Western Eagle Reforged

Author's Note: all dates will be given A.U.C. (Ab Urbe condita or after the founding of the city) This is the founding of Rome (753 B.C. our calendar)


The Romans underwent a massive political and cultural shift following the Millennial Strife which lasted from 988(235) to 1037(284). As stated previously, the Millennial Strife is commonly held to have begun with the accent of Princeps Maximinus I, more commonly known as Maximinus Thrax and ended with the accent of Princeps Diocletian I. Diocletian is important because he represents the end of the Reformed Republican Period of the Roman state and the start of the Early Imperium Period. In deed, Diocletian is one of the main forefathers of the Early Imperium Period even if he didn't realize it.

Before Diocletian, the Roman Empire was a single political unit presided over by the Princeps. The office of Princeps was inherently unstable do in part because Princeps Augustus, who started the Reformed Republican Period, maintained his power base by working within the apparatus of the Roman Republic's constitution; which he heavily modified to make himself the de facto master of Rome even though he wasn't de jur. One of the main problems with the office of Princeps is the fact that succession issues were never worked out.

Diocletian changed the Roman Empire by effectively abolishing the position of Princeps. In his second year, Diocletian raised Maximian to the position of Augustus of the West and took the title of Augustus of the East for himself. This decision to split rule of the Roman Empire between two emperors in July 1038(285) is considered to be the start of both the Mediolanum Empire and the Nicomedian Empire. However, the immediate effect of Diocletian's edict was to allow both halves of the empire to receive the full attention of an emperor. Another step to insure succession by Diocletian was taken on March 1, 1044(291) with the creation of the office of Caeser. The position of Caeser created two more emperors under the Augusti, one Caesar for the West and one for the East. Constantus Chlorius was chosen as Caesar of the West and Galerius was chosen as Caesar of the East.

This decision to create the offices of Augusti and Caesars was validated in 1053(300) when Augustus Maximian died from a stomach ulcer. Constantus Chlorius quickly ascended to the office of Augustus of the West and appointed his son Constantine as his Caeser. Constantus' decision was controversial because Constanine was at this time in Diocletian's court acting as a hostage for Diocletian of Constantus' good conduct. However, the tension over Constantine's appointment was not necessary as Diocletian allowed Constantine to leave his court to head west as Caesar. Reports from courtiers show that Diocletian was in a depression over his dear friend Maximian's dead and allowed Constantine to leave so that the hard won peace of the empire was preserved.

In any event, Constantine's departure from Nicomedia marks a milestone in the Early Imperium Period. Politically, it represents the establishment of the tradition of transferring of power upon the death of the Augustus to the Caesar. There was the uprising of Maxentius, but this uprising was put down by Constantus and Constantine. The Maxentius uprising was put down by first removing Maxentius's support by marrying Fausta, the daughter of Augustus Maximian and sister to Maxentius, to Constantine and then by Constantine defeating Maxentius in the Battle of Naples in 1054(301).

Constantine's departure also represents a milestone culturally for the West. This is because Constantine took with him Lactantius and several of Lactantius's students. While generally held to be an excellent rhetorician, Lactantius's is most important in history for the development of printing. His invention of printing developed over his observations of the imperial bureaucracy that had developed under Diocletian's reign and the immense amount of writing needed to maintain this bureaucracy. The Lactantian Press was a primitive form of block press and was a godsend to the newly enlarged imperial bureaucracy. It allowed the creation of many common forms needed for the bureaucracy and the mass production of imperial edicts. On November 23, 1053(300) Constantine and his retinue landed in Ravenna where he was officially pronounced Caesar of the West.
 
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The story of the Roman Empire in the 11th century is in many ways the story of a state pushed near the breaking point and forced to transform in order to survive. This is especially true of the western half of the Roman Empire. While the empire as a whole suffered greatly under the Millennial Strife, It was the western half of the Roman Empire that felt the effects of Millennial Strife the most. Compared to the east, the western half was poorer, had a smaller population, more people out of work, and had more territory that needed to be defended. According to Flavius Livy, one of Lactantius’ students and friend of Constantine, the sight of the numerous poor and destitute in the Italy that Constantine saw on his way to fight Maxentius brought Constantine to tears. The story of the Constantinian dynasty is the story of the west working to correct these serious problems.

