An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
Donald Reaver
Donor
Any major setback for Theodor where he is forced to retreat will be hard on the Triune artillery. This not a modern army or proto modern army of the Romans. They are individual groups with their own leaders, who will look after themselves if all collapses. Triunes have heavy guns to pull, they will fall behind and have a choice. Fight and die, or surrender and hope to go home, or switch sides and perhaps profit. A major coup for the Romans if so, and might be a important suggestion to the Triunes, maybe it time to hit someone major close to home.
If you compare imperial heartlands only. But the way HRE functions even in ATL might as well considered the Despotates as part of the roman empire. The german army after all is the imperial army plus german princes, which functions similar to despotates. But we are not comparing anatolia,greece and bulgaria vs austria instead we are comparing the whole german empire vs part of the roman empire.
Triunes also quite similar with france and england as separate kingdoms and we are not comparing england vs anatolia but the triunes vs the anatolia,grrece and bulgaria.
Roman empire 1630s atl in its totality is still massive especially if one looking is not as crazy as theodor.
Besides the fact the roman empire still used despotates for resources and manpower.
Remember when Rome won a pitched battle? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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I won't lie, there is still a soft spot in my heart for KATAPHRAKTOI, READY KONTOI! I really want to see some more of that, or its equivalent.
I need me some heavy-armoured cavalry bois firing carbines and smashing some Germans. Time to remind them of the sheer terror of the Kataphraktoi!
I need me some heavy-armoured cavalry bois firing carbines and smashing some Germans. Time to remind them of the sheer terror of the Kataphraktoi!
Evilprodigy
Donor
We're in the era of the Cuirassiers now, plenty of opportunity for heavy cavalry charges.
@Basileus444 how are the Alliance and Roman battle-lines organized? Are they based on tercios, with thick blocky formations? Or are they thin and wide to maximize firepower?
Sure those are modern banking practices, but in times of crisis it might still cause huge problems during bank runs, as has happened numerous times throughout history. And they probably will be lacking some crucial elements of modern banking practices designed to avoid those bank runs, such as deposit insurance.
That's fractional reserve banking by a central bank of course and it's not coming much ahead of OTL, the English and Dutch were doing it already by the same time OTL and the Swedish central bank came to being in 1667. So no I wouldn't be overtly concerned so long as the money supply and the cover of banknotes in gold remains reasonable.
InMediasRes: 2 days marching-around 40 to 50 miles. There are a couple of reasons for Abydos. It’s a good place to supply troops coming over from Asia, whether transfers from Syria or new Anatolian recruits (the three West Anatolian themes are the richest and most populous in the empire). Also, unlike Gallipoli which would need to be defended against raids, Abydos is completely impervious to Allied attacks. It only needs a token guard to make sure local bandits don’t make off with some pilfering. Supplies then can be loaded onto ships and transported directly to the European armies, with only the short land march afterwards needing protection. So while the Allies have a horribly long and vulnerable supply line, the Romans have a really short and literally-invulnerable-for-most-of-its-length supply line.
Praetor98: True, although that’d be the case for its enemies as well.
HanEmpire: You forgot delivery pizza, the most important stage of modernization. Shame on you, good sir, shame.
Assuming I get to that stage, the Empire will be late to the First Industrial Revolution. It just doesn’t have the easy access to coal like England or the Rhineland has. Second Industrial Revolution on the other hand, with a focus on chemistry and physics, is a different story.
Yeah, Demetrios isn’t letting the tax bracket idea go away. It’s far too valuable, although he does have a lot of planned revisions to implement post-war. This was a simple, quick-to-implement version of his tax reform plan that he came up with for Andreas III.
Regarding Theodor, by this point he’s put so much on the line that considering failure is literally becoming unthinkable. So any shred of evidence that supports the ‘war can be won’ idea he latches onto. He’s poster child for both confirmation bias and the sunk cost fallacy. I’ll go more onto this in a later update.
The Triune historian’s racism comes from reading a lot on the 19th and early 20th centuries. The amount of casual racism is staggering. I was reading a history of the Balkans published around 1920 that said that Bulgarians were stupider than Serbians because of their ‘greater Asiatic blood’. So racism like that historian’s would be nothing special in that period IOTL.
Thin and wide formations to maximize firepower. We’re in the era of the flintlock musket plus socket bayonet now whilst dealing with Europe plus Ottomans, so 1700s more than 1600s when it comes to military tactics. Although using block/column formations for shock actions is still a valid idea; looking back that may be a partial explanation for Theodoros Laskaris taking so many casualties attacking Ottoman embankments at Aabdeh.
Curtain Jerker: Once all the characters are dead, that will be the long-term legacy of the war. These innovations are here to stay.
Kimo: Demetrios would be a terrible general, but he’s an excellent administrator with a lot of experience in lesser posts. With the reforms, he’s fortunate in that he was drawing up reform plans already under commission from Andreas III, so now he’s cribbing from his own notes. That makes things easier.
Wolttaire: They’re still limited in mountain and winter conditions. Land transportation is still entirely dependent on human/animal muscle power, so moving big armies in winter just isn’t an option if you don’t want it disintegrate from lack of food.
ImperatorAlexander: At that point Mouzalon’s just planning for possible eventualities. Right now the Allies are still on the Danube. They need to take Ruse and then Varna before they’ll break into Thrace.
The Allies are somewhat aware of the Roman army expansion, although fuzzy on the details. Theodor knows that aside from the still-sizeable Roman army in Bulgaria there’s still a large army in Syria facing the Ottomans. He’s also well-informed on the Roman forces in Italy. But he’s probably thinking Roman land forces (disregard the navy) are around 150-200 thousand.
Henri II, on the other hand, has ever good intelligence on Roman capabilities. Whether he’s passing that on to Theodor is…questionable.
Donald Reaver: I’ve been reading about some armies in the OTL Thirty Years War that had to retreat over already-ravaged ground and literally disintegrated, as in they started with 20000 men and ended up with 2000. Now a lot of those losses may be desertions, not fatalities, but it’s not like that helps the commander at the end of the day.
