Alexander's Empire

[GodRaimundo]

I'm bored of all these Romanwanks out there, and, not seeing what I wanted, decided to do a Macedonwank.
I have made a few assumptions here, but I don't think that there are any glaring errors or major clichés.
Anyway, here we go.

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In the year 13, Alexander returned to his new capital in Babylon and, after entertaining his admiral Nearchus and drinking with Medius of Larissa, retired to his bed with a fever, which continued to grow worse. Ten days into the fever, Alexander lost the ability to speak, and a day later rumours began to spread that Alexander was dead. His generals gave in to the soldiers’ demands, and allowed them to see the ill emperor, reassuring them that he lived.
Rumours, however, have a habit of growing faster than the truth, and it was midsummer when the city of Athens, believing that Alexander was dead, revolted against him with the aid of several other cities, including Corinth. Alexander, however, had recovered several days previously, and when news arrived that he was marching back home with all the troops he could muster, a second, loyalist rebellion broke out in Greece. Thus, when Alexander arrived in Greece, he found it in a state of almost complete anarchy, with the loyalist rebels losing badly. Alexander came upon Athens with a force of 33,000 men and razed to the ground, and ploughed and salted the land. After this, Corinth tried to surrender, but Alexander had decided that the Greeks had rebelled too many times. Corinth received the same treatment as Athens, and the citizens of both cities were sold into slavery. It was at this time that Alexander's heir, Alexander IV, was born.
Satisfied that Greece was finally subjugated, Alexander returned to Pella for several months, planning new campaigns. Returning to Babylon, Alexander announced a campaign to the north of Asia Minor, subjugating the small states which lay there. He started by invading Bithynia with 30,000 veterans, subjugating it within months. He then left a small garrison in Heraclea, and pushed on to Sinope, where he accepted the surrender of the King of Pontus. He rested his troops here over the winter, before pushing on in the spring. He invaded Egrisi in late spring, and, by mid autumn, had taken his army to the Caucasus mountain range, which he declared as his new northern frontier, before returning to Babylon, where he spent the next year sorting out the myriad of problems beginning to assault his new Empire, sending envoys to the Indian states, promising peace and friendship.
During this time, he was also making final arrangements for the conquest of Arabia. This would be his greatest campaign since his illness, and he relished the challenge, leaving Babylon in early spring, and, with the support of the fleet he commissioned two years previously, began to advance down the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf. He met little resistance until he reached Magan, where he was received cordially, and informed that they could pass through the realm peacefully. Alexander left behind garrisons in important cities in order to be sure of their loyalty, and replaced these men by recruiting local men into his army.
Sheba also acquiesced peacefully to Alexander, but he was held up by Ma'in, to the north. Ma'in was, however, unable to stand up to his 40,000 strong army, and as Alexander's army appeared on the horizon, many of the cities sued for peace, which pleased Alexander. This, however, was not the case with Karna and Yathill, which both resisted. Yathill was razed and its population enslaved, but Karna, being the capital, was spared, and Alexander left a garrison in the city. This left Alexander with only the Red Sea coast to traverse, and, even with the support of his fleet, the army was beginning to go hungry. By this point, luckily, he was nearing the north of the peninsula, and his fleet was able to raid the Nabataeans for supplies. This, however, left them hostile to Alexander and his army, and though they managed little or no meaningful resistance, they were discontented for many years afterwards.
This campaign was considered to have brought all of Arabia under Macedonian rule, though the centre of the peninsula remained sparsely settled and was not really brought to heel for generations.
Upon his return, Alexander ordered the construction of a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile, along the route of that built by Darius under Persian rule. This was a project which took many years, and was halted twice, first by a revolt in Persia, which Alexander put down with great cruelty, and second, by an invasion of Aksum which took several years to complete. The canal was finally completed in the year 36, taking almost 20 years.
By this time, Alexander was terminally ill, and, with great reluctance, decided that his planned campaign against Carthago would have to be left to his son. In the year 37, just months before his death, Alexander officially named Alexander IV as his heir to the Macedonian Empire, and called all of his governors, satraps, generals and officials to swear loyalty to them. Several from Bactria and India refused, so Alexander IV set off with a force of 30,000 to subjugate them, his first military campaign. He was successful, but on his way home, rich with plunder, news reached him of his father's death and an invasion by Carthago, taking advantage of the lack of troops to conquer much of Egypt.
King Alexander of Macedon, fourth of that name, was now faced with the only other major power in the Mediterranean. He began forcing his men west, but Carthago, faced with little resistance, was growing dangerously close to the Nile...

[Axeman]

its "Gallic" not "Gaulish"

Other then that, good job!

[orangnumpanglewat]

All out Macedon vs Carthage! :D

[GodRaimundo]

its "Gallic" not "Gaulish"

Other then that, good job!

I know, and really, it should be Karkhēdōn instead of Carthago, but I'm too used to using the Latin names.:o

[GodRaimundo]

Next update

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Alexander hardly stopped as he marched westward, mustering all the forces he could along the way. Luckily, all of his governors had kept their oaths of loyalty, and by the time he reached Sinai, he had a force of 53,000 men, of whom 32,000 were veterans of his father's campaigns.
The Carthaginian army, under Hamilcar, numbered only 43,000, of whom only 10,000 had fought in previous campaigns. However, they had already taken Paraetonion, Alexandria and Memphis, as well as a host of smaller settlements, and were fortified east of the Nile, expecting to easily throw back Alexander and his army, and then destroy them in detail. Alexander however had other ideas.
Sending 15,000 men to board his fleet in port on the Red Sea, he continued to advance toward the Carthaginian positions. The fleet, along with its 15,000 soldiers, sailed up the canal to the Nile, and began heading north. Alexander meanwhile, had managed to slaughter all of the Carthaginian scouts west of their defences, effectively blinding them, so that when his fleet disembarked at Memphis, the Carthaginians believed that Alexander had got his whole army behind them. Most of the Carthaginian army immediately marched west, for Memphis, leaving a bare 8,000 left in the east. The 35,000 troops reached Memphis just as the city gates were shut.
Unfortunately for the Carthaginians, they had left most of their siege weapons behind in Memphis, to be retrieved when Alexander's main army had been dealt with, meaning that they were unable to assault the fortified city, and so settled into a siege. They had been there for almost a week when a lone scout arrived, informing the Strategos that Alexander's army was advancing from the east, and had destroyed their guard there. Hamilcar, thinking quickly, moved his army south, so that he would not be caught between two Macedonian armies. Unfortunately, he had forgotten about the fleet in the Nile, which pinned him down, five miles south of Memphis, while Alexander’s force, now reunited, advanced towards him.
Alexander split his force in three, himself leading the northern group of 18,000 men and with Ptolemaeus and Perdiccas leading the eastern and southern flanks respectively. They surrounded the Carthaginian army, and over the next four days, proceeded to destroy it.
Alexander then led his army northward, and liberated the cities that still had Carthaginian garrisons, though most had already been expelled. Alexander pursued his broken enemy west, until he reached Cyrene, where he halted and rested his army. Meanwhile, his fleet, under Admiral Nearchus sailed out into the Mediterranean and engaged the Carthaginian fleet near Oea. The Macedonians were hopelessly outmatched and were completely destroyed, but managed to inflict such damage on the Carthaginians that they went home and didn't leave for months.
Alexander, after resting his army, set out once more along the Libyan coast. His army passed unscathed through many Carthaginian ambushes, all of which were destroyed by his vanguard, and eventually came upon Oea, which he laid siege to while his artillery were moved up. Eventually he began assaulting the city walls with his catapults and ballistae, but the city surrendered before he destroyed the walls.
Leaving a small garrison behind, Alexander continued onwards, towards Carthago itself. He met no major resistance until he reached the city itself.
The walls of Carthago had never been breached before, and the city had never fallen to an outside assault. Alexander knew that his siege engines would never breach the huge land walls, and the walls along the coast were protected by the Carthaginian navy, and so he settled in to a long siege. The garrison of Carthago was broken in the first sally, and was barely strong enough to hold the city. Alexander therefore split his army, keeping just 23,000 to surround the city, and 30,000 out to capture other Punic cities. Carthago held out for seven years, and when the Macedonians finally entered the city, they found the whole city either dead or dying of starvation. The navy, however, had escaped three years earlier, taking many of the Carthaginian nobles and a portion of the military to the Iberian city of Gadir, where they set up the Second Punic Republic, or Republic of Gadir. Carthago was razed, and Utica became the primary city of the region.
Alexander did not pursue his foe to Iberia, but negotiated a peace in which Gadir ceded all of Africa, western Sicily and all of Sardinia.
As Alexander returned home after subduing his new possessions, word reached him of a Gallic force overrunning Macedonia, Thrace, and Greece, under a leader called Brennus. He was unable to reach them before they crossed over into Bithynia, and met them on the field of battle several miles east of Astakos. The Gallic force numbered around 167,000, against Alexander's mere 123,000 which he had managed to scrape up by arming every able man in the region. The Gauls and Macedonians deployed on the plain in lines facing each other. Alexander had his personal command in the centre, with the heavy phalanx on the right and his militia formed up on the left, with skirmishers, both mounted and on foot, screening his advance. He kept his heavy cavalry and 33,000 veterans in reserve.
Alexander knew that Brennus had chosen a good position and that he would use his superior numbers to try and batter the Macedonians into defeat. It was to this end that he had trenches dug and filled with stakes in front of his army. He also placed boulders and bales of hay before these, in order to foul a Gallic charge.
The battle opened at dawn on midsummer’s day. Alexander's army took up a defensive position behind their many fortifications. The obstacles did not work as well as Alexander had hoped, but he had a plan in reserve. He ordered his archers to fire flaming arrows into the bales of hay, which at first terrified the enemy soldiers, causing them to retreat, while Alexander's archers slaughtered them from a distance.
The Gauls attacked again an hour later. Their advance passed the obstacles fluidly and formed back into a solid line just in front of the first trenches. The entire Gaul front rank fell here, but they kept coming. The second and third lines of trenches were not so effective, though they disrupted the advancing line enough for Alexander's purposes.
The Macedonian skirmishers were much better than their Gallic counterparts, forcing them back into their own lines. The Macedonians then began concentrating on specific points in the Gallic line, before retreating back behind Alexander's main force.
Alexander's force looked fairly standard from the front, but Alexander had put his best troops in a position to take advantage of the weakened parts of the Gallic line. In these areas, the Gauls fell back slowly, until they were a good hundred metres away from the main battle. This was where Alexander used his reserves. They pushed into the gaps, slaughtering the Gauls who stood in their way, before pushing out in all directions from the newly created bulges in the line. The Gauls reeled at this blow, but held. The battlefield had turned into a slaughter, with no room for tactics, or so it seemed.
Suddenly, Alexander's 7,000 reserve cavalry appeared out of nowhere and drove screaming into the Gaul's right flank, which broke and fled. Alexander’s left flank swung like a closing door on the centre of the Gallic force, which tried to move to protect themselves, but were pinned down by the heavy cavalry, which, passing through the fleeing Gauls as if they did not exist, had smashed into their rear with all the subtlety and brutality of a mallet. The Gallic left flank, seeing this, also broke and fled, but the centre was trapped, surrounded by Alexander's army. It took all day and much of the night to finish the slaughter, but when it was over, the Gauls had lost over 100,000 men, and Alexander had lost almost 50,000.
Alexander pursued the Gauls to the coast, where they were slaughtered to a man. He then crossed to liberate Thrace, Macedonia and Greece, where, unlike his father, he was remembered as a liberator, saving them from the rapacious Gauls.
He pursued a few survivors into Dacia, which had supported them in their invasion, and conquered it utterly, before seeking out their commander, Brennus, who had fled to Illyria, and found sanctuary there. The Illyrians, too suffered at his hands, and only the northern part of their lands was left unconquered.
Meanwhile, in Italia, the Roman republic, after several short campaigns against the locals, had extended its dominion over the whole west coast of the peninsula. Now it was facing a war against the united might of the rest of the peninsula, united under the Etruscan League. Both sides were looking toward Macedonia and Alexander for help, and he knew that his decision would shape the future of the world for generations...

[Axeman]

This empire better start rebelling soon and at least showing nominal signs of political fragmentation or I am crying obsessive wank.

[Wolfpaw]

This empire better start rebelling soon and at least showing nominal signs of political fragmentation or I am crying obsessive wank.

I could see things getting sorta nasty when the Macedonians go into Italy. I mean, even if the Italian states are beaten conventionally the whole peninsula could turn into a sort of guerilla/bandit ridden ulcer that the Macedonians have a hard time controlling outside of the urban centers. After all, Italians never were ones to take losing gracefully ;)

[GodRaimundo]

Yes, there will be four different kinds of hell for Macedon in the next post.
Not sure when I'll be able to get it out, but I'll try tomorrow or Tuesday.
Exams:(*sigh*

[Coyote Knight]

This.

This is awesome.

[Askelion]

*Claps politely*

Nicely done my friend, although the lack of Samnite badassery is quite severe :(

In all seriousness, a very cool timeline that should result in eiter a Chinese-style uber empire in Europe, or a Diadochi War 10,000 times cooler than the original.

Keep up the good work and the pretty font :D

[EvolvedSaurian]

its "Gallic" not "Gaulish"

Other then that, good job!

Both are correct, although I, personally, tend to use Gallic for the Romanized folks after the conquest and Gaulish for the folks before. I doubt that has any validity, but both are correct forms.

[Greyfang]

The Guals should have been harassing the Romans and Etruscans rather than going into the Balkens. Scythia would have been better as they are a fun challenge

Also, let me try to recored all this, put it into a timeline, so i will take the time when Alexander took ill to be 323 BC

[Greyfang]

323 BC- Alexander grows ill
Revolt in Greece, Athens and Corinth sold into slavery
Announces a campain in Asia Minor

322 BC- Conquered Bithynia, Pontus, and Egrisi
Friendship with Indians

321 BC- Arabian conquest, garrisons in Magan
Sheba, Ma'in, and several cities are conquered by Alexander
Alexander raided the Nabataeans
Arabia conquered?
Sinai canal?

320 BC- Arabia conquered?
Sinai canal?

321/320 BC-301 BC/300 BC- Revolt in Persia and invasion by Aksum

300 BC- Sinai canal complete
Alexander the Great dies and is succeded by Alexander IV
Revolt in Bactria
Carthage conquers Egypt from Macedonia
Battle of Memphis

299 BC- Carthaginian army destroyed
Battle of Oea
Capture of Oea
Macedonians start the siege of Carthage

295 BC- Carthaginian migration to Iberia
2nd Punic Republic founded

292 BC- Carthage razed and land in Africa, western Sicily, and Sardinia ceded to the Macedonians

291 BC- Guals reach Bithynia
Battle of Astakos, Macedonian Pyrrhic victory
Liberation of Macedonian lands from Guals

290 BC- Dacia and southern Illyria conquered
The Roman Republic and the Etruscan League ask Alexander IV for help

If you see anything for correcting then let me know

[GodRaimundo]

Thanks. I'm not the best at pre-Roman Antiquity, I just saw a genre that I thought was missing. Also, my new calendar is confusing even me, so I think I'll redraft this in OTLs calendar.

Sinai canal?

However, the canal was not near Sinai, it was actually along the route of an old Persian canal, which I believe was between the Red Sea and the Nile.

The Guals should have been harassing the Romans and Etruscans rather than going into the Balkens.

I may have been a bit wrong with the times, but I believe that in the early 3rd century BC a group of Gauls with a leader called Brennus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennus_(3rd_century_BC)) did invade the region.

I'll try and get the redraft, together with the next chapter out tonight, and thanks for the ideas and info. Thanks also to all you who have been watching this.

EDIT: After a bit of research, I found out that Alexander actually commissioned his fleet at the easternmost point of his campaign, on the Indus.

[Greyfang]

However, the canal was not near Sinai, it was actually along the route of an old Persian canal, which I believe was between the Red Sea and the Nile.


Between the Red Sea and the Nile is the Nubian desert and the Suez bay
.....So Suez canal?

[GodRaimundo]

Right. Thanks to my lack of homework, here is the next update.
Oh, and thanks again to Greyfang, but I haven't yet had time to incorporate simplified timeline, yet, but I will try to do so and will keep it going, just for reference.

