Roman Republic/Empire ISOTs to Meet Medieval Europe: "Wholly Roman vs. Holy Roman"
Aug 19, 2024 2:58:39 GMT
Post by raharris1973 on Aug 19, 2024 2:58:39 GMT
Here are two ISOT scenarios that could make the contestants from different ages go: "Don't make me go "Classical"/"Medieval" on your ass!"
Scenario 1. What if Roman Republic from 59 BC is ISOT'ed forward in time to 1095 AD? Or, " 'Wholly Romans' versus 'Holy Romans' [& Eastern Romans], the Roman Republic ISOT from the eve of the Gallic Wars to the world on the eve of the First Crusade" Or "The Nearer Crusade: OG Caesar & Pompey against Kaiser, Pope, Basileus, Kings, Sultans, and Caliph"
That's right, it's gonna be a Medieval Monotheist Mastering Monarchist versus Classical (poly)-Cultist Conquering Civis Rumble!
The setting:
Downtime:
59 BC: The aftermath of the third Mithradatic War in Asia Minor and Syria, where Pompey the Great has earned himself triumph vanquishing Mithradates of Pontus, liquidating the the remnant Seleucid state, and, in his eastern settlement of 63 BC, organizing much of Asia Minor and now northwest Syria into Roman provinces or client Kingdoms.
And, then a year before Gaius Julius Caesar's launch of his wars to subdue the entirety of Gaul, and raid across the Rhine and raid Britain, starting from his Roman Proconsular base of Gallia Narbonensis, basically Provence or Mediterranean coastal France between Roman Italia and Hispania. This is right after the moment, when in July of 59 BC, according to the Lex Vatinia, Caesar has been granted his 5-year consular commission, so he need not worry about being switched out of command mid-campaign.
Our playful ASB picks this moment to intervene and surround the Roman Republic's territory, the city, and all its provinces of all types, but none of its neighbors, even client kingdoms under heavy Roman influence like decisive Roman veto or selection power over succession of Kings, with an ISOT force field, and take the Res Publica on a one-way journey through time to 1095 AD, time-coincident with the Council of Clermont going on in south-central France, in medieval Christian Europe.
There, the Pope Urban, sojourning *away* from the Eternal City of Rome, is meeting with Churchmen and leading figures from throughout Christendom to ratify the Cluniac reforms of monastic orders, trying to reduce the impact of violent private warfare and raiding through reinvigorating the Church-sanctioned tradition of the "Truce of God", and also both responding to, and highlighting the growing outrage in Christendom over increased violence and outrages inflicted on Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, especially since the Seljuk Turk takeover of Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate (though the brief Caliphate of Fatimid 'Hakim the Mad' was a recent, preceding nasty episode) and the Eastern Emperor Alexios' increasingly urgent calls for western Christian help over the last decade or so since the Muslim Seljuk Turks defeated the Eastern "Byzantine" Romans at Manzikert and subsequent battles and wiped out ERE authority throughout nearly all of Asia Minor, occupying the Asian side of the straits.
Before the Council concludes, messengers bring reports from Provence, the Pyreneean country, Leon, northern Burgundian districts, and Swabian districts and Alpine areas of strange and foreboding and negative events, and clashes with strange men and strange soldiers.
Moors/Saracens are suspected, but first-hand and more vivid second-hand accounts deny the strangers appear to be Moors or Saracens.
Pope Urban's ride back to Rome with his retinue and Knightly escorts only confirms there is significant strangeness, and trouble, and that trouble is much, much closer than Jerusalem and the Holy Land. It is much closer even than Asia Minor.
As the Pope moves Italy-ward, messenger - riders report out that trade fairs in southern districts of Germany are not seeing usual expected arrival of Pisan, Genoese, and Venetian merchants coming up from Italy. The few strangers who wander into market towns from the south seem strangely dressed, often espying warily from a distance, as if hoping to not be seen, some seem to be body painted or have odd helmets or hairstyles. In French districts like Aquitaine and Imperial districts like northern Burgundy, none of the merchants or troubadours from Riviera ports on the coast or the County of Toulouse seem to be flowing up inland to bring their wares to market towns or fairs.
