[Mettermrck]

By 493, the military situation in Western Europe had begun to stabilize, Remus Macrinus having pulled off the almost impossible feat of retrieving imperial fortunes in the West. Many of the Empire’s major rivals in the region were chastised and pulled roughly into subservient relationships. For the first time in decades, Roman manpower matched, and in some cases, exceeded its foes and the state now boasted a quality army with high morale. Competent commanders, dedicated leadership, and an imperial government welded to this framework, all allowed a breathing space for the slow revitalization of the Empire that was so desperately needed.

The Empire itself remained at its core a linked territory from the Italian heart to the surviving province in Gaul, bound together by newly won territory seized from the Burgundians. From these two power centers in Rome and Soissons, influence could now be projected east and west. Though ties between the two were tenuous and thin, this structure was buttressed by client relationships over the Burgundians and Franks, the direct result of military victory. Each tribe retained its autonomy in exchange for providing materials and services such as allied troops in battle, the payments of regular tribute, or the cession of strategic territories. In the case of the Burgundians, King Gundobad ceded the headwaters of the Rhenus and the Alpine provinces he had taken from Odoacer. In addition, he agreed to provide a thousand infantry in battle or an equivalent measure in gold talents. His intractability and delays were leading also to the question of Provence and the port at Massilia, which was becoming the subject of an increasingly bitter dispute between client and sovereign. For the Franks, their territorial losses were far less painful, King Clovis’ compliance being coerced through the taking of hostages, a traditional practice between the Empire and its barbarian neighbors. Although the Franks likewise agreed to provide military aid, in this case cavalry, they managed to retain a greater independence by virtue of geography, letting barren borderlands go while retaining a firm grip on the lower Rhenus. Without the support of both tribes, Roman Gaul would be extremely vulnerable. With this support, the Empire could deal with its remaining enemies from a position of strength.

Remus Macrinus

Aside from his position as conquering general, Remus Macrinus took pains to legitimize his position upon entering Rome. Though he boasted the complete support of the army and the political confirmation of the Senate, he was careful to treat cautiously with his counterpart in the East, respecting Anastasius’ traditional role as senior without ceding any of his own powers. Although Macrinus took up his role as Imperator, he also brought the dignity of Patrician back to his own person, eliminating the shadow role many power brokers had held over the last century. Now the Imperator and Patrician were combined into a single role, marking his intention to wield power in his own right. There was to be no Flavius Stilicho. He also took care to reward his closest followers by giving them top civil and military positions. Claudius Bos was tapped as his Magister Militum, while the Comes Viator, a key ally in the brief civil war, was confirmed in his province as the Dux Dalmatica, the military governor of that territory. Prominent Senators were bound to him through top roles in the city’s government. In the Empire as a whole, Macrinus did his best to overlap civil and military powers to avoid any one subordinate having too much power. While provincial government would remain concentrated in the hands of Prefects (i.e. the Prefects of Gaul and Italia), military posts would be further subdivided such that each province would frequently include two to three military territories led by a Dux (i.e. Dux Gallias and Dux Lugdunensis in Gaul and Dux Italia and Dux Sicilia in Italia).

Diplomatically, the Empire had the initiative for the first time in decades and few expected a long peace. Macrinus had rescued the Empire through sustained warfare and there were hardly any in Rome who doubted he would pursue continued glory and achievement through force of arms. All that remained was the target. Most in the upper circles of Rome were looking to the south, where the Vandals still smarted from their ignominious expulsion from Sicily.

A sign of this imperial thinking was the creation by Macrinus of the Magister Navalis position, an overall commander of the Roman fleets, who was tapped to lead the two main fleets, the Classis praetoria Ravennatium at Ravenna, to patrol the Hadriatic, and the Classis praetoria Misenatium, handling the Mare Tyrrhenum to the west. Each fleet, with a projected deployment of one hundred liburnian latinae, would shoulder the bulk of Italia’s naval defense. A third reserve fleet, the Classis praetorian Tarentum, was also contemplated. A Trierarchus, a senior naval commander, would be responsible for each fleet and its assigned sector.

