At the bigcommunity forums, which are currently down, I received a surprising amount of acclaim for my writings from the perspective of Hammurabi (rather than as a historian about Hammurabi). I've noticed that most of the tales here are likewise third-person, so perhaps this will catch your eye. For the sake of storytelling, I make use of the fiction that the rulers are near-immortal--at least, they live from 4000 BC to AD 2050. :cool: I hope that will interfere with no one's enjoyment.

So...here are the memoirs of Shaka, Chieftain of the Zulus.

Part the First

I, Shaka

This day is bitter.

When first I directed my people to settle my father told me I had dishonored him and brought him grief, and I did not understand this. I could not imagine what could be wrong with having a homeland rather than wandering pointlessly across the plains. Nor did I understand how Zimbabwe’s location could be ill-chosen, with Mount Kilimanjaro overlooking us on the plains where a winding river flowed. It seemed quite perfect to me.

I was a fool.

I sent my warriors and my scouts out from Zimbabwe ahead of settlers who wished to found villages to supply us with goods and gold. Over miles and miles they reported to me that the land was empty, until at last they came to coastlines along the north, south, east, and west. Though I was disappointed that I would have no one to engage in honorable combat, I knew that this also meant I had the world to myself, save for the primitive villages who donated gold to our cause or traded their scraps of knowledge with us.

And then one of my warriors, aiding a scout who had been followed by barbarians, came across a narrow bridge of land stretching out across the sea. Here he found the coastline inhabited by fishermen who spoke the name of Xerxes, their chieftain, and named themselves Persians. Taking great care not to frighten the poor fellow beyond words, the warrior brought back to me a tribal chief from this village as ambassador.

The Persians were a disappointment. They were about as large as I, but had nothing and knew little. But they spoke to me of a great nation, the Babylonians, who lay beyond their territory to the north. The bridge of land was not so narrow as it had appeared; to the north the ground rose into a chain of mountains that seemed to touch the sky, and beyond these was Babylon, city of the golden temples.

With gladness in my heart I directed my wise men to travel among the Persians and share knowledge with them in exchange for an ambassador from Babylon. All the while I continued to direct my people to settle northwards, and to gather and train for war—for the island was too small to contain the three of us, and I rejoiced. The time even came when the Silk Road into Persia was completed and I began to sell fine cloth for their gold. But this was to last only a short time, by my design.

With a fat bribe in the hand of Hammurabi, the chieftain of Babylon, I enticed him to join with me, and together we assaulted the Persians, who had begun to settle northward of me to cut my people off from the land that was rightfully mine. They suspected nothing—Sardis, Samaria, and more fell easily before my might. Only once did they encroach upon our land, when a wandering band of warriors who had lost their way heard the news that we were at war and briefly took Ngome, where the people had allowed the warrior tradition to lapse. I wasted no time retaking it, cursing the fools who dwelt there and stringing their leader up by his ankles for strapping.

Only one thing held me back. Hardly a scrap of iron could be found in all the land that was fit for refining. My impi could barely tip their spears. And so time and time again we assaulted the narrow corridor that led into the Persian mainland, and time and time again we were driven away. I gathered larger armies and fortified them with archers, and this time victory was ours—victory at the hands of the young warrior Mpande. But Mpande craved power and victory in battle, that he might unseat me, for I had not yet established my dynasty and announced that my son would succeed me. Therefore I recalled him from the front and sent him far away to the western coast that he might hasten the construction of the Pharos, an immense tower from which the fire would be kept burning always, that my ships might use it to navigate by.

And then destiny began to betray me. The Babylonians, who had made little progress, made craven peace and withdrew. Seeking to entice them, and to enrage Xerxes against them, I sold them cities that had belonged to the Persians. To my dismay, when Xerxes demanded the first of these Hammurabi returned it to him—for a huge profit, I might imagine. Further attempts were worse than useless—the Persians were too hard pressed to demand their cities return, and I had opened the gateway for the Babylonian dogs to invade the northlands. Meanwhile word came that a faraway nation had raised a rigid net of iron high into the air and built a great burning nest within. The people working on the Pharos became disillusioned and abandoned the project, and I was forced to dishonor Mpande further by sending him to goad the women constructing a vast mountain parkland which they called the Hanging Gardens. A few years later I heard that Mpande had given the name a more noble meaning by hanging himself from the vines there. I was pleased and dedicated a temple in his honor to please the spirits as well.

