Alternate History Vivat Stilicho!

stevep

Well-known member
Rather than pursue their enemies into Hispania, Emperor Honorius and his lieutenants instead spent the first months of 468 countering the latest Alemanni invasion, which devastated the Roman Rhineland once more (although fortunately the Western Romans’ fortification efforts allowed thousands of farmers to find safety and prevented the barbarians from torching cities such as Augusta Treverorum and Mogontiacum, which would have destroyed fifteen years’ worth of work in restoring those cities to even a shadow of their former glory after Laudaricus’ assault) before progressing further toward the heart of Roman Gaul. While winter slowed both armies’ movements, a still-visibly infuriated Honorius further made a point of traversing through Burgundian territory, stopping at the Burgundian capital of Lugdunum and strongarming Gondioc into sending his sons to Ravenna.

The Alemanni got as far as Divodurum before Honorius reached them, and forced a battle on March 9 while they had surrounded the city and were waiting for its defenders to starve & surrender. Even though Gondioc had acceded to Honorius’ demands and sent his children to Ravenna before they left his lands, he and his Burgundians were still ordered to mount the first attack on the disorganized but massive and sprawling enemy horde while the Romans moved up to flank them and the Franks followed a good distance behind, both providing only limited missile support at best. The inevitable happened not long after the Burgundians made contact with the Alemanni, as their king was killed by one of their raging berserkers within minutes of the battle being joined; though considering Gondioc had proven himself decidedly treacherous and directly caused the death of the faithful Syagrius, it is exceedingly unlikely that Honorius was at all broken up over his death, and may very well have intended to expend the unreliable Burgundians as arrow-fodder as Theodosius I did with the Visigoths at the Frigidus.

In any case, the rest of the battle proceeded as Honorius planned – the Franks under Childeric hurried up and closed with the Alemanni before the Burgundians could crumble and rout completely, while the Romans (spearheaded by cavalry wedges under Honorius’ and Arbogast’s direction) crushed through the Alemanni flanks and pushed them into a rout over the Mosella[1]. The five warlords leading this particular barbarian coalition were surrounded and annihilated with their retainers, having responded to the Augustus’ attempt to initiate battlefield negotiations by throwing an ax in his general direction, while their now-leaderless horde broke and fled back north in total disorder with the Western Romans in hot pursuit & easily inflicting great casualties. While the Alemanni were now so weakened that Honorius thought they wouldn’t threaten his empire for another decade upon surveying the carnage, they had also done a bigger number on the imperial army than its leaders hoped: nearly 7,000 Romans and federates laid dead out of an army of about 25,000 compared to the 16,000 fallen Alemanni and Suebi. Gondioc's eldest son Chilperic[2] was allowed to ascend to the Burgundian throne, but unsurprisingly resented Honorius for his lack of forgiveness and was kept under close watch by the emperor in turn.

In the meantime, Gaudentius had marched back out of Hispania with a few Visigoth reinforcements – to his great frustration, Euric had been stingy with his own manpower – and occupied the coast of Narbonensis, establishing himself in the city of Narbo. Honorius of course returned south to crush him towards the end of spring, but the casualties the Alemanni inflicted upon his army and the fortifications of the cities Gaudentius had (re)occupied further slowed his progress. By the year’s end, Honorius was still besieging Gaudentius in Narbo, having secured the surrender of Baeterrae and Carcasum[3] in the summer and autumn respectively, while the latter had given up hope of Euric leaving Hispania to help him and was considering mounting a breakout attempt of his own.

As to why Euric had not lifted a finger to assist his co-conspirator, he was busy trying to purge Hispania of all elements which threatened his newly-imposed rule, so as to establish the peninsula as an independent kingdom firmly under his control. In practice this meant ruthlessly targeting the Hispano-Roman administration and clergy, who experienced a number of indignities ranging from the seizure of their churches and the arrest of their prelates by the Goths or worse, Euric’s Priscillianist allies (who took to this persecution with a glee and ferocity that far outpaced that of the Arian Visigoths, and could only be matched by the Donatists of Africa), the routine taking of hostages and the killing of any official who refused to recognize Euric as their king or was suspected of shirking their duties and aiding the Western Romans. Euric’s efforts to stabilize his rule threw Hispania into greater bloody turmoil and, though the Hispano-Romans were generally an urban people and thus unable to easily escape his grasp, he largely failed at securing their cooperation; instead he made many martyrs and even more underground allies of Honorius and Roderic.

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A party of Visigoths and Priscillianist heretics terrorizing a family of Hispano-Roman landowners

Speaking of Roderic, Euric’s eldest nephew had made his way to Iol Caesarea and joined King Stilicho of the Moors & Vandals there by the start of summer. Together they set out to crush Ricimer between themselves and Majorian, who had most recently liberated Utica and Hippo Diarrhytus from the usurper’s control. Ricimer, for his part, was well aware of the danger and resolved to deal with the two enemy armies separately before they could link up and stomp him into the North African plains. He moved against Majorian first, engaging him near Thabraca[4] on June 1 and managing to defeat the magister militum there by overcoming his cavalry with Donatist assistance, forcing the Western Roman infantry to fall back under a constant hail of stinging missiles; but Majorian had given as good as he got, mauling Ricimer’s army to a greater degree than the Suebian had expected or hoped.

The rebel Vandals & Suebi were thus in no shape to counter the Moors, loyalist Vandals & Visigoths when they reached Hippo Regius two days after the Battle of Thabraca. As had been the case in the east, that city’s population revolted against its rebel garrison and welcomed Stilicho and Roderic as liberators; in a show of courage worthy of his namesake, the former raced ahead of the latter and their bodyguards to attack Donatist agents who attempted to burn down the church of Saint Augustine which Ricimer had spared and killed most of them himself, despite taking several stab wounds to his chest and arms. Meanwhile Majorian reordered his troops quite quickly and resumed the advance within little over a week, which Ricimer chose not to contest – thus, Thabraca fell with hardly a struggle to the Western Romans soon after Ricimer’s short-lived victory anyway.

The Suevic King of the Vandals had chosen not to fight because he was retreating back into the Aurès and Atlas Mountains, fortifying the mountain passes behind him as best he could and striving to hold them with his Vandals & Suebi while directing his Donatist allies to disperse and harry any Roman attempt to pursue them. His strategy paid its first dividends when Majorian and Roderic marched to crack his defenses at Bulla Regia[5], having left Stilicho to recuperate by the coast, only to find their supply lines under constant harassment by the Donatists which only escalated the closer they got to the mountains. Eventually, the two gave up and lifted the siege in the autumn after an especially brutal Donatist raid not only left them with too few supplies to continue but also destroyed the siege weapons Majorian was bringing up from Carthage, preserving Ricimer’s life and state for another year.

Elsewhere, the Eastern Romans were having issues of their own. Peroz’s army met Anthemius’ beneath the walls of Nisibis on April 8, and though the emperor was counting on Aspar and the Armenians to show up and even the odds against the larger Persian host, he was nowhere to be found. By the time Aspar did arrive, Anthemius had been crushed to death beneath a dying pachyderm when Peroz countered the Romans’ cavalry charge with his elephants and the imperial army – now caught between the Shah and the sallying garrison of Nisibis – had been routed in disarray; nevertheless, his arrival caught the battle-weary and celebrating Persians entirely off-guard, and while he frightened the Shah into fleeing for his life by charging his position with a wedge of Armenian cataphracts, the thousands of Eastern Roman prisoners-of-war regained heart and revolted against their Persian captors, further throwing the latter’s ranks into chaos. The Sassanids were wholly routed by sunset, though Aspar did not pursue them in favor of instead chasing the defenders of Nisibis into the city before they could shut its gates behind them – by nightfall, Nisibis had fallen and the Alan generalissimo allowed his men to viciously sack the city.

In truth, events had proceeded according to old Aspar’s design. He had carefully delayed his advance in hopes of getting his longtime rival the emperor killed; this done, he now expected to be able to control Anthemiolus, or rather Anthemius II. His first success was in persuading the sixteen-year-old new Augustus of the Orient to initiate peace talks with Shah Peroz rather than continue waging war against the Persians as his mother Licinia Eudoxia had advocated, citing the heavy casualties they’d taken in the Battle of Nisibis and the need to secure their victory before the Persians find some other opportunity to turn the tables on them. Clearly (though not utterly) defeated, Peroz agreed to hand over the Armenian rebel Varsken and his associates for judgment by King Vahan and to cede Nisibis to the Eastern Romans, slightly adjusting the Roman-Persian border for the umpteenth time this century.

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Peroz is astounded by news of Aspar's arrival so soon after he defeated Anthemius at Nisibis, and orders his men to prepare a defense even as he himself prepares to flee the field

East of Persia, the Hephthalites confronted the newest arrivals in their neighborhood toward the end of spring. Ever-militant Akhshunwar recommended they welcome the Fufuluo with an ambush in northern Sogdia, but where the older and more aggressive general saw only danger, his nephew scented opportunity. Mehama instead greeted the elders and chiefs of the Fufuluo to Samarkand with gifts and a feast, and made them an offer: if they joined forces and crushed the Eftals’ enemies together, he’d grant them lands to settle wherever they wished, though preferably these settlements would be carved out of their shared conquests. The Fufuluo agreed with the stipulation that they be allowed to linger in Hephthalite Khwarezm in the meantime, and Mehama thus added a powerful new ally to the Hephthalite confederacy. But before they could crush the Persians, first he had to fulfill his obligations to the Gupta Emperor and help him crush the Bengali rebels threatening to overthrow him, which would also give him his first opportunity to measure the abilities of his new allies.

In China, Emperor Qianfei finally provoked several major rebellions against himself with his cruel and arbitrary excesses: his uncles Liu Yu, Prince of Xiangdong[6] and Liu Xiuren, Prince of Jian’an, were finally moved to raise their standards in armed rebellion after Qianfei made an attempt on the former’s life and then demanded the latter’s wife and several other princesses of the Liu clan offer themselves to the palace staff, while a bad harvest and Qianfei’s stinginess in distributing food to the starving peasantry sparked further rebellions in central and northern China. The Rouran took the opportunity to ride right back into Liang Province[7], although Shouluobuzhen Khagan had grown a little more cautious after his previous defeats at Emperor Wen’s hands and decided to wait for the Chinese to further weaken themselves before pushing his luck any further.

Soon after the beginning of 469, Gaudentius mounted his desperate breakout attempt. On the night of February 20, the rebels departed from Narbo under the cover of a blizzard and stormed towards the encampment of the much larger Western Roman army, with Gaudentius in particular attempting to seek out Honorius’ command tent and cut the emperor down in single combat. Unfortunately for them, not only were the Western Roman legionaries and federates alert, but there were so many of them that the rebel attack quickly got bogged down; worse still for Gaudentius personally, although Honorius wasn’t more than a reasonably competent fighter, he was surrounded by candidati bodyguards as a man of his stature should be, one of whom dispatched the usurper before he even laid eyes on the true Augustus. Thus did the second of the great conspirators fall.

Gaudentius’ deputy Magnus[8] surrendered Narbo to Honorius the morning after his master’s death, and gave the usurper’s family up to him as well. The emperor greeted his newly-widowed sister Serena as gently as he could given the circumstances, and had expressly ordered that her treasonous husband’s corpse not be further desecrated both for her sake and out of respect for the memory of the latter’s father Aetius. Killing their children, his own nephew and niece and grandchildren to the venerable Aetius, was also a completely unconscionable course of action for the Augustus, though he doubted Gaudentius would have hesitated if he had the chance to eliminate Augusta Euphemia and the young Eucherius. Still, because their mother had given them a claim to his purple cloak and their father had tried to assert that claim, Honorius felt he had no choice but to order them into (admittedly highly comfortable) exile on Capri, and Serena voluntarily went with them. The emperor privately lamented that this was almost an ignominious an end to the legacy of Flavius Aetius, vanquisher of Attila the Hun, as outright slaughtering them would have been.

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As far as destinations for exile went, it could have been much worse for Serena and her children than Capri

After dealing with his and Gaudentius’ shared family, Honorius marched onward into Hispania to deal with Euric. But he did not get far before being intercepted by the barbarian rebel’s army in the mountain pass of Rozaballes[9] on April 6, for Euric had judged Gaudentius’ position hopeless and quietly massed his forces to counter the inevitable Western Roman attack following the latter’s downfall over the winter, leaving the Priscillianists behind to further terrorize the Hispano-Romans and disrupt any possible rebellion on their part while he was gone. Their path forward blocked by a shield-wall of Visigoth nobles and champions backed by the less well-armed and poorer warriors of that people, and with the cliffs above crawling with Vasconians who showered them with arrows, javelins and rocks, the Western Romans ultimately failed to force the pass open and fell back.

While Honorius had been knocked back on his heels, Majorian was facing similar frustration in Africa. Even with Stilicho (whose injuries had healed by now) joining them and retaking command of the Mauri, he and Roderic were unable to breach Ricimer’s defenses across the Atlas and Aurès Mountains for most of the year, their efforts constantly undermined by the traitor Vandal’s well-stocked fortifications before them and Donatist raids behind their lines. Only when Roderic boldly took Thagaste[10] without a siege by scaling its wall with a few handpicked warriors and opening its gates for the rest of the Western Roman army on the night of November 13 – coincidentally also the birthday of Saint Augustine, who was born in that town over a century before – did they finally start making serious progress toward rooting Ricimer out of his mountains.

Meanwhile in Constantinople, Aspar had returned for a triumphal procession, which was altogether rather grim and subdued in light of the death of Anthemius I. He also tried to further pressure his young overlord into arranging the betrothal of his eldest son Ardabur to the princess Alypia[11], middle daughter of Anthemius I and Licinia Eudoxia, as a personal reward for his long years of service under the Eastern Empire. Anthemius II was reluctant to part with his younger sister, especially considering she was still a child of ten while Ardabur was forty-six and already a widower with children from his first marriage, but assented to a betrothal until Alypia came of age.

Over in India, the Hephthalites and their new Fufuluo allies spent the late spring and early summer marching to Pataliputra, and arrived in time to break an ongoing siege of the Gupta capital by Purugupta’s army. From June onward, their combined forces and the army of Vishnugupta rapidly pushed those of Purugupta back toward the core of his power in Samatata[12]. As the allied armies prepared to besiege Wari-Bateshwar, Purugupta elected to surrender to his nephew rather than fight to the death, and against the advice of his more ruthless courtiers Vishnugupta allowed his uncle to live (albeit under watch) at his court. Now released from his obligations and having secured good relations with his eastern neighbor, Mehama was free to focus his gaze toward the Sassanids and to undertake the final preparations to avenge his father. In turn Shah Peroz was not entirely blind to the Eftals’ ambitions, and hurried to fortify his border with them and to move the armies he still had after his recent war with the Eastern Romans to the eastern satrapies.

Still further east in China, Emperor Qianfei’s demoralized and poorly-led armies suffered a string of defeats at the hands of his princely uncles and the peasant rebels both, and were further hampered by chronic desertions to the rebel armies which had far more competent and charismatic leaders than himself. However, as the loyalist forces were being swept from the field at the Battle of Yiyang on August 18, a stray arrow fatally wounded Liu Yu while Liu Xiuren was thrown from his horse while pursuing the enemy and suffered serious enough injuries to leave him bedridden for weeks, leaving their forces disordered and uncertain even in victory. This was not good enough for Qianfei, who demanded the heads of his generals for not being able to score a single clean victory over his many enemies, resulting in said generals collaborating with dissatisfied palace attendants to assassinate him at a war council days later.

Nobody much mourned the emperor or even cared to investigate whose knives happened to be planted in his back; instead the Song court quickly and smoothly enthroned Qianfei’s younger brother Liu Zixun[13] as Emperor Xiaowen, with the powerful court official Deng Wan as his regent. However, negotiations with the princely army went less smoothly and indeed completely fell apart when Liu Xiuren arose from his sickbed and insisted on continuing the war with the aim of seizing Jiankang for himself, in which he enjoyed the continued loyalty of their foremost general Shen Youzhi[14]. Meanwhile the lower-born insurgents had carved out domains for themselves, the largest and most threatening of which was that of Chen Yong in Yingchuan[15].

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The new child-emperor Xiaowen of the Song dynasty and his regent, Deng Wan

470 saw continuing breakthroughs on the part of the Western Roman army in Africa and their loyal federates. From Thagaste they pursued Ricimer to Tipasa[16], while also retaking Milevis[17] and Constantina[18] throughout the summer in the face of heavy Donatist resistance; in these vicious battles quarter was neither asked for nor provided by either side, particularly not between the Donatist and Ephesian Africans who shared over a century of bloody (and now bloodier still) history. On September 27, Ricimer found himself cornered after the Vandal garrison of Theveste[19] suddenly switched sides in hopes of finding clemency and slammed the town gates shut in his face.

Although he still had a chance of withdrawing to Capsa, Ricimer calculated that he was unlikely to easily get away from the Berber light cavalry in Western Roman service, and evidently had tired of running anyway. So instead he made his last stand a ways north of Theveste with a ragged force of 3,000 rebel Vandals and Donatist die-hards, once more occupying the mountain pass with a shield-wall of the former while the latter took up positions behind or above them to attack the Romans with missiles. But this time a Vandal deserter had informed Majorian and his lieutenants of a goat track in the Aurès Mountains which would allow them to circumvent Ricimer’s shield-wall, and Stilicho was assigned to attack through this hidden path with 300 handpicked warriors while Majorian and Roderic attacked Ricimer head-on to distract him.

The battle went exactly as Majorian planned, for the surprised Vandal shield-wall crumbled in shock when Stilicho emerged to attack them in behind; old Ricimer threw himself at the African king in desperation and wrath, but Stilicho turned the tables and struck his head off at the climax of their duel, in so doing avenging his extended family. As part of their surrender Theveste also yielded up Ricimer’s wife (and Stilicho’s sole surviving cousin) Guntharith, who was as glad as anyone to be rid of the vicious husband who’d killed the rest of her family; Stilicho would have married her to further reinforce his ties to the fallen Silingi dynasty, but between canon law forbidding a marriage between first cousins and Guntharith’s own desire to retreat into a convent, this did not come to pass and he instead later married the niece of Apocorius, the Ephesian Bishop of Iol Caesarea. What little Vandal resistance had survived up to this point crumbled soon after Ricimer’s demise while their Donatist allies fled back underground or, rightly fearing King Stilicho would crack down hard on them, far south beyond the Atlas Mountains and toward their distant Berber cousins in the Hoggar Mountains, well beyond Rome’s reach[20].

