Hello everybody!
Here is another map done with Inkscape and taking place in the world of AFSNES, a collaborative alternate history map-game hosted in Civ Fanatics Forum many years ago in which I participated as a player, and the subject of most of my works.
Like my last map, the subject is the Kingdom of Liguria, the polity I actually played during AFSNES; while my last map depicted Liguria in 700 AD, at the start of the more “wargame-y” part of the game, this one depicts the dawn of Ligurian civilization in 500 BC, at the end of the first turn I played, during the more narrative and preliminary part of the game.
As said previously, being the “creator” of this nation (even though Das had to patch up my haphazard plans and ideas quite much, especially at the start of the game, to make any sense of my game orders, and therefore could claim the paternity as much as me), I felt much more freedom in my attempt to describe it, both in the map and the lore behind it, filling the voids left in Liguria’s history, trying to let it look as much as possible as a “real” nation, or at least a realistic one.
I hope I was able do such in an enjoyable way, shining a light on a relatively small part of AFNES’ world, a part that I hold much dear.
LIGURIAN PREHISTORY
Ligurians inhabited the coasts and the hilly countryside of Southern Gaul and North-western Italia since time immemorial, divided into numerous tribes (such as the Genuati, the Sabazi, the Vedianti, the Bagienni or the Taurini) and intermingling with their Celtic and Rasennan [1] neighbours; their settlements where generally built around small fortifications, with greater Oppidias, veritable fortified cities, generally reserved as the capital of various tribal confederations that arose over the centuries.
The Ligurians were polytheistic, with a pantheon much influenced by their Celtic neighbours, with deities such as Belenu, the sea-oriented Bornu, and Penninu the lord of high peaks; their centres of worship generally were situated into hilly or mountainous places and were marked by the raising of statue-menhirs. A great degree of respect was reserved for totemic animals (like Cycnu, the swan), depicted in religious paintings and adopted as regnal names by tribal leaders.
Ligurian tribes were generally disunited and infighting, with comparatively greater tribal federations arising briefly to deal with external dangers (for example during the wars against the Arecomician [2] before their migration south in the 12th Century, or during the Athanid [3] migration into the Eridanos Valley [4]), promptly collapsing after the abating of such dangers.
THE TARTESSIAN INVASION AND THE BIRTH OF THE KINGDOM
Ligurian history was completely turned around when Tartessian [5] ships, filled with colonists, merchants and soldiers arrived from the west around the 10th century BC. At first their contact was quite peaceful: trade was established over the Tartessian colony of Marsal [6], and the culture of the colonists (both the Cult of the Sacred Bull and the Tartessian Phonetic Language) begun influencing the Ligurian tribes more and more.
The peace gradually degraded over the subsequent decades as Tartessos became increasingly imperialistic; its meddling and military expansion aroused the Ligurian tribes, who started a sort of guerrilla campaign against the invaders, halting Tartessian colonization and harassing their merchants.
This conflict lasted from the 9th Century to the middle of the 7th Century, waxing and waning in intensity but never truly interrupted. The Ligurian tribes never really poised much of a threat for the Tartessians, with scarce victories when the tribes managed to stand together (like the massacre of a particularly daring expeditions at Taurasia [7], deep into Liguria, at the end of the 9th Century) and many defeats when the tribes squabbled among themselves, but nevertheless the Tartessian were never able to pacify the region or consolidate control far from the coast.
A breakthrough finally came at the start of the 7th century, when the first semblance of a unified Liguria state arose around the city of Genua [8], a mercantile settlement connected with the Rasna, Sardinia [9] and Arecomicia, and the foremost centre of worship of Belenu. In fact, in the nascent Kingdom the leader was the High Priest of the Belenu Cult, who styled himself as the Priest-King, supreme both in spiritual and earthly matters.
The new kingdom quickly managed to unite most of the Ligurian tribes under its authority, subduing the more unruly ones with the force, and begun a new phase of the war with Tartessos, more brutal and coordinated, yet only marginally more successful, as the Iberians were still able to repel the attacks of the Ligurian army against the colonies, and retaliated.
