Romania (Terra Cognita)

Romania is a unitary constitutional diarchic directorial republic and democracy. It is a founding member of the League of Peace, GOLA, and other international organizations. It is a highly developed country, with one of the world's largest economies. Romania is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries with a very high life expectancy. It's inhabitants and principal ethnic group are the Romans

Romania ranks very high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, median income, median wealth, human development, per capita GDP, and worker productivity. Romania is a member of the GGPC (Global Great Power Council), one of 23 nations considered a Great Power. Romania is one of nine nations considered a World Power. It is one of the foremost military powers in the world, considered the strongest land-based military, and makes up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.

The country has greatly influenced and contributed to diverse fields, notably the arts, music, literature, philosophy, science and technology, fashion, cinema, cuisine, sports, as well as jurisprudence, banking and business. As a reflection of its cultural wealth, Romania is home to the world's largest number of World Heritage Sites and is the one of the most visited countries in the world.

Romania has historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures including the Italic peoples, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Greeks, Etruscans, Celts, Vasconics, and Germanic peoples. An Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic initially conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula, eventually expanding and conquering parts of Europe, North Libia and Asia. The Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became a leading cultural, political and religious centre, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Romania's law, technology, economy, art, and literature developed.

Romans broadly indicate six founding dates for Romania from the Roman Kingdom in AUC 1 to the current Republic in AUC 2576. The generally accepted founding date of Romania, however, is AUC 254, the date establishing the First Roman Republic.

Etymology
Romania derives its name from the ancient city Rome. According to the founding myth of the city by the Ancient Romans themselves, the long-held tradition of the origin of the name Roma is believed to have come from the city's founder and first king, Romulus. However, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 11th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which, however, remain uncertain: from Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn has the same root as the Greek verb ῥέω (rhéō) and the Latin verb ruo, which both mean "flow"; from the Etruscan word 𐌓𐌖𐌌𐌀 (ruma), whose root is rum- "teat", with possible reference either to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately named twins Romulus and Remus, or to the shape of the Palatine and Aventine Hills; from the Greek word ῥώμη (rhṓmē), which means strength.

Romania in turn means “Land of the Romans” and evolved from early Romanian (Late Vulgar Latin) Romaniae. Exonyms for Romania vary by language with some originating from the Roman self-designation:

Cambrian: Romania

Andalusian: Romania

Scandian, alternate: Romænien

Latin: Romaniae

Greek: Ῥωμανία (Romania)

Persian: Rumistan

Arabian: رُومَانِيَا‎ (Rūmāniyā)

Vasconian: Erromania

Sicilian: Romanìa

Tsalagian: ᎶᎹᏂᏯ (lomaniya)

Francian: Romenië

Frisian: Romeenje

Kurdish: Romanya

Esperanto: Romanio

In some languages, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, the word for Romance peoples was borrowed from the Goths (walhs) into Proto-Venetic. From the Venetics the term passed to other peoples, such as the Hungarians and was used for all Latinic people of the Balkans. Exonyms based on Gothic ‘walhs’ include:

Gepidian: Ƕaland

Lombard: Wälschland

Scandian: Valland

Vinlandic: Valland

Hellulandic: ᐆᐃᓪ (uuil)

Wendish: Włoska

Hungarian: Olaszország

The term Daqin (Chinese: 大秦; pinyin: Dà qín, Middle Chinese: /dɑiH d͡ziɪn/), meaning "Great Qin," is derived from the dynasty founded by Qin Shi Huang, ruler of the State of Qin and China's first emperor who unified China's Warring States by AUC 533. The prefix "da" (大) or "great" signified that the Roman Empire was on par with the might of the Qin Empire and was viewed as a utopian land located to the northwest of the Parthian (Persian) Empire. The title "Daqin" does not seem to have any phonetic derivation from Latin Roma or Greek Romaikē.

Sinaean: 大秦 (Dàqín)

Japanese: だいしん (Daishin)

In Meshica the world 'tona' means of the sun, or for the sun to shine. The Romans were first termed by the Meshica the 'Sons of the Sun', the origin of which may have had to do with either the belief of the Roman connection with the Meshica sun god (Tonatiuh), the Roman use of numerous sun symbols and their own sun-worship (Zeus-Helios), or the lightness of their skin and hair. It could have been due to all three as well and there is a plethora of information that suggests this to be so. With the fixture of the Meshica suffix -co it indicates a place, therefore tonatih-co, place of the sun.

Meshica: Tonatihco

Golden Age - Prehistoric Era (3.3 mya to AUC -2245)
Thousands of Palaeolithic-era artifacts have been recovered and dated to around 850,000 years before the present, making them the oldest evidence of first hominins habitation in the Italian peninsula. Excavations throughout Romania have revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period some 200,000 years ago, while modern Humans appeared about 40,000 years ago. Valon Grotto in Transalpinia is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. The Cardium pottery culture stretches the length of Romania, from Hispania across Gallia and Italia and including neighboring Dalmatia dating to AUC -5646

A well-preserved natural mummy known as The Venusta Iceman, determined to be 5,000 years old was discovered in the Similaun glacier of Alpine Romania in 2744. He is Europe's oldest known natural human mummy, and has offered an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Europeans.

First Age - Ancient Era (AUC -2245 to -46)
The Ancient peoples of pre-Roman Romania – such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerged), Volsci, Oscans, Samnites, Sabines, the Celts, the Ligures, the Veneti, the Celtiberians, the various Germanic tribes, and many others – were Indo-European peoples, many of them specifically of the Italic group. It is possible that the Italic group and Celtic group furthermore share a common past and are branches of one another. The main historic peoples of possible non-Indo-European or pre-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans, the Vasconics, the Iberians, and the prehistoric Sardinians, who gave birth to the Nuragic civilisation. Other ancient populations being of undetermined language families and of possible non-Indo-European origin include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni, known for their rock carvings in Valcamonica, the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world.

Pre-Roman Period
Phoenicians established colonies and founded various emporiums on the coasts of Sardinia. Some of these soon became small urban centres and were developed parallel to the Greek colonies. Greek colonies sprang up along the northern Mediterranean coast of what is now Romania, with the notable Greek settlement of Massalia (modern Marsilia) founded in AUC 154.

The Villanovan culture (c. AUC -140 to 54), regarded as the oldest phase of Etruscan civilization, was the earliest Iron Age culture of Romania. The Etruscans created a refined civilization which largely influenced Rome and the Latin world and subsequently Romania, the inheritor of Etruscan culture. The origins of this non-Indo-European people, which first settled on the Tyrrhenian coast of central Italia and later expanded to northern Italia and beyond the Alps (potentially as far north as Augusta in Vindelicia Province), are uncertain. The Raeti were Etruscan people who were displaced from the Po valley by the Gauls and took refuge in the valleys of the Alps. But it is likely that they were predominantly indigenous Alpine people. Their language, the so-called Raetic language, was probably related to Etruscan, but may not have derived from it.In Italia, cohabiting with the previous inhabitants, mingled new tribes of Celts in the north (Senones, Boii, Lingones etc.), the Greeks in the west, along the Mediterranean coast of Hispania and Gallia, and the Phoenicians in the south and in Sardinia.

Gallia (then covering what is now Gallia Prefecture, western Raetia Prefecture, as well as continental Cambria and western Francia) was inhabited by many Celtic and Belgae tribes whom the Romans referred to as Gauls and who spoke the Gaulish language, as well as some Germanic tribes. On the lower Garuña river the people spoke Aquitanian, a Pre-Indo-European language related to (or a direct ancestor of) Vasconian. The Celts founded cities such as Namnetes (Nametis) while the Aquitanians founded Tolosates (Tolosa).

Western Romania, Hispania Prefecture, included the the Iberians (a non-Indo-European people), the Celts in the interior and north-west, the Lusitanians (possibly Celtic) in the west.

The far north (northern Raetia Prefecture) of Romania's first known inhabitants, the Celts, preceded the arrival of the Suebi and related Germanic tribes, who absorbed the original inhabitants.

The Latins, sometimes known as the Latians, were an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. From about AUC -246, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium (Latium Vetus). The Latins were an Indo-European people who probably migrated into the Italian Peninsula during the late Bronze Age. Their language, Latin, belonged to the Italic branch of Indo-European. Their material culture, known as the Latial culture, was a subset of the Proto-Villanovan culture that appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula in the circa AUC -440s. The Latins maintained close culturo-religious relations until they were definitively united politically under Rome, and for centuries beyond. These included common festivals and religious sanctuaries. The rise of Rome as by far the most populous and powerful Latin state led to volatile relations with the other Latin states, which numbered about 14 in AUC 254.

The Founding of Rome
Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as nearly no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it that were written during the Republic and Empire are largely based on legends. However, the history of the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding, traditionally dated to AUC 1 with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in Central Italia, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic in about AUC 245.

The traditional account of Roman history, which has come down to us through Livy, Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and others, is that in Rome's first centuries it was ruled by a succession of seven kings. The traditional chronology, as codified by Varro, allots 243 years for their reigns, an average of almost 35 years. The Gauls destroyed much of Rome's historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in AUC 364 and what was left was eventually lost to time or theft. With no contemporary records of the kingdom existing, all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned.

According to the founding myth of Rome, the city was founded on 21 April AUC 1 by twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who descended from the Trojan prince Aeneas and who were grandsons of the Latin King, Numitor of Alba Longa.

The kings, excluding Romulus, who according to legend held office by virtue of being the city's founder, were all elected by the people of Rome to serve for life, with none of the kings relying on military force to gain or keep the throne.

Romulus

Son of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, the legendary Romulus was Rome's first king and the city's founder. After he and his twin brother Remus had deposed King Amulius of Alba and reinstated the king's brother and their grandfather Numitor to the throne, they decided to build a city in the area where they had been abandoned as infants. After Remus was killed in a dispute, Romulus began building the city on the Palatine Hill. His work began with fortifications. He permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction. He is credited with establishing the city's religious, legal and political institutions. The kingdom was established by unanimous acclaim with him at the helm when Romulus called the citizenry to a council for the purposes of determining their government.

Romulus established the senate as an advisory council with the appointment of 100 of the most noble men in the community. These men he called patres and their descendants became the patricians. To project command, he surrounded himself with attendants, in particular the twelve lictors. He created three divisions of horsemen (equites), called centuries: Ramnes (Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king) and Luceres (Etruscans). He also divided the populace into 30 curiae, named after 30 of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the popular assemblies (Comitia Curiata).

Romulus was behind one of the most notorious acts in Roman history, the incident commonly known as the rape of the Sabine women. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where the Romans committed a mass abduction of young women from among the attendees. The account vary from 30 to 683 women taken, a significant number for a population of 3,000 Latins (and presumably for the Sabines a well). War broke out when Romulus refused to return the captives. After the Sabines made three unsuccessful attempts to invade the hill settlements of Rome, the women themselves intervened during the Battle of the Lacus Curtius to end the war. The two peoples were united in a joint kingdom, with Romulus and the Sabine king Titus Tatius sharing the throne. In addition to the war with the Sabines, Romulus waged war with the Fidenates and Veientes and others.

He reigned for 37 or 38 years. According to the legend, Romulus vanished at age 54 while reviewing his troops on the Campus Martius. He was reported to have been taken up to Mt. Olympus in a whirlwind and made a god. After initial acceptance by the public, rumors and suspicions of foul play by the patricians began to grow. In particular, some thought that members of the nobility had murdered him, dismembered his body, and buried the pieces on their land. These were set aside after an esteemed nobleman testified that Romulus had come to him in a vision and told him that he was the god Quirinus. He became, not only one of the three major gods of Rome, but the very likeness of the city itself

After Romulus died, there was an interregnum for one year, during which ten men chosen from the senate governed Rome as successive interreges. Under popular pressure, the Senate finally chose the Sabine Numa Pompilius to succeed Romulus, on account of his reputation for justice and piety. A string of Kings of Rome followed Numa.

Tarquin the Proud

The seventh and final king of Rome was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. He was the son of Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius whom he and his wife had killed. Tarquinius waged a number of wars against Rome's neighbours, including against the Volsci, Gabii and the Rutuli. He also secured Rome's position as head of the Latin cities. He also engaged in a series of public works, notably the completion of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and works on the Cloaca Maxima and the Circus Maximus. However, Tarquin's reign is remembered for his use of violence and intimidation to control Rome, and his disrespect of Roman custom and the Roman Senate.

Tensions came to a head when the king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped Lucretia, wife and daughter to powerful Roman nobles. Lucretia told her relatives about the attack, and committed suicide to avoid the dishonour of the episode. Four men, led by Lucius Junius Brutus, and including Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, Publius Valerius Poplicola, and Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus incited a revolution that deposed and expelled Tarquinius and his family from Rome in AUC 245.

Brutus and Collatinus became Rome's first consuls, marking the beginning of the Roman Republic. This new government would survive for the next 500 years until the rise of Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, and would cover a period during which Rome's authority and area of control extended to cover great areas of Europe, North Libia, and the West Asia.

The First Roman Republic
According to tradition and later writers such as Livy, the Roman Republic was established around AUC 245, when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus, and a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority as imperium, or military command. The consuls had to work with the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power.

In the 4th century AUC the Republic came under attack by the Gauls, who initially prevailed and sacked Rome. The Romans then took up arms and drove the Gauls back, led by Camillus. The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including the Etruscans. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italia came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in AUC 473, but this effort failed as well.

In the 5th century AUC Rome had to face a new and formidable opponent: the powerful Phoenician city-state of Carthage.

The Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from AUC 490 to 608. At the time, they were some of the largest wars that had ever taken place. The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning "Carthaginian", with reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry. The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicilia (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the First Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire. Rome was a rapidly ascending power in Italia, but it lacked the naval power of Carthage. The Second Punic War witnessed Hannibal's famous crossing of the Alps from Hispania, elephants and army with him, in AUC 538, followed by a prolonged but ultimately failed campaign of Carthage's Hannibal in mainland Italia. By the end of the Third Punic War, after more than a hundred years and the loss of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Romania had conquered Carthage's empire, completely destroyed the city, and became the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the Macedonian Wars – which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars – and the defeat of the Seleucid King Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Seleucid War in the eastern sea, Romania emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and one of the most powerful realms in the world.

In the three Punic Wars, Carthage was eventually destroyed and Rome gained control over Hispania, Sicilia and North Libia. After defeating the Macedonian and Seleucid Empires in the 6th century AUC, the Romans became the dominant people of the Mediterranean Sea. The conquest of the Grecian kingdoms provoked a fusion between Roman and Greek cultures and the Roman elite, once rural and rugged, became a luxurious and cosmopolitan one. By this time Rome was a consolidated empire – in the military view – and had no major enemies.

Roman armies occupied Hispania in the mid 6th century AUC but encountered stiff resistance from that time down to the age of Augustus. The Celtiberian stronghold of Numantia became the centre of Hispanian resistance to Rome in the AUC 610s and 630s. Numantia fell and was completely razed to the ground in AUC 622. The conquest of Hispania was completed in AUC 735 — but at heavy cost and severe losses.

Towards the mid 7th century AUC, a huge migration of Germanic tribes took place, led by the Cimbri and the Teutones. These tribes overwhelmed the peoples with whom they came into contact and posed a real threat to Rome itself. At the Battle of Aquae Sextiae and the Battle of Vercellae the Germans were virtually annihilated, which ended the threat. In these two battles the Teutones and Ambrones are said to have lost 290,000 men (200,000 killed and 90,000 captured); and the Cimbri 220,000 men (160,000 killed, and 60,000 captured).

Antonius' Civil War In the 8th century AUC the Republic faced a period of political crisis and social unrest. Into this turbulent scenario emerged the figure of Julius Caesar. Caesar reconciled the two more powerful men in Rome: Marcus Licinius Crassus, his sponsor, and Crassus' rival, Pompey. The First Triumvirate had satisfied the interests of these three men: Crassus, the richest man in Rome, became richer; Pompey exerted more influence in the Senate; and Caesar held consulship and military command in Gaul.

In AUC 701, the Triumvirate disintegrated at Crassus' death. Crassus had acted as mediator between Caesar and Pompey, and, without him, the two generals began to fight for power. After being victorious in the Gallic Wars and earning respect and praise from the legions, Caesar was a clear menace to Pompey, that tried to legally remove Caesar's legions. To avoid this, Caesar crossed the Rubicon River and invaded Rome in AUC 705, rapidly defeating Pompey. With his sole preeminence over Rome, Caesar gradually accumulated many offices, eventually being granted a dictatorship for perpetuity. He was murdered in AUC 710, in the Ides of March by the Liberatores. Caesar's assassination caused political and social turmoil in Rome; without the dictator's leadership, the city was ruled by his friend and colleague, Marcus Antonius. Octavius (Caesar's adopted son), along with general Marcus Antonius and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Caesar's best friend, established the Second Triumvirate. Lepidus was forced to retire in AUC 718 after betraying Octavian in Sicilia. Antonius settled in Egypt with his lover, Pharaoh, or Queen, Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt. Marcus Antonius' affair with Cleopatra was seen as an act of treason, since she was queen of a foreign power and Antonius was adopting an extravagant and Hellenistic lifestyle that was considered inappropriate for a Roman statesman.

Following Antonius' Donations of Alexandria, which gave to Cleopatra the title of "Queen of Kings", and to their children the regal titles to the newly conquered Eastern territories, the war between Octavian and Marcus Antonius broke out. Octavian annihilated Egyptian forces in the Battle of Actium in AUC 723. Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra committed suicide, leaving Octavianus the sole ruler of the Republic.

After the Battle of Actium, the period of major naval battles was over and the Romans possessed unchallenged naval supremacy in the Germanic Sea, Atlantic coasts, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and the Black Sea until the emergence of new naval threats in the form of the Franks and the Saxons in the Germanic Sea, and in the form of Borani, Herules and Goths in the Black Sea.

The First Roman Empire
In AUC 727, Octavian was the sole Roman leader. His leadership brought the zenith of the Roman civilization, that lasted for four decades. In that year, he took the name Augustus. That event is usually taken by historians as the beginning of Roman Empire. Officially, the government was republican, but Augustus assumed absolute powers. The Senate granted Octavian a unique grade of Proconsular imperium, which gave him authority over all Proconsuls.

The unruly provinces at the borders, where the vast majority of the legions were stationed, were under the control of Augustus. These provinces were classified as imperial provinces. The peaceful senatorial provinces were under the control of the Senate. The Roman legions, which had reached an unprecedented number (around 50) because of the civil wars, were reduced to 28.

Under Augustus' rule, Roman literature grew steadily in the Golden Age of Latin Literature. Poets like Vergil, Horace, Ovid and Rufus developed a rich literature, and were close friends of Augustus. Along with Maecenas, he stimulated patriotic poems, as Vergil's epic Aeneid and also historiographical works, like those of Livy. Augustus' enlightened rule resulted in a 200 years long peaceful and thriving era for the Empire, known as Pax Romana.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (Frankish: Schluecht vum Teutoburger Bësch, Hermannsschlacht, or Varusschlacht) took place in in AUC 762, when an alliance of Germanic tribes ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus. The alliance was led by Arminius, a Germanic officer of Varus's auxilia. Arminius had acquired Roman citizenship and had received a Roman military education, which enabled him to deceive the Roman commander methodically and anticipate the Roman army's tactical responses. Despite several successful campaigns and raids by the Romans in the years after the battle, they never again attempted to conquer the Germanic territories that far east of the Rhine river. The victory of the Germanic tribes against Rome's legions in the Teutoburg Forest would have far-reaching effects on the subsequent history of both the ancient Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire. Contemporary and modern historians have generally regarded Arminius' victory over Varus as "Rome's greatest defeat", making it one of the rarest things in history, a truly decisive battle, and as "a turning-point in world history".

Despite its military strength, the Empire made few efforts to expand its already vast extent; the most notable being the conquest of Britannia, begun by emperor Claudius, and emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia (AUC 854 to 859). Roman legions were also employed in intermittent warfare with the Germanic tribes to the north and the Parthian, or Persian, Empire to the east. Meanwhile, armed insurrections (e.g., the Hebraic insurrection in Judea) and brief civil wars (e.g., in AUC 821 the Year of the Four Emperors) demanded the legions' attention on several occasions.

