PoD: Athenians abandon Attica in 480

Historico

Great Job on explaining the Graeco-Latins Governmental Status and the Celts. For the Maps, All you need is a Blank Map(Check in the Help and Feedback Forum), Microsoft Paint, and a good idea where the location of your Timeline's Nations and your good to go.
 

Forum Lurker

I can't find any Mediterranean map blanks, and don't have Microsoft Paint; are there any freeware programs which can do the job?
 

DMA

Forum Lurker said:
I do indeed have Windows. I'm just next to computer-illiterate, so I can't actually find the Paint program.
Click to expand...


Ok. well Press on the Start thingy at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

The press on All Programs. That'll bring up the menu.

Then press on Accessories which will be near the top of the first column. That will bring up the Assessories Menu.

The MS Paint program will be about in the middle of the Assessories Menu. Simply Press Paint icon/bar thingy & the program will launch. Then play away to your heart's content.
 

Forum Lurker

I'd be embarassed that I missed it, but A) it's not like it's never happened to me before and B) I'm going to delete all of these posts once I get a useable map of the Med, because they don't contribute to the timeline proper.
 

Hierophant

I think the persians might start relying on Vassal states to keep their empire together. So instead of fading away into history, the Macedonians are actually enhanced into becoming the real power in all but name in Greece and the Balkans.

Perhaps even a King Alexander, married to a daughter of the Shahanshah could win in a civil war/succesion crisis, putting his son on the throne and ruling as regent.
 

Forum Lurker

The Persians suffered persistent revolts in almost every province; vassalage would only have made it easier for a provincial lord to rebel, as he'd be an established ruler in the eyes of his province. Even if one of the Achaemenids had been able to stomach it, an unlikely prospect, it would at best have slightly stalled the decline.

The important thing is that, in this timeline, the Bythnian invitation to the Gauls in Thrace comes slightly earlier (in 343 instead of ~280), when there's greater population pressure driving the migration. Whether the rest of Persia is strong at this point becomes fairly irrelevant when the Gauls invade; they essentially do to the Persians what the various Goths did to the Romans in OTL, delivering a massive and messy coup-de-grace to an empire already severely weakened by its own internal problems, problems which I simply can't envision being solvable by the Achaemenid dynasty.
 

Hierophant

So exactly what are you saying in reference to the Macedonians? They are completely stomped, or ride the success of the Achaemenid collapse and consolidate a holding in the Balkans for themselves to build on.
 

Forum Lurker

With the Persian victory, the Macedonians at first suffer subjugation. When the Graeco-Romans force a general collapse of the western Persian empire, the Macedonians begin to rise again. Now, looking at a brief history of Macedonian monarchs, I can make a slightly educated statement as to events:

Archelaus I is the king of Macedon when the Persian defeat on the isthmus of Corinth signals that he can afford to rebel. Archelaus in OTL was a great builder and reformer, and so he will be in the ATL. He builds the armies of Macedon, creates a strong infrastructure, and generally strengthens the position of his nation. He is succeeded in 382 by his son Amyntas III (butterfly effects having avoided his untimely death in 399, which would otherwise have produced a fair degree of chaos), and Amyntas passes his throne essentially unchanged to his son Alexander II in 370. Alexander is murdered by his youngest brother, Philip, in 361. Philip, as he does in OTL, proceeds with wars of expansion, seizing much of the Balkans, but finds himself occupied with wars against the invading Gauls. In 352, Philip is poisoned by a lover; while he survives, he is sufficiently weakened that his campaigning is ceased, and he dies in 344, leaving his son Alexander III reigning over a Macedon which, while strong, is threatened on one side by the Graeo-Roman League and on the other by the Gauls.

It's going to be some time before I can figure out how this one plays out. While Alexander has not had the benefit of his OTL education, he is still the same person genetically, butterfly effects not having a substantial effect on the Macedonian line of kings aside to shave out a number of interlopers who didn't last long in OTL. Any suggestions on what an intelligent, ambitious monarch would do in these circumstances is appreciated.

EDIT: I see three major possibilities: war against the Graeco-Romans, eastward expansion as was done in OTL, or northward, into the areas that would otherwise later have become Romania and the Holy Roman Empire.
 
Last edited:

Hierophant

What about limited advances in every direction. I think Alex's best bet is to play each side off the other, at all of there expenses. So if in one war Alex supports the Graeco_Romans aginst the Gauls or Persians, he expands in the east. Next war he supports the eastern nation, and wins land in the north-west balkans.

Is the term Achaeo-Latin or Latino-Achaens better to your ear than Graeco-Roman?
 

Forum Lurker

One other important note: the phalanx doesn't exist at this point. Given its success against the Persians, both the Graeco-Roman League and Macedon are currently using hoplites as a primary force. This will change in the next major war, and that change will be a deciding factor in the outcome of said war.
 

Forum Lurker

Does this line of approach seem plausible to anyone:

Seeing the rise of the Graeco-Roman League to his west, and learning about their peculiar governmental structure, Alexander sees a way to at one stroke secure his western flank and treble his military and economic might. He sends a delegation to the Senate in Sicily, asking admittance to the League. Through an extensive campaign of lobbying, assisted by massive bribes of Balkan gold and silver and by the evident size and strength of his armies, he is able to secure a number of senate seats rivalling the greatest of the extant states. After several years of brilliant campaigns in Lydia, he uses these seats and his reputation as a general to obtain the title of strategos.
 

Forum Lurker

Probably not. I don't have the inclination towards meticulous detail, so I'll likely make a lot of sweeping generalizations, and only note specifics when they're actually turning points. The Gallic invasion of Asia Minor is such a turning point, but I've politely ignored the rest of the collapse of the Persian Empire because it's not significant as to who rebels when, simply that by this point the empire has dissolved.

