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Messenia
Xenokles, having thus reluctantly accepted the rulership over Messenia, set about removing the most pernicious legacies of the Lakedaimonians within his lands. He re-established formations of hoplitai, the heliotes having in war only been utilised as expendable skirmishers by their hated masters, which also helped reinvigorate a sense of self-control and might among his people. He petitioned Mardonios the satrap for Messenia ownership of the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis, which had been unjustly seized into Lakedaimonia in earlier times, and this petition was successful. He refounded and resettled the abandoned city at Ithome, where so many of the Messenians had given their lives attempting to regain independence, and also Pylos the home of Nestor, for although Xenokles was loyal to King Xerxes he hoped that in future congress between the western and eastern Hellenes might begin once again, and Pylos was ideally suited as a port for trade with the west.
However, his most momentous and famous legacy was also the most drastic; King Xenokles and the popular assembly together banned the institution of slavery throughout the lands of Messenia. They banned debt-slavery, they banned the taking of slaves in war, they freed any slaves that existed within Messenia at that time, they made a law saying that if somehow any slave should reside in Messenia that their children would be free, and they banned any trade in slaves from taking place on Messenian soil. This more than anything else set them apart from their fellow Hellenes, who petitioned Mardonios to reverse this ban, or at least to isolate Messenia from the rest of their lands. But this was also what recommended the Messenians so highly to the Persians. There can be no doubt that the Messenians are the most freedom-loving among the Hellenes, and that King Xenokles was made of the same stuff that King Xerxes was, a man born to lead and rule but who also had a love of justice.
XENOKLES: Here I propose my law, my countrymen, that would end the memory of that vile institution in which we were kept our entire lives by the Spartans, that would banish that injustice against dharma for all eternity from these lands, cleansing our souls and all of our sons and daughters who come after us. I proclaim, King Xenokles, that from this day forward, in all lands under my protection, in all lands that might come under my protection, that the practice of enslaving other human beings, that which casts the slaver into the very harshest parts of Hades, shall be ended in its entirety! That all slaves that find themselves within our lands be freed, and made part of the free Messenian nation! That no slave shall be permitted to enter my domains whilst they remain unfree! That this law shall never be rescinded! Messenians, do you believe this law to be just and in accordance with dharma?
MESSENIANS: We do!
XENOKLES: Then, with the help of Mardonios, we shall go further! No Hellene shall anywhere be permitted to remain a slave, and together with the Persians we will cleanse this land of its sins!
MESSENIANS: We shall!
POLEMADORAS: I must away to Athens, and warn them of this wretched do-gooder who threatens to remove our slaves forever.
At length, Messenia was the great survivor of the Hellenic client states. Most of those poleis which had nominally retained their independence were directly incorporated into the Persian fold following the Great Revolt against Persian rule, but Messenia had remained loyal to the Persians throughout this turbulent time and they were duly rewarded by Xerxes reaffirming their self determination, despite the fact that the Messenians had in large part caused the tumult in the first place by their law banning slavery. On counterbalance, however, this so-called independence was something of a lie. There was no question that Messenia would declare war upon whomever the Persians asked them to, that Messenia was to remain aligned with the Persians. Nonetheless, Xenokles and his descendants minted only their own coinage, made their own treaties, and only rarely played host to Persian garrisons. They then survived a later round of centralisation, when Daieobazanes folded Thessalia directly into the Empire he did not do the same with Messenia. Messenia, unlike Thessalia, had been model subjects of the satrapy, and there was no need to stamp out their Persian-friendly attitudes by removing their independence.
As with most of Hellas, the Messenians slowly came to see the satrap as a more legitimate monarch than the Great King himself, Kyros III and his successors were usually unconcerned about matters involving Hellas entirely, and so the men of Messenia were willing participants in Amavadatos’ bid for independence, considering their satrap the legitimate heir to the legacy of Xerxes over his nominal king. Even under the concentrated military machine of the Amavadatids they retained their independence, and with the Amavadatid connection to Italia firmly established Messenia became more important than ever, with a new road connecting Pylos to the rest of the satrapy being completed the year of Amavadatos’ death. The Messenians were one of the most reliable subjects of the Amavadatids, and so it was a great shock to the system when the Amavadatids finally, ignominiously, collapsed.
