Dawn of the WorldI am Procopius, Elder of our people and appointed historian by the Basileia, mother of our people. It is my duty to record the achievements of our great people and make sure that history never forgets the greatest people ever to grace existence itself. Forever recorded in these tomes is the history of our people and the history of the the city of Constantinople, envy of all lesser races.
Tome of the Ancient times.
0-2025,
Anno MundiThe beginning of our people is one wrapped in mythos and legends, a story told from historian to historian in a tradition as old as our people. It tells of how our people crossed a vast desert in hopes of salvation from the vicious barbaric tribes of the north. It tells the story of how our people would climb the vast dunes at the base of a mighty mountain range, and from there they would stare down at a mighty river flanked by fertile land.
It was here our leader, our mother, told us to place down our burden and settle our herds. We had found our new home, our paradise. we sent many of our people to explore our new land and the stories they brought back were wondrous. Across the mighty river they brought back samples of amazing incenses and a beautiful white stone. From the hills they found mighty stones that would fuel the construction of our new home and a rich golden metal that filled our Basileia with a new found greed.
But not all was easy at first; for many years, the hard desert would still hammer at our people making them strong and shape our future. It would be for this reason that our Basileia would send our warriors, the strongest of our tribe in to the unknown, to explore the mighty river and find that which could aid us. It was not long after leaving our lands that they discovered the remnants of a failed civilisation, a warning that we must be ever vigilant.
Our warriors would take from the once fable city whatever they could find, equipping themselves for the dangers ahead. It would be sometime before our people would match them. But for now we could rejoice, as decades passed we grew and our people multiplied beside the noble river that fed us. We soon started to believe that outside our city only barbarians roamed. That soon changed in the fourth century since the founding of Constantinople.
They called themselves the Chinese, a race similar to ours in their love for culture and the arts. But they were more warlike and more like sophisticated barbarians than our learned people. We viewed them with suspicion and naturally they returned the gesture. so we parted ways, content in the belief that the vast desert between us would protect us.
But we soon learnt that our world did not just contain our two races but a myriad of races and cultures; all were lesser races that would begin to eye our growing city with greedy eyes. Our closet neighbor and most jealous were the Swedish, a tribe that scratched a living out of the southern tundras by trading in furs. We ignorantly turned a blind eye to them, believing they would amount to no threat to us.
North of the Chinese were the thick and sweltering jungles, a tangled growth of vines and undergrowth. It would be in this green nightmare that we would find the Mongolians, at first our people were dismissive of these people. they reminded us more of barbarians than even the Chinese or Swedish.
In time we would continue to explore and search out the corners of the world finding lesser city-states and other civilisations. Carthaginians, Celts, Spanish, Egyptians, Mayans and Indians; all unique in their ways, some far more friendly, others suspicious of us. But they were all unlike us, all inferior to our majesty. And so we grew, the desert pushing us until we came to revere it for its guidance and the beginnings of a religion began to grow among us with shrines and the exploration of the heavens.
It is uncertain when we found it, it is uncertain if it even actually exists. All that is certain that it's "discovery" may of changed everything for us. The dates given for when our scouts stumbled upon it our varying with some ranging 1200-1350 Anno Mundi. When our scouts returned with stories of it they told of its powers to rejuvenate the body and replenish the mind, a fountain of youth. Unfortunately our Basileia took no stock with such tales and had the expedition instead focus on searching for more of the city-states that we were beginning to discover. But the stories of the fabled fountain of youth are what ignited the foundations of our meager beliefs and spark the beginnings of a true Priesthood.
By now many generations had gone by and the small band of settlers we began with had grown to encompass thousands of people within the confines of our borders. Centuries of tradition saw the development of an Aristocracy; born from some of the first settlers, their subjects were those that had filtered in from other lands, seeking safety and riches from our city. It was with these subjects that the Aristocracy created a working class of people, and with them they began to mine the gold rich hills.
Not long after this many of these workers would take to flood plains surrounding the river and begin to farm and divide up the land between them. Growing rich on the import of food into the city these farmers would become a second faction within the city, the landed gentry. Occasionally the factions would quarrel for the attention and support of the Basileia, arguing for control of the worker class.
But few got her attention, for a great monument to the heavens was beginning to form under her eye and a third faction was growing in power. A faction long in the making, born from the desert and cries of the people for guidance, soon religion would come to power in Constantinople.
It is said that he came out of the desert, clothed in nothing but rags, his skin burnt from the searing light and his hair bleached bone white. In his hands he held a tome, a book, a relic of immense power. As the Basileia stood admiring the great stone calender her priests had erected, he approached. As her guards rushed to subdue him, our lady pacified them, curious about this strange man. So within the great circle they sat, as equals. As her priests looked on in awe they spoke, they spoke until the sun set between the pillars and did not stop until it had risen again.
The man, a self proclaimed prophet told her of a great future, a rich future, a future unlike that of a mortal, the future of Constantinople. It was with this prophecy that our Basileia entered the city with the man at her side, and proclaimed him the cities Patriarch. As it's Religious leader, he would unite the priests under one religious doctrine and begin the building of a great library. The religion would become to be known through out the world as Christianity.
Many years would pass, but eventually the Patriarchs dream was realised and a library unlike any the world had seen was created, its vaunted vaults containing all known works within the glorious city. It was a building to rival the palace itself and from it our sciences had taken leaps and bounds. Soon our great minds would begin to question the nature of existence itself and philosophy would be born, with it as our guiding light, we would enter a new age.
End of the first tome.-
Procopius