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He proved unexpectedly squeamish - if you let out bloodthirsty hordes can one really be surprised when bloodthirsty they will be?
Sometimes powerful men are like that, they are rulers or command bloodthirsty armies or commit serious crimes, but in their private lifes they are like most of us.
Tbh I didn't expect the fish of the ruler's wife to be tied to Christianity, but it completely makes sense :)
I'm waiting for more ^^

Thanks!
 
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Chapter 3.6- The Shadow of the Horsemen, 334
Chapter 3.6- The Shadow of the Horsemen, 334

For centuries the Hellenic Kingdoms and colonies had civilized other peoples in their constant advance towards unknown lands in their crusade to bring the light of knowledge to the people who still lived like barbarians, because of it they had founded many cities and expanded their ideals from the south of Gaul to the far northern steppes, theater, philosophy, art, religion and Hellenic literature had spread throughout the civilized world. In the mountains of the Pyrenees under the control of the Etruscan Empire the same gods were worshiped and the same religious rites were performed as in Crimea and Athens, it was a fact that at the beginning of the fourth century there was still a Hellenistic era.

The Lydian Empire had been Hellenized a couple of centuries ago and now it was the shield of Europe against the Babylonian incursions from the east, the best warriors of the Hellenic world fought under their banners and the border they shared with their traditional enemies in the Caucasus was well guarded ... the reputation of The defenders of the Caucasus were such that the Babylonians had not tried their luck against Lydia for several decades since they had already suffered several serious and humiliating defeats.

… However, with all its power and knowledge, no one in the entire Lydian Empire had even thought that the greatest threat against the Hellenic world would come from the north.

At the beginning news came from the Hellenic colonies located on the banks of the Volga River about groups of barbarian civilians who fled westward without even causing problems on their way, then refugees arrived from the Hellenic colonies telling terrifying tales about the destruction of all Hellenic colonies between the Volga and Dnieper rivers.

The kingdoms of northern Crimea and Epirus collapsed in 330 at an impressive speed after centuries of stability, after the war against the Etruscan Empire of 329 Emperor Pelagius II of Lydia could not afford a long campaign against an enemy he considered completely inferior to his people, and because of that an army of three thousand men was sent to defend the northern border, Pelagius II could not disregard the eastern border since the Babylonians could see that as a sign of weakness, and could not neglect the West because the Etruscans could take advantage of the chaos to move their troops towards the Balkans.

But Lydia's three thousand men never returned.

In 330 a gigantic army of Slavic and Germanic refugees led by the Slavic princess Jadwiga Branicky advanced rapidly towards Bizantium, the capital of the Lydian Empire, quickly taking over the city and conquering what was one of the great empires of the world. If Pelagius II thought the barbarians were inferior, he was absolutely wrong.

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But the subjects of the Lydian Empire would not accept a barbarian Princess seating on their throne for a long time, so after a couple of months they rebelled against the authority of Jadwiga, it was the moment that the Etruscans were waiting for, as taking advantage of the confusion they initiated a campaign to take the western territories of the last Hellenic Empire.

Jadwiga, now Empress of the Lydian Empire achieved important victories against the Hellenic rebels but was betrayed by an Etruscan agent and taken prisoner, she died in 331 in the dungeons of Emperor Bertrand II of the Etruscan Empire.

But the damage to the Lydian Empire was already done another Slavic princess took the Imperial throne after a short war and the Hellenic kingdoms took the opportunity to become independent. The Lydian Empire was shattered beyond recognition.

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While the Hellenic world was destroyed by hordes of people fleeing from an unknown enemy, the Babylonian Empire faced the greatest civil war in its history, that is how Vachagan, a reputable man of Armenian origin, managed to make Syria and the newly created kingdom of Jerusalem among others independent in a revolt against the oppressive Assyrians, the Babylonians lost access to the Mediterranean.

