300-399 (Abrittus)

300s
Gregor the Illuminator proselytises with considerable success among peoples of the Caucasus. Armenian nobility and their Sassanid overlords try to violently suppress it. Lakians, Svani and Cercetians stick to their traditional gods, and Sassanid azats prevent Gregor`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: Prevented from raiding Rome`s African provinces by the fortified Limes Africanus, the Garamants have become peaceful traders for Rome, 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: Sparked by the introduction of a Wine Excise which threatened the local economy, protesters in Gallia Narbonnensis demand a democratisation of political procedures in Gaul after the Roman example. An unauthorised provincial Comitia forms and organises the resistance. Gaul's emperor Constantius sends a legion to quash the rebellion. The Narbonnensis Comitia appeals to Rome for help. The Senate hesitates.

Roman Empire: Constantine becomes Rome´s first Christian emperor. Although without much factual power, he throws in all his charisma to sway public opinion to support the republican movement in Narbonnensis (in which trinitarian apostolic = Roman Catholic Christians play a vital role) at least infrastructurally.

304
Gaul / Roman Empire: After 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 Constantine sign a peace treaty. Gallia Narbonnensis becomes a Roman province with a democratic Comitia, but it becomes Rome`s first demilitarised province. The general draft does not apply to Narbonnensian Celts and no legions are to be stationed or even moved there.

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 emperor`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
Gaul: The biggest Anglic / Saxon raid / invasion so far devastates Britannia`s East Coast and takes weeks to drive back.

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

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.

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 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 Vicina, 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 Zoroastrism in India. Especially old Hindu rural elites view all of this with great skepticism.

335
Roman Empire: The Greutungs have rebuilt a considerable empire. A fleet of Ostrogoth boatmen raids Sinope. Rome`s downscaled military forces are unable to conduct a comprehensive punitive campaign. The Academia Martiana alerts the Senate with regards to Rome`s open North-Eastern flank. So far, only limited support for the Bosporanian Kingdom, which desperately tries to defend itself against the Greutungs, in the form of weaponry is decided upon. A large scientific conference on military threats is promised for the next years.

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.

337
Markomanni and Alemanni confront each other; the battle ends inconclusively.

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
Gaul: 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.

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 thesis of the most dangerous threat being nomadic barbarians from the Asian steppe is discussed in an extremely controversial manner. The proponents of the "Hun Thesis" argue with the Roman incapacity vis-a-vis Ostrogothic attacks and the fate of the their Sassanid neighbour and call for a surge in cavalry buildup and cooperation with Persia. The opponents of the thesis argue that the fortified limites will hold and that 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
Roman Empire: Since the revolution and the establishment of the second republic, tribal kings and aristocrats in the formerly barbarian provinces have lost their functions empire-wide. Among the Visigoths in Dacia, "judge-king" Aorich discovers a new field with social prestige: he is baptised by the Arianist bishop Wulfila and assumes the role of a religious leader, who instructs his followers and unites his dispersed gens at least spiritually.

Gaul: 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.

348
Roman Empire: Wulfila has managed not only to convert most Visigoths to Arianist Christianity, but also to spread the script he himself had developed among the Terwingian Visigoth nobles. Dozens of copies of his Gothic translation of the Holy Writ are crafted.

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 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: Further Ostrogoth raids on the Bithynian and Cappadocian coast. The Senate abandons another major tenet of the early republic`s defensive doctrine and increases its naval presence in the Black Sea, including new naval bases in Lasika.

364
The joint troops of Lasikans and Iberians manage to fight off an invasion of the Alani, who had become the 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 Valentinian and Indutiomarus IV. 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 Sea against Ostrogothic and Alanic pirates as well as on the Red Sea against Somali 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 provinces.

372
Sassanid Empire (Armenia): Christianity, Armenian secessionism and social protest of the dispossessed classes have fused over the past decades. A Christian Armenian revolution, led by Vaihan Mamikonian (one of the few Christianised nobles, even with Arsakid ancestry), aimed at eliminating the rule of King Varazdat and the pro-Sassanid nobility, 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: Famine and diseases haunt the refugee camps north of the Danube. Christian groups organise the deliverance of at least some grain.

In Rome, the supporters of the Hun Thesis triumph, but as a result of the differences of opinions, only some legions are trained for combat against the Huns. Mobilisation and preparation are pushed feverishly.

