A Complete History of the World Part 7: THE POWER AND THE GLORY THAT IS ROME! 753 BC-507 BC

Alright, remember how I said things were about to get complicated? I was really kind of talking about Rome and how pretty much after these guys appear on the scene history kicks into overdrive, and almost everyone has enough stone, paper, papyrus or kiln fired dirt laying around to keep lengthy records of their civilizations. So Lets start with the big guys of the Iron Age, ROME!


So a there isn't a whole hell of a lot of info about the Kingdom of Rome, save that its founding is popularly believed to be around 753 BC. The city of Rome was located on a hill (Palatine) next to the river Tiber. It was ruled by a series of Kings, which in Rome were referred to as Rex.

The most famous of these was Romulus, the founder of Rome...and the ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE. The story goes that a pair of twins were born, Romulus and Remus, who, when they grew up, decided to create a kingdom and asked the local deities to favor one of them to name and lead the settlement. A flock of birds flew over Romulus so he promptly iced his brother with a shovel. with his newly buried brother out of the way Romulus formed the legionary. Now that he had an army as well as a thirst for glory and power he ordered his troops to attack the Sabines. The intent was to capture their women and bring them back to Rome for breeding stock. This event is captured in the musical number 'Sobbin' Women' from the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Great.
So Romulus gets women for Rome, founds the Roman senate in meantime, and as the war with the Sabine men grows a momentous event takes place. As battle is about erupt between the legions and the Sabines, the now totally raped women rush from the city and plead for the fighting to stop and for the two peoples to live in peace as one. Peace is declared and promptly Rome puts out a notice saying that Rome is an asylum for all who dislike where they live, thus murderers, thieves, political enemies and roughnecks from all over the Mediterranean make their way to the new city. They also invent cloaking devices for their powerful birds of prey.


My thoughts exactly. Funny thing about the end of Romulus' reign, it is said that in his 38th year he and the people of Rome went to a large hill, where a storm abruptly sprung up and scared everyone but Romulus away. When the storm passed the people returned and were panicked to find that their fearless leader was missing! The senators quickly called for silence and explained that they had seen Romulus carried away into the heavens to be venerated as a God. This is pretty clearly the Roman Senators beginning the extremely Roman tradition of political assassination and spin doctoring. After the death of Romulus the senate went into a interregnum and elected a new king from the senate...ascended to heaven my ass.


What have I done to history?

Anyway, Rome found a new leader in Numa Pompilius, who had a peaceful reign of 43 years, he was actually rather well liked for managing this. He also created the Vestal Virgins, who watched over the fire of Vesta a protecting spirit of Rome. The virgins were taken at a young age and served 30 years as fire watchers, making sure that the flame never went out. After their tenure was up they could retire and get married, but when your choices in life were either be pampered forever with no sex or consent to the rule of men in Rome most women chose to remain in the 'clergy.'

After the reign of Numa the 'awesome,' Rome went to Tulus Hostilius, whose name is an aptronym. He ignored the hell out of the Gods and fought wars like there was no tomorrow. As he grew old and sick he turned to the God Jupiter for help, Jupiter's response was to drop a lightning bolt on him and his house.



Damn straight.

Because the Romans were worried about their new nation, and because Hostilius was such an enormous cock, the Roman Senate sought out Numas Grandson for the position of Rex. He was much like his Grandfather and ruled Rome with a measured respectful hand. Ancus Marcius, as he was called, adopted a foreign man as son and said that he would take the throne when he died. This man was Tarquinius Priscus, who by all appearance was a great ruler for his time. He expanded the Roman Empire into the Etruria, his birthplace, then gave the Etruscans senate seats. He also created the Circus Maximus where the Roman love of games was finally coming into its own. At this massive stadium chariot races were held, basically ancient Roman NASCAR. I would recommend everyone rush right out and see Ben-Hur as it is famous for its chariot scene, but I haven't seen it. I watched a clip once, but for whatever reason they decided that there needed to be Muslims betting on the race...even though Islam wasn't founded for another 400 YEARS! Damn you movies! Damn you to hell! Anyway Priscus also built the Roman sewer system, which helped him clear out a nearby swamp and expand the city. He was also the first Roman leader to celebrate a 'Roman Victory', wherein large parades and celebrations were held.

