Res Novae Romanae: A Revolution of the Third Century TL
- Thread starter Salvador79
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Yes, the Kidarites are reduced to a territory they can directly control and where they are a majority. At least they didn't have their capital conquered and everything taken away, like the Sassanids or the Achaemenids before them.
mazdakist Eran comprises the Persis, Karmania, Ahmatan, Susiana, Aturpatagan, Gilan and Mazandaran, I just checked if I had promised more... For a state of zealots with a rebel Army quuite OK in a decade and a half, I think. I could have painted the desert in the centre of Iran in their colour, too, since nobody would contest claims there, but it's basically no man's land.
You said you expect them to conduct a few wars, which might enlarge them, or...
OK, here is a very short teaser of what is in store next week: I thought I´d do another debate between two historians, in the tradition of the one I´d done about the „Isaurian Reforms“, only this time concerning the perspective on what went on the Confederacy in the time frame, translated into Common Era, between 400 and 450 CE.
In the Isotian corner, we have our well-known champion Lynna H. Ioannitis! And in the opposite corner, everybody welcome a newcomer to this thread: Daniel J. Flanniu!
From: Lynna Helena Ioannitis: Political Transformations at the Dawn of the Hydrodynamic Age. Vicita: Vicita Academy Press, 2763 AUC, pp. 81-85:
How Oligarchy Undermined Isonomy
When it comes to explaining the political developments of the late 12th and early 13th century in the Confederacy, Neo-Optimatist historians are often speaking about a widespread “disenchantment with isonomy”. They cite sources telling of financial incentives for attending comitia or of local laws mandating participation and punishing absence with fines, and they interpret them as indicating a return to “the natural way of things” (Flanniu 2757). Isonomy, their narrative goes, was nothing new and exciting anymore; with the establishment of functioning traditions, everyday politics had become, to an ever greater degree, a complicated matter of administrative and legal intricacies, and so the masses turned their attention back to what they presumably always love: games, drinks, and gods; leaving the task of running their polities to a dedicated elite – the way Neo-Optimates like Flanniu consider things to be naturally.
The historical truth is far from that. Isonomy in the Confederacy was, by no means, inherently condemned to run out of steam, just like our current political issues are not too complex for us to manage them together, directly. Isonomy in the Confederacy was, instead, undermined by increasing socio-economic inequality and the emergence of a new generation of oligarchs and, with it, the return of the nefarious Roman tradition of patronage and clientelism.
To be continued.
In the Isotian corner, we have our well-known champion Lynna H. Ioannitis! And in the opposite corner, everybody welcome a newcomer to this thread: Daniel J. Flanniu!
From: Lynna Helena Ioannitis: Political Transformations at the Dawn of the Hydrodynamic Age. Vicita: Vicita Academy Press, 2763 AUC, pp. 81-85:
How Oligarchy Undermined Isonomy
When it comes to explaining the political developments of the late 12th and early 13th century in the Confederacy, Neo-Optimatist historians are often speaking about a widespread “disenchantment with isonomy”. They cite sources telling of financial incentives for attending comitia or of local laws mandating participation and punishing absence with fines, and they interpret them as indicating a return to “the natural way of things” (Flanniu 2757). Isonomy, their narrative goes, was nothing new and exciting anymore; with the establishment of functioning traditions, everyday politics had become, to an ever greater degree, a complicated matter of administrative and legal intricacies, and so the masses turned their attention back to what they presumably always love: games, drinks, and gods; leaving the task of running their polities to a dedicated elite – the way Neo-Optimates like Flanniu consider things to be naturally.
The historical truth is far from that. Isonomy in the Confederacy was, by no means, inherently condemned to run out of steam, just like our current political issues are not too complex for us to manage them together, directly. Isonomy in the Confederacy was, instead, undermined by increasing socio-economic inequality and the emergence of a new generation of oligarchs and, with it, the return of the nefarious Roman tradition of patronage and clientelism.
To be continued.
The 12th century, with its ups and downs, its development of productivity, its boom-and-bust-cycles brought forth a new class of wealthy individuals and families, then contributed to a further concentration of this wealth in the hands of even fewer oligarchs. In contrast to the former oligarchs of the imperial age, their wealth was not based on land ownership and slaves. It was based on commercial profit and proto-financial business.
While most of the agricultural production and mining business continued to be undertaken by synergeia, and urban manufacturing was dominated by a middle class of workshop owners increasingly organized in collegia (guilds), trade and the financial business initially closely related to it were concentrated in the hands of a few families and their vast networks.
These families, and especially their patriarchs, wielded enormous influence – not just economic, but also social power. It is often pointed out that they were benefactors of local temples and schools, patrons of artists and scientists, trustors of hospitals and the like. While this is true – and it chipped away at the egalitarian culture of many civitates –, it is equally true that few of this could have happened, had these oligarchs not wielded their power to prevent comitia from taxing their income, to induce comitia to elect magistrates favourable to their interests, and to pass legislation which plied the rules of competition in their favour. From Rhodes, we have testimony of how Klytemnos admonished all the parents of children who attended his school, all relatives whose kin were treated in his hospital, and the members of the local Academy that, should they vote to end his exemption from port taxes, they would have to do without his help in the future, as he would move his base of operations to another island. Klytemnos was certainly no exception; he was merely the only one to state his case so explicitly in a comitium where educated people protocoled and later published his speech.
Bribery and blackmail became quasi-generalised factors influencing the legislative and elective patterns of many comitia. It is in this context that a disenchantment took place, with peasant members of synergeia not undertaking the troubles of travelling dozens of miles to the assembly only to find its alliances pre-arranged, the other participants deaf to their arguments, and the outcome rigged.
Sinking participation levels, in their turn, reduced the cost of bribing a comitium, which attracted all manner of illicit personalities to run for municipal offices with the clear and sole intention of enriching themselves. Complaints about endemic corruption abound from the late 12th and early 13th century, while they had been quasi-absent throughout much of the 11th century.
The plague of corrupt magistrates repeatedly brought forth demagogic leaders who attracted large crowds of one-time comitium participants with the promise to drain the swamp of corruption – in most of the cases only to replace the current profiteers with their own cronies, once they were firmly established. Even violent political conflicts returned: from streetfights in Sidon to political arson with black lists of political opponents whose houses were set on fire in Corinth, the political culture deteriorated to levels not seen since the last century of the First Roman Republic.
Once oligarchization had hijacked the political system and weakened universal participation, the society of the late 12th and early 13th centuries had little antidotes. Several effort to save the common isonomic polity from the usurpation by oligarchs ultimately brought forth opposite effects.
A clear example of such a process was the growing implication of the urban vocational collegia in the comitia and the oversight of the municipal magistrates. At first, this implication bore the character and aims of a proto-isotian grassroots counter-movement against the self-empowerment of the oligarchs; in early public speeches, collegialists admonished their citizens to consider where their own real material interests lay, and to vote accordingly in the comitia, instead of following swindling oligarchs.
Where they managed to take over influence, though, the monster of particularist privilegism soon reared its ugly head. Collegialist laws restricting the provision of services to certified members of specific collegia antagonized the rural synergeia, who often engaged in a broad variety of economic activities and opposed any motion that would outlaw this in favour of regulations which benefitted only the members of the collegia. Thus, soon, the synergeia formed their own permanent factions – labeled “synergetiki” in Greek and “socialisti” in Latin (for the members of a synergeion, or societas collaborantum, had come to be simply called “socii” in Latin) who made sure that enough members participated when motions concerning their interests were discussed.
While the formation of the collegialist and the socialist factions were, initially, measures aimed against oligarchisation and for a restoration of broader political participation, they ultimately made the latter entirely impossible. Unorganised citizens soon saw themselves faced with the choice between trusting the promises of some demagogue or being entirely crowded out in the comitium.
While open corruption at the confederal level, in the administration of the Vicarii, seems to have been rare, the Vicarial governments and their various ministeries had turned into powerful micro-cosmoses of their own, which often undermined the decisions taken in Councils by watering down their implementations on the technocratic level, whenever they saw their established structures threatened. From the 12th century onwards, almost all Vicarii were recruited from among the higher echelons of these confederal bureaucracies, where great attention was paid that members from the different regions and different religious and ideological groups were represented.
