das
Regeneration In Process
The world has undergone many violent, radical (and not too radical, but still violent) changes towards 350 BC.
For much of the time, Western Mediterranean was a scene of several wars between two empires - Tartessos and Syracuse. Both sides possessed great resources and controlled a large percentage of the Mediterranean trade, both possessed long naval traditions and, in spite of the initial Syracusan advantage, after the Sardinian War (476-469 BC) Tartessos effectively reformed, and thus the two sides were locked in a roughly-equal struggle. Both sides thus begun seeking allies - Syracuse found them in the form of Greek rebels in southern Gaul and the Celtiberian tribes (especially a threat in the times of warlord Rennus (r. 399-377 BC), whose empire collapsed with his death), whilst Tartessos won the Samnite Empire over to its side. Also, both sides employed Berbers as mercenaries against each other's North African holdings; Syracusans also found lots of Greek volunteers and mercenaries, whilst Tartessos compensated that with an efficient standing army organized by King Ciriathos the Great (r. 404-366 BC). By the time of Ciriathos' reign (which coincided with that of a worthy opponent in Syracuse - Leonidos II), both sides were thoroughly exhausted. All peace negotiations held in the past gave only a temporary cease-fire, during which both sides regrouped. Tartessos has, in the previous Massiliote War, lost some Numidian holdings and the city of Massila to Syracuse (technically, Massila was a Syracusan vassal); it also had to pay an indemnity and had a limited fleet. Ciriathos, as soon as he came to power (two days into his rule defeating a coup d'etat attempt by his brother), started large-scale military reforms. Previously, the regular Tartessian army was loosely based on the very same Greek Phalanx tactics that proved so efficient in the last two wars. A true visionary, Ciriathos returned to the earlier sword-based armies, taking them a level further and augmenting them with more efficient skirmishers (effectively, the Tartessian army was turned into something not unlike the early OTL Roman army, especially adopting the Samnite chessboard formation). At sea, Ciriathos made a more marine-based navy (again suspiciously like the OTL Roman one, with a corvus and all that...). He then begun secretly building up his fleet on the western coast of Mauritania. In 395 BC, the Tartessian fleet suddenly struck forward for Sardinia (which by then was very developed, especially the city of Carales (OTL Caralis) that was a Syracusan naval base) and sneak-attacked the Syracusan fleet there, capturing a fair part of it and burning down the rest; the docks there were burned down as well, and Carales was burned to the ground. Leonidos II didn't miss the opportunity to say that it was a day that will forever live in infamy during the war council. He did have another fleet ready at Syracuse, but was taken by surprise and didn't recover initiative until 393 BC; by then Massila was already taken by the Tartessians. In 393 BC, however, the Syracusans fought the Tartessians to a draw at Marsala (OTL Lilybaeum), whilst Rennus led his Celtiberians on a rampage in the Tartessian territory. Albeit the Celtiberians were defeated badly in 391 BC at Baecula, Rennus survived and resorted to a hit-and-run strategy; his great skill allowed him to remain an ulcer for Ciriathos beyond the end of the war.
Meanwhile, after several more maneuvers, came the Battle of Three Kings (not necessarily accurate title-wise, but who cares, its a nice name) near Corsica in 388 BC. The Syracusan fleet was reinforced by mercenaries and led personally by Leonidos II; as one might expect frm the, Ciriathos commanded his fleet personally as well. Syracusans had numerical supremacy, but Tartessians had better ships and generally a superior doctrine; but what decided the battle was the timely arrival of the Samnite supreme king, Pontius, with his own fleet; the Syracusans were now outnumbered and surrounded, and subsequently crushed. Leonidos II died in battle.
