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Prologue[/FONT]
Following the collapse of the larger Western half of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ad the Eastern half with its capital of the great city of Constantinople had managed to not only survive but also thrive. By 565 AD at the end of the reign of the great emperor Justinian the empire was able to retake huge parts of the former Western empire that included North Africa, Italy and Most of southern Hispania. However despite his success Emperor Justinian the Great by the time of his death had overextended the empire and squandered its resources. By the time of the new emperor Justin II the empire was not only bankrupt but also overstretched. In the reign of Justin II it lost the heartland of Italy and Syria was almost lost if not for desperate negotiations.
Not being able to handle the responsibility of everything emperor Justin II slipped into madness and retirement but before he slipped away he appointed the general Tiberius II Constantine as his successor. Tiberius II Constantine was a popular ruler who had a mixed record and in military terms he was able to deal with the Persians in the east by the relaying on the leadership of the Brilliant general Maurice but he seriously left the Balkans undefended and this allowed the Avars and other Barbarians to take advantage of the chaos and migrate. In domestic policy he was a kind and benevolent ruler who gave money to the poor and extended religious freedom to all subjects. However by 582 Tiberius was dying due to have eaten bad food and he named Maurice along with Germanus his new heirs. Tiberius was originally planning to divide the empire but he changed his mind and made the General Maurice his successor.
When Tiberius finally died in 582AD Maurice was now the sole ruler of the most powerful empire on Earth but he was to be a different kind of leader unlike Tiberius. So begins Maurice’s Roman empire __________________
The emperor then left the church and the procession moved on to Main Street before finally reaching the Hippodrome that was the beating heart of the city. However emperor Maurice knew fully too well that the imperial coffers were nearly empty and several enemies such as the Avars who were devastating the Balkans were devastating the empires border regions. His coronation was made as quickly as possible with little or no extravagance. He knew that he didn’t have time to enjoy anything and upon reaching the palace the emperor made some of the most important decisions of his early reign. He decided that he would sell off a very large amount of the imperial crown Jules in order to fund a new campaign to deal with the Avars and the Slavs who were raiding the Balkans.
His second decision was that he would grant religious tolerance to followers of Monophysitism in order to avoid religious problems with them. In not persecuting the Monophysitismers the emperor had gained a powerful ally in the form of the pope of Pelagius II of Rome who was happy to assist the emperor against the Lombard’s in Italy. Emperor Maurice decided to decentralize the western parts of the empire that included Italy, North Africa and Spain into “exarchs” and an exarch was a military district where an appointed governor had military and civilian powers. He did this because he felt that the empire was simply too large, too centralized and overstretched in order to govern. He hoped that by decentralizing he would be able to focus on threats closer to home such as the Avars in the Balkans and the Persians in the East.
The first major challenge to the emperor’s rule came in the Balkans a front long forgotten by Constantinople and whose neglect would now haunt the empire for a long time. For decades the Avars and Slavs had been raiding and devastating the empires northern frontiers but now they were beginning to do something that scared the empire because those barbarians were starting to immigrate en masse and settle down in the land. Worse the City of Sirmium one of the most important and strategic cities in the Balkans and whose control was important to imperial stability was under siege for the last two years and the Empire had to pay tribute to oath breakers. Although not having the resources of the Trajan the emperor saw it as a dark eye on national pride that the empire was paying tribute to Barbarians.
In August of 582 AD the emperor with the funds raised from selling some of the crown Jules was about to begin a military expedition in order to teach the Avars and other Barbarians a lesson and some manners. Following the emperor would be Cometiotus one of his best friends and most trusted generals as an army of fifteen thousand soldiers marched from Constantinople Maurice’s Balkans Campaigns were about to begin.
Situation in Madeteranian by late 582AD
Chapter two: one wrong turn
It had taken the army several weeks to reach the city of Sirimium since marching from Constantinople and by the time the emperor arrived it was early September for him the campaigning season was about to begin. The emperor arrived in the city to find the Avars had withdrawn from the city because they feared the emperor’s army was too strong. The emperor found the city overjoyed because the city had been besieged for a long time and the emperor was welcomed like a returning hero. However the cities defenses and defenders were exhausted and nearly crumbling the reinforcement had allowed the roman empire for the first time in a long time to seriously secure and reassert its influence in the Balkans.
Despite the Avars withdrawing from the city they were still constantly raiding Roman settlements across the Danube burning entire villages to the ground and enslaving their inhabitants. The problem that the roman faced is that the Avars were not a “traditional” enemy i.e. they were not an army they were instead groups of bandits who raided villages across the Danube River. Within weeks of arriving the empire was able to reestablish communication with northern Italy who were also overjoyed although they didn’t get any assistance. In December of 582 AD the Khan sent an embassy to Sirmium hoping to negotiate a truce with the Romans but Maurice refused to negotiate.
He constantly reminded the Avars that he had fifteen thousand soldiers under his command and that the Avars were oath breakers. Not wanting to be further humiliated the Avar embassy promised war on the emperor and although confident of his victory it would be a decision he would regret through out his early reign and would nearly coast him the throne. Back in Constantinople the palace was nearly deserted and many artifacts and other valuable items were sold off in order to refill the imperial coffers and continue funding the Balkans campaign. The emperor also made an extremely unpopular decision he cut the salary of palace officials by 25% in order to save money as most of the imperial taxes were going to fund the army.
Else where in the empire the Exarch of Cordoba was struggling to maintain imperial control because it was completely surrounded by Visigoth territory and had a free hand in constant raids. Soon the Visigoths would begin their invasion of the imperial territory in Hispania. In mid 582 AD Heraclius the Elder was appointed Exarch of Africa whose base was in Carthage and who was relaxing trading laws in order to improve the economy and increase taxes. By 583 AD Heraclius dealt brutally with the Berbers who were constantly raiding Roman territory by capturing many villages and sending them to the Balkans and this was part of the emperors larger plans of transferring hostile populations across different territories.
In Ravenna the former Capital of the western empire the Exarch had his hands full he didn’t have much to work with as Roman control over the once heart of the empire was limited to a few territories scattered around Italy the included most of southern Italy, Rome, and some northern Areas. The reestablishment of the network between Dalmatia and Ravenna gave the Exarch hope of something better.
[FONT="]Chapter three: learning by doing [/FONT]
Emperor Maurice in the spring of 583 AD launched several devastating raids across the Danube region from his base in the city of Sirmium on the western banks of the Danube River. The aim of these raids was to show that the empire was not weak in the face of Avar aggression and gain booty in the form of slaves, refill the imperial coffers and pay the soldiers. As spring turned into summer the Romans raided deeply into Avar controlled territory reaching as far as the former Roman city of Sopianae. Along the way the army was reducing entire villages into rubble and selling off their inhabitants into slavery. The Avars and their Antes allies responded in kind by raiding Roman territories and sacking the strategically important city of Silistria on the Eastern bank of the Danube River near the black sea. The sack of the city of Silistria had resulted in many civilians fleeing the area to Thrace. This would cause a demographic problem for the empire later on.
In order to better deal with the threats posed by the Avars the emperor made a decree that gave half of the captured booty from a raid or a battle to a roman soldier operating in the Balkans. While at the same time the emperor slowly and quietly cut their pay by about five percent over the next few months. The sack of Silistria was only the beginning of the emperor’s trouble in the Balkans, the Avar Khan Bayan I feeling insulted by the treatment of his delegation launched an invasion of the western banks of the Balkans. By mid 583 AD his forces were sacking and capturing many cities along the way towards Greece. Those cities included the strategically important cities of Sisak, Singidunum and the city of Viminacium was turned into a nearly ghost town.At the same time the Antes were beginning to intensify their raids into Moesia that resulted in many deaths.
Despite the emperor considering the Balkans a top priority and the seriousness of the losses that were being inflicted against the Romans he had other fronts to worry about. The Roman Empire had been in a bloody war against their more aggressive Persian Sassanid neighbor ever since 571 AD. Before becoming emperor then general Maurice had inflicted a brutal defeat against his Persian counter parts the battle of Constantina. Ever since the battle the Romans had the advantage. The war that was being fought between both sides was about the issue of who controls Armenia an area strategically important to both empires and both powers had been fighting wars over it for centuries ever since the time of the Parthians.
In mid 583 AD the emperor got good news that the Roman general John Mystacom was victories against the Persian general Kardarigan in the battle of the river Nymphios. This victory allowed the Romans to maintain their advantage gained in the Battle of Constantina a year earlier and by gaining this victory he hoped that the Persians would be able to negotiate a truce and end the war. The emperor had been grooming Khoursu II the son of the previous Persian King for power in the Persian Empire. In exchange for assistance the emperor would be receiving most of the Caucasus region and a long peace treaty.
In 583 AD with the Romans reestablishing communication with Northern Italy the new Exarch Philippicus who was the emperors brother in law was beginning a massive security operation in order to secure Roman territorty and begin an offensive in order to recapture the city of Milan. By early 584 AD the Romans were negotiating with the Alemanni over a possible alliance against the Lombard’s.
In Africa While transporting berbers to the Balkans the Heraclius the Elder was covertly beginning to transport hundreds of troops into Hispania in order to reinforce its positions. At the same time he was planning to launch a military adventure with local funds that were being raised from increased trade with Frankish Gaul. The aim of his campaign was to establish a new “Numedian kingdom” in western North Africa by uniting the Various roman clients and hostile tribes. As one of the most powerful men in the Roman empire Heraclius did as he pleased but he believed in emperor Maurice and was no traitor to him.
The main aim of this soon to be new kingdom would be to act as a buffer in case the Visigoths attempt to invade Africa if Spania should fall.
By March of 584 AD both the Avar Khan and the emperor would meet in open battle....
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Following their victory against the Bulgars the Avars along with Huns and subjugated tribes established a powerful state under their leader Bayan I in 567 AD. Their primary base was Pannonia an area that was once part of the western Empire before it fell. Although they settled in Pannonia their empire extended from the Adriatic shores to Bohemia and from the Alps to the Carpathian Mountains. The Avars didn’t have large military numbers at best they could field about 50,000 thousand soldiers but their strength lied in archery and horses. As the months passed in 583 AD the Avar Khan got bored and in January of 584AD he lifted the siege because of constant attacks against his supply lines by the Roman forces.
The Khans army soon made its way towards the City of Arguvium towards the Ancient land of Epirus. Along the way the Khans army didn’t find anything to plunder because every village they went to was either deserted or burned down worse for the Khan the roman army was constantly attacking the Avars army which forced his troops to “live off” the land. By mid 584 AD the Avars army had dwindled to about fifteen thousand soldiers and he decided to withdraw back towards Avar territory. The romans gave their Avar enimies not rest constantly attacking their supply lines and as the khan and his army were about to cross the River. A roman delegation arrived that was seeking a truce; demands of tribute and the Avars abandon all of their weapons before leaving Roman territory. The Khan refused and sent only one member of the delegation back alive carrying the heads of the other two.
A week passed and as the Khans army began crossing the river back into Avar territory the Romans launched a huge ambush by coping the Avar bow and military tactics. Archers fired countless arrows from horseback; fire lid stones were falling on the Avar army killing many. As the Romans continued this attack from a distance many soldiers from the Avar army panicked and attempted to flee where a lot of them drowned as they crossed the River. The advisers of the Avar khan tried to get him to negotiate a truce but he stubbornly refused and by evening the khan along with his entourage were captured by the emperor’s forces. Despite the chaos many Avars did flee across the Danube and escape to Avar controlled territory.
Following the capture of the Khan and with his continued refusal to not negotiate every hour the emperor brought twenty of Avar soldiers and executed them in front of the Khan. Although numbers vary a lot of Avars were killed and by the next the Khan who looked like he had aged by twenty years and looked like a broken man agreed to finally negotiate. The emperor forced the Avars to sign a humiliating treaty with the emperor in order for the Khan to be released they gave the emperor all of their weapons, horses, valuable items and loot collected from the raids. The Avars promised never to raid Roman territory for twenty years and pay an annual tribute of 60,000 solidi to the empire. The Avars would also have to hand over “guests” to Constantinople in order to ensure they comply with the treaty and release all roman prisoners of war. The treaty was signed and the next day the remaining Avars left back home with nothing but the cloths they were wearing.
Following the departure of the Avars the emperor was hailed as “Maurice the Avar slayer” a title he would carry on through out the rest of his life. A lot of his close advisers were disappointed because they felt the could have gotten great concessions but the emperor wanted to preserve the balance of power in the region because the empire was a wounded fish in a sea full of sharks.
By August of 584 AD news of the victory was spreading through out the empire and citizens and soldiers alike rejoiced. When the emperor returned to Constantinople he was greeted like to a heroes welcome and with news that his wife delivered a healthy boy Theodosius. However the emperor didn’t squander the money he was gaining and instead deposited it into the treasury and used some to fund welfare programs for war orphans. Despite the victory the emperor didn’t trust the Avars and maintained a large military presence in the Balkans under the command of general Commentius
Early 585 AD brought bad news for the empire The Visigoths under their new king had begun an invasion of the Exarct of Spania.
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Chapter five: A time to stand [/FONT]
Ever the since the beginning of the reign of emperor Maurice the Roman empire had begun reasserting itself following two or three decades of stagnation, economic ruin and territorial loss. The key to the empires recent success had been careful strategic thinking and strict fiscal austerity that included quiet and gradual reductions in military spending. By Early 585 AD the Visigoths had launched massive incursions into the Roman territory of Spania. Spania was a roman territory located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and the legendary Roman general Belasiruis conquered it during the reign of emperor Justinian the great. Despite being a Roman territory Spania itself received little or no attention from Constantinople.
The territory included the Roman cities of New Carthage in the west, Corduba in the south and Assionia in the east. The territories main purpose was to act as a buffer and prevent the Visigoths from crossing into Africa and doing what the Vandals did a long time ago. Before the reign of emperor Maurice Spania was under a military governor who was subservient to the governor of Africa who held final say on all matters. Ever since the beginning of the reign of emperor Maurice the whole province was given near total autonomy in an effort to improve the areas situation. The Exarch had military and civilian power. The current Visigothic King Liuvlgild in the early years of his reign had taken a lot of territory from Spania and he was launching an offensive in 585 AD in order to setup his son Reccared on the throne.
Due to the distance of the Exarch from Constantinople the emperor feared a rebellion by an ambitious general and decided to appoint a new Exarch in in late 584 AD. His brother Peter became Exarch and arrived in Cordoba to find his hands full with a multitude of problems ranging from religious matters to other issues. The problem with Peter was that he was a military man and not an administrator; he issued extremely unpopular decrees such as mandatory military service. When the Visigoths launched their incursions the Roman army was able to hold ground and inflict significant loses in the area.
After several months of fighting that mostly included border skirmishes the Romans under Peter were winning battles but losing the war because they just didn’t have the manpower to hold ground and with the Constantinople being distracted with the Persians, Exarch Peter sued for peace. A decision that mad him even more unpopular he was forced to give up some territory to the west and east that were not easy to defend. Although an unpopular decision it was a wise decision because it made the province easier to defend. Peter would over the years of 585 and early 586 turn the province into the most militarized region in the entire empire with forts, walls and forced relocations of peasants into more defendable areas.
By mid 586 these policies had caused a mini famine as agriculture collapsed and riots broke out. Although the riots were not large enough to force Constantinople to change the governor they were serious enough for the governor to reverse course and ease some of his policies. The exert also faced a threat from the Baguade who were a peasant insurgency dissatisfied with the situation and their treatment by the local government. The peasants would ambush military supply lines and increase food prices.
In mid 585 AD Heraclius the elder was in the city of Caesarea in Mauretania Caesariensis in order to crown Mastigas as king of the kingdom of Mauritania in western North Africa. The Kingdom was established on the former roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis and most of Mauretania Tingitana excluding the areas that were already under Roman control. Heraclius the elder had helped the new king defeat his rival in early 585 AD and by mid 586 AD the Romans client state had control over most of Mauretania Tingitana. This allowed Heraclius to return to Carthage and leaving the king to govern his new kingdom under the “benevolent” advice of his Roman advisers. With things mostly stable in his corner of the empire Heraclius was sending letters back and forth between Cordoba and Constantinople mostly scolding the Exact Peter urging him to reverse his military first policy and he was also urging the emperor to decrease the nepotism within his government. This is because it was making a lot of influential individuals jealous.
Italy was still a mess divided between the Romans and Lombards. The operation that the Exarch launched in order to improve security provided mixed results because it considerably secured the areas around Ravenna and Rome but it weakened the empires hold on the south of Italy. Following the mixed results of the operation the governor didn’t under take any further military operations in 586 AD because he learned a hard lesson the Lombards were like a snake that was strangling you and the more you tried to let go the more it suffocated you. He decided to approach the situation in Italy with a gradual re-conquest of the former Roman territories. In the meantime he was going to strengthen the areas the empire already controlled by repairing forts, securing roads and increasing infrastructure project such as aqueducts.
As 587 AD entered the situation in the Middle East was largely unchanged with the Romans and Persians making some gains from time to time. The emperor was now marching from Constantinople towards Antioch in the East with a lot of relief troops and the young Persian prince whom he was hoping to install in the Persian throne.
The sitiuation in the Madeteranian in early 587 AD. Purple Roman empire and orange is "Mauritanian kingdom"
Chapter six: Glory to the new king
The emperor arrived in Antioch a few weeks later after marching from Constantinople and spent the next few months creating projects that improved or expanded local infrastructure like roads and bridges. The emperor brought with him about ten thousand soldiers who were soon scattered to Roman Mesopotamia, eastern Asia minor and the Armenia were the fighting was happening. The empire lost the strategic city of Dara early on in the war that made their war effort in eastern Asia Minor a lot more difficult because they couldn’t easily resupply their troops. Dara was built under the emperor Anastastius a century earlier under the advice from his generals who believed the army didn’t fare well because they didn’t have a nearby base. The Persians did much better in that earlier conflict because they had Nisbis.
Following its construction the city of Dara become one of the most strategically important cities in the entire Middle East. Emperor Maurice in late spring of 586 AD rejected a peace treaty that would have ended the war and granted the Persians tribute because he had his ace in the whole who was Khorsau II. The emperor decided to launch an offensive to weaken the Persian hold on Armenia by using the former Exarch of Italy Philippicus who had been replaced from his position because the emperor needed another experienced general in the Battlefield. Philippicus was not just a general he was appointed as Magister Militium per Orientem that made him the governor of Roman Syria and Palestina. This was one of the richest and most prosperous regions of the entire empire and now he was in command of it. For Philippicus this was a better appointment then the northern frontier of Italy and he enjoyed fighting real enemies rather then bands of Barbarians.
Following the emperors’ refusal to end the war by signing a peace treaty. In the early summer of 586 Philippicus tested his army by marching from his headquarters in the city of Amida and marched south crossing the river Zergan to its eastern banks. He advanced 15 kilometers east to the plain of Solachon where he ordered the army to setup camp. General Philippicus had picked an extremely strategic position because it was south of the fortresses of Mardes and Dara that were under Persian control and allowed the Roman army to control the passage of the Arzamon River. This forced the Persians army under the legendary general Kardarigan to advance across the waterless plain away from their supply routes and made the Persian weaker because they were not fully supplied before meeting the Romans in battle.
General Philippicus was unaware of the Persian advance near his position and on the Persian side Kardigan was eager to fight and confident of total victory. He had taken contingencies in order to deal with his situation such as bringing in camels with water and General Kardigan was so sure of victory he even brought chains for potential prisoners .A few days after beginning mobilization romans were able to detect Persian movements after Roman Arab Feodoriti (allies) captured several Persians and this allowed the Romans to prepare for battle and after interrogating the Persians the Romans learned that the Persian army was planning to attack on Sunday.
Philipicus attacked the Persians a day early on Saturday and the Battle began in the Afternoon of that day. Both armies appeared to have been composed exclusively of Cavalry, compromising a mix of lancers, horse archers and even a few Cataphracts. The Roman scouts reported the Persian advance and he positioned his men on elevated grounds facing the direction from which the Persian armies advance. With the Roman left flank protected by the foothills of Mount Izalas the Romans were positioned in a single lines with three divisions. The left division was commanded by Eiliphredas an experienced general and governor of Syria Phoenice, the central division was under Philipicus’s command and Heraclius the younger commanded the right division.
Upon viewing the Roman formation the Persian general adopted it. Upon the Persian army adopting the formation they quickly marched on Roman lines shooting arrows as they approached. The Romans responded in kind and approached the incoming enemy. The Roman army was victorious on the right flank under the command of Heraclius the younger whose heavy cavalry crushed the Persian flank and pushed his enemy to the left behind their own main line. At this point however some of the troops of the Roman right flank broke discipline and moved to head towards the Persian camp in order to loot it. The Roman general Philipicus saw what happened and sent a bodyguard with his helmet who convinced the soliders to return to order just in time to stop the Persians who regrouped in the center and were pushing the numerically inferior Romans.
To deal with the continued Persian threat Philipicus ordered the men in his division to dismount and form a shield wall with their lances projecting from it. The Romans launched spears at the attacking Persian cavalry which resulted in many deaths and the Persian left and Right flanks broke this exposed the center. As the soldiers from both flanks retreated the Romans now totally devastated the center. At nightfall the Battle was all over the General distributed the loot among his troops, took a small share for him and sent the rest to Constantinople. The Roman victory had allowed the Roman army to successfully invade Arzanene an area on the outskirts of greater Armenia.
In the aftermath of the victory and successful invasion for the rest of 586 the front was relatively quiet and there was no changes other then the usual raid and counter raid. Elsewhere in 586 AD Reccared was crowned king of the Visigoths and immediately launched an invasion of Roman Spania where his forces suffered heavy losses and he had to sue for peace. However he did gain an opportunity for military glory when Septiana a province located in Gaul revolted after they refused to accept Catholism when the rest of the Visigoths converted.
Things were quiet in the empire for the year of 587 AD with not much happening other then general Commentiolus who was commander of the Danube front launching a major the Antae and Avars who were launching minor raids into Roman territory. He was going to invade Antae controlled territory and install a Roman friendly king in the Region. He was going to continue the Balkans campaign in order to further stabilize the frontier and prevent Barbarian tribes from crossing into Roman territory.
By 588 with his headquarters in Antioch emperor Maurice had sent Guaram I to the capital of Georgia in order to be inaugurated in the city of Mtskheta. He would be a valuable ally for Maurice later on. Emperor Maurice faced a threat from soldiers who weren’t paid for a long time and their commander Prsiscus was able to negotiate with them. This gave the Sassanids a chance when they launched an offensive but the mutineers’ themselves stopped the offensive after a lot of money was transported to them from Antioch and they were allowed to keep 90% of the loot they captured. During the year the empire got good news when many prisoners escaped from war camps and returned to Roman territory. They were escorted to Antioch by the emperor bodyguards and met the emperor who bestowed them with gifts and much more. By the end of 588 AD the emperor returned to Constantinople after a two-year absence with two more children another boy and a girl. Constantinople rejoiced and the emperor launched more construction programs in order to expand the city.
In Italy the Franks and Burgandians launched an invasion of Northern Italy and suffered a loss against the Lombards. Taking advantage of the chaos the new Exarch wanting to prove himself militarily had launched an offensive and was able to regain a lot of lost territory and secure the Ravenna to Rome highway as the emperor planned to visit following the conclusion of the Persian war. 589 and 590 Ads were exciting years for the empire as the Persians gained an upper hand in the war when they captured an important fortress. However when a Persian general Bahram Choblin was humiliated he declares Khosrau II as his king and joint Roman and Persian army marches towards Ctesphion where they capture Ctesphion thus ending the war in mid 590 AD.
When news finally reached Constantinople the city held a weeklong holiday with games and feasts. The treaty that ended the war very favorable to the empire and ended centuries of Romans paying tributes to the Persians, gave back all lost Roman cities, most of Persian Armenia and western half of Iberia. Maurice was now slowly starting to repair the mess done by the incompetent Justin II but his celebrations wouldn’t last long as the bubonic plague hit Italy and killed the Pope. The emperor would now have to focus on Italy, as it would be a source of trouble for the empire in the next few years.
Situation in Madeteranian with gains for the Roman army
[FONT="]Chapter seven: Take me to Rome[/FONT]
[FONT="]By mid 590 AD the Roman and Sassanid empires signed a formal peace treaty that ended more then two decades of war. The final negotiations to end the war were held in the city of Ctesiphon that was the capital of the Persian Empire in early summer. General Prsiscus represented the Roman delegation and Khosrau II was representing the Persian Empire. As the new king Khosrau II had his hands full not only did he have the task of rebuilding Persian Mesopotamia but he also had to deal with rebellious noblemen in the East. Khosrau II didn’t want any more trouble with the Romans so he ended their tribute, ceded them most of the Caucuses region and returned all of their cities they lost in the war. However neither Maurice nor Khosrau II enjoyed peace because Khosrau II was soon dragged into a mini civil war with one of his uncles after he killed another uncle who was becoming too powerful. This was because there was a tradition of Persian kings fearing powerful ministers. He also faced constant religious problems with his Christian subjects over the issue of the nature of Christ and he had to deal with this problem because Christians formed a sizeable population of the Persian Empire. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Meanwhile Maurice in the months that followed the end of the war spent most of his time in Constantinople mostly in a semi relaxed atmosphere with him raising his children, touring the city and distributing money to the poor which made him quite popular. He also received reports from the Balkans front where there were still minor campaigns against some Avar and Antae tribes. However the first serious issue that the emperor had to deal with in late 590 AD came from Italy when the previous pope who was friendly to Constantinople died from plague and a new one was elected from the Cardinals in Rome. At the same time the Franks and Burgandians again invaded Northern Italy and the Exarch of Italy Romanus wanting to take advantage of the chaos sent small Roman armies that recovered the cities of Moderna, Reggio, Parma and Mantua from the Lombards in central Italy. The war with the Franks had weakened the Lombards who sued for peace in exchange for ceding some cities to the in the Po valley. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Although the Exarchs actions were great in the long run because he captured territory but didn’t take too many cities because he didn’t want to overextend his power. The Exarch like his predecessor believed that the re-conquest of Italy from the Lombards and other Barbarians would have to be a gradual process so that the empire wouldn’t over extend and avoid what happened with Justin II. However the Exarch strategy soon made him an enemy of the new Pope Gregory I who criticized him in a letter for not liberating more Roman territory. The dispute between both men soon caught the attention of the emperor in mid 591 AD as they both sent him letters regarding the situation in Italy. At first emperor Maurice tried to reconcile both men but then he started getting annoyed and with not much happening in the empire Emperor Maurice decided to go to Rome to personally deal with the situation there. However he didn’t inform both men instead he wanted to make it a surprise for the Pope.
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Chapter eight: Strange bed follows
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The emperor left Constantinople in the early summer of 591 AD and he proceeded to visit Balkans frontier from both ends to raise morale and get an idea of what was happening in the area. He proceeded at first to tour the ancient region of Moesia that was heavily devastated by Antae attacks. The emperor toured several cities starting with Noviodunum where he inspected troops, raised morale by giving speeches and distributing money to the people from his own personal wealth.
The emperor wasn’t just visiting the area because he wanted to be popular he also was
Stabilizing the Balkans frontier by improving the Limes Moesiae. This was done by transporting hundreds of Berbers and Armenians who were settled in the outskirts of the Balkans establishing new settlements in order to act as farmers and partial buffers. The Roman military also built more castles and fortifications in order to deal with Slavs and Antae’s around the Danube River. Also hundreds of captured Antae’s and other barbarians from raids on settlements and villages were transported to Africa for cheap labor and to repopulate the interior of North Africa.
The emperor over the next few weeks toured other cities in the Moesia before finally reaching the city of Ratiaria in Dacia Ripensis and this was the half waypoint of his journey in his tour of the Balkans. The emperor was becoming extremely popular in the Balkans frontier because of this tour and it was mostly a PR stunt in order to increase his popularity and improve the defenses in the Danube. By December of 591 AD the emperor spent most of December in the city of Sirmium where he was greeted with a heroes welcome and spent most of his time there building new churches. As 592 AD entered the imperial entourage proceeded to the City of Salona in Dalmatia but as two weeks passed he then had to cut his tour of the Balkans short.
As news from Italy was changing because the Lombards had a new king who took over several strategic cities near Ravenna and the Duchy of Benevento had a new duke who was becoming aggressive. The imperial entourage reached Ravenna in the spring of 592 AD while at the same time the duchy of Spoleto under Ariulf began besieging Naples an important imperial city and attacking dangerously close to Rome. The emperor arrived at Ravenna to find Italy a complete mess with some areas being fine and other on the verge of total collapse.
Although the exarch was doing his best to deal with the situation in the Italian peninsula he just didn’t have the resources to fight all of the Lombard duchies. The emperor knew that the Roman Empire simply didn’t have all the resources or manpower to retake Italy because resources were needed in other fronts like the Balkans. Still Italy was important to the empire in the long term not only because it was a psychological advantage but also the southern regions were starting to be productive again. The emperor was not a stupid man and learning from the gothic wars under Justinian that devastated the entire region and the advice from his exarchs. It was not a good idea to launch an all out war because it would devastate the entire region and further weaken imperial authority in the west.
Emperor Maurice was not going to launch an all out invasion instead the reintegration of Italy would take at least two decades with his estimation. The first decade would focus on the reintegration of southern and central Italy into the empire. In the emperors plan the second decade would be spent focusing on securing the Alps and reconquering northern Italy by the steady deployment of troops and making the Lombard duchies Roman Vassals.
In order to enact his plans the emperor spent most of the spring of 592 AD bringing in some troops from Dalmatia and two thousand soldiers from Constantinople. This gave him time to assemble a military force of about five thousand and using troops gathered from stable parts of Italy gave him a total army of ten thousand soldiers. This army was transformed into Legio I Italica (First Italian legion). At the same time the Roman emperor dispatched Legio II Cyrenica from Palestina under the command of Heraclius the younger. The legion was withdrawn to the boot of Italy by sea and in the early summer the army relieved Naples and expanded Roman control over southern Italy.
