The twin titles of the chapter in Greek and Old Persian mean 'evil/treacherousness'. This chapter is the look at the darker elements of this history. I'm not planning on anything unreadably harrowing, but this is somewhat of a reminder as to what casual-through-to-extraordinary cruelties this era was capable of. That's why the opening update was always intended to be a collection of Against Xerxes speeches/extracts.
Μηδίζω! The World of Achaemenid Hellas
- Thread starter Daeres
- Start date
The twin titles of the chapter in Greek and Old Persian mean 'evil/treacherousness'. This chapter is the look at the darker elements of this history. I'm not planning on anything unreadably harrowing, but this is somewhat of a reminder as to what casual-through-to-extraordinary cruelties this era was capable of. That's why the opening update was always intended to be a collection of Against Xerxes speeches/extracts.
Rereading some of the earlier chapters and noticed an interesting rhyme between one chapter dedicated exclusively to praise of Xerxes and this recent one. I'm now reading through the religion chapter and hoping for some quality religious extremism, that Second Pythagorean Revolution sounds fun.
I read this TL a few years ago and found it amazing. So I was pretty excited to see this back on the main page!I
If you've never read Peter Green's Alexander to Actium you really should, it's a 360 degree view of the whole Hellenistic age covering everything from philosophy to literature to the details of how the Successor kingdoms worked on a bureaucratic level. One cultural theme that really seems to leap out from this era is a sense of the loss of tradition and poleis, and the loss of civic and even personal agency by individuals, demolished by the new autocratic kingdoms and the will to power, whose rulers themselves are playthings of Tyche or fate. This came with a corresponding move from focusing on civic, public virtue to personal, private virtue, and a tendency to minimize the traditional cults of the Olympian gods in favor of more coherent, personally applicable philosophies like Stocism and Epicureanism, and later, mystery cults like the Eleusians. In the East, I don't actually see this cultural trajectory changing much: if anything, we have a more gargantuan empire, ruling these Hellenes for longer, so these tendencies may be accelerated. Epicureanism in particular, or something much like it, may receive a boost from the influence of Buddhist philosophy. The Epicurean ideal of ataraxia, or imperturbability, has more than a passing resemblance to the Buddhist ideal of non-attachment. I suspect that the Orphic Buddhism that back-proselytizes to Asia may resemble Epicureanism in many respects. With the greater consciousness of external forces to determine one's fate, there was also a tendency to develop totalizing systems like the Stoic insistence that the motion of planets precisely influenced events on earth; I could see the Babylonian transplants in Thebes being influential in popularizing astrology. This also manifested as seemingly opposing trends of nascent monotheism, with Zeus, Tyche or other gods being emphasized as having distant but paramount control over the universe, and as a tendency to deify rulers, who, unlike the Olympians, undeniably had immediate power on Earth. The Persians are likely to identify Zeus with Ahura-Mazda, and I do wonder if Zoroastrian influence may yet find a home somewhere in this alternate Asia. I can easily see the later Helleno-Persian dynasts cultivating a cult around the ruler much as the Ptolemies and Seleukids did.
The Western Hellenes, OTOH, may postpone these cultural developments, at least temporarily. I think with more preserved agency for individual and poleis the cultural tendencies will run more towards action in the world as opposed to cultivating detachment from it. The hints of recurrent Pythagorean rebellions seem like they are running in that direction.... the cult of Herakles was also widespread in Magna Graecia and I could see this influencing culture there as well... Carthage cultivated syncretism between Herakles and Melqart to take advantage of this OTL. I'd need to think more about what this would look like. Ironically I could see a Zoroastrian-influenced system appealing to them, with its emphasis on this-world action, were it not for its Persian taint.
Speaking of Carthage, the idea of a Greater Punosphere is fascinating.... I could see the Punic alphabet being used as far north as Britain TTL. I also doubt Gadir would sit idly by and let the Tartessians monopolize the Atlantic seaboard... Might we see greater interaction with Cornwall, and maybe, eventually, into the North Sea? Or perhaps we will see more settlement in West Africa, on Cape Verde and the other islands just off Africa. I do think, with W Africa being more integrated into the world system, that the New World will be discovered sooner rather than later so long as this brisk trade continues.
How far did the Tinian Empire actually extend at its height? From the text, it sounds like they took over Italy and Massalia but it's not clear if they got any farther than that. The religion of Gallia TTL must be something else, being a melting pot of Etruscan, Hellenic, and Celtic influences. The Tinian precedent of a "Mandate of Uni" is soemthing I think will persist in the Averni successor states: it's a convenient way to justify one's rule over such a diverse and disparate population. I wonder if some ruler or priest will eventually formalize the druidic religion as Zoroaster did to Iranian paganism. On another note, I remember you mentioned Sardinia had become Etruscan... what happened to the Carthaginian presence on the island? Caralis was founded as a Punic city and they were there first....
Also, I can't help but notice very little has been mentioned of Egypt so far. ITTL Egypt, apparently, gets to restore a native Pharonic dynasty instead of having that tradition come to an end under the Persian, Ptolemaic, then Roman boot. I feel that that in and of itself deserves a post. Apparently they become Buddhist eventually, which is interesting. I wonder how well this plays with the native priestly caste, who even the Ptolemies could not avoid dealing with....
I also wonder what the impression of the Agnimitrids was, back in India. OTL much of the Persian treasury was shipped west to Pella after Alexander conquered the empire. Here, that gold is likely going east instead... With such an inspiring example, I wonder if TTL's Chandragupta Maurya might not get started sooner on establishing hegemony over the subcontinent, and dream of lands beyond...
If you've never read Peter Green's Alexander to Actium you really should, it's a 360 degree view of the whole Hellenistic age covering everything from philosophy to literature to the details of how the Successor kingdoms worked on a bureaucratic level. One cultural theme that really seems to leap out from this era is a sense of the loss of tradition and poleis, and the loss of civic and even personal agency by individuals, demolished by the new autocratic kingdoms and the will to power, whose rulers themselves are playthings of Tyche or fate. This came with a corresponding move from focusing on civic, public virtue to personal, private virtue, and a tendency to minimize the traditional cults of the Olympian gods in favor of more coherent, personally applicable philosophies like Stocism and Epicureanism, and later, mystery cults like the Eleusians. In the East, I don't actually see this cultural trajectory changing much: if anything, we have a more gargantuan empire, ruling these Hellenes for longer, so these tendencies may be accelerated. Epicureanism in particular, or something much like it, may receive a boost from the influence of Buddhist philosophy. The Epicurean ideal of ataraxia, or imperturbability, has more than a passing resemblance to the Buddhist ideal of non-attachment. I suspect that the Orphic Buddhism that back-proselytizes to Asia may resemble Epicureanism in many respects. With the greater consciousness of external forces to determine one's fate, there was also a tendency to develop totalizing systems like the Stoic insistence that the motion of planets precisely influenced events on earth; I could see the Babylonian transplants in Thebes being influential in popularizing astrology. This also manifested as seemingly opposing trends of nascent monotheism, with Zeus, Tyche or other gods being emphasized as having distant but paramount control over the universe, and as a tendency to deify rulers, who, unlike the Olympians, undeniably had immediate power on Earth. The Persians are likely to identify Zeus with Ahura-Mazda, and I do wonder if Zoroastrian influence may yet find a home somewhere in this alternate Asia. I can easily see the later Helleno-Persian dynasts cultivating a cult around the ruler much as the Ptolemies and Seleukids did.