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But not only the Hellenes and Babylonians suffered from the current crisis since the Etruscan Empire was threatened by another civil war, this time the Etruscan subjects sought total independence as they had received news that the eastern border of the Empire was beginning to experience the same catastrophe that struck the Lydian Empire ... and they were not willing to send their children in the name of an empire that had oppressed them for centuries to fight the unknown menace, it was time for rebellion.

Meanwhile on the Italian Peninsula the Velahtri League was undergoing a great transformation, Numerios Maecilia, Dictator of the Roman Senate, had managed to seize the power to found the Latin League, a new power that threatened the supremacy of the hitherto invincible Etruscan Empire in Central Europe.

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After a short time legends began to circulate from port to port, from town to town and from nation to nation, about how the barbarians that destroyed the Hellenic Kingdoms and that were invading the Etruscan Empire were fleeing from a demonic race of warriors that were half horse half human, they called them “The Huns”.

_________________________________________________
Rituals

Great Temple of Cadiz, 334.

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The new Ahau of Ispania, Chak Tok Ich’aak (or Great Jaguar Paw), reviewed in complete silence the reports that had come to him about the crisis that was affecting all the Empires of the region. What was happening in the world was an opportunity or a threat? Could the Etruscan civil war get out of control and threaten to take his people to a war they could not win? Was the Latin League a threat to Mayan claims to dominate the Mediterranean? ... so many questions ... no satisfactory answers ...

He had risen to the throne at age 44, never thought that his grandfather would die and because of that he never prepared himself for the responsibility of being the Ahau of the Mayans. He needed advice… and he didn't trust men for something as important as this.

After leaving his council in charge of the Kingdom, he locked himself with the High Priests in the Great Temple of Cadiz ... perhaps the gods had the answers he was looking for ...

Upon entering the Great Temple the priests gave him a basket with the four sacred varieties of corn cultivated by the Maya, that would be all he could eat for a week in which he would fast and prepare his mind to be able to communicate with the gods.

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They four varieties of corn of the Mayan World
After a particularly difficult week for a man accustomed to abundance he was summoned to the upper part of the temple, where the priests were performing a ritual burning Copal resin and sacrificing one of the birds brought from the Mayab, a Macaw. Chak Tok Ich’aak felt physically weakened, but his spirit knew that the gods would listen to him.

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Not all Mayan rituals involved human blood.
The ritual was over and the priests now surrounded him while performing sacred songs as old as mankind itself, the Ahau had drunk a mixture of hallucinogenic herbs and was now in a trance ...


Upon waking from the trance a series of words remained in his head.

Secure. Borders

Restore. Glory.

Lifetime. Short.


He remembered the colors black, red, yellow and white, the same as the four sacred varieties of corn, the same colors that since ancient times identified the cardinal points in the Mayan world:


The Red symbolized the East, life, blood.

Yellow symbolized the South, the skin, the rain, the material.

The White symbolized the North, the dead, the spiritual, the bones.

The Black symbolized the West, hair, hope.


His people had come from the West in the hope of finding a new home, the black color would symbolize this new covenant between the gods and the Maya, his mission as Ahau of his people was to secure the borders of his kingdom, restore the glory of his sacred lineage and he needed to do this fast ... since his life would be short among the mortals.


The gods had spoken, now it was Chak Tok Ich’aak's turn to carry out the divine will...
 
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And if one does not listen to the Gods ... well, it seldom ends well.

I hope you have a fortunate and wholesome New Year.
 
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Chapter 3.7 The New Empire 334-341 CE
Chapter 3.7 The New Empire 334-341 CE


The first official act of Chak Tok Ich'aak as the new Ahau of the Mayans of Ispania was to meet with the noble Mayan families of Calakmul and Palenque who had accompanied his family in the invasion of the legendary lands of the ancestors, the nobles Phoenicians who were now his subjects and the recently formed house Oncan. He discussed the important reforms that he wanted to do on his realm on his prophesized short time on this world.

