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A forty-six yo takes the throne and rules longer than his adult predecessor lives. WOW! Thanks
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It should last right? There's no more disasters on the scale of the Muslim invasions in the future right?
He was an impressive specimen of a man. Hormazd seemed to be a call back to the time of the Steward Kings -every move calculated and consequential to the betterment of the Achaemenid Empire.
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Tsar Bernardin (1027 AD – 1048 AD)
Tsar Bernardin (1027 AD – 1048 AD)
With the passing of Hormazd, his middle-aged son, Bernardin took the throne. Though he reigned for 21 years, he failed to make the same impact his father had and perhaps lived forever in his father’s shadow. He had fought alongside his father in the crusade for Asia and learned firsthand of both the ferocity of the Muslim Byzantines or Byzanstanis as the Christians came to derogatorily call their Eastern brethren and the incredible wealth to be found in their cities. He prayed daily that God would give him the means to strike at the heart of Byzanstani power.
The Achaemenid Empire had been relatively benign in their treatment of Muslims in the lands they had claimed back in Europe and did not enact pogroms or push for reprisals in the retaken cities. Achaemeniyya’s mosques were left untouched beyond the reconsecration of the Hagia Sophia as a church again. Muslims formed a large minority in Thrace and Asia and the Achaemenids sought to keep religious strife as measured as possible. Within the Khodan Church, the Patriarchs would preach tolerance and acceptance of Muslims as fellow people of the book, borrowing from Muslim theology. The only requirement was for non-Christians to wear brown sashes to distinguish their lesser status and their exclusion from government and courtly roles.
Pushing Back Islam in Anatolia and Jerusalem
Now with Navvaba baptised as a Christian, Bernardin sent his armies forth into Anatolia once again. The timing proved fortunate as many other Muslim states were distracted by the events happening in Jerusalem. The Pope had announced an armed pilgrimage to claim the holy city and Egypt. The kingdom of the Mihrans had fallen to the Shia branch of the Hashimids in the 960s and Sunni Islam was conflicted about supporting their wayward brethren from Christian farangs. Many stood aside while others took up arms to defend the holy city alongside the Shia Hashimids from the coming flood of Frankish and Germanic crusaders.
In Anatolia, Sultana Thekla found herself hard-pressed to defend against the Bulgarian armies that ravaged her Western lands. Bernardin ensured that the lands of any Emir who had pledged neutrality were left untouched and in return, they offered food and shelter as the Tsar marched through the central Anatolian plateau. Within a year, he had reached Thekla’s capital and the Sultana fled, finding her armies outmatched. Anatolia was under Achaemenid rule again.
In Jerusalem, the first Crusader King, Reinhold Dorpat, a descendant of the ancient Ulpian Roman Emperors but now Germanic through and through, was acclaimed as the first Catholic King of Jerusalem. It seemed that the tides of religion had turned and there were even whispers of re-approachment between Rome and Achaemeniyya about church unity in order to coordinate further conquests. Alas, not much came of those hopes by the crusading factions of East and West as the Pope and the Patriarch argued about primacy and got bogged down on doctrine once again.
The Anatolian Problem
Bernardin would spend the rest of his life managing the issues of Anatolia. It was a huge realm and the Muslim Emirs were a dangerous fifth column within the empire. Navvaba proved to be a doormat to the nobles demands and despite her conversion, she barely tried to convert the people. Already old by his ascension, the effects of age took a heavy toll on the Tsar in the decade after the conquests. He began to show signs of senility and poor decision-making. With his health failing, he delegated more and more authority to his son, Attalus.
In 1048, Bernardin would breathe his last and the issues of Church union and the Anatolian Problem would become his son's.
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Strange to first hear 'he didn't do as well as his dad' and then 'he ruled for over 20 years and reconquered Anatolia, and successfully smashed Egypt too'.
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He didn't play a role in the taking of Egypt. That was the Pope and his Catholic warriors and he benefited from it as the larger states of the Middle East were too distracted by the crusade to render aid to Al-Anatolia. The obituary stems from the time he took part in his father's war for Asia.
Taking Cappadocia gave him more problems than solutions - something that his father's conquests didn't create. The entire region never converted/reverted back to Christianity and the Achaemeniyya's control grew tenuous as will become apparent in Attalus and his heirs' reign. I actually planned it as a longer update about the struggle for Anatolia that included a few different rulers before I changed my mind and presented Bernardin's story on its own. I can see why it can come across as confusing and I apologise for that.