With Ricimer defeated, Majorian and Roderic next turned their focus to the last conspirator standing in Hispania, leaving Stilicho to consolidate his rule over the remaining Vandals. As time marched on and the years turned into decades, then into centuries, the three peoples under the rule of the House of Altava (as Stilicho’s dynasty was called after their ancestral seat) – the diminished Vandals still living in the Aurès Mountains, the Ephesian Berbers of the Numidian plains and the Atlas Mountains, and the descendants of Punic and Roman colonists dwelling in the coastal cities – would come to share the rustic varieties of Latin already being spoken by the last of these groups[21] and meld into a provincial people who increasingly called themselves Muri, a corruption of the name Mauri in their new tongue.

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The future of Roman Africa, as encapsulated by Stilicho's own family

Speaking of that last surviving conspirator, Euric continued to defy the Western Empire this year. Honorius II had decided on a different tack after his attempt to fight through the Pyrenees ended in failure, and directed the Western and Eastern Roman fleets to clear the path for a landing in northeastern Hispania; but Euric was ready, and countered with fireships being rowed by Hispano-Roman prisoners and captained by Priscillianists prepared to throw themselves into glorious martyrdom. In a battle off Barcino[22], the combined Roman fleet was caught off-guard and had to withdraw back to the Baleares after experiencing significant casualties from the combusting Visigoth vessels, derailing Honorius’ invasion plans: once more, Euric had thwarted Roman designs and bought himself another year of freedom. Still, with Ricimer’s head now decorating a spear in Theveste, Honorius believed it was only a matter of time before the undivided might of Rome would, slowly if need be but surely all the same, grind Euric into dust.

As the flames around the Mediterranean began to die down with Ricimer’s defeat, the Saxons and Romano-Britons were respectively lighting and trying to put out new ones in Britain. This year Ælle decided to show that (despite his previous heavy defeat at Ambrosius’ hands) he was far from done by pressing hard against the Britons to his west and hacking a bloody swath toward Deva, securing the city’s surrender near the end of the year and in so doing also establishing a Saxon presence on the west coast of the island for the first time. Meanwhile Ambrosius was busy re-fortifying the towns in the northeast of his realm and rebuilding Roman forts to guard against the next Saxon attack (whenever it should come), though Irish attacks out of Demetia intensified to the point where he felt compelled to personally respond and smash them at Abertawe[23] in the fall; he elected not to try to drive the Irish out of Demetia entirely, thinking that would needlessly drain his limited resources, but instead accepted the submission of the Uí Liatháin who ruled that corner of Britannia and entered a foederati contract with them, hoping that these Irish would now be of use to him against their own kind as well as the Saxons and other sea-borne raiders.

While the Western Romans came a step closer to restoring internal order, the Persian Empire’s woes were just beginning anew this year, as the reinforced Hephthalites finally launched their long-awaited attack in the summer. Choosing to concentrate their forces and those of the Fufuluo into a single mighty host rather than diluting their strength to go after different targets, Mehama and Akhshunwar smashed through the incomplete frontier defenses of Khorasan and drove straight to Aria and Zaranj, both of which they captured by the end of July, before rampaging across Sakastan and Carmania. The object of their shared wrath was Bam, where Khingila had been treacherously murdered and Akhshunwar routed in disgrace ten years prior, and once they successfully stormed it on August 18 the two poured their bottled-up vengeance over the city’s hapless inhabitants: what Attila threatened to do to Rome, they now did unto Bam – utterly razing it to its foundations, while also killing every living creature they could find and piling the citizenry’s heads into six bloody pyramids. So thorough had the massacre been that Persian poets would lament not even flies survived to feast on the corpses.

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A Fufuluo chief trying to assure Akhshunwar that he did his part in destroying Bam and definitely did not lack for zeal

Peroz had been shocked and appalled by word of the Eftals’ cruelty, but it was the reports of their strength that especially dismayed him. Although he initially thought of wearing down that great Fufuluo-enhanced strength down by forcing them to besiege one fortified city after another, the annihilation of Bam forced him to take to the field and try to stop the Hephthalites from doing the same to more of his cities. The Hephthalites seemingly divided their forces after intimidating nearby Jiruft into surrendering immediately after leveling Bam, and so Peroz thought he had a good chance of victory as he set out from Shiragan[24] – but this was a trap, and one he barely escaped when Mehama and the Fufuluo suddenly fell upon his host while he was battling Akhshunwar’s mostly-Eftal host outside the ruins of Bam on October 1.

Having destroyed the Persian field army for now, the Eftals divided for real, with Mehama striking northward to recover the territories lost after his father’s death and Akhshunwar continuing to advance across the south. While the former’s fury had been sated by the destruction of Bam and he no more brutally sacked the cities he conquered from this point on than any other warlord would have done, Akhshunwar’s conduct remained so brutal that no Persian garrison would surrender to him after the year’s end, as he demonstrated over and over that doing so in no way guaranteed he would spare them or the towns they protected.

Finally, in China the forces of the child-emperor Xiaowen prevailed against those of Liu Xiuren by outlasting them, withstanding their siege until Liu Xiuren’s slowness in paying his troops resulted in them mutinying and killing him at the end of summer; having decapitated itself, the princely army dispersed soon after. Deng Wan and his ilk had no time to catch their breath however, for Chen Yong pushed onward to Jiankang in their wake and the city’s defenders had little time to restock their larders or to repair their damaged walls. Sympathizers among the capital’s poorer residents fed the rebel chief information on where Liu Xiuren’s siege engines had done the most damage, and on December 17 Chen Yong’s more numerous army were able to take Jiankang by storm precisely by flooding these weakened sections of the wall with their greater numbers. Xiaowen and Deng Wan managed to flee with several attendants, but did not get far before being waylaid by bandits and killed for their valuables just before the year’s end. Meanwhile, Chen Yong proclaimed himself Emperor Chengzu of a new Chen dynasty[25], though he still had other rebel generals (including former lieutenants of the Liu clan) to mop up before he could truly rule as Emperor of China.

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Having toppled the Song, Chen Yong now sits enthroned as Emperor Chengzu of the new Chen dynasty

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[1] The Moselle.

[2] Historically this was Chilperic II of Burgundy, his uncle (killed by Merovech back in 443 ITL) having been the first. He was most famous for being father of Clotilde, the future Frankish queen, and was historically assassinated by his younger brother Gundobad, who later became the most ambitious and successful of the Burgundian kings.

[3] Carcassone.

[4] Tabarka.

[5] Near Jendouba.

[6] Historically Emperor Ming of Liu Song, Liu Yu was indeed almost killed by his nephew (who called him the ‘prince of pigs’ due to his great weight & girth, and apparently sought to carve him up like one) and was saved only because his brother Liu Xiuren cracked a joke that Qianfei approved of. Although initially an improvement over Qianfei, he also became cruel and tyrannical in his later years, and the Liu Song soon collapsed under the rule of his young & inept sons.

[7] Approximately modern Gansu.

[8] Historically, this Magnus was an elder statesman who was appointed Consul in 460 by Majorian and also became Praetorian prefect of Gaul in 469.

[9] Roncesvalles.

[10] Souk Ahras.

[11] Historically, Alypia was the name of Anthemius’ oldest daughter with Marcia Euphemia.

[12] Around the Meghna River. Samatata was a great center of Buddhism before the Muslim invasions.

[13] A younger son of Emperor Xiaowu, Prince Liu Zixun historically was put forth as a claimant to the throne by his staff (of whom Deng Wan was the chief) and quickly gained the allegiance of various ministers and generals opposed to both Qianfei and Liu Yu/Emperor Ming. However, they were eventually defeated by Liu Yu and Liu Zixun was summarily executed by his general Shen Youzhi.

[14] An experienced general who historically served the Liu Song for over 20 years. He fought under Emperors Wen and Xiaowu before siding with Liu Yu/Ming against Qianfei, then Ming’s sons Houfei and Shun. He fought to the end to preserve the Liu Song against the usurper Xiao Daocheng (who founded the Southern Qi), ultimately committing suicide together with his eldest son when their defeat and the dynasty’s fall became imminent.

[15] This rebel domain approximately extends over central & eastern Henan, northwestern Anhui and northern Hubei.

[16] Tifesh.

[17] Mila.

[18] Constantine, Algeria.

[19] Tébessa.

[20] The Berbers these Donatists are joining are early Tuaregs, who reportedly founded a kingdom in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria in the 4th century under the fugitive queen Tin Hinan. She in turn was buried at Abalessa, a town located in those highlands.

[21] The African Romance language historically survived from Roman imperial times (between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD) to at least the 14th century, if not the 15th. Apparently its closest still-extant relatives are Sardinian and, to a much lesser extent, Maltese.

[22] Barcelona. Historically it was Gaiseric the Vandal who used fireships to defeat the Roman navy, which he did at Cape Bon in 468.

[23] Swansea.

[24] Sirjan.

[25] Historically there was a Chen dynasty of Southern China, founded by a Chen clan which did not bother to give their dynasty a new name, but they did not emerge until the mid-6th century.

Circle of Willis

I think there is one typo where you talking about Aspar's desire to be married to the new eastern emperor's younger sister
assented to a betrothal until Alypia came of age.
- is there a "didn't" missing there?

Like the reference to the pass at Roncesvalles. ;)

Was there some references to an earlier battle with Ricimer's last stand being betrayed by a traitor "to him anyway" telling Majorian's attacking force of a path behind their position and then Stilicho's force attacking from their rear numbering 300. Which seems a little small given the danger of it getting detected while isolated.

Well the western empire has largely restored order and the east looks externally secure with the Sassanid's looking in deep shit. I wasn't expecting the Hephthalites to co-op the newcomers into their army but its greatly increased Mehama's strength and seriously exposed problems for the Persians. At least while both Hephthalites and Fufuluo are co-operating with each other, which in this time period - or even much later - can change very quickly.

So the Guptas seem to have secured their position in India while we have a new dynasty in China, if they can secure themselves and also handle their northern neighbours.

Fear PK is right that events in both Iberia and N Africa will make the western empire more doctrinarian and intolerant that way. Which is likely to lose it ground in the longer run. Also that Aspar will look towards a new war with the western empire, given the latter is just recovering from another major period of strife while Constantinople's eastern borders look secure for the moment and they have regained the great bastion of Nisibis.

Steve
 

stevep

Well-known member
Becouse nations in 19th century version are land and blood with culture as addition,when romans were all about culture.

About new chapter - if Visigoths decide to go PolPolt on romans in their territory,they could just abadonn cities/maybe as sineful?/
and send all survivors to villages.
They could try to create christian North Korea then.

To a considerable degree but its already switching in many areas back to a broader definition.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
Circle of Willis

I think there is one typo where you talking about Aspar's desire to be married to the new eastern emperor's younger sister
- is there a "didn't" missing there?

Like the reference to the pass at Roncesvalles. ;)

Was there some references to an earlier battle with Ricimer's last stand being betrayed by a traitor "to him anyway" telling Majorian's attacking force of a path behind their position and then Stilicho's force attacking from their rear numbering 300. Which seems a little small given the danger of it getting detected while isolated.

Well the western empire has largely restored order and the east looks externally secure with the Sassanid's looking in deep shit. I wasn't expecting the Hephthalites to co-op the newcomers into their army but its greatly increased Mehama's strength and seriously exposed problems for the Persians. At least while both Hephthalites and Fufuluo are co-operating with each other, which in this time period - or even much later - can change very quickly.

So the Guptas seem to have secured their position in India while we have a new dynasty in China, if they can secure themselves and also handle their northern neighbours.

Fear PK is right that events in both Iberia and N Africa will make the western empire more doctrinarian and intolerant that way. Which is likely to lose it ground in the longer run. Also that Aspar will look towards a new war with the western empire, given the latter is just recovering from another major period of strife while Constantinople's eastern borders look secure for the moment and they have regained the great bastion of Nisibis.

Steve
That was intentional - Aspar did secure a betrothal between his son and Alypia, but not a marriage blessed by a priest (yet). As far as Anthemius II is concerned, that gives him time to break the betrothal and screw Aspar over down the line if he so chooses, though Aspar's position is too strong for him to do that right now. You'd be right to suspect Aspar's intentions toward the WRE as well, he's a longtime member of the anti-WRE court faction that Chrysaphius used to lead and Attila was pretty much the only thing that got him to temporarily set aside his hostile ambitions toward that half of the Roman Empire - that hasn't changed and the Stilichians are certainly going to be among the factions growing even more wary of him as he throws his weight around & tries to get his family ever closer to the Eastern Roman crown.

I did invoke Thermopylae somewhat (just in reverse) with Ricimer's last stand, though his rebels were definitely not as high-spirited as the Greek coalition. Arguably Stilicho couldn't bring many men over the goat track since it's hardly a proper mountain road, but then he didn't really need to since Ricimer's cause had pretty much collapsed by that point and he was suffering from defections (including the man who revealed the goat track in the first place) left & right: the shock of Stilicho's attack would've caused panic among the non-Donatists and ensured the defeat of the rebel army even before Ricimer himself died.

As far as troubled empires go, I'd definitely worry more about the Persians than either Roman Empire right now. Euric doesn't really have the ability to go 'full Attila' on the WRE, after all, and the entirety of his strategic concerns revolve around not getting his Iberian fiefdom squished next year. The White Huns however, absolutely do have plenty of both - or at least Akhshunwar does, his nephew would prefer to rule Persia (or even reduce it to a tributary under his wife's nephews) rather than destroy it all. But the Sassanids, despite the recent defeats, remain an old and well-established empire with resources to spare & have definitely still got some fight left in them too. Of course, how that's all going to be resolved is a spoiler to be answered in the coming chapters 😉
 
471-473: Imperial justice

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
471 marked the beginning of the Western Roman Empire’s great, undivided offensive against Euric, the most persistent of the conspirators who had managed to defy Honorius’ justice for half a decade now. Having painstakingly restored the strength of his fleet over the previous year and the first eight months of this one, the emperor mounted a second, more successful effort to land troops on the opposite side of the Pyrenees in September, securing a beachhead at Lauretum[1] with two of Thorismund’s younger sons, Amalaric and Athalaric, and inciting rebellion among the oppressed Hispano-Romans of Tarraconensis.

While Honorius was rebuilding the Western Roman fleet, Roderic celebrated his wedding to Stilicho’s sister Thiyya on May 11. In the fall, he and Majorian left his now-pregnant wife to coordinate their crossing into Hispania at the Pillars of Hercules with the emperor’s landings further north, establishing their first camp on Mons Calpe[2] before advancing further inland throughout the fall and winter. Hispalis revolted against its Visigoth garrison on December 24 and opened its gates while the two had barely begun to invest the city, allowing them to rush in and capture the city just before the end of the year. Now caught in a pincer and with the number of tricks he had up his sleeve having been whittled down over the past five years, Euric resolved to throw his full strength at his oldest nephew (and Majorian) first before they could replenish their strength to full with Hispano-Roman recruits (who were now coming out of the woodwork along with those loyalist Visigoths left behind in Roderic’s initial retreat) or link up with their emperor.

Meanwhile in the Eastern Roman Empire, as Aspar visibly threw his weight around at court, his enemies began to hatch a conspiracy to undermine and eventually topple him. With Anthemius II’s knowledge and assent, his mother Licinia Eudoxia reached out to old general Leo, who in turn contacted the allies he’d made among the Isaurians – a fierce, quasi-barbarian mountain people who had made significant contributions to the army he’d been leading since the days of Anthemius I. The arrival of Hephthalite envoys in the winter, speaking of the devastating triumphs their masters had scored over the Persians and calling upon the Eastern Empire to fulfill the terms of their old alliance once more, provided both parties with convenient cover for the intrigues they were engaging in, and under their combined pressure Anthemius II agreed to go to war with Ctesiphon once more.

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Eastern Roman forces departing Constantinople to fight against the beleaguered Persians again, just a few years after wresting Nisibis from them

As for those Persians, while the Hephthalites were not lying about this being another year of defeats for them, they neglected to mention to the Eastern Roman court that Sassanid fortunes had begun to improve toward the end of 471. Mehama cleared out most of Khorasan, culminating in his victorious capture of Nishapur in November, while Akhshunwar continued to leave a trail of devastation across the shores of the Sea of Makran[3] and the Persian Gulf, climaxing with his savage sack of the previously-prosperous ports of Hormirzad[4] and Minab; much like the survivors of Aquileia, the only Persians who survived his onslaught were those who fled where the Eftals could not follow, in their case to the island of Ormus[5].

But Mehama found his westward drive blunted by the House of Ispahbudhan[6] and their Daylamite vassals in the Alborz Mountains as he tried to leave Khorasan, while Peroz’s new army (bolstered by a large Lakhmid Arab contingent led by Al-Mundhir ibn Al-Mundhir[7], brother of their king Al-Aswad) set out to stop Akshunwar in the south. The Shah got his chance at Siraf on December 11, engaging the Hephthalites when they were but days away from storming the declining port town. Al-Mundhir’s cavalry and camelry helped counter the significant Eftal advantage in cavalry, as did Peroz’s elephant corps, and Akhshunwar was forced to retreat before the larger Sassanid army completely enveloped his own. The vengeful Persians only took prisoners to inflict torturous deaths upon them later, and hanged their mutilated corpses from the walls of Siraf before moving on to pursue Akhshunwar eastward.

In China, Emperor Chengzu battled the other warlords across China who had so far refused to bow down and acknowledge the authority of his Chen dynasty. Of these Shen Youzhi, who had been loyal to the Song until their bitter end, proved to be the most tenacious and persistent; but the Chen had the advantage in numbers and popular support, and Chengzu was determined to ensure that no holdout of the old regime should stand in his way for long. Although Shen Youzhi enjoyed a string of triumphs in the summer & early spring and drove the Chen hosts back from Xiapi[8] to Jiankang, there he was ambushed by two more Chen armies – one from Lujiang, in the core of the Chen’s power-base, and the other from Kuaiji[9] to the southeast – and utterly defeated on June 15. He fled to the court of the Rouran, where he promised Shouluobuzhen Khagan land as far as the Yellow Sea in exchange for assistance against the Chen, but Chengzu had sent his own envoys to the khagan and offered to let him keep Liang Province if would but hand Shen Youzhi over.

