by Phil Masters
The other notable thing about the Amazons was that their armour and shield-coverings were often made of the skins of giant snakes. It seems that North Africa held a substantial population of some now-unknown species of very large serpent at the time. In fact, there were reports of gigantic snakes in this region as late as the Roman period, some of them dangerous enough that Roman forces encountering them were obliged to use siege artillery to kill them. It seems that their scaled hides, properly prepared, made more than adequate protection, and the Amazons were experts in the necessary skills.
These troops were armed on fairly standard Iron Age lines, with swords, spears, and bows. Significantly, their cavalry were very skilled archers, able to shoot backwards from the saddle while evading their opponents – a trick later mostly associated with Asian horse archers and known as the ‘Parthian shot’ after one nation that used it. This made Amazon armies very effective on open battlefields, and they had the discipline and courage to storm enemy fortifications when necessary; but like many ‘regular’ armies with a liking for cavalry, they had difficulty suppressing irregular opponents who were using guerrilla tactics in forested or mountain territory.
THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT
Meanwhile, combined Atlantean and Amazon armies were continuing to advance along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, building depots and military encampments as they went, supported by the Atlantean navy. By now the Amazons, hearing their allies’ exaggerated boasts of triumphs and plunder on the other side of the sea, were beginning to chafe at the less exciting nature of their own accomplishments. If the Shemsu Hor heard about this new threat on their western horizons and hoped to dissuade it from attacking by diplomacy or by their own reputation as uncanny, powerful priest-lords, their hopes were sadly misguided.
For their part, the Amazons, who had previous distant knowledge of Egypt acquired through traders, provided some useful intelligence. They recognized that a rapid attack was desirable before the Shemsu Hor leaders realized that they were dealing with something more serious than the usual bands of desert raiders they could so easily suppress. They also warned the Atlanteans about the theurgic powers possessed by the Shemsu Hor, in terms strong enough that the Atlanteans took them seriously, and summoned royal princes from their island home to petition their own divine ancestors to balance this threat.
Whether Poseidon truly answered these requests is unclear – but then, it’s equally uncertain which powers the Shemsu Hor could actually invoke, though they named Horus in their public declarations. In any event, after a few scouting raids by Amazon light cavalry had probed the Egyptian borders, the entire invading army hit the western Nile Delta in force. A strong line of border fortifications crumbled within days, and then the invaders set to work taking town after town. Sais itself, which happened to be located in the path of the first wave of invasion, fell after a few weeks, even before the Shemsu Hor were able to muster a full-sized field army.
But the Shemsu Hor were never based in just one town, and soon a more than adequate force was marching down the Nile. The ensuing battle took place in the central delta region. It should have been an equal contest; even fielding only a fraction of the military capabilities of their land, the Egyptians significantly outnumbered the Atlantean-Amazon army, and the Shemsu Hor leaders, although inexperienced, were imbued with the warrior wisdom of the falcon god Horus himself. But they were too arrogant, and too dependent on their divine powers. In answer to their invocations, a fierce desert sun beat down on the battlefield and in the eyes of attackers who should have been parched and weary – but the Atlanteans arrived with a storm from the sea at their backs, which blotted out the sun while the Egyptian chariot horses became skittish and uncontrollable. After a day’s hard slog between the two infantry forces, the Egyptians collapsed as Atlantean chariots and cavalry worked their way around and struck at their flanks.
Now, though, with the western delta and its granaries secured, it was the Atlanteans’ turn to become complacent. They settled down to consolidate their hold on the conquered area as reinforcements showed up by stages along the coast route. With the arrival of a small contingent of South Atlantean war-elephants, the invaders assumed that everything that followed would be a mopping-up operation.
Then they discovered that the Shemsu Hor had been recruiting hard all that time, and that they were now facing three armies, each as large as the one they had beaten at the Battle of the Delta (if not perhaps quite as well-trained, but the Egyptians depended little on the skills of their rank and file). It was going to be a long, hard slog, as the Atlantean-Amazon forces pushed east and south. They won four battles out of five over the next three years, but they had to earn their victories.