Julio-Claudian Dynasty

From AUC 767 to 821 Romania was under the Julio-Claudian dynasty, descending from the first Emperor, Augustus. These were Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Gaius, better known as "Caligula" ("little boots") was a son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. Caligula started out well, by putting an end to the persecutions and burning his uncle's records. Unfortunately, he quickly lapsed into illness. The Caligula that emerged in late AUC 790 demonstrated features of mental instability that led modern commentators to diagnose him with such illnesses as encephalitis, which can cause mental derangement, hyperthyroidism, or even a nervous breakdown (perhaps brought on by the stress of his position). Whatever the cause, there was an obvious shift in his reign from this point on, leading his biographers to label him as insane.

Most of what history remembers of Caligula comes from Suetonius, in his book Lives of the Twelve Caesars. According to Suetonius, Caligula once planned to appoint his favourite horse Incitatus to the Roman Senate. He ordered his soldiers to invade Britannia to fight the Sea God Neptune, but changed his mind at the last minute and had them pick sea shells on the northern end of Gallia instead. It is believed he carried on incestuous relations with his three sisters: Julia Livilla, Drusilla and Agrippina the Younger. He ordered a statue of himself to be erected in Herod's Temple at Jerusalem, which would have undoubtedly led to revolt had he not been dissuaded from this plan by his friend king Agrippa I. He ordered people to be secretly killed, and then called them to his palace. When they did not appear, he would jokingly remark that they must have committed suicide.

In AUC 794, Caligula was assassinated by the commander of the guard Cassius Chaerea. Also killed were his fourth wife Caesonia and their daughter Julia Drusilla. For two days following his assassination, the senate debated the merits of restoring the Republic.

Claudius followed Caligula as emperor. He was a younger brother of Germanicus, and had long been considered a weakling and a fool by the rest of his family. The Praetorian Guard, however, acclaimed him as emperor. Claudius was neither paranoid like his uncle Tiberius, nor insane like his nephew Caligula, and was therefore able to administer the Empire with reasonable ability. He improved the bureaucracy and streamlined the citizenship and senatorial rolls. He ordered the construction of a winter port at Ostia Antica for Rome, thereby providing a place for grain from other parts of the Empire to be brought in inclement weather.

Claudius ordered the suspension of further attacks across the Rhine, setting what was to become the permanent limit of the Empire's expansion in that direction. In 796, he resumed the Roman conquest of Britannia that Julius Caesar had begun and incorporated more Eastern provinces into the empire.

In his own family life, Claudius was less successful. His wife Messalina cuckolded him; when he found out, he had her executed and married his niece, Agrippina the Younger. She, along with several of his freedmen, held an inordinate amount of power over him, and although there are conflicting accounts about his death, she may very well have poisoned him in 807. Claudius was deified later that year. The death of Claudius paved the way for Agrippina's own son, the 17-year-old Lucius Domitius Nero. Nero ruled from 807 to 821. During his rule, Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. He ordered the building of theatres and promoted athletic games. His reign included the Roman–Parthian War (a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire (811–816) ), the suppression of a revolt led by Boudica in Britannia (813–814) and the improvement of cultural ties with Grecia. However, he was egotistical and had severe troubles with his mother, who he felt was controlling and over-bearing. After several attempts to kill her, he finally had her stabbed to death. He believed himself a god and decided to build an opulent palace for himself. The so-called Domus Aurea was constructed atop the burnt remains of Rome after the Great Fire of Rome (AUC 817). Because of the convenience of this many believe that Nero was ultimately responsible for the fire, spawning the legend of him fiddling while Rome burned which is almost certainly untrue. The Domus Aurea was a colossal feat of construction that covered a huge space and demanded new methods of construction in order to hold up the gold, jewel encrusted ceilings. By this time Nero was hugely unpopular despite his attempts to blame the Christians for most of his regime's problems.

A military coup drove Nero into hiding. Facing execution at the hands of the Roman Senate, he reportedly committed suicide in AUC 821. According to Cassius Dio, Nero's last words were "Jupiter, what an artist perishes in me!"

Year of the Four Emperors

Since he had no heir, Nero's suicide was followed by a brief period of civil war, known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Between June 821 and December 822, Romania witnessed the successive rise and fall of Galba, Otho and Vitellius until the final accession of Vespasian, first ruler of the Flavian dynasty. The military and political anarchy created by this civil war had serious implications, such as the outbreak of the Batavian rebellion. These events showed that a military power alone could create an emperor. Augustus had established a standing army, where individual soldiers served under the same military governors over an extended period of time. The consequence was that the soldiers in the provinces developed a degree of loyalty to their commanders, which they did not have for the emperor. Thus the Empire was, in a sense, a union of inchoate principalities, which could have disintegrated at any time.

Through his sound fiscal policy, the emperor Vespasian was able to build up a surplus in the treasury, and began construction on the Colosseum. Titus, Vespasian's successor, quickly proved his merit, although his short reign was marked by disaster, including the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii. He held the opening ceremonies in the still unfinished Colosseum, but died in AUC 834. His brother Domitian succeeded him. Having exceedingly poor relations with the Senate, Domitian was murdered in September 849.

The Flavian Dynasty, although a relatively short-lived dynasty, helped restore stability to an empire on its knees. Although all three Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian) have been criticised, especially based on their more centralised style of rule, they issued reforms that created a stable enough empire to last. However, their background as a military dynasty led to further marginalisation of the senate, and a conclusive move away from princeps, or first citizen, and toward imperator, or emperor.

The Five Good Emperors

The next century came to be known as the period of the Five Good Emperors, in which the succession was peaceful and the Empire prosperous. The emperors of this period were Nerva (849–850), Trajan (851–870), Hadrian (870–891), Antoninus Pius (891–914) and Marcus Aurelius (914–933), each one adopted by his predecessor as his successor during the former's lifetime. While their respective choices of successor were based upon the merits of the individual men they selected rather than dynastic, it has been argued that the real reason for the lasting success of the adoptive scheme of succession lay more with the fact that none but the last had a natural heir.

Upon his accession to the throne, Trajan prepared and launched a carefully planned military campaign in Dacia. In AUC 854, Trajan personally crossed the Danube and defeated the armies of the Dacian king Decebalus at Tapae. The emperor decided not to press on towards a final conquest as his armies needed reorganisation, but he did impose very hard peace conditions on the Dacians. At Rome, Trajan was received as a hero and he took the name of Dacicus. Decebalus complied with the terms for a time, but before long he began inciting revolt. In 858 Trajan once again invaded and after a yearlong campaign ultimately defeated the Dacians by conquering their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia. King Decebalus, cornered by the Roman cavalry, eventually committed suicide rather than being captured and humiliated in Rome. The conquest of Dacia was a major accomplishment for Trajan, who ordered 123 days of celebration throughout the empire. He also constructed Trajan's column in Rome to glorify the victory.

In AUC 865, Trajan was provoked by the decision of Osroes I of Parthia (or Persia) to put his own nephew Axidares on the throne of the Kingdom of Armenia. The Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia was a branch of the Parthian royal family, established in AUC 807. Since then, the two great empires had shared hegemony of Armenia. The encroachment on the traditional Roman sphere of influence by Osroes ended the peace which had lasted for some 50 years.

Trajan marched first on Armenia. He deposed the king and annexed it to the Roman Empire. Then he turned south into Persia itself, taking the cities of Babylon, Seleucia and finally the capital of Ctesiphon in 869, while suppressing a Jewish uprising across the region. He continued southward to the Persian Gulf, whence he declared Mesopotamia a new province of the empire and lamented that he was too old to follow in the steps of Alexander the Great and continue his march eastward.

In AUC 869, he captured the great city of Susa. He deposed the Osroes I and put his own puppet ruler Parthamaspates on the throne. During his rule, the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent it had known up to that point.

Hadrian would succeed Trajan. Despite his own excellence as a military administrator, Hadrian's reign was marked more by the defense of the empire's vast territories, rather than major military conflicts. He surrendered Trajan's conquests in Mesopotamia, considering them to be indefensible. There was almost a war with Vologases III of Parthia around 874, but the threat was averted when Hadrian succeeded in negotiating a peace. Hadrian's army crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt, a massive Jewish uprising in Judea.

Hadrian was the first emperor to extensively tour the provinces, donating money for local construction projects as he went. In Britannia, he ordered the construction of a wall, the famous Hadrian's Wall as well as various other such defences in Germania and Northern Libia. His domestic policy was one of relative peace and prosperity.

The Philosopher Emperor

After Hadrian and Antonius Pius the empire would come under the reign of Marcus Aurelius. During his reign Germanic tribes and other people launched many raids along the long north European border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube—Germans, in turn, may have been under attack from more warlike tribes farther east, driving them into the empire. His campaigns against them are commemorated on the Column of Marcus Aurelius.

In Asia, a revitalised Parthian Empire renewed its assault. Marcus Aurelius sent his co-emperor Lucius Verus to command the legions in the East. Lucius was authoritative enough to command the full loyalty of the troops, but already powerful enough that he had little incentive to overthrow Marcus. The plan succeeded — Verus remained loyal until his death, while on campaign, in 922.

In AUC 928, while on campaign in the northern Germania in the Marcomannic Wars, Marcus was forced to contend with a rebellion by Avidius Cassius, a general who had been an officer during the wars against Persia. Cassius proclaimed himself Roman Emperor and took the provinces of Egypt and Syria as his part of the empire. It is said that Cassius had revolted as he had heard word that Marcus was dead. After three months Cassius was assassinated and Marcus restored the eastern part of the empire.

In the last years of his life Marcus, a philosopher as well as an emperor, wrote his book of Stoic philosophy known as the Meditations. The book has since been hailed as Marcus' great contribution to philosophy.

When Marcus died in 933 the throne passed to his son Commodus, who had been elevated to the rank of co-emperor in 930. This ended the succession plan of the previous four emperors where the emperor would adopt his successor, although Marcus was the first emperor since Vespasian to have a natural son that could succeed him, which probably was the reason he allowed the throne to pass to Commodus and not adopt a successor from outside his family.

Roman-Sinaean Trade

A Roman embassy from "Daqin" arrived in Eastern Han China in AUC 919 via a Roman maritime route into the South Sinaean Sea, landing at Jiaozhou and bearing gifts for the Emperor Huan of Han (r. 899–921), was sent by Marcus Aurelius, or his predecessor Antoninus Pius (the confusion stems from the transliteration of their names as "Andun", Sinaean: 安敦). Other Roman embassies of the century visited Sina by sailing along the same maritime route. These were preceded by the appearance of Roman glasswares in Sinaean tombs, the earliest piece found at Guangzhou. However, Roman golden medallions from the reign of Antoninus Pius, and possibly his successor Marcus Aurelius, have been discovered at Óc Eo (in southern Vietdai), which was then part of the Kingdom of Funan near Sinaean-controlled Jiaozhi (northern Vietdai) and the region where Sinaean historical texts say the Romans first landed before venturing further into Sina to conduct diplomacy. Furthermore, in his Geography (c. AUC 903), Ptolemy described the location of the Golden Chersonese, now known as the Malay Peninsula, and beyond this a trading port called Kattigara. Roman and Mediterranean artifacts found at Óc Eo suggest this location.

Commodus and the Year of the Five Emperors

The period of the Five Good Emperors was brought to an end by the reign of Commodus from 933 to 945. Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius, making him the first direct successor in a century, breaking the scheme of adoptive successors that had worked so well. When he became sole emperor upon the death of his father it was at first seen as a hopeful sign by the people of the Romania. Nevertheless, as generous and magnanimous as his father was, Commodus was just the opposite. In The Decline and Resurgence of the Roman Empire by Cambrian historian Edard Jelbart, it is noted that Commodus at first ruled the empire well. However, after an assassination attempt, involving a conspiracy by certain members of his family, Commodus became paranoid and slipped into insanity. The Pax Romana ended with the reign of Commodus. When Commodus' behaviour became increasingly erratic throughout the early 190s, Pertinax is thought to have been implicated in the conspiracy that led to Commodus' assassination on 31 December 945. The plot was carried out by the Praetorian prefect Quintus Aemilius Laetus, Commodus' mistress Marcia, and his chamberlain Eclectus.

Disdaining the more philosophic inclinations of his father, Commodus was extremely proud of his physical prowess. The historian Herodian, a contemporary, described Commodus as an extremely handsome man. He ordered many statues to be made showing himself dressed as Hercules with a lion's hide and a club. He thought of himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently emulating the legendary hero's feats by appearing in the arena to fight a variety of wild animals. He was left-handed and very proud of the fact. Cassius Dio and the writers of the Augustan History say that Commodus was a skilled archer, who could shoot the heads off ostriches in full gallop, and kill a panther as it attacked a victim in the arena.

Cassius Dio, a first-hand witness, describes him as "not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature."

His recorded actions do tend to show a rejection of his father's policies, his father's advisers, and especially his father's austere lifestyle, and an alienation from the surviving members of his family. It seems likely that he was brought up in an atmosphere of Stoic asceticism, which he rejected entirely upon his accession to sole rule.

After repeated attempts on Commodus' life, Roman citizens were often killed for making him angry. One such notable event was the attempted extermination of the house of the Quinctilii. Condianus and Maximus were executed on the pretext that, while they were not implicated in any plots, their wealth and talent would make them unhappy with the current state of affairs. Another event—as recorded by the historian Aelius Lampridius—took place at the Roman baths at Terme Taurine, where the emperor had an attendant thrown into an oven after he found his bathwater to be lukewarm.

Severan Dynasty

After Commodus and his quick successors, Pertinax and Didius Julianus, came the Severan dynasty. Lucius Septimius Severus was born to a family of Phoenician equestrian rank in the Roman province of Africa proconsularis. He rose through military service to consular rank under the later Antonines. Proclaimed emperor in 946 by his legionaries in Noricum during the political unrest that followed the death of Commodus, he secured sole rule over the empire in AUC 950 after defeating his last rival, Clodius Albinus, at the Battle of Lugdunum. In securing his position as emperor, he founded the Severan dynasty.

Severus fought a successful war against the Parthians and campaigned with success against barbarian incursions in Roman Britain, rebuilding Hadrian's Wall. In Rome, his relations with the Senate were poor, but he was popular with the commoners, as with his soldiers, whose salary he raised. Starting in 950, the influence of his Praetorian prefect Gaius Fulvius Plautianus was a negative influence; the latter was executed in 958. One of Plautianus's successors was the jurist Aemilius Papinianus. Severus continued official persecution of Christians and Jews, as they were the only two groups who would not assimilate their beliefs to the official syncretistic creed. Severus died while campaigning in Britannia. He was succeeded by his sons Caracalla and Geta, who reigned under the influence of their mother, Julia Domna.

The eldest son of Severus, Caracalla was born Lucius Septimius Bassianus in Lugdunum, Gaul. "Caracalla" was a nickname referring to the Gallic hooded tunic he habitually wore even when he slept. Upon his father's death, Caracalla was proclaimed co-emperor with his brother Geta. Conflict between the two culminated in the assassination of the latter.

Reigning alone, Caracalla was noted for lavish bribes to the legionaries and unprecedented cruelty, authorizing numerous assassinations of perceived enemies and rivals. He campaigned with indifferent success against the Alamanni. The Baths of Caracalla in Rome are the most enduring monument of his rule. His reign was also notable for the Antonine Constitution, also known as the Edict of Caracalla, which granted Roman citizenship to nearly all freemen throughout Romania.

He was assassinated while en route to a campaign against the Parthians by the Praetorian Guard.

The Imperial CrisisAfter the chaos of Caracalla and Geta came Macrinus, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus to finish out the Severan dynasty. The situation of the Roman Empire became dire in AUC 988, when the emperor Alexander Severus was murdered by his own troops. Many Roman legions had been defeated during a campaign against Germanic peoples raiding across the borders, while the emperor was focused primarily on the dangers from the Sassanid Persian Empire. Leading his troops personally, Alexander Severus resorted to diplomacy and the paying of tribute in an attempt to pacify the Germanic chieftains quickly. According to Herodian this cost him the respect of his troops, who may have felt they should be punishing the tribes who were intruding on Rome's territory.

In the years following the emperor's death, generals of the Roman army fought each other for control of the Empire and neglected their duties in preventing invasions. Provincials became victims of frequent raids by foreign tribes, such as the Carpians, Goths, Vandals, and Alamanni, along the Rhine and Danube Rivers in the western part of the Empire, as well as attacks from Persians in the eastern part of the Empire. Additionally, in 1004, the Plague of Cyprian (possibly smallpox) broke out, causing large-scale mortality which may have seriously affected the ability of the Empire to defend itself.

By 1011, the Roman Empire broke up into three competing states. The Roman provinces of Gallia, Britannia and Hispania broke off to form the Gallic Empire and, two years later in 1013, the eastern provinces of Syria, Palestinia and Aegyptus became independent as the Syrian Empire, leaving the remaining Italian-centered Roman Empire-proper in the middle, often referred to as the Romanian Empire by non-contemporary historians.

An invasion by a vast host of Goths was beaten back at the Battle of Naissus in 1022. This victory was significant as the turning point of the crisis, when a series of tough, energetic soldier-emperors took power. Victories by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus over the next two years drove back the Alamanni and recovered Hispania from the Gallic Empire. When Claudius died in 1023 of the plague, Aurelian, who had commanded the cavalry at Naissus, succeeded him as the emperor and continued the restoration of the Empire.

Aurelian reigned (1023–1028) through the worst of the crisis, defeating the Vandals, the Visigoths, the Syrians, the Persians, and then the remainder of the Gallic Empire. By late 1027, the Roman Empire was reunited into a single entity, and the frontier troops were back in place. However, dozens of formerly thriving cities, especially in the Western Empire, had been ruined, their populations dispersed and depleted and, with the breakdown of the economic system, could not be rebuilt. Major cities and towns, even Rome itself, had not needed fortifications for many centuries; many then surrounded themselves with thick walls. A process of migration from Italia began to shore up the depleted lands of Romania.

Finally, although Aurelian had played a significant role in restoring the Empire's borders from external threat, more fundamental problems remained. In particular, the right of succession had never been clearly defined in the Roman Empire, leading to continuous civil wars as competing factions in the military, Senate and other parties put forward their favored candidate for emperor. Another issue was the sheer size of the Empire, which made it difficult for a single autocratic ruler to effectively manage multiple threats at the same time.

The Tetrarchy
The transition from a single united empire to the later divided Western and Eastern empires was a gradual transformation. In July 1039, Diocletian defeated rival Emperor Carinus and briefly became sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and marked the end of the Imperial Crisis.

Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of all threats to his power. He defeated the Sarmatians and Carpi during several campaigns between 1038 and 1052, the Alamanni in 1041, and usurpers in Egypt between 1050 and 1051. Galerius, aided by Diocletian, campaigned successfully against Sassanid Persia, the empire's traditional enemy. In AUC 1052 he sacked their capital, Ctesiphon. Diocletian led the subsequent negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace. Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and reorganized the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire. He established new administrative centers in Nicomedia, Mediolanum, Antioch, and Augusta Treverorum, closer to the empire's frontiers than the traditional capital at Rome had been. Building on trends towards absolutism, he styled himself an autocrat, elevating himself above the empire's masses with imposing forms of court ceremonies and architecture. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant campaigning, and construction projects increased the state's expenditures and necessitated a comprehensive tax reform. From at least 1050 on, imperial taxation was standardized, made more equitable, and levied at generally higher rates.

Diocletian saw that the vast Roman Empire was ungovernable by a single emperor in the face of internal pressures and military threats on two fronts. He therefore split the Empire in half along a northwest axis just east of Italia, and created two equal Emperors to rule under the title of Augustus. Diocletian himself was the Augustus of the eastern half, and he made his long-time friend Maximian Augustus of the western half. In doing so, he effectively created what would become the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire and, potentially, planted the seeds for the permanent division between Latin and Greek and, later, Hellene and Christian.

After an initial period of tolerance, Diocletian, who was a fervent hellene and was worried about the ever-increasing numbers of Christians in the Empire, persecuted them with zeal unknown since the time of Nero. Not all of Diocletian's plans were successful: the Edict on Maximum Prices (1054), his attempt to curb inflation via price controls, was counterproductive and quickly ignored. Although effective while he ruled, Diocletian's tetrarchic system collapsed after his abdication under the competing dynastic claims of Maxentius and Constantine, sons of Maximian and Constantius respectively. The Diocletianic Persecution (1056–64) did not destroy the empire's Christian community; indeed, after 1077 Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine and, while still minimal in the Western portion, it was growing dominant in the Eastern.

Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on 1 May 1058, and became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the position. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens.

On March 1 1046, authority was further divided. Each Augustus took a junior Emperor called a Caesar to aid him in administrative matters, and to provide a line of succession. Galerius became Caesar for Diocletian and Constantius Chlorus Caesar for Maximian in the West, or the seed that would become modern Romania. This constituted what is called the Tetrarchy (in Greek: "leadership of four") by modern scholars, as each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. After Rome had been plagued by bloody disputes about the supreme authority, this finally formalised a peaceful succession of the emperor: in each half a Caesar would rise up to replace the Augustus and select a new Caesar. On May 1, 1058, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in favour of their Caesars. Galerius named the two new Caesars: his nephew Maximinus for himself, and Flavius Valerius Severus for Constantius. The arrangement worked well under Diocletian and Maximian and shortly thereafter. The internal tensions within the Roman government were less acute than they had been. With the withdrawal of Diocletian and Maximian, this harmony disappeared.

Maximian

Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus Herculius Augustus, known as Maximian, was technically the first Western Roman Emperor, from 1039 to 1058. He shared the title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Augusta Treverorum but spent most of his time on campaign. In late 1038, he suppressed rebels in Gaul known as the Bagaudae. He fought against Germanic tribes along the Rhine frontier. Together with Diocletian, he launched a scorched earth campaign deep into Alamannic territory in 1041, temporarily relieving the Rhine provinces from the threat of Germanic invasion.

At Diocletian's behest, Maximian abdicated on May 1, 1058, gave the Augustan office to Constantius, and retired to southern Italia.

In late 1059, Maximian took the title of Augustus again and aided his son Maxentius' rebellion in Italia. In April 1060, he attempted to depose his son, but failed and fled to the court of Constantius' successor, Constantine (Maximian's step-grandson and son-in-law). At the Council of Carnuntum in November 1061, Diocletian and his successor, Galerius, forced Maximian to renounce his imperial claim again. In early 1063, Maximian attempted to seize Constantine's title while the emperor was on campaign on the Rhine. Few supported him, and he was captured by Constantine in Massilia. Maximian killed himself in mid-1063 on Constantine's orders. During Constantine's war with Maxentius, Maximian's image was purged from all public places. However, after Constantine ousted and killed Maxentius, Maximian's image was rehabilitated, and he was deified.

Constantine and the Christians The Tetrarchy would effectively collapse with the death of Constantius Chlorus on July 25, 1059. Constantius' troops in Eboracum, Britannia immediately proclaimed his son Constantine the Great as Augustus. In August 1059, Galerius promoted Severus to the position of Augustus. A revolt in Rome supported another claimant to the same title: Maxentius, son of Maximian, who was proclaimed Augustus on October 28, 1059. His election was supported by the Praetorian Guard. This left the Empire with five rulers: four Augusti (Galerius, Constantine, Severus and Maxentius) and one Caesar (Maximinus).

The year 1060 saw the return of Maximian to the rank of Augustus alongside his son Maxentius, creating a total of six rulers of the Empire. Galerius and Severus campaigned against them in Italia. Severus was killed under command of Maxentius on September 16, 1060. The two Augusti of Italia also managed to ally themselves with Constantine by having Constantine marry Fausta, the daughter of Maximian and sister of Maxentius. At the end of 1060, the Empire had four Augusti (Maximian, Galerius, Constantine and Maxentius) and a sole Caesar.

In 1064 Galerius officially put an end to the persecution of Christians, and Constantine legalised Christianity definitively in 1066. Constantine defeated his brother-in-law Licinius in 1077, unifying the Empire under his control. He would rule until his death on 22 May 1090.

The Empire was parted again among his three surviving sons. The Western Roman Empire was divided among the eldest son Constantine II and the youngest son Constans. The Eastern Roman Empire along with Constantinople were the share of middle son Constantius II.

Constantine II was killed in conflict with his youngest brother in 1093. Constans was himself killed in conflict with the army-proclaimed Augustus Magnentius on January 18, 1103. Magnentius was at first opposed in the city of Rome by self-proclaimed Augustus Nepotianus, a paternal first cousin of Constans. Nepotianus was killed alongside his mother Eutropia. His other first cousin Constantia convinced Vetriano to proclaim himself Caesar in opposition to Magnentius. Vetriano served a brief term from March 1 to December 25, 1103. He was then forced to abdicate by the legitimate Augustus Constantius. The usurper Magnentius would continue to rule the Western Roman Empire until 1106 while in conflict with Constantius. His eventual defeat and suicide left Constantius as sole Emperor.

Constantius's rule would, however, be opposed again in 1113. He had named his paternal half-cousin and brother-in-law Julian as his Caesar of the Western Roman Empire in 1108.

Julian the Philosopher
In the turmoil after the death of Emperor Constantine in 1090, in order to establish himself and his brothers, Julian's zealous Arian Christian cousin Constantius II appears to have led a massacre of most of Julian's close relatives. Constantius II allegedly ordered the murders of many descendants from the second marriage of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora, leaving only Constantius and his brothers Constantine II and Constans I, and their cousins, Julian and Gallus (Julian's half-brother), as the surviving males related to Emperor Constantine. Constantius II, Constans I, and Constantine II were proclaimed joint emperors, each ruling a portion of Roman territory. Julian and Gallus were excluded from public life, were strictly guarded in their youth, and given a Christian education. They were likely saved by their youth and at the urging of the Empress Eusebia. Initially growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age of seven Julian was under the guardianship of Eusebius of Nicomedia, the semi-Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, and taught by Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, about whom he later wrote warmly. After Eusebius died in 1095, both Julian and Gallus were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia. Here Julian met the Christian bishop George of Cappadocia, who lent him books from the classical tradition. At the age of 18, the exile was lifted and he dwelt briefly in Constantinople and Nicomedia. He became a lector, a minor office in the Christian church, and his later writings show a detailed knowledge of the Bible, likely acquired in his early life.

Julian's conversion from Christianity to what would develop into Hellenism happened at around the age of 20. Looking back on his life in 1115, Julian wrote that he had spent twenty years in the way of Christianity and twelve in the true way, i.e., the way of Helios. Julian began his study of Neoplatonism in Asia Minor in 1104, at first under Aedesius, the philosopher.

After dealing with the rebellions of Magnentius and Silvanus, Emperor Constantius felt he needed a permanent representative in Gaul. In 1108, Julian was summoned to appear before the emperor in Mediolanum and on 6 November was made caesar of the West, marrying Constantius' sister, Helena. Constantius, after his experience with Gallus, intended his representative to be more a figurehead than an active participant in events, so he packed Julian off to Gaul with a small retinue, assuming his prefects in Gaul would keep Julian in check. At first reluctant to trade his scholarly life for war and politics, Julian eventually took every opportunity to involve himself in the affairs of Gaul and began delving heavily in military reading. In the following years he learned how to lead and then run an army, through a series of campaigns against the Germanic tribes that had settled on both sides of the Rhine.

According to Ammianus, Julian won his soldiers over by his charisma and the fact that he shared their work, conditions, and drudgery. Julian denied any luxurious bedding or tent as well as banquets and higher quality food and instead chose to sleep as the soldiers did and eat as they did. It is no doubt that these actions aided in his endearment to the Gauls. It is through this behavior that Julian was able to convince his men to march through the Hercynian Forest, retaking and rebuilding decrepit and repeatedly raided towns. In 1109 during Julian's first campaign he led an army to the Rhine, engaged the inhabitants there and won back several towns that had fallen into Frankish hands, including Colonia Agrippina. King Chnodomarius led a confederation of Alamanni forces against Julian and Severus at the Battle of Argentoratum. The Romans were heavily outnumbered and during the heat of battle a group of 600 horsemen on the right wing deserted, yet, taking full advantage of the limitations of the terrain, the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious. The enemy was routed and driven into the river. King Chnodomarius was captured and later sent to Emperor Constantius in Milan. Ammianus, who was a participant in the battle, portrays Julian in charge of events on the battlefield and describes how the soldiers, because of this success, acclaimed Julian attempting to make him Augustus, an acclamation he rejected, rebuking them. He later rewarded them for their valor. Rather than chase the routed enemy across the Rhine, Julian now proceeded to follow the Rhine north, the route he followed the previous year on his way back to Gaul. At Moguntiacum, however, he crossed the Rhine in an expedition that penetrated deep into what is today Francia, and forced three local kingdoms to submit. This action terrified the inhabitants of Germania and showed the Alamanni that Rome was once again present and active in the area. On his way back to winter quarters in Paris he dealt with a band of Franks who had taken control of some abandoned forts along the Meuse River. In 1111, Julian gained victories over the Salian Franks on the Lower Rhine, settling them in Toxandria in the Roman Empire and over the Chamavi, who were expelled back to Hamaland.

The Alemanni had taken to retreating onto islands in the Rhine, believing themselves untouchable as they hurled taunts across the river at the Romans. Julian eventually sent small commando raiding parties to these islands in the Rhine, where in surprise raids they slaughtered the Germanic inhabitants, man, woman, and child.

At the end of 1110 Julian, with the prestige of his victory over the Alamanni to give him confidence, prevented a tax increase by the Gallic praetorian prefect Florentius and personally took charge of the province of Belgica Secunda. This was Julian's first experience with civil administration, where his views were influenced by his liberal education in Grecia. Properly it was a role that belonged to the praetorian prefect. However, Florentius and Julian often clashed over the administration of Gaul. Julian's first priority, as caesar and nominal ranking commander in Gaul, was to drive out the barbarians who had breached the Rhine frontier. However, he sought to win over the support of the civil population, which was necessary for his operations in Gaul and also to show his largely Germanic army the benefits of Imperial rule. He therefore felt it was necessary to rebuild stable and peaceful conditions in the devastated cities and countryside. For this reason, Julian clashed with Florentius over the latter's support of tax increases, as mentioned above, and Florentius's own corruption in the bureaucracy. Constantius attempted to maintain some modicum of control over his caesar, which explains his removal of Julian's close adviser Saturninius Secundus Salutius from Gaul. His departure stimulated the writing of Julian's oration, "Consolation Upon the Departure of Salutius".

Rebellion in GaulIn the fourth year of Julian's stay in Gaul, the Sassanid Emperor, Shapur II, invaded Mesopotamia and took the city of Amida after a 73-day siege. In February 1113, Constantius II ordered more than half of Julian's Gallic troops to join his eastern army, the order by-passing Julian and going directly to the military commanders. Although Julian at first attempted to expedite the order, it provoked an insurrection by troops of the Petulantes, who had no desire to leave Gaul. The army officers were those responsible for distributing an anonymous tract expressing complaints against Constantius as well as fearing for Julian's ultimate fate.

The troops proclaimed Julian Augustus in Paris, and this in turn led to a very swift military effort to secure or win the allegiance of others. Julian went back to business as usual in Gaul, for, from June to August of that year, Julian led a successful campaign against the Attuarian Franks. In November, Julian began openly using the title Augustus, even issuing coins with the title, sometimes with Constantius, sometimes without. He celebrated his fifth year in Gaul with a big show of games.

In the spring of 1114, Julian led his army into the territory of the Alamanni, where he captured their king, Vadomarius. Julian claimed that Vadomarius had been in league with Constantius, encouraging him to raid the borders of Raetia. and most scholars suggest this was likely true. Julian then divided his forces, sending one column to Raetia, one to northern Italia and the third he led down the Danube on boats. His forces claimed control of Illyricum and his general, Nevitta, secured the pass of Succi into Thrace. He was now well out of his comfort zone and on the road to civil war. (Julian would state in late November that he set off down this road "because, having been declared a public enemy, I meant to frighten him [Constantius] merely, and that our quarrel should result in intercourse on more friendly terms ...")

However, in June, forces loyal to Constantius captured the city of Aquileia on the north Adriatic coast, an event that threatened to cut Julian off from the rest of his forces, while Constantius's troops marched towards him from the east. Aquileia was subsequently besieged by 23,000 men loyal to Julian. All Julian could do was sit it out in Naissus, the city of Constantine's birth, waiting for news and writing letters to various cities in Grecia justifying his actions (of which only the letter to the Athenians has survived in its entirety). Civil war was avoided only by the death on November 3 of Constantius, who, in his last will, is alleged by some sources to have recognized Julian as his rightful successor.

On December 11 Julian entered Constantinople as sole emperor and, despite his rejection of Christianity, his first political act was to preside over Constantius' Christian burial, escorting the body to the Church of the Apostles, where it was placed alongside that of Constantine.

The new Emperor rejected the style of administration of his immediate predecessors. He blamed Constantine for the state of the administration and for having abandoned the traditions of the past. He made no attempt to restore the tetrarchal system begun under Diocletian. Nor did he seek to rule as an absolute autocrat. His own philosophic notions led him to idealize the reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. In his first panegyric to Constantius, Julian described the ideal ruler as being essentially primus inter pares ("first among equals"), operating under the same laws as his subjects. While in Constantinople therefore it was not strange to see Julian frequently active in the Senate, participating in debates and making speeches, placing himself at the level of the other members of the Senate. He viewed the royal court of his predecessors as inefficient, corrupt, and expensive. Thousands of servants, eunuchs, and superfluous officials were therefore summarily dismissed.

Another effect of Julian's political philosophy was that the authority of the cities was expanded at the expense of the imperial bureaucracy as Julian sought to reduce direct imperial involvement in urban affairs. For example, city land owned by the imperial government was returned to the cities, city council members were compelled to resume civic authority, often against their will, and the tribute in gold by the cities called the aurum coronarium was made voluntary rather than a compulsory tax.

While he ceded much of the authority of the imperial government to the cities, Julian also took more direct control himself. For example, new taxes and corvées had to be approved by him directly rather than left to the judgment of the bureaucratic apparatus. Julian certainly had a clear idea of what he wanted Roman society to be, both in political as well as religious terms. If the cities were treated as relatively autonomous local administrative areas, it would simplify the problems of imperial administration, which as far as Julian was concerned, should be focused on the administration of the law and defense of the empire's vast frontiers.

Towards Persia

After five months of dealings at the capital, Julian left Constantinople in May and moved to Antioch, arriving in mid-July and staying there for nine months before launching his fateful campaign against Persia in March. Antioch was a city favored by splendid temples along with a famous oracle of Apollo in nearby Daphne, which may have been one reason for his choosing to reside there. It had also been used in the past as a staging place for amassing troops, a purpose which Julian intended to follow.

His arrival on 18 July was well received by the Antiochenes, though it coincided with the celebration of the Adonia, a festival which marked the death of Adonis, so there was wailing and moaning in the streets—not a good omen for an arrival.

Julian soon discovered that wealthy merchants were causing food problems, apparently by hoarding food and selling it at high prices. He hoped that the curia would deal with the issue for the situation was headed for a famine. When the curia did nothing, he spoke to the city's leading citizens, trying to persuade them to take action. Thinking that they would do the job, he turned his attention to religious matters.

He tried to resurrect the ancient oracular spring of Castalia at the temple of Apollo at Daphne. After being advised that the bones of bishop Babylas were suppressing the god, he made a public-relations mistake in ordering the removal of the bones from the vicinity of the temple. The result was a massive Christian procession. Shortly after that, when the temple was destroyed by fire, Julian suspected the Christians and ordered stricter investigations than usual. He also shut up the chief Christian church of the city, before the investigations proved that the fire was the result of an accident.

When the curia still took no substantial action in regards to the food shortage, Julian intervened, fixing the prices for grain and importing more from Egypt. Then landholders refused to sell theirs, claiming that the harvest was so bad that they had to be compensated with fair prices. Julian accused them of price gouging and forced them to sell.

Julian's ascetic lifestyle was not popular either, since his subjects were accustomed to the idea of an all-powerful Emperor who placed himself well above them. Nor did he improve his dignity with his own participation in the ceremonial of bloody sacrifices.

The Roman-Sassanian War

Julian's rise to Augustus was the result of military insurrection eased by Constantius's sudden death. This meant that, while he could count on the wholehearted support of the Western army which had aided his rise, as well as the continued broad adherence to pagan beliefs in the West, the Eastern army was an unknown quantity originally loyal to the Emperor he had risen against, and much of the Eastern populace was Christian. To solidify his position in the eyes of the Eastern army, he needed to lead its soldiers to victory and a campaign against the Sassanid Persians offered such an opportunity.

On 5 March 1116 Julian departed from Antioch with about 80,000–90,000 men and headed north toward the Euphrates. En route he was met by embassies from various small powers offering assistance, none of which he accepted. He did order the Armenian King Arsaces to muster an army and await instructions. He crossed the Euphrates near Hierapolis and moved eastward to Carrhae, giving the impression that his chosen route into Persian territory was down the Tigris. For this reason it seems he sent a force of 30,000 soldiers under Procopius and Sebastianus further eastward to devastate Media in conjunction with Armenian forces. Julian's strategy lay elsewhere, however. He had had a fleet built of over 1,000 ships at Samosata in order to supply his army for a march down the Euphrates and of 50 pontoon ships to facilitate river crossings. Procopius and the Armenians would march down the Tigris to meet Julian near Ctesiphon. Julian's ultimate aim was "regime change" by replacing king Shapur II with his brother Hormisdas.

After feigning a march further eastward, Julian's army turned south to Circesium at the confluence of the Abora and the Euphrates arriving at the beginning of April. Passing Dura on April 6, the army made good progress, bypassing towns after negotiations or besieging those which chose to oppose him. At the end of April the Romans captured the fortress of Pirisabora, which guarded the canal approach from the Euphrates to Ctesiphon on the Tigris. As the army marched toward the Persian capital, the Sassanids broke the dikes which crossed the land, turning it into marshland, slowing the progress of the Roman army.By mid-May AUC 1116 the Roman army had come to the outskirts of the Persian capital, Ctesiphon. It was here that Julian unloaded his fleet and ferried his men across the Tigris under cover of darkness. The stunning tactical victory won by the Romans, with a loss of 70 men to the Persian 2,500, was complicated by a lack of siege equipment in which to take, by force, Ctesiphon. The headache was alleviated by the fortuitous arrival of Procopius, which allowed the Roman emperor the completion of his desired pincer to snare the approaching Shapur II in a vice.The Armenians were not in tow, however, and so would begin an unraveling of Roman-Armenian relations.

The battle beneath Ctesiphon did not end as decisively for the Romans as had the previous engagement. The losses to both sides were stunning and, after the dust had settled, Shapur II lay dead at the hands of Julian himself, so recorded history from the victors claim. The death of the King of Kings compelled the Persian city to open its gates to the new Roman conqueror and by days end Julian had gained the city and the honorific of Parthicus. Ctesiphon’s resistance had fallen.

The Romans installed Hormisdas, exiled brother-in-law of Shapur, as the new Persian King and annexed all the land west of the Tigris upto, and including, Armenia (previously a joint venture between the Romans and Persians, now fully Roman), Ardhania, and Hiberia – all now Roman Provinces. Armenia's inclusion was punishment for their king's dithering and perceived cowardice., with Julian allowing himself the position to revoke the Roman granted autonomy they had enjoyed.

Julian became the first, and last, Roman emperor to sail the Persian Gulf as the Romans mopped up the last resistance led by Ardashir II, self-proclaimed King of Kings and rival to the Roman appointed Hormisdas. Ardashir’s death in the Autumn of AUC 1116, at the hands of his own Persian nobles, ended the campaign on a whimper though decidedly. Trouble brewed for Julian on his return home. The population of Antioch, which had ridiculed the emperor on his journey east to fight Shapur, followed up with more and amplified protests on Julian’s return. Julian had left the city with as a broken relationship, in no small words declaring that, aside from his return journey westward, he would never visit the city again. The royal break with Antioch had a devastating impact on the psyche of the city and loomed with potential economic fallout. His victory in the east had done little to impress the citizens of this ancient city who, perhaps justly, felt that their religion was under attack by the emperor. Julian would hold to his promise and strip Antioch of its regional capital status, replacing it with his beloved Tarsus, a city noted for its Greco-Roman religious adherence. It would take not be until the splintering of the Empire into two that Antioch would regain that status and the subsequent financial boon that goes with. The divorce between Emperor and City was painful.

Julian returned west triumphant and bearing the name Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus Parthicus.