In May 1055(302), Constantus and Constantine met in Agaunum, a small town only a few miles from Constantine’s zone of authority, to discuss several problems facing the west. The most serious problems facing father and son were the limited tax revenues collected and manpower for the army. The meeting at Agaunum lasted for fifteen days as the two tried to find solutions to their mutual problems.

According to Flavius Livy, the solution came to Constantine during one of his dinner conversations with his courtiers. Julius, yet another student of Lactantius, is supposed to have commented that it seemed a waste that there was so much land in the provinces and yet there were so many beggars in Rome. While there are some who doubt the validity of this story, the fact is that Constantus and Constantine did issue the Edict of Agaunum on May 20, 1055(302).

The Edict of Agaunum called for the assessment of all lands in the west. With the assessment, all private lands over 300 acres was to be seized and redistributed to the homeless in the cities. The homeless were to be pulled from the cities and placed on the reclaimed land. No one was allowed to sell or buy land for fifteen years after this assessment. Farmers and blacksmiths would have the majority of their taxes paid for the next two years in material and training needed to get the newly landed able to farm the land. Also, the grain dole was to be abolished by 1058(305).

Naturally, the Edict of Agaunum was widely unpopular with the upper levels of Roman society, particularly the landed aristocracy who saw most of their lands seized by the state. However, the edict was widely popular among the masses in the cities that were destitute. The aristocracy was unable to do more than mildly grumble about the edict for three reasons. First, Constantus and Constantine were both popular with the army having won against the Alamanni and a usurper respectively. Secondly, father and son agreed to give up their family lands as stated by the edict. Those two facts meant that going against the edict would mean facing off against both Augustus and Caesar who had the army and masses behind them. The aristocracy’s only hope against the edict was the Augustus in the East. However, Diocletian died two months before the edict was announced leading to the third reason. Galerius was too busy putting down a revolt in Egypt to intervene in the west.

With the Edict of Agaunum, the divergence between the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire truly begins. Thanks to the edict, the western half of the empire was able to cut down on its expenses while increasing its revenue. The newly landed peasantry was now fully behind the Constantinian dynasty and would provide local defense of the outer provinces as they now had a vested interest in the security of the provinces. By 1060(307) the western half was still behind the eastern half in terms of population and wealth, but comparatively it was in a more sound position.

Part of the success that the west under Constantus and Constantine enjoyed was due in part to the western emperors’ refusal to meddle in the east. From 1055(302) to 1062(309) the eastern half of the empire was engulfed in civil war. The early Constantinian emperors’ refusal to try to march east is puzzling because most claimants to the purple wanted to rule over the entire empire. Constantus’s refusal is believed to have stemmed from his age and his experiences during the Millennial Strife. Constantine’s refusal is a bit harder for historians to explain. There are two leading explanations for Constantine’s decision. The first is that Constantine knew his father wouldn’t want to enter the east and decided at the time to simply wait for his ascension to Augustus of the West before moving east. The other leading theory is that Constantine was persuaded by Lactantius against moving east. Probably both reasons contributed to his decision.

The Diadochi by Lactantius, whether or not he actually persuaded Constantine from moving east, is a noteworthy work of this period because it helps to form the basis of the Early Imperial Period in the west. In Diadochi, Lactantius argued that the Ptolemaic Dynasty was the wisest of Alexander’s successors because they contented themselves with Egypt instead of trying to win all of Alexander the Great’s empire. This work was published in 1059(306) and had a tremendous effect on shaping western political thought.
 
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While things in the western portion of the Roman Empire were improving, the same could not be said for the eastern portion. Emperor Galerius, who reigned from 1055(302) to 1059(306), had to deal with two contenders for the position of Augustus of the East. One of these contenders was Strabo the governor of Syria and the other was Flavius the governor of Egypt. Strabo was killed by Galerius in 1058(305) in the Battle of Tarsus. However, Galerius was mortally wounded in the Battle of Gerasa in 1059(306) with Flavius’ forces even though he won the battle. Licinius was named by Galerius as his successor on his death bed. Licinus finally managed to emerge as master of the east in 1062(309) after the Battle of Tanis.