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Tsar Attalus (1048 AD – 1057 AD)
Tsar Attalus (1048 AD – 1057 AD)
The reign of Attalus promised much on his crowning. In his 40s, many saw his grandfather in the man. Diligent, measured and quick to make friends, Attalus was polymath and seemed to excel at anything he put his mind to. He was a renowned duellist and excellent general.
Perhaps the stresses of responsibility broke the Tsar or maybe that crack had always been there – he was given to long bouts of melancholy and often bounced between periods of manic gregariousness and sullen depression. The Anatolian Problem would become his cross to bear. The preferential terms offered to the Byzanstanis to gain their loyalty were grating on the European lords who saw no reason for such favour and they (fairly) felt that taxation and feudal dues should be more evenly shared. In the assembly of estates of 1050 AD, many Western houses refused to pay their feudal dues, led by the Houses of Aramid, Axuchos and Maurozomes, until the Byzanstanis were brought to the same terms. Attalus had no wish to make enemies of any of his lords – east or west – and acquiesced to the rejection of authority.
Weakening central authority meant that the lords were now free to carry out their vendettas and grievances against each other – something Nikola II, Hormazd and Bernardin had kept a lid on for some time. Attalus seemed hapless at the situation and shrunk further into his shell after the death of his wife and soulmate, Dorothea Axuchos. He began to experience visions and ramble in tongues as his mental faculties broke down.
He found an escape when the Patriarch, increasingly angry at the demands of the Pope in the discussion of church union, called for a crusade against the Christians of Dalmatia as a show of strength. Declaring them heretics, he preached that holy war was needed in order to achieve union and that the Pope had to be brought to heel like the Silver Prince Otaspes had done five centuries ago. This sudden escalation in hostilities was ill-received by the West who saw in the Achaemenids an increasingly foreign, heretical people ruled over by oriental despots. The war for Dalmatia would have dramatic repercussions in the centuries to come but that’s jumping ahead in the narrative and we’ll let it come up naturally in the timeline.
Immediately, he set forth with the Imperial Bulgarian Guard into the mountains of Illyria and won some victories to mark the Tsar's entrance into the war. However, it's not his victories in the crusade that would be remembered but his increasingly erratic behaviour. The tales of Attalus on crusade are simply bizarre:
A court follower, Ivana the Zalmoxian, advised him to take his wife’s corpse on crusade with him to ensure it would not rise from the dead. The body was carried along in a separate carriage from camp to camp and the coffin was often opened to check if the Empress had risen in the night. It revolted the men who had the duty to check on their dead Tsaritsa and destroyed morale in the camp. Ivana would grow to become one of his most trusted confidants and took on duties as the royal physician. The more malicious rumours said that Attalus took part in pagan sexual rites involving Ivana and his deceased Dorothea the night before every battle to ensure dark powers would grant him victory.
He brought his oldest daughter on crusade and gave her command of the vanguard. Defying the traditional martial customs she was schooled in the art of the blade and Attalus showed her much favour. Among his last decrees was declaring her his heir, at the expense of his only son, Narseh. Again, the court whispered that the devil had taken him and made him go against God’s natural order.
Oftentimes, he was seen deep in conversation with himself in his command tent, screaming that this person or that person was a liar or fraud. When his personal guard entered to check on him, he would grow flustered and evasive, dismissing them with a wave of the hand as if they were figments of his imagination.
On the morning of the 6th of March 1057, he was found dead in his tent, his hands affixed to the dagger that had pierced through his chin to the back of his skull. His last written words in his journal was "Dorothea, please wait for me."
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So now the tzar has one huge vassal in Anatolia. Surely that won't create trouble at all.
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A wasted nine years, at least Tsar Attalus is freed from his demons. Hopefully, Kyriake will be better, but being a seventeen yo girl running a medieval empire is a big, big job. Thanks
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Attalus is finally at peace.
I hope Kyriake has more success than the other empresses of this dynasty, but I doubt it. The nobles are ambitious and scheming.
A renewed East-West schism is a disaster waiting to happen. If the Catholics and Muslims invade at the same time, it'll be a bad time.
I hope Kyriake has more success than the other empresses of this dynasty, but I doubt it. The nobles are ambitious and scheming.