The Atlantean fleet had played an invaluable supporting role in the advance through North Africa. While the Atlantean-Amazon army advanced along the coast, moving through lightly inhabited areas, the fleet kept it supplied in an impressive exercise in logistics, whatever the local terrain. Then, when the forces arrived in the Nile Delta, the fleet played an active role in the capture of several coastal towns, enforcing blockades that starved the defenders out and sometimes even landing forces in the face of opposition or behind Egyptian lines.
Now, however, as the invaders advanced up the Nile, the fleet, and the Atlantean princes in charge of it and their admirals, found themselves twiddling their thumbs. This led them into a serious long-term mistake.
Shemsu Hor Charioteer. The long-skulled priest-lords of Egypt helped establish that country’s long tradition of chariot warfare. This individual is driving a typically sophisticated vehicle of a type that would not be matched for thousands of years; the quivers for javelins or arrows remind us that it is suited for military service or hunting, although the chariot would carry a crew of two in battle. Like all Shemsu Hor seen in public, the driver wears a falcon-mask that honours the god Horus.
RAIDS ON GREECE
As Atlantean armies had conquered their way through North Africa and Italy, they had occasionally found themselves fighting small but competent mercenary forces from an unknown land, or suffered nuisance raids by seafaring buccaneers from the same region. Now, with time to collate their intelligence, they identified the source of these nuisances – the lands of Greece, north across the sea. Thinking to punish what they saw as provocation (from peoples who actually had no organized foreign policy), and looking for glory, the Atlantean navy undertook to strike back at these ‘barbarians’.
Taking most of the fleet, the Atlantean admirals launched what was basically a reconnaissance in force, burning a few seaports, taking some slaves, and raiding into the territory of the strongest Proto-Greek city-state, Athens. They then sailed back to Egypt in triumph.
Even if they hadn’t been vainglorious about their achievements, this would have been a mistake on several grounds. For one thing, the main access point to the lands of the gods was in Greece, atop Mount Olympus, and the Proto-Greeks were devout worshippers of the pantheon; some of these actions had a taste of blasphemy. More significantly, the Atlantean attack was large and violent enough to unnerve everyone in Greece, convincing the Proto-Greeks that Atlantis might be a threat; but it did nothing like enough damage to reduce the Proto-Greeks’ military power significantly. It also introduced the Proto-Greeks to Atlantean military technology, giving them a hint of what they would have to face or match.
However, the Proto-Greeks were smart enough not to attempt immediate revenge, and anyway they lacked the naval power to launch a counterattack. Instead, the cities spent some time arguing about significance and priorities, and struggled to obtain information on these new enemies. The whole effort might actually have come to nothing, if their opponents had not come to them.
Atlantean Slinger. A rather wild-looking individual from one of the less wealthy mountain regions of Atlantis, equipped with just a sling, a small wooden shield, and a large knife. He is probably a shepherd by upbringing, and he may have become very skilled with his sling through long prac
tice, then turned to mercenary service as (hopefully) a path to greater wealth.
AMAZON ADVENTURISM
The key point now was that divisions were appearing between the two elements of the Atlantean-Amazon land forces. The deal between Atlantis and the Amazons was, essentially, that the former could lay claim to the wealth of Egypt’s cities, while the horse-oriented culture of the Amazons could lay claim to more open lands around and beyond them. Now, though, even as they won their Egyptian war, forcing the Shemsu Hor to sue for peace, the Atlanteans were bogged down assimilating their conquests, installing governors and dealing with the stubborn pride of their new Shemsu Hor subjects. Indeed, some of the Shemsu Hor actually retreated beyond the southern borders of Egypt as others offered surrender. These hold-outs organized small, efficient, chariot-based forces, and took to harassing the conquerors.