It was in the year 1063(310) that friction between the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire started to develop. The friction started because of an edict that the emperor Licinius announced in June of that year. The Edict of Suppression decreed that Christian places of worship were to be destroyed and that all Christians must offer sacrifice to the emperor. It also stated that everyone in the empire must offer sacrifice to the emperor at least once a year. This edict of Licinius, known in the west as the Edict of Suppression, stressed the differences facing the east and the west.

The question of why Licinius issued this edict is one that many historians have debated about over the years. For the most part, historians have agreed that Licinius’s decision to issue the decree was not motivated by any great hatred of the Christians on Licinius’s part. Rather, Licinius’s decision was made by his desire to maintain the cohesiveness of the east. Unlike the west, the eastern half of the Roman Empire in the 11th century was far more heavily populated than the west and the eastern half was largely urban. These cities had large numbers of poor which represented a potential source of riots. Also, the eastern provinces were richer compared to the west tempting the eastern governors to revolt more than in the west. The eastern half also had to deal with the Sassanid Empire and the large armies that were necessary to keep the Sassanids’ out of the Roman Empire. Those large armies represented a potential threat in the form of generals trying to seize the throne. Historians believe that Licinius issued the Edict of Suppression in an attempt to keep the eastern part of the empire from pulling itself apart via religious unity.

Regardless of why Licinius issued the Edict of Suppression, this edict had the effect of souring relations between the two halves of the Roman Empire. Constantus and Constantine saw the Edict of Suppression as a threat to the stability of the west. The edict represented a serious drain on their forces if they thought about enforcing the edict; such a drain would be disastrous for the west considering the barbarian tribes at the boarder. Thus, Constantus issue his last great decree known as the Edict of Augusta Treverorum. According to this edict, Christian churches wouldn’t be destroyed and the Christians could continue to worship without making sacrifice to the emperor. Constantus didn’t want to appear to be directly opposing Licinius and thus added the provision that this protection from the Edict of Suppression required the Christians to offer public prayers to Christ for the good health of the emperor and the welfare of the Roman Empire.

Licinius didn’t challenge Constantus or Constantine over the Edict of Augusta Treverorum. In fact, court documents from this period in Nicomedia show that Licinius purposely turned a blind eye to the immigrations of Christians to the west in order to escape his edict. The court documents show that Licinius didn’t want to fight another civil war over this slight and that he was more concerned about Arabian tribes threatening the eastern border. Licinius’s decision to not call Constantus on this negation of his power represented a silent understanding between the western and eastern halves that they were drifting away from each other.

Constantus died early in December of 1063(310) at the age of 60 of cold he contracted while wintering at Senones. Constantine was at his capital of Mediolanum when he heard of his father’s death and was proclaimed Augustus on the winter solstice. Constantine, according to Flavius Livy, recognized the necessity of having a Caesar after seeing the troubles of Galerius and spent several days trying to decide who to appoint. On January 1, 1064(311) Constantine decreed that his 16 year old half brother Flavius Dalmatius would be Caesar.
 
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Very interesting TL you've got here. This isn't my area of expertise but I like it. I'm surprised no one has responded yet.
 
Story Continues

Flavius Dalmatius, commonly known as Dalmatius, was summoned by his half-brother to Mediolanum with the same courier that informed him of his elevation to the position of Caesar. The news of his elevation was quite shocking to Dalmatius for several reasons: he was only 16 years old, he favored the civil side of government, and Constantine was known to be bitter over Constantius putting his mother to the side in order to marry Dalmatius’s mother. Reservations aside, Dalmatius quickly rode to Medilanum to be with his brother. Constantine met his brother outside of Medilanum and warmly welcomed his half brother into the palace.

Flavius Livy offers an explanation to Constantine’s surprising actions with Dalmatius. Constantine was planning to attack the Alamanni with the hope of conquering them. This move was planed to move the boarder back to the old continental Wall of Hadrian between the Rhine and the Danube. It was Constantine’s plan to regain this territory for the empire so that the northern front would be smaller and thus easier to defend. Constantine needed someone to oversee things away from the northern front for him without trying to challenge him. Dalmatius with his civil management leanings and complete lack of military background fit the bill.

Throughout the winter Constantine and Dalmatius worked to prepare for the campaigns in the spring. There was a slight reorganization of the provinces during these months. All land north of the Alps in the Diocese of Italy being regrouped into the Diocese of Danube. The remaining provinces in the Diocese of Italy were added to the Diocese of Rome. The Prefectures of Gaul and Italy were disbanded and replaced with the Prefecture of the Mediterranean and the Prefecture of the Atlantic. Constantine took the Prefecture of the Atlantic which held the Dioceses of Britain, Gaul, and Danube. Dalmatius received the Prefecture of the Mediterranean with the Dioceses of Spain, Africa, and Rome.

