I'm assuming the Howeitat didn't enjoy the same level of privilege?
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
pls don't ban me
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Yeah, i agree with.
I actually kinda forgot it since history before Rome is my weakest one.
@Basileus444 i've gotta one thing to ask you. Are the Bulgarians still having their own culture or are they being absorbed into the greek one? same question for Albanians
I believe Bulgarian culture was extinct due to the turmoil during the komnenos reign and its subsequent integration . There should be a few holdouts left but majority is Greek in culture.
pls don't ban me
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wait, if i remember well, they were split into 2 vassals and tried to rebel, the komnenos purged the rebellion but i don't remember anything about a bulgarian genocide/mass deportation.
Evilprodigy
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That's because there wasn't. It's been gradual assimilation over the course of centuries with some deportations and Romanization policies from the empire.
As always when questions like these popup the Minorities and the Empire updates are your best friend:
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
No matter how else it falls I also can't see Rhomania ever going down the laissez faire economic theory. It is both too paternalistic in it's view of being there for the people of the empire as well as the lack of willingness to give up that much control so I expect a decent sized welfare state...
www.alternatehistory.com
Evilprodigy
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Why ask a question like this for 200 years beyond where we are now? It will come when it comes.
pls don't ban me
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And I would roll 5000 cows
And I would roll 5000 more
Just to be the man who rolls a ten thousand cows
To fall down at your door
jokes aside, the question is good buuuuut a bit early, up to now it took Basileus444 2 threads to be on his way for the xviii century, so you'll have to wait something like 1/2 years to be in 1800
According to the Church he didn’t commit suicide, he suffered from Axios Fever.
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pls don't ban me
Monthly Donor
TY guys for the quick response!
it's hard to remember everything considering we are basically reading a 400 years different TL.
Yes you are correct. I knew it was something with an A and Xios but though there was something in between
The Great Crime
The Great Crime
The reign of Odysseus Sideros is often remembered as a period of magnificence and martial brilliance and there are understandable reasons for such a view. However it was during his reign that the Romans committed the Great Crime. He may have had little to no personal direct involvement, but he was Basileus at the time. But his reputation is little, if at all, tarnished by this. Even those aware of the chronology of both the Great Crime and the Great Expedition seem to lack any conscious awareness that they overlap in time, and that the second made the first possible by driving the Ottomans out of interior Syria.
This is just one example of the fuzziness of Roman historiography surrounding the Great Crime. No one seems to be to blame for this; there was a crime but no criminal, or at least no criminal mastermind. Odysseus, as mentioned, is present in time but off-screen. Demetrios III, who probably deserves most of the blame as the architect, is dead when the culmination happens and his veil of obscurity serves him quite well here. And no one seems willing to lay the blame at Athena’s feet. Possibly because this is one of the rare cases where being a woman has an advantage over being a man; a misogynist will not think a woman capable of such things while a feminist would not want to smear a historical feminist icon. Another reason may well be though that blaming Athena makes it much more difficult to present the Great Crime as something that just somehow happened, which is convenient from the Roman perspective.
It is a fundamental principle of historiography that to understand past eras, past eras must be evaluated on their own terms. The 1600s did not have a concept of crimes against humanity. There were rules of war and statecraft, but they were typically unwritten and based off custom, enforced by reciprocity. An example of the limitations is easily seen at the siege of Baghdad. The sacks of Rome, Mosul, and Baghdad drew notice for their brutality and thoroughness but were not considered in any way illegal by the standards of the day. Cities that did not surrender in time but were taken by storm forfeited any rights to mercy.
The Great Crime is, by the standards of the 1640s, in the same category. It is exceptional in brutality and scope, but the difference is in degree, not substance. Elites thought little of extirpating rebellious populations; the bloodbaths that followed the defeat of any peasant uprising are clear examples of this. What makes the Great Crime exceptional for its age is the size of the rebellious population that is destroyed, but not the concept of doing so or the mentality and justification behind it.
This is a common issue when studying the past. In order to properly understand past eras in their contexts and to avoid importing anachronisms and present-favoring biases, events and actions do need to be understood in the light of the value systems that existed when they happened. However that does not mean that those in the present must accept those value judgments for their own age. In an era that does recognize the concept of crimes against of humanity, the Great Crime absolutely qualifies.