Had the khagan not previously been humbled by the Song and seen his forces further depleted by the Fufuluo rebellion, he’d easily have taken Shen Youzhi’s offer; but Shouluobuzhen was more cautious now, informed by a realistic appraisal of his own strength compared to that of the ascendant Chen, and decided that Chengzu’s was the more logical offer to take, lest he lose even Liang to the large and well-prepared Chen armies. Thus the year ended with the last Song loyalist losing his head after being delivered to Jiankang by the Rouran and Chengzu firmly consolidating his dynasty’s rule over all China save the northwestern and northeastern provinces of Liang & Liaoning, which were respectively still held by the Rouran and Goguryeo.

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The Chen court celebrates the death of Shen Youzhi and the return of peace to China after the turmoil of the Song dynasty's last years

472 began with the armies of Euric and Majorian clashing on the lower banks of the Baetis, west of Corduba[10]. There on January 20 Euric’s outnumbered army of Visigoth and Priscillianist rebels fought back fiercely against Majorian’s Italian, African and Spanish legions for a time, but crumbled after Roderic emerged to assail their left flank with the loyal Visigoths and Berber cavalry on loan from Stilicho, having been directed to march along the southern banks of the Baetis and cross at an opportune time by Majorian. Unlike the Battle of Theveste however, here Majorian’s decision to split his larger forces – while still securing him the victory – proved fatal to his ally, for the legitimate Visigoth king was struck down by one of Euric’s angons even as the rebel host was being swept from the field.

The allies marched into Corduba where they were welcomed by the citizens, now missing their bishop since Euric killed him in a fit of paranoia on his way to the Battle of the Lower Baetis, but remained there in a state of confusion until news of the birth of Roderic’s posthumous son Alaric (so named according to his wishes prior to leaving Africa) arrived from Iol Caesarea at the end of February. Prince Amalaric, the Balthing brother closest to Roderic in age, had asserted his claim to the Visigoth throne after hearing of his older brother’s death; but Honorius, in the first known case of a Roman emperor meddling in the succession of one of his federate kingdoms, determined that the newborn Alaric should succeed his father as King of the Visigoths by right of primogeniture instead – no doubt the knowledge that he could have a Hispano-Roman bishop effectively rule in Alaric’s name for the next decade & a half was the main motivating factor in his decision. To keep Amalaric, his brothers and their followers happy, Honorius promised them territorial compensation in the rest of Hispania after the war, which the Visigoth princes agreed to if only because of their relative weakness compared to Honorius and how their hatred for their treacherous kin-slaying uncle exceeded their anger at the emperor’s meddling.

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Rebel and loyalist Visigoths clashing at the Lower Baetis

Bloody defeat at the Lower Baetis had gravely weakened Euric’s position, forcing him to withdraw behind the Iberian Cordillera while offering limited resistance – mostly in the way of deploying his Priscillianist allies as guerrillas to harass the advancing Western Romans as Ricimer had used his Donatists in Africa. This did not avail him and further defeats at Tritium[11], Abuna and Albucella[12] pushed him toward the mountains of the Callaeci and Astures by the end of the year. In desperation the rebel chief engaged in secret communications with Chilperic, King of Burgundy, hoping to exploit his resentment toward Honorius over the latter’s treatment of his father to turn him against the Western Augustus and help pull off some miraculous last-minute turnaround against the seemingly imminently victorious Romans.

As the Western Romans continuously advanced against Euric’s dwindling forces, over in Britannia Ambrosius had a rare break from endemic violence and relieved his subjects’ taxes so that they too might enjoy the peace, however short-lived it might be. His restoration of the Roman forts and outposts along the northern edges of his realm had stemmed the tide of Saxon raids from that direction and his enlistment of the Uí Liatháin as foederati reduced the severity of Irish raids from over the western seas, for the Hiberno-Demetians proved effective at fending off their former countrymen. In the autumn he sent his son Artorius, now seven years old, to be raised at the court of his uncle Uthyr at Isca Dumnoniorum[13].

Meanwhile, the first Angles arrived on British shores this year: a rather motley band of assorted undesirables (mostly outlaws) banished from Angeln[14] and led by the brothers Ket and Wig[15], who themselves had been exiled by the King of the Angles for dishonorably ganging up on a neighboring king after he killed their father in a duel the latter had challenged him to in the first place. These Angles washed up at the mouth of the Tina[16] and established themselves at the long-abandoned & ruined Roman fort of Arbeia[17], wresting it from the local Britons who called it Caer Urfa. Over Yuletide, they would make contact with the Saxon garrison at Cataractonium, who in turn bore the news to an interested Ælle...

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The Angles of Ket and Wig setting up at Arbeia

In the east, Peroz had further success in pushing Akhshunwar back, defeating the southern Hephthalite army at Jiruft and recovering what little they’d left of Bam by mid-summer. Around the same time, Mehama had to storm Gorgan at great cost and soon after withdrew from it anyway after being fooled into thinking that an oncoming Sassanid relief army was twice its actual size, sacking the parts of the city which had survived his initial attack as he left. The Ispahbudhans and Kanarangiyans[18], whose lands had previously been overrun once again by Mehama, gave chase as the northern Eftal army and their Fufuluo allies withdrew eastward toward Nisa. But the Persians’ run of good luck came to an end in July, when Anthemius II declared that the Eastern Roman Empire would uphold its old alliance with Bactra and set about attacking the weakened Mesopotamian frontier.

As the Roman advance began with Aspar succeeding where he’d failed last round and capturing Gazaca while the main army under Anthemius & Leo marched down the Tigris, their Armenian & Albanian vassals overran the Balasagan region by the Caspian Sea and the Ghassanids crossed the Euphrates, Peroz was forced to halt his offensive against the Hephthalites and divide his forces to slow down the Roman incursions while also hurriedly drafting a new army in Persis and eastern Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, Mehama and Akhshunwar were pulling their forces back together to crush the Shah in the field once and for all. The Persian situation which had seemed so hopeful by mid-472 seemed to have gone the same way as a flower exposed to the Caucasian winter by the year’s end.

To the south, hostilities flared up once more between Aksum and Himyar, as the Baccinbaxaba Ebana died and his son Nezool[19] faced a rebellion on the Red Sea coast led by the former’s cousin Nezana – the perfect circumstances to retake Himyar’s western coast, in the estimation of King Hassan Yuha’min. While the Aksumites were distracted by their civil war and unable to send reinforcements over the Bab el-Mandeb, the Himyarites rushed back into the Sabaean lowlands and recaptured Ta’izz and Ras Menheli, disrupting Aksumite control over the strait. However, the Aksumite garrison at Muza endured a siege until it was relieved by Arab reinforcements from their vassals in Yathrib near the end of the year, leaving Hassan’s campaign of reconquest incomplete as 472 came to a close.

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Aksum's internal troubles allowed the Himyarites to recover most of their lost coastline in 472

In the early months of 473, Euric’s last hope of getting the Burgundians to assassinate Honorius fell apart when Chilperic’s ambitious brother Gundabad[20], who they had unwisely not only included in their plot but actually assigned to be their assassin, revealed the plot to the Western Augustus in hopes of snatching his big brother’s crown. Naturally, Chilperic denied everything and claimed Gundobad had just framed him for a plot he himself had initiated. Since both brothers had evidence implicating the other and shared the same motive for joining Euric’s plot, Honorius’ first instinct was to arrest and execute both, but he was aware of the danger of infighting within his own camp and sensed an opportunity to further weaken the Burgundian kingdom without necessarily shedding blood right in that moment. Since Gundobad had a case for becoming a (but not the) Burgundian king based on the ancient laws of their people and the brothers obviously could not stand each other, the emperor (who also increased the number of bodyguards around him at all times) decreed that Chilperic should take him on as co-king and co-commander over the Burgundians – ceding to him power over the eastern mountain valleys of the Burgundian domain – in exchange for being cleared of the charges against him, an offer he was no more in a position to refuse than the younger sons of Thorismund had been to refuse theirs.

With the plot against him averted and Burgundians hopefully set against each other, the emperor resumed the attack against Euric in the spring. The Visigoth usurper was on his last legs, and it showed as – after a few, quickly-reversed early advances with the aid of Asturian and Galician tribal warriors – he was further driven toward the sea over the next few months, despite the inevitable infighting within Honorius’ Burgundian contingent. On July 23, Euric (having completely run out of tricks) made his last stand at Bracara Augusta against the combined armies of Honorius and Majorian; he fought the Ostrogoth king Theodemir and nearly slew him during the Western Roman assault on the city walls, but was driven away by the latter’s retainers before he could strike the finishing blow and was instead himself killed two days later when the Western Romans pulled the Arian church he & the last of his warriors had barricaded themselves in down on their heads. With the death of this last and most persistent of the rebel chiefs, their great conspiracy had finally been fully undone and the Western Roman Empire knew peace again – and a much needed peace at that, for now Honorius had to rebuild large parts of his empire once more.

First order of business for the victorious emperor was firmly restoring order to Hispania, by far the most devastated of the three theaters of the Second Great Conspiracy. The infant Alaric II was installed in Baurg as his father’s successor, with a council of bishops (most of them newly appointed to replace the martyrs struck down by Euric - certainly their leader, Archbishop Celsus of Toletum, belonged to this category) imposed to govern the Visigoths in his name. Naturally their first decree was to carry out the emperor’s punishment on the utterly defeated rebel Goths by finally imposing religious orthodoxy upon them: ordering the destruction of all Arian churches remaining on Visigoth land, the execution of their priests and those Visigoths who still refused to convert to either be enslaved or deported to other parts of the Western Empire while their property was to be seized and divided up among those who embraced Ephesian doctrine. The most fervent Arians had to go underground if they were to avoid dying for their faith, largely joining their similarly outlawed Priscillianist allies in the mountains of the Celtiberian and Vasconic tribes.

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Alaric II's mother Thiyya asks Archbishop Celsus of Toletum to return him to her arms

Meanwhile Alaric’s uncles Amalaric, Athalaric and Athanagild were appointed to serve as the governors of Baetica, Lusitania and Cartaginensis[21] – parts of the latter two provinces having already been awarded to the Visigoth kingdom proper two decades prior. As they were all Ephesians like their father & brother and their followers fewer still after the war and partition, Honorius believed he could more easily keep the Balthings as a whole under control and ensure their total absorption into the ranks of their Hispano-Roman subjects in the next few decades. In that latter regard, at least, the Augustus would not be disappointed; while Euric, wherever he may be in the afterlife, would no doubt have been disappointed to know that his rebellion had achieved the precise opposite of maintaining his people's independence and status above the Hispano-Romans.

Not only had the Visigoths been the first major federate tribe to be exposed to Roman influence and to have absorbed that influence & integrated themselves into the Empire more readily than most of their peers, but as diminished as they had been by the devastating wars of the 5th century (of which the Second Great Conspiracy was only the latest) and as they’d increasingly been shedding their Arianism (where the Bible was written and read in their native tongue rather than Latin thanks to the missionary Wulfila[22]) even before Alaric’s regents made conversion to the Ephesian Creed mandatory, their assimilation became as inevitable as that of the Vandals. While the Balthings and other descendants of Visigoth royalty & nobility would continue to remain proud of their ‘Godo’ heritage, furnish the Western Roman army with officers and soldiers of great valor, and leave their own mark on the local Latin dialects of the Diocese of Hispania – over the next century, the Visigothic language & identity itself increasingly faded to make way for a thoroughly Romance-dominated and Ephesian Spanish one, united both by their now-shared religious orthodoxy and increasing intermarriage between the Gothic and Hispano-Roman elites.

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Though the Visigoths nominally controlled much of Hispania as vassals of the Western Roman Emperor, there was no mistake that from 473 onward it was the urban, Ephesian and Latin-speaking Hispano-Roman majority which was ascendant

Barbarian affairs aside, Honorius also had to tend to the Western Roman economy, which he had carefully built back up after Attila only to suffer damage and the depletion of its resources again thanks to the conspirators. The only positive economic development from this whole mess was that Italy’s post-Attila smallholder class, simultaneously pressured to produce enough food to keep themselves & their neighbors from starving back when Ricimer still seriously threatened African shipping and yet relatively untouched by the war themselves, finally began to become self-sufficient; they could now feed themselves while retaining a surplus for sale in local markets under normal circumstances, and it was Honorius’ hope that in time they’d even turn Italy into an agricultural powerhouse to challenge Africa.

At the counsel of Majorian the Augustus ordered old Olybrius to expand coin production at the imperial mints at Rome, Ravenna, Mediolanum and Augusta Treverorum, while the Franks and Ostrogoths were allowed to work at the mints of Ambianum[23] and Sirmium under the supervision of overseers from Italy who’d make sure their work was up to Roman standards. Free laborers and slaves (including Visigoths, both prisoners-of-war from Euric’s armies and recently enslaved Arians) alike were massed to restore & work at the recovered Roman gold and silver mines of northwestern Hispania, of which the largest was located near Pons Ferrata[24]. These coins, containing significantly higher amounts of precious metals and thus of higher value than the infamously massively debased currency of the past, were decreed to be the only legal payment in government transactions. Over the rest of the 470s and into the next decade, the Roman government fought to phase out taxation-in-kind in favor of the collection of taxes only in hard currency, expecting that this policy would increase revenue while also allowing the commoners to pay at more consistent tax rates – sometimes even lower than what the tax collectors would previously demand from them in kind[25].

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A golden tremissis of Honorius II minted with Spanish gold in 473, bearing a cross as a sign of his Christian piety

Far off in the sands of Persia, Peroz tried and failed to crush Akhshunwar one more time before the latter could rejoin his nephew. The Battle of Bazman had been a Sassanid victory in the sense that the Hephthalites had retreated, but Peroz’s army had failed to inflict anywhere close to crippling losses on them and Akhshunwar was able to escape into the mountains of Carmania and continue on to link up with Mehama. Not only did said mountains obstruct Peroz’s pursuit, but the surrender of Mosul to the Eastern Roman army in the last days of summer and their reinforcement by Aspar’s and Theodoric Strabo’s secondary host in preparation for a march on Ctesiphon forced him to devote all possible resources to preventing them from conquering the core of his empire, including his own movement with his entire remaining army to the west.

The only bit of good news for the Shah this year was that Vishnugupta had been murdered and his throne as Samrat usurped by Purugupta, the rebellious uncle whose life he had spared six years before and who still resented the Eftals for derailing his first bid for power. However, as he had no desire to immediately go to war with Bactra, this development was presently irrelevant to Mehama and Akhshunwar, who took advantage of the Shah’s undivided attention being directed west to finally link up and consolidate around Zaranj before turning to annihilate the Ispahbudhan-Kanarangiyan army pursuing the former at Tus in October. With that thorn removed from their side, the Hephthalite horde began to resume its westward advance: they spent the rest of the year devastating Hyrcania and ended it by capturing Damghan for use as a base of operations against central and western Persia in the coming years.

China, in contrast to Sassanid Persia, was having a rather easy time as the mid-470s approached. Having defeated all the major warlords opposing him and secured peace with the barbarians for now, Emperor Chengzu set about restoring order in the countryside, sending his armies to hunt down smaller gangs of bandits like the ones who destroyed the Liu clan preceding him and make the roads safe for travel once again. With law & order came economic revitalization as internal, then external, land-bound trade picked up again; and with trade came foreign influences, particularly Buddhism which was brought along by Indian & Central Asian merchants & monks, and which already had a presence in China since the 3rd century. For his own part, Chengzu strove to set an example to his officials by living frugally and imposing taxes on luxury items not just to generate state revenue, but also to discourage wastefulness – and while he never entertained the thought of becoming a Buddhist, it was undeniable that the teachings of Buddhist ascetics held a certain appeal to him, thus he did nothing to hinder the new religion’s growth along the roads of his empire and even invited some Buddhist monks to his court.

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A Sogdian (perhaps even Eftal) monk enlightening his Chinese acolyte to the Buddha's ways

====================================================================================

[1] Lloret de Mar.

[2] The Rock of Gibraltar.

[3] The Sea of Oman.

[4] Bandar Abbas.

[5] Hormuz Island.

[6] One of the seven great Parthian clans in the Sassanid Empire, the House of Ispahbudhan claimed descent from the legendary Persian hero Esfandiyār and was principally based in Hyrcania.

[7] Younger son of Al-Mundhir I of the Lakhmids, this Al-Mundhir historically succeeded his brother Al-Aswad as King of the Lakhmids in 490 and was himself succeeded by Al-Aswad’s son Al-Nu’man II in 497.

[8] Pizhou.

[9] Shaoxing.

[10] Cordoba. The battle between Euric & Majorian/Roderic would have been fought near modern Posadas, Spain.

[11] Nájera.

[12] Toro.

[13] Exeter.

[14] Modern Schleswig.

[15] Two chaarcters from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle & Gesta Danorum. Their victim was said to be Eadgils, king of the Saxon Myrgings, though they don’t seem to have been punished with exile over the North Sea for disgracing the Angles.

[16] The River Tyne.

[17] South Shields.

[18] Another major Parthian clan in Sassanid service, though not one traditionally counted among the seven great houses. They derive their name from the hereditary title Kanarang, which denoted the march-warden of Persia’s northeastern frontier where they had their estates and which they kept within their family.

[19] Another 5th-century Aksumite king known from his coins. ‘Nezana’ may have been either another one of his names, or another man entirely who ruled jointly with him.

[20] King of the Burgundians until 516, Gundobad historically ruthlessly consolidated power at the expense of his brothers (with whom he had divided up the Burgundian kingdom after their father Gondioc’s death) and issued the Lex Burgundionum, a law code which was based on Roman law and included provisions for the separate treatment of Burgundian-Burgundian cases compared to ones involving Burgundians & Romans. He was the longest-reigning and most successful of the Burgundian kings.

