600-699 (Abrittus)

Rough sketch - additions and comments welcome!

First Sassanid Civil War (624)
Regional warlords and their permanent power struggles had already alienated especially the urban population of Persia (craftsmen, merchants and the formally educated) from their aristocratic system during the reign on the reform shah Chosrau II. People in the cities wanted to go about their business, make their living and be free to say whatever they wanted and pray in whichever way they preferred, like their counterparts in the Roman Empire could. Chosrau II., who kept peace with Rome, kept trade routes to the West and East open and founded two new universities, was the last popular shah with this influential group. But Chosrau II. was not very popular with the traditionalist Zoroastric priests.

After Chosrau II. is killed in 621 in a coup plotted by Zoroastric priests and two years of power struggle have weakened the country and wrecked its economy, shah Ardashir III. comes to power. He starts a persecution of Christians, Jews and Hinduists, imposes strict rules of Zoroastric cult, immediately gathers troops in order to reconquer the Western Mesopotamian oil wells, and, worst of all for the urban middle classes, raises the taxes even further.

Starting from Gundishapur and soon spreading to Ctesiphon and other cities, protesters demand the nullification of the tax laws and a stop to the troop build-up. Rebel groups storm the palaces of the aristocracy. Militia control the cities and refuse tax payments.

After a week, slaves seize the opportunity of a broken down public order. Some flee to the Roman Empire, others revolt, kill their owners and claim their lands and workshops.

Shah Ardashir III. flees from Ctesiphon to Nahavand with a small part of the mobilised armed forces. The attack on the Arabian peninsula must be postponed. Ardashir desperately tries to reestablish contact to the lords of the regions and to co-ordinate a counterinsurgency campaign.

Throughout spring and summer, he does not succeed. Local fights between loyalist soldiers and militia cost over 20,000 lives. With slave revolts adding to the chaos, Persia sinks into famine and destruction.

Rome has reinforced the troops on its Eastern border and patrols the Persian Gulf. The Sassanid navy is non-existent.

Among revolutionaries, morale is sinking, too. Outbreaks of the bubonic plague in September aggravate this even further.

In the last months of autumn, Ardashir III. manages to stage a co-ordinated attack on the insurgent cities and regains control. In the final battles and in the persecution of dissenters following the restauration, another 20,000 people are killed. Another 30,000 die of hunger and the plague in the following winter.

In 624 and 625 alone, deaths and mass emigration to the Roman Empire, Arabia, India and Göktürkestan have halved Persia`s well-educated and economically important urban population, while slave revolts and escapes have reduced its rural population by over 30 %.

As a consequence, Persia`s power is severely weakened in the following decades. It takes Ardashir more than a decade before a coordinated external military strategy can be restarted - years in which only Rome dictates what happens in the Persian Gulf.

Saba expands into Arabia`s desert
At the beginning of the 7th century, Saba is a consolidated kingdom. Himjarite and Hadamautian nobility have long since become loyal to the crown. Christianity is the common bond uniting Southern Arabia.

Saba has also become a major trading nation. Its colonies on Africa`s East coast provide ivory, but more importantly coffee, for which there is enormous demand from the Celtic West to the Indian East, and which allows Saba to import glassware, new medicine, oil and alcohol from the Mediterranean and spices from India. Saba`s new wealth is reflected in its capital city, Ma´rib, whose tall churches and palaces and lush gardens and parks do not fail to impress their fellow Arabs.

The 610s mark the beginning of a crisis in Saba, though. In its neighboring kingdom, Aksum, conflicts between dynastic families break out over royal succession. Saba barges in, supporting the Solomonic dynasty, which is of Southern Arabian descent and distantly related to Saba`s royal family. When the Aksumite war of succession finally ends with the victory of a Nobatian dynasty from Aksum`s new Kushite provinces in 619, the new king Tokiltoeton bans all Sabans from his kingdom and blocks the Red Sea for Saban ships.

