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As described by Havnon Qenii in his A Traveller’s Hàhnor
Altans! What images this name brings to mind! This greatest of cities dominates the rest of the continent, and indeed the world, just through her size, her magnificence, her diversity, not to mention the political and military power she now wields, as once she did in the past.
Yet this has not consistently been the case. The power today in the hands of the Altansians has only recently been acquired after two-hundred-and-thirty years of foreign rule. In fact, many a true Altansian would claim that foreign rule lasted far longer, for this world-metropolis is more indeed than a mere city; it is in many ways a state on her own, and her citizens, though much altered from those who wielded power here in her former days of glory, would see their ancient city as free only when she was fully independent of all but those who were themselves children of Altans.
According to tradition, Altans was founded at the very beginning of the Fifth Age, to celebrate the Hàhans’ victory over the troublesome Echores, in the year 500. The two Eldhaou, Celeris and Gelilae, created “a gentle city, a mile and a half from where the River Pernus flows into the Lake, Amignús, on a small hill overlooking the river. The city is built of white, polished stone, and is filled with quiet courts, flowing fountains, and wide streets, leading past slender, coloured towers, and through restful squares of cool colonnades.”
The reality is probably that a native settlement had existed here for some time before the arrival of the Hàhan in Hàhnor, as this hill-top site in a wide bend of the river provided an excellent position of defence. It is therefore likely that the Hàhan succeeded only later in incorporating this important fortress into their territories, though its swift rise as a major Hàhan city underlines how highly valued Altans was seen to be.
This is evident too in the naming of the new Hàhan city: Altans, with all its mythical associations from the scriptures, that white First City, was still an important image for those early Hàhan, who hoped yet to return some day to the Valley of their forefathers, where once Altans of old had stood. Here, on Earth, these Hàhan now possessed once again their white Altans, full of pleasant spaces, beside a lake, and far enough south to be free of any risk of attack. This well indicates too the optimism of the Hàhan in those early days of the Fifth Age; for this was the moment when they could not only claim victory over all those enemies who had resisted their arrival, but could now safely declare themselves the undisputed masters over the whole of Hàhnor.
During the Fifth Age, that golden period of Hàhan myth and legend, the time of Dúhar, of the Norsindor Plague, of the Mormil and the Rúnmil, Altans did indeed develop into a city of open squares and courts, of parks and gardens bordered by white, marble pavilions. Around the slopes below the fortress, a new, prestigious city was developing, bringing to that region trade and prosperity, and beginning even to rival the cities of Rilformò and Gamurecin. Furthermore, although Altans was a city much like these two other great centres of Hàhnor, the open design of her terraced squares and courtyards was significantly original to make this city a model for many later city-planners, who would exult Altans as the antithesis of the claustrophobic, street-riddled city exemplified in their time by Ercin. Ironically, little of this exemplary city had survived by the time these ideas were beginning to be discussed in the North and West, and many smaller, later cities of Hàhnor provide better illustrations of “open” cities than Altans.
What little has remained of this original Hàhan fabric is now incorporated into the foundations of later buildings, and although it is possible to imagine how the alignment of various of the present courts of the Cape is a sign of the underlying plan of the earlier city, the greater part of this ancient Altans lies deep beneath the grassy tussocks that now roll up to the walls of the Fortress.
Although the capital of Mephor’s new empire was at first Gamurecin, Altans had already gained enough in political importance to be made the capital by Mephor’s grandson, Tulca, in 1275. For fifteen years before then, Tulca had been preparing the city for this, through his ambitious rebuilding projects, which gave the city not only new docks, linked to the New Square by New South Road, but also the first of her most characteristic features, a wide canal completely encircling the city; Tulca had the River Pernus half-diverted, making Altans a wide, circular island, accessible only by defensible bridges. Later, in the Second Epoch, under the Emperors Dúhar VII and Thandrò, two more canals were added to form concentric rings, and the meandering course of the Pernus above and below the city was straightened to create direct links with the sea and with the vast system of canals which now stretched across all Hàhnor.
