Byzantium

Byzantium is old, Byzantium is civilised, Byzantium is a nest of vipers.

The Roman Empire of Byzantium considers itself to be the same state as that in which Julius Caesar and Scipio Africanus lived and loved and fought and died. It has been ruled by kings and consuls and emperors for almost two thousand years. Of course there have been some changes in that time: the capital has moved from Rome to Constantinople, the people and their rulers have abandoned their pagan ways and found the truth of the Orthodox faith, and the language of the empire has switched from Latin to Greek. But to a citizen of Byzantium it is a story of continuity and permanence. A Byzantine sweep-cleaner can trace his roots back to before the founding of the neighbouring kingdoms, let alone their upstart royal families. The Empire was here a thousand years ago, it will remain a thousand years hence.

Byzantium remained a shining beacon of civilisation as all over the rest of the world the lights went out, as Rome fell and the ancient cities of Gaul and North Africa shrank away, to be replaced by illiterates who spoke the barbaric tongue of Arabia or debased descendants of Latin. Those places have crawled their way back to a semblance of civility and knowledge, but the great libraries and churches of Byzantium have stored away all the knowledge they have forgotten.

However, the stolidity and history of the Roman Empire of Byzantium has had its effects of the government of the Empire. There are a hundred precedents for even the most obscure of legal problems, a thousand half-completed reforms that have made the authority and responsibility of every office uncertain, and a million nuances and ancient alliances to be respected or broken with each meeting and move of the pen. To the diplomats and courtiers of Byzantium the prospect of treating with the potentates of foreign countries can often seem like a holiday amongst yokels (and a dangerous absence from the games of court…)

Byzantium is the perfect faction for those players who enjoy a little political scheming and complexity. (There's a reason for the word “byzantine”, or at least there is in this game!) Of course, it can be good to play against type and play Captain Carrot.

Those aren't the only options. Byzantium is a good choice for archivists and historians, given its great weight of history and its connections to the past. Constantinople is a great crossroads of trade too, where the Silk Road finally reaches Europe.

And the Roman Empire of Byzantium always needs more soldiers and generals to defend its borders. Perhaps a new Belisarius will arise to expand the Empire to its ancient boundaries.

• Subjects of the Roman Empire of Byzantium are followers of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and members of the Orthodox States faction.
• Byzantine characters start with a +1 bonus to either their Diplomacy or Bureacracy skill. This means that the first rank of the chosen skill comes free - if you wish to have the skill at a higher rank, it simply costs one point cheaper.
• Byzantine characters have access to alchemy, as well as hedge magic and witchcraft.

“Not since the world was made was there ever seen or won so great a treasure, or so noble or so rich, nor in the time of Alexander, nor in the time of Charlemagne, nor before, nor after, nor do I think myself that in the forty richest cities of the world had there been so much wealth as is found in Constantinople. For the Greeks say that two-thirds of the wealth of this world is in Constantinople and the other third scattered throughout the world.”
–Robert of Clari, a French crusader.

An ancient Empire recovering from an age of weakness, growing once again in confidence and power.

Almost a thousand years ago now, the last Roman Emperor of the Undivided Empire ordered the founding of the city of Constantinople and moved the capital of the Empire there. Under his successors the Empire was divided into the Western Empire ruled from Rome, and the Eastern which continued to be ruled from Constantinople.

In due course the barbarians overran the Western Roman Empire: its emperors retreated to Ravenna, and Empire and Emperors alike diminished to nothing. Thereafter, Constantinople became in truth the largest city of the Roman Empire and of the world. The wealth of the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia flowed into Constantinople.

Since that time the size and power of the Empire has ebbed and waned. In the time of the Emperor Justinian, in the 6th Century, almost the entire Mediterranean was Roman once again and it seemed the Empire and Pax Romana would once more unite and heal the world. Under Justinian the laws were reformed and the people were entertained most spectacularly. Under Justinian came the first of the great plagues to devastate Constantinople and all of Christendom.

The greatest disaster to strike at the Roman Empire of Byzantium was yet to come though, a century later her Empire had shrunk once again to the Eastern Mediterranean and she was locked in exhausting war with the Sassanid Persians. In the space of but 30 years that ancient Persian empire was annihilated as hordes of riders swept from the desert of Araby, conquering all before them in the name of their religion of Islam.

For five hundred years now the story has remained the same, though the actors have changed, as one or a dozen Islamic successor states vies with the Byzantine Empire for control of Asia Minor, the Holy Land and the rest of the Middle East. At the same time rebellions in the north have seen the Romanians and Bulgarians independent or reconquered a dozen times over. At times the borders of Byzantium have shrunk almost to within sight of the walls of Constantinople.

In 1183 the Roman Empire of Byzantium is once again near the height of its recent power: all of Greece and half of the Black Sea are once again ruled from Constantinople, and the southern borders reach to the edge of the Holy Land and the Crusader States. The Seljuk Empire, the most recent Islamic State that sought to overthrow the Empire, is failing and falling like so many before.

