The Second Carthaginian Empire
- Thread starter Diamond
- Start date
) has reared its ugly head and prevented me from doing much of any writing this week. I hope to have 1500-1700 up soon, but I can't give a day. Sorry. Diamond
Banned
The Mexica
No one today can say with certainty where the people known as the Tenochca, or Mexica, originated. Oral traditions passed down through dozens of generations said they came from Aztlan, a place of peace and wealth situated, perhaps, somewhere far to the north and west. Some unknown circumstances forced them to abandon their homeland and travel eastwards.
In the latter part of the 13th century, the Tenochca wandered out of the northern wilderness; legend tells us it is around this time that their god Huitzilopochtli gave them the name ‘Mexica’. They were an uncivilized people, judged by the standards of other Nahuatl-speaking tribes in the area (earlier arrivals who lived in city-states ruled by kings in what later became known as the Valley of Mexica).
The Mexica first settled on Chapultepec, the ‘Hill of the Grasshopper’. For a few years they were left in peace, but soon their neighbors grew to despise their fearsome ways and forced them out of their settlements. They moved to the south, to a barren expanse of ancient lava beds, where they subsisted on a diet of snakes and vermin.
They remained there for nearly 30 years, where they served as military vassals of the Culhuas and later to the Tepanec. As their fortunes increased in the service of their rivals, they sought a new home and claimed as their own a marshy island in Lake Texcoco in the year 1325. It was there that they spied an eagle perched on a cactus, feeding on a snake. This was the fulfillment of prophecy and the Mexica adopted the eagle as the sigil of their new home – Tenochtitlan.
As mercenary allies of Azcapotzalco they launched into unending warfare against the other city-states, sharing with their masters the wealth from their conquests. In 1428 the Mexica chief Itzcoatl established his people’s supremacy in the valley by crushing the Tepanecs, their strongest rival. In 1434 a three-city alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan brought Tenochtitlan even more power. Over the next two decades the Mexica slowly but surely imposed tributary status on all other states in the Valley.
Ever since the Mexica had founded their lake-city, odd rumors had been circulating through the city-states of the Valley of Mexica: strangers had visited the lands of the Maya to the south, and declared an alliance with them. Sickness began to spread, not only among the Maya, but all the peoples of Mexica. By about 1360, the plagues had severely weakened many tribes, making Tenochtitlan’s conquests all the easier (though they, too, had been decimated). Acamapitchtli I, the first true Emperor of the Mexica, declared in 1375 that none of his subjects should have contact with the strangers from across the ocean. Forts were constructed along the southern borders of Mexica lands, and the troops stationed there actively repelled any attempts by European explorers to travel north. And so, while the Maya were introduced to a myriad of wonders, including horses, advanced medicine, iron-working, and gunpowder, the Mexica remained a xenophobic enigma.
By 1390, the worst of the plagues had passed, and the native kingdoms of southern Septentria were starting to regain their power. The eastern Maya, centered on the great city of Mayapan, had united in a strong kingdom (albeit one dependent on Carthaginian trade and goodwill). This Mayan kingdom crushed their brethren in the western highlands, extending their territory to the shores of what the Carthaginians called the Cathayan Ocean.
South of the Maya, in what is our world’s Nicaragua, Panama, and northern Colombia, coalitions of tribes began to form, profiting from trade with the Maya and their Carthaginian backers. And even farther south, in mysterious Austrinus, a new people called the Inca had begun their own rise to power.
All these rumors eventually reached the ears of the Mexican nobility. One faction viewed these unsettling reports as nothing more than fantastic stories, despite more and more contact with the god-like foreigners in their gigantic ships. Another faction in the imperial court of Tenochtitlan, eager to gain even more power and glory for the Mexica Empire, advocated the opening of Mexica’s borders and the initiation of trade with her neighbors.
This second faction, led by Moctezuma, the cousin of Emperor Chimalpopoca II, funded a northern expedition to make contact and possibly conduct trade with a new group of foreigners (the Goths) who had established small towns among the barbaric tribes of the coast. In 1455, the expedition, led by Moctezuma himself, made contact with the Goths near the shores of OTL’s Rio Grande.
Despite initial Gothic disgust at Mexican religious customs, the Gothic merchants and military leaders of the young colony of Alarica saw the possible benefits to be had from an alliance, an alliance that might be strong enough to off-set the Carthaginians and their Mayan puppets.