A renewed East-West schism is a disaster waiting to happen. If the Catholics and Muslims invade at the same time, it'll be a bad time.
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Anatolia will prove to be a bigger headache than just a truculent vassal in the near future.
A prime example of the Achaemenid curse. From a gameplay perspective, I think he was just scripted to die after he became a lunatic.
Will the propagandists try to resurrect the spectre of the Tyranny of the Three Witches?
Religion is going to play an increasingly important part in the next century as a new spiritual leader arises. Despite its openness to accommodate Muslims, the Empire is still going to face major challenges in finding allies in the increasingly multipolar world it finds itself. Catholic Jerusalem will be a flashpoint for the Middle East and they're going to increasingly look at Achaemenid as part of the "Christian Problem".
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The Time of the Two Tsaritsas (1057 AD - 1075 AD)
Tsaritsa Kyriake II (1057 AD – 1063 AD) [1]
It was perhaps fortunate that Kyriake was on-site with the generals and powerful nobles when Attalus was found dead by his own hand. Though a woman, she was still the only one of Attalus’ children to have attained adulthood and she was quick to grasp the need for immediate action. The Imperial Bodyguard forced all the lords and commanders in the camp to gather and present themselves to the Tsaritsa to swear their oaths of loyalty. Combined with bountiful “gifts”, Kyriake sought to dissuade them from schemes to place her 6-year-old brother, Narseh on the throne.
With the question of succession, at least for now, Kyriake would set forth to win the crusade her father had started. Her years of tutelage under the Strategos Pyrrhos in the arts of sword and war paid off as she continued the campaign in the mountains. Continuing her old command, she often took charge of the vanguard or the cavalry charge, leading from the front to multiple victories. The Roman response was slow and disconnected as the Pope and the Roman Imperator Marinus argued over who had overall command and troop positionings changed week to weak, preventing them from building up any in-depth defences. The campaign proved so successful that Kyriake’s troops pushed the Catholics out of Histria and Veneto. By the end, Dalmatia had established its own independent Khodan King while the Histrian and Venetian coast were ceded to the Achaemenid Empire.
However, it was not all glorious victories for Kyriake. With her armies in the West, the Byzanstani lords saw their opportunity for freedom. Despite the concessions made by the throne, Anatolia was still a hotbed of discontent and their Kings would rise up with cries for independence. Aware of the fragility of her position, Kyriake quickly accepted their demands less war finds its way to her undefended capital just across from these rebel lords. In a stroke, the gains made by her grandfather were lost.
What should have been a triumphal return from Dalmatia turned into a silent funeral. The lords whispered that perhaps a woman could not lead the empire, despite her crusading credentials and that Narseh should be elevated. Some had even given the boy tacit support and raised him as King of Macedonia – toeing the line between dissent and rebellion. Spirited away by scheming court eunuchs, Narseh was placed on his own throne in Thessaloniki by those who wanted to keep the boy as a weapon against Kyriake should the need arise. The Tsaritsa herself never raised the matter of Narseh and his “Kingship of Macedonia” but instead focused on controlling the court that lacked the necessary respect for the Tsaritsa. When Narseh was found dead at the age of 11, choking to death on a pokerounce, Kyriake organised a grand funeral for her deceased brother and seemed to show genuine grief as he was lowered to the ground.
Kyriake had ruled the empire for six years at this point and despite the loss of Anatolia, it seemed the empire was stabilising itself as the factions were slowly reigned in. Even more importantly, Kyriake was pregnant with the heir and everyone looked forward to celebrating the birth of the new imperial prince. The Tsaritsa would never leave the birthing chamber and her son was stillborn alongside her.
[1] She is the second Kyriake to take the throne by modern historical accounts. The first Kyriake was a Mihran who had attempted to resurrect the empire in the 10th century when the Mihrans had conquered most of Greece, Thrace and Macedonia. Though technically legitimate, the entity only lasted for a few years before Mihranid power receded and the Balkans once again broke apart into warring factions. The Achaemenids never recognised the first Kyriake’s rule and Kyriake Achaemenid is listed as the first of her name in their imperial rolls.
