The Wars of Atlantis Page 7

  Nor were the gods happy at the successes achieved by the Amazons in alliance with Atlantis. Athene, normally the patroness of warrior women, claimed that their worship was never directed to her; indeed, their assault on her favoured clients in Athens offended her. It seemed that they revered some unspecified mother-goddess, but no one on Olympus acknowledged them. If someone was sending Myrina visions, it was unclear who. Zeus had to intervene more than once when dark aspersions were cast between various goddesses.

  In the end, the gods agreed to stand back, for now, save that Athene was permitted to inspire the warrior caste of Athens with strategic insights and a little charisma. It was always better for mortals to resolve such issues themselves if possible, and if the Atlanteans and Amazons had overreached themselves, a few defeats might serve to remind them of their place.

  Finding Local Guides In the later stages of the Atlantean Wars, as the Proto-Athenian-led liberating armies advance along the coast of North Africa, they have to deal with the various peoples of the Atlantean-conquered areas. Here, among ruins of unknown origin, a masked, long-skulled Shemsu Hor priest-lord is acting as negotiator to a group of suspicious Gorgones tribesfolk.

  The Gorgones leaders too are masked, and have a large war-party behind them, while the Shemsu Hor rides a chariot and is escorted by a couple of Egyptian infantry as bodyguards. Behind him, an armoured Proto-Athenian Officer is watching impatiently from his own, less technologically advanced chariot.

  RESISTANCE AND COUNTER-ATTACK

  In point of fact, by now, despite their string of early successes, the invading Atlantis-Amazon alliance seemed to be encountering serious resistance everywhere, if only because they were spread thin holding down their conquests while engaging in adventurous scouting raids. When the fleet sailed back into the mouth of the Nile, it discovered that Atlantean troops could not be spared for a second raid on Greece, because too many of them were in Upper Egypt, attempting to push the borders of the Atlantean Empire southwards in order to eliminate the threat from renegade Shemsu Hor. Amazon garrisons were being withdrawn from Asia, as Myrina’s conquests were proving too expensive to hold, but that was a lengthy, delicate process – and it also left the fleet without bases to the east. Consolidation seemed to be the order of the day.

  This could have been fine, and indeed things became quiet for a year or so. But then, a newly built Proto-Athenian fleet began raiding the remaining Atlantean coastal holdings. Following this, some of the small port-towns on the Asian coast, who had always chafed under the domination of the arrogant Amazons and Atlanteans, began closing their gates to the outsiders – and it turned out that their armed forces were being reinforced by parties of elite Proto-Athenian warriors.

  The Atlanteans should really have crushed these ‘rebellions’, but their leaders found that storming poor fishing towns was expensive, hard work, and somehow less glorious than conquering cities in Tyrrhenia and Egypt, while the Amazons were engaged trying to carve out pasture-based holdings in the hills inland. This complacency soon cost the invaders dearly, as the Greeks built secure bases, and then began raiding into Lower Egypt itself.

  THE REBEL ALLIANCE

  Even that should have been no more than a nuisance, but the Atlanteans had made yet another error; they had trusted the conquered Shemsu Hor far too much. They thought that the priest-lords had accepted a forced alliance, not realizing that, to the Shemsu Hor, Atlanteans and Amazons alike would never be more than presumptuous barbarians. Hence, the ‘friendly’ Shemsu Hor in Egypt were actually more than willing to provide a communication channel between the Proto-Athenians in the north and the ‘renegade’ Shemsu Hor in the south. It was a remarkably secure and efficient channel, too; it may well have involved supernatural powers. Anyway, the Shemsu Hor were very good at keeping secrets.

  The combination of Proto-Athenian military skill and subtle Shemsu Hor wisdom proved formidable. However, the Atlanteans failed to recognize the problem, mostly because the southern Shemsu Hor were never more than a petty and largely passive threat, and they calculated that Athens lacked the forces to threaten them. Indeed, the seaborne attacks on Atlantean holdings soon ended, as the Athenian fleet withdrew north and began harassing the remaining Amazon outposts in the Aegean, and even the nuisance land raids out of Asia diminished in frequency. What the Atlanteans failed to understand was that the Aegean actions served a far more important purpose than just liberating a few small islands.