In 1456, the Mexican expedition returned in triumph to Tenochtitlan, bearing horses, steel-tipped arrows, and other treasures. With them came a Gothic embassy led by Thaderic Gova of Gades. Moctezuma’s return threw Tenochtitlan, already teetering on the brink of violence brought on by the opposing factions, into a brief civil war. After two months of vicious fighting, Emperor Chimalpopoca was deposed and Moctezuma, his faction victorious, was crowned the sixth Mexican Emperor.
Gova returned to Alarica the following year, bearing a treaty of alliance between the Mexica and Gothica. Regular trade caravans began traversing between the Gothic colonial town of Marcanis (OTL New Orleans) and Tenochtitlan late in 1458. Work was begun on a great road linking the two cities; this necessitated the compliance of the coastal tribes, whose lands the road would pass through. Often, this resulted in war, and Mexican and Gothic soldiers began to coordinate their patrols, establishing outposts throughout our world’s southeast Texas. In 1515, the Lipan (Rio Grande) River was agreed upon as the border between Alarica and the Mexica Empire.
In 1472, border squabbles between the Mexica and the Maya led to war between the two nations. Though the Mexica were the better soldiers, even their ferocity could not overcome the massed cannon attacks the Maya brought to bear, and Emperor Huitizotipli was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty in 1474. This fiasco finally convinced the last adherents of isolationism to accept trade and alliance with the Goths.
In 1478, the Mexica made the town of Cempoala into a true port city. After two decades of trial and error, and with the full cooperation of envoys sent by King Havarud of Gothica himself, the first Mexican navy was created. Consisting mainly of wide, two-masted vessels with shallow drafts, the ships were designed to operate mainly along the coasts. A few larger ships were built and skippered by Gothic captains, designed for open ocean travel and cross-Britannic trade. The Mexican navy remained weak for generations to come, however, and the Empire relied on Gothic vessels to protect their shores, for the most part.
It was the army which benefited the most from European contact; armed with increasingly advanced weapons, the Mexican army launched expedition after expedition to the north, into the dry deserts and mountains of the Tarascan tribes. By the time of Moctezuma II’s ascension to the throne in 1502, the Empire ruled over more than 10 million people.
Trade flourished between the cities of the Mexica Empire; dozens of new and improved roads were built, upon which horse-drawn wagons carried goods and soldiers from the rich heartlands of Lake Texcoco north to the Gothic colonies, and south to the Mayan frontier. A thousand new inventions, ideas, and religious beliefs flooded the Empire; it was a time of great upheaval in the Valley of Mexica. The priesthood of Huitzilopochtli and his subordinate gods found themselves at a crossroads – to continue as they had done for two hundred years, sacrificing thousands of men and women each year to the gods, would eventually lead to massive unrest and rebellion throughout the Empire. Indeed, unrest had already been fomenting for several decades.
Over the course of half a century, influenced by Gothic Christian missionaries, the Mexican religion underwent a radical shift. Human sacrifice was all but eliminated, reduced to a dozen or two ceremonial volunteers every year. With the loss of victims, the priesthood saw their power reduced as well. The Emperor, once reliant on his priests for signs and divinations, became an almost purely secular ruler. Dissent from holdout priests was brutally snuffed by the army; exiled adherents of the ‘old ways’ were relocated to the mountains of the Tarascan provinces where they were allowed to carry on as they saw fit, by and large, as long as no sacrificial raids were conducted on surrounding lands. There the dissidents bided their time for close to two centuries, until a brutal civil war in the last decade of the 17th century saw them completely snuffed out.
A state of icy peace existed for more than two dozen years between the Mexica and Maya, broken only by brief raids by either side. As Moctezuma II’s reign began, tensions began to grow once more, and a new generation of Mexica warriors, armed this time just as heavily as their Mayan rivals, itched for combat…
MEXICA EMPERORS: 1372-1530
1372-1391: Acamapichtli I
1391-1416: Huitzilihuitl I (son)
1416-1427: Chimalpopoca I (son)
1427-1438: Itzcoatl I (son of Acamapichtli)
1438-1456: Chimalpopca II (son)
1456-1471: Moctezuma I (son of Huitzilihuitl)
1471-1502: Huitizotipli (son)
1502-1530: Moctezuma II (son)
No one today can say with certainty where the people known as the Tenochca, or Mexica, originated. Oral traditions passed down through dozens of generations said they came from Aztlan, a place of peace and wealth situated, perhaps, somewhere far to the north and west. Some unknown circumstances forced them to abandon their homeland and travel eastwards.
