400-201 BCE (Grand Union)

''The 4th and 3rd Centuries are the sixth section of the Iron Age. This time frame saw the birth and rise of both Alexander III and Moquihuix.''

Persia
Persia was in a tough position as a result from it's lack of alliances to other nations. While it was militarily advanced, it did not have the technical knowledge of nations such as Eneti or Egypt. The emperors in the region did not take as much charge as they used to in the 500's and 600's BCE. In 425, diseases from the east swept through the desert towns, killing many people in those regions. Poverty went rampant, as the military spending wasn't needed anymore. In 397 BCE, Emperor Assur-Mulik I of Persia died without an heir, ending his dynasty of foolish kinds.

A young man named Paseena, the son of a noble who lived near the castle, quickly acted upon this. While everyone else tried to raise an army of their own, he took the throne and defended it from any other people. However, he was a much better king than his predecessors, even with assassins trying to take the throne from him for a large portion of his life. He worked on building up infrastructure in the capital city of Nineveh, as well as bringing Persia's eastern regions wealth. He died in 366 BCE, after reigning for a lengthy thirty-one years. He was one of the first kings who had a day of mourning dedicated to them, one which was put in place by his first son, Dariush I. Dariush was much like his father, but dedicated his time as emperor to strengthening the east against the Indians. This was good in some ways, but made Persia weak to the future onslaught of the Macedonians to the west. He died in 334 BCE, and was succeeded by his first son, Jahangir.

Jahangir continued the basic policies that Paseena's dynasty started, but also put military force on the Egyptian border. He made a basic trade alliance with the Enetians, which allowed Persia to get goods from the Euxine Sea and beyond. He was forced to handle the brunt of Alexander's conquests, and had trouble dealing from the pressure. The leader Alexander placed in charge of Eneti was very hostile to Jahangir, and they almost went to war multiple times. After Alexander's death, he had multiple more conflicts with Alexander IV. However, he died in 313 and left the throne to his son, Kir I. Kir wasn't able to do much, due to even more growing restrictions from Egypt and more military conflicts with Eneti. He was forced by Macedonia to tone down Persia's overly large army, and also had trouble dealing with the Kushans to the east. His one major achievement was setting up a puppet state in the regions of Eneti the Macedonians had a hard time controlling. He probably could have done more if he didn't die from an unknown cause three years into his kingship. Historians believe an assassin could have been hired by Macedonia in order to start a civil war, but most of those claims have been baseless and heavily refuted.

Due to him dying so young, he had no children to take over his throne. His brother did this for him, and quickly had children of his own to compensate, in case het met the same fate as Kir. Parvis I, the new Emperor, named his son after his late brother, and did so out of honor. He also believed the theories that Macedonia secretly assassinated his brother, and tried to make better relations with them in order to not be murdered as well. He died in 288, and didn't make any major innovations himself. Kir II, the son named after Parvis' brother, became Emperor subsequently. He was unable to do anything as well, but riskily attempted to spread into the east. This was an extreme issue after a few years, as it made the already disease-ridden empire virtually collapse from sickness. It hit along the Tigris and Euphrates the most, due to them being major hubs of sea trade, especially from the east. Much of the royal family died because of this, and the capital city was moved north after the next Emperor took over. Kir himself died, along with his only son. His other child was extremely young at the time, which means they only had one known other family member left.

Around seventy years before, Dariush I had another child along with Jahangir. A few years after having his first son, he became the father of a girl named Parvaneh. She would live to be the oldest Emperor in Persian history until the Common Era, living to be 83 years old. She was known by many as the "Eternal Princess", due to her outliving most of the other people in her nation. After Kir and his son died, she took over in her mid-seventies. She also taught Sanaz, Kir's only daughter, how to be a good Emperor like herself. When Parvaneh died nine years later, Sanaz I took over the throne and fixed the poverty the "Desert Plague" had caused". She wasn't able to do too much during her thirty-six years, but she did enough to retake control over her splintering empire. Her son Kaveh took over in 230, and tried to bring Persia back to it's days of relative peace in the early 300's BCE. It strayed away from anything in the east, but also made sure it had full control over it's older land. The recession had finally ended, after sixty years of near-chaos. Kaveh died in peace in 199 BCE.

Emperors of Persia (400-200 BCE)

 * Assur-Mulik I - (422-397 BCE) 25 years
 * Paseena I - (397-366 BCE) 31 years
 * Dariush I - (366-334 BCE) 32 years
 * Jahangir I - (335-313 BCE) 22 years
 * Kir I - (313-310 BCE) 3 years
 * Parvis I - (310-288 BCE) 22 years
 * Kir II - (288-275 BCE) 13 years
 * Parvaneh I  - (275-266 BCE) 9 years
 * Sanaz I - (266-230 BCE) 36 years
 * Kaveh I - (230-199 BCE) 31 years

Expansion & Growth
The Iberian Peninsula was undoubtable one of the most developed regions of Europa, second behind the Greek states in South Eastern Europa. All could thanks to the Cogotas I Empire. Arnviðr Remus was one of the great Cogotas rulers that led to the empire's rapid expansion within the peninsula. Arnviðr led his ancestors crusade against the Celtic raiders that plagued the peninsula and the progress of his empire. Arnviðr created a great network of outpost that bordered the mountain range that created a natural border for the Cogotas to delay and prepare for invasions or attacks from potential warlords, raiders, or barbarians. Arnviðr chose to fortify and secure the few colonies his predecessors created in Southern Francia, much to the chagrin to many of his advisors, who suggested expanding into the untapped region; as their superior military might could easily stop any potential attacks from the native tribes in the region. Though Arnviðr believed that due to their distance and the only way to effectively travel to the colonies was by boat, he ordered for the colonies to build up the region in preparation for possible future expansion. Arnviðr much like his predecessors was forced to be a military extraordinaire as military conquest was the quickest way to unite the entire peninsula. As the region was a mix of various remaining Celtic tribes, growing nations, or small communities. Near the end of his reign Arnviðr was able to fully unite the northern portion of Iberia, with a large unnamed body of water stretching farther than the eye could see into the west.

Cleon Remus, Arnviðr's son and successor, was not the militaristic genius he was, but he made up for the lack of his military skill, with his architectural and construction ideals. Cleon took the idea to the idea of slowing down his empire's expansion and focusing more on the lack of effective roads, that hindered travel throughout the region. Within the next 10 years of his reign he saw an effective road system connecting the empire's largest cities, towns, and ports and saw an effective increase in the amount of trade and traffic within the empire. The Iber River was among the largest rivers in the empire and Cleon saw fit to use it to his advantage. He saw fit to create man made rivers, streams, and aqueducts to effectively farm and bring water to the regularly dry region of Northern Iberia.

The Punic Wars
Heliodoros succeeded his father Cleon, Heliodoros moved for rapid expansion into along Iberia's eastern coast to open up effective ports in the region, then to slowly move inward from the coastal towns and ports. Upon the Cogotas expansion southward they came in contact with a group of Carthaginian