The only oddball in the reorganization of 1064(311) was the province of Liguria, which was where Medilanum was located. Medilanum was where the western bureaucracy for the empire was located and had become the preferred place of residence for the Constantinian Dynasty. This made it the de facto capital of the west. While Liguria was legally a part of the Diocese of Rome and thus under Dalmatius’s control, policy for the province was often dictated by Constantine.

Constantius’s elder son left Medilanum in the spring to start a six year campaign against the Alamanni which ended with the province of Alamanni added to the Diocese of Danube. The rest of Constantine’s twenty year reign as Augustus would often be spent in the Dioceses of Gaul and Danube battling the barbarian tribes. It is from these constant victories in the north that Constantine earned his title of ‘The Great’.

Dalmatius quickly proved to be an excellent choice for Caesar. He flourished in managing the empire like Constantine flourished on the battlefield. Being left with the peaceful dioceses, Africa only having a minor issue with dessert raiders, Dalmatius set about rebuilding and improving the dioceses’ infrastructure. While having only modest funds, Dalmatius was able to carefully plan several public works projects to greatly improve the provinces and making them more productive. These public works involved building new harbors and irrigation plans to increase the fertility of many small farmers’ fields that were without proper irrigation.

Public works were not the only area of civil government that Dalmatius excelled in. It is under Dalmatius that the coinage problem in the west was solved. Officially, the 1068(315) Edict of Standard Coinage was presented at the time as Constantine’s decision, but the records clearly show that Dalmatius was the driving force behind this edict and Constantine merely approved of it. This edict called for a new standard of coinage to be put in place and called for the recall of all previously issued coinage. The recalled coins were smelted down at provincial mints with the gold and silver contents of the old coins used to make new coins for the people almost for free. As was hoped, this edict quickly curtailed inflation.

Another important act of Dalmatius is the creation of the Dalmatian Codex. This codex was the codification of all the laws, edicts, and court cases heard in the empire up to that point. All of these legal decisions where then looked over by a team of legal experts and compiled into a single massive book of law for the west. The project took twelve years from 1069(316) to 1081(328) and was named after Dalmatius because it was completed shortly after his ascension to Augustus.

There is one other major act of Dalmatius during his reign as Caesar that must be noted. In 1073(320) Dalmatius dispatched Gnaeus Avitus to Alexandria to make master printing plates for the “fitting works of the masters” contained in Alexandria. Dalmatius had realized the potential of the printing press and saw it as a way to bring a glory to the west by creating a library rivaling Alexandria in every provincial capital. Gnaeus and his four assistants would spend the next twenty-five years going over the treatises and books in Alexandria and carefully crafting printing plates that were shipped to the west.


Now, the modern reader must note that not every work was copied and sent back west by Gnaeus. Unlike many upper level Romans, Gnaeus was disdainful of the Greeks; particularly, he was disdainful of Greek metaphysical discourses. Why, we simply don’t know. The two leading theories are that he either dismissed such questions as not being “fitting works” or that he believed that such ponderings were the place of religion and not man. The second possibility is laid since he was known to be a Christian. Whatever the case, Gnaeus sent back many works on medicine, mathematics, geography, and a few histories.
 
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Well done. You haven't jumped the shark or introduced any real cliches into this. The printing press is something that isn't concentrated on as much.
 
In the most recent installment, you've got printing.

Where did that come from?

The printing comes from the very first post. In it I have Lactantius, Constantine's rhetoric teacher, invent printing after watching the bureaucracy and all the forms it needed to generate. Now, this printing is not like the Gutenberg press with mobile type. The Lactantian press is basically sets of overly large seals and each page's master plate has to be carefuly made. Very time consuming to prepare the plates, but it is something that is belivable in that a person could get the idea of "Why don't we just make large seals with text so that we don't have to write all these forms out by hand?"
 
