Origins
-What do you think of the city? - I asked
-It looks awesome! There’s so much here! That “forum” has so many statues, all of them so big! - he replied, extending his hands trying to show the size with them.
I giggled.
-It was an emperor named Constans who built this right?
-No, he was named Constantine.
-Ahhh. Was my brother named after him?
-Well, not really. We just like the name.
Not much was said until we started seeing the Theodosian walls.
-And those were built by an emperor named Theodore, like me, right?
-No, they were built by an emperor named Theodosius.
-Was there ever an emperor named Theodore? - he asked in a sad voice.
-No. But there was an empress named Theodora.
-And what did she do? - he asked, now with the sadness gone away, being replaced by the curiosity he shows to everything, except religion, he gets bored at the mention of it.
-Well, she was the wife of Justinian. -
-Justinian!! The first one?! - he said, with more excitement than even when we “inspect” the garrison.
-Yes, Justinian. - I replied, giggling - The plague made him so ill that he couldn’t reign, and, whilst he was recovering, Theodora reigned for him, managing to keep the Empire together when most people wouldn’t have been able to - Sure, I embellished the story a bit and didn’t talk about her heresy and prostitution, but the last thing I want is for him to become heretic just because of a woman.
-So you named me after a woman?
- No, again, we just liked the names
By now we were halfway up the stairs.
-Ok then, but does it mean something?
Suddenly, I started feeling weird, going in and out of consciousness. Then I fell, my vision was blurry and my ears felt like they were exploding, but through the pain, I could hear a few screams:
-DAD! DAD! WHAT’S HAPPENING?!?! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! I WANT MY DAD! WHAT IS HAPPENING!?! SOMEONE HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! PLEASE! I WANT MY DAD! SOMEONE!
I forced myself to say something:
-I love you, Theo. - my voice was weak.
-DAD?! - I could feel two hands on my chest - I love you too. Please, stay with me! Promise me?
-I do, I will be with you. I promise, Theo. - Then, black.
_______________________________________________________________
...Leo’s will surprised many. Firstly, the Empire was to be inherited by Constantine and that Zoe should either be the regent or choose one. Nothing surprising there, it would have happened even if he didn’t want to, what was surprising was the part dealing with Theo. He wouldn’t gain money nor land, instead, he would get a copy of all of Leo’s works, including: “Basilika'', a codification of all existing Byzantine laws along with newer ones made by Leo, “Tactica'', a military treatise which drew on earlier works such those of Aelian, Onasander and the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice, the “Kletorologion'' the longest and most important list of Byzantine offices and court precedences, and, finally, the “Book of the Prefect'' a commercial manual. This was only notified to Theo once he was 8 years old.
Only two short weeks after Leo’s death Theo would catch what is today believed to be smallpox, though sources aren’t detailed enough to reach a final conclusion. Regardless, for two months, the boy would be bedridden, from sunrise to sunset the boy suffered, suffered and suffered some more. He would often wake the entire left wing of the Great Palace, forcing every person wanting to sleep to do so on the right wing. It eventually passed and the boy recovered but its effects would be massive as it not only shook, but alt-right shattered his core beliefs, no more would Theo be the extroverted, agitated child he had once been, being replaced by the cold, cruel yet determined Theodore.
This change started right after Theodore had become nine years old, he would only leave his chamber to eat, use the bathroom, its 10th-century equivalent that is, and get new books, something which would only worsen with time, by 919, when the boy was only 11, he started to only leave to use the bathroom, eating his food in his room and having books delivered by two servants. Days would pass by without anyone but Imperial servants seeing him as he often only left in the dark of night. He would even abandon his own bedroom at 12 years old, choosing to stay in a more secluded, office-like room, sleeping in a mattress he had taken from a nearby room.
You might, rightly, be asking what he was doing? Well, he was reading, reading and reading. He probably read more in those years than most people hearing this did in their entire lives. As said before, right after his ninth birthday Theodore isolated himself from the outer world, staying only in that office-looking room, where he would study nearly all of the works he had inherited, even writing notes in every single work he studied. Furthermore, he would also start reading books from the Library of Constantinople, including all but the tenth book in “The Republic'', and books 1-45 and 108-142[1] from Titius Livius’s Ab Urbe Condita.