  Their real purpose was to demonstrate to other Greeks, especially some warlike tribes of the semi-barbarian north, and to some of the peoples of Asia Minor, that Athens could and would defeat these strange outlanders, and hence that allying with Athens was a relatively safe and effective route to glory, plunder, and revenge. Athens found at least two war-leaders prepared to join their side this way: a freebooter from northern Greece named Mopsus, actually a charismatic exile from his homeland, and an Asian named Sipylus. Both provided fresh troops, whom the Athenian fleet quietly shipped southwards. Then, the combined force struck, on the exact day that the Shemsu Hor reported that the annual Nile floods would begin, playing havoc with communications up and down the Nile valley and across the delta.

  Atlantean and Amazon border forces fell back before the initial onslaught, planning to rally a few miles westwards and link up with the main body of the army into a grand force that could crush the attackers. But among the floods, the Atlantean leaders were never able to complete the strategic manoeuvre, especially as their supply system within Egypt began to break down mysteriously – the dashing Amazon cavalry and formidable Atlantean chariots bogged down in the seasonal mud – and reports began to come in of Shemsu Hor assaults in the south. The Proto-Athenians were able to defeat the army of occupation piecemeal.

  The Atlanteans were angry at what they saw as betrayal by the Shemsu Hor, but also worried; one or two reports of assassinations were enough to make them fearful of the enigmatic masked theocrats. Suddenly, Egypt seemed much less hospitable than they had thought. A retreat back to the colony towns of north-west Africa seemed merely good sense; after all, they had strength in depth there, and they still held Tyrrhenia. The fact that what they saw as good sense looked like cowardice and humiliation to the proud warrior Amazons barely crossed their minds.

  And it was true that the Proto-Athenians did not, at first, follow them into the uncertain deserts. They needed to secure Egypt and recover strength of their own; they also wanted to take a look at some of what they had captured. Atlantean weapons and armour were not massively superior to Proto-Athenian equipment, but they were better in some small ways, which interested the highly professional warrior caste. As it turned out, Egypt held craftsmen who were fully willing and able to re-equip the Proto-Athenian troops as requested, and the Shemsu Hor permitted this freely. They calculated that the Atlantean threat still needed to be eliminated properly, or their temples would again come under threat, in a year or five years or ten. Hence, what the Atlanteans thought was a comfortable respite actually favoured their enemies far more than themselves; a great counter-invasion was shaping up in the Nile Delta.

  Shemsu Hor in Darkness. The long-skulled Shemsu Hor seem to have vanished in the confusion of the collapse of Atlantean Age civilization. However, some scholars believe that they became the secret rulers of Egypt for thousands of years. Here, two such masked conspirators meet in the shadows to discuss their plans.

  EGYPTIAN ARMED FORCES

  Egypt in the Atlantean age was a literate, orderly society under the firm control of the Shemsu Hor, with little interest in expanding beyond its borders. Hence, its army was organized as a defensive force, and relied on numbers and determination (inspired by the rulers’ supposed semi-divine nature) rather than complex tactics or equipment.

  The vast mass of troops were peasant levies, raised by a complex system of rotas and mostly fighting as spear-armed infantry. Every man was responsible for providing his own equipment, which usually meant just a spear and a large, light, rectangula
r shield, although armies usually also included a fair number of archers. Regular drills and musters were organized at the village level, but were surprisingly thorough; the army could at least execute simple manoeuvres reliably in the field.

  This mass of spearmen might occasionally be reinforced by barbarian mercenaries, usually recruited from just over the nation’s borders, who were less reliable or dedicated but more habitually warlike. The army’s most colourful troops, though, were its long-skulled Shemsu Hor charioteers – probably mostly younger sons of the ruling class, although details of how these warriors were selected are as shadowy as everything else about the rulers of Egypt in this age.

