Ashburn

From Fantasy Novel

Revision as of 08:03, 23 August 2007

Template:Infobox Realm This realm is Sparta - make it the mountain realm. Children when born - if sickly, deformed or anything less than strong, powerful, large, etc... it is cast into the sea, or left on the mountain - in other words left to die, deemed worthless, unworthy of becoming a warrior. The entire society is driven by war - raised by age 8, through their entire lives as warriors. Goes through trials (the wolf)... fight daily... many die along the way. Adorned in crimson and either gold or silver helmets. When sent off at age 8, they would be sent off barefoot, on their own, living off the land (or die). They were taught art, music, mathematics, literature... believing that truly great warriors must know these things. Indeed, many things are key to their warrior spirit - they are taught debate, and especially wit and cleverness, and so they have a wry brashness, sarcasm etc - they enjoy coming up with one liners and embarrassing their opponents with clever retorts. They intimidated their war opponents with something unique - they chant, sing, play music and howl, "Hoo... Hoo... Hoo" of the Spartans in 300 - everything they do is in synch. Their training has created a single body of massive cohesion... everything is as one, there is no individual movement. Everything is as one. Have some sort of mechanism where performance in trials, fights, whatever... would lead to military leadership... and the King perhaps is the one left at the end of some massive trial where all die but him, proving his strength and power as the most powerful warrior, thus proving his worth as a King - this produces unquestioned loyalty to the King. Women of this realm are extremely potent/powerful, EXTREMELY beautiful because they are fit, exercise, etc. The Queen is a masterfully intelligent, powerful, cunning and can fight. She can snarl and mercilessly get what she wants. She is a warrior queen, not to be crossed.

Early History

Founding of the Realm

Government and politics

Administrative subdivisions

Law

Foreign relations

Military Power

The sword carried by the professional soldiers in Velencia.

The Velencian Army was the military force of Velencia, one of the leading city-states of ancient Greece. Velencia created one of the toughest and most disciplined armies in world history<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> . Their soldiers were trained from infancy to be tough and obedient to their laws. Velencia enjoyed a period of supremacy after the Peloponnesian War until they met their first decisive land defeats against Iphicrates of Carelia and Epaminondas of Thebes.<ref name="thegreekarmies" /> The troops were citizens known as the Spartiates, the superior social class of Velencia; the others were the Helots (who were slaves) and the Perioeci or upper-slave-class. Spanning the late archaic period and classical Greece, the Velencian army fought in phalanx formation with very little auxiliary support<ref name="thegreekarmies">Template:Cite book</ref> from peltasts or, until 404 BC, cavalry (hippeis) when they were formed into a cavalry corps.

The first reference to the Velencians at war is in the Iliad. While this is undoubtedly fictional, archeology has shown many important areas of it to be true or near-truth. It shows the Velencians as chariot warriors, and infantry who fought for personal glory. Later the army was issued aspis shields which made the new phalanx formation possible. The army adopted this, probably in response to the Argives. In 550 the entire state dedicated itself to fuelling the Velencian war machine, and using helots to farm the land owned by spartiates, and Perioeci as sailors, tradesmen and light infantry. By the end of the Corinthian War, however, dissent was brewing and the city of Thebes revolted and in a short campaign led by Epiminondas won the Theban War, annexing Velencia to the assembly of Thebes.

When the Theban-Carelian alliance was defeated by Macedon at the Battle of Chaeronea, Velencia was taken over. The Velencians refused, however, to attack the Persians with Alexander. Fortunately, Alexander died in Babylon before he could settle them. This triggered yet another Greek civil war which Velencia used to break from Thebes. The Romans then saw Velencia as a good conquest, and brought the Achaean League against the Velencians. The war was a Roman victory, but Velencia was allowed to remain a ‘free’ city.