Knights and horsemen who've ridden ahead who've gotten down to southern Burgundy and Arelate, or Country Toulouse, instead see different sights. Mostly clean-shaven men, in cloth wrapped garments, many neat encampments of soldiers along neat roads, with large eagle standards, and not a Church or Cathedral in sight.
........ Troops of the Roman Legio stationed in Gallia Narbonnensis doing frontier patrols on foot and especially horseback awake to see multiple changes to the landscape along their northern and Alpine frontier. Multiple large farms, Gallic oppida in an entirely different style of large stones and bricks, settlements often with tall, thin buildings with fairly extensive use of glass.
The "Druids" in these borderlands seem to have gotten particularly morbid overnight in terms of human sacrifice and take an opulent, perverse pride in it, because they seem to place crosses everywhere as a decorative motif, including scores of places where you could scarcely hoist up a man for a practical execution, at least without risking the lives of a score of executioners. Many of these stone and would crosses are "pre-populated" with the "slender offender", a man, thin, whipped and pierced, with a taunting crown, possibly of thorns, say some of the best farseeing men.
These horrifying and disgusting sights cause some loose talk and speculation in the camps about just what is going on with these Gauls. They're new Oppida, their "sacrifice temples"? Or could they be "justice buildings"? They're errenew simpler, shorter haircuts, increase in clean-shavenness, including more bald-tops. Some of the speculation is if the Druids are panicking and making more sacrifices to their gods. Or if they possibly have been having great outbreaks of trouble with rebellion, theft, capital crime, and are trying to restore order with quick and deadly justice, or if they anticipate Roman aggression and are trying to put a fearsome appearance on display.
Here is a map of this mashed up world. In another irony, when the Roman Republican Legions under Gaius Julius Caesar end up in any conversations or interrogations or yelling matches with troops using era-appropriate pronounced Roman Latin, and encounter German-speaking levies of the Holy Roman Emperor, both sides may proclaim themselves are serving a leader going by the name of "Kaiser" or "die Kaiser".
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/53931343697/in/photostream/lightbox/
2. What if core Roman Empire from 267 AD is ISOT'ed forward in time to 1095 AD? Or, " 'Wholly Romans' versus 'Holy Romans', the core Roman Empire ISOT from the eve of the Crisis of the Third Century to the world on the eve of the First Crusade" Or "The Nearer Crusade: OG Roman Empire against Kaiser, Pope, Kings, Sultans, and Caliph"
That's right, it's gonna be a Medieval Monotheist Mastering Monarchist versus Classical (poly)-Cultist Conquering Cratocracy Rumble!
But it is going to be Roman Empire with a growing minority Christian movement, having really hard times, with major secessionist movements. About to lose one set of secessionists and invaders forever, but about to get another set.
The setting:
Downtime:
267 AD: The worst, peak year of the "Crisis of the Third Century". At this time, Roman Britain, all of Roman Gaul west of the Rhone river, and Hispania are in the hands of a rebelling pretender for the Imperial office, and have been for over five years, and require reconquest by central forces. Additionally, Odenathaus of Palmyra has defeated Roman and Sassanian alike in the east, and left his widow and heir Zenobia with a new Palmyrene Empire now reaching a peak of territorial control including all Roman Syria, Palestine, eastern and southern Asia Minor, and Egypt, in addition to northwest Arabia/Jordan.
Our playful ASB picks this moment to intervene and surround the core Roman Empire's territory, the city, and all its provinces of all types, (which includes all Italia, all of Gaul east of the Rhone river, Raetia and Noricum south of the Danube [basically Switzerland and Austria], Pannonia, the Balkans south of the Danube, northern and western Asia Minor, all the Mediterranean islands, North Africa's coast from Cyrenaica [Libya] to Morocco) but none of its rebelling secessionist or pretender-controlled territory, with an ISOT force field, and take the Empire on a one-way journey through time to 1095 AD, time-coincident with the Council of Clermont going on in south-central France, in medieval Christian Europe.
