IT I - Years 700-600 BC[1]
Americas:
Olmecia during this time period progressed in culture and science alike, even if slowly, and also expanded its economic, cultural and political influence greatly. However, the latter at least was impeded by the rise in circa 670 BC of a Zapotec state at Montealban. After cirac 655 BC the Olmecs went into a period of minor anarchy and after that a long-term stagnation, though by 600 BC the situation begun to somehow improve again.
Europe:
Europe had an unexpectedly-large amount of new players appearing during this period. It is hard to cover everything, but...
In Iberia, Tartessos, after some early improvements including the growth of trade, stagnated, while to its north, fearful of Tartessian, Carthaginian and Celtic expansionism, the Lusitanian Tribal Confederation formed in 688 BC. At first, it was indeed simply Lusitanian, but as time went by most Iberian tribes, facing the great Celtic invasion of 679, joined the LTC. However, this - along with the ideas of some foreign merchants who were greatly admired by the new chieftain, Alus - somehow got into their leadership's heads. Alus begun imposing Greek ideas of education, forced his tribesmen to build roads and ships and even started building a colonial empire, shipping out entire tribes to places they never heard of before. Naturally, this nearly destroyed the whole thing, but Alus luckily died (some claim, poisoned) and his son Raus took over. Realizing that the only thing that could save him and the LTC now was a great victory he... went forth and conquered Tartessos. This military victory allowed him to solidify his control and also allowed him to abolish LTC. Now all Lusitanians, Iberians, Celts and Tartessians who were under his rule were united into one kingdom... Portugal. Portugal also proceeded to use the Transpoenic War to conquer the Carthaginian colony in Iberia, albeit the attempt to invade Africa failed pathetically. Still, Portugal's rapid rise to prominence continued.
As Germannic and Baltic tribes pushed the Celts out of their easternmost lands, the Celtic tribes fled west, forcing those Celts already there to flee south, eventually invading Iberia in 679 BC. But Iberians fought back and begun reclaiming their lands, being united first by LTC and later by Portugal. The two Portuguese colonies at Armoria and Garonne, with their constant attacks on nearby Celts, created another problem. And finally, with the appearence of Kartyria, the Celts felt quite... cornered. Which is why they begun, since circa 640 BC, to unite around some stronger tribes and also begun building fortified towns; one tribe was especially interesting, the Arvernii of Gergovia, the most advanced and the most ambitious of them all. But their true glory was yet to come, it seemed.
Kartyria was formed in 672 BC, after a lenghty and hard journey of the Phoenicean refugees fleeing from Phoenciea, ravaged and conquered as it was by Lucans and Egyptians (see Middle East). The Phoenicean refugees have managed to ally with some nearby Ligurian tribes thanks to the charisma of King Agenor. Eventually, the Kartyrian control expanded to some other Ligurian tribes, for the most part peacefully, and much intermarrying took place. The Kartyrian people, a synthesis of Ligurians and Phoeniceans, arose, albeit later Phoenicean immigrants was less happy with this. In 623, the Carthaginians invaded Kartyria and put the fortress-city of Kartyr under siege, but the city, being well-supplied, lasted long enough for the 618 battles at Hiramon (north from Kartyr) and at Kartyr itself, resulting the expulsion of the Carthaginians. Kartyria, thus, survived its first 7 decades, but ahead of it still lied many challenges.
In Italia, things were... interesting. And largely revolved around the Roman League, which at the time was under the rule of the longest-reigning and perhaps the greatest of all Roman kings - Tarquinius the Great. Tarquinius' rule started out oddly - he simply gave up Tarquinii, the city of his origin (if a very rebellious one) to the Clusian League, with whom Rome was on the verge of a war. This act, albeit decried at first, later proved to be a wise one - Rome did not fight the Clusian League, and thus was free to participate in its greatest endeavor - the Hellenic Wars. In cooperation with Sparta, Romans conquered Corinthian and Athenian colonies in southern Italy within the first four decades of Tarquinius' rule, which were also marked by quiet prosperity and the wars with Italic tribes, such as Samnites who eventually were expelled into Lower Samnium on the Adriatic Coast (and later conquered as well - in the 625-621 campaign). It was in 672 that the greatest challenge came - the Third Hellenic War, with Syracuse, which seeked to gain control of Megala Hellas/Magna Graecia. The Syracusans, using the fact that Romans were distract to their southern border, besieged and nearly-took Rome (if not for the holy geese), but eventually, in 669 the siege was broken and the Romans in 658 invaded and conquered Syracusan lands in Megala Hellas. Syracuse, fearing Carthage, gave up on those lands, and Tarquinius signed with it and with Clusium the Pan-Italian Defensive Alliance. But while Romans were campaigning in Lower Samnium, Syracuse, which suffered a democratic revolution and was collapsing into anarchy again, was conquered by Carthage in a four-year campaign starting in 631 BC. Romans, oddly (or not?), did not reply despite the fact that the Carthaginians were distracted by the Kartyrian campaign/Transpoenic War at the same time. But even with Tarquinius' death in 627 BC and the Carthaginian ascendancy, Rome's future seemed secure.
