1314 to 1348: the Old Man
Theodore VII would gain the affectionate nickname of le Vecchiu, 'the Old Man'. But his accession to the throne was barely noticed at the time. His brother Alexis IV was merely one in a long series of warlords, and the Felici or Felician had all chances of being as powerless and short-lived as the preceding ones.
Yet the feudal aristocracy and Western kingdoms never quite recovered from the great imperial-feudal wars of the preceding century. Theodore VII became king of Ougria; soon he added the crown of Tarragon. The final blow was the Great Famine of 1315.
A series of bad years had hit Francia, Danescia and Britain; at great expense, Theodore had Carthaginian grain shipped to the North. In the next revolt, the sided with the imperial troops and the Oceanic empire was no more. The Romans set up the client kingdoms of Evernia and Scotia in the British Isles, and later mostly left these alone.
Theodore VII supported the new institution of the Inquisitors and doubled it with civil comissars colled the Correttori. They were especially efficient in Spain, Narbonesi and Tengenna (Western Mauretania). The cities of Moragu and Sejimassa passed under direct imperial control, giving the emperor direct control over the very lucrative trade with the Manden empire in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Muslim East was much weakened by a struggle between various factions; it was finally reunited under an Egyptian caliphate, with Kiptchaks mamluks leader; the Roman stubbornly held onto Syria-Palestine. An unsteady peace was agreed to in 1321; this restored trade along the Silk Road terminus in Syria. As it happened, most trade was handled by military monastic order. Holy War was out of fashion as Theodore held to the traditional Roman view for which fighting the infidels was only a necessary evil, and war to be resorted to when all other expedients had been exhausted. Some of the orders sought Holy War elsewhere, in the service of the German king against Pagan balts. Other turned to banking.
By the 1320's, the Order of San' Biagiu controlled all trade between Muslims and Christians and held many monopolies by imperial decree. Not coincidentally, the emperor had inherited the charge of Grand Master from his brother.
The empire never succeeded in converting the Golden Horde to Christianity; but they did enjoy somewhat pacified relationships; the southern part of Crimea, around Chersunisu was an imperial trade colony, held by the Hospitaliers (of whom the emperor was a patron).
Theodore VII placated two imperial contenders by granting them the titles of despot of Rome and despot of Constantinople. The title ranked between Augustus (the emperor and his heir) and Caesar; it also came with absolutely no power. Military power was held by the duke Sorrecarianu in Italy and the count Ossequiu in Constantinople.
Besides, the capital was moved to Aquilea, and a secondary Eastern capital at Antioch; in both cases close to the front, should any new war arise, and conveniently away from court intrigue.
in the old Augustean tradition, Theodore VII le Vecchiu was now the richest man around, with wealth and political weight greatly exceeded any potential rival. But what did he do with all that money? Essentially, he rebuilt infrastructure. His greatest work was the network of castelli limidagni, border castle/fortresses.
The castelli were most useful, of course, in the Taurus and Syria, but they were also extended in Europe, where, along with distribution of military land, they helped consolidate marginal provinces (like Bulgaria) or newly acquired territoiries (Germany west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, Hungary).
He also rebuilt or enlarged harbours and rebuilt roads.
He also completely reworked imperial administration, separating civil, military and ecclesiastical hierarchies.
The basic administrative unit was the condadu. Theoretically, it served as a base for military forces headed by a commi, a count. It was also the seat of a vescuvu, a bishop. Tax collection, police and justice were headed by a justiziariu, a judge.
The commi could be assisted by drungari (drungaries), the bishop by syncelli and the justiziariu by praetors. At the lowest level, the pagus, imperial authority was represented by a local mandator (an imperial messenger).
A large or important condadu could be headed by a strategu, in which case civil government was handled by an eparchu and the Church represented by an arcivescuvu, an archbishop. Ranking above these were docchi, dukes, proconsuli, proconsuls and mitropolitani, metropolites.
The empire was divided into some fifteen provinces, governed by a prefettu, a prefect, seat of a patriarca and defended by a domestigu (roughly, a field marshall or a general of the army).
The Roman army still had centurioni (infantry) and degorioni, about the equivalent of an army captain. The imperial officer you were most likely to meet was a mandador, basically the chief of local police with the right to judge some cases and some extra responsabilities, like maintaining a land survey and handling a census.
All of these officers, whether ecclesiastical, civil or military were cavallarei, knights and above the rank of count/bishop/justiziariu were patricei, patricians, as well; anyone above the rank of strategu/archbishop/praetor was a Senator as well.
This is barely scratching the surface; in German provinces, some counts held the title of marcesi, marquess, in Greece the mandator was a krites and the justiziariu an eparch. Not to mention the grandiose court titles, but I won't bore you with the difference between a lustriu protosinapiariu and a bis consul spadarocandidadu.)
Administrative borders contemptuously bypassed earlier feudal boundaries. In fact civil counties were aligned on dioceses, which in turn often reflected the Roman provinces under Diocletian. Military counties did match earlier feudal limits, though they were sometimes reorganized to fit new geopolitical situations.
In spite of that bewildering accumulation of ranks and titles, Theodore VII wasn't much for micromanagement; his chief aim was to break the potential of local elite to match imperial power. Other than that, his approach was fairly laissez-faire. Roman law was applied, but the mandatori were tasked with compiling local custom, and cities were mostly self-governing. The model was democracy at the local level and autocracy beyond that.
Language
Maybe you noticed that I switched to Voigari; Theodore' reign is about the time when the use of Voigari became widespread.
The official languages of the empire were Latin and Greek. Latin had long been used as a complex orthography for the vernacular, and likewise Latin was read using local pronunciation.
So for instance, in Rome, the classical maxim
Nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans was read something like [nemo o'di:dor pro'bria torpe'donne al'lega], and in court cases you could read something like:
Eccellae terrae, per eccellae fines quae tibi monstravi, triginta annis illas possedit sanctae Mariae. which is ungrammatical as classical Latin but good Old Romaniscu if you read it : quelle terre, per quelle fenni tebbe monstrau, trenda anni le possè sante Marie (These lands, the borders of which I show you, have been owned by Saint Mary [Abbey] for thirty years[/i]
The system actually worked better than you'd expect. In fact a similar convention is still in effect in Greece (both in the ATL and in OTL, I should add) but it broke down across language boundaries: everybody complained, for instance, that the Latin of Northern Gaul was ununderstandable, and it didn't work at all for Ougrians, Greeks, Germans, Anglians, Slaves, who were non-native and pronounced Latin phonemically.
Works had long been written in several vernaculars; the Romaniscu dialect was established as a standard following Theodore's reforms. (Although it was mostly a convenience for travelling officials. Local people still used their own languages, and official documents were written in Latin).
The move to Aquilea didn't change the fortune of Romaniscu. Aquilea itself was a multilingual city, with local Venetian and Rhaeto-Romance speakers, Slavic speakers from neighbouring Schiavinie, Greeks, Ugrians, Lombards, and so on. The common vernacular, despite some influence from all of these, remained definitely Southern Italian; the Studia (university) of Rome, where many higher officials studied was influential enough to make sure that the empire's lingua franca never strayed far from Romaniscu.
Beyond the limidi
The Empire was already a little self-centered, which didn't preclude some early explorations. The Ipati, an Aquilean noble family established contact at the Yuan court in Chitai (China); under Theodore VII, this was followed by several extensive missions, with hundred of Preacher friars sent to Chitai, through territories of the Mongol khans. Despite contemporary reports to the contrary, no Mongol khan converted to Christianity, but the friars sometimes reached position of power, and good diplomatic relations were established with the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate, the Yuan dynasty, and even the Moghol.
Petru da Tenge, a Mauretanian priest, was notable for travelling across China, India, Persia, and undertaking a voyage to Africa, meeting the Manden king and establishing direct diplomatic relations with him (all contact before had been done through the intermediary Saharan nomads)
Theoduru le Vecchiu
Theodore VII outlived all of his rivals. When he died in 1348, aged 91, he was practically synonymous with the Empire. Hated by the Senate, loved by the people, a great builder and administrator, he had ruled as an Antonine monarch transplanted in the 14th century. The Fisher King trope was in full effect as, upon his death, a devastating epidemic started ravaging imperial cities. Passing through Mongol lands, the Black Death had reached the Roman ecumene.
A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - Sacrum Imperium Romanum Graecum Gothicum
Theodore VII had planned his succession; he had named his eldest son and eldest grandson Agosti - crown princes, ensuring dynastic stability for at least two generations. That was, unfortunately, not enough. The plague was particulary deadly in Aquilea and most of the imperial family died in the summer of 48.
This left two contenders for the imperial throne: a great-grandson of Theodore, despot John and another Theodore (a younger grandson). To which we should add the Bastard Strategi: duke Sorrecarianu and the count Ossequiu, who claimed descent from Alexis IV through illegitimate children, and had wide support in the military.
Theodore VIII was finally proclaimed emperor -- the despot John was judged too young. He ruled over a ravaged empire; half the population had died due to the plague. Isaac da Safi, a court doctor (later known as the princei medicoro, the First of the Physicians) was given an almost unlimited imperial grant to figure out a cure. He did improve somewhat on existing procedure (pro-tip: don't bleed the patients!); theories of contagions and immunity were established; quarantines were set up. The imperial physicians did pretty as well as could be done at the time; but the sheer devastation of the plague left a persistent feeling of malaise.
In 1356, Theodore VIII left to Iberia to lead personally an expedition against Turkish assaults on the Iberian coast. The count Ossequiu rose in revolt, and put despot John on the throne as a puppet emperor. Theodore had to return in haste, but faced a revolt. He found that he had just enough troops to maintain himself on the throne; but so many had defected to despot John that the usurper couldn't be decisively defeated.
Following a famine in the North and an earthquake in Thracia, it seemed to everyone that Theodore had lost divine favor. He responded by increased inquisitorial persecution.
Persecution of the Jews had already been codified by Justinian in the sixth century, but Theodore VIII was the first to actually enforce the strictures. Converts were particularly suspect. Isaac da Cordova himself chose exile to Egypt.
At the urge of the pope, he convened a session of the Senate. Much time was lost as notables flowed to Aquilea, procedures had to be put in place (a full session of the Senate hadn't been convened for centuries) and riots erupted in Aquilea. In 1360, Theodore VIII was left with little choice but to settle for the usual compromise; John III would be Eastern Emperor, and himself Western Emperor.
Much had changed in the empire; the economies of the East and the West were now thoroughly integrated and the schism led to an economic crisis. The division wasn't quite East-West either; at the individual province level, aristocrats, officials and bishop were either for John or for Theodore.
Theodore VIII died in 1361; he was replaced by his son Alexis V as Western emperor. John's son was married to Alexis V's sister and for a while it looked as if a reconciliation was possible. In 1366, however, an incident in Hellas between the count of Athens and the strategu of Morea (the Pelopponese) led to the Sorrecarian - Ossequian civil war.
It was a testament to the solidity of Theodore le Vecchiu's insistution that the empire survived at all during this time.
For the most part, the Ossequians (John's camp) stood for the military and the countryside; the Sorrecarian for the cities and the merchant class. The Churches remained deeply divided, until John III ordered the assassination of Alexis V and was excommunicated by most churches as a result. The excommunication was pretty much moot however: the death of Alexis V had brought an end to the war, assisted by bloody purges. (John III was forever known as John the Cruel as a result.)
In 1373, John III's son Theodore revolted against him and took the unofficial head of the Sorrecarian party. With an uneasy alliance of merchants, bankers and the Churches, he was able to secure the help of mercenaries (his so-called Bohemian army) and depose his father in the name of the Church, and exile him to mount Athos, with the lofty title of emberador emeritu.
This didn't quite put an end to the Ossequian party. Instead, as political opposition often did, it took the form of a new heresy, which denounced the evils of the Orthodox church and the new, evil, emperor, who had violated Biblical commandments in deposing his father, and surrounded himself with Muslims and Jews.
Meanwhile, perhaps to make a point, Theodore chose the regnal name of David.
He relied heavily on the imperial civil administration, headed by Antiochu le Mostruosu, who wasn't particularly monstrous: he just was a court dwarf, and the closest companion when emperor David was a young prince. He eased the sanctions on non-Muslims, which led the Churches to complain, but not too loud, for fear of launching a new civil war. This added fuel to the fire, in that the Ossequians could claim that the Church was corrupt; David found an unlikely ally in the order of the Preachers; Nicolau da Girona, the inquisitor general become the pope Bartholomiu II in 1387.
Nicolau was killed and captured by Tamerlan in 1400 and pope Bartholomiu died soon after. David was reportedly deeply affected by both deaths.
The German-Bohemian kaiser, Ottokar IV of Bohemia had to deal with an Ossequian revolt in 1410, and the empire was forced to intervene, to great expense. Bad relations with the new Timurid dynasty in Persia led to financial difficulties. Most gold at the times came from the Gold fields of Mandèn. David sponsored a naval expedition under Zeno of Moragu. Zeno, in several sea voyages, discovered the Azores and established a maritime route to Manden.
David had inherited his namesake and his great-grandfather, he died in 1444.
In the Golden Bull of 1402 had established a constitution of sorts. The emperor could name freely a successor; by default the throne went to his elder son, and then the Senate would be tasked with choosing a successor among his grandsons.
The last point was a concession to the aristocracy; but David had never expect to leave any choice to the Senate. The throne went to his minor grandson Theodore IX; and his mother, Helena, David's favourite daughter (David had no sons) would be empress regent.
This left two contenders for the imperial throne: a great-grandson of Theodore, despot John and another Theodore (a younger grandson). To which we should add the Bastard Strategi: duke Sorrecarianu and the count Ossequiu, who claimed descent from Alexis IV through illegitimate children, and had wide support in the military.
Theodore VIII was finally proclaimed emperor -- the despot John was judged too young. He ruled over a ravaged empire; half the population had died due to the plague. Isaac da Safi, a court doctor (later known as the princei medicoro, the First of the Physicians) was given an almost unlimited imperial grant to figure out a cure. He did improve somewhat on existing procedure (pro-tip: don't bleed the patients!); theories of contagions and immunity were established; quarantines were set up. The imperial physicians did pretty as well as could be done at the time; but the sheer devastation of the plague left a persistent feeling of malaise.
In 1356, Theodore VIII left to Iberia to lead personally an expedition against Turkish assaults on the Iberian coast. The count Ossequiu rose in revolt, and put despot John on the throne as a puppet emperor. Theodore had to return in haste, but faced a revolt. He found that he had just enough troops to maintain himself on the throne; but so many had defected to despot John that the usurper couldn't be decisively defeated.
Following a famine in the North and an earthquake in Thracia, it seemed to everyone that Theodore had lost divine favor. He responded by increased inquisitorial persecution.
Persecution of the Jews had already been codified by Justinian in the sixth century, but Theodore VIII was the first to actually enforce the strictures. Converts were particularly suspect. Isaac da Cordova himself chose exile to Egypt.
At the urge of the pope, he convened a session of the Senate. Much time was lost as notables flowed to Aquilea, procedures had to be put in place (a full session of the Senate hadn't been convened for centuries) and riots erupted in Aquilea. In 1360, Theodore VIII was left with little choice but to settle for the usual compromise; John III would be Eastern Emperor, and himself Western Emperor.
Much had changed in the empire; the economies of the East and the West were now thoroughly integrated and the schism led to an economic crisis. The division wasn't quite East-West either; at the individual province level, aristocrats, officials and bishop were either for John or for Theodore.
Theodore VIII died in 1361; he was replaced by his son Alexis V as Western emperor. John's son was married to Alexis V's sister and for a while it looked as if a reconciliation was possible. In 1366, however, an incident in Hellas between the count of Athens and the strategu of Morea (the Pelopponese) led to the Sorrecarian - Ossequian civil war.
It was a testament to the solidity of Theodore le Vecchiu's insistution that the empire survived at all during this time.
For the most part, the Ossequians (John's camp) stood for the military and the countryside; the Sorrecarian for the cities and the merchant class. The Churches remained deeply divided, until John III ordered the assassination of Alexis V and was excommunicated by most churches as a result. The excommunication was pretty much moot however: the death of Alexis V had brought an end to the war, assisted by bloody purges. (John III was forever known as John the Cruel as a result.)
In 1373, John III's son Theodore revolted against him and took the unofficial head of the Sorrecarian party. With an uneasy alliance of merchants, bankers and the Churches, he was able to secure the help of mercenaries (his so-called Bohemian army) and depose his father in the name of the Church, and exile him to mount Athos, with the lofty title of emberador emeritu.
