Is Servet Malik basically TTL's Alp Aslan? Though Malik is a strange surname for a Christian Turk.
The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
- Start date
The family name is Servet, meaning gold or wealth, and comes from Servet Yalid (the Golden Bow, no that wasn't his original name) who is the real founder of dynasty from a historical perspective. Yalid's name is based on the legendary father of OTL's Seljuk (whose historicity is rather questionable) Temur Yalig, meaning Iron Bow. Malik is technically anachronistic, and also incorrect, at this stage since he won't have the Arab title of king until about half a decade after gaining sole power in Turkish Persia. But his name filtered through Arab allies of the Romans and Manuel II's histories used it to refer to him (not least because the Emperor steadfastly refused to acknowledge a title of Emperor under any circumstances).
Part 46: The Conquest of Britain
Part VLI: The Conquest of Britain
We left the island of Britani in 850, following the disastrous war between the two most powerful Saxon states, Wessaxe and Myrce. That war had lasted for ten years and left all sides low on both cash and men. Wessaxe was reduced to a fraction of its former territory, while Myrce was left to retain its position as greatest of the Saxon Kingdoms. This was then followed by Civil War in Myrce, and a second war between Wessaxe and Myrce, this one seeing the Myrcian army decisively defeated and Wessaxe restored to its old position of power. After three decades of fighting nothing had changed, except that the Saxons kingdoms were weaker, poorer, and more divided from one another.
The entire structure of Saxon Britani was a rotten edifice which the Archbishop of Canterbury derisively commented would be knocked down by a stiff breeze. Thus in 861 the island was struck, not by a breeze but by a gale. The Danes had been raiding the island on and off for the past century, but in 861 the Great Army arrived. Two thousand Danes on their ships attacked Cantware, and in a major battle the Saxon army was annihilated. The leader of the Danes, Guthrum Ivarrson sacked the church at Canterbury and sacrificed the archbishop to his pagan gods. He then crowned himself the king of Cantware, and began planning his next move.
The Danish forces moved on Londinium next, but after some negotiation they were provided with gold and horses by the king of Myrce to depart his kingdom. The Danes complied, but as they did so a second force of two thousand landed in Angli, and soon that kingdom had fallen as well. Realizing that this was truly an emergency Myrce did the most logical thing he could, he paid them to attack Wessaxe.
Wait, what?
Yes, the king of Myrce believed that the Danes were a major threat, but he likely hoped that a conquest of Wessaxe would weaken the heathen enough that the Myrcian army could ally with the Northumbri and defeat the Danes, leaving Myrce to take all of southern Saxeland.
If so, he sorely miscalculated for two reasons. First, Northumbri was consumed by a war against the Picts in the north. That war would last until both sides were subsumed by the overseas attackers, the Danes for the Numbri and the Normans for the Picts. Second, Wessaxe was in no shape to defeat the Danes. Their army was partially rebuilt, but the treasury was largely still empty. The Danes swept into Wessaxe in 865 and overran Winchester that same year. The king hid throughout the winter and emerged in 866 to gather a new army and wage another campaign against the Danes.
He ultimately succeeded in retaking the capital, but shortly thereafter fought a decisive battle against Danish forces outside the city. King Wulfric of Wessaxe died on the field, and his kingdom died with him. The Danes conquered all of Wessaxe by year’s end.
More Danes arrived over the next two years, and in 868 Gurthrum and Ubba invaded Myrce .They advanced deep into the kingdom, taking Grantabryd and wintering there for the year.
In 869 though the king of Myrce left his capital at Tomton with his army and met the Danes on the way to try and retake Grantabryd. At the battle of Grantabryd the Danes were defeated by the Myrcian army and driven out of the kingdom, a rather surprising victory for the Saxons all things considered. But the success would not last. In 870 Gurthrum returned to Myrce and another major battle was fought, this time in the south near Londinium. In this battle the king of Myrce was captured and sacrificed, his kingdom fell soon after. With only one Saxon kingdom remaining the Danish army moved into Northumbri in 872. With practiced efficiency they captured the capital, killed the king, and ten years after Guthrum’s army arrived the Danes were now in full control of Saxeland.
