That’s quite the simplification of religious relations throughout history. Christian and Islamic politics often enjoyed indifferent if not amicable relations whilst they focussed on their own deeper internal divides.
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
I think it’s in relation to the western focus of timelines posted on the site - not surprising given historically literature has been western in focus (hence why the Eastern Romans themselves have taken a backseat in many respects).
I didn't talk specifically about Islam and Christianity, certain religions absorb others like the Romans and Greeks for example, ending up sort of becoming one. But friendly relationships like you said are rare to say the least, two countries are in crisis and because of that ignoring each other are not friendly relationships. "Friendly relations" so to speak occur when one group has a majority over another. For example ummayyad in Spain were tolerant of Christians, not because of any idea of friendship but because they were an absolute minority (Muslims).
Strong, structured religions with a beginning, middle and end compete for followers. You don't, for example, have problems in Brazil or Argentina with Muslims because they are absolute minorities.
The United States, for example, for a long time persecuted Catholics.
Even in secular and democratic states there is the impact of religions with which the laws, allies, economic partners, adversaries, etc. will be chosen.
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people focus on what impacts them the most. If most people on the site were Chinese the focus would be on the different dynasties. In India in a possible defeat of the British for example. Historical literature focuses where the author wants it, usually in his own country. it is a site dominated by people from the west so it has a western focus.
not only that but power impacts study, never in the west in my opinion has china been studied so much as now.
knowledge and power kind of go together. we all remember alexandre the great, but no one remembers a greek village with a mayor who did an ok job.
Apologies I misinterpreted as the examples were Christian or Islamic. I was stating that the respective religious worlds tended to focus inwards rather than outwards as the threat of a heresy was far more potent than what would have been considered the ‘other’. Heresies were considered far more of a threat and far closer to home and often extreme violence was used to suppress and eradicate it. Of course religious wars between different religions existed but they are not as prolific as internal wars (within each respective religious world so to speak. Take the ‘Byzantine’ period the concept of a religious war never took off and even Heraclius’ declaration of a holy war against the Sassanid’s appears to be more about rousing the people rather than domination. Another take is the Crusades; their primary motivation was redemption rather than a hatred towards Islam and often other motivation such as greed and power were up there too. These were not that much different to Islam and the use of jihad didn’t result in the wholesale eradication of different religious followers.
Ultimately different religious worlds were somewhat alien and due to the differing views would produce conflict but on the whole tended to focus internally at their own heresies.
Anyway this is the last I’ll say on the topic as I wouldn’t want the thread to become consumed!
Keep up the good work @Basileus444 and I always look forward to reading especially when I am on a night shift!
@Basileus444 love that! I wonder whether there have been any pizza-fork crossovers to send a message?
no need to apologize it's always good to argue no matter the subject. I hadn't thought about heresy and internal division. Something very common.
i agree
yes is a great history, I look forward to the new updateKeep up the good work @Basileus444 and I always look forward to reading especially when I am on a night shift!
Who knows maybe in the future our dear author takes the story in printTo get attention back to the update, I think it was very interesting. Wish there is some modern day book with illustration about everyday life in TTL Byzantium
Between this update and the various ones about how the Ravens organized their society during their decade in power we're starting to see a proto-socialism develop that is very Christian in character. I'm not enough of an expert to know if this is a change from OTL. We've had characters use the same explicitly Christian imagry ITTL as OTL's Peasants' Revolt, only fast forwarded a few centuries. We're starting to see how the future character of Rhomania develops - a paternalistic state that takes care of its citizens while being very Orthodox about it, probably using Christian rhetoric and teachings about how everyone in Rhomania is one of God's children will have certain basic needs fulfilled by the state as opposed to private charity/the Church.
As one of this site's resident Venice lovers I'm curious how a surviving Venetian state would develop ITTL if they all didn't take the same stupid pills and attack Smyrna back in the 1450s. Would we get the same series of wars (or analogues) between the Byzantines and Venice that we got between the Ottomans and Venice from the 14th through the 18th Centuries? There's no real way to avoid Venice's decline as a commercial power once the New World is discovered and the center of commerce shifts to the North Atlantic as opposed to the Mediterranean but Venice can certainly be a medium-sized fish in the small-ish pond that is northern Italy especially if they take the terraferma or something reasonably close to it.
I always found the battles with Rome and Venice almost poetic. It's like Venice is a shadow of the empires republican Latin past that refuses to die trying to dominate the east economically as the romans themselves once did long ago
I always found it sad personally. The Massacre of the Latins led to the 4th Crusade led to the Black Day led to the Venetian sacking/massacre led to the 10th Crusade led to the First Sack of Rome led to dot dot dot. The violence just kept getting more and more ratched up as each side saw what the other did and said "oh yeah...well top this!" Violence just begat more violence. Not saying it wasn't realistic, it sadly was very realistic and very well-written, just saying that it always makes me a bit sad when I think about it.