The Romans are developing plans to be lenient on prisoners from Group A, hard on Group B, etc., as a way to put pressure on or reward certain governments. Aside from the Triunes, there are also the Hungarians and the various Imperial princes, whose loyalties to the Wittelsbachs can and does vary. Imagine if Prince A wishes to rebel and their prisoners are released quickly while the Romans drag their feet on releasing any Wittelsbach prisoners…
Sceonn: That may play some part but the Empire is still a pre-industrial state so the far-and-away main factor increasing birth rate is the availability of food. The arrival of New World foodstuffs and new agricultural techniques will be far more important to a Roman baby boom.
A lot of Turkey’s population is of very recent development. Admittedly going off of the Wikipedia pages for Turkey/France demographics but according to that 1970 Turkey had a comparable population to 1851 France. Now some of that might be due to the relative underdevelopment of Turkey vis-à-vis France until recent decades, but that’s still a huge gap until the last few decades. Turkey just isn’t as good as France or Germany at supporting large populations without modern agriculture so that’ll be a major factor until 20th century technology is in play.
Admittedly this is just focusing on Anatolia, which skewed things against the Romans.
JackExpo: And now it disappeared. He was a fun character I added for a bit of weird silliness. I thought about having him keep popping up everywhere to troll everyone.
Stark: Good eye. I was wondering if anyone would notice that. Military tech is close to a century in advance of OTL.
Namayan: The Roman Empire in the mid-1400s was quite advanced for its day, but you’re right that it was Andreas Niketas’ sheer military ability that catapulted it to such prominence. If Andreas had tried to put even half the forces Demetrios is fielding now, the Empire’s economy would’ve shattered. Andreas issued only 2000 war bonds; Demetrios is issuing 1.75 million.
However as ImperatorAlexander pointed out, the Triple Monarchy and HRE both have superior demographic/material resources. The Roman government is just better at making use of its smaller resources.
Chrnno: I don’t know why people are so suspicious of me…
Soverihn: That’s always a risk. Certainly post-war will be interesting, in the Chinese sense, when all those demands for war materials evaporate simultaneously with the demobilization of 100,000+ soldiers.
Evilprodigy: I did a ‘far-future’ peek that suggested that. Although admittedly most, if not all, of my ‘far-future’ stuff I’ve eventually declared non-canon. So we’ll see.
RogueTraderEnthusiast: Don’t worry; you’ll get your wish.
AlexG: I admit, that’s one of those statements you should say while heavily banging on a piece of wood.
Lascaris: Bank runs are an issue with fractional reserve banking. The Romans aren’t immune to have a ‘South Seas Company bubble’ situation. Although saying that, right now there’s still a tight leash. The Imperial Bank, and only the Imperial Bank, can do this and they still have to have bullion to cover at minimum 1/3 of their loans, which to my knowledge is quite conservative as fractional reserve banking goes.
Praetor98: True, although that’d be the case for its enemies as well.
HanEmpire: You forgot delivery pizza, the most important stage of modernization. Shame on you, good sir, shame.
Assuming I get to that stage, the Empire will be late to the First Industrial Revolution. It just doesn’t have the easy access to coal like England or the Rhineland has. Second Industrial Revolution on the other hand, with a focus on chemistry and physics, is a different story.
Yeah, Demetrios isn’t letting the tax bracket idea go away. It’s far too valuable, although he does have a lot of planned revisions to implement post-war. This was a simple, quick-to-implement version of his tax reform plan that he came up with for Andreas III.
Regarding Theodor, by this point he’s put so much on the line that considering failure is literally becoming unthinkable. So any shred of evidence that supports the ‘war can be won’ idea he latches onto. He’s poster child for both confirmation bias and the sunk cost fallacy. I’ll go more onto this in a later update.
The Triune historian’s racism comes from reading a lot on the 19th and early 20th centuries. The amount of casual racism is staggering. I was reading a history of the Balkans published around 1920 that said that Bulgarians were stupider than Serbians because of their ‘greater Asiatic blood’. So racism like that historian’s would be nothing special in that period IOTL.
Thin and wide formations to maximize firepower. We’re in the era of the flintlock musket plus socket bayonet now whilst dealing with Europe plus Ottomans, so 1700s more than 1600s when it comes to military tactics. Although using block/column formations for shock actions is still a valid idea; looking back that may be a partial explanation for Theodoros Laskaris taking so many casualties attacking Ottoman embankments at Aabdeh.
Curtain Jerker: Once all the characters are dead, that will be the long-term legacy of the war. These innovations are here to stay.
Kimo: Demetrios would be a terrible general, but he’s an excellent administrator with a lot of experience in lesser posts. With the reforms, he’s fortunate in that he was drawing up reform plans already under commission from Andreas III, so now he’s cribbing from his own notes. That makes things easier.
Wolttaire: They’re still limited in mountain and winter conditions. Land transportation is still entirely dependent on human/animal muscle power, so moving big armies in winter just isn’t an option if you don’t want it disintegrate from lack of food.
ImperatorAlexander: At that point Mouzalon’s just planning for possible eventualities. Right now the Allies are still on the Danube. They need to take Ruse and then Varna before they’ll break into Thrace.
The Allies are somewhat aware of the Roman army expansion, although fuzzy on the details. Theodor knows that aside from the still-sizeable Roman army in Bulgaria there’s still a large army in Syria facing the Ottomans. He’s also well-informed on the Roman forces in Italy. But he’s probably thinking Roman land forces (disregard the navy) are around 150-200 thousand.
Henri II, on the other hand, has ever good intelligence on Roman capabilities. Whether he’s passing that on to Theodor is…questionable.
Donald Reaver: I’ve been reading about some armies in the OTL Thirty Years War that had to retreat over already-ravaged ground and literally disintegrated, as in they started with 20000 men and ended up with 2000. Now a lot of those losses may be desertions, not fatalities, but it’s not like that helps the commander at the end of the day.