The printing comes from the very first post. In it I have Lactantius, Constantine's rhetoric teacher, invent printing after watching the bureaucracy and all the forms it needed to generate. Now, this printing is not like the Gutenberg press with mobile type. The Lactantian press is basically sets of overly large seals and each page's master plate has to be carefuly made. Very time consuming to prepare the plates, but it is something that is belivable in that a person could get the idea of "Why don't we just make large seals with text so that we don't have to write all these forms out by hand?"

Ah. Found it.

I saw the comment about the Nicomedian Empire.

Will there not be a Constantinople in TTL?

If so, the Eastern Empire may be in trouble--there were at least three instances (the Avar-Persian joint attack and the two Arab sieges) where most of the Empire was occupied but Constantinople held out, enabling the Byzantines to "bounce back" and win.

Without the uber-defensible site, the Eastern Empire's capital will be more vulnerable.

However, you could have Constantinople built later in the TL--perhaps Nicomedia is sacked by Persians or Arabs or something and whoever is Emperor decides they need a more defensible place.
 
What's the POD? is it
"Diocletian changed the Roman Empire by effectively abolishing the position of Princeps."?

How does this change lead to an earlier printing press? that just seemed come out of nowhere.
 
The Edict of Agaunum called for the assessment of all lands in the west. With the assessment, all private lands over 300 acres was to be seized and redistributed to the homeless in the cities. The homeless were to be pulled from the cities and placed on the reclaimed land. No one was allowed to sell or buy land for fifteen years after this assessment. Farmers and blacksmiths would have the majority of their taxes paid for the next two years in material and training needed to get the newly landed able to farm the land. Also, the grain dole was to be abolished by 1058(305).
AyAyAy!! Can we say Zimbabwe!? Take land away from people who know how to farm (efficiently) and give it to people who don't.

Naturally, the Edict of Agaunum was widely unpopular with the upper levels of Roman society, particularly the landed aristocracy who saw most of their lands seized by the state. However, the edict was widely popular among the masses in the cities that were destitute. The aristocracy was unable to do more than mildly grumble about the edict for three reasons. First, Constantus and Constantine were both popular with the army having won against the Alamanni and a usurper respectively. Secondly, father and son agreed to give up their family lands as stated by the edict. Those two facts meant that going against the edict would mean facing off against both Augustus and Caesar who had the army and masses behind them. The aristocracy’s only hope against the edict was the Augustus in the East. However, Diocletian died two months before the edict was announced leading to the third reason. Galerius was too busy putting down a revolt in Egypt to intervene in the west.

Let's see. We're going to 1) cut off dole and circuses, 2) take people from the slums of Rome who have, many of them, never so much as seen a plow, 3) force them at sword point out to farms (somewhere) 4) dump them on land and tell them to farm...

And they're going to be HAPPY!?!? OK, if you pulled this off, the descendants of the 10% who survived might very well be fanatical supporters of the regime. But here, you annoyed basically everyone...
 
What's the POD? is it
"Diocletian changed the Roman Empire by effectively abolishing the position of Princeps."?

How does this change lead to an earlier printing press? that just seemed come out of nowhere.

The real major point of departure is the fact that Maximian died in 300 A.D. instead of being forced to abdicate in 305 A.D. This leads to less hostility in the West to the Augustus and Caesar system as Constantius, Constantine's father, got to pick who his Caesar would be.

Lactantius was Constantine's rhetoric teacher and was forced to quit by Diocletian in 300 due to being a Christian. With Maimian dying, Diocletian was too busy to grieving to force Lactantius to quit. Thus, Constantine took his rhetoric teacher with him along with some of his school buds. This increased activity with the court created the butterfly of Lactantius asking himself, "If seals can be used to impress an image, why can't they be used to impress words on a page?"

My 'Lactantian Press' is very similar to a printing press used in Han China and so not beyond the realm of the possible. The major advantage the West will have with its printing press is the fact that the western emperors starting with Dalmatius are using it to boost their images. Also, there is the fact that Constantine is only focused on the west and hasn't reunited both halves of the empire. This allows the West to be more secure (Constantine's troops were mainly from the west) and thus, has a better chance to develop culturally.
 
