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north american scum
"Lei of the land"
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- Thread starter BuckyRea
- Start date
"Lei of the land"Dawn of the Eastern Iron Age:
Northern Euria in the 2nd millennium BCC
At the dawn of the 2nd millennium BCC, Celtic metalsmiths began to master fire kilns hot enough to melt and shape iron, allowing for longer, stronger weapons. By cultural diffusion, they gradually gained a grasp of higher mathematics—their runic numbering system showing the distinct influence of the Iroquois whom they had raided so much in the past.
The influence between wealth-bearer and brigand was not one-way. The proficient Celtic archers and their disciplined code of the warrior made an impact on the larger Iroquoian armies that the Celts till routinely bested. Soon the hated "Snake Men" of the Caribine coast were wielding bow and arrow in combat with the same ruthless efficiency. The attackers, at last, were overmatched.
As a result, the cities and farms of the Hudson and Connecticut Valleys were safer than ever from the predations of Gaul. For nearly a millennium, the Gallic warrior withdrew to their forests and wine-making; they sulked and they fought among themselves for mastery of the tribes of Gaul; they waited and they harbored a dream of again, one day, sweeping down upon the Iroquois an letting slip, once more, the dogs of war.
In 1870bcc, Byzantine reclusiveness was reinforced when a rare band of Anatolian travelers encountered a violent band of Carib nomads east of Cataraugus, Iroquoia. A series of wars broke out between Byzantium and the Caribs which didn't end until after 1675bcc, leaving the Caribs devastated and the Byzantines unable to project military power that far south for centuries. By 1650bcc, Byzantine traders had established trading contacts with the Japanese through Ainu mediators dwelling in the Isthmus of Sarosima.
From contact with the Japanese, Anatolian traders began to master the wheel. The simple toy the Japanese used to amuse their children and cart about their household wares, the commercially inclined Byzantine traders saw as an implement for moving vast quantities of supplies along the advanced trade routes of the Subarctic Coast.
Around 1600bcc, Thracian merchant-farmers began to cultivate and harvest tobacco leaves, expanding the wealth attainable through trade. Successful snuff and qat trade would encourage the Byzantine states to standardize their complex system of precious metal currencies, which before had been quite byzantine, until by 1000bcc one standard currency prevailed all along the northern coast. As Japan adopted Byzantium's alphabet through trade, the Anatolians and Thracians copied Japanese ironworking techniques as well.
Byzantine merchants, once considered beneath the peasants in society because they neither held noble titles nor earned their living by the work of their own hands, gradually gained in stature, wealth, and prestige in the northern trading societies of Euria--although this prejudice would persist in far away Pacifika for many centuries more. Great wealth soon attracted the eyes of the men with swords and titles and responsibility for protecting the people. New taxes, new ways of taxation, were introduced. Where peasants had always paid their due to lords at harvest time in the form of wheat, bread, wool, and livestock for the troops who supported the rulers. But now merchants couldn't be taxed just as a cut of their wares--what army would need more porcelain dishes or jewelry or bead for its troops. Taxes from merchants had to be collected in value, in gold or silver, rather than in produce. The need for a regular system of accounting grew with each new burst of prosperity in the North.
During the 12th Century BCC, Byzantine trade networks soon spread all across the northern coast, carrying iron, tobacco, beads, cloths, furs, horses, cattle, gems, and slaves from Caesarea in the west to Nicaea in the east, leading to the development of the world's first standardized gold currency by midcentury.
Northern Euria in the 2nd millennium BCC
At the dawn of the 2nd millennium BCC, Celtic metalsmiths began to master fire kilns hot enough to melt and shape iron, allowing for longer, stronger weapons. By cultural diffusion, they gradually gained a grasp of higher mathematics—their runic numbering system showing the distinct influence of the Iroquois whom they had raided so much in the past.
The influence between wealth-bearer and brigand was not one-way. The proficient Celtic archers and their disciplined code of the warrior made an impact on the larger Iroquoian armies that the Celts till routinely bested. Soon the hated "Snake Men" of the Caribine coast were wielding bow and arrow in combat with the same ruthless efficiency. The attackers, at last, were overmatched.
In 1870bcc, Byzantine reclusiveness was reinforced when a rare band of Anatolian travelers encountered a violent band of Carib nomads east of Cataraugus, Iroquoia. A series of wars broke out between Byzantium and the Caribs which didn't end until after 1675bcc, leaving the Caribs devastated and the Byzantines unable to project military power that far south for centuries. By 1650bcc, Byzantine traders had established trading contacts with the Japanese through Ainu mediators dwelling in the Isthmus of Sarosima.
From contact with the Japanese, Anatolian traders began to master the wheel. The simple toy the Japanese used to amuse their children and cart about their household wares, the commercially inclined Byzantine traders saw as an implement for moving vast quantities of supplies along the advanced trade routes of the Subarctic Coast.
Byzantine merchants, once considered beneath the peasants in society because they neither held noble titles nor earned their living by the work of their own hands, gradually gained in stature, wealth, and prestige in the northern trading societies of Euria--although this prejudice would persist in far away Pacifika for many centuries more. Great wealth soon attracted the eyes of the men with swords and titles and responsibility for protecting the people. New taxes, new ways of taxation, were introduced. Where peasants had always paid their due to lords at harvest time in the form of wheat, bread, wool, and livestock for the troops who supported the rulers. But now merchants couldn't be taxed just as a cut of their wares--what army would need more porcelain dishes or jewelry or bead for its troops. Taxes from merchants had to be collected in value, in gold or silver, rather than in produce. The need for a regular system of accounting grew with each new burst of prosperity in the North.
During the 12th Century BCC, Byzantine trade networks soon spread all across the northern coast, carrying iron, tobacco, beads, cloths, furs, horses, cattle, gems, and slaves from Caesarea in the west to Nicaea in the east, leading to the development of the world's first standardized gold currency by midcentury.
The Omphalic Land:
Spain in the Age of Myths
Spanish lands came to be seen by all surrounding tribes as sacred lands, the home of myths and spirits, and the omphalos—the navel of the world where the power of the gods was within the reach of men. How these myths arose is a field of endless speculation. Mythologists argue over whether they came from tales of actual adventures, or from the dreams of holy men and women, or from the self invention of braggarts, or from the collective unconscious of a superstitious people.
Construction on the Great Temple of Madrid was completed in 1790bcc and it became a living testament to the age of heroes and myths.
Spain in the Age of Myths
Spanish lands came to be seen by all surrounding tribes as sacred lands, the home of myths and spirits, and the omphalos—the navel of the world where the power of the gods was within the reach of men. How these myths arose is a field of endless speculation. Mythologists argue over whether they came from tales of actual adventures, or from the dreams of holy men and women, or from the self invention of braggarts, or from the collective unconscious of a superstitious people.
The Tale of Malonae
Malonae was a prince of Leon, the son of Yeolcus, the rightful king of Leon. But his uncle Celeus had usurped the throne and the false king was jealous of any threat to his reign. Preferring to place his own line upon the throne, Celeus prayed to Jackal the Trickster to help him lure Malonae to his doom. Jackal traveled down the forbidden middle realms of the Rio Duero, where only gods and powerful spirits are to dwell, and Jackal gave Celeus an enchanted Nightblossom flower that at midnight released a poison that killed every soul in the household.
