AHC: Hallstatt Empire

Not referring to the city in Austria ;) (not exactly)

This is about the Early Iron Age culture that spread over much of Europe. (the name comes from the aformentioned city) It traded with the Mediterranean cultures and had metal-working skills. They had dinstinct classes- with favor being given to warriors.

Make them into an empire, replacing Rome as the first hegemon of such a large part of the continent.

Plausible? Where would it be based from?
 

Deleted member 97083

Have 2-3 PODs where Greek and Phoenician colonists veer off course, and settle Venetia instead of Italy and Sicily. This will spread the Orientalizing period, when Neo-Assyrian artifacts spread from Mesopotamia to Greece, further west and north to the Hallstatt. Greek and Phoenician infrastructure, agriculture, irrigation, architecture, and other aspects will influence the Po Valley. So will Mesopotamian trade.

The hard part is having the Hallstatt form an empire. However, if the Hallstatt evolve and change in response to Near Eastern influence, then they might be able to stop the Etruscans or Romans in their tracks, allowing them to form a proper kingdom and then empire; alternatively, they can form a Hunnic-style tributary empire by conquering the Illyrians; or even further, you could have Sarmatian horsemen rule over Celtic speakers in Austria, assimilating to them, and turning them into a mounted culture that has an easier time forming an empire.
 

trurle

Banned
Have 2-3 PODs where Greek and Phoenician colonists veer off course, and settle Venetia instead of Italy and Sicily. This will spread the Orientalizing period, when Neo-Assyrian artifacts spread from Mesopotamia to Greece, further west and north to the Hallstatt. Greek and Phoenician infrastructure, agriculture, irrigation, architecture, and other aspects will influence the Po Valley. So will Mesopotamian trade.

The hard part is having the Hallstatt form an empire. However, if the Hallstatt evolve and change in response to Near Eastern influence, then they might be able to stop the Etruscans or Romans in their tracks, allowing them to form a proper kingdom and then empire; alternatively, they can form a Hunnic-style tributary empire by conquering the Illyrians; or even further, you could have Sarmatian horsemen rule over Celtic speakers in Austria, assimilating to them, and turning them into a mounted culture that has an easier time forming an empire.
If you need to create the early civilization in Po Valley (centering on Venetia region) then the severe climate change is needed. Too much forests and swamps, need to dry the entire Europe to become plausible.
 
The immediate and main problem of an Halstatt Empire would be the important lack of structures and network to deal with : while Rome, among others, could count on an already established urban civilization and trade network, it was mostly created in hinterland Europe during the Halstatt period as a result of Etruscean/Greek trade and sophistication of celtic principalties.
In order to create a state out of an array of chiefdom (simples or complex), you need some social and political backbone, and that's not even guaranteed to end up as an empire (see the Greek ethnic or urban states)

At best, if you avoid the crisis of final Hallstatt (that may come from an over-reliance on Etruscean and Phocean trade, for what matter chiefdoms and complex chiefdoms, which provoked social tensions by its apogee, and even more when it declined after -500), you could see Late Hallstattian principalties, as well as Mediterranean Celtic peoples (as Celto-Ligurians) surviving the period with less social and institutional perturbations : but while keep the Etruscean and Phocean commonwealth and trade roads unbroken (especially by breaking, IMO, Carthagian then Roman expension) would help, you'd basically limit damages, while not creating an empire.
It might "just" give Celts enough breathing space to have one of these principalties being the structure on which an hypothetical post-chiefdom state could arise sooner than IOTL.

Any PoD that focuses only on geography, not understanding both the role of trade into the development and decline of Halstattian principalties, or the inner social dynamics, isn't really helpful and, IMO, misses the point.
 
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