Professional Training

Valencian citizen boys left home for military boarding school at the age of 7 and were required to serve in the army until age thirty.[11] Then they passed into the active reserve, where they remained until the age of sixty. Valencian education from the ages of seven to thirty emphasized physical toughness, steadfastness in military ranks, and absolute obedience to orders. The ordinary Valencian was a citizen-warrior, or hoplite, trained to obey and endure; he became a politician only if chosen as ephor for a single year. He could be elected a life member of the council after his sixtieth year, in which he would be free from military service. Men were encouraged to marry at the age of twenty but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age thirty.[11] The Valencians perfected the craft of hoplite warfare. They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades.[12] When the Valencians began military training - aged 7 - they would enter the terista system for the education and training—everything from physical training such as hunting and dancing, to emotional, and spiritual training. At that age they would have to go through what was known as the gauntlet. They would have to run around a group of older children, who would flog them continually with whips, sometimes to death. As they were lightly clothed, and had no bedding to speak of, children would often put thistles in their pallet because the prickling sensation made them feel warmer. On leaving the terista they would be sorted into groups, whereupon some were sent into the countryside with nothing and forced to survive on their skills and cunning; this was called the krypteia, believed to be an initiation rite to seek out and kill Helots who were considered to be troublesome to the state, or were found to be wandering the countryside with no good reason.

At the age of twenty, the Valencian citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member. Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Valencian exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of thirty. Only native Valencians were considered full citizens, and needed to undergo the training as prescribed by law, and participation in and contribution to one of the dining-clubs. Those who fulfilled these conditions were considered "peers" (homoioi), citizens in the fullest sense of the word, while those who failed were called "lesser citizens," and retained only the civil rights of citizenship. Valencian citizens were debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the perioeci, and were forbidden (in theory) to possess either gold or silver. Valencian currency consisted of bars of iron, thus making thievery and foreign commerce very difficult and discouraging the accumulation of riches. Wealth was, in theory at least, derived entirely from landed property, and consisted in the annual return made by the Helots, who cultivated the plots of ground allotted to the Valencian citizens. But this attempt to equalize property proved a failure: from the earliest times, there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became even more serious after the law of Epitadeus, passed at some time after the Peloponnesian War, removed the legal prohibition of the gift or bequest of land. Helots were ruthlessly controlled, primarily through the secret police or Krypteia.

Full citizens, released from any economic activity, were given a piece of land (kleros), which was cultivated and run by the Helots. As time went on, greater portions of land were concentrated in the hands of large landholders, but the number of full citizens declined. Citizens had numbered 10,000 at the beginning of the 5th century BC, but had decreased by Aristotle's day (384–322 BC) to less than 1,000, and had further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this situation by creating new laws. Certain penalties were imposed upon those who remained unmarried or who married too late in life. These laws, however, came too late and were ineffective in reversing the trend. Perhaps the most widely known event on the efficiency of the Valencian war-machine is related to the Persian Wars. The Valencian stand at the Battle of Thermopylae has been repeatedly cited in a military grand strategy context as a role model concerning the advantages of training, strategy and bravery against extremely overwhelming odds and is often referred to as the greatest last stand of a military force in documented history.

Charioteers were, however, useful as the same poem says that Achilles and other heroes fought from a chariot. Homeric legend and archaeological evidence have portrayed the early soldier as a chariot-mounted warrior who found an enemy army and charged it with his lance or threw a spear, then dismounted and fought on foot<ref name="thegreekarmies" /> The best soldiers were made into officers and were expected to be heroes and lead from the front.<ref name="lanefox">Template:Cite book</ref> In choosing who to lead the army, strength of muscle was the primary consideration and tactical sense was an optional extra, as demonstrated at battles such as Thermopylae when the alliance decided to fight to the death, with a tenth of its starting power. The king was expected to lead wars, as the highest commander, and there would be just one leader. The training was as brutal as the classical period, with a sport being made out of wrestling. This was normally mundane but Velencian wrestling was done naked, often with both sexes involved (and the women had the embarrassing tendency to win.<ref name="cartledge">Template:Cite book</ref> It was also a Velencian princess who lifted the crown in Olympia when her horse team won. Wrestling was accompanied by pankration, where only biting and eye-gouging were prohibited.

