An Age of Miracles III: The Romans Endure

[Basileus444]

Previously on An Age of Miracles:
Thread One, to 1599
Thread Two, 1599-1660

The threads may end, but the fabric of the story of the Roman Empire and the Roman people continues...

* * *

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 3.0-Evil Must Be Opposed:​

There were many that opposed the agenda of the war hawks and the Regime of the Tourmarches, for various reasons. Some thought that expansionist programs were wasteful at best and actively dangerous at worse. Many war hawks wanted to force Serbia and even Hungary into a tighter orbit around Rhomania, although whether that meant vassalage or outright annexation varied depending on the person making the argument. This was to create a supposedly more secure buffer to protect Rhomania from another Theodor-style invasion.

Critics countered that these desires, which were hardly secret, alarmed and angered Serbians and Hungarians, only encouraging them to band together and to look west for aid, simply as a matter of self-defense. By 1660, the Serbians viewed the Roman garrison in Belgrade not as a defense against invasion from the north, but a dangerous threat to their independence in the event of an invasion from the east.

It was the same with Italy. The war hawks wanted to vassalize or conquer some or all of the peninsula (reestablishing the situation c.1500, during the latter years of Andreas Niketas, is the most popular model). There was the buffer zone argument, although here the desire for gold and glory was more open. Critics again countered that such desires only alienated Sicilians, Arletians, and Spaniards, creating enemies out of friends, and endangering the quite effective buffer of the Despotate of Sicily.

Other opponents frankly didn’t care about foreign policy. They were concerned about the various economic reforms that were to sustain the expansionistic policy. The ‘just economics’ legislations had centuries of history behind them, even if enforcement had often been spotty. Most opponents at this stage were not against the concept of market economies, but viewed the ‘just economics’ as important safeguards against corruption and abuse.

There was a good bit of variety within this broader group. Some thought it was necessary to protect the small folk from being gouged. Others viewed it as protection from everything eventually get monopolized by a few, probably due to political connections; this was an attitude that grew after the pattern of land speculation that followed the land sale reforms. Expanding one’s portfolio didn’t depend on political connections to the Tourmarches, but it did help. (Regional concerns factored much in this subset, since in this paradigm proximity to the capital would be decisive, seriously harming prospective competitors in, say, Antioch.) Still others had their sense of honor and fair play offended. If one couldn’t play and prosper in the commercial world without following just economics, then one shouldn’t be allowed to play at all, was their opinion.

To further complicate things, there were disputes over how to use the just economics, as opposed to just why to use them. Some liked the situation as it had been before the land reforms. Others thought that the existing laws needed to be better enforced. And still others thought they needed to be revised and expanded. The latter two groups also tended to be critical not just of the war hawks and Tourmarches, but also of Athena and her officials, since these issues had predated and grown noticeably during her tenure.

As the last bit shows, the war hawks benefited greatly from the disunity of their opponents. Athena and officials loyal to her would oppose the Tourmarches, but possibly for personal and procedural reasons. Others opposed to the Tourmarches on ideological grounds regarding just economics though have almost as much reason to be suspicious of the former group.

The most articulate group opposing the war hawks were the defensivists, but they were opposed on foreign policy grounds. Now some of them also opposed the war hawks for other reasons, whether on just economics or anger over the ‘personal clique’ aspect, but hardly all. This limited their ability for outreach. Furthermore, many defensivists were military or civil officials who rejected expansionism on pragmatic grounds. Gyranos and Plytos in particular recognized that they could be won around with the right arguments and evidence. They recognized that a failed war of expansion would be a very bad outcome that must be avoided, and worked to allay concerns over that outcome. Finally, given their positions and training, many defensivists might disagree with the chain of command, but they would loyally follow orders even if they disagreed with them. The Regime of the Tourmarches, although they were a personal clique without any institutional authority in and of themselves, were operating entirely legally (and were careful to do so for this reason). The signature of Herakleios III, as Autocrat, made anything legal, and they could get that.

The most vocal opposition to the war hawks came from the Orthodox Church. Some of it came from cynical self-interest; if the state demanded more resources for the sake of war, the Church and its vast portfolio was an obvious source. When war hawks directly encountered clerical opposition, they usually emphasized this angle. However, much opposition also stemmed from genuine ideological differences. Some opponents rejected calls for expansionism, while others were appalled at the removal of just economics. Still more objected to both.

Two of the most vocal critics are Bishops Manuel Rekas of the Princes’ Islands and Ioannes Grozes of Athyra. Both are rather minor sees but quite close to the capital, and the two spend much of their time in the capital, more than they should according to canon regulations. Much of that is spent preaching in the various churches. Most of their sermons are now openly political but they are critical of people’s attitudes and behaviors, which they see as the ultimate cause of the political issue. It is Bishop Rekas who makes the famous statement to the people of Constantinople: “Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”

One reason the duo of bishops can get away with spending more time in the capital is that their boss, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Adam II, is rather sympathetic to their viewpoints. Taking office under Athena, he is in his early 80s and in poor health. He is bothered by the rise of new rich men, not so much by their wealth per se but their disregard for charity for the poor and their lack of regard for ethics in accumulating said wealth. However, one of his supporters describes him as ‘having a good heart and a bad backbone’. He, especially in his condition, is not one to engage in direct confrontation.

Much more of a firebrand and a fighter, and much more explicitly a denouncer of the war hawks, is Father Andronikos Hadjipapandreou, a priest originally from Tyre and of mixed Arab-Greek ancestry. The Bishops’ criticism are more general, directed towards the populace as a whole, while Andronikos is ready to skewer specific individuals, such as a prominent dynatos whose tenements have low maintenance standards and high rents. The Father describes him as ‘a mangy wolf, ready to tear the bellies of infants to give himself a snack’.

Although Tyre is not that big of a city by Roman standards, young Andronikos was well acquainted with cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity by growing up there. Aside from the Greeks, there were Melkites, Sudanese (non-Ethiopian sub-Saharan Africans), Druze, Alawites, Maronites, Shia Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Latins of all types, Georgians, Armenians, and so on. As a young man, he felt a religious calling, but he is not dogmatic about specific theological doctrines. In his view, God is too vast and wondrous to be comprehended by any human mind, and so it is unreasonable to dogmatically stress details.

But there are some universals he does demand, and foremost of that is justice. As Andronikos notes, all faiths call God by different names, but they condemn lying, theft, and murder. And so the priest emphasizes good behavior, and demands that his listeners act justly and mercifully and humbly, for that is what God requires of them. There are no exceptions; a Basileus and a beggar are both subject to this divine law.

There is more to Andronikos Hadjipapandreou than just stern moralizing; he would not nearly be as popular as he is if that were so. Also as a young man, he was a skilled amateur pugilist with some noted wins to his credit. As a man of the cloth, he no longer engages in such activities but he happily sponsors local boxing matches to help fund charities, coordinating with local stars.

He is also known for his jokes and humor, which in modern terminology largely falls into the ‘dad joke’ type. The most famous is the following: I was purchasing sausages and I said to the vendor “I just wanted to thank you for your good service. I’ve been coming here for seven years and have always enjoyed your products.” The vendor looked at me and said “Seven years? And you’re still alive?” [1]

Andronikos lives an ascetic lifestyle, but he does admit to enjoying sausages, but his real passion and eccentricity is his ardent love of cheese. He is never without at least some cheese, constantly taking some out and nibbling on it, even while giving sermons. In fact, the nibbling becomes more frequent while he’s preaching. (He claims that in those cases it is to help with pacing, but then admits later it is to soothe his nerves during public speaking.)

The exception to the cheese-nibbling is when he is angry, extremely angry. One example is in 1657. At the time a priest has stirred up a mob to attack sodomites (homosexuals), blaming them for the terrible drought afflicting the area. Andronikos angrily argues the mob down, actually hurling his ball of cheese to the ground, showing how enraged he is, and the mob dissipates before causing any carnage.

This is not because Andronikos approves of homosexuality. He does not, considering it a grievous sin, but assault and murder are worse. He thinks that homosexuals are sick and must resist that urge, but judgment should be rendered by God, not men. In the meantime, he recommends a diet of cold fish and rice to help weaken their urges.

Given his willingness to face down an angry mob, he is clearly no coward, and when his sense of justice is offended, he will call out even the most powerful. Athena has been the target on at least two occasions, for what he considered laxness in enforcing just economic legislation.

But it is the war hawks that rouse his ire to full fury. To him, they are anathema to everything he believes. To him, they are evil “and evil must be opposed”. He damns them as a mix of avarice and stupidity, greedy for glory and gold and indifferent to the suffering and misery that sating their appetites will require. They “sacrifice the widow and the orphan, the poor farmer and laborer, to feed their god, the dread god of war, while their bellies grow fat and covered in medals”. They are “locust in human form, who devour all the land and leave it a howling waste. They claim to be the saviors of the Roman people. They lie. They will be their assassins.”

To this point, all of this activity, this political and ideological turbulence, has been restricted mostly to Constantinople and to the elite classes of the Empire. But there is much more to Rhomania than that.

* * *​

May 2, 1660, the Holy Mountain of Galesion, Second only to Mt. Athos, Thrakesian Theme:

Konon sat down in the middle of his rocky cell, listening momentarily to the wind whistling down off the top of the mountain. The sound was a familiar one; he was a child of the mountains, of the peaks of Isauria. He had been named after the great saint and wonderworker who had brought that land to the faith of Christ, and like his namesake he sought God.

He began his breathing exercises. He had fasted, taking only of liquids for several days to purify himself; it had been three days since his last bowel movement. The only exception had been the special herbs to help for these moments.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but the shadows lengthened as he breathed, as he meditated on God, on his name, on his nature, his wisdom, his mercy, his justice, and his wrath.

His eyes were closed so he felt them before he saw them, the roiling heat from the flames surrounding him. He opened his eyes to see his cell ablaze, but this was no ordinary fire, for his cell was of stone, providing no earthly fuel. This was no natural fire, but it still took all of his will to resist the urge to flee as the feeling of the furnace rolled over him. It was pure flame, with not one trace of smoke, licking at his clothes, his flesh. This was not the first time he had seen the Holy Fire, but never with such intensity, with such power.

Then he saw it coming towards him, advancing through the flames, like the visions of Ezekiel. Wheels within wheels, with a hundred eyes on each rim, all lidless and reflecting the flames. This was not God, for no man could look on the face of God and live, but Konon knew he was in the presence of a Power.

The Power stopped before him, its hundreds of eyes fixed on him as the flames danced, the rocks creaking and cracking in the heat. He wanted to run, to hide himself from that terrible gaze, but held himself in place. Standing up, he looked at the Power, and asked the question.

The Power was silent, the only sound the crackle of the flames and of the stones. Konon furrowed his brow; he hadn’t known what to expect, but this certainly wasn’t it. Then the Power moved to the side, revealing a Man walking through the flames, halting to stand where the Power had been. Konon’s eyes widened in surprise, for he recognized the man. All Romans would recognize him, although the ascetic had certainly not expected to see him here. And yet, now, it seemed the most natural thing for him to be here.

Andreas Komnenos, Niketas, the Shatterer of Armies, the Good Emperor, gave him the answer to the question.

* * *​

[1] Actual medieval joke.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 3.1-Michael and Athena:​

One prominent military figure too important for the Tourmarches to completely sideline is Michael Pirokolos, the best friend of Odysseus going back to when both were junior officers fighting in Mesopotamia during the War of the Roman Succession. (Michael’s unusual, although disturbingly not entirely unique, surname, derives from an incident in one battle there.) He had fought alongside Odysseus throughout the latter’s entire military career, including the long campaign east where he led the great cavalry charge that broke the enemy at Panipat.

In 1660, Michael turns fifty years old. In some ways he is rather similar to the Tourmarches and many war hawks. As a junior officer and young man, his early years were dominated by his experiences of the War of the Roman Succession. Like many war hawks, he bears much resentment against Roman newspapers for their attacks against the Roman army during that war, thinking that a few more tongues should be cut out. All they do is lie, and so their removal would be no loss, and possibly even an improvement.

But in many ways he is not, even disregarding his personal connection to the Sideros family. He is the son of a poor carpenter from Tephrike, out in the rugged east of Anatolia, a far cry from the typical family that produces Roman army officers. Those usually come in two categories. The first are the dynatoi and mesoi of coastal Rhomania, the relative elite of Roman society; all of the Tourmarches come from this grouping. The second are from what might be styled ‘mountain lord adjacent’ families. These are families that come from highland or nomadic elite families, although these can vary wildly from relations of the Grand Karaman to those of petty Epirote ‘big men’. These may not compare in wealth and sophistication to those of the first category (the Grand Karaman is an obvious exception) but in their local circles, these families are the elite.

Michael Pirokolos is an exemplar of a third group, whose numbers have been growing since the beginning of the Eternal War, but are still a quite small minority. These are officers who come from families that are decidedly non-elite even by the standards of local circles. Oftentimes the families are too poor by themselves to afford the education necessary to secure officer candidature. In these cases, the local village or neighborhood might pool resources to send a favored local son to get the education. If the local boy makes good, it could bring all kinds of benefits for those back home.

Pirokolos is possibly one of the best examples of that. He has been able to sponsor for scholarships three young men from his neighborhood in Tephrike, two as military officers and the third as a civil official. Given the limited availability of such scholarships, essential for anyone not part of the top quintile to get the required level of education, this seemingly small bounty is impressive. Also given his connections, he can help make sure requests for tax relief get quick and agreeable responses. The Tourmarches would never engage in such behavior, being of a higher social class originally, and these activities are sometimes held to the discredit of this group of officers. (Given the existence of the major service families and their tendency to favor relations, this criticism is often hypocritical.)

Pirokolos is also distinguished from the Tourmarches in another way. He is the quintessential ‘India Man’. The War of the Roman Succession involved the entirety of the Roman military, and the Thessaloniki campaign had the bulk of the Roman army active in some way. But Odysseus’ campaigns in Mesopotamia and especially in Persia and India included only a small fraction. At Panipat, the Roman contingent was equivalent in size to (on paper) two theme-tagmata and one guard tagma, out of a total roll of eleven theme-tagmata and five guard tagmata.

Those soldiers who marched with Odysseus through Persia and India are usually known as India Men. This group, despite being a minority in the Roman army, have received the majority of the promotions since the death of Odysseus. This is because of their distinguished service under Odysseus, but this is understandably resented by many non-India Men, who distinguished themselves during the War of the Roman Succession and feel ill-rewarded.

This is a major reason why the Tourmarches getting involved in army promotions generated much less backlash. For many non-India Men, this looked like delayed compensation finally being fulfilled. The Tourmarches were all non-India Men and understood this resentment and were able to use it to their advantage.

In 1660, Michael Pirokolos is Domestikos of the West, commanding the themes of the Helladikon, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Thrace. The three Domestikoi, of the West, Center, and East, are meant to fill in between the theme strategoi and the Megas Domestikos, but oftentimes the positions have not been filled, usually for cost-saving reasons. This is one criticism of Roman military performance during both the Eternal War and the War of the Roman Succession, where promoted strategoi, while used to commanding ten thousand soldiers, floundered when scaling up due to lack of experience and correspondingly did poorly compared to enemy commanders such as Iskandar the Great who were not so inexperienced in this aspect. Under Odysseus, a push was made to keep these positions filled and have more regular exercises involving multiple tagmata, in addition to the usual single tagma maneuvers. This wasn’t the first time such a reform was proposed, but this time the implementation was taken more serious and genuinely pushed effectively.

Michael is also close personally to Athena, unsurprising considering their long personal history, with rumors (but no evidence) that the two are lovers. Michael was married but his wife died in 1655 from illness, and he has one son and two daughters. His son Manuel has followed his father into the army while the daughters, Zoe and Maria, are ladies-in-waiting to Empress Sophia, the neglected wife of Herakleios III and daughter of Athena. A couple of years younger than Sophia, the trio are close friends.

* * *​

White Palace Parkland, May 2, 1660:

Athena stopped walking, gripping Michael’s left forearm more tightly for support. “Are you alright?” he asked. He’d stopped immediately when she’d squeezed his arm and he looked down at her in concern.

“Yes, just….need to breathe…for a moment.” A few more inhalations and exhalations and the shortness passed.

“Do you want to sit down, rest a bit?”

“No. We’re almost there.” It wasn’t that far of a walk from her apartments in the palace, but even these little exertions were much harder than they’d been before the attack.

This was one of her favorite parts of the park. The footpath was narrow, only wide enough for two people to walk abreast, with both sides flanked by intermixed rows of trees some five meters tall or more. Together they formed a near arch over the path, the sunlight dappling through the canopy. She enjoyed the intricate and constantly changing interplay of light and shadow as the leaves danced to the music of the wind. In the shade it was a bit cooler than she liked, but that helped keep people away.

They continued on for a moment in silence, but then they started to hear the noise of people. On the right side of the trees was one of the larger open areas in the garden, a popular place for picnic lunches, especially on a nice day like this. But these weren’t palace courtiers or officials.

“Ness, get down!” Ioannes shouted. That was Athena’s only son, calling his older sister by his now long-used nickname. His exclamation was followed by a large splat.

“Ha! Right in the-!” That sentence was cut short by an even larger splat.

“Typical Maria,” Michael muttered. “Always getting hit.” His tone was a bit wistful but the corners of his eyes smiled.

As they walked, through the mix of trees and shrubs they could see the engagement. On one side Sophia and Ioannes were crouched, one behind a log and the other behind a rock, while on the other Michael’s two daughters were each behind a tree. All were currently engaged in an artillery duel with various foodstuffs as the projectiles.

“They’re getting a little old for these shenanigans,” Athena mused. All four were in their early-to-late twenties. She said it in all seriousness, but then giggled when Ioannes bonked Zoe right in the forehead with what looked like an orange. Michael mock-glowered at her for a second.

“I could get involved,” he suggested. “Then they wouldn’t look so old.”

“Not quite what I meant.” A pause. “When we were younger than them, we were fighting with real guns.” Another pause. “I saw the first person I killed. I happened to be looking through my spyglass right when the cannonball hit. He must have been a drummer boy, or something; he couldn’t have been older than twelve. The shot ripped both his legs; one of them flew up in the air, higher than these trees. Thank God he was far enough away I couldn’t hear the screams.”

Michael reached over and squeezed her hand comfortingly, the one that was holding his forearm for support. “The second person I killed was a boy. It was an attack on an Ottoman camp. I killed a soldier and a boy rushed in. It was so quick, I cut him down without thinking. It was only afterward that I realized the soldier was his father. I still hear the screams.” Now Athena squeezed his hand in comfort.

They continued walking, the noise of the fighting trickling through the trees. “How is Thessaloniki?” Athena asked.

“Good. I’ll be heading there again next week to check on things, but I don’t foresee any problems receiving. But can you get them out if need be?”

“Yes, yes, I can,” she replied, squeezing his hand firmly as she answered.

“Good.”

The footpath curved a bit here, with a bench set off next to it on the lefthand side. Athena eased herself onto it, sighing a bit in relief.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses a tentacle!” Ioannes shouted.

Michael looked at her. “Don’t ask. I don’t know either.”

“What are you doing with a coconut?!” Zoe yelled.

“Um, maybe you should intervene,” Athena said.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Will you be alright here?”

“I will. Sometimes it’s good to be alone. But thank you for everything, Michael.”

He kissed her hand. “You’re very welcome, Athena.” He headed off towards the field.

She sat there for a bit, just listening to the sounds around her. It was not long before she heard the brush rustling; she’d been expecting that. Looking over, she saw a large tortoise, one of the Spanish gifts, creeping out, crossing the footpath to approach her. “Greetings, Dread Lord,” she said to Thales the Tortoise, addressing him by his title. He looked at her. “Of course, I have your favorites.”

She opened the basket, the insides of which held strawberries and peaches, her and Thales’ most desired products of the Sweet Waters greenhouses. She took a bite out of one strawberry and placed a couple fruits on the ground in front of Thales, who began happily munching on them.

Athena closed her eyes, listening to the wind rustling the leaves, Thales eating away, and the voices of Michael and her daughter and son off in the near distance. There were no politics or famines or court intrigues, lying sensationalist newspapers or warmongering officers. For this precious moment, all was right with the world.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 4.0-The Summer of 1660:​

By the summer of 1660, the Regime of the Tourmarches has been in place for a year and some months. Thus far they have done relatively little, focusing on putting allies and fellow travelers into important civil and military positions. The only major reform, albeit an extremely important one, is the elimination of all strictures on land sales. Now though, as the seasons turn, events begin moving much more rapidly.

In late May, Ioannes Sideros-Drakos, the only son of Athena, falls sick. He deteriorates rapidly and dies on the last day of the month, two months short to the day of his twenty-third birthday. What exactly killed him is not clear. Although recently married, he has no heirs.

His death immediately throws into focus the issue of dynastic continuation. Although Herakleios III has been married to his cousin Sophia for over a decade, the couple have not produced any offspring. Because of that, the next in line of succession to Herakleios is his younger brother Demetrios, off in the eastern wilds of the Ottoman Empire. After Demetrios the succession originally would’ve passed to Ioannes. After that, things get really complicated really fast.

The reason Sophia and Herakleios have not had any children is for the simple reason that it does not appear that their marriage has ever been consummated. This is not because of squeamishness due to them being first cousins; by the standards of early modern dynastic marriages that is quite tame. Here it is all about the personalities.

Herakleios’ sexual experience had been initiated with and by his mistress Anastasia, and she is determined to control it. This is not out of a simple jealousy of wanting to keep her man for herself physically. She is aware of the political need for Herakleios to produce an heir, but Anastasia does not want to risk creating a rival for the Emperor’s affection. By 1660, she has some Laskarid cousins of her in mind that she thinks would be good for producing Imperial heirs while not stealing Imperial affections. But there is the matter of Sophia, who is extremely unlikely to fit into the category Anastasia would find desirable.

