Gaulish plagues

1

Matiyahu Adael Ben Semgayahu's great-grandfather was Benjamin, a son of King Oliyahu, who refused the throne after his father's sudden death - 85 years ago. A young Judean sailor from Ireland, Matiyahu was appointed king instead and he reigned 59 years, and after him three other kings from his lineage reigned shortly. During the reign of Salomon II, there was an invasion by Roman troops with the attempt to take over the Kingdom of Judah and the neighbouring Israelite confederations at the shores. For 10 years the Romans occupied northern half of the kingdom the last seven years were disastrous for the inhabitants of the land. The leaders of the land were taken captive and brought to the Roman province Mauretania as prisoners of war. The region became a distant district of the Province Numidia, due to both Provinces of Mauretania being occupied with revolts.

Within this time Matiyahu Adael Ben Semgayahu arose, an intellectual young man from a southern village near the lake district. The Roman conquest failed, due to the area being to far removed from their military base in Mauretania. Matiyahu noticed early that the troops were leaving, but he also found out that the reason was because Emperor Claudius was in the process of annexing Britain and Ireland into the Roman Empire. The soldiers were needed in the new Province.

When the Romans left the Judeans overthrew their pagan altars they've build amongst them. In the kingdom of Judah they selected Matiyahu as leader, due to his knowledge multilingual talent and his persistence into getting along with the developments of the time. At this time the Kingdom of Judah had 980.000 inhabitants. A half year in his reign, Matiyahu annexed coastal chiefdoms and all their villages into his country. Now his country gained asses to the sea. Because of this another 118.000 inhabitants were added to his territory. Now with around 1 million Israelites into the country, Matiyahu redistributed the wealth amongst the families. Furthermore, he selected several periphery families - which were exploited for several generations and installed them as his household servants. With the Romans gone there was no more military conflict nor threat of war in the area. A year after the annexation Matiyahu appointed regional leaderships into the whole country. He acknowledged that as 20 year old he didn't had any experience to deal with the political issues of the people. The leaders were all Judeans, non-Israelites were not permitted to have leadership positions. The immigrant population that lived in the Capital were around 23.000 at this time. They were kept separate from the Judeans, even though they enjoyed protection and provision. Among these were 1300 Aquitanians who migrated to (west-African) Judah during the reign of Emperor Caligula. They were refugees who left everything behind to begin a new life far away from Rome's tyranny. There were also 4000 Lusitanians, and smaller fragments of nations far off.