Blasted Numidia: 633-654
The Blessed by the Gods
or
1 small Numidian, dancing on skulls
The Blessed by the Gods
or
1 small Numidian, dancing on skulls
Great king Djedhor, long lived and mighty, was not amused by the minor civil war of 634. It had no style, no glory, and it disrupted his digestion for months on end. The only entertaining elements were the diplomatic actions of Egypt and Pontus, both realms promising to come help crush the rebellion to show their good will and innocent motives in general.
Egypt, naturally enough, stipulating that “some poor province” handed over would be a kindly token of friendship. This came as no surprise to Djedhor, as he had suffered such begging and lowering of personal dignity from the Egyptian ruler's relative Amyrteos' the last decades and a half.
As a result, military access was granted only to Pontus, and the martial Pontians were tasked with retaking Carthago, which soon fell.
The civil war crushed, king Djedhor ordered the skulls of all the rebels gathered in a small field outside his summer palace in Hippo Regius, and, concerned that the field wasn't all that impressive, ordered his commanders across the sea to return the skulls of Gauls dead in combat during the ongoing conquest and those of Roman rebels returned to the capital on the double. Soon a lively regular shipping route (the so-called treasure fleet) was up and skulls arrived by the shipload.
Some scholars speculate that this may have significantly increased the devastation in Gaul and Rome and suggest that local corrupt governors and generals or ambitious bureaucrats may have done a bit of headhunting of skulls or redesignating of skull origins on the side as private enterprises, thereby contributing to the depopulation of the Italian peninsula and the utter destruction of Italian culture in the long run, but so little remains of evidence of the Romans that it must remain mere speculation.
King Djedhor was to see no more war in his lifetime and his last great act was the secret Treaty of Northern Division with Pontus, the treaty famous, even in its own time once it came to public attention, for some secrets are too good not to share, as the one major treaty where neither of the parties had reliable documents as proof of just what had been agreed in the specifics as a result of which both parties serenely followed their own interpretation.
Bringing a fresh new outlook to Numidian diplomacy after the long stolid reign of Djedhor came his son Polyperchon. A hunter and sportsman of note, five years champion of the national sport of slave kicking, barred from the temple of Baal Hammon for beating the high priest at stallionising slaves and daring to write a poem mocking the priest's failure, breaker of hearts, killer of thieves, lord of justice, despoiler of maidens, and dancer of the god who is not named, Polyperchon was considered both blessed and cursed by the gods and definitely a young man to be watched, preferably from a safe distance.
Under his enlightened autocratic rule the great army road was built from the utmost west to the border of Egypt and trade flourished. He promoted ever friendlier relations with both Egypt and Pontus with the intent of drawing both into a defensive alliance akin to the defensive alliance Pontus and Egypt already shared between them.
The late 640'ies yielded an offensive alliance with Pontus for the purpose of cutting Rome further down to size, Pontus having long wished to divest Rome of its eastern holdings and Polyperchon not being averse to adding a great victory to his name like his forefathers had done. The war broke out unexpectedly early over the minor issue of a backwards tribe in Gaul that remained faithful to Rome, and armies and navies being out of position, the invasion was a shambles.
Rome having rebuilt its legions after the last war in its now most powerful stronghold, Hispania, the armies of Pontus flooded into the practically defenseless Italian peninsula while Numidia's mighty armies fought the Roman legions tooth and claw in Hispania and Gaul and Numidia's navy struggled with the Roman fleet.
The emperor of Pontus prided himself on his excellent military progress in the face of negligible opposition and spent, if the bitter notes of Polyperchon Massinisid are to be trusted, most of the time on sending notes asking about the “warscore” and whether he could have two or three provinces anytime soon. This seems to have tasked the otherwise moderately sane and fairly stable Polyperchon to the degree that he answered most undiplomatically that the last couple of wars his forefathers had won against Rome had required a near complete occupation of Roman territory, annihilation of all Rome's forces, and blockading of every province not occupied, so if his great lazy emperorship of Pontus was in a hurry or couldn't make peace on his own behalf for his wargains, he should probably get his armies marching to help actually fighting the Roman armies rather than killing stragglers limping back towards Rome from Hispania.
Fortune favours the bold, it is said, but emperor Arganos of Pontus, who had been favoured more than most heretics during his life, was by this time an arrogant and embittered man; What is worse, while still moderately bold, he had finally run out of luck.
With the Pontian Time of Troubles breaking out, Arganos immediately withdrew his armies from the war against Rome and made haste for his capital, leaving Numidia alone in the field as it had been so many times before but in a worse shape than usual. King Polyperchon gave an eloquent speech from the ruins of the Roman senate to the assembled army leaders indicating that he'd had enough of this shit and would only be satisfied with a peace treaty and a ten-fold increase in skull deliveries until that was achieved.
Finally, a treaty was signed in 654 stripping Rome of a few Gaulish provinces and king Polyperchon could return to his favourite sports, but before he returned to the sedentary life, he proclaimed Numidia an empire with himself as emperor, he proclaimed his own deification, and
last, but definitely not least, he viewed the field of skulls and he saw that it was good, skulls in layers triple-deep for as long as the naked eye could see, and he went to the very centre of the field,
and he laughed,
......and he danced
............and he DANCED!
and the skulls grinned as his laughter spread throughout the field, Polyperchon Massinisid - emperor and god!
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