Brief History of the Empire, Part II                            Stronach                                                                                                                                                           )	   =    F          A Brief History  of the Empire  Part II            Volume I of this series described in brief the lives of the first eight Emperors of the Septim Dynasty, beginning with the forebear Tiber Septim and ending with his great great great great grandniece Kintyra II. Kintyra's murder in Glenpoint, while in captivity, is considered by some to be the end of the pure strain of Septim blood. Certainly, it marks the end of something.    Uriel III not only proclaimed himself Emperor of Tamriel, but also proclaimed himself Uriel Septim III, taking a surname as a title. In truth, his surname was Uriel Mantiarco from his father. In time, Uriel III was deposed and his crimes reviled, but the tradition of taking the name Septim as a title for the Emperor of Tamriel did not die with him.    For six years, the War of the Red Diamond tore apart the Empire. The combatants were the three surviving children of Pelagius II, Potema, Cephorus, and Magnus, and their offspring. Potema, of course, supported her son Uriel III, and had the support of all of Skyrim and northern Morrowind. With the efforts of Cephorus and Magnus, High Rock turned. Hammerfell, Sumurset Isle, Valenwood, Elsweyr, and Black Marsh were divided, but most kings supported Cephorus and Magnus.    In 3E 127, Uriel III was captured at the Battle of Ichidag in Hammerfell. En route to his trial in the Imperial City, a mob overtook his carriage and burned him alive within it. His captor and uncle continued on to the Imperial City, and by common acclaim, was proclaimed Cephorus I, Emperor of Tamriel.    Cephorus' reign is marked by nothing but war. By all accounts, he was a kind and intelligent man, but what Tamriel needed was a great warrior, and he was that. It took an additional ten years of constant warfare for him to defeat his sister Potema. The so-called wolf queen of Solitude died in the siege of her city-state in the year 137. Cephorus only survived his sister by three years.     Cephorus never had the time during the war years to marry, so it was his brother, the fourth child of Pelagius II, who assumed the throne. The Emperor Magnus was elderly, and the business of punishing the traitorous kings of the War of the Red Diamond drained much of his health. Legend also accuses Magnus' son and heir Pelagius III of murder, but that seems very unlikely. For no other reason, Pelagius was King of Solitude, following the death of Potema, and seldom visited the Imperial City.     Pelagius III, sometimes called Pelagius the Mad, was proclaimed Emperor in the 145th year of the 3rd Era. Almost from the start, his eccentricities of behavior was noted. He embarassed dignitaries, offended his vassal kings, and, on one occasion, marked the end of a grand ball by attempting to hang himself. His long-suffering wife was finally awarding the regency of Tamriel and Pelagius III was sent to a series of healers and asylums until his death in 3E 153 at the age of thirty-four.     The Emperess Regent of Tamriel was proclaimed Emperess Katariah I upon the death of her husband. Some who do not mark the end of the Septim bloodline with the death of Kintyra II consider the accendancy of this dark elf woman as the true mark. Her defenders assert that though Katariah was not descended from Tiber, the son she had with Pelagius, was, so the chain does continue.    Despite the racist assertations to the contrary, Katariah's forty-six year reign was one of the most glorious in Tamriel's history. Uncomfortable in the Imperial City, Katariah travelled extensively throughout the Empire, such as no Emperor ever had since Tiber's day. She repaired much of the damage the broken alliances and bungled diplomacy had created. The people of Tamriel came to love their Emperess far more than the nobility did. Katariah's death in a minor skirmish in Black Marsh is a favorite source for conspiracy-minded historians. The sage Montalius' discovery of a disenfranchised branch of the Septim family's involvement with the skirmish was a revelation indeed.    When Cassynder assumed the throne at the death of his mother, he was already middle-aged. Only half-elven, he aged like a Breton. In fact, he had left the rule of Wayrest to his half-brother Uriel due to poor health. Nevertheless, as the only true blood relation of Pelagius, and thus Tiber, he was pressed into accepting the throne. To no one's surprise, the Emperor Cassynder's reign did not last long. In two years, he was dead.    Uriel Lariat, Cassynder's half-brother, the child of Katariah I and her Imperial consort Lariat, left the kingdom of Wayrest to reign as Uriel IV. Legally, Uriel IV was a Septim: Cassynder had adopted him into the family when he had become King of Wayrest. Nevertheless, to the Council and the people of Tamriel, he was a bastard child of Katariah. Uriel did not possess the dynamism of his mother, and his long forty-three year reign was a hotbed of sedition.    Uriel IV's story is told in the third volume of this series.               