Tsaritsa Lilyana the Beautiful (1063 AD – 1075 AD)
With the death of Kyriake, the next in line was her sister Lilyana. Just 14 years old, many predicted a replay of Kyriake’s reign with more challenges to authority but Lilyana and her successor’s reign would be remembered as a high point of Achaemenid culture in the medieval era. There were no immediate foreign threats and the empire had highly defensible borders on all sides. The Bosphorus blocked passage from the East, the Illyrian mountains protected the West and the Danube was the Northern border.
When she came of age, a royal marriage with her cousin Mikica was organised. It was the grandest wedding the city had seen in centuries with festivities abounding in every neighbourhood and all the great lords of the realm invited. In a gesture of goodwill, even a few Emirs from Anatolia were in attendance as Lilyana sought improve relations with the Muslim world as the West grew increasingly hostile.
Growing up an orphan and her older sibling rarely having time for her, Lilyana would redouble her focus on her role as mother and by extension, mother of the empire. It was an astute move as she reshaped her relationships with her boyars and dukes. As Tsaritsa, her court chroniclers would expound on the protection she extended to her people and the focus on helping them improve morally and economically. Domestically, she was fertile and already bore four children by the time she was 25.
One of her most significant reforms was revising the taxation system. With the collapse of the old Achaemenid imperial system and the foisting of the Bulgarian steppe system, taxation had been haphazard and done on an ad-hoc. Nikola the Spider had made some reforms but he had been hampered by plague and war and many villages and towns were faced with annual dues that constantly shifted depending on the capricious needs of the local lord or the throne. Driven by her husband, Tsar-Consort Mikica, the new system designated a consistent tax rate for every village based on the assessed worth of the land and a fairer conscription system that reduced the number of men that needed to join the Tsaritsa in her wars but ensured they were better equipped when they had to. This impacted the total force that the Empire could bring to war but those that did march were armed well and with better morale.
And it was prudent that she did so for war came again. The Catholics were still sore about the Dalmatia and intended to reclaim the land. Lilyana was a mother bear in the matter of war, intent on defending her people against any threat and the Crusaders were smashed in a rousing victory in 1072.
Within the Empire, Lilyana would organise tournaments for her cataphracts and hetaera to display their martial skills alongside courtly grace in poetry and chess. At these grand events, she showered the people with charity and ensured that they had a chance to voice their concerns to the Tsaritsa. One of the most famous incidents was in 1073 when she accepted a female warrior named Tomasina into her royal guard for her martial skill and valour. This and other acts contributed to the great love of her people and many acclaiming Tsaritsa Lilyana the Beautiful as the Mother of the Empire, pure in appearance and in soul.
So it was a great tragedy when Lilyana met the same fate as her sister, dying in childbirth as she delivered her fifth child, Viseslav. The entire city plunged into mourning for their mother and the great love she showered them within her short 13-year reign.
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For a while there all the freak deaths made it look like you were going to run out of Achaemenids. Good thing Lilyana had many children.
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Empress Kyriake II did little to increase the perception of female leaders, but Empress Lilyana had enough fans that the next female ruler will be only one step behind a male instead of three. Hopefully, Darius V receives support and not hindrance from his regent/advisors. Thanks
Lilyana sounds like an able ruler. Hopefully her premature death doesn't cause too many problems for the empire.
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Perhaps I'm cursed when playing female rulers as none of them have particularly long reigns in this mega-campaign. At least this period was not as devastating as the Tyranny of the Three Witches in Imperator: Rome
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A World of New Threats (1075 AD – 1165 AD)
Tsar Darius V (1075 AD – 1140 AD)
Tsar Darius had much to be grateful to his mother for. She had chosen a good match as husband and Mikica proved to be a good father and regent for Darius in his youth. He would enjoy the best tutors and develop a comprehensive education in all matters of statecraft while Mikica oversaw the matters of empire ably and justly.
Beyond the personal history of Darius, it seems pertinent to discuss the continually changing nature of the empire. We’ve seen it evolve from an Eastern-style model of kingship with a robust and capable bureaucracy in antiquity to a hybridized entity in the early medieval world where systems gave way to the autocratic power to the reestablished but completely feudalised state we see in the 11th century. The empire has shown an amazing ability to integrate new ideas and concepts to rejuvenate it – swapping religions out as newer ones gained traction among its people, the restructuring of its military to face new challenges, the evolution of its diplomacy from a position of superiority to a role of first among equals. Despite these changes, certain things seem immutable. The empire as an idea simply could not exist without an Achaemenid in charge as we’ve seen with the collapse in the time of the Argeads and again during the Muslim conquests. It took Otaspes the Great to bring order the first time and then the line of Attalus to restore it the second time. The other factor is the gravitational pull Achaemeniyya plays in keeping the empire together. Without it, the empire rolls in the waves like a ship without a rudder – a testament to the foresight Smerdomenes had more than 1,200 years ago in moving his capital there.
