I don't know, the Roman legions and Macedonian phalanx never met on even terms. If it were on even terms (or say, if some of the eastern kings weren't such idiots at times) I think we would see that the phalanx, when used effectively is more than a match for the legion.
The Weighted Scales: The World of an Aborted Rome
- Thread starter Errnge
- Start date
I don't know, the Roman legions and Macedonian phalanx never met on even terms. If it were on even terms (or say, if some of the eastern kings weren't such idiots at times) I think we would see that the phalanx, when used effectively is more than a match for the legion.
I'm way back on page 6, but this is an amazing TL so farI can see what I asked for coming to shape.
haha, well i can't wait for that
feel free to PM me if you have any questions or anything that is pertinent to something going on all those 180 something years ago
katchen
Banned
Hi, Errnge! I finally took up following this thread of yours; it has been some weeks for me catching up from the beginning; this is the first new post since then. Now I'm subscribing to keep up
I quoted just your reference to the final image of the post just above. I've seen lots of broken links to images reading a thread spanning the past several years in posting time, of course. But this one is brand new today and I don't know what it is intended to be, because it won't post. At least not on my browser/system, but the nature of the refusal suggests to me maybe no one can see it?
What was it a picture of?
---
About my impressions of the thread so far--personally I was rather enjoying the flashbacks from the 12th or 13th century, especially when the Hispanolian woman entered into the plot. Naturally I'm curious what sort of world this is by then, who the big nations are, what level of tech we are talking, how widespread the higher tech societies are, etc.
Equally naturally, if you find, as some of your readers suggested you would, being pinned down to certain outcomes a thousand years and more uptime from your main story focus is too much of a fetter, I'd understand if you dropped them, or let them sit a long time and got back to them when it is clearer to you how to get from the downtime part to the uptime.
In the main timeframe I've been enjoying watching the different societies and dynasties and so on develop. Unlike a lot of your readership and I gather you yourself, I am not really fond of badass barbarians making mounds of their enemies' skulls just for the hell of it. But that is not all that is going on here.
Particularly vivid for me are the scenes with various ladies--notably your Celtic queens, such as the mother (or is she grandmother?) of our current hero, or alt-Hannibal meeting the latest queen--somehow her enquiry after the origins of lapis lazuli seemed to speak in the very tones of Progress to me, so it is fateful she meets both Hannibal and a Buddhist missionary in that same moment.
You might recall I jumped in to your original draft of this timeline with the opinion that some sort of universal Mediterranean empire was favored by probability. Well, I've rethought that a bit--I still think it's more likely than random chance alone would predict because of economic advantages that would temporarily accrue to whichever power did it, and that the nature of this advantage is such that it would favor large realms over smaller ones visibly, so that the regional powers both have incentive and are empowered to grow and merge.
But I'm willing to stipulate that perhaps that tendency, if it exists at all, is weak and uncertain, so a Mediterranean world where no one ever quite achieves that ascendency is not so unlikely as I thought. What that would mean is that no one would ever achieve the sweeping (but transitory!) rent collection accruing to the power that gains control of all the Mediterranean shore lands at the same time, and thus makes trade significantly safer and hence more economic. I won't risk trying to explain all of how I thought it did work in the OTL Classical world; the short sketch is that the achievement of the Roman Empire brought a couple centuries of really widespread and unprecedented prosperity for most of the Empire's subjects--but then that same Imperial framework, in the context of trade profits that had been high for transitory reasons and were now therefore declining, and of formerly underdeveloped land that had been filling but is now filled, becomes a fetter and a tourniquet and the Empire inevitably implodes--moving to a more sustainable base in the east and abandoning vast sweeps of its former protectorate--including the very homeland of the Imperial people themselves.
Anyway, with no pan-Mediterranean empire forming, that scenario can't happen. Instead of looking for some successful world-conqueror to emerge, what I'm looking for in your various alt-societies is laying down of deep roots. Dynasties come and go; how many of the cities and peoples we've met so far downtime will in some sense still be there a thousand years hence? Will there be city-states or nations that can manage to repel conquerors (but perhaps welcome helpful immigrants)?
