Back to the 18th century and a return to my imagi-nations

It is quite a long time since I painted any troops for Syldavia and Borduria, but I've been painting Grenadiers. First, two groups of grenadiers for the Freikorps Schtroumpf;

A couple of groups of grenadiers had been in my plans for a very long time, a decade in fact, but I'd not done anything about them until now. I'd always planned for them to have the white and blue Schtroumpf uniform colours, but with red facings. The figures are from Essex Miniatures and are actually Prussian Von Schony grenadiers. I've added in an officer, NCO and Drummer. The drummer in the front group is there for colour, but is treated as a man with a musket for Sharp Practice purposes.

Next are two groups of Syldavian grenadiers, once again from Essex Miniatures' SYW Austrian range;

As I already have one group of 8 grenadiers from the Istow Regiment, I decided to paint two groups from other regiments, so I could have a Combined Grenadier formation for Sharp Practice. The front group  with green facings is from the Lippzshutt regiment and the group behind with black facings is from the Motörkopf regiment. Again, I have added a couple of officers, a drummer, an NCO and an ensign with a standard, showing the famous Black Pelican of Syldavia.

These chaps will be getting their tabletop debuts at Winter Wonderlard VI at BIG in Bristol on SAturday 7th February.

Another group of auxilia

I did a group without javelins, for variation, and I added in a couple of figures from the command sprue, based on the Cornicen and Signifer bodies.

I used the Imaginifer arm from the auxiliary cavalry set, because I thought it would make a nice variation to have an Imago for my cohort. I also gave the other body from the command sprue a gladius and a small parma shield (this is actually because I am running out of oval shields).

I have enough bodies left to make up another group and also another deployment point vignette. I shall have to stick these together and get them underoated.

Auxiliary archers

Another rush job! I need these for Sunday and only had them undercoated this morning.

These are from Aventine Miniatures, a company that I haven't bought anything from until now, but who are definitely on my radar now. The best thing about these figures is that they scale up well against the Victrix plastics that form the rest of my cohors equitata. They are also really nice sculpts and clean castings too. They were a joy to paint.

There is a decent amount of variation in the figures, some are in mail and others in scale armour and there are little details that make them all look a bit different from the next one along.

Six more auxiliary cavalry

Well, I finished off my second group of six equites for my cohors equitata, and the rain held off long enough for me to varnish them. My DIY augury (would I see sparrows or magpies first if I looked out of the kitchen window?) worked for me. I shall continue to put out food for the sparrows.

I don't really need a tubicen but seeing as arms with a tuba (the Latin word for a trumpet) are included on the Victrix sprues, it seemed a shame to just ignore them. Similarly, I used an optio head for one of the equites, just for variety. I don't need an optio equitum either, but he looks nice in the group.

For a bit more variety, I have chosen a sword arm for one of these equites, and you will note that the middle one of these is wearing scale armour rather than mail. This is because each sprue in the set has one body in scale lorica, so it has to be used for ordinary troopers as well as leaders to make the most of the available models.

I have also chosen to give this group blue neckerchiefs, for variety. The first group I did have red ones. 

I have seven more horses and riders left (because I bought an extra pair of sprues on ebay to give me 20 equites in total), so I'll get them made up at some point, but I have no urgent need for them. When they are done, I'll have a second leader and one more group of six equites.

Auxiliary cavalry

Wow, this was a rush job! I was worried that they wouldn't be finished ready for this afternoon. I couldn't varnish them until this morning because of rain and humidity.

First, we have a group of three Equites and a Decurio, the commander of a turma, that is to say, a group of 30 cavalry.

Here are the remaining three men in my group of six, as required for Infamy, Infamy, including a vexillarius. The standard isn't necessary for the rules, but it makes the unit stand out nicely.

These are intended as the cavalry component of my cohors equitata, the Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata Luperci.

You will notice that their shields don't match those of the cohort's pedites, and that is because LBMS don't make the same design for the slightly smaller Victrix Roman cavalry shields. I suppose I could have cut the edges a bit smaller on some infantry shields, but I decided that the equites of the cohort were distinguished by a separate shield design. In actual fact, we don't know whether all members of a cohort would have carried identical shields anyway. It seems a reasonable assumption, but in the absence of any firm evidence, I think it gives us the opportunity to do what we see fit.

