Fires of New Olympus - an Indo-Greek Kingdom AAR

[Doctor Baby]

FIRES OF NEW OLYMPUS
A Crusader Kings 2 AAR

The People abandon Babylon as they were abandoned, and trade one coast for another. They subject one tribe, then another; the savage lords conceal their Gods-fated destiny. Megas Alexandros will carry them to the New Olympus.
-Prophecy of the Oracle at Doros, 681 CE

Few are the lands untainted by the terrible Goth. He shifts, changes, servile and sniveling until he has taken something worth burning! Did we not shelter the Goth when he fled the torments of Roman and Tatar? Did we not feed the Goth when he arrived, cold and broken, to our harsh kingdom? Did we not grant pastures to the Goth? Did we not share our horses, to improve his stock? Did we not look past his refusal of the Christ? We Alans have been friend to the Goth for generations, peaceful towards his transgressions as he trespassed, insulted, struck us for the crime of trust and friendship! And now the Goth drools and slavers to subjugate us utterly! To force his stolen tongue on us, his pilfered gods, and make us nothing! Take up your arms, Alans! So say I, your King: join with me and slay the Goth before he slays Alania!
-Call to arms of King Buriberdi of Alania, 768 CE


PROLOGUE:
Late 768

Under the crackling of the flames, at the foot of the Scythian Throne, the last King of the Alans fled his body to the refuge of chilly Hades. His craggy flesh made an odorous hearth below the King of the Goths, Alaricos III, or Alaric, who held court behind the veil of thinning smoke. The burning death of Buriberdi was one reserved for barbaroi, but the charred body served as a poignant reminder of Alaric’s power to the clan chiefs and courtiers in the room. If not even the Alans or their mighty king could hold back his ambitions, there was no hope for the schemers or doubters among them to sway Alaric from his vision.

“See how those who hold against our future perish! Burn away, traitors, cynics, enemies of the Goths! Zeus delivers me against every labor you invent, and with each task we are one step closer to the path of deliverance,” thundered Alaric. “We threw off the yoke of the Christian. We slew every agent of the Roman, who thought us his property. We swept aside the Hun and the Alan. There can be no doubt that the blood of Olympus courses through the Goths. And to any who doubt that we can overcome the barbaroi who defile the true Olympus, I ask you: which of them is mightier than Buriberdi?”

The body kept smoking until the evening, and continued as the last of the active audience left Alaric’s hall, most of them intending to return. In a few short hours, the empty floor was populated with tables and chairs, occupied by the chiefs and priests of their clans nearest to the king, the most honored warriors next-furthest, and the otherwise-notables just beyond them, nearest to the open doors. All the others who were present for the feast - which included nearly everyone who resided at Profiteia, the great tent-city of the Goths - were seated outside the hall.

While the other Goths celebrated, Alaric, seated with his council and chiefs, remained as focused as ever on the future. Ioulianos, his Augur, sat at his left hand, while Strategos Timotheos sat on his right. The time was nearly at hand to subjugate the Khazaroi, their neighbors to the north, who jealously guarded their vast grazing lands against the Goths. The horsemanship of the Khazaroi was feared by all Goths, who had lost every skirmish against the centuries-long rulers of the Pontic Steppe. But Alaric knew that they had grown weak. In the past, their horsemen rode as allies with the Alans in their uprisings, notable for their Hunnic features against the pale-skinned Alans. The Goths had only grown stronger since. Yet, in the battle of Maghas, where the last Christian Alans were killed or enslaved, there were no Khazaroi left to be seen. Traders and hunters from Khazaria spoke of their greedy Khagan, his cruel enforcers, and the massive tributes demanded from the clans. The clans wanted a change, and Alaric could promise them that.

The Khazaroi tribes formed a column which held up one part of the Gothic destiny. Another column was Theodoric, Alaric’s only son. As King, Alaric had little time to spare for matters of family, so it fell upon the council to educate Theodoric. Though his heart ached for his child, Alaric could rarely see his son, so he relied on his companions to learn of the progress of his heir. The boy was an accomplished warrior, having accompanied many raids into Abkhazia and Derbent. He had even slain the bodyguard of an Armenian lord in a skirmish near Tskhoumi. It filled Alaric with pride to hear of his son’s exploits, even the ones he had already been told. Someday Theodoric would lead the Goths in battle himself, and continue the line towards the Megas Alexandros. For now, though, he would have to satiate himself with the bodyguards of lordlings and the warriors of the barbaroi, and with the platonic comforts of women until a suitable wife could be found for him.

While Alaric thought fondly of his son, Theodoric thought his father distant, cold, and even cruel - to himself, anyway. Though only just an adult, Theodoric had long been ready to assume his place at the head of a war party. When the Alans had sent their declaration of war from Maghas, Theodoric was sure he would finally get to command a battle; after all, Timotheos had vouched for his abilities in combat, and had taught him nearly everything he knew about planning and leading a battle. But Alaric disagreed, and instead gave the command to Rosmeos, the turncoat. It was an affront to Theodoric. The glory of crushing the Alans belonged to the Goths, not an Alan, even if he feigned allegiance to the Goths and the Hellenic Gods!

Normally, Theodoric would have at least greeted his father at a celebration like this. But he was still bitter and instead sulked outside the Kappadoki Hall, searching among the revelers for his beloved, Eugenia. Carelessly, he walked past the table of the Soldaia clan women, who leered as he passed; rumors that Alaric intended for his son to marry the talented Adriane Soldaia circulated with great frequency the last few months. Now that Theodoric was blooded, and had matured physically such that most of the tribe saw him as a man, those rumors would only grow in intensity. Theodoric also feared that his father and Timotheos might mistake this gossip for the will of the people or the Gods. Just as likely, he might favor a familial bond with the powerful Soldaia clan to strengthen their own Kappadoki clan. Theodoric couldn’t see past Adriane’s plain looks, however, regardless of the boons her family could bestow on his own.

Theodoric never found Eugenia that night, nor did he see his father. He would never see Alaric again. The next day, the King caught a withering plague and forbid his son to see him in such a state. Two days later he was dead.

Death Mask of Alaric II
750-800 CE


PART I: King Theodoricos I
769 CE

Theodoric was named King Theodoricos I after a suitable period of mourning for Alaricos. In the first days of his reign, Theodoric’s council - the same that had served his father - attended to nearly all of his affairs according to Alaric’s plans.

Chief among the King’s Companion Council were his Strategos and Augur. Order among the clans was maintained by Spathia and Eusebia, lending a great deal of power and responsibility to the highest authorities on matters martial or religious. Of course, both deferred to the King, but in the case of Theodoric, much had to be delegated due to his inexperience. The first matter given to Theodoric’s discretion was that of his marriage. Ioulianos stressed to him the importance of taking a noble wife and siring an heir - for the realm, and for the prophecy. Against their advice, Theodoric sent a messenger to the father of Eugenia, Agrimundus the Elder, to ask for his daughter’s hand; the messenger was killed on his return journey when his horse threw him.

When the news of the messenger’s death made its way to Theodoric’s hall, the court erupted into despairing whispers. Even Theodoric couldn’t ignore this omen. The Gods had given their will as surely as Hermes himself had alighted on the Earth and spoken it. For all his youthful stubbornness, Theodoric could not defy them, for the sake of his people if not himself. A second messenger was sent out, this time to the Soldaia clan. Shortly, Theodoric and Adriane were married.

Despite having favored another woman, Theodoric warmed quickly to Adriane thanks to her silver tongue and her deep faith in the Gods. She was also exceedingly clever, maliciously so to her enemies. Theodoric could never shake his paranoia that she had somehow influenced the death of his messenger, but he could find no evidence that it was so. If she had tried to deceive him, it was by the pantheon in Olympus that she had succeeded. In any case, she made a better ally than a foe.

With a Queen by his side, Theodoric was finally a man in the eyes of his Council, who revealed to him Alaric’s planned conquest of Khazaria. It was risky to go to war so soon after succession, more so with a young king with no heir. But opportunity called. The Khazaroi clans wouldn’t wait for a Gothikoi to deliver them from the Khagan; when the last straw fell, the Khagan would be overthrown quickly, and a more popular Khazar put in his place. After that, they might turn their greedy eyes towards their neighbors’ lands. With the population of Gothikoi outpacing its resources, their would be war sooner or later. Better, then, to strike while the iron was hot.

On the eve of war, Ioulianos’ appointed diviner slaughtered the largest bull in all Gothikos and read its entrails from a makeshift dais for the assembled tribesmen. In quiet celebration, the crowd watched as he furtively dug through the bull’s entrails. Theodoric despaired at the diviner’s expression; he looked crazed, panting as he pulled out the heavy organs, tossing many of them to the crowd carelessly. The mood of the crowd, which had light-heartedly caught the organs and held them up like trophies, began to sour. Suddenly, the diviner stopped entirely, and a flock of birds flew north overhead. The priest pulled an enormous liver from the bull’s belly and examined it all over, his hands stained red with blood and dripping with fluids. Finally, he jumped up to his feet and broke the silence, crying, “Victory!” The Gothikoi erupted with cheers and war cries.

The war party went on the march soon after, Theodoric and his Companions proudly at its head. They numbered some 2,500 at the start, gathering more riders as they approached Khazaria; they were 4,000 when they split into two parties to cross the Volga, marking their entrance to the Khazaroi steppes.

The Gothikoi chased away small parties of Khazaroi towards the last known encampment of the Khagan. The forward scouts located it within days; the Khagan had not moved in years, preferring the fertile land near the Volga river and Caspian Sea to a more defensible province in the interior. Theodoric rushed his party to Itil, where they were met with only token resistance from the Khazaroi.

As his Gothikoi warriors plundered the camp, taking ransoms and small valuables as they went, Theodoric was overcome by reverence. The encampment sat on a hill overlooking the Caspian in the eastern distance; something on the water caught Theodoric in a trance, pulling him past the fires and chaos in Itil. A small peak appeared on the wavering surface of the water. It grew, rising out of the sea, until its rocky surface loomed over Itil, and still it grew. All the world shrank before it, and at the top, just beneath its highest peak, a city of glittering marble shone. Theodoric felt a fire light in his soul as the prophecy of the Oracle of Doros echoed in his mind.

No sooner had the Khagan’s wife, daughter, and concubines been found by the Gothikoi than Theodoric set to work gathering the chiefs and his companions. The warriors would only be allowed a short plunder; at first light, they would take what they had gathered and go back across the Volga. The Caulita clan warriors protested, greedy to plunder the nearby encampment of the Karadukhu clan. But Theodoric knew that the Khazaroi would have heard that the Gothikoi were marching on Itil, and he knew that Baghatur’s host wasn’t in the eastern Pontic Steppe; that put them to the west, possibly near enough to the Don to threaten Profiteia. Timotheos agreed: because Baghatur wasn’t at Itil, he must be in the west, and whatever he was doing, he would have a war party with him.

The horde of the Gothikoi swarmed westwards on Theodoric’s orders, criss-crossing the steppes at full tilt. Small camps of Gothikoi peasants who had, a week before, waved on the brave cavalry, now ducked into their homes and watched the horsemen stampede past the other way. The horde split up again a ways north of Profiteia upon news of the Khazaroi position: Baghatur was making quickly for Theodoric’s camp to avenge himself. Theodoric would lead his party in a mad charge at the Khazaroi host to keep them from Profiteia, while the other party, lead by Timotheos, swung towards the Don to attack Baghatur’s northern flank.

The Gothikoi had underestimated the Khagan. A small rearguard of Khazaroi rushed to meet Timotheos’ forces then fled, skirmishing with incredible skill. Even the lightest Gothikoi cavalry couldn’t catch the speedy Khazaroi horses. After chasing them in a running skirmish for the better part of a day, Timotheos had finally dispersed the Khazaroi enough to turn his flank to them and march southeast against Baghatur; but he was far too late to join the battle.

Theodoric had little cause for strategy in his pursuit of the Khagan; when the great host of the Khazaroi came into view, he couldn’t have guessed that his own men just barely outnumbered them, especially as another party was coming from the west to reinforce them. Theodoric prayed to the Gods to protect his people, and to deliver Timotheos a swift victory in hopes he would interdict the Khagan’s reinforcements. He wished he could give his men a stirring speech, but, looking at his companion cavalry around him, he saw there was no need. What the Gothikoi lacked in steppe combat experience, they made up for in determination and fury. When the first volley of Khazaroi arrows came raining down over the Gothikoi host, they were already returning fire with a volley of their own. Baghatur had turned his horde to meet the Gothikoi charge with one of their own. The two forces met in a horrible clash. Men died by the hundreds.

The Gothikoi took first advantage thanks to their superiority in zeal and with close weapons. The momentum shifted after Baghatur’s reinforcements arrived, and the greater mass of the Khazaroi nearly surrounded Theodoric’s horsemen. But as the battle wore on, the superiority of the Gothikoi equipment won out. With nearly a quarter of their host dead, the Khazaroi finally broke.

Even after out-maneuvering the Gothikoi, Baghatur was defeated. He Khagan had narrowly avoided a disaster, but knew that it was unlikely he could do so a second time. In the unlikely event he won the next battle, the war was already lost. As he fled east, Baghatur sent an envoy to sue for peace with the Gothikoi: the eastern steppe was theirs, in exchange for the Khagan’s wife and daughter.

Rituals were held in Profiteia in honor of the fallen Gothikoi; over 200 had been killed and many more were wounded. The clans who had lost sons were rewarded in livestock, slaves, and valuables, especially those seized from Itil.

After the mourning, Theodoric declared a week of celebration in honor of the victory. In the span of a few weeks, the Gothikoi had usurped their greatest regional rival, took their most fertile grazing lands, and cut them off from their tributaries.

Greater still, they had achieved all this as relative strangers to the steppe and the nomadic life they now lead. When Philippos of Caffa first lead the Gothikoi to Alania in the late 7th century, he never could have dreamed the heights his people would reach in scant few generations.

Yet for all the revelling to be had, and, afterwards, the work to be done to relocate the Profiteia across the Volga river, Theodoric’s mind was elsewhere. He worked busily in the days, but at night, he pored over maps secured for him by his most trusted envoys; maps not Europe or the steppe, but the Far East. Of particular import was the route of Alexander the Great’s conquests, of which Theodoric acquired a Greek written account later in the year; Adriane acquired it from a sympathetic Hellene in Thessalia, eager to guard it against the Slavic adventurers who had taken vast swathes of Hellas for themselves in the preceding decades.

This accounting - though he suspected it was fictionalized - became Theodoric’s map key because of its author’s encyclopedic recounting of place names, even in the far wastes of Bactria and Ghandara. Soon Theodoric’s trusted envoys were traveling themselves to Nishapur, Samarkand, and the banks of the mighty Indus, in search of documents to satiate their King.

For over a year this went on, until one night, Theodoric unrolled a relatively contemporary cartographical drawing, called the “Terrain of the Hindu Kush”, depicting what Alexander had called the Caucasus Indicus.

It hit him like a bolt of lightning. The contours of the range, the rocky highlands, high over the Indus Valley where Alexander’s conquest ended: the Olympus of the East, the one he’d seen in the vision at Itil, was hidden somewhere amongst the mountains.

 

[Doctor Baby]

PART II: Theodoric The Conqueror



With his destiny made clear to him, Theodoric was finally ready to focus on matters of the realm. First was the issue of succession. In spite of his youthful health, Theodoric recognized the importance of having an heir; life on the steppe was harsh, and could be cut short in an instant.

Theodoric felt more and more assured that the Gods were guiding him. All the more so when Ioulianos divined from the behavior of animals and the movement of the stars that Adriane carried a “true Olympian” in her womb.

He would be proven wrong in a few months’ time, though the signs had been correct. Adriane gave birth to twins: Hektor and Sophia. Theodoric was beside himself in joy, and declared a great feast to celebrate the birth of his first son and daughter.

Ioulianos, meanwhile, was concerned at the ambiguous nature of the twins as an omen. He chose not to trouble his King with his thoughts, though he feared that the birth suggested an uncertain future. The prophecy hinted at great triumph for the Gothikoi. Now he worried that the victory it forecast preceded a great disaster.

The next months were spent in peace as the Gothikoi continued to acclimate to their new grazing lands and multiply. A scheme was conceived to redistribute portions of the King’s tributes to families on the birth of a child, to incentivize a higher birth rate. Under Ioulianos’ supervision, great numbers of former barbaroi adopted the Hellenic faith and joined the people as Gothikoi. They brought horses with them, greatly expanding the livestock available to Theodoric to mount warriors.

By the start of 771, Theodoric felt the time had come. Somewhere in the distant East was his destiny; one obstacle between them was the Bakshir tribe, who claimed ownership of the steppe from the Ural river in the west to the surroundings of the southern Ural mountains in the east. The great span of territory had induced unrest in the Bashkirs, and their Khan was struggling against a powerful clan trying to overthrow him.

Before January was through, Theodoric had raised his host and marched into the Bakshir steppe, eager to exploit their weakness.

Theodoric’s host, nearing 2,000 men, met the Bashkir warriors near the Khan’s encampment at the foot of the Urals. Exhausted from years of infighting, the Bashkirs could only bring 1,500 men to bear. Their experience was greater than that of the Gothikoi, but this didn’t protect them from the withering arrow rain, which whittled down their numbers to such an extent that they were surrounded in the first charge.

In the midst of the battle, Theodoric was confronted by a great warrior of the Bashkirs. The two dismounted and dueled on foot. Teber lived to his reputation, fighting Theodoric to a stalemate with deft footwork, avoiding his attacks, and striking explosively when he saw an opening. Unfortunately for him, Theodoric’s stamina was greater than he hoped, and the two began to lose momentum at the same time. Sensing Teber’s strength leaving him, Theodoric baited another attack, and capitalized when the Bashkir had overextended himself.

Theodoric had killed a dozen men in combat now, but something about Teber’s death stuck in his mind. He was sluggish to mount his horse again and join his men in giving chase to the fleeing Bashkirs.

The Bashkir Khan had little choice but to take peace with the Gothikoi, who were quick to march on the encampment of Oshi, the Khan’s pretender, and burn it to the ground.

Theodoric didn’t return to Profiteia, as he had after the Khazar war. With his warriors raised and still prepared for battle, and himself in grips of a malaise he couldn’t shake, he turned his host south instead, to the dry plains between the Caspian and Aral seas.

The Oghuz were fewer than the Bashkirs, and tried to make their tent-city defensible against the Hellenes to give them an advantage. Their ferocity couldn’t make up for their numbers, however, and they were cut down by the dozens by the Gothikoi. Theodoric himself slew many of the Oghuz in a maddened trance which Timotheos called ‘the fury of Ares’. The women and children of the Oghuz suffered greatly from having the battle take place in the encampment that the tribe was effectively snuffed out in the span of a day, leaving few slaves to be taken by the Gothikoi.

Whatever bloodlust had taken Theodoric faded slowly on the long march back to Profiteia and his wife and children. Over a year had passed, and the tent-city was much smaller as clans moved to the new lands acquired from the Bakshirs and Oghuz; the quiet was a welcome respite for Theodoric, who spent many months afterwards with his family while the realm was surveyed and maps drawn up, and while the clans raised sons and daughters who could replace the fallen warriors in Theodoric’s host.

The King seemed to have finally settled into the quiet of ‘courtly’ life (such as it was on the steppe) until he finally saw the span of the Gothikoi realm according to the cartographers:

Ever since the flight of Caffa, no King of Gothika had ever dreamt that the people would reach such a height as this. Yet as the power of his warriors to sweep away the barbaroi was made clear, Theodoric was drawn ever more towards the prophecy. At his accession, he hoped his grandchildren might live to see the eastern Olympus; now he felt the Fates pushing him towards it, whispering to him to see it himself, at the head of the mightiest host in the world.

Invigorated to strike out again, Theodoric gathered his Council to help guide him forward. The obvious answer lay to the east; the Sultan of Bukhara controlled a span of dry plains and hills that reached all the way to the foot of the Hindu Kush range. In one war, Theodoric could do what the Gods had willed him; if only he could win it.

Bukhara alone was weak, its rulers content to collect tributes from the trade that passed through its cities. But it wasn’t alone. The mighty Abbasid Caliphate held Bukhara as a tributary, and would protect the Sultan from any war that threatened the free movement of trade on the silk road.

Someday, Bukhara, and, most likely, their allies in the Caliphate would need to be dealt with. But Gothika was too small to defeat them alone. As the only Greek-speaking people north of the Black Sea, and the only Hellenic realm in the world, no one was eager to sign treaties with the Gothikoi. The path forward would be a solitary one, but that left only one victor to collect the spoils.

If he would ever challenge the Caliph, Theodoric needed resources; gold would do, and there was much of it to be had in the Caucasus, where the great plundering empires had always faltered against rough terrain and fierce protectors. But Theodoric knew his own men were all the more ferocious, and further, he had a grudge against the Armenians; their merchants knew well the value of lumber to the Gothikoi, and took great pleasure in fleecing the people whenever they could. For their supposed civility, Theodoric thought them cruel and vindictive. It was past time they returned some of their ill-gotten wealth to the people.

Timotheos lead a raiding party into Circassia, while Theodoric himself took a second host into Derbent, whose young men had all been called up in the civil war between the Uqaylids. The towns made easy pickings for the Gothikoi raiders, who pillaged all along the Caspian coastline on the way to a prize greater than all the wealth they’d plundered so far…

As the Gothikoi tore through the countryside, they heard from captives and slaves that a great uprising had just begun in the Caliphate. The long-oppressed Shi’a had gathered in enormous numbers, occupied Baghdad, and declared their own Caliphate. Loyalist forces marched on them from every corner of the empire, but were each defeated in turn. Even altogether, they couldn’t have matched the Shi’a numbers, and one-by-one they were obliterated, allowing the Shi’a uprising to spread.

The Caliph fled as far from Baghdad as he could, relocating his court to Shirvan. What treasures he hadn’t saved from the Shi’a in Baghdad would be at Baku, so Theodoric set his sights there. He needed the Caliph’s wealth, but he also wanted to see what kind of strength they could put behind a reprisal.

It was early 773, a few months into the raiding expedition, that Theodoric’s forces arrived at Baku. They found the garrison small and stretched thin to protect the fortress, but their warriors fought with the ferocity of cornered animals. As few as they were, the Abbasid soldiers still bravely left the walls to raid the Gothikoi camps at night. They were great warriors, armed well and highly experienced from maintaining order over a vast empire. But, as with the Shi’a, their superiority at arms was outweighed by their inferiority in numbers; in October, the defenders sallied one last time, failed to break the encirclement, then surrendered.

The Caliph, as it happened, had escaped days earlier, narrowly avoiding capture and the hefty ransom he could have commanded for the Gothikoi. Enraged, Theodoric allowed his men to rampage through the streets, but there was little wealth to be stolen. If the Caliph had escaped Baghdad with a treasury, he had escaped Baku with it as well. Theodoric turned his gaze westwards. What he couldn’t get from the Caliph without risking an overwhelming reprisal, he would take from the Armenians instead.

In a brief visit back to Profiteia, Theodoric chanced upon some of the youths who had been too young to join the host before it had left for the raiding frontiers. In their spare time, they engaged in feats of strength and athleticism, hoping to hone their martial skills for when their turn at war came. It was an admirable pursuit, and Theodoric saw it would be to his benefit to spread it through the realm and beyond; young men could be kept from shiftlessness during times of peace, and barbaroi would learn to revere the Hellenic pantheon while matching their strength against the greatest warriors on the steppe.

As soon as a war plan had been drawn and coordinated with the Council of Companions, and a regent appointed to direct the resources flowing into Profiteia, Theodoric gathered his son and heir, Prince Hektor, and every warrior of age from the clans, and returned to the gathered host in Circassia. He didn’t wait for the eminent birth of his next child, whom Adriane named Alexandros in his absence.

Rhomaion had grown weak and decadent since the departure of the Hellenic Goths from Crimea in the 7th century; most of Hellas and Epirus had been had been subjugated by adventuring Serbians, and the Anatolian countryside was rife with religious tensions between Orthodox Christians and Iconoclasts, who counted the Emperor himself among their ranks.

Though they nominally protected Armenia, the Rhomaioi could spare precious few resources to defend their tributary in the east while Serbia and Bulgaria loomed in the west. Bulgaria, though wracked by ethnic unrest between Slavs and Bolghars, raised an army every few years and challenge the Romans for Adrianople or the crownlands around Constantinople, while the Serbians sat eager to pounce on any perceived weakness and take Rome for themselves, as they had taken Pannonia a few years before.

In March of 778, the Gothikoi horde advanced into Armenian Abkhazia, laying siege to every castle in the western half of the duchy.

The tiny army of Abkhazia folded before Theodoric’s horsemen, returning to their homes and praying for the Romans to save them. But the Romans never came.

Despite promising to aid the Armenians, the Romaioi didn’t spare a single soldier to the defense of Abkhazia. After two years and the occupation of nearly every town and castle in the country, the Armenians surrendered.

In his youth, Theodoric might have stopped there and returned his focus to the east. But, from the Abkhazian hills looking out across the coast of Trebizond, he felt a new ambition rising up in him, one more personal to him than fulfilling the Prophecy of Doros.

For centuries, the Crimean Goths had lived under the yoke of the Romaioi, sending tribute in exchange for the promise of protection; the Gothikoi had learned much earlier than the Armenians that that promise was empty. Whether Scythian, Magyar, or Khazaroi, the Romans sat by and counted their wealth while Goths were slaughtered wholesale, their towns razed, their lands burned by barbaroi to make more room for grazing horses and cattle. It was inevitable that the Romaioi would grow weak and decadent when they abandoned their own Gods for the dead god of the Christians, but to sit idly while their homeland languished under foreign barbarians shocked Theodoric. If there were any true Romaioi left in Rhomaion, Theodoric intended to shake them from their stupor.

The Romans were quick to raise their levies at the stat of the invasion, much to the chagrin of the helpless Armenians. The Gothikoi horde had swelled to over 6,000 horsemen in three hosts; when threatened, the fast-moving cavalry could quickly combine forces, but otherwise could spread out and take territory at a rapid pace. Arrayed against them were over 10,000 Romaioi, mostly made up of peasant levies, but with a sizable proportion of men-at-arms and trained cavalry thanks to the Varangian guard. These forces were well-composed for a battle, but not for maneuvering in the rough terrain of northern Anatolia, a fact that would come to haunt them.