The Arab Caliphates had ruled the Holy City of Jerusalem since shortly after the birth of the Islamic faith, but in the years of the reign of the Comnenus (at the end of the 11th Century) the borders of Byzantium once again reached to the edge of the Levant. Dark tales of persecution of pilgrims to the Holy City at the hands of the Seljuk Turks came to that emperor's ears. Comnenus had sought reconciliation with the Pope at Rome and he dispatched envoys to Rome to seek the aid of the head of the Roman Church. In truth Emperor Comnenus expected little more than a few mercenaries.

Instead, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade.

Initially this alarmed the Emperor and his courtiers immensely. Byzantium had fought for decades against the Norman princes who led the Crusader armies, and the armies themselves were like a hungry plague that consumed everything in their path and threatened to beggar the Emperor and his subjects.

Nonetheless the Crusader army arrived at Constantinople and there its leaders swore oaths of homage to the Emperor of the Roman Empire of Byzantium. In return for transport across the Straits of the Bosporus and supplies on the march the Crusaders would return their conquests to the Byzantine Empire. At first all went well and Crusader victories at Nicea and Dorylaion allowed the Byzantine forces to recover much of western Asia Minor.

At the Siege of Antioch the Westerners showed their true colours. As the Crusader forces rampaged through that ancient city in fire and sword, Bohemund proclaimed himself “Prince of Antioch” and repudiated his oaths. The Crusaders fought for themselves alone and after the massacres in Jerusalem founded their own midget kingdoms in territory rightfully belonging to the Emperor.

“The other Eastern Orthodox states are our brothers in the faith, though they have done little to help their elder brother at Constantinople. The Rus to the north are not far removed from the savagery they lived in but a few years ago, though with our help they can still improve themselves. The Georgians too are young, but their roots stretch deeper, and we have great hopes that their piety and strength will make them firm allies.”

“The Musselman? What is to be said of them: they are our enemies. A score of the holy places from which the fathers of the Church wrote their epistles and crafted our faith now ring with the imams' call. But at the same time familiarity can breed respect. The men of Islam will hold to their treaties and their word as often as the true faithful of Orthodoxy.”

“The only thing that's 'Roman' about them is where their self-important Pope sits his bony arse. Oathbreakers and betrayers the lot of them. You know, you can tell when a Crusader lies? It's when he moves his lips! For all that they know how to fight, I'll give them that.”

The Byzantine Empire is run by a complex mechanism of officers and bureaucrats and monks, all vying for authority, all shirking responsibility. But ultimately the two chief powers are the Emperor and Patriarch in Constantinople.

Both Emperor and Patriarch reside in the great walled city of Constantinople; the Emperor in the Great Palace, the Patriarch in the enormous Hagia Sophia (the Church of the Holy Wisdom). In theory the Emperor is the temporal ruler and Patriarch the spiritual, but in truth the two realms of power are too intertwined to be simple divided. But it is the Emperor who wields the greater power of the two, in fact it is the Emperor who all but appoints the Patriarch.

Andronikos I, of the royal dynasty of Komnenos, is an Emperor loved by his people and decried from their pulpits. He was endowed by nature with the most remarkable gifts both of mind and body: he is handsome and eloquent, but licentious; and, at the same time, active, hardy, courageous, a great general and an able politician. He spent his life before ascending the throne alternating between a life of pleasure and military service. Most notably scandalous rumours suggest that his niece, the Princess Eudoxia, has been his mistress for years.

More certainly he was implicated in a plot against his father the Emperor and was imprisoned for a time. He escaped and fled to the Crusader states where he was well-received by first the Prince of Antioch and then the King of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem he seduced Theodora, the widow of King Baldwin III and this time niece of the Emperor! Fleeing once more this time he sought sanctuary in various of the Islamic states.

When Theodora was captured at a siege, and was returned to Constantinople with her children. To obtain their release Andronikos in early 1180 made abject submission to the Emperor and, appearing in chains before him, besought pardon and was banished.

Later that same year the Emperor died and was succeeded by his ten year old son Alexios II, with his unpopular Latin mother as regent. Riots ensued and Andronikos led an army - including Muslim contingents - to a Constantinople virtually in civil war. When the Imperial navy joined with him is victory was assured. In the ensuing chaos thousands of Latin merchants were killed and the Empress Regent poisoned. Andronikos deftly dealt with the consequences by marrying the twelve-year old Agnes, daughter of the King of France.

Young to the post, Basil II succeeded the previous Patriarch only this year. He has had little time to put his considerable authority to use, and is still regarded as an unknown quantity by the Emperor's courtiers. From the ancient Christian city of Nicea, he is known as a great opponent of Islam and truck with the Muslim states. More importantly, he has already preached sermons against the Crusader states which have “usurped” the Holy Land.

