Cronica Makedonia (Makedon AAR)

[Sultan O'Malley]

Part 1: The Reign of Basil I (867-895)


Chapter 1: Birth of a dynasty, rebirth of an empire.

The world in the year of our lord of 867. Byzantine empire in deep purple.

Basileos the Makedonian was a peasant from the aforementioned province. His roots were, and are, a matter of hot debate. Some claimed he was a bulgar, others an Armenian. Some simply conformed themselves to the vague and generic label of ‘slav’.

Emperor Basileos I the day of his crowning the 1st of January of 867 AD


Despite his humble birth and murkier origins, the man proved an extremely capable. He caught the attention of many a powerful lord of the byzantine empire and, in due time, came to be the right-hand man of the emperor Michael VI. By 866 he was co-emperor to the Purple Born.

The Drunken Emperor, Michael III.


While a well-read man, Michael was a debauched being, unbound by the fetters of dutiful faith and in servitude to the vices of men, specially that of alcoholic drinking, which drove him apart from the people’s favor.

He attended the arts and letters, but not the armies and bureaucracy, earning him many enemies within the ruling castes.


The empire crumbled further under his careless rule and thus, harried by both the seldom united political factions of the Roman Empire and his own ambitions, Basileos ordered the assassination of Michael by the end of the year.


The emperor had been backstabbed a hundred and sixty-eight times. The investigation concluded with the only reasonable answer, wrote sardonically Baccos of Samos in his Chronicle:


"He fell down a flight of stairs."

Regardless, the man was denied all honours of state, forgotten and abandoned to his fate. Basil swiftly took both the crown and Michael’s mistress, Eudokia. Eudokia was a beautiful yet shrewd woman, over whom floated many rumours, for she had been married to Basil years after her affair to Michael began. Thus, her son Leo, allegedly Basil’s, was thought to be Michael’s. The Basileos certainly abscribed to that theory, and would drive their relationship.



Basileos had a solid understanding of the Imperial administration, as well as its diminished holdings.

Map of the Roman Empire at the dawn of the year 867 AD

Once the empire had spanned the entire Mediterranean basin. Covering from the western Iberian Peninsula to the far reaches of the Levant. From Africa in the south, to the upper reaches of Albion, up to Hadrian’s Wall.


Now, lamented Alexios of Thebes in his ‘The roman twilight: a tale of the decay of the 7th and 8th centuries’ "it was merely reduced Anatolia and the Aegean Sea. The Thracian border with the barbarous bulgars was less than a week away from the capital, most of Greece was dominated by the so called Epirotan Duchy and beyond that the Imperial authority didn’t extend beyond a few vestigial strongholds in the Adriatic and southern Italy."

The situation of the empire could only be labelled as dismal, a shadow of its former self, yet there was a glimmer of hope: the followers of the crescent moon and the sons of Carolus Magnus were divided now. Their once mighty empires had been fragmented into lesser, if still mighty, kingdoms.


As Baccos of Samos noted in his Chronicle, the moment was ripe for a driven leader to wake up the slumbering empire and prey on the now weaker neighbors. And, given whom gave Baccos patronage, that man could be none other than Basileos .

There still remained the Bulgar threat to the north, though, and the kingdom of the bulgars was a most heinous polity, wrote Alexios of Thebes.

But it was not the bulgars that would crackle the scourge of war against the Roman Empire for the first time in Basileos’ rule.

That privilege befell on the Emirate of Sicily.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Chapter 2: the First Sicilian War. (December of 866-July of 868)

The Aghlabid host marched down on the eastern fringes of Sicily.



The Aghlabid Emirs, rulers of Tunisia and most of Sicily, sensed weakness in the current climate of Constantinople’s politics. Their rulers thought that, with the death of the late Michael VI so close to their declaration of war, they could march their armies with impunity, for their target would be in disarray and weakened. Thus, on the eve of new year, a host of 4000 soldiers from Tunis landed into Sicily and quickly crushed the local counter-response.


They were sorely mistaken, though.


Basileos had served in the military of the empire for many years. He knew many of its commanders, the nobles and the administrators. Most either agreed and follow the charismatic leader or, at least, knew full well he was the lesser of two evils when confronted to the death of the Empire.

Furthermore, the Makedonian had captivated the heart of Constantinople’s citizenry. On the day of his crowning the Emperor had sworn his crown was meant to god, and that his triumph or failure in the upcoming war for Sicily would be dictated by the will of the All-Mighty. In the days following such a momentous ceremony, and forever since, Basileos would display a staunch and almost untarnished behavior as a devout follower of the teachings of Christ, which earnt him the devotions of the masses towards him in turn.


While the followers of the prophet Mohammed battered themselves against the battlements of Syrakousa, the Empire swiftly deployed a mighty host.

While its exact number is unknown, Marinos Makedon, half-brother of the Emperor, noted in a letter to their father Bards that:

"The host, forged in four months of muster, numbers more than a ten thousand soldiers, twice the size than those forces that Michael had scantly managed to gather in efforts lasting twice that long. How easy would have been our travails had we had these many enthusiasts during that wine chugger’s reign!"



Meanwhile, Baccos of Samos places the host at almost twenty-one thousand, all while extolling the greatness of Basileos’ organizational skills. On the opposite, Alexios of Thebes account’s gives the relief force a strength of barely eight thousand men.