Messenia was not entirely spared the horrors of war that followed, with Ithome besieged by the army of the self-appointed Basileus Lykaon, who established hegemony over much of Southern Hellas. However, Lykaon’s mastery over the Peloponnesos spared the Messenians much of the destruction inflicted upon Central, Eastern, and Northern Hellas. But they were never willing subjects of Lykaon and his descendants, and the moment the Imerian Empire decided to conquer Hellas the Messenians enthusiastically intervened on the side of the Kaukasians, seeing them as the nearest thing to legitimate successors of Xerxes and his dynasty. What might have been a hard fought campaign to win the Peloponnesos was instead over in a matter of weeks, and it was with some relish that the Messenians captured districts that still claimed some connection to the Spartans; their memory of bondage had not faded in the slightest. Upon the conquest’s conclusion the Messenians once more found themselves attached to a large, powerful Empire as an independent ally, rather than a direct subject.
The Imerians were quite happy to leave Messenia to its own devices, so long as it didn’t threaten their control over the Aigean Sea. Messenian adventurers plied the Great Sea with courage and optimism at this time, although they swiftly gained a reputation for moralising due to their hatred of slavery. However, at the sunset of the Imerians the Messenians were once again the great omen for the future, for it was the Tyrsenoi raid on Messenia that indicated that the Imerian aegis was weakening, and marked a turning of Hellenic attitudes. It was, ironically, the formation of the Hellenic Commonwealth, the first united, Hellenic-ruled state of all Hellas, that ended the position the Messenians had long enjoyed; Messenia was too vital a resource to be allowed independence from the other Hellenic states, and too vulnerable to the Tyrsenoi to argue against membership of the Commonwealth. The Messenians, of course, contributed Hellenarkhs to the Commonwealth’s assembly, having the ear of the Panhellen, but in this respect they were no different from any of the other provinces of the Commonwealth. The special legal status of Messenia as an ‘ally’ of whoever came to dominate Hellas, which had lasted for over 500 years, had come to an end. They were simply another link in the chain.
King Ksana Kri was not born a king. He was born a slave under the Kingdom of Roni, the overlord of the Central Yona and conqueror of Ksana Kri’s homeland. All of Ksana Kri’s people had been enslaved to Roni, and not only was this crime against nature perpetrated but they did not prevent any among the Roni from killing slaves, both their own and those of others, at will, even having a part of their army to kill slaves in order to keep the others from insurrection. None among the other Yawana could overcome the Roni by strength of arms, though many tried in order to free their brethren. The Roni believed themselves protected by the Gods. But Ksana Kri was a man of many talents, and sent an eloquent letter to the Buddha Ksayasa of the Parasika, begging him to relieve his people and the others of Central Yawana from the bondage inflicted upon them.
Great King, thou of enlightened wisdom and mighty worldly powers, I beseech thee not on my behalf but on behalf of my people. My people suffer as none should suffer, endure pain purely of a kind to satisfy the greed of another rather than that endured from honest labour. All of them, and all of the Central Yawana, are chained and yoked to serve as slaves to another, to the Kings of Roni, already known to you as vile and wicked people deserving to be cast into Naraka for their misdeeds. This unnatural slavery is an evil that must be banished from the earth, and more unnatural still is the rendering of an entire people in such bondage. I ask thee, I beg thee, I implore thee to deliver us from these evil men, I ask that that the souls of my people be brought out from that which chains their bodies. I know that thou cannot rest whilst injustice prevails in your sight or your hearing, so here I make known to you our pain, our injustice.
