Yilireti Empire

The Yilireti Empire, known in Yilireti as Yiḥiket Yiliret, from Proto-Hiereti, Hikiqet Hirṱeṱ, meaning Empire of the Wide Desert, was an ancient empire of Hieret, that began in 4632 ED in the southern Hiereti city of Jiyteb, at that time known as Yiḥitheb, and came to rule all of southern and central Hieret, before it was dissolved in 3986 ED. The empire left a lasting historical and cultural legacy and the rulers of the empires of ??? and ??? considered themselves the rightful successors of the emperors of the Yilireti Empire. At its height, the Yilireti Empire held cities on both sides of the Hidesh River and exacted a tribute from almost all of its neighbours.

Early History
The Yilireti Empire began out of the city of Jiyteb, in southern Hieret. Jiyteb occupied a strategic position near the mouth of the Hidesh River and across the water from the island of E'Wayyli. In its earliest history, the city was administered by the priesthood and a group of democratic institutions known as citizen assemblies. The priesthood was directed by a chief priest, who served Yigēth, the god of the Yilireti religion. The city of Jiyteb and its surrounding outposts and colonies was led by this compromise for the first few centuries of their existence, until a civil dispute between the leader of the citizen assemblies and the high priest erupted as a civil conflict. The citizen assemblies were crushed, their powers curtailed and later disbanded. The priesthood absorbed the legislative powers of these assemblies and the role of the chief priest became more and more like that of a monarch, until the chief priest held almost absolute power of the city. The first king of the city, Vāthigēth I, expanded his realm to the Wayyteb, a group of nomads who occupied the lands to the north of Jiyteb. With his northern frontier secured, Vāthigēth moved west, conquering the city of Dhivethāḥitheb. The power of the Yilireti Empire slowly expanded under the reigns of several competent rulers.

Conquest of the Sea
In 4312 ED, Jiyteb was raided by pirates from E'Wayyli. These pirates sacked the city and looted the temple of various artefacts. The emperor of Jiyteb, Yiyitheth III, demanded the construction of many large rafts for his armies and formed one of the earliest navies in Deinazephanais. He took a host of soldiers with him and across the sea to the island, where he subjugated the people and took the city of Ytebiveth.

The navy fell out of use for some time. When new pirates came from across the Hidesh River, from the city of Rohm, in 4289 ED, Yiyitheth III's son, Vāthigēth VI, raised a host and had more rafts constructed and began the conquest of the Kingdom of Rum. In the First Rum War, Vāthigēth VI had the pirates submit to him, taking the city of Rumov and demanding a regular tribute. When the king of Rum, Qiffe II, reneged on these payments, Vāthigēth VI attacked again, absorbing Rohm into his empire and destroying the kingdom. Rohm would soon become one of the most loyal provinces of the empire and many of the empire's levies were taken from there.

Further attacks from various other pirates, who were drawn to Jiyteb by its vast riches, expanded the maritime capacity of the Yilireti Empire. Soon, the Yilireti Empire held seven cities, four of which were on islands or on the other side of the Hidesh River from Jiyteb. The navy launched several attacks on pirate outposts located on the Hidesh River and even in locations as remote as the shores of the Viffe Ocean. A number of Yilireti trading outposts were established this way, the largest of which, Thiyiḥitheb, became a considerable population centre of over two thousand people. Thiyiḥitheb became a source of many Yilireti operations conducted in this area. One of the earliest disputes between the Yilireti Empire and the Irhmeti Empire was the Raft Wars, in which Yilireti sailors operating from Thiyiḥitheb raided a number of trading rafts bound for Irhmeti ports like E'Dabbi.

Conflict with the Ateter and the Irhmeti Empire
In 4112 ED, flooding in the central parts of the Hidesh River caused widespread destruction of irrigation. The areas affected included Gizenatter, which was located to the north of the Yilireti Empire. During the famine which followed, large amounts of the Ateter migrated southwards, to richer lands, becoming nomads. For several years, these nomads survived through a mixture of foraging and by stealing from Yilireti farms, until they were driven off by a small Yilireti force.

The nomads were pushed eastwards, towards Dhivethāḥitheb, and sacked the city. The ruler of the empire responded with force, killing many of the nomads and driving them back to Gizenatter. The armies of the empire pursued the nomads to the city and demanded a tribute from the Ateter. The chief priest of Gizenatter rejected their demands and assembled some soldiers against them. The Ateter were butchered and the city was plundered. The grain stores were broken into and scattered in the city and much gold was stolen from the city. The priests were then banished from the city and the Yilireti Empire installed their own priests in the city.

