300-399 (Abrittus)

300s
Gregor the Illuminator proselytises with considerable success among peoples of the Caucasus. The Armenian nobility tries to violently suppress it. Lakians, Svani and Cercetians stick to their traditional gods, and Sassanid azats prevent Grego's entourage from entering Albania, but in Iberia and Lasika, Gregor is quite successful. Even in Armenia, the rural population and the middle and lower classes in the towns embrace Christianity.

301
Imaziyen: The Garamants have become peaceful traders with the Roman cities at Africa's Northern coast, and expand at the cost of other Berber kingdoms. This is the year in which Tafilalt, their strongest and last enemy in the West, finally falls under Garamant control.

302
The Empire of Meroë is finally dissolved and split into the three successor kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia.

303
Gaul: In cities across Britannia, Gaul, Germania and Hispania, a republican-democratic movement has grown, too. Its strongholds lie in the old senatorial province of Gallia Narbonnensis with its wealthy cities, which trade intensively with the Roman Republic and host many Roman citizens. Under Tetricus and Constantius, the movement has been temporarily weakened due to persecutions, but also due to increased political stability and further reforms.

In 303, though, sparked by the introduction of a Wine Excise which threatened the local economy, the movement revives, especially in Southern Gaul. Protesters in Gallia Narbonnensis demand a democratisation of political procedures in Gaul after the Roman example. Unauthorised Plebeian Councils form and a federation organises the resistance.

Gaul's Caesar Constantius sends a legion to quash the rebellion. The Narbonnensis Conventum appeals to Rome for help. The Senate hesitates.

304
Gaul / Roman Empire: After Celtic imperial troops committed a bloodbath among republicans in Narbo, Roman public opinion finally favours an intervention, which at first aims only at defending Antipolis, which is under siege. As Constantius declares war on Rome, more legions are sent.

Rome quickly manages to conquer the eastern half of Gallia Narbonnensis. After a decisive battle near Tarasco, Roman legions cross the Rhodanus River and occupy the Western part of the province, too.

Celtic re-inforcements are sent in from the North. After a battle at Segodunum ends inconclusively, both sides dig in. In autumn, Constantius and the Roman Consuls sign a peace treaty. The insurgent civitates of Gallia Narbonnensis join the Roman Republic, but the Republic will not station or move its federal troops there.

Constantius successfully cracks down on the remaining republicans in other provinces like Aquitania.

305
Persia / India: Shah Narseh I. defeats another insurgency in the Indian satrapies.

306
Persia: Persian scholars who came into contact with the Confucian philosophy in China establish the first faculty of political philosophy at the University of Taxila in the Sassanid satrapy of Gandhara.

309
Gaul: Seeking to foster a separate Celtic identity and to redefine the empire as not being a mere breakaway from Rome, Constantius lays down rules for a new state cult and mints new coins. The latter show the caesar's face on one side, and a Celtic symbol together with the words "Imperium Galliarum" (no longer: Imperium Romanum Galliarum) on the other. While religious freedom is still granted to everyone, the new Celtic state cult renames deities in accordance with Celtic mythology and switches the festive calendar to the eight Celtic festive days plus New Year's Eve, which is the only common festivity with the Roman Empire now.

311
Saba / Persia: After Saba has conquered the entire southern half of the Arabian peninsula, conflicts with the Sassanid empire over who controls the Strait of Hormuz erupt. Beginning of the first Saban-Persian war.

312
Saba / Persia: The first Saban-Persian war ends with the Sassanids defeated, having been unable to use their superior ground forces, losing several naval battles. Although the treaty asserts Saban control over the Strait of Hormuz and imposes limits on the Persian navy, shah Narseh I. starts a secret naval build-up.

313
Celtic Empire: To protect the "property" of Celtic slave owners, Constantius violates the contract with Rome and begins the erection of a wooden limes between the Roman province of Narbonennsis and the Celtic Empire, guarded by limitanei, who see to it that no escaped slaves can flee to the Roman Empire and freedom. Rome protests, but does not care enough to wage another war against its neighbour.

314
Persia: The windmill is invented in Northern Eran. In less than ten years, the innovation will have spread across the Empire to India and Mesopotamia, facilitating grain procession.

