350 AC: The Edict of Diocletian.
Diocletian decrees that all subject/client states have autonomy in matters of religion. Proselytizing banned.
Exploration of the World
500 AC: Fleet led by Hrolfr Njordr crosses the Sea of Atlas and lands in Newfoundland.
515 AC: Second fleet lands near what is now Novo Trier.
550 AC-675 AC: Early Decadent Period.
600 AC: Explorers have canvassed the eastern coast of Caesaria Aquilonis as far south as the Bláthach peninsula.
675-750 AC: Reform period.
700-880 AC: Building of Domitanus' Wall in Judea.
880 AC: Kievan Rus attempts to invade Asia Minor. Domitanus' Wall construction halted, series of armed forts built along northern border, instead.
1000 AC: Leif Dalgaard circumnavigates the globe.
1100 AC: Sea-trade with Qin and Nippon and India now possible, as well as the overland Silk Road.
1150 AC: Gunpowder introduced to the West and dismissed, largely, as a novelty item; cannons tended to explode.
1190 AC: Gold discovered near what becomes Burgundoi, making this city-state in Nova Germania fabulously wealthy. This gold funds the fleets that now began to sweep around the globe.
1190 AC: Cuzco settled by Inca.
1223 AC: Mongols begin invasion of Kievan Rus.
1250 AC: Mongols invade Qin. Romans aware of this as a disruption in trade.
1264 AC: Mongols attempt to invade Byzantium… and are vigorously repelled by the much more technologically advanced and organized Romans.
1275 AC: Mongols diverted east into Persian subject kingdoms, and get as far south as Judea, where cannons are used for the first time effectively from Domitanus' Wall.
1304-08 AC: Plague years.Many merchant ships were lost at sea in this four-year span, and a number of port cities suffered from the plague, but the result was limited, because so much of trade was conducted by sea. . . and many of the ships were simply lost with all hands as a result of the virulent plague.
Total effect on Europa's population: -2 million people, not the -75 million or -100 million of Real-Earth's Black Plague.
1325 AC: Tenochtitlan built.
1334 AC: Lavish additions made to the Palace of the Imperator in Rome.
1350 AC: Rich silver lodes found in the white-capped Nivalis mountains, east of Burgundoi. Accessing this required massive innovations in mining technology. Gunpowder explosives used.
1360 AC: Founding of the empire of Tawantinsuyu.
1427 AC: Rome meets the new-formed Nahautl Empire, and demands an end to human sacrifices if they're going to be neighbors. Residents of Novo Gaul do not appreciate being captured and dragged off as sacrifices.
The Industrial Revolution
1450 AC: Industrial Revolution begins.
1475 AC: First contact between Novo Gaul, Novo Germania, Rome, and Tawantinsuyu.
1480-1490: AC Plague years in Tawantinsuyu; inadvertent introduction of smallpox decimates population.
1497 AC: Tawantinsuyu agrees to formal treaty with Rome, becoming a subject state.
1500 AC: Discovery of electricity.
1501 AC: Small Roman colony founded at the southern tip of Africa, Cyrenus.
1505 AC: Wan Quan publishes study on the efficacy of inoculating against smallpox by taking the dried scabs, powdering them, and blowing them up a patient's nose with a blowpipe. This variolation method became transmitted by medical texts to the west over the next one hundred years.
1528 AC: Steam engine invented.
1528 AC: Rebellion in Nahautl against Rome.
1531 AC: Hellene physicians discovered the anesthetic properties of diethyl ether.
1548 AC: Locomotives invented and tracks begin to be laid.
1550 AC: Thomas Mauritis determines that ley-power can power an engine just as well as steam or electricity.
1565 AC: Nomadic Bantu tribesmen trade a few shiny rocks to the Romans at the port in Cyrenus. It takes over a year for the shiny rocks to migrate their way to Rome, where they're discovered to be very large diamonds.
1568 AC: Mauritis develops the incandescent bulb as a novelty.
1575 AC: Eadward Gann, in Britannia, used cowpox as a method of inoculating against smallpox. This, combined with the innovations of Wan Quan, begins to change medicine forever.
1576 AC: Diamond mining expedition sets up camp outside of Cyrenus.
1585 AC: Germs and microbes observed with microscopes for the first time. Germ theory developed, Judea.
1590 AC: Telegraph invented by Samuel Maurus, the son of a Roman man and a Judean woman, in Judea. Competing inventors included Agapetus Metaxus, who developed the code system used for telegraphy to this day.
1600-1750 AC: Latter Decadent Period
1601 AC: Incandescent bulbs replace oil lamps in parts of Europe.
1607 AC: First tethered hot air balloon flight in Rome, performed at the Imperator's palace.
1615 AC: First coal-fired power plants come online in Judea to produce electricity.
1645 AC: First untethered hot air balloon flight, again demonstrated in Rome, this time by the Gaulish Locinna brothers. Largely a novelty at first, except in Judea, where balloons were later used to conduct surveillance over the Wall.