The first battles of the war were the most precarious; at Amisos, Theodoric’s host was caught flat-footed by a rapid attack from the Duke of Charsianon, but was saved from defeat by the ferocity of Theodoric’s genera Bosporios, who forced back a charge from the Romans and turned it into a chaotic route.

At Rizaion, the Gothikoi baited a larger Roman army into attacking them in the foothills, where a second force sat ready to flank them with greater numbers. Though a group of skirmishers were surrounded and cut down by the Romans in the maneuver, the end result was catastrophic for the Romans, who lost ten men for each Gothikos they slew.

The lopsided losses at Rizaion shocked the Romans, who were never able to fully recover. Theodoric pressed his advantage, doggedly pursuing the scattered Roman forces and forcing them to continue retreating westward without fighting any decisive battles, except for a failed invasion of Armenia via the Black Sea. Poorly led and under-manned, the small marine force quickly alerted the Gothikoi to their presence and were annihilated by the first rearguard that came to meet them.

The rolling battles across the hills of northern Anatolia gave the aggressive Gothikoi many opportunities to capture fleeing Roman soldiers. The lucky ones would be ransomed back, but most would be sent marching east, ostensibly to keep them as prisoners, but realistically to keep the from being able to take up arms again before the war ended. The unlucky ones suffered far worse fates at the hands of their unaccountable captors.

The barbarity of ritual murder would have steeled the Romaioi against their invaders if they had any will left to fight. By the time the Gothikoi reached the Bosporos, there were no Roman soldiers left to try and thwart the crossing, and the local ferrymen and captains had little love for the Basileus but much love for the gold offered by Theodoric to see his army across the strait. Once they were on the other side, Theodoric’s army surrounded Constantinople and settled in for what would surely be a long siege.

What the Rhomaioi lacked in fighting spirit they made up for in fortification. The walls of Constantinople held against for three years against the makeshift siege weapons of the Gothikoi, until the defenders, starving, exhausted, and wracked by plague, opened the gates in surrender. Theodoric’s host swarmed over the city like locusts, stealing everything they could carry and destroying much of what they couldn’t.

Theodoric himself went straight to the palace, accompanied by his Companions Council and Guard. The storied Varangian Guard met him at the top of the palace steps and made way for him, recognizing that he would shortly be their new emperor.

Basileus Demetrios of house Bardouchos awaited him from the throne, a sneer on his face.

“That’s mine,” Theodoric said, gesturing in his general direction. The throne, the crown, the scepter, all were his.

“This will never be yours,” said Demetrios, rising from his throne. “All this belongs to Rhomaion. To Christ. You can take it from me, but it will never belong to a pagan defiler masquerading as a barbarian. When your sword arm fails you, someone will destroy your people as you’ve destroyed the people who came before you. That’s the way you’ve chosen. And as your people are being slaughtered and enslaved, Rhomaion will remain.”

“So be it,” said Theodoric, mounting the steps. “I enact the will of my Gods, as you yours.”

Saying that, he reached the throne where Demetrios sat. Theodoric thought he saw fear in the Basileus’ eyes, hidden but unmistakable. He reached out to the crown on his head, grabbed the crucifix mounted on top of it and snapped it off with a flick of his wrist. The crown tilted from the movement and fell over Demetrios’ eyes, forcing him to adjust it back. He did so just in time to see the King of the Goths tossing the cross down the stairs, where it sat heavily on the stone. Demetrios came tumbling after it, thrown down the stairs unceremoniously by Theodoric as a means of literal dethronement.

Demetrios was ejected from the palace soon after, and the looting horde entered in his place. Theodoric remained in the capital only long enough to have his share of the riches sent back to Profiteia with a trusted Kappadoki retainer and to vet a group of turncoat Varangians who preferred joining the Companion Cavalry to being disbanded with the rest of the Guard. Satisfied with their professed loyalty, Theodoric gathered his host and continued west, leaving his trusted eunuch behind as magistrate of the Roman territories.

The historical enormity of the fall of the eastern Roman Empire was insignificant to Theodoric, but its repercussions would echo through history. Though many of the people of the former eastern Roman Empire would still consider themselves Roman for some time yet, it would be generally agreed upon by later historians that 782 CE was the year the Roman Empire ended. For the Gothikoi, the only meaning of it was that a path had been opened to the holy land.

Theodoric and his men arrived in Thessalia awe-stricken at the lands they had only heard of in myths and legends now made real before them, and they did battle with incredible ferocity against the Serbians. For all their victories, however, progressing into Hellas and Epirus was slow. The northerners had come with large armies, and had gained enough familiarity with the terrain to make campaigning difficult for the Gothikoi. The Goths were also limited by Theodoric in their raiding of the local communities to bare essentials; these were their “brother people”, after all, and lived in the sight of Mount Olympus itself. Any unnecessary cruelty they inflicted here was all the more likely to be visited back upon themselves later.

In 786, Theodoric declared the conquest complete. There were still some provinces of northern Macedonia in the hands of the Serbians, but his host had grown weary of campaigning so far from their families, or were eager to lay down their arms awhile and settle on the former Serbian holdings in Greece. Many of the boys Theodoric had brought with him from Profiteia were now in their mid-20’s. Those who hadn’t taken wives during the campaign were desperate to find ones back home, amongst their own people. Theodoric thought back to the example of Megas Alexandros, who had fought all the way to the Indus only to be turned back by his own men. As much as it pained him to return home as his army reached its zenith in experience and cohesion, there was too little to gain fighting for scraps in the homeland. When he next called up his host, he knew they would be ready to defeat the Abbasids, and the heart of their new empire would then lay open to them. For such a prize he could wait for as long as he needed.

Theodoric’s eunuch magistrate, Ioustinianos, administered as deftly as he could, but the former Rhomaion was a sprawling empire. Nominally, the Gothikoi now controlled Sicily, the southern tip of Italia, Sardinia, and the Baleares. In fact, they had little contact with these holdings, and received nothing from them except the prestige accompanying their vassalage. The Anatolian lords were incensed by their relative lack of autonomy, especially those in the south who hadn’t seen the rage of the Gothikoi first hand. Without the support of the north or the isles, rebellion was impossible, so they settled for insolence, ‘forgetting’ to send taxes to the King, openly gathering into discussions about which Imperial claimant should be enthroned, and fomenting radical Christian sentiment among the peasantry as a wedge against the Hellenic Gothikoi.

The latter method yielded fruit in 796, as the host was returning to the Volga plain. More than 10,000 peasants took up arms in Thrace and marched on Constantinople, demanding a restoration of Christian rulership. Theodoric put them down mercilessly with his seasoned horde on the way back to Gothika.

Following the Thracian uprising and the bloodbath it preceded, the last tensions between the Gothikoi and their Rhomaioi subjects gave way to fear and an uneasy peace.

Theodoric arrived in Profiteia to a hero’s welcome and much rejoicing, but something had changed in him. His eyes had lost their shine and he seemed lost when he wasn’t training, fighting, or at the bottom of a wine vessel. He kept just enough wits enough to divert the resources flowing into Profiteia into ambitious projects, gathering new livestock herds and expanding the clan’s cottage industries.

The peace weighed heavily on Theodoric, and he, in turn, weighed heavily on Queen Adriane. Their eldest children, twins Hektor and Sophia, had reached age of majority and were considered to be fully adults. Theodoric had no interest in finding his daughter a suitable marriage partner; he had thought little about her before, and felt no need to make alliances.

Sophia was married to the Serbian King of Pannonia, who promised to keep the Kingdom of Serbia in check against adventurers. Now that he could fight, Hektorios longed to return to the battlefield, and urged his father to gather a host and march west to destroy the Kingdom of Serbia once for all. Two years had passed. The riders from the old host would only find themselves more and more entangled at home the longer they stayed, now that they had been given enough time to sire children for their clans. It was time to ride again!

Theodoric agreed to gather the host, sending the call out to all able-bodied men of the Gothikoi to bring their spears and horses to Profiteia. They numbered over 8,000 now, and though other armies might outnumber them, none could stand against the withering fire of their archers and the vicious charge of the Companion Cavalry. Whoever they next fell upon couldn’t hope to survive.

 

[Doctor Baby]

CHAPTER III: Theodoric the Despoiler

Theodoric had assembled the greatest horde his people could ever conceive of in Profiteia, the great mobile city of the Goths. Diviniations were performed. Augur Ioulianos, aged and wisened, had taken on a grim aspect from expecting calamity, but the omens he portended were almost always fortuitous. He had lost some faith in the Gods, and thought he must be part of a tale like Ikaros’ - one of great triumphs laid low by over-ambition. But he never lied about what he saw, nor did he trouble anyone else with his fears of celestial malfeasance. On the dais before the mighty host of the Gothikoi, he told the truth of what he saw in the entrails of a bull: Nike awaited the warriors with golden laurels.

Prince Hektor had long studied the Serbians and expected to march west to deliver upon them the oppressions they had cast over Hellas, which he had witnessed firsthand. During the years of peace, he had trained and planned for the eventual conquest of Serbia he foresaw, and he petitioned his father to name him Strategos to lead the effort. Now that the host was gathered, it seemed both cautious and righteous to punish the Serbian kingdom and blood the youngest warriors against a hated enemy.Theodoric granted Hektor the office, and allowed his and his father’s long-serving Strategos, Timotheos, to step down and retire.

With the omens in their favor and the wind at their backs, the host set off, not for the west, but for the east.

With the declaration of war, the Sogdians raised their forces and surrendered the entire western half of the country to the Gothikoi, hoping to concentrate their armies for a defense of Bukhara, the capital. They couldn’t hope to win alone against the horde, but the Abbasids were quick to declare their support, and their forces combined would at least outnumber the Goths.

They had underestimated their opponents; the Gothikoi raced to catch them, surrounding the bulk of the Sogdian forces before they could reach the city and decisively routing them.

The Abbasid armies had yet to materialize on the border into 789, even as Bukhara was sacked. The horde continued east, expecting at any moment the need to turn around to face the Caliph’s troops. But when the last of the Sogdian holdings had fallen, there was still nothing to be seen of the infamous Bedouin cavalry. Like the Rhomaioi before them, the supposedly mighty Abbasids had shirked from a fight with the Gothikoi, leaving their tributaries to the slaughter.

Profiteia was moved, for the first time in over a decade, to Bukhara. The Sogdian lords had grown fat off the wealth of the Silk Road for decades, and now the Gothikoi would profit from it. The clans attached to the capital were restive at moving from their verdant grazing territory into the dry plains of Sogdia, where they had to contend with local herdsmen of a different culture and religion, but the sack of Bukhara had displaced many of them, and those who were left were often desperate to sell their herds to the Gothikoi. Many Sogdians, especially in the nobility, fled Transoxiana for Abbasid Persia, fearing persecution.

Theodoric spent little time reflecting on the triumph; it was behind him now, and great conquests were still ahead.

The Caucasus of the East were finally within his reach. Taking them would be a Herculean feat, but even greater would be to carve out a kingdom here, where Alexandros himself had faltered and turned back. Ultimately it would mean leaving behind the way of the steppe that the Goths had been forced to take up a century ago for the sake of their survival.

Theodoric was more focused than he had ever been before. He still spoke to his soldiers but he stopped drinking and carousing with them, or with most others to be sure.

In the brief period of rest, a marriage was arranged between Prince Hektorios and a Soldaia princess, re-affirming the alliance between them and the Kappadoki, and ensuring the other clans remained in line. In the days after, rumors whirled around the court at Profiteia that Theodoric had been seen with a woman who wasn’t his wife.

By the time Viviana informed Theodoric of the fruit of their dalliance, he was already marching to war again, this time for the furthest edge of Persia, Kabul. The forces there were swept aside easily, so, leaving a segment of his horde to secure the province, he marched the rest into the Taid Sultanate, another tributary of the Abbasid paper tiger. They raced to the capital at Nishapur, expecting little resistance from the Persians or their Bedouin allies.

Viviana’s child was born in 790. She named him Theodoric and pleaded with the King to legitimize him. He stopped short of that and acknowledged the boy as his, pledging to grant him a fief when he came of age. Queen Adriane was incensed by this, but wouldn’t see her husband for a number of years yet.

As the Taid Sultanate was falling, Theodoric kept his men at war. Young warriors continued to answer the call of the east, streaming through Bukhara to join the horde, easily replacing any who fell. They next invaded the minor state of Udabhanda, which occupied the northernmost reach of the Indus valley. The Indians weren’t prepared for the might of the Gothikoi, but surrendered after the first field battle. The Gothikoi moved into Ghandara, then into the mountains, attacking Tibet to take the sprawling mountain lands of Kashmir.

The prison train of the host expanded with every new conquest, until well over a hundred hostages called it home. Escape attempts were frequent, and often successful. When a cousin of the Taid Sultan escaped during negotiations for his ransom, Theodoric finally turned his attention towards rectifying the situation.

Among the prisoners was a Hindu priest named Jayabhata who had attempted to escape by convincing a foolish guard that the local currency was extremely valuable, then bribing him with a few worthless coins. The guard was not wise enough to keep his bribe to himself, and discovered the deception when a fellow mocked him over it. The priest, far from his home town and without provisions, was easily recaptured.

Theodoric had Jayabhata chained in the saddle of a horse to be towed into battle with the Host, much to the priest’s terror. Theodoric also used him to try to understand the Punjabi people and their gods, believing them to be the gods of all the people in the Hindu Kush. Jayabhal explained that there were many faiths in the mountains and valleys around the Indus: Islam, of course, and Hinduism, as well as Buddhism and the faith of the Pashtuns, though he knew not what they called it.

Jayabhata was killed in his first battle when his horse was shot and collapsed with him underneath it. It was by pure luck that Theodoric cut his tether loose before he suffered the same fate.

The Tibetans fared no better than any westerners against the horde in early skirmishes, and reserved their field armies afterwards for the Gothikoi to exhaust their numbers over the winter. They had grown skilled in the meantime at breaching and assaulting the small keeps of the era, and the empire of Tibet, poor as it was, had no citadels to stop them. Within a year, all of Kashmir had fallen to the Gothikoi, who had shown no signs of weakness yet. The emperor forfeited the western mountains before the winter of 793, unwilling to sacrifice yet more men and territory waiting for the Kushan winter to do what his armies couldn’t.

Theodoric sent for Profiteia to be packed and brought over the mountains to Udabhanda. He sent his horde in every direction to expand control and clear more land for the future kingdom, while he organized the integration of Profiteia into the city at Udabhanda. When the caravan arrived, he saw Adriane for the first time since 789. Neither was eager to see the other.

Princes Hektorios and Alexandros lead hordes into Khorasan, where the Taid Sultanate still ruled, but now under a child Sultan, and without the nominal protection of the Abbasids. It was a great expanse to try and control from across the mountains, but Alexander had once ruled in Bactria and Sogdia, and Theodoric was intent upon his footsteps.

While his sons went and conquered, Theodoric retreated into his studies of the region from Udabandha, which was renamed Theodorion. He read deeply of the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Quran, and the Avesta of the Zoroastrians. Scholars and priests from every religion were brought before him to discuss the finer points of theology; all were impressed by the King’s desire to listen, study, and question without judgement. Ioulianos joined him in a number of these discussions, and came away with the same thoughts on the king’s demeanor, but the opposite feeling about it: the King was growing soft towards the barbaroi, and Ioulianos feared that it would be the end of Hellenism, which had survived only thanks to the Kappadoki rulers. Sympathy for Christianity was the first mistake that had led to the fall of Hellas, and now Theodoric spoke frequently of Zun, Surya, Buddha, and Ahura Mazda, as if they were as legitimate as Dionysos or Hermes.

Ioulianos wasn’t quiet with these concerns, which were no longer in the realm of simple omens. Theodoric had little time to hear them. He spent long hours corresponding with his sons, who were still fighting the forces of the Taid Sultan through 795, and making missives to the local Kings for alliances and favors. His daughter Helene was married to the Sultan of Sindh, the only other power in the Indus valley. Theodoric coveted his lands as part of Alexandros’ empire, but formed an alliance with the young Sultan anyway. A lavish marriage ceremony was performed in Hisam’s palace at Debul, which Theodoric attended to relieve himself of his distant Queen and over-zealous augur.

He lingered on the trip back, bringing in numerous retainers of different faiths and cultures to join his court at Theodorion, seeing Jain and Hindu temples and holy places. Some thought that his warrior spirit had finally begun to rest as his interest in theological matters grew; in truth, the King was beginning to foresee a new kind of battle ahead, and was simply studying the terrain.

Far to the west in Rhomaion, Ioustinianos had been out-maneuvered by the Anatolian lords, who had secured the support of the Medditerreanean provinces in declaring their independence. Theodoric and his hordes, engaged in wars halfway across the world, had little interest in sacrificing Gothikoi warriors for territories they didn’t intend to keep, instead opening them up to local vassals to conquer as they wished.

Ioustinianos was recalled shortly afterwards, while a sympathetic Byzantine lord was named King of Thrace (still subordinate to King Theodoric, in name if nothing else) and married to another of Theodoric’s daughters. The influence of the kingdom had a stabilizing effect, as the loyalist dukes installed across the Greek world jockeyed for influence in the hopes of being granted a kingdom themselves.

Hektorios and Alexandros had conquered Khorasan completely by late 796 and returned, victorious, to the court of Profiteia. Things had changed drastically since they had last seen their father. Many of the Gothikoi had salvaged their caravans and built new, permanent structures, or moved into old ones in the city following the lead of King Theodoric, who had moved into the old keep and adjoining noble estate, and set about securing the curtain wall and expanding the facilities inside. On their arrival, the brothers were brought to their father by their mother Adriane, the chief diplomat of the Gothikoi. For a brief moment, all four of them were together in Theodoric’s study, the largest gathering of their immediate family in many years. Queen Adriane quickly excused herself.

Hektor and Alexandros proudly shared their news with their father, and also presented him with a map they had commissioned during the campaign. It depicted the far-flung holdings of the Goths in Asia, including the conquest of Khorasan; they had commissioned it expecting victory, and the wager had paid off.

A great feast was prepared, and celebrations to last a week in honor of the princes. Yet until the feast began, Theodoric was in his study. Hektor and Alexandros soon learned that these days he hardly left it, receiving strange visitors at all hours- gurus, monks, warrior-priests, seers, musicians, theologians and historians of every stripe to be found on the Silk Road. A contingent of Taoists from Cathay had even arrived in the dead of night, were heard in excited discussion with the King, then left the way they came before the sun had risen. Some great change was coming. What it was, the King would not say.

 

[Doctor Baby]

(I tried to fit some info on the Hellenic reformation on this post a few different ways but none of them made me happy. Stay tuned for the info on that in the world update!)

Part IV: Finding Olympus

Indo-Goth coin depicting King Theodoricos ‘the Conqueror’
Circa 770 - 820 CE

The palace at Profiteia was a modest one by the standards of a king. The floors and walls were stone with few embellishments, and the gardens outside were spacious but not especially lavish. New, wooden construction was constantly being added to suit the king’s needs, most notably an expansion of the stables and an enormous guest wing opposite a courtyard from the king’s rooms, in order to house his growing retinue. A large number of courtiers resided there, but so did visitors from all over the Kingdom and beyond its borders. Perhaps the most important of them was Philomenes, a Greek storyteller and historian who had ingratiated himself with the King thanks to his familiarity with the stories of Megas Alexandros.

The accuracy of Philomenes’ stories was questionable in many cases - what recorded history Theodoric had at his disposal was often embellished in Philomene’s telling of the same events - but when Philomenes spoke to the common folk, which the king had observed on a few occasions, the people never doubted him. Alexander wasn’t just a conqueror, according to him, but also a unifier. His strategic mind was legendary, but his skill at diplomacy was unfairly misunderstood. Philomenes told a story wherein Alexander moved a lord in the Indus valley to join him, rather than simply conquering him by force, by convincing him that their gods were not so dissimilar: “I have many gods, and among them you would find the same qualities you honor in your own. We are enemies by circumstance, but what we hold dear makes us brothers.”

The most successful of the Macedonians in India was Menander, per Philomenes, though the locals had a more pronounceable name for him: Milinda. He embraced all the people of his empire, which stretched from Pataliputra in the east to Taxila in the north and the shores of Patalene (contemporary Gujarat) in the south. Supposedly he had even patronized the cult of a figure called ‘Buddha’, who was akin to a mythical hero such as Hercules but of much greater stature among his followers.

According to the scholar, Menander’s kingdom had been called ‘Yavana’. Theodoric took note of this, but thought it an improper name for the kingdom of the Goths; it wasn’t a Gothic name, nor a Greek one, as he saw it. But the territory of the Gothikoi had grown to encompass a number of the territories described by Alexander. One of the greatest of them was Bactria, a proud name with the weight of history behind it. Theodoric was all too happy to take it for himself.

A crown was cast for Bactria, and lesser ones for Parthia, Sogdia, and the Caucasus Indicus. Though perhaps justified in doing so, Theodoric stopped short of calling himself an Emperor. That seemed a Roman title to him, and too lofty for a mere mortal. Such titles were of little interest to him compared to the true loyalty of his people. For him, the authority of four crowns was enough.

Now that the Goths had put down roots and integrated with the local communities, their huge numbers were made more obvious than they ever were on the step. The northern Indus valley came to be dominated by them, to the extent that the Punjabis in the mountains were quickly overwhelmed and outnumbered. Large numbers of Gothikoi had also settled in west Sogdia and northern Parthia, but the Kashmiris in the Caucasus Indicus were more resistant to allowing Gothikoi to move in, and the environment was far less hospitable to newcomers.

To the south, where Theodoric intended to finish what Alexander started, a few large kingdoms held hegemonic control over the continent. The greatest was Rashtrakuta, the largest kingdom in the world at the time, which presided over the entire Deccan plateau. Pratihara, once mighty, had been whittled down to a border territory to its northeast, separating Rashtrakuta from Rajputana, a middling power hemmed in by the Sultan of Sindh, Theodoric’s son-in-law and ally. The eastern region, called Bengal, was controlled by the powerful Pala dynasty, who were locked in a decades’ long race to overpower their neighbors faster than their rivals in Rashtrakuta. They controlled the delta of the sacred Ganges river, whose fertile valleys further up the river were owned by the Ayudha family, including some of the holiest sites in Buddhism and Hinduism, and some of the most heavily-populated regions in all of India. The old Indo-Greeks had viewed these lands as worthy of conquering, and Theodoric tended to agree.

At first glance, it seemed the status quo would be difficult to shake. But the mighty kingdoms of Bengal and the Deccan were more fragile than they seemed, and so focussed on maintaining their sprawling holdings that they had little attention to spare for events in the northeast, where a power vacuum was waiting to be filled.

The change to feudal life took its toll on Theodoric, who was forced to hold court far more than he ever had before. With his autonomous clan chiefs replaced by vassal lords, and disputes expected to be resolved by law and statecraft instead of by the blade and bow, the King was called on to be a judge more often than a general, a role he found did not suit him.

After the uprising in 795, Theodoric had realized he couldn’t hope to hold onto the western territories forever, especially with the intervening lands held by the Abbasids. The way north around the Caspian was far longer, and still required passage through the lands of hostile lords, albeit ones weaker than the Caliph. But thanks to the elevation of Theophanes over Thrace, many capable lords had presented themselves as potential rulers over Hellas. Epirus, Hellas, Thrace, and Anatolia were all granted independence under kings. Most notably, Theodoric’s son Andronikos expressed an interest to remain in the old world, and a capability for rulership. He was granted the troubled kingdom of Anatolia, where Theodoric was sure he could achieve greatness.

The steppe was also slipping from King Theodoric’s control now that his riders had taken houses and started families. Theodoric couldn’t hope to govern the wild steppe from Theodorion, and he had no intentions of turning around. Control of the land up to the border of Sogdia was given over to the Soldaia clan, a longtime ally of the Kappadoki. Liutva, their chief and brother of Queen Adriane, took the title Khagan, solidifying the notion that those Gothikoi who remained on the steppe had embraced the lifestyle of barbaroi.

Even if the Bactrian Goths had adopted a more ‘civilized’ lifestyle in India, Theodoric had no intentions of slowing down his conquests. The re-organization into Bactria had taken two years, and in that time his vassals were able to assert enough control over the land to provide him with levies to form a traditional feudal army. Theodoric called them up and marched east through the Indican mountains, circumventing Sindh to attack the Ayudha rulers of the central Ganges valley.

(I hadn’t finished modding in the Bactria title before declaring war and was using Parthia/Khorasan for the main title, hence our green colored territory)

At issue was glory for Bactria, but also the cities of Delhi and Mathura. Both were developed and wealthy, and also centers of religious thought for both Hindus and Buddhists. Many of the gurus and monks Theodoric had spoken to urged him to visit the temple at Krishnajanmaabhoomi, where Krishna himself was born. To see it was to believe in the provenance of the Hindu gods over India and the world, supposedly. The King had more in mind than a pilgrimage: if he was warden of their holy sites, the Hindu-believers would understand his mercy and bow to him more easily. They would also understand that threatening him was threatening the safety of their holy place. Further down the Ganges was Varanasi, sacred to Buddhists for Sarnath, the deer park where their ‘Buddha’ first spoke the ‘Dharma’. The intricacies of what that meant were lost to Theodoric, but he best understood it as something like Eusebia or Arete: a way of life and action that was pleasing to the Gods and beneficial to one’s soul. It was intriguing, but ultimately, the material usefulness of Sarnath vastly outweighed theological concerns. King Theodoric made it an objective.

In late 802, the province was fully occupied, and the Ayudha were too occupied with rebellious vassals to dispute Kappadoki rule in Vodamayutja. Though the landholding lords were expelled, Theodoric was careful to put in place nobles who were sympathetic to the Buddhists and Hindus.

When he returned to court, there was horrible news from the west:

The ringleader of the conspirators escaped and fled deep into Arabia, but the others were killed piecemeal by warriors dispatched from Profiteia, lead by Theodoric’s bastard with Viviana, who shared his name. No fewer than a hundred conspirators were killed by Theodoric the Bastard, culminating in a horrible battle between the Bastard and the Count of Smyrna, a chief supporter of the conspiracy.

Victorious, Theodoric returned to Profiteia and was granted a duchy by his father, who wanted to keep the ambitious bastard close at hand. A competent lord in Anatolia was set up as the new King, and Theodoric the Elder washed his hands of the west.

