The Achaemeneh - the Saga of the Byzantine Kings (Achaemenid Megacampaign Part 2)

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The End of the Achaemenid Empire (762 AD – 821 AD)


Haftvad Irontooth (757 AD – 797 AD)

After the fall of Achaemeniyya, Shahanshah Haftvad had evacuated his government to the island fortress of Cyprus. He would rule till 797 AD, presiding over a time of great losses for the empire as every action taken proved ineffective and every opposing action by his enemies were met with great success.

The last remaining stronghold of Achaemenid rule in Anatolia, Trabzon, rose up in rebellion to fight for its independence. The Vice-Queen of the region, Katayoun Farro of House Vivanid, sought accommodation with the Muslims and felt it was easier to do it alone then under her Shahanshah. Sorties against the Muslims would meet disastrous ends and slowly but surely, his last holdings in Asia were lost – Marash, Lazika, and the Aegean Isles fell one by one.

In the West, he would face pressure from King Anicius Achaemenida of Dalmatia, a distant cousin, who sought to take advantage of the collapsing empire to grab more land in the borderlands of Illyria. Though Haftvad won the war, it was still more dead soldiers that he could ill-afford to lose. Along with the attacks by the Mihranids, Haftvad was assaulted on all quarters and the stress of it all gave rise to his nickname – grinding his teeth until they were flat like a block of iron.

In 781, he was struck down by typhus. He would survive the encounter but it left it him decrepit and bed-ridden. No longer able to command the empire effective, rulings increasingly fell to the regency of lords. His children were still young and unready to lead. Even more tragically, his only son Gudarz, died at 20 in 791 after living with multiple illnesses and general poor health. Despite Haftvad’s own poor health, he would cling to life and power till 797 AD – infirm, one-eyed, disfigured and scarred by battle and disease. His brothers had died in their 30s and 40s and their children too young to stand up to the few remaining lords of the realm. So the throne passed to Haftvad’s youngest child, Goshtasb, a boy of 11.

Goshtasb (797 AD – 802 AD)

Little is known about this young Shahanshah. The regency council made most of the decisions while he was deemed too young to adjudicate or lead the empire. In that 5 year regency, more losses would continue for the empire but more troubling is the lack of respect shown to the Shahanshah. He was locked up and placed under watch by his senior vizier, Faramarz, and upon attaining his majority, was promptly murdered before he could attempt to exercise any of his powers.

Lanassa (802 AD – 802 AD)

His older sister was then placed on the throne. At 26 years of age, she seemed better prepared to deal with the court intrigues than her poor younger brother but she was struck down with pneumonia while pregnant with the heir. The stress of pregnancy and disease proved too much and she died after only 8 months of rule.

Yazdegerd (802 AD – 810 AD)

With no others surviving from Haftvad’s line, the next in line was Yazdgerd of Rhodopes, grandson to the brother of Haftvad. A child of only 8 years old, the Court controlled the Shahanshah once again. Cyprus had been lost during the time of Lanassa and Rhodopes became the new capital of the rapidly decaying empire. Here, Rhodopian councillors vied for influence against the exiles of Achaemeniyya and it seemed that the new faction might raise a King who was prepared to fight to recover his lands. But it was not to be, Shahanshah was murdered by the Spawn of Satan, Matthaios Mihran in February of 810 AD. The Achaemenids were quickly becoming an endangered species.

Nysa (810 AD – 811 AD)

The poisoned throne of authority would officially pass to Nysa, daughter of Haftvad’s second brother, Sohrab. Sohrab had already converted to Islam in a deal with the Caliph to receive some of his families old estates in Europa and Thrace. Nysa’s older brother passed away from illness in 801 AD and so she was the reigning Emira of Europe, forced to pay obeisance to Caliph Jalil II in return for the right to rule lands that had been her family’s for centuries.

The Achaemeniyyan courtiers seeking shelter amidst the storm of religious war and civil strife, travelled to her estate in Kalliopolis and presented her with the regalia of the Achaemenid Emperors. She was however too afraid to raise the banner of rebellion against the Caliph and had converted to Islam with all her heart. Despite this meekness and desire to avoid conflict, death still found her in 811 AD after she fell mysteriously from the top floor of her observation tower.

Sohrab (811 AD – 821 AD)

Her older son would renounce the title of Shahanshah upon his mother’s death, formally ending the empire resurrected by his forebear, Orestes the Great. He was content to serve as a servant of the Caliph and hoped to outrun the curse that was striking down members of his great family. Despite his efforts, he could not outrun fate and death found him in 821 AD after a severe haemorrhagic fever. He was succeeded by his daughter, Xenokrateia, a poor girl born with a hunchback as Emira of Europa.

Attalus the Last Achaemenid

The line of the Achaemenids had nearly been extinguished over the last century of calamity and the last of the bloodline was Attalus, half-brother to Sohrab and Xenokrateia the huncback. He served as regent to Xenokrateia and lived through the end of the Caliphate from 847 – 849 AD when the Mihrans continued their expansion recapturing Europa and forcing his niece to flee to Bugeac at the very edge of Muslim control. As castellan of her castle on Kalliopolis, he was captured by Matthaios Mihran, that eternal scourge of the Achaemenids, and contracted measles in his dungeon. The experience had left him blind and Xenokrateia took pity on her faithful uncle and provided a stipend to live on in her much diminished holdings after his release. When she died aged 20, from a severe bear attack while riding through her woods, her lands were taken over by the King of Dioskourias, Demokritos Jamshid, the descendant of the ancient Byzantine Vivanids.

The tables had turned with the servitor House now sending the Last Achaemenid out into the wilderness of the North, blind, near penniless and addicted to hashish to numb the pain that he suffered during his time in Matthaios’ dungeon. It seemed time had come full circle on the family. After more than a millennia, the Achaemenids were forced back into a situation worse than Amastris found herself all those centuries ago.

 

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The Exile of Attalus and His Coming to the Bulgars (847 AD – 872 AD)


An extract from the Journal of Attalus:
“…Beyond these rivers and mountains, there is a land, several days’ journey away, where there is snow of red, white and blue and other colours . Ships are filled with it, and it is taken downriver to Bulghar. The distance from Saqsin to Bulghar by river is forty days.

In this city of the Bulghars, when the days are long, they have twenty hours and the nights four, but on the other hand in the winter, it is the nights that last twenty hours and the days but four. In summer, at midday, it is very hot, hotter than anywhere else in the world; but at sunset and throughout the night it is cold, so that one needs much clothing. I tried to fast in this city during the month of Ramadan, which fell in the summer, but I had to give up and take refuge underground in a room where there was a spring. The people of Bulghar are more resistant to the cold than anyone else, and this is because their food and drink largely consists of honey, which is very cheap there.

In the spring, I came to learn that the wife of the king and the king himself were stricken with a very serious illness. .They were treated with all the remedies known to them, but the sickness only increased, until they feared that they would die. Then some of the warriors came to learn that I was a juriconsult and learned in medicine so I was brought to the king’s tent. I spoke to the king:

‘If I were to cure you and you were to recover your health, would you accept my faith?’ ‘Yes,’ they replied. So I gave them medicines and cured them, and they, and all their people, embraced God.

I remained among them for three years, and I rode with them across the great grass sea. Their country stretches for more than forty nights. There are mountains there from which they extract gold and silver.

It came to pass that the King of the Sarmatians came to attack them with a great force and said to them: ‘Why have you embraced this religion without my permission?’

But I said to them:
‘Do not fear. Say: “God is great!”’
They said:
‘God is great! God is great! God is great! Praise be to God.’

Then they fought with the said king and defeated his army, so that the king offered them peace and gave them leave to settle in the lands of Sarmatia. And the King of the Bulghars asked me where, and I told him to look for where the soil is fertile and the cliffs overlook the river, and there it is best to build your new city.

The Sarmatian King said: ‘I know of what you describe, it is a place called Kyiv. You shall have it for the people who were there had committed a great wrong and they are not there anymore.’

Attalus Travels North

As the last Achaemenid, Attalus was a great prize. Despite his profession of the faith, he knew he could not expect the generosity of the Caliph to a fellow Muslim or any succour in the Greek lands now held by the Mihranids. His only option was to travel north into the lands of the horse and endless sky. Riding blind on his mule, he was ignored by most travellers across the lands ruled by the Sarmatians, Magyar and Pinskians until he came to the tribe of the Bulghars after nearly a year of travelling. Emaciated and suffering the effects of exposure, he was nursed back to health by these hard but kindly people.

