[EB AAR] What it is to be a King

[Schrödinger]

What it is to be a King

The tale of a young man just waiting for his father to die
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Ancient Hellas was not a land for children. It was a land of kings and princes, of battles and blood, but also one of learning and genius' in the mould of Archimedes, storytellers who's legacy would last millenia as Aesop. He is not a child, he is a young man, he is a worshipper of Zeus (and an avid follower of Aphrodite), the ideologies of Nike appeal to him, and he dreams of the day he takes the throne of Epirus. His father fights over the seas in Italy, the lands of the Roman's, while he is ensconed in the homeland, waiting with the people for the safe return of their family. The Macedonian fiends eye his father's lands, and the sergeants of the Kingdom are not happy. Carthage stirs in the broiling south, and the Ptomeliacs gaze has turned uninvited unto the Hellas. Athens and Sparta fight again, Syracuse is in the grip of war and calls upon the aid of Pyrrhus. The world is poised on the edge, the Illyrians and Dacians hide in their forests, watching, Rhodes and her statue pray war does not touch them, and the mighty Seleucid Empire is collapsing.

Coming soon

The Son of Pyrrhus

[Jingles]

Looks good

[molls]

The tale of a young man just waiting for his father to die

Well this will be quite boring yay.


j/k - looking forward to it. Now there are two stories in this forum about a young boy. A king-to-be and a poor-iwillnottellyou-to-be !

[Schrödinger]

There will of course by complications along the road to greatness,

[Schrödinger]

Book I. Ch. I

Son of Pyrrhus

Epirus, the centre of Hellenic civilisation, some would have you believe. Other will tell you it is a barbaric land, and scarcely should be counted among the great civilisation of the ancient world. Sparta, Athens, Corinth, but not Epirus, those of the Peloponesse shunned them, treating them as lessers, although not as with as much disdain as they treated the northern kingdom of Makedonia and her rough-tongued and barely comprehensible lords. Nikias, the son of the king of the land of Epirus, he did not campaign in Grecia Magna and Italia, rather stayed at home in the palaces of Epirus, and the capital of Salona. Taking advantage of the status afforded to him, he reclined by fountains of light water and tested his strength and power on the courts and tracks of his family.

His father wouldn't even let him near the concubines though. Nikias was thirteen, and had arrived at the decision that Epirus was not the ideal place for an adolescent to adolesce, as it were. Sure, he was intelligent, and scholars and learned alchemists and scientists where willing to talk to him, but there were few girls, or indeed any member of the opposite sex, who wasn't either a close relation or a peasant. Of course, there were women of standing among the other realms of Greece, but strained diplomatic relations between his father and the lords of Sparta didn't exactly allow an amorous thirteen-year-old the best chance with the ladies of Athens. Which was a major factor in his devout and regular offerings and sacrifices to Aphrodite.

However, a Prince cannot while his time away dreaming of women, his mother said, he was required to do training and the learning. Generally he would have just done the training, and maybe some of the learning from the Captain about battle tactics and tales of long-gone battles and heroic feats of Achilles, Paris and Hector. Oh, and Helena.

Being a teenager in Epirus wasn't the easiest thing to be, they were far more advanced elsewhere, Nikias felt, they hitched up really early sometimes, he had heard. Of course, he would try his hardest, and with luck Aphrodite would hear his plea. There was the minor complication of his inheritance however- The Kingdom of Epirus and her vassals. Hard to flirt while running a kingdom, Pyrrhus said, and Nikias was inclined to believe him. As much as he wanted to be King, he would while away the time in-between with attempts on the ladies.

________________________________________

Up Next--- Book I. Ch. 2 'Aphrodite Hear My Plea'

[Schrödinger]

Book I. Ch. II

Aphrodite, hear my plea!

Panting, Nikias lent against the sparring pole, and dropped his sword, sweat beading down his dusky skin and trickling over the bridge of his nose. About to slump down, it was then he heard the scream, piercing the air, to Nikias' ears it was obviously a feminine scream, and an ideal oppurtunity to rescue a damsel in distress. "Aaarrrgggghh!!!!!" It rose and fell, like an alarm bell, calling Nikias to the rescue. Pausing only to kneel and grab his sword, he ran out of the training ground, past clanging groups of soldiers, oblivious to the scream under their armour. The guard moved to stop him, but grunted and moved aside when he recognised the King's son. It did not pay to disrespect the royal family and risk the wrath of Pyrrhus.

He pounded down the dusty alley, past drinking and working men, following his instinct, and the sound memory of the scream. Slightly out of breath, Nikias halted at a crossroad, he could loop left into the peasant district, or carry straight on towards the more pleasant area to the north. Opting to carry straight on, he started attracting the gazes of reclining gentlemen as they leant back, fine wine in one hand, gourmet cuisine in the other. It was only when he passed a bust of his favoured god that he remember her, and not halting, he stamped on an ant, decided it was a sacred beast and would do for a sacrifice, when suddenly an alley forked out to the left, and he heard angry noises coming from the shadows...