This didn't quite put an end to the Ossequian party. Instead, as political opposition often did, it took the form of a new heresy, which denounced the evils of the Orthodox church and the new, evil, emperor, who had violated Biblical commandments in deposing his father, and surrounded himself with Muslims and Jews.
Meanwhile, perhaps to make a point, Theodore chose the regnal name of David.
He relied heavily on the imperial civil administration, headed by Antiochu le Mostruosu, who wasn't particularly monstrous: he just was a court dwarf, and the closest companion when emperor David was a young prince. He eased the sanctions on non-Muslims, which led the Churches to complain, but not too loud, for fear of launching a new civil war. This added fuel to the fire, in that the Ossequians could claim that the Church was corrupt; David found an unlikely ally in the order of the Preachers; Nicolau da Girona, the inquisitor general become the pope Bartholomiu II in 1387.
Nicolau was killed and captured by Tamerlan in 1400 and pope Bartholomiu died soon after. David was reportedly deeply affected by both deaths.
The German-Bohemian kaiser, Ottokar IV of Bohemia had to deal with an Ossequian revolt in 1410, and the empire was forced to intervene, to great expense. Bad relations with the new Timurid dynasty in Persia led to financial difficulties. Most gold at the times came from the Gold fields of Mandèn. David sponsored a naval expedition under Zeno of Moragu. Zeno, in several sea voyages, discovered the Azores and established a maritime route to Manden.
David had inherited his namesake and his great-grandfather, he died in 1444.
In the Golden Bull of 1402 had established a constitution of sorts. The emperor could name freely a successor; by default the throne went to his elder son, and then the Senate would be tasked with choosing a successor among his grandsons.
The last point was a concession to the aristocracy; but David had never expect to leave any choice to the Senate. The throne went to his minor grandson Theodore IX; and his mother, Helena, David's favourite daughter (David had no sons) would be empress regent.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - Sacrum Imperium Romanum Graecum Gothicum
A quick tour beyond Roman borders.
The Timurid invasion had greatly upset the balance of power; most of the empire's energies focussed East, against Timurid Persia.
David I was fairly lucky, in that in turning to Manden (West sub-saharan Africa), he had found a reliable source of gold for the empire; he could afford a large standing army. The trouble was, the Manden ruling dynasty had trouble with the Songhai and the Mossi; Under Zeno da Moragu, a military intervention was attempted, but ulitimately failed due to Malaria.
The empire could, however, run steel weapons and, perhaps, early portable cannons to the Manden, to a considerable profit. In his later years, David was able to secure his position in the Levant.
The Tartars -- this time under Timurid leadership -- were active again in the East; the Empire intervened little in the Rus'-Tartar wars. They had, in fact, a new friendly buffer state: LIthuania, under cezaris Alexander.
The Lithuanian alliance had come in a fairly convoluted way. The pope, under imperial instructions, had granted the German crown to the Bohemian king. Other houses had disagreed, and Germany was now divided between Roman provinces, Bohemian provinces, the kingdom of Saxony, and the Kingdom of Pomerania.
The North sea and Baltic sea coast were more or less independant, under the Gildi Todesca, the German Guild, which emcompassed merchant cities from Bruges to Novgorod. The Gildi Todesca was, de facto, a Roman protectorate, since it was under the protection of the Cavallari Todeschi, a miitary monastic order, with the seat at Roman Jerusalem and of which the emperor was Grand Master. The Todeschi were, in turns, allied with Pomerania.
The Pomeranians were, in turn, engaged in a lengthy religious debate with the pagan Lithuanians, during which both sides attempted to boil pretty much alive. (Theological debate could get rough in those days).
In his later years, David I disbanded the Todeschi and excommunicated a rival German grand master. At about this time, the Lithuanian king decided to convert to Orthodoxy. So, the Romans allied with the Lithuanian, and the trade route from Constantinople to Novgorod was established once more, which meant that the Gildi didn't matter that much anymore. (It remained in fairly friendly terms with the Romans: business is business).
Oh, and by the way, Saxony and Pomerania both declared their churches autocephalous (independant from Rome, that is), with patriarchal seats at Braunschweig and Brandenburg.
Evernia and Scotia are now in personal union, and still allied with the Empire, with Anglia and Cambria still Roman possessions In fact David would have half a mind to ditch all of the islands altogether, were it not for the North Sea trade.
To complete the tour of the neighbours, relations with the Caliphate weren't so bad; the Mamluk rulers at the time were Cerchesi from the Caucasus (so there were Cerchesi on both sides), and both empires operated under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The Timurid invasion had greatly upset the balance of power; most of the empire's energies focussed East, against Timurid Persia.
David I was fairly lucky, in that in turning to Manden (West sub-saharan Africa), he had found a reliable source of gold for the empire; he could afford a large standing army. The trouble was, the Manden ruling dynasty had trouble with the Songhai and the Mossi; Under Zeno da Moragu, a military intervention was attempted, but ulitimately failed due to Malaria.
The empire could, however, run steel weapons and, perhaps, early portable cannons to the Manden, to a considerable profit. In his later years, David was able to secure his position in the Levant.
The Tartars -- this time under Timurid leadership -- were active again in the East; the Empire intervened little in the Rus'-Tartar wars. They had, in fact, a new friendly buffer state: LIthuania, under cezaris Alexander.
The Lithuanian alliance had come in a fairly convoluted way. The pope, under imperial instructions, had granted the German crown to the Bohemian king. Other houses had disagreed, and Germany was now divided between Roman provinces, Bohemian provinces, the kingdom of Saxony, and the Kingdom of Pomerania.
The North sea and Baltic sea coast were more or less independant, under the Gildi Todesca, the German Guild, which emcompassed merchant cities from Bruges to Novgorod. The Gildi Todesca was, de facto, a Roman protectorate, since it was under the protection of the Cavallari Todeschi, a miitary monastic order, with the seat at Roman Jerusalem and of which the emperor was Grand Master. The Todeschi were, in turns, allied with Pomerania.
The Pomeranians were, in turn, engaged in a lengthy religious debate with the pagan Lithuanians, during which both sides attempted to boil pretty much alive. (Theological debate could get rough in those days).
In his later years, David I disbanded the Todeschi and excommunicated a rival German grand master. At about this time, the Lithuanian king decided to convert to Orthodoxy. So, the Romans allied with the Lithuanian, and the trade route from Constantinople to Novgorod was established once more, which meant that the Gildi didn't matter that much anymore. (It remained in fairly friendly terms with the Romans: business is business).
Oh, and by the way, Saxony and Pomerania both declared their churches autocephalous (independant from Rome, that is), with patriarchal seats at Braunschweig and Brandenburg.
Evernia and Scotia are now in personal union, and still allied with the Empire, with Anglia and Cambria still Roman possessions In fact David would have half a mind to ditch all of the islands altogether, were it not for the North Sea trade.
To complete the tour of the neighbours, relations with the Caliphate weren't so bad; the Mamluk rulers at the time were Cerchesi from the Caucasus (so there were Cerchesi on both sides), and both empires operated under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - Sacrum Imperium Romanum Graecum Gothicum
During David's reign, the empire had the best of both world, enjoying the creativity that comes with local autonomy and the benefits of peace and political stability. Roman cities developped the first moveable type printing presses, in the early 1400's, the first piston systems, escapement clocks, the compass and the sextant; trade prosperred along West European rivers with the new invention of the waterlock; improved cannons and the first hand guns cemented Roman superiority.
Besides, Rome controlled all trade in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.
Rome was still, however, reeling from the Black Plague and internal strife between the imperial party, the church party, and the lustriani, local nobles always eager to wrestle back some control from the empire.
Empress Helena pretty much continued David's policies, while enduring several plots. The regency ended under 1456. Theodore X launched great building campaigned, building many palaces and monuments that still endure to his day; he enjoyed strong popular support, which helped him consolidate power by implementing a series of increasingly bloody purges.
During David's reign, companies of imperial mercenaries periodically toured the countryside, dealing with rebellious nobles and then setting themselves up as rival lords, that had to be removed in turn.
Theodore IX pronounced an amnesty to some military leaders and sent them to the Tartar front and to the Levant; the last of the feudal lords either submitted or were subject to inquisition trial.
The empire was beginning to lose a great deal of revenue to smuggling along the Atlantic and the Baltic; to remedy this situation, Theodore broke up Mauretania into the provinces of Cesaria, Tengenna, Mogadu and Santa Cros i Gadiri, and all Atlantic ports being controlled of the Gran Dos Oceani, the Grand Ocean Duke, and all Mediterranean ports under the Grand Dos i Mediterranee, both officials being non hereditary, named for a limited duration, and with the strict mission to crack down on smuggling and piracy.
The increased influx of gold led to inflation; besides an experimentation with paper money (an idea invented in China and picked from Central Asia) didn't help any. The Inquisition always was popular, but under an increasingly paranoid Theodore IX it turned to a secret police, increasingly impopular. The Colonian heresy was preached along the Rhine and soon gained ground across the whole empire; it professed universal clergy and denounced the corruption of the Churches (great landowners and moneylanders to the emperor). In the 60's all these factors erupted into the revolt of the buoni hommini .
The buoni hommini presented themselves as supporters of the peasantry, though the movement was mostly led by the aristocracy and part of the merchant classes.
In that civil war, there was truly no good side. Theodore IX was a proto-totalitarian autocrat, using the Inquisition, the Correctors and corps of mercenaries as a tool of brutal repression; the buoni hommini were a truly disturbing death cult: practices included ritual castration, sometimes ritual suicide and practitioners practiced pogrom.
In 1468, the empire engaged into war on the Novgorod -Lithuanian side (both state were in personal union at the time) against the principality of Muscovy. The patriarch of Moscow had refused submission to the newly reestablish church of Kiev and to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.
The war ended in Lithuanian victory, but deeply bankrupted the Roman state. Theodore IX was assassinated in 1473 by a confederacy of disgruntled generals and buoni hommini plotters.
In Roman politics so far, such assassinations usually ended in tears and civil war. But the imperial institutions were stronger, and the crown went to Theodore's uncle, Theodoric.
Theodoric II (Ostrogoth king Theodoric was considered a legitimate Western emperor by the Romans) was an austere, scheming career general and politician. He was subtle enough to pull out of the Lithuanian wars without offending anyone.
As for the financial crisis, he renounced paper money, and simply defaulted on the debt. (When the military orders complained, he simply reminded them that a) he was still the grand master of the order b) he could excommunicate them as he wished.)
As for the buoni hommini, well, burnings would continue until morale improved. We might say that the problem was never truly solved; there have been weird cults in the Empire ever since. Most of these, though ended up fleeing to Germany or Scandinavia.
The state of Theodoric II was theocratic and authoritarians; strict control were enforced by a network of bishops and justiziari. He did maintain order, but at the cost of virtually fossilizing society. In many ways, the Caliphate, Germany, Lithuania, Scotia were all more vibrant and dynamic.
Still, the empire retained its military edge. In 1487 it was able to drive out the Golden Horde, and made alliances with the Lithuanians and roving bands of Cossacks for control over the north of the Black Sea (the empire was interested in the coastal cities, but not the hinterland). To be honest, the Cossacks were no different for the Tatars (it could be argued that they were Tartars) but at least they didn't have anything like a unified leadership, and they were theoretically Christian.
On a positive note, the imperial Golden Bull of 1482 outlawed slavery and the slave trade. Theodoric II did not promulgate this bull out of the kindness of his heart (it remains doubtful if he had a heart in the first place), but because serfdom was a relic of the past in the Empire proper, and the slave trade only benefitted rival powers, or the merchants whose power he hope to suppress.
A stern, austere and generally unpleasant man, Theodoric II was still mourned when he died in 1499, but only because it meant that his son, John IV would succeed him.
John IV had the bad taste to keep his regnal name, which evoked bad memories ever since John the Cruel, but he was a drunk to boot, and widely considered incompetent. He was prone to random bouts of binge-drinking, alternating with equally random bouts of mysticism.
He had the reputation of being not too bright; when the Mamluks attacked Jerusalem in 1500, everyone feared his reaction. John IV was a military man at heart, he had served as a strategu in the Levant and in Russia; he reacted in the only way he knew, by committing the full military might of Romania, with the addition of Cossack and Lithuanian mercenaries to a war against the Caliphate.
It was a stroke of genius. As it happened, both Persia and the Caliphate were in the midst of civil war. It took John ten long, bloody wars, but in 1510 he had conquered Mesopotamia, Egypt, and part of the Arabic Peninsula.
The conquest of Egypt and access to the Red Sea opened new markets, which was precisely what the empire needed. The one mistake was the conquest of Mesopotomia. (As world rulers from Trajan to George W. Bush have found, it's almost impossible to hold onto)
He returned to Aquilea in triumph in 1511 and was acclaimed as le princei ottimu, the best of the emperors, but his reign would be cut short soon after that.
In 1512 he returned to the East to fight against Safavid Persia; upon losing Baghdad, he reportedly went on a week-long bender and died soon after.
The designate successor was his daughter Margarita.
After centuries of a long struggle, the Roman empire had reached, again, more or less the same borders as under the Antonines.
Besides, Rome controlled all trade in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.
Rome was still, however, reeling from the Black Plague and internal strife between the imperial party, the church party, and the lustriani, local nobles always eager to wrestle back some control from the empire.
Empress Helena pretty much continued David's policies, while enduring several plots. The regency ended under 1456. Theodore X launched great building campaigned, building many palaces and monuments that still endure to his day; he enjoyed strong popular support, which helped him consolidate power by implementing a series of increasingly bloody purges.
During David's reign, companies of imperial mercenaries periodically toured the countryside, dealing with rebellious nobles and then setting themselves up as rival lords, that had to be removed in turn.
Theodore IX pronounced an amnesty to some military leaders and sent them to the Tartar front and to the Levant; the last of the feudal lords either submitted or were subject to inquisition trial.
The empire was beginning to lose a great deal of revenue to smuggling along the Atlantic and the Baltic; to remedy this situation, Theodore broke up Mauretania into the provinces of Cesaria, Tengenna, Mogadu and Santa Cros i Gadiri, and all Atlantic ports being controlled of the Gran Dos Oceani, the Grand Ocean Duke, and all Mediterranean ports under the Grand Dos i Mediterranee, both officials being non hereditary, named for a limited duration, and with the strict mission to crack down on smuggling and piracy.
The increased influx of gold led to inflation; besides an experimentation with paper money (an idea invented in China and picked from Central Asia) didn't help any. The Inquisition always was popular, but under an increasingly paranoid Theodore IX it turned to a secret police, increasingly impopular. The Colonian heresy was preached along the Rhine and soon gained ground across the whole empire; it professed universal clergy and denounced the corruption of the Churches (great landowners and moneylanders to the emperor). In the 60's all these factors erupted into the revolt of the buoni hommini .
The buoni hommini presented themselves as supporters of the peasantry, though the movement was mostly led by the aristocracy and part of the merchant classes.
In that civil war, there was truly no good side. Theodore IX was a proto-totalitarian autocrat, using the Inquisition, the Correctors and corps of mercenaries as a tool of brutal repression; the buoni hommini were a truly disturbing death cult: practices included ritual castration, sometimes ritual suicide and practitioners practiced pogrom.
In 1468, the empire engaged into war on the Novgorod -Lithuanian side (both state were in personal union at the time) against the principality of Muscovy. The patriarch of Moscow had refused submission to the newly reestablish church of Kiev and to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.
The war ended in Lithuanian victory, but deeply bankrupted the Roman state. Theodore IX was assassinated in 1473 by a confederacy of disgruntled generals and buoni hommini plotters.
In Roman politics so far, such assassinations usually ended in tears and civil war. But the imperial institutions were stronger, and the crown went to Theodore's uncle, Theodoric.
Theodoric II (Ostrogoth king Theodoric was considered a legitimate Western emperor by the Romans) was an austere, scheming career general and politician. He was subtle enough to pull out of the Lithuanian wars without offending anyone.
As for the financial crisis, he renounced paper money, and simply defaulted on the debt. (When the military orders complained, he simply reminded them that a) he was still the grand master of the order b) he could excommunicate them as he wished.)
As for the buoni hommini, well, burnings would continue until morale improved. We might say that the problem was never truly solved; there have been weird cults in the Empire ever since. Most of these, though ended up fleeing to Germany or Scandinavia.
The state of Theodoric II was theocratic and authoritarians; strict control were enforced by a network of bishops and justiziari. He did maintain order, but at the cost of virtually fossilizing society. In many ways, the Caliphate, Germany, Lithuania, Scotia were all more vibrant and dynamic.
