Μηδίζω! The World of Achaemenid Hellas

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 4:BAGAHA or THEOI

Footsteps of Foinikia:The Rediscovery of Ancient Ebon Wicta by C. Lanuc (1564 CE)
Chapter 5: The Temple of Melkart​

It was Enis Wicta alone of all Tartiz’s colonial foundations that merited a temple of Melkart, the great god of ancient and noble Sir, so it is known and so it is verified by Kippir and Zipur. Melkart was fundamentally a god of urban civilization, its placement on Wicta an assertment that this would be a great foundation that would stand the test of time, and also a statement on the quality of the lands they found before them, placing Wicta above Wenesika and the ancient Keitani littoral. The temple only fell to disrepair and rumour in the tragedy of the Saramatish invasion, its rediscovery a key goal of modern atrotorn. At last, the beauty and size of the temple can now be directly attested due to the careful excavations of C. Lanuc.


The temple is, as enumerated earlier, a distance of 220 metres from the coastal, western walls of Ebon Wicta. The full precinct is 51 metres by 53 metres, with the north-eastern edges damaged by later works. The precinct is divided into three zones, as would be expected for a Foiniki temple as described by ancient authors. The innermost zone is that of intimate worship with the most venerated objects, as comparable to the cruder Eleni naos. It is connected to the second zone by a set of stone stairs. The second zone is that of public prayer and sacrifice, and once again linked to the outermost zone by a set of stairs. The outermost zone is that of preparing the body for divine interaction. The steps leading into the temple are flanked by two columns, and the outer walls of the temple surrounded by a single colonnade.


The state of the temple is as follows; the damage by fire and pillage is evident in all places, and in particular the innermost zone, where it is clear that a concerted effort was made to render the space as ruinous as possible. Very little remains to indicate what venerated objects resided here at the time of the temple’s destruction. Some areas of pigmentation are still visible on the floor, which were copied by druwon before being re-covered with earth, so as to avoid unnecessary degradation. Most of the altars were damaged or deliberately destroyed but around one were found offerings. It would seem remarkable indeed that such offerings survived such a catastrophe, and instead C. Lanuc suggests that some worship continued at the ruined temple after its destruction. The water basins of the temple were more intact than had been suspected, mostly being damaged by the progress of time rather than deliberate destruction. This was likely due to the known Saramatish belief in water being sacred.


The offerings found were mostly small sacrifices of vegetable matter, of which very little remained, though it seems that the abal tree which grew so tall and proud over the ruins grew from a seed left as an offering, judging from its relative placement. Some other portable objects were discovered in the excavation. Many sherds were discovered, which offer very little to the imagination and are as ever a near useless mass present at every ancient site. Some coins were discovered, which were detailed by druwon before being taken as treasure. The coinage is much like that discovered elsewhere in Ebon Wicta, an illustration of the profound and far reaching trade connections that the colony possessed. Some coins are of that ancient Belgi standard, coming from eastern Enis Pridyn and Belgika. Others are of the late Foiniki standard, with those of Tartiz mixed with other of their colonies and those natively struck on Wicta. There are more than a few Wenesi coins as well, a coin whose ubiquity in Morika is only superseded by the coins of the Foiniki. A few Eleni drakmai are also among them, mostly those of civilized Oritain.


The temple would have been grand indeed in its heyday, and would have been a shock indeed for the Belgi of nearly Pridyn still in their nascence. Whilst only a few incomplete pieces remain, it is abundantly clear that magnificent mosaics carpeted the floor. Judging the full height of the structure is difficult with the temple in such a state of disrepair but it certainly towered over any contemporary structure of the Pridynish natives. We have already seen how Ebon Wicta’s walls would become a major fixture of the Pridynish imagination, for well justified reasons, and the Temple of Melkart at Wicta entered legend in its own right. The Ekeni druw Esu claimed that the gods would favour the Foiniki over the Pridynish if they did not learn to build equally opulent houses of worship. Esu, and those who agreed with him, helped change the face of the island’s architecture forever with this envious eye they cast over the Foiniki colonists and their sanctuary.


Momentum gathers among the faithful to embark on a reconstructed temple to Melkart on this site, and one sees daily offerings from nearby residents on the ruined site, now that it is clear that this is the site of Melkart’s house on Wicta. Melkart was never entirely forgotten on this island, but his image blended with that of Ogni, who has long since been favoured on this island even above Noda, a far more typical patron of islanders and dwellers of the littoral zones. Indeed, such time has passed that the Wicti, having reacquainted themselves with the Foiniki classics treat Melkart as another protector entirely to Ogni, and are in the process of constituting a new priest for Melkart on the island. The revival, both spiritual and cultural, of true Foiniki wisdom and culture continues apace, and speaks of the greatness that we Moriki have begun to tap into in this age of learning and renewed Olichan piety.

EXTRACT FROM THE YAUNA SATRAPAL DIARY VOLUME 2: ARTAXERXES (441-419 BCE)

The Achaemenid layer of ancient Thebes

On this day in Thebai, Day 3, Month 5, in the 20th year of the reign of King Artaxerxes, the following. One thousand hoplitai and one cavalry squadron sent north under the command of Zanuzamaz of Babylon to Thessalia. Meeting with Akarnanioi delegation on assize strength, size, and immediacy. Seizure of all estates belonging to Xoadeios of Baktria. Assignment of orchards granted to Xenophanes son of Tillorobos, Landros son of Agathaios, Lagetas son of Agathaios, and Phranartes of Media. Permission granted by Daieobazanes and Boiotarkhes Dokimos for Phoinikian foundation of a temple to Bel-Zeus on Kadmeia.​

THE LEXICON OF ASIAN RELIGION (1706 CE)​

BAAL-BUDDA aka BEL-BUDDA, aka BAAL-BUDDO: A syncretic deity of Phoinikia, first appearing in the late Agnemitrid era. The first known epigraphical reference comes from Kyprus, in a liturgical calendar discovered in Old Kition. Baal-Budda fused notions of Buddhist behaviour and enlightenment with Phoinikian ideas of social status and godly behaviour. The centre of the cult in Phoinikia was Sidon, where the cult received official toleration. Acceptance was contentious in many of the other Phoinikian city-states, and never took hold in Africa. Traditional Buddisme avoided depictions of the Budda in human form, and Phoinikians did not usually depict their divinities directly, but both would become influenced by other cultures of the region, and the style of Buddiste forms that emerged out of Aigypt would come to dominate Phoinikian Buddisme, including the cult of Baal-Budda, which used the humanised depictions of Horus-Budda as a baseline. The cult was damaged during the purge of the early Gimi Empire, a purge supported by hardline supporters of traditional Phoinikian practice. However, Buddisme in the region would recover, along with the cult of Baal-Budda, which is mentioned by Bodorus’ survey of Asian Buddisme . In the formalisation of Buddiste schools during the Middle Iranian Empire the cult of Baal-Budda began to fade away, and begins to disappear from surveys of Buddisme in the west, along with many of the histories of older Asian Buddisme. Interest and knowledge of the cult has revived in recent years. A single shrine to Baal-Budda is maintained in the current era, but it is disputed whether this is a continuity of practice or an attempt to re-exotify western Buddisme with versions of more ancient practices.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 4:BAGAHA or THEOI

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104. 'We sacrifice unto Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, .... sleepless, and ever awake;

'Whose long arms, strong with Mithra-strength, encompass what he seizes in the easternmost river and what he beats with the westernmost river, what is by the Sanaka of the Rangha and what is by the boundary of the earth.

105. 'And thou, O Mithra! encompassing all this around, do thou reach it, all over, with thy arms.

'The man without glory, led astray from the right way, grieves in his heart; the man without glory thinks thus in himself: "That careless Mithra does not see all the evil that is done, nor all the lies that are told."

106. 'But I think thus in my heart:

'"Should the evil thoughts of the earthly man be a hundred times worse, they would not rise so high as the good thoughts of the heavenly Mithra;

'"Should the evil words of the earthly man be a hundred times worse, they would not rise so high as the good words of the heavenly Mithra;

'"Should the evil deeds of the earthly man be a hundred times worse, they would not rise so high as the good deeds of the heavenly Mithra;

107. '"Should the heavenly wisdom in the earthly man be a hundred times greater, it would not rise so high as the heavenly wisdom in the heavenly Mithra;

''And thus, should the ears of the earthly man hear a hundred time better, he would not hear so well as the heavenly Mithra, whose ear hears well who has a thousand senses, and sees every man that tells a lie."
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BIBLIOTEKHE HISTORIKE BY MOHANE (29 CE)
THE EXAMPLE OF MAZDAYA​

Compounding all of these foolish mistakes was this last, most notorious sequence of events which would see the end of Mazdaya’s tenure over the district of Akarnania entirely. Having withstood the consequences of his transgression, Mazdaya had now wrongly believed his position among the Akarnanioi to be secure, and his arrogant nature resurfaced.


Stratos remained the seat of Amavadatidai governance in the region. King Vivana did not permit his local governors to move their capitals except with his express permission. Mazdaya misliked the environs of Stratos, and additionally was also still widely despised among its citizens, and even among the Amavadatidai garrison stationed there. He was unable to petition the King to move the capital of the province without revealing the reason he wished to do so, and he had until this point been able to conceal his prior mistakes from the King. Being unable to move from the city he instead built an opulent mansion for himself, his family, and his loyal servants within its environs but outside its areas of dense and ancient inhabitation.


This seemed at first to confirm a change in Mazdaya’s fortunes as governor, the memory of his incompetent earlier deeds began to fade from the minds of the Akarnanioi due to seeing him so infrequently. Likewise, he was able to indulge in his various pleasures in a safe and comfortable mansion of his own design, surrounded by loyal confederates and various friends. However, being a pious man of the traditional Persian ways he found himself dissatisfied with the religious facilities available to him. Magoi were a common sight among the Persians of Hellas by this time, and indeed there were numerous magoi that had Hellenic descent in their own right. But Mazdaya was of a particularly old fashioned obstinacy, and would not countenance a magos who had not been trained in Persia proper. At great expense and length he procured such a magos, who came to live in his mansions. However, the magos, named Atraphernes perceiving correctly that Mazdaya was a pious man, and being displeased at the degeneracy of the governor’s mansions and courtiers, saw the opportunity to extract exorbitant recompenses for his services. His food ration alone was high enough to make an Akhaimenid prince baulk.


It was not long before news of this highly paid magos began to filter outside of Mazdaya’s mansion. On the one hand there were Hellenes in Madaya’s household service, and some holding key positions in the smooth running of Akarnania. They were displeased at the great favours shown to someone they believed to be discourteous and avaricious, magos or not. On the other hand this state of affairs was not usual among the Asians either, and so word swiftly reached the garrison of Stratos. From these two sources the news spread among the citizens of Stratos, and among the Akarnanioi in general. The Akarnanioi had not had the same exposure to the beliefs and practices of the Persians as many other Hellenes had by that time, and so their angry reaction was to some degree rooted in their continued suspicion of Persians and Asians in general. On the other hand, they were also a proud people who still fondly remembered their lengthy resistance against the Akhaimenid kings, and who in general had been maligned and mistreated by Mazdaya during his time as governor.


Amid much turmoil and anger, ten patriotically inclined Akarnanioi embarked on a mission to capture this valued priest, a measure which must be judged as highly ill conceived, for what could they have possibly achieved with such a hostage in their possession beyond swift and angry reprisals from their king? However, upon their successful ambuscade of the priest the Akarnanioi swiftly found themselves amiable towards him due to his gregarious nature and genuinely humble bearing towards Hellenes, rather than what had been reported by members of Madaya’s household. Instead of continuing their original purpose, which was to kidnap and ransom the holy man, they instead entreated with him to contact King Vivana. Misliking Mazdaya and the decadent atmosphere of his household, and recognising the inherently honest character of the Hellenes confronting him, the priest acceded to their request. Now Mazdaya had many other servants and members of his circle who were displeased with him, but all had been unable to contact the King. The royal court had a false sense of Akarnania being in a stable state of affairs because Mazdaya carefully controlled which messages and missives were allowed to leave the province. His critics were paid off, blackmailed, or intimidated into silence.


The priest’s solution to this problem was to disguise his message. The practice of sending water from each Hellenic river to the king had already begun in those days, and it was the turn of Akarnania province to send water from mighty Akheloios to King Vivana. The priest chose a trusted subordinate to be responsible for the ferrying of the water, and had a secret compartment baked into the amphora which was used for the task. Normally Mazdaya would have inspected any person who departed for Thebai but his extreme piety caused him to overlook this task when it came to the water-carrying servant. Thus the servant passed unmolested out of Akarnania, and reached the capital within five days. The priest’s explanation of what had been going on without King Vivana’s approval or knowledge was read out to the king, and although he had never met the priest, and although the priest was born outside the king’s domains, still King Vivana instinctively trusted the word of a magos.


A party was sent out to remove Mazdaya, and to cleanse his cronies from the government of the province. This task proved easy as many provincial officials, and all of the local garrison, either accepted or actively aided in these efforts. Only a small body of Mazdaya’s picked men remained loyal, and hastened to alert him of his coming arrest. So, rather than simply a party of cavalry or royal hoplites confronting Mazdaya, he found himself confronting most forces in Akarnania loyal to the Amavadatidai. Seeing that there was no chance of talking his way out of the situation, nor of holding his ground and engaging in rebellion against the king, Mazdaya fled with his remaining loyalists, and as much treasure as he could get hold of in the short time that was accorded to him. Initially he had planned to flee to the cities of Italia but he was warned that they were friendly to King Vivana, and would likely hand him over in the hopes of a reward. Instead, he and his followers fled to Kyrenaika, where Mazdaya’s gift for creating chaos would continue to be cultivated.


However, before we continue on to Kyrenaika, something should also be said about the aftermath of Mazdaya’s period of mismanagement in Kyrenaika. King Vivana, despairing over the issue of governing this remote but difficult province, appointed the very same priest who had alerted him to Mazdaya’s activities as governor of the region. Atraphernes swiftly put an end to the memory of Mazdaya as governor. He began by repurposing Mazdaya’s gaudy personal mansions as a temple, divided into a house for the god Artemis and a Persian shrine for the god Anahita. This arrangement was already common practice back in Mikra Asia, particularly the capital at Thebai, but for Akarnania this was still a novel concept. However, the gesture of repurposing unjustly garnered wealth for the purpose of worship was understood and appreciated by all. Atraphernes also frequently and commonly interacted with those he was custodian of, and the Akarnanioi were slowly warmed to his presence by his humility and good sense. Thus, despite the fact that Atraphernes only arrived in Hellas at all, never mind Akarnania, because of Mazdaya and his own desires, he swiftly came to be respected as the greatest and most beloved governor the province ever had, and even to this day Atraphernes of Agamtanu is still beloved among the Akarnanioi.

MIHRAG OF STAKHR’S REFLECTIONS (688 CE)
ON ASIAN RELIGION

It can be said that Asia’s uberty of religion is unmatched, a sentiment it is nigh on impossible to deny. The sacred truths of a thousand nations converge and distill, each enriching the other. The tenets of Zarthusht, Bodda, Orfeu, Anshrnad are respected by all, and yet more besides. It must be said, however, that the most important of these prophets and philosophies to the foundation of Asia, not its maintenance nor its vitality but its earliest manifestation that would influence all others, is the text of Zarthusht, and the teachings of his followers, for it is these beliefs that were brought with the Haxamanishi as the first Asian dynasty. From them we derive the first geason of Asia, Art. From their conquest, power, and influence, this knowledge would come down to all the peoples of Asia, from the Saka to the Yona, from Mdraya to Baktri. An equal debt is therefore owed both to the sons of Amavadata, who cultivated Art among the Yona and the furthest shore, and those of Annimitra, who recognised the value of the teachings of Zarthusht, and added to them the wisdom of Hend, which would result in the bringing forward of the teachings of Bodda and the second geason, Dama.


There have been times in which the followers of Bodda and Zarthusht did not co-exist so easily. The patronage which the former received in their earliest installment into the lands of Asia did not rest easily with the mogi, who had come to consider Asia to be spiritually pure under their sole leadership. The first attempt to purge the Boddi under the Yasamasaka is known to all who are a student of history, and so it behooves us to explain why these philosphical schools that are so entwined and equally inseparable from Asian daily life had at first such violent confrontations. It must be said that the mogi of that day, being part of such successful, wise, and spiritually enlightened states had closed themselves to the idea that their practices or ideas could in any way be improved or refined. They had assumed a superior role to the practices of all the subject peoples of Asia, and so not only did the followers of Bodda decline to recognise this position, they actively attempted to convert mogi and followers of Mazd. In particular the Boddi criticised the mogi for not caring of the entry of Asians into palez save the Persians in particular, the followers of Bodda always having a universal goal to enlighten all men and women. For their part, in addition to resenting these seeming upstarts to the settled spiritual order of things, the mogi of the time conflicted with the Boddi drive towards bodily dama, or their nonviolence towards animals of all kinds. In addition, the Boddi held this world to be an impure state that entry into palez was a respite from, which offended the mogi who held many states of earthly matter to be divine. It became a fixation of spiritual experts to attempt to reconcile the two parties, perceiving their continued discord (correctly) as the sole threatening divide at the heart of Asia, and many tried from all across Asia, from Yauna soffi to the deep mystics of Mdraya to wise men from under the old starts of Arabi.


What solved the crisis was twofold; the first was the work of Anshrnad, a man born of Bablu, the heart of civilization, who brought his people’s ancient Gods back into prominence and respect and who propagated the third geason; kuba. In his view, all Gods contained within Asian beliefs should be honoured, or at the very least respected, because he viewed them all as scions of Anshr, the great progenitor from which all matter arose, and to whom the Bodda was seeking to return by palez. All Gods to Anshrnad were manifestations of the burumu, the universe’s own matter, seeking to set humanity on the right path. This philosophy coincided with the second reason that the spiritual conflict subsided, which is that the Boddi had put down deeper roots, integrating into the cultures of Asia and easing the attitudes which had caused some nations to mistrust the Boddi within their borders. The first Boddi to succeed in this regard were those of the Yauna, who unified their teachings with those of the ancient Orfeu, a source of great wisdom that had remained unrecognised in the tales and scrolls of Asia’s most distant corner, and it is from the spread of Yauna Boddi back into Asia that Orfeu’s greatest teaching became the fourth great geason of Asia; hpono. From these times Asia learned that even the most obscure and distant nations of its fellowship added to its great wholeness.

TELEO or AKUNAVAM: END OF CHAPTER 4​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 4:BAGAHA or THEOI
EPILOGOS

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The interview begins now.​

It seems the world has left me one more surprise, right at the end. How curious, your appearance is so particular and unmistakable yet I cannot command the words to describe it, nor this space that we now inhabit. Yet I can still recall the myriad wonders of the world I have experienced, indeed the recollections are sharper than ever in my mind; the smell of spices on the wind, the softness of black fertile soil crumbled between the fingers, the thunder of the charging cavalry of Taras, the colours of the lilies of Aigyptos, the chorus of human joy raised at a homecoming hero. There were many times that I wished nothing more than to move across the lands and seas of the world, spending an entire lifetime experiencing and documenting the wonders that seep from the living Ge like rich honey.


But I am, was, also a Hellene. Brought up by Hellenes, speaking the tongue of Hellenes, attuned to the society of Hellenes, pulled by ties to the Hellenes. I could not simply ignore their desire for liberation, for justice. I completed my account of the world in Dikaia, in the company of the new Athenai, and dedicated it to them and all Hellenes. To articulating how Hellenes understood their state of affairs, to making all humankind understand their need for freedom. But I am not a creature only of the Hellenes, and I must confess to you that there were times when being a Hellene felt like a great weight, a limitation on my vision and ambition and conception. What a terrible thing to feel and think, about the people who raised you, cared for you, worried for your behalf, and acted on behalf of your interests in matters of policy. And yet that is the plain truth. I looked to the world of the Akhaimenidai and the horizons seemed to stretch so much farther, the wisdom seemed deeper and more refined, the human wealth limitlessly abundant. So my work grew to be more than advocating for the Hellenes, I could not contain my desire to educate the Hellenes about the world that had begun to overlap with their own, that their fate was now inextricably bound with. I wanted the Parsai to understand the Hellenes, but I also wanted the Hellenes to understand the Parsai, whether to aid the cause of liberation or living a whole and fulsome life within the sight of the Persian king.


As I grew famed among the Italiotes things began to change in my heart. I spent so much time among so many communities of my fellow countrymen, many of them exiled from their homelands, telling them stories of the past, and of the world beyond their own, and I grew to realise that from the Hellenes I had gained my ability to understand the hidden, the local, the history of small places. The desire to understand others as I intimately understood Hellenes had always been a driving force in my seemingly endless quest to understand all peoples and places of the world, and yet it took so long to realise it, and to credit it to its proper source; my upbringing among my own people. Yet at the same time I grew to acknowledge something else; it was from the Parsai that I first acquired a vision of a world far greater than Halikarnassos, far greater even than all the thousand poleis of the Hellenes. I had cause, a duty in fact, to be grateful to both. And I was. Yet I could not vocally do so with my compatriots in Italia, the fierce hatred of those who had subjugated Hellas was still too strong and too instinctual to countenance any belief that Xerxes, the Parsai, Asians in general, had any real value, had any purpose except to be expelled from rightful homelands of the Hellenes. They could only see the Parsai as the enemy, and I realised that I had never seen them as an enemy at all.


My commitment to actual combat in the service of the Hellenes, therefore, I must say, was one that arose from selfish and all too arbitrary decisions as much as any genuine pretension to nobility. It was Perikles, son of Xanthippos, of all Hellenes, who turned out to understand my position. By that time he had come to embody everything about the mission to recapture our homelands, the entire community of willing Italiotes was his to command, yet of all people he understood what it was to lack hatred, to be unable to truly conceive of a foreign people as an enemy. I was able to enter into frank conversation with him as I could do with no other. His curiosity was almost the match of mine but his was focused towards strategy, planning, and building towards a future, not towards understanding the rest of the world. Nonetheless I came to consider him a good friend. When he came to plan his expedition to Krete, to strike the first real blow against Xerxes in decades, it was this friendship with him that led me towards agreeing to his suggestion that I take part, though I was also anxious to make up for what I continued to feel was a lack of conviction in my actions and beliefs. It was his idea, not mine, to have Herodotos the son of Lyxes be made a general of the expedition, and I could not resist for all the Italiotes, who had developed warm feelings towards myself and my stories (and who had a vastly overblown sense of my martial upbringing in Halikarnassos) insisted upon me doing such a thing.


I realise that I am launching into an entire new Historia with you just now, my apologies for taking your time, but it really is how my mind processes thoughts, and how my speech renders the thoughts. Yet I find I am feeling… different. I do not feel such guilt at being a creature of both Hellas and Persia, is that wrong? No, no it is not, I find that thought comes easily to me now, and loudly. No. It is not wrong to belong to two different peoples, to be born into two different worlds and to move between them, let alone to find your own path. What was my own path, in the end? Discovery, discovery of all that I could see, touch, smell, and listen to. Discovery of the world. Ge is vast, and beautiful, and filled with endless wonder, and I do not regret that I spent so much time exploring her riches. I was right to choose the path that had always summoned me. It was not a diversion, an interesting way of avoiding true causes and real commitment, it was a real cause, it was a real commitment. Hellenes must know about the world, Persians must know about the world, humans must know about the world. For their protection, to expand their wisdom, but most of all to honour the gift into which we are all born. I am Herodotos, son of Lyxes, born of Halikarnassos, and I only regret that I did not see more of that gift before my time was completed. I hope that my work may in some way inspire others to complete what it was that I set out to. Whether ruled by themselves, or ruled by others, the true liberation of the Hellenes lies out there, and not within. Now I am in here, and something tells me that more lies beyond this place, and I am ready for my next journey. Thank you for listening to my Historia.

The interview is over.

 

[Daeres]

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​

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​

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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

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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.​

THE BOOK OF DAYS
EXTRACT FROM THE LAY OF LARITH LARITHSAL
SEHTRA VELCHNAS AGAINST THE HEVETI

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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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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.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA

IMPORTANT LIVES BY D. MAGMARIO mp SAMODA (965 CE)
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Leukerix, son of Cunorix, was leader of the Arverni, reigning between 860-880 AC, and the most famous king of the Second Arverni confederacy. He is chiefly famous for leading an enormous campaign that defeated the Rasna Empire completely, leading to its collapse, and initiating the birth of Celtic involvement in the affairs of the Mediterranean. His conquest nearly beggared the Arverni, and their perceived weakness immediately lead to the Sequani-Arverni war that followed the capture of Veii in 869 AC. His legacy is properly regarded as mixed, yet nonetheless there is not a single inhabitant of Juropa that can afford to remain ignorant of his existence and his deeds. Leukerix is commonly claimed as Hellenic, a spurious claim relying on misinterpretation of various statements and the example of other, somewhat dubious, claims to Hellenic ancestry by others among the Arverni and nearby peoples.

A PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE SENULOGIA OF MAQRI BY ANBAL HSH (1784 CE)
INTRODUCTION​

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The archipelago of Maqri has often been outside the historical record, cultivating unique cultures in the meantime. Much of its early history is preserved only in very ancient stories, written by peoples from far away lands who were not particularly intimate with the area. But, by the grace of the Lord of Maqri, we have discovered many surprising things in this past season of excavation, many of which promise to significantly alter our understanding of the earliest history of the archipelago. The oldest settlements provided much evidence of prior inhabitation of Maqri, and also the relationship between these original settlers and the Maziqe of ‘Friga proper. It was, however, in the earliest complex inhabitation that we had the most surprising discoveries; in addition to the expected inscriptions of Qanani, which were numerous across all urban foundations of this period of colonisation, we also found plentifold examples of Eleniqi inscriptions, and somesuch inscriptions were bilingual. They also raise questions as to the etymology of Maqri, for the Eleniqe inscriptions refer to the colony as Makaron Nesoi, meaning The Blessed Isles, and this would by all accounts by a plausible source for the present name of the island. This was indeed the source of some consternation to some of the Maqriy who became exposed to this information, for it was their firm belief that their descent was almost exclusively from the Qanane and the later Maziqe. However, my colleague Malqar Emen made a new and thorough survey of the oral histories of the archipelago, and on the island of Tirogat’ra he found that there are in fact tales of unusual descent among the population of the island, and we discovered yet more objects with Eleniqi inscriptions belonged to families of Tirogat’ra as heirlooms or precious relics. It can be safely said that the archipelago entirely lacked in violence during this period of colonisation, as absolutely no weaponry has been discovered of any kind, nor evidence of any kind of damage to buildings resulting from human activity until the coming of the Maziqe many centuries later. Thus we found, without in any way biasing our findings with expectation, yet another evidence of successful Eleniqe and Qanane congress during this time. We also found evidence of shipbuilding on the island during the later stages of this period, mostly evidenced on ceramics and votive images, and we took advantage of the presence of Ben Tamaya in our party to consult his people’s expertise on the matter of great ships constructed with simple techniques. It was his firm opinion that the ships so depicted were ocean-capable vessels, comparable to the old waka of his ancestors, and he wondered at where the ancient Maqriy might have travelled to. A fair question indeed, and one that we could not satisfactorily answer.​

LANDS OF THE HELLENES BY MOIRICHOS OF KORKYRA (577 CE)
SKYTHIA
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For some time tales had been coming to the Hellenes of strange barbarians in the north who spoke like Hellenes, and spoke of Hellas, but who fought on horseback and lived on the open steppe. No Hellene who ventured into Sarmatia ever encountered such a thing, though many a brave adventurer went north to find the legendary Lost Hellenes, and not all of them came back. But one day, long after this had been judged to be the work of tall tales and wicked storytellers, in the reign of Panhellen Perseus II Nikator, there came a strange visitor to the court. He was dressed in the manner of the Sarmatians at first glance, but some of his garb seemed to have a more civilized style to it. This was written off as high quality Asian work that had made its way somewhere into Sarmatia. The visitor spoke in the language of the Sarmatians, and claimed to be an ambassador from a king among the Sarmatians. He brought a brace of wonderful horses as a gift for the Panhellen, and he was granted entrance to the presence of the Panhellen. When he was brought before Panhellen Perseus, however, the stranger produced another gift; bolts of fine silk with the finest quality dyes. And that was not all. When inspected, it was found that the silk had Hellenic characters upon it. Then the stranger began to speak another language, which was immediately recognised by men from Euvoia as a kind of Ionian Hellenic, strange to many but once a common tongue in the lands of Hellas.


This was marvelled at by the assembled men of court, and Panhellen Perseus asked the man his name and his heritage with great curiosity and interest. He named himself as Samagoras, son of Samagoras, and servant of Basileus Sanagos of West Khorasmia. He gave the story of West Khorasmia in full. When the Persians had given the lands of Kimmeria over to the Sindes, a part of the citizens of the poleis of the region had quit their cities to avoid the rule of the king of Persia, and were unable to make their way back to Hellas since all of that was also under the rule of Persia. So, with heavy hearts, they founded their own city of Neapolis, further north, and there entered into congress with the Sarmatians and the Honno. There they made precious objects for the nomad kings, and hired themselves out as skilled warriors, but this eventually led to disaster for Neapolis as they were targeted by some of the peoples they defeated, it being understood that they were limited in terms of the territory that they controlled. This led to a further migration south-eastwards, towards the border of Khorasmia. The King of Khorasmia conducted an alliance with the Kimmerians, and allowed them to found a new city, named Khora. This the Kimmerians fortified immensely, and had never fallen to an enemy. By this time they had begun to learn how to fight in a similar style to the other nomads of the region, whilst combining that with the traditional Hellenic style. However, despite all the time that had passed, and despite being cut off from Hellas completely, they had not forgotten a single part of their history nor their Hellenic identity. Now King Sanagos of West Khorasmia and his ally King Thraitonos of Khorasmia were under threat from the depredations of the Sarmatians, and had heard that the Hellenes were no longer under the rule of the Persians, and so now Sanagos asked his brother Hellenes for help in the fight. To this, Panhellen Perseus acquiesced immediately, and so began his first campaign into Skythia.​

RECORDS OF THE NORTHERN REGIONS BY KUANG FANG (443 CE)
THE DOUYI

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Then, third among the barbarians who invaded the North, we have the Douyi. They were first recorded as dwelling to the west of the Yuezhi at the time of Emperor Wen, and being under the command of the Ibe. Upon the collapse of the Ibe they steadily drifted to the east, taking part in the destruction of the western Yuezhi, and also the civil war among the Northern Xiongnu. They sent tribute to the Emperor Wu, and took part in his vanquishing of the Southern Xiongnu, but after the end of the Han dynasty the north-western frontier was neglected, and grew sufficient in boldness to take part in the invasion of the Nine Barbarians. The Douyi claim to be the originators of the Elephant formation, and they are indeed masters of this form of warfare. Their soldiers are expected to be able to run two hundred and forty li in a single day, including in battle formation, and even their women are expected to be able to run one hundred and twenty li. They are a people apart from the others of the Nine Barbarians. They tell of their homeland, La, which was captured by a dynasty they call the Qima, who burned their cities to the ground and sent their ancestors far away to be of military service, a thousand years ago. This is not a thing that any other barbarian speaks about, nor are these tales any of the barbarians are familiar with except as stories that the Douyi tell. The way they speak of the Qima sounds instead like a spirit or divinity that once they worshipped and do so no longer in their present state.

Their ruler is called the Anaku, and he may only be selected from a very small number of familial lines, lines claimed to be kept pure since they were cast out of La. The other barbarians tell stories that, once upon a time, the Douyi were known as ‘the nude ones’ for their women would openly train their bodies in the nude. The Northern Xiongnu once attempted to take advantage of this to try to carry off the women of the Douyi, but their women were trained as warriors and fought off their attackers with great ferocity. The barbarians tell this tale to mock the Xiongnu and Douyi both. If this was ever a practice that the Douyi maintained, it is not one that they practice any longer. The Douyi are made of the Four Nations, the Yaku, the Koru, the Lani and the Betu. The Yaku once dominated the others, in the days of Emperor Wu it was understood that the Yaku were the royal clan, but things are since different. The current ruler among the Douyi is Dou Yong, who is of the Koru. They practice the ways of the Buddha, and prefer to speak the tongue of the Sak, though they also have another language that only their priests and monks can speak, a secret language they will not share with outsiders. They are impetuous and fearless, except in the matter of spirituality, where they are renowned as among the most pious among all barbarians. Some among them say that they were cast out of La for violating a sacred oath, and that ever since they have never broken a godly oath they have sworn, either individually or as a nation. They are part of the Western Yan, having been given the city of Ye to rule over and its surrounding region. They may speak like the Sak and fight like the barbarians but they have become amenable to Chinese dress and behaviour, and are counted as one of the more civilized among those who rule over the North. They are counted among those of the Nine Barbarians with whom the Emperor can maintain diplomatic relations.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA

PERSEPOLIS ARCHIVAL TABLET (c.430 BCE)

50 bar of rice set aside for seed. At Liduma. 4th Year.

ANCIENT AGRICULTURE BY C. PERICLES TANTINU (1384 CE)
RICE
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In the time of King Mithradates a royal assessment of Hellas’ agriculture was conducted; as the Amavadatids were principally confined to the bounds and resources contained within Hellas, they wanted to maximise their utility. Within this assessment is contained the first clear reference to the growing of rice in Hellas, though the report suggests that the cultivation of rice had been going on for some time. Its introduction to Hellas is by lai-source associated with King Vivana, which would account for the industry’s already-mature status as of the time of King Mithradates. The report locates the entirety of Hellas’ rice production within Makedon, and in particular the lowlands immediately around the Gulf of Therma. Aloros, Berroia, Ikhnai, Mieza, Sindos, and Therma are all named as rice producing poleis. In total the report estimates that rice fields took up 210,500 plethron in space, and produced 360,000 artaba of rice each year. Despite the Amavadatids being known as the Garden Kings in our time it is clear they had not entirely adapted to rice cultivation in Hellas, given the low tunnage-per-akra this would indicate. As for the matter of Makedon, it is not coincidental that this land begins to appear more frequently in the writings of Hellenes at this time; the production of rice required substantial agricultural infrastructure, pushing Makedon’s residents towards cities and settled industry, increasing the wealth and potency of Hellas’ ancient twin along with reducing the Hellenic notion of Makedon being a land of barbarians.
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EXTRACT FROM MELANAS' PERSIKA (144 BCE)
APPROACH TO AMIDA

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It was then that Melanas first saw it, the Shaded Road. As the Royal Road descended to the flat lands of Inner Asia, he saw banyans from afar all along the Road’s progress, like a forest that only grew on pavement, interrupted only by cities along the Road’s route, and only if the Road passed through the city in question. It seemingly stretched for the entirety of the Royal Road as it passed through Kordyene into Assyria, and beyond. Nothing like it had even been attempted anywhere else in the world. As he grew closer, Melanas saw how this marvellous achievement had been wrought; artificial platforms, of a kind similar to columns, had been erected alongside the road, and the banyans induced to grow from these vantage points, spreading over centuries to create the Shaded Road. The shelter from the heat of midday was extremely welcome. He progressed to the farsang of Zukni, the last before the city of Amide, where he was welcomed at the rest station. His hosts could not agree as to who had first planted the Banyans- some said Dareios, the Akhaimenid, had created the Shaded Road, others said that it was Agnimitre the Conqueror, and others still said that it was the work of King Admirani, father of the current Great King Gela. Regardless of their disagreements, all of those stationed at Zukni were deeply proud and reverential towards the Shaded Road, and showed Melanas a shrine that they kept for the Ilanim, the daimones of the Shaded Road. Melanas spoke to them of the dryades and they approved most heartily. They provisioned him with generous quantities of kande, and it was with a glad heart that Melanas took to the Road again, this time destined to enter the city of Amide.
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THE MAKETHONIKA (c.980 CE)
NIKOTHARMA DECLARES WAR
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King Nikotharma sailed to Krete, whereupon he meditated underneath the Banyan for ten days and ten nights, eating only rice bread and drinking only water. Through his piety and wisdom he received knowledge of what should be done, and sailed back to Makethonia immediately, avoiding all Hellenic attempts to capture his vessel. He found his people eager for his judgement, and so he gave it to them in the city of Nirvane, the capital of the realm.

“A terrible ignorance and malignancy has come over the Hellenarkh, all sense of justice has fled, all proper forethought deserted him, and a false notion of piety instead inflames egregious and warmongering against Makedon, and against those of us who understand the wisdom of the Bodda’s teachings. It is our task, our duty to preserve peace, to promote the lifting of ignorance, and this cannot be accomplished if we do not defend ourselves against this unprovoked, aggressive action aimed at ending the teachings of the Bodda in Hellas, perhaps even the end of Makethon itself. We must defend ourselves against those that we have loyally served, lest far greater harm come over the Hellenes by our inaction. We must test our faith in battle against the Hellenarkh, people of Makedon.”

And King Nikotharma assembled twenty thousand cavalry, and sixty thousand infantry, and went to war against the Hellenarkh.​

EXTRACT FROM ALARIC LARSUN’S GERMANIKA (1690 CE)
THE GOTI OF THE EAST

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The Eastern Goti, having passed through harsh mountains and deserts beyond count, now found themselves in lands beyond compare. Rich soils, vast green forests, luscious fruits (many of which the Goti had never encountered before), and that was only the natural wealth of the landscape. They found themselves in a country of ancient cities, its treasures bloated from tax revenue. From the descriptions of the lands we should conclude that the Goti were now in the lands of Gandara. Foremost, we have the mention of the Baktrigs, who I am confident in identifying as Baktrians. Second, we have the mention of the city of Oabarg, which would seem to be ancient Baktres, described as it is as being an oasis city with high circuit walls, surrounded by rich farmland and an additional outer wall protecting against the desert, this description matching not only that of ancient Baktres but the modern city that has overgrown it. Thirdly, the saga of the Goti mentions the amre fruit growing in these lands, and Gandara is the northernmost that amre will grow without extensive intervention, though the amre was illustrated in the art of many surrounding civilizations..

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The Eastern Goti found themselves arriving in Gandara at an extremely opportune time. Baguma Ric, as the the Goti called him, was the King of Gandara that time, and things were still recovering from the collapse of Imerian authority over the region. The Tokharian basin had been lost. Numerous military settlers in the basin and nearby had been driven off, or had rebelled, or had simply departed the area. Despite the saga’s repeated compliments towards the Baktrigisk cavalry, who by all accounts were renowned across Asia for their skill, it was clear that Gandara was facing a dangerous time. It had been the movement of the Hon which had pushed the Skythians to invade Inner Asia, and the Sarmatians into Juropa, and now the Hon were on the threshold of invading Gandara. The arrival of several thousand warriors, foreign and uncivilized though they must have seemed, was an extremely welcome development. The Goti thought they rather got the better of the resulting deal, where they were given farmsteads, and in turn served the King of Gandara, given that war was something that came naturally to them. However, I rather think that Baguma Ric would have thought that he had gotten the better part of the deal- an opportunity to demonstrate his ability to control the situation, by turning a possible set of raiders into valuable soldiers, along with shoring up his military assets, in return for the thing that he had no shortage of- fertile land in need of population.​

The saga is principally concerned, from here until its end, with the various adventures of the Goti under the command of Baguma Ric, and the intricate politics of the Goti as they settled in Gandara. But the surviving portions of the saga only narrate the next generation’s worth of history of the Eastern Goti before the record then breaks. To further track the history of the Eastern Goti we must now turn back to Uropa, and in particular to Sindunbarg, and wait some forty years. Contact between West and East was re-established sometime in the reign of Basileus Wilhilm I, who we have met earlier. We begin to find references in the burgeoning literature of Gothika to a land inhabited by Goti called Amraland. These not only suggest that the Eastern Goti had continued to survive, but were now actively seeking contact with their homeland, having not exactly left much indication of their eventual whereabouts in their anabasis across Skythia and northern Asia. We also see in these references the first indication of the role the Eastern Goti now had, that of escorting caravans on the Silk Road. This is confirmed by the corroborating reports of other nations on the Silk Road, in the following decades. Thus the Eastern Goti, in the end, also joined in the settled affairs of Asia, much as their western brethren had, but at opposite sides of the world, and with vastly different aims. The Western Goti, we saw, strove to create an ambitious and expansionist Empire the equal of the now-collapsed Hellenic Koinon, whereas the Eastern Goti made themselves indispensable to the ever-strengthening links between Uropa, Asia, and Han. We await with great anticipation the identification of their sites of settlement, for through Eastern Goti eyes we would be witnesses to one of the most intense periods of human history ever recorded.​

EXTRACT FROM CULINARY ARTS BY ANSHAR-APLA (98 BCE)
A FEAST OF KING GELA
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The following was sent before King Gela and his guests: ice-chilled wine from Carthage, Parsa; spiced wine from Sur, Armina; raisin wine from Sidon; saffron and honey cordial; fried trevally with dried lime; fried angelfish with black peppercorn batter; roasted bream with rose, cumin, black peppercorns; roasted goose with honey-roasted carrot; roasted chicken with yoghurt and cumin; turned pork with sour cherry; roasted ox stuffed with nuts, capers, and whole limes; roasted beef with mango; boiled pork with apple; roasted pork with milk; roasted ox; roasted chicken with Indian spice; fried beef with cinnamon; turned pork with star anise; turned duck with black peppercorns and roasted figs; lamb and cucumber pie with cinnamon; fried cabbage with pomegranate; rice with saffron and turmeric; rice with ghee; cucumber and mint yoghurt; sesame and garlic dip; baked cucumbers with onion, ghee, and black peppercorns; salted lentil porridge; barley soup; aromatic rice; syrup soaked lentil sweets; cake in ghee with almond paste; cinnamon cake with honey and apricot; pistachio cake with cardamom; sour cherry cake; rose pie; candied lime; candied capers; candied figs; roast figs with honey and sweet cream; confection marvels (including a replica of the palace of Amida in edible candy); honey candies; fruits of all nations.​

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[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA

EXTRACT FROM DATIS OF SINOPE’S HISTORIA (96 BCE)
THE HELLENES AND KROKOS​

And so in the period of greatest division between Western and Eastern Hellenes we find that the use of krokos became a strong marker of affiliation. Krokos, to the old Hellenic mind, was a kind of aphrodisiac and a perfume associated with courtesans, and were invariably suspicious of krokos as used to dye fabrics, to flavour food, and indeed in almost any use whatsoever. This was considered one of the most bizarre prejudices of the Hellenes by the rest of Asia, and indeed it seems bizarre, both in its own right and compared to the far more civilized mindset of the Hellenes of our own time. The Persians, along with the rest of Asia, by contrast, were happy to enjoy the luxury and benefits of the krokos. Those Hellenes who became accustomed to, or indeed welcomed, the coming of the Great King would often signal their wealth and status with high quality krokos robes, and would emulate the Persians by consuming krokos-flavoured rice. By contrast the city of Dikaia made the use of such krokos a crime punishable by the loss of political power among their society, and banned the import of high quality krokos from Kolkhis. Kimon, famed anti-Persian, frequently accused the wives of the Great King of bathing in krokos water in order to seduce as many men as they could, counted as one of his many slurs against the Great King and the Persians. But in Hellas, as well as being considered an enjoyable addition to food and a vibrant pigment, krokos came to be considered a sign of healing and of medicine. The cultists of Asklepios, in particular those following the philosophy of Hippokrates, began to wear robes of krokos-yellow. Their reputation was too strong, their skill too great, for this to be censured in Italia and among the rest of the Western Hellenes. Sure enough we find that the acceptance of krokos also comes with the earliest reconciliation of the Hellenes, and it is thus fitting that the Italiote emissaries that aligned with Amavadata chose to wear krokos robes, signalling respect to their new ally and an end to their unfounded, barbarian prejudices.

EXTRACT FROM THE SECRET HISTORY BY ALITHAGUR OF ISH (c.650 CE)
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE AKHAMANIDI INVASION OF HILLAS

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The received, rote-learned, tired old ‘wisdom’ on the Parsian conquest of Hillas is of course that the Athinians and Spartans earned the wrath of Dareeus the Great by their treatment of his ambassadors, and partaking in the revolt of Yunia. There is, of course, no reason why someone of such powers and majesty as the King of Asia would have needed to pay attention to anyone as lowly as the Hillenes of that time and place, and let alone would invest over a million men in its taking at the time of Xirxes, particularly when the lands of Hillas had so little to offer to the great and the good. Instead, the truth behind the Parsian invasion was clearly because the country, at that time, in its primitive purity, was uncorrupted by spice. No spice is known to have been used in those times in Hillas, as everyone was too poor to have been able to afford it. As ones under the heady sway of spice Dareeus, and his son Xirxes, saw an opportunity, saw a chance to introduce the temptation of spice to new lands, indeed a new continent. This was the true power that the Akhaminidis sought after and recognised, the subordination of humans to pepper, to cinnamon, to cloves. It is from this time that the flow of cinnamon, master of befuddlement and licentious vice, became a torrent, with Hillas now directly connected to the heart of the vice lying in Hindush. It is said that a thousand tonnes was imported into Hillas every year, and that the closer to Parsian power you got in Hillas, the redder the food became. It is perhaps a temptation to be grateful, thus, to the vice of spice, for then we can perhaps recognise the bringing of the Parsians to Hillas, and the boon of this to civilization, but we question the very notion of civilization so founded upon vice. The body as temple is violated by these substances that promote the worst instincts of a working, thinking, active mind. And from the Akhaminidis’ end even worse was to come, with the coming of sugar, and star anise. One scarcely marvels at the caked, vice-ridden horror that the world arises to in the present age, from the time of the Parsians the rise of spice in the lands of the west has been inexorable, and along with it the encouragement of almost all vices capable of corrupting body and soul, even those most deadly.

OIKOMAKHIA BY KOIRANOS OF ISSA (394 BCE)
DEFENCE OF KINNAMOMON​

To all those who would quote the well-respected Hipppokrates of Kos in the matter of kinnamomon. In the considered opinion of Koiranos, Hippokrates of Kos was a fuddy-duddy, insufficiently travelled, and a killjoy. For those of us who experience cruel winters we cannot talk of an excess of heat, in the depths of snows and bitter winds there is no such things. With this in mind, kinnamomon over-consumption must be entirely re-reckoned for those who dwell in Illyria, the colder parts of Italia, or in Sindika to the east, that is to say if one agrees with the distinguished practioner of Kos that kinnamomon consumption is that dangerous to the general health of the public at large. Perhaps, in the heart of the Akhaimenid domain, where reams of every luxury litter the landscape the way trees do elsewhere, perhaps there overconsumption is possible, but we are not the sensuous luxury-devourers of Persia and its royal court, we are Hellenes in wish of warm food to come home to, and to enjoy with our close comrades. Permit us, please, to inject a little pleasure in life, to generously coat a lovely leg of lamb in kinnamomon, to stir it into our strengthening stews in broths, to inject excellence into our cakes. Is this so much to ask?

Speaking of the matter of cakes, Koiranos recommends that you take water and flour, mix into a dough, and then fry the mixture until it is golden in all quarters. Coat the cake in honey, then sprinkle kinnamomon and a little thyme. Some prefer to just add the thyme rather than the kinnamomon. This is a cake of Issa, best eaten with friends near to a warm fire.

HOW TO EAT LIKE A GOTHIK BASILEUS (401 CE)
THE KLOROPEMA​

Take first milk and wheat flour. The cakes can be made with water rather than milk, but milk will create a better mixture. As with all things, the finer the flour the better the result. Mix into a dough, folding in sugar throughout the process. Now take the mixture and shape it into several bullets of dough, it is a great temptation to make bigger sizes but this will inevitably lead to an uneven finish, and probably a raw centre to the cake. Place the bullets in hot oil, and fry them until they achieve a rich colour on all sides. Warm an apricot and honey sauce with the freshest apricots you can get your hands on, rendering the apricots down and creating a consistency that is able to be dribbled but not entirely liquid. Coat the cooked cakes in the sauce on all sides, there are many who only coat the upper half but it creates an inferior product. Crush and pound together thyme, cinnamon, and cardamom. Roll the cakes in this fragrant mixture. Serve with hot spiced wine for best effect.

SETTLED AFFAIRS BY ANSHADAT (731 CE)
ARIBYLI CAKE​

There is no cake that I see so commonly misprepared as the Aribyli, and as Mihr is my witness I have seen many prepared better by common street vendors than those in the high courts. Follow this recipe, demonstrate your virtue by putting high quality food into people’s mouths, and you will earn the respect of proper society. You will be as expensive as lapis dust. The most important note is that the earliest preparation should be done the day before the cakes are needed. Make most preparations the day before they are needed! Take water, sugar, fine white flour, eggs, a little salt, and cinnamon. Mix this all together, and then add butter. Create an elastic dough. Place the dough in a metal container, cover the container in a linen cloth, and then leave to rise until the dough has now doubled in size. Now take the cloth off, and place the container and dough in a cool location. Do not immediately use the dough for cooking! Be patient! The next day, cut the dough into equal sizes, this should be sufficient to create twenty portions. Do not try to reduce the number to create larger cakes! Roll the pieces of dough so that they are round and smooth! Do not be lazy! Heat oil, any oil can be used so long as it is good quality oil, ghee can be used also but the cakes will go a different colour, and you may find it difficult to judge if they are cooked. Now begin to place the uncooked cakes in the oil, when it has become hot. Do not pierce the cakes! This will create ugly, deflated cakes! Only place as many cakes in the oil as the size of the pan will allow! Do not be over-eager and greedy to cook too many at once! Once one side has become golden and nicely fried, immediately turn over the cake and allow the other side to fry in the same manner. Immediately! Now take out the cakes, and allow them to dry, do not allow people to eat greasy Aribyli cakes. Now when you are learning to make Aribyli cakes, it is best to start with the traditional coating. Take honey of a liquid consistency and coat the Aribyli cakes on the top, preferably when still warm. Do not coat the entire cake! This will make it impossible to adequately handle whilst eating! Take cinnamon, thyme, sugar, a little salt, and roll the cake in the mixture. For best presentation it is good to place a nice rose flower on top of the cake. This will produce for you, and those who consume your food, perfect Aribyli cakes every time you make them. When you have become proficient at doing so, you can consider different toppings, or the addition of rose cream, but these are trivial accoutrements compared to the core recipe. Practice!

IDONIA BY ADBAL BEN ASHREAMEN (1740 CE)​

What other land could entice the seabound Canaanite
Half as well as you, Idonia,
With your tall, strong trees in their great green forests,
Your pungent spices, your milky white ivory,
Your waters like rippling agate,
Your golden beaches guarded by strong, fierce warriors,
You drew them from their safe harbours in lands far away
For none could resist your pull, your allure,
Not when they had caught your scent or gazed upon you,
Idonia.
​

A POPULAR HISTORY OF MORIKA BY GELO SYRAKOSEUS (1659 CE)
THE WESTERN SPICE TRADE

​

Imagine it. In the space of a century these seas, which had been travelled, lived in, and home to some small amount of local trade, but had otherwise seen nothing remarkable, were suddenly transformed into a single great avenue of precious things. Tin from Pride could reasonably expect to end up at the mouth of the Orin river, and Idonian pepper in the halls of warlords across Pride. Indeed, the only great rival to Isipania’s great rush of silver in terms of profits was the spice of Idonia, and many of these are the familiar spices of Morikan cuisine down to this day; Idonian pepper, kwa pepper, Idonian mosca, smooth pepper. Here we find the origin of Poit Cuisine (with, of course, the exception of mustard). These trading missions were the first time that any people originating from the Mediterranean had encountered what we would now recognise as a rainforest, and the fruit of Idonia was the source of many a fabulous report. Whilst spice was the most valued thing to come from Idonia, its colourful and intense fruit were what caught the imagination. A new connective artery between maritime Europa and the tropical south had now been firmly established. A king of Morika who could not afford kwa pepper with his salmon was considered a king of very low status indeed. This westernmost of trade routes soon intensified further; the appeal of tropical fruit gained a great hold across these societies now hearing tales of their great variety and piquancy. However, there was no way to bring many of these fruits to the people who were so interested in them, salt not being an ideal preservative for such things. This changed with the spread of sugar cultivation into the Mediterranean, and the associated spread of candying processes. This became the method by which the sour apple and lotus apple were first distributed into maritime Europa. The destruction of the African outposts in Pride did not, in fact, deter this trade route, so profitable as it was. The natives of Pride now directly connected with Morika Celtica, and in general the peoples of Morika were beginning to take more of a direct hand in this previously African affair. This also led the Idonian peoples of the coast to take a more active interest in controlling their own trade and their own waters, and they had already dealt with the expansion of Mazica traders across the desert between Africa and Idonia, they knew that peoples and cultures existed to their far north, and they became anxious as to what these peoples would do if the Idonians remained passive onlookers to these (to them) foreigners increasing congress and travails around their coast. Starting from the *5th century CE, Idonians began to enter into the ancient world centered around the Mediterranean as active participants. One can now talk of a single trade ecosystem spreading between Idonia and Thina.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA

​

THE SEEDS OF HISTORY BY UPALI (c.120 BCE)
AGNIMITRA​

We turn now to this man, Agnimitra, King of Awanti, Conqueror of the Kamboja, Conqueror of the west and eastern seas, King of Kings, Lord of the Four Corners. A conqueror without limits, a man without fear, a king with no equal. He was the first man of Bharata’s lands who turned his eye, his hand, westward, towards the Kambojas, to Parasika, and further west still, to Parada, to Yona. His name continues to strike fear and respect in the lands of the westerners, as it will do for all the cycles of the world, the blood of Bharata’s children is now forever associated with majesty across the known world. Why did he do these things? Why did he conceive of, let alone embark upon, such an extraordinary, not to mention challenging, expedition? None had done so before, the thoughts and actions of this man Agnimitra require explanation through their uniqueness.