Macedonnian Federation during this century did not have an enviable fate. In 699, Phillp II led the Macedonnians to war against Thracians, but little gain was made during the lenghty campaign, while in 688 King Priam of Troy started a great invasion of Macedonnia, taking Pella itself. However, the Macedonnians regroupped and prepared to counter-attack. As the Trojans set out to march across West Macedonnia to take Corcyra, the last great Macedonnian fort-city, they were in 673 met by Phillip and his forces coming from different directions at Haliacmon. In the fierce battle that followed, only the supreme training and great courage allowed parts of the Trojan Army, including Priam and an eventually-important army captain by the name of Eram, to survive and retreat to Byzantium - but Troy seemed doomed. Priam, however, had another trick up his sleeve - he allied with Seuthes, the Thracian high king, who seeked to retake the lands lost to the Macedonnians. The last two phases of the epic Trojan-Macedonnian conflict, as recorded in the even more epic Trojan/Byzantine poem Eramiade, or the Journeys of Eram, preceded or coincided with the Great War. Macedonnian armies, assisted by the Spartans and formed into phalanx, first were defeated by the Trojan Eastern Army at Doriscus (660), but later won a greater victory, at Abdera (658), and another one at Byzantium (657). The Spartan-Macedonnian armies marched on to conquer Troy itself (see Middle East), and Priam himself died in the fighting, but the Trojan Western Army, linking up with Seuthes' main force, conquered much of the unprotected Macedonnian homeland in circa 650 BC. Eram himself commanded there, eventually, as Seuthes died, rising to prominence as Lord of the North, ruler of Thracians and Trojan refugees alike. As Spartans and their allies faced defeat in the Great War, in 619 the last Macedonnians were crushed by the aging Eram, the founder of the Trojan-Thracian Byzantine Empire.
Parallel to Rome's Hellenic Wars, Sparta unified all of Greece under its rule. The great king Mermerus I Midylos, who through skillful diplomacy made Sparta a trade center and also made it a center of learning, was perhaps even more famed for his conquest of Corinth (693) and the beginning of war with Athens (673 BC-659 BC). Having ruled up until the end of that, he however died on the day before Athens surrendered; the Aetolian polises, which betrayed Athens in the decisive battle at, appropriately, Athens, received large amounts of autonomy under the new king, Agenor Midylos. Agenor made great military reforms and helped Macedonnia crush Troy and finally invaded Luca in the Great War. After his death from a lightning in 640 BC and the brief succession crisis Demetrios Midylos rejected the throne, fearing the intrigues of the Spartan nobles. Under Leonidos Midylos, however, the Spartan military fortunes in the Great War declined (see Middle East) to such a point that he, in 632, died with much of his army in the disastrous retreat across Lucan lands. Mermerus II succeeded, but he inherited a ruined realm, impoverished by the war effort and only saved from utter destruction at the Byzantine hands by the fact that Eram's new empire was fighting a battle to the death with the Free, or Danubean, or Rebel Scythians. But sadly Mermerus II was not a man of great political ability, and Sparta's glory was unlikely to be revived...
Africa:
Here, we must pay attention to three points of interest.
In Mauri [2], as Tartessian colony at Tingis became neglected after circa 680 BC, not much happened until a Lusitanian "colony" was established in 676 BC. It was not very prosperous, ofcourse, and hardly had any serious use until 633 BC when LTC invaded and conquered Tartessos. Tartessian colony was conquered as well... giving the new Portugal complete control over the Pillars of Hercules, something that, in the face of trade with Alba, is a positive boon.
Carthage, with its great fleet, defeat in Kartyria but victory in Syracuse and finally Emperor Hannibal's great reforms of 611, was also a great trade power quite capable of this and further military effort. But the time of its true glory - or of its downfall, or both - was yet to come...
Egypt's attention during this time was, largely, centered on the Middle East (see Middle East, what else?). Not having much else to do, the Egyptians tried to expand southwards (to not much avail) and introduced a new currency. All this lack of attention to domestic problems somehow decreased the people's trust in the government... but yet, this had no effect.
Middle East:
Of this region, we cannot speak in the terms of realms I believe. We must speak in the terms of wars, for there was no time without wars here, and the short, eight-year at most periods of peace were only used to prepare for the new ones.