Regrettably Priscus suffered a true Roman fate, he was assassinated by one of Ancus' sons, you know, the real ones...the ones who weren't getting to rule Rome. Fortunately, just like in a good movie, the wicked sons of Ancus were thwarted when the throne went to Prscus' son Servius Tullius. He changed up the Roman's civics system, making a more rigid class system and giving more power to an elite few. However as he grew older he began to view the poor of his nation as important, because there was a lot of them, and they could stab him just as hard as anybody. Hilariously he was assassinated by his own daughter Tullia, who got her husband Tarquinius Superbus to the position of Rex.



That would be funny if it weren't true. You see Superbus was a brutal leader, who destroyed shrines dedicated to the Sabines ( who were now largely integrated into all of Roman society), murdered his opposition and threatened the well being of the whole of Rome. Finally he was ousted after an incredibly famous event. In 507 BC Superbus was besieging a distant city and needed to make contact with the Roman city of Collatia. He sent his son Sextus to visit the Governor's mansion, which belonged to a man away at the siege as well. The house invited him in with all kinds of kindnesses and flattery. In attendance at the mansion was the Prefect of Rome's daughter Lucretia, whose husband was the wayward governor. Sextus was quickly enamored with the beautiful Lucretia and that same night he crept into her bedchamber and woke her to give her two choices. She could either sleep with him and be his future Queen, or he could kill her and one of her maids and claim that she was dishonoring her husband by having a lesbian affair. Lucretia opted out of either choice and was summarily raped by Sextus, who quickly returned to the front lines pleased as punch. Lucretia, devastated, went to her father and wept, when he asked her why she was so distressed she said that she wanted witnesses. Once a crowd had been gathered she told the story of her rape at the hands of the King's son, how this was an affront to all Roman's, and that action must be taken, as soon as this message escaped her lips she drew a dagger and stabbed herself in the heart.. The Roman people were infuriated with their ruler and promptly called in the senate to oust him and end the line of kings.

Lucretia was the catalyst needed to finally end the rule of the Rex in Rome, with her death the senate raised an army and barred the gates to the city. Sextus and Superbus quickly heard the news and raced to Rome, leaving the army under the command of two patricians (Roman aristocrats). Discovering that they could not enter the city they returned to the besieged city of Ardea. Little did they know that while they were off running all over the country side a message had arrived declaring Superbus and his kin outlaws, a vote was held amongst the soldiers and a call to revolution accepted. Superbus was driven from Rome and all her territories, eventually ending up in Etruria, where he rallied the Etruscans and Latins behind him to defeat Rome. Sadly for Superbus it just didn't work out and Rome became a Republic, creating the position of consul to replace the king. You are probably thinking that simply having a kingly position under a different name wouldn't really make the situation any better, but the solution to this was to have there be two consuls who would need to agree over courses of action.

So in 507 BC the Kingdom of Rome was at an end and the era of the Republic of Rome was beginning!

A Complete History of the World Part 6: Greece 1100-500 BC, China 2100-480 BC, Japan 13,000- 300 BC, Meso America 1000 BC

We need to keep this ball rolling, because we're getting to some very lengthy and important periods in the development of everything, so we're going to leap to the next phase in Greek development.


So after the terrible Trojan War, which took up quite a few years after 1100 BC the Greeks moved into a period known as the Greek Dark Ages. The reason for the name is less because of some kind of loss of quality in Greek living, but rather because we simply have extremely little record of what precisely they were doing. So we'll skip the next few hundred years and go to the Archaic period roughly 800 BC to 480 BC.

During this innovative time the Greeks began to build small kingdoms around large towns, the most prominent feature of which was a spot called the Acropolis. The acropolis in Greek city design was a large hill centered in the heart of a city, surrounded by walls, rather a lot like later castle designs. Funny thing about this period is that Kingship was not passed from father to son, but rather from father to son-in-law. Thus disputes and lineage focused on the Queens of these towns. As the Archaic period ended the Kings were deposed by tyrants, another Greek invention. At this time a tyrant was an elected leader (the Greeks invented democracy as a means of bettering their fledgling 'city states') who had absolute authority to run the city as they saw fit, until the next election.

During the next few hundred years the Greek city states we are all familiar with become more defined, and of course wars break out between them. Such as the Messenian War in which Sparta, upset after the raping of some virgins, attacked Messenia, Messenia on the other hand swore that the virgins were soldiers, and that Sparta was simply being rude. This was promptly followed by a second Messenian War, because if Sparta ain't figthin' Sparta ain't livin'.


This sadly pretty much wraps up Greece until we jump up to everything after 500 BC.