Those of the west believed that they had planted the germ of this idea by the attack of the Parasika and Kambojas upon the frontier of the Sindhu that had occurred some twenty years before Agnimitra’s accession to power, either in the understanding that cosmic retribution was being enacted for their misdeeds or in the understanding that this drew the attention of men of Bharata’s realm to the activities and kingdoms of the far west for the first time. But this was not the first time that the Kambojas or Parasika had conducted such attacks, many such attempts had been made by the time of this man, Agnimitra, and this attack was not particularly different from those that had previously occurred, Kurusha and his sons had professed dominion over the Sindhu for some time previously. Neither was this the first time that the west had been known to the lands of Bharata, as a homeland for would-be conquerors and peoples clamouring for spice it was of no additional prominence than it had been for the last two thousand years. This notion regarding the invasion of the Parasika and Kambojas is entirely insufficient, inadequate, to explain anything about why this expedition occurred. If such a thing was the case why did no other king lead a similar expedition westwards? Why was the expedition not launched by Indramitra, the father of Agnimitra? This particular man, in this particular time and place, launched this particular expedition, not a host of kings, and none who were king at the time that the attacks were taking place.

We cannot look to the great Chanakya alone either as the germ of this extraordinary idea, as others have done; firstly, even such a capable and renowned advisor as he would not have been capable of such severe alteration of a man of Kshatriya rank as to render someone who had never considered such an extraordinary expedition into somebody who would indeed consider such deeds; secondly, he would have chosen the court of Agnimitra because of things in the character of Agnimitra, such a man as Chanakya had such gifts and intelligence that, despite his young age, he would have been able to go to whichever state would accept his aid, therefore he must have picked upon Awanti and its king Agnimitra for existing characteristics and strengths of Agnimitra. Can we perhaps say that it was the character of the father of Agnimitra, Indramitra, that was the seed of all that would come afterwards? We cannot agree with this tempting assertion, for we do not find that Indramitra had traits that would have been passed on to his son that would have encouraged such ambitions, nor had he traits that would have encouraged their opposites. Indramitra was not a Buddhist or a Jain, he was a devotee of Rudra in particular, so he was not of a school that specifically and particularly advocated nonviolence. Nor was he a Lokayati and obsessed with the expansion of material interests. Nor was he bloodthirsty or hungry for war in his time as the king of his state, he prosecuted whichever wars were expedient and just and primarily in the direct defence of his kingdom. He was not a man who sought to conquer all in sight but was prevented by circumstance, he warred as he wished and to his discretion. He was open-minded but not someone who could be simply persuaded of any new idea or pressing thought that was pushed into his path just like that. He was a good king to his people.

There is no evidenced human factor that can explain the western expedition of Agnimitra, so we must instead realise that the direction to this path came directly from Indra to the mind of Agnimitra. We can cite a multitude of direct evidence for this inescapable conclusion. The extraordinary and unique quality of the thought, the idea to conquer the far west, had never occurred to anyone before and has not in a serious manner entered into the mind of anyone dwelling in the lands of Bharata since that time. In addition, the success of such extraordinary action, not only conquering these lands but the orderly succession of the sons of Agnimitra to his new titles, demonstrates the divine will behind these actions. We can also cite other, recorded examples where Indra has come to kings and rulers in order to motivate them in order to pursue some extraordinary action no human would conceive; the coming of Indra to Devadramila, for example, or the western legends of Indra coming to Kurusha, a famous king among those people. It is the most logical solution to the vexed question of why Agnimitra did these things. Even Buddhist scholars agree with this conclusion, for the spread of their teachings through the sons and daughters of Agnimitra was all accomplished as a result of Agnimitra’s conquests, and thus they see that this drastic course of action was fated and desired by the Gods.

A LETTER OF BASILEUS DEINARKHOS TO BOULAGORAS OF AKRAGAS (27 CE)
ON EUSTROPHOS​

​

It is my experience, dear brother, that one can never underestimate the potency that a single strong-willed and gifted man possesses. On the one hand there is the founder of the Kingdom of Syrakousai to whom we are indebted, Gelon, whose deeds I need not remind you of, and whose dynasty is the forebear of our own. On the other hand there is Pythagoras, founder of that school which stalks Italia. In a way perhaps the Pythagoreans are a closer relative to ours than we would care to readily admit. The legacies that both men left behind, king and philosopher, have waxed and waned, and yet both still remain. We have endured Karkhedon, the Tyrsenoi, the Italiotes, all attempts to subvert our lands by foreign invaders no matter how close they came. The Pythagoreans have endured two waves of purges of their followers and friends that in both cases reduced them to quiescence for decades afterwards. And indeed, have they not attempted to gain control of poleis as would-be-kings by strength of arms? Those of a more cunning and indomitable bent have succeeded in writing lawcodes, ruling over poleis, even contributed to the constitution of the Italiote League. I say to you that there is a Pythagorean Kingdom in rivalry to our own, brother, in much the same way as the Italiote League once was and the Tyrsenoi now are. In the unsettled times ahead we must not underestimate the legacy of Pythagoras. We must not underestimate any great men who rise above the throng, for a man need not conquer land to sow the seeds of a mighty kingdom. A man need not wear a diadem or be sworn as magistrate to assemble an army. Cultivate them, tame them, or destroy them, but do not ignore men of this kind, brother. So I say to you that you must either court this man Eustrophos of whom you told me, or you must execute him.

THE FOUNDATION OF EUROPA BY C. BANUNA BESSA BOTTAL (1585 CE)
THE LEGACY OF RASNA
​

When Tyrsenia proper was, at last, breached by the Aouerni and their formidable battalions, it was over. The mighty oak that had grown to such heights was now being felled. The Rasnatic Empire, which had risen from obscurity to titan of Middle Europa, was to be no more. And yet, in the moment of destruction, seeds of the mother oak were to fall to earth, germinate, and sprout. The title of Mechlar was adopted, indeed fought over, by the Keltoi, with the kings of the Aouerni in particularly claiming the somewhat tautological title of Meklar Rix. The Aouerni in particular had already adopted many technologies and tactics employed by the Rasnatic armies, not to mention the fact that Ollorix, son of Leukerix the Conqueror, employed surviving battalions of Rasna to preserve his kingdom in the wars with the Sekani. The administration of the Rasna was utterly destroyed through most of Hesperia, but the shape of the world that would emerge was determined as much by the features of the Rasna as the Keltoi that had conquered them. In addition, there were prominent exceptions to this otherwise total destruction of civilized life in the former Rasnatic Empire. Kapua, the southern capital of the Rasna, was not prepared to fall without a fight, eschewing the fatalism of many of their northern compatriots, and it was prepared to take the hand of old foes in order to survive; the alliance between the resurgent Italiote League and Kapua was uneasy, given Kapua’s key role in the occupation of Italia by the Rasna, but these allies of convenience proved a bulwark that finally halted the unstoppable progress of the Keltoi down Hesperia. In the end, this was the moment that forever shifted Kapua into the Hellenic world, though their Rasna heritage has never been forgotten. Nonetheless, all of her subsequent strength she inherited from her Rasnatic forebears. In addition to Kapua, two other branches of the Rasna remained free of invasion at this time, and like Kapua they defied the destruction around them, determined to seize mastery of their fate. We are of course referring to the islands Korse and Sardo. These islands, which for so long had been the secondary breadbaskets of the Rasna, were an ideal refuge for fleeing Rasna or their subjects. In addition to their agricultural wealth and isolation they possessed harbours, hard timbers, military colonists, and hardy mountaineers. These bastions were ideally placed to launch a counterattack against the Keltoi, given sufficient preparation. However the disastrous civil war, that deadly feud which enabled the Aouerni and Sekani to launch their campaign in the first place, never ended in Korse and Sardo. So many things could, and should, have brought these islands together for mutual benefit in these times, but it was not to be. Thus Korse and Sardo were to remain at odds throughout the Keltoi occupation of Hesperia. Both states survived despite their conflicts, these skirmishes and wars between one another did not interfere with their survival, but these pointless wars did distract their men and ships from any notion of common enterprise, and indeed wasted both in fruitless wars that always resulted in stalemate. The greatness which came to both islands subsequently could and perhaps should have been achieved earlier. Nonetheless, they succeeded in preserving a measure of the Rasnatic Empire, and never lost sight of their origins. When we speak of Europa, we speak of a land made in the image of the Rasna, warlords who never even encountered the Rasnatic Empire remade themselves in the image of these fallen titans, called themselves after some variation of Lauxum, built cities, claimed the favour of Tinia and Uni. The most important seed of the Rasna was that of civilization itself, which spread across all of Middle Europa, and even further beyond, just as the Hellenes had first introduced civilization to the Rasna.

RESISTANCE BY BRIGANZIA ENI-ARMORIG (537 CE)
THE EXAMPLE OF THE HELLENES

​

It seems to me, albeit as a humble outsider who has no relation to the Hellenes or their culture, that without the invasion of the Persians their western colonies and kingdoms would not have achieved such heights as they did. Without the influx of Hellenes into Syrakousai, albeit driven by the existing power of the greatest city of the Hellenic world, could Syrakousai have pushed the Qartadastim out of Sikelia altogether? I would wager not. Given the latter strength of that mighty nation, before its sundering, I would have said that eventually the Hellenes would have been conquered by the might of Qarthadast, or at best held the Qartadastim at bay in an uneasy stalemate that slowly ground down Hellenic sovereignty over their colonies on the island. Perhaps they would have had to subject themselves to dominion of another great power in their desperation to fend off their ancient rivals. We can express similar statements over the power of Massalia, which conquered and settled western Liguria, along with fortifying their borders and planting military colonies all across their territory. Their sea power was always strong, but this is not a good way of guarding a continental interior from a multitude of foes. Their wider territorial claims were only possible because of the influx of fellow Hellenes into the city, allowing for occupation of the surrounding territories, and this greater power also gave them a stronger hand in dealing with their immediate neighbours. I see no reason to doubt that Massalia too would have either been overcome by its neighbours or would have resorted to bending the knee to another in order to remain sovereign in some fashion.

And what of Italia? When the great exodos came from over the sea, in their multitudes, the cities of Italia were potent but divided, narrowly treading the line between opulence and decadence. The Hellenic refugees renewed and repurposed the Italiotes; without the refugees from Athenai there would have been no Megathenai, without Megathenai who would have brought the Italiotes together? In the time of Empedokles and Perikles the Italiotes were still regularly threatened by many of the other peoples of Hesperia, and it is likely that one among those primitive peoples would have eventually emerged supreme, with the Italiotes presenting a desirable and divided target for conquest. Without its increased population and strength would Syrakousai ever have founded Issa, and would Issa have had the strength to expand as it did into Illyria? Without Xerxes and his conquest of Hellas there would have been no such influx, no such conquests, no such bulwarks against various other peoples. What would have become of the Hellenes? At the time of Darieos and Xerxes they were a people on the cusp of greatness but short of achieving it. I wager that they would have contented themselves to their same insular squabbling, their small vision of the world. Indeed, it is not just their western colonies that were affected by Xerxes, he expanded the horizons of all Hellenes, making them party to and part of a far larger world. The same will be true for Amorika in these troubled times, no matter the forces ranged against us we will ultimately emerge stronger and more powerful than ever before. We are heir to the martial tradition of the Keltui, and draw our refinement and civilization from multiple sources to create a distilled and cohesive whole. We will overcome the Ettelingi and be the stronger for it.

INSPIRATION BY DUBA BEN ASHREAMEN
EXTRAORDINARY IDEAS
​

Not all ideas are the seeds of great things, but we know of many extraordinary people who had an idea unique to themselves, and who then did extraordinary deeds. If the idea comes from the outside in, was it one inherently fated to be successful, given the huge numbers of unsuccessful ideas people have? If the idea comes from within, what is it that tells people that their idea is a good one, since this instinct applies equally to extraordinary deeds and failures? Are these people made of different stuff, or are they and history’s big failures made of the same kind? Can we even conclude that all extraordinary, successful ideas are of the same kind? Take ‘Alika, the man who took the West Qanani from their homeland of ‘Awakim to the Whale Coast. Was his idea, was his fundamental being, of the same kind as Ashtazira who first sailed the ocean between Idonia and the lands of the Emerald Forest? Or of Bida, who first contacted the West Qanani by navigating around the Emerald Forest? Was it the same kind as Bobal of Tinjha’s abortive attempt to reach India? Are these ideas and these people, concerned as they are with discovery of new lands, from the same source as ideas concerning politics and warfare? Was ‘Alika a man of the same firmament and design as Ajhnimitr of India?

My instinct is to say no, these different ideas are not from the same source, these men are not of the same design. The unique quality of these ideas is derived from the unique quality of the person that generates them. For a start, how many have an extraordinary idea but never act upon it? Part of the uniqueness of the extraordinary individual is the commitment to achieving the idea in a practical way in any fashion whatsoever. Then again, there are those ideas that only a particular person could have generated, and I would rather believe the human body and mind to be an active creator rather than a passive producer, specifically that the act of thought can and will produce unique and particular thoughts. In other words, I do not believe the idea was born with us, I believe the idea is born by us. Rather than coming from a stream, where all the ideas swim around until fished out, ideas are forged from raw materials. Thus ‘Alika created the idea, and the execution, of the migration across the western Ocean to the Whale Coast. Bobal was likewise responsible for his idea, its execution, and ultimately its failure. His idea was not predetermined or fated to result in death and disaster, this was caused specifically by his lack of forethought and his decisions on the journey. We are not destined to failure, we create failure by making poor decisions, or executing actions in an ineffective manner. We are not passive receptacles of divine inspiration, we honour our divine creators by the creations of our own, along with choosing to do the right thing.
​

TELEO or AKUNAVAM: END OF CHAPTER 5

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 5: SPOROS or CIHYA
EPILOGOS

​

The interview begins now.

All of us ultimately originate from something, somewhere. I wonder what you come from, and where? I doubt you will answer me on these matters, and I wouldn’t compel you, even if it were in my power to do so. Well, you did say this was an interview, so I shall talk about mine instead, if that’s alright with you. If I were to be simple about it, I would say that I was Artavazda the son of Pharnaka, from the land of Parsa. But what is Parsa, where do we come from? There are stories a-plenty to answer such queries, hundreds of them I should expect. The stories that a high-born boy of Parsa can expect to hear from his parents and minders, the genealogies repeated as rote and drone by magi, academics and wise men in courtly settings, the long tales told by tribesmen around the fire at night. I’ve often felt that all of these sorts of stories, comforting though they are, lacked a certain something. A ring of truth, you might say. Truth and trustworthiness are a watchword of my people, and I have always valued the specific and reliable truth most of all. The older I got, the more questions I wanted to answer. You might laugh at this but it was actually my time spent amount the Yauna that amplified this instinct I already possessed. I spent a long time dealing with them, when you stop to think about it. At first I was a young man fighting them in battle, then I was an old man ruling over them in the name of the king. I spent more time in Yauna, in the end, than in Parsa, all things considered.
​

They were so very different from us. Divided, poor, narrow-minded, crude at times, prone to extremes of emotion. I thought of them as barbarians for quite some time, and I’m still not sure that I was wrong. But after getting to know them as intimately as I have done, I began to wonder; are they really so different to us? A certain strain of bravery, a desire for knowledge, a hunger for new horizons, an understanding of the beauty and power of horses (even though so little of the Yauna lands are suitable for horse-rearing), a genuine piety masked by their taste for the gaudy. And then there was the matter of language. All tongues come from the first man and the first woman, that is for certain. But not all modes of speech are equally similar to one another. The speech of Baktrish is nearly the same as my own, the speech of Babilu or Mudraya not at all. And I began to notice certain correspondences between certain Yauna words and words spoken in Parsa, and not in words that could be explained as learned borrowings from our own speech but commonly used ones that, so far as I could tell, had been spoken in Yauna for many centuries. Would that make Yauna and Parsa distant cousins, highly estranged brothers?​

Rather than excite me, this troubled me. In particular, it troubled me because of what I did to Sparta. When I razed the capital of the Spartans to the ground, displaced the people of that land, was I destroying a culture, a people, that were cousins to my own? Would the hundred-times grandfather of myself and the Spartan king once have sat at the same table? And then again, it is a cruel thing to destroy a people, to kill them, destroy their places, chase them from their sanctuaries, put them to flight, sweep the memory of them from the land. The notion of doing something like that was far easier when I considered the Spartans, Yauna in general, to be barbarians, and to have no relationship to myself, to Parsa, except as subjects. The Spartans were a vicious people to my eyes, and I don’t feel differently about that now than I did all those years ago, but the truth is that it was still a cruel action, and it was cruel regardless of whether the Yauna and Parsa are of a kin to one another. It just makes the conclusion harder to escape, harder to bear.​

When governing, when you are responsible for thousands of lives, there is not any time to think about these things. And yet I did. I suspect that the strain hastened the end. I could not turn away, could not turn off that instinct to understand the interconnection of things, their origins, and the moral conclusions that resulted. But it also made me curious, and once the fire of youth dimmed within me I found myself begrudgingly curious about peoples beside my own, including the Yauna, who I had once considered almost beneath the notice of Parsa altogether except as a source of troublemakers. I do not consider that to have been a waste of time. I do regret that it took me that long to apply a desire for truth to the rest of the world. To those with great purpose, those who seek to make peace on this earth, or even those who simply seek to control the world, the other peoples of the world beyond their own may seem like a hindrance, or cattle, but with all that I have experienced I reject that entirely. We all have shared origins, and we can also share our destinations too. The history that brings the Yauna and Parsa closer than they are to many other peoples, that knowledge remains unknown to me. But it is a mystery worth unraveling, and a tale worth telling. I hope that someone uncovers the answer to these questions some day. I would hope that would lead to both cultures valuing the other, not only as brothers but in their own right. Parsa has much to learn from Perikles, and Hellas much to learn from Xsharyarsha. One day, I hope, they will be ready to understand this, to really acknowledge what it means for all humankind to come from the same origins.​

​

The interview is over.​

​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA

ATHENIAN LAW
ATHENIAN LAW UNDER THE AKHAIMENIDS​

The settlement between Athens and King Xerxes that ended Athens’ part in the Persian Conquest was, in legal matters, a light touch. No measures were taken to remove or restrict demokratic governance of the city, or to reinstall some form of tyrannos over the city, and very little alterations to Athens’ laws were put in place, though alterations did occur. The main impact came from Persian oversight over the Athenian institutions of state, including its judicial matters. The Persian Arkhon was installed as the tenth member of the Athenian Arkhontes at this time, serving as the Persian King’s eyes and ears, but this was only the most visible intrusion into Athenian decision making. Over time, Persian soft influence would shape Athenian lawmaking and judicial practice into the more familiar form that would persist throughout the ancient era.​

The Law of the King and the Law of Athenai
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When King Xerxes accepted the surrender of Athens (480 BCE) it was in the sure knowledge that the rest of Hellas was to follow. He would have had very little interest in spending a long time formulating its governance, or on having to mind over the city afterwards. Therefore the package of laws that the King imposed on the city was relatively minimal. The state of Athens was prohibited from carrying out warfare against other Hellenes under the protection of King Xerxes, and it was required to hang over any traitors against the King within the city directly to the Persian garrison at Peiraieus, or to other sanctioned agents of the King. However, these laws were not without their difficulties for Athens. The law referring to the cessation of hostilities against other Persian-aligned Hellenes did not distinguish between the entire body of Athenian citizens and those specifically and particularly resident in Athens proper. In other words, were the Athenian citizens who had gone into exile in Italia to make war upon one of the King’s subjects Athens proper would be punished for it. The already fraught atmosphere between the ‘Exiles’ and the ‘Medizers’ became even more charged. Athens had no means to control the actions of their former citizens. When the Exiles merged with other Italiotes to form the polis of Dikaia (479 BCE), it was not clear whether those non-Athenian citizens of Dikaia would be counted as Athenians for the purposes of Xerxes’ laws, thus adding to Athens’ sense of being left at the mercy of their former comrades. Nor were the Exiles content to live a quiet life, they played an immediate and active role in affairs in Italia. Every time the Exiles declared war Athens held its breath.

Their worst fears would, in fact, come to pass with the expedition of Perikles and Herodotos to Krete against King Xerxes(450-444 BCE). The measures to isolate Athens from the expedition’s impact were swift, the moment news of the expedition reached the city vast swathes of the Exiles were declared atimia, and Athenian citizens were banned from joining the Italiote expedition under pain of atimia or worse. Whether King Xerxes considered these matters sufficient penance, whether he decided that his law did not actually apply in this situation, whether he decided mercy was the better course of action, many authors over many centuries have speculated. What can be said for sure is that Athens was not punished for the Kretan Expedition, and the city breathed a collective sigh of relief. This was taken as precedent that the King would not automatically take actions of Dikaia as implicating Athens, and thus that Athens as referred to in Xerxes’ laws solely referred to the citizens of Athens and Attika. Some of the venom between Athens and Dikaia ebbed away as a result of this legal interpretation. However, Athens experienced anxiety of a different kind when the Persian Phardates cut down two of the Athenians’ sacred olive trees (442 BCE). The lightness of Xerxes’ settlement had also left a void; it was not established whether servants of the Persian King could be subject to Athens’ laws. On many other matters it had been simple to overlook Persians breaking the law, but Phardates’ actions were impossible to ignore. The King Arkhon was bound to arrange a trial for Phardates, and at this point all eyes turned to the Persian Arkhon, at this time one Arsames. Arsames took the extraordinary step of allowing the trial to go ahead, and the Areiopagos then convicted Phardates of the crime he was obviously guilty of. This established the precedent that servants of the Persian King were, at the very least, subject to the sacred law of Athens, though this was not to be tested often.

Some kind of a legal framework had been established, then, by the time of King Kyros III(419-397 BCE). Athens had safely charted a course of safety between multiple threats, avoiding the example of Sparta or of Amphissa. Though many other worrisome incidents would occur under the Akhaimenids the legal spheres of Athens, the King, and their interaction had been successfully advanced, and perhaps more importantly was successfully maintained.​

The Eyes of the King
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The Persian Arkhon was perhaps, after the Persian garrison and their fortress, the most well known facet of Persian rule over Athens to outsiders. His was a most confusing role, at times; depending on the King’s level of interest in Hellas, or even the strength of the satrap in Hellas, he was either reporting primarily to the satrap or to the King personally. What was clear was his overall purpose; to monitor the arkhontes specifically and Athens generally for signs of insurrection, to act as a stabilising hand on a sometimes emotional demokratic polis, to keep an important naval asset to the King in prime condition to render that duty. For Athens the Persian Arkhon was second only to the satrap and the King in prominence but, for the Persian regime in Hellas, he was merely one of dozens of similar observers across the major poleis. There is thus a tendency for Athenian sources to vastly overstate his actual importance in the overall Persian regime. The sources only obliquely reference the fact that he rarely involved himself in matters of Athenian law. That task was primarily given over to the royal observers that monitored the Athenian lawcourts. These observers were to be found both in trials conducted by the Areiopagos and the wider Helaia.

Now, the aforementioned assent to the trial of Phardates by the Persian Arkhon Arsames was a major influence on the course of Athenian law, but despite this rare and important exception we must be clear in stating that these judicial observers were to have far more impact on Athenian legal practice than the Persian arkhon. Almost by accident they constructed a body of judicial precedent in Athenian law, which they did simply by the act of recording legal verdicts and assessing the reasons they deemed most likely for the result. The records of Mithradates in particular are a judicial resource to the present day, covering several major trials between 425-399 BCE. Indeed, Mithradates was himself to have a direct impact on Athenian justice; during the trial of one Kleon(418 BCE) the issue of slave testimony arose. Now it had been Athenian practice up to this point that slaves could only testify under torture. This repulsive practice was one that only rarely arose, but on this occasion it became apparent that this slave was indeed going to be tortured. Mithradates could not, and would not, stomach this torture actually being carried out, and took the extraordinary step of declaring himself the slave’s synegeros, daring the court to engage in his torture. This stretched Athenian legal procedure to breaking point, but it was also an intervention that at least somewhat attempted to use Athenian conceptions of justice. The trial was temporarily halted, itself extraordinary in a system where trials usually only lasted for a single day, often for only a few hours. The end result was that Mithradates, when the trial resumed the next day, was allowed to give the slave’s testimony, and of course the subject of torture was not even raised. This had the effect of destroying the credibility of the law requiring slaves to be tortured in order to give testimony, which was removed two years after the trial of Kleon.

This was only the most extraordinary incident whereby Persian judicial observers impacted on Athenian cases directly. As well as destroying the law requiring slave torture, they also resulted in the general lengthening of most trials for public crimes, encouraged a greater emphasis on evidence-based conclusions, and clamped down on the use of a trial to make claims for unrelated misdeeds and crimes. The Persians retained a reputation in Athens for honesty, but the reason that their observers made such an impact was out of the fear of what the satrap or, most particularly, the Persian king would do if they found the Athenian justice system wanting. Nonetheless, many of these changes were viewed positively, though few of them were liked by all Athenians, and exactly which of these reforms a given Athenian liked was often determined by their social status.