So, for the Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata Luperci, I have decided that the turmae of equites would carry a separate design, which I shall justify by reference to the entirely invented Annales Syldaviorum of the little-known 2nd century writer Lucius Porcus Crustum, himself of Goganian origins, who lived in Istriodunum during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. 

In Book XIV of the Annales, he writes that "the turmae of the cohort of the Brothers of the Wolf were distinguished by their red shields which were decorated with entwined vines in flower, honouring the god Bacchus, Father of the Vines, known as Dionysos Eleutherios by the Greeks and Illyrians".

So, there we have it. Who could possibly disagree with L. Porcus Crustum?

Anyway, I have more cavalry to finish, which I will work on in groups of six, and eventually there will be two more groups and another separate character figure.

The last group of auxiliary infantry (for the moment)

The last group? Well, yes, because I need to get on with the cavalry for my cohors equitata.

Here they are, pretty much looking the same as their comrades I've already posted;

I don't really have anything new to say about them, because everything has already been said.

I am currently working on some auxiliary cavalry, once again Victrix plastic ones, and I need to get at least one group of six plus their Decurio finished before Sunday, because the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society is back in action and I have a game planned for the 26th. I want some hooves on the table as well as caligae.

Eight more auxiliaries

The strength of the Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata Luperci grows as eight more recruits are mustered before their Praefectus.

As you can see, I am now able to put these on their movement sabots from Warbases. I decided to do all of these carrying their javelins, mainly because it means I don't have to take a scalpel to their scabbards!

Once again, these are all Victrix plastic auxilia and the shield transfers are made by LBMS, and can be purchased from the Victrix website too. 

I now only have  one more group of eight auxiliaries to finish off and then I can start on my cavalry, who are all primed ready for painting.

Three more characters for my auxiliaries

These were a bit of an experiment, but I think they have worked OK.

Of course, when I say experiment, I mean a bit of very minor kitbashing. From left to right, they are a Capsarius, a sort of battlefield medic, an officer of some kind and another Optio, this one doing some kind of twirling thing with his staff.

The officer type and the Optio were made using two unwanted bodies from the command sprue in the Victrix EIR Auxilia set, and I rather like them because they are wearing the kind of lorica hamata with reinforced shoulders that we might associate more with legionary troops rather than auxiliaries. 

Because the figures are supposed to be a signifer and a cornicen, ordinary arms have to be selected carefully, hence the odd way the Optio is holding his staff.

I am thinking that the officer in the nice green cloak might come in handy as a tribunus angusticlavius, a junior military tribune from the Equestrian Order, who would make a nice Tribunus in the Infamy, Infamy campaign rules. I am sure that he will be a welcome addition to the Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata Luperci. Anyway, he already has a name. He is Antonius Crispus Cerialis, from a prominent equestrian family with large estates to the west of Colonia Klovinus. The family is known for their wealth, their staunch support for Rome (whoever happens to be emperor) and their family motto, MAGNIS SUNT. The family has grown in wealth and social standing ever since the then paterfamilias Grabus Ientaculum Cerialis, a client of the gens Julia, was granted equestrian status for his support for Octavian in his wars against Mark Antony.

The Capsarius is a standard auxiliary figure with the addition of a pack from a Warlord Late War German Heer sprue that I trimmed a bit to remove most of the detail, adding a strap made from thin plastic card. I kept the water canteen, but trimmed off most of the detail to make it look like a pottery flask.

I have also received my movement sabots, so my next sets of figures will be based up ready for use.

More auxila leave the painting table

Well, they left the varnish spray booth (a large cardboard box with one side side removed) actually.

I really like these Victrix figures a lot. They have lots of detail, are fairly simply to assemble and the finished items paint up nicely, and it is easy to cut the tops off the scabbards on the figures holding gladii.

I have a couple more groups that I am working on at the moment, plus a couple more individual figures and I have also glued all my horses together, ready for undercoating. I will undercoat the riders separately, as soon as I have assembled them. I have enough mounted models to make up two groups of six, plus a decurio, which leaves me with three spares. To stop them going to waste, I have bought sprues of four more riders and horses from ebay, which will give me enough mounted auxiliaries for three groups plus two leaders. That will be a lot for Infamy, Infamy, but why not? There could be a scenario in future where I might need three groups of riders.

