Arlesian Hegemony

The Arlesian Hegemony was a precursor state to the Lyonine Empire. While the Hegemony started out in the Imperial Heartland it would expand well into neighboring nations such as Acronia, Odentia, Astronea, and Merala. The Hegemony practiced a form of proto-democracy and republicanism that by the end had morphed into an oligarchic republic. It is during the Hegemony that many of the early pillars of society that would make up the Empire's earliest codes were formed such as a written constitution, basic rights of the people, embracing a secular state and unification of a common language. The Hegemony would create a Golden Age of Culture that would go unrivaled in the local area and would see Arlesian society flourish. This came to a rather abrupt end in the 5th Century when a series of crises hit the Hegemony and it was unable to remain a united entity thereafter and totally collapsing before the turn of the century.

Foundation
The Hegemony emerged from the Deceleian Dark Age in the Eastern Basin, later called the Golden Basin, of modern Lyonia. This area had been governed by the Veintine Confederation for three centuries from the 9th to the 6th Centuries BCE. The height of which even extended down to the modern Kingdom of Fiore. That period has become known as the Veintine Golden Age in which the written language identified as Veian took shape and is seen as the precursor to Arlesian and then Modern Lyonine. It is also during that Golden Age in which the first forms of democracy and republicanism took shape in the area.

c. 232 BCE we start to see the establishment of the the Hegemony take shape as the city of Arlium established itself as a major player along the eastern coast of the Basin. With a minor war spiraling into a League War between Arlium and its main rival Cassina. While truly devastating and resulting in the demolition of Cassina and the enslavement of its people, the war also established Arlium as the preeminent city in the Basin. The Treaty of the Cassinine Hill which ended the war, brought about the destruction of Cassina and established Arlium as Hegemon is seen as the foundation of the early Arlesian Hgemony.

The later Accords of Cetalis cemented Arlium's position as Prime City of the Hegemony, capital in everything but name. It established a unified treasury, code of laws, legal system, form of government, a legislature called the Assembly of Cities in which all members received a single vote.

The Hegemony's official government form supported proto-democracy and republicanism though there were brief periods of Tyranny. The Hegemony would come into conflict with neighboring states on multiple occasions and many wars would be fought in the first and last centuries of its existence with the middle centuries being known as the Arlesian Golden Age or also known as the Pax Arlesia.