With the oligarchisation and subsequent factionalisation of the comitia civitatum, the established ways on the Confederal levels were challenged, too. Increasingly, the delegates elected by the comitia to the Confederal Councils were a new type of full-time politicians (whether from among the oligarchs or from among the collegialist or socialist factions). By the beginning of the 13th century, they were no longer willing to tolerate the autonomy with which the ministerial bureaucracy worked, regardless of whom they elected as Vicarii. Calls for a more permanent control of the confederal executive institutions by the delegates were heard – supported, in a rare moment of unanimity, by both factions.
And so it came that, in 1220 – perhaps also under the impression of the Mazdakist Iranian state, which had a similar institution – the delegates of the Council of Athens passed an amendment to the Symphonion which stipulated that future Councils would be permanent institutions, their members still being elected annually, but meeting weekly, in a permanent Council building in Alexandria, where they had a better chance to oversee the administration, which was also concentrated in Alexandria.
We all know what became of that. Instead of, as it was declared, a better democratic control of the administration, the Confederacy ended up with Councils with almost no members without either a factionalist or an oligarchic background (since nobody else could afford such a year-long unpaid political duty) – and with a dangerous concentration of power in Alexandria, which set free the centrifugal effects which would soon cause the fracturing of the Confederacy into splinter states.
The events and developments of these decades can teach us two things: that stark economic inequality is fatal to isonomy; and that solutions which delegate popular power onto a small group of people, regardless of what they proclaim, will inevitably lead to oligarchisation and an erosion of isonomy, too. “Representative isonomy”, as the Neo-Optimatist misnomer goes, has never worked, neither in the Confederacy, nor in Eran, Himyar, Gaul or elsewhere.
And there is another Neo-Optimatist myth about this era which needs busting: that the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few contributed to economic dynamics leading to the Early Hydrodynamic Revolution. As has been argued, the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few led, in contrast, to the rise of entrenched collegialist interest groups which forestalled any developments which threatened their powerbase. The relevant technological progresses of the era – especially in textile manufacturing, where manual labour was replaced in more and more processes by water-powered machinery, were not entirely dependent on oligarchical financing, since roughly half of the long-term viable investments were undertaken by synergeia. The driving forces behind these developments were innovative women and men of the workplace, and the cyclically recurring lack of manpower (and womanpower) after the various catastrophes, epidemics and wars of the age.
To be continued, with the opposite position voiced by Daniel Flanniu.
While most of the agricultural production and mining business continued to be undertaken by synergeia, and urban manufacturing was dominated by a middle class of workshop owners increasingly organized in collegia (guilds), trade and the financial business initially closely related to it were concentrated in the hands of a few families and their vast networks.
These families, and especially their patriarchs, wielded enormous influence – not just economic, but also social power. It is often pointed out that they were benefactors of local temples and schools, patrons of artists and scientists, trustors of hospitals and the like. While this is true – and it chipped away at the egalitarian culture of many civitates –, it is equally true that few of this could have happened, had these oligarchs not wielded their power to prevent comitia from taxing their income, to induce comitia to elect magistrates favourable to their interests, and to pass legislation which plied the rules of competition in their favour. From Rhodes, we have testimony of how Klytemnos admonished all the parents of children who attended his school, all relatives whose kin were treated in his hospital, and the members of the local Academy that, should they vote to end his exemption from port taxes, they would have to do without his help in the future, as he would move his base of operations to another island. Klytemnos was certainly no exception; he was merely the only one to state his case so explicitly in a comitium where educated people protocoled and later published his speech.
Bribery and blackmail became quasi-generalised factors influencing the legislative and elective patterns of many comitia. It is in this context that a disenchantment took place, with peasant members of synergeia not undertaking the troubles of travelling dozens of miles to the assembly only to find its alliances pre-arranged, the other participants deaf to their arguments, and the outcome rigged.
Sinking participation levels, in their turn, reduced the cost of bribing a comitium, which attracted all manner of illicit personalities to run for municipal offices with the clear and sole intention of enriching themselves. Complaints about endemic corruption abound from the late 12th and early 13th century, while they had been quasi-absent throughout much of the 11th century.
The plague of corrupt magistrates repeatedly brought forth demagogic leaders who attracted large crowds of one-time comitium participants with the promise to drain the swamp of corruption – in most of the cases only to replace the current profiteers with their own cronies, once they were firmly established. Even violent political conflicts returned: from streetfights in Sidon to political arson with black lists of political opponents whose houses were set on fire in Corinth, the political culture deteriorated to levels not seen since the last century of the First Roman Republic.
Once oligarchization had hijacked the political system and weakened universal participation, the society of the late 12th and early 13th centuries had little antidotes. Several effort to save the common isonomic polity from the usurpation by oligarchs ultimately brought forth opposite effects.
A clear example of such a process was the growing implication of the urban vocational collegia in the comitia and the oversight of the municipal magistrates. At first, this implication bore the character and aims of a proto-isotian grassroots counter-movement against the self-empowerment of the oligarchs; in early public speeches, collegialists admonished their citizens to consider where their own real material interests lay, and to vote accordingly in the comitia, instead of following swindling oligarchs.
Where they managed to take over influence, though, the monster of particularist privilegism soon reared its ugly head. Collegialist laws restricting the provision of services to certified members of specific collegia antagonized the rural synergeia, who often engaged in a broad variety of economic activities and opposed any motion that would outlaw this in favour of regulations which benefitted only the members of the collegia. Thus, soon, the synergeia formed their own permanent factions – labeled “synergetiki” in Greek and “socialisti” in Latin (for the members of a synergeion, or societas collaborantum, had come to be simply called “socii” in Latin) who made sure that enough members participated when motions concerning their interests were discussed.
While the formation of the collegialist and the socialist factions were, initially, measures aimed against oligarchisation and for a restoration of broader political participation, they ultimately made the latter entirely impossible. Unorganised citizens soon saw themselves faced with the choice between trusting the promises of some demagogue or being entirely crowded out in the comitium.
While open corruption at the confederal level, in the administration of the Vicarii, seems to have been rare, the Vicarial governments and their various ministeries had turned into powerful micro-cosmoses of their own, which often undermined the decisions taken in Councils by watering down their implementations on the technocratic level, whenever they saw their established structures threatened. From the 12th century onwards, almost all Vicarii were recruited from among the higher echelons of these confederal bureaucracies, where great attention was paid that members from the different regions and different religious and ideological groups were represented.
With the oligarchisation and subsequent factionalisation of the comitia civitatum, the established ways on the Confederal levels were challenged, too. Increasingly, the delegates elected by the comitia to the Confederal Councils were a new type of full-time politicians (whether from among the oligarchs or from among the collegialist or socialist factions). By the beginning of the 13th century, they were no longer willing to tolerate the autonomy with which the ministerial bureaucracy worked, regardless of whom they elected as Vicarii. Calls for a more permanent control of the confederal executive institutions by the delegates were heard – supported, in a rare moment of unanimity, by both factions.
And so it came that, in 1220 – perhaps also under the impression of the Mazdakist Iranian state, which had a similar institution – the delegates of the Council of Athens passed an amendment to the Symphonion which stipulated that future Councils would be permanent institutions, their members still being elected annually, but meeting weekly, in a permanent Council building in Alexandria, where they had a better chance to oversee the administration, which was also concentrated in Alexandria.
We all know what became of that. Instead of, as it was declared, a better democratic control of the administration, the Confederacy ended up with Councils with almost no members without either a factionalist or an oligarchic background (since nobody else could afford such a year-long unpaid political duty) – and with a dangerous concentration of power in Alexandria, which set free the centrifugal effects which would soon cause the fracturing of the Confederacy into splinter states.
The events and developments of these decades can teach us two things: that stark economic inequality is fatal to isonomy; and that solutions which delegate popular power onto a small group of people, regardless of what they proclaim, will inevitably lead to oligarchisation and an erosion of isonomy, too. “Representative isonomy”, as the Neo-Optimatist misnomer goes, has never worked, neither in the Confederacy, nor in Eran, Himyar, Gaul or elsewhere.
