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Background Notes
News 08-09-2001
- Page reformatted and expanded.
The
West | The
East | Levant
| On Constantine
The Oath of Empire series is set in
the 7th century of the Common Era. There are two Roman Empires
(the West, comprising modern Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland,
England and parts of German and North Africa; as well as the East
- controlling Greece, parts of Bulgaria, most of Turkey and large
portions of Egypt, Israel, Syria and Lebanon).
Though the twin Roman Empires
(divided long ago in an attempt to maintain central control over a
vast area in the face of sustained attack) are considered the
pre-eminent power in Mediterranean, they are not alone.
To the north, the Scandanavian
countries are ruled by a rabble of pirate-kings and warlords. The
greatest of these tyrants are the Stormlords of the Dannmark,
whose great fortress of Roskilde dominates the entrance to the
Baltic Sea.
In Germany, beyond the fortified
frontier of the Rhine (in the west) and the Danube (in the south)
there are a collection of barbarous kingdoms formed by the German
tribes. Despite vigorous attempts to break through the Roman
frontier into Gaul and Italy, the Germans have been held at bay
for nearly six hundred years. At last civilized by long commerce
with Rome, the German states now form an important barrier against
even more barbarous tribes further to the east.
Russia itself is dominated in the
north by Scandian settlements along the Baltic coast, and the
remains of ancient Turkic empire based around modern Kiev (the
Blue Turks). Southern Russia, as well as the Wallachian plains and
large portions of Bulgaria, are controlled by the vigorous and
highly-organized Avar Khanate. Like the Blue Turks, the Avars are
a race of nomads out of central Asia, though they are in the flush
of power as our story opens. Their khagan rules from a great
tent-city, ringed by three ramparts, called the Hring.
Driven into the Roman frontier by
the Avars are a motley collection of tribes in modern Romania /
Hungary / Slovakia. The most powerful of these are the Gepidae,
who are dominated by an ancient race of sorcerers called the
Draculis - a non-human, dwindling and foul proto-human society.
At the junction of the Western
Empire and the Eastern, in modern Croatia, is a Roman ally - the
barbarian feodoratii state of Magna Gothica. The Goths had once
threatened to overwhelm the Western Empire, but had been defeated
in their siege of Rome. The Gothic kings, faced with dispersion
and annihilation, swore fealty to the Empire, and were given the
old province of Pannonia and part of Illyricum to settle in. Now,
Gothica is a sprawling, vibrant state, steadily expanding to the
north and east, and the strong right hand of the Western Empire.
The Eastern Empire is locked in a
death-struggle with not only the Avar Khaganate, which has overrun
the province of Thrace and besieges the Eastern Capital,
Constantinople, itself - but also with the Sassanian Persian
Empire. While a Persian expedition lies encamped in Chalcedon,
within eyesight of the sea-walls of Constantinople, Persian armies
are poised to strike into the Levant and drive on Egypt itself.
While Persia controls Mesopotamia,
Iran proper and stretches to the Indian frontier and north into
the valleys of the Oxus and Syr Darya, another power holds the
lands around the Caspian Sea - the realm of the Khazars. These
vigorous people, the successors of the T'u-chueh Turks in the
lands from the Azov to the Sea of Darkness (the Black Sea), have
been the allies of both the Eastern Empire and Persia. Their
khagan Sahul now faces a delicate choice between supporting
Chrosoes, King of Kings of Persia, or Heraclius, avtokrator
of the Romans, Emperor of the East.
Finally, a patchwork of small
states controls the rich periphery of Arabia, growing wealthy on
the trade from India and China that passes into the Empire itself.
These are Nabatea in southern Jordan, then Palmyra in eastern
Syria, as well as the loose tribal confederations of the Tanukh
(the allies of Palmyra, itself an ally of Rome) and the Lakhmids
(long the allies of the Persians).
