Isaac's Empire 2.0
- Thread starter Basileus Giorgios
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An Update!!!!!!
The conflict in this chapter seems poignant, what with recent goings on in the region. I take it that the disastrous regime of Eirene will take place in this timeline then.
The conflict in this chapter seems poignant, what with recent goings on in the region. I take it that the disastrous regime of Eirene will take place in this timeline then.
Good update, BG!
Thanks all!
So passes TTL John II.
Am I to assume that Yusuf was made a commander for heroism in a manner similar to Jordan of Aversa (but without the surrogate father element)? Seems like such a thing might become a habit of TTL Byzantium, perhaps as a way of saying "I am Basileus, and just as I can unmake men in an instant I can raise them to new heights no less easily!" Could be both useful and dangerous as a tradition IMO, though it may help move the empire toward merit based promotion in the long run.
Also, you like David Bringas don't you
Hmmm, not quite- I'd say that ibn Yusuf was probably already a low level commander in the army at the time of the Battle of Gaza, but that his career may have been fast-tracked by John later that year. I would argue that the culture of the Basileus being able to make and unmake men as he sees fit has always been present in the Empire, so it's perhaps not as big a divide as you think!
As for Bringas, he was an important character in 1.0 but he only had a very fleeting walk-on role in the early thirteenth century. I thought I'd do a lot more here to flesh out his youth and backstory.
I was thinking that as I wrote it, though I didn't intend for any heavy handed comparisons to the modern day conflicts of the region.
I actually wasn't aware of that, though you're right to say that the two-horned Alexander as a Quranic figure does appear in Holland's book. I got the name for this Salghurid princeling from an historical figure who IOTL was associated with the Danishmends in the middle of the twelfth century.
Yes, the impression I've tried to give with Smbat is of a latter day Mithridates of Pontus- a king who, despite his limited resources, is able to use his extraordinary ingenuity and toughness to become a major figure in world politics. You're right to say, though, that one wrong move will bring Syunik tumbling down. Right now, the principality is very centred on the persona of Smbat, and he won't be around forever.
Nice idea about Smbat's legacy, though. I'll have a think about this- feel free to PM me any ideas you might have.
It's the latter. Pretty much all of modern Israel-Palestine is notionally held by the Romans, but only pretty shakily. An analogy would be Cilicia under the Komnenoi. For now, though, the Turks are being just about kept out of the inland regions.
The Turks certainly do have the resources and know-how to construct fleets now, so I think it's something Kürboğa will be considering for the future. For now, though, his objective is to restore the Salghurid heartland that is Palestine, and to remove Christian control over Jerusalem.As for Kürboğa, now that he has won his great victory, will he be tempted to challenge Roman might on the high seas? The masters of any resurgent Egypt were never happy for long to have Roman fleets ranging freely along their northern coasts. A victor like Kürboğa might set his sights on the rich plunder to be had among the rich Roman coastlands and islands...
Uniate Christians probably still make up a majority of the population, if one counts the vassalised states of Italy as part of the Empire at this point- but their majority is shrinking. Syria and Palestine at this point still have very large Christian communities, mostly Monophysites, and the local Melkites are somewhat unconvinced by the Uniate Church as a legitimate form of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. A lot of Muslims have fled, but equally, many remain behind. Certainly the Empire is now ruling over many more Muslims that it ever did IOTL.
The conflict in this chapter seems poignant, what with recent goings on in the region. I take it that the disastrous regime of Eirene will take place in this timeline then.[/COLOR]
Correct, Eirene will come to power, and this has already been foreshadowed. Hopefully she'll be a bit more of a well-rounded character than the simple monster we encountered the first time round.
Indeed it is- a point a lot of AH.commers still don't seem to get when writing their TLs. In the next few updates the Empire will suffer the consequences of grabbing a bit too much in one go!I liked this update more than the rest, somehow this emperor was more fleshed out than the rest. Overextension is a bitch, though.
The next few updates are probably going to be painful for the Empire, not sure how yet and any idea when the Wiki is going to be updated?