[21] Baetica, Lusitania and Cartaginensis approximate to Andalusia, southern Portugal & southwestern Spain, and central & southeastern Spain respectively. As mentioned, the latter two provinces have already lost some land to the Visigoth kingdom, which also encompasses the whole of the old province of Gallaecia (northern Portugal & northwestern Spain) and some of western Tarraconensis, now one of the only two Spanish provinces not under a Visigoth king or governor (the other being Hispania Balearica, the Balearic islands).

[22] Wulfila, also known as Ulfilas, was a Greek born into slavery among the Goths in the 4th century. He grew up to become an important Arian missionary and spread that creed among these particular barbarians, developing a Gothic alphabet and using it to translate the Bible into the Goths’ own language (as mentioned) to further hasten their conversion.

[23] Amiens.

[24] Ponferrada. The mine in question is Las Médulas, the largest gold mine in the Roman Empire; as many as seven aqueducts were used to bring water to the site for use in hydraulic mining operations.

[25] A combination of the financial reforms of both the historical Majorian and Anastasius Dicorus.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Looks like at least part of of barbarian federati problems will be gone, with Vandals and Visigoths being absorbed, Burgundians and Franks on the other hand remain.
 
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ATP

Well-known member
Good ending for WRE.And good chapter,too.About Franks - i read that in those times they have only heavy infrantry with some archers,and as a result in OTL Byzantine calvary with horse archers wiped one of their armies in Italy loosing less then 100 soldiers.If it is still true,then even if they revolt,WRE could defeat them.

Saxons - i read Beowulf poem/not in oryginal,of course/,and it happened in Scandinavia,in some kingdom between Denmark and Sweden.Could real Beowulf come to Britain now ?

China - Tang dynasty take over much of Syberia/i read funny memories ,how soviets archeologists ignored ruins there,becouse it would be proof that China ruled Syberia when Russia do not existed yet /, so Chen dynasty could do the same now.
Or turn to the sea and discover Africa,or maybe even Australia.
Indonesian fisherman did so in 17th century,but they cared only about fishing there.But - i read some article about Tang dynasty gold mines in Australia - probably false,but you could made it true.

Please continue.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
Don't forget about the other Gothic branch, the Ostrogoths - they share the rather interesting position of the Franks as a (so far) loyal federate nation which has in turn been able to prosper under the Romans' wing, growing greatly in power even while the Visigoths and Vandals waned and integrating into the Roman world steadily as they go, but without giving the Roman authorities any window of opportunity to quickly undermine their autonomy and/or set in stone their Romanization the way the Visigoths and Vandals just have. (The Burgundians are still around too, but their constant treachery has obviously left them in significant disfavor with Honorius II) You can expect both the Ostrogoths & Franks to play an increasing role in the coming decades.

The Franks, to my understanding, did indeed practice a very infantry-centric style of warfare even centuries after being introduced to the Roman sphere. Charles Martel's infantry was key to his victory at Tours three centuries after the historical fall of the WRE, for example - I know in vidya (ex. Medieval II Total War) and media the French are usually depicted as being the faction with strong heavy cavalry, but that doesn't seem to have become the case until much much later into the High Middle Ages. I personally envision their contributions to the Western Roman armies of the Stilichians to be almost entirely infantry, with peoples like the Goths and Vandals/Moors (who were the barbs better known for their cavalry) being the ones to furnish the emperors with mounted contingents instead; I think the only time I've mentioned Frankish cavalry at all ITL was in the Battle of Lutetia against Laudaricus, where they didn't accomplish much besides momentarily distracting the Huns and letting Aetius know his Frankish reinforcements had arrived to save the day.

Anything & everything else, as usual, are spoilers I have to keep under wraps for now. Although I don't think it's any great surprise to suggest that the Chen dynasty will, at minimum, want to recover those provinces they conceded to the northern barbarians at some point down the line.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
I think the current war against Persia will have more byzantine plots than usual, with Anthemius & friends trying to get rid of Aspar and Aspar pulling tricks to further undercut Anthemius, probably by using the war to get rid of commanders he sees as disloyal to himself.

With Hispania and Africa rebuilding, and seemingly content not to cause ruckus for foreseeable time, Burgundians scheming against each other, Gallo-Romans busy rebuilding and fending off periodical barbarian raids, I think the biggest issue Western Roman will have now is bringing the remaining barbarian fragments towards Eastern Roman border to heel and rehabilitate the ravaged region.
 
474-476: Purple shrouds

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
474 was largely a peaceful year for the Western Roman Empire, one that it badly needed to rebuild after the Second Great Conspiracy. The most prominent development in that half of the Roman world was the death of Theodemir, King of the Ostrogoths, on January 17 from the infection which had set in the wounds he’d received from Euric during the storming of Bracara Augusta the year before. His son Theodoric, now a man of twenty, promptly departed Honorius’ staff to take up his father’s crown: now a tall & powerful young man who’d distinguished himself as a brave & able officer on the emperor’s staff in the battles against Euric, Theodoric had also taken to his Roman education like a fish to water and was positively noted by contemporary chroniclers to not only be literate but so learned that he could hold a conversation with any proper Roman scholar.

Though still at least nominally an Arian, Theodoric was wholly tolerant of Ephesians and assured the Roman bishops & bureaucrats of Dalmatia that they had nothing to fear from him soon after his acclamation on the shields of the Ostrogoth warriors – indeed, he would not make any moves against them in the years to come, rely greatly upon their talents to administer his realm, and even afford the most promising of them high station in his court. Old Ephesian churches continued to remain open and new ones were built under his rule, and Ostrogoths who converted to the Ephesian Creed out of their own volition faced no sanction from the royal court. In hopes of replicating the positive outcomes his family had been getting out of Theodoric and other Gothic princes in the past, Honorius invited Childeric of the Franks to send his eight-year-old son & heir Clovis[1] to Ravenna as well this year.

But while certainly these were pleasing developments to the imperial court, the emperor was worried such a promising vassal might antagonize and be eliminated by his own subordinates (as his Visigoth uncle Thorismund had been) if he was not careful to avoid seeming like too much of a Roman puppet, not so long as his subjects still considered themselves separate from Roman society. Theodoric was not unaware of the danger himself, and sought to tread a fine line between loyal service to Rome and maintaining the autonomy of his people over the years to come.

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Though quite Romanized himself, Theodoric had himself acclaimed king in the Ostrogoth fashion to remind his people that he had not entirely forgotten his roots

On the other hand, this year was anything but a smooth ride for the Eastern Empire. Its first half may have been, despite increasingly poorly disguised feuding between generals Aspar and Leo – the imperial army under Anthemius II was able to advance down the Tigris & Euphrates to link up with the Ghassanids and then capture first Tikrit on April 13, then Wuzurg-Shapur (which had infamously been founded by Roman prisoners-of-war taken by Shapur I, its namesake, in the Battle of Edessa against Emperor Valerian 200 years prior) on May 31. But in June, while the Eastern army was throwing up siegeworks around Ctesiphon, Shah Peroz arrived with his army and threw them at the Romans with the sort of desperate fury that a cornered animal might possess, knowing full well that his empire was in serious danger of being torn apart between the Romans and Hephthalites.

The ensuing Battle of Ctesiphon raged for two days, for despite all of Peroz’s haste and fervor in the battle, Ghassanid scouts had ensured that the Romans were aware of the oncoming danger and gave Anthemius and his generals time to prepare adequately. The Romans and their Armenian and Arab allies did well on the first day, scattering the Persians’ own Lakhmid auxiliaries before them and at one point nearly capturing Ctesiphon when the city’s garrison tried to sally forth and was beaten back – unfortunately for them, the Sassanids managed to shut the gates after only a few hundred Arabs managed to pursue them and killed these aforementioned pursuers, the Ghassanid king ‘Amr III ibn al-Nu’man[2] among them – but disaster befell them on the second day, where despite managing to hold the field against renewed Persian charges and arrow-storms, the Augustus was fatally wounded by a cataphract’s lance and expired soon after sundown.

Leo was quick to blame Aspar, claiming he held his troops back when they could’ve defended the emperor; Aspar insisted he had no choice, as the right wing which he was commanding was just as hard-pressed as the emperor’s center and that he had actually offered to detach reinforcements to Anthemius’ aid but been refused by the fallen Augustus himself. As the night dragged on, their vehement argument escalated to a murderous battle as both saw their chance to eliminate and blame the other for Anthemius’ demise. Leo called on his Isaurian contingent to press hard against Aspar’s men, but the old Alan countered by calling in Theodoric Strabo’s Moesogoths. Still the impromptu Roman civil war in their camp hung in the balance into the early hours of the morning, when the Armenians were roused and – having little idea of what had happened, but more familiar with Aspar as he and their king Vahan had established a working relationship over the previous wars with Persia – rushed to Aspar’s aid, believing him when he claimed Leo was the traitor who arranged Anthemius’ death and was now trying to eliminate all witnesses. (The Ghassanids, still disorganized and in mourning over their own king’s death, had no part in this engagement)

When the sun rose over what should’ve been the third day of battle, Peroz was shocked to find that no small number of the surviving Romans had been killed by their comrades, Leo’s head had been mounted on a Gothic pike and Aspar was offering them terms in the name of the Emperor Ardabur; his son, who he had acclaimed Augustus by his troops and raised up on their shields after defeating Leo, much to the Armenians’ increasing confusion. Aspar offered to return Tikrit and leave the Sassanids to face the Eftals in exchange for retaining Nineveh and the rest of the heavily-Christian border province of Arbayistan, as well as the partition of the satrapy of Balasagan between the Armenians and Albanians occupying it. While the territorial losses (though not as dangerous compared to what was likely had Anthemius lived and conquered Ctesiphon) would surely sting, Peroz felt he had little choice but to agree after receiving reports from his eastern satraps that the Hephthalites had laid waste as far as Yazd and were even threatening Istakhr, the very hometown of his dynasty.

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Theodoric Strabo reports his success in hunting down pro-Leo stragglers after Aspar's victory in the Eastern Roman camp

With the Persian war out of the way, Aspar turned to march on Constantinople and assert his son’s claim to the purple. The empress dowager Licinia Eudoxia refused to recognize Ardabur as Augustus (as did Honorius II), instead denouncing him and Aspar as her son’s killers, and at first sent the general Basiliscus[3], Leo’s brother-in-law, to stop him. To her shock, Aspar was able to win Basiliscus and his nephew Armatus[4] by promising them high offices and tolerance for their Miaphysite co-religionists under Ardabur’s regime. Growing more desperate still, she reached out to Leo’s old Isaurian contacts and offered to marry their recently-widowed great chieftain Tarasis[5] as well as to wed the now-teenage Alypia (Ardabur’s intended) to his half-Greek son Zenon. But Tarasis and his warriors were defeated by Aspar’s much larger army at the Battle of the Cydnus[6] in August, and Aspar’s outriders captured Alypia and her attendants on their way to the Isaurians’ mountains; she was promptly forcefully married to Ardabur to legitimize his claim.

Following these calamities, Licinia Eudoxia fled Constantinople ahead of the rebels’ arrival with her youngest daughter Lucina, intending to go to Ravenna and seek Western Roman assistance against Aspar, but their party was ambushed in an opportunistic Gepid raid into Thrace. The dowager empress was among the casualties, accidentally struck down by a Gepid angon while trying to flee the fracas (infuriating King Giesmus, who knew she would fetch a fortune from either imperial court), but Lucina reportedly went missing – certainly the Gepids did not have her, for they earnestly tried to find her in vain and if they had her in their captivity, Giesmus would have trumpeted her presence to the world in hopes of getting Honorius and Aspar to bid on her deliverance. This seemed to all to be the end of the Neo-Constantinian dynasty, which had shown great potential under Anthemius I less than a decade before, and its replacement by the Alan-blooded Asparians.

Meanwhile, Aspar reached Constantinople and formally imposed Ardabur on the Eastern Roman throne. The younger man publicly converted to Ephesianism to get Patriarch Acacius to crown him, but soon he’d made it clear that he was still an Arian at heart and did not take his new creed seriously: simultaneously following through on the promises his father had made to Basiliscus and trying to strengthen Alexandria at Constantinople’s expense at Aspar’s suggestion, he issued decrees to tolerate Arianism in the Balkan provinces and Miaphysitism throughout the rest of Egypt & Syria, allowing these heterodox Christians to not only practice openly but also build their own churches while any Ephesian who harassed them was to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Where vacancies opened up, Arians and Miaphysites were appointed to bishoprics ahead of any Ephesian candidates by the new emperor, as well. Ardabur also appointed Basiliscus Praetorian Prefect of the East, though Aspar retained greater power (especially over the military) as magister militum, and further named Armatus Vicar of the Diocese of the East, where his first job would be to suppress a Samaritan revolt which had broken out across northern Palaestina in the disorderly months between Anthemius II’s death and Ardabur’s official enthronement in Constantinople[7].

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It took him almost his entire life to do so, but at long last, old Aspar had managed to install one of his brood on the Eastern Roman throne

While the Eastern Romans were being roiled by internal troubles, the Persians now had a free hand to use against the Hephthalites and made the most of it. Peroz’s army, reinforced by way of almost completely emptying the garrisons of Ctesiphon and other Mesopotamian cities, hurried to stop Mehama and Akhshunwar before they could sack Istakhr – something which would have been a mortal insult to the Sassanid dynasty – and scored a victory against the two warlords just east of that city in early October, pushing them back toward the Hazaran Mountains. Nevertheless, the Hephthalites had still not been crippled by their latest defeat and refused to even consider making peace with the betrayer and killer of Khingila, even daring to send Peroz’s emissary back to the Shah without his head at the year’s end: clearly, this war was only going to end with either their deaths or his own.

In 475, Honorius II decided that the Western Empire should try to resume the war against the Gepids which he had left unfinished when the Second Great Conspiracy erupted, and that now-King Theodoric should be given an opportunity to prove himself at the head of this campaign. Though given only a few legions by Majorian to supplement his otherwise wholly Ostrogoth and Iazyges army (the rest were still needed to ensure public safety and a smooth reconstruction in Hispania, Gaul or Africa), Theodoric did indeed pass the emperor’s final test with flying colors throughout the spring and summer, retaking Singidunum within weeks of the war’s resumption and driving them out of the province of Pannonia Secunda and the Diocese of Dacia altogether within months.

With this victory the Western Empire had finally regained all the lands in Illyricum which it was supposed to have according to the agreement made by Emperors Romanus and Theodosius II in 449; but although Theodoric was happy to pursue the Gepids into Dacia and destroy them altogether, Aspar had stepped in and overseen the signing of a federate contract between their king Giesmus and Emperor Ardabur, placing the Gepids under the East’s protection in exchange for their military service in the wars to come and reparations for their recent raid into Eastern Roman territory. Unwilling to openly fight the Eastern Empire so soon after putting down the Second Great Conspiracy, Honorius commanded Theodoric to hold back, which the seething Ostrogoth did with great reluctance. Still, the emperor rewarded him for his able service by agreeing to his request to leave the reconquered lands under his administration, counting on the Ostrogoths to help repopulate those long-devastated frontier provinces, and the magister militum was sufficiently impressed to honor the king’s request to marry Domnina Majoriana, the eldest of his daughters with Honorius’ aunt Maria.

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Majorian prepares to deliver his daughter Domnina to Theodoric, having won one more victory in successfully insisting that the ceremony be done in the Roman style and officiated by an Ephesian prelate

Within the Roman world but beyond the boundaries of either empire, the Romano-Britons’ new defenses were seriously tested by Ælle this autumn, for he had concluded an alliance with the Angle newcomers and carved out an overland connection between his realm and theirs from the native Britons in the spring and summer. With a force of 5,000 men (including 1,500 Angles) he marched down the Old North Road[8] toward Londinium, but was obstructed by the rebuilt defenses of Durobrivae for three weeks until Ambrosius was able to arrive & engage him with a similarly-sized host. The resulting battle was a defeat for the Anglo-Saxons, although Ket and Wig proved their and the Angles’ worth by fighting a valorous rearguard action that prevented Ambrosius from pursuing Ælle and limited Anglo-Saxon losses. Having duly tested the Romano-British and found that he wouldn’t be scoring another easy victory over Ambrosius anytime soon, Ælle resolved to continue building up his forces – including assertively reaching out to the Saxon warriors of the continent to join him – and to wait for a window of opportunity against Londinium to open.

475 also saw the rise of a new opportunity for the West and a new disaster for the East when – so soon after screwing the Western Romans over one more time by accepting the Gepids’ submission and following Armatus’ suppression of the Samaritan uprising – Aspar died in his sleep early in the autumn, having enjoyed the sight of his family bearing the imperial purple for little over a year. The Alan magister militum was 75, so it was not entirely unexpected that he should perish at such an age, but it was a greatly mourned and irreplaceable loss to his faction all the same. Augustus Ardabur was left confused and listless, and though his younger brother Patricius[9] tried to step up to the plate he simply was not an adequate replacement for their father. It was under those circumstances that Basiliscus and Armatus hatched their own plot to seize the throne of the Orient…

But while the Eastern Romans’ troubles were just beginning anew, the Persians were very deep in theirs. From Istakhr Peroz had pursued his enemies into the Hazaran Mountains, scoring more victories over Mehama and Akshunwar at Shiragan and Jiruft. But these were little more than feints intended to trick the Shah into thinking his final victory over the White Huns was near at hand, and so he charged into the fateful ambush the uncle-nephew team had meticulously planned for him by the ruins of Bam with an overconfident head. There, on September 6, they surrounded him from all sides – Mehama striking from the north, Akhshunwar from the south and east, and the Fufuluo from the west after detaching from the rest of the Eftal army to creep around the Sassanid host through the mountains undetected, a feat which Peroz himself thought to be impossible – and completely destroyed his army. Out of between 40,000 and 60,000 Persians, fewer than five thousand managed to break out of the trap under the command of Sukhra[10], the former governor of Sakastan.