While we have his journals as a first-hand account of his encounters with the Bulgars and of his experiences in the wild, I tend to take it with a twinge of scepticism. Attalus was a master storyteller and much of his journal paints him in a positive light. We do know that he was accepted by the Bulgar King, Pakacandre and we do have supporting reports of him treating the king’s illness with the medicinal knowledge collected from centuries of Greek and Persian expertise.

Living with the Bulgarians, he adapted to their culture and ingratiated himself with the King, proving useful with his knowledge of law, religion and the darker arts. His wife had abandoned him when the Mihranids came and he would eventually marry one of the daughters of the next King, Tarmaraksite. The King was pleased to have the bloodline of the vaunted Emperors of Byzantium intertwined with his House and it seemed that the Achaemenids would fade into irrelevance.

However, that would all change when during a great feast thrown by Tarmaraksite, his son Sonmez murdered his father. Attalus came across the scene, aided by his personal bodyguard and eyes. Perhaps without the bodyguard, Attalus might have met the same fate but Attalus was quick to the uptake. He had Sonmez arrested and revealed the vile deed to all those in attendance. Recriminations flew among the other sons and in a night of betrayal and bloodthirst, only Attalus and his princess wife Lilyana survived of the King’s family.

Attalus was now the leader of the Bulgars but he refused to take the title of King, saying that he had not earned it. Always uppermost in his mind was reclaiming his inheritance – the Empire of Achaemenia and he had his people migrate from the Volga to the lands of Hyspania a confederation of tribes ruled by a Sarmatian King. There, he reached an accommodation with the King and was granted the lands of Kyiv to rule and for his people to settle in return for renouncing Islam and accepting Christ as his saviour. It was an easy decision for the scheming Attalus and he returned to the Christian ways of his ancestors.

As a bit of a background, the Pontic steppe and the lands further north had seen many Christian missionaries starting from the time of Darius the Strong, the great crusader and conqueror of Dacia, coming to evangelise to the people. Most had converted to Orthodoxy and accepted the Patriarch of Achaemeniyya as their spiritual leader but there were many other variations of Christianity, notably Arianism and offshoots of Orthodoxy such as Paulicanism or Followers of Paul. Alongside with these competing Christian faiths, many Muslims fleeing the 2nd Muslim Fitna and the collapsing Caliphate brought their faith into these lands creating a cauldron of religious fervor and ideas. Imam debated bishop and the men of the steppe confused their old pagan spirits for angels. These developments would feed into the Khodan revivalist movement and other Muslim theological factions such as Mutazila and Nizarism in the coming centuries.

The lands of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus after the collapse of the Caliphate and the recession of Mihranid power in Greece. With no single hegemon, wars of conquest and retaliation will give rise to unstable kingdoms and confederations over the next century.​

Culturally, much of the north had been settled or dominated by Eranian or Turkic tribes. They ruled the great Eurasian steppe from the Urals all the way into Poland and Moravia where they were finally checked by the Germanic people.

For Attalus himself, he is ascribed as a Follower of Paul and much of the Bulgars converted over to the new faith. Within Kiev, he would build his Achaemeniyya in exile and share with the noble his memories of the city and the beautiful lands of Thrace from his childhood. He would eventually commission the Golden Gate of Kyiv, an imitation of the Golden Gate of Achaemeniyya. Hiring Byzantine architects from Al-Anatolia, it would stand as a love letter from Attalus for his old lands and last for four centuries before being demolished in the Eranian-Livonian wars of the 14th century that finally broke the Eranian domination of the Eurasian plains. He had a church built next to it and consecrated the Image of Edessa, somehow recovered through unknown means, in it.

By the time of his death in 872 AD, he had established some stability within his realm and laid the groundwork for the future of his dynasty. His three surviving sons swore to fulfil his dream of reclaiming the empire. Still, it seemed impossible with the limited resources of the Bulgarian people and the impoverished status of the House of Cyrus.

 

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Growing Pains in Bulgaria (872 AD – 910 AD)

Marzopan Nikola (872 AD – 885 AD)

Nikola, oldest son of Attalus, was the new ruler of Kyiv. A stern, stubborn and righteous man, he was more feared than loved by his adopted Bulgarian people. Within the Sarmatian confederation, he was renowned for his knowledge of strategy and ability to drill his men to the highest standards, albeit within an inch of mutiny. A hard man, he was trusted by the Sarmatian Khatun whom he owed allegiance to with the armies of the horde. Together, he and Khatun Yvresibil claimed many victories in the east against invading Muslims from the tribes of the Magyar and Pechenegs.

But a hard man develops fierce enemies. In 885 AD while touring his land in search of a bandit group that had been waylaying merchants on their way to Korsun, his own men turned on him. The tale goes that when he ordered several of his outriders flogged for failing to find the bandits, the men collectively tired of his tyranny and tied him to a post. There, they flogged him relentlessly until he expired from the loss of blood.

Satrap Aleksii (885 AD – 893 AD)

Power would pass to his oldest son, Aleksii, a boy of nine. While young, Aleksii was considered a prodigy, inheriting much of his father’s talent at war and exhibited a phenomenal ability to learn subjects that old learned priests struggled with. One of his passions was religion, taking after his grandfather. He penned the famed treatise “On Allah and God” while only 12 to highlight the similarities between the two faiths. When he presented it to the bishop of Kyiv, the man was shocked that a boy could write on such scholarly matters and provide such cutting insight.

Aleksii simply said to him:
Learning is in the heart, it is not in books.
Do not immerse yourself in frivolities and games.
If you write knowledge down, it is like putting it in a basket;
If you don’t learn it by heart, you will never succeed.
The only one who triumphs is he who commits it to memory,
After hearing it, and so guards against error.


Many expected great things for the boy, perhaps he would be the prince that would bring the Achaemenids home. Anush, his chancellor would begin to spread the word among the horse tribes that the Achaemenid sought bannermen to ride with him, promising eternal glory and rich rewards. As a boy of 14, he forced his neighbouring lords to recognise him as overlord of Greater Kyiv and he was formally recognised by Khatun Yvresibil as Satrap of Kyiv and its tributaries at his coming-of-age ceremony.

Unfortunately, he was not the prince that was promised. In a horrific hunting incident, he was gored by the boar he was hunting. Insisting on taking it down alone, he slipped just as he was preparing his thrust and the boar’s tusk ripped him from groin to chest. Aleksii was dead by the time his men could get him back to the city of Kyiv.

Satrap Nikola II (893 – 955 AD)

His younger half-brother, Nikola II, would take the seat of Kyiv. Another boy, just eleven, it seemed the Achaemenid line’s curse followed them into the steppe. He too was gifted but was more measured in his approach, doing little other than letting his regent-mother manage matters for him until he came of age.

Once he reached his maturity, he would take up the sword of Christ just like his father and half-brother. Generalship seemed to come easy to the descendants of Attalus and he would expand his holdings even further, subjugating the region of Halych and Pereyaslavl in his early 20s. He became known as the Blood Father for his orgies of destruction on the cities that refused to open their gates to his armies and for his cruel streak to those within Kyiv who crossed him. Over time, his influence would grow greatly within the Khanate of Hypania and it would rival the Khatun herself.

Nikola was more patient and ruthless than his golden sibling and he bided his time before striking the killing blow. With the Khatun old and not in full control of her faculties, he raised the banner of independence and pulled several other vassal lords with him. The war was quick as he quickly marched on the capital of Korsun, capturing it and the ailing Khatun. He forced her to accept the terms and stripped the palace of wealth before departing.

Now free to do as he pleased with no liege lord to worry about, he would reshape the Followers of Paul into a more militarised faith and integrate much of his brother’s writings into the tenets of the faith. Calling themselves the Khodadin or Believers in God, they would integrate much of the Orthodox canon and practices while preaching a more accommodating stance on Islam. He knew without any changes within Orthodoxy or Paulicanism, he would struggle to raise enough warriors for the crusade his grandfather had set for him. It’s important to understand that the Khodadin was not viewed as a heresy within the Bulgarian people, simply a new development within the church of Orthodoxy. Nikola had no intent to break with Christianity and he consciously sought clergy who could gently massage the updates in by wrapping it within the Middle Persian language of old to add legitimacy and tradition. This would give rise to longstanding issues in the future as two Patriarchs would compete for the faithful, one supported by the Achaemenids while the other claimed to uphold the traditional faith.