Andronikos had been the first of Theodoric’s children to die, and it affected him deeply. Crown Prince Hektor held court for him on many occasions when he was ‘too busy’ terrorizing his squires in explosive training sessions or riding out to war on a whim. More than ever, Theodoric had become a ghost of a man, only ever himself while in the throes of battle, cleaving his enemies apart. He dropped all pretense at theological study or of ruling his kingdom, leaving Prince Hektor to rule as regent in his stead.

Though not dissimilar to his father, Hektor was his own man, and was more suspicious of his father’s heretical retainers. Though Ioulianos had retired as Augur and replaced by the Hiereus of Oddiyana, Hektor sought his counsel often. For his part, Ioulianos had softened on the Hindus and Buddhists, who he had found to have much wisdom of their own. He understood Theodoric’s pursuit of their knowledge wasn’t evil or unvirtuous, but his desire to turn that esoteric knowledge into material power had corrupted him. What wisdom there was in the Dharma had passed through the King’s fingers like air, and he hadn’t noticed its passing.

Theodoric’s later conquests through to 810 brought Mathura and Delhi under Bactrian control, and Varanasi within sight. The passing of the Sindhi sultan and a rebellion for the throne prompted an invasion of the central Indus valley. Soon Theodoric would go further than Menander ever did, bringing the torch of Olympus all the way to Sarnath. But another opportunity would arise first.

Liuva of the Caulita Clan of Gothika had helped Theodoric formulate a plan to topple the fragile empire in Tibet with a small group of elite Olympian Champions. Lead by the legendary King Theodoric, and taking advantage of the ongoing rebellions across the Tibetan plateau, they could march all the way to the Emperor’s court at Lhasa, depose him, and open up a path to China. Even Alexander could scarcely have dreamed of conquering so much. For all its lofty dangers, King Theodoric believed such an adventure could succeed, especially with the foremost warriors in the known world willing to follow him on it.

Prince Hektor remained as regent in Profiteia, presiding over the funeral of Ioulianos in his father’s stead. He was relieved, in a way, that his father had left and would be distracted for a long time with his pursuits in Tibet. The levies of Bactria were exhausted and the vassals tired of fighting so many wars in so little a time. None dared challenge the legendary king who had led them from the steppe to the land prophesied to them so long before, but that could change.

King Theodoric and his expedition, less than a hundred men of whom most had come from the steppe, tore across the Tibetan plateau. Their horsemanship and small numbers gave them a great advantage in avoiding the forces of the Tibetan emperor, and breaking them with lightning strikes and ambushes when they couldn’t avoid them.

They were only a few miles out from Lhasa when they came upon the Emperor’s elite guard troop, who had been tipped off about the direction the expedition was taking. They were headed off at the end of a long pass, one too long to turn back without risking being trapped. Though outnumbered 3-to-1, Theodoric and his men prepared for battle.

In the night, the Gothikoi charged the Tibetans at a wooded area of the pass to inflict maximum chaos. Despite the rain of arrows and the bands of wild horsemen taking isolated troops in the night, the commander of the Tibetans, Baliraja, held firm. His men hadn’t sat idly waiting for the Goths; they had dug pits and put up spikes to delay or kill careless horsemen. When Baliraja and Theodoric caught sight of each other, they fought briefly before the Tibetan fled. Theodoric narrowly avoided a trap he was trying to lure him into, then continued after the man.

Because of the difficulty of the terrain, Baliraja could move faster than Theodoric’s horse. He abandoned it after a few minutes and gave chase on foot, narrowly avoiding a second attempt at trickery: Baliraja had clambered down an invisible descent by a cliff, thinking the King might sprint right over the ledge. He stopped just in time and saw the Tibetan at the bottom, his sword drawn, but facing away from the cliff. Barely visible in the moonlight before him was a tiger, its shoulders low, getting ready to pounce on the man!

It sprang forward, cutting a deep gash in Baliraja’s chest. At the same time, the man had shifted his weight to the side, narrowly avoiding a death blow while cutting across the tiger’s body from shoulder to haunch. It hit the ground and slumped there.

Theodoric had never seen anything like it. He knew to best such a skilled opponent, he would need every advantage he could take. Though difficult to spot in the dark, he found the footholds Baliraja had used and descended the sheer cliff quickly. From some ten feet up, he leaped down over the Tibetan’s head, landing with a deft roll behind him, his sword drawn and ready to deliver a killing blow.

The expedition fled after the battle at Jelep La with Theodoric’s body. The mauled corpse was given over to his son, the new King of Bactria, Hektorios I. A month of mourning commenced throughout Bactria and Sogdia-Parthia, now separate kingdoms under Hektor and Alexandros. Khan Liuta, Theodoric’s aide-de-camp, had found him just in time to pass on his last words to his sons:” Óles oi pyrkagiés pethaínoun.”

In addition to the two kings, Theodoric had left behind a half dozen bastard children, and no sooner was the King’s body cold than his vassals began to wonder about the authority of his sons in comparison to their younger, weaker half-siblings. At the coronation of Hektorios I in the fall of 816, no one could see what lay on the other side of the obvious turmoil ahead.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Let's roll back the clock a few years to see what was going on at the turn of the century...

World Update - 800 CE

The latter half of the 8th century was a time of great upheaval and conflict in every corner of Europe, from the religious conflicts in Iberia and India to the perpetual war between Greeks and Serbians over dominance of the southern Balkans.

Among the most consequential shifts was the centralization of the Hellenic faith into the hands of Theodoric of Bactria, and the subsequent change in the foundational aspect of the faith. Proselytization of the faith before Theodoric’s reforms mostly took the form of retelling the myths of ancient Hellas, which was ineffective at conversion, and the lack of a church hierarchy made the enforcement of doctrine impossible. Old Hellenism was whatever its practitioners wanted it to be, which made it easy prey for the more organized religions that arose after it.

By formalizing the canon of the Hellenic faith into To Chronikó ton Thrýlon (more commonly called the Legends) in 799 and creating a hereditary title for himself as head of the church - Diafotistis - King Theodoric and his descendants would transform the religion. The hierarchy of the church was established, and all of its Hierei were subordinated or made lay clergy. All temples and temple grounds were made contractually the property of the Gods, held in trust by the Diafotistis and administered by the Arkhierei, their Hierei in turn, and so on. At the turn of the century, the newly-formalized Hellenism, called Olympianism (or Olimpya Dharma in India, which would inform the common exonym for the religion - Olimpyan ) was easily recognizable to those who studied the classics, though King Theodoric had incorporated a mythologized history of Alexander the Great into the Legends that suggested he was the demigod son of Athena.

The Gothikoi Kings would work tirelessly to spread the faith, entrenching it in Parthia, Sogdia, and the western Hindu Kush by 800 CE. The Silk Road and the movement of steppe Goth mercenaries brought these reforms back to the west, past the Volga and Bosporus. If any of these new ideas were considered outlandish, there was no one to provide a counter authority to the Diafotistis, who was also the most powerful Hellenic ruler in the world in the first decades that such a title existed. His vision for the Temple, for better or worse, would be enacted from Delhi to Thessalonike.

Bactria, centered at Theodorion, was at a crossroads of faith, culture, and intercontinental trade. The Gothikoi had settled in the Indicus mountains in large numbers, squeezing out many of the Punjabi Buddhists, who then integrated with the Hindus in the valley. Sunni Islam had also spread along the banks of the Indus thanks to the patronage of Sindh, but failed to penetrate into the dry country. On the western slope of the Indicus mountains, the Buddhist Sogdians and Pashtuns had resisted the Gothikoi more fiercely. In the central region of what the Bactrians called Arachosia, some of the Pashto-speakers still worshipped Zun, a solar deity associated with the once-ruling Zunbil dynasty. These Zunists had also resisted any settling of Gothikoi in their lands, and were reluctant subjects to their new overlords.

Bactria was the undisputed power in the region, having just bested its closest competitor, the Abbasid Caliphate, in order to pry Parthia from its control. None of the Indian Rajas nor the Tibetan lords could summon a force of comparable numbers to the Bactrians, let alone the question of quality - Gothikoi horsemen were among the most skilled in the world, and Bactria still had many of them at her command.

The Abbasid Caliphate had recovered somewhat from the Shia uprising, but was still weak relative to its size. Most of its land was actually held by the Muhallabid Sultan of Egypt and Arabia, who controlled all of the Caliphate’s territory outside of Syria and the Levant, and was not always eager to help his liege lord in times of war given his outsize power. With diplomatic marriages being secured in Ifriqiya as well, it was the Muhallabids, and not the Abbasids, who truly threatened the Gothikoi.

Iberia and Africa remained stable under Muslim rule. Unable to secure aid from their neighbors due to chaos in France and Britain, the Christian kingdom of Asturias in the north of Iberia was being driven into the sea by the unrelenting assault of the Umayyads.

The wars of the Karlings had taken their toll on the rest of mainland western Europe, which had fractured between Agilolfing Lombardy, Karling Saxony, and France under a resurgent Merovingian dynasty. Despite the northwards march of the Umayyads, which seemed likely to spill over the Pyrenees into Aquitaine, the Frankswere consumed with their own struggles against one another for dominance.

In the Balkans, Serbia had reined in its adventuring lords, as promised, and channeled them into expanding the Kingdom itself. Wallachia was completely absorbed, as was most of Bulgaria, and the westen tip of the Pontic Steppe. The Serbiand had assumed an expansionist posture, and their energies seemed to be focused squarely on the steppes, perhaps out of fear of another Theodoric rising up and looking West again.

In neighboring Pannonia, Queen Desislava, Theodoric’s granddaughter, struggled to keep her realm together through a regency council. The rebellious Duke of Nitra had already broken free, robbing Pannonia of a large portion of its territory and wealth. The remaining vassals schemed behind the Regent’s back to depose the Queen and install an adult to the throne for the good of the realm. If that weren’t enough, the population of Pannonia was composed mostly of Tengri Avars with no respect for their Pagan Serbian overlords. From his throne in Profiteya, there was little Theodoric could do to help Desislava, and no others around were inclined to pick up the slack.

Religions

Cultures

Independent Realms

 

[Doctor Baby]

Interlude on the Enlightenment of Hektor

King Hektorios looked out from the royal balcony over Profiteya with a feeling of anguish. It wasn’t supposed to have happened like this. To think that his father, a legend in the flesh, could come so close to his greatest victory only to be cut down by a low animal gave Hektor many doubts. Had the Gods betrayed him? Or had Theodoric forgotten them in that blighted land of godless heathens, where he most needed the light of Helias? Maybe it was something more chaotic, and disconcerting: perhaps the Fates had simply willed the random and unseemly death of their Gods’ greatest champion without a reason.

The door behind him opened softly, and the aching footsteps of an aged man echoed against the bannister. It was Ioulianos, every minute of his venerable age showing in his posture, his wrinkles, and his careful gait. His full hair and beard had retreated, abandoning his scalp to baldness and his jaw to a thin covering of dark grey threads. He respectfully muttered his presence to the new King, who looked over his shoulder at the former High Augur. Ioulianos had retired a short time before Theodoric’s Tibetan excursion, an event of some note because of the Augur’s long service to the Kappdokis. Rumors emerged that the Augur and the King had fallen out, but to see him now, Hektor thought it was more likely that Ioulianos had simply gotten too old to manage the spiritual affairs of the realm.

“Hektor, your highness, I am glad to see you,” he said, his little voice a shell of its former grandiose self.

“And I, you, Ioulianos. You look healthy,” said Hektor.

“Thank you, your highness. I’ve been blessed with longevity, ‘tis true, but my mobility has, ah, suffered a bit.”

“I see that as well,” said Hektor, smirking. “You can stay here awhile, and you’ll have no need of it.”

Hektor summoned a servant who fetched the two men chairs and a table, with bread and spiced tea. It was morning and the sun was finally beginning to peak over the mountains, long-heralded by the light peeking out from between and around them. Ioulianos didn’t say so, but seemed very grateful to be able to sit down.

“Did you and my father argue before he left?” asked Hektor.

“Ah, yes,” said Ioulianos. “His majesty and I had many disagreements these last years. I’ve come to agree with his thinking more than I did when he was alive to appreciate it.”

“In what way?”

“I was too rigid about our ways not becoming theirs. The Hindus, the Buddhists, I saw no brotherhood with them. Their ways and gods seemed so alien to me. I was, ah, offended, when his majesty named himself the ‘Enlightened One’, Diafotistis. He wondered if Megas Alexandros could be a ‘Buddha’ to those who believe in such things. He compared the aspects of Helios and a Hindu god, ah, Sourios I think, and drew parallels. But I speak out of turn, your highness. Your father was devout, as am I. We obey our Gods.”

“Speak freely, Ioulianos,” said Hektor. “You have served Olympus your entire life. None could question your devotion.”

Ioulianos took a long drink, finishing his cup of tea despite having barely sipped it before. It reminded Hektor of a nervous man gulping wine before doing something foolish, though Ioulianos was not easily accused of foolishness. He said, after clearing his throat, “Before the Exodos, our faith was nearly extinct. The Oracle at Douros gave her prophecy to less than a hundred men on a barren hilltop, all apostates to our Christian brothers. It seemed hopeless then to all but Vitigis, your ancestor, who organized the families into clans, saw them all outfitted, and marched them across sea and steppe to a new homeland. They kept the faith alive because of their discipline, and their devotion to preserving the old legends exactly as they knew them. Any deviation could cause a thousand years’ wisdom to be lost.

“I held to this as the best way, and I advised his majesty, ah, as such. But the further we grew from Gothia, the further I thought we were from our Gods, and from Godly people. Of course, there is a New Olympos somewhere in the Indicus, but you can’t see it. The people who live by it have never heard of the Gods who reside there. His majesty saw things I couldn’t. We know the stories of Zeus and his travels on Earth. But do we know all of them? Who are we mortals to say he isn’t ‘Indros’? I worried that His majesty would declare it so, as Diafotistis. But he saw no need to. This was just an idea to him, one I refused to even consider before, because I had no answer for it.

“It is the least I can do, out of respect for his majesty, to consider it. I, ah, must acknowledge that I have no power over the Gods, nor over you, to declare what is and isn’t, or what can or can not be. Perhaps we had ‘Buddhas’ long ago, and lost that wisdom over the eons. Perhaps we already worship the same Gods in different ways. I am not sure anymore, and I don’t have enough time to worry about it. You will though, and you must. Now you are ‘the Enlightened One’, as your father was before you.”

Hektorios had more questions for Ioulianos, but waited awhile to ask them. The sun was over the mountains now, and the view of Profiteya in the morning light gave a viewer much to observe.





Part V - King Hektorios I
816 CE

Buddha statue created during the first Indo-Greek Kingdom, 1st–2nd century CE; with paint traces dated to 8th-9th century CE

Theodoric’s death split his realm in two. Hektor held Bactria and Indicus, the two Kingdoms most-integrated by the Goths, but the loss of Parthia and Sogdia was difficult to simply accept. West of the mountains, everything but Zabulistan went to Alexandros, whose control was tenuous due to the resistance of the Muslims to Gothikoi rule.

Like his brother in Bactria, Alexandros was a warrior, not a negotiator, and rumors swirled that he had issued a challenge to his belligerent subjects: if any appointed champion of the Muslims could best him in single combat, both Kingdoms would be his. If it was true, no one was excited to face the son of Theodoric the Conqueror, himself a great warrior and veteran of many battles.

There were other, more nefarious rumors as well. In the early months of his reign, a courtier whispered in King Hektor’s ear that his brother had dispatched agents to undermine his rule in any way possible. Not even murder was off-limits. This sounded outlandish to the King at first, but the rumors continued, and expanded in scope to include Hektor’s family. When Queen Mother Adriane came to Hektor and warned him about a concrete plan to assassinate Theodoric, his son and heir, he could deny the threat no more.

It was early 817, and Hektor had not held the throne for a full year yet, but he had already made plans to continue his father’s conquests. He had understood the Legends and the Prophecy of Doros as a call to conquer as much as he could, just like the Megas Alexandros. His father's efforts to emulate and surpass Alexander only reinforced this idea. To his dying day, King Theodoric had worked to spread the light of the Gods to every dark corner of the world. Hektor would do no different.

The riders were summoned, and the call went out to the vassals: assemble in Delhi with every man who can fight and a spear for each of them. Theodoric rode out at the head of the Army of Bactria, only a few months ahead of schedule. Behind him, in secret, his family followed, with a circle of trusted courtiers and retainers all sworn to secrecy. Hektor’s family took up residence with the courtiers in the keep of the lord of Delhi, which had been vacant except for a skeleton garrison since Theodoric took the province in 809. Delhi effectively became the secret capital of Bactria, though the secret wouldn't last for long.

There was little time to hold court in the new keep. The army hadn’t been called upon to sit idle outside the city. No sooner had King Hektor and his commanders arrived in Delhi than did they leave again, marching their army east.

Tibet had fallen on hard times since their loss of Kashmir to the Gothikoi. The Zhangzhung people of the western plateau had declared themselves independent of the empire, and had the manpower to force the issue. The Tibetan emperor had turned his gaze south, to the weaker lords of north India, and had managed to conquer a large swathe of territory that crossed the Ganges at Varanasi. Within this territory was one of the holiest places in all of Buddhism, the deer park at Sarnath, where the Buddha was said to have first taught the Dharma to his followers.

The eastern religions were of great interest to Hektor, especially after he took the throne and became acquainted with his father’s menagerie of ‘bikkhus’ and ‘swamis’. Though none of them succeeded in converting him to their ways, he was fascinated with the ways the Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains all intertwined themselves and their history. From a strategic point of view, it seemed that the true way of the eastern faiths was to acknowledge some universal truth together, and vie for supremacy on that common ground. Regardless of how he intended to handle the other religions in the continent, taking Sarnath would be a great boon to Olympus, and the kingdom. And it would be easy, relatively; the conquest of Ayudha had only weakened the Tibetan Empire as it struggled to contain its new, rebellious subjects.

After the army had finished departing from Delhi, Hektor’s regent, Herakleios of Kuma, noted that their presence had greatly altered the makeup of the city.

By the thousands, the Hindus of Delhi had been called up to join the levies, or else fled the city with their families. At the same time, the Gothikoi families of men in the army, as well as the families of courtiers and vassals in the know about the King moving his court, had followed him to Delhi and found much of the city and its supporting towns lightly populated or abandoned. This spurred on further movement of Gothikoi to the region to take the abandoned property of the Hindus, incidentally turning Delhi into a majority Gothikoi region. This was somewhat to the chagrin of King Hektor, who had hoped escaping his countrymen would also escape their scheming, but he wouldn’t realize what had happened until he returned from the war.

While the Gothikoi were marching on Ayudha, a rebellion throughout the Tibetan empire had broken what little strength the defenders could have theoretically mustered. After his father’s example, Hektor barred his men from pillaging the countryside due to the immiseration the peasants there were already suffering. He also hoped a kindness now might be repaid later, as he intended to make the Ayudha lands around the Ganges his own at some future point.

The army of Bactria met what remained of the Tibetan forces to the far southeast of Varanasi, in the province of Rothas, and defeated them soundly with few losses. Hopeless in the face of the invasion the Tibetan Emperor sued for peace soon after.

The adherents of the eastern religions didn’t take this conquest lightly. Despite the light hand Hektor had shown to the people of Ayudha and Varanasi in particular, the Jains, Buddhists, and Hindus each each began to form militant orders devoted to the protection of their holy sites against the Olympians. King Hektorios regarded this as less of a theological reaction than a material one: Bactria wasn’t a threat to Buddhism, or to Buddhists, but the centralized power of the Diafotistis made Olympianism flexible and powerful in the long term.

During the long march back to the new court at Delhi, Hektor began to plan for a response to the aggression of the Sarmanes. While he had been at war, matters through the kingdom had been stable, and he felt more secure in his rule with a victory attributable to himself as king. Next he would assert himself as the Diafotistis, as soon as the opportunity arose.

Back at court, Hektor scoured the knowledge of the eastern religions and the history of the Greeks in India for items of interest. Menander was a frequent reference. In his reign, he had attempted to resolve the conflict between Hellenic ideals and Buddhist ones by adopting Buddhism, or some aspects of it at least. Hektor would never abandon the Gods or elevate a dead philosopher’s memory over them, but he wondered if Dharma and Karma were really that different from Arete and Eusebeia.

The emperor Ashoka, who had once ruled a realm at least as large as Bactria, had followed a similar path to Menander and converted to Buddhism. The evidence for this was much more concrete than in Menander’s case: his edicts survived as inscribed on pillars, of which Hektor controlled 5, and described his conversion and his desire to spread the Dharma through his empire. The realm saw relative peace in this time as Hektor focused his efforts on development, and his vassals’ wars were small in scale.

In 819, while inspecting the aftermath of an earthquake in a town near Delhi, the King was approached by a peasant named Hari, who led him to his farm and showed him a great crevice that had opened in the Earth. The smell of sulfur wafted from it. Looking down the hole, one could see the light of flames reflected on the walls, though neither the fires nor the bottom were visible.

The King and his retainers made camp, and the wisest advisors to the court were called from Delhi. Among them were Philomenes, the storyteller much-respected by the late King Theodoric, who advised a sacrifice be made to Hades, king of the underworld, who must have been displeased. Cows were sent for, despite the offense this caused the Hindus in particular, who preached non-violence against all animals. For all the similarities he had searched for between the Goths and the Hindus, this was one Hektor had never managed to reckon with; sacrifice of animals was an ancient, venerated practice among the Goths, something that pleased the Gods of Olympus.

There was further debate during the second day on what should be done with the cattle that were brought in. Hektor favored Philomene’s suggestion to sacrifice a tenth of them in the traditional manner of a Cthonian sacrifice, where the blood was made to drain down into a cavern or crevice for the underworld Gods. After a day, if the tenth of cattle hadn’t made any change, more should be sacrificed, and so on, up to the entire herd. Failure at that point would require another divination as to the nature of the crevice.

The Hindu faction, among whom the priest Rishaan had emerged as leader, argued vociferously against harming the cattle. Instead, they said dairy cows should be brought in and their milk given to the demon in the ground to satiate it; otherwise, a great amount of ghee should be sacrificed to ask the god Vishnu for protection from the demon. Philomenes and the Olympians disagreed that it was a ‘demon’ in the ground, or at least an evil one.

On the second night, Hari the peasant came to King Hektor and asked him to come and look at the crevice again, claiming he had seen something inside it. Hektor went and peered down into the otherworldly glow. He couldn’t see anything at first, so he knelt down to see closer. He leaned dangerously over the edge, where the smallest push would have sent him plummeting down into it.

There was something there after all. Something small at first. A point of darkness where the wall should have been. Hektor tried to make it out, and perceived it as larger than before, though it hadn’t really grown. It was both there and not there. It was further and further in the foreground of his vision, ethereal and solid at the same time. Finally he could make out eyes, coal black, themselves containing an infinite abyssal depth. For a nose, it had a disgusting snout above a mouth of twisted, yellow teeth. Heaps of jewelry were hung around its muscular neck, which connected its bestial visage to the body of a large man, whose dress was that of a warrior of no clan or state. Hektor had never seen anything like it, but the name came to him in an instant: Kali, the root of all evil, the father of Fear and Hell. Hektor felt himself being pulled into the chasm by this dark and evil spirit. A coldness came over him even as he sweat and panted and screamed, and his soul began to slip out of his body.

Hari grabbed the king and pulled him away from the pit in a panic. Hektor shot up as if from a nightmare. The Royal cataphracts came running at the sound, their weapons drawn on Hari, until Hektor gestured for them to leave him. He explained what he had seen to Hari, who suggested he follow the advice of the Hindu priests if he had seen a Hindu demon. But Hektor didn’t listen to him. A terror had settled in his heart, and Hektor felt that the hunger of Kali had to be sated immediately. There was no time for milk or butter.

As calmly as he could, the king ordered the soldiers bring the cattle to the crevice and push them in, and to do so quickly before the pujanis could object.

The cows let out agonizing cries as they fell into the pit one-by-one, disappearing into the ghostly light down below. About three dozen had been thrown in when the ground began to violently shake, and the crevice closed.

Hektor didn’t speak to any of the priests, Olympian or otherwise, about what had happened. He gathered the cataphracts and left that very night for Delhi, frequently looking over his shoulder. He told no one what he had seen in the chasm, but all who knew him thought he looked and acted strangely on his return, shutting himself away, speaking to few people, and exploding into panicked gibbering or retreating to his chambers whenever pressured.

While the king’s mental state was declining, his Companion Council conspired behind his back to manage the realm’s affairs. By 822, vassals openly spoke of the king’s “illness”, and began to look to Sogdia, where King Alexandros was faced with the third successive wave of revolts against his rule to install one of Theodoric’s bastards. Drastic action would be necessary to secure Bactria against similar unrest. Like the Dukes and Lords, the Companion council looked to Sogdia...

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part VI: Hektorios the Accursed

Defaced bust of King Hektor of Bactria, 9th-10th century CE



822 CE

The battlefield was sparingly littered with the bodies of Sogdians and Paranomoi alike as the army of Theodoric ‘the Bastard’ fled the field. King Alexandros of Sogdia and Parthia rode to the front of his own army, his cavalry guards and most capable knights in tow. A victory horn sounded and the Sogdians cheered, the way to Balkh now open despite all the signs going against the Sogdians. Theodoric’s army was larger by a third, the terrain was favorable to them, and the Bastard’s capital was now vulnerable to a siege. By all rights, Theodoric should have fought on the plains before Alexandros could call on allies in the steppe, or even his brother in Bactria to aid him and invert the bastard’s advantage in numbers. But they hadn’t.

Alexandros led his army to the outskirts of Balkh, where they made ready to encircle the lightly-defended keep and hem the Bastard into the dry Merv desert, where he would be forced to lose his men to attrition or else face the King somewhere more to Alexandros’ liking. The levies and men-at-arms were in high spirits at having avoided a decisive battle, and happily worked at building mantlets and battering rams through the night.

In the morning, a runner came yelling from the east, his horse near-death and exhausted himself. He was brought directly to the king, who heard his news grimly: the Bactrians were coming.

