Miligenḍi

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Miligenḍi
100 - 930
Native:	Miligenḍi
Verdurian:	Miligendži
Characteristics
Capital:	Miligenḍi
Government:	'strong governor’ (ugaşras)
Ruler’s title	ageşor
Language:	Old Skourene
Religions:	Skourene paganism

Author: Furius

Miligenḍi was an important city in Ancient Skouras, located on the west bank of the Šinour, near Gasibor, Ṭisuram and Sokandeli. Its modern name is Milegenji.

Early History

Miligenḍi was founded in the first century, growing from a trade depot in the same manner as the delta cities of Iṭili, Imuṭeli and Engidori, but due to their stimulus rather than that of the Jei.

Miligenḍi organised itself as an ugaşras— what we might call a ‘strong governor’ system. The other Skourenes viewed this as primitive, and perhaps it was. The smapali was an advisory council rather than a ruling senate (As it was in the delta cities). It chose the ruler, the ageşor (‘governor’); but he ruled day-to-day, convening the council only when there were pressing financial or military concerns. The governor served until he died or voluntarily retired, though there were provisions for the recall of an incompetent or treacherous ruler.

As the Littoral was explored, the cities founded colonies; Miligenḍi settled Barmund, founding Tisutra and Peligi as administrative centres.

The Classical Era

In 295 Epuneka, the asemop of Imuṭeli, precipitated the war with Miligenḍi, by attacking on Ṭisutra and Teralam (Iṭili’s Gelihur colony). Ṭisutra was captured, while Miligenḍi and its allies achieved nothing. Along with Engidori, they had sent an army against Imuṭeli itself. Finding its approaches too well fortified, the allied army rampaged around Imuṭeli’s hinterland, causing a good deal of damage, but doing nothing to win the war. The next year, however, the allied army turned south and captured Meŋeland. Epuneka retaliated by besieging Peligi. This, however, allowed the allies to liberate Guṭḷeli. The Imuṭelik Senate sent secret envoys to the allies, asking if they would consider peace in return for Epuneka’s head. The allies decided that this signalled weakness, and returned north to attack Imuṭeli again. Finally, in 299, the allies drove Epuneka once more out of Meŋeland, and peace negotiations began. Imuṭeli was forced to return the cities it had conquered.

Ṭisuram was one of the oldest cities, and an important religious center; and yet early on it had fallen under the control of Miligenḍi. Many Ṭisuramanda had achieved distinction in the war against Imuṭeli, and they floated the idea that Pitrat should be given to them, as their own Littoral colony. This would not at all have been acceptable to Miligenḍi’s allies, but this point was not appreciated in Ṭisuram. And once their eyes were opened, the Ṭisuramanda found more and more slights to their dignity in continued Miligenḍik rule. In 337 the senate deposed the Miligenḍik governor and appointed its own asemop, Umini. The Miligenḍiki were caught somewhat by surprise— they had never really understood, nor cared to understand, the disaffection in the city— and for a few weeks did nothing. Finally they moved to crush the rebellion. This should have been easy— Miligenḍi had twice the population of Ṭisuram, and the resources of a littoral empire— but the rebel city had been fortified back when war with Imuṭeli threatened, and Umini had arranged with Iṭili for a supply of grain. It weathered a six-month siege and then, as the besiegers were in disorder, with many units off supplying themselves from the hinterland, they counterattacked. They won the battle, and spent two days rounding up the stragglers as prisoners and holding them for ransom. This did not quite end the war— the Miligenḍiki raised another army and attempted another siege— but this went nowhere, and the next year they recognized Ṭisuram’s independence.

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). Political conflicts, as for instance the squabbles over Pitrat, were intensified by these ideological divisions. 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, and destroyed 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, which brought in Miligenḍi as an ally. 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. By the end of the war Miligenḍi had captured Pitrat and Meŋeland.

Miligenḍi had emerged from the Quadrilateral War with a naval empire— and a serious strategic weakness: its route from the city to the sea passed the three hostile delta cities. But to exploit this, its enemies needed to keep Ṭisuram from coming to its aid. The Engidorid asemop Minnukitum found the solution: rank bribery. He offered Ṭisuram the island of Ḍarroḍ (as well as three dozen barrels of gold and 144 Tžuro horses) to stay out of the coming war. Ṭisuram accepted. He also signed alliances with Gasibur, Guṭḷeli, and Iṭili. The war began in 465. Gasibur invaded from the north; Iṭili and Engidori undertook to block the river; Guṭḷeli attacked Nemiṭali, and all the allies except Gasibur sent armies against Meŋeland. All the attacks succeeded. The allies then wasted a season on a fruitless attack on Miligenḍi, then fell to blaming each other for their failure. A treaty was finally signed in 469, Miligenḍi lost Meŋeland, but retained its possessions in Pitrat and Barmand.

Later History of Miligenḍi

A plague (the ḍaukiurli), struck the delta starting in 530 and spread north along the Šinour, killing up to a quarter of the population. It had much less effect in the colder and less populated Littoral. The colonies of the littoral thus increased in importance, and Pitrat was therefore able to declare independance from Miligenḍi in 545.

Miligenḍi responded by extending its control across the Akšunsava, creating a little empire over the Mei. Their hope was to reach Gotanneli, either for trade or for conquest. They had difficulty finding colonists, however, and even to maintain order they relied on Tžuro mercenaries.

Guṭḷeli fought a short war with Miligenḍi in 712 in Barmund, leaving Miligenḍi with little more than Pitrat. When a depression hit Miligenḍi, forcing it to default on loans to Guṭḷeliki banks, Guṭḷeli 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. Even so, with the loss of revenues from Pitrat it had to face the fact that its Mei empire was a money-loser, and it withdrew from some of its conquests.

In 930, the Mudric Confederacy, under Kuḷiŋibor, declared war on Guṭḷeli, which brought Miligenḍi into the war. The allies put up a good fight— their highest moment was sacking and burning Meŋeland— but the Confederacy was too much for them, and they were defeated in 938. 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). into which Miligenḍi as well as Iṭili, Imuṭeli, Ṭisuram, Meŋeland, Guṭḷeli, and Ageşoram were incorporated. When Kuḷiŋibor lost control of the Mudric Confederacy in 975, this Skourene League drifted into independence.

Ṭisuram had no interest in staying in the league and declared independance, taking Miligenḍi with it. Later, in the fourteenth century, Miligenḍi was captured by Papliopagimi.

In 1630 the Tžuro under Burudusi invaded Papliopagimi and executed each of its senators, razed its walls and all its temples, and massacred its remaining soldiers. Burudusi promised the remaining cities clemency if they surrendered. All but Miligenḍi did, and when Miligenḍi was taken the next year it received the same terroristic treatment. Miligenḍi was liberated by Ṭisuram, with aid from Pitrat in 1649, but fell to the Tžuro again when they returned from Munkhâsh, this time for good.

For its modern history, see Milegenji.

Etymology: Old Skourene ‘they were summoned; they came’. Tžuro Milegenji; Uṭandal Milgandi.