The Romans are developing plans to be lenient on prisoners from Group A, hard on Group B, etc., as a way to put pressure on or reward certain governments. Aside from the Triunes, there are also the Hungarians and the various Imperial princes, whose loyalties to the Wittelsbachs can and does vary. Imagine if Prince A wishes to rebel and their prisoners are released quickly while the Romans drag their feet on releasing any Wittelsbach prisoners…
Sceonn: That may play some part but the Empire is still a pre-industrial state so the far-and-away main factor increasing birth rate is the availability of food. The arrival of New World foodstuffs and new agricultural techniques will be far more important to a Roman baby boom.
A lot of Turkey’s population is of very recent development. Admittedly going off of the Wikipedia pages for Turkey/France demographics but according to that 1970 Turkey had a comparable population to 1851 France. Now some of that might be due to the relative underdevelopment of Turkey vis-à-vis France until recent decades, but that’s still a huge gap until the last few decades. Turkey just isn’t as good as France or Germany at supporting large populations without modern agriculture so that’ll be a major factor until 20th century technology is in play.
Admittedly this is just focusing on Anatolia, which skewed things against the Romans.
JackExpo: And now it disappeared.
He was a fun character I added for a bit of weird silliness. I thought about having him keep popping up everywhere to troll everyone. Stark: Good eye. I was wondering if anyone would notice that. Military tech is close to a century in advance of OTL.
Namayan: The Roman Empire in the mid-1400s was quite advanced for its day, but you’re right that it was Andreas Niketas’ sheer military ability that catapulted it to such prominence. If Andreas had tried to put even half the forces Demetrios is fielding now, the Empire’s economy would’ve shattered. Andreas issued only 2000 war bonds; Demetrios is issuing 1.75 million.
However as ImperatorAlexander pointed out, the Triple Monarchy and HRE both have superior demographic/material resources. The Roman government is just better at making use of its smaller resources.
Chrnno: I don’t know why people are so suspicious of me…
Soverihn: That’s always a risk. Certainly post-war will be interesting, in the Chinese sense, when all those demands for war materials evaporate simultaneously with the demobilization of 100,000+ soldiers.
Evilprodigy: I did a ‘far-future’ peek that suggested that. Although admittedly most, if not all, of my ‘far-future’ stuff I’ve eventually declared non-canon. So we’ll see.
RogueTraderEnthusiast: Don’t worry; you’ll get your wish.
AlexG: I admit, that’s one of those statements you should say while heavily banging on a piece of wood.
Lascaris: Bank runs are an issue with fractional reserve banking. The Romans aren’t immune to have a ‘South Seas Company bubble’ situation. Although saying that, right now there’s still a tight leash. The Imperial Bank, and only the Imperial Bank, can do this and they still have to have bullion to cover at minimum 1/3 of their loans, which to my knowledge is quite conservative as fractional reserve banking goes.
What are the specific drivers that make military technology a century ahead of OTL? Do you plan on keeping that gap - can I look forward to, say, ME-109s (or a 1940s OTL equivalent) in the mid 19th Century?
Thanks for always answering our questions, really helps make this world come alive.
Thanks for always answering our questions, really helps make this world come alive.
Interlude: Thomas Autoreianos
Curtain Jerker: I’m justifying it by there being a larger ‘European’ cultural sphere ITTL than OTL. Rhomania (replacing the OTL Ottomans) and Russia are fully integrated into this ‘European’ culture, which also includes Georgia, TTL Ottomans, and even Ethiopia at this point. So there’s a larger group of people able to exchange ideas between themselves, which speeds up innovation and the spread of ideas. Plus it’s cumulative. I believe I had snaphances (a predecessor to flintlocks) show up around the same time in ITTL as they did IOTL. But there was a quicker jump to flintlocks than OTL and faster development of them also.
I haven’t decided yet the details, but I am planning on having TTL 2018 Earth being both less populous but also more advanced than OTL. I have a vison of the first Roman unmanned space probe entering the Alpha Centauri system in 2018 I want to make happen.
Wolttaire: A lot of really good points were made that I will probably use in some form or another, but I do have my own ideas too.
While this incorporates ideas I've been toying with about including for a while now, that this update exists in this form now and at this point in the TL, is essentially my response to this post.
Thomas Autoreianos, the longest-serving Megas Logothete in the history of the Roman Empire.
Thomas Autoreianos was born in 1544 in a home just a few minutes’ walk from the Forum of the Ox in Constantinople, where his ancestors had lived ever since the re-conquest of Constantinople by the Laskarids in 1272. The Autoreianos family made a tradition out of serving in the Roman civil bureaucracy with one member ranking as Eparch of Constantinople under Theodoros IV and another as Kephale of Trebizond under Nikephoros IV “the Spider”, but otherwise usually remained stuck in the mid-level tiers.
His first memory at the age of four was going with his father, who was the Eparch’s senior secretary, and riding on his shoulders to watch the Imperial procession down the Mese of the just-crowned Empress Helena I Drakina. Later that day he was presented to Her Serene Highness Theodora Komnena Drakina who gave him a sugar roll.
His upbringing was what would be expected from someone of his station. Educated at a primary [1] [2] and then secondary school [3] which sat adjacent to each other along the Mese near the Forum of Arcadius, he then attended the University of Constantinople in 1560. While an average student before, now he gained notice for his attention to detail, excellent memory, and impressive stamina for working and studying. After his first year he was the recipient of a government scholarship, performing well enough that in 1562 the White Palace reimbursed him for his freshman-year expenses, a bonus granted to exemplary students. In 1564 he graduated with a degree in philosophy [4], which included historical and basic scientific components (by the standards of the time), and per his scholarship conditions and family tradition entered the civil bureaucracy.