The Hellene Reformation

Julian turned his attention to religious reformation following the consolidation of the Persian campaign. Lauded as Alexander reincarnate, though a comparison that he did not support, the emperor basked in renewed vigor and popularity (at least in the western half of the Roman realm). The masses as well as the politicians, swayed as they were and vassals of the winds of popularity, moved with the religious flow. Julian further enforced the School Edict, requiring all public teachers to be approved by the Emperor. Hellenist charities began to blossom, temples were rebuilt with war funds from the victory over Persia, and the culmination of Hellenism’s religious text, the Scriptura, neared completion. Julian successfully steered the old and un-unified Greco-Roman tradition into a linear, unified religion. Ironically, he shaped the old ways into something far more akin to Christianity. The emperor organized the priesthood, placing at the top of this centralized organization the Pontifex Maximus. The first to be bestowed with this title was Libanius, with the office head quartered in Athens. The Pontifex Maximus was in charge of religious matters as head of the state-endorsed religious organization and would be the one to appoint provincial High Priests. High Priests, provincially appointed, oversaw the religious matters of each province, with the ability to appoint their own priests under their authority and so on. The High Priests primary concern was, first and foremost, furthering Hellenism. In general, the duties of priests were to help the old, the poor and the sick, while they also provided and managed charity. Julian’s reformation of Hellenism introduced an emphasis on the personal piety of the priesthood. The moral standing of the Priesthood was to be exemplary, as Julian writes “the qualities that are appropriate for one in this high office are, in the first place, fairness, and next goodness and benevolence towards those who deserve to be treated like this. Any priest who behaves unjustly to his fellow men and impiously towards the Gods or is arrogant, must either be given a warning, or be rebuked with great severity.” The shift from the old religion’s notion of priests as elites to priests as model citizens reflected the myriad influences from Christianity, likely enacted to combat what was the encroachment of this religion. The shift from tradition to religion was rapid and consuming.

Additional religious shock waves enacted by Julian was the funding for the rebuilding of the Third Temple in Judea and the preferential status of Jewish subjects in that province. This caused further rifts with the Christian community, though began a sort of alliance between Hellenes and Jews. It was an alliance not born of a love of the Jewish faith by Julian, but appears more likely to be an attempt to discredit Christianity. The chapters later in history that see that Jewish people begin, or rather renew, a blossoming friendship and alliance with the Persians, who arguably become far better protectors of Judea, also bears witness to a growth in anti-semitic behavior by the Hellenes and Romania in general.

As Hellenism began to root itself in the empire Julian turned his attention to the troubles along the borders of Rome. In AUC 1118 the Alamanni crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul. Simultaneously, Aequitius – the rough and boorish usurper raised high by rebellious Christian factions in the east – began his revolt.

The superior ability of Julian’s generals prevailed in the Battle of Nacolia where Aequitius' forces were defeated. He fled the battlefield and was a fugitive for a while in the wilds of Phrygia, but was soon betrayed and killed by his own generals, ending the Christian Rebellion less than a year after it began.

The Rhine Wars

A tit-for-tat conflict played itself out on the Rhine border before the Alemanni crossed in force and sacked Moguntiacum, after killing two of Julian’s generals. Julian spent the winter of AUC 1120 gathering a massive army, consisting of Italian and Illyrian legions, for a spring offensive. The army crossed the Rhine and Main rivers into Alemannic territory, encountering no resistance initially – burning any dwellings or food stores found along the way. The campaign culminated in the Battle of Solicinium, with a decisive, though costly, Roman victory.

During AUC 1122, Julian ordered new defensive works to be constructed and old structures refurbished along the length of the Rhine’s west bank. Boldly, he ordered the construction of a fortress across the Rhine in the mountains near modern Mercimbri as well as a new watchtower on the Nicarus and a temple re-dedicated to Mercury atop the summit, in this region an amalgamation of Roman Mercury and Germanic Wodan (titled Mercurius Cimbrianus), supplying the fortress/settlement with a namesake. The Alamanni sent envoys to protest, but they were dismissed. The Alamanni attacked the fortress while it was still under construction but were turned back at great cost to the Barbarians. Mercimbri was reinforced with a significant Legionary presence.

The Great ConspiracyIn AUC 1120 reports surfaced that a combined force of Picts, Attacotti, and Scots had killed the Comes litoris Saxonici Nectaridus and Dux Britanniarum Fullofaudes. At the same time, Frankish and Saxon forces were raiding the coastal areas of northern Gaul. The empire was in the midst of the Great Conspiracy – and was in danger of losing control of Brittania altogether. Julian set out for Britannia, sending Comes domesticorum Severus ahead of him to investigate. Severus was not able to correct the situation and returned to Gaul, meeting Julian at Samarobriva. The emperor then sent Jovinus to Britain and promoted Severus to magister peditum. Jovinus quickly returned saying that he needed more men to take care of the situation. In 1121 Julian appointed Theodosius as the new Comes Britanniarum with instructions to return Britain to Roman rule. Thedosius was a brilliant strategist and a rising star. He was a Christian, quite openly, yet was appointed and heralded by Julian. This was not an exception: Julian made a point of promoting a number of Christians. He made certain that the Galileans (as he called Christians) could not and would not hold significant positions of educational authority, but in many other realms he allowed complete religious freedom.

It can largely be seen as an attempt by Julian to show that he was not a persecutor and, by extension, give the Christians no cause for martyrdom and issues to raise. Meanwhile, Severus and Jovinus were to accompany the emperor on his campaign against the Alamanni. Theodosius arrived in 1121 with the Batavi, Heruli, Jovii and Victores legions. Landing at Rutupiæ, he proceeded to Londinium restoring order to southern Britain. Later, he rallied the remaining garrison which was originally stationed in Britain; it was apparent the units had lost their cohesiveness when Fullofaudes and Nectaridus had been defeated. Theodosius sent for Civilis to be installed as the new vicarius of the diocese and Dulcitius as an additional general. In 1122, Theodosius set about reconquering the areas north of London, restored the rest of Britain to the empire and rebuilt many fortifications – renaming northern Britain 'Juliania'. After his return in AUC 1122, Julian promoted Theodosius to magister equitum in place of Jovinus. At this point one of the highest promotions the emperor had given to a Christian.

In AUC 1123, the Saxons renewed their attacks on northern Gaul. Nannienus, the comes in charge of the troops in northern Gaul, urged Julian to come to his aid. After several modest successes, a truce was called and the Saxons handed over to the Romans young men fit for duty in the Roman military – in exchange for free passage back to their homeland. The Romans ambushed them and destroyed the entire invading force. Meanwhile, rumors of a Roman alliance with the Burgundians began to surface and had the effect of scattering the Alamanni through fear of an imminent attack from their enemies. This event allowed the magister equitum Theodosius to attack the Alamanni through Raetia – taking numerous Alamannic prisoners. These captured Alamanni were settled in the Po river valley in Italia. The Alemanni finally sued for peace and transferred more of their tribesmen into Roman hands. Julian campaigned successfully for four more years to defeat Macrian who in AUC 1125 was finally captured by Theodosius. Meanwhile, Julian continued to recruit heavily from Alamanni friendly to Rome. He sent the Alamannic king Fraomarius, as a Tribune, to Britain with an army in order to replenish troops there and made the noblemen Bitheridius and Hortarius commanders in his army although Hortarius was soon executed for conspiring with Macrian.

The Armenian Revolt Julian was forced to change direction after the Alamannic campaigns were wrapped up. In 1125, the rebellion of Papas of Armenia, self-proclaimed King of Armenia, broke out in the eastern provinces. This rebellion was driven by the continued religious unrest among the Eastern Romans. Julian pursued Papas through Armenia, eventually besieging him in a fortress in Van. Unbeknownst to Julian, Papas was fleeing to rendezvous with the remainder of his army. The Romans and Armenians engaged in a massive battle on 10 July 1126. The battle lasted days, but in the end, the Romans were worn down to nothing and Julian was killed by a spear thrust from a heavily armored horseman, who lost his head as a result via one of Julian's bodyguards. The emperor-killer was thus to remain unknown, dead on the battlefield for his heroics.

Julian’s body was hurried back to camp where he waxed about poetry and officially announced Procopius as his successor - Julian had spent the years since his return from Persia grooming his cousin for just such a purpose, despite the emperor’s self-declared disdain for nepotism. Julian was given a full state funeral in Rome and buried in Athens. His death, like his life, divided the empire. The West mourned while the East celebrated and prepared.

Augustus Procopius

Procopius spent the first part of his reign trying to plug the leak that was Armenia. The Persian’s took the opportunity to step into the conflict and began an invasion to retake their lost territory beyond the Tigris after the mysterious death of Hormisdas - murdered so claimed Rome. To complicate matters, in Isauria, the mountainous region of western Cilicia, a major revolt had broken out in 1128, religious in nature and possibly linked to the death of Julian, which diverted troops formerly stationed in the East.

Furthermore, by 1130, the Saracens under Queen Mavia had broken into revolt and devastated a swath of territory stretching from Phoenicia and Palestine as far as the Sinai. Though Procopius successfully brought both uprisings under control, the opportunities for action on the eastern frontier were limited by these skirmishes closer to home and the Persians fully occupied their territories lost to Julian – even raiding beyond – and Armenia had consolidated itself as independent.

Procopius’ plans for an eastern campaign were never realized. In preparation for an eastern war, Procopius initiated an ambitious recruitment program designed to fill those gaps wrought by the rebellions and Germanic incursions. It was thus not entirely unwelcome news when Procopius heard of Ermanaric's death and the disintegration of his kingdom before an invasion of hordes of barbaric Huns from the far east. After failing to hold the Danastris or the Prut against the Huns, the Goths retreated southward in a massive emigration, seeking new settlements and shelter south of the Danube, which they thought could be held against the Huns.

The Gothic Incursion

In AUC 1129, the Visigoths under their leader Fritigern advanced to the far shores of the lower Danube and sent an ambassador to Procopius who had set up his campaign headquarters in Tarsus, and requested asylum. As Procopius' advisers were quick to point out, these Goths could supply troops who would at once swell their ranks and decrease his dependence on provincial troop levies and the increasingly rebellious and unreliable Christian locals around the eastern edges of the Empire. However, it would mean hiring them and paying in gold or silver for their services. Procopius granted admission to a number of Gothic groups, including Fritigern and his followers. When Fritigern and his Goths, to the number of 200,000 warriors and almost a million all told, undertook the crossing, Procopius’s mobile forces were tied down in the east, on the Persian frontier. This meant that only limitanei units were present to oversee the Goths' settlement.

The small number of imperial troops present prevented the Romans from stopping a Danube crossing by a group of Ostrogoths and yet later on by Huns and Alans. What started out as a controlled resettlement might any moment turn into a major invasion. But the situation was worsened by corruption in the Roman administration, as Procopius' generals accepted bribes rather than depriving the Goths of their weapons as Procopius had stipulated and then proceeded to enrage them by such exorbitant prices for food that they were soon driven to the last extremity. Meanwhile, the Romans failed to prevent the crossing of other barbarians who were not included in the treaty. In early 1130 the Goths revolted after a commotion with the people of Marcianople, and defeated the corrupt Roman governor Lupicinus near the city. After joining forces with the Ostrogoths under Alatheus and Saphrax, the combined barbarian group spread out to devastate the country before combining to meet Roman advance forces under Counts Traianus and Richomer. In a sanguinary battle at Ad Salices, the Goths were momentarily checked and Saturninus, now lieutenant in the province, undertook a strategy of hemming them in between the lower Danube and the Euxine, hoping to starve them into surrender. However, Fritigern forced him to retreat by inviting some of the Huns to cross the river in the rear of Saturninus' ranged defenses. The Romans then fell back, incapable of containing the irruption, though with an elite force of his best soldiers the general Sebastian was able to fall upon and destroy several of the smaller predatory bands. By 1131, Procopius himself was ready to march west from his eastern base in Tarsus. He withdrew all but a skeletal force — some of them Goths — from the east and moved west, reaching Constantinople by 30 May, 1131.

The citizens of Constantinople were clamoring for the emperor to march against the enemy whom he had himself introduced into the Empire and jeering him as a ‘vile Hellene’ and the Goths were his pestilence and punishment his sinners mind had brought upon them. The result became an example of hubris and a fear of a religious uprising in Constantinople, where the Christian populace was blaming the Hellenism of Julian and Procopius as the cause for the Gothic troubles. Procopius decided to advance at once and win the victory swiftly. On 9 August 1131, the Battle of Hadrianople took place between the Romans as Goths, a sight chosen with no small tactical wit by the Gothic leadership. The Romans held their own early on but were crushed by the surprise arrival of Visigoth cavalry which split their ranks. Procopius had left a sizeable portion of his forces west, in case of further Frankish and Alemannic incursions, depleting his force. His right cavalry wing arrived at the Gothic camp sometime before the left wing arrived. It was a very hot day and the Roman cavalry was engaged without strategic support, wasting its efforts while they suffered in the heat. Meanwhile, Fritigern once again sent an emissary of peace in his continued manipulation of the situation. The resultant delay meant that the Romans present on the field began to succumb to the heat. The army's resources were further diminished when an ill-timed attack by the Roman archers made it necessary to recall Procopius' emissary. The archers were beaten and retreated in humiliation. Returning from foraging to find the battle in full swing, Gothic cavalry under the command of Althaeus and Saphrax now struck and, in what was probably the most decisive event of the battle, the Roman cavalry fled. Procopius was "mortally wounded by an arrow, and presently breathed his last breath". This action turned the tide of the battle which resulted in a tactical victory but a strategic loss. When the battle was over, two-thirds of the Roman army lay dead. Many of their best officers had also perished. What was left of the army of Procopius was led from the field under the cover of night. For Rome, the battle incapacitated the government, unable to deal with the catastrophe, which spread out of control.

Eugenius and Theodosius

In a move of desire to stabilize and better control the Empire, it was split into two halves once again. In the West, Procopius’ desired replacement, Eugenius, was declared Augustus while in the East, Theodosius, newly anointed commander of the Illyrian forces, was hailed co-Augustus. Theodosius had risen under Julian, promoted a number of times by Julian himself. It was therefore with some irony that the Christian Theodosius wound up ruling the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which Julian had set about with so much tact, cunning, and work to bring to Hellenism. One might consider that had Julian not attempted to show himself as non-persecutory (though his School Edict and other policies countered that very notion) and raised up Theodosius (though he undoubtedly deserved promotion by his victories), the east would perhaps not have had its Christian hero in the form of Theodosius. But as things turned out, this cemented the West-East, Hellene-Christian split, in the form of Eugenius-Theodosius. Theodosius campaigned against Goths and other barbarians who had invaded the Empire, though his resources were not sufficient to destroy them or drive them out, which had been Roman policy for centuries in dealing with invaders. By treaty, which followed his indecisive victory at the end of the Gothic War, they were established as foederati, autonomous allies of the Empire, south of the Danube, in Illyricum, within the Empire's borders. They were given lands and allowed to remain under their own leaders, a grave departure from Roman hegemonic ways. This turn away from traditional policies was accommodationist and had grave consequences for the Empire from the beginning of the century, as the Romans found themselves with the impossible task of defending the borders and dealing with unruly federates within. He issued decrees that effectively made Nicene Christianity the official state church of the Eastern Roman Empire and, additionally, a rift began that saw the two halves as more and increasingly autonomous from one another. He neither prevented nor punished the destruction of prominent Hellenistic temples of classical antiquity, including the Temple of Apollo in Delphi and the Serapeum in Alexandria, both incidents that sent shockwaves and outrage across the Western Roman Empire. Theodosius banned the Olympic games, declaring the even a pagan celebration and setting up the stage for a Latin coup of the sporting even that would last centuries.

Eugenius’ successor, Nicomachus Flavianus, was the first to declare the Olympic Games reborn in Milan during the latter half of his reign, AUC 1183. Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius amplified the games during his reign, 1280 to 1283.

Romania Resurgent
Julius Nepos’ appointment as Augustus of the Western Roman Empire by Eastern Emperor Leo I was immediately unfavorable to the inhabitants of the West. A Christian emperor had not sat the Western throne since before Julian and religious division had solidified heartily by this time. The reign of Nepos ended in AUC 1228, when Orestes, his Magister Militum, deposed him and usurped the government at Ravenna on August 28, forcing Nepos to flee by ship to Roman Dalmatia. In the same year, Orestes enthroned his teenage son as the new Western Roman Emperor with the regnal name Romulus Augustus. Born to a Roman aristocratic family from Pannonia Savia, Orestes was son of Tatulus, a devoutly religious Hellene, and son-in-law to Romulus, who served as comes in the Western Roman Empire. After Pannonia was ceded to Attila the Hun, Orestes joined Attila's court, reaching high position as a secretary (notarius) in AUC 1202.

In AUC 1228 Flavius Odovacer, allied with Orestes, dealt a decisive blow to Emperor Julius Nepos at the Battle of Istria. Nepos became legitimate only in the eyes of the Eastern Emperor, Zeno. Odoacer was made magister militum of the Western Roman Empire, which by now was reduced to Italia, Raetia, Noricum, Sequania, and the Dominion of Sygarius in northwestern Gaul, unconnected physically to the rest of the Empire.

Odoacer began a campaign against the Visigoths in 1230, gradually and decisively pushing west until, in AUC 1234, he defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Arelate and restored Provence to the Empire. In 1239 Sygarius met defeat by King Clovis of the Franks. Sygarius’ route home, to Rome, was blocked by the Visigothic remnant, causing the Gallic-Romans to turn towards Armorica where Sygarius fled into Britannia – proving to be a boon to the struggling Romano-Britons at war with invading Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and Iutes.

By 1240 Odoacer had subdued the unruly Rugians inside the Noricum borders and reestablished stability along the Danube. 1241 Saw the return of Nepos with the Eastern Roman army at his back, with tit-for-tat skirmishes around the Dalmatian border. The Siege of Ravenna in AUC 1246 ended in a victory for the 33 year old Emperor Romulus and the Eastern army fled into Dalmatia, broken. Odoacer, however, lost his life in the battle, though his body was never recovered. The loss of the brilliant strategist and chief supporter of Romulus was a significant blow to Western aims.

Romulus brokered a peace with Eastern Emperor Anastasius I and Julius Nepos. The Empire was split in three – Western, Eastern, and Dalmatian, with Romulus ruling the first, Anasatius the second, and Nepos contained, unhappily, within Dalmatia.

The Frankish invasion of Aquitaine and subsequent death of Visigoth King Alaric II at the hands of King Clovis resulted in the annexation of Aquitaina by the Franks in 1260 and a more direct confrontation with the Franks began. Romulus was kept busy containing Frankish expansion and was able to help the Visigoths keep Septimania after two Frankish invasions. In 1263 Romulus defeated the Vandals decisively at sea and seized Corsica and Sardinia before a decisive battle outside of Carthage saw the Vandal realms and Mauretania returned to the Roman fold.

Romulus began a reform of the Roman Army in 1268, rebuilding the navy, and establishing a series of fortresses along the frontier zones in a move to consolidate the Western Empire. He also initiated forced transfers of Germanic tribes living within the Empire, all of which would result in his leaving a much strong Western realm to his grandson, Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes. Probus Orestes became Augustus on the death of his grandfather's successor Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius of natural causes, in AUC 1283. Probus Orestes began a massive effort to re-establish Roman supremacy in the West, building on the success of his grandfather. The Balearic Islands were retaken in 1288, next the Franks were attacked, culminating in a hard-won campaign from 1289 to 1292, restoring what had been Burgundian lands, then Frank, and now Roman once again. In 1295 Probus Orestes began a campaign against the Gothic Kingdom in Iberia. The campaign proved brutal and Iberia was decimated. King Theudis of the Goths was defeated and routed at the Battle of Saragossa and, simultaneously, Cartegena fell to the Romans. Toledo was taken after a siege in 1298. King Theudis was finally defeated and killed in the Battle of Seville AUC 1299. The last Visigoth warlords surrendered to Probus Orestes in 1301.

The Franks, attempting to take the Romans while they were occupied in Iberia, attacked Septimania and Burgundy in 1301 but were driven back by the Roman General Vitalius who followed up by taking the city of Luon in 1303.

Emperor Probus Orestes died in 1305, of natural causes, and his chosen successor, Vitalius, was given the purple. Flavius Patriciolus Vitalius Burgundicus is a somewhat shrouded figure, described as short of stature but widely lauded for his personal bravery and military skills, Vitalius may have been of either partial Gothic or Dacian stock, perhaps both.