The chief priest appealed to the city's ally, the Irhmeti Empire, for help and fled north to Irbid. The Irhmeti ruler, King Sanko II, prepared an army, calling on troops from all over his empire. He was, however, unable to muster a large force and the capital was attacked by superior numbers of Yilireti soldiers. The Battle of Irbid ended with the sack of the Irhmeti capital and brought an end to the Gizenatter War. The Yilireti Empire benefited greatly from the terms dictated at the end of the war, receiving large amounts of grain and gold as part of an annual tribute, as well as three cities.

Collapse
In 3999 ED, there was a great flooding of the Hidesh River. The flooding affected almost all of Hieret, including Jiyteb and Dhivethāḥitheb. There was a great famine for many years afterwards, as the soil became too saline to sustain most crops. Thousands starved during this period and, in an attempt to resolve the situation, the government ordered farmers to drop the policy of leaving a field to fallow every second year. Rather than fix the problem, this policy made the famine even worse and harvest failed completely. When the river finally receded and the soil was once again fit to be used as farmland, the Yilireti Empire had already been doomed. The majority of outposts, villages and towns had been depleted, as their inhabitants had rejected civilisation for nomadic lifestyles. The governors of Rohm and Ytebiveth took power in their cities and broke away from the Yilireti Empire. The emperor grew increasingly paranoid, throwing out the priests of his temple and causing widespread revolt in Jiyteb. The emperor was forced into exile and his palace burned. The priests took over the rule of the empire, but a raid by nomads on Jiyteb condemned the empire and in 3986 ED, the Yilireti Empire collapsed.

Legacy
The last Yilireti emperor, Vāthigēth VIII, fled the city of Jiyteb to Rohm, setting up a successor kingdom to the Yilireti Empire there, with the consent of the governor, Gidihē. Vāthigēth VIII remained as a figurehead of this kingdom, which was essentially ruled by Gidihē and a small assembly of priests and other people of high-standing. Upon Vāthigēth VIII's death, his only child, a daughter, was wed to the Rum governor, formally uniting the kingdom under Gidihē. This kingdom would become a regional power and would last for several centuries.

The true legacy of the Yilireti Empire was such that, thousands of years after its fall, many kings would claim to be the successor of the last Yilireti emperor. Indeed, the Kingdom of Rum tried many times to re-establish the Yilireti Empire, with limited success. ___ would finally re-unite the lands of the Yilireti Empire under the ___ in ____ ED.

Role of the Emperor
The role of the Yilireti emperor was to control the legislative, judicial and executive branches of Yilireti government and exercise control over Yilireti society. The emperor ensured that social order was created and maintained through his control of the priesthood, the army, the guard force and the lawmaking institutions. The emperor also held theological positions, derived from the fact that the emperor was previously the chief priest of the priesthood. The emperor's post was originally anchored to the priesthood, but later became divorced. This distinction led to the emperor being almost-entirely unchallenged in terms of the running of government and society. Its religious obligations required the emperor to oversee the deliverance of sacrifice to the temples and to perform several religious ceremonies to appease the gods and prove his divine power.

Absolutism
The Yilireti Empire was notable for its absolutist form of governance, which would not be seen again on Hieret for centuries. Originally, there was no emperor, simply a priesthood and a number of citizen assemblies. These remnants of a primitive democracy gradually eroded over time, and a clear leader of the priesthood and the citizen assemblies emerged. A civil war was fought in the Yilireti Empire, with the high priest winning over his counterpart in the citizen assemblies and the powers of the two positions merged. The result was a strengthening of the position of the priesthood, and the high priest in particular. While the leader of the citizen assemblies had previously held power over civil and legislative matters and the priesthood had governed religious and judicial matters, the high priest emerged as a position with influence over all aspects of Yilireti life. Over time, the lines between the priesthood and the high priest became blurred, until the high priest occupied a position distinct from the rest of the priesthood. The emperor of the Yilireti Empire held vastly more power within the empire than any other king of Hieret did within their own. The power of the emperor came from the emperor's former position as the chief priest of Yigēth. The emperor had control over the executive, legislative and judicial decisions of the empire. The empire was heavily-centralised and little power was delegated to city governors.