Starting out in secretarial positions in the kephalates of Gallipoli and then Naxos, in April 1570 he was promoted to be prokathemenos (lieutenant to the Kephale) of Thyatira. This was just in time for the outbreak of the War of the Rivers when Helena I’s eldest son and her husband rebelled against her with the eastern armies. Thyatira was a small city but also a nexus of several highways in western Anatolia, with large elements of the European tagmata marching through the area on their way to confront Nikolaios Polos’ invasion of Anatolia. Coordinating well with army quartermasters, he did an excellent job of ensuring prompt delivery of supplies and was awarded a certificate of merit and a two-month pay bonus by a grateful Helena I.
After that promotions came rapidly. In 1573 he was Kephale of Skammandros and in 1579 was promoted to Kephale of Smyrna. In that capacity he helped to organize supply for the naval expedition of 1580 that took Djerba and Mahdia. And in 1587 he was promoted to Eparch of Constantinople, matching the height of his family’s success a hundred and fifty years earlier. His first major duty was to help arrange the coronation of Demetrios II as Emperor of the Romans.
In 1596 he was part of the commission that drafted the 34 Articles which tightened Roman control over the Despotate of Egypt after the Copts’ poor showing in the Great Uprising. As part of his reward he was promoted in 1599 to Megas Logothete.
It is an incredible boon, far outshining anything his family has ever achieved in its centuries of service. The only official that Thomas looks at as an equal is the Megas Domestikos, his only superiors Their Imperial Majesties Helena I and Demetrios II. It is also a job that requires a great deal of work. As head of the Imperial civil bureaucracy he is responsible for overseeing the various senior department heads such as the Logothetes tou Genikou (Chief Finance Minister) and Logothetes tou Dromou (combination of Foreign Minister and Postmaster General), amongst others.
One of his first appointments, in 1600 to the post of Logothetes tou Dromou, is Andronikos Sarantenos, another member of a service family ten years Thomas’ junior who has made his career in the Foreign Ministry. A year later the new Logothete negotiated Helena I’s approval of the Safavid marriage union with the Georgian-Bagrationi branch of the Drakos family.
However the Megas Logothete is also his own department head, so to speak, as all of the 171 Kephales of the Imperial heartland plus the eastern Katepanoi report to him. While the Katepanoi in the east have Kephales subordinate to them and so act as an intermediate authority there, the heartland Kephalates all answer directly to the Megas Logothete with no interim supervisor.
During the Laskarid re-conquest of Anatolia during the late 1200s, they’d set up Katepanoi as major regional governors in conjunction with the re-established themes and their strategoi. Giorgios Komnenos, the controversial uncle of Demetrios Megas, served as Katepano of Bithynia during his exile from court in the 1390s. However the Katepanoi proved ridiculously easy to suborn by the various contenders in the War of the Five Emperors and their ranks were disbanded by Demetrios Megas in the 1420s. In theory multiple Kephales reporting directly to the capital would be harder for a pretender to corral into obedience, with their jurisdictions also not mapping up exactly with the theme borders as had been the case with the Laskarid Katepanoi. That system has been the basis of Roman internal administration ever since although the number of Kephales has grown from 49 in 1425 to its current 171.
The rank of Katepano remained on the books however. Demetrios Komnenos, the Coptophilic eldest son of Andreas Niketas, was appointed as Katepano of Egypt when he was sent there as governor, overseeing the entire region rather than a small Kephale. The rank then migrated east with the conquest of Taprobane under Nikephoros IV for the autonomous Viceroys overseeing Roman territories.
For a hundred and fifty years, despite its flaws, the system overall worked well. Senior Kephales of major provinces often acted as unofficial Katepanoi supervising the minor Kephales of surrounding districts. The chief exemplar was Andronikos Diogenes, Kephale of Antiocheia during the Time of Troubles (and originator of the levee en masse) who led his kephalate and those of Cilicia and a good portion of the Syrian coast during the crisis years whilst cut off from Constantinople. But by the late 1500s it was coming under strain. Firstly, the massive expansion in the number of Kephales during the Flowering to oversee tighter local administration made that aspect of the Megas Logothete’s job loom larger despite the doubling in number of notarioi (scribes/secretaries in government service) assigned to him since 1425.
The second major reason had to do with the general spirit of the age. While on the frontier the Great Uprising and the Eternal War ravaged territories and dented Imperial prestige, it was a good time to be a Roman civil bureaucrat. After the trauma of the Time of Troubles, the Triumvirate (Helena I, her stepsister Theodora, and her younger sister Alexeia) were inclined toward civilians rather than soldiers. During the Flowering, it was civil bureaucrats rather than soldiers that earned prestige and Imperial favor rather than soldiers (an attitude that may have contributed to the War of the Rivers, given Nikolaios Polos’ dissatisfaction with the state of the Empire). The Great Uprising and the Eternal War dampened this trend but did not reverse it.
While the Roman civil service was supposed to be a meritocracy, open to anyone who managed to get the requisite education and pass the exams, as in any system it was often ‘not what you know but who you know’. While lower and mid-level ranks remained open, the upper tiers of the bureaucracy were typically within the hands of forty or so ‘service families’.
Although glass ceiling is the most common analogy used, a more accurate one is a strong current. Most swimmers will be pushed back but a powerful one can still beat his way forward. The Autoreianoi were a service family, but not one of the upper forty. Thomas’ rise was how most of the upper forty got their position. An exceptional individual would climb the ranks through merit and then use his status to promote members of his family. But he would have to take care to choose family members with merit; their ability would improve his prestige but their inability would similarly destroy it. If a family name became associated with excellence of service, in essence a ‘brand’, it became easier to sell said ‘brand’ so future generations would have an easier time of gaining office.
The Roman army had a similar issue, with the upper ranks often dominated by a few dozen families (often related to the great service families), with the most obvious example when during the early 1630s the Domestikoi of the West and East were both cousins. This was a partial factor in the generally lackluster performance of Roman strategoi during the Drakid dynasty.