Nikola would continue to husband his strength over the next decade and it proved fortuitous for another outbreak of the great plague, last seen nearly 150 years ago exploded like God’s Wrath. Once again, city gates closed, the people prayed for succour and the dead piled up high like little hills outside every town and village. The Bubonic Plague would last for five years and Nikola made his plans for conquest during this time.

In 911, with the worst of the plague over, Nikola was ready. His forces had been mostly unscathed by the effects of the plague and his spies in the south reported on the poor condition of the defences in the Moesian plain. It was time to bring his adopted people into the promised land.

 

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The Kingdom of Bulgaria (921 AD – 1000 AD)

Nikola II the Blood Father (893 AD – 955 AD)

Beyond the deep-seated ambition of the Achaemenids, there were several other factors contributing to the Bulgarian migration. The plague would continue ravaging the steppe and even affected livestock. Many herds of horses and cattle had to be culled once they started showing signs of disease. In the pastoral lands of the steppe, this meant a large reduction in the available food supply. The rivers and farmlands of Moesia promised other staple foods such as fish and large-scale farmed vegetables, and closer proximity to raiding targets in the rich lands of Greece and Byzantium.

There was also the issue of overpopulation or congestion on the steppe. The Black Death exacerbated it unexpectedly as people fought over fewer resources or migrated from their homes to avoid the plague destroying their families. This meant that many tribes would be moving and running into each other, causing conflict as they argued about who had the right to the lands they stood on. Beyond that, the steppe had always been a world of continuous war – with no natural borders and most cultures being nomadic in nature, the ebb and tide of migration generated storms of conflict across its endless grass sea.

So when Nikola marched south in 927 AD, he took not just an army, but his entire people. All the women and children followed the men in their wagons or on foot. Kyiv was abandoned, stripped of any kind of movable wealth including the much cherished Image of Edessa from the Church of the Golden Gate. It was a slow moving procession as the army had to ensure the entire entourage was protected, especially at river crossings or narrow passes of the mountains protecting Moesia.

As we covered in our prologue, Nikola won a legendary victory on the plains of Silistra against the Muslims who held it and Dioskourias was handed over to the Bulgarian people to settle. The land itself would be renamed after its people becoming the Kingdom of Bulgaria with 931 commonly accepted as its founding year.

Nikola would spend the next decade solidifying his rule over the new lands and helping the Bulgarians lay roots deep into the soil of Moesia. Another great migration would occur now as Muslims, Copts and Orthodox were displaced by the new arrivals and forced to flee South with the name Achaemenid on their lips. The old rulers had become the word for terror and barbaric invasion. Initially, the formidable barriers of the lands provided a reprieve for the Bulgars from plague and immediate counter-attack and they enjoyed a semi-return to their old way of life. Some would take up farming, using enslaved Muslims and Byzantines as labour to work the fields while others explored the ruins of the cities, marvelling at the ancient wonders that their King said his ancestors had built. They would return with artefacts or precious materials scavenged from these cities alongside valuable building materials. The latter would help build new homes of stones but the former would contribute to a growing trade with the South and the West who were eager to lay their hands on forgotten Christian relics, Byzantine jewellery or Greek-Perso texts from a millennia ago. This trade would bring home gold to support the slowly increasing prosperity of Bulgaria.

Nikola himself would set forth on the task of restoring the Achaemenid inheritance, marching his armies to far-off lands to reclaim pieces of the imperial regalia. He would visit great punishment on those who failed to turn over property he viewed as his by right. However, the worst example of Nikola’s cruelty is the fate of Prasamnake, a lord who held lands in distant Voronezh, just beyond the Sea of Azov. His son, Attalus, had travelled to the court to attend the man’s wedding when he was arrested and executed after being accused of a crime in the city. Nikola would torture, castrate and blind the man for his misdeeds and ensured that every member of his dynasty was murdered so that Prasamnake would live out his last days in misery knowing that his line ended with him.

Expanding southward, he would subjugate the old kingdom of Odessos and merge it and Dioskourias into the new state of Bulgaria. He would choose to raise his capital high in the Balkan Mountains at the castle of Tarnovo, renaming Veliko Tarnovgrad, the Great Thorny City. From there, he would often look South and dream of conquering all the old territories of the empire.

Revenge Against Mihran and the Fall of Jerusalem

Nearing the end of his life, he set forth on his last war – he hired a fleet of Muslim ships from the Emirs of Al-Anatolia who were all to happy to let the warlord take on his new target, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and their ruler, the Mihrans. In their capture of Achaemeniya, they had shipped the many treasures of the Achaemenid throne back to Jerusalem including the Armor of Alexander and the Ark of the Covenant. Nikola wanted it all back.

The Mihrans were already hard pressed against a foe from the African desert – Shia Muslims had gathered around Abdullah, a descendant of Ali and the Prophet’s daughter, and claimed to be the rightful Caliph of Islam. For centuries, they had laid low in the drylands of Africa, far from Rashiduni control but with loss of authority in Medina, they found that their moment had come. A great Jihad arose around Kairouan in old Carthage and they subjugated the Christians and Muslims of North Africa under their banner. The Daevas of Hadrametum had already been reduced to a sliver of territory around the City of Carthage, unable to face down the religious fervour sweeping over their subjects.

Now Abdullah of the House of Hashemid wanted Jerusalem. His armies had been battling the Mihrans for two years, capturing much of western Egypt when the sails of Nikola came into view from the harbour of Jaffa. Caught between two forces, the Mihranid forces were unable to resist as Nikola ravaged the lands of northern Palestine before sacking Jerusalem. The teenage Queen Navvaba was forced to flee her capital and Nikola took everything he deemed was rightfully his from the usurping Mihrans.

With Palestine in ruins, the Mihrans lacked the tax base to keep their armies in the field and what followed was the loss of the last bastion of Christianity in the Middle East as the fortress that stood strong during three centuries of Muslim invasions finally was breached. The Shia would establish their capital in the new city of Cairo in the Nile Delta and would begin a new era within Muslim politics as believers were increasingly forced to choose sides in the growing rift within the religion.

Nikola would die during the return trip to Bulgaria and be succeeded by his grandson, Nikola II, son of the murdered Attalus.

Nikola II the Universal Spider (955 AD – 994 AD)

Tasked with continuing his grandfather’s work, the young Nikola was thrust into a difficult position. The initial rush of spoils in Bulgaria had dried up and the large force of soldiers his grandfather had built up needed to be paid. The treasury of Tarnovgrad had run dry and as Nikola came into the fullness of his royal powers, he was forced to take increasingly desperate measures to keep the realm afloat. He would first turn to selling off crownlands while reviewing the performance of the territories he held on to – the cash injections from selling off castles and farmlands fended off the worse initially while his stewardship saw a slow but gradual improvement in the annual taxation from the crown.

The autocracy of the Achaemenid Empire is a stark contrast to the more collegial or feudal nature within Achaemenid Bulgaria. The Bulgarian people had grown up on the steppe where the kings were chosen by their gods and their power was reliant on ensuring the prosperity of their people. If not, the gods (and the people) would strike down the king who lost the favour of the gods or God as it was in this Christian time. This meant more favour trading between the King and his nobles who held lands in trust for their people and a King who had to be seen supporting his lords in their goals. This meant continual shows of largesse and favour – especially as the Achaemenids had brought the Bulgars into the infinitely rich lands of the Old Empire. Nikola II would strip the churches of their wealth to keep the nobles happy – the Achaemenid Patriarch was a mere puppet to the crown in the system established by Nikola I.

The War within Orthodoxy for Hearts and Minds

With the return of the Achaemenids, many Orthodox Christians were divided on who was the rightful spiritual authority with Christendom. The Ecumenical Patriarch in Achaemeniyya had long been co-opted by first the Muslims then the Mihranid Coptics and forced to act as their mouthpiece. With the end of their influence in the Balkans, the Patriarch had found his authority severely diminished and the legendary status of the Achaemenids burnished the credentials of their chosen Patriarch. Over the next century and a half, the Ecumenical Patriarchate would be increasingly ignored as the influence and success of the Achaemenids grew within the lands of the Orthodox.