What I'd expect, in the macro-economic sense, is that no kingdom or other polity will do as well per capita as was common in say the Antoinine period of the Early Empire. But then neither will any of them suffer as badly as each part (for the most part) of the united Empire did when the suck-tide went out. Economic growth and development will probably be a slow but steady process, with slow and subtle forms of progress able to just barely offset the problems of each region soon reaching saturation.
My brain is shutting down for the night: I will subscribe and look forward to this story continuing.
Best of luck!
Shevek23[/QUOTE
To paraphrase Shevek, without a world conquering Empire, it appears that Europe is getting a chance to develop early into well....Europe. Cultures and kin groups are developing into nations in places like the Danube basin---Pannnonia is a good example but there are others. All it takes is for someone to develop the mouldboard plough and someone else to develop the horse collar and Central and Northern Europe is poised and ready to go. Which begs the question of what took people so long to develop those innovations. Does anyone have any ideas why it took so long for those two innovations?
Which raises another issue. One of the things that empires do is to suck the economic lifeblood out of peripheries to benefit the core. And based on Africa's experience with the Slave Trade IOTL, I suspect that the slave trade to Rome may have caused a steady drain on the populations of Germania, Herulia and perhaps even Venedia. Denarii paid for slaves can magnify and distort feuds and pervert tribal and national justice--with all crimes becoming banishment and sale into slavery and many crimes being trumped up. The drain of people south into more "civilized" parts of the Empire as latifundia slaves may have been part of what kept population down in places like Gaul as well. And if population is low, there is no need to develop or innovate the use of horse collars or mouldboard ploughs.
Without a Roman Empire, none of this appears to be happening. Population is growing in places like the Danube Basin (and if in the Danube, so even more in the Rhine). If so, what about the Albus, Odarus (Oder) and Vistula Basins? Will populations continue bumping up against the limits of traditional agriculture or will it turn out that these agricultural innovations had indeed been developed earlier but were not put to use because there was little need to clear new land with slave trading and it's attendant wars keeping the population down in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe?
So will we have a Marcomania, a Gutonia, a Gepidia, an Anglia, a Sachsen, a Herulia, a Suevia, an Albia and a Lithuania as states to go along with the Gallic-Celtic states and will we see something recognizably like Europe take form early--before the late Classical Little Ice Age of the 3rd Century AD IOTL? We certainly could without a Roman Empire to suck the life out of it.
katchen, you've hit on half of what I was saying all right--the centralized Empire of OTL was indeed a drag and drain--in the longer run, after a few centuries. OTOH, if all it takes to develop more advance plows and so on is mere population pressure, well the other side of developing a single Mediterranean empire is that there was a brief economic surge--including drawing in all those slaves. Elimination of the ongoing threat of war within the Empire, opening up the whole sea to trade with minimal fear of piracy--these things led to the "golden age" of the Empire, before the stagnation and rot set in deeply. During the good years, the peoples of the Empire settled and developed all the good land they could find (including places kept desolate because they tended to become battlefields) and for a while, the rising population helped drive general prosperity. But they came up against population limits (and yet did not automatically invent everything we see in hindsight they could have used); trade, once stimulated, stagnated as the basic techniques needed to fashion or cultivate all products spread throughout the Empire and beyond (lowering the regional differentials in types of production that once made the superprofits of ancient trade so lucrative).
So, I would certainly not predict a pace of progress much faster than the average we see between say 500 BCE and 1500 CE. What I'm suggesting is that if we were to graph that OTL, we'd see a surge as the large Hellenistic kingdoms formed and consolidated and then Rome grandly consolidated all--followed by a brief plateau as the surge leveled off, then decline followed by collapse, a trough and gradual growth, with its later surges and troughs tending toward a steady (or perhaps exponential, seen on the right scales) upward trend.
Here, the Roman surge never comes, but so also we avoid the trough. A Roman citizen, ISOTed sideways from OTL to this timeline in say 150 CE, would see a distinctly poorer world overall (if they had the opportunity and inclination to take a fair survey and had a realistic notion of what the Roman world they came from was really like). But one from 400 CE would find more opportunity and hope in this timeline than their own disrupted and failing Imperial world.
