by Phil Masters
The ring islands held gardens and places of exercise, including facilities for the training of horses. The outer, broader ring was also laid out with a horse-racing track, around 600ft wide, which formed a complete circle around the ring island. Hence, each lap of the track was a distance of nearly six and a half miles, and parts of that ring were also taken up with facilities for the audience.
The circular channels also served as harbours, bringing ships right into the heart of the city; those docks, excavated into the banks of the channels in the early days of the city, could each hold two substantial ships – although as Atlantean naval architecture became more grandiose, some had to be adapted to take a single outsize vessel. The ring islands thus also had to find space for warehouses and markets – and also, as the Empire grew and expanded overseas, extensive military stores, including armouries and government repair facilities for warships. Although the great naval dockyards were down on the coast, the centre of the city became less and less a place of trade over the years, and more and more a hub of military activities, as infantry drilled on the exercise grounds and cavalry trained on the horse tracks, before both marched aboard military transports to set off on expeditions of conquest.
Horse Racing in Atlantis. An important feature of the capital city of the Atlantean Empire was a major horse-racing track, and this picture shows a race in progress. The riders have just the simplest of saddles and no stirrups; despite Atlantis’s generally remarkable level of technological sophistication, equestrian equipment was still at a Bronze Age level.
THE OUTER CITY
The citadel and the rings of land around it were of finite size, and were carefully watched by the city guards, in order to ensure security. Hence, as the Empire grew in strength and power, the city sprawled far beyond the outermost channel. However, this expansion was ultimately constrained by the city’s approximately circular outer defensive wall, which touched the coast at the point where the ship canal reached the sea. This was thus six miles out from the outermost circular harbour, with a total length of around 38 miles, enclosing an area of over a hundred square miles. Although this stone wall was robust enough, it was nothing like as tall or substantial as the metal-plated walls around the inner rings; nor could the Atlantean army hope to man it very heavily, even at the height of the Empire. Indeed, for many generations of peace, at least on the island itself, the outer wall served as little more than a marker. However, its psychological value was immense. It showed when the city ended and began, and building outside it was unthinkable.
It took many generations for the population of the city to fill this space, but ultimately they managed to do so. It helped that the Atlanteans preserved a tradition of embellishing every neighbourhood with parks, gardens, sacred groves, and exercise grounds, on the precedent set by the citadel. This tradition was enforced by royal decree, so few builders dared encroach on those official open spaces. Also, and partly because of the need to keep those gardens irrigated, the city needed extensive water supplies, and even the reliable springs in the citadel were not enough to support the entire population; large parts of the area were taken up with reservoirs and giant cisterns, drawing water from the canals flowing in from the surrounding plains.
In fact, the city within this greater outer wall grew increasingly crowded, pushing the limits of the building technology and city planning of the age. The areas around the commercial docks were especially busy; not only did trade with the Empire and beyond bring in merchants and their wealth, but the necessity of feeding this vast population led to an unceasing flow of grain-barges from the plains, and supply ships from further afield. At its height, the capital of Atlantis was an extraordinary patchwork of city-sized neighbourhoods, and few of the population realized how often it teetered on the brink of disaster. The water kept flowing and the food barges kept coming, but that perhaps proved that the gods favoured Atlantis.
For a while.
THE LANGUAGES OF ATLANTIS
The language of the island of Atlantis was called Senzar. This language’s relationship to others is hard to trace; it seems to have belonged to a unique family all of its own. The Atlantean Empire and its rivals also used local languages of the time, which were, in contrast, related to identifiable modern tongues.
Senzar was written in an incredibly sophisticated script including a lot of information-dense symbolism; decoding all of the Senzar texts found beneath the Sphinx in Egypt is likely to be the work of lifetimes. As these Senzar texts are the only source of information on some of the internal workings of the Empire, and on Atlantean strategic thinking during the wars of conquest and revolt, much of the information in this book must be considered provisional. There may be great discoveries still to come in Atlantean studies.
POLITICS AND POWER
Technically speaking, the Empire of Atlantis became an absolute monarchy with theocratic elements and a system of delegation of power across multiple provinces. That is to say, the Emperor was in principle the absolute ruler, as befitted someone of proven divine descent, and in his personal holdings, including the capital, his power was indeed unlimited. However, the nine other provinces were ruled by ‘kings’ who were also descended from the god, and who therefore claimed similar powers within their own territory. The Emperor’s ultimate supremacy was guaranteed by the laws ordained by Poseidon at the foundation and inscribed on the orichalcum pillar in the capital – but by claiming that privilege, even the Emperor had to admit to being bound by divine law.