Having said that, a tradition of family service would foster a sense of honor and responsibility to live up to the family name. Returning to the ‘brand’ analogy, if a family produced an idiot for office (think a bad product), that could mar the entire ‘company’/family and damage relatives’ prospects. So service families often policed their own members. Hektor Chomatenos, Megas Logothete from 1577 to 1585, made certain to keep two nephews from doing any better than minor secretarial posts as ‘any greater office would reveal their even greater incapacity, and destroy the Chomatenos reputation for skill in governance’. And while being a member of one of the families helped a lot, they still had to go through the training, pass the exams, and work their way up the hierarchy.
But with increased prestige and honors attached to high civic office, competition between the families grew rougher, with families determined to also outshine their rivals as well as outrank them. This required money. Many acquired the necessary cash through investments in the expanding Roman economy during the Flowering, but at its most extreme it encouraged the most ambitious to be rather unscrupulous. The two exemplars of this trend were Petros Cheilas, Protospatharios of the Office of Barbarians, and Andronikos Sarantenos, Logothete of the Drome. The former used his position to speculate on the market whilst neglecting official intelligence gathering while the later took subsidies from foreign powers, chiefly the Safavids.
Now the Megas Logothete was supposed to keep an eye out for this. However Thomas Autoreianos was assigned primarily for his skill in managing the provinces, not overseeing the bureaucratic heads in Constantinople, and with the lack of a mid-level administration managing the kephalates by this stage was a full-time job by itself.
However, in theory, this would be the point when the Emperor’s Eyes, officially (as opposed to de facto since Andreas I) appointed to oversee internal security and anti-corruption by Andreas III, would enter the scene. However the Emperor’s Eyes organization has not grown in size since Nikephoros IV’s reign and with the growing sophistication of foreign spy rings (Ibrahim’s activities with the Syrian Muslim populace is a case in point) the agents are focused on the spies rather than Roman officials.
Another factor weakening the Emperor’s Eyes at this point is the purge of the Office of Barbarians undertaken by Andreas III after the extent of Petros Cheilas’ corruption was revealed. Many of the fired agents were replaced by Emperor’s Eyes agents and the latter organization has yet to fully refill its ranks. As a result Demetrios III’s espionage capabilities are substantially greater then Demetrios II’s, but also at this point he is uniquely incapable of cracking down on corrupt government officials.
Furthermore Thomas Autoreianos is a member of one of the little service families now made big. Unsurprisingly he likes to show off to some of the greater service families like the Pontic Laskarids (one of the families prominent in both civil and military hierarchies) and the Chomatenoi. This hardly sets a good example for his subordinates.
Still he is a hard worker and honest and for the first fifteen years of his tenure everything is kept in order. During that time he begins mentoring an up-and-coming civil servant, one Demetrios Sideros. Many of their letters from the 1605-1620 period survive, showing a surprising closeness between the two despite the huge gap in their ranks (although given Demetrios’ position in the Imperial family the gap is not so great in reality). Encouraging the inexperienced official who is only twenty when the correspondence begins, Thomas sometimes seem to act as a surrogate father for Demetrios, who because of his un-military character was never close to his soldier father and didn’t seem that disheartened when said soldier father was killed by the Ottomans during the Eternal War.
However in 1614 Thomas turns seventy and inevitably starts slowing down. In the gap enter his notarioi, who as government scribes are some of the most senior of that level, second only to those assigned to the Emperor himself. But they are the most senior of a junior tier so it is hard for them to impose their authority on the greater officials, particularly those from the more established service families. This is when Petros Cheilas starts emphasizing personal profit over intelligence-gathering.
Now Autoreianos takes charge when Cheilas’ activities are revealed, but that it got so far is not to his credit. However having achieved an unprecedented honor for his family in its centuries of service, he is loath to give it up. Demetrios II, never inclined to look deeply into bureaucratic affairs, makes no move to push him out. Andreas III may have removed him once he started implementing the reforms he’d been planning, but died before that happened.
Still at his post even in his mid-80s, it had been assumed that the Megas Logothete would be a key player in the succession and both Empress Elizabeth and the Jahzara-Sarantenos duo tried to get him to back their side during the factional disputes during the reign of Andreas III. To his credit he refused to get involved, despite his connection with Demetrios Sideros, but he also didn’t do much to squash the arguers. While he wasn’t in Constantinople during the Night of the Tocsins, he was largely irrelevant during the succession.
The succession of Demetrios III could be expected to change things. He has an intimate understanding of the Roman bureaucracy to a degree not even Theodoros IV possessed and is aware of its shortcomings. He is also not part of the ‘service family’ mentality like Autoreianos is. But that said, on a personal level he is reluctant to admit the failings of his mentor. Furthermore by now Thomas Autoreianos has been Megas Logothete for thirty years, a record never surpassed to the present day. It is hard to imagine replacing him; given that Demetrios followed the same career track as Thomas, it is likely that Demetrios himself would’ve been Thomas’ replacement had Andreas III lived. At least, that’s likely what Jahzara would’ve schemed had a better job offer for her husband not appeared. With the outbreak of the War of the Roman Succession, Demetrios is also distracted and doesn’t wish to shake things up by switching leadership at such a crucial juncture. And so Logothete Sarantenos is able to work effectively unsupervised.
[1] Being a city school, Autoreianos’ teacher would’ve been a member of the laity, probably in his case a university student who’d done 1-2 years but never received a degree, as the attendants of his school were expected to go on to more advanced learning. More typically it would be a secondary school graduate with no university training who taught at the elementary level.
In the less prominent and affluent neighborhoods, as well as in a village or small town, where 75%+ of the Roman people lived, the schoolteacher would almost certainly be the local priest. The Orthodox Church, which’d seen much gains in southern Italy due to highly-educated priests, strongly encouraged its clerics to promote education as a means of Christian teaching. Still, teaching capability was often not a significant criteria in determining the posting of priests and, regardless of piety, many priests varied widely in their caliber as schoolteachers.
Assuming a village priest was willing and able to teach, the parents would still need to pay a fee per children and for all their supplies and obviously forego the labor of their children whilst they were taking their lessons. As a result, even in villages that had an educated and capable priest, only the richer peasants could afford to take advantage of this.