The suggestion that the northern lands will develop more because of less of a drain of slavery is interesting indeed! There will still be slave trading I would think, as the various Med nations will still have some demand, but yes, I expect the trend toward reliance on slave labor to be checked by the competition between the various realms. Each one will need armies that are reliably loyal to the land they defend. To some extent they can all hire mercenaries, but a large part of each must be recruited from classes that are committed to the land they come from and fight for; these national troops can keep the mercs in line. Therefore the separate states would have a check on the tendency to polarize between a small class of wealth-owners who use their power to evade responsibility and a completely proletarianized mass of poor peasants, townsfolk and slaves who have little stake in things as they are. That is, individual realms might go down that path--but then tend to get whittled down or completely smashed by rivals who happen to hit on a more sustainable state of society.
As for what drives technical progress--that is a tough and debatable question. I think it's inventiveness (pretty much a constant) times opportunity, rather than a mere response to pressure--which means applying pressure does not automatically accelerate inventiveness. Compared to Rome, here we have many diverse little societies, with their centers in many different ecological regions, so on one hand we can expect more diverse approaches to solving local problems, which ought to increase the rate of innovation. But on the other hand, each of these is rather poorer than the average of the great Empire (on this side of the OTL peak anyway) so that would lower the rate--less opportunity--and the spread of innovations that happen to be generally useful would be a slower process; ideas and methods won't be free to disperse generally across the whole width of an Empire (one centered on Mediterranean sea trade and so having quite rapid communications) but rather bumble randomly from one kingdom to its rival neighbor, being weakly broadcast by sporadic longer-range traders.
Basically I see little reason to expect either much more rapid or much slower general progress, as seen over a timescale of thousands of years. The difference is that I'd expect fewer really big waves, plus or minus, and choppier lower-scale fluctuations. But these busy little ripples would be atop a general tide of progress that tends upward at the same rate as OTL.
So, I would certainly not predict a pace of progress much faster than the average we see between say 500 BCE and 1500 CE. What I'm suggesting is that if we were to graph that OTL, we'd see a surge as the large Hellenistic kingdoms formed and consolidated and then Rome grandly consolidated all--followed by a brief plateau as the surge leveled off, then decline followed by collapse, a trough and gradual growth, with its later surges and troughs tending toward a steady (or perhaps exponential, seen on the right scales) upward trend.
Here, the Roman surge never comes, but so also we avoid the trough. A Roman citizen, ISOTed sideways from OTL to this timeline in say 150 CE, would see a distinctly poorer world overall (if they had the opportunity and inclination to take a fair survey and had a realistic notion of what the Roman world they came from was really like). But one from 400 CE would find more opportunity and hope in this timeline than their own disrupted and failing Imperial world.
The suggestion that the northern lands will develop more because of less of a drain of slavery is interesting indeed! There will still be slave trading I would think, as the various Med nations will still have some demand, but yes, I expect the trend toward reliance on slave labor to be checked by the competition between the various realms. Each one will need armies that are reliably loyal to the land they defend. To some extent they can all hire mercenaries, but a large part of each must be recruited from classes that are committed to the land they come from and fight for; these national troops can keep the mercs in line. Therefore the separate states would have a check on the tendency to polarize between a small class of wealth-owners who use their power to evade responsibility and a completely proletarianized mass of poor peasants, townsfolk and slaves who have little stake in things as they are. That is, individual realms might go down that path--but then tend to get whittled down or completely smashed by rivals who happen to hit on a more sustainable state of society.
As for what drives technical progress--that is a tough and debatable question. I think it's inventiveness (pretty much a constant) times opportunity, rather than a mere response to pressure--which means applying pressure does not automatically accelerate inventiveness. Compared to Rome, here we have many diverse little societies, with their centers in many different ecological regions, so on one hand we can expect more diverse approaches to solving local problems, which ought to increase the rate of innovation. But on the other hand, each of these is rather poorer than the average of the great Empire (on this side of the OTL peak anyway) so that would lower the rate--less opportunity--and the spread of innovations that happen to be generally useful would be a slower process; ideas and methods won't be free to disperse generally across the whole width of an Empire (one centered on Mediterranean sea trade and so having quite rapid communications) but rather bumble randomly from one kingdom to its rival neighbor, being weakly broadcast by sporadic longer-range traders.