1660 AC: Temple of Jupiter rebuilt in Rome after a great fire swept through the city. The emperor of that period, Julian III, had rebuilt the temple, larger and grander than before.
1675 AC: Laudanum distilled, precursor to morphine.
1697 AC: Morphine developed for use in battlefield medicine.
1701 AC: Chloroform and ether used for the first time to allow for first non-agonizing amputations and surgeries during the Invasion of Asia Minor.
1750 AC: Laws giving slaves rights passed in Rome.
1756 AC: Penicillin developed and used in field hospitals during the War of the Caspian Sea (1753-1763; Rome vs. Raccia, Raccia vs. Mongols, Mongols vs. Rome, Mongols vs. Persia, Persia vs. Rome. It was ugly.) Dr. Alexander Argyris the first to really study the mold that had been a folk remedy for generations.
1769 AC: Reginleif Lanvik born.
1771 AC: First successful Caesarian in medical history, in which both mother and baby lived. Conducted in Jerusalem.
1825 AC: First manned plane flight performed just outside Novo Trier, by a pair of brothers by the names of Ursus and Wystan Abered.
1830-1845 AC: Mongols invade Qin.
1850 AC: Radio invented, in Hellas.
1855-1860 AC: Caspian Crisis; Mongolia attempts to annex most of the Caspian Sea, resulting in a four-way battle between Rome, Raccia, Mongolia, and Persia; this was the first major war involving Rome since the War of the Caspian Sea a hundred years before.
Death of Solveig Caetia.
1875 AC: Helicopter invented, Judea. Widest adoption in Raccia and Novo Germania, however.
1890 AC: Brandr Ilfetu born.
1895 AC: Ornithopter invented, Persia.
1900 AC: Far-viewers developed, in Nippon.
Recent History
1905 AC: Antonius Valerius Livorus born, Rome.
1910 AC: Sigrun Caetia born, Cimbri-on-the-Caestus, Nova Germania, Caesaria Aquilonis.
1915 AC: Jet turbine engine developed.
1923 AC: Livorus enters the Legion.
1924 AC: Kanmi born.
1926 AC: Sigrun enters the Odinhall.
1927 AC: Slavery abolished in Nova Germania and Novo Gaul.
1927-1930 AC: Raccia-Mongol Conflict.
1928 AC: Trennus born.
1929 AC: First rocket launched into space from Judea, sparking space-race between Hellas, Judea, and Nippon, with Britannia an interested observer.
1929 AC: Adam ben Maor born. Sophia Caetia born.
1930 AC: Sigrun leaves the Odinhall.
1930 AC: Minori Sasaki (Ijiun) born.
1930-54 AC: The Shadow War. Proxy war; Persia and Rome fight through provinces and subject kingdoms like Chaldea, Media, and Judea. Re-ignites eve
ry 3-4 years.
1930-1932 AC: Sigrun on Roman-Persian Border, in Asia Minor.
1932-1934 AC: Sigrun on Roman-Mongol border, within spitting range of Raccia.
1933-43 AC: Livorus serves as aedile in Rome. Roof over Colosseum built.
1934 AC: Transatlantic cable laid, allowing for overseas telephone calls.
1936-38 AC: Sigrun begins protection work for diplomatic envoys to the independent Nordic countries.
1939 AC: Splitting of the atom in Judea.
1939 AC: Sophia Caetia’s first visions.
1939-1948. Sigrun works as an ælagol in the New World.
1943 AC: Livorus’ unsuccessful run for quaestor. Appointed diplomatic envoy to India, instead.
1944 AC: Trennus’ mentor killed by a rogue summoner. He goes to University of Londonium thereafter.
1945 AC: First satellites settle into orbit.
1946 AC: Kanmi graduates the University of Athens and gets married. Immediately leaves for Mongol border.
1947 AC: Adam goes to the Persian border.
1948 AC: Caesarion IX crowned. (God-born).
1948 AC: Livorus appointed ambassador to Qin.
1949 AC: The Mongol-Qin Provocations.
1949 AC: Sigrun recruited by Praetorians; appointed to Livorus' detail after the Mongol-Qin incidents.
1950 AC: Kanmi returns home from Roman-Mongol border. Recruited by Praetorians.
1950 AC:. Trennus leaves Londonium for work with the gardia.
1951 AC: Adam recruited by the Praetorians.
1953 AC: Adam paired, late in the year, with Sigrun.
1954 AC: Story begins.
Order of the Emperors
Caesarion I, Reigned 15-55 AC
Philometrus (Caesarion's son) 55-95 AC
Livianus (great-grandson) I 95-130
Diocletian I 130-180
Caesarion II 180-218
Flavian I 218-245
Philometrus II 245-283
Flavian II 283-333
Diocletian II 333-380 (Edict passed in 350)
Domitanus 700 AC
. . . and so on and so forth.
Appendix III: Money and Daily Living
Money and Value
Rome has never come off the gold standard. There is no paper money; credit cards do not exist. In later books, debit cards are developed, but that’s as far as it goes.