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Mehama and his elite warriors securing the Derafsh Kaviani, the Sassanid royal standard, as they solidify their decisive victory at Bam

In addition to many kinsmen of the House of Sasan Peroz himself was killed, either by an Eftal horseman or by his own hand after realizing the battle was a lost cause and committing suicide would be a less painful way out than whatever his enemies had in mind, and Akhshunwar impaled his mutilated corpse upon a stake for use as a terrible ‘banner’ in further attacks on his empire; when he tired of this practice, the warlord had the Shah’s skull turned into a drinking cup. And while Mehama enslaved the third of the Persian prisoners who comprised part of his share of the booty of battle, Akhshunwar killed all of his prisoners so he could lob their heads at cities which dared still resist the White Hun advance. For the rest of the year the Hephthalites proceeded to viciously pillage as far as the Khuzestan Plain, sacking great cities such as Istakhr (which continued to defiantly resist even after seeing what a bloody mess the Eftals had made of their Shah, as a result Mehama allowed his uncle to indulge his bloodthirst and level it after it fell), Susa and Hormazd-Ardashir[11].

In Ctesiphon there was, of course, great panic as news of the decisive Battle of Bam and the death of the Shah spread. The roads became clogged with refugees fleeing the White Huns’ dreadful advance and the Sassanid court unanimously chose the older prince Balash[12], Peroz’s younger brother, to succeed him rather than the only one of his sons who was not present at Bam and thus still lived, the toddler Kavadh[13]. As Mehama prepared to advance into Mesopotamia Sukhra (now appointed Eran-spahbod, or supreme commander of what remained of the Persian army, as an emergency measure) rallied what forces he still could, even stopping refugees on the road and drafting the most physically able of them, for a last-ditch defense against the oncoming White Huns – though it wasn’t much, considering that Peroz already almost totally emptied the Mesopotamian garrisons for his ill-fated eastern offensive.

Far to the south, the less apocalyptic war between the Ethiopians and Himyarites raged on as Nezool finally defeated the usurper Nezana and consolidated his rule over Aksum in the spring. Over the summer, the Aksumites managed to prevent the Himyarites from capturing the Isle of Diodorus and regained some ground along the western Arabian coast, but fell short of retaking the outpost at Ras Menheli. After a push into the mountains to capture Ta’izz in the fall also failed, he sued for peace and established joint control of & taxation over the Bab el-Mandeb with Hassan Yuha’min, ending this particular Aksumite-Himyarite war in a limited victory for the latter. Hassan, for his part, would spend the next few years expanding the port at Khawr Ghurayrah, known to the Romans as Ocelis, until it absorbed Ras Menheli and became a contender for Muza (which remained under Aksumite control) to the north.

Soon after the dawn of 476, Basiliscus sprang his ambush against the Asparians. His agents incited the urban mob of Constantinople with false rumors that Ardabur was going to depose Patriarch Acacius and replace him with an Arian Goth or a Miaphysite, precisely at a time when he knew the Augustus would be making his way back to the imperial palace from the praetorium. Several of Ardabur’s guards had been paid off by Basiliscus to abandon him at this crucial time, resulting in Ardabur and his loyal defenders being pulled from their horses and lynched by the aforementioned mob. Basiliscus then declared his willingness to take the throne, but if he was expecting the staunchly Ephesian mob to acclaim him (a known Miaphysite devotee), he was sorely mistaken – the Constantinopolitans also tried to kill him and he ended up fleeing the capital in a ship bound for Alexandria, where more of his and Armatus’ agents had incited a more successful revolt among the Miaphysite majority to install Peter Mongus[14], a deacon of Timothy Aelurus, as Patriarch of Alexandria.

While Ardabur’s sons and several of his grandsons were also killed by the mob, Patricius had mobilized the loyal Scholares to defend himself and the now-widowed Augusta Alypia, who he married as part of his scheme to succeed his older brother. Patricius holed up in the Great Palace of Constantinople with his new wife and the surviving Asparian dynasts until Theodoric Strabo arrived almost a full week later to relieve the mob’s siege with 10,000 Moesogoths and other barbarian mercenaries, who ruthlessly cut open a path to the palace complex and in so doing made the city streets run red with blood. Now it was the Ephesians who were on the backfoot; but Patricius was wise enough to not want to rule his empire from a graveyard, and opened negotiations with Patriarch Acacius (who was the closest thing the mob, mostly inflamed by religious reasons, had to a leader at this point).

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Strabo's men did not handle the Constantinopolitan mob gently as they moved to rescue the line of Aspar

Patricius reached an agreement with the Patriarch before the end of February, swearing on the latter’s Bible that he would respect and regularly practice Ephesian rites and would do nothing to elevate Arianism, Miaphysitism or any other heresy above the established orthodoxy in exchange for his support in peacefully dispersing the mob and, of course, in being crowned Augustus. But a week into March, the new Emperor of the East received distressing news from Egypt and Syria: Basiliscus had been given a raucous welcome in Alexandria, where he was also acclaimed Augustus by the Egyptian legions and had a diadem placed on his brow by Peter Mongus before the cheering Miaphysite mob, while Armatus took the legions and provinces of Syria into revolt in support of his uncle.

Another civil war was now upon the Eastern Roman Empire, though both sides would spend the rest of 476 trying to consolidate control over their territory (in Patricius’ case, he also tried to reach out to Tarasis’ Isaurians for help) and eliminate Ephesian/Miaphysite partisans supporting the other side. To the west Honorius was still sufficiently busy with reconstruction & his new financial reforms to have to restrict himself to observing the conflict from a safe distance, his plan being to wait for Patricius and Basiliscus to destroy one another before swooping in to mop up the victor and claiming the Eastern throne for himself by right of his wife, who after all was Anthemius II’s oldest sister. If he could pull it off, he would surpass even the progenitor and namesake of his dynasty, and become the first Emperor of a united Roman Empire since 395.

In a time like this, the Persians had a great opportunity to retake the lands they had lost to the Eastern Romans and then some – if only they weren’t on the verge of collapse themselves. The Hephthalites pushed relentlessly toward Ctesiphon throughout the year, driven forward not only by their vengeful fury but also a realization that total victory was actually within their reach. Sukhra fought back ably, but he did not have the numbers to hold back the White Hunnish tide and despite a few early victories in the southern Mesopotamian marshlands during the spring, he was repeatedly forced to retreat when the Eftals maneuvered around any territory they couldn’t take outright and eventually suffered a devastating defeat at Madharaya[15] on June 26. The Sassanids could not recover in time from this final reversal to stop the Hephthalites from converging on Ctesiphon itself: Shah Balash immediately fled the city, seeking refuge with the old Roman enemy, while the city’s elders and captains surrendered in hopes of avoiding Istakhr’s fate on September 4 after Mehama defeated Sukhra again at Bet Ya’qob[16] and completed his encirclement of the Persian capital.

Mehama and Akhshunwar entered the great city as conquerors that very day, and the former – impressed by the beauty of Ctesiphon’s architecture and the riches within – kept the latter on a short leash after he expressed his earnest wish to burn it to the ground. Upon reaching the White Palace where the Shahs had resided since the reign of Shapur I in the mid-3rd century, the Šao reaffirmed his command that there be no looting or wanton destruction and treated Peroz’s family magnanimously, though the same could not be said of Akhshunwar: at supper that night he brought out the late Shah’s skull and invited his daughters to ‘drink’ with their father, leaving even Mehama himself shocked and appalled.

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Mehama was sufficiently awed by the majesty of Ctesiphon to spare the city, despite his uncle's vehement wishes for further vengeance against the Sassanids

As for Mehama, he had considered the option of ‘only’ annexing territories east of the Tigris and imposing young Kavadh on the Sassanid throne as a puppet. But the temptation of power over the whole of the Persian Empire (to be legitimized not just by his lance-arm but also his wife Balendokht, who after all was Peroz’s and Balash’s eldest niece) was apparently too great, and (after first reproaching his uncle for his senseless cruelty) he proclaimed himself Mahārājadhirāja[17] – the ‘Great King of Kings’ – that same evening, reflecting both the mark of Indian tutelage impressed upon him since his childhood and his intent to rule over both the Zoroastrian Persians and Buddhist Eftals. Kavadh was packed off to a remote Buddhist monastery in the Sogdian mountains, while his older sisters were married off to various Hephthalite and Fufuluo chiefs who had won renown during this six-year campaign.

Balash found refuge in pro-Asparian Armenia and from there reached the court of Patricius, who thought he might be useful if he ever had to go to war with his new neighbor, but thanks to the civil war with Basiliscus there was virtually no chance of the Eastern Romans aiding him in taking back his empire. The Lakhmid king Al-Aswad ibn al-Mundhir[18], having expended his strength and his brother in vain to prop up the Sassanids, had also surrendered to Mehama before the year’s end and he graciously restored the terms of vassalage which these Arabs had abided by under Sassanid control, only with himself as Al-Aswad’s new overlord now. Lastly after his defeat at Bet Ya’qob Sukhra had retreated to Ecbatana[19], his hometown and the center of Karen power, where he called upon all Persians who still had even an ounce of courage to join him and declared that he would fight to the death rather than ever bend his knee to the victorious savages; Akhshunwar was absolutely willing to oblige his wish, having been assigned by Mehama to oversee the campaign against this last stubborn Persian holdout. As 476 ended, one thing was certain: the Sassanid dynasty was joining the Neo-Constantinians in being laid to rest wearing a burial shroud of matching imperial purple.

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1. Western Roman Empire
2. Eastern Roman Empire (Patricius)
3. Eastern Roman Empire (Basiliscus)
4. Franks
5. Burgundians (Chilperic II)
6. Burgundians (Gundabad)
7. Visigoths
8. Province of Baetica (Amalaric)
9. Province of Lusitania (Athalaric)
10. Province of Cartaginensis (Athanagild)
11. Ostrogoths
12. Moors
13. Iazyges
14. Romano-Britons
15. Anglo-Saxons
16. Britons
17. Uí Liatháin
18. Alamanni
19. Thuringians
20. Heruli
21. Gepids
22. Sclaveni
23. Caucasian kingdoms of Lazica, Iberia & Albania
24. Armenia
25. Hephthalites
26. House of Karen
27. Ghassanids
28. Lakhmids
29. Garamantians
30. Nobatia
31. Makuria
32. Alodia
33. Aksum
34. Himyar
35. Gupta Empire
36. Rouran Khaganate
37. Chen Dynasty
38. Goguryeo
39. Korean kingdoms of Baekje, Gaya & Silla
40. Funan
41. Champa

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[1] Clovis I was historically the first king of all Franks, who solidified Merovingian rule over his people and expanded it across most of Gaul at the expense of Syagrius and the Visigoths. In another stellar success for his reign, he also subjugated the Alamanni and expanded Frankish power eastward. He is unique among the post-Roman barbarian kings for converting to Chalcedonianism rather than Arianism under the influence of his wife, the Chalcedonian Burgundian princess Clotilde, which allowed for the rapid integration of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy into the Frankish realm as well as hardening the religious lines of conflict between the Franks and their Arian neighbors.

[2] Historically, ‘Amr III ruled over the Ghassanids from 453 to 486.

[3] Historically, Basiliscus was indeed the brother of Leo’s wife and possibly a Thracian like him; the 7th-century chronicler John of Antioch suggests he might have even been a barbarian and Odoacer’s uncle. What is certain is that he was a staunch Miaphysite, earning him the enmity of the orthodox citizens of Constantinople, and that he was staggeringly incompetent, leading the huge and hugely expensive joint Roman expedition against Gaiseric’s Vandals to complete disaster at Cape Bon in 468. Ironically despite his role ITL, he actually aided Leo against Aspar IRL in hopes of regaining the new emperor’s favor.

[4] Flavius Armatus was historically instrumental in aiding his uncle Basiliscus against Zeno, but was later bribed into switching sides by being made magister militum and having his son (also named Basiliscus) designated Caesar. However, he was soon betrayed by the Isaurian emperor and assassinated on his order by Onoulphus, the brother of Odoacer.

[5] The birth name of Zeno, an Isaurian who historically ruled the Eastern Empire from 474 to 475 before being deposed by Basiliscus, then again from 476 to 491 after retaking the throne. He contended with multiple uprisings during his reign, of which only Basiliscus’ met with any success, and more seriously also accidentally set off the Acacian Schism by promulgating the Henotikon in an attempt to mend bridges between Chalcedonians and Miaphysites.

[6] The Berdan River.

[7] The ERE was rocked by Samaritan and Jewish revolts until they lost the Diocese of the East to the Muslims altogether, but these historically did not begin until a decade after this first Samaritan rebellion ITL.

[8] Now known as Ermine Street.

[9] Historically Aspar’s second son, Patricius was his original intended candidate for the Eastern throne and had even been declared Caesar & married to Leontia, Leo’s daughter, in preparation for succeeding the latter emperor in 470. However, a year later Aspar was killed with Patricius’ brother Ardabur and he himself fell from grace; it’s not clear whether he lived or died, but he certainly was set aside by Leo and faded from the history books.

[10] Sukhra was historically a prominent nobleman of the House of Karen, one of the seven great Parthian houses of the Sassanid Empire, and the power behind the throne when it was occupied by Shahs Balash and Kavadh I. He avenged Peroz’s defeat and death at Hephthalite hands in 484, when it had seemed their total victory over Persia had been imminent, but fell out with Kavadh when the latter became older and sought to escape from under his thumb. The Shah formed an alliance with other anti-Sukhra nobles who resented his great power and greater arrogance, and together they defeated him in Shiraz and executed him soon after in 493.

[11] Ahvaz.

[12] Balash was Peroz’s brother and historical initial successor, being chosen for much the same reason he was ITL. He was described as a mild and generous man, especially fond of the Christian community, but not much of a warrior. In 488 he was deposed in favor of his nephew Kavadh by Sukhra with the support of the Zoroastrian clergy and magnates, having reigned for just four years.

[13] Considered one of the most successful Shahs of Iran, Kavadh retook the Persian throne twice (once from his uncle Balash, then again from his brother Djamasp) and fought victorious wars against the Byzantines. Ironically, he had Hephthalite help in the war against Djamasp, but later turned against them – and unlike his father, he managed to remain consistently triumphant against them. He also presided over the Mazdakite controversy in Persia, initially supporting the populist prophet Mazdak against the Zoroastrian establishment but then later disposing of him.

[14] The historical Coptic Pope between 477 and 489, succeeding Timothy Aelurus after the latter was reinstated by a Miaphysite uprising in Alexandria (just in 475 rather than 476). He was indeed a deacon and close disciple of Timothy Aelurus, and gained imperial recognition as part of the Henotikon.

[15] Kut.

[16] Baqubah.

[17] This title was historically first used among the White Huns by Toramana, whose connection to Mehama & Akhshunwar is uncertain and who ruled from 493 to 515.

[18] The historical ruler of the Lakhmids from 462 to 490, after which his brother Al-Mundhir (already killed by the Eftals ITL) succeeded him.

[19] Hamadan.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Well, I expected Persia to get some Attila style lovin, but this sure exceeded my expectations. If Hephthalites actually manage to consolidate their control of Persia they will become a serious threat to both India and ERE, I reckon Purugupta will not give them time to consolidate though, he hates and fears them, so he will surely understand he must not tardy with war against them.
 

stevep

Well-known member
Well some dramatic events there. Both the eastern empire and the Sassanids look very vulnerable, the latter possibly out for the count. Plus whatever happens in the eastern empire there's going to be some bitter religious conflict and bloodletting whoever wins as I can't see any sort of permanent partition proving acceptable. I have a feeling that the Ephesians will win in the end but either way its going to be costly. Also I have the feeling we haven't seen the last of Lucina - or someone claiming to be her.

For the Sassanids it looks grim. Even if Sukhra manages a shock victory he's likely to start a new dynasty under himself as the rescuer of Iran rather than the clearly failed Sassanid family. However while a greater Hephthalites empire would be interesting I think Mehama would have to 'lose' Akhshunwar at some point as the others brutal hatred of the Iranians would cause unending chaos and disorder. Possibly Sukhra might assist him there. Not sure that Purugupta would be that hostile initially at least as he does own his continued position to Mehama. However how such a state would evolve would be interesting to say the least.

I didn't realise that the Samaritans still existed as a people at this stage in history but they and the Jews are likely to suffer badly in the end, especially once the current religious civil war is over in the empire. Unless Mehama looks further west, which could be a way to both keep his troops - and possibly his uncle busy - and possibly even win some status with his new Iranians subjects by regaining lands that haven't been held by the empire since the time of Alexander.

It will be interesting what happens with the Franks. Can't see them becoming the sort of power they became OTL because the western empire still exists and the assorted Arian and other non-Ephesians no longer exist as a factor to make a Frankish conversion to the primary Christian sect a great bonus. If Clovis does convert to it, assuming the Franks are still pagan in TTL, it would win some acceptance in the western empire but no great impact otherwise.

Not sure what's going to happen in Britain. The Anglo-Saxons seem to be firmly established in northern 'England' and while weaker than OTL settlements probably aren't going to be totally conquered by Arthur. However how things go after the latter's death I don't know. Plus that the Romano-Brits are not Ephesians is going to make them vulnerable to continued cultural and military threat from the empire.

Steve
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
To be sure, tough times remain ahead for Persia - and the Hephthalites too, despite their apparent crushing victory. If Mehama is to make that triumph actually last, he's definitely going to have to figure out a way to get his uncle out of his hair before the latter does too much damage to any hope of a unified Persian-White Hun state, and to integrate his more numerous new Persian subjects without also offending his original Hephthalite ones while he's at it. Sukhra does certainly pose an opportunity to get that first item done without directly dirtying the new Maharajadhiraja's hands though, as do the Guptas - @stevep I think you might be thinking of Vishnugupta, Purugupta's nephew who Mehama helped against him previously and unfortunately for the White Huns, was repaid for the mercy shown to Purugupta by being assassinated & usurped by him in 473 (the chapter before this past one).

Next up I'll be doing another narrative chapter centered around Mehama's first moves in the last days of 476, since this has been the longest the timeline's gone without one so far (8 chapters and 25 in-universe years) and the fall of the Sassanids does seem like a momentous enough occasion to merit one. It'll also be the first such chapter to revolve around non-Romans.