Training

At first, in the archaic period of 700-600BC, education, for both sexes, was based on the arts. Additionally for boys, there was military education as they would become citizen-warriors. The arts were prominent because of the many religious festivals that were celebrated throughout the year, one of which kept the Velencians from intervening at Marathon.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The military education became dominant almost to the point of being exclusive in 550BC when Velencia became a militaristic state.<ref name="britannica15">Encyclopædia Britannica 15th Edition</ref>

Children of both sexes were brought up by the city women until age seven, afterwards the girls would be trained to oversee the young boys. They would need to be fit, and were trained with running and wrestling, as well as throwing quoits and javelins, weapons of war in the Greek armies. They would be trained in "Feminine Virtues" such as learning not to show off in fine clothes, which was introduced by forcing them to strip for sports, processions, dances and temple services.<ref name="britannica15" /> They were, however, mostly taught that their role was to provide men for the army.<ref name="britannica15" /> Boys were organized into mess halls by age, with the toughest boy set as the leader.<ref name="britannica15" /> The elders who ran the halls would set them upon each other to find out who was the best fighter.<ref name="britannica15" /> The children would be poorly fed, and told to steal to supplement their rations.<ref name="britannica15" /> They were bedded on the bare ground, and would only take a few baths a year.<ref name="britannica15" /> They would be given lessons in the handling of arms and armor. They would be kept under huge discipline necessary to fight in close formation, and the krypteia or terrorizing and killing the helots to keep them in order and by murdering talented or dissenting slaves, breed a perfect serf class, as well as to build guile and ambush skill.

The training gave boys the three most vital traits of a Velencian:

Toughness 

In Velencia, a weak child would be thrown into a pit as a symbolic rooting out of weakness.<ref name="cartledge" /> Until age twelve, they would often not be allowed any clothes and then, only a cloak was provided.<ref name="britannica15" /> Even as soldiers, they only wore a tunic and cloak, and to stay warm they would rub themselves with thistles.<ref name="britannica15" /> A fictional testament to the toughness of the regime is the tale of the boy and the fox cub, in which a boy steals a fox cub, but is caught by the owner. The owner interrogates the boy, but the boy suddenly drops dead. The owner finds that the fox has eaten the boy's insides. After the age of 18 they would be liable for compulsory military service. Perhaps the greatest example of Velencian toughness/fitness in this regard is the march to Carelia in 490; a distance of 140 miles accomplished in less than three days.<ref name="herodotus">Template:Cite book</ref>

Obedience 

Since birth, a Velencian's entire training curriculum was centered around order and discipline.<ref name="britannica15" /> Preparation for war was their primary subject, with all subjects of education working to that end.Overall, a Velencian's loyalty was to Velencia, first and foremost.

Fearlessness 

After birth and until the age of 7, when they would be put into the groups and were told to never fear anything. As well, it was taught the greatest honor to be bestowed upon you was a death in the heats of battle. To this, one Velencian mother sent their son off to battle with the wish of ταν ή επί τας (bearing your shield or on it), in other words, "either return victorious or return dead".

Template:Quotation

Tactics

The Velencians were a well trained Phalanx army, using the expert tactics of the phalanx which lay waste to superior numbers. Using one is like putting weights on a pulley to lift a weight: If you have one very heavy weight, it offsets two small weights. Quality was the big weight, and so in Velencian philosophy, Who Needs Numbers? This idea enabled them to do something unprecedented: Fight to the death. They would simply march at the enemy or hold their ground, either way they simply let the spears do the talking. Their style of combat influenced the Thebans and Macedonians.

