An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
I wouldn't count on a unified Italian identity developing, or even if one does grow, there is no guarantee the Sicilians will be a part of it.
Even in the real world, the Sicilians have a strong identity of their own, combined with the Empire's influence and the bad blood between the Sicilians and the more northern Italians, I don't see any indications at this point that the Sicilians would ever feel particularly connected to their northern neighbors.
From the view of the old Kingdom of Italy, that was always something the North of Italy was more concerned with as far as I know. Though I am happy to be corrected there.
That's BS, if Russia can hold the old prussian territory on the-then konigsberg. Then the Romans of the east can and will hold Rome for eternity this time.
As TheCataphract says there is actually quite a bit running against any future Italian unification. In point of fact historically northern and southern Italy have generally been very different and separate, thanks to geography of nothing else. If it hadn't have been for Rome being placed in the center of the peninsula and getting strong enough to dominate both ends there wouldn't even be the idea of the two halves being a whole outside of pretty border lovers.
Besides if OTL Spain and Portugal, or ITL Spain and Aragon, can stay separate them the two halves of Italy can even without outside influences working to prevent that.
Besides if OTL Spain and Portugal, or ITL Spain and Aragon, can stay separate them the two halves of Italy can even without outside influences working to prevent that.
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Yeah I think there's little chance Italy ever unifies. Hell, I think there's little chance nationalism as we know it exists. It was a 18th/19th Century phenomenon that rose out of a very specific set of circumstances in European history after all.
i think nationalism already quite developed in this world since we can see that both Russian and byzantine have a strong sense of identity
In the Roman case that isn't really nationalist as we understand it though. All Romans care about is A - are you Orthodox? and B - do you speak Greek?
There's nothing about what we'd consider ethnic identifies there. An ethnic Greek who fits the qualifications is as Roman as an ethnic Turk/Syrian/Bulgarian/Albanian/etc.
Yep, pretty much the civic nationalism of Classical Rome, or modern US and other post-colonial nations.
I’d be cool with you making a game mod for the TL.
Flags: Personally, I think most modern flags are really dull. Two or three different-colored stripes, or a cross on a monochromatic background. Boring. Don’t want that for Rhomania.
Aesthetically, I’m most partial to the Vatatzes banner.
Rhomania will end up going the flag route though; they’re lighter and more convenient than an ancient-style standard. As for Despotates/Katepanates, they may end up like Australia and NZ, where they have their own flag but with a double-headed eagle as opposed to a Union Jack in the corner.
Yeah, we get weird looks from the Latins, but our Persian customers love our green and white turban patterns.
Ironically, that’s pretty much how the real Rome ended up going, considering that the last holdouts of the Roman Empire polity were…Greeks.
Identity and All That: Obviously this is a complicated issue, and both TTL Romans and TTL Latins won’t act as monolithic blocs. But let’s see if I can break this down.
Firstly is the ancient Greek legacy, the Hellas of Homer, Pericles, and Alexandros Megas. This certainly is extremely important to the TTL Romans, and culturally is more significant than what we would consider stereotypical Roman. For TTL Romans, when they look for epic, they look to Homer, not Virgil. For rhetoric, to Demosthenes, not Cicero. For history, to Thucydides, not Livy.
Notably, IOTL, this Greek heritage was something that the Latins never seemed to have a problem conceding to the Byzantines. After all, in lieu of calling them Romans, they called them Greeks. Frankish crusaders conquering Hellas in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade justified it by claiming they were the descendants of the Trojans wreaking revenge, which only works if the Byzantines=Greeks.
Now some Latins might downplay Greek influence in western society, or embrace it in a sense of ‘why should those Byzantines have these nice things to themselves?’ Or they could go to an extreme of ‘the ancient Greeks were awesome, but these aren’t real Greeks but a bunch of Slavs and Turks with some leftover Greek mixed in’, which was the argument of at least one German scholar who has come up in this thread before and whose name I don’t remember. (This isn’t the first time we’ve had a similar conversation.)
Certainly it’s the Roman heritage that is more complicated. When the TTL Romans look on it though, it’s important to remember that for them it is a political, not cultural legacy. For culture, they look to ancient Greece. Few Romans know Latin, and so any Latin authors like Cicero or Seneca are known overwhelmingly in Greek translation. Native Greek speakers have much higher clout.
But they are absolutely insistent on being the political continuation of the polity that goes back at least to Augustus. If the Latins want to play around with various aspects of ancient Roman culture like Ovid, the TTL Romans don’t mind. It’s the ‘you’re not the empire of the Romans, we are, and you’re just a kingdom of the Greeks’ that bothers Constantinople.