By 822, the Gothikoi horse archers of old had nearly all vanished from the Gothic kingdoms in the east, and those who remained were less the conquerors of old than mercenaries who inevitably returned to the steppe. The original cohort of horsemen that came from Gothia under King Theodoric had long since settled down, and so had most of their sons. The next generation were unlikely to take up the horse archery of their grandfathers unless they could afford the heavy splint mail of the cataphracts. They were usually more useful as men-at-arms or archers if they had martial ability; otherwise, as stewards, scouts, overseers, or other middle class professions in Indo-Gothia. A considerable portion of them had been ennobled as well, rising to incredible prominence for men who had previously lived rugged lives on the steppes.

Thus, the army of 822 was of a new breed for the Goths. The bulk of the army was made up of ‘Indikon’ levies’, light infantry spearmen and skirmishers, bolstered by a core of hardened men-at-arms and archers, generally Goths, though sometimes Pashtuns or Kashmiris who were highly-regarded as warriors by the Kappadoki rulers. Wealthy veterans and nobles formed a division of armored cavalry trained to skirmish with bows or break light infantry formations with a charge. Steppe Goth mercenaries would sometimes join the cataphracts, but were generally used outside of pitched battles to raid enemy supply lines or disrupt retreating armies.

Nearly 10,000 men gathered for the army in Theodorion, which was closer to the border than Delhi. From there, they marched to Kabul, reaching it in late spring to newsl: the civil war in Sogdia had already ended, less than a year after its start, due to the sudden death of Theodoric the Bastard.

In spite of the unplanned reunification of Sogdia, the warriors of Bactria pressed ahead on orders of King Hektor. When Kabul fell, the Gothikoi held a ceremony of divination to foresee the course of the war. Of course, regardless of what the Hierophant found in the innards of the sacrificial beast, the war would continue, so it was of some comfort that Zeus smiled on the efforts of the Bactrians to reunite the four kingdoms.

Even with this good omen, something seemed to weigh on the king’s psyche. He split his forces at Kabul, leaving half under the command of his son, Prince Theodoric, and bringing the rest of them with him. The prince would move through the provinces, securing towns and fortifications, while the king pressed on westwards. This he did with wild abandon, claiming to his commanders he wanted to decisively defeat Alexandros’ forces in the field before they could unite and organize their ranks. Yet the lie of this was revealed when he heard of an uprising Buddhists to the north, in the province of Vakhan, and turned his army north to meet them.

King Hektor’s army numbered a little over 5,000 men, so when they saw that the disorganized peasant army of Buddhists was less than half that, the Bactrians were assured of victory. The two forces clashed outside the city of Vakhan itself, where the Buddhists had laid a siege, giving a name to a battle that would have enormous consequences.

The Bactrians moved aggressively, pressing the rebels across a wide front and enveloping their flanks. The Buddhists were untrained and ill-equipped, but zealous and enraged. They held onto the battle long after it was already lost, and seemed to be wavering when King Hektor formed his cataphracts into a wedge and charged into a gap in the center. What happened after was immediately mythologized by the survivors of the battle in myriad ways. Some said the King ran through his own infantry to attack the Buddhists and broke his horse’s legs trampling a sergeant. Others saw the charge reach the rebels and force a rout, just before the earth opened up and swallowed the king and a dozen of his best knights. Still others claimed a demon had materialized among the Buddhists, sword in hand, and cleaved through a hundred Bactrians to slay King Hektor. The only sure event was that the king had fallen.

Hektor’s death in 824 ended the war in Sogdia. Crown Prince Theodoric ascended to the throne in Bactria as quickly as he could and began to speak of war, as his brother Eugenios rode to Indicus and did the same. Neither son, it seemed, would be satisfied with his inheritance alone.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part VII: Theodoric II ‘the Young’

Indo-Goth inscription depicting the Battle of Gurziwan, 820-840 CE

824 CE

The accession of King Theodoric II was a hasty and modest affair. The late King Hektor’s Hierophant, Alaricos, performed the rite, laying a golden laurel wreath on Theodoric’s head before all members of the court. It was a small crowd, there being little time to travel to Delhi between news of Hektor’s death and news of the ceremony. The newly-inherited King Eugenios, Theodoric’s brother, made no show of attending, as he had his own coronation to arrange and a realm to organize for a presumed war that would come as soon as one of the two brothers felt confident enough in his rule to begin one.

Eugenios was both physically stronger than his brother and had an impeccable mind for strategy and deception. Yet he was said to be haunted in the same manner as his father, drawing his sword at shadows and muttering to himself sometimes when he thought nobody could hear him. Considering the end Hektor had come to, those who acknowledged this fact tended to favor Theodoric, who was older and therefore the more worthy heir of his father.

Yet Theodoric was an enigma to the nobility, who was both deeply interested in matters of religion while also being regarded as completely incompetent. After his accession, he proclaimed his namesake and grandfather would thereafter be rendered in every instance, no matter how casual, as Megalyteros Theodoric I Evlogimenos Aftokrator, appending his regnal name against tradition from Theodoricos, while also making the published theological works of the Arkheirety ever more unwieldy due to the need to frequently reference the elder Theodoric and his new slew of epithets. This, and an incident at the Krishna Jamasthan Temple Complex where Theodoric mistakenly referred to Krishna as a Buddha multiple times earned him the sarcastic epithet ‘the Holy’. At the time, he was more openly known as ‘the Young’ to distinguish him from his namesake, and for his impetuousness.

In August of 824, mere months after his accession, King Theodoric declared war on his brother, Eugenios of Indicus.

The great army of Bactria was mobilized once again. With the losses in the aborted war for Sogdia replaced, they numbered 10,000 once again. In Indicus, Eugenios scrambled to secure support to defend his throne, which had been bound to that of Bactria for over two decades. The Kashmiris, and the sparse Kashmiri-Goth population, lacked concentrated centers of population that could produce large levies, and the results were disastrous for Eugenios. The grand total of his army, with a small force of mercenaries hired to supplement them, were less than 2,500.
Rather than commit his men to a pitched battle to be crushed, Eugenios led his men in a raiding campaign, hoping to delay the Bactrians long enough that some other matter could force Theodoric to end the war before the Kashmiri vassals folded and recognized him instead of Eugenios.

The Bactrians had just begun to enter Kashmir en masse when King Alexandros of Sogdia passed away in his sleep. Much like his brother, Alexandros had two heirs, splitting his realm in half upon his death. His daughter Adriane became queen of Parthia, while princess Markia became queen of Sogdia.

Unlike their eastern cousins, the two Queens were evenly-matched in power, and their nearest rivals were much greater threats to them than any power in India or Tibet. The Caliphate had recovered from the Shia Uprising, forced the Caliph out of Iraq, and pried Nishapur from Alexandros’ grasp a few years before his death. Now he eyed Parthia and Zabulistan greedily, waiting for an opportunity. To the north of Sogdia, the Uyghur Khagan led frequent raids into Fergana, extracting wealth and slaves on the way to a full-scale invasion of Sogdia. Though their kingdoms would be stronger united, the sisters settled on an uneasy peace. Perhaps seeking an edge over her sister, Queen Adriane of Parthia requested an alliance with Bactria, which Theodoric accepted.

The same was soon true in Bactria, as Eugenios’ vassals one-by-one declared their support for King Theodoric. Eugenios abdicated his throne to his brother, re-uniting Kashmir with Bactria. As a show of mercy, King Theodoric had intended to spare his brother his landed titles until it was discovered that Eugenios had organized a plot to have the crown princess murdered. Eugenios denied it, and the evidence pointed towards this plot having ended with his abdication, but Theodoric was incensed that his brother would have ever considered such underhanded methods against a fellow Kappadoki. Eugenios’ arrest was ordered and carried out, though his household guard resisted the effort in a week-long siege of his estate in Kashmir province. After he surrendered a second time, Eugenios’ remaining titles were stripped from him and he was interred in a tower at the Kappadoki estate at Profiteya.

With his rule secure, Theodoric settled into the palace at Delhi and focused on the prosperity of the realm and his own personal holdings. The Silk Road remained the source of most of the kingdom’s wealth, and Theodoric committed to the expansion of his trading posts and protection for travelers, enticing more traders to take the northern route through Bactria.

The vassals were emboldened by the new wealth flowing into the kingdom and organized a number of expeditions against the Indians. King Theodoric avoided entangling himself in these affairs, but directed them south along the Indus, rather than to the east. For one, the eastern holdings were quite far from the Indo-Goth heartland already, and difficult to control from Delhi. For another, the Indus valley would be harder to conquer, and Theodoric feared a great victory more than a defeat.

By 827, these efforts had brought the Goths as far south as Vikramapura and secured the central Indus. Recognizing the increasing primacy of trade to the kingdom, Theodoric installed a league of Gothikoi merchants to power in Multan, forming the Republic of the Sindhu; they preferred the local variation of the name of the Indus to help legitimate their rule among the Panjabis residing along the north and central river banks.

Despite all effort to maintain the territories of the kingdom, Theodoric was powerless to stop the northern Arachosian provinces of Zabulistan and Sistan from formally declaring independence from Bactria in the same year. Long-separated by the Sulayman range, the relationship between Bactria and the Arachosians had been a theoretical one since Theodoric I’s passing, and though Theodoric the Young thought it likely the Abbasids would invade and retake the provinces, the risk of marching his armies into the mountains was too great.

This wariness to engage would prove to be a wise decision on Theodoric’s part. Shortly after the new year’s beginning, the Abbasids declared a jihad for Herat, now a vital satrapy in Parthia as the seat of Queen Adriane’s power. She was quick to send a runner to call on her cousin in Bactria, and despite his reservations, he was quick to accept. The Abbasids had to be broken if the Kappadoki kingdoms were to survive.

The armies of King Theodoric gathered in Theodorion in preparation for a great march to the west, over the mountains, to Parthia. The parallels were obvious to Theodoric, as were the misfortunes they suggested. But Theodoric was not his father. Where Hektor’s army failed to protect him from an uprising of mere peasants, Theodoric’s would rise up and smash the strongest force in the world.

The Bactrian army was not quite 10,000 men, which put them at a disadvantage to the Abbasids, who had 20,000 troops already occupying Herat. Theodoric raced his men over the Kush mountains to link up with the Parthians, who could bring 4,000 men to bear, before the Caliph could isolate and destroy them. Their combined forces could defeat any one of the Abbasid armies, which had split into smaller sections to cover greater ground in occupying Herat. If he maneuvered correctly, Theodoric could at least avoid fighting any battle outnumbered.

This theory would be put to the test in mid 828. The Bactrians were approaching the northeastern border of the province when their scouts came upon one of the two large forces of Abbasid troops in Parthia. They had moved into the county of Maymana and encamped near the town of Gurizwan, far afield of any other Abbasid army in the region. Though they held a defensible position, Theodoric thought to use the element of surprise against them, and marched to meet them there. A dispatch was sent to the Parthian Martial, Cleomenes, to make haste and join the battle, but when no runner returned to confirm the order, Theodoric marched his army to battle alone.

At Gurizwan, the Abbasids spotted the Bactrians well in advance of their attack and were able to fortify themselves along a low ridge, forcing the Indo-Goths to fight on unfavorable ground. Theodoric saved the battle by sending his Gothikoi mercenaries the long way around the ridge to climb the far side of it to rain arrows on the Abbasids’ flank. The tactic had succeeded, but at a great cost; the Bactrians lost 1,500 more men than the Abbasids, and had far less ability to replace their losses.

Theodoric put on a brave show for his troops, but privately he was furious. His commanders had enacted his plans sluggishly or without enthusiasm, and he thought the failure of the Parthians to be in position to help was evidence of extreme incompetence or maybe even a desire to see the Bactrians fail.

Despite his misgivings, Theodoric continued to lend his full support to the war. He brought his troops west, joining the Parthians, and retook Badghis to entice the Abbasids into attacking them. They took the bait, but were too cautious in their approach to fall prey to an ambush, as Theodoric had hoped. A pitched battle followed, and like Gurizwan, the Indo-Goths won the day at the cost of more lives. The technological and industrial prowess of the Abbasids was making itself apparent in turning their losses into small victories themselves. With each battle, the Indo-Goth goal became less and less achievable.

Despite these concerns, the Abbasid armies had, for the time, been expelled from Herat. The Bactrians helped the Parthians to expel the Caliph’s garrisons and retake the provinces, an effort that took the better part of a year. Theodoric kept himself busy while the other lords caroused and pillaged; he spent long hours reading manuscripts religious and practical, as well as training his sword arm. He slept little but seemed no worse for it, using the time in the evening to speak with a vast coterie of retainers who came and went but never stayed. There were rumors that he planned to usurp the throne of Sogdia, using the Queen’s failure to aid Parthia as a justification.

The last forts in the northeast were being assaulted when news came from Bactria that complicated the war in Parthia.

In the months before his death, King Hektor had installed the worldly Hiereus Theodosios over a large demesne that covered both banks of the Ganges, encompassing most of Bactria between Delhi and Varanasi. To the Indians, this was the larger part of an older land called Kosala, the kingdom of the sons of Rama, who was the incarnate form of the deity Vishnu. Hektor had hoped that putting this holy land into the trust of a Hiereus would help to convert some of its inhabitants, but more importantly, he had hoped to gain some knowledge of the Hindu cosmology to understand how to banish the ‘Kali’ which stalked him. This desperate hope was why he had overlooked Theodosios’ unorthodoxy, which greatly offended the rest of Hierety. When Theodoric took the throne, he was easily persuaded by Theodosios that his detractors were short-sighted and his efforts in Kosala were bearing fruit.

A runner came to Theodoric’s Parthian camp in 833, as the army was preparing for a second wave of Abbasids: Theodosios and the Queen had carried on an affair for much of the time Theodoric had spent at war, and when regent Antonios sent for Theodosios to come to Delhi and face judgement, he had the messenger’s head displayed on the walls of Kanyakubja.

The Bactrians marched east, determined but sober. Theodosios would need to be defeated quickly if there was any hope of saving Herat from the Abbasids. The turmoil seemed to be spreading, too. A messenger awaited the king in Kabul, explaining that a faction of lords of Sogdia had risen up against their king, Antonios, son of the late Queen Markia, to install Theodoric. They hoped he would aid them, and the messenger seemed to expect it. But Theodoric could offer him no help.

As the world fell into turmoil and lesser men trembled, Theodoric only felt his nerves steeled. Primordial chaos was the forge that tempered ordinary men into great ones. The wild steppes had hardened the Kappadoki and brought them surging to greatness from the brink of oblivion. King Hektor’s sudden death had thrust the kingdom onto Theodoric’s shoulders, and the invasion of the Caliph’s formidable armies had honed Theodoric’s knowledge of war and stifled his fear of defeat and death.

The army moved at a breakneck pace for Delhi, yet Theodoric’s commanders noted the king seemed oddly serene. When they arrived at the palace and heard the news that awaited them, it was only the savviest who noticed the king’s surprise seemed ingenuine.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part IIX: Theodoric ‘the Holy’

The court of Caliph Hafiz II (823-824) in a manuscript by Al-Wasiti (11th century)


834

The shadows around every corner of Al-Ukhaidir seemed to jump and spit like demons, clever ones that went inert when viewed directly and melted away into the dark. Many courtiers already had fled for safer estates, and it seemed only a matter of time before the royal family did the same. Guards patrolled every corridor in a strict and exacting schedule, and did far more than their due diligence, scanning the walls as they walked like a thief might be hiding in the setting between two stones. A great reward was offered to anyone who caught an assassin and could prove his deadly intent, and the royal guards had taken this bounty seriously. That, or the execution of Guard Captain Al-rahman had instilled their new diligence in them. Either way, carrot or stick, it was unlikely anyone could enter the fortress-palace unseen, nor could they expect to speak long without being heard.

This unsettling suspicion had extended outwards over all Iraq, though few outside of the Caliph and his most trusted retainers understood why, exactly, soldiers were guarding the roads and accosting travelers. The death of Caliph Hafiz II was, officially, an accident, and those responsible for it had already been caught and punished. It didn’t take a genius to know that this was not the case.

The only travellers that could move safely through the Caliphate were the soldiers themselves, who streamed in endless numbers towards Parthia. Among them was a man named Nesteryas, a dark-skinned Indo-Goth Hindu. In the Caliphate, however, he went by Ahmad. He had killed Caliph Hafiz by riddling him with arrows as he left Ukhaidir for a procession through Karbala. Of a party of six that had carried out the attack, Nesteryas was the only one left. Each night, he whispered the other assassins’ names to himself, and prayed to Yama to judge them fairly.

It was a long journey from Karbala to Herat, where Nesteryas was ostensibly headed with a band of mercenaries to join the Abbasid army. After the murder of the Caliph, he and two more of the assassins fled to Baghdad. The other three had attempted to flee west on horseback through the desert, but the word was that the Caliph’s Bedouins had ridden them down and killed them. Nesteryas and the other two conspirators hid in the Baghdad slums for a few days to devise a plan, but failed to do so before the Caliph’s men tracked them down. Nesteryas was lucky enough to have slipped out to a tavern just before, and when he returned to the Caliph’s men ransacking the hideout, he went back to the tavern and joined a mercenary officer there who was loudly recruiting prospects.

Nesteryas ingratiated himself with the mercenaries as best he could, and claimed to have come from western Ifriqya, where a different dialect was spoken, to explain his strangely-accented Arabic. He drank rarely despite his inclinations, and prayed towards Mecca with the other Muslims. It was another lucky stroke that mercenaries, generally a vulgar bunch, could not tell his play-acting of Islam from the real thing. Only when he was alone in the dead of night, when the others all slept, did Nesteryas pray to his true Gods, and especially Vishnu, to protect him and deliver him back to his benefactor. Sometimes during the long journey he felt a swell of pride at his part in defeating the Muslims in Herat, which would help to defeat them in Sindh and Punjab as well. Surely, he thought, the Gods smile on me.

It was early 835 when Nesteryas and the mercenaries arrived in Herat to find the Abbasids had already won.

835

The news about the loss of Parthia came while King Theodoric was campaigning in Kosala against his vassal Theodosios. Without the support of the Bactrians, Parthia could hardly put up a fight against the Abbasids, who outnumbered them nearly 10-to-1 with an invading force of 29,000 men to the Parthians’ 3,000. It was a disappointment, but Theodoric had lost nothing and gained a better understanding of the strength and stability of the Caliphate. Not only that, but he’d struck a blow against them as well by assassinating Hafiz II, a skilled ruler, replacing him as a rival with his son, who was competent at most.

In the Indo-Goth world, the usurpation of the Abbasid Empire by the Muhallabids had been a quiet happening in the war for Herat, of little relevance considering the vast holdings of the Muhallabids made them no weaker than their forebears. In the Islamic world, this was of great significance. Ifriqya had been brought under the sovereignty of the empire because of it, and the cause of the Shia muslims seemed all the more hopeless. If there was any competition in Europe for the most powerful empire of the day, the Muhallabid succession put an end to the debate.

With the power of the empire behind him, Jibril hardly needed to be a strategic genius to end the war in Parthia once and for all. After the conquest of Herat, the Caliph turned his eyes to the breakaway Indo-Goths in Zabulistan. Isolated from the rest of their kind, it seemed inevitable that they would fall to the rising might of the Arabs.

In Bactria, the Kosala rebellion had come to a head in the siege of the temple-compound of Bithor. Theodosios’ army had been swept from the field already, leaving the Bactrians free to attack the capital, where Theodosios and the Queen had hidden themselves away. Bithor made a poor fortress, and Theodoric’s men had overtaken it before the end of the year.

Theodosios was returned to Helios- that is, burned at the stake. Theodora would remain imprisoned for the rest of her life.

Peace reigned in Bactria once more, and King Theodoric turned his eyes towards religious matters. Two opposing schools of thought were forming in the Temple, and despite the more obvious reasons for Theodosios’ rebellion - his affair with the queen, for instance - some in the Temple thought that the conflicting doctrines of these schools had played a part. The Prometheans believed in a conservative orthodoxy according to the Hellenic ideals and cosmology that made up the foundation of the Olympian faith. They rejected any similarities with Hinduism or Buddhism as superficial, and desired a Diafotistis who was more active in the Temple and less active in worldly affairs. The more radical amongst them thought the Diafotistis should be barred from holding a landed title at all. Opposed to the Prometheans were the Dharmaoi, who argued Olympianism was an elevated faith that, while built upon Old Hellenism, encompassed most of the same ideas and beliefs as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. Theodosios was a prominent Dharmaoi, and was said to have argued strongly that there should be no Diafotistis at all. Some of the Dharmaoi supported him in this, but they were generally less unified in thought than the Prometheans, being unified more in the spirit of doctrinal freedom and the importance of works in the material world than by any one specific tenet.

Considering his brashness in wading into the realm of theology around his accession, few in the Heirety were surprised that Theodoric sought to do so again. In 835 he assembled a council of Archeirei, philosophers, and notable Sarmanes (Buddhists, Jainists, Hindus, etc) at the old palace at Profiteya, for an inaugural dialogue called the Sokratea, to be held in the 2nd week of March every four years.

The audience for the dialogues themselves was restricted to the participants themselves and a select group of prominent nobles, priests, or otherwise important figures. The festival outside the dialogues was open to all, and drew visitors from all over the kingdom and outside it to celebrate and encourage rational debate.

Within the hall of the Sokration, the two Olympian camps split into three. The Prometheans were clearly the largest of those in the dialogue, followed by the Dharmaoi. A protest faction formed opposite them, calling themselves the Sarmanes, in honor of their friends who were not allowed to speak, and were silent in solidarity with them.

The Sokratea was a great success by Theodoric’s standards. As moderator, he had refused to take a side, but the work he undertook afterwards made it clear that he favored the Prometheans. Hesiod’s Works and Days was standardized and made part of the canon alongside the Legends. Theodoric broke with the Promethean Heierety on the topic of restricting translations, however. With the help of Kashmiri and Punjabi Heirei, designated official translations to be disseminated among those populations, as well as officially sanctioning Heirei to preach in those languages.

Near the end of the year, the rebellion in Sogdia drew to a close, as King Antoninos’ last keep fell to the rebels. Theodoric was declared king in a ceremony in early 836.

Save for an intervention into a rebellion in Parthia, Bactria saw an unprecedented decade of peace and stability starting in 836. King Theodoric’s efforts were focused on reigning in and centralizing the Heirety and balancing the power of the factions against each other. At the 839 Sokratea, to undercut the Prometheans and Dharmaoi, a minority group of Sarmanes were allowed to join the dialogue. They would persist as a faction in the Heirety in the years after, and advocated a greater degree of syncretism than the Dharmaoi. The two combined would succeed in petitioning Theodoric to canonize Menander I into the Legends. His conversion to Buddhism was not mentioned, but the Sarmanes still viewed it as a victory. The Prometheans harbored greater and greater fears about the syncretism creeping into the Temple, seemingly with Theodoric’s blessing, but there was little they could do about it. Outside of Bactria, the Temple was far less centralised. Believers in Hellas and Anatolia passively accepted the decrees of Theodoric, but there was little will to enforce or resist them. The passage of ideas along the Silk Road was easiest seen in Nikaea, where a new form of Tragedy, called a Heroiko, emerged in the early 840s. In a Heroiko play, a mythical hero from the west- Hellas, Anatolia, the Pontic Steppe - would be drawn to the East, where they would overcome a great challenge and find enlightenment, only to be stricken down because of a flaw in their character.

By 846, Theodoric was patronizing Heroikos in Delhi and Mathura. The wealth of Bactria had reached its greatest height yet, the treasury was full, new construction was underway throughout the royal quarters of Delhi and Profiteya, and the sons of rich and poor men alike grew anxious to strike out and take new lands for their own. Theodoric was averse to starting any more wars himself, and was keen to let his vassals conquer new lands for the kingdom in his stead, until an opportunity arose that was too good to miss.

In the summer of 846, the Muhallabid Caliphate erupted into a violent civil war. Despite the power in wealth and manpower held by the Caliph, the edges of the empire had been chipped away over the last two decades, including the reconquest of much of Iraq by the Shia. The victory over Parthia was one of the last great ones for the Arabs; in 838, Jabril had passed away from stress without any sons, leaving the throne to his brother Al-Mughirah. A drunkard and layabout, Mughirah could hardly be called incompetent; it was more accurate to say he was absent. The wealth and manpower available to him went to waste, until a coalition of vassals united to demand his cousin, King Khaireddin of Arabia and Persia, be granted the empire.

Even in the midst of the rebellion, in spite of his own vices and widely-reviled status, the Caliph could still call many thousands of men to his banners. But between him and the Parthian holdings was the entirety of defiant Persia. Supposing he marched his men hundreds of miles through hostile terrain, Mughirah would still have to defeat the Bactrians, whose commanders, drawn from the craftiest steppe mercenaries and descendants of great conquerors, were among the best in the world, and their men highly-motivated to retake Parthia for Olympos.

Theodoric felt that to dismiss such an opportunity would surely invite the ire of the Gods. In early 847, the peace was ended, and the army of Bactria marched once again to war.

Against Theodoric’s logic, Al-Mughirah sent nearly half of his forces to meet the Bactrians, splitting his men between his wars. Even together, the enemies of the Caliph were outnumbered, and the territories involved so vast, it was unlikely any side involved would defeat the other decisively and quickly. But King Theodoric had no intention of spending years bogged down in Parthia again, fighting off wave after wave of disciplined Arabic troops. If the alliance with Parthia were still active, the scales would be tipped, but Queen Adriane had passed in 840, leaving the throne to her son Hektorios, who declined a continuation of the alliance. He would have no interest in re-securing the other half of his kingdom under a different king. The steppe Goths, while still powerful, had divided into a dozen independent tribes, none of which could offer much aid even if they could march their host through Muhallabid-controlled Dihistan.

But there was still one empire in the world which could challenge the Muhallabids. In fact, their power and splendor was rumored to eclipse anything ever seen in Europe. Theodoric, controlling so long a stretch of the Silk Road as he did, had even re-established the relations with them his grandfather had founded half a century before. A delegation was dispatched shortly, with a favorable proposition, gold and trinkets, and a talented steward. A few months later, the delegates returned, their saddle bags emptied and refilled with white porcelain pottery, jade statuettes, and bolts of elegant silk. The steward had remained behind to serve as a court eunuch, and in his place, a princess was brought to Bactria.

The Tang Emperor couldn’t commit his forces over something so inconsequential to him as Parthia. But as part of the negotiations, he had gifted Theodoric a writ of favor to a mercenary company called the Fire Dragons. The 6,000 of them had joined the Bactrian delegation in Nepal and marched to Delhi with them, before joining the Bactrian forces marching west.