Sophia, for her part, is not inclined to push on this issue. Seeing her husband chase after another woman hardly fires her ardor. Furthermore, there is an incident when both she and Herakleios were twenty. They were on excursion in Bithynia, but Anastasia was also present, which made things awkward already. Staying in a country house, Sophia was in bed in an upstairs room while Herakleios and Anastasia were downstairs. Through the floorboards, Sophia was able to see the ‘nocturnal activities’ of the two. She was familiar with the concept of sex, but did not understand why it entailed Anastasia strangling Herakleios with her hands. Afterwards, she certainly displayed no interest in trying to get into her husband’s bed. [1]

Annulment of the marriage on the grounds of nonconsummation would seem obvious, but it is not as simple as it appears. The Patriarch Adam II, who was appointed by Athena, sees no fault with Sophia and is not sympathetic to the idea. Sophia is also the daughter of Alexandros Drakos, long dead but of an incredibly well-connected family. Divorcing Sophia would likely irritate a lot of important people that the Tourmarches would prefer not to irritate. Thus, despite Ioannes’ death heightening the urgency, nothing happens regarding the situation at this time.

Meanwhile just a week later a fire starts in northern Constantinople, to the west of the old Venetian quarter. Fortunately while the city is bone dry due to lack of rainfall, the air is still and so the fire is contained after it ‘only’ destroys some two thousand buildings, killing perhaps that many people and leaving ten to fifteen times that number of people homeless and/or ruined. A key reason why the fire was contained before it did more damage is due to the actions of the zealous fire warden of the Zeugma district, Nikolaos Lazaras, who demolished many buildings to create a firebreak.

He ends up regretting that decision. He is sued by the owners of many of those buildings for unlawful destruction of property because he had not secured their permission before tearing down the buildings. They also argue that he had been excessive in his creation of firebreaks, more than the situation warranted. [2] Lazaras counters on the grounds that speed was of the essence and that considering the context, better safe than sorry. But the claimants against Lazaras include some prominent dynatoi who are allies and supporters of the Toumarches, and so they win the case.

This is an especially bad outcome for Lazaras. According to Imperial law, civil officials can be held personally liable for unlawful seizure and destruction of property, a stricture designed to add personal consequences for any bad behavior for officials out in the provinces. But since Constantinople is managed directly by the Imperial government, Lazaras as a city fire warden counts as a civil official. Condemned to pay massive damages, he is left utterly ruined and destitute.

Many condemn this as an obscene travesty of justice, including Father Hadjipapandreou, who spits venom over the whole proceedings. Others hail this as an important defense of property against arbitrary seizure of power by government officials.

The attention of the Tourmarches though quickly turns to other business. On June 24, a new press censorship law is passed, sharply tightening the censorship laws as applied to newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsheets. This is far more sweeping than earlier restrictions and much more strenuously enforced. Criticism of government policy and officials is banned, along with “the pretense of presenting factual information, without regard for the actual accuracy”.

There are many who approve of this measure, even those who oppose the war hawks. Suing for libel is made easier and more likely to succeed, a boon to many who feel they have been slandered by publications that displayed little regard for truth. Many in the military especially appreciate this, which they feel is long delayed. That is one reason for the war hawks doing this, although they also have a personal stake here as well. Another is the silencing of criticism. Many of the sermons of Father Hadjipapandreou, for example, cannot be published under the new laws, although his speaking publicly remains unmolested.

Accompanying the censorship law is a new stamp tax. This has an additional censorship effect by raising the price of publications which include the new tax, but that is not the intention. The goal here is the simple one of raising more revenue. Even victorious wars cost money.

The war hawks try to use print media more positively for their aims as well, but less successfully. Beginning in the winter of 1660-61, a series of loosely connected short stories appear in print, usually known today as “Alexios and the Next War”. They are inspired by the much older stories of “Alexios and the Latins”, which feature a young boy, Alexios, outwitting strong and cruel but dumb Latins to protect his family. In these stories, Alexios is a young officer, still outwitting strong and cruel but dumb Latins, but in the context of the next war, a ‘defensive conquest’ of Italy.

They are not very popular. They lack the charm of the older stories they wish to evoke, being quite formulaic and the characters stiff and dry, largely interchangeable stereotypes. The original tales had the kindly old Franciscan named Francis (admittedly not much originality there) who gives Alexios apples and cheese when he is hungry and sometimes even helps to take down the villain of the story. The new version has no equivalent, and the most recurring Latin clerical character is an Inquisitor who prefers to ‘examine’ 12-15 year old girls, because ‘it is good for their souls if their first bite is from the mouth of a man of God’.

Much more popular is a response, “Andronikos and the War of 1704”. In this, Alexios in his old age has died from ‘a surfeit of cake’, shortly after retiring from being Kephale of Milan. The action mainly follows his grandson Andronikos.

In this work, after the Roman conquest of Italy the Triunes and Spanish formed an alliance. In their Terranovan colonies, they captured and domesticated triceratops, armoring them for war. (The conceit here is that these creatures are still alive somewhere in the wilds of Terranova. [3]) In 1704, they launch their attack, sweeping the Romans before them who have no effective response to this new weapon.

The Russians come to the aid of the Romans with armies that include domesticated mammoths from Siberia [4] to counter the triceratops. But these don’t do so well in the heat and the story ends with the destruction of Constantinople, survivors either fleeing north to Russia or into Roman Asia. Roman Asia might be able to reenact Nicaea, or it may be swept aside by the continued advance of the Triunes and Spanish. Both possibilities are left open by the ending.

“The War of 1704” is more popular for several reasons. It is more exciting and interesting and less predictable. The characters are more developed and varied. While there is still the rapist Inquisitor (a common stereotype), there is again a kindly Franciscan and several of the Latin officers, especially the Spanish, are brave and honorable opponents. Plus it has dinosaurs and mammoths in it, which per scientific law make anything better.

The Bishop of Klaudiopolis, taking a break from being a food critic to be a literary critic, praises “The War of 1704” in comparison to “The Next War”, as the former is “a more accurate and realistic depiction of possible future events”. This seems rather silly from a modern perspective because of the triceratops and mammoths, but the Bishop is focused on other matters. He condemns Latin culture as being cruel and violent and greedy and hypocritical, but says that not all Latins are the same or suffer from the same vices, which are hardly unique to Latins anyway. “The War of 1704” is aware of this. “The Next War” is not.

He also commends the former work for addressing a major concern that “The Next War” pretends does not exist. A story can end, but history continues. The Romans might win a war, but that may create an overwhelming backlash. Manuel I at the height of his power made the Seljuk Sultans kneel and invaded Italy in great might. Then 1204 happened. Success might be gained, yet is never permanent. But death is.

On a side note, “The War of 1704” is significant for the course of Roman science fiction. It continues the trend, begun by “A New and Ancient World” by Demetrios Sideros, of what is called the ‘destruction’ genre of Roman science fiction. Roman science fiction is much more open to the possibility of the destruction of the Roman society and people and the tenuous nature of survival in the presence of great forces. Put one way by a Roman: In Terranovan science fiction, the aliens invade and cause great damage, but eventually the plucky Terranovans regroup and destroy the attackers, usually because they have a convenient kill switch like a hive queen. In Roman science fiction, the aliens invade and cause great damage. The Romans fight with great bravery and determination but are eventually overwhelmed by superior force. Sometimes the destruction is total. Sometimes Roman survival is possible, but never guaranteed.

* * *​

The White Palace, July 1, 1660:

Athena looked up from her book as her maidservant entered the room, adjusting her glasses as the candles flickered with the movement of air. Her maidservant didn’t say anything. Coming to Athena, she pulled a piece of paper out of her cleavage and handed it to her. Athena nodded and the servant bowed slightly and immediately left.

Only once she was alone did Athena unfold the piece of paper to see what was written on it, the answer to her question. It was handwritten, but with exquisitely precise penmanship, as if from a printing mold carved by a fine craftsman.

She held the note over the candle flame, burning it away. Her arm was steady, her face still, showing no sign of emotion. There was no trace of the feeling running through her. She had not felt this before, but she had seen it in another before, once. In her father, in that sheer apocalyptic rage, terrible and awe-some and as cold as Hyperborea. And she was her father’s daughter.

On that piece of paper, there had been only one word.

YES.

* * *​

[1] This is a slightly adapted version of an event from OTL, involving King Henri II of France, his mistress Diane di Poitiers, and Henri’s wife and queen, a teenage Catherine de Medici. Via the setup as ITTL, Catherine saw Henri’s and Diane’s nocturnal activities, but Catherine seemed to be confused by the concept of sex and so was confused by what Diane was doing to Henri. (And yes, this menage a trois is the OTL inspiration for this TTL relationship.)

[2] According to 1666: Plague, War, and Hellfire by Rebecca Rideal, early efforts to contain what would become the Great Fire of London were seriously handicapped by liability concerns regarding tearing down of buildings to create firebreaks.

[3] Thomas Jefferson hoped Lewis and Clark would find live mammoths during their expedition. Their bones had been discovered on the east coast and it was believed the species still endured out west; the concept of completely extinct species took a while to catch on.

[4] Catherine the Great once wrote to Voltaire expressing a hope that someday live specimens of mammoths would be found in Siberia, instead of just the already well-known frozen carcasses.

 

[Basileus444]

Happy Saturnalia everyone! Hope all those who celebrate had a good holiday, and those who celebrate similarly timed holidays too. My sister and I got matching 'Keep Calm: It's only a T-Rex' t-shirts; in 5 and a half months it'll be warm enough outside to wear them. Can't think of a good segway from that, so I'll just follow the advice of Marty from '200' on SG-1 and...

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 4.1-The Summer of 1660, part 2:​

After the fire but before the new censorship laws, the Queen of Cities receives a most distinguished visitor, Andreas Karamanlis, the Grand Karaman, a direct male-line descendant of Prince Yahşi, who in 1311 had converted to Orthodoxy and taken the name Ioannes, with Emperor Ioannes IV himself being his godfather. This event, depicted in many Roman paintings of future eras, was a crucial event in the Laskarid re-conquest of central and eastern Anatolia. [1]

Since that time, the Grand Karamans have been the power in the Isaurian highlands, in south-central Anatolia bordering Cilicia to the east. Faithful to Orthodoxy, devotees of St. Ioannes of the Turks, whose shrine at Ikonion is near their base, they have also been loyal allies to the Basileus.

Such loyalty though has been maintained by gifts and respect. Highlands and deserts and forests and other such inaccessible areas throughout the world are often depicted on political maps as being under the control of states, but said political control is limited and intermittent at best. Local elites are often the real power in these areas, with some sort of relationship with the state power that claims, but does not actually yield, absolute authority. Mountain lords are the Roman term for this, but it is hardly unique to the Roman Empire. The Grand Karamans are by far the greatest of the Roman mountain lords, and are suitably rewarded and respected as such.

This visit does not go well. The visit by itself is traditional. Every Grand Karaman, upon the death of his father and on taking up the title, then pays a visit to Constantinople to give his respects to the Emperor. (An important aspect to note is that the Emperor does not bestow the title of ‘Grand Karaman’ on him. That is done in Isauria and by the Karamans themselves. This is essentially a social call.) Andreas is doing that.

The problem begins during the audience with Herakleios III. At first there is the issue of personal weapons. Andreas carries a sword and refuses to be parted from it. The practice is that no one save Imperial guardsmen can have weapons on them in the presence of the Emperor. However, one of the privileges of the Grand Karaman is that he is the exception to the rule, a gift bestowed due to the personal friendship between Prince Yahşi/Ioannes and the future Manuel II Laskaris.

It is unclear whether the guardsmen are unaware of this, due to the last visit of a Grand Karaman to Constantinople being in 1627, or if they are aware but edgy because of the recent assassination attempt on Athena, which does not look good on their record. Andreas, for his part, really doesn’t care; he is not giving up his sword. This is not just any sword either. This was a personal gift to the Grand Karaman from Andreas Niketas himself, a sword the Shatterer of Armies had used during his conquest of Sicily.

Eventually the situation is made clear and Andreas is allowed to keep his sword during the audience, but this is a bad start and it gets worse. Herakleios III has been suffering from a slight fever and was reluctant to grant the audience at that time, but had been convinced that a delay would be rude. The audience is nothing more than an exchange of vacuous pleasantries; no serious issues are discussed. Empress Sophia, who also participates as per tradition, admits she finds the setup rather dull, but it is a marker of respect for the Grand Karaman. Herakleios III falls asleep during the audience.

Andreas Karamanlis controls himself while in the room, but after bidding goodbye to the Empress and departing, it is clear that he is quite angry. This isn’t just a matter of being personally offended. For mountain lords, maintaining credibility is a key part of maintaining their power, and thus they can’t accept being disrespected. If they are disrespected and don’t respond, they look weak, and no one follows a weak mountain lord.

The Tourmarches, immediately recognizing a fiasco, go into damage control mode. Strategos Plytos personally visits the Grand Karaman in his lodgings, wining and dining with the best the Imperial capital has to offer, and bestowing many gifts on him. This somewhat mollifies Andreas, but he still wants an apology. His attendants know how the audience went, and will spread word of it in Isauria once he returns. He needs that apology.

The solution is an easy one, a new audience, where Herakleios will apologize for the issue over the sword and for falling asleep. Andreas will say it is no big deal, that no offense was intended and it was merely the unfortunate result of zealous guards and a poorly timed illness. Some nice gifts will be given. Everything will be made right. And that is where Herakleios III decides to be stubborn.

Herakleios doesn’t see why he should apologize, especially in person. He is the Emperor of the Romans and doesn’t see what he has done that merits an apology. The audience is just an exchange of meaningless pleasantries, and he was ill. That he’d granted it at all was a gesture of respect and the Grand Karaman should just take it and the gifts, be happy, and go. Not even Anastasia Laskarina can convince him to change his mind. (Gyranos makes a caustic remark that for once Herakleios thinks for himself instead of letting Anastasia do it for him, and this is what he thinks up.) At most, he’s willing to sign a written statement expressing regret that offense had been given.

Perhaps one reason Herakleios is so stubborn is that the Emperor’s Eyes report that in his anger, Andreas has been making disparaging comparisons between Herakleios and his younger brother Demetrios. The reports of what exactly Demetrios is doing out east are confused and often contradictory, but impressive in scope if they are even remotely accurate.

The eventual compromise is that Andreas has a personal audience with the Empress Sophia, who personally apologizes on her husband’s behalf. She even gets up from her throne and directly hands the written statement to Andreas, along with a kyzikos that had once belonged to Andreas II Drakos. Her husband’s absence is explained by continued illness, an excuse that both the Empress and Grand Karaman know is a lie.

Still, it seems good enough for Andreas and he soon departs Constantinople to return to Isauria, although with plans to undertake pilgrimage to Mysian Olympus, Mt Galesion, and the shrine of St Ioannes, Apostle to the Turks, at Ikonion on the way. As he takes ship for Chalcedon, Gyranos remarks to Plytos that they may not have made an enemy, but they’ve lost all second chances with him.

* * *​

The Monastery of the Anastasis, Mt. Galesion, July 1, 1660:

Markos heard him before he saw him, the butt of his staff knocking against the stones of the path that led up the mountainside. He looked up from his stitching, where he was mending a pilgrim’s cloak, to see Brother Konon descending the footpath.

Konon was an ascetic associated with the monastery, spending much of his time alone in his mountain cell, but coming down for supplies, Sunday services, and to help attend to the needs of the pilgrims who came to the Holy Mountain. Konon had been up on the mountain for longer than usual, over three weeks. His beard was bright white, but cropped short and neat, most unusual for him. His gaunt features were even tighter, his wrinkled skin stretched tight across his bones. But his staff struck the stone with the strength of a pile-driver, and his face glowed and his eyes shone as he approached Markos.

“Greetings,” Markos said. “What brings you down?”

“I asked a question, and I received my answer. But it is not enough to know. One must do. Indeed, better to not know, then to know and then not to do.”

Markos furrowed his brow. “And what must one do?”

“For starters, one must not spend all of one’s time sitting on a mountainside, deaf to the cries that come from below. Excuse me for a moment.”

Konon walked over to his right, his staff tapping the ground. He was heading toward a young man, busily chopping wood, pausing momentarily to take a drink. He was a pilgrim who had come to the monastery, to sleep and to pray in the shadow of the holy mountain. The monastery was now a regular site for pilgrimage, providing food and lodging for up to three days for all who asked, although able-bodied pilgrims might be asked to perform various labor tasks, such as chopping firewood.

The man stopped as Konon reached him. Konon didn’t say anything until he was still, and then placed a gnarled hand on his right shoulder. “Go home, my son. Your mother forgives you, and she misses you.” The man nodded jerkily, Konon withdrawing his hand as tears beaded in the man’s eyes. He walked away, Konon watching him for some moments before turning back to Markos. Konon had never met the man before.

“How did you know?” Markos asked.

“He that went before me told me.”

“You know, sometimes you can be annoyingly cryptic.”

“I know, but it’s more dramatic this way.”

“Fair enough.”

Markos stitched another thread. “Would you like me to be more specific?” Konon asked.

“When you phrase it that way, no.”

“Tough. We need to prepare.”

“For what?”

“For whom. The Grand Karaman approaches.”

Markos started. “First I’ve heard of that. It hasn’t been announced. But it’s unlike you to care for earthly rank, no matter how high.”

“Indeed. But I asked a question.”

“What question?”

“In due time. But he…” Konon pointed, Markos turning to look. The view overlooked the pilgrim road that led up the mountain, with the dust of a small caravan moving up starting to mingle in the wind. “…is part of how we answer it.”

* * *​

[1] See Not the End: The Empire Under the Laskarids, Chapter 7: The Re-Conquest of Anatolia.

 

[Basileus444]

Demetrios the Younger: This man will certainly become much more prominent down the road.

Russia and Manchuria: Having a fragmented Manchuria, with Korean and Chinese influence mostly canceling each other out and keeping the place fragmented, is for the purpose of making the place much easier pickings for the Russians later in the 1600s. Getting all of the Amur River valley by itself is a huge boost to Russian Far East; the place can actually sustain itself. And admittedly that is really for the reason of making Russian Alaska a sustainable option. How this all places out with Russian interaction with China, Korea, and Japan is much more up in the air. One example: A much more established and developed Russian Far East is going to want a year-round warm-water port even more badly. Are the Koreans and Japanese willing to accommodate this, or do they view this Russian move as a threat? If the latter, shared Orthodoxy isn't going to matter.

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 4.2-The Summer of 1660, part 3:​

Content Warning: The following update contains depictions of torture and reference (not depictions, to be absolutely clear) to child rape. If that is an issue for anyone, skip to the very last section of the update (marked by the ***). Also please note that I do not have plans for any updates at this time that should require similar warnings.

* * *​

The Pit of the Forsaken, the White Palace, July 1, 1660:

He scratched the back of his head, where there were a few thin tufts of white hair, the paltry scraggly holdouts in what was otherwise a bald dome. Signing off on the bottom of a piece of paperwork, he placed it on the righthand corner of his wooden desk. Getting up to stretch his stiff legs, he hobbled around the stone cell, pacing back and forth. Some light shone in through the window, set up at twice the height of his head, but most of the illumination came from several oil lamps ensconced evenly around the wall of the circular chamber. Going back to his desk, he took the dull red linen jacket slung over the back of his chair and put it on; even at the height of summer it was never really warm down here.

He pulled his pocket watch out and looked at it, although his rumbling stomach told him just beforehand that it was nearly, but annoyingly not quite at, lunchtime. That was his second-favorite part of the work day, as his paunch could attest. His favorite part, naturally, was leaving.

A short thin woman, with short silver-gray hair with some traces of black curling around her face, pushed the door open and entered. She frowned, handing him another piece of paper. He skimmed the beginning. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”

“Apparently not,” she said. “I’d like to be your number 2 on this one.”

He looked up from the paper. “Are you sure, Irene? You know how I operate, what I do.”

“I’m quite sure. Did you get to paragraph 4?”

“No.” He read it. “Are you serious? Another one?” He looked at her. “That’s why you want in.”

She nodded. “That’s why.”

“Very well. You’re in.” His stomach rumbled. “But first we do lunch.” He set the piece of paper down at the center of his desk. “Then we’ll deal with him.” He smiled coldly; this kind of case was his third-favorite part.

* * *​

He was back at his desk, although his satisfied stomach was now silent. In other changes a chair was now in front of his desk, facing him. A scribe sat behind him and to his left, his own portable writing desk set up with his materials ready, while a club-armed guard stood at the door. “Bring him in,” he said. The guard opened the door.

Another guard came in, pushing a manacled man in front of him. The prisoner was in his early twenties, thin-framed and with a thin beard that failed to cover up a double chin. He shivered as the guard shoved him down onto the empty chair, tying him to it. It could be fear, or simply chill. He was just wearing a somewhat-stained pair of shorts that went down only to the tops of his knees.

Irene now entered, coming over to the desk. She turned to face the prisoner, putting her purse down on the desk and fishing through it for the items. “The time is 13:07,” he said, looking again at his watch. The scribe’s quill scratched that notation. “The session begins.” He looked at the guard who’d brought the prisoner into the chamber. “You are relieved.”

“I am relieved,” he replied, exiting the chamber, the original guard closing the door behind him.

He adjusted his glasses, looking over the case file for a moment, the chamber otherwise silent. “Um,” the prisoner said. A look at Irene. There was a sharp crack as fist met face, then a cry of pain. Irene drew back her hand, the brass knuckles glinting against the lamp light.

“The prisoner will only speak when spoken to.” The man nodded.

“Now, what is your name?” he asked.

“Why? You know-” He shrieked as Irene’s brass-knuckled fist again smashed into his face; something flew out of his mouth.

“Guard,” he said. The man grabbed the prisoner, wrenching his mouth open and peeling his lips back so the mouth could be examined. “Subject has lost tooth UL3.” The scribe’s quill scratched as he recorded the information. The guard let go and stepped back.

He looked at the prisoner. “You will answer my questions when I ask them, even if I already know the answer. Now, what is your name?”

“Stefanos-”

“Wrong.” A look at Irene. Another fist to the face. Another scream. And another piece went flying. “Guard.” A moment. “Subject has lost tooth UR2.” He looked over at Irene. “Let’s try and keep things symmetrical, shall we? I like to keep things neat and tidy.”

“Understood.”

He looked again at Irene. “I must apologize for my colleague’s sloppiness. Rest assured that with any further lost teeth or broken bones or injuries of that nature, we will attempt to ensure that they are evenly distributed. We regret any distress caused by our earlier failure to maintain this standard.”

“Deeply regret,” Irene drolled.

“Now, regarding your last answer. The information you gave me was incorrect. Doing so will result in consequences. I trust you can discern what kind.” The man looked at him, confused, but he kept his bloodied mouth shut. “Now I will explain, but I will only explain once, so pay attention. Your name is no longer what it was before. Your name, from now until the moment I let you die, is Shit. You will answer to that name, and you will not answer to anything else. If you break these rules, there will be consequences. Is that clear, shit?”