Further defence works around and on top of the Cape over the course of the centuries, as well as almost continual embellishment by successive emperors virtually erased any remains of the original Altans, whilst the excavations involved in creating the Hall of Kings beneath the Cape itself in 1766 destroyed the whole of that hill’s northern face. The clearing of this site yet further with the construction, in 1807-12, of Thandrò’s mighty Temple of the Divine Blessing, and Hendaie Amis’ subsequent widening of the Old Market Square in 1845, further damaged the fabric here of the city which had grown up to the north of the Cape during the First Epoch. During the Second Epoch in particular, Altans was expanding at an extraordinary rate, and it was in this period that we see the rise of the Academy, founded as early as in 1251, but flowering only now into its system of separate colleges, each supported by different cities or communities within the Empire, or even from outside, such as Orlavi College, founded in 1972 when the Birdman Empire was at its height, to commemorate the ascension of Tergor.
For Altans was now at the apex of her power, the capital of her far-flung Empire, the mightiest city in Herenor, on Earth, and Empress over the Americas, Europe and Africa, the only state ever to have extended its sway so far across the globe. The city was crammed, as any other imperial capital, with monuments and palaces, many of which are still standing. The Imperial Avenue and its majestic centrepiece, the Imperial Square date from the 1830s, when Thandrò laid out this part of the city around his new palace, none of which now survives in its original form. As well as the parks surrounding the Imperial Palace, wide, public parks were also laid out for each quarter of the circular city, on land too water-logged to develop.
It should be noted, however, that despite all this expansion, Altans retained her boundaries at the Inner Canal, and although scattered communities existed outside these limits, it would be many years yet until they could class themselves truly part of Altans. Indeed, after her fall, in 2149, all new building in the city virtually ceases for two centuries. In the anarchy of those years immediately following the capture of Altans by the Ralàtes, many parts of the city fell into severe ruination, and the overall vitality of this former capital of the world was not at all helped by the depopulation in this period, resulting initially from a mass exodus among the wealthier classes to safer parts of Herenor, and later from the spread of disease and even plague. The absorption of the city-state into neighbouring Amro brought some modest improvement, in the form of revitalisation projects, but Altans remained second choice after Ethrolin as chief city of Amro. Altans was simply too unwieldy as capital of this small country, lying as it did almost isolated at the centre of its vast web of waterways, half-derelict, unhealthy and even dangerous; although control of the city provided Amro with a ready-built port for her expanding trade, the citizens of Altans themselves resented being ruled from Ethrolin, with the first stirrings of independence-movements even then beginning.
Politically, the annexation of Altans by Líúth in 2360 marks a turning-point in the fortunes of Altans, signalling the beginnings of a process which would once again bring to the city the prosperity and power she had enjoyed in the previous Epoch. However, at first, the take-over had few visible effects on the city, and for a number of years, the new Líúthian masters were more preoccupied in building up defences all around the city’s outer boundaries, against aggressive and naturally aggrieved Amroic forces, than in embellishing central Altans. The renovating of the city by the Líúthians began in earnest only in the 2400s, primarily in the run-down districts to the north of the Cape around the Temple of the Divine Blessing, and to the west, where powerful banking-houses would later evolve. This period also saw the gradual return of people to the city, and a growing, albeit wary, confidence among her citizens.
The relationship between the cities of Líúth and Altans is of particular interest. Founded in 1340, Líúth enjoyed from an early time the status of Altans’ chief colony, almost that of second city within the Hàhnoren Empire, thanks mainly due to her position in a trouble-free region of Herenor. After the fall of Altans in 2149, Líúth retained her supremacy among the former Hàhnoren colonies, despite the self-proclaimed and short-lived empire of Grexion. Her influence in the West was assured, too, after the War of the West Forme, making Líúth a formidable religious as well as political centre in the whole region. Yet when Líúth unexpectedly attacked and captured Altans in 2360, it was not, as many believed at the time, an expansionist policy like that of her mother-city, but rather an attempt to give back to this mother-city some of the dignity she had lost over the past two-hundred years in the hands of foreign powers. Similarly, although many commentators in the younger city later saw in Líúth’s control of Altans a subversive policy of humiliating the older city, of reversing the earlier situation, this was never the case; in fact, it is notable how little in all her history Líúth has expanded beyond the borders she had as a region in the Hàhnoren Empire; her possession of Altans was rather the result of a desire to create, from the city that had spawned her, a sister-state, enjoying equally with Líúth the benefits of independence and mutual support.