Anyway, because Greece is done we can leap over to another part of the world ASIA! Starting with China in 2,100 BC. This was the time of the Xia dynasty, which could have ruled all the way to 1600 BC, but then again NOBODY KNOWS! Because although there are some records of the Xia dynasty existing and a few artifacts, there's no concrete history to speak of, so we'll jump ahead to the Shang Dynasty which ran from1600 BC to 1046 BC. During the Shang period the Chinese worshiped a pantheon of Gods all under a single supreme God Shang-Ti, as well as their ancestors, who after death ascended to a state of God hood as well. The Chinese also started using divination and the reading of bones to predict the future. Leadership at this time was dictated by the 'Mandate of Heaven' which was the will of the greater whole of the universe, if you were leading the country and everything was all right then you possessed the mandate, if however there were natural disasters and the people were unhappy then the mandate was no longer with you and you were fair pickin's for removal. After the Shang gave way a new Dynasty was founded titled the Zhou, which ruled China from 1046 to 221 BC. This transition was actually achieved after the Shang dynasties vassals in the West, the people of Zhou, turned on their masters and declared that they possessed the Mandate of Heaven, and were thus the new rulers of China. Incidentally the constant declarations of possessing the Mandate of heaven will be extremely common in dynastic cycles from here on out pretty much, but then again you knew that already if you happened to play any games made by Koei.


After a fashion the Zhou rulers lost control over the various feudal lords in China and by 480 BC hundreds of small kingdoms all vied for power while claiming loyalty to the Zhou. During the lead up to this there was also the beginning of large migrations of Chinese from the North to the South. In the background to the upheavels of the period Confucianism and Taoism both spring up and become dominant religious doctrines of the period. In recognition of this I'll give them each an opportunity to offer some advice. First of lets chat with Confucius...


Fascinating, thanks for that...all right, let us ask Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism a question, Lao Tzu! What's the purpose of life?



Outstanding, I have made a mockery of these two sacred traditions.

Anywho, lets move to Japan and see what they're up to between 13,000 BC to 300 BC


Stupendous, you venerate that bear carcass! We'll check back in with Japan in a few hundred years.

So where else can we visit? Let's see, in Central and South America the Olmec Civilization appears, along with the Mayans, this taking place around 1000 BC. The Olmec were known primarily for their art work, most notably their giant stone heads.


Exactly like you! Though eventually the Olmec were destroyed by violent insurrections...and by popular Nickelodeon game shows.


The Maya on the other hand would reach prominence a little later, so we'll need to be patient with them. Europe was wearing furs and eating meat nearly raw at this point, so picture early civilization with snow.

Under These circumstances it appears that we've managed to cover history all the way up to 500 BC, so be prepared, because this is where things start getting complicated.

A Complete History of the World Part 5: Ancient Greece 1100 BC TROJAN WAR

So when we last left off we we're watching the world of the Greeks spiral into chaos as a war with Troy loomed and poor Odysseus is dragged off to fight. So lets get this post movin' and get the Delorean revved up.


At the gathering of the Generals at Aulis a sacrifice was made to Athena. When the blood was done running a snake slithered out from the temple, climbed a tree and ate a sparrow and it's nine babies, then abruptly turned to stone. Instead of taking this as a sign that everything was fucked up beyond all recognition they decided it meant that Troy would fall in ten years.

Now this mighty host was ready to beat much ass, except for the part where they had no idea where Troy was or how to get there. That's right, they had no clue where their enemy was.


So the fleet sets sail and arrives at the Kingdom of Mysia, ruled by King Telephus of the Arcadians, son of Hercules. Guess what, rather than ask for directions Achilles stone stabs the dude and leaves with the fleet, getting crazy lost and eventually ending up back at Aulis.


Sadly for Telephus his wound refuses to heal, and after asking the Oracle what he can do about this it is explained that he can only be healed by the one that wounded him. Telephus goes all the way to Aulis and asks Achilles to tend to his wound. Achilles natural response is to say "Dude I'm 15 I have no clue what medicine is, my major is stabbing things, not unstabbing them." So Telephus takes Achilles spear and scrapes some pieces of metal off it and stuffs his wound with them, and magically it heals. Telephus then gives the Greek army directions to Troy, because he's not a sore loser.

So now that the army is reorganized...EIGHT YEARS LATER! A thousand ships set out for Troy. Upon their arrival fighting began in earnest, that is after a dire warning was given that the first person off the boats would be the first to die in the war. Achilles decided he'd wait and let Protesilaus go first, which got him summarily killed. What a big man you are Achilles. With a few guys dead all around the Trojans retreated into their city and closed the door. This went on for NINE MORE YEARS! That's right, they just kind of milled around hoping the war would end, without actually besieging the city either, just sitting out in front of it. Achilles kept busy though, going crazy all over the Aegean, conquering towns left and right for no good God damned reason.