The Western Hellenes, OTOH, may postpone these cultural developments, at least temporarily. I think with more preserved agency for individual and poleis the cultural tendencies will run more towards action in the world as opposed to cultivating detachment from it. The hints of recurrent Pythagorean rebellions seem like they are running in that direction.... the cult of Herakles was also widespread in Magna Graecia and I could see this influencing culture there as well... Carthage cultivated syncretism between Herakles and Melqart to take advantage of this OTL. I'd need to think more about what this would look like. Ironically I could see a Zoroastrian-influenced system appealing to them, with its emphasis on this-world action, were it not for its Persian taint.
Speaking of Carthage, the idea of a Greater Punosphere is fascinating.... I could see the Punic alphabet being used as far north as Britain TTL. I also doubt Gadir would sit idly by and let the Tartessians monopolize the Atlantic seaboard... Might we see greater interaction with Cornwall, and maybe, eventually, into the North Sea? Or perhaps we will see more settlement in West Africa, on Cape Verde and the other islands just off Africa. I do think, with W Africa being more integrated into the world system, that the New World will be discovered sooner rather than later so long as this brisk trade continues.
How far did the Tinian Empire actually extend at its height? From the text, it sounds like they took over Italy and Massalia but it's not clear if they got any farther than that. The religion of Gallia TTL must be something else, being a melting pot of Etruscan, Hellenic, and Celtic influences. The Tinian precedent of a "Mandate of Uni" is soemthing I think will persist in the Averni successor states: it's a convenient way to justify one's rule over such a diverse and disparate population. I wonder if some ruler or priest will eventually formalize the druidic religion as Zoroaster did to Iranian paganism. On another note, I remember you mentioned Sardinia had become Etruscan... what happened to the Carthaginian presence on the island? Caralis was founded as a Punic city and they were there first....
Also, I can't help but notice very little has been mentioned of Egypt so far. ITTL Egypt, apparently, gets to restore a native Pharonic dynasty instead of having that tradition come to an end under the Persian, Ptolemaic, then Roman boot. I feel that that in and of itself deserves a post. Apparently they become Buddhist eventually, which is interesting. I wonder how well this plays with the native priestly caste, who even the Ptolemies could not avoid dealing with....
I also wonder what the impression of the Agnimitrids was, back in India. OTL much of the Persian treasury was shipped west to Pella after Alexander conquered the empire. Here, that gold is likely going east instead... With such an inspiring example, I wonder if TTL's Chandragupta Maurya might not get started sooner on establishing hegemony over the subcontinent, and dream of lands beyond...
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Bringing up the OTL Hellenistic era is super relevant here. If there's anything that I specialise in historically it's arguably the Hellenistic era in the Near East and Iranian Plateau (which is sometimes called the Hellenistic Far East in some recent scholarship). Green's work was just on the shade of old enough that it was no longer hot property during my degrees, but it was one of the most common onboarding texts for people just running into the Hellenistic era properly for its sheer depth (tangent: the book itself was criticised at the time of release for not being up to date with c.1990 knowledge on a lot of specific Hellenistic subfields, so it was never considered the go to read academically, and as of the present date it's now 30 years old, a lot of things have changed in the study of Hellenistic history since then). But it's an era that I know well, and I realised when I was figuring out the impact of the conquest on Greece that I had both butterflied away its existence whilst also simulating many of its effects early, focused on Greece proper, whilst having removed anything resembling the intervening Classical era entirely. So the example of the Hellenistic era has remained a super important one when it came to figuring out the shape of Greece under the Achaemenids and beyond. Religion-wise some of these cards are still a little close to my chest, but wrt to the Gree pantheon as understood in Hellas my portrayal over it over time has deliberately emphasised a more omni-benevolent, distant interpretation of the Gods that then shifts into spirituality not dissimilar to OTL neo-platonic religion in the notion of A Distant Creator/Supreme Being with numerous more active gods. A splinter of this is where the Olikan faith and derivatives come from- a kind of henotheistic universalism that regards all gods as needing to be worshipped/tended to as aspects and/or servants of said Supreme Being figure.
More Zoroastrian-inspired modes of thought in the western Mediterranean are absolutely possible, especially in the periods of closer detente between the Western and Eastern Greeks, but also potentially through the intermediary of the Etruscans who have absolutely no issues accepting Iranian influences where appropriate. Especially given an evolution into the Tinian Empire where there is a move towards a semi-deified monarch who resembles the Great King far more than existing regal structures in Italy.
Because it's not the main focus of the thread I haven't lingered too too long on Carthaginian/Punic activity outside of the immediate era, but I absolutely assume Cornwall and parts of the 'English' littoral to be within the Punic sphere by later periods, along with deeper interactions into West Africa than OTL. We had an update where in much more 'recent' times a Carthaginian temple was being excavated on the Isle of Wight, and also a couple of updates referring to the classical era Phoenician wake in west Africa and the Canaries, for instance. However, the tricky bit with west Africa is that Cape Bojador was as much a barrier to two-way sea voyages from West to North Africa as OTL in this period, so that trade routes also have significant overland portions, and give West Africans a hand with retaining agency in their trade with Carthage/Punic states. As for America, cause the thread has tried to tie things to TTL's 'classical' era I've been mostly leaving that alone (spoilers, a random Etruscan ship doesn't discover the Americas in like 90 AD
), but I decided quite a long time ago who manages to encounter the Americas and when, and the changes to the relationship between West Africa and the Mediterranean system absolutely have an impact on that, though not so much the Polynesians...The Tinian Empire at its absolute height is all of OTL Italy+Sicily, plus Rhaetia, parts of northern Pannonia and northern Illyria, Massalia's territories (which are more extensive than OTL's, with Narbo being one of the furthest western outposts of the Tinians. This map is still accurate to how I currently understand the Tinians At Their Height. And yes, TTL Etruscan state/cultural constructions about state formation and legitimacy and kingship are absolutely going to do a number on not just Gallia but pretty much all of Central Europe. I've not had much opportunity to show that yet, though it is mostly out of scope so it wouldn't be something I'd dwell on for long. As for Sardinia, it's a consequence of the collapse of Carthaginian hegemony over the Phoenician sphere of the western Med, Sardinia isn't a priority for any of the Carthaginian successors, which also coincides with some of the earliest Tinian expansion outside of northern Italy.