Still, the empire retained its military edge. In 1487 it was able to drive out the Golden Horde, and made alliances with the Lithuanians and roving bands of Cossacks for control over the north of the Black Sea (the empire was interested in the coastal cities, but not the hinterland). To be honest, the Cossacks were no different for the Tatars (it could be argued that they were Tartars) but at least they didn't have anything like a unified leadership, and they were theoretically Christian.
On a positive note, the imperial Golden Bull of 1482 outlawed slavery and the slave trade. Theodoric II did not promulgate this bull out of the kindness of his heart (it remains doubtful if he had a heart in the first place), but because serfdom was a relic of the past in the Empire proper, and the slave trade only benefitted rival powers, or the merchants whose power he hope to suppress.
A stern, austere and generally unpleasant man, Theodoric II was still mourned when he died in 1499, but only because it meant that his son, John IV would succeed him.
John IV had the bad taste to keep his regnal name, which evoked bad memories ever since John the Cruel, but he was a drunk to boot, and widely considered incompetent. He was prone to random bouts of binge-drinking, alternating with equally random bouts of mysticism.
He had the reputation of being not too bright; when the Mamluks attacked Jerusalem in 1500, everyone feared his reaction. John IV was a military man at heart, he had served as a strategu in the Levant and in Russia; he reacted in the only way he knew, by committing the full military might of Romania, with the addition of Cossack and Lithuanian mercenaries to a war against the Caliphate.
It was a stroke of genius. As it happened, both Persia and the Caliphate were in the midst of civil war. It took John ten long, bloody wars, but in 1510 he had conquered Mesopotamia, Egypt, and part of the Arabic Peninsula.
The conquest of Egypt and access to the Red Sea opened new markets, which was precisely what the empire needed. The one mistake was the conquest of Mesopotomia. (As world rulers from Trajan to George W. Bush have found, it's almost impossible to hold onto)
He returned to Aquilea in triumph in 1511 and was acclaimed as le princei ottimu, the best of the emperors, but his reign would be cut short soon after that.
In 1512 he returned to the East to fight against Safavid Persia; upon losing Baghdad, he reportedly went on a week-long bender and died soon after.
The designate successor was his daughter Margarita.
After centuries of a long struggle, the Roman empire had reached, again, more or less the same borders as under the Antonines.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - Sacrum Imperium Romanum Graecum Gothicum
Margarita chose Sophia for her regnal name; she was the first empress to rule from the start in her own right. She was barely eighteen at the time and she sought the protection Philippu da Cartagenoa, one of her father's leading generals, whom she named coropaladi.
One of her first acts was to get rid of Giorgiu, her father's brother. Faced with a choice between execution and monastic life, he chose the latter. Her second decision was to retreat as soon as possible to the limes in Syria - Palestine, definitely abandoning Mesopotomia -- but accepting an enormous tribute from the Safavid.
The empire had steadily grown more cosmopolitan; imperial citizens spoke Voigari, various Romance dialects, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Ougrian, various German dialects but Catholic Orthodoxy had served as an unifying factor.
Maybe Sophia considered renouncing to Egypt; but the province was extremely rich in its own right, and opened trade routes to India and further on. It would be an awful waste to let it go.
The problem was, still, that Egypt was two-third Muslim and one-third Copitc miaphysite, and the miaphysites still rejected the Chalcedonian council.
The first approach was to set up a rival patriarch of Alexandria, urge conversion, and replace all Mamluk authorities with imperial officials. (Which was fairly easy -- Egyptian administrative divisions could easily serve as counties, and the cadi could just be replaced by a Christian justiziaru. Or so it seemed.)
In many ways, Sophia was the opposite of her father. She was sober in all senses of the word, no interest in war, and little in religion, where her father had been a resolute hawk and devout to the point of fanaticism.
After the first ten years, she grew into a role, asserted independance from her councillors, and made a series of momentous decisions.
She began to reside in Antioch, the Eastern capital, closer to the new frontier and convened a council.
Debates went on, but the Council of Antioch of 1532 finally brought the Coptic Church in communion with the Orthodox churches.
Muslims and Jews would have to pay special taxes (the fiscu Turqu and fiscu Judaicu, respectively) and were denied Roman citizenship; but they gained a large measure of self-determination (they would be judged by cadis and rabbinic judges instead of the justiziari, except in cases involving Roman citizens) and imperial protection. This had the effect of discouraging conversion; but in any case the Churches hadn't really converted anyone in centuries. (The Lithuanian had only done so for political convenience.)
The Council of Antioch also broke the power of the Roman pope. I say Roman pope because the patriarch of Alexandria had called himself a pope long before the bishop of Rome, and soon the title was extended to the other ecumenical patriarchs. The empire finally ended up with five popes, at Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople.
Finally, the Saxon and Pomeranian churches were granted autocephaly -- Sophia had enough trouble dealing with heresy within her borders to deal with foreign controversies.
Besides Egypt, the empire restricted itself to majority Christian areas; the province of Orieddu (Orient) was divided into the counties of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, Acre and Jerusalem; all except Edessa being along the Coast. Syria was left to the Abbassid caliph, and was more or less a Roman protectorate, held at bay, like the Safavids, by formidable castles along the Eastern border.
The empire was at peace, busily growing rich and, to speak frankly, a little complacent.
Astronomical discoveries were made at the Polish or Bohemian court, which the empire basically ignored. (It would take a full century for the Studie to accept and teach heliocentrism)
There were various schemes around to reach India from the West; none of them went to fruition in the empire; Sophia wisely rejected them as crackpots (they were obviously wrong about the Earth's circumference.)
A Roman drungary, called Zuan Azenari suggested taking a Western route to China by sailing at high latitudes, starting, from instance, from Ireland. He wasn't received at court, and instead sought the support of the king of Saxony.
The king of Saxony didn't believe either, but an opportunity, however far-fetched, to bypass the Roman-controlled Mediterranean and Red Sea routes would be to good to pass. And in fact, Azenari, the son of a Basque fisherman, had very good reason to suspect there was land to the West... Many Basque sailors had come across North America while cod-fishing.
In 1543, Azenari sailed from Bremerhaven, and, taking a detour to the North of Scotland, more or less followed Leif Eriksson's route, and set foot on Kobbelouweiland (Cod Island -- Newfoundland).
Various expeditions were sent to Northern America by the Saxons, the Danes and the Guildian States in search of a western passage, none of which came to fruition.
Sophia's coropaladi at the time was Zeno da Bruggia, a Frankish (from Flanders, that is) noblemen, a dubious characters who dabbed in alchemy and various financial ventures. Under his patronage, several imperial missions (on a far larger scale than earlier attempts) charted the coast of the new world, now dubbed the Hesperides, from Brazil (discovered accidentally while sailing to Africa) to the Fortunate Islands (the Antilles).
The expeditions brought back curiosities, such as tobacco, and a few natives. Soon after that, Zeno lost favor and was dismissed; Sophia lost interest soon after.
She died in 1566. She had never married, and she bequeathed the throne to her nephew, the emperor Theodore X "the Monk".
One of her first acts was to get rid of Giorgiu, her father's brother. Faced with a choice between execution and monastic life, he chose the latter. Her second decision was to retreat as soon as possible to the limes in Syria - Palestine, definitely abandoning Mesopotomia -- but accepting an enormous tribute from the Safavid.
The empire had steadily grown more cosmopolitan; imperial citizens spoke Voigari, various Romance dialects, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Ougrian, various German dialects but Catholic Orthodoxy had served as an unifying factor.
Maybe Sophia considered renouncing to Egypt; but the province was extremely rich in its own right, and opened trade routes to India and further on. It would be an awful waste to let it go.
The problem was, still, that Egypt was two-third Muslim and one-third Copitc miaphysite, and the miaphysites still rejected the Chalcedonian council.
The first approach was to set up a rival patriarch of Alexandria, urge conversion, and replace all Mamluk authorities with imperial officials. (Which was fairly easy -- Egyptian administrative divisions could easily serve as counties, and the cadi could just be replaced by a Christian justiziaru. Or so it seemed.)
In many ways, Sophia was the opposite of her father. She was sober in all senses of the word, no interest in war, and little in religion, where her father had been a resolute hawk and devout to the point of fanaticism.
After the first ten years, she grew into a role, asserted independance from her councillors, and made a series of momentous decisions.
She began to reside in Antioch, the Eastern capital, closer to the new frontier and convened a council.
Debates went on, but the Council of Antioch of 1532 finally brought the Coptic Church in communion with the Orthodox churches.
Muslims and Jews would have to pay special taxes (the fiscu Turqu and fiscu Judaicu, respectively) and were denied Roman citizenship; but they gained a large measure of self-determination (they would be judged by cadis and rabbinic judges instead of the justiziari, except in cases involving Roman citizens) and imperial protection. This had the effect of discouraging conversion; but in any case the Churches hadn't really converted anyone in centuries. (The Lithuanian had only done so for political convenience.)
The Council of Antioch also broke the power of the Roman pope. I say Roman pope because the patriarch of Alexandria had called himself a pope long before the bishop of Rome, and soon the title was extended to the other ecumenical patriarchs. The empire finally ended up with five popes, at Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople.
Finally, the Saxon and Pomeranian churches were granted autocephaly -- Sophia had enough trouble dealing with heresy within her borders to deal with foreign controversies.
Besides Egypt, the empire restricted itself to majority Christian areas; the province of Orieddu (Orient) was divided into the counties of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, Acre and Jerusalem; all except Edessa being along the Coast. Syria was left to the Abbassid caliph, and was more or less a Roman protectorate, held at bay, like the Safavids, by formidable castles along the Eastern border.
The empire was at peace, busily growing rich and, to speak frankly, a little complacent.
Astronomical discoveries were made at the Polish or Bohemian court, which the empire basically ignored. (It would take a full century for the Studie to accept and teach heliocentrism)
There were various schemes around to reach India from the West; none of them went to fruition in the empire; Sophia wisely rejected them as crackpots (they were obviously wrong about the Earth's circumference.)
A Roman drungary, called Zuan Azenari suggested taking a Western route to China by sailing at high latitudes, starting, from instance, from Ireland. He wasn't received at court, and instead sought the support of the king of Saxony.
The king of Saxony didn't believe either, but an opportunity, however far-fetched, to bypass the Roman-controlled Mediterranean and Red Sea routes would be to good to pass. And in fact, Azenari, the son of a Basque fisherman, had very good reason to suspect there was land to the West... Many Basque sailors had come across North America while cod-fishing.
In 1543, Azenari sailed from Bremerhaven, and, taking a detour to the North of Scotland, more or less followed Leif Eriksson's route, and set foot on Kobbelouweiland (Cod Island -- Newfoundland).
Various expeditions were sent to Northern America by the Saxons, the Danes and the Guildian States in search of a western passage, none of which came to fruition.
Sophia's coropaladi at the time was Zeno da Bruggia, a Frankish (from Flanders, that is) noblemen, a dubious characters who dabbed in alchemy and various financial ventures. Under his patronage, several imperial missions (on a far larger scale than earlier attempts) charted the coast of the new world, now dubbed the Hesperides, from Brazil (discovered accidentally while sailing to Africa) to the Fortunate Islands (the Antilles).
The expeditions brought back curiosities, such as tobacco, and a few natives. Soon after that, Zeno lost favor and was dismissed; Sophia lost interest soon after.
She died in 1566. She had never married, and she bequeathed the throne to her nephew, the emperor Theodore X "the Monk".
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020
From the 'exactly what it says on the tin' department: Theodore X was called 'the Monk' because, well, he was a monk. More specifically a hieromonk, a priest-monk probably destined to a patriarchy or a papacy. (his brother Lucche was destined to the succession)
He's probably one of the most boring Roman emperors ever. But, you know, boring is good!
He ruled as an undisputed autocrat, reinforced the bureaucracy, lowered taxes wherever possible. Traffic through the Red Sea reached level never seen before the first fall of Rome (and way beyong traffic to and from the New World in our timeline).
He adopted a strict defensive policy, remaining almost religiously behind the imperial borders and abandoned pretty much all expeditions to the New World.
Beyong the borders, though, the Saxons, Scots, Swedes and Danes were setting up fisheries and temporary colonies in North Hesperia. The fur trade started to take off (trade to and from Novgorod was a monopoly of the Gilda Todescha, and the kings wanted to break it up). The empire was losing revenue over it, but they mostly overlooked it. It was a drop of water compared to the Indian trade.
Theodore X died in 1578; his successor Biagiu le Philosophu owes its nickname to his interest in natural philosophy; notably, he set up an observatory near Aquileia, and attracted astronomers from Bohemia, and set them up with the new invention of the telescope.
Politics made strange bedfellows. A weird triple alliance between the Russian principality of Vladimir, Saxony and Safavid Persia was well underway.
Meanwhile, Bohemia, Lithuania and the Caliphate were imperial allies.
The main problem was that most of Europe was suffering from famine, while the Empire, which imported grain from Egypt did not. All trade from the Empire was along the Rhine corridor, and so firmly in imperial hands, or handled by the Guild. The king of Saxony, who still called himself kaiser of the Germans hoped to retake Rhenany and to establish power over the Guild; an appropriate casus belli was found over the succession of the Bohemian kaiser. There were also, religious controversies over the autonomy of local churches.
In the East, Vladimir hoped to get rid of Novgorod and Lithuania.
In Mesoptomia, the Caliphate was used by the empire as a kind of buffer state. It was Sunni were Mesopotomia and Persia were increasingly Shi'a; besides both Muslim powers were fighting over Baghdad.
In 1581, the Safavid were at Damscus, at the Empire's door, and a long Middle Eastern war began.
In the East, there was mostly a proxy war as the empire allied itself with Tartary, a Cossack Muslim-Christian state south of Vladmir.
The crisis in Germany was handled by, in essence, buying out German peasants and feudal lords with Egyptian grain, plus some military intervention.
In fact, the Romans could easily handle all of this. As the military proverb went, i Rumani vengonno semper., 'Romans always win'.
They did win, but not at little cost. At the death of Biagiu in 1597, the treasury was empty.
His successor was his son, Theodore XI le Malvaziu , the Evil.
You don't quite get a nickname like 'the Evil' without reason. In Theodore's case, this was because he soon embraced the Pigardian heresy; a particularly nasty one, which emphasized the abolition of the Churches, a particularly bizarre view of salvation and a belief in an imminent coming of the Apocalypse.
Nevertheless, he left the Churches mostly alone, and instead embraced the doctrine of redemption through sin, with considerable energy.
End of the world or not, the Treasury was still empty, which meant that the fur trade was beginning to look attractive. He established fisheries in North America; the empire could easily afford to disrupt rival European colonies; small colonies were established along the St Lawrence. He invaded Amsterdam, and launched a blood campaign in Germany which definitely put an end to Saxon ambition.
Vladimir, in the East, retreated following civil war at home; and while the Safavids could have been a formidable threat, they suffered from a series of increasingly weak Shahs.
In any case, the brutal tactics of the Roman army under Theodore XI inspired such terror that he never lost a single battle; in 1603, the Saxon King was brought to Aquilea in chains and publicly burned at the stake. Theodore XI then ordered a mass purge of high imperial officials, but he could not go through with it. A military revolt deposed him in January 1604, after which he, in turn was tried by a special tribunal and burnt at the stake for heresy.
He's probably one of the most boring Roman emperors ever. But, you know, boring is good!
He ruled as an undisputed autocrat, reinforced the bureaucracy, lowered taxes wherever possible. Traffic through the Red Sea reached level never seen before the first fall of Rome (and way beyong traffic to and from the New World in our timeline).
He adopted a strict defensive policy, remaining almost religiously behind the imperial borders and abandoned pretty much all expeditions to the New World.
Beyong the borders, though, the Saxons, Scots, Swedes and Danes were setting up fisheries and temporary colonies in North Hesperia. The fur trade started to take off (trade to and from Novgorod was a monopoly of the Gilda Todescha, and the kings wanted to break it up). The empire was losing revenue over it, but they mostly overlooked it. It was a drop of water compared to the Indian trade.
Theodore X died in 1578; his successor Biagiu le Philosophu owes its nickname to his interest in natural philosophy; notably, he set up an observatory near Aquileia, and attracted astronomers from Bohemia, and set them up with the new invention of the telescope.
Politics made strange bedfellows. A weird triple alliance between the Russian principality of Vladimir, Saxony and Safavid Persia was well underway.
Meanwhile, Bohemia, Lithuania and the Caliphate were imperial allies.
The main problem was that most of Europe was suffering from famine, while the Empire, which imported grain from Egypt did not. All trade from the Empire was along the Rhine corridor, and so firmly in imperial hands, or handled by the Guild. The king of Saxony, who still called himself kaiser of the Germans hoped to retake Rhenany and to establish power over the Guild; an appropriate casus belli was found over the succession of the Bohemian kaiser. There were also, religious controversies over the autonomy of local churches.