[2] Elementary education was restricted to teaching basic reading, writing, and mathematical skills. However in elementary schools, like Autoreianos’, where the students were expected to move on to higher education, the lessons might be more developed.
[3] Secondary school education was mainly viewed as university-preparation, as even the basic university courses assumed prior knowledge. Some viewed secondary school as a ‘poor man’s university’ since it was much cheaper, but still opened doors for career advancements such as a merchant’s bookkeeper or local official that would be barred to those with limited learning.
[4] Despite the high literacy rate, by pre-industrial standards, of the Roman Empire, university graduates were still thin on the ground. For every 20 who passed elementary, only three passed secondary (the gap is due primarily to students not continuing the education past elementary because of economics), and only one passed university.
I haven’t decided yet the details, but I am planning on having TTL 2018 Earth being both less populous but also more advanced than OTL. I have a vison of the first Roman unmanned space probe entering the Alpha Centauri system in 2018 I want to make happen.
Wolttaire: A lot of really good points were made that I will probably use in some form or another, but I do have my own ideas too.
While this incorporates ideas I've been toying with about including for a while now, that this update exists in this form now and at this point in the TL, is essentially my response to this post.
The Life and Times of Thomas Autoreianos
Thomas Autoreianos, the longest-serving Megas Logothete in the history of the Roman Empire.
Thomas Autoreianos was born in 1544 in a home just a few minutes’ walk from the Forum of the Ox in Constantinople, where his ancestors had lived ever since the re-conquest of Constantinople by the Laskarids in 1272. The Autoreianos family made a tradition out of serving in the Roman civil bureaucracy with one member ranking as Eparch of Constantinople under Theodoros IV and another as Kephale of Trebizond under Nikephoros IV “the Spider”, but otherwise usually remained stuck in the mid-level tiers.
His first memory at the age of four was going with his father, who was the Eparch’s senior secretary, and riding on his shoulders to watch the Imperial procession down the Mese of the just-crowned Empress Helena I Drakina. Later that day he was presented to Her Serene Highness Theodora Komnena Drakina who gave him a sugar roll.
His upbringing was what would be expected from someone of his station. Educated at a primary [1] [2] and then secondary school [3] which sat adjacent to each other along the Mese near the Forum of Arcadius, he then attended the University of Constantinople in 1560. While an average student before, now he gained notice for his attention to detail, excellent memory, and impressive stamina for working and studying. After his first year he was the recipient of a government scholarship, performing well enough that in 1562 the White Palace reimbursed him for his freshman-year expenses, a bonus granted to exemplary students. In 1564 he graduated with a degree in philosophy [4], which included historical and basic scientific components (by the standards of the time), and per his scholarship conditions and family tradition entered the civil bureaucracy.
Starting out in secretarial positions in the kephalates of Gallipoli and then Naxos, in April 1570 he was promoted to be prokathemenos (lieutenant to the Kephale) of Thyatira. This was just in time for the outbreak of the War of the Rivers when Helena I’s eldest son and her husband rebelled against her with the eastern armies. Thyatira was a small city but also a nexus of several highways in western Anatolia, with large elements of the European tagmata marching through the area on their way to confront Nikolaios Polos’ invasion of Anatolia. Coordinating well with army quartermasters, he did an excellent job of ensuring prompt delivery of supplies and was awarded a certificate of merit and a two-month pay bonus by a grateful Helena I.
After that promotions came rapidly. In 1573 he was Kephale of Skammandros and in 1579 was promoted to Kephale of Smyrna. In that capacity he helped to organize supply for the naval expedition of 1580 that took Djerba and Mahdia. And in 1587 he was promoted to Eparch of Constantinople, matching the height of his family’s success a hundred and fifty years earlier. His first major duty was to help arrange the coronation of Demetrios II as Emperor of the Romans.
In 1596 he was part of the commission that drafted the 34 Articles which tightened Roman control over the Despotate of Egypt after the Copts’ poor showing in the Great Uprising. As part of his reward he was promoted in 1599 to Megas Logothete.
It is an incredible boon, far outshining anything his family has ever achieved in its centuries of service. The only official that Thomas looks at as an equal is the Megas Domestikos, his only superiors Their Imperial Majesties Helena I and Demetrios II. It is also a job that requires a great deal of work. As head of the Imperial civil bureaucracy he is responsible for overseeing the various senior department heads such as the Logothetes tou Genikou (Chief Finance Minister) and Logothetes tou Dromou (combination of Foreign Minister and Postmaster General), amongst others.
One of his first appointments, in 1600 to the post of Logothetes tou Dromou, is Andronikos Sarantenos, another member of a service family ten years Thomas’ junior who has made his career in the Foreign Ministry. A year later the new Logothete negotiated Helena I’s approval of the Safavid marriage union with the Georgian-Bagrationi branch of the Drakos family.
However the Megas Logothete is also his own department head, so to speak, as all of the 171 Kephales of the Imperial heartland plus the eastern Katepanoi report to him. While the Katepanoi in the east have Kephales subordinate to them and so act as an intermediate authority there, the heartland Kephalates all answer directly to the Megas Logothete with no interim supervisor.
During the Laskarid re-conquest of Anatolia during the late 1200s, they’d set up Katepanoi as major regional governors in conjunction with the re-established themes and their strategoi. Giorgios Komnenos, the controversial uncle of Demetrios Megas, served as Katepano of Bithynia during his exile from court in the 1390s. However the Katepanoi proved ridiculously easy to suborn by the various contenders in the War of the Five Emperors and their ranks were disbanded by Demetrios Megas in the 1420s. In theory multiple Kephales reporting directly to the capital would be harder for a pretender to corral into obedience, with their jurisdictions also not mapping up exactly with the theme borders as had been the case with the Laskarid Katepanoi. That system has been the basis of Roman internal administration ever since although the number of Kephales has grown from 49 in 1425 to its current 171.