In the latter part of the 13th century, the Tenochca wandered out of the northern wilderness; legend tells us it is around this time that their god Huitzilopochtli gave them the name ‘Mexica’. They were an uncivilized people, judged by the standards of other Nahuatl-speaking tribes in the area (earlier arrivals who lived in city-states ruled by kings in what later became known as the Valley of Mexica).
The Mexica first settled on Chapultepec, the ‘Hill of the Grasshopper’. For a few years they were left in peace, but soon their neighbors grew to despise their fearsome ways and forced them out of their settlements. They moved to the south, to a barren expanse of ancient lava beds, where they subsisted on a diet of snakes and vermin.
They remained there for nearly 30 years, where they served as military vassals of the Culhuas and later to the Tepanec. As their fortunes increased in the service of their rivals, they sought a new home and claimed as their own a marshy island in Lake Texcoco in the year 1325. It was there that they spied an eagle perched on a cactus, feeding on a snake. This was the fulfillment of prophecy and the Mexica adopted the eagle as the sigil of their new home – Tenochtitlan.
As mercenary allies of Azcapotzalco they launched into unending warfare against the other city-states, sharing with their masters the wealth from their conquests. In 1428 the Mexica chief Itzcoatl established his people’s supremacy in the valley by crushing the Tepanecs, their strongest rival. In 1434 a three-city alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan brought Tenochtitlan even more power. Over the next two decades the Mexica slowly but surely imposed tributary status on all other states in the Valley.
Ever since the Mexica had founded their lake-city, odd rumors had been circulating through the city-states of the Valley of Mexica: strangers had visited the lands of the Maya to the south, and declared an alliance with them. Sickness began to spread, not only among the Maya, but all the peoples of Mexica. By about 1360, the plagues had severely weakened many tribes, making Tenochtitlan’s conquests all the easier (though they, too, had been decimated). Acamapitchtli I, the first true Emperor of the Mexica, declared in 1375 that none of his subjects should have contact with the strangers from across the ocean. Forts were constructed along the southern borders of Mexica lands, and the troops stationed there actively repelled any attempts by European explorers to travel north. And so, while the Maya were introduced to a myriad of wonders, including horses, advanced medicine, iron-working, and gunpowder, the Mexica remained a xenophobic enigma.
By 1390, the worst of the plagues had passed, and the native kingdoms of southern Septentria were starting to regain their power. The eastern Maya, centered on the great city of Mayapan, had united in a strong kingdom (albeit one dependent on Carthaginian trade and goodwill). This Mayan kingdom crushed their brethren in the western highlands, extending their territory to the shores of what the Carthaginians called the Cathayan Ocean.
South of the Maya, in what is our world’s Nicaragua, Panama, and northern Colombia, coalitions of tribes began to form, profiting from trade with the Maya and their Carthaginian backers. And even farther south, in mysterious Austrinus, a new people called the Inca had begun their own rise to power.
All these rumors eventually reached the ears of the Mexican nobility. One faction viewed these unsettling reports as nothing more than fantastic stories, despite more and more contact with the god-like foreigners in their gigantic ships. Another faction in the imperial court of Tenochtitlan, eager to gain even more power and glory for the Mexica Empire, advocated the opening of Mexica’s borders and the initiation of trade with her neighbors.
This second faction, led by Moctezuma, the cousin of Emperor Chimalpopoca II, funded a northern expedition to make contact and possibly conduct trade with a new group of foreigners (the Goths) who had established small towns among the barbaric tribes of the coast. In 1455, the expedition, led by Moctezuma himself, made contact with the Goths near the shores of OTL’s Rio Grande.
Despite initial Gothic disgust at Mexican religious customs, the Gothic merchants and military leaders of the young colony of Alarica saw the possible benefits to be had from an alliance, an alliance that might be strong enough to off-set the Carthaginians and their Mayan puppets.
In 1456, the Mexican expedition returned in triumph to Tenochtitlan, bearing horses, steel-tipped arrows, and other treasures. With them came a Gothic embassy led by Thaderic Gova of Gades. Moctezuma’s return threw Tenochtitlan, already teetering on the brink of violence brought on by the opposing factions, into a brief civil war. After two months of vicious fighting, Emperor Chimalpopoca was deposed and Moctezuma, his faction victorious, was crowned the sixth Mexican Emperor.