In the East, Vladimir hoped to get rid of Novgorod and Lithuania.
In Mesoptomia, the Caliphate was used by the empire as a kind of buffer state. It was Sunni were Mesopotomia and Persia were increasingly Shi'a; besides both Muslim powers were fighting over Baghdad.
In 1581, the Safavid were at Damscus, at the Empire's door, and a long Middle Eastern war began.
In the East, there was mostly a proxy war as the empire allied itself with Tartary, a Cossack Muslim-Christian state south of Vladmir.
The crisis in Germany was handled by, in essence, buying out German peasants and feudal lords with Egyptian grain, plus some military intervention.
In fact, the Romans could easily handle all of this. As the military proverb went, i Rumani vengonno semper., 'Romans always win'.
They did win, but not at little cost. At the death of Biagiu in 1597, the treasury was empty.
His successor was his son, Theodore XI le Malvaziu , the Evil.
You don't quite get a nickname like 'the Evil' without reason. In Theodore's case, this was because he soon embraced the Pigardian heresy; a particularly nasty one, which emphasized the abolition of the Churches, a particularly bizarre view of salvation and a belief in an imminent coming of the Apocalypse.
Nevertheless, he left the Churches mostly alone, and instead embraced the doctrine of redemption through sin, with considerable energy.
End of the world or not, the Treasury was still empty, which meant that the fur trade was beginning to look attractive. He established fisheries in North America; the empire could easily afford to disrupt rival European colonies; small colonies were established along the St Lawrence. He invaded Amsterdam, and launched a blood campaign in Germany which definitely put an end to Saxon ambition.
Vladimir, in the East, retreated following civil war at home; and while the Safavids could have been a formidable threat, they suffered from a series of increasingly weak Shahs.
In any case, the brutal tactics of the Roman army under Theodore XI inspired such terror that he never lost a single battle; in 1603, the Saxon King was brought to Aquilea in chains and publicly burned at the stake. Theodore XI then ordered a mass purge of high imperial officials, but he could not go through with it. A military revolt deposed him in January 1604, after which he, in turn was tried by a special tribunal and burnt at the stake for heresy.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - i Romani vengonno semper
Fifty years of chaos
Theodore XI had died in Antioch, where he was preparing a new campaign against the Persians. His closest relative, in both the geographic and genealogical sense, was Zoe i Monde Sioni, Zoe of Mount Zion, the abbess of the monastery of Mount Zion.
She named a local general Rumanu Sciavescu despot and prefettu pretorianu and went back to her monastery.
The title of Praetorian Prefect was a bit unusual; it had been kept as a ceremonial title (the Romans never really got around to ditch old titles), but Zoe III had revived it: Siavescu had full power over civil and military administration, and the old title of despot meant that he outranked everyone save the empress in the complicated court protocol. In fact Zoe had made him emperor in all but name.
All of this was highly irregular; Zoe III had been named empress in a very unorthodox "Senate session" comprising the Popes of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, and some conjurors. Sciavescu himself was a recent convert to Christianity (he was, in fact, Turkish and a defector from Damascus kept as an advisor by Theodore) and probably had an hand in Theodore's assassination, considering that he was a top target of Theodore's planned purge.
Theodore XI was in fact very popular in the army, and not one but four general claimed to avenge him and be his rightful successor: John of Constantinople, Biagiu of Trevi in Gaul, Claudiu of Carthage and John of Moragu in Africa.
Sciavescu did nothing about it; he was fully concentrated in war against Persia, and felt that as long as the Holy Land and Egypt held, the rest would soon follow. That wasn't a bad take.
Of the four other emperors, Biagiu of Trevi was probably the worst off. All grain shipments had been cut off, either from Africa or from the East; he turned against Simon of Moragu (another North african pretender) who defeated him in Hispania, but was soon killed himself in an internal plot.
Another German general, Peter of Trevi succeeded Biagiu, and held Aquilea for a while before being replaced by Cosmo, until finally Claudiu of Carthage proclaimed himself Western emperor, only to be defeated at Tenge (Tangiers).
John of Constantinople was himself fully occupied by an internal plot, he was replaced by Basil of Morea, who managed to retake Aquilea.
Finally, Philip Barbarescu, a rich tribal leader from the Sahara secured the African provinces; a new Theodore proclaimed himself Gaulish emperor and took Gaul, the German provinces and Britain.
Philip had to deal with internal revolts, until finally the African armies turned to John of Constantinople.
War was raging in Germany, meanwhile, as Saxony fought Bohemia and Denmark, and asked for the help of Sweden; the Gaulish emperors hired the Roman army as mercenaries (they were in, by far, the worst financial situation.)
Romanu Sciavescu died in 1614; Zoe III offered reconciliation to John of Constantinople's son, Thomas, and made him Agostu and praetorian prefect
Thomas would soon learn that Zoe has actually involved herself in affairs of state all along. He strongly resented her advice, and went as far as to try to assassinate her. He was blinded and sent in exile in the Caucasus, and was replaced by Romanu Sciavescu, son of the previous one.
Zoe died in 1616 and Rumanu became emperor.
Theodore of Gaul wasn't doing that badly, meanwhile. He managed to hold on to Gaul, sent expeditions to the New World, in search of gold. But more on these adventures later.
Meanwhile, he launched an ill-fated adventure in Germany, in hopes of seizing weak and small German state and then turning to Aquileia; instead he died in battle near Hamburg.
It wasn't entirely clear who should succeed him; finally the army acclaimed his son Theodore XII.
In the east, Romanu turned out to be a poor leader, and was deposed in a coup by the grand duke of the Mediterranean, John of Cyprus, who ruled ten years as John V..
In 1634, John V launched an attack against Gaul and finally deposed the young Theodore XII. The empire was finally, once again, united.
As it happens, John V was a descendant of emperor David on the distaff side, and everything looked as if things were back to normal, under a Feliciani emperor.
John V enjoyed, in fact, four good years until he was killed in 1638 in yet another palace coup. The army rounded up all the Feliciani they could find, and finally elevated Theodore, an elderly cousin, who promptly ordered the assassination of all his relatives.
Several of these escaped, among these Biagiu II, who was exiled to Pariji and was proclaimed emperor there while Theodore XIII was in Antioch.
Fairly surprisingly, Theodore XIII died a natural death in 1643.
Biagiu II Feliciani, became emperor and reigned until 1649, when he died of the plague in Antioch.
While the Romans were busily fighting among themselves, meanwhile, everything had changed.
The Swedish empire had seized Novgorod and northern Russia; only Lithuania had been able to resist them. Germany was divided between Sweden, Norway, and Bohemia. Meanwhile the Tsars of Tartary were expanding their domain to Mongolia and would soon reach the Pacific.
Small colonies had been established in North Hesperia; they soon established an agreement for control over the fur and tobacco trade, called the Guild of Hesperia.
The main front was now along the Rhine, as Antioch tried, not too successfully to regain control.
In fact, the region was the only one that had truly suffered during the quarrels of succession. The local bureaucrats had mostly held the rest of the empire together, but the German provinces had suffered disproportionally from the wars.
Alexis V was barely 13 at the death of his father Biagiu; he put his trust in don Corradu Molinariu, a prominent general from those very same German provinces.
Don Corradu was born in 1602 near Trevi during the reign of Theodore le Malvaziu. As a young man, he was left with little choice but to join a monastery. There he proved quite adept as a professor and he might ultimately have become an abbot. But at the time, the Gaulish armies, hired as mercenaries by German princes, often paid themselves by sacking and ravaging the countryside.
They burned his monastery in 1631. Left with little means of survival, he made himself useful as a sergeant in a Saxon military company, where he soon was able to take his revenge against imperial armies. He rose in the favor of William of Saxony, until the latter was defeated near Bielefeld.
It seems that he switched sides then; he had been brought to Theodore XII of Gaul, who had taken a liking to him. In 1634, John V defeated Theodore XII, and Corradu switched sides yet again.
He personally helped take Biagiu II to safety, and it was no surprise that he should be very close to the imperial circles.
So close that in fact, he was made Praetorian Prefect by Alexis V. He was soon sent to Germany to negotiate peace; and signed the treaty of Monasterio, which brought the Netherlands into the Empire.
The rest of Germany was divided between Pomerania and Brandenburg (to Sweden), and Holstein (to Denmark). A neutral zone of sorts was established between the Rhine and the Elbe, made up of various principalities. After that, he signed the treaty of Mossul with Persia and the Caliphate.
The one really troubled region was Ruthenia (that region we know as Ukraine), where intermittent conflict between Tartary, Vladimir, Lithuania and Poland threatened peace.
In 1654, Alexis V fought his first battles in Ruthenia. Eager to prove himself, he had fought, very bravely from the frontlines, and died, just as bravely, during an attack on Kiev.
Alexis V might have been the victim of a plot. That was, in any case, Corradu's opinion, who soon ordered an empire-wide purge, and marched on Aquileia before anyone could protest.
In 1655, he was crowned emperor. He would later be known as Corradu le Saggiu, the first emperor of the Molinari dynasty.
Theodore XI had died in Antioch, where he was preparing a new campaign against the Persians. His closest relative, in both the geographic and genealogical sense, was Zoe i Monde Sioni, Zoe of Mount Zion, the abbess of the monastery of Mount Zion.
She named a local general Rumanu Sciavescu despot and prefettu pretorianu and went back to her monastery.
The title of Praetorian Prefect was a bit unusual; it had been kept as a ceremonial title (the Romans never really got around to ditch old titles), but Zoe III had revived it: Siavescu had full power over civil and military administration, and the old title of despot meant that he outranked everyone save the empress in the complicated court protocol. In fact Zoe had made him emperor in all but name.
All of this was highly irregular; Zoe III had been named empress in a very unorthodox "Senate session" comprising the Popes of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, and some conjurors. Sciavescu himself was a recent convert to Christianity (he was, in fact, Turkish and a defector from Damascus kept as an advisor by Theodore) and probably had an hand in Theodore's assassination, considering that he was a top target of Theodore's planned purge.
Theodore XI was in fact very popular in the army, and not one but four general claimed to avenge him and be his rightful successor: John of Constantinople, Biagiu of Trevi in Gaul, Claudiu of Carthage and John of Moragu in Africa.
Sciavescu did nothing about it; he was fully concentrated in war against Persia, and felt that as long as the Holy Land and Egypt held, the rest would soon follow. That wasn't a bad take.
Of the four other emperors, Biagiu of Trevi was probably the worst off. All grain shipments had been cut off, either from Africa or from the East; he turned against Simon of Moragu (another North african pretender) who defeated him in Hispania, but was soon killed himself in an internal plot.
Another German general, Peter of Trevi succeeded Biagiu, and held Aquilea for a while before being replaced by Cosmo, until finally Claudiu of Carthage proclaimed himself Western emperor, only to be defeated at Tenge (Tangiers).
John of Constantinople was himself fully occupied by an internal plot, he was replaced by Basil of Morea, who managed to retake Aquilea.
Finally, Philip Barbarescu, a rich tribal leader from the Sahara secured the African provinces; a new Theodore proclaimed himself Gaulish emperor and took Gaul, the German provinces and Britain.
Philip had to deal with internal revolts, until finally the African armies turned to John of Constantinople.
War was raging in Germany, meanwhile, as Saxony fought Bohemia and Denmark, and asked for the help of Sweden; the Gaulish emperors hired the Roman army as mercenaries (they were in, by far, the worst financial situation.)
Romanu Sciavescu died in 1614; Zoe III offered reconciliation to John of Constantinople's son, Thomas, and made him Agostu and praetorian prefect
Thomas would soon learn that Zoe has actually involved herself in affairs of state all along. He strongly resented her advice, and went as far as to try to assassinate her. He was blinded and sent in exile in the Caucasus, and was replaced by Romanu Sciavescu, son of the previous one.
Zoe died in 1616 and Rumanu became emperor.
Theodore of Gaul wasn't doing that badly, meanwhile. He managed to hold on to Gaul, sent expeditions to the New World, in search of gold. But more on these adventures later.
Meanwhile, he launched an ill-fated adventure in Germany, in hopes of seizing weak and small German state and then turning to Aquileia; instead he died in battle near Hamburg.
It wasn't entirely clear who should succeed him; finally the army acclaimed his son Theodore XII.
In the east, Romanu turned out to be a poor leader, and was deposed in a coup by the grand duke of the Mediterranean, John of Cyprus, who ruled ten years as John V..
In 1634, John V launched an attack against Gaul and finally deposed the young Theodore XII. The empire was finally, once again, united.
As it happens, John V was a descendant of emperor David on the distaff side, and everything looked as if things were back to normal, under a Feliciani emperor.
John V enjoyed, in fact, four good years until he was killed in 1638 in yet another palace coup. The army rounded up all the Feliciani they could find, and finally elevated Theodore, an elderly cousin, who promptly ordered the assassination of all his relatives.
Several of these escaped, among these Biagiu II, who was exiled to Pariji and was proclaimed emperor there while Theodore XIII was in Antioch.
Fairly surprisingly, Theodore XIII died a natural death in 1643.
Biagiu II Feliciani, became emperor and reigned until 1649, when he died of the plague in Antioch.
While the Romans were busily fighting among themselves, meanwhile, everything had changed.
The Swedish empire had seized Novgorod and northern Russia; only Lithuania had been able to resist them. Germany was divided between Sweden, Norway, and Bohemia. Meanwhile the Tsars of Tartary were expanding their domain to Mongolia and would soon reach the Pacific.
Small colonies had been established in North Hesperia; they soon established an agreement for control over the fur and tobacco trade, called the Guild of Hesperia.
The main front was now along the Rhine, as Antioch tried, not too successfully to regain control.
In fact, the region was the only one that had truly suffered during the quarrels of succession. The local bureaucrats had mostly held the rest of the empire together, but the German provinces had suffered disproportionally from the wars.
Alexis V was barely 13 at the death of his father Biagiu; he put his trust in don Corradu Molinariu, a prominent general from those very same German provinces.
Don Corradu was born in 1602 near Trevi during the reign of Theodore le Malvaziu. As a young man, he was left with little choice but to join a monastery. There he proved quite adept as a professor and he might ultimately have become an abbot. But at the time, the Gaulish armies, hired as mercenaries by German princes, often paid themselves by sacking and ravaging the countryside.
They burned his monastery in 1631. Left with little means of survival, he made himself useful as a sergeant in a Saxon military company, where he soon was able to take his revenge against imperial armies. He rose in the favor of William of Saxony, until the latter was defeated near Bielefeld.
It seems that he switched sides then; he had been brought to Theodore XII of Gaul, who had taken a liking to him. In 1634, John V defeated Theodore XII, and Corradu switched sides yet again.
He personally helped take Biagiu II to safety, and it was no surprise that he should be very close to the imperial circles.
So close that in fact, he was made Praetorian Prefect by Alexis V. He was soon sent to Germany to negotiate peace; and signed the treaty of Monasterio, which brought the Netherlands into the Empire.
The rest of Germany was divided between Pomerania and Brandenburg (to Sweden), and Holstein (to Denmark). A neutral zone of sorts was established between the Rhine and the Elbe, made up of various principalities. After that, he signed the treaty of Mossul with Persia and the Caliphate.
The one really troubled region was Ruthenia (that region we know as Ukraine), where intermittent conflict between Tartary, Vladimir, Lithuania and Poland threatened peace.
In 1654, Alexis V fought his first battles in Ruthenia. Eager to prove himself, he had fought, very bravely from the frontlines, and died, just as bravely, during an attack on Kiev.
Alexis V might have been the victim of a plot. That was, in any case, Corradu's opinion, who soon ordered an empire-wide purge, and marched on Aquileia before anyone could protest.
In 1655, he was crowned emperor. He would later be known as Corradu le Saggiu, the first emperor of the Molinari dynasty.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - Romans in the New World
Corradu the Wise enjoyed ten years of somewhat peaceful reign; he still had to content with various plots against his life.
He followed a policy of appeasement, appointing a new king of Germany, Carlu X and issued a general pardon across the empire.
The designated heir, Theodore, was killed in the Slave Plot of 1663 -- the dispute had started over sales of slaves to Sweden -- and Corradu died two years after in 1665.
The new heir designate was Michael V the Conqueror, Corradu's youngest son.
Corradu's daughter would marry Carlu V the Conqueror; the event was later known as the Bloody Wedding, as Michael took the opportunity to eliminate most of his rivals, sojourning at Aquilea at the time.