Vitalius saw off an attempted invasion by the Lombards in Noricum and Venetia, driving them across the Alps in 1328. The counter was only partly successful and the Lombards kept the eastern part of Noricum. This portion of Noricum was the only part Vitalius failed, however, instead seeing remarkable success elsewhere. The last attempt by the Alemanni was subdued, in large part thanks to the strengthened borders from the previous two Emperors. He succeeded in pushing the Franks north and established the border at the river Liger, which he fortified. Two forays into Basque territory were unsuccessful and the effort was not reattempted. It was by this point that the Western Empire had reached the current borders, with the addition of a bit, that we have today. Vitalius spent the remainder of his reign consolidating the gains of his predecessors as well as his own. Following the example begun by Romulus and continued by Probus Orestes, Vitalius enacted a colonial policy and peopled the reconquered and depopulated areas with waves of settlers from Italia, which had in turn seen a population boom and was largely unscathed form the turmoil of the last century, both plague and war.

AUC 1330 saw the death of Vitalius, like his two predecessors from natural causes. The favored life-span of these three was well commented by contemporaries, such as Caecina Agorius, who declared, “Zeus-Helios surely smiles divinely on our Realm,” as he further noted the troubling Slavic invasions and Persian resurgence in the Eastern Roman Empire. His statements also give a hint at the growing view that the Western Romans and Eastern Romans were two different people and, rather than two governed halves of one realm, that they were two antagonistic rivals. Vitalus’ successor, Volusianus Anicius Maximus, a capable military man, but young and brash and quick to anger, spent his rule largely uneventfully, dying in an attempt to put down a religious revolt in Carthage in 1340. Carthage and the former Vandal territories, excepting Corsica and Sardinia, would remain separate and a hearty mixture of the devoutly Christian – looking to the Eastern Roman Empire for support - neighbored with Hellenes and traditional animists.. This, coupled with the continued Eastern Roman claim over Magna Graecia, caused a diplomatic issue in both halves of the Roman world. This would come to a clash in AUC 1355.

Belisários' Civil War (AUC 1288 to 1289)

Simultaneous to Probus Orestes' invasion of the Franks came an attack from Eastern Roman Emperor Ioustinianós. The war was directed and led by Eastern military commander Belisários, who assembled 4,000 troops, which included regular troops and Gothic foederati, 3,000 Isaurians, 300 Moors and 200 Huns. In total, including his personal guards, his force numbered roughly 8,000. Belisários landed in Sicilia and took the island in order to use it as a base against Italia. Ioustinianós wanted to pressure Probus Orestes into relinquishing his throne and to then annex the Western Empire through diplomacy and limited military action while the West was occupied with the Franks and the Goths on their western side. The civil war can clearly be seen through religious tones. Eastern Roman Emperor Ioustinianós, as in his secular administration, despotism appeared also in his ecclesiastical policy. He regulated everything, both in religion and in law. At the very beginning of his reign, he deemed it proper to promulgate by law the Church's belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation, and to threaten all heretics with the appropriate penalties and began a particularly detailed campaign to rid the Eastern Roman realm of Hellenes. The invasion used the pretense of persecution against Christians in the West coupled with the death of Orestes' wife Amalasuntha. The Gothic queen of the Western Empire, Amalasuntha, had played a key role in keeping the peace between the two halves of the Roman Empire and historians believe she had been attempting to persuade Orestes to convert to Christianity, a religion she practiced. It is likely that Ioustinianós had held out hope that the queen would succeed and, upon her death, decided to force the matter.

The war was brief. The occupation of the Western army against the Franks cleared the way for the Eastern Romans to march up Italia and besiege Rome. The siege dragged on and Belisários' army was forced to retreat from a Western Roman relief force arriving from the north led by Western Emperor Orestes himself. Belisários succeeded in taking Magna Graecia, that is southern Italia, and Africa and a quick peace deal was brokered between the two sides settling the matter on this. This unexpected invasion by the Eastern Emperor revealed the rip in the unity of the Roman Empire, the irreconcilability of the two competing religions, and the disregard the emperor in Constantinople had for the emperor in Milan.

The Yellow Plague

The Yellow Plague of AUC 1289-1295 saw a mortality rate of 40 to 80 percent across the Roman Empire and beyond. The cause of the plague is still unconfirmed, but the leading theories suggest Smallpox or Bubonic. The Plague seemed to spread with the movement of conflict westward and would, together with the ravaging of the land via the on-going warfare and other deaths related to such martial chapters in history, claim 80 percent of the populations in the lands regained by the Western Roman Empire. Losses in northern Gaul, outside of the Roman realm, is estimated at 20 to 30 percent, while 60 percent for western Francia and the Roman regions north of the Alps, and 75 to 80 percent for Aquitania and Iberia.

Probus Orestes’ quarantine of Italia, along with a lack of conflict along the Apennine peninsula, saw a remarkable stability and population boom. The Emperor took a step further and quarantined the colonial resettlements enacted by his predecessor, Romulus, turning them into islands of fortresses across the reconquered territories. This move is largely seen today as an act of biological warfare, allowing Orestes an interesting tactical view of the situation the Yellow Plague presented. The quarantine failed in many of these external areas, but was fairly successful across the board. Attributed to this even is the sudden quick spread of the Vulgar Latin dialect that was being promoted in Italia, supplanting many of the existing dialects in reconquered areas. Genealogical traces are evident as well, with a fairly seamless stamp across Romania today that was, speculatively and, research into DNA suggests, more confined to the Apennine Peninsula before the Yellow Plague. Probus Orestes is, subsequently, vilified for understanding his actions as spreading this disease and death along with his war of reconquest – arguably an act of genocide.

The Great Schism
Known by a number of names - the First War of Religion, The Great Schism, the Greco-Roman War, and the Western Roman-Eastern Roman War, this conflict that erupted in AUC 1355 between the two halves of the Roman Empire had largely religions overtones. Territory, economics, language, and culture all had roles as well. Phocas, Eastern Roman Emperor, moved forces from Magna Graecia into Italia in an attempt to besiege Rome. Most history believe that Liberius had intended to retake Magna Graecia from the Eastern Emperor and, as a preemptive, Phocas decided to act first. The Western Emperor, Liberius, took as a declaration of war naturally enough. Liberius’ intent was set to dethrone Phocas and rule the Empire as a single entity again, with Western contemporaries viewing the conflict in the guise of another Civil War. Eastern contemporaries saw it as a war against Hellenism and in defense of Christianity and as Roman against Greek and, notably, revenge for the recent Purge of Rome. However, because of Phokas' incompetence and brutality, the Exarch of Carthage, Iraklios the Elder, rebelled against him early in the war. This is significant also in that Carthage had a prominent Christian population, likely the majority (even as the countryside around the city remained Hellene and animist). This may have resulted in the lag that the Western Roman's took in responding as they allowed events to unfold in Carthage. Iraklios the Elder's son, Iraklios, succeeded in taking Constantinople on 5 October 1363, and executed Phokas on the same day, before declaring himself the Eastern Roman

Emperor. Iraklios declared for peace with Liberius but the offer was denied.

The Great Schism ran alongside the Greco-Sasanian War, the former lasting until AUC 1370. Both sides ended the conflict exhausted. The Western Roman’s, henceforth known as the Roman Empire and, frequently, Romania, gained back Magna Graecia; the Eastern Roman’s, henceforth known as the Empire of the Greeks, retained Africa. Dalmatia was reestablished, as it had been under Nepos, as an independent entity under joint governance by both Empires – a sort of buffer zone. Iraklios was able to turn his full attention to the ongoing Sasanian War and, in 1375, scored a decisive but costly victory against Shahrbaraz and his Persians, pushing them from Anatolia. A ceasefire was agreed to in the east, with Persia gaining Judea, established as a loose protectorate and a reborn Jewish realm, the Commonwealth of Judea, as well as now directly controlling Assyria, Armenia, and pushing their boarder to the Caucasus.

Third Age - Postclassical Era (AUC 1370 to 2100)
The Roman Empire spent the century following the Great Schism in a state of repair. The war, along with its adjacent conflict, the Greco-Sasanian War, exhausted the three great empires, Roman, Greek, and Persian. A string of emperors in Romania spent time rebuilding the borders and restoring order to the lands that had been reconquered. Notable among them was Augustus Olympius, a Hellene refugee from Constantinople. Emperor Olympius spent the early 1400s building the Olympian Wall along the entire length of Romania's northern border and connecting it to fortresses along the mountainous eastern border. This is significant in revealing the mindset of Olympius, which he adopted from his predecessors following the Schism. Defense became the rule and it seems the notion of expansion, as in the earlier era of the Roman Empire, was not a thought entertained. The vast amount of money and energy spent on defense reflects this. This is also likely influenced by the growing power and might of Francia to the north, with its expansion and annexation of nearly all of its Germanic neighbors, the growing formidable power of the Lombards, also expanding, and the Gepids, both to the east, and the proven strength of the Greeks, inheritors of the Eastern Empire. The disparate tribal neighbors was a thing of the past and the Romans understood that the new balance in Europe was not to be treated the same.

In AUC 1405 Emperor Olympius, breaking with the standard he had firmly held onto, non-expansion, invaded Vasconia. The intent was to annex, or in Roman eyes reconquer, the Vasconic lands. The catalyst of this was repeated raids by Vascones into the surrounding Roman lands. The raids had been occurring for a century and had heightened significantly under Olympius' reign. His army was demolished in the mountain passes of southern Vasconia, where Olympius was killed.

The Saracen Wars Emperor Scholasticus, like Olympius, was a Hellene refugee from Greece, though unlike Olympius his exact origin is unknown, but Asia Minor is believed the be the most likely candidate. Scholasticus, like his predecessors, determined to not expand, and spent much of his reign fighting defensive wars. He notably solidified the alliance between Domonia, Cambria and Romania, with the three realms aiding one another in seeing off Frankish attempts at invasion, especially of Domonia. Scholasticus also oversaw officially sanctioned Hellene proselytizing to Hibernia. The island had already witnessed Roman and Cambrian priests since at least the 1350s. Scholasticus was the first to give an official mission in this regard and the Romans found warm welcome in Hibernia - as it may have already been a good step into becoming fully Hellene.

Scholasticus additionally fought off repeated Avar and Slavic raids from the east, aiding the budding Lombard and Gepid kingdoms in an effort to stem these attacks. This strengthening of Romania's neighbors succeeded in stemming this flow. The greatest threat, however, arrived from the rapidly expanding Arabian Empire. Romania lost all North Libian possessions, suffered several damaging raids in Sicilia and Sardinia, and watched the traditional rivals, Greece and Persia, succumb to this new power. Sicilia was ultimately overrun and an Islamic conquest took all of Magna Graecia from Romania. The 1400s was a trying time for Romania and her former sister-realm, Grecia. Islamic raids continued across the Mediterranean and Armenia succumb to the invasions as well. Internally Romania was witnessing its regrowth, delayed from the time of the Migration Era through the reconquest and after. The invention of the heavy plow in Rhineland Romania was one example of many inventions and ideas that began to come into being and a steady population growth continued.

Augustus of the North
Elevated in 1522, Emperor Mauricius Galba, born in Heraclea, bore witness to a rebirth of Roman military professionalism. The Legions had, by most accounts, grown lackluster since the post Schism era. Galba revamped the army, using manuals from the Classical Era as guides, and investing in military technology. Growing conflict with Francia occured when Frankish king Carl Magnus married the Lombard princess Desiderata, a move Galba opposed, and protested the Frankish-Lombard alliance. The threat looming from Galba resulted in a divorce by Carl Magnus, who remarried a Frankish princess. A daughter from this second union, Hruodrud, would be betrothed to Galba's son and heir, Felicius Galba. This move secured Romania's northern border and created a shield against the increasingly powerful Carl Magnus. This was also a significant event in Frankish history and Galba bestowed on Carl Magnus the title Augustus of the Franks. It was symbolic, a hollow form of the previous two-emperor system of the Roman Empire before the Schism. But the prestige it culminated for the Franks was immense and would have repercussions for much of central and eastern Europe.

The Arab invasion of Hispania in the 1460s/50s was now able to be countered with Frankish support and the renewed power of the Legions. Though repelled in 1513 across the Pyrenees by Roman forces, the Arabs had firmly rooted themselves in Hispania up to those mountains. In 1526 a Roman-Frankish force crossed the Pyrenees into Hispania and, by 1539, pushed the Muslim forces across the Tagus, the new frontier. Skirmishes would continue along this frontier for centuries and the Romans would ultimately create a formidable line of fortresses along it. Hispania was devastated during this reconquest, but the Islamic threat was subdued.

Raiders from Scandia

In 1546 raiders from Scandia poured across the Germanic Sea and attacked targets far and wide. In the 1590s several raids took place along the western coast, ravaging Vasconia as well. In 1613 the Viking raiders attacked as far south as Luna before sacking Pisa and Fesula, making off with slaves and booty. The Hispanian coast was raided and settled as well.

In AUC 1613 a significant raid took place off the coast of Galicia, confronted by a significant force of Romans. This was part of what seems to have been a three-year campaign by the Vikings along northern Hispania.

"The expedition seems to have involved a large band of adventurers. Returning to the scene of Viking incursions in Roman Hispania and al-Andalus, but meeting with little success, they sailed on to raid targets on the shores of the Mediterranean. Here they may have taken captives for ransom or to trade as slaves. Vikings seem to have over-wintered in Romania, perhaps waiting on the northern shore of the Mediterranean for favourable tides and currents to exit the sea through the Pillars of Hercules. They then sailed to Italia, Alexandria and Constantinople"

This took place during the reign of Emperor Ranimirus and his personal interest in the Hispania theater may have been due to Hispania being his birthplace. It is known that Ranimirus took part in the conflict directly, but the 1613 Battle of Catora may have not involved him. It is believed to be the site of Hrómundr Gripsson's Saga and his legendary obtaining the sword Mistilteinn which first belonged to Þráinn, who had been king in Valland (Romania) before he retired in his burial mound with his wealth and was now a draugr. The story runs, "The Danish king Óláfr and his men, among whom Hrómundr Gripsson, learnt about that and found the barrow. Þráinn, who had become a draugr (living dead) was sitting inside, once a king of Valland. No one but Hrómundr dared to enter. After a long and fierce fight, he defeated Þráinn and took his treasure, especially his sword, with which Þráinn had killed four hundred and twenty men, including the Swedish king Semingr." Futher, "Þráinn, In the Scandian Hrómundar Saga, was a mighty berserker and sorcerer and King of Valland (Romania). He had done much evil. He was so old that he no longer wanted to know adversity, so he retired into his barrow, taking with him his sword, armor, and much wealth". It is unknown if Þráinn was Ranimirus or simply inspired by the numerous barrows, or tumuli, of northern Galicia.

The Viking threat would not subside until the AUC 1950s, a 400 year span of coastal terror. Rivers began to become more secure to the Scandian threat as Romania and her neighbors fortified them and so went the coast. Coastal areas were more difficult to guard, however, expansive as they were. Romania implemented a system similar to the border forts and constructed watch towers and garrisons along significant points along the coast, at distances which would allow aid for troubled towns. This gave Romania a lasting boon and the Viking raids on Romania, though not stopping, diminished significantly and many of those that were launched met a bloody end.

It was in these prisoners that the Germanic Guard was formed. A conscious revival of the Numerus Batavorum and a possible mimic of the Grecian Varangian Guard, formed in the 1650s, this body of Imperial Guard was composed principally of Scandians who originated along the western, or Norway, coast of Scandia. It was supplemented heavily by Frankish and Frisian volunteers. The Germanic Guard would never grow to the size or prestige of the Varangian Guard and remained principally a palace guard in Ravena and Milan and maintained garrisons along coastal areas. These coastal forts were settlements, foederati type agreements, whereby Scandian raiders who had been defeated were given coastal lands to farm, with forts built, and had Romans settled with them, thus encouraged to marry into the populace of Romania. The logic here was integration coupled with protection from Vikings by those who knew their tactics best.

Return of CarthageIn AUC 1636 Emperor Ursus Tradonicus began an invasion of Africa, taking advantage of the disintegration of the Arabian Empire in the 1620s. The Persians had a heavy impact on the Arabs in the east, from Tabaristan slowly completing a reconquest culminating in the taking of Cstesiphon in 1630 which resulted in the Persian explosion towards the Mediterranean and conquest of Syria and Judea. Egypt in turn revolted and declared themselves for the Greek Empire, who responded in turn. Grecia additionally took advantage of the chaos and invaded lands of the Sicilian Emirate, taking all but the island of Trinacria. Romania, all the while, swept into Africa and retook Carthage by 1639. The Islamic successor realms on the western end of Europe and Libia solidified and survived the collapse, proving to be formidable opponents for Romania. Tradonicus was unable to push beyond Africa and Mauritania remained outside of Roman control despite a widespread Hellene revolt across northwest Libia against the Islamic entities.

The First Sacred War
There was a near disintegration of Greek control over the Balkans during the late 16th/early 17th centuries AUC. Additionally the Greeks faced a continued onslaught from a reinvigorated Persian Empire and continued robust attacks from the Sicilian Emirate and Arabic holders-on along the Levant.

The Bear Emperor

Into this chaos plunged Romania, led by Tribunus Urseolus. The Roman Emperor Urseolus is remember widely for his martial prowess. His origins are obscure and popular legend claims he rose from humble beginnings in the eastern Alps from a forest-clan. Urseolus began is career in the Roman legions. It is commonly accepted that Urseolus probably joined the army at around age twenty. It is also generally assumed that, though a member of the lower ranks, Urseolus' career is more easily understood if it is assumed that his family carried a tradition of military service, thus causing him to be enlisted as an equestrian, or knight. This could be a more expeditious route to senior military and procuratorial offices than that pursued by ex-rankers, although not necessarily less laborious. Urseolus certainly built up a very solid reputation for military competence during the tumultuous mid-decades of the century. Urseolus' ascension to Augustus came about as a result of the murky death of Ursus Tradonicus' son and heir. The notion of hereditary succession was still fraught in Rome and the Senate broadly opposed it. The tradition had remained to name a successor and to best avoid nepotism as one could. This tradition was ignored during periods of Roman history and had broadly been for the recent past. The likely influence of the Franks playing into this, with sons inheriting. The death of Rufus Tradonicus and subsequent elevation of Urseolus by the legions, was likely a planned event though still unproven. Urseolus was described as a tall man, broad and greatly bearded, "handsomely faced and proportioned," as described by his contemporaries, his long nose and "eagles furrow" were commented upon. His preference for combat and well known religious devotion proved enough kindling to ignite a religious war. In AUC 1663 Urseolus declared what he termed a Sacred War to free Delphi and Athens and to come to the aid of the Maina, a Hellene people in the southern reaches of Grecia. The Romans succeeded in taking parts of Grecia, from Thessaly and south. The Slavenians and Arabs took advantage of the chaos with the former occupying nearly the entirety of the Balkans and the latter re-invading Egypt in conquest. The war ran for two years and the Grecians found themselves in disarray for its duration.

The Great Northern Threat

The 1700s and 1800s were spent with wary gazes northwards. Across the Rhine the Frankish Empire was expanding territoriality and in population. Technological advances trickled north from Romania and farming advances saw a population boom. The Veletians grew as a rival of Francia in the north, with both influencing that direction that Scandia, to their north, would go.

Roman Augustus Vitalis Tegalianus would spend the mid 1750s courting the Veletians and opened up trade with them. Initial routes were established by sea, strengthening Cambria simultaneously, and by land, choosing a Lombard route rather than Frankish in order to curb said empire's boom. AUC 1753 bore the culmination of these happenings with the Battle of Svold. Though not directly involved, Romania held sway over the situation that unfolded in northern Europe. Burislav, King of Venetia, had his daughter wed to the King of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason, via the machinations of Emperor Vitalis. Olaf had taken on Hellenism as his own and had gone about a reformation of the folk-tradition beliefs of the Scandians. This move angered many and created enemies beyond count in Scandia. Vitalis had hope that Olaf would, now converted, bring Scandia under the Hellene fold, thereby nipping the Viking threat in the bud, creating a powerful state above Francia and thus reducing their threat, and also potentially create a new ally.