"You bastard, why did you try and nick it, eh?" a deep, grunting voice, Nikias imagined it came from a brutish pig of a man.
"I... I... I..." that high, quavering voice, Nikias was hanging on for an oppurtune moment...
"Save your excuses and bloody button it, alright? Give me the money or I take it."
"Ten drachma..."
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen."
It was then that Nikias darted into the darkness, and thrust a huge bodily figure aside, turning round and waving his sword menacingly, from the exertion of pushing the big man, sweat dripped renewed from his forehead. Huge and bulking, the man had broken teeth and one and a half ears, generally Nikias avoided his sort by principal, but now was the time for courage, for bravery, to protect the maiden.
"Leave the girl alone!" he growled
The big man uttered a snort of derision, and a grunt which could be interpreted as humorous, but just looked Nikias in the eye, and waved his fist at him. "Get out the way, I'll deal with you later."
Something wasn't going quite as planned, Nikias thought, eying the bulky fist but staying was staying put. The bulky man was either laughing at the threat... "I have a sword." it just kind of came out, and Nikias' train of thought was halted as a swinging left caught him under the chin...
Ouch registered as a thought before he hit the hard ground and mercifully blacked out beside the fair maiden.

[Schrödinger]

Book I. Ch. III

Pyrrhic

The battle lasted two days and two nights, fought viciously, both sides took heavy losses, Pyrrhus and his Epeirotes, Publius and his Romans. It was a long and protacted battle, blood and guts lay strewn across the field, the sounds of the dying whimpered in the reeking air. Carrion crows circled above the battle-stench as the remains of the two sides retreated, Pyrrhus, victorius, but at a cost as such he would dub it a victory of a sort he could not afford again if the war for Magna Graecia was to be won.

So it was that he rode along side his advisor and right hand man, Demetrios, the army of 37,500 tailed behind him, severely depleted and dispirited. Every man there had lost a man he knew, and many commanding officers had perised to the Roman fiends, although he knew his men had dealt out twice the deaths they received, Pyrrhus was well aware it was a costly victory, and as such he told Demetrios, the only outlet he had at this time.
"Demetrios, if we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined, all our effort undone and sent packed back to our homeland, the good people of Tarentum and Croton abandoned!" his voice came in harsh bursts, he had spent the last two days barking commands and sending messengers across the battle line. His cavalry had gracefully escaped with comparatively light losses, and the bulk of his 20 elephants had escaped the foul fire-spouting devices of the Romans.
Turning in his saddle to face Pyrrhus, Demetrios gave his own verdict, "Aye lord, we cannot afford a loss though now either, we must have a great victory in the next conflict, or the numeric advantage of the Romans will overcome us."
"Where do they spawn the bastards from?" complained Pyrrhus, growling with distaste
"Samnites, the native people of Italy, everything south of the Po river is theirs, remember, a recruiting ground for their war machine. They are a bloody people, eager to conquer, although small now, if unhindered they could expand, the Gauls are not what we would call civilised, and their battle technique consists largely of screaming loudly and running pointy end first at the enemy! Meanwhile, the Romas have much of our culture, which they have stolen, and given the right oppurtunity could easily overcome such petty obstacles as the men of the north."
"You doomsayer! If we are to defeat the Romans they shall do no such thing, what would they gain from the Gauls anyway! Carthage are the ones they would cast their bloody gaze to, lest it were us, and it shall not be for I vow to defeat them, believe me Demetrios!"
"But remember, lord, one more victory in the mould of that and we are ruined."

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Coming Soon--- 'Miscreant'

[molls]

the Gauls are not what we would call civilised, and their battle technique consists largely of screaming loudly and running pointy end first at the enemy!

great!
I shall quote Rowan Atkinson now:

But the servants did press him, saying: "Go on, give us another one!"

[Schrödinger]

Book I. Ch. IV

Miscreant

"What the hell do you think you were doing lad? Ye are awake aren't ye? Guid, 'cause I've got a guid mind tae hide ye! Attackin' mah servant, mah man! Indeed ye scally! Just attackin' him like that! All he were doin' was reclaiming some o' mah money from a bloody eunuch!" an angry voice, buzzing with the brogue of the north, brought Nikias back into the conscious world.
Nikias groaned, a eunuch, typical luck. Bloody Aphrodite and her bloody whims, the ways of a God. Blearily he viewed the world through a half-conscious haze, he saw the familiar face of the hulking noble Aegeus of Epirus, the northern lord with a summer apartment in the capital. He was in for a bollocking and he knew it, if Pyrrhus wasn't campaigning it would be different, but Pyrrhus was always campaigning, fighting the bloody Romans...
"Ye're s'posed tae be a prince laddie! One day ye'll be King, if ye're daddie disnae return frae Italia ye could be king pretty soon as well! Och, ye should set a better example ye young scally!"
In a trick popular with all children of that age, Nikias just switched off and nodded occasionally, before finally he was shoved out of the door into the dust. Disgruntled, he stood up and brushed himself off before wandering back to the training ground- there were no favours for a prince whose father was in a different land.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

This is actually more of a novel, than an AAR, but I like it.

Reminds me a little of Igguldden's Emperor series, where you can see Julius Caesar grow up, become from a lad to a great general and statesman.

[Schrödinger]

Coming soon.

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Book I. Ch. III
Pyrrhic

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Lovely writing. And another Palatino Linotpye user

[Schrödinger]

Not especially mate, loosely, so anyone complaining about innacuracies will be shot.
Will write about Nikias' plight tommorow.

[Schrödinger]

It has been a week. But Nikias will be back tommorow morning. Live in hope.

[molls]

GOD I love the accent. There is nothing better than english native speakers letting off some colloquial steam !!

[A.P]

Great Work.

[poloport]

great AAR

[bomberboy]

Great l like some of the the lines which are funny and the characters.

[poloport]

so, is this AAR dead?