Egypt will definitely get its opportunities to show up in greater detail, but I have a couple of updates in mind for that which fit best for them.
As for the Agnimitrids, I suspect that the respect for their martial achievements and (initially) continent spanning Empire is not quite as impactful as we'd like to think. Whilst treasure absolutely will flow eastwards, the inability of that Empire to sustain itself and the brain drain of talented Indian commanders, administrators, soldiers into the Near East and Iranian Plateau is not something I feel Indian posterity will look entirely kindly upon. It will also depend on the situation of Buddhism in India ITTL outside of the 'classical' era- the strong association between the Agnimitrid dynasty and the spread of Buddhism might not suit periods of Indian history when Buddhism is not in the ascendant or a position of power. And after all, the Mauryans got almost forgotten about for a very long time, the discovery of the Ashokan pillars was a gamechanger. In that vein, I can absolutely imagine the Agnimitrids becoming at best a historical curiousity for later India until such a period comes where their curious features become important in the context of that time.
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Slavery
Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 8: KAKIA or ZURA
On the Constitution of a Just War by Kitas Kampanikos *1659 CE
The Great Revolt Chapter 1
CHAPTER 8: KAKIA or ZURA
On the Constitution of a Just War by Kitas Kampanikos *1659 CE
The Great Revolt Chapter 1
We first must be candid about what is to be reconciled. On the one hand the Hellenes, or those of Hellas originale and Anatolia, were a nation under occupation from an imperial power. Autonomy had been stripped from a multitude of tribes and cities that had known only sovereignty. The authority of the Persian King was not a matter of lip service, it was exercised by a fully equipped satrap, under whom served governors, under whom served numerous officials and men under arms. Persian garrisons in robust fortifications occupied many strong points across Hellas, not simply to defend the Imperial frontier from exterior aggressors but to control key avenues of communication and commerce between the regions of Hellas itself, and to discourage behaviour displeasing to the interests of the Persian Empire. Those few regions who initially retained a notional independence were, nonetheless, yoked to Persian interests and had no possible recourse to taking positions in foreign affairs and defense contrary to the interests of the Great King. Nor was the stripping of indigenous authority solely confined to matters of foreign policy; even from the start Persian interference could be expected in matters of communal governance, from the procedures of Athenian lawcourts to the powers of the Boiotian federation to the form of the Argive constitution. This was, if it had ever been, no longer a matter of the symbolic gifts of earth and water, but a nation in its entirety made servant to another.
Laying matters out thus we cannot but conclude that for the Hellenes to attempt rebellion against the Persians was not only inevitable, not only understandable, but perhaps even justifiable. But then we come to the other hand.
On the other hand, the genesis of the Great Revolt of Hellas was neither the return of Xerxes to his domains over the Sea, nor a moment of military weakness on the part of the local forces of Persia, nor even through an inciting incident of mistreatment. The proximate cause of this tumult was, in fact, through the behaviour of fellow Hellenes, the newly independent Kingdom of the Messenians. The Messenians had experienced something unknown to almost any people in history, they had been a nation-in-slavery to the Lakedaimonians. Theirs was a collective memory of brutality and bondage, and so strong was their sense of justice that they would not suffer slaves upon their soil for almost any reason upon their resurrection as a nation. It was an astonishingly radical act in a time when enslavement through war or even debt was an unquestioned aspect of life in Hellas. So it was that many other Hellenes were roused to fury, and no small amount of fear, through imaginings of slave insurrections or even the mass flight of slaves to Messenia and potential freedom. Regardless of any other questions of talent, temperament, or nobility, we must state that the satrap, Mardonios, refused to countenance the sanction of Messenia for this act, nor forcing the Messenians to rescind the decision. And thus the Great Revolt began.
Justifiable though rebellion was against an imperial occupier we cannot ignore that the specific motivation of this revolt of Hellenes was the preservation of a slaving society, driven by the fear of the numerous aristocratic clans and well-off of society that their entire order of life would be swept away, dependent as it was on unfree labour.
This makes evaluating whether or not the Great Revolt constitutes a just war, a just insurrection, considerably more difficult than in many other instances of imperial occupation. If one is too tempted to credit the Persians as any sort of anti-slaving force in antiquity we must also remember that slavery existed as an institution throughout the demesne of the Great King, from Marqandar to Sardes. It has in many annals and histories, ancient and recent, been reported that the Persians disapproved of slavery or, at best, reluctantly tolerated it, we can be assured that this is an outrageous falsehood. Even a smattering of the classics will permit us to read the documents of sale dating to the First Iranian era in which Persian notaries, officials, and aristocrats buy and sell slaves between one another and between themselves and locals. This was not an imperial state that disapproved of slavery, either among their subjects or among those men who constituted the imperial governerial class. Yet this does not erase the fact that a great part of the Hellenes were motivated to war, in the face of tall odds, primarily to defend the integrity of slavery as an institution, and that the Persian Empire was capable of defending a people who detested slavery and would gladly have abolished it as an institution in totality.
Further complicating matters is the course of events during the Great Revolt itself. For on the one hand, we are familiar with infamous atrocities committed against the Hellenes across this, mostly infamously with the destruction of the city of Amphissa, and that these incidents are atrocities is unquestionable. Even those who have on the whole excluded or omitted the excesses of the Persian Empire have been forced to confront these deeds, where they are concerned with Hellenes at all. Unlike such apologists we cannot excuse this as momentary passion or accident or poor judgement on the part of Mardonios. We can confidently say through many prior examples, including in Hellas, that the Persian kings did not disapprove of such things in principle whatsoever, the objection of Xerxes was such an important decision being taken without his authorisation.
And then, on the other hand, the Messenians were fully convinced that most of Hellas was after their heads, indeed fearing that they would be returned to a state of slavery as punishment for their transgressions. Nor was this an unreasonable assumption given the ideological nature and intensity of the anger directed towards them. The fact that many of the insurgent Hellenes held more anger towards the Messenians than the Persians during the Great Revolt is a further complication to a simple reading of affairs. And neither can it be taken for granted that the Messenians were simply medisers, or imperial toadies, by choosing to side with the Persian king over fellow Hellenes. Even close contemporaries in free Hellenic territories such as Herodotos considered the Messenian alignment with the Persians to be justified, and entirely granted this to be a decision reached in full agency by the Messenians without any coercion from the Persians being necessary. We cannot claim this is the case for numerous other Hellenes who supported the Persians, instead motivated either through the pursuit of ancient grudges, the maintenance of power they had acquired under the Persian yoke, or through Persian coercion. But do we then find ourselves claiming that such people were morally inferior or less justified in their foreign policy than those who actively, knowingly launched a mass revolt in order to maintain the institution of slavery?
