-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Chapter 15
The long rule of the Komnenoi Dynasty was an era of unmatched stability in the often-turbulent politics of the medieval Roman Empire. From its founder Isaac, through Alexios, Anna, and her son Ioannes, the dynasty provided a sure hand in dangerous times. It would not be until the family ruled for over a century that cracks in the system began to show their face. In the meantime, it is worth discusses life and society under the Komnenoi. The Roman Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries was certainly the most advanced and organized society in Europe, maintaining a complex economy and a standing military of over 60,000 soldiers while western and northern Europe wallowed in the squalor of the feudal Dark Ages. Most impressive of all was the Imperial capital, Constantinople. Easily the largest in Europe, the Queen of Cities was the beating heart of the Roman Empire, and had been ever since Constantine I transferred the capital away from Rome in 324. Home to over half a million people, Constantinople was still at its core an ancient Roman city, fed by aqueducts, and centered around the Great Palace, Forum, and the Hippodrome.
A depiction of how Constantinople looked in the 12th century, during the reign of Anna I Komnene.
Social Benefits
The Komnenoi were especially beloved among the populace of Constantinople for their generosity and attention to social matters. Alexios and Anna both viewed charity as not just important to fulfill the duties of a Christian Emperor, but also for the political benefits it provided. Especially in regards to managing the Church, making sure monasteries and other religious institutions spent a lot of their cash funding social care was one way to keep that money working for the betterment of the state.
The Pantocrator Monastery was one of many religious institutions that offered medical care to the Roman public.
In this vein, large monasteries often maintained hospitals, hospices, orphanages, and other charitable institutions. The State also maintained many, mostly due to the philanthropic efforts of Alexios and Anna. The State provided funding for hospitals and orphanages as well, and the latter usually housed, fed, and even educated wayward children. Many inns were also maintained on major roads by the local authorities in each Theme, especially after these provincial governments morphed from military regions to a mostly-civilian nature under the Komnenoi dynasty. Of specific note was the grand civilian hospital set up alongside a military one on the Golden Horn [1], supposedly with over 7,000 beds available.
For healthcare, the medieval Roman Empire was home to probably the first hospitals in Europe, although the specialty care available in them was certainly still focused on how 12th century people understood medical care. Despite operating over 800 years ago though, the Romans took great pride in in the medical care that was available, providing surgery, orthopedics, gynecology, and perhaps most importantly—hygiene. There are many sources describing the major hospitals in Constantinople with separate rooms and towels for patients, and even baths twice a week! Care was also taken to make sure that male and female patients could be cared for properly, with an entire staff of trained female doctors and nurses available. Supposedly there was even some type of machine with cleaned surgical instruments, indicating that the medieval Romans had quite ‘un-medieval’ approach towards medicine. Part of the reason that Anna was so dedicated towards funding these institutions was that she had in fact been educated as a doctor before she took the throne, working in the large Saint Sampson Hospital in her 20s.
One of the most peculiar stories of medieval Roman medicine was an attempt to surgically separate a pair of conjoined twins. Unfortunately, it did not succeed.
Other social services available from the 6th century onwards were houses for the poor, as being designated “poor” was actually an official legal status within the Empire. Special facilities known as ptocheia or prochotropheia were available for the less fortunate of society, but in order to make use of them you had to prove you were actually unable to work. You had to be disabled, incapacitated, or unable to work due to some reason beyond your control (homes for the blind were especially common)—they were not available for simple beggars. In fact, numerous sources talk about how the city government in Constantinople would often round up healthy beggars and offer them employment. If they refused, they would be kicked out of the city.
Education
While Isaac and Alexios were soldiers through and through, and paid little attention to the musings of philosophers and academics, Anna was cut from a far different cloth. While and Imperial princess would receive the best schooling available, she went above and beyond in taking this love of learning. While on the throne, she and her husband provided as much support to the philosophical community as they could (within the boundaries of orthodoxy, of course. There was no formal school system in the Empire, but many centers of higher learning existed, both attached to the Church and secular. The University of Constantinople was actually free to attend for anyone who could prove their intellectual capability, and Michael Psellos was only one example of a lower-class member of society rising through the social ranks due to their own capability. As much as was possible in a medieval monarchy, the Imperial bureaucracy was fairly meritocratic, and there were technically no legal or financial barriers for even the poorest peasant to achieve academic success. This trend only increased under Anna, who funneled piles of gold from the treasury into growing the Imperial library, as well as sponsoring all manner of academic and philosophical research. During her rule, an institution of Scholasticism [2] was embraced whole-heartedly among the intelligentsia.