With the war dragging on and everyone getting crazy fucking sick of it we finally see the army mutiny and demand an end to hostilities. Sadly Achilles manages to persuade the army to hang out and not leave, because he isn't done rampaging all over the damned place. Agamemnon kidnaps the daughter of a Trojan who then prays to Apollo for help, causing the allied invaders to be struck with plague. Agamemnon turns around and asks Achilles to hand over his own woman since he was forced to return the kidnapped daughter. Achilles naturally feels insulted by this and refuses to fight, a huge boon for the Trojans because Achilles kill ratio to anyone else in the invading armies was like 12,000 to 1. The man was a meat grinder, a spinning murder top. Eventually the two armies actually decide to have a real fight, which ends with Menelaus challenging Paris to a dual, wherein he beats Paris' ass. Paris is saved at the last minute by Aphrodite, who was still grateful for the Golden Apple she won because of him.



So Achilles, still refusing to fight minces around the Aegean whilst the Gods roll 20 sided dice to determine whose loyalties will lay where. So Zeus tells the Trojans that he'll supply them a great warrior, Thetis, since Achilles is gone. I guess this would be like renting a car, but only under the promise that the roads wont be populated by only drunk drivers, putting a hero onto a field of battle with Achilles is a death sentence and apparently Zeus didn't feel like losing another good fighter. Anyway the Trojans beat the Allies asses all the way to their ships before Patroclus, who happens to be Achilles BFF, dons the wayward douche bags armor and sends them screaming back to Troy. Sadly Apollo shows up and stops Patroclus, just in time for the Trojan's greatest hero Hector to run him through...like crazy!

So guess what! Achilles is now extremely pissed off that his best buddy is dead!



He comes back, gets his girl back from Agamemnon, gets armor specially made by Hephaestus (God of Forging Stuff) and goes on a murder rampage, killing every fool he sees, forcing the Trojans into their city, save Hector who gets tricked by Athena into staying outside. What happens next? Well lets see...Achilles is a juiced up psychopath and Hector is...his name is Hector, he sounds like a Greek version of Garfield.



Achilles kills Hector and drags his corpse behind a chariot for a while before headin' back to camp. It takes intervention by the Gods to get him to hand over the body for a proper burial. Abruptly another Trojan ally arrives! THE AMAZONS!


No, I'm sorry, I can't take these Amazon's seriously, we're going to need new Amazons...


So the Amazons arrive under the leadership of Penthesilia, who goes on her own killing spree, until Achilles gets to her. Achilles stone kills the leader of the Amazons, then finds out that she's beautiful and wishes he hadn't done it. Amusingly enough the ugliest soldier in the whole army walks by and makes fun of Achilles for having a soft spot for the girl he just killed, then gouges out her eyes.



I bet he even said "ain't so pretty no more," afterward too.

So Achilles feels guilty and goes to the island of Lesbos to ask for forgiveness. While away the great king Memnon comes from the East conquering everything in his path, intent on saving Troy. He battles the newly forgiven Achilles, who stone kills him. Why the fuck even try? Why? You try to stomp Achilles yard and he will go crazy on you. Funny thing though, Zeus and the Gods weigh the fight, between Achilles and Memnon, and find that poor Memnon's 'Win Weight' was sinking, so they let Achilles annihilate him. Now Zeus becomes upset that Achilles has simply killed too many sons of the Gods, too...damned...many, and has Paris fire a poison arrow at him, guided by Apollo. The arrow hits the mark and Achilles is killed, though all the variations of this make sure to point out that he was totally awesome, and that the killer sucked...balls.



So with Achilles dead Ajax and our nutty friend Odysseus grabbed the body and fought their way back to the Allies lines. Agamemnon then decided to give away Achilles armor to the smartest of his warriors, except that Odysseus and Ajax both stepped forward requesting the title. Agamemnon, worried over pissing off Ajax, decided to let the Trojan prisoners decide, by asking who had done them more harm. It was decided that Odysseus would get the armor and Ajax went into a blind rage. Athena quickly cast a spell on him, causing him to mistake a group of cattle for the Allied armies. Ajax hacked and slashed his way through this false army until he came to his senses and killed himself for being so stupid.

After this episode a series of prophecies, each dumber than the last, had to be fulfilled to win the war for the Allies. Odysseus (eager to get home) went about completing one task after another, until finally after a series of adventures that saw quite a bit of vandalism, plus the death of Paris, he came up with his best plan to stop this madness.



