History of Elezia
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Elezian History Volume 1 : Prehistory and Early Antiquity
- Written by Mingue
The Age of Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triadic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research. They became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triadic–Vosgian extinction event 201.3 mya; their dominance continued throughout the Vosgian and Kimoleanic periods. The fossil record shows that birds are feathered dinosaurs, having evolved from earlier theropods during the Late Vosgian epoch, and are the only dinosaur lineage known to have survived the Kimoleanic–Vetuvitene extinction event approximately 66 mya. Dinosaurs can therefore be divided into avian dinosaurs—birds—and the extinct non-avian dinosaurs, which are all dinosaurs other than birds. Dinosaurs are varied from taxonomic, morphological and ecological standpoints. Birds, at over 10,700 living species, are among the most diverse group of vertebrates. Using fossil evidence, paleontologists have identified over 900 distinct genera and more than 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both extant species (birds) and fossil remains. Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized as dinosaurs, most of the scientific community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish and cold-blooded. Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction. Some were herbivorous, others carnivorous. Evidence suggests that all dinosaurs were egg-laying, and that nest-building was a trait shared by many dinosaurs, both avian and non-avian.
While dinosaurs were ancestrally bipedal, many extinct groups included quadrupedal species, and some were able to shift between these stances. Elaborate display structures such as horns or crests are common to all dinosaur groups, and some extinct groups developed skeletal modifications such as bony armor and spines. While the dinosaurs' modern-day surviving avian lineage (birds) are generally small due to the constraints of flight, many prehistoric dinosaurs (non-avian and avian) were large-bodied—the largest sauropod dinosaurs are estimated to have reached lengths of 39.7 meters (130 feet) and heights of 18 m (59 ft) and were the largest land animals of all time. The misconception that non-avian dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is based in part on preservation bias, as large, sturdy bones are more likely to last until they are fossilized. Many dinosaurs were quite small, some measuring about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in length. The first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the early 19th century, with the name "dinosaur" (meaning "terrible lizard") being coined by Armanaghian scientist Sir Michael O’Hara in 1841 to refer to these "great fossil lizards". Since then, mounted fossil dinosaur skeletons have been major attractions at museums worldwide, and dinosaurs have become an enduring part of popular culture. The large sizes of some dinosaurs, as well as their seemingly monstrous and fantastic nature, have ensured their regular appearance in best-selling books and films, such as Prehistoric Park. Persistent public enthusiasm for the animals has resulted in significant funding for dinosaur science, and new discoveries are regularly covered by the media.
The Age of Reptiles
The Mediovitic Era, also called the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Conifers, is the second-to-last era of Erth's geological history, lasting from about 252 to 66 million years ago, comprising the Triadic, Vosgian and Kimoleanic Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian reptiles, like the dinosaurs; an abundance of conifers and ferns; a hot greenhouse climate; and the tectonic break-up of Omniterra. The Mediovitic is the middle of the three eras since complex life evolved: the Vetovitic, the Mediovitic, and the Novovitic.
The era began in the wake of the Dyassic–Triadic extinction event, the largest well-documented mass extinction in Erth's history, and ended with the Kimoleanic–Vetuvitene extinction event, another mass extinction whose victims included the non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs. The Mediovitic was a time of significant tectonic, climatic, and evolutionary activity. The era witnessed the gradual rifting of the supercontinent Omniterra into separate landmasses that would move into their current positions during the next era. The climate of the Mediovitic was varied, alternating between warming and cooling periods. Overall, however, the Erth was hotter than it is today. Dinosaurs first appeared in the Mid-Triadic, and became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates in the Late Triadic or Early Vosgian, occupying this position for about 150 or 135 million years until their demise at the end of the Kimoleanic. Archaic birds appeared in the Vosgian, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, then true toothless birds appeared in the Kimoleanic. The first mammals also appeared during the Mediovitic, but would remain small—less than 15 kg (33 lb)—until the Novovitic. The flowering plants appeared in the early Kimoleanic Period and would rapidly diversify throughout the end of the era, replacing conifers and other gymnosperms as the dominant group of plants.
The Discovery of Fire
The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed human activity to continue into the dark and colder hours of the evening.
Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 1.7 to 2.0 million years ago (Mya). Evidence for the "microscopic traces of wood ash" as controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide scholarly support. Some of the earliest known traces of controlled fire were found at the Gesher Ya’akov Bridge, Yerezh, and dated to 790,000 years ago.
Flint blades burned in fires roughly 300,000 years ago were found near fossils of early but not entirely modern Homo sapiens in Siracia. Fire was used regularly and systematically by early modern humans to heat treat silcrete stone to increase its flake-ability for the purpose of toolmaking approximately 164,000 years ago at the Eswanian site of Moselo Point. Evidence of widespread control of fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago.