By ratifying agreements with the Sultans of Al-Anatolia, the Khodan Patriarch and Nikola II even ensured the granting of rights and protection to Christians within these lands, greatly raising the prestige of both men. The Orthodox die-hards were finding it increasingly harder to find lords willing to accept their rites over the Khodadins. Interestingly, Nikola II and the later Achaemenids never tried to eliminate the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch, believing that an opponent standing against them helps to crystallize the tenets of their own faith. This would eventually give us the autocephalous nature of Orthodoxy in the late medieval and early modern era as each people or kingdom had the freedom to manage their own spiritual matters like the Achaemenid Khodadins.

The Life and Struggles of Nikola II

Adding to the miseries of the King was a new plague, almost as deadly as the Black Death forty years ago. The Magrehbi Boils as it came to be called, spread out from Anatolia before infecting major ports such as Achaemeniya and Thessaloniki and eventually reaching Bulgaria. Paranoid since young, Nikola would lock himself and his family alongside a few trusted confidants within the mountain fortress of Tarnovgrad, turning out any who came to him for aid or protection.

Despite this, the King saw opportunity just like his father, His strongest opponent was Shah Dastan Kashu of Europa who ruled from Achaemeniya and controlled much of Macedonia. With control of the mountain passes, Dastan ensured there was no easy path for the Achaemenids to conquer their old heartlands. Now with plague devastating garrisons, Nikola struck deep into the Balkan mountains, capturing abandoned watchposts and border fortresses. He faced his own struggles with recruitment and manpower but would find clever solutions to these issues.

In the peace agreement with Dastan, he would take the Princess Delbar as hostage and then eventually marrying her. He sought to legitimise his conquest of Europa through the marriage, especially as Dastan had no sons. Nikola and Delbar’s marriage would be both bounteous yet cold as the hostage Queen was forced to sire a brood of children for the scheming King.

Nikola himself would eventually become known as the spider as he had his hands in many, many schemes. From the framing and imprisonment of his cousin to acquire his lands in Giorgiu to his strategic focus and development as a battlefield commander, it seemed there was nothing that Nikola would not attempt. He also faced down many peasant uprisings, unhappy with the ‘modernisation’ he imposed on a people who were still settling into their new lands and the taxation he imposed to address the shortfall in the crown’s balance sheet. He was also an unabashed adulterer – it’s said he had a girl in every village from Tarnovgrad to the Danube – and his bastards would prove to be his downfall.

One of them came to his court, a young man called Kocelj, who is said to have been blessed by the Lord and often speaking in tongues. When the man presented himself and demanded recognition, Nikola rejected and banished him from the city. Angry and following the voices in his head, Kocelj snuck back into the castle and murdered the King and his latest paramour in their bed and waited till morning drenched in their blood when he was arrested by the royal guard.

King Boril (994 AD – 1000 AD)

With Nikola’s murder, his second son, Boris took the throne. Nikola had already designated Boris as his co-king, passing over the oldest Dominik as he came from a previous marriage, not the coveted pairing with Delbar. Instead, Dominik was given lands in the Rhodopes to assuage his anger while Boris took the throne, assisted by his mother Delbar.

Boris’ reign was messy and tragic in many ways. His mother was an overbearing presence in court and often directed Bulgarian policy at the expense of the Bulgarian people. When the larger Achaemenid clan forced her out, she fled to her own holdings in Illyria and denounced the whole House including her children. When word came that her own daughter was having an incestuous relationship with her half-brother Dominik, she had Ivana imprisoned and refused to let her go despite the pleas from Boris.

Dominik soon passed away, possibly from heartbreak. He had always been weak of constitution and the entire matter proved too much for him. Boris’ other brother succeeded him as Duke but he would not last long either, dying from the same consumption that afflicted Boris.

Boris would recover from this disease but perhaps the Achaemenid curse had returned. He was soon struck down by smallpox and this proved more than his body could handle. The King was dead, at only twenty years of age.

 

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Hormazd the Restorer (1000 AD – 1027 AD)

With the sons of Nikola II all meeting an early demise, a power struggle broke out within the House. The Bulgarian influence had rubbed off on the Achaemenid succession system and they refused to accept any of Nikola’s daughters as the new ruler. In the messy infighting, Hormazd the Unlikely received the most support. A shy and unprepossessing man in his middle age, Hormazd had served the kingdom loyally during Nikola’s time as regent and master of horse and acted as an able guardian for the young Boril. Grandson to Nikola I’s brother, he expected to be working towards a comfortable retirement when the crown was unexpectedly placed on his head.

As King, Hormazd was proactive in expanding Achaemenid interests. He would complete the conquests of Macedonia and Greece within the first few years of his reign to strengthen his claim and legitimacy. Bulgaria had already made inroads into the Rhodopes Mountains and deep into the Greek heartlands – within a decade all of Greece came formally under Bulgarian suzerainty. Unlike his predecessors, there was no wide scale of pillaging or confiscation of wealth here. Most of the local lords had a connection to the historic Achaemenid dynasty and Hormazd would honour their past land grants and titles as long as they recognised him as their overlord and paid their feudal dues and accepted the Khodan Patriarch as the supreme authority within Orthodoxy. With the worse of the plague over, many of Nikola the Spider’s stewarding initiatives began to bear fruit and the large Bulgarian army was well funded by an increased tax base and the tribute paid by the new feudatories in Macedon and Greece. This eased the pressure on the throne for rapacious conquests as Hormazd would focus on maximising tax income within the lands he controlled.

Now, there was just one last piece to be reclaimed – Achaemeniyya, the great capital on the Bosphorus. The House of Kashu still held it and a fragment of territory in Thrace. In 1017, Hormazd would attempt to take the city. All of Greece rallied to the banner, as a revived wave of patriotism took hold of the Byzantines to see their old nation restored. Many answered Hormazd's call for a holy purging of the corrupt holdouts of old-country Orthodoxy (as the followers of the Ecumenical Patriarch came to be called).

The Taking of Achaemeniyya

The siege of Achaemeniyya lasted for two years as Hormazd’s forces struggled to break through the Darian Walls built nearly 700 years ago by Darius who first brought the Byzantines into the light of Christianity. 80,000 men laid siege to the city against 30,000 defenders and Hormazd bought off the Muslims of Anatolia to enforce a naval blockade in the Bosphorus for the city. Despite this, Hormazd could not find a weakness in those impregnable walls.

Fortune would arise out of misfortune for the Achaemenid King. Barthus Korus, the King of Europa had called his sister, Delbar, the ex-hostage-wife of Nikola to his aid. In the intervening years, she had managed to claim the throne of Dalmatia through her own schemes and was the defender of the restored Roman Empire’s lands in Illyria. There was no love lost between her and the Achaemenids and she took great pleasure in ravaging Bulgaria’s undefended Western border. Hormazd was forced to send near half his forces to counter these attacks and ensure he still had a home to return to after the war.

Barthus would capitalise on this and hoped to break the siege with a decisive move. The Golden Gate of Achaemeniyya along with the three other major gates opened and 30,000 warriors sallied forth bearing the Icon of the Virgin Mary and chanting the lord’s name as they sought to defeat the heretics. Hormazd’s forces were deceptive in their size as he had placed many forces further back to scour supplies and reduce the logistical pressure on the frontline. The initial 35,000 Bulgarian forces were initially caught by surprise and faced small losses but their years of battle and natural hardiness told and it became a stalemate. That soon shifted as Hormazd called in his outlying forces and reserves. In great calvary charge, they arrived and broke through the Europan eastern flank and the morale of Barthus’ men broke. A defeat turned into a slaughter as every Europan soldier scrambled to get back within the great Darian Walls. With less than half the original garrison left, the city could not ensure every tower was manned adequately. Hormazd would press his advantage and launch a full assault. Within the day, they had broken through the Gate of Melantias and from there, surged throughout the city and seized King Barthus. Achaemeniyya was once again in Achaemenid hands after 250 years of exile.

Restoring the Empire

With the seat of the empire secured and more than half of the lands of its old heartlands unified under an Achaemenid, the Khodan Patriarch declared the empire restored. In a grand ceremony within the City, Hormazd was crowned with the ancient regalia of the old Achaemenid Emperors – they had been kept locked away after their retrieval by Nikola I from Jerusalem nearly a century ago as the Kings of Bulgaria did not feel it proper to wear them until they completed the ancient mission Attalus the Exile had entrusted them with.