- A man setting out to conquer a small domain around Jerusalem and ending up taking all of Egypt while he's at it? Check!
- Everyone's (except for the Emperor) favourite Armenian punching above his weight yet again? Check!
- The Emperor getting hit in the head by a brick and almost dying? Check!
- Imperial armies marching through Jerusalem? Check!
- General overextension everywhere? Check!
- Excellent update? Check!
Keep the manna coming, BG.
- Everyone's (except for the Emperor) favourite Armenian punching above his weight yet again? Check!
- The Emperor getting hit in the head by a brick and almost dying? Check!
- Imperial armies marching through Jerusalem? Check!
- General overextension everywhere? Check!
- Excellent update? Check!
Keep the manna coming, BG.
I'm in the final year of my undergraduate degree, so yes, fairly active. Moreover, I try to make IE 2.0 a fairly high quality piece of writing, which takes research and a fair bit of cross-referencing to do, rather than just me churning out page after page of TL. That works for some people, and good luck to them, but it's not really for me- I'm a believer in quality over quantity!
I'll try to get a new update in this side of Christmas, but I can't promise anything.
A map soon would be fantastic! It would help greatly in picturing just how much the Empire has conquered.
We'll get one soon, I'd imagine.
In short- Syria and Palestine are outright conquered, together with bits of Italy. Other bits of Italy are vassalised, as is Hungary.
Thanks! The opening quote for the next chapter (which is approximately half-written) is an OTL one by Michael Psellos, describing the weakness of women and how they are so totally unsuited to ruling over Romans.
In a way. Unlike Basil, John II has surviving and legitimate heirs, a son and a grandson (who are, if you recall, approximately the same age as one another due to the surprising circumstances behind his son Alexander's birth). On the flipside, I would argue that the Empire John has left behind him is a considerably shakier structure than Basil's. His heirs don't have a big stockpile of gold, for example, and Hungary is just waiting to explode. The Egyptians, too, aren't going to sit around and play nice in the absence of a strong leader in Constantinople.037771 said:
Thanks! The opening quote for the next chapter (which is approximately half-written) is an OTL one by Michael Psellos, describing the weakness of women and how they are so totally unsuited to ruling over Romans.
We could have a update this month? Nice!
You could have! But I'm not promising anything- what can I say, I've lost my touch at this "regular updating" lark.
I'd say it's more likely than not there'll be another update by Christmas, but really, who knows.
Chapter Twelve: Filling the Vacuum
Chapter Twelve: Filling the Vacuum
“Everyone was agreed that for the Roman Empire to be governed by a woman, instead of a man, was improper, and even if the people did not think so, it certainly seemed that they did.”
Michael Psellos, Chronographia
Michael Psellos, Chronographia
The Emperor John II Komnenos died in April 1180. By May, his court was already seething with civil conflict, as various influentials jostled for position. Nominally, of course, there was no problem at all. The senior Emperor was John’s grandson Michael VIII, a man of twenty two. But Michael was a limp and ineffective figure, who, others bitterly noted, preferred to cavort with his wife Eirene of Corinth. It did not help the young Emperor that his choice of wife had displeased his influential grandmother Theodora, who refused to allow Eirene to take precedence before her as Augusta at ceremonial affairs. And Theodora was influential. Her court allies, including the Patriarch Andronikos II[1] and the newly promoted Parakoimomenos Eutychios[2] too, disliked the new Emperor, and feared for their positions. Only the elderly Grand Logothete David Angelos stood as a defender of Michael.
But who to replace him with? Theodora, in the autumn of 1180, was faced with two choices. One was her granddaughter, Michael’s sister, who (confusingly for many historians!) also bore the name Theodora. By marrying off the younger Theodora to one of the eastern generals, David Bringas or even an exotic Arab like ibn Yusuf, the Augusta could be sure of securing the support of the generals as well for toppling her grandson, whose wife further lowered herself in Theodora’s eyes by producing a daughter late that year[3].
