Hadrian's Consolidation - reboot

Don't forget the Bosphorean area has been supplying grain to Greece and the East since the heyday of Athens and Sparta - just because Rome has an alternate supply doesn't mean that the kingdom is not important to other parts of the Empire. It's also a good "watchtower" to monitor what is happening out on the Steppes.

With the defeat of the Goths there will be a major power vacuum for someone to move into - the terrible and inevitable logic of cause and effect out in the wilds.
 

Hecatee

Donor
There will be void, yes, but also breathing space : the fleeing horsemen will be telling their story of a powerful force in the west, and that it is unwise to attack them, so it will increase pressure in 3 areas : Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia/India... And while the Caucasus is not good horse land and can be defended by the Romans, the other side of the Caspian Sea is a land where huge weakness make an invasion highly possible, maybe as prelude to foray into India.
As it stands currently my thinking is between two options : no steppe pressure for fifty years, so no pressure on the remaining eastern germanic tribes, and a rebuilding Iran. China is getting a second lease of life (although not without troubles, a Yellow Turban movement will still take place with rebellious court factions lending their hand before a phoenix-like strengthened China appear under an earlier Wei dynasty), which means that the tribes don't go into that direction, although China does not go toward Bactria either.

Other option is to have the steppe tribes go full bore against Iran and eventually take it and found nations there, then clashing with China around the Bactrian area with Rome moving against Iran to help the Chineses...
 
So no Three Kingdoms then........with the Goths weakened it would seem logical for some reverse migrations to occur from the Germanic peoples away from Rome. With China more stable (and inward looking? No Western protectorates? ) then the steppes will be an empty place for authority. Something will brew there and someone (Rome, China or Iran) will be the first to feel their presence. I think Iran is most likely which will make Rome and China even more secure
 
So no Three Kingdoms then........with the Goths weakened it would seem logical for some reverse migrations to occur from the Germanic peoples away from Rome. With China more stable (and inward looking? No Western protectorates? ) then the steppes will be an empty place for authority. Something will brew there and someone (Rome, China or Iran) will be the first to feel their presence. I think Iran is most likely which will make Rome and China even more secure

I can easily see Germanic tribes migrating to the east -didn't that happen in OTL in medieval Europe with settlers from the Holy Roman Empire heading to eastern Europe?
 
A small gallic vicus, August 180

Hecatee

Donor
A small gallic vicus, mid-August 180


Diviacos looked at the field of cichorium. He’d arrived in the vicus but a few weeks earlier to take the estate of his dead brother and had no choice other than planting cichorium for the season was too late. The field had lain fallow for a year, its last harvest had been the usual grains but no one had used it when Biturix had collapsed on that cursed day of november two years ago.

News had been slow to reach Diviacos, who was working on supervising a gang of slaves hauling ships of the Rhodanus river. Then he’d been unable to come due to previous contracts followed by a sickness that had left him without strengths in a small lodging above a taberna in Arelate.

Luckily a neighbour had used the empty field as pasture for his flock during the year where it had lain empty, meaning that there had not been too much weed to root out before planting the chicory… He’d also been able to call on the support of some of his neighbours to help plant the damn thing for they had finished getting their grain in thanks to a vallus that greatly improved the speed of the harvest. The sense of community was strong in the vicus and Diviacos had promised those who helped would get to share a rather large amphora of wine, which was more than enough motivation for many of the local farmers.

Now Diviacos had two problems : it looked like he’d have a lot of a kind of food he didn't particularly like, and he had no seed grain for the next season. Of course he hoped to sell some of his chicory at the market, but that would probably not be enough.

It felt strange to be back again on a farm after so many years alongside the river. He’d fled to see more of the world, and indeed he’d seen more than most of those living in the farms next door… Arelate, Nemausus, Arausio, Valentia, Vienna, Lugdunum : he’d seen them all, as well as smaller cities such as Alba Helviorum or, on an affluent of the Rhodanus, Vasio Vocontiorum. He’d also done some supervision on slave gangs carrying goods by land, seeing towns such as Forum Neronis, the old Carpenctoracte Meminorum. In other words he felt like a man of the world, unlike those farmers rooted in their lands… And now he was becoming one of them…

Sighing, Diviacos left the field and went back to his farm. At least this would give him time to improve the house before the winter !

Endives-braise%CC%81es.jpg
 
1) chicory isn't a legume. One major point of a three field rotation is legumes to get nitrogen back in the soil.
2) is the SI going to find out and order all the roots from this crop to be roasted for a coffee substitute?
 

Hecatee

Donor
1) chicory isn't a legume. One major point of a three field rotation is legumes to get nitrogen back in the soil.
2) is the SI going to find out and order all the roots from this crop to be roasted for a coffee substitute?
1) I would have thought it works as well as true legume ? (I mainly looked for something that could be planted late to get an harvest at all cost)
2) nope, consider it more like endive and chicon than root type chicory.
 
1) I would have thought it works as well as true legume ? (I mainly looked for something that could be planted late to get an harvest at all cost)
2) nope, consider it more like endive and chicon than root type chicory.
Dathi is correct - Chicory in any form is not a legume. It can be used as a cattle feed but needs more nitrogen.

Alfalfa (medica to the Romans) would be better but only as a forage crop.
 
nope, consider it more like endive and chicon than root type chicory.
I figured that was what he had in mind, but even if coffee substitute chicory is a different variety, endive type roots might do in a pinch. It depends on how desperate the SI for something that even vaguely approaches coffee.
 
