Rome Total War Disclaimer

For those not familiar with the origin of this story, just wanted to inform that this is a fan fiction written on my Rome Total War game. I do not own the rights to Rome Total War (wish I did though!).

That is all...

Hekhemmut (327 BCE – 260 BCE)

 

The son of the noble Harchus, Hekhemmut was himself a well known and well respected warrior. Years of constantly fighting against Ptolemy’s army of assassins and allies had sharpened his fighting skills and made him a practical but imaginative strategist. He was also a very good speaker and ultimately a good ruler.

The Known World

At the end of the civil war, once Hekhemmut came to power and became the new Pharaoh, he inherited a powerful kingdom, but also many challenges. Egypt had been weakened by several years of war and conquest. The infrastructure of some of her greatest cities had been destroyed and needed to be painstakingly rebuilt. The treasury was well stocked but not excessively and the economy was on the verge of decline.  The Imperial Army was much depleted, especially of the more professional units, after years of continuous war and the lack of proper training facilities.

  

Egypt (Circa. 270 BCE)

Envious neighbours were growing in power and getting more aggressive in their dealings, casting covetous eyes at the rich Nile valley.

The Seleucids to the north were the main threat, having already fought against the Egyptians once in the First Syrian War. They had been rebuilding their armies and growing stronger with every passing year. The remnants of Alexander’s huge empire, they were already the greatest power in the Arabian Peninsula and their famed Hoplites & strong cavalry were reputed to be almost unbeatable. They controlled the whole of north Arabia, including the fabled city of Babylon.

Lying in the heart of the arid and massive Arabian Desert, the conglomerate of free Arabian states was populated by many thousands of hardened desert warriors called Bedouin, expert riders, spearmen and archers, as well as rebels from the surrounding great civilizations, who had been leading raids on the fertile Nile valley to their west for many hundreds of years. They had been beaten back many times, but each time they came back, stronger than before. If the legends were to be believed, they were “as numerous as the grains of the sands from whence they came”! And with the border garrisons weakened after the war, these raids had greatly increased in recent years.

To the far east, on the other side of the wasteland, lay the Parthians, the successor to the once mighty Persian empire. Their power was diminished, but they still possessed powerful armies of strong cavalry, cavalry archers and innumerable spear wielding infantry and archers.

 

To the west lay another bigger endless wasteland of sand, inhabited by the fearsome Nubians. These warriors were expert in fighting in the desert and many of them had been employed in the Pharaoh’s armies for generations in return for grants of land. These wastes were also filled with raiders and rebels alike, who plagued the main Egyptian cities themselves. 

To the far west, lay the Carthaginians, former Phoenicians who had set up a prosperous civilization centered on the rich trade lanes of the Mediterranean. 

Lying across the Mediterranean, to the far north, lay the remains of the once mighty Greek and Macedonian civilizations. Although weakened after years of civil war and endless strife amongst themselves, both still had the potential to re-build a great empire and their deadly Hoplite armies were still the envy of the entire world. The Greek city states were  amongst some of the richest and most advanced, lying astride several of  the most valuable trade routes in the Mediterranean.

And to the northwest, from the heart of the Italian mainland, there came rumours of a new and rising power, the Romans, who despite being divided into different families, were rapidly conquering their neighbours with their disciplined legions!

This, therefore, was the situation in which the first of the Pharaohs of the 31^st Dynasty, Hekhemmut, ascended to the throne. An exciting time, filled with many dangers and challenges, but also great opportunities for great and brave men!

A Brief History of Time

All hail the new Pharaoh! Ra’s representative on this divine Earth. Greetings, My Supreme Lord…He Who Walks The Land of Men as a God. This humble servant of yours is called Archios and it is my esteemed and honored duty to take you through the annals of time to the rise of the glorious Sun Empire!

The history of our people is long and proud, Your All Mightiness! For thousands of years, the Pharaohs guarded the lands and continued the saga of greatness that our forefathers had created. They created Great Dynasties and Great Kingdoms. 

