An Age of Miracles: The Revival of Rhomanion
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
- Status
"The Turk is always at your throat or at your feet."-Nikolaios Polos
1570: Though there is much going on in the world, the eyes of the Empire are turned instead upon the White Palace. Somewhat unusually, the Empress Helena and Patriarch Matthaios have been arguing. In a further effort to increase taxes and stimulate population growth, the Triumvirate has been encroaching on the monasteries, and while Matthaios has been understanding of their efforts thus far, there is a line which he will not cross.
Over the centuries monasteries and dioceses have gradually built up a series of tax exemptions, and rather than raise taxes again (there have been at least half a dozen minor tax revolts across the Empire in the last decade) the Triumvirate would rather get rid of the remaining loopholes. Teams of lawyers examine each exemption, and there are many that can be thrown out as fabrications, but there are also many that are legitimate grants.
This is having a significant effect on the Patriarchal exchequer, as the fruits of Venera of Abkhazia ripen. In exchange for Russian support during the Orthodox War, all the stavropegic monasteries in Russia had been transferred from the control of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Metropolitan of Russia. The Patriarch’s coffers had survived that heavy blow, but now with the increased pressure from the White Palace he is unable to maintain his work programs, missionary efforts in the east, and the dignity of his office.
Helena also wishes to put into place laws barring the bequest of lands to monasteries and individuals entering them as monks or nuns before reaching the age of fifty. Their vows of celibacy do not help rebuilding the Empire’s population.
Matthaios rises to the challenge, using his formidable oratory to rally public opinion to his side, and using skilled monks to do the same across the Empire. Pamphlets from the Imperial press arguing for the reforms are met with counter-pamphlets from the patriarchal press. He is a fervent supporter of the doctrine of the two swords, the one temporal (the Monarchy) and the spiritual (the Patriarchy), but he will not have the hand wielding the spiritual to be starved of nutrients.
Into this argument the Ottomans figuratively explode, as Osman Komnenos launches an offensive across the breadth of Persia against the Khorasani in cooperation with the Emirate of Sukkur. The impressive performance of the Ottoman armies and the rapid recovery of the most powerful of the Muslim states is alarming to the Patriarch who well remembers the terrible days when the Sultan’s guns pounded the walls of Trebizond.
The end result is a compromise, but one favoring the Patriarchy. The fraudulent exemptions are revoked, and all legitimate ones issued after the death of Empress Anna I Laskaris are removed from the books as well. There are a sizeable cluster numbering from the reigns of Herakleios II and Nikephoros IV, the former from a failed attempt to make the clergy support him and the latter from payment for support.
It is a small success, but the outcome is far short of what the Triumvirate wished. Instead of before where the Church paid about half of what it would have owed if it were laity, now it is at around seventy percent. And part of that was bought by the concession that the payment of fines for public blasphemy, minor counts of heresy, failure to attend mass, and Islamic proselytizing are to be paid to the church, not the state, although the administering and enforcing of those laws remains a temporal prerogative. On all other issues the Triumvirate gives way entirely.
Nikolaios Polos has paid little attention to this, spending his time drafting an elaborate battle plan for dealing with the Ottoman Empire once and for all, and he believes the moment is propitious. With their armies tied down fighting the Khorasani, he envisions a three-pronged offensive, one aimed down the Tigris, another down the Euphrates, and a smaller one skirting the desert frontier with the support of the Anizzah.
His ambitions tempered by Algiers, the goal is not to conquer Persia but to break away Mesopotamia from the Turk and set it up as a client state. Georgia is to be subsidized to attack Mazandaran as a distraction and to enlarge the buffer it would provide, with the Omani, Khorasani, and Uzbeks are also to be paid to engage the Turks on other fronts. The end goal is a Persia broken up between the rump Turk state, the Uzbeks, Khorasani, and Omani, with a large Georgian ally and a client Mesopotamia in between them and the Empire proper.
The plan is well organized, showing every chance of success. Reports from the Office of Barbarians indicate that all of the foreign allies would be receptive to such advances, and the army is at full strength and its armament reform complete. There is also the possibility that Ethiopia too could be convinced to provide ships and troops in support in exchange for concessions in the Moluccas and India.
That said, the plan would also be incredibly expensive. Subsidizing up to five foreign allies, plus the cost of fielding the Roman forces (Nikolaios’ plan lays out eight tagmata), adds up to a staggering fortune. Unfortunately for Nikolaios, he presents the plan just as Helena is losing her battle over church taxes and while the Arletian Civil War and the Great Northern War are going in the wrong way from her perspective. She is willing to pay a small stipend to the Khorasani to bolster their resistance, but no more.
Nikolaios takes the rejection with ill grace, but it is the events of the following month that truly stagger him. On June 16, he receives word that Anna Palaiologina is dead from fever at her nunnery near Nicaea. Five days later it becomes apparent why Helena was willing to give up so much ground to Matthaios; she needed his support on another matter. On June 21, his tenth birthday, Demetrios Drakos is proclaimed Kaisar.
The White Palace, June 25, 1570:
Nikolaios swallowed the last of the wine in his cup. “BELCH!” Ah, that feels better, he thought, setting the cup down on the table. Pouring himself another cup, he stared into the fire. He didn’t see the fire in the fireplace; it was other fires that burned in his mind. The curtain of flame leaping forward from the mauroi at Kotyaion, the blast of the cannons at Baghdad, the shriek of the rockets at Raqqa.
He stared at the liquid in his cup, and then dashed it onto the flames. They sputtered for a bit, and then resumed their full strength. He sniffed the pitcher he has just used. Water! Ugh. This is her doing.
She opened the door, looking at him. This was all her doing, why he could not get outrageously drunk, so that he could forgot for a moment that the fire lived and she did not, even though it should have been the other way around.
“You’re drunk,” she said.
“You’re ugly,” he replied. “And I’ll be sober in the morning.”
“I doubt that.”
“Is that a reproach?”
“Yes, yes, it is.”
“Oh, in that case, I don’t care.” He lifted the water to his mouth, lowered it, sneered and set it down. He started to get up.
“Where are you going?”
“Vomit,” he replied, standing.
“You should go to bed.”