For a moment, the man didn’t answer. He looked at Irene. “Something other than the face this time. Variety is important.”

“Wait, yes!” the man cried.

“Too late.”

Irene punched him in the stomach, the man bending over and retching as she pulled back. He noticed her hands were red, the brass knuckles covered in blood. “Next time use a club. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” She nodded, taking the brass knuckles off and wiping her hand off with a cloth. Then she pulled a hatchet out of her purse, putting it down on the desk corner, before removing a forearm-length nightstick.

“Why?” the man moaned. His vomit was spread out of the stone floor, with specks of blood mixed with it.

Irene reached for the club, but he held up his hand. “I’ll allow that one. Why, shit, you really ask why? What do you think?” he asked as the man drew himself straight again, wincing in pain. “How old was the boy?” There was silence. “Shit, you answer that question right now or I will leave this room and let her deal with you.”

“Six. He was six.”

“Yes, six. Which, in case you haven’t noticed, makes him a child. Child rape is typically considered even worse than normal rape, which frankly feels like a wrong way of putting it but I’m not a rhetorician. So that’s why we’re doing this. You can thank the Empress of Blackbirds. She didn’t like child rapists either, but public displays of torture just seemed so vulgar. Leaving up a corpse didn’t seem like enough of a punishment either. But people have a lot of imagination, oftentimes more wild and vivid than what can be done in reality, because that doesn’t have to deal with cleaning up all the blood and vomit and excrement, which can be really tedious and smelly, mind you. So she decided that the perpetrator would be tortured, and the clearly brutalized corpse then left up as a way to spur people’s imaginations and maybe deter some people from trying similar things. Since you’re here, clearly it doesn’t work entirely, but that’s not my problem. And if you don’t like it, you should’ve thought of that before. Are we clear now?”

He whimpered. “Yes.”

“Good. Glad to see we’re making progress, and shouldn’t expect any more stupid questions. But before I decide on white meat or dark meat, I must apologize for my actions. I have your name, but I never properly introduced myself. My name is Adam.”

* * *​

Adam was in his other office while the chamber he’d used earlier that day was cleaned up. The light from outside had descended into twilight, but the lamps gave out enough so that he could still work on his paperwork. Staring at the sheet in front of him, he thought for a moment and then signed it. It was an execution warrant for shit.

Adam didn’t see any point in further processing him. They weren’t trying to extract information or persuade him to perform some task; his body was marked enough to give plenty of ammunition for people’s imaginations when it was displayed, although the fact that Adam still kept seeing his type made him question the efficacy of the tactic. The only reason to keep torturing him was just for the pleasure of doing so. And with the exception of those of shit’s ilk, Adam didn’t derive pleasure from the pain of others. And even with those, it lasted shorter and felt less as he got older. It never did any real good; it was not like that boy was made whole again from shit’s pain. But Adam kept doing it anyway, and what did that say about him?

Once he started getting that existential, it was time to go home. He made a note on the bottom. Executed prisoners had their hair cut and teeth extracted to be sold to wig and denture makers to earn a little extra money. Adam’s note specified for the teeth removal to come after death. That was not a gesture of sympathy; teeth were less likely to be damaged and thus worth more this way.

Before he could get up, someone knocked on the door. “Enter.” Irene entered, handing him a piece of paper. “Thank you, Irene. Will you take this for me?” He handed her the execution warrant. She looked at it but didn’t protest; Adam knew she’d gotten her own urge for revenge satisfied already.

“If you could take care of this now,” Irene said, gesturing at the paper she’d handed him, “that would be for the best.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, but then unfolded it. Its sender was not noted, but Adam immediately recognized the handwriting. But then, he recognized everyone’s handwriting after he’d seen it at least once, and he’d seen this form a lot more than just once. However now, contacting him at all arguably counted as treason. Only very official channels had access to the Pit.

But he was not going to turn her in, the daughter of the man who’d hired him for this position, especially considering what she had written in the note. She had been quite vague, but he understood what she meant, and in this context could hardly fault her. He got out his quill and a small piece of blank scratch paper and inscribed, in his perfect penmanship, a single word, his answer to her question.

DID THEY MURDER MY SON?

 

[Basileus444]

East Asia: Yeah, there are lots of ways things can go down.

Speaking of language two questions for B444. Hows the Coptic language doing in Egypt? I know efforts were made to revive it (it shouldve still had plenty of speakers to start one) back during Andrea's reign. Is it now comfortably a majority or do most people still speak Arabic? Apart from Alexandria which is imagine is largely Greek. Second are Castillian Mozarabic and portugese mixing or do separate parts of Spain speak their own language? I'd imagine this would be even more confusing in Brazil where the colonies predate Spain so they'd definitely be speaking mozarabic and portugese aside from whatever "Spanish" the motherland has cooked up

Coptic is the majority language in Egypt by this point. It was "helped" by the repressions following the Great Uprising in the early 1600s that killed or evicted many of the Arabic-speaking. There are still some (the remainers), and they along with the Nile Germans and the Greeks are the three linguistic minorities in Egypt. As for Spain, there is mixing in the upper and middle classes and in the port cities (how different were Castilian-Spanish and Portuguese in 1600 IOTL?). But on the regional rural level there are differences in speech, but that's normal for this time period. *Looks at ancien regime France*

One has to wonder as well what Greek ITTL sounds like at this point.

One of the Contexts updates talked about the regional variations in Greek, with some pretty substantial differences in spoken Greek, although less so in writing which is more standardized. As for the Greek of the Aegean basin, which will become official Greek once mass education and printing are a thing, this is a Greek that has still been influenced by Italian and Turkish like OTL, but to a lesser extent. But that said, there won't be any OTL 19th century nationalist desire to purge the language of foreign influences, so those will stick around to the present.

* * *

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 5.0-Picking a Target:​

The war hawks, as the name suggests, wanted a war, or wars. They thought the empire’s current territorial status was not sustainable and needed to be adjusted, the concept being framed, without any shred of irony, as defensive aggression. But there was a great deal of variance on what that adjustment should be. The Tourmarches wanted foreign wars for the same reason, and also for the additional reason that victorious war would do much to secure their position and legitimacy.

This was not just expansionism for the sake of expansionism, or war for the sake of war, as it often appears at first glance. The Tourmarches (one obvious exception) and most of the war hawks were men who, as children or young adults, had had those periods of their lives dominated by the War of the Roman Succession, by that massive, terrible, and desperate struggle.

They had been through that once, and feared it would happen again. The history of Latin aggressions against the Romans was well-known, and so they feared that history would literally repeat itself. The Roman Empire had survived the first round, but they feared it would not survive a second. The Latins were getting stronger, more numerous and better organized. They had lived through the nightmare once, and a quarter-century later that nightmare would still sometimes come and strangle them in their sleep. The threat must be stopped, at all costs.

To survive that second blow, the war hawks thought the Romans needed to do more, be better, themselves. They needed to better and more efficiently utilize their resources for defense; they needed to acquire more resources and bigger and better buffer states. They looked at the post-war setting and felt it just wasn’t good enough. Mesopotamia and Vlachia were weak. Serbia was unreliable. Hungary was extremely unreliable. Sicily and Georgia prioritized their own interests. For Roman security, in the eyes of the war hawks, these buffers needed to be more tightly controlled and directed by Constantinople.

Half-measures didn’t cut it in their eyes. They couldn’t, when in their eyes the stakes were survival in a five-century-old struggle against the west that had started when that foul rodent Guiscard first bit a Roman, and which they could not foresee ending. Many, although not all, war hawks, were military men and so they gravitated to military means. Diplomatic and cultural and economic measures were too slow and unreliable; military means to secure their goals seemed much quicker and more dependable. Time was not necessarily on their side. Who knew what would happen if the Wittelsbachs regained the Imperial throne, or the Triunes acquired the Arletian throne? The Romans needed to be ready now; delay could easily be fatal.

This was a major divide between the war hawks and others, such as the defensivists. All Romans feared the Latin threat and believed defensive measures were required, but they thought Rhomania was not so precariously positioned, or the buffer states were adequate as they were, or that trying to adjust things militarily would make things worse, not better. They thought the war hawks were being alarmist and belligerent. It was this fear Bishop Rekas referenced when he said “I sense much fear in you”. The war hawks thought they were being naïve and stupid, with some such as Nereas thinking there might even be some treachery in there as well.

That was their program, and while details may vary, they all followed that premise. Expansionism for the sake of expansionism was not part of it. Indeed, it was against it. They felt that military ideas that did not advance security against a repeat of the War of the Roman Succession were actively dangerous, as they would dissipate important resources in unimportant efforts and theaters.

An army in North Africa couldn’t defend a pass in Bulgaria; a fleet in Indonesia could do nothing to secure the Hellespont. As one example, in 1660, the Katepano of Pyrgos requested dockworkers from the Constantinople Arsenal (still called that even after relocating to the Asian side). He wanted to expand his shipyard so that it could build and service heavy warships. The Tourmarches said no; they did not want to send away skilled naval workers, a limited resource, when they might be needed for the Roman navy in the Mediterranean, especially if, to use common parlance, “the political status of the Italian peninsula was to be rectified to meet the security needs of the Roman Empire”.

The preferred target was to the northwest, in the Kingdoms of Serbia and Hungary. The concern over the durability of imperial frontiers stemmed from the Great Latin War; they felt that a much larger buffer zone was needed to prevent anything like that happening in the future. Having a Roman garrison in the Belgrade citadel was nowhere near enough, especially since the Serbs were increasingly resistant to the garrison being there. (In large part due to Serbian concerns for their independence vis-à-vis the Romans.)

Gyranos was ardently for this course of action, and now seemed like the opportune time. Neither Serbia or Hungary, even together, could be expected to counter a full-scale Roman offensive, and the Roman presence already in Belgrade made such offensive even easier. Tensions between the Belgrade contingent and the townspeople could be spun up for a convenient casus bello.

That said, Gyranos and others recognized it was not that simple. King Stephen of Hungary also ruled over Austria and Bohemia, which made things potentially much more complicated. What happened if Stephen was defeated in Hungary but then retreated to one of his other realms, both of which were part of the Holy Roman Empire? The Treaty of Cologne made it look like a violation of Imperial frontiers would provoke a response not only from Germany but also from the Triunes.

Yet what about the details? Would a cavalry raid from Roman forces in Hungary trigger the treaty clauses? What if Stephen launched an offensive from Austria or Bohemia against Roman forces in Hungary, and the Romans then counterattacked? What if Stephen was clearly preparing something and the Romans launched a spoiling attack? Where, exactly, was the red line? The Romans weren’t sure as the relevant clauses of the Treaty of Cologne were annoyingly vague, and trying to get clarification would certainly send alarm bells ringing across Europe.

The lack of clarity was frustrating. A victorious war against Hungary and Serbia would solidify the Tourmarches’ position, but triggering a near reincarnation of the coalition from the Great Latin War would be a disastrously delegitimizing debut. Now these issues regarding potential intervention would not go away, but the Tourmarches felt that these problems would be better confronted once their political position was more secure and Rhomania’s military position improved.

Another factor was that Michael Pirokolos, as Domestikos of the West, would be an obvious commander for such a war and it would be difficult to find an excuse to exclude him. The Tourmarches did not want to make him, the one military figure who could challenge them, even more powerful and significant.

Similar factors weighed in on the idea of an Italian campaign. It would be hard to justify excluding Pirokolos and there were concerns about interventions and the war scaling up in size. The aim was a short and victorious war.

And so the gaze turned toward the east. Conquering Mesopotamia would be the least advantageous of the options in terms of improving Rhomania’s material resources, whether by turning it into a regular vassal or annexing the whole region, but it did have some advantages compared to western strategies. Mesopotamia was, per treaty, barely fortified and lightly garrisoned. It would not be able to put up a credible fight by itself. Now, the possibility of intervention existed here as well, but the setup was much simpler because there was only one possible intervening power, Ottoman Persia.

Now, if Persia did not intervene, it would not be much of a war, but victory is victory. It would allow the Romans to hopefully pen the Ottomans up behind the Zagros, which would greatly ease the concerns of Roman strategists. A confined Persia would have a much harder time creating a two-front war when the Romans moved against either Hungary or Italy. The concerns about either of those wars escalating would still remain regardless of what happened in the east, but a threatened reincarnated Theodor-coalition was less worrying if it could be guaranteed if there was no new Ibrahim to go along with it.

If Persia did intervene, matters inevitably got more complicated. The war hawks did not doubt the ability of the Romans to defeat the Persians in a one-on-one fight over Mesopotamia, and the Tourmarches welcomed the possibility of resolving the issue of one Demetrios the Younger. He was too much of a wild card and they wanted the Prince under their control. Free, he could cause too many problems. Furthermore, he might be a useful counter to keep Herakleios III from having any more ideas.

That said, there were concerns about the cost of such a victory. Odysseus’s Mesopotamian campaign had been successful, but the cost in blood and gold had been extremely high. Most popular understandings of the campaigns of Odysseus forgot this, dazzled by the glitter of the Indian campaign, but Roman strategists had not.

The Tourmarches really wanted to avoid having to pay such a high prize. Given their questionable legitimacy, they could not afford such losses as a more secure regime, like what Odysseus had possessed, would be able to manage. Fortunately, from their perspective, there was no guarantee they would have to do so. Mesopotamia now was practically unfortified and barely garrisoned, a far cry from its status when Odysseus invaded. But the possibility of having to replay history loomed over the planning process.

There were two plans for an attack on Mesopotamia, created because it was possible to have either power or surprise, but not both. Gyranos favored the ‘power’ plan. This was for a steady building up of forces and support structures in the region, which would enable a massive offensive, the sheer force of which would bowl over any opposition.

Plytos and Nereas opposed this plan, because it had some serious weaknesses, which Gyranos acknowledged. The key weakness was that it was incredibly obvious; it was essentially a repeat of Odysseus’s overall strategy (and all Roman strategies before that), and the Tourmarches were trying to avoid the fruit of that. Establishing and stocking supply depots, bringing in reinforcements from other parts of the Empire, hiring Bedouin auxiliaries for a variety of assorted tasks, requisitioning draft animals, and all the other various logistical activities could not be kept secret. Iskandar the Younger would recognize immediately what was in the works and implement countermeasures, such as improving the defenses of Mesopotamia with his own resources, and thus history risked repeating itself.

Plytos and Nereas preferred the ‘surprise’ plan. Mesopotamia was uniquely vulnerable now, a window that could easily disappear if given warning. Thus, they favored rushing a scratch force to overrun Mesopotamia and present Iskandar with a fait accompli. Supplies and reinforcement could then be sent to beat off any Persian counterattacks as needed.

Gyranos agrees that the ‘surprise’ plan has the best chances for optimal success by their lights, but opposes it because if it fails, it represents the worst possible outcome by their lights as well. To ensure surprise, the attacking force can’t be that large, since a bigger force would require a logistical buildup that would be detected, defeating the point. He calculates 15 tourmai at most. If the lunge fails, the force will be left exposed and under-supplied, extremely vulnerable to a Persian counterattack. It would also be too small to defend itself against said counterattack, while large enough that its loss would seriously hamper Roman strength.

At that point, the Romans would effectively be back at the ‘power’ plan, but with a reduced roster and shrunken time table, since the Persians would already be in the field and pouring in military resources as fast as possible. This is where Gyranos’s analysis suggests things go really badly.

Mesopotamia is much closer to the Ottoman heartland than the Roman heartland, centered on the Aegean. That is simple geography; Hamadan is on the order of being five times closer to Baghdad than Constantinople. The use of the Mediterranean to ship men and material compensates somewhat but not entirely, given the limited sealift capabilities of a seventeenth-century merchant marine.

The Romans do have resources that are much more proximate to the field in question, but in 1660 these are uniquely meager. Syria just after the Great Crime is in no position to produce much in the form of surpluses of foodstuffs and manpower. Armeniakon was never in a position to produce those at all. Anatolikon is richer than Armeniakon, but it has been hit hard by the Little Ice Age, possibly worse than all the other themes, and is also the home of a certain Grand Karaman. Gyranos has been keeping an eye on Andreas Karamanlis, and the latter’s contacts are making the Strategos nervous. In the ‘power’ plan, resources could be drawn from further afield and the burdens more widely distributed, avoiding stressing volatile regions too much. But in the rush that Gyranos sees happening if the ‘surprise’ plan fails, that can’t be avoided.

Plytos and Nereas don’t reject Gyranos’s analyses; his analytical capabilities are what make him valued as a member of the Tourmarches, even though they disagree with many of his ideas. A failed surprise thrust would be a bad outcome, they agree, but they think that will not happen. An attack with 15 tourmai would have a near 4-to-1 advantage over Mesopotamian troops, and those are lightly armed and equipped solely for dealing with troublesome nomads, not standing up to a disciplined gun line. Mesopotamian mass levies of raw troops, without fortifications to bolster them, are also not a credible threat.

Gyranos is less confident that the surprise thrust can succeed, since no plan survives contact with the enemy, even a weak one. Plytos and Nereas chalk that sentiment up to Gyranos’s caution and ‘pessimistic thinking’. A belief in success is required for success to happen, and Gyranos is weak in that. The latter counters that the attitude does help, but so do bullets and rations, and the ‘surprise’ plan is weak on both.

Gyranos is forced to give way to his colleagues, not just because he is outnumbered but also because he does admit that the surprise plan has the best-case scenario and the power plan runs the risk of repeating history. But while he throws himself into organizing the initial thrust as well as measures to reinforce its hopeful success, his diary clearly indicates a man not happy with the situation.

 

[Basileus444]

The Tourmarches are going to regret attacking Mesopotamia. It hinges on whether Iskandar will even intervene in favor of Mesopotamia (a plan that Odysseus and Iskandar cooked up in the first place) as promised in the treaty. Considering that Odysseus was his friend and the person who enabled him to take the Ottoman throne during the War of Wrath, it's absolutely moronic that they think this is the best option. Have I mentioned that the ruler of Mesopotamia and his mother are the descendants of Andreas III? Way to go obliterating both Odysseus and Andreas III's final promises. If this is the final war between Rhomania and Persia, then I 100% hope that Persia wins this one.


Would standardization be a thing once public education starts teaching Greek to kids at school (like say during the Industrial Age)? I reckon there will be an overwhelming case for the Greek dialect spoken at Constantinople to be the standard for commercial or political reasons.

---

When it comes to Orthodox powers in Asia, I think Japan should not be friendly to Russia's advances in the Far East unless they are pursuing a more Pacific and trade-focused foreign policy, not requiring Manchuria or Korea to extract minerals and other natural resources. That's going to depend on how the Shimazu and the rest of Orthodox Japan operate (as I'm not aware of the finer details).

I would actually like the Shimazu to take over more of the Pacific like Ryukyu, Taiwan, Alaska, and Hawaii as opposed to going for mainland Asia. Their foreign policy would be far friendlier with other Orthodox powers like Russia and perhaps even Orthodox Korea while also maintaining a similar amount of wealth. China would be their only rival but an industrialized Japan would easily outcompete the slow-to-adapt Chinese and their navy can beat over whatever they can dish out.

The Tourmarches don't think it's likely Iskandar will sit out. It'd be convenient if he did, but not likely. That's why they're for the surprise plan as opposed to the power plan for taking Mesopotamia. They want to sweep Mesopotamia while it's still barely garrisoned and fortified, before Iskandar can reinforce.

Standardization would be a thing once universal public education is. Having all schoolchildren learning from the same grammar textbook, written by some guy in Constantinople, will do that sort of thing.

Unrelated question, but how is RITE (and Southeast Asia in general) referred to in Rhomania? Simply variants of 'the East' or 'Eastern Rhomania'? I imagine that problems would arise as there could be mix ups with Anatolia. Maybe, the Eastern Isles or the East Indies or Rhoman Nusantara (or other Rhoman transliteration of native toponyms, still less likely imo)?

They typically use the term 'Island Asia' and add Roman as an adjective as needed. The only part of mainland SE Asia where the Romans are really active is the Malay Peninsula, which is almost an island.

* * *​

This update was focused on 'where' and 'how' for war but based on comments I needed to do more on 'why'. The following section has been added to the original update:


This was not just expansionism for the sake of expansionism, or war for the sake of war, as it often appears at first glance. The Tourmarches (one obvious exception) and most of the war hawks were men who, as children or young adults, had had those periods of their lives dominated by the War of the Roman Succession, by that massive, terrible, and desperate struggle.

They had been through that once, and feared it would happen again. The history of Latin aggressions against the Romans was well-known, and so they feared that history would literally repeat itself. The Roman Empire had survived the first round, but they feared it would not survive a second. The Latins were getting stronger, more numerous and better organized. They had lived through the nightmare once, and a quarter-century later that nightmare would still sometimes come and strangle them in their sleep. The threat must be stopped, at all costs.

To survive that second blow, the war hawks thought the Romans needed to do more, be better, themselves. They needed to better and more efficiently utilize their resources for defense; they needed to acquire more resources and bigger and better buffer states. They looked at the post-war setting and felt it just wasn’t good enough. Mesopotamia and Vlachia were weak. Serbia was unreliable. Hungary was extremely unreliable. Sicily and Georgia prioritized their own interests. For Roman security, in the eyes of the war hawks, these buffers needed to be more tightly controlled and directed by Constantinople.

Half-measures didn’t cut it in their eyes. They couldn’t, when in their eyes the stakes were survival in a five-century-old struggle against the west that had started when that foul rodent Guiscard first bit a Roman, and which they could not foresee ending. Many, although not all, war hawks, were military men and so they gravitated to military means. Diplomatic and cultural and economic measures were too slow and unreliable; military means to secure their goals seemed much quicker and more dependable. Time was not necessarily on their side. Who knew what would happen if the Wittelsbachs regained the Imperial throne, or the Triunes acquired the Arletian throne? The Romans needed to be ready now; delay could easily be fatal.

This was a major divide between the war hawks and others, such as the defensivists. All Romans feared the Latin threat and believed defensive measures were required, but they thought Rhomania was not so precariously positioned, or the buffer states were adequate as they were, or that trying to adjust things militarily would make things worse, not better. They thought the war hawks were being alarmist and belligerent. It was this fear Bishop Rekas referenced when he said “I sense much fear in you”. The war hawks thought they were being naïve and stupid, with some such as Nereas thinking there might even be some treachery in there as well.

