A developed version of the Turkic language which went extinct in favor of the Slavic language OTL. In writing they use the Latin alphabet.
The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
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Is this language spoken by majority of ppl in this country? Transylvania (where your Bulgaria is) was historically very diverse with various Slav and Vlach groups, would Bulgarians manage to assimilate them all?
No its not. It is the dominant language, but Latin (well a language based on Latin anyway) is widely used as well by the Vlachs, and also due to it being the primary trading language, very relevant on the Danube. Greek isn't exactly unheard of either due to being the main court language of Constantinople. Plus of course Slavic, but that one is on its way out at the moment.
Is Romanos the Mad married to the widow of the Exarch of Syria or is he single right now?
Yes, but I wanted to make clear that it wasn't the Bulgarian of OTL. Not even in the same language group.
Well, when you're speaking about Bulgarians and their empire, I have many questions, which weren't answered (or I'm dumb and I cannot see them after reading whole thread) previously:
a) what brand of Christianity does Bulgaria follow? Is is the same Christianity as in Constantinople or is it closer to the West?
b) what was the northernmost extent of Bulgari empire? Your maps showed that it was Carpathian mountains but you also mentioned that the Polans took their old land back so it surely must've stretched north of Carpathians.
a. There isn't that much difference between Christianity in Constantinople and in the West here. Most of the difference comes down to how seriously the groups take the ban on icons. And as time has gone on that has decreased as well. It won't stay that way, but for now the Orthodox Catholic split has not happened. The Bulgarians of TTL are in line with Constantinople for the most part, but are more tolerant of Jews, and less tolerant of heretics*.
b. Somewhere north of that. The Carpathians are mostly used because it gives a good idea of the northern border, but as usual it should be noted that borders in the region are far less static and set than might appear on a map.
*Note that this is mostly because Muslims are present in decently large numbers in the Roman Empire, especially in Syria and Palestine and are technically classified as heretics.
a) Well, earlier in the topic there were mentions on ban on Old Testament introduced here and there so I thought that that could be another point of divergence between Constantinople Christianity and Western Christianity, but fine. Are they using Latin alphabet, Greek or Turkic runic alphabet?
b) Fine. Did Bulgarians exert an profound cultural influence on the lands which they've conquered? I imagine Moravi, Serbi and the part of Poland which they conquered would be quite influenced in things like customs, loanwords in the language, clothing etc?
Part 86: The Mask Slips
Part LXXXVI: The Mask Slips
Romanos’s triumph over the Cumans quickly silenced the dark mutters directed at him due to the coup and subsequent murder of his relatives. If there was one thing the populace of Constantinople loved it was great victories, and Romanos had spectacularly delivered not once but twice. He held a massive triumph for himself, which lasted for a full week, and featured every novelty that he could think of.
The people ate it up, and soon the Emperor was reaching incredible heights of popularity in the capital. Riding this wave of public support the Emperor began putting into place his wider vision for the Empire. Civil administrators were dismissed, or outright executed, for what he perceived as disloyalty or corruption, and replaced with military officers personally loyal to the Emperor. This shift of the administration of the Empire to a more martial focus coincided with a large expansion of the army, with Romanos deciding to add a full ten tagmas, fifty thousand men, to the ranks.
These soldiers typically were recruited from the region they were stationed in, and commanded by local officers, often former soldiers pulled back to service by offers of bonuses and better pay. To fulfill that promise the Emperor raised the pay of every soldier in the Empire by a third. Upper level, officers, that is to say Romanos’s officers, received an increase of at least half, in addition to whatever salary their new civil positions drew.
If the idea of replacing experienced and reasonably competent, if usually corrupt, men with inexperienced, and also corrupt, men sounds like a terrible idea, then you would be absolutely correct. Revenues began a slow decline, dipping below nine million in 1028. The treasury couldn’t sustain the cost of Romanos’s extra soldiers, and so a vast array of new taxes were introduced, and infrastructure spending was significantly decreased.
Resentment among the exarchates began to rise, and nowhere was it worse than in Africa. Africa was far from Constantinople, but governed far more strictly than the even more distant Hispani. The Berbers had begun to chafe under Roman rule once again, and in 1230 they erupted into a revolt that rapidly spiraled out of control as local soldiers, many of them Berbers, deserted to the rebels.