After that, Syracuse was quite, quite doomed. Berbers were won over to the Tartessian side, smelling victory and thus booty. Syracusan colonies became easy prey, and the Samnites finally took the great fortress of Croton; after that, the conquest of the remaining South Italy was a simple affair for the formidable Italic army. Archia (OTL Carthage) resisted defiantly when the Tartessians landed there having conquered Corsica and Sardinia, but it, too, fell - and most other Teresian poleis, realizing that resistance was futile, negotiated a separate treaty with Tartessia, becoming Tartessian vassals on fairly good terms; Tartessos also agreed to "persuade" the Berbers to cease their raids. Leonidos III desperately tried to gather support for himself in Hellas, but the Greeks there had better things to do, and for the most part had little love for "tyrannical" Syracusans.
Thus in 385 BC, after thorough preparation and raiding, two Tartessian and one Samnite armies, each of some 60,000 men, stormed Fortress Sicily. Leonidos III commited suicide when his son died in battle at the Epipolae. Syracusans were crushed utterly, city after city fell, and Syracuse itself was burned to the ground, human habitation there forbidden. Last resistance, provided by Greeks and local tribesmen in the island's mountainous interior, was crushed by 380 BC. Similarily, the Tartessians systimatically hunted down the Celtiberians, killing Rennus in a brief but furious skirmish. The tribal confederation of southern Celtiberians fell apart, and Tartessian northern border was thus secured. Ciriathos has triumphed.
The Samnites gained Corsica, southern Italy and eastern Sicily; Sardinia, Massila and Western Teresia/Eastern Numidia were directly joined with Tartessos; the polei of the rest of Teresia and Western Sicily were put under obedient (most of the times) vassal rulers for Tartessos.
For the rest of the time until 350 BC, both the Tartessians and the Samnites consolidated their gains and also, for similar reasons (fighting the Celts/Celtiberians before they can become a major threat again), expanded northwards. However, by 350 BC the two allies became increasingly hostile to each other...
The Samnites also continued consolidating their reign in Italy forcefully, defeating occasional rebellions. Samnite king Fenetrius (r. 424-387 BC) ensured the equality of all Italic peoples under his rule (well, naturally, some Italics were more equal then the others...) and also finally subdued the ever-rebellious Messapians for good. The Messapians were, in their last rebellion, aided by Epirus; this prompted Fenetrius to attack the Greek kingdom, using its instability, and to conquer it. Thus, by 350 BC the Samnites were beginning to build an empire outside of Italy as well.
The Greek democracies during this time were extremelly paranoid of each other's intentions; this allowed the Trojan king, Corinolus I (r. 405-364 BC), to pit the Greeks against each other. Whilst philosophy and political sciences, and a variety of arts flourished, Greece was also undergoing lots of petty strife, and this, in 398 BC, made a Trojan invasion possible. Greek democracies tried to, after the fall of Athens in 395 BC, pull themselves together, but their coordination was very poor indeed, and by 375 BC only the Peloponessian states, where Erseus of Gythion, a rather minor commander turned tyrant of Messenia (and, by extension, all of the Peloponessian Peninsula, where the more autocratic heritage met necessity for centralized command) fought a desperate struggle. Eventually, the Peloponessian, too, was overran, and so was Crete. Troy was triumphant in Greece, but its conquered peoples were hardly happy with the arrangement - indeed, most Trojan armies had to be permanently placed in Greece to prevent any rebellions from taking place. This made Troy vulnerable to Thracian raids in the Balkans (thus Trojans retreated to the very coastline in northern Balkans), whilst Tauria was lost to the Scythians. Troy was tumbling towards collapse, and the defeat at the Kyzian hands in 362 BC resulted in massive rebellions. Those were put down at first, with much bloodshed, but rebels simply kept retreating and then rising up again. By 350 BC, Troy was doomed.
Egypt regained its independance under a native 25th Dynasty (using the extreme Median instability during this time generally and in 460s BC specifically), which nonetheless didn't recognize the exiled 22nd Dynasty which still ruled in Adulis. Indeed, whilst Egypt Proper was a weak, unstable realm, Adulisian Empire was very well-off indeed, establishing trade posts on both sides of the Red Sea, monopolizing incense and myrrh trade and also expanding in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa area. Adulisian ships sailed to India (creating the so-called "Spice Route" in the Arabian Sea) and to the island of Mekhnes (OTL Zanzibar), an Adulisian trade post. Most sources also agree that an Adulisian fleet in circa. 380-370 BC circumnavigated Africa, though this wasn't put to much immediate use apart from greater colonization of East Africa.