Styling himself Tsar, a Slavic corruption of Shahanshah, Hormazd would begin the long process of integration between the peoples of Bulgaria and Byzantium. One of his immediate measures was to restore Greek as the language of the court. Over time, this would bleed over to the regular citizens of the City and a hybridized form of Greek would become the lingua franca of the empire as the Greeks, Bulgarians and Byzantines mingled and traded in a slow integration process. The Bulgarians themselves felt aggrieved with the shift of power from Tarnovgrad to Achaemeniyya and the changes in court. The multicultural make-up of the empire proved a delicate balance to maintain and Hormazd would confer with the newly installed Khodan Patriarch Erastian for a solution. Erastian’s proposal was more war.

The Crusade for Asia

The idea of religious war dated all the way back to Darius III who had subjugated and forcibly converted the Dacians in the 6th century. The Papacy had built on that idea with a formal system of armed pilgrimages to reclaim back important holy sites to the Catholic faith, promising remittance for their sins in return for faithful conduct in holy war. The Khodan Patriarch would borrow these ideas and combine it with nationalistic zeal of the restored Achaemenid Empire to preach the restoration of Christian rule in Anatolia. Seeking to capture the Western coast as a base for future expansion, the Orthodox began to organise for war.

Nearly 100,000 men answered the call and they crossed the Bosphorus in 1022 AD. They found some immediate success in Lydia and Abydos but as the Muslims began to organise themselves after being caught by surprise in the initial assault, the tides turned and thousands of Christians fell in battle after battle. Even Hormazd seemed unable to stem the rout and he was forced to regroup and rebuild his forces in Achaemeniyya after a particularly chastening defeat. The irony of it all was that Al-Anatolia was still majority Byzantine in culture. The Arab invaders had never been able to implement control here and the old Byzantine houses of the Achaemenids eventually rose back to their old positions of power. With the Caliphate gone, they controlled their own lands once again but Islam had come to stay and many were fervent in their belief of the new religion. A land given more to culture and trade then warfare – a holdover from its long centuries of peace during the Pax Persica – Al-Anatolia would from this point onwards turn from the House of Peace to the House of War. The Crusade pitched descendants of the old empire against themselves, divided by religious lines that drove them to greater and greater heights of cruelty and barbarism to their enemies.

In 1023, it seemed all hope was lost but as the seemingly victorious Muslims were content to return to their homes in the Anatolian heartlands, Hormazd landed back in Abydos with new contingent of mercenaries and hurriedly trained imperial troops that launched a rapid assault of the key fortress of Asia. Within 6 months, all the border fortresses between Asia and the Cappadocian heartlands had fallen and Christians began fortifying their position to prevent Muslim egress. Shah Nikephoros of Asia was forced to flee his lands after a naval assault on his last holdout on Rhodes and the Cappadocian forces were content to surrender Asia in return for a lasting peace as long as Muslim rights were protected in the now Christian lands. Hormazd and Erastian were amenable to the terms and a Christian ruler now held the first of hopefully many more pieces of the old Empire.

Hormazd would become a living legend in his lifetime. He had restored the Achaemenid Empire, delivered one of the first notable victories against Muslim armies and fused a new cultural dynamic into the Balkans. He would pass on in 1027 AD peacefully, a quiet end for a man who had only hoped to live a quiet life before the mantle of duty was thrust onto him.

 

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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.

Opportunity would land in his lap when Navvaba Nowzarid, aunt to the Sultana of Cappadocia Thekla Nowzarid, arrived in his court pleading for help in claiming the throne. A claimant changed the equations within the dynamics of Anatolia and Bernardin hoped some of the Emirs would be willing to switch sides. He had heralds visit the estates of these lords, promising them leniency and lowered taxes in return for their support or at least neutrality in the coming war.

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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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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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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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

The Achaemenid Empire in 1097 AD had become defined by its core territories in the Balkans and the Bulgar-Greek identity that reflected the make-up of its people. It’s historic claims in Asia and the Middle East were often ignored by most. Beyond the Balkans, it had an eclectic mix of holdings in Africa, Italy, and Anatolia and had been expanding northwards into Eastern Europe, much of it due to the efforts of the Rev Mehran family who dominated the lands of the Danubia and claimed the Kingship of Dacia.

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.

 

[Killcrazy13]

The Time of Tumult (1150 AD – 1209 AD)


The instability ushered in by Zakariyah with his dream of union and the creation of the universal church was exacerbated by his untimely death. Having sat on the throne for only 10 years, he only enough time to kick the hornets nest but not enough to clear it out. What happened after is a replay of succession crisis that the Achaemenids had experienced every so often in its history.

His oldest son, Dragshan was murdered a year before Zakariyah’s death, and his older child, Hristina, was too young to voice her claim. The throne passed to Ivan, Zakariyah’s second son, a boy of five but he lived for only two years before a childhood illness claimed his life. The throne then passed to the third son, Svetislav. Again the boy died young, but the records do not comment on the manner of his passing but we can ascribe foul play as the most likely scenario.

With the male line ended, the daughter of Dragshan was next in line. Now old enough to find supporters, Hristina’s regent advisors established a modicum of stability within the empire. The years 1150 AD to 1186 AD when Hristina’s son attained maturity are marked by dynastic infighting within the Achaemenids as powerful aunts and relatives tried to gain control on the succession of young rulers.

Technically, the empire was smaller and theoretically easier to manage than it was 50 years ago. Darius V had given the lands of Carpathia, Croatia and Dacia to his second son, Stracimir to rule and his sons founded a new house, Radomir, that fought for influence in this offshoot of the empire against the Rev Mehrans of Dacia and Demos. Combined with the loss of Anatolia and the erection of the Sultanate of Rum, the empire had shrunk back down to the Balkan and Greek core of Hormazd’s day and several overseas exclaves. Despite the smaller empire, religion was tearing apart the realm as neighbouring dukes and boyars chose religious factions that furthered their interest or justified their predations on their neighbours. Big picture, the unionists were slowly winning at the courtly level. It was more difficult to decipher how the religious strife was received among the peasantry though judging by later actions, the idea of communion with Rome was only skin-deep for most village priests or isolated bishop.

Tsaritsa Hristina would attain her majority a year after succeeding Svetislav in 1155 AD and attempted to reduce the influence of her minders. Partially successful, her marriage to the Momchils of Adrianople ensured security for her capital from any lord looking to lead an army to the City to overthrow her. She was pro-union and attempted to uphold her grandfather’s wishes but found that the reach of Achaemeniyya had grown short in the tumultuous past few years. Beyond the Thracian heartlands and Greece, the Khodadins held sway over hearts and minds in Bulgaria and the northern territories. Her 17 years of rule are marked by continual exchanges with the Vatican on the state of the union and the request for more preachers and evangelists to assist in the proselytizing of the Bulgarian people.

Culturally the empire had developed into three distinct demographics across its geography. In Thrace, the old Perso-Greek Byzantine culture had merged with the Bulgarian influx to create a new hybridized culture that spoke Greek, dressed in the Bulgarian style and upheld fossilised Persian practices. This Byzantine-Bulgar culture was the culture of the court and the nobility. In the north, along the Danube, the traditional Bulgar culture dominated all the way to the Balkan mountains that separated it from Thrace. Here, the people held to many old traditions such as the passion for horse-rearing and hardiness was a valued skill. Citizens of the capital often viewed them as backwards, referring to them as “old-country Bulgarians”. Despite their resistance to change, prosperity and progress had seen younger and younger generations give up the old ways and seek to make their fortune in the City. Here, union vs patriarchate divisions seemed to orientate around age lines as the elders tried to retain the faith that brought them empire and fortune. In the south and Greece, Greek culture predominated. With its stability and relatively coherence as unified geography for most of its existence, Macedonia and Greece had held long to ancient Greek culture. Even in the 12th century, many still bore the name of ancient Greek heroes such as Xenophon and Kassander. The long Achaemenid rule had fossilised many of these people’s practices and they felt little need to evolve like the Romans or Egyptians who faced invasions and regular influxes of new cultures that disrupted the status quo. They had grown wealthy from trade in the Mediterranean and had the most to gain from closer ties to the West with the way East now blocked by zealous fedayeen of the Nizari, and so were most open to union.

Hristina’s reign would last for 17 years and the empire changed little in the period. She would not survive the birth of her third child, Dragshan, and the empire was now bequeathed to her older son, Konstantinos.

