Third Great Invasions
The Third Great Invasions took place over the course of the eighth century, with Secote nomads and dynasties overrunning Messenia and establishing numerous polities with them at the helm, initiating the era of the Secote Dominion.
Fall of the Neokos
By the beginning of the eighth century, the Neokos Empire had become moribund. The dynasty of Alaweis, since the succession crisis of the 660s, now had only tenuous control over Palthia, which was steadily subleased out to increasingly independent military feudatories such as the Vechrian Princes. Everyday life endured the ravages of the Ecomachy, which alongside succession and civil wars, and the power struggles between governors, ate away at the prosperity of the empire. Southern Messenia now held the allure of not just plunder, but settlement and supremacy for the warlike inhabitants of Inner Joriscia.
However, between Palthia and the Steppe stood the kingdom of Hosamia in Pesrard, which had maintained its strength and was quite capable in playing off Secote groups against each other. Indeed it is much more likely that the rise of larger nomadic political forces was driven by a need to reach parity and symmetry with the Hosamids, and to unite the Secote folk against their subterfuge. This strategy became even more important as turmoil occurred in the Steppe itself, with the Zhyagedevid Confederacy forced into the sphere of influence of the sedentary Bregovid Kingdom by competition in their original pastures in the 670s. Withstanding Hosamid deceit, by the 690s the two forces had become allies instead, which was mythologised by later Secotes into the 'Diarchy of Pesessy', where Bregovid king Yaromir and Zhyagedevid chief Velibor supposedly entered a grandly sworn alliance. In 702, the Bregovids and the Zhyagedevids invaded Pesrard, taking advantage of Albaqir's preoccupation with campaigns in Petty-Lestria ever since the Breaking of Inabo; Pesrard was quickly overrun, taken by the Bregovids into their demesne, while the Zhyagedevids ransacked it for payment. Albaqir was assassinated when attempting to respond to the invasion, and fortunately for the Secotes the rest of Qund had little interest in retaking Pesrard, leaving the Diarchy with the new conquest.
By 705 the invasion of the Neokos had begun, though serious fighting did not begin until 707, as the Vechrian Princes of the eastern frontier submitted out of cultural affinities as well as the more obvious threat of annihilation. On the open field, Secote cavalry was unmatched by local opponents. Bloody sieges and the destruction of numerous Neokos cities forced the Neokos emperor to submit as vassal by 710, but restive houses continued to fight an insurgency in the name of the Empire. In what became the last campaign of the zealots, the Secotes smashed resistance brutally, and upon their victory in 712 they decided to dispense with all liabilities of local governance, deposing the Neokos emperor and claiming eastern Palthia for themselves. The Neokos Empire finally came to an end.
The conquests were partitioned along the Valderfalls: the Zhyagedevids became the nomadic rulers of the western half, while the east went to the Bregovids. It is from this treaty that the name 'Zeppengeran', originally zapadĭnŭ gorĭnĭ or 'western-uplands', derives. The Zhyagedevids established the state of Veliboria, imposing kunentsyism as practiced on the steppes onto the Palthians, while the Bregovids, who basically ruled along Neokos lines anyway, presided over a continuation of older political customs.
Second wave
As economic and agricultural conditions on the Steppe became more dire, and power struggles more severe, more waves of Secotes would move into southern Messenia after the initial invasion. The Bregovids now faced the same issue of steppe incursions their Hosamid predecessors encountered. In 752 the Bregovids' original territory in the Vechrian Steppe would be lost to these new arrivals, and in 760 the newcomers' confederacy invaded Pesrard. By 767, the Bregovids had been destroyed, and a new collection of kunentsys had carved principalities out of eastern Prasinia and Pesrard, while others among them went west to seek the patronage of the Veliborovids.
Sack of Coseptra
The Third Coseptran Compact broke free of Neokos imperial authority in its last years and established the so-called Sovereign Tepharion, in which the Tepharion in Coseptra commanded the loyalty of princes and generals ruling over what is now western Zeppengeran and Alcasia. The Veliborovids, after converting to Siriash, were welcomed by Coseptra as an ally and protector. The ataron even vouched for the Veliborovids' arrogation of Neokos titulature. In return, Veliborovid forces fought in defence or even expansion of the Coseptran lands in the early 8th century.