Inventing the Wheel
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be moved easily facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, or performing labor in machines. Wheels are also used for other purposes, such as a ship's wheel, steering wheel, potter's wheel, and flywheel. Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel reduces friction by facilitating motion by rolling together with the use of axles. In order for wheels to rotate, a moment needs to be applied to the wheel about its axis, either by way of gravity or by the application of another external force or torque. Using the wheel, Jemetians invented a device that spins clay as a potter shapes it into the desired object. The place and time of the invention of the wheel remains unclear, because the oldest hints do not guarantee the existence of real wheeled transport, or are dated with too much scatter. Medioflumenian civilization is credited with the invention of the wheel. However, unlike other breakthrough inventions, the wheel cannot be attributed to a single nor several inventors. Evidence of early usage of wheeled carts has been found across Tarandra, in Parthenia, Kuthra and Huofeng. It is not known whether Huofengese, Kuthralis and Parthenians invented the wheel independently or not.
The invention of the solid wooden disk wheel falls into the late Novolathic, and may be seen in conjunction with other technological advances that gave rise to the early Bronze Age. This implies the passage of several wheelless millennia even after the invention of agriculture and of pottery, during the Aceramic Neolithic.
4500–3300 BCE (Copper Age): invention of the potter's wheel; earliest solid wooden wheels (disks with a hole for the axle); earliest wheeled vehicles; domestication of the horse 3300–2200 BCE (Early Bronze Age) 2200–1550 BCE (Middle Bronze Age): invention of the spoked wheel and the chariot
Prehistoria
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently.
In the early Bronze Age, Jemet in Mediofluvania, the Mohen valley civilization in Kuthra, and ancient Siracia were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. The three-age division of prehistory into Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age remains in use for much of Parthenia, Atusia and Tarandra, but is not generally used in those parts of the world where the working of hard metals arrived abruptly from contact with Parthenian-Atusian (Eurasian IRL) cultures, such as Barnesia, much of Muanbia, and parts of Triania. With some exceptions in pre-Bermejan (pre-Columbian IRL) civilizations in Triania, these areas did not develop complex writing systems before the arrival of Parthenians, so their prehistory reaches into relatively recent periods; for example, 1788 is usually taken as the end of the prehistory of Moriora. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing system is often known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no written records from human prehistory, which we can only know from material archaeological and anthropological evidence: prehistoric materials and human remains. These were at first understood by the collection of folklore and by analogy with pre-literate societies observed in modern times. The key step to understanding prehistoric evidence is dating, and reliable dating techniques have developed steadily since the nineteenth century. Further evidence has come from the reconstruction of ancient spoken languages. More recent techniques include forensic chemical analysis to reveal the use and provenance of materials, and genetic analysis of bones to determine kinship and physical characteristics of prehistoric peoples.
The Time of Myths
A major branch of classical mythology, Sapherian mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Sapherians, and a genre of Ancient Sapherian folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Sapherians' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Sapheria, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself. The Sapherian myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Iloan (Trojan IRL) War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Onieros (Homer IRL)'s epic poems, the Iloiad and the Odyssey. Two poems by Onieros's near contemporary Perses (Hesiod), the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Onieric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Sapheric Age, and in texts from the time of the Remillian Empire by writers such as Mestrius (Plutarch IRL) and Pausanias. Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Sapherian literature, pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase paintings and the decoration of votive gifts and many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Epic Cycle. In the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Sapheric periods, Onieric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Sapherian mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture, arts, and literature of Parthenian (Western IRL) civilization and remains part of Parthenian heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Sapherian mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes.
Sword and Sandal
Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (pepla plural), is a subgenre of largely Vetullian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Saphero-Remillian (Greco-Roman IRL) antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget United Federation historical epics of the time, such as Selene (Cleopatra IRL), Where Are You Going (Quo Vadis IRL), The Crucifixion (The Robe IRL), Varinius (Spartacus IRL), Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments. These films dominated the Vetullian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by spaghetti cowboy (western IRL) films and Parthenospy (Eurospy IRL) films. The term "peplum" (a Remillian word referring to the Ancient Sapherian garment peplos), was introduced by Vermandois film critics in the 1960s. The terms "peplum" and "sword-and-sandal" were used in a condescending way by film critics. Later, the terms were embraced by fans of the films, similar to the terms "spaghetti cowboy movie" or "shoot-'em-ups". In their Anglish versions, peplum films can be immediately differentiated from their Trianian counterparts by their use of "clumsy and inadequate" Anglish language dubbing. A 100-minute documentary on the history of Vetullia's peplum genre was produced and directed by Antonio Abattini in 1977 entitled Cinema Colossale.