The second option, which perhaps was more obvious, was Theodora’s own son Alexander who had, to general surprise, finally taken himself off to Esztergom shortly after his father’s death, there to be crowned King of Hungary. Despite Alexander’s impeccably Hungarian heritage, as a grandson of King Solomon II[4] the natives had not altogether been pleased with their new king, as he was perceived to have overthrown the popular Regent, Piroska[5], who retreated into a monastery on Alexander’s coronation.
In the end, it was monasticism that made up Theodora’s mind. Early in 1181, David Angelos died, stripping Michael of his most senior ally. At the same time, the young Theodora herself retreated into a monastery, hoping to escape from the attentions of numerous suitors. The only viable candidate to remove Michael was Alexander. As if to prove divine displeasure for the young Emperor, Eirene of Corinth miscarried a child in the summer of 1181. Theodora’s course was set, and Alexander began the long trip back to Constantinople.
Why Michael did not fight back more strongly has been much puzzled over, and it certainly baffled many of his contemporaries. Ultimately, it seems likely that this rather sensitive and weak young man was too distraught at the loss of a child to care any longer. Alexander arrived back in Constantinople shortly after the beginning of the New Year[6]. The coup was quick and effective. By Christmas, he had replaced the unfortunate Michael as senior Emperor, with the approval of the Patriarch and the chief ministers. Theodora could purr with satisfaction at a job well done.
The Emperor Alexander III[7]probably knew that he had been set up by his mother and he had little desire to allow this state of affairs to continue. The path to side-lining Theodora and her civilian regime lay, he knew, in securing the support of the powerful generals who led the imperial Tagmata, by marrying one of their daughters. Of these, there were plenty of candidates. David Bringas’ daughter Epiphania seemed immediately suitable, as did the ravishing young Angelina Palaiologina, daughter of the Domestic of the West Andronikos Palaiologos[8]. Ultimately, though, Alexander’s youthful eye fell upon one woman- Eirene Nafpliotissa, daughter of the Doux of Antioch Constantine Nafpliotis, and, through her formidable mother Pulcheria, granddaughter of the long-dead and disgraced general Jordan of Aversa.
It was a sensible choice. Nafpliotis was far from a capable commander, but thanks to the help of his loyal young deputy Theodore Evagoras[9] he had attained a high degree of popularity amongst the armies of the East thanks to his easy-going and generous nature, frequently presenting his men with cash bonuses from the fruits of his own massive estates in Bithynia and Thrace[10]. With Kürboğa an ever present menace in the East, it made sense for the Emperor to shore himself up in that area. But there was a problem. His mother Theodora was never one to keep out of her family’s business, especially not the marital choices of her son. Thinking to set her heir back on the straight and narrow, she imperiously demanded that the Emperor instead marry a girl of the Hungarian nobility, to shore up his status as King of Hungary.
When news of this reached Syria early in 1182, Nafpliotis was predictably furious at the snub, and, after a short consultation, decided to march on Constantinople to impose his own daughter as Alexander’s consort. To oppose him, Theodora gathered together a motley army of Hungarian and Bulgarians, plus regular troops under the command of John Palaiologos, son of the Domestikos tēs Dyseōs Andronikos and brother of the Angelina who was Theodora’s favoured contender for Empress. Alexander, as was characteristic, sat quietly, watching and waiting. When his co-Emperor Michael VIII voiced support for Nafpliotis and his allies, he was quickly expelled from Constantinople by Theodora, and sent scurrying for sanctuary on the island of Mytilene[11].
The cold winter of 1182 was one of shadow punching. The western army gathered on the north side of the Marmara, but declined to cross, for Abydos[12] had been seized by the Easterners. The Eastern army, for its part, enjoyed a relaxing time, and Nafpliotis himself was greeted as a returning hero by the peoples of Bithynia. There was a widespread expectation in both camps that the decisive battle would be fought in the warmer weather of the spring, but in fact it would never come at all.