And there is another Neo-Optimatist myth about this era which needs busting: that the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few contributed to economic dynamics leading to the Early Hydrodynamic Revolution. As has been argued, the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few led, in contrast, to the rise of entrenched collegialist interest groups which forestalled any developments which threatened their powerbase. The relevant technological progresses of the era – especially in textile manufacturing, where manual labour was replaced in more and more processes by water-powered machinery, were not entirely dependent on oligarchical financing, since roughly half of the long-term viable investments were undertaken by synergeia. The driving forces behind these developments were innovative women and men of the workplace, and the cyclically recurring lack of manpower (and womanpower) after the various catastrophes, epidemics and wars of the age.
To be continued, with the opposite position voiced by Daniel Flanniu.
Last edited:
Here is the opposing view:
From: Daniel J. Flanniu: An Anti-Ideological History of the Confederacy. Lenapia: Coincidentia, 2765 AUC, pp. 72ff.:
Political Professionalisation and Sectarian Secessionism
The second half of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century were, by no means, an era of political decay or crisis, as Isotian ideologues have argued (Ioannitis 2763).
On the contrary, they marked the cumbersome process of political professionalization and social normalization – cumbersome primarily because it was sabotaged by sectarian superstition and ideological irrationality at almost every step of the path. Political professionalization and social normalization were only possible in the Confederacy altogether because both forces were, nevertheless, comparatively weak in this period.
More than a century after their establishment, the political institutions of the Confederacy finally achieved a degree of working normalcy and reliability. Solving the complex tasks assigned to them by a relatively developed society required a high degree of expertise on the hands of the acting individuals, and a coherent overarching framework in which they acted. A few thousand men across the Mediterranean world put great efforts into achieving this nomicality and institutionality in spite of repeated bouts of populism which threatened to tear down the fragile construct of a reliable legal system, for example.
As they increasingly succeeded, they paved the ground for great economic developments which depended on this context of reliability. The development of an early form of a market for financial services was one of these developments. The dynamics and wealth it brought forth further undermined the ideological tenets of proto-Isotian groups who opposed the entire process and denounced the stabilization of the Confederacy as a decline in civic virtues and an erosion of isonomy.
Individuals who had achieved outstanding things, and who used the wealth they had earned for these achievements to the benefit of their greater community, are denounced by Isotians like Ioannitis as dangerous “oligarchs”. Without these so-called oligarchs, though, the entire establishment of institutions of academic learning and research independent of political, religious or particularist influences would have been inconceivable. The academy of Salamis, where Metagoras further developed natural philosophy and Galen`s medical theory by including essence of spirit [alcohol] as a seventh (and the third transformative) substance, would never have existed, had it not been for the generosity of the Lykinakoi family and for the socio-economic conditions which had enabled them to successfully conduct their business. The same holds true for a number of smaller institutions of learning and teaching, where the new technology of controlled distillation was put to various experimental uses which benefitted the development of pharmaceutical knowledge greatly, instead of just using it to inebriate the masses.
The professionalization of Confederal administration, and a more permanent oversight by highly politically engaged permanent delegates, who came to represent the stable pillars of a labour-divisive society and their respective legitimate interests, were yet more beneficial outcomes of this stability and the trend towards professionalization and coherence. Denouncing them by speculatively claiming that representative isonomy could never work, and blaming them for the break-up of the Confederacy shows Ioannitis` incredibly slanted view on the Confederacy`s history – for it was the hotbeds of superstition, the Agonistici in Libya and the neo-zealots in Judaea and Samaria, who seceded and thus betrayed Confederal unity when the decisions taken by a common majority of delegates and building on common legal traditions did not suit their religious tastes.
Parting ways with these radical elements was for the best of the Hellenic civilization. It enabled our forefathers to gather all their (military and social) forces and contain the Mazdakist danger, to build up an innovative and dynamic economy which could compete with those of Asia, and to develop the traditions of philosophical and political rationalism upon which the entire modern world is built.
Everyone who thinks, on the other hand, that isonomy is only complete when every drunken, poor barbarian who is not even interested in politics at all attends every comitium and has all their momentary whims and fancies immediately translated into legal action, needs only to look at where this attitude has led the Libyans and the nations of Western Aethiopia who have come under their sway.
From: Daniel J. Flanniu: An Anti-Ideological History of the Confederacy. Lenapia: Coincidentia, 2765 AUC, pp. 72ff.:
Political Professionalisation and Sectarian Secessionism
The second half of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century were, by no means, an era of political decay or crisis, as Isotian ideologues have argued (Ioannitis 2763).
On the contrary, they marked the cumbersome process of political professionalization and social normalization – cumbersome primarily because it was sabotaged by sectarian superstition and ideological irrationality at almost every step of the path. Political professionalization and social normalization were only possible in the Confederacy altogether because both forces were, nevertheless, comparatively weak in this period.
More than a century after their establishment, the political institutions of the Confederacy finally achieved a degree of working normalcy and reliability. Solving the complex tasks assigned to them by a relatively developed society required a high degree of expertise on the hands of the acting individuals, and a coherent overarching framework in which they acted. A few thousand men across the Mediterranean world put great efforts into achieving this nomicality and institutionality in spite of repeated bouts of populism which threatened to tear down the fragile construct of a reliable legal system, for example.
As they increasingly succeeded, they paved the ground for great economic developments which depended on this context of reliability. The development of an early form of a market for financial services was one of these developments. The dynamics and wealth it brought forth further undermined the ideological tenets of proto-Isotian groups who opposed the entire process and denounced the stabilization of the Confederacy as a decline in civic virtues and an erosion of isonomy.
Individuals who had achieved outstanding things, and who used the wealth they had earned for these achievements to the benefit of their greater community, are denounced by Isotians like Ioannitis as dangerous “oligarchs”. Without these so-called oligarchs, though, the entire establishment of institutions of academic learning and research independent of political, religious or particularist influences would have been inconceivable. The academy of Salamis, where Metagoras further developed natural philosophy and Galen`s medical theory by including essence of spirit [alcohol] as a seventh (and the third transformative) substance, would never have existed, had it not been for the generosity of the Lykinakoi family and for the socio-economic conditions which had enabled them to successfully conduct their business. The same holds true for a number of smaller institutions of learning and teaching, where the new technology of controlled distillation was put to various experimental uses which benefitted the development of pharmaceutical knowledge greatly, instead of just using it to inebriate the masses.
The professionalization of Confederal administration, and a more permanent oversight by highly politically engaged permanent delegates, who came to represent the stable pillars of a labour-divisive society and their respective legitimate interests, were yet more beneficial outcomes of this stability and the trend towards professionalization and coherence. Denouncing them by speculatively claiming that representative isonomy could never work, and blaming them for the break-up of the Confederacy shows Ioannitis` incredibly slanted view on the Confederacy`s history – for it was the hotbeds of superstition, the Agonistici in Libya and the neo-zealots in Judaea and Samaria, who seceded and thus betrayed Confederal unity when the decisions taken by a common majority of delegates and building on common legal traditions did not suit their religious tastes.
Parting ways with these radical elements was for the best of the Hellenic civilization. It enabled our forefathers to gather all their (military and social) forces and contain the Mazdakist danger, to build up an innovative and dynamic economy which could compete with those of Asia, and to develop the traditions of philosophical and political rationalism upon which the entire modern world is built.
Everyone who thinks, on the other hand, that isonomy is only complete when every drunken, poor barbarian who is not even interested in politics at all attends every comitium and has all their momentary whims and fancies immediately translated into legal action, needs only to look at where this attitude has led the Libyans and the nations of Western Aethiopia who have come under their sway.
Or a place merely named after its native population, like Ottawa.Looks like it's from a New world alt-nation.
Not saying yet which is the case.
Gallo-Roman culture
Yay, 30,000 reads!
Here´s a little update on the Gallo-Roman West...
From: Judith Sarcophagu et al.: Rome`s Heirs in the West. Nova Eblana: Septemtrionales, 2733 AUC, pp. 83ff.:
Developments in Gallo-Roman Aristocratic Culture
The 12th and 13th centuries saw the emergence of distinct Gallo-Roman culture, in spite of a general state of decentralization and relocalisation, which inevitably brought forth local variations. When we refer to a Gallo-Roman culture stemming from this period, we must be aware that we are not talking about a popular phenomenon, but about the culture of an elite which had previously undergone the transition from estate-owners to warlords, and which now underwent the next transition, from warlords (duces, comites and the domini of smaller manors) to noblemen (viri clarissimi).
