Wanderer's Tales #6 - Empires
Welcome to Issue 6 of Wanderer’s Tales, the newsletter of Ancient Roads. In this issue is Chapter Six of Shield of the Goddess.
Welcome to Issue 6 of Wanderer’s Tales, the newsletter of Ancient Roads, the web site of Seattle writer and composer Chris Struble.
Here you will find fantasy fiction set in ancient worlds where music makes magic, and the road ahead is always uncertain. Wanderers welcome.
In this issue is Chapter Six of Shield of the Goddess, the adult fantasy novel I am releasing here as a web serial starting in 2025.
This chapter returns to the viewpoint of Jenan, a shepherd boy who dreams of becoming a soldier who rides horses to protect travelers.
Chris Struble
The theme of this newsletter issue is “empires”.
What is an empire? I found one definition of empire as “a political unit consisting of multiple cities, under a single ruler, brought and held together by military force”.
Historians consider the first empire in the world to be the Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century B.C.E, over 4,300 years ago.
The Akkadian Empire was also notable because it produced the earliest named author that we know of. Sargon sent his daughter, the princess Enheduanna, to Ur, and installed her as the high priestess there. Enheduanna’s poems to Inanna, the Akkadian goddess of love and war, have survived. Her poems, written in Sumerian, the language of the people her father conquered, threatened divine wrath against anyone who rebelled against her father’s rule.
The Sumerians rebelled anyway, and after two hundred years, overthrew the Akkadians, and put a curse on their capital city, which has still not been found. But the temple of Ur where Enheduanna walked still exists, as shown in the featured image.
Empires have generated chaos, misery, and death for humanity ever since. Yet even today there are people who admire empires, who say that dominating other people through violence is how it always was and how it always will be.
Consider for example the story of Atlantis, which claims that 11,500 years ago, an island empire in the Atlantic invaded the Mediterranean, was defeated by the ancestors of the Greeks, and then were punished by the gods who caused their island to sink beneath the waves.
A 2018 Chapman University survey on paranormal beliefs found that 57 percent of Americans believe Atlantis or other ancient lost empires existed.
The problem is, the farther back you look in time, the harder it is to find evidence of palaces, fortifications, battlefields, or other signs of early emperors.
What does science know today about what humans were actually doing in the world 11,500 years ago?
First, there were only a few million people in the entire world then. In the Near East a culture scientists call the Natufians had settled down, in villages of about 100 people. These are the earliest settlements we know about anywhere in the world. But even the Natufians didn’t yet have agriculture. They were still hunter-gatherers like everyone else. How exactly was anyone supposed to gather an army of thousands to travel thousands of miles away to attack anyone?
If there was no lost empire at the bottom of history, what was there? Small communities of people trying to survive and thrive in peace. And that is a beautiful story.
People have lived without empires for more than ninety percent of our time on Earth. Ever after the Akkadian Empire, many more people lived outside of empires than within them. People have always resisted empires, and resistance, far from being futile, is often successful.
Imagine a world without empires. What would it be worth to bring such a world into existence?
I will end with a few quick updates. I am delighted to share that I have twelve subscribers now. I am continuing to reach out to family and friends. You can help by sharing this newsletter with a fantasy fiction fan in your life. You’ll have my thanks for spreading the word.
If you enjoyed this article, or the chapters and songs I am sharing here, I hope you will leave a comment.
As always, check out my Books and Music pages to see the ever growing lists of everything I have published here to date.
Please subscribe to stay up to date and receive emails when I publish new content!
See you on the road!
Chris Struble