Tromarine

Province of Tromarine
Province of Urcea
Flag
Location of the Province of Tromarine
Country	Urcea
Cathedral City	Atina
Government
• Governor	Frederic Rortugal (NP)
Population  (2030)
• Total	13,370,028

Tromarine is a province of Urcea in the Sea of Canete. It is considered part of Urcea's Insular region. Tromarine, like most of Crotona, enjoyed a long history of being made up primarily of independent mercantile city states, dating back to its initial settlement by the Adonerii; it was likely the first place settled by Latinic people outside of Urlazio. The site of heavy exploitation by Great Levantia, it largely resumed its status as loosely aligned city-states by the fifth century. The island first underwent intervention from Urcea in the 1250s, though the Kingdom established merely a ring of protectorate cities and could not establish direct control. Following the Saint's War, successive Apostolic Kings of Urcea took interest in the island, expanding the Kingdom's influence. Most of its protectorates slipped away during the long Great Confessional War. Subsequently, direct Urcean envelopment of the island began in 1670 and would be completed in 1676 under the reigns of King Riordan VI and King Patrick I. Upon its conquest, the island was incorporated into the Kingdom of Crotona before it was organized as a province just prior to the Red Interregnum in the late 19th century.

History

Settlement and early history

In early antiquity, Tromarine was subject to colonization efforts both by the Istroyans and Adonerii, eventually becoming Adonerii's primary gateway to Levantia. Accordingly, the island increasingly fell under the sway of the Adonerii league as most of its cities were members by 900 BC. Useful as a stop-off point between Urlazio and Levantia, most of the island's economy nonetheless revolved around subsistence fishing with some consideration for merchants accommodating trade between Levantia and Sarpedon. As the Adonerii league collapsed, the island gradually fell under the away of Great Levantia, a state emerging from Adonerii members on mainland Levantia.

Great Levantia

Tromarine remained a largely sparsely populated island during early antiquity until the discovery of large deposits of tin in the inland mountains areas. The island transitioned from a fishing-and-mercantile centric economy to a primarily mining-and-extraction based economy from the 4th century to the 2nd century BC. Becoming the primary source of tin for early Levantia, the island became an increasingly popular destination for captured slaves beginning around 200 BC. Life as a mine slave in the Tromarine tin mines became increasingly brutal and short, and the island was subject to a massive influx of Gaelic slaves following the Gallian Wars. By approximately 1 AD, only a thin plurality of people on the island were non-slaves, and throughout most of Great Levantia's history the island had the most amount of slaves per capita of any part of Great Levantia. With the influx of slaves continuing throughout the first century, mining operations continued to grow, leading to a cycle of need for more slaves and harder conditions for slaves on the island. For most slaves, Tromarine was akin to a death sentence, and most slaves sent to Tromarine did not live long enough to reproduce or establish their own unique culture.

Great Levantine statuette believed to be of the captured Bituitus, 2nd century.

Following centuries of poor conditions on the island, a major slave revolt broke out in 149 AD. The slave revolt took on a Gaelic character and was lead by a recently enslaved son of a prominent tribal leader from northern Levantia, known to history by the Levantine name Bituitus. After making league with Gaelic-origin free persons on the island and Istroyans who had become increasingly disillusioned with Latinic rule, the rebellion succeeded in late 150 AD as the garrison forces of the island were defeated by Bituitus in open battle. For the next four years, Bituitus ruled as King of Tromarine (Rex Tromarinus). Exports of tin ceased immediately as most slaves were released, precipitating four years of major bloodshed as citizens and other Latins on the island were targeted and slaughtered. The bloodshed and collapse of the island's economic system not only led to major economic problems abroad due to lack of tin but also famine on the island as most imports, fishing, and agriculture came to a halt. Following a failed attempt to retake the island in 152 AD, a major force - some historians project more than 150,000 soldiers - from Great Levantia managed to recapture the island in 154 AD following a brutal two month campaign. During and after the recapture, the majority of residents of the island were slaughtered or sold into slavery, including previously prominent urban Istroyans. Many of the slaves were deported to Carolina, and most historians believe these Gaelic and Istroyan people would form much of the basis of what would become the Garán people of Carolina along with the later introduction of some Gothic heredity and cultural influence. Tromarine was repopulated with new waves of Gaelic slaves from the north and east of Great Levantia as well as urban Latin freemen. While tin mining would resume, the island's economy would never reach the place of prominence it held earlier. New laws relating to treatment of slaves in Great Levantia would gradually improve the working conditions on the island, and as state authority collapsed Latinic and Gaelic peoples on the island would begin to intermarry as happened elsewhere in Levantia.

In 354, Tromarine and Crotona were invaded by the Urlazian Kingdom, bringing Levantine rule on the island to an end.

Modern period

The establishment of the Crown Regency was resisted in Tromarine. While open conflict would not rise on the island until the beginning of the broader '97 Rising, the establishment of the regime had the effect of uniting those loyal to the Julian dynasty on the island with those who bitterly resisted central authority from Urceopolis, including the remaining members of the seventy-two and their descendants. In 1897, as the Rising began, an armed insurgency began on Tromarine which quickly took the city of Atina, declaring the province for Patrick, the Prince of Halfway.