B444,
Your story has been an amazing ride. But this is getting ridiculous. Frankly after the many atrocities the romans have inflicted, starting with the completely unjustified rape of Buda, through the Great Crime and the mindless destruction in Germany, continuing to the dismantling of Indian states that had no quarrel with them, you'd think the romans would at a certain point have gotten over the insane chip on their shoulder they seem to have. Their paranoid delusions of foreign conspiracies persist as they themselves have piled on atrocity after atrocity towards their neighbors. I really hope that's not where this story is going again.
I will continue to read, because the writing is excellent and this is a superb story. But I'm hoping at some point the Romans will get some comeuppance for their frankly evil behavior in this arc. And if not, that the story would treat them like the villains they are, and not the put upon victims they pretend to be.
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The Romans are perfectly justified to he angry. The Germans attacked them in a war of aggression, caused untold damage in Bulgaria and Macedonia, the war was the cause of an economic collapse, and after a hard fought victory that cost million lives they got jack shit. They couldn't even make the Germans pay the financial costs of the war because the Germans were just as broke, can you imagine how frustrating that must have been to the average Roman?
India - that was just Ody and Iskandar doing their own thing, you can't exactly blame all Romans for that.
As for the Great Crime, it was entirely justified (From a 17th century point of view)
The average Roman ittl reminds me of 21st century Russian nationalists. Always focusing on the perceived crimes done to them to justify the evil they do to the rest of the world. It's perplexing this comes from a state at its apex.
I remember when Hungary engaged in a bog standard border conflict with Rome, which rome partially provoked, and the romans responded by systematically wiping their capital city off the map. Or when the romans were offered a peace treaty in which they were given everything they wanted, and said "no, I want to rape and pillage your land for a year first", then signed the same treaty a year later. And no, genocide is never "justified". What it all is- and this is what distinguishes them from normal 17th century cruelty- is pointless. They engage in cruelty for the sake of it.
Now obviously, evil states exist, and sometimes they get away with it, and the world moves on. Life isn't fair. But I hope that going forward this thread, and the narrative, can acknowledge that these actions are evil, and unjustified*. The atrocities committed by Niketas are still evil, but understandable. He was a compelling, but flawed, hero. But it seems the romans have taken it into their cultural DNA that they need to be as cruel as possible to others, and formed a proto-fascist state, which efficiently carries out genocide, to do so. It's been depressing on a reread- the glory and fun parts of the Laskarid-Komnenian times has evolved into something evil, and the world ITTL would probably have been better off if the Romans had been finished in the time of troubles.
*Obviously B444 has acknowledged these actions are evil, and I'm not trying to tie them into this as justifying genocide. I'm just expressing it has gotten tiresome seeing the endless "Romans blame their neighbors for imagined slights" plot, and then seeing it repeated unironically by posters in this thread as true.
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Uh, just to be clear but I think what B444 is saying by "the Romans are angry" is more of internal discontent and popular sentiment being a bit more confrontational with everyone. Nothing in the current arc points to Rome looking at foreign adventures any time soon, not to mention B444 has kind of mentioned that Rome is in a period of inactivity outside her borders, particularly in Western Europe.
I don't that crimes can be justified. The commander in Germany wasn't a poor peasant sufffering for the arrongance and pride of royal houses, it was more or less petty vengeance with no military objective (aside the genius "risk making the Triunes even more powerful in Germany" )
This TL is written very well, making feel us unease about the actions of "protagonist" ( a bit difficult to cheer for them doing ethnic cleaning and massacre). I find weird the need to see them "punished" for it... there is no karma or comuppance for this kind of stories(the realistic one). I'm not an expert, Rhomania may do too many mistakes, but I don't think they will lose out as much territory and clout as the Ottomans did (even if they did worse, It wouldn't/cannot balance things out even if look at their crimes in the worst possibile light). Back to the TL I've rarely seen any equivalent to b444's ability to flesh out Rhomania. (some gets too lost in the details, forgetting the action. In others is too much action, with no characters,....)
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You are right, and that's what the update following seems to be about. But this is just something that's been bothering me a lot as I've reread this TL, particularly the responses in this very thread, which border on justification of genocide.
It's kind of funny, because I think B444 is such a compelling writer, he writes about roman characters committing horrible acts, and you still root for them! It's only been after a second time reading through that I've seen the pure insane evil Romans have engaged in, and the hypocrisy of their lecturing towards "Latins" when they're greater monsters than any "Latin" state.
This is how I read it. The Romans are angry that they're starving and cold while the rich guy on the hill is perfectly fine.
Vince
Monthly Donor
I'm guessing at some point around TTL's Roman "Time of Troubles" era they would have been swallowed up by Lombardy. There's no way a prosperous Venice can avoid being looked at jealously by Milan and it seems about the right point in history where all the ships in the world aren't going to stop a strong, centralized land power from gobbling you up.
Ironically, many ppl have said (myself included) that the Romans seem to suffer from hideously bad luck at several points in this TL.
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