  The Shemsu Hor rode into action on lightweight, two-man chariots which were as technologically sophisticated as any wheeled vehicle seen before the Roman Empire. Each carried one driver and one spearman, both masked as usual for their class; they acted as both scouts and standard-bearers, coordinating themselves by some enigmatic means (allegedly magical). The chariots moved around the battlefield, probing and checking for weaknesses on either side, then taking command of groups of infantry to reinforce their own lines or pressure the enemy.

  This decentralized system of leadership was more effective than it had any right to be, but failed in the face of aggressive Atlantean and Amazon forces with better equipment, especially once Amazon horse archers learned to target the Egyptian charioteers at every opportunity.

  COUNTER-STROKE

  When it came, the Greek-led move was well organized and well planned. The Atlanteans and Amazons had left garrisons along the coast road, intended to delay any enemy armies and give warning of their approach, but these simply gave the Proto-Athenians a series of heartening easy victories and some experience with their new equipment. Nor were they moving through truly hostile territory; each liberated port town and petty kingdom had, it seemed, suffered enough under Amazon dominance or Atlantean arrogance that it was keen to become an ally to the counter-invaders.

  THE DEATH OF QUEEN MYRINA

  Soon enough, the counter-attack reached north-west Africa and the lands of the major Atlantean colonies – and also the eastern borders of the Amazon domains. The Greek-led forces were actually feeling overstretched by now, and were prepared to pause for breath; they might have considered armistice terms if their enemies had offered. However, they were denied the chance.

  Among their field commanders, Mopsus, the northern Greek exile, was somewhat unpopular with the Proto-Athenians and Shemsu Hor, who considered him erratic (though effective in the attack), but he was popular with the irregulars and mercenary troops for his sheer style. These troops considered the plunder they had so far received to be less than adequate, and Mopsus spotted the opportunity to acquire loot and glory for himself – both of which he could exploit to return to his homeland and perhaps seize power.

  Mustering a savage contingent of nomads, exiles, and mercenaries, including a large force of Asian troops under Sipylus, Mopsus executed a completely unexpected night march from the alliance encampment, catching everyone (on both sides) unawares with a sudden attack across the border into Amazon territory. It was a wildly foolhardy move, but Mopsus was lucky (or well informed); the bulk of the enemy army had already withdrawn westwards, with the Atlanteans anxious to reach the shelter of their own colony towns, and Mopsus caught only a tired and disorganized rearguard force under the command of Queen Myrina herself, who was anxious to secure her eastern territories. In a confused battle in the Amazon camp, Mopsus’s personal force cornered the queen, who was killed by Greek spears. The rest of the Amazon force, shocked and disheartened, were routed by Sipylus and his savage war-bands.

  This success brought Mopsus and Sipylus all the glory they wanted, and their force proceeded to run riot across Amazon territory, wiping out Amazon forces in detail. The Proto-Athenians shook their heads at the untidiness of the whole business, hid their envy of the glory gained by these northern and eastern barbarians, and marched on through, leaving Mopsus to his plundering. Their objective was more serious; the Atlantean colony towns.

  PROTO-ATHENIAN ARMED FORCES

  The nation occupying the region which, in Plato’s time, would be known as Athens, and which may already have carried something like that name, comprised a rugged, independent-minded mountain people who were in the process of transforming themselves into an urban culture, and who already dominated Greece. The army which fought Atlantis consisted almost entirely of members of a military caste, trained from youth and well equipped thanks to the compulsory support of the other classes. This meant that the Proto-Athenian army was smaller in comparison to its population base than that of some other nations, but every man in it was trained from youth as a soldier; their weapon skills, tactical understanding, and morale were all excellent. It could usually put around 20,000 men into the field at any time, but they also effectively had deep reserves, as more members of the military caste were always in training or off-duty but still in fighting trim.