The growing religious fervour of Christianity in both East and West had ignited a passion for crusading and a desire to reconquer lands lost to Muslims long past. In the Achaemenid Empire, a growing hostility developed between them and the Franks and Latins of the West that threatened to expand into a permanent division. Lilyana’s cult of personality would grow into almost religious-like reverence, many seeing in her Mary, Mother of God. Icons of saints and religious figures were already popular within the Empire, adapted from older Zoroastrian practices. Venerated in churches, public places, and private homes, they were often believed to have protective properties. The most revered of all icons were those classified as acheiropoietos, that is, not made by human hands but made by a miracle. These icons were often believed to have protective powers (palladia) not only over individuals but also over entire cities during times of war. The most revered of these was the Theotokos, with the Virgin Mary carrying the infant Jesus. It had been lost during the Fall of Achaemeniyya in 762 AD. However, in 1080 AD, it was apparently discovered, buried under the foundations of an old church and even more miraculously, the icon bore a striking resemblance to Lilyana. Many saw this as God’s favour to the Khodan Christians and that the Mother of the Empire was indeed blessed and that meant Darius, deservedly served as God’s Regent on Earth and the faithful Son of the Empire.
This aside will add context to the developments the empire will experience over the next century. Darius’s childhood was mostly peaceful with expansion with peaceful expansion into Dacia as lords willingly accepted the rule of Achaemeniyya in return for peace and the might of the Achaemenids to keep the peace. They had seen that Rome was too weak to defend them and Achaemeniyya was the strongest bulwark against Muslim expansion. Darius himself would expand the realm into new territories – he set off with a great fleet to Carthage to restore the Hiramids, descendants of old House Daevas to their seat of power. The Daevas had lost their empire when the Shias surged throughout North Africa and had returned to the bosom of the empire and accepted Christ during the time of Hormazd. They had served loyally as stewards and when the male line died out, the Hiramids from the female line continued to serve the empire. They still had their claims to the lands of Tunis and Darius armies soon outclassed the local Berbers who held the territories.
A Snapshot of the Mediterranean in 1094 AD
In Italy, the Roman empire still persisted but had lost Sicily to Norman invaders who arrived in the 1050s and had seen spectacular success in carving out a new realm. Rome still controlled Northern Italy and had been expanding westward and controlled the entrance into the Mediterranean from their base in Hispania and North Africa. The Urcebas family had solidified their hold on the title, holding it since 953 AD.
Dominating Hispania was the Kingdom of Carthaginensis, a Muslim state that had been formed by a Mihran exile, Makartatos who established a new dynasty in these lands in the far west. Contesting them in the north was Aquitaine, the Catholic Gaulic-Roman state established after the fall of the Western Empire.
In North Africa, the Ismaili family of Chelbesid flew the banner for Shia Islam after the loss of Jerusalem to the Catholic Crusaders. Despite the loss of Tunisia, their thoughts are on eliminating the Sunni tribes of the desert rather than revenge against the Achaemenids.
Cappadocian Anatolia had earned its independence from the Achaemenids with Khodadad Tyan as their nominal king. The Emirs were still divided and only recognised a single king for matters of defence and deterrence against outside threats.
The heartlands of Sunni Islam were Arabia and Durine with the Caliph Apollodoros Mihran ruling in Medina backed up by the massive state of the Bukharids that controlled most of Persia and Central Asia.
The Khodan Crusade for Jerusalem
Darius would do little to reduce the ill-feeling between East and West, supporting the Khodan Patriarch in the goal of reclaiming Jerusalem, and viewing it as part of the Achaemenid and Orthodox inheritance. The war would last three years as Jerusalem, cut off from Catholic support by Achaemenid ships and the civil war of Rome, struggled to keep armies in the field. The war eventually became a series of sieges as the Catholics refused to offer a fight and hid behind their walls. When Alexandria and Jerusalem fell in 1097, the King of Jerusalem escaped into the night and found a ship to Sicily.