Michael V had many qualities, including almost supernatural intelligence, but he was not a patient man. He spent the next few years fighting the Swedes in Germany. The Romans came out victorious; Michael, dissatisfied by both his puppet kings in Bohemia and Germany, quietly had both assassinated within two years and invaded in force.
He was one of the few Roman emperors to extend the realm beyond the traditional borders. For the most part, the conquest of Germany had the advantage of keeping the army busy. He built numerous fortresses along the Elbe, apparently content with the expansion.
He also pushed the borders of Britain a little to the North in the brief Scottish war of 1670; the empire's border would remain between the Forth and the Clyde.
As I said, Theodore of Gaul had sent some exploration parties and monasteries in the New World. In addition, the Romans had inherited some possessions in North Hesperia (from Maine to Carolina).
Michael didn't quite see the point of the New World. He did rename a Dutch port at Manhata 'Nicopolis', and established several monasteries there. A garrison was sent to Isla Bacalai (Newfoundland) to secure the waters for Basque fishermen.
Romans were coming back from the New World; in particular, one Bernardu da Riqualugu encountered a Roman expedition there; a Preacher Father gone native, he was now a military leader at Chattumal (a Maya city-state), and a father of four. Michael was reportedly so impressed that he rewarded him with title of Count of Chattumal, and he finally paid interest to schemes about establishing plantations on Santa Croi i Fortunadaro (Haiti).
To be honest, the Romans had no need for a sugarcane plantation there, but Michael went through with it purely to spite the Danish, who planned the same thing.
The Hesperides, besides, were a good place to dump undesirables, and in 1673, the chief undesirable was Michael's own older brother, Enricu.
Enricu mostly felt cheated at not having been chosen as a successor; he was sent to Santa Croi with the lofty title of Despot of the Hesperides.
The Preachers reported tales of a city 'greater than Aquileia' on the mainland, and soon Enricu mounted an expedition. He encountered the Mescica in 1675.
The Mexica, at the time, were under a deep crisis. The old Triple Alliance was crumbling under the combined assaults of smallpox and
Cicimeque, that is, nomads, that had recently acquired horses from North America, perhaps imported by Irish settlers at the beginning of the century.
Besides, Enricu had arrived in the midst of a civil war between tlatoani Asupacaci and his brother Cecezin.
Naturally Enricu felt some compassion for Cecezin struggles, and sent a full banda for help.
After that, he spent a year in Tenochtitlan and proclaimed himself emperor of Mescica and the Hesperides. It is unclear what happens next; the Roman guests certainly stayed way too long after they became unwelcome. They were, besides, disgusted at the human sacrifices. Enricu was almost killed in the ensuing massacre.
Whatever plan Enricu had, it had certainly failed. He asked for reinforcement from the Fortunate Islands; he secured several victories over the Mescica; then residents of the plantation lodged a formal complaint to Michael. Most of the colonists were suffering from smallpox, and the tiny Roman village was falling into chaos.
Enricu was recalled to Aquileia; expecting a triumph, he in fact was quietly 'disappeared' in 1675.
In the following years, plans for plantations on the Fortunate Islands were abandoned, but Michael had a trading outpost set up at Colua (Veracruz) and ordered the establishment of a mission there.
Basically the idea was steel, horses and guns in exchange for conversion to Christianity, gold and exotic goods such as tomatoes and peppers.
A similar scheme was in place at Nicopolis with the Gagnenge (who we know as the Mohawk), with the added complication of a proxy war fought by Iroquois and Alquonquians on behalf of Romans and Swedes.
A cold war of sorts was fought between Sweden and Rome, with Denmark allying with one or the other according to the convenience of the moment.
Michael V, meanwhile, concentrated himself on internal affairs. His reign of terror was making him enemies; in 1690 he went as far as to assassinate the Pope of Rome over a dispute regarding Church possessions and the Order of Sanbiaggiu (which served as a central bank of sorts) he was more or less forced to leave the throne to his son and co-emperor, Theodore XIV.
Theodore reigned as Theodore XIV, with a regnal number that carefully included both Theodore XII and his enemy Theodore XIII, perhaps as a sign that intrigue, plots and usurpation were now over.
He followed a policy of appeasement, appointing a new king of Germany, Carlu X and issued a general pardon across the empire.
The designated heir, Theodore, was killed in the Slave Plot of 1663 -- the dispute had started over sales of slaves to Sweden -- and Corradu died two years after in 1665.
The new heir designate was Michael V the Conqueror, Corradu's youngest son.
Corradu's daughter would marry Carlu V the Conqueror; the event was later known as the Bloody Wedding, as Michael took the opportunity to eliminate most of his rivals, sojourning at Aquilea at the time.
Michael V had many qualities, including almost supernatural intelligence, but he was not a patient man. He spent the next few years fighting the Swedes in Germany. The Romans came out victorious; Michael, dissatisfied by both his puppet kings in Bohemia and Germany, quietly had both assassinated within two years and invaded in force.
He was one of the few Roman emperors to extend the realm beyond the traditional borders. For the most part, the conquest of Germany had the advantage of keeping the army busy. He built numerous fortresses along the Elbe, apparently content with the expansion.
He also pushed the borders of Britain a little to the North in the brief Scottish war of 1670; the empire's border would remain between the Forth and the Clyde.
As I said, Theodore of Gaul had sent some exploration parties and monasteries in the New World. In addition, the Romans had inherited some possessions in North Hesperia (from Maine to Carolina).
Michael didn't quite see the point of the New World. He did rename a Dutch port at Manhata 'Nicopolis', and established several monasteries there. A garrison was sent to Isla Bacalai (Newfoundland) to secure the waters for Basque fishermen.
Romans were coming back from the New World; in particular, one Bernardu da Riqualugu encountered a Roman expedition there; a Preacher Father gone native, he was now a military leader at Chattumal (a Maya city-state), and a father of four. Michael was reportedly so impressed that he rewarded him with title of Count of Chattumal, and he finally paid interest to schemes about establishing plantations on Santa Croi i Fortunadaro (Haiti).
To be honest, the Romans had no need for a sugarcane plantation there, but Michael went through with it purely to spite the Danish, who planned the same thing.
The Hesperides, besides, were a good place to dump undesirables, and in 1673, the chief undesirable was Michael's own older brother, Enricu.
Enricu mostly felt cheated at not having been chosen as a successor; he was sent to Santa Croi with the lofty title of Despot of the Hesperides.
The Preachers reported tales of a city 'greater than Aquileia' on the mainland, and soon Enricu mounted an expedition. He encountered the Mescica in 1675.
The Mexica, at the time, were under a deep crisis. The old Triple Alliance was crumbling under the combined assaults of smallpox and
Cicimeque, that is, nomads, that had recently acquired horses from North America, perhaps imported by Irish settlers at the beginning of the century.
Besides, Enricu had arrived in the midst of a civil war between tlatoani Asupacaci and his brother Cecezin.
Naturally Enricu felt some compassion for Cecezin struggles, and sent a full banda for help.
After that, he spent a year in Tenochtitlan and proclaimed himself emperor of Mescica and the Hesperides. It is unclear what happens next; the Roman guests certainly stayed way too long after they became unwelcome. They were, besides, disgusted at the human sacrifices. Enricu was almost killed in the ensuing massacre.
Whatever plan Enricu had, it had certainly failed. He asked for reinforcement from the Fortunate Islands; he secured several victories over the Mescica; then residents of the plantation lodged a formal complaint to Michael. Most of the colonists were suffering from smallpox, and the tiny Roman village was falling into chaos.
Enricu was recalled to Aquileia; expecting a triumph, he in fact was quietly 'disappeared' in 1675.
In the following years, plans for plantations on the Fortunate Islands were abandoned, but Michael had a trading outpost set up at Colua (Veracruz) and ordered the establishment of a mission there.
Basically the idea was steel, horses and guns in exchange for conversion to Christianity, gold and exotic goods such as tomatoes and peppers.
A similar scheme was in place at Nicopolis with the Gagnenge (who we know as the Mohawk), with the added complication of a proxy war fought by Iroquois and Alquonquians on behalf of Romans and Swedes.
A cold war of sorts was fought between Sweden and Rome, with Denmark allying with one or the other according to the convenience of the moment.
Michael V, meanwhile, concentrated himself on internal affairs. His reign of terror was making him enemies; in 1690 he went as far as to assassinate the Pope of Rome over a dispute regarding Church possessions and the Order of Sanbiaggiu (which served as a central bank of sorts) he was more or less forced to leave the throne to his son and co-emperor, Theodore XIV.
Theodore reigned as Theodore XIV, with a regnal number that carefully included both Theodore XII and his enemy Theodore XIII, perhaps as a sign that intrigue, plots and usurpation were now over.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - i Romani vengonno semper
Theodore XIV the Peaceful was chiefly noted for ending the policy of expansion, and acting as the indispensible middleman between various conflicts in Eastern Europe.
Mostly with the help of Roman diplomats, a new arrangement was divide. The Guildian Republic was established in Germany beyond the Elbe; what we called Ukraine was divided between Romania (mostly in Crimea), Poland and Russia. Ingria (near what we call St Petersburg) was divided between Sweden and Saint Petersburg, and a new German kingdom of Prussia was established around Königsberg.
The great loser was Sweden, which the Romans felt was pretty much, a rogue state, and ruled by heretics to boot. (There was nothing particularly heterodox with the Church of Sweden, but the patriarch of Uppsala had asserted his independance from Rome).
Michael the Conqueror died in 1709, leaving Theodore XIV sole emperor. Theodore had little choice but to go to war over Persia -- the conflict was, as always, over Armenia. The Persian war ended unusually. Both empires had been enemies for time immemorial, and this led to a certain familiarity. When Russia, that upstart realm, tried to grab territory in the Caucasus, they set up a tentative alliance and defeated Russian forces.
This was the first time Rome had turned against a Christian ally and had taken the Muslim side. This ended in the Great Schism of 1712, when Russia and Sweden officially separated from the Roman Church.
Theodore XIV only had to make clear that he would support Lithuania into a war against Russia and pretty much provoked Denmark into war. Backed with the imperial fleet, Denmark was able to seize Scania (Southern Sweden), which allowed the Danes to control all traffic in the Baltic Sea.
Theodore XIV died in 1715; his son Theodore XV the Syriac succeeded him. As usual, the nickname is kind of a spoiler; a change of leadership in Persia had led to Christian persecution, and Turquia (that, is, the Caliphate) was growing restless. Theodore XV reconciled with Russia, and both states entered a long war against Turquia and Persia.
Technically, the Romans won. They had even conquered Syria in the process. But Persia grabbed Mesopotamia (by now, the Romans had an almost superstitious dread of invading Mesopotomia), and the new Turkmen dynasty emerged greatly reinforced.
A few words on Roman society.
The Roman empire at the time was a great deal wealthier than it neighbours. It controlled all major trade routes, and besides it covered very diverse ecological zones; which meant that famines could be solved through grain exchange. Most of it was handled by the state, through the Mediterranean and the waterways; the emperors had canals built to join the major rivers.
Epidemics were kept more or less in check through quarantine and hygiene, though there were no miracles and the population was still regularly ravaged by smallpox or the plague.
The Molinari emperor, following the trend of the later Feliciani, fancied themselves philosopher-kings, and in fact attempted to model themselves on Plato's republic.
They did much to abolish the heredity of charges, and though they were not particularly successful, the civil administration, modelled on Plato's guardians did promote on merit, and the emperors managed, more or less, to curtail corruption.
The regime was growing even more autocratic: the empire and the Churches showed no hesitation in suppressing dissent through censorship, and there was little but tradition to check the emperor's power.
It was the emperor's duty to sponsor scholarship, this led to the recognition of heliocentrism, advanced mechanics and mathematics; alchemy, a chief pursuit then, even occasionnally yielded some interesting results.
The Romans believed strongly in astrology; this made the attraction principle, developped by Theophilu d'Alessandria particularly interested. Theophilu was more interested in astrology than astronomy, but his theory was correct (as for as the motion of planets was concerned, that is).
Trade was heavily regulated; all crafts were organized as companies, which enforced a model of small business, with one master and a few companions and apprentices. The one concession to free trade was allowing anyone to enter any company if he could find a master -- a measure taken to check city power. (The cities were ruled by corporation masters; the regime had good reasons to suppress the establishment of merchant dynasties, though it wasn't very successful in that respect.)
Each province, each county enjoyed a specific relationship with the local government, and imperial mandatori had a duty to enforce local as well as Roman law. Some provinces were kept on a tight leash (Egypt, or Mauretania) while others enjoyed some degree of self-government (as in Britain or Saxony).
There was an aristocracy, but it was deeply divided, by design. It included dynasties of civil bureaucrats, 'new men' promoted by the Molinari regime, military aristocracy, and the clergy. There was little in common between a German hereditary count, an Anatolian hereditary strategu, or a duke promoted from minor gentry, or a philosopher-justiziar, or the Popes. The aristocracy was divided into cavallari (knights, lower nobility) and senatori (senators, higher nobility.) The Empire counted several thousand Senator, way too large a body to be efficient -- and that, also, was by design.
Beyond Europe
Around 1700, Sweden had discovered l'Isthmu della Decepzione (Panama). This led to the only massive Roman interception in the Hesperides. The Romans established the monastery of Nostra Donna della Decepzione there, and a permanent military garrison. A colony from the kingdom of Alba (Scotland-Ireland) was established there, and the enterprise proved profitable when Irish missionaries discovered Tahuantisuyu, and the Romans strenghtened trade links between Tahuantisuyu and Mescica.
This had dramatic consequences in spreading smallpox to South America and leading the empire to the brink of collapse.
In Mescica, the city of Tuscpan had found that a strategic conversion to Christianity was in order. Roman elites back home were easily moved by tales of heroic Christians sacrificed by the devilish pagans of Tenochtitlan.
Aided by Roman horses and steel, Constantine I Nōchēhuatl defeated both Tenochtitlan and the Chichimeca, and became the first Cesalli (Caesar) of Mescica.
In the North Hesperides, the Haudenosaunee had successfully established a monopoly, and a small empire of their own around Nicopolis; most Algonquians, and not a few Europeans were adopted in Mourning Wars that followed smallpox epidemics.
In China, a Roman mission had established the Patriarchate of Beijing (nominally under the Pope of Antioch) and of Osaka in Japan. Both religions woudl remain foreign curiosities. (And in fact, Rome ended up much more Confucean than China became Christian).
The Takeda Shogunate in Japan acquired firearms from Russian traders and embarked on the conquest of Korea.
In Africa, the Romans traded with Mandén and Kongo, and had, of course, close links with Christian Ethiopia.
Mostly with the help of Roman diplomats, a new arrangement was divide. The Guildian Republic was established in Germany beyond the Elbe; what we called Ukraine was divided between Romania (mostly in Crimea), Poland and Russia. Ingria (near what we call St Petersburg) was divided between Sweden and Saint Petersburg, and a new German kingdom of Prussia was established around Königsberg.
The great loser was Sweden, which the Romans felt was pretty much, a rogue state, and ruled by heretics to boot. (There was nothing particularly heterodox with the Church of Sweden, but the patriarch of Uppsala had asserted his independance from Rome).
Michael the Conqueror died in 1709, leaving Theodore XIV sole emperor. Theodore had little choice but to go to war over Persia -- the conflict was, as always, over Armenia. The Persian war ended unusually. Both empires had been enemies for time immemorial, and this led to a certain familiarity. When Russia, that upstart realm, tried to grab territory in the Caucasus, they set up a tentative alliance and defeated Russian forces.
This was the first time Rome had turned against a Christian ally and had taken the Muslim side. This ended in the Great Schism of 1712, when Russia and Sweden officially separated from the Roman Church.
Theodore XIV only had to make clear that he would support Lithuania into a war against Russia and pretty much provoked Denmark into war. Backed with the imperial fleet, Denmark was able to seize Scania (Southern Sweden), which allowed the Danes to control all traffic in the Baltic Sea.
Theodore XIV died in 1715; his son Theodore XV the Syriac succeeded him. As usual, the nickname is kind of a spoiler; a change of leadership in Persia had led to Christian persecution, and Turquia (that, is, the Caliphate) was growing restless. Theodore XV reconciled with Russia, and both states entered a long war against Turquia and Persia.
Technically, the Romans won. They had even conquered Syria in the process. But Persia grabbed Mesopotamia (by now, the Romans had an almost superstitious dread of invading Mesopotomia), and the new Turkmen dynasty emerged greatly reinforced.
A few words on Roman society.