The rank of Katepano remained on the books however. Demetrios Komnenos, the Coptophilic eldest son of Andreas Niketas, was appointed as Katepano of Egypt when he was sent there as governor, overseeing the entire region rather than a small Kephale. The rank then migrated east with the conquest of Taprobane under Nikephoros IV for the autonomous Viceroys overseeing Roman territories.
For a hundred and fifty years, despite its flaws, the system overall worked well. Senior Kephales of major provinces often acted as unofficial Katepanoi supervising the minor Kephales of surrounding districts. The chief exemplar was Andronikos Diogenes, Kephale of Antiocheia during the Time of Troubles (and originator of the levee en masse) who led his kephalate and those of Cilicia and a good portion of the Syrian coast during the crisis years whilst cut off from Constantinople. But by the late 1500s it was coming under strain. Firstly, the massive expansion in the number of Kephales during the Flowering to oversee tighter local administration made that aspect of the Megas Logothete’s job loom larger despite the doubling in number of notarioi (scribes/secretaries in government service) assigned to him since 1425.
The second major reason had to do with the general spirit of the age. While on the frontier the Great Uprising and the Eternal War ravaged territories and dented Imperial prestige, it was a good time to be a Roman civil bureaucrat. After the trauma of the Time of Troubles, the Triumvirate (Helena I, her stepsister Theodora, and her younger sister Alexeia) were inclined toward civilians rather than soldiers. During the Flowering, it was civil bureaucrats rather than soldiers that earned prestige and Imperial favor rather than soldiers (an attitude that may have contributed to the War of the Rivers, given Nikolaios Polos’ dissatisfaction with the state of the Empire). The Great Uprising and the Eternal War dampened this trend but did not reverse it.
While the Roman civil service was supposed to be a meritocracy, open to anyone who managed to get the requisite education and pass the exams, as in any system it was often ‘not what you know but who you know’. While lower and mid-level ranks remained open, the upper tiers of the bureaucracy were typically within the hands of forty or so ‘service families’.
Although glass ceiling is the most common analogy used, a more accurate one is a strong current. Most swimmers will be pushed back but a powerful one can still beat his way forward. The Autoreianoi were a service family, but not one of the upper forty. Thomas’ rise was how most of the upper forty got their position. An exceptional individual would climb the ranks through merit and then use his status to promote members of his family. But he would have to take care to choose family members with merit; their ability would improve his prestige but their inability would similarly destroy it. If a family name became associated with excellence of service, in essence a ‘brand’, it became easier to sell said ‘brand’ so future generations would have an easier time of gaining office.
The Roman army had a similar issue, with the upper ranks often dominated by a few dozen families (often related to the great service families), with the most obvious example when during the early 1630s the Domestikoi of the West and East were both cousins. This was a partial factor in the generally lackluster performance of Roman strategoi during the Drakid dynasty.
Having said that, a tradition of family service would foster a sense of honor and responsibility to live up to the family name. Returning to the ‘brand’ analogy, if a family produced an idiot for office (think a bad product), that could mar the entire ‘company’/family and damage relatives’ prospects. So service families often policed their own members. Hektor Chomatenos, Megas Logothete from 1577 to 1585, made certain to keep two nephews from doing any better than minor secretarial posts as ‘any greater office would reveal their even greater incapacity, and destroy the Chomatenos reputation for skill in governance’. And while being a member of one of the families helped a lot, they still had to go through the training, pass the exams, and work their way up the hierarchy.
But with increased prestige and honors attached to high civic office, competition between the families grew rougher, with families determined to also outshine their rivals as well as outrank them. This required money. Many acquired the necessary cash through investments in the expanding Roman economy during the Flowering, but at its most extreme it encouraged the most ambitious to be rather unscrupulous. The two exemplars of this trend were Petros Cheilas, Protospatharios of the Office of Barbarians, and Andronikos Sarantenos, Logothete of the Drome. The former used his position to speculate on the market whilst neglecting official intelligence gathering while the later took subsidies from foreign powers, chiefly the Safavids.
Now the Megas Logothete was supposed to keep an eye out for this. However Thomas Autoreianos was assigned primarily for his skill in managing the provinces, not overseeing the bureaucratic heads in Constantinople, and with the lack of a mid-level administration managing the kephalates by this stage was a full-time job by itself.
However, in theory, this would be the point when the Emperor’s Eyes, officially (as opposed to de facto since Andreas I) appointed to oversee internal security and anti-corruption by Andreas III, would enter the scene. However the Emperor’s Eyes organization has not grown in size since Nikephoros IV’s reign and with the growing sophistication of foreign spy rings (Ibrahim’s activities with the Syrian Muslim populace is a case in point) the agents are focused on the spies rather than Roman officials.
Another factor weakening the Emperor’s Eyes at this point is the purge of the Office of Barbarians undertaken by Andreas III after the extent of Petros Cheilas’ corruption was revealed. Many of the fired agents were replaced by Emperor’s Eyes agents and the latter organization has yet to fully refill its ranks. As a result Demetrios III’s espionage capabilities are substantially greater then Demetrios II’s, but also at this point he is uniquely incapable of cracking down on corrupt government officials.
Furthermore Thomas Autoreianos is a member of one of the little service families now made big. Unsurprisingly he likes to show off to some of the greater service families like the Pontic Laskarids (one of the families prominent in both civil and military hierarchies) and the Chomatenoi. This hardly sets a good example for his subordinates.
Still he is a hard worker and honest and for the first fifteen years of his tenure everything is kept in order. During that time he begins mentoring an up-and-coming civil servant, one Demetrios Sideros. Many of their letters from the 1605-1620 period survive, showing a surprising closeness between the two despite the huge gap in their ranks (although given Demetrios’ position in the Imperial family the gap is not so great in reality). Encouraging the inexperienced official who is only twenty when the correspondence begins, Thomas sometimes seem to act as a surrogate father for Demetrios, who because of his un-military character was never close to his soldier father and didn’t seem that disheartened when said soldier father was killed by the Ottomans during the Eternal War.