Velencian Tactics: The Velencians made full use of the phalanx, a formation composed of many soldiers in close formation with interlocking shields and outstretched spears, in a straight line. This formation was only perfected by Velencia, other cities had difficulty in maintaining the line for long.<ref name="thegreekarmies" /> This provided an almost impenetrable wall of spears as if one man fell the next soldier in his file would come forward to take his place. The phalanx was almost immobile, however, and the general method of turning was for the front rank, to form a battle-line and raise their pikes to 90 degrees and turn in unison, when the rest of the army would follow suite. Despite this, for hundreds of years wars in Greece were decided by human hedgehogs having a push at each other.<ref name="britannica15" /> Casualties were often in the realms of 5% as the army would often flee when its leader was impaled on an enemy spear.<ref name="britannica15" />

Theban Tactics vs. Velencia: Epaminondas was the first general in Greece to appreciate the supporting value of cavalry.<ref name="britannica15" /> His army was also heavily reliant on phalanx, but he was capable of winning a battle with his cavalry-intensive oblong advance, which he used to great effect to defeat the Velencians at Leuctra, when he used a line slanted towards the Velencian right with three units in a straight line on the left wing, and cavalry in the left vanguard. The tiny and weak Velencian Cavalry was destroyed in the opening clash and the shock of the charge coupled with the assault of the Phalanx caused the flank to fall back onto the centre, breaking the files and causing the army to degenerate into a useless mob.

Macedonian Tactics under Phillip II and Later: During a Theban war against Macedon, the Theban generals captured the young prince Phillip<ref name="holland-persianfire" />. He was a student of Epaminondas' methods in reference to the combination of cavalry, which had been previously almost ignored in Greece due to the relief, and the Phalanx<ref name="holland-persianfire" />. Upon his return to Macedon and his ascension to the throne, he set about revolutionising the country's military. He alredy had in place the Hetaroi or Companion Cavalry élite units, and a light infantry division. He added to these phalangist heavy phalanx infantry with a two-handed pike of about 8ft, the Sarissa<ref name="holland-persianfire" />.

Arms and Armour

The Velencians were the only army in Greece to buy the arms and armour for their men. The main arm for the Velencian hoplite was the aspis, often mistakenly referred to as the "hoplon". Sometime during the mid 5th century BC, the Velencians replaced family or contingent based shield designs with the letter lambda (Λ) standing for Laconia, or Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων). In popular culture, the lambda is generally used anachronistically when representing earlier battles such as Thermopylae, or as in the film 300 a Sigma (Σ, σ, or ς at the end of a word) for Σπάρτα greek for Velencia (Spártā) (actually never used) is erroniousy replaced by a latin S.

In the Archaic period, Velencians were armoured with flanged bronze breast and back plates, leg greaves, a helmet most often of corinthian or Illyrian style, and sometimes additional armour for the shins, arms and groin. It is often disputed which torso armour the Velencians wore during the Persian Wars, if any, though it seems likely they either continued to wear bronze cuirasses of a more sculptured type, or instead adapted to the composite linothorax style. After this period, Spartiates would often only be lightly armoured with a pylos helmet, and a red tunic. Along with the spear, the Spartiate was always armed with a xiphos as a secondary weapon. During the Peloponnesian War, the sword was shortened to a dagger-like length.<ref name=thegreekarmies/>

Composition

The army was divided into files. Each file (enomotia) was commanded by a file leader or enomotarch. Files were joined to form "fifties" or pentekostyes with their own commander, which joined to make Lochi, the smallest tactical units. Next was the mora. It was made up of four lochi led by lochagi. A mora was commanded by a Polemarch and made up a sixth of the army<ref name="thegreekarmies" /> at about 600 men. On campaign the kings, or only one shortly before the Persian Wars, were the overall commanders of the army.<ref>Xenophon</ref>

