300-399 (Abrittus)

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 reinforcements 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.

306
Franconia: Having been defeated by the Alemanni under their single king, the eleven kings of the Franks decide to elect a High King and unify their territory, too. Under high king Suitbert, the Franks go to war against the Saxons. After several victories, they temporarily gain control over Westphalia; parts of which would slip away from Frankish control later.

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 Shaipur II. starts a secret naval build-up.

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

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.

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: A Markomannic invasion of Pannonia is stopped. This time, the Senate decides against a punitive campaign and for further reinforcements of the Danube Limes.

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

332
Persia / Saba / Aksum: Shaipur II. declares war against Saba. His secret fleet 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.

335
Roman Empire: A fleet of Ostrogoth boatsmen raids Sinope.

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

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 and control Bactria.

343
Roman Empire: The Arianist bishop Wulfila manages to convert the Visigothic judge-king Aorich to Christianity. Aorich supports Wulfila`s missionary activities.

Gaul: Picts attack Britannia. Their invasion is stopped at Isurium Brigantum.

345
Roman Empire: In a 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. In the following years, the A.M. is deeply influenced by the debates concerning the "Hun Thesis".

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
Aksum: King Ezana intervenes in internal disputes of his northern neighbour and ends up annexing Kush. With Kush becoming a part of Aksum, Aksum now shares a border with the Roman empire (Egypt).

351
Persia: Another dangerous Xionite attack reaches deep into Sassanid territory from the East.

352
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.

357
Persia / Arabia / Saba: The largest cavalry in the history of the Middle East, formed by heavily armored Persian riders and lighter Lakhmid cavalry, united under the command of shah Shaipur II., wipes Saban presence off the Gulf Coast.

363
Roman Empire: Further Ostrogoth raids on the Bithynian and Cappadocian coast.

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.

374
Huns subdue the Alani.

375
Huns (and some Alani) attack and defeat the Ostrogoths.

Roman Empire: A first wave of refugees, fleeing from the devastation brought about by the Huns, hits the empire`s Danube border. Imperial troops fend off any attempts at invading Roman territory. A disheveld Greutung "king" Amalaric seeks asylum for himself and the masses of refugees. The Moesian Comitia and the Senate refuse, the latter only by a small margin.

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 hords 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 briges 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 further 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.

Roman Empire / Persia: The Sassanids attack Assyria and Armenia, which are left rather unguarded, since all defensive attempts are aimed against the Huns.

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.

Roman Empire / Persia: Rome signs a peace treaty with the Sassanids and cedes Assyria.

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.

384
The Hun Campaign, in which two Germanic kingdoms (Franks and Burgunds) and mercenaries from the devastated tribes of the Alemanni, Markomanni and Vandals, and even the army of the Sassanid empire joins, becomes the largest genocide in history. In a sustained, successful military campaign, which later turns into an armed enslavement campaign, 125,000 Huns and other nomadic people (Sabirs, Onogurs, Sagurs and Bulgars in the pontic steppes, Xionites in Bactria) are killed in warfare and another 30,000 die on the long marches towards their destinations. Over 200,000 people are captivated and enslaved. The entire steppe from the Danube to the Volga is depopulated. Only people close to the Danube and the Western shore of the Black Sea had a chance to escape genocide or slavery, which they often managed by declaring themselves as Ostrogothic refugees. (Since the fate of the refugees had been a particularly dark spot on Roman public conscience, enslaving them was completely out of the question. Until their fate would be decided in one of the first "international conferences", they are deported and taken care of on the island of Tauris, which had also been depopulated first.

Roman Empire: Selling another 60,000 slaves to the Sassanids and Celts (and a few to the Franks), the Roman legions reap 180 millions of 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 socio-economic power.

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

Persia: After killing or enslaving the Xionites, the Sassanid empire takes control of Bactria, starts to move settlers and leaves armies there to control the tens of thousands of slaves as well as the trade route with China.

385
Tauris: During spring, 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 coverted 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 cooperative).

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 June, 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, expands 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.

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.

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

Abrittus