The subjugation of the Gallo-Roman Empire and its nominal reintegration into the Roman Empire ruled from Sirmium proved an unforeseen stroke of luck for this class. Formerly reducing each other through endless succession wars and feuds, they were now forcibly pacified, and they soon discovered their common interests and voiced them loudly in the Conventum in Lugdunum. The Conventum, while still chronically unable to pass any constructive legislation for the entire realm, was a more powerful bastion of the status quo and a counterweight to the Caesar than the Senate in Rome had been under the Principate. Various Caesars attempted to exert a more direct control over Gallia, Britannia and Hispania, e.g. by sending correctors, but throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, all these efforts failed, fought off by an increasingly self-confident aristocracy.
This status quo of socio-economic manorialism and political decentralization had set the Gallo-Roman realm apart from both the military-bureaucratic Empire with its command economy centered around Sirmium and from the socio-economically socialist/synergetikist and increasingly also collegialist isonomic Confederacy from the 11th century on.
A century after its establishment, tendencies towards the manifestation of this society´s own elaborate identity, customs, and traditions became evident. There are many powerful testimonies to this. Some of them concern the unique legal system of the Gallo-Roman realm. With the exception of the frontier provinces and the independent municipia, which were directly subordinated to the Caesar, jurisdiction mostly lay in the hands of the local lords. Increasingly, local traditions emerged, which both consolidated and limited the factual powers of the domini clarissimi over their coloni. The first written codes for judicial procedures stem from this period – for example the Codex Mauricianus or the Codex Abelarius.
The Gallo-Roman socio-political system shaped the landscape of Western Europe. All over Hispania, Gallia and Britannia, local lords ruled from their villae fortes, which had come to replace the unprotected the villae rusticae of the Principate. As internal warfare subsided and civil administration became an increasingly important task of the domini clarissimi in the 12th century, these fortified settlements began to host not only the family of the local ruler and his mounted soldiers, but also an increasing number of civil servants and managers of the economic infrastructure owned by the dominus clarissimsus. Quickly expanding in size and outgrowing the boundaries of their fortifications, towns of this new type soon began to overshadow the classical municipia and coloniae of the Principate which had often been built on earlier Celtic oppida. Some villae fortes – or villeforte, their vernacular name which stuck – grew considerably larger than older, established towns in their vicinity. Some examples are Lupiana near the Mediterranean coast in Gallia Narbonensis, which grew larger than the old port town of Latara, or Mauricia on the tip of the Aremorican peninsula, compared to which the former capital of the civitas, Vindona, paled, or Rodumina in Northern Gaul, which grew as large as Ambianum. Perched on mountain tops and other militarily strategic places, yet in the middle of agriculturally valuable lands, towns which owe their existence to their status as villeforte can still be recognized all over Western Europe. Most of them carry female place names ending in –a (etymologically rooted in constructions like “villa fortis Rodumina” –, although this was by no means uncommon for oppida, municipia and coloniae, either. Older cities, which generally experienced a period of decline, only continued to maintain or even increase their population and size where they were of eminent commercial (like Massilia, Tarraco, Burdigala and Isca Dumniorum) or political (Lugdunum) importance.
It was in these new nobility-founded towns that the unique Gallo-Roman musical and poetic traditions, as we conceive of them, began to develop during the 12th and 13th century. Here, the functions of the classical rhapsodes and kitharodes and indigenous bardic traditions fused, and the three dominant post-classical Gallo-Roman literary-musical genres dealing with death and the otherworld, war, and love respectively, developed from the second half of the 12th century onwards.
With the spread of a new type of carruca, featuring a massive iron plow more adequate for the heavy Northern soils than Mediterranean predecessors, and subsequent modifications in the rotation of crops, agricultural output in Gaul and Britain grew and began to eclipse that of traditionally wealthy Hispania, sustaining a population which, by the middle of the 12th century, had reached the levels of the early 900s before the Antonine plague, and then grew to exceed them. This population growth was almost exclusively rural, or centered around the manorial villeforte settlements, whose economic importance further grew with the construction of more and more mills, oil presses, bakeries, wine cellars, distilleries and manufactories where food was prepared and preserved for middle-distance trade.
The emerging culture would perhaps never have been considered as distinctly Gallo-Roman, though, had it not spread outwards beyond the reaches of the Empire long before it had permeated the core regions entirely. Beside trade – and in this domain, predominantly the trade of strong, barley-based liquors from Northern Gaul and Britain to the rest of the Mediterranean, but also to Hibernia, Frisia, Iutia and Scandinavia – conducted neither by the Imperial army, nor by independent commercial tycoons, but by hired managers and servants of the estates, which led to the emergence of the Gallo-Roman socio-economic counter-model to that emerging from the Confederacy, religion was among the most important factors of Gallo-Roman influence stretching beyond what had previously been the Roman world.
To ideologically corroborate their social position, the lords of the estates had long patronized religion in all its flavours. In the 12th century, this was increasingly no longer limited to Greco-Roman-Celtic polytheism. Priscillianus, lord of the villaforte Titia Vacarena near Salmantica in the 1130s, was the first to convert to one of the more obscure, ascetic but largely unpolitical Christian groups. With isonomic revolutions and agrarian revolts becoming less common and the dangerous threat of Agonisticism being reduced by its internal schism, Christianity was seen as somewhat less of a threat to the Gallo-Roman order than before. Priscillianus had the first monastery on the Hispanian peninsula built for the most dedicated fellow followers of his cult, and created Salvianus, bishop of this hitherto small group in Salmantica, abbot. From here, Salvianine or Priscillianist monks began to proselytize far and wide across the peninsula and into Gaul; their aristocratic protection allowing them to penetrate into communities which had hitherto been mortally dangerous places for Christians. In 1192, the first Priscillianist monks, whose church had begun to amass considerable financial reserves, were able to establish a monastery in South-Western Hibernia, where the petty king Muria hoped that good relations to Gallo-Roman nobility might help preserve the independence of his small Ervanian tuadum against the growing regional hegemon, the Evanacti.
Priscillian Christians were not the only ones to establish monasteries and proselytize among the Hibernians. Equally or even more successful were the Hespidiani, a Manichaen sect which enjoyed both popularity and aristocratic support in Hispania Tarraconensis and Gallia Narbonensis. Hespidian Manichaean monasteries sprouted all over Eastern Hibernia under the protection of a former pirate haunting Britannia`s Western shores turned into a militarily especially successful petty king named Niallus.
Priscillianist Christian and Hespidian Manichaeist missions among the Hibernians, along with the politico-military implications these relations to particular Gallo-Roman lords brought with them, infused Hibernia with the Gallo-Roman culture which emerged during this period and tied its fate closer to the developments going on in the Gallo-Roman realm.
Yay, 30,000 reads!
Here´s a little update on the Gallo-Roman West...
From: Judith Sarcophagu et al.: Rome`s Heirs in the West. Nova Eblana: Septemtrionales, 2733 AUC, pp. 83ff.:
Developments in Gallo-Roman Aristocratic Culture
The 12th and 13th centuries saw the emergence of distinct Gallo-Roman culture, in spite of a general state of decentralization and relocalisation, which inevitably brought forth local variations. When we refer to a Gallo-Roman culture stemming from this period, we must be aware that we are not talking about a popular phenomenon, but about the culture of an elite which had previously undergone the transition from estate-owners to warlords, and which now underwent the next transition, from warlords (duces, comites and the domini of smaller manors) to noblemen (viri clarissimi).
The subjugation of the Gallo-Roman Empire and its nominal reintegration into the Roman Empire ruled from Sirmium proved an unforeseen stroke of luck for this class. Formerly reducing each other through endless succession wars and feuds, they were now forcibly pacified, and they soon discovered their common interests and voiced them loudly in the Conventum in Lugdunum. The Conventum, while still chronically unable to pass any constructive legislation for the entire realm, was a more powerful bastion of the status quo and a counterweight to the Caesar than the Senate in Rome had been under the Principate. Various Caesars attempted to exert a more direct control over Gallia, Britannia and Hispania, e.g. by sending correctors, but throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, all these efforts failed, fought off by an increasingly self-confident aristocracy.
This status quo of socio-economic manorialism and political decentralization had set the Gallo-Roman realm apart from both the military-bureaucratic Empire with its command economy centered around Sirmium and from the socio-economically socialist/synergetikist and increasingly also collegialist isonomic Confederacy from the 11th century on.
