600-699 (Abrittus)

Rough sketch - additions and comments welcome!

Major events
First and Second Sassanid Civil Wars

Centennial developments and trends
Contacts between Europe and China take off, while contacts between Europe and India and India and China intensify, too.

Economy: Military: Philosophy / science: Religion: Nations of Europe: Nations of Africa: Nations of Asia: Salvador79 (talk) 15:16, March 9, 2014 (UTC)
 * In China, new furnaces produce excellent steel. The innovation only reaches Europe towards the end of the century.
 * Also in China, letterpress printing and newspapers are invented. Both innovations travel faster than the furnace idea.
 * Under the Tang dynasty, China finds anticaptialist solutions to the debt crisis and passes a land reform and creates a more rational, better trained bureaucracy. Both ideas are discussed in Europe only in the next centuries. China´s population enjoys enormous increases in living standards in the meantime, also caused by canal construction and easier sea trade.
 * Many petrochemical products are invented for use in all domains of life.
 * Credit accumulation aggravtes outside China, with frequently recurring debt crises causing unrest. In the Eastern Mediterranean, one such crisis gives rise to a political movement called "anarchismos".
 * In Tang China, gunpowder is invented, but not widely used for military purposes.
 * The power of the Sassanid empire considerably weakens due to two civil wars.
 * Rome gains control over Arabian trade routes and petrol sources (although the latter cannot yet be extracted efficiently in great quantities) via several Arab proxies. Conflicts with these Arabs increase, too.
 * Greek medical researchers identify the bubonic plague germ and rat fleas as their major hosts. While no cure has yet been found, drastic hygienic measures are undertaken in Gaul, the Roman and Sassanid empires to prevent further outbreaks. By the end of the century, infections are reduced by 95 %
 * Catholic Christianity regains ground, especially among educated urban classes, who have turned away from the Roman cult, but are not attracted by the sober world-view of the "Celtic philosophy", which still has not developed a convincing moral philosophy. One Catholic Christian moral philosophy which would later unfold immense influence develops in the Africa and Mauritania provinces and is often referred to as the "Deus liberator" theory.
 * A liberal, less theistic version of Zoroastrism, influenced by Buddhism, appears in Persia and finds followers among the educated, but is suppressed by traditionalist Zoroastric priests and the shahs after Chosrau II. until the establishment of the first Persian Republic.
 * Mohammed`s followers fail to reestablish themselves upon return from Aksum; Islam takes no roots in Arabia; a handful of Mohammed`s followers go back to Aksum, where their radicalism is tolerated but falls on dry soil.
 * Invoking the "exceptio Visigothorum", more than twenty smaller and larger Danubian city states, now culturally effectively Visigoth-ised, join the Roman Empire`s Dacian province. In 663, a new province "Transdanubia" is established.
 * The centuries of a depopulated pontic steppe allow less agrarian Ugro-Finnic peoples to reclaim hunting grounds further to the south, from which they had been forcibly removed in the first BC and AD centuries; thus, no intense population pressure and no movement of the Magyars into the Balkans.
 * Slavs in the pontic steppe and "Ostrogoths" in Tauris are threatened by the advent of the Chasars. The Slavs lose several battles against the Chasars and begin to form a confederation, which does not include the Northern Venedi (who argue that their southern brothers didn`t help them against the Saxons, either). The split between the North-Western and South-Eastern Slavic confederations (symbolised as the "people of the wisent" and the "people of the horse") manifests.
 * After the Chasars attack Tauris (the Ostrogoths are allowed defensive weaponry now and manage to defend their fortress cities), Rome steps in and defeats the Chasars, limiting their lands to the Don-Volga-Caucausus triangle.
 * Simonism, and with it a revolution, reaches the Wagadu and overthrows their divine kingdom, too.
 * With Saba involved in inner-Arab conflicts, its cities on Africa`s east coast become increasingly independent.
 * Two civil wars bring down the Sassanid empire. Persia emerges as a republic.
 * Arabia: The importance of the peninsula not only as a gateway to the East, but also as a source of petrol increases; tensions intensify. During the first decade, Rome and the Sassanids are at peace; both try to gain influence over potential petrol sources who are mostly controlled by Saba at this point in time. While Roman attempts take on the form of capital investments and joint-ventures supported by Roman engineer know-how, Sassanid attempts aim at favourable prices in exchange for safe passage. Both strategies co-exist peacefully at first, but antagonise the Sabans, who consider their share of the pie as being too small. After all, the oil is in their ground, isn`t it. During the 1st Sassanid Civil War, Roman legions take control of the oil wells (to "protect" them from potential chaos...). Saba pays Quraish mercenaries to chase the Romans away in the hope of getting away without being blamed. The plan backfires badly, Rome attacks Saba and defeats its army in Oman. Unpaid Quraish mercenaries turn against the Ghassanids. Two decades of shifting inner-Arabian alliances and constant conflict follow. After the Sassanid shah regains control, his first external enterprise is ja oint Sassanid-Saban attack on Rome`s Gulf outposts, which proves a success. Rome must rely exclusively on the Red Sea and Aksum for its trade with India for a while. In the 650s, Nabateans and Ghassanids raid the oil well regions, towards the end the Quraish join in, too. Punitive campaigns by the Sassanids and their Lakhmid allies do not prove very successful. In the 670s, a marriage between a Saban princess and a Quraish sheikh marks the beginning of a Saban-Quraish alliance which manages to drive the Sassanids off the peninsula and reestablish control over the oil wells. They invite Roman investments and joint-ventures again, for lack of capital and know-how, but this time under much stricter local control. The Quraish want to drive Aksum off the Arabian Red Sea coast, and Saba reluctantly agrees to a joint attack. Aksum manages to defend its foothold and Aksum-Saban relations are damaged for the next decades. While Persia stumbles into its second civil war, Saba regains control over the Strait of Hormuz and renegotiates its opening for Roman-Indian trade. Among Nabateans, anarchist ideas become increasingly popular towards the end of the century. Arab relations with the newly established Persian republic are unclear in the 690s yet.
 * India: Northern and Western India continue to thrive under the control of the Gupta empire and its maharajas Vainyagupta II., Chandragupta III. and Kumaragupta IV. Gupta India has intense trading contacts with Europe and the Middle East. Here and its southern Indian Pallava, Hinduism blossoms. In the East / Bengals, the Guptas lose control after a debt crisis-induced revolt, and the Pala dynasty establishes itself and strengthens the role of Buddhism, with Nalanda being India`s greatest buddhist university. Pala concentrates on trade with China and thus heavily influences the countries to India`s south-east, including the ascending Sri Vijaya empire. Inner conflicts between rival principalities is restricted mainly to Pallava, where the Chola`s struggle to break away from Pallava control is not crowned with success in this century. Armed conflict between the three empires is limited to one battle between Gupta and Pallava, which ends inconclusively, and minor skirmishes accompanying Pala`s breakaway from Gupta control.
 * Sri Vijaya ascends and blossoms due to its position of controlling Indian-Chinese sea trade.
 * China: Following a heavy debt crisis, the Tang dynasty introduces a land reform, reforms its civil service and tax system and builds a new canal, laying the foundation for the longest period of economic well-being in Chinese history. To the West, China defeats the Göktürk and reduces them to vassals.
 * Tibet: The first half of the century marks the ascent of the Tibetan kingdom. The ascent stops after a defeat against Tang China in 669.
 * Political contacts between China and Rome become more frequent.

Abrittus