377
Roman Empire: Huns penetrate the Roman empire for the first time, plundering towns, villages and gold mines in Dacia. Imperial forces confront them at Porolissum and manage to push them back temporarily.

Realising the strategic flexibility and the great number of skillful archers among the Hunnic riders, the Senate and the provincial governor decide to evacuate Dacia`s (Visigothic, Roman and Dacian) inhabitants and riches and move them across the Danube. The long march across the Danube takes five months, in which five legions must repeatedly engage Hunnic hordes in heavy battles at Apulum, Tibiscum and Acidava.

378
Roman Empire: The retreat across the Danube is successfully accomplished, although at the expense of several hundred civilian casualties of the marches during winter times.

One of the most gruesome atrocities of the Hunnic war is committed when the Huns reach the refugee camps of non-Roman Dacia and force refugees to advance across the Danube bridges as human shields. The Roman defenders are compelled to slay thousands of unarmed civilians. But the Danube Limes still holds ...

379
After the Huns found little left that was of any use to them in the abandoned province of Dacia, they move farther West and subdue the Iazyges. Together with many Iazyges, they attack the Vandals.

Roman Empire: Vandal refugees seek asylum in the empire. In a new vote, the Senate decides to grant asylum to unarmed women and children, both in Pannonia (Vandals, later Marcomanni) and in Dacia (where most surviving refugees had already returned from the squalour of the camps to the deserted plains which the Huns had left behind, though).

380
The Huns subdue the Marcomanni. After the Vandal example, many women and children flee into the empire, swelling the ranks of the "asylum germanii", who start to become an important social factor in the border provinces.

The Burgundians confront the Huns and are devastatingly defeated. They retreat into OTL Bohemia.

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 Hunnic attempt to cross the Danube in Pannonia fails; heavy losses on both sides.

The Huns subdue the Alemanni, but not after the latter had put up great resistance and had to pay dearly. Now, Alemmani attack the border of Rome´s Vindelican province as Hunnic vassals, again suffering heavy losses.

382
Roman Empire / Gaul: After several failed attempts, 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: The Hunnic danger is eliminated. 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 two Germanic kingdoms (Franks and Burgunds) and 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 the Celtic Empire.

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 moved to the island of Tauris. Slavic farmers North of the Carpathians are left alone, too. 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 and after the end of the campaign marched into Franconia, the Celtic or the Sassanid Empire. Only a handful of Bulgar can escape and flee Northwards to the Komi.

The campaign continues with fresh Sassanid reinforcements, but without any involvement from the Lasikan or Iberian kingdoms or any other smaller tribes of the Caucasus, 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), 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.

Tauris: In autumn, a great international conference that would decide the fate of the swept-up people from the steppe, who for strategic reasons all called themselves "gothoi anatoli" (Ostrogoths) now, was held in Rome, with representatives from Gaul, the Sassanid empire, the Frankish kingdoms, and the deportees. While Celts, Franks and Sassanids wanted the deportees either enslaved or at least brought under the control of an empire, as they considered any people in the steppe too great a danger now, the Roman senate, under pressure from public opinion, opted for an independent Ostrogothic state. In addition, the other powers couldn't agree where to bring them to.

In one of the most extravagant, yet surprisingly successful and influential, strategic moves in history, representatives of the deportees declared that their people had converted to Tannait Judaism (a Jewish group that was known to Romans and Sassanids as deeply pacifistic and was renowned to be "among themselves", but very co-operative).

This swayed the opinion on the conference, as the gothoi anatoli would not be considered a danger anymore - if the representatives had really told the truth...

A diplomatic mission was sent to Tauris; luckily for the deportees, a ship with messengers arrived in Tauris before them. It did not take much persuasion to convert the destitute people, who didn't even share a language, to Judaism. The diplomats saw what they were supposed to see and returned to Rome.

In early December, all parties signed a contract:

The "gothoi anatoli" were given their own state, which was to be confined to the island of Tauris. They would not be allowed any horses or weapons. This would be supervised by ambassadors from all contract parties, who would be exchanged annually. The Roman Empire would guarantee their safety and defense from attacks.

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.

Visigoths and their fellow provincial citizens return to Dacia.

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 Franksih 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. A fortified town, Perm, is built (farther South than in OTL, at the confluence of Kama and Volga near OTL Kazan).

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.

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