Wow. This really turned into a landslide, so to speak. With the Barcids so reduced - and the pillars of Herakles onder Massalian control - Carthage has basically become a joke. No need to even conquer them: they can do nothing now. All Atlantic trade is now pretty much a Massalian monopoly.
I think it is pretty neat!
If they can hold on to that in the long term, they'll become one of the richest empires on earth.
Depends on how long the long run is. We look at this map and think, "gosh, they've got the whole trade of western Europe sewed up, they must be getting rich!" But in contemporary terms, it is like someone handed you the deed to all of Nunavik with the interior of Borneo thrown in, plus Central Australia. Well, the former and the latter at least are known to have shale oil, uranium, and gems--so say you got this deed with the land unexplored and unprospected,and you have no idea what if anything of any value lies in these wild interiors, but you do know if you can find anything worth exploiting there, you have to build all the infrastructure to extract and export it yourself too. One gazillion acres of howling wilderness, inhabited by suspicious savages whose weapon kit is about as good as yours is.
It isn't quite that bad, but the pickings are slim and spread out compared to the Eastern trade, which great empires fight over. The real wealth of western Europe in this age lies in acres of fertile decently watered land, which can come to support quite a population, if managed correctly. Much of the potential we know of comes from agricultural techniques that haven't been invented yet and crops that haven't been imported yet.
On the time scale where the current holdings of the League, including all her northern and southern trade colonies, can come close to matching what the Ptolemies have, I expect the League to have long ago reached its peak and started collapsing. It is optimistic to hope the great potential of the western lands will become apparent in less than a thousand years. I don't think a few plausible precocious inventions and discoveries can dramatically accelerate that either. (They might do something like double the value of current holdings, but relative to what we'd consider thorough development it will remain a mere fraction and worth a lot less overall than a monopoly on the eastern trade.
Leveraging a few more Mediterranean holdings--more a matter now of neutralizing potential foes a their back than gaining valuable new resources---they might turn east, but that is at best a zero-sum game.
The Atlantic coastal spread will not make the League rich by eastern standards but I suppose it may offer opportunities to a large number of aspiring traders or exploiters, making League society more "middle class" than a typical Classical society which may allow them to sidestep some pathologies that took down Rome in the long run. But we should beware too many analogies to early Modern Europe though I've been pretty free with them myself. The basis of profit is different, more parasitic that under capitalism--dependent largely on scarcity and ignorance of true market conditions. The more they trade, the more developed their trade partners get. Rather than distant outposts seceding and wandering off on their own hook, I'd worry more about the similar but different phenomenon of native societies they trade with becoming more sophisticated and outgrowing their dependency on the Hellenic League traders, and more inclined and able to foster a wide range of crafts "in house" as it were, adopting Mediterranean state of the art military tech (creatively adapted to local conditions) and getting into a position to either dictate terms to the trading colonies or absorb or expel them completely. I can foresee a big Baltic kingdom, coming out of what is today southern Sweden to control the Oresund; a southern British tribe expanding due to general enrichment and sophisticated methods picked up from the British colony in Cornwall coming to dominate and rule what we'd call southern England, perhaps some upstart continental kingdoms in the Lowlands and the German-Polish (OtL) plain, and possibly a north Gaulish confederation too tough for the League to break up and absorb. And possibly similar developments on the Gambia and farther south in West Africa. The world as a whole is getting richer but the share sticking to the fingers of the Massaliot middlemen might peak and then shrink even as the total volume of trade rises.
In the short term: how much resistance can be expected from the Iberian population? I imagine they'll be a bit unhappy about just being annexed to the League like that... Realistically, that should become an issue.
That's my old hobbyhorse issue, isn't it? What exactly is the nature of the Hellenic/native relationship in League society? I like to think it is remarkably accommodating and open culturally, with League Hellenes being willing to "go native" to an extent other Hellenes may think scandalous. I'm skeptical of the notion that Hellenic culture is so superior all others naturally bow before it; even where it can be shown to be objectively true (and in some ways it is, if only because the Greeks have appropriated so much) that still doesn't placate natural resentment at high-handed aliens with airs taking over and swaggering. Therefore I interpret League history to mean these particular Greeks have developed some diplomacy and some greater tendency to mingle and appropriate local culture in ways flattering to the locals, and in particular to cultivate relations with local allies (while being quite harsh to other locals on the outs with their allies--that's part of the gratification of locals after all, to team up on their enemies).
So it is a question of how much the Punics got there firstsest with the mostest as Stonewall Jackson said, though not in a cultural context! The Punics I think were less liable to dispense their own culture and spread much thinner on the ground--they could move in and out more easily because they ruffled fewer native feathers; by that same token they had limited effects on the basic local social and political situation.
I could speculate that the Baracids therefore were much appreciated by some tribes but disliked or hated by others; if the League invaders took advantage of this they have worked out a typical patchwork arrangement with disgruntled locals who now are more or less raw League people recruits, while the favorites of the Baracids are broken, humbled, and as they probably enjoyed the best trade and fortification sites, dispossessed by Greeks (and deeply assimilated Gauls, with perhaps some other less assimilated Gauls getting their own patches of territory from the defeated). To an extent the League invaders can use the help of the locals they have elevated.