What is certain is that we cannot rely on any one of the accounts originale of the conflict to guide us in our quest to evaluate whether or not the Great Revolt was a just war for either party. For these ancients the matter is simple. For those predisposed against the Persians the Revolt was a mistimed, hastily improvised, and poorly executed war for liberation against the Mede, hampered by the base motivations of its genesis and doomed to failure, which the Persians harshly punished. They instead look to the later campaigns of Herodotos as an exemplar of resistance against Xerxes and the Persians, and such the matter is closed to their satisfaction. For those predisposed to support the Persians, this is a defensive war against an entire nation of would-be-Lakedaimonians, all of whom were simply means and opportunity away from subjecting entire peoples to bondage in exactly the same manner as the destroyed Spartans. To such observers this is another indication that Xerxes, and the Persians, valued justice and had no tolerance for anything resembling the unnatural practices of the Spartans, that this was an almost spiritual cause for the Persian Empire. Indeed, to many non-Hellenic observers the Hellenes were considered practically barbarians in this time anyway, thus leading them to characterise this struggle as effectively one would a particularly large raid of Skythians against the lands of Asia.
Such is the depravity of the institution of slavery that those capable of pragmatism may be cast as heroes, and that men whose causes were just could never consider for a moment that their active defense of slavery in any way compromised their goals of liberty or righteousness. Generations of men observing these events afterwards have themselves never questioned the presence of slavery in these societies, its ubiquity, or the rationality of the Hellenic cause even if it proved ultimately futile. We must, as new men, must grapple with these problems unclouded by the touch of that most dreadful institution.
The only ‘safe’ conclusion in this sorry affair is that one can, in full knowledge and good conscience, cast the Messenians as just actors throughout. This body of Hellenes first acted as radical liberators within their own lands without in any way making offensive actions against other Hellenes, without threatening war or seeking to undermine their fellows by deliberate craft, and then when their fellows came for them the Messenians acted solely to defend their lands, their cities, their people, and their freedom, never taking part in any offensive actions against other Hellenes nor, so far as we are aware, in any of the atrocities committed by the Persians against the Hellenes in the putting down of the Revolt. They cannot be characterised as aggressors through the cause of the tumult nor as medisers by standing alongside the Persians through such times.
We must now, however, dive into murkier waters. We must resolve the character of the other parties in the conflict, fearing not to untangle a knot merely because of its complexity. Strand by strand, we will emerge with definite and justified conclusions, and determine ultimately which of the two greater factions held just cause in the Great Revolt of *478 BCE.
The History of the Mesogeik Sea by Slawaris mav Slawarig (*1723 CE)
The Slave Raids of the Ellins
The Slave Raids of the Ellins
One unintended consequence of the new Persysgi order in Elladiya was a new perennial menace- Elladik slave raids. The Elladik way of life, or more accurately the way of life for those of high station, was entirely reliant on slave labour in this period. The majority of such slaves came from destitute families or through prisoners captured in war. But with incorporation into the Persysgi came an entire halt to conflicts between the different poleis states of Elladiya argida, not to mention the destruction of the Lagedaimonian order whereby one could maintain entire tribes or ethnic groups as a slave class. Nor, indeed, could one hope to rely on debt slavery through the gradual prosperity introduced into Elladiya through peace and the construction of new infrastructure, nor through the efforts of those locals who found debt slavery to be a pestilence on their societies. But for a slaveholding economy things swiftly came to crisis point. Attempts at ‘maintaining’ the supply of slaves, through ‘encouraging’ slaves to form families were frequent, but this was never going to solve the problem. The attrition of slaves in those most desperate of conditions such as the mining industry was always going to outstrip any ability to replace them in this manner, not to mention slaves who found methods to gain their freedom through cunning or persuasion. Nor could the Ellins rely on such slave traders who operated within the Empire they were not part of, as mass slavery was never common within other parts of Asia which generally relied upon other means to generate mass labour. Slaves in most of Asia were a luxury, not a necessity, and were priced accordingly.
There was opportunity here for more unscrupulous slave traders, operating outside of the Empire, to profit from the situation, and so it was that Elladiya’s hunger was in part satiated by those capable of providing larger bounties of unfree men and women. But to many Ellins of this period slaves were both necessity and treasure. The taking of slaves was seen as part of the attraction of war, a great part of the plunder seized from the victim. This was a society that had grown to rely on a constant cockpit of war within its own lands, and those who traditionally stood to gain from such wars, who relied upon them for their power, or who had seen them as their opportunity to improve their station, had itchy palms. Indeed, the potential for profit was if anything magnified now that there was a crisis in the numbers of slaves. Thus it was not enough to rely on middle men to furnish the Ellins with slaves, many Ellins were determined to win them at spear point themselves. This, then, gave birth to the waves of Elladik slave raids that sought every vulnerable place in the Mesogeik not under the protection of the Persysgi King, and at times daring to chance those places under the protection of other strong powers such as Qarat-hadasht. A few infamous incidents even saw slave raids against free Ellins of Eshpery and beyond, adding to the rancour felt in some quarters against the Ellins who had stayed under the Persysgi yoke. The more pragmatic of the Ellins realised the folly of such actions but found it difficult to punish, particularly when such treacherously avaricious slave raiders simply pulled into ports other than that of their metropolis.
These incidents were at first no particular concern of the satrap Hystapse due to their distance from domains under the protection of the Great King. It was not leading to any particular unrest in his areas of responsibility, indeed it was helping to calm some Elladik quarters, so Hystapse had no great cause to be worried. However, this was soon to change. A particularly brazen raid against Lepqi in *468 BE enraged Qarat-hadasht, and later that same year a raid against Apulia captured citizens both of the Apulsgi Messapi and Gallipolis without distinction. Not only did Hystapse find himself dealing with angry emissaries of these three peoples but so did Xerxe, the Qarat-hadasht not only sending ambassadors directly to him but also rousing their fellow countrymen in Qanane to petition on their behalf. What had been none of the Empire’s business was now an embarrassment, and Hystapse could not hope to retain his position without reigning in the avarice of the Empire’s westernmost subjects. This was not to be a repeat of the Great Revolt, however, unlike the previous time that a satrap had intervened in matters of human bondage in Elladiya. Many Ellins already considered these most foolish attempts at predation to be total folly, and had realised the level of international anger now thrown squarely in their direction. Their anger at their erstwhile compatriots was genuine, and popular sentiment was starting to turn against this behaviour. Thus Hystapse’s intervention was almost welcomed in many quarters.