The diversion of Saban-European trade from the (easy and cheap) Red Sea and Bubastis canal route to the longer Persian Gulf and Mesopotamian route brings a first economic crisis to Saba.

Then, a troublemaker named Muhammad Ibn abd`Allah and his followers undermine the safety of inner-Arabian trade undertaken by his fellow Quraish, and the Sassanid empire descends into Civil War.

Both trade through the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia (where conflicting Persian factions as well as a Roman build-up present dangers) and across the deserts of the Arabian peninsula (where Muhammad`s followers rob caravans) have become too dangerous. Saba is cut off from trade with Europe.

But Saba will emerge triumphant from this crisis - and the main factor behind this is the emigration of highly educated Persian dissidents from the Sassanid empire, who bring knowledge e.g. about the use of windpower as well the military innovation of petroleum-based flamethrowers to Saba.

Saba takes the first step on its march to prominence on the invitation of the Quraish. Muhammad ibn abd`Allah and his followers had fled from the Quraish capital, Mecca, to an oasis called Yathrib, which they had been able to take over since the town had been worn out by decades of warfare between different Jewish, Christian and pagan Arabian tribes. From there, the "Muslims", as they call themselves, attacked Quraish trade caravans. The Meccan Quraish retaliated in 625, but Muslim attacks did not disappear. Therefore, the Quraish leaders of Mecca turn to the king of Saba for assistance in exterminating the nuisance once and for all.

King Karib quickly agrees: the disruption of Arabian trade has already bothered him considerably anyway.

In 627, a huge army of Quraish and Sabans marches on Yathrib. Yathrib`s Muslim defenders have dug a trench around the less fortified parts of the oasis. The Quraish divisions reach Yathrib first and stop, at a loss as to what to do now. But then, Saba`s army arrives, and one of general Wahib`s lieutenants, the Persian emigrant Navid, proposes the use of incendiary bombs, like the ones the Sassanids had employed against the Romans some decades ago. General Wahib and his Quraish counterpart Hasan agree. They lay siege on Yathrib until such weapons are brought in sufficient quantities.

Under Saba`s incendiary bombs, Yathrib burns to the ground and everyone inside it burns, too. Some men and women try to escape the inextinguishable flames and are caught in the trench they had dug earlier, where they are slain by Wahib`s and Hasan`s soldiers.

The fire of Yathrib does not only extinguish Islam on the Arabian peninsula and restores the safety of Quraish trade across the desert. It also becomes a symbol of the might of Saba.

The alliance between Saba and the Quraish lasts. After aristocratic inter-marriage, the Quraish officially become a part of the Kingdom of Saba, which now controls large parts of the Arabian desert.

After trade routes are open again, Saba`s wealth grows even faster than before. Exiled Persian professionals teach Saba`s merchant fleet how to caulk their ships to transport liquids, how to grow and produce ailments themselves instead of importing them etc. The first Arabian university is founded in Ma´rib in 661.

In dealing with its new Central Arabian countrymen and their Northern Arabian neighbours, Saba succeeds with very cautious and balanced policies. It only deploys its military, which has developed small and more directed flamethrowers apt for equestrian use and generally enlarged its cavalry, to secure its trade routes. The Christianisation of the Quraish is undertaken slowly and cautiously, and shows considerable success towards the end of the century, when Quraish leaders in Mecca re-interpret their city`s central sanctuary, the Ka´ba, in Christian terms as the altar of Ibrahim / Abraham and build a basilica around it.

Towards the end of the century, Saba directly or indirectly controls almost the entire peninusla. Its wealth, international relations and scholarly advances have become a symbol of Arabian pride. Saba is an important trading partner of the Roman Empire. Its conflicts and rivalries with Aksum continue throughout the century, though.

To secure its control over the Strait of Hormuz, Saba occupies Persian ports during the Second Sassanid Civil War. After several battles first with local, then with republican forces, Saba withdraws from Persian port towns in an attempt to establish improved relations with the republic.

