An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania

Reader mode

HanEmpire

We're getting Catherine the Great situation then? A great female ruler with an idiotic child-like husband. This one's even been groomed by a creep of a widow.
 

Pergington

I think Demetrius is going to be in charge of RITE and will probably the guy lays the foundation for further integration into the Empire. The signs are just too perfect here.
 
Lascaris

Lascaris

Well first you crown Demetrios co-emperor. Then you marry him to Sophia. Then you let them rule while Heraclius goes around hunting ala Constantine VIII. This is the empire. Primogeniture is observed when convenient.

Besides having my namesake become Demetrios IV is only right. :p
 
floppy_seal99

floppy_seal99

Curtain Jerker said:
I read this update right after taking my dog on a walk. She growled at every dog on the path, including ones literally 5-10 times her size. I wish I had the blind confidence in my abilities in a fight that dogs do, maybe I could have been a boxer in a different lifetime.

Excellent update.
Click to expand...
Yours isn't the only diminutive canine; if my 12-pounder had hands, she'd have been the first one calling for Michael Vick to be exonerated of all charges.
 

Basileus_of_the_Hellenes

As always, great update Basileus444!

I know this is a long shot, but I feel like Demetrios (the fourth now?), Heraklios' little bro, would be the perfect Exarch of RITE. Perhaps he could begin the creation of a Rhoman Sumatra that would one day become part of the Rhoman Federation? Or perhaps he'll just take the resources of the East and conquer a kingdom like David 1 did with the Aztecs (looking at you Java lol). Essentially, I feel like Demetrios Junior would be wasted in Konstantinopolis alone.
 

JohnSmith

Poor Alexandros Drakos going out with a little whimper.

Definitely agree Demetrios is being set up for great things outside of Constantinople. Perhaps he goes Wast with Leo Kalomeros as his right hand man? He should be old enough for high command by then.
 
floppy_seal99

floppy_seal99

TheCataphract said:
If it were real I suppose it would be sad.

It is ridiculous enough though that I can only picture it as a cartoon.
Click to expand...
Some artist is gonna draw this in a particularly eye catching way and it’s gonna end up as a particularly edgy and feted meme in whatever ITTL’s interwebz looks like (particularly Black Twitter, a chick killing a Chihuahua with a wholeass pole arm seems right up its alley).
 
E_x_c_u_b_i_t_o_r_e

E_x_c_u_b_i_t_o_r_e

Blaze said:
So, in the future, the elites of the West may claim "descent" or rather inspiration from the classical Rome, while at the same time the byzantines have their continuity kinda acnkowledged or rather, ignored in the "yeah, ok, whatever" sense. That is a good compromise indeed for the psyche of both sides. And of course it also can be used for a future cultural divide between the more christian ERE and the more classical influenced West.
Click to expand...
Ultimately its nothing but vanity, since there is well and still alive Roman state surviving. I can see that most other nations will refer the Eastern Roman empire as "The Roman empire". Especially if western atrocities and greediness affect many other nations, just like OTL.
 
Blaze

Blaze

Banned
E_x_c_u_b_i_t_o_r_e said:
Ultimately its nothing but vanity, since there is well and still alive Roman state surviving. I can see that most other nations will refer the Eastern Roman empire as "The Roman empire". Especially if western atrocities and greediness affect many other nations, just like OTL.
Click to expand...
Of course is all vanity. Just like China calling herself the "Middle Empire" or a ruler calling himself representative of Christ or something.
But what have western action to do with another nation calling Byzantium, Rome? That not only has little meaning to do if they are not influenced by rhomans but is also pesky .
Moreover, by this time and for quite a few time, it's the rhomans who are doing the colonial atrocities, not the Latins, by that logic everyone in the est with problems with the rhomans (and there are a lot) will call them Greeks.
 
Evilprodigy

Evilprodigy

Donor
catconqueror said:
If news of this comes out, the next latin invasion will be led by a horde of chihuahua. What will the Romans do to counter this?
Click to expand...
Reminds me of the legends/myths about the Battle of Pelusium where, when the Persians invaded Egypt, they carried cats so the Egyptians wouldn't attack them.
 

Bronze

Basileus444 said:
I hate that long thick dangling Syria.
Click to expand...
Funnily enough, I love what that "long thicc dangling Syria" looks like. A Rhomania with just Anatolia and without some dangly bit to the south (whether just the coast or the whole of Syria) feels... incomplete, somehow.

