Pelasgia
Established Nation
Propontis, Phryxaea
20/4/1957, 12:00 PM
For many of Pelasgia’s growing class of urban workers, foreign sports such football (known as ‘soccer’ in Southern Himyar), which had been imported by the Engellexians and Eiffellandians, or basketball, which had come north from a Pelasgian expat in Southern Himyar, provided quick, cheap and easy entertainment; indeed, between the teams of the I National League, such as Athlētikē Henōsis Propontidos (AEP), to the smaller but rising teams of the II National League, like Asteras Nestanēs, and the tiny clubs of the Empire’s countless small towns and industrial suburban municipalities, the ever growing fad that was Pelasgian television had more than enough content to entertain those that could afford it, as could the more widely established and much cheaper radio. Of course, most of the nation’s football and basketball matches took place not in some great court or stadium, but at the dusty yards and fields that dotted the land, wherein the nation’s youngsters held power and authority.
Supplementing these imported pastimes where more traditional sports, usually summed up in the Pampelasgian set of games, ranging from simple activities like open-sea swimming and long-distance running, all the way to disk-throwing and pankration, an ancient Leuktran martial art, whose brutal effectiveness was only slightly less obvious in its civilian form. But of course, for the average Propontine, the man or woman who had been raised in the brick-clad streets of the Reigning City, under the shadow of its pillars and domes, there was but one true sport: the Hippodrome’s chariot racing. Indeed, so ingrained in the Propontine and post-Propontine Pelasgian mindset and culture was this single and rather peculiar sport, that the first day of its new season was always a public holiday, taking place invariably almost right after Easter Monday (so as to connect it to Orthodoxy, the other pillar of Pelasgia's collectivist mass culture), a day which accross the Empire was celebrated in each local hippodrome of every major city. The Empress of Cities, of course, was unparalleled among them, being honoured with the attendance of various Senators, Patricians, Notables and even the Imperial Couple.
Dozens of large office and apartment buildings, built in Propontis’s now typical Neo-Propontine style, encircled what many among the lower classes considered to be the very heart of Propontis, their innumerable rows and columns coloured bricks, stained glass windows and arches, forming a truly awe-inspiring array set of surroundings for the Hippodrome of Propontis. From the windows of these structures, which served as an honest and admirable attempt by Pelasgia’s architects to combine Neo-Classical and nineteenth-century Gallo-Germanian architectural principles and motifs into a truly Pelasgian framework of ideas, could be seen a sight that was even more breathtaking: a sea of people, waving banners and sporting clothes of all colours imaginable, interrupted by cylindrical green displays, probably made of iron or some other industrial metal, which were used to display large posters and advertisements, an idea imported from Bourgogne, as well as tall street lights, benches and garbage bins. As the crowd neared the Hippodrome, a massive construct of marble, bricks, stone and Tiburan cement, they seemed miniscule in comparison to a series of large statues and pillars, dedicated to various Emperors, military commanders and famous charioteers.
The oval Hippodrome itself seemed to have remained unaltered over its centuries of existence, though, in reality, it had undergone half a dozen major reconstructions and expansions to keep up with the population growth of the Empress of Cities. In its current incarnation, its rasterised stone base was surmounted by brick arches, with bock brick and stone alternating in white and red to form geometrical patterns and motifs, which were topped by a long colonnade of the Propontine variety of Cydrelian pillars, their long bodies and ornate floral capitals enveloping the entirety of the oval structure. The only exception to the white and red motif of the structure itself was the Black Gate, a large arch covered in obsidian, with a door of pitch-black ebony, through which the spectators usually poured into the stadium, right across from the Kathesma, the elevated section of the spectators’ seats where the Emperor and other notables sat, which could be accessed from the Great Palace by a secret corridor, though for the common Pelasgian this remained an unconfirmed urban legend. The floor of the Plateia Hippodromou (Hippodrome Square) was made of the same pure, Atthic marble as the Hippodrome’s top colonnade, shipped straight from the quarries of greater Anthene, which combined infamy and fame in their reputation for an unmatched quality of marble and an unmatched brutality in working conditions across the Empire. Inside the Hippodrome, rows upon rows of marble stands, which from an original 100,000 spectators in 324 AD had been expanded to handle 400,000 Propontines of all ages and of either sex.
Beyond these seats, and the well-guarded last row, was the central racing area, which started from the Dihippion, the stable from which the charioteers rode into the field, known as such due to being flanked by two large, bronze statues of horses, circled around the semi-circular opposing end of the stadium (known as the Sphendone, for the horses there seemed to accelerate like a rock from a slingshot, where the most fanatical fans of all demes sat) and returned to the Dihippion’s other end, being split in two by a large platform, onto which a series of obelisks were erected, two of the largest among them having been brought there from Memphis and Old Pelasgia, respectively, and a third one being rumoured to be as old as the city of Propontis itself, a creation of its first settlers from the town of Anaktōra in Atthis. The platform itself, called the Spina, was decorated with a wide variety of lust fauna from across the Empire and beyond, as well as large flames.