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All of the nobles had received large tracts of land to rule over the recently conquered peoples and orders to respect the local beliefs, each of the men who were of fighting age was needed to defend the Kingdom from the numerous enemies they had and for that it was necessary to maintain peace in the new kingdom, the Noble families were aware that their own survival depended on it, so until now they had complied with the laws that protected the diversity of religious cults.

However, this religious tolerance hid something more sinister, the landowners who dominated the conquered lands before the arrival of the Maya had been banished or sacrificed to the gods and replaced by the new nobility implanted by the invaders, subjects of Berber origin and Celtiberians could worship their gods, but all the land belonged to the Maya, the locals could only survive as peasants or slaves, since even the merchants were also of Mayan or Phoenician origin.

Following the logic that had characterized the Mayan world before the first Empire, each ruler was the Ahau of his own city-state and enjoyed full powers over the lands he dominated, but it was the Ahau of Ispania, in this case Chak Tok Ich'aak , the one that guaranteed the security of the lands of his subjects, because of that they had the sacred duty to facilitate troops in times of war. The feudal system of the Maya guaranteed the freedom of the Mayan nobility to rule over their subjects while protecting the existence of invaders by centralizing military command in case of foreign aggression.

After conquering the last Berber strongholds in the wars of the beginning of his reign, Chak Tok Ich’aak was proclaimed as the new Ahau of the Mayan Empire in 335 CE. There was no point in maintaining the Kingdom of Ispania when the conquest of the Celtiberian and Berber peoples was complete ... from now on, the slow assimilation of those peoples within the Mayan culture would begin.

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The Ahau and its council chose the color black as the color of the new Empire, since that color represented the West from where the Maya came, and as their symbol the old banner of the Olmecs of Ajaw, distant ancestors of Chak Tok Ich'aak from the union of Kujy u'id, the last Olmec King and Dido Yujnegi, the legendary Phoenician prophet and daughter of Zinnridi Yujnegi.​

The new Empire extended through both banks of the Melkart Strait, as the Phoenicians called it, and would mark the new beginning for the Maya who had crossed the great sea following the prophecies of Dido about ninety years ago after the collapse of the first Mayan Empire (1-242 CE)

The re-foundation of the Mayan Empire was accompanied by the beginning of the construction of the Great Pyramid of Q'uk'umatz on the outskirts of Cadiz, although the construction of said monument would take decades the plans of the major architect contemplated a base of 500 square meters and a 200 meters high, next to a large complex of sacred temples around the Pyramid that would double the size of the Imperial capital and a catacombs system under the pyramid to bury the Ahau, all this would have a very high cost but the Maya had brought large amounts of gold from the West, and they had great specialists under their orders.

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The first to be buried under the pyramid in construction would be Chak Tok Ich’aak himself, who died in 341 CE after suffering a strange disease that disfigured his face and forced him to stay hidden inside his palace. He was succeeded by his son Kaibil Balam, who had studied for years to become a priest and was recognized among his peers for being a wise and educated man.

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A pyramid for all eternity
 
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Chapter 3.8 The end of the Hellenic Era 355-358 CE
Chapter 3.8 The end of the Hellenic Era 355-358 CE

Rome, Latin League, 355 CE

The Augustus of the Latin League was meeting with his council because from the east and west came worrying news about the savages that threatened to eliminate the Hellenic order once and forever after centuries of prosperity.


While he had come to power after a revolt against the Etruscan League of the Velahtri, the Roman citizens who led the Latin League felt part of the Hellenic world as much as the deposed leaders of the Velahtri, and while the democratic tradition of the the city of Rome had remained untouched for centuries ... the absolute power of Augustus was justified due to the threat posed by savages who were destroying the old order from all cardinal points.

The Lydian Empire had fallen into Slavic hands nearly a decade ago, and now the Slavic tribes were expelled from the Balkans and Anatolia by the Khazars, who occupied the lands of the fallen Empire and proclaimed themselves as legitimate successors of the Hellenic imperial traditions. Now the new “Lydian Empire” was warring against the many Hellenic kingdoms in the region for total dominance.