While Theodoric was politicking, Al-Mughirah’s forces had marched into western Sogdia, where they had presumed fortifications would be lighter, and attempted to siege the citadel of Urgench. Eventually they won, the but the constant strife in Sogdia under the Kappadokis had strengthened the resolve of the people against invaders. The Muhallabids had only just forced the surrender at Urgench in 848 when the Bactrians and their Chinese allies closed in, cornering them near the temple at Nukus. What followed was less a battle and more a slaughter.

Despite having had no contact with them, Theodoric’s agents in the Muhallabid court had been busy in the years since their success in killing Hafiz II. The crushing defeat at Nukus had provided the support they needed to finally engineer Al-Mugharid’s death as well.

His son, Mukhtar, inherited the Caliphate. Despite having not technically sanctioned the killing, King Theodoric was still widely named as the conspirator behind it. At first glance, it was a mistake to kill Jabril, because his death ended the rebellion against him. However, his death had sapped the will of the armies of Muhallabids to resist the Bactrians, and it seemed unlikely that Mukhtar would avoid a similar uprising against him before he came of age.

By November of 849, Muhallabid Parthia had fallen, and Mukhtar’s regent sued for peace. As part of his victory declaration in Delhi, and to make the kingdom easier to manage, he also crowned his brother Eugenios, from whom he had usurped a kingdom three decades before, as the new King of Sogdia.

This would be one of Theodoric’s last acts. In September of 850, his servants found Theodoric dead in his quarters, hands clutching at his chest in pain.

King Theodoric was dead. Long live King Alaricos!

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part IX: King Alaricos ‘Deivanampeos’

Alarican pillar at Atinadorion, 9th century CE

The Temple was lined with Ionic columns that formed a circular route around the central structure, much like a Buddhist stupa. Inside the columns, the facade was lined with reliefs of legendary myths and figures, identifiable from the Olympian Legends but detailed with much eastern imagery. After the Buddhist practice, Olympian worshipers had taken to rounding the temple inside the columns before entering, often repeating these circumambulations an auspicious number of times and reflecting on the Legends throughout. Numerology was foundational in the design of the temple, and based around the number 8, associated with Apollo: 8 columns faced each cardinal direction, which were separated by a non-columnar support on the north, west, and south sides, and by the entrance archway on the eastern face. There were 4 reliefs or jatakas corresponding to each group of columns, totaling 16 reliefs. Of these, the 8 most westerly-facing jatakas depicted Chthonic myths, contrasting with the easterly heavenly myths.

Inside the temple roof was supported by a number of columns. A clerestory space between the two ceiling slabs allowed light into the temple at all hours, with a hole carved through the upper slab to direct a shaft of light onto the icon of Apollo throughout the day. In the exact center of the temple was a carved and painted sculpture of Apollo with a raven and nag, in repose beneath a parasol, a lotus flower pinched between his fingers. It was said that inside the statue was contained a single hair from Apollo's head, brought down as a gift from Olympos by Theodoric I. Worshipers were directed by a Heirus or a lay attendant to place sacrificial items in a stone cask at the foot Apollo which drained away liquid to the Heireus' estate, attached to the foundation of the Temple, to be disposed of properly. Gifts could be placed on Apollo's pedestal or around the cask, and would be cleared away periodically by the Heireus to make room for more.

Worshipers were directed to worship at the Temple at least three times a month, and to make sacrifices at least once per season. At the discretion of the Temple Heireus, sacrifices would be discarded, distributed to the Heirety or poor, or taken into the Temple treasury.

-Description of the Temple of Apollo Anotatos, Delhi, 9th-10th Century

Kappadoki India

850CE
From the moment of his accession, King Alaricos made it clear to all that he would not follow in his father’s footsteps. At the Temple of Zeus Aftokrator in Delhi, in a ceremony adorned with lotus flowers and scented with auspicious incense, Alricos was crowned King Alaricos I Devanampeia - “blessed by the Gods” - after the Mauryan emperor Ashoka. Where Theodoric had been careful, maybe overly-so, in his oversight of the Temple, Alaricos made no pretensions to maintaining the status quo. A generation of Indo-Goths had now lived their entire lives in India, with no connection to the steppe save through the increasingly-rare mercenaries from that part of the world. While the Indian peasant class had been remarkably accepting of Indo-Goth ideas so far, Bactria’s armies had only grown weaker since Theodoric I settled in the Kashmiri mountains. Now, without the help of China, Bactria could never hope to defeat the Caliphate in war; not while Indo-Goths preferred profitable jobs overseeing labor, and Indians fled the call to arms of a kingdom that they thought was too foreign to them. Would the Indians remain passive long enough for the Indo-Goths to have raised a new generation of warriors? Such a wager seemed foolish and short-sighted.

Of course, Alaricos still regarded his father as having served his people heroically. Theodoric II had inherited an unwieldy half of his father's realm , yet still had managed to destabilize the rising power of the Caliphate and force them back to the borders of 804. Securing a marriage with the Tang dynasty had also proved to be a wise investment; Zhaopei was a genius with numbers and would have made a fine bride even were her father not the Emperor of China.

Though he didn’t take an official position on the growing rift between the Prometheans and Dharmaoi, it was obvious from the outset that Alaricos favored syncretism. At the Sokratea of 851, Alaricos made the case for the parallels of Olympian and Hindu religious belief and practice on strategic, rather than theological grounds: only as a united front could they expel Islam from India, regardless of disagreements on cosmology and rites. The argument wasn’t a decisive one, but it helped to assuage some of the animosity developing between the hardliner Olympians and Sarmanes.

Alaricos focused his efforts the next two years on supporting the Heirety’s efforts to spread the religion, and encouraging his vassals to put more of their resources towards military manpower. The former, he hoped, demonstrated good faith to the Heirety, who was understandably wary of him. The latter would prepare his vassals for the war he already planned to take Bodh Gaya from the faltering Pala kingdom.

Despite holding their own man-for-man at the Battle of Barh, the well-prepared army of Bactria was able to overwhelm and cripple the Pala forces before it was through.

The war was over shortly thereafter and Gaya was annexed to Bactria, dealing another blow to the Buddhist faith as their most holy site fell under the control of the Olympians. Reactions in the Temple were mixed. A loud minority, especially the Prometheans already alienated by Alaricos’ coronation and speech at the Sokratea, were incensed that the Bactrian army hadn’t razed Bodh Gaya and burnt the Bodhi Tree. Most, however, saw it as another step forward in dominating the continent and proving the might of the Olympians.

Regardless of the opinions of the Hierety, Alaricos saw it as a great success. The Indian realms still couldn’t stand against the Indo-Goths. Without fear of eastern opportunists, Bactria could put all its efforts towards defeating the Caliphate in the short and long term. The former meant increasing the ties between Olympian, Hindu, and Buddhist within the kingdom. The latter meant drawing up alliances across the Indo-Goth world, as well as beyond it. A steady stream of capable courtiers were sent to China with gifts, or were themselves gifts; the Emperor’s fascination with Rhomaion was insatiable, and he valued the Indo-Goth eunuchs over all others. It would be a great feat to convince the mighty Huizong of the value of an alliance with a puny kingdom halfway across the world, but Alaricos was more poised to accomplish it than anyone else.

At the Socratea of 855, the king pushed for friendliness between Olympians and Sarmanes once again, by further demonizing the Caliphate. In doing so, he had seized on the cause celebre of the prominent Sarmanes who had been agitating for action against the Caliphate after they had seized much of the western bank of the lower Sindh. The fleeing Jains and Hindus had strained the religious communities in the merchant republic of Multan supporting them, and subsequently the profits of the merchant families were diminishing. In short order, the Muhallabids had overshadowed the half-century oppression by the Olympians of the Hindus and Buddhists due to their heavy-handed conquests, and handed king Alaricos a gift. He famously concluded his oratory with a blessing that became a rallying cry: “Lord Ares, guide our swords; Lord Shiva, destroy our enemies.”

In 856, Alaricos’ efforts at tying the Kappadoki kingdoms together yielded fruit. His brother Hektorios, formerly dismissive of attempts at an alliance because of their king’s respective claims against one another, accepted a proposal. Having just barely put down a revolt of the Buddhist minority in the northern Kush, and losing most of his left arm and right leg in the process, Hektorios was desperate to secure his rule against any further insurrection.

As a show of this new partnership, Alaricos and his young son, Ioannikos, made a royal visit to Hektorios’ court in 857 with a contingent of warriors who had volunteered to shore up the defense of the frontier of Olympianism. Far more than Bactria, Indicus’ borders, to the steppe in the north and Tibet in the East provided a fighting man with opportunities to cut his teeth and earn himself glory, and thus a few hundred able men had come to see the king to Kashmir and remain behind when he and the pilgrims left.

They arrived to a court in chaos. Hektorios’ vassals paid him no mind, neglecting their feudal duties and levies, robbing his tax collectors to fill their own coffers, and insulting him in his own hall by their lack of decorum. Restoring order would have required Alaricos to overstep his bounds and insult his brother himself. However, in an incident that would become a popular subject of tavern architectural reliefs and peasant art, he did compel a minor Kome, Prokoros (called Prokoros Dirt-Eater in historiographical accounts) into besmirching his honor before wrestling him to the ground and supposedly forcing him to lick the floor in penance.

The event had a relatively minor effect on the behavior of the unruly lords of Indicus, but earned Alarikos some respect among them that would benefit him later. Ioannikos, despite his youth, was greatly affected by this show of strength, likening it to the stories in the Legends. Father and son bonded over their shared admiration for the stories of their people; Alarikos wondered if some distant descendant wouldn’t read of this exploit someday just as he and Ioannikos now read about Theodoric’s scouring of the steppe barbaroi.

Not long after the trip to Kashmir, Alaricos and his brother took up a correspondence and began to act largely in tandem. Alaricos’ efforts in the Temple had helped to reassure some of the Buddhists in Indicus after the uprising of 856 that the Indo-Goth religion was not as rigid as some of the Heirety proclaimed. However, most of those efforts had been aimed at bringing the Hindus into the fold, rather than the Buddhists, whose faith was more alien to the Olympian dharma. A great ‘renovation’ was undertaken by King Alaricos to establish an Olympian presence at Bodh Gaya with a shrine to Hestia, accompanying some not-so-subtle missives to the prominent Bhiksus as to their favored formal history of Siddartha Guatama.

The Prometheans were predictably outraged, and a number took their criticisms of the Diafotistis too far, calling on him to be overthrown or for a new Temple to be founded without a formal head. For Alaricos, enough was enough. Those who had spoken out too harshly were expelled from the Heirety and exiled from Bactria. The Arkheireus of Kanyakubja, a firm syncretist, was also the most powerful vassal of Bactria. His loyalty to Alaricos prevented any great stirrings in the hearts of the lords for the Prometheans, who watched silently while the factional struggle in the Temple was brutishly settled, at least for a time.

In Indicus, the situation had deteriorated since Alaricos’ visit, and another Buddhist uprising was being fomented. Hektorios, desperate, had knelt in tribute to the Tang governor of the western regions in 858. With China behind him, he hoped the peasants would know their place. But between his misrule and his vassal’s uncontrolled exploitation, the rebellion couldn’t be stopped. In the spring of 859, a former man-at-arms led the rebellion to arms. Hektorios called his banners and met them in a climactic battle in Gilgit province, which he won at the cost of his life. Having passed without a son, Hektorios’ titles passed to Alaricos, bringing Indicus into union under Bactria again.

Despondent at the loss of his brother, Alaricos was a marginal participant in the Sokratea of 859. The Sarmanes and Dharmaoi negotiated more than they debated, both sides having come to the conclusion that some grand syncretism of the faiths was inevitable. Resisting it could cost them everything, like the Prometheans. The final words of the event were a call to loyalty to the Temple and the realm, unified in the body of the Diafotistis-king, blessed by the Gods- ‘Deivanampeos’.

In 859, an envoy came from another Hektorios: this one was Alaricos’ cousin, the King of Parthia. He was embroiled in a war against Kyriakos of Balkh, a descendant of one of Theodoric the Conqueror’s bastard sons, a former vassal who had risen up to take the throne of Parthia for himself. This wasn’t of overwhelming concern to Alaricos, but what did get his attention was a warning of Muhallabid scouts that had appeared on the border in the latest months, which followed a number of the Caliph’s spies being found out and captured in the Herat region.

Hektorios wanted an alliance, and his envoy returned with the promise of one, as well as 3 thousand troops to break the siege of the King’s seat at Amol Keep. The forces of Balkh melted away before Alaricos, who turned around to aid the Parthian forces retaking Balkh itself.

The war came to a close in the summer of 861, as the crop fields of eastern Parthia went to seed and withered away. Hunger stretched its bony fingers across the Duchy, and Kyriakos was forced to contend with a certain defeat, by sword stomach. He chose sword, leading a sally from Castle Talaqan to its end. Before he could fight to the death, the Duke was knocked unconscious by a fall from his horse, and captured by the Parthians, who declared the rebellion over. Kyriakos was brought to the prosperous city of Merv and paraded through the streets to the jeers and missiles of the peasantry.

The celebratory mood in Parthia lasted only two months; autumn hadn’t yet set in when an army bearing the crescent of the Muhallabid Caliph crossed the border into Merv.

Alaricos accepted the call, relishing the chance to face the Caliph in what was becoming a tradition for the kings of Bactria. The levies were called to the King’s banner in Delhi, and he led them west. In the decade since his rule began, the military power available to Alaricos had expanded such that he could call on 12,000 men to follow him. This was still well under Caliph Mukhtar’s army of 20,000, but spread across such a vast empire, King Alaricos favored his chances to defeat the Muhallabids so long as he brought his forces to bear more quickly than than they could consolidate. The early maneuvers of the war went the way of the Bactrians for just this reason, with King Alaricos leading his men against the Muhallabid army led directly by Mukhtar. Alaricos moved aggressively, hoping he could kill or capture the Caliph and end the war decisively, but he wasn’t as lucky as he hoped.

Despite the early victories, the Muhallabids had yet to bring most of their armies into battle. For his efforts, Alaricos had only weakened them by a few thousand men who were easily replaced. Spies in the west began to report that the bulk of the Caliph’s army had assembled in Persia and were already marching to Herat. Even if the Parthians could defeat the evenly-matched Muhallabid force already in their territory and join the Bactrians, they would be overwhelmed by the greater army yet to come, which was estimated to comprise 17-20,000 men. Not only that, but the technology of the Muhallabids was still head and shoulders above the rest of Europe and the east; an evenly-matched fight was likely to go to the Caliph, let alone one lopsided in his favor.

The army retreated to the Bactrian border to regroup, while King Alaricos continued on to Delhi. It was early 873 now, and the time he had spent out of the capital, travelling through the old towns in the countryside made him realize that the capital had changed a great deal. Even in his ten year rule, it was a far different city than it was in 850. The architecture was completely alien to that of the Punjabi architecture in the provinces, or the purely Indo-Goth structural forms of Profiteya. Elements of both had combined to form something new. The food of the street vendors was different, too: fermented mare’s milk was served alongside spiced lentils, goat cheese and olives. A Heireus and a Pujari would circumambulate a temple together then pay homage to the god residing within it with goat’s milk or ghee, then hold debates on the temple steps as to the name and nature of the god. The Indo-Goth language had flexed to allow these changes, taking on loan-words and pronunciations from Hindi and lending much in turn to the Punjabi dialect.

At some point, this new culture began to be known by a new name: ‘Yona’, following a popular epic poem written by the Hindi poet Rakul of Sikandarya, ‘History of the Yona Kingdoms of India’. This history was first published sometime in the 840s to small fanfare, but gained popularity quickly as Alaricos’ anti-Islam rhetoric caught on with the Heirety and the Bactrian Hindi population.

Alaricos had little time to reflect on these changes. At the palace, he summoned Captain Daijia of the Dragon Army, the same mercenary group hired for his father by Emperor Huizong against the Muhallabids. They had migrated permanently to north India to take advantage of the conflicts there, and had severed ties to the empire. Their help didn’t come cheaply, requiring the near-emptying of the treasury to agree to contract to the Bactrians, but after a week of negotiations, the 6,000 elite warriors of Daijia’s command were marching west to join the Bactrian army, which was fending off a pitched battle with the superior first wave of the Muhallabid army. When Alaricos arrived with reinforcements, they turned around and took the war to the Muhallabids once again, meeting in a climactic battle near the town of Buzgan.

The Battle of Buzgan was one of the most violent battles of the century. At least 10,000 men were killed or wounded, over a third of the total number of participants, and though the Bactrians had carried the day, their losses prevented them from pressing home the victory.

However, in what had become a tradition in the Caliphate, the decisive loss on the battlefield had given rise to dangerous court intrigues. Prince Najib, calling on much of the same network of contacts King Theodoric II had built in the Caliphate, tried to have Caliph Mukhtar assassinated. Neither of these plots succeeded, but they had a dire effect on the Caliph’s ability to continue the war. Unable to safely move throughout the countryside or to trust his family not to usurp his throne in his absence, the Caliph sued for peace in late 864.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part X: Emperor Alaricos

Standard of the Yavanarajya
9th Century CE

“For eight hundred days, his majesty, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos of Kappadokya, has meditated on the dharma, as it was created by Zeyus and Brahma, taught by the Buddha, embodied in Heraklayas, Rama, Iason and Krishna, and brought into light by his holiness, Fotismenos Theodoricos All-Knowing. In this time he has not eaten of any living creature, nor engaged in unjustified warfare against enemies who struck him. He has given his worldly possessions to the needy, and refrained from unneeded speech and touch. Long has he been a pilgrim on a material path between the holy places of our faiths; at the same time, he has walked a celestial path. At the brink of starvation, destitution, and death, our king came to understand the two paths before him: the old way of decadence, and the new way of asceticism. Yet, before he could choose between these ways, he recalled the teachings of the Buddha. The Gods themselves illuminated the Middle Way that the Buddha had taught him to seek out, and Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos has walked the Middle Way since. Thus was our king enlightened.

In all things, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos shall now seek out the Middle Way. Long have our peoples argued over the arrangement of the universe and the correct way of honoring the Gods and heroes. But at the moment of his enlightenment, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos saw the Goddess Atina alight upon a tree and chastise him thusly: ‘Doth a baker learneth the baking of bread all as one? No, he learneth maza, then roti, then naan. Doth a shepherd combine cow, goat, and horse as one herd? No, he shepherds one creature, and knoweth that animal of which he shepherds. Doth a cobbler rectify a boot with carpenter’s implements? No, a cobbler’s implements must he use if he be a cobbler.” Thus the Middle Way was illuminated. By the decree of Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos, our Gods shall not be called by the same names, nor honored by the same rituals, nor reside in the same temples; yet all have their place in the heavens and must be honored in their way.

Long have Gothikoi and Indikoi chafed against one another, one the overseer and the other the peasant. At the moment of his enlightenment, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos saw the Deva Vishnu as he appeared, borne on the back of the serpent Shesha, the Sudarshana held determinedly aloft, and raged at Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos thusly: ‘Prideful mortal, who art thou to cast one people as subjects and the other as rulers? Thinkest thou higher than the Deva who justly sorted within the jatis every mortal soul? I sayest unto thou, from Vakuntha no mortal by his appearance is greater than another. Each will bend against injustice one way, until reed-like he bends backwards against the injustice. The wise king shall thus abolish the injustice lest war he induce in his own realm, and induce it from his one people and his other, and the Gods to judge against his merits the injustice he permitted.’ Thus the Middle Way was illuminated. By the decree of Blessed-of-the-Gods Alaricos, Indikoi will hereby be no longer barred from royal and noble appointments, nor from certain trades which were heretofore restricted for the employment of Gothikoi. The unjust rights of the Gothikoi will be hereby revoked, while the just privileges earned by right of conquest shall remain. Furthermore, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos shall restore the holdings of the Indikoi nobility where he sees fit to do so.

Of great concern has been the scripture and its inflexibility, being in the sole control of the Diafotistis. At the moment of enlightenment, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos saw the Buddha Sofoteros emerge before him from another path, and unto Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos He said thusly: ‘From whence doth wisdom come? Doth it spring fully-formed from the mind of a wise man? Perhaps it is so. But could not a wise man tend humbly the knowledge he receives, and from it separate the wisdom from the ignorance?’ Thus the Middle Way was illuminated. By the decree of Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos, the scripture shall be amended by the Sokratea, and not by the will of the Diafotistis alone. Thus the knowledge of all the people can be inscribed thereupon. The Diafotistis will henceforth appoint a minister to determine the Sokratea, will dictate which knowledge the Sokratea submits to him shall be amended within the Chronikó ton Thrýlon. Factions within the Heirety shall be forbidden. All Sarmanes are hereby Olimpyans. All Prometheans who accept the truth of the Middle Way and the decree of Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos shall be given amnesty.

To demonstrate his contrition and fealty to the just and merciful Deva, Beloved-of-the-Gods Alaricos hereby offers these one-hundred-and-eight cattle in sacrifice. Let this dais be understood to belong to the celestial realms. Hereby we give unto the enlightened beings this ghee, the product of these one-hundred-and-eight cattle…”
-Excerpt from the Enlightenment Edict, Agora Pillar, Delhi, 868

864 CE

Having defeated another Muhallabid invasion of Kappadoki territory, Alaricos declared a week of festivities in Delhi. The celebrations culminated in a great sacrifice of horse milk and clarified butter at the newly-built Temple of Apollo Aftokrator, then a procession to the agora, where Alaricos mounted the pedestal of the statue of Hermes to give a speech.

He declared that Islam was dead, and the victory at Buzgan had assured it. There would be no further victories for the Caliph, for the gods had turned away from him and could no longer see him. His children would be cursed for eighteen generations, and the fortune that left him would flow downhill to bless the people of India. Only unified and working together could they hope to take advantage of this blessing. In past wars, Gothikoi had failed to defeat the Caliph in battle. In past ages, Indikoi had failed to preserve India from his grasp. Gothikoi and Indikoi, working together, had not yet failed to scatter the Islamic invaders.

In honor of the unity of the 'Yavana Kingdom' - Goth and Indian united as one - , Alaricos swore to make a great pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, Badrinath, and Zeusea Indika to become enlightened, and to finally settle the differences between Olympians and Sarmanes.

Casks of wine were opened to the cheering crowds, who drank and feasted through the night. Alaricos did not join in. His proclamation of pilgrimage was somewhat sincere, and he planned to leave as quickly as possible. His retinue was gathered the next day and set off for Profiteya, from which he would go up into the Kush mountains to visit the temple of Zeusea, built on a mountain believed to be Olimpos, where the Gods resided. After a short time, he departed for Badrinath, where he meditated in the same place as Lord Vishnu. From there, he made the long trek East, to Bodh Gaya, where he sat beneath the Bodhi tree and contemplated the life of Siddhartha.

All of this, it turned out, was mostly for show. From Bodh Gaya, King Alaricos continued to travel east with a large retinue and a large sum of money and artifacts from the treasury. He bought safe passage through the Pala kingdom to the delta of the Ganges, where he, with his family and retainers, boarded an enormous ship bound southeast on the long route to China.

Even aboard royal vessels of the Tang court, the journey was long and arduous. Some weeks passed with little progress, the ships only moving by the efforts of the slaves rowing oars on the lower decks. The royal family was permitted as much food and drink as they desired, but Alaricos’ retainers had to abide by the strict regimen of rationing food and water by the flotilla’s captain. For the knights and advisers of the king, unused to the austere ways of the Tang court, this was trying, and had nearly become unacceptable by the time the fleet grew near Chang’an. Alaricos regularly smuggled his retainers rice wine to slake their thirst, and distributed honey from the royal apiary to them which he had intended as a gift for his father in law; it was of utmost importance to impress the emperor, and he would fail to do so if his companions insulted the honor of the Tang court before they had even arrived in China.

Emperor Huizong was a far more generous host than his royal admiral, greeting the Bactrian delegation with a grand feast and almost-overbearing service from an army of handmaids and servants. Huizong’s chief minister was a Rhomaiophile much like the Emperor, and engaged Alaricos in numerous discussions about the Olympian faith. In turn, Alaricos took in everything he could that related to the Chinese philosophy of Tao. Huizong, like the Tang rulers before him claimed descent from a great Taoist philosopher called Laozi. In turn, Alaricos’ children were also his descendants through queen Zhaopei.

While Alaricos was building ties to the court at Chang’an, chaos had erupted on the other side of the world with the premature death of Caliph Mukhtar.

Mukhtar’s heir Halil was still a child, and the realm had balked at the idea of another long, withering regency. Mukhtar’s cousin Khaireddin, Sultan of Arabia and Persia, attempted to declare himself regent, ostensibly to protect the Muhallabid rule over the empire. He lost the ensuing struggle of court intrigue and was unable to wrest control of Damascus from the vizier. When the cause was obviously lost and he faced the prospect of imprisonment or murder, Khaireddin fled to Medina and began to raise his forces to seize the Caliphate by force. At the same time, the Shaybanid dynasty of Syria declared their intention to overthrow the decadent Muhallabids, spreading the front of the war over the majority of the levant and Mesopotamia. Thus began what would soon be known as the Fourth Fitna.

Meanwhile, King Alaricos spent nearly a year in Chang’an, only arriving back in Delhi in 866. The Fitna raged on in the Levant, occupying all the warriors of the Arab world and leaving the extremities of their empire in peril. Alaricos took note of this, and was said to have sent his advisers ahead to plan an invasion while his delegation was still winding their way up the Ganges to the capital. True or not, the Bactrian army was raised and invaded the northern Muhallabid Sindh in the summer of 866, and met only token resistance. The ill-manned Muslim forts gave up with little or no fight, and the war ended in only a few short months as a resounding victory for Bactria.

The celebratory mood was dampened by plague in the capital, which had spread to a number of cities along the Ganges. Rumors whirled that King Alaricos’ delegation had brought the disease back from China; the most extreme among these rumors stated that the queen herself was the vector. Indian peasants began harassing Chinese merchants on the Silk Road and in ports along the Ganges. Real violence was rare, but only thanks to increased patrols by royal men-at-arms of the trade posts and roads. Acting as Diafotistis, Alaricos emerged from public seclusion in late 867 to declare that the anti-Chinese looters were a grave obstacle to his enlightenment, and thus, the enlightenment of the kingdom; the statement seemed to calm some of the tensions, which dissipated further as the plague receded in early 868.