Heraclius spent the summer of 592 AD campaigning southern Italy connecting the two parts of southern Italy for the first time in two decades. The general didn’t expand further because he didn’t want to overextend his territory and spent most of autumn and winter building fortifications and using his families’ fortunes to rebuild infrastrucre in the region. By 592 AD North Africa was booming from trade with Gaul and selling grain to Italy this made the governor extremely rich. The emperor wasn’t sitting around in northern Italy instead after assembling the newly formed Legio I Italica he personally trained the legion and transformed it into a highly disciplined military force.
In the summer of 592 AD the emperor marched from Ravenna with Legio I Italica to deal with the Lombard duchy of Friuli that had captured several towns extremely close to Ravenna. Legio I Italica marched from Ravenna in June and captured several villages and towns along the way towards the city of Patavium. Patavium was a strategic city and who ever controlled it would have a better strategic position in northern Italy. The emperor’s aim in this campaign was to capture several cities in northern Italy, secure the Istrian peninsula and secure the Rome to Ravenna road.
He wasn’t going to stay in Italy for long and was planning to return to Constantinople in early 593 AD.
Legio I Italica proved to be an extremely efficient army and a brutal fighting force. The siege of Patavium began in June and lasted for one whole month. When it was over emperor Maurice was able to claim a victory for the empire in northern Italy. The city of Patavium was once again in imperial hands. In September of 592 AD the emperor moved south towards Rome from Patavium leaving behind a small garrison but known the Lombards wouldn’t dear attack him. He had successfully campaigned and secured trade lines between Dalmatia and Ravenna. The emperor campaigned heavily in the duchy of Spoleto recapturing many cities but leaving the capital because he wanted to finish it off later.
By December 3rd the pope was aware of a massive army approaching Rome he believed that it was the Lombards who wanted to conquer the city and knew that they wouldn’t spare anyone. So the pope rode out with a delegation to surrender the city but as he approached the army camp he saw they were Romans. Several of the emperor’s bodyguards took the pope to meet the emperor and despite differences in Religion both men became good friends.
As the emperor entered Rome he was received with a standing ovation but was shocked to see a city in disrepair with slums, no water and widespread poverty. The emperor never imagined that the mother of the world a city that controlled an empire that once stretched from Ebarcum in Britania to Ctesiphon in Mespotania could be like this. According to legend after finishing his public tours the emperor wept privately about the state of the city and of Italy as a whole. He really did want to do something but just didn’t have the resources about it.
The emperor spent December relaxing in Rome and ordered his military engineers to launch an ambitious rebuilding program funded by the pope, exarch of Carthage and the emperor. This program was aimed at rebuilding Rome’s aqueducts and the engineers began this and employed local Romans to do the labour in order to make the Italians feel they were part of the empire.
For the people inside the empire Roman Empire the quality of life depended on where you lived and what your status was. The 590s in the Middle East were stable times as the war with Persia was over the region was starting to recover and trade was booming specially for the holy land where pilgrims were making the journey to Jerusalem yearly.
Overall the empire was increasingly becoming more stable because the security was stabilizing everywhere and with increased stability came trade. The emperor began to decrease taxes in Middle East in order to bring in more taxes from trade. The empire entered 593AD with much work still ahead.
The sitiuation in the Madeteranian in early 593 AD. Yellow line showing emperors tour, read indicates recent agains and light purple indicate vassals.
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Early January 593 AD was a busy time for the city of Rome as empress Constantina organized the creation of huge public baths in order to improve the living conditions and Huygens of ordinary people. She was hoping that by improving the living conditions that people would be healthier and disease wouldn’t spread quickly. In order to enact her plan the empress along with the emperor paid for the repair of the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus aqueducts. These aqueducts were the main suppliers of water to the city of Rome and each project would take at least several years to complete. At the same time several hundred skilled artisans and military engineers were brought in from Carthage to the port of Ostia Antica that was the main port that served Rome in order to begin immediate repairs on it. The port was located on the mouth of the Tiber River and at the height of the Roman Empire in the second century AD was used to import and export goods from and to Rome.
However following the decline of and eventual collapse of the western empire the port was largely neglected with a few thousand inhabitants. Like the city of Rome it was a mere shadow of its former self but slowly under emperor Maurice the empire was being rebuilt better then ever before. The emperor hoped that by reconstructing the port that was another long-term project he could revive the local economy and allow trade to expand once again. The reconstruction of all of these buildings and locations was also a message and a political one to the pope and Lombards that weakened or not the Romans are here to stay and that they weren’t leaving any time soon.
By March of 593 AD the Romans had effectively cut Lombard controlled Italy in half after the previous years campaigns against the Lombard duchies of Spoleto that controlled most of central Italy and the duchy of Benevento. As the Italian situation improved the emperor ordered the Legio II Cyrenica to march on the City of Capua that was controlled by the duchy of Benevento. Capua was captured after several weeks although the Legio II Cyrenica did suffer heavy causalities. Capturing Capua was not about the military situation but was a favor to the pope.
For all of there troubles the Lombards were a Germanic tribe who originated from Scandinavia and wondered around for a long time. In the 520s and 530s they served under the legendary Roman general Narses as a mercenaries. At first the general was grateful for the extra manpower but then he found the Lombards to be too savage too out of control and they were shipped out. Two decades later for the Romans a series of unfortunate events in Europe such as the Avars coming to power and the plague of Justinian resulted in the Lombards along with several of their allies conquering huge parts of Italy.
The strategic situation in Italy was increasingly tilting towards the Romans all backed by two military legions in the area. As the Roman army easily captured Capua in May of 593 Ad they then stopped and waited for the emperor who met them inside the city and told the people “Your suffering is now over the senate and the people of Rome are here with you”. In terms of central Italy the emperor was planning to knock two birds with one stone and he already set plans in motion. A few weeks following the capture of Capua and surrounding areas the duke of Benevento was assassinated by one of his noble men due to his inability to deal with the Romans.
Following the untimely death of the ruling dukes the nobles started fighting among each other and as that happened cities all over southern and central Italy rose up usually eliminating Lombard garrisons and pledging allegiance to the empire. By mid June of 593 AD the Legio II Cyrenica besieged Benevento as Lombard rule in southern Italy collapsed.
A month later the city surrendered in exchange for mercy. The emperor didn’t execute the Lombads who were in the city instead he made a nobleman by the name of Aistulf duke of the city under Roman super vision. The remaining Lombard troops would be dispersed to various fronts like the Middle East and Africa. In order to keep the Lombards of of Benevento in check the emperor issued a decree that stated that any Lombard who serves outside of Italy would be given Roman citizenship in ten years.
Despite the strings of constant successes in Italy the emperor left for Constantinople by ship from southern Italy in July of 593 AD. This is because the Slavs and other tribes had breached the defenses in the western banks of the Danube River and were ravaging the countryside. Before leaving Italy the emperor reorganized Italy into two exarchs the fist would be the exarch of Ravenna that would govern northern Italy and the Exarch of Rome would govern central and southern Italy from Rome. Dividing Italy into two exarchs was both a strategic decision because it would allow the emperor to select an experienced general who could deal with the Lombards who controlled northern Italy. Also dividing Italy into two made sure no governor could be powerful enough to challenge Constantinople.
The emperor gave the senate in Rome the ability to choose its governor and levy taxes over the exarch of Rome but with 20% of taxes going to Constantinople. However the emperor appointed half the senators in Rome and the new exarch was an Italian by the name of Flavius Varanius who was of aristocratic background and had military experience serving in the emperor Italian campaign. Choosing an Italian was a way to extend an olive branch to the Italians that they were not ruled by foreign Greeks instead that were ruled by a powerful empire that they were a part of.
Although southern Italy was now stable the center was still a bit unstable because they duchy of duchy of Spoleto was still a threat that the new exarch had to deal with. Emperor Maurice arrived in Sicily in July of 593 AD as part of his tour and took the opportunity to relax for a while there. Sicily was part of Italy but was rued by the Exarch of Africa and it was a stable, peace and extremely prosperous area. The emperor was encouraged to visit Heraclius in North Africa but couldn’t because of the Balkans. Finally arriving in Constantinople in August of 593AD the emperor returned to a city that was enjoying peace and was fairly prosperous. He wasn’t going to go to the Balkans because Emperor Maurice was exhausted from his Italian adventures and was getting tired of constantly traveling long distances.
The emperor order general Priscus to continue campaign across the Danube in the winter a decision that the general disobeyed because the troops were exhausted from constant cat and mouse games with the Slavs. Priscus was also exhausted and didn’t want the troops to mutiny. In winter of the year 593 AD the front was quite but the emperor was furious at the actions of the general and dismissed him in February of 594 AD the general replaced him with Germanus an incompetent general who would be a disaster for the empire in the coming year.
Economically the eastern territories were recovering fairly quickly and were becoming once again centers of economic trade kept by sound economic policies and with a lot of stability. The population was also recovering quickly with many flocking to Egypt in order to participate in the construction of Maurices canal that would connect the red sea and the Madeteranian.
Situation in Madeteranian around February of 594 AD. Roman empire in dark purple, Visigothic kingdom in blue, Main lombard duchies in pink, other lombard duchies in yellow, duchy of Spoleto in green (Central italy). Persian empire in red
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Chapter ten: two steps forward and one-step back
[/FONT] Some where in the Danube river basin Joseph and his unit where serving in the Limes Moesiae in the eastern banks of the Danube river. His unit was a Limitanei (border garrison) patrolling for the last two weeks tracking a group of Slavs who had raided a small village stealing some cattle. Their mission was to track the bandits and identify their location. This mission was extremely unpopular with the entire unit because they regarded it as a waste of time conducted by their incompetent commander Germanus who wanted to gain favor with Constantinople. Joseph knew that it was dangerous to keep tracking the bandits so his units turned back to their hometown of Latrus but when they were heading back several dozen Bandits surrounded his unit and they were forced to surrender, being taken to the north as prisoners of war.
As they were being dragged in chains to Slav territory they cursed the name of their commander Germanus for his incompetence. They also had formed a deep hatred for the emperor because of his failure to effectively deal with the Slavs. By April of 594 Dozens of other military units were also captured. The Slavs sensing weakness launched an invasion of the Balkans peninsula invading the provinces of Macedonia and Moesia. In order to deal with the problem Germanus decided to launch his own invasion of the Northern Danube region taking with him about seven thousand soldiers in order to hit the enemy hard. The Roman army under his leadership soon marched deep into the un-charted forests and swamps of Wallachia where the whole army was routed 2500 soldiers managed to escape while the rest were taken as prisoners.
By August of 594 AD Worse for the Romans another Roman army was defeated in Edessa allowing the Slavs to raid as far as Larrisa in Greece. In Constantinople the emperor was now furious but couldn’t do anything for the rest of the Year. He had to be careful because there was a lot of anger towards him. Not wanting to risk a mutiny by the Danube armies the emperor needed an experienced general but most of those were either on other fronts or had other duties. Thus the emperor restored the disgraced general Priscus back to command hoping he would improve the situation. Priscus was again back in command of the Danube in December of the 594 AD but he couldn’t do anything because it was winter. Instead he ordered the troops to rest for the time being and only engage raiding parties.
By the time Priscus was again in charge the situation was pretty bad the Slavs were raiding almost at will all over the Balkans frontier. Priscus may have been an experienced general but he was no Hercules in order to deal with the situation in June of 595 AD the Roman army in the Limes Moesiae began a heavy refortification effort aimed at reestablishing the borders. This was done by rebuilding many forts and improving the walls of many border cities. In the previous months Priscus brought in additional troops from other fronts that were quiet. Then his forces launched a massive security operation in Greece in order to eliminate the Slavs in there. Sealing all the roads that led to in and out of the region and giving cash rewards to people who brought in suspected Slavic raiders. Over the Summer Priscus succeeded in clearing out all of Greece forcing the Slavic raiders to raid in the provinces that border their territory that included the Diocese of Dacia and Scythia minor.
The reason why the Romans couldn’t deal with the Slavs was because they were not a unified polity instead they were different tribes who took advantage of weak points in the long Roman borders to raid and cause general havoc. By the beginning of Autumn of 595 AD Priscus had campaigned aggressively forcing the Slavs to limit their raids to the province of Scythia minor. However the Slavs also began launching minor raids into Dalmatia a region that was beginning to recover economically and was becoming more prosperous because it was the link between Constantinople and Rome that brought a lot of trade a long the way. The governor of Dalmatia was Philipicus a wealthy nobleman from the region who had seen his fortune increase in the previous years as the empire restored the bulk of Italy. Not wanting to see his gains lost Philipicus paid off many of the raiding tribes that were raiding his province. But this had the opposite effects as more tribes began to raid Dalmatia in order to extract tribute from the Roman governor.
Philipicus soon requested help from Constantinople but no aid would come until early next year because the imperial army was already stretched thin. In Egypt the emperor ordered the governor to reduce taxes on peasants from 35% to 22% in order to reduce the burden on them and make the agricultural sector more productive. The emperor also passed laws that established several designated areas that are allowed to sell silk in and the aim of these laws was to fully regulate that silk market and bring in more income to the imperial coffers. The emperor reduced tariffs for exotic goods that were produced in local provinces such as silk in order to make the economy more competitive.
The emperor also established a special committee in order to improve agricultural efficiency within the empire and he regularly held meetings with peasants from all over the empire. He did this because he knew agriculture was important and having the peasants on his side couldn’t hurt but also improve his legitimacy. The emperor in 593 and 594 AD passed several laws that established more formal procedures for dealing with criminal proceeding regarding the rich. One of those was Hebeaus Corpus that limited the amount of time that a noble could be held without being convicted of something.
The aim of the agricultural laws was part of an unofficial consensus that the emperor made with the peasants that was you be productive and I take batter care of you. The emperor hoped to implement Hebeaus corpus on ordinary citizens but that prospect would take a very long time because it could face strong opposition from the aristocracy.
In Italy Pope Gregory the Great had signed a peace treaty with the Lombard that affirmed the current Italian borders and established peace between the Romans and Lombards but many factions within the Roman military were not pleased with the treaty. But those factions couldn’t do anything because the Pope had the emperor’s ears and Southern Italy was booming thanks to new agricultural imports from the east, the Silk trade, low taxes and local autonomy which allowed local official to deal better with local problems.
By January of 596 AD the Balkans were the main source of trouble for the empire as Slavic tribes began besieging Signidunum and launching more attacks on Dalmatia.
(Map showing the situation in 596 AD) Purple lines show Slavic incursions
[FONT="]Chapter eleven: A game of cat and mouse[/FONT]
General Priscus began campaigning in Scythia minor in order to clear out the Slavic incursions in the region. He also sent a relief force of about 2500 soldiers to Dalmatia in order to assist the local forces in the area with dealing with the Slavs. By the time the troops arrived in mid February the raids had all but stopped and instead several thousand Slavs retreated to Singidunum and reinforced the Slavs that were besieging the city. The general didn’t expect the Slavs to make that move but he kept the troops in Dalmatia to reinforce the garrison and to deter further Slavic tribes from raiding the region. By early May as the situation stabilized in Scythia minor General Priscus soon turned his attention to Singidunum the city that had been besieged for several months, morale was decreasing food was low and the city was close to surrendering.
The Romans relief force arrived from the River of Danube being transported from Danube by boats and also another force arrived from land. This forced the Slavic forces besieging the city to engage both sides but the city was relieved. The battle began in mid April and it was very bloody lasting for about two days until the Slavic forces surrendered being taken as prisoners in hope for an exchange for the 7000s captured Roman soldiers. Another group of Slavs who hadn’t heard of the news attacked Dalmatia before suffering a heavy defeat and was forced to withdraw into Avar territory. The Avars were not too happy about the Slavs entering their territory so they launched attacks on Slavic territory.
By August of 595 AD the situation finally stabilized in the front with on Slavic raids being recorded. In early 596 AD the Slavic chieftain Musokios who controlled the territory bordering Moesia and Scythia seeing no more advantage to the campaign decided to end his campaign and sue for peace. Because of the vastness of the region general Priscus took several weeks to send a message to Constantinople regarding the terms of a final treaty that the emperor might agree to. The terms of the treaty were favorable towards neither side as the Slavs knew the Romans didn’t have total control over every frontier in the Balkans because it was too large for the Romans to totally control but the chieftain also recognized that the Romans could hit him hard and also the Bulgars were raiding his territory. In Italy the Lombard duchy of Tuscany sacked a city in central Italy but the Roman army responded by recapturing several cities from that duchy.
In mid 596 AD the emperor agreed to a treaty that ended the war for five years and resulted in an exchange for all war prisoners. The emperor knew that the Slavs wont hold up their end of the bargain for long but he needed those troops back for morale and the Balkans needed stability in order to continue the emperor ambitious plan of militarizing the border regions of the Balkans. Just to be on the safe side the emperor kept a large military garrison in the city of Marcianopolis in order to launch more campaigns against other Slavic tribes in Wallachia. From mid 596 to late 598 AD the empire was for the first time in a very long time stable and quiet on all front there was no trouble and the economy was recovering fairly well.
The treasury was again in a stable condition and the empire began increasing wages for soldiers to better their pay. The emperor was also focusing on an important project that he hoped would allow the empire to become even richer the canal of Maurice in the province of Egypt. The population of Southern Italy was recovering rapidly and the region was booming due in part to peace, increased trade through the Madeternian and an increase in autonomy that allowed local authorities to better deal with a lot of problem.By 599 AD the Roman empire was the most powerful power in the Madeteranian and the seventh century would bring it more adventures, battles, wars, inventions and much much more.
In 599 AD emperor Maurice made his fifteen year old son Theodosius co-Emperor and made him the sole successor to the throne.
The Madeteranian in 600 AD
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Chapter 12: A time of uncertainty
[/FONT] By early 600 AD things were quiet in the empire with little or no military activity occurring on all front as the Romans either had clients bordering hostile powers that acted as a buffer or peace treaties with other nations. Instead the emperor focused on two things that would continue to dominate the rest of his reign the Balkans and the trade. He wanted to make the Balkan border regions a heavily militarized fortress so that the Slavs could never again threaten that critical region again. However this was easier said then done as he couldn’t launch an all out invasion, and the Slavs were having an explosion boom that saw the Serbs begin colonizing areas bordering Illyricum. Instead he continued his policy of shipping thousands of Berbers and Armenians to the border region to establish colonies there that would act as buffers. He also shipped captured Slavs to North Africa in order to deter other troublesome tribes from raiding Roman territory. Once in Africa those Slavs that were captured would be sent to slave markets, military barracks or the kingdom of Numidia as exotic gifts.
Many of the Armenians and Berbers who settled in the Balkans would find life very hard and a quarter of the new arrivals wouldn’t survive. This was because of the remoteness of some of the regions that made transportation and communication difficult, the weather affected many of the Berbers because they were not accustomed to the winter weather and a lot of the Berbers would try to escape. The Romans over the past four years had built or reinforced dozens of settlements in the border region on the Danube River that ranged from simple outposts that kept watch over certain areas to medium sized cities. The policy of transporting different populations was a success in the short term because raids by the Berbers had stopped in North Africa but it also depleted large areas and alienated many with the Numidian kingdom. Because they felt that the Romans were dishonorable because they were enslaving their brothers. In the Balkans this policy was almost useless as it depopulated many areas and made the Slavic tribes hesitant to trade with the Romans.
By early 601 AD the Roman army had stopped relocating Berbers and Slavs instead they focused on maintain the gains they secured earlier. The front was fairly quiet in most of that year but emperor Maurice was all ways paranoid about what he called “the northern hordes” in the Balkans and continued to order more troops to campaign in the region. The biggest problem that the emperor faced in 602 AD was a rebellion by the some of the northern troops who were exhausted of constant campaigning and after ordering them to campaign in the winter they disregarded the order and began marching on Constantinople. Those troops proclaimed a soldier by the name of Phocas as emperor after he promised them to end the campaigns and increase salaries.
On the Road of Hope
My name is Andrik
I am from the road of hope
I was born and raised on the road
It gives us riches, sorrows and gold
My family was poor
Moving around
All the time
Looking for food
One day we saw other men on the road,
They are Romans, we see them all the time
They have red shields and carry gold
But they were many of them this time
They look and talk different
At first we didn’t intervene
Then we attacked them and stole their food and gold that time
We attack many of them now all the time
My mother is pregnant again
My family is going to be a lot larger
I am the sixth in my family
and I see my sister or brother
as a blessing making me prouder
My sister or brother will help us take more food, gold
and survive on the Road of hope.
Near the Dunav from here till the end of the road.
[FONT="]Sacrum Palatium (Great Palace) – Constantinople 602 AD
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Antonius was a palace secretary who usually brought news to the Emperor from different parts of the empire. He was a middle aged man who saw himself as someone important and he was using his power to make him self a small fortune to live on following the death of the emperor. But his plans were to take a different direction after receiving news that the armies of the Balkans had revolted and were marching on Constantinople.
He was the one who had to tell the emperor. The emperor wasn’t a bad person but he wasn’t the most understanding of individuals when it came to handling bad news. Now Antonius was the one who had to tell the emperor.
Antonius entered the imperial Room where the emperor usually was. The room itself was a large room filled with gold, silver and decorated with many objects that displayed the extent and reach of the Roman Empire. It had silk curtains from Anatolia, bread made from wheat in Egypt and a lot of exotic items that covered the walls nd sealing. Antonius approached the emperor who was discussing agriculture with several farmers.
"Your majesty I am sorry to disturb but I bare urgent news from the front"
"No you are not disturbing me"
"I would like you to meet Bolyslav from Scythia minor and this is Agape from Alexandria in Aegyptus"
"Men please tell the Berar of news your discovery and what it can do to the empire"
The Slav from Scythia soon began explaining in a thick accent "We have made modifications to the way we grow food and we believe this will allow us to grow even more food then ever before"
"Well I certainly think it is fascinating subject but I have urgent news"
"The armies of the Danube have revolted under an officer called Phocas"
"The soldiers have proclaimed that traitor emperor"
The emperor now had a broken bad feeling about the revolt because he knew those soldiers were the best trained in the world and if he didn’t act soon they would kill him and all his family.
"How many soldiers are we talking about Antonius?"
"It is hard to say your majesty but we estimate about fifteen
thousand soldiers from across different parts of the Danube"
"We received this information an hour ago from a loyalist scout"
"Phocas is marching on Constantinople now he should arrive within three weeks"
"There are a lot of soldiers who are joining him. The greens are supporting him"
The emperor was so angry that he threw a citron that landed on a bust of Justinian cover its eyes with citron juice.
The emperor said in a desperate voice "Antonius please summon general Narses, Pretorian Avidius and my son"
"Thank you for meeting me" spoke the emperor to the farmers
"but I promise to pay more attention to these discoveries later on"
The three men soon arrived.
"Father is it true"
"Yes I am afraid it is my son we have been betrayed by the armies of the north"
General Narses what is the status of the forces defending Constantinople?
"Well your majesty we have about 4000 soldiers at our disposal not enough we can muster and additional two thousand more but that’s it"
"We wont be able to bring reinforcements there just too far away I am afraid"
Pretorian Avidius soon spoke in a worrying manner your majesty
"I am afraid that the rebels are the least of your worries the Greens want your head on a silver platter several aristocratic families are all ready endorsing the traitors"
"I believe we should abandon the city and head east to Nicomedia where we have support or else well be killed"
"No we wont abandon Constantinople instead well fight. I have sworn to protect the people and I will do that assemble the troops we march at dawn"
Theodosius looked excited "Father I am with you and I am ready for a fight we will teach those traitors lesson in honor. Indeed we will indeed we will"
Soon all three men left the room and went about there business knowing fully to well that they might not live in the next few weeks. The battle for Constantinople was about to begin.
Rebel camp Near Thrace
Emperor to be Phocas was in his tent inspecting the maps and discussing strategy with his generals. For all of his speeches and promises he was afraid if he lost because he knew the price of failure would mean his life.
One of his guards entered the tent "Sir you are needed outside we have company" spoke the guard
Phocas soon left the camp and saw several dozen men on horseback.
They were lined up in typical light cavalry fashion but the leader a man by the name of Constantine was in front.
"Who are you?" Phocas asked.
"Well my name is Constantine and I am from the Limes Scythia my unit would like to join you we believe in your cause"
Soon all the cavalrymen dismounted their horses and saluted by holding their arms out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. "While saluting they said glory and honor to emperor Phocas"
"Your majesty we didn’t come empty handed we bring you gifts, here are the severed heads of our former comrades who didn’t see your views"
"Thank you I accept you are now part of the army. With men like you on our side we will bring our empire into a golden age unlike any it has seen"
We know you will sire.
"I have 500 other men and I will inform them of this news"
The soldiers saluted again and soon the dispersed while Phocas went back to his tent. Constantine and his unit weren’t the only ones to defect and many more were doing so. Things were looking worse for emperor Maurice by every passing day.
[FONT="]Chapter 14: Divided Loyalties
By early 603AD the army of the Usurper Phocas had swelled to about 20,000 soldiers who had defected from various points along the Danube front. By this time the Roman army was split into three camps that were the army that Phocas controlled, Maurice’s army and the Remaining roman troops who were on other fronts that were loyal to emperor Maurice but couldn’t assist because they were too far away. The Army of emperor Maurice only had about 12,000 soldiers. Emperor Maurice had evacuated Constantinople in early January in order to join loyalist armies while his family excluding Theodosius stayed in the city.
Constantinople was now almost a war zone with the greens and blues fighting it out with each side supporting a different emperor. The Blues wanted a Phocas because they hoped that he would lower taxes and give the rich a freer hand in dealing with the peasantry. The green faction was with emperor Maurice because they supported his religious tolerance and attempts at improving the living conditions of ordinary people. The imperial family was kept safe in the heavily fortified palace of Constantinople although they were safe they didn’t really fell so as the city was filled with shouting, chanting death to the emperor and constant riots.
For Maurice his army wasn’t in a good shape and it was mostly made up of fresh recruits, local mercenaries, cavalry and an elite core of highly trained forces. Phocas on the other hand had with him a lot of highly trained forces and were professional soldiers who were veterans of many military campaigns. Both armies were convening on Adrianople a city that had been the site of no fewer the half a dozen major military battles in history from the greeks to the Romans. To emperor Maurice this was almost a curse as three centuries earlier emperor Valens died defending the empire from the Goths. Now it was his turn to fight a battle near that city.
In other parts of the empire the troops remained loyal and things continued mostly normal but in Italy the Lombards were getting restless and were preparing an offensive to retake lost territory. While in Spain the Visigoths were about to launch another war to regain Spania. In Persia Khoursu II was expanding his empire on all fronts and he had recently acquired Yemen that was an important strategic region because it allowed the Persians to freely control the passage to the red sea and Egypt. The Persian Empire by this time was booming and experiencing a golden age in literature, culture and scientific innovation. It had started using windmills that allowed them to irrigate better and grow even more food. Khoursu II had taken the news of the revolt by surprise and was divided by the loyalty because Maurice was the one who he owed his throne to but restoring the Achamed Empire was his goal. The whole Madeternian was waiting and watching the unfolding events in the Roman Empire.
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The battle began early on March 5th on open fields north of the City of Adrianople and the area was flat which gave neither side a particular advantage because they could not conceal hidden forces. For emperor Maurice the battle was absolutely important it didn’t mean just life and death it meant honor as well for those troops had attacked the honor of the emperor. Emperor Maurice along with general Comentiolus devised a clever plan to win the battle instead of concentrating their troops in one single column the soldiers would be divided into three groups the first group would be in the center and was led by the emperor. General Comentiolus commanded the second group positioned the left flank while general Germanius a nobleman belonging to Cinna family commanded the right flank. Theodosius was commanding the cavalry that was guarding the left lank. On each side of the loyalist armies there were Polybolos that could repeatedly throw projectiles, scorpions and onagers were positioned in the back of the line.
On Phocas’s side there were some of the toughest and most disciplined soldiers in the world, battle hardened war veterans. Phocas’s army outnumbered Maurice by two to one. He wasn’t a fool and knew that emperor Maurice was himself an experienced general who had something up his sleeves. Phocas wasn’t going to risk everything in one strike instead his troops were planning to launch a series of raids on the loyalist army lines aimed at crippling its morale. These raids were to be conducted by a mix of cavalry and infantry and they would at first attack the front lines totally devastating them before moving on to the center and annihilating what ever was left. The rebel army didn’t have with it as many projectile equipment as the loyalist army instead it only had about a few small onagers. Technologically both sides were evenly matched and excluding number both sides had a good chance of winning against each other.
Loyalist army main camp
“Emperor Maurice it’s a lovely day isn’t it?”
“Yes Avidius but real shame we have to fight today”
“Indeed your majesty”
“The troops are ready and awaiting your command!”
“Good, begin,” shouted the emperor as he felt his heart pacing this was the first time he was in battle in a very long time. Horns from two soldiers sounded the beginning of the battle.
"May god for give me for this" thought emperor Maurice to himself.
Onagers’ position central flank, loyalist army
“Raise your shields” screamed Anthenius to his unit warning many of them as arrows were falling on a lot of soldiers. They had to be informed because they were engineers who were loading stones in the onagers so they can fire them.
“Take cover boy, be careful those vassals are dangerous you will burn your self with them ” Anthemius again screamed but this time at junior artillery officer who was carrying several vassals that had dangerous components in them. If they fell they could burn him alive.
After the second wave fell Anthemius and his unit soon loaded rocks on to the onagers lit them with fire and carefully put burnt bitumen and sulfur taken from the vassals on them.