The modern Imperial Library is now open to the public, and available for any Roman citizen to take advantage of at no cost.
Outside of sponsoring academia, both Anna and Nikephoros engaged in writing and philosophical thought themselves on a few cases. The Basileus is credited with some minor writings in military strategy, as well as a short history of the Empire covering Isaac I’s time on the throne. Meanwhile, Anna was the intellectual equal of any mind in the Empire, and studied and wrote on everything from philosophy, literature, grammar, theology, astronomy, and medicine. Inspired by the histories written by her husband, she began work on an epic history of her family, focusing on the triumphs of her beloved father, Alexios I. This history, which would be completed in her years in the monetary after giving up the throne to her son, would be titled the Alexiad. Very clearly written mimicking the classical Greek works of Homer, Anna’s work still survives today as the primary source of the era. Anna (and the academics she supported) kept the traditional of ancient Greek philosophy alive in south-eastern Europe long after these works had been forgotten about in the west.
Written in the literary style of ancient Greek philosophers such as Thucydides and Aristotle, the Alexiad provides key insight into political and military affairs of the Empire during the reign of Alexios I.
Military Strategy and Technology
Lastly, the Roman state was able to lean on a disciplined, well-equipped and trained military, and the Empire was arguably the only state in 12th century Europe to maintain a standing army of any real strength. Constantinople (and the Komnenoi monarchs who ruled there) were able to project power across the eastern Mediterranean with relative ease, and (barring a handful of small revolts), Anna and Nikephoros had the full loyalty of the Imperial Tagmata. The professional Tagmata was made up of both domestic and foreign mercenary forces, and by the end of Anna’s reign in 1143, had almost completely replaced the early Thematic militias. It was extremely lucky for the Romans that the Empire’s two main Muslim rivals (the Fatamids and Suljik Turks) were either fighting civil wars or attacking each other for the better part of 60 years. More than anything else, this relatively stable situation on the eastern frontier allowed Anna and her family to focus on consolidating the much more unpredictable western frontier, which inevitably dragged them into two devastating wars with the Pechenegs and Poles. The Basilissa was able to consolidate control over the central and western Balkans, while expanding Roman influence in southern Italy. Despite most of the organized violence happening in the European provinces of the Empire, there was still significant—if ‘low intensity’ fighting on the Asian side as well.
The constant wars erupting along the eastern frontiers resulted in much bloodshed between the Muslim powers, but it also resulted in regular waves of turmoil across the border into the Roman Empire as well. The eastern Tagmata found themselves engaged in brush fights against both Turkish, Kurdish, and Arab raiders almost every summer between 1112-1140, which honed these professional soldiers into efficient guerilla fighters—to the detriment of their ‘traditional’ battlefield skills. Unlike the western Tagmata which tended to be centralized in larger garrison cities, the eastern forces were spread out in smaller groups all long the border, allowing them to react quickly to any incursion. In order to ensure the security of Rome’s borders, Anna spent significant resources rebuilding the famed beacon system which dotted the Anatolian landscape—a communication network which allowed the Generals in the frontier to notify Constantinople of enemy incursions in less than an hour. [3]
The original beacon system was developed in the 800s, and expanded significantly by Anna and Nikephoros.
Originally terminating only at one border fortress in the Taurus Mountains, the new system extended in two separate directions; one south-east towards Antioch, and the other north-east towards Theodosiopolis and Trebizond. Similar to the original system, each endpoint had identical water clocks, and different messages were assigned to each hour of the day. Lighting the bonfire at a particular hour would inform Constantinople that a specific event had happened, and reinforcements and/or supplies could be dispatched to the front extremely quickly.
The main line of beacons stretched over 750 kilometers (~450 miles) across the mountain ranges of Anatolia, and a message could be sent from the border to Constantinople within an hour.
Despite all these successes, the Empire was still in a precarious position. As Anna retired, it was up to her youngest son Ioannes II to wrangle the ruling coalition of noble families, and carry the torch into the future. Was the system the Komnenids build sustainable? Only time would tell.
-----
[1] The Golden Horn is the peninsula directly north of Constantinople proper.
[2] One of the new institutions in the Expanded Timeline mod. Historically, Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical method of philosophical analysis. It originated within the Christian monastic schools that were the basis of the earliest European universities. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with these schools that flourished in Italy, France, Spain and England.
[3] Historically, this system fell out of use in the mid-900s, due to the reduction in Arab raiders that were attacking Byzantium. It’s also what Tolkien was inspired by when including the Beacons of Gondor in Lord of the Rings!
