...somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean...
With his mothers curses ringing shrilly in his ears, he gingerly used the stir spoon to fish out the rag and try to save the meat - after all, it was likely all he'd get to eat. Chances were good that the purple stain had completely washed out in the boiling oil, and all his dreams fo Synxia lay at his feet, rather like his hear right now.
Yet, when he finally fished the rag out, he gaped in wonder at the brilliant purple stain that now covered it fully. Even his mother stopped speaking for a moment, looking at it in awe. She found her voice faster than he did though and promptly stammered "W-where did you get that rag?? That's beautiful!" and reached for it. Closing his mouth on what he'd been going to say, he realized that he couldn't tell even his mother. He raced out the door and up the street as quick as he could.
Synxias mother, Polixa, was a clothes maker, and the only one in the village of Gebal that could dye ceremonial white robes correctly, which is precisely what she was working on in her workroom when her door almost exploded from a frenzy of knocks. One look at what Toks was carrying, however, made her completely forget the robes, and the irritation at being disturbed in her workroom.
Within a bit, Toks had stammered out his story - with much waving of his rag - and Polixa was lost in thought and wonderment. She nodded absently at the thought of a new dress for her daughter, but then shooed the excited youth out of her workshop and set off for the home of the village sea-priest, Joxin...
By 2500 BC 'Royal Purple' becomes the favored color of the Sea Priests of the Canaanites, of which the sea farers are called 'Phoenicia' - Greek word relating to 'Purple'. The Sea Priests claim that Purple is the color of the meeting of sky and sea just before sunrise and just after sunset, brought to life and touch. As early as 3000 BC, they were trading timbers and purple fabrics to the Egyptians from the first of many colonies in the Atlantic.
At some point, they discovered, found, or were traded the metallurgy techniques for making Bronze in the Atlantic. This is roughly analogous to one country coming secretly on the only source of u235 for Nuclear weapons... all other cultures had, at best, copper.
They named the land Bara-Tannica, the land of Tin.
At some point around 2000BC, famine struck the land of the Hittites in Anatolia. Their ruler, after all other efforts failed, split the population half, and banished half, under the leadership of his son, to the waters southward. The other half, he himself led on conquests to south. The league of cities to their west, and the Greeks, were similarly affected by droughts and famines, and by prressures from tribes to the north and west, began to migrate as well.
In 2000-1200 BC a time of unrest begins as Sea Peoples begin to raid southward, the Hittite Empire is attempting to expand to find new food, waves of Greek migrations descend from the northwest, the Hyksos invaded Egypt from the south (and are driven out again later), The Minoan culture peaks and vanishes, replaced by the Mycenaean culture.
During this time, Phoenician Canaan is politically seperated from land based Canaan (which the Egyptians conquer in 1800, only to change hands multiple times) and survives virtually unscathed due to it's broad distribution of colonies and naval supremacy.
By 1200, Hundreds of colonies exist, many outside the Mediterranean covering the African and Iberian coastlines, each a days rowing from each other, adding unique lumber and silver to the glass liquid containers and purple dye that are the prime staples of Phoenician Trade. Due to distribution of colonies and it's loose trading policies, Phoenicia dominates regional Mediterranean trade and is often preferred even for local trade.
The arrogance of Phoencian traders, and their surplus of wealth, leads them to making anchors of silver and sails of royal purple. They sail one of two types of vessels, a trade ship or a war ship, and jealously guard their naval secrets of cartography and writing. Which, combining their knowledge of Bronze and the better ship timbers of the Atlantic cast, gave them a startling dominance over the Mediterranean from 2000-800 BC.
With the Sea Peoples mostly diminished in strength (primarily absorbed into existing cultures that survived the onslaught), the Phoenicians set out to restrict all naval access to their source of tin, and thus bronze.
They attempt to restrict Greek vessels to the immediate vicinity of the Aegean Sea, and they only allow passage through the straits of Gibraltar to their ships, or designated ships.
*Permission was granted by the use of religious symbols, sacrificed at the Caves of Gorsham for a Royal Purple flag. Ships flying these could sail into the Atlantic. Without the flag, Phoenician warships sank them.
Phoenician society rested upon three pillars: the king, the temple, and elder councils. Each colony became a city-state upon reaching a certain size and establishing an elder council. The city-states were banded together through bonds of religion, politics, and tradition in a loose confederacy.
Around 900 BC the Phoenicians had founded a number of colonies around the coastlines of Sicily, but had never penetrated into the interior.
Around 815 BC, Carthage was founded in an ideal location to control western Mediterranean trade.
In 750, Syracuse was founded by the Greeks, and Phoenician settlements relocated to the western side of the island.
In addition, overland land routes were established to trade tin from Iberia & Britain to central Europe, Northern Mediterranean, and Greeks, the beginning of the weakening of the monopoly over tin trade through the straits of Gibraltar.
In 600 BC, the Greek colony of Masilla was founded, providing an even more direct trade route from Celtica to Greece, and triggering the Greek-Punic wars, or, more appropriately, the Sicilian wars.
Carthage's economic successes, and its dependence on shipping to conduct most of its trade (for the empire's southern border was surrounded by desert), led to the creation of a powerful navy to discourage both pirates and rival nations. They had inherited their naval strength and experience from the Phoenicians, but had increased it because, unlike the Phoenicians, the Punics did not want to rely on a foreign nation's aid. This, coupled with its success and growing hegemony, brought Carthage into increasing conflict with the Greeks, the other major power contending for control of the central Mediterranean.