The Matter of Exiles​

The legal issue that caused the most problems for Athens throughout the Akhaimenid period was the matter of the Exiles in Italia. We have already seen how, at first, the actions of the Exiles seemed to hold Athens hostage, and then how in dire emergency the Athenians were prepared to entirely amputate their former comrades from the citizen body. This was not the only time that the Exiles would cause the Athenians problems. Even years after the Persian War was over there was a steady drip of disaffected Athenians that would head to Dikaia for pastures new, or to make their fortune. Was the Athenian state entitled to seize the properties of the existing Exiles, or those who left to join them? The answer was, at first, inconsistent. The Athenian state did seize the property of some of the Exiles, usually those with the most wealth or who were most prominent among the Exiles’ leadership. But that of many others was left alone, perhaps in the hope that many of the Athenians would come back. Despite all the trouble that their fellow citizens were causing at this time the Athenians did want the Exiles to come home. Some of them did after only a few years. The case brought by Thersidamos, a returnee, against those who had seized his property succeeded, seemingly establishing that the Athenian seizure of Exile land would be overturned in some fashion (453 BCE). The Periklean Expedition to Krete changed that overnight, alongside the mass declarations of atimia the Athenians also seized almost all of the remaining Exile property in Attika. Communication between the two communities was non-existent in this time.

However, by the time of King Kyros III many of the original grievances between the two communities had become irrelevant, and there were reasons to approach the matter of reconciliation. Dikaia had become one of the most important poleis in the Hellenic world, but its citizens desired access to those ancient festivals and rites, and though they had become mighty indeed they still sought some kind of recognition, approval even, from the metropolis. They might have had the Dikaian Dionysia, but they wanted to regain access to the Athenian Dionysia. Athens, for its part, still mourned the loss of so many of its best to far away lands, and even as it remained a key naval asset to the Persians it still operated at reduced power compared to its prime. An amnesty was sought by the Exiles, and a return of their citizen rights, and the wounds of the past had sufficiently healed that the Athenians agreed to this in 398 BCE. The Akhaimenid monarchs of this time were relatively disinterested in the affairs of Hellenes, giving the satrap somewhat of a free hand to determine strategic matters for Hellas. The satraps of Kyros III’s time, and those that came afterwards, decided that a reconciliation between the Hellenes of West and East was desirable, and made a policy of encouraging this. This meant that there was no Persian interference with the Dikaia-Athens amnesty at all, indeed there was subtle encouragement. This was to have major repercussions in the time of Amavadatos as satrap, as he used the renewed connection between Athens and Dikaia as justification for his expedition to Italia in 350 BCE, which was the immediate precursor to his revolt against the Persian King the following year.

Athens as Judicial Capital​

We have seen various objections raised and alterations made by the Persians to Athenian justice. However, by the reign of King Ariabignes(397-341 BCE) it can be said that Athenian lawcourts had a high reputation in Hellas, both with fellow Hellenes and with the Persian administration. The fact that Kleisthenes’s reforms had not been overturned, that Athens remained a demokratic polis, gave an impression that the Persians had allowed the natural development of Athens to continue, and that Athens retained genuine freedom of speech. The Areiopagos in particular had a high judicial reputation. Throughout the early Akhaimenid period the Boule and the Areiopagos had competed for control over Athenian executive powers, each quietly blaming the other for the loss of the Persian War. By the reign of King Kyros III, however, the Persian administration had come to favour the Areiopagos, and this favour only increased as the Areiopagos became more respected for its judicial insight and impartiality. This then led Satrap Amavadatos to make Athens the centre of the satrapal judiciary in 354 BCE, directly integrating Athens into the upper level of satrapal administration for the first time. The Areopagos was now able to be called upon to judge cases arising from all different parts of Hellas, particularly when the Persians wished to give an impression that a truly just verdict had been reached. This decision can clearly been seen as a precursor to Amavadatos’ declaration of independence from the Akhaimenids, and directly tied the Athenians into the Amavadatid project. We can summarise Athenian justice in the Akhaimenid period by talking of fear and caution, but the tail end of Akhaimenid rule also showed what was to come afterwards; a return to self confidence, a notion that Athens was not simply a naval base to be kept under thumb but a trusted and favoured ally of their overlord.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
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.

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THE PERSIANS BY ALEKTHARMA (942 CE)

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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.

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THE FORTUNES OF HELLAS BY DAIPHANDIS OF SIRAKUSE (856 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 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)​

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]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA

THE LAWS OF NATIONS C. BRANON mp SAIMTA (1545 CE)
THE CAULDRON OF HESPERIA​

The three Italiote Leagues each left an indelible mark upon Hesperia, and none more so than in the matter of laws between poleis and between nations. It had not been standard practice among the Hellenes to consider such matters particularly important, with the general attitude being that every state was in an undeclared war with all others at all times. But the realities of life in Italia meant that this viewpoint was not sustainable, and with the foundation of the First Italiote League such things became a pressing issue. After the signing of the Peace of Aiskhylos with Qarthadast the League’s signatories decided the time had come to regulate affairs between poleis, so that the newly won peace would not be harmed by the proven tendency of Hellenes to squabble. They established the sacrosanct nature of ambassadors, learning well from the example of Sparta what happened to transgressors in that regard, they established that one poleis would not demolish or depopulate another as in the manner that Sybaris once had been, they established that matters of war would be subject to arbitration by a neutral member of the Italiote League.

Now it was not too long until Syrakousai withdrew from the First Italiote League, upon the installation of the new Pantarestid dynasty in that kingdom, but it nonetheless continued to respect these newly established laws, at least while the League continued to exist, and indeed avoided warfare of all kinds with fellow Hellenes through this period. Issues arose, however, after the breakup of the League, whereby the Italiotes were divided between Syrakousai, Kapue, and the Amavadatidai. Syrakousai no longer respected these established rules of the Italiote constitution, demonstrating a willingness to depopulate those cities it had gained hegemony over and to treat the Hellenes under the command of the Amavadatidai as though they were barbarians in the Italian Wars between the two powers. This is part of what ensured the collapse of Syrakousai’s control over Italia, and the creation of the Second Italiote League, for resentment grew so great that no armed force could hold the Italiote cities successfully, and once Megathenai was liberated the League immediately reformed itself.

The reinvigorated League resettled those poleis that Syrakousai had disturbed or depopulated as much as it proved possible, and for the first time guaranteed the integrity and territory of the League’s member states, effectively formalising their locations and borders permanently. The Second League, upon completing its refoundation, found that Hesperia was much changed from the time of the First League. Rather than a bewildering collection of kingdoms, poleis, tribes, and petty fiefdoms, Hesperia was now dominated by two large Leagues; the Tinian League of the Tyrsenoi and the Italiote League itself. It was clear that regulating affairs between the Tyrsenoi and the Hellenes was now as much a matter of diplomacy as warfare, with the First Zephyrian War resulting in a bloody stalemate. The Epizephyrian Treaty extended formal diplomatic and legal rights between the two powers of Hesperia, establishing the same inviolacy of ambassadors as between the Hellenic poleis, establishing the recognition of each League and its sovereignty, and creating a basic framework for the protection of prisoners, along with methods for their ransom or release.

This did not prevent further warfare between the Hellenes and Tyrsenoi, that was left to the Generation’s Peace signed at the end of the Second Zephyrian War. This established a total peace between the two Leagues, and a formal process for preventing further outbreaks of hostilities. The peace, it must be said, was better respected by the Tyrsenoi than the Italiotes; the Italiotes were able to conduct their conquest of Sikelia without any interference from the Tyrsenoi, whereas the collapse of the First Golden Generation’s rule in the Tinian League immediately resulted in the Kapuan War, a full invasion of Kampania by the Italiotes and their battalions. The Second Golden Generation, after repelling this invasion, did not conduct a reciprocal march on Italia. Instead, using merely the threat of their military response, they argued that the Italiotes had violated a sacred treaty, and demanded that there be compensation for these misdeeds. Not only did the Hellenes withdraw from all territories they had captured, Neapolis was awarded to the control of Kapue, without fighting additional battles or besieging the city at all. The Tyrsenoi, far from weakened, now seemed stronger than ever. This, and the desire for peace, prevailed upon the Italiotes to leave their northern neighbours undisturbed, whilst the Tyrsenoi themselves now considered the depredations of Keltoi on their northern frontier far more threatening than any threat the Hellenes might pose.

This led to the Golden Age of Hesperia, a peace lasting unbroken from the Ceding of Kapue to the rise of the Third Golden Generation’s control over the Tinians. Disputes continued to arise between the Tyrsenoi and the Italiotes, as they are wont to do between neighbours with great strength and plentiful interests, but these disputes were handled by negotiation alone. Thus these two powers both together advanced the Hellenic legacy of civilization, creating between them an international order of reason and rationality. This came to a shattering end when the throne of Tyrsena was captured by the Third Golden Generation, who sensed that the end was near for the Tinian League and the Empire of the Tyrsenoi. They believed that the only way to prevent this was to expand their control over Hesperia (and further afield) as much as possible, amassing men, horses, gold, land without end. So it was that Ati clan Rasna led his infamous campaign against Italia, breaking the joint peace, and committing many atrocities against the Hellenes in an attempt to break their will. So it was that the monstrosity of these deeds caused the Gods to send Leukerix against the Tinians. Such is the divine law that ultimately underpins the laws of nations. The Third Italiote League, reconstituting itself, no longer had a need for discourse with the north, as the Aouerni and Sekani were too barbaric and disorganised to engage in anything resembling regulated diplomacy. Instead they cultivated foreign allies and held the line against the Keltoi. But this network of friendship that they created, at first with Kapue, then with Utika, then with Korse and Sardinia, that is where the thread of civilized behaviour between different peoples was preserved, and where our laws of nations still in use today descend from, backed not by the threat of arms but by the law of the Gods.

A RESPONSE TO THE ANCIENT ASSERTIONS OF C.BRANON mp SAIMTA BY BRIGYA mp TOLOMBA (1551 CE)

​

It is one thing to wish to seem cultivated in matters of arkhaioteria. By all means, refer to Varvarines as Keltoi, Kaba as Kapue, or Aohni as Aouerni. There is a certain patter in scholarly matters that one finds hard to resist, and there is every reason to wish to blend in our refined society, to have people pay attention to your thoughts and not your dialect. All to the good. It is entirely another to put down the achievement of your own ancestors so as to be judged a good, civilized Varvari, praising instead (and exclusively) the lofty deeds of the Illenes, who of course have never wanted for praise or sympathy in the writings of humankind. When good printing material is spent on the subject of the culmination of international affairs in Hasbairdha is it so much to ask that the author commits himself to being more than an Illenophile with more enthusiasm than sense? Apparently this is too much for C. Branon, and in case any have had the misfortune of taking his volume for instruction it is time to demonstrate the fundamental cracks in his artifice.

Let us consider the author’s total silence on the matter of the Perseid state. Though not greatly long-lived the kingdom of Perseus had an immense impact on northern Hasbairdha’s matters of international law. The Kingdom itself was formed by a formal, signed, treaty of alliance between its constituent members and the person of Perseus himself. These constituents were of many different peoples, including the elder part of the Varvari stock, who had already dwelt in northern Hasbairdha for some time. For many of these peoples it was the first time any had been tied to a formal, sovereign document, or to any kind of recognised sovereignty at all. The foresame kingdom also engaged in formal relationships with its neighbours, not only the nascent Tinian Empire but also with others called Keltoi by the Illenes. Some of these exact same treaties, establishing borders, trading rights, the penalties for breaking hospitality, were used by the Tinians as their way of gaining control over these districts when they began to expand eastwards along the Bodha river. The Tinians might have taken the land by the rule of spear but they governed them by the rule of law, laws that were already in place.

This then flows straight into the next key development the author ignores completely, which is the matter of the Maghail treaties between the Tinians and the Varvari peoples that they variously allied with, resettled, hired as warbands, and conquered. In many cases formal title was given, under the divine authority of Uni, both with regard to the existence of various peoples as distinct from others and to their entitlement to various segments of land. The relationship between Tinians and Varvari, from the Empire’s beginning to its end, was never simply that of conquered and conqueror, let alone that between even ‘barbarians’ against a cultivated power, but of particular groups in constant negotiation with the authority they saw as overlord, paymaster, guarantor, or at times holy sovereign. All of this constitutes a formal, legal process of equal development to that between the Tinians and Illenes, and of far greater complexity.

Though far be it from me to suggest rushing to the defence of the vaunted Illenes, we nonetheless find that the author does not even correctly praise those he hails to the many heavens. The Illenes, whom he credits as having no legal framework between their city-states whatsoever, were apparently themselves simply attacking whomever they liked, whenever they liked, with no repercussions, until the coming of Parcleih to Hasbairdha. A cursory, let alone critical, reading of Herodotos alone would furnish the skilled scholar with knowledge of regulated affairs; they would see, for example, the detailed description of the Delphic Alliance which protected the sacrosanct temple at Delphi from harm, and which also protected the members of the Alliance from one another, as the terms of the treaty specified that members could not destroy or depopulate one another’s cities, or cut those cities off from water supplies even at a time of war; they would also see the institution of proxenia, whereby a formally recognised citizen of one city would represent the affairs of another, and host the formal ambassadors of that represented city. They would find the establishment of Leagues between cities, the Italiote League was far from the first Illenic pact between sister-cities that had been constructed or thrown together.

It is typical of that certain kind of arkhaiterist that Hasbairdha be made out to be some magnificent but violent wilderness, mainly filled with savage tribes and barely civilized city-folk, where the Illenes are either the only civilized people at the time of Parcleih and his successors or in becoming civilized civilize the rest of the great peninsula. This is a simple, comforting truth that blinds the author and reader both, preventing them from true understanding. But our author decided to go one step further than that, and assert that the arrival of Leukerix represented the end of diplomacy and formal treaties between the North and South of Hasbairdha. Now, it is one thing entirely for people to argue what form of harbingers the Aohni were, it is understandable that there is dispute when for many of the Tinians it represented catastrophe, and when it resulted in such a wholesale destruction of the old order. It is quite another to claim that your own people, the Varvari, were brutish savages incapable of actually understanding or engaging in the laws of nations. It’s quite incredible to assert that the Later Aohni Confederacy, the legendary head of a hundred nations, was not capable of complex political theory. Are we to believe the assembled host of Leukerix was brought together by pork, rum, and vague gesturing in the direction of the Tinian Empire?

It is true that the Aohni were, at first, not forthcoming when it came to the matter of formal diplomacy with those they failed to conquer. But in this period of initial conquest many of the levy warbands of the Aohni were practically small fiefs unto themselves, heeding almost no direction from higher forces, not once they had tasted Hasbairdhan plunder, and the organised core of the Aohni army and government were almost immediately engaged in their fierce war with the Sagani. The southern border of the newly-won Aohni kingdom was neglected, that cannot be denied. But this situation did not last; after all, was it not formal treaty that established the border of Illenic and Aohni spheres of influence as the Tebra river? The period of diplomacy between the Aohni and Illenes did not last long, because the Aohni Empire that had destroyed the Tinian was itself being consumed, there was soon no Aohni presence in Hasbairdha to be negotiating with formally. It is more than a cheat to claim that the Aohni, and by extension all Varvari in the post-Tinian interregnum, were incapable of actual diplomacy.

A kind of silt has descended upon our understanding of civilization, and who is responsible for the current order of things. Depending on who is asked any combination of the Iellenes, Tinians, Carthagines, or even Persians are ultimately responsible for anything and everything contributing to anything good, advanced, or simply tolerable. Even the Varvari are willing to stake their own claim to achievement or civilized life on the foundations of the Tinians and Illenes, and apparently this now includes treating Varvari heritage as some embarrassing barbarism that by a process of years and special potions has been lifted from our souls and bodies. Quite what being Varvari is, according to C. Branon, I couldn’t possibly determine. When did we lose the ability to defend ourselves from these accusations? When did we start to become embarrassed at ourselves? One can call pride in one’s own nation at the expense of all else a kind of delusion, this is certainly true, but ignoring relevant facts underpinning our lives because of what other people have told you matters about the past is no less a delusion. I will tolerate it no longer, and neither should anyone else claiming the name of Varvari, whether you live in the Alba mountains, or Aohnia, or Madhlain, or Breisa, or even some distant corner of Ladhio. My hope is that, understanding all of this, C. Branon’s cravenly tome will be forgotten to scholars, sooner rather than later, and more distantly of all I hope that C. Branon might one day come to some understanding of what it is to actually comprehend the human past.​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA

MONARKHIA BY IRMEN VOE (1513 CE)
THE TINIAN EMPEROR​

It has become impossible to imagine the Tinians as having any other form of government besides that of the sacral monarkh. Goodness knows the Tinians became the model of monarkhia in Europa for the next five hundred years, and continues to inspire us to this present day, we take active pride in continuing to understand the gods via the divisions of the sky, and in building our cities to their sacred principles. However, at the time of the Persian Conquest the situation among the Tinians was radically different, a situation that has traditionally been ignored by the traditional scholars of our illustrious forebears due to their own bias in favour of strong, imperial rule. At that time of tumultuous change, of the Tyrsenoi poleis only Veii maintained its king still, the others all having adopted some mode of oligarkhic constitution or another, and this was the source of quite some discord between Veii, formerly the nominal head of the Rasnatic League, and the rest, in particular Tarchuna. Veii’s reputation is so grand that many are not aware that Tarchuna was actually the more populous, richer city, both as poleis and during the height of Tinian Empire. It is no small matter that this band of collegiate poleis, most of which had removed their kings, became a unitary state ruled by a single monarkh. Indeed, that monarkh originally ruled just one among many poleis, not even being the ruler of the grandest among them. What allowed the king of Veii to undertake such a mission, let alone succeed?

The answer of a hundred generations would be to point to the most famous event in Europan history, the so-called Battle of Destiny of 409 BCE. It is certainly relevant. The will of the Gods made manifest in a lightning bolt, all at once saving the North-Eastern districts of the Tyrsenoi and elevating the King of Veii to a man marked by the Gods. It is truly the stuff that shakes the foundation of the world. But this is only part of the story. For one, Larth Tulumnes’s metamorphosis into Larth Unalisa did not alter his legal status as ‘merely’ the King of Veii, at the time of his death he was still only the temporary head of the Rasnatic League. As the initial threat from the Keltoi ebbed, this emergency requirement for leadership ebbed also, and the leadership of all Tyrsenoi by the King of Veii was by no means ordained as permanent. In fact, this position may well have lapsed by the time of Amavadatos, for we find that the Tyrsenoi Lays refer to Arnth Unalisa as being appointed the leader of the League’s forces when the fleet of Perseus landed in Umbria in 380 BCE, and note the implication that he did not previously hold this position of command. The horde of Perseus was driven out of Lation by Amavadatos and his assembled confederates the next year, but we find that there was still enough of an intact army to give battle with Arnth Unalisa and the Tyrsenoi.

It is in this victory, not far from Veii itself, and the division of Italia by Amavadatos, that we should see the concrete and legal existence of the Tinian Empire begin to form. The threat of large Keltoi armies was now clearly one that was not simply going to go away, but likewise the Tyrsenoi were now dealing with a full Persian-style monarkh in the fullness of its military power, and one that had with the stroke of a pen rewritten the entire map of Italia. Capua, and by extension the Tyrsenoi, benefited from the Peace of Amavadatos, with the Hellenic colonies of Campania being assigned to Capua’s dominion, along with the western Safini lands. But this was small comfort to the Tyrsenoi, for they were now introduced to a far mightier and bolder force than the Hellenes, and additionally now much of Calabria had been given over to the renewed ambitions of Syrakousai. The time had come to take measures to prevent the Tyrsenoi being overrun, particularly as the major poleis of Rome had also been elevated to the status of Amavadatid client state, and awarded much territory, including that of Faleri, considered by the Tyrsenoi to be a close ally. It is with the Faliscan War, fought against Rome, that we can finally point to a concrete Tinian Empire, with the King of Veii as arbiter of an emerging single state, for upon the conclusion of the war the Faliscan territory, all of its borders and boundaries, are explicitly brought into the power of the King of Veii, not the poleis of Veii but under the protection of the King of Veii specifically. It is at this time that the title of Zilath Rasnal Tinial, king of Tinia's People is first found in documentation from Veii, Tarchuna, and other cities of the Tyrsenoi heartland. The People of Tinia had been born.

The Tinians were a nation of strict boundaries and division, just as in their period of being the Tyrsenoi, and as we have just seen the monarkhs of Veii tailored their rise to power in some accordance with these principles, even as their unprecedented control over the Tyrsenoi peoples shattered every practical notion of fixed boundary between their poleis. The precedent of Lars Porsenna was widely utilised as a precedent for the actions of Arnth Unalisa, but all early references to Lars Porsenna portray him more as the leader of a temporary coalition of the Tyrsenoi poleis (just as Larth Unalisa had been), with the exception of Eastern Hellenic sources which refer to him as the King of the Tyrsenoi. It seems that the fiction of the poleis having separate, sovereign borders remained vital to internal cohesion well into the Empire’s history, given the discovery of tular border stones dedicated well into the time of the Second Golden Generation. The Tinian monarkh was seen, and wished to be seen, as preserving the traditional and sacred divisions of the Tyrsenoi despite his violation of all prior precedent. He did so by forming a rule above their traditional society, rather than being the monarkh of Veii he was the monarch of all Tyrsenoi. The poleis of the Empire were not obliterated under the rule of one among them, but instead brought into the protection of the Emperor.

This was also to the Emperor’s advantage because now he was only subject to sacred law, not to constitutional law, being above the powers of the traditional Tyrsenoi zilath. He was the intermediary of all Tyrsenoi with Tinia and Uni, and therefore subject to them in the judgement of his deeds. This was not as stabile a solution to maintaining power as they would have liked, however, for this inevitably led to the notion that a successful overthrow of any particular Tinian Emperor was divinely ordained. This added the spice of chaos to the ordered table which the monarkhs of Veii had carefully laid out after the reign of Arnth Unalisa. Nonetheless, it was not until the Third Golden Generation, over three centuries after the establishment of the Empire, that fatal and complex division arose between the constituents of the Tinians. Notably, the Third Golden Generation abolished the divisions between the poleis, according to their forebears an immense crime against the Gods and their divinely ordained division of the world. The invasion of Leukerix was divine retribution. The Tyrsenoi certainly believed this to be the case, and I see no reason to doubt that this specific action, the removal of sacred boundaries, was a leading cause and not, as many have asserted, the conquest of Italia. So sacred law created the Tinian Empire, so sacred law pulled them down.

DIGEST OF THE LAW OF TINIA AND UNI BY AULE CURUNAS (213 CE)
THE CASE OF RAMTHA ALFIAL (204 BCE)​

To the Sacred Warrior, the Guardian of all the Rasna, the Master of the Four Directions, the Zilath of Zilaths, may the Gods forever have fated lightning to strike down your enemies, may your body be golden, may your generation last a thousand years.

I beseech you, oh great lord, to hear my dilemma, to listen to my argumentation, and to intervene to aid me, though I be not worthy of arguing that our destinies ever entwine.

I am Ramtha Alfial, daughter of Marce Alfial, citizen of the shpura of Clevsin. I am mistress of a household, both that left to me by my father and that which I have acquired through my own means. My homestead came to me from my father, along with many possessions which I will not bore you with listing exhaustively. I am married to a lauthi, a freedman who is Larth Temukle, and together we have a son and a daughter. This marriage is in accordance with the law of Clevsin, which permits the marriage of citizens with freedpersons, and was conducted with all rites and rituals as would be correct for such a sacred deed. Likewise, in accordance with the law, my son and my daughter cross the boundary from their father’s status as freedman to the arena of citizenship. But my cousin, Vel Alfial, who dwells in in Felsina, he has made claim of violation of sacred law against my marriage and against my children, and has attempted not only to claim that my children may not inherit my property but also to seize my property; in addition to my homestead in Clevsin I also possess, from my own money and in my own name, a house in the boundaries of Capeva, and this he attempted to have men of his household seize, and when they could not do so he filed a claim with the maru of Capeva, who has sealed the property up.

I beg that, with the full force of sacred law, you remind Vel Alfial, the people of Clevsin, and the people of Capeva, of the legitimacy the marriage I have undergone, and the sacred law that underpins both that and the status of my children by this man Larth Temukle. The truth of the situation is manifest yet Vel Alfial, my own blood, confuses matters for the civil authorities so much with his lies and constant demands, along with the reputation he has earned for his military service on the frontier, that the situation has reached impasse, and a fear seizes my household of what profane deeds may occur prior to the truth being correctly perceived. I beg that you cut through the flimsy shields he has erected and hold him from continuing to flout sacred and civil law. I pray that his fate is to be punished for his misdeeds, still further that the Sacred Warrior tears down his false claims of piety, proper observance of laws, and ownership over the property of myself and that which my children will inherit.
​

In this case, the Emperor of the time, Larth Tinial clan Unalisa II, intervened on behalf of Ramtha Alfial. This establishes that under the law of Tinia and Uni marriage and inheritance rights allowed by a constitution in a particular region is protected by the full force of sacred law. This establishes that it is permitted to allow the marriage of freedmen and women with citizenship. This establishes that it is permitted for children of a marriage of freedman and citizen to inherit the citizenship status. This establishes that under the law of Tinia women may own and inherit property, and that this does not automatically pass on to the husband upon marriage. This establishes that the enforcer of the law of Tinia and Uni may intervene in civil courts where this law is found to be broken. This establishes that a woman may directly petition the jurist or enforcer of the law of Tinia and Uni. This is a key text in illustrating Tinian law regarding marriage. This is a key text illustrating the proper interaction between enforcer and civil authorities.

ISONOMIK OF THE TINIAN ERA (1695 CE)
THE 12 PEOPLES
​

Before the Tinian Emperor was established, and the Twelve Rasna unified under their rule, the main unit of each Rasna was the city-state, known in Classical Rasnatic as the spura. The boundaries of these spura were marked by tular stones, the responsibility for maintaining and replacing these falling on the the maru, the magistrate responsible for maintaining public buildings and infrastructure. The Twelve Rasna each had their own spura, though the exact boundaries of these territories would change (in much the same way that Hellenic poleis behaved at this time), and some spura contained more than one city. Thus, within the boundaries of the spura, the traditional boundaries of the Rasna of that spura were also marked with tular stones, along with the actual boundaries of the city itself. Even before the Empire’s rise, the Twelve Rasna had a respect for, and focus upon, sacred boundaries.