Further north and West, Norman invaders established a group of kingdoms in the islands north of Caledoni, from which they launched attacks on the surrounding lands, but in particular attacks on Hiberni. In 870 they turned away from that island however and began attacks on the Pict lands of central Caledoni, and on Gaelic lands. Over the next twenty years the Normans would extend their control inward, until in 880 they controlled all of Caledoni.
Well sort of. Norman control of Caledoni was little more than theoretical often, but their control over Hiberni was not. With Caledoni theoretically under control Norman attention turned entirely toward the far more valuable island. In 891 a major Norman army landed in Connacht, and defeated the local ruler, subsuming his lands into a growing Norman kingdom. As had happened in Saxeland the lands of Hiberni were one by one conquered, until in 900 all of the island was in Norman hands. And unlike Caledoni the control here was far from theoretical. Hiberni would become the center of Norman power.
The island today of course is known as Alba, and it has been a major player on the world stage more or less since just after the Norman conquest. In its time it will grow to become one of the two major Empires of Europe. At its height it will rule territory from modern day Gael to all of Saxeland, and as far away as the Varangian territories of Atlanti. Over time it would lose its Norman character however, as the Gaels grew more prevalent within the kingdom.
Indeed, even from this early date the Normans were heavily influenced by the Gaels. Despite early defeats the Gaelic resurgence would result in a Gael leader named Kenneth defeating the Norman king in Caledoni, and subsequently taking the role of king himself in 932. He married a Norman noblewoman, and began forcing his subjects to convert to Christianity. He would ultimately be successful, leaving behind a far more unified kingdom on his death.
All of this is the roundabout way that Hiberni came to shed its original name and take on the Alba name its still known for. All of this is the bare basics of the Norman history of Alba because, unfortunately, we now run into an absolute dearth of sources. The above was largely pieced together by later writers from scraps of Church records and oral tradition, but otherwise written records are nonexistent.
We know a little about the organization of both the Danish and Norman kingdoms, but not much. The Danes seem to have largely kept the old Saxon system in place, but were brutal toward the Christians. It was this brutality that eventually led to the major Danish mistake.
In 925 a new bishop arrived from Rome with orders to attempt to convert the kings of Danish Saxeland to Christianity. This effort failed. In 931 the bishop was burned alive and its claimed that five thousand Christians were sacrificed in a great festival to commemorate the event. No evidence exists for the second point, but the first is certainly attested to. Regardless there was one man who certainly did believe it. Augustus Odo I of Franki, a man we will discuss more next time, learned of the massacre and sent an order to the Danish king to either accept Christianity and repent his evil ways, or face war with the Franks.
King Ivar refused. In 935 then Odo massed a fleet of seven hundred ships and sailed across the Channel, bringing with him twenty-thousand men, half of them heavy cavalry. A Danish fleet attempted to intercept, but upon seeing the size of the Emperor’s fleet they turned and fled without even trying to engage. The subsequent campaign can hardly be called a war. The Danes numbered maybe ten thousand at this point, and the Saxons might have been able to match them in manpower should they have been so inclined, which they were not. King Ivar’s capital at Canterbury was taken almost without a fight, and the king was impaled by the Frankish Emperor. His body was then cut into three pieces and sent to Winchester, Eorwic, and Tomton. The Danish kings of those lands, who had been gathering their forces to try and battle the Franks took the message. With Frankish knights watching on they were baptized alongside their men.
Emperor Odo returned across the Channel, making it very clear that he didn’t want to have to return. His threat lasted his entire reign, until his death in 945 rendered it moot. But by then Christianity was back on top in Saxeland, and it would never leave.
After this the Danes and Normans turned their attention back to their old homelands and began a series of wars between the warlords back home and the new kings.
In both cases the island kings would eventually win out over their brethren back home, enforcing at least for a time control over their old homelands. This hegemony would not last of course, but when the ultimate breakdown would come when the Normans and Danes finally turned on one another in the 980s and began a battle for control of both islands. The Normans will eventually win, and in the process create the salvation of Roman fortunes in the West.
Salvation from whom?
The topic of our next section, the rebounding Frankish Empire.
There's alot going on, so is this correct for where things sit in the British isles?
Ireland - nominal Norman control
Scotland - strong Norman control
England & Wales - splintered between various Viking rulers?
Ireland - nominal Norman control
Scotland - strong Norman control
England & Wales - splintered between various Viking rulers?