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This had caused that the Etruscan Empire in addition to fight another civil war for the Imperial throne now had to face the Slavic hordes from the East that now joined the formidable hordes of the Huns in their efforts to enter the Etruscan lands.

Seeing the weakness of the Imperial legions after their constant defeats against the Huns the pagan peoples rebelled and achieved independence from the Etruscan yoke in 354 CE, the Ripuarian and Salian tribes of the Franks along with the Gauls and the Germanics and Eastern Slavs were now free to rule their own destinies. The unity of the Etruscan Empire still remained in central Europe, where the Etruscans had built great fortifications to repel the barbarian hordes and protect the core of their Empire.

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Meanwhile, in the mysterious northern archipelago the Bretons had managed to unite the largest of the islands under the banner of the kingdom of Albion. While they were oblivious to the tribulations of the decaying Empires in Europe, their Celtic religion linked them to the inhabitants of Iberia and the Gauls and because of this King Gurheter of Albion had plans to create a great Celtic alliance against the Hellenics and the Maya who had recently defeated the Turdetani in Iberia. A new Barbarian age was about to begin and the Celts were ready to jump into the pages of history with bravery.

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Faced with this terrible scenario, Augustus Annius Maecilia of the Latin League could only think of securing the territory he had already conquered while planning to dispute the dominance of Mediterranean commerce to the shifty Carthaginians who had begun to expand into southern Italy.

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Cadiz, Mayan Empire 358 CE

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The Mayans had enjoyed a more than a decade of peace under the wise rule of Kaibil Balam, without enemies inside or outside the realm, the Mayan Empire was the peaceful exception to the chaotic era that the rest of the peoples of the region were experiencing.

Goods flowed from the port of Cadiz to Carthage at the east and to the exotic Kingdom of Albion in the north and peoples from all cultures and religion traveled to the capital of the Mayans to know about these mysterious group of peoples who came from a sunken island west of Cadiz. The hellenics believed that the Mayans came from the legendary Atlantis and because of this they were called “atlanteans” by some Greek merchants, some Berbers said that the Mayans came from the dangerous lands south of the Sahara Desert and the Carthaginians, refusing to believe all these tales sent an expedition west to find the mysterious lands from where their new trade rivals came… but their explorers only encountered sea and returned frustrated. In the court of Kaibil Balam the Mayan nobles enjoyed these tales and even created others more ridiculous to entertain themselves, some created elaborate myths about an Island that sank beneath the sea because the Mayans extracted all the gold from their land and that caused their homeland to fell into the ocean, others said that they came from the Moon itself and that the gods sent them to conquer these decadent peoples...

The truth was not something the Mayans could afford to tell, the Mayab would remain as a secret for the centuries to come and it existence was unknown to most Mayans as they were born on the islands close to Europe (Canary, Madeira and others ) and the elders decided to tell the young that they always lived there… only the noble families and the priesthood knew the truth but only a few on the Q'uk'umatz family knew the exact location of the old homeland of the Maya.

As prosperity grow larger also their reputation, that caused that in 356 CE a band of Frankish warriors tried to invade the Maya Empire but they were quickly defeated in the Battle of Denia and their leaders sacrificed to the Mayan Gods…the Franks who could not flee and was not deemed worthy of being sacrificed were crucified (following the Carthaginian fashion) on the frontier as a warning to any other barbarian group who wanted to invade the Empire.

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Ahau Kaibil Balam the Wise died of Cancer in 358 CE, after a great ceremony on the Great Plaza of Cadiz his remains were buried below the Great Pyramid of Cadiz that was still being built. He was succeeded by his son Chak Tok Ich’aak II

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The Hellenic order was ending and a new age of Barbarian Kingdoms as the Etruscan historians were already calling, was just beginning.
 
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Kinda interesting quick glance around Western Europe.
 
