Right, so being honest here, this art is very directly based on a painting of Basil II by Joan Francesc Oliveras Pallerols.

I intended to write a backstory to go with this image, but it ended up being way too long. Please excuse my ramblings, I mainly did it to flesh out the lore of my setting haha... Eventually I must stop trying to write a fake history book and write an actual story...

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In 298 M., the year preceding the start of the Blue Anarchy, a dragon identifying himself by the name Kotyas arrived at the camp of the 2nd Takhic Battalion, requesting to join their ranks. The Theskaian army was perpetually eager for more chimeras to join their ranks – particularly dragons, which are reputed to be the strongest of the chimeric species – and so this new recruit was accepted into training after little more than a brief physical examination.

What their examination evidently missed was that their new recruit was, at least by sex, a female – making him, by the laws of the time, ineligible to join the army. This was a very recent law, instituted by the preceding Anax, Elpidios II, the same one who had declared Rhodism to be the official faith of the Theskaian Anaxia. For most of Theskaian history, female dragons, though often exempted from conscription, were permitted to join the military as volunteers. Kotyas had seemingly hidden his sex in order to be allowed into the army, a feat that was likely quite easy, as dragons exhibit a remarkably low degree of sexual dimorphism. Even most members of their own kind cannot differentiate males from females at a glance. Though Takhic dragons did traditionally recognize a difference between the sexes, this was made clear through differences in apparel, names, and in manner of speaking – a conscious choice, and one that Kotyas could simply choose to invert. Due to Kotyas maintaining this identity for the rest of his life, and out of respect for such a great and venerable Anax, I will continue to refer to him as a male.

Kotyas, from early on in his career, proved his skill as both a fearless soldier and as a cunning tactician. When the Anax Pelagios III, who had been deposed by the rebel Nonnos during the Black Year of 299 M., made his campaign to reclaim the throne, the Takhic Theme was one of those that sided with him. The regiment journeyed south to besiege the city of Theskai, conducting an assault on the Gate of Isidas to open it for the rest of Pelagios’ forces. Kotyas flew up the walls alongside his Troop, battled through a sortie of Rokic dragons that attempted to challenge their landing, and was first to break into the gate tower and capture it after a fierce battle with the human garrison. Kotyas opened the gate, and had the honour of raising the standard of the 2nd Takhic Regiment on the tower, signalling for the main assault to begin. Pelagios’ forces flooded into the city, fighting through the streets and to the Palace of Kyreios. They executed Nonnos immediately upon his capture, and Pelagios III was returned to the throne. Kotyas was awarded with the Walled Crown, a military decoration given to those first to raise the battle standard on the enemy’s walls during a siege, and an immediate promotion, becoming the commander of his Troop at the age of 26.

Four years later, Kotyas participated in the invasion of Eparkia, led by Pelagios III, to reclaim the territory seized by Phillipos and his supporters during the Artaian Schism. In the initial weeks after landing, Theskaian forces saw significant success, destroying the Eparkian fleet and capturing much of the coastline. Yet when they attempted to push inland, through the forests, they faced repeated harassment by the mobile forces of barbarian tribes allied with the Eparkians. The barbarians lured them into an ambush, and the commander of the 2nd Takhic Battalion was killed, leaving his soldiers without orders. Kotyas, in command of his Troop, took the initiative to form up around the baggage train and the Anax, who had been wounded by an arrow. They transported them by flight to a nearby hill, which the rest of the army was able to fall back to. The enemy continued their sporadic assault for the rest of the day, but the Theskaian forces weathered each attack until night fell, and the barbarians withdrew. When the enemy returned the following day, the 2nd Takhic Battalion, under Kotyas’ provisional command, flew straight over them to begin an assault from behind, forcing the barbarians up the hill and into the infantry lines of the Theskaian army. Surrounded and trapped, the barbarians were quickly defeated. After the battle, Kotyas was granted permanent command of the 2nd Takhic Battalion by the Strategos of the Takhic Theme. Pelagios’ state, however, was not alleviated by the victory – the wound grew infected, possibly due to a poison on the barbarian arrow, and he succumbed to a fever the following night. With the death of their Anax, and a succession crisis brewing at home, the Theskaian forces had no choice but to retreat from Eparkia.

