A Rising Star

The first known empire of the world arose in the west, under the name of the Meccan Dominion. Mecca's initial warlords benefited greatly from good relations with local villages, growing in scientific prowess. No other city-state in the world could claim rulership over two cities, let alone three. The union of Medina and Mecca through the trade-city of Damascus brought Mecca to power, and it continued expanding its rule throughout the land. The first despot of significant power, known to the Greeks as Mausolus, championed the rise of his city through trade, expansion, and war. Under his stead, the world first saw war.

Mausolus personally commanded the archers and spearmen who marched on the Greek city of Thermopylae, a fledgling ivory-harvesting post.

His "huntsmen" met their match in the Greek hoplites, but Mausolus' weight in numbers crushed the Greek forces and took the town. The king of the Spartans who ruled the post, one Leonidas, fled to Athens and bid it serve him.

After a great many years, Mausolus -- having  enlarged his army -- marched toward the northern kingdom of Sparta and its servant-city Athens.  He brought with him Arabian families, intending to the settle the land once he established dominion over it.

Although Leonidas sent emissaries to treat with the Arab warlord, the two kings would not meet but in battle.

Athens fell easily, its defenders having abandoned the city in hopes of taking their stand in Sparta. Mausolos spared the city, proclaiming that it had suffered enough under the tyrant Leonidas. The Spartan king himself fell to assassins when he refused to abandon the Athenian palace. Veterans of Thermopylae who captured the palace claimed that they were responsible for the Spartan's death, and subsequently were granted the title "Leonidas' Demise". Athens became a protected state, and Mausolous' shrewdness made the city loyal to himself.

Although Mausolus refused to meet with the Spartans for a great many years afterward, his armies did not attack Sparta. He preferred instead to secure the most fertile parts of his own realm, leaving the Greeks to the "land of snow and ice". The conquest of Athens heralded the dawn of a new era in Arab history. Before his death, Mausolos would refer the cities he ruled both directly and indirectly through fear as his "Dominion": later, this Dominion would become a centralized state in its own right, one not held together by a military and force, but by the weight of law and tradition.