The Palaiologoi had been summoned to Constantinople to celebrate Christmas with the imperial family, leaving their army effectively leaderless. In their absence, scuffles had soon broken out between the Hungarian contingent and the main Tagmata, centred on the teachings of the priest John of Florence, who had preached opposition to what he considered to be the heretical compromises of the Eighth Ecumenical Council[13]. John was popular in Hungary, where he was closely linked to ideas of Magyar resistance to Roman overlordship. With Alexander, technically an half-Hungarian himself, treating his kingdom as a mere province of the Empire, John’s popularity had soared, despite (or perhaps because of) his death at the hands of Alexander’s loyalists early in 1181 during his stay in Esztergom. Soon, the entire Western army was falling apart, and the hasty return of John Palaiologos did nothing to stop it. In April 1183, the entire Hungarian contingent of around three thousand men[14] upped and left the Western army, under the command of the dashing young baron Ladislaus of Pozsony[15].
Ladislaus now began the opening salvos of a struggle that would dominate European history until at least the close of the Great War in the eighteenth century. Moving north-west through Thrace and into Bulgaria, he and his men, destined to be known forevermore to history as the “Marching Martyrs” seized and occupied Ochrida, the former capital of Bulgaria that Basil II had finally conquered generations previously. There, they enthroned one John of Priene, an originally Armenian[16] commander who had taken part in the Bulgar revolt of a decade previously, as Caesar (“Tsar”) of the Romans and the Bulgars, chiefly due to John’s military expertise and opposition to Third Nicaea[17]. With the provinces of the northern part of the Haemic peninsula[18] now increasingly descending into anarchy, Ladislaus moved further north. At Singidunum, the Marching Martyrs were ambushed and badly mauled by an imperial commander, gaining the “Martyr” part of their title in the process, but a hard core around Ladislaus remained intact. By the end of the year, they had returned in triumph to Esztergom, where the former Regent Piroska was removed from her monastery and installed as Queen, adopting Ladislaus as her son.
Unsurprisingly, all of this came as an utter humiliation for both the Empress Theodora and the Palaiologoi. It did, however, have the impact of pushing the Emperor Alexander to make up his mind. At the same time as his statues and icons were being toppled and burned in Hungary, the Basileus was marrying Eirene Nafpliotissa, and recalling his nephew Michael from Mytilene, to join him as a favoured, albeit junior, monarch. In the conflict between the great families, the Palaiologoi had definitively lost this round, and it was only Alexander’s naturally peaceable nature that ensured the family kept their eyes, even if they were forced to retire to Attica. A court reshuffle now took place, with the Doukai, long enemies of Bulgar revolutionaries, returning to a position of power more prominent than at any time since the death of Michael Psellos a century earlier[19], with family members holding both the offices of Domestic of the West and Supreme Admiral, Drungarios[20]. Even the Doukai, though, were now thoroughly put in the shade by Constantine Nafpliotis, who now stood as undeniably the most powerful man in the Empire behind Alexander himself. Constantine had no sons of his own, but his Empress-daughter more than made up for this. In any case, the Nafpliotis line was more than continued by Constantine’s hitherto retiring brother Leo, who had spawned no less than five sons, all of whom were awarded titles and commands by the new regime.
For the citizenry of Constantinople, all this investiture made for a spectacular 1184, rounded off by the arrival of a healthy imperial princess, Theophano[21], to Eirene and Alexander at the end of the year. Outside the gilded world of the capital, though, things were rapidly falling apart. The events of 1182-83 had stripped the already overextended frontiers of troops, so that by the beginning of 1185, just five years after the death of John II, his imperial achievement was rapidly coming to naught. In the East, David Bringas, badly supplied and with a small army, had suffered a punishing defeat at the hands ofKürboğa, and had been immediately been exiled for this failure by Nafpliotis, eager to cut down a rival Eastern commander. In the West, Tsar Ivan, as the Bulgars knew him, had spent a leisurely year and a half picking off tiny imperial garrisons one by one, while the main Tagmatic armies loitered around Thrace- Eirene was insufficiently trusting of the Western armies to risk letting them win a politically important victory over the rebels.