Eherliyas I (r. 507-463) of Kyzus has reformed his army along Trojan-Syracusan lines, but with more emphasis on cavalry. He ruthlessly reformed administration, completely removed the pancus, crushed rebellions, centralized the empire and in 474 BC, using a succession crisis in Medes, struck out, using the lack of cooperation between the various Median governors and vassal rulers that came to the verge of civil war at that time. Kyzians conquered Phoenicea, Cyprus, Median Kaska, Syria and Canaan, annihilating army after army. In 467 BC, the new Median ruler, Phanaortes, agreed grudgingly to acknowledge the Kyzian conquests and to pay an indemnity. Albeit Eherliyas died in 463 BC and his empire was inherited by his incompetent and extravagant son, Haliyas, who lost Canaan, in 426 BC Eherliyas II rose to power. Fighting back a Median counterattack and routing the Egyptian-Canaanite armies at Yafha (OTL Joppa/Jaffa), Eherliyas II consolidated the empire further, conquered Egypt (452 BC) and crushed the Trojan invaders at Goksu, forcing them to withdraw in southern Anatolia as far west as Hettali (OTL Antalya).
The heirs of Eherliyas II were fairly average, consolidating the empire, fighting off the attack of Median feudals (see below) and making temporary gains in Mesopatamia that are abandoned soon after. An exception was Labarnas V (r. 374-359 BC) - though to be fair rather incompetent in administrative and economical affairs, Labarnas was a first-class warmongerer, conquering Median Urartu and Hanigalbat, Libyan Cyreneica and roughly a half of Trojan Anatolia, limiting the overextended and weakened empire to the lands west of River Sangarius (modern Sakarya) and Lydia. The Hittite Empire was reborn.
Medes was already a feudal empire, at least in the eastern border regions, by 500 BC - and as economical collapse combined with increasing instability produced bands of rebels-brigands and more genuine rebels (and more genuine brigands), a lapse into feudalism was the natural result of the events of 474 BC. As time went by, things got worse; the emperors were not just unable, but by 350 BC unwilling to take power back into their own hands, instead priests, generals and eunuchs struggled for power, but themselves were upset by the feudal rulers who granted "protection" to the people from the various barbarians and brigands. Median Empire was losing territory quickly on all fronts, and indeed as of 350 BC it was only nominally united. Rather, the more powerful vassal kings dealed with the feudals succesfully, and thus Babylonia, Elam, Anshan, Parthia, Drangiana, Sogdiana, Bactria and Gedrosia were the de facto successor states for Medes. In Medes Proper, as said before, court interfighting went on. The Parni nomads have already captured much of the western Central Asia, and threatened Medes itself.
Mazun (OTL Oman) didn't even retain such formalities - the local governor split away in 463 BC and seized the crucial Musandam Peninsula, hoping to create something of a competition for the Adulisians. Those hopes weren't fulfilled - by 400 BC, Mazun disintegrated as well, and Median refugees fleeing from feudal opression took up to piracy in the Persian Gulf. All this only further served the consolidation of the Adulisian Spice Route, as the Persian Gulf was simply too risky.
In India, the weakening of Medes and the zealous, energetic theocracy (best represented by the priest-king Uvijja, r. 421-385 BC) allowed Avanti to rise to predominance, uniting the western Indian theocracies and expelling the Medians from India and Indus Valley altogether. Avanti after that was distracted from further western expansion by mostly-inconclusive warfare with another rising power - Magadha. Kalinga was very important trade-wise, and its people were very patriotic - so even if the Magadhans had found any time to seriously attack Kalinga, they would have had many problems there.
In the Deccan and Sinhala, the Spice Route brought much benefit, and the kingdoms of the Rathikas, the Malabaras and Sinhala; Cholas and Pandyas were of lesser importance, but eastern trade allowed them to compete efficiently as well.