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Part III - The Troubles of an Empire

In the spring of the year 289BC, Alexander promised his aid to the Roman Republic, causing the Etruscan League to strike in an attempt to destroy the Republic before Macedonia could come to its aid. Alexander, however, was already in Graecia Magna, and quickly struck northward against the Etruscans. His advance seemed unstoppable, and the Etruscan League was quickly reduced to several isolated cities.
In the north, however, the League was inflicting defeat after defeat upon the Roman army, and had pushed the Romans almost to the gates of Rome. Alexander quickly marched to reinforce them, and defeated the Etruscan force five miles north, leaving the shattered remnants to flee.
He then destroyed the cities of the League, before handing over most of the captured territory to the Romans.
However, during Alexander's campaign in Italia, Chandragupta Maurya of the Maurya Empire struck into the Empire's Indian and Bactrian satrapies. Alexander took his entire force of 56,000 east, along with the 3,000 Roman soldiers promised to him by his treaty with the Roman Republic, levying and conscripting new soldiers along the way, and, by the time he reached the satrapy of Sybirtus, he had an army of 60,000 veterans and an extra 50,000 levies and militia who had fled the destruction of their homes, as well as five hundred war elephants received as a gift from the Nanda Empire fifteen years earlier. With this army he met the Maurya on the field of battle just south of Alexandria-on-the-Indus, in the satrapy of Peithon.
The Maurya army numbered almost 250,000 men along the east bank of the Indus. Alexander halted on the opposite bank and made camp late in August, 288BC. He knew that he was facing an army the equal of his own for the first time, and retired to his war tent to consult with his advisors and generals. The next day, Alexander sent an envoy to the Maurya, attempting one last time to find peace terms. The negotiations took several days, in which Alexander's force was reinforced by more than 30,000 Macedonians who had settled in the area since Alexander III conquered it thirty years earlier.
He crossed the Indus under the cover of darkness and heavy rain about a week later. Alexander deployed his army after the fashion of his father and grandfather before him, with 70,000 psiloi taking their position in front of the main line of battle, with 10,000 light cavalry on the wings. His phalanx was 40,000 men strong, with 6,000 Hypaspists on the right flank, along with the 5,000 Companion Cavalry. On the left, he had his Thessalian cavalry, and on the very edges of his line were the peltasts. Behind the main line, Alexander kept 3,000 Roman soldiers, along with 10,000 other troops levied along the way. His elephants were deployed in the van of his army, in front of the psiloi. Maurya deployed his 20,000 infantry in a solid line, with the cavalry on the wings, and the elephants in front of his army.
The two armies sighted each other in midmorning, and Maurya immediately ordered his elephants to attack. They walked towards the Macedonian psiloi, who skilfully avoided actual combat with the elephants, but showered them with a storm of javelins, stones, and arrows from a distance, aiming primarily for the legs and eyes. Two thousand of the elephants went completely wild with the pain from these wounds, with many of them being blinded in the first few minutes of combat. The rest, however, continued on towards the Macedonian Phalanx, where they were turned back by the long sarissae jabbing at them, and turned, charging too quickly for the psiloi to avoid them, but continuing on into their own ranks, destroying Maurya's formation. Alexander ordered his elephants, who had skilfully avoided the enemy for the most part, to follow them, and the elephants carved bloody swathes through the Indians. Alexander did not wait, and sent his peltasts and light cavalry to harass the enemy as they tried to redress their shattered ranks, while he moved up the heavier units behind them. When he was barely half a mile away, he ordered the Companions and Thessalians to attack, and they smashed into the front rank with the force of a tsunami, driving all before them, but were eventually surrounded and found themselves fighting for their lives. They were rescued just in time by the phalanx, which had charged at full speed into the Mauryan front rank like a battering ram. However, they quickly got bogged down in the writhing, seething mass of soldiers, and, in places, dropped their long sarissae as too unwieldy and took up the sword instead. Even so, with the Mauryan formation broken, the outcome was inevitable, and much of the Maurya army broke and fled when the allied troops from behind attacked. Alexander ordered the remnants of the army destroyed, and, hearing that Chandragupta Maurya himself had been captured, had him taken to the command tent, where he spoke with him alone.
It is not known what passed between the two men in that tent, but the outcome was that Maurya acknowledged Alexander's rule of the northwest Indian plains, and promised not to attack Alexander again.
With the battle won, Alexander turned for home, only to hear that his empire was crumbling. Many, not believing that he would survive his encounter with the far larger Maurya army, had decided that now was the time to make their own bids for power. There had been rebellions in Persia, Dacia, Armenia, Arabia, Nabataea, and, worst of all, the Punic Republic had taken control of much of Africa and was advancing towards Utica with a force of 60,000 men. Alexander turned back with a weary heart to face these new challenges.
Meanwhile, discontent grew in the heart of one of Alexander's greatest generals...

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Tune in to the next update for battles, rebellions, and, just possibly, a civil war!

[Greyfang]

Awesome, but don't forget that Alexander IV needs a heir and maybe the moral of the troops should be down with all these wars and rebellions

[GodRaimundo]

Awesome, but don't forget that Alexander IV needs a heir and maybe the moral of the troops should be down with all these wars and rebellions

Yes, that will be dealt with in the next post, including the matter of inheritance.
;)

[GodRaimundo]

Sorry for my lack of updates recently, but coursework deadlines are heaping up again. However, I have managed to put this together for you all, and will try to update again tomorrow.

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Part IV - An Empire Falls

Marching back, Alexander came upon the Persian rebels, and defeated them with just his vanguard, sending his light cavalry to ride down the few survivors. After this, he divided his army, sending the Romans to reinforce his garrisons in Macedonia and Thrace, from where they would be able to launch raids against the Dacian rebels until Alexander could bring enough force to bear on them to crush them outright. He also sent 15,000 men to fight the Armenian rebellion, expecting this to be enough to crush the small rebel force. He did not stop to fight the Nabataeans, but skirmished with them constantly on his way west, inflicting enough small defeats to make them unwilling to actively invade his empire behind his back.
By the time he reached Alexandria on the Nile, his troops morale had dropped to an all time low, but Alexander refused to acknowledge this, forcing them to march west to Utica. The sudden appearance of Alexander's army surprised the Punic forces, and they halted just east of Icosium. Alexander tried to send them out to attack the Punic forces, but they refused, forcing him to negotiate. Eventually, Alexander agreed to give the Punic Republic all of the land west of Icosium, and in return, a treaty guaranteeing perpetual peace with Alexander and his descendants, and an agreement that the Hellenic colonies in Southern Gaul would never try to expand into Iberia. This surrender was humiliating to Alexander, and lessened him in the eyes of his generals.
Returning to Babylon, Alexander reviewed the state of his Empire. He had lost western Africa to Gadir, Southern Arabia had broken away and formed Sheba and many other smaller states, most of which would be annexed by Sheba over the next century or so. Nabataea had also seceded, and Macedonian control over the Arabian interior, always a matter of faith, was now completely nonexistent. Armenia and Dacia were to all intents and purposes free, and there was unrest in many parts of the Empire, from Illyria to Persia to Utica. Greece, Thrace Macedonia and Bithynia, however, remained staunchly loyal to Alexander, remembering the atrocities committed by the Gauls when they invaded. And Alexander's most able general, Seleucus, son of his father's general of the same name, was discontented with what he saw as Alexander's weak will, indecision and inability to unite his people.
It was for this reason that in 286BC, when Alexander had returned to Pella, Seleucus launched a coup in Babylon. He had been assuring himself the support of the army in this, and much of it joined him. However, a large minority refused, and there were battles in the streets as friend turned against friend, neighbour against neighbour, and town against town. When the dust had settled, Seleucus came out with a tenacious hold on Babylonia, much of Persia, Judea, Aegyptus and a small part of southeast Anatolia. Many other regions of the Empire were sundered by this new power, and began to forge their own course from this point. Thus began the time of the Diadochi.
Alexander mustered all the loyal troops he could, and marched for Antioch, where Seleucus was waiting with his force. Seleucus marched out to meet him, and they met in the plains of central Anatolia.
Alexander's loyal army numbered only 34,500, while Seleucus had gathered 52,000 under his banners. Alexander had often won against greater numbers, but this time he faced an army that he himself had forged. It knew his tactics and could respond to anything he threw at them. It was his exact equal except for the fact that it outnumbered his. The battle was won easily by Seleucus. He simply rolled over Alexander's smaller army, as Alexander, blinded by rage, could think of nothing except to march straight for Seleucus, and attempt to crush him. Alexander himself survived the battle, and was welcomed home to Pella, from where he ruled the remnants of his father's shattered Empire.

[GodRaimundo]

So? Any new comments?
Next update tonight.

[Greyfang]

So many rebellions

[GodRaimundo]

Not really rebellions, though.
Anyway, later tonight there will be wars.:D

[GodRaimundo]

Part V - The Ashes of an Empire

In Arabia, King Demetrius of Sheba was looking to extend his realm. The neighbouring kingdom of Qataban was first to fall prey to his ambitions, after a Sheban force of 5,000 destroyed Qataban's army of just 2,800 at the coast near the western border. After this, the whole kingdom soon fell to him, quickly followed by Hadhramaut. However, the western Kingdoms of Magan, Mascat, and Gerrha formed an alliance which Demetrius was unwilling to challenge. It was for this reason that he turned to the south and west, first colonising Dioskouridou, which was a relatively unsuccessful move, and then looking toward the African continent, toward the region known historically as Punt. He saw Punt as a way of controlling trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and bringing innumerable riches to Sheba. It was this that brought him into conflict with Ptolemaeus of Aksum.
Aksum was Sheba's counterpart. Situated rather on the west coast of the Red Sea, it too was a trading nation. Since the Sundering, it had been involved in several petty wars with Nubia, none of which had been decisive, and both sides were now reduced to border raids. Kush, to the west, never part of the Empire, was nevertheless fairly Hellenized, and was looking at its eastern neighbours, Nubia and Aksum, with undisguised greed. Through a network of spies, King Demetrius and King Aktisanes of Kush kept in contact and planned the double stroke that would crush their foes between them.
In early spring, 280BC, a Sheban force of around 6,000 men landed south of Adulis in Aksum. They quickly seized the port, and began unloading supplies and more men. Meanwhile, from the east, the army of Kush advanced. This double invasion caught Aksum completely unprepared, and the Nubians soon added a third front. Faced with this treble assault, Aksum quickly caved, and, while Nubia celebrated, Sheba and Kush turned on her like ravenous wolves, tearing apart her army and quickly smashing the nation into submission. King Pergamon of Nubia fled to Utica, where he was welcomed and kept as a personal guest of the ruling council.
Meanwhile, further west, Utica skirmished along her border with Gadir, while Gadir concentrated on the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. They fought several pitched battles against the larger tribes inhabiting it, and began to expand along the coast.
To the north, Massalia and Rome were expanding into Gaul, assimilating the tribes there slowly. Rome had stood by Macedonia during the Fall, but was unable to help. During her domination by Macedon, she had reorganized her armies to the Etruscan hoplite model that had prevailed before the Great Samnite War. She had fought a small war with Massalia, but the war was halted by a Gallic invasion which was repulsed by the joint armies of Rome and Massalia. From that point onwards they were firm allies.
In Anatolia, Pontus and Armenia were harassing the Seleucid Empire, while Albania continually rebelled and was put down with increasing severity as the Empire began facing other problems. In the east, the Bactrians and Indians were invading and pillaging, while Nabataea raided their supply routes. Judea was restless, and Utica and Kush were continually testing the defences of the Empire. In the west, Alexander, who had recently had a son, was harassing the Empire in Bithynia and raiding the west coast of Anatolia. However, in the north, the Volga Greeks were independent, and had begun raiding across the Black Sea, and even penetrating the Sea of Marmara.
As war clouds gathered over the Hellenic world once more, it was easy to forget the powers emerging in the wings...

[Korporal Nooij]

Awesome!! I'm having alot of fun reading this TL! Oh, and lovely maps! :D

Keep it up! :)

[Greyfang]

Poor Seleucius

[GodRaimundo]

Thanks. Tomorrow, someone will have a nervous breakdown.:D

[Vosem]

Awesome. Keep this coming.

[GodRaimundo]

Part VI - The New Empires Rise

It was at this time that emissaries from the Chola Empire arrived in the Hellenic world. Chola was another Indian Empire, and rival of the Maurya. In fact, they had been at war for several years, and Ilamcetcenni Chola, the King, hearing of a great Empire in the west that had defeated the Maurya before, was seeking its help. Unfortunately, that Empire had collapsed several years previously, and what he in fat discovered was Sheba. He was unable to get help there, and so passed on, into other lands, in which he made other, more or less unsuccessful attempts to gain help for his people.
The reason for the lack of help was the war which had engulfed the region almost a year before. The Seleucid Empire, which had inherited most of Alexander's Empire, was also in the process of collapse, and the nations surrounding it were helping it along the path. They gathered like packs of wolves around some giant dying beast, grouping together to take huge chunks of it.
Kush was the first to outright attack the Seleucid Empire, striking into Aegyptus with all the force she had. Aegyptus was quickly liberated, and King Aktisanes of Kush placed his brother Hector on the throne of Aegyptus.
Utica had meanwhile been pushing into Cyrenaica, and Utica and Aegyptus clashed late in the summer of 276BC, but the battle was indecisive and both sides withdrew to lick their wounds, before Utica invaded in mid autumn, but King Hector had withdrawn his forces to the other side of the desert, while his small navy stopped Utica from resupplying them by sea without ceding their advantage over Gadir in the west. Many Utican soldiers died in the desert crossing, and as soon as they were well into his country, King Hector sent out the light cavalry that his brother had lent him. They were mounted on the finest horses and rode lightly, carrying only water, a bow and arrows and a curved sword for close fighting.
These master horsemen terrorized the demoralized Utican army, continually on the horizon, occasionally coming in close enough to pepper them with arrows and sometimes closing to harass the rear of the column with their swords. The Utican commander had sent out his cavalry to destroy them on the second day of this, and for three days the horizons were clear. Then the Kushite cavalry returned, but nothing was ever heard or seen of the Utican cavalry, except that later, much of their gear turned up in Aegyptian and Kushite markets.
The columns eventually sighted and Aegyptian fort, and spirits rose for a while, but when a line of soldiers marched out of the fort and formed up on the plain facing them, the Utican army's morale, which had stood up to so much, collapsed, and they fled. This time, the Kushite cavalry pulled no punches. Not one Utican returned to tell of the disastrous invasion of Aegyptus, and Utica never attacked Aegyptus again while Hector or his heirs ruled it.
Meanwhile, in the north, Albania had finally achieved independence with the help of Armenia and the Pontic Republic, and they were now threatening the lengthening northern frontier of Seleucia.
In Judea, Seleucid authority had collapsed, and Jerusalem was in the process of conquering the region, but the Phoenician states, led by Tyre, were also a major power in the region. Damascus made up the third point of the triangle, but the Nabataeans were pushing north from their capital at Petra, and threatening Jerusalem. Antioch, too, had made a bid for freedom, but was less successful that its southern Judean rivals.
However, Alexander's rump Macedonian Empire was also under pressure. The Illyrians and Dacians were pressing harder than before, and Bithynia had rebelled twice. Magna Graecia was also very close to revolution, and Alexander was in ill health. His six year old son, Aristotle, had been named Alexander's heir in the case of his death, and already had the loyalty of the army.
It was in late 285BC when the storm broke. Bithynia and Magna Graecia simultaneously declared independence, while Illyria, Dacia, and Graecia Volgar all declared war at once. Bithynia invaded Seleucid Anatolia, which Seleucus was unable to stop, and Pontus, Armenia, and Albania formed the Northern Alliance and invaded the Empire from the north. Antioch invaded southern Anatolia, seizing Cilicia, and the Judean kingdoms descended on each other in an orgy of violence. Ionia and Doria also became independent, and central Anatolia was divided into seven smaller states. It was this that gave Seleucus his nervous breakdown, ensuring that he would be forever known as Seleucus the Mad. Sheba invaded and annexed the remaining Arabic kingdoms. In the east, a new push by Maurya drove the Hellenic Indians and Bactrians deeper into the Empire, and Rome declared war on Massalia, but was crushingly defeated within sight of the city, which had recently established a port on the Atlantic.
Thus was the world at the end of the First Hellenic War. Little did they know that another storm was just around the corner...

[Greyfang]

Jeez almost no luck in conquering all that land back

Also, why is Alexander's heir named Aristotle?

[Shogun]

Is the Kingdom of Sheba hellenized, or were they occupied too briefly by the Macedonians for Hellenic civilization to have had an effect on it?

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Jeez almost no luck in conquering all that land back

Also, why is Alexander's heir named Aristotle?
Presumably to honour the teacher of the first Alexander. Does seem a tad odd, I'll admit.

[Greyfang]

Ya it does seem a bit odd :p

[GodRaimundo]

Next update. Sorry for the short post, but I've been extremely busy today, and only had 45 minutes to do this in. Anyway,

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Part VII - The Horde Rises

During the war, a chieftain named Dumnorix had united many of the Gallic Tribes, and was looking toward the divided Hellenic world with lust. Many of the tribes had joined him due to fear of the growing Roman and Massaliot Republics, some had joined for plunder, and some had been forced to join, but Dumnorix had united the largest group of Gauls into an army that would have worried Alexander III. To add to this horde, he also had contacts among the Illyrians, Getae, Dacians, and Scythians, and his invasion would be mirrored by them. These tribes made no distinction between the Hellenic nations, and merely wished to destroy them.
In the spring of 281BC, Dumnorix made his move, using the element of surprise. He launched an all out attack on Massalia and Rome, destroying their frontier defences and penetrating deep into their heartlands. Massalia lost all of her Atlantic coast in this first invasion, and Rome lost the fertile northern plains. Dumnorix's allies followed suit, with the Illyrians striking both north and south, into Rome and Macedonia. Dacia followed suit, and with the Getae, quickly conquered Much of Thrace, leaving only a coastal strip along the Bosporus and Propontis.
Meanwhile, Gadir had opened its borders to the huge numbers of Massaliot refugees fleeing the rapacious Gallic horde, bringing horrible tales of Gallic atrocities. The Gallic tribes in Iberia rose up, but Gadir, along with the native Iberian tribes subdued them. This marked the completion of Gadir's conquest of Iberia.
In the North, the Scythians had pushed the Volga Greeks back onto Tauris, and were hammering away at them. The whole Hellenic world had heard of the hordes in the north, and was united as they never were since the Seleucid Rebellion, with nations as far south as Sheba and Kush sending men to help stem the onrush. They were even aiding Gadir, their once mortal enemy. Even the Judean nations had stopped slaughtering each other.
By the winter of that year, the Gauls and their allies had pushed back Massalia to a small coastal strip, and were pushing down the Italian peninsula. Thrace had fallen, and victorious Dacians were flooding into Macedonia and Bithynia, and even Armenia and Albania were coming under assault. As the northern tribes halted for the winter, who knew what the next year would bring?

**********

Not sure when I'l be able to update next, though I'll try for the next two or three days.
Oh, and sorry about the name, it was meant as a tribute to Alexander III's teacher, but mainly because I'm not very good at ancient Greek names.
And Shogun, Sheba is partially Hellenized, but due to the Greek king, and Hellenizing influences nearby, it is becoming more Hellenized as time goes on. Similarly, Kush, due to the large amounts of Hellenic land, and a generation of alliance to Alexander is becoming Hellenized. The latter is also true for the Roman Republic.

[Greyfang]

Thats in your timeline Alex

Hmm thats a lot of to be continued

[WorldWarZ]

Alexander the Great did not exist nor did any "history" up until 1000 AD or so. See Fomenko's New Chronology for details.


