An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
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IIRC Rhoman control over Carthage is basically a myth outside of the city itself. So something drastically will have to change on the ground in order to change that and given how both how relatively worthless the land is and how difficult taking (and especially holding) said land is I can't see the Empire making that a top priority anytime soon, especially with a war against the Ottomans coming down the pipe. Expelling the Muslims will do nothing but inflame tensions and give the Rhomans a headache they don't need, not when they are fighting the Ottomans and possibly the Spanish at the same time. So for now, status quo likely rules the day. A decade or two down the road when things have settled down? Possibly a different story.
I really like the Titanic ocean suggestion and Hell yeah for a "Ukraine" in the East for the Russians (that may balance a bit things between western and eastern Russia, with the latter not being a sort of permanent "far west" (that could also provide a bit of political unrest, like people clamoring fort their own kingdom inside a federal empire, as Russia appears on the way of becoming) .
I look forward to see how the conflict with the Spanish turns out.
I look forward to see how the conflict with the Spanish turns out.
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Just responding to the bold right now; will get to the rest later.
Yeah, I deserve that. No good excuse for that. My bad. I apologize for that. I've removed the quote marks from the original post.
Further touching upon this, many believe the Turks are mostly genetically the same as the Greeks, they just absorbed the culture of the ruling class over the centuries.
We are talking about people. You can speak about cultural continuity in a nation. Genetic continuity? Who really cares and why? Sure when my maternal grandma who had all of two months of schooling was using as a cuss word "go to the crows" that's in direct continuity with our ancestors at the time of Homer using the very same phrase. "Pure" blood? So a Greek at the time of Alexander was a purebred descendant of the ones at the time of Homer 4 centuries before, despite all the ensuing slave trade for example?
I wasn't talking about "pure blood" I was pointing out the distintion between Greeks and turks at this point is senseless.
Not saying it might go there, but just to head it off just in case.
Can we drop this discussion about pure blood or genetics or racial continuity? I can easily see it ending badly. It's my fault for kicking it off and I apologize. Definitely a bad decision on my part.
I do agree that pointing out genetic distinctions are pointless. After all, genetically, humans are practically identical to chimps.
Can we drop this discussion about pure blood or genetics or racial continuity? I can easily see it ending badly. It's my fault for kicking it off and I apologize. Definitely a bad decision on my part.
I do agree that pointing out genetic distinctions are pointless. After all, genetically, humans are practically identical to chimps.
Only for the record, your point wasn't offensive or anything. Just religion trumped language as the main separating factor between ethnic groups in this particular case. In other cases frex modern Albania language trumped religion. That kind of thing makes ethnology fun.
So given it's likley that Rhome is going to beat the Ottomans in the upcoming war and its likely that their Omani allies will join them is it likely that they will Try to spread Ibadi islam along the coasts of the Arabian peninsula the same way they tried to spread Avingon Catholicism in Italy?
Evilprodigy
Donor
The particulars of Ibadi Islam make that impractical even if they wanted to do that. The faith is highly based in reason and debate but also incredibly isolationist. Muslims outside Oman barely know they exist if at all, and they have developed in the relative isolation of Oman for almost a thousand year now. Cultural divergence and lack of understand of their beliefs would make spreading it difficult but the Ibadi themselves do not really engage in missionary activity anyways so how would they even spread? The Ibadi don't actively work to convert and the would be targets of missionary activity barely know they exist other than rumour and false information. These two combined make spreading the faith difficult to borderline impossible.
Politically speaking too it would be a disastrous choice for Oman, who would earn the antagonism and fury of all other Muslims in the region. Rather than being a strange isolated community that sometimes shows up on merchant ships they'd become a political force to be resisted.
Evilprodigy
Donor
It's possible but would be difficult. Shia communities pre-Safavid mass conversion were confined to the area around Mt. Lebanon, the Alawites of Coastal Syria, and those who lived in southern Iraq near Kufa. Other large Shia communities were almost exclusively some sort of Sufi Tariqa commonplace in Eastern Anatolia and northwestern Iran from the 14th through 16th centuries. These Shia groups were predominantly followed Hurufism and were ethnically Turkish and/or Kurdish. The most famous in the Ottoman empire were the Bektashi (though there were plenty of Sunni ones like the Mevlevi, commonly known in the west as 'whirling dervishes') who were popular among the Janissary Corps. But the most influential were the Safaviyya whose order gained political power as an independent state in what is today Azerbaijan and Northwestern Iran.