The Empire as 1185 began, then, was one seized up by gridlock, as the fundamental contradictions of John Komnenos’ imperial policy came home. John had pushed out the frontiers and sponsored a clutch of ambitious new generals, but five years on, this had led to a situation where there were simply too many powerful individuals (for whom the term Dynatoi is apt[22]) snatching after power in Constantinople, and too many outside foes aiming to improve their own situation. The defeat of one outsider would lead to the enhancement of whichever Dynatos was responsible for victory, while the removal of the Dynatoi entirely would only boost an outsider, whether it be Ladislaus, Ivan, Smbat or Kürboğa. While John had lived, he could act as the one figure that comfortably stood above all others, but now a multitude of individually less powerful individuals had replaced him. The revolt of Constantine Nafpliotis only made things worse, as it proved to the Dynatoi that a revolt was indeed an eminently workable path to advance their interests.
Eirene Nafpliotissa was now secure in power, and by early in 1185, it was clear to many that whatever niceties were promoted in court it was she who dominated both of the rival Emperors. From herein, then, the successes and failures of the better part of the next thirty years would belong to the regime of one of the most important figures in Rhomanian history.
[1] We last met Andronikos as an ambitious young man in the early 1150s, in Chapter Nine.
[2] Eutychios served in John’s campaigns in the East, and was promoted to the office of head of the imperial bedchamber in February 1180, shortly before the Emperor’s death. He is, of course, a eunuch.
[3] There is some evidence that giving birth to sons could see Empresses promoted in the court hierarchy, whereas daughters would not do the trick.
[4] Reigned 1126-1136. See Chapter Eight.
[5] See Chapter Ten. Piroska is Alexander’s cousin.
[6] Which, of course, took place on September 1st. See Chapter One.
[7] Alexander I would be Alexander Severus (222-235), and Alexander II the Macedonian Emperor (912-913).
[8] Andronikos is the nephew of the Basil Palaiologos who launched an abortive uprising against Isaac II in 1117. His own father, Basil’s brother John, then spent a decade in exile, finally returning to Manuel’s court in 1126, a grizzled and tired man. Only then did John finally produce his heir, Andronikos. Nowadays, both Andronikos and his own son, another John, are senior figures in the western military establishment.
[9] We met Theodore in the last chapter, when he had been placed by John in command of the port cities of the Levant.
[10] The family have long held large estates in the region- see Chapter Eight.
[11] Lesbos.
[12] The most important town on the Asian side of the Hellespont.
[13] See Chapters Eight and Ten.
[14] Hungarian and Parisian Orthodox sources put the number much lower, but this is improbable given their success.
[15] Pozsony is OTL Bratislava.
[16] Priene, in western Anatolia, is reported to have had a large Armenian population in the tenth century, which I’m assuming has survived here.
[17] That is, the Eighth Ecumenical Council, the third such gathering to take place at Nicaea.
[18] “Balkans” is a Turkish word. Apologies for accidentally using this anachronism in the past, I’ll try to be consistent with the use of “Haemic” in future.
[19] See Chapter Three
[20] The evolution of the office of Drungarios into a purely ceremonial one begins now, though there’ll be active Drungarioi into the sixteenth century.
[21] The decision not to call the baby “Theodora” is interpreted in contemporary sources as a deliberate snub to Alexander’s mother.
[22] The Dynatoi had been landowners under the Macedonian dynasty, crushed by Basil II. The Dynatoi of the late twelfth century are a mixture of their descendants and ambitious new men
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Balkan is a Turkish word? Then where does Haemic come from? Learn something new every day.
Nice update, especially one so quickly.
Haemic derives from a Greek word- they called the Balkan Mts. the Haimos Mons. Wikpedia has an article here. "Balkans" is certainly anachronistic, anyhow.
Glad you enjoyed the update, though I think it says something worrying about me as a writer when a three week gap between updates is seen by my readers as being a sign of frequent updating! Never mind.
Other thoughts?