Enjoying the work. Also ignore this TROLL. He's posting stuff about New Chrology on EVERYONE's timelines

[GodRaimundo]

I was just about to reply or argue, but then I read the notice.
Do. Not. Feed. The. Trolls.
Sorry, people, but I don't think I'll be able to update tonight.:(

[GodRaimundo]

I ignored my illness and impending coursework deadlines to post this.
ADMIRE my dedication. ADMIRE IT.:mad:
Aw, heck, who am I kidding. It's entertaining for me, too.:D

**********

Part VIII - A Renewed Assault

When the thaw came in 280BC, the Gauls renewed their assault, finally conquering the remainder of Massalia, and pushing further into Italia. They were even fighting the Punics, but were unable to break through the natural barrier of the Pyrenees.
Meanwhile, over the winter, the allied Hellenic force had been assembling in Graecia Magna, preparing for the inevitable showdown. The Anatolian nations had rallied, and managed to push the Dacians out of Bithynia, and were preparing for an assault over the Bosporus. Unfortunately, this meant that the Dacians had renewed their assault on Macedonia, and that nation was almost destroyed, with only the Greek cities holding out. Alexander himself had been slain in the opening battles of the year, and his son had been brutally murdered in the sack of Pella. Illyria had agreed to peace, and in return had received Macedonian Illyria and the Roman territory of Istria.
The Hellenic forces in Italia numbered 180,000, while those in Bithynia numbered less, at 87,000. The Gauls and their allies were invading elsewhere, but the local forces were able to hold them. The invasion of the Volgar Greeks had been halted while Tauris was still free. There were also 52,000 Punic and Utican soldiers in the Pyrenees, ready to counterattack the Gauls at a moment's notice.
The Gauls had 370,000 men along the Punic and Roman frontiers, while the Dacians and their allies numbered up to 100,000 spread throughout Macedonia.
By early autumn in 280BC, it was decided that the hordes had come far enough, and that the Hellenic forces and their allies would finally be allowed to stop the Gauls.
In the Pyrenees, 50,000 allied soldiers swept out of the mountains and butchered the Gauls who stood against them. They immediately set off to free the Massalian coast, from where Gallic pirates had been raiding the Mediterranean, but were halted just before they reached the ruins of Massalia. In Italia, the advance had been slower, due to the Gauls making use of the many rivers crossing the peninsula, but the allies had advanced nevertheless, almost reaching Ravenna. After that, the war in Italia descended into a campaign of attrition, with neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat. The Anatolian attack had liberated the coast of Macedonia, and had won a great victory at Pella, slaughtering the Dacians and their allies, and driving them back towards the border. Three weeks later, Dacia was conquered, and peace was achieved in the East. Bithynia gained Thrace from this war, and the Dacian territory gained was split between the Macedonians and Bithynians. At the very end of the year, the Volgar Greeks attacked the Scythians and conquered the whole north west coast of the Euxeinos Pontos.
By the spring of 279BC, the allies had gained the North Italian Plains, allowing them more space to manoeuvre. This allowed them to defeat the Gauls in the field, though any attempts to actually invade Gaul failed, and by the end of the year only the coast had been liberated. A limited peace was achieved, but there was fighting along the frontier for as long as it lasted.
Dumnorix, having failed in his ambition to conquer the Hellenic kingdoms, instead turned his attentions to the north, to Germania and Brettaniai. This was a decision which would shape the future of the world...

**********

Just out of interest, who would like the next post to focus solely on northern Europe as opposed to northern Europe plus the Hellenic World?

[Greyfang]

Well you can first write about the north and then the south later but they are set at the same timeframe

[Darth_Kiryan]

The only problem that i have with this time-line is that i am extremely biased against Alexander, but this scenario is awesome.

Really, really really well thought out an presented. Especially with the way that you presented the Empire falling apart.

Hope for an update soon.


I actually am wondering what is going to happen in Rome and their future. Will there be an Empire, or only a small fledgling super-state.

[GodRaimundo]

Thanks.
I think I'll focus on Northern Europe in the next post and do the postwar Hellenic World after that.
And Rome....
Not too sure what will happen there, but will probably be subsumed into a neighbouring empire sooner or later, possibly Utica, or Graecia Magna.

[MerryPrankster]

Wouldn't a longer rule by Alexander--and rule by his son, for a time--lead to fewer post-Alexandrian states and not more? The institutions of governance would be developed more, there'd be a lot more cultural mixing, etc.

In OTL, we only had four IIRC. Here it seems we have at least ten.

[GodRaimundo]

Yes, but a larger Empire logicically means more successor states. Anyway, even in OTL Alexander's Empire was unwieldy, so which four nations would be capable of holding the entire former Empire between them? Also, several of these were never really ruled by Alexander, and were primarily vassals who paid tribute, not de facto part of the empire.
Plus, it makes for a more interesting storyline.

[MerryPrankster]

Yes, but a larger Empire logicically means more successor states. Anyway, even in OTL Alexander's Empire was unwieldy, so which four nations would be capable of holding the entire former Empire between them? Also, several of these were never really ruled by Alexander, and were primarily vassals who paid tribute, not de facto part of the empire.
Plus, it makes for a more interesting storyline.

Well, OTL's Diadochi or their sons. You had Seluceus pull it off for awhile.

To be fair, you've had some consolidation already. I imagine there'd be more over the years.

And who is running the "Diadochi State of Jerusalem"?

[GodRaimundo]

Seleucus was actually the son of the Seleucus who was Alexander III's general.
I changed his name because I thought that 'Seleucid' sounded better than 'Antiochid' for the name of the empire, though in hindsight, there are a number of names which would have sounded better that Seleucid.
The 'Diadochi State of Jerusalem' as you put it, is not really a Diadochi state, but is a Hellenized Hebrew Kingdom which gained independence from the crumbling Seleucid Empire. I will try to explain the governance of all the successor states in the next update but one.
I will try to update later tonight.

[Korporal Nooij]

I like the idea of a Gallic Confederation!

And yes, i think it'd definitely be nice if you'd focus on the north first and then refocus on the south. :)

Anyhow, awesome TL! Keep it up!! :D

[GodRaimundo]

Here it is. Before I receive any complaints, none of the large tribal nations are particularly centralized, or even united. In peace they still raid each other and fight small internal wars, and border tribes can be part of more than one nation.

**********

Part IX - The Boreal Wars

Dumnorix, feeling his fledgling nation begin to crumble, knew he must find fresh conquests to reunite them. Thus, he turned to the north coast, where a group of tribes still resisted him. Throwing his full weight against these tribes, he crushed them in a matter of months, with only a few escaping to the southern coast of Albion, where they attempted to warn the natives of the imminent Gallic invasion. A few tribes listened, mainly in the south, and formed the Council of Albion, a group of tribes who, for the sake of mutual protection and benefit, agreed to ally. This was to form the basis of the High Kingship of Albion, but this was not to occur for a few more years.
While Albion prepared, Dumnorix decided instead to bring the Belgae into the fold. He invaded in the spring of 277BC, and quickly pushed the Belgae back. But they withdrew before him, burning their villages and travelling north and slightly east, where they settled, just south of Thule as it was known in those days. Dumnorix never really defeated the Belgae; he merely drove them out of their original homelands and settled Gauls in their place. Meanwhile, they allied with the Germanic and Nordic tribes in their region and grew strong, while allying with the Council of Albion, which had been growing steadily as more refugees from the continent flooded in on anything that floated due to their desperation to escape the rapacious hordes of Gauls that were ravaging their homes. They also helped the Germanic tribes prepare for Dumnorix's next invasion, helping to form the Germanic Union, which faced the Gallic Confederation across a stretch of land inhabited by the Helveti tribe, who had been displaced earlier, during the formation of the Confederation.
Then, suddenly, Dumnorix turned away from the east and invaded Albion. The Gauls were victorious at first, but as the Council expanded and more tribes sent men (and women) to fight, the Gauls were bogged down and eventually stopped. It was at this point that the Council, riven by dispute, elected the first High King of Albion, King Áed of the Parisii tribe, who would rule for life. Under his rule, the overextended Gauls were pushed back, and, by the end of 274BC, were driven from Albion.
During this time, the last great tribal union was formed, the Helvetic Nation. In an alliance with the Germanic Union and the Belgae Alliance, it inflicted a massive defeat on the Gauls just west of the River Rhine, breaking their power for generations and killing Dumnorix. The Gallic Confederation, while torn by internal strife, was still strong enough to hold its conquests, and did not lose a decisive war for centuries to come.

[GodRaimundo]

Sorry about the lack of updates, but I've been ill recently. Anyway, I'm working on a monster update for tomorrow, so check back then.

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Sorry about the lack of updates, but I've been ill recently. Anyway, I'm working on a monster update for tomorrow, so check back then.
1) hope you're feeling better
2) health is more important than a timeline
3) been there done that:)
4) hope to see more when convenient

[GodRaimundo]

Right. I'm back.
I'm doing this monster post in two parts, with the second, much longer one, coming up later tonight, as I need to do the map for it.
Here we go.

**********

Part X - The Peace Collapses

After the Boreal wars, the fragile alliance holding the Mediterranean world together barely held long enough for the soldiers to return to their own countries, and in fact war began while Graecian troops were still in Roman territory. The first clash took place near Beneventum, at that time a part of the Republic.
The Graecian force numbered 28,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry, slightly outnumbering the Romans with just 25,500 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.
It was early in the morning when the battle began. The Graecian psiloi engaged the Roman skirmishers, skilfully avoiding hand-to-hand combat. The Roman commander, a newly promoted man named Publius Decius Dentatus, promoted beyond his ability by wealthy parents, infuriated by the way that the Graecians were slaughtering his skirmishers, ordered his light cavalry in from the wings to attack the psiloi. The psiloi, being warned of this, began withdrawing slowly towards the main phalanx, while the Roman cavalry followed. At this point the Graecian cavalry began to close imperceptibly on the Roman right wing.
Suddenly, the Roman cavalry charged. The psiloi just managed to duck into the phalanx, and a few of the Roman cavalry followed them. For a few seconds, it seemed as though this risky manoeuvre had worked for the Romans, but then the phalanx seemed to shake itself, pulling the remaining Romans off their horses and killing them. The phalanx then began to advance towards the main Roman army.
While this had been going on, the Graecian cavalry had flanked the Romans, pinning their right wing in place. The Graecian phalanx clashed with the Roman one, and this showed a major flaw in the Roman armament. For the Romans were equipped as the Etruscan hoplites of old, with spears of seven feet in length, while the Graecians had sarissae, which were more than twice this length, at fifteen feet.
The Roman force wavered, but was unable to withdraw, as it was held from behind by the Graecian cavalry, which were slaughtering the Roman right wing. Eventually, the Roman right collapsed in on itself, and the Graecian cavalry disengaged, riding around to the other flank, and brutally assaulting it from behind. The Graecian left wing swung inwards, rolling over the remains of the Roman flank like a closing door as they surrounded the Roman centre. The Roman left wing suffered the same fate, and soon the only remnant of the once glorious Roman Army was embroiled in fighting so dense that the men had thrown down their spears, short and long alike, and were battling with swords only. This evened the fight somewhat, but by this point the Roman Army was so badly damaged that it was to no avail. As the sun set, the Graecian army reached the Roman standard, which had been held for a few hours by a last desperate stand by the Romans, in which many Graecians had fallen.
As the Roman standard bearer realised he was the last man left of the army, he drew his sword and prepared to fight to the death. One of the Graecians called out to him to surrender, and the realisation that he was alone finally made itself seen in his eyes. He slumped in defeat, and was taken prisoner by the victorious Graecians, the only Roman not to die on that day.
This battle, the Battle of Beneventum, broke the Romans in the south. The Graecians pushed further and further northward, and, seeing the Roman defeat, Massalia and Utica also declared war.
As the Graecians laid siege to Roma itself, the cities of the north, seeing that Roma would be no help to them anymore, forged new alliances. Many of them joined the rich Massalian empire, while the Illyrians gained influence in the northeast, and Utica managed to conquer Corsica and even established a presence on the Mainland, which they called Pisa, after ter first city of the region that they occupied.
However, the division of Italia was not satisfactory to these nations and tensions began to rise. As Magna Graecia allied with Illyria and Utica formed a pact with Massalia, the scene was set for the Third Italian War...

**********

So what do people think?
Also, I have a question for you.
Which do you think would be cooler, a clockpunk or steampunk Mediterranean basin?

[GodRaimundo]

Comments, anyone?

[He Who Writes Monsters]

Those poor Romans. XD

But I'm loving the thought of Magna Graecia and Massalia not just surviving but thriving, and Hellenizing Italy and southern France.

Can't wait to see what's going on in the rest of the Mediterranean.

[GodRaimundo]

Here we go. Next part.

**********

Part XI - An Age of War

Sheba, the only Hellenic nation not to have involved itself in the barbarian invasion, had instead been helping the Chola Empire in its war with the northern Maurya, and success seemed to be on the horizon. After the Mauryan defeat at the battle of Mathura the previous year, the Maurya Empire was broken, and the Cholas and Shebans were picking up the pieces. The Chola Empire had taken much land in the South and East, while further to the north the Shebans had set up the Kingdom of Narmada, which was to all intents and purposes a Sheban vassal state. A rump Mauryan Empire survived around the capital at Paliputra, but was no longer ruled by a member of the Maurya Dynasty and was known simply as Paliputra. To the northwest, a city called Pattala had established its independence and conquered a number of the Hellenic Indian Kingdoms that had existed there since the fall of the Macedonian Empire. The north of the Empire had collapsed into a number of warring Pashtun tribes and Indian city states.
After this war, King Leander of Sheba was seeking conquests closer to home and his eye settled upon Nabataea, which had recently come off second best in a small war with Jerusalem and Aegyptus. He sent his Western Army of 12,000 men reinforced with 3,000 light African cavalry to attack the Nabataeans, who mustered an 8,000 man army to defend themselves. The Shebans and Nabataeans clashed just within the Nabataean Kingdom, on a flat stretch of land near the coast.
The Sheban commander, Cassander, who had recently been recalled from India, ordered his force slightly differently to the usual. He placed his pikemen in a phalanx, as usual, but positioned his cavalry in the van of his army, even in front of the psiloi. His heavier cavalry took up a position on the left flank, with his lighter infantry armed with swords and shields taking a position on the right. The Nabataean army was in the traditional formation of the Hellenic states, a formation that dated back to Alexander.
The Sheban light cavalry began harassing the Nabataeans days before the battle was joined, using much the same tactics as the Kushite cavalry had used against the Utican army in 276BC, just four years earlier. This demoralized the Nabataean army, and, seeing the relentless Sheban phalanx marching towards them, and the light cavalry harassing their flanks, the Nabataeans halted and prepared to defend themselves.
Cassander sent his phalanx forward, pinning the enemy line in place, and began the typical flanking manoeuvre with his heavy cavalry. Unfortunately, the light cavalry were not in a position to stop the Nabataeans, who were able to block the flanking attack, costing the Shebans dearly. A similar duel took place on the opposite end of the line, but the Sheban light infantry refused to disengage, and the Nabataean line was too thin on the left, so Cassander, spying the enemy weak point, sent the remainder of his heavy cavalry to strike at this portion of the line. The Nabataean left broke and fled, and the Shebans began to close on the centre and right. The centre soon collapsed under the pressure, and the right broke and fled soon afterwards.
With the fall of the Nabataean army, Jerusalem and Aegyptus also invaded, and Nabataea was divided three ways.
Meanwhile in Italia, the third Italian war had been preparing.
Magna Graecia invaded Utican Pisa in early autumn of 272BC, quickly conquering the region and taking a small amount of Massalian territory to the north, but Massalia is primarily engaged with Illyria, but neither nation can gain a decisive victory.
Magna Graecia, meanwhile, is looking to the south, to Sicilia, which it had long considered a rightful possession. They mustered an army in southern Italia, which numbered 24,500, and, upon destroying the Utican fleet at the battle of Syracusa, carried the army across to Sicilia. The north and west were quickly taken, and after a defeat in the field, the Utican forces on Sicilia retreated to Syracusa and were besieged there. While 15,000 men kept up the siege of Syracusa, the rest of the army subdued the west of the island, and the navy protected them from an amphibious assault.
The rest of the Utican fleet was destroyed at the second battle of Syracusa, and the Utican relief army was drowned with it. Seeing that they were doomed, Syracusa surrendered soon after.
Utica, with its navy destroyed and its army helpless, signed the Treaty of Olbia, concluding the war between Utica and Magna Graecia, in which Utica formally surrendered Pisa, Sicilia and Corsica to Magna Graecia, and promised not to aid Massalia in the still continuing war in the north.
In the North, Massalia had slowly been pushing the Illyrians back, but with Graecian help, the war soon became a stalemate. The northern campaign was concluded at the treaty of Pisa, which stabilised the frontiers at the time and turned them into internationally agreed borders.
The result of this was that Massalia gained a port on the Adriatic, and Magna Graecia's domination of Italia moved northward up the peninsula. At this time Italia stopped being the common name for the peninsula, and Magna Graecia, or just Graecia, was used instead.

**********

Comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated.

[mjanes]

Great timeline so far. On your last post, I am just confused about the name of the Gangetic Kingom, as the Ganges is on the other side of India. Is that some quirk of naming I'm unfamiliar with?

[GodRaimundo]

Great timeline so far. On your last post, I am just confused about the name of the Gangetic Kingom, as the Ganges is on the other side of India. Is that some quirk of naming I'm unfamiliar with?

No, sorry, I was thinking of the wrong river. It should have been the Kingdom of Narmada. I'll just change that.

[Yelnoc]

Awesome updates. I'm rooting for Massilia and Jerusalem here. Small quibble, wouldn't "Jerusalem" be referred to as Judea (or Israel if your going with a Davidic Kingdom)?

[GodRaimundo]

Awesome updates. I'm rooting for Massilia and Jerusalem here. Small quibble, wouldn't "Jerusalem" be referred to as Judea (or Israel if your going with a Davidic Kingdom)?

Thanks.
It isn't really supposed to be a Davidic Kingdom, at least not yet. At present, it is the Hellenized city state of Jerusalem plus surrounding lands.

[Typo]

I like this!

[GodRaimundo]

Thanks. I'm glad people out there are enjoying this.
I might not be able to update this for a week or so, but feel free to comment or make constructive criticisms.

[GodRaimundo]

*Bump* filler

[GodRaimundo]

All right, I'm back. The holidays have begun, so here we go.

