Bolgimorg
For centuries, the Belgae have been the most warlike of the Celtic peoples. Rarely, however, were they united – that genius for battle was turned on other Belgae more often than not. The rise of the centralized Batroi state in Gaul gave the Belgae milnaht warriors other opportunities to ply their trade, though – and when they came back home, they were steeped in the historical knowledge and the culture of the south. The increasingly intimate economic and cultural connections between Bolgimorg and Gaul meant that when central authority in Batromorgan began to falter in the late third century, the Belgae were there to take advantage. United under the overall leadership of a tribe referred to as the Ambianoi, Bolgimorg soon established broad power over a wide stretch of northern Gaul, a ferocious military power that stands a reasonable chance of bringing the weakened southerners to their knees.
Batromorgan
Nearly three centuries ago, the Batroi rode a wave of urbanization and monetization to military victory over the previous Gallic powers, the Aeduoi and Auernoi. Within a few short decades, they had established hegemony over all Gaul, northern Italy, and northern Iberia, a truly remarkable achievement; through their partner, later puppet, of Massilia, they extended tentacles of control throughout the Greek colonies of the western Mesogeios. But the shadowy civil wars of the third century crisis shattered the power that the Batroi had once had and reordered Gallic society – eradicating druidism and apparently reversing the long-term trend of urbanization that had predominated in Gaul. Central authority was smashed into pieces, with sub-kings rising among the Aquitae, Sequa, and Salya. To make matters worse, Sophism has been gaining adherents in the Rhodanus valley and among the various Greeks of the coast. Various efforts to reconcentrate power into the hands of the monarchy, the most recent being that of the rix Diviciacos in the 330s and in the early 340s. And now further threats impend – from the north, as the Ambianoi flex their muscles, and from the east, as the migratory Hatta have moved into Vindelicia. But an able rix might be able to use these external threats to force internal cohesion – or the lack of internal cohesion might simply make the Batroi even more vulnerable.
Armoricae
Armorica has always been somewhat divorced from the rest of Gaul, geographically; after the warfare and migratory activity that accompanied the demise of the Aeduoi and Auernoi, Armorica became culturally and politically isolated as well. The tribes here historically enjoy considerable autonomy from Avaricum.
Aquitae
Linguistically isolated, but culturally united, Aquitania is a bit of an anomaly in Gaul. For a long time, the Batroi have given the Aquitae considerable autonomy in running the foreign-policy show in the southwest, largely to prevent central authorities from having to deal with Iberia; this framework has suffered in recent years with the rise in power of the Namarini. The Aquitae are increasingly formidable in military and political terms – but their allegiance is similarly increasingly uncertain.
Sequallra
For decades, the Sequa were a useful buffer for the Batroi, a militarily competent power that could hermetically seal Gaul off from Italian or trans-Rhenan affairs and not provide any problems of its own. Both of those things are increasingly untrue; it was the Sequa that collapsed in the face of the Hatta, and although they have closely supported Avaricum in the civil wars, more aid tends to flow to them than from them.
Salyamrog
A long-time power in Liguria and southern Gaul, the Salya were the centerpiece of Batroi policy in northern Italy after the Markomannic rebellion left the Po valley a power vacuum. Since then, they have established a strong monarchic state with high levels of urbanization and land ownership along Greek lines. This development has helped give rise to an independent streak among their kings; during the recent civil wars, the Salya gave only token aid to Avaricum – and significantly more, under the table, to the Caturoi.
Hattalandam
Centuries ago, the Hatta were a tribe of central Germany, living in the squalor common to those parts, with an above-average reputation of military prowess gained from effective raiding against the Aeduoi. The modern incarnation seems to use the ancient name as a talisman; it almost certainly was not extant more than a century ago, and was not prominent even then. Only beginning in the 330s did the Hatta come to the attention of most chroniclers; apparently the Sequa brought many of them across the Rhine to fight in the interminable Gallic civil wars. When negotiations over Hatta service in the war against Sedullos of the Caturoi broke down in 342-3, the Hatta allied with their brethren across the river and assaulted the Sequa and Batroi. It was only with great difficulty that they were contained in Sequallra. While the Batroi look to either use the Hatta as a stick with which to beat their restive vassals or an enemy to force the vassals to rally round the flag, the Hatta could play both ends against the middle and emerge on top.