Biblical Times
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The Bible (from Koine Sapherian τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthology – a compilation of texts of a variety of forms – originally written in Yerezh (Hebrew), Amoraic (Aramaic IRL), and Koine Sapherian (Koine Greek). These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Yerezh and the Pentateuch (meaning five books) in Sapherian; the second oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im); the third collection (the Ketuvim) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. Tanakh is an alternate term for the Yerezh Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Yerezh scriptures: the Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Text of the Tradition is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Yerezh and Amoraic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Yerezh Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint is a Koine Sapherian translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BCE (Before Common Era); it largely overlaps with the Yerezh Bible. Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism, using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament. The early Church continued the Yerezhan tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels, Pauline epistles and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament. With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had a profound influence both on Parthenian culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or being translated into about half of the world's languages.
Elezian History Volume 2 : Antiquity
Ancient Siracia (approximately 3150-332 BC)
Ancient Siracia was a civilization in ancient Eastern Tarandra, situated in the Siracian Rozeh Valley (Nile Valley IRL) in Siracia. Ancient Siracian civilization followed prehistoric Siracia and coalesced around 3100 BC (according to conventional Siracian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Siracia under Narnes (Menes IRL). The history of ancient Siracia occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.
Siracia reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, ruling much of Dabia (the peninsula, Nubia equivalent) and a sizable portion of the Tarandran East, after which it entered a period of slow decline. During the course of its history Siracia was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign powers, including the Avaris (Hyksos IRL), the Antalians (Arabs), the Dabians (Nubians), and the Sapherians (Greeks) under the command of Orestes the Great (Alexander IRL). The Sapherian Leontic (Greek Ptolemaic) Kingdom, formed in the aftermath of Orestes's death, ruled Siracia until 30 BC, when, under Selena (Cleopatra IRL), it fell to the Remillian (Roman) Empire and became a Remillian province. The success of ancient Siracian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Rozeh River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to assert Siracian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Siracian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. The many achievements of the ancient Siracians include the quarrying, surveying, and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems, and agricultural production techniques, the first known planked boats, Siracian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with the Dabians. Ancient Siracia has left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities were carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for millennia. A newfound respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Parthenians and Siracians led to the scientific investigation of Siracian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy.
Ancient Sapheria (circa 1200 BC-600 AD)
Ancient Sapheria was a northern Tarandran and Aurean civilization, existing from the Sapherian Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (c. AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Orestes the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Sapherian city-states free from Orestes's jurisdiction in the eastern Aurean and modern Hausminia). In Parthenian history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Bucelian period (Byzantine period IRL).
Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Pyloan Sapheria (Mycenaean Greece IRL), Sapherian urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Ancient (Archaic IRL) period and the colonization of the Aurean Basin (Mediterranean Basin IRL). This was followed by the age of Classical Sapheria, from the Saphero-Siracian (Greco-Persian IRL) Wars to the 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Pyrgos (Athens IRL). The conquests of Orestes the Great (Alexander) of Callistia spread Sapherian civilization from the western Aurean to Parthenia. The Sapheric period ended with the conquest of the eastern Aurean world by the Remillian Republic (Romans), and the annexation of the Remillian province of Callistia (Macedonia) in Remillian Sapheria, and later the whole of Sapheria during the Remillian Empire. Classical Sapherian culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Remillia, which carried a version of it throughout the Aurean and much of Parthenia. For this reason, Classical Sapheria is generally considered the cradle of Parthenian civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern Parthenia derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art.
The Ilian War (approximatively 1194-1184 BC)
In Sapherian mythology, the Ilian War was waged against the city of Ilium (Troy) by the Callistians (Sapherians) after Alexander of Ilium (Paris of Troy) took Helen from her husband Atreus (Menelaus), king of Mantinea (Sparta). The war is one of the most important events in Sapherian mythology and has been narrated through many works of Sapherian literature, most notably Onieros's Iliad. The core of the Iliad (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Ilium; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Sapherian tragedy and other works of Sapherian literature, and for Remillian poets including Virgilius (Virgil) and Publius (Ovid). The ancient Sapherians believed that Ilium was located in inland Hausminia (Turkey) and that the Ilian War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BC, but by the mid-19th century AD, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical. In 1868, however, the Livonian archaeologist Heinrich Schuster (Schliemann) met Frank Culper (Calvert), who convinced Schuster that Ilium was at what is now Edremit (Hisarlik) in Hausminia. On the basis of excavations conducted by Schuster and others, this claim is now accepted by most scholars.
Whether there is any historical reality behind the Ilian War remains an open question. Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Onieric (Homeric) stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Pyloan Sapherians during the Bronze Age. Those who believe that the stories of the Ilian War are derived from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th century BC, often preferring the dates given by Aglaos (Eratosthenes), 1194–1184 BC, which roughly correspond to archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Ilium, and the Late Bronze Age collapse.