**********

Part XII - A City is Begun
For several years, the Volgar Greeks, also known as the Taurans, had been exploring up the Tyras in search of new peoples to trade with. Soon enough, the source of the river was found, and began to attract traders, with the rumours of rare treasures in the north, such as beasts with completely white coats, and huge hoards of amber.
None of these tales were completely true, but they nevertheless, lucrative trade drew traders up the river to its source. The number of boats travelling up and down the river necessitated the building of portage roads around the seven sets of rapids along the route, of which several sprouted small trading posts.
Then, in the year 281BC, a Tauran trader by the name of Hypatos, after a venture overland, discovered a new river to the north of the Tyras's source. Seeing that it was too far for portage, and hearing legends that it lead to the world-girdling Ocean, Hypatos found a crew willing to help him and biult a new boat at the bank of the new river, which came to be known as the Partikos, and sailed north.
Nothing further was heard of him for four years, during which time many thought him dead, until, in the summer of 277BC, Hypatos returned, with his crew almost full, having lost one man in the first winter in the north. However, Hypatos was ecstatic; he had reached Pretannika, the tin isles, from the east, and had traded with the Council of Albion, which ruled the island of Alba.
This was an amazing discovery, particularly since Gadir had never let a Hellenic ship through the Pillars of Herakles, and was loath to trade any of their native tin away. Many more traders began travelling to Pretannika to acquire tin, and, as a result, a road grew up from the source of the Tyras to the Partikos, and trading posts grew up at each end. It was several years before the people of Pretannika, or the Albans, as the inhabitants of the largest island were called, began sending ships east, but they did so.
At first, losses on the voyage were horrendous; almost one voyage out of every three failed to return, but this merely made the rewards greater. Eventually, another trading post grew up, at the point where the river emptied into the Northern Sea, where cargo was transferred from newly built ocean-going ships onto the small galleys which plied the rivers back to Tauris.
These trade posts would eventually grow into cities which would, between them, decide the fate of all western civilisation...

**********

I'm not sure about the dates for this, so if someone could suggest a reasonable timeline for it, that would be appreciated.

[He Who Writes Monsters]

Ooh, interesting - Grecian Britain? And trading posts across the Dneiper (or is it Dneister?)?

[GodRaimundo]

Perhaps, though TBH, I'm not too sure myself yet, and yes, it is the Dnieper.

[GodRaimundo]

Here we go. What do you think of this? I tried to space it out to avoid the "walls of text" phenomenon.

**********

Part XIII - Unlucky for Some

As the Third Italian War came to an end, the Seven Cities of Asia Minor were coming under pressure from their neighbours, particularly Antioch, Bithynia, and Pontus, all of whom viewed the small cities as easy conquests.

Bithynia was the first to strike, with Bithynian King Kallikrates leading a force of twenty five thousand men against the Kingdom of Phrygia, which, though small, halted his army after a battle outside the walls of Gordium, and drove him back into Bithynia. They quickly followed up on this, marching into Bithynia and forcing King Kallikrates to do battle near the city of Pergamon, and finally being halted there. Kallikrates then embarked on a long campaign to drive the Phrygians out of his nation, but meanwhile, his second son, Theron, had rebelled against him in Thrace, and taken his older brother, the Crown Prince Lysandros, prisoner. The King was forced to recognise Thrace, but, after defeating the Phrygians and razing Gordium, claimed that he made the promise under duress, and invaded Thrace. However, he was defeated in battle almost as soon as he landed, and was killed by an arrow through the throat. His army withdrew, and Lysandros was proclaimed King of Bithynia.

During the Bithynian campaign, Pontus and Antioch both invaded the Seven Cities. Antioch quickly took Lycaonia and Psidia, but endured a long siege in order to subdue the Cappadocians, while Pontus took Galatia, Marquish and Kanash, ending the independence of the Seven Cities.

Flushed by their success, the Pontic Republic and Antioch invaded the rapidly crumbling Seleucid Empire, which, by this time, was under assault on all of its frontiers, and the King's rule barley extended beyond Babylon.

The Pontic army was defeated at the battle of Europus, and retreated back, giving up their invasion. Three months later, however, the Seleucid army was routed by an Antiochene force, which took the city and continued pushing east. Damascus, Jerusalem and Armenia won similar successes in their wars with Seleucia. However, momentous as these events may have seemed, the true fate of the Empire was being determined far away to the South.

Sheba, the richest nation in the Known World, was, under King Athanos, stronger than ever before, and Athanos desired greatly to add Babylon to his kingdom. Mustering an army unrivalled since the days of Alexander, Athanos marched north from Sheba, and clashed with the Seleucid force just south of Babylon itself.

Athanos's army, numbering sixty seven thousand, was made up of thirty thousand native Shebans, twenty thousand Kushites and Egyptians, eleven thousand Indians, and six thousand Africans from the South; Ethiopians and others of their kind.

The Seleucid army, led by Kyros, numbered fifty four thousand, but was well trained and fully equipped, while some of the Shebans were armed only with a spear or a sword, and only forty thousand were fully armed in the Hellenic fashion, with Sarissae.

Kyros deployed his army five miles south of the city, with his main phalanx of thirty five thousand facing directly towards the Shebans. His psiloi, numbering seven and a half thousand, were more heavily armed than was usual, and the wings were swept back in order to counter any flanking manoeuvre.

The Sheban army was a much more mismatch affair, with the main phalanx being only thirty three thousand strong, but on the flanks were seven thousand Hypaspists and six thousand Indian swordsmen, and on the wings, fifteen thousand light Kushite cavalry. The rest of the army was made up of light infantry and psiloi, who were used to screen the main battle line.

Battle was joined at midmorning, following sacrifices to the Gods. The Shebans sacrificed to Athene, being their patron goddess, while the Seleucids sacrificed to Ares, the God of War.

The Seleucid army held its position, with only the psiloi advancing to harass the enemy. As the Shebans advanced, their psiloi began skirmishing with the Seleucids. Usually, either one or other sides would withdraw their psiloi before they started fighting, but in this battle neither side was willing to withdraw, as the Shebans outnumbered the Seleucids, but the Seleucids knew that they out armed the Shebans. Thus, the Seleucid psiloi charged the Shebans, and routed them, but the light infantry behind routed the Seleucids in turn. The light infantry then charged the main Seleucid line, attempting to break it so that the Sheban phalanx could come up and destroy the enemy in detail. However, this failed, and at midday, the light infantry withdrew and the Sheban phalanx advanced.

The Sheban phalanx marched to within twenty yards of the Seleucids, before halting to taunt their enemy. Seeing that the Seleucids would not be moved by insults alone, King Athanos ordered the Shebans to charge the remaining twenty yards, which they did. The two forces met with a deafening noise, and it was clear that the Seleucids had gained the upper hand. The Kushite cavalry attempted to flank the enemy, but were turned back and routed in the early afternoon. The Hypaspists and Indian swordsmen tried the same trick on the right flank, but were halted. However, they were not routed, and by late afternoon had destroyed the Seleucid left flank. However, Kyros, showing his skill as a general, withdrew part of his centre, and they took up a position to halt the Sheban advance.

As night fell, the battle was still continuing, and, though both sides were tired, neither withdrew. Under cover of darkness, the Kushite cavalry, who had returned, managed to circle the enemy flank, and struck the Seleucid line from behind, splitting it in two, and turning the battle in the Shebans' favour. IT was not until morning that the Shebans realised that the Seleucid army had been reduced to a couple of thousand men on each flank, fighting desperately for their lives. The Seleucids also noticed this, and, throwing down their arms, surrendered, leaving Babylon wide open.

The body of King Kyros was never found, though the Shebans searched for seven days and nights.

This battle marked the final crash of the Seleucid Empire, though a rump state survived around the city of Seleucia.

Sheba, now the most powerful nation on the Hellenic world was satisfied, for the time being...

**********

Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Also, if someone would be able to add rivers to my base map, please PM me.

[Greyfang]

What happened to Macedonia?

[Tapirus Augustus]

Perhaps Sheba becomes the newest Persian version of the Persian Empire? Are there now, or will there be any Monotheistic states? A Jewish Jerusalem or Sheban Empire would be really cool. A Zoroastrian empire would also be neat.

[GodRaimundo]

Perhaps Sheba becomes the newest Persian version of the Persian Empire? Are there now, or will there be any Monotheistic states? A Jewish Jerusalem or Sheban Empire would be really cool. A Zoroastrian empire would also be neat.

In answer to your questions, I have put together a quick post detailing the religions of the Hellenic World, and their spread.

**********

Part XIV - Religious Strife

Following the Seleucid War, Sheba had an influx of Persian immigrants, fleeing the war and disorder to the north and east. These immigrants brought their religion with them, and they worshipped Zurvan, and his two sons, Oromasdes and Arimanius. This religion gained in popularity among the conquered provinces, and even gained the King's second son, Prince Hilarion, as a convert, as he was his father's Governor in Babylon, the centre of the immigrant's religion.

Athanos, however, was against this religion, and, even though his advisors counselled him otherwise, denied it recognition as a true religion, and continued promoting worship of the Olympian Gods with Athene as the patron of the nation, and so a rift grew between father and son.

Prince Aristokles was a different matter entirely. He was a firm adherent of the old faith, but, in the aftermath of the Seleucid War, he travelled the new Empire, visiting the largest cities over which he would rule, and was able to reconcile both of these beliefs by declaring that Zurvan was Eros, the primordial entity, who was responsible for the creation of the world, but had since retired and given control of the world to Oromasdes and Arimanius, merely, he claimed, different names for Nyx, Goddess of the Night, and Hemera, Goddess of the Day, and that they were the ruling forces of the Universe, and the Olympians, though powerful Gods, were merely the vassals of Hemera, while the Titans and other children of Ouranos and Kronos, were vassals of Arimanius, and that their battle held the Universe in balance. He also believed that Zurvan was omnipotent and omnipresent, but aloof, and would only halt the battle of the Primordial Forces once Humanity was cleansed of all its evil. However, Aristokles declared that evil acts would have to be committed so that future generations may be saved, and that Zurvan would review the world at the end of each Zodiacal Age in order to decide whether to save it.

These different religions despised each other, and Zurvanism and Aristoklism spread throughout the world, deposing many other Gods in the process. Only Judaism was immune to the spread of these new religions, and in fact grew in popularity.

This Great Schism, as it came to be known, would be the cause of many wars in the future.

Aristoklism became the official religion of Sheba on the death of King Athanos, and Aristokles was later worshipped as a Prophet. His religion spread throughout his nation, and also into Kush and Aegyptus, while in the east, Pattala and Narmada also developed large populations of Aristoklians.

Orthodox Zurvanism remained strong in Persia, and spread north as refugees fled the fall of the Empire, becoming a major religion in Seleucia, Armenia, Albania, and the eastern part of Pontus.

Judaism, growing to become the fourth major Hellenic religion, spread throughout the Near East, becoming the official religion in Phoenicia, where the workers rebuilding Tyre prayed to the god El, and worshipped at Jewish Temples. Judaism also spread to Damascus, Emar, and even gained footholds in Antioch and Aegyptus.

Elsewhere, in the old Greek lands, the Old Pantheon remained strong, and its priests denounced the new religions flowing from the east as abominations, though Aristoklism was permitted to an extent, as the Old Gods were still worshipped as part of its rites.

Aristoklism, in various forms, spread even beyond the Known World, carried to distant shores by Sheban traders, and spreading inland from there, so that when, in later ages, men set out on vayages of discovery, they would find recognisable religions, and wonder...

**********

FYI, the spread of these religions takes place after the last post, and continues for several decades.
Oh, and Greyfang, Macedonia is now dominated by the Greek Cities, and is known as both Macedon and Greece, but I accidentally erased Macedon from the map ages ago, and in the name of consistency, will stick with Greece.

[GodRaimundo]

Right. I was a little bored, so here is another update.

**********

Part XV - Nations Rise and Nations Fall

Seeing the Taurans growing rich, Albania created their own trade route up the Rhā, which empties into the Hyrcanian Sea, in order to trade with the north without paying Tauran taxes. Their trade route met the Tauran route south of Hyperborea, where the Sun shone for half the year, but during the other half, the land was plunged into night.

Armenia invaded Albania in order to gain access to this river. They were halted, however, by a chain of forts in Albania's western mountains. There was fighting in the southern plains, but that was merely a subsidiary action, as both nations had their heartlands deep in the mountains.

The war stagnated for a year or so, but, in spring, 275BC, an Armenian commander, named Ptolemaeus, finally took the walls of Fort Krimnóreia, opening the way into the Albanian heartlands. The Albanian Royal House, being warned of the impending threat, fled, along with their household, to Astara, where the Albanian fleet carried them and as many of the common people away as possible, landing them on the mouth of the Rhā, where they founded the city of Rhā, to which many Albanians would flee over the coming years, and would eventually grow into a great city.
As a result of this war, Rhā denied Armenian ships passage up the Rhā, forcing them to pay the exorbitant taxes demanded by the Taurans.

In an attempt to gain their own trade route, the Armenians attacked and seized the Tauran outpost at the mouth of the Tánaïs, from where their traders would sail north, portaging their ships to the Rhā where the two rivers almost met, thus avoiding the influence and blockades of Rhā. In order to connect their new outpost, they constructed a road along the northeast coast of Euxeinos Pontos, extending their influence to cover this area.

Other Albanians had fled to the east coast of the Hyrcanian, and established a democracy there, in the city of Défteros Astara, which was friendly with Rhā, and helped them cleanse the ocean of pirates.

Meanwhile, Armenia, flushed with success, desired to make all of eastern Anatolia part of its domain, and, in the year 271BC, General Ptolemaeus led an Armenian army, numbering 43,000, against the Pontic Republic, which quickly assembled an army of 39,000 men to fight them.

These armies were more manoeuvrable than normal Hellenic armies, due to the craggy, uneven terrain on which they fought, and, as a result, were more commonly armed after the fashion of Hypaspists, with shorter spears than sarissae, and fought often in the archaic Greek phalanx than the Macedonian one.

As a result, there was no one decisive battle, but rather several smaller skirmishes in the passes. The Armenians gained the upper hand from the start, but the Pontic forces, utilising their greater knowledge of the region, laid countless traps and ambushes, eventually bringing the Armenian army to a halt. A truce was declared, and both nations settled back to lick their wounds.

However, during the truce, Bithynia invaded from the west, and drove the unprepared Pontics before them. Armenia then broke the truce, and struck the Pontic army a final blow, routing it in a battle near Amazia. The Republic fell in late spring of 270BC, when Bithynian forces breached the walls, ending the siege of Sinope. Pontus was then divided between Armenia and Bithynia, with some small territories being given to Antioch.

Meanwhile, Phoenicia fought a few border wars with her neighbours, gaining a little territory, but delaying the construction of Tyre.

Also at this time, Massalia, enraged by Gallic raids, mounted a punitive expedition, which ended up conquering much of what was Massalian territory before the Gallic invasion twenty years before.

**********

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

"Sheba".... "Kush"... In a Hellenic setting...

OK, given the expansion of the empire(s), I suppose they have probably had to invent a way to write the 'sh' sound. But do you have any idea how? Do they borrow Shin into the Greek alphabet? Do they use diacriticals?

[GodRaimundo]

"Sheba".... "Kush"... In a Hellenic setting...

OK, given the expansion of the empire(s), I suppose they have probably had to invent a way to write the 'sh' sound. But do you have any idea how? Do they borrow Shin into the Greek alphabet? Do they use diacriticals?

They use the letter þ, a Bactrian letter that they adopted in OTL in order to be able to write the Bactrian language, but which, ITTL, has leaked into everyday usage for a number of words.

Kush was never part of the empire anyway, and still maintains its own language, and in Greek, the closest rendering would be Κυþ, which in English would be written Kush.

Sheba was named by its pre-Alexandrian inhabitants as سبأ, or Saba, but the Alexandrian name is a corruption of the Hebrew שבא, or Sh'va. In Greek, it would be written as þεβα, which I have translated as Sheba for the sake of easy pronunciation.

Hope this clears things up. :)

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

They use the letter þ, a Bactrian letter that they adopted in OTL in order to be able to write the Bactrian language, but which, ITTL, has leaked into everyday usage for a number of words.

Kush was never part of the empire anyway, and still maintains its own language, and in Greek, the closest rendering would be Κυþ, which in English would be written Kush.

Sheba was named by its pre-Alexandrian inhabitants as سبأ, or Saba, but the Alexandrian name is a corruption of the Hebrew שבא, or Sh'va. In Greek, it would be written as þεβα, which I have translated as Sheba for the sake of easy pronunciation.

Hope this clears things up. :)
Yes, wonderful, thank you! I really didn't expect you to have had an answer, and this is wonderful.

Yes,I know that most of your readers don't get excited by things like language and orthography, so I do appreciate your response.

[GodRaimundo]

**********

Part XVI - A Time of Trade and War

Worshippers of the Old Gods in Armenia were persecuted after 269BC, when Zurvanism became the official religion of the realm, forcing many to leave. Some left for Bithynia or one of the southern nations, but many, under the leadership of Sokrates, travelled to Tánaïs, and built the town there into a great city. A number of them travelled further still, up the river, to the portage road to the Rhā, where another city was founded, named Metaforápólis. These cities were friendly, but relations were strained by the Metaforápólites decision that traders from Rhā were to be allowed to trade the river as well. This would eventually lead to a split between the two cities.

These cities grew, until, along with Tauris and her colonies, they controlled all northward trade, and became increasingly wealthy. The Council of Albion and the Belgae Alliance were also minor trade partners along this route, with the main exchange between Northerners and Hellenes taking place on the island of Baltia in the Baltikí.

The riches passing through this sea lead to large numbers of pirates, and eventually the traders began using surplus trade goods to pay the local tribes to keep them down. The local tribes also joined the flourishing trade network growing in the region, and a loose alliance of peoples, called the Fourteen Tribes, though the number later grew, was formed. These tribes were rich in amber, and eager to become a Hellenic nation, though they were more similar to the Slovenoi who often raided boats along the rivers to the east.

Meanwhile, Gadir had also begun trading with the Pretannik Isles; they had established a small trading town on Iérni, the second of the Pretannik Isles, and untouched by the Council or High King of Albion. Gadir was the dominant partner in this trade partnership, though they were often attacked by Gallic pirates as they crossed the Viskaïkó, the sea between Iérni and Iberia.

