Guṭḷeli

From Almeopedia

Author: Furius

Guṭḷeli
124 - 276 ; 295 - 930 ; 938 - 1595
Native:	ancient Guṭḷeli, modern Gudral
Verdurian:	Gudral
Characteristics
Capital:	Guṭḷeli
Government:	senatorial (usampas)
Ruler’s title	asemop
Language:	Old Skourene
Religions:	Skourene paganism

Guṭḷeli [ˈgu ʈɭɛ li], modern Gudral, was an important city in ancient Skouras in the northern Gelihur peninsula. It was founded in 124, and remained an important player in Skouras until the eighth century. Perhaps its greatest legacy to Ereláe is as the parent city of Gurdago.

Classical Era

Guṭḷeli was founded in 124, the first Skourene city outside the Šinour river valley. In the next century Guṭḷeli expanded to control most of Gelimḍan, founding the city of Meŋeland.

In 269 Guṭḷeli and Iṭili were trying to colonize Ḍarroḍ, a rocky island of few resources but strategically placed. Guṭḷeli put a large army ashore and simply killed or drove off its rivals’ settlers. A fierce war, one of the first in Skouras, ensued, in which Iṭili devoted its efforts to an attack on Meŋeland, north of Guṭḷeli; while Guṭḷeli tried to conquer Teralam to its south. Neither attack came to anything, though the Iṭiliki, by catapulting burning brands into Meŋeland, managed to burn down most of the city. The two sides, exhausted, signed a treaty in 274.

In 276 Imuṭeli besieged the weakened Guṭḷeli. Almost the entire Guṭḷelik army was bottled up inside the city. There were some fierce battles outside the city, and some delays as Guṭḷelik ships managed to supply the city; but finally starvation loomed, and the city surrendered. Both Guṭleḷi and Meŋeland were incorporated into Imuṭeli’s empire, though as a conciliatory move Guṭḷeli was allowed to keep its senate. However, in 295 Epuneka, the asemop of Imuṭeli, precipitated a war, against Miligenḍi and Iṭili. While Endigori was waging war on their colonies, however, its enemies turned south and captured Meŋeland and liberated Guṭḷeli.

In the last years of the fourth century there was something of a cold war in Skouras. Miligenḍi and its offshoot Ṭisuram had strong governor systems (ugaşrara). These seemed backwards and repressive to the people of Iṭili, Engidori, Imuṭeli, and Guṭḷeli, who had senatorial states (usampara). In 380, the war heated up, when the Pitrat senate declared that it could have no usampara protectors. This meant Engidori (since its other two protectors, Ṭisuram and Miligenḍi, were ugaşrara) ; and in practical terms meant that the city would be an autonomous region in the empire of Ṭisuram.

Engidori objected; but it was Guṭḷeli that took the occasion to lay down an ultimatum: if Ṭisuram sent troops to the city, it would declare war. Two years later a new ageşor in Ṭisuram decided to do just that, and Guṭḷeli duly invaded. It sent almost its entire army across the water to Pitrat, overwhelming the Ṭisuramand force. Now all Guṭḷeli had to do was prevent Ṭisuram from sending a new army to Pitrat (or counter-invading Guṭḷeli). The remainder of the conflict was therefore naval, and here Guṭḷeli had a strong advantage; it had twice as many longboats as Ṭisuram— an advantage which allowed it to destroy Ṭisuram’s fleet in its harbor at Nibureli in 384, ending the war.

The usampara were disadvantaged by the bad blood between Guṭḷeli and its former occupier Imuṭeli; but this was overcome by Teralepṭ, the amesop of Imuṭeli, who proposed an alliance (403). The Guṭḷeliki accepted (beginning a long Skourene tradition of sudden rearrangements of alliances). The allies hoped to destroy the power of Ṭisuram, and they were hardly discomfited by the counter-alliance of Ṭisuram with its former master Miligenḍi. The Quadrilateral War began the next year. It lasted fifteen years, and it was a disaster for the usampara. Guṭḷeli’s naval edge had been misleading— Miligenḍi was a strong naval power— and it was largely reversed when the Ṭisuramand army captured Ageşoram and with it half of Imuṭeli’s longboats. Guṭḷeli lost Meŋeland to Miligenḍi.

In 465 Guṭḷeli, along with Gasibur and Iṭili joined the Engidorid asemop Minnukitum's war against Miligenḍi, in search of recompense. Guṭḷeli attacked Nemiṭali, and sent an army against Meŋeland. Both the attacks succeeded. The allies then wasted a season on a fruitless attack on Miligenḍi, then fell to blaming each other for their failure. When a treaty was finally signed, in 469, Guṭḷeli aqquired only Nemitali for its trouble.

Guṭḷelik Golden Age

As the balance of power in Skouras shifted south, Guṭḷeli increased in importance- it colonised Arṭali, in Barmund (472); seized Ḍarroḍ from Ṭisuram in 558; cooked up a war with Imuṭeli in order to take over its colonial empire in the Namal (620). In 635 it felt strong enough to challenge Kolatimand in Barmund; but it had miscalculated: it lost control of Arṭali, though it retained the smaller colony of Korileŋ upstream.

In the eighth century Guṭleli was the most powerful Skourene state. Its major preoccupation was long-distance trade, especially in Luduyn. Its initial focus was to acquire island bases to safeguard its routes; it swiped some islands from Şiḍḍi, traded Korileŋ to Kolatimand for the Aḍagli islands south of Jecuor, and occupied the island of Rudeŋ off the coast of Luduyn (a source of iron). In 702 it founded the colony of Guṭḍaku ‘New Guṭḷeli’ on Luduyn, better known by its modern name of Gurdago.

