he would change the disordered Greek calendar and take the year of his ession as the first year of Theonia.


    . . . . . . . . . . . .


    Time flew by, and it was now the tenth year of Theonia. (that is, 383 B.C.)


    It was currently August with its hot weather. However, Gdemus, the taxation official of Purosdemos in Naxos, was still out in the fields, checking thend owned by each family and the growth of their crops to estimate the amount ofnd tax each family would pay in his district after the autumn harvest.


    The Theonian citizens can pay their taxes either in kinds, such as wheat, olive oil, grapes….or silver coins, which requires the taxation officials not only to have excellentputation but also to be familiar with the prices of themodities in the market. In addition, they must have adequate manpower when collecting taxes to avoid mistakes. Thus during those days, the Demarchos of each demo would gather the civil servants to assist the taxation officials. They would also call additional registered ountants and scribes under their jurisdiction to bemanded by the taxation official.


    Due topleting his studies at the junior, middle and senior level in the most famous school in Thurii and graduating with excellence in Mathematics, Gdemus became a taxation official. And the schr, who is the school''s teacher, even hoped that Gdemus could enter the Institute of Mathematics and continue his studies. However, he insisted on living independently as an adult as soon as possible. Thus he took one of the most challenging civil servant exams in the Kingdom of Theonia, the Taxation Officer Examination. (The other exam is the Judge Selection exam, which is known for requiring a massive amount of memorisation of countlessws and critical thinking.)


    After two years of working hard as an apprentice tax officer and assistant, he officially became a junior taxation official in Theonia with excellent performance. He was then assigned to Naxos in Sicily by the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom and was already working here for two years. Furthermore, since he is only 24 years old now, it is safe to say that he has a great future.


    The demo in this region has five viges under its jurisdiction and was located in the middle reaches of the Alcantara, near the foot of Mount Etna. However, even though it doesn’t have t terrain, itsnd is more fertile*. (Because of the volcanic ash. Moreover, it doesn''t have much poption and currently has 452 households and 1,822 people, and itsnd area is 1,786,666 square meters in total.)


    After bing a taxation official, Gdemus took half a year to thoroughly understand the situation of the fields in his jurisdiction by going to each vige and household. Naturally, the agricultural officer of the demo had a detailed record, and the taxation official only had to refer to the records to collectnd taxes sessfully. But Gdemus was a serious man who always wanted to confirm the situation with his own eyes. Thus he doesn''t get along well with the agricultural officer.


    “Sir, you should drink some water as it''s too hot.” A tax collector who followed him picked up a leather bag containing water and said that while wiping his sweat.


    Over the years, the Theonian kingdom established schools in most cities, so many of its citizens who yearned to be civil servants took the civil servant examination in various departments after greatly improving their literacy, writing and arithmetic skills by studying in the school. In contrast, the citizens who couldn’t pass the official examinations can also take the secondary examinations as minor civil servants. However, they still have the opportunity to be promoted depending on how long they served the kingdom and their performance.


    The two tax collectors following Gdemus were local citizens who received sries by working as tax collectors during the rest season and would go home during the nting and harvest season. In fact, the kingdom of Theonia relied on these part-time officials to support the most basic management work of the whole kingdom. During their apprenticeship, their superiors would warn every official taking up a post in the kingdom that they must respect those under them. Otherwise, they wouldn''t get supported and would make it challenging toplete the tasks assigned by their superiors!


    “Thanks, Gabrinus!” Gdemus thanked him while taking the leather bag and drinking a lot of water, which immediately moistened his dry throat.


    “What''s there for you to thank for? Instead, I should be the one thanking you for helping me solve some math problems!” Gabrinus was determined to take the Taxation Officer Examination next year, so he was studying hard during this time.


    Gdemus just smiled and handed back the bag to him.


    “Finally, we only need to check onest household before we can return to Megalos.” Another tax collector, Kabanus, urged politely. Kabanus was ten years older than Gabrinus, so when he was young, he had lived through the turbulent time when Naxos was destroyed. But because of his age, he was not as motivated as his colleagues and just wanted to live a full and peaceful life by farming and collecting taxes. And getting a ‘credit’ in the year-end-assessment would already be good for him as it would mean honour and more rewards. Although such a situation happened oncest year, he understood that it was all thanks to Gdemus. However, looking at this year, there was a good chance that the ce they were in charge of would again receive amendation, so he was happy toply despite the exhaustion of following the young taxation official.