The Roman empire at the time was a great deal wealthier than it neighbours. It controlled all major trade routes, and besides it covered very diverse ecological zones; which meant that famines could be solved through grain exchange. Most of it was handled by the state, through the Mediterranean and the waterways; the emperors had canals built to join the major rivers.
Epidemics were kept more or less in check through quarantine and hygiene, though there were no miracles and the population was still regularly ravaged by smallpox or the plague.
The Molinari emperor, following the trend of the later Feliciani, fancied themselves philosopher-kings, and in fact attempted to model themselves on Plato's republic.
They did much to abolish the heredity of charges, and though they were not particularly successful, the civil administration, modelled on Plato's guardians did promote on merit, and the emperors managed, more or less, to curtail corruption.
The regime was growing even more autocratic: the empire and the Churches showed no hesitation in suppressing dissent through censorship, and there was little but tradition to check the emperor's power.
It was the emperor's duty to sponsor scholarship, this led to the recognition of heliocentrism, advanced mechanics and mathematics; alchemy, a chief pursuit then, even occasionnally yielded some interesting results.
The Romans believed strongly in astrology; this made the attraction principle, developped by Theophilu d'Alessandria particularly interested. Theophilu was more interested in astrology than astronomy, but his theory was correct (as for as the motion of planets was concerned, that is).
Trade was heavily regulated; all crafts were organized as companies, which enforced a model of small business, with one master and a few companions and apprentices. The one concession to free trade was allowing anyone to enter any company if he could find a master -- a measure taken to check city power. (The cities were ruled by corporation masters; the regime had good reasons to suppress the establishment of merchant dynasties, though it wasn't very successful in that respect.)
Each province, each county enjoyed a specific relationship with the local government, and imperial mandatori had a duty to enforce local as well as Roman law. Some provinces were kept on a tight leash (Egypt, or Mauretania) while others enjoyed some degree of self-government (as in Britain or Saxony).
There was an aristocracy, but it was deeply divided, by design. It included dynasties of civil bureaucrats, 'new men' promoted by the Molinari regime, military aristocracy, and the clergy. There was little in common between a German hereditary count, an Anatolian hereditary strategu, or a duke promoted from minor gentry, or a philosopher-justiziar, or the Popes. The aristocracy was divided into cavallari (knights, lower nobility) and senatori (senators, higher nobility.) The Empire counted several thousand Senator, way too large a body to be efficient -- and that, also, was by design.
Beyond Europe
Around 1700, Sweden had discovered l'Isthmu della Decepzione (Panama). This led to the only massive Roman interception in the Hesperides. The Romans established the monastery of Nostra Donna della Decepzione there, and a permanent military garrison. A colony from the kingdom of Alba (Scotland-Ireland) was established there, and the enterprise proved profitable when Irish missionaries discovered Tahuantisuyu, and the Romans strenghtened trade links between Tahuantisuyu and Mescica.
This had dramatic consequences in spreading smallpox to South America and leading the empire to the brink of collapse.
In Mescica, the city of Tuscpan had found that a strategic conversion to Christianity was in order. Roman elites back home were easily moved by tales of heroic Christians sacrificed by the devilish pagans of Tenochtitlan.
Aided by Roman horses and steel, Constantine I Nōchēhuatl defeated both Tenochtitlan and the Chichimeca, and became the first Cesalli (Caesar) of Mescica.
In the North Hesperides, the Haudenosaunee had successfully established a monopoly, and a small empire of their own around Nicopolis; most Algonquians, and not a few Europeans were adopted in Mourning Wars that followed smallpox epidemics.
In China, a Roman mission had established the Patriarchate of Beijing (nominally under the Pope of Antioch) and of Osaka in Japan. Both religions woudl remain foreign curiosities. (And in fact, Rome ended up much more Confucean than China became Christian).
The Takeda Shogunate in Japan acquired firearms from Russian traders and embarked on the conquest of Korea.
In Africa, the Romans traded with Mandén and Kongo, and had, of course, close links with Christian Ethiopia.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - i Romani vengonno semper
The Marble Emperor (1738-1791)
Corradu II, Theodore XIV's son, had been born in the midst of a devastating smallpox pandemic. Theodore the Peaceful had allowed that a folk remedy, inoculazio (injecting a preparation made from dried remnants of the previous year's lesions) be tried on his grandson. For that reason, he was also known in the early years of his reign as Corradu l'Inoculadu.
He took personal interest in smallpox, not only because he escaped it, but because it was the major pandemic of the times, made even worse by the easy flow of people and goods across the empire. The nosocomi della variola (smallpox hospitals) were established independantly from the existing Studie of medicine, which rejected inoculation as dangerous. The imperial protection they enjoyed allowed great progress in medicine.
By contrast, most of science regressed in comparison during Corradu's long reign. Partly this was because the emperor took personal interest in it, and would personally suppressed theories he disagreed with; partly that was because there was little incentive. Early steam machines were dismissed as toys; the emperor had no interest in improving ballistic, when, in that period of relative peace, it could be used against him.
Corradu II mostly managed to keep out of war; he concentrated, instead, his energies on containing natural centrifugal within the empire. He encouraged settlement of Syrian by establishing Turquerie (Muslim towns) in the Western empire; he also encouraged Gauls, Britons or Germans to settle in the East.
Many felt that Jews and Turks were granted exorbitant privileges, which is of course a complete fabrication. But the emperor was friendly to non-Christian, who as outsiders could be counted on to be grateful for small favors.
He ordered the suppression of the curia Britannica an ancient local body and the direct successor of the Witangamot who had protested some imperial measures regarding taxation and monopolies.
Similarly, local city councils saw their roles greatly reduced; he also forbid any association of merchants not granted an imperial charter.
He also suppressed heresies, notably the Renatists (literrally, the Born-again), litteralist Christians and (as the rumor went) snake-handlers and the Temendi ('the (God-)fearing).
But the most dangerous of these (at least from an imperial point of view!) was the neo-Pythagorician doctrine of the heresiarch Armand of Saxony, for short, a small countryside gentleman turned governor of Saxony, who preached to anyone who would listen about reincarnation, deism, slavery (he was in favour), tyranny (he was against it), plus the usual side order of antisemitism.
Armand of Saxony was astonishingly pleasant and likeable, and his final exile to Quattemala caused riots in many cities.
Persecution, though, could only reach high profile target. The emperor didn't micromanage, and ordinary citizens were for the most part, left alone. Taxes were typically low, and the imperial bureaucracy increasingly remote.
Under Corradu II, the empire turned increasingly inwards. Colonies in the Fortunate Islands were developped, for spices and sugar (Corradu believed that anything worth having should be produced on imperial soil), but the mainland was mostly left to autonomous religious orders. Corradu made no effort to hide his dislike of Sweden and Russia (to him, then-Russian tsar Paul II was the antichrist) but was content with menacing troop movements.
His reign had brought unpreceded peace and prosperity, but in his later years he had turned so conservative and passive as to make the USSR under Brezhnev look like a vibrant, dynamic state.
Corradu's last years in the 1780's were marred by riots over the price of wheat in Gaul and Britain and riots elsewhere. Corradu basically ignored this; it was at the time that he received the unflattering nickname of Marmoreanu.
Usurpers and alchemists.
He died in 1791, aged 94. His son, Theodore XVI was sixty and gravely ill, and so most of the power resided in the praetorian prefect, the ethnarch Macariu (an Assyrian Christian, and chief of mercenaries in the East): the empire had to fight, yet again, a war in the Caucasus against Persia, and Theodore XVI didn't feel up to the task. The Romans finally annex all of the Caucasus and the Pontic coast.
Theodore XVI died in 1794, succeeded by his twenty-five years old son, Corradu III.
Corradu III, himself, was mostly unimpressed by Macariu and strongly opposed to the war party that the prefect represented. He judged the recently acquired territories in the Caucasus, and wasn't particularly keen on a war with increasingly threatening Russia.
Macariu was dismissed in 1795, and replaced by John Mengi, a Scottish-Prussian philosopher, causing considerable scandal. Mengi was, actually, sympathetic to some of Armand of Saxony's teachings and only imperial intervention decided the pope of Rome to cancel his excommunication. The disgraced, but still influential Macariu, started organizing the Grand Egyptian Plot. During a visit in Constantinople, the emperor was imprisoned and Macariu proclaimed himself emperor. Immediately, the Polish government senses weakness, and tried to assert a claim on the Ore Mountains (Roman) and Saxony-Dresden (Guildian Republic). Corradu III escaped (in a barrel, according to legend), rode North to Saxony, and captured Macariu in Dresden and blinded him.
Corradu III was, at heart, a scholar, but he handled the Roman-Polish wars well; at the same time, Battista, duke of Alexandria rebelled in Egypt. The ensuing war lasted until 1804, with Corradu's victory.
The council of Prague, in 1805, definitely established European borders. Backed with the imperial army, vastly superior in number, it enforced a new Pax Romana all across Europe.
Russia and the Roman empire were in a stalemate; the Romans couldn't project forces far beyond the Black Sea; the Russians had no hope of beating the larger Roman army: demography was too defavorable.
So the tsars turned their attention East instead; Russian settlements were established in the North Hesperides, from Alaska to Oregon; more importantly, Mandchuria became a Russia possession in 1812, ending the Qing dynasty.
You'll notice I make no mention of the Industrial Revolution. Well, the reason is quite simple: it never happened. The appropriate conditions were never met in the Empire. The first reason is that the Romans were in a high level equilibruum: the empire was reasonably prosperous, and there never was no great need to improve productivity. The second reason is autocracy: early capitalism was killed in the bud by imperial policy. The emperors, often competent natural philosophers themselves, naturally had opinions. Some were right, others were wrong, but no matter what the imperial opinion tended to become scientific truth.
Finally, even early attempts at automation, in the textile industry, were suppressed by imperial novella, on charges of disturbing the peace.
The emperor Corradu III himself was known as 'Corradu the Alchemist'; some investigations led to the discovery that air wasn't an element, by the Transmutation of Air to Earth -- which is what the Romans call photosynthesis. 'Pyretic air', that is, oxygen, was isolated.
Medical studies, under the traditional Galenic faculties and the nosocomi, now explained disease by the theory of animalcules. Still wrong (the Romans still believe in spontaneous generation), but closer to the truth.
Corradu III died in 1836, of the same heart disease that had claimed his father. Never married, he had chosen for an heir his niece, Zoe IV.
Corradu II, Theodore XIV's son, had been born in the midst of a devastating smallpox pandemic. Theodore the Peaceful had allowed that a folk remedy, inoculazio (injecting a preparation made from dried remnants of the previous year's lesions) be tried on his grandson. For that reason, he was also known in the early years of his reign as Corradu l'Inoculadu.
He took personal interest in smallpox, not only because he escaped it, but because it was the major pandemic of the times, made even worse by the easy flow of people and goods across the empire. The nosocomi della variola (smallpox hospitals) were established independantly from the existing Studie of medicine, which rejected inoculation as dangerous. The imperial protection they enjoyed allowed great progress in medicine.
By contrast, most of science regressed in comparison during Corradu's long reign. Partly this was because the emperor took personal interest in it, and would personally suppressed theories he disagreed with; partly that was because there was little incentive. Early steam machines were dismissed as toys; the emperor had no interest in improving ballistic, when, in that period of relative peace, it could be used against him.
Corradu II mostly managed to keep out of war; he concentrated, instead, his energies on containing natural centrifugal within the empire. He encouraged settlement of Syrian by establishing Turquerie (Muslim towns) in the Western empire; he also encouraged Gauls, Britons or Germans to settle in the East.
Many felt that Jews and Turks were granted exorbitant privileges, which is of course a complete fabrication. But the emperor was friendly to non-Christian, who as outsiders could be counted on to be grateful for small favors.
He ordered the suppression of the curia Britannica an ancient local body and the direct successor of the Witangamot who had protested some imperial measures regarding taxation and monopolies.
Similarly, local city councils saw their roles greatly reduced; he also forbid any association of merchants not granted an imperial charter.
He also suppressed heresies, notably the Renatists (literrally, the Born-again), litteralist Christians and (as the rumor went) snake-handlers and the Temendi ('the (God-)fearing).
But the most dangerous of these (at least from an imperial point of view!) was the neo-Pythagorician doctrine of the heresiarch Armand of Saxony, for short, a small countryside gentleman turned governor of Saxony, who preached to anyone who would listen about reincarnation, deism, slavery (he was in favour), tyranny (he was against it), plus the usual side order of antisemitism.
Armand of Saxony was astonishingly pleasant and likeable, and his final exile to Quattemala caused riots in many cities.
Persecution, though, could only reach high profile target. The emperor didn't micromanage, and ordinary citizens were for the most part, left alone. Taxes were typically low, and the imperial bureaucracy increasingly remote.
Under Corradu II, the empire turned increasingly inwards. Colonies in the Fortunate Islands were developped, for spices and sugar (Corradu believed that anything worth having should be produced on imperial soil), but the mainland was mostly left to autonomous religious orders. Corradu made no effort to hide his dislike of Sweden and Russia (to him, then-Russian tsar Paul II was the antichrist) but was content with menacing troop movements.
His reign had brought unpreceded peace and prosperity, but in his later years he had turned so conservative and passive as to make the USSR under Brezhnev look like a vibrant, dynamic state.
Corradu's last years in the 1780's were marred by riots over the price of wheat in Gaul and Britain and riots elsewhere. Corradu basically ignored this; it was at the time that he received the unflattering nickname of Marmoreanu.
Usurpers and alchemists.
He died in 1791, aged 94. His son, Theodore XVI was sixty and gravely ill, and so most of the power resided in the praetorian prefect, the ethnarch Macariu (an Assyrian Christian, and chief of mercenaries in the East): the empire had to fight, yet again, a war in the Caucasus against Persia, and Theodore XVI didn't feel up to the task. The Romans finally annex all of the Caucasus and the Pontic coast.
Theodore XVI died in 1794, succeeded by his twenty-five years old son, Corradu III.
Corradu III, himself, was mostly unimpressed by Macariu and strongly opposed to the war party that the prefect represented. He judged the recently acquired territories in the Caucasus, and wasn't particularly keen on a war with increasingly threatening Russia.
Macariu was dismissed in 1795, and replaced by John Mengi, a Scottish-Prussian philosopher, causing considerable scandal. Mengi was, actually, sympathetic to some of Armand of Saxony's teachings and only imperial intervention decided the pope of Rome to cancel his excommunication. The disgraced, but still influential Macariu, started organizing the Grand Egyptian Plot. During a visit in Constantinople, the emperor was imprisoned and Macariu proclaimed himself emperor. Immediately, the Polish government senses weakness, and tried to assert a claim on the Ore Mountains (Roman) and Saxony-Dresden (Guildian Republic). Corradu III escaped (in a barrel, according to legend), rode North to Saxony, and captured Macariu in Dresden and blinded him.
Corradu III was, at heart, a scholar, but he handled the Roman-Polish wars well; at the same time, Battista, duke of Alexandria rebelled in Egypt. The ensuing war lasted until 1804, with Corradu's victory.
The council of Prague, in 1805, definitely established European borders. Backed with the imperial army, vastly superior in number, it enforced a new Pax Romana all across Europe.
Russia and the Roman empire were in a stalemate; the Romans couldn't project forces far beyond the Black Sea; the Russians had no hope of beating the larger Roman army: demography was too defavorable.
So the tsars turned their attention East instead; Russian settlements were established in the North Hesperides, from Alaska to Oregon; more importantly, Mandchuria became a Russia possession in 1812, ending the Qing dynasty.
You'll notice I make no mention of the Industrial Revolution. Well, the reason is quite simple: it never happened. The appropriate conditions were never met in the Empire. The first reason is that the Romans were in a high level equilibruum: the empire was reasonably prosperous, and there never was no great need to improve productivity. The second reason is autocracy: early capitalism was killed in the bud by imperial policy. The emperors, often competent natural philosophers themselves, naturally had opinions. Some were right, others were wrong, but no matter what the imperial opinion tended to become scientific truth.
Finally, even early attempts at automation, in the textile industry, were suppressed by imperial novella, on charges of disturbing the peace.
The emperor Corradu III himself was known as 'Corradu the Alchemist'; some investigations led to the discovery that air wasn't an element, by the Transmutation of Air to Earth -- which is what the Romans call photosynthesis. 'Pyretic air', that is, oxygen, was isolated.
Medical studies, under the traditional Galenic faculties and the nosocomi, now explained disease by the theory of animalcules. Still wrong (the Romans still believe in spontaneous generation), but closer to the truth.