“Why? I’m not going to met anyone I like there.” She flinched like she had been slapped. Good.
“And then?”
“I don’t know, maybe drink some more. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” He turned towards the door.
“Nikolaios,” she said, grasping his arm. “It was a good plan. But the Empire can’t afford it.”
“Yes, it can. Andreas Niketas’ wars against Venice and the Mamelukes cost a similar amount, and they were worth it. He cut down giants, so that all we would have to face were pygmies. Well, he forgot one. I have a chance to cut it down.”
“And then what? Another will rise up to take its place. He destroyed Venice, and now the Lombards are the menace.”
“No they’re not. It’s the Turks that are the threat. In a hundred years, two hundred thousand men will wish you’d listened to me. But even that I might be able to forgive, since I won’t be around to see it. But I can’t forgive what you did to Andreas.” He picked up the glass again. Damn, still water.
“I’m doing him a favor. He will make a brilliant strategos someday, I am certain. But not everyone is-”
“Cut out for this?” Nikolaios gestured at the walls.
“Yes, exactly.”
“And so am I,” Nikolaios growled, thumping the water down on the table. Some splashed his hand. “I wish you had figured that out twenty years ago. And now if you’ll excuse me, your majesty, I really do need to vomit.”
Aleppo, July 20, 1570:
“Belch!” Nikolaios said. He reached for another sack of wine, but a dusky smooth hand snatched it away. He looked up at his son Andreas, eighteen years of age. He was tall, but a bit on the chubby side, with a faint lining of peach fuzz. He had yet to grow a beard, but his naturally curly brown hair seemed to make the girls go wild. “Give that back.”
“You’re drunk.”
“You’re ugly. And I’ll be sober in the morning.” That was more clever the first time around.
“It is morning.”
“Fine, tomorrow morning.”
“Father, this can’t go on forever.”
“That’s because you have the wine.”
“I meant this.” He gestured at the tent they were in. From outside came the sounds, and the smells, of the Syrian tagma.
“I know. Eventually I’ll have to go back to Constantinople, and that bitch.” He spat. Only with Andreas was he so open with his feelings. That was because he was their son, he and Anna. She had been more of a mother to him than Helena. Demetrios and the others, those were her children, but Andreas was his.
“Actually, it was that I wanted to talk to you about.”
On the Feast Day of the Holy and Glorious Apostle Andreas, to the acclaim of the Army of the East, the Patriarch of Antioch crowns Prince Andreas Drakos as Andreas III Drakos, Vicegerent of God on Earth, the Emperor of the Romans.
1570: Though there is much going on in the world, the eyes of the Empire are turned instead upon the White Palace. Somewhat unusually, the Empress Helena and Patriarch Matthaios have been arguing. In a further effort to increase taxes and stimulate population growth, the Triumvirate has been encroaching on the monasteries, and while Matthaios has been understanding of their efforts thus far, there is a line which he will not cross.
Over the centuries monasteries and dioceses have gradually built up a series of tax exemptions, and rather than raise taxes again (there have been at least half a dozen minor tax revolts across the Empire in the last decade) the Triumvirate would rather get rid of the remaining loopholes. Teams of lawyers examine each exemption, and there are many that can be thrown out as fabrications, but there are also many that are legitimate grants.
This is having a significant effect on the Patriarchal exchequer, as the fruits of Venera of Abkhazia ripen. In exchange for Russian support during the Orthodox War, all the stavropegic monasteries in Russia had been transferred from the control of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Metropolitan of Russia. The Patriarch’s coffers had survived that heavy blow, but now with the increased pressure from the White Palace he is unable to maintain his work programs, missionary efforts in the east, and the dignity of his office.
Helena also wishes to put into place laws barring the bequest of lands to monasteries and individuals entering them as monks or nuns before reaching the age of fifty. Their vows of celibacy do not help rebuilding the Empire’s population.
Matthaios rises to the challenge, using his formidable oratory to rally public opinion to his side, and using skilled monks to do the same across the Empire. Pamphlets from the Imperial press arguing for the reforms are met with counter-pamphlets from the patriarchal press. He is a fervent supporter of the doctrine of the two swords, the one temporal (the Monarchy) and the spiritual (the Patriarchy), but he will not have the hand wielding the spiritual to be starved of nutrients.
Into this argument the Ottomans figuratively explode, as Osman Komnenos launches an offensive across the breadth of Persia against the Khorasani in cooperation with the Emirate of Sukkur. The impressive performance of the Ottoman armies and the rapid recovery of the most powerful of the Muslim states is alarming to the Patriarch who well remembers the terrible days when the Sultan’s guns pounded the walls of Trebizond.
The end result is a compromise, but one favoring the Patriarchy. The fraudulent exemptions are revoked, and all legitimate ones issued after the death of Empress Anna I Laskaris are removed from the books as well. There are a sizeable cluster numbering from the reigns of Herakleios II and Nikephoros IV, the former from a failed attempt to make the clergy support him and the latter from payment for support.
It is a small success, but the outcome is far short of what the Triumvirate wished. Instead of before where the Church paid about half of what it would have owed if it were laity, now it is at around seventy percent. And part of that was bought by the concession that the payment of fines for public blasphemy, minor counts of heresy, failure to attend mass, and Islamic proselytizing are to be paid to the church, not the state, although the administering and enforcing of those laws remains a temporal prerogative. On all other issues the Triumvirate gives way entirely.
Nikolaios Polos has paid little attention to this, spending his time drafting an elaborate battle plan for dealing with the Ottoman Empire once and for all, and he believes the moment is propitious. With their armies tied down fighting the Khorasani, he envisions a three-pronged offensive, one aimed down the Tigris, another down the Euphrates, and a smaller one skirting the desert frontier with the support of the Anizzah.
His ambitions tempered by Algiers, the goal is not to conquer Persia but to break away Mesopotamia from the Turk and set it up as a client state. Georgia is to be subsidized to attack Mazandaran as a distraction and to enlarge the buffer it would provide, with the Omani, Khorasani, and Uzbeks are also to be paid to engage the Turks on other fronts. The end goal is a Persia broken up between the rump Turk state, the Uzbeks, Khorasani, and Omani, with a large Georgian ally and a client Mesopotamia in between them and the Empire proper.