Ksayasa duly came with the forces of Asia and rescued the Central Yawana from their cruel overlords, destroying the Threefold Prison Walls which the Roni had built to encircle Central Yawana, to keep their slaves contained within. The Roni were ended, remaining on the Earth as nothing more than a whisper of fear, a rumour of wickedness. The people of Ksana Kri, newly delivered from their plight, then decided to elect for themselves a king, being desirous of an overlord but wanting to decide for themselves what kind of a person would rule over them. They chose Ksana Kri, by virtue of his piety, good decision making, and eloquence, despite his lack of any noble parentage. His first act, his very first verbal command to the assembled multitudes of his people was to ban slavery from the entirety of Central Yawana, declaring that none would suffer from the vile institution so long as he lived, and so long as his people followed his laws. His people rejoiced, though others did not. The profitability of slavery, the luxury of having unfree servants with no recourse, the desire for inequality, this drove many to oppose Central Yawana and King Ksana Kri. He stood firm, and was aided once more by Ksayasa, and Central Yona was unbowed.
In the lands of Bharata much could be learned from the example of Ksana Kri. In the pursuit of enlightenment and virtue both there is no contribution that caste has to offer. This is something that the followers of the Buddha have always understood, and there are many who could stand to learn that lesson. Those who believe themselves virtuous and just who will otherwise mistreat and belittle those of lower caste than themselves are neither virtuous nor just. In addition, slavery is an evil, as all pious human beings recognise. It is not simply a facet of society, or a vice to be quietly tolerated in the face of pecuniary interests, it is a stain on the soul. It is a thing that drags a man down to Naraka as sure as the murder of another human being, you strangle the soul and claim that it is possible for another human being to lack freedom purely for your own benefit. If such a man as Ksana Kri, himself born in shackles, can understand and cleanse himself and his people of this evil, sloughing off slavery, then there is no excuse for a man of Bharata’s realm, absolutely no excuse at all.
It seems to me that the Restrictivists could quite easily call themselves Messenians, and the Supremacists the Persians, for both can ultimately trace their philosophical positions to those two ancient peoples. The Messenians, having endured mass-enslavement to the Spartans for centuries, wished restrictions upon royal power, and believed in co-operation between popular bodies and rulers to create a more wholesome, fairer union. The Persians, understanding how to construct grand imperial enterprises, wished the king to be the master of the state, granting him the power to solve any problem without recourse to another. But here there is one key difference between ancient antecedent and our supposedly more advanced times; the two great schools of modern Europan government believe these two positions to be irrevocably, totally opposed, but the Messenians willingly and happily submitted to the overlordship of the Persians, and the Persians not only willingly freed the Messenians from their bondage but were also happy for the Messenians to rule themselves according to their wishes. Xerxes was no more threatened by the constitutional model of Messenia than I am by my wife preferring the colour of saffron to purple.
And yet look at the present situation, in which all of Central Europa is cross-horned about such matters, with all manner of accusations of mob-rule, tyranny, collusion, corruption, anarchy, repression. The Messenians, at least, did something as radical for the time as banning slavery, and even then the Persians continued to support their subjects’ agitation for liberty. What have the modern Messenians done in the radical service of liberty? And what great monumental state have the modern Persians graced us with? Instead they threaten to set upon each other, within and without, considering and agitating for wars that would leave Europa charred in their wake. The Messenians successfully lived side by side with the Persians and their successors for 500 years, and the Persians founded Asia, strong and eternal. We can be better than this. Europa can stand alongside Asia and Africa as a pillar of the worldly order, but it will never do so by forcing harmony amongst ourselves at sword-point. Sometimes I would that you and I were kings ourselves, standing firm in the cause of common sense and true piety. For all Europa’s professed love for the wisdom of the ancients they seem to learn nothing from it whatsoever.
Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA
EXTRACT FROM XENOKRITOS’ PERSIKA (448 BCE)
THE REBIRTH OF MESSENIA
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA
EXTRACT FROM XENOKRITOS’ PERSIKA (448 BCE)
THE REBIRTH OF MESSENIA
Xenokles, having thus reluctantly accepted the rulership over Messenia, set about removing the most pernicious legacies of the Lakedaimonians within his lands. He re-established formations of hoplitai, the heliotes having in war only been utilised as expendable skirmishers by their hated masters, which also helped reinvigorate a sense of self-control and might among his people. He petitioned Mardonios the satrap for Messenia ownership of the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis, which had been unjustly seized into Lakedaimonia in earlier times, and this petition was successful. He refounded and resettled the abandoned city at Ithome, where so many of the Messenians had given their lives attempting to regain independence, and also Pylos the home of Nestor, for although Xenokles was loyal to King Xerxes he hoped that in future congress between the western and eastern Hellenes might begin once again, and Pylos was ideally suited as a port for trade with the west.
However, his most momentous and famous legacy was also the most drastic; King Xenokles and the popular assembly together banned the institution of slavery throughout the lands of Messenia. They banned debt-slavery, they banned the taking of slaves in war, they freed any slaves that existed within Messenia at that time, they made a law saying that if somehow any slave should reside in Messenia that their children would be free, and they banned any trade in slaves from taking place on Messenian soil. This more than anything else set them apart from their fellow Hellenes, who petitioned Mardonios to reverse this ban, or at least to isolate Messenia from the rest of their lands. But this was also what recommended the Messenians so highly to the Persians. There can be no doubt that the Messenians are the most freedom-loving among the Hellenes, and that King Xenokles was made of the same stuff that King Xerxes was, a man born to lead and rule but who also had a love of justice.
THE PERSIANS BY ALEKTHARMA (942 CE)
XENOKLES: Here I propose my law, my countrymen, that would end the memory of that vile institution in which we were kept our entire lives by the Spartans, that would banish that injustice against dharma for all eternity from these lands, cleansing our souls and all of our sons and daughters who come after us. I proclaim, King Xenokles, that from this day forward, in all lands under my protection, in all lands that might come under my protection, that the practice of enslaving other human beings, that which casts the slaver into the very harshest parts of Hades, shall be ended in its entirety! That all slaves that find themselves within our lands be freed, and made part of the free Messenian nation! That no slave shall be permitted to enter my domains whilst they remain unfree! That this law shall never be rescinded! Messenians, do you believe this law to be just and in accordance with dharma?
MESSENIANS: We do!
XENOKLES: Then, with the help of Mardonios, we shall go further! No Hellene shall anywhere be permitted to remain a slave, and together with the Persians we will cleanse this land of its sins!
MESSENIANS: We shall!
POLEMADORAS: I must away to Athens, and warn them of this wretched do-gooder who threatens to remove our slaves forever.
THE FORTUNES OF HELLAS BY DAIPHANDIS OF SIRAKUSE (856 CE)
FREE MESSENIA (480 BCE-48 CE)
FREE MESSENIA (480 BCE-48 CE)
At length, Messenia was the great survivor of the Hellenic client states. Most of those poleis which had nominally retained their independence were directly incorporated into the Persian fold following the Great Revolt against Persian rule, but Messenia had remained loyal to the Persians throughout this turbulent time and they were duly rewarded by Xerxes reaffirming their self determination, despite the fact that the Messenians had in large part caused the tumult in the first place by their law banning slavery. On counterbalance, however, this so-called independence was something of a lie. There was no question that Messenia would declare war upon whomever the Persians asked them to, that Messenia was to remain aligned with the Persians. Nonetheless, Xenokles and his descendants minted only their own coinage, made their own treaties, and only rarely played host to Persian garrisons. They then survived a later round of centralisation, when Daieobazanes folded Thessalia directly into the Empire he did not do the same with Messenia. Messenia, unlike Thessalia, had been model subjects of the satrapy, and there was no need to stamp out their Persian-friendly attitudes by removing their independence.
As with most of Hellas, the Messenians slowly came to see the satrap as a more legitimate monarch than the Great King himself, Kyros III and his successors were usually unconcerned about matters involving Hellas entirely, and so the men of Messenia were willing participants in Amavadatos’ bid for independence, considering their satrap the legitimate heir to the legacy of Xerxes over his nominal king. Even under the concentrated military machine of the Amavadatids they retained their independence, and with the Amavadatid connection to Italia firmly established Messenia became more important than ever, with a new road connecting Pylos to the rest of the satrapy being completed the year of Amavadatos’ death. The Messenians were one of the most reliable subjects of the Amavadatids, and so it was a great shock to the system when the Amavadatids finally, ignominiously, collapsed.