316
Celtic Empire: The biggest Anglic / Saxon raid / invasion so far devastates Britannia's East Coast and takes weeks to drive back.

317
Celtic Empire: Constantius dies. Articnus and Boudiccus contend for his succession. Another period of political instability haunts the Celtic Empire, and once again, the republicans are on the rise.

319
Persia / India: The Western Satrapies are fully incorporated into the Sassanid Empire, which now covers OTL Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madya Pradesh, too.

320s
The inner crisis of the Celtic Empire strengthens the republican movement even in Britannia and Hispania. Across the Celtic Empire, the new professional collegia, which have formed after the Roman model, are the main support base of republicanism. In comparison to the Roman Empire, Celtic republicanism is much more bourgeois and moderate, it has little ideological connection to Christianity, which is weak in the Celtic Empire anyway, and certainly does not have a liberation of slaves on its agenda. Nevertheless, the progressive majority in the Roman Senate supports the Celtic republican movement and offers asylum to persecuted activists. With Sapientius' ascension to caesarship in 325, another period of relative inner stability follows and republicanism is weakened again. Official Celtic-Roman relations reach a new low, though.

320
The three-field crop rotation has become standard across Europe. After grain prices had initially dropped, increasing population levels have restored the balance.

Relatively stable trade relations between the Alemanni and the Celtic and Roman Empires have grown; the Alemanni sell grain and furs and buy wine and glass. Alemannic villages in the Rhine valley, close to the Celtic border, have grown into the first indigenous Germanic towns, and syncretic religious practices blending Germanic paganism with Christian elements have been observed. The Alemannic High Kings officially recognise Celtic overlordship, but factually, the Celtic Empire has given up most of its territories West of the Rhine.

323
Roman Empire: For the first time, an arch-gravity dam is built not only for irrigation, but also in combination with two large watermills in Leptis Magna (Cyrene).

Many peregrini from among the Garamants work in this large project. Among the workers, they come into contact with Simonist Christianity.

Persia: Shah Narseh I. dies. His young grandchild Shapur II. inherits the throne.

324
Gaul / Franconia / Saxony: After Saxons have repeatedly raided Britannia and also regained control over northern Westphalia, four Frankish kings and the Celts under their military leader Sapientius form a temporal alliance against the Saxons. The Saxons manage to escape any decisive confrontation in battle, but many villages are burnt. The Celtic Navy sets up military camps at the Saxon North Sea shore. Frankish control over Westphalia is restored.

327
Roman Empire: An attempted Markomannic invasion of Pannonia shatters at the Danube Limes.

329
Persia: Young Shah Shapur II. decides to settle conflicts between the dehqan ("village lords"), urban guilds and the high aristocracy to a certain extent in favour of the former two (the latter having tutelaged him over the past years ...), while at the same time dealing with religious uncertainties caused by the rise of Manichaeism.

Inspired by the Roman model of the Comitia Civitatum, but also clearly delineating the Sassanid model against the democratic Roman one, Shapur II. sets out to define the constituent units of the empire's satrapies. At the centre of each of these smallest political units is a Zoroastrian fire temple. Issues like the collection of taxes, the settling of (property and other) disputes and the upholding of public order are to be sorted out by dehqans in rural areas and town councils in urban environments; dehqans are to preside over rural assemblies, to provide census information and to announce imperial laws: town councils must do the same in the cities. Low-ranking local Zoroastrian priests (herbads) are to play important advisory and ceremonial roles in these political processes. The high aristocracy is only left with the governorship of satrapies and military command of the various segments of the Sassanid armed forces, while the high clergy (mobads) advises the satraps and the shahanshah and presides over cultic organisation, choosing herbads and overseeing theological education.

330
Gaul / Saxony: Saxons burn down several Celtic coast camps.

331
Persia: Shapur II.'s communal reforms are implemented from the Euphrates to the Yamuna.

332
Persia / Saba / Aksum: Shaipur II. declares war against Saba. The secret fleet planned  by his grandfather defeats the Saban navy in several battles. Saba asks its Christian neighbour (and long-time rival) Aksum for help. Aksum, fearing they would be next on Shaipur's list, allies with Saba. Together, Aksum and Saba manage to defeat the Persian navy.