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Constantine I passed away during the winter of 1083-4(330-1) while wintering in Alamanni at the age of 58. During his reign, Emperor Constantine I achieved great success on the frontier. He is the one who pushed back the borders in the west to where they were under the Nerva-Antonine Dynasty. Constantine was also able to force the barbarian tribes along the border to pay tribute. The tribes that had to pay annual tribute were the Batavi, Franks, Chatti, Burgundi, Suevi, Marcomanni, and the Quadi. Constantine was also able to extract large sums of money from the Asdingi and the Vandals. In total, Constantine enriched the western imperial treasury by 280,000 Solidi with an annual tribute from the various tribes equaling about 13,000 Solidi a year.

One of the major questions in the west was who was going to become Dalmatius’s Caesar. Both Constantine and Dalmatius had sons and several in the court were afraid that civil war would break out over this issue. A week after becoming Augustus, Dalmatius made his decision. Dalmatius called back his 22 year old nephew Constantine II to Medilanum, made Constantine II marry his daughter Helena, and announced Constantine II as Caesar.

Why did Dalmatius make Constantine II his Caesar and not one of his own sons Flavius Cicero or Tacitus? At this time, Cicero was 15 and Tactius was 11. Obviously, both boys were too young to serve as Caesar. Dalmatius’s other nephew, Constantius II, wasn’t considered for the job because of his chronic drunkenness. Julius Constantius, Constantine and Dalmatius’s younger brother, had been sent into near exile by his older brothers by being given the alternating governorship of Mauretania Tingitana and Tripolitana. Constantine II had military experience fighting under his father’s command and was respected by the army. Simply put, Constantine II was the best qualified of Dalmatius’s near relatives and could cause the most problems if he didn’t get the job. His marriage to Helena was Dalmatius’s attempt to fuse the two branches of the Constantinian Dynasty in power together.

Dalmatius’s long reign as Augustus, from 1084(331) to 1128(375), is critical to the history of the west. Under Dalmatius, the Roman Empire in the west finished its metamorphosis culturally into the Medilanum Empire; although, recognition of this fact would only come centuries after Dalmatius’s reign. A more in depth understanding of the cultural state of the western and eastern halves of the empire are necessary to show why many historians consider Dalmatius’s ascension to Augustus of the West as the date that the Roman Empire ‘died’.

In the west, populations in major cities such as Rome and Carthage shrunk as people moved into newly constructed towns and villages in the provinces. These new towns and villages were built along the lines of the older Roman colonies to be self-sufficient. Those in the Prefecture of the Atlantic, particularly near the border, had large stone walls in case the barbarians managed to cross the border like they did before Emperor Constantius’s time. The spreading out of the population in the west caused health to increase due to less disease and removed the necessity of vulnerable supply lines like the grain fleets needed to feed Rome pre Edict of Agaunum.

The spreading out of the population in the west had a major unexpected consequence. This consequence was the spread of printing and rising literary rates in the west. Vast public work projects like the Flavian Amphitheater were no longer as effective in showing the magnanimity of the emperors. Fewer people per city meant that fewer people could go see these types of projects and it would cost too much to build large amphitheaters in every major city and town in the west. Master plates for printing, though time consuming to make, allowed books to be printed at unheard of rates. It was cheaper for Dalmatius to send a few hundred books to a city, or a hundred to a major town, than it was to construct more amphitheaters. Besides, master plates stayed in the control of Imperial presses thus insuring that everyone who read those books knew they were a gift of the emperor.

People in the west at this time underwent a mental shift in their thinking. Their new self-sufficiency made them start to look down on the Greeks. In the people’s eyes, thanks in part to the writings of Gnaeus and his students, the Greeks were seen as the source of the empire’s troubles. They were seen as representing opulence and frivolous thinking. As one writer phrased it, “Man is man. What point is there to debate this”? The hard sciences like mathematics, engineering, geography, and medicine were admired for being applicable in the real world. Even though most of these texts were from Greek writers, they were accepted in the west since their writers had the “Common sense to see what man should study”. The fact that Archimedes and several other Greek writers that were admired came from Sicily and southern Italy made the great thinkers of the time in the west see them as having “escaped” the foolishness of brethren.

In the east, the Roman Empire was able to continue on mostly as it had been. However, even in the east there were changes. Greek was quickly replacing Latin as the language of the court. Emperor worship, which was dying out in the west due to larger amounts of Christians, was gaining strength in the east. Licinius II, who assumed the throne in 1080(327), formally codified emperor worship with himself as the living avatar of Apollo. Also, philosophers in the east increased their interest in metaphysical subjects.
 
