[LUX] That Map Expansion You All Probably Might Not Have Forgotten About

[Cèsar de Quart]

I always thought that China would not give in to hellenising influence, that if there were Hellenic rules in China, they'd go Chinese (Sino-Hellenic with much more Sino than Hellenic) or they'd stay mostly Hellenic like the Ptolemies in Egypt, with a largely Chinese countryside with which they rarely have contact. Even then, the Ptolemaic example is hard to follow here since there's no "beacon" or "stream" of Hellenising influence like the Mediterranean was for Alexandria, Carthage and the Levant; here, unless the Silk Road is exclusively an Hellenic speedway and a main importer of the last rage in Athens, Antioch and Bactra, all hellenising influence that could exist in China would have faded away and vanished, if we're realistic.

I like the Ptolemaic example, but the idea of a Chinese Hellenistic emperor, a Shan Da Huang Di, as I once named him, is very appealing. Especially if he invades India like the Mongols do in vanilla.

 

[DarkReborn]

IIRC, it's the ruling elite who is just slightly Hellenized, the common folk have mostly keep Chinese culture. FG designed a Chinese timeline based on the hints Shaytana dropped around, so he can probably fill you in better.

 

[Martellus.]

Oh that.



Yeah, I suppose it would be the same dynasty. Unless you wanted to make him start his own.

So the Euthydemids rule in both Marakanda and in Serindia then, right? That's what I'm gonna do for their in game family tree (2 separate lines, one in Marakanda and the other in Serindia) unless you have any objections.

Also I am assuming the Antipaters of India are the same as the ones that ruled Macedonia, unless you have an objection to this. The line will come from the descendants of Sosthenes, who was (reputedly) the last Antipatrid of Macedonia, and who I assume fled somewhere after his defeat (as Antipater II did before him). About 100-ish years later, his descendants pop up in Taxila, presumably put there by the Apollodotus dynasts. They then make it to southern Indian in the rebellion of 174 BCE, and should still be the Emperors of Tamilakam, unless the Chola, Pandya, or Chera take it from them.

Where do the Hellens in Leh come from, and where is the Satrapy of Turpiana (Turfan)? I think at least one province should go to the descendants of Craterus:

67 BCE: Antimachus Craterus, a descendant of Alexandros' great general with the same name, defeats the Xiongnu at the Battle of Jushi and forms the Satrapy of Turpiana.

 

[Attalus]

Mogadiscio should be renamed to Erythrea Adalia when hold by a Roman ( as at the beginning ). Seems strange that the Romans would use this name

 

[Ithvan]

A bit off topic, but what does Katabasis mean, exactly?

 

[Martellus.]

A bit off topic, but what does Katabasis mean, exactly?

It literally means descent; Shay uses it a lot to refer to an advance from inland to the coast.

 

[richvh]

It's also used to mean a military retreat, after the katabasis of Xenophon and the ten thousand (recounted in his Anabasis).

 

[futuregary]

I always thought that China would not give in to hellenising influence, that if there were Hellenic rules in China, they'd go Chinese (Sino-Hellenic with much more Sino than Hellenic) or they'd stay mostly Hellenic like the Ptolemies in Egypt, with a largely Chinese countryside with which they rarely have contact. Even then, the Ptolemaic example is hard to follow here since there's no "beacon" or "stream" of Hellenising influence like the Mediterranean was for Alexandria, Carthage and the Levant; here, unless the Silk Road is exclusively an Hellenic speedway and a main importer of the last rage in Athens, Antioch and Bactra, all hellenising influence that could exist in China would have faded away and vanished, if we're realistic.

I like the Ptolemaic example, but the idea of a Chinese Hellenistic emperor, a Shan Da Huang Di, as I once named him, is very appealing. Especially if he invades India like the Mongols do in vanilla.

Your reason has reason. I think we should forget the Ptolemaic example; China is far more influential in comparison to Ancient Egypt. I would say that the Hellens would also absorb a significant amount of influence from Chinese culture. Likewise, since many things of Hellenic inspiration are not incompatible with Chinese concepts and innovations. Art, Greek script, religion (as seen by Konphosian), not to mention military influence (I'm seeing Chinese spearmen in phalanx formation, backed by crossbowmen, and almost everyone wearing a bronze breastplate). The Greeks have been there since they entered in 206 BCE, so it would be strange if they didn't have any influence on the populace in some way.

What this is is basically a constructed culture. Maybe some people should take the time to build an accurate representation of what this and maybe other constructed cultures would look like.

So the Euthydemids rule in both Marakanda and in Serindia then, right? That's what I'm gonna do for their in game family tree (2 separate lines, one in Marakanda and the other in Serindia) unless you have any objections.