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Etruscan Empire borders seem painfully similiar to our beloved HRE hmm...
Their basic "dejure" lands are vanilla Italy, Burgundy and the southern German lands, still they managed to retain more northern lands and a lot of foreign Kingdoms (like Bavaria or Poland) are still being ruled by Etruscans. Idk how Gauls managed to get that amount of land, but some vassals tend to become powerful before revolting against their liege.

I renamed a second frankish kingdom that appeared as Ripuarian Franks just for flavor, having two Frankish Kingdoms could be confusing.
 
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Chapter 3.9 Scenes of the Migration Era (359-369 CE)
Chapter 3.9 Scenes of the Migration Era (359-369 CE)

Cadiz, Mayan Empire, 359 CE

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Chak Tok Ich’aak II was returning from a great ceremony he presided to inaugurate the great temple complex that surrounded the new Great Pyramid of Q'uk'umatz at the outskirts of his Imperial Capital, he was satisfied because even if the pyramid itself was not yet completely built after 24 years of construction, the work created by the glory of his dynasty would continue for generations to come, the great Imperial builders had become renowned due to the quality of their work and the city of Cadiz was now crowned by a monumental pyramid that watched the great harbor from afar. Every foreigner sailing across the trade route that passed by Cadiz would see the glory of the Mayans represented on their big buildings.

Construction would continue for the centuries to come since the pyramid was expected to be the largest construction in the old world and the complex of temples that surrounded it would be the centers of knowledge that would replace Carthage, Rome or Parma as forming entities of the new generations of philosophers and engineers. The Mayan priests stood out for their inclination towards astronomy and science, that is why religion would be the basis of the progress and superiority of their people in the coming generations, unlike other peoples where priests were responsible for maintaining superstition and mysticism opposed to rationality.

Religion had great power over life in the Empire, the Maya and the foreign converts relied heavily on priests and their knowledge to carry out their daily lives, and these holy men not only cared for the spirituality, also of the health of the imperial subjects since they were the ones in charge to heal people using the medical knowledge inherited from the long Mayan tradition added to the discoveries of the Phoenicians and Celtiberians. Many of the great builders were priests of the Mayan faith and also several of the engineers who supported the armies in times of war. With the construction of the great Pyramid of Q'uk'umatz and the temple complex these knowledge would only be improved and expanded generation after generation.

The construction of the Pyramid of Q'uk'umatz was one of the financial reasons the Mayan Empire did not launched any war of conquest since the start of the works, they needed every resource available and peace was the best way to ensure that the flow of riches coming to and from Cadiz was not interrupted.

The caravan in which the Ahau of the Empire was traveling passed through a small ravine that stood between the city and the Imperial Palace and there Chak Tok Ich'aak II found its end when he was attacked by a group of assailants. It was never known who had planned the murder, but the truth is that no one in his entourage survived to provide any clue about that.

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He was succeeded on the Imperial throne by Tecun Uman, his little son of only 4 years. The council would rule until he came of age.

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Thebes, Paraohate of Egypt, 360

The Ruweis Dinasty of Egypt had ruled with a strong hand since they took the mantle of Pharaohs of Egypt in 292 CE and kicked out the Babylonian invaders from their homeland after a series of short wars over the next 20 years… Egypt was never a strong regional power like they were in the old times, but they succeeded in their wars because of the strong will of their rulers and the bravery of their people. For centuries their local faith and culture was decaying because of the foreign influence of the Hellenics, Nubians and the Assyrians who had invaded their lands one after another, but now, after decades of war against the invaders they were free to be themselves again.

Malewiebamani Ruweis, named after a strong Nubian leader of old, ended with the foreign influence in Egypt and reformed the old Faith and local institutions to strengthen the power of his people shortly after being named as the new Pharaoh, that made him extremely popular and after the wars against the Carthaginians he consolidated his power and became one of the most brilliants rulers of his age. Even more after the Hellenic Kingdoms fell to the barbarian hordes of the east because many Hellenic philosophers and men of science came to his court seeking refuge. He allowed them to live in his capital and now Thebes was one of the most important cities on the world.