Second Sassanid Civil War (690-691)
During the 670s and 680s, dissatisfaction and desperation among the people of Persia have continously grown. Although weakeed, urban culture has brought forth a new religious trend, a liberal and relatively non-theistic version of Zoroastrism, heavily influenced by Buddhism. Persians at home and in exile demand a democratic republic akin to Rome´s.

A quick of succession of unpopular shahs tries to suppress these movements brutally.

At the same time, the empire loses ground on several fronts. Gupta India conquers regions in th East, while the Oghuz confederacy (a Turkish-speaking breakaway faction after the Göktürk empire had been vassalised by Tang China) controls formerly Sassanid territories in the North.

In 689, shah Yazdegerd IV. dies.

The power struggle for his succession has lasted eight months already, when Saban ships attack Sassanid military ports in February 690. Different warlords from Southern provinces cannot decide on a common command of the Navy. Several lords declare themselves shah at the same time and gather troops with the proclaimed intention to defend Hormuz, but with the actual effect of marching to battle against each other.

This time, the revolutionary-minded urban middle classes are better prepared; they have learned their lesson from the 1st Civil War and crafted a conspiracy among the military. In April 690, a convention of revolutionary committees headed by revolutionary leader Farzin proclaims the shah and lords abolished and the establishment of a Persian Republic. To secure order and the support of another large group, he abolishes slavery. On the same day, their allies take control over six out of eleven Sassanid armies.

Battles between the republican and the aristocratic armies continue for almost a year, during which the republican army must also fight off Saban invaders. On March 22nd, 691, the last local warlords surrenders, and the 2nd Civil War ends with a victory of the Persian Republic.

Elections are held later in the same year, and Farzid is elected as head of state for five years.

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

Economy & Technology:
Across the Mediterranean, wood shortages create crises and rising prices, leading first to the shutting down of many public baths and a widespread change in diet towards vegetables and fruit which do not require cooking, then to increased efforts in finding new coal deposits and new ways of extracting coal from deeper strata. Across Europe, North-Eastern Africa and Persia, separate professions of distillers, pharmacists, chemists, gaffers, medics, opticians, millers etc. have formed. In the three empires, they are more advanced and more innovative because their organisation and training is centered around universities and academies, while in the Germanic, Slavic and Northern African countries neighbouring the empires, the professions have organised into guilds where knowledge is kept under restriction and handed down by practitioners to apprentices only.
 * In China, new furnaces produce excellent steel. The products reach Europe in the last third of the century.
 * Also in China, letterpress printing and newspapers are invented. Both innovations travel fast; they are used for propaganda and information by the republicans in the Second Sassanid Civil War and reach the Mediterranean towards the end of the century.
 * Under the Tang dynasty, China passes a land reform and creates a more rational, better trained bureaucracy. Both ideas are discussed in Europe only in the next centuries. China´s population enjoys enormous increases in living standards in the meantime, also caused by canal construction and easier sea trade.
 * In the Roman Empire, optical lenses are improved to a great extent. Eyeglasses are invented and improved thoughout the century. First primitive microscopes and telescopes are built, the latter facilitating sea navigation considerably and being used by Ostrogoths first.
 * Also in the Roman Empire, derivates of sulphuric acid are discovered to be of use as fertilisers. They improve agricultural productivity significantly, providing the growing population of the empire with sufficient produce.
 * In the Roman Province of Achaia, diethyl ether is produced from sulphuric acid and alcohol for the first time. Its anaesthetic qualities, first experienced by the chemists who discovered it, are soon used in dental medicine, later also for other medical operations like amputations.
 * In a town in the Roman province of Dacia Superior, wire drawing is invented. Thin gold wires and thicker copper wires are used for a very limited range of purposes at first.

Military:

 * In Tang China, gunpowder is invented, but not widely used for military purposes.
 * The power of the Sassanid empire considerably weakens due to two civil wars.
 * Saba builds up and modernises its armed forces.

