The Line of Emperors I

By the virtue and patronage of Emperor Pelagius IV, I, Jaume Abtacil, have been granted the scholarly task of presenting to the discerning public a full and unbiased account of the Line of Emperors, beginning with the first, Blessed Alessia, who did found the First Empire, and her many descendants, to the rule of the Remanites, whose iron hand did maintain the Second Empire, to the ascendancy of Tiber Septim, anon Talos, from whom the line of Septim does continue to this day and forever. Herewith I will chronicle their lives and deeds, tally their virtues, expound on their blessed example, so that the people of Tamriel may know the Emperors in their glory.


I. ALESSIA or AL-ESH, ALESHUT, PERRIF, PARAVANIA

What little we know of the early Emperors came to us through hearsay and myth, and is as such an unworthy basis for fair scholarly enterprise. The true and unvarnished record as was written by the scribes of ages past has sadly felt the tooth of Akatosh, and, more insidiously, the blind zealotry of the Marukhati, whose dogmatic refusal of time's arrow led them to the ritual destruction of many an archive and library. What little they left was once again victim to man's thirst for destruction, and fell to fire and ruin in the War of Righteousness.


As such, when we speak of the Emperors of the First Empire, we must guard for the contrivances of the bard, who seeks to lead us astray on the byways of legend and folklore. Still, where of history naught remains but story, it is the scholar's duty to record, and extract from the song of the past the essence of verity.


The ancestry of the First Empress of Man is forever shrouded in mystery. Empress Alessia first rose to prominence in the Ayleid fiefdom known as Sard or Sard Avar Leed, where many tribes of Man were held in service, and the old clan-bonds and lines of patrimony had fallen into obscurity. Of course, many a fanciful invention tries to fill this lacuna. Some claim Alessia a princess of the wetland tribes, the Al-Gemha or Men-of-Ket, and as such of Nedic royalty. Others make her a descendant of the Men-of-'kreath, either a pure Nord or of mixed blood. Some fables even portray her as the love-child of a Nedic slave and an Ayleid city-king. The underlying purpose of these stories is, obviously, to affirm the first Empress as a legitimate ruler by descent, with a substantiated claim to the White-Gold Throne. Regardless of the verisimilitude of these accounts, in   age of meritorious aristocracy it is clear that Alessia's claim came about not through inheritance, but through her own actions, and through Divine favor.


The exact moment of Alessia's ascendancy is much debated. Some point to the Insurrection at Sard, where Morihaus did come to her aid, others to the Emancipation at Vahtacen, where for the first time was uttered the name Al-Esh. The Annunciation at Sancre Tor is an obvious candidate, were it not that this likely apocryphal event does not fit in the known chronologies of the Rebellion. The Bestowing of the Imperial Ruby by the Divine Akatosh is another obvious candidate for the moment of ascendancy, but suffers much the same problem: there are about a thousand different accounts of the Bestowing, all in contradiction with each other in time and in place. Most scholars have come to agree that the Taking of the Citadel marks the true beginning of Alessia's reign.


Be it as it may, Empress Alessia's reign is remembered as a time of splendor and provenance. In but several decades, Alessia succeeded in shaping a rabble of ex-slaves and mercenaries into an efficient, powerful and sophisticated culture. This was, in part, due to the tutelage of the remnant Ayleid kings who had sworn fealty to the new Empire, and also due to the Nordic mercenary forces who had brought with the accomplishments of Atmoran civilization. Some Nordic scribes take pleasure in claiming Alessia's Empire as a client-kingdom to the then prominent Empire of Vrage the Gifted, which stretched from Bretony to the holds of Morrowind. Of course, the political relationships between both mannish Empires were much more complicated, based as they were on a foundation of the mutual respect and obligations that two mannish kingdoms would naturally feel for each other. Sadly, such subtleties are oft lacking in northern history writing.


The crux of the matter lies in Alessia's Nordic allies, who had joined the rebellion at Sancre Tor in return for the promise of land and riches. Alessia, in her wisdom, granted the Nordic chieftains expansive estates in the undeveloped west, later known as Colovia, to keep their divergent Nordic customs and religion from dissension with the Nedic Elven-inspired views (a situation happily resolved by later Divine Revelation). These Nordic chieftains, now Colovian gentry, still swore fealty to the Nordic High King, even as their Nedic and Ayleid subjects belonged solely to the White-Gold Throne. This feudal complication would haunt the relations with the Colovian Estates in years to come.


II. BELHARZA or THE MAN-BULL

Little is known of the second Emperor of Man, save, of course, his half-bullish aspect. Belharza's father was Morihaus, god of legend, who in turn was the favored son of the Divine Kynareth. Thus, his lineage is peerless, even if the maternal line is understandably marred by our ignorance of Alessia's true ancestry. The ascension of Belharza was said to suffer from a crisis, caused by the Nedes' insistence on a maternal succession. Emperor Belharza spent some of his youth in voluntary exile amongst the Nords before claiming his throne, and as such his rule was saturated in a Nordic ideal of life and governance.


Belharza's reign was sober and soldierly, in sharp contrast to his developing Nibenese cortège, but necessary for the defense of his fledgling empire. Belharza fixed the borders of Cyrodiil with great stones, and pressured the southern Blackwood tribes and Colovian estates into the giving of tribute to the White-Gold Throne. Of his personal life we know little. Memories of his marital status are muddled and unsure, though the record states with great surety that Belharza did never marry a consort, if ever he had any.


III. AMI-EL

Possibly the most obscure Emperor of the early line, as almost nothing is known of Ami-El save his (or her) name and involvement in a Nord-Direnni conflict in the Western Reach. Fraudulent myth surrounds this Emperor, and makes any definitive statement little more than supposition. Speculation on Belharza's matrimonial arrangements have led some to believe that Ami-El was an illegitimate child of one of Belharza's odalisques, or even a common pauper elected as figurehead after a coup by one of Belharza's cousins. While it is true that the Marukhati reveled in the electing of random commoners to vaunted symbolical status, it is a matter of historical truth that they did not at any time have the requisite power to install an Emperor. Iconographical depictions, at least, agree on the signs of Ami-El's ancestry, depicting him with a single vestigial bullhorn.


Of Ami-El's reign little is known, save that he furthered the cause of the Marukhati and decreed the Alessian Doctrines as the law of the land. Many dietary and occupational restrictions associated with Marukhatism were instated in this time, furthering the divergence between Nibenay and Colovia. Other than that, Ami-El is said to have strengthened the bonds with the Nordic Empire, and expanded the rule of the Alessians south along the Niben, subjugating the semi-independent Nedic tribes and Ayleid kings, and displacing the Khajiiti occupation of the left bank. Legends speak of a "marriage with the sea", hinting at an alliance with one of the great mercantile powers of the Topal Bay.