A Bit Slow At Marathon

A Bit Slow At Marathon:

In this world the Athenian army is a little too slow at deploying themselves and allow the Persians to properly prepare their own forces for battle. With their cavalry able to properly support them the Persians are able to successfully break the Athenian army and rout them. Athens is besieged and raided but eventually Darius decides that his message to the Greeks has been sent and he returns to Persia with his army, leaving a traumatised city behind.

Athens ends up under the control of institutional tyranny once again and is much less eager to involve themselves with the Persian Empire, instead returning to matters in Greece itself. There is no Periclean Age, no Delian League and no cultural flowering as a result of defying the Persian Empire. The Greek states return to living as they always have.

Sparta ascends and challenges Athens but both states are unable to rally the support they would have in the Pelopponesian Wars and exhaust themselves enough for the ascendant city of Thebes to beat them both into submission and build its own confederated empire on the Hellenic mainland. Athens and Sparta, both thoroughly beaten, would end up under pliable lines of tyrants and kings respectively whilst under Theban rule.

The rise of Rome was very different with a strong Greek state with an established military tradition proving too strong to conquer entirely. Instead the Romans conquered Italy and Sicily and then turned their attention towards Iberia and North Africa. At the same time they did overthrow their kings but established a militant tyranny based around the army instead of a republic. The Theban Greek state would also undergo its own expansionist phase under several ambitious kings and build an empire in the Eastern Mediterranean at the expense of the crumbling Acheamenid Persian Empire. Eventually the Mediterranean would end up divided between the Roman and Greek empires with the Celtic and Germanic kingdoms of Northern Europe slipping in and out of their control.

The Migration Period would collapse both empires but rump remnants would survive and serve as the foundations for new incarnations of the Roman and Greek empires. The Arabs and Scandinavians would also enjoy brief periods of success before the energy that allowed them to conquer vast areas of territory ran out and led to the collapse of their short lived rule over Europe and the Mediterranean.

History happens as the new nations of Europe embrace their Greco-Roman legacy.

There have been several Roman Empires and the current one is the fourth incarnation. Masters of the Western Mediterranean, North Africa and other lands further afield, the Romans have built a new empire worthy of their predecessor's legacy.

Rome is definitely an empire with an emperor that supposedly holds absolute power. Of course after centuries of technological advancement and rising standards of living his power is more theoretical and his ability to exercise what he does genuinely have is restricted by regulations and traditions. There is a senate that now has most of the actual political power though it is a very elitist organisation with the majority of members coming from the aristocracy and priesthood. Political power is firmly divided between the military, industrial upper class, priesthood and aristocracy who often make up the majority of the other three groups anyway. A sense of noblesse oblige does remind them to maintain certain rights for the citizenry which has prevented outright revolution though grumbling can get rather loud at times. A willingness to violently repress open rebellion at any cost has also maintained order though that is done primarily through fear.

Roman society is very militant and bombastic. Nationalist rallies are common in most cities, especially the capital, and major political events are often synonymous with festivals and temporary national holidays. Whilst life is not exactly regimented the class system is very evident and stable. Social mobility is not impossible but rather rare. Successful mercantile and industrial families will often marry into the aristocracy in order to gain the prestige of noble entitlement. Religiously the Roman Empire primarily follows a faith derived from the worship of Mars, Apollo and Isis who have been amalgamated into two new deities that focus on war and prosperity. The historical and contemporary empires are a major part of Roman culture and heir maintenance is often seen as an important requirement for domestic and foreign policy.

Rome's greatest rival in Europe is what is known as the Gotthic Empire.

Though primarily Germanic in culture and language they claim to be another contender for the title of inheritor of the Roman Empire. They have been heavily Romanised of course, having picked up aspects of their culture centuries ago in several waves of cultural exchange and assimilation through conquest and trade. Though still culturally distinct their political and social organisation is practically the same as the Roman Empire.

The Gotths are also bombastic with their nationalism though they are less prone to flamboyance when compared to the Romans. Though also very militant a series of cultural changes through the centuries and influence from the Greeks has actually altered Gotthic culture to the point where there has been an artistic flowering in Gotthic culture. Celtic art is currently popular though not to the point where any kind of cultural revival of any kind is going to take place. The Gotthic faith is based on the Roman divine diarchy as well though some influences from Wodenism which used to be much more popular and well organised in prior centuries do remain such as the idea that martial prowess improves chances of getting a reward in the afterlife.