The Great Crime had arguably started in the early 1630s when Roman forces started targeting the populations of interior Syria deliberately, either for slaughter on the spot or for enslavement. Given the number of rebellions against Rhomania fought under the banner of Syrian Islam, already by that stage it was clear the Romans had decided that making a desert and calling it peace was a better option, from the purview of imperial security, than a continuation of Roman rule over the Sunni Syrian population.
The numbers involved are unknown, but were small in comparison to those of the 1640s. That is why some argue that the events of the 1630s don’t really fall under the purview of the Great Crime, although they might be understood as a prologue. The distinction, if presented to them, would likely not be respected by the victims.
Once Roman control is reestablished in interior Syria, as Odysseus is grinding through Mesopotamia and advancing into Persia, the Romans issue the edicts and begin enforcing them. Practitioners of Sunni Islam within Roman territory are to be expelled. There is still Sunni Islam in eastern Anatolia at this time, but the practices there are syncretic and viewed as quite dubious in orthodoxy by many Muslim clerics throughout the Dar al-Islam. Moreover the Christians there are also syncretic, with the boundary in religious practices between the faiths far fuzzier than doctrinal Christian or Muslim clerics would like. Going against the Muslims there would risk the rage of the local Christians, who share pilgrimage sites, business relationships, communal lifeways, and even kinship ties with the Muslims. This is in stark contrast to Syria where the distinctions between faith communities is sharper (although even there the distinctions are more permeable than might be expected.) So despite the wording of the decrees, which don’t make any distinction, they only go into effect in Syria, not in Anatolia.
The texts only require expulsion, that practitioners of Sunni Islam must convert to a tolerated category or be evicted from Roman territory, but what is writ in the law books and what takes place out in the world are often quite different.
There are those who do convert in order to stay, but after the brutal treatment by Orthodox Christian Roman authorities, the creed is understandably not very attractive. Those who do convert and remain are closely monitored to ensure they are not closet Muslims, with expulsion the penalty for backsliding. Accusations of being closet Muslims are sometimes weaponized in personal feuds, poisoning relationships among those who remain.
The experience of those who leave vary widely, with much depending on local and personal circumstances. Some expulsions are fairly orderly and peaceful, with refugees who have means taking ship to North Africa or walking down to the Hedjaz or east to Persia to try and make new lives there. Those who have money and manage to keep it from being looted by Roman soldiers or local militias or brigands or Bedouin fare the best, but the number of opportunities for losing that wealth means these are very few in number and proportion.
Most of the work of overseeing and managing the expulsion is done by various militia troops drawn from the local Greek, Melkite, and minority populations, with Roman regulars backing them up when needed. Areas that resist the expulsion order receive no mercy, with the line of what constitutes resistance depending on the temperament of the troops involved. Archaeologists have uncovered 5 mass graves dating to this time period which between them contain 2700-3100 bodies, where it is believed that defeated villagers were marched to an area, ordered to dig pits, and then beaten to death or shot and their bodies thrown into the mass grave.
The number murdered in this or similar matter, as a proportion of the expelled, is likely very small for the reason that mass killing in this way with the technology of the period is a lot of work. Most of those murdered are killed via neglect and the environment. Those expelled are marched out of Rhomania, with limited resources devoted to the upkeep of the refugees. With hopelessly inadequate shelter, sanitation arrangements, and provisions, starvation, exposure, and disease scythe through their ranks, by their nature disproportionately affecting the very young and old and the infirm and ill. Some of this may have been deliberate as a way to kill them, or may have been the result of callous folloi-pinching, but either way makes no difference for the mothers too malnourished to feed their infants.
There are examples of death by exposure that are clearly deliberate on the part of the guards, with many columns being stripped of all their valuables and driven into the desert to die. Other columns are also stripped of valuables but then sold off to slave traders. Many Latin merchants who are active in Roman Syria have developed a side-line in human trafficking due to the plentiful supply over the past few years. Bedouin guards are purported to be the worst when it comes to deliberately abusing their charges, but this may be anti-Bedouin prejudice. Christian Bedouin are not exempt from this, as in the constant battle between the desert and the sown, a shared faith makes no difference. On the other hand, the prejudice goes both ways, so it is possible that Bedouin would be more contemptuous of village-dwellers and quick to abuse them than other guards drawn from a similar material lifeway as the refugees. The reality is likely a mix of all factors, with local variations, and impossible to ever know with certainty.