Celeus instructed his maidservant to give the Nightblossom to Malonae when he went to his hunting lodge in the summer. The maidservant accompanied Malonae and his friends to the hunting lodge that day and at night removed the poisonous flower from her bundle and placed it in a jar in the hunters' lodging. When the moon rose across father sky, the Nightblossom unfolded its petals and the fragrant poison wafted about the hunting lodge. But Raven knew of Jackal's treachery and came to the lodge just before the moon marked midnight and opened the window, letting most of the poison out of the hunters' room. The poison only wafted about the rest of the house and only the servant girl died.
Malonae and his friends awoke in a startle, ill to their bowels and crying in misery. "What is this foul spirit?" demanded Malonae. And Raven told him of Jackal and Celeus. And Raven told him that he and his friends had breathed too much poison and that they would still die of the affliction within forty days.
Malonae and his friends cried out in torment, that they should die of such treachery so far from home and that none would know of this, for in these days the Spanish still refused to take on writing from the plodding Dutch who worshipped Mammon and the clutching love of gold.
But Raven told Malonae and his hunting party to worry not, for in the Bulgar Jungles far to the south there grew a magic banana herb that could cure them of the poison. Immediately the hunting party set forth on the long journey to the dark Bulgar Jungles. At the gate before the jungle they met an old crone-witch of Magyar tribe who knew of the magic banana herb and gave them directions to a short cut in exchange for a gold nugget from each of the men. And this, legends tell us, is how the Magyar people came to acquire great wealth in the dank heart of the Bulgar Jungle.
They followed her directions, encountering many adventures in the deep jungles, and on the 40th day of their affliction, the hunting party of Malonae came to a coastal garden in the heart of the Bulgar Jungle and saw the magical banana herb growing in the center of a tribe of violent Huns.
"Ho, tribesmen of the jungle!" called Malonae, "We are travelers from afar and we seek a cure from your magic banana herbs! We are prepared to barter for we are wealthy Spaniards beset by an affliction and in great need! Treat with us and you shall be greatly rewarded!"
But the plotting Hunchief, who was Bob, knew that whatever the hunting party carried with them could be had for nothing if they only waited for the affliction to kill the Spaniards off. Being a coward he hid behind his men and shouted back to Malonae, "We must consider this offer. Go back to your camp, O Spaniard, and we will barter with you tomorrow!"
"But we shall perish by the midnight rise of the moon!" responded Malonae, "So we must barter now!"
This was good news to the Hunchief, or so he thought, for his people would not have to wait long to plunder the wealthy bodies of the Spaniards. And so they argued long through the afternoon, with each passing moment Malonae growing ever more desperate. At last, with the sun setting, Malonae lost his patience and ordered his party to attack the Huns and take the banana herb by force. The warriors of the village outnumbered the dying hunting party, but the will of the gods and the blessings of Raven were upon them.
The battle raged into the dark hours, the Spaniards and Huns smiting one another by the lights of the Hunnish campfires. And the moon rose ever higher in the sky, and Malonae, his arms drenched in blood up to his elbow, cried out to the moon, "Slow down, O Goddess! For there are still many angry Huns between my friends and that herb tree... and their women and children are starting to fight as well!"
And the moon took pity on them, for she did not relish shining her silver light upon the Huns any more than her brother the sun enjoyed shining his golden light upon them. And her silvery heart was moved by their plight and she slowed down her crawl across father sky, telling this tale to each of the stars who cried at the luck of the hunting party.
And soon night rains fell upon the desperate battle and the banana herb tree bloomed a hundred fold with the magic of star tears. As the hunting party slew the last of the Huns the rains relented and the sore and bleeding survivors grasped the herbs of the tree and made a broth by the flickering campfire and cured their affliction from Jackal's magic Nightblossom. Soon the hunters were rested, having found excellent fishing waters in the area. And this, legends tell us, is how the Huns came to be driven forever from the depths of the Bulgar Jungle.
After a time of resting, Malonae ordered his men assembled and move north, for the great adventure of reclaiming his rightful throne was now to begin...
Construction on the Great Temple of Madrid was completed in 1790bcc and it became a living testament to the age of heroes and myths.
The Heroic Expansion:
Spanish culture diffusion in the Age of Myth
By 1600bcc, the major tenets of Spanish polytheistic theology were in place, creating a more complex and ritualized network of belief systems among the Spaniard kingdoms. However, despite Spanish efforts to export this belief system, none of the civilizations they were in contact with appeared inclined to learn Spanish waysboth the English and the Dutch were content with their nonhierarchical mélange of gods.
The Dutch began exporting scarce tin to Spain at this time for considerable profits (Spanish coffers seem to have run completely out of gold during the 16th Century BCC) so it's probable that Spanish society learned bronze working from the Dutch at this time. The Spanish were technologically backward, having only developed the wheel in 1350bccthe last on their continent to do so.
In 1275bcc Spanish court officials began using the English system of writing. Although this was opposed by the palace priestly class, who up to then had preserved their idiosyncratic belief system by oral tradition, this became in the long run a boon to their mythology. Spanish stories of the gods and heroes and their exploits filtered more efficiently, and more purely, into English society, eventually reinforcing the Spano-English religious system as a unified whole.
During the 12th Century BCC, Spanish culture had moved out of the Madrid plain and crossed the Great Divide to start taming the bountiful farmlands of the Lower Duero Valley. By the end of the millennium, the Spanish became the last major world civilization to adopt a warrior code. As always, they focused more on spiritual growth rather than commerce or war.
Spanish culture diffusion in the Age of Myth
By 1600bcc, the major tenets of Spanish polytheistic theology were in place, creating a more complex and ritualized network of belief systems among the Spaniard kingdoms. However, despite Spanish efforts to export this belief system, none of the civilizations they were in contact with appeared inclined to learn Spanish waysboth the English and the Dutch were content with their nonhierarchical mélange of gods.
The Gods rule Spain and probably outnumber us
In 1275bcc Spanish court officials began using the English system of writing. Although this was opposed by the palace priestly class, who up to then had preserved their idiosyncratic belief system by oral tradition, this became in the long run a boon to their mythology. Spanish stories of the gods and heroes and their exploits filtered more efficiently, and more purely, into English society, eventually reinforcing the Spano-English religious system as a unified whole.
Fiónu and the Stag of Knowledge
Mateolus the Silverheart was a brave huntsman of Léon, but aged. He was once the most courageous warrior in all Spain. He lived in the lower valley of the Rio Duero. Mateolus sang beautiful songs and hunted the most dangerous boar of the forest. There was no animal of the forest he could not track, kill, and bring back to his village for the people to eat, even in the coldest winters. Only one game had ever eluded him, the stag of knowledge. Mateolus always watched out for the legendary stag but always in the hunt its greater knowledge prevailed.
For you see, the stag of knowledge was a magic beast. It was said by the priests and shamans that the first person to capture the stag would become the wisest hunter in the world. Its hide was the color of gold. Its eyes were magic. Many a hunter ventured out in to the wilds to try and to catch it, but all failed.