Thus, in this bustling and beating heart of the Reigning City, in the week after Easter, the most important of all holidays in the Orthodox Christian faith, the personal standards of the Emperor and the Empress flew over the Hippodrome, to mark the beginning of the new season of races. The two standards (sēmeia) were accompanied by countless pennants in the colours of the various demes of the Hippodrome, athletic teams named after the word for the colour of their shirts in the Propontine vernacular, which had in the past wielded political influence and were still connected to factions and parties within the Koinovoulio. Though the Senate’s old factions, each one of which funded and supported a certain deme in exchange for the support of it’s the plebs that belonged to it, were officially gone, the bonds were still very much there and strong. More specifically, the Reds were supported by the SEKP and the DKKP, the Blues by the Nationalists and the National Rally, the Greens by the Mercantile Union and the Whites by the Liberal Union. In turn, the Reds and Whites appealed to people from the docks and port regions, while the Blues and the Greens to those in more inland areas; as the former two had spread to most port cities and the latter two to most inland cities with a Hippodrome of their own, Propontis (and, to a much lesser extent, Therme and Nymphaeum) was the only placed where all four demes met. In recent years, the two demes which had previously dominated the Hippodrome had taken hits, with the Reds (Roussoi) being greatly upset by the fragmentation of their patron party into two, the Blues (Venetoi) losing imperial patronage and preference to the Whites due to the change in dynasty, leaving the room open for the Greens (Prasinoi) and Whites (Leukoi) to step in and assert themselves as the Reigning City’s rising stars.
Finally, after quite a long wait, the Emperor stood up and declared the starts of the games, his toast to those assembled, who had been given a small piece of bread (which had been stamped with the Imperial Family’s Seal to signify their patronage, its shape and size being similar to that of pieces given out at Church), a tradition dating back to ancient Tibur’s “bread and games” policy, now mostly a symbolic gesture. As the chariots emerged from the Dihippion, loud cheers and applause were aimed at both the charioteers and the Imperial couple, with the well-known cry of «Νίκα!» (“Nika!”, meaning “Conquer!” or “Win!”), which had been the motto of many a bloody revolt in the past, overtaking the stadium, in an open display of the plebeian mob that flowed through the heart of Propontis as blood, having shed its blood in the Hippodrome more than once.
As the charioteers passed the Sphendone, the cry grew even more deafeningly loud, climaxing as the charioteers reached the end of the track, with the entirety of the stadium, which was filled to capacity, as well as all those outside of it and standing on the balconies and roofs of the surrounding buildings chanting and jumping up in excitement. Despite all odds, the embittered Reds had won, being represented by the rising star and the working people’s darling, Valentios Kalogeropoulos, an olive-skinned man of above average height, with a prominent jawline and a body that resembled the statues of the Ancients. As the reds, especially those in the Sphendone, rejoiced at their much needed and highly unexpected victory, the Emperor stood to grant unto them one wish, an old tradition historically meant to appease the masses. Retaining the role of an honest way for the people to voice their needs and demands to even the very top of the Empire’s hierarchy, the man who was, to most of them, the living representation of God on Europe, this tradition had not even suppressed by the Junta.
And yet, quite unexpectedly, the stadium erupted in a single phrase, with the Reds lighting red flares as they chanted: «Ζοῦν!». And soon enough, this cry of “They live!” soon became a cry of «Ζήσουν!», meaning “They will live!” or “They must live!”, referring to the other convicted prinery workers. Attalos Laskaris-Komnenos stood in front of his stool, clad in the dark blue uniform of the Imperial Navy. Knowing he could not very well ignore the request of Reds without a loss of face and honour, and with the Empress placing her hand on his shoulder as a sign of concern for what might happen if he did, the Emperor finally made his proclamation: «Θὰ ζήσουν ἐλεύθεροι!» (“They shall live free!”). At once, the Hippodrome erupted in another wave of applause. Soon, the applause transformed from a chorus of unintelligible chants of joy and thanks into a single, resounding and near-histerical cry on the part of the spactators: «Χαῖρε Καίσαρ!» It was thus that the heart of the city erupted in the ages-old and yet never truly forgotten cry of “Hail Caesar!”, as if the moment had been extracted from the Tiburan and Tiburian days of old.
The Emperor sat down, secretely content at the result of his choice, one which he could justify as "necessary" to the currently outraged Patricians and as "completely voluntary" to the Plebeians cheering down below. The blue-clad man relaxed, flanked by his wife in a celebratory purple gown embroidered with a golden double-headed eagle, of the traditional Propontine variety, momentarily allowing a smile to slip through; the Senate had been defeated... for now.