Corradu III died in 1836, of the same heart disease that had claimed his father. Never married, he had chosen for an heir his niece, Zoe IV.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - i Romani vengonno semper
Zoe IV l'Ottima
The capable Semion Bagiulianu had replaced John Mengi as praetorian prefect. It's likely that Corradu III had picked Zoe because she was young and a woman, and thus presumed tractable, though he did have genuine affection for his niece.
The fashion in those days was for all things Chinese; Bagiulianu and Zoe were no exception. Both tried to play the part of unscrutable, laissez-faire Taoist-Confucian monarch and capable chief minister, with a certain amount of success.
Zoe married Sigismond, a Swedish prince and brother to the king, which contributed to ease tension between two kingdoms.
Diplomatic relations were established with the Yì dynasty in China (the North of the country being controlled by Russia) and with the Mescican and Tawantisuyu in the Great Embassies. Other realms modelled themselves on the Roman government, and the Treaty of Prague was strictly observed. In fact, the one threat on Roman domination was internal, in the natural centrifugal tendancies of the provinces.
Semion Bagiulianu established a baroque system of internal rule; the empire was divided into five autonomous parti, each under a praetorian prefect: the Fortunate Islands, Gaul (including Britanny, Italy, and part of Germany), Italy (including Africa and Egypt), Graecia (Including the Balkans and Anatolia) and Orie (Syria and Palestine). But, at the same time, the civil administration would answer to the rationali cursu, the military to the Gran Domestigu while the Churches were under control of the five Popes, with jurisdiction that didn't match the parti.
Bagiulianu himself was Praefect Agustanu, Augustean Prefect, with authority over central administration, and by adding the empress and the heir apparent, this made up a council of 21.
A corps of Correctors was revived to control the whole thing, under direct control of the Augustean Prefect. The overly complex system's goal was to establish a system of check and balances which made unwanted initiative practically impossible. It was also an awfully rigid system, and made reform or quick reaction impossible, but that was by design: neither reform nor quick reaction were needed, or wanted.
Bagiuliani retired in 1864, though he would remain influential until his death. A succession of weak-willed Augustean prefects succeeded him; their role was mostly that of scapegoats; they could be quickly retired and replaced if a policy proved influencial. Zoe IV was becoming even more authoritarian as she aged.
She was, however, mostly successful. Peace was bought at the price of complete statis, and any shock could send the imperial edifice crumbling; but imperial diplomacy made sure that no shock was coming. In any case, neighbouring states tended to adopt the same model, and were in any case too small to be a serious challenge.
Zoe almost disappeared from public view in the 1890s, and died in 1905.
A decline and a fall
Her son Theodore XVII died in 1909, after a short and mostly uneventful reign. Meanwhile, the empire of Russia had broken up. The eastern part, based in Mandchuria was now the independant empire of Tartary. The Russians, suffering from famine, turned to Lithuania, and the Swedes joined in against Poland.
By the terms of the Prague treaty, the Romans were forced to intervene; the army had been much reduced and the Romans suffered an humiliating defeat, losign the Caucasus provinces and Cherson; Russian armies were at the Danube.
Corradu IV, the new emperor, turned out useless, in thrall to various mages and charlatans. The Romans had been lucky in having a series of strong, or moderately competent emperors; but a weak ruler would plunge the empire into defeat.
Fortunately, though, the Russians had bitten quite a bit more than they could chew. A Roman-led alliance chased the Russian army from Lithuania; resistance movements in the Caucasus made the provinces ungovernable; finally, Grand Duke Elia Juliani retook Cherson in 1913.
Corradu IV had taken one clever measure, and that was to dismiss unsuccessful hereditary generals and dukes, and replacing them by promotion from the ranks. He had, probably, been a little too liberal. Elia Juliani, while a great strategist, had been sent several times to the Hesperides for sedition; his latest exile had been cut short by the need to quickly rebuild the Roman navy. The mercenary troops Corradu IV had hired were not too reliable; some of them, like the Cherson Cossacks, had been in Russia's pay the year before. Upon defeating the Russians, Elia Juliani's first move was to march on Aquileia.
In 1914, Rome -- well, Aquileia -- had fallen.
The capable Semion Bagiulianu had replaced John Mengi as praetorian prefect. It's likely that Corradu III had picked Zoe because she was young and a woman, and thus presumed tractable, though he did have genuine affection for his niece.
The fashion in those days was for all things Chinese; Bagiulianu and Zoe were no exception. Both tried to play the part of unscrutable, laissez-faire Taoist-Confucian monarch and capable chief minister, with a certain amount of success.
Zoe married Sigismond, a Swedish prince and brother to the king, which contributed to ease tension between two kingdoms.
Diplomatic relations were established with the Yì dynasty in China (the North of the country being controlled by Russia) and with the Mescican and Tawantisuyu in the Great Embassies. Other realms modelled themselves on the Roman government, and the Treaty of Prague was strictly observed. In fact, the one threat on Roman domination was internal, in the natural centrifugal tendancies of the provinces.
Semion Bagiulianu established a baroque system of internal rule; the empire was divided into five autonomous parti, each under a praetorian prefect: the Fortunate Islands, Gaul (including Britanny, Italy, and part of Germany), Italy (including Africa and Egypt), Graecia (Including the Balkans and Anatolia) and Orie (Syria and Palestine). But, at the same time, the civil administration would answer to the rationali cursu, the military to the Gran Domestigu while the Churches were under control of the five Popes, with jurisdiction that didn't match the parti.
Bagiulianu himself was Praefect Agustanu, Augustean Prefect, with authority over central administration, and by adding the empress and the heir apparent, this made up a council of 21.
A corps of Correctors was revived to control the whole thing, under direct control of the Augustean Prefect. The overly complex system's goal was to establish a system of check and balances which made unwanted initiative practically impossible. It was also an awfully rigid system, and made reform or quick reaction impossible, but that was by design: neither reform nor quick reaction were needed, or wanted.
Bagiuliani retired in 1864, though he would remain influential until his death. A succession of weak-willed Augustean prefects succeeded him; their role was mostly that of scapegoats; they could be quickly retired and replaced if a policy proved influencial. Zoe IV was becoming even more authoritarian as she aged.
She was, however, mostly successful. Peace was bought at the price of complete statis, and any shock could send the imperial edifice crumbling; but imperial diplomacy made sure that no shock was coming. In any case, neighbouring states tended to adopt the same model, and were in any case too small to be a serious challenge.
Zoe almost disappeared from public view in the 1890s, and died in 1905.
A decline and a fall
Her son Theodore XVII died in 1909, after a short and mostly uneventful reign. Meanwhile, the empire of Russia had broken up. The eastern part, based in Mandchuria was now the independant empire of Tartary. The Russians, suffering from famine, turned to Lithuania, and the Swedes joined in against Poland.
By the terms of the Prague treaty, the Romans were forced to intervene; the army had been much reduced and the Romans suffered an humiliating defeat, losign the Caucasus provinces and Cherson; Russian armies were at the Danube.
Corradu IV, the new emperor, turned out useless, in thrall to various mages and charlatans. The Romans had been lucky in having a series of strong, or moderately competent emperors; but a weak ruler would plunge the empire into defeat.
Fortunately, though, the Russians had bitten quite a bit more than they could chew. A Roman-led alliance chased the Russian army from Lithuania; resistance movements in the Caucasus made the provinces ungovernable; finally, Grand Duke Elia Juliani retook Cherson in 1913.
Corradu IV had taken one clever measure, and that was to dismiss unsuccessful hereditary generals and dukes, and replacing them by promotion from the ranks. He had, probably, been a little too liberal. Elia Juliani, while a great strategist, had been sent several times to the Hesperides for sedition; his latest exile had been cut short by the need to quickly rebuild the Roman navy. The mercenary troops Corradu IV had hired were not too reliable; some of them, like the Cherson Cossacks, had been in Russia's pay the year before. Upon defeating the Russians, Elia Juliani's first move was to march on Aquileia.
In 1914, Rome -- well, Aquileia -- had fallen.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 2020 - i Romani vengonno semper
Recent history -- Juliani and Soli
Theodore XVII had exiled his nephew, Olivariu Molinari, to Caucasus, fearing for his son's succession (Olivariu was the son of Zoe IV's eldest son, and possibly more legitimate than Theodore XVII and Corradu IV).
Olivariu turned out to be an efficient guerilla warrior in the Caucasian provinces, and in fact a plot to replace Corradu with his cousin was seriously considered. To that effect, the imperial nobility had approached the Juliani family.
Elie Juliani was a most disreputable character. The scion of a moderately important senatorial piracy, he'd been name Duke of the Ocean, a mission that mostly implied fighting piracy and smuggling in the Northern Sea, Africa and the Fortunate Islands. He'd been exiled over a supposed plot; in fact the real problem was that he'd turned to piracy himself, and had accumulated a sizeable fortune himself.
In fact, the senators had first turned to Ezechiel Juliani, a drungary in the Mediterranean fleet, himself free of any suspicion of piracy. After a naval victory near Constantinople, Ezechiel had petitioned Corradu IV for his borther's liberation from exile.
On his return to Europe, Elie set up the Lithuanian battalion, ostensibly to fight on the Lithuanian-Polish side against the Russians; in fact, he was preparing a military coup.
The coup was a success, but it came a little too late: Oliviaru was dead. Elie convened in haste an emergency Senate sessions, and the senators, probably convinced by the Lithuanian army camping in Aquilea, elected him emperor, as Leo VII.
Not feeling particularly grateful, he ordered a purge of the Senate, and tried to replace the regular army with his Lithuanian corps; instead he was forced into a civil war in the Guildian Republic. The war carried on until 1917, and was followed by a civil war between the Lithuanians (loyal to Leo VII) and the Spanici, loyal to Zeno Molinari, another Molinari cousin, based in Tenge.
War in 1922 with a Juliani victory. The following era is known as the Juliani Terror, due to Leo VII's brutality, though he remained fairly popular. The emperor died in 1924, and was succeeded by his brother, Ezechiel, who took the name of Leo VIII.
Leo VIII had came back from the war a little disturbed. His brother had forced his hand in the choice of Augustean Prefect: he had named Bessario da Ciarcavilli, a war hero from the Caucasus war.
Bessario was Iberian-Lazi, the son of a shoemaker in Iberia, expelled from the monastery after his noviciate, and a petty bandit after that, who joined the guerilla forces of Olivariu Juliani. Brave and well-educated, though not entirely trustworthy, he became Olivariu's trusted lieutenant during the siege of Tiflis. He married Olivariu's daughter and was a Grand Duke when the Russian war ended.
Leo VII never quite trusted him, but he handled logistics most competently during the civil war.
Bessario's wife had been killed in 1917, he remarried in 1922 this time to Leo VII's own daughter -- against the emperor's wishes, but Leo sorely needed competent administrators. (Most of the previous administration was now growing sugar in the Carribean.)
Bessario was indispensible and well connected; Leo VIII attempted to curb his influence by introducing the archimandrite Barnabe da Granthama, a British faith healer, who could calm the increasingly depressed Leo VIII.
Europe mostly ended up with the borders as they stood in the Treaty of Prague, although Lithuania and Poland were much diminished by Swedish conquests. The Swedish-Danish (in personal union since 1906) was now the second power in Europe; after initial successes, Russia was in the midst of a succession crisis and economic depression.
Rome ended up with an empty treasury, peasant revolts, and armies ravaging the countryside (under various treason charges, Leo VII and Leo VIII had gradually diminished the mercenaries' pay, while local counts and dukes sometimes hired them as private security forces.)
Leo VIII obstinately refused marriage, and designated no heir -- although it was an open secret that he intended to name John Nicolai, an illegitimate son, who took the name Nicolau Juliani in 1928.
Leo VIII had a sudden change of heart in 1930: he officially relegated Barnabe da Granthama to a monastery (he was in fact killed) and named Bessario Agustu (heir apparent). Leo VIII died in 1933.
Bessario took the name of Theodore XVIII and changed his family name to Solari.
The Solari empire
Theodore XVIII emphasized continuity above all. Known as the implacable executor of the Juliani Terror, he inaugurated his reign with a general pardon. He rehired some of the mercenaries on the condition that they fight against those that ravaged the countryside. He also restored some of Roman influence abroad, intervening in Arabia in 1940 and installing a puppet ruler in Mecca.
He kept, or restored most of the Molinari institutions, and restored the empire's finances by taxing the largest landowners and the military nobility, and even expanded somewhat imperial territory with the conquest of Transnistria and Silesia in the Wars of Polish succession.
Alexiu Agustu, the heir appartent, died in 1939 of influenza. Theodore was deeply affected by that tragedy. Increasingly devoted to his task, he had restored finances and public order by the 1950's. He suffered from a stroke in 1952. After that, he left most of the duties of government to don Sabba Reggià, a bishop, consul and family friend named Praetorian Prefect in 1953.
Theodore's relations with his son Demetriu, the heir designate after Alexiu, turned sour and in 1959, another son, Michael was persuaded to leave his monastery (he was archimandrite of Megalo Meteoro).
Theodore XIV died in 1960, succeeded by Michael VI the Archimandrite.
Theodore XVII had exiled his nephew, Olivariu Molinari, to Caucasus, fearing for his son's succession (Olivariu was the son of Zoe IV's eldest son, and possibly more legitimate than Theodore XVII and Corradu IV).
Olivariu turned out to be an efficient guerilla warrior in the Caucasian provinces, and in fact a plot to replace Corradu with his cousin was seriously considered. To that effect, the imperial nobility had approached the Juliani family.
Elie Juliani was a most disreputable character. The scion of a moderately important senatorial piracy, he'd been name Duke of the Ocean, a mission that mostly implied fighting piracy and smuggling in the Northern Sea, Africa and the Fortunate Islands. He'd been exiled over a supposed plot; in fact the real problem was that he'd turned to piracy himself, and had accumulated a sizeable fortune himself.
In fact, the senators had first turned to Ezechiel Juliani, a drungary in the Mediterranean fleet, himself free of any suspicion of piracy. After a naval victory near Constantinople, Ezechiel had petitioned Corradu IV for his borther's liberation from exile.
On his return to Europe, Elie set up the Lithuanian battalion, ostensibly to fight on the Lithuanian-Polish side against the Russians; in fact, he was preparing a military coup.
The coup was a success, but it came a little too late: Oliviaru was dead. Elie convened in haste an emergency Senate sessions, and the senators, probably convinced by the Lithuanian army camping in Aquilea, elected him emperor, as Leo VII.
Not feeling particularly grateful, he ordered a purge of the Senate, and tried to replace the regular army with his Lithuanian corps; instead he was forced into a civil war in the Guildian Republic. The war carried on until 1917, and was followed by a civil war between the Lithuanians (loyal to Leo VII) and the Spanici, loyal to Zeno Molinari, another Molinari cousin, based in Tenge.
War in 1922 with a Juliani victory. The following era is known as the Juliani Terror, due to Leo VII's brutality, though he remained fairly popular. The emperor died in 1924, and was succeeded by his brother, Ezechiel, who took the name of Leo VIII.
Leo VIII had came back from the war a little disturbed. His brother had forced his hand in the choice of Augustean Prefect: he had named Bessario da Ciarcavilli, a war hero from the Caucasus war.
Bessario was Iberian-Lazi, the son of a shoemaker in Iberia, expelled from the monastery after his noviciate, and a petty bandit after that, who joined the guerilla forces of Olivariu Juliani. Brave and well-educated, though not entirely trustworthy, he became Olivariu's trusted lieutenant during the siege of Tiflis. He married Olivariu's daughter and was a Grand Duke when the Russian war ended.
Leo VII never quite trusted him, but he handled logistics most competently during the civil war.
Bessario's wife had been killed in 1917, he remarried in 1922 this time to Leo VII's own daughter -- against the emperor's wishes, but Leo sorely needed competent administrators. (Most of the previous administration was now growing sugar in the Carribean.)
Bessario was indispensible and well connected; Leo VIII attempted to curb his influence by introducing the archimandrite Barnabe da Granthama, a British faith healer, who could calm the increasingly depressed Leo VIII.
Europe mostly ended up with the borders as they stood in the Treaty of Prague, although Lithuania and Poland were much diminished by Swedish conquests. The Swedish-Danish (in personal union since 1906) was now the second power in Europe; after initial successes, Russia was in the midst of a succession crisis and economic depression.
Rome ended up with an empty treasury, peasant revolts, and armies ravaging the countryside (under various treason charges, Leo VII and Leo VIII had gradually diminished the mercenaries' pay, while local counts and dukes sometimes hired them as private security forces.)
Leo VIII obstinately refused marriage, and designated no heir -- although it was an open secret that he intended to name John Nicolai, an illegitimate son, who took the name Nicolau Juliani in 1928.
