The assassination of Antigonus, next in line to Shalman for the Imperial Pontic Throne, makes his 13 year-old son, Demetriaces, heir-apparent to Shalman. But assassinations of heirs-apparent are rarely carried out without some wider political purpose.
There was much speculation in Thrace as to who might lie behind the murder of Antigonus. According to the News, the two names on most people's lips have been Emperor Shalman and Antigonus' younger sister, Ate.
Why the emperor should assassinate his own satrap puzzled many. Thrace is no ordinary province. Istanbul and its Bosphorus Ferry linking Anatolia to Thrace provides the main link between Asia Minor and the lower Danube, while the city of Gallipoli with its fort and its strongly-fortified harbour is the key to the Dardenelles. Who holds Gallipoli controls access from the Aegian Sea to the Black Sea, and has the ability to cut off Thrace from most of of the Pontic Empire.
This does not of itself rule out Shalman as the guilty party. If he had in mind the appointment of a new satrap fror Thrace to replace the rebellious Antigonus, who protested strongly against the rape of Thrace by the Huns - as rumour has it on the order of none other than Shalman - Shalman would move quickly to appoint a new Satrap from among his senior favourites.
Yet Ate would appear to be the more obvious suspect. She might claim precedence over the 13-year old Demetriaces, and at least as Regent-apparent should Shalman die. There was never any love lost between Antigonus and Ate, and Ate being the wife of the rebellious Galatian satrap, Macalix, was itself significant. Last year, Macalix and Ate had suffered a crushing defeat at the
Battle of Besh at the hands of Angustus, the New Persian Emperor and his powerful Viking satrap Nyforer. And a rumour was going round that that Macalix had not paid his taxes for the year 122 to the Imperial Treasury.
Yet it remained unclear what the purpose of such an assassination might be. Meanwhile, Demetriaces stepped into his father's shoes and both Lysander and AntiBessus readily swore allegiance to him, while the young heir requested Shalman's recognition of him as his father's formal successor as Satrap of Thrace.
Time would perhaps tell who lay behind the assassination and why. All of Thrace and much of the known world watched and waited...