Basically I see little reason to expect either much more rapid or much slower general progress, as seen over a timescale of thousands of years. The difference is that I'd expect fewer really big waves, plus or minus, and choppier lower-scale fluctuations. But these busy little ripples would be atop a general tide of progress that tends upward at the same rate as OTL.
I have no idea, I just got done with a rather busy time at college (and now paranoia and doubt are setting in) and discover that my favorite timelines haven't updated...
i've just gotten done with a busy time too...
the timeline isn't dead and will be updated soon, within the next two weeks
Errrng! I miss this timeline so so much! It's moved to the second page of threads I post on, which is not good at all! This is my favorite timeline ever! And it inspires me daily!!!!!!!!!~!!!
It's moved to the second page of threads I post on, which is not good at all! This is my favorite timeline ever! And it inspires me daily!!!!!!!!!~!!!Chapter Seven: The Men and Their Wolves
Part Six: Hannibal and the Volcae
To be honest, the day the Ouolkirix finally returned from his wars in the north was far from what Hanniba’al expected. In fact, when it happened, he hadn’t expected it at all.
The doors of the great hall burst open. Escamulos busted into the Great Hall without so much as an introduction, or even a warning. His brow was covered in sweat, and he looked like he’d just sprinted his way here. The light of the setting sun shone through the windows, making his skin glisten. His boots were still covered in mud, and his hair was flattened and imprinted from his helmet. His entrance caused quite a commotion. Unannounced and unintentionally dramatic, he stood, a grisly figure in the twilight, as the doors slammed behind him. At first, Hanniba’al didn’t know who or what he was.
“Escamulos!” Bellipenna shouted, leaping from the throne down to the floor.
Hanniba’al watched from where he stood, by the side of the Ouolki throne. Over the past few months, his stay in Ardobriga had been filled with answering the many and profound inquiries of the Ouolkiriga Bellapenna. She was a curious creature, and Hanniba’al admired her intellect. There was a part of him that wished his sons would marry a woman like her.
Hormoz, the Buddhist monk, got up from his seated position of the marbled floor and followed the golden-haired queen, eager to meet the king of this strange land. Hanniba’al was eager as well, but restrained himself. A king in exile he might be, but he was a king nonetheless, and would maintain the stature of one upon this meating.
Escamulos and Bellipenna kissed and began chattering swiftly in there language. The rolling syllables that passed excitedly through their lips were too fast for Hanniba’al to understand, despite his fluency in the language of the Galatoi. One phrase he did pick out over and over, though, stood out:
“My love, my love.”
It almost took him aback, how forward they were with their affections. Hanniba’al had been around many Keltoi kings, and all of them were more affectionate than any Punic politician, but the Ouolkirigi took it to a new level: They were actually in love with each other. Had strangers not been around, the King of Ishfania suspected that they’d have started fucking each other right then and there.
Finally, their tongues slowed down enough for Hanniba’al to understand their speech.
“My love,” Bellipenna almost sang, “This man here is Ormosos of Vactria. He does not speak like we do, but he is very interesting and has very interesting stories.”
“How do you know his stories are interesting if you can’t understand his tongue, my love?” Escamulos asked, wrapping his thick arms around her waiste.
“It is said again to me in our language,” she smiled as if the answer was obvious. “Ormosos, this is my rix, Escamulos.”
It took Hormoz a second to realize he was finally being introduced. He stared blankly momentarily, then smiled and bowed lowly. His shaven head gleamed in the falling sunlight.
“I don’t like him,” Escamulos said. “He smells strange.”
“Oh, my love, you must like him.” Bellipenna defended. “It will please me if you do.”
They began to chirp again, and Hanniba’al shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps he shouldn’t have, it was an unforeseeable accident with even more unforeseeable consiquence. But it caused Escamulos’ eyes to raise and land on Hanniba’al just as the rest of his entorage entered the Great Hall, just now catching up to their king.