Other way around. Caledoni = Caledonia, the old name for Scotland. Hiberni = Hibernia, the old name for Ireland. The Gaels who end up in charge of the Norman Empire are basically OTL's Scots, but the term also applies to the Irish.
Just England. They are under a nominal High King, Guthrum's descendant, but the Danish state is highly decentralized.
Both also control territory back in Scandinavia, but the control there is even more nominal.
Part 46: The Decline and Resurgence of the Frankish Empire
Parrt VLII: The Decline and Resurgence of the Frankish Empire
When we last left the Franks the death of the second Frankish Emperor had seen him leave large amounts of his realm in Aquitaine to his second son, significantly reversing the consolidation that had taken place over the previous century. Aquitaine was still solidly within Imperial territory, but it now represented an independent power base from that of the Emperor.
This division was would worsen as time went on. Pepin, the son of Emperor Charles would give his second son territory in the Northeast in what had been Saxony. As generations passed more territory would be broken up, until the Emperor’s lands were focused almost entirely along the Rhine by 910.
In Aquitaine similar breakdowns in order occurred, until that region was only nominally under the Doux of Aquitaine. Noble infighting swept across the region to a significant extent, and trade through Massilia began to slow. Instead trade began to move through Italy and across the Alps into Germani proper rather than into Western Franci.
In the East powerful German lords began pushing the boundaries of the Empire further into the lands of the pagans. These private wars were tacitly approved, and often supported by the Emperor either financially or with direct support from his own soldiers. These border lords began to grow in power relative to the Emperor as their holdings grew, and more land was brought under cultivation toward the Viadrus River. The conquest also changed the path taken by the Amber road, which shifted from the passage downt he Viadrus River and instead moved into the Germani lands of the Frankish Empire. Roman engineers, and as time went on Frankish engineers, built a network of roads through these lands to allow the profitable trade to continue. These infrastructure projects however further shifted trade away from Aquitaine, and enriched both the lands along the Rhine and Eastern lands of the Frankish Empire.
As Germani grew in wealth however so too did its power relative to the Emperor. The results were predictable.
In 910 as a new Emperor, Odo, took the throne a group of German lords went into revolt. Odo spent the next six years putting down the rebellion in Germany, as well as another in Aquitaine. At the end of that war Odo was left with a far tighter grip on his realm than his predecessor’s since Charles had been able to exert. Large eastern estates were broken up and given to loyal men who would ensure that the East was kept in line.
When the civil war ended Odo began implementing a number of important reforms, the most important of which was implementing a zone along the Rhine which was personal territory of the Emperor and which would perpetually be lands of the Emperor alone. Without the possibility of being transferred to a different lord these lands began to develop economic links which were unique within the Frankish Empire, outside perhaps of the Italian lands. The Rhine thus came to resemble Roman lands more than anything else. Temporary officials drawn from smaller landowners near the Rhine were given positions to govern cities and estates owned by the Emperor, and paid along taxes to Aachen.
This would form the foundation of the Second Frankish Empire after the collapse of the first.
Odo’s main foreign action was noted last time when in 935 he gathered a massive fleet and army and invaded Saxeland, defeating the local king and forcing the Danes to convert to Christianity. When he died in 945 Odo left the entire Empire to Frederic his eldest son, providing only smaller estates in Germani to his younger children.
Frederic was not as wise as his father, but did avoid significant internal fighting, focusing instead on building up infrastructure along the Rhine and beginning construction of the great Cathedral of Aachen, a church which he hoped would become the Hagia Sophia of the West. Construction would take over twenty years, and would be the largest Cathedral in the West for the next five hundred years. While not on the scale of the Hagia Sophia the Church of the Blessed Virgin is truly a masterpiece of architecture.
It does however retain certain older aspects of Churches which have long since been done away with in other areas. The painting of the Last Supper which dominates the Narthex is one of the few representations of the Apostles still on display for instance, and the ceiling painting of Christ’s Assumption into Heaven that covers the ceiling of the Nave is a constant presence as well during services.
Frederic died in 957, leaving behind a young son, Charles III, who proved to be weaker than his father and grandfather. More revolts broke out that reduced Imperial authority in Aquitaine and Germani significantly, and when he died in 978 Imperial power was once again on the decline. Charles III had no children, and power passed to one of his cousins, Pepin VI, who controlled significant territory along the Sequana River, and would spend much of his reign bringing the territory between the Rhine and Sequana under more direct Imperial control. When Pepin died in 988 the core of Frankish territory was stronger than ever, and the feudal lords were well in hand.