Also I am assuming the Antipaters of India are the same as the ones that ruled Macedonia, unless you have an objection to this. The line will come from the descendants of Sosthenes, who was (reputedly) the last Antipatrid of Macedonia, and who I assume fled somewhere after his defeat (as Antipater II did before him). About 100-ish years later, his descendants pop up in Taxila, presumably put there by the Apollodotus dynasts. They then make it to southern Indian in the rebellion of 174 BCE, and should still be the Emperors of Tamilakam, unless the Chola, Pandya, or Chera take it from them.

Where do the Hellens in Leh come from, and where is the Satrapy of Turpiana (Turfan)? I think at least one province should go to the descendants of Craterus:

3 trees. One for Archeserika as well.

Oh, you mean the one in Andhra? He's the descendant of this guy:

121 CE: Battle of the Indus, Kanishka defeats Craterus Antipater, Satrap of Taxila, who is leading the Hellenic coalition army sent to stop him. Craterus retreats to Andhra. Kanishka decides to push on East.
161 CE: Craterus Antipater, a Hindu, campaigns in Sindhia, breaking the Eternal Peace of the Buddha. He defeats Huvishka near Patala. Huvishka is killed in battle, trampled by elephants. His Hellenic vassals rebel.
166 CE: Huvishka II defeated and killed in battle near Alexandria Areion. End of Saka-Kushan domination over the Hellenic Kingdoms of Sindhia.
174 CE: Craterus Antipater, Satrap of Andhra and once again Taxila, is executed by Apollophanes III Epander of India on charges of treason. Beginning of the Mahakhandana (“great rebellion”), a Hindu revolt consisting of ethnic Indians and Hellens against the rule of Apollophanes III and his Buddhist administration. Craterus' son Menander Satakarni Antipater proclaimed Megas Basileus of Tamilakam.
181 CE: Following a narrow defeat in battle outside Pataliputra, Apollophanes III Epander acknowledges Menander Satakarni Antipater as Megas Basileus of Tamilakam.

As for whether or not Craterus Antipater was a descendant of those Antipatrids of Makedonia is anyone's guess. Unless there was a specific Craterus Antipater in history that Shay was referencing, I don't see harm in it.

Hellens in Leh are there jus' cuz. The story behind them is that they were an old Hellenic expedition from Alexandros' time that got lost in the Himalayas. We can turn Turfan into Turpiana and give it to that guy; I doubt anyone will cry over the Fuzhiluo.

Mogadiscio should be renamed to Erythrea Adalia when hold by a Roman ( as at the beginning ). Seems strange that the Romans would use this name

I don't think it does say Mogadiscio, but it should say Erythrea Adalia, you're right :laugh:

A bit off topic, but what does Katabasis mean, exactly?

This. Shay used it in his AAR to refer to a game where he'd be playing as the Indo-Hellens going back to the Mediterranean.

 

[Attalus]

I don't think it does say Mogadiscio, but it should say Erythrea Adalia, you're right :laugh:

Well I took the French writing but you know what I mean

 

[futuregary]

Ah, désolé. Fixing it nao.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Your reason has reason. I think we should forget the Ptolemaic example; China is far more influential in comparison to Ancient Egypt. I would say that the Hellens would also absorb a significant amount of influence from Chinese culture. Likewise, since many things of Hellenic inspiration are not incompatible with Chinese concepts and innovations. Art, Greek script, religion (as seen by Konphosian), not to mention military influence (I'm seeing Chinese spearmen in phalanx formation, backed by crossbowmen, and almost everyone wearing a bronze breastplate). The Greeks have been there since they entered in 206 BCE, so it would be strange if they didn't have any influence on the populace in some way.

What this is is basically a constructed culture. Maybe some people should take the time to build an accurate representation of what this and maybe other constructed cultures would look like.

This is one of the most interesting things this mod has to offer, the counterfactual cultural evolution and languages that might emerge from the melting pot. I would gladly try it but I don't know anything about Chinese culture, present or past...

My main interest here in language and onomastics. But I have no idea how could Greek have influenced Chinese (I don't think Chinese would swich to Greek letters, like Bactrians did with their Iranian language), or how could Chinese influence Greek. This is for someone who knows what he's doing. I've had my share of brickwalls already with Indo-Hellenic names. For instance, I was going across the IndoHellenic and Gandhara names and I realised they have Greek and Persian names, both written in Greek and Persian manner. Should their Greek be influenced by Persian or Indo-Aryan languages? It is known that Seleukids and other Greeks living in the East began to retcon the names they took for the Persians and to write them in manner more according to Persian sound:

A number of instances show that the rendering of Iranian words and names became more exact and closer to the original form when the Greeks, especially from the time of Alexander, became better acquainted with Persia through direct contact. Older and younger forms are found side by side, e.g., for satrápēs “satrap” vs. (e)xa-trápēs, etc., and the names Kyros vs. Kóros (quoted from some unknown source), Germánioi vs. Karmánioi (see Schmitt, 1996) or Sarángai vs. Zárangoi (for the inhabitants of Drangiana; q.v.). That applies of course only for cases not influenced by tradition and the traditional form.