After eleven years of service in his new position, Kotyas came to be involved in a conspiracy to kill Anax Hesychios – yet another usurper, who had continued the campaigns to reclaim Theskaian territory, but had grown unpopular among the army due to perceived incompetence and favouritism in promotions. The organiser of this conspiracy was the human Strategos of the Kleican Theme – and by this time, Kotyas’ personal friend – Theodoulos. During a siege of a fortress held by Bashaian rebels, a messenger brought word to Hesychios in his tent that their enemy was preparing a sortie. Hesychios left immediately, without his personal guard in attendance, intending to take command and repel the assault. Quickly, he was surrounded by assassins from within his own ranks, and killed. One story – likely apocryphal – claims that Kotyas had slain him with his own claws.

Upon the coronation of Theodoulos, Kotyas was granted the position of Strategos of the Takhic Theme, becoming not only one of the most powerful leaders within the Anaxia, but also the right-hand dragon of the new Anax. Theodoulos was quick to return to the frontline and continue the campaign that his predecessor had begun, in spite of resentment among the now-exhausted troops. With Kotyas at his side, Anax Theodoulos scored several decisive victories across the Dontikouic coast, seemingly set to put an end to the revolt within the year. Yet it seemed the new Anax was fated to meet the same end that he had condemned his predecessor to. While encamped with his army outside the city of Selodorea, Theodoulos was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant, putting an end to his short reign of only four months. His body was found in his tent by his bodyguards only after the assassin had escaped, leaving no trace. Despite – or, more accurately, because of – this uncertainty, the event has been mythologised as one of the assassinations of the Bashaian mystics. These men supposedly possessed the ability to turn invisible, and to make no noise while moving. Indeed, much about this death seemed supernatural, as several lead tablets inscribed with curses were found buried around Theodoulos’ tent, likely written by disgruntled soldiers that simply wished to return home. Some chroniclers from the west have the audacity to suggest that Kotyas himself had orchestrated this assassination, which is generally dismissed elsewhere as part of a slander campaign against Kotyas due to his later animosity with the Eparkians.

Regardless, the sudden death of Theodoulos sparked yet another succession crisis in the Anaxia. Back in the city of Theskai, the late Anax’s brother Ioannikios was raised to the throne with the support of several noble families. Simultaneously, Kotyas, who was immensely popular among his troops, was declared as the rightful Anax by the soldiers under his command. Kotyas accepted this title, but rather than immediately marching back to Theskai to secure the throne, he resolved to first succeed in the campaign that had thus far claimed the lives of two Anaxes. Kotyas employed both terror and leniency, offering pardons to any Bashaian lord that submitted to his army, but giving no mercy to those that resisted. Following a battle near the city of Diparla, Kotyas is said to have ordered for the right hands of each of the thousands of captives to be cut off, “So that they may never again raise them against the Anaxia.” Kotyas also allied with the Eramians, a nomadic group that had recently settled near the Theskaian border, making them clients of the Theskaian state and utilising them to crush the Bashaian rebellion. Soon, all of the major cities were back under Theskaian rule. The Bashaian rebels retreated into the mountains, from which they continued to carry out sporadic assassinations.

Kotyas, finally, brought his army on the road back to Theskai. The reclamation of a Theskaian province would traditionally call for a triumphal procession to be held in the honour of the victorious general. Yet many in the city feared his approaching army would come to envelop the walls in a siege, rather than march through in a parade. In Theskai, Ioannikios was still recognized as Anax by most of the aristocracy, while Kotyas was recognized by his own troops and many of the Strategoi of the Themes. Ioannikios attempted to negotiate with Kotyas, offering to organise an extravagant triumphal procession, and granting him the governorship of Bashaia, in exchange for revoking his claim to the throne. Yet before Kotyas could even send his reply, Ioannikios was murdered by his own bodyguards – the third Anax to be assassinated in the span of only a year. Now unopposed, Kotyas entered the city and took up residence in the Palace of Kyreios. One of his first edicts, officially to help replenish the exhausted military, was to repeal the laws of Elpidios II and allow female chimeras to join the army again.