The solutions to the problem were not, and could not be instantaneous. In effect the entire economy of Elladiya would have to be transformed to something more resembling that of Asia, whereby the greater part of labour was generated through paid or rationed free men rather than through slaves, transforming slaves into a luxury rather than a necessity. To attempt to do so in one fell swoop was beyond anyone’s skill, the gap was far too great. Xerxe, however, was not going to be satisfied by Hystapse simply throwing his hand up in the air and saying that the necessary changes would happen on their own, eventually, however many misadventures later. Hystapse worked with many poleis to find ways to encourage this transformation more rapidly, but also had to work to persuade many others that this change was inevitable in the first place. The end result was patchwork. Some cities took stricter measures to reign in would-be-freebooters, though the most circumspect of slave raiders could always find a friendly port in Elladiya from which to divest his cargo. Many poleis passed sumptuary laws to actively restrict the possession of slaves to those of higher status, though Persysgi treasure was necessary to achieve this as those owners now forced to give up their slaves were generally given compensation, and many poleis could not afford to provide this entirely through their own treasury. This was not without benefit to Hystapse however, who found himself at liberty to settle and house a considerable number of freedmen with ample reason for gratitude towards himself and the Persysgi state, not to mention a large number of poleis with some amount of monetary debt. Indeed, many of the upper classes of these same poleis were now even more divorced from the lives of the common citizens through their possession of slaves, and the sensation of jealous eyes only made such elites more dependent on the satrap’s patronage and support.
The end result was not a slave-free Elladiya, as more wishful thinkers would like to imagine. They simply became less visible and less central to the working economy of Ellins whilst remaining very much part of daily life, as it was in the rest of Asia. But this was still an immense change in the nature of the dreadful institution in Elladiya, improvised and halfhearted and patchwork though these measures and their implementation were. Indeed, the most radical change did not come through instantaneous action at the hands of lawgivers and Hystapse, but through the gradual changes as Elladiya’s economy adjusted and adapted over decades. Landowners effectively bought up the land and labour of poorer farmers, creating grand decentralised estates. These estates and others in need of mass labour increasingly relied upon wage workers drawn from the poor and desperate. Though in legal terms their situation remained one of total bondage many personal slaves to these rich landowners, and the wealthy in general, would come to have almost higher social status than the newer wage workers. Temples and their extended holdings/dependents also came to hold a far greater economic significance than previously, though not anywhere close to the same level of temples in Babylon or much of the rest of Asia, not in this period at least. Those seeking their fortunes in Elladiya, or those poleis looking to generate prosperity, could not rely on slavery or the slave trade to provide it in the same way as previously, which actually encouraged commercial activity with the rest of the Persysgi Empire, among other means of seeking their fortune.
Those who could not or would not tolerate this state of affairs always had the option of departing for the free Elladik lands further west, where no such things had come to pass. Indeed, for this fresh wave of emigration westwards the lands of Eshpery were the land of luxury, where even a moderately well off man could live his days comfortably provided for by slaves with almost no cares in the world. Though slavery resembled its form in Elladiya argida this vision of paradise was not, in fact, the reality of life in these places. For one thing, the supply of slaves as needed was not remotely threatened so the same desperate urge to acquire them as though one would never have access again wasn’t present in these societies. For another, debt-slavery had been ended in most of the Italiot poleis, so the only way to really acquire slaves was through war, and things were a little different on that score. Unlike Korinthos or somewhere else in the homeland the poleis of Eshpery had to live and deal with the other peoples of that peninsula. Even by the *460s conquests were being attempted of previously non-Elladik lands of the peninsula but this was often against large coalitions of Eshpersgi peoples and not fought as casual cross-border skirmishes in the hunt for slaves. The majority of such would-be-buccaneers did ultimately find service in these conquests, being mostly seen as useful idiots. Those immigrants who saw the Mesogeik Sea as a playground would almost always, sooner or later, meet their demise, though those who did not had a tendency to cause significant trouble later down the line.
Burn Down the New Sparta Pamphlet, author unknown c.1568
We must unite to burn down the New Sparta!
Rise up in arms Varvarines, for the Theartin King means to make us a slave-nation, the Heilotes of the current age!
Already the Alfine nation has been made a plantation of Theartins and Vrojhmons!
We must meet these barbarians as the warriors of the gods, we must remind them what happens to those who seek glory and wealth through human bondage!
Take up arms for our liberty and the liberty of our children!
This timeline is amazing. It's been wonderful to read and I'm glad to see it back !
I remember that in one of the epilogues, Artabazos/Artavazda, discovers that Persian and Greek are in fact somehow distantly related and I know you mentioned that others will figure this relation out at some point as well. With this chapter having to do with the darker elements of the timeline, I was curious if someone else makes a similar discovery after having participated in some atrocity or cruelty and advocating against violence and war.
Also, are the Hamgatids from Pars proper or are they just co-opting Persian culture to gain legitimacy as true successors of the Achaemenids ? In addition, is the Tinian Empire the TTL equivalent of the Roman Empire in how future generations view and want to emulate in Europe and is there such an equivalent to the peoples of Asia ?
I remember that in one of the epilogues, Artabazos/Artavazda, discovers that Persian and Greek are in fact somehow distantly related and I know you mentioned that others will figure this relation out at some point as well. With this chapter having to do with the darker elements of the timeline, I was curious if someone else makes a similar discovery after having participated in some atrocity or cruelty and advocating against violence and war.
Also, are the Hamgatids from Pars proper or are they just co-opting Persian culture to gain legitimacy as true successors of the Achaemenids ? In addition, is the Tinian Empire the TTL equivalent of the Roman Empire in how future generations view and want to emulate in Europe and is there such an equivalent to the peoples of Asia ?
The Tinians, based on what I recall and what we've seen, seem much more limited in scope than the Roman Empire - it seems that in this history, the two major models of universal state come from Carthage and Asia. I don't know if we know enough of Western Europe to say how it evolved, but I'd guess that it took very much its own route and it appears that statehood there evolved from something between a Celtic/Germanic model of kingship, rather than anything inspired by the Tinians.
Please contradict me if I'm wrong anyone - it's been a long time since I've read through this story.
The Hamgatids are from Pars proper but that means something different in a cultural context by the *3rd century AD by comparison with OTL, and by comparison with the Achaemenid era, and they are still Achaemenid-glory chasers (which is not to say they can't back that ambition up). The Tinian Empire is not TTL's equivalent to the Romans simply because different parts of Europe have different classical powers/peoples they want to emulate. That being said, they still have a big impact on the military development of Europe, are widely respected as a classical Empire, and deeply impact the cultural development of a swathe of Europe. If Asia (which here has a defined meaning like China or Egypt) has an equivalent then the Achaemenid Empire is likely it, being seen as the first proper formation of 'Asia'. But the notion of 'classical' peoples is different in Asia again because Sumero-Akkadian culture is still considered part of the continuity there.