That was their program, and while details may vary, they all followed that premise. Expansionism for the sake of expansionism was not part of it. Indeed, it was against it. They felt that military ideas that did not advance security against a repeat of the War of the Roman Succession were actively dangerous, as they would dissipate important resources in unimportant efforts and theaters.

An army in North Africa couldn’t defend a pass in Bulgaria; a fleet in Indonesia could do nothing to secure the Hellespont. As one example, in 1660, the Katepano of Pyrgos requested dockworkers from the Constantinople Arsenal (still called that even after relocating to the Asian side). He wanted to expand his shipyard so that it could build and service heavy warships. The Tourmarches said no; they did not want to send away skilled naval workers, a limited resource, when they might be needed for the Roman navy in the Mediterranean, especially if, to use common parlance, “the political status of the Italian peninsula was to be rectified to meet the security needs of the Roman Empire”.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 5.1-Aiming at Target:​

The surprise plan for the attack on Mesopotamia hinges on surprise, which sharply limits the amount of forward planning the Tourmarches can do before the operation launches. The Ottomans know very well what Roman offensives look like, and keep a sharp eye out for the warning signs. Merchant caravans and nomad riders provide many eyes that can alert the Shah of Roman preparations.

One of those potential alerts would be the likes of either Strategos Plytos or Strategos Nereas decamping to the east. Having a guard tagma posted to the frontier, without any clear provocation from the other side, would be, even by itself, like lighting a giant neon ‘I’m about to attack you’ sign. The duo would prefer one of them to be in charge, but for this reason neither of them can be. (It would be possible for one of them to go, just without their guard tagma. But such an action would be completely unprecedented, and likely viewed as an insult to the regular tagma officers placed under their command. That would not be ideal.)

There are three potential commanders for the initial expedition who can be appointed without raising suspicion because they are already posted to the east. These are the Domestikos of the East, the Strategos of Syria, and the Strategos of the Armeniakon.

The Domestikos of the East is Manuel Doukas. He has a long record of fighting against the Ottomans, going all the way back to the latter stages of the Eternal War. For his actions during the battle of Nineveh, he earned the Order of the Dragon with Sword, the highest award for valor that can be bestowed upon a Roman. During the War of the Roman Succession, he served on the staff of the Domestikos of the East Theodoros Laskaris, participating in all of the major operations and battles against Shah Ibrahim.

He is known for being a bit of an eccentric, keeping some pet beavers on his estate that reportedly delight in servings of plum pudding. He is also very popular with his subordinates and soldiers under his command, but is also quite prickly and easily offended if he feels his prerogatives are being abused or he is being disrespected.

Since the end of the war, he has enjoyed high living, with all the benefits that come from being stationed in Antioch, one of the great cities of the Empire. In 1660, that has come around to bite him. In June he undergoes an extremely painful operation to remove some gallstones and he is currently convalescing in a health spa near Antioch. He is in no condition to command a fast-moving and hard-riding expedition into Mesopotamia.

In theory, he could be replaced on health grounds, perhaps by Plytos or Nereas. Except everyone expects Doukas to make a complete recovery. The Domestikos of the East is apolitical in his attitudes, but such a move would almost certainly make him a bitter enemy of the Tourmarches. A combination of Doukas with Michael Pirokolos, Domestikos of the West, would be an extremely dangerous combination.

Thus, the Domestikos is left to his recovery ward. He is aware of the plans, and is promised that in the 1661 campaign season, when he will have recovered, he will be placed in command to guard against the expected Persian counterattack.

The Strategos of the Syrian Theme is Theodoros Sarantenos. Out of the two themes bordering Mesopotamia, Syria would be the better choice. Even after the Great Crime, it is richer than Armeniakon and thus better able to support an attack. Given its seaports and road networks, it would also be easier to reinforce. Aside from the tagma troops themselves, Syria also has many of the best quality kastron and militia troops in the Empire that could be most useful in the field, able to bolster the surprise attack since their presence in the staging area wouldn’t raise any eyebrows beforehand.

Except Theodoros Sarantenos is extremely problematic from the point of view of the Tourmarches. He has a long personal relationship with Athena going back to when they served together during the siege of Thessaloniki. While he has kept any political opinions to himself, given the importance of this assignment, the Tourmarches are loathe to give it to anyone whose political reliability is questionable.

Sarantenos has another handicap that is quite unique for a foreign war, although it has precedence in civil wars. The hesychastic lodges begun by Saint Ioannes of the Turks in the mid-1200s had quickly found widespread support in the Roman army of the time, and while they are much less significant in the modern Roman military, they were still extremely important in the Roman army of the 1600s.

Intense personal bonds could be formed in the lodges, with their communal mystic exercises, and modern studies have proven that biorhythmic signatures of participants can mirror each other. Lodge members inside the lodge address each other as brothers, regardless of rank outside. (To avoid complications, even the most martial Emperors, even if members beforehand, are not part of a lodge. Not even Andreas Niketas could break this tradition.) In the words of Saint Ioannes, loyalty first goes to God. Then to one’s mother, for at one time her heart and yours beat as one. And then to your lodge brothers, for at certain times your hearts also beat as one. To fight against and possibly kill your lodge brother is nearly comparable to killing your own mother, the most monstrous of crimes.

This has caused some issues during Roman civil wars, with lodge brothers potentially fighting lodge brothers. But in the press of large battles, one might know a lodge brother is on the opposing side, but not necessarily in the unit directly facing them. There is a degree of plausible deniability there, albeit one that rapidly disappears as lodge brothers move up the chain of commander. Commonly, if the majority of a lodge membership goes for one side, the remaining members also go for that side as well, largely to avoid this issue.

Iskandar the Younger, now Shahanshah, served in the Roman army alongside Odysseus. He was a member of a hesychastic lodge (which has led some to question his Islamic credentials, and others to question the Christian credentials of the lodges; the latter have a history as old as the lodges themselves) and Sarantenos was also a member, alongside the likes of Michael Pirokolos and others. He can’t fight against Iskandar without breaking this bond and violating an absolutely terrible taboo. Given Iskandar’s rank, there is no plausible deniability here.

It must absolutely be emphasized that the Tourmarches do not hold this connection or taboo against Sarantenos. They are all soldiers in the Roman army and are inculcated with the same military culture. There are two other Roman officers who are aligned ideologically with the war hawks and are also lodge brothers of Iskandar, but the Tourmarches do not expect them to fight the Shah, and the pair suffer absolutely no reprimands. In contrast, another lodge brother does offer to fight Iskandar, excusing it on the grounds of Iskandar’s foreignness. All of the Tourmarches are utterly appalled and disgusted at the man’s behavior, with Nereas personally ensuring he is dishonorably discharged for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’.

Sarantenos thus is clearly out as a possible commander, but the Tourmarches are not willing to replace him at this time. Replacing either the Domestikos of the East or the Syrian Strategos now wouldn’t guarantee alarm bells start ringing in Baghdad and Hamadan, but it would get noticed. They’re not willing to take the risk; surprise is too important.

The Strategos of Armeniakon is Petros Keraunos, a very different figure from Theodoros Sarantenos. He is one of the staunchest war hawks and a strong supporter of the Tourmarches. (That said, if Nereas had shown up without his guard tagma and taken Keraunos’s command away and then led it into battle, that opinion could change.) If one of the Tourmarches can’t be in command of this expedition, he is the next best thing.

The issues come not with the Strategos but with the theme. The Armeniakon is the poorest, least populated, and underdeveloped theme in the whole empire, with rugged terrain and a highly heterogeneous population in lifestyle, religion, and ethnicity. More troops will need to be held back in the theme to maintain local order, and while there are some kastron and militia troops that can bolster the regular tagma, there are not as many as there are in more urbanized Syria.

The emphasis on the resources available in a specific theme is another consequence of the need for surprise. Military movement within a theme is a regular occurrence and thus, if noticed, will not be an occasion for alarm. If Armeniakon launches the expedition, the preparation can be masked by tourmai moving into position as if for their regular autumnal maneuvers. These maneuvers also require movement of material and supplies and so these can be stockpiled without alerting the Mesopotamians or Persians.

Movement across theme boundaries is much more unusual and would get noticed. Maneuvers involving multiple tagmata are much rarer than single-tagma exercises. If supplies and men from the Syrian or Chaldean themes started flowing into Armeniakon, Ottoman spies would detect it and raise a warning. It could just be for an exercise, or it could be a prelude to an invasion. But movement just within Armeniakon with no support from other themes would not be considered a prelude, and could only be for an exercise.

The Tourmarches go with Petros Keraunos and the Armeniakon theme for the initial attack force. Gyranos, planning the attack, outlines an expedition of twelve thousand, with seven of the ten Armeniakon tourmai, the remainder comprised of kastron, militia, and Bedouin auxiliaries the regulars will accumulate as they make their approach. Supplies are gathered in depots, with the border fortresses providing much valuable material, but the need for secrecy limits these quantities. The expedition will have to do a good bit of living off the land, despite its relatively small size even by the standards of the time.

The Tourmarches are painfully aware of the problems of using such a small force. Twelve thousand men might be able to conquer Mesopotamia in its current soft state, but garrisoning strong points and guarding supply lines will, if spread across all of Mesopotamia, literally eat up the entirety of said force, leaving nothing for the field. Gyranos is busy setting up plans to rush reinforcements to the region, but can’t implement more than the most preliminary stages, because to do more would jeopardize the element of surprise.

The attack will come in the autumn, with the goal of rolling up Mesopotamian resistance as quickly as possible. The Persians will have only a very limited window of counterattacking before they’d be trying to funnel armies through the Zagros in winter, unlikely to be a pleasant or successful experience. By the spring of 1661, when they’d be able to try again, the Romans would’ve had the winter to bring in the needed reinforcements. Moving men and material over the winter would pose its own serious challenges for the Romans, but Gyranos was part of the team (albeit as a junior officer) that oversaw the logistical efforts that underpinned the Thessaloniki campaign.

In the autumn of 1660, all seems normal along the Roman-Persian frontier zone. The merchant caravans traverse the roads with their wares of raw silks and liquors, paper and jewelry. Pastoralists start moving their flocks from summer to winter pastures. Religious pilgrims, both Christian and Muslim, make their way to and from their holy sites. And the Armeniakon tagma stages exercises near the city of Amida.

 

[Basileus444]

While I do reserve the right to change my mind, this plan is that this war is the final Roman-Persian War. They've been near-constant since the beginning of the century, and have been a thing since Crassus was alive, so I think the concept could use a break. That doesn't mean there won't be diplomatic incidents and maybe the odd war scare, but active hostilities won't be a thing after this.

OTL saw the balance of trade move from the Mediterranean to the North Sea in the early modern era. I still believe that will happen ITLL, though ITTL we see something that did not happen, a pretty cohesive Med. I dont see why a much richer Med wouldnt happen, including North Africa.

During the OTL 1500s, after the initial Portuguese surge, the new Cape and old Mediterranean trade routes ended up splitting the eastern trade between them. It wasn't until the 1600s and the arrival of the English, French, and especially Dutch in force where the Cape route began to consistently dominate. ITTL, we're seeing more akin to the OTL 1500s situation, where the shift northward, while still present, is weaker.

* * *

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 5.2-Shooting at Target:​

After finishing up its usual autumnal exercises, the Armeniakon tagma does not disperse to its various winter quarters as usual. The bulk heads southeast to Mepsila (Mosul) where its forces are bolstered by various kastron soldiers. After drawing on supplies from the garrison storehouses, the 11,700 strong expedition crosses the frontier.

Surprise isn’t completely total, but close to it. Ottoman spies had noticed the unusual behavior of the Armeniakon tagma after its exercises, as well as small mustering units of reserve kastron forces to forward Roman outposts. But their reports do not precede the invasion by much, and even that potential warning is largely wasted. Launching a Mesopotamian offensive with what is essentially a single reinforced tagma is entirely unprecedented in Roman strategy, so these signals do not register with Ottoman officials.

Another way surprise is upheld is that no formal declaration of war is issued by the Romans until October 5, by which point the Roman expedition is on the frontier. Roman accounts claim they did not cross until after the declaration; Persian ones claim the opposite. Either way, it is not possible for the Roman ambassador in Baghdad to communicate with Strategos Keraunos. His instructions are to deliver the declaration on the morning of October 5; he does not know where the Armeniakon tagma is at that point.

All wars need a justification and the Roman ambassador cites alleged Mesopotamian inability or refusal to control its nomads, who then violate Roman territory. The Romans are thus intervening defensively to secure the area, given Baghdad’s incapacity. This is referring to the frequent nomadic traffic that crosses the frontiers of both empires, as the pastoralists care nothing for such political boundaries; they are focusing on maintaining their herds and shifting from winter to summer pastures and vice versa. Nomads from all sides, Roman, Mesopotamian, Persian, and Georgian (farther east) do this.

There are sometimes feuds and skirmishes, either between various nomad bands or with settled communities. The reasons vary such as from blood feuds or disputes over rights-of-way, but are local in origin and oftentimes nothing more than the commonplace frictions between the nomad and the sown. There is nothing inherently political about any of it, and it has been going on in some form since classical Romans arrived in the east. Only the details have changed. Nor has it gotten particularly more severe of late. In 1660, more Romans were killed because of feuds between Albanian clans than because of this nomadic traffic.

There is more to the ambassador’s message than just this rather paltry diplomatic fig leaf. The ruler of Mesopotamia is Alexandros of Baghdad, the eldest child of Andreas III and Maria of Agra. Out of recognition for his distinguished ancestry, if he surrenders Mesopotamia without a struggle, he will be granted large landholdings in Rhomania and freedom of movement within the Empire. The grants are quite substantial and would make Alexandros one of the greatest private landowners within the Empire. Smaller but still significant offerings are also promised to his mother Maria and his younger brother Nikephoros, who is commander of the Mesopotamian army.

One possible explanation of the offer is that having the children, albeit illegitimate, of Andreas III around would be one way to keep Herakleios III in line, or to act as a possible replacement. The other, and likely more significant, is that this is part of the strategy to take Mesopotamia out quickly, as Mesopotamia is not the real fight. Persia is.

* * *​

Topkapi Palace, Baghdad, October 5, 1660:

Alexandros’s chin itched, right at the tip where his brown beard had decided to skip gray and grow a streak of white instead. He clenched his fist, his nails biting into his palms, as he resisted the urge to scratch. It also helped him resist a much stronger urge, which involved a blunt heavy object and the face of the Roman ambassador.

The Roman ambassador, Ioannes Barykephalos, had requested a public audience over two weeks ago, for this specific morning, after receiving a sealed mail packet from Rhomania. That had been a little unusual. Normally such things were scheduled for earliest convenience, rather than a specific date, and a normal ambassador did not get to dictate a normal king’s schedule. The king decided when, or if, he’d receive an ambassador, not the other way around.

But these were not normal circumstances. Although both the Roman and Persian envoys were styled as ambassadors, as if they were posted to a sovereign state, and made requests to his court, Alexandros knew he could not refuse such requests, no matter how irregular. His subservience was made quite clear in the annual ceremony where he signed off half his annual income to the ambassadors, evenly split between them, to send to their governments.

It was somewhat less grating with the Persians. This was Mesopotamia, the old Ottoman heartland, where Osman I, Osman the Great, and his followers had carved out a state for themselves from the fragments of the Il-Khanate. Iskandar, as heir of Osman, had claim to these lands. But Herakleios III had none in Alexandros’s opinion, and there was also his personal grievance with the House of Sideros.

Ioannes had ceased speaking and was now looking at Alexandros, awaiting his response. For a moment Alexandros ignored him, his eyes sweeping across the ranks of courtiers and officials. This was a full court ceremony with everyone in audience. The looks on their faces varied. Some were impassive, not showing what they felt. Those less controlled, or less willing to dissemble, showed a mixture of fear and anger, the proportion varying. Certainly no one looked happy. Alexandros couldn’t look on the face of his mother. She was present, but was behind a screen that hid her from view, in a corner behind him and to his left. This was her usual custom, allowing her to know things and give counsel, but without being too obtrusive and upsetting delicate sensibilities.

He was struggling to think of a polite and diplomatic response when he heard a faint warble and then a long thin whistle come from the screen. It was his mother, signaling him in the aural code they shared along with his little brother Nikephoros. Alexandros looked at Nikephoros, standing next to him at his right hand. Their eyes met, Nikephoros’s glinting, a faint smile on his lips. He too had heard the signal, too faint to be heard by anyone else.

Alexandros looked at the ambassador. “Your master is a liar,” he replied. “And a very bad one at that.” There was a murmur of surprise in the crowd; Ioannes’s expression was blank. “He condemns us for crimes of which he is equally guilty, and he has many crimes unique to himself besides that.

“He offers us great gifts if we should yield to his unrighteous greed, yet why should we believe him? Your master sits upon the throne of our father, enjoying a birthright his family usurped from ours. Your master’s father sought to give us this realm as compensation for that crime, and yet your master, demonstrating not only rampant greed but utter disrespect for the wishes of his own father, seeks to take this realm from us. Doubtless, based on such patterns, in the future he would then seize those gifts you say he will grant now for our obedience, justifying it on claims that have no basis in truth or justice. Your master is a liar and a would-be thief, whose words are false and promises empty.”

“It is regrettable that you feel such emotional grievances against his august majesty, Emperor Herakleios III,” Ioannes replied. “My master has always been a good friend to your Highness and the realm of Mesopotamia. He wishes merely to ensure yours and its wellbeing, its prosperity and security. He offers to take a most heavy burden from yourself and offers great gifts in exchange. Such is the act of a true friend. Surely, your Highness must see that.”

“If your master wishes to show himself a good friend to ourselves and to the people of Mesopotamia, he can easily prove it. He may take his army with which he threatens us with death and destruction and send it back to where it belongs, in his own realm. As for this burden, we neither require nor desire his assistance. His gifts he may keep. We have no need for them, only for him to leave us alone and to abide by the wishes of his father.”

“It is regrettable that you feel that way,” Ioannes said. “But if you do not trust the goodwill of my master, surely you recognize his power, of his vast superiority in arms to your own? Would it not be wiser to submit now, before all the terror and suffering of a hopeless war?”

“The future is never so certain for there to be no hope, and to purchase peace at the price of slavery is a most poor bargain. God alone, the Supreme Judge, upholder of righteousness and truth, the Humbler of the proud, knows the future. He will decide the outcome of the war. We put our trust in him, not in your worthless master.”

Ioannes opened his mouth. “Speak no more,” Alexandros said. “We are weary of this audience and of you. The time for talk is over. You have two hours to vacate the city. If you remain past that time, you will be the first Roman to die for the sake of your master’s greed, but not the last.”

* * *​

Riders go out from Baghdad. Some head north, one of them the Roman ambassador and his entourage. Others head south and west, rallying Mesopotamians to the banners, seeking to gather up recruits and weapons and supplies. Still more head east to the court of the Shahanshah, to ask Iskandar to honor the oath he’d made to uphold the legacy of his blood brother, and to bring the might of Persia onto the scales.

To the north, the Armeniakon tagma blasts through the frontier with barely any opposition, but it is soon made clear it will not always be such smooth sailing. The people here have much experience of Roman attacks; their cemeteries attest to that. And the last fruit of Roman military action they had seen were the remnants of the Great Crime, making the stakes absolutely clear in their minds. To this day, no one is sure which village issued the famous response. But one, when summoned to surrender by a Roman cavalry unit, replied “it is plain you wish to exterminate us, and we do not wish to be exterminated.”

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 6.0-The Other Players:​

The White Palace, Constantinople, October 6, 1660:

Athena set down her quill, adjusting her cloak more tightly around her body, and looked at the window. Sunlight reflected off the Bosporus, the sheen cut by the two bulks of massive grain haulers working their way to the Golden Horn. Aside from the pair, she could count at least thirty other smaller craft in her view, including a Russian ship flying the Cross of St. Andrew. The latter was probably carrying either furs or metal ingots.

Furs sounded good to her. The chill of approaching winter was already in the air and ever since the assassination attempt, keeping warm was a harder and harder task. The warmth of summer had aided her health, but as the sun’s rays weakened, she could feel her own constitution declining. Were it just herself, she would decamp to Alexandria and enjoy the rays of Egypt, but that was not an option.

The metal ingots undoubtedly sounded good to other people. The Tourmarches had announced the start of the eastern war yesterday, although she’d known about it for some time beforehand. The mood of the capital had been rather indifferent; the Persians weren’t the scary boogeymen the Latins were. The Tourmarches’s hopes for the war would rise or fall based on how well their performance in the war went.

Athena had known about the war plans, but hadn’t done anything to avert them. She might’ve been angry at the destruction of her brother’s legacy, but she had more personal reasons for her rage, and more personal concerns as well.

Setting up a conspiracy was hard, especially if one wanted to make a clean sweep of things and not set off a civil war. The Tourmarches had done quite a good job of securing the capital and environs for their supporters. The one fly in that ointment was the Father and the Bishops Pair as she called them, but while they might be able to stir up a mob, a mob was hardly a precision implement and most unlikely to succeed if that was it. And she considered the Father to be the epitome of a loose cannon.

Athena thus looked to the provinces. Her hope was to build up a massive base of support in the provinces big enough to overawe the war hawks in the capital and end things before they got messy. She had Michael backing her, and strong bases of support in the Macedonian, Helladikon, Thrakesian, Anatolikon, and Syrian themes, which was a good start, but 5 of 11 themes hardly constituted an overwhelming base. It was enough to start a civil war, but not necessarily enough to end one.

But it was proving most difficult. The Tourmarches were being very careful to keep everything legal by ensuring Herakleios III signed off on anything important. That made opposing them treason, and naturally many balked at that, preferring to just follow the proper chain of command. Athena was finding it harder and harder to recruit more supporters, which also ran into the usual problem of conspiracies. The more backers meant a greater chance of success, but also more opportunity for someone to talk beforehand and blow the whole thing.

Manuel Doukas was vital. With the position of Domestikos of the Center vacant, he and Michael were the two Domestikoi in the field, disregarding the Megas Domestikos in the capital. Having them both on her side would do much to sway many over to her, and Manuel had many friends and comrades in important postings even outside his command. With his support, Athena thought she could have 8, maybe even 9, of the 11 themes. That was what she wanted.