Namarinia
It is not totally clear what spurred the massive growth in the exploitation of northern Iberian mining – and therefore wealth – in the third century, or whether the development of a large organized polity there was an effect of the mining expansions, a cause, or part of some sort of positive feedback loop. The expansion of Qarthadastei control northward in the peninsula – as well as the spread of a moneyed economy – surely had something to do with those political developments as well. By the 240s, the Namarini had seized or negotiated preeminence among the Gallaecian tribes and were soon military protagonists north of the Tagos. They wrested the old oppidum of Numantia from Qarthadastei control in 253 and sacked the great city of Gader five years later. While further fighting with the southerners over the next century was little but inconclusive, the vastly expanded Namarini polity’s internal development was nothing short of momentous: the development of a centralized monarchy to replace the high kingship, the resettlement of many Gallaecians and Celtiberians in the Tagos valley to form a cordon sanitaire against the Qarthadastim, and the expansion of slave-based mining throughout northern Iberia. The revamped Namarini monarchy is, for the most part, secure, although as ever the Qarthadastim have been preparing to resume their formerly dominant position in central Iberia and there are always frictions in the Pyrenees.
Celtiberian Marches
In order to resettle central Iberia – especially the Tagos valley – and restore the region to economic productivity (in addition to establishing a buffer region against the Qarthadastim), the Namarini forcibly moved many Gallaecian and Celtiberian tribes, giving legal protection to their territory and adding in considerable initial investments. Lately the region has been something of a battleground for Namarini and Qarthadastei influence as the southerners attempt to exploit their soft power – and gain access to the mineral resources further north.
Qarthadast
Centuries ago, the Qarthadastim ruled a vast trading empire that covered the western Mesogeios, governed from the jewel of Africa, the city of cities, the great port the Greeks called Karchedon. That empire tangled with Greeks and Romans, through many twists and turns over the centuries. But Perseus III’s conquest of Africa in 147 ended that old Qarthadast for good. Its refugees collected in what had once been the colonial territories, Qarthadastei Iberia. Under the leadership of the general Bodmelqart, who formed a military dictatorship as sofet; his lieutenant Annibas, who seized control when he died, turned Qarthadast – based on the namesake of the ‘old’ New City, where he placed his capital – into a proper hereditary monarchy, albeit forced to share power with a civic council dominated by representatives from the other Phoenician colonies of Iberia. Ever since then, the council and the kings and their power struggles have defined Qarthadastei politics. Hamstrung by these difficulties, the Qarthadastim have been something of a punching bag for the powerful Namarini of the north and the Niketids of Africa for the past several decades. Perhaps if the political squabbles could be ended – by negotiation or violence – Qarthadast could reclaim its economic dominance in the western seas, or finally achieve hegemony in Iberia.
Italia
Ever since the demise of the empire of the city-state of Rome, no power had successfully managed to unite Italy from within. Greeks and Africans played the inhabitants of the peninsula against each other, usually with great success; eventually, driven by a security crisis among the Rasna leagues of the north, the Perseids annexed the lot and ruled Italy for a century and a half. When the Perseid Empire began to buckle, confronted with grave threats from the inside and out, it was not the disparate Italians who made a grab for independence – but a Markomanna general in Perseid service, who launched a sordid power play in the aftermath of a failed Perseid purge. The army, although ethnically diverse, eventually united around a common corporate military identity – but civil society remained as culturally and politically fragmented as ever, and the new Markomanna overlords did little to change that. In spite of that, the Markomanna have amassed a sizable and powerful army, prying the Perseids out of Kampania over the course of the 340s under the energetic and enigmatic Rhaos. Yet for such external success to continue to be viable, the Italian rulers will need to continue to play their careful internal political balancing act – an act that has only gotten more difficult with the annexation of new land.