By the end of may the host departed Thrake and marched westward, crossing the tributary lands of Epirus and marching across the Italian peninsula. During their march across the Muslim ruled lands on the peninsula, the host suffered some minor raids, but was largely unimpeded as the Carolingian Kingdom of Italy-Lotharingia (the two crowns had been quickly rejoined due to the Carolingians’ unnecessarily convoluted succession laws.) bore the full brunt of its power on the lesser Emirate.


By late October the city of Syrakousa had fallen to the Aghlabids, but the Sicilian Emirs had focused too much on the enclave and, thanks to Basileos’ subterfuge, greatly underestimated the might of the counter-offence until it was too late to maneuver accordingly.

The Emirs only realized their dire situation too late.


The Aghlabid force marched northwards, making to block and fortify the potential landing beachheads the Romans could establish, but were too late as the Imperial Dromons had already secured supremacy of the strait of Messina and a good portion of the force had already landed.

The battle of Messina (8-23 of December 867 AD) was decisive.


At the fields of Messina the imperial relief force clashed against the Emirate’s host. During the course of the year, the Aghlabids had bolstered the sieging force with over a thousand soldiers, numbering between fifty and fifty-five hundred soldiers that marched in three columns.


Basileos’ army followed the strategy of a humble man named Meletios. Though base born, the Emperor saw a kindred spirit in him and followed his proposal. The imperial vanguard was composed mainly of heavy infantry and pikemen, a hardened porcupine. This forced engaged first the Aghlabids in a small skirmish, luring their host closer and making the columns merge in a single attack force. After a short retreat in the second and third days, the vanguard stood its ground and let the infidels gore themselves against their disciplined ranks. This bitter clash lasted for the better part of 2 days, by which time the other two wings of the Imperial army encircled the Sicilian Emirate’s army. For the remainder of almost two weeks the forces of the Aghabids were brutalized without mercy, and the battle effectively broke them.


At the Second Battle of Lentini (26-29 of December of 867 AD) the Romans would enact their revenge, defeating the shattered remnants of the army they’d faced at Messina. This would mark the beginning of the end, as the Aghlabids wouldn’t be able to mount a coherent counterattack for the remainder of the war.

Meletios, the man of the moment.



Meletios was greatly lauded by the Emperor and the army, given great honours. He would take no lands nor frontline posts, according to Boetios of Abydos’ Annals. Instead, the man would serve as a member of the imperial staff, and an adviser to the Makedonian.


The year 868 would open a new phase in the war. The infidel might broken, the emperor proceeded to liberate Syrakousa, taking the fortress by swift storm.


According to Baccos of Samos, the relief force was greeted with a great and spontaneous celebration, as the crowds threw themselves into the arms of the gallant soldiers.


The truth is more likely going to be glamourous. The city of Syrakousa had suffered greatly both during the siege and the brief occupation, and the emperor’s force barely rested four days in the city before departing, judging by Marinos’ correspondence:


"On the dawn of the fifth day we departed, the few souls that could stand tall languishing across the main street, barely capable of gathering the strength to even cheer."



This is further reinforced by Alexios of Thebes, whom mentions how most of the adult population of the city had either fled, died, or been sold into slavery, by the enraged muslims, as the siege had been both long and bloody.

The same way that the muslims had shown little restraint in Syrakousa, so too did the Emperor show no mercy. The garrisons in all the major holds of the county of Kerkent were mercilessly slaughtered.


The Aghlabids, seeing the fate of Kerkent being compounded with their failures, saw no reason to continue the war.


Tribute was paid, roughtly ten thousannd pounds of gold, and many honours vested on Emperor Basileos I.

As the forces returned triumphant, the emperor planned for the centuries to come.



During the return home, both Meletios and Marinos maintained a strong correspondence with the emperor. While several of these letters have been lost in the mysts of time, the few that remain profiled a plan to establish a permanent army, a force that could deploy to wherever they could be needed and provide a pre-emptive retaliatory strike. One of Meletios’ letters read as follows:

"We need a mixed force, one that comines many arms. The Scholae Palatinae will provide good horse, but we need an orderly force of archers and spears, as well as competent shock troops.

Yet such positions are bound to give great glory, the tip of the spear and the first to take the walls. Such people will become enriched and enlarged in the eyes of their peers, becoming prominent and in turn ambitious. One must not repeat the mistakes of the praetorian guard, my good lord, instead I’d advise seeking people to whom even wealth and glory will keep harmless to the stability of the Empire."

The varangian guard is formed.



Following Meletios and Marinos advice, as well as his own designs, Basileos purged the ranks of the Scholae Palatinae, wiping out the corrupting influence of Michael III, established the Varangian guard. Formed from outlanders and barbarians, these men were unable to meaningfully gain political power in the imperial court. They held clout as guardians and blades of the emperor, but they’d never be lords in their own right.


With the varangian guard, the Scholae Palatinae, and two thousand men forming a permanent army, Basileos had gathered a force of five thousand soldiers that would only respond to him.


That day Basileos, in his correspondence to his half-brother and confidant Marinos, wrote as follows:

"We’ve weathered the last assault.
For two centuries, we’ve been shriveling down, surviving and sacrificing rather than prospering.
This ends today. We begin our reconquest. Saddle up, we march on Italy."

The rebirth of rome was at hand.

 

[Nikolai]

The rebirth of rome was at hand.

