An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania

[HanEmpire]

Napoleon!?

EDIT: Also wouldn't the Ligurians prefer to live in Carthage instead? The place has lots of Genoan influence after all.

EDIT2: Good to see that Roman culture has been moving away from the overly-belligerent attitude of the Fourth Empire. How close is it to Theodoros IV's ideal of "Empire of Gold and Iron" is it?

EDIT3: Will the Vlachs update their military after the Roman fashion now? They just saw their massive noble uprising get curbstomped by the Romans. That could inspire the Vlach King to modernize with Roman help.

 

[catconqueror]

Calling it now. Napoleon will somehow cause a revolution then a world war.

 

[ImperatorAlexander]

So now the Roman's have their own Napoleon in addition to a Genghis Khan (Prince Andreas born holding a blood clot). I would hope that this is a build up to future Roman martial glory but given WW1 is going to be the war of the ROMAN succession I doubt the Empire is going to make significant gains.

 

[Sir Omega]

Will the Vlachs update their military after the Roman fashion now? They just saw their massive noble uprising get curbstomped by the Romans. That could inspire the Vlach King to modernize with Roman help.

I presume the Vlachs would dearly love to bring their army to Roman standards, but it would be ruinously expensive without constant Roman financial help (remember OTL Hungary's Black Army). The Romans have an Empire worth of taxes and trade (sometimes plunder too) to pay for their army. The Vlachs don't.
The best solution would be (in addition of bringing Roman officers to create a Vlach Military Academy equivalent, which is much cheaper and is a good force multiplier)

Spoiler: personal opinion

Though historically medieval Wallach/Moldavian 'just' competent military leaders simply didn't cut it, thanks to large differences in power levels between them and their usual enemies. Military leaders were usually either very good or dead.

would be the path of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - mediocre army, with the exception of an arm (cavalry for the Poles), topped by a very elite unit (everybody here know the Winged Hussars, if not, they should). If you can't be strong everywhere, choose a point where you can be overwhelmingly strong.

 

[Lascaris]

A Corinth canal would be a good idea. There’s the Pharaoh’s Canal in Egypt from Suez to Cairo that’s passable by flat-bottomed barges. A full-blown Suez Canal I don’t think is technically feasible yet and won’t appear until steamships are a running theme. According to my research the Red Sea’s winds and currents apparently are not kind at all to sailing ships which is why Aden was such a major port. Ocean sailing ships would transfer their goods to oared vessels for the Red Sea leg in Aden. So building a canal from Med to Red big enough for an ocean-going vessel doesn’t make sense until you can guarantee it can get all the way through the Red Sea safely.

Do you have any ideas for specific land reclamation projects in Greece/Anatolia? Any suggestions would be helpful. One thing arguing against agricultural innovation though is that the Empire can get cheap grain from Egypt and Scythia, plus Vlachia is making a pretty penny supplying Constantinople with foodstuffs and animal products.

Hmm. Drain the Copais lake in Boeotia. That was first done in antiquity (partly) so should be feasible and gave 25000 hectares of arable land. A variety of similar works were done in Macedonia in the early 1920s that reclaimed around 3000 square km. At 40 acres and a mule that's enough land for over 30.000 families.

And while it's not land sooner or later some classically minded engineer is going to have a visit at Laurion. At which point he finds a shitload of lead (at a time in the 19th century it accounted for a significant fraction of world production), lots of silver plus the remains of the ancient mining on the surface which could be processed for more silver and lead. Large scale mining will need pumping but that's not an insurmountable object. Besides it gives one more reason for fast growth of Athens, beyond the huge harbour in Piraeus, the marble and a very fertile interior. (Would Athens grow if it had not become capital of the modern Greek state? Not to the current 4 million but yes given it's advantages. And while in 1821 it had only 12.000 people this was still making it the largest town in the south of Greece.)

 

[Deleted member 81475]

This timeline is just excellent! Realistic while also being packed with compelling characters and stories.

The Timur appreciation in Rome makes some sense, given the current threat of Iskandar and that Timur's last male-line heir is a Roman royal. I'm still cheering hopelessly for an Emperor descended from Kristina and Alfredo in Andreas III, but the Sideroi would be a fascinating successor dynasty at the end of a big war. Male-line descent from Timur and female-line from Andreas and the Drakoi is pretty impressive, and we've have enough guys named Herakleios that an Odysseus isn't too funky.

This update also reminded me with Sideros' new daughter that Zeno Komnenos had a daughter also named Athena. What ever happened to her? Or Leo's eldest son (Matthaios I think)?

 

[Ain]

Its hilarious that we're getting Napoleon almost two hundred years early. At least as a baby.

 

[Bmao]

So now the Roman's have their own Napoleon in addition to a Genghis Khan (Prince Andreas born holding a blood clot). I would hope that this is a build up to future Roman martial glory but given WW1 is going to be the war of the ROMAN succession I doubt the Empire is going to make significant gains.

Who is to say that this 'Napoleon' will even be a military man? He might end up being a Shakespeare instead, or a Leonardo Da-Vinci, as much as a military man. An intellectual or scientific boom seems just as likely, given that, barring some unforeseen cataclysm, the Ottomans are here to stay for the long-term, nor is the Holy Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire might have reached its furthest practical political boundaries, at least IMO.

