H17

As 294 ended and 293 began, a few things began to become apparent, the most immediately relevant of which was that the trade treaties I had signed in Magna Graecia, combined with the expansion of my dyeworks to include Cochineal Red, Saffron Yellow, and Woad Blue, as well as the continued export of cheap wool and expensive sea silk, alongside the glut of high-quality ironwork from my Osmond Process blast furnaces, had shifted the markets there. Rhegion, Locri, Taras, Metapontion, Kroton, Syracuse, Zancle, Akragas, and more, all seemed to prefer buying from my merchants where applicable. Astonishingly, it wasn't just the Poleis of the Toe, Arch, Heel, and Sicily that began to crave Epirote Goods in greater numbers, but also the Ionic Greek Cities of Elea and Pixous of Campania. The twin Campanian cities mostly bought Grain, Salted Anchovies, and Ironwork in the form of weapons and armor, as opposed to the rest of Magna Graecia which bought a varied array of goods. This was likely due to the proximity of one of the Active War Fronts between the Samnites and Romans. After all, one of Rome's Consular Armies had been beaten and forced to hole up in Capua not 5 day's march north from Elea. With the siege of Capua going on, both cities must be watching the situation anxiously.

The shift in the Markets was making his merchants a lot of money, and thus, making me a lot of money as well. When combined with tribute and trade from my various clients, the treasury was refilling faster than I had anticipated. The problem was that snatching markets up like that was not making Epirus many friends. Indeed, Carthage had previously held a large share of the Dye, Metals, and Cloth Markets in Magna Graecia. That share had been bitten into by my merchants and shrunk their profits considerably over the last few months. They still had the stranglehold on Tyrian Purple, but my Cochneal Red and Malachite Green were just as high quality and had the advantage of being new to boot. They still had the monopoly on the tin trade and a big lead on silver, but my Ironwork and Brass had them beat in the metals trade. My Sea Silk was expensive and in limited supply compared to Carthaginian Linen, and my wool was the same quality as theirs, but the luxury of the former and the cheapness and ubiquity of the latter meant that Market too had a chunk of its profits draining into the coffers of my merchants. Carthage still held the advantage in Silver, Tin, Wine, and Produce. It was in these Markets that my own merchants began to see pushback.

On the 3rd of May, the week after the Harvest had finished with a record bounty, I received a delegation of Wine Merchants who had recently come back from a trip to Locri. They complained that a group of Carthaginian Merchants had come into port late on the first day of their trip and began to steal business away from them. What's more is that the Carthaginian Wine was so high quality, that they could not complain to the authorities about any of the various shady business tactics the Carthaginians used to steal the initial run of customers from them. The difference in quality would cover for the strongarming and bribery that got the Carthaginians their initial advantages. Our merchants had barely sold enough wine in Locri to cover the cost of the trip.

"I see. What is it you wish done about this?" I asked.

"Could you not force the cities of Magna Graecia to expel the Carthaginian Merchants?" Asked the spokesman of the group, a rotund man in purple and blue robes named Methustos.

"To what end? Even should they agree to do such a thing, it would mean war with Carthage. Such a war we are not prepared for, not yet. Were we to call up all our troops and ships as well as those of what clients I could trust to take the field against Carthage and not shame us, we would still be outnumbered in troops by half again as many as we could muster, and half again in ships. I will not poke that hornet's nest until I am ready to do so." I replied, frowning.

"But my King, what are we to do then?" Asked Methustos.

"Go north to our clients, sell what you can there. Carthage's merchants have not yet penetrated into the Ionian Gulf. What you cannot sell to them, try to sell in Issa, Korkyra Melaina, Epidauros, and Pharos. They will probably buy it." I replied.

Methustos went to confer with his associates before returning and nodding, "It is agreed, our Merchant Association shall sail north into the Ionian Gulf. We thank you for your time, King Pyrrhus."

The group bowed and left, leaving me to go over reports. It was true what I'd said about Carthage and the force disparity. From my clients and my own forces, I could muster some 41,900 troops fully equipped in steel, with stirrups and hard tree saddles, who were either native greeks or sufficiently Hellenized to be both reliable on the field of battle and fight in Greek fashion. For ships, I could muster some 390 ships, though only 50 of those would be quadriremes and 10 would be dromons. The rest would be smaller triremes or pirate liburnians captured from former pirates and pressed into military service. By contrast, Carthage could put 60,000 men into the field in a single large field army, and still have enough troops for 2 more armies elsewhere. In ships, things were even worse, as their main fleet was 300 ships strong, around half of which were quadriremes and an unknown number were even hexaremes. They also had 200 more ships of varying sizes in reserve to plug gaps in any naval encounter.

If I did what Methustos suggested, I would have needed everything to go right in order to win. Carthage would just have to do average and they could beat me. It would be a mismatch until I could grab Thessaly and get access to its manpower, as well as build more and better ships. I had a timetable for these things, after all. A timetable that was coming up on the next milestone. With what I'd managed to build up militarily, plus the aid of the Aetolian League, war with Macedon would be pursued this year. I had a meeting with Lysander of Naupaktos tomorrow to let him know I would be ready by the fall campaign season.

As I finished up the reports, Pyrrhus' son Ptolemy came toddling into the antechamber. The young boy had learned to walk recently, as he was now 2 years old, and had a habit of escaping from his nursemaids. He toddled up to me and looked up at me with his big blue eyes. "Da, play?" He asked.

I chuckled and scooped him up into my arms. The meeting with Lysander was tomorrow, today, I would play with my boy. . .

XXXX

AN: So yeah, countdown to war with Macedon begins. Carthage and Rome may be scary now, but Thessaly has a lot of manpower to pull from if Pyrrhus can achieve his war goals.

We also see the first hints that Carthage isn't taking the loss of market share in Magna Graecia lying down. Through intimidation and bribery, they managed to snake some prime real estate in Locri's Agora, as well as steal a group of customers from Epirus' Wine Merchants. This has forced the Epirotes to sell their wine further north into the Adriatic, even going as far afield as modern-day Croatia to sell their stocks.

It's going to have some interesting developments on winemaking in the Balkans. . .

Next up is the meeting with Lysander of Naupaktos and the decision to go to war with Macedon. Stay tuned. . .