Added.Sounds interesting, maybe this could be lore you can consider adding the table of contents in the future.
First off, it's headcanon.I have my own question too; so if the Major Provinces are technically based on the Provinces of the First Empire, would the smaller Landers within those Provinces be based on the theme system of the Eastern Roman Empire (and the small principalities, free cites, etc, of the Holy Roman Empire), especially in Greece and Anatolia? It’s kind of a head cannon of mine that the Landers In Greece, Anatolia and the Middle East are basically the same as the themes of the Eastern/Second Roman Empire, with the explanation being that the Theme administration system of the Second Empire were first intergrated into the Reich as sub Provinces of the main Provinces, and eventually became the Modern Lander system in the 19th and early 20th Century. You do with this headcanon what you will @zenphoenix, but I thought it would be interesting lore for the Lander system to be a modern version of the Byzantine theme system.
To answer your question, the Länder were based on older administrative divisions appropriate for the area. The theme system was expanded upon and absorbed existing administrative divisions in areas outside the Greek core. In Germany they used the principalities and free cities of the HRE up until the modern era, when the borders were redrawn and grouped into Länder to break the power of the Angeloi-supporting aristocracy. Feudal divisions in France, Spain, England, and the other western provinces remained until the 15th century, when the theme system was implemented in the west, which was integrated into the Länder system. The themes of the old Byzantine Empire, Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean continued into the modern day, aside from slight border changes. Arabia and the former Islamic world did not have clearly defined administrative divisions until the 19th century. Then sub-provinces were formally introduced, although there were few actual themes. In all parts of the Reich, the sub-provinces were reorganized as Länder after 1945 (I should say this is not just a name change but an overhaul of administration and the borders), and the themes slowly faded away. They still exist, mostly symbolically (like Sweden's provinces, as I heard while I worked on Scandinavia's cultural update) and to help with the draft (people mobilized in the same theme are placed in the same unit). My reasoning is I always considered a theme equal to an in-game province, and the reorganization of each theme in the jump between games is equivalent to reforming the system (with the introduction of states in Victoria leading to sub-provinces). I then built the other units up from there. So basically the Länder system is a descendant of the theme system, not the modernization of it, and the original themes, which still exist by the way, go back to their roots as military districts.
The traditions of the legions are still significant, if only symbolically. Military units march in their assigned legions during parades and triumphs, and eagle standards are still used at press conferences and ceremonies. To be honest, the actual legions had fallen out of use for centuries. The ranks are different, the hierarchy has been modernized, and the sizes and organizations have been changed. The only thing the post-Restoration legions (and maybe even the Byzantine ones) had in common with the classical legions were their name. Each region takes pride in their legion.I’m a bit sad to hear about the Legions through. I mean, I understand the principle and reason for why they would be broken up into smaller units, but I still dislike the idea of long-standing Roman traditions like the Legions fallening out of significance, especially since the Legions are a major staple of the Roman Army since Ancient Times. I guess all good things have to come to a end at some point.
That's very interesting. Maybe that would tie into the lore about Numenor. I really don't know. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but in my Tolkien bio, I focused more on his real life than his works.I must say however, and I know you probably won’t know about this idea since you haven’t read Lord of the Rings, but this lore about some Roman traditions and culture falling out of revlance because of the Angeloi actually does remind me of Tolkien’s decaying of the world idea, where certain elements of the world or a culture slowly lose somethings overtime. I’m sure @TWR97 can explain Tolkien’s decaying of the world concept better than I can since he’s seemed to have read the Tolkien’s works based on the LOTR references in his ME summaries, but I just noticed similarity and analyzed it a bit, so endulge me in reading a bit too much into TTL’s lore.