Blood & Gold 3.0

[Endymion]

Blood & Gold
A History of the Rise and Fall of the Argead Empire

"Where is Great Alexander?"
"Great Alexander lives and reigns."
--Greek Proverb

*Note: As in my previous versions of this timeline, I have taken great pains to write all names, both of persons and places, in romanized Ancient Greek. I feel that this best reproduces the authenticity and feeling of antiquity I wish to achieve, as well as does the most possible justice to the world of this timeline. After all, Alexander the Great was known to his contemporaries as "Alexandros", never "Alexander". Likewise all dates are in the reckoning of the Macedonian Calendar, though I will include years from the Western Calendar as much as possible to form a frame of reference for the reader. In this timeline, year one of the Macedonian Calendar begins in 331 B.C. after Alexander's victory at Gaugamela and entrance into Babylon--itself a nod to the OTL calendar of the same name, which began similarly with the return of Seleucus to Babylon 312 B.C.

[Endymion]

Prologue: The Great King Lies at Babylōn

Excerpt from Book XII of the Alexandriad, the famed history of Amyntas of Tarsos...

[75]…and thus it came to pass that the Great King fell ill with a terrible fever on the eighteenth day of the month of Daisios, soon after his return to Babylōn. For many days the King lay at the Palace of Naboukhodonosōr, confined to his bed by his physicians and tortured by sweats and delirium. Indeed, at one point, it is said that even many of the King’s closest friends and companions feared that he would die and leave all that he had labored so hard to wrought in chaos and ill omen. Then, on the ninth day of his illness, just two days before the new moon, the Great King’s fever broke and he was released from the accursed miasma that had fallen upon him.

[76] "...It is said by many that when the Great King awoke the following morning, he was much changed by what had occurred and took his recovery to be nothing short of a victory over death itself and yet another portent of his divinity as the son of Zeus Ammōn. And indeed, it should be noted that there were now very few who would have cause to doubt him, for had not this king, called Alexandros Megas, not thus far defeated all those enemies in his path before him, be they mortal or otherwise? Yet the Great King was also said to have been altered in other ways as well, having been invigorated with a new enthusiasm and vitality not seen by his stratēgoi since the crossing of the mountains of the Paropamisos.

‘I am the son of the divine Ammōn the Thunderer,’ he said afterward unto his sōmatophylax Ptolemaïos, ‘And if I have conquered death now, is it not a portent, a divine omen that the Moïrai have greater things yet in store for me? Can my destiny be anything but to rule the world?’

[77] Thus it was that the Great King set himself to further conquests and glories, in order to fulfill his destiny. In the midst of this, however, the King did not forget those that had been loyal to him. The chaldaioi, the astrologer priests of Babylōn, had loyally sacrificed to the mighty Mardochaios for their king’s recovery, and in thanksgiving to the god, to whom he now attributed his health, the Great King swore to rebuild the Etemenanki ziggurat and the Esgalia temple of Babylōn, pledging funds from his own royal coffers to do so, though the project would be long and not fully complete until the reign of his son.

[78] But the King no longer trusted all of his servants. Rumours abounded everywhere at the court that he had not fallen ill, but instead had been poisoned by those who would see him dead. The Great King, already made suspicious by the sordid actions of those rebellious satrapai after his return from India, was not entirely without cause to suspect evil deeds. As it was, he had been warned by his mother Olympias that Antipatros, son of Iolaos, his aging satrapēs in Makedonia and Thrakē, was plotting against his rule and guilty of treason. I must confess that I do not believe these accusations to be true, for the records of that era tell that Antipatros had never shown himself to be anything but loyal to the King, while the Queen Mother, later known as the goddess Olympias Theotokos, for all her virtues was often meddlesome in the affairs of state when they did not suit her interests. Upon his return to Persis from India, the Great King had thus commanded Antipatros to come to Babylōn and face those charges brought against him. Knowing that to do so would mean certain death, the stratēgos refused and instead dispatched his son, Kassandros, to the King’s court to vouch for his father’s loyalty. No sooner had Kassandros arrived, however, than the King fell ill with his said fever, and thus the seeds of distrust were sown in his heart, whatever the merit of the gossips that had inspired him. The Great King commanded that both Kassandros, and his elder brother, Iolaos, who was also the King’s cupbearer, be put to death and their heads sent back to their father with the following warning: either he come to Babylōn and submit to the authority of the Son of Zeus Ammōn, or be considered to be in rebellion against his king.

[79] Now at this time, the Great King had several months before dispatched his sōmatophylax, Krateros, son of Alexandros, to Asia to oversee the construction of a great fleet at Kilikia, which was to be put to use for the future invasion of Karchēdōn that the King was planning to implement, for the men of that land had aided the city of Tyros (of whom they were considered kin) while it had been besieged by the King’s forces during the Persian campaign, and he had long sought to repay their treachery with iron and ash. After his work was completed, Krateros had been instructed to continue to Pella and bring home to their families the some 11,500 veterans of Makedonia that accompanied him and afterward take up command of the west as the King’s satrapēs in Makedonia and Thrakē in place of Antipatros. Thus, Antipatros was in a very difficult position, despite his relative popularity in his homeland, for if he were to disobey, it would be tantamount to rebellion against the Great King, and to do so would not only bring the strength of the nearby Krateros and his veterans against him, but also the full wrath of the King who even now was being hailed as the Neos Dionysos for his subjugation of India. Nevertheless, were Antipatros to obey his orders and journey to Babylōn, assuming he did not die in the midst of the excursion (for the satrapēs was now late in his seventh decade of life), he would almost certainly be judged to be guilty and summarily dishonoured and suffer the fate of his sons. Disgraced and without recourse, Antipatros chose to take his own life soon after the arrival of Krateros at Pella. Thus, late in the month of Dystros, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Alexandros Basileus Theos, Antipatros, son of Iolaos, fell upon his own sword at Aigai in the manner of the hero Aïax...

[MerryPrankster]

Could you intersperse faux-history with narrative, and have the narrative written in modern language?

I know "Karchedon" is Carthage, but other readers might not.

[Socrates]

Love it - really excited about this. A few points:

(1) I love the Hellenic names: really adds authenticity, and people that do not know them can look them up (as I do).

(2) Wouldn't Sicily be a crucial strategic place to take before Carthage? If he was going straight for Carthage, isn't it more likely he marches across Libya from his Egyptian domains?

(3) Please knock out the Romans at some point. I love the idea of a lasting Babylon-centred dynasty controlling their vast empire through the three seas (Med, Red and Persian), even if India is too far away to hold on to.

[EvolvedSaurian]

And so it begins... again.

Good show, sir. Loving the Hellenisms.

[Basileus Giorgios]

I like the Hellenisms, but might it be an idea to have some footnotes to explain them to less well informed readers?

One other thing- shouldn't it be Megas Alexandros rather than Alexandros Megas?

Glad to see the TL back.