The Queen of Cities: A Byzantine AAR

[RossN]

Stuyvesant: To be fair there was a very minor peasant rebellion in newly won Bulgarian land but yes the internal stability is remarkable.

DKM: Sadly no. I'm not keen on picking a fight with the Italians without a good reason.

Asantahene: I wonder too!

Nikolai: For the moment I am pursuing a passive foreign policy but I'm sure my neighbours have ideas of their own.

Specialist290: There is still a Karling on the throne I'm afraid.

In fairness I'm not ruling out a greater presence in Italy, but I'll have to think about it.

Henry v. Keiper: Yeah.

guillec87: That is a very good point actually. Hmm...

 

[Stuyvesant]

Looks good, looks good. More measured expansion, and now a period of peace (as long as the neighbors cooperate). It feels like a golden age, which is not what I expected when Adrianos first came to the throne.

Now, peace and quiet is all good and well, but when will we see the newly reorganized Tagmata in action?

 

[Henry v. Keiper]

Watch Herakleios be a lackluster ruler who doesn't live up to his name.

 

[Specialist290]

Ah, the Saffarids... I'm always a bit ambivalent about seeing them succeed, since I admit I've a slight weakness for the Karen Zoroastrian holdout and they're usually the ones who do them in. Still, their success isn't too unsurprising, though seeing them that far east is a tad out of the ordinary.

A question: Are those the Cumans up in Crimea and reaching down into Romania?

 

[unmerged(58610)]

The naming of a child Herakleios seems full of foreboding with the future containing acts both epic and heroic, hinting of an action to reclaim Carthage. The retinue does look to be better able to fight the foes in the East and Africa better than meet the armies of the west with their new fangled knights. You appear to me to be waiting for the Muradids to fall apart perhaps in the aftermath of a war against the Saffarids. I suspect you'll be going down the matrimonial route to reclaim Italy. Certainly, you don't show enough of north Africa to let us see how the Tulunids are faring. They would be my guess for the next most likely target.

 

[guillec87]

Herakleios... so far he does not kill his own children

 

[Jape]

Thank god for Herakleios! Now here's hoping his dad can live long enough for him to come of age becoming taking the Purple. Is that one of the reasons for the 'passive' foriegn policy, so the Emperor doesn't end up on a spike?!

Been catching up RossN, great stuff like always.

 

[RossN]

Part Six - Changed Plans

The Caesar, Doux Ioseph of Cilicia in 976 AD.​

The birth of Prince Kyrillos on 23rd October 974 was a personal joy to the Emperor Adrianos II, but a political headache. Under the same laws passed by the Emperor Porphyrios that excluded daughters from the inheritance imperial titles were subject to division between all the sons of a late Emperor. The eldest son would gain the purple, the others most of the land under direct imperial control. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement from the point of view of the Emperor Kyrillos and the Emperor Adrianos, who saw it as a recipe for civil war. Until the birth of Prince Kyrillos the law had stood.

Now Adrianos was faced with the unappealing prospect of his lands and titles being divided between three sons, for in a moment of sentimentality he had legitimised his illegitimate son Valerios. The experience of the Karlings in the west had shown exactly where such a policy could lead. Worse all three boys were very close in terms of age, meaning that if Adrianos died young his heirs would essentially have to come with multiple regencies. It was an awful prospect. An impossible prospect!

Princess Theodora in 976 AD.​

In June 976 Princess Theodora, the Emperor's eldest child married the young Doux Ioseph of Cilicia. Ioseph was a distant cousin of Adrianos, descended through the male line from the Emperor Basileios. He was intelligent and admirably temperate in his personal habits, though he had a greedy streak and was notoriously shy in person. Adrianos, impressed by his son in law appointed him Caesar. Then he went further. The following month he raised Ioseph to the status of co-emperor and appointed him his successor should he (Adrianos) die before his sons reached majority. If Herakleios (or Valerios if Herakleios had not lived to adulthood) was an adult then Ioseph was to step aside and let Adrianos' son become sole Emperor. By this method Adrianos hoped to maitain a stable, undivided Empire and avoid the mischance of a regency. As he told the Senate the process of an Emperor adopting a distant relative as son and heir was a truly Roman procedure, even if it had fallen long out of practice[1].