The experience of the expelled depends entirely on local variations, with the personalities and temperaments of the expelling forces a key factor, along with the personal connections between the guards and the refugees who often know each other. Sometimes this is to the disadvantage of the refugees, with much bad blood between Sunni and non-Sunni communities from recent history. However sometimes this can be to their advantage.
Identification, location, and removal of the Sunni population is entirely dependent on the support of the local non-Sunni groups. In areas where relations between the religious groups are better, non-Sunnis often are not forthcoming. Groups and people are not monoliths so even with all the recent fighting and bloodletting, there are areas where relations between the religious groups have been warmer, largely based on common connections with shared religious sites, business arrangements, and even blood ties. However for those eager to use these as examples of the goodness in human nature must take pause when it is realized that in some cases, the aid is not so benevolent. The threat of denouncement is a tool that can be used to extort ‘favors’ from the Sunnis who remain.
The pain and the sorrow does not end when the refugees leave Rhomania. The question mark hanging over Mesopotamia while Odysseus and Iskandar are out east means that the refugees can’t be settled there. Thus many refugees are ‘stalled’, and in the interim sent to what are little more than slave labor camps, working in northern Syria and Mesopotamia as well as eastern Anatolia. The work varies but provision and shelter is scant and those less labor-capable naturally suffer the worst from the conditions.
After the Treaty of Baghdad they can start moving again, but the pain and sorrow is still not over. The Roman, Mesopotamian, and Persian authorities are all absolutely in agreement that these groups, while they need to be settled in various areas, must be broken up into small pieces. None of them want the Syrians remaining as a cohesive group, likely to cause trouble and strife, whether by agitating the locals or by stirring up animosity against the Romans. No government is eager for a coherent subject group that has a reputation for rebellion.
The Mesopotamian and Persian Muslims are rather unsympathetic to the plight of the Syrian refugees, despite the religious connections. (A fact which incidentally undermines the Roman concerns about all Syrian Muslims being fifth-columnists.) Ironically the Syrians are viewed as contaminated by Christians, and in the fashion of many monotheists, they prefer outright infidels, the Christians, to the supposedly heretical Syrian Muslims. There is the argument that if the Syrians had been true Muslims, they would’ve left Syria when the Romans conquered it. As for the Mesopotamians, there is an additional factor in that they have themselves been recently devastated. Unable to act against the Romans who are truly responsible, the Syrian refugees are people who can be ‘punched down’ as a means to assert the Mesopotamians’ own power and agency.
While families are left intact, village communities that had managed to stick together during the expulsion and march are usually broken up, with various village fragments mixed together at the new settlement sites. These sites range across Mesopotamia and Persia in depopulated areas, with the preference being for these to be surrounded by more reliable locals to keep them from causing any trouble. While various villages do maintain a tradition that traces back to Sunni Syria, these efforts are successful in destroying anything approaching a diaspora society.
The numbers involved are sketchy, with the best estimate that over a five-year period 1 to 1.5 million people were expelled from Rhomania, with anywhere from 20 to 35% killed by sword, starvation, or the desert.
The main beneficiaries are the local Syrians who remain. Much of the now vacant land falls to them, with land grants rewarded for their loyalty. The various Bedouin tribes who are Roman allies and auxiliaries are included in this, with former agricultural land bestowed as pasturage. With growing aridity and desertification, the desert is pressing harder on the sown. The allied Bedouin need to be compensated so that they will guard the frontier between the desert and sown while not becoming aggressors themselves. Greek colonists are brought in from Anatolia to settle some areas, but in numbers far smaller than those expelled, with the demographic consequences of the Little Ice Age cutting short anything more. The demographic vacuum left by the Sunni expulsion is thus mostly filled by the non-Sunni Syrians.
