Arcidamus

Arcidamus
Basileus
Reign	46-25 BCE
Coronation	46 BCE
Predecessor	Nikomakhos
Successor	Phalaris
Born	12 September 66 BCE Parilla, Makedon
Died	19 August 25 BCE Parilla
Consort	Physkoa
Dynasty	Zelusian Dynasty
Religion	Zobethos

Arcidamus was a King (Basileus) of the Makedonian Empire from 46 to 25 BCE. He succeeded his father Nikomakhos and is most known for waging the Second Seyhad War against the Seyhad League in the 1st Century BCE.

Acridamus inherited an Empire that was largely stable internally but faced uncertainty along its borders in Mansuriyyah, where Makedon maintained an uneasy network of client states and alliances with the various Kenaani kingdoms and city-states along the Juwaiqi and Azraq Rivers. The recent collapse of the Chalna Empire had left the balance of power in East-Central Siduri in a flux, resulting in the ascension of the Seyhad as a major power in the region. His fathers' expedition against the rebellious Qatna had stabilized Makedon's borders but left the Seyhad question unanswered, and Acridamus began fortifying Makedon's position along the border shortly after his coronation.

Concerns regarding the loyalty of the Kanesh led Acridamus to assemble an army and march south as a show of force, both to re-assert Makedonian rule but also dissuade the Seyhad from further involvement beyond their borders along the Qartaba Mountains. The arrival of Acridamus and his army triggered a general uprising among disloyal tribes within the Sahrat al-kabir, forcing the Makedonians to levy from their unenthusiastic Kanesh satrap. Despite Makedonian victory over the tribes in 42 BCE, the overbearing presence of the Makedonian army and the strain placed on the local economy to support the Makedonians triggered a Kanesh rebellion supported heavily by the Seyhad, who dispatched troops to help. Despite scoring an initial victory over the two forces near the modern city of Dayr Hafir, the Makedonians soon found their logistics overstretched and weakened by local Kenaani tribal raids, forcing Acridamus to retire west towards the lands of the Qatna.

The conflict triggered attempted uprisings by local Qatna clans, forcing the Makedonians to disperse and destroy each clan individually in 41 BCE. At one point this brought Acridamus and his royal guard to the ruins of Hani-Rabbat, the abandoned former capital of the Bronze Age Naharin Empire. According to the historian Eualcidas, writing 20 years after the event, a local Qatna merchant who had encamped near the ruins was asked by the Makedonian King to explain the ruins. The unnamed merchant explained that the city had been destroyed by the Erani over a millennium prior. Eualcidas records the apparent reaction of Acridamus, who apparently was overwhelmed by what he saw.

The Makedonian Basileus, first of his name, disembarked his mount and asked to a merchant who had encamped himself nearby "Who's stones are these? Who planted them among these sands?" The merchant, whose name is known only to the Gods, answered back that the stones had been carved by the Naharin. They had been placed here as the capital of the Naharin when they had laid claim to a mighty empire. This was their capital, Hani-Rabbat, where the Naharin King of Kings once stood and proclaimed from his throne. Countless seasons separated the last time the Naharin had inhabited this city before they had been driven before the horses of the Erani, who had slaughtered and subjugated them, made slaves out of them in great number. Even longer had passed since the first stone mason had begun his work on the first walls of Hani-Rabbat, the merchant explained. Here the Naharin had stood and lorded over the lands north, south, east and west of the Arzaq for many generations, before they themselves were taken and spoken of only in passing.

The King of Makedon dropped his sword and strode among the stones where palaces and homes had once stood. He cried to his Companions "What mockery the Gods make of us! They look down at us through the eyes of immortality, what but what of us? Here a King once stood, declared laws and ruled from his throne, surely asleep at night with the confidence that all he knows will persevere! Yet here we stand, friends, amid all that survives of this realm, broken stone under a setting sun! Nothing beside remains, nothing stamped on these lifeless things but dust and wind. An eon from now, what awaits us and our realm that we have striven for? The Fates spin our webs of lives but speak nothing of what lays beyond! When we greet Hades do we look back upon our works, and speak to the mighty and cause them despair? Or are we forgotten, once time had passed enough for our children’s' children to have lost our names to history?"

Basileus Acridamus fell to his knees before the great wreckage of the old palace, where kings had feasted and ruled, lay before him as a pile of bricks. He asked to his Companions "What will become of our country? Shall one day future conquerors stand where our walls once were, speak of us in passing and remark upon our fate, which we ourselves may not know for many generations? Is what happened here the destiny of our Realm?"

The event was allegedly traumatizing enough that Acridamus called off the campaign against the Seyhad and withdrew back to Makedon, leaving behind a garrison on the Qatna lands to safeguard against the Seyhad. The departure was apparently so abrupt the Seyhad and Kanesh were originally unaware of it and maintained their forces along the new border for a period of nearly two years. Acridamus returned to Parilla evidently a shaken man who never recovered from the experience. While urban legends claim he spent the remainder of his reign isolated in his palace and only rarely speaking to his own family, court records and contemporary sources indicate he continued to perform as a functioning monarch, albeit he never left the capital again save for short sojourns to the Makedonian coast. Acridamus's failure to resolve the issue with the Seyhad would force his son Phalaris to wage the Third Seyahd War.