334
Persia / India: The first Sassanid university in OTL India is founded in the booming port town of Barygaza, which has become a large city and a wealthy commercial centre, where Indian spices, cloth, cotton and medicinal plants are traded for wine, glass, and petra oleum from Persia's heartland and Western provinces as well as from Roman Europe, and where the crafts blossom, Western and Indian techniques fertilising each other. The University of Barygaza is mostly necessary for the education of future civil servants - as such, it offers a unique opportunity for upward social mobility for the sons of Indians from different castes and corroborates the support for Sassanid rule. On the other hand, it also becomes a centre of Zoroastrianism in India. Especially old Hindu rural elites view all of this with great skepticism.

335
Roman Empire: The Greutungs have rebuilt a considerable empire. Having brought the Bosporans and their navy under their control, a fleet of Ostrogoth boatmen raids Sinope.

The Republic retorts by moving its navy from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, hunting down the pirates and helping the Bosporans in regaining control over their cities. A punitive campaign in the steppe fails utterly, though. The Goths cannot be grasped, and the Republican troops must withdraw before the advent of winter.

The Consuls negotiate a closer cooperation with the Bosporan Kingdom and the Kingdom of Lasika, who both allow the Roman Republican navy to be stationed in their ports. But beyond the coastline, Rome is not yet able to stop the consolidation of the Greutungs' imperial power.

336
Iberia: King Mirian converts to trinitarian Christianity and declares the faith, which has been embraced by a majority of his subjects, as the official religion of his small state. Although trinitarian, the Iberian church is autocephalous like Saba's or Aksum's.

338
Aksum / Nobatia / Alodia: In the midst of a Nobatian campaign aimed at conquering Alodia, the Alodian Queen Amanipilade calls to Aksum for help. After discussions with Aksum's King Ezana, Amanipilade converts to Christianity, and so do many of her subjects in a great baptism before the joint military operation of Aksumites and Alodians against the Nobatians. The ensuing defeat of the Nobatian invaders is ascribed to divine intervention in Alodian and Aksumite legends formed during the Christianisation of all of Alodia and its integration as a relatively autonomous sub-kingdom into Aksum, which transforms from a kingdom into an empire.

339
Celtic Empire: After the camps on the Saxon coast have finally fallen, Anglians, Saxons and Jutes start new raids at the Britannic and even the Batavian coast.

340
Roman Empire: Among Christians, the schism between Arianists and Trinitarians breaks out.

Roman Empire / Gothic Empire: After a Gothic raid on Olbia, two less pacifist Consuls mobilise several legions and march them against the Goths, who had already retreated to the steppe. The confrontation takes place much further East than Rome had expected, and the heavily armed, unflexible Roman cavalry is soundly defeated by light Gothic riders, who had learned from the Sarmatians.

Rome`s Dacian and lower Moesian cities must prepare to increase their defenses against the Greutungs. Colonists begin to retreat and move into safer regions West of the Carpathians as they see that their neighbours beyond the Republic`s border become vassalised by the Greutungs.

341
Persia: Xionite nomads invade the Sassanid empire. They plunder Bactria and leave before Shapur II's troops manage to confront them.

342
Persia: Shapur II. orders strong and quick cavalry units (drawn from Arabia, Eran and India alike) to the North to protect Turan's border against Xionite or similar attacks. Roman Empire: In the long overdue conference on military challenges for the empire held at the Academia Martiana, the twin challenges of a) defending the empire's North-Eastern flank against nomadic riders from the steppe and b) securing naval safety to maintain the important trade with India are discussed and weighed against each other. The feeble republic cannot yet master both challenges at once.

The proponents of the "Hun Thesis" argue with the Roman incapacity vis-a-vis Ostrogothic attacks and the fate of their Sassanid neighbour and call for a surge in diversified cavalry buildup and co-operation with Persia. The proponents of the "Naval Strategy" argue that the fortified limites will have to suffice and territories beyond the limites should be given up. Rome should rather build up and modernise its classis (navy) to be able to secure Roman-Indian trade, as they see the Sassanids more as an enemy, not a partner.