Konstantinos the Shatterer (1172 AD – 1209 AD)

Depending on which side of the union debate you stood on, you would either revile the new Tsar or celebrate his piety. Konstantinos was only two years old when he was crowned Tsar of the Achaemenid Empire. We can only imagine the sight of a toddler drowning in the imperial regalia trying to not fidget before the Catholic Patriarch of Achaemeniyya could crown him and the men kneeling behind to hold it up instead of enveloping the child Tsar’s head.

The court apparatus took care of his education and training to be Tsar but the Master of Whispers, Kalojan Sliven, took a special shine to the boy and saw in him someone talented at the darker arts. Sliven himself held no lands but was feared and respected by all for his abilities since he had been brought in during the reign of Hristina. Often Konstantinos could be seen breaking bread with aged Sliven and engaged in long whispered conversations. It was no surprise that Konstantinos would grow up with a preference for intrigue and subterfuge in his dealings. What was a surprise was that Kalojan Sliven was a patriarchate supporter and had done his best to see the Tsar come to his viewpoint.

Throughout his childhood, control of the court was a prize to be fought over. Initially, his father’s brother, Kresimir, acted as regent, ruling out of Selembria. He was a harsh but fair taskmaster who seemed to be working towards the greater good of the empire and tried to end the schismatic conflicts without favouring a side but in 1178, he was imprisoned by the scheming Donka Achaemenid, sister to the late Tsaritsa Hristina. From her base in Veneto in Northern Italy, she began to direct imperial matters while leaving the boy Tsar alone in his capital.

When he came of age and egged on by Kalojan Sliven, Konstantinos sought to end his regency forcefully. The Tsar had developed a sadistic streak and he had the imperial guard sail to Veneto to arrest his aunt and deliver her to Achaemeniyya in fetters. His treatment for her was not kind and the scars she suffered ran deep. Donka was a die-hard believer in Union and as Konstantinos steered the realm away from the Pope, her anger and outrage swelled. She kept it bottled in though and bided her time for revenge. Donka’s imprisonment would last for five years before Konstantinos released her, viewing her threat as non-existent.

In 1190 AD, Konstantinos declared himself a believer in an independent Patriarchate that served the needs of the people of the Achaemenid Empire. Across the empire, the pendulum of power swung violently in favour of the oppressed who exacted their revenge on those who refused to recant their statements on the primacy of the Pope and the articles of union. Konstantinos himself would exile many members of his own court who refused to follow his imperial directive. Aided by the powerful Sliven, there were many nights where well-off courtiers and officials were dragged out of their homes, never to be seen again.

The Catholic Patriarch, Nemosios, was tarred and feathered before being forced to recant his belief in the Union. The people of the city cheered and laughed as Konstantinos made the most of the political theatre. The response in Western Europe was outrage and anger, and many lords beseeched the Pope to call for a crusade on the heretics of the Achaemenid Empire. When Konstantinos raised his banners and had the restored Khodan Patriarch declare a crusade for Valois, intended to break the morale of Catholicism, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Khodadin men in the thousands took up the cross in order to kill and murder Christians whom they felt had oppressed them and forced them into sinning against the tenets of their faith. Within the empire, many lords had converted but it was hard to tell how fervent or superficial their conversion was. Konstantinos would sail with his men to the lands of the Franks, unaware of the disaster about to befall him.

Pope Nicolaus would give in to the outrage of Catholic Christendom and call a crusade to displace the Achaemenid Emperor and restore the Articles of Union in Achaemeniyya and Nemosios to his seat.

In 1199, a fleet would set sail from the harbour of Veneto with the blessings of Lady Donka. Throughout the realm, secret Catholics (essentially any lord who did not sail for Valois) rose up in rebellion and declare themselves supporters of the Pope. Caught flatfooted by this rebellion, Konstantinos can do little – he has to defeat the Catholic armies in Valois in order to move his soldiers home safely or face continual harassment. He subdues Valois and chooses a distant relative, Jerolim Kozman to rule Valois and prepares for the long voyage home. Its already March 1203 and he has received reports that the Catholic Betrayers are laying siege to Achaemeniyya but the winds are not favourable to travel south through the Atlantic.

The city falls not with a bang but with a whimper in August 1203 as the undermanned sea walls are breached by the sailing siege towers of the Veneto fleet, aided by the intelligence of Donka. Catholics stream into the city. The Franks and Latins pillaged the Khodan churches and accidentally set fire to large sections of the city.

Konstantinos receives word of the loss of the city wordlessly and retreated to his cabin on the flagship Leontophoros. The next morning, he ordered the fleet to sail for Crete. With the loss of the crownlands and the treasury, Konstantinos knew he did not have the resources to reconquer the Latin Empire that the Catholics had established. He would fall back on the tools he loved best, intrigue and murder. A cold war would escalate for the remaining six years of the Tsar’s life between the exiled Tsar and the Catholic forces overturning the old order in Achaemeniyya. Death would beget death and Konstantinos was partially successful in breaking up the Latin Empire and engendering rumours of dissension and betrayal in the ranks. Donka herself would escape his wrath, dying peacefully of old age, six months after the sacking of Achaemeniyya. The Latins were not silent either and assassins hired at great cost from Rum would eliminate the Tsar in 1209.

The scattered holdings of the Achaemenid Empire with its capital in Crete in 1208 AD after the success of the Great Catholic Betrayal. Note that the Latin Empire began disintegrating shortly after its formation as the powerful Catholic Macedonians and Greek lords refused to accept the rule of the Latin Emperor, Boudewijn Gravesen.​

 

[Killcrazy13]

The Latin Domination (1209 AD – 1300 AD)

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Boudewijn I hailed from the van Gaverens of Friesland. His ancestors had been Norse Vikings that had settled the lands and assimilated with the local Batavo Dutch people. Over time, the Gaveren had built up their wealth and holdings until they were one of the riches families in all Holland and Friesland. Boudewijn taking up the cross to destroy the Achaemenids was driven more by materialistic goals than any religious zeal he felt deep down. Despite the wealth his family had made, he knew it paled compared to the riches of the Mediterranean where trade thrived and the transfer of goods from East to West on a single convoy of ships could make a man richer than a lifetime of collecting rent from farmers in Friesland. He would leverage much of his holdings and borrow even more to become one of the principal sponsors of the Achaemenid Crusade (as it was known in the West). Along with him, he would recruit as many Dutchmen as were willing to volunteer and set sail for Greece. All told, Boudewijn brought with him 8,000 Dutch and they would be the nucleus of the Batavo-Greek peoples that will form in Epirus during the Latin Domination.

With the capture of Achaemeniyya, there was debate on who should lead the newly created Latin Empire. The Pope distrusted the Greeks, Byzantines or Bulgarians that professed the true faith and several of the other Latin leaders of the crusade had fallen along the way. With few options, most accepted Boudewijn as the new Latin Emperor of Achaemeniyya. Initially, all of his dreams had come true, finding the wealth of the city surpassing his wildest expectations. He would focus on restarting the Black Sea trade and replacing the population of the city with Catholics, establishing an Italian quarter for the merchant princes of the peninsular to establish their trade companies.

But beyond the city, his control grew tenuous. Many of the crusaders had plans to return home now that the mission was accomplished, reducing the number of Catholics whose loyalty was not in doubt. In Macedonia and Greece, the Achaemenid Houses of Hriz, Achaemenid-Goritsa, Jamshid, Momchil and Komitopulov chafed at paying obeisance to the Latin usurper. They had overthrown their Khodan Tsar for freedom, not to be lorded over by a Dutch bumpkin. Within a year, the Latin Empire began splintering aided by whispers of Konstantinos. Greece and Macedonia would break away, tearing away large chunks of the empire who preferred supporting their fellow countryman than the man designated emperor by the Pope. Boudewijn would attempt to quell the rebellion but he was severely injured at the Battle of Voden and died from his wounds.

He was succeeded by his daughter, Joan the Hideous in 1205. The poor girl was only 6 years old and she would be stricken with typhus in her early teens, destroying her beauty and leaving her lame in one foot. The regent council that was established proved competent enough to hold things together but not competent enough to pull the Eastern Houses back into the fold. Her marriage to Duke Aemilius Alcaceris-Varese of Carinthia would bear only a single child before she passed away in 1224 from fatal apoplexy, aged only 26.