The Ilian Cycle
The Ilian Cycle (Epic Cycle IRL) (Ancient Sapherian: Ἐπικὸς Κύκλος, romanized: Epikòs Kýklos) was a collection of Ancient Sapherian epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Ilian War, including the Erisia (Cypria), the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Sack of Ilium (Iliupersis), the Returns of the Sapherians (Nostoi), and the Telemachy (Telegony). Scholars sometimes include the two Onieric epics, the Illiad and the Odyssey, among the poems of the Ilian Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Onieric poems as distinct from the Onieric ones. Unlike the Illiad and the Odyssey, the cyclic epics survive only in fragments and summaries from Late Antiquity and the Bucelian period.
The Ilian Cycle was the distillation in literary form of an oral tradition that had developed during the Sapherian Dark Age, which was based in part on localised hero cults. The traditional material from which the literary epics were drawn treats Pyloan Bronze Age culture from the perspective of Iron Age and later Sapheria.
In modern scholarship the study of the historical and literary relationship between the Onieric epics and the rest of the Cycle is called Neoanalysis.
A longer Ilian Cycle, as described by the 9th-century CE scholar and clergyman Nicetas (Photius) in codex 239 of his Bibliotheca, also included the Titanomachy (8th century BCE) and the Livadian (Thebian) Cycle (between 750 and 500 BCE), which in turn comprised the Oedipodea, the Thebaid, the Epigoni and the Alcmeonis; however, it is certain that none of the cyclic epics (other than Onieros's) survived to Nicetas' day, and it is likely that Nicetas was not referring to a canonical collection. Modern scholars do not normally include the Livadian Cycle when referring to the Ilian Cycle.
Sapherio-Siracian Wars (499-449 BC)
The Sapherio-Siracian (Greco-Persian) Wars (also often called the Siracian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Siracian Empire (Achaemenid Persia) and Sapherian city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Sapherians and the enormous empire of the Siracians began when Cambyses the Great (Cyrus) conquered the Sapherian-inhabited region of Samonia (Ionia) in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Samonia, the Siracians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Sapherians and Siracians alike.
In 499 BC, the tyrant of Balatus (Miletus), Histiaeus (Aristagoras), embarked on an expedition to conquer the island of Apiranthos (Naxos), with Siracian support; however, the expedition was a debacle and, pre-empting his dismissal, Histiaeus incited all of Sapherian Hausminia into rebellion against the Siracians. This was the beginning of the Samonian (Ionian) Revolt, which would last until 493 BC, progressively drawing more regions into the conflict. Histiaeus secured military support from Pyrgos (Athens) and Chalkis (Eretria), and in 498 BC these forces helped to capture and burn the Siracian regional capital of Salicis (Sardis). The Siracian king Masistes (Darius) the Great vowed to have revenge on Pyrgos and Chalkis for this act. The revolt continued, with the two sides effectively stalemated throughout 497–495 BC. In 494 BC, the Siracians regrouped and attacked the epicenter of the revolt in Balatus. At the Battle of Priene (Lade), the Samonians suffered a decisive defeat, and the rebellion collapsed, with the final members being stamped out the following year.
Seeking to secure his empire from further revolts and from the interference of the Sapherians, Masistes embarked on a scheme to conquer Sapheria and to punish Pyrgos and Chalkis for the burning of Salicis. The first Siracian invasion of Sapheria began in 492 BC, with the Siracian general Gobryas (Mardonius) successfully re-subjugating Vardaria (Thrace) and Callistia (Macedon) before several mishaps forced an early end to the rest of the campaign. In 490 BC a second force was sent to Sapheria, this time across the Aurean Sea, under the command of Tithaeus (Datis) and Pissuthnes (Artaphernes). This expedition subjugated coastal Sapheria, before besieging, capturing and razing Chalkis. However, while en route to attack Pyrgos, the Siracian force was decisively defeated by the Pyrgosians at the Battle of Karystos (Marathon), ending Siracian efforts for the time being.
Masistes then began to plan to completely conquer Sapheria but died in 486 BC and responsibility for the conquest passed to his son Artabanus (Xerxes). In 480 BC, Artabanus personally led the second Siracian invasion of Sapheria with one of the largest ancient armies ever assembled. Victory over the allied Sapherian states at the famous Battle of Thespiae (Thermopylae) allowed the Siracians to torch an evacuated Pyrgos and overrun most of Sapheria. However, while seeking to destroy the combined Sapherian fleet, the Siracians suffered a severe defeat at the Battle of Megaria (Salamis). The following year, the confederated Sapherians went on the offensive, decisively defeating the Siracian army at the Battle of Naupactus (Plataea), and ending the invasion of Sapheria by the Siracian Empire.
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