Gova returned to Alarica the following year, bearing a treaty of alliance between the Mexica and Gothica. Regular trade caravans began traversing between the Gothic colonial town of Marcanis (OTL New Orleans) and Tenochtitlan late in 1458. Work was begun on a great road linking the two cities; this necessitated the compliance of the coastal tribes, whose lands the road would pass through. Often, this resulted in war, and Mexican and Gothic soldiers began to coordinate their patrols, establishing outposts throughout our world’s southeast Texas. In 1515, the Lipan (Rio Grande) River was agreed upon as the border between Alarica and the Mexica Empire.
In 1472, border squabbles between the Mexica and the Maya led to war between the two nations. Though the Mexica were the better soldiers, even their ferocity could not overcome the massed cannon attacks the Maya brought to bear, and Emperor Huitizotipli was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty in 1474. This fiasco finally convinced the last adherents of isolationism to accept trade and alliance with the Goths.
In 1478, the Mexica made the town of Cempoala into a true port city. After two decades of trial and error, and with the full cooperation of envoys sent by King Havarud of Gothica himself, the first Mexican navy was created. Consisting mainly of wide, two-masted vessels with shallow drafts, the ships were designed to operate mainly along the coasts. A few larger ships were built and skippered by Gothic captains, designed for open ocean travel and cross-Britannic trade. The Mexican navy remained weak for generations to come, however, and the Empire relied on Gothic vessels to protect their shores, for the most part.
It was the army which benefited the most from European contact; armed with increasingly advanced weapons, the Mexican army launched expedition after expedition to the north, into the dry deserts and mountains of the Tarascan tribes. By the time of Moctezuma II’s ascension to the throne in 1502, the Empire ruled over more than 10 million people.
Trade flourished between the cities of the Mexica Empire; dozens of new and improved roads were built, upon which horse-drawn wagons carried goods and soldiers from the rich heartlands of Lake Texcoco north to the Gothic colonies, and south to the Mayan frontier. A thousand new inventions, ideas, and religious beliefs flooded the Empire; it was a time of great upheaval in the Valley of Mexica. The priesthood of Huitzilopochtli and his subordinate gods found themselves at a crossroads – to continue as they had done for two hundred years, sacrificing thousands of men and women each year to the gods, would eventually lead to massive unrest and rebellion throughout the Empire. Indeed, unrest had already been fomenting for several decades.
Over the course of half a century, influenced by Gothic Christian missionaries, the Mexican religion underwent a radical shift. Human sacrifice was all but eliminated, reduced to a dozen or two ceremonial volunteers every year. With the loss of victims, the priesthood saw their power reduced as well. The Emperor, once reliant on his priests for signs and divinations, became an almost purely secular ruler. Dissent from holdout priests was brutally snuffed by the army; exiled adherents of the ‘old ways’ were relocated to the mountains of the Tarascan provinces where they were allowed to carry on as they saw fit, by and large, as long as no sacrificial raids were conducted on surrounding lands. There the dissidents bided their time for close to two centuries, until a brutal civil war in the last decade of the 17th century saw them completely snuffed out.
A state of icy peace existed for more than two dozen years between the Mexica and Maya, broken only by brief raids by either side. As Moctezuma II’s reign began, tensions began to grow once more, and a new generation of Mexica warriors, armed this time just as heavily as their Mayan rivals, itched for combat…
MEXICA EMPERORS: 1372-1530
1372-1391: Acamapichtli I
1391-1416: Huitzilihuitl I (son)
1416-1427: Chimalpopoca I (son)
1427-1438: Itzcoatl I (son of Acamapichtli)
1438-1456: Chimalpopca II (son)
1456-1471: Moctezuma I (son of Huitzilihuitl)
1471-1502: Huitizotipli (son)