On the other hand, the ordinary people of the Empire had very little recourse to that law, apart from appeals to a ruler’s conscience; the Ten Kings of Atlantis had powers of life and death, and were generally fully willing to exercise them. This was fine so long as the high-minded traditions of Atlantis were respected in spirit as well as to the letter, but as the Empire grew more decadent, the common people had an increasing number of reasons to feel oppressed. The best solution to this that most emperors could come up with was imperial adventurism; not only did expansion into new lands bring in more wealth, to keep the people well-fed and generally comfortable, military glory overseas provided an outlet for restless and aggressive citizens. The army, originally the preserve of a distinct military caste who were trained in combat skills and indoctrinated with loyalty to the Empire from childhood, increasingly accepted any man with nothing better to do with his time – of whom there were growing numbers as families outgrew their allotted farms or traditional family craft shops. This made the army much bigger but very much less reliable.
ROYAL CEREMONIES
However, the system of court protocols did at least keep the ten royal families more or less united. This was reinforced by a system of royal meetings and exotic ceremonies laid down in the early days, perhaps by Poseidon himself.
By these rules, the ten kings met formally at the temple of Poseidon in the capital at alternating intervals of five and six years (‘giving equal honour both to the odd and to the even number’). At the beginning of these meetings, a number of sacred bulls were released into the temple precincts, and then the kings were left alone in there with them. They first offered prayers to their divine ancestor that they should provide him with an acceptable sacrifice; then, they were required to hunt down one of the bulls, armed only with staves and lassos, and drag it to the ancient orichalcum pillar. There, they cut the bull’s throat so that its blood flowed down over the inscribed laws of Atlantis, dismembered it, and burned its limbs nearby. Then they ceremonially purified the column.
After that, they took a large bowl of wine, and each of them threw in a clot of bull-blood, and then they put the remainder of the bull’s carcass on the fire. Then they each took a cup of wine from the bowl, and poured that on the fire too. Then, each of them repeated a set of great and terrible sacred oaths that were inscribed on the pillar, drinking more of the bloody wine as they did so. These oaths required them to judge fairly according to the laws on the pillar, to obey them as closely as possible themselves, t
o punish anyone who broke them, and never to command others to break Poseidon’s laws or to accept commands to do so. Such a strict set of conditions, superseding even the Emperor’s authority, might actually have been a recipe for trouble over the years as the Ten chafed under the stern restrictions – but the oath incorporated into the text called down terrible divine curses on anyone who broke these rules. It is not known how often, if at all, Poseidon did in fact punish oath-breakers, but the force of these words was evidently strong enough to keep Atlantis effectively unified for many generations.
This bloody and violent ceremony created a strong emotional bond between the ten kings, and served to remind them that the power they shared came from their divine ancestor. To reinforce the point further, the Ten performed their sacred duty as a council of judges immediately after taking the oaths. As darkness fell in the temple in the evening after the sacrificial hunt, and the embers of the fire cooled, the kings put on beautiful azure robes, extinguished all the flames and torches around the temple precincts, and sat cross-legged on the ground together next to the ashes of the sacred fire. If any of them had formal complaints or accusations against another, or a border dispute or jurisdictional issue to settle, the others would decide the issue; they would, naturally, also discuss matters of imperial policy and long-term plans. This meeting was always expected to last through the night; as dawn broke, the Ten would inscribe a summary of their decisions and judgements on a golden tablet, which they would then ceremonially deposit in the temple as a permanent record of the meeting.
THE LAW OF UNITY
Along with all the ceremonies and protocols, Poseidon’s law laid one very important duty on the lords of Atlantis; not only were they forbidden from ever taking up arms against each other, but in the event of any kind of internal revolt (or, it was assumed but not written, external attack), all of the Ten were to come to the aid of the one under threat. The Empire was required to act as a single body against any attempt to overthrow the Emperor from within their own territory. They were also required to consult each other about certain key matters of policy, most especially decisions about whether to go to war. Naturally, the Emperors, the descendants of Atlas, always had the casting vote, and in practice they could usually win most policy arguments if they chose to use all of their influence and call in some favours. The Emperor was supreme among the Ten, although he could not exert his powers of life and death over the other nine or their immediate families without the consent of the majority. If any of the kings was a minor or was otherwise unable to travel or vote, he was considered to abstain on all matters; regents for underage kings were appointed by the Emperor.
Thanks to the force of the great royal oaths, this collegiate approach worked quite well in any matter which could wait for decision until the next formal five- or six-yearly meeting of the ten kings. On rare occasions, this led to a dispute festering for several years, or even some unfortunate individual being held prisoner for that long, but in emergencies, the Emperor could always work to call a special meeting; after all, if six of the ten came together, the unanimous agreement of that group had the force of absolute law. Things could admittedly get a little cumbersome if a crisis blew up while the ten kings were scattered, but in practice this only became a really serious problem once – during the final war and the fall of Atlantis.
ATLANTEAN ARMED FORCES
The Atlantean army was organized on the basis of a draft, which in turn was based on the administrative divisions of rural areas. At least, this was true of the Emperor’s personal domain; the nine other princes were permitted to run things differently, in whatever way they chose, within broad outlines set by Poseidon’s laws – but most followed the same basic pattern.
