Assassins
The Order of Assassins, more properly known as the Hashshashin or the Nizari, were a sect of Shia Islam that formed in the Near East of the 11th century. They were founded by Nizari missionary Hassan-i Sabbah, who seized the mountain fortress of Alamut from the Seljuk Turks to use as a base of operations. The Assassins were feared enemies of the Crusaders who invaded the Near East in the same timeframe that they were active, and it's through them that "assassin" entered the Ænglisc language. It's said that the Assassins inducted members into their orders by drugging them with hashish--thought to be the ultimate origin of the word "Hashshashin"--and treating them to the best that they had to offer for one day in a simulated Paradise with the promise that an eternity of it awaited them in the afterlife if they fought and died for the Assassins' cause.
Though all evidence points to the Assassins having been exterminated by the Mongols and others by the mid-13th century, some suggest that they've persisted in secret through to the present-day, often attributing mysterious deaths all over the world and throughout history to them.
Though all evidence points to the Assassins having been exterminated by the Mongols and others by the mid-13th century, some suggest that they've persisted in secret through to the present-day, often attributing mysterious deaths all over the world and throughout history to them.
Purported Assassin Activity
- October 1 331 BC: records indicate that a group of warriors in white participated in the Battle of Gaugamela, fighting for Darius III and the Persian Empire against Alexander the Great, though little evidence of the faction exists otherwise, including their ultimate fate--they may have been wiped out by the Macedonian forces, they may have been destroyed in the coup led by Bessus or even aided the usurper, or they might have survived and vanished into the mountains in the wake of Persia's annexation by Macedonia; whatever their fate was, some regard these mysterious warriors as the earliest incarnation of the Assassins
- 1st century AD: some suggest that the Sicarii, a splinter group of Hebrew Zealots opposing the Roman occupation of Judea (modern Palestine) were one of the earlier incarnations of the Assassins
- June 26 363: Julian the Apostate is mortally during the Battle of Samarra, and some suggest that one of his own Christian soldiers did the deed because he tried to revive the old pagan faiths and suppress Constantine's state religion; a narrower group claims that he was actually killed by an Assassin, who used animosity with Christians as a cover for their actions
- May 1821: while Napoléon Bonaparte is officially recorded as having died of stomach cancer during his return to France from eastern Europe, some claim that he was actually poisoned by Britannian or German agents; a narrower group suggests that the deed was specifically done by Assassins
- September 21 1847: Viceroy Jacinto Ochoa is killed during the Battle of México City at the end of the First Spanish-American War, though records cannot agree on his actual cause of death--American and Aztec sources claim he was fatally shot in the chest and bled out before a surgeon could arrive while Spanish records insist that while he was shot, it was not a fatal wound but was then attacked by an unknown man with a sword, and some claim this swordsman was an Assassin
- January 8 1891: Arnulf Rasendechse, Prime Minister of Britannia, is found at the base of a waterfall near Bern, Switzerland, having apparently fallen to his death; as Rasendechse had last been seen alive with an unknown man in a white hooded coat, some suggest his death was actually the result of foul play, though this supposed Assassin was never found
- November 15 1904: Al Swearengen is found dead in the middle of a street in suburban Denver of a massive head wound, thought by some to have been the work of Assassins; if they were responsible, Swearengen's death is brought up as evidence that the modern Assassins or their successors might have some kind of code of honor due to Swearengen's reputation for brutality and depravity