The causes of the revolt were numerous, but primarily the Berbers absolutely hated the exarch in Carthage who merciless in his enforcement of Roman law and tax collection, while simultaneously being horribly corrupt. Now this was true of basically every exarch to some extent, but the Manuel of Carthage took it to extreme levels. A petitioner had to pay a fee simply to be put on a list of possible people who might appeal for the Exarch’s justice, and they had to be present from then onward whenever he might hold court, which was erratic and unpredictable. If they were not present their names would be stricken from the list. But just because they were present did not mean they would actually be called, and indeed Manuel infamously saw only a handful of petitioners at a time, while others were forced to wait outside his court simply to see if they would be selected that day.
And of course meticulous records were kept about everyone there, so a petitioner could not simply hope to be overlooked if not present. If their name was removed from the list the entire process started over. To make matters worse, Manuel was also deeply self-indulgent, living in luxury even by the standards of an exarch, while around him Africa had begun to decline once again. Money needed to be spent, but simply vanished into either the palace, or onto the ships carrying taxes off to the capital. A local Berber leader named Alexios finally had enough, and demanded to speak to the Exarch during one of his days of holding court, but was kept out by the guard.
Stubbornly refusing to give up Alexios darted past the guards, and burst in, to find the exarch in the middle of a sexual act with a female petitioner. Alexios was dragged out, publicly flogged, and then thrown out of the city gates. He was found by his countrymen, and taken away from Carthage. Two weeks later Alexios led his men into Caesarea on the north coast, and declared himself the new Exarch of the region.
Manuel sent soldiers to put down the revolt, but many among them turned traitor and joined the rebels, and soon Alexios force numbered 20,000 and was taking towns across Africa. Away in Constantinople Romanos, already growing bored by his hard-won peace lept at the chance to put down the revolt, and immediately ordered the Tagmata onto transport ships and sailed for Africa, gathering infantry as he went. The Emperor arrived in Carthage in early 1231, and immediately had the exarch and his adult family put to death, ostensibly to punish them for the situation which had led to the revolt.
When word reached Alexios that the Emperor had arrived and had executed the exarch he immediately sent peace envoys, stating his loyalty to the Emperor and declaring himself a law-abiding Roman simply objecting to the misuse of the Emperor’s authority.
Romanos had Alexios’s envoys thrown from Carthage’s walls. There would be no negotiation. The Imperial army drove west from Carthage rapidly, retaking towns and villages that had been captured by the Berber rebellion. Behind the army came courts, looking for anyone who had collaborated with the rebels. Dozens of men and women were executed based on flimsy or sometimes even non-existent accusations, simply to make the point that the Emperor did not tolerate treason of any sort.
Yet it was a mere harbinger of what was to come. As Alexios withdrew further west he abandoned Berber towns and villages for the Emperor, hoping to draw out the campaign until disease and attrition had weakened the larger and more powerful force that Romanos had with him. The Emperor however had little interest a long chase however, and so set about forcing a battle. He did so by destroying every single town and village inside what had once been the Berber kingdom that Alexios left behind. Hundreds were killed, and thousands more left with nothing but the smoking wreck of what had once been their lives. Crops were stolen or burned, animals slaughtered for the army, and anything of value stolen.
Alexios’s army soon learned of the depredations, and pressure mounted on him to seek a battle. That was absolutely something the rebel did not want to do, but word came in April that his family had been captured fleeing Caesarea, and had all been executed, by burning at the stake. In a fury the rebel leader gave in, and turned his army on the Emperor.
The subsequent battle was slaughter. The rebels were armed relatively well-armed from their early conquests, but when the Tagmata charged their own cavalry broke and fled, leaving the infantry to be surrounded and slaughtered to the last. Alexios himself was captured, dragged into Caesarea, and burned alive. What Berber leaders remained begged Romanos for mercy, and the Emperor at long last granted it. The leaders would surrender themselves to him, along with their families, and the taxes on Berber lands would be tripled for the next twenty years. What was more, an immediate payment of cash would be required simply to let this peace go into place. Seeing no alternative his opponents agreed.