I definitely tried to portray the glimpses of western Europe as having a great deal of primarily indigenous development, but inspiration from the Tinians is still there. The Tinian frontier is what draws so many Celtic-speaking peoples towards Italy, working similarly to the Roman frontier in Germania. The push and pull of Tinian power is part of why more grand confederations start to form around the wider region, utilising the promise of Tinian wealth and leveraging their relationship with the Tinians (either mutualistically or antagonistically). They also inform notions of 'imperial' power in much of the 'Celtic' world, especially so after the Tinian collapse funnily enough; every sufficiently potent king in the former Tinian territories wants to claim the title, and now the incoming Celtic-peoples are coming into contact with the existing Celtic populations in Italy who have been part of the Tinian state. You also have an Etrusco-Hellenic model of urbanism that starts spreading into Central Europe and the nearer-part of Gaul, whereas the western seaboard of Gaul is more influenced by the Carthaginian wake, but in both cases I regard this similarly to Levantine and Near Eastern on Archaic era Greece- emulated elite behaviour alongside imported products and ideas, both of which ultimately are ultimately replaced by those influences being recontextualised to fit an indigenous culture and to make sense with indigenous developments. So for instance directly emulated Greek or Punic style cities spring up but only in a small number of cases, the majority of growing Gaulish urbanism is expressed through changes to existing oppida and urban centres.
I step away for a few months and my favourite ancient TL updates! Wonderous! Truly a blessing in the ronatimes.
Based on Slawaris mav Slawarig and Kitos Kampanikos, it seems that slavery was already on the outs, if not outright banned, in their regions by the mid 17th Century, which makes me wonder if the combination of the rarity of slaves in Asia and the example of the Messenians lead to a general disapproval of the institution and an association between slave owning and decadence. It certainly seems that the Spartans are not well remembered for their slaveholding ways. Interestingly, it seems that slavery might be abolished ittl sooner than in otl.
Regarding the start of this chapter, I'm not sure what confectionary has to do with evil? Does it relate to sugar plantations?
On a different note, I would love to later see some focus on cities and urban layouts. I can only immagine that the layout of a Varvarine Oppida-City is very different to a Punic city or a Greek Polis.
Based on Slawaris mav Slawarig and Kitos Kampanikos, it seems that slavery was already on the outs, if not outright banned, in their regions by the mid 17th Century, which makes me wonder if the combination of the rarity of slaves in Asia and the example of the Messenians lead to a general disapproval of the institution and an association between slave owning and decadence. It certainly seems that the Spartans are not well remembered for their slaveholding ways. Interestingly, it seems that slavery might be abolished ittl sooner than in otl.
Regarding the start of this chapter, I'm not sure what confectionary has to do with evil? Does it relate to sugar plantations?
On a different note, I would love to later see some focus on cities and urban layouts. I can only immagine that the layout of a Varvarine Oppida-City is very different to a Punic city or a Greek Polis.
The End of Cultures
Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 8: KAKIA or ZURA
Esoteria: The Study of Paleohesperia by Oraziu Orinokis *1429 CE
Kapotis
CHAPTER 8: KAKIA or ZURA
PALEOHESPERIAN, the Paleohesperian languages: An extinct array of dialects once spoken by numerous connatural peoples across Hesperia, later displaced by the increased dominance of Varvarine and Hellenic speakers and last directly attested in the *5th century CE. Paleohesperian is most famously associated with classical Hesperian peoples such as the Latini, the Sauniti, the Piceni, the Osoni, the Ombri, and the Oski. Not to be confused with the Tyrsenian language, although the two did often co-exist in numerous regions of Hesperia, and borrowings from the other are common to both. The two best attested Paleohesperian dialects are those of Rome and Kales due to an overwhelming bias of surviving textual material towards those two poleis. The precise geographic extent to which these languages were spoken in the Hesperia is not well attested. A distinct Paleohesperian literary tradition gave rise to what has been termed Arkhaio-Italic, a modified version of Tyrsenian script, from which the modern Italic alphabet derives.
Esoteria: The Study of Paleohesperia by Oraziu Orinokis *1429 CE
Kapotis
The most knowledgeable inquirer after the Paleohesperian languages of recent times was Mantikon Uvsevio Kapotis. While mostly remembered in the present time as a renowned Nymphegetian Phylakes he was also powerfully invested in obscure Hesperian arkaioteria, including the Paleohesperian corpus. By the age of 34 Kapotis had already completed a full exploration of the extant literary Paleohesperian texts, in many cases authoring new translations entirely. His interest and expertise in the subject would only continue to multiply. He scoured other literary corpuses for references to Paleohesperian-speaking peoples, and used the resulting information to comb Hesperia for Paleohesperian epigraphy, ostrakon pieces, and fragmentary remains of previously undiscovered Paleohesperian literary texts. This was a task that occupied the rest of Kapotis’ life, almost to the same extent of his vows to the Redeemer.
In the process of these wanderings Kapotis also had cause to interact with a great deal of ordinary Hesperians. Through these interactions he became increasingly familiar with dialects considered rustic, even barbarous, by the ‘proper’ sort of various regions. After years of such interactions he became aware of numerous words in these dialects that in fact originated from Paleohesperian speech. It had been acknowledged that both Varvarine and Hellenic language in Hesperia had retained a few, occasionally esoteric Paleohesperian borrowings, but the thesis of greater preponderance of a substrate had been completely ignored through a general bias against ‘rude’ patterns of speech that had endured for centuries. It was through these realisations that Kapotis began to theorise about the survival of relict Paleohesperian-speaking populations beyond the disappearance of textual material. In particular he identified the most rural parts of Marukia, numerous areas in Oroia, and the Kavdine passes as playing host to Paleohesperian speaking populations decades or centuries after their literary tradition had disappeared.
In Kapotis’ final work before his death, Paleohesperia Volume 4, he said “It is an inescapable conclusion that had the speakers of Paleohesperian languages been granted even a modicum of courtesy, the slightest respite from overwhelming hostility, that Paleohesperian speakers would walk among us today, for even in such circumstances it is likely that the last native speaker of Sauniti outlived the last scion of the Brontosardi. That these communities, possessed of an indigenous literary culture and the riches of their heritage, were relentlessly hounded out of existence should be regarded as nothing less than an avoidable tragedy as worthy of grief and regret as the collapse of Tyrsenian as a living language.” In the decades since Kapotis’ death these words have rang loud, both inspiring those inclined to agree and drawing censure from those who regard such notions as an incitement towards barbarism.
The Arc of History by Irmion Thurtisonn *1456 CE
The Ikthroy
The Ikthroy
Take for example the Ikthroy. They were not without some rudiments of civilization, displaying a certain inclination towards beautified architecture, an interest in acquiring a literary tradition, an awareness of some form of constitutional theory. But such concepts had been transmitted to them via the medium of direct contact with the Tinians in their archaic era, Hellenes, even the traders of Karkesh, and had often been understood clumsily and reproduced crudely even after generations of such contact and engagement. Theirs was, ultimately, a borrowed glimmer of civilization that could not and did not succeed in uplifting the more barbaric tendencies and condition of the Ikthroy. This was a barbarism that could only be ended by their synoikism into the body of the Hellenes, the ultimate censure of Ikthroy cultural existence being that true civilization could only be introduced via bringing that existence to a complete end. What few beneficial characteristics could be identified were thus rendered into a form suitable for a civilized life.