Thus came the climactic reign of Louis IV, last ruler of the First Frankish Empire.
Next time we will be returning to Roman territory as Alexios III takes power and begins the sequence of events which will leave the Roman Empire a shadow of its former self, as it is attacked from both sides by the greatest enemies that the Romans had ever faced.
990 map of Europe and the Middle East
Some things that didn't get covered in the updates. Markuria is beginning its expansion toward the Red Sea Coast. The strip of land already there is mostly theirs in theory more than anything, but as time goes on the kings want to be able to exert power over the region. The Hejaz is beginning to fall apart as the Bedawi start to break away from royal power. Over the next fifty years or so the kingdom will completely collapse, taking with it Rome's most reliable ally in Arabia. The Goths are pretty much where they've been for the past few centuries. A weak and divided kingdom that nevertheless is still nominally united, even if regions are at this point acting mostly independently. The Berbers control most of North Africa at this point, leaving the Romans only Carthage and the surrounding area and Tingi. Tingi is only really still held at this point because Gothic allies stand ready to reinforce the Roman position should it be seriously threatened.
Wow, is it almost 1000 AD already?
Looks like the Persians did what theRomans did for the Turks post-Manzikert OTL, just invited them into the cities.
The Roman borders aren’t exactly defensible, I’d expect the Franks be easily able to sweep into Italy/Croatia with the same true for the Turks in Mesopotamia.
Looks like the Persians did what theRomans did for the Turks post-Manzikert OTL, just invited them into the cities.
The Roman borders aren’t exactly defensible, I’d expect the Franks be easily able to sweep into Italy/Croatia with the same true for the Turks in Mesopotamia.
The degree of centralisation in the world is a bit ahead of OTL. The Franks are still pretty much together, and of course the Romans. Spain, the Danes and Normans are nominally together.
Does that mean after 1000 AD the scale of armies are going to be much larger than OTL? Can imagine the danger the Romans are going to be in....
Does that mean after 1000 AD the scale of armies are going to be much larger than OTL? Can imagine the danger the Romans are going to be in....
Is Bulgarian *Hungary still Turkic culturally and linguistically or have they Slavicized to some degree ITTL?
There’s been some degree of Slavization, but not to the extent of OTL. More Slavs ended up south of the Danube than north. The Bulgarians still speak their original language, but have adopted the Latin alphabet. Their cultural changes have been mostly toward Greek/Roman or Frankish.
Yes. With the resuscitation of Roman trade networks has led to overall greater wealth throughout the Western Mediterranean, as well as earlier expansion of the Silk Road into the West. The coming century is going to be one of a lot of these big states breaking apart, or in one case growing significantly and then breaking apart.
Part 48: Fool's Gold
Part VLIII: Fool’s Gold
Alexios III’s reign started promisingly enough. He cut back on spending in the capital and instead dedicated those funds for rebuilding the defenses along the Danube, and bribing Magyar leaders whose loyalty had been badly tested by the defeats the Romans had suffered at the hands of the Pechenegs.
He also began courting the Bulgar King Petros, and after some months of negotiation was presented with a deal. Bulgar heavy cavalry would be dispatched to join the Roman army in an expedition against the Pechenegs, but in exchange the Emperor had to pay the Bulgari king the Pecheneg tribute for no less than five years, and marry his younger sister to the Bulgari crown prince.
Alexios balked at the idea at first, but in personal conversations his brother convinced him to agree to the idea. Nikephorus the Younger made the very valid point that the Bulgari heavy cavalry was a force greater than what the Romans could match without hiring significant numbers of mercenaries, and with the skirmishes between the Bulgari and Pechenegs which had already occurred many of these horsemen would be experienced fighting the steppe archers.
So in 980 princess Anna departed Constantinople for Pliska, where she married Prince Markos of the Bulgari, securing an alliance with the Bulgari. Shortly afterward messengers arrived from the Rus king Yaroslav, seeking a marriage alliance as well. There were no further princesses in Constantinople, but Yaroslav did have a daughter, who we today know as Elisaveta. Alexios again balked at the idea of marriage between the Roman royal family and a barbarian princess, but once again Nikephorus stepped in and smoothed over the Emperor’s hesitation.