The Samaritans (and remaining Jews in Judea/Palestina itself) surprised me in my research. Turns out that not only did Jews outside the Judean core (Galilee and the Golan mostly) survive Hadrian's heated gamer moment more or less intact, but the Samaritans actually got their golden age after the Bar Kokhba revolt. They rebuilt their temple on Mount Gerizim - which they consider more sacred than the Temple Mount - around the same time that that revolt ended, and Baba Rabba (one of their most important high priests) codified their liturgy between the 3rd and 4th centuries.

These Jews & Samaritans revolted with increasing frequency, and were then put down increasingly harshly, from the 5th century onward (there seems to have only been one Jewish rebellion against Rome between Bar Kokhba's and the one in 484, and that was stamped out pretty quickly compared to the ones before & after), and there were still enough Jews around by the 7th century to pose a serious complication for the ERE during their final war with Persia. It wasn't until the Islamic conquest that they were reduced to irrelevance. My impression is that the Christian Romans were even less successful than their pagan forefathers at integrating the Jews/Samaritans; there don't seem to have been many, if any, prominent Jewish collaborators trying to help them fight off these later revolts, as Josephus or Tiberius Julius Alexander had done for Vespasian & Titus.

Anything & everything else are covered by spoilers, as usual. But I will note that you're right in thinking the roles of the Franks and Romano-Britons in this timeline will soon be expanded over the next few years and decades, as this past chapter has already begun to do for the Ostrogoths.
 

stevep

Well-known member
Circle of Willis

Apologies but your correct. Confusing my Gupta emperors. :oops: As you say Purugupta isn't going to be happy with the success Mehama is having simply because he was a good friend and ally to Vishnugupta. If there's any potential rival to Purugupta then I could see him getting a welcome in Mehama's court if he can get his new kingdom reasonably stable. Suppose one option would be if war came between Mehama and Purugupta then as you say whether he dies or succeeds that's one way of getting Akhshunwar out of the way and stopping him slaughtering or at least gravely and continually insulting Mehama's new Iranian subjects. Although any success against the Guptas would probably be difficult unless Purugupta has made himself very unpopular and in that case probably Akhshunwar isn't the best commander to lead an army invading India.

With the Jews and Samaritans one factor with the level of revolts was that under the pagan emperors their religion wasn't a great issue as long as they kept their heads down and largely behaved. Once the empire became Christian of course their both heretics, not to mention the blame some Christians put on the Jews for Jesus's death.

Steve
 

ATP

Well-known member
To be sure, tough times remain ahead for Persia - and the Hephthalites too, despite their apparent crushing victory. If Mehama is to make that triumph actually last, he's definitely going to have to figure out a way to get his uncle out of his hair before the latter does too much damage to any hope of a unified Persian-White Hun state, and to integrate his more numerous new Persian subjects without also offending his original Hephthalite ones while he's at it. Sukhra does certainly pose an opportunity to get that first item done without directly dirtying the new Maharajadhiraja's hands though, as do the Guptas - @stevep I think you might be thinking of Vishnugupta, Purugupta's nephew who Mehama helped against him previously and unfortunately for the White Huns, was repaid for the mercy shown to Purugupta by being assassinated & usurped by him in 473 (the chapter before this past one).

Next up I'll be doing another narrative chapter centered around Mehama's first moves in the last days of 476, since this has been the longest the timeline's gone without one so far (8 chapters and 25 in-universe years) and the fall of the Sassanids does seem like a momentous enough occasion to merit one. It'll also be the first such chapter to revolve around non-Romans.

The Samaritans (and remaining Jews in Judea/Palestina itself) surprised me in my research. Turns out that not only did Jews outside the Judean core (Galilee and the Golan mostly) survive Hadrian's heated gamer moment more or less intact, but the Samaritans actually got their golden age after the Bar Kokhba revolt. They rebuilt their temple on Mount Gerizim - which they consider more sacred than the Temple Mount - around the same time that that revolt ended, and Baba Rabba (one of their most important high priests) codified their liturgy between the 3rd and 4th centuries.

These Jews & Samaritans revolted with increasing frequency, and were then put down increasingly harshly, from the 5th century onward (there seems to have only been one Jewish rebellion against Rome between Bar Kokhba's and the one in 484, and that was stamped out pretty quickly compared to the ones before & after), and there were still enough Jews around by the 7th century to pose a serious complication for the ERE during their final war with Persia. It wasn't until the Islamic conquest that they were reduced to irrelevance. My impression is that the Christian Romans were even less successful than their pagan forefathers at integrating the Jews/Samaritans; there don't seem to have been many, if any, prominent Jewish collaborators trying to help them fight off these later revolts, as Josephus or Tiberius Julius Alexander had done for Vespasian & Titus.

Anything & everything else are covered by spoilers, as usual. But I will note that you're right in thinking the roles of the Franks and Romano-Britons in this timeline will soon be expanded over the next few years and decades, as this past chapter has already begun to do for the Ostrogoths.

Jews could not support christian emperors,becouse their faith was created after Temple fall against christian,and had little to do with old jewish religion.It was/and still is for orthodox jews/ supported by Talmud which become more important then Bible - and,althought mostly try to discover right kind of action for every possible activity,is also anti-christian - Jesus according to Talmud was bastard child and sorcerer who was rightly executed by jews by stoning.Talmud do not mention romans there at all.

So, jews supported everybody against christian rulers,becouse their religion made them so.
If Persia cease to exist for good, and White huns have problems,then Parthia could rose again.

@stevep - you was right about nationalism.I made some reasarch,and polish nation which start to exist about 1200AD was always nation defined by religion and culture,not blood.Even in 19th century when all other nations talk about blood and race only,polish modern nationalists created theory that polish nation is made by culture,and everybody ,no matter race,could join.
One iven claimed that africans or indians who take polish culture would be as good as any other.
There was even old recipe for that/from17th century/ - gente Ruthenus,natione Polonus./which mean russian being curturally polish /

So,there could be such nations here.

One potentially useful thing - pope Gelasius 1/492-496/ in OTL oficially declared that secular state could not decide about church.Now,some pope could claim the same,WRE emperor reaction would be interesting.
 
A conquest, not a graveyard

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
The White Palace of Ctesiphon, December 20 476

“O Great King of the Kings, when we heard of your victory at Bam and entry into this very city, we gave our Lord thanks for having sent such a mighty man to deliver us from the accursed tyranny of the Persians. More personally, I must thank you for delivering me from their vile chains.” Old Babowai[1], the Patriarch of the Church of the East who had recently been released from prison by these conquering White Huns, and the bishops who came with him rose from their knees at that king-of-kings’ gesture, though they still kept their heads bowed out of respect for him – something which he noticed and was visibly pleased by. His wife the Maharani, who Babowai last remembered as a teenage girl during the reign of her father Hormizd III, looked less pleased at his choice of words to describe her people, but then he wasn’t here to appeal to her. The Patriarch continued in practiced Pārsīg, “But we have not come only to give you our praises in person, nor solely to deliver these gifts to you.”

Well, the sight of that pile of choice fruits and vegetables – melons, pomegranates, dates, lettuce and so much more – they had brought to showcase the bounty of their homeland, said to be the breadbasket of the Sassanid Empire, did tempt the hungry Mehama to listen to whatever they had to say. “I had guessed not. Every party that has passed through those doors to-day has had a petition, or several, to present to me.” The Mahārājadhirāja slouched in his new throne, one leg already atop the other’s knee, and lazily waved his hand to signal one of his newer concubines to feed him grapes from the Syriacs’ bounty. He could not recall her name, only that she was a recent addition to his harem – picked up from either Susa or Shapurkhast[2], he thought – and in any case, his rumbling stomach indicated his greater interest in the food she was bringing than whatever womanly charms she possessed. “Well! I must say you have made an excellent first impression already, prelate of the Most High God.” Mehama continued cheerfully as he chewed on the grapes, which he found to indeed be of high quality. “Tell me, what is it you would have of me?”

Pleased at the sight of the Mahārājadhirāja‘s good mood, Babowai now grew bold enough to look Mehama in the eye and ask directly, “We have come to ask for your mercy and protection, Great King of Kings. We implore you to allow we Nazarenes to govern ourselves according to our customs – for we, the bishops and elders of Christ’s Church, to guide and tend to our flock within the confines of our holy laws – and to protect our people and churches from the Persians, who have inflicted imprisonment and even tortures and martyrdom on the former and burned many of the latter. We are, of course, prepared to serve you well and faithfully until the end of our days; certainly more faithfully than we have served the House of Sasan, which arrogantly demanded much from us while giving nothing in return but the scourge and the torch.”

“Granted,” Was Mehama’s simple response to Babowai’s speech which, coupled with a dismissive wave of his other and more heavily ring-adorned hand, left the Patriarch and his party rather taken aback. He noted the flicker in their expressions and explained, “You are not the first to ask such things of me, servant of the Most High God, for the Mazdan mages and the Exilarch of the Jews have presented similar petitions before me already. I doubt you will be the last, either.” Well, the Mazdans might be upset to learn that they could no longer persecute minority sects with impunity, and that their new overlord would judge them almost as harshly as Yama if they dared. But Mehama was the conqueror and they were the conquered, so as far as he was concerned, they should be glad he was accommodating them at all (largely at the advice of his wife) instead of plundering even more of their fire-temples; in any case, knocking them down a peg and attaining the loyalty of Persia’s minority peoples would be an easier road to securing the Hephthalite regime than trying to appease them after his (and especially his uncle’s) bloody rampage through their heartlands, at least in his estimation.

Having finished the grapes, Mehama dismissed his concubine with another wave and straightened in the throne of the Shahs, clasping both hands together. “Pride is a fetter in my religion, as I have been led to understand that it is in yours, and I would hope I am not prideful enough to think I could rule this great new empire I’ve just conquered without the cooperation of my subjects.” He had more than enough other vices to upset the bhikkhus, anyway – were it not for the demands of war and the intense training regimen his uncle had introduced him to upon his return to Bactra, Mehama’s eating & drinking habits would render him immensely fat in very short order. “You will find me a generous and merciful master indeed, so long as you pay the tribute I ask of you when I ask of it and give me no cause to suspect you of treachery. No doubt I will be calling upon some of your wise men soon enough to assist me in administering other provinces, take accounts, collect taxes – all the usual rigors of empire, in which I expect they will be as helpful and loyal as Eftals, Persians, Parthians, Hebrews, Daylamites and all my other subjects. Indeed given what you have just told me of your fallen overlords’ persecutions of your people, I suspect it will not be difficult for me to outstrip them in either generosity or mercy.”

“Indeed, indeed…” Babowai said, nodding, giddiness spreading through his aged bones at how easy it had been to procure the autonomy of the Christian community from this new king. Much easier than it had been just to ask Peroz, that vicious fire-worshiping fratricide and tyrant, to punish magi who incited mobs to destroy churches and attack the faithful every few years. “We will not soon forget your kindness, mighty and noble King of the Kings. When we return to our churches, we shall pray for your reign to be a long and fruitful one.” With that, the Syriacs exited on a good note – Mehama was of course a Buddhist, not a Christian, but he would never turn down anyone calling upon their God or gods to bestow good fortune on himself – and ordered the next petitioners in. Babowai and his peers avoided the cool gaze of the Mahārājadhirāja’s uncle Akhshunwar, who stood near one of the doors, on their way out; even when not immediately hostile, the aged warlord still gave off an intimidating aura that few men other than Mehama could bear for long.

Alas those next petitioners were Persians, whose mere presence did arouse Akhshunwar’s hostility and who could feel his hateful glare burning into their backs as they prostrated themselves before Mehama. The Mahārājadhirāja himself sat up straight and dug his fingers into his throne’s arm-rests as he accepted their obeisance, much warier and more alert than he had been when receiving the Christians and the Jews before them, as if concerned that his old uncle might kill these delegates on the spot if they should say the wrong thing. “I see you have brought nothing for me…” Mehama began brusquely. “A bold opening step for men who I presume have come seeking my favor, to say the least. Why have you come before me?”

“We presently have no gifts to offer thee, Great King of Kings, on account of the devastation and impoverishment visisted upon our home city of Gundeshapur[3].” The leading elder uttered, still not daring to rise from the floor for fear that Akhshunwar or Mehama’s other guards would strike him down if he did so without a verbal invitation. Indeed Akhshunwar bristled and Mehama grinned wickedly at these words; was this Persian delegation challenging them and calling them out for their earlier rampage through Persia? Better still, were these assassins sent by that mule-headed Sukhra to test their skill at arms? But far from drawing hidden knives and rushing the throne, the elder continued, “So we have come to ask you for help to restore the city to its glory, with which we can make ourselves into a useful gift for your new empire.”

“And how exactly do you intend to do that?” Mehama asked, relaxing slightly and stroking his long black beard in thought. Balendokht was leaning forward in her own, smaller throne, curious to learn what the Persians had to say – and if it was anything she could help with. Akhshunwar, for his part, continued to glare down at the assembled Persians and did not release his grip on the hilt of his sword.

“Once, Gundeshapur was home to a school, library and hospital.” The elder began to explain, rising to his knees after Mehama invited him to do so. “We hosted many wise men of great learning, in particular great healers who were able to bring men back from death’s doorstep with astounding ease and gentleness. Furthermore, our astrologers were frequently called upon to reveal secrets and prophecies in the stars by the Shahs of old, and our mathematicians were considered a great boon to the administration of all the satrapies and royal cities which were able to attract their service. If you would but return the learned men and their families whom you had taken from the city when you conquered it, and allowed them to bring enough gold and materials with which to rebuild their facilities, you will find them and us at your disposal in governing this empire which you have won – we swear that we will assist you to the full extent of our intellectual capabilities, as we had done for the Shahs before you.”

“Are you not at my disposal now, as subjects who have bent the knee – indeed prostrated yourselves – before me?” Mehama scowled down at the elder, who seemed to shrink before his hard look. The men of Gundeshapur were over-bold indeed, to bring him no gifts and then ask him to not only release their neighbors from slavery, but to also let them return to & rebuild their homes with at least some of the plunder he’d taken. If they had been as wise as this fool claimed, they would’ve surrendered before he had to take Gundeshapur by force and sack it, and avoided all this suffering in the first place. “You ask many favors of me. And certainly in return you promise me much in the future, but I see so little of what you have to offer now that I must doubt your words. Do you think me a fool simply because I do not hail from the former heart of the Persian world as you do? I am not one to make investments on such thin assurances.”

“Well said, nephew.” Akhshunwar’s dark, gravelly voice boomed from behind the Gundeshapuri elders, the leader of whom hurriedly fell prostrate again beneath the shadow of the Eftal’s blade as it emerged from its sheath. “These arrogant prattling snakes speak much of their wisdom and potential, but their words mark them as imbeciles who clearly do not understand when they have been conquered and who think they can make demands of their conqueror. Allow me to show them the door.” And then the grave.

“Great and noble husband, I speak the truth when I say that I have seen firsthand the miracles the men of Gundeshapur can work, if you would but give them a chance.” Balendokht spoke up now in a rush, hurrying to counter Akhshunwar’s almost entirely unveiled threat and to avoid the possibility of Mehama agreeing with him. “Were it not for them, I would not be here now, much less lived to bear you our children. They are not lying about being able to bring men back from the doors of death, for twice in my childhood I was afflicted with maladies that the physicians of Ctesiphon deemed incurable and certain to kill me; but each time my father rushed me to Gundeshapur, and there they healed me within a matter of weeks on both counts. Nor do they deceive you in regards to their other talents, for I have heard both my father and grandfather praise their mastery of sums and the stars alike at length.”

Balendokht had by now risen from her seat, only to fall to her knees before Mehama and take his hand in hers. Any thought of avenging her fallen dynasty she suppressed, for the Maharani was painfully aware that such prospects were grossly unrealistic at this time and instead she turned her full attention onto trying to prevent another gratuitous massacre of her countrymen here and now, which she knew would require her to present herself as soft-hearted and submissive before her conquering husband. “This I swear is true, on my life: you will not regret forgiving these men for their impudence and granting them a chance to prove themselves useful.”

“…very well, wife, you have convinced me.” Mehama finally replied after some moments of consideration, an eyebrow raised in curiosity as he looked down at Balendokht. “Rise, elders of Gundeshapur, and thank your gracious Queen-of-Queens for persuading me to not only allow you to leave this palace with your heads still attached to your shoulders, but to grant your request.” Akhshunwar retreated into the shadows, sheathing his blade and gritting his teeth, while the elders did just that and Balendokht repressed the sigh of relief she was about to let out at having averted the slaughter of even more of her people. “To-morrow twenty of my guards will take you to the camp where I am holding your people prisoner. You are to select forty of them, and each of these men is free to bring back to Gundeshapur all the valuables they can fit in a single sack. You have one year to rebuild your city and show me the fruits of your labors; in that time, I shall have the rest of your peers moved to more hospitable lodgings.” Mehama raised one ringed finger for emphasis. “One. Year. After which I expect each of you will send one of your close kin to be guests at my court. Understand that if you disappoint me, or utter one more insolent remark in my hearing, you will find their – and your own – accommodations becoming very inhospitable in short order. Now, if that is all, get out of my sight.”

Once the Gundeshapuri party had departed in mixed gratitude and fear, Mehama ordered the palace shut to any other petitioners for the time being, for it was already late at night and torches had to be lit to illuminate all but his highest and most open halls. Balendokht and Akhshunwar continued to accompany the Mahārājadhirāja as he went to wash his face, trailing behind his armored guards and directing their hatred at one another non-verbally so long as he did not look in their direction. When Mehama was done, he raised his head to look up at the latter from across the wash basin and, noting his thoroughly displeased expression, deadpanned, “I take it you did not agree with my judgments today, uncle.”

“No, I certainly did not, nephew mine.” Came Akhshunwar’s blunt, grumbling reply. “Might I be frank with you?”

“Have you not been frank with me this entire time?” Mehama responded in a deadpan, the edges of his mouth curling up in a smirk that did not quite reach his eyes. He left for his chambers, Balendokht following him in an infuriated silence – she had learned long ago that there was no point to trying to talk to Akhshunwar, who had spurned all her efforts to even make light conversation with him and made it abundantly clear that he thought all Persians should perish for the crimes of her uncle against the Eftals – and Akhshunwar trailing behind them both, shaking his head as they left the wash-room.