I've also got more infantry figures to assemble, including the spare command sprue figures. I don't need more signiferi etc, so I will experiment with these, to see if I can use the bodies to make up extra auxiliaries with different pattern lorica hamata (i.e mail shirts). The models with the muscle cuirasses will probably be surplus to requirements, but I will find a use for them somewhere.

Two more characters for Infamy, Infamy

Here are two more figures for my cohors equitata, a Signifer and a Cornicen.

These figures aren't really necessary to play the game, a Musician (i.e. the cornicen) is a Support option and standard bearers (signiferi) aren't mentioned at all, but I intend to put him to use because, when it comes down to it, why wouldn't I?  I could put him in one of my infantry groups, perhaps or maybe I could even use him as a Status I or II leader support choice

These chaps are wearing bear pelts over their lorica hamata, which was a mark of their status in the century and cohort. 

In real terms, each century had a signifer, but this looks like a far more important piece of kit, maybe the signum of the first century or possibly the signum for the whole cohort, which was carried by the vexillarius, one of the principales, the name used collectively for junior leaders below the rank of centurion.

There were various types of signa. There was the manus, a hand representing the soldier's oath of loyalty, the imago, a representation of the emperor, the vexillum, a rectangular cloth banner, the draco, a kind of windsock with a dragon head, used by cavalry units from the 2nd century onwards and the famous aquila, the sacred symbol of a legion, although auxiliary cohorts didn't have eagles.

The small round shields, a kind of buckler called a parmula, were associated with signiferi and others, like musicians who were carrying something that was cumbersome and which made a larger shield impractical. I have no idea how commonly-used they were in reality, but they look nice on the models. They were also used by the sort of gladiators known as Thraeces, i.e. "Thracians" and were the same kind of shields as were used by  the Velites of the Middle Republican period.

Annoyingly, having photographed them, I now notice the mould line across the mouth of the Cornu. I shall have to deal with that and probably paint the area a darker shade too.

More recruits for the cohors equitata

As it has stayed relatively dry, I have finished basing and varnished another group of auxiliaries.

As I wrote earlier, the (imaginary) Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata had the additional cognomen Luperci ( i.e. the “Brothers of the Wolf”) because the Goganii were associated with a cult that venerated a wolf deity sometimes identified as Lykas, and this was reflected in the occasional wearing of wolf pelts as cloaks by some of the troops (actually a nice excuse to give a few of my Victrix minis the wolf pelts on  the sprues).

I have given these the shield arms with the short throwing javelins, because I like the way this looks, and I have all of these guys posed with their main javelins ready to throw. I can use these as skirmishers with Flexible Drill, and I can also mix in the slingers which I have already finished to create two groups with mixed weaponry, as shown below;

I think that this looks quite effective as a group too, but I'll be interested to hear what others think.

Auxilia with slings

Now, in the Infamy, Infamy rules, the only slingers that are listed for the Early Imperial Romans are "Tribal Slingers", but because some of us were discussing Roman slingers on the Infamy Facebook page, I cobbled a group of eight together. I used arms with swords from my Victrix Auxilia sprues, cut the hands off and glued on slinger hands from the Gripping Beast "Dark Age Warriors" set, and here they are;

I think that slingers can be justified because the rules state that Roman Auxilia are equipped with Mixed Weapons, which are described as "The weapons of most Foot and Mounted Warriors and include swords, spears and javelins". I am thinking that "include" doesn't preclude the use of other weapons here. However, the rules also talk about Skirmish Troops, saying "These are named depending on the troop type and include slings, bows and javelins. This is their primary weapon". Now, I don't want to have any of my auxilia as "Skirmishing Troops", because that fundamentally goes against how the auxiliary cohorts operated. I just want an opportunity to give some of them the ability to use slings rather than javelins as ranged weapons, taking advantage of their Flexible Drill characteristic.

Of course, the next question is how can these guys be accommodated within the rules? Well one suggestion (made by David Hunter) is to define them as;

Auxilia with slings          Warriors                8 men. 