But she couldn’t get a good approach on him. She had no personal connection, and the one supporter with best access, Theodoros Sarantenos, the Strategos of Syria, did not get on that well with Doukas. The man was notoriously prickly. An approach to win his support, if he took it as an insult to his loyalty or honor, would make him an implacable enemy. And again, the Tourmarches had legality on their side. Asking him to turn traitor would likely offend him. Essentially, Athena needed the Tourmarches to do something to irritate Doukas, making him more amenable to her offers.

There was a potential opportunity here. She knew Doukas had been promised command in next year’s campaign, but by Doukas’s light that was simply what he was due as Domestikos of the East. He wouldn’t be grateful simply for getting what he was owed. But Athena did know that the Domestikos was not enamored of the surprise plan, which he felt had too many downsides. He would’ve preferred a mass buildup of the typical style, which he could lead himself. Doukas hadn’t pushed the issue this year, focusing instead on recuperating, but if he had to start his command next year by cleaning up a big mess caused by Tourmarches being too clever by half, that might be the irritation Athena needed. But for now, she had to wait.

She might’ve increased the odds of a mess by warning Iskandar, but she hadn’t; it was much too risky. If even a whiff got out that she had connived with a foreign potentate with the goal of killing Romans, she certainly forsook any chance of winning over Manuel. And the loyalty of many of her already-established supporters would become questionable in such an event. Athena needed to avoid being too clever by half as well.

Athena had another reason for moving carefully, three to be precise. Her supporters were in the provinces, but her daughter Sophia and Michael’s two daughters were both here in the capital. She wanted vengeance for her son, but not at the price of her daughter. When the time came, she needed to be able to get them out of Constantinople to safety. Unfortunately, her original contact for this was getting into trouble for gambling debts; she needed another and better option.

Athena looked again out at the window. The sea scape had changed slightly, with ships moving, some disappearing out of view and others entering. One of the newcomers was a finely trimmed Roman naval fregata, smartly making its way south. Athena pulled out another piece of paper and dipped her quill in the inkwell. It was time she renewed her acquaintance with Leo Kalomeros.

* * *​

Southern Isauria, October 7, 1660:

Andreas resisted the urge to shiver. It wasn’t that cold, provided one was moving, but he had been stationary for a time, for quite a long time. He wasn’t sure how long exactly, but enough that he was getting tired of this. But he was curious to see, to experience, these visions of which Konon spoke, hence all the preparations he had undergone with Konon’s supervision.

The only sound Andreas could hear in the stone cell, save that of his own body, was the gentle rhythm of Konon’s breath. The holy man was in the corner, standing motionless, mostly in shadow. Flickering candles gave out a little light, but not nearly enough to illuminate the chamber.

Wait…

“Did you see that?” Andreas asked, his body stiffening. The biggest two toes on his left foot cramped angrily, and he reached down to massage them.

“I did not, my Lord Karaman,” Konon replied.

Despite that answer, Andreas knew he wasn’t imagining this. “I see flames.” As he spoke the fire surrounded him, covering most of the room. Konon seemed enveloped, yet the man did not even twitch. “Do you not see them?”

Konon chuckled. “Of course not. Each vision is a gift of God, and each gift is for the pilgrim alone. This vision is your gift, not mine.”

“I see…someone else. He’s coming towards us.”

Konon smiled; the fire lit him enough that Andreas could easily see that. “I do not need a detailed account. This vision is your gift. Learn from it without distractions, and then tell me later what you wish to share."

Andreas stood up as the third figure approached him. “Hello, brother,” the figure said in a deep male voice, the voice of a commander of men in battle.

“Who are you?” Andreas asked. The man stepped forward. Andreas’s eyes widened and then he dropped to his knees.

“Rise, brother.” Andreas rose. “Look at me.” He did.

“Why do you, of all people, call me brother?” Andreas asked.

The man smiled. “Those who share the same father are brothers. And are we not all children of God?”

* * *​

They were seated around a fire now, in Andreas’s home. He was tearing ravenously into some chicken while Konon slowly ate some bean soup with a side of cheese. “You’ve met him before?” Andreas asked. Konon had told him of his visions, and he’d believed him, and yet hadn’t truly believed him until Andreas had seen him as well.

“Indeed. It is a pity; if he were alive our task would not be necessary. But all men are mortal, and so this falls to us. But we need a third.”

“Why?”

“The best of anything comes in threes. Ravens, stooges…”

“Stooges?”

Konon’s mouth clicked shut. He cocked his head and thought for a moment. “I admit, I have no idea how to explain that one.”

“Right…but you said we need a third. Are you thinking of the same man as I am?”

“If we are speaking of your cousin, then yes. Now a groundskeeper at the tekke of St. Ioannes, but once a Megas Dekarchos, with over forty years of experience in turning shepherds and farm boys into soldiers. Who better to build an army?”

* * *​

Patriarchal Apartments, Constantinople, October 8, 1660:

“I don’t know; this still feels premature,” Manuel Rekas said.

Andronikos Hadjipapandreou set his current ball of cheese down on the table in front of him. “And why is that?”

“We don’t know how the war is proceeding,” Ioannes Grozes answered.

“What does that matter?” The priest looked across the table at the silent Patriarch, whose wrinkled vein-strewn hands were clasped around a cup of kaffos for warmth. “Is a crime suddenly made righteous if it is successful? Is a theft not a theft if the robber managed to get away with his gains?”

“Lady Athena does not think it is wise to act just yet,” Manuel said.

“The time to act against wrong is now, not to wait for some special better time that curiously has a tendency to never show up. How many will die, on both sides, for the sake of a few men’s fear and greed? How many will die if we delay? The time to act against wrong is now.”

“What you ask is a risky thing,” Adam said.

Andronikos looked at the Patriarch, his hard gaze softening. The Patriarch looked like a tired old man, which he was. “I know. I know the dangers. But this is why we are here, now. If not us, who? And if not now, when? If we will not act, salvation will come to the Romans by another means, but we and our house will be destroyed.”

There was silence, and then the Patriarch spoke. “I do not have your strength, Father.” He looked at the pair of bishops. “And I do have your fears. But he is right. A shepherd that does not guard his sheep against a wolf, even one dressed in purple, is a bad shepherd. And evil must be opposed.”

* * *​

On the first Sunday after the invasion of Mesopotamia, the Emperor Herakleios III and his entourage (which includes his mistress but not his wife or aunt, who travel in a separate group) approach the Hagia Sophia for services, as is normal whenever the Emperor is in the capital. But the path is barred, blocked by the Patriarch and supporters, including Father Andronikos Hadjipapandreou.

The Patriarch makes his position quite clear. The Emperor is living in a state of sin, and unrepentant. Clearly only the most extreme measures will make him mend his ways. He must abandon this unjust war, undertaken not to defend the Romans but to steal the lands and lives of others. He must forsake his mistress and undertake proper marital relations with his wife. Until he does these, the Emperor and his advisors encouraging him in such sins will be barred from the Hagia Sophia, a most public rebuke for their crimes.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 7.0-The War No One Wants:​

Historical accounts tend to focus on the most dramatic and epic moments, on the defiant to-the-death rhetoric and brutal last stands. Those existed in northern Mesopotamia in fall 1660. The Armeniakon tagma’s modus operandi was to move fast and hit hard. It had to. Its logistical reserve was minimal, forcing it to live off on the land, and to do that it needed to keep moving. Furthermore, the whole point of the operation was to seize Mesopotamia quickly before Persian strength could be brought to bear. Resistance from villages is dealt with overwhelming force; there is no time for finesse.

But these are in the minority. Everywhere there is resistance, but it is more subtle. Villagers hide or destroy their foodstuffs, doing their utmost to deny them to the enemy. Many flee south, seeking safety in the only place that seems it might be able to offer it, Baghdad. This is also an act of resistance, for while it is done for safety, it is denying their labor and knowledge to the enemy as well.

Still, the resistance the Armeniakon tagma faces in northern Mesopotamia does not do much to injure or even slow the Romans down. From Mosul to Baghdad is about 400 kilometers and the Romans are within sight of the city on November 5, exactly a month since the start of the campaign. They could not have gotten to the city much faster if this had been an entirely peacetime maneuver in Roman territory.

Two months ago, Baghdad had a population of one hundred thousand. With refugees pouring in from across the north, even with people being moved on south as quickly as possible, that size has now doubled. This imposes immense strain on food resources, living standards, and sanitation, but the speed of the Roman advance means the war arrives before these can move to a critical mass.

Seizing Baghdad is key to the Roman plan. It is the linchpin. The Romans have marched through northern Mesopotamia but one reason the Armeniakon could move so quickly is that it has done precious little to properly secure it. It just doesn’t have the time and numbers to do so. That is for the follow-up forces, which Gyranos started mustering a week before the invasion. (He reasoned that Ottoman spies wouldn’t be able to issue warnings in time with that little notice, and he wanted this process started as quickly as possible.)

Keraunos is to take Baghdad, secure that area, and effectively break any centralized Mesopotamian resistance. Northern Mesopotamia will be secured by follow-up forces from the Syrian and Chaldean tagmata. Southern Mesopotamia can’t be so easily and quickly secured because of the greater distance, but that region is also more distant from Persian reinforcement and the Marsh Arabs are the element most likely to be friendly to the Romans if handled respectively. (Most war hawks envision the southern third of Mesopotamia being a regular vassal of Rhomania, on the lines of Dalmatia and Istria, with perhaps a naval base, as opposed to being annexed directly.)

Baghdad, per the terms of the treaty between Odysseus and Iskandar the Younger, was unfortified at the beginning of the war, its substantial city walls demolished and the stones incorporated into new building projects (many can be identified to this day) such as several large mosques and madrasas in the south of the city. One of the very first things Alexandros did upon the start of the war was to start moving earth around the city, trying to make the city more defensible. In this he was advised by several Ottoman residents who had experience in building earthen defense works, and while Alexandros didn’t have much in the way of shovels, he had many desperate hands due to all the refugees.

When the Romans arrive, the Baghdadi have made some progress but much work remains to be done. The Romans are seriously outnumbered, but have a great advantage in individual firepower. Many of the refugees and city residents have volunteered or been conscripted to defend the city but there is precious little in the way of firearms, especially modern flintlocks, with which to arm them. The majority of the defenders have improvised spears and clubs supplemented by piles of roof tiles. Alexandros only has six cannons, all three-pounders, for artillery. Shortages of gunpowder also cramp an effort to mass produce grenades.

Petros Keraunos is not aware of the specifics, but is aware of the gist. Nevertheless, he offers extremely generous terms for the defenders when he arrives. All the defenders and inhabitants can leave the city if they wish, with all their arms (including artillery) and possessions that they can fit in a cart per family. This includes the royal court. Keraunos just wants the city.

That is because he does not want an urban battle. Baghdad is more than big enough to swallow up his army and in close-quarters his advantage in firepower counts for much less. Furthermore, that firepower advantage isn’t as heavy as he would like. Given the need for quick movement, the heavy guns that would be most useful in the context of an urban battle are still in their depots. He has his field artillery, in much greater numbers than Alexandros, but a good portion of Baghdad’s architecture would be quite resistant to their fire. Additionally, he does not have the numbers to properly invest the city, making it impossible to cut off the defenders from outside support, making the task of reducing them much harder.

Alexandros rejects the offer. He is aware of the difficulties of the Roman position. While he knows that Baghdad will pay a terrible price in the interim, he expects Persian aid. However, he knows that the initial Persian aid will likely be small. If the Romans can occupy Baghdad, the Persian expedition would face all the same problems currently confronting the Romans. And any delay to bring in more Persian reinforcements would also give the Romans time to bring in their own and further secure their position.

It is extremely unlikely that anyone involved, save for the inevitable idiots, seriously thought that Shahanshah Iskandar the Younger would not intervene. The possibility was mentioned, on the grounds that it was technically possible, but then dismissed as extremely improbable. The surprise plan was adopted, despite its shortcomings, because it assumed a Persian intervention and thus hoped to maximize the Roman position in Mesopotamia before said intervention could arrive in force.

The assumption was most reasonable. Iskandar had established himself as a powerful and capable monarch, but the history of how he came to the throne could always come back to haunt him. Failure to respond to Roman aggression against the historical heartland of the Ottoman realm and allowing the Romans to cut the Persians off from the traditional pilgrimage routes of the hajj would make claims that he was a Roman puppet, or at least too spineless to stand up to Constantinople, substantially more credible.

Iskandar had been doing his best to keep his eye on the Roman situation, which did not please him. The war hawks were too unstable, too unreasonable, too obsessed, to make good neighbors. Still, he had not expected an attack against Mesopotamia. From his analysis, the situation looked quite good from the Roman perspective and the war hawks’ attention was focused mostly westward. He did not expect that the Romans would literally turn ‘perfect’ into the enemy of ‘good’.

But he had not discounted the possibility entirely. Much of 1660 had been spent ensuring depots and reserves in western districts were in good condition, with Qizilbash rolls being audited to ensure they were up to proper strength. That said, if the Romans attacked, Iskandar had expected a more normal mass attack, perhaps in 1661 once Domestikos Doukas had convalesced, and the warning signs would be clear, not these weird alerts about extended tagma exercises. Thus, the surprise plan does succeed in catching Iskandar by surprise.

He reacts promptly, mustering a rapid response of three thousand men and dispatching it with all speed to Baghdad. Due to the rush, there is little logistical support, with riders proceeding ahead of the column demanding supplies and promising payment in the future. While peasants, with good reason, suspect the promises of kings when it comes to repayment, there is little opposition. In Mesopotamia the demands of urgency are recognized.

This is a scratch force, a mix of Shahsevan, the Persian Imperial Guard, and elements of the Hamadan Azab, a militia force but widely considered the best Azab unit in the Ottoman Empire. They are all stationed in the capital and thus can be quickly mustered.

Iskandar then prepares and dispatches a second unit. This force takes longer to assemble but is appreciably more formidable. Mustering thirteen thousand, it is comprised primarily of Qizilbash units drawn from the Khassa (theme equivalent) districts around Hamadan. While still under-supplied, which causes more problems, this is a better-balanced force with units more used to working together and with an artillery component comparable to the Armeniakon tagma.

That is all the Shah can prepare before winter weather makes the mass movement of troops through the Zagros impractical; the second force is cutting things close already. However, he begins making plans to take the field personally next year, with all the might he can muster, far greater than either side has committed thus far.

Keraunos meanwhile is looking at Baghdad and considering his options, none of which he likes. While the defense and defenders of the city have many issues, they are more formidable, particularly to his small and lightly-armed force, than had been expected. He doesn’t have enough men to properly invest and the heavy guns to besiege the city. He could swing south and try to cut off the city from potential support from that direction, letting disease and hunger go to work on the cramped and crowded city inhabitants. But that will take time, does not promise success, and will put a rather large impediment astride his lines of communication and retreat. If Baghdad doesn’t capitulate before a Persian relief arrives, that impediment may well be fatal.

He could retreat and wait to attack Baghdad when the Romans are better equipped, but that means admitting the operation has been a failure in its goal. Mesopotamia has not been swept before the Persians arrive. Keraunos is not willing to accept that. Retreating now, before Persian regulars have arrived, in the face of a mob of barely-armed townsfolk and refugees, would be an utter humiliation and a massive black mark on his career.

Thus, lacking any other ideas, he attacks.

 

[Basileus444]

March releases update: I've decided on a change of plans. I won't be releasing any updates in March with the plan of resuming the normal schedule on April 5.

For Patrons on Patreon: The update hiatus will also apply to Not the End: The Empire Under the Laskarids for the month of March. While there won't be any special update, since there won't be any normal updates there will not be any Patreon charges for the month of March.

Thanks again for your support.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 7.1-The Battle of Baghdad:​

The Roman plan has the virtue of simplicity. The Romans are encamped in the north and Keraunos plans to punch straight south, aiming for the Topkapi Palace itself. The Ottoman complex, once the capital of the Ottoman Empire and where many of its Sultans, including Osman I, Osman the Great, lie entombed, is effectively a citadel. If he can take that, he calculates two possibilities. In the best-case scenario, it breaks the spirit of the Baghdadi defenders, effectively yielding up the rest of the city. In the worst-case scenario, it doesn’t, but it gives the exposed Armeniakon tagma a good forward position in which to maintain itself against Baghdadi and Persian forces until Roman reinforcements arrive.

The attack is a straight punch because Keraunos wants to keep his forces concentrated. Flanking maneuvers would spread his forces out, with canals, irrigation ditches, and the two rivers that give Mesopotamia its name posing many barriers to quick reinforcement of isolated units. The Strategos expects a Persian rapid response force to arrive relatively quickly, but correctly deduces that by itself it won’t be enough to counter the Armeniakon. But it could easily be strong enough to wreck a couple of tourmai that are on the east bank of the Tigris while the rest of the tagma is on the west bank.

Despite the rushed fortification efforts and the Baghdadi will to resist, the Roman push makes substantial early progress. The Roman artillery is concentrated, pummeling barricades manned mostly by barely-armed civilians. Few are able to withstand such pounding for long. The Ottoman ambassador, who has stayed in Baghdad, observes that the Baghdadi irregulars are willing to stand up to Roman musketry, but few can stomach Roman cannons.

But in much of the fighting, Roman cannon can’t be deployed, and here the defenders have better chances. On the main streets, Roman artillery has room to deploy, but in the tangled warren of side streets and alleys, there is no space and ranges are too short. Here Baghdadi knowledge of the local terrain counters superior Roman firepower.

Another area where artillery isn’t available is what is called ‘the fight for the roof’. Much of the fighting is naturally on the ground, but the most common Baghdadi weapon is some kind of thrown projectile, assisted by gravity. The best way to keep Roman soldiers on the streets from getting buried by torrents of thrown rubble is to have other Roman soldiers flanking them on the rooftops. Here the fighting is more favorable to the Romans, as the more open areas give more opportunity for Roman sharpshooters.

Beginning the attack on November 7, after a week, the forward Roman outposts are three-quarters of the way to the Topkapi from the Romans’ starting point, but progress is slowing and resistance stiffening and becoming more effective. The Baghdadi irregulars are undergoing an intense, brutal, and unforgiving learning curve, but those who survive are learning quickly. Also, as the Romans advance, the perimeter they have to defend gets larger, making it harder to defend with their limited numbers.

A new Baghdadi tactic is night infiltration, taking advantage of their greatest strength vis-à-vis the Romans, their knowledge of the terrain. These are small-scale, with the goal of ambushing small groups of Roman soldiers, killing them, and taking their weapons. The success-to-failure rate is mixed, but is high enough to embolden the Baghdadi and alarm the Romans. The best way to counter these raids is to concentrate Roman forces in larger groups, but to do so often requires consolidating scattered forces. This means that a good portion of real estate conquered during the day is then abandoned at night, which hardly helps Roman morale.

These various factors slow the Roman advance to a crawl. After four more days, they’re 85% of the way to the Topkapi Palace but now ammunition is running low, especially for the artillery, undermining the main Roman advantages. Then on day 12, the first Ottoman relief force arrives in Baghdad, the sight of the red-hatted troops cheering the Baghdadi and greatly demoralizing the Romans.

The Ottoman troops are fed into the firing line, stiffening the irregulars. Once both the Baghdadi and Romans realize the small size and light armament of the Ottoman unit, the emotional impact, for both good and ill, is somewhat, but not completely dampened. The initial payment may be small, but it is a clear promise of greater dividends.

The fighting in the city draws most attention, but there is also fighting to the north. Keraunos is in intermittent communication with the Empire, but the lack of Roman control in northern Mesopotamia is evident by his need to send every communique in threes. On average, two copies get through; the one that didn’t is waylaid by vengeful villagers or Bedouins. By now, the Syrian tagma has mobilized and is moving into northern Mesopotamia and is working to actually secure it.

But Sarantenos, getting Keraunos’s missives, shares his colleague’s concerns about the Armeniakon’s forward position. And while he does not agree with the war, he is not willing to sabotage the war effort now that it has started. He concentrates the 3rd, 5th, and 7th Syrian tourmai, gives them as much supplies as he can, and has them force-march to reinforce the Armeniakon at Baghdad. They arrive on day 18.

This is a significant boost to the Romans. Numerically, these cancel out the first Ottoman force, and unlike the Ottomans, also add to the Romans’ strength in artillery, mostly by restocking ammunition but also adding a few more pieces. Admittedly, these are all still light field pieces, but possession of cannon, any cannon, is the main Roman advantage. Furthermore, they also bring news.

While the Syrian tagma is the first to arrive because of proximity, Gyranos has managed, even with the constraints imposed by the secrecy plan, to get some of the Anatolikon and Chaldean tourmai moving before winter seriously cramps travel. (This was especially a concern with the Chaldeans, having to move through passes in the Pontic Mountains.) By now, Keraunos doesn’t expect to take all of Baghdad, given the spirit of the defenders, but now he feels that if he can seize the Topkapi Palace complex, he won’t have to wait too long before more substantial Roman reinforcements arrive to relieve him. There had been some arguments amongst his officers about withdrawing as progress stalled, but now Keraunos is even more determined to move forward.

The fighting over the next few days is possibly the fiercest. On day 22, the Romans secure a lodgment in part of the Topkapi complex, further advance only halted by desperate counterattacks in which Nikephoros of Trebizond is wounded twice. His brother the King and their mother Maria also display exemplary courage, refusing to retreat and exposing themselves to fire in order to encourage the defenders.

Being so close, Keraunos hurls absolutely everything he has into the attack. Over the next two days, bloody fighting rages between the Romans and the Mesopotamian and Ottoman defenders, as they battle amid the mosques and tombs and gardens and apartments and offices and kitchens. The thick stone architecture and close-quarters fighting nullifies the key Roman advantage of firepower, with the conflict coming down to ambrolar and knife and musket butt and club.

After two days, the exhausted Romans fall back, still holding their initial lodgment but nothing more to show for their efforts. During those forty-eight hours, they have inflicted nearly five casualties for every one of their own, a ratio consistent throughout the battle, and yet that means nothing in the end. The defenders have the numbers to take these losses, and more importantly they still have the will. A wounded Nikephoros shouts defiance from his sickbed while Alexandros and Maria intermingle with the troops, bestowing marks of favor to those who have distinguished themselves.

Then there is a lull as both exhausted sides pause to catch their breath. Conditions on the Baghdadi side are horrific, with massive casualties and a breakdown in supplies and sanitation due to the city’s massive influx of refugees.

