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Golden Apples
The land of Hellas, under the dominion of the Amavadatid sovereigns, soon earned another name, one that continues to be used by the learned and the wise; Malonika, the land of apples. The apple tree and the power of these Persian overlords were utterly bound together, with the former being utilised as the symbol of the latter from the moment that the satrapy of Hellas began to mint Amavadatid drakhmai instead of Persian darics, the moment that Amavadatos began his defiance of the King of Kings. Whilst the Amavadatids had come to understand the unruly Hellenes, how to talk to them, persuade them to useful action, and how best to put them to utile purpose, they also understood the value of what they called then doxa, majesty, to stabilise their rule, especially given the enormity of the Persian Emperor that they were replacing in the Hellenic mind. In this one of their prime tools was their command over the landscape and its natural features incarnated in a particular monumental form, the garden. First introduced by the Akhaimenid Empire, for who else could have originated such a concept rooted in control and dominance, the garden had spread to all parts of Hellas that desired to appear attuned to their Persian masters, along with those wishing to impress and overawe their own Hellenic peers. The Amavadatids further refined this concept to suit the nature of Hellas, combining Persian engineering with Hellenic experience. Unruly hills were neatly terraced, water was drawn from high mountains, and by great labours enormous, verdant orchards were created in places that had previously only been able to grow barley and feed animals. And they were the first to introduce the apple orchard to Hellas.
These orchards were a symbol of the Amavadatid ability, and desire, to manipulate nature to their wills, in this they showed their Persian inheritance. But this was not a wonder that was kept to themselves, for these orchards would be awarded to those of their subjects who were considered particularly virtuous. This was intended to be both reward and responsibility, for only with great and efficient labour would these orchards be maintained either for beauty or for true agriculture. Those unable to maintain these orchards would swiftly find themselves removed from the circle of the king and shunned by his ministers and favourites. Gardening and virtue are close companions, as the Amavadatids correctly recognised, and so this gift of orchard was of far higher mind than the oftentimes gaudy gifts of the Akhaimenid Emperor.
The apple was once a mark of the highest luxury to Hellenes, in our earliest tall tales we spoke of it as something hoarded by divinities like treasure, something to start a war over. You can imagine the reaction to the fact that, thanks to the Amavadatids, apples and their trees were everywhere in the land, a fitting symbol of the abundance that now struck a land that had been thought of as barren and harsh. When the Amavadatids descended into civil war, when Hellas saw war for the first time in two centuries, even the warlords and tyrants of that era avoided damaging orchards for fear that their followers would desert them, and the Imeri that would once again make Hellas a part of Asia were wise to maintain the gardens of Amavadatos also. When times are harsh for Hellenes, and we wish to talk of times when things were better, that is when we speak of Malonika, the Hellas of its golden ages, and it is to the Amavadatids, Persians but ones that understood what it was to be a Hellene, that we credit our first golden age.
MIHRAG OF STAKHR’S REFLECTIONS (688 CE)
ON THE GARDENS OF THE HAXAMANISHIYA
ANCIENT WARFARE BY C. PERICLES TANTINU (1381 CE)
THE REGIMENTS OF THE AKHAIMENIDS
THE BOOK OF DAYS
EXTRACT FROM THE LAY OF LARITH LARITHSAL
SEHTRA VELCHNAS AGAINST THE HEVETI
THE FIRST EXORTATION OF WALAMIR TO THE SEASONES (c.350 CE)
After Bodde ascended into nirwana, where his body had lain erupted Banyan, a branch of Belswir, and from Banyan grew golden apples, each of which would grant nirwana to those who ate them and were worthy of the path they attempted to follow. Set to test those on the path to nirwana, and to guard these apples, were those that others call Ansgard. Ithun watches over Banyan, and from its fruit makes the nectar that keeps Boddesgard immortal. All of the Boddesgard are able to ascend to nirwana but remain in the circles of the world, so that they can assist those who seek to join nirwana, those who seek to become Boddesatwa. One can seek to remain within the world for an indefinite time, merely by seeking the juice of the golden apples, but to ascend to nirwana one must consume and understand the entire apple. For this is the final temptation that Ithun will present every devout seeking to become Boddesatwa, the temptation of nectar. Thonar defended Banyan from Ladon and did not drink its nectar, given his dedication to the protection and enlightenment of mankind. To become Boddesawta, to ascend to nirwana, is for the benefit of all mankind, to drink Ithun’s nectar is to stretch your life and spirit thin neither to your own benefit nor that of others.
Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA
Like the sweet apple that reddens
At end of the bough –
Far end of the bough –
Left by the gatherer’s swaying,
Forgotten, so thou.
Nay, not forgotten, ungotten,
Ungathered (till now).
LANDS OF THE HELLENES BY MOIRICHOS OF KORKYRA (577 CE)
MALONIKA
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA
Like the sweet apple that reddens
At end of the bough –
Far end of the bough –
Left by the gatherer’s swaying,
Forgotten, so thou.
Nay, not forgotten, ungotten,
Ungathered (till now).
LANDS OF THE HELLENES BY MOIRICHOS OF KORKYRA (577 CE)
MALONIKA
The land of Hellas, under the dominion of the Amavadatid sovereigns, soon earned another name, one that continues to be used by the learned and the wise; Malonika, the land of apples. The apple tree and the power of these Persian overlords were utterly bound together, with the former being utilised as the symbol of the latter from the moment that the satrapy of Hellas began to mint Amavadatid drakhmai instead of Persian darics, the moment that Amavadatos began his defiance of the King of Kings. Whilst the Amavadatids had come to understand the unruly Hellenes, how to talk to them, persuade them to useful action, and how best to put them to utile purpose, they also understood the value of what they called then doxa, majesty, to stabilise their rule, especially given the enormity of the Persian Emperor that they were replacing in the Hellenic mind. In this one of their prime tools was their command over the landscape and its natural features incarnated in a particular monumental form, the garden. First introduced by the Akhaimenid Empire, for who else could have originated such a concept rooted in control and dominance, the garden had spread to all parts of Hellas that desired to appear attuned to their Persian masters, along with those wishing to impress and overawe their own Hellenic peers. The Amavadatids further refined this concept to suit the nature of Hellas, combining Persian engineering with Hellenic experience. Unruly hills were neatly terraced, water was drawn from high mountains, and by great labours enormous, verdant orchards were created in places that had previously only been able to grow barley and feed animals. And they were the first to introduce the apple orchard to Hellas.
These orchards were a symbol of the Amavadatid ability, and desire, to manipulate nature to their wills, in this they showed their Persian inheritance. But this was not a wonder that was kept to themselves, for these orchards would be awarded to those of their subjects who were considered particularly virtuous. This was intended to be both reward and responsibility, for only with great and efficient labour would these orchards be maintained either for beauty or for true agriculture. Those unable to maintain these orchards would swiftly find themselves removed from the circle of the king and shunned by his ministers and favourites. Gardening and virtue are close companions, as the Amavadatids correctly recognised, and so this gift of orchard was of far higher mind than the oftentimes gaudy gifts of the Akhaimenid Emperor.
The apple was once a mark of the highest luxury to Hellenes, in our earliest tall tales we spoke of it as something hoarded by divinities like treasure, something to start a war over. You can imagine the reaction to the fact that, thanks to the Amavadatids, apples and their trees were everywhere in the land, a fitting symbol of the abundance that now struck a land that had been thought of as barren and harsh. When the Amavadatids descended into civil war, when Hellas saw war for the first time in two centuries, even the warlords and tyrants of that era avoided damaging orchards for fear that their followers would desert them, and the Imeri that would once again make Hellas a part of Asia were wise to maintain the gardens of Amavadatos also. When times are harsh for Hellenes, and we wish to talk of times when things were better, that is when we speak of Malonika, the Hellas of its golden ages, and it is to the Amavadatids, Persians but ones that understood what it was to be a Hellene, that we credit our first golden age.