Messenia was not entirely spared the horrors of war that followed, with Ithome besieged by the army of the self-appointed Basileus Lykaon, who established hegemony over much of Southern Hellas. However, Lykaon’s mastery over the Peloponnesos spared the Messenians much of the destruction inflicted upon Central, Eastern, and Northern Hellas. But they were never willing subjects of Lykaon and his descendants, and the moment the Imerian Empire decided to conquer Hellas the Messenians enthusiastically intervened on the side of the Kaukasians, seeing them as the nearest thing to legitimate successors of Xerxes and his dynasty. What might have been a hard fought campaign to win the Peloponnesos was instead over in a matter of weeks, and it was with some relish that the Messenians captured districts that still claimed some connection to the Spartans; their memory of bondage had not faded in the slightest. Upon the conquest’s conclusion the Messenians once more found themselves attached to a large, powerful Empire as an independent ally, rather than a direct subject.
The Imerians were quite happy to leave Messenia to its own devices, so long as it didn’t threaten their control over the Aigean Sea. Messenian adventurers plied the Great Sea with courage and optimism at this time, although they swiftly gained a reputation for moralising due to their hatred of slavery. However, at the sunset of the Imerians the Messenians were once again the great omen for the future, for it was the Tyrsenoi raid on Messenia that indicated that the Imerian aegis was weakening, and marked a turning of Hellenic attitudes. It was, ironically, the formation of the Hellenic Commonwealth, the first united, Hellenic-ruled state of all Hellas, that ended the position the Messenians had long enjoyed; Messenia was too vital a resource to be allowed independence from the other Hellenic states, and too vulnerable to the Tyrsenoi to argue against membership of the Commonwealth. The Messenians, of course, contributed Hellenarkhs to the Commonwealth’s assembly, having the ear of the Panhellen, but in this respect they were no different from any of the other provinces of the Commonwealth. The special legal status of Messenia as an ‘ally’ of whoever came to dominate Hellas, which had lasted for over 500 years, had come to an end. They were simply another link in the chain.
THE TWELVE VIRTUOUS KINGS OF YAWANA BY AGNITDATTA (459 CE)
KING KSANA KRI
KING KSANA KRI
King Ksana Kri was not born a king. He was born a slave under the Kingdom of Roni, the overlord of the Central Yona and conqueror of Ksana Kri’s homeland. All of Ksana Kri’s people had been enslaved to Roni, and not only was this crime against nature perpetrated but they did not prevent any among the Roni from killing slaves, both their own and those of others, at will, even having a part of their army to kill slaves in order to keep the others from insurrection. None among the other Yawana could overcome the Roni by strength of arms, though many tried in order to free their brethren. The Roni believed themselves protected by the Gods. But Ksana Kri was a man of many talents, and sent an eloquent letter to the Buddha Ksayasa of the Parasika, begging him to relieve his people and the others of Central Yawana from the bondage inflicted upon them.
Great King, thou of enlightened wisdom and mighty worldly powers, I beseech thee not on my behalf but on behalf of my people. My people suffer as none should suffer, endure pain purely of a kind to satisfy the greed of another rather than that endured from honest labour. All of them, and all of the Central Yawana, are chained and yoked to serve as slaves to another, to the Kings of Roni, already known to you as vile and wicked people deserving to be cast into Naraka for their misdeeds. This unnatural slavery is an evil that must be banished from the earth, and more unnatural still is the rendering of an entire people in such bondage. I ask thee, I beg thee, I implore thee to deliver us from these evil men, I ask that that the souls of my people be brought out from that which chains their bodies. I know that thou cannot rest whilst injustice prevails in your sight or your hearing, so here I make known to you our pain, our injustice.