Medium Armour             Mixed Weapons    Slings

Aggressive Attack 2       Step Out 1             Drilled, Supra Numerum, Flexible Drill

and field them with the following proviso; 

They may only use slings when skirmishing and only half the men fire, because  loading their slings is hampered by the shields they carry.

That seems reasonable to me, but the alternative might just be to mix them in with a group of auxiliaries with javelins and ignore the fact that they have slings. Personally, I prefer the first idea, but I suppose that it is up to my opponents if they are happy to play against auxiliary slingers.

Infamy, Infamy - the Auxilia have got it in for me!

Well, I have been painting away frantically all week to try and get some of my Victrix Romans completed, and now, as we have a dry day, I have managed to varnish the first few completed figures.

I have done two small vignettes to serve as Deployment and Ambush points, and also two Leaders.

First up, here is my Centurio, Julius Magnus Gallus, and his faithful Optio, Lucius Esox.

Note that their plumes are black. This is to represent the famous feathers of the Syldavian Black Pelican, noted by Herodotus as being sought after for helmet plumes, as mentioned in an earlier post.

Next, giving me an opportunity to use the arms with severed heads, flaming torches and heads on spears, I have done a deployment point and an ambush point marker.

The large dog is actually a Warbases 28mm wolf. I see the figures on these bases as being Exploratores returning from a mission into enemy territory, and coming back with trophies to prove that they contacted some barbarian foes.

These are the start of my Cohors Equitata force, the Cohors Primus Syldaviorum Equitata Luperci, raised from the Illyrian Goganii of north-western Syldavia during the imperium of Augustus Caesar. It is believed that this cohort was raised by Tiberius sometime after his campaigns in Pannonia, known as the Bellum Batonianum. 

Early Imperial Roman Auxilia

As a preparation for my next big painting project for the TooFatLardies Infamy, Infamy rules, I wrote up a backstory for the Auxiliary Cohort that I will be assembling from the excellent plastic Victrix Early Imperial Infantry and Cavalry Auxilia sets.

My plan is to create a force based on a cohors equitata quingenaria, which was a mixed cohort of 600 men, 480 infantry and 120 cavalry. 

Although the Romans had long used auxiliary units recruited from allied tribal groups bordering on or from within the empire itself, these were never formally incorporated into the structure of the army. However, from the time of Augustus onward, auxiliary cohorts became a regular part of Roman armies, and were fully integrated into the Roman system. The auxiliary cohorts were recruited from  the class of people known as peregrini, that is to say from the free non-citizens of the provinces of the empire.

I decided that instead of basing my troops on any existing historical unit, I would place their origins in my imagi-nation of Syldavia.

Roman Syldavia

History tells us very little about the peoples of pre-Roman Syldavia. A fragment of a lost work attributed to Herodotus records that black pelican feathers from the Land of the Sylvans were much sought out for helmet plumes in Greece and that the tribes of the country were “warlike, tall, well-built and fond of feasting, hunting and drinking in the manner of the ancient heroes of the long-haired Achaeans”, that their lords lived in “great hill-top palaces girt with tall walls built by the Cyclopes” and that the people honoured “Chthonic gods unknown to the citizens of the cities of Hellas”.

Sometime around 337 BCE: Alexander the Great is said to have campaigned against a  number of tribes of the region. These were recorded as being the Goganidae, the Calippians and the Donantae, these being the Greek names for the tribes. The Romans later knew them as the Goganii, Calippii and Donantii.                           

In 281 BCE, an army sent by King Pyrrhus of Epirus is said to have been defeated by the Goganidae in a battle in a place called Xalippium. This site has never been definitively identified, although it has tentatively been linked to a site on the plans about 30 km east of the modern city of Travunje, where archaeologists have uncovered what appear to be the remains of a battle of the Hellenistic period.