There was no school for young hunters in this ancient age. They learned at the heels of great huntsmen like Mateolus. Lads went to live with the best hunters and gleaned their skills against wild boars or died trying. Fiónu was a son of a farmer called Taneus. Fiónu was training to be a hunter and went with his servants to live with Mateolus the Silverheart.
On one hunt, Mateolus saw a powerful stag running through the forest. It was the stag of knowledge. He had never seen a stag like it before. He gathered his arrows and silently let fly. Fiónu was resting with his back to the grove so he never saw the stag. Mateolus was very careful not to look into its eyes because if you did you would fall into a deep sleep. He shot once and missed. He shot again and missed again. Mateolus tried to strike the stag but couldn't. All of a sudden the stag jumped high across some wild shrubs and charged towards him. The old huntsman was taken by surprise when he looked at the stag. He fell fast asleep.
Fiónu saw him asleep and rushed to wake him up before the stag got away. When Mateolus woke up he asked Fiónu to fetch him a cloth. Then Mateolus covered his eyes with the cloth and they tracked the stag of knowledge to another salt lick. There Mateolus the Silverheart shot arrow after arrow at the stag again. For hours and hours he tried to strike the stag.
Night was falling and Mateolus was down to one last arrow. This time he was lucky. He missed the stag but the magical beast stumbled and fell into a narrow ravine and became stuck. The huge stag struggled to get out. It pulled and strained and turned every which way, but could not escape. Mateolus was tired after this so he told Fiónu to club the stag, drag it back to their camp, and prepare it for a meal. Mateolus warned Fiónu not to eat the stag, not even a mouthful, for he wanted the great wisdom it bestowed all to himself. Fiónu promised he would not eat any of the stag. Fiónu dressed the meat of the kill, built a fire, and when it was ready he placed the stag over the fire. As it cooked a drop of hot fat went onto his thumb. Fiónu put his thumb in his mouth.
When the stag was done he brought the tenderest cut to Mateolus the Silverheart. The wise huntsman noticed there was something different. The lad's cheeks were redder and his eyes were a lot brighter.
"Have you eaten any of the stag?" Mateolus asked Fiónu.
Fiónu told him the truth. "I did not eat any of the stag.
Mateolus was still not happy. "Have you even tasted the stag," he asked.
Then Fiónu remembered that he had burnt his thumb and put it in his mouth. He told this to Mateolus.
Mateolus knew at once Fiónu had the wisdom of the stag of knowledge. At first he was very sad. He knew he would never be the wisest man in Spain. But he was happy that Fiónu got the gift. Mateolus knew that Fiónu would become the greatest huntsman that the Omphalic Lands had ever known.
During the 12th Century BCC, Spanish culture had moved out of the Madrid plain and crossed the Great Divide to start taming the bountiful farmlands of the Lower Duero Valley. By the end of the millennium, the Spanish became the last major world civilization to adopt a warrior code. As always, they focused more on spiritual growth rather than commerce or war.
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
The map doesn't look like the earth anymore by a lot. But I'm wondering if there is a continent in the southern part of the map.
I've played up past 700 AD (well, it won't be called "AD" per se in this planet's history, but for game purposes "AD" will do) and I do find...
Spoiler :
As far as that big spot south of Pacifika in the eastern hemisphere...
Spoiler :
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
I see about one tile between Spain and the Iroquois as well as a landmass east of the Dutch. Also, I've changed my mind about who I want to die first. The Dutch are now my pick because of an unfortunate event 
in one of my games.
in one of my games.Awesome story!
Well, unless the Spanish turn warlike or England decides to expand way up North, that probably won't happen. However, if there is an island or two between the Byzantines and Dutch, then maybe the Byzantines can go over and conquer them...
Personally, my vote for the next to do would be the Celts, eliminated by the Iroquois. This is, of course, after America wipes Japan off the map.
I see about one tile between Spain and the Iroquois as well as a landmass east of the Dutch. Also, I've changed my mind about who I want to die first. The Dutch are now my pick because of an unfortunate event
Well, unless the Spanish turn warlike or England decides to expand way up North, that probably won't happen. However, if there is an island or two between the Byzantines and Dutch, then maybe the Byzantines can go over and conquer them...
Personally, my vote for the next to do would be the Celts, eliminated by the Iroquois. This is, of course, after America wipes Japan off the map.
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
I was just reading through your story again and saw that you haven't said anything about Great Wonders. So what are you going to do about them? I mean, you can't be biased towards one side winning the game. Well, you could 
but that wouldn't go with history.
but that wouldn't go with history.General announcement: Sorry about the slow postal rates. Work and all that. I'm writing a big round of posts now. Because the guys are interacting more, chapters are gonna be grouped by the continent rather than by the civ from now on. But those take longer. The postings are gonna happen on the weekends mostly.
But that's a great question about the Wonders. I like only a few wonders in my gameplay--they take too long in those small early cities and most produce only marginal advantages--and that bias came out in the early game. As of 1000 Before Contemporary Calendar, only one has been built.
A few show up in the next few centuries. Right now both England and the Iroquois--both being floodplain civs--are trying to build the Pyramids. But before the BCCs run out, someone else will beat them to the punch. I'll make sure to post in the wonder activities as they occur.
I'm mostly fond of the unit producers (in my personal mod, the Colossus produces galleys until Feudalism). I also go for Great Library, Leonardo, Adam Smith, Evolution, Hoover's Dam, and the Copernicus/Newton doubleshot. All other Wonders I leave to my AI friends.
What are yall's favorites?
.
They're religious fanatics. What on earth makes you think they'd ever turn warlike?
Snowstar, I've got some bad news ahead for you...
Not playing favorites, but I am role playing a bit. Had I been playing a solo game, the Dutch would've swallowed up the Spanish by now. But eliminating players too soon would sorta suck the story out of the story.I was just reading through your story again and saw that you haven't said anything about Great Wonders. So what are you going to do about them? I mean, you can't be biased towards one side winning the game. Well, you could
But that's a great question about the Wonders. I like only a few wonders in my gameplay--they take too long in those small early cities and most produce only marginal advantages--and that bias came out in the early game. As of 1000 Before Contemporary Calendar, only one has been built.
A few show up in the next few centuries. Right now both England and the Iroquois--both being floodplain civs--are trying to build the Pyramids. But before the BCCs run out, someone else will beat them to the punch. I'll make sure to post in the wonder activities as they occur.
I'm mostly fond of the unit producers (in my personal mod, the Colossus produces galleys until Feudalism). I also go for Great Library, Leonardo, Adam Smith, Evolution, Hoover's Dam, and the Copernicus/Newton doubleshot. All other Wonders I leave to my AI friends.
What are yall's favorites?
.
Troubles with Barbarians:
Pre-Classical Atlan
A commercial drive shaped the character of Dutch civilization. With expanding trade zones and a more stabilized population, Dutch scribes began producing reliable and accurate maps by the 10th Century BCC, bringing a uniquely Netherlandic precision and businesslike frugality to the business of the charting Planet Erath. The earliest known Dutch maps date from 975bcc. But the most accurate map of the ancient epoch is the Royal Trades Map, constructed probably from caravan routes around 800bcc.