There, the Pope Urban, sojourning *away* from the Eternal City of Rome, is meeting with Churchmen and leading figures from throughout Christendom to ratify the Cluniac reforms of monastic orders, trying to reduce the impact of violent private warfare and raiding through reinvigorating the Church-sanctioned tradition of the "Truce of God", and also both responding to, and highlighting the growing outrage in Christendom over increased violence and outrages inflicted on Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, especially since the Seljuk Turk takeover of Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate (though the brief Caliphate of Fatimid 'Hakim the Mad' was a recent, preceding nasty episode) and the Eastern Emperor Alexios' increasingly urgent calls for western Christian help over the last decade or so since the Muslim Seljuk Turks defeated the Eastern "Byzantine" Romans at Manzikert and subsequent battles and wiped out ERE authority throughout nearly all of Asia Minor, occupying the Asian side of the straits.
The classical Roman Empire, the "Principate", only the core, in 1095 AD, now overlays all of coastal North Africa west of Egypt, leaving the Almoravids without this rich land, and leaving them only with their southern portion of Spain, and interior desert and mountain lands in North Africa, south of the Roman. The Roman Empire also overlays all the Medieval Mediterranean islands, no matter who controlled them, Catholic, Byzantine, or Saracen. It overlays the Italian peninsula, whether Papal controlled, Norman controlled, HRE, or ERE, plus just about all of the uptime Burgundian land of the HRE (that later became southeastern France), and the southern Swabian, Bavarian, and Austrian lands of the uptime HRE, as well as the Kingdom of Hungary west of the Danube, Croatia, and the entirety of surviving in 1095 ERE/Byzantine territory that existed in the Balkans and western/coastal Asia Minor. The edges and borders are rough, awkward and not exact, but Roman Asia Minor also overlays and claims some of the Islamic Seljuk Turkish Sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor, leaving it and the other Islamic states of eastern Asia Minor and the Levant/Middle East, Arabia, Persia, and Fatimid Egypt, and the Holy Land, unaffected by the ISOT.
This 3rd century fish out of third century water, and in the boiling pot that is the 11th century about to turn into the 12th, now cannot use good old Romanitas to help reclaim the lost provinces of the empire and encourage Legions and cities and officials in rebellion or enemy service to transfer their loyalty back to Rome. The only assets it has are the armies, population and productive power and organization of a Roman Empire that has been taking quite a few knocks lately. They should not be overestimated, but this may not be easy. Every side, on both sides of the Romans, Christendom and Dar Al-Islam, have their own strengths and weaknesses. And as they fight each other, I expect them to learn from each other.
For example, I would expect the classical Romans to learn the use of Arabic numerals and the zero as fast as the Crusaders, Spaniards and Italian merchants did. Likewise, the use of paper. They'll try to learn the secrets of distilling alcohol, and from the northern equestrians, if they're able, they'll try to acquire some bigger, better, badder heavy horses and techniques to keep breeding them that way, for work and warfare.
Meanwhile, the Romans would probably go through at least a short to medium term period of regarding Christians and then Muslims in their midst as a dangerous fifth column, prone to side with the external enemy. The Roman Empire as constituted at the time indeed lost its *largest* concentrations of Christian in the Levant, Egypt and eastern Asia Minor, but in the ISOT'ed core, there are still quite substantial, and growing Christian communities in western Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, the Carthage area, Greece, and the area around Rome and some of the other largest Italian cities.
Given Jewish revolts as recently as 100 years prior, the Romans might regard Jews along with Christians and Muslims as a third head of a menacing monotheistic hydra. But, if in Europe, the outbreak of Crusades, somewhat altered in immediate target from Jerusalem to Rome and Italy, leads like in OTL to mass killings of Rhenish and German Jews, uptime Jews might seek and find refuge in downtime Roman provinces and form an anti-Christian alignment with imperial authorities, while passing on bits of uptime knowledge of varying utility for their hosts. Some of this might occur from the pretty intolerant Almoravid Muslim ruled lands of Spain and interior North Africa as well.