-----
Maybe! Guess we will have to wait and see...next update, maybe more conquest?
Why thanks.Another fantastic chapter as always!
Very much appreciate the kind comments.Back to the story next!
Map of the Roman Empire in 1143
And another map, showing the Empire at the end of Anna I Komnene's rule...
- 1
The military men may have made the Empire secure, but in a sense Anna remade its soul.
For the next target you should kick the normans out of Italy before they attempt to kick you out.
Last edited:
The beacons are lit!
What a wonderful chapter as always. That purple looks as beautiful as ever
What a wonderful chapter as always. That purple looks as beautiful as ever
Chapter 16
Mosiac of Ioannes II from the Hagia Sofia.
After rushing back to the capital in the summer of 1143 for a hastily organized coronation, Ioannes immediately ingratiated himself to the Orthodox Church by doling out a significant pile of gold to fund a church building campaign in various cities throughout the Empire. Immediately after that, he turned his attention east, initiating a diplomatic charm offensive with the Seljuk Turks, who were currently embroiled in one of their many wars against both the Persian remnants and Fatamids in Egypt. Seeing this as an opportunity to secure his eastern border instead of an opportunity to attack the beleaguered Turks, Ioannes instead turned to the west, funding an increase in the Roman merchant fleet to seven galleys. The Basileus rounded out the end of his first year on the throne by dispatching another diplomatic package north to Hungary. His distant cousin Matyas Comnenus had recently died, and Ioannes wanted to make sure that the Empire’s support for the new King Janos I was felt in the cold, dark ‘city’ of Buda.
With things mostly good to go on the home front, the Basileus ordered the Office of Barbarians to begin a concerted effort to infiltrate the various courts of the Italian states, in order to better understand the chaotic political situation beyond the Empire’s western borders. Throughout the spring and summer of 1144, Ioannes’ spies reported back three trends; (1) the growing alliance between the Normans, Papal States, and Carinthia, (2) Savoy had invaded Tuscany and started a general war in northern Italy, and (3) that there was definitely a member of the Imperial family leaking secrets to Naples.
Savoy declared war on Tuscany in May 1144, trying to seize the province of Cremona.
Naturally, Ioannes was mostly concerned about the spy in his own court, and immediately ordered an investigation. Very quickly, it was determined that the leak was a minor member of the Komnenoi clan serving as a provincial governor in Sicily. The offending noble was arrested and sent back to Constantinople, where he was just as quickly convicted and blinded for his trouble, eventually dying in a monastery hospital a few weeks later. Although there were very loud grumblings within the Court about how harsh Ioannes had treated a member of his own extended family, it did send a very clear message – no dissent would be tolerated, especially from those members of the Imperial Family that were trusted with control of government resources out on the frontiers. To ensure Imperial territory in Italy was properly protected, Ioannes finished out the year by ordering an inspection of all military fortifications, just in case the Normans got any ideas. [1]
Blinding was a common punishment in the medieval Roman Empire, even when dealing with family members.
The year 1145 started on a much happier note, with Basilissa Irene giving birth to a baby boy Theodoros in February, delivering further stability to Ioannes’ early reign. [2] Riding high, the Basileus set his eyes on his next target: securing control of Naples. Unfortunately, Rome’s spies had not delivered the news that the small Duchy of Naples was protected by a French guarantee of independence, and when the Empire’s troops attacked in July, they wouldn’t just be facing Naples, but also Croatia, Genoa, and France too. Luckily for the Romans, bad diplomatic preparation was countered by the Imperial Navy, which easily destroyed the 11 French gallies anchored in Naples’ harbor. By July 15th, Ioannes’ troops had easily defeated the small Neapolitan army, and put the city under siege. By the end of the year, contingents of Imperial soldiers had also defeated enemy troops on Corsica and outside Montenegro.
An easy victory, with barely any Roman casualties.
Unfortunately, the war got much tougher for the Romans from here. Despite Naples surrendering in March of 1146, Imperial spies reported that the French were marching to support their Croatian allies with over 40,000 soldiers [3]. Ioannes quickly realized he could not focus only on Italy, and decided he needed to mop up that theater of the war, and fast. With their entire island already occupied by Imperial troops, the Corsicans were the first to surrender; agreeing to pay the Empire war reparations for ten years, cancel their treaties with Genoa and Venice, and recognize the authority of the Patriarch in Constantinople – making them the only outpost of Orthodox Christianity west of Sicily. Shortly after this treaty was signed, the Imperial Navy trapped a Genoese invasion fleet attempting to sneak around Sicily, destroying them and the 10,000 Croation troops they were carrying. With no navy left to protect their shores, a contingent of 12,000 Imperial soldiers landed outside Genoa and immediately put the city under siege.