Indeed, it became increasingly important to know where the safe and unsafe lands were in the last millennium BCC, as the western hemisphere entered a ferocious age of barbarian wars. Expanding population and the spread of the civilized empires meant that, more and more, the peoples of the West would have to fight for control of disputed lands.
In the far south the great Khazak Empire was seeking to expand. From the late 900s Khazaki warriors pressed the frontier and troubled the eastern English people. The independent Kingdom of Coventry warred off and on with the Khazakis, who frequently insisted on selling their ivory wares to any English merchant except a Coventrian.
In 875bcc the Lord March-King of the Coventry, Leofric III the Hasty, a Sussexer by birth, hired warriors from Phoenicia, Hastings, and Sussex and decisively put down the Khazak incursion into the English east. The English were not strong just because of superior English iron weaponry, but also superior English discipline in the battlefield. By 850bc, the Leofric's forces had finally and permanently tamed the Khazaki hordes west of the Alphian Hills. On the heels of these victories, English settlers began to move into Western Khazak and take control of the valuable ivory gathering trade, bringing along with them their unique, characteristic English culture.
Other outgoing English seafarers first discovered Helder Island around this time—a discovery that found its way onto the Royal Trades Map within three generations. Contact between the two great cultures of Atlan was clearly well established by this time.
Between these two civilization centers lay the sacred realms of Spain. Certain Spanish shamans developed, as part of their rites, the riding of horses, even developing the first "saddles"—prop seats really—centuries before any warrior would ease his ride with leather blankets. Priests proclaimed them "beasts of Iupiter" and poets said they were "lords of the plains." They forbad the animal's use by commoners, lower nobles, and even armies. The lack of horse herds in Spanish domains made this decree viable: no military application of horsemanship would enter into Spanish defenses. Use of the beasts of Iupiter for many centuries remained purely ceremonial and even then only on rare occasion.
If not as prodigious as their northern neighbors and southern friends, the Spanish, too were expanding as a culture and people. By 800bcc, Spanish culture had absorbed their southern barbarian neighbors, the Aquilogoths dwelling around Toledo Hill. Those not disposed to adopting Spanish gods and practices were quickly and violently driven out from the tribe. The violence of the Gothic tribe applying itself uniquely to the needs of their new Spanish brotherhood.
What remained of the Aquilogoths soon enough joined the Seljuk tribes who dwelled in the bogs of the Mirrens and plotted war and revenge on the Kingdom of Toledo. The Seljuks made particularly effective allies for the Aquilogoths because they, unlike the unwilling Spanish, had mastered the horse.
The Seljuks rode out of their bogs in the mid 7th Century BCC. Spanish holy warriors, convinced they were fighting devil worshipers who profaned the sacred horse, engaged the Seljuk-Aquilogoth alliance with a fanatical vigor, driving them back in battle after battle, and obliterated both tribes, virtually down to every village. The survivors scattered to other tribal territories, but after 650bcc, the Seljuk people ceased to exist as a political entity.
As the thriving English culture and people expanded up the Thames River, they came into conflict with another savage race—the brutal and cannibalistic Iberians. Although ethnically and culturally not far removed from the English, the Iberians were inclined to plunder and inhuman despotism and took no prisoners in the wars on other tribes. By the 7th Century BCC they had moved out of the Iber Bay swamps and into the green belt in their annual hunts of Welshmen. As Essexian settlers moved upstream along the Thames in search of natural silk habitats, they regularly came under the stone maces and sharp-filed teeth of the snarling Iberians.
Fierce as they were, the Iberians were still barbarians, after all, and always shrank from battle when confronted with large, civilized armies. After decades of chase and war, the Iberians were repelled from the upper valley. The noblemen in charge of defending the realm built a massive fortress known as New-Castle, while the Iberians were scattered north and west to menace other tribes.
Insulated from the lesser tribes of Atlan by the devout Spanish, Netherlandic culture saw less conflict than the rest of Atlan. A more refined, peaceable society emerged. A common currency system began to evolve between the trading city-states of the MidNorth during the 7th Century, probably entirely in place by 650bcc. Dutch scribes were developing true written literature by 500bc. Horseback riding in the Spanish style arrived in the Netherlands around 500bc, about the same time that Dutch style maps began to filter into the secular corners of Spanish society.
Relations with the two northern cultures were not gentle, however. Spanish lords steadfastly refused to allow Dutch merchants and explorers passage through the center of the continent. Dutch trade with the English and barbarians to the south had to move along the coasts, which the Spanish could not control, or through Spanish intermediaries—often smugglers. The more devout leaders of Spain deployed dog-gangs, ruthless merchant police who ensured "foreign devils" did not tread the "Belly of Mother Erath" with their unpurified moccasins. The insular, xenophobic Spanish instinctively feared the influence of the more advanced Dutch peoples—their worldliness, their decadence, their fondness for sensational entertainment over the serenity of contemplating the gods.
Still, gradually, the habits and advantages keeping written records in the Dutch fashion filtered into Spanish society. Priests lacking the gifts of oral storytelling began to record their religious tales, not just the rudiments of their rituals. Inevitably, the stories became more standardized, less localized, and the deviation from the official versions of the legends and myths became irreligious and sinful. Spanish literature, from its origin, was the basis for seeking out heretics and punishing them.
In 490bc, with Iberian tribesmen occupying the Heather Mountains, English swordsmen under legendary King Alfred the Foolhardy rushed into the Devon Woods and began a new round of wars on the violent tribalfolk.
The fighting was relentless and the death tolls staggering. For once Iberians were well led and stood fast against English field tactics. The ground was said to be spongy with the soak of heroic blood. In the end it was superior numbers, not tactics, that won the day and rescattered the savages.
English military skills had trouble keeping up with the spread of English culture about south Atlan. All the English kingdoms suffered losses in the Iberian wars and the recruiting of barbarian foot soldiers to enhance the size of their forces against other barbarians began to weaken the unity and cohesion of English armies. In every direction there were more savages to tame or drive off. Defenses were overextended. The culturally displace barbaric tribes were subject to more violent social movements. In the Lands End Peninsula, combined Mediagoth and Phoenician tribesmen formed around a band of zealot prophets who organized as a violent volcano cult. The cult regularly assaulted and abducted families from southern Hastings to use in the sacrificial rituals.
Following the success at Great Battle of Devon Wood, tales of daring that celebrated Ethelbert the Valiant, the hero of Devon Wood, and other robust fighters of the age arose among England's first poets. They recorded their tales in the Spanish style—efficient regular meters unlike the freeform, sensational ramblings of the Dutch. A closer alliance grew between the Spanish and English cultures. Besides literature heading south, English masonry techniques began to appear in Spanish towns and in expanding road construction.