Still, the Ligurians managed to resist, and after saving their capital from a Tartessian siege (many say by a miraculous intervention from Belenu itself), were finally able to force the signing of a peace treaty in 653 BC: Tartessos would retain most of its coastal colonies, centred around Marsal, and the land of the Salluvi, a large Ligurian tribe in southern Gaul that rejected the authority of the Priest-King and sided with the invaders, but further expansion would be ceased, while Liguria would stop their constant raiding.
The Peace of Cemenelos [10], as it would be called, was quite shaky, as the Tartessian weren’t actually defeated, and the Ligurians never really abandoned their pillaging ways, and actually increased their involvement in piracy, but Tartessos found itself occupied by civil unrest at home and a much more dangerous war with Rome in Italy, giving the fledgling Kingdom much needed respite. The Priest-Kings quickly began using their newfound prestige to consolidate and centralize Liguria, gaining the allegiance of more far-flung tribes on both sided of the Alps, and integrating even some Celtic tribes in the Upper Rhodanus Valley while Genua, now firmly involved in the Mediterranean trading network, grew to a veritable city and royal seat.
After the end of the First Italic War [11] and the stabilization of the civil unrest back in Iberia, despite widespread distrust of their old enemy from both the upper echelons of the Kingdom and the population, trading ties arose even with Tartessos, and cultural contamination continued, influencing in particular religion: inspired by the Cult of the Sacred Bull, the Cult of Belenu, one of the foundational pillars of the authority of the Priest-Kings, evolved into a henoteistic proto-religion, with the other deities confined to smaller roles.
PEACE VIGILANT: LIGURIAN CONSOLIDATION
Between the end of the 7th Century and the 5th Century BC, Liguria remained generally peaceful, except during the rise of the Caeon [12] Tribal Confederacy in Southern Gaul, when a particularly daring raid of the Luak devastated the Ligurian settlements west of the Alps. Stronger ties were forged with the Athanoi to the East, and with their lords, the Roman Republic, staunch enemy of Tartessos.
At some point it looked like the relationship between Liguria and the Iberian Demarchy [13] could be normalized, but the fire ignited by the Tartessian invasion still lurked under the ashes, ready to burst.
The Kingdom gradually centralized and strengthened over the decades, and even managed to cautiously expand, all while keeping a watchful eye over the Tartessian cities just to their south.
Control over the Rhodanus Valley was sealed, with local Celtic tribes subjugated, like the Allobrogi, or forced to move like the Sequani; the settlement of Vinoboda [14] grew greatly and received a great influx of Ligurian colonist, especially after it was heavily fortified as an answer to Caeonite raids.
To the north, the Ligurians expanded over the Alps in the attempt to secure the control over the vital mountain passes, and eventually invaded the Helvetic Plateau [15]; the Helveti were beaten over the course of decades of intermittent warfare, and forced to flee eastward, while the region was gradually settled and Ligurianized.
Liguria in 500 BC finally evolved into a coherent Kingdom, with guarded borders, strong allies and a (relatively) thriving economy; the near-absolute authority of the Priest-Kings permeated Ligurian society, and by the end of the century it begun encroaching the power of the tribal families, still dominant outside of the cities and ready to fight back.
The abating of war in the Western Mediterranean brought greater wealth to the Kingdom, as commercial links strengthened with Sardinia, Rome and even Arecome; Tartessian ports never really begun welcoming Ligurian ships even as the diplomatic relationship thawed somewhat, except in the city of Marsal, where Ligurian merchants were allowed to have their storehouses and trade with their Iberian colleagues.
The increasing wealth allowed the Priest-Kings to embark in a series of monumental building projects. The city of Genua was rebuilt around the new Royal Palace, the new fulcrum of Liguria both for temporal and spiritual matters; many old sanctuaries like the Belenu Shrine on Beigua [16], near Genua, or the Shrine of Penninu near Cemenelos were completely renovated, with greater Statue-Menhirs erected. Ligurian architecture never really reached in magnificence and opulence the heights of Tartessos and Rome, but it still distinguished the Kingdom from its Celtic and Caeonite neighbours.
