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Posted by:
Carl
on
2/6/2010 11:21:48 PM
In the beginning there were the Minoans. Of course there was quite a bit before the Minoans, but that's where we'll start. The Minoans were elves and probably escaped to and settled Minoa from their legendary city of Atlantis when it went up like a Roman Candle somewhere around 25,000 years ago. The Peleponese were populated primarily by elves, both colonists from Minoa and natives who were also refugees from Atlantis. The Atheneians and Spartans were primarily elvish societies, but the lands surrounding the great elvish city-states of the Golden Age were dotted with populations of humans and halflings. The Hellots for example, were human, halfling and half-halfling. Over time, the elves and humans interbred on a limited basis and Greece became a society populated by elves (the Eupatrids), half-elves (mixed slave and freedmen), humans (primarily slaves, but some freedmen), halflings (slaves), and half-halflings (mixed slave and outcast). That sums up Classic-Age Greece.
We'll fast-forward to a couple of hundred years after the Pelopenisian wars and the resuling fall of Athens and Sparta. Alexander (a Half-Elf from half-elven parents, he was from Macedon, after all) has come and gone and his empire has been broken up. This brings us to the The Ptolomies. A mixture of elf and half-elf people who took over the southern and some of the near-eastern territories of Alexander's once great empire. They rule from Egypt and at this point in history, their empire is at its geographic and cultural peak. The native Egyptians, who are human, are no longer in charge of their once great nation. In fact, the population is almost all half-elven with the ruling class being primarily of elven blood and the working class being primarily of human blood. Immigration and the slave trade has brought about some diversity of population with halflings and gnomes from the near-east settling in Egypt, first in Alexandria and then migrating up the Nile to points south. A very small population of dwarves and half-orcs have made their home here, or should I say had their home here forced upon them.
The Cathaginian empire to the west of Ptolomaic Egypt (or as you would know it, Aegyptus) is made up of the half-elven Phoenecians or Poini (POY-nee), famous for their seamanship and business accumen, and the halfling Numidians, famous for their cavalry skills. They are the mortal enemies of Rome. When you think of the Carthaginians as a Roman, think of them the United States thought of the Soviet Union of the 1980s, or even the Axis Powers of the 1930s and 1940s. The Cathaginians just lost a war with Rome and having handed over Sicily to Roman control, they also pay an annual tribute equivalent to several billion dollars. They are not happy with this.
We'll rewind about 900 years to around 750 BCE and sketch the origins of Rome itself. The Romans were originally ruled by the Etruscans, who were elves. They were expatriot Greeks who had started a colony on the Adriatic Sea on the Italian peninsula and brought with them some rather unusual customs and gods. They of course enslaved the local peoples (the Italians) and made them fight each other for their entertainment, till their fields, grow their grapes and olives and wheat, serve in their brothels, and generally mistreated them. The Italians were humans, with a few dwarves and halflings living in the more mountainous and wilder areas of Italia, respectively.
Enter Aeneas. A fugitve from the Fall of Troy who was, like all the Trojans, human. Unlike all humans, he was the son of the goddess Venus. He founded a city called Alba Longa in about 1100 BCE. His descendents ruled that city for 400 years until the Romans marched on it and destroyed everything but the temples. From Aeneas' line descend Romulus and Remus. The Julians, one of original 100 Patrician families of Rome are also descended from this line. Their (arguably) most famous member was a fellow who went by the name of Caius Julius Caesar.
Romulus and Remus founded Rome. They were humans brothers of divine descent (their mother bagged Mars). They grew up as shepherds and after defeating some local competion and acquiring followers they got into an argument over who was going to be king. Rather than argue, Romulus decided to go ahead and build. While Romulus built, Remus criticized. One day Remus decided that the wall was too short and demonstrated this by jumping over it (son of a god!). Romulus, fed up with his brother's bullshit, kills him with a shovel on the spot. To his credit, he feels bad about it and gives him a nice funeral. He didn't feel too bad, though. Romulus named the city after himself, declared himself king, set up an army, declared 100 rich guys the nobility and calls them Patricians, the fathers of Rome. Immediately Rome begins to attract a host of human and halfling criminals, exiles, escaped slaves, refugees, and other rabble from the surrounding countryside. Behold! Rome, best and greatest!
There's more, and we'll get to it.
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