Again, you might be asking “why?”. Well, we don’t actually know, though we do have some things to work with. Firstly, Theodore had a significant amount of cuts in his body, including one in his right hand that went, diagonally, from just below his index finger to the other side of his hand, just above the wrist. That and grief have led a slim majority of historians to believe that he started due to grief so he could somehow honour his father, then he developed depression and to distract himself he continued reading. This hypothesis does have some criticisms that it doesn’t have a criticism, for example, how did he get a knife? And why did he distract himself with only that? But I digress.
All that we know for certain is that in May of 922, just before his 14th birthday, Zoe, his mother, forced him to be trained in combat by the new strategos of the Thracesian theme, Nikephoros Angelos, the founder of the Angelos dynasty. Whilst this was mainly done to force her son out of his room, it is here where we can see the first signs of the man we know today as Theodore ‘the Valiant’.
Next Wednesday I’ll be talking about the regency and its troubles regarding the northern border, so stay tuned.
[1] Ab Urbe Condita talked about the entire history of Rome from 753 to 9BC. Books 1 to 45 dealt with 753 all the way to the Third Macedonian War (171-168) and 108 to 142 went from Caesar’s consulship to 9BC. OOC: Actually, IOTL, book 46-120 are lost and we don't know what each talked about, so the 108-120 part is creative liberty, 121-142 talked about 42BC to 9BC though. And in this work, Livius argued that Rome had taken a moral decline and that a nation’s level of morality is connected to their successes, and I'm sure this will have no impact later on.
_________________________________________________________________________
Hope you enjoyed this first chapter, I’d like to know your opinions on this TL, both my writing and the premise itself. I hope it wasn’t too difficult to understand what’s going on. In short, the POD is that in May of 908 Leo VI and his last wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, had a son named Theodore. ITTL we will be following Theodore and his successors. Since he now has a second son Leo's death is delayed and instead happens in November of 914, unlike OTL in which he died in May of 912
At least for now, I’m trying to make the first part of the story an anecdote of something that happened ITTL involving Theo or other major characters, and the second part is a podcast that focuses on the early Macedonians and Theo’s and his successors’ reigns.
-It looks awesome! There’s so much here! That “forum” has so many statues, all of them so big! - he replied, extending his hands trying to show the size with them.
I giggled.
-It was an emperor named Constans who built this right?
-No, he was named Constantine.
-Ahhh. Was my brother named after him?
-Well, not really. We just like the name.
Not much was said until we started seeing the Theodosian walls.
-And those were built by an emperor named Theodore, like me, right?
-No, they were built by an emperor named Theodosius.
-Was there ever an emperor named Theodore? - he asked in a sad voice.
-No. But there was an empress named Theodora.
-And what did she do? - he asked, now with the sadness gone away, being replaced by the curiosity he shows to everything, except religion, he gets bored at the mention of it.
-Well, she was the wife of Justinian. -
-Justinian!! The first one?! - he said, with more excitement than even when we “inspect” the garrison.
-Yes, Justinian. - I replied, giggling - The plague made him so ill that he couldn’t reign, and, whilst he was recovering, Theodora reigned for him, managing to keep the Empire together when most people wouldn’t have been able to - Sure, I embellished the story a bit and didn’t talk about her heresy and prostitution, but the last thing I want is for him to become heretic just because of a woman.
-So you named me after a woman?
- No, again, we just liked the names
By now we were halfway up the stairs.
-Ok then, but does it mean something?
Suddenly, I started feeling weird, going in and out of consciousness. Then I fell, my vision was blurry and my ears felt like they were exploding, but through the pain, I could hear a few screams:
-DAD! DAD! WHAT’S HAPPENING?!?! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! I WANT MY DAD! WHAT IS HAPPENING!?! SOMEONE HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! PLEASE! I WANT MY DAD! SOMEONE!
I forced myself to say something:
-I love you, Theo. - my voice was weak.
-DAD?! - I could feel two hands on my chest - I love you too. Please, stay with me! Promise me?
-I do, I will be with you. I promise, Theo. - Then, black.