With harmony returning to the countryside, Alaricos sent his Heirophant Witteric to organize a grand pronouncement in the Delhi agora. A century before, his great ancestor Theodoric had consulted the Gods before his war with the Khazaroi. Their approval had not only unified the people, but had led to his vision of conquest and prosperity. That vision had come to fruition, and the destiny of the Gothikoi was achieved. But what of the Yona? The people had become something different. The Gothikoi dream was one of a landed nation, free to practice their religion in peace. What did the Yona dream of? Enlightenment? Or was it something greater?

An enormous wooden dais was built in the Agora for the decree, which was decorated with icons of Olimpyan, Hindi, and Buddhist figures, garlands of jasmine and marigold flowers. A barrier was constructed around the dais to hold back the crowd. At a different end of the Agora, a mason had been contracted to carve a column some 65 feet tall, adorned with a Chakra and guardian owl, with a new, and final edict of Alaricos’, which was read out by Witteric before the crowd on the day of the pronouncement. It described fundamental changes to the Olimpyan understanding of cosmology, the privileges of the Indo-Goths over the Indikoi, and formalized the Sokratea as a body that would write religious law for the Diafotistis to approve or deny. All of this, Witteric declared, resulted from the enlightenment of Alaricos on his pilgrimage. Further, his enlightenment had revealed the true name of the kingdom of the united Gothikoi and Indikoi, which spanned from the Caucasus mountains in the north to the sea in the south, from the Sindh in the west to the : ‘Yavanarajya’.

From 868 and onwards, the Kappadoki Kings of the Yavanarajya would consider themselves the true heirs of both Ashoka and Menander; already the dominant minority in Delhi called themselves ‘Yona’ and made no distinctions between Indian and Goth. Inscriptions and icons from then on were dated according to the Yavana era that had begun during the reign of King Demetrius some 6 centuries before, such that 868 CE was dated to the year 1,043 Yavana and called the Year of Reincarnation. This was the dream of the Yona: not just a nation, but an empire

Barring a quick and relatively bloodless invasion of Bhakkar province in 869 to finalize Yavana control of the Sindh, Alaricos tried to maintain the non-violence he had committed to in 868. Most of the royal efforts were spent on organizing massive tribute payments to be shipped to Chang’an, including a steady flow of courtiers to serve as eunuchs to the Tang Emperor. For a brief and solitary period of time, these massive flows of wealth overtook the western flow of goods; in 868-875, though the traffic was still going west, the wealth was moving east.

This had an unprecedented effect on Kosala and the other territories downstream from Delhi on the Ganges. The Arkheireus of Kosala, Theodoric of Kimmerikon had used the new wealth flowing in to expand the holdings of the Bithor Temple Complex to the extent that, were he a noble, he could have called himself a king. In 872, he sent a missive to Emperor Alaricos asking to be crowned as the first Priest-King of Kosalas, to further the spread of Olimpyan ideals (and, implicitly, conquests) down the Ganges. Though it seemed counter to the professed non-violence of the Yavana court, Alaricos granted it for the sake of controlling and protecting more of the wealth he was sending to China. In honor of the past and present Arkheirei of Kosala who had supported the Kappadoki, Theodoric was crowned with a golden laurel; in what would become part of the coronation ritual of Kosala, he removed the crown, and vowed to reign as 'first among many' in the simple garb of a Heireus.

At the Caliph's court, the Fitna had taken a bloody turn towards its end. In early 873, with the war in the countryside threatening Halil’s court at Damascus, the young Caliph was moved with his courtiers to Ifriqya. This turned out to be a trap. Khaireddin’s son Hasan, who had inherited his father’s titles and his uprising in 872, had engineered the move to Ifriqya and had seen to the killing of his cousin and the taking of his titles. For this, he was known as Hasan the Evil, and his ascension to the Caliph's seat at Damascus was met with anger across the Islamic world. The Umayyad Sultan cut off ties with the Caliphate, and, anecdotally, the Heirei in the Sindh reported Muslim conversions had reached an all-time high; Islam had nearly been pushed all the way out of India.

Islam stood on a knife's edge; Alaricos decided he would push it and see where it fell. The time had finally come to enact what his father had envisioned. Theodoric II couldn’t grant his son a world free from the aggression of the Caliphate, but with the wedding of Alaricos and Zhaopei, he had set into motion a snowball that would become an avalanche pointed at Damascus. The fastest horsemen of Yavana were contracted to race their message to Xinjiang, where the Governor of the Western Protectorate would see it delivered to Chang’an. Five painstaking weeks later, the response came: China would go to war.

30,000 Han troops in two divisions came through Khotan into Sogdia, now under the rule of Alaricos’ cousin Zacharias. King Zacharias was famed for his sadism and cruelty, but was hospitable to the Chinese thanks to a number of bribes and threats from Yavana. Governor Gongfu didn’t tarry in Sogdia, moving his forces at speed to rendezvous with Alaricos’ army at Merv, in Parthia. The Yavana army had swelled to 13,500 warriors. Alaricos’ advisers had warned him that the Caliphate, even devastated from nearly a decade of internal conflict, would call up about 20,000 warriors to oppose the Yavana-Chinese alliance.

The Chinese forces moved north, occupying the Caliph’s territory around the Aral Sea, while Alaricos led his men into Zabulistan, where he had fought the Arabs before. Hasan chose to send his men against the Chinese, perhaps recognizing them as the more powerful of the forces arrayed against him. In early 874, Governor Gongfu succumbed to cancer, which had been aggravated by an infected wound sustained in a skirmish in northern Persia. His successor, Rangyi, was eager to end the campaign by defeating a Muhallabid army in the field, and abandoned his predecessor’s strategy of besieging the Caliphate’s holdings in the countryside for a more aggressive strategy.

Alaricos’ scouts lost sight of the Chinese sometime in early February as they crossed into Iraq, leaving devastation in their wake as they plundered the countryside for every crumb they could find.

The Battle of Damascus would enter history as one of the greatest of the era, and one of the bloodiest. All Alaricos knew of it, however, came from a report from Governor Rangyi, delivered to him at a siege camp in Zaublistan in April: ‘Caliph defeated at Damaskes. 20,000 dead or wounded. Capital destroyed. War is over.’

The defeat at Damascus was so devastating that when Emir Nazir of the Abbasids declared himself the true Caliph, none disputed his legitimacy over Hasan. The Arab Empire fell apart as the stress of a decade of intense war and a generation of warriors cut down on the field of battle overwhelmed the ties that had bound the Near-East together for a century.

The Muhallabids retained control of Persia and Arabia, but the rest of the empire - Africa, Egypt, Syria, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iraq, and Armenia all declared themselves independent, and Hasan the Evil could do nothing to rein them in.

Alaricos himself decided the war wasn’t over. Rather than disband his forces, he marched south, abandoning Zabulistan for territory he could reach more easily. Makran, at the south end of Balochistan, would give Yavana merchants easier access to the Persian Gulf and secure the Sindh from any potential Islamic resurgence.

Local forces in Makran resisted the Yavana army as best they could, but the forces of the Emperor were simply overwhelming. Alaricos’ heir, Ioannikos, served him as a commander in the Makran war, and while fighting with his men, was cut across his face and lost his right eye. In response, Ioannikos burned three mosques before being recalled by Alaricos. Through the rest of the campaign, which would stretch on through to late 877, Alaricos and Ioannikos commanded jointly, so that the younger could learn directly from his accomplished father, and Alaricos would have more time for his theological studies.

In fall of 877, Yavana rule was unchallenged in Makran, and Sultan Hasan had no choice but to surrender the province. After nearly a decade at war, the first true Army of the Yavana finally disbanded. Alaricos was formally inducted into the Society of the Fellows of Hermes upon his arrival in Delhi. The Hermetics had secretly gathered for decades throughout Hellas and Anatolia, but had relocated to Bactria upon learning of Theodoric II and Alaricos’ great interest in syncretism; central to the Hermetic Society was the idea that all religions had present within them some part of the essence of one correct theology.

For the rest of his life, Alaricos was devoted to the advancement of Olimpyanism as the highest form of a syncretic religion which could contain all other religions. Mohammed was not so different from himself, nor was the Qur’an so alien from the Dharma that the two could not be reconciled. If, someday, the distinction between Arab, Greek, Goth, Punjabi, and Yona fell away, why couldn’t the same become true of Olimpos and Allah, each a different descriptor of the same holy essence of the universe, contained within and without every mortal?

Even as age curled his spine and darkened his eyes, Alaricos’ light only seemed to grow. By age 50, he had stricken meat from his diet entirely, and he regularly swept the Apollo Temple and the renovated courtyard of the Yogamaya temple while speaking with visiting members of the Heirety. This now included a sect of dedicated Olimpyan Pujaris and Bikkhus, who were among the most eager recipients of the Emperor for the spirited debates they induced.

In 886, he was visited by a Tibetan Bikkhu named Anini Pal, who sought his wisdom. He asked Alaricos about a defeated people, abandoned by their gods, with nothing but despair to show for centuries of toil and struggle; how could such a people even begin to look for the path to enlightenment? Alaricos responded unhelpfully that the search for the path was the path itself. The Dharma could not put bread in someone’s mouth, but incidentally, he had found that a man who followed the Dharma rarely went hungry. “One who seeks enlightenment to fill his stomach will afterwards find himself starving and stupid. But one who forgets his stomach and searches to bring out the Gods within himself, and to incarnate the Gods that exist outside of him; he will find himself so nourished he has no need for bread.”

Anini Pal left him, and returned the next day in the garb of a noble. He was no Bikkhu after all, but a king of the Tibetans. His people called their land ‘Guge’, and yearned to become enlightened like the Yona.

Alaricos returned with Anini to Guge, and worked tirelessly to convert the Tibetans, building Temples, delivering alms to the poor, and building a Tibetan Heirety to continue his work after he returned to Yavana.

This would never come to pass. After four years of toil in the harsh climate of the plateau, Alaricos collapsed and died in 890, leaving his empire to Ioannikos.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Chapter XI: Emperor Ioannikos

Demoshek ‘the Goth’, 15th c.
‘The Four Conquerors’
Illustration from ‘Saga of the Kappadoki Warlords’


In the summer of the first year of Odotheos, Vasileos of Clan Soldaia, the famous Edict of Alaricos had just been delivered in Delhi which declared the end of Bactria and the beginning of the Yavanarajya. Heralds from Yavana rode throughout the land to every corner of the Earth to proclaim this message. In Gothika, where Soldaia ruled, the messenger of their friends to the east was met with hospitality and treated to a feast at the table of the Patriarkes in Itilos, the great tent city of the steppe.
Roasted goat and ‘wild cheese’ were served over flatbread, with more komis (fermented mare’s milk) than an army could drink in a month, with olives and wine, both rare and expensive on the steppe. The herald explained the arduousness of his journey over the Kush mountains, through war-torn Sogdia, and across the open steppe to Itilos; this was not a hard journey for Gothike, but they heard him with respect.
After the meal and a suitable sacrifice to Poseidon the Horse-Ruler, the herald was allowed to go before the Patriarkes and deliver his message. Over a long period of time, he recited the Enlightenment Edict as it was written on the stone in Delhi. To the Gothike, the language was overwrought and haughty, but they still listened with respect as the herald recited the Edict. A long time passed in droning recitation, broken only by the herald’s pausing when he needed to drink.
When the herald finally reached the end, the Patriarkes were quiet. Finally Odotheos spoke: “What is this ‘Middle Way’?” The herald explained as best he could. “And what is ‘Dharma’?” The herald explained this as well. “And who is ‘Vishnu’?” This as well, the herald tried to explain. These explanations were strange and circuitous to the Gothike, but they listened with respect.
With his questions answered, Odotheos said to the herald, “I know you are not a messenger, but when you someday return to the court of your King, you may see fit to tell him what I say: the Gothike follow the path before them and worship the Gods. To us the rest is the grass in a fallow field.”

Excerpt from the ‘Records of the Soldaia Fyli’ 9th c. CE,
Royal Treasury Museum, Delhi


890 CE
Half the world was in attendance for the funeral of Alaricos; or so it seemed to Ioannikos, his heir, who presided over the cremation of his body in a ceremony at the Temple of Apollo, and the securing of his ashes into the family catacombs beneath Theodoric’s Stupa on the bank of the Ganges, work on which had only begun a few years before Alarico’s death. They would rest there while Ioannikos finished plans to commission a great mausoleum of his own at the Kappadokion, the dynastic estate in northern Sthanisvara.

Delegations from every corner of the Earth were in attendance, and those who missed the funeral rites still streamed into the capital for the triumphal celebrations in the streets. The day after, Ioannikos led a military procession through the streets in lieu of a coronation, at the end of which he donned a helm in place of a crown. “I ask my people to not fear death,” he is known to have proclaimed, “but to embrace it. For the chosen, samsara is the gift of dying, rising again, and striking once more at your enemies.”

Deivanampeos Megalyteros Diafotistis Ioannikos - more commonly called 'Emperor' or Diafotistis, depending on which duties he was performing - was a curt and austere man like his father, but where Alaricos had been many things throughout his life, Ioannikos was but one: a soldier. He lived a spartan lifestyle even by comparison to Alaricos in his later years, eschewing the palaces built by his family and spending as much of his time away from his estates as possible. The management of the realm often fell to his brother, who was both seneschal and chancellor of the Rajya as well as the King of Sindh and Indikos, Apollodotos.

King Apollodotos began the practice of adopting a ‘Yavana’ name, which quickly spread throughout the nobility in the furor of Indikoi-Gothikoi unity Alaricos had inspired. Some adapted their given names to sound more Indikoi, while others adopted wholly Indikoi names, reserving their Gothikoi name for use in private.

Apalodatis was a skilled warrior himself, though not the extent of his more famous brother. What he lacked in martial prowess, however, he made up for in charm and a strong sense of duty. Despite there existing little love between the brothers, who had been born over ten years apart from each other, Apalodatis would serve Ioannikos faithfully for life, gladly managing a realm that would never belong to him and settling the petty feuds of vassals that weren’t his own.

The first concern of Ioannikos was the subjugation of the Arabs. His father’s dismantling of their empire had been only the start, as Ioannikos saw it. A duel didn’t end when you cut your opponent’s hamstring, nor when you flipped him on his back, nor when he yielded so that he could stab you in the back. The end of a duel was the moment you plunged your blade into your enemy’s heart, or when you cleaved his head from his body to exemplify your enemies. Peace didn’t come by way of truce, but by way of conquest.

The Fourth Fitna had proven to be truly futile by 890, as a child once again held the Muhallabids’ highest title as the Sultan of Arabia and Persia. His father, Aram, the son of Khaireddin (instigator of the Fitna) had died in a border skirmish with the ascending power of the Kingdom of Thrace. There was little will to tear the realm apart a second time to replace him, however, as the threat of the Rajya continued to loom large with the destruction of the Empire and the loss of Balochistan.

This cautiousness proved prescient when, at the start of 891, Ioannikos declared his intent to expel the Arabs from the lands they occupied in Parthia, which was “the rightful domain of the Kappadoki.” Both emperor and Sultan raised armies and marched them to the Parthian border, where they clashed in a series of battles around the city of Nishapur, ‘flint of the Deva’, where unsanctioned myths said Apollo or Surya were born or elevated from mortal bodies. Theodoric the Conqueror was said to have regarded it as an auspicious place out of respect for the Zoroastrians, who had greeted the Gothikoi as liberators from the oppressive Caliphate in the early 9th century.

The clashes continued until the summer of 891, when a feint by Ioannikos allowed his forces to split the Arab army in two and attack them separately. At the battle of Adraskan, his army marched against the larger of the Arab forces, annihilating them and forcing the other to rout without giving battle. The Yavana army took Nishapur after a few months’ siege in early 892, after which the Sultan ceded the territory.

There was no time for the army to celebrate the victory. Ioannikos drove them hard to the east, to aid the kingdom of Guge against a Bon rebellion; despite the efforts of Anini Pal, only half of his vassals had converted to Olimpyanism with him. The other half had capitalized on the distraction of the Parthia to return the kingdom to Bon rulership. Ioannikos vowed not to let that happen.

The Yavana army streamed into the lands of the Guge rebels, putting all resistance to the sword. The scant few thousand men willing to fight for the rebel leader, Taqla, were no match against the overwhelming force of Yavana, and they fled to the Tarim basin provinces in the vain hope that the dry plateau would starve Ioannikos’ forces before the battle came. This proved not to be the case; the Yavana returned home victorious before the winter equinox after slaughtering the rebels and flogging Taqla in front of the survivors. The prisoners were given over to Anini Pal, who would come to be known as ‘the Wicked’ for his treatment of the rebels.

The next years saw Ioannikos undertake what he called a ‘battle pilgrimage’. The greatest warriors of the realm were summoned to take up arms, train, fight, and prepare themselves and their neighbors to withstand the ‘aggression of the Sultan’, which he proclaimed an imminent threat to the realm. Ioannikos traveled to every great holy site and city in the empire, with great melees organized ahead of his arrival. In some cases he took part, in others he only watched. As Diafotistis, he introduced explicitly martial rituals, meant to cleanse the mind and strengthen the body, which he drew from Hindi and Hellenic tradition.

Most significantly, he recruited the best of the warriors he encountered in this time and began construction on a great hall and barracks in Delhi. These were to be the foundation of the House of the Wheel-Bearers, who adopted Atlas Stirigmenos upholding the Dharmachakra as their icon. Their common name was derived from this icon: ‘Atlantes’. Their temple-keep was called the Peraplinision, after a Greek term for Samsara, because the Atlantes had pledged to die in battle rather than seek out enlightenment, cursing them to continue the cycle of rebirth after their deaths.

Establishing the Atlantes, recruiting warriors and priests to join their ranks, and establishing an official hierarchy of rank both within the House and as relating to the Hierety occupied the greater part of Ioannikos’ time over the next five years. Most of the surplus of the royal treasury in this time went to outfitting the Atlantes, as well as the loyal lords of the Rajya, who had worked at Ioannikos’ command to increase the number of fighting men they could call on against the coming Arab invasion. The work of the Atlantes, and local soldiers looking for glory before the Gods, had an incredible impact on reducing banditry through the empire.

At the same time, anti-Islamic sentiment was rapidly growing as the Emperor continued to warn of the imminent threat posed by the Sultan, who was gathering men and putting all the treasures of the west towards enticing mercenaries and adventurers to help in the reconquest of India. So long as the ancient kingdom of Persia languished under the crescent and star, Yavana would always be under threat from the bloodthirsty sultans. Ioannikos called on all of his subjects to implore their neighbors to abandon Islam and to embrace the dharma.

Naturally, the most immediate outcome of Ioannikos’ decrees was violence against Sunni populations. In Bilot, across the Sindh from the Multani capital of Karwali, most of the wealth held by Sunni muslims was seized by the local Kshatriyas, who paid a fraction of it forward to the Atlantes. Despite professing to protect the innocent and promote harmony and peace in the Rajya, Ioannikos did nothing to prevent these assaults on the Muslim subjects of the realm. In fact, he seemed to encourage it, often speaking before soldiers and peasants of the 'evil nature of Allah', and how Muslims must therefore pursue evil to sate his thirst. It was the responsibility of Apalodatis to deal with the fallout from these encounters, smoothing over relations with lords sympathetic to Muslims, paying indemnities to lords who had lost subjects or property in pogroms incited by Ioannikos' rhetoric, and extracting promises of support in t

Wherever Prince Apalodatis wasn’t able to govern, the task was instead left up to the oft-careless nobility, many of whom were too swept up in Ioannikos’ efforts to root out Islam and militarize the populace to tend to the civil problems in their realms. In the north of Indikos, a small Buddhist uprising in late 895 was left to the local Kyrijes (originally a rank for long-standing men-at-arms, eventually becoming a sub-caste of Kshatriyas) to stamp out; they failed to do so and were strung up by the rebels. By the time Ioannikos was made aware of the seriousness of the situation in 896, it was too late. Orthodox Buddhists had flocked to the north of Indikos from all over the region and heavily trapped the mountain passes. Re-subjugating the region would cost thousands of men at an inopportune moment, and threaten the unity of the Dharma. Thuis unacceptable to the Emperor. Kasake would go free, for the time being.

To secure some kind of semblance in the northern hinterlands, the Emperor set his brother towards pursuing a new alliance with Sogdia, which he also hoped could be returned to Kappadoki rule. Given the misrule of the last few generations of Sogdian kings, Ioannikos held no ill-will towards the infant queen Viviana or her father, who had wrested the kingdom from Ioannikos’ wicked cousin Zacharias ‘the Tormentor’. Infamously, he kidnapped the much-loved Comes of Chaganyan and burnt him at the stake for ‘apostasy’ in order to pilfer the Comes’ wealth, among alitany of other crimes for which his vassals had overthrown him in 893.

Queen Viviana’s regent, her uncle Doricos, was amenable to the Yavana overtures. A wedding between the queen and Ioannikos’ third son was agreed upon in 897, creating an alliance between Sogdia and the Rajya.

Ioannikos’ efforts towards driving Islam from the realm and building support for a larger war against the Sultanate continued in the intervening years. In less than a decade, the Atlantes had gone from non-existent to commanding as much strength as some the smaller kingdoms of India, and Islam had been nearly eradicated east of the Sindh. The ranks of willing warriors available to be commanded by Ioannikos swelled to ever greater heights. By Apalodatis’ estimate, in the winter of 899 some 20,000 men would be available in the event of a war. That was nearly as many as the Muhallabid Caliphs at the height of their power, and almost certainly more than they could count on to defend their lands now, divided as the Levant was.

In 900, the Shia Caliph in the far south of the Arab peninsula declared a Jihad for the Sultanate of Iraq, where religious order had broken down entirely. The Sunni Shaybanids had been expelled in an uprising of Arab Christians in 893 who installed the Qasrids, who were subsequently defeated and subjugated by the Shaykah of Baghdad, a Shia muslim; shortly thereafter, the Nestorian Christian minority joined the Messalians in supporting the Qasrids, who retook the Kingdom. The Shia could not accept any Christian rule over Baghdad, let alone the rule of a sect as strange as the Messalians.

For Ioannikos, this was the opportunity to finally wield the power he had been building since his accession. He held a gathering at the Peraplinision a week later and described a vision entrusted to him by Surya-Helios of the two futures of Yavana: if the Yona sat by and waited to defend themselves, they would fight this new Caliph on their own land, at the Caliph’s leisure and advantage, and it would be the ruin of the Rajya. Be they Sunni or Shia, Islam would never see fit to stop at the Kush.

The other future shown by Surya-Helios was one of peace and prosperity under the gaze of Olimpos, from the Bay of Bengal to the Aegean Sea, which could only be rendered in the crucible of war. An all-powerful realm of Yona, Indikoi, Gothikoi, Rhomaioi and Hellenes, harmoniously living in peace with one another was not only possible, but the inevitable will of the Gods acting through the Emperor, and the Emperor through his subjects. This vision was the true one, the one that must come to pass.

It was pleasant in the eyes of the Gods to look in longing towards the Western Heaven. More pleasant was to approach it. Ioannikos would lead the Atlantes there, as well as any many who followed him; and though they could not hope to march from Delhi to Nirvana on foot, the closer they came by one route, the closer they would be when they started another. The more of their enemies they defeated in this life, the fewer would be their obstacles in the next. Peasant, criminal, atheist, noble, heretic, and traitor; all were called to join the march and take enlightenment - and the sword - into their own hands. The destiny of the Yona was beginning to take form, and all who helped in pressing it forward would be rewarded in this life and the next. Of this, Ioannikos was certain.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part 12: Ioannikos ‘Yuddhamakos’

The Cleansing of Shah Anedashemnad Bahram
(Alt. ‘Fire-Trial of Pantlyan Stokadaraja at the Persian Temple’)
15th century CE​

900 CE
900 marked the beginning of what promised to be the greatest war yet between the Arabs and the Indo-Goths and their descendants. The Yona called this the ‘Yuddhamaki’ after the Yuddha, a syncretism of Ares, Shiva, and apocrypha surrounding Theodoricos the Conqueror and Alexander the great. Many of the Atlantes held the Yuddha in high esteem, despite the protests of more orthodox members of the Heirety, and their shields were often adorned by images of a spear with a serpent handle or a Corinthian helmet with the moon as its crest, both symbols of Yuddha.

Ioannikos led the Atlantes as the vanguard of the great army of the Yavana, bringing them west, across the Suleyman mountains, and directly into Muhallabid Persia before support was behind him. More than out of fervor, he did so to secure a greater commitment of troops from his vassals. Over the century, they had grown quite powerful and independent, but the most powerful among them were still Kappadoki. If the emperor died or were captured, it would be calamitous to them. Thus, the more resources they sent to support the war, the better they could avoid catastrophe.

Ioannikos’ brother, Apoladatis, was King of Sindh and Indikos, and his heir, Sagrayus Agateclaya was the lord of Profiteya and Raskumaros Ghandara. His nephew Amtiyalkan ruled Maru, a small but highly-developed raskumarity near the Deccan, which dominated the neighboring territories. The sprawling province of Makran was ruled by a scion of the house Kimmerikon, an ancient cadet dynasty of the Kappadoki. Finally, the Priest-King of Kosalas still owed the emperor a debt of protection from the secular nobility, who frequently petitioned to revoke the title and divide the ‘Auspicious Kingdom’ into the hands of greedy lordlings.

In early 902, Ioannikos and his warriors entered Persia. All who followed him were granted the honorable epithet ‘Fotismenos’ as the most illuminated figures and most easily-seen from the mount of the Gods. The Fotismenoi were held in high regard during and after the war, with the term sometimes being used interchangeably with ‘Atlante’ for a holy warrior of the dharma. The experiences of the Fotismenoi in Persia and on their return to Yavana would come to define the course of the Rajya over the next century.

​

As the ‘Yuddha Army’ of Ioannikos began to take over the eastern territories of Persia, the Catholics in Europe were conspiring to their own great holy war. During the latter half of the 9th century, Christendom had seen monumental losses on every front to its neighbors: Islam was taking root in southern France, while vikings pillaged and conquered the northern and English coasts. Sicily and southern Italy were firmly in the grasp of Hellas and Epirus, both of which had stabilized after decades of internal turmoil. The Pommeranians had expelled Christendom from all of Saxony and now hungrily eyed Frisia. The greatest institution of Catholicism after the Church itself, the Holy Roman Empire, had been eviscerated by the Slavs and by internal heretical uprisings, leaving it a mere shadow of its former power. All over the Christian kingdoms of Europe, free-thinking heretics defied the church and proliferated in such numbers as to make even an inquisition against them a monumental endeavor.