Long may she reign.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Chapter 3. The First Neapolitan War (December of 868-September of 871)

Basileos gazes upon the fragmented Neapolitan lands.


In his letters with the major vassals of the Empire, Basileos hotly argued about putting priority to the lands of Neapolis (known by the westerners as Naples). The reasoning was simple, as best put by the Emperor in his letters to the newly appointed Exarch of Trebizond:
“It is the safer route. To the north one would have to fight the vile Bulgars and to the east, one would face the threat of the Abbasid Caliphate. The infidel and heretical states there are but sacrificial pawns for us to feed the Abbasids are for the time being.”


Basileos was a devout Christian, and knew his was the one true god. But even with such conviction, the emperor was always doubtful of engaging in conflicts against the Muslim powers, for they tended to be fairly well consolidated, and their strength could bleed the Empire too badly.


Thus, Basileos saw Naples as the most cost-effective route of expansion. Leon of Krete notes in his Makedonian diplomacy, the statecraft of the early Makedons, that such preoccupation would always plague the Emperor’s Strategy.


While the emperor was beholden to such musings, great news took over the Imperial Palace. Over the course of the year of 868, Eudokia gifted Basileos two sons. While the youngest, Maximos, was a frail and weak child, Kyrillos was a fairly healthy offspring and, should Constantinos prove disappointing, he could serve well as a successor. For the birth of the eldest of the two, an artist proposed the erection of an Icon, to which Basileos accepted.

The newborn Kyrillos.


Basileos, though continued with his war planning effort. The imperial strategists, under Melethios’ guidance, would craft the campaign for an over-arching series of chained conflicts, all framed under purely legal pretenses. The strategist put it quite right in his own Account of the Neapolitan Wars, the wars between 868 and 882.

“By cloaking the wars in the guise of affairs of lawyers and pedantic kings, the populace of the nearby regions and those conquered would be indifferent, as opposed to using more spiritual or popular casus belli. Meanwhile, the citizenry of the Eternal City, well educated as it was, would see the clear inspirational writing in the wall: we were reconquering our homeland and cleaning home.”


For the better part of October, Basileos considered which would be his first target. The closest and most tempting ones were Salerno and the Sawdanid Empirate, for both bordered with the Makedon’s meagre Italian holdings.

Basileos himself was quite partial to the first, as noted by Marinos in his letters to Meletios.

“(to Basileos’ eyes) They are the most vile of creatures. The combination of Italian indolence and incompetence and the wickedness of the infidel. He’d repeat Cartage all over again if given free reign.”



Basileos held a strong distaste for heretics and the Italians in general, seeing the latter as usurpers of the imperial sovereignty. The Sawdanids combined the two, but the emperor abstained from targeting them first.


The reasoning, as noted by Leon of Krete’s Makedonian diplomacy, was simple: they were being attacked by Italy-Lotharingia in a conflict of faith. Basileos wanted the conflict to be framed in matters of jure, of laws and claims, for this wouldn’t stir up the spirits of the Muslim rulers and succor their heathenous kinsmen. The claim in that part of Neapolis needed to cool down a bit.


Thus, the duchy of Salerno would mark the beginning of the Neapolitan Wars (868-882).



The emperor mustered his guardian regiments and ordered the retinues to follow suit, declaring war on the last day of 868.

The Salernian deffenders are crushed swiftly.



Following Melethios and Basileos’ tactical guides, the Roman forces swiftly crush any Salernian response, and shatter their military strongholds. The first phase of the war was over, and the twenty-two hundred soldiers from the reinforcement wave had yet to arrive.


Melethios’ drily jokes on how the term ‘First Neapolitan War’ is a misnomer, for it was in truth four immediately tied conflicts. Salerno was the first step, and the Sawdanids would be the second. They had been reduced to a single county right after the Carolingian had stripped most of their possessions in eastern Neapolis.

They were a ripe target, they had been severely weakened and their forces posed no challenged to the soldiers seasoned from the battles in Salerno.

The Basileos’ health worsens as his battlefield behavior becomes more aggressive.



Melethios’ Account attributes the change in the Emperor’s tactics, veering to a more aggressive approach, to his deteriorating health. Over the year of 869, the Emperor would be subjected to multiple ailments, coinciding to a time where his battle plans gained a more brutal approach.

With the Sawdanids wiped out of the face of history, the Imperial gazed laid upon the Benevento, invading in the first day of 870, triggering the second phase of the war.

870 would prove to the bloodiest stage of the conflict. The beneventine forces had no chance, and thus they asked to succor to the neighbooring kingdom of Italy-Lotharingia, entering a tributary status, and calling the Karlings to arms. This in turn, forced Basileos to escalate the conflict and call the rest of the Empire's forces, when he had kept the war limited to his personal forces and the italian levies.

After besieging the main beneventine enclaves, the Makedonian's host marched north, where they met the Lotharingian's. At Pescara the two kingdoms clashed.

Baccos of Samos himself fought on this part of the campaign, and he notes the following in his Chronicle.

While Adelchis’ realm was pitiful and weak, the treacherous maggot saw adecuate to bend the knee to the wrong monarch, and grovelled at the Lotharingian’s feet to save his unlawful demesne. The Karling, being as inept at war as he was unfit for the throne, managed to muster less than 3000 thousand men versus the 30000 thousand gallant soldiers rallying to the emperor’s banner.