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In 360 CE he launched the invasion of the Empire of Carthage, an old power that was stagnating after centuries of prosperity. He succeeded and Carthage lost its eastern dominions to the ambitious Pharaoh, he planned to go even further and take the great city of Carthage under his domain, but he had to wait…. Because he was surrounded by enemies and Thebes could be invaded by the Nubians, the Assyrians and even unknown barbarians from across the Mediterranean… maybe if he waited enough the waters will calm and he would continue with his conquests.

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Praise kek

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Parma, Etruscan Empire, 365 CE

The chaos of the Hellenic world continued as the barbarian hordes advanced towards the core of the Etruscan Empire, thousands of refugees risked their lives everyday trying to reach the west. The Etruscan armies who watched the borders could not control all of them but tried their best to block the passage of armed bands of barbarians who could destroy the Empire from within and the Emperor himself was leading the armies against the mysterious horsemen who forced their way into the last remnants of the civilized world according to the Etruscans.

The city of Parma was one of the most prosperous cities of the Empire and had not experienced periods of violence due to being quite far from the borders, but still had received a small and extravagant group refugees from the east that lived in voluntary poverty and they had built a small village on the outskirts of the city, the faith that they preached quickly became popular among the noble classes and those who lived in poverty partly due to the charisma of the monks and partly to the goodness that It characterized the strange divinity they worshiped.

The Etruscan Empire had lived through difficult times since the wild nomads of the East had begun to invade their territories a few decades ago, the Lydian Empire had fallen into the hands of savages without god or law and no one knew if the city could dawn under siege the next day, terrifying stories circulated about what happened to people after the nomads took a city and the faith of these humble foreigners was a light of hope in dark times, they preached that people were living on the end days and to survive the chaos of this era the people had to forget the life of excesses and frivolities that characterized life in the Etruscan Empire, and begin a new life as followers of the divinity who had come to our world to save us and then had been murdered by the cruel Assyrians to then, to everyone's surprise, resurrect on the third day.

Small communities of this new faith had spread throughout the southern Etruscan Empire, where barbarians still did not arrive and people despite living in prosperity feared that the destructive fire of the barbarian era, as it was known in that time, came to their lives. The more conservative members of the nobility considered this new faith as a sign of the moral decay of the Empire since an Eastern religion would never be popular in the Glorious years of Hellenic supremacy, worshiping a guy nailed to a cross was another example of the moral degeneration that was causing the breakup of the Empire. The Emperor was one of these conservatives even as his wife was one of the followers of this new religion.

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Heves, Hunnic Empire, 366 CE

Emperor Vipi was leading the charge against the savage horsemen now known as the Huns. He had many victories against these inhuman barbarians as the Etruscans liked to call them and now he was invading the invaders to put an end to their threat to his Empire.

The Huns were a mysterious nomadic peoples who came from the far east and in a few decades they had conquered a great number of different cultures under their banner, they were responsible for the rapid disintegration of the Etruscan Empire as well as the fall of the Lydian Empire and the large number of refugees who had reached the different kingdoms and empires of the Mediterranean Sea. After expelling the Khazars from Crimea, the Khagan Sinnion of the Huns had reformed the Tengri faith and had become the most powerful man in the world. Until now the only resistance to the advance of the horsemen were the Etruscans, and after a series of battles on the banks of the Danube, it seemed that the Huns were losing their first war.

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But Kaghan Sinnion was not only characterized by his brutality, but also by his intelligence, and he had planned to wait for the Etruscans in Heves, a wooded region where he could hide his troops and ambush the hitherto invincible Etruscan legions. After waiting for some weeks finally Sinnion's plan paid off, the Etruscans, tired after crossing a river, were surrounded by his cavalry and defeated in a bloody battle, now he only had to move towards the Etruscan Empire heartland and take it by force.