On that note:

344: Alexander III of Macedon appeals for membership in the League, and is accepted, managing to acquire through considerable bribes and machinations a number of senate seats greater than any save the three founding cities.

340: the 16-year-old Alexander invades Lydia, borrowing League naval transports but using only Macedonian troops.

339: Alexander has completely subjugated the Persian rump in Lydia and Carias.

337: Alexander requests naval support from the League for an expedition to Phoenicia, as before promising a share of the revenues. Not particularly pleased at the prospect of a Macedon-controlled east, but eager for the wealth of the Levant, the Senate appoints Alexander the strategos of a joint League fleet. To ensure loyalty to the League, Alexander's Macedonian forces are limited to his Companion cavalry and a force of some ten thousand light infantry (mixed Macedonians, Balkan tribesmen, and Gallic mercenaries); the hoplite forces are provided by the cities of Messene, Corinth, and Thebes, totalling thirty thousand hoplites and an equal number of peltasts.

336: The mustered armies of the Phoenicians are slaughtered by Alexander's numerically, tactically, and technologically superior force; the remnants hole up in Tyre, for a lengthy seige, and appeal to their Carthaginian kinsmen for aid. A Carthaginian fleet is dispatched towards Sicily, where their triremes are shattered by the League's fleet; the Carthaginian troop transports intended for New Athens instead sail to Sardinia. A League force is assembled to remove them, and fights a brutal battle which ends with both armies encamped, awaiting reinforcements. Word is sent to Phoenicia to recall Alexander.

335: Seeing no chance of bringing reinforcements through the Mediterranean, Carthage instead sends an army overland towards Italy. A hastily assembled force, primarily of Romans, meets them near Avignon. This army is, in the traditional Hellenic fashion, composed primarily of hoplites with irregular support; the Spanish cavalry completely routes the League's peltasts, allowing the main force to be completely surrounded by the Gallic and Iberian swordsmen who, unencumbered by hoplon or rigid formation, are much more maneuverable in the hilly terrain. Not one Roman escapes the envelopment, as their lack of cavalry allows the handful who break free from the infantry trap to be ridden down casually by the Carthaginian light horse.

Meanwhile, Alexander has left Phoenicia, leaving behind the League troops as an occupation force and collecting much of his own Macedonian army on his way to Italy. He arrives in time to lift the seige of Parma, his own heavy cavalry driving the Spanish horse from his flanks for a sufficient length of time to permit a decisive infantry clash, which thanks to Parma's flat terrain gives victory to the heavier League force. Himilcar, leader of the Carthaginian forces, retreats in good order back all the way to the Pyrenees, as Alexander declines to pursue. The Carthaginian army in Sardinia is starved into surrender with the additional forces provided by the Macedonian's return, and the Romans determine to rebuild their armies to launch a counteroffensive.
 

Forum Lurker

They probably won't come up with something exactly like the legion, but they're currently going through a major reordering of their entire military structure. The *Cannae which just happened has demonstrated the folly of a pure heavy infantry strategy; however, given their nature as a democratic federation, and the lack of stirrup, they've got two completely different good reasons not to use cavalry as an arm of decision. What's likely is a combined arms approach, using lancers as scouts, pursuit, and skirmishers, with irregulars (which will become archers at some point) supporting and guarding the flanks of a less heavily armored, more mobile force than the hoplites. Precisely the armament and general tactics of such a force will be something which develops over time.
 

DMA

Forum Lurker said:
They probably won't come up with something exactly like the legion, but they're currently going through a major reordering of their entire military structure. The *Cannae which just happened has demonstrated the folly of a pure heavy infantry strategy; however, given their nature as a democratic federation, and the lack of stirrup, they've got two completely different good reasons not to use cavalry as an arm of decision. What's likely is a combined arms approach, using lancers as scouts, pursuit, and skirmishers, with irregulars (which will become archers at some point) supporting and guarding the flanks of a less heavily armored, more mobile force than the hoplites. Precisely the armament and general tactics of such a force will be something which develops over time.
Click to expand...


Actually, recent testing & research into the Roman saddle, ie no stirrup, showed that it was just as capable as combat as a saddle with stirrups. So you could have a Alexanderian type cavalry formation working with the infantry without any problems (that's if the Greeco-Roman generals think of using cavalry this way).
 

Forum Lurker

It's true that you can have effective lancers without the stirrup, given the Scythian saddle (which, if I recall, was adopted by the Romans). The difficulty is that maintaining a force of shock cavalry large enough to be the arm of decision has almost always (aside from horse nomads) meant having an economic elite who owns and uses the horses. The League is going to try very, very hard to prevent that sort of thing, since high military participation is the best way to keep things democratic.
 

DMA

Forum Lurker said:
It's true that you can have effective lancers without the stirrup, given the Scythian saddle (which, if I recall, was adopted by the Romans). The difficulty is that maintaining a force of shock cavalry large enough to be the arm of decision has almost always (aside from horse nomads) meant having an economic elite who owns and uses the horses. The League is going to try very, very hard to prevent that sort of thing, since high military participation is the best way to keep things democratic.
Click to expand...


Yeah the secret to the Roman saddle is in it's fit. It is high, both front & back, but it's the back that holds the rider in place allowing the rider to do the same things as if they're using stirrups. So the technology isn't the problem I guess.

Now you can, with these reforms coming, just introduce a professional army backed up by the citizen soldier. Such an arrangement isn't new, even for Greek city-states. And, of course, this was certainly the Roman way (even for early Rome).

So arrange it, then, where the bulk of the cavalry is paid for by the League. Likewise say half of the infantry. The rest of the infantry, & the remainder of the cavalry, comes from the more traditional sources & called up during a time of war.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top