Akaviri Wars

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**Akaviri Pyrrhic victory** (war phase)

* Septimia and Ionith ruined
* Minrirras-Rildu seized and reduced to ashes

## [Source]

The **Akaviri Wars**, also called the **Cyrodillic Invasion of Akavir**, and the **Imperial-Akaviri War**, was the name given to the armed conflict between the Fourth Empire and the Akaviri Confederation. The war started in year 5E 354 when Emperor Claudius III launched an invasion of the continent of Akavir to reconquered the Septim settlements of Septimia and Ionith.

## Background

It was as a military commander that Claudius is best known to history, particularly for his conquests in the Padomaic Ocean, but initially for the three wars against the continent of Akavir – the reduction to colony kingdom of the Empire; 353–361, followed by actual incorporation into the Empire of the Akaviri's races tribes kingdoms of Ka Po' Tun, Kamal, Tang Mo, Tsaesci and Dragons – an area that had troubled Imperial thought for over a decade with the unstable peace negotiated by Emperor Uriel V's death in 3E 290 with the powerful Tsaesci king Chysarenis.

According to the provisions of this treaty, Tsaesci King Chysarenis was acknowledged as rex amicus, that is, client king; nevertheless, in exchange for accepting client status, he received a generous stipend from the Imperial City, as well as being supplied with technical experts. The treaty seems to have allowed Imperial troops the right of passage through the Tsaesci kingdom in order to attack each other, even the Snow Giants of the Kamal. However, senatorial opinion never forgave Uriel V's death and his son Uriel VI for paying what was seen as "tribute" to a Tsaesci king. In addition, unlike the tribes, the Akavir kingdom was an organized state capable of developing alliances of its own, thus making it a strategic threat and giving Trajan a strong motive to attack it.

## History

### Start of the invasion

In early 5E 354, Emperor Claudius III launched his first campaign into the Tsaesci kingdom, crossing to the northern bank of the Danube and defeating the Tsaesci army at Dhalrek, near city of Ionith. It was not a decisive victory, however. Claudius's troops were mauled in the encounter, and he put off further campaigning for the year in order to regroup and reinforce his army. Claudius's army re-took both former Imperial cities of Septimia and Ionith, which it was abandoned.

The following winter, King Chysarenis took the initiative by launching a counter attack across the Danube further downstream, supported by Sarmatian cavalry, forcing Trajan to come to the aid of the troops in his rearguard. The Akaviri and their allies were repulsed after two battles in Moesia, at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Adamclisi. Claudius's army then advanced further into Akavir territory, and, a year later, forced Chysarenis to submit. He had to renounce claim to some regions of his kingdom, return all Imperial runaways, and surrender all his war machines.

### The invasion continued

With contently war, sieges, battles between Imperial and Akaviri forces losing with heavy causalities. The peace of 5E 355 had returned Chysarenis to the condition of more or less harmless kingdom king; however, he soon began to rearm, to again harbor Imperial runaways, and to pressure his Western neighbors, the Tang Mo, into allying themselves with the Akaviri. By trying to develop an anti-Imperial bloc, Chysarenis eventually left Claudius without the alternative of treating Dacia as a protectorate, rather than an outright conquest. In 5E 356 Decebalus devised a failed attempt on Claudius's life by means of some Imperial deserters, and held prisoner Claudius's legate Longinus, who eventually poisoned himself while in custody. Finally, Decebalus undertook an invasion of Imperial-occupied territory north of the Danube.

The peace doesn't last very long, while Imperial colony surrounded Septimia and Ionith under the Empire, King Chysarenis signed a alliance with the Ka'Po'Tun chief, and Ka'Po'Tun declared war on the Empire. With running out of Legion, Claudius quickly sent to Imperial city where he grabs more troops as well of the Tamrielic alliance leaders and successfully gather more Imperial legions, Nords, Dunmer and Hammerfell mercenaries. After doing that, Claudius than moved his army to New Gaius before moving and marching his army to Septimia; where Tsaesci commander Minik attack the Emperor which known as Battle of Gelri, where Claudius III defeated and killed Minik in battle.