“Why did we use those sir?” asked the boy
“Only god knows son, only god knows”.
As soon as the fire lit stones landed on the enemy they killed many men while smoke began chocking other and many soon died from inhaling the smoke. The rebel cavalry soon charged into the front lines with fire lit stones from the loyalist onagers continuing to fall on enemy positions in the back. __________________
“Hold the lines,” screamed Antonius as he rode west to inform his commander that the loyalist infantry had retreated east after suffering heavy casualties. Antonius was an experienced cavalryman with preference in archery as he could kill a man from several meters while riding on horseback. Antonius had defected early on as he was tired of the constant campaigning and the cat&Mouse games they were doing with the Slavs. He was now frightened out of his mind as he was riding not because it was a battle but because of the new weapon that could kill dozens of men in mere seconds after landing. It happened a few hours ago as the battle began the stones fireballs fired by loyalist forces crashed and killed a lot of his fellow comrades but the smoke soon spread and it chocked anyone in sight. He was lucky enough to have rode off but he was now on running scared.
“There retreating from the east we inflicted heavy casualties on them and there heading east shall I order the men to pursue them?” Panted Antonius, as he was exhausted from riding the horse.
“I have received orders from command let them retreat, move the men west we are heading there”.
“Yes sir. How are we doing on the other fronts?”
“I don’t know, its hard to communicate, we only get the most basic of information.”
“Thank you sir I will relay the information, chack chack”, Antonius now headed back with his horse to inform the troops.
“But we know that the emperor has been seriously injured from the fighting one of our outer scouting parties recovered his helmet”. Spoke the commander in an almost excited tone.
On other fronts the battle was an extremely bloody stalemate with neither side having the advantage. The battle consisted of small but bloody skirmishes that would see one side gain ground but loose ground somewhere else. It was also intensified by the use of projectiles from scorpions and ballista’s that killed men on all sides. The battle continued on like this until sun set when the loyalist army retreated having been exhausted from the heavy fighting Phocas’s victory now looked all but certain. __________________
Emperor Maurice was now exhausted as he had to fight the rebels in a very long and bloody battle that left many men on both sides dead. Despite the heavy losses his troops inflicted on the rebels they had to retreat and after retreating from the site of the battle they made it to the outskirts of Adrianople. Despite inflicting losses on the enemy Maurice’s troops didn’t fare well either as in an army of 12000 only 8000 made it alive. Worse for the emperor his son had been injured and had collapsed after a fireball landed near his unit’s position when they engaged the enemy. Many of his son’s comrades chocked to death but an officer called Constantine who soon disappeared rescued Theodosius. On top of his worries Phocas’s army was now only a days march from reaching Adrianople.
Adrianople’s outskirts loyalist camp March 3rd 603 AD
“Bring me the herbs wife Mariam we are almost finished” spoke the Dr. He was exhausted having operated on Theodosius for several hours.
“Yes Leech Georgios” responded wife Mariam as she was bandaging Theodosius’s
Right arm. Earlier they had managed to stop the bleeding from his forehead by putting pressure on it but he was still in a bad shape having in hailed a lot of sulpher.
She was exhausted as well. “Will he survive Leech?”
“I don’t know, we have done all we can for him now. His body is thinking does it want to continue or shut down,” responded the leech as he washed his hands in water.
“Wife Mariam thank you for your help today please excuse me, I must speak to the emperor at once”. The Dr. left the room while Wife Mariam washing her hands. She was going to be the young Ceaser’s nurse for the time being until they could get him to Constantinople for proper treatment.
“I am going to pry for you tonight” spoke the wife to Theodosius in a soft voice as she put a cover on him.
“How is my son leech Georgios will he live?” spoke Emperor Maurice in an anxious voice. He had been waiting for hours outside the tent learn the fate of his son.
“He is alive right now but weather or not he will live is another question your majesty”
“I have done all I can for now, but we can’t move him because his condition is not stable.”
“Thank you very much for your services leach I am in your debt.” The emperor spoke in a relieved voice now the emperor was heading back to his own tent escorted by his bodyguards.
As he approached the tent two men were waiting outside. “Ah General Narses, General Comentiolus, Theodosius is alive, I have never been more happier then I am now, what is the status of our troops.
Both Comentiolus and Narses looked at each other what would they tell him, as their situation was bad really bad, their army cant just march as the soldiers were exhausted and even if they could were would they go? The men were thinking how to break it to the emperor. They looked at each other for a moment searching for the right words to say. Then Comentiolus spoke
“We are bad in a bad situation your Imperator”
“Our men are exhausted, outnumbered and we will soon be besieged. Our best chance for victory is to send a scout to Constantinople and get troops from the East”.
“In the mean time”
“In the mean time” interrupted Narses as Comentiolus was speaking because Comentiolus looked like he was having a hard time speaking.
“We have two options we can reinforce Adrianople and prepare for a long siege, or we can make a last stand outside the city”.
The emperor looked a bit overwhelmed a little while ago he had heard the first good news in a long and now he was going to have to make a difficult decision.
In a determined voice the emperor responded, “Prepare the troops we march in a few hours,”
Both men looked shocked but how could they march they lost a lot of men and the remaining soldiers looked extremely exhausted.
“Your majesty that might not be a good idea the soldiers are already exhausted, we could have another revolt please reconsider” spoke Narses as he banged the table.
“Relax general I have a plan,” responded Maurice in a calming voice while pointing outside.
“We ride in three hours, Genera Narses bring me several Scorpions and two Onagers with a lot of Vassals the same ones we used today”. “I am going to end this today”. The emperor pointed to the map as he was talking.
“It’s a mad plan what if you get captured or ambushed?” responded general Comentiolus
“What ever may happen the die is cast” spoke the emperor as all men soon dispersed to their various jobs.
Rebel camp March 3rd 603 AD 22.30
Constantine the soldier that defected a long with his cavalry unit a few months earlier was an austere man with little time for pleasure. Having been raised in a strict household he despised wealth and saw drinking and gambling as sins. A few hours earlier he had survived the battle but barely and he was increasingly resenting his decision to join the rebellion. At first he saw it as a great chance to get a saner emperor who didn’t cut money but now he was increasingly resenting the rebels with their lack of discipline, respect and brutality to the civilians.
The rebel army wasn’t as united as it seemed and each rebel commander ran their unit they way they wanted to. The authority of Phocas was partially recognized and most soldiers were loyal to their unit rather then Phocas and his higher ups. The only thing that kept them together was victory and some time the rebel soldiers would fight among themselves for spoils and petty disputes. Tonight the soldiers in Phocas’s army was drinking hard, some were having sex with prostitutes and others were trying to stay out of everything and trying to make it as things could get very violent in this kind of environment.
Constantine had kept his men together and maintained discipline by inspiring fierce loyalty in them.
Constantine entered Phocas’s camp the place was the scene of pure debauchery.
“Ah Constantine come in wine, a women perhaps?” obviously intoxicated Phocas’s was oblivious to what was happening outside.
“No thank you I have important news” Constantine responded in a firm voice.
“Oh do relax Constantine the war is over, we have won, the old emperor is dead and soon those fools or what ever is left will give in”.
“Well all do respect sir but the war is far from over only a quarter of the troops in the Balkans support us and Asia minor, Italy, Syria, Ayegptus, North Africa are loyal to Maurice”.
“How will you deal with them, another massacre perhaps?” barked Constantine in a malevolent voice.
“Now in regards to my news oh yes your being attacked Maurice’s army is attacking us right now there using those Onagers, many have all ready died outside”.
“Its pure anarchy, a lot of the soldiers want you dead” spoke Constantine in calm but cold voice.
“We are going to give them their request” screamed Constantine as he lifted his sword ready to kill the usurper.
Constantine’s soldiers without much resistance killed all Phocas’s men who were inside the tent.
Phocas was alone he got up but fell again; he was so drunk that he couldn’t even stand up straight.
“You dare raise your sword on your own emperor traitors, I will have you head on a pike for this” barked Phocas as he finally stood up raising his own sword.
A battle soon ensued and in one blow as Phocas moved to attack Constantine his sword fell. Constantine now had Phocas by his hands before he killed Phocas he spoke in a soft yet proud voice “emperor Maurice sends his regards”. As the blade entered Phocas killing and he laid on the floor. Another of Constantine’s men cut off Phocas’s head and stored it in a bag. Soon Constantine and his men headed towards Maurice’s army positions. __________________
[FONT="]Chapter 18: Bloodbath[/FONT]
By mid March of 603 AD the death of the usurper Phocas at the hands of his own troops resulted in the collapse of the rebellion. The night assault on the rebel camp had destroyed their morale and with the rebels completely surrounded although not aware of the loyalist army’s number decided to surrender in hopes of mercy from the emperor. Emperor Maurice feeling generous and not wanting more trouble from his troops decided to reinstate all of the soldiers back to their positions if they hand over the ringleaders of the rebellion. The soldiers with a bit of resentment quickly handed over many of their own commanders.
The rebel leaders were executed and over the next few weeks their heads were sent to various parts of the empire as proof that the rebellion was over. The rebellion did teach the emperor a lot of hard lessons that included being pragmatic in foreign policy in terms of paying tribute for peace, not openly reducing the military budget and most valuably it taught him if something goes wrong blame it on some one else. With the end of the rebellion the rebels were dispersed to rejoin their old units under careful supervision. Emperor Maurice on the other hand marched his 8,000 strong army to Constantinople arriving in early April as he had unfinished business with the Blues.
On arriving he found Constantinople to be a war zone with various factions fighting it out. The army along with the greens massacred over tens of thousands of rioters and rebelling citizens, he also seized the property of a lot of wealthy individuals who had supported the rebels. The money and property was distributed to the soldiers, sent to Italy and the rest went to the imperial treasury. By May half of Constantinople laid in ruins and over 50,000 individuals were killed in the military operation to restore order. It would take a long time to rebuild the damaged parts of Constantinople and the emperor was going to use money seized from wealthy individuals to rebuild. He learned his lessons from taxing the poor and the peasantry. The emperor was going to
Portray himself as a man defending the people.
Over the course of the rebellion the empire was quiet with the provinces waiting and seeing who was going to win. By early 604 AD Theodosius had recovered fully from his injures and was taking on more of the emperor duties. For the emperor there was no one else then Theodosius who would be emperor he had groomed his son for power for a long time. In this period The Empire was moving towards a more free market oriented system as Italy and the East were recovering very quickly from decades of conflict. Peace was in the air and with that came a lot of new ideas that would improve the way of life in the Roman Empire.
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Chapter 20: Brave new world [/FONT]
Ctesiphon was one of the largest and richest cities in the world and it rivaled Constantinople in its opulence. It was a city filled with palaces, gardens, bustling bazars and much more. Here you can find anything you are looking for weather spices from India or silk from china and even Roman goods were sold here. The city was the capital of the Sassanid Persian Empire who’s leaders saw themselves as heirs of Cyrus and Xerxes. Kvadah II was the current ruler of this great empire and under his leadership the country was experiencing a time of economic and cultural boom. The prosperity produced by the peace allowed the inhabitants to become richer and everyone was going in on it.
The reason for the wealth of their empire wasn’t just the peace with the Romans it was because of their strategic positions. They controlled some of the most important parts of the Silk Road allowing them to become even wealthier through trade with the Romans, Chinese and Indians. In the late 590s the Shahanshah (King of kings) Kvadah II had conquered Yemen that made them even stronger because now they controlled the entrance to the read sea allowing them to control the trade route between Roman Egypt and the Rich Indian ports. The Shahanshah after having learned of the rebellion in the Roman Empire was preparing to invade the Roman Empire in order to avenge Maurice because he owed his throne to Maurice. However like any power hungry leader it didn’t mean that wasn’t going to take territory.
Ctesiphon imperial place May 604 AD
The Persian king had something troubling him for a long time. For the past four months a civil war had broken out in the Roman Empire that heightened tensions between both sides. Kvadah had been constantly getting contradicting reports from the front on the progress of the Civil war in that empire. Now he was going to get the news he wanted.
“Shahahah I have news” Burst his Vizier Adhur who was his chief minister
“Maurice he is victories, the rebel’s are annihilated”.
For a moment Kvadah had a relieved look on his face that he had to hide immediately as Adhur was war hawk who wanted a new war with the Romans
In a cold voice he responded “Good, that will spare us a war.”
“Adhur I feel that we have been at peace for too long” sounding confident
“That’s a good I want a military expedition”
“Where to?”
“Well we cant invade the Romans, there’s nothing in the North or the west. India I wasn’t Sindh”
“Why?” Adhur wondered
“My dear vizier because we can expand our influence in the region so that we can pressure the Indians to not trade with the Romans that’s why”
“Ah good plan, I will inform our generals we will begin preparations Shahanshah” responded Adhur as he was leaving the room.
“Oh one more thing Vizier do send a letter to emperor Maurice on my behalf congratulating him on his how shall we saw good health and inviting him to a meeting with me”
“I believe its time we met again” Kvadah finished speaking as Adhur nodded in agreement and left the room.
In the Roman empire Maurice had spent most of 604 AD cleaning up the mess that Phocas had done in the Balkans. The emperor didn’t trust the armies of the Danube because of their previous rebellion. Instead using the money he seized from the rich the emperor began re assigning those troops to the East while several eastern legions were being slowly transferred to the Danube. The emperor eased up on his plan to totally militarize the Danube region instead he was willing to play a policy of divide and conquer with the troublesome tribes. The emperor was planning an expedition to Italy to secure the heartland from the Lombards he did this because he wanted to follow up on his plan with reintegrating Italy into the empire and strengthening ties to the papacy. __________________
Chapter 21: Look to the west
The kingdom of Franks was along with the Roman Empire and The Visigoths one of the three super powers of Western Europe it had been forged a century earlier by its legendary leader Clovis. A man whose military brilliance rivaled that of Julius Caesar and like Caesar he was able to conquer all of Gaul through military brilliance, cunning and duplicity. Clovis Also united the Franks who were divided into different tribes and he was also the first Frankish King to convert to Christianity this made the Franks become Christians. King Clovis also left his legacy in the form of his dynasty the Merovingian’s that by 604 AD still ruled Gaul. However the Frankish realm was by this time internally divided into three sections following the death of the previous king Chlothar I. It had been divided amongst his three sons who ruled Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine.
In 604 the Kingdom of Burgundy was one of the most powerful parts of the Frankish domain. It was in a strategic position as it bordered Austrasia, Aquitanie, Roman Italy and Lombard controlled Italy. Its king Theuderic II ruled the territory officially but unofficially his grandmother Queen Burnhilda controlled the kingdom as his regent. The Queen Burnhilda in 604 AD was a powerful women and she had a lover called Protadius whom she wanted to raise to a position of power. That position was mayor of the palace a position that who ever filed would become the prime minister in essence. However for Bornhilda that position was already filled by Berthold a noble man of influence within the kingdom. In early march of 604AD Queen Burnhilda convinced Theuderic to kill Berthold when he was on assignment to inspect one of the royal villas. Berthold was a courageous, honest and decent warrior he took with him about 500 men to perform the mission.
While on route the other Frankish king Clotaire II who ruled Neustria learned about the group and sent an army under the command of his son Merovech to attack and kill Berthold. Berthold was now the most wanted man in the Frankish realm and he fled to Orleans a city named after the legendary 3rd century emperor Aurelian. Merovech perused Berthold to Orleans and besieged the city however this was a god sent to Berthold because Merovech had violated a peace treaty put in place a few years ago. King Theuderic longing for glory and a chance to prove him declared war on his brother King Clotaire in mid 604AD. Theuderic sent a force that relieved Orleans and soon after returning Berthold began military preparations for the eventual war to come. Although his position was still not secure and assassination attempts were frequent his luck however soon changed when Queen Burnhilda and her lover Protadius were “caught in the act” together. King Theuderic order the execution of Protadius while he sent his own grandmother into a monastery
Following the scandal Berthold position became even more secure and he continued the military preparations. Berthold was also interested in Lombard soldiers so the Kingdom of Burgundy and main Lombard duchy, the Duchy of Milan signed an alliance with one another. In this alliance the two sides agreed they would come to each other’s aid and plot a war against the Romans. The armies of King Clotaire and Theuderic met on Christmas day 604 Near Etampes in Paris. The fighting was savage but with support from his newly gained Lombard allies King Theuderic won the battle and took Paris. Both brothers soon signed a peace treaty that was favorable towards Theuderic, granted him some land in the north of his kingdom and greater diplomatic independence form the Frankish realm. But Theuderic would not gain the title “King of the Franks” something that he wanted because it would give him the opportunity to rule the domain as one king. However that goal would have to wait until he would have a chance to kill his brothers and gain that title. In the meantime the Frankish realm was divided into different states with equally ambitious leaders seeking to gain power for themselves each allying with different foreign and regional powers in order to do so.
Earlier in the year 604AD pope Gregory the great had died of natural causes after fourteen years as being pope. He was pope at a particularly difficult time for the church and for the Roman empire as a whole because it Italy was still in a never ending struggle between the Lombards and Romans, the influence of the church was limited outside of Italy and there was constant war through out the known world. By the end of his time as pope there was still war, carnage but it had decreased considerably, Italy was somewhat stable which allowed for a recovery and in Gaul the church was starting to re assert its influence. The Church under his leadership was able to reassert its influence in Rome because of his relationship with the emperor and the military campaigns the emperor launched that regained the headland of Italy. Another reason for the success was the church through donations and other funding was launching many infrastructure projects that recruited locals such the Catanzaro to Rome highway to connect Rome to southern Italy. After completing the project the church would get a small 5% share of the profit.
These projects helped revitalize the local economy and infrastructure in southern Italy. There was an increasingly north/south divide as the south was prosperous while the north was poorer and had weaker infrastructure. Pope Gregory partially succeeded in revitalizing the churches influence outside of Italy by sending his famous Gregorian mission to convert the northern peoples in Germania and Scandinavia. The church had a fairly strong influence in Roman and Visigothic Spain because emperor Maurice allowed the church and the western senate to have greater influence in Roman Spain as part of his effort to ease tensions between the province and Constantinople. By 604 Ad the church was playing an increasingly important role in Spain as it helped mediate disputes between the authorities and revitalize the economy there.
Only in Gaul did the church have partial success because it was divided into different states and some were hostile to the church but had to maintain good relations with it because there population was Catholic While the rulers of other states were happy to maintain friendly relations with the church in exchange for money and diplomatic support. The death of pope Gregory was a hard blow for emperor Maurice’s effort to stabilize the west because he had lost a valuable ally and the next pope may not be so cooperative. Roman North Africa and its client state Mauritania were the most stable and prosperous regions in the western Madeternian kept stable by trade, wheat production exchange of Ideas. In late 604 AD with his position firmly secure and Constantinople under control the emperor appointed his own son Tiberius as Exarch of North Africa to gain experience in governing and he feared that the old Exert Heraclius the elder was getting to powerful. The eighteen year old was eager to go because he wanted to prove himself and grow from the shadows of his older brother. Theodosius on the other hand was appointed exarch of Illyricum in order to gain military experience and dislodge rumors about his apparent torcher of animals.
The emperor didn’t have a choice in who would replace the Pope that was done by tradition and the various cardinals from Europe would decide the future pope. A decision that the emperor couldn’t control and he was worried about it as well because a hostile pope could make his job a lot harder.
The Iberian Peninsula was divided by 604 AD divided into three states Roman Spania in the south, Visigothic kingdom that covered most of the heartland it also had the Gallic province of Septania that had the important city of Marseille. The Visconti Basque tribes were fiercely independent and controlled the north east of Hispania and bordered the Visigothic kingdom to the south and the Frankish duchy of Aquantine in the north. There north of the Peninsula was fairly stable but the south was a tug of war between the Romans and Visigoths. In early 605AD King Theuderic II who had consolidated his power base made increased the alliance with the Lombards and franks by also including the Visigoths. They were going to cement their new alliance by building a high way that stretched from Mediolium (Milan) in Lombard controlled Italy to Toledo that would pass through Frankish Toulouse and Visigothic Marseille. This super high Theuderic hoped would allow them to easily transport troops and make their kingdoms richer by increasing trade.
Despite the Franks being seen as barbarians by the Romans they weren’t really. In fact they were an advanced civilization who were experts at building cathedrals, building and a lot of other things. They also had an administration system that they inherited from the Romans. In fact they kept the roman administration that was all ready in place and left the mostly roman population to itself and this also occurred in Visigothic Spain and Lombard Italy. In early 505 AD the senate in Rome after careful debate and heated arguments with emperor Maurice declared proclaimed an Italian native by the name of Sabinian as pope. Sabinian was an old man with not a lot left in him but he was chosen because he was seen as a compromise between both the senate and emperor as the Italian heartland continued to recover it wanted to regain its influence. Elsewhere the Balkans were pretty quiet with emperor Maurice firmly in place the neither the Slavs nor the Avars wanted to attack fearing retribution. Britain was still a mess divided into different states and far away from the action and it was also being slowly taken over by Saxons who were attacking the rich monasteries on the coast.
[FONT="]Chapter 22: The triumvirate [/FONT]
In 605 AD the coalition that the Visigothic, Lombards and Franks had formed earlier was start starting to seriously materialize. They began by increasing prices on Roman imported goods and were taking other measure to undermine the empire. In the East to India the Sassanid king Kvadah had launched his invasion of Ab-e-sind (Sind) in an effort to increase the power and size of the Persian Empire. It was also aimed at influencing the Indian kingdoms like the Kingdom of Valabhi and Chalukyas so that they will increase prices on Roman goods in order to put pressure on the Romans. Kvadah was planning to damage the Roman economy in the long term by stripping them of valuable revenue from trade with the Indians. Although Kvadah saw Maurice as a good ruler he was above all a Persian and he wanted to return the empire to its former glory to the time of Xerxes and Cyrus. Kvadah was going to use everything he could regardless of who was running the Roman Empire to achieve his goal. For Kvadah the military expedition into Sindh was just the beginning.
Meanwhile in mid 605 AD Western Europe the triumvirate between the Visigothic, Lombards and Franks was continuing to improve and expand. The high way that would stretch from Mediolium (Milan) in Lombard controlled Italy to Toledo in Visigothic Spain was beginning to connect rapidly. It was easy to construct this highway because the necessary infrastructure was all ready there. The triumvirate only needed to either rebuild or repave the roads and then connect the roads to the main ones. The high way was a project on a massive scale and it usually involved funding from the Catholic Church who did this not because they were oblivious to the intentions of the alliance. This is because the project was done on a local level as not to arouse suspicion and the Church got in because it wanted to make money from the tolls imposed on the passes on the road. The alliance was increasing the prices on Roman goods such as wine and wheat on a gradual level so that the traders wouldn’t notice. The alliance also began to produce their own products like wheat by improving infrastructure and lowering taxes on their goods. In essence they were practicing protectionism in order to both improve their economics and weakens the Roman Empire.
The members of the anti roman alliance had their own reasons for joining in. On paper and in reality they were all hostile to each other and two of the members had fought a war against each other. However the two main things that united the triumvirate was religion all three powers were catholic and considered the Roman Empire based in Constantinople to be heretics. They also regarded the pope as being a hostage of those heretics who needed to be liberated from their grasp. On an individual basis each power had different reasons to hate the Romans: the Visigoths saw the Romans as traitors and oath breakers because during the reign of Justinian they took over huge parts of southern Spain while assisting in a civil war. The Romans never returned that territory and the Visigoths never gave up their claim.
Out of all the members in the alliance the Lombards were probably the most aggressive and warlike. Similar to the Visigoths their “affair” with the Romans began during the reign of Justinian. This is when one of Justinian’s main general Narses hired them as mercenaries to fight in Italy against the Ostrogoth’s during the Eastern Roman empire’s invasion of Italy. At first he welcomed the troops but as the war dragged on Narses got weary of their savagery and lack of discipline so Narses shipped them out. But the Lombards got a taste of rich Italian life and wanted to be a part of it. In 569 AD barely four years after the recon quest of Italy by the Roman army Narses “invited” the Lombards to migrate there after he lost his position as governor when Justin II replaced him. Soon they easily took over most of the North and the heartland of Italy.This is because the peninsula was not well defended as the Roman Empire was overstretched and lacked the resources to defend Italy. By 605 AD the Lombards were in a weak position thanks to Maurice’s Italian campaigns that reduced Lombard power. Their power was limited to northern Italy and one duchy in the center. When the Lombard king Agilulf was presented with an opportunity to regain lost ground by forming an alliance with the Visigoths and Franks who pretty much had the same goals.
Out of the alliance the Franks didn’t really hold any grudges on the Romans it wasn’t “personal” they were only in it in the hopes of gaining territory. As the Frankish realm was divided into different kingdoms the Kingdom of Burgundy was the one that participated in the alliance hoping to gain territory and prestige.
The Romans didn’t really react well to the changing climate both in the east and west because they did notice some changes but they weren’t really obvious to them what was going on. The emperor was constantly occupied with internal matters as the Italian senate was continuing to disagree with him and the blue faction was undermining him at every turn. The year 606 had passed quietly with not much happening except for the death of the new pope and his replacement would be a headache for the emperor. In 606 AD the Indian king Harsha of Thanesar establish a north Indian empire by conquering the smaller kingdoms and establishing an Alliance with the Sassanid empire. Harsha and Kvadah alliance was securing power for each other as Kvadah provided support in the form of engineers and soldiers while Harsha pressured the Southern Indian powers to increase prices on Roman goods. This was done by force if necessary.
The situation in 606 AD
[FONT="]Antiplois Gaul, March 5th 607 AD[/FONT]
[FONT="]City Market place, [/FONT]
Flavius Adrinius was a roman merchant from North Africa who regularly travelled to the Gallic city of Antiplois. There he traded Roman goods such as Wheat and silk in exchange for pottery and valuable metals.
Flavius was now back in Antiplois a city he had been trading in for a long time but things were getting tougher
Flavius looked at Alaric a trader whom he had done business with
“How much you say for this wine Alaric?”
“Five denarii’s my friend”
“If I remember correctly Alaric. It was two denarii’s for one barrel last week and this batch tastes like piss”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well its not my fault dear Flavius but I get this from the farmers and I give it to you at good prices, if you go to Gunther its 7 while Narses is 12 per barrel”
Flavius was now angry “well since you don’t have any good wine, good day send an errand boy when you get some”
“Other wise don’t bother I am busy”.
Flavius left Alaric’s stand and went to his fellow merchant Tullius
“How did it go?” Tullius asked anxiously as Alaric wasn’t the first merchant they had approached
“Not well I am afraid Good Tullius, the bastard takes me for a fool 5 denarii for a barrel it used to be two denarri at best 3 but 5”.
“Oh, I haven’t had much luck either I am afraid, my silk wont sell for 12 denarii”
Flavius saw a worried look on Tullius’s face
“Good Flavius, this isn’t easy but I am going to return to Cartago Nova there isn’t any here for me any more”
“You know how they treat us here now, I go back and sell to the army they want a lot of silk, maybe start my own winery from Greece”
As Flavius was about to talk several soldiers disembarked from their horses and headed to the center of the market place.
From a distance Tullius could see a large man talk
“On orders of his highness Theuderic II, king of Burgundy, the prices for Roman imported goods will have an added tax of three denarii”
“Further more those trading with the Romans will require trading license while Romans trading with our merchants will require a trading license”
The soldier continued to speak in a loud voice “These coast about 12 denarii and are valid for a period of 3 months, anyone caught without one will have there property confiscated and sent to prison”
Soon the soldiers left the center and rode off
“Well Tullius our day now cant get any worse, I think I might join you in leaving this dreaded place”
“Where will you head to good Flavius?”
“Constantinople, I know some one they’re who knows some one”
“Ah great opportunity, I have all ways wanted to visit never got the chance I hear its beautiful in the spring, enjoy your and take care” Both men soon departed
What Tullius and Flavius faced in Frankish ports was similar to what other Roman merchants were dealing with in Triumvirate ports. Those gradual changes that the leaders of the Triumvirate set a few years earlier were now becoming more apparent and this coast the Romans a lot in terms of the economy. For Maurice the decline in trade meant less tax revenues to spend on maintaining the army and the ambitious infrastructure programs in southern Italy. In Rome the senate along with the regional cardinals declared a bishop by the name of John Cataadioce to Saint Peters throne.
He was known as Boniface III and he was a middle-aged man who was a good friend of the pope Gregory. Boniface was a simple man who didn’t care for luxury and sent a letter to emperor Maurice urging him to cut the luxury in his court and be more merciful to his enemies. He also urged the emperor to persuade the heretic monotheists to the “true light”.
For the emperor this message was a clear sign that this pope was going to be trouble for him. The remnants of the blues who had survived were scattered around the empire and some had even taken up residence with the Visigothic and Burgandian
Courts. They wanted revenge and above all the chance to return home, they knew while Maurice was emperor they would never see that happen. The blues were the ones advising the Visigoths and Franks on bureaucracy, infrastructure and even diplomacy. Aggripus was one of the Blues originally from Bithynia in Asia Minor he was a soldier who defected to Phocas early on and when Phocas lost he headed west joining the Franks earning a high rank because of his experience. Now he was training the Franks in Roman warfare hoping for the chance to return back home, he also had the ear of the Frankish king.
The western senate was in its current from creation of the emperor Maurice it was like a child that turned away from its parents. It was increasingly becoming out of control fueled by a desire to gain greater independence from Constantinople and perhaps even restarting the western empire. What gave the senate its fuel and power was the church and economy because those were pouring money that helped made southern Italy prosperous and many of the senators were getting richer from the land there. As they got richer there power grew. The emperor would need to deal with them or else they would threaten rebellion on the empire itself. The senate was also given advice by blue remnants as well. For the emperor the empire he had worked so hard to build up and improve was becoming increasingly against him. Fueled by hatred from the blue factions and his increasing in ability to deal with them and improve the weakening economy.