A century after its establishment, tendencies towards the manifestation of this society´s own elaborate identity, customs, and traditions became evident. There are many powerful testimonies to this. Some of them concern the unique legal system of the Gallo-Roman realm. With the exception of the frontier provinces and the independent municipia, which were directly subordinated to the Caesar, jurisdiction mostly lay in the hands of the local lords. Increasingly, local traditions emerged, which both consolidated and limited the factual powers of the domini clarissimi over their coloni. The first written codes for judicial procedures stem from this period – for example the Codex Mauricianus or the Codex Abelarius.
The Gallo-Roman socio-political system shaped the landscape of Western Europe. All over Hispania, Gallia and Britannia, local lords ruled from their villae fortes, which had come to replace the unprotected the villae rusticae of the Principate. As internal warfare subsided and civil administration became an increasingly important task of the domini clarissimi in the 12th century, these fortified settlements began to host not only the family of the local ruler and his mounted soldiers, but also an increasing number of civil servants and managers of the economic infrastructure owned by the dominus clarissimsus. Quickly expanding in size and outgrowing the boundaries of their fortifications, towns of this new type soon began to overshadow the classical municipia and coloniae of the Principate which had often been built on earlier Celtic oppida. Some villae fortes – or villeforte, their vernacular name which stuck – grew considerably larger than older, established towns in their vicinity. Some examples are Lupiana near the Mediterranean coast in Gallia Narbonensis, which grew larger than the old port town of Latara, or Mauricia on the tip of the Aremorican peninsula, compared to which the former capital of the civitas, Vindona, paled, or Rodumina in Northern Gaul, which grew as large as Ambianum. Perched on mountain tops and other militarily strategic places, yet in the middle of agriculturally valuable lands, towns which owe their existence to their status as villeforte can still be recognized all over Western Europe. Most of them carry female place names ending in –a (etymologically rooted in constructions like “villa fortis Rodumina” –, although this was by no means uncommon for oppida, municipia and coloniae, either. Older cities, which generally experienced a period of decline, only continued to maintain or even increase their population and size where they were of eminent commercial (like Massilia, Tarraco, Burdigala and Isca Dumniorum) or political (Lugdunum) importance.
It was in these new nobility-founded towns that the unique Gallo-Roman musical and poetic traditions, as we conceive of them, began to develop during the 12th and 13th century. Here, the functions of the classical rhapsodes and kitharodes and indigenous bardic traditions fused, and the three dominant post-classical Gallo-Roman literary-musical genres dealing with death and the otherworld, war, and love respectively, developed from the second half of the 12th century onwards.
With the spread of a new type of carruca, featuring a massive iron plow more adequate for the heavy Northern soils than Mediterranean predecessors, and subsequent modifications in the rotation of crops, agricultural output in Gaul and Britain grew and began to eclipse that of traditionally wealthy Hispania, sustaining a population which, by the middle of the 12th century, had reached the levels of the early 900s before the Antonine plague, and then grew to exceed them. This population growth was almost exclusively rural, or centered around the manorial villeforte settlements, whose economic importance further grew with the construction of more and more mills, oil presses, bakeries, wine cellars, distilleries and manufactories where food was prepared and preserved for middle-distance trade.
The emerging culture would perhaps never have been considered as distinctly Gallo-Roman, though, had it not spread outwards beyond the reaches of the Empire long before it had permeated the core regions entirely. Beside trade – and in this domain, predominantly the trade of strong, barley-based liquors from Northern Gaul and Britain to the rest of the Mediterranean, but also to Hibernia, Frisia, Iutia and Scandinavia – conducted neither by the Imperial army, nor by independent commercial tycoons, but by hired managers and servants of the estates, which led to the emergence of the Gallo-Roman socio-economic counter-model to that emerging from the Confederacy, religion was among the most important factors of Gallo-Roman influence stretching beyond what had previously been the Roman world.
To ideologically corroborate their social position, the lords of the estates had long patronized religion in all its flavours. In the 12th century, this was increasingly no longer limited to Greco-Roman-Celtic polytheism. Priscillianus, lord of the villaforte Titia Vacarena near Salmantica in the 1130s, was the first to convert to one of the more obscure, ascetic but largely unpolitical Christian groups. With isonomic revolutions and agrarian revolts becoming less common and the dangerous threat of Agonisticism being reduced by its internal schism, Christianity was seen as somewhat less of a threat to the Gallo-Roman order than before. Priscillianus had the first monastery on the Hispanian peninsula built for the most dedicated fellow followers of his cult, and created Salvianus, bishop of this hitherto small group in Salmantica, abbot. From here, Salvianine or Priscillianist monks began to proselytize far and wide across the peninsula and into Gaul; their aristocratic protection allowing them to penetrate into communities which had hitherto been mortally dangerous places for Christians. In 1192, the first Priscillianist monks, whose church had begun to amass considerable financial reserves, were able to establish a monastery in South-Western Hibernia, where the petty king Muria hoped that good relations to Gallo-Roman nobility might help preserve the independence of his small Ervanian tuadum against the growing regional hegemon, the Evanacti.
Priscillian Christians were not the only ones to establish monasteries and proselytize among the Hibernians. Equally or even more successful were the Hespidiani, a Manichaen sect which enjoyed both popularity and aristocratic support in Hispania Tarraconensis and Gallia Narbonensis. Hespidian Manichaean monasteries sprouted all over Eastern Hibernia under the protection of a former pirate haunting Britannia`s Western shores turned into a militarily especially successful petty king named Niallus.
Priscillianist Christian and Hespidian Manichaeist missions among the Hibernians, along with the politico-military implications these relations to particular Gallo-Roman lords brought with them, infused Hibernia with the Gallo-Roman culture which emerged during this period and tied its fate closer to the developments going on in the Gallo-Roman realm.
I hope there are no serious plausibility issues with this?And thus Roman civilisation spreads a bit more...
I don't see plausibility issues. Roman culture is being spread through religions, as as such it is a slightly modified version of it that will mix with the local cultures.
Last Installment, part one
Time to say goodbye! – I have decided to end this timeline with one large and universal installment in various portions which I´ll compose over the next few weeks.
I have kept quite a few relatively inevitable developments bottled up for a bit too long. I didn`t only do this because I love my Confederacy, but also because I knew I couldn`t handle, narratively, the complexity that would ensue if I let these developments fully unfold. With the birth of our second son due in June, I´ll have even less time in the foreseeable future, and I don`t want to do the timeline injustice by keeping on oversimplifying it. I would have loved to describe the Hydrodynamic Revolution I have often alluded to in great detail, or the discovery of Atlantis [America], but I don`t want it to be a totally implausible and one-dimensional wank, and I am afraid that describing the nuanced, complex and often twisted and unfathomable ways in which this timeline`s humans, like those of every possible world, would bring them about is beyond both my narrative abilities, domain-specific knowledge, and time resources.
So, here begins the last big installment, in which I´ll finally let a few spirits out of a few bottles. Alt-Late Antiquity finally reaches its end.
From: Carolu Esperi: Of the Origin and Destination of History. Are Flavie: Flautari, 2702 AUC, pp. 72 and 85-99:
Over the course of the first half of the 13th century, groundbreaking developments in many domains and parts of the world accelerated, intertwined and culminated in great convulsions which ended a long, calm period, in which the ground had been paved for the new age which ensued.
In this respect, this time frame resembles that of a thousand years earlier – the time of Kleisthenes` democratic reforms in Athens, of Siddharta Gautama`s and Confucius` teachings – and that of five hundred years earlier – when Octavian reigned as the first princeps augustus, Jesus Christ was born, and paper production from pulp was invented in China.
Although the reasons underlying the epochal cataclysms are manifold, the long equilibrium of late antiquity may not have been disturbed at this particular point in time without the movement of Mazdak the Prophet. Therefore, we must begin this chapter with him.
[…] [I´ll leave Esperi`s rendering of the Mazdakist Revolution out since I´ve already described it.]
From Mazdak to Kersasp
The death of the prophet Mazdak left behind a power vacuum at the top of the newly created Iranian state – a gap which influential groups and ambitious individuals competed to fill, throwing the realm into a chaotic three-year-long interregnum.