For this purpose, the central plain was divided into 60,000 approximately square ‘lots’ of just over a mile on each side; the inhabitants of each lot were required to work together to provide or support a contingent of troops with its own leader, who in turn was responsible for organizing the group, which was to consist of two heavy spearmen, two slingers, three stone-throwers (burly individuals who could throw stones by hand to useful effect, and generally served as sappers and porters), and three light javelinmen. In addition, each lot was required to provide four sailors for the imperial navy, which consisted of 1,200 ships (implying crews of 200 men per ship) Every six lots had to work together to provide two light spear-armed cavalrymen with their horses, and one war-chariot with two horses and a crew of two – a javelin-armed warrior and a driver – along with a groom to support the cavalry and chariots, who was expected to fight on foot with small shield and light spear when required. These grooms were often transported to and sometimes around the battlefield on ‘their’ chariot; hence, they could provide useful close support to the chariots in battle, protecting their flanks and rear from enemy skirmishers or cavalry, covering the retreat after an unsuccessful chariot charge, and so on. The ‘lot leaders’ could take various roles, more or less according to taste and what the Emperor declared was needed; most but not all of these were armed as and served with the heavy spearmen, but some brought their own additional chariots or horses to show off, and others were permitted to organize the army’s logistical support or to act as staff officers for the Emperor.
The Emperor’s personal army thus consisted, in theory, of 10,000 chariots, 20,000 light cavalry, 60,000 ‘lot leaders’, 120,000 rank-and-file heavy spearmen, 120,000 slingers, 180,000 stone-throwers, 180,000 javelinmen, and 10,000 grooms as ‘chariot infantry’. In practice, not every lot was always able to muster or equip its full contingent, and for generations, some preferred to pay for mercenary contingents as some kind of substitute. In any case, it was very rare for the entire imperial army to be mustered for battle at once, let alone the full army of the ten kings. Usually, one-quarter of the lots would be required to provide their forces for one season; when that period ended, another would take over the job. This did not lead to quite as many problems of continuity as might be thought, as much of each army consisted of mercenaries hired by the lot leaders, and at the change of seasons, all that changed was who was paying each of the troops. Still, many an Atlantean force ground to a halt for a few days at the turn of a season, while a lot of administrative matters were sorted out.
Also, once an army was mustered, the contingents from each lot were not usually kept together; that would have been militarily inefficient. Instead, the heavy spearmen formed a great bloc at the centre of the line of battle, usually in ranks eight deep with men from neighbouring lots forming up close together (if only because they had trained together), while the chariots formed two similarly substantial blocs on their immediate flanks, ready to charge the enemy on command (or just at the first opportunity, if glory was a big concern that year). The cavalry were usually organized into ‘regiments’ of a few hundred each, by region, to act as scouts, skirmishers, and encircling forces; how well they were used was perhaps the prime measure of an Emperor’s competence in battle. The light missile troops were supposed to be grouped into fair-sized units to perform various functions, not least clearing bad terrain of enemy ambushes, but too many Atlantean lords just placed them as a great loose screen in front of the spearmen, to slow the enemy down and blunt any enemy charges briefly before they withdrew (or fled, or died).
All this left one obvious anomaly. Because the capital formed only a fairly small part of the imperial province when these rules were laid down, there was little specific provision for the urban population to provide troops. In the early days, many of the residents of the city actually had close connections to specific areas of the countryside, being landowners or farm supervisors who merely visited the city for long periods on business; they took responsibility for raising troops through the locations of their country homes, and indeed often served as lot leaders in wartime. Others were in fact members of the military class, and were the very people who were supported by the military taxes on the countryside; they were based in the city for training purposes, or se
rved the Emperor and his court as guards, watchmen, or staff officers. Later, though, with the growth of an urban mercantile and artisan class, the full-time city residents increasingly gained a reputation as parasites who didn’t shoulder their share of the burden of military responsibilities. Much of the growing outer city actually expanded over the original grid of lots, and each old lot still carried a responsibility to provide troops – but the more city-dwellers there were on a lot, the less it cost any one of them, as opposed to the onerous burden on less densely populated rural lots. The city did impose its own taxes, some of them for specifically military purposes, and some of these could be fairly heavy, but country-dwellers still tended to think of city folk as fat and rich and well able to afford these taxes – especially when they could pass them on in the prices they charged rural visitors to the city.
Despite various emperors’ best efforts in making these arrangements fair and effective, this led to a great deal of bitterness and grumbling in the later days of the Empire. By the time that the Greek-led powers invaded the island and marched on the capital, hastily raised rural-based troops were notably unenthusiastic about protecting it, as well as being poorly trained compared to the old, mostly mercenary forces, which had by then largely been wiped out or scattered.
Atlantean Heavy Spearman. The mainstay of the Atlantean army, these heavy infantry fought in close formation, much like classical Greek hoplites. Their armour and equipment also slightly resembled hoplite gear – but with some distinctive differences, such as the high, pointed helmet here, which appears to be decorated with boars’ tusks like some later Bronze Age Greek headgear, and the rectangular shield. The face of the latter would probably be decorated with the image of some kind of sea monster or bull, in honour of the god Poseidon.