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The Reign of the Rasna - An Etruscan Empire

This is a remake of my older (very short) timeline about the Etruscans which had the same title. I will use the same title since I still like it and I don't like the 2.0 forms of timelines. I will probably continue this one longer, and it will also be more detailed.

The Reign of the Rasna
Chapter 1 - The road to an Empire

Little is known about early Rasnan history¹, because there are very few written documents from that time. The earliest recorded battle in Rasnan history is the Ruman uprising² in 508 B.C. ³, which was recorded more than two centuries later. That battle is not only important because of that reason, but also because in the future, it would mean a massive change in the Rasnan political structure.

The city of Ruma was at the time led by their king, Tarquin. Kings in Ruma were at the time elected by the senate. Tarquin was from Rasnan origin, but most of the Ruman population belonged to another people, known as Latins. Tarquin was probably not a popular ruler, and many people also disliked his Rasnan origins, so the people of Ruma revolted, and the senate took power.

Tarquin tried to regain the throne, but failed. Then he asked the zilath of Clevsin6, and also the lucumo of that year, Lars Pursenas to help him regain the throne. Pursenas decided to help him.

Pursenas’ army marched to Ruma, but the Ruman senate heard from it’s approach and they prepared for the attack. Pursenas wanted to attack Ruma by crossing the bridge near Ruma, but the Rumans destroyed it. Pursenas then decided to blockade the city and transport on the river. At the same time, he continued the siege, and after a while, he was able to conquer Ruma.

Pursenas was however not happy to return the city to Tarquin. Tarquin was hated by the people of Ruma and another revolt would be likely. Pursenas also wanted to strengthen his own influence on the city. Therefore he put a relative of him on the Ruman throne. He was also able to make Ruma a member of the Dodecapoli. With Ruma as a member of the Dodecapoli, the influence of Pursenas became larger, and the Rasnafication of Ruma would also become larger.
There were many people and leaders who disagreed with Pursenas decision. There had always been twelve cities in the Dodecapoli8, probably because of religious reasons. But Ruma was kept as a Dodecapoli city, because of the danger of having a new rebellion in Ruma, because of Pursenas power, and because the Rasna were looking forward to expansion…

¹ Etruscan.
² OTL Roman-Clusium war
³ I will use OTL dating so that people understand when things happened. In this timeline, other methods are used for dating
 Rome
 King of an Etruscan city
6 Clusium
Elected ruler of the twelve Etruscans city states, ruled for one year.
 Dodecapoli, the twelve Etruscan league cities.


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