While Alexios himself was already married Nikephorus was not, and in 981 he married the Rus princess, and in the ceremony her father was baptized alongside many of his noblemen. As part of the wedding ceremony Yaroslav pledged three thousand men to fight the Pechenegs alongside the Roman army.
And if you are wondering why Yaroslav is being so generous, he wasn’t. The Rus had been fighting the Pechenegs off and on for decades by now. Yaroslav had learned of the Bulgari king’s plan and had in fact been attempting to coopt it for his own purposes, possibly marrying the Roman princess to one of his own sons. When that did not work out he shifted tactics and achieved a lesser, thought still great, prize.
Alexios had only a single son, Romanos who was but a boy at this stage. If that boy died then Yaroslav’s grandchildren would be sitting upon the Roman throne. A not unlikely occurrence. The marriage between Elisaveta and Nikephorus was a sadly unhappy one as the pair deeply disliked one another, but it did produce the future Emperor John, so in that way Yaroslav’s goal did pay off thoroughly. Alexios meanwhile had a daughter of his own, Theophila, in 982.
For now, however Alexios’s gamble was about to pay off significantly more. In 985, he gathered an army and marched for the Danube. Waiting for him were two thousand Bulgar kataphractoi and four thousand light cavalry. These joined Alexios’s own army of fifteen thousand and cross the Danube, marching north to the Tyras River. As they moved Alexios caught the Pecheneg men coming to gather the yearly tribute, and had their right hands cut off before sending them back to the khagan. There would be no more tribute paid. The Roman army crossed the Tamais River, shadowed by a supply fleet, and met up with the Rus caravan under the command of Yaroslav himself.
Now combined this army was large enough that the khagan was forced to give battle to them just north of the Taurican peninsula. The Battle of Taurica was a large affair with well over twenty thousand men per side. The Pechenegs were unaware of the Bulgar presence in the Roman army, and this proved decisive.
In fighting along the right wing the Roman line the Bulgar heavy cavalry were concealed behind a force of Magyar horse archers, and when the Pechenegs charged this formation the Magyar gave way, but the Bulgars did not. Instead the Bulgar Kataphractoi were left clear to launch their own countercharge when it was too late for the Pechenegs to disengage. Against the heavily armored and armed Bulgari the Pecheneg force was no match, especially when the Magyar circled around and trapped thousands of Pechengs inside a loop.
Seeing so many of their men trapped Pecheneg bands began to flee, until the khagan himself was forced to join them. The battle was a decisive Roman victory, and Rus soldiers soon captured the khagan’s party, bringing him before the Roman Emperor to negotiate new terms.
The annual tribute was reduced to a tenth what it had been, and the Pechenegs were now required to provide two thousand horsemen per year for the Roman army. Additionally, large sections of Pecheneg territory along the Danapris River were taken over by the Rus, and the Bulgars once again occupied the territory between the Carpathi Mountains and the Black Sea. The Pechenegs will of course be back over the next century, but for now Alexios’s military record was off to a decent start.
Returning to the capital then Alexios decided his military success was enough to restart a project his grandfather had begun, persecution of heretics. In this unfortunately Nikephorus was not a moderating influence as he so often was on his brother’s more harebrained schemes. No, he instead seems to have been perfectly willing to egg on the Emperor’s views on the topic. The problem was that this was a terrible time to begin the persecutions.
The Jacoboi heresy was only growing in strentch in the Eastern regions of the Empire, particularly Armenia and the Caucuses. It was also firmly entrenched in parts of Syria and Egypt. To exacerbate the religious problems trade revenues were falling precipitously. Daquin’s Zho dynasty was in the middle of its collapse, and would not reemerge into the four kingdoms phase of its history for another century. Trade with the East suffered accordingly, as goods flowing along the silk road began to dry up. What goods were still being shipped rarely made it to Roman markets. The Persian Civil Wars, and then the Turkic Conquest had left Central Asia an extremely dangerous route to ship goods through.
The fall of the Khazars had also left most of the northern trade routes going through Pecheneg territory, and there were of course inherent dangers there. Meanwhile Indi was also undergoing major internal upheavals. What’s more, the decline of the Hejaz Kingdom had rendered Red Sea travel more difficult as Arabia Felixi pirates preyed on trade ships with abandon. What ships did make it through the Red Sea then had to have their goods unloaded and transported overland, as the Pharos Canal you will recall had been quite thoroughly destroyed by Alexios I. The trade networks that kept the Empire’s economy flowing were once again breaking down.
