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Originally Posted by Witchking
Of course if I am a Mage...I have resources...why do I want to stay in his country...particularly with any degree of rarity for mages I am in demand.
I can go anywhere and make a living.
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I guess so. Or maybe these people are slaves. How would this have all gone down in Sparta? Or the Roman Empire? Maybe the mages aren't slaves, but are legally forbidden from leaving the country. Who knows? Too many setting assumptions here. Or maybe they're free to wander around and do as they please, but the very expensive texts they need access to are all owned by monarchs and emperors, and the mages are driven not by desire for pay, but by access to ancient tomes which they are not allowed to copy.
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If the king pays above market rates for mages I would say it has a better chance of working
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If this is a low-tech society, they're probably not going to have a whole lot in the way of markets. I imagine it being Pharaoh or nothing. No one else would be able to afford to train these people. You're looking at years and years and years of them sitting around learning until they can finally cast their spells like they're needed. That's very expensive to support in a low-tech environment. Because you have to hire someone to teach them. And how much does that cost? I think anyone willing to take on the expense of training these people is going to expect to get to use them. That leaves politicians, wealthy merchants, and other wizards being able to shoulder that burden.
But then we're looking at population percentages. If eighty percent of the people are slaves, and people are born into slavery, then we're probably looking at most of the wizards being slaves as well. And then the king is probably testing all of the newborn slaves, and claiming legal dibs to them. So those are out. And the rest of them who are free are going to either be born into freemen who are part of the political class already, who will want to work to further their own nation's goals. So they're staying local as well. That only leaves the small percentage who are born free, but with no particular ties to the local community. They might be able to offer their services around, but that's only if they get training and are legally able to do so, which doesn't seem likely to happen.
What I would expect to see here is most of the wizards working for whatever political rulers there are where they are born, either through direct slavery, political responsibility, or other legal reasons. It doesn't seem very likely that any of these people would end up both free and trained. Even if wizards themselves are the rulers, they're going to keep themselves on a tight leash. It would be both too costly and too dangerous otherwise.