Leo VIII had a sudden change of heart in 1930: he officially relegated Barnabe da Granthama to a monastery (he was in fact killed) and named Bessario Agustu (heir apparent). Leo VIII died in 1933.
Bessario took the name of Theodore XVIII and changed his family name to Solari.
The Solari empire
Theodore XVIII emphasized continuity above all. Known as the implacable executor of the Juliani Terror, he inaugurated his reign with a general pardon. He rehired some of the mercenaries on the condition that they fight against those that ravaged the countryside. He also restored some of Roman influence abroad, intervening in Arabia in 1940 and installing a puppet ruler in Mecca.
He kept, or restored most of the Molinari institutions, and restored the empire's finances by taxing the largest landowners and the military nobility, and even expanded somewhat imperial territory with the conquest of Transnistria and Silesia in the Wars of Polish succession.
Alexiu Agustu, the heir appartent, died in 1939 of influenza. Theodore was deeply affected by that tragedy. Increasingly devoted to his task, he had restored finances and public order by the 1950's. He suffered from a stroke in 1952. After that, he left most of the duties of government to don Sabba Reggià, a bishop, consul and family friend named Praetorian Prefect in 1953.
Theodore's relations with his son Demetriu, the heir designate after Alexiu, turned sour and in 1959, another son, Michael was persuaded to leave his monastery (he was archimandrite of Megalo Meteoro).
Theodore XIV died in 1960, succeeded by Michael VI the Archimandrite.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
And I'm done! I'd planned initially to go on to 2020, but 1960 looks a good stopping point.
Most of the long walls of text were for my own reference/amusement, but I posted them here nonetheless, in case anyone finds it interesting.
Now, for something more digestible, I can finally answer Raphael's question:
The thing is, the industrial revolution never did took off in that timeline. Part of the reason is, there was never any good reason to improve productivity: the empire was prosperous enough. The autocracy enforced conservatism besides. Modern capitalism was killed in the bud because it threatened the strict social order on which the empire depends.
So, no Roman space rockets are forthcoming.
Science
Roman science isn't so bad, considering, but it largely lacks in practical application. That's because theory is the realm of the philosopher class, and practice a matter for the craftsman class. Natural philosophers in the 60's are aware of electricity and magnetism, they even know that both are linked, but they'd never dream of making a lightbulb.
Roman medicine lags behind ours, but they do have a concept of germ theory, a few vaccines, and even a few antibiotics, which means that epidemics are more or less kept in check. (Though if you do catch smallpox or the plague, you still have a good 25% chance of dying, either from the disease or from the treatment)
Economy
Compared to our society, the Romans are surprisingly egalitarian. That's because, from Augustus to the present day, the whole system depends on the emperor's properties being way, way larger than anybody else's. Besides, as countless emperors have found, people tolerate poverty but not inequality. There are still wealthy landowners and poor peasants, though.
Comparing the present day in both histories, of course, the Romans look backwards. But they have enjoyed centuries of relative peace and order. The Russian, Lithuanian, German and civil wars of the 1910s and the 1920s were bloody enough to make contemporaries think the end of the world had arrived, but they're unimportant skirmishes compared to our World Wars.
Religion
The empire is, at heart, a Christian theocracy. Rites vary according to location, but they're usually closer to our Orthodoxy than our Catholicism. The Pope of Rome isn't as important as we'd expect; he has to share power with four other Popes for starters, and besides he's more akin to an imperial minister for religious affairs.
Muslims and Jews have a protected status. The emperors are fairly cynical about it; since they're tolerated at the emperor's pleasure, they can be trusted to be loyal to the Crown.
There are a lot of weird cults around. The Inquisition is still around, by the way, but as a rule it intervenes when it's politically convenient. (Inquisitors are more like the FBI under J.Edgard Hoover than Torquemada)
Government
The empire is ruled by dukes, counts, and knights, which may give it a medieval feel. Titles are sometimes hereditary, though succession is by no means automatic. The civil administration feels more Confucean. Partly this is due to 'convergent evolution', so to speak, but Chinese authors are also read and appreciated.
A few common alternate Roman tropes:
Are the Romans anything like Ancient Romans?
Nope. It's an entirely different culture, as different from Ancient Rome as we are. It's a fairly alien society, Christian Orthodox and Confucean, with influent eunuchs and court magicians, knights, counts, drungaries and judges.
Did the Romans take over the world?
Nope. The Empire is barely larger than it was in Trajan's day. Keeping Europe together and guarding borders thousand kilometers long is hard work enough as it is, especially with premodern technology.
Besides, the Romans didn't bother much with overseas colonies. There never was any concurrence, and no pressing reason to conquer, say, India, which was already happy to trade with Rome.
Did the Romans restore the Republic
If you brought that up, they'd look at you funny. Romania (*) is still officially a republic and they even use the SPQR acronym at times. Democracy was never seriously considered, Roman political scientists believe that democracy is a primitive mode of government, only suitable at the local level (Cities have institutions that are kind of democratic).
There is some social mobility. The previous emperor was the son of a shoemaker after all, and the current Augustean prefect is the son of a blacksmith. In theory the civil service is open to all if you can afford long studies. (The Studia do offer scholarship, but for the most part, higher learning is elitist).
(*) As a side note, there's no good word for the empire. You can call it l'emperia, the empire or l'ecumene, 'the World'. The Roman feel that they rule the world, or at least the important bits. Czars and kings being delegated, so to speak, to rule over the most inhospitable bits, like Russia or Poland.
Sometimes, Romania is used. Rome is a bit confusing.
The capital is still as Rome
Rome is an important city and legally it's still the capital, but the emperors mostly reside in Aquilea.
Most of the long walls of text were for my own reference/amusement, but I posted them here nonetheless, in case anyone finds it interesting.
Now, for something more digestible, I can finally answer Raphael's question:
Now, I have. The Empire looks, well, several centuries out of date.
The thing is, the industrial revolution never did took off in that timeline. Part of the reason is, there was never any good reason to improve productivity: the empire was prosperous enough. The autocracy enforced conservatism besides. Modern capitalism was killed in the bud because it threatened the strict social order on which the empire depends.
So, no Roman space rockets are forthcoming.
Science
Roman science isn't so bad, considering, but it largely lacks in practical application. That's because theory is the realm of the philosopher class, and practice a matter for the craftsman class. Natural philosophers in the 60's are aware of electricity and magnetism, they even know that both are linked, but they'd never dream of making a lightbulb.
Roman medicine lags behind ours, but they do have a concept of germ theory, a few vaccines, and even a few antibiotics, which means that epidemics are more or less kept in check. (Though if you do catch smallpox or the plague, you still have a good 25% chance of dying, either from the disease or from the treatment)
Economy
Compared to our society, the Romans are surprisingly egalitarian. That's because, from Augustus to the present day, the whole system depends on the emperor's properties being way, way larger than anybody else's. Besides, as countless emperors have found, people tolerate poverty but not inequality. There are still wealthy landowners and poor peasants, though.
Comparing the present day in both histories, of course, the Romans look backwards. But they have enjoyed centuries of relative peace and order. The Russian, Lithuanian, German and civil wars of the 1910s and the 1920s were bloody enough to make contemporaries think the end of the world had arrived, but they're unimportant skirmishes compared to our World Wars.
Religion
The empire is, at heart, a Christian theocracy. Rites vary according to location, but they're usually closer to our Orthodoxy than our Catholicism. The Pope of Rome isn't as important as we'd expect; he has to share power with four other Popes for starters, and besides he's more akin to an imperial minister for religious affairs.
Muslims and Jews have a protected status. The emperors are fairly cynical about it; since they're tolerated at the emperor's pleasure, they can be trusted to be loyal to the Crown.
There are a lot of weird cults around. The Inquisition is still around, by the way, but as a rule it intervenes when it's politically convenient. (Inquisitors are more like the FBI under J.Edgard Hoover than Torquemada)
Government
The empire is ruled by dukes, counts, and knights, which may give it a medieval feel. Titles are sometimes hereditary, though succession is by no means automatic. The civil administration feels more Confucean. Partly this is due to 'convergent evolution', so to speak, but Chinese authors are also read and appreciated.
A few common alternate Roman tropes:
Are the Romans anything like Ancient Romans?
Nope. It's an entirely different culture, as different from Ancient Rome as we are. It's a fairly alien society, Christian Orthodox and Confucean, with influent eunuchs and court magicians, knights, counts, drungaries and judges.
Did the Romans take over the world?
Nope. The Empire is barely larger than it was in Trajan's day. Keeping Europe together and guarding borders thousand kilometers long is hard work enough as it is, especially with premodern technology.
Besides, the Romans didn't bother much with overseas colonies. There never was any concurrence, and no pressing reason to conquer, say, India, which was already happy to trade with Rome.
Did the Romans restore the Republic
If you brought that up, they'd look at you funny. Romania (*) is still officially a republic and they even use the SPQR acronym at times. Democracy was never seriously considered, Roman political scientists believe that democracy is a primitive mode of government, only suitable at the local level (Cities have institutions that are kind of democratic).
There is some social mobility. The previous emperor was the son of a shoemaker after all, and the current Augustean prefect is the son of a blacksmith. In theory the civil service is open to all if you can afford long studies. (The Studia do offer scholarship, but for the most part, higher learning is elitist).
(*) As a side note, there's no good word for the empire. You can call it l'emperia, the empire or l'ecumene, 'the World'. The Roman feel that they rule the world, or at least the important bits. Czars and kings being delegated, so to speak, to rule over the most inhospitable bits, like Russia or Poland.
Sometimes, Romania is used. Rome is a bit confusing.
The capital is still as Rome
Rome is an important city and legally it's still the capital, but the emperors mostly reside in Aquilea.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
But plausibly an industrial revolution might have taken off somewhere else. There's no immutable law that it has to be Europe or still less Britain and competition between otherwise equally matched rivals might lead to efforts to get a military edge, which is usually a good way to justify kicking off scientific and industrial hares.Ars Lande wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:10 am The thing is, the industrial revolution never did took off in that timeline. Part of the reason is, there was never any good reason to improve productivity: the empire was prosperous enough. The autocracy enforced conservatism besides. Modern capitalism was killed in the bud because it threatened the strict social order on which the empire depends.
Nice to be back after a break. Lot has happened (need to check on the bugs too!)
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Welcome backevmdbm wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:54 am But plausibly an industrial revolution might have taken off somewhere else. There's no immutable law that it has to be Europe or still less Britain and competition between otherwise equally matched rivals might lead to efforts to get a military edge, which is usually a good way to justify kicking off scientific and industrial hares.
Nice to be back after a break. Lot has happened (need to check on the bugs too!)
Oh, it's certainly possible! But I restricted myself to one change, which means things proceed pretty much as they did in OTL except where Romans are involved. So, say China or India develop more or less as they did, or would have had European powers not gotten involved. I don't think an industrial revolution was brewing anywhere but in Britain or the Netherlands, so presumably in doesn't happen in the ATL. (Though who knows what happens in the 20th century?)
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Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Congrats! That's a lot of work. The language sounds great. I like the effort you've made to make the emperors different from one another.
Minor corrections: we write Confucian, not Confucean; and "concurrence" is a gallicism— you want "competition".
Overall I like the later parts the best. With the early centuries I'm constantly thinking of OTL, but that doesn't matter so much a thousand years later, and I can accept the Empire as a cumbersome but hardy old beast.
Now, as the Brits say, you've done what it says on the tin. You have a Roman Empire that survives till the 19C. The tricky bit for this is the first few centuries, and I'm not sure this part works, but I'd have to re-read to say why. Overall I think it's because all the possible death-blows from OTL— the Germans, the Huns, the Bulgars, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols— have all been nerfed. Escaping a few fatal blows is fine, but escaping all of them seem unrealistic.
So, I'd suggest adding a couple of interregna. The Chinese empire, after all, had some very long periods of division or foreign rule; its genius was not the ability to maintain itself forever, but the ability to pick itself up each time.
Minor corrections: we write Confucian, not Confucean; and "concurrence" is a gallicism— you want "competition".
Overall I like the later parts the best. With the early centuries I'm constantly thinking of OTL, but that doesn't matter so much a thousand years later, and I can accept the Empire as a cumbersome but hardy old beast.
Now, as the Brits say, you've done what it says on the tin. You have a Roman Empire that survives till the 19C. The tricky bit for this is the first few centuries, and I'm not sure this part works, but I'd have to re-read to say why. Overall I think it's because all the possible death-blows from OTL— the Germans, the Huns, the Bulgars, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols— have all been nerfed. Escaping a few fatal blows is fine, but escaping all of them seem unrealistic.
So, I'd suggest adding a couple of interregna. The Chinese empire, after all, had some very long periods of division or foreign rule; its genius was not the ability to maintain itself forever, but the ability to pick itself up each time.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Thanks a lot!zompist wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 2:40 pm Congrats! That's a lot of work. The language sounds great. I like the effort you've made to make the emperors different from one another.
Minor corrections: we write Confucian, not Confucean; and "concurrence" is a gallicism— you want "competition".
Overall I like the later parts the best. With the early centuries I'm constantly thinking of OTL, but that doesn't matter so much a thousand years later, and I can accept the Empire as a cumbersome but hardy old beast.
Now, as the Brits say, you've done what it says on the tin. You have a Roman Empire that survives till the 19C. The tricky bit for this is the first few centuries, and I'm not sure this part works, but I'd have to re-read to say why. Overall I think it's because all the possible death-blows from OTL— the Germans, the Huns, the Bulgars, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols— have all been nerfed. Escaping a few fatal blows is fine, but escaping all of them seem unrealistic.
So, I'd suggest adding a couple of interregna. The Chinese empire, after all, had some very long periods of division or foreign rule; its genius was not the ability to maintain itself forever, but the ability to pick itself up each time.
The feedback is extremely helpful. I was less confident about the later parts myself, because in the earlier ones I relied a lot on actual history.
After a brief reread I think I need to rework the 650-850 period.
Basically, the idea is that the Germans don't get nerfed, but they're Roman enough to be coopted as the Western ruling class, the Bulgars finally yield as they did in OTL under Basil II, the Arabs basically take half the empire but are stopped at Carthage (which could have happened, actually!), a period of unity allow the emperors to use Frankish and Berber troops agains the Turks. As for the Mongols, as in OTL they seriously disrupt the geopolitical order but leave fairly early on.
I agree with you on the interregna: a period of Frankish rule and another of erm, maybe Turkish rule, for instance, could make for a better narrative.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Wow, that looks really impressive, although I must admit that I haven't read most of it yet. Great work!
In my own rudimentary conhistory, I stopped when my main conculture had reached roughly the technology of the real world's 1970s, because at that time, most of the modern world as we know it today was already in place, but computers and what later became the internet were still pretty much in their infancy, and frankly I have no idea how these will impact my main conculture. Since your scenario doesn't develop modern technology, that kind of consideration is not really relevant for your scenario, though.
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Oh thanks! I confess the whole thing is a little hard to take in all at once. I'll try to come up with something a little less dry to introduce the culure...
Yeah, it's more that I realized that having a bit of recent history left blank could be convenient... Say, if I ever write fiction or something in that setting, I can change the emperor or something if it's more convenient plot-wiseIn my own rudimentary conhistory, I stopped when my main conculture had reached roughly the technology of the real world's 1970s, because at that time, most of the modern world as we know it today was already in place, but computers and what later became the internet were still pretty much in their infancy, and frankly I have no idea how these will impact my main conculture. Since your scenario doesn't develop modern technology, that kind of consideration is not really relevant for your scenario, though.
Oh, and by the way, it turns out that the Romans reckon years from the creation of the world; so 1960 is really 7468-7569 Anno Mundi. (And the year begins on September 1st. Earth isn't a Libra, as some would have you believe, but a Virgo.)
Re: A history of the Roman Empire from 565 to 1960 -- done!
Ars Lande :
Here's some thoughts on your original post on the other forum:
Well, "culture never changes". It is fun to just have them be like in the old writings. Still, right, I get your point.
...
Oh ho ho ho! This is so clever. I read the whole thing. You must be really into history to write something like that.
Oh ho ho ho! The Bush reference. Oh ho ho ho!
I had a lot of fun when you started getting into the terminology for officials. I'm a bit into that sort of historical terminology sort of thing.
Here's some thoughts on your original post on the other forum:
Well, "culture never changes". It is fun to just have them be like in the old writings. Still, right, I get your point.
...
Oh ho ho ho! This is so clever. I read the whole thing. You must be really into history to write something like that.
Oh ho ho ho! The Bush reference. Oh ho ho ho!
I had a lot of fun when you started getting into the terminology for officials. I'm a bit into that sort of historical terminology sort of thing.