7 sentences with “clans”

By the 7th century BC, a powerful collection of clans, the Medes, dominated Persia, forming an empire with little government.

In turn, the Medes ruled a collection of closely related clans known as the Persians, who would go on to rule territories far beyond the heart of Iran.

The Babylonians allied themselves with clans of mounted warriors in Persia called the Medes, and between them the Assyrian state was completely destroyed.

King Clovis killed both the chiefs of other clans who threatened him and his own relatives who might take over the Merovingians. He then expanded his territories and defeated the last remnants of Roman power in Gaul in the late 5th century.

Despite having no centralised leadership (the Seljuks themselves were only one of the dominant clans with no real authority over most of their fellow invaders), around 1000 CE they began to invade both Byzantine territories and those of their fellow Muslims, the Arabs.

Although the early Hebrews were communalists, meaning that they shared most of the common property within their clans (referred to as the twelve "tribes" in the Hebrew Bible), conflicts with the Philistines, another coastal Canaanite people, led them to appoint a king, Saul, around 1020 BC.

The Arabs conquered Persia not only because it was weakened by its wars with Byzantium (especially its defeat by Heraclius in 627), but because many Arab clans had fought as mercenaries for both sides in the conflict; great wealth had flowed into Arabia for decades, and the Arabs were already veteran soldiers.