I figured that was what he had in mind, but even if coffee substitute chicory is a different variety, endive type roots might do in a pinch. It depends on how desperate the SI for something that even vaguely approaches coffee.

What do you mean by SI? Clearly not Self Insert since there is none.
 

Hecatee

Donor
What do you mean by SI? Clearly not Self Insert since there is none.
especially as I don't drink coffee ;) I've written texts where I self insert, but never really in this story even if I sometime use my own experience like here my last holliday trip. I work in IT, not in riverine trade or farming ;)
 

Hecatee

Donor
not much change since we last saw it one year ago :

But not everything was good in the region. From his exchanges with the Armenian king, guardian of the Caucasus and northernmost reaches of the land of the two rivers, and from what his officials in Antiocheia Mygdonia and Babylon had told him, the situation further east was ever more chaotic. Now that the sickness had receded after killing so many on the Parthian plateau the region was prey to intercine wars for domination over the area and, more frighteningly, raids from scythian nomads coming through western Bactria, on the fringe of the Kushan empire, and ransoming cities. At this rate it would not be long before the steppe tribes would think of permanently setting in the rich lands of the plateau…

Traders on the sea route to India also reported that some of the raids took the direction of the further east, coming in the lands behind the mountains where they fought the Kushan under their emperor Huvishka, never remaining for long but causing lot of damages and disrupting the land roads, thus improving the revenues of the sailors who dared compete with the Jews of Qeshm.
 
Medullas mine, in Gallaecia, Hispania, September 180

Hecatee

Donor
Medulas mine, in Gallaecia, Hispania, September 180


Marcus Aurelius was impressed. The procurator had not lied when talking about “ruina montis” in his description of the gold mines… The work was on a gigantic scale, seemingly ruining whole mountains to get the precious metal that made the province so precious.

The emperor was visiting the mine in company of the local procurator in charge of the exploitation of the site, an equestrian of syrian origin that had taken the position five years before and was nearing the end of his assignment.

“As you can see we use water to dig for us, water being so powerful… But recently we’ve begun to improve the process thanks to the new steam pumps. We can’t use too many for lack of wood to burn, but we use some either to move large quantities of water to fill a retention basin or to compress the water and shoot it out with great strength, which greatly increase the speed at which we can ruin a cliff and start accessing its gold. As a result our usage of slave labour has fallen by one quarter, making the mine much more economic to operate. Truly a splendid innovation, even if I did not believe in it when it was first suggested by the procurator rei machinatori. I guess that’s why he’s got the position while I’m in the administrative branch of the imperial service... “

Smiling, Marcus Aurelius acquiesced. He knew that the empire was changing and that some struggled to find their place in it. But while the man might lack in technical savviness, he was good at his numbers and showed his emperor projections of expected revenues and potential end of exploitation. The last information was not good : the Medullas would be completely exhausted somewhere in the next seventy years, in three or four emperors, which would be a massive loss of income for the empire.

Still, that would be for later. Now the emperor wanted to visit this fantastic place and learn how everything worked…
 
Near Carcasso, Gallia, October 180

Hecatee

Donor
Near Carcasso, Gallia, October 180


Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, was resting. Travelling on the safe waters of a canal was always more comfortable than being on saddle or in a car where every dip in the road could be felt in one’s back despite the cushions… Being on water he had none of those problems. It was especially comfortable after the fifteen days it had taken to cross the area between the mine and Burdigala, including the Pyrenees mountains...

The boat was not very wide but still roomy. While not the most ornate thing he’d seen, it was also richly decorated and fit for an emperor, even if said emperor was not one to really like luxury and would not have cared if it had been less ornate.

Here he could read and write in peace or simply admire the landscape through which the canal went, always remembering that this was no usual river but a fully man made waterway. From time to time they had to go through a clever system of doors and pumps actionned by donkeys on the quay.

The inventor of the canal had explained the mechanism at the first of such gates, happy with the interest the emperor was showing for his creation. He’d also explained the issues he’d had with getting enough water for the whole canal, and how he’d found and brought a number of streams and springs together to make a large reservoir near the highest point of the canal, the saddle between two valleys.

The work was truly awe inspiring and in the end the project had not cost as much as one could have expected and was already repaying itself with the small usage tax that was levied on the trade : given how much cheaper it was to carry goods by water rather than by road, the small tax was seen as a small annoyance but not as a burden.

Every day the imperial barge had crossed at least three or four barges, and the canal had not yet operated for a full year… Authorities in Burgdila, which he’d reached after following the coast from northern Hispania to the city on the banks of the Garumna, had told Marcus Aurelius of an increase of wine trade, sending local products to the Mediterranean, and of an increase of trade on the Atlantic sea toward both Hispania and Britannia.

Hispanian and Lusitanian salted fish and garum sauce was now exported north instead of south, through the gulf of Cantabria, and then carried toward the Mediterranean too, arriving somewhat faster and, more importantly, safer in southern Gaul and in Italy. The canal was creating a whole new economic ecosystem.

From Burgdila the imperial party had gone to Tolosa and then onto the canal on their way to Narbona where they’d spend the winter before taking a ship to Rome, concluding the emperor’s tour of his realm after some 3 years on the roads. In those cities too they had heard of booming trade and of a developing countryside, truly the availability of cheaper transport was a boon for the whole region. It would be good to identify new potential canals, especially to develop the new lands in Germania and in the transdanubian provinces…
 
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