In 267BC, the Phoenicians completed their city of Tyre, and Hiram III was crowned King of Phoenicia. His first act was to declare war on Damascus, in order to spread their religion there. Armenia made a treaty with Phoenicia to divide Damascus between them, and invaded Damascus from the north. Hiram did not invade until he knew that the Armenians had destroyed the Damascene army, in order to keep his losses at a minimum. Damascus was split, with the northern part of the nation going to Armenia, along with a small stretch of the coast, while Phoenicia took most of the inland territory and coast.

At the end of the war, Jerusalem, Phoenicia, and Emar signed the Hebrew Pact, pledging aid to one another in times of war.

In the south, Sheba was becoming rich due to its partial control of the trade route from the Mediterranean to India. This wealth was used largely to fund voyages of exploration trade. By 265BC, Sheba had colonies all the way down to the Nótios Akrotírio, the very southern point of Africa, and also in the east, on Anuradhapura, from where cinnamon was imported to the Hellenic world.

Gadir, as well as trading with Iérni, was exploring Africa, and, in 264BC, a ship from Gadir sailed all the way to the Sheban colony of Nótios Akrotírio, and then sailed up the east coast, completing the first ever circumnavigation of the continent. After this, Sheba, Kush and Aegyptus closed the Heroopolite Canal to Gadir, and in response, Gadir closed the Pillars of Herakles to all Hellenic ships.

However, in India, the clouds of war were gathering.

Prakash Chola, of the Chola Empire, was jealous of the wealth that Sheba was giving to its vassal, the Kingdom of Narmada. Secretly, he made alliances with Paliputra and Pattala in preparation for a war on Sheba and her vassal. They spent a year mustering their armies on secret, and were ready to invade in 272BC.

Paliputran and Cholan forces struck deep into Narmada, sweeping aside the unprepared defences. King Narendra of Narmada appealed to Sheba for help, but Sheba was under attack from Pattala, and could only spare 15,000 men to aid her beleaguered vassal. Sheba in turn appealed to Anuradhapura, and a Chaturangani Sena was quickly formed to attack Chola. This army was 23,500 strong, and quickly destroyed Chola influence on the island. The army then crossed Rama Setu to the mainland. The Chola, not regarding Anuradhapura as a threat, had not defended the south very strongly, and the army was therefore able to quickly seize control.

Narmada fell in late spring, and the Sheban army, now only 5,500 strong, was evacuated by sea and transported south, where they joined up with Anuradhapura. Now, with no other fronts to disturb them, the Chola army could focus their whole might on Anuradhapura, and it seemed that they must win.

However, Sheba had one more card to play. For almost five years, King Aristokles had been cultivating the small nations to the north of India, and in 271BC, the Hellenic Indian Kingdoms and the Bactrians invaded Pattala from the north, and soon the Pashtuns and small Indian city states joined the flow. The Empire of Paliputra was brought to its knees after three months, and Sheban forces and their allies marched on, into Paliputra. Paliputra, however, was aided by Chola and was able to hold out, at least until Narmada revolted and opened up a new front. Paliputra caved almost as easily as Narmada had a year earlier, and Chola surrendered a month later.

Chola was forced to surrender much territory as a result of this war, with a fair amount of the south going to Anuradhapura and Sheba, while in the north, Narmada took a fair amount of border territory. Pattala and Paliputra were divided among the northern invaders, with Sheba taking some of western Pattala and Narmada taking some of Pattala and Paliputra.

**********

I've pretty much run out of ideas now, so what do you think should happen next?

[Greyfang]

Greece collapses into small city states again with the Thebans having more power

[Haaki]

Maybe some berber kingdoms that arise under influence of Gadir and Utica?

[GodRaimundo]

MONSTER UPDATE!!!

**********

Part XVII - The End of an Age

In the north, trade was changing the balance of power. Albion, before only a southern alliance of tribes to ward off the perceived Gallic threat, had evolved into a large trading power, and was coming to dominate the island, while the power of the High King waned. In an attempt to neutralise Hellenic domination of the north, Gadir expanded its territory in Iérni, and in took over some of the more troublesome Gallic towns. They also began trading south, establishing colonies in West Africa, and eventually coming into contact with Nok. They developed a trading partnership with Nok, who had developed an overland trade route to Kush and Sheba during the previous twenty years.

Meanwhile, in Anatolia, tension was rising. Armenia, Bithynia and Antioch all wanted to dominate the region, while Ionia and Doria played them off against each other in a series of increasingly desperate diplomatic agreements, while other nations looked on, either worried by the possibility of a united Anatolia which would be able to threaten them, or preparing to use the inevitable war to gain some advantage for themselves. Sheba in particular was wary of allowing a northern power to balance her own, and solidified her ties with Kush and Aegyptus, while seeming to support first one, then another side in Anatolia, and all the while preparing for a war, as King Aristokles, in the event of war breaking out, meant to use the Hebrew nations to crush the Anatolian nations and prevent them ever threatening Sheba's glory. Aristokles, ever the cunning ruler, also planned against the Hebrews, meaning to attack them in the rear if they gained too much advantage in Anatolia. Phoenicia, Jerusalem, and Emar solidified their ties, and looked to a war in Anatolia as a chance to extend their influence.

Eventually, a war in Anatolia did break out. Antioch demanded the territory that Armenia had gained from Damascus in 276BC. Armenia refused, naturally, but Ionia and Doria, as well as Bithynia, seeing a chance to break Armenia, backed up the Antiochene claim, and, when Armenia refused again, followed Antioch in a declaration of war.

Armenia had been preparing for this war ever since the fall of Pontus, and immediately struck deep into Bithynian territory, but was forced to halt the advance when Antiochene forces, reinforced by Ionia and Doria, struck into her southern territories. Bithynia began the laborious task of pushing back the Armenians, and Armenia soon lost all her gains apart from a coastal strip and some land near the border. Meanwhile, Antioch had taken enough land for the city rulers to decide that their city had enough buffer territory, and began sending requests for peace to Armenia, which were refused, the Armenian King being furious at the effrontery of the city, and Armenia began pushing back. It was now that Ionia and Doria betrayed Antioch, attacking her in her undefended western areas, while her forces fighting with Antioch caused chaos in the east. Antioch's power was broken, but the people fought on, fleeing to the hills and forests, and ambushing enemy forces, gaining the city valuable weeks to muster a defence. As Antioch collapsed, Bithynia sent in forces to occupy territory and stop it falling into Armenian hands, and allowing an attack from the south.

Now Sheba and the Hebrews invaded. Striking northward into the war-torn land, Phoenician troops came dangerously close to the city of Antioch before they were stopped by a desperate force just five miles from the city gates. After this, the remaining Antiochene forces withdrew inside the city, which was, though not yet besieged, of a siege like mentality. Emar struck north and east, aiming for the Armenian heartlands, and managing to bypass the main Armenian army, giving them an almost clear route.

Bithynia, having fought Armenia to a standstill, decided that Ionia and Doria were untrustworthy, and invaded them from the north, seizing Ionia within months, as the Dorians withdrew to the islands, of which Ródos and Kreta were the largest, leaving their mainland possessions for the Bithynians, while Phoenicians took Cilicia from the sea.

Antioch was finally surrounded at the close of that year's campaigning season, but the city was prepared, and had enough food and water to hold out for several years, if need be. The real question was when the walls would be breached, but most people expected to starve first, as Antioch had city walls which were compared only to those of Carthago.

The next spring, the city was still surrounded. There was no sign of a food shortage yet, and the armies outside showed little impatience. Occasionally a mangonel would launch a rock at the wall in a half hearted attempt to damage it, but all of the heavy artillery had been removed and taken to the larger battles elsewhere. To the north of the city, Phoenician forces were desperately fighting the Bithynian army, which was attempting to break through to Antioch, where they planned to offer peace terms and support Antioch in return for the city peacefully joining Bithynia.

The Bithynians were able to pressure Phoenicia due to Armenia's withdrawal of all their forces except a basic garrison. They did this because Emar had neatly circumvented the Armenian front line in the southeast, and were marching toward an almost undefended Armenian capital. The Armenian cavalry rode ahead of the main army, and slowed the Emarites down, allowing the main Armenian force to catch up. The Emarite army was eventually trapped between Erebuni and the Armenians. Unable to take the city in time, the Emarite force turned to face the Armenians, in the hope that they could defeat them and settle in to a long siege, which would eventually see the city fall. However, the Armenian force outnumbered them by three to one, and only a quarter of the Emarite army escaped. Now the Armenians were once again able to focus on Bithynia and Phoenicia, and a three way war developed, with all the confusion that this entailed. The Bithynian force, attacked by Armenians from the north and Phoenicians from the south and the west, quickly withdrew from the area, allowing Armenia to attack Phoenicia directly. Armenia drove the Phoenicians from the siege of Antioch, and settled in to besiege the city themselves, but they were quickly removed by the Phoenicians once more. Eventually the siege of Antioch was abandoned by both sides in favour of an all out attack on the other. Antioch used this time to reoccupy some of their old territory, and take in more supplies for the siege they knew would surely return. Armenia eventually defeated Phoenicia, and the Hebrew nations made their peace with Armenia. Armenia returned to Antioch, but before they could lay siege, they were attacked by a Bithynian army, which they narrowly defeated. Narrow though the defeat was, the Armenian commander pursued the Bithynian force, and caught up with it, defeating it deep in Cilicia and forcing peace upon Bithynia.

Now Armenia returned to Antioch. Antioch had taken the chance to reinforce her walls, making them even more formidable, adding to them, so that they were 37ft high and 9ft thick with solid iron gates 6 inches thick. They dug a series of ditches in front of the walls to slow an advance, and placed hundreds of booby traps in front of these. They also brought in enough supplies to last for fifteen years, and sent out many surplus civilians, so that the city, out of fifty thousand people, had thirty-five thousand men-at-arms within the walls. They also brought within the city several million arrows, and the large squares were piled high with rocks for the catapults, while slits were made in the lower walls for tubes shooting greek fire. Antioch was the most heavily fortified city in existence, and for this reason, the Armenian force sent against it numbered around seventy-five thousand.

When the Armenians first marched against the city, ten thousand Antiochene horsemen rode out to harass them, killing hundreds and only losing a few of their own through skilled withdrawals. The horsemen withdrew inside the city, and their horses were slaughtered for more food as the next phase of the battle began. The Antiochene pikemen marched out and halted just inside the outer ditch, while the archers and artillery on the walls kept enemy archers out of range. The Armenians were forced to attack on foot, and lost thousands before driving the Antiochene force back inside the walls, as the pikemen, when one ridge was lost, would give up the trench behind them, so that the Armenians were constantly attacking uphill. Finally, the pikemen withdrew over the bridges across the last trench, which was filled with naphtha and lit. In the first battle, Antioch lost just three thousand men, and slew over ten thousand Armenians.

The Antiochene army settled in for a long siege, constantly bombarding the enemy whenever they came within range. This kept the Armenians well beyond the city walls, and the ditches were extended to the sea and filled with seawater, creating four concentric moats around the city. Occasionally, the Armenians would be allowed close in to the city, and slaughtered at close range by flaming boulders launched from within the walls, huge crossbow bolts from ballistae mounted on the walls, and the thousands of archers in the city.

The Armenians, in turn, constantly attempted to tunnel under the city walls, but the defenders would countermine these tunnels, and collapse them prematurely. The defenders occasionally went one better than this digging tunnels under sections of the enemy camp, filling them with sulphur and naphtha, before exploding them. They did this three times before the Armenians learned to guard against it, and killed over a thousand men.

By the end of the first year of the siege, the pace had settled down, with most exchanges being by artillery. The Armenians had never managed to destroy the Antiochene navy of damage the docks, so Antioch continued to be resupplied and reinforced by sea, particularly by Utica and Aegyptus, both of whom supported their cause. Three years into the siege, a plague struck the besiegers' camp and reduced their numbers to forty thousand, but the plague was kept out of the city using flaming ballista bolts to destroy any artillery moved close enough to fling diseased corpses at the city.

All the while, the Antioch had been building bridges to cross the moats, and, in the summer of the fifth year, the defenders finally outnumbered the attackers. The build-up of forces had been slow, so as not to alert the Armenians, but late at night, forty-five thousand Antiochene and allied men lowered the bridges and crossed the moats. The Armenian sentries were lax by this point, and the first they knew was of a knife cutting their throats. The camp was awakened as flaming bolts struck it from the surreptitiously built huge ballistae, capable of flinging a bolt up to a mile. The camp, now in disarray, was suddenly charged by the defenders, who killed twenty thousand and forced the remainder of the army to flee. Antioch was victorious.

Thus ended the Anatolian wars.

**********

Comments, anyone?

[Greyfang]

Jeez if I was an Armenian commander hearing of this lose I would get archers to burn Antioch to hell

[FDW]

I like this, consider me subscribed.

[Megas Dux ton Kypraion]

Hello.

A highly enjoyable TL, with many entertaining twists and turns - and a delightful focus on military history and developments.

I have many questions, but these are just some of the ones I can remember:

(1) What is the political structure of Magna Graecia? It is a League, with a Confederate Council, elected Basileos Archon, Strategoi etc - or a monarchy of the Diadochi-type, commanding huge armies and resources?

(2) Similarly, what is the political set-up in Old Greece/Macedonia? What has become of old centres like Sparta and Thebes? I know Athens and Corinth were demolished (a bit unlikely as such ancient cultural powerhouses), but surely like Carthage after the Romans destroyed it IOTL they would rise again?

(3) I think it is very premature to have a Germanic Union and a Helvetian Nation in parts of OTL Germany and Switzerland. At the time the Teutonic Peoples were in control of 'Denmark' and parts of 'Sweden'. You have the Belgae rule the Low Countries and 'Denmark'. How and when did the Teutons descend into 'Germany' and when did the Belgae take over their ancestral lands?

(4) I like your High Kingdom of Albion. Very evocative and romantic from a Brit's point of view! :) Can we have a Druidic Council and religion that comes to rival anything emerging out of the Mediterranean/Oriental world please? The Druids were by reputation formidable historians, healers, masters of herbcraft, natural philosophy and the mediators and diplomats of the Celtic world. I submit that if they become literate and write down their vast knowledge - they will rival the Greek world as a "learning centre".

(5) Your Sheba is a very nice and unexpected power - but I doubt it would have had the manpower to pull off some of the conquests you describe. Nevertheless, I'd like to praise you for coming up with such a non-standard ancient world superpower. :)

(6) Your idea of the northern, "Hyperborean", cities, republics and trading concerns is most intriguing. But would there have been such rich trade flows to be had in the North - even allowing for the demand in the South for amber and furs? And what about the horse-archer Scythian peoples dominating the Pontic steppes? Are places like Rha and Metaphorikon symbiotic Hellenic-Nomad cultures? I ask because at any moment tribal upheavals further East are likely to destabilise cosy relations with settled centres and disrupt the trade-routes to the Baltic.

(7) And, of course, since I am the Dux ton Kypraion, I'm curious how Cyprus ended up in the hands of a Semitic Phoenician Kingdom, when the great majority of the Kingdoms of Cyprus are Hellenic-speaking since before the time of Alexander the Great, and the Phoenician cities on the island are few and relatively less powerful (e.g. Kition, Amathus, maybe, and that's about it). I think the Cypriots, with a proud Hellenic heritage, would throw off rule by Tyre and form a Kingdom of their own, which could be viable and prosperous (a la Rhodes at a similar sort of time IOTL). If they stay in a Phoenician Kingdom, what's in it for the Cypriots?

(8) Who founded Antioch ITTL? Presumably it was an Antiochos, who was related to one of the early Seleucid rulers? And how did Antioch become so big when it was never the centre of a vast Kingdom stretching from the Mediterranean to India?

(9) Your Aegyptians are fairly quiet ITTL. And yet they have access to the some of the wealthiest agriculture and biggest manpower reserves of the entire ancient world. How it is that Sheba doesn't covet it?

(10) Oh, and I simply love your alt-religions. It would be good to hear about the influence of Egyptian Mystery Cults, worship of Isis and other Serapis-style blendings of Egyptian and Hellenic pantheons in your alt-Middle East. The Ahuramazdans/Hebrews/Olympians shouldn't have it all their own way...

But other than all that, good work - and look forward to seeing more.

[GodRaimundo]

Hello.

A highly enjoyable TL, with many entertaining twists and turns - and a delightful focus on military history and developments.

I have many questions, but these are just some of the ones I can remember:

(1) What is the political structure of Magna Graecia? It is a League, with a Confederate Council, elected Basileos Archon, Strategoi etc - or a monarchy of the Diadochi-type, commanding huge armies and resources?

Magna Graecia is a closely knit league of cities, with no one ruler, but each city governs its own, and the whole league is governed by consensus.

(2) Similarly, what is the political set-up in Old Greece/Macedonia? What has become of old centres like Sparta and Thebes? I know Athens and Corinth were demolished (a bit unlikely as such ancient cultural powerhouses), but surely like Carthage after the Romans destroyed it IOTL they would rise again?

It was ruled by Alexander IV until his death in the Dacian invasion, and after that, it began drifting apart, with Thessaly, Molossa, Thermon, and Thermopylae dominating. Athens and Corinth were sold into slavery, and the earth was salted (did I not mention that? I'm sure I said that), and Sparta slowly descended into obscurity, while Thebes was destroyed by Alexander III.

(3) I think it is very premature to have a Germanic Union and a Helvetian Nation in parts of OTL Germany and Switzerland. At the time the Teutonic Peoples were in control of 'Denmark' and parts of 'Sweden'. You have the Belgae rule the Low Countries and 'Denmark'. How and when did the Teutons descend into 'Germany' and when did the Belgae take over their ancestral lands?

Perhaps, but I just wanted something to balance the Gauls, and I was not sure about the time of the settlement of these regions by their people. I may try to rewrite that part of my TL in the future, after doing some research into it.

(4) I like your High Kingdom of Albion. Very evocative and romantic from a Brit's point of view! :) Can we have a Druidic Council and religion that comes to rival anything emerging out of the Mediterranean/Oriental world please? The Druids were by reputation formidable historians, healers, masters of herbcraft, natural philosophy and the mediators and diplomats of the Celtic world. I submit that if they become literate and write down their vast knowledge - they will rival the Greek world as a "learning centre".