In 87 BCE, the Roman period begins when the tribes of the northern regions along the valley of the River Trebjesa and southern Zympathia are defeated and subjugated by the legions of Gaius Hilarius Pollo. A number of oppida were besieged and reduced in the modern provinces of Zympathia and Wladruja and the Goganii and Donantii submit to Roman rule. In the following year, Bestus, king of the Calippii (Rex Calippiorum) submitted to Rome and most of the coastal littoral and the lowland interior of modern Syldavia was absorbed into the Empire as the two provinces of  Syldavia Superior and Syldavia Inferior. The cities (colonia) of Klovinus (Klow) and Istriodunum (later Istrow, modern Istow) were founded by veterans of Legio XXXXII Invictus.
                                                                                     
During the Civil Wars of the First Triumvirate, both Syldavian provinces were controlled by Julius Caesar, who recruited auxiliary troops from the peregrini of Syldavia, the warlike Goganii of the north being considered amongst the best of his allied contingents.

After the death of Caesar, the Syldavian provinces came initially under the control of Brutus, but following the Treaty of Brundisium in 40 BCE, they became part of the possessions of Lepidus. After Lepidus was deposed and exiled by Octavian, the inland portions of Syldavia were absorbed into the empire, as a result of Octavian’s campaigns in the Balkans and the two provinces were then much enlarged. The colonia of Klovinus had been partially razed during these campaigns but was rebuilt by the provincial governor, Marcus Totalis Nervus in 39 BCE.

In the years following the assumption of imperial power by Octavian as the Emperor Augustus, both Syldavian provinces prospered and became integrated into the empire. During the Augustan period six cohorts of auxiliary troops were raised in the provinces. These consisted of four cohortes equitate quingenarie (i.e. a mixed unit of 480 infantry 120 and cavalry, totalling 600 men), one cohors peditata milliara (800 infantry) and one ala milliara (720 cavalry).

These were named as;

Cohors Primus Syldaviorum equitata Luperci
Cohors Secundus Syldaviorum equitata
Cohors Tertius Syldaviorum equitata
Cohors Primus Calippii equitata
Cohors Primus Syldaviorum peditata
Ala  Primus Donantorum                                                                                 

All of these units are recorded as still being in existence in the 4th century, in a little-known addendum to the Notitia dignitatum, known as the Notitia Syldaviorum (a document that should not be confused with a text dating to the 8th century known as the Notitia Syldaviarum). In this text, the Ala Donantorum is categorised as being equites clibanarii, which indicates that at some point in the unit’s existence it was converted into heavily-armoured cavalry.

Little is known about the deployments of any of these auxiliary cohorts, although it has been suggested that the three cohortes Syldaviorum equitatae were present in the Dacian campaigns of Trajan and that the first cohort may have been part of the Roman garrison in Britain during the second half of the 1st century and, together with the second cohort also served in Germania in the 1st and early 2nd centuries. A partially legible funerary inscription found in northern Syria in the 1930s contains the following;

“M. HOSTILIUS GAVIA. OPTIO III COHORS S...........M”

Which some have taken as evidence that the Cohors III Syldaviorum equitata could have been stationed in Syria Coele at that time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
It is recorded that the initial recruitment for the first cohort was exclusively from among the Goganii, a tribal grouping living in an area roughly contiguous with modern Zympathia, Hum and Wladruja, and associated with a cult that venerated a wolf deity sometimes called Lykas, and this was reflected in the occasional wearing of wolf pelts as cloaks by some of the troops, as well as the sobriquet Luperci, i.e. “Brothers of the Wolf” attached to the name of the cohort. The 2nd century Roman author, Gnaeus Populus Silvus, of Goganian origins himself, connected the traditional cult with the Roman festival of Lupercalia and the Roman deity Lubercus.

Similarly, the fourth cohors equitata from Syldavia was named the Cohors Primus Calippii equitata because it was initially recruited from the Greek-speaking Calippians of southern Syldavia Inferior, who lived in an area stretching north from modern Cataro (Roman Castrum Caetarus) to the valley of the River Wladir (ancient name uncertain, but suggested to be Vallidos or Ballidos) and west as far as the modern Travunje.

The ethnic  composition of the remaining cohorts is presumed to have been mixed, apart from the all-cavalry Ala Donantorum, which was raised from the Donantii, a group of tribes who appear to have inhabited a large area covering the modern day provinces of Moltuja and Polishov, centred around the modern city of Istow. Roman Istriodunum was built on the site of a large oppidum which was probably the “capital” of the Donantii. Numerous objects of Illyrian and Scythian origins have been found at various times by archaeologists working in the extensive ruins of Roman Istriodunum, which has been preserved because the site was never reoccupied after its abandonment in the 4th century.