From out of these power struggles emerged triumphant the man whom many have described as Eranshahr`s greatest political genius after Cyrus: Kersasp.
Like Mazdak, Kersasp was from Ram-Wistaspan, and he was a member of the pakizagan, the same fetyan that the Prophet had also belonged to, which endowed his rule with some legitimacy and coined a standard for future selections of Mazdakist leaders. Kersasp´s real power, though, stemmed from the support he enjoyed among the most powerful faction in the Army of the Light and from his unique talents which combined broadly appealing theological rhetorics with cunning political pragmatism and endowed him with immense popularity and charisma.
A clear sign of his ascent to power was the speech with which he managed to assure the Hanjaman Mardomē`s support for a new military campaign against Karenid Parthia in 1231. Theologically orthodox majorities in the federal assembly had previously steadfastly continued the late Mazdak`s policy of peace with the neighbours, increased proselytization efforts and continued purges. Swaying the Mazdakist zealots` opinions towards a new war earned Kersasp even more respect within the Army of the Light than he had already had. To the zealots, Kersasp had justified the campaign with the need to gain control over the last of the three holy fires, Adhur Burzen-Mihr, the only one not yet controlled by the Mazdakists. To the nationalist groups, a focus on Parthia was also interpreted as a pursuit of their agenda of unifying Great Eranshahr. It came as no surprise, then, that Kersasp was put in charge of the Army of the Light´s operations in Parthia.
Kersasp`s actual motives might never be reconstructed: pure political ambition? A preemptive strike? Or true desire to spread the prophet`s truth indeed? His strategies in the Parthian Campaign showed a clear sense of pragmatism. He managed to forge an alliance with the non-Mazdakist Choresmians, whom he assured of his support in their struggle to maintain their independence against advancing Chigils from the East. The Choresmian light cavalry complemented the heavily infantry-based Army of the Light well – a factor which proved decisive in the confrontations with the forces of the House of Karen, which comprised many versatile warriors on horseback.
The conquest of Parthia was sealed when the last major city, Tūs, fell into the hands of the Mazdakist-Choresmian alliance. The last surviving Karenid noblemen fled Eastwards to Surenid Sistan, while the ordinary population put up little resistance to the reshaping of the social order which inevitably followed the conquest. Only a limited number from among those who stood to lose from the restructurings emigrated to Chigil-controlled Sogdia.
Kersasp then made a gesture towards honoring his obligation vis-à-vis his Choresmian allies by dispatching a small contingent of his army into new frontier garrisons on the Oxus, which shielded Choresmia from Kermichionite Marginiana and allowed a quick intervention against Chigil or other forces approaching the river oasis across the desert from the North.
Unrest in Assyria
Mazdakist missionaries had enriched the already heterogeneous religious landscape of Assyrian Mesopotamia with yet another cult. As Manichaeism and local polytheisms were on a descending trajectory, Mazdak`s militant message of equality and justice, its open door for nationalist sentiment, and its polemics against hypocritical, detached priests fell on fertile ground among the simple soldier-peasants of the Confederacy`s Easternmost civitates, who had suffered over the course of the last century from almost uninterrupted warfare against various Hunnic marzbanan and against Hira, a rising kingdom to their South, which had ravaged their fertile lands and in which they had experienced very little in the way of military assistance from their brethren in the West after the Confederacy`s abortive Persian campaign.
While they only represented minorities in many important Assyrian civitates like Edessa, Samosata and Barbalissos, Mazdakists had managed to become a majority or near-majority in the Southern Assyrian civitates of Arabana and Circesium. Well-organised, they managed to impose their agenda in both comitia civitatum: debts were cancelled, land, workshops and manufactures were redistributed and legally bound to self-use (isepikarpia), impeachment of magistrates on “moral grounds” was established in the local constitutions, and a differential staple tax for believers and non-Mazdakist merchants was introduced.
All these measures did not only hurt the few wealthier locals. Primarily, they impinged on vested interests of influential “new patricians” from civitates in the safer hinterland, who had bought up much of destabilized Assyria from people who were only too happy to sell their land or their business in return for a lost year`s worth of food and a new roof over their heads. Inevitably, a group of civitates led by the duumviri of Edessa protested against these measures which, they argued, overstepped the civitates` autonomy and violated established legal traditions concerning movable peregrine property and symprosago (free movement and equal access across civitates).
Feeling under immense pressure, Arabana and Circesium signed a pact of mutual military assistance with their mighty Eastern coreligionists, the Mazdakist Eran. While in a constitutional grey zone, previous alliances between civitates of the Confederacy and foreign powers had been tolerated in the past two centuries – but in all of these cases, the foreign party, be they a tribe of Libyan desert nomads, or a few Kushitic towns, or a small Arabian tribe, had been geopolitically negligible entities. Eran was a different beast, and as soon as they heard of it, the Vicarii of the Confederacy protested and demanded that the pact be declared null and void.
Meanwhile, at Barbalissos, where the military academy and joint corps of the Southern Assyrian civitates was stationed, skirmishes had broken out among Confederal soldiers from different towns and different religious backgrounds on the Ides of April 1236. Both sides accused the other of having broken their fraternal oaths first, and once the unspeakable had happened, the fire of righteous rage was difficult to extinguish. What had begun rather spontaneously was soon escalated by the mobilization of the regular vigilia of the now divided Assyrian civitates.
In the Great Hall of Alexandria, where the permanent Council had taken its equally permanent residence a few years ago, worried voices admonishing both sides to calm down again and attempting to defuse the situation were outnumbered by those outraged by the treason committed by the Mazdakist civitates and their soldiers. A majority backed universal mobilization and a military intervention to – as the goal was stated – disarm the civitates of Arabana and Circesium and put the seditionists to a trial.
The First Clash of the Giants
Of course, that was not the outcome. Kersasp, the hero of Parthia, had marched four large divisions of the Army of the Light into Assyria (their Assyrian allies having opened the gates of the Assyrian Wall for them) while there was still only local resistance and a few reinforcements from Northern Assyria, which were swept aside. Kersasp secured control of the entire Osroene before the main Confederal army had even arrived.
The Confederal field army of 1236 was not the motley crew of assembled peasant militias it had been in its early years. It brought over 15,000 professional soldiers to the battlefield, along with twice as many vigilia. Its commanding officers were not elected on the spot on the very day before departure, as had often been the case in the 11th century. Instead, the tribunes of the protoporiakoi were elected for terms of three years by the elite soldiers they then commanded, while various other ranks were assigned by the magistri of the protoporiakoi, who held life-long offices, being chosen by representatives of the civitates who cooperated to maintain an academy. The structures into which the less well-trained militiamen of the vigilia were integrated in such times of war were comprehensive enough to absorb them.
But while the Confederal army was professional now, it was also heavily regionalized. The new structures had been built by clusters of cooperating civitates. These regional military clusters were imbued with at least as much particularist spirit as the legions of the Old Empire, and their tribunes enjoyed incomparably more authority among the rank and file than any civilian Vicarius designated to “lead them in war”.
Among these tribunes, the question of the most adequate strategy against the Army of the Light was hotly debated. Although the Confederacy brought more soldiers to the conflict zone (45,000 against 32,000 Iranians), the Confederal military leadership feared Kersasp, his battle-hardened, fervent fighters, and their wagon circles full of archers. While some considered an open battle inevitable on a terrain like the Osroene, others insisted that the Confederacy played to its strength – the support of the local population, at least in the majority of civitates – and reconquered one civitas at a time, combining massive attacks with guerilla tactics and regaining positions of safe retreat. Logically, some divisions arrived with long siege trains and few horses, while others had brought the 12th/early 13th century European standard field army combination of heavy cavalry combined with an infantry with many pikemen, geared towards confronting the enemy on an open battlefield where discipline and numbers mattered.
To be continued.
Time to say goodbye! – I have decided to end this timeline with one large and universal installment in various portions which I´ll compose over the next few weeks.
