Part LVII: The Early Years
When the Council of Thessalonika ended the reaction was muted in the Empire. The new regime apparently had God’s favor, but it was an open question whether they would keep it. The question was seemingly yes when word came from the East that an Imperial army had advanced out of the Caucuses and besieged both Dara and Nisibis, which had risen in rebellion against Arslan Servet, who was still away in Persia. The two strategic centers had surrendered when it became clear no aid would come, and large garrisons were put in place to hold them.
Repairs and rebuilding of the old fortifications was put into place, bringing in many of the techniques now being utilized in the modern stone phrourions. Built to be defended by skeleton crews if necessary of only a few hundred men Abbasios brought in nearly ten thousand to garrison the cities. Under no circumstances would the Turks be allowed back into Roman territory. The Syrian army was also expanded by an additional ten thousand, leaving a total force of thirty thousand in the region should the Turks once again invade, as well as the fifteen thousand strong Armenians who had reoccupied the mountain fortresses and stood ready to deploy in support of their Syrian fellows.
The overall commander in Syria was Ali Umayos, whose son Nasir will be a key figure in the coming civil war. The new Syrian troops were an example of the new Roman army Abbasios was building.
Made up primarily of poorer conscripts the soldiers were trained with pike or crossbow, and given low pay, but were well provided for otherwise. Wealthier men meanwhile were shifted into the heavy cavalry force based on the Frankish model. These men were armored in mail hauberks of the Frankish design, but shortened to allow easier movement and given separate leg armor, an innovation that will soon be adopted in Western Europe after the Roman army rampages through. The horses at this stage were not armored, as the money even to equip the new army was stretched horribly thin.
Speaking of, Manuel paid for all of this by basically completely ending all spending in the Empire that wasn’t related to either basic administration, or the army. The Emperor himself claimed to be eating the same rations his soldiers did, and this seems to have been about half true. Certainly, the splendor normally associated with the Imperial family decreased during this time.
This also seems as good a time as any to talk about Manuel as a person, since his upbringing is also related to the lack of splendor associated with his early reign. Manuel you will recall had been raised in Armenia, what was historically the poorest of the regions controlled by the Empire. Even similarly poor places like Moesia or Dacia were that way not because of any actual lack of wealth, but rather because it was so often being fought over. As such while the young prince had had the best material that could be found, this wasn’t anything even approaching the sort of luxuries associated with the palaces of Constantinople.
Rather Manuel spent significant amounts of time away from the palace, and in the far simpler accomodations of the Imperial villas of the Thracian countryside. As a happy coincidence this also put him in far more regular contact with a group who were also spending a lot of time outside the capital, his soldiers. The Emperor was highly charismatic, with many of his contemporaries talking of the ease with which he talked to people, and once again his upbringing among the less stratified Armenian army had left him with an ability to grouse with common soldiers. He also had the normal ability of great men to remember people easily, and had a legitimate fondness for the men under his command. To the extent that he purposefully adopted Julius I’s habit of referring to his soldiers as his comrades.
That last is an important point as well, since Manuel II was a classicist at heart. He modeled much of his rulership on that of the great men who had preceded him, in particular he deliberately called upon the first two Caesar’s as a way of harkening back to the glory days of the Principate. But as we will explore later, this was very much a surface level comparison. Indeed, Manuel is far closer in attitude to the Emperor Domitian or, and I know this will shock and horrify you, Diocletian. I should note that I do not mean the last in the normal way people think of that particularly horrible Emperor, but rather in the sort of government Manuel clearly wanted. The full explanation will have to wait however, as its not particularly relevant to these early days.
For now let us suffice to say that Manuel’s easygoing manner with his soldiers and familiarity with them will let him get away with a lot of things that other, more haughty Emperor’s would have been strung up for. Because his soldiers fundamentally trusted him. Even if Manuel wasn’t the one planning campaigns, even if he wasn’t personally out leading charges and rallying them in battle, he was still the one they looked to, and they didn’t want to fail their Emperor. As we will see, it will be this quality that really makes it so that the Franks cannot stop the Roman campaign. Though of course the sheer destructive nature of the army’s rampage also helped.