However in 1614 Thomas turns seventy and inevitably starts slowing down. In the gap enter his notarioi, who as government scribes are some of the most senior of that level, second only to those assigned to the Emperor himself. But they are the most senior of a junior tier so it is hard for them to impose their authority on the greater officials, particularly those from the more established service families. This is when Petros Cheilas starts emphasizing personal profit over intelligence-gathering.
Now Autoreianos takes charge when Cheilas’ activities are revealed, but that it got so far is not to his credit. However having achieved an unprecedented honor for his family in its centuries of service, he is loath to give it up. Demetrios II, never inclined to look deeply into bureaucratic affairs, makes no move to push him out. Andreas III may have removed him once he started implementing the reforms he’d been planning, but died before that happened.
Still at his post even in his mid-80s, it had been assumed that the Megas Logothete would be a key player in the succession and both Empress Elizabeth and the Jahzara-Sarantenos duo tried to get him to back their side during the factional disputes during the reign of Andreas III. To his credit he refused to get involved, despite his connection with Demetrios Sideros, but he also didn’t do much to squash the arguers. While he wasn’t in Constantinople during the Night of the Tocsins, he was largely irrelevant during the succession.
The succession of Demetrios III could be expected to change things. He has an intimate understanding of the Roman bureaucracy to a degree not even Theodoros IV possessed and is aware of its shortcomings. He is also not part of the ‘service family’ mentality like Autoreianos is. But that said, on a personal level he is reluctant to admit the failings of his mentor. Furthermore by now Thomas Autoreianos has been Megas Logothete for thirty years, a record never surpassed to the present day. It is hard to imagine replacing him; given that Demetrios followed the same career track as Thomas, it is likely that Demetrios himself would’ve been Thomas’ replacement had Andreas III lived. At least, that’s likely what Jahzara would’ve schemed had a better job offer for her husband not appeared. With the outbreak of the War of the Roman Succession, Demetrios is also distracted and doesn’t wish to shake things up by switching leadership at such a crucial juncture. And so Logothete Sarantenos is able to work effectively unsupervised.
[1] Being a city school, Autoreianos’ teacher would’ve been a member of the laity, probably in his case a university student who’d done 1-2 years but never received a degree, as the attendants of his school were expected to go on to more advanced learning. More typically it would be a secondary school graduate with no university training who taught at the elementary level.
In the less prominent and affluent neighborhoods, as well as in a village or small town, where 75%+ of the Roman people lived, the schoolteacher would almost certainly be the local priest. The Orthodox Church, which’d seen much gains in southern Italy due to highly-educated priests, strongly encouraged its clerics to promote education as a means of Christian teaching. Still, teaching capability was often not a significant criteria in determining the posting of priests and, regardless of piety, many priests varied widely in their caliber as schoolteachers.
Assuming a village priest was willing and able to teach, the parents would still need to pay a fee per children and for all their supplies and obviously forego the labor of their children whilst they were taking their lessons. As a result, even in villages that had an educated and capable priest, only the richer peasants could afford to take advantage of this.
[2] Elementary education was restricted to teaching basic reading, writing, and mathematical skills. However in elementary schools, like Autoreianos’, where the students were expected to move on to higher education, the lessons might be more developed.
[3] Secondary school education was mainly viewed as university-preparation, as even the basic university courses assumed prior knowledge. Some viewed secondary school as a ‘poor man’s university’ since it was much cheaper, but still opened doors for career advancements such as a merchant’s bookkeeper or local official that would be barred to those with limited learning.
[4] Despite the high literacy rate, by pre-industrial standards, of the Roman Empire, university graduates were still thin on the ground. For every 20 who passed elementary, only three passed secondary (the gap is due primarily to students not continuing the education past elementary because of economics), and only one passed university.
SPACE ROMANS!
Actually. That sounds like a Stellaris Empire I made once (several times).
When the war is over Demetrios III will have plenty of opportunities to purge and reform the bureaucracy since his prestige will presumably be much stronger than before. What are the chances that the Empire gets a fortuitous death for once and Autoreianos dies naturally? It's a difficult time as any, but if Demetrios puts in a more radical man in the job it may meet less resistance since there's a war.
I okay that makes sense for the second one
first so that means the transfer of political ideas will also be faster so does that mean the political movements of this time still happen to have, economic , social exc or the overall trends accelerated and it we could see many of these idea jump over to the Islamic world especially the political ones
first so that means the transfer of political ideas will also be faster so does that mean the political movements of this time still happen to have, economic , social exc or the overall trends accelerated and it we could see many of these idea jump over to the Islamic world especially the political ones
The end of this war will be a good time for administrative reforms. If old fossils like this are running the show, it'd be relatively easy to displace them via retirements so that the bureaucratic deficiencies and "deficiencies" noticed during the war can be treated with deep, penetrating solutions. I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to start a rebellion against the victorious Emperor after such a trying time. The last thing on anyone's mind would be more war.
Are the despotates also organized in this style with their own little mini kephalates?
DEMETRIOPOLIS, ARES - Elonas Muskarias announces the next step in his ambitious plan to send the first humans to the Alpha Kéntavros system, in a press conference from AstroX headquarters on the Red Planet.
Muskarias said training of the astronauts and technical details regarding spacecraft were being finalized and a timeline of 10 years had been set to put a crew into orbit. This news comes just days after receiving the first stream of images and signals confirming Astéria, the public-private sub-light speed spacecraft enterprise backed by his company and the Rhoman government successfully entered Helios' closest neighboring system after 20 years in transit.
"The goal is to establish a permanent human presence on Engýtatos Kéntavros B to further augment the research probes already put in place around the triple star system. The Lumina Hadrian Collider around Helios got us where we are today but being able to establish something similar in a tri-helian system will project us into realms far and beyond and bring our goal of harnessing dark matter a step closer. Besides, nothing cements our status as a interstellar civilization more than seeing the Rhoman flag flutter under the light of 3 suns." said Muskarias who has plans to offer extra-stellar tourism himself aboard flights past the Oort Cloud.
non-canon, but helluva fun to write