By 608 AD as the Frankish realm was still divided the Triumvirate was still growing strong and soon it faced its first real test. Raising prices on Romans was one thing but in July of 608 AD Merovech had become king of Neustria and his father Clotaire II who died a defeated man was still bitter about his dads defeat at the hands of Theuderic. He wanted revenge for the humiliation his family suffered a few years earlier Merovech was a smart ruler and he started by building an alliance with the ruler of Aquitanie in order to start building up his forces for the upcoming war.
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Chapter 24: Between a rock and a hard place
Part 1
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In mid 608 AD having assembled his forces from different areas across Neustria the new king Merovech II began deploying his troops along with his Aquantine allies near the Burgandian border. Merovech was going to split his forces into two and launch a two front strike. The first strike would involve the Neustrian army attacking and capturing the Burgandian city of Augustodunum. While the Aquantine army would directly besiege the Burgandian capital of Lyon in hopes of quickly ending the war. Merovech had hoped that by splitting his forces he would increase his chance of victory and minimize the risk of a catastrophic defeat by gambling everything in a single battle.
In military terms the Lombards and Visigoths structure were very similar. They were made up of a regional king who would call on the local dukes. These regional dukes would provide the troops for the king to fight in the war. The Lombard and Visigoth dukes participated in the wars because they wanted to increase their wealth and prestige among their subjects. Also for the kings especially a new one like Merovech war was an opportunity of proving your ability to lead, distracting the lords so they wont revolt and above all else increase your influence with your kingdom.
In the Madeternian region the Franks had the most advanced army that rivaled the Romans in terms of discipline and professionalism. The Frankish army was a weird mix of traditions, tactics and strategy as it incorporated both Barbarian and Roman elements. The reason for this weird mix was because unlike the Visigoths and Lombards before the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Franks were Germanic peoples across the Rhine. They had been serving in the Roman armies ranks and interacting with the Romans for centuries acting in the capacity of allies, enemies, hired mercenaries and wild cards.
Despite interacting with the Romans for a very long time the Franks maintained their own tradition and were never fully romanized. By the time the western empire fell two centuries earlier they all ready were using Roman military tactics and strategy for their own benefit. In mid 608 AD their armies were semi professional, organized along Roman military lines e.g. clear structure. They were also made up of their own soldiers, Gallo-roman soldiers who still had legionary uniforms, mercenaries and allies from different regions across the lines.
The Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic customs with Romanized organizations and several important tactics as will be seen in the war. The Frankish army was made up of primarily foot infantry with each individual carrying a sword, axe. The Frank had cavalry with the cavalrymen carrying spears along with the standard sword and axe. However beyond the basic weapons of each soldier they didn’t have advanced things like Javiers. For the Franks this blend of barbarian and Roman gave them the advantage of being able to utilize their military more effectively then their opponents.
In July of 608AD Merovech began transporting his troops down the Loire River from the city of tours. He had brought about five thousand soldiers with him ready to fight they included Gallo romans, archers, engineers, heavy cavalry and some specialists. Aggripus had in a twist of irony become Merovech’s mayor of the palace and he was using his skills and tactics to win the day. Merovech was using typical Frankish tactics that revolved around taking fortified positions and expanding control over those positions.
King Theuderic didn’t see the war against his cousin as a distraction but rather as an opportunity to prove himself again against any enemy who would challenge him. Theuderic had no intention of being bogged down in a fight near his capital city like what happened to his cousin a few years earlier. Instead Theuderic with the advice of his generals decided to confront Merovech’s army at their landing site near the Loire River. In order to do this Theodoric after getting the intelligence from his scouts who had been monitoring the Loire River decided to first let the enemy army come in large numbers and establish a beachhead.
Theuderic was then going to order his archers to launch arrows on the enemy and a cavalry charge in order to inflict as much damage as possible. The battle began on July 12 of 608 AD as Merovech was landing has 5,000 man strong army, the Burgandian archers immediately began firing their arrows towards the approaching army killing many who landed in the first wave. The second wave knew about the archers and instead came in with them holding their shields when they landed.
The second wave landed successfully with minimal causalities and soon began building a beachhead that continually expanded and by early afternoon they had reached the archers positions. However the archers had withdrawn earlier and Theuderic had underestimated the size of Merovech’s army. Believing that the second wave was the main army decided to prepare his cavalry for a charge to finish the job. Theuderic was however unaware that Merovech had a larger army and there were two more groups but were kept back until they were given orders that a secure beachhead had been established.
Unaware of the true strength of the enemy Theuderic’s cavalry charged the enemy and suffered heavy losses forcing the remaining men to retreat to a nearby town. By the end of the day Merovech had transported all of his army on shore and began marching towards the Burgandian town of Augustodunum. The city of Augustodunum it self wasn’t important strategically but Merovech wanted to distract Theuderic so that his forces would be easily defeated in hopes of a quick victory. By the third day of Merovech’s invasion his army had reached the outskirts of the city but wasn’t about to besiege it.
Elsewhere the Aquantine army 12,000 men strong was beginning to besiege the Burgandian capital of Lyon and was making head way across the nearby area with soldiers raiding the villages for food, gold and women. Berthold Mayor of the Burgandian palace was holdup in Lyon and was commanding the cities defense. He was going to hold until reinforcement’s arrived from other Burgandian forces to relieve the siege. Theuderic meanwhile was stuck between the cities of Augustodunum and Lyon not being able to make a decision quickly because if he relieves one city he could face more problems.
All though the Triumvirate did exist Theuderic didn’t really trust the Visigoths whom he saw as weak and he also didn’t trust the Lombards because he thought they were too warlike but he chose to send for reinforcements to the Lombards. He was again going to use their help to salvage the situation like they helped him in Etampes a few years ago. For the Lombards one of the main reasons to join the alliance was protection from the Romans who were on the offensive ever since 600 AD. In mid July of 608 AD Theuderic sent the message to his allies by the super high way the built and he hoped that they would get him assistance soon for he would need it.
To be continued
Merovech by the middle of July had completely encircled the city of Augustodunum after days of pillaging the nearby villages and towns for food and other useful resources. This resource gathering strategy was a tactic that was used by the Romans and Merovech realized the advantages of this because it allowed him to maintain good supplies and weaken the enemy. Merovech’s army was going to slowly starve the Augustodunum lifeline before finally storming it. Merovech also wanted to take back its famous rhetoric schools to his Capital in Paris in order to improve his kingdoms prestige. He hoped that the siege would end quickly so that he can move on and bring an additional 5,000 more soldiers to reinforce his army.
Mediolium July 28th 608 AD
Lombard Royal palace
“Scout Sigibert, the king see you now” spoke a guard in broken Latin.
Sigibert was the scout whom king Theuderic had sent to secure Lombard assistance against his cousin. He was a man in his mid thirties and had previous diplomatic experiences notably with Roman merchants. Sigibert entered a large room and could see a long dining table to his left while in front as he approached he saw a large middle-aged man with a thick beard. The room was mostly empty but was illuminated by lights from the windows.
“Neal before king Agiluf duke of Pavia, Milan and King of all the Longbards” spoke another guard in a thick accent. The scout had no choice but to do so. “Ah Frank what brings you to my great kingdom”. Not knowing how to proceeded the scout responded “well your majesty” The king then spoke in a sharp voice “Not Majesty, highness you pathetic little Frank,” “Do you take me for a Roman with their ‘civilized’ titles.” The guard was taken aback “I apologize your highness.” “King Theuderic sends his regards and he need for assistance against the Neustrian”.
“Scout Sigerts, we have an alliance but not with your pathetic affairs only against Rome” The scout looked at Agiluf while kneeling and muttered slowly he knew what he would say next would either make or break the alliance “Yes you do high, highness only against Romans but we have something of value we can give you gold, King Theuderic sends you a small token”. The scout stopped talking for a moment then “We will give you more gold if you join us in the war against the Neustrians”
Agiluf looked white as a ghost with no expression on his face “You think the great Longobards can be bribed by gold pathetic frank, No we cannot”. The scout almost fainted as he heard Agiluf muttering those words. As Sigert was about to speak Agiluf interrupted “Pathetic Frank we don’t want just gold we want Burgandian land, a few towns will do”. The scout looked a bit more encouraged “Well all do respect highness but I have not the authority to grant you this request”. Agiluf looked at Sigert “Frank send this request to the king, what waiting for go now”. Sigert soon left as he approached the door he heard someone shouting “Frank I will spare you 1500 men but it will coast you in our war against Rome”. Sigert nodded in agreement and left the room urgently, he would have to deal with the consequences later.
As Sigert left he thought to himself “I don’t know who to feel more sorry for even though were enemies those poor Romans who have to deal with the Lombards in Italy or the poor bastards who will fight these savages”.
By August 3rd of 608 AD Agiluf had kept his word and his 1500 reinforcements were hurried into a larger army that was quickly assembled in the town of Alisinum. It was a small sized sleepy town supported by agriculture but in the wake of the war the residents had fled to other cities. Increasingly by August towns like Alisinum that were close to the Aquantine and Neustrian borders were becoming ghost towns this would in the next few years create an agricultural crisis for the Burgandians. Theuderic was preparing his now 4,000 strong now reinforced by the Lombards to relieve Lyon and go on the offensive against the Aquantine kingdom.
Merovech by the 6th of August was confidant that his troops were ready and he ordered the attack that would end the siege of Augustodunum. In the days that preceded the attack Aggripus along with several engineers had built three siege towers that were going to be used in order to storm the cities walls. Aggrippus divided the besieging forces into three groups in order to stretch the defenders. One group would attack from the main gate; the other from the back and the third lead by him would attack from the left of the wall. These attacks would occur simultaneously in order to achieve the desired result quickly and decisively break the siege with little bloodshed.
In the days that preceded the attack Aggripus wanted to confuse and disorient the defenders. Aggripus had his troops constantly on maneuver and sounding horns to outside the city to give the illusion of an imminent attack with periods of absolute silence. The real attack however came at night a few days later and it happened after hours of silence from the Naustrian army. The attack began with a massive barrage from onagers and scorpions engineered using old-fashioned methods. These onagers were basic and could only be used a few times before being destroyed. In the middle of the night residents of the besieged city were violently awoken at the sound of loud screaming and the smell of fire from different places. The defenders were awake but many were tired from the psychological impact of the drums and they put up a good fight although it was a heroic yet futile effort.
By morning of the next day there was still fighting inside the city but Merovech’s forces had controlled most of it. In a few hours Aggripus had near total control of the city and offered the remaining defenders a chance to surrender. Many of the remaining fighters were so exhausted and didn’t see the point in fighting any more. Those fighters who could escape decided to flee elsewhere and those who couldn’t flee decided to surrender hoping that the Naustrians would be merciful in terms of their treatment of them.
With the fall of Augustodunum Merovech proceeded to reinforce his position by bringing another 5,000 soldiers. Those soldiers spread out with the all ready present forces and Aggripus quickly ordered them to capture nearby villages and small towns. His reinforcements also began building up a defensive line that was going to be made up of outposts, troop garrisons and a supply line. For Merovech this war was ultimately a battle of the wills in essence who can last the longest while sacrificing everything.
His cousin Theuderic wasn’t sitting ideally by instead after the Burgandian army was assembled it began moving towards Lyon in order to relieve the city. Theuderic by August 5th marched quickly in order to relieve his capital before doing so he sent a message to the Aquantines.
“From Theuderic duke of Burgundy and king of all the Franks, I give the Aquantines three days to withdraw their Aquantine scum out of my domain and back to your hell hole.” “On the third day we will hunt down any Aquantine scum and flay them alive. This is your only warning”. The Aquantines who were besieging the city didn’t take this message too kindly and decided to begin storming Lyon to show the “little boy” whose scum. On 6th of August while the Burgandian reinforcement was two days away the Aquantines began storming the city.
Lyon was before the fall of the western empire inhabited for thousands of years and was during the time of the empire the capital of Gaul. It was also one of the most richest and important areas of the whole Roman Empire. Even by the time of Frankish Gaul Lyon along with Marseille and Paris were the three most important economic powerhouses in the area. For the Aquantines the capture of Lyon would be an important strategic victory that would allow them to get rid of one of their rivals and increase their chances of controlling the entire Frankish domain.
By the time Theuderic troops arrived the Aquantines had all ready stormed the city and there was savage fighting inside that had been ongoing for a day and a half. This was because Berthold had reinforced the city and it was well defended by nearly 4,000 of the Burgandians best soldiers. As the fighting intensified Theuderic’s army was able to control the gates sealing the majority of the Aquantines in. However just as it looked like the Burgandians were about to win, a group of Aquantines was able to besiege the Burgandian king.
With Theuderic besieged and his personal guards outnumbered he made the only logical decision something that would haunt him for a long time to come. Theuderic only cared about his life and not any one else after all he was willing to sacrifice his own grandmother to survive. He negotiated with those soldiers in exchange for his life he would give them all the gold inside the city. The soldiers sent word to their King Clothar III who accepted the offer and Clothar soon met Theuderic who agreed to a truce and a night of celebration to end the hostility between them.
The Aquantine army was soon in a relaxed mood and the city had a celebratory feeling to it. However at night while half the Burgandians and Aquantines the Burgandians began to slowly but quietly massacre the Aquantines by the morning the city was filled with dead bodies including that of the Aquantine king Clothar III who was hanged and had his head made into a skull cap while his body was flayed. Theuderic earned scorn from many of his officals but since he was king he had the last word. Even the Lombards while known for their brutality objected. News quickly spread of the massacre and Theuderic soon sent a message to every major power informing them of his actions. “The Aquantine scum was warned what happened to them is what will happen to the Naustrians if they don’t withdraw”
Merovech received the news with complete shock even he wouldn’t do something like this. The campaigning season was over by September and the war with the Franks was not resolved. Elsewhere as 609 AD approached Theodosius the eldest son of Maurice was about to begin his invasion of northern Italy and the emperors health was slowly failing. __________________
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Chapter 25: The red serpent [/FONT]
Aquileia northern Italy Theodosius’s camp
February 5th 609 AD
Dear brother
I write this letter in response to your kind words.You wanted to know what life was like for me well I woke up today with a shiver as I realized it was freezing in my tent and then I felt my stomach make noises, I was hungry as well. General Theodosius as we liked to call him believed that we should be kept on a tight leash that means for an ordinary soldier like me little food, constant drilling and constant prayer to god for our dreaded sins. Today for me was no different then yesterday we would start in the morning with a two-hour prayer, then we would get a simple meal that would last us until the evening. This makes me miss mothers cooking during cena. At night we would have a heavier meal that involves bread, some wine and meat depending on where we are.
Life is to say the least hard and Ceaser Theodosius is not a kind man but a fair one who lives with us and drinks with us. He drills like everyone else and some times a few of the soldiers would go fishing as we are close to many nearby rivers. We are going to soon move towards Castellizo a small town controlled by the Lombards so that we can start this dreaded war. We are attacking them because the Ceaser believes that the Lombards are weaker from supplying troops to the Franks. The Ceaser promised that if we win we would be given Aquileia to be rebuilt by us and Mary along with Titus would love it here. Imagine little Titus running around while I build our house and Mary would spin something nice. The locals seem friendly but talk behind our backs seeing us as foreigners but they prefer us to the Lombards.
We have about 5,000 soldiers with us and expect to easily capture the town but the question is dear brother will the other duchies intervene. The only reason that Theodosius is doing this is because he wants to “earn” his military credentials before becoming emperor. If you ask me this is a waste of time and the men here can be used near the Dunav where the bloody Slavs raid our border, not to mention the Persians who are up to something. Cousin Tullius tells me the border there is quiet too quiet. Perhaps something good can come out of this.
I hope to see you all in April during the time of Easter. Tell mother and father that I love them and send my regards to everyone in Thessalonica Your loving brother Cornelius.
February 12th 609AD Northern Italy, Lombard outpost near Castellizo
Agiluf was a border watch who usually took a small toll from travelers. He had been a border guard for several months. It was a mild autumn day with a bit of a chill in the air “well my friends I am bored, Alboin since you got here any games to play?”
Alboin responded in a calm but serious voice “Agiluf I don’t think it is wise to be playing games right now”
Taken aback Agiluf spoke “You seem down today?”
“Well dear Agiluf I saw a red serpent today while I was dreaming it first hit you by the throat and squeezed you up until blood came out of your eyes.”
Alboin took a moment to breath “Then, when you were dead and on the ground your eyes wide open watching how it killed me, it came at me quickly wrapping it self around me until it reached my eyes I could see it had blood on its eyes and then it bit me”
After pausing “I could see myself from a distance as it ripped off my head and there we were I woke up breathing heavily”
“Albion that is a funny story my friend, we all know here your too stubborn to die that easily after all it took you 10 minutes to hunt that boar and eat it. Im sure you meant to leave some for us” (other men laugh)
A few hours later Agiluf was hearing sounds coming from a distance, “What was that sound Adaloald?”
“I don’t know, we sent Alboin with two others to find out, I am absolutely certain it is not his red serpent”
“Listen Adaloald I don’t know what is going to happen head to town tell them to stop all traffic and seal the gate until we find out”
“But my friend Agiluf you will get into trouble, I might but it is safer that go now”
Adaloald soon rode a horse and departed
Alboin came bursting back with two other men “Its the red serpent there here!!!”
Agiluf had serious stare on his face “It was a funny story but what is going on Alboin really?”
Adaloald “Its Romans and a lot of them?” Agiluf had a bad stare on his face “Tell the men too” Before Agiluf could continue a spear landed on his write leg and another one on his forehead instantly killing him.
Theodosius’s 5,000 men army began their invasion of the Duchy of Friuli by first taking the small but strategically important settlement of Castellizo. His army then proceeded to capture other smaller towns in the nearby areas and over the next few months expanded their control over a lot of territory. Until they were close to reaching the capital of the duchy of Friuli that was Forum Iulii. If Theodosius would successfully conquer the duchy then the Roman Empire would be able to reestablish a natural border against invading armies and other over the western side of the alps.
By April of 609 AD Theodosius was preparing for the siege of Forum Iulii and he was going to use something different in order to recapture it. The war had been going very well for Theodosius since the start because he had been mostly dealing with small towns and outposts allowing him to easily capture the area. His troops had been able to quickly capture a lot of territory because most of the Lombard troops belonging to the duchy were sent to Gaul to fight the Neustrians. At the same time the senate in Italy was quiet because there was a “ceaser” in Italy who promised to conquer the duchy of Friuli by Christmas.
In the west the Frankish civil war had reached a stalemate with neither side having the necessary manpower to finish off the other one. In order to deal with this problem Theuderic activated his alliance with the Visigoths and the Lombards. He used the excuse that the Romans had invaded the duchy of Friuli. The war of the first coalition was about to begin in 610 AD and it would consume the entire Madeternian. Towards the east the Persians had successfully turned Axum into a vassal state and forced them to begin a naval blockade of Red sea that would target Roman ships going to India.
[FONT="]By January of 609 AD Emperor Maurice was now in his late sixties and spent most of his time in seclusion writing military manuals based on his experiences. The emperor also spent time with empress Constantina often in the gardens and for the past few years the affairs of state were becoming less important to him. Instead his sons Theodosius, Paulus who had returned from Africa and Justinian were making the important decisions. Theodosius was in Italy campaigning against Lombards and this made Justinian the man in charge of running the empire because of his administrative experience. While Paulus was an expert on legal and economic affairs and helped Justinian run the empire.[/FONT]
[FONT="]For Paulus and Justinian running the empire was a difficult task because they had to deal with a bad financial situation and multiple foreign crises. Their main concern however was the financial crisis that occurred as a result of a trade deficit. This deficit was happening because of the war in the Madeternian and the increasing Persian blockade of the trade routes in the east. The income for the empire was down from 12 million Solidi from the previous year to 10 million in 609 AD. The loss of income was very dangerous because it would force the empire to find new ways to fund the military and this often meant increasing taxes on the peasants. This was a problem because taxes were all ready high and increasing them even more would carry the risk of a revolt. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Paulus and Justinian had different ideas on how to run the economy and solve the empires financial crisis. On one hand Paulus believed that the problem with the empire was due to the ineffectiveness of the economic system rather then tax collection. He wanted to redraw the empires provinces in order to improve the efficiency of tax collection, put the tax burden on the rich while lowering taxes on the poor peasants. Finally he wanted to give tax breaks to farmers and merchants who found new ways of increasing the amount and quality of the products their profession yielded. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Justinian on the other hand believed that the government should increase taxes on the poor while gaining the support of the rich. He also wanted to give the rich a greater say in the way the economy should be run because they were the ones who had the wealth could create the jobs and keep the empire together. The clash of ideas didn’t really help the empire, as it needed a decision quickly in order to fund the new war in the west. [/FONT]
[FONT="]In order to break the deadlock the emperor intervened to the dismay of Justinian he agreed to both of the proposals. He would divide some of the provinces in the East, Africa and Italy. The provinces were to be divided based on population and the new provinces with bigger population would pay higher taxes while the provinces with lower populations would be entitled to tax cuts. At the same time the less populated provinces would be required to increase their population in order to maintain their tax cuts. Retired soldiers would be used to increase the less populated provinces. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The soldiers would farm the lands and thus increase the taxes for the empire. In the short term Justinian turned to “bread and circuses” to increase revenue. Justinian decided to reinstate the ancient Olympics held in Greece but removed some of the pagan elements in them. He also expanded the government’s postal service in order to get more revenue while borrowing money from several of the aristocratic and promised to pay them later in the form of land and booty from Italy. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The general situation of the empire in 609 AD was mixed the East was stable but with high tensions running through the eastern borders. Things were tense especially along the Persian borders where Roman soldiers along with their Ghassnid allies were on high alert all though trade in the east wasn’t that badly affected. However it was becoming more difficult to trade. In Italy the south was stable but by April was becoming less populated as many young men took the call of arms to join the war of liberation. In exchange for joining the army many men had expected to receive rich Italian lands in the south. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The recruits for the war effort didn’t just come from Italy they came from different parts of the empire, as there was a genuine sense of nationality and patriotism. These emotions were developed over the period of the reign of emperor Maurice as the empire slowly, painfully and gradually rebuilt it self from decades of decline and misfortune. That’s why Theodosius was in Italy in order to show solidarity with the Italians and improve his relationship with the local people. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The emperor and his family were extremely popular ever since he visited in 591 AD. He was popular because of the infrastructure programs that rebuilt much of the south and because he granted them a lot of autonomy. Theodosius returning to Italy, the heartland of where the empire originally started was seen by many as the emperor might return to Rome and make Italy the center of the empire again. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Augustundom April 15th 609 AD, [/FONT]
[FONT="]Neustrian occupation military headquarters [/FONT]
[FONT="]By mid April both the Neustrians and Burgandian Franks were formulating their own plans to end the civil war that had been ongoing for the previous year. At the command head quarters in Augustundom King Merovech was busy preparing his final battle plans. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The feeling within the room was one of exhaustion as everyone was tired of the constant warfare, raids and counter raids. Both Agrippus and Merovech were discussing the final war plans when an officer entered the room.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Louis came bursting into the room “Your highness I bring important news,”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Seeing that Louis had a hard time talking Agrippus told him “Catch your breath”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Thank you sir, the Visigoths have launched an invasion into Aquantine territory and they have also attacked Roman Spain”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Merovech was taken a bit by this he never thought that Theuderic would be this reckless. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Looking at Louis, Merovech began speaking in a firm voice “Send a message to the Austrasians, Baveri and Swabia tell them I want to make an alliance against Theuderic”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Merovech continued talking “tell them, tell them they can have as much Burgandian territory they want, tell them Theuderic is a monster that must be stopped before he comes after them as well”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Stunned Agrippus looked at Merovech “Well all do respect your majesty but are you seriously going to bring the Austrasians, Baveri and Swabia into this war?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I am afraid so, we need all the support we can get and with the Aquantines out of the war its only us left, to be honest my dear friend Agrippus I wont make an alliance with the Romans out of respect for you”[/FONT]
[FONT="]With the revelation Agrippus was a bit shocked he knew he had to win this war “Thank you your majesty I promise we will win this one”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Dear Agrippus I promise you as well when this war is over I will give you some land to rule over”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Thank you your majesty”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Agrippus now looked at Louis “Dispatch the messengers now with our terms”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Louis nodded in agreement and left the room while Merovech and Agrippus returned to their military planning. [/FONT]
[FONT="]By the 18th of April Theodosius who was personally commanding the second Italian legion that contained about 5,000 men was at Forum Julii. He was ready to begin the siege that would end the Duchy of Fruilli and for the empire this victory was essential as Forum Julii was the first major Roman city to fall to the Lombards a century earlier. Conquering it would mean legitimacy for Theodosius and a symbolic victory for the empire. In the past few days his army had marched from Castellizo towards the city encountering little resistance or no resistance along the way. [/FONT]
[FONT="]While marching towards Forum Julli the Roman army encountered burned out small villages and saw few people. From what Theodosius had gathered the new duke of Friuli, Tasso was getting desperate so he ordered every person able to fight to be conscripted into the city’s protection. Forum Julli was itself a strategically important city because who ever controlled it would control access to Italy itself. It was a small city with a population of 15,000 thousand but from what Theodosius estimated the population was probably increased by a few thousand. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Outside Forum Julli, Roman military camp [/FONT]18 April 609 AD
[FONT="]Theodosius was in front of his army while riding his horse; he was giving a speech before beginning the battle [/FONT]
[FONT="]“Men, it’s been a difficult journey getting here we have marched a long way and I know a lot of you come from Africa, Syria, Aegyptus and Italy.”
“We are all here for one thing because we believe in Rome, we believe in the empire and we are fighting for Country and God today”
“This is only one small battle rest assured many more will come but as long as we fight hard enough we will win” “I see a victory today, now on to our bloody business”[/FONT]
[FONT="]After Theodosius gave his speech several assembled Onagers began launching fire rocks at the walls of which a large section fell. Instantly killing all the defenders in that section after that Theodosius ordered two cohorts to enter the city through the broken section. Despite the objections of his military commanders Theodosius ordered two more cohorts to storm the main gate by using a battering ram. As the first wave of soldiers approached a lot of archers positioned in the wall killed many of the attacking soldiers. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Theodosius knew that the Lombards weren’t going to make it easy for him as the first wave of attacking soldiers retreated along with the wounded. A senior Centurion by the name of Constantine who helped the emperor survives during Phocas’s rebellion was the one storming the city from the breached section. Since he had learned about the disastrous first assault against the main gate Constantine decided against launching a full assault.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Instead he decided to use his Hunnic cavalry, Scorpions and a few onagers to soften the defenses before launching a new assaults. It took a few hours for Constantine to set up everything his troops began the attack at noon with archers firing from horses, Scorpios launching projectiles and onagers firing rocks. Constantine proceeded with the assault for thirty minutes and then he sent in his ground forces. Who were able to quickly establish a zone of control inside the city but there was still heavy fighting inside. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Unknown to Theodosius the Lombards had focused most of their forces on containing the breach leaving a few soldiers for the defense of the main gate. A few hours after the failed assault, 2 cohorts moved towards the main gate backed up by roman projectiles that paralyzed the remaining defenders and prevented them from launching a counter strike. This time the attacking Roman soldiers were able to successfully use the battering ram breaching the main gate and with most of the defenders on the other side Theodosius's troops were able to successfully fan out inside the city. [/FONT]
[FONT="]As Theodosius’s troops now entered the city there was savage fighting inside and by evening it was all over as the Roman army battled it was towards the citadel from different directions. The duke Tasso decided to surrender instead of prolonging the fight he hoped that he could continue to rule as a client of the Romans. After the surrender of the Duke, Theodosius restrained his troops from pillaging and looting instead he paid them money from the dukes treasury and sent the rest of the money to Constantinople. Theodosius then made Constantine military governor of the city while placing Tasso under house arrest. [/FONT]
[FONT="]With the fall of the Forum Julli the duchy of Friuli had ceased to exist the remaining territory had been carved up between the Romans and the Lombard. This was a first come first server approach as scouts from the different states moved quickly to establish a presence. Theodosius spent the next few months securing his side of the Alpine passes, sending scouting missions on raids to test Lombard defenses. The situation in Italy was tense, the Senate in Rome was thrilled about the news however the Lombard duchies of Tuscany and Spoleto were not happy and were preparing for war.
The duke of Benevento a Lombard duchy boarding Spoleto pledged his allegiance to the Romans as his duchy was a de facto Roman territory. In Spain the Visigoths were constantly raiding the countryside in Roman Spainia looking for weaknesses and finding plenty of them. While In Africa General Priscus was assembling the Second Egyptian Legion and the First Mauration Legion for an invasion of Northern Italy. Back in Constantinople the 11th legion stationed in Egypt was ordered to move down from Egypt and secure an alliance with the bordering states against a potential Persian invasion. By mid July most of the Madeternian was holding its breath waiting for the war to begin.
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Prologue[/FONT]
Following the collapse of the larger Western half of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ad the Eastern half with its capital of the great city of Constantinople had managed to not only survive but also thrive. By 565 AD at the end of the reign of the great emperor Justinian the empire was able to retake huge parts of the former Western empire that included North Africa, Italy and Most of southern Hispania. However despite his success Emperor Justinian the Great by the time of his death had overextended the empire and squandered its resources. By the time of the new emperor Justin II the empire was not only bankrupt but also overstretched. In the reign of Justin II it lost the heartland of Italy and Syria was almost lost if not for desperate negotiations.