Ethelbert the Valiant was called from retirement in the 440s and requested by the King of Hastings to lead and expedition south to Mount Perdition to crush the violent volcano cult when the savages renewed raids on the village of Oxford and the town of Hastings. This time the old warbird was not up to the task. Ethelbert's troops were outmaneuvered in the Caves of Perdition and worn down by three years of sneak attacks by the cultists. He died alone in the cold on his last expedition and the volcano cult continued to hold the southern boundary of the Englands.
.
Pre-Classical Atlan
A commercial drive shaped the character of Dutch civilization. With expanding trade zones and a more stabilized population, Dutch scribes began producing reliable and accurate maps by the 10th Century BCC, bringing a uniquely Netherlandic precision and businesslike frugality to the business of the charting Planet Erath. The earliest known Dutch maps date from 975bcc. But the most accurate map of the ancient epoch is the Royal Trades Map, constructed probably from caravan routes around 800bcc.
Indeed, it became increasingly important to know where the safe and unsafe lands were in the last millennium BCC, as the western hemisphere entered a ferocious age of barbarian wars. Expanding population and the spread of the civilized empires meant that, more and more, the peoples of the West would have to fight for control of disputed lands.
In the far south the great Khazak Empire was seeking to expand. From the late 900s Khazaki warriors pressed the frontier and troubled the eastern English people. The independent Kingdom of Coventry warred off and on with the Khazakis, who frequently insisted on selling their ivory wares to any English merchant except a Coventrian.
In 875bcc the Lord March-King of the Coventry, Leofric III the Hasty, a Sussexer by birth, hired warriors from Phoenicia, Hastings, and Sussex and decisively put down the Khazak incursion into the English east. The English were not strong just because of superior English iron weaponry, but also superior English discipline in the battlefield. By 850bc, the Leofric's forces had finally and permanently tamed the Khazaki hordes west of the Alphian Hills. On the heels of these victories, English settlers began to move into Western Khazak and take control of the valuable ivory gathering trade, bringing along with them their unique, characteristic English culture.
Other outgoing English seafarers first discovered Helder Island around this time—a discovery that found its way onto the Royal Trades Map within three generations. Contact between the two great cultures of Atlan was clearly well established by this time.
Between these two civilization centers lay the sacred realms of Spain. Certain Spanish shamans developed, as part of their rites, the riding of horses, even developing the first "saddles"—prop seats really—centuries before any warrior would ease his ride with leather blankets. Priests proclaimed them "beasts of Iupiter" and poets said they were "lords of the plains." They forbad the animal's use by commoners, lower nobles, and even armies. The lack of horse herds in Spanish domains made this decree viable: no military application of horsemanship would enter into Spanish defenses. Use of the beasts of Iupiter for many centuries remained purely ceremonial and even then only on rare occasion.
If not as prodigious as their northern neighbors and southern friends, the Spanish, too were expanding as a culture and people. By 800bcc, Spanish culture had absorbed their southern barbarian neighbors, the Aquilogoths dwelling around Toledo Hill. Those not disposed to adopting Spanish gods and practices were quickly and violently driven out from the tribe. The violence of the Gothic tribe applying itself uniquely to the needs of their new Spanish brotherhood.
What remained of the Aquilogoths soon enough joined the Seljuk tribes who dwelled in the bogs of the Mirrens and plotted war and revenge on the Kingdom of Toledo. The Seljuks made particularly effective allies for the Aquilogoths because they, unlike the unwilling Spanish, had mastered the horse.
The Seljuks rode out of their bogs in the mid 7th Century BCC. Spanish holy warriors, convinced they were fighting devil worshipers who profaned the sacred horse, engaged the Seljuk-Aquilogoth alliance with a fanatical vigor, driving them back in battle after battle, and obliterated both tribes, virtually down to every village. The survivors scattered to other tribal territories, but after 650bcc, the Seljuk people ceased to exist as a political entity.
Fierce as they were, the Iberians were still barbarians, after all, and always shrank from battle when confronted with large, civilized armies. After decades of chase and war, the Iberians were repelled from the upper valley. The noblemen in charge of defending the realm built a massive fortress known as New-Castle, while the Iberians were scattered north and west to menace other tribes.
Insulated from the lesser tribes of Atlan by the devout Spanish, Netherlandic culture saw less conflict than the rest of Atlan. A more refined, peaceable society emerged. A common currency system began to evolve between the trading city-states of the MidNorth during the 7th Century, probably entirely in place by 650bcc. Dutch scribes were developing true written literature by 500bc. Horseback riding in the Spanish style arrived in the Netherlands around 500bc, about the same time that Dutch style maps began to filter into the secular corners of Spanish society.
Still, gradually, the habits and advantages keeping written records in the Dutch fashion filtered into Spanish society. Priests lacking the gifts of oral storytelling began to record their religious tales, not just the rudiments of their rituals. Inevitably, the stories became more standardized, less localized, and the deviation from the official versions of the legends and myths became irreligious and sinful. Spanish literature, from its origin, was the basis for seeking out heretics and punishing them.
In 490bc, with Iberian tribesmen occupying the Heather Mountains, English swordsmen under legendary King Alfred the Foolhardy rushed into the Devon Woods and began a new round of wars on the violent tribalfolk.
The fighting was relentless and the death tolls staggering. For once Iberians were well led and stood fast against English field tactics. The ground was said to be spongy with the soak of heroic blood. In the end it was superior numbers, not tactics, that won the day and rescattered the savages.
English military skills had trouble keeping up with the spread of English culture about south Atlan. All the English kingdoms suffered losses in the Iberian wars and the recruiting of barbarian foot soldiers to enhance the size of their forces against other barbarians began to weaken the unity and cohesion of English armies. In every direction there were more savages to tame or drive off. Defenses were overextended. The culturally displace barbaric tribes were subject to more violent social movements. In the Lands End Peninsula, combined Mediagoth and Phoenician tribesmen formed around a band of zealot prophets who organized as a violent volcano cult. The cult regularly assaulted and abducted families from southern Hastings to use in the sacrificial rituals.
Following the success at Great Battle of Devon Wood, tales of daring that celebrated Ethelbert the Valiant, the hero of Devon Wood, and other robust fighters of the age arose among England's first poets. They recorded their tales in the Spanish style—efficient regular meters unlike the freeform, sensational ramblings of the Dutch. A closer alliance grew between the Spanish and English cultures. Besides literature heading south, English masonry techniques began to appear in Spanish towns and in expanding road construction.
The Caves of Mount Perdition
.
Laws and Ideas:
Pre-Classical Atlan
While the stylings of Spanish literature filtered into the Englands, the courts remained unimpressed with its strident theology. Poets reserved their ink and papyrus sheets for tales of derring-do that kept villagers entertained. English lords saw little benefits to written tales and offered scant gold for it.
Dutch culture entered an expansion phase in the 4th Century BCC, especially the "Old Jewel" of Holland. Dutch settlers pressed south toward Spain's western settlements. The Spanish lords in charge of Seville, however, sent forth isolated missions, each sponsored by a separate god, to prevent the Dutch influx into the far bank of the lower Duer River. A Dutch trade outpost at Middel Hill became a refuge for the cast off settlers, while the Dutch horse-tending colony in the Eind Drylands. The Spanish called the Drylands the Mediatierras and considered the area unproductive and a natural buffer between them and Holland. To them it was a sanctuary for the sacred horses they reserved for holy rituals. The Dutch, however, had little economic interest in the idea of sanctuaries and "natural buffers." If land was available and profitable, they took it. The Eind was, if not the best farmland, still adequate for settlement for Holland's burgeoning population.