Niketid Empire
In the last act of the cataclysmic Sophist Wars, the previously loyal satrapy of Africa revolted under the leadership of the charismatic army officer Niketas Heraios. After spending the 270s resisting a series of desultory and halfhearted efforts by the central Perseid authorities at reconquest, Niketas secured formal independence and his state soon assumed the role of premier power in the western Mesogeios. After an off and on series of naval wars with the Qarthadastim of southern Iberia and the collapse of Perseid power in Italy, the Niketids are, at least temporarily, more militarily dominant than ever. But military power on the seas has not been backed up by tranquility at home. Over the last thirty years, there has been serious violence and turnover at the top: between 320 and 350, five coups and a civil war have rocked the Niketid court. There are deep cleavages in society as well: between Sophists and everybody else, between the Punic populace and the Greeks, between civil and military authorities, between the Fleet and the Army, and between Palaiopolis, the other port-cities, and the great expanse of the chora. The Niketids need stability if they are to maintain their power in the face of rising challenges from the Markomanna, the Qarthadastim, and the resurgent Perseids.
Perseid Empire
Even after the Perseid house split from the Seleukids in the vicious civil wars at the turn of the millennium, the Perseid state ran things little differently than the Seleukids had for centuries. Even as Perseid troops brought their archetypal owl banners into deepest Kush, to the Alpine peaks, through the myriad Caucasian mountain passes, and over the impregnable walls of the great port city of Karchedon, the differences between them and their eastern brethren were mostly cosmetic. That changed forever when Lysias, the Bringer of Wisdom, introduced the Sophist religion as a state-sponsored sect. The attendant military, governmental, and fiscal reforms he initiated sparked the bloodiest conflict in world history to date, and reduced the Perseid Empire to a shadow of its former self. But although it was territorially challenged, the new Perseid state was a hard core of Sophists. It ruled the heartland of Greek culture and thought. Perhaps most importantly, it still controlled the bulk of Mesogeian trade routes and possessed a battle-hardened army, and the administrative infrastructure of the old Perseid Empire to run it all. Yet the watchword of Perseid rulers thus far has been measured expansion, mostly by consent or concession. But as Sophism – increasingly seeming to be a separate entity from the Perseid state – spreads far beyond Perseid borders, new questions have arisen. One way or another, figuring out the answers will involve a lot of bloodshed.
Euxine Poleis
During the Sophist wars, many Greek cities on the coast of the Black Sea that had once belonged to the Perseid Empire seceded. Through carrot and stick maneuvers over the course of several decades, Athens has managed to woo most of them back into the fold with Sophist proselytizing and bilateral alliances. Still, their decentralization makes their resources hard to mobilize, and they must be defended against the Aursa, Bastarna, and Saka on the steppe.
Kingdom of Phrygia
Home of a cadet branch of the Perseid royal house, Phrygia has managed Anatolian policy – and, by proxy, Perseid relations with the entire East – for the last several decades. It is a staunch bastion of Sophism and of loyalty to Athens, and so far has managed to do more than hold its own against the Seleukids, the Hai, and their puppets.
Amyntid Empire
When the satrap of Egypt, Amyntas, rebelled against the Perseid Empire in 226, he sparked a fifty-year series of wars that engulfed the Mediterranean, resulting in the deaths of millions and a radically redrawn geopolitical map. His successors successfully guarded their independence and established Amyntid Egypt as a stable bastion of the old gods in the face of the rising tide of Sophism. In the first few decades of the fourth century, the Amyntids challenged Seleukid power in the Levant successfully, and built a network of client states ringing its borders in Nubia and Arabia. Yet while the Amyntid state possesses security, it is increasingly being forced to deal with internal flaws – both with its allies among the Qassam and Makourians, and native to the Egyptian kingdom itself. The lack of a religious consensus has been contributing to riots, especially in Alexandreia, Helioupolis, and Paraitonion (all centers of Sophism). Egypt’s economy is stagnating, and its share of the Arabian trade is declining by comparison to the Seleukids’. While the navy is top-notch, the army is generally viewed as weak and incapable of engaging the Seleukids’ or the Perseids’ in a stand-up fight. And linguistic fragmentation has only made the exercise of rule throughout Coptic Egypt harder. One way or another, Amyntid Egypt will have to bestir itself from relative slumber in order to confront the problems facing it, much less to surmount them.