Melethios’ more reliable account places the opposing forces at five thousand Carolingian soldiers and some six hundred Benevento troops versus a roughly twelve thousand strong Imperial Host. The battle would last up to twenty to twenty two days, with the Imperial army victorious.

The battle, though, had been decided on the eighteenth as a heavy cavalry charge shattered the rear guard of the Lotharingian Army's left flank, causing the rest of the army to dissolve too.

The battle at the hills of Pescara, in southern Chietti, was decisive.



With the triumph of Pescara, the Lotharingian had to concede defeat. The battle was momentous, as it marked the end of Carolingian expansion into Italy, and the beginning of a never-ending encroachment on Constantinople’s’ part.

To secure the better administration and devense of many of his new conquests, Basileos established the Theme of Lukania, which would be held by his own half-brother Marinos. This was the first-time theme system was exported in a meaningful scale, additionally. Marinos would turn to be a capable administrator, and his bloodline would provide many servants to the empire.


Baccos of Samos was sent to Neapolis to ensure the vasalisation of its ruler, a Greek orthodox Christian. The knight-chronicler’s silver tongue proved efficient and the county joined the imperial fold without bloodshed.


Only Capua remained.

The war on Capua was a downgrade versus the 870 campaign. Over the year of 871 the empire didn’t field more than three thousand soldiers to attend the war's resolution.


The year was momentous for another reason:

The rise of the Shi’a.



Islam suffered its own Schism, its faith split in twain by opposing factions. The Imperial accounts on these affairs are, unfortunately, scant. The Empire’s focus was Europe, first and foremost. Basieleos was joyful, though.

The conquest of Capua marks the end of the First Neapolitan War.



Exactly 33 months after beginning the conflict, Basileos conquered the last of the targeted strongholds. Western Neapolis was imperial again.

Basileos commented on marching north towards Rome and Amalfi, but Melethios’ advised against such reckless behavior. The first would trigger a mass response from the catholics, while the latter the emperor had no proper right too, being a city founded after the Empire’s retreat to the south. The monarch needed to rest.


The First Neapolitan War was over.

 

[Zamarak500]

Well things are going well in Italy. With the muslims fighting each other, would it be time to strike against them too?

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Well things are going well in Italy. With the muslims fighting each other, would it be time to strike against them too?

How do I put it.

The shi'a were a wet fart, they got wiped out in five years.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Chapter 4. Makedonian Diplomacy.


As the Neapolitan campaign reached its conclusion, the Emperor turned his attention to matters other than force of arms. The military had taken a small toll, the foreigners were banding together against imperial might, and factions of discontents were emerging within the imperial politics. The emperor, as things were, couldn’t afford to spent a currency so valuable as the lives as those loyal to him, not at the time. Instead he focused on taking out political malcontents, waging a war in the shadows. The most high profile target was count Pandenolf of Gaeta, whom had bent the knee during the First Neapolitan War. Nevertheless, the state of affairs was dire.

His letter to Baccos of Samos reflect such situation:

“For every faithful soldier like you, there’s another indifferent, and a third one willing to sunk their dagger on my back. We need something to keep them on their toes, old friend.”


That something materialized in two men.

The Greek bulgar.

Duke Borivoje of Epirus was a bulgar warlord. His hosts had settled in their conquered lands of Epirus. Basileos, while in service to the Drunken Emperor, had forced them to bend the knee to an extent. During those battles, the two men had formed a grudging respect of sorts. While the First Neapolitan War raged on, Borivoje led a daredevil campaign on the island of Krete, conquering it and wiping all the Muslim enclaves from it.

Thus, it was of little surprise that the Makedonian would send Baccos of Samos to negotiate the integration of Epirus into the imperial fold. Epirus would be a semi-autonomous Duchy within the empire, and the bulgars within it would be extended the Imperial franchise.

The decision of granting them citizenship status was indeed extremely controversial and Baccos of Samos, when issuing a second edition of his Chronicles would edit that entry to mention how that moment had been the closest Basileos had been to commit a mistake.

The imperial court was in a massive uproar and threats of civil war by the malcontent factions were made, but on October the 3rd Borijove bent the knee, and the balance of power shifted into the favor of the Emperor.

Evangelos’ Komnenos would be a powerful ally of Basileos.



The second opportunity was Evangelos Komnenos. The Komnenoi scion had successfully led a decade-long guerrilla warfare campaign. The young and brash noble had established substantial holdings on the lands of Tarsos and an enclave in the northern reaches of the Duchy of Antioch, styling himself as Duke of said land. While most of it was spurious at best, an echo of legality rang on his claims, so Basileos felt obliged to take the man under his banner. Him being in his service meant that the Empire now had an excuse to attack that Holy City, and further affirm their lost positions in the Levant.


With these two new bannermen, the position of Basieleos strengthened. Baccos of Samos played an important role with his publishing of the Gestas Basilicorum, detailing the (often exaggerated) heroics of the Emperor in the campaigns of Italy. This dissuaded some of the lesser themes’ administrators, and weakened the hold of the potential rebels enough to dissuade them.


Disaster befell the imperial hold’s in October. Empress Eudokia died from illness. These were dark days for the emperor, as Marinos noted in his letter to Borivoje:


“He’s in stupor most of the time, if not beating Leon over any imagined misgivings. The imperial chambers are a mess, and few if any servants dare enter in them least they enrage the Emperor. I order, twice a day, two varangians to bring foods and beverages to him, just to make sure he does not starve, but he’s become more animal than man from the sheer pain.”