Not being able to handle the responsibility of everything emperor Justin II slipped into madness and retirement but before he slipped away he appointed the general Tiberius II Constantine as his successor. Tiberius II Constantine was a popular ruler who had a mixed record and in military terms he was able to deal with the Persians in the east by the relaying on the leadership of the Brilliant general Maurice but he seriously left the Balkans undefended and this allowed the Avars and other Barbarians to take advantage of the chaos and migrate. In domestic policy he was a kind and benevolent ruler who gave money to the poor and extended religious freedom to all subjects. However by 582 Tiberius was dying due to have eaten bad food and he named Maurice along with Germanus his new heirs. Tiberius was originally planning to divide the empire but he changed his mind and made the General Maurice his successor.
When Tiberius finally died in 582AD Maurice was now the sole ruler of the most powerful empire on Earth but he was to be a different kind of leader unlike Tiberius. So begins Maurice’s Roman empire __________________
Chapter I: A whole new day and a whole new outlook
(Emperor Maurice and his consort)
It was a nice lovely day in mid 582 in the city of Constantinople birds were singing and church bells were ringing as a new emperor was being crowned the second one that the empire would have in more then ten years. Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus was his name and he was coroneted by the Patriarch of Constantinople inside the great church of Haga Sophia. As was tradition the Patriarch placed the Crown on top of the new emperors head and the emperor swore several oaths to God that he will rule justly and wisely in the name of god. After placing the Crown on top of his the patriarch then blessed the emperor and thus this signaled the beginning of the reign of Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus.
(Emperor Maurice and his consort)
The emperor then left the church and the procession moved on to Main Street before finally reaching the Hippodrome that was the beating heart of the city. However emperor Maurice knew fully too well that the imperial coffers were nearly empty and several enemies such as the Avars who were devastating the Balkans were devastating the empires border regions. His coronation was made as quickly as possible with little or no extravagance. He knew that he didn’t have time to enjoy anything and upon reaching the palace the emperor made some of the most important decisions of his early reign. He decided that he would sell off a very large amount of the imperial crown Jules in order to fund a new campaign to deal with the Avars and the Slavs who were raiding the Balkans.
His second decision was that he would grant religious tolerance to followers of Monophysitism in order to avoid religious problems with them. In not persecuting the Monophysitismers the emperor had gained a powerful ally in the form of the pope of Pelagius II of Rome who was happy to assist the emperor against the Lombard’s in Italy. Emperor Maurice decided to decentralize the western parts of the empire that included Italy, North Africa and Spain into “exarchs” and an exarch was a military district where an appointed governor had military and civilian powers. He did this because he felt that the empire was simply too large, too centralized and overstretched in order to govern. He hoped that by decentralizing he would be able to focus on threats closer to home such as the Avars in the Balkans and the Persians in the East.
The first major challenge to the emperor’s rule came in the Balkans a front long forgotten by Constantinople and whose neglect would now haunt the empire for a long time. For decades the Avars and Slavs had been raiding and devastating the empires northern frontiers but now they were beginning to do something that scared the empire because those barbarians were starting to immigrate en masse and settle down in the land. Worse the City of Sirmium one of the most important and strategic cities in the Balkans and whose control was important to imperial stability was under siege for the last two years and the Empire had to pay tribute to oath breakers. Although not having the resources of the Trajan the emperor saw it as a dark eye on national pride that the empire was paying tribute to Barbarians.
In August of 582 AD the emperor with the funds raised from selling some of the crown Jules was about to begin a military expedition in order to teach the Avars and other Barbarians a lesson and some manners. Following the emperor would be Cometiotus one of his best friends and most trusted generals as an army of fifteen thousand soldiers marched from Constantinople Maurice’s Balkans Campaigns were about to begin.
Situation in Madeteranian by late 582AD
Chapter two: one wrong turn
It had taken the army several weeks to reach the city of Sirimium since marching from Constantinople and by the time the emperor arrived it was early September for him the campaigning season was about to begin. The emperor arrived in the city to find the Avars had withdrawn from the city because they feared the emperor’s army was too strong. The emperor found the city overjoyed because the city had been besieged for a long time and the emperor was welcomed like a returning hero. However the cities defenses and defenders were exhausted and nearly crumbling the reinforcement had allowed the roman empire for the first time in a long time to seriously secure and reassert its influence in the Balkans.
Despite the Avars withdrawing from the city they were still constantly raiding Roman settlements across the Danube burning entire villages to the ground and enslaving their inhabitants. The problem that the roman faced is that the Avars were not a “traditional” enemy i.e. they were not an army they were instead groups of bandits who raided villages across the Danube River. Within weeks of arriving the empire was able to reestablish communication with northern Italy who were also overjoyed although they didn’t get any assistance. In December of 582 AD the Khan sent an embassy to Sirmium hoping to negotiate a truce with the Romans but Maurice refused to negotiate.
He constantly reminded the Avars that he had fifteen thousand soldiers under his command and that the Avars were oath breakers. Not wanting to be further humiliated the Avar embassy promised war on the emperor and although confident of his victory it would be a decision he would regret through out his early reign and would nearly coast him the throne. Back in Constantinople the palace was nearly deserted and many artifacts and other valuable items were sold off in order to refill the imperial coffers and continue funding the Balkans campaign. The emperor also made an extremely unpopular decision he cut the salary of palace officials by 25% in order to save money as most of the imperial taxes were going to fund the army.
Else where in the empire the Exarch of Cordoba was struggling to maintain imperial control because it was completely surrounded by Visigoth territory and had a free hand in constant raids. Soon the Visigoths would begin their invasion of the imperial territory in Hispania. In mid 582 AD Heraclius the Elder was appointed Exarch of Africa whose base was in Carthage and who was relaxing trading laws in order to improve the economy and increase taxes. By 583 AD Heraclius dealt brutally with the Berbers who were constantly raiding Roman territory by capturing many villages and sending them to the Balkans and this was part of the emperors larger plans of transferring hostile populations across different territories.
In Ravenna the former Capital of the western empire the Exarch had his hands full he didn’t have much to work with as Roman control over the once heart of the empire was limited to a few territories scattered around Italy the included most of southern Italy, Rome, and some northern Areas. The reestablishment of the network between Dalmatia and Ravenna gave the Exarch hope of something better.
[FONT="]Chapter three: learning by doing [/FONT]
Emperor Maurice in the spring of 583 AD launched several devastating raids across the Danube region from his base in the city of Sirmium on the western banks of the Danube River. The aim of these raids was to show that the empire was not weak in the face of Avar aggression and gain booty in the form of slaves, refill the imperial coffers and pay the soldiers. As spring turned into summer the Romans raided deeply into Avar controlled territory reaching as far as the former Roman city of Sopianae. Along the way the army was reducing entire villages into rubble and selling off their inhabitants into slavery. The Avars and their Antes allies responded in kind by raiding Roman territories and sacking the strategically important city of Silistria on the Eastern bank of the Danube River near the black sea. The sack of the city of Silistria had resulted in many civilians fleeing the area to Thrace. This would cause a demographic problem for the empire later on.
In order to better deal with the threats posed by the Avars the emperor made a decree that gave half of the captured booty from a raid or a battle to a roman soldier operating in the Balkans. While at the same time the emperor slowly and quietly cut their pay by about five percent over the next few months. The sack of Silistria was only the beginning of the emperor’s trouble in the Balkans, the Avar Khan Bayan I feeling insulted by the treatment of his delegation launched an invasion of the western banks of the Balkans. By mid 583 AD his forces were sacking and capturing many cities along the way towards Greece. Those cities included the strategically important cities of Sisak, Singidunum and the city of Viminacium was turned into a nearly ghost town.At the same time the Antes were beginning to intensify their raids into Moesia that resulted in many deaths.
Despite the emperor considering the Balkans a top priority and the seriousness of the losses that were being inflicted against the Romans he had other fronts to worry about. The Roman Empire had been in a bloody war against their more aggressive Persian Sassanid neighbor ever since 571 AD. Before becoming emperor then general Maurice had inflicted a brutal defeat against his Persian counter parts the battle of Constantina. Ever since the battle the Romans had the advantage. The war that was being fought between both sides was about the issue of who controls Armenia an area strategically important to both empires and both powers had been fighting wars over it for centuries ever since the time of the Parthians.
In mid 583 AD the emperor got good news that the Roman general John Mystacom was victories against the Persian general Kardarigan in the battle of the river Nymphios. This victory allowed the Romans to maintain their advantage gained in the Battle of Constantina a year earlier and by gaining this victory he hoped that the Persians would be able to negotiate a truce and end the war. The emperor had been grooming Khoursu II the son of the previous Persian King for power in the Persian Empire. In exchange for assistance the emperor would be receiving most of the Caucasus region and a long peace treaty.
In 583 AD with the Romans reestablishing communication with Northern Italy the new Exarch Philippicus who was the emperors brother in law was beginning a massive security operation in order to secure Roman territorty and begin an offensive in order to recapture the city of Milan. By early 584 AD the Romans were negotiating with the Alemanni over a possible alliance against the Lombard’s.
In Africa While transporting berbers to the Balkans the Heraclius the Elder was covertly beginning to transport hundreds of troops into Hispania in order to reinforce its positions. At the same time he was planning to launch a military adventure with local funds that were being raised from increased trade with Frankish Gaul. The aim of his campaign was to establish a new “Numedian kingdom” in western North Africa by uniting the Various roman clients and hostile tribes. As one of the most powerful men in the Roman empire Heraclius did as he pleased but he believed in emperor Maurice and was no traitor to him.
The main aim of this soon to be new kingdom would be to act as a buffer in case the Visigoths attempt to invade Africa if Spania should fall.
By March of 584 AD both the Avar Khan and the emperor would meet in open battle....
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[FONT="]Chapter four: Hard lessons
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It was a slightly cold day in March of 583 AD. The Avar Khan Bayan I and emperor Maurice would meet in open battle. This battle would be close to the city of Salona near the Adriatic Sea and the Avars would easily win that battle killing five thousand romans Soldiers while suffering moderate losses themselves. After the battle the Romans retreated into the city of Salona preparing for a long siege while the Avar army under the Khan began besieging the city. The Avars were originally a nomadic tribe from central Asia who for unknown reasons migrated into Europe in the middle of the fifth century AD. In 557 AD the emperor Justinian paid them to deal with the Bulgars a tribe of Barbarians who were making incursions in Roman territory. [/FONT]
Following their victory against the Bulgars the Avars along with Huns and subjugated tribes established a powerful state under their leader Bayan I in 567 AD. Their primary base was Pannonia an area that was once part of the western Empire before it fell. Although they settled in Pannonia their empire extended from the Adriatic shores to Bohemia and from the Alps to the Carpathian Mountains. The Avars didn’t have large military numbers at best they could field about 50,000 thousand soldiers but their strength lied in archery and horses. As the months passed in 583 AD the Avar Khan got bored and in January of 584AD he lifted the siege because of constant attacks against his supply lines by the Roman forces.
The Khans army soon made its way towards the City of Arguvium towards the Ancient land of Epirus. Along the way the Khans army didn’t find anything to plunder because every village they went to was either deserted or burned down worse for the Khan the roman army was constantly attacking the Avars army which forced his troops to “live off” the land. By mid 584 AD the Avars army had dwindled to about fifteen thousand soldiers and he decided to withdraw back towards Avar territory. The romans gave their Avar enimies not rest constantly attacking their supply lines and as the khan and his army were about to cross the River. A roman delegation arrived that was seeking a truce; demands of tribute and the Avars abandon all of their weapons before leaving Roman territory. The Khan refused and sent only one member of the delegation back alive carrying the heads of the other two.
A week passed and as the Khans army began crossing the river back into Avar territory the Romans launched a huge ambush by coping the Avar bow and military tactics. Archers fired countless arrows from horseback; fire lid stones were falling on the Avar army killing many. As the Romans continued this attack from a distance many soldiers from the Avar army panicked and attempted to flee where a lot of them drowned as they crossed the River. The advisers of the Avar khan tried to get him to negotiate a truce but he stubbornly refused and by evening the khan along with his entourage were captured by the emperor’s forces. Despite the chaos many Avars did flee across the Danube and escape to Avar controlled territory.
Following the capture of the Khan and with his continued refusal to not negotiate every hour the emperor brought twenty of Avar soldiers and executed them in front of the Khan. Although numbers vary a lot of Avars were killed and by the next the Khan who looked like he had aged by twenty years and looked like a broken man agreed to finally negotiate. The emperor forced the Avars to sign a humiliating treaty with the emperor in order for the Khan to be released they gave the emperor all of their weapons, horses, valuable items and loot collected from the raids. The Avars promised never to raid Roman territory for twenty years and pay an annual tribute of 60,000 solidi to the empire. The Avars would also have to hand over “guests” to Constantinople in order to ensure they comply with the treaty and release all roman prisoners of war. The treaty was signed and the next day the remaining Avars left back home with nothing but the cloths they were wearing.
Following the departure of the Avars the emperor was hailed as “Maurice the Avar slayer” a title he would carry on through out the rest of his life. A lot of his close advisers were disappointed because they felt the could have gotten great concessions but the emperor wanted to preserve the balance of power in the region because the empire was a wounded fish in a sea full of sharks.
By August of 584 AD news of the victory was spreading through out the empire and citizens and soldiers alike rejoiced. When the emperor returned to Constantinople he was greeted like to a heroes welcome and with news that his wife delivered a healthy boy Theodosius. However the emperor didn’t squander the money he was gaining and instead deposited it into the treasury and used some to fund welfare programs for war orphans. Despite the victory the emperor didn’t trust the Avars and maintained a large military presence in the Balkans under the command of general Commentius
Early 585 AD brought bad news for the empire The Visigoths under their new king had begun an invasion of the Exarct of Spania.
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[FONT="]
Chapter five: A time to stand [/FONT]
Ever the since the beginning of the reign of emperor Maurice the Roman empire had begun reasserting itself following two or three decades of stagnation, economic ruin and territorial loss. The key to the empires recent success had been careful strategic thinking and strict fiscal austerity that included quiet and gradual reductions in military spending. By Early 585 AD the Visigoths had launched massive incursions into the Roman territory of Spania. Spania was a roman territory located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and the legendary Roman general Belasiruis conquered it during the reign of emperor Justinian the great. Despite being a Roman territory Spania itself received little or no attention from Constantinople.
The territory included the Roman cities of New Carthage in the west, Corduba in the south and Assionia in the east. The territories main purpose was to act as a buffer and prevent the Visigoths from crossing into Africa and doing what the Vandals did a long time ago. Before the reign of emperor Maurice Spania was under a military governor who was subservient to the governor of Africa who held final say on all matters. Ever since the beginning of the reign of emperor Maurice the whole province was given near total autonomy in an effort to improve the areas situation. The Exarch had military and civilian power. The current Visigothic King Liuvlgild in the early years of his reign had taken a lot of territory from Spania and he was launching an offensive in 585 AD in order to setup his son Reccared on the throne.
Due to the distance of the Exarch from Constantinople the emperor feared a rebellion by an ambitious general and decided to appoint a new Exarch in in late 584 AD. His brother Peter became Exarch and arrived in Cordoba to find his hands full with a multitude of problems ranging from religious matters to other issues. The problem with Peter was that he was a military man and not an administrator; he issued extremely unpopular decrees such as mandatory military service. When the Visigoths launched their incursions the Roman army was able to hold ground and inflict significant loses in the area.
After several months of fighting that mostly included border skirmishes the Romans under Peter were winning battles but losing the war because they just didn’t have the manpower to hold ground and with the Constantinople being distracted with the Persians, Exarch Peter sued for peace. A decision that mad him even more unpopular he was forced to give up some territory to the west and east that were not easy to defend. Although an unpopular decision it was a wise decision because it made the province easier to defend. Peter would over the years of 585 and early 586 turn the province into the most militarized region in the entire empire with forts, walls and forced relocations of peasants into more defendable areas.
By mid 586 these policies had caused a mini famine as agriculture collapsed and riots broke out. Although the riots were not large enough to force Constantinople to change the governor they were serious enough for the governor to reverse course and ease some of his policies. The exert also faced a threat from the Baguade who were a peasant insurgency dissatisfied with the situation and their treatment by the local government. The peasants would ambush military supply lines and increase food prices.
In mid 585 AD Heraclius the elder was in the city of Caesarea in Mauretania Caesariensis in order to crown Mastigas as king of the kingdom of Mauritania in western North Africa. The Kingdom was established on the former roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis and most of Mauretania Tingitana excluding the areas that were already under Roman control. Heraclius the elder had helped the new king defeat his rival in early 585 AD and by mid 586 AD the Romans client state had control over most of Mauretania Tingitana. This allowed Heraclius to return to Carthage and leaving the king to govern his new kingdom under the “benevolent” advice of his Roman advisers. With things mostly stable in his corner of the empire Heraclius was sending letters back and forth between Cordoba and Constantinople mostly scolding the Exact Peter urging him to reverse his military first policy and he was also urging the emperor to decrease the nepotism within his government. This is because it was making a lot of influential individuals jealous.
Italy was still a mess divided between the Romans and Lombards. The operation that the Exarch launched in order to improve security provided mixed results because it considerably secured the areas around Ravenna and Rome but it weakened the empires hold on the south of Italy. Following the mixed results of the operation the governor didn’t under take any further military operations in 586 AD because he learned a hard lesson the Lombards were like a snake that was strangling you and the more you tried to let go the more it suffocated you. He decided to approach the situation in Italy with a gradual re-conquest of the former Roman territories. In the meantime he was going to strengthen the areas the empire already controlled by repairing forts, securing roads and increasing infrastructure project such as aqueducts.
As 587 AD entered the situation in the Middle East was largely unchanged with the Romans and Persians making some gains from time to time. The emperor was now marching from Constantinople towards Antioch in the East with a lot of relief troops and the young Persian prince whom he was hoping to install in the Persian throne.
The sitiuation in the Madeteranian in early 587 AD. Purple Roman empire and orange is "Mauritanian kingdom"
Chapter six: Glory to the new king
The emperor arrived in Antioch a few weeks later after marching from Constantinople and spent the next few months creating projects that improved or expanded local infrastructure like roads and bridges. The emperor brought with him about ten thousand soldiers who were soon scattered to Roman Mesopotamia, eastern Asia minor and the Armenia were the fighting was happening. The empire lost the strategic city of Dara early on in the war that made their war effort in eastern Asia Minor a lot more difficult because they couldn’t easily resupply their troops. Dara was built under the emperor Anastastius a century earlier under the advice from his generals who believed the army didn’t fare well because they didn’t have a nearby base. The Persians did much better in that earlier conflict because they had Nisbis.
Following its construction the city of Dara become one of the most strategically important cities in the entire Middle East. Emperor Maurice in late spring of 586 AD rejected a peace treaty that would have ended the war and granted the Persians tribute because he had his ace in the whole who was Khorsau II. The emperor decided to launch an offensive to weaken the Persian hold on Armenia by using the former Exarch of Italy Philippicus who had been replaced from his position because the emperor needed another experienced general in the Battlefield. Philippicus was not just a general he was appointed as Magister Militium per Orientem that made him the governor of Roman Syria and Palestina. This was one of the richest and most prosperous regions of the entire empire and now he was in command of it. For Philippicus this was a better appointment then the northern frontier of Italy and he enjoyed fighting real enemies rather then bands of Barbarians.
Following the emperors’ refusal to end the war by signing a peace treaty. In the early summer of 586 Philippicus tested his army by marching from his headquarters in the city of Amida and marched south crossing the river Zergan to its eastern banks. He advanced 15 kilometers east to the plain of Solachon where he ordered the army to setup camp. General Philippicus had picked an extremely strategic position because it was south of the fortresses of Mardes and Dara that were under Persian control and allowed the Roman army to control the passage of the Arzamon River. This forced the Persians army under the legendary general Kardarigan to advance across the waterless plain away from their supply routes and made the Persian weaker because they were not fully supplied before meeting the Romans in battle.
General Philippicus was unaware of the Persian advance near his position and on the Persian side Kardigan was eager to fight and confident of total victory. He had taken contingencies in order to deal with his situation such as bringing in camels with water and General Kardigan was so sure of victory he even brought chains for potential prisoners .A few days after beginning mobilization romans were able to detect Persian movements after Roman Arab Feodoriti (allies) captured several Persians and this allowed the Romans to prepare for battle and after interrogating the Persians the Romans learned that the Persian army was planning to attack on Sunday.
Philipicus attacked the Persians a day early on Saturday and the Battle began in the Afternoon of that day. Both armies appeared to have been composed exclusively of Cavalry, compromising a mix of lancers, horse archers and even a few Cataphracts. The Roman scouts reported the Persian advance and he positioned his men on elevated grounds facing the direction from which the Persian armies advance. With the Roman left flank protected by the foothills of Mount Izalas the Romans were positioned in a single lines with three divisions. The left division was commanded by Eiliphredas an experienced general and governor of Syria Phoenice, the central division was under Philipicus’s command and Heraclius the younger commanded the right division.
Upon viewing the Roman formation the Persian general adopted it. Upon the Persian army adopting the formation they quickly marched on Roman lines shooting arrows as they approached. The Romans responded in kind and approached the incoming enemy. The Roman army was victorious on the right flank under the command of Heraclius the younger whose heavy cavalry crushed the Persian flank and pushed his enemy to the left behind their own main line. At this point however some of the troops of the Roman right flank broke discipline and moved to head towards the Persian camp in order to loot it. The Roman general Philipicus saw what happened and sent a bodyguard with his helmet who convinced the soliders to return to order just in time to stop the Persians who regrouped in the center and were pushing the numerically inferior Romans.
To deal with the continued Persian threat Philipicus ordered the men in his division to dismount and form a shield wall with their lances projecting from it. The Romans launched spears at the attacking Persian cavalry which resulted in many deaths and the Persian left and Right flanks broke this exposed the center. As the soldiers from both flanks retreated the Romans now totally devastated the center. At nightfall the Battle was all over the General distributed the loot among his troops, took a small share for him and sent the rest to Constantinople. The Roman victory had allowed the Roman army to successfully invade Arzanene an area on the outskirts of greater Armenia.
In the aftermath of the victory and successful invasion for the rest of 586 the front was relatively quiet and there was no changes other then the usual raid and counter raid. Elsewhere in 586 AD Reccared was crowned king of the Visigoths and immediately launched an invasion of Roman Spania where his forces suffered heavy losses and he had to sue for peace. However he did gain an opportunity for military glory when Septiana a province located in Gaul revolted after they refused to accept Catholism when the rest of the Visigoths converted.
Things were quiet in the empire for the year of 587 AD with not much happening other then general Commentiolus who was commander of the Danube front launching a major the Antae and Avars who were launching minor raids into Roman territory. He was going to invade Antae controlled territory and install a Roman friendly king in the Region. He was going to continue the Balkans campaign in order to further stabilize the frontier and prevent Barbarian tribes from crossing into Roman territory.
By 588 with his headquarters in Antioch emperor Maurice had sent Guaram I to the capital of Georgia in order to be inaugurated in the city of Mtskheta. He would be a valuable ally for Maurice later on. Emperor Maurice faced a threat from soldiers who weren’t paid for a long time and their commander Prsiscus was able to negotiate with them. This gave the Sassanids a chance when they launched an offensive but the mutineers’ themselves stopped the offensive after a lot of money was transported to them from Antioch and they were allowed to keep 90% of the loot they captured. During the year the empire got good news when many prisoners escaped from war camps and returned to Roman territory. They were escorted to Antioch by the emperor bodyguards and met the emperor who bestowed them with gifts and much more. By the end of 588 AD the emperor returned to Constantinople after a two-year absence with two more children another boy and a girl. Constantinople rejoiced and the emperor launched more construction programs in order to expand the city.
In Italy the Franks and Burgandians launched an invasion of Northern Italy and suffered a loss against the Lombards. Taking advantage of the chaos the new Exarch wanting to prove himself militarily had launched an offensive and was able to regain a lot of lost territory and secure the Ravenna to Rome highway as the emperor planned to visit following the conclusion of the Persian war. 589 and 590 Ads were exciting years for the empire as the Persians gained an upper hand in the war when they captured an important fortress. However when a Persian general Bahram Choblin was humiliated he declares Khosrau II as his king and joint Roman and Persian army marches towards Ctesphion where they capture Ctesphion thus ending the war in mid 590 AD.
When news finally reached Constantinople the city held a weeklong holiday with games and feasts. The treaty that ended the war very favorable to the empire and ended centuries of Romans paying tributes to the Persians, gave back all lost Roman cities, most of Persian Armenia and western half of Iberia. Maurice was now slowly starting to repair the mess done by the incompetent Justin II but his celebrations wouldn’t last long as the bubonic plague hit Italy and killed the Pope. The emperor would now have to focus on Italy, as it would be a source of trouble for the empire in the next few years.
Situation in Madeteranian with gains for the Roman army
[FONT="]Chapter seven: Take me to Rome[/FONT]
[FONT="]By mid 590 AD the Roman and Sassanid empires signed a formal peace treaty that ended more then two decades of war. The final negotiations to end the war were held in the city of Ctesiphon that was the capital of the Persian Empire in early summer. General Prsiscus represented the Roman delegation and Khosrau II was representing the Persian Empire. As the new king Khosrau II had his hands full not only did he have the task of rebuilding Persian Mesopotamia but he also had to deal with rebellious noblemen in the East. Khosrau II didn’t want any more trouble with the Romans so he ended their tribute, ceded them most of the Caucuses region and returned all of their cities they lost in the war. However neither Maurice nor Khosrau II enjoyed peace because Khosrau II was soon dragged into a mini civil war with one of his uncles after he killed another uncle who was becoming too powerful. This was because there was a tradition of Persian kings fearing powerful ministers. He also faced constant religious problems with his Christian subjects over the issue of the nature of Christ and he had to deal with this problem because Christians formed a sizeable population of the Persian Empire. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Meanwhile Maurice in the months that followed the end of the war spent most of his time in Constantinople mostly in a semi relaxed atmosphere with him raising his children, touring the city and distributing money to the poor which made him quite popular. He also received reports from the Balkans front where there were still minor campaigns against some Avar and Antae tribes. However the first serious issue that the emperor had to deal with in late 590 AD came from Italy when the previous pope who was friendly to Constantinople died from plague and a new one was elected from the Cardinals in Rome. At the same time the Franks and Burgandians again invaded Northern Italy and the Exarch of Italy Romanus wanting to take advantage of the chaos sent small Roman armies that recovered the cities of Moderna, Reggio, Parma and Mantua from the Lombards in central Italy. The war with the Franks had weakened the Lombards who sued for peace in exchange for ceding some cities to the in the Po valley. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Although the Exarchs actions were great in the long run because he captured territory but didn’t take too many cities because he didn’t want to overextend his power. The Exarch like his predecessor believed that the re-conquest of Italy from the Lombards and other Barbarians would have to be a gradual process so that the empire wouldn’t over extend and avoid what happened with Justin II. However the Exarch strategy soon made him an enemy of the new Pope Gregory I who criticized him in a letter for not liberating more Roman territory. The dispute between both men soon caught the attention of the emperor in mid 591 AD as they both sent him letters regarding the situation in Italy. At first emperor Maurice tried to reconcile both men but then he started getting annoyed and with not much happening in the empire Emperor Maurice decided to go to Rome to personally deal with the situation there. However he didn’t inform both men instead he wanted to make it a surprise for the Pope.
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Chapter eight: Strange bed follows
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The emperor left Constantinople in the early summer of 591 AD and he proceeded to visit Balkans frontier from both ends to raise morale and get an idea of what was happening in the area. He proceeded at first to tour the ancient region of Moesia that was heavily devastated by Antae attacks. The emperor toured several cities starting with Noviodunum where he inspected troops, raised morale by giving speeches and distributing money to the people from his own personal wealth.
The emperor wasn’t just visiting the area because he wanted to be popular he also was
Stabilizing the Balkans frontier by improving the Limes Moesiae. This was done by transporting hundreds of Berbers and Armenians who were settled in the outskirts of the Balkans establishing new settlements in order to act as farmers and partial buffers. The Roman military also built more castles and fortifications in order to deal with Slavs and Antae’s around the Danube River. Also hundreds of captured Antae’s and other barbarians from raids on settlements and villages were transported to Africa for cheap labor and to repopulate the interior of North Africa.
The emperor over the next few weeks toured other cities in the Moesia before finally reaching the city of Ratiaria in Dacia Ripensis and this was the half waypoint of his journey in his tour of the Balkans. The emperor was becoming extremely popular in the Balkans frontier because of this tour and it was mostly a PR stunt in order to increase his popularity and improve the defenses in the Danube. By December of 591 AD the emperor spent most of December in the city of Sirmium where he was greeted with a heroes welcome and spent most of his time there building new churches. As 592 AD entered the imperial entourage proceeded to the City of Salona in Dalmatia but as two weeks passed he then had to cut his tour of the Balkans short.
As news from Italy was changing because the Lombards had a new king who took over several strategic cities near Ravenna and the Duchy of Benevento had a new duke who was becoming aggressive. The imperial entourage reached Ravenna in the spring of 592 AD while at the same time the duchy of Spoleto under Ariulf began besieging Naples an important imperial city and attacking dangerously close to Rome. The emperor arrived at Ravenna to find Italy a complete mess with some areas being fine and other on the verge of total collapse.
Although the exarch was doing his best to deal with the situation in the Italian peninsula he just didn’t have the resources to fight all of the Lombard duchies. The emperor knew that the Roman Empire simply didn’t have all the resources or manpower to retake Italy because resources were needed in other fronts like the Balkans. Still Italy was important to the empire in the long term not only because it was a psychological advantage but also the southern regions were starting to be productive again. The emperor was not a stupid man and learning from the gothic wars under Justinian that devastated the entire region and the advice from his exarchs. It was not a good idea to launch an all out war because it would devastate the entire region and further weaken imperial authority in the west.
Emperor Maurice was not going to launch an all out invasion instead the reintegration of Italy would take at least two decades with his estimation. The first decade would focus on the reintegration of southern and central Italy into the empire. In the emperors plan the second decade would be spent focusing on securing the Alps and reconquering northern Italy by the steady deployment of troops and making the Lombard duchies Roman Vassals.
