Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction

Samarium

150.36

Singular Cities

Samarium: Noun, proper. The singular of Samaria.

There have been so many Samaria, it's hard to list them all. The first

Samarium was built by King Omri in 880 B.C.E. as the capital of the

northern kingdom of Israel. It fell to Sargon in 721 B.C.E. The native

population was deported, and it became the capital of an Assyrian

province. In 333 B.C.E. Alexander the Great conquered this Samarium,

killed much of the population, and made it a part of his vast and

temporary empire. In the third century B.C.E. it was rebuilt and

fortified by the Ptolemies as a Hellenistic city. John Hyrcanus destroyed

the Hellenistic Samarium in 120 B.C.E., and sold its inhabitants into

slavery. In 30 B.C.E. Harod the Great built a new Samarium as a Roman

city, which he named Sebaste or "Augustus" after the emperor. This

Samarium was destroyed by the Romans in 67 C.E. during the Jewish Wars.

By now a pattern is beginning to emerge. In 200 C.E. there was yet

another Samarium, this one a Roman colony. In the fourth century, there

was a Byzantine Samarium. In the tenth century, there was a Crusader

Samarium. During the French occupation the Samarium was a Latin

bishopric. Between times, there were Greek and (of course) Muslim

Samaria. Once, it was reduced to a single inhabited dwelling.

Oh, it is dreary to recite these facts! Peace followed by war, prosperity

by ruin, simple human lives followed by extermination and destruction.

The current Samarium is a Palestinian village named Sebastyeh, surrounded

by orchards and kitchen gardens. It is located on the West Bank, not far

from Nablus. In the year 2023 C.E.?

But why spell it out?