The changed legal situation.​

This settlement of the dynastic question (for the moment) allowed Adrianos to look to foreign expansion once more. The reformed and enlarged Tagmata were powerful weapon, the European borders were quiet and the Muslims were preoccuppied. The Jattabids, who now ruled Muslim Spain having displaced the Ummayads were engaged in a long running war with the Franks for Aragon, and had appealed to the Muradid Caliph to intervene. Caliph Faruk had taken the opportunity to declare a Jihad, or Muslim Holy War for Aragon and sailed for Spain with a large army. In his absence the Romans won an easy victory over the Emir of Baalbak, adding his city to the Empire. It was unmistakably challenge to the Muradids for while Baalbak had been independent (the Emir was still the titular ruler of Aleppo who had lost his capital and most of his land to the Romans a decade earlier) the Romans now nearly surrounded Tripoli itself.

The city of Tripoli was a rich prize. It had not been the capital of the Muslim world for long and lacked the symbolic importance Damascus had held under the Abbasids but it was perhaps the wealthiest port on the Syrian coast and the key to Galilee and Palestine. The Romans had long desired it and on 3rd July 979 Adrianos invaded, personally leading his retinues and the Varangians. Trippoli was far closer to the Roman lines than the Muradid ones and the Roman navy quickly gained command of the sea. Short of a stunning victory on land the city was bound to fall.

There was no stunning victory on land; Adrianos had chosen his moment well for the Muradids were engaged on foreign adventures that sapped much of their strength. Tripoli itself by the 1st September and Roman military success at Halbah the following month ended any hope of a Muradid recovery. On 1st June 980 Faruk sued for peace, his envoys reaching the Roman army as it advanced on Damascus. The Muradids handed over Tripoli. Faruk and his court departed for the distant lands of Spain they had carved out[2].

For Adrianos it was an immense personal and strategic triumph; the entire Syrian coast was now in his hands and the Muslims had no truly great seaport left closer than Alexandria. Patriarch Bardas of Antioch also found his authority strengthened at an opportune moment. The Ecumenical Patriarch Gabriel had died quite suddenly in 977 at the age of only 38 and his replacement Gennadios II was not popular with either the Emperor or Bardas, both of whom considered him unlearned and excessively worldly. Adrianos was too sincerely pious to intervene in the Church feud and too political to desire the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be permanently weakened but he probably regarded a stronger voice for Antioch as a boon. In political matters however Tripoli remained in the direct control of the Emperor; it was too valuable and potentially rich a port to hand to a Count.

In late December 980 construction finished on the city of Eusebia near Baalbak. Named after the Empress this was another colony of Greek speaking Orthodox Christians settled in newly conquered lands to bring the ways of Rome to the provinces (Adrianos already had plans for a sister city on the coast near Tripoli.) Bishop Anthemios of Halbah, a Cilician Greek not long appointed at his post became Metropolitan of Baalbak too. Bardas and Adrianos were united in the opion that the Church should be at the very forefront in Syria, trying to win back lands that had been held by the infidel for centuries and where the remaining Christians were often heretics. The message was unmistakable: the Romans meant to stay and perhaps to push further in the not too distant future.

The Syrian coast in 981 AD.​

[1] In game terms Ioseph is my nominated heir until Herakleios reaches the age of 16, at which point I switch my nomination to Herakleios (or Valerios if Herakleios is dead). Hopefully Ioseph won't need to ascend to the purple but I wasn't looking forward to the possibility of regency or a three way split of my demense.

[2] The Muradid Caliphate, almost entirely based in the Near East is being run from Barcelona. :huh:

 

[RossN]

Stuyvesant: Well I hope you're happy!

Henry v. Keiper: Optimist.

Specialist290: An inpendent pagan tribe. I'll be taking a look at the steppes (and Persia) in a future update.

Chief Ragusa: Italy through matrimony is a fascinating idea but unfortunately the King of Italy (who is bethrothed to one of my daughters) is a boy of ten. As for Africa... well when we take another look there yoi might be surprised!

guillec87: I should hope not! He's named after this guy.

Jape: It was until I changed the succession. Welcome aboard Jape, and hope you continue to like what you find.

 

[unmerged(58610)]

A matrilinear marriage is the game winner in Italy. The Elective monarchy could lead to the rise of a new dynasty. Your Makedonian dynasty is very capable. Perhaps you decided to shake things up. Better a new imperial dynasty than an empire wrecked by civil war.

 

[Nikolai]

Elective is a dangerous mistress. Get out of it when you have the chance, is my advice.