In the following years, the A.M., the military leadership and even Consuls and the Senate are deeply influenced by this heated debate - actual military policies reflect a bit of both approaches.

343
Celtic Empire: Picts attack Britannia. Their invasion is stopped at Isurium Brigantum.

344
Aksum: In the process of the integration of Alodia, the archbishop of Aksum becomes the Patriarch of Aksum, who in future times would be jointly appointed by the Emperor of Aksum and a synod of bishops from Aksum and Alodia.

346
Persian Empire (India): Zoroastrian priests cause an outrage in Barygaza by proselytizing a sort of Zoroastro-Hinduism, in which Indian deities are neatly divided into sub-gods in the realm of light and major demons in the realm of darkness, and traditional rituals are relocated into temples, where they would take place under the supervision of priests assigned from Ctesiphon.

350
The Bosporanian king Thohorses II. converts himself and his small beleaguered kingdom to Tannait Judaism.

351
Persia: Another Xionite attack. This time, the Sassanids manage to confront and annihilate the invading nomadic riders, although the entire Sassanid cavalry must be deployed to Turan for this purpose.

Persia / Arabia / Saba: With Sassanid troops bound in defensive battles against the Xionites, Saba conquers the Gulf Coast.

353
Gaul: A system of fortifications and an enlarged Classis Gallica protects Britannia's Eastern shore and Batavian settlements near the Channel.

356
In spite of limited Roman military aid, the Bosporanian Kingdom is once again defeated by the Gothic Empire; Thothorses II. becomes a vassal of the Greutungs.

357
Persia / Arabia / Saba: The Persian cavalry, helped by Lakhmid allies, wipes Saban presence off the Gulf Coast.

360
Persia / India: Samudragupta I.'s troops cross the Yamuna to re-establish their overlordship over several Shakan principalities, which had become Sassanid satrapies. He is outnumbered and defeated by the cavalry and heavy infantry of Shapur II. A Sassanid counter-attack, aimed at charging reparation and tribute from the Guptas, fails because the Sassanids cannot move their war elephants across the Yamuna quickly enough.

Gothic Empire: Amalaric becomes judge-king of the Greutungs. He conducts successful campaigns to subdue Ugro-Finnic tribes in the North and seeks a better relation with the reviving Roman Empire. He ceremoniously guarantees the safety (and freedom of religion) of his Bosporanian vassals, who still maintain good relations with the Roman Empire.

362
Sea-faring merchants from the Sassanid Empire and a handful of Arab merchants build the new port town of Barawa on the ruins of the former Roman emporium Essina.

363
Roman Empire: As Roman-Gothic relations really seem to improve, Rome's Consuls focus their military strategy on naval build-up.

364
The joint troops of Lasikans and Iberians manage to fight off an invasion of the Alani, who had turned from allies against the Goths to oppressive overlords of many smaller North Caucasian chiefdoms.

365
Roman Empire / Gaul: Customs disputes lead to Celts and Romans both stopping each other's ships at the Strait of Gibraltar. The Western Mediterranean draws breath as a war between the two empires seems inevitable. But after two weeks, the Gibraltar crisis is settled in negotiations between the Consuls and Caesar Indutiomarus II. A joint customs committee is established and revenues are split equally.

366
Persia / India: Shaipur II. realises he must foster local Indian religions as well to enhance Sassanid acceptance. At the (now four) Sassanid universities in the Indian world (at Taxila, Debul, Kabura and Barygaza), Buddhism is promoted, too, now.

The Kushan and Shakan satraps are free to define the constituent political unities of their satrapies by other means than around Zoroastrian temples, where rural or urban councils or assemblies are to be held. (This gives the Indian satraps greater power than their Western equivalents, where the political constituencies could not be redefined by worldly leaders.)

Over the next decade, the last in Shaipur's reign, several Hindu temples for the veneration of Kali (a goddess popular with the vast majority of the Indian Hindu population and not with the anti-Sassanid Brahman elite) are erected, too. Sassanid influence begins to shape Hinduism.

368
Roman Empire: Experimental fire pumps (Greek fire) developed by the Academia Martiana and aimed at protecting Roman ships on the Black and Red Seas against pirates are installed on Roman ships.