It all begun with the Babylonian War, you know. Babylonia was so powerful that its neighbours, or some of them at least, grew fearful, and started forming a coalition - Luca, Parhae and Ur allied to face this threat. Some believe they wanted to attack first, but what really happened was that the Babylonians were the first to strike as they invaded Ur in 692 BC. Ur was mostly crushed by 690 BC, the royal family with remnants of the army fleeing to Gur in the southeast. But at this point, Parhae and Luca invaded Babylonia; upon hearing of this, Nebuchadnazzer II burned down the cities of Ur, Uruk and Nippur and salted all farms, devastating Urian lands so much that Ur never recovered. By then, Parhaens threatened Babylon itself and Lucans overran West Assyria; the former were crushed at Tutub, but the latter, in a great battle at Carchemish in 688, managed to defeat the Babylonians and kill Nebuchadnazzer (the Lucans owed this victory to their Battle-Cars). Parhaens and Urians, recovering, too invaded Babylonia, while local nobals begun fighting each other in central Mesopatamia. Another interesting event was the Caucasian migration southwards; this eventually led to the birth of the nation of Hay-Urartu in northern Mesopatamia, an important Lucan ally.
After two years of resting, Lucans struck south, at Phoenicea. Phoeniceans by then already were engaged in a great struggle against the Egyptians who treacherously attacked their former allies. The Egyptians, however, were not as succesful as they hoped, being defeated on the sea and failing to take Tyre in the land offensive, if occupying the southern lands. The Lucan invasion, too, stalled near Sidon; King Hiram, meanwhile, rallied Phoeniceans to great resistance. But finally, in 678 BC, starving Tyre fell - but not before its defenders commited suicide. Sidon fell slightly earlier. But the great mass of Phoenicean people by then was in flight west... to Carthage and Kartyria.
In 666 BC, the Lucan-hired Black Army conquered Minoa, whilst the Lucan fleet devastated the Minoan one in the Battle at Hellespont (Minoans were nearby to help Spartans conquer Athens). But the conquest of Minoa was hardly complete; when the governor of now-united Cyprus tried to surrender the island to the Lucans, he was overthrown by Phoenicean and Minoan rebels, who held on to Cyprus for quite a while beyond the century's end. But the Magi had greater issues to attend to - the Grand Vizier Achae was found dead at the hands of "Egyptian" assassins, shortly before the invasion of Minoa begun.
Parhae for the first forty decades of the century did not only fight Babylonians and grow its Asbaran horde; no, it also expanded east, fighting the Iranians, and in 670 started the invasion of Ur, conquering most of it though parts fell to Semitic tribes of Arabia. The Iranian conquests were later abandoned after the Great War begun.
Time has come to mention this conflict, the culmination of the ascendancy of Sparta and Luca. In 656, Troy fell to the Spartan and Macedonnian forces who used a horse-shaped siege tower to especially great effect (interestingly enough later siege towers were since then often called "horses" or "siege horses"). By 655, all Trojan resistance was squashed, and Luca stood threatened from all or most directions. Agenor of Sparta succesfully allied with the Scythians, the Egyptians and the Parhaens, as well as vengeful Phoeniceans from Kartyria and the Cypriot Rebels. Against them stood Luca and Hay-Urartu, and powerful as the former was, it seemed that it stood no chance. Scythians conquered Bosporan, Spartans invaded Luca Proper and were only barely stopped at Astya, the capital, "Punic Heroes" landed in the south bringing with themselves revenge, death and destruction, Egyptians faced not much resistance as they like a dagger threatened Lucan possessions in Anatolia and only Parhaens faced not much success due to a well-planned Lucan counter-attack. By 640 BC Luca seemed doomed, especially as there was no Grand Vizier to save it.
But the Magi found a most unlikely candidate who, however, saved Luca. They found the fearsome Scythian warlord Aramu the One-eyed (or the Scythian), whose ambitions drove him to accept the Lucan offer. Aramid Luca was born.
Now, it must be said that Aramu did not control ALL the Scythians. Far from it. The Caucasian and the Volga Scythians were completely free from his rule, and the Danubean Scythians mutinied not wishing to go so far away from their native steppes. But nonetheless, at his disposal was a great horde of fierce warriors and capable horsemen, who were more then enough to save Luca. Ofcourse, the death of Agenor and the defection of Egypt from the Anti-Lucan Coalition might have helped turn the tide of the war as well, but even if those two events didn't happen... the Scythians were just too strong for the Coalition. While Lucans played land for time, the Aramid Scythians overran much of Caucasus and got ready to win their warlord an even greater empire. First, Aramu personally crushed the Spartan-Punic army at Trapezus, and routed it, destroying most of it and killing Leonidos and Agenor in 632 BC. Troy was enter in 629, and all of Anatolia was united under Lucan rule. The Egyptians withdrew from Lucan lands, and the Aramids succesfully attacked Parhae, albeit at Babylon they were at first dealt a nasty defeat. Yet, as Mohenjo-daran forces invaded from the east, Parhae stood no chance, and despite Padishah Shapur's heroic resistance the Aramid-Hay-Urartian forces met the Mohenjo-darans at Isfahan in 611 BC. The Great War, apart from the naval war with the Cypriots, was over. Luca won and emerged even greater then before - if thoroughly pillaged and ruled by a foreigner.
