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Agreed with all this.

Back to sleep for now, though I doubt for another five years! Thanks! :)

I'd just add here that our sources for the reign of Alexander are all very late- even Diodoros is three centuries after the man himself. Sure, they were drawing on sources that were considerably more contemporary, but I'd be very wary of extrapolating any "obvious" motivations to Alexander...

Yeah- the Byzantines were very interested in Augustus. Constitutionally, Byzantine writers of OTL put far more importance on the events of 27BC than they did on any of the subsequent changes under Diocletian, Constantine or Justinian. Augustus, to their mind, was the founder of their state...

Imperial purple!- as others have said. Moreover, it distinguishes proper updates from supplementary text. Indeed, Samuel's reign has a way to run yet- hence the splitting of Chapter 30 in two! Vague thoughts for a future update- I want to write something on the evolution of the Senate from...

It's entirely my fault- I forgot the footnotes! Footnotes to come later... C30 will be split into a C30 and a C31.

Chapter Twenty Nine: Glory and Death It might have been thought that the emperor Rōmanos V Syriakos would immediately march north on Constantinople after the Battle of Sarisai, as he had wished the previous autumn.[1] But the young man instead opted to tread carefully- and to follow the advice...

Not sure if this is a bonus or not, but... I'm splitting C30 into two parts: there's just a lot of Samuel goodness to get in! On the plus side though- means I'll be posting C29 in about an hour's time. C29, I must say, is I think my favourite IE chapter I've written to date!

I'm not sure this is at all obvious- while by 602 the Balkan situation was largely under control, I suspect there'd be continuing campaigns in the area for several years, maybe even up until the death of Maurice. His successor would then in all likelihood be facing renewed Iranian problems...

Another ~800 words of C30 done. It's proving to be another... lengthy... one. I'm hoping to use this chapter to end Samuel's reign, but I've still got the better part of a decade to go!

Great to see you back! :-)

That's what I'm minded to do. I got some more work done yesterday, that lifted C30 from about 30% to about 50% done- so progress is happening!

A query for those who might know- when did the term "Lombardy" start to come into popular use in northern Italy? I'm trying to work out what the Romans would call the area.

Manouil I is given this title primarily for the church unification, that's correct- but also partly for his physical presence. A tall, loud and imposing man, he was quite literally a "great" Emperor. Add into this too the fact he achieved unquestioned military dominance on all frontiers, and he...

Thanks for all the comments, guys- busy weekend, so I'll be responding later. I've started some work on the Anglo-Normans this past few days, chiefly preparing family trees and some basic dates. The update will take the form of a "Brief Introduction" to the period 1180-1340, so neccesarily...

I'm also planning on bringing all materials from this thread into the main TL now they can be thread marked. Does that seem sensible to people?

Thanks to AE for the tip. The thread is now threadmarked up!

Interesting- thanks!

The next chapter has a bit more information on the Iranian intervention in the East. But it's important to remember that Jurchen Iran isn't a simple redux of the Sasanian state of late antiquity- its roots lead it to look much more to expansion in the North and East than did the Sasanians. This...

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Road to Sarisai "Dig up his bones!" Ritual Byzantine chant of popular de-acclamation Ioannes III Syriakos had not enjoyed a rapturous response in Constantinople- and when the news of the fate of his brother Alexios began to spread through the City, so did the...