When Hanniba’al was young in Ishfania, he once led a small army to the frontier to fend off a band of marauding Celtiberians. They were successful, and that night he and his army spent the night celebrating with wine and feating. But when an eerie sound broke through the night, his Keltoi mercenaries fell silent. They said that there were wolves nearby, a bad omen to be sure. Hanniba’al didn’t bother with their strange supersticions and continued to merrymake all night long. The next morning, he got up earlier than his headache would have liked. But when he walked out of his tent, in the early morning fog, he noticed that his horses were gone. Not but thirty strides away from him was a large grey wolf, staring right at him. It was the long-stare: the unrelenting, unyielding, cold and vacant stare of a hunter watching its prey. When Escamulos laid eyes upon Hanniba’al, he saw those same wolf eyes, that same long-stare, looking at him.
When Escamulos I of Ouolkike returned from his wars in the North, he came back to find an unexpected figure looming in his halls: Hanniba’al Baraq, or Anibalos Baracas as the Ouolki records call him. Though the Ouolkirix very quickly dismissed the Buddhist missionary that accompanied the deposed King of Ishfania, Escamulos found a great deal of interest in Hanniba’al; however, this interest was not necessarily a good thing. Hanniba’al’s own memoirs record that Escamulos challeneged Hanniba’al to a duel that the Punic master of war was lucky enough to avoid. As it turned out, the Queen Bellipenna convinced Escamulos not to kill Hanniba’al, and to treat him as he should treat an equal. Hanniba’al writes that after this, he was treated with great respect and favor in the court of Ardobriga. But troubles abroad further postponed Hanniba’al’s purpose in Ouolkike, and he needed to wait another year to broker an agreement with the Ouolkirix.
To the South, in Hellas, the Spartans and their allies were rallying large armies and further securing their position of power amongst the Greeks. After invading and sacking the Epirote cities of Dodona, Passaron, Chyton, and Cassiopeia in quick succession, Leonidas III all but officially united mainland Greece under the thinly veiled banner of the Hellenic League in the name of Sparta. It would not be long before war broke out between the Greeks and the Ouolki again.
Escamulos’ chronicler Scordiscos writes that the king sent envoys to the Samnite Commonwealth as well as to the Boian League to negotiate support should war break out. He also sent ambassadors to Armenia and Pontos with similar ambitions. These were all realms that, though held no issue with Greece, were greatly resentful of Egypt, Greece’s greatest ally, and its expanding influence in the Mediterranean.
Finally, in 198 B.E. Hanniba’al received the army he requested to regain his throne. Under the joint command of Hanniba’al and Escamulos’ youngest brother Sinatus, an army of 10,000 Ouolki boarded 500 ships and began the campaign to restore Hanniba’al to his throne. However, the trip was long, and Sinatus was eager to gain glory and riches. The fleet made certain to raid Knossos on its way out of the Aegean, and would also launch a devastating assault on Carthage months later.
The Ouolki army landed in Malaka the spring of 197 B.E. The professional Ouolki warriors quickly proved their superiority over the mercenary armies of Ishfania and its allies. After a crushing defeat outside New Carthage, Magon was captured and crucified. Hanniba’al was restored as King of Ishfania, but his troubles didn’t end there.
The Ouolki led by Sinatus suddenly demanded rights to land in addition to their pay. Sinatus is quoted as saying:
“Warriors can make a home wherever there is blood to be spilt, and we have long swords and short tempers indeed.”
But rather than further diminish his crippled dominions, Hanniba’al made an offer to the Ouolki that was just too good to refuse. With his support, Hanniba’al suggested that the Ouolki march north and take Barqenon as well as Numantia. This led to a war with the Celtiberi, who Hanniba’al was more than happy to reap revenge upon after their assistance in his brother’s coup. Sinatus agreed, and marched his 10,000 men north into Celtiberian territory, where they won several steap victories against their enemies.
“They were like sicles to the field,” Scordiscos says. The Ouolki settled in the Punic city of Barqenon, and along the coastal plain. By the end of the year, they subjugated Numantia, and the whole of the Celtiberi Federation under the banner of the Ouolki. Sinatus now styled himself as king of a new realm carved out in the far away land of Iberia.