369
Sassanid Empire / India: The border between the Sassanid Empire and its neighbouring Indian kingdoms, especially the Gupta Empire, is secured through fortifications. This also facilitates the enforcement of customs payments.

370
Imaziyen: The Berbers, from Tifilalt over Ouargla to Garama, have become Simonist Christians. Their kings and queens have abdicated and have (more or less voluntarily) become commoners. Private property is overcome in the oases. Dissenters mostly emigrate to Rome's African cities.

372
Armenia: Christianity and social protest of the dispossessed classes have fused over the past decades. A Christian revolution, led by Vaihan Mamikonian (one of the few Christianised nobles, even with Arsakid ancestry), aimed at eliminating the rule of King Varazdat, breaks out. Varazdat appeals to Shapur II. for help.

373
Sassanid Empire (Armenia): The Armenian Christian revolution is crushed in the battle of Avarayr.

374
Huns subdue the Alani.

375
Huns (and some Alani) attack and defeat the large Ostrogothic empire under High King Amalaric.

Roman Empire: A first wave of refugees, fleeing from the devastation brought about by the Huns, arrives at the Roman Empire's border with Gothia. They circumvent the Limes Dacicus by sailing on board overcrowded ships. The Roman port town of Olbia is flooded with refugees. Even King Amalaric and his Greutung court arrive as "boat people" in Rome's border province.

The Senate is extremely alarmed. Proponents of the Hun Thesis triumph. Gothic accounts of great numbers of riders, skilled archers with strong composite bows, are taken very seriously now. A fast build-up and mobilisation are begun. Because the Consuls Antonius and Pius consider the Limes Dacicus potentially insufficient, an evacuation plan for Dacia and the trans-danubian Moesian coastline is drafted.

Further to the North, Ugro-Finnic peoples formerly subdued or tributary to the Ostrogoths (Komi, Karelians, Mari, Mansi, Chanti) are not swept away by the Hunnic tide. Instead, they have regained their independence.

376
Roman Empire: The evacuation plan is put in action. Only Roman citizens (and a small handful of Gothic leaders, who were able to bribe the Roman authorities) are evacuated from Dacia and the Moesian coastline, though. The evacuation is conducted with Roman thoroughness: much of the Dacian gold and even huge expensive mechanical devices are carried across the Danube.

Famine and diseases haunt the refugee camps north of the Danube. Christian groups sponsor the deliverance of at least some grain, organised through the military, who are the only Romans left.

377
Roman Empire: Huns penetrate the Roman empire for the first time, plundering towns and villages in Dacia, but not finding much that is of any value. Border troops confront them at Porolissum, but are overwhelmed by the strategically versatile Huns. They withdraw to the South as ordered, so as to strengthen the defense of the Danube Limes. They must fight off Hunnic pursuers at Apulum, Tibiscum and Acidava, but join with the legions on the other side of the Danube finally. They bring some examples of the extremely powerful Hunnic bows with them for A.M. engineers to analyse.

378
After the Huns had retreated to the coast in the winter of 377/8, they start another attack in April, this time attempting to cross the Danube at Tegulicum, where tens of thousands of refugees live in camps on the unguarded Northern side of the Danube, to which Roman soldiers bring provisions until the Huns arrive, at which moment they all retreat in order to secure the Southern shore.

The Huns take control of the masses of panicking refugees and commit one of the most gruesome atrocities of this war. They force unarmed refugees to advance across the Danube bridges as human shields. The Roman defenders are compelled to slay thousands of helpless men, women and children - when these news reach Rome and the other great cities of the empire, the "civil society" is outraged. But the Danube Limes still holds ...

379
After a whole year of peace, in which the Huns nurture their herds on the abandoned Dacian plains and meadows, a new attack hits the Vandals. It appears that the Hunnic hordes have absorbed and included many Iazyges.

Roman Empire: Vandal refugees seek asylum in the empire. Public opinion still remembers the gruesome fate of the Ostrogothic refugees of last year, and in a new vote, the Senate decides to grant asylum to unarmed women and children, both in Pannonia (Vandals, later Marcomanni) and in Dacia.