Had, by the eyes of all the Gods, theirs been a culture destined for greatness or even notability then in a contest between their customs and those of the Hellenes they would have prevailed. As it is, they did not, and we can confidently state that there was no chance of any kind that the Ikthroy could ever have been a protagonist of the movements of history and civilizations. Their sole notable achievements were the brief period of their chief city of Rome functioning an effective vassal of the Amavadatids in Hesperia, the martial success of their auxiliaries under the aigis of the Tinian Empire, their development of the Arkhaioitalic script, and what elements of mystical insight could be extracted from their religious practices that were otherwise dominated by primitive repetition of concepts from the Hellenic and Tinian pantheons. Should one’s preference be for tales of hardfought cultivation of a region, the winning of lands from the barbaric and the undeserving, then the Ikthroy could maybe considered to be an enjoyable antagonist in the accounts of Hesperia’s history where, at last, their barrier to civilization is removed and katharsis is achieved. Besides these, history has forgotten the Ikthroy and one can only conclude that this obscurity is entirely deserved.
IKTHROY, the Ikthroy: An alternative name for the extinct people otherwise known as the Paleohesperians or Eteohesperians, often used pejoratively. The usage originates from Early Koine ikhthros, used generically for non-Hellenic peoples subject to the Hellenic Koinon, particularly those perceived as resisting the Olikan faith. Its plural form developed into a general term for ‘barbarian’ peoples across much of the Hellenic world by the *5th century CE, but seemingly vanished by the *10th century. Its modern usage to pejoratively refer to Paleohesperian peoples is the result of an early *13th century scholarly revival of the term. Ultimately from Old Hellenic ekhthros, meaning something hostile, hated, or an enemy.
A Year in Iberia by Sodir Fasennad *1603 CE
Extract from Chapter V: The Ordanian Littoral
A Year in Iberia by Sodir Fasennad *1603 CE
Extract from Chapter V: The Ordanian Littoral
It was over these several days that one of my long-held assumptions about the Ordanian coast was fatally challenged. Along with many of my compatriots I had, for as long as I could remember, assumed that the transmission of the Phoine language into the present times equated to a wholesale identification of the indigenous Ordani with their linguistic progenitors, thus making the Ordani the last of the Phoiniki, a miraculous albeit isolated survival of something ancient into modern times. At dinner I presented this question to our host the esteemed Volet, shortly after the lamb with orange had been served. I was swiftly, and eloquently, presented with holes in this neat picture. The Volet explained that, whilst the Ordani were fully aware that their tongue largely descended from that distinguished ancient people it was nonetheless also strongly influenced by Hellenic and Iberian precursors likewise, and that the Ordani peoples in the same way could not be said to be the successor to any one of their forebears but to all of them, combining their past parts into something novel. This was to my astonishment, as this was the first time I had encountered the notion that the Ordani saw themselves in this manner. The gregarious Mlaki concurred, and furthermore suggested that the distinctiveness of Ordani culture was seen in such an exotic manner by such great parts of Europa that it made picturing them as some relict survival of ancient times particularly easy, adding to the conviction by which foreigners such as myself saw them as ‘the last Phoiniki. I could not deny the strength of this argument as I recalled how swiftly I had characterised Ordani dress in this manner upon reaching this fair country.
I did, at this stage in the conversation, recall the example of King Ashmuna as quoted in our histories. The Volet looked somewhat amused, explaining that Ashmuna was given a significantly inflated status in foreign histories compared to his reputation within his homeland, likely because of his lively foreign correspondences and his gift for self promotion. Having personally been acquainted with many similar incidents involving colourful characters of my homeland’s recent history I did not find this suggestion difficult to believe. Mlaki offered an addendum, which was that Ashmuna in particular, along with a certain set patronised by him, had become somewhat culturally insecure as to the conceived impurity of classical influences within Ordani culture, and had looked to emphasising Phoiniki heritage in much the same way as other cultures claimed to be the foremost torchbearers of Hellenic heritage, Tyrsenian, or even Persian. He concluded by saying that although they did not speak Phoine tongues the peoples of the Morika and Afrika had more cause to consider themselves the descendants of the Phoiniki, and that in the eyes of most Ordani this was not a particularly troubling conclusion.
The conversation continued through the rest of dinner, but it was these earliest exchanges that were to come back to mind later. As I lay down to rest one might have assumed that an excellent dinner, wine, and conversation would have left me relaxed and content. In a physical sense I was, having been looked after well by my generous hosts. However, I found myself feeling increasingly distraught at the realization that had come over me in the wake of our earlier conversation; the Phoinikes were truly an extinct culture. Their legacy remained very much alive in matters of language, art, and literature, so that their memory was very much alive, but as a living community and identity the notion of being Phoinike was genuinely extinguished. Perhaps some grandiose potentate somewhere among the myriad Mesogeic realms might claim to be Phoinike, but these gestures were matters of political manoeuvre and cultural posturing, not the taking up of one’s grandsires and their existence. The Ordani were the only people commonly associated with a continued and genuine Phoinike lineage in my homeland, among numerous other countries. But having been disavowed of this notion, I had to grapple with the reality that at some point in the grand tapestry of history the Phoinike weave had slowly petered out before disappearing entirely.
It seemed wrong that such a people, of such grand achievement and magnified reputation, could have come to an end, just as eventually the Tinians had done. A strong and particular insight into the world had been lost, though I was grateful that so much of that perspective had been recorded for all time, however insufficient that corpus could be in encapsulating an entire mode of living and body politic. If the teeming cultures of the world were like candles in the dark, it was as though I had realised that one of those candles had gone out permanently, although many other candles around it had been designed in its likeness. In the truest Olikan sense, of course, the Phoinike culture’s most vital aspect still lived in the form of continued proper worship and rites associated with their deities. But I found myself wondering once again about the nature of appointing oneself the guardian of a vanished culture’s intimate beliefs and rituals, and the executor of their legacy. For those of us party to a living community we may celebrate connection and diversity with every credibility and yet possess personal traditions and special knowledge we consider precious. Proper context for many of our most personal practices would not be easily reconstructed in our absence, and one would be free to imagine different meaning and significance to many of our practices without the existence of our community to correct them.