Role of the Priests
The priesthood was originally one of the two branches of Yilireti politics. The priesthood consisted of hundreds of members, spread across several cities, towns, villages and outposts but based Jiyteb. Their power stemmed from the fact that the first cities of Hieret were based around temples and the priests were considered the administrators of these temples. They wielded great influence over judicial and theological matters, being the first and final authority on the latter. Their power over the justice system was only challenged by the citizen assemblies, which elected primitive jury systems. There was thus a balance wherein the priests appointed custodians, judges and a fraction of lawmakers (centred around theological law), while the citizen assemblies elected jurors, some members of the guard force and most lawmakers. The priests exerted only miniscule power over the emperor after 4000 ED, only managing to challenge and balance the emperor's power on few occasions. These rare occurrences generally arose from extreme circumstances, such as a great military defeat or a natural disaster.

Role of the Citizen Assemblies
The citizen assemblies arose out of a practice of primitive democracy. They were based on a three-tier system, with each tier having more influence than the previous one. The first tier was composed of all free citizens of the Yilireti civilisation, including mothers. They had power over general matters affecting all areas of society, but were challenged and dominanted by the upper tiers. The second tier was composed mostly of arms-wielding men, who had functioned as the guards and soldiers of Yilireti life before it became convention to elect these men. The second tier was primarily focused on the defence of the realm and over lawmaking and upholding the law. The only females elected into this tier were grandmothers of high-standing within the Yilireti community. The third tier exercised power over the lower tiers and was composed only of community elders. Their role was to legislate Yilireti society and ensure civic order. Through this, they elected jurors and lawmakers. The majority of jurors were elected by the third tier, with the second tier electing the least. They ensured that the lower assemblies legislated within reason. More importantly, it co-ordinated with the priesthood and acted as a balance to check the powers of the priesthood. After a civil war, the citizen assemblies were disbanded by the increasingly-powerful priesthood. The only remnant of the once potent citizen assemblies was a weak juror system which exercised power over only minor trials.

Organisation
The army of the Yilireti Empire was the most advanced in the world at the time. It benefited from Jiyteb's great population and the overall population of the southern coast of Hieret. The Yilireti Empire had advanced metal-working and thus had a well-equipped army. The fact that the Yilireti Empire exacted great tribute from the many kingdoms around it also allowed the empire to sustain a standing army.

The main component of the Yilireti armies were the yiḥdhev. These yiḥdhev were groups of one hundred soldiers taken from each district of the cities of the empire. In Jiyteb, for example, there were sixteen districts (each district was separated by a canal) and thus one thousand and six hundred soldiers. These divisions encouraged competition within the army, but also allowed these groups to be coalesced into a single unit called a ḥthab. The soldiers of the ḥthab were armed with spears and daggers and protected by copper helmets and wicker shields. They were professional soldiers, trained from adolescence and paid a monthly fee of grain. Although composed of many constituent parts, the ḥthab operated as a single unit, which had the advantage of requiring only a simple chain of command. Unlike the irzidko of the rival of the Yilireti Empire, the Irhmeti Empire, however, the ḥthab suffered from being inflexible. A ḥthab was supported by levies taken from the farms and villages outside of the cities. For every yiḥdhev there were four vāḥdhev. Jiyteb had the most vāḥdhev. The soldiers of the vāḥdhev were lightly armed and lightly armoured. They were the missile troops of the empire and were armed with daggers and slings. There were also provincial and ad hoc units, known as thiḥdhev, which aimed to present the advantages of the provinces within the army. The number of these ad hoc units differed in each province. The province of Rum had the most of these units, most of whom were fishermen levies armed with javelins.

The largest host ever assembled by the Yilireti Empire was against the Irhmeti Empire in 4099 ED. A ḥthab was assembled in six cities of the empire, with five thousand and six hundred men overall. These were accompanied by over twenty thousand levies and around four thousand provincial troops. The armies of the empire drew greatly from the provinces outside of Jiyteb and when the other cities began to rebel, the Yilireti Empire collapsed.