Here is the map of this mashed up world.
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/53931344322/in/photostream/lightbox/
Scenario 1. What if Roman Republic from 59 BC is ISOT'ed forward in time to 1095 AD? Or, " 'Wholly Romans' versus 'Holy Romans' [& Eastern Romans], the Roman Republic ISOT from the eve of the Gallic Wars to the world on the eve of the First Crusade" Or "The Nearer Crusade: OG Caesar & Pompey against Kaiser, Pope, Basileus, Kings, Sultans, and Caliph"
That's right, it's gonna be a Medieval Monotheist Mastering Monarchist versus Classical (poly)-Cultist Conquering Civis Rumble!
The setting:
Downtime:
59 BC: The aftermath of the third Mithradatic War in Asia Minor and Syria, where Pompey the Great has earned himself triumph vanquishing Mithradates of Pontus, liquidating the the remnant Seleucid state, and, in his eastern settlement of 63 BC, organizing much of Asia Minor and now northwest Syria into Roman provinces or client Kingdoms.
And, then a year before Gaius Julius Caesar's launch of his wars to subdue the entirety of Gaul, and raid across the Rhine and raid Britain, starting from his Roman Proconsular base of Gallia Narbonensis, basically Provence or Mediterranean coastal France between Roman Italia and Hispania. This is right after the moment, when in July of 59 BC, according to the Lex Vatinia, Caesar has been granted his 5-year consular commission, so he need not worry about being switched out of command mid-campaign.
Our playful ASB picks this moment to intervene and surround the Roman Republic's territory, the city, and all its provinces of all types, but none of its neighbors, even client kingdoms under heavy Roman influence like decisive Roman veto or selection power over succession of Kings, with an ISOT force field, and take the Res Publica on a one-way journey through time to 1095 AD, time-coincident with the Council of Clermont going on in south-central France, in medieval Christian Europe.
There, the Pope Urban, sojourning *away* from the Eternal City of Rome, is meeting with Churchmen and leading figures from throughout Christendom to ratify the Cluniac reforms of monastic orders, trying to reduce the impact of violent private warfare and raiding through reinvigorating the Church-sanctioned tradition of the "Truce of God", and also both responding to, and highlighting the growing outrage in Christendom over increased violence and outrages inflicted on Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, especially since the Seljuk Turk takeover of Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate (though the brief Caliphate of Fatimid 'Hakim the Mad' was a recent, preceding nasty episode) and the Eastern Emperor Alexios' increasingly urgent calls for western Christian help over the last decade or so since the Muslim Seljuk Turks defeated the Eastern "Byzantine" Romans at Manzikert and subsequent battles and wiped out ERE authority throughout nearly all of Asia Minor, occupying the Asian side of the straits.
Before the Council concludes, messengers bring reports from Provence, the Pyreneean country, Leon, northern Burgundian districts, and Swabian districts and Alpine areas of strange and foreboding and negative events, and clashes with strange men and strange soldiers.
Moors/Saracens are suspected, but first-hand and more vivid second-hand accounts deny the strangers appear to be Moors or Saracens.
Pope Urban's ride back to Rome with his retinue and Knightly escorts only confirms there is significant strangeness, and trouble, and that trouble is much, much closer than Jerusalem and the Holy Land. It is much closer even than Asia Minor.
As the Pope moves Italy-ward, messenger - riders report out that trade fairs in southern districts of Germany are not seeing usual expected arrival of Pisan, Genoese, and Venetian merchants coming up from Italy. The few strangers who wander into market towns from the south seem strangely dressed, often espying warily from a distance, as if hoping to not be seen, some seem to be body painted or have odd helmets or hairstyles. In French districts like Aquitaine and Imperial districts like northern Burgundy, none of the merchants or troubadours from Riviera ports on the coast or the County of Toulouse seem to be flowing up inland to bring their wares to market towns or fairs.
