Is it appropriate to make faces at someone whose been nothing but helpful?
Um, it was a joke?
Did I catch you at a bad time or something?
Is it appropriate to make faces at someone whose been nothing but helpful?
Um, it was a joke?
Did I catch you at a bad time or something?
No, I like to help out. I just thought you understood from earlier, the nature of the joint Macedonian-Seleucid strategy to remove the Ptolemies from the picture.
The Macedonians aren't quite the same power as they were since the lifetime of Alexander. In the Third Century BCE, tens of thousands of Greeks and Macedonians immigrated to the new polis' in Asia and Egypt. This weakened the demographics of the Greek city-states and the Kingdom of Macedonia. The latter was compelled to invite Thracians and Illyrians to settle within their borders, so they could recruit them for military service. And even that was often enough to maintain Macedonia's military supremacy over the Greeks in the south.
The Greek city-states, resentful of the northern Macedonians, would form leagues from time to time, and alliances were favoured with Ptolemaic Egypt, which had a powerful navy, imported tonnes of grain abroad, and so was wealthy enough to attract into their armies different nationalities as diverse as other Hellenes, Thracians, Celtic Galatians, Nubians and Hebrews.
The Seleucids for their part controlled the largest of the Diadochi states, and a greater number of different ethnic groups. Hellenization was sometimes implemented to enhance the long-term cohesiveness of the empire. And while the Seleucids were embroiled in wars with Egypt in the west, the Bactrians claimed their independence, and the Pahlava stormed into Parthia, and in time would gradually snatch away the rest of Iran and Mesopotamia. Just as Antiochus III had a chance to end the Ptolemies for good, you had Manius Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae in 191 BCE, and the Scipio brothers at Magnesia the following year helping Eumenes II put the boots on Antiochus' plans. After that, Rome became the new major western force that affected developments in the eastern Med.
Can anyone here give me some suggestions about some good references about what Northern Europe and Britannia were like in the third century BC? I'm curious because I do want to expand on what the cultures of a Europe without Rome would be like in those areas.
I hope some of this has been helpful.
Extraordinarily so. I'm also using some of my free time to research Scandinavia during this period and Britannia, but so far not much has come from that. The various Celtic tribes are very useful for the timeline since they're going to be friends of the Carthaginians and dominating much of Europe and whatnot.
P.S. Was it the Arverni that also used the Greek alphabet or am I thinking of another Celtic Tribe that did that?
Someone mentioned it in another thread, but I'm curious what others think of this as well...
What is the likelyhood of a surviving Carthaginian Empire fighting the Mongols or even the Huns?
Pretty good, as their main base of power is in North Africa. The Hunnic armies in the reign of Attila were mostly composed of Germanics and Sarmatians. The original Turkic-Hun element was pretty minute compared to the majority of their subjects. The Hunnic Empire was really a confederation of multi-ethnic tribes, and were only a serious threat to the Roman Empire during the 400's CE when they were led by Oktar, Rugila, Bleda and Attila. After that, they began fighting amongst themselves once more, and their Germanic subjects turned on them. Plus the Roman Empire was pretty weak during that period. And giving tribute to Attila was only making it worse.
Much of the Mongol's success was owed to the fact that they recruited local talent to help run their empire. There's winning battles, and retaining your conquests.
Didn't the Huns also have native Alans amongst them as well? Or were the Alans one of the many tribes that were displaced and forced to flee through Roman lands?
Either way, I will enjoy seeing a Hellenized Mediterranean with their war elephants and Cavalry and backed up by Celts and Gauls fighting back Hunnic and Mongol Hordes.
The Alans were a branch of the Sarmatians. A large of them would band together with the Vandals and Suebi when they migrated to Spain in the early 400's CE.
Plus, neither the Huns or the Mongols advanced far beyond Poland or Hungary. The Mongols were already well spread across Asia and there wasn't much that they needed in the west. And the Huns were more interested extorting money from the Roman Empire than conquering it in totality. Their empire extended as far east as the northern Caspian Sea shoreline. Whats more, as a great land empire, the Huns were not reported to have any aptitude for sea travel. Unless Carthage changes so much as to eventually possess substantial territory in northern Europe, I don't think they would really get in each others way.
As for the Huns, without a Roman Empire wouldn't they want to threaten the next best thing which would be either Persia or in this TL, Carthage? Or perhaps even the Celts having developed Kingdoms and Empires of their own by this point. As for Carthage holding territory, I intend to keep them mostly in Northern Africa, spreading around to the western and eastern edges.
Presuming that one of the major Gaulish tribal groups gains total dominance over others between the 3rd Century BCE-1st Century CE, basically ruling the area of modern France, Belgium, Holland, northern Spain, Switzerland, Austria, and the Rhineland. The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri, Teuton, Suebi, Cherusci, Chatti, and the Marcomanni, being on the fringes, would be reduced to client states. As well, possibly, as the Boii tribes in both Italy and the Danube region.
Within Gallic society, the Druidic class, being united with a strong secular force, becomes a more hierarchal and regulated clerical order, whom the Gallic high-kings come to rely on to confirm their divinely-chosen status. This kind of development rubs off on the Germanics further east, the Celtiberians in Spain, and the British tribes.
There may be civil strife in the Gallic empire, or among the other nations, but they will come to share in an ideology. Some militant Germanic groups would come to embrace aspects of Celtic culture as they did Roman culture OTL. And with the closer proximity to the Germanics than the Roman centre of power, trends in urbanization and developing trade in eastern Europe could be more closely observed. The Kingdom of Dacia, located in modern Romania, was highly urban, and seemed to have a unified religion which could also influence the Germanic tribes like the Bastarnae up north, or could itself become expansionistic.
So, if the general area between Germany and the Ukraine bore witness to united Gallic military expansion in the west and Dacian expansion from the south, the Germanics might be forced to take sides in this.
The Huns, whom may have been a multi-ethnic group from the very beginning, first appeared to the Romans as mercenaries, and were to divided to pose a true threat in the beginning, unlike they would become later under the leadership of Attila. The Huns rose to power by conquering and consolidating their authority over weaker tribes from the Russian Steppe toward the Gothic lands in central Europe, thus enhancing their own strengh. They arrived on the Eurasian Steppe as nomads, but came to possess a considerable number of infantry by Attila's reign, most of them were probably of Germanic or Thracian origins. The Indo-Irannic Sarmatians would probably only enhance the number of horsemen and archer in the Hunnic armies.
In a world where the Gauls and Dacians thrive, the Huns may have some initial success beyond the Carpathians, but would be hard-pressed to attack two empires that possess less territory than OTL Rome, but have the manpower to spare from not being as tied up defending provnces in North Africa and western Asia. And the Huns won't have access to conscript from larger agrarian-based populations.
In that case, Europe beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps and Macedonia may be contested by three major polities.
I hadn't taken into account that the Huns might not have attacked due to Rome being stretched thin. Do you think they might have just avoided Europe all together and head towards Persia and Asia instead?
The Huns did wage war on Sassanid Persia IOTL, but the political/religious division, and the economic stagnation of the Late Roman Empire made it a favourite area for the Huns to manipulate and seek riches. Rome was at its weakest during the Hunnic heydey. The emperors were constantly forced to buy them off, over and over, making them bankrupt. This was a major drawback for the upkeep of the Roman armies as well as civic infrastructure.