The emperor would eventually ride out the slump. But such events delayed many of the Emperor’s plans, as his depression lasted for months and delayed any military plans until latter notice. Furthermore, even then he couldn’t focus on the campaigns, as he’d become a widower, and a good Emperor needed a steering hand behind him, least the tides of war lead his realm astray while on the field.


For the entirety of February, the Makedon inspected potential brides, finally deciding to invite Adelaide de Poitou from West Francia.


Great was the ceremony. Five scores of galleys guarded the bride’s cog in her landing to the Imperial Capital, intricate decorations bathing the streets in a riot of color and luxury. The Hippodrome ran special games and dozens of banquets were held in a matter of a week.
The records of the city note that three major merchant families went bankrupt due to going overboard in the spending.

During that time, entire fashions rose and faded in a matter of days, for the entire capital tried to outdo each other in their attempts to pick the newlyweds attentions.

And one succeeded.

During the wedding ceremony the Emperor met Gabriella of Seleukeia. Going by the Emperor’s book of poetry, Placidia, he was struck by a lightninbolt by the sight of “Minnerva” (the pseudonym he’d develop for Gabriella of Seleukeia). To him, the concern that both were married to different partners was just part of their tales’ tragedy, he continues to write.


Boetios of Krete notes how the Emperor had to almost be strong armed into dancing first with his newly wed wife, such was the infatuation he held for the noble lady. They would eventually develope an affair, which would last for most of Basileos’ rule.


But the affairs of court and love needed to wait. For politics and diplomacy were to take primacy.

During the idus of march, Basileos gathered its most powerful vassals, and conferred to them their desire to war against the Bulgar usurpers. They were a powerful kingdom, too close to the walls of Constantinople. While one could say the Abbasids were a bigger threat, the Bulgars were a more inminent one, as their borders sat at exactly a week from the capital.


The empire needed to curb them down and get more breathing room.


Thus, the Mesembrian War (May 873- October 874) began. With the de jure claim on the county, the Emperor planned to push away the border northwards from the capital, all while bleeding their most pressing enemy.

Following some initial skirmishing with less than desired results, the two hosts gathered and clashed in July the 10th in Tyrnovo. Basileos targeted the bulgar main army before it could fully assemble with its regional elements, defeating it by piecemeal.

Tyrnovo was the first pitched battle between the Bulgars and the Makedonian.

Boetios of Krete places the hosts on fifteen thousand romans and nine thousand bulgars. Meanwhile, Baccos of Samos places such forces at a more even thirteen thousand Makedonian soldiers facing two enemy hosts of roughly five thousand each.


For over a month the two armies clashed. During the first ten days, the Makedonian’s army smashed the initial host gathered in southern Tyrnovo, forcing them to retreat northwards. When reinforcements came, the Emperor decided to entrench on the banks of the river, baiting the enemy into costly assaults that bled and demoralized them at a fairly high cost of Roman lifes, finishing the battle in a series of nightly raids and surprise cavalry charges that shattered the host.


Basileos’ army was reduced to less than ten thousand men. The Bulgars could barely muster four thousand afterwards.

Tyrnovo would mark the pace of the war.



After Tyrnovo there would be some more confrontations, Dorostotum being the most prominent battle, but all would pale in comparison to the opening combat. By 874, the Bulgar armies had been neutered and the Emperor had enough time to dedicate himself to poetry and write the Placidia in honor to Minnerva/Gabriella of Seleukeia.

Tyrnovo also marked the growing capabilities of the Emperor. Basileos, prior to the Mesembrian War, could be labelled as a competent soldier. During it he’d assert his capabilities as a skilled tactician and, in crushing the Bulgars so swiftly, the world clearly could see him as a brilliant strategist. This was best encapsulated in Evangelos Komnenos’ memoirs:



“He left Constantinople a soldier,
He left Tyrnovo a captain,
He left Mesembria a general.”



Melethios’ is largely absent from the records of the Mesembrian War, as the strategist had been busy working with Basileos’ magistros, the Strategos of the Aegean islands, into fabricating a claim on the Amalfian lands.

When building the battlements of the city, the patricians had contracted the assistant of the imperial court’s architects. When it came to payment, though, they were late and didn’t pay their interests.


Said interests, claimed the accountants of the Emperor, amounted to the city’s demesne. It was all in the papers and calculus. Such data, though, needed to spread out, and be left to simmer across the merchant holds and noble estates, so the emperor would wait and avoid further wars for the rest of 874, instead attending matters of court and visiting Gabriella of Seleukeia once during Adelaide's pregnancy.


In the meantime, the marriage to Adelaide would prove fruitful, giving the first of their two sons, Orestes.

The newborn Orestes.


By then the imperial line of succession was fairly scure, as the emperor had no less than 5 sons, and so he could turn his attention to the war effort again.


The Emperor could begin the Amalfian War (January 875-August 875), or Second Neapolitan War.

The Amalfians called support from the papacy and other lesser polities. The Kingdom of Italy-Lotharingia considered joining the war, but the imperial corps of diplomats dissuaded and convinced him not to.

The emperor wasted no time, not bothering to engage the mighty papal army, and instead crushed the Amalfians and besieged their holds into submission. By mid-year, Amalfi was an imperial vassal.