The plan is well organized, showing every chance of success. Reports from the Office of Barbarians indicate that all of the foreign allies would be receptive to such advances, and the army is at full strength and its armament reform complete. There is also the possibility that Ethiopia too could be convinced to provide ships and troops in support in exchange for concessions in the Moluccas and India.
That said, the plan would also be incredibly expensive. Subsidizing up to five foreign allies, plus the cost of fielding the Roman forces (Nikolaios’ plan lays out eight tagmata), adds up to a staggering fortune. Unfortunately for Nikolaios, he presents the plan just as Helena is losing her battle over church taxes and while the Arletian Civil War and the Great Northern War are going in the wrong way from her perspective. She is willing to pay a small stipend to the Khorasani to bolster their resistance, but no more.
Nikolaios takes the rejection with ill grace, but it is the events of the following month that truly stagger him. On June 16, he receives word that Anna Palaiologina is dead from fever at her nunnery near Nicaea. Five days later it becomes apparent why Helena was willing to give up so much ground to Matthaios; she needed his support on another matter. On June 21, his tenth birthday, Demetrios Drakos is proclaimed Kaisar.
The White Palace, June 25, 1570:
Nikolaios swallowed the last of the wine in his cup. “BELCH!” Ah, that feels better, he thought, setting the cup down on the table. Pouring himself another cup, he stared into the fire. He didn’t see the fire in the fireplace; it was other fires that burned in his mind. The curtain of flame leaping forward from the mauroi at Kotyaion, the blast of the cannons at Baghdad, the shriek of the rockets at Raqqa.
He stared at the liquid in his cup, and then dashed it onto the flames. They sputtered for a bit, and then resumed their full strength. He sniffed the pitcher he has just used. Water! Ugh. This is her doing.
She opened the door, looking at him. This was all her doing, why he could not get outrageously drunk, so that he could forgot for a moment that the fire lived and she did not, even though it should have been the other way around.
“You’re drunk,” she said.
“You’re ugly,” he replied. “And I’ll be sober in the morning.”
“I doubt that.”
“Is that a reproach?”
“Yes, yes, it is.”
“Oh, in that case, I don’t care.” He lifted the water to his mouth, lowered it, sneered and set it down. He started to get up.
“Where are you going?”
“Vomit,” he replied, standing.
“You should go to bed.”
“Why? I’m not going to met anyone I like there.” She flinched like she had been slapped. Good.
“And then?”
“I don’t know, maybe drink some more. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” He turned towards the door.
“Nikolaios,” she said, grasping his arm. “It was a good plan. But the Empire can’t afford it.”
“Yes, it can. Andreas Niketas’ wars against Venice and the Mamelukes cost a similar amount, and they were worth it. He cut down giants, so that all we would have to face were pygmies. Well, he forgot one. I have a chance to cut it down.”
“And then what? Another will rise up to take its place. He destroyed Venice, and now the Lombards are the menace.”
“No they’re not. It’s the Turks that are the threat. In a hundred years, two hundred thousand men will wish you’d listened to me. But even that I might be able to forgive, since I won’t be around to see it. But I can’t forgive what you did to Andreas.” He picked up the glass again. Damn, still water.
“I’m doing him a favor. He will make a brilliant strategos someday, I am certain. But not everyone is-”
“Cut out for this?” Nikolaios gestured at the walls.
“Yes, exactly.”
“And so am I,” Nikolaios growled, thumping the water down on the table. Some splashed his hand. “I wish you had figured that out twenty years ago. And now if you’ll excuse me, your majesty, I really do need to vomit.”
Aleppo, July 20, 1570:
“Belch!” Nikolaios said. He reached for another sack of wine, but a dusky smooth hand snatched it away. He looked up at his son Andreas, eighteen years of age. He was tall, but a bit on the chubby side, with a faint lining of peach fuzz. He had yet to grow a beard, but his naturally curly brown hair seemed to make the girls go wild. “Give that back.”
“You’re drunk.”
“You’re ugly. And I’ll be sober in the morning.” That was more clever the first time around.
“It is morning.”
“Fine, tomorrow morning.”
“Father, this can’t go on forever.”
“That’s because you have the wine.”
“I meant this.” He gestured at the tent they were in. From outside came the sounds, and the smells, of the Syrian tagma.
“I know. Eventually I’ll have to go back to Constantinople, and that bitch.” He spat. Only with Andreas was he so open with his feelings. That was because he was their son, he and Anna. She had been more of a mother to him than Helena. Demetrios and the others, those were her children, but Andreas was his.
“Actually, it was that I wanted to talk to you about.”
* * *
Hopefully Rhomania will grow out of this habit of having pretenders all the time. The upcoming modern technology should put a stop to it if it decides to stick around by then. The habit I mean, not this civil war. I don't think that'll last too long.
I doubt the Empire will like another civil war, not while the Time of Troubles is in living memory. Besides, I get the impression that Nikolaios and Andreas will drive Syria into the ground financially.
EDIT: Syrian tagmata rebelling is to be expected, given Nikolaios' proposal to cripple the Ottomans caters to their concerns & negates the land sales to Timur II. But I doubt any other tagmata will support the pretenders since, as I said, the Time of Troubles was only a generation or so ago and the Western units don't have as much rapport with Nikolaios & his desire to invade Mesopotamia.
Plus the pretenders won't have much leg to stand on. Since the Red Sea route has been cleared of hostile Muslims, shipping through Suez-Alexandria is much better for transporting goods in bulk, which in turn means the Silk Road won't generate all that much money. Add that to the fact that Syria is probably the poorest theme outside Coloneia you've got bankruptcy just waiting to happen, and when your army is paid in full cash this is a BAD thing. Perhaps Nikolaios & Andreas will attempt to revert back to the old Laskarid land grants + small cash method, but that'd piss off all the civilians they'd have to evict from the good farmlands.
EDIT: Syrian tagmata rebelling is to be expected, given Nikolaios' proposal to cripple the Ottomans caters to their concerns & negates the land sales to Timur II. But I doubt any other tagmata will support the pretenders since, as I said, the Time of Troubles was only a generation or so ago and the Western units don't have as much rapport with Nikolaios & his desire to invade Mesopotamia.