Svold ended in victory for Olaf and Burislav and the Scandian would continue a conquest of the entirety of that land. Far from being a united and powerful state to throw Francia off balance, this created a void and chaos. Though held as a unitary realm, Scandia remained in perpetual off-and-on civil war for centuries. It became a further breeding ground for raiders and the Viking tide did not stem, nor did Francia find a threat as the disunity in the unity that was Scandia prevented this. Lastly, Olaf ended up taking Hellenism and, some scholars believe, Christianity, and painted a new and organized religion of his own, based off of the Northmen's traditional beliefs; thus was born Heathenism. In a bizarre similiarity, the given name for this faith, Heathenism, was based on the word 'heathen', attested as the Gothic haithn, which was adopted by Gothic and later Gepid Christian missionaries as the equivalent of both the Greek word Hellenis (Hellene) - the word was used by Early Christian writers in Europe to describe non-Christians or those practicing the old traditions. In essence, Olaf did adopt Hellenism only altered severely, for the north, and not at all what Vitalis had intended.

The 1600s-1700s witnessed a mass raid from Hungarians, looting their way into the Italian peninsula and sacking smaller undefended settlements and farms. In 1652 the Hungarians had rolled over the Pannonian plain and defeated a Roman army in the Battle of Brenta, though they were shortly after this routed by another Roman force and via combined Roman-Gepid strength repelled across the Carpathians. The next fifty years witnessed a solidification of Hungarian hold on their northern Carpathian environs and the tribe was considered settled. They continued consistent harassment and raids into the Carpathian basin, Pannonia, and beyond, into Francia, Gepidia, and Lombardy. Unable to conquer but unable to fully demolished, the Hungarians became a sort of horse-bound Viking of the grass. In AUC 1700 the Hungarians poured forth in force, raiding deep into Romania and her nieghbors. They raided as far as Hispania and the coast of Gallia, raiding Vasconia to Saxony and between. The Hungarians were finally checked in 1710 at the Battle of Augusta by a massive Roman force. Minor raids continued into 1720 but the power of the Hungarians had been broken.

The attacks opened Roman eyes to the weakness of their eastern border. The north, guarded by rivers a wall and forts, was also succeptable, as the Hungarians merely went through the east or through Francia and around the principal Roman border of the north. The Romans answered by building up the eastern frontier, though much of it mountainous made this difficult. Even so, Romania had another wave of withdrawal, internal building guided by paranoia of raiders from abroad, seemingly consistent since the Migration Era and wearing down moral.

A Language for the Vulgar

Emperor Torgodoriu introduced the Carta Vulgare in AUC 1823. This was a pivotal moment and a monumental action. Previously the official tongue of Romania had been Latin, as spoken for centuries. The reality was that the language had changed through the eras. The vulgar tongue was common and widespread and fairly different. Though the unity of the empire reduced this and the spread of migrants from Italia in numerous waves previously had aided some commonness across Romania, there was still great distance and the language changed regardless. Torgodoriu, hailing from Sardinia, took not of the speech in the streets of the cities he visited around Romania. The Augustus took a peculiar interest in language and studied it - sadly his writing on the topic has been lost. The culmination of his work was the Carta Vulgare, a standardized Vulgar Latin to be used across Romania. The emperor spent funds on schooling programs, buildings, and teachers across Romania in order to make his idea more effective. The hoped for outcome was a more unified linguistic realm and, as a result, a more unified realm. The language was dubbed Romanian and is the standardized tongue the country has added to to this day.

The Second Sacred War
The catalyst for the Second Sacred War was the Massacre of the Hellenes in AUC 1935 in Constantinople. The Roman, Greek, and Wallachian Hellenes of Constantinople at that time dominated the city's maritime trade and financial sector. Although precise numbers are unavailable, the bulk of the Hellene community, estimated at 60,000 at the time by Eustathius of Thessalonica, was wiped out or forced to flee. Some 4,000 survivors were sold as slaves to the Persians. The massacre further worsened relations and increased enmity between the Hellenes and Christians, and a sequence of hostilities between the two followed.

Roman emperor Henricus Dandulus chose the Massacre as his cassus belli though it is widely understood that he had machinations on the conquest of Constantinople and the rebirth of the old, larger, Roman realm.

To take the city by force, the Romans first needed to cross the Bosphorus. About 200 ships delivered the Roman army across the narrow strait, where Alexios III had lined up the Grecian army in battle formation along the shore, north of the suburb of Galata. The Roman equites charged straight out of the horse transports, and the Grecian army fled south. The Romans followed and attacked the Tower of Galata, which held the northern end of the massive chain that blocked access to the Golden Horn. The Tower of Galata held a garrison of mercenary troops of Cambrian, Scandian, and even Roman origin. As the Romans laid siege to the Tower, the defenders routinely attempted to sally out with some limited success, but often suffered bloody losses. On one occasion the defenders sallied out but were unable to retreat back to the safety of the tower in time, the Roman forces viciously counterattacked, with most of the defenders being cut down or drowning in the Bosporus in their attempts to escape. The tower was swiftly taken as a result. The Golden Horn now lay open to the Romans.

Grecian emperor Alexios III finally took offensive action, leading 17 divisions from the St. Romanus Gate, outnumbering the Romans only slightly. Alexios III's courage failed, and the Grecian army returned to the city without a fight. The unforced retreat and the effects of the previous screening fire by the Romans greatly damaged morale, and the disgraced Alexios III abandoned his subjects, slipping out of the city and fleeing to Mosynopolis in Thrace. The Romans sacked Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient Greco-Roman and postclassical Grecian works of art were stolen or ruined. Many of the civilian population of the city were killed and their property looted. The Romans destroyed, defiled and looted the city's churches and monasteries.

The fall of Constantinople shocked the Christian world deeply. The call-to-arms of all Christians had only been answered by the Slavenians while the Gepids dallied. The Romans mopped up their conquest by grabbing the remainder of the European possessions of the Grecian Empire, leaving only a Grecian rump-state in western Anatolia, with the Persian's looming over them. Henricus Dandulus installed his son, Rainerius Dandulus, as Eastern Emperor and restored the old split dynamic of Western and Eastern Roman Empires, linked.

The death of Henricus Dandulus in AUC 1958 saw Rainerius Dandulus as the solitary emperor of the Roman Empire. Rainerius continued to rule from Constantinople and spent most of his rule, like his father, attempting to Hellenize the Christian east. The one highlight for Rainerius was the fealty declared by the Wallachians, described as a "Hellene island in a sea of Christians". The Wallachians would prove to be extremely dedicated fighters to what they considered their now reconnected mother-state, the Roman Empire. However, endless Christian revolts sprang up across the east and continued harrassment from the Gepids and Slavenians made the situation nearly untenable. The boiling pot overflowed in 1993 with a full invasion by the Slavenians under their emperor, Ivan II. The war in the Balkans was brief but incredibly bloody, with both sides suffering catastrophic losses. The Romans were ultimately pushed back into Thessaly, narrowly holding onto Delphi in a bloody last stand, remembered as the Battle of Delphi and famous in the annals of Hellenism. Constantinople fell in AUC 1995 and Rainerius Dandulus was blinded and taken prisoner by Ivan II. The Slavenians absorbed the former Byzantine lands into their own, forging what is known now as the Slavo-Byzantine Empire.

The Mongol Invasions
Aeliana Dandulus, Rainerius' 25 year old daughter, now ruled as Empress in Romania. Having fled from Constantinople in the final days of the Slavenian siege, Aeliana showed up in Ravena and declared herself Empress. The realm was in chaos however, with the army withered in the Balkans and the Mongol invasion beginning in earnest, with attacks in Wallachia (a region still claiming to be part of the Roman Empire). Tens of thousands of Wallachians lost their lives defending their territories. Crops and goods plundered from Wallachian settlements seem to have been a primary supply source for the Mongol Golden Horde. The invaders killed up to half of the population and burned down most of their settlements, thus destroying much of the cultural and economic records from that period. The army of Gepidia offered little resistance against the Mongols. The swiftness of the invasion took many by surprise and forced them to retreat and hide in forests and the enclosed valleys of the Carpathians. In the end, however, the main target of the invasion was the Kingdom of Gepidia. The Mongols cut through the Balkans and met their first defeat at Clissa in Dalmatia. The invasion was hardly slowed, however, and continued the full conquest of Gepidia. The tide was finally stemmed in Lombardy by a combined Lombard-Roman force. The Romans arrived quite by chance, moving north after the disaster of the Slavenian War, into friendly Lombard lands. The fortuitous arrival of the Romans, beaten as they were, may have aided the Lombards in their decisive victory against the Mongols.

The War of the Augustas
Trouble continued brewing at home. In AUC 1996 the pretender and Equites Marcus Cornarius rose up in Venetsia, intent to wrestle the throne from Aeliana, and the Frankish Emperor Diderich II Kleve likewise made plans on the Roman purple. Allegiences in Rome splintered and Cornarius obtained loyalty from most of eastern and southern Romania, save for Ravena and other pockets, while Aeliana retained the north and the west. Cornarius moved the capital to Rome and began planning his campaign to oust Aeliana from her base in Argenta. The two Roman factions have become known as the Empire in Argenta and the Empire in Rome.

Aeliana Dandulus also hailed from Venetsia, born there, though the Dandulus family had their origins in Belgica et Germania Province (a potential reason for her decision of Argenta as her later capital). Aeliana was described as small, as a lithe woman, brown eyed and swarthy, of long lashes and unibrowed. The sources describe her as either attractive or alluring. Her fondness for hawking and birds is also commented upon. Her personality is equally favored by contemporary writers, described as "one to be deep in thought" and laconic as well as charitable and pious.

The Cornarius reasoning for the war was manyfold. A principal cause was the desire to see the repetitive nepotism of the past few decades, though not constant but fairly persistent, come to an end. Dynasties had grown common in Romania since the end of the Second Age, but the principal of hereditary succession was never formalized in Romania, and hereditary succession was a custom rather than an inviolable principle. This differed Romania from many surrounding states. Said states and their hereditary customs no doubt influenced the growing habit of Romanian hereditary succession. Marcus Cornarius saw this as a threat to Romanitas. His move of the capital to Rome, centuries after it had last held that honor, is a reflection of his desire to shift the empire to older mores. That Aeliana was a woman was also a contentious issue. Like hereditary succession, there was no hard rule that said a woman could not rule as Augusta alone, but tradition held it to be an issue. Ulpia Severina had been Romania's only Augusta who ruled the empire, though her reign was very brief and came about due to the death of emperor Aurelian (ACU 1028), lasting less than a year. Severina did mint coins in her likeness, however, suggesting an accepted legitimacy. This practice was also reflected by Aeliana. The disasters of Aeliana's forebear was the additional catalyst for change and thus civil war.

Aeliana was pressured by her council to marry though this was a task she held off. Augusta Aeliana first turned her attention to the north and the gathering Frankish forces. The Frankish forces launched a successful assault on the Olympian Wall and crossed the Rhine while the bulk of the Roman forces remained in the south to counter the threat from Cornarius. The Franks continued to ravage the land and routed two smaller Roman forces that came to meet them. In the autumn of AUC 1996 the bulk of the two armies finally clashed at the Battle of Argenta. Diderich II had the city as his principal war-goal, aiming to take Aeliana's capital and the empress as well, thereby gaining the empire in one fell swoop. The Frankish origins to claim of the Roman Empire date to the declaration of Carl Magnus as an honorific Northern Augustus by Mauricius Galba in the 16th century AUC. Numerous Frankish emperors (no longer kings) had since claimed the two empires were halves of one and should be united, under Frankish sovereignty. The notion that much of the Frankish lands had been integral parts of the Roman Empire, including an old capital city, solidified this belief.

The battle outside of Argenta in the spring of 1997 was a bloody affair and both sides suffered greatly. Diderich would lose his life in this battle and the Frankish forces withered and were crushed. Aeliana brokered a peace with the Franks by taking in marriage the second son of Diderich II and brother to the new Frankish emperor (eldest son of Diderich II) Diderich III. Known as Diderich Luf to differentiate him from his father and the new emperor, his brother. Aeliana was 26 at the time, while Diderich Luf aged 15, eleven years her junior. The move was broadly criticized by her council and many in Romania. The fear lay in the notion that this would elevate the Frankish claims, opening the way for further invasion. The other camp believed that this not only solidified peace, desperately needed with the threat of Cornarius in the south, but opened up the potential of annexing the Frankish lands back to Romania, thereby recovering long lost territory.

The marriage cemented and consummated, the new Augustus and Augusta marched south to confront Cornarius and his increasing power. Diderich Luf became ill on the journey south. After crossing the Alps and camping in the Po Valley the young emperor died of fever. Immediate rumors circulated of poison. Diderich Luf had been hale and hearty. The suspects were numerous - those many in the Roman court who believed Luf a threat to Romania or an assassin from Cornarius. Most historians believe it was the former though all remains conjecture at this point. Aeliana, empress alone again, continued the campaign, moving with her army. The first clash came at the Battle of Placèntsia. The clash was not motivating for either army and even today it is difficult to declare a victor. Aeliana's camp suffered worse however, due to the depletion of the early Frankish conflict and the growing support for Cornarius. The empress moved her forces west and established a base in Tolosa, a safe area that supported Aeliana, with the full weight of Hispania behind. Cornarius still held the most populated areas, however, and he made his move.

The fortuitous death of Marcus Cornarius on August 5th AUC 1998 shifted the balance of the war. Marcus, aged 45, perished of what may have been alcoholism. It seems that the would-be-emperor drank himself to death in a raucous celebration on the eve of his campaigns move from Italia to the west. Marcus' daughter Felicia immediately declared herself his successor, as his only child. The irony was noticed immediately and the nepotism did not echo well with Marcus' supporters. A second, miniature civil war opened up within the Cornarius camp - played out in the form of mass arrests and a few executions by Felicia Cornarius. Her hold on power, though still slippery, was now more firm with those dissenters out of the way. Felicia, at the age of 23, was now one of two Augustas in the Roman Empire. The two competing Augustas spent the remainder of 1998 rebuilding their forces. The death of Marcus derailed the invasion force. Though speculative, there is high potential that the large force, support, and skill of the general, Marcus Cornarius, would have seen him through the alpine passes, along the coast, likely defeating the border forces of Aeliana and, probably, successfully have taken Tolosa. What might have occurred then is of course difficult to suss out. As things occurred, with his death, Felicia chose to delay the campaign, frustrating many. Her need was true - the depletion of the purges after her ascension drained moral and support, coupled with a further decrease in that many were under her banner who had wanted to end nepotism or rid themselves of a female monarch - or both, yet here they were with both of those very things. AUC 1999 began shakily for both Augustas. Aeliana was forced to turn her attention south as the Andalusian began a great increase to their raids. Raiding had occurred since the border was established in Hispania, with Romans taking Andalusians and Andalusians raiding to take Romans - all destined for slavery for both sides. The Andalusians hadn't recovered enough strength to mount a reconquest and with their severing from the remainder of the Muslim world this status lingered. Likewise, Romania had maintained a policy of non-expansion, for fear of overstretching and risking another near collapse as had nearly occurred in the late Second Age. The Andalusian revival came about due to two principal causes: the Roman Civil War drained their northern rivals dearly and the growth of Islam across the Sahara and sub-Sahara, reconnecting Andalusia and Maghribia with their Islamic brethren in the east. This enabled easier movement of forces religiously loyal. It was in this light that the Andalusian raids intensified, seeing an increased flow of Muslim movement from the eastern Mediterranean and into Andalusia.

The Jihad declared in 1999 witnessed Andalusian and Maghribian forces crossing the Odiana river and mounting a simultaneous invasion of Mauritania and Africa. Andalusian forces clashed with the Romans at Siege of Bartselona. The city was besieged for three months until a relief force arrived from Tolosa. Andalusian forces were routed and fled across the Odiana, pursued by the Romans. A final clash occured at the Battle of Jayén in February 2000. Andalusian forces were crushed definitively. Augusta Aeliana had the Roman army withdraw and return to Tolosa. The decision to not press their victory or annex what had been taken is likely due to the continued threat of Augusta Felicia and the ongoing civil war.

The Third Sacred War

Simultaneous to this Andalusian threat came a separate war for Felicia's Romania. Sicilia, or Magna Graecia, had been reconquered by the Greek Empire since their conquest of the AUC 1630s and the island Trinacria was added to this by the Greeks in AUC 1844. Sicily had a rocky history during the last few centuries. Bouncing between Grecian, Roman, and Islamic control, the lingua franca became Greek, the writing Latin, the religion predominately Christian and then predominately Hellene, the culture a hearty mix of Grecian, Roman, and Muslim. This pot boiled over into war, breaking off from the yoke of the Grecian Empire, routing a renewed Islam invasion, and then bleeding into protracted internal civil war. The principal cause of the internal war was religious - Hellenism had come to surpass Christianity as the majority, though only slightly. The power struggle came to a clash and into this fray stepped Felicia. Unlike Aeliana she saw an opportunity to expand Romania. AUC 2000 was spent subduing Magna Graecia and ultimately absorbing it into the Roman fold. The Massacre of Panermu was the tragic end of the conflict. After successfully storming the city the Roman forces began a relentless and rabid slaughter of the Christian inhabitants. The conquest of Sicilia by Felicia's Romania would come to be known as the Fourth Sacred War. Felicia secured a husband, her leading general, Theodatus Falier. Falier, 20 years her senior, was a reliable companion of the Cornarius family, also from Venetsia. The couple produced a child, Marcus, namesake of the infant's grandfather.

The Augustas Clash

AUC 2002 finally saw the two Romania's face one another. The first move was made by Felicia who crossed defeated Aeliana's forces at the Battle of Luon, taking the city. Aeliana had since returned to Argenta, her capital, and this new move by Felicia threatened to cut off the Augusta form Aquitania and Hispania. Aeliana made her move but did not confront Felicia, rather she moved east, pushing through loyal Norica and into Felicia's Veneta and Histria. Roman forces loyal to Felicia were routed here, massively outnumbered as they were, but Theodatus, nominal Augustus of the Roman Empire (though most understood that Felicia was the true power) fell on the battlefield. Aeliana began to move around Italia, securing holdings and regaining loyalties. The move knocked Felicia off balance and with such a stroke she began to see her support eroding. Forced to relinquish her gains in Gallia, Felicia began to move back towards Italia.

Felicia established herself in Genova and Aeliana in Venetsia, which was Felicia's home city and thereby a snub to the would-be-Augusta. AUC 2003 witnessed the Battle of Histria, a naval engagement between the two Romanias. The battle was fierce, and initially in favour of Felicia's forces, but the timely arrival of reinforcements tipped the scale in Aeliana's favor, resulting in a crushing victory. Aeliana now had dominion of the sea. Aeliana spent the remainder of 2003 sweeping around Italia and quickly garnered support, taking Rome back. She established her capital in Ravena, which had, with Milan, been the traditional capital of Romania for centuries. This allowed her legitimacy over her rival.

In October 2003 the Battle of Hasta in Liguria Province saw Felicia's army decisively defeated and splintered. A significant portion was absorbed in Aeliana's forces and the remainder fled into the Alps. Felicia was lost in the chaos and her frozen body that of her retinue, and the child Marcus would be discovered a month later in an Alpine pass near Bardoneca, near the border of Transpadania and Transalpinia. Felicia's retinue may have been hounded as Aeliana had sent for them to be tracked and brought to her after the dissipation of her army in Hasta.

Two years after the end of the war against Felicia, Aeliana granted Sicilia independence, effectively making them a co-state, reliant on and tethered to Romania, though nominally separate from it. This alleviated spear shaking from the Greek Empire as well as any rebellious stirrings from within Sicilia - which had been aided in its independence and civil war by Felicia, though unasked for aid that was viewed as unwanted aggressive help. The massacre on the island of Trinacria by the Romans made this situation more liable to explode. Aeliana was therefore able to maintain benefits of Sicilia, assure it of not being absorbed by any neighboring rivals, and was able to avoid any rebellions caused by holding onto it any closer. The move was popular in both Romania and Sicilia.

Aeliana retained her position as sole Augusta until her death at the age of 76, AUC 2049, by natural causes. Her ability to retain her position stood atop her success in the civil war as well as against the Franks and the Andalusians, her solving the Sicilian question, and her decision to not take a husband again: Two lovers are recognized throughout the Augusta's remaining time reigning, though none were taken to the purple and no child was produced, thus avoiding the testy issue of hereditary monarchy.