The Amazons had no taste for the hard slog of imperial bureaucracy, and saw that if they wanted their own conquests, they had to take them for themselves. So Queen Myrina mustered an army in the eastern delta and led it further east and north. This force included most of the Amazon cavalry, enough Amazon infantry to support them, a few chariot-riding Atlantean nobles who wanted a chance at more glory than Egypt seemed to offer (plus their personal retinues), and, rumour claimed, one or two renegade Shemsu Hor. It also included plenty of carts and mules to keep it supplied. Some Atlantean leaders saw this departure as a betrayal, as they were still spread thin in Egypt, but most were happy to see their grumbling allies leave. The excellent Amazon light cavalry were little use in this war of consolidation, after all.
And so it was a highly mobile force which crossed the Sinai Peninsula and erupted into the Levant. Myrina’s first opponents there were desert nomads, who were easily crushed whenever they were foolish enough to give battle to the invaders, but as the Amazons moved north, she ran into more settled societies. Some of these they defeated in battle, but this was far less of a systematic conquest than the Atlantean campaign in Egypt; Myrina was generally happy to terrorize each village and city into paying her enough tribute in supplies for her to keep going onto the next. In the absence of strong central governments in the region, the force simply rolled through until it entered the region of Cilicia (what is now southern coastal Turkey), where it found a cluster of petty city-states. These were used to playing military-political games with each other, making and breaking alliances at whim; faced with an army that had each of them outclassed, all of them promptly raced to offer fealty to Myrina for fear that their neighbours would ally with her first against themselves. Myrina was happy enough to accept these offers, as this gave her a base of operations in the region. She skirmished with the inhabitants of the Taurus Mountains to the north-east, until they withdrew to the high ground, giving her forces free passage to the north.
The renewed expedition thus reached as far as the Black Sea. All along the way, Myrina suppressed any local tribes who looked inclined to resist her before setting the limits of her grandiose territorial claims at various arbitrary points, usually along the lines of local rivers. She did endeavour to stabilize her ‘conquests’ by founding towns, or at least permanent military encampments, at various points, usually naming them for the generals from her force whom she left in charge, but this left her stretched for numbers. Still, this sweeping expedition could be considered to be an impressive reconnaissance in force, or at least a giant pillaging operation.
THE AEGEAN CAMPAIGN
After a couple of years rampaging around Asia Minor, Myrina withdrew to Cilicia. She had a good reason for this; once there, she linked up once again with the Atlanteans – specifically with the Atlantean fleet, whose admirals had kept in touch with her and who shared her taste for wide-ranging glory. Now, she had use of maritime transports – and the fleet, having taken a large contingent of Amazon infantry on board back in Egypt – had enough troops available to return to Greece and assert a little more dominance. However, Myrina and the Atlantean princes were shrewd enough to be methodical about this, now that they were hoping for slightly more permanent conquests.
Their idea was to launch an extended campaign, using the islands of the Aegean Sea as stepping-stones on their way to the Greek mainland. After taking a couple of small islands by way of rehearsal, the invaders seized the island of Lesbos, which Myrina declared would be the capital of her Greek conquests. She spent some months establishing a military town there, naming it ‘Mytilene’ after her sister. (It survives to this day as the capital of the island.) Then the fleet and its Amazon marines set to work methodically securing one island after another.
This continued until a day when Myrina and the flotilla she was commanding at the time were caught at sea by a furious storm. The Olympian gods were paying some attention to events by then, and it is possible that this was a sign of divine displeasure – or it may just have been a natural event. In any case, Myrina certainly felt the need to pray for deliverance, and to promise the goddess whom she worshipped that she would show proper gratitude if she survived. At length, her ship was blown into the lee of an uninhabited island, where it was able to ride out the abating storm in safety.
Myrina staggered ashore, and declared that the island matched a sacred vision which she had received. Therefore, she said, the island itself was sacred to the goddess. This was the island now known as Samothrace, in the northern Aegean, and Myrina spent some time establishing altars and shrines there, along with an outpost to maintain them; it would retain an air of sacred significance into classical times.