Of course, in retrospect, this was perhaps an impossible dream on the part of the Líúthians: Altans was much changed since the days of the Hàhnoren Empire, her population largely different, her infra-structures in disrepair, her citizens unsettled, and now, of course, the city lay in a highly volatile area of Herenor, and was completely surrounded by a state which resented at the very least losing a port at the mouth of its main river. Massive defence-works were sufficient for the initial period of Líúthian control, but within a hundred years, as Amro expanded at a phenomenal rate and repeatedly threatened Altans, the Líúthians found it convenient to join the Union of the North, allowing the combined forces of Qayepia, Alparia and Korala to help defend the city, should Amro ever decide to attack. And although for these other three nations, Altans was no more than a prestigious power-base in the South, for Líúthians, Altans remained their sister-city, an almost sacred place to be defended at all costs, including sharing control with other, albeit friendly, powers, in order to prop up their own control of the city.
For Altansians, however, this always seemed too great a price to pay, and they resented yet more foreign government, even though from an early date (2477), the Union of the North allowed Altans a wide-reaching degree of self-government, establishing the Parliament of Altans and granting the City Lord the right to determine not only Altans’ internal affairs, but also her relationships with external governments, especially with her neighbours in Hàhnor. With the difficulty of sustaining their presence in Altans growing, as war loomed in the rest of Herenor, and with the Altansians themselves clamouring for ever greater independent powers, the Líúthians began to look less kindly upon their ancient mother-city, losing hope of ever achieving the state of unity with Altans for which they had been aiming during the past two-hundred years.
During the Great War, relations between the cities deteriorated considerably when Altans opted not actively to enter the hostilities, even when Líúth was under bombardment by the Borvensians in 2584. After the War, their cities and economies in ruins, the nations of the Union of the North granted to what they saw as an ungrateful Altans her independence. Since that time, Líúth has occupied herself primarily with affairs in her own region, and it would appear that the Líúthians, preoccupied as they now are with the wholly new order in Herenor, have despaired of ever quenching the Altansian thirst for complete independence, and now observe with some disdain the Altansians’ drive to assemble a vast, new empire. Líúth has now turned her back completely on the city on which she once lavished so much attention.
For it was certainly in the period of control by Líúth and then by the Union of the North that Altans was in no small measure repaired and extended. The Harbour Square was laid out in 2423, and later embellished in 2495 with the massive Gate of Altans. The Imperial Palace was rebuilt and made the home of the City Lord, while new arenas, stadia and parks were laid out in the various outlying towns and villages which were expanding in the rings of land between the city’s concentric canals. New theatres now rivalled those in the centre for prestige; elegant new temples and churches vied with the more ancient ones for attention. In 2557, the railway came to Altans, with the opening of the Cremere Station (since replaced by a new building), linking the city with Ercin; within only seven years, three more stations had opened, on lines leading to Gamurecin, Empor and out into the West, northwards to Nerom, and east to Medro. As well as this, the port was much enlarged to accommodate the increasing traffic passing through Altans, with wide, new docks being built on the Middle Ring Canal, close to the sea.
So it is that Altans appears as she does today: a mighty metropolis still, once again at the heart of a vast empire, once again the Mistress of the Earth. The felicitous policies of those who ruled her for nigh two-hundred years have laid the bases for her new-found prosperity, and excepting some unprecedented act of God, it hardly seems unreasonable to assume that she will continue to rise, especially when one considers the extent to which the rest of Herenor has so naively renounced the benefits of ordered civilisation after having passed through the calamity of the Great War. It is therefore left to this ancient, yet ever-vibrant city to lead the way once more for the lesser nations of Earth, and to bring to all Herenor the peace and stability this old continent so yearns, spreading her mantle of power over all the lands in her new empire, which will last for millennia to come.