Yes, the Trojan war was completely insane. Odysseus came up with the brilliant ruse of crafting and enormous wooden horse(sacred to the Trojans), hiding inside of it, then letting the rest of the army leave so the Trojans would come out and take the horse back in the city. With the plan in action Odysseus and a number of soldiers awaited their fate in the wooden horse, now within the city of Troy. The Trojans quarreled over whether they should offer the horse up to Athena, burn it for fun, or throw it off a cliff...also for fun. At the same time a Trojan women Cassandra, who had been given the power of prophecy, but also the curse of never being believed warned against keeping the horse. Also, as if there weren't enough dire portents a giant serpent rose from the sea and ate two important Trojans. After much thought they decided to hold onto the horse and get super drunk.

Naturally the soldiers came out of their horse, signaled the waiting Allied fleet and Troy was sacked...sacked, burned, obliterated, the women raped in the streets then thrown from walls. All the potential rulers of Troy were killed, and Cassandra was raped in a temple of Athena by Ajax the Lesser, who was spared by Athena after much whimpering. So the Gods were furious, since besides the city, all their temples were destroyed as well...or if not destroyed were witness to all manner of sacrilege. As result it was decided that a majority of the Allies should die on their way home, or if not die, then become horribly lost, except a general named Nestor who decided not to loot and burn Troy, he was rewarded with an uneventful trip home. Odysseus, clever fellow that he was suffered all manner of troubles at the hands of the Gods because of his involvement with the destruction of Troy. Naturally his story comprises the Odyssey, wherein he spends another decade trying to get home whilst assholes try to sleep with his wife.

So with that we bring the "history" of the Trojan War to a conclusion, join us again later for the next chapter in the development of mankind in THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!

A Complete History of the World 4: Ancient Greece 2800 BC-1100 BC

So, rather than go to the rest of the planet right this moment I have decided that perhaps we should stop by and see what the people of Ancient Greece have been up to, you know shoot the shit with all those wild and crazy Aegeans!


Now the early period of what would be considered Greek history starts around 2800 BC and is split into three different cultures in what is the modern Aegean Peninsula (Greece Dawg!)


I will be referring to this, there will be a test dammit! DAMMIT!

Anyway, lets start with the mainland, what is also archeologically called the Helledic period from 2800 BC- 1060 BC. Little is really known about this period actually, the region was extremely hilly, with little space for standard crops and most of the things that are important to sprouting civilizations noticeably lacking. However we still find the beginnings of all the great city states that would dominate Greek history in like another few hundred years. Athens, Corinth, Sparta, were all founded, however called by different names.


Alright, now that we've established that people were living on the mainland of Greece we can move on to one of the bazillion islands that are off the coast where people lived too. One of the more important islands was Crete, where the Minoan civilization saw its birth and eventual collapse in between the years 3650-1150 BC. The Minoans were named such by a 20th century historian who equated King Minos (of Labyrinth fame)


No. Not you, King Minos...this guy, the one who appears in Dante's Inferno.



You know what, whatever. Jareth, you will now be playing King Minos.


Anyway, the Minoans were traders who traveled all across the ancient Mediterranean, boring people with their unremarkable history and their lovely pottery. The Minoans appeared to be repeatedly attacked or annihilated either by earthquake or outside forces invading them. In later Greek popular legend Knossos (major city on Crete during the Minoan era) was home to the fabled Labyrinth, where King Minos' wife banged bulls and made minotaurs.


No, well I don't...I know a few people who would, but that's irrelevant to our journey. Onward to Cyclades! They lived on an island...around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. They carved large round statues of women out of marble. They are more boring than our first post. Man the Cycladic culture was dull. If only there was some way to make this better...

Dammit Jareth! not now!

Lets get away from truly ancient Greece and move to what is called the 'Greek Dark Ages', a time also referred to as the Dorian Invasion. The Greeks explained that the descendants of the banished Hercules returned to the Peloponnesian islands and changed up the language and reorganized everything. there is really no historical evidence to support this, save that Greek culture all of a sudden changed like crazy with no definitive reason why. Although some people also suggest that the change and desertion of many towns in this period was due to the Sea People. Sea People appear repeatedly in ancient texts, all over the Mediterranean. The story remains the same however, a group of guys no one knows, who don't speak the lingo show up and complete obliterate everything they find leaving nothing behind. Fun times in the past.