Were the Ordani to vanish the next day, how many would have considered them the last gasp of the Phoinikes and viewed the entirety of their way of life through that lens, simply through the existing momentum of that idea in so many of our homelands? Rather than engaging with the complex reality it would have been almost seductive to continue to propagate that incorrect understanding. Evidence to the contrary, already considered obscure, would simply be ignored or explained away, and it would be left to chance for someone to discover the error and become motivated to correct it. Once again I became aware of just how many times this process had repeated itself through human history, and once again the idea brought me to a cold sweat, for if those of us in the present time did not fight against such things then the same thing would one day happen to ourselves. We would not be seen as what we are but what others wished to see, and if we fit insufficiently within that mould then we would be discarded altogether, as has so often happened to ancient peoples that do not conform to our somewhat capricious sensibilities. The notion that the Ordanian people were solely of interest because of their perceived relationship with the Phoinikes, in that moment, brought me anger on their behalf, along with anger at myself for allowing that notion to exist unchallenged in my mind. In that moment I recalled how calm and polite my hosts had been in response to this line of inquiry, and it seemed marvellous to me at how patiently they had dealt with the matter. I hoped in that moment that I would prove worthy of the kindness that had been shown.
The confectionary related update was not really attached to any chapter per se, and was not meant to show anything evil besides maybe the danger of cavities from excessive sugar consumption! If it had been intended to have an ethical message, it wouldn't have involved so many descriptions of sweets and cakes I dare say. It's more of a stand-alone update that is still 'canon'.
In a nutshell, although the exact boundaries of these regions of Italy have varied through different eras, and it's more complex than some sources suggest- at one point the entire peninsula was under Etruscan domination, there are subcultures who do not neatly fit into a characterisation as either Celtic or Hellenic, and there have been (and still are) numerous mixed communities across the peninsula. But on the whole the Celtic speaking parts of Italy draw more on a notion of Etruscan heritage/legacy, and the Greek speaking parts their 'own' legacy.
Interesting, especially that last extract. Based on that, it seems like Phoenician/Carthaginian-based cultures mostly died out, or at least stopped identifying with those. Yet, only 150 years earlier, it seems like there were still people who claimed heirdom to those cultures. Or is it possible that only more "direct" heirs to Carthage died out, the equivalent of a people that would still speak Latin vs one of the Romance languages?
Firstly, I find it very cool you referenced something from earlier in the thread in order to ask about a thing, that's amazing.
Then to what you asked about. You're on the right lines here, there's a distinction being drawn between the taking up of a legacy, sharing cultural and linguistic heritage vs actually having a continuous heritage to a specific community and identity. Drubl ben Igdr is from Africa in the regional sense so he occupies the same physical space as the Carthaginians once did, but he is part of a culture that would not consider themselves inheritors to the Carthaginians or Phoenicians by blood except perhaps in certain aristocratic families. If anything, his might be closer to the perspective of the peoples who across the WRE's existence in our timeline were outside of its institutions and cultural aegis but who, centuries after the WRE's fall, came to integrate into its legacy and surviving institutional legacies. And to take an example close to home, there have been times in which England/the United Kingdom have taken the notion of cultural descent and the custodianship of 'true' Roman virtues extremely seriously. ben Igdr would never think of himself as being Carthaginian or Phoenician but he would consider himself and his culture to have inherited, perhaps even distilled, the core values of those societies and thus represent their heirs.
Our friend Sodir, however, has a more philosophical stance on this core idea; to call one's self the heir to a culture's legacy is, at some stage, to admit that the original culture has died, and that one is instead talking about receivership over its mantle and subsequent reception. He would not dismiss the idea that, say, the King of Qarnoon considered themselves to be inheritors of an Atlantic Phoenician cultural legacy, or that this is meaningful, but would recognise a lack of continuity in order for the said King to claim to be Carthaginian/Phoenician etc. In a Mediterranean with continuous continuity of Hellenic heritage in various regions, however splintered that might have become in parts, it makes this point meaningful because you can contrast this to continuous identities that have lasted, meaning the other ones could have done the same in some form or another.
Very interesting. I wonder who "The Redeemer" is? Some sort of deity or prophet?
The subject of language and cultural decline and death is a fascinating one, and I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be any living descendants of Etruscan by the 17th Century. Nor do any of the Italic languages survive. Instead the Celtic and Hellenic branches of the Indo-European family dominate Italy, while Phoenician/Punic appears to have been displaced from the Levant and Africa, surviving in what I assume is Andalusia or Catalonia. It does seem that the Olikan religion has preserved vestiges of extinct languages for religious purposes, I suspect in prayers and ritual phrases given their stress on orthopraxy and antiquity.
I begin to suspect that the link between the parts of this chapter is less "evil" and more "sin" or "vice", the confectionary chapter dealing with gluttony and this one with pride.
The subject of language and cultural decline and death is a fascinating one, and I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be any living descendants of Etruscan by the 17th Century. Nor do any of the Italic languages survive. Instead the Celtic and Hellenic branches of the Indo-European family dominate Italy, while Phoenician/Punic appears to have been displaced from the Levant and Africa, surviving in what I assume is Andalusia or Catalonia. It does seem that the Olikan religion has preserved vestiges of extinct languages for religious purposes, I suspect in prayers and ritual phrases given their stress on orthopraxy and antiquity.
I begin to suspect that the link between the parts of this chapter is less "evil" and more "sin" or "vice", the confectionary chapter dealing with gluttony and this one with pride.
The clue to the Redeemer, were it a secret, would be Kapotis' title of Nymphegetian Phylakes, and I think the Redeemer was also referred to in the chapter focusing on Syracuse. It's Apollo, so the answer to deity or prophet is effectively both. Kapotis was effectively a member of something we might call a knightly order, the titular Nymphegetian Phylakes. These don't have quite the same ideological origin as a knightly order however, having evolved out of certain older mystery cults. What they share is a generally aristocratic origin and a martial nature focused on vows. There are not just orders dedicated to the service of Apollo but they are among the most common because of his popularity. Part of why I'm sharing this so directly is because it's a phenomenon very much of latter eras in the timeline, I don't know that there would be a natural point in the remaining updates and chapters to deal with these orders' existence and nature.
Also, just in case you didn't see my above reply, the confectionary update isn't part of this chapter, but a little stand alone interlude.
Given that the word ikthros was used against people who resisted the Olikan faith , the Paleohesperian languages seem to have been associated with the "non-believers". However, this is interesting because my original understanding of the Olikan faith was one of henotheistic universalism that believed that all the gods were valid, yet it seems that the people of the Olikan faith in the Hellenic Koinon were not willing to absorb the religious culture of Hesperia. In addition, the Olikan faith seems to concern itself with the preservation of rituals and language, even of that of Punic-based cultures. Is it that only a handful of cultures and religious beliefs were acceptable to Olikans?
Also, as Irminon Thurtisonn seems to be a speaker of a Germanic language, I am surprised that he believes that Paleohesperian languages did not deserve to survive . Are his views related to the Etrusco-philia or Helleno-philia that the organized societies of Central Europe espouse?
Also, as Irminon Thurtisonn seems to be a speaker of a Germanic language, I am surprised that he believes that Paleohesperian languages did not deserve to survive . Are his views related to the Etrusco-philia or Helleno-philia that the organized societies of Central Europe espouse?