“Once again you have shown great kindness to your new subjects, nephew. Far too much of it, and misplaced mercy besides for the Persians.” The older man growled, while Mehama rolled his eyes. This was the millionth time he had heard the beginnings to such a rant from Akhshunwar. “There is a great difference between showing some clemency to a defeated enemy, and turning your back on him while also tying your own hands while he re-arms – “

“There is also a great difference between defeating an enemy and utterly destroying not only him, but also his family and his people.” The Mahārājadhirāja stopped in his tracks and turned to face his uncle, exasperated. “And as I keep telling you over and over, there are simply not enough of we Ebodalo[4] – even if we count our new Fufuluo friends among our ranks – to administer all the cities and satrapies of this vast land we have conquered without the cooperation of the Persians and our myriad other subjects. How many more times must I tell you – “

“Do you sincerely think you can trust the same vile race of men who treacherously slew your father at a peace negotiation?! You should be avenging him and all the other Ebodalo murdered at their hands – ”

“We just did!” Mehama roared back, his wrath finally awakened by this last unwelcome reminder, and Akhshunwar was startled into momentary silence by this outpouring of anger. “My father’s killer is dead, uncle, and the responsibility for his death does not belong to you alone: as you should recall, I myself was at Bam when he fell beneath our hooves! You have since mutilated Peroz, used him as a standard, drunk from his skull and then used that skull to taunt his daughters in that ghastly display a few months ago! And speaking of Bam, we reduced the site of Father’s murder to an utterly lifeless ruin, then carved for ourselves a bloody path through so many more Persian cities that I cannot count them all!” He slammed a fist into his open hand for emphasis. As far as he could tell, vengeful hatred had festered so long in his uncle’s heart so as to render him an insensible madman, hellbent on exterminating the new majority of his empire for no good reason. “What more could we possibly do to avenge him, short of killing every Persian from those who have yet to leave their mothers’ wombs up to those already brought to the verge of death by old age?!”

“You should heed your nephew’s words, dear Akhshunwar.” Balendokht added, seizing the opening provided by her husband’s temper flaring up to pile on her hated enemy, and snaking her arm around the younger yet taller Mehama’s shoulders. “Has he not made it abundantly clear that he seeks to rule an empire, rather than a graveyard? His deeds of generosity and wisdom are fast cementing his hold – “

“You dare interrupt me, woman?!”

“Enough! Whatever you might think of her, Balendokht is still my wife, which also makes her your queen.” Mehama snarled, advancing to shield the leering Persian princess from his visibly livid uncle. “You cannot speak to her as you would some common servant. And let me respond to your frankness with my own: I have heard enough of your advice this evening, and as your king I have determined it unwise and senselessly destructive. Now leave us, and do not forget that you should leave Ctesiphon altogether to-morrow, to wage war on that devil Sukhra and the imbeciles who follow him! There is an enemy you have my leave to destroy without rest or pity.”

As the imperial couple stalked away with their guards, Akhshunwar was left to seethe alone in the hallway. Clearly that Aryan slattern had sunk her hooks deep into his nephew, to the point that he had even forgotten who protected their people from that perfumed monster Peroz while he was learning sums and calligraphy in Pataliputra and who had won their war over the Persian menace for him in the first place. Swallowing the tide of wrathful insults he had been tempted to shout even at the risk of losing his head, the warlord stormed off in the other direction, and all who saw him still clenching his fists at his sides and shaking with barely repressed rage smartly stayed out of his path. There would be a reckoning one of these days, Akhshunwar decided, and he already knew which old friends in the Hephthalite military aristocracy he ought to contact to teach his impudent nephew a harsh lesson or ten down the road…

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[1] Longtime Patriarch of the Church of the East from 457 to 484, Babowai was originally a Zoroastrian (Mazdan) magus. He was an outspoken figure filled with the zeal of the convert, frequently coming to blows with both Nestorians (he himself was pro-Roman and held to orthodoxy) and the Persian authorities. The Zoroastrians did indeed frequently and fiercely attack him, in part because he was an apostate from their religion, and he was imprisoned and tortured by Peroz’s government in the 470s. Eventually he was outmaneuvered by the Nestorian faction of the Bishop Barsauma, who got him executed by Peroz for insulting Persia in a letter to orthodox bishops in the ERE.

[2] Khorramabad.

[3] Near Eslamabad. This city was also known as ‘Weh-Andiyok-Shapur’, ‘Better-than-Antioch of Shapur’, and had been constructed by Roman prisoners taken from the 3rd-century Battle of Edessa against Valerian – its name and origin were obviously fully intended slights against the Romans by its founder and namesake, Shapur I.

[4] The name of the Hephthalites in Bactrian, their primary language.
 

stevep

Well-known member
Well that sounds distinctly like a split is coming but who will win and how much will the Hephthalites lose as even a brief civil war or an assassination could disestablish their empire. Especially if Akhshunwar came out on top in the power struggle as it would pretty much force the Persians to rebel as their likely to be slaughtered anyway. Quite possibly after Mehama's generosity and given Akhshunwar's behaviour with a lot of other groups supporting them.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
So there are basically two options, get eventually absorbed into more numerous Persian population or drown everyone, including themselves in blood.
 

ATP

Well-known member
It seems,that white huns would have their cyvil war,too.So much for conqering ERE when they still fight.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
So there are basically two options, get eventually absorbed into more numerous Persian population or drown everyone, including themselves in blood.
I would say not necessarily - and certainly Mehama should hope those aren't the only options he has on his table ITL. As implied by his response to the Christians' request, the emerging Hephthalite strategy will be to divide and rule, with the hopes of maintaining themselves as a separate ruling caste playing the various peoples of their new empire off against one another. In that regard it might well help that Persia is a lot more ethnically & religiously heterogeneous than, for example, Visigothic Hispania had ever been. Instead of just Arian Goths/orthodox Hispano-Romans, here he's got his own Buddhist Eftals, Zoroastrian Persians, Christian Assyrians who are further divided into orthodox and Nestorian camps, the Jews, non-Persian Iranian peoples like the Daylamites who still follow old Iranian paganism, Manichaeans and Mandaeans - I've read that there might even have been a few adherents of & temples to the old Mesopotamian religion as late as the 4th and 5th centuries, if not into Islamic times...

Of course, with that many more sects and peoples to balance a strategy of divide-and-rule comes more dangers & opportunities for a misstep as well. And depending on when Akhshunwar strikes, Mehama and his descendants will have to be extremely lucky just to last as long as the Visigoths did IRL before they mostly gave up on this 'separate and unequal to our subjects' thing - their victory proving fleeting and this new empire of the White Huns imploding before they can fully establish themselves is definitely one possible outcome in future chapters.
 
477-480: Act(s) of union

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
By early 477, Patricius and Basiliscus had succeeded in suppressing or driving out the other side’s most obvious supporters in their half of the Eastern Roman Empire and were prepared to direct their full power against one another. Or rather, Patricius was; Basiliscus inexplicably chose to squander his time and divided his resources on a mass persecution against Ephesians (and also the Jews and Samaritans of Palestina) throughout Egypt and Syria and the construction of Miaphysite churches, baffling even those members of his court and military command who were not zealous Miaphysites. Even among those zealots, he lost favor and curried dislike by imposing far harsher taxes on his subjects than the Ephesian Neo-Constantinians or Theodosians had ever done and selling offices in his government, the bidding for which was usually rigged to bypass local Copts and Syrians in favor of Greeks – and not even native Greeks such as the well-established community at Alexandria, but his personal favorites from Greece and Anatolia, now enemy territory. For his part, Patricius had won over the brothers Illus and Trocundus[1], lesser Isaurian chieftains who he persuaded to murder the obstinately anti-Asparian Tarasis and aid him in exchange for great governorships within the empire.

Almost needless to say, these erratic and incompetent decisions sparked many more new rebellions against the southern usurper than he had previously put down, while sapping the numbers and morale of his own supporters. Patricius did not fight a single major battle as they advanced through northern Syria: instead they found themselves squashing dispersed, isolated pro-Basiliscus legions and militias of local Miaphysite rabble who seemed more interested in hunting down Ephesians (and dyophysite Nestorians, in addition to the occasional Jew) than engaging them in pitched combat. To the northern emperor’s bewilderment, he was welcomed into Antioch by jubilant crowds throwing flowers and waving palm fronds at him, though Antioch’s theologians and clerics had long been fierce rivals of those of Constantinople – the city’s commander was upset at having been passed over for a promotion by Basiliscus’ court and the southern usurper’s toadies had mismanaged the city badly enough in just under a year to get its people to change sides as a collective, with those officials appointed by Basiliscus who didn’t manage to escape in time more often than not being lynched by the Antiochene mobs rather than delivered to Patricius alive.

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Patricius was pleasantly surprised at the rapidity with which even Basiliscus' co-religionists surrendered to him rather than fight for his enemy

It took until the northern army reached Galilee for them to start facing noticeable resistance. There Armatus had pulled together enough troops to first confront Patricius and company at Meiron[2] on June 1, taking advantage of the high ground to compensate for his numerical inferiority. Up on Mount Meron’s slopes, his legionaries withstood those of Patricius and the latter’s Isaurian auxiliaries for three days before he received a command from Basiliscus to withdraw: Theodoric Strabo, now Patricius’ magister militum, had seized Crete and Cyprus and was clearly massing for an amphibious attack on Alexandria. But the usurper had been deceived by a feint of the Moesogoth’s making, for Strabo did not land at Alexandria but rather at Ascalon[3]. Armatus realized too late that he had given up a strong defensive position for nothing and was now caught between two armies which outnumbered his own even separately, but refused to give in to despair and still remained determined to try to break through to Egypt.

Armatus defeated Strabo at Hebron when the latter attempted to advance on Jerusalem and cut off his southward retreat, but although forced to fall back a ways, the barbarian warlord turned the tables at Gaza and inflicted a grievous defeat on Armatus just before he could enter Egypt. Armatus consequently retreated into Lydda[4], where the two northern armies converged and besieged him for another three months before he surrendered with the expectation that he would be allowed to live. Unfortunately for him, neither Patricius nor Theodoric Strabo were men of honor or mercy, and they put his head on a spear borne before them as they pressed on into Egypt.

Basiliscus theoretically still had enough men on hand to at least make Patricius fight hard for Egypt, but he panicked at the loss of his magister militum (despite having done effectively nothing to save him while he was trapped in Lod) and after throwing a last desperate party in Alexandria to take his mind off his (at least as far as he knew) inevitable defeat, took a ship bound to sail down the Red Sea toward Aksum, where the similarly Miaphysite Baccinbaxaba would provide him with refuge. Meanwhile his leaderless supporters promptly surrendered en masse to Patricius, who reigned as the undisputed Eastern Roman Emperor from the end of 477 onward. No one was more disappointed at this anticlimactic conclusion to the latest Eastern Roman civil war than Honorius II, who had been counting on Basiliscus putting up a much better fight against Patricius to weaken the latter enough for the Western Romans to walk over him, and had to content himself with continuing to refuse to recognize Patricius’ legitimacy in the meantime instead.

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Basiliscus on the eve of Patricius' advance into Egypt, treating the loss of the Roman Levant and his magister militum with all the gravitas he could muster

Meanwhile in the lands of the Hephthalites, Akhshunwar did what was expected of him and spent the year utterly crushing Sukhra’s continued rebellion; the latter, it turned out, simply did not have the resources to resist the Eftals and Fufuluo for long. Defiant to the end and well aware (like Peroz before him) that an excruciating death was all that awaited him if he should be taken alive, Sukhra committed mass suicide with his immediate family – some of whom had to be coerced into going along with him – by burning down his palace with himself, and them, still meditating within as Akhshunwar broke through Ecbatana’s defenses late in the summer. This done, Mehama thanked Akhshunwar for his victory (notwithstanding the trail of massacres he inevitably left behind him) and promptly tried to get him out of the way by assigning him to govern the Eftals’ Bactrian homeland; an ‘honor’ which Akhshunwar accepted so brusquely and unquestioningly that he aroused the Mahārājadhirāja’s suspicion, though a lack of any evidence for a conspiracy and Akhshunwar’s command of the loyalty of too many White Huns made further action against him impossible at this point.

During and after Akhshunwar’s ruthless campaign against the House of Karen, Mehama was taking steps to solidify Hephthalite rule over Persia. He sought to make use of as much of the old Persian administrative structure as he could still find after the White Huns’ rampage through the country: on paper the satrapies and royal cities remained as they had been in Sassanid times, though quite a few of the latter had been depopulated by the Eftals and he could at best restore them to a shadow of their former glory, and some Persian satraps (as well as many Persian bureaucrats) were retained in their offices even as Mehama made many more Hephthalite or other non-Persian supporters of his into their peers. In practice, the Hephthalite administration turned out to be less centralized, less sophisticated and more ramshackle in nature than the Sassanid one had been. Tolerance and self-government was extended to those native peoples and sects which bowed before the Mahārājadhirāja after his victory lap in Ctesiphon, most notably the Babylonian Jewish community which was allowed to carry on more or less as it had under Sassanid rule and the Syriac Christians who found all Zoroastrian persecution against them slackening in the face of harsh punishments being meted out by Hephthalite jailers & executioners. For this reason, those minorities generally welcomed Eftal rule (unlike the Zoroastrians, who were lukewarm toward the new regime at best) and would provide Mehama’s regime with most (sometimes all) of his support from the urban literati of Mesopotamia & Persia.

The most notable development in the early years of Eftal rule over Persia was the emergence of several highly autonomous, at times verging on independent, polities under Mehama’s nominal rule, as part of the process of decentralization brought on (whether Mehama himself intended it or not) by the destructiveness of Hephthalite warfare. Many of the Eftals themselves spread out throughout the country and were secured priority grazing rights for their herds at the expense of local farmers & shepherds; their continued practice of nomadism and Buddhist beliefs set them apart from the urbanized, or at least settled, peoples whom they now ruled, in addition to occasionally bringing them into conflict with other nomadic populations who had submitted to the Mahārājadhirāja. The Fufuluo elected to mostly settle down in Media and especially Atropatene, lending a Turkic character to that region’s people and customs for centuries to come, and would prove to be rather mercurial allies for Mehama in a much shorter timeframe than that.

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Mahārājadhirāja Mehama receiving ever more petitions from his new subjects in Ctesiphon

Of the indigenes, Padishkhwargar[5] was left to its own devices as a patchwork of indigenous fiefdoms, governed by the Amardian kings of the House of Gushnasp[6] who frequently had to be coerced into paying tribute and doing obeisance before Mehama. The nomadic Kurds of the Zagros Mountains proved to be similarly difficult subjects for the region’s new overlords, and would frequently clash with migrating Eftals and Fufuluo over grazing and camping grounds for years to come. In a bid to co-opt at least some of these Kurdish tribes, Mehama struck deals with their chieftains: most notably, in exchange for their cooperation the Zands were afforded a zone around Malayer and the Kalhors one around Kermanshah, where their rights to everything from water to grazing grounds to market access trumped those of their new Fufuluo neighbors.

Early in 478, as part of his efforts to consolidate his hold on the Eastern Roman throne and reconcile with Basiliscus’ supporters, Patricius issued a so-called ‘Act of Union’ or Henotikon[7] with the support of Patriarch Acacius. While approving Cyril of Alexandria’s anathemas against Nestorius and upholding the Second Council of Ephesus’ ruling that Eutyches’ position (and by extension Mono/Miaphysitism) was heretical, this Henotikon also made rather generous concessions to the Miaphysites both theologically and politically; the edict carefully avoided all mention of Christ’s nature, explicitly recognized Peter Mongus as Patriarch of Alexandria (though he had been unlawfully imposed in that seat by Basiliscus two years prior and enthusiastically presided over the persecution of Egypt’s Ephesians), and continued to allow them to practice freely throughout Egypt & Syria – though certainly any further attacks on Ephesians would now be punished to the severest extent of Roman law. Patricius tried to argue that he was in fact still upholding his agreement with the Patriarch to not set Miaphysitism or any other heresy above orthodoxy with this edict, for at most it ‘only’ equalized standing between the sects and was in any case openly backed by Acacius.

Almost needless to say, the Papacy and the Western imperial court were not impressed by the usurper's arguments. Though in eighty-nine by now, Pope Victor II was sufficiently enraged to manage an energetic condemnation of the Henotikon as a capitulation to Miaphysite heretics and called on Acacius to denounce it, so that the Roman Church as a whole might continue to present a united and uncompromising front against heresy as they had in the past. When Acacius refused, thereby placing the political needs of the Eastern imperial court ahead of religious orthodoxy in Victor’s eyes, he excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople and was excommunicated by him in return.

These developments suited Honorius just fine, for now he was able to claim the mantle of Christian orthodoxy’s champion and have the Church mirror his own stance on the Eastern Empire’s leadership (namely, that it was illegitimate and ought to be replaced). To further spit in Constantinople’s eye he & Victor personally welcomed John Talaia, the Ephesian Patriarch of Alexandria whom Basiliscus deposed, to Rome and continued to recognize him as such. While Patricius continued to attempt to build a bridge between Constantinople and Alexandria, the one between him and Ravenna had now collapsed altogether thanks to this ‘Acacian Schism’, and war between the empires which no longer recognized the other’s temporal or spiritual leaders as legitimate became imminent.

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Honorius II eagerly listening to an aide of the elderly Pope Victor explaining the impossibility of compromise with the East

Off to the east, hostilities flared up again between the Hephthalites and the Gupta Empire, as Samrat Purugupta saw the Eftals’ flawed victory and the state of disorder in their new empire as an opportunity to punish them for having derailed his first bid at the Indian throne and causing the deaths of no small number of his friends & supporters. As the Indian army’s first stop were the lands governed by Akhshunwar, the royal uncle had no choice but to put whatever conspiracy he’d been plotting out against his nephew on hold to deal with the direct threat posed by the Gupta incursion. He met Purugupta’s armies in battle twice this year, once in the autumn at Qīqān[8] and again in the winter at Shalkot[9], and prevailed both times; but Purugupta had far greater numbers to draw on while the White Huns’ need to stabilize and police their conquests meant that Akhshunwar could not count on help from the west even if his relationship with Mehama hadn’t just severely deteriorated. Clearly, more drastic action would be needed if he were to defeat Purugupta before the latter whittled his strength down to nothing.