Aleid van Gaveren (1224 AD – 1281 AD)

That child, Aleid van Gaveren became a mere figurehead for the regime. Only four years old, she would be moved from stronghold to stronghold as the Achaemenids reconquest gathers speed. In 1227 AD, Arda, daughter of Konstantinos captures the City in a swift and brutal night raid. The Empress is smuggled out before the Achaemenid forces could reach the palace. In the coming months, much of Bulgaria and Thrace reverts to Achaemenid rule as loyalist locals force out the local Latin garrisons. Tsaritsa Arda was restored to her seat at Achaemeniyya and swore to destroy the crumbling Latin Empire.

Over the next decade, Aleid and the Latin lords face continual loses in Bulgaria and Macedonia, losing Vidin, Moldavia and Wallachia progressively as Arda works to restore the empire. Eventually, the Latin Empress finds a modicum of respite in Dyrrachion. Protected by mountains and sea on all sides, Epirus becomes their base. Close to allies in Italy, the Latins begin building up a robust network of trade and support to keep the regime alive. Aleid herself has reached adulthood and marries Slavan Achaemenid-Goritsa, a scion of the splinter Achaemenid house that controls Greece. The marriage establishes a needed alliance and she hopes become the starting point for her dynasty to lay down roots in the region. The remaining Dutch soldiers are encouraged to take wives from the local populace and this will eventually establish a mixed Batavo-Greek identity in Epirus and the surrounding regions. Ethnically Greek but Dutch speaking, the Batavo-Greek will become one of the stranger remnants of the crusading era to survive into the modern age.

Over the following decades, both sides, Achaemenids and van Gaverens rebuild their strength in preparation for the conflict they know is inevitable to decide the destiny of their Empires. By the end of Aleid’s life, the Epirote coast is lined with fortresses and had become the primary port of call for Italian and German merchants, bringing new wealth to build a new army ready to take on the Achaemenids and their heretic followers.


Tsaritsa Arda Achaemenid (1209 AD – 1271 AD)

After succeeding her father, Arda focuses on controlling the sea lanes in the Adriatic and Aegean – necessary before she can launch any assault on the mainland. Her younger sister is tasked with overseeing the largest extant the Achaemenids control in Illyria and Croatia. As mentioned earlier, she captured Achaemeniyya in 1227 AD and finally has a secure base to capture or damage the Catholic betrayers in Macedonia and Greece. This will consume her life for the next four decades and she makes gains steadily but never as fast as she liked.

She would marry a Kozman, the son of King Jerolim Kozman, who had established himself in Valois after Konstantinos left the region. Their children would grow up in France to keep them safe from the threat of the van Gaverens and their Frankish nature would prove to be a detriment to ruling the Achaemenid Empire.

The Kozmans had established an independent patriarchate in Paris. Surrounded by Catholics, they knew that survival hinged on compromise and finding acceptance. Dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury helped them find a solution that the Pope in Rome could accept – they recognised Rome as one of the five seats of the pentarchy and condemn the Khodan patriarchs for their heresy. In effect, the Kozmans declared that the last three centuries of Khodan church theology never happened.

Arda accepts her husband’s reason on the matter of church. Her great fear is reigniting a new crusade against her and understands that compromise is the only way forward. Her long life and events in France will prevent a smooth integration of the two thrones. In France, the Kozmans are distracted and decimated by the wars with Muslim Aquitane. The Caliph of Iberia had made great gains across the Pyrenees pushing back the Romans, Gauls and Franks back and establishing a new kingdom in the south of France. Arda’s son would fall in one of the battles against the Muslims and her grandson was next in line for the throne in Valois and the Empire. The boy had never been to Achaemeniyya and despite his Byzantine name, Konstantinos spoke only French and Latin.

Arda would die in 1271 AD, too busy to give thoughts to the succession and word was sent for Konstantinos II in Paris to take the throne of Achaemeniyya. And this is where things fall apart for the Achaemenid Empire.

It would take a better part of a year for Konstatinos II the Frank to reach Achaemeniyya and he was promptly assassinated on his arrival. The list of suspects was long – the van Gaverens, Khodan zealots, the greater Achaemenid dynasty – but no one could be called out.

His daughter, Gotberga, was promptly placed under the control of a regency council of the good and the great of the empire at the age of 3 and was left powerless until she reached 16 and then promptly murdered in 1285.

His second daughter, Cesaria, is at least old enough to challenge the regency, aged 15 and takes power. The girl Tsaritsa has at least been raised in Achaemeniyya and knows the games of the court and how to survive but the van Gaverens have done much to capitalise on the weakness of the throne during the intervening period.

Emperor Gerolt the Lucky / Restitutor Orbis (1281 AD – 1307 AD)

Some say Gerolt was born under a lucky sign, some say he was sent by god to do his will. However we look at it, Gerolt did the seemingly impossible by uniting Catholicism under a single ruler and he came close to uniting all Christianity before the fates intervened.

Gerolt was the grandson of Aleid. His father had perished in battle and he was now the heir to the Latin Empire. On Aleid’s death in 1281 AD, Gerolt was crowned emperor. His grandmother had already subjugated portions of Macedonia and Greece later in her life during Gotberga’s regency and he would capitalise on these gains to strike for Achaemeniyya. He would win a famous victory at Heraclea Perinthos, defeating the flower of Achaemenid nobility in a masterful display of strategy. 70,000 Latin forces faced 120,000 Achaemenid soldiers but Gerolt’s general, Lucius De Hauteville, outmanoeuvred the enemy who littered the field with 50,000 dead. With the Achaemenids crippled by the disaster, taking the city proved easy enough. Supported by a new invention, bombards that could shatter the Darian walls, Gerolt took the city in 1286 AD. With the lost of their capital, the Achaemenids retreated to their Bulgarian heartlands to regroup.

The prestige of his victory reverberated through Europe and many German lords pledged themselves to serve the Latin Emperor. We aren’t sure what drove so many of them to suborn themselves but perhaps the idea of a German-Dutch ruler appealed to a nascent sense of patriotism. Who better to rule Germany than a van Gaveren – enough of Italo-Roman tyrants lording it over Germans? Whatever the case, something spectacular happened over the next twenty years. Gerolt had most of central Europe accept his rule. There were a few hold outs such as the Kingdom of Ascibirgia but they were subjugated in short order.

With Achaemeniyya defeated, Gerolt increasingly turned his focus West. Now that he had Germania pledged to him, a new idea began to take shape in Gerolt’s mind. There was still a Roman Empire but the Imperator was seated in Sardinia and the empire itself was more of a collective than a unified entity. Gerolt would begin to encroach on Roman territory, pledging to be the protector of all Latins against heresy and heathens. With his credentials burnished by capturing Achaemeniyya and the loyalty of the German people, Gerolt would soon conquer or see large parts of Italy pledged to him, abandoning the rightful Empress Emilia of Sardinia. Eventually, even the Pope could see how the winds were blowing for this one man and in a grand ceremony, pronounced a new Holy Roman Empire was established and Gerolt as its first Emperor or Kaiser as the title came to be known in Germany.

Gerolt came so close to pulling in the Eastern Christians too in his new world order. His son was pledged in marriage to Cesaria Achaemenid. The match had been arranged by the court of Achaemeniyya and conditioned on the return of their capital to their control. In return, they would accept Church Union. War had been ravaging the lands for a century and the cries of peace were growing louder and louder as a new threat seemed to be developing in the East. Unfortunately, it was not to be as Cesaria was lost in the wilderness in 1300 while out hunting, six months before the planned marriage. It’s unknown if it was foul play or a simple mishap. We can only imagine what impact a unified Christendom would have created in the coming centuries.

With the loss of Cesaria, a succession war broke out within the Achaemenids. Mundulf had the strongest claim as a patrilineal cousin to Cesaria but the forces in-situ in Bulgaria preferred Dragoman, a more distant relative, descended from Konstantinos I’ sister, Lilyana.

The Achaemenids were left to their civil war, forgotten as new developments took over the world. Gerolt as Holy Roman Emperor would move his seat to Rome and placed loyal vassals in the Balkans while a new threat grew in Anatolia, the Osmanaglu.

 

[Killcrazy13]

The Achaemenid Recovery (1300 AD – 1400 AD)

Mundulf Kozman VS Dragoman Achaemenid

While Mundulf Kozman was the rightful Tsar by all rights of laws and religion, much of the realm refused to accept another Frankish Kozman to sit the throne after the failures of Konstantinos II, Gotberga and Cesaria.