Originally, each of the Twelve Rasna had a king, and this is what the title of zilath originally referred to in all circumstances, generally translated as equivalent to the Hellenic basileus. However, by the time of the Hellenic exiles’ arrival in Italia this had begun to change. As constitutional revolutions in Hellas had caused the collapse of tyrannies and their replacement by oligarkhic or demokratic constitutions, so the kings of the Twelve Rasna were done away with (with the key exception of Veii), with committees of zilaths functioning as the chief magistrates, analogies having been drawn with the board of arkhontes that ruled over Athenai. Zilaths also ruled over the smaller cities and towns of each spura, functioning as the highest level of urban magistrate.

The Twelve Rasna were not the only Rasna of that time either. Centuries before colonists had been sent out to the North-East and to the South, establishing the regions of Padani and Kampania, with multiple cities being set out at each location. It was written in the Tinian histories that each of these regions possessed their own Twelve Rasna, or at the very least twelve cities, but we struggle to find evidence for cities in this number until the late 4th century BCE. We can certainly point to Capeva, and a number of ancillary towns, in Kampania, but little else, and likewise only a few cities are known from Padani at this time, including Felsina. Almost all Tinian cities had ancient foundations, and it is possible that the latter cities of these two regions had simply begun as towns and villages too small to be recorded until the 4th century BCE.

At some point it is believed that the district known as Lation to the Hellenes, the dwelling grounds of the Latini peoples, was attached either to the Twelve Rasna or constituted a fourth League of Rasna. The early history of this region is greatly obscured by the many upheavals of the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, but it is known that the royal dynasty of Roma, the chief city of the region, was considered to be descended from that of Veii, and also that the Falisci continued to send delegates to the annual festival of Veltha (see below) even before they were conquered in the early days of the Tinian Empire. What precisely the early connection was between the Twelve Rasna and Lation is hard to read, as the Latini spoke very different languages to the Rasnatic tongue, yet the two regions were deeply connected by blood and culture. What few tales were preserved in Roma were written many centuries later, and are distorted first by their integration into the Tinian Empire, and then by their Hellenisation in the late Arkait era. It is hard to know if the Romana had always asserted their dynasty of kings to be from Veii, or whether this was adopted as a way of aligning themselves with their new masters.

Each recognised spura would send yearly representation to the great festival of Veltha, which had both divine and secular functions; this was where the Rasnatic League’s member spura would discuss matters of importance, but also where games, festivals, and contests would be held, and also the site of a great market whenever the festival was held. This is the origin of the Tinian Empire’s assembly, and the source of Velsuna’s great market district.

The Hellenes made great comment out of the treatment of women in the Twelve Rasna, often scandalised as a matter of fact. Though it was not unusual for the peoples of Hesperia to treat women as legal persons, and social equals to their husbands and male relatives, this was anathema to Hellenic culture of the time. This was not, as some historians once claimed, due to the actions of the Tinian Emperors, or the Empresses that twice ruled over the Tinians during the Second Golden Generation, this was already an established facet of the culture of the Twelve Rasna.

Until the coming of the Hellenic exiles there had, traditionally, been a deep and abiding alliance between the Twelve Rasna and the Foinikes, which translated also into an alliance with the city of Qartadast. This went so far as to permit the establishment of Foiniki temples in the ports and cities of the individual spura. The alliance, in this period, collapsed due to the Hellenic conquest of Sikelia, and after the successful repulse of the Twelve Rasna’s expedition against the Italiotes. Trade continued to flourish between the two peoples, but there was never again a military alliance between them, for the interests of the Foiniki pivoted westward, and for their part the Twelve Rasna no longer considered the Foiniki valuable allies against foes in Hesperia, or no longer effective ones at any rate. This fostered a sense of self-reliance among the Twelve Rasna that would become key.

All in all, the period of the Twelve Rasna is eminently comparable to the Hellenes; they were predominantly governed in city-states that would, when necessary, meet against a common threat, but would otherwise war upon one another. They colonised advantageous lands around them, and through these colonies interacted with many other cultures, both by general congress and specific trade. But the Twelve Rasna come across as a vulnerable island in increasingly treacherous seas, and their potential demise was highlighted with the invasion of Keltoi in 409 BCE, when it was only divine intervention that prevented the loss of Felsina and the entire district of Padani to the Keltoi. To the north the Keltoi, to the south the Latini and the Hellenes, from the mountains Ombri and Safini and Sabini, to the east the Perseids. Little would they have known that they would eventually come to surpass them all.​

(1790 CE)

To La,
I hope I find you well.
On the estate today I stumbled across this remarkable piece of history; a weight measure from the Tinian age! What a find! From the inscription on the bronze it seems to be an official measure of Larth Veltina, which I’m sure you’ll confirm with your expert eyes. I know how much you love your arkaiotery so, without further delay, I had it sent with this letter. It’s in prime condition, and what dirt there was I removed extremely carefully. I don’t quite know what you’ll do with it, but I’m sure you’ll find a use for it.
With love,
Ramsa​

​

To Ra,
Hope you’re doing well and not too bored without me.
What a find indeed! It is indeed a measure of Larth Veltina, you do underestimate your Classical Rasnatic so my sister. Indeed it’s more than a weight, for the Tinians this is also a lode point for the sacred divisions of weight. The difference between a drachma and a stater was not just a matter of law and trade, but also a holy division. I shall treat the measure with due respect and care. If you’re needing a project to keep you occupied, maybe you could do some digging on this Larth Veltina, who was likely a magu at the very least. Maybe there’s an old Tinian shrine in the fields somewhere, that’ll keep the priests happy!
With love,
Lar​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA

​

SEAS UNDER SKY BY SUPHUNIBAL (389 BCE)
THE PERSIAN KING​

All nations have their particular take on negotiating. The Hellenes will feign stinginess, and will later on introduce luxuries to surprise you. The Celts will look at you as a foe on the battlefield, then embrace you as a comrade once business is completed. The Egyptians will disdain everything in your possession, especially that which they desire the most. The Sards hate to haggle, the Corsicans won’t be seen to beg, the Romans love to treat you like the dirt on their shoe. But there is only one King of the Persians. Normal kings, and petty kings especially, love to show their wealth, to advertise their taste, power, and command over riches. The King of Persia does not show his wealth, though his wealth moves mountains, he does not brandish his power, though his power destroys nations overnight. Everything that this king is, everything that he commands, will bombard you from the moment you approach his capital. His roads which stretch from Sardis to Samarqand, his monuments which transform cliff into artifice, his armies which shudder the earth at their approach. His meeting house is greater in span than entire cities, its roof taller than any temple and held by great pillars that threaten the very heavens themselves. His servants hither and thither across this space as though it were as ordinary as their own homes. It is that realisation, that to this man the extraordinary is not a luxury but a choice, that even his servants are inured to power, that really shrinks a man, a small child in front of a giant and his house. Hearing these words, you will believe that as a child of Qarthadast you will be immune to such things, for how could any city in the world compare to its majesty and scale, even for one so powerful as the King of Persia? But trust me, nothing will prepare you for the court at Parsa.

Neither is this the only test you will find from the King of Persia, this is simply the test your mind endures by entering his space. For one thing, he will often test those he has never encountered before by asking their opinion on lawmaking. The King of Persia’s law is the law of his domains, and only he need be consulted to make decisions upon it. But he likes to test guests, ambassadors, and messengers to his court by asking whether they would ban a thing, or change the punishment for this crime or that crime, or whether with the following evidence such-and-such is likely to be guilty or not. The correct answer to these questions depends on the king and the person being asked, I have seen some praised for giving a well-reasoned opinion and others praised for saying that only the King of Persia need consider the matter. But be assured, the question will be coming, and the answer is expected to be forthcoming. It serves as a reminder of how absolute his command over the law of his kingdom is, and he will not suffer you to conduct your business without such a reminder. He can simply discuss matters of law as casually as if he were talking about the pleasant weather, or a piece of fine confectionary. It is also invitation for you to make a fool out of yourself. Be confident, not flippant. Be direct, not taciturn. Be ready.

You can see the mark of the King on the shophetim of the homeland. The situation there is as it was in the old days, where the shophetim rule as crowned and anointed sovereign. Yet despite this ancient grandeur they are a chastened caste, and view events with a narrow horizon, always fearing what may come over it. The shophetim of Qarthadast meanwhile, even bound by our strong constitution, are sovereign, they look around the world to understand what opportunities are present, even if they cannot always be pursued, even if we cannot yet achieve the necessary action. The presence of the King is the force that creates this state in the homeland; his fingers are all over the workings of state, and his law unquestionable. Only last year the king’s governor imposed the king’s law banning trade with the western Hellenes, the Adirim of all the homeland cities readily passing the legislation and the shophetim had no involvement in the process beyond observation and the sacred affix of signature. If the King could achieve such power over our cities in Ifriqa he would do so without a moment’s hesitation, and seeks any opportunity to gain a grip over our actions, no matter how small. For this is another reason we must always tread carefully around the King of Persia; the moment he feels that his law touches you, his claws come out and try grasp you round the throat.

THE PERSIANS BY KIMON (c.455 BCE)
ON LAW

​

Xerxes knows no law. He recognises no barriers or restrictions on his power, he is bound by no oaths or agreements. The power he possesses, gross beyond all measure, is not channeled for pious, virtuous, or harmonious works but for his own personal gain and according to his own personal whims. The only legal authority Xerxes and his Empire can be recognised as possessing is the fear of the sword magnified a hundredfold; would Aigyptos, ancient land of wisdom, ever have been made to come under his command by any other means? He is the man who would be Ouranos, carpeting the earth uniformly and inescapably, suffering no peers to exist, no equals with whom he would have to seek discourse, compromise, or legal justification for his actions. He is the ultimate criminal, his Empire the ultimate crime. But rest assured, all-knowing Zeus will ordain just vengeance, all shall be accounted for in the end.​

THE LIBRARY OF JAMMARAKITA (1446 CE)
ON THE KING'S LAW OF ASIA​

This is quite possibly the worst essay on history I ever wrote in my time of learning and study at Takshila. It is included here to humble any reputation I have acquired for my later works, to show how one might teach historical method to a novice, and to conclusively prove that those with experience must start somewhere, and that first attempt is often not particularly impressive. The comments were made by my tutor, Buddhamita, and her patience with my earliest attempts at study are to be viewed with appropriate astonishment.

There are many legal traditions with claims to antiquity. Among those perhaps the most famous is the King’s Law of Asia, which has been maintained and refined for millenia. For those who seek insight into Asia they would do well to understand this legal system that underpins this ancient and powerful nation, which is thus the subject of this examination.

The King’s Law, as understood by Asians and their bureaucracy, is more properly separated into two main components; the Law of Heaven and the Law of Life. The former is regarded as that divine law which is immutable, though the implied occlusion to changes to this body is overstated. The latter is the law as generated from law codes, the pronouncements of kings, and the precedent of legal judgements. Many in Asia regard the Law of Heaven as having lessened in import over recent times, and wish to return to a time in which this part of the law was more prominent.

The King’s Law ultimately draws from many legal traditions. The oldest codes cited as part of the King’s Law date to the ancient kingdom of Babiru, but it includes codes and pronouncements also from the Old Iranian Empire, the Empire of the Imerians, the Gimiri Empire, and many others besides. It also has adapted to the presence of many different religious traditions across Asia’s history. Indeed it has become a truism of Asia that each great dynasty will leave a new legacy upon the King’s Law, just as each is considered to add to its cultural richness and its military strength.

The core values of the King’s Law are as follows; the King is the ultimate jurist and interpreter of the law, but is also subject to the law and is not considered to be above it. It is this and his military leadership which underpins his authority in his kingdom. The King’s Law includes influences from the law of various cities but many within the Empire have their own city codes. Which laws can be superseded locally and which cannot has been a matter of thought and conflict throughout Asia’s history. It is now established that the King’s Law cannot be abrogated on matters of deadly offences against human life, treason against the Empire, or prevent the presence of the King or his recognised agents as vital to the operation of the legal process in that particular city.

The King’s Law allows any human being within the Empire to be entitled to a trial when accused of a crime, even if they are of unfree status. They may hire or acquire a speaker on their behalf for the process of a trial, but forfeit this right should they attempt to flee from an approaching trial, or if they assault any representative of the law that apprehends them with a manner of arrest. They may appeal a court or judge’s decision with someone of sufficient royally appointed authority, including the king himself, but the likelihood that the king himself will evaluate a petition such as this directly has varied greatly between dynasties and even particular kings. Those ancient kings with reputations for judicial discrimination and insight are highly praised and regarded among Asians, but it is also understood that the king has many responsibilities and that direct involvement in judicial proceedings may not always prove possible.

The King’s Law is widely respected within Asia, even among those who have opposed the continuation of rule by the monarchy. This has not always been so- the revolt of the Skuthiya movement, for example, perceived the core of the King’s Law to be the monarch, which in their eyes corrupted any of the legal processes and codes within it by its valuation of a despotic monarchy, and likewise the ancient Irrenes perceived the King and his law as despotic and sacrilegious to the power of the Gods. Indeed, as much as the authority of the king is bound up within the King’s Law, it is also considered one of the defining characteristics of the Asian nation.

The actual content of the King’s Law is hard to define compared to some other legal systems; there is no one central document but a series of documents which together form the King’s Law. Nonetheless, it is considered as defined and obvious as the sun and moon, and none seem to be able to imagine life without it. Indeed, perhaps it is not the King or the Asian nation who principally define themselves by the King’s law, but the very fabric of Asian society itself.

This is a solid start on the path of historical scholarship. Among other things you have demonstrated a willingness to use materials that are not created by the Zanga and combine these disparate sources together, along with a willingness to accept the views of a historical subject alongside your own more critical ones. There is still much to be done to improve your methodology, however, which I will explain.

Whilst much of your discussion is rooted in the present, nonetheless there is little temporality to your discussion. One does not get a sense of development or change over time except in rare snippets, whereas in a historical examination this is one of the most important things to consider. Likewise, despite your clear use of different Asian source materials you only briefly touched on the differences regarding the King’s Law among Asians. This is a method that canals history, but it is far better to build a mighty river. Your prose must be allowed to meander, and curve, and attain an inexorable flow.

You also do not always qualify your statements. When you state that a thing is believed by many Asians, it implies number but does not actually supply any such information. If your source uses such wide language then it is good to say so, and if this is your own conclusion then you must supply the meaning of ‘many’. Likewise when you speak of the ancient Irrenes opposing the King’s Law, do you mean those that fought against King Zayarsa, those that rebelled against the Iranians in their period of conquest, or do you mean to imply that all Irrenes in those times had such objections? Not qualifying such things can lead to your argument adopting a certainty it has not successfully demonstrated.

When you touch upon this topic again, I would recommend including more detail. There are certain key details that have been forgotten or passed over in haste; the key involvement of the Old Iranian dynasty in the first creation of the King’s Law, the other political schools besides the Skuthiya who have objected to the King’s Law throughout the Empire’s history, the interactions of Asia’s many schools with the King’s Law. If you are concerned at writing about such a familiar topic as the interaction between Asian law and the laws of Asian Vihi that is fine; there are plenty of other schools that interact with the King’s Law; the Babira and their storm-worship, the Yahuda and their lord of covenant, the Mazi and their dead, and many others besides.

Nonetheless, this is an excellent early effort, and you should not be discouraged by the improvements that could yet be made, we are not born mastering complex topics and methodologies. The way of the Buddha is very complicated and hard to understand, and so it is with the discipline of history.

THE TALE OF AGNIMITRA BY SUKRATU (95 CE)
THE LAW OF THE KAMBOJAS

​

It came to pass that, in the city of Babilakalda, the city of heavenly temples, newly captured from the Kambojas and now capital of Agnimitra’s unending kingdom, the king Agnimitra was approached by Mahinda of Malawa, who he had charged to act as treasurer over the king’s vast new domains due to his honesty, attention to detail, and skill with mathematics. He bowed before his king, and spoke thus.

“O king, I have been carrying out your wishes; I have been accounting for the manner in which Darya carried out his taxation, I have been surveying his lands, I have become wise with how his chancellery was organised. But there has been a problem which has interfered with my attempts to do these things to the fullest degree which is necessary and has worried my intelligence. It seems that Darya ordered his lands so that each continued to be governed by their own laws. This was only abrogated when he wished to command them to do something directly, or had need of armed force at a time of war with a particular foreign enemy. Accordingly, each of his districts and provinces had particular arrangements and expectations for taxation to the royal treasury, not a fixed payment, nor variable payments based on a relationship with their size in households, but instead based on their value and ability to pay. Now I have these governors of Karmana, Aryava, Asura, Madiya, Diranka and many other besides making all sorts of claims as to what Darya had placed as an obligation on them. How could a king so mighty exercise such little power over his lands? How could such lands be governed without a single code of law?”


Agnimitra spoke thus.

“Mahinda, trusted servant, I have experienced Darya’s law as you know from a very early age, and I have already spent years in much examination over this very subject after I returned to Avanti. The compact between Darya and his subjects was that of protection, with payment from the nations of his kingdom being responsible for maintaining their protection from harm. In turn he believed that in their myriad natures lay beauty and wisdom, rather than seeking to change men he sought instead to grant them an environment in which they could change themselves. I am not myself minded to do otherwise, even withstanding his mismanagement and nefarious deeds the system that he had created was a just one for ruling over such lands as these now under my royal command. Now, as for those who now pretend that they once paid a given amount, or had a particular arrangement with the King Darya whose responsibilities I am now inhabiting, we have access to the records of those who have come before you. It will be easy to discover, truthfully, what these districts and provinces were paying and providing beforehand, down to the last measure given the precision of the bureaucrats of Darya. If they wish to receive new arrangements, different from what which was arranged with King Darya, then they must honestly state that this is their desire to you. If they will not be honest, but instead falsely give account of that which they owe, then you must bring the governors and rajanah of these districts to my attention, so that I might replace them with men who will honestly make requests of me, not attempt to mislead me. Such dishonesty is not becoming of one righteously intended by the Gods to rule over nations and people. It is quite another to openly desire and request something, even if it is egregious or beyond the other person’s power to grant, it is another thing entirely to conceal that you desire something and instead seek to achieve that desire by waiting for others to make a mistake. When I wished to take possession of the kingdom of Darya, and thought that he was unworthy to rule it any longer, I told him so.”

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA

THE MATTER OF CIVILIZATION BY DAIPHANDIS OF SIRAKUSE (870 CE)
ANTIQUE EMPIRE​

There are few things to truly bring together the great nations of antiquity besides their power and prominence as a quality of its own. One could list the ten largest Empires of such times and find twenty different cultures, thirty different philosophies of governance, forty ideas as to what nationhood and an ordered society should be. An exception to this rule is the matter of their legal basis, their justification to the world and to themselves as to why they should exist, what right they had to exert their dominion over others. With some notable exceptions these powerful nations based their existence on one of two principles; the idea of spear-won land, and the belief that the Gods had ordained their actions.

The notion of spear-won land is that the act of conquest bequeathed the right of governance to the conqueror in question. For example, by conquering the Achaemenid Empire Agnimitra asserted the legal right, obligation even, to govern the domains he had seized. Likewise the competing petty-kingdoms of the Hellenes justified their existence, upon the collapse of the Amavadatid dynasty, on this basis.

Divine ordination, on the other hand, was based on the principle that the Gods always showed their hand by determining the victor of a contest for power, or by a lack of opponents to a course of action. By Cyrus the Great’s acquisition of the throne, his conquest of multiple other kingdoms, and his creation of the Kingdom of Asia, he demonstrated the will of the Gods. His successors, the rest of the Achaemenid dynasty, were acting by accordance with the Gods’ wishes by attempting to expand their domains further, and by ruling Asia.

There is certainly some overlap between these two ideas. One could argue that the Gods were the source of authority over spear-won land, or that ultimately the wisdom of the Gods was shown by matters of direct conquest. What truly differentiates these two principles is their emphasis- the one on rights to authority derived from human action, the other as authority passed on from a divine source. When the Tinians claimed that all was as fate decreed, for better or ill, they were stating the primacy of divine agency. When Lycaon declared all that he had won by arms to be his territory, he was asserting rights he believed himself to possess as a human being.

Neither approach has concern for written, codified law. They appeal to innate qualities to the universe, and fundamental principles of ownership that go beyond a constitution or a law inscribed on stone. But there has always been consequences for those great conquerors who chose to ignore ordinary law entirely. Not even the earliest of the great Achaemenid kings were above codified law entirely. The earliest assertions of spear-won land or divine right were usually, sooner or later, intruded upon by more codified restrictions, rights, and responsibilities, but never without contest.

This uneasy relationship between innate right to lordship and prescribed laws persisted throughout the ancient era. Some emergent nations simply wiped the slate clean upon their arrival, treating the great transitions as a moment of renewal for all laws. Others asserted continuity between themselves and their predecessors, gaining ownership of an entity they recognised with defined boundaries and institutions. The Achaemenids did not assert a body of law to accompany the King’s divine authority, the King’s command was enough. Nor did they claim to be an extension of a past state, but a new and particular state to Cyrus’ descendants that was also the legitimate ruler of all in its aegis. But there was enough of a codified framework that Agnimitra was able to legally claim a continuity of Asia that he had taken ownership of. He was not creating an Empire of Agnimitra in the same way that Cyrus had created an Empire of Cyrus, he was asserting rights of conquest over that which Cyrus had already built.

It was from these moments of definition that notions of precedent, definition, and boundary began to really intrude into the two great laws of ancient conquest. The most well known was the creation of Asia, whereby a series of conquerors were not truly creating things of their own but taking command of something that had come before. Asia even began to build the procession of conquerors and the march of dynasties into its legal basis by establishing the principle that impious dynasties would naturally be replaced over time, and that a successful rebellion or conquest would demonstrate the passage of one legitimate Asian dynasty to another. One can claim that this is simply a version of the ancient notion of divine ordination, and it is. But with Asia the principle was written down, made official policy, and tamed. No more was this something to be asserted over the lands of Asia but something that Asia would declare, could choose to acknowledge or to reject.

Neither was this the only part of the world where codified practice intruded. One of the earliest examples might in fact be Amavadatos. Despite his widespread (and deserved) reputation as a conqueror who created his realm by the sword, he did not justify his rulership with his conquests or by the authority of the Gods; he simply asserted the continued legality of his rule based on his position as satrap, whilst simultaneously asserting that his previous overlord was no longer worthy of holding this kind of authority over Hellas. His coronation as King was one resulting from acclimation by his Hellenic subjects, and his further conquests of Achaemenid land were notably asserted on the basis of his membership of the Achaemenid dynasty. It was not only Agnimitra who had come to recognise an Achaemenid state as having come into a defined existence.

Likewise the Italiote Leagues were constituted on the basis of confederation and its members’ territories. The Gods were invoked by all of the oaths binding these poleis together, but they were the guarantors of an otherwise human creation brought together by willing association. Any territories brought into the League by conquest, outside of treaty or negotiated submissions, had to be justified by their stated principles and basis for existence. This need to reconcile conquest with their stated limitations would drive much Italiote political and legal development.

In the end we can say that the Italiotes, Amavadatids, and inheritors of Asia pointed the way. History has never entirely escaped from conquerors solely justifying their actions by their power to achieve them. But the trend has been that even the most powerful nations of the world have developed complex legal justifications for their existence, however spurious their genesis might have been.

But we must also recognise how much of our history has been shaped by those operating on these simple but potent justifications for mass conquest. When peers express admiration for these larger than life figures they are partially expressing admiration for such unapologetic appeals to might and sagacity. We have never entirely escaped their legacy. Go back far enough and, for many of us, our current states and cultures owe their current locations and possessions to such legality as this. Untamed force and civilization, paradoxically, go hand in hand, but not in the way that many have suggested. It is the fearful legacy we must acknowledge. Much blood and ink and thought has been spent on the matter of taming the instinct to conquer. For good or ill, there is a reason for that.

ON ETHICS BY LADIKOS OF DIKAIA
SPEAR-WON LAND​

​

It is a fierce and dreadful thing to take land as spear-won. It speaks of a time when arms were wielded and wars were fought by the sons of Gods, when spears were the length of a ship’s mast and shields were as heavy as anvils. We are a people of constitutions, and laws, and oaths. To take only those oaths between yourself and your followers as valid, to recognise only your strength and those of your battalions as your master, it a commitment to dominion by whatever means. These mighty men are using the heroes of ancient days as models for behaviour, and probably see themselves as those heroes reborn into mankind. But who would really choose to live their life as Herakles or Perseus?

To be Herakles in our times is to take that which has been constructed by hard labour and smash it to pieces in the hope that your boundless strength allows you to remake it to your liking. And imagine knowing that your sole recourse is to potency of arms and will, with no other means of protecting yourself and your family, no lines of defence when you are wronged or attacked by the wicked. There are no archontes for the spear-plunging conqueror, no courts to shield him, no laws to restore that which has been lost, no guarantee that an enemy will be punished by justice beyond hoping for some divine sanction. You have taken by the spear, and so you shall inevitably perish.

And to think what must be done to free men to create and hold such lands. Entire nations under arms, musters pulling farmers from fields not through defence of fatherland but to defend the honour and prowess of their master. All are reduced to followers, those that aid the hero on his quest to glory, usually with their lives cut short at the hand of some monster or another.

When we gather together and assent to our nations and our leaders, we are gathered together in a cause that will outlast ourselves and outlast those whom we serve. The purpose of policy and the purpose of the poleis are one, and we will always know why we fight and that it is our fight in service to our brotherhood of citizens. We are not followers but confederates, in service to one another as much as we are in service to the metropolis. This is the proper order of things.