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But then ... Khinialon, one of the Eastern Khans declared a rebellion against Sinnion to become the new Khan of the Huns. This was one of the great flaws of the nomads, as the news traveled slowly, in the east of the immense Hun Empire the news had just arrived about the defeats suffered by Sinnion at the hands of the Etruscans and that had caused one of the most important Khans of the region will rise in arms against a ruler they considered weak and incapable. Sinnion would never face the Etruscans again nor complete his conquest since he would be killed in personal combat by the one who tried to take his throne in 369 CE.

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After being defeated at Heves, Emperor Vipi of the Etruscans was killed in a confusing incident in his palace in 368 CE.

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The invasion of the Etruscan lands by the Huns continued while chaos caused more and more hordes of barbarians (as they were called by the Etruscans) to flee westwards.
 
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Interesting... World when Christians and Khemets live by the side :)
Maybe Christian Huns next? Who knows ;)

Khemets have survived from 559 BC on the EUIV (Imperium Universalis) part of this AAR, they were invaded by the Babylonians but revolted, at the start of this AAR it seemed that they were about to be invaded again by the Babylonians but... they not only kicked them out of Egypt, they reformed their faith and now are a threat to everyone near them. We will see if they survive the Muslim invasion when we reach the 650+ CE mark :D

I dont think that Huns could convert to christianity, the Tengri faith was reformed...if something im worried that we will see the Tengri faith reigning supreme everywhere because the nomads are overpowered, at least for now. And christianity is still weak... even if lots of nations convert to the different denominations we will start to see on this world they dont stand a chance against the might of the Horsemen.
 
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Chapter 3.10 The Conversion of the Etruscan Empire (371-383 CE)
Chapter 3.10 The Conversion of the Etruscan Empire (371-383 CE)

More than three centuries ago a new faith was born in the Levant when a man (or a god according to some people) in Jerusalem dared to start a spiritual revolution. For centuries the Jewish peoples were oppressed under Assyrian rule and most of the original tribes were scattered to the far reaches of the Empire. The only freedom that the peoples of Judea had was the religious activity, and even that was heavily controlled by the local Assyrian authorities.

At the start of the first century that was challenged by a man later known as Jesus of Nazareth who preached about a Kingdom that wasn’t of this world but of a spiritual one, and revitalized the oppressed Hebrew communities starting a new religion that was called Christianity by the followers of the man, a few decades later the message of Jesus was very popular between the oppressed peoples on the Babylonian Empire, even more as their holy scriptures spoke heavily against the moral decadence of their rulers ( Revelation Chapter 17, for example) and in Jerusalem a general uprising against the immorality of the Assyrian nobility that was supported by the Egyptian and Lydian Empires and that’s was how the Christian Kingdom of Philistia was born.

Ruled by the local Phoenician nobility the Kingdom of Philistia lasted from circa 200 CE to 330 CE, until the reconquest of these lands by the Assyrians and a brief period of independence under the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 350 CE, since then the Empire of Babylonia started to persecute the Christians with more fervor. This caused the greatest migration of Christians westward to the different kingdoms and empires that offered more religious freedoms, but many others chose the heroic martyrdom under the innumerable and terrible ways in which the imperial authorities executed their enemies.


Main currents of Christianity in the IV century:

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Miaphysite Christianism (blue): Was the most popular variant of Christianism in the early years, as the theological debates between the Christian leaders started to splinter the faith into many different groups, in the first century reached the Lydian and the Egyptian Empire and the coastals regions of the Babylonian Empire. Some groups reached the Velahtri (in the vicinity of Rome) on the second century they were identified as a dangerous sect as they didn’t wanted to worship the gods of the state, many choose martyrdom as they were persecuted by the authorities. After the fall of the Lydian Empire in the 3rd century they migrated into the Etruscan Empire and into the Kingdom of Armenia.

Monophysite Christianism (green): One of the most recent divergences from the Miaphysite churches appeared after the fall of the Lydian Empire when many Christians fled from the Hordes of barbarians into the island of Cyprus.