Plus the pretenders won't have much leg to stand on. Since the Red Sea route has been cleared of hostile Muslims, shipping through Suez-Alexandria is much better for transporting goods in bulk, which in turn means the Silk Road won't generate all that much money. Add that to the fact that Syria is probably the poorest theme outside Coloneia you've got bankruptcy just waiting to happen, and when your army is paid in full cash this is a BAD thing. Perhaps Nikolaios & Andreas will attempt to revert back to the old Laskarid land grants + small cash method, but that'd piss off all the civilians they'd have to evict from the good farmlands.
Last edited:
Great update. Another usurper thrown in love it. This will be interesting to see where we go from here.
Last edited:
It seems that was Andreas the one who pushed to make it official, Nikolaios seems content enough to wander and waste himself. I agree it shouldn't last too long, the financials aren't really there.
hope to see in the next what's happening in the Great Northern War, don't care much about Arles.
hope to see in the next what's happening in the Great Northern War, don't care much about Arles.
Oh. Oh yes.
I felt sorry for Nikolaios, but at this point I'm starting to worry about his mental competence. He really, really didn't think this through (and his battle-plan for an invasion of the Ottomans...it's true that Rhomania has a wonderful opportunity, but it feels like the Empire has been strapped for cash ever since the Last Crusade).
I'm also surprised that it's Andreas who seems to have pushed for rebellion, although I figure that this ought to be the last big succession crisis for awhile, if not forever. Sooner or later there'll be some institution to stop this sort of thing...right? (I remember some discussion about this waaay back, but I can't remember what was said.)
By the way, WOOO UPDATE YES
I felt sorry for Nikolaios, but at this point I'm starting to worry about his mental competence. He really, really didn't think this through (and his battle-plan for an invasion of the Ottomans...it's true that Rhomania has a wonderful opportunity, but it feels like the Empire has been strapped for cash ever since the Last Crusade).
I'm also surprised that it's Andreas who seems to have pushed for rebellion, although I figure that this ought to be the last big succession crisis for awhile, if not forever. Sooner or later there'll be some institution to stop this sort of thing...right? (I remember some discussion about this waaay back, but I can't remember what was said.)
By the way, WOOO UPDATE YES
Could be this the war of the Rivers mentioned a while back?
Also, I cannot but feel that this Andreas is quite underdeveloped as a character, we don't know very much about his motives (which may be easy to guess, but the point stands). we only know he was a spoiled brat (at age 3) and that he's dyslexic. not much to go on, I hope to see at least a brief section with his POV (although probably he's gonna get killed or sent to some monastery).
Also, I cannot but feel that this Andreas is quite underdeveloped as a character, we don't know very much about his motives (which may be easy to guess, but the point stands). we only know he was a spoiled brat (at age 3) and that he's dyslexic. not much to go on, I hope to see at least a brief section with his POV (although probably he's gonna get killed or sent to some monastery).
Writer's block has gone away, and I've been feeling creative, so here's another update.
"Romans have a lot of historians, because they have a lot of history."- unknown origin
1571: The Empress Helena has no intention of backing down, even when an offer is made that she merely recognize her eldest son as co-emperor. She knows that refusal means civil war, but the Triumvirate is determined to smash the argument that merely the army’s acclaim is what makes Emperors. This is to be the trial by fire of the Andronikan Code, of the epanogoge. If it fails now, it is doomed.
Andreas Drakos and Nikolaios Polos begin with the clear allegiance of the four tagmata of the Army of the East and the eastern provinces, where fear and hatred of the Turks/Persians remain high. The Metropolitan of Edessa is particularly vocal in his support, reflecting the views of his see’s inhabitants who are not enamored on being on the frontier after the Treaty of Van.
Another serious strength is Andreas Drakos’ name, for the namesake of Andreas Pistotatos cannot by definition be taken lightly. It conjures to mind Kotyaion and Antioch and Baghdad and Yarmuk, and it cannot be forgotten that Nikolaios Polos fought bravely and brilliantly in all those battles. People like legends and heroes, and the father-son combination bears far too many connections to the great captain of the Time of Troubles for the Triumvirate’s comfort.
So the first action of the Triumvirate is to bring up new connections and new heroes in their place. For the first time in over a decade Helena, Theodora, and Alexeia appear in their Peacock dresses, the jewels taken from that splendid throne dazzling in the sunlight. They present themselves thus in the Imperial box at the Hippodrome, a clear reminder that they are daughters of Andreas Drakos.
On one side of them is Demetrios Drakos, above whom is a banner on which is writ Δράμα. It was at the town of Drama that Anastasia Komnena Palaiologina, the eldest child of Theodoros IV, and Andreas Komnenos, the youngest, had met. Everyone knew how those lines had turned out; the youngest had become Andreas, the Bane of All Rhomania’s Foes, and the eldest was the grandmother of the Shahanshah.
On another banner is writ Θεοδοσιούπολις, the name of Theodosiopolis, the great fortress that had stymied the armies of the Great Turk for a year, but had fallen because Manuel of Amaseia had taken the armies of the east westward to contest the Throne of Caesar. And there is a third banner, one held by Demetrios Drakos himself, which says Καισάρειατης Καππαδοκίας, with the background the emblems of the Thracesian and the old Koloneian tagmata. It references not the disastrous battle against Timur, but the famous conference and subsequent alliance between Manuel Doukas and Demetrios Komnenos Megas.
The intent to is align Andreas Drakos the Younger and Nikolaios Polos in Roman minds with the eastern menace, not as the shield they present themselves as. The first banner reminds that it was a first child that birthed the current Ottoman Sultan’s line. The second reminds that it was a similar action that opened the door to the Turkish onslaught in the last war. And the third reminds that the Kaisar is named after the grandfather of Andreas Niketas, the man who defeated the greatest of the eastern warlords, Timur the Great himself.