479 marked a slightly happier occasion for the Western Empire, even as they continued making preparations for war with the East. By now Caesar Eucherius had survived infancy and childhood, defying everyone else’s expectations (even his parents) that his weak constitution would guarantee his death before he even reached puberty, and Honorius arranged his heir’s marriage to Natalia Majoriana. The younger daughter of Majorian, six years older than the groom and as assertive & vivacious a woman as her sister Domnina, was judged by the Church to be just barely within the bounds of acceptable consanguinity for the marriage to go ahead. The wedding was scheduled for July 9, officiated by the now nearly 90-year-old Pope Victor, and celebrated with great fanfare by most of the Roman world: even the East sent a delegation that was received hospitably by the West, despite the two empires’ latent hostility toward one another, in an ultimately failed effort by Patricius to negotiate an end to the religious schism between them.

As of his wedding day, Eucherius had grown from a frail and feeble child into a thoroughly unimpressive young man. Short, passive and timid, he hardly resembled his father or the other strong and determined Stilichians who preceded him in either looks or temperament, though his intense religious devotion and lack of a mean streak had at least set him apart from his father’s namesake; the hope that, if he survived this long, he must have some of his father’s and ancestors’ steel in his spine seemed unfounded. Majorian may have failed to train him into an even halfway capable warrior (something he had made the best efforts in, but the lad was simply too weak and lily-livered to fight), but Honorius still trusted the magister militum would provide his rather disappointing son with the necessary guidance to (if not quite bring the West to greater glory) keep the Occidental ship of state afloat after his own passing, as Stilicho had done for the first Honorius at the start of the century.

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Truly nothing lasts forever, but Honorius II would have liked his dynasty's streak of able emperors to not have to come to an end with his only son

Across the Oceanus Britannicus, this year the British Constantinians were beset not by any Saxon attack but rather by scandal. Prince Artorius, having by now passed into puberty and rapidly growing into a strong & handsome young man, had impregnated the Dumnonian princess Morigena, Uthyr’s middle daughter and the cousin to whom he was closest in age. The pair could not hide Morigena’s pregnancy for more than a few months, and come autumn the King of Dumnonia was unsurprisingly livid when he found out that Artorius – who he had come to consider the son he never had over the past seven years – had apparently been so ungrateful for his tutelage at Isca Dumnoniorum to dishonor his daughter. Artorius was sent back to Londinium with a stern warning to never return to Dumnonia if he valued his life, and a horribly embarrassed Ambrosius had to pay Uthyr a generous indemnity to retain his loyalty. Both the crown prince and his lover were banished to remote Pelagian hermitages for their offense; Artorius for a year or two to drill some discipline into his head, Morigena for life as a nun.

On the Eftal-Gupta border, Akhshunwar undertook his desperate gambit to defeat Purugupta before the latter could wear him down in a war of attrition: a ride through the Bolan Pass with his fiercest and most experienced veteran horsemen, almost certainly fewer than ten thousand in number, to launch a surprise night-time attack on the Indian encampment. Though outnumbered more than 4:1, the sheer audacity of the ambush – it seemed like the sort of idea only a madman could think up – and the narrowness of the pass had made Purugupta complacent, and so Akhshunwar’s strategy worked beautifully. He himself stormed into the Samrat’s tent and took the barely-awake Purugupta captive at swordpoint, forcing the remainder of the Gupta army (which still heavily outnumbered his cavalry corps) to part before him while he exited their camp with his valuable hostage in tow.

To his own surprise Akhshunwar did not kill the captive Indian emperor once they had made it back to safety, but instead negotiated terms for peace: Purugupta would give him his sons as hostages and a fortune equivalent to half the year’s income for the Gupta Empire, including a contingent of prized war elephants, in addition to obviously leaving Hephthalite lands and swearing never to return – and in exchange Akhshunwar would let him leave with his life. These terms made Akhshunwar the richest man in all of Persia and Bactria overnight and greatly disappointed Mehama, who had not only been hoping the Guptas would take his troublesome uncle out for him – it would seem he’d have to do his own dirty work after all – but was alarmed enough at the latter’s new wealth and prestige to demand that he give half of his Indian treasures to the imperial Hephthalite coffers. Akhshunwar bluntly refused, declaring that there was no reason he should give his not-so-dear nephew a single copper coin when Mehama hadn’t lifted a finger in the war against Purugupta; this act of open defiance, however justified it may have been per Eftal honor codes, made civil war between the two as inevitable as the Acacian Schism had for the Roman world.

With the start of 480, so too came the start of renewed open hostilities between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. Finally determined to try to restore religious orthodoxy, eliminate the Alan usurper in the East and in so doing also reunite the Roman Empire, Honorius II marched from the Diocese of Dacia toward Thessalonica at the head of a large army supported by the Ostrogoths and Iazyges, while Majorian sailed from Italy for Dyrrhachium with a second army that included a Frankish contingent and a third army of Africans & Spaniards under the joint command of Stilicho and Amalaric, eldest of the surviving sons of Thorismund the Visigoth, departed for Actia Nicopolis[10]. While the two smaller Western armies made landfall and began fighting their way through Epirus toward their designated meeting point on the Aous River[11], King Theodoric led Honorius’ all-federate vanguard to victory in a sharp clash with the other Theodoric (Strabo) at Stobi in August, allowing the main Occidental host to enter the Macedonian plain and inflict a greater defeat upon Strabo’s army at Pella a month later.

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Theodoric Amal leads the Ostrogoth vanguard of the Western imperial army against Theodoric Strabo's Moesogoths in the opening battle of the war

By the year’s end, Epirus had fallen to the Western Empire and the armies of Majorian and Stilicho were marching to join that of Honorius as they laid siege to Thessalonica; once it fell, Honorius expected the people of Thessaly and southern Greece – newly cut off from Constantinople, and never the most sympathetic to the Asparians’ religious agenda anyway – to desert to his side. Rebellious Ephesian zealots had risen up and formed pro-Western militias when their legionaries or federates came knocking, minimizing the need to leave portions of their strength behind as garrisons in the territories liberated from the Alan usurper so far. Patricius meanwhile was moving Anatolian, Armenian and Kartvelian troops over the Hellespont by the thousand to reinforce Theodoric Strabo and also leaning hard into the favor he’d won with Basiliscus’ former followers through the Henotikon, raising great legions in Egypt and Syria with which to further support his counterattack.

Despite these early Western Roman successes, Honorius did experience a bad omen when Pope Victor died on December 4, a month after his 90th birthday. Nevertheless, on the very last day of the year the West raised up one of his disciples, Severus – who was just as irreconcilable toward the schismatic East as he had been – in his stead. Before the sun had set on December 31, Pope Severus’ first act had been to repeat his predecessor’s excommunication of Patriarch Acacius, who returned the favor. Less potentially portentuous of future Western Roman fortunes was the passing of Olybrius shortly before Pope Victor; from his camp outside Thessalonica Honorius dictated that the next Count of the Sacred Largess should be Bishop Epiphanius of Pavia[12], the energetic and relatively young prelate who the pious Olybrius had previously recommended as his replacement.

A barbarian crossing of the Rhine, also at the exact end of the year, was the first event which more superstitious Western Romans ascribed to the infernal fallout of Pope Victor’s death. A great coalition of Thuringian and Alamanni tribes, with the former comprising the dominant half since the latter had been diminished by their last failed invasion of Roman soil, had launched the first barbaric incursion of the new decade and made their presence known by putting both Borbetomagus and Mogontiacum under siege. As had been the case for decades, it fell to Arbogast to counter this latest threat, though he was now 80 and nearly blind; the magister equitum per Gallias called on kings Childeric, Chilperic and Gundabad to join his army at Durocortum with as many federates as they could muster and to be ready to march against the Teutons in the next spring. Though between his own advanced age and his son’s retirement to a monastery following the death of the latter’s beloved wife, his grandson Merobaudes – who was also betrothed to Childeric’s eldest daughter Audofleda[13] – had to take his usual place at the head of the Gallic army this time around.

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Some things never change, like inconveniently timed barbarian invasions from over the Rhine

In Britannia, the Riothamus Ambrosius died of a sudden chill near spring’s end, aged 62. His stay at the hermitage in the Fens having been cut short by his sudden ascent to kingship, fifteen-year-old Artorius was spirited to Londinium for his anointment by Bishop Fugatius of Londinium and coronation as the second Riothamus of Britannia. But his reign was off to an extremely rocky start, for Ælle had built up his strength over many years of peace and now saw in his longtime archenemy’s death a window to put that might to good use. Right around the time Ambrosius was laid to rest a great Anglo-Saxon army attacked the Romano-British realm’s northern border that summer, led by Ælle’s youngest son Wlencing with the support of Ket and Wig, forcing Artorius to respond with much of his kingdom’s strength (particularly those of the eastern towns and forts) at once.

Much to the Romano-Britons’ sorrow, they would soon learn that this first host did not represent Ælle’s full power, nor even a majority of it. The wily old Saxon king led the greater part of his warriors down the eastern coast and landed on June 15 to assail Londinium after Artorius had emptied his domain’s soldiers to repel Wlencing and the Angle brothers, ensuring that only a small garrison (including the Riothamus’ household guards) would be left to oppose him. The numbers and ferocity of the Saxons proved too much for the massively outnumbered Romano-British defenders, and Londinium fell on June 16 despite their best efforts – the same day that Morigena gave birth to the king’s bastard son, Medraut, at Land’s End. Artorius and Bishop Fugatius were among the few who managed to escape; those who could not would surely have died or been enslaved when the victorious Saxons sacked the fallen capital.

Up north, the main Romano-British army had thwarted Wlencing’s advance north of Ratae on the same day that Londinium fell, but these Saxons weren’t completely crushed and trailed their enemies as they hurried back toward the capital. Ælle advanced northward and engaged them at Venonae on July 3, where Wlencing fell upon their rear and inflicted great slaughter upon them. Out of an army of 6,000 only about 2,000 of the Romano-Britons managed to escape, cutting their way out of the Saxon encirclement under the leadership of Artorius’ boyhood friend Caius, who demonstrated great leadership potential in doing so despite not being much older or more experienced at command than his overlord. Having inflicted two crushing defeats on their enemies and crippled the strength of the Romano-British kingdom, Ælle and the Saxons now found much of Britannia defenseless – and indeed rather quick to submit to – their advance all throughout the rest of the year, leaving burning and depopulated ruins where they met any effort at resistance. For their part Artorius, Caius and his other remaining captains had retreated far to the west, rallying around Glevum.

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With Ambrosius dead and Artorius on the run, Ælle’s Anglo-Saxons easily drove much further into Britannia than they ever had before

As the Uí Liatháin had taken advantage of the Romano-Britons’ weakness to break their oath when called upon for support by the beleaguered young Riothamus, Artorius had no choice but to turn to the very same uncle he’d mortally offended the year before. Uthyr was inclined to laugh in the Riothamus’ face and to tell him that he’d best pray to God for forgiveness in what were surely his final hours when he asked for aid, but for the sake of their blood-ties and his old friendship with Ambrosius, he agreed to help if Artorius could prove that God (or the gods) had not yet forsaken him for his sins by drawing a sword from the stone it had been stuck in, supposedly for centuries. Myrddyn, the pagan druid who’d been allowed to continue guarding the site even after Dumnonia’s conversion to Christianity, explained to Artorius that the blade had resisted all previous attempts to remove it (including one by Uthyr himself) and was wrapped in fey magic woven by powers greater than his own or that of any of the old pagan Britons; he and Uthyr were both promptly shocked to the core when Artorius pulled the sword from its stone with almost contemptuous ease on December 24.

However since Uthyr, though compelled to grudgingly help his nephew after all, dragged his feet in gathering his warriors both out of continued indignation at what Artorius had done to his daughter and fear of Ælle’s seemingly inevitable triumph, at the year’s end Artorius returned to his captains with no Dumnonian army – just assurances that one would definitely be coming soon as well as the sword, which he had named ‘Caliburnus’ (as its original Brittonic name, Caledfwlch, had been rendered in his native Latin) and insisted was a sign of his divinely promised victory in an attempt to shore up their morale. Meanwhile Ælle had divided his sons, warlords and horde up to consolidate their rule across southeastern Britain, but still sent Wlencing, Ket and Wig (all eager to restore their esteem after their earlier defeat at Ratae) west with 4,000 warriors to finish Artorius off.

Having had to disperse some of his already small remaining army to defend the few other towns and forts which still flew the gold-on-blue chi-rho of the British Constantinians, the young Riothamus found himself 1,400 remaining Romano-Britons with which to stand against these men. He picked the abandoned Brittonic hillfort of Camalet[14] to be the battlefield, restoring its fortifications the best he could with the aid of local peasants and engineers from Glevum and making absolutely no secret of his location. Artorius' bid to draw Wlencing's attention worked, for the last and least of Ælle’s sons could not resist the possibility of becoming the man who conquered all Britannia and presented its last king's head to his sure-to-be-overjoyed father, and disregarded lightly-defended Glevum in favor of directly marching against Camalet. Now it was clear to Artorius that before he could make good on his hopes to retake the rest of Britain, he first had to at least survive this battle with the Anglo-Saxons, which would inevitably come in the early winter of 481...

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After how impossible Myrddyn had made the task sound, even Artorius himself was amazed at how easy it had been to pry Caledfwlch/Caliburnus from the stone it was stuck in

Finally, in the lands of the Eftals, open war finally erupted between Akhshunwar and Mehama. Although his newfound wealth and even greater prestige among the White Hunnish warriors had given the latter pause for a time, the former’s continued aggressive courting of elements among the traditional Hephthalite aristocracy which felt slighted by the incumbent Mahārājadhirāja had not escaped him, and he finally sent warriors to arrest his uncle for questioning late in 480. Akhshunwar responded by ambushing and wiping out this royal party, after which he declared his rebellion against his nephew whom he declared to be ungrateful and prone to favoring the conquered Persians over the people who had helped him lay their empire low in the first place, and took Bactra to be his main base.

Much like Honorius to the west, due to his hopes for his enemy’s destruction or at least significant weakening at the hands of another rival having been dashed, Mehama had to engage Akhshunwar under less than optimal conditions. Much of the Hephthalite army sided with his uncle, believing the Mahārājadhirāja was straying too far from his roots or else that he was neglecting them and not giving them sufficient reward for their service in an attempt to appease his new subjects. Only the Fufuluo, who had come to resent Akhshunwar’s overly harsh leadership style, remained loyal to provide him with a core of veteran troops; otherwise Mehama had to rely on the very same locals whose lands he had burned and pillaged through to form new armies, something which only Akhshunwar’s obvious desire to go even further and annihilate their lands altogether made possible.

For his part, Akhshunwar knew he had to strike with his larger and more experienced host before Mehama could build one that dwarfed it out of the Persian, Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian subjects in the western half of the Hephthalite Empire – and strike he did. The rebel Hephthalites tore a bloody swath across the Persian plateau with the elephants acquired from Purugupta leading the way, ravaging the towns which Mehama had previously spared and massacring those loyalist garrisons which refused to join them, and the wayward imperial uncle ended the year by camping in the still-lifeless ruins of Istakhr. However, Akhshunwar’s newest round of atrocities also impressed upon the locals the urgent necessity of working together with Mehama to stop him before he obliterated their homes.

As the year ended the Mahārājadhirāja was able to leave Ctesiphon with a respectably sized army of nearly 30,000 – his own loyalists coupled with the Fufuluo, numerous Mesopotamian conscripts, the scraps which the Lakhmids had been able to roll into his new Arab contingent, and the battered remnants of the old Parthian great houses of Mihran and Isfandiyar[15]. Their quality and reliability was a massive question mark, but given the stakes and the speed at which Akhshunwar was moving through the wasteland that had been eastern & central Iran, Mehama had little choice but to hope this hastily scrapped together force would be enough to withstand his uncle’s fury: if not for his sake (and he sincerely doubted the non-Eftals cared about that), then for their own and those of whatever loved ones they might have.

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Mehama's rather eclectic new army included Mesopotamian and Persian conscripts, the old Parthian aristocracy, and even Kurds from the Zagros Mountains

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[1] Illus and Trocundus were Isaurian generals who historically fought for Zeno against Basiliscus, but rebelled against him in the 480s. Illus was also a patron of the poet Pamprepius, a pagan and a libertine, and may have been a pagan himself.

[2] Meron.

[3] Ashkelon.

[4] Lod.

[5] Modern Mazandaran & eastern Gilan, along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea.

[6] A Persian client king who fought for the Parthians against Ardashir I in the 3rd century, but bent the knee to him after his overlord’s defeat. His dynasty (apparently unrelated to the Gushnasp brothers who led the suppression of the Armenian Christian rebellion at Avarayr) historically ruled Padishkhwargar until 520, when Shah Kavadh I terminated their autonomy and installed his eldest son Kawus as the province’s governor.

[7] Historically the Henotikon was promulgated by Zeno in 482. It also originally had nothing to do with the Patriarchate of Alexandria – the orthodox Patriarch, John I, was deposed after the edict had been issued for not accepting it, and only then did Zeno install Peter Mongus in the See of Saint Mark. Since there was no Western Roman Emperor by that point, the Popes used the incident to take one step toward asserting their leadership over Christendom.

[8] Kalat.

[9] Quetta.

[10] Preveza.

[11] The Aoös River.

[12] The historical Epiphanius is a Catholic saint, noted for his diplomatic service under Julius Nepos and for his success as a mediator between the Romans of Italy and Theodoric the Great after the latter cast Odoacer down.

[13] Historically, Audofleda was the wife of Theodoric the Great and mother to his only child Amalasuintha, future Queen of the Ostrogoths.

[14] Cadbury Castle.

[15] These two great houses were traditionally based around Ray, now part of the Tehran metropolitan area. Of the pair the Mihrans were the more notable, installing their cadet branches on the thrones of Caucasian Iberia & Albania during the 4th century, and later spawning the general Bahram Chobin who briefly overthrew the Sassanids from 590 to 591.
 

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