Money has a very real value, and counterfeiting is a serious crime, usually investigated by the Praetorians.
Money
Change in Ass.
Change in Den.
Change in Sol.
$ equivalent
Relative Value
Assarius/assari (Bronze)
1 = 1 US dollar
Denarius/denarii (silver)
10 assari
1 = 10 US dollars
Cost in Rome in 1954 AC, for a glass of wine, a half-denarius. Adam considers this expensive.
Solidus/solidi (gold)
100 assari
10 denarii
1 = 100 US dollars
2 solidus a month = rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in a major city
Aureus/aurei(gold)
1000 assari
100 denarii
10 solidi
1 = 1,000 US dollars
Adam makes 4 aureus a month in 1954. 4,000/month; by becoming head of detail, 5. By 1970, 7/month, or 7,000
The drachm is a gold coin in common use in the Persian Empire. Most Romans consider them to be debased coinage. They can’t be used within the Roman Empire, however.
The official rate of exchange is three gold drachm for every aureus in 1988 AC. The street exchange rate is closer to two to one, but only in areas close to the Persian border.
Appendix IV: Glossary
A note on languages and their development
Languages in Edda have not been locked in time or sealed away in a vacuum chamber.
Gothic
I use Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon terms to give Sigrun’s language flavor. Given that the various branches of Germanic have been under heavy influence from Latin for some 2,000 years, it is very likely that her spoken dialect, while it retained the characteristic “we two” pronoun of Anglo-Saxon, witan, and the equally characteristic lack of a future tense, would be somewhat closer to Mittelhochdeutsch or Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift never occurred. If you wish to imagine what she’d sound like, grab a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or the work of the Pearl poet, and read it out loud to yourself. . . being sure to use the vowel sounds of continental European languages.
For example:
Whan in Aprille the shoures soote,
the droughte of Merche hath perced to the roote. . .
=
W(ahh)n in Ah-pr(ih)l the sh(oo)r-es soat
the drou[ch]t of Merch hath per-ced to the roat. . .
There are almost as many dialects of Germanic and Gallic as there are subprovinces. There are more and less dominant dialects. For example, Sigrun speaks, initially, a dialect of Gallic common to the Bláthach peninsula; it serves her as a bridge to Trennus’ Pictish dialect, but it is about as close as, say, modern Dutch and modern German. Other dialects are more distant kin—more equivalent to modern Swedish to Swyzerdutch. This is attributable to how early colonization took place, how isolated individual colonia were for hundreds of years, and how little literacy/mass media was available to keep the languages from altering substantially over time.
Latin
Latin is spoken throughout the Empire. It is the universal lingua franca of the Western World. It, too, has not been preserved in a time capsule. It has a variety of dialects, but almost every schoolchild is taught “standard received” Latin (think BBC English) and “classical” Latin to ensure that the language doesn’t deviate too far from its roots.
Hebrew
Hebrew is a living language, rather than a resurrected one, in Edda. It has picked up thousands of loan-words from Latin, Persian, Egyptian, Carthaginian, and other languages of the Empire. Most students in Judea are taught, again, the classical form of their language, so that they may read their religious writings.
I am not a scholar of this language; therefore, I have used modern equivalents wherever possible.
Nipponese/Japanese
This island nation did not experience any periods of isolation. Their daily language has been highly influenced by Korean, Chinese, and even Raccian and Latin, as they have been a major hub for trade for hundreds of years. The language of the court in Kyoto is precise, formal, and harkens back to a bygone era—an older form of the language, entirely.
Again, I am not a scholar of this language. I have used modern equivalents wherever necessary, and I invite the reader to imagine what the language would sound like, if it had developed differently, due to different historical pressures.
The list of terms offered below is not exhaustive, and I have tried, whenever possible, to translate within the text.
Terms:
ablutum — Latin, laundromat
Æðeles ides — Gothic, noble lady
æðelinga — Gothic, noble one, feminine ending
æðeling — Gothic, noble one, masculine ending
ælagol — Gothic, law-giver, law-keeper, adjudicator
a thaisce — Gallic, ‘my treasure.’
atzmay — Hebrew, Maverick
auhz — Hebrew, Goose
bitahevn — Hebrew, defense. Term used in place of Krav Maga.
cwealuwyrm — Gothic, deathworm
dominus, domina — Latin, lord, lady
ex nihilo nihil fit — Latin, “from nothing, nothing comes.”
forðferan, forðferest — Gothic, literally, “to go forth.” To perish.
fikken, fikkest thu — Gothic, to fuck; “fuck you” (informal second person)
géa — Gothic, yes. (equivalent to ja and yeah)
harah — Hebrew, Shit.
héodæg — Gothic, today. (Directly related to modern German heute)
&
nbsp; hrímþursar — Gothic, rime-giant, frost-giant
hveðungr — An alternate name for Loki, it has also been used as "monster" in Old Norse.
inanwyrm — Gothic, gutworm, parasite
jaso — A joule
kami — Nipponese, spirit or god
The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2) Page 137