Shouldnt the borders of the Germania go all the way to the Elbe? Wouldnt they want to follow the plans of the first province of Germania during the reconquest?
Yes, I see I missed that border, I took most of my time looking at cities and roads my mistake thus. I'll see with @Dain if we modify it, if not it's because its not fully pacified yet (although the main resistance is certainly crushed)Shouldnt the borders of the Germania go all the way to the Elbe? Wouldnt they want to follow the plans of the first province of Germania during the reconquest?
Villa Albini, near Vienna Allobrogum, Gallia, August 247
The elderly senator looked at the scene in front of him. The rows of Morus Alba trees seemed to go as far as the eye could see, hedges for the small fields where his slave grew vines for the wine. The first white mulberry had been planted by his ancestor the senator Clodius Albinus almost some eighty years earlier, and they had since then grown and there were now more than 10 000 trees in the domain, the pride and joy of the family, providing fruits as well as shade and protection from the wind.
If they knew... quantities produced are still small and there is no crosscheck between silk quantities registered at the empire's border and sold in Rome, so it is well hidden...So never made the purple but became filthy rich on the back of the silk secret.
Surely the Emperor(s) would want his share?
The secret will come out.If they knew... quantities produced are still small and there is no crosscheck between silk quantities registered at the empire's border and sold in Rome, so it is well hidden...
Well, the bullet points for Germania and Alba say the Weser river is the dividing border. But I kinda agree that Germania looks pretty squeezed like that.Yes, I see I missed that border, I took most of my time looking at cities and roads my mistake thus. I'll see with @Dain if we modify it, if not it's because its not fully pacified yet (although the main resistance is certainly crushed)
Well, the bullet points for Germania and Alba say the Weser river is the dividing border. But I kinda agree that Germania looks pretty squeezed like that.
So, should I move the dioecese border to the Elbe+Saale instead?
How come Byzantium isn't a Roman naval base on par with Alexandria, Ravenna, or Naples? One would think the Romans would want a (separate) naval fleet to keep a close eye on the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, as well as on their various client-states including the Bosporan Kingdom.
Well the place does not seem to have held any strong military elements before Constantine turned a sleepy town into the capital city we all know, so no important fleet there, in fact a large part of the coastal patrolling is done by the Danubian river fleet because there are no ships in the area that are not romans, with exception of a few Bosphorean ships (and then only light anti-pirate ships, not full blow quinqueremes)
Indeed the Persians used it, and it was besieged a number of time in classical and hellenistic greek period, but it has been a sleepy town since.It may not have held much importance by the Romans prior to Emperor Constantine, but Byzantium (or Byzantion) was considered one of the foremost Achaemenid ports in the area by the Persians, and during the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta it traded hands numerous times due to it being strategic to Athens' grain supply.
So it held some significance. And surely a Roman emperor with foresight would have recognized that Byzantium was all that stood in the way of barbarian incursions by sea into the empire, as had happened in OTL during the 3rd century. And since any sea-raiders would have had to pass through a natural bottleneck, I regard it as almost foolhardy not to fortify the city with a wall and establish a naval base there. At the very least, have a contingency plan in place when your first line of defense you mentioned proves inadequate.
Alright, I have uploaded a new draft to the map post with an occupied Jutland peninsula.
Seems an unlikely scheme, especially without sanction from above. Not that people would be this greedy and unpatriotic, that is sadly all too believable, but there are so many points of failure, rivals snooping, talkative slaves/servants, someone randomly barging in and realizing what it is, people curious of the extreme secrecy, accident during transportation, authorities looking in on their stuff randomly... and so on and so on.
But I am willing to see where this story leads for now.
I agree that will be the most likely result, I recall a quote from a Frankish chiefdom (prob in my head but pretty sure it comes from an original source from the 5th century AD) 'destroy Rome? Don't be stupid we all want to become Roman' written down by a Roman writer of the Period however made up this quote is I think in the main the basic sentiment of late antiquity 'barbarians' elites at least. remember early pre-republican Rome/Latinium then look at the early Frankish and other tribal confederations before they crossed the Rhine then tell me what difference there is (I know thee are amny but at heart they were the same)Hmm. If Germanics stay true to their traditions they could form a large part of the army. Even in otl german auxiliaries were fairly common, I can imagine even moreso under Roman occupation given life under the Empire means the only method for gaining status as a perengirii was to join the Auxiliaries as opposed to plundering/raiding and such before Roman conquest.
Pehaps the sons of those German Auxilia join the legions, maybe even gaining equestrian status and from there who knows...