Basileos came home triumphant. In less than a decade he’d brought most of Neapolis back, absorbed Krete and Epirus without bloodshed, and gained multiple holds in the northern Balkans and the Levant. To crown such event, the emperor thought of restoring a relic from Justinian’s era:

The exarchate system.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Chapter 5. The Third Neapolitan War (881-883)


There’s not many records on Basileos’ reign during the 875 to 877. The emperor, at the time, partook in the direct administration of the empire, as well as the tutelage of his elder sons. We do know that he began the construction of multiple cities going by Baccos of Samos’ Chronicle


“He gazed on the virgin lands remaining on Thrake and said: let it be civilization.”

During this time, he’d also begin writing a second book and a compendium of all the laws’ he enacted during the last ten years. It would hold the only failure of the Imperial Diplomacy: the orthodox rulers of Sardinia, despite being offered vassalage thrice, had refused every single time, much to the emperor’s wroth.

The tenth anniversary of his reign was a matter of great celebration, but was a fairly brief affair as the Emperor finally decided to turn his attention eastwards.


It was time to press Evangelos’ claim.


On the third of January 878, the byzantine empire declared war on the Mustazhirid Emirate, rulers of the holy city of Antioch. Abu’l Husayn, Emir of the city, rallied many of his neighbors into assisting against the aggressive Makedonian in a defensive pact. The so called League of Edessa would clash against the imperial army on the plains of Latakiah.

The war was quick, as both the League’s army had been obliterated in an initial and brutal mass cavalry charge. During this battle the Emperor himself displayed great deal of gallant valor, redirecting and spearheading the cavalry hosts time and time again as they barraged the infidels in an avalanche of steel and faith.


The remnants of the League’s army were mopped up by the patrolling infrantry and light cavalry and Emir Abu was taken prisoner.

With his capture, the Emir was quick to capitulate and vanish into the annals of history.

There was much rejoicing. Across all Christendom people celebrated the newly recovered land. Many pilgrimages were made, the tide of the faithful almost clogging the roads close to the city. In the Ecclesiastic Archives in Constantinople there’s a plaque dedicated to Basileos that reads as follows:


“Let it be remembered the memory of Basileos the Lionheart, the Golden Soul for liberating the most Holy City of Antioch, first daughter of Christianity. Even if his name may ever be forgotten his deed is immortal.”

Such epithet, the Lionheart, proved popular amongst the masses and many historians would refer the Emperor as such. For in the eyes of many it was his very own sword that had won the city.

The emperor didn’t want to waste his march to the Levant with a single paltry county and thus gathered his hosts again and, with little notice and plenty of surprise, marched on the Cilician Emirate for the lands of Adana. The League of Edessa marched to war again.

The muslims harassed the imperial detachments.



Despite the initial successes on the pitched field of battle, the Emperor’s situation on the fields of battle deteriorated as the League of Edessa rapidly switched tactics. Learning from their defeats at Adana and Latakiah, the commanders of the infidel coalition took to the hills, knowing they couldn’t singlehandedly outmatch the imperial might. From there, they would prey on weaker units reinforcing the main host at Adanah and be a thorn on the Imperial’s logistics. Evangelos Komnenos memoirs had this on the matter:


“During the dawn and the dusk were our troops during the highest danger. The tribal hosts would raid by storm, appearing as if summoned by infernal magics, and butcher our patrols and caravans. The night was theirs, and we surrendered it in a futile attempt to spare lifes.”



Baccos of Samos was less generous when describing such deeds, and many posterior editions of his Chronicle edit the insane amount of profanity that festers those passages.


Yet such tactics, however nerve-wracking they were proved fruitless, as the initial defeat had severely demoralized the League’s forces and the Imperial army relentlessly besieged and took down the Cilician cities. Soon the Muslims’ logistic train broke off and, seeing the disparity of forces, surrendered Adana to Evangelos. During the last months of the year, Emir Abu tried a last attempt at glory, leading a failed Muslim uprising on Antioch.


Once the situation in the Levant stabilized, the emperor turned his attention, once again, to the west.

Lotharingia.


During the years of peace, the Carolingians had greatly consolidated, France was united under a sole monarch, while Italy-Lotharingia had absorbed the Bavaria and some lands of East Francia. As a result, the Karlings were a growing concern to the people and elites of the Eternal City. Such a thing, a second roman empire in the west that wasn’t truly roman, could not be allowed. They needed to carve them to a more manageable size.

Thus, began the Third Neapolitan War (881-883). While during the years prior, dating back to the aftermath of the Second Neapolitan War, there had been substantial raiding around the lands of Apulia, Constantinople had never done any serious attempt at cracking down the Karling rule of the region.

The Third Neapolitan War was one of the largest scale conflicts of the 9th century, as it involved two of Europe’s strongest nations, and a miriad of lesser kingdoms assisting the Karling. On November the 14th the Emperor declared war on Adelchis of Benevento and the young Louis II for the control of their demesnes in Italy, the county of Foggia and Apulia. The imperial diplomatic corps had managed to keep the Bulgars from the war, despite them itching to break their truce and plunder the nearby Thrake, but the Serbians and their neighbors joined the Karling in their effort to halt the Makedonian advances.