A bloody affair, but a successful one.
Meanwhile, Ioannes had spent most of the year redeploying the bulk of the Imperial Army into the western Balkans, where they linked up with their Hungarian allies. This proved timely, as the French had already moved through Croatia and east into Hungarian territory. The combined allied armies gave chase, and eventually engaged the French host outside Torental. Although outnumbering the Romans and Hungarians individually, the French army had been reduced to around 30,000 men by attrition, far less than the nearly 50,000 men that met them in the field on 30 November, 1146. The allied troops under the genius Hungarian commander Makarios Grblji smashed the French army in a single day. Simply put, the western feudal infantry was no match for the Hungarians or Romans – especially the thousands of armored kataphraktoi cavalry that made up the core of the Imperial Tagmata. Already into the colder months, both armies retired into winter quarters to plan their next moves.
The year began relatively slowly for both sides, with the French and Imperial armies jockeying for position in the western Balkans rather than engaging in open battle. By late June of 1147, Ioannes received word that the Genoese had surrendered to the small Roman expeditionary force camped outside their walls. Similar to the Corsicans the previous year, Genoa agreed to fork over 10% of their yearly income as war reparations, and cancel all military treaties with Croatia and Carinthia. Perhaps more importantly, both minor Italian states were forced to redirect trade to Constantinople, which was an important first step in the Empire’s eventual reconquest of northern Italy centuries later.
The news of another domino falling in the west boosted the morale of the Imperial troops, who soon cornered their French and Croation enemies outside Zagreb, where the western armies were finally crushed on 30 June. The disciplined Roman cavalry once again carried the day, outflanking the French feudal infantry and leaving the Croation capital city completely undefended. Although Zagreb held out against a siege for seven more months, the Croatians finally surrendered in January 1148, handing over the provinces of Ad Ladios and Dalmatia to the Roman Empire.
Roman General Andronikos Boumbalis led the final cavalry charge that crushed the remnants of the French levies, securing two new provinces for the Roman Empire.
With the Roman Army victorious in the field, there was little fighting left except for minor skirmishes around the Croation countryside. The French soon came to their senses and signed a peace treaty with the Empire, recognizing Ioannes’ annexation of Naples in June of 1148. There was little rest for the Basileus though, as he immediately had to return to southern Italy to deal with border friction instigated by the Normans in Bari and Solerno. By this point, Ioannes had been gone from the capital for over two years on campaign, and spent most of 1149 and 1150 back at court doling out salaries and appointments to various members of the aristocracy in order to assure their support for his western military campaigns. The families of the dynatoi [4] were more concerned about the eastern frontiers, but the border with the Seljuks and the Fatamids had been mostly quiet, and the loot that Ioannes brought back from his victories in Italy and Croatia were good enough to buy off both the aristocrats and the Church…for now.
All the better, because by October 1150 tensions in southern Italy had exploded – the Empire’s spy networks had figured out that Pope Gregorius XIII had been paying off the Normans to raid Imperial territory south of Naples, with the intention of kicking the Orthodox Romans out of Italy. The Normans had to be taught a lesson, so Ioannes gathered the Central Tagmata and again sailed for Naples. Without warning, the Imperial troops met up with the Calabrian theme’s infantry, and attacked the Norman capital of Salerno. Foolishly, the Pope immediately backed up his Norman allies and declared war on the Empire, calling in his Carinthian allies again. With no interest to fight another war in the Balkans, Ioannes countered by calling in his Hungarian allies once again, promising them Carinthian territory for their troubles. Despite this diplomatic escalation, the war itself was going well. Much of the countryside was still Orthodox and Greek-speaking, so the Imperial troops quickly secured most of Normal territory by November 1051, controlling the provinces of Foggia, Bari, and Salerno and putting the last Norman castle in Abruzzi under siege. Unfortunately, while all this was happening, the Papal army had outflanked Ioannes, and managed to lay siege to Naples themselves.
The military situation in southern Italy in mid-November 1151.
Ioannes soon got word that 9,000 Normans were also headed south to reinforce the Papal army, so he moved quickly. Only leaving behind a small infantry force to continue the siege in Abruzzi, the Romans marched west to relieve Naples, and hoping to crush the Pope and his upstart Norman allies in the hills of southern Italy. The plan worked, and on New Years Eve the Romans beat the westerners handily, leaving about a fourth of the Pope’s army dead in the field.