 

[GulMacet]

Why always cities? What you need in newly conquered territories is military bases, to solidify Roman rule. As for the general situation... advance into Armenia! Slightly misguided Christians are still easier to rule over than infidels. Or you could recover Venice. After all, it was a Roman outpost of civilization in an Italy overrun by barbarians, not long ago...

 

[Henry v. Keiper]

Elective...well, that wasn't expected.

 

[Stuyvesant]

Am I happy? I sure am! Well, except for the elective monarchy. Truth be told, I've never dabbled with it myself, so I don't know how easy or hard it is to 'correctly guide' the elections, but it makes me feel a bit nervous. Not to mention that God's regent on Earth should not be elected by the common people, even if they're Dukes.

 

[Jape]

Ah an elective monarchy, that's one way to deal with it but do you plan to keep it elective permanently?

Its good to see your entrenching in Syria though I'd agree a militaristic approach might good. Though that's if you plan to stay still. Why bother building walls if you plan to attack anyway?

 

[guillec87]

You need more castles

 

[Asantahene]

Hmmmm....I am a bit confused. If an elective monarchy why is it portrayed in your story rather differently. It appears that you hold the whip hand when my experience tells me that elective can be a very capricious mistress indeed. Even if you have the Dukes on your side they may well not go with your choice-be warned!

Also Tripoli? Not Tripoli in Libya I am assuming?

 

[Specialist290]

Also Tripoli? Not Tripoli in Libya I am assuming?

Indeed not; there's also one in Lebanon as well.

In my own experience, Elective Monarchy isn't too difficult to deal with as long as you've got loyal vassals, a fair-to-middling (at least) candidate you're pushing, and a few votes of your own to back yourself up. Even if you have enough vassals to overpower your vote in total, in my experience what opposition there is tends to split the vote amongst a number of competing candidates who sort of jostle back and forth between one another. I also think there's a slight bonus towards eligible candidates from the reigning house, though I could be remembering that wrong -- and of course, you can always make sure your candidate is landed with an elector title himself, just for insurance

Of course, it's not a guarantee, but again, in my own experience Elective tends to be a little safer than it might first seem -- at the very least, there's not nearly as much hassle as with Gavelkind in most instances!

 

[RossN]

Part Seven - The Last One Standing

The appointment of Prince Valerios as co-Emperor.​

The decade after the capture of Tripoli saw one of the longest stretches of sustained peace in the history of the Roman Empire. There were no foreign war and save for a startling but shortlived Bulgarian rising in 989 no serious domestic trouble. Despite this it was a turbulent era that greatly affected the future of the Empire.

The Orthodox Church continued to grow these years with the areas of the Balkans that preffered the Latin Rite shrinking every year. In Asia Bishop Gregoras of Chariopolis, Adrianos’ Ecclesiarch preached with such great success in Tripoli that the majority of the city inhabitants renounced Islam within a year of the reconquest. Similar success was achieved in nearby Archa and Baalbrek. Edessa remained a stronghold of the Miaphysite faith throughout but the appointment of a Bishop of Hellenopolis[1] in 988 strengthened the Orthodox position even here. With the Coptic Pope in distant Alexandria and Patriarch Bardas firmly ensconed in Antioch the other Oriental churches had little choice but to recognise a de facto Orthodox monopoly. In Armenia proper most of the population had been Islamised so there was no help from that quarter.

In February 983 Adrianos' second daughter Gabriela died after a brief illness. The twenty one year old princess had been intended to marry the young King Benoît of Italy upon his reaching his majority. The grief stricken Adrianos spent several months in mourning before bethrothing his third daughter to the boy King. Five weeks later on 23rd July 983 the Empress Eusebia died of poor health. She was only forty four and her death shattered the Emperor. At the persuasion of the Caesar, his son-in-law and his eldest (and favourite) daughter Theodora Adrianos was persuaded to remarry. His new bride was Eupraxia of Lampron, a young woman of high intellect, diligence and kindliness whose one sin was overenthusiasm in the bedroom. The same month of the wedding saw the completion of a new city near Tripoli, at once named ‘Eupraxia’ in honour of the Empress.

The marriage of Adrianos and Eupraxia rapidly turned out to be a happy one as her youth and zest for life eased the middle aged Emperor out of his grief. In September 984 she bore him a daughter Petronia, to be followed by three more children (eventually including a son Phokas .) In the December of that year the wedding of King Benoît and Princess Maria finally took place. The Roman princess arrived at the Italian court in Padova in great splendour and high hopes but the union would not last long. By September 985 Benoît was dead of smallpox, having not even reached his seventeeth birthday. Maria, Queen Consort of Italy for nine months sailed back to Constantinople in mourning garb, aged in body and mind by going from young bride to young widow in nine months.