FAREWELL, O KING author unknown​

One day you set yourself up in your high palaces with painted walls and tall towers, master of all you surveyed. How your delight must have shone like the shimmering sea. Your triumph was perhaps short-lived, however, as other strong men sought to contest your newfound stature. In your struggles we eventually caught your eye. You placed your grim, bronze-coated men among us, and you told us that you were come to govern as the Gods had decreed, and it was their wish that we should be governed. You put your mark on gold and silver pieces, our fingers grasping for the tokens you made to pay for our needs and wants, the idea of you and your power seeping into our lives. You took the good wheat and the fine fruit and the best cows. You told us our God-given land was now owned by your servant, in lieu of your own presence and name of course. Your servant who never once saw these fields and houses with his eyes, but who made sure his share of our treasures was paid in full at the arranged times. He was guaranteed never to spare us any displeasure or criticisms over the particulars of our lives. Then, at the time of your greatest need, you gathered our young, strong men together as your harvest, told them to come with spears and bows and to come to war to defend their king. Off they marched with their songs and their laughter, boasting and thinking little of the fear that seized us as we saw them disappear from sight. You ground these boys, our boys, under the stone of battle. They were milled, mercilessly, together with the boys of a hundred other places gathered together to protect your royal dignity. Those that returned to us bore broken husks, the very life of them threatening to spill out. Such was the harvest that you cast aside and left to us. So we take such treasures as we still possess, we bundle up our lives, we take our families and our leave. We quit our lives as your subjects, we relieve you of your responsibility as our guardian. We go to find lands where the Gods shall find our voices without need for an intermediary, where a crown is gauche and unnecessary, where we are considered dull and unworthy of interest. We shall dance in the fields, laugh without cause, and spend the deep hours singing our songs to the heavens above for our own pleasure. Farewell.

TELEO or AKUNAVAM: END OF CHAPTER 6​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 6: NOMOS or DATA
EPILOGOS

The interview begins now.

I must tell you, it is no easy thing being separated from my people. I appreciate that you are only performing your role in justice, and with just manner, but they have suffered so much, and there was still so much I could have done for them. It has been a perilous thing these past years, balancing the rule of Xerxes and his satrap with the needs of a polis wounded by war and driven to a fearful frenzy. I have exerted all possible energies and wisdom to finding the most just path for them to follow, which has required my constant supervision, the sapping of all strength that I possessed. Now I think about it, this has probably reduced the span of my life. I do not find I regret this, except perhaps that I could have served my polis for longer in other circumstances, and could have spent more time among the exiled Athenians who had finally begun to open up to us.

In a way, I envy those who took the choice of exile. It cannot have been easy to turn their backs on homeland, to our way of life, but they were also taking control over their lives. They had the chance to begin anew, to retain sovereignty, to act in whatever way they saw fit. More than once, I wished I had joined them in those early days. But somebody had to rebuild Athenai’s ruins, to protect those who could or would not leave, to give all Athenians a metropolis to return to one day. So thus I laboured. I worked to keep Persian interference in their daily lives to a minimum. As onerous as the Arkhon ton Medikon was the Persians were never more visible than that. I worked to continue what Kleisthenes had started; the end of strife between the noble families of Athenai. I worked to give them hope that there was a life after submission to Xerxes. I do not know that I succeeded at this last objective. I did restore the ties between Athenai and the exiles, however, something I did not expect was even possible until the final years of my life. It was good to see that they had taken their chance at independence and made the most of it, and to spend time with Athenians free from fear as we were in the old days. My hope is that they shall restore the faith of Athenians in good fortune and that the Gods watch over them.

But still, my abiding memory is of Athenai in those years after the disaster at Salamis, and my efforts to keep our polis from sinking into the abyss. Was it pride that made me insist on personal involvement at every step, that made me believe that I had a particular role in steering Athens through this crisis? Now I consider it, I feel the honest answer to the question is no. I did not consider myself the basileus of my fellow citizens, nor their superior in any other fashion, but one who had the power and influence and drive to take responsibility when nobody wanted to. I did not seek to make myself indispensable, or to establish my family’s power beyond its existing levels, I sought the opposite. I sought to end the dependency of Athenai on such efforts as mine, and as free from dependency on Persia as much as possible. I wanted to restore Athenai as a living polis that could think about the future with something other than fear for what it could hold. I did not even have particular self belief that I could manage these things, only that I had to make the attempt for the love of my fellow Athenians.

And what is it we all feared, really? It was not the Persians exactly. I knew cruel and vicious Persians, I knew noble and generous Persians. It was submission. Particularly unwilling submission to a power far greater than our own, that of Xerxes and his Empire, and one that had come after our resistance had been defeated in war. How was justice to be created and ensured in such an unequal relationship, with such disparate powers of the two parties? Even before the Persians ever came to our shores we had seen such things, between Hellenes and other peoples in both directions, and among fellow Hellenes. We have seen what people armed with such power can do when given temptation. Xerxes was one man, armed with such an array of arms, supporters, and wealth. How could one trust that he would remain equitable on a day to day basis? How could we guarantee that any successor of his would keep the word of Xerxes? How could we predict what conflicts of Xerxes would drag us in and put us at even greater danger? Is this what it is like for anyone subject to any king in such a fashion?

And more than that, this is a conflict a slave has already lost, with little hope of redress. The fear we felt, we were still free men with arms and ships and a city and a brotherhood. All of those slaves across the world, with no power to guarantee themselves justice in any matter except by aligning themselves with those they fear the least. What dread they must feel, what powerlessness. Now I think of it, how can we feel this fear over submission and ignore those that have been cast into this role? It is not just or correct to believe that any human being is naturally made to be subordinated. Now I consider it, I have never believed that such a thing was just, but I have never allowed myself to truly consider the implications of such a thing. To be raised from birth to consider slaves a natural part of society… how many other injustices are we inculcated to ignore, I wonder.

I feel ashamed to have lived so many years in this world and to have been blind to such things. To have considered myself a man who worked for justice while such things were treated as no more unnatural than building a house or growing a field of crops. Even in Dikaia, the land of the free Athenians, there are those under bondage who probably fear for their bodies, lives, and souls every single day. I would hope that in this, of all places, those who have been slaves have a chance to speak their thoughts and receive true justice. If they do not, then I shall advocate for them. I am resolved to this, and cannot be dissuaded. And if such a thing is not permitted, then I shall find a way. In either case, I am ready to encounter the law, and to depart on the rest of my journey. Fear no longer has any hold upon me. Aristeides, son of Lysimakhos, is ready for your justice.

The interview is over.​

​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 7: DRAYA or THALASSA

NAUTILOS: A HISTORY OF THE GREAT SEA by ANBAL HSH (1796 CE)
LOVE OF THE SEA
​

Crossing the boundaries of time and space, there is a fundamental link between all those who have fallen in love with the sea and the ocean. Its beauty, its power, its endless treasures, its ability to take you wherever you wish to go, how does one even begin? This indescribable connection to the brine is what binds the modern mariner to those who first discovered the means of moving upon the water’s surface for long distances. It is the principle quality that binds together the greatest of the peoples featured in this volume, where the love of the sea and love of senulogia meet. It is certainly the principal quality shared by the Qanane and Elene peoples in remote antiquity, the binding agent between these two great civilizations. In a time before time, when the Qanane found a poor but expressive people on the shores of the Aigean Sea, perhaps it was this that drove them to share the fruits of their earlier civilization, for even in this time the Elene told stories of heroic mariners, expeditions across the seas, and it would have been clear to Qadmos that this was a people born to the seas. Though we shall encounter many peoples of imagination, expression, and potency, it is these two peoples and their joint achievements which shall likely shine the brightest among this collection of jewels. But the love of the sea has struck many peoples of fame and achievement; Qors and Zard, the Tartiy, the Idonians, the Razna, the ‘Arni, Mazzile, the sea Ghotiy, and not forgetting the Maziqe. Let us begin our voyage through the past.​

COINAGE OF THE ARKHAIT WORLD VOL. III: ILLYRIA (1601 CE)
ISSA
​

Founded by Syrakousai in the early *4th century BCE, as a practical means of bleeding off excess population. Issa was intended to control trade in the Ionian Sea, but was at first one of the poorer of the Illyrian Greek colonies due to the hostility of mainland Illyrians and the relatively small scale of Ionian traffic compared to other major trade routes. Its early issues were exclusively bronze, showing a basic coinage with the local hero Ionios and a dolphin bearing the characters IS, a number of these being overstamps of Korinthian coinage, or even Akhaimenid satrapal darics. Its first silver issues started to appear soon after the Amavadatid expedition into Italia, with the establishment of closer commercial relations between Hesperia and the Amavadatid dominions. These issues continued to feature the head of Ionios, alongside dolphins or nautiluses, until later issues were introduced with the head of Hermes and an image of falling Ionios, though the earlier silver issues were periodically revived.​

As Issa’s mainland territorial acquisitions grew, and the Tinian Empire’s commerce expanded, the number of dies exploded along with the frequency and diversity of issues. Poseidon, Hermes, Ionios, Artemis, and Zeus all began to appear as obverse designs, with the nautilus, dolphin, octopus, tuna, falling Ionios, winged Nike, and seated Zeus all appearing as reverse designs. Shells, waves, curviform loops, glyphs, and celestial objects are all used as control marks. These *2nd century BCE-1st century CE issues have been found on dig sites and in hoards throughout Hesperia, Illyria, the southern parts of the Amber route, and the depths of the Istros regions. From the addition of new mint marks we can also see that, for the first time, Issa controlled more than one mint, likely having taken over the existing facilities at Herakleia and Pharos. This was the height of Issa’s territorial power.​

The collapse of the Tinians does not at first appear in the coinage, and it was shortly afterwards that gold issues first started appearing from Issa’s mints, suggesting that Issa’s wealth was not impacted by the otherwise devastating end to the Tinian Empire. But it was not long before Issa’s territory was subordinated into the Koinon Hellenion, and at this time it began to issue federal Hellenic coinage. Its native habits did not entirely disappear, as its federal issues continued to use Ionios and the nautilus on the reverse, the latter often as a control mark, but this is the most immediate and visible change to Issa’s coinage in its history, its prior diversity of issues vanishing almost overnight, and a foreign symbology imposed on its coinage. In addition to IS its federal issues bore the legend TON HELLENON, and the obverse always bore the federal symbol of the Commonwealth, crowned Poseidon, either seated or in portrait. This continued with little variation until after the *3rd century CE collapse of the Koinon Hellenion. After two centuries of subsumation into the Commonwealth there was an interregnum for the polis, during which Issa’s native coinage was reissued, frequently overstamping federal coinage. Unlike poleis that continued to issue federal currency in this period, there seems to have been little in the way of fondness between Issa and their departed Hellenarkh overlords. Then the western Gothi made their serious incursions into Illyria and Far Makedonia, marking the next phase for Issa’s coinage.​

One Raginareik established himself as the ruler of Issa, declaring himself to be Reik af Esha in *254 CE. The city, having been abandoned by its federal garrison, and in no position to defend itself, had surrendered willingly, and in the subsequent squabbles over Illyria Raginareik had emerged victorious. This established city with its mint played well into the Gothi desire to establish successor states to the Koinon, and Issa continued to issue its traditional currency, albeit with a legend on many of the coins saying BASILEOS RAGNARIKOU. This practice survived during the reign of Raginarith, Raginareik’s nephew. However, the Koinon of Ellenereik had now established itself out of Moisia, and it was not long before Raginarith’s small kingdom was absorbed into this growing imperial power. This again resulted in only small changes to the issue designs, with BASILEOS ELLENRIKOU replacing the prior legends, but it had a major impact on the scale of issues. Whilst the city itself was not grievously damaged by its capture, the traditional trade routes the city had relied upon had all been disrupted. Connections between Illyria and Hellas proper had been severed by the division of the Koinon Hellenion between Ellenereik and the Middle Iranian Empire, all of the interior of Europa was in flux through continued migrations, and Hesperia was now the only real trade partner that Issa retained, principally with Italia. Only a few silver issues, and no gold ones, are known between *270 and *316 CE.​

This low ebb came to an end with the splintering of the original Germanik Koinon of *316, with the western Kingdom of Ellur gaining dominion over most of the Illyrian coast. This made Issa, now generally known as Isha, the commercial capital of a smaller polity once more. This was shortly followed by the foundation of the High Voii Kingdom in Hesperia, which gained dominion over the old Weneti lands. This re-established regular, secure trade across Middle Europa. Isha issues are once again found all over nearby regions dating to this period, and it was during this period that the nautilus became fixed as the symbol of the city and its power. The birth of the Europan rum trade in the late *4th century CE was what elevated Isha’s coinage from a regional currency to the status of pan-Europan ubiquity; the city was ideally placed to transmit rum refined in Sikilia, Kypros, and Kriti into the heart of Europa, along with the sugar itself. The issues of this period, high quality silver and gold, are found almost everywhere in Central and Eastern Europa, and contemporary sources frequently refer to the ubiquity of the nautilus coin, found wherever rum would flow.​

It is this point that we cease speaking of the coinage of Issa/Isha as a Hellenic polis in the traditional sense, or of the Arkhait era. By the transition into the *5th century CE the Gothi and Hellenes of Isha had mixed enough that their early Helleno-Gothic patois had begun to develop into something more organised, and Isha’s identity began to align to what is now termed the Sea Gothi or Blue Gothi. Their civic and individual identity would remain strong, but they were now part of something neither Hellenic nor Gothic, though rooted in both cultures. It is still worth remarking, however, that the nautilus issues continued for many centuries afterwards, and a number of imitations emerged throughout Central Europa, particularly of the high quality *6th century issues designed to compete with the high quality coinage of Gothika. The ancient heritage of Isha, now generally known as Ish, has never been forgotten, in the realm of numismatics or elsewise.​

FRAGMENTS OF POTAMOKLES OF THEBAI BY IREMINVOE OF ADRI (1335 CE)
THE SEA

11- ...know that the Athenians debate, in secret, whether their navy is their salvation or their oppressor, whether … against the Persians or abolish it and rid…

15- Flow like water through the troubles of life, for all its twists and turns a river will always reach the sea no matter what attempts to get in its way.

20- … the real power of the Akhaimenids in the Great Sea, more than the (king?), more than … armies was its naval power taken from the Hellenes and (Phoenicians) which rendered any… that sought to rebel cut off at… one could no more rebel against the King of Persia than a grain of (sand?) can rebel against a beach.

33- The Great Sea brings in congress all peoples that dwell upon and alongside it, and I wonder that one day it might be the seat of a new power instead of the ancient lands of Babylon and Assyria, for the nations that dwell in these regions are countless, strong in war, and bonded together through shared experience of the sea.

THOUGHT OF AKHAIMENID HELLAS (1590 CE)
POTAMOKLES OF THEBAI​

Potamokles is chiefly important to history as one of the ministers of the Amavadatid bureaucracy between *c.332-320 BCE, but is more famous for his ascerbic and forthright remarks on Hellas, Persians, and policy in general. It is believed that the quotations and fragments we possess originate from a work that emerged in the late *4th century BCE, either written by Potamokles himself or compiled by someone attempting to take advantage of his famous wit. His blunt tone has come in and out of fashion many times across history, contributing to the fragmentary survival of the ur-Potamokles text. It was particularly unpopular with the Koinon Hellenion and the Middle Iranian Empire. His most recent revival was in *14th century Hesperia, where the Realist skhola was highly responsive to his direct manner, and his considerations of power on the Great Sea which aligned with their own ambitions.​

The extant fragments of the time were brought together by Ireminvoe of Adri, who was at that point patronised by the main Realist players. His work fit with the desire of his patrons, to have a collection of Potamokles’ quotes for a given theme or occasion. This is why, despite assigning collection numbers to each fragment, he organised these by theme. This was a relatively early project from this famous arkhaist, deeply impressive in its scope and in his dedication to hunting out fragments of this nearly-lost arkhait voice. His translations fit with the general approach at the time, and with what his patrons wished to hear; though Ireminvoe’s skill as a skholar was immense, there are parts of his translation that we felt needed a fresh hand.​

In the time since the collection was published there have been a number of important discoveries. Forgotten archives and libraries, misattributed quotations, a greater confidence with identifying ancient source material by authorial voice, all of these have contributed a number of additional quotations of Potamokles, and additional context for previously fragmentary ones. These are collected here for the first time.​

We continue to utilise the numbers to which these quotations were assigned by Ireminvoe, basing them as he did on their rough date of discovery, though a number of these formerly fragmentary quotations are now more substantially attested, and have continued to use this skhema for new material uncovered these past centuries. The collection by theme, however, is particular to the esteemed Teuvoi’s methodology, and we instead prefer to utilise a khronologically organised list.​

…

32 Anyone who trusts to the good behaviour of the Thessalians is a fool, anyone who rejects the assistance of the Thessalians is an utter idiot. Any mischief these men can and will produce is more than made up for by the skill of their cavaliers and their boldness in war, invaluable to any seeking to utilise the resources of Hellas in campaign. Anyone who provides them with equitable treatment, grazing rights, and the opportunity for warcraft will be their master, any who treat them poorly will wake to the thundering of hooves.

33 The Mesogeios, that great conduit between nations and peoples, may well one day become an equal to the ancient kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria in might and prosperity. Its multitude of peoples are warlike and hardy, and are disposed towards co-operation at suitable times. It would take a willpower of unparalleled determination, with force to match, but it can be done. See how Hellas’ resources, once organised and marshalled together, were enough to allow Amavadatos to take the Akhaimenids head-on and emerge victorious. The difficulty, of course, are the existing powers of the Mesogeios; Massalia, Karkhedon, Italia, Syrakousai. The naval might that would be required to overcome all of these simultaneously is scarcely possible to imagine, even the Great Kings’ navy would have been incapable of conducting the task. Perhaps it is better attempted over the long duree, overcoming one power at a time whilst the others are occupied with more pressing matters, so that by the time they realise their peril they are already outmatched and incapable of winning the campaign that follows.

34 In my humble opinion, kinnamon is the most overrated ingredient that has ever come into Hellas. The way it is added in mounds to recipes, you would think it was made of pure gold. In modest amounts it is an acceptable seasoning, but the desire to demonstrate wealth and taste produces kinnamon infused dishes which are scarcely edible, the spice sticking to the back of your throat like sand. The amount of treasure we would save were it not for the belief that this spice can cure all ills, and improve all dishes…

UNDERSTANDING BUDDHISME BY TORIC mp YULIO (1295 CE)
THE LOTUS
​

Of all the strange and wonderful things which links this community of ascetics, mystics, and skholars, the most unexpected to many is the image of the lotus. Eguept, Amide, Hinde, even in the heart of the Alfine mountains this symbol is common to them all. It is most common in the crescent connecting Eguept and Hinde through the Iranian lands, with Eguept considered to have the most beautiful of the sacred lotuses. They symbolise creation and purity, and also help indicate Buddhiste communities and families from disparate nations to one another. This likely originates in a traditional Hinde veneration of the natural plants that possess singular beauty. The active use of this symbol to demarcate Buddhistes specifically is also common practice in Hinde to indicate that the teachings of the Buddhe are respected a particular temple or household. In those other nations with a profuse quantity of Buddhistes, it is common even for those who do not follow the Buddhe to revere this symbol in a similar fashion. It is the idea and the image of the lotus that is considered sacred, the living plants are willingly consumed at times of need and want. To return to Eguept, as we have understood already it was by the sea that Buddhisme first arrived into these lands, primarily from the activities of their merchants alongside those of Arabia and the Hinde. But it was greatly remarked upon by the earliest missionaries to Eguept that it already possessed its own lotuses, distinct and different from those of Hinde but equally beautiful and native to those lands. It was taken as a sign that this nation would be particularly receptive to the message and way of the Buddhe, and Eguept is indeed the Kingdom of the Twin Lotuses, the most devoutly Buddhiste nation aside from Makidonia. The twin lotuses symbolise Eguept, its unity, its devotion, and its monarchy. It is thought that when the Earth was separated from the Seas, the Land of the Lotus was divided, so that part of it became Eguept, and part became Hinde, and part also became Han where the lotus is also found.

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 7: DRAYA or THALASSA

EXTRACT FROM HERODOTOS OF HALIKARNASSOS’ HISTORIA
RESISTANCE TO THE PERSIANS IN HELLAS
​

Due to the complexity of terrain and political matters in Hellas, there were lands that at first escaped the attention of the Medes, as it was not reckoned that the conquest of Hellas necessitated their capture in order to resolve the campaign satisfactorily. In most cases this was resolved at a later time by treaty or by conquest, accomplished simply as these were predominantly isolated, individual polis with no allies to come to their aid. Exceptional defiance to the conquest, long after it had gained general control over Hellas, did continue and has continued to occur. The Hellenes of Kimmeria and Krete both required substantial campaigns by the Royal Army in order to be subdued, and even now the League of Ithaka continues to remain independent. I will describe how it was that the League of Ithaka came about and how it managed to effectively resist the arms of the Persian King and his subordinates.
​

The Korkyraioi and their neighbours had, as I have previously said, refrained from providing naval forces to the Hellenes in the campaign against Xerxes. This, and their remoteness from the rest of Hellas, caused Xerxes, Mardonios, and many others to ignore them. Xerxes in particular had reckoned that they might be made to treat with him once the Peloponnesos had been gained, and was entirely convinced that no further effort was required. It was not an unreasonable estimation, as this possibility was precisely one of those factors which had delayed their naval aid to the point where it was too late. However, the nearby region of the Akarnanioi had similarly been overlooked by the Persians, again due to its remoteness but also additionally the primitivity of many of its inhabitants. Gathered together in their league, the Akarnanioi were resolved that they would not be made slaves of the Persian King. They were convinced that a pitched battle between themselves and the Persians, particularly with the departure of Xerxes and the main part of his army back across the Hellespont, could certainly be won. What worried them was their weakness at naval matters, and they did not have the connections nor wealth to access those powerful navies belonging to the Italiotes or Syrakousiai.​

Phillipos of Stratos, however, realised that the Korkyraioi had been neglected by the Persians as well, and that they possessed a formidable navy that might be supplemented by such ships as the Akarnanioi could construct and crew. Accordingly, an invitation was given to the leading men of the Korkyraioi to come to Stratos and negotiate an alliance. There was some doubt among the Korkyraioi with regards to whether they had done the right thing, and what might become of them if they submitted to the Persian King. They therefore sent ambassadors as requested. It is not known what passed between the Akarnanioi and Korkyraioi at this meeting, for both parties refuse to say. What is known that, by the end of negotiations, both parties swore an oath of alliance by the statue of Zeus Stratios, and thus was founded the League of Stratos, as the League of Ithaka was originally titled.​

This did not instantly resolve the matter of common defence, however. Whilst the Akarnanioi and Korkyraioi were now resolved, many of the smaller and surrounding poleis were not so convinced as to the purpose of this action, when instead they might simply submit to the Mede. It became clear that this would only be resolved if the League of Stratos could prove its worth in the field. Once news passed to Mardonios of the League’s foundation, this confrontation became only a matter of time, for the conquest was still fresh and it was not necessarily clear that Hellas would remain under his control. He accordingly sent a satrapal army to nip this particular problem in the bud, under the command of Artabazos the Mede. Artabazos, having already demonstrated his ruthlessness at executing the royal will, was the ideal choice. What the Persians had not reckoned with was the precise size of the forces available to the confederates. For one, their relative obscurity to the Persians prior to this campaign worked in their favour, along with a general Hellenic insistence that the Akarnanioi were barely Hellenes and practically barbarians. For another matter, this stand against the Persians convinced a substantial number of Korinthioi who were displeased at the coming of the Mede to join the forces of the League, whereas previously they had only been evacuating in the direction of Syrakousai and Epeiros.​

Thus the army of Artabazos was met at the crossing of the Akheloios river at Agrinion Agrios’ city, having had a difficult march through mountainous terrain to even reach the lands of the Akarnanioi. Awaiting them were the forces of Akarnanioi, Korinthioi, and Korkyraioi that had been gathered for this momentous battle, led under the command of Phillipos of Stratos in the centre, Timodemos of Korinthos on the right, and Maiandrios son of Maiandros on the left respectively. Artabazos had with him nearly 20,000 men, this having been deemed sufficient to defeat the members of the League, but he was confronted by almost 5,000 hoplitai and as many again of lighter equipment. However, Artabazos still had good reason to believe that the battle would favour him; he possessed finer cavalry, greater numbers, and had experience in dealing with Hellenes in combat. He was not, therefore, unduly concerned. However, Mardonios had neglected to provide a naval component to this campaign, either through rivalry with Artabazos or because Hellenic crews were still considered unreliable whilst much of the Persian King’s navies were still occupied on fighting piracy and pacifying Kimmeria and Krete. This gave the Korinthioi and Korkyraioi a free hand to sail around to Pleuron, gather those Aitolians nearby who were favourable to the defeat of the Mede.​

There was not, it must be said, as many Aitolians gathered as might have been possible; the relationship between Akarnanoi and Aitolians was already a bitter one, and they were not disposed towards aiding those they saw as barbarians. However, at length, some of them were persuaded to do so for a greater good, and so a small force was sent across the mountains to ambush the Persian forces in the baggage train, causing as much mischief as possible. However, they had reckoned without the precise motions of the battle, which had been underway for some time by the time that this band arrived. Instead of finding themselves near the baggage of the Persians they instead were faced with the flank of the Persian line. At the size of the Persian forces many would have wavered but, so hotly that the Persians were unable to respond, these brave men instead charged the Persians straight away. This immediately caused confusion among the Persians as to whether they were being surrounded, their scouts not having accounted for passage of hostile arms from the surrounding mountains. This, at length, allowed the Akarnanioi to start a push under Phillipos, folding the Persian line and buckling it towards the centre.​

Artabazos recognised that the day was lost, and so began an attempt to withdraw as much of his forces in good order as proved possible. The presence of cavalry prevented any harsh pursuit of his retreating forces, but the Persians had still lost half of their number in the fight, and it was rightly considered a great victory over the Persians by the League and its allies. This convinced the men of Pale, Kranioi, Zakynthos and Leukas to join the League, and to pool their naval resources together. This defeat also convinced the men of Epeiros that it would be advantageous to support the League in a subtle manner, so as to provide a buffer between itself and the Persians. Nonetheless, the most important result from the battle was the assembly of such a large number of warships, particularly trieres, as this would be the factor guaranteeing the League’s long term security from the Persians, just as the loss at Salamis was disastrous to the allies gathered against the Persians before them.​

​

NAVAL WARFARE BY GOTHAPOLOVI OF MOEZA (981 CE)
TRIEREIS AND PENTEREIS

​

Something no play, and few enough books, will tell you about ancient naval warfare is how reliant it was on ramming. If you are used to theatrical depictions of naval battles then it always consists of boarding actions, so that speeches and dialogue and combat scenes might occur. But the ancient warship was a weapon in its own right. We believe, from the accounts of Herodotos and similar ancient authors, that a particular improvement of the Hellenes made to the trieres design was that of strengthening the ram, altering its shape and bolting it more securely to the hull. This was not ultimately effective at the battle of Salamis but would prove effective elsewhere, and it is believed that the Hellenic trieres design replaced that of the Sidonians in the Persian Empire some time prior to the reign of King Ariabignes, though by the end of Amavadatos’ reign as usurper-king of Hellas these fearsome warships were being replaced by the penteres as the main ship of battle.​

Both designs have become particularly evocative of certain times; the trieres of great individual contests when the Great Sea was first settling into its Golden Age- the Hellenes against the Persians, the Syrakousai against the Italiotes, the Italiotes against the Tyrsenoi, the Carthazines against the Hellenes; the penteres is instead emblematic of the Great Sea as increasingly dominated by numerous potent sea powers in their prime. But even as the penteres was a more potent boarding ship than its predecessor, both continued to use their rams as their primary method of sinking an opposing ship. The skill required to manoeuvre to a ship’s weaker side, and to safely extract from a rammed vessel, would have been extraordinary. There is a reason that all ancient vessels were rowed by free, trained men as opposed to slaves. We are not privy to as much information as we would like; the fundamentals of sailing were so common to the Hellenes and other ancient peoples that they didn’t feel like writing much of their craft down. We know that these ships needed to be beached each night, that particular timbers were chosen for their balance between lightness and strength, that the average trieres was around forty meters long and crewed by almost two hundred men.​

The expense of constructing and maintaining these ships was immense. There is a reason that potent navies and rich polities seem to go together. In Athenai rich citizens would annually sponsor a particular trieres, and eventually this was the responsibility of two such citizens of Athenai when the Amavadatids introduced the penteres to their main naval poleis. The undisputed master of naval forces was for some time the Achaemenid Empire, but its navies were always divided between the Great Sea and the Wider Seas on the other side of its domains, limiting the number of ships it could bring to bear on any one front. But its wealth was unmatched and, accordingly, even so divided the Achaemenid fleet of the Great Sea was a match for any that dared challenge it. Not until the days of the Imerians would any have claim to surpass the raw naval might of the Achaemenids. Yet ultimately the two peoples most closely associated with the naval actions of these times are the Phoinikes and the Hellenes, the Phoinikes for inventing the trieres and the Hellenes for perfecting it, and spreading it throughout the Great Sea.​

MY EXPEDITION BY IJIRE OF KWAKA (1601 CE)

​

To reach the Great Sea is an undertaking of some forethought. One must either take a caravan across the desert (most directly accomplished by passing through the ruined Gamana lands), or follow the road to the harbour of Finiqi and sail, or find a captain who is skilled at dealing with the Seas of the Sun and so sail the entire route. The latter is a more easily accomplished task now than it was in ages past, before the discovery of the Island of Dawn or the Farther Continent, because now one can do a reasonably reliable circuit without ever fighting against the wind or the currents, but this ease comes at the expense of travel time. In order to make this journey in any timely manner, the more ancient and difficult method must be utilised if one wishes to go the entire way on water. In the interest of my survey, and reliability, I decided to take the middle course of action, that of going to Port Finiqi and sailing the rest of the way, seeing that it would allow me to encounter as many peoples as possible en route.

