The Alexian Reformation
As the 10th century dawned, the Roman Republic was jubilant with the recovery of the Holy Land and all that that victory pertained. Though it would take a few years to pacify the local pirates, the ability of the Romans to control the sea lanes all the way down to the Egyptian coast, the region became exponentially safer for merchants. Further, the land itself was valuable, more valuable than most territories in the entire Mediterranean littoral. The tax revenue of Syria and Judea greatly bolstered the Republic’s treasury. However, to the average Roman citizen, or even the typical Christian, whether they lived under Roman rule or not, the important impact of this most recent war was the Holy Land was now once more under Christian Roman rule. The impact this had on the beleaguered Christian psyche should not be underestimated. For near three centuries, Muslim Arabs had ruled over most of the heartland of Christianity, including the Holy Cities of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem itself. Only Constantinople and Rome remained within the territory of the Romans. Now, only Alexandria lay outside Roman governance, and that city was the capital of a new Christian Egypt.
After the war with the Fatimids, Alexios Bagrationi was the man of the hour, and he and his supporters were pre-eminent in the government, winning a series of elections that tightened his hold on power. With the recent successes and revenue that came with them, Alexios looked to reform the structure of the Roman military in severe fashion, to ensure that they would not face the same challenges they had in the early years of the recent war. The Roman military had, since a time shortly after the restoration of the Republic, been largely an army of conscript farmers tasked with the responsibility of attending compulsory drills on a regular basis and of arming and equipping themselves. This form of military on the Romans’ part was largely due to necessity, as the state simply could not afford to maintain the military expenses entirely from its own coffers. This worked quite well, so long as those same farmers were faced with the immediate threat of foreign invasion, and had a life-or-death incentive to personally bear not just the danger of war, but also the cost. As the Republic became increasingly triumphant over its enemies, the incentives for these men operated in the reverse, and only those on the borderlands could be counted upon to adhere to their obligations with rigor.
Alexios was not the first to address these issues, but he was the first to systematize the solutions. Other reforms had been enacted, piecemeal, across the Republic’s territories, with Thematic commanders given wide latitude on how to ensure that their armies were up to the tasks expected of them. First, Alexios eased the burden of service upon the poor farmers of the countryside. Equipment was standardized and provided by the state. Regular drills were still compulsory, but the drills were now paid for out of the state’s coffers as well. Those poor farmers that kept up on their drilling could expect a small stipend for their time. By providing financial incentives, Alexios’ reforms also eased the burdens on all those in the army, as more men from the interior Themes, who had been inclined to simply sign up for civilian services to the government, if they wished the franchise, saw that there was some benefit to a military career.
The other major reform was, again, a systemization of pre-existing arrangements. Of all the groups most recently recruited as mercenaries for the Roman war effort, the Rus had stood out above all others as effective soldiers. Their ferocity in combat made them excellent shock troops, and their heavy infantry tactics were a good complement to the Roman organization. Call Varangians by the Romans, these Rus were largely Viking in stock, but with some Slavs among their number. Alexios’s administration decided that these were the exact sort of men needed by the army, and the bulk of all foreigners employed by the Republic were expected to fight in the Varangian style, regardless of their origin. This decision strongly favored genuine Varangians for employment, but also saw a not-insubstantial number of Franks, Germans, and even far-off Englishmen seek employment in Rome. While many of these foreign soldiers would eventually return home, their long terms of employment led to many putting down roots within Roman territory, and, after a few generations, it was not uncommon for some soldiers in Varangian units to be Roman citizens.
The final aspect of the new organization of the army was also not new, but another consolidation of earlier developments. Though the bulk of the Roman citizenry employed in the military were the citizen farmers of the Themes, they were not the entirety of the army. There was a still a need for full-time professional soldiers that the Varangians could not fill on their own. These units came to be known as the Tagmata, and were, almost exclusively, the Roman heavy cavalry known as Cataphracts. These men were the heaviest of the heavy shock troops of the Republic, and also its best rapid response force.Alexios’ administration contributed little to the already excellent Tagmata, other than a more assertive deployment across the Republic, and an increase in recruitment.
These so-called ‘Alexian’ armies could thus be broadly characterized as a combination of semi-professional Thematic militia, typically flexible infantry largely trained as spearmen and archers, backed up by the foreign Varangian heavy infantry, armed with brutal double axes, and complimented by the Tagmatic heavy cavalry, supreme on the battlefield in charges, and not incompetent at the horse archery tactics of the steppe, either. The ideal battle would involve the Thematic soldiers pinning the enemy in place, the Varangians either bolstering their lines or charging through them, and the TagmaticCataphracts flanking the enemy and running them down. Of course, the ideal battle never occurred, and all of these characterizations are simplifications, but no Roman of this era would arch their brow at these descriptions.
All was not perfect in the administration of Alexios Bagrationi, for anyone who seeks to upend so many institutions is bound to make enemies. All the worse for Alexios, who had many rivals envious of his rise to power. His popularity with the soldiers allayed no fears, as all the cultured Senators knew the stories of Marius, Caesar, and Augustus all too well. As it was, there were supposedly three separate attempts on Alexios’ life after the Fatimid war, but he avoided all those brushes with death. In the year AD 907, however, he was forced into exile by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nikephoros, who hoped to avoid the bloodshed that Alexios’ murder or execution would cause. Alexios refused, initially, but finally accepted his fate, and sailed off to Egypt to offer his services as an advisor to the fledgling kingdom there. He seems to have been too successful in these endeavors, as Roman envoys pressured the Egyptians to send him further away. Alexios then went to Al-Andalus, where he served for the better part of a decade, until a series of diplomatic incidents entirely out of Alexios’ control encouraged him to seek a new host in AD 917. He ended his search in the so-called Empire of the Franks, which, by this time, was confined to the island of Britain (indeed, many referred to it as the Kingdom of England or Britain in all but the most formal of correspondences), and spent many years working with the dynamic Emperor Edgar. It was not until AD 931 that word came that it was safe for Alexios to return to Constantinople. When he did, however, he soon gravitated towards politics once more, and became a leading figure in the Senate. Upon his attempt to run for higher office again, he was pressured to reconsider and strongly encouraged to take the vows and devote his life to Christ. Alexios finally bowed to this pious fate, becoming a monk and living out the end of his days in study and contemplation, writing on philosophy and theology, as was as starting a work on natural history that he did not finish before dying on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in AD 936.
End