The next tragedy to befall the Makedon family came the following year. Princess Theodora, the brainy and beautiful favourite child of the Emperor was struck ill with Pneumonia and died on 25th November 986 at the age of twenty seven. Theodora's death came as a shock to the entire Empire. The tall, dark eyed princess would almost certainly have been Emperor herself had she been born male. As it was her husband was heir presumptive to the purple. Not that the Caesar survived his wife for long. Ioseph did not catch Pneumonia but the grief and stress of dealing with his wife's death weakened him, and he passed away on 30th December of the same year. Cilicia passed to their six year old daughter Eusebia. Once he recovered from the shock the Emperor nominated the now thirteen year old Herakleios as his heir.

After the death of King Benoît the Italian throne had passed to his sister Judith. Queen Judith was just two days older than Herakleios and Adrianos moved to arrange a betrothal between the two, despite the sad precedent of Benoît and Maria. Unfortunately Herakleios would not even live to see his wedding day. A new outbreak of pneumonia in Constantinople cost him his life on 11th October 987. Adrianos gave him a funeral fit for the King and Emperor he would now never be.

Tragedy strikes the Imperial family.​

The Emperor had two surviving sons, Valerios and Kyrillos. Kyrillos was a year younger than Herakleios and had been born to the purple but his education and personality which had been steered towards the Church made him a poor potential Emperor. More promising was Valerios. The product of a dalliance with a fair faced courtier Valerios was a legitimized bastard of much the same age as Herakleios. He was an intelligent boy though he had a streak of flippancy towards religion that concerned his pious father. Still he was by far the better candidate and Adrianos declared him his heir on 1st November 987. The Senate might have quibbled over the appointment of a bastard as a future Emperor but Adrianos' influence carried enormous weight and few were willing to declare against a father still numb with visible grief.

Prince Valerios came of age on 23rd August 989 and was crowned co-Emperor the following day. He cut an impressive figure, especially next to his father who seemed shrunken and prematurely aged by so much personal loss. In less than a decade Adrianos had lost two daughters, two sons in law, a wife and a son. He had permanently donned mourning garb in public. Some of the more superstitious of his citizens began to speak of him as being cursed by God, though none could even begin to guess why.

Adrianos did not remain in his capital long. Shortly after the coronation he was with the Tagmata and marching for the frontier. The ten year truce with the Muslims was due to end in early 990 and he intended to go war. Perhaps in doing so he would escape the ghosts that clung to him in Constantinople.

Prince Valerios in 989 AD.​

[1] Modern Harran, ancient Carrhae. A new Temple I built in Edessa. ‘Hellenopolis’ is actually the authentic Byzantine name.

 

[RossN]

I'm using the Mediterranean Portrait Pack, hence Valerios's appeance. If people find it too jarring a switch I'll switch back to generic portraits.

Chief Ragusa: The Italian marriage plans sank three times due to early deaths! That has to be a sign!

Nikolai: I think I will. At the time my Crown Authority wasn't quite high enough to go to Primogeniture but next time...

GulMacet and guillec87: Cities make more sense narratively - they are colonies of Greek speaking Orthodox Christians planted in newly won areas. Also I like the money! I am willing to found temples too though - see Hellenopolis in Edessa.

Instead of building new castles I prefer to build Keeps, Training Grounds, etc. in my established Castles.

Henry v. Keiper: Yeah. I think it will work out for now but things certainly haven't gone the way i expected!

Stuyvesant: Heh, good point!

Jape: As I said I'm thinking of turning back to Primogeniture at some point, though Elective has been an interesting bonus (the vassal loyalty bonus is very welcome.)

Asantahene: As Specialist290 pointed out assuming you have the votes you should be able to swing the vote and Adrianos' popularity and prestige give him a very strong hand in deciding the candidate. In narrative terms the Senate will elect the next Emperor.

And yes I mean the Tripoli in the Levant. Weirdly having read up on the Crusades recently I forgot Libyian Tripoli!

Specialist290: Indeed, the Tripoli in Lebanon is even more important in this time line. It was capital of the Caliphate for several years and is now one of the most important ports in the Levant.