In order to enact his plans the emperor spent most of the spring of 592 AD bringing in some troops from Dalmatia and two thousand soldiers from Constantinople. This gave him time to assemble a military force of about five thousand and using troops gathered from stable parts of Italy gave him a total army of ten thousand soldiers. This army was transformed into Legio I Italica (First Italian legion). At the same time the Roman emperor dispatched Legio II Cyrenica from Palestina under the command of Heraclius the younger. The legion was withdrawn to the boot of Italy by sea and in the early summer the army relieved Naples and expanded Roman control over southern Italy.
Heraclius spent the summer of 592 AD campaigning southern Italy connecting the two parts of southern Italy for the first time in two decades. The general didn’t expand further because he didn’t want to overextend his territory and spent most of autumn and winter building fortifications and using his families’ fortunes to rebuild infrastrucre in the region. By 592 AD North Africa was booming from trade with Gaul and selling grain to Italy this made the governor extremely rich. The emperor wasn’t sitting around in northern Italy instead after assembling the newly formed Legio I Italica he personally trained the legion and transformed it into a highly disciplined military force.
In the summer of 592 AD the emperor marched from Ravenna with Legio I Italica to deal with the Lombard duchy of Friuli that had captured several towns extremely close to Ravenna. Legio I Italica marched from Ravenna in June and captured several villages and towns along the way towards the city of Patavium. Patavium was a strategic city and who ever controlled it would have a better strategic position in northern Italy. The emperor’s aim in this campaign was to capture several cities in northern Italy, secure the Istrian peninsula and secure the Rome to Ravenna road.
He wasn’t going to stay in Italy for long and was planning to return to Constantinople in early 593 AD.
Legio I Italica proved to be an extremely efficient army and a brutal fighting force. The siege of Patavium began in June and lasted for one whole month. When it was over emperor Maurice was able to claim a victory for the empire in northern Italy. The city of Patavium was once again in imperial hands. In September of 592 AD the emperor moved south towards Rome from Patavium leaving behind a small garrison but known the Lombards wouldn’t dear attack him. He had successfully campaigned and secured trade lines between Dalmatia and Ravenna. The emperor campaigned heavily in the duchy of Spoleto recapturing many cities but leaving the capital because he wanted to finish it off later.
By December 3rd the pope was aware of a massive army approaching Rome he believed that it was the Lombards who wanted to conquer the city and knew that they wouldn’t spare anyone. So the pope rode out with a delegation to surrender the city but as he approached the army camp he saw they were Romans. Several of the emperor’s bodyguards took the pope to meet the emperor and despite differences in Religion both men became good friends.
As the emperor entered Rome he was received with a standing ovation but was shocked to see a city in disrepair with slums, no water and widespread poverty. The emperor never imagined that the mother of the world a city that controlled an empire that once stretched from Ebarcum in Britania to Ctesiphon in Mespotania could be like this. According to legend after finishing his public tours the emperor wept privately about the state of the city and of Italy as a whole. He really did want to do something but just didn’t have the resources about it.
The emperor spent December relaxing in Rome and ordered his military engineers to launch an ambitious rebuilding program funded by the pope, exarch of Carthage and the emperor. This program was aimed at rebuilding Rome’s aqueducts and the engineers began this and employed local Romans to do the labour in order to make the Italians feel they were part of the empire.
For the people inside the empire Roman Empire the quality of life depended on where you lived and what your status was. The 590s in the Middle East were stable times as the war with Persia was over the region was starting to recover and trade was booming specially for the holy land where pilgrims were making the journey to Jerusalem yearly.
Overall the empire was increasingly becoming more stable because the security was stabilizing everywhere and with increased stability came trade. The emperor began to decrease taxes in Middle East in order to bring in more taxes from trade. The empire entered 593AD with much work still ahead.
The sitiuation in the Madeteranian in early 593 AD. Yellow line showing emperors tour, read indicates recent agains and light purple indicate vassals.
[FONT="]Chapter nine: For the cause[/FONT]
Early January 593 AD was a busy time for the city of Rome as empress Constantina organized the creation of huge public baths in order to improve the living conditions and Huygens of ordinary people. She was hoping that by improving the living conditions that people would be healthier and disease wouldn’t spread quickly. In order to enact her plan the empress along with the emperor paid for the repair of the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus aqueducts. These aqueducts were the main suppliers of water to the city of Rome and each project would take at least several years to complete. At the same time several hundred skilled artisans and military engineers were brought in from Carthage to the port of Ostia Antica that was the main port that served Rome in order to begin immediate repairs on it. The port was located on the mouth of the Tiber River and at the height of the Roman Empire in the second century AD was used to import and export goods from and to Rome.
However following the decline of and eventual collapse of the western empire the port was largely neglected with a few thousand inhabitants. Like the city of Rome it was a mere shadow of its former self but slowly under emperor Maurice the empire was being rebuilt better then ever before. The emperor hoped that by reconstructing the port that was another long-term project he could revive the local economy and allow trade to expand once again. The reconstruction of all of these buildings and locations was also a message and a political one to the pope and Lombards that weakened or not the Romans are here to stay and that they weren’t leaving any time soon.
By March of 593 AD the Romans had effectively cut Lombard controlled Italy in half after the previous years campaigns against the Lombard duchies of Spoleto that controlled most of central Italy and the duchy of Benevento. As the Italian situation improved the emperor ordered the Legio II Cyrenica to march on the City of Capua that was controlled by the duchy of Benevento. Capua was captured after several weeks although the Legio II Cyrenica did suffer heavy causalities. Capturing Capua was not about the military situation but was a favor to the pope.
For all of there troubles the Lombards were a Germanic tribe who originated from Scandinavia and wondered around for a long time. In the 520s and 530s they served under the legendary Roman general Narses as a mercenaries. At first the general was grateful for the extra manpower but then he found the Lombards to be too savage too out of control and they were shipped out. Two decades later for the Romans a series of unfortunate events in Europe such as the Avars coming to power and the plague of Justinian resulted in the Lombards along with several of their allies conquering huge parts of Italy.
The strategic situation in Italy was increasingly tilting towards the Romans all backed by two military legions in the area. As the Roman army easily captured Capua in May of 593 Ad they then stopped and waited for the emperor who met them inside the city and told the people “Your suffering is now over the senate and the people of Rome are here with you”. In terms of central Italy the emperor was planning to knock two birds with one stone and he already set plans in motion. A few weeks following the capture of Capua and surrounding areas the duke of Benevento was assassinated by one of his noble men due to his inability to deal with the Romans.
Following the untimely death of the ruling dukes the nobles started fighting among each other and as that happened cities all over southern and central Italy rose up usually eliminating Lombard garrisons and pledging allegiance to the empire. By mid June of 593 AD the Legio II Cyrenica besieged Benevento as Lombard rule in southern Italy collapsed.
A month later the city surrendered in exchange for mercy. The emperor didn’t execute the Lombads who were in the city instead he made a nobleman by the name of Aistulf duke of the city under Roman super vision. The remaining Lombard troops would be dispersed to various fronts like the Middle East and Africa. In order to keep the Lombards of of Benevento in check the emperor issued a decree that stated that any Lombard who serves outside of Italy would be given Roman citizenship in ten years.
Despite the strings of constant successes in Italy the emperor left for Constantinople by ship from southern Italy in July of 593 AD. This is because the Slavs and other tribes had breached the defenses in the western banks of the Danube River and were ravaging the countryside. Before leaving Italy the emperor reorganized Italy into two exarchs the fist would be the exarch of Ravenna that would govern northern Italy and the Exarch of Rome would govern central and southern Italy from Rome. Dividing Italy into two exarchs was both a strategic decision because it would allow the emperor to select an experienced general who could deal with the Lombards who controlled northern Italy. Also dividing Italy into two made sure no governor could be powerful enough to challenge Constantinople.
The emperor gave the senate in Rome the ability to choose its governor and levy taxes over the exarch of Rome but with 20% of taxes going to Constantinople. However the emperor appointed half the senators in Rome and the new exarch was an Italian by the name of Flavius Varanius who was of aristocratic background and had military experience serving in the emperor Italian campaign. Choosing an Italian was a way to extend an olive branch to the Italians that they were not ruled by foreign Greeks instead that were ruled by a powerful empire that they were a part of.
Although southern Italy was now stable the center was still a bit unstable because they duchy of duchy of Spoleto was still a threat that the new exarch had to deal with. Emperor Maurice arrived in Sicily in July of 593 AD as part of his tour and took the opportunity to relax for a while there. Sicily was part of Italy but was rued by the Exarch of Africa and it was a stable, peace and extremely prosperous area. The emperor was encouraged to visit Heraclius in North Africa but couldn’t because of the Balkans. Finally arriving in Constantinople in August of 593AD the emperor returned to a city that was enjoying peace and was fairly prosperous. He wasn’t going to go to the Balkans because Emperor Maurice was exhausted from his Italian adventures and was getting tired of constantly traveling long distances.
The emperor order general Priscus to continue campaign across the Danube in the winter a decision that the general disobeyed because the troops were exhausted from constant cat and mouse games with the Slavs. Priscus was also exhausted and didn’t want the troops to mutiny. In winter of the year 593 AD the front was quite but the emperor was furious at the actions of the general and dismissed him in February of 594 AD the general replaced him with Germanus an incompetent general who would be a disaster for the empire in the coming year.
Economically the eastern territories were recovering fairly quickly and were becoming once again centers of economic trade kept by sound economic policies and with a lot of stability. The population was also recovering quickly with many flocking to Egypt in order to participate in the construction of Maurices canal that would connect the red sea and the Madeteranian.
Situation in Madeteranian around February of 594 AD. Roman empire in dark purple, Visigothic kingdom in blue, Main lombard duchies in pink, other lombard duchies in yellow, duchy of Spoleto in green (Central italy). Persian empire in red
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Chapter ten: two steps forward and one-step back
[/FONT] Some where in the Danube river basin Joseph and his unit where serving in the Limes Moesiae in the eastern banks of the Danube river. His unit was a Limitanei (border garrison) patrolling for the last two weeks tracking a group of Slavs who had raided a small village stealing some cattle. Their mission was to track the bandits and identify their location. This mission was extremely unpopular with the entire unit because they regarded it as a waste of time conducted by their incompetent commander Germanus who wanted to gain favor with Constantinople. Joseph knew that it was dangerous to keep tracking the bandits so his units turned back to their hometown of Latrus but when they were heading back several dozen Bandits surrounded his unit and they were forced to surrender, being taken to the north as prisoners of war.
As they were being dragged in chains to Slav territory they cursed the name of their commander Germanus for his incompetence. They also had formed a deep hatred for the emperor because of his failure to effectively deal with the Slavs. By April of 594 Dozens of other military units were also captured. The Slavs sensing weakness launched an invasion of the Balkans peninsula invading the provinces of Macedonia and Moesia. In order to deal with the problem Germanus decided to launch his own invasion of the Northern Danube region taking with him about seven thousand soldiers in order to hit the enemy hard. The Roman army under his leadership soon marched deep into the un-charted forests and swamps of Wallachia where the whole army was routed 2500 soldiers managed to escape while the rest were taken as prisoners.
By August of 594 AD Worse for the Romans another Roman army was defeated in Edessa allowing the Slavs to raid as far as Larrisa in Greece. In Constantinople the emperor was now furious but couldn’t do anything for the rest of the Year. He had to be careful because there was a lot of anger towards him. Not wanting to risk a mutiny by the Danube armies the emperor needed an experienced general but most of those were either on other fronts or had other duties. Thus the emperor restored the disgraced general Priscus back to command hoping he would improve the situation. Priscus was again back in command of the Danube in December of the 594 AD but he couldn’t do anything because it was winter. Instead he ordered the troops to rest for the time being and only engage raiding parties.
By the time Priscus was again in charge the situation was pretty bad the Slavs were raiding almost at will all over the Balkans frontier. Priscus may have been an experienced general but he was no Hercules in order to deal with the situation in June of 595 AD the Roman army in the Limes Moesiae began a heavy refortification effort aimed at reestablishing the borders. This was done by rebuilding many forts and improving the walls of many border cities. In the previous months Priscus brought in additional troops from other fronts that were quiet. Then his forces launched a massive security operation in Greece in order to eliminate the Slavs in there. Sealing all the roads that led to in and out of the region and giving cash rewards to people who brought in suspected Slavic raiders. Over the Summer Priscus succeeded in clearing out all of Greece forcing the Slavic raiders to raid in the provinces that border their territory that included the Diocese of Dacia and Scythia minor.
The reason why the Romans couldn’t deal with the Slavs was because they were not a unified polity instead they were different tribes who took advantage of weak points in the long Roman borders to raid and cause general havoc. By the beginning of Autumn of 595 AD Priscus had campaigned aggressively forcing the Slavs to limit their raids to the province of Scythia minor. However the Slavs also began launching minor raids into Dalmatia a region that was beginning to recover economically and was becoming more prosperous because it was the link between Constantinople and Rome that brought a lot of trade a long the way. The governor of Dalmatia was Philipicus a wealthy nobleman from the region who had seen his fortune increase in the previous years as the empire restored the bulk of Italy. Not wanting to see his gains lost Philipicus paid off many of the raiding tribes that were raiding his province. But this had the opposite effects as more tribes began to raid Dalmatia in order to extract tribute from the Roman governor.
Philipicus soon requested help from Constantinople but no aid would come until early next year because the imperial army was already stretched thin. In Egypt the emperor ordered the governor to reduce taxes on peasants from 35% to 22% in order to reduce the burden on them and make the agricultural sector more productive. The emperor also passed laws that established several designated areas that are allowed to sell silk in and the aim of these laws was to fully regulate that silk market and bring in more income to the imperial coffers. The emperor reduced tariffs for exotic goods that were produced in local provinces such as silk in order to make the economy more competitive.
The emperor also established a special committee in order to improve agricultural efficiency within the empire and he regularly held meetings with peasants from all over the empire. He did this because he knew agriculture was important and having the peasants on his side couldn’t hurt but also improve his legitimacy. The emperor in 593 and 594 AD passed several laws that established more formal procedures for dealing with criminal proceeding regarding the rich. One of those was Hebeaus Corpus that limited the amount of time that a noble could be held without being convicted of something.
The aim of the agricultural laws was part of an unofficial consensus that the emperor made with the peasants that was you be productive and I take batter care of you. The emperor hoped to implement Hebeaus corpus on ordinary citizens but that prospect would take a very long time because it could face strong opposition from the aristocracy.
In Italy Pope Gregory the Great had signed a peace treaty with the Lombard that affirmed the current Italian borders and established peace between the Romans and Lombards but many factions within the Roman military were not pleased with the treaty. But those factions couldn’t do anything because the Pope had the emperor’s ears and Southern Italy was booming thanks to new agricultural imports from the east, the Silk trade, low taxes and local autonomy which allowed local official to deal better with local problems.
By January of 596 AD the Balkans were the main source of trouble for the empire as Slavic tribes began besieging Signidunum and launching more attacks on Dalmatia.
(Map showing the situation in 596 AD) Purple lines show Slavic incursions
[FONT="]Chapter eleven: A game of cat and mouse[/FONT]
General Priscus began campaigning in Scythia minor in order to clear out the Slavic incursions in the region. He also sent a relief force of about 2500 soldiers to Dalmatia in order to assist the local forces in the area with dealing with the Slavs. By the time the troops arrived in mid February the raids had all but stopped and instead several thousand Slavs retreated to Singidunum and reinforced the Slavs that were besieging the city. The general didn’t expect the Slavs to make that move but he kept the troops in Dalmatia to reinforce the garrison and to deter further Slavic tribes from raiding the region. By early May as the situation stabilized in Scythia minor General Priscus soon turned his attention to Singidunum the city that had been besieged for several months, morale was decreasing food was low and the city was close to surrendering.
The Romans relief force arrived from the River of Danube being transported from Danube by boats and also another force arrived from land. This forced the Slavic forces besieging the city to engage both sides but the city was relieved. The battle began in mid April and it was very bloody lasting for about two days until the Slavic forces surrendered being taken as prisoners in hope for an exchange for the 7000s captured Roman soldiers. Another group of Slavs who hadn’t heard of the news attacked Dalmatia before suffering a heavy defeat and was forced to withdraw into Avar territory. The Avars were not too happy about the Slavs entering their territory so they launched attacks on Slavic territory.
By August of 595 AD the situation finally stabilized in the front with on Slavic raids being recorded. In early 596 AD the Slavic chieftain Musokios who controlled the territory bordering Moesia and Scythia seeing no more advantage to the campaign decided to end his campaign and sue for peace. Because of the vastness of the region general Priscus took several weeks to send a message to Constantinople regarding the terms of a final treaty that the emperor might agree to. The terms of the treaty were favorable towards neither side as the Slavs knew the Romans didn’t have total control over every frontier in the Balkans because it was too large for the Romans to totally control but the chieftain also recognized that the Romans could hit him hard and also the Bulgars were raiding his territory. In Italy the Lombard duchy of Tuscany sacked a city in central Italy but the Roman army responded by recapturing several cities from that duchy.
In mid 596 AD the emperor agreed to a treaty that ended the war for five years and resulted in an exchange for all war prisoners. The emperor knew that the Slavs wont hold up their end of the bargain for long but he needed those troops back for morale and the Balkans needed stability in order to continue the emperor ambitious plan of militarizing the border regions of the Balkans. Just to be on the safe side the emperor kept a large military garrison in the city of Marcianopolis in order to launch more campaigns against other Slavic tribes in Wallachia. From mid 596 to late 598 AD the empire was for the first time in a very long time stable and quiet on all front there was no trouble and the economy was recovering fairly well.
The treasury was again in a stable condition and the empire began increasing wages for soldiers to better their pay. The emperor was also focusing on an important project that he hoped would allow the empire to become even richer the canal of Maurice in the province of Egypt. The population of Southern Italy was recovering rapidly and the region was booming due in part to peace, increased trade through the Madeternian and an increase in autonomy that allowed local authorities to better deal with a lot of problem.By 599 AD the Roman empire was the most powerful power in the Madeteranian and the seventh century would bring it more adventures, battles, wars, inventions and much much more.
In 599 AD emperor Maurice made his fifteen year old son Theodosius co-Emperor and made him the sole successor to the throne.
The Madeteranian in 600 AD
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Chapter 12: A time of uncertainty
[/FONT] By early 600 AD things were quiet in the empire with little or no military activity occurring on all front as the Romans either had clients bordering hostile powers that acted as a buffer or peace treaties with other nations. Instead the emperor focused on two things that would continue to dominate the rest of his reign the Balkans and the trade. He wanted to make the Balkan border regions a heavily militarized fortress so that the Slavs could never again threaten that critical region again. However this was easier said then done as he couldn’t launch an all out invasion, and the Slavs were having an explosion boom that saw the Serbs begin colonizing areas bordering Illyricum. Instead he continued his policy of shipping thousands of Berbers and Armenians to the border region to establish colonies there that would act as buffers. He also shipped captured Slavs to North Africa in order to deter other troublesome tribes from raiding Roman territory. Once in Africa those Slavs that were captured would be sent to slave markets, military barracks or the kingdom of Numidia as exotic gifts.
Many of the Armenians and Berbers who settled in the Balkans would find life very hard and a quarter of the new arrivals wouldn’t survive. This was because of the remoteness of some of the regions that made transportation and communication difficult, the weather affected many of the Berbers because they were not accustomed to the winter weather and a lot of the Berbers would try to escape. The Romans over the past four years had built or reinforced dozens of settlements in the border region on the Danube River that ranged from simple outposts that kept watch over certain areas to medium sized cities. The policy of transporting different populations was a success in the short term because raids by the Berbers had stopped in North Africa but it also depleted large areas and alienated many with the Numidian kingdom. Because they felt that the Romans were dishonorable because they were enslaving their brothers. In the Balkans this policy was almost useless as it depopulated many areas and made the Slavic tribes hesitant to trade with the Romans.
By early 601 AD the Roman army had stopped relocating Berbers and Slavs instead they focused on maintain the gains they secured earlier. The front was fairly quiet in most of that year but emperor Maurice was all ways paranoid about what he called “the northern hordes” in the Balkans and continued to order more troops to campaign in the region. The biggest problem that the emperor faced in 602 AD was a rebellion by the some of the northern troops who were exhausted of constant campaigning and after ordering them to campaign in the winter they disregarded the order and began marching on Constantinople. Those troops proclaimed a soldier by the name of Phocas as emperor after he promised them to end the campaigns and increase salaries.
Chapter 13: A race through dark places
On the Road of Hope
My name is Andrik
I am from the road of hope
I was born and raised on the road
It gives us riches, sorrows and gold
My family was poor
Moving around
All the time
Looking for food
One day we saw other men on the road,
They are Romans, we see them all the time
They have red shields and carry gold
But they were many of them this time
They look and talk different
At first we didn’t intervene
Then we attacked them and stole their food and gold that time
We attack many of them now all the time
My mother is pregnant again
My family is going to be a lot larger
I am the sixth in my family
and I see my sister or brother
as a blessing making me prouder
My sister or brother will help us take more food, gold
and survive on the Road of hope.
Near the Dunav from here till the end of the road.
[FONT="]Sacrum Palatium (Great Palace) – Constantinople 602 AD
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Antonius was a palace secretary who usually brought news to the Emperor from different parts of the empire. He was a middle aged man who saw himself as someone important and he was using his power to make him self a small fortune to live on following the death of the emperor. But his plans were to take a different direction after receiving news that the armies of the Balkans had revolted and were marching on Constantinople.
He was the one who had to tell the emperor. The emperor wasn’t a bad person but he wasn’t the most understanding of individuals when it came to handling bad news. Now Antonius was the one who had to tell the emperor.
Antonius entered the imperial Room where the emperor usually was. The room itself was a large room filled with gold, silver and decorated with many objects that displayed the extent and reach of the Roman Empire. It had silk curtains from Anatolia, bread made from wheat in Egypt and a lot of exotic items that covered the walls nd sealing. Antonius approached the emperor who was discussing agriculture with several farmers.
"Your majesty I am sorry to disturb but I bare urgent news from the front"
"No you are not disturbing me"
"I would like you to meet Bolyslav from Scythia minor and this is Agape from Alexandria in Aegyptus"
"Men please tell the Berar of news your discovery and what it can do to the empire"
The Slav from Scythia soon began explaining in a thick accent "We have made modifications to the way we grow food and we believe this will allow us to grow even more food then ever before"
"Well I certainly think it is fascinating subject but I have urgent news"
"The armies of the Danube have revolted under an officer called Phocas"
"The soldiers have proclaimed that traitor emperor"
The emperor now had a broken bad feeling about the revolt because he knew those soldiers were the best trained in the world and if he didn’t act soon they would kill him and all his family.
"How many soldiers are we talking about Antonius?"
"It is hard to say your majesty but we estimate about fifteen
thousand soldiers from across different parts of the Danube"
"We received this information an hour ago from a loyalist scout"
"Phocas is marching on Constantinople now he should arrive within three weeks"
"There are a lot of soldiers who are joining him. The greens are supporting him"
The emperor was so angry that he threw a citron that landed on a bust of Justinian cover its eyes with citron juice.
The emperor said in a desperate voice "Antonius please summon general Narses, Pretorian Avidius and my son"
"Thank you for meeting me" spoke the emperor to the farmers
"but I promise to pay more attention to these discoveries later on"
The three men soon arrived.
"Father is it true"
"Yes I am afraid it is my son we have been betrayed by the armies of the north"
General Narses what is the status of the forces defending Constantinople?
"Well your majesty we have about 4000 soldiers at our disposal not enough we can muster and additional two thousand more but that’s it"
"We wont be able to bring reinforcements there just too far away I am afraid"
Pretorian Avidius soon spoke in a worrying manner your majesty
"I am afraid that the rebels are the least of your worries the Greens want your head on a silver platter several aristocratic families are all ready endorsing the traitors"
"I believe we should abandon the city and head east to Nicomedia where we have support or else well be killed"
"No we wont abandon Constantinople instead well fight. I have sworn to protect the people and I will do that assemble the troops we march at dawn"
Theodosius looked excited "Father I am with you and I am ready for a fight we will teach those traitors lesson in honor. Indeed we will indeed we will"
Soon all three men left the room and went about there business knowing fully to well that they might not live in the next few weeks. The battle for Constantinople was about to begin.
Rebel camp Near Thrace
Emperor to be Phocas was in his tent inspecting the maps and discussing strategy with his generals. For all of his speeches and promises he was afraid if he lost because he knew the price of failure would mean his life.
One of his guards entered the tent "Sir you are needed outside we have company" spoke the guard
Phocas soon left the camp and saw several dozen men on horseback.
They were lined up in typical light cavalry fashion but the leader a man by the name of Constantine was in front.
"Who are you?" Phocas asked.
"Well my name is Constantine and I am from the Limes Scythia my unit would like to join you we believe in your cause"
Soon all the cavalrymen dismounted their horses and saluted by holding their arms out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. "While saluting they said glory and honor to emperor Phocas"
"Your majesty we didn’t come empty handed we bring you gifts, here are the severed heads of our former comrades who didn’t see your views"
"Thank you I accept you are now part of the army. With men like you on our side we will bring our empire into a golden age unlike any it has seen"
We know you will sire.
"I have 500 other men and I will inform them of this news"
The soldiers saluted again and soon the dispersed while Phocas went back to his tent. Constantine and his unit weren’t the only ones to defect and many more were doing so. Things were looking worse for emperor Maurice by every passing day.
[FONT="]Chapter 14: Divided Loyalties
By early 603AD the army of the Usurper Phocas had swelled to about 20,000 soldiers who had defected from various points along the Danube front. By this time the Roman army was split into three camps that were the army that Phocas controlled, Maurice’s army and the Remaining roman troops who were on other fronts that were loyal to emperor Maurice but couldn’t assist because they were too far away. The Army of emperor Maurice only had about 12,000 soldiers. Emperor Maurice had evacuated Constantinople in early January in order to join loyalist armies while his family excluding Theodosius stayed in the city.
Constantinople was now almost a war zone with the greens and blues fighting it out with each side supporting a different emperor. The Blues wanted a Phocas because they hoped that he would lower taxes and give the rich a freer hand in dealing with the peasantry. The green faction was with emperor Maurice because they supported his religious tolerance and attempts at improving the living conditions of ordinary people. The imperial family was kept safe in the heavily fortified palace of Constantinople although they were safe they didn’t really fell so as the city was filled with shouting, chanting death to the emperor and constant riots.
For Maurice his army wasn’t in a good shape and it was mostly made up of fresh recruits, local mercenaries, cavalry and an elite core of highly trained forces. Phocas on the other hand had with him a lot of highly trained forces and were professional soldiers who were veterans of many military campaigns. Both armies were convening on Adrianople a city that had been the site of no fewer the half a dozen major military battles in history from the greeks to the Romans. To emperor Maurice this was almost a curse as three centuries earlier emperor Valens died defending the empire from the Goths. Now it was his turn to fight a battle near that city.
In other parts of the empire the troops remained loyal and things continued mostly normal but in Italy the Lombards were getting restless and were preparing an offensive to retake lost territory. While in Spain the Visigoths were about to launch another war to regain Spania. In Persia Khoursu II was expanding his empire on all fronts and he had recently acquired Yemen that was an important strategic region because it allowed the Persians to freely control the passage to the red sea and Egypt. The Persian Empire by this time was booming and experiencing a golden age in literature, culture and scientific innovation. It had started using windmills that allowed them to irrigate better and grow even more food. Khoursu II had taken the news of the revolt by surprise and was divided by the loyalty because Maurice was the one who he owed his throne to but restoring the Achamed Empire was his goal. The whole Madeternian was waiting and watching the unfolding events in the Roman Empire.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Chapter 15: Cross roads[/FONT]
The battle began early on March 5th on open fields north of the City of Adrianople and the area was flat which gave neither side a particular advantage because they could not conceal hidden forces. For emperor Maurice the battle was absolutely important it didn’t mean just life and death it meant honor as well for those troops had attacked the honor of the emperor. Emperor Maurice along with general Comentiolus devised a clever plan to win the battle instead of concentrating their troops in one single column the soldiers would be divided into three groups the first group would be in the center and was led by the emperor. General Comentiolus commanded the second group positioned the left flank while general Germanius a nobleman belonging to Cinna family commanded the right flank. Theodosius was commanding the cavalry that was guarding the left lank. On each side of the loyalist armies there were Polybolos that could repeatedly throw projectiles, scorpions and onagers were positioned in the back of the line.
On Phocas’s side there were some of the toughest and most disciplined soldiers in the world, battle hardened war veterans. Phocas’s army outnumbered Maurice by two to one. He wasn’t a fool and knew that emperor Maurice was himself an experienced general who had something up his sleeves. Phocas wasn’t going to risk everything in one strike instead his troops were planning to launch a series of raids on the loyalist army lines aimed at crippling its morale. These raids were to be conducted by a mix of cavalry and infantry and they would at first attack the front lines totally devastating them before moving on to the center and annihilating what ever was left. The rebel army didn’t have with it as many projectile equipment as the loyalist army instead it only had about a few small onagers. Technologically both sides were evenly matched and excluding number both sides had a good chance of winning against each other.
Loyalist army main camp
“Emperor Maurice it’s a lovely day isn’t it?”
“Yes Avidius but real shame we have to fight today”
“Indeed your majesty”
“The troops are ready and awaiting your command!”
“Good, begin,” shouted the emperor as he felt his heart pacing this was the first time he was in battle in a very long time. Horns from two soldiers sounded the beginning of the battle.
"May god for give me for this" thought emperor Maurice to himself.