Once again, the Eastern Roman cavalry proved too much for the westerners to handle.
From this point the war was over, even if the Pope didn’t want to admit it. By the end of May, Abruzzi had surrendered, leaving the Romans in complete control of all Norman territory. The Corinthians (whose Army never even made it into Italy) had successfully fought off Ioannes’ Hungarian allies, but were dealing with a massive noble rebellion, and sued for a white peace. This worked fine for the Hungarians too, as their young king Janos I died about the same time, leaving the Kingdom under a regency for his seven-year-old son. Meanwhile, Pope Gregorius refused Roman peace proposals in June 1152, so small-scale fighting continued. By October, the Imperial troops had seized the city of Ancona, and were marching on Urbino. It took until May of 1153, but the final defeat of the sad remnants of the Papal army in Ancona convinced the Pope to sue for a very humiliating peace, which Ioannes gleefully enforced.
The Battle of Ancona broke the back of the Papal States as a military power in Italy.
With no military forces capable of resisting the Romans, the Pope quickly realized he had gambled poorly. He not only had to recognize complete Imperial control over the Norman territories in south-eastern Italy, but also hand over 32 ducats. Lastly (and worst of all), he recognized the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople’s control of all Christian churches south of Rome. For Ioannes, it was a complete victory – and something his parents with their hatred of all things Latin would have surely approved of. Having spent ten years at almost constant war in the west, the Basileus returned triumphantly to the Imperial capital, sure that he could handle whatever could come next.
------
[1] Unlocked the “Byzantine Defenses” era ability, giving +20 fort defense
[2] Up to +3 stability, yay!
[3] Kinda a ridiculous number for medieval France in the 12th century, but they are also overpowered in the Extended Timeline mod…
[4] The powerful military aristocratic families that controlled most of Anatolia, and almost always guilty of planning some kind of rebellion.
Oh my, a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! Glad to have this back and kicking again, it's always good to see the Latins kicked down a notch.
A glorious return to form! Great to see this AAR back!
This is omnious, though...
Thank you to you both! Appreciate you coming back and commenting after three years of not posting, lol. I'm going to try and get this at least until 1444 so it can be converted into regular EU4...
- 1
Chapter 17
Unfortunately for Ioannes, opportunity for peace and political consolidation only lasted about two years before the Basileus was once again forced to action. Almost as soon as the wars in Italy ended, Norman remnants started instigating to rebel against their new Roman imperial governor. Inconveniently, bad news arrived in Constantinople in November 1155 from two directions; a Catholic revolt in Salerno, and Fatamid raiders had reappeared on the eastern borders in Anatolia. Having spent the first ten years of his reign fighting in the west, Ioannes figured he now had to prioritize the east. He had a loyal governor in southern Italy in the form of Adrianos Tornikis, while he was far more suspicious of the dynatoi families on the eastern frontiers. With this in mind, he set out for Anatolia, and spent all of 1156 campaigning against Arab raiders along the Empire’s southeastern borderlands.
The Basileus and his inner circle spent most of the next three years based out of Antioch, only occasionally returning to the Capital for the Roman New Years to dole out court salaries and appointments. All the better for the Basileus, since we have reports of plague breaking out in Constantinople and Italy during the same time period. Despite this, Tornikis was successful in defeating the Catholic rebels around Salerno, and forcibly evicted hundreds of Norman families, exiling some back to northern France and settling others in the Armenian foothills, far from any power base they could use to threaten the Empire.
Adrianos Tornikis proved a highly capable officer during the various Roman wars against the Normans in the mid-1100s.
While playing wack-a-mole with Arab raiders crossing the border from the Fatamid Caliphate, Ioannes still found time to conduct the diplomatic and administrative business of empire, and secured a royal marriage with Georgia, shipping off a rather irate minor member of the Komnenoi clan to the Caucasus Mountains and further securing Rhomania’s most important eastern alliance [1]. On the western front, the Imperial bureaucrats had also been consolidating the Dukjlan realms since the end of the last round of fighting in the Balkans five years previously, and this vassal was officially annexed into the Empire in early 1160. Due to the distance from Constantinople, these rugged hills were still controlled directly by the local Orthodox Christian Serbian nobility, which were inclined to start paying their taxes directly to the Empire’s treasury, in return for the protection of the Roman military against the still-hostile Croatians to the north. Ioannes rounded out his diplomatic blitz by transforming the Empire’s decade-long peace treaty with the Seljuk Turks into a formal military alliance, something only possible due to critical threat posed by the Fatamid Caliphate. The political reasons for this Roman-Turkish alliance were sound, but the Sunni Seljuks also had religious disagreements with the Shia Fatamid dynasty. Both were still licking their wounds from nearly fifty years of constant warfare between them, and Ioannes thought the moment was perfect to strike. With the chess board set, the Basileus ordered the Empire’s eastern armies to march and join him outside Antioch. With 63,000 Imperial soldiers gathered, Ioannes declared war in January 1061, and the Roman Army surged over the border into Syria.