Extracted from this very useful article. This can help adding titles, words, phrases and honours to help recreate the blend of persianised hellenity in the old Seleukid domains:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/greece-xi-xii

Basically, I noticed that the list of names listed as Gandhara has a lot of Persian names (so it would work better as Bactrian or Helleno-Persian, if there's such a thing, now or in the future) which are in Persian, like Xshayârshan instead of Xerxes or Xaiarxes (the more adapted form). So I made a round and I tried to put in the Greek versions of Persian names, and then link them to the original Persian, like so:

Seriaxenes_Shayxshârshan
Xerxes_Xshayârshan

The first one, I couldn't find in Greek, so I had to make it up. Some of them were easy, knowing that, for instance, Baga- was usually understood by Greeks as Megas-, and -farnah for -phernes, and Vaya- for Hya-... but some are just wild bets. I'll post it in the exonyms thread, to see what people has to say.

 

[ekorovin]

Speaking of writing systems, while Chinese heartland would probably stick with hieroglyphics, some parts of Asia (Vietnam or Korea, for example), could probably turn to some version of modified Greek alphabetic system for everyday use, with Chinese hieroglyphs as secondary choice, for example in book culture, sorta like it is in OTL Vietnam, but with Greek instead of Latin.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Speaking of writing systems, while Chinese heartland would probably stick with hieroglyphics, some parts of Asia (Vietnam or Korea, for example), could probably turn to some version of modified Greek alphabetic system for everyday use, with Chinese hieroglyphs as secondary choice, for example in book culture, sorta like it is in OTL Vietnam, but with Greek instead of Latin.

That is interesting.

 

[futuregary]

Speaking of writing systems, while Chinese heartland would probably stick with hieroglyphics, some parts of Asia (Vietnam or Korea, for example), could probably turn to some version of modified Greek alphabetic system for everyday use, with Chinese hieroglyphs as secondary choice, for example in book culture, sorta like it is in OTL Vietnam, but with Greek instead of Latin.

Hmm. The introduction of Latin script into Vietnamese was mostly the work of this guy, even though it wouldn't actually become popular in Vietnam until its deliberate introduction in the 20th Century.

This gives rise to an interesting take on the Viet-Hellenic culture, who very well may have switched to Greek letters. (One of the desired outcomes of switching to Latin was the fact that learning how to read and write because immensely faster than with the Chinese system, which since it uses characters, is mostly done by memorization; as a result, Vietnam has seen a surge in universal literacy since the switch, which very well could have happened here.)

 

[ekorovin]

Hmm. The introduction of Latin script into Vietnamese was mostly the work of this guy, even though it wouldn't actually become popular in Vietnam until its deliberate introduction in the 20th Century.

This gives rise to an interesting take on the Viet-Hellenic culture, who very well may have switched to Greek letters. (One of the desired outcomes of switching to Latin was the fact that learning how to read and write because immensely faster than with the Chinese system, which since it uses characters, is mostly done by memorization; as a result, Vietnam has seen a surge in universal literacy since the switch, which very well could have happened here.)

And Koreans won't have to bother inventing hangul with Greek alphabet at hand.
On the other hand, was Greek alphabet so successful in Central Asia? Sogdian alphabet (which itself is a derivative of Aramaic alphabet) gave birth to Uighur script, which gave birth to Old Mongol script. Aramaic and its derivatives aren't harder to learn then Greek (I'm talking about writing systems, of course, not languages), and I feel throwing this stuff out would just make the world poorer.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

And Koreans won't have to bother inventing hangul with Greek alphabet at hand.
On the other hand, was Greek alphabet so successful in Central Asia? Sogdian alphabet (which itself is a derivative of Aramaic alphabet) gave birth to Uighur script, which gave birth to Old Mongol script. Aramaic and its derivatives aren't harder to learn then Greek (I'm talking about writing systems, of course, not languages), and I feel throwing this stuff out would just make the world poorer.

No need, you can have Sogdian expanding Aramaic-influenced alphabets into Central Asia while Bactrian Greek brings Greek alphabet variants into Tibet, India and South-East Asia.

It feels poorer because we can't possibly imagine all the ramifications this Hellenic world would lead to. But it could be even more interesting.