Banu Qassam
Formerly a tribe of Jewish Arabs in Nabataia, the Qassam moved onto the Levantine stage when they allied with Amyntid Egypt to defeat the Seleukids in Syria-Koile in the 310s. Most of the Levant was occupied with nary a fight, and the tardy Seleukid counterattack defeated easily. The Qassam soon settled into a federate role with the Amyntids, but the control of the Ioudaian holy places – and tens of thousands of co-religionists – continues to be a sticking point between Alexandreia and Gerasa.
Makouria
The series of wars that broke out between the ancient Nubian kingdoms in the 290s eventually drew Egyptian attentions, and in the 320s Amyntas III campaigned south of the First Cataract, smashed the competing Nubians, and established a federate monarchy at Dongola to serve as a vehicle for Egyptian policy and prevent further disorders from breaking out. Thus far, the experiment has been largely successful.
Hayasdan
The Hai are a hard people to destroy. Centuries ago, the Yervanduni built a great kingdom in the Caucasus, but the Seleukids destroyed it during their era of great power. In the 50s and 60s, though, Arsham Khorkhoruni successfully rebelled against the Greeks and became satrap of “Armenia”; within thirty years, his son Samus had secured full independence. The story of the succeeding centuries has been one of slow Seleukid decline and slow Haikaikan growth. For the past several decades, the Hai arkahs have ruled the Caucasus, and even dominate many of the Greek cities of Pontos Paralios, Yeger, Adurbagadan, and even northern Mesopotamia. But control of such a vast territory has come at a price: many of the outlying territories are practically independent. The nakharars that rule the southern territories are more tied into Seleukid politics than to those in Armavir. The Greek cities are increasingly influenced by the Perseids, and Sophism has begun to spread from them into the Caucasus foothills. Yet rocking the boat to try to fix these problems – insofar as they even are problems – might make things even worse.
Paralian Poleis
For the last hundred years, the Hai have exercised suzerainty over Pontos Paralios, having seized control of most of it during the Sophist wars and a time of Perseid weakness. The Greek ports there enjoy considerable autonomy and exercise a great deal of economic power as the chief conduits for trade into and out of the Caucasian valleys.
Yeger
The loyal kingdoms of the western Caucasus have been in a state of varying subjection to the Khorkhoruni for centuries. Due to the intrinsic difficulty of maintaining effective control over more than a small portion of the Caucasus valleys – and to the threat of raids from the north through the passes from the steppe – they have retained their autonomy and culture reasonably intact.
Nakharars
In the detached, hands-off fashion typical to Caucasian states, the Haikaikan nakharars – great noble houses – have driven much of the Hai expansion to the south over the last century. Adurbagadan and northern Mesopotamia have fallen under the control of one clan or another, acting more or less in tandem against outsiders. They have recently even managed to face down the Seleukid emperors themselves.
Seleukid Empire
If there is such a thing as a constant in the geopolitics of the Eastern Hemisphere, the Seleukid Empire is it. There has always been – and, its citizens loudly proclaim, will always be – a Seleukid state. The Era of Seleukos I is the calendar used by the entire oikoumene. Its governing institutions form the basis for those of almost every country from the Western Mesogeios to the Gangetic Plain. Its cultural influence is virtually unmatched. In virtually every way, the Seleukid Empire defined the classical age. But those days are long gone. First came the great civil wars, and the loss of the western territories to what became the Perseid Empire, three hundred years ago. Then the long, depressing decline in power, prestige, and cohesion, as the Empire lost ground in all directions and began to lose control of its extremities. The Seleukids failed to make much capital from the Perseids’ difficulties in the Sophist Wars, although they regained a semblance of power and stability, but the ascension of Alexandros IV in 312 sparked a grand coalition that ravaged the Empire, stole many of its outlying territories, and weakened it internally once again. Ever since those disastrous wars, the Seleukids have been slipping into a vicious cycle of coups, civil wars, empty treasuries, and mutinies. Yet they remain one of the great powers of the oikoumene, possess a new ruler (and a – mostly – clean slate), and perhaps most importantly, possess immense amounts of inertia. The Seleukid Empire may be badly weakened, but it can never be counted out.