    ‘Last one!’ Gdemus looked ahead while having aplicated feeling.


    That is because the identity of the owner of thest household isn''t simple. The owner is Ladician, a statesman of the kingdom''s senate.


    Ladician was from a prominent household in Naxos butter went into exile in Rhegium when Dionysius was the tyrant of Syracuse. Afterwards, he arrived in Sicily with the first legion of Theonia and served as one of the exiles'' leaders and contributed to Theonia''s ultimate victory over Syracuse and the acquisition of the Catanian in. Later, when Naxos was integrated into Theonia, Ladician became a statesman of Theonia for his service and influence in Naxos. He then married his daughter to Antonios, then head of the first legion, an influential member of the Theonian senate and a trusted subordinate of King Davos.


    After bing a statesman, Ladician moved to Thurii. However, he did not sell his home in Naxos and had even gotten 3,333 square metres ofnd from Theonia’s allocation. In addition, through his rtionship with Antonios, he boughtnd in Naxos from the legion soldiers, who got it for their military achievements.


    Although it was forbidden to buy and sell the allocatednd, it waster made possible because of the distance that made it impossible for the owner to take care of thend. For example, the legion soldiers living in Thurii or Amendra would have to take three days to travel by boat to get to theirnd in Sicily. In addition, they would have to assign a trusted ve to look after thend and work on it all year round, which would have been bothborious and challenging. Thus they could only sell it to a fellow citizen of Theonia.


    Of course, the war in Magna Graecia ten years earlier had given Theonia enough sparend in Magna Graecia. Hence the legion soldiers were primarily rewarded withnd in Magna Graecia, with extra square metres ofnd in Sicily for some of the legion soldiers who had done exceptionally well. Although thend wasn''t cheap, Ladician had the money. And if not for the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for the sale and supervision ofnd transfer, whoter found and advised that he had raised thend price too high and bought too manynds, Ladician''snd in Naxos wouldn''t have been limited to the current 52,000 square metres.


    When Gdemus took his post in Naxosst year, he had some conflicts with Ladician''s household because he found that in the past, the taxation official had levied lessnd tax on Ladician''s family. In the beginning, most of Ladician''snds were halfway up a mountain, so it wasn''t easy to water the fields. Thus when the taxation official initially calcted the tax, thend tax was low as most of his household''s fields were ssified as medium and low-grade farms.


    However, upon Gdemus'' investigation, he discovered that eight years earlier, Naxos had built arge waterwheel by the Alcantara river. Since then, the river could efficiently irrigate all the fields of Ladician''s family, solving the water problem. On the contrary, the harvest of the mountainside farms was even better than that of the tnd. Yet the tax on his family''snd was still levied year after year at the same rate as before. However, the main issue is that Ladician didn’t build the waterwheel himself but built it with the public''s money at the suggestion of the council of Naxos to the city''s Praetor.


    Thus Gdemus believes that not only should they recalcte the tax for Ladician''snd, but Ladician should also pay the tax he owed in the past few years.


    But when Gdemus informed Ladician’s household of this decision, they raised an uproar. Besides refusing to pay more taxes, the housekeeper who stayed behind had acted by asking the council to put pressure on the city''s Praetor and criticise the taxation official for charging indiscriminately. The housekeeper even incited the vige people to protest against the new taxation official for being too harsh and oppressing them Sicilians, making it difficult for Gdemus to continue his tax collections. (It was because Gdemus weighted the crops such as wheat seriously that he didn''t even allow a gram less.)


    Furthermore, Gdemus'' immediate superior, the middle-ranking taxation official of Naxos, feared that the discovery of this long-term mistake would make him look ipetent and jeopardise his future because Gdemus had lifted the ‘lid’. Moreover, the friends Gdemus made in Naxos had spoken in favour of Ladician''s family. Thus besides severely criticising Gdemus on several asions, the taxation officials also rejected his proposal to ‘revise the amount of taxes Ladician’s household had to pay and have them make up for the deficits’.


    But the incumbent Praetor of Naxos was Stromboli, an inflexible but conservative statesman of Amendra, who would not sumb to pressure from the local councils. Not to mention that Gdemus is also an Amendran.