1502-1530: Moctezuma II (son)
Last edited:
Diamond
Banned
Here's a complete Dynastic List for the Carthaginian Empire from the POD to the most current part of the TL thus far:
CARTHAGINIAN (ROMAN) EMPERORS
Heraclian Dynasty
610-644: Heraclius I
644-665: Constans II
665-671: Valentinius
671-674: Romana (sister of Valentinius; ruled as regent for her son, Heraclius II)
674-699: Heraclius II
699: Leo III (deposed)
699-712: Konrad
712-733: Zoe (Blessed of God; first acknowledged Empress)
733-739: Michael (the Fat)
739-787: Konrad II
787-798: Tiberius III
Egyptian Dynasty
798-810: Amenos (the Egyptian)
810-820: Leo IV
Theodoran Dynasty
820-824: Theodorus
824-830: Theodora
844-879: Valentinius II
879-880: Xenos
880-894: Phocastus (the Pious)
894-936: Michael II
936-941: Basil I (deposed)
941-943: Leo V
943-950: Basil I (restored)
Athenian Dynasty
950-969: Demetrios I
969-991: Michael III
991-1000: Zoe II
1000-1025: Michael IV
1025-1031: Michael V
1031-1048: Alexenia
1048: Basil II (the Gaunt)
1048-1049: Atrigarus (the Mad)
1049-1072: Leo VI
1072-1101: Demetrios II
1101-1140: Martinus I
1140-1149: Leo VII
1149-1192: Cassandra I
1192-1215: Michael VI
1215-1221: Claudius I
1221-1234: Michael VII
1234-1247: Leo VIII
1247-1252: Caeles
1252-1268: Claudius II
Mauretanian Dynasty
1268-1282: Eretrines I
1282-1286: Michael VIII
1286-1298: Claudius II
1298-1306: Eretrines II
1306-1309: Christophorus I
1309-1320: Leo IX
1320-1341: Basil III
1341-1366: Christophorus II
1366-1373: Leo X
1373-1388: Leo XI
1388-1393: Cassandra II
1393-1397: Leo XII
1397-1399: Atasius (the Black)
Ikennos Dynasty
1399-1421: Michael IX
1421-1429: Christophorus III
1429-1435: Valentinius III
1435-1462: Basil IV
1462-1480: Isaac I
1480-1522: Heraclius III (the Great)
CARTHAGINIAN (ROMAN) EMPERORS
Heraclian Dynasty
610-644: Heraclius I
644-665: Constans II
665-671: Valentinius
671-674: Romana (sister of Valentinius; ruled as regent for her son, Heraclius II)
674-699: Heraclius II
699: Leo III (deposed)
699-712: Konrad
712-733: Zoe (Blessed of God; first acknowledged Empress)
733-739: Michael (the Fat)
739-787: Konrad II
787-798: Tiberius III
Egyptian Dynasty
798-810: Amenos (the Egyptian)
810-820: Leo IV
Theodoran Dynasty
820-824: Theodorus
824-830: Theodora
844-879: Valentinius II
879-880: Xenos
880-894: Phocastus (the Pious)
894-936: Michael II
936-941: Basil I (deposed)
941-943: Leo V
943-950: Basil I (restored)
Athenian Dynasty
950-969: Demetrios I
969-991: Michael III
991-1000: Zoe II
1000-1025: Michael IV
1025-1031: Michael V
1031-1048: Alexenia
1048: Basil II (the Gaunt)
1048-1049: Atrigarus (the Mad)
1049-1072: Leo VI
1072-1101: Demetrios II
1101-1140: Martinus I
1140-1149: Leo VII
1149-1192: Cassandra I
1192-1215: Michael VI
1215-1221: Claudius I
1221-1234: Michael VII
1234-1247: Leo VIII
1247-1252: Caeles
1252-1268: Claudius II
Mauretanian Dynasty
1268-1282: Eretrines I
1282-1286: Michael VIII
1286-1298: Claudius II
1298-1306: Eretrines II
1306-1309: Christophorus I
1309-1320: Leo IX
1320-1341: Basil III
1341-1366: Christophorus II
1366-1373: Leo X
1373-1388: Leo XI
1388-1393: Cassandra II
1393-1397: Leo XII
1397-1399: Atasius (the Black)
Ikennos Dynasty
1399-1421: Michael IX
1421-1429: Christophorus III
1429-1435: Valentinius III
1435-1462: Basil IV
1462-1480: Isaac I
1480-1522: Heraclius III (the Great)
Diamond
Banned
Thanks. At some point I'd like to clean up the TL a bit and change a few things that have been bothering me. There's still one more section to post as well - 1500 to 1700; I wasn't planning on taking it past that point, but we'll see what develops. When that's done I wouldn't have any objections to it going into the TL Forum.
Glen
Moderator
Its a good timeline. I only question the rapidity of some of the first events, as well as the renaming of the empire.
More likely it would remain officially Roman, but commonly come to be called Carthaginian.
Also, I'd expect the Empire to hold Constantinople, as it is a very strongly fortified position. But I could be wrong on that one.
More likely it would remain officially Roman, but commonly come to be called Carthaginian.
Also, I'd expect the Empire to hold Constantinople, as it is a very strongly fortified position. But I could be wrong on that one.