[center][img=http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i374/bensundeitestutho/bennipolisbanner_zps73a54274.png][/center]
[center][b] The City-State of Bennipolis [/b][/center]
[center][b]Ireneopagus[/b][/center]
[center][i]The 14th Eponymous Year of Athenakles With Lysander as Interrex[/i][/center]
The Ireneopagus, the hill of Irene, the Hellenic goddess of peace, had been the site of countless treaties in the past that had diffused conflicts even worse than the war that was taking place now. Athenakles had set up camp at the foot of the hill, since the Ireneopagus was sacrosanct land. The day before, the Bennipolitans had sent envoys to Athenakles and the Terheridonians. However, once Athenakles and Terheridonians demanded that the Bennipolitans wanted that either Athenakles installed as the new leader of Bennipolis or the land west of the Ireneopagus be surrendered to Terheridon. If they could not accept these terms, then they would continue waging war. Obviously, the Bennipolitan envoys could never accept these terms and therefore left.

Now on that day, one-hundred knights appeared before the Ireneopagus, along with three women of varying ages. First amongst these women was Hermione, Athenakles’ mother, followed by Cynthia, his wife and Hermione’s daughter-in-law, and by Adraändreis, Athenakles’ daughter. All three of them were adored in black garments to show their mournful and destitute position. And when he saw his family, Athenakles started up like a madman from his seat, and he would have embraced her when he ran up to meet his mother, but Hermione showed no love but only hate towards her son.

“Suffer me to learn, before I accept your embrace, whether I have come to an enemy or a son; whether I am a captive or a mother in your camp. Is it this to which long life and an unhappy old age have brought me, that I should behold in you an exile and then an enemy? Could you bring yourself to ravage this country, which gave you birth and reared you? Did not your anger fall from you, no matter how hostile and threatening your spirit when you came, as you passed the boundary? Did it not come over you, when Bennipolis lay before your eyes: ' Within those walls are my home and my gods, my mother, my wife, and my child?' So then, had I not been a mother Bennipolis would not now be besieged! Had I no son I should have died a free woman, in a free land! But I can have nothing now to suffer which could be more disgraceful to you or more miserable for myself; nor, wretched though I am, shall I be so for long: it is these you must consider, for whom, if you keep on, untimely death or long enslavement is in store. For my own part, I cannot bear to live until fortune decides the event of this war. If I cannot now persuade you to make a lasting peace, and so become the benefactor instead of the scourge of the two nations, be well assured that you shall never assail Bennipolis without first passing over the corpse of your mother.”

Even as Hermoine ended her speech, Adraändreis darted toward her father’s knees, taking the position of a suppliant. She unshrouded her face, revealing why Athenakles had insisted on her following the ancient ways. Adraändreis had the most uncanny resemblance to what the Bennipolitans considered to be the image of Bennis, even down to her dark brown eyes and her long dark blonde hair. Both Athenakles and Cynthia feared lest the Bennipolitans would begin to worship her as the human avatar of their city’s chief deity when the people would catch sight of her beauty. They feared that if such would occur that the gods would punish both her and the whole state of Bennipolis. Even the Terheridonian Knights diverted their eyes away from her since they could not bear to watch such a beautiful face waste away from grief.

“Father, what madness has taken hold of you? You know full well that the Bennipolitans would never accept either of your demands. Once your barbarian armies have laid siege onto our goddess’ blessed city, what would you do once she falls? Do you expect us to join you happily over our own conquered people? For if this was your plan, you have thought wrong. We shall suffer the same fate as our people shall. Just as Andromache was led away as a harlot, so shall I. But the real question is to whom shall I be a whore? Shall I be the whore of some Tereridonian prince to whom I shall produce bastard children? Or shall even you yourself claim me as your personal whore? Will you suffer me to endure a fate similar to Oedipus’, namely to give birth to my own brothers and sisters? If you think I shall endure these things, then you do not even know your own daughter. I value my chastity and virginity as one of the most important virtues in my life. If I cannot lose my virginity as a legitimate and honest wife would, I shall die as a virgin.”

Adraändreis lurched out and grabbed the sword that hung at Athenakles’ waist. She would have impaled herself on his blade, had he not restrained her. What men could not have done, women did. The actions of his family had dissolved Athenakles’ iron heart. Therefore, he sent his mother, daughter, and wife back to Bennipolis with their 100-man escort. Later that night, since Athenakles knew he would never survive if he told the Terheridonians that he no longer sought the thrown of Bennipolis, Athenakles took the sword that had almost impaled his daughter early that morn and he nobly committed suicide by the sword.

[i]**Hermoine's speech adapted from Plutarch's [u]Life of Coriolanus[/u] 33 and from Livy's [u]Ab urbe condita libri[/u] 2.40[/i]