Mundulf’s strongest base of support was in Croatia and his native land of Valois while Dragoman ruled in the Bulgarian heartlands. The initial clashes between both sides were inconclusive and only led to suffering for the peasantry along the Danube who bore the depredations of soldiers. Mundulf was already an old man and he missed his native France, hoping to meet his end in his manor on the outskirts of Paris. So he proposed a solution to the Bulgarian factions of the empire – a division.

In return for abdicating the imperial throne, Mundulf would take up the Kingship of Valois. The Illyrian crownlands that belonged to him personally would be retained but he would allow any Duke or Count in Croatia to choose who to pay their allegiance to. The Achaemenid faction eagerly accepted the proposal in order to focus back on their fixation – retaking Achaemeniyya.

The Khodan Reconquest

In a historic ceremony in the old capital of Tarnovgrad, Dragoman was crowned Tsar of the Achaemenid Empire, of Bulgaria, Old Moesia, Asia, Macedonia, Croatia and Africa, Master of the Aegean and Black Sea, formally declaring his intent to rebuild the empire and save it for the true Orthodox Khodan faith. With Gerolt I still in power in the HRE, he knew it was a fool’s errand to attempt to attack the city directly. Instead of striking directly for their enemies, the Khodadin needed a softer target to show that they were still favoured by God.

Thus the Crusade for the Bosporan Kingdom. These lands had been overtaken by Muslims and owed loyalty to the Eranian Khagan Rostam in Tblisi. The war was personally led by Dragoman and his father, Viseslav and it proved, at least to the Bulgarians, that they were still a force to be feared, despite the chastening defeat at Heraclea Perinthos twenty years ago against the Catholics.

Viseslav was installed as the ruler of the Kingdom in Dragoman’s stead with the throne to pass to Dragoman’s second son in the death of Viseslav. The convoluted succession mechanics was driven by the demands of the increasingly influential nobility. Dragoman’s personal lands were small and limited to holdings in Tarnov and Silistria, having given up the crownlands in Croatia to Mundulf and the Thracian crownlands were under Roman control. Combined with the fact that he was acclaimed Tsar as opposed to inheriting the title, Dragoman had few cards to play. In effect the nobility had an increasing say in how the empire should be run and had a vested interest in keeping the Tsar weak – a weakness that would persist for the next century and a half.

Despite these weaknesses, Dragoman and his allied nobles were aligned on the reconquest. They would slowly push back against the Catholics but would await the right opportunity. The chance came with the death of Gerolt I. His grandson, Gerolt II, was acclaimed Holy Roman Emperor and he was distracted by the need to impose control on the fractious German lords in the North. The Eastern portions were left to their own devices and soon broke with Rome. With independence came the Achaemenid wolves who began to push back against them in Thrace. Allied with the Achaemenid-Goritsa Kingdom of Melita, they would lay siege to the capital, adapting the bombard technology that the van Gaverens had first used to take out the Darian Walls. After a four-month siege, they finally breached its walls and stormed the city, slaughtering any who they identified as Catholic.

The City and the Hagia Sophia were reconsecrated to the Khodan faith and the blessed Icons restored to their rightful places. Despite the anti-Catholic feeling, the initial bloodlust gave way to pragmatism and the Italian trading quarter was left to rebuild itself – the city had grown reliant on trade with the West and needed to maintain good relations with the Italian merchants.

Further conquest was put on hold by the assassination of Dragoman in 1331 AD. This was no Catholic vendetta but an aggrieved Khodan lord. Pachomius of Krain had grown angry by the high taxes needed to sustain the military campaign and the rejection by the Tsar for leniency and subsidies in Croatia. Pachomius would escape repercussions, safe in his hinterland and the other nobles forced the new Tsar, Attalus II, son of Dragoman from pursuing the matter. The crown was still weak and feared rebellion if he pressed the matter.

Attalus II was 26 years old when he took the throne and the responsibilities of power would wear on him. Ironically nicknamed “the Stout” for his gaunt frame, he would often refuse to eat as he pored over missives from across the realm and strategized with his generals for the next campaign. In his lifetime, he sought to rebuild the crown’s power, and made further inroads into Greece, capturing Thessaloniki in 1337 AD and forcing Melita out of Thrace in 1341 AD. The Roman territories in the East began splintering as Kaiser Gerolt II looked West to stop the Iberian Caliphate from making further inroads into Europe. Dalmatia, Macedonia, and Greece would begin warring among themselves and Attalus hoped to capitalise on their conflicts. But their hostilities were always put aside against the greater threat of a resurgent Achaemenid attack and the reconquest stalled out with only Bulgaria mostly recovered.


The Turkish Threat

In Anatolia, the Osmanaglu Turks had been growing in power. Migrating with a hundred other Turkish tribes after a conflict between Al-Anatolia and the Achaemenids had weakened the strength of the Byzanstanis and allowed Turks free entrance to the Anatolian plateau. While many of the Turks had gone into service for one taifa or another Khodan principality in the intervening century, the Osmanaglu had retained its independence. With the establishment of the state of Rum, they had served as mercenaries defending the Western border against Christian attacks. During the time of Gerolt the Lucky, much of Bithynia and the Meander Valley was lost to Christian crusaders Establishing their Principalities of Opsikion, Nicaea and Lydia, they were a dangerous irritant to the Nizari of Anatolia. The Osmanaglu Turks saw the weakness of Rum and seized the remaining holdouts of Rum along the Western coast to begin their ascent to power. In the sixty years since, they had expanded across Eastern Anatolia, pushing the Rum state into Syria and becoming the principal opponents of the Christian crusader states of Anatolia. Their focus on Rum instead of Christians can be put down to the fact that they aligned themselves with Sunni Islam in direct opposition to the Shi’ites of Rum and Jerusalem.

With the HRE no longer paying attention to Eastern Europe, the crusader states were in an increasingly perilous state and looked for a new patron – the Achaemenid Empire. The Empire, eager to rebuild its prestige, welcomed them to seek protection under its flag. Unable to proceed with direct annexation, the Achaemenids sought soft power, influencing them to switch to Khodan Orthodoxy and letting them establish trade embassies in the slowly rejuvenating capital of trade in Eastern Europe.

In 1073 AD, the first challenge by the Turks against Christian power was raised. The Achaemenid had held on to many important Aegean islands during the Latin Domination but they were increasingly isolated as Turkish piracy from the Anatolian coast grew. Iollas Osmanaglu, the Sultan of the Ottomans would launch a conquest of these islands. The Achaemenids had not been a naval power since their zenith in the 2nd century AD and they were hard-pressed to defend these last holdings in Anatolia. In a three-year war, the Turks took Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios from the Achaemenids.

The End of an Era

The next decades would pass relatively peacefully with Attalus II eventually passing on in 1389, physically worn out by his exertions in rebuilding the Empire. He had achieved much but there was much more to be done and it was the task of his successor and grandson, Tsar Dominik to continue the mission.

The Achaemenids had lost much during the medieval age, seeing so much of their empire stolen by the Muslims. Even their entire cultural identity had transformed, turning their backs on their Persian descent and developing a European-centric Bulgar-Byzantine identity, firmly rooted in the lands they resided in for over a millennium. Reduced from a superpower to merely a powerful state, they would now have to navigate a world where others could challenge them and the influx of new ideas and technologies threatening to upend the old order.

Will this relic of the past survive or is the doom of the Achaemenid Empire imminent?

END OF PART 2​

 

[Killcrazy13]

A Quick Snapshot of the World in 1400 AD

I plan to do a more detailed overview in the EU4 start but felt it was right to show off the kingdoms, religions and cultures of the world in the CK3 context. I'll answer questions about the state of world if you're curious here though.

The State of the World in 1400 AD

Map of Europe and the Middle East in 1400 AD. The greatest powers in the world are the HRE, the Caliphate of Castille, the Imamate of Jerusalem, the Achaemenid Empire and the Eranian Empire​

Religions in 1400 AD

Yes, there is a pagan religion that survived to 1400 AD in Ireland and Scotland. Christianity has a stronghold in Europe but the rest of the world is dominated by Islam until you get to the Hindu fortress of India. There's also the strange Hellenic state of Yugra in the Siberian wastes.
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Cultures in 1400 AD

Yes, I know this map is a mess. It's the natural development of taking a I:R game into CK3 and having it undergo a 1000 years of cultural drift.​

Development in 1400 AD

The richest states are in found in the Mediterrenean and the Middle East. The Europeans states are slowly developing their potential as the early modern era arrives (at least the mainland is). Brittania is still a backwater.​