For instance, I like to imagine that, in Lux Invicta, Glagolithic script is successful in Illyria, Bohemia and Pannonia. Partly because it's cool, partly because it's one of history's loosers, and I like history's loosers.

 

[futuregary]

And Koreans won't have to bother inventing hangul with Greek alphabet at hand.
On the other hand, was Greek alphabet so successful in Central Asia? Sogdian alphabet (which itself is a derivative of Aramaic alphabet) gave birth to Uighur script, which gave birth to Old Mongol script. Aramaic and its derivatives aren't harder to learn then Greek (I'm talking about writing systems, of course, not languages), and I feel throwing this stuff out would just make the world poorer.

Hangul was mostly invented because Chinese characters were a bitch to learn (again, really only the yangban (aristocrats) knew them fluently) and they aren't meant for the Korean language at all. It was invented by Sejong the Great in 1443 to better cater to the articulatory phonetics and vowel harmony of the Korean language, as well as overtones of yin and yang aspects of Confucian philosophy. While the use of a Greek script does combat the issue of illiteracy among the populace, the Greek script is not at all a good match for the Korean language. Would it be used? Given the Hellenic influence and the fact that it's easier to learn than Chinese characters, I'd say it actually might even be more popular in Korea as a form of writing than the hanja. However, I wouldn't say it would replace Hangul; the lack of a fitting writing system isn't fixed by the Greek alphabet, so Sejong would probably invent Hangul anyway.

No need, you can have Sogdian expanding Aramaic-influenced alphabets into Central Asia while Bactrian Greek brings Greek alphabet variants into Tibet, India and South-East Asia.

It feels poorer because we can't possibly imagine all the ramifications this Hellenic world would lead to. But it could be even more interesting.

For instance, I like to imagine that, in Lux Invicta, Glagolithic script is successful in Illyria, Bohemia and Pannonia. Partly because it's cool, partly because it's one of history's loosers, and I like history's loosers.

We can totally imagine; that's the whole point :laugh:

The beauty of anthropology is when it's looked at as a whole, coming up with possible scenarios (What if the Aztecs did conquer all of North America? What if the worship of Sol Invictus was still around during the Age of Discovery? What if the Hellens and the Chinese did have a conglomo-culture?) becomes educated to the point that it makes sense how things could develop and change. And, of course, since this is all alternate history, this mod and everything involved surmounts to fiction, and no one can tell you you're wrong

 

[richvh]

The county of Nyssa in Galatia needs a flag, and new baronies... it had been given the title c_nyland, and had Baltic baronies. I corrected the county title in the province history, and renamed c_nyland to c_nyssa in landed_titles and moved it to k_galatia/d_charsianon, but don't have the knowledge to change the baronies to ones proper for the area.

 

[richvh]

Who is supposed to be starting liege of c_chemama? De jure it's part of d_jolof, but title history has a problem:

--- Error 1 of 1 ---
At <mod>\history\titles\c_chemama.txt [1066.1.1\liege] (Line 2, column 2):
"d_takrur" is not a valid 0, -, or AnyTitle.

1066.1.1 = {
	liege = "d_takrur"
	holder = 161005
}

Edit: Who is supposed to hold c_gurgan? The scripted holder doesn't exist:

1066.1.1={
holder = 292
liege="d_khorasan"
}

--- Error 1 of 1 ---
At <mod>\history\titles\c_gurgan.txt [1066.1.1\holder] (Line 3, column 1):
"292" is not a valid 0, -, or CharacterId.

Who is supposed to hold c_gizeh? Same problem as above:

1066.1.1=
{
	liege="d_siwa"
	holder = 811
}

Ditto for c_hijaz:

--- Error 1 of 1 ---
At <mod>\history\titles\c_hijaz.txt [1066.1.1\holder] (Line 4, column 1):
"819" is not a valid 0, -, or CharacterId.

1066.1.1=
{
liege="k_hedjaz"
holder = 819
}

Ditto for c_venezia: (This one might be a result of removing the Venetian republic.)

--- Error 1 of 1 ---
At <mod>\history\titles\c_venezia.txt [1060.1.1\holder] (Line 3, column 2):
"1501" is not a valid 0, -, or CharacterId.

1060.1.1 = {
	liege="k_venice"
	holder=1501
}

Ditto c_gizeh:

--- Error 1 of 1 ---
At <mod>\history\titles\c_gizeh.txt [1066.1.1\holder] (Line 4, column 2):
"811" is not a valid 0, -, or CharacterId.

1066.1.1=
{
	liege="d_siwa"
	holder = 811
}

 

[Martellus.]

Most of these are my fault- I'll clean them up ASAP.

Also, can we split Theodosiopolis into two provinces? As it is, de jure Trebizond cuts like halfway into Armenia and it looks pretty bad.