On the other side of the three daughters of Andreas Drakos is Alexios the Hunchback, the last living grandson of Andreas Niketas in the Old World. Seventy four years old, he was in Constantinople gathering funds to establish a new animal park on the model of his father, Prince Theodoros the Zookeeper. Having mellowed from his earlier tendencies to put laxatives in clerics’ food (he hated the group ever since one told him that his deformed body was beautifully and wonderfully made), he is the symbol of a past age and a powerful conferrer of legitimacy.
Counter-intuitively, the Triumvirate’s first actions are not military but matrimonial. Demetrios Drakos is betrothed to Venera Bagrationi, the four-year-old daughter of the King of Georgia, ensuring that the armies of Tbilisi will not join in the war on Andreas’ side. Later in the week, there is a double wedding as Alexios Laskaris and Ioannes Sideros marry Eudoxia and Aikaterine Drakina respectively, twin sisters (fourteen years old-Aikaterine is the elder by five minutes) and daughters of the Empress Helena. Alexios helps bring the support of many of the European dynatoi who supported his father, while Ioannes secures the loyalty of the former Timurid soldiery scattered throughout the army who still hold affection for the son of their former sovereign.
Even that is overshadowed though by the wedding of the century held in Munich. Arrangements had been made four years earlier and the Empress Helena is not allowing either the Great Northern War or the revolt of her husband and eldest son to deter her. There her eldest daughter Kristina and Friedrich, King of the Romans, son of Kaiser Wilhelm and heir to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, are united in holy matrimony.
The people of Constantinople respond wholeheartedly to the display, cheering their Empress. Another pillar of support is the church and especially the Patriarch. Matthaios has been the closest thing to a father figure Prince Demetrios has had and the two are quite close. Unlike his lineage Demetrios has displayed little inclination for the martial or historical arts, but finds his greatest joy in painting and music. He does some landscapes, but under Matthaios he is growing adept at icon painting, as well as dabbling in hymns.
The Skopoi flash their signals, marshalling the armies of the west as the Army of the Center concentrates for battle. In troops, Helena has a slightly over two-to-one advantage, and in ships a ridiculous eight-to-one advantage, the navy solidly siding with her. Financially, with the merchants of the City and of lush Thracesia backing her, she can outspend her husband and son close to five-to-one, not including her far greater access to loans and much better credit.
North-central Anatolian plateau, March 11, 1571:
Andreas Drakos, third of his name, Vicegerent of God, the Equal of the Apostles, Lord of Space and Time, by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, stuck his head in the tent and immediately regretted it. “Did something die in here?”
“No,” Ioannes said. “Alexios is just cooking dinner.”
“With what, his socks? And is that an eyeball in there?”
“No,” Alexios said. The burly Cilician stirred the pot, chunks of something rising to the surface of the mud-brown broth. Both he and Ioannes were members of his guard detail, currently off-duty. “I only eat eyeballs for breakfast. It’s bad luck to have them after noon.” Andreas thought he was joking, but he wasn’t entirely sure either. Alexios scooped up a chunk in his wooden ladle. “Want some?”
“I’ll pass. But make sure to save some. I think it will melt the Herakleian Walls.”
He stepped out, taking a deep breath. The wind was blowing from the latrines, set away from the camp and opposite from the cook tents and surgical wards, but it was nectar compared to whatever was in there. He started walking to his tent, his four on-duty bodyguards flanking him. “Hektor, chocolate.” The dekarchos handed him a bar which Andreas immediately started eating. It was his seventh this day; he ate chocolate when he was stressed, which was why despite all the hard riding his paunch was starting to grow.
They were significantly outnumbered and vastly inferior in moneys and ships. But I have the Empire on my side, the real Empire. It was soldiers that built Rhomania, that sustained it. Basil the Bulgar-Slayer had been a soldier, laying waste the Bulgars and cowing the Arabs. His reign had marked the glorious apogee of the Second Empire.
But after him had come a reign of women and courtiers and peace-minded fools. Aunt Theodora said ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.’ He saw it rhyming now. His grandfather, his namesake, had crushed the Empire’s enemies, but his daughter was squandering his legacy, and to make it even worse was going to hand it to his feckless younger brother. He doubted whether Demetrios could tell a mace from a halberd, and he knew he only rode the most docile mares. He was already betrothed to a Princess of Georgia, while Helena had not lifted a finger towards arranging a marriage for her eldest son.
To be fair, Demetrios would make a good monk, but like his mother he lacked the iron will needed to govern a vast and mighty Empire. But he had the will, the strength. But his mother, instead of recognizing and rewarding that, was repelled by it. Such was to be expected from her sex, but the frailties of women could not be allowed to destroy the Empire.
And if the odds seemed long…I am Andreas the Third. I am descended from them both. And we have a long habit of beating the odds.
But as Andreas Niketas would say, ‘the morale is to the material as three to one’. Nikolaios Polos, acting as Megas Domestikos for his son, marches hard for the west gathering the eastern tagmata with impressive speed. His forced marches, aided by the fact that the rebellion managed to delay word of its outbreak by usurping the skopoi network, catch the Army of Center not fully concentrated or reinforced.
At the village of Germia, posting his headquarters near the shrine of St. Michael, Nikolaios with twenty four thousand men meets the Optimatic and Opsikian tagmata, supported by the Third and Eighth Thracesian Tourmai, twenty one thousand strong. He has a slight advantage in manpower, but Nikolaios’ artillery has not done as well keeping up. His counterpart, Andronikos Chrysokompas, ensconced in a strong defensive position with a five to three advantage in cannon, is not concerned.
For two days both armies maneuver, Nikolaios shuffling westward trying to get astride Andronikos’ lines of communications to Bithynia and Andronikos parrying the moves. But in the process his line is extended and he is forced to abandon his excellent position, although the terrain still favors him. On March 20, battle commences.
Per normal Roman doctrine, Andronikos’ cannon are dispersed in small batteries to support the battle lines for counter-battery work, while a couple of large (six to eight gun) sections are maintained as a reserve to support attacks. In the opening artillery duel, Andronikos soon gains the advantage although it is largely nullified as Nikolaios uses the reverse slope to shelter his troops.