THE WEST
Rome holds part of Brittania
(England), plus nearly all of Gaul (France), Batavia (Belgium),
Hispania (Spain), Helvetia (Switzerland) and North Africa. Germany
and the Balkans are a patchwork of relatively advanced Gothic,
Valach, Frankish and German principates. A plague has recently
devastated the Western Empire and Galen has come to power in the
wake of a failed invasion of Gaul and Batavia by the Franks. The
previous Emperor, Publius Septimus Geta, was killed in battle at
Troium (Troyes) and Galen acclaimed by firs
t the legions in Gaul and then by the Senate after his victory
over two other pretenders to the throne at Mediolanum (Milan).
Now, however, he can turn his attentions to the East, where his
brother Emperor Heraclius is in equally dire straits.
THE EAST
Constantinople is besieged on the
western side by an Avar army, while most of Thrace and parts of
Greece have been overrun by Valachs and Avars. A Sasanian
Persian army is encamped across the Propontis (Hellespont),
while much of the rest of Anatolia is still in Roman hands. The
eastern islands are all still Roman, as the Persians have (as yet)
no fleet in the Mediterranean.
The Sasanian Persian Empire
THE
LEVANTINE COAST
The Persians have already pressed
as far west as Antioch by the time Ararat opens.
Palmyra and Petra are allies of Rome, but they are hoping to avoid
destruction in the coming war. The Persian general Shahr-Baraz is
preparing to attack south, against Palmyra and Damascus and thence
to Egypt.
THE KHAZAR REALM and the
Trans-Caspian
On
Constantine, the "Great Rebel" (or how the division of the
Empire came about)
The main point for the division of
the Empire into two halves was that problems had arisen which
could not be solved by the application of sorcery. In fact, the
problems which led to the collapse of Roman authority would, in
many cases, be worsened by the application of magic.
One point which I have never made clear (enough), I think, is that
the number of people born with the healing power (as exemplified
by Maxian and his teacher Tarsus) is very small. Certainly not
enough to avert the Empire-wide disasters of the various plagues
in the 4th and 5th centuries.
In addition, the slow destruction of the Roman economy is, well,
economic in nature. The Oath has two effects on this - first, the
economy attempts to stay in the model defined by Augustus and the
Principate even though historical and situational pressures are
trying to force it out of that model - second, possible
innovations or changes in practice which might advance the economy
are suppressed.
The end result which -I- see is the attenuated endurance of the
Empire into this sort of twilight period in the 7th century. The
cities are half-empty, the overall population of the West greatly
reduced. The economy continues to struggle along with an archaic
model. The Legions are almost entirely unchanged from their
original, Late Republic form. In fact, the use of sorcery in the
Legions (which one might expect to expand into an overwhelming
emphasis) is constrained by the Oath instead, fixed to military
doctrines evolved when Rome did not have as sophisticated a
knowledge of sorcery as it does at the time of the book.
"Sorcery is for defense, not for the attack." - Shadow
of Ararat.
As noted in GATE, the Empire was split into east and west for
administrative purposes. When this occured - as an EMPEROR had
declared it be so - the "Eastern" pattern of the Oath
was split away from the Western (original). Coupled with a pattern
of Legion settlement (the Oath-bound) which historically favored
the Western (less populated) half of the Empire, and the
development in the time of Vaspasian of the system of arenas on
the model of the Flavian (again, concentrated in the West, as the
Greek theatre predominated in the East), the Oath remained strong
in the West, and weak in the East.
The result, for the East, was a long struggle matching up
moderately well with real history. As we see in the books, the
culture / military / administrative practices in the East are
markedly different from those in the West. In part, this is
because there are more pressures in the East (more trade, more
exposure to foreigners and their ideas) towards change, and the
concomittant weakness of the Oath there is unable to resist the
deformation of society.
So, there was a Constantine who renamed Byzantium after himself.
There was a Justinian who wrecked the Eastern economy, and a
Phocas who was overthrown by Heraclius. The reapproachment between
East and West in SHADOW, in fact, is possible because Heraclius'
father (Heraclius the Elder) was a -Western- provincial governor
(of Africa), whose son raised a mercenary army and set out to win
the Eastern throne in a time of terrible anarchy and chaos.
In STORM, I mention some (real history) Emperor's who were not
(Oath) Emperors - Caligula was never Emperor, as Claudius Drusus
reigned after Trajan. Commodus was killed in the arena. Etc.
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