As you know, your mightiness, Egypt is the cradle of human civilization. This is where the Gods once walked on Earth and from their blessings sprang forth the race of Men. At first survival was difficult. Many died in the harsh deserts of our beloved homeland. Some migrated to far off lands, while some stayed back to brave the challenges the Gods had thrown them. They made rudimentary tools and using these they made their shelter and hunted the bounty of the desert. They survived…but barely. Then from the folds of the tribes there rose a true believer, a man who would later become known as the saviour of Man. He embarked on a long and difficult trek to find the home of the Gods. As he lay dying of thirst and hunger in the unending sands, his eyes clouding with the divine mist, it is said the God Osiris appeared before him. On seeing the suffering of his children, he let his tears fall into a sacred bowl, which he handed to the Believer, who would forever be immortalized as the first Priest Immohotep, blessed be his name! Returning to his people, he poured the tears on the scorched ground and from these tears formed the thrice blessed river – the Nile – the very source of life itself.

The life sustaining waters of this mighty river led to the rapid development of a great civilization. These Chosen Ones, the original Egyptians, used their ingenuity to plough the fertile lands of the Nile to make food, leading to the first farms. They built great cities, roads and a language that would survive the test of time! Led by the representatives of the Gods, the First Pharaohs, they were the greatest epitome of what man could achieve – the Golden Age of the Sun, also known as the Old Kingdom, which lasted for more than five hundred years.

However, all was not always well. Despite the divine guidance of our Pharaohs, dark times befell our lands. Famines, plagues, rebellions and foreign invasions took a toll on the Kingdom. These led to long periods of strife, known in history as the Intermediate Periods, when the Gods withdrew their chosen representatives and the legions of Set played havoc with our people. 

However, after each of these Intermediate Periods, our resilient people recovered and rebuilt the Kingdom. This led to the emergence of the Middle & New Kingdoms, which between themselves lasted for almost a thousand years and gave rise to the great Ramesside Period – the eleven glorious Pharaohs that took the name Ramesses. This was a time of relief from the tides of darkness. It seemed there was hope at last. It was a great time to be an Egyptian. Those were good years...

Alas, this period of prosperity was not to last. Years of invasions by the Hyskosians, Water People and Assyrians impoverished the land, weakened the power of the Pharaohs and led eventually to the sacking of the glorious city of Thebes. This weakness was seized on by the evil Persians, who in their infinite greed, conspired to conquer our bountiful lands and take what was ours by force. Despite a heroic struggle, our forces fell to the armies of the East. Thus began the Era of the Persian Satraps.

We were finally liberated from the tyrannical rule of the Persians by the Makedonians, led by their brave new King Alexander, who went on to conquer the known world. However, he died at a young age and his mighty Empire was divided into many squabbling successor states. The Makedonian General Ptolemy, who had been selected to rule Egypt against the wishes of its rightful people, now took advantage to consolidate his own power and declared the beginning of a Ptolemaic Dynasty, which he hoped would rival the rule of the Pharaohs. He declared himself a God! Oh, the blasphemy of this unbeliever!  

But there is always light in the darkness. For, during this dark time, there emerged from amongst the nobility of Thebes a young man named Harchus. Descended from one of the most ancient families, Harchus, like all other true Egyptians, seethed under the rule of the blasphemous false Pharaoh. For his refusal to accept the rule of the false monarch, he was exiled and assassins were sent to take his head. By the blessings of the Gods, he survived and traveled the lands of the Kingdom, gathering an army of loyal men. Taking advantage of Ptolemy’s involvement against the rising power of the Seleucids to the north, Harchus bided his time until the war ended with a victory for Egypt. Then he marched north with his newly assembled army to capture the unguarded city of Alexandria. After many months of bloody battle between the loyalist and rebel forces, he met Ptolemy in the holy valley near Jerusalem and defeated him in single combat. 

Alas, the noble Harchus himself died in the battle, but not before proclaiming his son, Hekhemmut, the new God appointed ruler of Egypt. Thus started the emergence of the glorious Thirty First Dynasty – and its line of strong Pharaohs who would go on to conquer the known world and forge the greatest and most glorious Kingdom the world has ever seen or ever will see – the Immortal Kingdom of Egypt.

These are the heroic and divine men from whom you are descended My Great Lord and it is their tales that I shall tell. So it has been said. So it shall be done!