Marcus Cornarius & The Ordo Equites

A principal cause of Cornarius' initial success during his rebellion rests in the Equites. With the reconquest of Roman lands there came a need for tighter security. The traditional border army, with its forts and newly built great-wall, led by Dukes, was a strong defence, but evidently not enough. The Equites, a noble order since the First Republic, found themselves as a stop-gap to fix this issue during that period. Though both Senators and Equites held vast estates or holdings (Latifundias), only the Equites were a martial noble order.

It was in this light that successive emperors granted Equites Latifundias along the lengthy border of reconquered lands. Many expanded these into vast holdings, veritable fortresses with towns around them for protection, toiled by slaves and manned by extensive auxilia troops. The violence of the border brought laurels to many Equites and their extensive auxilia meant they had small armies. This amount of respect and power meant that it was inevitable one Equites or another would rise up, as Marcus Cornarius did. The surprising aspect is, as Cambrian historian Emblyn Angove points out, "that no member of the Ordo Equites chose to make a grab at the Imperial Purple before Cornarius is quite surprising."

The End of Empire
Ariminus Baracone was elected by the Senate to replace Aeliana in 2049. The Consul was a respected member of the Roman aristocracy and viewed as a fairly moderate mind and, importantly, was antagonistic towards nepotism. His reign is largely uneventful and the man himself was described as plain. Perhaps unfair to Baracone, as he managed to balance the checkbook of Romania and initiated many internal work projects and infrastructure repairs.

Baracone was succeeded in 2056 by his Caesar Valentinu Valdracòne (Valentinus Valdraconus). Valdraconus is notable in that he was the first recorded Augustus to use his vulgar name, or his name in Romanian rather than Latin. It had been tradition, firmly established, for Emperors and Senators, and all those involved in the state or formality, to write and speak their name in the older Latin form. Even as the common speech was developed into an official tongue, Romanian, and the Emperor's spoke it, the naming system remained Latin for the elite (not the commoners however). This exception was nominal only, as daily speech, religious, and court, were all conducted in Romanian since its standardization by Emperor Torgodoriu the Scholar in the Carta Vulgare in AUC 1823. Previous to this the common speech was still quite similar to what would be Romanian, in the form of various Vulgar Latin dialects. As such, Latin as it had been known, as it was used for names, was all but unspoken but by elite scholarly circles.

Valdracòne, like his predecessor, ruled largely in peace and the realm witnessed a high degree of prosperity under him. The neighboring Greco-Slavenian lost a significant amount of territory to the growing Persian Empire under the zealously Zoroastrian Kurdish Hazaraspid dynasty who had erupted from the Zagros mountains to dominate the Persian realm. Hazaraspid raids along Morea and Crete, Romania's last holdings in the east, brought the growing threat to their attention and much of Europe had turned their attention towards it. The Hazaraspid dynasty emerged from the splintering of the Samanian Empire's (Or Persian Empire under the Samanids) fall to the Turkic Seljuqs and the subsequent fall of the Seljuqs to the Mongols. The western portion of the Persian realm was nominally Mongol but in reality independent and from this was born the Hazaraspid Empire, or Kurdish Empire. Expanding rapidly and aggressively west, they consumed the entirety of Greco-Slavenian Anatolia and allied themselves closely with Judea, independent since the fall of the Samanids.

The Anatolian Campaign

The first wide scale engagement between Roman (Western) and Persian forces since the late Classical Era came in the joint Roman and Greco-Slavenian invasion of Anatolia - highly unprecedented. The collaboration clearly reveals the threat that was believed to be in the Kurdish Empire. Romania was also likely acting to defend its southern Balkan possessions, namely Morea and of high importance Athens and Delphi, the first the headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus, the holy high priest of Hellenism, and the latter the home of the Oracle, equally important.

The campaign against the Kurds commenced in the spring and summer of 2059. Their costly campaign came with success, driving back the Kurds in parts of Asia Minor. At Philadelphia, 18,000 Kurdish soldiers were left dead. However, the Grecians got more than what they bargained for; the Romans were difficult to restrain and consequently much of the reconquered territory was laid to waste. Roman goals, unspoken to their Grecian allies, was to decimate the area and essentially severe the head of the growing Kurdish realm so the threat would be gone. An added bonus would be delaying Grecian regrowth (as the Grecian Empire had been on a long and steady decay for a long while at this point). The Duke in charge of the Legionary expedition, Alfredu Medices, was assassinated in Gallipoli on 3 April 2061 by Michael IX Palaeologus followed by a massacre of 1,300 Romans. This turn of events sparked a war between Romania and Grecia.

The Roman-Slavenian War The Romans began a two-year pillage in revenge and crossed over to Thrace and Macedonia under the command of their new Duke, Berengariu Antenssa, where further raiding occurred. Eventually the Roman legions would leave behind a devastated Grecia. The peace terms for the year long war with the Greco-Slavenian Empire witnessed the annexation of Cyprus, the Ionian Islands, Corfu, and Albania. After this, the Kurds found much support amongst those who suffered and reoccupied land that had been lost and a fairly large conversion from Christianity to Zoroastrianism is witnessed. Thus, the Romans' campaign was a short-term Grecian victory, but benefited the Kurds in the long term. The Romans arguably benefited the most from the two conflicts, rather deviously.

Valdracòne was succeeded by 2070 Venturellu Sterpetu, his Caesar. Sterpetu's six years are fairly uneventful albeit quite productive internally. In 2076 the emperor died at the age of thirty-five however and had failed to name a Caesar and therefore an heir. The Ravenna Senate set about choosing one when Sterpetu's twenty-four year old widow, Sancia Scuilaces, declared herself empress. Scuilaces hailed from a Senatorial family from eastern Hispania whose ultimate origins were tracable to Magna Graecia who migrated to Bartselona in the 1400s.

The peculiarity of Sterpetu's death, supposedly due to falling from his horse during a hunting trip, led many to suggest that Sancia and her love Romanu were responsible for it. The latter's presence during the hunt reinforced the notion and most scholars today believe it to be so. Sancia had herself wed to Romanu immediately upon taking the throne and declared that the two were jointly Augustas and Augustus. Romanu perished in what may have been a poisoning by the Chamberlain in 2078 and left Sancia and their infant at the whims of an increasingly volatile court. The empress grew increasingly paranoid throughout 2078 and the Roman court saw widespread persecutions. The Chamberlain, Denaru Chillu, was castrated and exiled to Crete, and was one of many who were either blinded or castrated and exiled, while many others were outright executed. Sancia's chambermaid, Lunadina, was famously tortured until confessing her plans to poison the young Ricìvirtu, Sancia's child. Lunadina was promptly crucified in the central square of Ravenna. The empress was found drowned in her bath in 2080 by unknown assailants - a mystery that remains unsolved. Her enemies were plentiful and there are many valid guesses. The Senate's immediate action hints at potential responsibility. The fate of Ricìvirtu remains unknown to this day, he simply fades from the historical record.

The Second Republic
The Senate abolished the Augustuship over night, effectively ending the Roman Empire and announcing a rebirth of the Roman Republic. The two existing consuls were elevated. Mule Notaiu of Titanu was announced as Supreme Consul and his deputy Ninu Mula, was declared Defender Consul. This was a direct promotion of the existing consul position, given new titles and status. The Senate borrowed predominately from their understanding of the First Roman Republic. The Ravenna Senate was elevated in power as well and those of the now abolished emperor were spread among the Consuls and the Senate.

The new government had as its head the Supreme Consul who was assisted by the Defender Consul, though the two did not share power as the modern Roman state, rather the Supreme Consul was, in essence, a much toned down Emperor who was elected. Below this was The Council of Six, composed of six councilors to the Supreme Consul. The Supreme Consul could open his personal correspondence and discuss hearings only in the presence of at least 4 of these councilors. These six were elected from within the Senate by the Senate. Adjacent to this power was the Council of Forty, which was one of the highest constitutional bodies of the Second Republic, with both legal and political functions as the Supreme Court. The Council of Forty was established as an assembly of forty electors who were entitled to nominate the Consuls of Romania. These forty were elected in their turn by nine electors who were nominated by the popular assembly. After completing their primary role as the Consul's nominators, they remained in power alongside the Supreme Consul as the Judiciary, participating in the state government and the legislative functions, which were often delegated to them by the Senate, in which the forty were members by law. These institutions were combined to essentially be the functioning government of the Second Roman Republic

An additional body, the Supreme Tribunal, was established to guard the security of the republic. By means of espionage, counterespionage, internal surveillance, and a network of informers, they ensured that Romania did not come under the rule of a single Consul and thus a rebirth of the Augustus. One of the inquisitors – popularly known as Il Rúbiu ("the red one") because of his scarlet robe – was chosen from the Council of Six, two – popularly known as Ís Négres ("the black ones") because of their black robes – were chosen from the Council of Forty.

The Senate was the theoretical fount of all authority and was the base layer of government, from which all other officials above would originate. As a result the Supreme Consul's powers were shared with the Senate, composed of members taken from patrician families, so that in the Supreme Consul could do nothing without the Senate and the Senate could do nothing without him. Ultimately all members of the aforementioned governmental positions would have to originate in the Senate and the Senate was the realm of noble patrician families.

The Second Republic was, therefore, an 'Oligarchic Republic'.

The twenty years after the disposal of Augusta Sancia Scuilaces and the formation of the new Republic were fairly bumpy, with the details of government ironed out over this time. The election of Maxiu Calcignes as Supreme Consul in 2100 is generally the accepted marker for the transition into the Fourth Age, coupled with the rise of the Black Death.

Fourth Age - Middle Era (AUC 2100 to 2500)
Supreme Consul Maxiu Calcignes began his governance over what was at last a fully stable Republic. The machine of government had been tried and tested and was able and working, the past two decades had proven so. The intricacies of such a move were now established and therefore attention was shifted elsewhere, even as trouble stirred once again.

Tribune of the Roman People
In May 2100 Renssu Romagnus, a commoner from the city of Rome, styled himself as "Tribune of the Roman people" and declared himself the Emperor of Romania. For his demagogic rhetoric, popular appeal and anti-establishment (as nobility ruled the Senate) sentiment, some sources considered him an earlier populist figure. Renssu was born in Rome of humble origins. He claimed descent from Romulus himself, though factually his parents were a washer-woman and a tavern-keeper named Lorenssu Gavrines. His own name was a shortened version of his father's forename in order to distinguish him frrom the elder Lorenssu. He added later the crated surname of Romagnus, creating his own patrician line in essence.

Renssu's early years were passed at Anagna. Having devoted much time to the study of the Latin writers, historians, orators and poets, and having nourished his mind with stories of the glories and the power of ancient Rome, he turned his thoughts to the task of restoring his native city, then in degradation and wretchedness, having not been the capital for a very long time, not only to good order, but even to her pristine greatness. His zeal for this work was quickened by the desire to avenge his brother who had been killed by a patrician in a dispute. Renssu became a notary and a person of some importance in the city, and was sent in 2096 on a public errand. He discharged his duties with ability and success, and although the boldness with which he denounced the patrician rulers of Rome drew down upon him the enmity of powerful men, he won the favour and esteem of many.

Returning to Rome about April he worked for three years at the great object of his life: the restoration of the city to its former position of power. He gathered together a band of supporters, plans were drawn up, and at length all was ready for the insurrection. On 19 May 2100 heralds invited the people to a parliament on the Capitol, and on 20 May the meeting took place. Dressed in full armor, Renssu headed a procession to the Capitol; here he addressed the assembled crowd, speaking "with fascinating eloquence of the servitude and redemption of Rome." A new series of laws were published and accepted with acclaim by the plebs of Rome, and unlimited authority and power was given to the author of the revolution - a self-styled dictator. Without striking a blow the patricians and the Senate of Rome left the city or went into hiding, and a few days later Colu took the title of Tribune and had at his disposal an army of plebs.

His authority quickly and quietly accepted by all classes, the new ruler governed the city with a stern and religiously zealous justice which was in marked contrast to the recent reign of license and disorder. In great state the tribune moved through the streets of Rome, while in a letter the poet Petrarca urged him to continue his great and noble work, and congratulated him on his past achievements, calling him the new Camillus, Brutus and Romulus. All the patricians in Rome submitted, though with great reluctance; the roads were cleared of robbers; tranquility was restored at home; some severe examples of justice intimidated offenders; and the tribune was regarded by all the people as the destined restorer of Rome and the Empire. Renssu began to speak broadly and boadly about the return of greatness for Romania with the reconquest of all lands once Roman, from Britannia to Syria.

In July in a sonorous decree he proclaimed the sovereignty of the city of Rome and her people over the Empire, reformed, but before this he had set to work upon his task of restoring the authority of Rome over the cities and provinces of Romania, of making the city again caput mundi. He wrote letters to the plebs of the cities of Romania, asking them to send representatives to an assembly which would meet on 1 August, when the re-formation of the Roman Empire would be decided. On the appointed day a number of representatives appeared, though the numbers were far less than had been hoped for.

Renssu's power was already beginning to wane. His character has been described as a combination of knowledge, eloquence, and enthusiasm for ideal excellence, with vanity, inexperience of mankind, unsteadiness, religious zealotry, and physical timidity. As these latter qualities became conspicuous, they eclipsed his virtues, and caused his benefits to be forgotten. His extravagant pretensions only served to excite ridicule. His government was costly, and to meet its many expenses he was obliged to lay heavy taxes upon the people.

The Senate in Ravenna had been alerted earlier by the patricians and Senators who had fled Rome, they were aware of the secession of Rome and the aspirations for Empire there, but evidently they thought little of it, as they didn't give it their time. This reveals the magnitude the Senate and Consul believed the threat to be - that being minuscule. Ravenna at last sent the Senate from Rome back with Legions behind them and war began. On 20 November Renssu's forces were defeated in the Battle of Rome. Renssu's Pleb Army was arrested in mass and sent to lives in perpetual hard labor across Romania. Renssu was crucified outside the walls of Rome.

Though only recently reborn, the Republic's fragility was evident. Though Renssu never posed an enormous threat, his popularity among the plebs was evident and the resentment towards the patricians and the Senate was easily stirred.

The pleb usurper would be remember by the name Renssu Romagnus Dictatorellu, the first part his own crafting, the last title, Dictatorellu, the mocking name given to him by the Senate in Ravenna, meaning Little Dictator.

The Black Plague
The new threat to Romania came in the form of plague. Calcignes' first year as Supreme Consul witnessed the arrival of the Black Plague in Massilia. In 2084 a group of Roman merchants fled from Theodosia, the Grecian city on the northern Black Sea, and they likely brought the disease with them to Constantinople. Genoa and Venice also saw the plague arise the same year as Massilia, in 2100. By 2101 the plague had spread to every end of Romania.

In Romania the plague ran for about four years consecutively and it is estimated that it probably killed close to 60-70% of the population. With such a large population decline from the Plague, wages soared in response to a labor shortage. Renewed religious fervour and fanaticism bloomed in the wake of the Black Death. Some targeted various groups such as Jews, Christians, foreigners, beggars, lepers, and Sinti, thinking that they were to blame for the crisis. There were many attacks against Jewish communities. The single most notable event was in the Argenta Massacre of February 2102, about 2,000 Jews were murdered. Sinti slaves were killed as well, variously blamed for the epidemic.

From the perspective of many of the survivors, the effect of the plague may have been ultimately favorable, as the massive reduction of the workforce meant their labor was suddenly in higher demand. For many Romans, the century was a golden age of prosperity and new opportunities, post-plague. The land was plentiful, wages high, and farmland was more plentiful. It was a particular boon to Romans in the Po Valley and a large swath of area in northern Italia. For reasons that scholars still are not quite sure of, this region remained relatively plague free. The population here, long overcrowded, subsequently had the opportunity to expand across Romania and fill vacant lands.

Supreme Consul Calcignes was one of the victims of the plague, in the year 2103.

The Kurdish Threat & Other Wars


The late 2140s witnessed the loss of all eastern Roman possessions save for Morea, taken by the Kurdish Empire during their increasing growth. A brief on-and-off war between Romania and Kurdia resulted in repeated Roman losses. Supreme Consul Antoniu Venieres directed a last stand in Morea for the impending Kurdish invasion, but the Kurds had their attention pulled north by a combined Gepid-Wallachian attack. The invasion of Morea never appeared.

Antoniu Venieres spent the remainder of his reign fighting around the balkans, answering pleas of aid from the Wallachians. The Balkan Wars (off and on dating 2153 - 2209) were bloody and protracted and a clear winner is difficult to define. It became a type of testing ground for the Roman Legions and they earned a string of victories, undefeated in all open engagements with the Kurdish Empire.

Supreme Consul Venieres was fairly unusual among the Supreme Consuls who came before him and many of those after in that he was prone to campaign directly. A member of the Ordo Equestres, Venieres was an able commander in the field and seemed to relish martial conflict.

The Battle of Vrata in 2146 witnessed a combined Roman-Wallachian force under Venieres lay waste to a larger Kurdish army under Shah Milet Ajar. This was a deciding moment during the Kurdish invasion of the Balkans and was likely a singular event which blunted the seemingly unstoppable expansion. A second blow came to the Kurdish Empire the following year with conflict on their eastern end with Gurkania (also known as the Timurid Persian Empire), a Persian realm under the rule of Timur the Lame.

The various realms in the Balkans suffered greatly, but the Kurdish expansion was certainly blunted. Wallachia escaped engulfment by the Kurdish Empire as did Dalmatia, after years of off and on full scale invasion.

2177 marked the final year of the first chapter of the Balkan Wars. Roman involvement had been reduced by the Northern Deluge and much of the fighting had fallen to the Gepids and Wallachians. Gepidia had largely been overrun, but Wallachia, with Roman contingents, held on. Radu II the Wall gained fame, routing repeated Kurdish advances into Wallachia, culminating in a truce.

The Grecian Empire was reduced to Macedonia, made a client realm of the Kurdish Empire, reduced to the status of Kingdom (hereby known as the Grecian Kingdom of Macedonia or the Byzantine Kingdom of Macedonia), but allowed nominal independence and retention of Christianity. Albania and the remainder of the Balkans were directly absorbed into the Kurdish Empire however, including Gepidia. Wallachia remained apart but repeated Kurdish, and later Afrasiyab Persian, attempts to subdue it would reopen warfare. These would famously involve Vlad the Dragon and bring about extensive brutality in the Balkans.

The Northern Deluge

In 2169 the Romans, Franks, and Cambrians delved into a quagmire in the form of a Wendish-Scandian invasion. The conflict that came to be known as the Northern Deluge (2169 - 2190) affected the richest provinces of Francia. Almost all cities, towns, castles and temples were destroyed or damaged. According to the estimates of Frankish scholars the invasion by the Scandian and Wendish army and their allies, resulted in the loss of 25% of the population in four core Frankish provinces. The damage done during this war is estimated as greater than that of the Great World War.

The initial invasion was multifaceted in cause. The Scandian focus seems to have been a massive raid on Cambria to obtain religious sacrifice victims and a way to alleviate overcrowding and restless young men at home - giving them the option of a glorious death in battle, also religiously linked. Their focus turned towards Francia as well. This linked with the Wendish objective of growth, also for their budding population, as well as nominal notions of empire. Frankish religious proselytizing, with Hellene priests making forays into Wendish land, is also a cause. A precursor to the war was a mass slaughter of said Frankish priests in Wenedia. The initial conflict involved Cambria and Francia but by the second year Romania had joined the fray. Wendish and Scandian forces successfully breached the Olympian Wall protecting Romania's northern frontier. The wall had, by this point, fallen into disrepair and was partially manned. It had been understood decades before that the wall was largely a useless drain on resources and had not worked well enough to prevent crossing - it was simply too long. The various implementation of fortified Equites' latifundia was far more useful. The scale of the invasion, however, witnessed the Wendo-Scandian forces reaching the northern slopes of the Alps in Romania. The Battle of Lucerna in 2176 brought about a devastating blow to the Wendish and Scandian forces by Roman legions under the command of Duke Ricevutu Lunardella. It is estimated as one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. The Wendo-Scandians were on the defensive from that point onwards and the remainder of the war witnessed a gradual pushing of them out of Francia where the war then began to take place in Wenedia.

The resulting defeat of the Wends and Scandians brought about the Treaty of Ochen. Cambrian gains included Erch Island, the separation of the other German Sea islands from Scandia (recently gained), and a cessation of all raids outside of the Baltic Sea. Wenedia lost its budding empire, its Baltic possessions were released and Lombardy was shifted from Wendish hands into Frankish hands.