On the Roman side, there is a mix of demoralization and grim stubbornness. Supplies of wine have run out, forcing the soldiers to drink fouled water, with many now showing signs of dysentery. In a council of war, several officers argue for withdrawal, citing concerns over reports from captives that a second and much larger Ottoman relief force is nearing the city. But others, including Keraunos, cannot stomach the idea of retreating when they are so close. From those same captives they know that the defenders are suffering from starvation and disease to an even greater extent. One more big push should, must, win the day.

On day 26, frantic couriers race into Keraunos’s headquarters bearing reports of a second Ottoman force. Something like this has been expected, and dreaded, but that is not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is that this force did not feed into Baghdad through the east or south to reinforce the defenders, as had been expected. This force is to the north of the city, behind the Romans.

The second Ottoman force is commanded by Ali Pasha, a man who could be the poster child of a jolly fat man, were it not for the missing nose, sliced off by a Rajput saber at Panipat just before Ali smashed the wielder’s skull with a mace. He also doesn’t fit the jolly fat man profile of being indolent and weak, enjoying rough horse rides and throwing big stones, but also delighting in sugar cakes.

Ali Pasha didn’t want to just drive the Romans out of Baghdad; he wanted to smash them. This was an excellent opportunity to wipe out an isolated Roman tagma and he intended to take it. The northern approach took longer as the Romans had blown the Tigris bridges north of Baghdad specifically to prevent this activity, but lack of river patrols meant Ali Pasha could send his men across on hastily-built rafts and requisitioned river craft.

Two days earlier, while bullets were snarling angrily through the Topkapi kitchens, Ali nearly scored a significant victory. Sarantenos in northern Mesopotamia had sent another three Syrian tourmai south with more supplies and artillery to bolster the Romans in Baghdad. This unit, outnumbered over four to one by Ali’s troops, had almost crashed right into him. Upon realizing their situation, the Romans fled north, having to abandon their supply wagons and artillery. Ali didn’t pursue them much, snapping up the abandoned equipment (the rations were extremely welcome). Baghdad did need to be relieved, and a greater prize lay there.

The near-destruction of the three tourmai and the lack of warning the Romans in Baghdad got of Ali Pasha coming down behind them illustrate perfectly the consequences of a serious Roman weakness during this campaign. Roman campaigns against Persia were usually preceded by mass hires of Bedouin auxiliaries, to provide supplies but also to act as couriers and scouts, a vital augmentation of the turkopouloi, the regular light cavalry.

This hiring though is a clear sign of impending action and thus had not happened due to the desire for surprise. The result is that the Roman light cavalry, vital for reconnaissance, is seriously undermanned throughout the entirety of the 1660 fighting. (This had been a serious flaw that Domestikos of the East Manuel Doukas had identified with the plan. The Tourmarches had not been so worried, as their combat experience all came from Europe, where this was much less of a factor.)

That changes everything with even Keraunos recognizing the jig is up, but disengaging in the face of the enemy is one of the hardest military maneuvers to pull off successfully. The Romans retreat northward, harassed by the Baghdadi defenders, although their attacks are running out of steam. By day 27, rations for the frontline fighters in Baghdad only provide, assuming good quality (which one should not assume), 1550 calories, a ludicrously low amount for soldiers in combat.

But now Ali Pasha is coming down on the Romans from the north. These Ottomans are tired and underfed after their forced march (even after eating some of those captured rations), but compared to everyone who’s been fighting the battle of Baghdad, they are fresh.

The Roman retreat is difficult, to put it mildly. Even once outside the confines of Baghdad, the landscape is broken up with outlying towns and villages, farmlands with irrigation ditches, and canals. There is no one set-piece battle, but the force is sliced to death by a hundred hacks, disintegrating under the attack. Even those that managed to break past Ali Pasha still have to face the long march north and the vengeful locals along the way. Out of the roughly fourteen thousand Romans who fought at Baghdad, no more than one in ten make it back to Mepsila/Mosul. Keraunos is not one of the survivors, which prompts a quip from Shah Iskandar who says he didn’t realize there were Celts in Mesopotamia, a reference only those with knowledge of the Hellenistic era would understand.

Mesopotamian losses are much higher. Casualties from the fighting are around twenty-five thousand, with that number tripled at minimum by losses from starvation and disease in the city’s enlarged population. Ottoman casualties are much smaller; the first force took nearly fifty-percent casualties but Ali Pasha’s number only in the hundreds. After the destruction of Keraunos he heads north, partially to press the advantage, but also to stay away from the wreck that is Baghdad and hopefully procure supplies in the north. The armies have been sweeping through it quickly, meaning they haven’t been able to be thorough.

The initial defense of the Roman east is based on its kastron troops, as well as the high-end militias of Syria and southern Armeniakon. (These are unique in their size and quality in the Empire.) But the primary emphasis is on the twenty tourmai of the Armeniakon and Syrian tagmata. Ten of those, seven Armeniakon and three Syrian, have effectively ceased to exist, while another three have been shorn of their supply equipment and artillery.

Strategos Sarantenos takes no chances. With the concurrence of Domestikos Doukas, who relocates from Antioch to Edessa (a stressful trip in his still weak condition and which hardly improves his mood), the Roman forces in northern Mesopotamia are withdrawn. As a result, Ali Pasha’s attack mostly hits air, save for one contingent of kastron troops that gets slowed down by irregulars and then mauled by Qizilbash. Three months after the start of the war, the only Romans beyond the pre-war frontier are in the ground or are in chains.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 7.2-The Winter of 1660-61:​

When the Emperor and his entourage initially encounter the Patriarchal refusal to let them into the Hagia Sophia, they respond with outrage and argumentation, but decide that creating a rather public scene in the streets of Constantinople is a bad idea. They withdraw back to the White Palace, with services in the great church proceeding as if everything was normal. The Patriarch has made a point but doesn’t want to rub it in; he hopes the public rebuke will be enough.

Herakleios III though is not about to give up his mistress. The Tourmarches also are, unsurprisingly, not willing to back down either. Their plan, for now, is to just pretend that this embarrassing affair did not happen. Once news of Roman victory arrives from the east, the Patriarch’s opposition to the war will look rather silly. In the meantime, Herakleios goes hunting to the northwest, with his absence from the capital making his absence from services in the Hagia Sophia much less glaring.

This strategy becomes rather less tenable once the news of how the campaign panned out arrives in Constantinople. It is impossible to suppress, with Antioch newspaper accounts of disasters along the Tigris being carried by the Antioch mail packet to the Queen of Cities and then eagerly snatched up by the residents.

The Tourmarches though continue the strategy. Herakleios remains outside the capital although moving closer to the city, with someone going to him if his signature is required on something. He takes services in private, which in itself isn’t that unusual; it was his regular practice on extended hunting trips when he was away from an established church.

While the Emperor is outside the capital, every Sunday the Patriarch and his supporters stand before the Hagia Sophia, symbolically blocking the way as if the Emperor were there. The act does help to keep the memory alive even while the Emperor is not in the city, but the repetition also has the effect of dulling the effect. After a few months, when it becomes clear Herakleios has no attention of changing his ways, Patriarch Adam does criticize the Basileus’ behavior in sermons in the Hagia Sophia, but beyond that he is unwilling to escalate. Excommunicating the Emperor, or at least the war hawks, would seem to be the next step, but also a dangerous one.

Such a step would be less risky if Adam II had a united church behind him but he doesn’t. While many bishops are critical of Herakleios III’s behaviors regarding his marriage, they think the Patriarch has no business criticizing foreign policy. Moral behavior falls under the Patriarch’s bailiwick; matters of state do not. This disagreement thus clouds the issue for many. There are also other clerics, including the Patriarch of Antioch, who are currently looking at the mess on the eastern frontier and don’t want any destabilization that will hamper efforts to fix things. (There are some in this group who are critical of the war hawks for creating the circumstances for this mess, but they are countered by the sentiment of ‘it’s unwise to try and change horses midstream’.)

The war hawks do score a victory in February when Herakleios III visits Athyra in a public relations exercise organized by Strategos Plytos. Athyra is one of the larger and more prosperous satellite towns of Constantinople, with a new hospital commissioned by Demetrios III. It is also the see of Bishop Grozes, one of the closest supporters of the Patriarch. Herakleios visits the town to announce a large donation to create an extension of his grandfather’s hospital, as well as a new orphanage and some infrastructure improvements.

While in the town, Herakleios wishes to worship in the local church. Bishop Grozes is not there but in the capital, as is usual. The resident priest briefly considers trying to bar Herakleios, but overawed by the presence of the Emperor as well as the local crowd, who currently think quite highly of the Basileus, he gives way. Another factor is that Anastasia Laskarina is not present. She has been with the Emperor while he has been outside Constantinople, but for this event she has stayed outside Athyra. The biggest example of Herakleios’s sin, and justification for keeping him out of the church, is thus off-screen. Service proceeds normally with Herakleios prominent in attendance, looking like a faithful and accepted son of the Orthodox Church.

In short, the Patriarch’s action does succeed in raising the temperature of the water, but is not, by itself, enough to make the pot boil over. Father Hadjipapandreou tries to convince Adam to escalate to excommunication, but here his powers of persuasion run out. The Tourmarches recognize the priest’s importance in all this and put him under close surveillance, but make no moves against him. Their hopes are that an improved war situation will make the Patriarch’s opposition look silly, and Adam’s health is poor. He may die rather soon, which would be a rather convenient way of replacing the Athena-appointed Adam with a more cooperative candidate. But they need to keep things from boiling until then. Displays of public charity, such as new soup kitchens and enlargements of the bread dole, are useful means to cool the air in the capital.

Lady Athena is frustrated by all this. She considers the gesture to be foolish. As part of a wider wave of dissatisfaction, it could’ve been powerful, but by itself it has been empty. It has made the Tourmarches more wary and suspicious, hampering her own efforts, which frustrate her. But that said, it hasn’t been a total waste from her perspective. The Patriarch’s stance has convinced some to come over to her side of things, with the Patriarch’s disapproval of Herakleios III’s actions helping to sugarcoat the traitorous taint.

One new supporter is the new Despot of Sicily, Andreas III. (To make things confusing, the Emperor Andreas III had been Despot Andreas II of Sicily.) One of the clerics to come out in support of Patriarch Adam’s actions was the Orthodox Patriarch of Rome, the head of all Orthodox churches in Italy. The Despot had been reluctant to weigh in on politics in Constantinople, given how touchy many war hawks were on the matter of Sicily, but the Patriarch of Rome had swayed him. Although not apparent at the time, an important factor of Sicilian support is that it gives Athena and her supporters naval strength in the form of the Sicilian fleet, which they had been lacking.

The Despotate though is suffering social problems of its own. The realm of Sicily has long been a mix of Catholic and Orthodox, of various locals (Italians is often used as shorthand, but none thought of themselves as such), Hellenized locals, and Greek immigrants. Eastern Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria are mostly Greek or Hellenized, western Sicily is mixed, while the rest of the realm is mostly Catholic and Italian.

Neither side could dominate the other. The Orthodox Greek component was more prevalent in the upper and commercial classes, but that was clearly not the case in most of peninsular Sicily outside of Apulia and Calabria. Numerically the Catholics had a substantial edge, but it did skew towards the poor peasantry. As a whole, sixty percent of Sicily was Catholic Italian, thirty five percent Greek Orthodox, and the rest taken up mostly by Jews with some Muslims, usually slaves. In the Sicilian equivalents of dynatoi and mesoi, the Catholic and Orthodox ratios flipped.

There had been a rough equilibrium between the two sides since the end of the Time of Troubles, but events of the last two decades have destabilized that equilibrium. The treatment of Sicilian concerns and interests in ‘the matter of Italy’ at the end of the War of the Roman Succession by the Romans had been considered cursory, arrogant, and rude by even many Romanophile Sicilians, who resented being treated as a mindless meat shield. This had weakened the Greek Orthodox faction while simultaneously Sicilian expansion had brought a great many more Italian Catholics into the Sicilian realm.

Catholics in Sicily thus by 1660 wanted more power and influence than they had been getting. This was combined with local unrest caused by harvest failures, which could take on a religious tinge. When Bari, an Orthodox city, takes priority for emergency shipments of Bulgarian grain over Catholic Naples, despite the latter being nearly three times as large, it is unsurprising people draw some nasty conclusions.

Naples in particular is becoming a hotbed. Although it is the second-largest city on the Italian peninsula with 150,000 in 1650 (Milan, the biggest, is nearly twice as big), its economy has been lackluster compared to much smaller but more prosperous Messina, Palermo, and Bari. Mostly it is an export market for the agricultural products of Campania, produced on massive estates and plantations owned by Catholic landowners and worked by tenants and slaves. Much of Naples’ population is very poor, living alongside elegant townhouses while they scrape a living from odd jobs and charity. Bad times in the countryside has worsened their lot while simultaneously swelling their numbers, while the Catholic-Orthodox issue further muddies the waters. The great country landowners have little in common with the urban poor of Naples, but they speak a common language and share a common faith, which is not Greek or Orthodox.

It is doubtful Athena has much knowledge or interest in the rumblings in Neapolitan alleys; her focus is in the opposite direction. As 1660 turns into 1661, Domestikos of the East Manuel Doukas is in a bad mood. His summer surgery has not been as big of a success as he had hoped, which he blames on his curtailed recuperation. He is in a lot of pain and has a big military mess on the Mesopotamian frontier, and he blames a certain clique in Constantinople.

Therefore, he is open to Athena’s overtures in a way he was not some months earlier. He is willing to back Athena against the Tourmarches, who he now views as illegitimate; their possession of the signature of Herakleios III is irrelevant. As Sophia, Athena’s daughter and Herakleios’s spouse, would later put it: “Incompetency voids any legitimacy.”

Athena would like him to move on the Tourmarches, in cooperation with Michael Pirokolos from the opposite direction, as soon as the winter snows clear and large-scale travel through the Empire becomes feasible. But Manuel is not willing to do that. He will deal with the Tourmarches, but first, he insists, there is the matter of the war in Mesopotamia. Only once that is resolved will he move.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 7.3-The Spring of 1661:​

Both Empires spend the winter preparing for a greater struggle to come, although inclement weather limits how much can actually be done during the slow season. Along the pre-war frontier, there are various small-scale skirmishes and raids from both sides. The Romans have called up Anizzah auxiliaries which beef up the Roman forays. One sally gets within a hundred kilometers of Baghdad but with little practical benefit to show for it. Ottoman sallies also get to the environs of Amida and Edessa, but while devastating to any locals unfortunate enough to be caught in the path, the slashes by both sides are just irritating pinpricks to the other Empire.

Once the weather starts to clear, troops can start moving in bulk, but issues are far from absent. After the dearth of winter, food stores are run down and livestock are weak before they can be fattened up on spring pasturage. This means that any requisitions bite even harder than usual, while weakened requisitioned livestock are more likely to collapse under the strain, which makes even more requisitions necessary, exacerbating the strain on the civilian populace.

Strategos Gyranos is aware of this and is trying to avoid escalating it. He is serving as Strategos of the Akoimetoi guard tagma but is also the Archon of the War Room, as well as filling many of the administrative functions of the Megas Domestikos. (The actual Megas Domestikos is a political nonentity, a convenient placeholder and rubber-stamp for the Tourmarches, but his pliability does not come with ability.) Thus, he is orchestrating much of the home front effort needed to support the war front.

He wants to distribute the strain as widely as possible to avoid a rupture in any one place. This means drawing more heavily on European resources than would be normal for a war in Mesopotamia. In his plan, each of the four European themes and the Despotate of Sicily would individually provide 6 tourmai and the necessary supplies to sustain them, a force of thirty thousand men. Meanwhile the Anatolikon would only provide 2 tourmai and associated supplies; Gyranos wants to limit the stress on the region.

Gyranos does not get what he wants, for a variety of reasons. The Tourmarches are not aware of the connection between Athena and Doukas, but are cognizant of the possibility. They are worried that sending sizeable contingents of soldiers under Michael Pirokolos’ command might end up influencing the Domestikos of the East in a way the Tourmarches do not want. Another possibility is that Pirokolos might use the shifting of troops eastward as a cover to try a sudden decapitation strike on Constantinople. Given the Patriarch’s action, clearly designed to influence the mood of the average denizen of the capital against Herakleios III, the Tourmarches’ fear of this possibility has been heightened in recent months. It is simpler just to have the European troops remain where they are.

This has an additional corollary which further complicates matters. If the Asian troops are tied up in Mesopotamia, that would provide an easy opening for Michael to march on Constantinople anyway unless there was something to stop him. The obvious ‘something’ are the guard tagmata. Given the Patriarch’s activities, the Tourmarches are especially loath to absent themselves from Constantinople and their hold on Herakleios III, which is entirely personal. To secure the Regime of the Tourmarches, the guard tagmata also must stay where they are.

This means the weight of fighting Persia must fall entirely on the seven Asian themes, one of which has been gutted by Baghdad (Armeniakon) and another mauled and weakened also from Baghdad and the Great Uprising (Syria). Given these limited constraints, Gyranos can’t afford to go easy on Anatolikon, and circumstances demand that he go even harder on this theme than on others.

The richest Anatolian themes are the Optimaton, Opsikian, and Thrakesian themes, but these are also by far the further from the front lines. The front-line themes, Armeniakon and Syria, are in bad shape, which puts more onus on the second-line themes, Chaldea and Anatolikon. Speed matters. Iskandar in Hamadan is four times closer to Baghdad than the western Anatolian tagmata. Starting from Ikonion in the Anatolikon reduces Iskandar’s lead to 3-to-1.

Requisition orders go out, in Anatolikon mostly in demand for sheep. Herds of sheep following Roman armies as a mobile larder is a common sight. These requisitions are never popular, even when mild and imposed in good times. Neither is the case in 1661, with the Anatolikon theme arguably having suffered the worst in terms of agricultural losses of any theme over the course of the 1650s. Livestock diseases have also struck the local herds, with a slight rebound in the last couple of years, but this is in its infancy and easily strangled by mass requisitions. Also the requisitions are the heaviest ever recorded in the area, double those imposed even during the most strenuous stages of the War of the Roman Succession.

Gyranos wanted to keep the requisitions at least at the historical levels, which still would have represented an increase given the more straitened circumstances of the present. He had again been overruled. Anatolikon is closer to Mesopotamia, so it is more practical, time-wise, to extract heavily from here rather than better-endowed but farther-away western Anatolia. Domestikos Doukas is hardly likely to think kindly of the Regime if he feels like it is starving him of supplies and materials he needs for the war effort, and so he must not be given that impression.

To be fair to Plytos, Nereas, and war hawks other than Gyranos, they can see the risks of rebellion. There are concerning signs from Isauria, and also other red flags. In Albania, several of the clans have gathered together and proclaimed a general besë, a suspension of blood feuds, ostensibly because they have become a growing problem in the straitened circumstances of the Little Ice Age. But the Tourmarches fear that this could possibly be a preliminary measure for the clans to combine forces.

But for them, winning the war takes priority. Doing so will require sacrifices and anger people, potentially to the point of rebellion, but they think that victory, once achieved, will solidify their position and open up more options and resources. Once the war is won, the problems caused by the war can then be addressed.

* * *​

The White Palace, Constantinople, March 1, 1661:

Normally Andronikos Gyranos enjoyed being right; this was an exception. He had warned about the great dangers that would arise if the surprise campaign failed, and he’d been ignored. And then look at how that campaign had turned out. Normally this would merit a satisfied ‘I told you so’, except now he was having to do a lot of the work to clean up the mess, while those who were more responsible than him cramped his efforts to do so while not making more messes. He’d read Domestikos Doukas’ criticisms of the surprise campaign plan, and most looked quite familiar. It was too bad the Domestikos was on the other side of Anatolia; the two would likely have a lot to jointly complain about.

He got up to shovel another bit of coal into the stove that heated his office and then lighted the two reading lamps on each corner of his desk. The smell of whale oil, imported from Russia, filled the chamber, in contrast to the low-quality olive oil that lit most Roman lamps. Rank did have some privileges that he fully intended to use. He adjusted his thick glasses back up his nose; that was why he took full advantage of the unlimited coal and lamp fuel available to those whose offices were in the White Palace itself.

Sitting back down, he glanced at some of the papers sprawled before him, reports from the Battle of Baghdad. They were fragmented and disjointed, coming from the paltry mix of survivors from that debacle, and there was precious little that looked at the big scope. That was to be expected though when no one higher than the rank of Droungarios managed to get out of central Mesopotamia. But they still provided some very interesting data. He scratched another entry onto a piece of paper, picked it up, and headed down to the archives.

He had sacrificed many of his beliefs because he thought it was necessary for the greater goal, to ensure the survival of the Roman people in a brutal and vicious world that had made quite clear that it wanted to exterminate the Roman people. He had thought and planned how the Roman people might avoid such a fate. Yet now he was starting to wonder. Not about the goal; he held that more fervently than ever. But he was wondering if his calculations had been incomplete, that there was data he had not considered.

And he had the growing feeling that if he was right about his calculations being incomplete, those sacrifices, those excuses, those justifications he’d whispered to himself in the night, might not only have been unnecessary, but actively counterproductive.

He reached the archives and started collecting the items on his list. Accounts about peasant raiders in Upper Macedonia during the Great Latin War, reports from ambassadors in Germany during the Third Rhine War, a record of Andreas Niketas’ Apulia campaign, a chronicle of the Cretan rebellions against Venetian rule. The last item on the list, the history of Niketas Choniates, he could get from his personal library.

After taking one of the provided baskets to carry the documents and signing them out at the Archive Office, he went to the supply office to get a ream of paper, three inkpots, and a set of quills. Another example of rank having privileges. He had work to do.

* * *​

It was a familiar dream, but that hardly made it comforting. It was always the taste in the air that struck him first, of pine and rock dust. And the smell. The smell of sweat, gunpowder, blood, shit, and seared flesh, the mix of foul and sickly sweet, tumbling over each other endlessly in his parched-dry nostrils.

A hand gripped his shoulder and shook Konstantinos Plytos awake. It was a hand of his wife Xenia, intervening when she sensed what was afoot in his mind. Their bedroom was dark and Xenia silently pulled the bedcurtains aside, and then the window drapes, letting in enough light from the gibbous moon so that she could light a candle.

