Specialist290: Thank you.
I try and use real period portraits - pref. unidentified ones - to give a feeling of authenticity. I think my favourite is probably Antonio I though - very evocative!
prussiablue: I'm afraid even for Romans the 15th century is a little late for crusading. Though I guess you never can tell!
stnylan: No, entirely the right tree!
Romanus (what a name!) is a conquistador.
Draco Rexus: Oh I think his mother was strong - just horribly unlucky! Still things are happening, though how 'great they are you'll have to decide for yourself!
J. Passepartout: It's certainly an auspicous name alright... Perceptive that it's assumed.
Above: Michael Romanus, later Viceroy of New Macedonia
Part 32
Roman activity in the New World had started under Empress Caterina and by the 1580's a community several hundred strong lived in Nea Salonika (Trinidad and Tobago) and the much smaller communities of Nea Smyrna (Cartenega) and Philadelphia (Isthmus). However little goverment interest had continued with Constantinople's attention being focused elsewhere and lacking in money and men to act in any case. The long peace and growing prosperity of the post war era saw interest renewed in the New World, especially thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of Michael Romanus.
Romanus, had been born in 1552 in Smyrna to Greek parents of quite respectable, if not illustrious lineage. At early age he had join the Imperial Navy. During this brief stint he discovered that despite being a poor sailor, the appeal of the unknown drew him. More at home on a horse than a deck he decided that the future lay inland rather that discovering new shores. So much of the New World remained sketchy coastal outlines on the map, with little certainty as to what lay beyond. Romanus (an assumed surname, having been born Michael Eneas) managed through his firey eleqouence to gain funding for an expedition to the New World.
Antonio was relatively uninterested in the New World, which he saw as a side show to true Roman interests in the East. He regarded the achievement of his second decade in power to be the conversion of Hellas to the true Catholic faith. However he saw little harm in allowing these imaginative and potentially bothersome adventurers an outlet, and there was the slim possibility they might stumble across Eldorado or the Fountain of Youth.
Romanus managed to talk several merchant princes into helping fund his expedition and his sizeable force set sail in early 1585. That year saw Romanus plant the imperial flag in Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Antigua. The following year he returned and claimed the island of Curacao. Following from this success he began an exploration of the mainland, almost quadrupling the territory known to the Roman Empire in the New World.
Trading posts and forts sprung up across the new territories, and despite occasional setbacks and (especially after 1590) a growing pirate menace a thin but determined Roman control stretched across much of the New World. Antonio divided the New World territories in two: the Viceroyalty of New Thrace (the islands) and the Viceroyalty of New Macedonia (the mainland). Romanus, in recognition of his talents became the first Viceroy of New Macedonia, a position he would hold until his premature death of fever in 1596.
Above: The Roman New World, circa. 1596