For much of the time, Western Mediterranean was a scene of several wars between two empires - Tartessos and Syracuse. Both sides possessed great resources and controlled a large percentage of the Mediterranean trade, both possessed long naval traditions and, in spite of the initial Syracusan advantage, after the Sardinian War (476-469 BC) Tartessos effectively reformed, and thus the two sides were locked in a roughly-equal struggle. Both sides thus begun seeking allies - Syracuse found them in the form of Greek rebels in southern Gaul and the Celtiberian tribes (especially a threat in the times of warlord Rennus (r. 399-377 BC), whose empire collapsed with his death), whilst Tartessos won the Samnite Empire over to its side. Also, both sides employed Berbers as mercenaries against each other's North African holdings; Syracusans also found lots of Greek volunteers and mercenaries, whilst Tartessos compensated that with an efficient standing army organized by King Ciriathos the Great (r. 404-366 BC). By the time of Ciriathos' reign (which coincided with that of a worthy opponent in Syracuse - Leonidos II), both sides were thoroughly exhausted. All peace negotiations held in the past gave only a temporary cease-fire, during which both sides regrouped. Tartessos has, in the previous Massiliote War, lost some Numidian holdings and the city of Massila to Syracuse (technically, Massila was a Syracusan vassal); it also had to pay an indemnity and had a limited fleet. Ciriathos, as soon as he came to power (two days into his rule defeating a coup d'etat attempt by his brother), started large-scale military reforms. Previously, the regular Tartessian army was loosely based on the very same Greek Phalanx tactics that proved so efficient in the last two wars. A true visionary, Ciriathos returned to the earlier sword-based armies, taking them a level further and augmenting them with more efficient skirmishers (effectively, the Tartessian army was turned into something not unlike the early OTL Roman army, especially adopting the Samnite chessboard formation). At sea, Ciriathos made a more marine-based navy (again suspiciously like the OTL Roman one, with a corvus and all that...). He then begun secretly building up his fleet on the western coast of Mauritania. In 395 BC, the Tartessian fleet suddenly struck forward for Sardinia (which by then was very developed, especially the city of Carales (OTL Caralis) that was a Syracusan naval base) and sneak-attacked the Syracusan fleet there, capturing a fair part of it and burning down the rest; the docks there were burned down as well, and Carales was burned to the ground. Leonidos II didn't miss the opportunity to say that it was a day that will forever live in infamy during the war council. He did have another fleet ready at Syracuse, but was taken by surprise and didn't recover initiative until 393 BC; by then Massila was already taken by the Tartessians. In 393 BC, however, the Syracusans fought the Tartessians to a draw at Marsala (OTL Lilybaeum), whilst Rennus led his Celtiberians on a rampage in the Tartessian territory. Albeit the Celtiberians were defeated badly in 391 BC at Baecula, Rennus survived and resorted to a hit-and-run strategy; his great skill allowed him to remain an ulcer for Ciriathos beyond the end of the war.
Meanwhile, after several more maneuvers, came the Battle of Three Kings (not necessarily accurate title-wise, but who cares, its a nice name) near Corsica in 388 BC. The Syracusan fleet was reinforced by mercenaries and led personally by Leonidos II; as one might expect frm the, Ciriathos commanded his fleet personally as well. Syracusans had numerical supremacy, but Tartessians had better ships and generally a superior doctrine; but what decided the battle was the timely arrival of the Samnite supreme king, Pontius, with his own fleet; the Syracusans were now outnumbered and surrounded, and subsequently crushed. Leonidos II died in battle.
After that, Syracuse was quite, quite doomed. Berbers were won over to the Tartessian side, smelling victory and thus booty. Syracusan colonies became easy prey, and the Samnites finally took the great fortress of Croton; after that, the conquest of the remaining South Italy was a simple affair for the formidable Italic army. Archia (OTL Carthage) resisted defiantly when the Tartessians landed there having conquered Corsica and Sardinia, but it, too, fell - and most other Teresian poleis, realizing that resistance was futile, negotiated a separate treaty with Tartessia, becoming Tartessian vassals on fairly good terms; Tartessos also agreed to "persuade" the Berbers to cease their raids. Leonidos III desperately tried to gather support for himself in Hellas, but the Greeks there had better things to do, and for the most part had little love for "tyrannical" Syracusans.