 

[GamingWeasel]

I would not necessarily expect this Napoleon to be like the OTL one, especially as the person with this name is being born 200 years earlier. We will all have to wait and see, which is part of the fun.

 

[Duke of Nova Scotia]

He could be a Napoleon III.

 

[HanEmpire]

He could be a Napoleon III.

Good Emperor who gets screwed over by the nationalistic fervour of his subjects? Or played around by an unmatched diplomatic genius?

 

[Deleted member 81475]

Assuming that this Napoleon were to Romanize his name, what would it become? Neapolos Kalomeros, or something like that?

 

[HanEmpire]

Assuming that this Napoleon were to Romanize his name, what would it become? Neapolos Kalomeros, or something like that?

Kalomeros sounds right, that's the original Greek form of Bonaparte. I'm not sure about Neapolos though. I remember reading somewhere that "Napoleon" itself is Greek or at least is derived from Greek, combining neapolis (new city) and leon (lion) to mean "Lion of the New City". Or something along that line.

 

[Duke of Nova Scotia]

Good Emperor who gets screwed over by the nationalistic fervour of his subjects? Or played around by an unmatched diplomatic genius?

With the burgeoning cult-ish devotion to the idea of the Good Emperor, young Andreas is showing, I feel it is a bit of column A), and column B).

Sidaros is the diplomatic genius though and will bulwark the boy, instead of playing him. Utilize is a more appropriate word, as there is no self severing power play in him, otherwise he would have had his child born-in-the-purple.

Leo however is the nationalistic fervour he should be taught to keep a lid on.

 

[Basileus444]

HanEmpire: Carthage just got a huge chunk of its territory ripped away. Also the Carthaginians are descended from the Ligurians who didn’t get along with those who stayed at home, so they aren’t exactly on the friendliest terms. Egypt is a more welcoming opportunity.

There’s still a lot of belligerency in the Empire. The various tolerated minorities are tolerated because they’re firstly not very many of them and secondly, useful. The Roman government is willing to use them but that doesn’t mean they like them.

Vlach ability to improve their army is hampered by their limited manpower and money. There’s a lot of Roman influence in Vlachia already but Targoviste just doesn’t have the economic base to come even close to fielding the Roman system.

Thanks for the note about Kalomeros-Bonaparte. I was wondering what the Greek version was. I can see Napoleon going by ‘Leo’ for short. It’s a common Roman name.

Catconqueror: No, this is an alternate timeline. First world war, then revolution.

ImperatorAlexander: I’m glad somebody noticed that. I thought it’d gotten missed.

Sir Omega: My thoughts exactly. The Vlach approach currently is to focus on gun infantry since that’s cheap and easy to field. Their artillery and cavalry departments are quite weak; the two thousand Vlach cavalry at Mohacs were the bulk of the Vlach horse.

Lascaris: Thank you for the suggestions. They’re greatly appreciated. I don’t plan on Athens being one of the big cities of the Empire, although perhaps a solid member of the middling group. Right now Corinth is the premier city of southern Greece and Thessaloniki is the second city of the Empire.

Charcolt: Thank you for the high praise. It’s greatly appreciated. As for those lines, I’m going to declare that they died out without any issue (I think I said so explicitly for Matthaios but I’m not sure). The Imperial family tree is already enough of a Lovecraftian eldritch abomination as it is.

Ain: Hey, I like throwing in famous historical names to screw with people.

Bmao: I can see alt-Napoleon as an artist. “Why do all your paintings involve invading Russia?” “I don’t know; I just get these urges.”

GamingWeasel: He’ll be different from the OTL one. He’ll be tall! Britain’s screwed now! Mwahahaha!

Duke of Nova Scotia: Or a Napoleon “why do I have a regnal number?” II.

 

[ImperatorAlexander]

Or a Napoleon “why do I have a regnal number?” II.

Please no GRR Martin, not another red herring.

 

[Arrix85]

Revolution, huh? First time B444 mentions it (I think), before I think only a dynasty change was implied. This could be interesting... and give Rhomania a much needed jolt.

 

[Sir Omega]

This could be interesting... and give Rhomania a much needed jolt.

You'd think that frequent wars, invasions, and a sprinkle of civil wars are enough of a jolt...

 

[Arrix85]

Yeah, we can agree that violence is not good, but political revolutions (Although power grabs by people who don't have it,) tend to bring change and not only in foreign policy (like democracy, although for now a plutocracy is more likely, one could argue it's still the dominant model). And we don't know which kind this one will be.

 

[HanEmpire]

Yeah, we can agree that violence is not good, but political revolutions (Although power grabs by people who don't have it,) tend to bring change and not only in foreign policy (like democracy, although for now a plutocracy is more likely, one could argue it's still the dominant model). And we don't know which kind this one will be.

Democracy won't be a thing ITTL unless Basileus changed his mind, at least not in the Roman Empire.
It's too tainted with the following things:
-paganism, ie. Classical Athens
-merchant republics, ie. Venice
-rebellions, on the basis that local magnates and nobles will inevitably rig elections by bribing the electorate and thus undermine Imperial Authority.