Knights and horsemen who've ridden ahead who've gotten down to southern Burgundy and Arelate, or Country Toulouse, instead see different sights. Mostly clean-shaven men, in cloth wrapped garments, many neat encampments of soldiers along neat roads, with large eagle standards, and not a Church or Cathedral in sight.
........ Troops of the Roman Legio stationed in Gallia Narbonnensis doing frontier patrols on foot and especially horseback awake to see multiple changes to the landscape along their northern and Alpine frontier. Multiple large farms, Gallic oppida in an entirely different style of large stones and bricks, settlements often with tall, thin buildings with fairly extensive use of glass.
The "Druids" in these borderlands seem to have gotten particularly morbid overnight in terms of human sacrifice and take an opulent, perverse pride in it, because they seem to place crosses everywhere as a decorative motif, including scores of places where you could scarcely hoist up a man for a practical execution, at least without risking the lives of a score of executioners. Many of these stone and would crosses are "pre-populated" with the "slender offender", a man, thin, whipped and pierced, with a taunting crown, possibly of thorns, say some of the best farseeing men.
These horrifying and disgusting sights cause some loose talk and speculation in the camps about just what is going on with these Gauls. They're new Oppida, their "sacrifice temples"? Or could they be "justice buildings"? They're errenew simpler, shorter haircuts, increase in clean-shavenness, including more bald-tops. Some of the speculation is if the Druids are panicking and making more sacrifices to their gods. Or if they possibly have been having great outbreaks of trouble with rebellion, theft, capital crime, and are trying to restore order with quick and deadly justice, or if they anticipate Roman aggression and are trying to put a fearsome appearance on display.
Here is a map of this mashed up world. In another irony, when the Roman Republican Legions under Gaius Julius Caesar end up in any conversations or interrogations or yelling matches with troops using era-appropriate pronounced Roman Latin, and encounter German-speaking levies of the Holy Roman Emperor, both sides may proclaim themselves are serving a leader going by the name of "Kaiser" or "die Kaiser".
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/53931343697/in/photostream/lightbox/
2. What if core Roman Empire from 267 AD is ISOT'ed forward in time to 1095 AD? Or, " 'Wholly Romans' versus 'Holy Romans', the core Roman Empire ISOT from the eve of the Crisis of the Third Century to the world on the eve of the First Crusade" Or "The Nearer Crusade: OG Roman Empire against Kaiser, Pope, Kings, Sultans, and Caliph"
That's right, it's gonna be a Medieval Monotheist Mastering Monarchist versus Classical (poly)-Cultist Conquering Cratocracy Rumble!
But it is going to be Roman Empire with a growing minority Christian movement, having really hard times, with major secessionist movements. About to lose one set of secessionists and invaders forever, but about to get another set.
The setting:
Downtime:
267 AD: The worst, peak year of the "Crisis of the Third Century". At this time, Roman Britain, all of Roman Gaul west of the Rhone river, and Hispania are in the hands of a rebelling pretender for the Imperial office, and have been for over five years, and require reconquest by central forces. Additionally, Odenathaus of Palmyra has defeated Roman and Sassanian alike in the east, and left his widow and heir Zenobia with a new Palmyrene Empire now reaching a peak of territorial control including all Roman Syria, Palestine, eastern and southern Asia Minor, and Egypt, in addition to northwest Arabia/Jordan.
Our playful ASB picks this moment to intervene and surround the core Roman Empire's territory, the city, and all its provinces of all types, (which includes all Italia, all of Gaul east of the Rhone river, Raetia and Noricum south of the Danube [basically Switzerland and Austria], Pannonia, the Balkans south of the Danube, northern and western Asia Minor, all the Mediterranean islands, North Africa's coast from Cyrenaica [Libya] to Morocco) but none of its rebelling secessionist or pretender-controlled territory, with an ISOT force field, and take the Empire on a one-way journey through time to 1095 AD, time-coincident with the Council of Clermont going on in south-central France, in medieval Christian Europe.
