Promise to Warriors Myth
The Promise to Warriors Myth is a term that links various ideas and interpretations of historical events that is argued to constitute the founding myth of Camia. It is centred on the terms of military service whereunder free and enslaved Themiclesians were granted the right to live in Camia and to make use of its land and natural resources. The term came to prominence in the 1920s when Themiclesian historians began to pay attention to the history of Camia in the wake of the expulsion of its military dictator, triggering intense debate to explain Camia's apparent pre-occupation with its armed forces. The idea, though professed widely, is also criticized as a one-dimensional theory for Camian culture that seeks to explain far too much by a single idea or its exponents.
In its most basic formulation, the Warrior's Promise states that Camians possess the right to their national land on the basis of their defence of it by force.
The Warrior's Promise, in its Camian interpretation, is an ideology that emphasizes an "justly earned liberty" from an imperial government that has, at least subsequently, been viewed as tyrannical and despotic, to an extent approximating what modern writers call totalitarianism.
Basis in history
Starting in 1402, Republican Themiclesia enacted its first of several consecutive mass amnesties of penal slaves, who or whose ancestors were convicted of serious crimes and therefore caused their entire families to be seized into slavery. One such enactment, in part, read:
Let therefore each householder be liable to serve under arms and bring but three days' rations on his own account, or in default of ability, a child or nephew in his stead...
It is our will and decree ... not to summon him except to defend the frontiers where we shall separately award tenancies.
All their and their progenitors' transgressions are pardoned and forgotten; all other services and duties are renounced from generation to generation.
Similar amnesties were made again in 1421, 1427, 1434, and 1470, and similar language first appearing in the proclamation of 1402 was repeated in each occasion.