The surviving refugees from the Ostrogothic Empire, who had been camped in Dacia, have mostly trekked Eastwards after last year's catastrophe. In August, an estimated 70,000 refugees reach Tauris (OTL Crimea) and roll over the weakened Bosporanian Kingdom and take control of what the Huns have left of great cities like Kerkinitis, Chersonesos, Kimmerikon and Nymphaion. The Greek elite temporarily submits themselves, as they had been compelled to do before with Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths etc.

380
Quiet on the Hun front. Roman spies report of a great alliance of Germanic tribes preparing for war under the leadership of the Langobard King Albert.

Roman Empire: Military engineers manage to copy the Huns' composite crossbows. Mass production and training of both cavalry and infantry is started.

Gaul: Saxon attempts at raiding Britannian coastal towns fail due to the new fortifications.

381
Roman Empire: A large Germanic army, uniting Burgundians, Lugians, Langobards, Markomanni, Alemanni, Varisci, Quadi and even a handful of Franks under the leadership of the Langobard King Albert confronts the Huns on the Eastern Pannonian Plains. Both sides suffer heavy losses, but the outnumbered Huns still prove to be tactically more flexible and endowed with better weapons that fit their strategy. Cruelly decimated Germanic forces finally submit to the Huns and are incorporated into their hordes, which plunder the agricultural stocks of much of Southern Germania. Markomannic, Langobard and others (women and children only) flee to the South and find asylum in the Roman Empire. The Burgunds hastily retreat into OTL Bohemia, losing thousands of civilian lives on the long marches in winter. The Franks under High King Lothar retreat earlier and in a very organised manner.

382
Roman Empire / Gaul: In a new campaign in late summer, the Huns and their vassals finally break into Vindelicia and approach the Alps. There, they divide; one group tries to advance through the Alps, while the other moves westward until they reach Celtic fortifications of the Rhine. Rome and Gaul quickly forge an alliance and prepare to throw all their combined military might against the Huns.

383
In the midst of winter, different Hunnic subdivisions ravaging through different valleys north of the Alps are encircled and engaged in battles by a total number of 160,000 Roman and Celtic soldiers. Four out of five Hunnic groups are thoroughly defeated, with tens of thousands killed and about an equal number captivated. A fifth Hunnic group flees to the North and enters Frankish territory. In long, drawn-out fights, the Franks manage to defeat the weakened rests of the Hunnic invasion army.

Roman Empire: Although nobody knows if the Hunnic danger is completely eliminated once and for all, Rome celebrates its triumph and the successful defense of its Danube border. 16,000 Hunnic prisoners of war are under Roman control. As slavery is outlawed in the empire, the Senate decides to sell the prisoners to the Celts.

With things going so well militarily, Roman and Celtic army leaders argue for "rooting out the problem", i.e. a retaliative attack on the Hunnic settlement nuclei in the steppe beyond the Volga.

Against fierce opposition from Christian, Jewish, gnostic and other pacifistic groups, the joint Hun Campaign is decided to start in the following year. Meanwhile, the first asylum Germanii return to their devastated homelands and (dead or alive) husbands and fathers.

Aksum / Makuria / Nobatia: Aksum's Emperor Mehadeyis intervenes in the ongoing war between Makuria and Nobatia, which threatens Aksum's Alodian province. Allying itself with the Nobatian King Charamadoye, Mehadeyis' troops conquer Makuria. In Makuria's capital, Tungul, King Shekanda ceremoniously accepts the overlordship of Aksum's Emperor Mehadeyis. Makuria becomes a subordinate kingdom with relative autonomy under the genuine Aksumite imperial system. Nobatia's King Charamadoye is prevented by the Aksumites from plundering Tungul too much. Small ensuing skirmishes between Nobatians the Imperial Aksumite Army go badly for the retreating Nobatians.

384
The Hun Campaign, led by the Roman, Celtic and Sassanid Empires and assisted by the Bosporanian and the Frankish Kingdoms as well as mercenaries from the devastated tribes of the Alemanni, Markomanni and Vandals, becomes the largest genocide in history. In a sustained, successful military campaign, portion after portion of the steppe is scoured by both light and heavy cavalry units, its nomad population encircled, their leaders killed and the rest captivated and, in a systematic and pre-negotiated distribution, marched into slavery accompanied by infantry units. At times, when a direct march into slavery is impossible, prisoners are interned in guarded camps.