20/4/1957, 12:00 PM
For many of Pelasgia’s growing class of urban workers, foreign sports such football (known as ‘soccer’ in Southern Himyar), which had been imported by the Engellexians and Eiffellandians, or basketball, which had come north from a Pelasgian expat in Southern Himyar, provided quick, cheap and easy entertainment; indeed, between the teams of the I National League, such as Athlētikē Henōsis Propontidos (AEP), to the smaller but rising teams of the II National League, like Asteras Nestanēs, and the tiny clubs of the Empire’s countless small towns and industrial suburban municipalities, the ever growing fad that was Pelasgian television had more than enough content to entertain those that could afford it, as could the more widely established and much cheaper radio. Of course, most of the nation’s football and basketball matches took place not in some great court or stadium, but at the dusty yards and fields that dotted the land, wherein the nation’s youngsters held power and authority.
Supplementing these imported pastimes where more traditional sports, usually summed up in the Pampelasgian set of games, ranging from simple activities like open-sea swimming and long-distance running, all the way to disk-throwing and pankration, an ancient Leuktran martial art, whose brutal effectiveness was only slightly less obvious in its civilian form. But of course, for the average Propontine, the man or woman who had been raised in the brick-clad streets of the Reigning City, under the shadow of its pillars and domes, there was but one true sport: the Hippodrome’s chariot racing. Indeed, so ingrained in the Propontine and post-Propontine Pelasgian mindset and culture was this single and rather peculiar sport, that the first day of its new season was always a public holiday, taking place invariably almost right after Easter Monday (so as to connect it to Orthodoxy, the other pillar of Pelasgia's collectivist mass culture), a day which accross the Empire was celebrated in each local hippodrome of every major city. The Empress of Cities, of course, was unparalleled among them, being honoured with the attendance of various Senators, Patricians, Notables and even the Imperial Couple.
Dozens of large office and apartment buildings, built in Propontis’s now typical Neo-Propontine style, encircled what many among the lower classes considered to be the very heart of Propontis, their innumerable rows and columns coloured bricks, stained glass windows and arches, forming a truly awe-inspiring array set of surroundings for the Hippodrome of Propontis. From the windows of these structures, which served as an honest and admirable attempt by Pelasgia’s architects to combine Neo-Classical and nineteenth-century Gallo-Germanian architectural principles and motifs into a truly Pelasgian framework of ideas, could be seen a sight that was even more breathtaking: a sea of people, waving banners and sporting clothes of all colours imaginable, interrupted by cylindrical green displays, probably made of iron or some other industrial metal, which were used to display large posters and advertisements, an idea imported from Bourgogne, as well as tall street lights, benches and garbage bins. As the crowd neared the Hippodrome, a massive construct of marble, bricks, stone and Tiburan cement, they seemed miniscule in comparison to a series of large statues and pillars, dedicated to various Emperors, military commanders and famous charioteers.
The oval Hippodrome itself seemed to have remained unaltered over its centuries of existence, though, in reality, it had undergone half a dozen major reconstructions and expansions to keep up with the population growth of the Empress of Cities. In its current incarnation, its rasterised stone base was surmounted by brick arches, with bock brick and stone alternating in white and red to form geometrical patterns and motifs, which were topped by a long colonnade of the Propontine variety of Cydrelian pillars, their long bodies and ornate floral capitals enveloping the entirety of the oval structure. The only exception to the white and red motif of the structure itself was the Black Gate, a large arch covered in obsidian, with a door of pitch-black ebony, through which the spectators usually poured into the stadium, right across from the Kathesma, the elevated section of the spectators’ seats where the Emperor and other notables sat, which could be accessed from the Great Palace by a secret corridor, though for the common Pelasgian this remained an unconfirmed urban legend. The floor of the Plateia Hippodromou (Hippodrome Square) was made of the same pure, Atthic marble as the Hippodrome’s top colonnade, shipped straight from the quarries of greater Anthene, which combined infamy and fame in their reputation for an unmatched quality of marble and an unmatched brutality in working conditions across the Empire. Inside the Hippodrome, rows upon rows of marble stands, which from an original 100,000 spectators in 324 AD had been expanded to handle 400,000 Propontines of all ages and of either sex.
Beyond these seats, and the well-guarded last row, was the central racing area, which started from the Dihippion, the stable from which the charioteers rode into the field, known as such due to being flanked by two large, bronze statues of horses, circled around the semi-circular opposing end of the stadium (known as the Sphendone, for the horses there seemed to accelerate like a rock from a slingshot, where the most fanatical fans of all demes sat) and returned to the Dihippion’s other end, being split in two by a large platform, onto which a series of obelisks were erected, two of the largest among them having been brought there from Memphis and Old Pelasgia, respectively, and a third one being rumoured to be as old as the city of Propontis itself, a creation of its first settlers from the town of Anaktōra in Atthis. The platform itself, called the Spina, was decorated with a wide variety of lust fauna from across the Empire and beyond, as well as large flames.