Though I swore eventual vengeance against the Babylonians, I found that my coffers were beginning to empty. Biting back my spleen, I attempted to open a Silk Road to Babylon, but the front was too close. Persian soldiers broke through my lines and captured my workers. In a rage, I began razing their cities and sending the workers to Zimbabwe, where I sold them as slaves to Hammurabi. The more fool I, for he paid me little and then sent them to quarry his mountains for stone.

Now my impi were assembling in force against the Persian cities beyond the Isthmus, shattering every city they moved upon as Xerxes’ armies began to fall hungry for lack of support from their homes. Among these skilled warriors arose Zwelithini, a man of honor, who mastered the art of spear combat known as Zuntzu. Therefore I returned him from the front as I had Mpande that he might teach it among the warriors and increase their skill. But to deny him the glory of personal combat angered the the gods and my ancestors, as I discovered to my great dismay.

As my troops were capturing Persepolis, I suddenly received word that the rear supply lines were being cut off. Bearers reported that Hammurabi had founded cities between them and the homeland, and was now demanding that I put an end to the practice of traveling freely through his territory. I was furious, but Hammurabi’s ambassador denounced my tactics against the Persians as dishonorable and refused to renew the treaty.

Meanwhile the captain of a sailing vessel had begun to explore the western coastline, where he discovered a sizable island. Much of the land was worthless...but buried in the hills were veins of iron, all but pure! With joy I sent forth settlers to capture this resource, and thereafter refused any more to let Hammurabi see my battle maps. But now it was too late to make use of the iron against Persia, for only a few small villages remained outside my rule, and they were far from my major garrisons. Therefore I resolved to use it against the Babylonians.

Soon fell the last of the Persian cities, and I had Xerxes returned to his old capital of Persepolis, where I personally journeyed to see him flayed alive. But with my supply lines cut and the new territories barely held, I realized I could not risk making war upon Hammurabi just yet. With the blood of my enemies I began dedicating temples to the spirits and the ancestors in villages that previously had been little more than garrisons and farmland, followed by libraries for the ilk of scholars, aqueducts, and other such improvements upon the land. Now that I was secure from Persian attack, I proclaimed my dynasty under the rule of the spirits and announced the succession of my sons and waited for a time while the uproar among the village chieftains died down.

It was not enough to buy the gods’ favor.

By the time my land was strong enough to war against Babylon, I had rendered myself all but bankrupt. Though I had my workers whipped until they were all but broken, they could not build roads fast enough for the demands of commerce. Meanwhile the Babylonians sought out land, however marginal, where the tiny farming communities did not yet consider themselves Zulu, and settled there to disrupt my rule. Soon I discovered that Hammurabi had been contacted by peoples from across the oceans, and it was all I could do to beg that he send me an ambassador from the French, whom I hoped would be rich but primitive. Such was not to be. The French knew as much as Hammurabi—having traded, I discovered later, with the many nations who shared their continent. Nor had I any coin left to entice Joan or Hammurabi to send me another ambassador who might have been weaker.

I once thought my empire would stretch from sea to sea. My father was wiser than I. Conquest is glorious but plunder is fleeting, and the glory of ruling much land more fleeting still. I have set the captured Persian scholars—still Persian in all but name—to studying the builders’ art. Iron means nothing now. The future, it seems, belongs not to the edges of swords but to knowledge. Now I must learn, and my sons must learn, lest Babylon, small as it now seems, erupt to smother and boil me in its lava.

I am a fool.

This day is bitter.

Part the Second

When I was young, my grandfather told me a proverb. I thought it was a joke, but it was not. He said, “I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.” These words, strange as they sound, hold wisdom. My folly is not so great as I believed.