MIHRAG OF STAKHR’S REFLECTIONS (688 CE)
ON THE GARDENS OF THE HAXAMANISHIYA
The Haxamanishiya were not, it must be said, the first to maintain gardens in places otherwise a stranger to green, growing things. It is a fundamental characteristic of Asia, from ancient times to present ones, that we make the desert bloom. That said, the Haxamanishiya were the first to make gardens that were not attached to existing cities or palaces, gardens that were monuments in their own right. They positively thrived on the challenge of turning desert into lush parklands, nor did they confine themselves to Iran proper. Even in distant Yona, in those times a dark and barbarous land, was graced with magnificent gardens, growing all kinds of plants that at that time were exotic or unknown to the Yauna, as they once openly admitted in their scholarship; apples, peaches, apricots, almonds, all of these were brought into a barren country, as Yona in its wilder parts remains, and made to grow and thrive there as though it had been their native habitat, and a Yauna given command of an apple orchard by the King of Kings was a very wealthy and respected man indeed.
ANCIENT WARFARE BY C. PERICLES TANTINU (1381 CE)
THE REGIMENTS OF THE AKHAIMENIDS
We must be fully honest; in balance, we can judge neither western nor eastern Hellenic tradition to be a firm guide in this matter of the regiments of the Akhaimenids. By the time that the two schools of thought became reconciled we find that the world of the Akhaimenids was already fading into legends, and much of what was remembered of their arms and their might was now hopelessly confused with the earliest times of the Amavadatids, an understandable confusion given the stated similarities in their overall military organisation. Thus, even after the parties of western and eastern Hellenes had become reconciled, the best preserved eyewitness accounts of the Akhaimenid regiments remained those of Xenokritos, Herodotos, Kimon, Aristonikos, all of those familiar partisans of the Hellenic world’s division. Datis, whose work to reconcile the two historiographies was so thorough and far-sighted, gave up entirely on this matter, a rare admittance of defeat for the Agnimitra of scholarship.
Here we must turn outside of the old Hellenic kanon, and access those Hellenic works preserved only outside of Hellas until recently. Thukydides, son of Oloros, is famous in the kanon as a poet, indeed with a very high reputation even in the present day. Lesser known is his work on Hellenic history, which we will continue to find a useful companion to the traditional historians of west and east going forth. It would seem the work attracted little attention outside of Athenai, lacking the passionate vitriol that was in vogue at the time (being as it was a period of tumult for the Hellenes). However, some fifteen years ago two copies of it were discovered in the ancient libraries of Oruge and Apigut, though those got into the deep vaults none could say. Thukydides’ prose is dry, heavily detailed, and almost naive in its desire to encapsulate all observed detail. However, this makes it ideal for cold historical work of who, what, where, and when. One of the work’s chapters is in fact dedicated to surveying the regiments of the Akhaimenid sparda, and I take him and my own judgement to be the arbiter in the matter, hoping perhaps naively to resolve these confusions for all time.
The four most celebrated of the sparda’s regiments were the Golden Apples, Silver Apples, Golden Pomegranates, and Silver Pomegranates, their Iranian names being long since lost to time. Each of these regiments had a particular purpose; the Golden Apples were taken from those of the King’s fellow Persian aristocrats, dressed as his peers, and all ancient sources agree that their leader, called by the Hellenes the khiliarkhos, was one of the prime ministers of the Akhaimenid state; the Silver Apples were the chosen men-at-arms, deployed in combat only where the fighting was hardest and most difficult; the Golden and Silver Pomegranates were each ten thousand strong, and were the hardy, well trained soldiers expected to hold the main battle line, and it was from their ranks that new Silver Apples would be promoted. Herodotos knew the Golden and Silver Pomegranates as athanatoi, Immortals, but they were in fact known to the Persians as Companions. However, this idea of immortals made such an impression on the Hellenes that the satraps of Hellas set up their own similar regiment, the Theban Immortals. This is generally considered to be a modification of the Theban divine lokhos but there are references to both regiments across the Akhaimenid and Amavadatid periods, and whilst it would be simple to assume the two terms as synonyms that does not seem to be such a clear cut solution to the confusion. Regardless, these Theban Immortals and the tales of Herodotos then inspired the Immortal regiments of Hesperia, in particular those of the Tinians. It is tempting to dub this the most far-reaching legacy of King Xerxes’ invasion on the rest of Europa.