They would all be dead by the end of the year, and their children would live on as hostages until the depredations of Romanos’s government sent Africa once again into revolt in the 1240s, but by then Constantinople would have far bigger problems.
On the Emperor’s return to Carthage he put in place a cousin of the former exarch, just a small child, and left behind a number of trusted officers to administer the province. Their orders were to keep the taxes flowing, and the Berbers under control. He then departed for the capital once again.
In Constantinople Romanos threw himself another Triumph, glorifying himself for his victory over yet another foe. But while his previous victories had been heartily welcomed by the people of Constantinople this one left them far less cheered. The Africans were Romans too after all, and should the Emperor really be publicly boasting about the slaughter and destruction he had leveled on them? Especially for a revolt which the upper classes felt some degree of sympathy for.
But still, he had the army behind him, and Constantinople itself had little say in Imperial administration at this point, so Romanos was quite secure in his position. From this position he doubled down on the program of replacing civil administrators with army officers. This time the policy extended out into the exarchates, and men who had local knowledge and connections were thrown out to be replaced by Imperial appointed men. Now this wasn’t inherently a bad thing, since local connections cut both ways, as they had local biases which led to corruption.
But that had been kept in check by central auditors among the epikroi. Now the epikroi were gutted and replaced with men from the same source as the new administrators, the army. Corruption soared, and what had been local connections from the local administrators and their populace were replaced with connections between the administrators and the men who were supposed to be keeping them honest.
Revenues plummeted again, falling below nine million nomismata once again in 1235. And this time it would be a century before they reached that level again. Romanos was furious at the loss of revenue, as his wider ambitions for military glory simply could not be paid for. But he did hit upon what he believed was a solution. In 1236 Pope Pius VII died, and as usual the Cardinals met and elected one of their own to replace him, then sent the man off to Constantinople to meet the Emperor and be confirmed to the position.
This system was typically fairly smooth, as the man elected was always well respected among the Western clergy, a solid Thessalonikan, and had no standing quarrels with Imperial officials. And of course he came from Italy, so the possibility of foreign loyalty was nonexistent. And he was always old, so if he turned out to be a dud…well they’d get another chance soon enough. Romanos though had already selected a replacement by the time the Cardinals met, and sent him off to take up the position of pope in Rome, and in a rather shocking turn he also selected a separate Patriarch of Constantinople.
That set alarm bells ringing in Rome before the new pope had even arrived. Both because their elected authority had been subverted, and because in separating the offices once again Romanos was bringing to bear the very real possibility of a supremacy dispute within the Church. But when Pope Julian III arrived in Rome the news turned out to be far worse than anyone had expected.
He was a Chalcedonian. And so was the new Patriarch. Romanos had decided to begin fixing his financial difficulties by bringing back the ancient art of proscription trials, but this time using heresy as the charge. And Julian brought with him a list of Thessalonikan bishops who were particularly wealthy, and a group of soldiers ready to enforce his rulings. The First Imperial Inquisition was about to begin.
And that’s where we’ll leave it for now. Next time, we’ll cover the final decade of Romanos III’s rule, as what had been a promising, if sadistic, Imperial regime degenerated into terror, tyranny, madness, and ultimately with two-thirds of the Empire rising in revolt.
Probably not. I'm not great at maps, so modifying the political one I've been using for something that has far less to do with physical boundaries isn't really something I'm up for. One of the (biggest) reasons I tend to note that borders are more of a guideline than hard and fast is because I'm just not very good at using paint. Its difficult for me just to get reasonably straight lines, or follow the course of a river or mountain range from a different screen. And a cultural map in particular would be something I don't think I could do reasonably well.
Honestly we've been on the death spiral since Romanos's father. By the time this Emperor's done their dead, the corpse just hasn't stopped twitching yet.
What if Romanos dies never losing a single battle, but his madness results in so many fires spreading in the Empire that he's unable to stamp them all out.
Losing may teach him some humility, but if it's just his lieutenants being defeated it'll drive his madness even further.
Losing may teach him some humility, but if it's just his lieutenants being defeated it'll drive his madness even further.