### Bridge and new colonies

Following the design of Statue of Emperor Tiber Septim, Claudius ordered the building of a massive bridge over the Dhalrek, over which the Imperial army was able to cross the river swiftly and in numbers, as well as to send in reinforcements, even in winter when the river was not frozen enough to bear the passage of a party of soldiers. Claudius also reformed the infrastructure of the Iron Gates region of the Danube. He commissioned either the creation or enlargement of the road along the Iron Gates, carved into the side of the gorge. Additionally, Claudius commissioned a canal to be built around the rapids of the Iron Gates. Evidence of this comes from a marble slab discovered near Caput Bovis, the site of a Imperial fort. The slab, dated to the year 5E 355, commemorates the building of at least one canal that went from the Kasajna tributary to at least Ducis Pratum, whose embankments were still visible until recently. However, the placement of the slab at Caput Bovis suggests that the canal extended to this point or that there was a second canal downriver of the Kasajna-Ducis Pratum one.[*source?*]

Claudius built a new city, Minrirras-Rildu, on another site (north of the mountain near the bordered between Imperial Colony and Tsaesci border), although bearing the same full name, Minrirrasrildu. This capital city was conceived as a purely civilian administrative center and was provided the usual Imperialized administrative apparatus (decurions, aediles, etc.). Urban life in Imperial colony of Septimia-Ionith seems to have been restricted to Imperial colonists, mostly military veterans; there is no extant evidence for the existence in the province of peregrine cities. Native Akavirs continued to live in scattered rural settlements, according to their own ways. In another arrangement with no parallels in any other Imperial province, the existing quasi-urban Akavir settlements disappeared after the Imperial conquest. A number of unorganized urban settlements developed around military encampments in Septimia proper the most important being Apulum, but were only acknowledged as cities proper well after Claudius's reign.

### The later years and ending

Not all of Ka'Po'Tun and Tsaesci was permanently occupied. What was permanently included in the province, after the post Trajanic evacuation of some land across the lower Tsaescian and little terrority of Ka'Po'Tun, were the lands extending from the Danube to the inner arch of the Imperial Colony and Tsaesci border. The Imperial province eventually took the form of an "excrescence" North of the Danube, with ill defined limits, stretching from the Danube northwards to the Carpathians, and was intended perhaps as a basis for further expansion in Eastern Europe – which the Imperials conceived to be much more "flattened", and closer to the ocean, than it actually was. Defense of the province was entrusted to a single legion, the XIII Gemina, stationed at Apulum, which functioned as an advanced guard that could, in case of need, strike either west or east at the Tsaescians living at the borders. Therefore, the indefensible character of the province did not appear to be a problem for Trajan, as the province was conceived more as a sally base for further attacks Even in the absence of further Imperial expansion, the value of the province depended on Imperial overall strength: while Rome was strong, the Akavir salient was an instrument of military and diplomatic control over the Danubian lands; when Rome was weak, as during the Crisis of the Sixth Century of the Fifth Era, the province became a liability and was eventually abandoned.

Claudius resettled Dacia with Imperials and annexed it as a province of the Fourth Empire. Aside from their enormous booty, Claudius's Akavir campaigns benefited the Empire's finances through the acquisition of Dacia's gold mines, managed by an imperial procurator of equestrian rank (procurator aurariarum). On the other hand, commercial agricultural exploitation on the villa model, based on the centralized management of a huge landed estate by a single owner funds was poorly developed. Therefore, use of slave labor in the province itself seems to have been relatively undeveloped, and epigraphic evidence points to work in the gold mines being conducted by means of labor contracts (locatio conductio rei) and seasonal wage earning. Both Ka Po' Tun chief and Tsaesci King Chysarenis surrounded to Claudius, with their kingdoms which Claudius refused to their kingdoms to part of the Empire, instead they agreed that Imperial territory controlled over Septimia and Inoth is part of the Empire.

The victory was commemorated by the construction both of the 102 cenotaph generally known as the Tropaeum Traiani in Moesia, as well of the much later Claudius's statue in Imperial city, the latter depicting in stone carved bas reliefs the Akaviri Wars' most important moments.

## Aftermath

After the war is concluded, Claudius return to Cyrodiil after the conquest is successful. However the settlements of Septimia and Ionith had reconquered by the Akaviri, as well Claudius' new city Minrirras-Rildu was seized and reduced to ashes by the Akaviri.

In 5E 1017, Akaviri forces launched another invasion on Tamriel when Empress Romana II plan to retake Akavir, what Claudius III took during the Akaviri Wars. However after suffering heavy loses on both sides and Akaviri raiding parties, it ended five years later, in 5E 1022 when Romana II retracted her claim of reconquering Akavir.

## Battles

* Second Battle of Dhalrek
* Battle of Gelri

## Appearances

* *The Elder Scrolls VI: Invasion* (mentioned only)
	+ *The Elder Scrolls VI: Underworld* (mentioned only)
	+ *The Elder Scrolls VI: Akavir* (mentioned only)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 *Imperial Conquest of Akavir*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 *Year in Tamriel: 5E 354*
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Year in Cyrodiil: 5E 357*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 *Dynasties: The Varians of Cyrodiil*
5. ↑ *Brief History of the Empire, Book IV*
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 *Year in Tamriel: 5E 355*
7. ↑ *Year in Tamriel: 5E 356*
8. ↑ *The New Akaviri City*
9. ↑ Events of *The Elder Scrolls VI: Akavir*
10. ↑ Dialogue with Faseille Aedeus