Larhinus

Larhinus (Lahhiyar)
Larhinus, emperor of the Dammurites; a rendition dated to approximately 1100 BCE.
Larhine Emperor
Reign	1126–probably 1080 BCE
Predecessor	Sactaesus
Successor	Taliestus I
Born	unknown, c. 1160 BCE location unknown
Died	c. 1080 BCE probably central city of Dammuri

Larhinus was a king of Dammuri during the later Antissan period before becoming recognised as the first emperor of the later Larhine Empire, named in his honour. After a period of quiescence by the Dammurites, Larhinus goaded his people into a much more expansive phase of their history, extending the empire substantially north and west into central Messenia, reaching well into the centre of present-day Helminthasse at the height of its expansion.

The name Larhinus is a sabamicised version of the original Lahhiyar. However, there is some doubt as to whether this was actually the emperor’s name, and it could possibly have been merely a descriptor; the Antissan word lahhiyala means “soldier” or “man of war”, and as such the name may be more indicative of martial prowess, claimed or actual.

Reign

Larhinus acceded to the Dammurite throne in 1126 BCE, during one of the shorter waning periods of the nation’s military strength; he is thought to have then been in his middle to late thirties. Available records differ as to the means by which he achieved this; while he claimed an extended lineage from earlier kings of Dammuri, it was far from unknown in the Antissan polities for such backgrounds to be fabricated after the fact to justify the seizure of power, and it seems more likely that he usurped the throne from his ageing predecessor, Sactaesus (Saktaizzi), whom he had served as a general during campaigns on the northern frontier of the Dammurite realm in what is today southern Elland.

Aware from first-hand knowledge of the failings of many of his military commanders – most of whom were drawn from traditional landed families – Larhinus made conscious efforts to promote into positions of authority the most able men at his disposal, whatever their origins. Although this change was strongly resisted by many Dammurite nobles, the results spoke for themselves; Larhinus’ army was a much stronger threat as a result, allowing him to direct his attentions outward towards lands which the empire had held and lost over the years, subjugating (and at times razing) the smaller and weaker territories in the north-west. By approximately 1100 BCE the Dammurite realm had surpassed its previous high-water mark in present-day southern Helminthasse and Siurskeyti, and held frontiers well into the southern Aphrasian range and west as far as southern reaches of the Æthelflói on the Median coast.

In addition to expanding the empire on land, Larhinus instigated the development of his realm as a sea power, with imperial vessels establishing a dominant presence in the eastern Medius Sea, and claiming the islands today known as Mirrey and Kellarey, then uninhabited, probably between 1120 and 1100 BCE. Mindful of attack from his eastern flank, the emperor was astute enough to build alliances with the kingdom of Nephara, centred in the south of modern Zeppengeran; these mostly held firm barring occasional skirmishes, and would not be seriously threatened until after Larhinus’ death.

Possibly with an eye to the security of his throne, Larhinus drew around him a personal guard derived, not from the sons of the nobility (pankurus or “clans”) as was then a fairly common practice in the region, but specifically from the toughest and most irredeemable of Dammuri’s slave population. While his slave-soldiers remained his own property – or, arguably, the property of the kingdom; the distinction is unclear and possibly irrelevant – they received better treatment than in their previous lives (indeed, markedly better than most freemen of the time), and responded to it with at times savage loyalty. This group, the Palsas Pahhuras (Antissan “path of fire”) was later expanded to form an elite unit within the Dammurite army, and led much of the advance into and re-conquest of the old north-west of the empire over the next thirty to fifty years; the term palsaries, used more widely in antiquarian studies for troops of a slave regiment, is derived from them.

Larhinus’ reign was characterised by a marked change in the perceived status of the emperor within Dammurite society. Hitherto, the emperor had been appointed to his position, by way of consensus among a small group of nobles constituting themselves as an electoral committee; thus he was regarded much more as first among equals than was often the case at this time. Larhinus, possibly with the intention of strengthening and solidifying his power base, went out of his way to glorify himself among his people; lengthy proclamations to the glory of his reign and the construction of sizeable testimonial buildings were part of what may be legitimately regarded as Arden’s first cult of personality. The glorification of the emperor extended to the point where the very name of Dammuri became steadily supplanted in official records, with no use attested to after approximately 1100 BCE.

Although Larhinus presumably had numerous liaisons over the course of his long life – a vigorous sex life and the maintenance of a personal seraglio were usual, and to an extent positively expected, of a monarch in this period – he is known to have been married only four times, and the names of only two of these wives are known. Likewise, Larhinus had only three acknowledged sons, and no daughters, whose existence is corroborated from records, and only two of these were alive at his death.

Conspiracy and death

A small number of surviving transcripts attest to a plot against Larhinus towards the end of his life, instigated principally by Arami, one of his two known wives in the latter half of his rule, in a dispute as to the inheritance of the throne on Larhinus’ death. Arami and her son Memaesus (Antissan Memaizzimu) were named on these documents as party to the conspiracy, along with Larhinus’ chamberlain, two overseers of the royal treasury, a court herald and two senior army officers. There is little doubt that all of those were executed, although it is possible that Memaesus, as Larhinus’ son, was permitted to commit suicide rather than suffer the public disgrace of his co-conspirators. This would probably have culminated in disembowelling and dismemberment of their bodies; while the bodies of the dead were ritually cremated under Dammurite custom, religious beliefs of the period held that only if the body was destroyed as a single entity would the spirit contained within it be permitted entry to the afterlife.

It is not known whether the plot succeeded in its aims, but Larhinus is thought to have died in 1080 BCE, the same year in which the documents report the trial as having taken place. The throne passed to Taliestus I (Talliyazita), the younger of Larhinus’ surviving sons; although elements of overt worship of the emperor were developing within court practice during his life – one reason for the severity of the action against the plotters – Taliestus was probably more responsible for instigating the imperial cult which would typify the Larhine Empire in its later years.