Nikolaios attacks on his right, hitting the enemy with a couple of rapid volleys and then charging into melee. Historically, Roman doctrine has always emphasized missile over shock action, a trend that has continued as the arquebus has largely replaced the bow. Considering the disadvantages the former has in combat capabilities compared to the latter, Nikolaios considers the emphasis misplaced in the current context, the debacle at Algiers reinforcing his opinion.
As a result, Nikolaios has decreased the number of arquebuses among his troops, replacing them with sarissophoroi and skutatoi to make the battle lines less brittle. He had every intention of implementing these reforms throughout the whole Roman army, but he began with the eastern tagmata both because he considered their reform the most urgent considering the Ottoman proximity, and also because it gave him a good excuse to be far away from Constantinople.
Preceded by a thick cloud of skirmishers, the melee attack succeeds in staving in Andronikos’ left wing as more troops curl around it. However it only bends, not break, and the strategos quickly stiffens it with reserve troops and pulls it back in good order to refuse his flank. A counterattack drives back the eastern soldiery, who then regroup and counterattack. The action seesaws back and forth for about forty five minutes, settling into thick skirmish lines blasting away at each other from a couple of ranch bunkhouses and stockades that happen to be part of the battlefield, too exhausted to resume the melee.
As the action on Nikolaios’ right stalemates, he deploys four tourmai forward in the center which soon come under heavy artillery fire. Promptly they shake down into skirmish lines and advance, seriously discomfiting Andronikos’ center. Lookouts report the movement of tourmatic eagles behind the skirmishers. Andronikos concludes that the center is now the decisive theater, the movement on the left merely a feint. He commits some of his reserve to stiffen his center as he musters skirmishers of his own.
Then Nikolaios unleashes his counterstroke, a grand battery of forty four guns clobbering Andronikos’ right wing, heralded a mass charge. That wing is thrashed, but there are still enough reserve cavalry squadrons to stem the tide for a moment. But then the Chaldean Fourth and Tenth barrel forward, heavy lancers who break three times their number of enemy horse. Hit from both flanks, Andronikos’ army breaks.
Pursuit is hampered though as Nikolaios’ cavalry took heavy losses (Andreas III is unharmed but had a horse killed and another wounded under him). Unfortunately for him, both Thracesian tourmai in action had large number of bow-armed recruits from Philadelphia, a city renowned for the archery skills of its people. Still the casualty ratios are heavily in his favor.
For thirty five hundred casualties, he inflicted close to five thousand (the ratio is even more lopsided as Andronikos is forced to abandon most of his wounded while many of Nikolaios’ losses soon heal and return to duty) and took another four thousand prisoners, many of which are soon convinced to join him, making good his losses.
To his surprise, Andronikos retreats not west, but northeast. Moving west would bring him closer to his base, but Andronikos saw that the heavy cavalry charge that broke his army came from the west, meaning that most likely there are swarms of light horse in that direction. So instead he takes what is left of his army, closely pursued by Nikolaios to the best of his abilities, in the opposite direction. The series of well-fought rear guard actions coupled with his comparatively minor losses in cavalry manage to keep Nikolaios at bay, but by the time Andronikos arrives in Sinope he is down to eight thousand effectives.
The battle of Germia and the retreat to Sinope is viewed with dismay in Constantinople. The Army of the Center has been crippled at the first stroke with only the Thracesian tagma in any semblance of fighting order. However Andronikos’ continued presence at Sinope is a blessing in disguise. There is virtually no chance of him being destroyed there. Nikolaios cannot blockade supplies and he has no siege artillery to blast Sinope’s fortifications which were modernized during the Time of Troubles and saw off an Ottoman siege detachment.
The Army of the West deploys into western Anatolia to reinforce the Thracesians, dividing into two sections to improve logistics. The southern force is called the Army of the Meander, the northern one the Army of the Sangarius, taking their names from the major rivers in their theater. Andronikos’ force in Sinope is rechristened the Army of the Halys. It is these names that lead to the war to be known as the War of the Rivers.
The point of the armies is not to fight Nikolaios; Germia was enough. They are to contain him. Individually each army is no match for Nikolaios, who has been reinforced with the bulk of the Syrian tagma which had not been able to join the initial offensive. However the theory is if Nikolaios menaces either the Sangarius or Meander armies, the other is in a position to support the other or threaten Nikolaios’ rear, while Andronikos in Sinope is a thorn that cannot be ignored as he restores order to his battered formations.
Thus far it has just been the provincial tagmata that have moved. The guard tagmata have not marched into Asia. Instead the Imperial fleet splits, two squadrons carrying the Skolai into the Black Sea while the other four beat their way south along the Aegean coast with the Athanatoi and Varangoi.
"Romans have a lot of historians, because they have a lot of history."- unknown origin
1571: The Empress Helena has no intention of backing down, even when an offer is made that she merely recognize her eldest son as co-emperor. She knows that refusal means civil war, but the Triumvirate is determined to smash the argument that merely the army’s acclaim is what makes Emperors. This is to be the trial by fire of the Andronikan Code, of the epanogoge. If it fails now, it is doomed.
Andreas Drakos and Nikolaios Polos begin with the clear allegiance of the four tagmata of the Army of the East and the eastern provinces, where fear and hatred of the Turks/Persians remain high. The Metropolitan of Edessa is particularly vocal in his support, reflecting the views of his see’s inhabitants who are not enamored on being on the frontier after the Treaty of Van.
Another serious strength is Andreas Drakos’ name, for the namesake of Andreas Pistotatos cannot by definition be taken lightly. It conjures to mind Kotyaion and Antioch and Baghdad and Yarmuk, and it cannot be forgotten that Nikolaios Polos fought bravely and brilliantly in all those battles. People like legends and heroes, and the father-son combination bears far too many connections to the great captain of the Time of Troubles for the Triumvirate’s comfort.
So the first action of the Triumvirate is to bring up new connections and new heroes in their place. For the first time in over a decade Helena, Theodora, and Alexeia appear in their Peacock dresses, the jewels taken from that splendid throne dazzling in the sunlight. They present themselves thus in the Imperial box at the Hippodrome, a clear reminder that they are daughters of Andreas Drakos.