Thanks. I'm British myself, and just thought it would be quite cool. Perhaps... ;)

(5) Your Sheba is a very nice and unexpected power - but I doubt it would have had the manpower to pull off some of the conquests you describe. Nevertheless, I'd like to praise you for coming up with such a non-standard ancient world superpower. :)

Thanks. I agree that I may have over-wanked it a little, but in my defence, it was constantly reinforced by Kush and Aegyptus.

(6) Your idea of the northern, "Hyperborean", cities, republics and trading concerns is most intriguing. But would there have been such rich trade flows to be had in the North - even allowing for the demand in the South for amber and furs? And what about the horse-archer Scythian peoples dominating the Pontic steppes? Are places like Rha and Metaphorikon symbiotic Hellenic-Nomad cultures? I ask because at any moment tribal upheavals further East are likely to destabilise cosy relations with settled centres and disrupt the trade-routes to the Baltic.

I'm not sure, but I have always liked the idea of a Hellenic-Scythian Russia, and yes, tribal movements from the East are coming...

(7) And, of course, since I am the Dux ton Kypraion, I'm curious how Cyprus ended up in the hands of a Semitic Phoenician Kingdom, when the great majority of the Kingdoms of Cyprus are Hellenic-speaking since before the time of Alexander the Great, and the Phoenician cities on the island are few and relatively less powerful (e.g. Kition, Amathus, maybe, and that's about it). I think the Cypriots, with a proud Hellenic heritage, would throw off rule by Tyre and form a Kingdom of their own, which could be viable and prosperous (a la Rhodes at a similar sort of time IOTL). If they stay in a Phoenician Kingdom, what's in it for the Cypriots?

When the Empire fell, the divisions were very arbitrary. Also, Phoenicia is more Hellenistic than I may have implied, and Cyprus is only technically a part of Phoenicia, and tends to manage its own affairs.

(8) Who founded Antioch ITTL? Presumably it was an Antiochos, who was related to one of the early Seleucid rulers? And how did Antioch become so big when it was never the centre of a vast Kingdom stretching from the Mediterranean to India?

Antioch was founded by Alexander IV, who founded it at a previous campsite of his father. He named it after a minor general, who was related to Seleucus. I may have overenlarged it in the name of dramatic effect, but there were some forced migration programs in place at the end of the Empire

(9) Your Aegyptians are fairly quiet ITTL. And yet they have access to the some of the wealthiest agriculture and biggest manpower reserves of the entire ancient world. How it is that Sheba doesn't covet it?

They are puppets of Kush, who are closely allied to Sheba.

(10) Oh, and I simply love your alt-religions. It would be good to hear about the influence of Egyptian Mystery Cults, worship of Isis and other Serapis-style blendings of Egyptian and Hellenic pantheons in your alt-Middle East. The Ahuramazdans/Hebrews/Olympians shouldn't have it all their own way...

Thanks. Some interesting ideas there, and I may try to work some of them in...

[Greyfang]

Don't forget Ireland has lots of legendary high kings! (I think one of the kings conquered Scotland but since the king's were always fighting the ancestors of the old one it might have vanished)

[Haaki]

I think you made a small mistake with your maps, you went from 205 BC to 266 BC...

[GodRaimundo]

I think you made a small mistake with your maps, you went from 205 BC to 266 BC...

:oYes, dated in BC confuse me:confused:, and I must have messed up somewhere there.

**********

Part XVIII - The Restoration

In 263BC, a man called Philip came to Pella, claiming to be the grandson of Philip, half brother to Alexander, who was now known as "Megáli", or "the Great". He provided as evidence the sword of Philip, who had been forced to flee Babylon when Seleucus rose against his brother, and lived out his days in exile in Armenia. The rulers of the city were disinclined to believe him, but he gained a great following among the people and, with their support, he overthrew the city council and was proclaimed King Philip III of Macedon. He moved quickly to assert his power over the rest of the region, and then massed his forces to march on the Greek cities to the south. For the second time in one century, the Greek cities were about to be on the receiving end of a new Macedonian King's wrath.

At this time, the Greek cities were slowly drifting apart from the unity they had endured under Alexander and his heirs, and their leaders had assured the following of the populace by promising to make their individual city greater than the rest. This did not help achieve the cooperative spirit which would be necessary to defeat Philip, but nevertheless, Thessaly, Molossa, Thermon, and Thermopylae massed an army to fight Philip, but this alliance did not hold for long. For Thessaly had been working for Philip even before he revealed himself to Macedonia, and betrayed her allies, poisoning their armies as they camped outside Larissa. With his way thus cleared, Philip invaded Greece, crushing the cities that refused to join him, as some did, one by one.

With his Kingdom now secure, Philip left garrisons in the south and turned north, to avenge the deaths of Alexander and his family. He struck at the unprepared Dacians, and conquered them in one swift stroke. The Illyrians, seeing this, began to prepare, but many tribes wished to support Philip, so many, that in the south, they outnumbered those against him. Philip advanced into Illyria, but halted his conquest when the tribes in support of him had joined, leaving the north free. Thrace was not conquered, but granted the status of a client state, giving Philip is wars, and receiving support in their own, and receiving a part of Dacia to govern as their own. Doria also became a client state, sharing the same status as Thrace.

It will never be known if this was Philip's plan, but in 260BC, Doria and Thrace were invaded by Bithynia. Relations between these nations had been strained for several years, and it could be that Philip just took advantage of fate. What is known is that Philip immediately moved to support Thrace, defeating a Bithynian army in Thrace, and following up by establishing a beachhead of his own in Bithynia. Taking advantage of his foe's momentary disarray, Philip quickly took Nicaea, thus beheading the nation. Already rife with internal turmoil, Bithynia collapsed in on itself, and Philip and his allies took advantage of this to seize control. Thrace gained the region of Bithynia, and Doria gained mainland Doria, and Macedon took the rest, while Armenia annexed some land in the north. Next, Philip, unwilling to assault Antioch, formed an alliance with the formidable city, granting it nominal independence for the price of support in war and small taxes in peace.

Now Philip faced his greatest test. Armenia, wary of the growing new power of Macedon, attacked in late 259BC, but was hampered by the revolt of many western provinces, and their subsequent defection to Macedon. Pontus was straight away recognised as a client state, and the armies of Philip and his allies moved into Armenia. The Armenians held him back from their capital, but were defeated, losing large areas of territory in the south and west. An Albanian rebellion in the east was successful, and it too became an ally of Philip.

Philip now turned south, to the Hebrew nations. Emar joined him through diplomacy, becoming another client kingdom, but Phoenicia would not surrender until her precious city of Tyre was threatened. Jerusalem, though, fought until the bitter end, and the city was wiped from the face of the earth, with only the Temple left standing.

Now an end was reached. Philip was unable to continue further south without fighting Sheba or one of her allies, and was loath to do so as of yet. Therefore, he contented himself with making allies out of the three nearest Bactrian kingdoms, Rhágai, Hyrcani, and Hecatompylos, and sending envoys to those further east, while also allying with Défteros Astara, which, by dint of several wars with neighbouring Bactrian kingdoms, was now the most powerful nation east of the Hyrcanian sea, and Rhā, in order to gain some measure of control over the northern trade routes, which brought so much wealth into the world.

Philip returned west, to his capital, Pella, from where he subtly pressured the Taurans to ally with him, as he did with some of the cities of Magna Graecia. Tauris and parts of Magna Graecia did ally with him, and in 257BC, he invaded Magna Graecia under the pretext that the cities allied to him were being mistreated. Drépanon and Kurnos were turned into tributaries, while the South was incorporated directly into the Empire. Central Italia, under Roma, was made a client state, along with Sicily under Syracuse, and Etruria, under Ouolsínioi was a separate, but allied state.

Philip was finally able to finish his conquest of Illyria. Using Massalia as an ally, he passed troops into the north of Illyria as he invaded from the south. Caught between two armies, Illyria soon fell, and was forced to pay tribute to Philip.

Philip had united the Hellenic nations of the north in an uneasy alliance, and now faced those of the south, a close knit, long standing alliance, which had recently grown to include Utica. If he won, the rewards would be great, but a defeat would see his fledgling empire crushed...

Meanwhile, in the East, a group of nomads had discovered the use of iron, and were beginning to move...

**********

[Megas Dux ton Kypraion]

Magna Graecia is a closely knit league of cities, with no one ruler, but each city governs its own, and the whole league is governed by consensus.

Sounds like a recipe for collapse as soon as a strong power intervenes - hence the ease of Phillip III's intervention in Italy?

It was ruled by Alexander IV until his death in the Dacian invasion, and after that, it began drifting apart, with Thessaly, Molossa, Thermon, and Thermopylae dominating. Athens and Corinth were sold into slavery, and the earth was salted (did I not mention that? I'm sure I said that), and Sparta slowly descended into obscurity, while Thebes was destroyed by Alexander III.

Thessaly was always a second-order power in ancient Greece. I allow it may, now that other centres are destroyed, be a more significant power - but that would still require it to have a traditional capital in the "Hellenistic" style. IOTL, if memory serves, this was Demetrias. But ITTL there is no Demetrius Poliorcetes. What is the main city of Thessaly and is the Macedonian King still its hereditary Hegemon?

Thermon is a very minor city in Arcanania, which is only likely to be big because it is the major city in that part of Greece in the Rome: Total War game. I can allow that it grows bigger than the other, more famous local centre, Ambracia, but I think you need to explain how and why this city came to be in the ascendant.

Thermopylae is OK. You can say it is the lead Boeotian/Phocian city-state because it is near the site of the sacrifice of the 300 (and hence perhaps a centre of Cult activity in remembrance of Leonidas et al); and because the site is highly defensible against attackers from the north.

However, Corinth (with its impressive fortress at Acrocorinth) and Athens, above all because of the immense strategic value of the port and harbour of Piraeus, would simply demand to be reoccupied in some way, shape or form. To not do so would leave the area exposed to the attacks of pirates and condotierri from the Peloponesse. If Sparta is now in obscurity, which is the leading city of the Peloponesse? Argos? Megalopolis? Patrae?

Perhaps, but I just wanted something to balance the Gauls, and I was not sure about the time of the settlement of these regions by their people. I may try to rewrite that part of my TL in the future, after doing some research into it.

Have them be another, rival, confederation of Gauls. Then you would have 3 Gallic/Celtic powers: Albion, the Gallic Confederation proper, and maybe something called the Keltic/Keltoi Alliance. Perhaps all these powers would look to Britain as their Holy Island - and the Druids there as their chief religious authorities, who are capable of brokering deals between warring tribes and confederations. Maybe one day these Druids will elevate another Dumnorix-type figure to the throne, and the northern Med lands will once again be at risk of invasion ...

When the Empire fell, the divisions were very arbitrary. Also, Phoenicia is more Hellenistic than I may have implied, and Cyprus is only technically a part of Phoenicia, and tends to manage its own affairs.

OK. Have the King of the Phoenician city of Kition, thanks to subsidies from Tyre to disburse among the other Cypriot kingdoms, have the title of Cypriarch, i.e. Head of a League of Cypriot Kingdoms. But meanwhile the rival Kingdoms of Salamis and Paphos scheme to take this title for themselves possibly by inviting the intervention of Doria, Antioch or even Aegyptus...

They are puppets of Kush, who are closely allied to Sheba.

Unlikely. Egypt is a far more wealthy and populous state than Kush. Yes, a Pharaonic dynasty from Kush conquered Egypt once, but they held on to Upper and Lower Egypt for a while. Your Kush trying to control Egypt from outside is like the tail wagging the dog ...

Philip, half brother to Alexander, who was now known as "Megáli", or "the Great".

It is "Megas" or "Megalos", the masculine form. "Megali" is feminine.

He provided as evidence the sword of Philip, who had been forced to flee Babylon when Seleucus rose against his brother

This is Phillip Arrhidaios, right? The brother who was physically and mentally disabled from a poisoning attempt by Queen Olympias, according to Plutarch? Are the elders of Macedonia really going to buy this story?

Thessaly, Molossa, Thermon, and Thermopylae massed an army to fight Philip

Thessaly is good cavalry country, but not very urbanised or densely settled. Molossia is a poor, mountainous, Kingdom known for its tough highlanders and bandits. The major urban centres, and densely populated areas, even allowing for the destruction of Athens, Thebes and Corinth, will be in the South - so I think Thessaly, Molossia et al will be allies not leaders of the resistance movement. The power which most makes sense to me in the South would be a renewed Spartan or Peloponessian League. No other state has anywhere near the prestige necessary. Or did you imagine southern Greece as severely depopulated? In which case, when did this happen, and why?

Philip had united the Hellenic nations of the north in an uneasy alliance, and now faced those of the south, a close knit, long standing alliance, which had recently grown to include Utica. If he won, the rewards would be great, but a defeat would see his fledgling empire crushed...

This Phillip III has achieved near-Alexandrian feats with these conquests and acts of alliance-building. He must be really something special...

I wish him well! :D

Overall, this is a nice update. One thing which interests me is where did all the excess population of Greece go? IOTL, the Alexandian conquests opened up the whole of the Orient as far as India and the south as far as the Red Sea to Greek colonisation.

ITTL, the Seleucids disappeared about 200 years before OTL; the Shebans, a Southern, if superficially Hellenised, Kingdom are likely to be suspicious of migrating Greeks looking for a better life (they are likely to favour the Seleucid cause), so probably not many end up further East than Babylonia.

So where do all the excess Greeks of the old mainland go? Or are they still there? If there, the Mediterranean world would notice their presence ...

[Greyfang]

I thought Phillip Arrhidaios was just mentally retarded not poisoned

[Megas Dux ton Kypraion]

I thought Phillip Arrhidaios was just mentally retarded not poisoned

Probably he was; but there seems to be some controversy on the matter. Plutarch recounts the poisoning tale - but arguably it's scurrilous gossip not backed up by reference to genuine sources...

But who can say for sure, now, from the vantage of the 21st century?

[Haaki]

Could someone fill me in on who those nomads "that learned to use iron and were beginning to move would refer to? My knowledge of Iranian history or whatever of this time period isn't too great.

[GodRaimundo]

Could someone fill me in on who those nomads "that learned to use iron and were beginning to move would refer to? My knowledge of Iranian history or whatever of this time period isn't too great.

They are the Mongols, or their equivalent. I have accelerated their discovery of iron by a few decades in order that they are able to present a real threat to the western world sooner.;)

Oh, and Greece is becoming somewhat of a backwater, having been either under the rule of Macedonia or politically divided for some time, while elsewhere, the diluted Hellenic cultures are diverging, and beginning to see mainland Greece as a potentially powerful, but semi-archaic backwater. Of course, this will soon change...

Anyway, on with the next update...

**********

Part XIX - The Breaking of the South

In 254BC, Philip decided that the time had come to move southward. He called upon his allies to support him, and with their aid he amassed one of the largest armies seen in the Hellenic world, numbering around 93,000. He demanded that Sheba surrender the city of Babylon to him, but Sheba refused, and so Philip led his army south. The Bactrian kingdoms and Indians had also promised aid, but they would be some time in coming. Philip and his army marched into Sheban Persia, and made camp on the banks of the Tigris. They skirmished with Sheban scouts, and were finally able to march in the summer, as the Etrurian forces were late in arriving, due to an Utican attack destroying their ships in the harbour. By this time, the Shebans had reinforced Babylon, which they assumed would be the first target for Philip, and were awaiting the arrival of allied troops from Kush and Aegyptus, which would be reinforced by mercenaries bought by Utica.

There were 50,000 Shebans in the city when Philip arrived and laid siege to the city. The Aegyptians arrived less than a month into the siege, and their 27,000 men were met by a force of 30,000 of Philip's troops. The battle was in Philip's favour, but the Babylonian garrison broke out and attacked the rest of Philip's army. Philip was forced to withdraw north, and they camped there for three days while preparing for battle.

On the fourth day, the Shebans marched against Philip, and he drew up his army to meet them. Both armies deployed in the standard Hellenic formation, with a central phalanx flanked on both sides by heavy spearmen, with cavalry on the wings and heavy infantry to the rear, with the psiloi in the van. Both armies advanced, and skirmishing began in midmorning, and continued for some time. During this time, the opposing Psiloi sought to drive each other back into the enemy ranks, while light cavalry armed with javelins and bows harried the flanks of each army. At midday, both sides withdrew their psiloi, which had taken severe losses, and advanced. The peltasts met first, and each side attempted to gain advantage by turning the foe's flank. These attempts proved in vain, and the main phalanxes clashed as the lighter infantry and cavalry skirmished on the wings. The two armies were evenly matched, and fighting continued late into the evening, as thousands of men were slaughtered in the bloody melee which the centre of the battle had become. The two armies disengaged at sunset, and withdrew to their camps. Both armies had lost around half of their number, and both commanders massively underestimated the enemy's casualties. Philip's generals urged him to withdraw, but he refused, and walked among his men’s' campfires and ate with them to restore morale. The Sheban King, Aristokles, was now old, and had no qualms about withdrawing to rebuild his strength, and so, early the next morning, the Sheban army packed up their camp and withdrew to Nabataea to await the rest of their allies.

The Macedonian army then entered Babylon, but Philip, following his predecessor, ordered his army not to enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, and to treat them with respect. He delayed moving his capital to Babylon until after the defeat of the Sheban Alliance, but stayed there while his army rested. One month after the fall of Babylon, the Sheban army, reinforced by Kushite soldiers and Utican mercenaries, appeared on the horizon. The city was quickly put under siege, as the new Sheban army outnumbered Philip and his men by almost two to one. Several messengers got out before the Shebans arrived, begging for help from the Bactrians and Indians, who were beginning to be pressed by northern barbarians on the move. The Bactrians sent a force of 35,000 men to relieve Babylon. These were reinforced by Greco-Indian soldiers, and together made up an army of around 52,000 men. They arrived outside Babylon as the city was being assaulted by the Shebans, who had constructed great siege towers, and crumbled areas of the walls by mining beneath them.