Thus, in the face of intense pressure from without and within, the Pope declared a holy war in northern Italy, where the Fraticelli King Federigo had laid claim to the whole peninsula, including Rome. This was not only a threat to the Church, but an opportunity. Federigo was weak, his lands as divided between mainstream and heretical sects as any true Catholic kingdom while lacking the long-standing ties and traditions of the Catholic church. Further, his territory lay near the remaining Catholic heartlands of the Empire around the Alps and southern Germany, meaning the aid of the Holy Roman Empire would be more likely and more useful. Yet the greatest opportunity of all was to reverse the tide of history, which had turned against the Church and delivered it loss after loss. If Italy could be saved, so too could Burgundy, Occitania, Saxony, and Aengland.

Meanwhile, the war in Persia continued apace through 902 without sight of any major Arabic armies. The forces of the local lords were easily swept away by the combined forces of the Rajya, and the morale of the opposing troops was falling precipitously with every failed skirmish and surrendered keep. It was presumed the Muhallabids were gathering their forces somewhere in middle Arabia, and would thus be a long time in reaching eastern Persia. The port at Hormuz became a top priority for Ioannikos, as locking it down before the Arabs could cross the Gulf would force them to the long way around through Iraq. Their only other option at that point would be to load the troops onto ships to make the crossing, and if the Muhallabids were willing to do so, they would have done it by 903.

​

The Shia-Christian war in Iraq came to a close in the spring of 903, as the local Shia overtook Baghdad and broke the supply lines of the Qasrid forces. The Shia of Baghdad installed the granddaughter of the first Shia Caliph Shujah to the throne, with the backing of the current Caliph in the southern reaches of Arabia. For his part, Ioannikos wasn’t sure what to make of Sultana Shokouh; she was no ally of the Muhallabids, but was still a Muslim. When the Yona reached the edge of Persia, wisdom might dictate they keep up the march and see if the ‘House of Wisdom’ was truly as splendid and auspicious as common knowledge held.

By mid summer of the same year, small advance forces of the Muhallabids had finally reached the front in Persia, only to be shattered just like the local soldiery. Captured Arab warriors told a dreary tale of defeatist Emirs and apocalyptic Imams throughout Arabia, and failure from the top down to even recognize that the war was ongoing. Some of the Arabs expressed openness to the dharma, but few were willing to consider rejecting Allah.

The emperor’s highest military adviser, Strategos Ergica ‘Ironside’ of Trigarta, advised Ioannikos to try a light hand with the Muslims going forward, especially in occupied Persia. In a message to the emperor, he wrote that the Muslims were led to believe from a young age that there were no Gods besides their Allah, and that to acknowledge any others was a sin of the highest order. It would take time to bring them into the fold, just as it had taken time for the Hindus and Buddhists to accept the truth of Olimpos, but he believed they would someday find their way to the Noble Eightfold path.

At the Yavana war camp near the city of Bandar Abbas, which the army was preparing to besiege, Ioannikos rode his war horse ‘Vijayee’ as if on a procession through Delhi. Soldiers on the dirt thoroughfares bolted out of his way or flew to their knees to bow in the hastily-dug gutters. As befitting the size of the army, the tent encampment was massive, so Ioannikos fell into a meditation as he rode, closing his eyes while Vijayee carried him, his hands reflexively forming the dharmachakra mudra. As he grew older, Ioannikos often found himself meditating by instinct, especially as a reaction in moments of excitement to prevent himself from taking rash actions.

Sometimes he wondered if such a reflex could have prevented his storied ancestor from making his ill-advised trek into Tibet; the Legends said he had been drawn there by the Gods, but Ioannikos doubted that. In his experience, the Gods had little power to make a man take action where he wasn’t already predisposed to take action. Why else would Orpheus defy the warning of Persephone and look back at Eurydice before she crossed the threshold of the living world? Why did the field crow defy the marsh crow Bodhisattva and go into the reeds in the water, where it drowned? Why did King Daksos not invite his father-in-law Lord Shiva to his sanskaar when this was conditioned on the wedding of Lord Shiva and Daksosiana? One lesson was obvious: the Gods do not force mortals’ hands, but guide them lightly and leave them their consequences.

The tent of Ergica was the tallest in the camp and embroidered around the edge of the top canvas with sky blue and red patterns of waves and flowers, so that passing underneath it was like going under a canopy. Further embroidery up the tent showed lotus flowers, bodhi leaves, and auspicious patterns of renewal and cyclical growth. On the ritual mornings, an icon of Gnosistos Archistos, or ‘Ganesha’ as the Indikoi knew him, was raised on a wooden pole to be inhabited by his Godhood, or by whatever God his icon was used to receive, before being brought inside to inhabit it as His or Her temporary Earthly abode. There were no rites this morning, or else Ioannikos would have been attending his own private ceremonies, but soldiers still came to circumambulate the tent or pray before it like a Temple, thickening the crowd of soldiers around it. Ioannikos slowed Vijayee here and sent Eskandar in to fetch Ergica, who came back with Eskandar from behind the tent atop his horse.

Together they rode out from the tent to the village of Sarzeh, whose western delineation was a tiny mosque with a squat minaret that peered just barely above the mud-brick houses of the village. In addition to Ioannikos, Ergica, and the companions, the group contained three of the emperor’s sons and their bodyguards, making them well over 3 dozen in splendid robes, tack, and armor. On sighting the approaching Yona, the villagers of Sarzeh fled into their houses or were in the process of fleeing, averting their eyes from the warriors in the hopes of escaping notice. As the Yona rode, Eskandar shouted that the villagers must come to the mosque and see what would happen. Another companion at the back of the procession repeated the shouting, so that everyone would hear.

At the mosque, the companion Brahmanarayan went in to fetch the Imam. He re-appeared a moment later behind a short man, old but seemingly healthy for his age, in a turban and a threadbare robe and tunic. Brahamanarayan translated between the two men. The Imam, impetuously but with a kind voice, spoke first: “Good afternoon. I am called Yousef.”

“You address Deivanampeos Megalyteros Ioannikos of the Yavanarajya. Bow before his majesty,” said Eskandar, but Ioannikos intervened.

“That’s not necessary,” said the emperor, who dismounted and walked before the Imam, who bowed his lightly in greetings.

“Thank you, your majesty. I can not bow, at my age, without a great deal of help to turn upright again.”

Ioannikos turned his shoulders and looked out towards the sea, which was just visible on the horizon from the front of the mosque. A small crowd of men had come from the village and stood well away from the companions and the mosque, but drew nearer as the conversation went on and their curiosity overcame their caution. Pointing, Ioannikkos asked, “Makkah is somewhere in that direction, isn’t it?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“You prostrate towards the Kaaba?”

“Yes, your majesty. We call that direction the Qiblah.”

“It is wise to know where one stands in relation to a holy place,” said Ioannikos. “Tell me, if you lived a thousand years, would you ever renounce Allah as your only God? Would you pray in a different direction?”

Yousef bowed his head. “No, your majesty. Allah, blessed and lofty, is one, and there is no equivalent to Him.”

“Would you accept him by another name?”

“No, your majesty. He has one name, and we know it to be true by the revelations of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

Eskandar slowly broke from the companions and began to go around the mosque. Some of the Persians watched him, but turned back when he rounded the back of the mosque.

“And because Allah is one, and there is no equivalent to him, you could not worship another God, not even as a subordinate to him.” Yousef shook his head solemnly. Ioannikos turned to Ergica. “The Imam says he would waste a millennium rejecting the dharma. Is that long enough to call him a lost to us? Shall we wait until the gandharvas come down from Olimpos and tell the good Imam that his Qiblah is pointed the wrong way?”

Ergica grimaced. “I apologize, your majesty.”

“You don’t need to. I have let my cruelty speak for me. I shall follow your example of compassion.”

Ioannikos turned away from Yousef and got back on his horse. Eskandar was coming around the other side of the mosque and rejoined the group at the same time as the emperor. Ioannikos conferred with another companion, who held out a sheathed sword for him. He drew it, and the Persian men gasped and cried in fear for Yousef. Some of them ran back to the village, but a number stayed behind to see.

Ioannikos turned towards the Imam, rode up, and held the sword over his head. “As an unrepentant heathen and denier of the truth of the dharma, I sentence death on the priest called Yousef of Sarzeh temple. May the Gods bear witness that I have ruled justly and in order.”

The imam closed his eyes, accepting the coming death, while his flock looked on in horror. Their transfixed faces changed to confusion as Ioannikos lowered the sword gently, then brought it back to his front, holding it at attention.

“By my authority, most-blessed and greatest ruler before the Gods Ioannikos I of the Kappadoki, I hereby spare thee. However, your temple is the abode of a false god and shall be destroyed by the will of Zeyus Aftokrator, who reigns supreme over Olimpos and the world.”

Brahmanarayan took the Imam by the arm and brought him to the Persian men so that he wouldn’t resist the burning of the mosque. He spat out untranslated curses while Eskandar and two other companions went into the mosque and then left it, with smoke at their backs. The oil which Eskandar had poured on the back of the mosque was quick to alight. Soon, the little mosque was lost beneath a raging fire whose warmth licked Ioannikos’ nose. “I do this for my Gods, and for Zoroaster, the prophet of the Lord of the Wisdom, a God we know and honor. May this cleansing flame please him and drive the false god Allah back to his house in Makkah. He shall have no abode in Parsiyah."

The companions cheered, and soon left after making clear to the Persian men that further practice of Islam would be punished. When they arrived at the camp again, the idol of Gnosistos was raised for a celebratory ritual.

Ganesha Idol of Yannakas Maharaja
9th century CE​

The razing of the mosque at Sarzeh was disseminated quickly through the army and inspired a number of similar razings, as well as sporadic violence against Muslims. The traditional turbans and coats of the Parsees, Zoroastrians who had fled Persia for India to practice their religion in peace, began to be worn widely by Persians who could afford such garments in the hopes of signalling to Yona soldiers and magistrates that their wearer was Zoroastrian, or at least were more loyal to their own lives than the Caliph or the Sultan.

903 had already been an eventful year, but wasn’t to finish without further spasms in the shape of the world. The Pope declared victory in August from the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Milan, and began a series of reprisals against the local ‘Fraticellis’, driving those remaining in northern Italy into the countryside. As an unintended consequence, heretics fleeing the violence of the triumphant crusaders fled to Occitania in great numbers, further entrenching anti-Catholic sentiment there and weakening efforts to re-assert the Church’s authority.

King Nezir ‘the Protector’ entering Florence
Joseph-Nicholas Robert-Fleury
1840​

The deposed king Federigo was captured a month later trying to cross the Alps ahead of winter, hoping the snow would close the way to pursuers. Famously, he was undone when his bodyguard, the esteemed knight Fortebraccio di Mede, called him ‘Il Gallo’, an obscure nickname for him that was nevertheless-recognized by a passer-by who alerted the local constable. Braccio was killed defending his lord, and Federigo would be mocked throughout history by the coining of the idiom, “rooster’s flight” for an endeavor undertaken by a fool. Worse for him was his execution by burning at the stake after a parade through the streets of Roma.

In Persia, the Yavana army stormed the under-manned keep at Bandar Abbas. From the port they captured vessels to carry detachments to Qeshm and Hormuz islands, whose few defenders were caught flat-footed by the speed of the attacks. With the fall of Bandar Abbas, the strait of Hormuz was essentially uncrossable by the Muhallabid army. The only way from Arabia to Persia would be by transport ships or march through Basra, which was now controlled by the Shia. Their only hope of keeping Persia now relied on summoning enough men from the northern plateau and Azerbaijan to secure a landing for a more-numerous army from Arabia. Ioannikos split his force into three; 5,000 horsemen would race to Basra and resist any Muhallabid forces there, while a further force of 5,000 would advance more carefully up the coast to look for potential landing sites. The rest of the army went about requisitioning supplies for the march north into the highlands.

A few days after they had left, a ship came from Arabia bearing diplomats from the Muhallabid court. They met with Emperor Ioannikos, and attempted to angle for monetary recompense in exchange for the surrender of the Persian crown. Ioannikos refused these, understanding that the diplomats had arrived to surrender, not negotiate, in the hopes of keeping the Caspian territories as ostensibly under their sovereignty. After a few days’ of posturing and threats, the diplomats crossed the gulf, which now separated the Muhallabids from the Yavanarajya. The Yuddhamachy was won.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Since I don’t have a save from 900, this world update is going to cover 800-904, which is more interesting anyway because of the holy wars. I wrote most of this update before cleaning up borders for pictures, so apologies if I missed anything in my final pass of the text that changed with border adjustments. Not sure what precipitated the explosion of Catholic heresies, which I stopped referring to by their in-game names since all of the heresies used in the game arose after the 11th century, as far as I can tell. Might have to change the names if the Catholics don't re-assert control soon, but I haven't thought out what exactly that would be or what those heresies would really be about - probably the inability of Catholics to defend their realms from heathens or something like that. Much to think about! Anyways...

World Update - 904 CE

Religions of the world, 904 CE

Cultures of the world, 904 CE

More so than the remarkably-violent 8th century, the 9th century was a hundred years of conquest, turmoil, dissolution, and death. In Europe, the fall of the Orthodox Christian east had been cautiously celebrated by Catholics at the time as a potential end to the schism of Christianity. Instead, it spread, prompting the foundation of new fault lines throughout Christendom. The greatest of these fault lines had arisen in British Isles, where every major power had turned against the decadence of the church in favor of local heresies by the middle of the century. Continental Europe was the chaotic battleground of what became known as the Roman Wars, because they were precipitated by the flight of Christians from the eastern Roman Empire after its dissolution by Theodoricos, the decadence of the Catholic church in Rome, and the fact that the fiercest fighting took place in and around the Holy Roman Empire with concern to the future of that institution.

Italy was divided into two realms, with the south and central-east of the peninsula controlled by Greek pagans while the rest was nominally controlled by Catholics. In fact, Christian heretics were abundant throughout the countryside, equally opposed to the Catholics and the Despots. The efforts of the Greeks to convert the people had met with greater success than those of the Catholics, however, because the Olimpyans had some sympathy for the worshippers of Christ, where the Catholic Church could abide no dissent so near the holy see itself and frequently repressed and massacred heathens and heretics. The Italian Crusade represented a potential turning point in the decay of Italian Christianity, as it united the lands between Rome and the Alps under one Catholic king for the first time since the 830s. However, if King Nezir is unable to suppress the heretic nobility he has inherited as vassals, the security of Rome will be under threat once again with only the embattled Holy Roman Empire to protect it.

The situation in France was all the more dire. In the 850s, vikings from Sweden and Denmark both made landfall on the coasts, expanding their raiding activities into full-blown conquests. The Swedish vikings had secured all of Normandy and large tracts of Brittany, while the Danes had taken Poitou and Bordeaux. Smaller viking lords had taken the rest of Brittany and Flanders. In the south, the success of Umayyad forays into France had inspired an uprising of Occitan Muslims that had succeeded in gaining independence from both the Umayyad Badshah and the Roman Emperor, united more by cultural resistance to foreign rule than by religion. The Occitan kingdom was nominally friendly with the heretic lords of the Burgundian Confederation, their closest fellow hold-outs against the Holy Roman Empire, which had swept into France and Aquitaine following the Merohingi-Karling disputes of the early 9th century.

Germany had become the crucible of empires, as the sprawling Kingdom of Pomerania and the Holy Roman Empire swallowed their neighbors in a race to eclipse the other. Despite its great extent of territory, the Empire is split along cultural and religious divides that have nearly threatened its existence since its establishment by the Karlings in 854. The current Empress Irmeltrud managed to unite the faithful Catholic lords thanks to her diplomatic charm, and her rule has seen the heretics expelled from the Imperial heartlands of Alemannia. At the same time, the heretics fully control the countryside around the Rhine, and the likely successor to the Empire, Duke Oberto of Verona, has had little success expelling the heretics from his own demesne.

The decline of the Karlings over the 9th century has been a great blessing for Pomerania, which has seized a great deal of power in the wake of the Karling’s feuds. When Karl I was deposed by the Frankish nobles in 793 for his cousin, his taking of Saxony had not only ignited Merohingi-Karling disputes, but also left Saxony extremely vulnerable by exiting it from the Empire. The Pomeranians exploited that weakness, and by 904, Saxony was reduced to a backwater state of disconnected territories awaiting conquest by a strong Pomeranian king. Bavaria is in a similar situation. That Pomeranian monarch might soon arrive in the personage of Magda the Warrior, the heir apparent to the incompetent King Sambor of Pomerania, who lies on his deathbed from an infected wound.

Scandinavia, formerly the home of fierce vikings, had become a second heartland for Catholics thanks to the conversion of the Noregr and Danish monarchs to Catholicism. This seems unlikely to last in 904, as Holmger ‘the Confessor’ of Denmark seems likely to be replaced by his electors with a Norse pagan, and Gunnhildr of Noregr has failed in three battles to discourage the vikings of Gotland from their invasion.

The British Isles were the great bastion of Christian heretics from the 840s, when the initial wave of heretical uprisings was met by acquiescence from the nobility throughout the region. The final nail in the coffin for British Catholicism was driven by Queen Praxida the Great, who arose from a Sami village on the coast of the White Sea to lead an invasion of York, where she adopted the language and heretical religion of the Anglo-Saxons there, then conquered the other English lords to unify England for the first time since the Roman conquest, nearly a thousand years before. The only reigning Catholics left in the Isles by 904 were the Petty Kings of Somerset and Munster, who between them controlled very little territory. The only obstacles to the Picts and English were the Petty King of Ulaidh in northern Ireland, and the ‘Svidlagh’ along the channel coast, where the Swedish vikings had carved out a strong territory for themselves.

Eastern Europe and the western steppes were a melting pot of Slavic and steppe peoples in constant flux. While the western Slavs, Balts, and Finno-Ugric peoples remained disunited through the century, their disorganization allowed the Greco-Goths and Serbians to make huge gains against them. Serbian Pannonia conquered territory as far north as Lithuania, while the Serbian King Vuk had pushed the borders of the kingdom through Wallachia and all the way to the Dnieper in the north east, and to Thessalonike in the south. In both cases, it was the Gothic Olimpyan clans that stopped the further expansion of Serbia. The Itilos clan had broken free of the main horde in Gothia and conquered much of the Khazarian steppes and the Crimea, then turned north and subjected much of the Meschera and Mordvin tribes to their rule. By 904, they controlled the western Volga all the way up to Lake Onega.

The four kingdoms established by Theodoricos the Conqueror to rule the former Roman empire all remained in Greece and Anatolia, though with much-changed borders. Thrace had expanded greatly under King Kyriakos, who was regarded as the ‘Bodhisattva of Armenia’ for his efforts at converting the kingdom, from 875 until his death in 888, at which point the throne passed through his daughter to his grandson Sisebutus of the illustrious Soldaia clan. The kingdom of Anatolia suffered a rocky history since the murder of its first king Andronikos, having lost much of its territory to the Orthodox uprisings in the 830s, most of which were put down by the Tracians. The kingdom in 904 clung to its southern coast for life, forced to watch most of the lucrative silk road trade pass by on its way to Byzantion. Hellas and Epirus had both lost territory to the encroaching Serbians in 860-880, but made large gains in Italy that maintained their power while the Serbians were over-extending in the steppe.

At the same time that the Catholics were fighting to maintain control, the institutions of Islam were also struggling to survive, though their threats were mostly external. The long-standing Empire of the Arabs, centered on the personage of the Caliph, was destroyed by the north Indian Yonas, leaving Arabia, the Levant, and Iraq feuding between desperate Emirs, fringe religious minorities, and the seemingly-unstoppable march westwards of the Yona empire. Persia, under the rulership of Muslims for 250 years, was finally wrested back, and the worship of Ahura Mazda permitted once again. The Muhallabids, who had usurped the Abbasids for control of the Caliphate, had briefly lost it after the dissolution of the empire before reclaiming it once again from Northern Africa, where they were still recognized throughout the Islamic world. Despite their seeming fall from grace, the Muhallabids still control Arabia, Egypt, and the Sunni Caliphate in Ifriqiya, and nominally hold the Emirs of Daylam as vassals.

The true center of Islamic power had moved to Spain. In 904 the Umayyads still reigned over the Iberian peninsula, their rule only interrupted by Aquitaine in Barcelona. Christianity, on its last legs by the 850s, was nearly wiped out with the Christian kingdoms the Umayyads had destroyed. The only sizable minority of left was a heretical sect centered in Portucale, but with the Roman Empire paralyzed by heresy in its borders, it seemed unlikely that any Christian would reign again in Iberia for a long time yet.

In India, the Olimpyans’ early conquests in India slowed as the Kappadoki began focusing on the Islamic threat to their empire in the latter half of the century. The dharma marched on without them, calling the Guge kingdom in Tibet and the Tejapalid Malwan kingdom as home before the turn of 900. While the Hindus and Buddhists along the Sindh and Ganges had proven receptive to the dharma, the Jains of Rajasthan were more resilient, especially with the focus of the empire turned west.

The Tibetan Empire under the Purgyal dynasty suffered a number of setbacks in the first half of the century, but recovered much ground in the 880s and 90s as the rebellious Himalayan vassals slowly returned to the fold as a safeguard against the Guge Olimpyans.

The Rajya’s internal affairs changed drastically over the century. Through the early 800s, during the Bactrian period, the kings and their governors were focused on promoting the welfare of the Greco-Goths and the Hellenic religion. As time wore on and the impossibility of Hellenic Gothikoi supremacy became more apparent, the goals of the kings shifted to integrating certain Indian cultural groups into a mutual community with the Gothikoi, using religion as the primary means of bridging the gap between the Punjabi people and their overlords. From this arose the beginnings of the Yona culture, which was quickly embraced by the Kappadoki and used as a basis for empire. As the cultures and religious practices of the peasantry expanded with the borders of the empire, the syncretic religion of the Olimpyan dharma and the Yona culture struggled to integrate, necessitating an outside enemy to unify against. Local and regional conditions made the choice obvious; first it was the Arab empire and the caliphs, and when that fell, Islam itself was cynically engineered by successive emperors of the Rajya to be the enemy of all Indian people. The culmination of this in the anticlimactic Yuddhamachy seems to have put the truth to the lie, and it remains to be seen if the Yavanarajya can soothe its internal contradictions without an outside threat against which its disparate people can be united.

Religions of northern India, 904 CE

Cultures of Northern India, 904 CE

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part XIII: Ioannikos ‘Vidyaraja’

Investiture of Yahyanakosh by Ahura Mazda and Artemis, the Yona Iwan at Taq-e Bostan, 10th century CE

We, the warriors of the Yuddha Gods: Areyas, Mangala, the Polemos, and others; hereby declare the defeat of the Mallabaya Kingdom and the liberation of all Parsiya, from Khozisthan to Nishapuras. No longer shall the followers of the bodhisattva Zarathustra be persecuted, but shall be honored for their faith in the Gods which delivered them from their oppressors.

In honor of His Majesty’s wisdom and fortitude, we Yuddhamakoi declare this city and the province named for it shall now bear his name, ‘Ioannika’, so that His Majesty’s deeds shall ring through the ages. Let it be known forever that here His Majesty, Deyavotistas, Deivanampeos Megalyteros Ioannikos, Emperor of Yavana, King of Gotya and Delchí, Protathletis of the Wheel-Bearers, called ‘Sword of Brahma’, defeated the warriors of Islam once and for all.

By his deeds Parsiya shall now and forever be home to the dharma.

Inscription of the Yuddhamakoi Column, Esfahan, 910-20 CE

904CE
The Yuddhamachy ended not with a shout or a cry, but a whimper. It seemed, as the fervent holy warriors streamed back towards India, unbloodied, that Islam truly had been defeated in the hearts of its own believers, who had meekly accepted the defeat of their rulers at the hands of warriors they called heathen. Many such returning warriors, restive from lack of fighting, committed pillaging and violence against the Persian communities they passed through on the way back to India. Yet the Persians were happy to see them go, as only a fraction of them left; many were given lands and titles in Persia, and sent for their households and relations to join them in managing the conquered territories. The capital at Isfahan, renamed Ioannika in honor of the emperor, was the greatest beneficiary of these population transfers, as thousands of would-be courtiers, craftsmen, and other royal hangers-on relocated in hopes of quickly ingratiating themselves to whoever would be named the new Vasolayas of Parsiya.

To their pleasure, Parsiya was divided up quickly over the coming months under Rajkomares, most prominently Ioannikos’ 4th and 5th sons, Pantalyan and Suryadathes. Nishapras, which had been held by the Yavana Emperor directly since 892 to safeguard the Atash Behram near Jajarm, was given over at the same time to Ioannikos’ 2nd son, Eskandaryas.

Persecution of Islam had begun well before the end of the war, but now became official state policy in Parsiya. Islamic worship was punishable by lashings, imprisonment, or seizure of property, while teaching Islam was punishable by exile or death. The Rajkomares were only too eager to be given royal commendation to seize wealth and property. Imams and prominent Islamic noble families were targeted regardless of guilt, and the peasantry quickly found that they could not defend themselves against charges of secretly practicing Islam if they displeased their new lords.

While some Parsiyans adopted the dharma, most adopted Zoroastrianism in public and ceased religious practice in general or secretly continued to practice Islam. In turn, the Rajkomares sent their retainers or hired Kyjires, itinerant warriors from India or the Gothic steppes, to root out Islamic sects in exchange for a share in any proceeds seized from accused Muslims. Ioannikos, never a friend of Islam, turned a blind eye to these proceedings as the will of his entrusted vassals. Those of his lords who maintained order in Parsiya were commended, regardless of methodology, while those who failed to do so were generally made to undertake humiliating public rituals or great sacrifices to the Gods rather than suffering any real consequences.