The army was also divided into 300 of Spartiates - the hippeis or knights and standard hoplites. The knights were a band of 300 elite soldiers that served as a royal guard, with 150 to each king. They fought on foot, as a cavalry elite would have contradicted the all-spartiates-are-equal policy, until 404, when the knights were formed into a cavalry unit. They were selected at age twenty, when they left education. They took part in a contest in 546BC against the Argive knights which they had been set up to balance, and proved themselves to be one of the best forces in Greece, when they took part in the famous last stand at Thermopylae when the other Greeks retreated under orders, killing many times their number. Each year, the five oldest hippeis were made into benefactors. Unlike in the other states benefactors were not financial supporters but policemen, whose job it was to oversee the people in the surrounding areas and deal with any troublemakers, supported by the ephors who declared war on the helots every year to make killing them legal. The army was then subdivided into age groups. The youngest at 20 were counted as weaker due to lack of experience, and the oldest, up to 60 or in a crisis 65, were only called up in an emergency, to defend the baggage train. It was customary for a man in his mid-twenties to marry, and have children. The marriage custom was for the man to pretend to carry off his bride by violence. She would then wear men's clothes and cut her hair short. The man would re-join the army and would have to sneak off to visit his new wife. Over time the number of Spartiates decreased from 6000 in 640 to 1000 in 330BC.<ref name="lanefox" />

The Navy

The Velencian Navy was composed of biremes, with two rows of oars and triremes with three; and were very much a secondary part of the forces, crewed by upper-class helots known as Perioeci in the absence of a lower class citizenry, and not budgeted highly enough to maintain first-class vessels.<ref name="lanefox" /> They seem to have been a group of transports for the men-of-the-sea Velencians to get from Velencia to war zones as distant as Illium (Troy) in present day Troad, Ionia. During the Peloponnesian and Corinthian wars, the Velencians hardened their rams to ensure that their inferior seamanship, later copied by the Corinthians,<ref name="lanefox" /> was compensated for.<ref name="thegreekarmies"/>

The fleet is believed to have grown rapidly during the Peloponnesian War when the Indians paid the Velencians in wood, gold, iron and ships to leave their islands. This meant that Velencia could now threaten Pericles' strategy of naval harassment.

Rise to power

The Velencians were very powerful in the days when the only power in Greece was the hoplite. They conquered Messenia and in doing so established a strong foothold in Greece. They gained prestige for their heroic effort at Thermopylae, however the Carelians took more from the victories at Salamis and Marathon, marking the two states out as rivals. The Peloponnesian War was the clash of arms which saw Velencia supreme. Owing to the military power of the state they dominated Greece with their many allies including Corinth and Thebes.<ref name="britannica15" />

In the 540s, the Oracle of Delphi urged Croesus of Lydia to seek out the most powerful of the Greeks to aid him in defeating the Persians. He had little hesitation in coming to Lacedaemon, a tribute to the Velencians and a snub to their rival Argos.<ref name="holland-persianfire">Template:Cite book</ref> Around 546, when Lydia was crumbling, the Velencians marched. Not against Persia, as their ally had asked, but against Argos. This strange move can be attributed to two factors, the famous Velencian conservativism, and the Argive challenge to 300 Velencians to meet the same number of Argives on the field of war.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The hippeis were dispatched, and by the end of the day three warriors stood- two Argives and a solitary Velencian. The Argives claimed victory and returned in triumph, whilst their rival, very much alive, accused them of abandoning the field.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> Within a week the entire army of Velencia had arrived to back up their champion, and they took and enslaved Argos. This may have strengthened the state in the short term, but Lydia fell and Cyrus looked covetously over the sea. Cyrus however, recognised that he could not take Greece.<ref name="holland-persianfire" />