Thus, we can see that Roman Syldavia was inhabited by three main tribal groups,  the Goganii in the west and north west, the Donantii in the centre and north-east and the Calipii in the south and south-east.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                         
  

The rest of the Syldavian Königliche Gendarmerie

Here are the remaining five members of my Königliche Gendarmerie. They are in two pictures, so you'll need to scroll down.

Above are a Feldwebel (sergeant), a senior NCO, in his distinctive red uniform trousers with a Gendarm, that is the basic rank in the Gendarmerie, equivalent to a Soldat (private) in Infantry regiments. Below are three more members of the Gendarmerie, two Gendarms and a junior NCO, a Gefreiter (corporal) on the right. In the Gendarmerie, junior NCOs are only distinguished from rankers by a brass button on each of their shoulder tabs (not visible in the photo).

So, these are the last of my figures for my Syldavian and Bordurian companies for  In Her Majesty's Name . 

I need a new project now.

Some Syldavian troops of the Königliche Gendarmerie

I mentioned in an earlier post that the plainclothes Syldavian secret police, the Vohunska, often call upon support from the Königliche Gendarmerie. Here is an officer and two gendarmes from that fine service.

The Syldavian Königliche Gendarmerie was created in 1855 as part of the reorganisation of the existing regional militia battalions, to serve as both a Police force and a military reserve. In 1871, a separate National Reserve was created, leaving the Gendarmerie as a specialist national Police Force and Border Service. The Gendarmerie is part of the Syldavian army, and uses army ranks, except that the lowest rank is Gendarm instead of Soldat. Senior NCOs hold the rank of Wachtmeister.

The Gendarmerie wears the blue/grey army uniform, first introduced in 1822 (to replace the previous light grey uniforms worn since the end of the 17th century) as modified in 1849 when the kepi replaced the shako. Senior NCOs and officers wear red trousers and officers wear the 1867 pattern officers's kepi with a black leather peak. Other ranks wear grey gaiters with the trousers. Leather is brown for all ranks. The top part of the kepi is in the Gendarmerie's pale blue arm of service colour, as is the crown of the officer's kepi. 

Uniforms are cut in a French pattern and there is a white French-pattern "salacot" helmet, which is often worn on parade or by gendarmes guarding official buildings. In these situations, white gaiters are also worn. Where using a rifle is inappropriate, all ranks wear sidearms and will also be equipped with batons (swords for officers).

These figures are from North Star and are actually Artizan Designs French Foreign Legion ones. Obviously I will be using these figures in games of  In Her Majesty's Name and also in other pulp and Cthulhu Mythos games. 

I think that these will be worthy opponents of the Bordurians I have already painted. I will post the rest of them in future posts.

The final plainclothes Syldavian agents

Well, here are the two final plainclothes members of my Syldavian secret policemen. As previously, they are from the North Star Steampunk range. 

The eagle-eyed amongst you will note that they are duplicate poses to two of the others. I don't see this as any kind of a problem, because they have been painted in different colours. I think that the chap on the left looks a bit like Neville Chamberlain. I expect that he takes a much firmer line with miscreants and ne'er-do-wells though.

I can see these figures in all manner of settings. Blasting away fruitlessly at Shoggoths in Cthulhu-based games is a distinct possibility, as are supporting roles on Pulp games too.

So, now I have to paint up some uniformed members of the Königliche Gendarmerie. That should be fun. When they are done, that will mean that my Syldavian company for  In Her Majesty's Name is complete.

Some more information about Syldavia

In 1878, the 21-year old Miss Dorothea Huntley-Palmer travelled to Syldavia with her parents, Sir Arthur and Lady Caroline, for the coronation of the new King, Muskar VII. Sir Arthur was travelling in an official but unspecified capacity as a representative of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office.

      This image is by Edward Lear of the Albanian city of Durres.

The Huntley-Palmer family had a long history of visiting Syldavia, dating back to Captain (later Sir) William Huntley-Palmer of the 11^th Dragoons, who travelled widely in that country in the mid-18th century at the behest of the British government, first visiting Syldavia in 1753 on the orders of General Sir George Augustus Melchett, a relative and his superior in an unnamed government department. William Huntley-Palmer lived in Syldavia for a number of years and in 1763 married the 22-year-old Doroteja Svinjske-Klobase, a member of a noble family related to the Syldavian Royal House of Almaszout.