On one side of them is Demetrios Drakos, above whom is a banner on which is writ Δράμα. It was at the town of Drama that Anastasia Komnena Palaiologina, the eldest child of Theodoros IV, and Andreas Komnenos, the youngest, had met. Everyone knew how those lines had turned out; the youngest had become Andreas, the Bane of All Rhomania’s Foes, and the eldest was the grandmother of the Shahanshah.
On another banner is writ Θεοδοσιούπολις, the name of Theodosiopolis, the great fortress that had stymied the armies of the Great Turk for a year, but had fallen because Manuel of Amaseia had taken the armies of the east westward to contest the Throne of Caesar. And there is a third banner, one held by Demetrios Drakos himself, which says Καισάρειατης Καππαδοκίας, with the background the emblems of the Thracesian and the old Koloneian tagmata. It references not the disastrous battle against Timur, but the famous conference and subsequent alliance between Manuel Doukas and Demetrios Komnenos Megas.
The intent to is align Andreas Drakos the Younger and Nikolaios Polos in Roman minds with the eastern menace, not as the shield they present themselves as. The first banner reminds that it was a first child that birthed the current Ottoman Sultan’s line. The second reminds that it was a similar action that opened the door to the Turkish onslaught in the last war. And the third reminds that the Kaisar is named after the grandfather of Andreas Niketas, the man who defeated the greatest of the eastern warlords, Timur the Great himself.
On the other side of the three daughters of Andreas Drakos is Alexios the Hunchback, the last living grandson of Andreas Niketas in the Old World. Seventy four years old, he was in Constantinople gathering funds to establish a new animal park on the model of his father, Prince Theodoros the Zookeeper. Having mellowed from his earlier tendencies to put laxatives in clerics’ food (he hated the group ever since one told him that his deformed body was beautifully and wonderfully made), he is the symbol of a past age and a powerful conferrer of legitimacy.
Counter-intuitively, the Triumvirate’s first actions are not military but matrimonial. Demetrios Drakos is betrothed to Venera Bagrationi, the four-year-old daughter of the King of Georgia, ensuring that the armies of Tbilisi will not join in the war on Andreas’ side. Later in the week, there is a double wedding as Alexios Laskaris and Ioannes Sideros marry Eudoxia and Aikaterine Drakina respectively, twin sisters (fourteen years old-Aikaterine is the elder by five minutes) and daughters of the Empress Helena. Alexios helps bring the support of many of the European dynatoi who supported his father, while Ioannes secures the loyalty of the former Timurid soldiery scattered throughout the army who still hold affection for the son of their former sovereign.
Even that is overshadowed though by the wedding of the century held in Munich. Arrangements had been made four years earlier and the Empress Helena is not allowing either the Great Northern War or the revolt of her husband and eldest son to deter her. There her eldest daughter Kristina and Friedrich, King of the Romans, son of Kaiser Wilhelm and heir to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, are united in holy matrimony.
The people of Constantinople respond wholeheartedly to the display, cheering their Empress. Another pillar of support is the church and especially the Patriarch. Matthaios has been the closest thing to a father figure Prince Demetrios has had and the two are quite close. Unlike his lineage Demetrios has displayed little inclination for the martial or historical arts, but finds his greatest joy in painting and music. He does some landscapes, but under Matthaios he is growing adept at icon painting, as well as dabbling in hymns.
The Skopoi flash their signals, marshalling the armies of the west as the Army of the Center concentrates for battle. In troops, Helena has a slightly over two-to-one advantage, and in ships a ridiculous eight-to-one advantage, the navy solidly siding with her. Financially, with the merchants of the City and of lush Thracesia backing her, she can outspend her husband and son close to five-to-one, not including her far greater access to loans and much better credit.
* * *
North-central Anatolian plateau, March 11, 1571:
Andreas Drakos, third of his name, Vicegerent of God, the Equal of the Apostles, Lord of Space and Time, by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, stuck his head in the tent and immediately regretted it. “Did something die in here?”
“No,” Ioannes said. “Alexios is just cooking dinner.”
“With what, his socks? And is that an eyeball in there?”
“No,” Alexios said. The burly Cilician stirred the pot, chunks of something rising to the surface of the mud-brown broth. Both he and Ioannes were members of his guard detail, currently off-duty. “I only eat eyeballs for breakfast. It’s bad luck to have them after noon.” Andreas thought he was joking, but he wasn’t entirely sure either. Alexios scooped up a chunk in his wooden ladle. “Want some?”
“I’ll pass. But make sure to save some. I think it will melt the Herakleian Walls.”
He stepped out, taking a deep breath. The wind was blowing from the latrines, set away from the camp and opposite from the cook tents and surgical wards, but it was nectar compared to whatever was in there. He started walking to his tent, his four on-duty bodyguards flanking him. “Hektor, chocolate.” The dekarchos handed him a bar which Andreas immediately started eating. It was his seventh this day; he ate chocolate when he was stressed, which was why despite all the hard riding his paunch was starting to grow.
They were significantly outnumbered and vastly inferior in moneys and ships. But I have the Empire on my side, the real Empire. It was soldiers that built Rhomania, that sustained it. Basil the Bulgar-Slayer had been a soldier, laying waste the Bulgars and cowing the Arabs. His reign had marked the glorious apogee of the Second Empire.
But after him had come a reign of women and courtiers and peace-minded fools. Aunt Theodora said ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.’ He saw it rhyming now. His grandfather, his namesake, had crushed the Empire’s enemies, but his daughter was squandering his legacy, and to make it even worse was going to hand it to his feckless younger brother. He doubted whether Demetrios could tell a mace from a halberd, and he knew he only rode the most docile mares. He was already betrothed to a Princess of Georgia, while Helena had not lifted a finger towards arranging a marriage for her eldest son.
To be fair, Demetrios would make a good monk, but like his mother he lacked the iron will needed to govern a vast and mighty Empire. But he had the will, the strength. But his mother, instead of recognizing and rewarding that, was repelled by it. Such was to be expected from her sex, but the frailties of women could not be allowed to destroy the Empire.
And if the odds seemed long…I am Andreas the Third. I am descended from them both. And we have a long habit of beating the odds.