Thus, in this bustling and beating heart of the Reigning City, in the week after Easter, the most important of all holidays in the Orthodox Christian faith, the personal standards of the Emperor and the Empress flew over the Hippodrome, to mark the beginning of the new season of races. The two standards (sēmeia) were accompanied by countless pennants in the colours of the various demes of the Hippodrome, athletic teams named after the word for the colour of their shirts in the Propontine vernacular, which had in the past wielded political influence and were still connected to factions and parties within the Koinovoulio. Though the Senate’s old factions, each one of which funded and supported a certain deme in exchange for the support of it’s the plebs that belonged to it, were officially gone, the bonds were still very much there and strong. More specifically, the Reds were supported by the SEKP and the DKKP, the Blues by the Nationalists and the National Rally, the Greens by the Mercantile Union and the Whites by the Liberal Union. In turn, the Reds and Whites appealed to people from the docks and port regions, while the Blues and the Greens to those in more inland areas; as the former two had spread to most port cities and the latter two to most inland cities with a Hippodrome of their own, Propontis (and, to a much lesser extent, Therme and Nymphaeum) was the only placed where all four demes met. In recent years, the two demes which had previously dominated the Hippodrome had taken hits, with the Reds (Roussoi) being greatly upset by the fragmentation of their patron party into two, the Blues (Venetoi) losing imperial patronage and preference to the Whites due to the change in dynasty, leaving the room open for the Greens (Prasinoi) and Whites (Leukoi) to step in and assert themselves as the Reigning City’s rising stars.
Finally, after quite a long wait, the Emperor stood up and declared the starts of the games, his toast to those assembled, who had been given a small piece of bread (which had been stamped with the Imperial Family’s Seal to signify their patronage, its shape and size being similar to that of pieces given out at Church), a tradition dating back to ancient Tibur’s “bread and games” policy, now mostly a symbolic gesture. As the chariots emerged from the Dihippion, loud cheers and applause were aimed at both the charioteers and the Imperial couple, with the well-known cry of «Νίκα!» (“Nika!”, meaning “Conquer!” or “Win!”), which had been the motto of many a bloody revolt in the past, overtaking the stadium, in an open display of the plebeian mob that flowed through the heart of Propontis as blood, having shed its blood in the Hippodrome more than once.
As the charioteers passed the Sphendone, the cry grew even more deafeningly loud, climaxing as the charioteers reached the end of the track, with the entirety of the stadium, which was filled to capacity, as well as all those outside of it and standing on the balconies and roofs of the surrounding buildings chanting and jumping up in excitement. Despite all odds, the embittered Reds had won, being represented by the rising star and the working people’s darling, Valentios Kalogeropoulos, an olive-skinned man of above average height, with a prominent jawline and a body that resembled the statues of the Ancients. As the reds, especially those in the Sphendone, rejoiced at their much needed and highly unexpected victory, the Emperor stood to grant unto them one wish, an old tradition historically meant to appease the masses. Retaining the role of an honest way for the people to voice their needs and demands to even the very top of the Empire’s hierarchy, the man who was, to most of them, the living representation of God on Europe, this tradition had not even suppressed by the Junta.
And yet, quite unexpectedly, the stadium erupted in a single phrase, with the Reds lighting red flares as they chanted: «Ζοῦν!». And soon enough, this cry of “They live!” soon became a cry of «Ζήσουν!», meaning “They will live!” or “They must live!”, referring to the other convicted prinery workers. Attalos Laskaris-Komnenos stood in front of his stool, clad in the dark blue uniform of the Imperial Navy. Knowing he could not very well ignore the request of Reds without a loss of face and honour, and with the Empress placing her hand on his shoulder as a sign of concern for what might happen if he did, the Emperor finally made his proclamation: «Θὰ ζήσουν ἐλεύθεροι!» (“They shall live free!”). At once, the Hippodrome erupted in another wave of applause. Soon, the applause transformed from a chorus of unintelligible chants of joy and thanks into a single, resounding and near-histerical cry on the part of the spactators: «Χαῖρε Καίσαρ!» It was thus that the heart of the city erupted in the ages-old and yet never truly forgotten cry of “Hail Caesar!”, as if the moment had been extracted from the Tiburan and Tiburian days of old.
The Emperor sat down, secretely content at the result of his choice, one which he could justify as "necessary" to the currently outraged Patricians and as "completely voluntary" to the Plebeians cheering down below. The blue-clad man relaxed, flanked by his wife in a celebratory purple gown embroidered with a golden double-headed eagle, of the traditional Propontine variety, momentarily allowing a smile to slip through; the Senate had been defeated... for now.
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