Again, still without speaking, she walked over to the corner of the room, picked up an object and came over to Konstantinos, pulling aside the bedcurtains on his side as well so she could hand him the object. Both put on slippers and Xenia sat down in an armchair facing Konstantinos, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. Neither had spoken; they did not need to. All this had happened before, and it would happen again.

Konstantinos picked up the object, his politiki lira. It was the same musical instrument that Strategos Iason Tornikes, the Mad Lyrist, had played to rally his near-breaking men during the agony of the Twelve Days, that horrible retreat from Skoupoi to Lower Macedonia. Now Konstantinos played as Xenia watched and listened. Afterwards, he did not know or remember what he played, but that did not matter. What mattered is that it kept the nightmare at bay. For a time.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 8.0-Approaching the Abyss:​

As the snows melt away and the sun’s rays go stronger across the face of the earth, it is once again the season where the kings go to war. The King of Kings Iskandar the Younger has no intention of withdrawing from that tradition. Once the passes through the Zagros Mountains are sufficiently clear, he leads the first Qizilbash divisions forward into Mesopotamia, with follow-up units barracked farther east coming up behind him.

In 1661 Iskandar the Younger is forty-two years old and in good health for his age, still highly active physically and with a diet noted for its relative absence of red meat and wine, which he consumes but in limited quantities. This is on the advice of his physician to aid his digestion. His main physical vice is a growing love for smoking tobacco, a habit growing in Persia much to the delight of Lotharingian merchants who trade it for raw silk and Persian carpets.

During the winter he confirmed the neutrality of King Vakhtang of Georgia, which significantly influences the Ottoman war effort. The fighting will be restricted to Mesopotamia. His neutrality is not unexpected though. The Roman war began with an unannounced offensive, which means the Georgians have no diplomatic obligations to enter the war on the Roman side. Nor does Vakhtang have any territorial ambitions. The Georgian realm is broad and fractious enough already; he does not need more disparate and divergent border populations.

In fact, Vakhtang inclines towards the Ottomans in this war. Georgia would, in a vacuum, be a major power in its own right, but surrounded by the much bigger Russia, Persia, and Rhomania, the court in Tbilisi hardly feels that way. Based on the aggressive and unpredictable behavior of the war hawks, it is clear in Tbilisi that an overly strong and unchecked Rhomania could be a serious danger to Georgian security. It is best that there be a strong Rhomania and a strong Persia to keep each other honest. Furthermore, a strong Persia means that the Romans will be more inclined to favor the Georgians in various matters. Although the Georgians certainly feel much more affinity for the Romans, in this context it is felt it would be better if the Persians took them down a peg or two, but no more than that. An overly-strong and unchecked Persia would likely be even worse than an overly-strong and unchecked Rhomania.

The Georgians make no secret of their neutrality. There is some anger in Rhomania amongst the war hawks over this, which only serves to irritate the Georgians, who resent this apparent belief that they are Roman lackeys, not allies. But this attitude does not extend to the Tourmarches. Their prestige and legitimacy are now heavily staked on a victory over Persia, particularly after the fiasco of the surprise campaign and the Patriarch’s opposition. While a Georgian front would complicate things greatly for the Ottomans, it would also deflate the kudos from a Roman victory. Opponents and critics could easily make the claim that the Georgians saved the Toumarches’ bacon.

That said, it could well be said that there is another who is saving the bacon of the Toumarches, Domestikos Manuel Doukas, and there is certainly how he sees the situation. The Toumarches are not aware that he has decided to align with Athena, but they are aware that they need him for this war, much as they wished they didn’t.

However, the Domestikos is adamant that he will deal with the Persians before he deals with the clique in Constantinople. He will not march the armies of the east westward to effect political change in the capital while leaving the frontier exposed to foreign attack. This particular bit of history, and family history at that, he will not repeat.

The Domestikos is not in good health as he marches off to war. It is clear that his surgery and recovery has been only of limited success, if that, and he is often in great pain, to the point that riding in a horse is impossible. But he refuses to stand aside and have someone else take command.

He has served in the east all through his career, gradually working up the officer ranks, participating in many of the great battles and campaigns that have filled the history of the seventeenth century in this region. Having reached the rank of Domestikos of the East, now the pinnacle of any field officer’s career (the higher rank of Megas Domestikos is well on its way to being an entirely administrative post), leading a great campaign against the Ottoman Shah would be the feather in the cap. To abandon that prospect right on the very cusp of it would be a humiliation greater than the physical pain he suffers.

The Domestikos also thinks he is the best person for the job. Of senior officers in the Roman army, he is the most experienced in warfare on the eastern frontier. And like all eastern hands, he considers warfare in the east to require a skill and intelligence that officers experienced only in western fighting possibly lack. The surprise campaign is a case in point. The Tourmarches might have much combat experience between them, but it is all in fighting in Europe. No eastern hand would have organized a campaign in the wide-open spaces of Mesopotamia without drawing on additional Bedouin auxiliaries.

In the eyes of eastern hands, of which Manuel Doukas is the epitome, fighting Latins is no easy matter, but it is not the same as fighting Ottomans. As the stereotype goes, Latins are tough and brave, but they are stupid. The Ottomans may be many things, but stupid is definitely not one of them. Fighting them effectively requires skill and intelligence and experience.

Meanwhile men and supplies pour into Syria and northern Mesopotamia. Many of the supplies come from the long and hard-suffering lands of the southern Anatolikon. Requisitions there for the campaign have been overall successfully in terms of gathering the quotas, but there has been a significant amount of passive and active resistance.

Passive resistance comes usually in the form of hiding demanded materials, sometimes even to the extent of fleeing into the hills to evade demands. Running to the fastnesses of the Grand Karaman is always a risky business. Sometimes the Grand Karaman will be willing to offer shelter, but on the other hand his lands are hardly a breadbasket able to feed masses of refugees. He might well decide that feeding additional mouths is not worth it, and handing the fugitives over is a good way to curry favor with Imperial authorities. That said, tax collectors pursuing fugitives who push too much into Karamanid territory without permission might be attacked and killed for the violation. The situation is fluid for all parties, but it has endured since the beginning of the 1300s.

But there seems to be more effort at evasion than usual, even after factoring in the greater demands. And tax officials find themselves blocked, harassed, threatened, and even attacked at greater distances from the Karamanid heartland than before. There is no clear demarcation between the lands of the Grand Karaman and the Empire proper; this is well before the era of clearly surveyed and rigidly outlined borders. But while all this activity does raise some alarms, it does not set off a siren. There is an increase in resistance, but only in terms of degree, not in kind.

But there are rumblings of discontent even in villages where there are no overt or covert resistances. The exactions hit hard and wars tend to make sure that exactions come in series rather than one-offs. There is anger at the central government for making such demands, especially for a war that is pointless to the Anatolikon peasantry. And there is anger at local officials, who for the most part do not seem to be making much of an effort of sheltering locals from unrealistic or unreasonable demands from the center.

The whole point of local officials is supposed to be to mediate demands from the center, based on often inaccurate or incomplete knowledge of local capabilities, and the actual local capabilities. But local officials seem more focused on filling quotas, local conditions be damned, than being mediators. Given the competition for government posts, with more potential candidates than positions, few officials are willing to jeopardize their standing by failing to fill demanded quotas, especially in such a situation as this where failure is even more unlikely to be tolerated.

These rumblings in the rear are not the concern of Domestikos Manuel Doukas. He is a military man, focused on military agendas. What matters to him is that he gets the men and material to prosecute a war against the Ottomans in Mesopotamia, and that he gets.

Admittedly, the army he musters for the 1661 campaign is not like the great hosts that Rhomania and Persia were able to conjure forth for the Nineveh campaign forty years earlier. Then both empires had summoned hosts that eventually exceeded one hundred thousand strong each. Such efforts, after the near-constant grinding and bloodletting that has shrouded their borderlands since the start of the seventeenth century, are completely impossible for both sides. Doukas’s army might at the very start surpass 60,000 combatants in strength, but if so, inevitable friction immediately whittles it down below that threshold.

Friction is inevitable, with losses from diseases, accidents, and the stationing of garrisons, but at the start there is surprisingly little loss from combat, as there is surprisingly little combat. As Doukas marches back into northern Mesopotamia, the only opposition is from a few scattered raiding parties, snipping at Roman scouts and a few lashes at Roman supply convoys. The Romans thus easily advance, but they advance into a desert. The area has been stripped bare, with inhabitants and supplies evacuated or destroyed. It is a scorched earth strategy, but on a massive scale, better organized and thorough than the Romans have ever seen before.

As the Romans advance, friction continues. As their supply lines stretch, they become more vulnerable to Ottoman pinprick raids, which increase in number and size. These supply lines are even more important than usual considering the impossibility of living off the scorched lands. The situation though does not endure forever. After a month and a half of marching, the Romans are entering central Mesopotamia.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 8.1-A Line in the Sand:​

Iskandar has managed to assemble an army comparable in size to that of the Romans, potentially even slightly larger, but he has preferred to wait and let the Romans come to him. Let the Romans extend their supply lines and tire their soldiers out through marching. Every horse that breaks down from exertion or soldier who drops out from heatstroke is one less available at the crisis point.

The Shah has been preparing for the Roman arrival. Mesopotamia is the Land of the Two Rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the distance between the two rivers narrows noticeably north of Baghdad. This creates something of a bottleneck, exacerbated by the frequent irrigation ditches and canals that crisscross the landscape between the rivers. These are most beneficial to local commerce and essential for agriculture, but seriously hamper the movement of large bodies. This had already seriously cramped Keraunos last year, making it impossible to consider wide flanking maneuvers, since the difficulty of reinforcement would make it possible to smash isolated Roman forces in detail. Doukas, with a much larger army, faces the same problem.

The Romans could move to the outside of the two rivers, but that would expose their supply lines to the great desert that stretches under the Fertile Crescent all the way to the Empty Quarter at the bottom of Arabia. The desert here to the north is not quite so empty, with nomadic Bedouin well placed to pick at Roman supply convoys. The Euphrates, while hardly a solid barrier to their movements, at least poses some restrictions.

The other option, to move east of the Tigris, is even worse. Then the Romans would potentially position themselves to be crushed between the Ottoman forces already in central Mesopotamia and Ottoman reinforcements coming across the Zagros. The dangers of letting an Ottoman army slip behind a Roman army and its base has been painfully demonstrated last year.

As the Roman and Ottoman armies close, the Domestikos’s condition is not well. The frequent movement is causing him much pain. To compensate, he takes some kind of painkiller, although what exactly is unknown to history. Interestingly, he is reported by his staff to be taking some of it with an early form of hypodermic needle, invented in Thessaloniki in the previous generation. But then he is also reported to be taking something else to reinvigorate him after taking the painkillers.

This is the highest-profile case of what in modern terms would be called a substance abuse problem in the post-Great Latin War Roman army. Documentation and understanding of substance abuse from this period, along with PTSD/Axios Fever, is, of course, extremely limited. But careful analysis of documentation from the period does hint at these issues, with some contemporary awareness and attempts to mitigate them.

The Roman army’s own historical study blames it on a crisis of morale. It is one thing to go fight in some far-off war decreed by the leader and the home front is indifferent; that is the normal lot of professional soldiers throughout history. It is a far different thing to fight in a savage and brutal war that marshals the energy of much of the populace, turning it into a popular war, and then after suffering on the gun line, being relentlessly abused and vilified for failing to meet expectations that soldiers and officers themselves consider unrealistic and unfair. As a young Odysseus Sideros had complained to his father Demetrios III during the Thessaloniki campaign, the officers felt that they had to be ‘Andreas Niketas reborn or they were nothing’. Many turned bitter and demoralized, turning to drinks and drugs as morale cracked.

This is a problem that eventually solves itself. The Roman press, while sometimes critical of military performance, is later never as vitriolic in its abuse and more realistic in its expectations. Those embittered gradually die off and are replaced by those who have no memories of such things. The dark clouds in the Roman sky of the mid-seventeenth century gradually clear, with the eighteenth century being substantially sunnier. Even by 1661, there are signs that this issue in the Roman army is improving from 15 years earlier. While the case of Domestikos Doukas is the most prominent, much of it is caused by personal medical issues, rather than an institutional problem. That said, it is still an issue at this point.

Doukas has another form of support in the presence of several relations in the army under his command. At various points in the ranks, there are two cousins of his, a brother-in-law, a pair of nephews, and his two sons. While accusations of nepotism have some merits, such family clusters are by no means unusual, although the extent of this one is abnormal.

The Ottomans have been preparing for the Roman arrival. Not only have they scorched northern Mesopotamia, they have significantly rearranged central Mesopotamia, building a massive series of earthworks and trenches. The unofficial motto of the Ottoman Army Corps of Engineers is ‘to dig is to live’, and that is amply displayed here. The Ottoman army has historically demonstrated much skill in field fortification work (along with mining and counter-mining in siege warfare) but their activities here are, like the scorched earth to the north, on a new scale.

The scale of the Ottoman earthworks and trenches, which Roman engineers describe as ‘a kastron of earth’, end up giving the name to the upcoming battle, the Battle of the Line. While certain villages end up functioning as strongpoints, the line itself is the dominant feature that shapes the course of events. Further protecting the line are a series of forward redoubts garrisoned by Ottoman troops. Positioned to pour enfilading fire into columns attacking the line itself, they are a respectable barrier in and of themselves.

Photograph of a latter historical reconstruction of part of The Line. The original Ottoman construction was likely the most developed, outside of China, field fortification network prior to the advent of industrial warfare.
(File:Confederate Trenches. Fascine Trench Breastworks, Petersburg, Va. - NARA - 524792.jpg - Wikimedia Commons)​

Domestikos Doukas would very much prefer not to charge Ottoman earthworks in a frontal work. That often ends badly and is guaranteed to be bloody; he knows this from personal experience going back to battles in Syria during the Great Latin War. Outflanking it sounds much better.

One Ottoman flank is anchored on the Tigris and Doukas is unwilling to risk splitting his army across major rivers. As part of their scorched earth tactics, the Ottomans have destroyed all bridges and taken away or burned all boats north of their line, but all that infrastructure to the south is still intact. That means Iskandar can transfer forces across the Tigris much faster than Doukas can, making any east-of-Tigris force very vulnerable. Plus said force would then have to attack across the Tigris to threaten the Ottoman, an opposed amphibious landing, a rather risky venture to say the least.

But on the other side there is a gap between the Ottoman earthworks and the Euphrates River. The Shah could have extended his line more but that would risk making each individual section too lightly garrisoned. Doukas decides to make his move there, noisily demonstrating against the Ottoman line while a heavy column works around their flank.

Almost immediately the plan runs into snags. There is no river blocking the way, but a series of ditches and canals are almost as bad. And Iskandar is well aware of the desirability of flanking his line and the obvious place to do it. The infrastructure for crossing the obstructions here are also destroyed, forcing the Roman column to engage in admittedly small-scale but frequent bridging operations, slowing their advance. Another element slowing their progress are constant harassments from the Ottoman garrison in the town of Fallujah. These cause little material damage, but every moment the Roman infantry are formed into squares to repel these raids is a moment in which they are not moving forward, and every moment, either moving or stationary, consumes limited supplies of food, drink, and fodder.

Iskandar is well informed of the flanking force’s movement and strength. Rather than countering it directly, he launches his own attack against the depleted main Roman force. His goal is to break through into their rear and cut them off from northern Mesopotamia, potentially bagging a much bigger version of last year’s prize.

It thus turns into a race, between the Ottomans trying to punch through the Roman main force before the Roman flankers succeed in their task. But the race is staked more toward the Ottomans. The approaches to the Ottoman main line had deliberately been made easier, in contrast to the surrounding landscape, in order to encourage a frontal attack. (Doukas had recognized the lure for what it was.) But that also makes it easier for the Ottomans to make their own forward lunge. Furthermore, the Romans are advancing against Ottoman field fortification that have had weeks of preparation, while the Ottomans are advancing against Roman field fortifications that have days.

The fighting is fierce, with the Ottomans having a near 2-to-1 advantage at point of contact. The Roman line does not break but it is forced backward to avoid a puncture, with Doukas’s brother-in-law being killed in the process of leading part of this maneuver. Meanwhile the Roman flankers aren’t stalled, but their progress is painfully slow considering the circumstances. With the battle is full swing, the Shah is bringing up reserves from Baghdad. These are mostly fresh Mesopotamian levies, only partially trained and lightly equipped (captured Roman kit from last year helps a lot in this regard), but defending earthen field works against attackers fording canals minimizes their disadvantages.

Doukas simply doesn’t have enough troops to simultaneously field a strong-enough flanking force and a main force that can stand up to a full-strength Ottoman assault. (The tourmai lost in central Mesopotamia last year would be really handy for plugging that gap right now.) Unwilling to gamble like Keraunos, Doukas elects to withdraw the flanking column and reconsolidate his army into one mass. The flankers are able to disengage relatively easily, while the Shah decides it is too risky to continue to try and force his closing window. He withdraws back to the line. Thus the end result of the fighting and death is nil; both sides are back where they started.

Iskandar is sending out peace feelers, which at this stage are fairly mild. In his terms, the only political change would be that Mesopotamia becomes just an Ottoman vassal, rather than a joint one. That plus financial reparations, albeit very heavy ones to compensate for all the damage done to northern and central Mesopotamia, are all he demands.

But what he demands is effectively irrelevant. Domestikos Doukas is a soldier. He came out here to make war, not peace. He forwards the Shah’s peace offers to Constantinople but otherwise ignores him. It is the responsibility of others to determine what is and is not an acceptable peace. It is the responsibility of Domestikos Doukas to do his utmost to smash the enemy until such time as he is told otherwise. (When Iskandar’s offers reach Constantinople, Athena urges Doukas to accept the terms. That will free up Doukas to join with Pirokolos and together overthrow the Tourmarches, at which point Athena will confirm the terms with the Shah. But these urgings arrive too late.)

There is an irony that Doukas is waiting for orders to make peace from a government he intends to betray as soon as said peace arrives, but by his logic the foreign war overrides everything else. As long as it is in play, business is as usual and the normal rules are in effect. Only once that is cleared will the rules change.

Doukas has abandoned the flanking effort, finding it too dangerous to split his forces, but he has not given up yet. While his logistics are shaky, for now he can still maintain his army here, so he is unwilling to withdraw. And while the Ottoman fortifications are formidable, the Domestikos has also done much to compensate for his lack of numbers with firepower instead. His army may be little more than half of the Roman host that mustered on the plain of Nineveh, but in weight-of-cannon-shot, the army of Doukas has nearly a 75% lead.

Forward it is, damnit. Forward it is.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 9.0-Fish, an Egg, and a Revolution:​

While Romans and Persians massacre each other, again, in the sands of Mesopotamia, the volcanoes begin going off to the west. Although the period is called the Little Ice Age, that terminology describes general climatic trends. In local terms the reality translates to more extreme weather [1] and the summer of 1661 throughout the Mediterranean basin is hot and bone dry. Harvests are expected to be bad and reserves are already depleted.

On July 16, the civic government of Naples orders the bakers of the city to decrease the size of the standard loaf of bread by 25%, although the cost stays the same. This transparent effort to hide an increase in the price of bread fools no one and an angry bread riot breaks out the next day. The situation gets rough, shots are fired, and three people are killed and twenty-one injured, including three children.

The mood in the overcrowded tenements of the city is ugly. Still, the next morning, July 18, begins as normal, with the people of Naples out in throngs on the streets. In the fish market, a prosperous fishmonger named Masaniello begins haranguing the crowds, his fiery rhetoric quickly gathering audience from the shoppers. There is clearly some stage-management at work because once the crowd is gathered, a six-year-old girl is produced. She would’ve been a beautiful child, and was one yesterday, before she was mutilated by slashing cavalry sabers in the bread riot.

The crowd erupts, and with the kindling from the events of the last two days, the fire spreads rapidly. The riot is much bigger, its sheer size paralyzing the authorities who are afraid of the backlash if they resort to force again. It is also much more sustained, with disturbances continuing to grip the city over the next several days, bringing city life to a standstill. Crowds surround important sites of authority, such as the town hall, the Castel dell’Ovo, and the customs house in the port, loudly demanding reforms, although they do not attack. That might not hold though, since the ranks of the city folk are being swelled by outsiders from the countryside.

On July 23 the civil authorities cave in and agree to several demands from Masaniello. The size of bread is restored to its normal status and the government pledges to maintain granaries at a certain level at its own expense, to ensure that there will be no more price hikes, whether covert or overt. Several other taxes on foodstuffs, such as a particularly despised one on fruit, are also abolished. Various officials are dismissed with Masaniello deciding their replacements, while the officer responsible for firing on the crowd on July 17 is to be handed over for punishment. This last clause does not happen as he goes into hiding.

The replacement of certain officials is a key provision, showing that there is more to this uprising than just anger over some taxes. Civic institutions in Naples are overwhelmingly dominated by the upper class and this change of office-holders resulted in several commoners getting positions. Also, laws are passed that civic assemblies and offices are to be evenly split between nobility and commoners. Masaniello is also appointed as ‘Captain-General and Defender of the People’ with authority to equip and command a civic guard. This is to ensure that the reforms are maintained and enforced.

It is possible things might have calmed down after these concessions, with much noise but little violence, had the civic authorities of Naples been negotiating in good faith. But they are not. That is why they’re willing to make such concessions; they view them as a temporary expedient to buy time. Frantic appeals have been sent to Messina, pleading for the dispatch of an expedition to give them overwhelmingly military superiority, at which point they will crush Masaniello and his adherents. The Despotate government agrees with the plan and begins mustering the material for the expedition.

Of course, news like this cannot be kept secret. To prevent themselves from being torn to pieces by an outraged mob, the old civic authorities and the garrison forces opposed to Masaniello and his adherents retreat to the Castel dell’Ovo, the Castel Nuovo, and the port customs house. The latter is not a castle, but is stoutly built and able to resist an attack, provided said attacker only has small arms.

This is a good tactic for staying alive, but it also has the effect of delivering the city of Naples almost entirely into the hands of the insurgents, who are once again in full rebellion. After the promised reforms, they’d been willing to work with the authorities, but their treachery pushes the Neapolitan masses back into insurrection, and this time their demands are more extreme. Now many argue for declaring the secession of Naples from the Despotate, proclaiming a Catholic republic under the sovereignty of the Pope. This happens to be the first time that the matter of religion actually enters into the debate.