Growing population led to increasing disorder in the Netherlands. In 347bcc Maussollus of Oranje, the Scribe-King of Amsterdam, laid down the first law, the Law of Oranje, which became the great law code of the Dutch people, eventually enshrined in the Mausoleum of Maussollus, the First Royal Lawgiver. For a while this two-tiered law brought a level of justice and serenity to this anxious, acquisitive kingdom.
But not all the Netherlands embraced the new law codes. The Dutch core states embraced it. Reaction against the revolutionary new Law of Oranje in The Hague prompted an upper class rebellion in 330bc when the Overlord of the Hammer, ruler of the northern Jewel, attempted to force its legal parity reforms on that realm. Lesser farmers, who were more politically dependent on their lords than in the heart of the Netherlands, celebrated the Overlord's capitulation to legal parity—the notion that commoners had some rights, if not quite equal rights, before the vagaries of their masters. But to the nobles and their dependents, this was a threat to their power. For three generations the lords of The Hague struggled with the hereditary overlords and sought to displace the ruling dynasty with riots and poison and dagger bearing servants.
In the end, The Hague's economic deterioration compared to the other three leading states, forced the upper classes of the far north to accept the equanimity enshrined in the Oranje Codes. Matters settled quickly after 250bcc when the Haguesmen saw, as in Amsterdam, justice did not diminish aristocratic privileges; it preserved them.
Sadly, in the interim, the lords of Rotterdam began to displace the Haguesmen as the second most influential class in Dutch society. In the 280s BCC, it was Rotterians who fought and plundered successfully in the distant war against the Angles.
A different kind of law settled over the Spanish lands in the 3rd Century BCC. In 290bc, the leadership of Spain's diverse and raucous pantheon of god came under the authority of the Oracle of Barcelona, with her "revelation" of the Spanish Divine Law in 270bc.
The inspiration of the Oracle would lead to a flowering of Spanish culture, including a population expansion east into Murcia and south to Valencia and the construction of the first Spanish library at Madrid in 70bc.
The Oracle of Barcelona What was this enigmatic Oracle? For centuries the divinely selected seeress, a matron from among the priestesses of Ceres the Harvestress, took the office of Interpreter of the Gods. Withdrawn to her cave, called the House of the Omphalos—literally, the naval of the world—the crone communicated with the divine spirits and sustained her influence by the accuracy of her advice. Early skeptics, particularly among the high priests who resisted her primacy, said she cheated and had astrologers read the stars for her to secretly know what to predict. But, as the Spanish say, "there are no stars in the caves."
Arganthonios, King of Maxihispania Even skeptickier skeptics of today suggest volcanic fumes from outlets deep beneath the House of Omphalos caves, most likely ethylene, induced a hallucinogenic trance in the priestesses, especially for she who dwelled in the House for the rest of her life. For the priestesses themselves, they insisted that the Oracle was not actually the seeress speaking, that the seeress was only the voice of the Oracle. The Oracle itself was the collected voice of divinity from all the gods, or of the Goddess Wisdom, Sophia, who saw beyond the stars into men's hearts.
Whatever the reality of her source of insight, the political authority of the Barcelonic Oracle soon became very real. In 283bcc, the royal houses of Castilla and Aragon merged under the reign of the young King of Madrid, Arganthonios. He married the only daughter of the dying city-king of Barcelona, Calíd, and united the Old Realms into a personal union called Maxihispania. The political alliance of the Second Seeress with the King of Maxihispania ensured the influence of both and presented Spain with its first true empire. Despite its boon to Spanish culture, the Divine Voice of the Oracle continued to advise Spanish kings and high priests to resist Dutch influences and commercial requests for opening the borders between the two civilizations.
In 354bcc several of the Englands had united their armies under a lord-general, Lord Warmspur to send an expedition out to crush a new outcropping of the Iberians [32-7]. The old menace had finally mastered bronze (but still not iron) weaponry and the Essex marchdom of New-Castle was unable to expand its valuable silk business until the savage raiders could be driven back.
But as with the Dutch and Spanish, not all glory was in military exploits in Englandia. In the late 3rd Century BC English stone craftsmen finalized developed masonry techniques that added to their construction skills. The Fortress of New-Castle was reinforced to its classical dimensions and the first stone embankments along the Thames created more reliable irrigation and first efforts at flood control. Bridges over small rivers became possible, although major rivers like the Thames, the Ghranes, and the Vandal were too great to be forded yet.
These advances in construction became critical when a renewed assaults from Iberian barbarians plagued Canterbury in 220bcc. The reign of King Reginald I the Canter in 210bc commanded the erection of the first stone castles and the defeat of the "lesser" Iberian bands at Mount Chunnel. The veterans of Mt Chunnel moved south the following year and assisted King Marcus of Hastings in a decisive routing of the Phoenician volcano cultists at Mt Perdition. On the fiftieth anniversary of the double victory (150bcc) an expansion of Reginald III's palace at Canterbury commemorated the event. The English stood astride the southern world and wanted all Atlan to know it.
Pre-Classical Atlan
While the stylings of Spanish literature filtered into the Englands, the courts remained unimpressed with its strident theology. Poets reserved their ink and papyrus sheets for tales of derring-do that kept villagers entertained. English lords saw little benefits to written tales and offered scant gold for it.
Dutch culture entered an expansion phase in the 4th Century BCC, especially the "Old Jewel" of Holland. Dutch settlers pressed south toward Spain's western settlements. The Spanish lords in charge of Seville, however, sent forth isolated missions, each sponsored by a separate god, to prevent the Dutch influx into the far bank of the lower Duer River. A Dutch trade outpost at Middel Hill became a refuge for the cast off settlers, while the Dutch horse-tending colony in the Eind Drylands. The Spanish called the Drylands the Mediatierras and considered the area unproductive and a natural buffer between them and Holland. To them it was a sanctuary for the sacred horses they reserved for holy rituals. The Dutch, however, had little economic interest in the idea of sanctuaries and "natural buffers." If land was available and profitable, they took it. The Eind was, if not the best farmland, still adequate for settlement for Holland's burgeoning population.
But not all the Netherlands embraced the new law codes. The Dutch core states embraced it. Reaction against the revolutionary new Law of Oranje in The Hague prompted an upper class rebellion in 330bc when the Overlord of the Hammer, ruler of the northern Jewel, attempted to force its legal parity reforms on that realm. Lesser farmers, who were more politically dependent on their lords than in the heart of the Netherlands, celebrated the Overlord's capitulation to legal parity—the notion that commoners had some rights, if not quite equal rights, before the vagaries of their masters. But to the nobles and their dependents, this was a threat to their power. For three generations the lords of The Hague struggled with the hereditary overlords and sought to displace the ruling dynasty with riots and poison and dagger bearing servants.