Onagers’ position central flank, loyalist army
“Raise your shields” screamed Anthenius to his unit warning many of them as arrows were falling on a lot of soldiers. They had to be informed because they were engineers who were loading stones in the onagers so they can fire them.
“Take cover boy, be careful those vassals are dangerous you will burn your self with them ” Anthemius again screamed but this time at junior artillery officer who was carrying several vassals that had dangerous components in them. If they fell they could burn him alive.
After the second wave fell Anthemius and his unit soon loaded rocks on to the onagers lit them with fire and carefully put burnt bitumen and sulfur taken from the vassals on them.
“Why did we use those sir?” asked the boy
“Only god knows son, only god knows”.
As soon as the fire lit stones landed on the enemy they killed many men while smoke began chocking other and many soon died from inhaling the smoke. The rebel cavalry soon charged into the front lines with fire lit stones from the loyalist onagers continuing to fall on enemy positions in the back. __________________
[FONT="]Chapter 16: To the victor come the spoils of war[/FONT]
“Hold the lines,” screamed Antonius as he rode west to inform his commander that the loyalist infantry had retreated east after suffering heavy casualties. Antonius was an experienced cavalryman with preference in archery as he could kill a man from several meters while riding on horseback. Antonius had defected early on as he was tired of the constant campaigning and the cat&Mouse games they were doing with the Slavs. He was now frightened out of his mind as he was riding not because it was a battle but because of the new weapon that could kill dozens of men in mere seconds after landing. It happened a few hours ago as the battle began the stones fireballs fired by loyalist forces crashed and killed a lot of his fellow comrades but the smoke soon spread and it chocked anyone in sight. He was lucky enough to have rode off but he was now on running scared.
“There retreating from the east we inflicted heavy casualties on them and there heading east shall I order the men to pursue them?” Panted Antonius, as he was exhausted from riding the horse.
“I have received orders from command let them retreat, move the men west we are heading there”.
“Yes sir. How are we doing on the other fronts?”
“I don’t know, its hard to communicate, we only get the most basic of information.”
“Thank you sir I will relay the information, chack chack”, Antonius now headed back with his horse to inform the troops.
“But we know that the emperor has been seriously injured from the fighting one of our outer scouting parties recovered his helmet”. Spoke the commander in an almost excited tone.
On other fronts the battle was an extremely bloody stalemate with neither side having the advantage. The battle consisted of small but bloody skirmishes that would see one side gain ground but loose ground somewhere else. It was also intensified by the use of projectiles from scorpions and ballista’s that killed men on all sides. The battle continued on like this until sun set when the loyalist army retreated having been exhausted from the heavy fighting Phocas’s victory now looked all but certain. __________________
[FONT="]Chapter 17: Light at the end of the long Tunnel[/FONT]
Emperor Maurice was now exhausted as he had to fight the rebels in a very long and bloody battle that left many men on both sides dead. Despite the heavy losses his troops inflicted on the rebels they had to retreat and after retreating from the site of the battle they made it to the outskirts of Adrianople. Despite inflicting losses on the enemy Maurice’s troops didn’t fare well either as in an army of 12000 only 8000 made it alive. Worse for the emperor his son had been injured and had collapsed after a fireball landed near his unit’s position when they engaged the enemy. Many of his son’s comrades chocked to death but an officer called Constantine who soon disappeared rescued Theodosius. On top of his worries Phocas’s army was now only a days march from reaching Adrianople.
Adrianople’s outskirts loyalist camp March 3rd 603 AD
“Bring me the herbs wife Mariam we are almost finished” spoke the Dr. He was exhausted having operated on Theodosius for several hours.
“Yes Leech Georgios” responded wife Mariam as she was bandaging Theodosius’s
Right arm. Earlier they had managed to stop the bleeding from his forehead by putting pressure on it but he was still in a bad shape having in hailed a lot of sulpher.
She was exhausted as well. “Will he survive Leech?”
“I don’t know, we have done all we can for him now. His body is thinking does it want to continue or shut down,” responded the leech as he washed his hands in water.
“Wife Mariam thank you for your help today please excuse me, I must speak to the emperor at once”. The Dr. left the room while Wife Mariam washing her hands. She was going to be the young Ceaser’s nurse for the time being until they could get him to Constantinople for proper treatment.
“I am going to pry for you tonight” spoke the wife to Theodosius in a soft voice as she put a cover on him.
“How is my son leech Georgios will he live?” spoke Emperor Maurice in an anxious voice. He had been waiting for hours outside the tent learn the fate of his son.
“He is alive right now but weather or not he will live is another question your majesty”
“I have done all I can for now, but we can’t move him because his condition is not stable.”
“Thank you very much for your services leach I am in your debt.” The emperor spoke in a relieved voice now the emperor was heading back to his own tent escorted by his bodyguards.
As he approached the tent two men were waiting outside. “Ah General Narses, General Comentiolus, Theodosius is alive, I have never been more happier then I am now, what is the status of our troops.
Both Comentiolus and Narses looked at each other what would they tell him, as their situation was bad really bad, their army cant just march as the soldiers were exhausted and even if they could were would they go? The men were thinking how to break it to the emperor. They looked at each other for a moment searching for the right words to say. Then Comentiolus spoke
“We are bad in a bad situation your Imperator”
“Our men are exhausted, outnumbered and we will soon be besieged. Our best chance for victory is to send a scout to Constantinople and get troops from the East”.
“In the mean time”
“In the mean time” interrupted Narses as Comentiolus was speaking because Comentiolus looked like he was having a hard time speaking.
“We have two options we can reinforce Adrianople and prepare for a long siege, or we can make a last stand outside the city”.
The emperor looked a bit overwhelmed a little while ago he had heard the first good news in a long and now he was going to have to make a difficult decision.
In a determined voice the emperor responded, “Prepare the troops we march in a few hours,”
Both men looked shocked but how could they march they lost a lot of men and the remaining soldiers looked extremely exhausted.
“Your majesty that might not be a good idea the soldiers are already exhausted, we could have another revolt please reconsider” spoke Narses as he banged the table.
“Relax general I have a plan,” responded Maurice in a calming voice while pointing outside.
“We ride in three hours, Genera Narses bring me several Scorpions and two Onagers with a lot of Vassals the same ones we used today”. “I am going to end this today”. The emperor pointed to the map as he was talking.
“It’s a mad plan what if you get captured or ambushed?” responded general Comentiolus
“What ever may happen the die is cast” spoke the emperor as all men soon dispersed to their various jobs.
Rebel camp March 3rd 603 AD 22.30
Constantine the soldier that defected a long with his cavalry unit a few months earlier was an austere man with little time for pleasure. Having been raised in a strict household he despised wealth and saw drinking and gambling as sins. A few hours earlier he had survived the battle but barely and he was increasingly resenting his decision to join the rebellion. At first he saw it as a great chance to get a saner emperor who didn’t cut money but now he was increasingly resenting the rebels with their lack of discipline, respect and brutality to the civilians.
The rebel army wasn’t as united as it seemed and each rebel commander ran their unit they way they wanted to. The authority of Phocas was partially recognized and most soldiers were loyal to their unit rather then Phocas and his higher ups. The only thing that kept them together was victory and some time the rebel soldiers would fight among themselves for spoils and petty disputes. Tonight the soldiers in Phocas’s army was drinking hard, some were having sex with prostitutes and others were trying to stay out of everything and trying to make it as things could get very violent in this kind of environment.
Constantine had kept his men together and maintained discipline by inspiring fierce loyalty in them.
Constantine entered Phocas’s camp the place was the scene of pure debauchery.
“Ah Constantine come in wine, a women perhaps?” obviously intoxicated Phocas’s was oblivious to what was happening outside.
“No thank you I have important news” Constantine responded in a firm voice.
“Oh do relax Constantine the war is over, we have won, the old emperor is dead and soon those fools or what ever is left will give in”.
“Well all do respect sir but the war is far from over only a quarter of the troops in the Balkans support us and Asia minor, Italy, Syria, Ayegptus, North Africa are loyal to Maurice”.
“How will you deal with them, another massacre perhaps?” barked Constantine in a malevolent voice.
“Now in regards to my news oh yes your being attacked Maurice’s army is attacking us right now there using those Onagers, many have all ready died outside”.
“Its pure anarchy, a lot of the soldiers want you dead” spoke Constantine in calm but cold voice.
“We are going to give them their request” screamed Constantine as he lifted his sword ready to kill the usurper.
Constantine’s soldiers without much resistance killed all Phocas’s men who were inside the tent.
Phocas was alone he got up but fell again; he was so drunk that he couldn’t even stand up straight.
“You dare raise your sword on your own emperor traitors, I will have you head on a pike for this” barked Phocas as he finally stood up raising his own sword.
A battle soon ensued and in one blow as Phocas moved to attack Constantine his sword fell. Constantine now had Phocas by his hands before he killed Phocas he spoke in a soft yet proud voice “emperor Maurice sends his regards”. As the blade entered Phocas killing and he laid on the floor. Another of Constantine’s men cut off Phocas’s head and stored it in a bag. Soon Constantine and his men headed towards Maurice’s army positions. __________________
[FONT="]Chapter 18: Bloodbath[/FONT]
By mid March of 603 AD the death of the usurper Phocas at the hands of his own troops resulted in the collapse of the rebellion. The night assault on the rebel camp had destroyed their morale and with the rebels completely surrounded although not aware of the loyalist army’s number decided to surrender in hopes of mercy from the emperor. Emperor Maurice feeling generous and not wanting more trouble from his troops decided to reinstate all of the soldiers back to their positions if they hand over the ringleaders of the rebellion. The soldiers with a bit of resentment quickly handed over many of their own commanders.
The rebel leaders were executed and over the next few weeks their heads were sent to various parts of the empire as proof that the rebellion was over. The rebellion did teach the emperor a lot of hard lessons that included being pragmatic in foreign policy in terms of paying tribute for peace, not openly reducing the military budget and most valuably it taught him if something goes wrong blame it on some one else. With the end of the rebellion the rebels were dispersed to rejoin their old units under careful supervision. Emperor Maurice on the other hand marched his 8,000 strong army to Constantinople arriving in early April as he had unfinished business with the Blues.
On arriving he found Constantinople to be a war zone with various factions fighting it out. The army along with the greens massacred over tens of thousands of rioters and rebelling citizens, he also seized the property of a lot of wealthy individuals who had supported the rebels. The money and property was distributed to the soldiers, sent to Italy and the rest went to the imperial treasury. By May half of Constantinople laid in ruins and over 50,000 individuals were killed in the military operation to restore order. It would take a long time to rebuild the damaged parts of Constantinople and the emperor was going to use money seized from wealthy individuals to rebuild. He learned his lessons from taxing the poor and the peasantry. The emperor was going to
Portray himself as a man defending the people.
Over the course of the rebellion the empire was quiet with the provinces waiting and seeing who was going to win. By early 604 AD Theodosius had recovered fully from his injures and was taking on more of the emperor duties. For the emperor there was no one else then Theodosius who would be emperor he had groomed his son for power for a long time. In this period The Empire was moving towards a more free market oriented system as Italy and the East were recovering very quickly from decades of conflict. Peace was in the air and with that came a lot of new ideas that would improve the way of life in the Roman Empire.
[FONT="]
Chapter 20: Brave new world [/FONT]
Ctesiphon was one of the largest and richest cities in the world and it rivaled Constantinople in its opulence. It was a city filled with palaces, gardens, bustling bazars and much more. Here you can find anything you are looking for weather spices from India or silk from china and even Roman goods were sold here. The city was the capital of the Sassanid Persian Empire who’s leaders saw themselves as heirs of Cyrus and Xerxes. Kvadah II was the current ruler of this great empire and under his leadership the country was experiencing a time of economic and cultural boom. The prosperity produced by the peace allowed the inhabitants to become richer and everyone was going in on it.
The reason for the wealth of their empire wasn’t just the peace with the Romans it was because of their strategic positions. They controlled some of the most important parts of the Silk Road allowing them to become even wealthier through trade with the Romans, Chinese and Indians. In the late 590s the Shahanshah (King of kings) Kvadah II had conquered Yemen that made them even stronger because now they controlled the entrance to the read sea allowing them to control the trade route between Roman Egypt and the Rich Indian ports. The Shahanshah after having learned of the rebellion in the Roman Empire was preparing to invade the Roman Empire in order to avenge Maurice because he owed his throne to Maurice. However like any power hungry leader it didn’t mean that wasn’t going to take territory.
Ctesiphon imperial place May 604 AD
The Persian king had something troubling him for a long time. For the past four months a civil war had broken out in the Roman Empire that heightened tensions between both sides. Kvadah had been constantly getting contradicting reports from the front on the progress of the Civil war in that empire. Now he was going to get the news he wanted.
“Shahahah I have news” Burst his Vizier Adhur who was his chief minister
“Maurice he is victories, the rebel’s are annihilated”.
For a moment Kvadah had a relieved look on his face that he had to hide immediately as Adhur was war hawk who wanted a new war with the Romans
In a cold voice he responded “Good, that will spare us a war.”
“Adhur I feel that we have been at peace for too long” sounding confident
“That’s a good I want a military expedition”
“Where to?”
“Well we cant invade the Romans, there’s nothing in the North or the west. India I wasn’t Sindh”
“Why?” Adhur wondered
“My dear vizier because we can expand our influence in the region so that we can pressure the Indians to not trade with the Romans that’s why”
“Ah good plan, I will inform our generals we will begin preparations Shahanshah” responded Adhur as he was leaving the room.
“Oh one more thing Vizier do send a letter to emperor Maurice on my behalf congratulating him on his how shall we saw good health and inviting him to a meeting with me”
“I believe its time we met again” Kvadah finished speaking as Adhur nodded in agreement and left the room.
In the Roman empire Maurice had spent most of 604 AD cleaning up the mess that Phocas had done in the Balkans. The emperor didn’t trust the armies of the Danube because of their previous rebellion. Instead using the money he seized from the rich the emperor began re assigning those troops to the East while several eastern legions were being slowly transferred to the Danube. The emperor eased up on his plan to totally militarize the Danube region instead he was willing to play a policy of divide and conquer with the troublesome tribes. The emperor was planning an expedition to Italy to secure the heartland from the Lombards he did this because he wanted to follow up on his plan with reintegrating Italy into the empire and strengthening ties to the papacy. __________________
Chapter 21: Look to the west
The kingdom of Franks was along with the Roman Empire and The Visigoths one of the three super powers of Western Europe it had been forged a century earlier by its legendary leader Clovis. A man whose military brilliance rivaled that of Julius Caesar and like Caesar he was able to conquer all of Gaul through military brilliance, cunning and duplicity. Clovis Also united the Franks who were divided into different tribes and he was also the first Frankish King to convert to Christianity this made the Franks become Christians. King Clovis also left his legacy in the form of his dynasty the Merovingian’s that by 604 AD still ruled Gaul. However the Frankish realm was by this time internally divided into three sections following the death of the previous king Chlothar I. It had been divided amongst his three sons who ruled Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine.
In 604 the Kingdom of Burgundy was one of the most powerful parts of the Frankish domain. It was in a strategic position as it bordered Austrasia, Aquitanie, Roman Italy and Lombard controlled Italy. Its king Theuderic II ruled the territory officially but unofficially his grandmother Queen Burnhilda controlled the kingdom as his regent. The Queen Burnhilda in 604 AD was a powerful women and she had a lover called Protadius whom she wanted to raise to a position of power. That position was mayor of the palace a position that who ever filed would become the prime minister in essence. However for Bornhilda that position was already filled by Berthold a noble man of influence within the kingdom. In early march of 604AD Queen Burnhilda convinced Theuderic to kill Berthold when he was on assignment to inspect one of the royal villas. Berthold was a courageous, honest and decent warrior he took with him about 500 men to perform the mission.
While on route the other Frankish king Clotaire II who ruled Neustria learned about the group and sent an army under the command of his son Merovech to attack and kill Berthold. Berthold was now the most wanted man in the Frankish realm and he fled to Orleans a city named after the legendary 3rd century emperor Aurelian. Merovech perused Berthold to Orleans and besieged the city however this was a god sent to Berthold because Merovech had violated a peace treaty put in place a few years ago. King Theuderic longing for glory and a chance to prove him declared war on his brother King Clotaire in mid 604AD. Theuderic sent a force that relieved Orleans and soon after returning Berthold began military preparations for the eventual war to come. Although his position was still not secure and assassination attempts were frequent his luck however soon changed when Queen Burnhilda and her lover Protadius were “caught in the act” together. King Theuderic order the execution of Protadius while he sent his own grandmother into a monastery
Following the scandal Berthold position became even more secure and he continued the military preparations. Berthold was also interested in Lombard soldiers so the Kingdom of Burgundy and main Lombard duchy, the Duchy of Milan signed an alliance with one another. In this alliance the two sides agreed they would come to each other’s aid and plot a war against the Romans. The armies of King Clotaire and Theuderic met on Christmas day 604 Near Etampes in Paris. The fighting was savage but with support from his newly gained Lombard allies King Theuderic won the battle and took Paris. Both brothers soon signed a peace treaty that was favorable towards Theuderic, granted him some land in the north of his kingdom and greater diplomatic independence form the Frankish realm. But Theuderic would not gain the title “King of the Franks” something that he wanted because it would give him the opportunity to rule the domain as one king. However that goal would have to wait until he would have a chance to kill his brothers and gain that title. In the meantime the Frankish realm was divided into different states with equally ambitious leaders seeking to gain power for themselves each allying with different foreign and regional powers in order to do so.
Earlier in the year 604AD pope Gregory the great had died of natural causes after fourteen years as being pope. He was pope at a particularly difficult time for the church and for the Roman empire as a whole because it Italy was still in a never ending struggle between the Lombards and Romans, the influence of the church was limited outside of Italy and there was constant war through out the known world. By the end of his time as pope there was still war, carnage but it had decreased considerably, Italy was somewhat stable which allowed for a recovery and in Gaul the church was starting to re assert its influence. The Church under his leadership was able to reassert its influence in Rome because of his relationship with the emperor and the military campaigns the emperor launched that regained the headland of Italy. Another reason for the success was the church through donations and other funding was launching many infrastructure projects that recruited locals such the Catanzaro to Rome highway to connect Rome to southern Italy. After completing the project the church would get a small 5% share of the profit.
These projects helped revitalize the local economy and infrastructure in southern Italy. There was an increasingly north/south divide as the south was prosperous while the north was poorer and had weaker infrastructure. Pope Gregory partially succeeded in revitalizing the churches influence outside of Italy by sending his famous Gregorian mission to convert the northern peoples in Germania and Scandinavia. The church had a fairly strong influence in Roman and Visigothic Spain because emperor Maurice allowed the church and the western senate to have greater influence in Roman Spain as part of his effort to ease tensions between the province and Constantinople. By 604 Ad the church was playing an increasingly important role in Spain as it helped mediate disputes between the authorities and revitalize the economy there.
Only in Gaul did the church have partial success because it was divided into different states and some were hostile to the church but had to maintain good relations with it because there population was Catholic While the rulers of other states were happy to maintain friendly relations with the church in exchange for money and diplomatic support. The death of pope Gregory was a hard blow for emperor Maurice’s effort to stabilize the west because he had lost a valuable ally and the next pope may not be so cooperative. Roman North Africa and its client state Mauritania were the most stable and prosperous regions in the western Madeternian kept stable by trade, wheat production exchange of Ideas. In late 604 AD with his position firmly secure and Constantinople under control the emperor appointed his own son Tiberius as Exarch of North Africa to gain experience in governing and he feared that the old Exert Heraclius the elder was getting to powerful. The eighteen year old was eager to go because he wanted to prove himself and grow from the shadows of his older brother. Theodosius on the other hand was appointed exarch of Illyricum in order to gain military experience and dislodge rumors about his apparent torcher of animals.
The emperor didn’t have a choice in who would replace the Pope that was done by tradition and the various cardinals from Europe would decide the future pope. A decision that the emperor couldn’t control and he was worried about it as well because a hostile pope could make his job a lot harder.
The Iberian Peninsula was divided by 604 AD divided into three states Roman Spania in the south, Visigothic kingdom that covered most of the heartland it also had the Gallic province of Septania that had the important city of Marseille. The Visconti Basque tribes were fiercely independent and controlled the north east of Hispania and bordered the Visigothic kingdom to the south and the Frankish duchy of Aquantine in the north. There north of the Peninsula was fairly stable but the south was a tug of war between the Romans and Visigoths. In early 605AD King Theuderic II who had consolidated his power base made increased the alliance with the Lombards and franks by also including the Visigoths. They were going to cement their new alliance by building a high way that stretched from Mediolium (Milan) in Lombard controlled Italy to Toledo that would pass through Frankish Toulouse and Visigothic Marseille. This super high Theuderic hoped would allow them to easily transport troops and make their kingdoms richer by increasing trade.
Despite the Franks being seen as barbarians by the Romans they weren’t really. In fact they were an advanced civilization who were experts at building cathedrals, building and a lot of other things. They also had an administration system that they inherited from the Romans. In fact they kept the roman administration that was all ready in place and left the mostly roman population to itself and this also occurred in Visigothic Spain and Lombard Italy. In early 505 AD the senate in Rome after careful debate and heated arguments with emperor Maurice declared proclaimed an Italian native by the name of Sabinian as pope. Sabinian was an old man with not a lot left in him but he was chosen because he was seen as a compromise between both the senate and emperor as the Italian heartland continued to recover it wanted to regain its influence. Elsewhere the Balkans were pretty quiet with emperor Maurice firmly in place the neither the Slavs nor the Avars wanted to attack fearing retribution. Britain was still a mess divided into different states and far away from the action and it was also being slowly taken over by Saxons who were attacking the rich monasteries on the coast.
[FONT="]Chapter 22: The triumvirate [/FONT]
In 605 AD the coalition that the Visigothic, Lombards and Franks had formed earlier was start starting to seriously materialize. They began by increasing prices on Roman imported goods and were taking other measure to undermine the empire. In the East to India the Sassanid king Kvadah had launched his invasion of Ab-e-sind (Sind) in an effort to increase the power and size of the Persian Empire. It was also aimed at influencing the Indian kingdoms like the Kingdom of Valabhi and Chalukyas so that they will increase prices on Roman goods in order to put pressure on the Romans. Kvadah was planning to damage the Roman economy in the long term by stripping them of valuable revenue from trade with the Indians. Although Kvadah saw Maurice as a good ruler he was above all a Persian and he wanted to return the empire to its former glory to the time of Xerxes and Cyrus. Kvadah was going to use everything he could regardless of who was running the Roman Empire to achieve his goal. For Kvadah the military expedition into Sindh was just the beginning.
Meanwhile in mid 605 AD Western Europe the triumvirate between the Visigothic, Lombards and Franks was continuing to improve and expand. The high way that would stretch from Mediolium (Milan) in Lombard controlled Italy to Toledo in Visigothic Spain was beginning to connect rapidly. It was easy to construct this highway because the necessary infrastructure was all ready there. The triumvirate only needed to either rebuild or repave the roads and then connect the roads to the main ones. The high way was a project on a massive scale and it usually involved funding from the Catholic Church who did this not because they were oblivious to the intentions of the alliance. This is because the project was done on a local level as not to arouse suspicion and the Church got in because it wanted to make money from the tolls imposed on the passes on the road. The alliance was increasing the prices on Roman goods such as wine and wheat on a gradual level so that the traders wouldn’t notice. The alliance also began to produce their own products like wheat by improving infrastructure and lowering taxes on their goods. In essence they were practicing protectionism in order to both improve their economics and weakens the Roman Empire.
The members of the anti roman alliance had their own reasons for joining in. On paper and in reality they were all hostile to each other and two of the members had fought a war against each other. However the two main things that united the triumvirate was religion all three powers were catholic and considered the Roman Empire based in Constantinople to be heretics. They also regarded the pope as being a hostage of those heretics who needed to be liberated from their grasp. On an individual basis each power had different reasons to hate the Romans: the Visigoths saw the Romans as traitors and oath breakers because during the reign of Justinian they took over huge parts of southern Spain while assisting in a civil war. The Romans never returned that territory and the Visigoths never gave up their claim.
Out of all the members in the alliance the Lombards were probably the most aggressive and warlike. Similar to the Visigoths their “affair” with the Romans began during the reign of Justinian. This is when one of Justinian’s main general Narses hired them as mercenaries to fight in Italy against the Ostrogoth’s during the Eastern Roman empire’s invasion of Italy. At first he welcomed the troops but as the war dragged on Narses got weary of their savagery and lack of discipline so Narses shipped them out. But the Lombards got a taste of rich Italian life and wanted to be a part of it. In 569 AD barely four years after the recon quest of Italy by the Roman army Narses “invited” the Lombards to migrate there after he lost his position as governor when Justin II replaced him. Soon they easily took over most of the North and the heartland of Italy.This is because the peninsula was not well defended as the Roman Empire was overstretched and lacked the resources to defend Italy. By 605 AD the Lombards were in a weak position thanks to Maurice’s Italian campaigns that reduced Lombard power. Their power was limited to northern Italy and one duchy in the center. When the Lombard king Agilulf was presented with an opportunity to regain lost ground by forming an alliance with the Visigoths and Franks who pretty much had the same goals.
Out of the alliance the Franks didn’t really hold any grudges on the Romans it wasn’t “personal” they were only in it in the hopes of gaining territory. As the Frankish realm was divided into different kingdoms the Kingdom of Burgundy was the one that participated in the alliance hoping to gain territory and prestige.
The Romans didn’t really react well to the changing climate both in the east and west because they did notice some changes but they weren’t really obvious to them what was going on. The emperor was constantly occupied with internal matters as the Italian senate was continuing to disagree with him and the blue faction was undermining him at every turn. The year 606 had passed quietly with not much happening except for the death of the new pope and his replacement would be a headache for the emperor. In 606 AD the Indian king Harsha of Thanesar establish a north Indian empire by conquering the smaller kingdoms and establishing an Alliance with the Sassanid empire. Harsha and Kvadah alliance was securing power for each other as Kvadah provided support in the form of engineers and soldiers while Harsha pressured the Southern Indian powers to increase prices on Roman goods. This was done by force if necessary.
The situation in 606 AD
[FONT="]Chapter 23: Here and back again[/FONT]
[FONT="]Antiplois Gaul, March 5th 607 AD[/FONT]
[FONT="]City Market place, [/FONT]
Flavius Adrinius was a roman merchant from North Africa who regularly travelled to the Gallic city of Antiplois. There he traded Roman goods such as Wheat and silk in exchange for pottery and valuable metals.
Flavius was now back in Antiplois a city he had been trading in for a long time but things were getting tougher
Flavius looked at Alaric a trader whom he had done business with
“How much you say for this wine Alaric?”
“Five denarii’s my friend”
“If I remember correctly Alaric. It was two denarii’s for one barrel last week and this batch tastes like piss”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well its not my fault dear Flavius but I get this from the farmers and I give it to you at good prices, if you go to Gunther its 7 while Narses is 12 per barrel”
Flavius was now angry “well since you don’t have any good wine, good day send an errand boy when you get some”
“Other wise don’t bother I am busy”.
Flavius left Alaric’s stand and went to his fellow merchant Tullius
“How did it go?” Tullius asked anxiously as Alaric wasn’t the first merchant they had approached
“Not well I am afraid Good Tullius, the bastard takes me for a fool 5 denarii for a barrel it used to be two denarri at best 3 but 5”.
“Oh, I haven’t had much luck either I am afraid, my silk wont sell for 12 denarii”
Flavius saw a worried look on Tullius’s face
“Good Flavius, this isn’t easy but I am going to return to Cartago Nova there isn’t any here for me any more”
“You know how they treat us here now, I go back and sell to the army they want a lot of silk, maybe start my own winery from Greece”
As Flavius was about to talk several soldiers disembarked from their horses and headed to the center of the market place.
From a distance Tullius could see a large man talk
“On orders of his highness Theuderic II, king of Burgundy, the prices for Roman imported goods will have an added tax of three denarii”
“Further more those trading with the Romans will require trading license while Romans trading with our merchants will require a trading license”
The soldier continued to speak in a loud voice “These coast about 12 denarii and are valid for a period of 3 months, anyone caught without one will have there property confiscated and sent to prison”
Soon the soldiers left the center and rode off
“Well Tullius our day now cant get any worse, I think I might join you in leaving this dreaded place”
“Where will you head to good Flavius?”
“Constantinople, I know some one they’re who knows some one”
“Ah great opportunity, I have all ways wanted to visit never got the chance I hear its beautiful in the spring, enjoy your and take care” Both men soon departed
What Tullius and Flavius faced in Frankish ports was similar to what other Roman merchants were dealing with in Triumvirate ports. Those gradual changes that the leaders of the Triumvirate set a few years earlier were now becoming more apparent and this coast the Romans a lot in terms of the economy. For Maurice the decline in trade meant less tax revenues to spend on maintaining the army and the ambitious infrastructure programs in southern Italy. In Rome the senate along with the regional cardinals declared a bishop by the name of John Cataadioce to Saint Peters throne.
He was known as Boniface III and he was a middle-aged man who was a good friend of the pope Gregory. Boniface was a simple man who didn’t care for luxury and sent a letter to emperor Maurice urging him to cut the luxury in his court and be more merciful to his enemies. He also urged the emperor to persuade the heretic monotheists to the “true light”.
For the emperor this message was a clear sign that this pope was going to be trouble for him. The remnants of the blues who had survived were scattered around the empire and some had even taken up residence with the Visigothic and Burgandian
Courts. They wanted revenge and above all the chance to return home, they knew while Maurice was emperor they would never see that happen. The blues were the ones advising the Visigoths and Franks on bureaucracy, infrastructure and even diplomacy. Aggripus was one of the Blues originally from Bithynia in Asia Minor he was a soldier who defected to Phocas early on and when Phocas lost he headed west joining the Franks earning a high rank because of his experience. Now he was training the Franks in Roman warfare hoping for the chance to return back home, he also had the ear of the Frankish king.
