Cloe of Ida

**Cloe Lianna Neramonia Persa,** known more commonly as **Cloe of Ida** or simply **Cloe,** and also occasionally as **Cloe the Wise, Cloe of Seven Lives,** and **Cloe the Kindhearted,** was a Sevician politician, senator, and stateswoman who served as the governor of Ida from 632 to 633 A.S and as the 57th Imperator of Sevicia from 634 until her death in 640. Widely regarded as one of the greatest rulers in Sevician history, she was the youngest person to ever be elected to the supreme office of Imperator, at just 23 years old, the youngest possible age allowed under Sevician law.

## Background

Cloe was born to humble stock just outside the city of Ida, in the Easterlands region of Sevicia. Her mother was a teacher at a school for privileged children and her father was a local official who was well respected in their community. The youngest of four children, three of whom were boys, Cloe spent most of her childhood reading and studying, having been taught to read and write by her mother. Cloe was acutely aware that her ability to be able to read and write was a privilege in Sevician society, and it was this that helped shape her political beliefs and motivations in later life. In her teenage years she became popular for her beauty and her intelligence, and by sixteen had been approached by a number of suitors, all of whom she turned down.

A gifted thinker, she moved to the capital of Morosea at seventeen on her father's behest and there met Tanta Syme, a member of the Sevician Senate and an old friend of her father's. Cloe rapidly developed an interest in politics, and Syme took her under his tutelage. She spent the first half of 631 learning from Syme, attending private gatherings and holding talks with a number of senators, and quickly earned a reputation as a clever and empathetic young woman who was immediately well-liked among Sevicia's ruling nobility.

Syme pushed her to pursue a career in politics, which she did with enthusiasm. At the age of 21, Cloe was appointed as one of the 360 senators of the Sevician Senate - the youngest possible age allowed to hold any political office under Sevician law. The same year, she was made Governor of Ida, in the process becoming the youngest governor of any city or province in the Easterlands in Sevician history.

## Political Career

Cloe's influence grew rapidly. A sharp mind and an excellent public speaker, she understood how to play Morosea's political game extremely well, and she soon became an important figure in Sevicia's governing Senate. The year 633 was a volatile time in Sevician politics; the current Imperator, Atham Reyne, who had served in the office for barely a year, was deeply unpopular both within the Senate and among the general populace. It was clear that he would not last long. Under the guidance and encouragement of her mentor Tanta, in early 633, shortly after her 22nd birthday, Cloe began gathering support among the more senior members of the Senate, a move that prove to be of incredible value and foresight.

Less than a year later, in mid-634, Athem Reyne became the second ruler in Sevician history to be deposed by constitutional vote. His sudden and yet not-unexpected absence left a position to be filled. Against an unremarkable field of possible candidates and with the backing of both Syme and the majority of the Senate's elites, Cloe won the election in a landslide. The vote, which was 351 to 9 in her favour, was the largest margin of victory in Sevician history.

Though opposition soon began to stir, with many criticisms focused on her youth and inexperience, Cloe proved a decisive and effective ruler. In 635, she proposed the introduction of a social programme for farmers and farm labourers, amounting to more than 20 silver *raex* a month, with money being diverted from military spending. The programme, which was introduced in response to a number of years of poor harvests, was passed in a landslide, and proved wildly popular among the lower classes. Food prices dropped and new jobs in agriculture and farming increased significantly. Her education programme proved equally effective; the daughter of a teacher herself, Cloe pushed hard for a lower barrier of entry for education for children and the commonfolk alike, the overwhelming majority of whom had no access to reading or writing at all.

The introduction of the printing press in Sevicia in 636 proved revolutionary, with written outputs increasing fifty or even a hundred-fold, and Cloe recognised its power immediately. A state-led effort to increase circulation saw the distribution of tens of thousands of writing materials and guide books for young children and adults in a short amount of time, and between 636 and her death in 640, more than a million newly printed books had been pushed into circulation.

Cloe's expertise in navigating difficult political situations became apparent in 637. Aware that a not-insignificant wing of the Senate was populated by staunch traditionalists, who opposed drastic social reform and believed in the order of state, Cloe appeased them with an expensive campaign to refurbish and rebuild a number of symbolic Sevician monuments, including the Forefathers Mausoleum, the Great Guard, and The Arnaca, and ordered the construction of more than fifty statues and shrines across Sevicia. The campaign, which began in 637 and took six years to complete, proved enormously successful in placating the more vocal contingents of Sevicia's Senate.

Between 637 and 640, Sevicia enjoyed a mini Golden Age, brought about by the strongest crop yields in several decades, higher literacy rates, widespread circulation of literature and written works, and a strong emphasis on Sevician culture and history. It also underwent a period of peace that was unusual in the Empire, including no notable revolts or rebellions in more than six years.

## Death

On the fourth day of Tullena III, 640, while visiting the city of Ostar in the Great Meadows region of Sevicia, Cloe was stricken with a fever that left her bedridden for multiple days. When the fever still had not subsided after more than a week, by which point Cloe had lost a considerable amount of weight, she was escorted back east to the capital. She spent a further eleven days consigned to her bed in her room of the Eagle Palace, with only a certain few individuals allowed to visit her. She never recovered from her fever, and on the 26th of Tullena III, 640, she passed away, less than a month before her 30th birthday. Physicians of the royal company believed her death to have been caused by complications with pneumonia brought about by the fever.

When her death was announced the following morning, Sevicia underwent a week of mourning. Her body was interred alongside her predecessors in the Forefathers Museum, and her public funeral drew a crowd so large it halted all activity in the city of Morosea for the entire day. The coastal town of Yanna on the easternmost coast of Sevicia, where Cloe had spent much of her personal time, was renamed Persamon, after *Persa,* her family name.

## Personal Life

Cloe spent most of her time away from the capital in the quiet coastal town of Yanna, overlooking the Anaean Sea on the eastern coast, where she owned a private villa. She was an avid reader and enjoyed writing poetry; a number of her works were sealed in the archives of the Great Library, never to be released to the public. She was the first Imperator of Sevicia in more than a century to bear no children, and was never married, though she had a a number of long-time lovers, including Myrine Engarden, the younger sister of Sevician war hero Petr Engarden, and Jane of Hearts, a Morosean playwright known for her satiric comedies of Sevician noble society.

## Legacy

The legacy Cloe left behind was significant. She is widely regarded in Sevician society as one of the four greatest leaders in its history, alongside Anaeaus Prabitulia (Sevicia's founder and pioneer), Ascillion the Great (who expanded Sevicia to its geographically greatest extent in the early third century), and Maria Mios (who ruled for more than six decades during Sevicia's Golden Age). Cloe held the rare distinction of being favoured by both the lower classes and those among Sevicia's nobility. Her expansion of Sevicia's social benefit programmes and education were seen as revolutionary reforms, the effects of which still linger in Sevician society. The 26th of Tullena III was made an unofficial day of remembrance, and is observed across Sevicia, including by a number of senators and leading figures.

Much of Cloe's life and legacy, including her career as Imperator, is chronicled in volume sixteen of the writer Cyppian's vast *Annals of Sevicia*, which remains the most impressive piece of historical literature in the Sevician world. Her personal life and reign is also detailed in the official biographers' journal of rule, a great book that covers each Sevician Imperator and has done for hundreds of years.

## See also

List of Imperators of Sevicia

Cyppian's *Annals of Sevicia in Seventeen Volumes*

Jane of Hearts

Myrine Engarden