For diplomatic purposes, Latins might concede the Roman-ness; for anyone other than the HRE it’s not that big of a deal. But a lot of it will still be ‘we’re doing it out of politeness, but they’re really Greeks cosplaying as Romans, not actual Romans’. After all, just look around OTL. Even on this website in recent years, many deny the Roman-ness of the Byzantines.
Latins in the cultural sense will look more towards the Latin aspects of ancient Roman society. They’ll look to Cicero and Virgil and Ovid.
If this answer seems somewhat confused and rambling, I openly admit it. But I think with something like this, with its multiple aspects and many involved parties, can’t be summed up tidily and orderly.
The ‘you’re not Roman; you’re Greek’ predates the POD. I know it goes back at least to the 900s. I strongly suspect Charlemagne’s coronation in 800 marks the origin point.
Rhomania is going to be considered ITTL as much a western/European country as OTL Russia is considered a western/European country.
We’re talking about nationalist identities. Intellectual consistency and universally-applied standards are rare beasts in these lands.
Yeah, I should do more on TTL Spain. Perhaps during the late 1600s, when Rhomania is quiet and peaceful and therefore boring? Early modern Spain is a guilty pleasure of mine. There are a lot of aspects I don’t like, the anti-Semitism, the Inquisition, the Conquistadors…But I still have a soft spot for them. Some of that might be a backlash to the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Protestant powers, aspects of which I still have to deal with to this day. Within the last few years members of my family have claimed that Catholics (and Orthodox too, in a different conversation) aren’t really Christians, and that only Catholics persecuted other Christians for being the ‘wrong’ type.
Levels of racism: I have done some snippets of future (from the perspective of the current point in TL) Latin racism, I believe mostly if not entirely from Triune pens. But this isn’t meant to be extreme CSA type stuff. It is surprising the amount of casual racism one encounters in western society in the 1800s and first half of the 1900s, from the descriptions British gave of Indians after the outbreak of the Mutiny, to a German scholar in the 1920s saying Bulgarians are dumber than Serbians because Bulgarians have more Asiatic blood, to FDR saying Japanese cranial development was 2000 years behind westerners.
Now not all Latins or Latin societies will be horribly racist, no more than OTL. That said, I am envisaging a world where say around TL’s technological 1900 much of western and central Europe plus Terranovan offshoots are heavily “scientifically racist” like OTL, while the likes of Rhomania, Spain, and Russia are civilizationist in their form of bigotry.
Italian unification: Unless my plans drastically change, there won’t be an Italian unification like OTL. Even today, north and south are quite different. The Italian peninsula will likely be two or three states (Sicily, Lombardy/Italy, and maybe Tuscany) plus any Roman-Byzantine enclaves.
India’s the other major OTL unification that is extremely unlikely to happen. (OTL being questionable, considering Partition.) Figure at least four major states by modern times.
Some sort of German unification is on the cards, even if just turning the HRE into something more centralized and just less tiresome and confusing to deal with.
Exclusive identities “I am X, and you are not” are ancient. But the concept that 1) the most important identity, overriding all else, is membership in an ethnic/racial community and 2) said ethnic/racial community (the nation) must have its own independent polity (the state) is much more niche historically. No reason for that to get as much traction ITTL as it did IOTL.
(As a side note, because it relates to stuff above. This is why excluding the Byzantines as Romans because they’re Greeks ethnically is just dumb. It is applying criteria that the ancient Romans themselves would not have used. As can be seen in their founding mythology, ancient Rome didn’t discriminate based on ethnicity. Other things (class, culture) yes, but not ethnicity. The Etruscans didn’t even speak an Indo-European language.)
The latest installment of Not the End: The Empire Under the Laskarids Chapter 8 part 4-The Reconquest of Anatolia has been posted on Patreon for Megas Kyr patrons. Sorry about the original lack of file. The Romans under Alexios Philanthropenos continue to advance in central Anatolia, but increased Karamanid resistance threatens to stall the offensive. Further distracting from the effort in Anatolia, the Romans and Genoese take to the sea against the Lion of St. Mark, with some but limited success.
Thanks again for your support.
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Emphasis on some Latins. Another big factor that has to be mentioned is that many states currently have rulers who are descended from Greek Romans in Arles, Mexico, Khazaria etc. Their ancestry and ties to their glorious homeland will be heavily emphasised and will play a part in deciding the true Rome in the hearts of the common people. Greek being a lingua franca in the Mediterranean, military successes, good governance will all add to that.
In the future, a common Roman identity may develop - "We are both Roman". This may happen On that account or spontaneously or out of political necessity (Revolutions seeking a sponsor/protector and conceding nominal sovereignty)
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Currently setting up the map. I think Europe and the near/middle east are mostly correct outside of the HRE which I am dreading, and Northern Italy where Genoa is missing along with two minors (from Frame's map) and the minor issue of Switzerland being split between two polities. Anyone feel free to point out corrections that can be made to names/borders.