I have kept quite a few relatively inevitable developments bottled up for a bit too long. I didn`t only do this because I love my Confederacy, but also because I knew I couldn`t handle, narratively, the complexity that would ensue if I let these developments fully unfold. With the birth of our second son due in June, I´ll have even less time in the foreseeable future, and I don`t want to do the timeline injustice by keeping on oversimplifying it. I would have loved to describe the Hydrodynamic Revolution I have often alluded to in great detail, or the discovery of Atlantis [America], but I don`t want it to be a totally implausible and one-dimensional wank, and I am afraid that describing the nuanced, complex and often twisted and unfathomable ways in which this timeline`s humans, like those of every possible world, would bring them about is beyond both my narrative abilities, domain-specific knowledge, and time resources.
So, here begins the last big installment, in which I´ll finally let a few spirits out of a few bottles. Alt-Late Antiquity finally reaches its end.
From: Carolu Esperi: Of the Origin and Destination of History. Are Flavie: Flautari, 2702 AUC, pp. 72 and 85-99:
Antiquity`s Third and Last Epochal Threshold
Over the course of the first half of the 13th century, groundbreaking developments in many domains and parts of the world accelerated, intertwined and culminated in great convulsions which ended a long, calm period, in which the ground had been paved for the new age which ensued.
In this respect, this time frame resembles that of a thousand years earlier – the time of Kleisthenes` democratic reforms in Athens, of Siddharta Gautama`s and Confucius` teachings – and that of five hundred years earlier – when Octavian reigned as the first princeps augustus, Jesus Christ was born, and paper production from pulp was invented in China.
Although the reasons underlying the epochal cataclysms are manifold, the long equilibrium of late antiquity may not have been disturbed at this particular point in time without the movement of Mazdak the Prophet. Therefore, we must begin this chapter with him.
[…] [I´ll leave Esperi`s rendering of the Mazdakist Revolution out since I´ve already described it.]
From Mazdak to Kersasp
The death of the prophet Mazdak left behind a power vacuum at the top of the newly created Iranian state – a gap which influential groups and ambitious individuals competed to fill, throwing the realm into a chaotic three-year-long interregnum.
From out of these power struggles emerged triumphant the man whom many have described as Eranshahr`s greatest political genius after Cyrus: Kersasp.
Like Mazdak, Kersasp was from Ram-Wistaspan, and he was a member of the pakizagan, the same fetyan that the Prophet had also belonged to, which endowed his rule with some legitimacy and coined a standard for future selections of Mazdakist leaders. Kersasp´s real power, though, stemmed from the support he enjoyed among the most powerful faction in the Army of the Light and from his unique talents which combined broadly appealing theological rhetorics with cunning political pragmatism and endowed him with immense popularity and charisma.
A clear sign of his ascent to power was the speech with which he managed to assure the Hanjaman Mardomē`s support for a new military campaign against Karenid Parthia in 1231. Theologically orthodox majorities in the federal assembly had previously steadfastly continued the late Mazdak`s policy of peace with the neighbours, increased proselytization efforts and continued purges. Swaying the Mazdakist zealots` opinions towards a new war earned Kersasp even more respect within the Army of the Light than he had already had. To the zealots, Kersasp had justified the campaign with the need to gain control over the last of the three holy fires, Adhur Burzen-Mihr, the only one not yet controlled by the Mazdakists. To the nationalist groups, a focus on Parthia was also interpreted as a pursuit of their agenda of unifying Great Eranshahr. It came as no surprise, then, that Kersasp was put in charge of the Army of the Light´s operations in Parthia.
Kersasp`s actual motives might never be reconstructed: pure political ambition? A preemptive strike? Or true desire to spread the prophet`s truth indeed? His strategies in the Parthian Campaign showed a clear sense of pragmatism. He managed to forge an alliance with the non-Mazdakist Choresmians, whom he assured of his support in their struggle to maintain their independence against advancing Chigils from the East. The Choresmian light cavalry complemented the heavily infantry-based Army of the Light well – a factor which proved decisive in the confrontations with the forces of the House of Karen, which comprised many versatile warriors on horseback.
The conquest of Parthia was sealed when the last major city, Tūs, fell into the hands of the Mazdakist-Choresmian alliance. The last surviving Karenid noblemen fled Eastwards to Surenid Sistan, while the ordinary population put up little resistance to the reshaping of the social order which inevitably followed the conquest. Only a limited number from among those who stood to lose from the restructurings emigrated to Chigil-controlled Sogdia.
Kersasp then made a gesture towards honoring his obligation vis-à-vis his Choresmian allies by dispatching a small contingent of his army into new frontier garrisons on the Oxus, which shielded Choresmia from Kermichionite Marginiana and allowed a quick intervention against Chigil or other forces approaching the river oasis across the desert from the North.
Unrest in Assyria
Mazdakist missionaries had enriched the already heterogeneous religious landscape of Assyrian Mesopotamia with yet another cult. As Manichaeism and local polytheisms were on a descending trajectory, Mazdak`s militant message of equality and justice, its open door for nationalist sentiment, and its polemics against hypocritical, detached priests fell on fertile ground among the simple soldier-peasants of the Confederacy`s Easternmost civitates, who had suffered over the course of the last century from almost uninterrupted warfare against various Hunnic marzbanan and against Hira, a rising kingdom to their South, which had ravaged their fertile lands and in which they had experienced very little in the way of military assistance from their brethren in the West after the Confederacy`s abortive Persian campaign.
While they only represented minorities in many important Assyrian civitates like Edessa, Samosata and Barbalissos, Mazdakists had managed to become a majority or near-majority in the Southern Assyrian civitates of Arabana and Circesium. Well-organised, they managed to impose their agenda in both comitia civitatum: debts were cancelled, land, workshops and manufactures were redistributed and legally bound to self-use (isepikarpia), impeachment of magistrates on “moral grounds” was established in the local constitutions, and a differential staple tax for believers and non-Mazdakist merchants was introduced.
All these measures did not only hurt the few wealthier locals. Primarily, they impinged on vested interests of influential “new patricians” from civitates in the safer hinterland, who had bought up much of destabilized Assyria from people who were only too happy to sell their land or their business in return for a lost year`s worth of food and a new roof over their heads. Inevitably, a group of civitates led by the duumviri of Edessa protested against these measures which, they argued, overstepped the civitates` autonomy and violated established legal traditions concerning movable peregrine property and symprosago (free movement and equal access across civitates).
Feeling under immense pressure, Arabana and Circesium signed a pact of mutual military assistance with their mighty Eastern coreligionists, the Mazdakist Eran. While in a constitutional grey zone, previous alliances between civitates of the Confederacy and foreign powers had been tolerated in the past two centuries – but in all of these cases, the foreign party, be they a tribe of Libyan desert nomads, or a few Kushitic towns, or a small Arabian tribe, had been geopolitically negligible entities. Eran was a different beast, and as soon as they heard of it, the Vicarii of the Confederacy protested and demanded that the pact be declared null and void.
Meanwhile, at Barbalissos, where the military academy and joint corps of the Southern Assyrian civitates was stationed, skirmishes had broken out among Confederal soldiers from different towns and different religious backgrounds on the Ides of April 1236. Both sides accused the other of having broken their fraternal oaths first, and once the unspeakable had happened, the fire of righteous rage was difficult to extinguish. What had begun rather spontaneously was soon escalated by the mobilization of the regular vigilia of the now divided Assyrian civitates.
In the Great Hall of Alexandria, where the permanent Council had taken its equally permanent residence a few years ago, worried voices admonishing both sides to calm down again and attempting to defuse the situation were outnumbered by those outraged by the treason committed by the Mazdakist civitates and their soldiers. A majority backed universal mobilization and a military intervention to – as the goal was stated – disarm the civitates of Arabana and Circesium and put the seditionists to a trial.
The First Clash of the Giants
Of course, that was not the outcome. Kersasp, the hero of Parthia, had marched four large divisions of the Army of the Light into Assyria (their Assyrian allies having opened the gates of the Assyrian Wall for them) while there was still only local resistance and a few reinforcements from Northern Assyria, which were swept aside. Kersasp secured control of the entire Osroene before the main Confederal army had even arrived.
The Confederal field army of 1236 was not the motley crew of assembled peasant militias it had been in its early years. It brought over 15,000 professional soldiers to the battlefield, along with twice as many vigilia. Its commanding officers were not elected on the spot on the very day before departure, as had often been the case in the 11th century. Instead, the tribunes of the protoporiakoi were elected for terms of three years by the elite soldiers they then commanded, while various other ranks were assigned by the magistri of the protoporiakoi, who held life-long offices, being chosen by representatives of the civitates who cooperated to maintain an academy. The structures into which the less well-trained militiamen of the vigilia were integrated in such times of war were comprehensive enough to absorb them.