Here we must turn outside of the old Hellenic kanon, and access those Hellenic works preserved only outside of Hellas until recently. Thukydides, son of Oloros, is famous in the kanon as a poet, indeed with a very high reputation even in the present day. Lesser known is his work on Hellenic history, which we will continue to find a useful companion to the traditional historians of west and east going forth. It would seem the work attracted little attention outside of Athenai, lacking the passionate vitriol that was in vogue at the time (being as it was a period of tumult for the Hellenes). However, some fifteen years ago two copies of it were discovered in the ancient libraries of Oruge and Apigut, though those got into the deep vaults none could say. Thukydides’ prose is dry, heavily detailed, and almost naive in its desire to encapsulate all observed detail. However, this makes it ideal for cold historical work of who, what, where, and when. One of the work’s chapters is in fact dedicated to surveying the regiments of the Akhaimenid sparda, and I take him and my own judgement to be the arbiter in the matter, hoping perhaps naively to resolve these confusions for all time.
The four most celebrated of the sparda’s regiments were the Golden Apples, Silver Apples, Golden Pomegranates, and Silver Pomegranates, their Iranian names being long since lost to time. Each of these regiments had a particular purpose; the Golden Apples were taken from those of the King’s fellow Persian aristocrats, dressed as his peers, and all ancient sources agree that their leader, called by the Hellenes the khiliarkhos, was one of the prime ministers of the Akhaimenid state; the Silver Apples were the chosen men-at-arms, deployed in combat only where the fighting was hardest and most difficult; the Golden and Silver Pomegranates were each ten thousand strong, and were the hardy, well trained soldiers expected to hold the main battle line, and it was from their ranks that new Silver Apples would be promoted. Herodotos knew the Golden and Silver Pomegranates as athanatoi, Immortals, but they were in fact known to the Persians as Companions. However, this idea of immortals made such an impression on the Hellenes that the satraps of Hellas set up their own similar regiment, the Theban Immortals. This is generally considered to be a modification of the Theban divine lokhos but there are references to both regiments across the Akhaimenid and Amavadatid periods, and whilst it would be simple to assume the two terms as synonyms that does not seem to be such a clear cut solution to the confusion. Regardless, these Theban Immortals and the tales of Herodotos then inspired the Immortal regiments of Hesperia, in particular those of the Tinians. It is tempting to dub this the most far-reaching legacy of King Xerxes’ invasion on the rest of Europa.
THE BOOK OF DAYS
EXTRACT FROM THE LAY OF LARITH LARITHSAL
SEHTRA VELCHNAS AGAINST THE HEVETI
As the sea in a storm batters the shoreline so that even rocks may tumble into the foaming see, so was the furious onset of Sethra Velchnas sec Larcs and her apple-shielded immortals onto the first ranks of the Celtui. Her lightning spear dove down and deep in a thousand strikes, her chosen men relentlessly pushing back the Celtui as ten thousand men’s strength, not only a thousand. The rest of the battalions of the Rasna rallied, even as moments ago they had begun to give ground, and gave themselves over to Tinia. That is when the lightning struck, and the thunder of shields and unstoppable men plunged once more at the Celtui masses. The first rank broke, and Sethra Velchnas sec Larcs pushed still harder with her thousand chosen men. As fish flee from sharks and the nets of fishermen, so the Celtui now began to rout and flee from the Rasna. Thus was ended the first battle with the Heveti. To this day, Celtui will shudder at the mention of the name Sethra Vechnas sec Larcs.
THE FIRST EXORTATION OF WALAMIR TO THE SEASONES (c.350 CE)
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