In lieu of a suitable candidate, the Imperator handed the naval assignment to his trusted friend Selenus Sicilicus, whose improvisation at the siege of Syracuse and the Lilybaeum campaign had made him one of the foremost naval minds in the Empire. Though the fleet’s current strength was far short of the projected three hundred vessels, even more than three hundred would be needed if a successful attack on Africa could be mounted. Naval construction was proceeding at a brisk pace, yet was woefully insufficient. To make up this shortfall, backing from Constantinople was needed, reviving the similar plan mounted in 468. The East was also ahead in naval development, being on the verge of great leaps in design and architecture, exceeding the gradual evolution taking place in the West.

Anastasius

To a lesser degree, the Eastern Empire mirrored its western sibling in that it had a new emperor, Anastasius who had survived a period of civil strife to take power in 491. He began by immediately exiling his predecessor’s brother Longinus of Cardala and expelled all of his Isaurian supporters from office. This touched off the latest in a series of Isaurian revolts in Asia Minor. Anastasius broke the rebellion’s back at Cotyaeum in 491 yet mountain warfare persisted in that region. The frontier with Sassanid Persia remained tense yet quiet, and renewed warfare was likely to break out. While finishing up the rebels in Asia Minor, Anastasius soon found his attention riveted to the Balkans, where a major incursion by the Bulgars threatened the stability of the northern borders.

The Bulgars were compromised of Hunnic remnants dwelling near the Danuvius as well as the Kotrigurs and Utigurs to the east. They were often used as manpower in Roman armies in the East, yet towards the end of the 5th century, friction with the neighboring Avars produced a movement to the west and south, causing conflict with Constantinople.

Anastasius did his best to act decisively. He began strengthening the defenses stretching from the Propontis to the Pontus Euxinus, constructing a linear system of walls and towers to protect Constantinople against invasion from the west. A bigger problem was the Ostrogoths, who continued to hold sway over vast tracts of Moesia and the Danuvian frontier after their failed invasion of Italia. Smarting at the lack of support from Constantinople during this campaign, Theodoric was proving very uncooperative against the Bulgars, and tensions in the Balkans were high. There were fears of an alliance between the two tribes. With the Isaurian War to be finished off and the Persians to be watched, there was a dangerous lack of manpower to contend with the Bulgars and the defiant Ostrogoths. As the West needed ships, the East needed soldiers, forming a convenient basis for a comprehensive treaty.

A major sticking point for East-West relations, however, remained in the religious sphere, where the Acacian Schism lingered and neither Pope nor Patriarch would fully reconcile with the other. The newest Patriarch, Euphemius, had taken steps towards reunion by restoring the Pope’s name to the diptychs, inscribed plates on which bishops’ names were noted as those being “in communion” with the other. He reversed his predecessor’s decrees of condemnation against the Roman bishop, yet would not remove Acacius’ or Fravitta’s name from these same diptychs, which prevented reconciliation with either Felix or his successor Gelasius. His efforts also ran into Anastasius’ public support for the Henotikon a document which avoided any explicit mention of Christ’s natures as a means to maintain the loyalty of the Miaphysite provinces in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Persian threats made this loyalty that much more necessary. With such overreaching political concerns, and the growing support for the treaty in both capitals, neither Anastasius nor Remus Macrinus were willing to permit religious divisions to get in the way of a political settlement. While Euphemius was finding his loyalty to the state increasingly doubted by his detractors, Gelasius assumed power in his own See and began to find the imperial authorities increasingly obstructing his attempts to deepen the conflict with the East as well as his efforts to eliminate the last vestiges of paganism in Roman society.

It was against this backdrop of conflict and mutual need that Remus’ court at Rome began to take shape.