* * *
But as Andreas Niketas would say, ‘the morale is to the material as three to one’. Nikolaios Polos, acting as Megas Domestikos for his son, marches hard for the west gathering the eastern tagmata with impressive speed. His forced marches, aided by the fact that the rebellion managed to delay word of its outbreak by usurping the skopoi network, catch the Army of Center not fully concentrated or reinforced.
At the village of Germia, posting his headquarters near the shrine of St. Michael, Nikolaios with twenty four thousand men meets the Optimatic and Opsikian tagmata, supported by the Third and Eighth Thracesian Tourmai, twenty one thousand strong. He has a slight advantage in manpower, but Nikolaios’ artillery has not done as well keeping up. His counterpart, Andronikos Chrysokompas, ensconced in a strong defensive position with a five to three advantage in cannon, is not concerned.
For two days both armies maneuver, Nikolaios shuffling westward trying to get astride Andronikos’ lines of communications to Bithynia and Andronikos parrying the moves. But in the process his line is extended and he is forced to abandon his excellent position, although the terrain still favors him. On March 20, battle commences.
Per normal Roman doctrine, Andronikos’ cannon are dispersed in small batteries to support the battle lines for counter-battery work, while a couple of large (six to eight gun) sections are maintained as a reserve to support attacks. In the opening artillery duel, Andronikos soon gains the advantage although it is largely nullified as Nikolaios uses the reverse slope to shelter his troops.
Nikolaios attacks on his right, hitting the enemy with a couple of rapid volleys and then charging into melee. Historically, Roman doctrine has always emphasized missile over shock action, a trend that has continued as the arquebus has largely replaced the bow. Considering the disadvantages the former has in combat capabilities compared to the latter, Nikolaios considers the emphasis misplaced in the current context, the debacle at Algiers reinforcing his opinion.
As a result, Nikolaios has decreased the number of arquebuses among his troops, replacing them with sarissophoroi and skutatoi to make the battle lines less brittle. He had every intention of implementing these reforms throughout the whole Roman army, but he began with the eastern tagmata both because he considered their reform the most urgent considering the Ottoman proximity, and also because it gave him a good excuse to be far away from Constantinople.
Preceded by a thick cloud of skirmishers, the melee attack succeeds in staving in Andronikos’ left wing as more troops curl around it. However it only bends, not break, and the strategos quickly stiffens it with reserve troops and pulls it back in good order to refuse his flank. A counterattack drives back the eastern soldiery, who then regroup and counterattack. The action seesaws back and forth for about forty five minutes, settling into thick skirmish lines blasting away at each other from a couple of ranch bunkhouses and stockades that happen to be part of the battlefield, too exhausted to resume the melee.
As the action on Nikolaios’ right stalemates, he deploys four tourmai forward in the center which soon come under heavy artillery fire. Promptly they shake down into skirmish lines and advance, seriously discomfiting Andronikos’ center. Lookouts report the movement of tourmatic eagles behind the skirmishers. Andronikos concludes that the center is now the decisive theater, the movement on the left merely a feint. He commits some of his reserve to stiffen his center as he musters skirmishers of his own.
Then Nikolaios unleashes his counterstroke, a grand battery of forty four guns clobbering Andronikos’ right wing, heralded a mass charge. That wing is thrashed, but there are still enough reserve cavalry squadrons to stem the tide for a moment. But then the Chaldean Fourth and Tenth barrel forward, heavy lancers who break three times their number of enemy horse. Hit from both flanks, Andronikos’ army breaks.
Pursuit is hampered though as Nikolaios’ cavalry took heavy losses (Andreas III is unharmed but had a horse killed and another wounded under him). Unfortunately for him, both Thracesian tourmai in action had large number of bow-armed recruits from Philadelphia, a city renowned for the archery skills of its people. Still the casualty ratios are heavily in his favor.
For thirty five hundred casualties, he inflicted close to five thousand (the ratio is even more lopsided as Andronikos is forced to abandon most of his wounded while many of Nikolaios’ losses soon heal and return to duty) and took another four thousand prisoners, many of which are soon convinced to join him, making good his losses.
To his surprise, Andronikos retreats not west, but northeast. Moving west would bring him closer to his base, but Andronikos saw that the heavy cavalry charge that broke his army came from the west, meaning that most likely there are swarms of light horse in that direction. So instead he takes what is left of his army, closely pursued by Nikolaios to the best of his abilities, in the opposite direction. The series of well-fought rear guard actions coupled with his comparatively minor losses in cavalry manage to keep Nikolaios at bay, but by the time Andronikos arrives in Sinope he is down to eight thousand effectives.
The battle of Germia and the retreat to Sinope is viewed with dismay in Constantinople. The Army of the Center has been crippled at the first stroke with only the Thracesian tagma in any semblance of fighting order. However Andronikos’ continued presence at Sinope is a blessing in disguise. There is virtually no chance of him being destroyed there. Nikolaios cannot blockade supplies and he has no siege artillery to blast Sinope’s fortifications which were modernized during the Time of Troubles and saw off an Ottoman siege detachment.
The Army of the West deploys into western Anatolia to reinforce the Thracesians, dividing into two sections to improve logistics. The southern force is called the Army of the Meander, the northern one the Army of the Sangarius, taking their names from the major rivers in their theater. Andronikos’ force in Sinope is rechristened the Army of the Halys. It is these names that lead to the war to be known as the War of the Rivers.
The point of the armies is not to fight Nikolaios; Germia was enough. They are to contain him. Individually each army is no match for Nikolaios, who has been reinforced with the bulk of the Syrian tagma which had not been able to join the initial offensive. However the theory is if Nikolaios menaces either the Sangarius or Meander armies, the other is in a position to support the other or threaten Nikolaios’ rear, while Andronikos in Sinope is a thorn that cannot be ignored as he restores order to his battered formations.
Thus far it has just been the provincial tagmata that have moved. The guard tagmata have not marched into Asia. Instead the Imperial fleet splits, two squadrons carrying the Skolai into the Black Sea while the other four beat their way south along the Aegean coast with the Athanatoi and Varangoi.
Last edited:
Another update so soon, thanks B444! With things progressing as they are now I hope the rebel army is quickly surrounded and the war ends without further bloodshed.
- Status