Modern Roman memory of the Great Crime is that they try not to remember it. If they must, attention is focused on Syrian Sunni activities prior to the Great Crime. Ever since the conquest of Syria they had rebelled repeatedly, and several times those rebellions had also been the fuel for Romano-Persian wars. The situation was not sustainable and the logic of empire demanded a resolution. In short, the Syrian Sunni had it coming.
In recent years there have been some remarks about a Roman apology to the descendants of the expelled, but these have gone nowhere. The general Roman response has been that a genuine apology would necessitate the return of the land as well as reparations. That is never going to happen, in which case an apology would be a meaningless empty gesture. And since it would be meaningless, there’s no point in doing it.
Some of the Roman pushback has come about because of the nature of some of the sources arguing for an apology, the Latin West. Considering their treatment of Terranovan natives, more recent than the Great Crime and far more exterminatory in both word and deed, many Romans view such Latin efforts as transparent attempts to claim a moral superiority they don’t deserve.
Were Romans at the time bothered by what was done in Syria? Polling the public of nearly 4 centuries ago is impossible, but the answer based on the limited data available seems to be no. The Imperial government never advertised the details of what was happening, but it didn’t censor it either. Most Romans, far removed from the events but remembering recent history, seemed pleased that the Sunni Syrian problem was finally getting a solution, or at least were indifferent.
Some welcomed it, not because they were bloodthirsty or sadistic, but because of a Roman refrain that has been present since the Great Crime to the present. The Syrian Sunni had been a key component in the cause of the destructive and ruinous Romano-Persian wars of the 1500s and 1600s, from the Time of Troubles to the War of the Roman Succession. A restive Muslim population subject to Christian rule next to a powerful Muslim Empire whose ruler’s legitimacy depended partly on the defense of the faithful was a guarantee of war and strife. However it is argued that the removal of this issue was an essential precondition for the later peace.
Some Romans felt differently. In their own way they viewed themselves as Roman patriots, but they remembered the Scripture that asked what good it was to gain the world if it cost a man his soul. They did not care for the dark turn in the Roman psyche and feared what it portended. What was done was done, in their minds, and could not be unmade. But there must be no more, for this was evil, and in their most famous words, “Evil must be opposed”.
The wind glided through the empty halls,
And silence reigned where once the children played.
A broken doll, a mound of dirt, and a murder of fattened crows,
Bear witness to what was done, but they do not speak.
It is good that the clouds and stones and the ever-enduring earth are silent,
Lest their speech be a curse upon the race of men,
For all the horrors they have had to see.
I hate to "like" the latest update, considering the subject matter, but it's exceptionally well done. It's tragic to see the fate of the Syrian Muslim population, and presumably the devastation of an ancient and brilliant culture, but unfortunately logical. It brought to mind for me something of a blend of the Spanish Inquisition and religious persecution in the 30 Years' War - the latter especially considering the time frame and the nearby grindhouse battlefield in Mesopotamia.
I do wonder what the long-term consequences of the Great Crime will be, especially demographically. The expulsion of 1 - 1.5 million from the region and the turning over of formerly agricultural land to pasturage will certainly have an effect on the long-term impacts on the productivity of the region, especially with the Little Ice Age looming. Between the Great Crime and Egypt, the Romans seem to be doing a great job and stunting the generational productivity built up in these regions.
Also, a thought I had - I kind of hope that at least some of the Syrian Muslims wind up a vibrant community wherever they end up, like the Ladino Jews in Constantinople in OTL. It'd be nice for the Romans to get bit for the Great Crime simply by the virtue of another realm reaping the benefits of a population that the Romans so callously persecuted, murdered, and expelled.
I do wonder what the long-term consequences of the Great Crime will be, especially demographically. The expulsion of 1 - 1.5 million from the region and the turning over of formerly agricultural land to pasturage will certainly have an effect on the long-term impacts on the productivity of the region, especially with the Little Ice Age looming. Between the Great Crime and Egypt, the Romans seem to be doing a great job and stunting the generational productivity built up in these regions.
Also, a thought I had - I kind of hope that at least some of the Syrian Muslims wind up a vibrant community wherever they end up, like the Ladino Jews in Constantinople in OTL. It'd be nice for the Romans to get bit for the Great Crime simply by the virtue of another realm reaping the benefits of a population that the Romans so callously persecuted, murdered, and expelled.