But in the current situation, such dreams would likely not be translated into reality. With the old guard in control of those three key points, Naples has no seaside defense, making it extremely vulnerable to the naval expedition mustering in Messina. Masaniello has his new civic guard blockade the strong points, but they are hopelessly ill-equipped and experienced to conduct a proper siege. An effort to build a catapult (because they have no cannons) ends disastrously (or hilariously, depending on one’s perspective) when the machine smashes itself to pieces when used for the first time. It is unlikely they’ll be given enough time to improve their game.

Thus far, it has overwhelmingly just been the city of Naples that has risen. Now the countryside of Campania enters the list. On July 29, the Duke of Maddaloni, Simone Galamini, enters the city with a private army. Said army is rather small but it is well-equipped and experienced, with a heavy seasoning of veterans from the War of the Roman Succession.

Galamini’s motivations for getting involved are complex and varied. He has no interest in the taxes that were the ultimate spark; he is too wealthy to be concerned about such details. He certainly has no sympathy for the reform measures that restrict noble membership in the civic institutions of Naples, and he views the majority of the Neapolitans as rabble and Masaniello himself as a demagogue, admittedly a very persuasive one.

During the War of the Roman Succession, the Duke served with distinction, his cavalry troop capturing two Lombard batteries in one engagement. In another his right hand was badly mangled and he has never managed to regain full use of it. But he feels ill-rewarded for his pains and resents it. He had expected to be granted the title and associated estates of Prince of Squillace but those had gone to another candidate.

That candidate had served in the war as well, but his military exploits were less impressive than Maddaloni’s. However, he was Orthodox, while Maddaloni was a devout Catholic, from a family with a long history of faithful Catholicism and a willingness to show it in public bequests. The Duke credits his loss to religious discrimination, which is unproven but a reasonable suspicion. Orthodox and Catholics are supposed to not be favored or disfavored vis-à-vis each other for offices, but the spirit of religious egalitarianism that prevailed at the end of the Time of Troubles, after the common struggle against rapacious Lombard domination, has faded. The Despotic court is Orthodox, and while not openly discriminating against Catholics, does have a bias.

It is possible that Galamini is seeking revenge for his perceived slights, or deciding to cause enough of a mess to get compensation to make him back down. It is also possible that at this point his ambitions are already higher. If he can’t be Prince of Squillace, reviving the title ‘King of Naples’ would more than make up for it. This talk of a Republic would cramp that, especially if it continues this unpalatable trend of limiting the nobility in favor of commoners. But even so, ‘Lord Protector of Naples and Champion of the Pope’ does have a nice ring to it.

Masaniello, for his part, is also wary of Galamini. The fishmonger has condemned rapacious and cruel grandees and landlords, much to the delight of the urban masses of Naples who have suffered repeatedly at their hands. And Galamini is the greatest of Campania’s rural grandees. But right now, both also recognize that they need each other.

The key task is to gain complete control of Naples. Galamini brings his men up against the Castel dell’Ovo first. While he has some artillery and men with siege experience, his forces here are still limited, but he has his military reputation. The castle commandant is well aware of that reputation, having served with Galamini in Tuscany during the war, and the Duke is able to bluff the commandant that the Duke is far better armed than he really is. The castle surrenders.

Now the Duke turns to the customs house, which is an easier sell. The structure is proof against musketry, but not against even light artillery. The defenders surrender.

That leaves only the Castel Nuovo, where the old town leadership is ensconced. The initial demands for surrender are refused and Galamini replies with a bombardment, his guns reinforced by guns from the Castel dell’Ovo. The following artillery duel leaves much of the neighborhood as a wreck, lasting for a week.

After that week, the occupants of the castle are getting nervous. There is no sign of the expedition and no indication of when it will arrive. Unbeknownst to them, the expedition put out from Messina but storms drove it in the direction of Sardinia. The fleet regrouped in Palermo but contrary winds have stalled its progress towards Naples.

The castle occupants send envoys to Galamini and offer to surrender if no relief arrives within another week. The Duke isn’t enamored of the offer. He is worried that the expedition will arrive within that window, in which case the Sicilians will have a lodgment in Naples. He has damaged the castle enough that a storming might succeed, but he doesn’t trust the rabble of Naples to have the stomach for such brutal work. He would have to use his own men, who would likely take heavy losses, weakening the Duke’s position. Furthermore, he’d like to not wreck the Castel Nuovo any more than he already has; he needs it for the coastal defense of Naples.

Galamini agrees to the terms, and it turns out he need not have worried about the fleet spoiling things. On the deadline of August 16, there is still no sign of it. The Castel is surrendered as promised, the occupants being taken into custody by Galamini. This is a tremendous victory for the Neapolitans, but also a source of strife. Many of Masaniello’s followers want to make an example of the occupants but Galamini has given his word to protect them. Angry and loud words are exchanged, but fortunately for everyone involved, nothing more at this point.

On August 24, the Sicilian fleet finally arrives. It is in poor shape. The expedition had not been heavily supplied originally, due to the desire to expedite the launch, and the long delays have eaten up most of the victuals. (The enforced layover in Palermo did not allow for much replenishment, as the city’s own stores were low.) Confinement on board crowded troop ships has led to disease outbreaks on several vessels as well.

Furthermore, the officers of the fleet had expected to find the port of Naples to still be open to them, as they had expected the Neapolitans to be unable to force the castles. The addition of Galamini to the rebel cause and the loss of the port demoralizes them. Thus, the attack on Naples is pressed only half-heartedly, with the battered and only partly-repaired seaside defenses of Naples beating them off after a few hours, although the fleet takes little material damage.

The Sicilian fleet retires, regrouping around some of the islands in the Bay of Naples, which are still under Despotic control, imposing a loose blockade. Meanwhile Naples runs wild in celebration, with the animosity of Masaniello’s and Galamini’s factions temporarily occulted by the glow of victory. And the news of these events spreads.

[1] OTL.

 

[Basileus444]

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 9.1-Gathering the Kindling:​

As blood soaks into the soil of Mesopotamia and the streets of Naples ring with angry cries, long-simmering and long-suffering Isauria finally boils over. In retrospect, the surprise is not that some kind of explosion happened, but that it took so long to detonate.

The Kephale of Isauria is Kalos Papadopoulos, a tall well-built man who at 61 years old has an appearance that in modern times would be described as ‘silver fox’. He is a textbook example that appearance does not positively correlate with personality. He is very corrupt, using his position to garner personal gain for himself. With his legal knowledge, he is very adept at tricking would-be partners into complicated arrangements that always end up with him holding everything at the end of the day.

The most disturbing example of his desire for gain at the expense of all else involves his niece. Her parents had died and he had been appointed to manage her inheritance until she came of age. When that happened, she sued him for mismanagement and misappropriating assets that rightfully belong to her. A week later a gang of men broke into her home and beat her half to death. The lawsuit coincidentally was then withdrawn, while Kalos ended up, as usually, metaphorically walking away with his niece’s inheritance.

Kalos has been smart with his corruption though. From Constantinople’s point-of-view, he has been a good civil servant. The tax receipts always arrive on time and at required levels, and his paperwork is always in order. He could probably get any provincial posting he wanted, but he has always gone for more isolated districts in central and eastern Anatolia. The pickings there are smaller than in more prosperous districts, but the odds of getting into trouble with higher authority are also smaller. A Prokathemenos in Attica in 1654 who tried to pull a similar maneuver with a cousin’s inheritance ended up getting decapitated by a Long Knife for his trouble.

Isauria is a step up in significance from Kalos’s earlier postings, and his age seems to be amplifying his greed and eroding his carefulness. One common tactic is demanding provisions for his tax officials as they make their inspections, which is standard practice, but in excessive amounts above regulation. He then takes those extra provisions and sells them on the market. This is behavior that hardly helps near-famine conditions.

In the autumn of 1660, a delegation of local notables present a gift to the Kephale at his office in Laranda, the capital of the Kephalate. (Most of the locals call the town Karaman, proof of the significant Karamanid influence in the area.) It is a pizza but with pineapple slices on it. The Roman culinary tradition that only meat goes on pizza has already been established, but this famous example is what really pushes the image that to put non-meat on pizza is an accusation of false dealing. Pineapple was chosen because it was exotic and expensive, a way of accusing Kalos of being extortionate and extravagant.

The gesture is a way of accusing Kalos of crimes, but since it is not a verbal or written accusation covered by law, the Kephale is unable to bring charges of libel or slander. Given his skill at manipulating the law and courts to his own advantage, this tactic was well-planned by the local notables. Kalos seems to have ignored the petition. Anything more serious will have to be done through formal channels, and he is confident he can continue to play the system. There is no record of whether or not he ate the pizza, but one hopes his depravity has some limits.

From a distance of nearly four centuries, such a gesture seems quixotic and primarily just seems to be the historical origin of a quirky Roman culinary and cultural custom that exists to this day. But at the time it was a serious gesture of discontent, a warning that things could get worse if things do not change.

The next prominent gesture is much less amusing to the modern reader. In May 1661, as the Roman army is pressing into northern Mesopotamia, a family of five hangs themselves from the trees in the front yard of the Kephale’s townhouse. It is the ultimate gesture of despair and destitution, and the ultimate reproach to the magistrate’s failure and injustice. It is an action that a Chinese audience would immediately understand, although it is unlikely there is a direct connection. More probably, despair and a desire to shame the Kephale overrode the Orthodox Christian prohibition against suicide. (Kalos had been personally involved in dispossessing the family, via exploitation of debts.)

According to rumor, Kalos’s reaction to the ghastly sight was simply to comment that Isauria produces strange fruit on its trees.

To the south of Laranda, in the villages that border the highlands where the Grand Karaman hold sway, Konon of Galesion has begun preaching. It is his first long-term foray outside the lands of the Grand Karaman, save for a visit to Ikonion, since arriving in Isauria from the Holy Mountain of Galesion. To the angry and burned-out peasants, his message of a better world, of a world made right, is electrifying.

His listeners are overwhelmingly village peasants. They are used to hard lives, with existences constantly shaken by bouts of ill fortune and pain that come seemingly out of nowhere: a bad harvest; a sudden illness that takes away the life of a key breadwinner; an accident that maims a child. Taxes and special requisitions also fall into these categories. But these sufferings are at least familiar. That does not mean they do not hurt, but it makes them easier to accept.

Yet the world is changing, and for many, the change is not for the best. In the past century, the Roman economy has become substantially more monetized and commercialized. (The shift in paying the army all in cash, rather than in a mix of land grants and cash, played a major role.) These effects have also been much more widespread, percolating into regions that had been little affected by such economic trends in earlier centuries.

Before, peasants were used to operating on a basis of self-sufficiency, with perhaps a little surplus used to build up favors with neighbors or to buy a few little luxuries or otherwise-unavailable essentials from a small-scale peddler after paying the taxes. Now, to generate the needed cash to pay taxes and to operate in the more monetized economy, they need to produce more for the market. This tends to take away time and resources from self-sufficiency agriculture, for example by growing cash crops instead of grain, which means they have to engage with the market economy even more to ensure access to all the materials they need.

This exposes them to market fluctuations, which to most peasants seem to come out of nowhere for no reason and to be completely arbitrary. Economic downturns hurl them into the clutches of predatory moneylenders. By law, rates of interest on loans are regulated and capped, but such rules are hard to enforce on individual or small-scale loan sharks operating out in the rural countryside far from centers of civic authority. Circuit judges offer some possibility of legal relief, unless said officials are corrupt and paid off by moneylenders, in which case popular discontent naturally increases.

Economic loss leads to land loss, and the tendency has been, especially in the last few decades, for land to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands. Peasants are forced to become tenants on lands they used to own, or thrown off entirely to make way for other enterprises, such as sheep ranges. This is an utter humiliation, bitterly resented particularly as sometimes the loss of ownership of one’s land is linked with a supposed loss of manhood.

This is not the first time the land issue has come up during Rhomania’s medieval history. Concern about smallholding peasants being gobbled up by large landed estates recurs frequently in much of Constantinople’s legislation during the central Middle Ages. But there are also some major differences.

In previous centuries, those taking up the land of the peasantry had been rural magnates. These are still present, but any new large landowners come from other backgrounds, such as urban merchants or perhaps even the predatory moneylenders who had driven the harsh debt cycle. Furthermore, the rural magnates of yesteryear did tend to keep the peasants on as tenants; they needed the agricultural labor.

But many of the landowners of this year are looking to produce profit and minimize labor costs. Rather than skimming rent off the top and leaving the preexisting system in place, they reshape by consolidating estates, focusing on cash crop production, and increasing the land dedicated to pasturage. This means many peasants are not needed as laborers and so are turfed out completely. It is this process which has swelled Rhomania’s urban populations over the last decades.

In the Middle Ages, the Roman government had depended heavily on smallholding peasant agriculture for taxes and army recruits, while officers had come from the dynatoi. This had made the loss of these smallholdings into large rural magnate landholdings, better able to resist tax demands, a serious problem. Given their near-monopoly of high military command experience, such magnates with private armies, could be a serious danger, as a young Basil II could attest.

Now the Roman government has access to other forms of taxes (including more stringent enforcement on the greater landowners) and is not dependent on the dynatoi for its officer class (a major reason why it is able to enforce those taxes on the dynatoi). Thus, this process is not a threat to its manpower or tax base. In some ways it is an improvement, as consolidated estates producing for the market are more efficient and better at producing an exploitable surplus than peasant subsistence agriculture. This means the government hasn’t been nearly as interested in curbing this trend as would have been the case seven centuries earlier.

The peasants of Isauria certainly have no interest in offering up their livelihoods and possibly their lives on the altar of ‘progress’. (Destitution often means death, from starvation. Emigration to the cities offers a possible escape, but given the disease reservoirs to which rural folk have limited immunity, that choice often results in death.) Konon of Galesion offers them a different world.

In late July, Kalos Papadopoulos gets a missive from Constantinople asking him directly what he is doing about Konon. The Kephale is aware of the monk’s preaching, but considers him little more than another annoying rabble rouser. He is unaware of Konon’s connection with the Grand Karaman, but the White Palace, which is, is less sanguine.

Kalos is a bit stung, and also alarmed, by the missive. He is not used to this amount of direct attention from Constantinople and would very much not like for this trend to continue. Well, if Constantinople wants this Konon business resolved quickly, so be it. On July 29, the same day that Duke Maddaloni enters Naples, he leaves Laranda with a column of troops, determined to silence the meddlesome monk.

 

[Basileus444]

Events in sicily make me wonder how Dalmatia is doing. Do you plan for it to survive into the 21st century independent or otherwise? How stable/powerful is the state? What's the religious makeup like? Are they Latin/Dalmatian speakers or slavic? (apparently some old dalmatian speakers were the last people who could realistically still call their language latin)

I don't know what my future plans for Dalmatia are. It's currently a vassal state of Rhomania ruled by a cadet branch of the Sideroi married into a cadet branch of the Drakoi, weak but stable and decently prosperous, at least in the major port towns. It's overwhelmingly Catholic, with a small Orthodox minority (max 5%) and also overwhelmingly Slavic speaking. There are a few Dalmatian speakers still around, but my understanding is that Dalmatian, after the Middle Ages, dwindled pretty substantially.

Rhomania’s General Crisis, part 9.2-One God, One People, One Emperor:​

Konon’s harangues hurl abuse on the capitalists afflicting peasant society. Possibly the most famous quote is the following: “They say, ‘let us go and sell their mother for three hyperpyra, their youngest child for a bag of silver! For why have compassion when one can have money instead?’” While Kalos Papadopulos is the worst actor, he is far from the only one whose concern for profit is unaccompanied by any apparent concern for human welfare and dignity.

Like most peasant movements, in their desire for change, Konon and his audience look to the past, to an imagined golden age of justice and prosperity, in this case the reign of the Good Emperor. Like most nostalgia, their historical accuracy is questionable, with Konon’s vision of how to restore that age bearing little resemblance to the late 1400s. Konon’s vision is summed in the famous phrase “One God, One People, One Emperor”.

One God: Konon wants a return to what he views as a simpler and more genuine faith. And that faith should be directed to only one God, the true God, not in worship to money, as he argues is the case in his current day. Many churches and monasteries are heavily involved in capitalist endeavors, raising produce for market, not subsistence. Several are quite successful, with the funds not going to charitable endeavors but rather to high living. Some monasteries in particular are known to be harsh landlords, squeezing tenantry for every bit of rent and labor to fund monastic lifestyles that are hardly ascetic.

One People: Konon thinks the Roman people should be united, but to truly achieve that, they need to be equal, equality here being focused on access to the land, the burning issue in peasant society. Once that inequality is addressed, all other inequalities will even out on their own. If law courts favor rich over poor, but there are no rich or poor, that is not an issue anymore. The solution here is simple, an equal division of the available land among the present people. If there are 100 modioi of land and 10 people, then each person gets 10 modioi.

It does get more complicated than that since issues of land quality and type would need to be taken into consideration and there would have to be periodic redistributions to account for changes in population and family sizes. [1] It must also be emphasized that this equality is strictly for what would be labeled, in later times, as the means of production, such as land, tools, seed, and animals. Personal property, including residences, would not be split. And despite some claims, repeatedly made against any communal movement whether or not it is justified, Konon certainly did not advocate for communal sharing of women. The traditional image of marriage and family was what he supported.

It must also be noted that these were not to be communal farms. In that hypothetical, each person owned their 10 modioi outright; they just couldn’t own more than their neighbors. And the produce would also be their own; it was not pooled communally. Everyone was to get equal access to the means of production, but what they did afterwards with them was up to them.

This could eventually lead to economic inequality again as some prospered and some didn’t, but the redistributions would prevent these inequalities from becoming too big or lasting too long. While one could argue that this would discourage innovation and improvement, that misses the point. Konon’s focus was on his vision of social equality, stability, and justice. Economic development was not his concern.

One Emperor: There is one clear exception to the idea of everyone being equal. After all, in the era of the Good Emperor, there was an Emperor placed above everyone else. Konon believes there still needs to be such an individual, to keep order, ensure justice, and to defend the realm. That was what the Good Emperor had done, and still needs to be done.

But there should be only one Emperor. There should be none of these little emperors, as Konon calls them, these landlords and moneylenders, these “paltry bosses whose vanity drives them to lash those below them, not even for the sake of their own gain, but to make their small authority seem great”. One Lord above all, secure in his power and authority, should be exempt from such whims.

This leads to the obvious question of who the Good Emperor should be. And Konon does not think this should be decided by blood. Heredity does not confer virtue or wisdom. The heir of the Good Emperor should be one who follows him mentally, spiritually, morally. That heir is certainly not the feckless idiot currently occupying the throne in Constantinople. The real heir, the true heir of Andreas Niketas, is Andreas Karamanlis.

Konon’s ideal bears some similarities to that of the Ravens, as it is a program for peasants and by peasants. Its focus, its ideal, is modeled on that of the free peasant village, based on a subsistence economy with minimal interaction with the market and its inequalities and fluctuations. The vagaries of the weather and climate are enough.

It also has a similarity with the contemporary rising in Naples, in that there are two elements. There is a social element, popularly-based, focused on making significant changes to the existing society. In Naples, this is centered on Masaniello, and in Anatolia on Konon. But there is also an element that while open to change, is focused more on political changes on the top and doesn’t seek radical social reorganization. This is because this element is drawn typically from disaffected but more affluent parts of society. The status quo has done some good for them, so they are less hostile to it. In Naples, this is represented by Galamini, in Anatolia by Andreas Karamanlis.

That leads into a key difference between the two near-simultaneous rebellions. In Naples these two elements are antagonistic, cooperating when faced with reaction from the center thus far, but working relations are poor. Masaniello and Galamini had likely never met each other before the rising in Naples and the charismatic fishmonger and scarred veteran magnate did not like each other or what they represented.

Andreas Karamanlis does not seem like the type of individual who would support Konon’s program. In title and wealth, he is near the top of the dynatoi, although this is somewhat hidden since the Grand Karamans are rarely present in Constantinople. His lineage is based on heredity. His position is thus completely antithetical to a vision of egalitarian peasants with leadership determined by virtue. But he has a close personal relationship with Konon and seems to have come under the sway of his charisma and that makes all the difference. (A more cynical analysis would also note that Konon from the beginning fervently supported Andreas being the One Emperor, a stark contrast to Masaniello’s resistance to Galamini becoming King of Naples.)

Konon’s proselytizing has to come to a halt as word quickly arrives of Kalos’s approach. The Kephale likes to travel with a great deal of pomp and ceremony, to make clear his importance and to intimidate would-be rebels. He also is not into living a spartan lifestyle; one disgusted Anatolikon officer reports ‘his baggage was more than that of a French general’. This means he moves slowly, which is problematic if one’s goal is to run somebody down. Konon, kept well-informed by the local peasantry, easily evades these clumsy efforts to seize him. He moves south toward the heartland of Karamanid power, but remaining close enough to tempt Kalos onward.

The Kephale finds the whole experience frustrating. The countryside he marches through seems quiescent, reinforcing his belief that this Konon figure is really not that much of an issue. But Constantinople, for some reason, disagrees, which means he needs to resolve this. However, now he has failed to do so with Konon slipping from the Kephalate into the Karamanid domain.

His officers recommend that they stop. The force here is a small scratch force, not well prepared or supplied for mountain fighting. But Kalos disagrees. He has dealt with mountain lords and nomad chiefs throughout his career, with a policy of bullying and intimidation that has worked well for him. The force mustered here would be quite sufficient to coerce those he has encountered over the years.

The obvious counter is that the Grand Karaman is far greater than the average mountain lord. The Karamanids had been the most powerful force in Turkish Anatolia after the breakup of the Sultanate of Rum and could well have stalled the Laskarid reconquest. After allying with the Romans, the Karamanids had provided key forces for campaigns in eastern Anatolia and into Syria. Compared to this, petty Albanian or Kurdish clan chiefs were of little account.

Kalos knows this history, but is convinced that what has worked well for him in the past will continue to do so now. Besides, considering the war in Mesopotamia, gathering the number of forces his subordinates are demanding would be nearly, if not actually, impossible. Trying to do so would certainly draw the attention, and likely the ire, of Constantinople, which Kalos does not want.

He will not cower in fear, or bargain with this crazy old monk and this jumped-up chief of goatherders. The butt of a musket or the back of his hand is what they need. The world doesn’t belong to the likes of them. The world belongs to men like Kalos Papadopoulos.

[1] Many OTL Russian peasant villages had similar periodic land redistributions.