But back home, his brother shouted and cursed his name. The raid Sinatus led on Knossos was the spark that lit the fire in the Aegean. Escamulos made sacrifices to the Gods of War on the hilltop of Ardobriga, and galvanized his allies.
Fire and blood awaited the world of men in the Aegean.
Part Six: Hannibal and the Volcae
To be honest, the day the Ouolkirix finally returned from his wars in the north was far from what Hanniba’al expected. In fact, when it happened, he hadn’t expected it at all.
The doors of the great hall burst open. Escamulos busted into the Great Hall without so much as an introduction, or even a warning. His brow was covered in sweat, and he looked like he’d just sprinted his way here. The light of the setting sun shone through the windows, making his skin glisten. His boots were still covered in mud, and his hair was flattened and imprinted from his helmet. His entrance caused quite a commotion. Unannounced and unintentionally dramatic, he stood, a grisly figure in the twilight, as the doors slammed behind him. At first, Hanniba’al didn’t know who or what he was.
“Escamulos!” Bellipenna shouted, leaping from the throne down to the floor.
Hanniba’al watched from where he stood, by the side of the Ouolki throne. Over the past few months, his stay in Ardobriga had been filled with answering the many and profound inquiries of the Ouolkiriga Bellapenna. She was a curious creature, and Hanniba’al admired her intellect. There was a part of him that wished his sons would marry a woman like her.
Hormoz, the Buddhist monk, got up from his seated position of the marbled floor and followed the golden-haired queen, eager to meet the king of this strange land. Hanniba’al was eager as well, but restrained himself. A king in exile he might be, but he was a king nonetheless, and would maintain the stature of one upon this meating.
Escamulos and Bellipenna kissed and began chattering swiftly in there language. The rolling syllables that passed excitedly through their lips were too fast for Hanniba’al to understand, despite his fluency in the language of the Galatoi. One phrase he did pick out over and over, though, stood out:
“My love, my love.”
It almost took him aback, how forward they were with their affections. Hanniba’al had been around many Keltoi kings, and all of them were more affectionate than any Punic politician, but the Ouolkirigi took it to a new level: They were actually in love with each other. Had strangers not been around, the King of Ishfania suspected that they’d have started fucking each other right then and there.
Finally, their tongues slowed down enough for Hanniba’al to understand their speech.
“My love,” Bellipenna almost sang, “This man here is Ormosos of Vactria. He does not speak like we do, but he is very interesting and has very interesting stories.”
“How do you know his stories are interesting if you can’t understand his tongue, my love?” Escamulos asked, wrapping his thick arms around her waiste.
“It is said again to me in our language,” she smiled as if the answer was obvious. “Ormosos, this is my rix, Escamulos.”
It took Hormoz a second to realize he was finally being introduced. He stared blankly momentarily, then smiled and bowed lowly. His shaven head gleamed in the falling sunlight.
“I don’t like him,” Escamulos said. “He smells strange.”
“Oh, my love, you must like him.” Bellipenna defended. “It will please me if you do.”
They began to chirp again, and Hanniba’al shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps he shouldn’t have, it was an unforeseeable accident with even more unforeseeable consiquence. But it caused Escamulos’ eyes to raise and land on Hanniba’al just as the rest of his entorage entered the Great Hall, just now catching up to their king.
When Hanniba’al was young in Ishfania, he once led a small army to the frontier to fend off a band of marauding Celtiberians. They were successful, and that night he and his army spent the night celebrating with wine and feating. But when an eerie sound broke through the night, his Keltoi mercenaries fell silent. They said that there were wolves nearby, a bad omen to be sure. Hanniba’al didn’t bother with their strange supersticions and continued to merrymake all night long. The next morning, he got up earlier than his headache would have liked. But when he walked out of his tent, in the early morning fog, he noticed that his horses were gone. Not but thirty strides away from him was a large grey wolf, staring right at him. It was the long-stare: the unrelenting, unyielding, cold and vacant stare of a hunter watching its prey. When Escamulos laid eyes upon Hanniba’al, he saw those same wolf eyes, that same long-stare, looking at him.