In the end, The Hague's economic deterioration compared to the other three leading states, forced the upper classes of the far north to accept the equanimity enshrined in the Oranje Codes. Matters settled quickly after 250bcc when the Haguesmen saw, as in Amsterdam, justice did not diminish aristocratic privileges; it preserved them.
Sadly, in the interim, the lords of Rotterdam began to displace the Haguesmen as the second most influential class in Dutch society. In the 280s BCC, it was Rotterians who fought and plundered successfully in the distant war against the Angles.
A different kind of law settled over the Spanish lands in the 3rd Century BCC. In 290bc, the leadership of Spain's diverse and raucous pantheon of god came under the authority of the Oracle of Barcelona, with her "revelation" of the Spanish Divine Law in 270bc.
The inspiration of the Oracle would lead to a flowering of Spanish culture, including a population expansion east into Murcia and south to Valencia and the construction of the first Spanish library at Madrid in 70bc.
The Oracle of Barcelona
Arganthonios, King of Maxihispania
Whatever the reality of her source of insight, the political authority of the Barcelonic Oracle soon became very real. In 283bcc, the royal houses of Castilla and Aragon merged under the reign of the young King of Madrid, Arganthonios. He married the only daughter of the dying city-king of Barcelona, Calíd, and united the Old Realms into a personal union called Maxihispania. The political alliance of the Second Seeress with the King of Maxihispania ensured the influence of both and presented Spain with its first true empire. Despite its boon to Spanish culture, the Divine Voice of the Oracle continued to advise Spanish kings and high priests to resist Dutch influences and commercial requests for opening the borders between the two civilizations.
In 354bcc several of the Englands had united their armies under a lord-general, Lord Warmspur to send an expedition out to crush a new outcropping of the Iberians [32-7]. The old menace had finally mastered bronze (but still not iron) weaponry and the Essex marchdom of New-Castle was unable to expand its valuable silk business until the savage raiders could be driven back.
These advances in construction became critical when a renewed assaults from Iberian barbarians plagued Canterbury in 220bcc. The reign of King Reginald I the Canter in 210bc commanded the erection of the first stone castles and the defeat of the "lesser" Iberian bands at Mount Chunnel. The veterans of Mt Chunnel moved south the following year and assisted King Marcus of Hastings in a decisive routing of the Phoenician volcano cultists at Mt Perdition. On the fiftieth anniversary of the double victory (150bcc) an expansion of Reginald III's palace at Canterbury commemorated the event. The English stood astride the southern world and wanted all Atlan to know it.
The Council and the Sage:
Pre-Classical Atlan
English ivory, steel, and steeds combined around 170bcc to produce the gargantuan Statue of Jove in London. Worked in the finest ivory from the Aral Sea's elephant graveyard, the Statue was a rallying point for the elevation of the new Alfredian Dynasty, calling themselves the "overkings" as Jove was overgod of the English pantheon. The first proponent, the court Vizier Caiathonix, drew inspiration from the unification of brother realms in Spain under Arganthonios and his descendents. The Alfredian line of monarchs, beginning with Ethelstan II the Daring, and their Sussexian courtiers sought to bring all the Englands under a solitary despot. But the rulers of Essex, Canter-Norsex, Phoenicia, and Hastings would hear none of it. Only the royals of remote and vulnerable Coventry, cousins to the Alfredians, saw a benefit to the Alfredian Elevation.
With the accession of Thopas IV the Rash to the Throne of London, three of the monarchs and several lesser landed nobles petitioned the teenaged king to renounce his grandfather's claim to supremacy among royalty. The intemperate Thopas rejected their call as disorderly and an insult to his family. He raised an army to intimidate his would-be rivals and set out to march in 151bcc. The inferior kingdom of Hastings quickly capitulated, but Essex, Norsex-Canter, and the exotic Phoenicians rebelled at the young king's effrontery. Forming the Upriver League, they arrayed their forces not against Vandal or Goth, but against fellow Englishmen. For 400 years no English state had warred on another. Now the Englands were convulsed in anarchy—cousins, trade partners, and in-laws took arms against one another. Englandia had entered the Troubled Time.
Around this time, Dutch merchant-brigands continued their incursions into Anglia, seeking plunder and selling second rate weapons to the savages. The tribes of Anglia and Vandalia desperately needed weapons, for they still trembled at the power of the cannibalistic Iberians. But time and again the crafty Dutch traders sold them inferior goods or or otherwise outmaneuvered their barbaric trade partners. Sadly, some of them found out that wits alone has its limits when engaging in free competition with barbarians.
In 170bcc Dutch duplicity triggered the Bellisimian Uprising. The Dutch freebooters were crushed in the rebellion, but the uprising occurred far closer to English soil—even while the English warred against one another. Both the Angles of Far Scotlandia and the Alemanni of Vandalia were mad at civilized nations in general. They rose in large numbers and launched raids on English society, already weakened by the Troubles.
Shocked local landlords were too weak to confront the raiders with half their men off fighting the Alfredian Elevation. Disorganized Essex warriors ambled out into the Heather Highlands occupied by Alemanni Vandals and were slaughtered. The savaged plundered farms, despoiled silk forests, and plagued trades routes that kept the far eastern New-Castle settlement alive. But the Essexians and other English were unwilling to divert forces from a dyanstic war just to protect peasants. Finally taking charge over her husband's will, the Queen of Essex, Olivia of Umbria, called back her forces to confront the massive invasion. In pulling back her troops, she allowed Thopas the Rash to escape a trap at Sherwood and continue his inconclusive skirmishes against the Upriver League. Lords at the time decried her as weak willed and sentimental about her subjects, but scholar today laud Olivia for her political acumen and successful military strategy.
When Thopas died of camp fever in 122bcc, his brother Athelfred took the throne and continued the war. When that brother died in battle, his son Athelbob II took the throne and continued the war.
Now we know how many holes
it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
The Troubled Time continued over the next 80 years, coming to an end in 70bcc. Thopas V ascended to the throne in 74bcc, fought two battles and found the experience not to his taste. The weakened League was almost ready to capitulate when Thopas V sent his envoys. If Spain and the Netherlands could have their Divine and Oranje laws, then the Englands can have their own order too. Three peace conferences met at Albert Hall in neutral Middlesex County before establishing the Peace of Allsexes and a new order of the Englands.
There would be an overking for the Umbian, Saxon, and Phoenician speaking lands—and the first in that line would be Thopas—but the Albian Council would elect the future overmonarchs and approve their decisions. With the elevation of the Albian Council, the Troubled Time ended and a balanced monarchy would mark the apex of Classical Englandia. The first overkings were politically weak and dependent on the Albian Council's whims, so no direct assault brought the Vandals to heel. But by the end of the century a regular outpost system was established and the barbarians were held at bay.
In the Netherlands in the same years, a far different political development occurred: the theory of republican government, long debated by Dutch philosophers, brought about a revolution in Amsterdam, the largest city of the Four Jewels. After the Koningtchaar Vultos the Cruel sought to subject his noble merchants to the same taxes that commoner merchants paid, an insurrection espousing equality among noble titlers arose.