Now then, this brings us to around 1100 BC, which is roughly the time when there is a possibility the Trojan War happened. See, since the whole thing occurred in a culture that had largely spoken word poems as their method of recording events it's difficult to nail down what actually happened, and because I am more interested in humor and adventure I'll toss around the story of the more than likely made up history of the Trojan War.

It all begins after Zeus, having risen to the position of ruler of the Gods, decides that there are A) Too many damned people in the world and B) A lot of them are half human and half God. Funny thing about that though, because Zeus was father to a lot of those as well, because he could not stop having sex with human women. Plus the lengths he would go to! Turning into animals and all sorts of crap. Zeus had a hard on for mortals, and because he was trying to overcome addiction he was going to kill everything he could bang. It's like a junkie becoming President then proactively hunting down and obliterating anyplace that has poppies in it.

So Zeus heard from Prometheus (recently saved by Hercules) that one of his sons would be his downfall, or at the very least eclipse him. As such Zeus passed off one of his recent conquests Thetis (a woman, not a city) to Peleus a King of the Aegina. At the party all the Gods showed up, except Discord, who was barred from the event (can't imagine why). Well she got seriously pissed and threw her gift into the reception hall. The gift was a golden apple which was inscribed with 'to the fairest.' So Hera, Athena and Aphrodite got into a cat fight over who would get this kick ass paper weight.

Since no headway was being made on the issue it was decided that the three of them would appear...nude...before Paris the hair to the throne of Troy (who was living as a shepherd because he was foretold to bring about the fall of Troy) who would decide. Incidentally the Gods didn't answer because they were acutely aware that if they answered at all the odds of them having extramarital affairs with one or more of these Goddesses would go down the tubes. So Athena, Hera and Aphrodite appeared before Paris offering him treats!

That's right, of the above options Paris picks the 'Most Beautiful Woman in the World' Helen of Sparta. So Aphrodite wins the apple, yay. Paris goes on an adventure or two, then heads on back to Troy where he is recognized as a long lost heir and reinstated...because Trojans are dumb as hell. Now rather amusingly that wedding that we saw earlier, between Thetis and Peleus, guess who the son of the union is...none other than Achilles. Achilles at birth was destined to have one of two possible lives, either he would lead an ordinary and uneventful life, dying of old age, or he would die young and be remembered forever. I think you can guess which one he ended up with...you know, because a guy of mostly Scottish/French descent living on the West coast of a country where the dominant language is not Greek knows his name.

So to make their son immortal, so as to prevent the more tragic 'young death' they either dip the baby Achilles in the River Styx or they hold him over a fire until his mortal-ness burns away. Incidentally we should try this out more often...holding babies over fires and seeing if they become immortal.

Anyway, back to Helen...who incidentally was the love child of Zeus and a mortal women Leda (Zeus was a swan...who raped a woman...rapist swan) which means that almost everyone in this story has had sex with Zeus at one point or another, dudes lucky he didn't get syphilis.

So Helen's fake dad, the King of Sparta finds himself in a difficult spot, everyone wants to marry the hell outta Helen, except that if any one of them does Sparta and the dude whose married her will find themselves immediately under attack by every other suitor. God dammit Helen, get ugly would you? Eventually though the King of Sparta got the suitors to agree to defend the eventual husband no matter who he was. Meanwhile King Menalaus, a rich douche, has a chat with Aphrodite, to whom he promises the sacrifice of 100 oxen if he gets Helen. As a side note the brilliant idea of making the various kings agree to defend the marriage was Odysseus', so he could get help with his marriage to Penelope. Menalaus sends his brother Agamemnon to ask for Helen's hand, and the King of Sparta agrees. Menalaus promptly forgets to give the promised sacrifice...because you know it's Aphrodite he's dealing with, a goddess, what could she possibly do to fuck this up for him?


So Paris arrives in Sparta to collect on his new bride, whilst Menalaus is away burying his dad. Aphrodite sends Cupid along too, with the goal of shooting Helen with a love arrow when she glimpses Paris sneaking into her room...to kidnap her. Well Hera was still pissed off about the whole 'he didn't say I was the prettiest' thing and sent a storm to blow them off course. Which really only hampered them a little, they make it back to Troy and promptly the whole Aegean goes fucking insane!

Menalaus and Odysseus (the worlds craftiest man at the time) head for Troy and ask that Paris stop being a complete asshole and return Helen. Paris refuses and the two return home to Sparta where Menalaus asks Agamemnon to go around Greece asking the various kings to hold up their previous promise to defend the marriage (smooth move Odysseus). Odysseus at the time had just married Penelope and had a son named Telemachus, so the idea of going to war was not terribly appealing to him so when the emissaries arrived with the demand he join up he decided to act like he had gone insane to avoid being conscripted. His fool proof plan was to gibber like a loon while plowing his fields naked, where one of the emissaries placed his infant son. Odysseus' fool proof plan backfired when he stopped plowing so he wouldn't kill his son and he was promptly dragged off to war.