Ioannes’ strategy was to occupy everything west of the Euphrates River, and quickly take Damascus.
At least for the Romans, all the major battles in the first year of the war came in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite having the largest Navy in Europe or Africa, the Romans were caught off guard when the Tunisian fleet joined the fighting and sank six Roman trade ships off the coast of Sicily in June. The Fatamids must have called in their Tunisian allies, so the Roman authorities in Sicily and Italy would have to guard against pirate raids the rest of the war. Despite this short setback, the bulk of the Roman Imperial Fleet was able to hunt down the Fatamid navy off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt, and destroyed over half of it.
By early 1162, the Roman army had control of most of Syria, and a small allied Georgian force laid siege to Damascus, with Ioannes following close behind with his Tagmata. The Fatamid army had obviously been surprised by the Roman and Seljuk attack, and had chosen to prioritize defending Iraq instead of Syria. When the Arab forces did finally arrive to relieve the siege of Damascus, the joint Roman-Georgian force easily defeated them, although most of the Fatamid army retreated intact.
Although he was originally unpopular in the eastern half of the Roman Army, Ioannes had earned their loyalty in the campaigns against the Fatamids in the 1150s and 1160s – earning the reputation as a Hardy Warrior.
With spring turning into summer, campaigning slowed due to the oppressive heat. The Imperial Navy continued to notch victory after victory, cornering the last squadron of Tunisian ships in the Adriatic Sea and sinking seven galleys. By August 1162 Damascus surrendered the Basileus, and the Romans had moved south and occupied most of the Levantine countryside down to the Sinai Peninsula. Although numerous Arab-controlled walled cities and castles still had to be captured, Roman troops had returned to the Holy Land for the first time since the year 638, but they still did not control Jerusalem. [2] Ioannes did not intend to penetrate this deeply into Fatamid territory, and was deeply unsure why the bulk of the Arab armies had not yet engaged the Romans.
By 1163, it was becoming more apparent what had happened: the Seljuks had faired extremely poorly fighting in Iraq and western Persia, allowing the Fatamid armies to penetrate deeply into their interior. This had kept the Fatamids distracted, and unable to organize an effective defense of their core territories in Syria and the Levant, which inflamed political tensions in their own capital. A relative of Caliph al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh had risen up in revolt and captured Cairo. Initially, Ioannes viewed this as a good thing, but it forced the Fatamid army and their allies to turn back west and march home in order to put down the revolt – and the Roman Army was right in their way. Suddenly, Ioannes found himself overextended, outnumbered, and deep in enemy territory just as the weather was getting hotter.
By May 1163, Roman scouts reported multiple columns of Arab troops advancing west, putting them behind the Imperial Army.
While news traveled slow in the medieval world, Ioannes soon got even worse news. His Seljuk allies had performed so poorly in the war so far that they already sued for peace, surrendering multiple provinces along the Iraqi-Persian borderlands to Fatamid control. Adding to these troubles, the letters he was receiving from Italy were dire – the Tunisians were raiding Sicily and Italy with impunity, and the small Thematic militia protecting Imperial territory in the west was not strong enough to prevent the Muslim pirates from wreaking havoc. With his primary ally in the Middle East out of the fight and Italy beginning to unravel, the Basileus realized that staying in the Levant was only going to result in the destruction of his army. He quickly reformed his columns and marched north, beating a hasty (if well organized) retreat.
With the Caliph newly freed up to focus on restoring order to his homeland, he had his own quandary: prioritize fighting rebels led by his nephew, or push the Romans out of Syria? Luckily for Ioannes, he chose the former, and was agreeable to the offer of peace that Basileus proposed in September 1164. In return for the Romans retreating from the Levant, the Fatamid Caliphate would surrender three border provinces in Syria to Ioannes, as well as hand over 184 ducats in gold. It wasn’t the smashing victory that Ioannes had hoped for, but it was still a win, and he returned home with almost all of his military forces intact, with the political time and space to return to Italy and fight the Tunisians.