The Greeks, like the Phoenicians, were expert sailors who had set up thriving colonies throughout the Mediterranean. These two rivals fought their wars on the island of Sicily, which lay at Carthage's doorstep. From their earliest days, both the Greeks and Phoenicians had been attracted to the large island, establishing a large number of colonies and trading posts along its coasts. Small battles had been fought between these settlements for centuries. Masilla was a feather that triggered one of the longest wars of Mediterranean history.
In response to the Greek's reaching Iberia, Carthage coordinated an alliance of Phoenician Cities into a Carthaginian led commerical empire to resist further Greek influence in the Central and west Mediterranean.
In 580, Conflicts in and around Sicily, primarily led by the Phoenician settlements and friendly natives, pushed Greeks to the eastern side of the island with a resounding defeat.
Greeks continued to colonize heavily in the area, in the form of both Ionian and Dorian Greeks, and the area is often referred to as Magna Graecia by the Latins, due the density of Greeks in the region. Ionians were largely friendly to Phoenician, Carthaginian, and native alike, but Dorians were more aggressive, and expanded into the interior of Sicily, often at the expense of the natives. Trade between the Magna Graecia and the Carthaginian empire flourished, enriching both sides, and eventually led to the first Sicilian War.
In 550, Carthage allies with the Etruscans against the Greek's expanding influence.
*In 540, Malchus conquers Sicily, and takes Greek booty to Tyre, and dies to Persian conquest.
In 539, the Persians conqured the last of the Levantine coast Phoenician cities, sparking a dispersal of citizens to Carthage and other city-state colonies, making Carthage the new Capital of Mediterranean trade - from deep sub-Saharan Africa to Persia to the Brittanic Isles. Carthage, after the rebellion and fall of Tarshish, closed the Straits of Gibraltar to all foreign vessels.
In 535, Carthage, with Etruscans, destroy the Phocean Greek colony in Corsica and closes Sardinia-Corsica from further Greek colonization.
510 - Rome overthrows Etruscans, establishing independent republic
510 - Prince Dorieus of Sparta colonizes Eryx on Sicily after being expelled by Carthage after a three year struggle against him and his followers.
*510 - Carthage aids Segasta to defeat Dorieus, Greek survivors then founded Heaclea Minoa by taking over existing Minoa, from which they fought a second war in vengeance, culminating in the destruction of Minoa, but enhanced economic benefits for Greeks in Magna Graecia.
An appeal at the time to mainland Greece to avenge Dorieus was ignored, even by Dorieus' brother, Leonidas of Sparta, who would stand at the Gates of Fire in 480 BC.
507 - Carthage signs first treaty with Rome
While Carthage is engaged in western Sicily and Sardinia, most Sicilian Greek colonies fell under the rule of tyrants, who successfully expaned against native Sicilians and each other from 505-480 with the Doric city of Gela being the most successful.
498-490 - Gela, under Hippocrates, Cleander, conquers most of eastern Sicily.
485 - Gelo, successor of Hippocrates in Gela, captures Syracuse and makes it his capital.
He transforms Ionian cities into Dorian with ethnic cleansing, deportation and enslavement, making Syracuse the dominant power in the meantime.
He then allies with Akragas via mariages, creating a united front against the Sicels and Ionian Greeks of Sicily (those that were left), incidentally creating a viable threat to all other Sicilian powers.
483 - Ionian Greeks appealed to Carthage to counter this Doric threat and several Ionian cities, and even a Dorian city, ally with Carthage.
Ionians to the north, Carthage to the west, and Dorians the east and south, with natives sandwiched in the middle, mostly nuetral (though some joined the Carthaginian alliance) created a delicate balance of power.
*480 An alliance with Persia sees a major Persian offensive against mainland Greece and 300,000 strong Carthage military mission to Sicily. After a losing a majority of the force to bad weather getting there, Hamilcar of Carthage is decisively defeated by Gelo.
Carthage paid 2000 talents as reparations to the Greeks and did not intervene in Sicily for 70 years.
Carthage lost no Sicilian territory, and the Greeks gained none. Gelo/Syracuse did not attack any Carthaginian allies, and the booty from the victory over the Carthaginian army helped fund public building in Sicily, causing Greek culture to flourish. Trading activity saw Greek prosperity, and the deaths of the tyrants sowed the seeds for a second Sicilian war.
**The defeat causes a loss of faith in Carthaginian nobility however, and instigated a political crises.
The Carthaginian empire endured a bloodless civil war and revolution transforming from a Kingdom to a Republic with two ruling bodies - the Court of 104 Magistrates and the Elder Council of one member from each member city-state. The court provided detailed laws and resolutions to the council, the council would then enact them into law, or send them back for revisioning.
The bloodlessness was due to a perceptive King who had seen it coming. He had cunningly diverted a significant portion of the fleet headed to Sicily under the guise of 'bad weather' to return to Carthage and prevent the revolution. When this counter-coup fleet encountered truly bad weather, the King changed his plans to his back up plan.
The King, of the Mago dynasty, voluntarily abdicated his throne in favor of the councils and entered exile - but was so well respected that a large number of wealthy merchant families and a significant fraction of the navy - especially many of those 'significantly loyal' that had been 'lost' during the bad weather on the way to Sicily.
East lay the Persians, to the north lay the Greeks, and to the south a dry, dry desert. King Mago went the only way that was clear and open, and still by Cartaginian Empire forces. He went west, throught the Straits of Gibraltar. More than a few merchant families followed him - fifty to a hundred merchant ships. Of the naval fleet that wished to follow him, he only allowed an 'escort' of one hundred ships - but another fifty, with around an additional twenty merchant ships, sailed after his 'exile fleet'
Next chapter: Does King Mago go North or South in the Atlantic?