Their ideas spread quickly along the well padded Dutch trade routes and soon landed titlers in Flanders and Rotteland were also pressuring their local monarchs for freeholder rights. A similar uprising in The Hague, however, was crushed. Eventually most of the Netherlands teamed with dissatisfaction and demands by property owners for consent to government and a curtailing of land privileges among the nobility. One faction of freeholders in the outlying province of Arnhem eventually broke free from the despotism and sailed north to Helder Island.
The first major test of confederated government under the Albian Council came in 10bcc with the final and most violent wave of the Bellisimian Uprising. Hoards of Vandals entered Essex, captured the highlands abutting New-Castle, tore up what road existed in the frontier and cut the village off from the outside world. But where the Vandals once enjoyed superior mobility with their access to sturdy feral steeds, the English now mounted a force of Jovian Clydesdales, hefty lumbering war beasts that could keep up with the enemy and wreak considerably more damage. The English warchief, the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, brilliantly outmaneuvered the Vandals and relieved the siege of New-Castle before the outpost could be sacked. In the fighting virtually all of the Jovian Clydesdales and their riders were lost, but their sacrifice saved thousands of lives and broke the back of Vandal power. The savages retreated to their homelands. English foot troops pursued, but could not keep pace.
In the midst of the Dutch Freeholders Crisis, a great man was born to the Koningtchaar of Amsterdam: the Second Royal Lawgiver, Willem the Sage. Educated by the "Balancing Scribes" of the Sophistry School, Willem would inherit his father's title and go on to integrate philosophy, commerce, and government into a "state of balance" revolution in the year 37AL of the Common Calendar. At the end of his long reign, for his revolutionary gift of returning law and balance to the nations to his people, his birth was used to demark the new Dutch calendar: Anno Libra. With a generosity rarely matched in history, Willem even placed his own office at the disposal of the freeholder's council, the Bezitterraad, who went on to elect him to a life term. Within the century various degrees of reform came to most of the Dutch states, with either elected kings (koningen) or an emerging power of the states to pass laws over the will of their leaders.
New forms of government had emerged in the west—in the MidNorth nascent republicanism, in the Englands a monarchy bound by laws and customs, and in the Sacred Center a monarchy constrained by the dictates of religious morality. Philosophers and poets of the coming century proclaimed an era of peace among the nations.
That was being a little optimistic.
.
Pre-Classical Atlan
Spoiler :
English ivory, steel, and steeds combined around 170bcc to produce the gargantuan Statue of Jove in London. Worked in the finest ivory from the Aral Sea's elephant graveyard, the Statue was a rallying point for the elevation of the new Alfredian Dynasty, calling themselves the "overkings" as Jove was overgod of the English pantheon. The first proponent, the court Vizier Caiathonix, drew inspiration from the unification of brother realms in Spain under Arganthonios and his descendents. The Alfredian line of monarchs, beginning with Ethelstan II the Daring, and their Sussexian courtiers sought to bring all the Englands under a solitary despot. But the rulers of Essex, Canter-Norsex, Phoenicia, and Hastings would hear none of it. Only the royals of remote and vulnerable Coventry, cousins to the Alfredians, saw a benefit to the Alfredian Elevation.
Around this time, Dutch merchant-brigands continued their incursions into Anglia, seeking plunder and selling second rate weapons to the savages. The tribes of Anglia and Vandalia desperately needed weapons, for they still trembled at the power of the cannibalistic Iberians. But time and again the crafty Dutch traders sold them inferior goods or or otherwise outmaneuvered their barbaric trade partners. Sadly, some of them found out that wits alone has its limits when engaging in free competition with barbarians.
In 170bcc Dutch duplicity triggered the Bellisimian Uprising. The Dutch freebooters were crushed in the rebellion, but the uprising occurred far closer to English soil—even while the English warred against one another. Both the Angles of Far Scotlandia and the Alemanni of Vandalia were mad at civilized nations in general. They rose in large numbers and launched raids on English society, already weakened by the Troubles.
When Thopas died of camp fever in 122bcc, his brother Athelfred took the throne and continued the war. When that brother died in battle, his son Athelbob II took the throne and continued the war.
Now we know how many holes
it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
There would be an overking for the Umbian, Saxon, and Phoenician speaking lands—and the first in that line would be Thopas—but the Albian Council would elect the future overmonarchs and approve their decisions. With the elevation of the Albian Council, the Troubled Time ended and a balanced monarchy would mark the apex of Classical Englandia. The first overkings were politically weak and dependent on the Albian Council's whims, so no direct assault brought the Vandals to heel. But by the end of the century a regular outpost system was established and the barbarians were held at bay.
In the Netherlands in the same years, a far different political development occurred: the theory of republican government, long debated by Dutch philosophers, brought about a revolution in Amsterdam, the largest city of the Four Jewels. After the Koningtchaar Vultos the Cruel sought to subject his noble merchants to the same taxes that commoner merchants paid, an insurrection espousing equality among noble titlers arose.
Their ideas spread quickly along the well padded Dutch trade routes and soon landed titlers in Flanders and Rotteland were also pressuring their local monarchs for freeholder rights. A similar uprising in The Hague, however, was crushed. Eventually most of the Netherlands teamed with dissatisfaction and demands by property owners for consent to government and a curtailing of land privileges among the nobility. One faction of freeholders in the outlying province of Arnhem eventually broke free from the despotism and sailed north to Helder Island.
The first major test of confederated government under the Albian Council came in 10bcc with the final and most violent wave of the Bellisimian Uprising. Hoards of Vandals entered Essex, captured the highlands abutting New-Castle, tore up what road existed in the frontier and cut the village off from the outside world. But where the Vandals once enjoyed superior mobility with their access to sturdy feral steeds, the English now mounted a force of Jovian Clydesdales, hefty lumbering war beasts that could keep up with the enemy and wreak considerably more damage. The English warchief, the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, brilliantly outmaneuvered the Vandals and relieved the siege of New-Castle before the outpost could be sacked. In the fighting virtually all of the Jovian Clydesdales and their riders were lost, but their sacrifice saved thousands of lives and broke the back of Vandal power. The savages retreated to their homelands. English foot troops pursued, but could not keep pace.
Spoiler :
New forms of government had emerged in the west—in the MidNorth nascent republicanism, in the Englands a monarchy bound by laws and customs, and in the Sacred Center a monarchy constrained by the dictates of religious morality. Philosophers and poets of the coming century proclaimed an era of peace among the nations.
That was being a little optimistic.
.
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
Interesting posts. Usually I go for all of the wonders you mentioned and then the Temple of Zeus if I can, and the Great Lighthouse if I'm playing a game on 80% water or islands. Also, I think those barbarians are the ones in trouble if that volcano erupts.
wolf_brother
King
So now what's going on in Euria and Pacifika?
So now what's going on in Euria and Pacifika?
They're next. Until the two hemispheres come into regular contact with each other, I'll group the chapters by continent.
The fate of Japan seems obvious now--utter conquest by the Americans. But in the coming chapters, yet another civilization is going to be pushed out of the picture. Who will it be?
Mu. Ha. Ha.
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
My guess is the Byzantines. They've got an amazing UU but if the Celts get iron, uh oh.
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