Ioannes reconquered a small portion of Syria during the Second Fatamid War. The Romans would surely be back for more later.
-----
[1] An unfortunately common occurrence for Byzantine princesses.
[2] No Crusades in this timeline, so far...
Last edited:
Chapter 18
The last chapter of Ioannes’ reign began as soon as he signed the peace treaty with the Fatamids, so we must wind the clocks back a few months before that to understand the situation in the west. While the bulk of the Roman Army was fighting in the east against the Arabs, the remnants of the western forces (mostly Thematic militia in Italy) were struggling against constant raids by the Fatamids’ Tunisian allies. These raids had essentially destroyed the trade and fishing-based economies of southern Italy and Sicily, and thousands of Roman citizens were carted off to slavery in Northern Africa. Although the actual military threat was relatively small, Ioannes viewed his political legitimacy as the one true Christian Emperor resting mostly on actually protecting his people.
Over the last century, the Sultan of Tunis had built himself the largest realm in the western Mediterranean, regularly raiding Christian territory in the region, and actively supporting Muslim armies fighting in Iberia.
Luckily for the Basileus, the western frontiers did not also have to deal with the constantly unhappy Dynatoi families of the military aristocracy, which controlled most of Anatolia. The poorer areas of the empire provided little opportunity for rival claimants to the Imperial throne, so Ioannes felt more secure trusting capable officers with smaller field armies without worrying about them immediately rebelling while the Basileus was focused on adifferent front. Two of these men (Adrianos Tornikis and Stephen Palaialogos) proved themselves capable defenders of Roman interests in the West, relying on the Navy to quickly move Thematic militia from province to province, countering Tunisian pirate raids whenever they were reported. Both of these generals were younger sons of the Anatolian Dynatoi, so neither had the political support of their families back home, nor the local power base in Italy built up to be political threats to the Empire’s central government. In June of 1163, Palaialogos even managed to launch a lightning raid of his own into North Africa, gaining knowledge of the rugged Tunisian coastline and identifying the best places to conduct follow-on attacks. By the time the Basileus reached Italy in late 1164, his two loyal generals provided their recommendation: seize the critical castle on the island of Djerba, and use it as a base to threaten the Sultan’s homeland directly.
Ghazi Mustapha Fort on Djerba Island. Now an island with a thriving tourist industry, in the 12th century Djerba’s strong fortifications controlled the approaches to southern Tunisia.
Ioannes immediately agreed, understanding the opportunities provided by controlling the fort. Moving quickly, he embarked 12,000 men of the central Tagmata onto the Imperial fleet, and set sail from Sicily. The Roman troops landed and took the Tunisian garrison by surprise – while the fortress strong, it was very lightly defended and easily cut off from the mainland by the superior Roman Navy. By spring 1165 the defenders had surrendered and the island was fully occupied, setting the Sultan’s court in Tunis into a panic. The Basileus chose to stay on the island for the summer, directing dozens of pirate raids of his own, thanks to the forty Imperial war galleys he had blockading the Tunisian coastline. Some of these raids were even able to liberate small groups of enslaved Orthodox Christians originally taken from Italy and the Balkans – a propaganda victory that Ioannes seized when he would eventually return to Constantinople after the war.
While the Tunisians were almost unmatched in coastal raiding, they were quickly overcome when faced with massed Roman Tagmata.
The Tunisians quickly send out peace feelers, offering to pay off the Romans and agree to stop raiding their Mediterranean coasts. Ioannes quickly agreed, but demanded the return of thousands more enslaved Christians, although it turned out many had already been sold outside the borders of the Sultanate. Later historians have argued over why Ioannes chose not to press his advantage and try and seize more Tunisian territory, although it was unsurprising because he had acted so conservatively in the past when it came to overextending Imperial borders with dangerous occupations. More likely, the primary reason was that the Basileus had come down with a very bad case of malaria while occupying the fort on Djerba, and was eager to return to Constantinople. Ioannes would survive the illness, but would never again leave the capital city to go on military campaign. In September 1165, the Roman Army packed up and returned to Constantinople, weighed down with another 100 ducats in gold coins. On his return, Ioannes basked in the glory of a liberating hero and would become known to history as “Ioannes the Good”. [1]
Although a remarkably effective Emperor, the roots of the Komnenoi dynasty’s eventual collapse can be found in the last decade of Basileus Ioannes II's rule. Except for a single war against the Fatamids, he spent his entire rule focused on Italy and the Balkans, a habit he returned to as soon as he recovered from malaria April 1166. Simply by not being there to ensure the powerful Dynatoi aristocracy was kept in check, they amassed great political power at the expense of the rest of Roman society. At home in Anatolia, they once again pushed the small-holding freemen farming class off much of their land, building massive agricultural estates running of a quasi-feudal system. In the capital, they spent decades sparring with the civilian bureaucracy, eventually earning the upper hand in the court and conducting multiple minor purges of the Imperial administration while Ioannes was away on campaign in the 1140s and 1150s. The Basileus had also flatly neglected to properly raise his only surviving son and heir, Theodoros. Ioannes' first two sons had died in childhood, and the Basileus was honestly just never home to help his wife raise the third son, nor saw fit to bring him on campaign either. Because of this oversight, the Empire’s next Basileus came to power with almost no military experience, and fell strongly under the sway of hostile noble families angling for political control in court.