In practice, at this point, the island was a symptom of the growing problem with Myrina’s campaign; her forces were spread too thin, and she lacked strategic focus. Meanwhile, the Atlantean naval commanders wanted a greater victory to report than Myrina’s methodical island-hopping had yet provided. When Myrina returned from Samothrace, they demanded a council of war on Lesbos, and forced her hand.
RAID ON ATHENS
In fact, the Athenian naval commanders demanded that the fleet should be committed to an assault on what they now knew, from interrogation of the peoples of the captured islands, to be the strongest and best-respected city-state on the mainland: Athens. If that could be taken, or at least humbled, they calculated, the rest of these annoyingly independent-minded outlanders would soon fall into line – and no barbarian town could hope to stand before the might of Atlantis … and its allies.
Myrina was not really much inclined to argue; in truth, she wanted a little glory for herself. And so, the island garrisons were stripped of as many troops as they could spare, the fleet was loaded with supplies, and the whole force sailed south and west across the breadth of the Aegean.
A little rough weather along the way was no discouragement; only a few ships were damaged or scattered, and both commanders and troops remained confident. However, while Myrina’s preparatory campaign had given the attackers a firm base, it had also alerted all Greece to the existence of a growing threat – and the military caste in Athens was sensible enough to keep a watch. The Atlanteans had no chance of achieving surprise.
The first battle in the Atlantean-Athenian War was fought at sea. In fact, it consisted of a series of naval skirmishes. The Athenian peacetime fleet had no real chance of stopping the might of Atlantean naval power, but it could delay it by a day or two, and then shadow it as it found beaches on which to land infantry. And so it was that, when the invaders’ Amazon marines attempted to storm ashore, they were met by much of the military power of Athens.
They had their own advantages, of course, not least a fair amount of experience in such actions, but even so they were driven back from the first three attempts. Eventually, parties found themselves on land, but scattered up and down the coast of the region of Attica, and mostly locked in patchy skirmishes with reacting Athenian columns. A few Amazon parties did reach the outskirts of Athens itself, and even took some plunder and started some fires, but those forces were soon either destroyed or forced to retreat in haste to the landing beaches t
o be sure of getting away when the fleet, lacking a secure harbour, was obliged to withdraw.
Which it was, soon enough. The raid had not been a glorious success, and although the Atlantean nobles told a story of grand victories and humbled barbarians, supported by a little plunder and a few captive slaves, they understood that. Greece was at the limits of their reach, and any further attacks would need stronger forces and careful planning.
The Proto-Athenian military caste, on the other hand, felt humiliated and angry. They were proud warriors, and yet their own city had been attacked by outlanders, with parts of it being burned before the enemy sailed away unpunished. Apart from the blow to their pride, this was politically dangerous. The lesser castes in Athens had always been told that the tribute they had to pay to the military caste ensured their security, while the other city-states and tribes in Greece were generally kept cowed by fear of Athenian superiority. The Atlanteans had called all this into question; unless Athens could reclaim its aura of invulnerability, there might be trouble.
Atlantis was going to have to pay.
DIVINE ATTITUDES
The great Atlantean campaign of conquest did not go unnoticed in realms beyond the Earth. After all, the Atlanteans periodically petitioned Poseidon for aid, while the Shemsu Hor called on their patron Horus – or perhaps some Olympian deity who adopted that guise when dealing with the Egyptians. When the invaders seemed to approach Mount Olympus itself, however briefly, the gods in residence could no longer look on these events with entirely detached amusement.
And so Zeus called a council, at which everyone was casting glances at Poseidon. The Atlanteans were his clients, ruled by his descendants, and while it was entirely within his domain to sponsor an island empire, and he was fully entitled to be pleased by their achieving success by means of the rules he had established, nevertheless when they threatened to conquer much of the world, the other deities felt that a mark was being overstepped. Poseidon grumbled that this was never a task which he had assigned to them, but the others suggested that a divine reminder might have been in order some time since. At best, Poseidon was inattentive; at worst, he looked over-ambitious.