The western senate was in its current from creation of the emperor Maurice it was like a child that turned away from its parents. It was increasingly becoming out of control fueled by a desire to gain greater independence from Constantinople and perhaps even restarting the western empire. What gave the senate its fuel and power was the church and economy because those were pouring money that helped made southern Italy prosperous and many of the senators were getting richer from the land there. As they got richer there power grew. The emperor would need to deal with them or else they would threaten rebellion on the empire itself. The senate was also given advice by blue remnants as well. For the emperor the empire he had worked so hard to build up and improve was becoming increasingly against him. Fueled by hatred from the blue factions and his increasing in ability to deal with them and improve the weakening economy.
By 608 AD as the Frankish realm was still divided the Triumvirate was still growing strong and soon it faced its first real test. Raising prices on Romans was one thing but in July of 608 AD Merovech had become king of Neustria and his father Clotaire II who died a defeated man was still bitter about his dads defeat at the hands of Theuderic. He wanted revenge for the humiliation his family suffered a few years earlier Merovech was a smart ruler and he started by building an alliance with the ruler of Aquitanie in order to start building up his forces for the upcoming war.
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Chapter 24: Between a rock and a hard place
Part 1
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In mid 608 AD having assembled his forces from different areas across Neustria the new king Merovech II began deploying his troops along with his Aquantine allies near the Burgandian border. Merovech was going to split his forces into two and launch a two front strike. The first strike would involve the Neustrian army attacking and capturing the Burgandian city of Augustodunum. While the Aquantine army would directly besiege the Burgandian capital of Lyon in hopes of quickly ending the war. Merovech had hoped that by splitting his forces he would increase his chance of victory and minimize the risk of a catastrophic defeat by gambling everything in a single battle.
In military terms the Lombards and Visigoths structure were very similar. They were made up of a regional king who would call on the local dukes. These regional dukes would provide the troops for the king to fight in the war. The Lombard and Visigoth dukes participated in the wars because they wanted to increase their wealth and prestige among their subjects. Also for the kings especially a new one like Merovech war was an opportunity of proving your ability to lead, distracting the lords so they wont revolt and above all else increase your influence with your kingdom.
In the Madeternian region the Franks had the most advanced army that rivaled the Romans in terms of discipline and professionalism. The Frankish army was a weird mix of traditions, tactics and strategy as it incorporated both Barbarian and Roman elements. The reason for this weird mix was because unlike the Visigoths and Lombards before the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Franks were Germanic peoples across the Rhine. They had been serving in the Roman armies ranks and interacting with the Romans for centuries acting in the capacity of allies, enemies, hired mercenaries and wild cards.
Despite interacting with the Romans for a very long time the Franks maintained their own tradition and were never fully romanized. By the time the western empire fell two centuries earlier they all ready were using Roman military tactics and strategy for their own benefit. In mid 608 AD their armies were semi professional, organized along Roman military lines e.g. clear structure. They were also made up of their own soldiers, Gallo-roman soldiers who still had legionary uniforms, mercenaries and allies from different regions across the lines.
The Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic customs with Romanized organizations and several important tactics as will be seen in the war. The Frankish army was made up of primarily foot infantry with each individual carrying a sword, axe. The Frank had cavalry with the cavalrymen carrying spears along with the standard sword and axe. However beyond the basic weapons of each soldier they didn’t have advanced things like Javiers. For the Franks this blend of barbarian and Roman gave them the advantage of being able to utilize their military more effectively then their opponents.
In July of 608AD Merovech began transporting his troops down the Loire River from the city of tours. He had brought about five thousand soldiers with him ready to fight they included Gallo romans, archers, engineers, heavy cavalry and some specialists. Aggripus had in a twist of irony become Merovech’s mayor of the palace and he was using his skills and tactics to win the day. Merovech was using typical Frankish tactics that revolved around taking fortified positions and expanding control over those positions.
King Theuderic didn’t see the war against his cousin as a distraction but rather as an opportunity to prove himself again against any enemy who would challenge him. Theuderic had no intention of being bogged down in a fight near his capital city like what happened to his cousin a few years earlier. Instead Theuderic with the advice of his generals decided to confront Merovech’s army at their landing site near the Loire River. In order to do this Theodoric after getting the intelligence from his scouts who had been monitoring the Loire River decided to first let the enemy army come in large numbers and establish a beachhead.
Theuderic was then going to order his archers to launch arrows on the enemy and a cavalry charge in order to inflict as much damage as possible. The battle began on July 12 of 608 AD as Merovech was landing has 5,000 man strong army, the Burgandian archers immediately began firing their arrows towards the approaching army killing many who landed in the first wave. The second wave knew about the archers and instead came in with them holding their shields when they landed.
The second wave landed successfully with minimal causalities and soon began building a beachhead that continually expanded and by early afternoon they had reached the archers positions. However the archers had withdrawn earlier and Theuderic had underestimated the size of Merovech’s army. Believing that the second wave was the main army decided to prepare his cavalry for a charge to finish the job. Theuderic was however unaware that Merovech had a larger army and there were two more groups but were kept back until they were given orders that a secure beachhead had been established.
Unaware of the true strength of the enemy Theuderic’s cavalry charged the enemy and suffered heavy losses forcing the remaining men to retreat to a nearby town. By the end of the day Merovech had transported all of his army on shore and began marching towards the Burgandian town of Augustodunum. The city of Augustodunum it self wasn’t important strategically but Merovech wanted to distract Theuderic so that his forces would be easily defeated in hopes of a quick victory. By the third day of Merovech’s invasion his army had reached the outskirts of the city but wasn’t about to besiege it.
Elsewhere the Aquantine army 12,000 men strong was beginning to besiege the Burgandian capital of Lyon and was making head way across the nearby area with soldiers raiding the villages for food, gold and women. Berthold Mayor of the Burgandian palace was holdup in Lyon and was commanding the cities defense. He was going to hold until reinforcement’s arrived from other Burgandian forces to relieve the siege. Theuderic meanwhile was stuck between the cities of Augustodunum and Lyon not being able to make a decision quickly because if he relieves one city he could face more problems.
All though the Triumvirate did exist Theuderic didn’t really trust the Visigoths whom he saw as weak and he also didn’t trust the Lombards because he thought they were too warlike but he chose to send for reinforcements to the Lombards. He was again going to use their help to salvage the situation like they helped him in Etampes a few years ago. For the Lombards one of the main reasons to join the alliance was protection from the Romans who were on the offensive ever since 600 AD. In mid July of 608 AD Theuderic sent the message to his allies by the super high way the built and he hoped that they would get him assistance soon for he would need it.
To be continued
Chapter 24: Between a rock and a hard place Part 2
Merovech by the middle of July had completely encircled the city of Augustodunum after days of pillaging the nearby villages and towns for food and other useful resources. This resource gathering strategy was a tactic that was used by the Romans and Merovech realized the advantages of this because it allowed him to maintain good supplies and weaken the enemy. Merovech’s army was going to slowly starve the Augustodunum lifeline before finally storming it. Merovech also wanted to take back its famous rhetoric schools to his Capital in Paris in order to improve his kingdoms prestige. He hoped that the siege would end quickly so that he can move on and bring an additional 5,000 more soldiers to reinforce his army.
Mediolium July 28th 608 AD
Lombard Royal palace
“Scout Sigibert, the king see you now” spoke a guard in broken Latin.
Sigibert was the scout whom king Theuderic had sent to secure Lombard assistance against his cousin. He was a man in his mid thirties and had previous diplomatic experiences notably with Roman merchants. Sigibert entered a large room and could see a long dining table to his left while in front as he approached he saw a large middle-aged man with a thick beard. The room was mostly empty but was illuminated by lights from the windows.
“Neal before king Agiluf duke of Pavia, Milan and King of all the Longbards” spoke another guard in a thick accent. The scout had no choice but to do so. “Ah Frank what brings you to my great kingdom”. Not knowing how to proceeded the scout responded “well your majesty” The king then spoke in a sharp voice “Not Majesty, highness you pathetic little Frank,” “Do you take me for a Roman with their ‘civilized’ titles.” The guard was taken aback “I apologize your highness.” “King Theuderic sends his regards and he need for assistance against the Neustrian”.
“Scout Sigerts, we have an alliance but not with your pathetic affairs only against Rome” The scout looked at Agiluf while kneeling and muttered slowly he knew what he would say next would either make or break the alliance “Yes you do high, highness only against Romans but we have something of value we can give you gold, King Theuderic sends you a small token”. The scout stopped talking for a moment then “We will give you more gold if you join us in the war against the Neustrians”
Agiluf looked white as a ghost with no expression on his face “You think the great Longobards can be bribed by gold pathetic frank, No we cannot”. The scout almost fainted as he heard Agiluf muttering those words. As Sigert was about to speak Agiluf interrupted “Pathetic Frank we don’t want just gold we want Burgandian land, a few towns will do”. The scout looked a bit more encouraged “Well all do respect highness but I have not the authority to grant you this request”. Agiluf looked at Sigert “Frank send this request to the king, what waiting for go now”. Sigert soon left as he approached the door he heard someone shouting “Frank I will spare you 1500 men but it will coast you in our war against Rome”. Sigert nodded in agreement and left the room urgently, he would have to deal with the consequences later.
As Sigert left he thought to himself “I don’t know who to feel more sorry for even though were enemies those poor Romans who have to deal with the Lombards in Italy or the poor bastards who will fight these savages”.
By August 3rd of 608 AD Agiluf had kept his word and his 1500 reinforcements were hurried into a larger army that was quickly assembled in the town of Alisinum. It was a small sized sleepy town supported by agriculture but in the wake of the war the residents had fled to other cities. Increasingly by August towns like Alisinum that were close to the Aquantine and Neustrian borders were becoming ghost towns this would in the next few years create an agricultural crisis for the Burgandians. Theuderic was preparing his now 4,000 strong now reinforced by the Lombards to relieve Lyon and go on the offensive against the Aquantine kingdom.
Merovech by the 6th of August was confidant that his troops were ready and he ordered the attack that would end the siege of Augustodunum. In the days that preceded the attack Aggripus along with several engineers had built three siege towers that were going to be used in order to storm the cities walls. Aggrippus divided the besieging forces into three groups in order to stretch the defenders. One group would attack from the main gate; the other from the back and the third lead by him would attack from the left of the wall. These attacks would occur simultaneously in order to achieve the desired result quickly and decisively break the siege with little bloodshed.
In the days that preceded the attack Aggripus wanted to confuse and disorient the defenders. Aggripus had his troops constantly on maneuver and sounding horns to outside the city to give the illusion of an imminent attack with periods of absolute silence. The real attack however came at night a few days later and it happened after hours of silence from the Naustrian army. The attack began with a massive barrage from onagers and scorpions engineered using old-fashioned methods. These onagers were basic and could only be used a few times before being destroyed. In the middle of the night residents of the besieged city were violently awoken at the sound of loud screaming and the smell of fire from different places. The defenders were awake but many were tired from the psychological impact of the drums and they put up a good fight although it was a heroic yet futile effort.
By morning of the next day there was still fighting inside the city but Merovech’s forces had controlled most of it. In a few hours Aggripus had near total control of the city and offered the remaining defenders a chance to surrender. Many of the remaining fighters were so exhausted and didn’t see the point in fighting any more. Those fighters who could escape decided to flee elsewhere and those who couldn’t flee decided to surrender hoping that the Naustrians would be merciful in terms of their treatment of them.
With the fall of Augustodunum Merovech proceeded to reinforce his position by bringing another 5,000 soldiers. Those soldiers spread out with the all ready present forces and Aggripus quickly ordered them to capture nearby villages and small towns. His reinforcements also began building up a defensive line that was going to be made up of outposts, troop garrisons and a supply line. For Merovech this war was ultimately a battle of the wills in essence who can last the longest while sacrificing everything.
His cousin Theuderic wasn’t sitting ideally by instead after the Burgandian army was assembled it began moving towards Lyon in order to relieve the city. Theuderic by August 5th marched quickly in order to relieve his capital before doing so he sent a message to the Aquantines.
“From Theuderic duke of Burgundy and king of all the Franks, I give the Aquantines three days to withdraw their Aquantine scum out of my domain and back to your hell hole.” “On the third day we will hunt down any Aquantine scum and flay them alive. This is your only warning”. The Aquantines who were besieging the city didn’t take this message too kindly and decided to begin storming Lyon to show the “little boy” whose scum. On 6th of August while the Burgandian reinforcement was two days away the Aquantines began storming the city.
Lyon was before the fall of the western empire inhabited for thousands of years and was during the time of the empire the capital of Gaul. It was also one of the most richest and important areas of the whole Roman Empire. Even by the time of Frankish Gaul Lyon along with Marseille and Paris were the three most important economic powerhouses in the area. For the Aquantines the capture of Lyon would be an important strategic victory that would allow them to get rid of one of their rivals and increase their chances of controlling the entire Frankish domain.
By the time Theuderic troops arrived the Aquantines had all ready stormed the city and there was savage fighting inside that had been ongoing for a day and a half. This was because Berthold had reinforced the city and it was well defended by nearly 4,000 of the Burgandians best soldiers. As the fighting intensified Theuderic’s army was able to control the gates sealing the majority of the Aquantines in. However just as it looked like the Burgandians were about to win, a group of Aquantines was able to besiege the Burgandian king.
With Theuderic besieged and his personal guards outnumbered he made the only logical decision something that would haunt him for a long time to come. Theuderic only cared about his life and not any one else after all he was willing to sacrifice his own grandmother to survive. He negotiated with those soldiers in exchange for his life he would give them all the gold inside the city. The soldiers sent word to their King Clothar III who accepted the offer and Clothar soon met Theuderic who agreed to a truce and a night of celebration to end the hostility between them.
The Aquantine army was soon in a relaxed mood and the city had a celebratory feeling to it. However at night while half the Burgandians and Aquantines the Burgandians began to slowly but quietly massacre the Aquantines by the morning the city was filled with dead bodies including that of the Aquantine king Clothar III who was hanged and had his head made into a skull cap while his body was flayed. Theuderic earned scorn from many of his officals but since he was king he had the last word. Even the Lombards while known for their brutality objected. News quickly spread of the massacre and Theuderic soon sent a message to every major power informing them of his actions. “The Aquantine scum was warned what happened to them is what will happen to the Naustrians if they don’t withdraw”
Merovech received the news with complete shock even he wouldn’t do something like this. The campaigning season was over by September and the war with the Franks was not resolved. Elsewhere as 609 AD approached Theodosius the eldest son of Maurice was about to begin his invasion of northern Italy and the emperors health was slowly failing. __________________
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Chapter 25: The red serpent [/FONT]
Aquileia northern Italy Theodosius’s camp
February 5th 609 AD
Dear brother
I write this letter in response to your kind words.You wanted to know what life was like for me well I woke up today with a shiver as I realized it was freezing in my tent and then I felt my stomach make noises, I was hungry as well. General Theodosius as we liked to call him believed that we should be kept on a tight leash that means for an ordinary soldier like me little food, constant drilling and constant prayer to god for our dreaded sins. Today for me was no different then yesterday we would start in the morning with a two-hour prayer, then we would get a simple meal that would last us until the evening. This makes me miss mothers cooking during cena. At night we would have a heavier meal that involves bread, some wine and meat depending on where we are.
Life is to say the least hard and Ceaser Theodosius is not a kind man but a fair one who lives with us and drinks with us. He drills like everyone else and some times a few of the soldiers would go fishing as we are close to many nearby rivers. We are going to soon move towards Castellizo a small town controlled by the Lombards so that we can start this dreaded war. We are attacking them because the Ceaser believes that the Lombards are weaker from supplying troops to the Franks. The Ceaser promised that if we win we would be given Aquileia to be rebuilt by us and Mary along with Titus would love it here. Imagine little Titus running around while I build our house and Mary would spin something nice. The locals seem friendly but talk behind our backs seeing us as foreigners but they prefer us to the Lombards.
We have about 5,000 soldiers with us and expect to easily capture the town but the question is dear brother will the other duchies intervene. The only reason that Theodosius is doing this is because he wants to “earn” his military credentials before becoming emperor. If you ask me this is a waste of time and the men here can be used near the Dunav where the bloody Slavs raid our border, not to mention the Persians who are up to something. Cousin Tullius tells me the border there is quiet too quiet. Perhaps something good can come out of this.
I hope to see you all in April during the time of Easter. Tell mother and father that I love them and send my regards to everyone in Thessalonica Your loving brother Cornelius.
February 12th 609AD Northern Italy, Lombard outpost near Castellizo
Agiluf was a border watch who usually took a small toll from travelers. He had been a border guard for several months. It was a mild autumn day with a bit of a chill in the air “well my friends I am bored, Alboin since you got here any games to play?”
Alboin responded in a calm but serious voice “Agiluf I don’t think it is wise to be playing games right now”
Taken aback Agiluf spoke “You seem down today?”
“Well dear Agiluf I saw a red serpent today while I was dreaming it first hit you by the throat and squeezed you up until blood came out of your eyes.”
Alboin took a moment to breath “Then, when you were dead and on the ground your eyes wide open watching how it killed me, it came at me quickly wrapping it self around me until it reached my eyes I could see it had blood on its eyes and then it bit me”
After pausing “I could see myself from a distance as it ripped off my head and there we were I woke up breathing heavily”
“Albion that is a funny story my friend, we all know here your too stubborn to die that easily after all it took you 10 minutes to hunt that boar and eat it. Im sure you meant to leave some for us” (other men laugh)
A few hours later Agiluf was hearing sounds coming from a distance, “What was that sound Adaloald?”
“I don’t know, we sent Alboin with two others to find out, I am absolutely certain it is not his red serpent”
“Listen Adaloald I don’t know what is going to happen head to town tell them to stop all traffic and seal the gate until we find out”
“But my friend Agiluf you will get into trouble, I might but it is safer that go now”
Adaloald soon rode a horse and departed
Alboin came bursting back with two other men “Its the red serpent there here!!!”
Agiluf had serious stare on his face “It was a funny story but what is going on Alboin really?”
Adaloald “Its Romans and a lot of them?” Agiluf had a bad stare on his face “Tell the men too” Before Agiluf could continue a spear landed on his write leg and another one on his forehead instantly killing him.
Theodosius’s 5,000 men army began their invasion of the Duchy of Friuli by first taking the small but strategically important settlement of Castellizo. His army then proceeded to capture other smaller towns in the nearby areas and over the next few months expanded their control over a lot of territory. Until they were close to reaching the capital of the duchy of Friuli that was Forum Iulii. If Theodosius would successfully conquer the duchy then the Roman Empire would be able to reestablish a natural border against invading armies and other over the western side of the alps.
By April of 609 AD Theodosius was preparing for the siege of Forum Iulii and he was going to use something different in order to recapture it. The war had been going very well for Theodosius since the start because he had been mostly dealing with small towns and outposts allowing him to easily capture the area. His troops had been able to quickly capture a lot of territory because most of the Lombard troops belonging to the duchy were sent to Gaul to fight the Neustrians. At the same time the senate in Italy was quiet because there was a “ceaser” in Italy who promised to conquer the duchy of Friuli by Christmas.
In the west the Frankish civil war had reached a stalemate with neither side having the necessary manpower to finish off the other one. In order to deal with this problem Theuderic activated his alliance with the Visigoths and the Lombards. He used the excuse that the Romans had invaded the duchy of Friuli. The war of the first coalition was about to begin in 610 AD and it would consume the entire Madeternian. Towards the east the Persians had successfully turned Axum into a vassal state and forced them to begin a naval blockade of Red sea that would target Roman ships going to India.
[FONT="]Chapter 26: And so it begins[/FONT]
[FONT="]By January of 609 AD Emperor Maurice was now in his late sixties and spent most of his time in seclusion writing military manuals based on his experiences. The emperor also spent time with empress Constantina often in the gardens and for the past few years the affairs of state were becoming less important to him. Instead his sons Theodosius, Paulus who had returned from Africa and Justinian were making the important decisions. Theodosius was in Italy campaigning against Lombards and this made Justinian the man in charge of running the empire because of his administrative experience. While Paulus was an expert on legal and economic affairs and helped Justinian run the empire.[/FONT]
[FONT="]For Paulus and Justinian running the empire was a difficult task because they had to deal with a bad financial situation and multiple foreign crises. Their main concern however was the financial crisis that occurred as a result of a trade deficit. This deficit was happening because of the war in the Madeternian and the increasing Persian blockade of the trade routes in the east. The income for the empire was down from 12 million Solidi from the previous year to 10 million in 609 AD. The loss of income was very dangerous because it would force the empire to find new ways to fund the military and this often meant increasing taxes on the peasants. This was a problem because taxes were all ready high and increasing them even more would carry the risk of a revolt. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Paulus and Justinian had different ideas on how to run the economy and solve the empires financial crisis. On one hand Paulus believed that the problem with the empire was due to the ineffectiveness of the economic system rather then tax collection. He wanted to redraw the empires provinces in order to improve the efficiency of tax collection, put the tax burden on the rich while lowering taxes on the poor peasants. Finally he wanted to give tax breaks to farmers and merchants who found new ways of increasing the amount and quality of the products their profession yielded. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Justinian on the other hand believed that the government should increase taxes on the poor while gaining the support of the rich. He also wanted to give the rich a greater say in the way the economy should be run because they were the ones who had the wealth could create the jobs and keep the empire together. The clash of ideas didn’t really help the empire, as it needed a decision quickly in order to fund the new war in the west. [/FONT]
[FONT="]In order to break the deadlock the emperor intervened to the dismay of Justinian he agreed to both of the proposals. He would divide some of the provinces in the East, Africa and Italy. The provinces were to be divided based on population and the new provinces with bigger population would pay higher taxes while the provinces with lower populations would be entitled to tax cuts. At the same time the less populated provinces would be required to increase their population in order to maintain their tax cuts. Retired soldiers would be used to increase the less populated provinces. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The soldiers would farm the lands and thus increase the taxes for the empire. In the short term Justinian turned to “bread and circuses” to increase revenue. Justinian decided to reinstate the ancient Olympics held in Greece but removed some of the pagan elements in them. He also expanded the government’s postal service in order to get more revenue while borrowing money from several of the aristocratic and promised to pay them later in the form of land and booty from Italy. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The general situation of the empire in 609 AD was mixed the East was stable but with high tensions running through the eastern borders. Things were tense especially along the Persian borders where Roman soldiers along with their Ghassnid allies were on high alert all though trade in the east wasn’t that badly affected. However it was becoming more difficult to trade. In Italy the south was stable but by April was becoming less populated as many young men took the call of arms to join the war of liberation. In exchange for joining the army many men had expected to receive rich Italian lands in the south. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The recruits for the war effort didn’t just come from Italy they came from different parts of the empire, as there was a genuine sense of nationality and patriotism. These emotions were developed over the period of the reign of emperor Maurice as the empire slowly, painfully and gradually rebuilt it self from decades of decline and misfortune. That’s why Theodosius was in Italy in order to show solidarity with the Italians and improve his relationship with the local people. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The emperor and his family were extremely popular ever since he visited in 591 AD. He was popular because of the infrastructure programs that rebuilt much of the south and because he granted them a lot of autonomy. Theodosius returning to Italy, the heartland of where the empire originally started was seen by many as the emperor might return to Rome and make Italy the center of the empire again. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Augustundom April 15th 609 AD, [/FONT]
[FONT="]Neustrian occupation military headquarters [/FONT]
[FONT="]By mid April both the Neustrians and Burgandian Franks were formulating their own plans to end the civil war that had been ongoing for the previous year. At the command head quarters in Augustundom King Merovech was busy preparing his final battle plans. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The feeling within the room was one of exhaustion as everyone was tired of the constant warfare, raids and counter raids. Both Agrippus and Merovech were discussing the final war plans when an officer entered the room.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Louis came bursting into the room “Your highness I bring important news,”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Seeing that Louis had a hard time talking Agrippus told him “Catch your breath”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Thank you sir, the Visigoths have launched an invasion into Aquantine territory and they have also attacked Roman Spain”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Merovech was taken a bit by this he never thought that Theuderic would be this reckless. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Looking at Louis, Merovech began speaking in a firm voice “Send a message to the Austrasians, Baveri and Swabia tell them I want to make an alliance against Theuderic”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Merovech continued talking “tell them, tell them they can have as much Burgandian territory they want, tell them Theuderic is a monster that must be stopped before he comes after them as well”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Stunned Agrippus looked at Merovech “Well all do respect your majesty but are you seriously going to bring the Austrasians, Baveri and Swabia into this war?”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“I am afraid so, we need all the support we can get and with the Aquantines out of the war its only us left, to be honest my dear friend Agrippus I wont make an alliance with the Romans out of respect for you”[/FONT]
[FONT="]With the revelation Agrippus was a bit shocked he knew he had to win this war “Thank you your majesty I promise we will win this one”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Dear Agrippus I promise you as well when this war is over I will give you some land to rule over”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Thank you your majesty”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Agrippus now looked at Louis “Dispatch the messengers now with our terms”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Louis nodded in agreement and left the room while Merovech and Agrippus returned to their military planning. [/FONT]
[FONT="]By the 18th of April Theodosius who was personally commanding the second Italian legion that contained about 5,000 men was at Forum Julii. He was ready to begin the siege that would end the Duchy of Fruilli and for the empire this victory was essential as Forum Julii was the first major Roman city to fall to the Lombards a century earlier. Conquering it would mean legitimacy for Theodosius and a symbolic victory for the empire. In the past few days his army had marched from Castellizo towards the city encountering little resistance or no resistance along the way. [/FONT]
[FONT="]While marching towards Forum Julli the Roman army encountered burned out small villages and saw few people. From what Theodosius had gathered the new duke of Friuli, Tasso was getting desperate so he ordered every person able to fight to be conscripted into the city’s protection. Forum Julli was itself a strategically important city because who ever controlled it would control access to Italy itself. It was a small city with a population of 15,000 thousand but from what Theodosius estimated the population was probably increased by a few thousand. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Outside Forum Julli, Roman military camp [/FONT]18 April 609 AD
[FONT="]Theodosius was in front of his army while riding his horse; he was giving a speech before beginning the battle [/FONT]
[FONT="]“Men, it’s been a difficult journey getting here we have marched a long way and I know a lot of you come from Africa, Syria, Aegyptus and Italy.”
“We are all here for one thing because we believe in Rome, we believe in the empire and we are fighting for Country and God today”
“This is only one small battle rest assured many more will come but as long as we fight hard enough we will win” “I see a victory today, now on to our bloody business”[/FONT]
[FONT="]After Theodosius gave his speech several assembled Onagers began launching fire rocks at the walls of which a large section fell. Instantly killing all the defenders in that section after that Theodosius ordered two cohorts to enter the city through the broken section. Despite the objections of his military commanders Theodosius ordered two more cohorts to storm the main gate by using a battering ram. As the first wave of soldiers approached a lot of archers positioned in the wall killed many of the attacking soldiers. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Theodosius knew that the Lombards weren’t going to make it easy for him as the first wave of attacking soldiers retreated along with the wounded. A senior Centurion by the name of Constantine who helped the emperor survives during Phocas’s rebellion was the one storming the city from the breached section. Since he had learned about the disastrous first assault against the main gate Constantine decided against launching a full assault.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Instead he decided to use his Hunnic cavalry, Scorpions and a few onagers to soften the defenses before launching a new assaults. It took a few hours for Constantine to set up everything his troops began the attack at noon with archers firing from horses, Scorpios launching projectiles and onagers firing rocks. Constantine proceeded with the assault for thirty minutes and then he sent in his ground forces. Who were able to quickly establish a zone of control inside the city but there was still heavy fighting inside. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Unknown to Theodosius the Lombards had focused most of their forces on containing the breach leaving a few soldiers for the defense of the main gate. A few hours after the failed assault, 2 cohorts moved towards the main gate backed up by roman projectiles that paralyzed the remaining defenders and prevented them from launching a counter strike. This time the attacking Roman soldiers were able to successfully use the battering ram breaching the main gate and with most of the defenders on the other side Theodosius's troops were able to successfully fan out inside the city. [/FONT]
[FONT="]As Theodosius’s troops now entered the city there was savage fighting inside and by evening it was all over as the Roman army battled it was towards the citadel from different directions. The duke Tasso decided to surrender instead of prolonging the fight he hoped that he could continue to rule as a client of the Romans. After the surrender of the Duke, Theodosius restrained his troops from pillaging and looting instead he paid them money from the dukes treasury and sent the rest of the money to Constantinople. Theodosius then made Constantine military governor of the city while placing Tasso under house arrest. [/FONT]
[FONT="]With the fall of the Forum Julli the duchy of Friuli had ceased to exist the remaining territory had been carved up between the Romans and the Lombard. This was a first come first server approach as scouts from the different states moved quickly to establish a presence. Theodosius spent the next few months securing his side of the Alpine passes, sending scouting missions on raids to test Lombard defenses. The situation in Italy was tense, the Senate in Rome was thrilled about the news however the Lombard duchies of Tuscany and Spoleto were not happy and were preparing for war.
The duke of Benevento a Lombard duchy boarding Spoleto pledged his allegiance to the Romans as his duchy was a de facto Roman territory. In Spain the Visigoths were constantly raiding the countryside in Roman Spainia looking for weaknesses and finding plenty of them. While In Africa General Priscus was assembling the Second Egyptian Legion and the First Mauration Legion for an invasion of Northern Italy. Back in Constantinople the 11th legion stationed in Egypt was ordered to move down from Egypt and secure an alliance with the bordering states against a potential Persian invasion. By mid July most of the Madeternian was holding its breath waiting for the war to begin.
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