The Hun Campaign begins in the Pannonian plains and in Dacia, where remaining Iazyges, Huns and Alani are easily subjugated and marched into slavery.

It continues in the Pontic steppe. People close to the Danube and the Western shore of the Black Sea, who declared themselves Ostrogothic refugees, are joined with the rest on Tauris. Slavic farmers North of the Carpathians are left alone, too; some join the campaign against the Huns. In several heavy battles, nomadic associations variously calling themselves Sarmatians, Onogurs or Bulgars are defeated, decimated and enslaved. They are mostly interned in camps close to the Black Sea near Histria, Harpis, Tyras and Olbia and after the end of the campaign marched into Franconia, the Celtic or the Sassanid Empire. Only a handful of Bulgars can escape and flee Northwards.

After resting on Bosporanian ground and taking up new provisions shipped across the Black Sea, the campaign continues with fresh Sassanid reinforcements and some auxiliaries from Caucasian tribes, into the Caspian steppe and farther to the East, where heavy resistance from nomadic federations labeling themselves Xionites, Kidarites or Hepthalites, is met.

Aksum / Nobatia: In a futile attempt to rescue its political independence and prevent an Aksumite invasion, Nobatia's King Charamadoye converts himself to miaphysitic Christianity. He is baptised by the Patriarch of Aksum, who, together with Charamadoye, appoints bishops for Nobatia.

385
The Hun Campaign concludes with costly, but thorough victories over the Xionites, Kidarites and Hephtalites. Small numbers of the latter escape into the high mountains in the East. Endless processions of enslaved nomads are marched into allied concentration camps, many of them with the destination Sassanid Empire.

Overall, 125,000 nomads are killed in warfare and another 30,000 die on the long marches towards their destinations.

Over 200,000 people are captivated and enslaved. Much of the steppe is depopulated.

Roman Empire: Selling another 60,000 slaves to the Sassanids and Celts (and a few to the Franks and some Caucasian chiefdoms), the Roman legions reap 180 million sesterces. Heated disputes over who gets the 180 million are settled by the decision to found new academiae martianae (and some non-military universities with the new Roman focus on applied sciences, too) and endow each with 10,000,000 sesterces as foundation asset. This is the birth of the public credit system which would develop over the next centuries in the Roman Empire, where public institutions, often universities, provide loans for projects which they consider "deserving" of financial support, and where the interests of these loans swell the purses of these public institutions even further, giving them ever more socioeconomic power.

Reports from the steppe battlefields divide the society into enraged pacifists and hawks, who have found new pride for their empire.

Persia: After killing or enslaving the Xionites, Kidarites and many Hephtalites, the Sassanid Empire consolidates its control over Transoxania, moving settlers there and garrisoning armies there to control the tens of thousands of slaves as well as the trade route with China. Bosporanian Kingdom: The hopelessly overpopulated island of Tauris and its neighbouring cities on the Kimmerian Bosporus is haunted by famines, diseases and political chaos. The old Bosporanian Kingdom has come to a definite end. From out of the chaos, a mixed group of leaders of Greek, Ostrogothic, Mordwinian and other backgrounds arises (the Tauris Group). They begin negotiations for humanitarian and military assistance with the empires. To improve their impression on the Roman Empire, the Tauris Group speaks Greek and declares their chaotic society as followers of Tannait Judaism.

386
Roman Empire / Tauris: The Tauris Group lands its greatest diplomatic coup. Initially, Rome's politicians engaged in a controversy whether Tauris (OTL Crimea) should become a Roman province or not (the Optimates were in favour of this solution, the Populares opposed it because it required a long-term military build-up). Upon suggestion by the Tauris Group, an entirely new relation between the isle of Tauris and the Roman Empire, which drew upon long-standing traditions of the Bosporan client kingdom, was created: "Tauris te Bosporos Kimmerikos" would become a Roman "margo" - a new structure of association with the Roman Empire, which adapted the idea of a client state to the conditions of Roman republican democracy. No Roman troops would be stationed there, but comprehensive economic and military aid would reach the "new Ostrogoths", while institutionalised co-operation and harmonisation would make sure that Rome did not send its aid to a potential new rival or enemy.