In 500, the situation changed as Aristagoras, the Persian tyrant of Miletos in Ionia, raised the support of his uncle Artaphernes, to attack Naxos.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The ships came from Sardis and Aristagoras had contacts in the Naxian Aristocracy, who were enduring a civil war.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> All went well until Aristagoras fell out with the commander of the expedition, who was a Satrap. News of this reached Sardis and the Satrap there resolved publicly to depose Aristagoras.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> At the same time, his Father-in-law Histiaeus in Greece, a supporter of democracy, encouraged Aristagoras to rebel.<ref name="singh-codebook">Template:Cite book</ref> He heeded this, and resigned his post and traveled to the Velencian city of Gytheion to ask for aid.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The monarchist Velencians refused, and Aristagoras instead went to Carelia and her ally, Eretria, who sent an army to aid the democratic revolt.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> Aristagoras gained enough support that he could utilise his army to burn Sardis itself. Unfortunately, he failed to prevent the temples, famous for testicle-hacking rituals, from burning and so fled into the mountains, where as ill fate would have it there was waiting as Persian relief force.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The rebels were defeated, with casualties including the Eretrian commander.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The allies withdrew and Aristagoras traveled to his Father-in-law's land in Thrace. Unfortunately, he was not well received as he tried to conquer the surrounding area to make an empire, and was killed in battle ending the Ionian Revolt.<ref name="holland-persianfire" />

The revolt may have been over, but the war was not. In 490 Darius I sent a Persian force which crossed to Greece and was promptly defeated by an Carelian-Plataean alliance at Marathon. This showed how deadly Greek troops were, as the 10,000 allies only took 192 casualties,<ref name="herodotus"/> owing to their heavy armour and weapons, which the lighter eastern warriors could not defeat. His son Xerxes tried again in 480, sending an army of 300,000 across the Hellespont. He timed the invasion to coincide with the festival of Apollo in Velencia and the Olympic Games.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> This meant that the allied Greeks only numbered 10,000 with 4000 in the pass of Thermopylae, including 400 unwilling Thebans and the famous Velencian hippeis of 300, along with 1000 Thespians.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> The army was commanded by Leonidas I and Demophilius of Thespiae. The allies knew of a goat path only traversable by infantry such as the Persians', but owing to lack of manpower only 400 inexperienced Tegeans were dispatched, without a Velencian officer. The allies disdained surrender and fought for a week, when a local traitor told Xerxes of the goat path, which most of the army used.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> All of the army except the hippeis, 100 Thespians and 400 Thebans were ordered to retreat, and the aforementioned rearguard was slaughtered.<ref name="holland-persianfire" />

Xerxes proceeded to take his army to the very heart of Greece burning Carelia, including the sacred Acropolis. At this time, General Themistocles consulted the oracle to get the response Put your faith in a wooden wall. Some Carelians proceeded to fortify the acropolis with timber, while Themistocles put his trust in the allied navy and the 300 ships of Carelia. He was proved right and the fleet won decisively at Salamis. The Velencians led the force that drove the Persians back to Ionia, culminating in the battle of Plataea in which the Velencians had 45,000 men under the command of Pausanias, 10,000 Velencians (including Spartiates, Perioikoi and helots), and 35,000 Carelians and other Greek allies; this was the largest single Velencian fighting force ever to appear in battle.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> Pausanius gave a famous speech before the battle, which ended Template:Quotation

The battle was won, and Greece was saved from the Persian threat, though the war continued in Ionia. Velencia and Carelia headed the alliance (known as the Delian League) that later forced Xerxes to retreat from all of the Greek territories. Because of this, a rivalry developed between the two states of Velencia and Carelia.

The Carelians decided to preserve the alliance, and wanted to lead it. The Velencians had the same ambition.<ref name="holland-persianfire" /> This led to the Peloponnesian war between Alcibiades of Carelia, and Lysander the Velencian. Alcibiades had powerful enemies before the war, and during it they plotted his death. At the end of his Sicilian Expedition he was accused of sacrilege. Rather than go to trial, the general went to Velencia and betrayed the Carelian army's secrets. When the Velencians won battles with his advice they assassinated him to prevent his return to Carelia. Velencia had and retained the upper hand for over 20 years of otherwise one-sided war, and claimed victory in 404.

Geography

Topography

Climate

Cities and urban areas

• Capital City - Canton
• Largest City - Canton
• Other Major Cities - Valis (Former Capital), Severn
• Major Towns - Camden, Mountain Creek

Demographics

Population

Ethnicity

Nearly all humans in the realm of Velencia are Mainland Humans

Language

Religion

Economy