Before visiting the country, Dorothea (named after her Syldavian ancestor) investigated the journals and papers of her illustrious forefather and because of family connections was able to consult many documents contained in the Melchett Archives.

William Huntley-Palmer was resident in Syldavia between 1756 and 1764 and wrote at length about the people, customs, places and history of the country. Dorothea was most interested in the capital city Klow (variously pronounced as Klau, Klov and Klor), because that is where she would be residing initially. In one report, Sir William describes Klow as;

"an ancient but well-preserved city, constructed of pale yellow limestone with several grand palacioes in the Venetian style, possessing a number of fine antique ruins from the Roman period. The Basilica of St Budvar gives the appearance of great antiquity and was surely constructed by mighty engineers from imperial Rome or Constantinople in the years of its glory This great church is decorated in the Byzantine manner, with many mosaics and icons and has a great dome of ancient and ingenious construction. Much of the water supply to the Old City comes from a still-functional Roman aqueduct. The Old City, which occupies the long ridge overlooking the confluence of the Wladir and Moltus rivers is still known by its Roman name of Klovinus and is dominated by the great mass of the mediaeval Castle, formerly the Royal Residence and location of the Royal Court, although nowadays there is a modern Royal Palace built in the French style facing the Castle across the main square. The Castle itself is of a stern aspect and strongly built in the old Italian manner, with all manner of machicolations, arrow slits, round towers and fortified gateways”.

Sir William writes at length about the Old City, noting that many mediaeval buildings were razed to allow the building of the New Palace, which was only completed in 1742, although construction had begun in the 1720s. Sir William himself spent some time residing in a mediaeval tower house in the Old City, once the residence of Sidekar Krutusne, a famous warlord of the Slavonic Hvegs in the 15th century. Close to the Basilica, the house bore a bas-relief indicating that in 1464 its owner had been made one of the founding Knights of the Order of the Black Pelican. The carving above the entrance to the house showed a Pelican Rampant, bearing in its beak a scroll emblazoned with the Latin phrase “hoc signo vinces nigrum onocrotalus” and dated 1464.

Sir William also describes the newer parts of the city of Klow, which are mainly on the south bank of the River Wladir, although there are many houses and warehouses of the 17^th century on the slopes outside the Old City Walls that lead down to the wharves that line the northern bank of the river. To the north of the city, he describes the market gardens and small farms that have sprung up over the centuries to feed the urban population. He also notes the remaining Roman ruins at the western end of the Klovinus ridge, enclosed in a walled park which forms part of the modern Royal Palace. In his words;

“The remaining vestiges of Roman Klovinus, which was built on the site of an Oppidum of the Illyrian tribe of the Kallipians, are to the west of the Palace and are part of the parklands in which King Ottokar, his wife Queen Octavie and their children may be found taking the airs and enjoying musical performances in the simulacrum of a small Roman theatre which has been reconstructed from the stones left from the destruction of much of the mediaeval city. The remains themselves consist of two pillared temples, one still with its roof, the lower floor levels of a great villa, some statuary and a square building which had been decorated with mosaics in the Christian period of Roman rule. The famous aqueduct, which is one of the marvels of the country, lies elsewhere, entering Klovinus through a tunnel through the walls further east, filling the great cisterns beneath the Castle. These waters come from the north, transported by this great Roman enterprise from springs high above the fortress of St Vladimir, which was rebuilt in the manner of Marshal Vauban in the early 1700s.”