Ksayasa duly came with the forces of Asia and rescued the Central Yawana from their cruel overlords, destroying the Threefold Prison Walls which the Roni had built to encircle Central Yawana, to keep their slaves contained within. The Roni were ended, remaining on the Earth as nothing more than a whisper of fear, a rumour of wickedness. The people of Ksana Kri, newly delivered from their plight, then decided to elect for themselves a king, being desirous of an overlord but wanting to decide for themselves what kind of a person would rule over them. They chose Ksana Kri, by virtue of his piety, good decision making, and eloquence, despite his lack of any noble parentage. His first act, his very first verbal command to the assembled multitudes of his people was to ban slavery from the entirety of Central Yawana, declaring that none would suffer from the vile institution so long as he lived, and so long as his people followed his laws. His people rejoiced, though others did not. The profitability of slavery, the luxury of having unfree servants with no recourse, the desire for inequality, this drove many to oppose Central Yawana and King Ksana Kri. He stood firm, and was aided once more by Ksayasa, and Central Yona was unbowed.
In the lands of Bharata much could be learned from the example of Ksana Kri. In the pursuit of enlightenment and virtue both there is no contribution that caste has to offer. This is something that the followers of the Buddha have always understood, and there are many who could stand to learn that lesson. Those who believe themselves virtuous and just who will otherwise mistreat and belittle those of lower caste than themselves are neither virtuous nor just. In addition, slavery is an evil, as all pious human beings recognise. It is not simply a facet of society, or a vice to be quietly tolerated in the face of pecuniary interests, it is a stain on the soul. It is a thing that drags a man down to Naraka as sure as the murder of another human being, you strangle the soul and claim that it is possible for another human being to lack freedom purely for your own benefit. If such a man as Ksana Kri, himself born in shackles, can understand and cleanse himself and his people of this evil, sloughing off slavery, then there is no excuse for a man of Bharata’s realm, absolutely no excuse at all.
EXTRACT FROM THE LETTERS OF PARCOL CHOLUMNA (1502 CE)
TO C. PAMEDA LIMANI (1452 CE)
TO C. PAMEDA LIMANI (1452 CE)
It seems to me that the Restrictivists could quite easily call themselves Messenians, and the Supremacists the Persians, for both can ultimately trace their philosophical positions to those two ancient peoples. The Messenians, having endured mass-enslavement to the Spartans for centuries, wished restrictions upon royal power, and believed in co-operation between popular bodies and rulers to create a more wholesome, fairer union. The Persians, understanding how to construct grand imperial enterprises, wished the king to be the master of the state, granting him the power to solve any problem without recourse to another. But here there is one key difference between ancient antecedent and our supposedly more advanced times; the two great schools of modern Europan government believe these two positions to be irrevocably, totally opposed, but the Messenians willingly and happily submitted to the overlordship of the Persians, and the Persians not only willingly freed the Messenians from their bondage but were also happy for the Messenians to rule themselves according to their wishes. Xerxes was no more threatened by the constitutional model of Messenia than I am by my wife preferring the colour of saffron to purple.
And yet look at the present situation, in which all of Central Europa is cross-horned about such matters, with all manner of accusations of mob-rule, tyranny, collusion, corruption, anarchy, repression. The Messenians, at least, did something as radical for the time as banning slavery, and even then the Persians continued to support their subjects’ agitation for liberty. What have the modern Messenians done in the radical service of liberty? And what great monumental state have the modern Persians graced us with? Instead they threaten to set upon each other, within and without, considering and agitating for wars that would leave Europa charred in their wake. The Messenians successfully lived side by side with the Persians and their successors for 500 years, and the Persians founded Asia, strong and eternal. We can be better than this. Europa can stand alongside Asia and Africa as a pillar of the worldly order, but it will never do so by forcing harmony amongst ourselves at sword-point. Sometimes I would that you and I were kings ourselves, standing firm in the cause of common sense and true piety. For all Europa’s professed love for the wisdom of the ancients they seem to learn nothing from it whatsoever.
- Daeres
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