Dyophysite Christianism (yellow): One of the first divergences in Christian theology happened a short time after Jesus was dead, this group gained notoriety after the rise of the Kingdom of Philistia in 200 CE when Christianity became the state religion. In 90 CE many missionaries traveled to the east into the very heart of the Babylonian Empire to never return. Before the fall of the Kingdom of Philistia many refugees fled into the Empire of Carthage in 320 and to the Mayan Kingdom of Ispania in 323.

Cenobitic Monasticism (red): Years after the Miaphysites entered Egypt many Christians became hermits seeking to reach the perfection as followers of the faith, but it wasn’t until Pachomius the Great (292-348 CE) that this became an organized way of worshiping the divinity.

Fraticelli Christianity (purple): Born from the union of the Miaphysite churches and the Cenobitic monks that joined in Rome on the past decades its currently the most popular form of Christianity on the southern lands of the Etruscan Empire. Led by monks that choose to follow the doctrine of apostolic poverty while allowing the secular people to live normal lives this sect became extremely popular between the lower classes of the italic peninsula, their center of worship is located on Rome and they used Latin for liturgical purposes as it was the language of the poor people in the region, opposed to Etruscan that was the language of the nobles.


The conversion of the Etruscan Empire. (371-383 CE)
After the defeat of the Etruscans at the battle of Heves and the civil war that almost destroyed the Hunnic Empire, a bloody war continued between the two empires but in a lower scale for the next decade, crops were destroyed, towns sacked and many people fled into the interior of the Etruscan Empire.This while the Fraticelli monks preached that they were near the end of time and that God would protect the Etruscans if they accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.

In the next ten years after the battle of Heves and the death of two Emperors fighting the Huns, Christianity began to grow exponentially between the common and noble people of the Etruscan Empire alike and Latin began to be the common tongue of cities like Parma and Rome because it was the language that spoke the majority of the poor population of these cities and the monks began to be hired as educators by the noble families.

Emperor Titus III “the hammer” of the Etruscan Empire tolerated Christianity as he considered it a distraction for the lower classes on uncertain times and his whole family converted to Christianity but he refused to do so because he was a proud conservative nobleman.

After a short campaign where the Etruscans recovered most of their lands he negotiated a white peace with the nomads, that was accepted and in 371 CE and a war that lasted for decades and that almost destroyed the Empire finally ended.

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The Fraticelli monks praised the emperor and began to preach about his sanctity as a way to get him to convert from his pagan faith to Christianity but he remained as a proud pagan until he was assassinated by one of his lovers in 372 CE, the reasons behind his assassination remains a mystery because the woman was murdered by one of his guards. Some said that the murder was ordered by the Huns, others that he was killed because the Emperor had too many lovers, others that the guard was a Christian and that the monks had paid him a good amount of money and that he killed the lover of the Emperor because she was a dangerous witness ... the truth is that the guard disappeared the next day and nobody could interrogate him.

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The last pagan Emperor
Titus III was succeeded as Emperor by Adam “the Frog”, a zealous follower of the Fraticelli Monks who began to persecute pagans the very day he got into power, that made him many enemies but he didn’t cared because he was supported by the most powerful nobles of the Empire who were also Christians and the general population believed that Titus III was also a Christian and that because of his conversion (that never happened) that the Etruscans defeated the Huns once for all (that was also a lie of the monks). The Fraticelli monks were so popular that people believed everything they said.

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The first Christian Emperor in the world
When Emperor Adam was murdered by a pagan zealot in 383 CE the monks ordered the destruction of most pagan temples and the persecution of all the heathens, that accelerated the conversion of the Etruscan Empire to Christianity and saved the Empire from dissolution because now all the enemies of the empire were those who dared to follow pagan gods and not the different peoples and political groups inside the Empire. A new age of intolerance and violence erupted on the Empire but the ruling class was satisfied.

Now the Etruscans were finally united under Christianity and they had an external enemy: the pagans.
 
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That's certainly not going to end in mass violence.
 
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