The Sheban army was split in two, with several thousands already fighting in the city, and the greater part of the army still waiting on the plains. Seeing the eastern allies, Philip led most of his army out of the northern gate, which he still controlled, and joined with them. They then marched round to the western plains, where they offered battle to the Shebans, who, unprepared for such a stroke, withdrew inside the city. Unfortunately, all of their supplies remained in the camp, which was outside the city, and quickly looted by Macedonians. The army survived in Babylon for two weeks by looting the houses of the populace, but eventually sallied forth from the beleaguered city to give battle on the plains. Philip had the advantage here, and with his larger force, attempted to flank the Shebans, who, breaking free from the city, had taken up a defensive position to the east. Seeing Philip's wide lines, Aristokles formed his army into a square, and prepared to defend his position to the death. The Sheban psiloi gave a good account of themselves, but were routed by Philip's light cavalry, leaving a seemingly impenetrable fortress of pikes to stand against him. He attempted a few attacks, but the advancing soldiers were slaughtered by archers, and then were unable to break the lines of the grim Sheban soldiers. Finally, a desperate Philip ordered the siege engines brought up, and used his ballistae and catapults to batter Aristokles into submission. The Shebans refused to submit, and their lines held for a further three days before a charge of Companions broke the ranks. However, the Shebans were not broken yet. The remainder of the northern face sold their lives dearly, giving Aristokles time to reform the rest of his depleted army to face the Macedonians. The Macedonians withdrew, forming a phalanx which marched in a wedge formation. When they were twenty yards away from the Shebans, they halted, and closed ranks, before charging the last short distance at a sprint. The Macedonian wedge drove deep into the Sheban line, and when the momentum of the wedge ran out, the Shebans tried desperately to redress their shattered ranks, but the Macedonian Companions charged into the breach, driving right through the phalanx, so that the Hypaspists and heavy infantry could pour in and attack the enemy from all directions. With their formation broken, the Shebans had lost, but continued fighting in order that Aristokles might slip away unnoticed, which he did, later returning to Sheba and eventually leading his people into exile.

This battle broke the southern alliance, and Aegyptus and Utica were later forced to pay tribute to Philip, while Kush and Sheba remained independent, protected by vast expanses of desert, though trade through the Nile to India was severely damaged by the refusal of Kush and Sheba to allow any Hellenic ships through the Erythrá Thálassa. Philip wished to continue prosecuting his war against Sheba, but was called away to defend his realm's northern frontiers against a new breed of horse barbarians, who were armed with iron and came in greater numbers than ever before...

**********

Any other questions?

Oh, and updates will be a bit thin on the ground for a while now, as exam season is beginning.:(:eek:

[Greyfang]

Yay the Macedonians prevail against all odds once again

[counterblitzkrieg]

About the calendar system, with all that butterflies I think the dating system of TTL would be different. Or will there be TTL's version of Christianity where they created the BC/AD calendar or some other factor that would make the calendar system similar to OTL?

[Greyfang]

Let just use the BC/AD calendar for reference, but they can still be a different calender.

[jycee]

Let just use the BC/AD calendar for reference, but they can still be a different calender.

It is easier to follow with BC/AD calendar. But it be cool if at some point we get to see ITTL's calendar as well.

[GodRaimundo]

About the calendar system, with all that butterflies I think the dating system of TTL would be different. Or will there be TTL's version of Christianity where they created the BC/AD calendar or some other factor that would make the calendar system similar to OTL?

Let just use the BC/AD calendar for reference, but they can still be a different calender.

It is easier to follow with BC/AD calendar. But it be cool if at some point we get to see ITTL's calendar as well.

You may have noticed that I tried something like this in the first couple of posts, but gave it up as it was beginning to confuse me. I was using the Alexandrian calendar, which, ITTL, will not be developed for another century or so yet, and I will use it for my updates then.

[GodRaimundo]

Right. It's back. Here we go.

**********

Part XX - A World Under Threat

The horse barbarians had arrived several years previously in small numbers, and had harried the men who plied the northern trade routes, killing them and taking their goods. The traders appealed to Philip for aid, but he refused due to his wars of unification, forcing them to look to their own defences. Then, suddenly, a large band, numbering several thousands came upon Metaforápólis and burned it, damming the river with the ruins. Many traders caught in the north tried to return home, but the plains were full of raiding bands, and few ever survived. Then, seemingly at random, the traders turned north, and began raiding towards the fourteen tribes and the Greek settlements to the north. Knowing that they could not fight these barbarians, the Greeks set sail aboard their trading ships and fled. Some followed those who escaped the fall of the Fourteen Tribes to Thule, where they settled and built five towns, giving them the name of the Péntepoleis. Others fled further, to Albion, where they settled the North-eastern coast and constructed a city, which later became the seat of the Council of Albion.
In 251BC, Philip arrived in Armenia, which had taken the full brunt of the horse barbarians' invasion. It seemed that the invaders were calling themselves the Xiongnu, and that they came from far to the East.
The main force of these Xiongnu were travelling quickly from the sack of the North, from which no news had come since the Xiongnu struck, and were apparently using frozen rivers as highways allowing them to move at unheard-of speeds.
An advance force was already wreaking havoc in Armenia when Philip arrived, and had sacked several small towns. Philip first met with the Xiongnu north of Armavir, where one hundred horsemen were pillaging the countryside. When they saw Philip, they galloped in close in remarkably good formation, shot off a volley of arrows, turned, and left. Philip sent a hundred men after them, but not one returned.
Philip made camp outside Armavir, where the King of Armenia came to meet him. It was agreed that Armenia would become part of the Empire in return for Philip's protection of the northern frontiers. Many of Philip's advisors urged against this, but Philip had head that the horde to the north outnumbered his army, and that Armenia would be unsuccessful as an independent buffer state. Therefore, when spring came, Philip marched north, his army swelled by thousands of Armenians.
On his march north, Philip sent out many scouts, but they had a high mortality rate, with one in three failing to return. Eventually, he pulled his scouts back within line of sight of the main force, but still Xiongnu parties would dart in and kill them. One surviving scout then arrived, pursued by ten Xiongnu, and riding a Xiongnu horse that he had stolen after he was captured several months ago. He told Philip that the Xiongnu main force was several days’ march away, and that it numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Philip marched on for the rest of the day, and half of the next, before beginning to deploy his army, but was shocked when the Xiongnu appeared on the horizon. They had ridden faster than any had thought possible, and were mere minutes away, far too close for the Macedonians to deploy fully. So Philip sent out his Psiloi in an attempt to slow the enemy down, but the Xiongnu hardly slowed as they cut the lightly armed skirmishers apart. They then slowed down, remaining just out of range of Philip's bowmen, but well within the range of their powerful bows. Philip's army was still in a state of confusion, but showed a solid front to the enemy, who believed that the Macedonians were prepared to fight. The Xiongnu rode complex, interweaving patterns in front of Philip's troops, firing off arrows at irregular intervals, and occasionally darting in to hack at the lightly armoured troops on the flanks of the phalanx. Philip wished to order his cavalry to crush the annoying swarm in front of him, but knew that Alexander III had faced enemies similar to the Xiongnu in the Scythians, some of whom could be seen in the Xiongnu army, and knew that they would simply withdraw, dividing his army and crushing it at leisure.
Philip knew that typical Hellenic tactics, designed for an enemy composed mainly of infantry, would be useless here, and so remained on the defensive. Fortunately, the Xiongnu army was smaller than had been reported. Suddenly, screams broke out from the rear of the army as a force of one thousand Xiongnu smashed into it. The rest of the army began to turn, worried that they had been flanked, and, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, the main Xiongnu force attacked the front. Philip's army wavered, but as some who fled from the flanks were quickly cut down, the rest of the army grimly settled down to fight. The battle quickly turned into a bloody melee, with the Macedonians unable to use their sarissae, and the Xiongnus' lack of armour putting them at a disadvantage. The Macedonians quickly cottoned on to the idea of killing the enemy's horses, and soon many of the Xiongnu were fighting on foot. Even on foot however, they were ferocious warriors, and when sun set, both sides withdrew to their camps.
The Xiongnu commander, seeing the sate of his army, ordered his men to light one fire for every two people, convincing the Macedonians that the Xiongnu had taken only light casualties, and would slaughter them the following morning. Therefore, Philip ordered his army to pack up and leave in the dead of night. In the morning, the Xiongnu saw that the enemy had left, and settled down to celebrate their victory, rather than pursuing the enemy, for they knew from experiences in the north what would happen next.
Fleeing, Philip's army was struck with a strange disease, which spread through the army like wildfire, infecting most of it in days. The disease manifested itself in buboes in the armpits, groin, or neck, and developed to cause pneumonia, coughing, blood poisoning, heavy breathing, vomiting and urination of blood, aching limbs, headaches. Within two weeks, half the army had died, with the rest surviving and fleeing in disorder. Philip had travelled faster than the disease, and was safe in Babylon when news of it reached him.
Philip panicked. Not only was a plague ravaging his lands, but the Xiongnu were advancing into devastated regions and enslaving the populace. It seemed that they had learned the art of siege warfare, and were drawing close to Antioch. Philip waited to see what would happen next...

**********

So? Thoughts?
The red line is the extent of the plague at the end of the post, and the beige cross type thing is the location of the main Xiongnu army.

[Haaki]

Good update as always.:)

[Cuāuhtemōc]

It's a decent update to an amazing time-line. So is this a Greek-wank?

[GodRaimundo]

Thanks. It was originally meant to be a Hellenic wank, but now I'm really just going where it takes me.

[GodRaimundo]

Right. A short update, just to try and keep it going.

**********

Part XXI - Another Clash of Empires

As the plague spread through the Empire, killing almost half of those infected. The Xiongnu, far from keeping their army together, had divided it, and, having quickly learned the art of siege warfare, were taking cities left and right. Even Antioch had fallen, surrendering after the Xiongnu came upon it too quickly for any preparations.
It seemed that the Xiongnu organised their army in groups of 10, with the smallest group, of 10 men, being known as an Arab, the next level of 100, a Tzut, a force of 1,000 was a Minaan, and a force of 10,000 was known as a Tuman. Beyond this, the decimal system broke down, as there were not enough men to form a group of 100,000, but any more than three Tumans was known as a Hordu. The different levels of commanders gave the Xiongnu army a flexibility unseen in any force of similar size, and each commander was given significant freedom to carry out their orders as they saw best, so long as the main objective was accomplished. Each Tuman commander was given a specific conquered territory to rule over, and was expected to enlarge his territory at the expense of all non-Xiongnu neighbours.
The Xiongnu used brutal methods to ensure victory, such as driving prisoners before the main army to soak up the enemy's resistance. And as if this was not enough, another two Tumans invaded from the East, with one Tuman being made up of conquered Bactrians, and overran Northern Persia and Albania, which had escaped the Northern invasion. Hearing of a Tuman marching for Babylon itself, Philip took one hundred men and fled to Tyre, from where he took a ship to Macedonia, setting up his court in Pella, even as the Xiongnu took Babylon.
Not everybody fought, however. Tyre, a city that had learned the benefits of not fighting, had allied itself to the first Minaan to approach it, and became the Xiongnu's first unconquered Hellenic ally. Aegyptus, Nabataea, and Sheba all negotiated a peace treaty with the Xiongnu, who seemed to be learning the art of diplomacy for the first time, and who did not understand the need for gold and other luxuries, but who demanded from all tributaries and allies large numbers of boys to train in the Xiongnu way, and permission to resupply their armies. They also brought their religion with them, and Tengriism spread almost as quickly as the plague.
It was galling to see how the Xiongnu easily took Macedonian cities, and even more so to see how disloyal the population of the Empire was when it really mattered. For as the Xiongnu drove a wedge between the North and South of the Empire, the Southern Alliance threw off his governors and laws and once again became independent, allying themselves to the Xiongnu.
Now the Xiongnu turned east, toward the disunited Indo-Hellenic kingdoms to the East of Persia. Disunited, these small nations posed no threat to the Xiongnu, and each kingdom generally fell within a couple of weeks, and none of them needed more than five minaans to defeat them. By the end of the year, they had all fallen, adding their meagre power to the Xiongnu Empire, which now faced India. India had been relatively quiet since the beginning of the Anatolian Wars, and the peace had only been broken for a short while when Philip invaded Sheba, when Chola, in an alliance with him, had annexed the Sheban territories and Narmada, and finally taken Anaradhapura, uniting the whole continent. It was this great Empire that the Xiongnu now faced.
The Indian Continent under the Chola Empire was stronger than the Macedonian Empire had been at the height of Alexander IV's rule, and would finally be a state to present a threat to the Xiongnu invaders.
The Xiongnu army met at Liskāndariyā Para Sindhu. They met in good order, all 100,000 of their men, forming a Great Hordu, the epitome of their decimal military system. The Chola Empire could barely gather 150,000 men to resist it.
The Xiongnu army marched east, and faced the 150,000 strong Chola force across the Narmada River.
Both commanders were worried, as the Xiongnu heard of a Macedonian army invading the West, and there were rumblings of discontent in Southern India. Whichever side won would be facing another battle soon enough...

**********

[Greyfang]

I thought the Macedonian Calvary was unique to Alexander the Great's expansion and could track down those horsemen easy

[GodRaimundo]

Companions were originally formed in the reign of Philip II, and the Xiongnu withdrawal was a ruse to draw out some enemy cavalry, tire them out, and finally massacre them. Xiongnu horses have much greater stamina than any other breed, and the Xiongnu riders wear little armour.

[Greyfang]

ouch that is bad but what of the light cavalry employed around the empire?
And is it possible for chariots to be adopted by the Macedonians from the Egyptians or Persians?

[Coyote Knight]

I gotta say, great maps and I am loving this TL. Kudos. :)

[GodRaimundo]

The Xiongnu are faster than heavy cavalry, and better fighters than light cavalry. And by this time, chariots were going out of fashion as weapons.

Anyway, just a short update for today.

**********

Part XXII - A Battle to Remember

The two armies faced each other across the river. Then, suddenly, a minaan galloped up to the river bank and shot off a volley of arrows into the massed ranks on the other side. Several hundred men fell, shafts protruding from weak points in their armour, but the Xiongnu withdrew to their ranks, as if it was merely for entertainment. Then, two more minaans rode forwards, and shot off more arrows before withdrawing. More Chola swordsmen fell, and the Chola general, frustrated, sent forward his own foot archers, but they were unable to hit the swiftly moving Xiongnu. Then, a whole tuman moved forward to the river bank, and fired off several volleys, driving the Chola archers back into their own ranks, as a second tuman rode up behind them. The second tuman then began firing as the first entered the river and began to cross. The Chola general, seeing this, ordered his archers forward to kill them as they swam across, but were fired on by the second Xiongnu tuman. Nevertheless, they managed to kill around a thousand of the first tuman before it reached the bank, where it rode down the small division of archers detailed to halt it. They held off most of the Chola force until the second tuman had crossed, whereupon the rest of the army entered the river while the two tumans held off the Chola army. Once the whole of the Xiongnu army was across the river, they formed a line five tumans long, but only two deep, and advanced on the enemy, firing all the while. The Chola army was bracing for the impact of these warriors when they suddenly wheeled, splitting the front line and having each tuman take a place in the front. Then the Xiongnu halted and fired off several volleys at the Chola, before splitting in half and galloping along the face of the Chola army. The Chola general reacted swiftly, but the Xiongnu horsemen cut their way through the small groups of men who attempted to hem them in, and galloped off into the distance. The confused Chola army milled around for a while, until the Xiongnu returned and harried the rear of the army as it tried to reform to face the threat. The army finally finished turning, and then the Xiongnu were upon them, weaving in and out in front of them, each tzut and minaan riding his own path as they lead their divisions. Occasionally, a group would swoop in and kill several men before riding off again, taking very few casualties. Then, all of a sudden, the whole army charged, smashing into the Chola ranks like a hammer. The fighting continued for several minutes, until the Xiongnu broke off and rode away. The Chola army, remoralized by this turn of events, broke ranks and charged after them. The Xiongnu force continued retreating, dividing up into the ten tumans, each heading in a different direction, dividing up the Chola army which followed them.
A running battle followed, continuing for several days as the Xiongnu force divided further, minaans and then tzuts taking their own routes, and eventually turning to destroy their pursuers. After two weeks, the Xiongnu army had reformed at Omkareshwar, with the Chola army largely destroyed, and the Chola Emperor, Adiyta, prisoner.
The Xiongnu gained enough young boys to replace the men they had lost, as well as a promise of a further three minaans in two years' time. Now they returned west, to face the army Philip had mustered against them in Antioch...

**********

No map here, I'm afraid, as the situation has changed little.

[Greyfang]

Well the Mongol horsemen must have arrows, a bow, and some kind of light sword or dagger, and still be faster than heavy cavalry and fight better than light cavalry? Yea maybe Mongolians are skilled horse-archers and can use a light sword or dagger easily. Horse archers can outrun heavy cavalry but cannot be better than light cavalry.

[GodRaimundo]

They are not merely horse archers. Remember, the Xiongnu are the horse nomads who would eventually, IOTL, become the Mongol and Turkic nomads we all know and love, and fight in almost the exact same fashion as them.
They will have tough leather armour, often studded, be able to use both bow and sword exceptionally well, and have the most endurable horses in the world. Any horseman able to keep up with the Xiongnu for long distances will kill their horse, and foot soldiers are horribly vulnerable to mounted Xiongnu. Heavier cavalry, while not quite as heavy as OTL's mediaeval knights, will not be able to keep up with the Xiongnu for more than a few hours, and the Xiongnu, being master bowmen, can shoot very well from the saddle, and have one in six horsemen as more heavily armoured melee fighters, armed with lances, and easily able to meet the heavier Macedonian cavalry on equal terms, or even better, as their ponies are much more manoeuvrable, and they have spent their whole lives in the saddle.