But while the Confederal army was professional now, it was also heavily regionalized. The new structures had been built by clusters of cooperating civitates. These regional military clusters were imbued with at least as much particularist spirit as the legions of the Old Empire, and their tribunes enjoyed incomparably more authority among the rank and file than any civilian Vicarius designated to “lead them in war”.
Among these tribunes, the question of the most adequate strategy against the Army of the Light was hotly debated. Although the Confederacy brought more soldiers to the conflict zone (45,000 against 32,000 Iranians), the Confederal military leadership feared Kersasp, his battle-hardened, fervent fighters, and their wagon circles full of archers. While some considered an open battle inevitable on a terrain like the Osroene, others insisted that the Confederacy played to its strength – the support of the local population, at least in the majority of civitates – and reconquered one civitas at a time, combining massive attacks with guerilla tactics and regaining positions of safe retreat. Logically, some divisions arrived with long siege trains and few horses, while others had brought the 12th/early 13th century European standard field army combination of heavy cavalry combined with an infantry with many pikemen, geared towards confronting the enemy on an open battlefield where discipline and numbers mattered.
To be continued.
Congrats on the child!
It'll be a shame to see this go, but it's great that you're making an effort to wrap it up rather than leave everything hanging.
It'll be a shame to see this go, but it's great that you're making an effort to wrap it up rather than leave everything hanging.
Last installment, part two
Thank you, guys!
Just a very short update today - more, hopefully, on Monday evening.
Cont.:
An even worse effect of the regionalized nature of the Confederacy`s armed forces were very unequal contributions. The bulk of the Confederal army consisted of divisions from Egypt, Asia, the Levante, Baetica and Africa. Obvious geographical reasons were not solely to blame for this, as the case of the latter two showed. Agonistically dominated civitates in Libya and Sicily, Cretan civitates and Aetas Aurea-dominated civitates in Italy were, with often overwhelming popular majorities, opposed to the campaign, for a number of reasons. In the case of the Agonistic Christians, pacifism was certainly part of the mix, but more important for them and for the others was their rejection of the economic policies pursued by the pro-war party. They denied the legitimacy of the casus belli, arguging that the Edessa alliance was completely wrong in its legal and political judgement of the reforms in the Mazdakist civitates, and that the exaggerated action and planned oppression of the latter by the war faction provided an ex post justification for the defensive alliance Arabana and Circesium had concluded. These more isotian civitates feared that they – pursuing policies not quite dissimilar to those of Arabana and Circesium – could be the next targets. Consequently, they either sent no troops at all for the Confederal war effort, in spite of Its being decided by the Council, or only token contributions.
Under these conditions, Philipp of Oea was chosen from among the Vicarii to command the entire Confederal army. Philipp listened to the tribunes, then decided to march South along the Western bank of the Euphrates through land claimed by Hira and cross the river after Besechana, from where they`d have to march only a short distance to Assyria`s Eastern fortifications along the Tigris. The Assyrian Limes and both rivers, Philipp reasoned, had to be secured first, in order to prevent the Mazdakists from sending yet more troops into Assyria. They would move into the back of Kersasp`s army, as it were, attacking him from the East instead of the West.
Thus it was done. The Mazdakist occupying army had destroyed the Sippara Bridge over the Euphrates, a relatively new symbol of Confederal architectural pride and prowess. So pontoons had to be laid. When the bulk of the Confederal army had already reached the Eastern bank, cavalry from the Kingdom of Hira suddenly appeared. Now, the absence of the Libyans, who had always contributed outstanding light cavalry to Confederal armies, made itself bitterly felt. Tayy cavalry overwhelmed the Confederal rearguard and specifically targeted the army`s baggage train, killing the beasts of burden, carrying off some of the foodstuff and setting much of the siege weaponry on fire. Before the main body of the Confederal army was able to return in orderly fashion back across the pontoon bridge, Hira´s horsemen were already gone.
Proceeding with little provisions and unable to storm any of the nearby cities in the absence of a siege train was a dangerous business, and those tribunes who had opted for guerilla tactics were urging Philipp to retreat to Corsote and wait for reinforcements. The other tribunes urged Philipp on, arguing that the situation would only be worse if they came back later. Philipp agreed with the latter, and so the Confederal army crossed the Euphrates once again.
Now they were forced to seek an open battle before they had secured any defensible positions. When they confronted Kersasp`s army in the vicinity of Pirisabora, the Confederal army still enjoyed numerical superiority, but not an overwhelming one. The exact events of the battle are unclear, but while it may not have been an outright victory for Kersasp, the Confederal army was weakened enough to be forced to retreat. Philipp marched all the way back to Cyrrhus in Cilicia and requested more troops from the Council. The Mazdakist Army of the Light remained in control over Assyria.
To be continued.
Thank you, guys!
Just a very short update today - more, hopefully, on Monday evening.
Cont.:
An even worse effect of the regionalized nature of the Confederacy`s armed forces were very unequal contributions. The bulk of the Confederal army consisted of divisions from Egypt, Asia, the Levante, Baetica and Africa. Obvious geographical reasons were not solely to blame for this, as the case of the latter two showed. Agonistically dominated civitates in Libya and Sicily, Cretan civitates and Aetas Aurea-dominated civitates in Italy were, with often overwhelming popular majorities, opposed to the campaign, for a number of reasons. In the case of the Agonistic Christians, pacifism was certainly part of the mix, but more important for them and for the others was their rejection of the economic policies pursued by the pro-war party. They denied the legitimacy of the casus belli, arguging that the Edessa alliance was completely wrong in its legal and political judgement of the reforms in the Mazdakist civitates, and that the exaggerated action and planned oppression of the latter by the war faction provided an ex post justification for the defensive alliance Arabana and Circesium had concluded. These more isotian civitates feared that they – pursuing policies not quite dissimilar to those of Arabana and Circesium – could be the next targets. Consequently, they either sent no troops at all for the Confederal war effort, in spite of Its being decided by the Council, or only token contributions.
Under these conditions, Philipp of Oea was chosen from among the Vicarii to command the entire Confederal army. Philipp listened to the tribunes, then decided to march South along the Western bank of the Euphrates through land claimed by Hira and cross the river after Besechana, from where they`d have to march only a short distance to Assyria`s Eastern fortifications along the Tigris. The Assyrian Limes and both rivers, Philipp reasoned, had to be secured first, in order to prevent the Mazdakists from sending yet more troops into Assyria. They would move into the back of Kersasp`s army, as it were, attacking him from the East instead of the West.
Thus it was done. The Mazdakist occupying army had destroyed the Sippara Bridge over the Euphrates, a relatively new symbol of Confederal architectural pride and prowess. So pontoons had to be laid. When the bulk of the Confederal army had already reached the Eastern bank, cavalry from the Kingdom of Hira suddenly appeared. Now, the absence of the Libyans, who had always contributed outstanding light cavalry to Confederal armies, made itself bitterly felt. Tayy cavalry overwhelmed the Confederal rearguard and specifically targeted the army`s baggage train, killing the beasts of burden, carrying off some of the foodstuff and setting much of the siege weaponry on fire. Before the main body of the Confederal army was able to return in orderly fashion back across the pontoon bridge, Hira´s horsemen were already gone.
Proceeding with little provisions and unable to storm any of the nearby cities in the absence of a siege train was a dangerous business, and those tribunes who had opted for guerilla tactics were urging Philipp to retreat to Corsote and wait for reinforcements. The other tribunes urged Philipp on, arguing that the situation would only be worse if they came back later. Philipp agreed with the latter, and so the Confederal army crossed the Euphrates once again.
Now they were forced to seek an open battle before they had secured any defensible positions. When they confronted Kersasp`s army in the vicinity of Pirisabora, the Confederal army still enjoyed numerical superiority, but not an overwhelming one. The exact events of the battle are unclear, but while it may not have been an outright victory for Kersasp, the Confederal army was weakened enough to be forced to retreat. Philipp marched all the way back to Cyrrhus in Cilicia and requested more troops from the Council. The Mazdakist Army of the Light remained in control over Assyria.
To be continued.