Philosophy / science:

 * Methodical medical observation carried out in the context of East Roman hospitals leads to the identification of rats as the most likely source / carrier of the bubonic plague. Drastic measures of public hygiene are imposed in the Celtic, Roman and Sassanid empires, reducing infection rates by 90 % over two decades.
 * In the natural sciences, several conflicting theories are developed concerning the movements of the stars, the role of organs and bodily fluids, the underlying principle behind plant and animal life, the fixed or changeable properties of substances and their internal structure, as well as concerning mass and weight.
 * An apothecary in a Celtic monastery in Gaul, which has a huge garden with all sorts of (supposedly) medicinal plants at its disposal, creates the first botanical nomenclature system.
 * In attempts to tackle anarchism, which has gathered new followers beyond staunch Simonists, sophisticated theories of democracy are elaborated at Roman universities.
 * Greek medical researchers identify the bubonic plague germ and rat fleas as their major hosts. While no cure has yet been found, drastic hygienic measures are undertaken in Gaul, Saba and the Roman and Sassanid empires to prevent further outbreaks. By the end of the century, infections are reduced by 95 %

Religion:

 * Catholic and other brands of Christianity show differentiating trends across the social strata. Among the educated, ever-more sophisticated theological theories and complex abstract moral philosophies circulate and regain followers as the Roman cult starts to fade away. Among the working classes, a canon of ethical principles derived from all kinds of Christian confessions starts to consolidate and shape everyday life, while in spiritual life and personal belief, countless variations of ecclesiastic pantheons and mixtures with mystic practices from all around the world are practiced. Across all strata, Christianity gains new followers through its systems of mutual credit, which are exclusively available to trustworthy members and present a very attractive alternative to high-interest loans from diverse public institutions.
 * A new and more missionary school of thought develops within the Celtic Church. Monasteries outside the Celtic Empire are founded, especially in Narbonnensis and Mauritania, but later in the century also in Norway.
 * Influenced by the cultures of the exile countries of the dissident Persian diaspora, new religions / moral philosophies, which combine a less theistic Zoroastrism with Buddhist or Jewish/Christian ideas, emerge. In the Sassanid empire, they are suppressed by traditionalist Zoroastric priests until the establishment of the first Persian Republic.
 * After most of its followers are killed in Arabia, a new Arabian revelatory religion called "Islam" only has a handful of followers left, who have emigrated to Aksum. In liberal and laid-back Aksum, their radical theses are tolerated, but also widely ignored.

Nations of Europe:

 * Roman Empire: Large segments of the population enjoy economic well-being: cheap and good textiles, free grain, an ever-increasing variety of new types of food, clean cities, newspapers bringing information from around the world. For the descendants of free citizens and slaves alike, formal education and life expectancies of 60 and more have become standards.
 * Invoking the "exceptio Visigothorum", more than twenty smaller and larger Danubian city states, now culturally effectively Visigoth-ised, join the Roman Empire`s Dacian province. In 663, a new province "Transdanubia" is established.
 * Celtic research expeditions map Glaciana and discover Insulae Petrae (Faroe) and Polaris (Greenland), where they do not encounter any indigenous population yet.
 * The centuries of a depopulated pontic steppe have allowed less agrarian Ugro-Finnic peoples to reclaim hunting grounds further to the south, from which they had been forcibly removed in the first BC and AD centuries; thus, no intense population pressure and no movement of the Magyars into the Balkans.
 * At the beginning of the 7th century, Bogatygavan has developed into a large and powerful city, with a vast network of daughter cities along the rivers flowing into the Black Sea. Learning from the Ostrogoths, the Bogatygavan Slavs use the Greek alphabet, codify their laws and organise their city and its outer contacts through a city council and magistrates. Many of them have converted to Judaism. Bogatygavan effectively controls the pontic steppe and gradually extends its sphere of influence over more and more Slavic tribes in the north-west. (A competitor has also arisen: the town of Peresechen on the Hierasus, which focuses on trade with Roman Dacia, has also started to expand a trade network, which for geographical reasons is less centralised than Bogatygavan`s and also smaller and less powerful.) They have introduced the three-field crop rotation in the more fertile lands to the West, and hold large amounts of cattle in the steppe. They export huge quantities of grain and cattle to Tauris in exchange for glass, luxury goods technological innovations. Toward the end of the century, both unorganised Slavic tribes in the eastern pontic steppe and Bogatygavan daughter cities along the Don are attacked, plundered and burned down by the Chasars.