There’s little in the way of records of how the war developed in the Eastern Adriatic or the Anatolia, though they were considered secondary, if not an outright afterthought, by the Imperial Strategists. No major loses were experienced in that time, only some minor swaps in villages and hamlets.

Adelchis vanquished.



Melethios’ plan turned around strangling the Apulia, and isolating it. In this grand scheme the county of Foggia was the weak link of the chain. The imperial army, spearheaded by Basileos’ personal forces, stormed the region and deposed Adelchis of his last title. The war on benevento had only lasted 5 months, but the conflict still raged on.

As the emperor’s attentions were focused on Foggia and northern Apulia, the Lotharingian army had marched southward and laid siege to Brendision. At both Brendision and Mottola the Lotharingian vanguard swiftly wiped out the garrison detachment the emperor had left to protect the straight and planned take both cities.


Melethios raised the alarm. If the city fell, then the Adriatic supply route could be closed or raided down to a dangerously low level of shipping, starving the imperial armies from equipment and food. The emperor wasted no time, ordering the storm of the last enclaves in Bari, suffering substantial casualties in the process.

They had to march to Brenidision.

The two hosts clashed at Hydrunton, where they’d be tied in a bitter battle for the better part of a month.


While the Carolingian commanders showed less skill and lead a smaller force, the fighting was extremely even, as many of the emperors’ troops were freshly trained levies, while the Lotharingian host was composed of many soldiers whom had fought in the recent Bavarian uprising, and they deeply entrenched their position. The difference in experience would make that the battle between fifteen thousand Roman soldiers and twelve thousand Lotharingian warriors would be a close affair for the better part of two weeks, with both sides suffering roughly the same number of losses.

But during the last week of the result was decided as a company of pikemen stormed the Carolongian trenches and started the clean up as reinforcements poured in. Soon the barbarians were dug out of their holes and flew.


The emperor had been gravely wounded in the battle, his health a major concern for many courtiers. He needed to make a decision that he was bitter for. Naming an heir.

Prince Leon, the heir apparent.


Leon had sought to prove himself worthy of his father’s attentions. This had let him to become a dedicated, and capable student of strategy. Hours of training let him to become a brawny man, a living mountain under the words of Baccos of Samos. He was ambitious and stubborn, unwilling to give a single inch in any matter he’d set his covetous attention.


Konstantinos, his elder brother, had proven to be a failure of a son, an utter dullard, same as his younger brother Maximos. He was, thus, the only worthy successor in the eyes of Basileos, as much chagrin it would cause to the Makedonian and as much of a pedantic bastard he found his son, as the emperor outright stated in his letters to Melethios.




“The bastard almost breathes at my nape day and night whenever I visit the capital. He’s a good soldier and better sword, but I wish Michael’s seed had dried out the day he sired Leo. I would be more comfortable knowing I have only a disappointing heir, rather than be torn by the choice of a legitimated bastard or an imbecile.”


The emperor, though, chose not to dwell too much on such a wallowing misery, and instead marched nother to meet the reinforced Carolongian army, pitching almost twelve thousand romans against almost eight thousand Lotharingians.

It was a slaughter. With his armies cut by half, and the conquered lands surrounded in the enemy’s maws, Louis II had no choice to concede defeat.


The Neapolitan Wars were over.

 

[stnylan]

Have to keep an eye on those stairs.

The bloody wars in Italy sound suitably glorious.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Chapter 6. The last battle.


With the Karlings reeling on their defeat at Apulia, Basileos turned his attentions Northwards. The bulgars were still very much a threat that needed addressing, now more than ever as their king had abandoned the light of Christ, turning to the heathenous pagan beliefs of the Tengri.


The war began with dashing results on the Makedonian’s army, crushing the Bulgar at Varna.

During the early muster of the campaign, Basileos’ attention was focused on another matter: succession.

The emperor loathed Leon, that was no secret in the imperial court. But at the same time he was the lesser of four evils, as his other brothers had proved to be utter dullards of feeble imbeciles. Until god heard his plea.

Kyrillos, the new heir apparent.



Kyrillos was not only a man of ambition, he was brave and just. He’d study law dutifully and even provide some ideas to the Basileos’ budding law code. He was, in short, the ideal choice for heir, and was thus given the title of Imperial Despot. All was well.


Until the battle at Karvuna.

And the Makedonian rampages through the fields, reaping lives left and right.
Enter Boril, speaker and nexus with the gods, filled with their righteous might.

Battle due the tyrant and the man of the gods, sundering each other with fell blows.

The makedonian falls, the sky gods triumphant, joyous as the tyrant is brought low.

-Excerpt of the Saga of Boril, the Makedonian-slayer.



During the second battle of Karvunna the emperor established single combat with one of the Bulgar commanders, some shaman under the name of Boril. Accounts amongst those present vary: Baccos of Samos claim a host of demons charged at Basileos. Evangelos comments on how he slipped. Nothing is clear.


What is clear is Basileos’ (867-885) legacy. Labelled sometimes as the Little Justinian, Basileos secured neapolis once and for all, securing a buffer land between the greeks and the European barbarians. His diplomatic finesse had meant the recovery of multiple plazas in the Levant as well as the peaceful integration of Epirus and Krete, all while bolstering the depleted imperial manpower. His reign strengthened the administration and population rose substantially in the core demesenes of the empire.