I took the preparations for this great voyage extremely seriously. My passage was carefully timed to avoid sandhaze, and I had chosen my companions carefully. I was following a salt caravan heading to Port Finiqi, extremely capable, sociable, and well provisioned. We embarked at in the 3rd Month, travelling at a steady pace. The route from Great Kwaka to Port Finiqi retraces, in part, the ancient land trade between Fiqra and our ancestors, and even within the homeland there are traces of ancient trade posts along the desert paths, from when the rains were kinder. Thus many kingdoms have lived and died along these roads, and one cannot be careful enough when travelling upon them, even within our own nation. When townsteads or villages were not available to shelter us, we mostly stayed in these same ruined sites, wondering at their signs of past grandeur and placating any Gods that were still angry over the fate of the locals. One such site that left a particular impression upon me were the ruins of Go, half buried in sand, stripped of all but the hardiest materials by the action of the sand. The spirits of the dead were with us, and we left them offerings as we left, to thank them for their protection and hospitality.​

After a week we departed the lands of the Malaghanu entirely and embarked on the Balil road proper. All nations along this route must respect the caravan, for all ultimately depend upon the goods which they bring. Salt in particular is so vital and necessary that even in times of war we would have been certain of our safety. Nonetheless, it struck me just how far we had yet to go, how distant Port Finiqi really was from our nation. We would not make our westward turn until much later, the road to Port Finiqi not diverging until the crossroads at Soga. Even if nations respected the caravan, there were those that might have been more willing to chance their luck. These lands can be unsafe when the Fugaru play at war, or there is conflict between the Vati and the northern Kwa, who all live hard nomadic lives and will resort to plundering caravans when times are hard. When I was travelling it was a time of peace, however, and we had only the desert to fear.​

…

When we finally came upon Port Finiqi, at long last, I could see that it had seen better days. The Port was still filled with sails from all shores but its walls were tired and old, with mansions rotting in ruinous states on the city outskirts as I rode by. It was certainly not the peerless metropolis as our grandfathers knew it, though the memory of greatness was still here. The decorations were faded but visible if one paused to check, the vibrant colours chipped but not gone. Magnificence was but recently taken from this place, not the result of a long malaise brought about by impiousness and inaction. Being curious, and having heard no news of the Port since my departure from Kwaka, I asked around as to what had happened. It was generally told to me by locals that this sorry state was the result of war among the western kingdoms, with Salu having emerged the victor but at significant cost. Port Finiqi had been besieged twice in the past decade, though it had rebuffed both attempts at capture there had been much devastation to the walls and the surrounding city, a number of its great and good had fled to Salu and not yet returned. But whilst the city looked damaged and battered, the people continued to thrive and bustle through the streets. Gold, spice, slaves, fruit, oil, devices, scrolls all still teem through the markets of Port Finiqi, not to mention the salt as brought by my faithful companions. I took my leave of them, but not before gifting them for their protection, companionship, and piety. I was confident that Port Finiqi would soon, through its industriousness and determination, restore its prior glory, and felt heartened.​

I stayed in an inn for one night before finding a suitable ship. I mention this because I have never eaten better lamb and rice in my life, and have rarely slept better outside of a princely residence, and this wonderful place deserves to be memorialised. It was a three storey building with perhaps twenty rooms, and an atrium that would have been fit for any royal palace. My room had a sturdy, comfortable bed, a carpet (not a genuine Irani but a skilled imitation), shelving, a storage chest, and even a desk and chair for those of such needs. All the furniture was made from Adras wood, and the walls beautifully painted. The inn was owned by Amba, and the structure itself was one of the most charming examples of Fiqra architecture I witnessed. Having since encountered such buildings more widely I recognise this as a style distinct to Port Finiqi; the particular incorporation of wood ceiling beams into the abode, the use of orange, white and blue to vibrantly paint adobe walls, particularly around doorways.​

The next day, I soon found passage on a ship captained by a man of Mur named Bhran, a tall fellow with firey hair and indomitable countenance. His was a crew of many nations; Ili, Fani, Fugari, Pruna, Tika, and countless more. This diversity is always common among ship crews, and in this part of the world even more so. The crew principally traded in spice, dyes, and oil, and on this part of their journey were returning with their haul of spice, their oil having been gratefully received by the locals who use it for cooking, libations, cleaning, and medicine. As for the spices, it was strange to see something so common to us being treated with such reverence and expense, but I had always imagined this was the case with the trading wares we ourselves consider exotic that are common elsewhere, and my later experiences would confirm this hypothesis. The oil, for instance, made from olives, that we and Port Finiqi value so highly is actually commonplace throughout the Great Sea, where the oilfruit grows in great groves maintained for centuries.​

This meeting with Bhran’s crew, and subsequent journey, was my first introduction to the peoples of the Great Sea so close to their native lands. They laughed at my shock over the overwhelming paleness of much of the crew, and told me that they were considered dark for their peoples, having darkened under the sun. I could not imagine such a thing at the time. Their common language was Adrassi patois, used because of the many languages spoken on board at great benefit to myself being familiar with this tongue, but on board this was of course spoken with many slang terms taken from their own native tongues. Conversation with these men was the first time I was ever called Idonian, an ancient name that I have not yet identified the source of, it has apparently been used to refer to the lands around the Green Coast since time immemorial, not distinguishing between those of Malaghanu and those of other kingdoms, other peoples, other creeds. I realised then that I would be an equal target of misattributed wisdoms as the Great Sea frequently was in my homeland. I knew, however, that no amount of time spent among these men would fully prepare me for the Great Sea, its differences, its cultures, its Gods, so I could only take this as a small token of things to come, and committed to learning what I could. It was with both excitement and trepidation that we set out from Port Finiqi towards the Blue Gate that guards the Great Sea from the rest of the world.​

Our first major port of call was going to be Busa, founded by the Finiqi some two thousand years ago...​

​

 

[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 7: DRAYA or THALASSA

EXTRACT FROM HERODOTOS OF HALIKARNASSOS’ HISTORIA (c.440 BCE)
GELON ESTABLISHES HIS RULE

When he had made Syrakousai his own possession, he rated Gela as a less important subject of his attention, which he then awarded to his brother Hiero; over Syracuse Gelon was king, and all his care was for Syrakousai.
​

That city immediately grew and became great, as not only did Gelon bring all the citizens of Kamarina to Syrakousai and give them its citizenship instead, having destroyed the township of Kamarina, but he then did the same thing to more than half of the citizens of Gela, and when the Megarians in Sikelia surrendered to Gelon after a siege he took the wealthiest part of the citizen body, who had warred against him and had expected to be put to death for this, and brought them to Syrakousai to be citizens there instead. As for the common people of Megara, who had had part in the war and expected that no harm would befall them, these he also brought to Syrakousai and then sold them for slaves to be taken abroad.​

​

He dealt with the Euboians of Sikelia in almost exactly the same way, making the same distinction both times. The reason for his treating the commoners of both places in this way was that he held the common people to be horrendous to live with.​

PHAIDRIAS SON OF PHAIDRIPPOS’ LETTERS
LETTER 11: MASSALIA

Massalia is become a ruin of a city, infested with barbarians that have been granted citizenship and Hellenic wives by craven elders. Its attempts to keep its numberless Keltoi neighbours at bay are increasingly desperate, and in their time of weakness they turn to other barbarians to achieve what their own Hellenic citizens are incapable of. I do not know whether to blame their ignorant rulers or the weakness of the general population, but Massalia is no longer a polis of Hellenes, it is a breeding ground for savages to satiate their lusts on civilized women, the strength of its walls compromised by allowing the enemy within. Within a generation what little remains of its citizen body and civilization shall fall, this I guarantee.


THE HISTORY OF SIKELIA BY PHADINAMOS (292 BCE)
INTRODUCTION

In all respects, against all comers, I declare Syrakousai to be the Queen of Cities. Where Athenai was founded on the wisdom of Apollon, Mykenai on the strength of Poseidon, Syrakousai was founded on the waters of Arethusa, the Ortygian sigh. It is this which set Syrakousai apart from the beginning of its foundation, even when Gela was once its superior, and heralded its mastery over the seas, for where Athenai produced learning, and Mykenai once ruled over all other Hellenes by virtue of its strength, Syrakousai would come to possess command over the waters. But this is an illustration of might, and is not the sole metric by which I determine Syrakousai to be the greatest among all cities. Instead I also turn to the size and strength of its walls, the numbers of its citizens, the perfection of its demokratic constitution, the quality of worship to which the Gods are accustomed to receiving from the citizens, and the wealth that is collected here. It is said that a slave from Syrakousai would be considered a king in most cities, and from my experience I would be inclined to agree.


THESAUROI BY PERICLES TANTINU (1390 CE)
SIRACUSE

Siracuse, known to the ancient Hellenes as Syrakousai, Pentaple, Thusa, and Surcusa to the Brontosards, and Phenda to the Ligurians, is a city of antiquity and grandeur. Sited on the southeastern coast of Sicana, it is estimated to have been founded in *732 BCE by a combination of colonists from Korinthos and Tenea, though it is also commonly said that this was a refoundation of a town peopled by the Murgi, particularly among those people who identify Sicana by the name of Morga. The ancient heart of the city was the Ortygian isle, upon which stood its original citadel and dwellings, but even in ancient times it had spread across to the coast of Sicana proper to the district of Acradine, and further spread into the districts of Neapoli, Tici, and Epipoli. The city now additionally encompasses the district of Pantali, a site of equal antiquity, and its centre is now Tici and its port, more commonly known in my time as Adupoli. Even through the many years and adventures of the city, its successes and its sorrows, its streets still follow the same ordered layout as originally set out by the oikists, a fact that is much admired throughout Hesperia. It is a city much loved by its citizens, and greatly envied for its many illustrious achievements elsewhere. Piety, industry, and a desire to excel are all to be found here in great measure.​

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The metropolis houses a number of splendid buildings and apartments. The theatre of Siracuse, the tombs of Pantali, and its sanctuary of Arithuse are all survivals from the city’s original, ancient foundation, which to this day have been kept in scrupulous condition. The theatre of Siracuse in particular has rarely been bettered in aesthetic or acoustic quality in the many centuries since it was first constructed, and is one of the largest surviving examples of an ancient Hellenic theatron. Until the sack of *882 CE the city’s original Temple to Apollo was also still standing, and its loss still bitterly remembered by its citizens. The holy site for the Redeemer was refounded by *920 CE during the city’s period of recovery, and it is quietly believed that the more modern refoundation is even more sumptuous than the original, though many consider such notions impious. Another foundation not quite as venerable, but with an antiquity of its own, is the Pantheon of Laron, believed to have been founded by the eponymous king in *390 CE, a splendid example of the early Hesperian style of Olican foundation. None of the ancient palaces of the kings of Syrakousai have survived to the present day, though many fine elements from those grand houses and chambers have found their way into the homes of prominent citizens, and indeed the palaces of many latter rulers over the city. The oldest such set of apartments are the Houses of Tolunuro, which once belonged to the Tolumuridai family of nobles until their disgrace, and are now the official quarters of the Kosmarkis. They are likely to date to *661 CE or thereabouts, as Heracle Alaliu Tolumuro is first said to have wandered to Brontosardi Sicana in that year. They incorporate a mosaic from the late *4th century BCE (a particularly fine piece on the Titanomachia) and a painted fresco of the 1st century CE believed to be the first representation of a citrus tree in Hesperian art. Should the office of the Kosmarkis be amenable, it is an excellent place to visit.​

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Grain was the foundation of the city’s initial prosperity and remains one of its most vital industries. However, its modern prosperity is strong precisely because of its multiple sources of wealth. In terms of commercial enterprise the export of Siracusan wine and olive oil from the nearby fertile lands is a prosperous venture, both being highly reputed abroad for their quality. The port is also key to the wider distribution of Idonian and African wares into Hesperia and beyond past the Alphes, though it competes most vigorously with Catania and other Sicani ports in this matter, this all having been caused by the abolition of the Zankeli Grant. The city’s great size (having an estimated population of 50,000 in the city proper and an additional 200,000 in its hinterland), antiquity, and tranquility also guarantees a large and regular tax revenue, and a great deal of its income and duties remains in the hands of its local magistrates, rather than making its way to a distant army and an even more distant ruler. The holy site of Arithuse also attracts many pilgrims from across the Great Sea, come to pay homage to the breath of the goddess and seat of Apollo. The city is particularly blessed with the kind of pilgrim generous enough to leave a small foundation and endowment behind, and the foundation pillars of Siracuse are some of the most numerous outside of Elefsi, Memfi, and Micenai that I have witnessed.​

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The city’s history is one of turbulence, ambition, and brilliance. Even a jaundiced, partial account of the city would describe it as one of the most important protagonists of ancient times, and even in our own times the city retains rank and importance, given that it is considered the second city of Sicana after Catania, and the title of Siracusan Kosmarki thought of as desirable and prestigious. Perhaps it would no longer be called the Queen of Cities, but the end of a dynasty is not the end of glory or legacy, as indeed the history of Siracuse illustrates perfectly, and we must credit it as formerly possessing this title with more than ample justification. In both ancient and present times Siracuse has always been defined by the industry and will of its inhabitants, and also the struggle to define where this mighty assembled force would be most effectively used.​

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Ancient Syrakousai is one of the most enigmatic nations found in our history. Demokratic in one moment then ruled by kings in another, at times a leader among equals and at others the head of a mighty Empire, friendly towards fellow Hellenes in one generation and utterly hostile towards them in another. Many have struggled to conclude to Syrakousai’s true character as a result, being confounded by its many changes across even short periods, and among some the city in its ancient form has come to be associated with impiety and moral degeneracy. I have come to think of these shifts as the Ortygian Sigh, and the vastness of these changes as being themselves attached to the grandeur and power of the city in these times. For anyone with ambitions to change the world, even for specious reasons, Syrakousai was an ideal launching point for these goals, its commercial and military reach being beyond nearly any other of the ancient Hellenic poleis. When it was not the subject of such adventures and gambits it was often at war with itself over its mode of government and general objectives in the theatre of politics, so it is not surprising that between generations it experienced volcanic shifts in temperament and desire. It was also a city of enormous pride, particularly after the Akhaimenids came to conquer Hellas proper, and with that came a gnawing instinct that it should be leading and not led.​

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Syrakousai had three periods of imperial status. The first was immediately after the defeat of the forces of Karkedon and its allies in the early *5th century BCE, where its Deinomidai rulers expanded their already mighty domains to encompass the entire island, aided by the swell of Hellenic exiles come to escape the Persians. This came to an end with War of Akrai in *458-455 BCE, fought between Deinomidai claimants, which led to the establishment of the first demokratic regime in Syrakousai. It is in this period that the polis was a faithful ally to the First Italiote League, even after the abortive tyranny of Phylakes in *402 BCE. The second Empire was formed under the Second Demokratic Constitution of the *4th century BCE, where Syrakousai and her citizens maintained control over cities in Italia and even colonies as far away as the coast of Dalmatia, having taken advantage of the First Italiote League’s collapse. This came to an end with the seizure of the throne by the Heraklids in *282 BCE, and a series of wars between rival dynasties seeking to claim the entire island, eventually resulting in the complete conquest of Sikelia by the Second Italiote League in 90 BCE. The third and last was under the Deinarkhids of the *1st and 2nd centuries CE, who having recovered the independence of the Sikelian cities from the Italiote League in *17 CE once again expanded a Siracusan royal dynasty to cover much of the island. This final empire of Syrakousai came to a slow decay from *112 CE onwards with the slide into civil war between rival dynastic claimants, and from *170 BCE men of Cursici and Sardinia used this opportunity to gain a foothold in the prosperous island.​

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I would not consider myself partial or unsupported in declaring Syrakousai the greatest of the ancient Hellenic polis in strength and majesty when taken as a whole across this era. Even in those periods where it did not possess an imperial sway Syrakousai remained one of the most populous of all the Hellenic cities, and was never one to be trifled with, even as a possession of such a mighty assembly of powers as the Second Italiote League. One could simply never count Syrakousai out of the equation; the Second Italiote League had thought the city finally tamed under its rule, only to find the ancient metropolis throw off their garrison and authority with newfound strength. Time and time again the city and its people would reassert their strength and courage in the face of adversity, and this is a quality that should be admired and recognised. Syrakousai was responsible for the foundation of Akrai, Kasmeni, Akrille, Elor, Kamarine, Ish, Ancon, Aphroditia, Zephyrian Philadelphia, Tormenio, and indirectly that of Poseidonia-on-Cinyps. Under the dynasty of Gelon the city could reliably equip an army of 10,000 men at arms and as many again armed in light order, and possessed hundreds of warships. It adapted to the shift from push to maneuver warfare haphazardly, and retained a traditional phalanx as late as the Third Italia-Syrakousai war in the early 3rd century BCE, but maintained its top rate military strength in this period with judicious use of foreign mercenaries, from Italia, further Hesperia, Africa, Illyria, and even from Celtica. These mercenaries were also the means by which successive rulers overthrew demokratic regimes and maintained their supreme power.​

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This, however, was the weakness by which the Second Italiote League slowly overcame their dominion over Sikelia, and then the city itself, across the 2nd-1st centuries BCE, culminating in the *91 BCE Siege of Syrakousai in which the city’s defenders, shorn of the mercenaries by lack of coin, proved insufficient to defend the length of the city’s walls against the assembled Italiotes. The Deinarkhids, having thrown out the Italiotes, and determined to resist any incursions of the Tyrsenoi under the expansionist Third Golden Generation, conducted a wholesale reform of the military of Syrakousai, and by extension Sikelia. Exiles and malcontents from the Tyrsenoi were brought in to the kingdom to drill men-at-arms and cavaliers in the modern forms of warfare, and the Deinarkhids possessed the wealth to maintain a standing army of considerable size, with their contribution to the Battle of Poseidonia stated at 30,000 strong. The battalions of this army were named for kings of Syrakousai across the ages, with the Men of Gelon considered the most skilled and prestigious. It was not force of arms which would break the Deinarkhids, in the end, but the dynasty’s own civil wars.​

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SYNTHESIS BY DEOCINGE OF MASELIA (1639 CE)
MASSALIA

Massalia began as a city under siege. The ancient Hellenes planted many scions across the Great Sea, some in less or more friendly territory as we have seen, but Massalia was in perhaps the most unfriendly landscape of all of the many places in which Hellenes came to live. When they first arrived in the *7th century BCE they were hotly beset by the Ligirienes, an ancient people with no love for incursions into their perceived territory, which once extended across all of what is now Aohnia, Masselia, and the upper parts of Iperissa, possibly extending past the Alfin peaks into Foia. The Farfarines of the region were not welcoming for the most part either, though they were most often concerned with their own wars between themselves. The end result was that Massalia planted fortresses on their borders and trade routes in order to protect themselves and secure their fortunes, and through this slowly expanded the territory that they controlled. Despite the hostility faced by the Massaliotes they managed to accrue wealth by their trade inland, even founding colonies in Iberia, but until the Parsine conquest of the Hellene homelands they were always struggling to maintain their garrisons and fortresses properly, relying on it being the second line of defence which would actually repel determined invaders. With the Parsine Conquest of *479 BCE a flood of Hellenic refugees headed straight for Massalia, some of them being the adventurous type, others simply being willing to help in any way they could. This newfound surge of power allowed the Massaliotes to express their will over the surrounding peoples, but also made them more attractive as an ally to the Farfarine tribes, who were constantly calculating everyone’s relative strength and advantages.​

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This resulted in the Cauan and Wocont tribes allying to the banner of the Massaliote cause, and an infusion of both peoples into Massalia proper as they were planted in important garrisons. Of course many of them brought families with them, and needed lands in which to settle. Being considered barbarians but needing them close to hand, a segregated part of Massalia was constructed for a large portion of these allies and their need for abode. The Etekhronikos of Massalia consistently refers to such peoples as ‘allies’ rather than anything more, but there are indications that many of the Farfarines of smaller towns and garrisons were already being treated as de facto citizens by the *440s BCE. The Farfarine district of Massalia proper steadily grew across this period, and as the largest concentration of the Farfarines next to the actual hub of political life were more actively kept from the echelons of full citizen life. However, from the moment the alliances were drawn up eventualities were being set in motion to bring these two parts of Massalia together. A number of prominent Farfarine allies soon gave great service to Massalia, the most famous among these being Atecnatos across the *470s-450s BCE, also known as Diodoros, and Wocontorix from *456-439 BCE, also known as Ocontos. Their deeds set their families on the path to becoming full citizens of Massalia through their loyalty, dedicated service, and courageous deeds, and where prominent leaders gained citizenship this set the example that other Farfarines might be able to achieve the same thing. It was the hostility of the Ligirienes that allowed all of this to happen, granting the Cauan and Wocont warriors many opportunities to render needful service alongside smaller bands and individuals from other Farfarine tribes attracted to Massalia. These were usually extended raids or attacks on particular forts and towns, sometimes in concert with Farfarine allies, but following a reasonably predictable pattern. Slowly, but surely, attitudes were softening towards the ‘barbarians’ in the Hellenes’ midst.​

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The moment that changed everything was the attack of King Ligirix in *419 BCE. This represented the most potent and viable threat to Massalia in the city’s nearly 200-year history. Tens of thousands of Ligirienes and Farfarine allies marched directly against the city, aiming to rid Ligirix of the threat against his kingdom for all time, but also to strengthen Ligirix’s kingdom against the continuing migrations of unfriendly Farfarines to the lands surrounding his territories. The Massaliot army had already been out on campaign, and had to hurriedly return in order to confront this enormous assembly of arms. The army that ultimately confronted King Ligirix in the field was led by one Phoxinos, grandson of Atecnatos, and the second generation of Atecnatids to possess full citizenship. He had already gained enough reputation and good opinion so as to head the intended expedition, but this was the first time he had been tested in a battle of such immense proportions. He and the Massaliot army caught up to and confronted the Ligirienes in the Battle of Afenio, a chaotic affair where both sides charged in confused order due to ill-discipline and long running intertribal feuds. Through ingenuity and sharpness, Phoxinos had the day, mostly by reacting far quicker to this unplanned charge than his opponent. But the threat to Massalia was not ended yet. Whilst many of his allies had deserted him most of Ligirix’s faithful Ligirienes had survived the battle, and would in short order be able to attack Massalia once again, maybe even in that same campaign season. Realising that it was necessary for Massalia to try end this threat in finality, and that this was a golden opportunity to expand her power, Phoxinos gave chase to Ligirix all the way to Ligiris proper. There the armies met at the battle of the Rodano, which was the fiercer and more closely fought battle, the Ligirienes fighting bravely to defend their homeland where the Massaliotes fought for their future. It was bloody day for all concerned, but with the death of Ligirix by spear the battle was decided, and the Ligirienes overwhelmed.​