  Tactically, ‘Proto-Athens’ had apparently adopted a system similar to that of their distant descendants, the classical Greeks, with a heavy emphasis on spear-armed infantry fighting in tight formations. A few leading members of the warrior caste rode in chariots and wore even heavier bronze armour than the rest, but these mostly served as scouts, officers, and a mobile striking force that could exploit weaknesses in the enemy line of battle. Unlike the Greek nobles of the later Homeric era, these chariot warriors accepted that they had to work with the infantry, rather than seeking out heroic one-on-one duels. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the Proto-Athenian army was a severe shortage of light infantry, as members of the military caste all expected to serve as heavy infantry or chariot warriors, as a point of dignity – but during the Atlantean Wars, this weakness was largely covered by the presence of more lightly equipped allies.

  ‘Proto-Athenian’ military technology and organization improved throughout the Atlantean Wars, as the Greek forces progressed from gadfly seaborne raiding and disorganized resistance to the invaders to fighting and winning pitched battles, and then to acting as the most effective element of large, unwieldy alliance armies. In order to fight and defeat the Atlanteans on Atlantean terms, the Greeks had to learn from their opponents, and also from their allies; by the end of the wars, they increasingly resembled the Atlanteans in equipment and tactics. Light troops still mostly came from allied nations, but the best of these were now trusted to work closely with the Proto-Athenians, and some troops from every nation had learned to operate as reasonable cavalry.

  CONQUEST OF THE COLONIES

  On the way they acquired more forces; every hill-tribe and independent trade-town which they found still seemed keen to contribute warriors to the cause. In any case, local communities suspected that they had a choice between donating supplies voluntarily or having them taken anyway, and those who came fully aboard had the best chance of making some return on the contribution. The weirdest of these new allies, and the most significant in many ways, were the Gorgones.

  The Proto-Athenians saw these people merely as a large barbarian tribe who had given both the Atlanteans and the Amazons considerable trouble, who knew the country well, and who were said to have significant mystical powers. The Shemsu Hor knew a little more, and may have been worried about what they had to deal with here – but they were also even more enthusiastic to have the Gorgones on their side rather than opposing them. Anyway, several important mountain passes led through Gorgones territory, and several of their strategic plans would work better if their forces could use these freely and the Atlanteans could not. And so, as the combined army moved west, its leaders sent careful embassies into the upland forests.

  They were gratified by the results. The Gorgones, it seemed, had been angered by the Amazon campaigns against themselves, and their masked witch-queens hungered for revenge. They were even willing to commit a few warriors to the actual battles, as well as giving the Proto-Athenians and Shemsu Hor free passage. All they asked in retur
n was free access to various temples and sacred places in the territories that they were about to help take. The Athenians smiled to themselves about barbarian superstitions, and agreed freely; the Shemsu Hor were a little uncomfortable, but they were the junior partners in matters of strategy, so all they could do was resolve to watch the Gorgones carefully.

  And so the counter-invasion force together launched a methodical campaign, moving just fast enough to keep the Atlanteans off-balance; the Amazons were too distracted by grief for their queen and by succession disputes to be much help now. Numbers and the defensive advantage should have favoured Atlantis at this point, but they were simply not receiving the support they felt they needed from their homeland; the kings and nobles who had remained at home on Atlantis itself still formed the majority in council, and were asking why they should waste lives and treasure on a empire-building project that was clearly not worth the effort.

  It has been suggested that the abrupt and stunning collapse of Atlantean morale had another cause. The Gorgones, it has been suggested, had been brewing great, dark curses to call down upon those who had massacred their warriors and driven them into the barren mountains. Atlantis had perhaps previously benefited from divine blessings that shielded them against such dark powers, but now the gods, annoyed by Atlantean arrogance, had obliged Poseidon to withdraw his shielding favour. This would certainly explain why the counter-invasion was so effective; within little more than a year of the death of Queen Myrina, every Atlantean colony town in Africa was under siege if not already taken, and all of them fell within months. Meanwhile, the Atlantean garrisons in Italy found themselves unsupported and facing a series of local revolts, and began a process of fairly well-managed withdrawal. Even Gades and the other Atlantean holdings in Spain began to reconsider their position, although they actually considered declaring neutrality; Atlantis was doing little for them, after all, and they were now established enough to survive on their own resources.