Its armed forces were far from standardized, and was still made up of large tribal bands gathered by the Priest-King when needed; nevertheless, Roman influence, eased by the large degree of military cooperation between Liguria and the Republic as an answer to the Tartessian threat, brought the formation of the Royal Guard (or colloquially known as the “Son of Belenu”), a small but elite regiment of heavy infantry acting as the linchpin of the Ligurian army.
FOOTNOTES
[1] OTL’s Etruscans
[2] A Celtic tribe in southern Gaul that in the 12th century took to the sea and settled in OTL’s Sicily, rename Arecome.
[3] A Mycenean population, particularly fond of horses, that in the 12th Century BC departed from Boeotia and eventually invaded the Po Valley.
[4] OTL’s Po Valley.
[5] OTL’s Tartessos, a southern Iberian civilization that in TTL’s avoided fading into obscurity and instead built an empire over Western Europe.
[6] OTL’s Marseilles, here founded by Tartessos and not Greek settlers.
[7] OTL’s Turin.
[8] OTL’s Genoa.
[9] A strange and isolationist of mask-donning people inhabiting Sardinia, and a piratical thorn in the side of Tartessos.
[10] OTL’s Nice.
[11] The first of a series of three wars between Tartessos and Rome that ended up with the destruction of the Italic power and Tartessian hegemony over Italia in the late 4th Century BC.
[12] A pre-Celtic, most likely Basque-like, population that inhabited TTL’s Aquitania and built a tribal confederacy divided into 5 different tribes, such as the warlike Luak.
[13] Tartessos government system between the 7th Century BC and the 3rd Century BC, with a powerless Regus and an empowered Sophetora-Magus (much like OTL’s Rome senate) that elects two Optimes to govern the state.
[14] OTL’s Vienne.
[15] OTL’s Swiss Plateau.
[16] OTL’s Monte Beigua.
[1] OTL’s Etruscans
[2] A Celtic tribe in southern Gaul that in the 12th century took to the sea and settled in OTL’s Sicily, rename Arecome.
[3] A Mycenean population, particularly fond of horses, that in the 12th Century BC departed from Boeotia and eventually invaded the Po Valley.
[4] OTL’s Po Valley.
[5] OTL’s Tartessos, a southern Iberian civilization that in TTL’s avoided fading into obscurity and instead built an empire over Western Europe.
[6] OTL’s Marseilles, here founded by Tartessos and not Greek settlers.
[7] OTL’s Turin.
[8] OTL’s Genoa.
[9] A strange and isolationist of mask-donning people inhabiting Sardinia, and a piratical thorn in the side of Tartessos.
[10] OTL’s Nice.
[11] The first of a series of three wars between Tartessos and Rome that ended up with the destruction of the Italic power and Tartessian hegemony over Italia in the late 4th Century BC.
[12] A pre-Celtic, most likely Basque-like, population that inhabited TTL’s Aquitania and built a tribal confederacy divided into 5 different tribes, such as the warlike Luak.
[13] Tartessos government system between the 7th Century BC and the 3rd Century BC, with a powerless Regus and an empowered Sophetora-Magus (much like OTL’s Rome senate) that elects two Optimes to govern the state.
[14] OTL’s Vienne.
[15] OTL’s Swiss Plateau.
[16] OTL’s Monte Beigua.
CREDITS
Das – Moderator, curator of the whole scenario
JoesfStalinator – Arecoman Celts, Caerix and Tigranism
Insane-Panda – Tartessos
Dachs – Latins, Rome, Thuringia
Littleboots – Athanoi
LightFang- Sardinia
Flavius Aetius (me) – Liguria
erez87 – Caeon
Das – Moderator, curator of the whole scenario
JoesfStalinator – Arecoman Celts, Caerix and Tigranism
Insane-Panda – Tartessos
Dachs – Latins, Rome, Thuringia
Littleboots – Athanoi
LightFang- Sardinia
Flavius Aetius (me) – Liguria
erez87 – Caeon
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