Facing budget shortfalls Alexios bolstered his heresy trial earnings with the great boogeyman of Imperial finance. He devalued the coinage. Empress Zoe had of course done something similar once upon a time, but she had disguised this fact by claiming it was a new coin rather than a less valuable old one. Alexios did nothing of the sort, he simply issued the new coins and expected people to cooperate.
They did not. In 987 there was a major riot in the capital that saw a quarter of the city burned to the ground, including the Blachernae Palace. Soldiers were eventually brought in and the situation was brought under control, but the population seethed with resentment toward their Emperor.
The situation truly began to spiral out of control in 988 as a revolt broke out in Egypt against the persecutions, and ten thousand men had to be shipped in to put the uprising down. The rebellion in Egypt however was soon dwarfed by a far greater problem, the Armenian revolt. Armenia was the center of the Jacoboi heresy, and many of its soldiers were either believers or sympathizers.
Thus, when the rebellion began it was both highly organized, well-armed, well-trained, and professional. The Armenian army remained loyal, but prosecuted the war with less than enthusiasm. Rebel groups and Imperial units were often on friendly terms, and fighting was scarce. What did happen was a long run of loose sieges of strongholds, and a major decline in morale amongst the Imperial forces.
The rebellion would last for three years, and when it was over the result was a negotiated end to hostilities, and a secret agreement by the Vicar of Armenia to cease all Imperial persecution within his territory. When Alexios learned of this provision he was furious, and sent word for the vicar to be arrested and executed. This was carried out, but muttering among the soldiers grew significantly louder.
The handling of the Armenian crisis was a massive misstep by Alexios. The Armenians were the premier military force within the Roman Empire at this stage. While much of the Roman army had shifted over to a light cavalry and infantry focus the Armenians alone remained a heavy infantry, heavy cavalry based force. Supported as it was by wealthy native families looking for status within the Diocese officer positions were highly competed for and glamorous, as was the equipment of the men under their command.
This was because in the relatively poor and out of the way Caucuses there was no way to prosperity for those not already in line to inherit their family’s land than military service, and the chance to be promoted high enough to go to one of the other themes. The Armenians therefore were a group that the Emperor should never, under any circumstances, have alienated.
Especially because in 992, just after the Armenian rebellion had ended, Alexios received a message from the self-proclaimed Emperor of Persia. As noted the Turkic Emperor was seeking an Imperial bride, Alexios’s daughter Theophila was only ten, but a promise of marriage would have sufficed for Malik. But Alexios would not hear of it. Bad enough he had agreed to marry his sister off to some Bulgari prince. Bad enough that he had married his brother to some barbarian from the north. But to send his only daughter away to a barbarian camp in Persia to be wed to someone who wasn’t even a Chalcedonian Christian?
Completely and utterly out of the question. Nikephorus was again unfortunately not a moderating influence. His own unhappy marriage to Elisaveta was something he had grown to deeply resent, and so the prospect of sending his niece off to such a marriage was not a good prospect in his mind. Alexios sent the Turkish ambassadors off with a firm anwer of no.
Malik however refused to take that for an answer, and so sent two more envoys. The second was returned with another firm answer of no. But when the third group arrived Alexios flew into a rage at their continued impertinence. In an extremely rash act he ordered the men’s tongues to be cut out so he wouldn’t have to listen to the barbarian rabble speak. This was done, and the men were sent on their way with a promise that further envoys would be blinded as well.
To say that this was a mistake would be a horrible understatement. But in Alexios’s defense, he does go down in history as only the second worst treatment of diplomats leading to disaster in Imperial history. But when Romanos the Mad is his only significant competitor I am unsure whether that is truly a defense.
Malik was completely and utterly enraged at the treatment of his envoys, and in 994 he sent word out to the tribes under his command. Roman territory was now open to Turkic attacks, and he was gathering all of his men for a great war against the arrogant Romans.
Last edited:
So the Roman's are trained of manpower from repeated wars, bleeding money and has internal religious instability?
Guess Mesopotamia is going back to being Persian for the foreseeable future....
Guess Mesopotamia is going back to being Persian for the foreseeable future....