Now all this guessing of mine depends on how true it is that the League society is accustomed to such diplomacy. The Romans knew how to do it to an extent, so I can believe these Greeks are masters at it. But it may not be true, or as true as I could romantically imagine it, and then the thing will go rougher.
And no doubt about it, some Iberians are going to be very hostile indeed. It is a question of how much can they threaten a local balance of power favoring the League, to what extent they have to reinforce with occupation troops as well.
Great irony in Hannibal being honorably welcomed into Rome!
That's sure fun!
It is also ominous. I think I did suggest the Romans might ally with the Baracids against the League; now that the Punics are so humbled, that seems preempted but maybe the resentments you spoke of above can be of help to the Roman cause, and Hannibal most certainly can be.
One thing I really wonder about is Ptolemaic empire capturing all of western Arabian coast like that. How did they do that? It can't be very easy to control that area.
It might be OTL; a number of earlier apparent oddities Sersor sprang on us turned out to be. We might regard it as near-meaningless sweeping claims. I think it might be real. OTL, and ITTL after the Massaliotes, the Ptolemies were pretty astute about getting the loyalties of local peoples by giving some lip services to their cultural and religious peculiarities. Look at Egypt, an amalgam of native Egyptian, Greek, and even Jewish populations, all by and large kept from rioting against each other and one way or another persuaded to support the dynasty. The Judeans were pretty peaceful under Ptolemaic rule too; it was the Seleuciad periods of rule that make them rebellious and xenophobic. Why not Arabs? Aside from cultural flattery the trick would be to let some of the gold stick to their fingers, and discreetly instill the appreciation that their opportunities and prosperity are improved by being clients of the strong Ptolemaic state. I'd expect many, possibly a majority, of the crews of the Egyptian vessels engaged in the India trade are Arabs. It may be that among the families getting richest (after the dynasty) on the trade are Arabic and in the ATL in addition to Jews and Greeks, Alexandria and other Egyptian towns have Arab communities too--probably very few but some. I don't know how amenable they are to getting Hellenized but the point is the Ptolemies knew how to back off on that point and let clients find their own terms for submission. I suppose there must be some very Hellenized Arabs and others who selectively adopt Hellenic elements as it suits them.
Certainly it should not be too hard to persuade a suitable majority of seafaring groups that they are better off with a peace on the Med and disgruntled elements are treated as pirates.
----
Speaking of piracy, while perhaps I too should be wondering how sustainable Ptolemaic claims over the Red Sea shores are more than I am, what gets my attention is Maskat as a presumably Arab sheikdom controlling the mouth of the Persian Gulf. What are the chances that the Seleucid rulers might get smart and propose an alliance of mutual benefit to that people, urging and funding them to practice heavy piracy against the Egyptian Indian ocean fleets, in order to divert eastern trade from Egypt and into the Persian Gulf and Seleucid ports on the great rivers (or river, if the single mouth of Shatt-al-Arab has formed yet)? Taking goods up the rivers and thence overland to their salient on the Med is clearly less economic than letting the Egyptians have the trade. But the Seleucids don't care about the betterment of humanity, only enriching themselves; driving up the price of eastern goods in the Med can only benefit them further!
To what extent might we see two Arab navies, both proxy to a Hellenistic power (one the more or less national citizens of one, the other acting as an independent ally) pummeling each other in the western Indian ocean?
My money is on the Ptolemies.
In conclusion: I guess the whole debate about Cisaline Gaul has just been settled by history. Rome has it, and as
@Shevek23 has illustrated so capably, Massalia's not going to have an easy time getting it from them. Time for Massalia to really tighten relations with Megale Hellas! As I read it, Megale Hellas negotiated a peace with Rome, and was far from defeated. On that note: with Rome having swung north now, is there any chance of Megale Hellas attacking them in the south?
The Romans might plan on getting Megale Hellas settled to their satisfaction before threatening Massalia. The League may be deterred from helping the Greek cities in the south by honeyed Roman words or solemn treaties the Romans will break later, or they may dabble around the edges as in prior wars, deterred perhaps by fear of outraging the Romans too much but not completely deterred from annoying them somewhat, and hope to bring in the Epirotes to do the heavy lifting of beating the Romans. I've come to think they have quite a blind spot regarding Rome--but are peering enough around it to judge annoying Rome unnecessarily to be a dangerous sport. The upshot is the first war that is mainly a direct clash between them will catch the League by surprise--it shouldn't but such is the nature of complacency and blind spots!
The Romans might do very Very well initially. I think, like the Axis powers of WWII, the Romans in their turn may badly underestimate Massalian resilience and resources and get steamrollered back--perhaps the Alps will stop a Massaliote counter advance but they might then turn to sea and raids or conquests on Italy to the south--later than would have done them the best, but perhaps not too late to benefit from the resentment of the southern peoples.
- and then they unite. Federal Greek Hellenism FTW!