At home, it saw little reason not to throw its weight around. It took Teralam from Iṭili in 694, and fought a short war with Miligenḍi in 712 in Barmund, leaving Miligenḍi with little more than Pitrat.

In 724 it made a play for power in Skouras proper, attacking Ṭisuram and Ṭisuraku. This turned into a long, bitter slog, largely for logistic reasons. The swampy Namal made the land approaches difficult, and it was a struggle to turn Guṭḷeli’s advantage at sea to good use. It was not till Papliopagimi was enlisted as an ally (734) that progress was made. By 738 Ṭisuraku had been entirely defeated, and Ṭisuram was suing for peace.

Papliopagimi took Ṭisuraku and Nibureli, leaving Ṭisuram free but greatly reduced. Guṭḷeli got Ageşoram, which was not much of a reward for fourteen years of war.

Guṭḷeli wished to be an empire (tebbeḍ), yet not to be perceived as one. When a depression hit Miligenḍi, forcing it to default on loans to Guṭḷeliki banks, it offered to forgive the debts in exchange for Pitrat. This would have been more convincing if Guṭḷeliki troops hadn’t already been sent to occupy the city (765). Miligenḍi fought a short naval war, failed to interest any other states in its fate, and ended up accepting the terms originally proposed.

Guṭḷeli’s next target was also well-calculated— Iṭili. It took a year-long land and sea blockade, but the city surrendered in 773. The successful general, Ṭailsiugga, was the new imperial hero, and was soon elected asemop. Best of all, the entire campaign had apparently failed to alarm the other Skourene cities.

However, Iṭili’s fall awakened them, though the campaign had not: Guṭḷeli’s goals were now obvious to all. Papliopagimi, Engidori, and Meŋeland all allied to meet the threat, and declared war. The war dragged on for more than twelve years. Ṭailsiugga first concentrated on winning territory, then on direct assaults on the allies’ capitals, and then just tried to hold on. For three years Guṭḷeli itself was under siege, but the Guṭḷeliki were able to supply the city by sea. Finally Kolatimand was induced to enter the war, and the allies defeated the Guṭḷelik fleet, leaving Meŋeland’s brilliant general Eŋŋuḷoşum to direct a triumphant assault on the city (786). The allies dismembered Guṭḷeli’s empire: Kuḷiŋibor and Pitrat went to Kolatimand; the Namal to Meŋeland; Papliopagimi got its old territories back, plus Ḍarroḍ; Engidori took Iṭili and Ageşoram.

Later History

In 795, as a junior partner in an alliance with Eŋŋuḷoşum, dictator of Meŋeland, Guṭḷeli attacked Ageşoram and then besieged Ṭisuraku, while Eŋŋuḷoşum (with the help of Iṭili) attacked Nibureli (800).

In the tenth century Kuḷiŋibor's Mudric Confederacy finding it increasingly difficult to maintain commitment to its confederacy, and to the taxation and military readiness that it entailed decided to refocus the confederacy’s external paranoia on the recalcitrant Skourene states, starting with Guṭḷeli. By stages which no one really resisted, this passed into full-scale war (930-38). Guṭḷeli was the largest and richest Skourene city at this time, and it brought Miligenḍi into the war. The allies put up a good fight but the Confederacy was too much for them. After the war Kuḷiŋibor, worried about the centrifugal tendencies of the older Skourene states, created a new political structure to counter them: the Skourene League (Dreşa Skourand). This was built on an extension to the Groparam, the Trucial Council of the delta cities: Guṭḷeli, Miligenḍi, Meŋeland, and Ageşoram were added to the council, and a third of their Confederacy taxes were routed to the new League.

The Confederacy didn’t bother to conquer Guṭḷeli’s island possessions (which continued in independance as "Free Guṭḷeli" until incorporated into the Island League) nor Gurdago.

When Kuḷiŋibor was kicked out of the Mudric Confederacy, the Skourene League effectively became independent. Guṭḷeli took the oppurtunity to regain its independance, which it spent, in general, very eventlessly. Guṭḷeli conquered some of Muḍureg’s hinterland in the 1360s, which was taken by the Iṭilik League at the end of the fifteenth century. In the late sixteenth century Peligi offered Guṭḷeli Ḍarroḍ, as well as an alliance against Meŋeland. The Guṭḷelik senate listened attentively enough to disgust Iṭili, which rescinded some of the privileges of Guṭḷelik traders. Guṭḷeli responded in kind. This left it isolated, and in 1595 Peligi conquered the city, after a short campaign headed by its young general Adesdanti. It was given local autonomy (and indeed control over Ḍarroḍ), but nothing more; Peligi didn’t believe in the polite fictions of the confederacy era. It was a brutal time, and called for brute strength.

In 1641 Guṭḷeli was liberated by Gurdago, and incorporated into its empire. As the Tžuro advanced through Skouras, Gurdago was forced to give up much of its empire in Skouras, but it tenaciously held on to Guṭḷeli, its parent city, through its command of the sea. Finally, however, in 1784, the Tžuro captured Guṭḷeli, and Gurdago had to admit defeat.

Guṭḷeli sank into relative oblivion thereafter. For its modern history, see under its Tžuro name Gudral.

Etymology: Old Skourene ‘good omen’. Uṭandal Gudlai, Tžuro Gudral.