Tetrarchs

First Appearance and Context

During a public feast at the concent, a Saecular mayor spoke about recent boundary changes and claimed that five of the eight Tetrarchies were now aligned with a new generation of leaders. This prompted the quip, “If there are eight of them, why are they called Tetrarchs?” and the reply that there had originally been four, and the name remained. Within the narrative, the term is thus introduced as a Saecular political label with historical inertia.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Used in Saecular political rhetoric to denote a set of regional jurisdictions called the Tetrarchies and their leadership.
• Referenced alongside talk of prefectural reconfiguration and a plenary council of satrapies, indicating a broader administrative framework in which the Tetrarchies operate.
• Avout observers note the mismatch between the literal sense of the name and the current count, suggesting the term is a retained legacy rather than a precise descriptor.

Relationships

• Saecular officials (e.g., a mayor) use the term when addressing mixed audiences of visitors and avout.
• Avout reactions frame “Tetrarchs” as an outsider political label; one comment connects the label’s iconography to traditions said to predate the founding of Ethras.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• The name literally implies “four,” reflecting its origin in an earlier arrangement; it is retained even when the tally has expanded to eight.
• Functions as shorthand for a constellation of offices and regions (the Tetrarchies) rather than a single post; usage is context‑dependent and politically inflected.

Current Status/Location

At the time of mention, a mayor asserted that five of the eight Tetrarchies stood within the grasp of newer leadership. The term “Tetrarchs” remains in active use in Saecular discourse despite the historical shift in number.