Yet the balance is not entirely positive, as latter historians in a harsher revisionism note. He all but ignored the fractured Anatolia, wasting an opportunity for easy expansion. He all but ignored the abbassid’s slight fracture, wasting an opportunity to crush a weakened foe, something that the Empire would feel for centuries to come.


The so called Basilean Diplomacy turned around three focal points: weaken the karlings, weaken the bulgars and integrate the orthodox states.


Of these only the latter was successful, and not entirely so, as Sardinia, the largest of these realms, had refused integrating into the imperial fold.

The Karlings were not weakened. Within five years after his death they would all but unify in a single crown, under Louis the Bold of West francia, leaving a single Carolingian throne for all its kingdoms except East Francia. Basileos had failed.


The bulgar was barely chipped, and often at great cost. It was an expensive and often effortless venture, though a second wave of revisionism notes that the Epirotan and the conquered Karvunan theme would play a key role in latter Bulgar Wars, shedding a less negative balance in that front.


But now this was all a moot point.

The Reign of Kyrillos I began.

The world at the beginning of Kyrillos I reign.

 

[stnylan]

Well he went out in a blaze of glory

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Well he went out in a blaze of glory

I find funny that, at the moment you commented he died in my playthrough. You sir, are going down into the chronicle.

 

[Nikolai]

I find funny that, at the moment you commented he died in my playthrough. You sir, are going down into the chronicle.

Stnylan is used to be in Chronicles, it's a legacy of his nickname.

 

[Sultan O'Malley]

Part II: The Reign of Kyrillos.


Chapter 7. Reclamation. (885-889)

Kyrillos’ was in Constantinople when the dark news arose. Struck by bitter grief, the newly crowned emperor decided to organize a massive funerary rite in honor of his father.


Boethios of Krete, in the last chapter of his seminal work, narrates the sheer scale of the rites. Over a thousand priests made orations and blessings and almost a quarter of a million pilgrims paid homage to the man that had opened the gates of Antioch to Christendom for the first time in generations. Dozens of lesser monuments were erected on Basileos’ section of the Mausoleum, a whole forest of wreaths sowed in his honour. Kyrillos exploited such pomp to organize his crowning, the sycophants serving his brothers' too busy with the funeral.

The last verses of the month-long ceremony were made by the ever faithful Baccos of Samos.


Baccos of Samos would retire to a monastery in southern Thrake, where he’d live in obscurity and write the last deeds of the first of the Makedons, dying in 890. The emperor would spare a short visit and would erect a sumptuous tombstone in the noble’s honour.


“Here lies Baccos of Samos, witness of Basileos’ glories, vanguard of both the battlefield, diplomacy and history itself. An honourable man, a good man.”


News came from the north, about how England was ravaged by the pagan worshippers, the fall of the kingdom of Wessex to the Nantesian based Haesteinnigs being the latest catastrophe. It was amongst Christianity’s darkest hours, yet the islands had hope in the House of St Cuthbert, whom had spearheaded a revolt against the house of Jorvik in Northumbria.


But these were secondary concerns. There were wrongs to amend.

The imperial army fell like a sledge hammer upon the Bulgar’s host. Tyrnovo was overran, and so were many strongholds in the northern Balkans. Within less than a year, the overinflated pride of Vladimir’s pagan army had been utterly and soundly crushed, try as they might to recover ground.


Yet vengeance wouldn’t be full in Kyrillos’ eyes, for Boril had escaped imperial retribution, his pursuer, Clavicus of Stynilan, a bastard son of Marinos, had been slain. Thus the legend of the Makedon slayer would grow larger than life.


The war was over, the Theme of Karvuna was carved out of the newly made conquests, a patrician (or merchant) council appointed to rule the lands.


During these times the imperial treasury was in deep debt. Not so much due to the wars but because of the sumptuous and excessive ceremonies done in Basileos’ honor as well as Kyrillos effort to establish a larger set of imperial heirlooms, commissioning great goldsmiths and weapon makers to gird the future makedons of a regalia that would dazzle the future centuries and eons.


Yet the idleness was not one of the Emperor’s traits.


Under Melethios’ guidance, the imperial service worked hard to re-establish the lost and forgotten imperial claims on the enternal city. Rome belonged to the Roman empire, and the property deed would be re-established with blood.

Kyrillos wasted no time. When the Imperial treasury stopped bleeding he gathered the hosts, in the 17th of may of 888 began the reclamation.





Melethios’ wrote a second account, this one focused on the ‘Roman Reclamation’. The campaign, writes the aging strategist, was one of swift brutality. The Papacy rallied the catholic petty kingdoms to succor their wretched and misbegotten occupation.


It wouldn’t matter.

The imperial army came crashing against the hapless host of the Papacy at Viterbo. Ranks of frenzied cataphracts hammered their ill organized lines as glorious imperial phalanxes of heavy infantry encircled and annihilated the remnants.

Such defeat would makr the course of the war. For over four months the Romans hunted the shattered Papal army, humbling down the pretenders into insignificance.

Infused with righteous wrath, Kyrillos spurred his army to storm Rome, almost pillaging the city.


After overrunning the defenses of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope surrendered.

Rome had been freed from the barbarians’ chains. Italy and the World at large were bound to a great change.

 

[stnylan]

Quite the victory, and a way to make a name for oneself.

 

[Nikolai]

The Pope is gone from Rome, but the event text alludes to new troubles arising from this. Wonder what.