Nations of Africa:

 * Simonism, and with it a revolution, reaches the Wagadu via the Garamants and overthrows their divine kingdom, too. Socio-economic and/or religious dissenters among the Mandé (the population of Wagadu) emigrate and found the city of Sere Kunda at the mouth of the river Gambia, where they establish trade relations with Ostrogothic sea merchants.
 * Further to the East, Simonists emerge triumphant from civil war in the Sao cities, too. The great Simonist arc now stretches from Wagadu in the West over the Hausa, Banza and Sao to the Tubu in the East and the Garamants in the North as well as anarchic communities within the South-Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Except for the Roman Simonists, all other Simonists are learning to read their Bible in the old Libyan alphabet of the Garamants. From a Palestinian sect, Simonism has become one of the three largest Christian confessions whose core area has moved significantly South into Africa - a fact symbolised by the increased importance of Mune as a second important Christian sanctuary and religious centre after Jerusalem.
 * Ostrogothic ships sail around Africa`s Western coast and along its Eastern coast almost to the Cape of Good Hope, initiating trade relations with dozens of peoples, thus sowing the seeds from which future kingdoms and empires would grow.
 * Saba's and Aksum's cities on the East Coast increasingly influence their hinterland, with which they trade growing amounts of coffee, tropical wood and ivory for alcohol, glass and weaponry. With some "help" from the coastal cities, several ways of increasing agricultural production per square unit are found. Indian (Gupta and Pallava) sea merchants appear in greater numbers.

Nations of Asia:
Salvador79 (talk) 15:16, March 9, 2014 (UTC)
 * Two civil wars bring down the Sassanid empire. Persia emerges as a republic.
 * Arabia: Saba emerges from the peninsular conflicts as the undisputed power no. 1.
 * India: Under its maharajas Vainyagupta II., Chandragupta III. and Kumaragupta IV. Gupta India thrives and conquers Gandhara, which means Gupta India now partakes of the Silk route. Trading contact with Europe and the Middle East, but also with China intensify. Here and in southern Indian Pallava, Hinduism blossoms. In the East / Bengals, the Guptas lose control after a debt crisis-induced revolt, and the Pala dynasty establishes itself and strengthens the role of Buddhism, with Nalanda being India`s greatest buddhist university. Pala concentrates on trade with China and thus heavily influences the countries to India`s south-east, including the ascending Sri Vijaya empire. Inner conflicts between rival principalities is restricted mainly to Pallava, where the Chola`s struggle to break away from Pallava control is not crowned with success in this century. Armed conflict between the three empires: battles between Gupta and Pallava end inconclusively; Pala´s breakaway from Gupta control is accompanied by violence.
 * South-East Asia: Sri Vijaya ascends and blossoms due to its position of controlling Indian-Chinese sea trade. Dvaravati experiences a new height of cultural and economic development, copying some reforms from Tang China towards the end of the century. To its east, new neighbours appear (the Tai) and start to form states.
 * China: Following a heavy debt crisis, the Tang dynasty introduces a land reform, reforms its civil service and tax system and builds a new canal, laying the foundation for the longest period of economic well-being in Chinese history. To the West, China defeats the Göktürk and reduces them to vassals.
 * Tibet: The first half of the century marks the ascent of the Tibetan kingdom. The ascent stops after a defeat against Tang China in 669.
 * Political contacts between China and Rome become more frequent.

Abrittus