This distinction is important, because if you'll note these are all Turkish/Kurdish groups or otherwise mystical and divergent with rulership not held by clerics and scholars learned in Islam who know how to operate a mosque and lead village prayer. Shia beliefs are not consolidated and quite fragmented, with the non-Sufi Shia communities currently being the subject of genocide in Syria by the Rhomans. Historically the Safavids imported massive numbers of Shia clerics from Syria and Lebanon to forcibly convert Sunni institutions to Shia ones. The Sufi Tariqas, despite the Safavids themselves originally being formed from this institution, did not have the numbers of Islamic clergy capable of enacting large scale conversion of a population to the new state religious ideology. The Rhomans happen to be giving one of the few sources of such Islamic Scholars and Clerics more than enough reason to never cooperate with them to destabilize TTL Ottomans. There are other communities of Shia that could presumably be used, but they are small, divided, or otherwise inaccessible to the Rhomans even if they could sponsor them as agents within the Ottoman Empire. If the Rhomans grabbed Shia agents piecemeal from the varying schools of Shia thought and Sufi orders there would be little room for them to form a united Shia front against the Ottomans due to doctrinal differences.
Evilprodigy
Donor
Current thoughts of the day after watching the extra credits video on the division of the Ottoman Empire after world War 1.
I am reminded that Zionist colonization of Palestine involved in fermentation of land transfer to new colonists on the condition that the said land was 'empty' and that the colonists would improve it by utilizing new agricultural technology.
Now, you don't actually need new agricultural technology in order to improve this "vacant" land. This land was the historic grazing territory of Arab nomads which had become as such following the conquest in the 7th century. The importation of nomadism across North Africa and the Levant had devastating ecological impacts on what had previously been some of the most fertile farmland in the world. Overgrazing resulted in monoculture for grasses which depleted soil nutrition and led to erosion and desertification. The land which fed the city of Rome became incapable of feeding even itself, as nomads required significantly more land to produce adequate foodstuffs for themselves. To revert the land back into agriculturally productive territory required an absence of grazing animals in order to allow local plant life to regrow. Several years of agricultural activity in sustainable methods that can return nitrates to the soil and allow it to retain moisture are all that was really needed, although modern land transfers in the 20th century utilized new irrigation and fertilizer technology of the time which sped up and enhanced the process so the Zionists quite literally made the desert bloom surprisingly quickly.
With the depopulation of the Levant and its replacement by sedentary and agriculturally minded Greeks it is entirely possible that the population density of this part of the world will dramatically increase. The Levant could hold a deceptively large quantity of people that I am uncertain the total number of due to lack of historic examples from this time period but would undoubtedly be significant. In several decades it is entirely possible at the population of the Levant will actually be higher that was before this ethnic cleansing and still with plenty of room to grow.
The demographic changes would have significant impact on the great power dynamic in Europe and the middle East come the next century as the land really gets filled out and intensified. More people means more taxes, a larger economy, and a greater army. Furthermore this access to readily available land will probably stunt Greek migration to the new world they can just go to the Levant instead.
I am reminded that Zionist colonization of Palestine involved in fermentation of land transfer to new colonists on the condition that the said land was 'empty' and that the colonists would improve it by utilizing new agricultural technology.
Now, you don't actually need new agricultural technology in order to improve this "vacant" land. This land was the historic grazing territory of Arab nomads which had become as such following the conquest in the 7th century. The importation of nomadism across North Africa and the Levant had devastating ecological impacts on what had previously been some of the most fertile farmland in the world. Overgrazing resulted in monoculture for grasses which depleted soil nutrition and led to erosion and desertification. The land which fed the city of Rome became incapable of feeding even itself, as nomads required significantly more land to produce adequate foodstuffs for themselves. To revert the land back into agriculturally productive territory required an absence of grazing animals in order to allow local plant life to regrow. Several years of agricultural activity in sustainable methods that can return nitrates to the soil and allow it to retain moisture are all that was really needed, although modern land transfers in the 20th century utilized new irrigation and fertilizer technology of the time which sped up and enhanced the process so the Zionists quite literally made the desert bloom surprisingly quickly.