There, the Pope Urban, sojourning *away* from the Eternal City of Rome, is meeting with Churchmen and leading figures from throughout Christendom to ratify the Cluniac reforms of monastic orders, trying to reduce the impact of violent private warfare and raiding through reinvigorating the Church-sanctioned tradition of the "Truce of God", and also both responding to, and highlighting the growing outrage in Christendom over increased violence and outrages inflicted on Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, especially since the Seljuk Turk takeover of Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate (though the brief Caliphate of Fatimid 'Hakim the Mad' was a recent, preceding nasty episode) and the Eastern Emperor Alexios' increasingly urgent calls for western Christian help over the last decade or so since the Muslim Seljuk Turks defeated the Eastern "Byzantine" Romans at Manzikert and subsequent battles and wiped out ERE authority throughout nearly all of Asia Minor, occupying the Asian side of the straits.
The classical Roman Empire, the "Principate", only the core, in 1095 AD, now overlays all of coastal North Africa west of Egypt, leaving the Almoravids without this rich land, and leaving them only with their southern portion of Spain, and interior desert and mountain lands in North Africa, south of the Roman. The Roman Empire also overlays all the Medieval Mediterranean islands, no matter who controlled them, Catholic, Byzantine, or Saracen. It overlays the Italian peninsula, whether Papal controlled, Norman controlled, HRE, or ERE, plus just about all of the uptime Burgundian land of the HRE (that later became southeastern France), and the southern Swabian, Bavarian, and Austrian lands of the uptime HRE, as well as the Kingdom of Hungary west of the Danube, Croatia, and the entirety of surviving in 1095 ERE/Byzantine territory that existed in the Balkans and western/coastal Asia Minor. The edges and borders are rough, awkward and not exact, but Roman Asia Minor also overlays and claims some of the Islamic Seljuk Turkish Sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor, leaving it and the other Islamic states of eastern Asia Minor and the Levant/Middle East, Arabia, Persia, and Fatimid Egypt, and the Holy Land, unaffected by the ISOT.
This 3rd century fish out of third century water, and in the boiling pot that is the 11th century about to turn into the 12th, now cannot use good old Romanitas to help reclaim the lost provinces of the empire and encourage Legions and cities and officials in rebellion or enemy service to transfer their loyalty back to Rome. The only assets it has are the armies, population and productive power and organization of a Roman Empire that has been taking quite a few knocks lately. They should not be overestimated, but this may not be easy. Every side, on both sides of the Romans, Christendom and Dar Al-Islam, have their own strengths and weaknesses. And as they fight each other, I expect them to learn from each other.
For example, I would expect the classical Romans to learn the use of Arabic numerals and the zero as fast as the Crusaders, Spaniards and Italian merchants did. Likewise, the use of paper. They'll try to learn the secrets of distilling alcohol, and from the northern equestrians, if they're able, they'll try to acquire some bigger, better, badder heavy horses and techniques to keep breeding them that way, for work and warfare.
Meanwhile, the Romans would probably go through at least a short to medium term period of regarding Christians and then Muslims in their midst as a dangerous fifth column, prone to side with the external enemy. The Roman Empire as constituted at the time indeed lost its *largest* concentrations of Christian in the Levant, Egypt and eastern Asia Minor, but in the ISOT'ed core, there are still quite substantial, and growing Christian communities in western Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, the Carthage area, Greece, and the area around Rome and some of the other largest Italian cities.
Given Jewish revolts as recently as 100 years prior, the Romans might regard Jews along with Christians and Muslims as a third head of a menacing monotheistic hydra. But, if in Europe, the outbreak of Crusades, somewhat altered in immediate target from Jerusalem to Rome and Italy, leads like in OTL to mass killings of Rhenish and German Jews, uptime Jews might seek and find refuge in downtime Roman provinces and form an anti-Christian alignment with imperial authorities, while passing on bits of uptime knowledge of varying utility for their hosts. Some of this might occur from the pretty intolerant Almoravid Muslim ruled lands of Spain and interior North Africa as well.
Here is the map of this mashed up world.
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/53931344322/in/photostream/lightbox/