When Escamulos I of Ouolkike returned from his wars in the North, he came back to find an unexpected figure looming in his halls: Hanniba’al Baraq, or Anibalos Baracas as the Ouolki records call him. Though the Ouolkirix very quickly dismissed the Buddhist missionary that accompanied the deposed King of Ishfania, Escamulos found a great deal of interest in Hanniba’al; however, this interest was not necessarily a good thing. Hanniba’al’s own memoirs record that Escamulos challeneged Hanniba’al to a duel that the Punic master of war was lucky enough to avoid. As it turned out, the Queen Bellipenna convinced Escamulos not to kill Hanniba’al, and to treat him as he should treat an equal. Hanniba’al writes that after this, he was treated with great respect and favor in the court of Ardobriga. But troubles abroad further postponed Hanniba’al’s purpose in Ouolkike, and he needed to wait another year to broker an agreement with the Ouolkirix.
To the South, in Hellas, the Spartans and their allies were rallying large armies and further securing their position of power amongst the Greeks. After invading and sacking the Epirote cities of Dodona, Passaron, Chyton, and Cassiopeia in quick succession, Leonidas III all but officially united mainland Greece under the thinly veiled banner of the Hellenic League in the name of Sparta. It would not be long before war broke out between the Greeks and the Ouolki again.
Escamulos’ chronicler Scordiscos writes that the king sent envoys to the Samnite Commonwealth as well as to the Boian League to negotiate support should war break out. He also sent ambassadors to Armenia and Pontos with similar ambitions. These were all realms that, though held no issue with Greece, were greatly resentful of Egypt, Greece’s greatest ally, and its expanding influence in the Mediterranean.
Finally, in 198 B.E. Hanniba’al received the army he requested to regain his throne. Under the joint command of Hanniba’al and Escamulos’ youngest brother Sinatus, an army of 10,000 Ouolki boarded 500 ships and began the campaign to restore Hanniba’al to his throne. However, the trip was long, and Sinatus was eager to gain glory and riches. The fleet made certain to raid Knossos on its way out of the Aegean, and would also launch a devastating assault on Carthage months later.
The Ouolki army landed in Malaka the spring of 197 B.E. The professional Ouolki warriors quickly proved their superiority over the mercenary armies of Ishfania and its allies. After a crushing defeat outside New Carthage, Magon was captured and crucified. Hanniba’al was restored as King of Ishfania, but his troubles didn’t end there.
The Ouolki led by Sinatus suddenly demanded rights to land in addition to their pay. Sinatus is quoted as saying:
“Warriors can make a home wherever there is blood to be spilt, and we have long swords and short tempers indeed.”
But rather than further diminish his crippled dominions, Hanniba’al made an offer to the Ouolki that was just too good to refuse. With his support, Hanniba’al suggested that the Ouolki march north and take Barqenon as well as Numantia. This led to a war with the Celtiberi, who Hanniba’al was more than happy to reap revenge upon after their assistance in his brother’s coup. Sinatus agreed, and marched his 10,000 men north into Celtiberian territory, where they won several steap victories against their enemies.
“They were like sicles to the field,” Scordiscos says. The Ouolki settled in the Punic city of Barqenon, and along the coastal plain. By the end of the year, they subjugated Numantia, and the whole of the Celtiberi Federation under the banner of the Ouolki. Sinatus now styled himself as king of a new realm carved out in the far away land of Iberia.
But back home, his brother shouted and cursed his name. The raid Sinatus led on Knossos was the spark that lit the fire in the Aegean. Escamulos made sacrifices to the Gods of War on the hilltop of Ardobriga, and galvanized his allies.
Fire and blood awaited the world of men in the Aegean.
Hmmm, they attacked Carthage itself? Interesting that Hanniba'al would allow that. Also, it looks like there's about to be a serious balance of power shift in the aegean.
Why wouldn't he? He isn't exactly on good terms with Carthage after the whole war against the Malik.
And indeed, things are going to be changing in the Aegean
Idk, maybe some respect for his homeland or something. It does make sense though.
Can't wait.
I think of it as a 'beggars can't be choosers' situation - you can avoid it and find yourself with a longer battle ahead of you or you can remind yourself that it is filled to the brim with your enemies (even if it is your homeland) and potentially give yourself an easier time.