The Gotths have been less capable at keeping the colonial empire they built and have lost most of their original overseas territories. They have compensated for this by building a new empire in Africa and miraculously stealing many West African territories before the Romans could thanks to the actions of several former trading companies in the area.

The Americas (known as the Marcians in this world) were discovered and settled in a slightly different manner. Though diseases did decimate the native cultures there was less of an attempt to systematically dismantle them in their entirety due to a lack of a crusader “convert or kill” attitude. Though most of the surviving cultures were conquered or assimilated a few survived here and there and some have even managed to make something of themselves.

The people of central America managed to cobble together an independent nation though it did require the subjugation of all other tribes by a single culture that later ended up being called the Miksecans. Though they have adopted a lot of technology and organisational ideas from the Europeans the indigenous culture of the Miksecans has survived. Of course this culture has been forced to incorporate a lot of other cultural features and aspects from the many different tribes that the Miksecans conquered and absorbed during the formation of their empire.

The Miksecans have adopted the Roman system of government with power collectively divided between an oligarchy of aristocrats, soldiers, businessmen and bureaucrats. The emperor of Mikseca does possess a lot of theoretical and ceremonial power but his actual ability to exercise it is restrained by the rest of his government. The Miksecan faith has abandoned human sacrifice and some of the other articles of faith that the rest of the world considers undesirable but still maintains the traditional pantheon. The Roman themes of conflict and prosperity have also been incorporated into the philosophy of their religion as well though it is not as pronounced as the strict theological diarchy of Europe. The Miksecans have successfully established themselves as a colonial power, edging into the former European territories of the Marcians before moving further overseas when technology allowed them to.

A relatively new player on the world stage is the Aechaean Empire. The Greeks have been a fragmented culture for centuries since the collapse of their ancient empire, generally being passed back and forth between the Romans, Goths and Persians. However some new leadership in the past century allowed the Kingdom of Lydia, a formerly minor power in the region, to not only conquer the other Greek states but also break the Persian Empire and build a new empire of its own in Mesopotamia.

Aechaea is still very ambitious and has plans to continue to conquer the Mediterranean and maybe even beyond Persia itself. However much of their empire exists through vassal states that they 'liberated' from Persian control and brought under their hegemony. The people in Aechaea itself are constantly told that they are inheritors of their own great empire and that they have finally fulfilled the first part of a divine plan to reunite their people and build a new empire. Though not exactly militant there is a lot of cultural posturing with many great festivals and national competitions to show off the vitality, creativity and ability of the Aechaean people. Though many of their former constituent states were industrialised it was only after their unification that any serious modernisation took place. By this point they are a fully modernised state with many of their own innovations and modifications pushing them ahead of the older industrial powers like the Romans and Gotths. Also as technology continues to advance their oil deposits are starting to become much more significant.

Without a Periclean Age to promote political and technological freedom and with more authoritarian governments existing global innovation has been more suppressed. Technology and philosophy have continued to develop but in different directions to OTL. Democracy and republicanism were created but they don't have the global significance as OTL and most have never been more than small city states or minor political oddities that little has come from...yet. Democracy has also been developed in several different ways that often limit the franchise in some manner, usually to the rich. Constitutional monarchism is even seen as radical in this world with most nations existing either as absolute monarchies or exclusive oligarchies. Religiosity is also much more common even with the greater number of polytheistic faiths and a nation's respective faiths will usually have a lot of social influence. Revolutionary movements are also different. Political anarchism is still the more preferred form of radicalism alongside several forms of theocratic revolutionary ideas.

Technology is at about the same level as OTL 1900. Industrialisation began earlier but the slower pace of innovation and the conservatism of most nations upper classes meant that it took a longer to spread and develop. Mass produced steel steam ships are a rather recent innovation that has been adopted by mercantile and naval fleets around the world. Railroads are also spreading fast and both forms of steam powered travel are connecting he world in ways that haven't been seen before. Telegraphs have been around for a while and long range transmission cables that span oceans and continents are now being laid in place. Most people still rely on the post office to send messages to one another though the postal services are usually very inefficient. Smokeless gunpowder is now common issue for all armies in the world as are breech-loading weapons.