Anatolian Satrapies
After the Seleukids’ defeat at the hands of the western coalition thirty years ago, Alexandros IV was forced to cede considerable autonomy to the satraps of Anatolia, yielding them hereditary succession, decreasing their taxation commitments, and combining their offices with those of the local military commanders, the strategoi. They generally opposed Seleukos X during the civil wars over the last few decades, but are generally closer to Seleukeia than the Upper Satraps due to the proximity of Phrygia, Hayasdan, and the Amyntids.
Upper Satrapies
The Upper Satraps have always been more independent than the other Seleukid governors, dating back to before Antiochos the Great. This traditional autonomy was only increased after the collapse of the Levantine defenses three decades ago – increased first by negotiation, as Alexandros IV ceded authority in exchange for immediate support, and then by warfare, as Seleukos X tried and failed to reassert imperial authority and was forced to deal with the consequences.
Gerrhaia
The trading ports of Gerrhaia have been loosely aligned with the Seleukids, in one way or another, for centuries. Several Arabohellenic poleis have sprung up, chief of which has been Seleukeia (formerly Gerrha, from which the region derives its name). A reasonably symbiotic relationship with the trans-Arabian traders has sprung up, and over the last few decades in particular there has been something of a boom in trade with India and southern Arabia.
Uar
The Uar are only recent arrivals on the Central Asiatic stage, but their recent arrival provoked the largest geopolitical reshuffle since the destruction of the Eupatrid empire north of the Hindu Kush. As part of the general series of political realignments on the steppe in the 310s, the Uar found themselves in conflict with the Alanliao, hegemons of Central Asia; unfortunately for the Alanliao, the Uar were more numerous at the right spot and didn’t have to worry about defending a vast empire. A series of key victories in the 320s and 330s threw the Alanliao out of Chorasmia and back into Yancai, culminating in the battle of the Atrek River in 337, which smashed Alan power and made Hyrkania a tributary of the Uar. Since then, the Uar have had the time to get used to the routine of pastoralism in Chorasmia – and the Alanliao have only had more troubles in their empire with the Tiele and the rising force of Areia. Opportunity knocks – perhaps it is time for a changing of the guard on the Asiatic steppe.
Kingdom of Hyrkania
Having seceded from the Seleukid Empire two hundred years ago during the Four Revolutions, Hyrkania retained a more or less isolated existence within the natural boundary of the surrounding mountains. But as a small island of Zoroastrianism in an increasingly hostile sea of Buddhists and Seleukid ruler-cult worshipers, Hyrkania has rarely possessed the ability to go its own way, and its current state, subservient to the Uar, is a legacy of that.
Yancai
Seventy years ago, the Alanliao emerged from the steppe and brought fire and sword to the land of a thousand cities. They crushed the ancient Eupatrid empire, whose remnants scattered into the Drangianan wastes or scurried into India, barring the Hindu Kush passes behind them. For decades, the Alanliao ruled as hegemons in Yancai – dominant over a series of weak petty rulers in Baktria and the Tarim Basin. They built one of the greatest steppe empires in history – but of late, that empire has come under attack, its rulers incapable of holding the overextended mass together properly. First came the Uar out of the northwest – then the Buddhist Greeks of the south improbably made a comeback – and now the Tiele of the east have been causing trouble among the oasis towns. Vigorous leadership will be necessary for the Alanliao to retain their position of dominance on the steppe, much less expand.
Baktrian Principalities
When the Alanliao rolled through central Asia, they only seized the far northern parts of Eupatrid territory for the purposes of direct rule. Baktria was and is the land of a thousand cities, and Borgoros and his successors chose to divide it into a collection of princelings, each to be kept at the others’ throats. While an effective strategy for managing the political-military ambitions of the Baktrians themselves, it has been remarkably ineffective at mobilizing their military and economic power to support the Alan state, and proved as such against the Areians and Uar.
Tarim Basin Oasis-Towns
In the 290s, Kuqa, Turfan, Khotan, and Kashgar were all independent city-states of varying cultures that, between themselves, governed the Tarim Basin. But then came the Alanliao, who seized control of the Tarim trade routes and exerted their suzerainty over the region. The Alanliao have remained the biggest fish in the pond, although there have been increasing threats from Tiele and Xianbei tribes to the east.