I spoke before of having forced the Persian scholars to study engineering. This was wiser than I knew, for despite all of Hammurabi’s libraries he knew nothing of it, nor did the French. Though it cost me dearly to feed and clothe the scholars, I kept them awake night and day teaching and experimenting. At last they had mastered the knowledge of how to manipulate the land, and with trepidation I spoke to the ambassadors in my court of secret wisdom that even they knew nothing of, expecting them to laugh and claim they had known for ages the things of which I spoke. Far to the contrary, they were astounded, and begged of me my wisest scholars in such matters to bring to their lands. The ambassadors themselves taught me with their own lips how I could better manage my people by assigning each of my greater chieftains his own representative domain, which, once the uproar had quieted, left me gaining gold again rather than losing it. They gave to me scholars who showed me how to educate my people and who spoke to my sages of the Great God, whom we have come to call Ngai, who rules over the spirits. Most importantly, they promised to send ambassadors from Germany. Meanwhile Catherine of Russia landed her people on the shores of Iron Hills, evidently having planned to take the veins of metal for herself. Though thwarted, she found what my scholars had to say of great interest as well, and sent to me another ambassador from England as part of her tribute.

Then at last I began to realize that I should not be intimidated by the knowledge of foreigners. Regardless of what their ambassadors say they know, there is always something of which they know nothing. Therefore I have learned to rely upon my own scholars’ ideas of what there is to study, and always I set them upon an idea which has nothing to do with what the foreign scholars have told them. They protest this, of course—they would prefer to build on the knowledge of others. In time they will learn that the honorable way is to make one’s own path.

In this way my people have learned things of which I never dreamed. The way of making central storehouses where gold can be traded, and the study of how it is done. The way of “preenting”, as it is called, whole pages of words with metal plates and ink. And in return my wise men have given other nations the way of mixing material with material, especially metal—and reluctantly I have parted with my choicest secret, the mysterious salt of petrum, which explodes when touched with fire, for there is none in my lands in any case—at least, not in an amount large enough to supply my warriors with.

But these mysteries are not the greatest or most useful things I have learned. For some time, I had been hearing the reports of a single ship I had sent sailing east, seeking where the lands of the other nations might be. For many years it had sailed in the lee of a great continent but seen no signs of habitation save the rough villages of barbarians and primitives, and I had thought that perhaps the other peoples lived to the north, or deep within—or perhaps that the “continent” was no more than a narrow strip of island a few paces across, and the spirits were playing me a merry prank. At last it came upon a single French town and turned back. Only a few years thereafter Germany’s offering included something new—a map of the entire world as Chieftain Bismarck knows it. I was astounded to discover that my ship had been on the fringes of a huge empty land—so vast that the four distant nations of which I had heard occupied only the eastern half of it. According to the maps it is rich with treasures and resources which are in short supply in my lands, and though it is far away there is no question that I must send an expedition to colonize it. The salt of petrum is there, and perhaps more, and no one has claimed it! Unthinkable!—my pen trembles as I write it. And yet it is true.

When I have ripped from this wasteland the stuff of war, the Babylonians will be as twigs before me. Then I will take ship and sail north to confront the primitive and poor Japanese, who will be even less—little more than chaff in the wind.

Conquest, it seems, is within my grasp after all. I need only a long arm.

Bravo. Very nice.

(As you may have guessed, this game is still in progress. I received word today that I am being laid off, so I am not certain I will be able to finish it in a timely fashion, but I will finish it, and in time I will send something else.)

You, Shaka, African, Afro-American, Israeli? Be you, Shaka take name maccabeus for fun of it?

Das> Well, I'm none of the above--I'm pretty much unmixed Anglo--but I didn't start using the name for the fun of it. Something like eight years ago, just around the time I left high school, the name took on a sort of religious significance for me that's complicated to explain.

Originally I used the name only in religious or philosophical forums online. But so many people came to know me by it that I started using it more universally so they'd recognize me when they ran into me.