With the depopulation of the Levant and its replacement by sedentary and agriculturally minded Greeks it is entirely possible that the population density of this part of the world will dramatically increase. The Levant could hold a deceptively large quantity of people that I am uncertain the total number of due to lack of historic examples from this time period but would undoubtedly be significant. In several decades it is entirely possible at the population of the Levant will actually be higher that was before this ethnic cleansing and still with plenty of room to grow.
The demographic changes would have significant impact on the great power dynamic in Europe and the middle East come the next century as the land really gets filled out and intensified. More people means more taxes, a larger economy, and a greater army. Furthermore this access to readily available land will probably stunt Greek migration to the new world they can just go to the Levant instead.
Evilprodigy
Donor
That's the thing right, you don't really need an emperor to micromanage it. You just need a social system that favours sedentary agriculture over nomadic pastoralism to a significant degree and enough people willing to go there and be farmers. Rhome has both of those and will for some time.
To expand on this thought some. I believe at this point the coastline is more or less Greek as are select cities; Damascus comes to mind; while the hinterland is still almost 100% Muslim and at this point under Ottoman control.
Assuming the next war goes how we all think it will and Rome remains in their brutalist phase which is almost 100% Rome will inherit more or less modern day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Northern Iraq and the Palestinian Territories. In OTL in 1600 these territories had an estimated population of about 2.3 million. Figure the area still under Roman control is about 300,000 and the rest halve the population due to repeated wars and incursions. Which means next war Rome will inherit an area of approximately 1.1 million Sunni Arabs that it will promptly (likely) deport, enslave, or massacre.
Now how do you go about repopulating this area. Well we know that the Aegean provinces are amongst the most densely populated areas outside China and India right now so that seems to be the best source of manpower in addition to immigrants from the Orthodox world. If we assume 50,000/year total taking into account fertility the area should be back up to pre-war levels within 20years ago.
But taking into account that the population will be a sedentary culture rather than a nomadic one what happens than. Well 20years of a lot of areas lying fallow will do wonders to replenish fertility in the soil. So now you have 1.1 million people who are irrigating and reforesting the land, similar to what is being done throughout Anatolia currently. It would not be outside the realm of possibility to see the area able to support a population perhaps 2x as much as historical. So a population of 30+ million by 1800 in the Roman Empire proper seems entirely doable with another 10 million in the despotates. It will also be an area that would be the same ethnicity/religious grouping as the dominant group in the empire so rather than being neglected would remain a priority.
There is also the religious aspect to consider. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other cities of early Christianity will undoubtedly get government largesse and large numbers of pilgrims in an area that is now considered secure by the government and populace. How that would affect the economy I can only begin to speculate but it will be a part of the Roman Empire that will by circumstance be relatively cosmopolitan culturally. I can’t see any but the most xenophobic government denying entry to Catholic and Bohamanist pilgrims and inevitably some of them will stay. Jerusalem and other cities may be culturally Greek but it would be a more open identity towards other Christian sects than what would be found in the Aegean as they will interact with them far more on a day to day basis.
One other thing I’d like to mention on Roman culture. What is likely going to happen to these areas bares some resemblance to what happened in US and Canada’s push westwards in the 19th century with the extermination and displacement of the natives followed by their replacement with citizens. Though the area is much smaller and consequently the era it takes place in much shorter I do wonder if Rome will develop something akin to the Wild West mentality in those territories and how that might influence the Roman state. At this point for all the different ethnicities the accepted groups within Rome are fairly homogenous; how might a large group that is almost exclusively Greek Orthodox but “different” be handled by the Roman state and how would they influence it as well.
I don't know if this has already been answered but do the Rhomans see being a Latin as a religious or an ethnic label. For example if a German immigrates to Egypt or Syria and converts to Orthodox do they stop being a Latin or are they simply considered "a Latin that practices the correct Christianity"?