Thus in 385 BC, after thorough preparation and raiding, two Tartessian and one Samnite armies, each of some 60,000 men, stormed Fortress Sicily. Leonidos III commited suicide when his son died in battle at the Epipolae. Syracusans were crushed utterly, city after city fell, and Syracuse itself was burned to the ground, human habitation there forbidden. Last resistance, provided by Greeks and local tribesmen in the island's mountainous interior, was crushed by 380 BC. Similarily, the Tartessians systimatically hunted down the Celtiberians, killing Rennus in a brief but furious skirmish. The tribal confederation of southern Celtiberians fell apart, and Tartessian northern border was thus secured. Ciriathos has triumphed.
The Samnites gained Corsica, southern Italy and eastern Sicily; Sardinia, Massila and Western Teresia/Eastern Numidia were directly joined with Tartessos; the polei of the rest of Teresia and Western Sicily were put under obedient (most of the times) vassal rulers for Tartessos.
For the rest of the time until 350 BC, both the Tartessians and the Samnites consolidated their gains and also, for similar reasons (fighting the Celts/Celtiberians before they can become a major threat again), expanded northwards. However, by 350 BC the two allies became increasingly hostile to each other...
The Samnites also continued consolidating their reign in Italy forcefully, defeating occasional rebellions. Samnite king Fenetrius (r. 424-387 BC) ensured the equality of all Italic peoples under his rule (well, naturally, some Italics were more equal then the others...) and also finally subdued the ever-rebellious Messapians for good. The Messapians were, in their last rebellion, aided by Epirus; this prompted Fenetrius to attack the Greek kingdom, using its instability, and to conquer it. Thus, by 350 BC the Samnites were beginning to build an empire outside of Italy as well.
The Greek democracies during this time were extremelly paranoid of each other's intentions; this allowed the Trojan king, Corinolus I (r. 405-364 BC), to pit the Greeks against each other. Whilst philosophy and political sciences, and a variety of arts flourished, Greece was also undergoing lots of petty strife, and this, in 398 BC, made a Trojan invasion possible. Greek democracies tried to, after the fall of Athens in 395 BC, pull themselves together, but their coordination was very poor indeed, and by 375 BC only the Peloponessian states, where Erseus of Gythion, a rather minor commander turned tyrant of Messenia (and, by extension, all of the Peloponessian Peninsula, where the more autocratic heritage met necessity for centralized command) fought a desperate struggle. Eventually, the Peloponessian, too, was overran, and so was Crete. Troy was triumphant in Greece, but its conquered peoples were hardly happy with the arrangement - indeed, most Trojan armies had to be permanently placed in Greece to prevent any rebellions from taking place. This made Troy vulnerable to Thracian raids in the Balkans (thus Trojans retreated to the very coastline in northern Balkans), whilst Tauria was lost to the Scythians. Troy was tumbling towards collapse, and the defeat at the Kyzian hands in 362 BC resulted in massive rebellions. Those were put down at first, with much bloodshed, but rebels simply kept retreating and then rising up again. By 350 BC, Troy was doomed.
Egypt regained its independance under a native 25th Dynasty (using the extreme Median instability during this time generally and in 460s BC specifically), which nonetheless didn't recognize the exiled 22nd Dynasty which still ruled in Adulis. Indeed, whilst Egypt Proper was a weak, unstable realm, Adulisian Empire was very well-off indeed, establishing trade posts on both sides of the Red Sea, monopolizing incense and myrrh trade and also expanding in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa area. Adulisian ships sailed to India (creating the so-called "Spice Route" in the Arabian Sea) and to the island of Mekhnes (OTL Zanzibar), an Adulisian trade post. Most sources also agree that an Adulisian fleet in circa. 380-370 BC circumnavigated Africa, though this wasn't put to much immediate use apart from greater colonization of East Africa.
