Angst

Recent history

Early origins

The definitive record of the Known World is The News of The Known World that was first produced in the year 101 as The Quarterly Review of World Affairs. In that issue is the first mention of the province that later became known as Chaldea: As far as I have been able to determine from the archives, Chaldea was then divided into the East and West Black Arabs inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, an area without any permanent settlements, but centred on The Great Oasis. Land ownership was then an unfamiliar and foreign idea, social life being ordered through Grazing Rights.

In some records the areas in which these people lived is referred to as Eblas and Weblas. In recent history - and particularly in the annual provincial financial records - it is more commonly referred to as Rising Desert and Setting Desert, the change in nomenclature reflecting the unification of the earlier eastern and western Provinces into a single Chaldean Province.

The Black Arabs were – and still predominantly are - a nomadic horse people living in great poverty and simplicity, surviving by trade, by raiding neighbouring lands, and by hiring out their horse-skirmishers in mercenary companies to wealthy warlords in the rich north and sometimes also to Stephanus the Golden, ruler of Sassanidia. The Pontic Empire – the largest of the three Persian empires (the other two being New Persia and Sassanidia) was a regular user of these mercenary companies. Recruiting mercenaries was a feature of these early times. In an early report in the The News of the Known World it was recorded that in the winter 102/3 Pontic agents were actively recruiting in Chaldea. No doubt they had been doing so long before this.

Trade has always been important, especially with the rich north – timber from the Lebanon, grain from Mesopotamia, heavy horses, armour and other manufactured products from further north still - and Africa where the Nile Valley provided grain, ivory, slaves and gold. Chaldea has always suffered a chronic shortage of grain which it bought with its local products: herbs and spices, slik (a kind of silk obtained from a desert grub), horses, ponies, camels, and later also pearls from the fishing villages along the Eastern Ocean.

One of the first mentions of Chaldea in The News of the Known World (that is, to the outside world) is found in Pontic records around 104, though it had been clearly extant long before this. The most famous mercenary leader ever produced by Chaldea was Seljux, a younger son of the ruling house of Qabal Failak. Seljux was killed under unclear circumstances (possibly assassinated) in 113 aged 50. At the height of his fame he led an independent force of some 10,000 horse-skirmishers (though they were often operating in different companies spread over the entire known world from the North Sea to the Black Sea, hired out to different potentates).

Much later, when Mustasha could afford to create a standing 3-division army of horse-skirmishers, the largest division was made up of Seljux' mercenaries and named after him. The other division was named the Pontic Division as previously they had been mercenaries serving the Pontic Empire on a semi-permanent basis (the third division was the Guard Division).

The unification of the East and West Black Arabs: The Chaldean Concord
was the great task of the dominant Qabal, that of Hamid, and a triumph of Suren’s diplomacy. At the time of Sheikh Sadiq that precedes this era his son Suren ruled Weblas and in 101 Suren’s son Mustasha, who had hitherto been Suren's Crown Prince, was granted the rule of Eblas.

As mentioned in the above quote, the Sheikhs of Qabal Hamid had been loyal satraps of the Empire of New Persia, that already then was ruled by Angustus, owing him fealty and paying tax to the Imperial treasury.

In Aufield 102 Eblas and Weblas were united under New Persian protection as the Principality of Chaldea and ruled by Suren. In an arrangement known as The Chaldean Concord. Mustasha took over as ruler in 103. Internally, the unification of 102 involved a highly complex deal between the major Qabals - even if the driving force behind the process may well have been external. The key was the rivalry between two powerful Qabals – Failak and Na’im – each unwilling to give the other precedence. Qabal Hamidwas well-placed to emerge as the compromise solution and Suren skillfully exploited this to get himself accepted. His extensive alliances with both Failak and Na’im, plus the smaller Qabals of Manasir and Qatir proved decisive.

This deal was highly complex and hinged upon the conquest of the South Bank Euphrates which Chaldeans if united could achieve under New Persian suzerainity - ruled then as know by the Emperor Angustus. Its main component was a series of marriage-alliances and land-deals to ensure that all qabals benefitted, and not just tribes bordering on the lands in question. Had the conquest of south bank lower Euphrates failed, the province of Chaldea would almost certainly have collapsed into civil war. The main beneficiaries were the Failak, Hamid, Na’im and Manasir, involving desert pasture swaps principally from Hamid to Na’im. Failak also lost their common border with Manasir. The deal also included a series of marriages. The simultaneous marriages of Abraham to a Failak and of Alzena (Mustasha’s cousin) to a Na’im were the main ones. The deal also included a provision that the Sheikhs of Failak and Na’im retain their honorary Al-Khalifah titles of the provincial rulers of Eblas and Weblas, respectively.