Darius installed his brother, Viseslav, as King of Jerusalem but gave him the freedom to act independently from Achaemeniyya, letting Viseslav form his own royal household in the ancient palace of Otaspes the Great.
Domestic Issues Turn to Domestic Bliss
Back at home, Darius was initially troubled by a scandal. Growing up, he had developed a close relationship with the daughter of the court seneschal and they had become more than friends as they both entered adulthood. The relationship was exposed when she became pregnant with his child and many thought no more of it beyond the need to maintain another royal bastard. But Darius truly loved the girl, Lilyana and broke with custom and his father’s wishes to marry her.
The marriage would be a happy one and he would legitimise their firstborn who had been born out of wedlock. Zakariyah was now Darius’ heir and would oversee the expanding empire his father was building. The fact that the girl had the same name as Darius' mother was not lost on most either.
The Rise of the Nizari Shia
The story of the Nizaris begins in Shia Jerusalem, prior to the Catholic Crusade. From early in his reign, the Hashimid Caliph-Imam Al-Mustansir Billah had publicly named his elder son Nizar as his heir to be the next Hashimid Caliph-Imam. Hassan-i Sabbah, who had studied and accepted Ismailism in Hashimid Egypt, had been made aware of this fact personally by al-Mustansir. After Al-Mustansir died in 1034, Al-Afdal, the all-powerful Jerusaleman Vizier and Commander of the Armies, wanted to assert, like his father before him, dictatorial rule over the Hashimid State. Al-Afdal engineered a palace coup, placing his brother-in-law, the much younger and dependent Al-Musta'li, on the Hashimid throne. Al-Afdal claimed that Al-Mustansir had made a deathbed decree in favour of Musta'li and thus got the Ismaili leaders of the Hashimid Court and Hashimid Dawa in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Hashimids, to endorse Musta'li, which they did, realizing that the army was behind the palace coup. In early 1035, Nizar fled to Alexandria, where he received the people's support and where he was accepted as the next Hashimid Caliph-Imam after Al-Mustansir, with gold dinars being minted in Alexandria in Nizar's name. In late 1035, Al-Afdal defeated Nizar's Alexandrian army and took Nizar prisoner to Jerusalem where he had Nizar executed. After Nizar's execution, the Nizari Ismailis and the Musta'li Ismailis parted ways in a bitterly irreconcilable manner. The schism finally broke the remnants of the Hashimid Empire and made it easy prey to the Catholic Crusade in the 1050s.
Hassan-I Sabbah would spirit the young son of Nizar, Al-Hadi to the north, in the lands of the Crimea to escape any further Ismaili attacks. There Al-Hadi would carve out a new life, adopting Armenian ways and having a torrid affair with the daughter of the Vishparid lord of Tmuratakan. Hassan-I would leave him to further his own plans in Syria and the Zagros, building up an order utterly devoted to the line of Nizari and trained in the arts of murder to help restore Al-Hadi and his line to Caliph. However, the loss of Jerusalem destroyed that focus and the Hashashins as this order became known as changed its focus to destabilise Christian rule in the region. In the Crimea, the Vishparid daughter died young and her father had no other heirs other than Al-Hadi’s bastard child, Kaveh. Forced to legitimatise the boy on his deathbed, Kaveh was now the Sheikh of Tmuratakan and the heir to the Nizari legacy. His father had died the past winter, unused to the harsh weather of the Black Sea and the Bastard as he came to be known sought to reclaim leadership of the now splintered Shias.
Hassan, now an old man, placed the services of the Hashashin at Kaveh’s convenience and he would use them to strike opportunistically to disrupt the regional politics. The King of Pataroue, liege lord of Tmuratakan fell to poison and Kaveh took acted as regent for the young King Biderafsh.
In 1126, he would mark his return into mainstream Mediterranean politics by capturing the Kingdom of Trabzon. He would die of wounds sustained in the conquest and pass on shortly a few months later, but the Nizari would continue to grow in strength with his son, Tigran.
