alternatehistory.com

Sorry for the delay and the brevity of the update. My cat had a urinary blockage, so I had to take him to the vet to get it cleared and then look after him so I haven't had as much time to work on TL as I'd originally thought quarantine would allow for.

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All is Not Quiet on the Eastern Front

Perhaps in a foreshadowing of Valentinian’s later reign, after his arrival in Constantinople and his proclamation of Valens as Co-Augustus, the Augustus of the West would pursue witches loyal to the Apostate Emperor who he feared may have attempted to kill his brother and himself. On the journey from Nicaea to Constantinople, the pair had fallen seriously ill, leading the two Pannonians to believe that the dark magics of divination, astrology, and poisoning may have been employed by those still loyal to the fallen Apostate Emperor.[1] These trials would not lead anywhere, with most of the dangerous Julian loyalists instead being guilty of the much more mundane, but just has heavily punished, crimes of speculation and corruption. In fact, the brothers would oversee the burning of Procopius and Rhodanus in the hippodrome for the crimes of speculation, corruption, and fraud. These aggressive anti-corruption tactics would come to be characteristic of the brothers’ reigns rather than being singular events targeted towards any particular group.

With the completion of the trails, the brothers would part ways for the last time and Valentinian would go west. Under the omnipresent necessity of overturning the pax ignobilis that had been forced upon Jovian after Julian’s debacle had necessitated the surrender of Armenia and 5 transtigritanian provinces to Shapur II, Valen’s would not remain in Constantinople for long. However, this brief period would see the first religious persecutions by the Homoian[2] Christian Emperor.

During his time in Constantinople, the Emperor had, at the behest of the Patriarch Eudoxius, overseen the suppression of the other Arian heretics the Homoiousians and Anomoeans[3]. Later Homoian ecclesiastic sources will characterize these moves in the early years of the emperor as moves made to maintain religious concord and peace within the empire, as was largely the case with his Nicene brother in the West, but later Nicene sources will couch their descriptions of these early suppressions in the same sort of language they would use against the heretical tyrant Constantinus II and the apostate Julian and speak of how they were indicative of his future actions against Nicenes. Indeed, even contemporaneous pagan sources from the period will decry Valens’ brutish attempts to force concord[4].

Valens’ time in Caesarea, in preparation for his continued movement to the east, was characterized by his economic policies which betrayed his life as a farmer. It is during this period that we see two very different emperors portrayed by later sources. From the Codex Valentinianus, we know that Valens, like his brother, enacted policies meant to cut down on corruption, provide tax relief for farmers, and reduce inflation. All moves that should have endured the emperor to the landholders and farmers, yet contemporaneous reports from Ammaiunus, and even a minor riot in Constantinople in which his own father-in-law was killed and which required the Emperor to send the Magister equitum, general Victor, to put down the riot[5], show that the empire under Valens was cash strapped and particularly vicious when it came to the matter of debt collection. Reconciling the image of an emperor eager to enact tax cuts and responsible governance with that of a ravenous debt collector is difficult, but it is important to take into account the state of imperial finances when the Valentinians took over the empire. Even histories by pagan flatterers are forced to acknowledge the Apostate’s immodest spending had placed the imperial economy in a dangerous state.

Finances were far from the only element of the empire, that the Apostate had left in tatters upon his death. Indeed, the issue of troops numbers would prove to be the chief issue that the Eastern Emperor would be forced to deal with while he sat in Antioch watching the Persian Shah invade Armenia from the east and attempted to enforce the treaty of 363 on the Armenians. Fortunately for Valens, this task was much easier said than done. The Armenian nakharars, under their King Arshak, had won a string of defensive victories in eastern Armenia that had effectively checked the Sasanian invasion of Armenia.

Unfortunately for Valens, the troop crisis of the Eastern Empire would be exacerbated in 367 with the first Isaurian revolts of his reign and the Alexandrian riots touched off by his exiling of the city’s incredibly popular Nicene bishop, Athanasius[6]. Indeed, so far spread was Athanasius’ renown that rising anger in the more solidly Nicene Western Empire would prompt Emperor Valentinian to “advise” his brother to allow for the return of the Nicene bishop. By the time Valens had been forced by his brother to allow for Athanasius’ return, Alexandria had been bloodied by an overzealous imperial occupation force[7]. While religious rioters seethed in Egypt, the Isaurians came down from their mountain abodes and be spread far and wide in their brutal raiding. From Chalcedon in the west all the way to the Imperial residence in Antioch in the east, the Isaurians turned Anatolia into a warzone.

It was amidst these twin crises that Shapur would launch his bold invasion of western Armenia. The Persian Shah had initially sought to win over Meruzan Arkruni of Sophene so that he might take the Armenians from the West, but with Valens and his army in Antioch, the lord of Sophene had rebuffed the Shah, confident that if Shapur attempted an invasion the Persian king would be smashed between Valens and Arshak. However, with the Eastern Romans dealing with the Isaurians and the Alexandria riots, Valens was unprepared to send aid when Shapur and his army invaded and began their push into western Armenia. To bolster his forces, Valens would look to the barbarian Saracens and Goths for auxilia, an action he would increasingly be forced to employ as his reign went on.

Valens' Persian war had begun.


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[1]: While the Valentinians were especially suspicious of the occult, because of their status as rural farmers and Christians, their beliefs in the connections between astrology, divination, and poisoning were not atypical of the time. It had long been illegal to try and use divination to determine how and when an emperor would die, and the practice of magic had been prosecuted multiple times prior to the brothers.
[2]: Very few Arians actually called themselves “Arians” by this point, instead there were several “Arian” sects that varied in the degree of which they blended Nicene doctrine and Arianism. The Homoian sect was patronized by Constantinus II and later Valens, and held the position that the Son was not created by the Father but wasn’t of the same ousia or nature as the Father. Instead, saying that he was “like” the Father.
[3]: The Anomoeans were radical Arians and the Homoiousians were more compromising with the Nicenes
[4]: Ammaiunus’ history is the source of this.
[5]: While Procopius may have been dealt with before he could launch his revolt, the fact remains, that people were willing to follow with next to no military backing because they were pissed at Valens. His father-in-law was ruthless when it came to collecting debts and did not endure the emperor to the people of Constantinople. ITTL he is murdered which results in the assailant needing to be arrested, but a crowd of angry people attacks the troops sent to arrest the killer resulting in a riot.
[6]: Valens didn’t try and force Athanasius back into exile IOTL, likely because of his First Gothic War and the fallout of the Procopius revolt. ITTL, the Emperor isn’t distracted by either of these matters and is pushed to remove Athanasius by both his wife and Eudoxius.
[7]: Much the same happened when Alexandria rioted after Valens removed Athanasius’ successor Peter IOTL.