Weaponry and Tactics
The weaponry of the Yilireti armies was advanced for the period. The common weapon for most frontline soldiers were metal-tipped spears and small daggers, which was sometimes distributed to soldiers and at other times bought by soldiers. The spears were around two metres long, generally taller than their wielders. The favoured tactics for these soldiers was a primitive shieldwall, in which the soldiers formed a line of spears, shoulder to shoulder. The soldiers would then advance and try to break the enemy formations. When the formation broke apart, the soldiers would descend into close-quarters combat using their daggers and attempt to overwhelm the enemy. These tactics necessitated the inflexible formation of the ḥthab, as it reduced the confusion of having many commanders in charge of distinct battle groups. These soldiers would be armoured with copper (or, rarely, bronze) helmets, with leather armour and wicker or leather shields. Their armour was generally superior to most of their enemies, and rivalled only by the armour of the Irhmeti Empire.

The levies of the vāḥdhev lacked the strong armour and weaponry of their superior, professional counterparts, but their equipment was sufficient for combat against most enemies. The levies were the most varied type of soldier in the Yilireti armies, including slingers, skirmishers and, occasionally, archers. Slingers had no armour and were armed only with slings and daggers. Their slings were very advanced, superior in range to bows and capable to inflicted at least as much damage as arrows. Typical projectiles for slings were baked clay or shaped stone balls. Harder metal pellets were also used against more armoured forces. Skirmishers used spears, shorter than those of the frontline soldiers, perhaps one metre in length, and were kept in reserve to flank enemies. Some used shields but they typically went without armour. They were also equipped with javelins, for short ranged missile attacks. A common tactic was for the skirmishers to throw their javelins into the enemy formation just before charging with their main spears. Archers made up a smaller section of the levy troops, being in relatively small number and requiring more training than slingers for only similar results.

The ad hoc, provincial levies were of similar variety to the urban levies. The prototypical levies of this class were the fishermen soldiers of Rum. They wielded spears not unlike those of the urban levies but were primarily missile troops. They had nets and crude clubs and would usually be deployed to the battle as melee troops when the fighting was at an end, to capture as many fleeing enemy soldiers as possible. Sometimes, bolas-like equipment were employed instead of nets. These were typically two rocks tied together with rope, though more complex types existed, employing a variety of knots and sometimes shaped metal balls, which would then be thrown at the legs or waist of retreating or advancing opponents. They were favoured levies of the emperors and an ordinance issued by Yiyitheth V, grandson of Vāthigēth VI, who absorbed Rum into the empire, allowed them to keep a small share of the slaves they captured. They were generally loyal to the emperor, with the last emperor fleeing to exile in Rum with a trusted force of these fishermen levies. A small portion of these fishermen would be retained on a semi-permanent basis, to fight and capture bandits or raid foreign caravans and farms.

Navy
Though the Yilireti Empire had an advanced maritime tradition, greater than anything that would exist for over a thousand years after its demise, its fleet of rafts could hardly constitute to a navy, which requires more permanent, more numerous and more dedicated craft. Most craft employed by the Yilireti Empire were seasonal in nature, lasting only a few months. Due to the construction of the rafts, the rope holding them together would degrade during wet seasons. Furthermore, the craft were generally repossessed merchant rafts, and not constructed with an expressly military purpose. This maritime tradition was encouraged by the empire's early clashes with pirates from E'Wayyli and Rum. The Yilireti Empire employed a variety of different craft for different uses within the empire. Most of the empire's sailors were taken from the pirate provinces and they brought their naval skill with them. It was this naval power that allowed the empire to hold a large number of cities that were not connected to the capital by a direct land route.

The main craft of the empire was a small, eight-man raft, which was used to ferry grain and gold across the Hidesh River to and from Rum and E'Wayyli to Jiyteb and Dhivethāḥitheb. In times of war, this craft could hold two levies wielding slings or javelins. These craft were involved in one important battle with the Kingdom of Rum, in the Battle of Rum, where they were used to capture the city. A larger, sixteen-man raft was also used. This raft was primarily used for transporting people and goods around the empire, but was also used in war. During war, these rafts could hold as many as six soldiers. They were used alongside their smaller counterparts in the Battle of Rum. The largest craft employed by the empire was an imperial barge. This barge was a thirty-man raft that was used by the emperor when travelling between cities in the empire. They were used in ceremonial functions by the emperor. These craft were limited to shallow areas of ocean and the Hidesh River, though, there was written evidence that one group of Yilireti sailors from E'Wayyli were taken far south to a land of black-faced people, who are believed to be the ??? of ???.