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It was this battle that confirmed to all Massaliots the value of their Farfarine allies, and not only that but their rightful place as equal partners in all things going forward. Whilst the Farfarine districts of Massalia remained, their walls separating them from the rest of the city were thrown down, and their residents granted citizenship, being added to the existing genoi in a manner of equal distribution. When, accordingly, Phoxinos planted garrisons of Farfarines in the newly conquered parts of Ligiris, these were not foreign mercenaries but fellow and loyal citizens, and Phoxinos was sewing the seeds for Massalia’s growth into new territories as much as he was securing its borders. This new Massalia, as a joint enterprise between Hellenes and Farfarines, was not unprecedented in the Hellenic world but it was the first time such an enterprise had been conducted on such a large scale, in such a powerful polis. Though many other Hellenes at the time responded with derision or predictions of dire consequences for Massalia, this political compact would prove to be durable, winning Massalia valour through arms and surviving first Tursene, then Aohni conquest. and indeed coming to culturally dominate Aohnia from the *1st-4th centuries CE.​

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But what forms did this synthesis take, how did the two cultures begin to blend together? As with many other places, it began with the simple fact of sharing daily life together as equals, but swiftly became more complex as participation in civic life escalated, and complicated further once civic life began to alter to accomodate the new nature of the citizen body. The most visible early signs of the emerging Farfari-Hellene culture in Massalia are the increasing reference to Hellenic deities with Farfari epithets, which themselves often refer to what had previously been distinct Farfari deities. The two most popular deities in Massalia were Aplu Maponu and Artimi Dinna, combining aspects of both cultures by aligning the city’s most important traditional deities with Farfarine deities of popularity and similar qualities. This represents an understanding of one another’s most intimate beliefs, and a recognition of their equality. We also find material indications of the cultural synthesis even as early as the *420s BCE, with the adoption of Farfari weaponry as visible on illustrations and arcaiteric remains. Not long afterwards a more Farfari strain of material design becoming visible in jewelry and pottery from Massalia, mainly as an incorporation of curviform fascination into decoration and the replacement of some traditional Hellenic imagery with Farfarine imagery in a Hellenic style.​

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As the city grew greater still, the synthesis deepened. Hellenic literacy extended into the Farfarine population by this period, as demonstrated by references to Massaliot authors with Farfarine names, grave inscriptions of Farfarines written in Hellenic letters and signed by fellow Farfarines. Tellingly, Hellene letters are also used to render Farfari words and sentences from the early *3rd century BCE onwards, reflecting an increased relevance and acceptance of Farfarine language and a use for rendering it in writing. But this was also the period in which this cultural mixing began to extend outside the city’s walls, or those of its other towns and fortresses. Hellenic architectural styles and practices become more widely adopted throughout the Massaliot territories and indeed in parts of the Aohni lands. These are often found in locations associated with emerging Farfarine cities, where Massalia was acting as a model, or attached to chieftains attempting to enhance their status by the construction of monumental structures. The presence of the Tursene occupiers from 238 CE onwards, their own culture a product of a synthesis with Hellene culture, provided a new element in the environment of Massalia, though the wealth and population of Massalia restricted their settlement compared to other border provinces of their Empire. The connection to the Tursene military system and commercial network, however, enabled the Farfari-Hellene culture to spread further and faster than previously, whether by the movements of Massaliot troops in Tursene armies, the passage of Massaliot traders through cities, or the occasional settlement of Massaliots in other Tursene border regions. By the time the Aohni occupied and conquered Massalia in *29 CE, a precursor to the massive conquest of the Tursene not much later, the synthesis between Farfarine and Hellene in Massalia was almost complete; festivals were held in common, a Farfari-Hellene dialect had become the everyday language and was in the process of developing its own literary corpus, names of Farfari and Hellene origin were used freely by the population with equal weight. It is this that has been termed the Hellenistic culture.​

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The city was an important asset to the Aohni kings, and its power was relatively preserved despite the massive impact of the Aohni invasion on other former Tursene lands, along with its power structures, though of course a confederate chieftain was given nominal control over the city to secure it for the Aohnix. Instead it was the Massaliots that began to radically alter the culture of their invaders. The land of the Massaliots was itself transforming Aohnia forever, through being the largest and oldest city under its control, through its immense commercial impact and continued cultural prestige, and through the importation of its skilled artisans by Aohni kings and chieftains. When the Aohni Confederacy crumbled one of the most important splinters was based on the city of Massalia as ruled by one Roudorix, Roudorix having himself assimilated into Massaliot culture in order to gain control over the city properly. Roudorix was seen as a legitimate ruler of Massalia according to its laws and constitution, albeit its first monarch. The Roudanidai dynasty built on their forefather’s legacy, and the small chiefdom of Massalia expanded to become the Kingdom of Rodano across the 2nd-4th centuries CE. By the foundation of the kingdom the Massaliots were now considered Farfarine, but they had already transformed wider Farfarine culture into something vastly more Hellenic than previous, creating the wider Hellenistic culture of the High Farfarines. They were the originators and propagators of the more complex, bureaucratic Farfarine culture of Aohnia and Aticania that weathered the Germani invasions where many other Farfarines were swept up. Not only was Massalia itself a showcase of the triumph of synthesis, it was also itself an engine of synthesis across entire neighbouring regions.​

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[Daeres]

Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 7: DRAYA or THALASSA

EXTRACT FROM HERODOTOS OF HALIKARNASSOS’ HISTORIA (c.440 BCE)
ARTEMISIA​

There is no call for me to discuss any of the other commanders, except for Artemisia of Karia. I consider her to be a singular object of admiration because she was a woman who played a critical part in the successful campaign against Hellas. She gained a crown on the death of her husband, as she had a son who was still not come of age. Because of her courage and will she went to war although she had no need or requirement to do so. Her name was Artemisia; she was the daughter of Lygdamis, and was of Halikarnassian descent on her father's side and Kretan on her mother's. She led the forces of Halikarnassos, Kos, Nisyros and Kalyndos, and supplied five ships. The ships she brought had the highest reputation in the whole Persian fleet, besides the ones from Sidon, and of all the allies she gave the Persian king the best advice. I have listed the cities that she commanded; it is clear that they all belong to the Dorian group, as the people of Halicarnassos come from Troizen, and the rest from Epidauros.​

EXTRACT FROM A COMMENTARY ON XENOKRITOS’ PERSIKA (c.448 BCE)
ON ARTEMISIA​

It was Artemisia, Queen of Halikarnassos, that struck the critical blow by ramming and sinking the ship of Eurybiades unexpectedly, for as incompetent as he was he was still the commander of the fleet and his ship was still the heart of all commands, all remaining cohesion and order began to break down from this point forwards(1).
“Know that a mere woman sent the Spartan warrior to the bottom of the sea.” said Artemisia.
It has been claimed that this account of her valour is a false tale because she was a woman(2), but even those unfriendly to the Persians and those who served the Great King faithfully praise the skill and courage of this woman and the five ships that she brought(3), some have even said that it was four ships and the Hellenes simply could not believe that only four ships could perform so effectively(4). Xenokritos does not doubt the veracity of this story or the courage of Artemisia, greatest of all Hellenes in the service of the Great King(5).​

Observations

1- Here Xenokritos must reconcile his characterisation of Eurybiades as incompetent and Themistokles as the admiral worthy of consideration with the fact that Themistokles’ death did not cause the final collapse, Eurybiades’ did. The attempt is not particularly convincing.

2- No contemporary literary source survives which actually questions the overall truth of Artemisia’s actions and presence at Salamis, but Xenokritos’ defensive posture and references in other contemporary sources to such doubts leaves us in no doubt that this was an accusation brought forth by some chroniclers of the period. Neither did these accusations follow the typical western/eastern division; it seems that the principal doubters were Athenians and non-Hellenes accounting the events of the Persian Wars. We have no particular reason to doubt her participation at Salamis. There have certainly been many in subsequent centuries who have doubted the existence of a historical Artemisia, for one reason or another, but there is little to no credibility in this, and all such denials have had an overtly partial basis rather than any particular strong evidence.

3- By which Xenokritos means Herodotos of Halikarnassos, who he once again refuses to name directly even as he relies upon his work for support. The Halikarnassian, it must be said, had rather obvious reasons for being agreeable to Artemisia, but at no point expresses support for any particularly outlandish story involving the Queen.

4- There are no other references to this belief outside of Xenokritos, and it is more than a little suggestive of invention that this is the case. But we must also highlight this exaggeration as historically significant, representing the beginning of Artemisia’s legendary existence by accumulation of tall tales and oneupmanship. One wonders what Xenokritos would have thought of the legendary Artemisia he helped create.

5- Once again there are attempts to show that it is not that Hellenes are bad at naval warfare, or warfare in general, it is that they were fighting for the wrong cause and poorly led. Xenokritos here uses Artemisia as another example of this, as a Hellene, and a woman no less, who had the ear of Xerxes and was considered an excellent naval commander.

EXTRACTS FROM THE CONQUEST, AUTHOR UNKNOWN (C.150 BCE)
THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR

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Thus entered Artemisia of Karia onto the scene at last, fresh from her conquest of Lemnos as had been ordered by King Dareios. Being of the line of Amazones, through her mother’s side, and was entirely satisfied with a life of warfare and battle glory, so when she discovered that King Xerxes had need of her service one more in the conquest of Hellas she leapt at the chance, especially as the conquest of Hellas had been the dying wish of her husband King Dareios. Her ship Enyo, with its red sails and iron shields, set sail once more, leading Xerxes’ fleets against Hellas, bringing at last Dareios’ last will to the last horizon he had left to conquer. With a fleet of hundreds at her disposal no island could withstand her forces, and no fleet either, where she had been indomitable with a single ship she was now unstoppable.
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Then suddenly came Enyo, crashing into the side of the Spartan flagship. After boarding, Artemisia personally cut off the head of both Eurybiades and Themistokles before sinking their ship. She had already sunk four ships that day, and would go on to sink another five as the Spartan fleet disintegrated following this disastrous loss. This was the turning point, as Xerxes watched from the shore he was most pleased as he saw the Battle of Salamis turn in his favour, and guarantee his eventual conquest of Hellas. Not long afterwards the battle was won, the Athenians surrendered and most of the others perished. For this Xerxes made his father’s love Queen of all the islands of the Sea of Aigeus, in addition to being the satrap of Ionia.
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The rebellion of Argos had been predicted, their power hungry ways rivalling even that of the Spartans, and so soon after their declaration of overlordship over the Peloponessos came the red sails of Enyo, and a Persian fleet, Artemisia having realised the duplicity of the Argives would not have anticipated a swift and merciless naval landing. Artemisia and her picked band stormed the walls of the city, and gave over their treacherous leadership to slaughter. In all the years since, Argos had feared the name Artemisia.
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Xerxes at length decided that Mardonios must be executed for his attempted rebellion, but declined a cruel execution as memory of his valiant and loyal service in the original conquest of Hellas. He therefore requested an executioner to do the deed, and up spoke Artemisia. She took up a great axe, and at the chosen moment relieved Mardonios of his head. Thereafter, no man would ever cross her again.​

THE ARTEMISIAD BY NIKOMAKHE (319 CE)
THE ROCK OF LEUKAS
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So it was that Artemisia and her crew came to rest at the island of Leukas, seeking to pleasurably while away some time after the rebellion of Hellas against the great Irani Basileos. The governor of Leukas, Telegon, was her friend of long years, and immediately threw the crew of the Enyo a great feast, including confections as fine as those found in Foinikia in great number. Artemisia reciprocated by giving Telegon a fine Egyptian carpet, for his ancestor Kirke had given birth to his line in that land, and she had saved him that gift especially. After eating and drinking and talking Artemisia felt a need to roam the island, and took leave of her companions for a time. Fearless she wandered, cast in splendour by Helios, moving through peaceful glades and watching the movement of the glad waters. All of a sudden she found herself captivated by the sight of a lovely woman, on a high cliff. Aphrodite moved within her at that moment, and compelled her to go to that woman.
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When Artemisia approached this maiden she found that the girl was in deep distress, wailing and weeping and cursing.​

“What drives you to such agony?” asked Artemisia, gently grasping the maiden’s hand.
“Phaon, the wretch! He has seduced me with his beauty, laid with me, and then rejected me as unsuitable. How can he do such things to me, when I had given over my body to him in love! I have been shamed and rejected, and I do not mean to carry on.” said the maiden, moving as though to throw herself off to the rocks below.
“Stay a while and talk to me, fair one.” said Artemisia, her voice sweet but strong. The maiden stopped.
“What is your name?” asked Artemisia.
“Sappho of Lesbos.” said Sappho.
“I am called Artemisia, of Halikarnassos.” said Artemisia, who sat down by Sappho and invited her to sit down.​

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“Why are you here?” said Sappho, who lowered herself with grace despite her state.​

“I saw you standing in distress, lovely one, and felt moved to intervene.” said Artemisia.
And at that moment Sappho was struck by the dignity and strength of Artemisia. Captivated, Aphrodite had come to her also.
“Why are you on the island, if you are from Halikarnassos?” she asked, wanting to know more about this warrior of a woman sitting beside her.
“I am captain of a ship, anchored not far from here, I am come here from the late wars to calm the waters of my soul. And what is such a lovely woman from Lesbos doing here?” said Artemisia.
“I was here to escape Phaon, the places that reminded me of his voice and his face, rooms that even now lingered with the very smell of him. Even that did not help. Where does your ship carry you?” asked Sappho.
“Wherever I will it, save the will of the Irani King.” said Artemisia, running her fingers gently through Sappho’s hair.
“Will you take me with you?” asked Sappho.

“Before you ask me such things, know that I am a woman of war, and the sea. I have conquered cities, spoken to kings as their equal, and sailed across all the seas from India to Idonia. I have lain with many men and women, I have called Hermione daughter of Helen my sweet one and stood beside a king of Iran and called him my love. Knowing all this, maiden of Lesbos, will you still ask to come with me?” said Artemisia, who stood up and invited Sappho to stand with her.
“I am a poet, I am not a woman of war, my battlefield is the scroll and my weapon is my pen, and thus I cannot be considered mighty in your presence. My moods are deep and my memory is long, my mind is demanding, and I am easily moved by the motions of the world. Knowing all this, will you have me by your side?” saud Sappho, standing up.
“I will.” said Artemisia.
“Then I am yours.” said Sappho.​

THE HISTORY OF ASIA BY IDILBARND OF OLIMBIRGIA (1481 CE)
THE AMAVADATID CONQUESTS

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The Amavadatid revolt swiftly moved outside of its original hotbeds, betraying greater ambitions than simply forming a Kingdom of Hellas; Amavadatos wanted to move against the Akhaimenids and claim the throne of Asia, nothing more, nothing less. After all, as an Akhaimenid himself he considered it his birthright. To begin this conquest he took advantage of the situation in Hellenic Asia, whereby regional dynasts and local potentates had managed to carve substantial domains under the aegis of the large and unwieldy satrapy based out of Sardis. This situation, resulting naturally from the Akhaimenid frontier moving across the Aigean into Hellas, Makedonia, and Thrakia, proved immensely helpful to Amavadatos, who was able to turn powerful figures like Lygdamis III of Halikarnassos on his side, immediately causing anarchy amongst those Akhaimenid governors and officials who attempted to resist. With such powerful local forces alongside his own hardened Hellenic batallions Amavadatos swiftly took control of most of the Lydian littoral, including Ionia, the Dorian cities, and Aeolis. By the time King Ariabignes met him in battle at Sardis in *355 BCE a siege of that city was already underway, and the defeat of the Great King in that battle confirmed the loss of these Hellenic districts. Resistance, however, was more effective further into the mountainous parts of the satrapy where Amavadatos’ naval forces had no impact, despite the damage done to Ariabignes’ prestige, and Amavadatos’ progress was effectively halted by the Battle of Herakleia Pontike in *354 BCE. With an undeclared peace the situation in Amavadatos’ Asian territories was delicate. On the one hand, the confusing morass the Akhaimenid satrap had allowed was untenable and could not be tolerated, on the other hand the Akhaimenids continued to push and prod at Amavadatos’ possessions, and he could not afford to alienate any of the more powerful dynasts who might suddenly switch sides and allow an Akhaimenid army to gain a foothold, possibly even allowing them to cross the Great Sea and make an attempt to reconquer Hellas. This tenuous situation lasted for thirteen years, with the conquest of Lycia by Amavadatos in *346 BCE being the only successful expedition mounted by him in that time, but politic behaviour and the might of his army kept these nuisances at bay. Without the distractions of Thrakia and its tulultuums it’s possible more could have been achieved.​

Amavadatos’ chance would come with the death of Ariabignes in *341 BCE and the usurpation of his chosen successor by Dareios II, which collapsed the organised resistance in Anatolia. Amavadatos’ armies, even larger than in *354 BCE with Asian gold and the benefit of more time to organise, crushed all before them. The only effective obstacle thrown in his path was the army of Kyrus, satrap of Kappadokia and Akhaimenid himself. Once this army was defeated at Pteria, Amavadatos swiftly took control of all of the satrapies that had once resisted his earlier campaigns. It helped that Dareios was not a popular ruler, and a number of Akhaimenid loyalists who had served his brother faithfully were motivated to instead swear loyalty to Amavadatos, distant Akhaimenid scion or not. Simultaneously, the rest of Akhaimenid controlled Lydia had effectively been ruled out of the Kappadokian satrap and its capital of Mazaka during this thirteen year lull, and such a large satrapy proved impossible to police in proper fashion by Kyrus, which is what allowed so many Akhaimenid loyalists to switch sides. The capture of Kappadokia gained Amavadatos control over the Royal Road as it entered Mesopotamia, placing him in an ideal position to strike there. Busy as he was with this campaign, and the possible move into Assyria and Babylonia, Amavadatos did take the time to start a reorganisation of his existing Asian territories, beginning with the appointment of his son Artaxerxes as ruler over Kilikia and Kappadokia, but this process was far from complete when he unexpectedly died in *340 BCE.​

The Amavadatid state was in immediate jeopardy, as Amavadatos’ sons Artaxerxes and Tissadatos quarreled over the succession, despite the fact that Tissadatos was Amavadatos’ choice as successor and had been effectively king in Hellas since *352 BCE. However, this proved an opportunity for Tissadatos to remove his brother’s supporters from their positions of power in Anatolia, including a number of the more troublesome dynasts, and in this way reasserted total control over local appointments. In the Akhaimenid Empire it was plausible for small dynasties to form and expand without threatening royal power, given the sheer size of the Empire, but it was already clear by Tissadatos’ victory against Artaxerxes at Ephesos in *337 BCE that the Amavadatid Empire was not going to recover all of the Akhaimenid territories, not after the entrenchment of the Indians in Mesopotamia. Tissadatos’ campaigns of *332 BCE into Syria and *330 BCE into Phoinikia were the last significant expansions the Empire made in Asia. Given the reduced size of the state local magnates could therefore threaten the integrity of this new, smaller Empire, particularly as they were the largest overall contributor of warships to the Amavadatid fleet. Chief among these potential threats was his father’s prominent ally, Lygdamis III. Through the war against the Akhaimenids and the war against Artaxerxes he had expanded his dynasty’s control to dominate virtually the entirety of Karia, and as far east as Aphrodisias. His resources were considerable, and his wealth enormous. Tissadatos solved this problem by the abolition of the Akhaimenid satrapal system as it had existed; with the sole exception of the border satrapies of Kappadokia and Kilikia, the position of satrap was removed entirely, and a series of smaller provinces were carved in Anatolia, reducing the potency of any individual satrap or local governor to unite against the king, or even to stand alone against him. This enabled Tissadatos to neatly create the new province of Karia with Lygdamis as its new governor in competition with dozens of others. If Lygdamis proved content with this state of affairs then all to the good, if not then Tissadatos clearly felt confident that he could simply remove the man from his position now that he had been effectively isolated.​

In the end Lygdamis had his gold, his palaces, his lands, and his prestige, and this proved enough consolation in the face of Tissadatos’ effective control over his Empire, but this did not prove true for everybody. Kosikas IV, the nominal governor of Lykia, decided to test the resolve of his king in *334 BCE, declaring independence and seeking the support of newly-risen Aigyptos to maintain his position. Aigyptos, however, under King Inaros, was in no position to conduct expeditions to Anatolia both with a view to his own security and his lack of a substantial fleet, or to alienate Tissadatos whilst Indian armies continued to threaten his newly refounded state. No help was forthcoming, the Amavadatid armies remained strong and numerous, and it was swiftly clear how events would resolve. In the end the Lykians surrendered after a few cursory skirmishes and Kosikas even retained his position, but the cities of Telmissos and Xanthos found themselves host to Amavadatid garrisons from that point onwards. Another problematic region in Asia was Phoinikia, where Sidon came to dominate the other city-states to a degree that caused unrest, and in a manner which arose the particular ire of Karkhedon, which naturally arose due to its enormously potent naval forces and importance to the Amavadatid naval dominance in the eastern Great Sea.. The delicate balance of power in the Great Sea was a cornerstone of early Amavadatid policy, and Karkhedon was at the apogee of her power.Tissadatos had no particular wish to encourage Karkhedon to turn her eyes eastward once more, being quite content with them expanding in Iberia far from anywhere relevant, or in Africa into the lands of savages. As it was, a simple royal visit to Phoinikia in *298 BCE was sufficient to restore a more proper balance of government, and the satrapy of Syria was retained as the third and final Asian satrapy of the Amavadatids. That did not prove a final settlement, as Sidon would prove a complication for multiple members of the dynasty, but for now the Lands Over the Sea were secure.​

As it was, Amavadatid Asia had come to some kind of settlement by the death of Tissadatos in *295 BCE. Alliance with Aigyptos and the Kingdom of Ben-Hadad secured the southern flank of the kingdom’s Asian territories, the Agnimitrids were still reorganising after the death of Agnimitra in battle, and Anatolia continued to recover from its conquest. But the dynasty had not given up on its claim to the throne of Asia in its entirety, and with the Agnimitrid war machine halted it seemed perhaps an opportune time to finish what Amavadatos had begun; accordingly, the first thing newly crowned King Vivana began was preparing a great expedition against Mesopotamia. It had been quite one thing for Amavadatos to incorporate local forces into his royal army on the fly, or for Tissadatos to plant garrisons and create frontier forts in strategic locations in Asia. It was quite another to actually call upon Asia’s manpower as an equal part to that of Hellas’ for the first time, not to mention paying for a campaign army of considerable size, 120,000 strong. Despite his high military ambitions Vivana would therefore cut his teeth on improving the Empire’s trade, and this would have to be achieved in the face of hostility from the Agnimitrids, who had themselves not given up on furthering their progenitor’s mighty conquests. Vivana’s immense naval might would ultimately prove a mightier weapon in his arsenal than even the most feared of his battalions.​

IMPORTANT LIVES BY D. MAGMARIO mp SAMODA (965 CE)

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Aikaterine, daughter of Diodotos, was Queen of Elis, reigning between 1053-1069 AC, and considered one of the most extraordinary women to have been produced by the Hellenes. She is famed for first gaining the sole Queenship of an important territory in Hellas, usurping the sovereignty of her nominal overlord the Elean Hellenarkhos, and secondly for joining with the First Gothic Kingdom in their campaigns against the Middle Iranian Empire, personally leading the Elean armies in all affairs and against all opponents. She brought war to the Peloponnesos, which might otherwise have been kept safe from the ravages of conflict, but she defended her people’s rights and freedom with distinction, and was considered the second most formidable opponent of Iranian rule in Hellas after the Gothic Kings themselves. She is a study in dignified rulership against high adversity.​

THE PROSOPOGRAPHY OF HELLAS (1698 CE)
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Aikaterine of Walis, aka Aikaterin, aka Ikatrine: Aikaterine became Queen of Walis during the tumultuous *3rd century CE, and is one of the most well known warrior queens of Hellenic history. She was born daughter of Diodotos, Kosmos of Elis under the Hellenarkh of Walis, who was known for his indulgent love of his children. She was courageous, charismatic, and fierce from an early age, and was educated in the ways of war and kingship by her father. Practically speaking, she served as her father’s strategos. Whilst overlooked within Elis, this was seized upon by the Hellenarkh Eusebios in his preparations for war, who used it as a pretext to summon Diodotos to his court, where he had him executed. Aikaterine personally led Walis in revolt against Eusebios, and only grudgingly allowed the Koinon Hellenion to appoint a new Walean Hellenarkh over the territory. She was effectively left to rule Elis proper, however, given her level of popular support and the distraction of war against the Goths.​

With the war against the Goths going poorly, the Koinon began its famous disintegration. The last of the Walean Hellenarkhs, Ptolemaios, was considered a ditherer and unqualified for his post, mostly chosen because of his loyalty to the state and inability to consider revolt. He was now effectively king of Walis, but was not organising a defence of the coastline against Gothic raids, which had become a constant menace for the people of the region’s coast. Aikaterine found this situation intolerable. She assembled an army of loyal Waleans and effectively deposed Ptolemaios by force in *253 CE. She did not officially declare herself Queen of Walis until *255 CE but spent the two intervening years leading Walis’ defence against Gothic raids, and had effectively been queen for two years before taking the fateful step of declaration. She was considered an effective ruler of her domains, and was left unmolested by her fellow Hellenes who instead turned on one another across the Peloponnesos, and by *259 BCE the Goths had learned to avoid Walis.

In *263 CE came the invasion of the Middle Iranian Empire. The majority of the Peloponnesos was swiftly overcome, with Walis considered an unknown quantity. Aikaterine was not herself filled with hate for Asians but she was by now used to rulership and given over to her pride. When she learned that she could not retain her title and domains under the satrap that had established himself in Korinthos, she took the radical step of aligning herself with the Gothic Basileos in Moisia, and invited him to campaign in the Peloponnesos in *264 CE. Goths or not, Aikaterine was now only interested in those who would leave her rulership intact. This action may well have prevented the Middle Iranian Empire from conquering all of Hellas at that time, as the satrap of Hellas was forced to deal with both the Goths in the north and the south as Gothic warbands and armies poured into the Peloponnesos. She campaigned relentlessly, conquering the western parts of Akhaia across *264-268 CE, and personally taking part in the invasion of Messenia in *269 CE. It was in this campaign that she met her death, dying to a stray arrow in the Battle of Kyparissia.

She has been a controversial figure in the centuries since for being a self declared Artemisia, openly loving women in her capacity as Queen and asserting all of the rights and behaviours of a male Hellenic ruler. Those historically favourable to her have often sought to excuse or ignore these aspects of her life. Her critics across history have associated these behaviours together with a perceived betrayal of Hellenes and declared her impious and immoral, particularly the scholars writing under the Middle Iranian Empire, but she has always remained popular in her homeland, and an icon for those who believe in the example of legendary Artemisia.
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