Anyway, on with the next update. Enjoy.:D

**********

Part XXIII - The Battle of Antioch

The Xiongnu army now turned back west to face the army Philip had mustered. They met Philip outside the city, as he did not wish to be forced to wait out a siege that could end only in defeat or retreat, as he still had the ships used to transport his army by sea.
The Macedonian army numbered 73,000 to the Xiongnu 100,000, but they were all confident that victory would be theirs.
The two armies met on the plains east of Antioch, where Philip was able to counter the Xiongnu mobile forces with several thousand newly-raised light cavalry of his own, forcing them to fight head to head. The fight continued all day, but as the sun set, the Macedonian army had been driven back into the first ring of trenches around the city, though many of the Xiongnu had lost their horses and been forced to fight on foot.
That evening, Philip received disastrous news. The Tyrian allies of the Xiongnu had sunk the Macedonian navy and cut off his retreat. The Macedonians would have to fight merely to survive. Withdrawing their entire force to the defences around the city, they prepared for the inevitable Xiongnu onslaught.
For three days, the Xiongnu threw themselves at the trenches around the city, and for three days, they were held off. They had been forced to abandon their horses in the first trench, as it was impossible to fight from horseback in the narrow confines of the trench. On the fourth day, however, it seemed that the Xiongnu would take the last trench, until a force struck them from the north with such ferocity that they were forced to withdraw. This force was the Militant Order of Aristoklitic Zurvan.
The Aristoklitic Zurvanites were a group of Aristoklites who lived in Greece and Italia, but considered themselves separate from the main body of Aristoklism to the East. Their Militant Order had been formed seven years before, as they believed that only by taking up arms could they convince Zurvan that His people deserved His attention, and, seeing the power of Philip's Empire, had pledged themselves to him in secret. The First Order was five thousand men strong, and it was these men who fought for Philip during the Battle of Antioch. Though small, through an impressive use of tactics they convinced the Xiongnu that they were fighting a much larger force, causing them to withdraw for the day.
The Priests Militant entered the city and marched directly to the Temple of Zurvan, where they rested and worshipped until the following morning.
The Priests Militant were an elite fighting force, having trained in secret since their formation, and were proficient with almost any weapon. They dressed in heavy armour, wearing crimson robes beneath it, along with a crimson cape and Chalcidean helmet with a crimson crest. They did not use cavalry, preferring to fight on foot with the sarissa, bow, and sword. They spent ten hours each day training and four in worship, and were fanatical to the point of madness, but had discipline to rival any in the world.
The following morning, the Xiongnu took the last trench. The Macedonian defenders retreated back within the city, and, while still strong enough in numbers, their morale was at an all-time low. The Xiongnu finally brought up their siege weapons and began bombarding the city walls. They focussed all of their power on the weakest section of the walls, to the South, but still it took four months to breach them.
With the walls breached, the Xiongnu filled in the trenches in front of them, providing a flat path for their cavalry to cross. The Macedonians had filled the breach with men, forming a phalanx that stretched back onto the street behind the wall, where the army was massed. The Xiongnu spent no time using arrows, but, sending their heaviest cavalry to the front, charged the Macedonians. The Xiongnu horses charged onto the spearpoints so fast that their riders were able to leap over their heads as they died, right into the Macedonian ranks. They hacked a gap in the Macedonian phalanx for their cavalry to fight their way through, and slowly backed the Macedonians back from the breach.
The fighting continued through the night, and would continue to do so until the end of the battle. The Macedonians, knowing that they could not win, fought with a bloody minded determination, forcing the Xiongnu to fight for every street and building. The Macedonians would place a phalanx across each street, with archers behind and in the buildings to the side, forcing the Xiongnu to attack them head on, which was a bloody business. After a few hours, the Xiongnu learned that horses were extremely vulnerable in an urban combat environment, as the Macedonians had laid down iron nails in the roads to lame the horses, rendering them useless. They were also vulnerable to archers, and so the Xiongnu fought on foot, negating their greatest advantage. But Macedonians continued to fall. Three days later and the Xiongnu were hardly any further in than before, as the Macedonians had only four roads to block with over 50,000 men, and the Xiongnu could only come at them is small numbers, which were easily slaughtered by the pikemen. It was for this reason that the Xiongnu began setting fire to buildings. The Macedonians were forced to withdraw from the scorching blaze, and when it died down, the Xiongnu surged forward, seizing more of the city in five hours than they had in three days. Then the Macedonians fought back, and the Xiongnu were hard-pressed to keep their gains.
Two weeks later, the Macedonians were finally beginning to fall back. The gruelling fighting had taken a huge toll on both sides, but neither side would give up. Ten days into the fighting, the Priests Militant had been cut off defending their temple, and had held it alone for almost two days before the Xiongnu finally slew the last of them. The Xiongnu leader, reviewing his forces during the second week was horrified to learn that none of his ten tumans remained intact, and that one was completely destroyed, except for one Minaan, and three were less than half of their full strength. Conferring with his surviving Minaan and tuman officers, he came to the conclusion that this was unacceptable. If the Macedonians fought with this tenacity in just two more cities, his army would be ruined. Therefore, he made a peace offer to Philip.
Philip, seeing no other option, agreed to meet Yuseh Rhan, the Xiongnu Great King, outside the city. A special tent was laid for this occasion. It was pure white, and thrice the size of typical Xiongnu tents. As the Xiongnu stood past to let Philip ride through, they were amazed. For Philip had chosen his cleanest, tallest warriors to act as his honour guard, and it seemed to the Xiongnu that these men, though grim, were brighter than any they had seen in days.
In the tent, discussion passed through an interpreter, but was easy enough. Both leaders, being great in wisdom, saw that an equal treaty was the only way to avoid lasting hatred on both sides, and so a new border was agreed, granting the Fertile Crescent back to Macedonia, and Yuseh Rhan gave Philip his daughter's hand in marriage, with the agreement that, on the death of Yuseh Rhan, his empire would be divided equally between his sons and whomsoever ruled Macedon at the time. They also swore a blood oath, becoming blood brothers. The two men, while unable to understand each others' language, nevertheless left the meeting the greatest of allies.
Philip also secured Yuseh Rhan's agreement to aid him in his future campaigns to reunite his empire.
Thus ended the Battle of Antioch, the bloodiest battle to be fought in the ancient world.

**********

http://fav.me/d2mn81a

The map is now too large to attach, so I hope that you can see it. I can't, but then, my browser often has a problem displaying images, so...:o
If you can't see it, the I will go back to the older format.

[Haaki]

Well, it doesn't show up, so I'll just post a link to it if you don't mind:
http://godraimundo.deviantart.com/art/Alexander-s-Empire-late-248BC-158967406

Though honestly, I'm not sure if I really like the new map, could you at least colour the countries entirely, since it just looks weird to me this way...

Also, the peace treaty doesn't really seem like an equal treaty to me, since Macedonia gets Mesopotamia back and once Yuseh dies, it will even get a part of the Xiongnu empire with the rest being divided.

[Greyfang]

I think that is how it is supposed to be on Deviant art

[GodRaimundo]

Yeah, I was just trying something there, and if people don't like it, I'll go back to the old style. I might well do that anyway, as it seems a lot of hassle having to post a link so that everyone can see the map.

And I will give Yuseh's reasons for accepting the seemingly unfair in the next post but one...

[Greyfang]

you should still put the old one on

[GodRaimundo]

Yeah, I'm gonna go back to the old map on the next update.
God knows when that'll be though, as the exam season is almost upon me:(:eek:

[Greyfang]

Yeah, I'm gonna go back to the old map on the next update.
God knows when that'll be though, as the exam season is almost upon me:(:eek:

my exam season already passed so you are in for something

[Greyfang]

Bump
Also, did any of you see Alexander the Great v.s. Attila the Hun on deadliest warrior? The Huns were half Mongolian right? Well anyways Attila the Hun killed Alexander the Great so you can only prove that the Mongolians are strong, but thats it. Still nonstrategic though.

[GodRaimundo]

I'm sick of revising, so I composed this under a tree in my garden while enjoying the lovely weather and eating barbecued animals. :)

Part XXIV - The Empire Strikes Back

Yuseh Rhan was facing discontent within his army. Many of his men, including his officers, wished to leave the hot lands of the south and return to the cooler lands of their homes. During the battle of Antioch, their discontent had played a part in forcing Yuseh Rhan to appeal for peace. Thus, with a peace treaty negotiated, he sent three of his seven reorganised tumans home to hunt and grow strong, while he remained in the west. He used a further three of his tumans to formalise his rule over his new empire, and sent his last tuman to Philip, in keeping with his promise to help Philip reunite his empire.
The Macedonian Empire had suffered during the Xiongnu war. Although in many places Hellenic unity was stonger than ever, the fringes of the empire were breaking away. Massalia had long chafed under Macedonian hegemony, and now the cosmopolitan port had declared the formation of the Massaliot Empire, comprising the old territories of Massalia, Etruria, Kurnos and Sardinia, and had rejected Macedonian emissaries, and was preparing to invade Magna Graecia and Sicily.
Aegyptus was falling to Kush, where the Old Gods were once again beginning to be worshipped, and the militant cult of Rha-Horakhty had pronounced Khakheperre Senusret III the Pharaoh of all Egypt, and was advancing towards Alexandria, where the only remaining loyal Macedonian force was garrisoned.
In the west, Punic armies were on the move, and had conquered Utica and Libya, and were facing down Kush in Cyrenaica, while their navies skirmished with the Massaliot fleets around Sicily.
Sheba had occupied Nabataea, and was planning to use it as the battleground when Philip invaded, though they had a smaller army in the east to advance up the Tigris and capture Babylon if it seemed undefended.
Philip knew that he had to strike fast if he was to retain any form of order, and so he did. His army descended upon Tyre before it was fully prepared, taking the defenders by surprise and seizing the city. Those who welcomed him were allowed to remain, but those who resisted his rule were bound and enslaved. Philip the turned towards Nabataea and Sheba, and on the way was reinforced by the Xiongnu force promised him.
The Sheban army had advanced as far north as Petra, the historic capital of Nabataea, where they met Philip. His army marched out of the north like an avalance, not even stopping to make camp. It seemed that the Sheban army would be crushed as it scrambled to deploy.
In the middle of this scramble, ten thousand Xiongnu warriors appeared out of nowhere, smashing directly into what would have been the centre of the Sheban phalanx and destroying it. The Shebans quickly formed up on the wings and began to close on the Xiongnu flanks, but the master horsemen melted away as quickly as they had appeared.
The Sheban commander was on the verge of panic himself, as he had banked on at least an hour to gauge his opponent's forces and dispositions, but as the Xiongnu withdrew, he glimpsed the Macedonian army, now barely a mile away, which had deployed into full battle formation almost without stopping. The formation was not what he had expected, and he cried aloud as the Macedonian archers were in the van of the army and were massacring his phalanx; the Sheban psiloi had been destroyed by the Xiongnu.
The Macedonian archers were more than half a mile ahead of their own lines, so the Sheban cavalry rode out to challenge them, but the Macedonians had learnt from fighting the Xiongnu, and instead of aiming at the soldiers, aimed rather at the unarmoured horses, bringing them down in their hundreds and fouling the charge enough for them to withdraw back into their own lines.
Now truly panicking, the Sheban commander ordered his own archers forward to strike at the Macedonian phalanx, which was singing as it advanced. They poured flight after flight of arrows into the Macedonians, but arrows too were a weapon they had learned much about from the Xiongnu, and they carried larger shields than usual, with the front rank holding their shields in front of them and the ranks behind raising them over their heads. Many still fell as arrows came through the gaps, but the Macedonians hardly halted.
The Sheban archers finally withdrew, defeated, and the phalanxes faced each other over less than a hundred paces of ground. The Macedonians were silent now, and simply stared at the Shebans. The Sheban commander was frantically trying to find a weakness in his foe's army when the Macedonians broke the stillness and charged. Within seconds the battlefield was changed from a glittering order to a bloody melee. The Macedonians had one more trick up their sleeve, even this late in the battle. As the first few ranks jabbed at each other, the fourth and fifth Macedonian ranks hefted heavy javelins and hurled them over their comrades' heads into the Sheban ranks. The Shebas fell, being more concerned with the enemy directly in front of them, and by the time they noticed the javelins t was too late. The Macedonians had broken the Sheban line in several places, and many of the Shebans in the rear ranks broke and ran, but to no avail. As they fled, the Xiongnu horsemen sprang upon them, having carried out a flanking manoeuvre unnoticed by the Shebans, and cut them down. Seeing this, the Shebans gathered together, forming several tight bands of men who refused to surrender. They knew that they were broken, but their pride demanded they fight on.
Philip saw that they would not break without inflicting huge damage on his army, so he ordered them to withdraw just out of spear range. They still surrounded the Shebans, who were now grouped into formations that looked a lot like hedgehogs, but were no longer fighting with them. The Macedonian archers once again moved to the front, and stuck their arrows in the ground. These arrows had oils soaked rags wrapped just below the tips, and each archer had a small brazier in which a fire was lit. They lit the rags on the arrows and fired them into the tightly packed mass of Shebans, causing panic amongst them. The Shebans now faced a terrible choice: fire or sword. Many chose sword as the less painful and more honourable death, but plenty burned instead. Seeing that this tactic worked on one group of Shebans, Philip ordered it replicated on each of the other groups.
Not one Sheba survived this terrible battle, an unusual occurrence, but it meant that the next Sheban force had no knowledge of Philip's new tactics, and fell in the same manner as the first.
Seeing no other option as the Macedonian force advanced on his capital, the Sheban King surrendered within weeks and was executed. His brother was set on the throne after pledging allegiance to Philip, and was left with a force of five thousand loyal Macedonians to keep order.
Returning to the site of the original battle at Petra, Philip now faced a choice. Should he go north, to attack the Massaliot army that was rampaging through Magna Graecia, or west, to combat the Kushite army and then the Punic force in Cyrenaica?

EDIT: There's your map. :)

[Greyfang]

I'm sick of revising, so I composed this under a tree in my garden while enjoying the lovely weather and eating barbecued animals. :)
That sounds nice

And will there be a map?

[GodRaimundo]

Part XXV - An Imperial Alliance

Philip decided to go north. He left a force of seven thousand men under General Hieronymos to guard against any sudden Kushite thrust from Sinai, either north, into Judea, or south, into Nabataea and Sheba.
His decision was made in the knowledge that the Punic and Kushite armies were skirmishing in Cyrenaica, but Massaliot forces were invading Magna Graecia and had gained naval dominance around Sicily, defeating the Punic navy off Kurnos as Philip marched against Sheba. Philip's army, by the time he reached Epidamnos, numbered 43,000, less than the Massaliot force of 47,000, but all armed in the fashion Philip had devised for his war against Sheba.
Only 39,000 of these men reached Magna Graecia, as the Macedonian fleet was attacked by a Massaliot force during the crossing, and a large part of it was lost. The Macedonians escaped under cover of night, with the rest of the fleet making land the next day. The army assembled at Neapolis, the last major city not to have fallen to the Massaliot force, and marched forth three days later.
Some cities had actively joined with Massalia, and Philip's secondary aim was to take and punish these cities, but first he had to find the main enemy force and bring it to battle. Fortunately, the Massaliot genertal proved accomodating, and the two forces met some way to the north of Capeva.
The Massaliot force drew up in a typical Classic Hellenic formation as used by Alexander III, perhaps unaware that Philip's new tactics made such a position dangerous, or perhaps confident that their weight of numbers would win out anyway.
Philip's army halted half a mile from the enemy, and the archers, now more heavily armoured and in the place of the psiloi that were previously employed were sent forward. The Massaliot psiloi advanced in an attempt to halt them as the Massaliot general sent his own archers forward to reinforce the psiloi.
The Macedonian archers loosed shafts as they walked, massacring the lightly armoured psiloi and finally routing them off the field. They then fought the Massaliot archers for almost half an hour, but eventually the heavier armour of Macedonia won out, and the Massaliot archers withdrew, leaving the main Massaliot force unprotected. Philip's archers rained shafts down on them, killing them in their hundreds and then thousands, before running out of arrows and moving to the flanks of the main Macedonian phalanx.
The Massaliot commander was still confident that his numeric advantage would win the day for him as the two armies clashed. His force was steadily pushing back the Macedonians, and it looked as if they were on the verge defeat. Then the Massaliot scouts came rushing in from both directions. On the left, Philip's Companions crested the hill, while the Xiongnu appeared on the right flank. The Companions smashed the left flank, and Philip's army began closing on the centre like a door.
Seeing his army's defeat, the Massaliot commander ordered a general withdrawal. They managed to fight their way back to the bridge at Venafrum, under attack all the way, and, crossing the bridge, destroyed it, leaving Philip's forces in control of Southern Italy, but with no way to cross.
Philip marched to Caiatia, wishing to cross there, and found a small Massaliot force in the town, numbering about three thousand. He expected to defeat them easily, but they had fortified the bridge, making it almost impassable, and had archers on the banks to kill any who tried to swim across.
Philip left Caiatia after only a limited attempt to cross there, and that night he crossed upriver under cover of darkness. Coming upon Caiatia from behind, he massacred the small defending force and, ascertaining thet the main Massaliot army had withdrawn further north, marched after them. He followed them to the city of Roma, which had actively sided with the Massaliot invaders, hoping to regain some of it's former glory.
The rebels had decided to make their stand to the south of the city. They now numbered less than Philip's army, though reinforcements were quickly coming to reinforce them. Philip's scouts sighted them ont he fifth day of Hyperberetaios and brought them to battle on the sixth. The battle was a simple affair, in which Philip's forces rolled right over the enemy, destroying them utterly, and then marching on Roma.
The city was burned and it's citizens sent south as slaves to Magna Graecia and thus to the rest of the Empire, and some were even sold to the Xiongnu and ended up in the Eastern City-States, serving masters who had never heard of Roma.
After this, Philip's army mached north and met the reinforcing army, resulting in a battle which neither side won. After this battle, both sides agreed to a peace treaty in which the status quo ante bellum was maintained, and Massalia and Macedonia made a pact to destroy the southerners who were still skirmishing with both of them at sea. Massalia was also to recognise the King of Macedonia as her nominal overlord; she was to become a Macedonian vassal.
Philip's army was then shipped by the Massaliot fleet to the city of Utica, which was still holding out against the Punic invaders...

[Greyfang]

Excellent attack against Massilia.
I will enjoy waiting for more. And maybe even a map to.

[Greyfang]

BUMP
What happened?

[Greyfang]

I will be making a Youtube of this because it is too interesting. Who knows how long it will take me but I will do more till the end. That is why you must do more, so I will have a job.