An Era of Power

(Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3, 4)

With the death of Alexander, and the splintering of his empire, the League of Desmond found itself in a position of unprecedented power. To reward their service, Alexander had given his subordinates - members of the League, all - rulership over the lands under his control. Now, with him gone, the League of Desmond ruled all the known world. In Greece and Macedonia, Cassander ruled; in Thracia (sort of around Byzantinium/Constantinople/Istanbul), Lysimachus seized a kingdom; Ptolemy ruled in Egypt, and Seleucus named his Middle Eastern empire after himself. But with power, inevitably, came corruption. The unity of the League of Desmond did not stand against the temptations of rulership, and Desmondite made war on Desmondite for personal or political gain.

Instead of being a brotherhood of warriors, the League of Desmond became something quite different. For the next hundred and fifty years, the League served as a sort of international leadership caste. Though its members might war on one another, and many held little friendship for their comrades, they could communicate through the League, even in the chaos of war. The League thus served, in some capacity, as a channel of information, to bind the Greek states together. In some circles, it was commonly held that to be a civilized nation was to have a League of Desmond member as king.


In the days of the League of Desmond as warrior brotherhood, meetings would generally consist of ritual competitions - foot-races, discus throwing, arm-polishing, wrestling contents, and so forth - followed by a small feast. In this new League, though, that small feast became the whole of the thing - a tense meeting between rivals, a friendly one between allies, or something more complicated in a larger gathering. One might think of this as being similar to the League today, in our traditional 'feasts' - although there are somewhat fewer rivalries between present-day League members.

In time, all things must past. The Macedonian successor states fell and rose on their own merits, not the League of Desmond's; some collapsed into anarchy, their League rulers fleeing or dying by chance's dictate, while others flourished. More ominous, though, was the Rise of Rome. Ever expanding, Rome steadily conquered, nation after nation falling to their methodical might. Their republican Senate had no interest in the League of Desmond; invitations were met with deaf ears. Even in distant Asia Minor, the wise knew that with Rome's triumph came the League of Desmond's downfall. What could be done to stop that remained to be seen.

Author's note: After this 'series' ends (that is to say, after the next post), I may start working backwards from the present day, or fictionalizing recording some of the incidents that actually occurred to us. Give me a shout-out, tell me what you want.