Tigran Vishparid (1126 AD – 1165 AD)
Kaveh had united the Armenian hillfolk and the Cuman tribes of Ciscaucasia and brought them into Trabzon, bordering the plateau of Anatolia. His rule is marked by cruelty to his enemies and the immense expansion of the Nizari state. Religion in the Anatolian region and the steppe was in flux throughout most of the last two centuries as different forces came to the fore and tried to impose their religious demands. We’ve seen that during the Achaemenid exile in the north. Within Anatolia, the Byzanstanis had switched between Khodan Christianity and Sunni Islam depending on whose favour they desired and where the winds of change were blowing. In the time of Darius V, many had accepted Achaemenid supremacy and much of the region had pledged allegiance to Achaemeniyya.
Darius V was by now an old man and sought to hand over his realm to his son, Zakariyah peacefully. He would accommodate this new Khan of the Steppe by arranging a royal marriage to an Achaemenid princess, hoping that blood ties would eventually usher in a peaceful relationship and hopefully integration of Trabzon into the empire. With the weight of the imperial alliance, Tigran would take his anger out on the Sunnis in the Jazira. A slew of assassinations would presage invasion and in just over a decade, Tigran had placed loyal Shi’ites in cities all the way down to Aleppo.
Tsar Zakariyah’s Vision of Church Union
With the passing of Darius V in 1140 AD, Zakariyah was the new Tsar. A peaceable man, Zakariyah once again resurrected the idea of church union with Rome. Unlike previous Achaemenids, he believed wholeheartedly in the universal religion of Christianity and he would offer far more compromises than any previous Shahanshah or Tsar had ever considered to the Pope to make his vision true – accepting the primacy of Rome, rejecting doctrine that accepted Muslims as people of the book and conceding the imperial right to call ecumenical councils.
This decision rocked the empire, long stabilised by the Khodan creed and tolerance of the Bulgarian Achaemenids. Many did not understand how the Tsar could make such a humiliating decision while others saw the benefits of trade and connections with the rapidly developing West that a shared religion could offer. The Tsar would spend the next decade fighting internal fires he had ignited and wars in the West as the promise of Church union failed to quell the hunger of kings and dukes to acquire more land.
Creating a New Nizari State
In this chaos, Tigran saw his opportunity to claim Achaemenid Anatolia. Despite his numerical inferiority, Tigran’s Armenian and Cuman soldiers were ideal for the mountain and steppe warfare that the conquest called for. The Achaemenids were distracted with most of their armies in Dacia putting down rebellion or defending their borders from Germanic Kings.
Still, it seemed a long shot for Tigran to win against the mighty Achaemenid Empire. Initial success soon turned into a quagmire of manoeuvring between mountains as each side sought the ideal ground to offer battle. That was the case until the Battle of Tanadris in 1151. A 60,000 Achaemenid host thought they caught Tigran’s main force of 30,000 in a mountain pass of the Taurus mountains. The battle turned into a trap for the Achaemenid forces as Tigran had created a large barrier between his forces and the enemy. Failing to scale the barriers, the Achaemenids were devastated by archer fire and found themselves cornered by reinforcements coming from the other side of the pass. All told, more than 30,000 Achaemenid soldiers lost their lives and it shattered morale in the army who told tales of the Nizaris who fought like demons.
Tigran would combine the attack with a simultaneous strike at the Tsar, assassinating the man who had weakened the empire enough to let Tigran exploit it. With a child on the throne, the Achaemenid response lost all coherence and Anatolia was lost once again.
Tigran would establish a new empire in Anatolia, the Sultanate of Rome, and declare himself Imam, the spiritual leader of all Shias. He had shown the supremacy of Islam against Christianity but his work was not yet done.
In the last years of his life, he would march for Jerusalem and Egypt. With the Achaemenids in abeyance, Khodan Jerusalem stood alone. The realm of Viseslav and his heirs stood little chance and the Caliph-Imam had completed the Nizari return to their rightful seat in Jerusalem.
Within Anatolia, many Muslims were reinvigorated by the fervour of the Nizari and pledged allegiance and faith with the Imam, and the region saw a rapid switch of religion. Tigran had allowed the cities their freedoms and Anatolian Rum would evolve along republican lines over the next century.
Wither the Achaemenids?
Despite the chastening lost of Anatolia and Jerusalem once again, the Achaemenid still had much strength to call upon but the death of Zakariyah created instability as a regency council stood in place of a Tsar’s command and fight between unionists against the patriarchate raged within the empire.
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Trust the Acheamenids to create chaos out of a pretty good and stable situation.
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