_______________________________________________________________
...Leo’s will surprised many. Firstly, the Empire was to be inherited by Constantine and that Zoe should either be the regent or choose one. Nothing surprising there, it would have happened even if he didn’t want to, what was surprising was the part dealing with Theo. He wouldn’t gain money nor land, instead, he would get a copy of all of Leo’s works, including: “Basilika'', a codification of all existing Byzantine laws along with newer ones made by Leo, “Tactica'', a military treatise which drew on earlier works such those of Aelian, Onasander and the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice, the “Kletorologion'' the longest and most important list of Byzantine offices and court precedences, and, finally, the “Book of the Prefect'' a commercial manual. This was only notified to Theo once he was 8 years old.
Only two short weeks after Leo’s death Theo would catch what is today believed to be smallpox, though sources aren’t detailed enough to reach a final conclusion. Regardless, for two months, the boy would be bedridden, from sunrise to sunset the boy suffered, suffered and suffered some more. He would often wake the entire left wing of the Great Palace, forcing every person wanting to sleep to do so on the right wing. It eventually passed and the boy recovered but its effects would be massive as it not only shook, but alt-right shattered his core beliefs, no more would Theo be the extroverted, agitated child he had once been, being replaced by the cold, cruel yet determined Theodore.
This change started right after Theodore had become nine years old, he would only leave his chamber to eat, use the bathroom, its 10th-century equivalent that is, and get new books, something which would only worsen with time, by 919, when the boy was only 11, he started to only leave to use the bathroom, eating his food in his room and having books delivered by two servants. Days would pass by without anyone but Imperial servants seeing him as he often only left in the dark of night. He would even abandon his own bedroom at 12 years old, choosing to stay in a more secluded, office-like room, sleeping in a mattress he had taken from a nearby room.
You might, rightly, be asking what he was doing? Well, he was reading, reading and reading. He probably read more in those years than most people hearing this did in their entire lives. As said before, right after his ninth birthday Theodore isolated himself from the outer world, staying only in that office-looking room, where he would study nearly all of the works he had inherited, even writing notes in every single work he studied. Furthermore, he would also start reading books from the Library of Constantinople, including all but the tenth book in “The Republic'', and books 1-45 and 108-142[1] from Titius Livius’s Ab Urbe Condita.
Again, you might be asking “why?”. Well, we don’t actually know, though we do have some things to work with. Firstly, Theodore had a significant amount of cuts in his body, including one in his right hand that went, diagonally, from just below his index finger to the other side of his hand, just above the wrist. That and grief have led a slim majority of historians to believe that he started due to grief so he could somehow honour his father, then he developed depression and to distract himself he continued reading. This hypothesis does have some criticisms that it doesn’t have a criticism, for example, how did he get a knife? And why did he distract himself with only that? But I digress.
All that we know for certain is that in May of 922, just before his 14th birthday, Zoe, his mother, forced him to be trained in combat by the new strategos of the Thracesian theme, Nikephoros Angelos, the founder of the Angelos dynasty. Whilst this was mainly done to force her son out of his room, it is here where we can see the first signs of the man we know today as Theodore ‘the Valiant’.
Next Wednesday I’ll be talking about the regency and its troubles regarding the northern border, so stay tuned.
[1] Ab Urbe Condita talked about the entire history of Rome from 753 to 9BC. Books 1 to 45 dealt with 753 all the way to the Third Macedonian War (171-168) and 108 to 142 went from Caesar’s consulship to 9BC. OOC: Actually, IOTL, book 46-120 are lost and we don't know what each talked about, so the 108-120 part is creative liberty, 121-142 talked about 42BC to 9BC though. And in this work, Livius argued that Rome had taken a moral decline and that a nation’s level of morality is connected to their successes, and I'm sure this will have no impact later on.
_________________________________________________________________________
Hope you enjoyed this first chapter, I’d like to know your opinions on this TL, both my writing and the premise itself. I hope it wasn’t too difficult to understand what’s going on. In short, the POD is that in May of 908 Leo VI and his last wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, had a son named Theodore. ITTL we will be following Theodore and his successors. Since he now has a second son Leo's death is delayed and instead happens in November of 914, unlike OTL in which he died in May of 912
At least for now, I’m trying to make the first part of the story an anecdote of something that happened ITTL involving Theo or other major characters, and the second part is a podcast that focuses on the early Macedonians and Theo’s and his successors’ reigns.
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