Republic of Nesaria

The **Republic of Nesaria** was a state that ruled most of Nesaria from 422BC to 58BC. Established after the Ascarian royal line was apparently extinguished after the early deaths of King Faltas II and all his available successors, it radically transformed the nature of governance and transferred power mostly to the wealthy aristocracy. The Republic was dismantled by Emperor Mathados IV after he successfully violently overthrew it in the Republican War, leading to the establishment of the Nesarian Empire.

Though some of the Republic's founders were seemingly genuine believers in transitioning to a democratic government, they were outnumbered and outpowered by the aristocratic faction, who limited popular participation in governance and eventually stripped away many of the democratic institutions initially established by the founders - as well as democratic organisations that predated the Republic and existed under the Kingdom of Ascaria.

Popular support for the Republic steadily declined over the centuries, as populist politicians - who were few and far between - largely failed to protect the common people from aristocratic abuses and often ended up assassinated by aristocratic conspiracies. Popular anger against the republican nobility came to a head with the Senate's rejection of a grain redistribution bill in 61BC - prompting Mathados IV to rise up in open rebellion the following year, proclaiming himself the country's rightful King (he would not call himself Emperor until after his victory) and portraying himself as the people's champion against a corrupt oligarchy.

## Legacy

The Republic left Nesarians with a very dim view of republican systems of government; the term "republic" came to be associated with corruption, stagnation and an abusive plutocracy that served the law only when it benefited them, and changed the law when it did not. The Nesarian experience was unique and generally contrary to the rest of the world; they experienced greater freedom, liberty and democracy under the autocratic rule of the Emperors than the Republic, with Mathados granting Nesarian citizens both ancient and new rights that they did not have under the Republic.

This general distaste for republics led Emperor Athdus III to consider abolishing the Republic of Onshi when he conquered that country, as he saw many parallels between the Onshian elites and the corrupt plutocracy of the Republic of Nesaria. However, he was persuaded to leave it untouched by Reishu Eshikana Kaniko, who criticised Athdus for daring to presume he knew how to rule Onshians better than the Onshians did, and who insisted that the "social rot" of the Republic was not permanent.

It took over a millennium for Nesarians to seriously consider republican forms of government again, and republican movements slowly began to grow in the 16th century - though their growth was significantly accelerated by the influx of liberal ideologies from overseas in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, the republican cause was once again seriously discredited - along with liberal philosophies in general - by the Republicans of the Imperial Civil War, whose desperation to overthrow the Empire led them down a dark path of cavorting with demons that eventually ended up with them becoming slaves to Dread Titans.