Byzantium was founded in the year 1093 of the Roman calendar, some 330 years after the birth of Christ in the Holy Land. The Emperor Constantine the Great - the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity and the last Emperor of both the Eastern and Western Empires - built the city in just six years as the final great flowering of the undivided empire.

A traveller entering the city will encounter first its great walls. Constantinople is surrounded by walls more than 18 metre (60 ft) tall, triple-wall fortifications which run for more than seven miles and have never been breached by any invader. A traveller entering by sea will instead enter by one of the city's many harbours, each its own fortress, the defences gradually improved for centuries. As long as the other shore is held great chains may be raised from the depths to prevent passage through the Dardanelles. The city of Constantinople is the largest and most secure fortress in the world, a marvel for the current age.

Within the city retains much of its Roman character. The great entertainment for the masses is the hippodrome at which horse races are held daily. The Hippodrome is the centre of the city's social life. Huge amounts are bet on chariot races. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the hippodrome. The two teams that race there, the Blues and Greens, are also political parties within the city. In the past the rivalry between these teams has become outright enmity, expressions of political and religious tensions within the city. In the worst incident 30,000 people died in rioting and the Hagia Sophia was burned in what was virtually a civil war. Things are calmer these days.

The Hagia Sophia is another wonder, the largest cathedral in the world. The interior even more so, a mass of intricate carvings, soaring pillars and dozens of shrines to the most famous icons in the Orthodox faith. Secular learning is represented too, an ancient university hold the wisdom of the ancients as well as the latest developments in the alchemical arts, medicine, poetry and history.

The current royal family, the Komnenian, inherited the Empire when it had reached its smallest territorial extent. The Empire wavered at the edge of oblivion, its long history almost at an end. But the Komnenos Emperors reformed the army and built it once more into a professional disciplined force. The most famous individual units are the Varangian Guard and the Immortals (heavy cavalry), though it is perhaps the Kataphraktoi cavalry levies from Greece which are best known in the West.

The Empire disdains its neighbours' concepts of “Jihad” and “Crusade”, they are either gross perversions of scripture or simple excuses for looting and destruction. Emperors and generals alike believe war to be a failing of governance and diplomacy, to be avoided whenever possible. An able ruler only wages war defensively or to avenge a wrong, and in such cases God will protect the just. A cunning ruler uses the tools of the statesman to acquire what he needs by persuading enemies and friends alike to give them to him.

A powerful secret of alchemy known only to the Byzantines, and used primarily by the navy, Greek fire is a substance which will burn even on or beneath water and is impossible to extinguish by any means but time. Even a small amount on the skin will burn its way right down into the bone.

Some claim it was first created by a philosopher from Athens called Proclus, who invented a powder that ignited when exposed to the heat of the sun's rays. Whatever the truth is a deadly weapon, but unwieldy, used only by warships, and at sieges by Byzantine defenders or hurled by trebuchets.

The Varangian are a fierce people from the very north of the world, even past the homeland of the Rus. They are distinguished by their great beards and greater laughs, which are said to crack trees in the endless winter of the lands they call home. Once they were raiders, then mercenaries and traders, now the best warriors serve the Emperor as his personal guard. A steady supply of money and their poor grasp of Greek means that they serve the Emperor most loyally, and play little part in the games of the court.

The Varangian guard are traditionally armed with a long axe, but many are excellent swordsmen or archers as well. They seldom leave Constantinople and to be accompanied by a Varangian guard is a mark of the particular favour of the Emperor. (Or his great suspicion, and a guarantee of sorts…)

Before the Muslims came the Holy Land was ruled by Byzantium. When the Crusaders came they promised that they fought to return it to Byzantium. The Holy Land is rightfully the territory of Byzantium. But the Roman Empire is in no hurry; time will defeat the squabbling petty kings of the Catholics and the rival emirates of the Muslims more certainly than armies, if more slowly.

• Nikephoros Bryennios - A general and historian, he stood upon the walls of Constantinople in the darks days when it seemed that the First Crusade would wash away Christianity in the East rather than strengthen it and helped defeat the Seljuk Sultan of Rum. He wrote the first great history of the new Komnenos Dynasty.
• Joanna Zonaras - a theologian of some note, who has written a history of the world since the creation and a commentary on the lives of the saints, she is more well-known at Court in her role as commander of the Imperial Bodyguard and private secretary to the emperor.
• Stephen Hagiochristophorites has been a courtier of growing power for thirty years. His last name literally means “Holy-Christ-Bearer”. Stephen had his nose cut off and was expelled from court as punishment for attempting to seduce a noblewoman. He returned to favour under Andronikos I Komnenos; nicknamed Antichristophorites (literally meaning “bearer of Antichrist”) his reputation as a blackmailer and spymaster is dark beyond belief.