Germania: With almost all Germanic refugees returned to their homelands, Germania is thoroughly reshaped and the influence of Roman civilization makes itself felt.

Only among the Franks, the social model with warrior kings at the top is considered a success. The Frankish Confederacy, enriched by slaves, would later expand across central Germany and deep into formerly Alemannic lands, all along the Celts´ north-eastern border.

Returning asylum Germanii meet scattered rests of their Alemannic, Markomannic and Vandal clans. As a result of what had happened to them, they fortify their dwellings heavily, thus creating a multitude of middle-size, small and miniature "city-states" north of the Danube and Rhine.

The Burgunds isolate themselves in Bohemia and participate very little in the developments of the next century.

The return of Roman citizens to Dacia has begun.

387
Sassanid Empire / India: Aided by revolting Shaka Kshatriyas from the Easternmost satrapies of the Sassanid Empire, Chandragupta I.'s soldiers cross the Sassanid border and try to incorporate the Shaka satrapies into his kingdom. The Sassanids manage to defeat the Gupta army at Ujjain.

388
Sassanid Empire / India: A Sassanid advance into Gupta India is stopped at the Ganges near Varanasi. Yazdegerd's troops retreat and comb their satrapies for insurgents and illoyal traitors, leading thousands of kshatriyas and members of brahman families into slavery in the Persian mainland. Especially the latter contribute greatly to the dissemination of Hindu culture and philosophy in the Middle East, in spite of their low social position there.

389
Nobatia: The Nobatian archbishop Stebanos decides against coercive and for peaceful proselytisation. With means from Aksum's profitable control of the important Red Sea passage, an influential school is built in Faras.

390
Franconia: High King Lothar I. orders the codification of traditional law in the Latin language in a thing in Frankish capital, Bonn (vis-a-vis a similarly named Celtic town on the other side of the Rhine).

392
Escaped Bulgars and their hosts, the Komi, form a new society, the first one in Ugro-Finnic history with a skilled cavalry.

393
Franconia: High King Lothar I. nominates learned judges who must preside all juries. Regional aristocrats are thus bereft of their judicial powers. They brood, but Lothar's popularity is so enormous that they do not dare to protest.

396
Rome ends its grain deliverances to Tauris after the canals which provide the peninsula with water have been repaired and the new Ostrogoths have resumed agriculture on the Southern shore of the continent, too.

The first Taurean division trained entirely in Roman Academiae Martianae begins operations to fortify the margo's territory. The margo has given itself a republican constitution after the Roman model. Its consuls forge treaties of non-aggression and a trade agreement with Lasika and a dozen tukhums of the Nakh.

397
Persia / India: Chandragupta's daughter marries a Vakatakan prince. The Gupta-Vakataka alliance is much closer than in OTL because it is seen as vital in the defense against Sassanid expansion. It also facilitates the proliferation of the innovations which Chandragupta had learned from his powerful and wealthy Sassanid neighbour farther to the South - from windmills over universities and academies to efficient administration and diversified military forces.

399
Roman Empire: By the end of the century, the use of waterpower to replace the force of oxen and human slaves has become so frequent that the total power of watermills installed across the Roman Empire has grown by the factor 320 as compared to the beginning of the century.

This required the building of many smaller and larger dams, which in turn made expropriations and relocations necessary. Where such processes were not undertaken in co-operation with local elites, protest groups have begun to form.

On the other hand, increased use of waterpower and higher productivity have made many jobs superfluous - and created highly skilled ones instead, needed for the construction, maintenance and operation of the dams, millwheels, turbines, sawmills, grain mills, hammers, etc.

These workers need training. Provinces often reward innovators by hiring them as professors. Since the 360s, these gather in Academiae of applied sciences. Some of these academies were endowed with the Hun Money and have risen above the others to empire-wide excellence.

Salvador79 (talk) 09:52, March 3, 2014 (UTC)

Abrittus