Meanwhile Achilles, at the time 15 years old, was summoned to fight because at the time he was widely considered one of the greatest warriors of the day...at 15. Well his mom disagreed with this plan and disguised him as a girl, which would have worked if the emissaries sent to retrieve him hadn't blown a horn that was used to warn of attack causing the disguised Achilles to leap into action, ripping off his disguise and grabbing a spear.

In no time at all the various Kings, generals and princes of the Greek world met at Aulis and got down to brass tacks about exploding the shit out of Troy.

We'll leave the story there, to be continued next time on Complete History of the World!

A Complete History of the World Part 3: Mesopotamia 3,000 BC-600 BC, Egypt 1500 BC-700 BC

I think we should let Egypt be alone for a little while as their next phase in history will be during the Iron age and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. So therefore I have requested that the Doc take us to Ancient Sumer, where we may learn about the Mesopotamian's.



So way back in the 4th millennium we find that all those scattered cities in modern Iraq have developed into very complex cities, with social hierarchies, walls, irrigation and a common language, the language is Sumer, and thus we call these people the Sumerians (who reside in Mesopotamia, which at the time was more a region than a nation). During this time life was hard, for anybody who wasn't in the upper parts of society, and the early religions of the time described death as a mind crushing nightmare, where you ate dirt for all eternity and knew no warmth or comfort. Now you may wonder why they would have such an unpleasant after life set up for themselves? Well it's because life was so completely awful, waking every morning so you could toil in the fields, on the walls, or pretty much any place the local king told you he needed toiling, that suicide seemed like a great way out. That's right, life sucked so bad that people had to be made to fear death so they wouldn't take the easy way out. Remember it's the ancient Sumerians who worshiped Gozer the Gozarian and Zuul.


Anyway, this period has proven difficult for historians to keep track of because of the multitude of city states, each with its own history and that this is when writing was first developed in the region, meaning no one was capable of writing gripping historical epics yet. However we can discuss the greatest Sumerian of the age, Gilgamesh!



NO GOD DAMMIT! GILGAMESH! THIS GUY!



Gilgamesh was a King of Uruk, a city of ancient Sumeria/Mesopotamia sometime around 2700 BC. He was described in his semi-biographical piece 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' as being two parts God, one part man. He was like some kind of shitty cake, because what kind of two part God would hang around in Mesopotamia? The Gilgamesh kind! Anyway, here's the story of Gilgamesh as told via the amusing Epic of Gilgamesh. Our hero is born and grows to manhood, where he builds a mighty wall for the city of Uruk, so no one can get in. In spite of this generous service the people complain to Gilgamesh that he sucks and that he has a nasty tendency to sleep with everyones wives...usually before the marriage ceremony is complete. This kind of cheeses off the Goddess of creation who creates a wild man named Enkidu to run amok and wreck up Uruk...because that will totally irk Gilgamesh?

Anyway, Gilgamesh sends Enkidu a hooker...



Who proceeds to spend a week with Enkidu, banging him into submission. Enkidu becomes civilized and no one learns a lesson about anything...especially Gilgamesh, who starts having strange dreams where he is told he'll be making an awesome friend soon.

After this we see Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel all over creation, killing things, weeping, offering horrible monsters their loved ones. In the end Gilgamesh suffers a bout of depression until he sees the outstanding wall he built at which time he air guitars his way back into Uruk and lives probably happily ever after...until he dies and goes to a realm of darkness where he eats dirt forever.




Then there was the Elam, the peoples who dwelt in the city of Susa(in modern Iran). They are terribly boring and suffered mightily later on under the hands of Ashurbanipal and later the Persians.

Of some more importance however was the kingdom of Akkadia, which was ruled over most importantly by King Sargon. Akkadia conquered Uruk and pretty every other bit of land in Iraq and it was during this time that Sargon (at that time the Royal Gardener) looked over his group of well trained and hard working gardener friends and decided to overthrow the king. So before you write off your local Hispanic landscapers as being not worthy of praise remember that there was a time when they could rise up and completely overthrow the government and found one of the great empires of antiquity.