Eherliyas I (r. 507-463) of Kyzus has reformed his army along Trojan-Syracusan lines, but with more emphasis on cavalry. He ruthlessly reformed administration, completely removed the pancus, crushed rebellions, centralized the empire and in 474 BC, using a succession crisis in Medes, struck out, using the lack of cooperation between the various Median governors and vassal rulers that came to the verge of civil war at that time. Kyzians conquered Phoenicea, Cyprus, Median Kaska, Syria and Canaan, annihilating army after army. In 467 BC, the new Median ruler, Phanaortes, agreed grudgingly to acknowledge the Kyzian conquests and to pay an indemnity. Albeit Eherliyas died in 463 BC and his empire was inherited by his incompetent and extravagant son, Haliyas, who lost Canaan, in 426 BC Eherliyas II rose to power. Fighting back a Median counterattack and routing the Egyptian-Canaanite armies at Yafha (OTL Joppa/Jaffa), Eherliyas II consolidated the empire further, conquered Egypt (452 BC) and crushed the Trojan invaders at Goksu, forcing them to withdraw in southern Anatolia as far west as Hettali (OTL Antalya).
The heirs of Eherliyas II were fairly average, consolidating the empire, fighting off the attack of Median feudals (see below) and making temporary gains in Mesopatamia that are abandoned soon after. An exception was Labarnas V (r. 374-359 BC) - though to be fair rather incompetent in administrative and economical affairs, Labarnas was a first-class warmongerer, conquering Median Urartu and Hanigalbat, Libyan Cyreneica and roughly a half of Trojan Anatolia, limiting the overextended and weakened empire to the lands west of River Sangarius (modern Sakarya) and Lydia. The Hittite Empire was reborn.
Medes was already a feudal empire, at least in the eastern border regions, by 500 BC - and as economical collapse combined with increasing instability produced bands of rebels-brigands and more genuine rebels (and more genuine brigands), a lapse into feudalism was the natural result of the events of 474 BC. As time went by, things got worse; the emperors were not just unable, but by 350 BC unwilling to take power back into their own hands, instead priests, generals and eunuchs struggled for power, but themselves were upset by the feudal rulers who granted "protection" to the people from the various barbarians and brigands. Median Empire was losing territory quickly on all fronts, and indeed as of 350 BC it was only nominally united. Rather, the more powerful vassal kings dealed with the feudals succesfully, and thus Babylonia, Elam, Anshan, Parthia, Drangiana, Sogdiana, Bactria and Gedrosia were the de facto successor states for Medes. In Medes Proper, as said before, court interfighting went on. The Parni nomads have already captured much of the western Central Asia, and threatened Medes itself.
Mazun (OTL Oman) didn't even retain such formalities - the local governor split away in 463 BC and seized the crucial Musandam Peninsula, hoping to create something of a competition for the Adulisians. Those hopes weren't fulfilled - by 400 BC, Mazun disintegrated as well, and Median refugees fleeing from feudal opression took up to piracy in the Persian Gulf. All this only further served the consolidation of the Adulisian Spice Route, as the Persian Gulf was simply too risky.
In India, the weakening of Medes and the zealous, energetic theocracy (best represented by the priest-king Uvijja, r. 421-385 BC) allowed Avanti to rise to predominance, uniting the western Indian theocracies and expelling the Medians from India and Indus Valley altogether. Avanti after that was distracted from further western expansion by mostly-inconclusive warfare with another rising power - Magadha. Kalinga was very important trade-wise, and its people were very patriotic - so even if the Magadhans had found any time to seriously attack Kalinga, they would have had many problems there.
In the Deccan and Sinhala, the Spice Route brought much benefit, and the kingdoms of the Rathikas, the Malabaras and Sinhala; Cholas and Pandyas were of lesser importance, but eastern trade allowed them to compete efficiently as well.
Anyways, the next part will probably include a minor compensation in the form of a major ATL religion appearing.
Figured it might save time, but if you would like to do it I'd be grateful.
In fact, I intend to play the Qin.