Despite these amicable relations, tensions emerged as it became apparent ožidomy was competing with donations to lamnearies for the wealth of Veliborovid subjects. Interventions by the Tepharion made in its material interests became frequent, and in view of this many lamnearies or other institutions that previously only loosely paid lip service to Coseptran hierarchy now aligned themselves more closely to it, in order to seek the Tepharion's aid. As new waves of Secote tribes made their way to Veliboria and demanded their share of tribute, the strains placed on the political settlement became unbearable. Material disputes joined up with religious ones, as the Secotes' idea of Siriash favoured personalised tutelage based on individual lamneants, mystical practices such as hierophany, and promotion of other practices seen as heterodox to the Coseptrans. Relations broke down in what first appeared to be a religious schism in 765. In 770 the kunentsys began a sweeping persecution of lamnearies as well as a campaign against the Tepharion. In 773, Coseptra was horrifically sacked, and the martyrdom of ataron Arunas III proclaimed the destruction of the Compact. The lands subordinate to the Tepharion were distributed to new kunentsys, while the property of the lamnearies were taken into their patrimony.
Though not an anti-Sirian persecution by any means, the Sack became remembered as a traumatic event in Siriandom, for perhaps good reason given the profound effects the ensuing Acephaly would have on Siriash as practiced across different lands. In Messenia, the destruction of hierarchy and compact inaugurated the age of mystical teachers closely serving and advising individual rulers, and the philosophies of logicomysticism.
Fall of Sabamia
The conquest of the Anser valley only ignited an even stronger thirst for conquest among the Secotes, who naturally turned to the Third Sabāmani Empire, which was in a state of decline but still controlled most of northern Messenia. On the other hand, the Veliborovids had settled down and adopted Neokos culture themselves, and other assimilating kunentsys had even taken on Palthic names, becoming more occupied with governing Zeppengeran and other lands. Rastislav I Veliborovid decided that his own realm would be better-served by dispatching these troublesome cousins off to invade the north by themselves, which would secure his own kin's position whether the former won or lost. The attacks on the Sabāmani would thus be independent ventures undertaken by the younger dynasties still strong with a conquering spirit, entitled 'Graves' and operating out of marchland appanages bestowed by the Veliborovid emperors. The first large-scale raid by the Graves occurred in 773 with a host attacking the Sabāmani western frontier through Elland. Subsequently, raids were conducted over the Zepnish Highlands and the Valderfalls, looting many settlements in southern Sabamia.
In 778 the new emperor Rastislav II was convinced that the irksome Palthic houses were ready to march south to reclaim Palthia, after settling in Sabamia during the Palthic Flight decades prior and becoming allies or foederati of the Sabāmani. The Qundi lamneant Alhased was able to further persuade Rastislav that, in an age of declining empires, the still-vigorous Palthic refugees would inevitably gain full control of the Sabāmani by their ethnic vitality, and destine their peoples for a major clash. Rastislav rallied the Secote hosts in a grand preemptive strike, led by Vyeslav of the Runovids, who scattered the Sabāmani armies at the Battle of Bibionesum. The Secotes then advanced into Sabamia with full intent of conquest. The campaigns were exhausting, and put the new state apparatuses the Veliborovids built with their lamneant tutors to the test. The fierce resistance of the Palthians in Sabamic service seemed to affirm Alhased's prophecy, and drove Rastislav and his companions to be even more relentless. By the end of the 780s much of the empire had been overrun, and in 791 the three capitals of Sabamia along the Gaste fell successively.
The entire Sabamic empire had been divided between Secote commanders under the auspices of the Veliborovid empire by around 796, when the horde ventured further west into Odannach lands and equally brutally subjugated the Dael. Other commanders in service of the Veliborovids conquered parts of Prasinia from its post-Bregovid rulers. By the year 800, Veliboria was undoubtedly at its territorial apogee. This favourable state of affairs encouraged the new Veliborovid emperor, Arnulf, to take the title of imperator and rule on Sabāmani pretenses over an empire of all Messenia.
Veliboria crumbles
Unfortunately for his reign, Arnulf misjudged his position among the kunentsys; attempting to command the warlords with interventiveness greater than traditional ideas of the vladyka's responsibilities permitted, he found himself facing Graves almost united in opposing him, who demanded that they simply rule over the new conquests on their own terms. When, impressed with the civilisation's orderliness, he tried to re-establish the Sabāmani system of government, he now added the lamneants and other Palthian grandees to the ranks of his enemies. To silence his critics he decided to lead, with his most loyal allies, an invasion of the Siur country in 805. The Siur commonholds, however, offered ferocious resistance under the leadership of Jukka af Essingi. The long campaign ended with defeat of the Secotes; Arnulf had managed to flee to safety, but his main companions had been killed, and the moment of weakness was seized upon by his enemies. He was assassinated in 809, and various kunentsys divided Veliboria into their own fiefdoms shortly after, inaugurating the era of the Five Emperors. The tide of Secote conquest in Messenia thus came to an anticlimactic end.