Sargon ruled for 56 years, which is pretty damned impressive when your life expectancy is probably like a biscuit longer than a dogs. He conquered pretty much the whole of the Middle East and at the end of his long reign managed to defeat a massive insurrection that besieged his capital city of Akkad. However the Akkadian hegemony was short lived, within 100 years the empire collapsed and became the Neo-Summerians. This was short lived as soon the Amorites took over, amorites being basically a ethnic group who moved en masse all over the failing Kingdoms of Ur and eventually ended up just taking over. They effectively ended the long held tradition of city states (your kingdom ends at the city walls) in favor of regular old kingdoms (my kingdom stretches from this pile of dirt over to that cow skeleton). Amorites also appear in the bible, for those of you who care, in which they are used interchangeably with the term Canaanites. They were said to be descended from giants, however it is unlikely that these Amorites are the same group as the historical Amorites...amiright?

After the fall of the Amorites in the 17th century BC we see Hammurabi of the Babylonians gain a position of leadership over the central kingdoms of the old empires (primarily every city in between the Tigris and Euphrates). Hammurabi was a fairly nondescript ruler, who is more known for his strict code of laws, one of the first written sets in recorded history. The punishment for crimes was usually death or disfigurement. Steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? Lose your hands and feet. I am sorry to say however that when Rastafarian's refer to the world at large as being Babylon they are using some kind of super hyperbole.

After a short stint as lords and masters of the 'cradle of civilization' the Babylonians fell to the Kassites. The Kassites were a third rate power from the Zagros Mountains in Iran. They arrived on the scene and once in power they realized that the Babylonian culture was vastly superior to theirs so they became super conservative and dedicated to Babylonian customs and traditions. They ruled for around 500 years, which is really impressive when we see other more popular kingdoms ruling for only a few generations. Part of the reason why the Kassites were able to maintain power for so long was the success Hammurabi and others had at making regional kingdoms instead of independant city governments.

During this whole period we also see the rise and fall of many Assyrian dynasties. They were largely left alone by the other powers that came and went, probably because their name sounds incredibly dangerous. However by 911 BC(NEVER FORGET!)


The Assyrians, or rather the Neo-Assyrians would dominate the whole of the Middle East. Great plagues and droughts struck all across the old empires of this period allowing the Assyrian Kings to steam roll right over everyone and anyone in their way including the Kingdom of Israel. Poor Kingdom of Israel, they popped up around 1030 BC and were conquered in short order by 931, at which time 27,000 odd people were displaced. Assyria also managed to conquer Egypt in around 600 BC.

Assyria would see unprecedented growth in culture and art under King Ashurbanipal, but sadly this period was short lived as almost immediately after his death the whole of the the Middle East erupted into civil war. We see the Neo Assyrians swept away and the speakers of the Akkadian language (used by the leadership of the Assyrians) wiped out by 605 BC.

Lets leap back over to our old friend Egypt, who we left back in 1500 BC or so. during this whole period Egypt primarily did what it did best, invade its neighbors, allow its priests to get too much power and fall into complete disarray. One such period is when the Pharaoh Akhenaten takes the reigns of leadership, his exciting plan being to completely throw out the old religion and found a new one. He saw a growing threat from the Priests of Thebes, who were effectively directing public opinion at this point, so he declared that there was only one God, Aten, who ruled over all and that he was Atens messanger on Earth. This is one of the first monotheistic religions in history, but it only lasted for the duration of Akhenatens rule, after his death his wife Nefertiti tried to keep up the old ways but was not so successful as did Akhenatens son Tutenkhaman, who under pressure from the priests recounted and reinstated the old religion. After King Tut we see Ramses II eventually arise. Ramses the Grea,t as he is known, builds more temples, statues and great works than any other pharaoh. He also sires a metric shit ton of children and battles the feared Hittites (we'll get to them) into a peace treaty (the first in history). Ramses II is probably one of the most well known Egyptian pharaohs, for his great civic works, his constant canoodling with women and that he is often equated with the pharaoh under whom the 'exodus' takes place. Whether this is in fact under his reign is debatable as there is little evidence to support it especially since it will be still another three hundred odd years before the Kingdom of Israel is founded. you may also know Ramses from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" in which a tablet is inscribed with the phrase,

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

You probably know Ozymandias as the alter ego of boy loving, purple clad, Studio 54 frequenting multi billionaire playboy Adrian Veidt from Watchmen.

Now then, that should about wrap it up with Mesopotamia, Egypt and pretty much every place in the cradle of civilization. Up next we'll visit Ancient Asia, South America and all those other rubbish places no one talks about. after that we'll hit up Super Ancient Greece, where we will learn all about the Trojan War.