All of these traits however are also a big part of why he’s going to have so many domestic troubles over the next twenty-five years. But for now apart from grumbling by church officials and magnates in the Balkans there was a sense among the population, rich and poor alike, that things were getting better.
This sense was built on a number of factors. First off, the number of destitute men in the cities of Greece and Eastern Anatolia had decreased significantly. Manuel’s initial recruitment campaign had swept up over one hundred thousand people from the various cities of the Aegean, and the securing of Anatolia had led to at least some of the refugees returning to their old homes. This in turn meant more cash flowing through the local economies as the Imperial government paid for food, clothes, weapons, and armor for these new soldiers. Much of that was then recollected as taxes, but the point was that the economy kept functioning.
In some ways taxes once again went down in some parts of the Empire, in particular Egypt. Never happy about the restrictions placed upon their grain sales the Egyptians cheered news that these restrictions were being significantly loosened, even though it once again meant they were required to pay taxes in cash rather than in kind. Now normally this sort of thing sets off grumbling among the populace, but as the Egyptian farmers wanted to be able to sell their grain at decent prices this was kept to a minimum, and indeed Manuel’s reign does mark the general end of Egypt as a source of discontent in the Empire, a status it has maintained since the arrival of Christendom.
In large part this was because the sort of restrictions imposed by Emperors before Manuel were never reinstituted. I forgot to mention during Manuel’s father’s reign, but in 1010 he had ordered the soldiers in the theme of Nubia to dismantle their phrourions and withdraw north into old Roman Egypt, where their posts were now located. When this was done he had ordered much of the local garrison out of the area, as those soldiers were needed elsewhere.
Markuria had rapidly retaken the region, but prudently did not press north once again. Instead the king had finally finished a move to expand to the Red Sea, where he began construction of a navy. There the Markurian king began the wars against Arabia Felix which will eventually see the Nubians dominate the Red Sea coastline, but that will distract the Markurians for most of the next century.
In the east the beginning of the sometimes friendly, normally rocky, relationship with Turki was beginning to settle. Arslan Servet had won his civil war, and now set about consolidating his position as ruler of the Turks. Some diplomatic tension ensued over titles, but in 1026 Manuel departed for Edessa, where he met Arslan and the two signed a treaty marking the border at Dara and Nisibis, recognizing the old boundary between the Sassanids and the Romans, though this time with all of the Caucuses and both fortress cities held by the Romans.
In exchange Manuel crowned Arslan Emperor of the Turks, seemingly recognizing the claim that the Servets had made for the past two decades. But Manuel was very clear in his own writings, this was not a recognition, it was an elevation. Before Arslan the Turkish ruler had been merely a khagan, or perhaps a king. Only the Roman Emperor had the gravitas and authority to crown an Emperor, according to the Roman Emperor at least. In practice though this was really a recognition of what was already true. At this meeting Manuel also betrothed his young son, John, to Arslan’s infant daughter Aybike.
Since I have largely neglected the topic, this is also a good time to mention that Maria had given birth to the first two of her eventual seven children at this stage, Prince John born just after the Emperor’s Anatolian campaign began and who will be the heir to the Roman throne for his entire life; and his daughter Maria Minor born in 1024. As with all of Manuel’s children, the Emperor will outlive them.
With the treaty Manuel also received another four thousand Turkic mercenaries who would serve with him on campaign, adding to the four thousand Anatolian Turks he was already readying. Early in 1027 then Manuel loaded a large army, including the Turks, onto ships and sailed them for his next target. Since its been made clear that reclaiming the home peninsula and chastising the Frankish emperor was Manuel’s primary goal it will of course come as absolutely no surprise that Manuel sent the Turks to…Africa.
Wait what?
Yes, Africa will in fact be our next stop in Manuel II’s quest to restore the Imperial borders. We will turn our attention there later however, as first we must discuss exactly what had been going on in Western Europe since the fall of Italy. In particular we must cover the collapse of Gothic Hispani, the conquest of Saxeland by the Normans, and the infighting which will fatally weaken the Frankish Empire in the coming confrontation with the resurgent Romans.