With the city now nominally under his control, Kotyas’ concern turned to pacification. The city’s aristocracy and the synclite, which had largely supported Ioannikios, continued to plot in secret for Kotyas’ deposition. Furthermore, overwhelmed by fear of raids by the Psakaian Korakides, cutting off grain shipments to Theskai, the city’s population had turned to rioting, encouraged and supported by factions in the synclite. Kotyas, knowing that any force he could call upon within the city was beholden to one faction or another, chose to look for help from outside the Anaxia. Kotyas made a deal with the king of the Seyagrish – a northern, Algiric realm: Their raids on Theskaian territory were to cease, in exchange for a tribute paid of 5000 minae of silver. In addition, and most crucially, Seyagrish mercenaries would be granted permanent contracts to serve as the Anax’s bodyguards and elite soldiers. This treaty was the origin of the Eisvaroi, and reduced the threat that the Anax would be slain once more by his own bodyguards, a prospect that Kotyas was intimately familiar with. These new mercenaries were paid directly by the Anax, and thus had a greater incentive to keep him safe when compared with local bodyguards that may be beholden to a Theskaian political faction. Kotyas employed these mercenaries to suppress the riots in the city, and to drive off the Psakaians thanks to their naval expertise. With the city finally safe, and Kotyas’ reign secure, he could now turn his attention outwards.

Kotyas returned to Eparkia for the second time in his life, two decades after his participation in Pelagios’ invasion, and now at the head of his own army. He employed a similar strategy to that he had employed in Bashaia, offering leniency to those that surrendered, and harsh punishments for those that resisted, as well as making alliances with nearby barbarian tribes. He promised religious freedom to those following the Phillipist schools of Rhodism, asserting that his aim was simply to restore the province to the Anaxia, not to fight in a religious schism that should be the domain of scholars and philosophers. Though sporadic fighting continued for decades after the invasion, requiring a strong military presence for the rest of Kotyas’ reign, Eparkia was by and large brought back under Theskaian rule. With this conquest, hegemony over the Mesigian Sea had finally been restored.

The rest of Kotyas’ reign was a period of relative peace – rather than overextending the Anaxia’s resources and pursuing the reconquest of further provinces, Kotyas devoted his efforts into establishing good relations with neighbouring realms and stabilising his own kingdom. A particular concern was that of succession, for Kotyas had abstained from marriage his entire life, likely out of concern that his sex would be revealed. With no offspring of his own, Kotyas attempted to revive the Theskaian tradition of adopted heirs, one that was practiced in the early days of the Second Anaxia, but had since been abandoned in favour of dynastic succession in the manner of foreign realms. Kotyas declared that Zuraxas – a fellow Takhic dragon, who had been raised to command of the Takhic Theme after Kotyas’ accession – was to be declared his junior Anax and heir by adoption. Though this move faced some initial opposition, Kotyas dedicated much effort into preparing both Zuraxas to rule and for the realm to accept his rulership.

At the age of 115, after a reign that saw the Anaxia recover from the instability of the dawn of the 4th century and enjoy a period of prosperity, Kotyas succumbed to an unknown illness whilst in his residence in the Palace of Kyreios. It was only after a post-mortem examination that Kotyas’ sex was discovered, and became known to the wider world. Through a controversy ensued, Zuraxas’ accession to the throne went largely uncontested, in no small part due to Kotyas’ efforts to secure the succession during his life. The Takhic dynasty remained in power for another 95 years, with its system of adopted heirs persisting in some form for the rest of the Second Anaxia’s history.

Kotyas was not the first dragon to rule over Theskai – he was preceded by the Satraps Amatakos and Alexdrakontos from well over a thousand years prior, the Anax Sadarios from five centuries prior, and the Anaxes of the Kratirid dynasty from about two centuries prior. He does, however, have the distinction of being the second longest-reigning Anax, ruling for 74 years between 319 M. and 393 M., only surpassed in this respect by Kyreios, who had extended his life by magical means and reigned for 262 years.

- Makarios tou Stylianos, Theskaian History vol. 78.