By late 905, unrest at the oppression of Muslims and the excesses of the Rajkomares was rising quickly throughout Parsiya, as violent reprisals between Olimpyans and Muslims escalated. In early 906, a massacre of some 300 ‘suspected Muslims’ in Abarkawan nearly ignited a province-wide revolt, prompting Ioannikos to hasten plans to crown a King of Parsiya. That he chose his son Pantalyan in 905 was only surprising to those who had expected him hold on a little longer. Under Pantalyan’s light hand, Ioannika had maintained a level of peace and stability that had yet to return to the rest of the kingdom since the Yuddhamachy, and his philosophical writings on religion and frequent dialogue with the Sokratea and Ioannikos himself had endeared him to the emperor. He was crowned Vasolayas at the Giyan Sofia, the Kappadoki estate near Zarrinshahr, in the spring of 906.

Shortly thereafter, Rajkomaros Alaricos of Kerman, who had conquered much of the ancient kingdom of Gujarat, requested permission from Ioannikos to be crowned a king himself. Despite the danger of the growing power of the vassals of the Rajya, Ioannikos granted the request, and crowned Alaricos himself as the appointed representative of the Gods on Earth in a ceremony at Al-Haur. After the ceremony, which was well-attended by the lords of the Rajya, many of the attendees came down with fever.

Within a few months, what came to be called the Gedrosian Flu had spread to every corner of the empire, with the most lethal outbreaks occurring around Delhi and Ioannika. Its victims lingered on with fatigue, nausea, high body temperatures, and loss of appetite well after a normal fever would have broken, and it claimed the lives of thousands within the first months of its arrival in Delhi. In Ioannika, cases were fewer but more severe, with a higher percentage of deaths. By the end of summer, the situation in Delhi was drastic enough that Ioannika sequestered himself and his court away in the royal estate and refused all visitors, including family members from the Kappadokion.

In Parsiya, Pantalyan codified strict regulations against violent repercussions on Muslims, forbade executions for all non-violent crimes, and set strict limits on the seizure of property. Accusations of religious heresy were no longer left to the lords to prosecute, but were instead to be brought before a Dikisabha, a court of appointed lords who would determine guilt, justice, and amends in such cases.

The curbing of state religious violence and the spread of the Gedrosian fever helped to release the mounting tensions in Parsiya. With a percentage of the populace incapacitated at any moment, and the rest fearful of getting sick themselves, will to resist the king fell off sharply, especially in Ioannika and its direct environs. Alms distributed from the emperor out of the Silk Road tariffs also helped in relieving tensions and drawing together an empire that was rapidly expanding and growing unwieldy.

Near the end of the year, the empire was further shocked by the death of of Doryakratos Theodoric, Priest-King of Kosalas. In the midst of losing a war against the Tibetan kingdom in Nepal, the Gedrosian Fever had decimated the faithful in the great cities along the Ganges and robbed Theodoric of his will to live. Officially, he passed away in his sleep after a long meditation in which he communed with Ades, Lord of the dead. Unofficially, it was believed he had poisoned himself in despair.

Regardless of the means, no succession had been settled on for the kingdom, and so the Sokratea met to determine who should succeed Theodoric. It was the position of Ioannikos that the title should return to the Deyavotistas, the highest authority of the Temple, to be appointed. However, he wasn’t willing to overrule the Arkhierei, whose strong authority for themselves he believed to be necessary for spreading the dharma into the Deccan and Parsiya. Thus, the matter went to a vote in the Sokratea, which narrowly decided for its own authority in appointing the king. Shortly thereafter, candidates were nominated, and a little-known Hiereus from the Gothic communities in Zabulistan, called Thorismond, was selected as the new Doryakratos. As his first act, he negotiated a peace treaty that, while unfavorable to Kosalas, was still preferable to the continuing devastation of the debilitating siege of Bithor while disease ravaged the countryside.

Despite the continuing pace of the disease, 907 was a relatively quiet year, spent by most of the nobility cloistered away or on campaigns away from affected areas. Ioannikos’ correspondence with Pantalyan drew the two ever closer, culminating in the appointment of Pantalyan as Steward of the Rajya and his anointment as a member of the Companions. King Alaricos expanded his holdings in Gujarat, and Pantalyan seized a portion of the Caspian Sea coast from the Arab loyalists. Prince Suryadathes waited out the disease in the Qasrid Kingdom, gathering dissident warriors to help him seize Basra at some later date. Kashgar province, lost to Buddhist rebels over a decade earlier, was re-conquered by Apalodatis of Indikas.

These successes weren’t being mirrored through the Olimpyan world. Sogdia became mired in another civil war, due to Queen Viviana’s lineage: as a descendant of Megas Theodoric’s bastard Varshasb, and having inherited the throne from her father rather than conquering it herself, the true Kappadoki of the realm considered her illegitimate. Isauros of Khiva was appointed their leader and led an uprising in 908 that threatened to upend Queen Viviana and her husband Alaricos, Ioannikos’ second son. Regardless of the disastrous history of Theodoric’s descendants in Sogdia and Parthia, Ioannikos joined the war, sending some 5,000 men to Bukhara.

At the same time, war was engulfing the Tibetan plateau. Anini Pal’s son had proven to be a passive ruler, and in the absence of aggression on his part, a council of Hierei had taken command of Purang province and invaded Tibetan imperial territory in Xigaze. Ting ‘the Dragon’ quickly rose to pre-eminence among the council and lead the war effort to much success against the weakened Tibetans until their Chinese suzerains pledged support, hoping to maintain the status quo on the plateau. Though China proper wasn’t going to war, the Western Protectorate had received an expeditionary force that would easily sweep the Purang Olimpyans aside. Ioannikos decided to involve himself in the war, leading nearly 8,000 men himself to northern Tibet, where they intercepted half as many troops from the Protectorate and defeated them soundly.

Both wars came to a favorable close soon after the involvement of Yavana armies. By 910, Ioannikos had returned to the capital, his vision of an Olimpyan world seemingly fulfilled and then some. Diplomats from Delhi could travel all the way to Byzantion without passing through lands held by non-Olimpyans, though the fastest land routes still went through Armenia and Azerbaijan, held by Christians and Muslims respectively. The dharma was spreading in every direction, well beyond the boundaries he had envisioned for it, and everywhere it took root it seemed to become immovable. The emperor’s hand was heavy in the East, but in the West, where ‘Yavana’ was merely an exotic term for a far-off empire, the Olimpyan kingdoms had overtaken nearly all of their neighbors, and their meteoric rise still seemed poised to continue.

Yet through it all, the Gedrosian Fever persisted in Delhi and along the Ganges. It seemed to spread by trade, which continued to flow even during the worst of the fever in 907, but there was never any official effort to combat the disease itself, only to treat its symptoms among the populace, leaving it free to spread back and forth between Delhi, Mathura, Sthanivara, Varanasi and Bithor even through 910 and 911. In 909, it even claimed King Apalodatis of Indikas. When Ioannikos returned to Delhi from Tibet later that year, he sequestered himself away at the keep in Delhi, where supplies could be more readily maintained than at his palace grounds, and cut off the outside world except for by written message.

This was the unbroken course of 909 and 910, save for an omen that appeared to Ioannikos in his sleep in the summer of 910. In it, he saw his empire laid to waste and barbarians of the cross and the crescent ravaging India while heretics arose and rendered the dharma into shattered pieces. This ignited in him a fervor to destroy Islam finally in a great conquest of the Arab peninsula and the taking of Mecca. Plans were drawn up to go to war with the Shia muslims, who had only recently secured the peninsula from the Sunni Muhallabids. Before the year was through, the war was ready to begin, save for the calling up of troops to Delhi who would invariably catch the Fever and bring it with them.

By the time the fever did break in early 912, Ioannikos’ war-fervor had subsided. The Shia had shored up their numbers, and Basra, necessary to facilitate an invasion by land of Arabia, was a hotbed of rebellions and heresies that threatened to chew up any army foolish enough to try to cross the rivers there. The Rajya had something of a navy at its disposal, but it was only in recent decades that it also had a true coastline to necessitate such a thing. An invasion across the Persian Gulf would be costly and difficult against skilled Arab sailors, though it might be managed if the will was there.



In Parsiya, some in-roads had been made to the orthodox Zoroastrian communities, but for the most part, progress was slow and many Parsiyans held their rulers in contempt. In some regions where feelings were more amiable, dual rites were held to satisfy both the Hierei and the Mobeds, or the Temples coordinated to observe each other’s rites as well as their own without conflicting. This maintained stability more than Ioannikos’ repressions, but a gulf was beginning to grow between the allowances of Pantalyan’s court and the Sokratea.

Many of the mosques that had been repurposed as shrines and stupas contained no icon, or were oriented around a burning brazier. Spaces that the Yuddhamakoi had cleared for circumambulation in the same temples had now been arranged with floor mats for prostration towards the Atash Behram fire at Nishapur. Fire had its place in the Olimpyan dharma, and Ioannikos had respect for the Zoroastrians, who had survived centuries of persecution by Islamic rulers to maintain their faith, but he suspected these rites were being used to avoid confronting the Muslims of Parsiya about their heretical sympathy towards Islam. If they prayed towards one fire for every rite, if they did not circumambulate a reliquary and observe the jatakas of the many gods and their doings, and did not worship in the physical presence of a deity, their connection to the dharma was tenuous at best. Vilaksynan, Oikodomos of the court, was dispatched late in the summer of 912 to Ioannika, to determine the extent of the divergences and to ensure Islam was not being permitted by Pantalyan’s court, putting a great strain on the close friendship of Ioannikos and his son.

In the meantime, the Emperor retired to Theodorion. His son and heir Agateclaya had commissioned a grand statue of Ioannikos to adorn the grounds of the old family estate, and invited his father to break the ground. It was during the stay at Theodorion that he was introduced to the King of the Itilos tribe, Ioulianos, who by coincidence had been on a pilgrimage to the mountains and was staying with Agateclaya. In many ways, he was a successor of Theodoric too; his tribe had secured Khazaria against the Serbian slavs and conquered much of the Rus, bringing the dharma with him all the way to Moskva. His efforts at converting the Suomenusko had been met with heavy resistance, but he had persevered against much of it. In seeking his advice, Ioannikos became good friends with Ioulianos, who recommended a return to conversion by force: “Who can raise a sword to you, mighty emperor? They know in their hearts their god does not stand with them. Let them wear the armor of faith and see what protection it lends them against the spearpoint of a holy warrior. I have yet to encounter the barbarian whose Gods are mightier than ours.”

The statue at Theodorion was named ‘“Yuddhamakos Fotismenos”, as inspired by the words of King Ioulianos. When the emperor returned to Delhi in the spring of 913, he did so intent on forcibly resolving the Zoroastrian issue.

Oikodomos Vilaksynan returned from Ioannika shortly thereafter to report on the situation in Parsiya. Pantalyan and the Heirety of Parsiya were steadfast in their faith in the gods of Olimpos, and their belief that their new practices brought them into closer connection with them and inspired greater knowledge in a movement towards enlightenment. Yet Vilaksynan found they had little reverence for the Buddha or the Middle Way. They were more interested in ‘Pure Wisdom’, attained through esoteric rituals of cleansing fire borrowed from the Zoroastrians. Many of the peasants still worshipped Islam in secret, and in touring the countryside, Vilaksynan had found a number of temples that he suspected of harboring Muslim sympathies. Some number of Imams had even been allowed to ‘renounce’ Islam and lead Olimpyan rites at the same temples they had led as mosques before the war.

Such practices were greatly distressing to Vilaksynan, but Pantalyan had dismissed his concerns as overreaction. The rites he approved the Parsiyan Hierety to observe were those appropriate to the people of Parsiya, who he believed would embrace the Eightfold Path with time and a light touch.

Vilaksynan’s news travelled quickly At an emergency congregation of the Sokratea, it was decided that prostration was permissible as an act of devotion to the Gods, but could not take the place of circumambulation, and prostration towards Mecca, or in a direction in which Mecca lay, was prohibited as appearing to deceive the Gods. As such, it was enforceable by exile, dismemberment, or death. The Dikisabha courts of Pantalyan were stripped of religious authority, and all such matters were ordered to be brought to the emperor’s attention to appoint Arkhierei to oversee instead. The Sokratea further warned against the formation of sects, and urged the Hierety of Parsiya to bring their rites closer into alignment with those practiced in the rest of the Olimpyan world. Vilaksynan was dispatched to ensure the decree of the Sokratea was delivered to Pantalyan and to make observations of the king’s progress over the next year.

In Ioannika, the mood of the Parsiyan Hierety had already turned against the Sokratea. The decree against sectarianism and certain prostrations fell on deaf ears. Vilaksynan was given a false list of temples and regions where secret Islamic activity was suspected by the Hierety, and a group of companions escorted him on a wild goose chase through the country, chasing after false heresies, while the Hierei in Ioannika held discussions about how to pursue their own understanding of the faith in an empire that would likely declare them heretics. The more fiery priests called the Kappadoki - King Pantalyan, their highest sponsor, notwithstanding - no better than the Muhallabids and Abbasids before them. ‘Kherdayasna’ was not only compatible with the Legends and the Gods they had always worshipped, but was, to them, the most enlightened form of worship, one that brought them closer to the Gods than any other.

King Pantalyan agreed, and, in defiance of the Sokratea, issued an edict declaring himself an open practitioner of the Kherdayasna dharma in fall of 913. The sect quickly spread through the province, gaining footholds into Islamic communities which had fiercely resisted mainstream Olimpyanism.

News of this occurrence reached Delhi ahead of Vilaksynan, who was slow to realize the deception of the Parsiyan priests. Only Ioannikos’ love for his son kept him from declaring Pantalyan a heretic and sentencing him to death. Instead, he took up a correspondence directly, hoping to sway the ‘Stokadaraja’, as he had come to be known, from the dangerous course on which he had started. In turn, Pantalyan’s words did inspire sympathy in the emperor for the Parsiyans, who were understandably slow to embrace the dharma, having spent centuries resisting Islam and being persecuted for it. However, the Sokratea had been clear, and the matter of sectarianism was among the few settled doctrines of the dharma ever since the expulsion of the Prometheans; those who drew lines between followers of the Way were not, themselves, followers, but deceivers.

Ioannikos delayed the congregation of the Sokratea in 914, out of fear they would brand Pantalyan a heretic, by declaring war on Tibet, supposedly over persecution of Olimpyans in Kosalas. Both Ioannikos and his father before him had often been absent from meetings of the Sokratea for all manner of reasons, but as the Sokratea would have no choice but to address the goings-on in Parsiya, which directly concerned Ioannikos, the delay was accepted with little protest.

This would be one of his last acts as emperor. Ioannikos passed away in the royal litter on the way to Kosalas in fall of 914.

 

[Doctor Baby]

Part 14: Agateclaya the Quarreler

Nishapur Bowl depicting a Gothiko-Persian warrior
10th Century CE

914 CE

Agateclaya took after his father in many ways, but was a renowned Sarmane; he had memorized the Rigveda and the Tripitaka, and as an honorary member of the Sokratea, was sole author of a number of poems in the Legends, many of them relating to his illustrious grandfather, Alaricos.

His first act as emperor was to oversee the funeral proceedings of his father. After a grand procession in Theodorion, the body was brought in a grand chariot to Delhi, where Ioannikos’ glass eye - ‘the Pearl of the Emperor’ - was interred into the finished portion of the Stupa of Theodorya Aftokratar along with a relic from his body, the rest of which was committed to the Earth at the Kappadokion in Sthanisvara. Agateclaya’s accession was austere and small, and mirrored on a smaller scale the accession of Alaricos, the first emperor. Despite the persecution of Muslims that had occurred throughout Ioannikos’ rule, Agateclaya made clear that he viewed his father’s softening stance towards Islam towards the end of his life as a mistake, and replaced Vilaksynan as Oikodomos with a hardline Hiereus, Vina ‘the Purifier’. King Pantalyan, who was nominally Ioannikos’ steward, was replaced with Agateclaya’s son and heir, also named Ioannikos, a skilled steward but widely regarded as less-so than his infamous uncle.

With war having only just begun in Kosalas, and in grave need of attention due to Ioannikos’ sudden death, Agateclaya maintained the postponement of the Sokratea. At the same time, he began securing the loyalty of the highest members of the Sokratea, most notably the Priest-King of Kosalas, Theudis, who he bribed with the promise of new territory. In exchange, he expected skilled oratory at the Sokratea, and for the votes of the Hierety in Kosalas - comprising a significant number of seats at the Sokratea - to go where he willed them.

He also secured the marriage of his sister to Alaricos, Vasolayas of Gujarat, hoping to draw his most powerful vassal into his orbit. Though an alliance could not be agreed upon, Alaricos swore non-aggression, and to root out all disloyalty in his realm.

By spring of 915, the Kherdayasna sect had grown like wildfire through Persia. Reports from Parsiya spoke of a court that looked and acted more like that of the Sassanids than the Kappadoki, having adopted much Persian language and practice. Most notably, Pantalyan, in the style of his ancestors adopting an ‘Indikoi’ name, adopted a Parsiyan one: ‘Bahram’.

On hearing of the developments in Parsiya, Agateclaya ordered that the Sokratea should meet in the summer of 915, regardless of the status of the war in Kosalas. Such a provision proved unnecessary; the war was won by the time spring turned and by the time the Sokratea came together in Delhi, many of the soldiers and levies had returned home as well, making for a rowdy festival outside of the debating assemblies.

In his arguments before the Sokratea, Agateclaya tried to thread a difficult needle of sympathy for the Zoroastrians and condemnation of a sect that over-elevated their practices. On his invitation, the High Priest of Nishapras and a congregation of loyalist Mobads oversaw a cleansing ritual before the forum. Afterwards, the emperor began his own remarks with invocations of the Buddha, the Devi, and the Ahura Mazda. He put forward the argument that there was no need for sectarianism within the way, because, “Heaven is infinite.” The Gods might reside in different abodes on Earth or in the heavens, and might each find expression through different methods, yet all were allied beneath the universal truth. In fact, they were more than allies: they were many forms of one. Reverence for a form was reverence for the one.

A sectarian sought to divide the forms and turn them against each other, and, whether ignorant or knowingly, weakened the dharma itself: “If a man walks a path, his limbs can not fight each other or he can not progress. Two legs kicking each other can not support the body. Neither can the unruly leg be tied to the other and forced to work in tandem. In such a state, a man will fall. Both legs must trust the other and work, independently, towards one goal. Thus, the proper manner of walking the Middle Way also expresses the Way within the body, in our smallest actions. So too must it be present in our largest actions, and through our greatest body, the Rajya. If one limb divides itself from another, the body will fall.”

Agateclaya continued on to describe the actions of his brother in Parsiya as dangerous to the dharma, threatening to undo the work of Ioannikos to unite the Olympians of the world into one harmonious realm. Could the Raj have come so far if the Buddhists and Hindus and Hellenists all formed conflicting sects and proclaimed their own way superior? Could it go any further if the priests devolved themselves to internecine warring over the correct hierarchy of the cosmos or the legitimacy of one Deva over another? No, it would be the death of the Rajya, and the death of peace. In a world where what ‘Bahram’ did was allowed, the Yona would be scattered and destroyed just as the Gothikoi once were, and the way to enlightenment would be set back a thousand years.

Various arguments were held afterwards, with fiery rhetoric the likes of which had not been heard in the Sokratea in many years. There was no obvious consensus before the voting was called on the matter of whether to call the Kherdanists a ‘sect’, but the outcome was clear enough: 182 for, 146 against, and 53 abstentions. Kherdayasna was formally declared an unsanctioned sect, as close to ‘heresy’ as was possible in the dharma, giving Agateclaya free reign to move against his brother in Parsiya. However, he resolved to do so carefully.

Shortly after the Sokratea, Tibet surrendered northern Kosalas to the Rajya. Celebrations were held in Delhi and other major cities, though few had expected the war to go any other way. At its height, Tibet couldn’t stand against the present Yavanarajya; now, after years of warring with Kosalas, it had had little strength left to resist the empire.

Bahram took the outcome of the Sokratea in somber stride. He took a brief, secretive pilgrimage to Nishapras, to meet with his brother Eskandaryas, who he attempted to convince to remain neutral in the event of a civil war. If he took a side, it would endanger the Adur Burzen-Mihr that Theodoric the Conqueror himself had revered, and was an important focus of worship for Zoroastrians. It would be a disaster for both sides if a war spread to Nishapur and alienated the Zoroastrians from the other Yavana. Eskandaryas was non-committal, but Bahram felt confident that, if nothing else, it was wise to stress the importance of the temple to its protector.

Expecting the potential for war to break out for control of Parsiya, Emperor Agateclaya raised his levies and sent them to aid the neighboring Tejapalid kingdom, recently converted to Olimpyanism, against an uprising of Jains and peasants in their western provinces. Though disorganized, they were numerous, and Agateclaya hoped they would make good practice to give his forces an edge in a potential war against the sectarians. These efforts proved a failure; lack of communication between the Yavana armies led them to face the numerically-overwhelming Jainists in small groups that were forced to retreat. Though he had dealt a blow to the Jainists, and intended to raise more troops to return and defeat them, the Yavana had obviously had the worst of it thus far, and Agateclaya’s military acumen was called into question by more dissident members of the nobility. King Alaricos of Sistan and Gujarat was foremost among Agateclaya’s critics, much to his dismay; Agateclaya needed his loyalty, or at least his neutrality, in case of a civil war with Pantalyan, who wisely refrained from critique of the emperor.

In the late spring of 916, Agateclaya launched a second offensive into Tejapalid to liberate Ujjayini from the Jainists. Rather than counting on the quality of his troops to carry the day as in the first attempt, he called on every soldier the empire could muster in a show of force. By then, the Tejapalids had retreated from Avanti province, and Agateclaya made no more claims about restoring their sovereignty. Though nobody expected the Jains could win such a war, it restored some faith in the emperor when the Arkheirety proclaimed that Ares himself looked fondly on the cause of the imperial warriors. Further restoring the faith of the nobility was the emperor’s decisive response to a peasant uprising in Debul, capital of the emperor’s cousin, Hektorios. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Sagrayus Eskandaryas lead the local forces to a decisive victory over the rebels and executed their ringleaders.

Shortly thereafter, the forces of Avanti were crushed in a battle at Dharmrajeshwar, and soon collapsed entirely. Within the season,, Agateclaya’s armies had secured all of Avanti, forcing the upstart Jain ‘Raja’ back into obscurity. Sagrayus Ioannikos, Agateclaya’s son and heir, was granted the new territories and made Raja of Avanti.

A heroes’ welcome was arranged for the returning warriors in Delhi, with religious rites performed, a procession of the Atlantes down the Maharaja Sadak, and a two-day festival. The might of the emperor - and his willingness to crush those who opposed him - was made clear. The Atlantes had been whipped into a zealous fervor, their numbers swelled with willing recruits, and those few members of the nobility who could oppose the Emperor had been cowed. If ever Agateclaya had been in a good position to force the issue with his brother, it was now.

At the same time, Bahram’s position was far less secure. Though the Kherda Hierety was fully supportive of him, the loyalty of the people only went so far. Many of them were still Muslim, and even if he had prevented some of the oppression of Ioannikos and Agateclaya, he had not made the practice of Islam permissible nor prevented all the excesses of the Gothikoi and Yona settlers, who were still seizing land and attacking those they suspected as practicing Muslims. Hoping to prop himself up with an easy military victory, Bahram had invaded southwestern Parthia in 916 to seize some territory and demonstrate his own power. Yet the vastly inferior Parthian army had refused to be pinned down or give battle, and had slipped behind the Parsiyans to conduct extensive raids in Gurgan and Tabaristan. Despite giving a wound to King Isaias in a small skirmish near Tus, the Parsiyan forces hadn’t earned any true victories for a year spent besieging the Parthians, fending off supply raids, and keeping the locals in line.

The emperor knew his brother’s resources were spent. In March 917 he made his move. Agateclaya’s Oikodomos, the Hiereus Vina ‘the Purifier’ was sent to Ioannika with a contingent of Atlantes and Companions and a decree addressed to ‘Pantalyan’: he was to submit himself to the care of Vina, to be delivered to Delhi for judgement before the Sokratea for his sectarianism. Unsurprisingly, Bahram refused, sending Vina back empty-handed with an understanding that war now existed between Bahram and Agateclaya.

Eskandaryas declared the neutrality of Nisapor for the protection of the Adur Burzen-Mihr, which Agateclaya granted him; his participation wasn’t strictly necessary, nor had Agateclaya expected him to offer much aid due to the danger his fiefdom would be under. If his brother needed punishment, Agateclaya would dole it out when the danger had passed.

More troublesome to the emperor was when Alaricos, Vasolayas of Gujarat and the most powerful vassal in the Rajya, followed Eskandryas’ lead, declaring himself a non-participant in the “conflicts of the royal household, which concern not the realms of Gujarat and Gedrosya unless they be harmed by the combatants.” Agateclaya had counted on Alaricos’ loyalty, but couldn’t act against him now. If the war turned in favor of Bahram, Alaricos could decide it for him, and likewise for Agateclaya. In case of a stalemate, his power might eclipse Parsiya or Yavana for a time, and then his options would be great.

Thankfully, no other vassals attempted so bold a move as Alaricos. Hektorios still owed Agateclaya a debt of gratitude for saving Debul from the peasant uprising the previous year. Eugenios of Skardu, the Vasolayas of Indikas, was eager to prove his loyalty to the throne since deposing Hektorios in 915, and committed as many men as he could be spared to the war. Theudis of Kosalas was an ardent supporter of destroying the Kherdanists, and also sent a great many men. Altogether, the army of the Yavanarajya reached nearly 30,000 men, which was far greater than the ~15,000 or so men the Parsiyans had raised to invade Parthia, based on the reports of Yavana spies in that region. If the Parsiyans could be cauight and made to give battle in Parthia, the 7,000 strong army of King Isaias could also be of aid. Further, Queen Viviana of Sogdia was expected to answer the emperor’s call to arms with a further 7,000 men.

With chastened confidence, Agateclaya gathered his forces in Multan, where Arkhigos Theodosios had offered to host the army and provide the mightiest bull of the realm for the emperor’s divination. Never before had Agateclaya left Delhi so unsure that he would return, and he cast an uncertain look behind him as the royal charioteers whisked him away. As they passed the throngs of men streaming out of the city, a melody wafted to his ears. It grew louder as the chariot moved, finally materializing as a warsong when the chariot came near the Atlantes, marching in perfect step, each a vision of Ares himself, their shields painted in uniform with the red wheel of the dharmachakra. Then, the emperor had no doubt: the shortcomings of the Yuddhamakoi would be rectified now, with blood and iron.