All of the above comes with hindsight though, and a healthier (but still very weak) Ioannes still had a few years left to rule. With no wars to fight, he turned his attention once again to the west, where the Italian peninsula was engulfed in another war. The new Pope Alexander III was just as engaged in worldly politics as the last, and had yet again been outmaneuvered by his political adversaries. The Papal States had backed up the allied Duchy of Tuscany in a small border war with the much smaller city of Brescia – a conflict instigated mostly by Roman gold that Ioannes had directed the Office of Barbarians to deliver a few years previously. With a much-enlarged mercenary army, the Brescians smashed the Tuscans and annexed all of their land except for the single province of Arezzo. Too paralyzed to act, the Pope found his only ally in central Italy wiped out overnight and had to sue for piece, now surrounded by unfriendly armies in the north and south. It was a final diplomatic victory for Ioannes, who like his parents, viewed the Latin Catholics as much more of an existential threat than the Muslims to the east.
The upstart Brescians quickly overran almost all of Tuscan territory. All thanks to the Roman Empire’s secret funding of the war effort, of course.
While directed covert activity in Italy, Ioannes began working on the last great effort of his life, the reformation of the Imperial legal codes. The current Imperial lawbooks were based on the Basilika, originally authored by Basileus Leo IV the Wise of the Macedonian Dynasty in 892. The legal codes had been updated since then, but this resulted in quite a few contradictions between the thousands of pages written down in the last 250 years or so. Since Constantinople had a long-established law school (and one of the only ones in the world, operating continuously since 866), the Basileus ordered a complete rewrite, with the aim to simplify whenever possible. Many scholars believe Ioannes had realized – rightly – that the Dynatoi families had regained far too much political power at the expense of the lower classes, who were the foundation of the Roman economy and the military. The Basileus had tried to correct this problem far too late, and Ioannes was unable to wrestle back control of the countryside from the aristocrats before he died.
Overall though, the updated legal codes were a success, and Ioannes officially adopted them as Imperial law in July 1168. More of a synthesis and simplification of the existing codes than a complete overhaul, the Epanagoge Aucta did significantly streamline the body of law that medieval Roman jurists had to deal with. By this point however, Ioannes was fading fast – his body had never truly recovered from his battle with malaria three years earlier. He knew he was not long for the world, and tried to set his affairs in order. Although mostly unprepared for the job, Theodoros had long-ago been appointed as Caesar, and was legitimately hailed as the sole emperor when the time came. At the age of 59, Basileus Ioannes II died in the Great Palace on 21 September, 1168. He left an empire mostly at peace and mostly stable, but there were storm clouds on the horizon for the Komnenoi Dynasty. How would they fare?
Ioannes II Komnenos, born 1119, died 1168: tolerant, lawgiver, secretive.
-----
[1] Took the era splendor ability “Crusader Kings” for -20% War Score cost vs other religions. Ioannes’ real-world counterpart was also known as “John the Beautiful” and “John the Good”.
Last edited:
The Basileus is dead, long live the Basileus! Theodoros has big, big shoes to fill after Ioannes, especially if that foreshadow on the fall of the Komnenian dynasty is to go by.
@Legosim this just caught my attention. I will attempt to catch up, as I was not around when you started this.
Good for you picking it back up after a couple of years off!
Rensslaer
Good for you picking it back up after a couple of years off!
Rensslaer
Slow downward spiral from how the game played out through the 1300s, anyway!
Maybe not quite that long, but with how slowly I write this AAR...quite a while
Thanks so much for stopping by! Trying to keep it chugging along, I've played another few centuries past where the posts are, so maybe one day it'll actually get it done lol.
- 1
Map of the Roman Empire in 1168