Also aren't Bohemia and Hungary in a PU currently? Should be represented on the map somehow.
I put the dark blue nation on the baltic as Pommerania because IIRC IRL Prussia was Brandenburg + Pommerania and that union never happened ITTL, but if it's called Prussia than that's an easy fix.
Whose monarch is the dominant member of the union? PUs are an actual in game subject relationship that can be put on the map.
Actually sort of equal. King of Hungary inherited Bohemian throne but they agreed that he'll split his time evenly between Buda and Prague IIRC.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. Pomerania is still the same. But on Frame's map the dark blue nation on the southern Baltic coast next to the Russian kingdoms and Poland does not join Russia. It is the independent nation of Prussia, which will no doubt cause future history and geography students no end of grief.
Also, I believe most of Tabriz got reannexed by Georgia.
Hungary then, I guess I'll have to incorperate some events/journal entries that deal with the power sharing arrangement.
Jesus, the Ottomans really got dismembered didn't they? That's totally not going to foster irredentism that will bite Rhomania in the ass down the line right?
Anyway, here's the current map. Ignore everything west of the Ottomans, Sub-saharan Africa apart from Ethiopia + Vassals and the Idwait, and the new world apart from the Caribbean and motherf'ing !!VINLAND!!
As an added bonus the Despotates of Carthage and Libya are subjects of the Despotate of Sicily, because I just found out dominions (the subject type that Sicily is) can have their own subjects. Also, does anyone know what the west and east Swiss polities are called? HRE aside, that's all that I think needs fixing in Europe + MENA.
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Excellent work! What's the start date?Hungary then, I guess I'll have to incorperate some events/journal entries that deal with the power sharing arrangement.
Jesus, the Ottomans really got dismembered didn't they? That's totally not going to foster irredentism that will bite Rhomania in the ass down the line right?
Anyway, here's the current map. Ignore everything west of the Ottomans, Sub-saharan Africa apart from Ethiopia and the Idwait, and the new world apart from the Caribbean and motherf'ing !!VINLAND!!
Note that the despotates are indeed modeled as subjects.
I've always thought in an eu4 mod, Rome should start with Niketas, and then get an event disaster after his death. Maybe something like the eu4 timurids, where shah rukh is what holds them together. And then they can choose to release Sicily+Egypt as marches or face massive revolts, alongside large succession wars, drains to manpower, etc... similar to war of the roses.
Otherwise Rome would have far too easy of a time.
However far B444 gets by the time the full release of Victoria happens, or the ITTL equivelant of 1836 in terms of the start of industrialization, whichever comes first. So 99% the former, the 1% coming from the fact that this timeline is something like 100 years ahead of OTL in terms of technology and institutions.
As far as the challenges Rhomania faces, there's quite a few. I intend to give them a somewhat milder version of the Ottoman's journal entry "The Sick Man of Europe" that I'm calling "The Old Man of Europe", because at the start date the Empire (presumably) isn't in anywhere near as severe a state as Ottomans in 1836, but there are still some potential issues that if unaddressed COULD lead them down the same kind of path where the entire thing collapses to nationalism (the plan ITTL is for that kind of nationalism to not to be nearly as as popular as OTL, but this is alternate history-ception). They'll still be somewhat better off than the Turks even in the worst* case scenario where everything less Greek than Athens goes independent, because ITTL that still means Anatolia + Hellas, Crete, and Cyprus. Best case scenario is that none of the despotates go independent and Rhomania remains an upper level GP.
There's also the completely organic (and this is why I adore the Victoria series) challenge presented by the lackluster natural resources present in your territory and the middling population. Playing as their OTL equivelant (the Ottomans). even if you beeline straight for the best possible coal extraction methods you will have totally maxed out domestic coal fields just a few decades into the game if you industrialize optimally, at which point you're faced with a bunch of unpaltable choices; do nothing and let your industry grind to a halt, import enough coal to keep things running (and the most powerful interest groups in your government are hardcore protectionists who will scream bloody murder if you sign the free trade agreements the big coal producers will want from you), or send your infamy into the stratosphere by attempting to build your "East European co-propsperity sphere" and risk going bankrupt in a war against a coalition of basically every other European great power.
settle with less energy intensive (and more population intensive) production methods for your industries
* Okay there is the absolute worst case scenario where they get carved up by the other great powers (probably Russia seizing Crimea and the Bosphorous/Dardanelles because warm water ports, Persia taking Mesopotamia and the Levant, and some combination of Hungary, Italy, and ATL Yugoslavia taking the Balkans), but absent that they have a bigger heartland than OTL Turkey
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