Basileus444 said:
The stories spread rapidly throughout the Empire and imprint themselves strongly in Roman cultural memory. As a result Chihuahuas are extremely rare as pets in Roman society. The image of a creature that will launch completely unprovoked assaults, even when simple self-preservation would argue against it, strikes a raw nerve. A Roman stereotype today is that by owning a Chihuahua, one is demonstrating one’s hatred of the human race.
Click to expand...
I can already imagine all the misanthrope characters in Roman literature keeping chihuahuas just for this symbolism, with non-Roman readers left scratching their heads as to why.

Basileus444 said:
The task facing Alexandros of Baghdad as he enters the city where he was born is a most formidable one. He is a Roman Orthodox ruling over Muslim subjects who have been devastated and wrecked by Roman soldiers and so naturally he cannot expect to be a popular choice. One advantage is that given the devastation and depopulation, any rebellious tendencies on the part of the Mesopotamians has been burned out of them. They are focused on rebuilding their shattered lives and societies. They want peace.

A bigger advantage Alexandros has is his mother. Maria of Agra immediately goes on a charm offensive, meeting with and wining and dining the great and the good of Mesopotamian society. It is a spectacular success, with Maria winning the notables’ support for the new regime. Given the weakness of the new government and the need to win loyalties, the notables are left with substantial power and authority in their local spheres, but they are willing to cooperate with the center rather than work against it.

Another advantage Alexandros has is his new wife, Tara, the granddaughter of Suleiman Pasha. Fifteen years old to Alexandros’s twenty-one, the couple have never seen each other prior to their wedding. However as arranged marriages go, this is one of the better ones. Love comes after the wedding but it does come, the pair becoming close confidantes and allies of each other.

Meanwhile Alexandros’s younger brother Nikephoros is kept busy as the commander of the small new Mesopotamian army. It is quite an important position for someone so young, but naturally Alexandros wants somebody there he can trust. The Mesopotamian force is small but highly diverse, with Roman, Persian, and Spanish mercenaries numbered in the ranks. The Topkapi Palace, which is renovated to be the new royal palace, is guarded by an Ethiopian squadron.
Click to expand...
Oh hey, they aren't immediately murderized!
However, the tension between an Orthodox ruler of a near-uniformly Muslim land isn't just going to go away. Might Alexandros or one of his successors consider converting to Islam, or would the White Palace veto such a move?
Also, a mostly-mercenary army doesn't sound too good, but... 'Lexy can't really raise native troops and create a copy of the Roman tagma system unless he can somehow ingratiate himself to them. His mother and his wife have both been key, but he needs more if he wants to be more than a puppet king of a realm that doesn't like him. Hmm... what options does he have? Considering the state of Mesopotamia and that he has to pay for a mercenary army, he's probably short on cash, and the Romans don't exactly have much money to give him. I can't really think of much right now.

Basileus444 said:
(As an aside, the Expedition Journals also come out at the same time as the Island Asia Compendium. Despite his death, Demetrios III’s plan for a major scientific, historical, and anthropological survey of the east had gone ahead, with the expedition setting sail in 1641. The expedition members had spent three years conducting their research, returning in 1645. The massive compendium came out in 1648, a giant learned tome. It was also extremely dry and academic and utterly buried by the far more interesting Expedition Journals. One historian of Roman science remarked that ‘the only person that would’ve been interested in reading the Compendium was Demetrios III, and he was dead’. As a result, the Compendium, a substantial scientific achievement, would lie unread and dusty on the bookshelves.)

Demetrios also spends a lot of time with the Mexican tutors of his cousin Jahzara. He is interested in their tales of the exotic land of Mexico, but his chief focus is on David I who’d conquered the Aztecs. The tale of a youngest son of a legendary Emperor, who found no place for himself in the constrictions of the old Empire, but who then went to claim a kingdom for himself in a faraway corner of the world, is an appealing one.
Click to expand...
Sad that Demetrios didn't get to see the Compendium, and that most people just ignored it. It's literally an exhaustive encyclopedia of an exotic land! >:c

Younger Demetrios doin' some foreshadowin' right there. Romania-in-the-East? Or some new land?
 
Reader mode
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top