Discussing modern Klow, Sir William says;

“The Lower City, the Extra-Muros, dates mainly from the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is found on the Right Bank, that is to say the northern side of the great River Wladir. Much of the building is in the Venetian style and there are a number of fine Palacios belonging to merchant families. At the western end of the Extra-Muros is the Quarter of the Musselmen, where the tall towers of their temples, known as Mosques, dominate the skyline. There are also numerous residences on the terraced slopes leading down from the Old City Walls, which were once the mansios and hotels of various Syldavian lords and gentry, although these are mostly now much decayed and occupied by those artizans and workers of the Old City whose homes were razed to build King Ottokar’s father’s new palace. The Lords and Gentlemen have decamped to a location to the east of Klow, in the tongue of land between the Moltus and Wladir rivers. Formerly the fishing village of Sankt Budvarius (there is a shrine to the saint situated close to the river), since the middle part of the 17^th century this village has been built up into a sophisticated suburb with a theatre for the Opera and other musical diversions. South of the Wladir, the Left Bank may be reached by three great bridges. New Klow proper can be found here. Close to the river, there are many enterprises and manufactories and the houses are small and close together. This area was formerly known as die Häfen, that is to say, The Harbours. This is where the urban poor and labouring classes of New Klow are concentrated. South of these warrens, past the New Market of Klow, built in 1670 by the order of King Muskar IV (grandfather of the current King), there is much new building, including districts of fine houses when the new middling classes reside. At the western edge of the New City lies the Champs de Mars (named in the French way) and the main depots and barracks of a number of regiments of the Syldavian army. None of New Klow is walled and the city is extending southwards as the population grows”

Dorothy notes that her family will reside in a mansion in Sankt Budvarius which is currently the British Embassy. Since the 1760s, Sankt Budvarius has developed into an administrative centre, with a number of government ministries and foreign legations and embassies located there.

In her journal, Dorothea writes that her family and personal servants would travel across Europe by train to Venice, before taking a steamer to the main Syldavian port of Dbrnouk, from whence they would complete their journey by train to the capital. She expresses a desire to explore the old town of Dbrnouk and practice her watercolour techniques by painting the ruins of the Venetian castle. She tells us that she is much taken with the story of the first King of Syldavia, Muskar I, recorded in mediaeval documents as Muscarius Hivegiorum, that is to say Muskar Hveghi or Muskar of the Hvegs, who became king in 1127, leading an army of Hvegi and Istrovni supported by Venetian and Carinthian mercenaries, overthrowing the last Turkic khan of Lower Syldavia at the Battle of Zileheroum. Legend tells that the night before the battle Muskar dreamt of a giant black pelican who flew out of the dawn bearing in its beak a scroll inscribed with the words “hoc signo vinces nigrum onocrotalus”. This legend will much later on give birth to the Knightly Order of the Black Pelican.

Dorothea writes that the Hvegi and Istrovni were Slavonic tribes who had migrated into the region in the 6^th century, and who were later “enslaved” by Turkic-speaking tribes from the area north of the Black Sea, who conquered the Duchies of Klovinia, Zympathia and Istrovia in the 10^th century. The first recorded Slavic ruler of the area was Budvar I, known as Budvarios Sclavenios in a document from the reign of the eastern Roman emperor Tiberius II Constantine. The inhabitants were referred to as the Klovinioi. The 8^th century Notitia Syldaviarum tells us that the peoples (populi Syldavari) of Upper and Lower Syldavia are comprised of the Illyrian Ghogs, the Syldavi (descended from Roman colonists), the Gothic Tervingi and the Slavic Istrovni and Hvegi.

Other things that Dorothea discovers in the Melchett Archives date from the end of the 18^th century and the early years of the 19^th.. One of these is that Admiral Nelson spent some time in the southern port of Cataro with Lady Hamilton in 1799, while his ships were refitting in the great Cataro Lagoon, a safe harbour for many ships. Another is that her grandfather Sir Robert Huntley-Palmer (b.1794 d.1867) met Lord Byron in Klow in 1819, while visiting the country as a guest of Count Otto Svinjske-Klobase, a member of his grandmother Doroteja‘s family. Dorothea expresses the hope that she will also meet her Svinjske-Klobase relatives while staying in Klow. She writes, somewhat colourfully, of her desire to meet dashing young Syldavian Hussar officers and being able to attend glittering balls and soirées where she can spend her time dancing amidst the cream of Syldavian society. She notes that her great-uncle Lt. Col Henry Huntley-Palmer (b.1801 d.1889) was British Military attaché to Syldavia in the 1850s and was an observer present at a number of engagements between Syldavia and Borduria in the War of 1859-1863, which eventually led to the end of the Bordurian Autocracy and the rise of its present Dictatorship.