The Contexts of Roman Society, Part 14: A Diverse and Divided Empire
Rhomania on a political map is represented by a blob of purple, a mass of sameness that implies uniformity, but the Rhomania of 1650 was a diverse realm. It embraced many different land types and ecological zones, with the inhabitants mirroring that diversity. There were the rich and the poor, the rural and the urban, the settled and the nomadic, and even these broad labels contained multitudes within themselves.
This diversity could also breed division. By 1650 most inhabitants of the Roman heartland had at least a vague sense of shared Roman-ness, but this sense was secondary to local identities and issues. For most Romans, the concerns of the village and the Kephalate were of primary importance. The Emperor was far away; the neighbors were always there. Much of this was a function of the difficulty of travel, especially away from the sea. Now Romans did travel, for work, for pilgrimage, and for other reasons, but newspapers flowed more easily and more often than people. For many Romans, their impression of other Romans would be from paper, not from experiences in the flesh.
This was not unique to Rhomania. Roman administrators might look on the French with envy, as their populace was comparable in size but concentrated in a much smaller area. But then the Persians could do the same with Rhomania. Roman difficulties with broad territories spread out over rugged terrain, with pastoral conglomerations interspersed and rubbing with settled zones, were all present in Persia, and to a greater degree. The Romans at least had the Aegean Sea.
These divisions and frictions though are inevitable in practically any society of sufficient size; even modern states with transportation and communication technology unimaginable to their 17th-century ancestors see them.
But Rhomania in the mid-1600s was facing some more unique sources of division. There was growing pressure on the environment due to population increase and overexploitation of natural resources. Given that, by far, having access to one’s own land was the best means of support, this growing strain had a drastic effect on the health and lives of many Romans. The effects can be shown literally in the bones of the Romans who lived then; in a massive survey of Roman skeletal remains dating back as far as the late reign of Andreas Niketas himself, the Romans of the middle third of the 1600s were the shortest of all generations.
This was exacerbated by the growing commercialization of society. Peasants in debt to their neighbors could usually find a way to survive, and even make good their losses. The life of a peasant village was hard; cooperation was essential for survival. But a peasant in debt to a moneylender could expect no such relief. And their situation frequently was made worse by their location. In rural areas, often somewhat or seriously isolated, with very limited sources of credit, the available moneylender was almost certainly a loan shark, with the concept of just interest being a sad joke.
Those who lost their land, whether through partible inheritance practices paring down holdings into unviability, or through debt, made their ways to the cities. There they swelled the masses of destitute urban poor, with little opportunity or hope to better themselves. The Bothroi might become rich, but the cesspit drainers they employed certainly did not. But for many it would not be a problem for long. The press of poor populations, underfed and under-cleaned, with limited sanitation and rural immigrants underexposed to endemic diseases rife in urban environments, was a toxic disease cocktail.
And yet next to them were great townhouses and marketplaces. There were riches and prosperity in plenty, but while many shivered in cold tenements with precious little to no fuel for heating, a few could have heated lavatories where they relieved themselves into literally golden chamber pots. Many Romans, and not just those freezing, thought that there was something wrong with this system.
A surfeit of university graduates ensured that there was a constant and usually-critical conversation about the state of realm. They might be well-enough off to heat their homes at night and enjoy kaffos and monems down at the local kaffos oikos, but they too rumbled dissatisfaction. As with the land, so it was with offices and government positions: too many people and not enough availability. And in both causes, monopolization of large portions by small groups exacerbated an issue, although it should be noted that the monopolization did not create the issue, nor would its removal have completely resolved it.
Again, these issues were hardly unique to Rhomania. Environmental strain, distress caused by growing commercialization, and a surfeit of ‘angry learned young men’ were apparent all across the Mediterranean. The ‘angry learned young men’ phrase was coined by a Spanish minister in 1649, regarding issues in his own land.
Another issue lay in what might be called a crisis of identity, of wondering what Rhomania’s place in the world was. While people and nations cannot be psychoanalyzed as if they had one mind, generalized observations can be made provided one remembers there are always exceptions.
It has been said that Romans never truly feel secure or safe, and that even in the midst of great glory there is always an undercurrent of fear, even if only subconscious, but ever present. Romans though are not offended or surprised by such observations; to them it seems logical. Roman history shows that fate is fickle, the wheel constantly turns, and that the time and space between glory and ruin can be distressingly small. One who in their youth saw the splendor of Justinian could in their old age see the disasters of Phokas. The triumph of Herakleios over the Sassanids was followed by the humiliation of Herakleios under the Arabs. One who in their youth saw the might of Basil II could live to see the Turks conquer most of Anatolia. Their grandchildren could see the glory of Manuel I Komnenos, commanding Hungarians and Turks and Crusaders, and then in their old age see the Venetians storming over the sea walls of Constantinople. Andreas Niketas was followed by the Time of Trouble.
One Roman historian once said, “The problem with the Latins is that they have not much history and remember little of it. The problem with us is that we have a great deal of history, and remember most of it.”
Yet while it could be said that this undercurrent of fear is always there, never truly exorcised, for some scars never completely fade, this undercurrent’s strength is not static. It can and does wax and wane. And as many of the defensivists noted, this undercurrent seems to have been especially strong in the mid-1600s.
That can be largely explained by the strain of the War of the Roman Succession, following as it did the Great Uprising and the Eternal War. The German offensive had been defeated, but at great cost, and the westerners had displayed a degree of power that could certainly not be ignored. And it was clear to many Romans knowledgeable about the Latin west that it was growing more formidable and organized, which naturally made concerns about Roman security more acute.
There were two responses to this fear. One was a path of military aggression, to secure buffer zones and resources to bolster Roman defenses. The other sought a more diplomatic approach. This was not pacifistic; the defensivists would exert all their strength to defend Rhomania against assault if necessary. But the Latins, while many, were also diverse and divided. Rhomania needed to defend itself in a dangerous world, but that could be done by developing the resources, both material and moral, already possessed and cultivating key allies where possible.
This dispute might seem abstract, an intellectual disagreement, but the undercurrent of fear made that very much not the case. Both sides naturally felt that they were right, and the other was wrong. And in this case, the price for being wrong could be the doom of all. The question was existential, and error therefore could not be tolerated.
Even here, Rhomania was not quite unique. In Arles, there were debates about the future orientation of the state, whether to look to Spain or to look to France. But these debates were limited to a smaller subsection of the Arletian population and were never as vitriolic as its Roman counterparts.
These tensions of varying sources thus all predated the height of the Little Ice Age and were unconnected to it. The Little Ice Age did not create the General Crisis that would shudder much of the world. But it did take the many pre-existing tensions and sharply accelerate and exacerbate them.
But while some sort of crisis might have been inevitable, in as much anything can be historically inevitable, that does not remove the agency of people. How the Crisis in Rhomania began, the form it took, the way it played out, and the nature of the repercussions were all determined by Romans, by their fears and hopes, hatreds and loves, cruelties and kindnesses, and stupidities and wisdoms. The circumstances in which they do so is seldom of their choice, but in the end, it is people that make history.