Dathi had the point that taking land from people who know how to use it and giving it to masses of untrained people could get very bad.

A more gradual program with compensation and training for the new farmers would be more doable, but a very sudden program would probably turn into Zimbabwe unless they're VERY lucky.

And might this provoke assassination attempts, like what happened with the Gracchi centuries before? Even if an aristocratic revolt isn't in the cards, a knife or poison is easier.
 
I know that Constantius and Constantine's edict will cause problems. However I would like to point out a few factors that would mitigate the problems a bit:

1. agriculture was a lot simpler then and depended mostly on actual man power. This meant that less acres of land could be tilled. Also, this meant that it was a lot easier to just tell someone to take a hoe to turn up the soil, plant seeds in spring, and harvest in fall. Now I know that farming isn't that simple, but many of the techniques for farming that we now have were not developed yet.

2. Rome has just come out of 50 years of civil war. Large scale farming does not do well when armies are constantly battling each other. That means that the land owners would scale back their farming more to just meet their needs leaving more lands un tilled.

3. The grain supply was very vulnerable. Combine this with the constant civil wars and one can imagine a lot of fear in Rome over the poor people starving. The Emperors are offering them a way to insure that they won't have to fear starving (very powerful motivator and could be done with the right PR).

4. Taxes during this time were pretty heavy. The emperors are offering the farmers tax relief for a few years if they get these newly arrived people farming. All that's needed is a few subtle hints from the governor that they'll be blamed if these newbies don't do well to insure that the already establish farmers teach the newbies every trick of the trade.

Even given these factors, the transition will be rough. I see it being barely possible since Constantius and Constantine are not trying to conquer the entire empire and keep the barbarians at bay.
 

Story Continues

The story of the western part of the Roman Empire in the 11th and 12th (4th) centuries cannot be understood without looking at the history of the Christians in this era. By the start of Diocletian’s reign, Christians could be found in every area of the empire. However, they were concentrated more in the east due to preaching done among the urban poor. The Constantinian Dynasty saw the shift of Christianity from east to west.

This demographic shift was brought about by three things. The first is of course the Great Persecutions in the east with the west being a place of refuge. Secondly, Christian priests were dispersed more thoroughly throughout the west as an unexpected side effect of Edict of Agaunum. Finally, Christianity represented something that the ordinary Romans could understand and distance themselves from the Greeks.

In previous centuries, the traditional Roman religion had been increasingly harmonized with the religion of the Greeks. The rejection in the west of Greek ‘opulence’ and ‘frivolousness’ left many Romans disillusioned with the traditional religion. Christianity offered a promise of hope. However, there were many ‘Mystery Cults’ of this period promising the same. One of the major selling points of Christianity to distinguish itself from those religions was its work ethic. Many of the important figures in the Bible had worked hard before being called by God. Christ had worked as a carpenter providing for his mother for years before assuming his role in salvation. God offered everyone salvation, but he expected man to show is gratitude by working.

This period also saw the final codification of what books made up the Bible. A friend of Dalmatius named Marcus was in charge of the main Imperial press and was allowed by Dalmatius to pick a text that he wanted to see put into print as a gift. Marcus was a Christian and decided to create master plates for the Bible. Of course, no one was completely sure of what books composed the Bible. To get a definitive list, Marcus went to the Bishop of Rome and asked for a list.

Pope Julius I was confronted by Marcus’s request and called the First Ecumenical Council also known as the First Council of Rome. Originally the council was only supposed to sort out what books made up the bible, but it grew to handle several doctrinal issues that had been festering in the churches of the various dioceses. The First Ecumenical Council settled the question of what books were canon allowing Marcus to create the master plates to start printing the Bible. It also started the precedent that the Bishop of Rome, as the heir of St. Peter, had the prerogative of calling Ecumenical Councils in order to settle doctrinal issues.

Dalmatius and Constantine II were the last of the western emperors to follow the traditional Roman religion. Helena, Constantine’s wife, was a Christian and raised her children to be Christians as well. Constantine grudgingly allowed this as Christians by this time were the majority of his subjects. The year 1128(375) illustrated the vast differences between east and west yet again when Constantine II elevated his son Trajan to the position of Caesar. Trajan would take over as Augustus three years later leaving the Roman Empire with a Christian Emperor in the west and a God-Emperor in the east.
 
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