The Legions of Death

The Roman Legions developed a reputation during the 2100s-2300s last known during the Classical Era. The notion of invincibility became entrenched in their neighbors and their own psyche and the notion of their arrival became dread for foes. The nickname coined by their Kurdish foes in the Balkans was the Legions of Death.

The Linking of the Globe
Lands on the western end of the Atlantic Ocean had been known since the mid to late 1700s. The settlement of northern coastal areas by Scandian refugees from the protracted and violent civil-wars in the north had established themselves at that time. Trade flowed to and fro and information was exchanged. The immensity and depth of these lands, dubbed Hesperia by Romans, remained largely unknown however.

In 2156 Carolu Zenu, a naval hero of the Balkan Wars, set out on a mission of exploration, charged by Supreme Consul Vita Corvellu and the Senate to build upon earlier Roman voyages. In 2044 Roman expeditions led by two Roman sailors, the Vivaldu brothers, had sailed down the Libian coast, reaching and claiming the Fortunate Isles in the Atlantic and mapping much of the western Libian coast. The Vivaldus reached Cape Nun and established Roman trade links along the coast. The 2156 voyage was directly intended to build upon these discoveries, their having not been built upon for around 100 years. The trade routes established with the Mali Empire by the Vivaldus, down the western Libian coast, had become well known to Roman sailors by this point. Zenu would ultimately establish a strong contact with the Asante Empire, the Oyo Kingdom.

Successor explorers pushed further south. The Congo Kingdom was reached in 2180 and the Congo river was explored. In 2188 Claudiu Canes reached the Cape of Storms, on the very southern tip of Libia, and established myriad trade posts along the way. The intricate trade network snaking across Libia from Bakitara and Zingia revealed a complex and wealthy domain beyond these reaches. The information he fed back only built up the Senate's desire for more.

One notable discovery after concrete coastal trade was established with Mali was the revelation that the Libian realm had sailed west and found land. In 2080 two hundred boats sailed from Mali at the instruction of Abu Bakr II, Mansa of the Mali Empire. Abu Bakr ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and for his men after the return of the 200 revealed lands. Bakr II would preish in these western lands, though many of his ships returned, explaining that the Mansa had conquered new lands for Mali. The Mansa he had established in his stead, Musa I the Lion, followed these up in later 2080s and a permanent establishment bloomed in what is now called Antillia. Romans dubbed this land Anti-Thule, Thule being a broadly generic term for the northern reaches of the world. This name later transformed into Antyllia, and finally Antillia, which the continent today possesses.

Martinu Contis, a Roman explorer and merchant from Clodia, who traveled to India and Southeast Asia, and to Southern Sina. Contis departed from Venetsia about 2172 and established himself in Damascus, Syria, where he studied Persian and Aramaic. Over a period of 25 years, he traveled as an official merchant, part of a large Roman contingent, to numerous places in Asia. His travels followed the period of Timurid relations with Europe. They also occurred around the same time and in the same places as the Sinaean expeditions of Admiral Zheng He.

These Asian expeditions, Libian expeditions, and Atlantic expeditions were all a major focal point of Supreme Consul Vita Corvellu. A prominent astrologer and star-gazer, Corvellu arguably lit the fire that was global exploration on the European end (excluding, of course, Mali and Sina who had already started their own global explorations around this time. The timing for the three seems coincidental). Corvellu spent large sums constructing an observatory in Milan and a large astrolobe in Ravenna. His financing of these endeavors earned him the name Corvellu the Explorer.

In 2170 Antoniu Barbaru was sent west, across the ocean, instructed to first stop at the Fortunate Isles and then proceed, using knowledge gained from Mali and Scandia. Barbaru made landfall in Boriken and went about exploring adjacent islands. The successful findings brought about a further three expeditions by Barbaru and follow-ups by many others. These outer islands were annexed directly into the Republic after a confrontation turned violent. The source of the conflict is unknown as the Roman records state only "local hostility" as a cause. The result was a massacre and a resultant un-stemmed tide of movement from Romania to Boriken and the surrounding islands.

Barbaru made further voyages from his new base in Boriken and contact was established with the the mainland. Meshico was in the midst of war, with Itzcoatl, the King of Meshico-Tenochtitlan, on the warpath conquering most of his neighbors. The Romans established themselves coastal for a year before taking up stakes. Trade was established with the Meshicolese after they were deemed to be the stronger side.

The diseases brought by the Romans devastated their island possessions but the result on the mainland seems fairly minimal. Most scholars accept the theory that European diseases spread from the island of Vinland over the 400 years before Roman arrival. The diseases appear to have rolled down the continent and may have petered on the isthmus. The islands evidently were not reached, perhaps due to isolation.

Goods, Ideas, and Disease

An array of new crops and animals found their way from Hesperia to Europe, Asia, and Libia - and the reverse happened as well, with goods from those Eastern Worlds finding their way to this Western World. The globe was connected in a way not seen before. The Roman trade initiated with their docking in the ports of Mali is estimated to be the beginning of a global trade-connection. Scholars have found the Romans traded parrots and brazilwood which they obtained via trade in Mali, originating from the Malian lands in Antillia. These items moved from Roman hands into Sinaean hands at the Cape of Storms. By this action the world witnessed Antillian goods transfer into Libian hands which in turn moved into European hands which in turn moved in far-eastern Asian hands. This chapter is believed by scholars to be the first global exchange.

Europe, Asia, and Libia had an array of goods arrivals via the Roman trade routes and the Romans found themselves growing quite rich with their monopoly on the western trade. Batate, papate, mais, tabaco, and lisocita were extraordinarily valuable asset crops for Romania and the meat of the uesolote as well. The principal settlements of the Romans in Hesperia (Acolua, Boriquen, and Soleterra) would ultimately find themselves focusing heavily on tobaco and sugar production, as well as acting as as the hub of Hesperian trade. Tobaco became a prominent European crop in Romania as well, in short order, finding wide production in Roman Provinces of Tuscia, Venetu et Histria, and Umbria et Picenia. Socolata found its way into patrician life in Romania and was a veritable obsession.

Heading from the western world into Hesperia were horses, citrus, apples, onions, coffee, wheat, rice, as well as improvement in steel manufacturing and the arrival of the arquebus.

Goods were no the only exchange. Disease arrived from both directions. From 2271 to 2275 the Black Plague found its way onto Hesperian shores for the first time. It coincided with a second outbreak in Europe. The European outbreak resulted in 50,000 deaths, a significantly smaller amount than the first round of the Plague, but those in Hesperia fared much worse. Known as the Cocoliztli Epidemic, the death-toll is estimated at over 5 million.

Greatpox was a disease the moved from Hesperia into Europe, known additionally as Cupid's Disease. The first recorded case in Europe was in the patrician courts of Bartselona where it appears to have returned with adventuring Equites returned from Hesperia, from whence it spread.

A Roman-Sinaean Alliance

The myriad trade goods flowing from the southern point of Libia, from Hesperia, and from Asia brought about culinary and cultural revolutions in Romania.

The meeting in Melinde on the eastern coast of Libia in AUC 2190 with Chinese merchants is an event of upmost importance to history. Subsequent trade ports were was established on the Cape of Storms specifically for the Sina-Roman trade and the point was fortified as an important part of Romania. AUC 2198 witnessed the formal signing of the Golden Alliance with Sinaean Emperor Yingzong. Romania and Sina essentially agreed to divide the world into two halves, one to be the dominion of each, with a line running up from the Cape of Storms - the southern tip of Libia.

The Mezo-Roman War

In 2239 the Tarasca, nominally part of the Meshica Empire, sent an envoy to the Romans, secreted through trade ports. Tizoc, the emperor of Meshico, had a shaky hold on his realm and much of the land that had been conquered over the last 60 years was restless. This was in no small part due to the Meshica heavy-handed rule and penchant for pseudo-wars to gain sacrifices, not unlike Scandia. The Roman duke Laurentiu Calcignes, in charge of the Roman Hesperian lands, decided to act before hearing from the Senate. Roman forces landed on the eastern shore of Meshico while the Tarasca rose up in the west in a prearrange move.

The Meshica state of warfare was broadly similar to northern Hesperia at the time. Technology levels were essentially at a state similar to early Postclassical Europe. Steel was used and weapons were subsequently good while some armor was available, though most went with cotton padding instead - armor was still a sign of very high status. The horse was not yet available, excepting stout horses in the far north of Hesperia, and these remained a novelty of the Romans which the Meshica found terrifying.

The Roman use of the cannon and the hand-cannon are seen as defining tools, with the horse, that allowed for their victory. The Meshica aim to render an opponent unconscious, so they might be sacrificed later, also hindered their success in the war. The Romans fought to kill and this gave an advantage. Even so, the war dragged on for three years, ending in 2243. Calcignes formally annexed the Empire of Meshico into the Roman Republic and announced himself as the Provincial Governor. The Senate found out about much of these far later and the initial reaction was frigid indeed. The fear stoked in the Senate chamber in Ravenna is clearly reflected in what was written down - that this young Duke had acted on his own accord, disregarding the Senate and Supreme Consul, now had a Roman army, an immense population of a former empire under his control, and a penchant for self-promotion. It seemed like a potential Augustus in the waiting.

The Republic Grows

The feared grab for the purple never occured. Calcignes was murdered by his Tarascan wife after a string of abuses to her people. The Tarascans were not given independence as they desired, instead Calcignes has essentially removed Tizoc and placed himself as ruler instead, ruling no better. The disrespect for the local religion and rapacious nature of his men assured his demise.

Blancu Venturines arrived as Calcignes replacement, intending to unseat him under the Senate's instruction. Fortunate for Venturines, he learned of Calcignes death on his arrival. Duke Venturines was a far more malleable man and set about issuing the instructions given to him by Consul and Senate. The eastern coastal strip of Meshico was under direct Roman control and governed from Boriken while the remainder would be governed as a new Province, but more loosely. Tarasca was given independence but as a vassal-state of Romania. Hellene proselytizing was limited to the coastal strip, called Acolua. A new town was also established under Venturines, on the Seric Ocean, called New Rome. This was also to be directly governed and a Roman road was built to connect it to Acolua. This was Romania's first settlement on the Seric Ocean.

The Roman hold on Meshico remained shaky even still. In 2253 the Acolhuas, allies of the former Meshica Empire, captured a Roman convoy, taking Legionaires, women, children and horses - all imprisoned for months, sacrificed and eaten by Acolhuas and Meshica rebels. The incident sparked a series of back-and-forth attacks between Meshica and Roman forces.

The Canara and Gurkanian War

This period saw widespread growth of Romania. The islands they had come across were all annexed and they controlled territory in southern Libia (the Cape of Storms) to Meshico.

Roman explorations had moved beyond the Cape of Storms, meeting the Sinaean merchants and explorers in Zingia, and moving beyond. Zingia and the Bakitaran coast was described as "a most glorious place and welcoming - the Gods smile on this land and these people" by Roman explorer Marinu Grimanes.

Grimanes would sail to India under the guidance of Sinaean and Zingian merchants. Grimanes made the fateful decision to strike at Gurkanian merchant ships, essentially becoming a pirate. His reason for the decision to attack the Gurkanian, or Timurid Persian, fleets is not perfectly known. It may have been a combination of need of supplies (though it is evidenced the Sinaean provided these) as well as antipathy for the Persians. The Timurid Persian Empire, or Gurkania, had supported the Kurdish Empire during the Balkan wars and was officially involved. The only clash between the Persians and Romans during that time came in an indecisive naval engagement in the Black Sea. Grimanes may have even mistook them for Kurdish ships.

Whatever his reason, the Gurkanian traffic was heavily impacted in the negative and this opened up a war between Romania and Gurkania. Grimanes acted on his own accord, much like Calcignes, though for whatever reason he remained reprimanded by the Senate. Grimanes broke the Golden Alliance agreement additionally by taking the city of Goa, technically in the Sinaean sphere. Again there seems to be no fallout from this action, either by the Senate or Sinaean and it is even so that the Sinaean fleet was involved. It may emphasis how highly they thought of the Romans.

The Canara Empire was a chief ally of Timurid Persia and it was in the Canaran city of Goa that Grimanes landed. On February 16, 2240 the Roman armada sailed into the deep waters of the Mandovi river. Supported by 2000 men of Sina, the Romans landed troops and assaulted the fort of Pangim, defended by a force of 400 Persian men. At Pangim Grimanes received envoys from the most important figures of Goa, and proposed religious freedom and lower taxes they accept Roman sovereignty. Thereafter they declared their full support towards the Romans and Grimanes formally occupied Goa on February 17. Grimanes reaffirmed that the city was not to be sacked and that the inhabitants were not to be harmed, under the penalty of death. In the city, the Romans found over 100 horses belonging to the ruler of Canara, 25 elephants and partially finished new ships. For his assistance, he was nominated tanadar-mor (the chief tax-collector and representative) of the Hindus of Goa. Expecting retaliation from the King of Canara, Grimanes began organizing the city's defences. The city's walls were repaired, the moat was expanded and filled with water and storehouses for weapons and supplies were built. The ships were to be finished and pressed into Roman service, and the five fording points into the island – Banastarim, Naroá, Agaçaim, Passo Seco and Daugim – were defended by Sinaean, Roman, and Malabarese troops, supported by several artillery pieces. At the same time, Grimanes sent ambassadors ahead of an embassy to the court of the neighbouring Muslim Bahmanid Sultanate, hoping to secure an alliance against Canara and the Zoroastrian Timurids.

Unbeknownst to Grimanes, the Sultan of Bahmani had just agreed on a truce with the Timurid Persian Empire, and could divert many more troops into recapturing the city than expected. To that effect a Persian general, Peroz Dregubyo, with 40,000 troops, which included many experienced Persian and Turkic mercenaries, that defeated Romania's Malabar allied troops on the mainland. An assault on Goa was next. Trusting the strength of his defensive position, Grimanes held tight. With the coming of the monsoon rains, the Roman situation became critical: the tropical weather claimed a great amount of Roman lives, foodstuffs deteriorated and the Romans were stretched too thin. Under these conditions, Dregubyo launched a major assault on May 11, across the Banastarim ford at low tide amidst a heavy storm, quickly overwhelming the small number of Roman troops. As defences crumbled, a revolt broke out in the outskirts of Goa. The Romans hurriedly retreated into the city walls, with the aid of their Hindu allies, but abandoned several artillery pieces by the riverside. The following day, Peroz Dregubyo ordered an assault against the city but was repelled. The city suffered three more assaults but Dregubyo's forces were never able to penetrate. The Persian forces left after a protracted siege witnessed disease and death in the Persian-Canaran camp.

There would be no further attempt on Goa and it become a peculiarly long-held Roman possession, their furthest to the east.

The Game of South Asia

A frequently sought after question among historians is why did Marinu Grimanes take Goa? Why open up war with Canara? The Romans had established themselves In 2233, setting up trade outposts in Taprovana, and furthermore had the good graces of the Sinaean trade along the Malabar coast. Documents suggest that the Canaran Empire was teetering and many of those around it sought its demise - the arrival of a new player in this game was taken as a sign. Envoys from the Gujarat Sultanate to the north and from the Canaran vassals in Mysore, to the south, likely had influence on Grimanes decision. We know he received them in Taprovana. The Sinaean assistance may have been along these same lines - disgruntled towards Canara.

The decision of Goa came about due to intel, though likely false. Grimanes received word while he was in Taprovana that the Canaran Empire was attempting to gather forces at Goa to sail south and assault Sino-Roman holdings in Taprovana. These claims came via Gujarat merchants who claimed that Timurid Persia, or Gurkania, was spinning these wheels in order to oust the Romans from South Asia, as they were a threat. This may have been a partial truth but evidence suggests that there was no imminent assault from Goa. In any event, Grimanes took the bait and ultimately took Goa.

Romania had stepped into a complex and ever-changing situation, one engaged in a push and pull between Gurkania and Sina. The success at Goa was followed up by a decisive naval battle and a destructive raid further up the coast, witnessing two more Roman victories. The Empire of Canara virtually collapsed from within as a result. The Princely State of Mysore was established in the south, a player in the game that removed the Canaran Empire, and established themselves as favorable trade partners with Sina. The Gujarat Sultanate made a move from the north and consumed their Islamic neighbor and ally of Canara, the Bahmanid Sultanate.

The Romans made no further move after Goa. The Senate instructed Grimanes to take no more, but make redoubtable what he now had. The order was irrelevant as Grimanes had already intended to do just that - sit on what he had. Goa was built up and fortified and the Roman outpost on the island realm of Taprovana as well. These were linked tightly with trade posts in Melinde, which was linked to the fortress that was the Cape of Storms. All of these were further tied to the various Zingian, Sinaean, Bakitaran, Indian, and Arab trade ports along the way. Boats of Roman settlers would find their way to Goa in the meantime and the city grew quite prosperous, surrounded by the now supportive and Sinean backed states of Mysore and Gujarat - the latter a prominent enemy of Gurkania.

Goa would sit as an important hub through the next turbulent period in South Asia - the rise of the Mughal Empire. From 2318 to 2353 the Mughal Empire would conquer nearly all of the South Asian sub-continent. By 2453 it would have the entire thing excluding Goa, Taprovana, Celobotra, and Dramiria - all on the southern extremity.

Sailing to Earth's End

2273 witnessed the first recorded contact between the inhabitants of Japan and Europeans. The arrival of Roman fleet, accompanied by Sinaean ships, sparked booming interesting on the island. Sinaean trade had been ramped up over the past several decades with the initiation of the' Age of the Golden Sea' by Sinaean Emperor Yingzong, which saw extreme growths in wealth and learning globally. The world had arguablly become truly linked at this point, between Hesperian connections via Romania to Sinaean connections in the east, with Malian connections running from the Romans to Antillia, and so on. Roman trade posts were established on Amakusa island in Japan and would prosper until 2386 and the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate, whence all foreign contact was forbidden in Japan. The Roman trade-families established in Amakusa subsequently relocated to Nanjing in Sina, where Romans had also established prominent trade facilities.

The Disintegration of Messicu Province
The Roman hold in Meshico (known as Messicu in Romanian and given Provincial status) was always on rough ground. The governance was fraught and difficult to maintain. Unlike Boriquen it had a large non-Roman population. Although all Meshica had been given Roman citizenship and were thus considered Roman, the language, cultural, and religious barriers proved a higher hurdle than the citizenship granting could leap over. New Rome grew at a steady rate and numerous Roman explorations along the Seric coast, north and south, occurred. Contact was made and trade opened with Tawantinsuyu and trade posts were established along the northern Hesperian coast.

The Chichimeca War

The term 'Chichimeca' carried the same sense as the Roman term 'barbarian' and was used by the Meshica for what they considered the uncouth and rowdy tribal confederations to their north. These groups, under this banner term, would prove fatal the the Roman hold on Meshico.

From 2288 to 2294 there would be a back and forth between the Romans and the Chichimeca. The war gradually and increasingly became manned by Meshica, fighting for the Romans, and subsequently the Romans lost interest. The city of New Rome and the coastal province of Acolua, both heavy fortified, appeared to be Romania's only true concern and the slaughter occurring inland was paid less mind after Romans had been sheltered in the two aforementioned locations.

It was in this light that King Xolotl III of the Chichimeca Confederation obtained the title Emperor of Meshico. As the war had continued unabated, it became clear that the Roman policy of a war of fire and blood had failed and the reliance on Meshica fighters was waning as many worryingly were joining the Chichimeca. The treasury was being emptied by the demands of the war. Mistreatment and enslavement of Chichimeca women, children, and men by the Romans increasingly came to be seen with antagonism by the Meshica and various allied states that made up the Roman province. Thus, to end the conflict, the Romans began to change public policy to purchase peace from the Chichimeca. The guarantee was the security of New Rome and Acolua, sovereign Roman waystations along the road connecting the two, and an alliance pact between Romania and Xolotl's empire. Thus was reborn the Empire of Meshico in 2294.

The Hesperian Explorations The colony of Terra del Sole (moden Soleterra) was established as part of a Senatorial directive. Fearing for New Rome in its disadvantaged position, easily cut off should Meshico turn hostile, there came a need for a direct link. Any renewed hostility that would arrive with a renewed conquest of Meshico was not desired - the population was too robust, the country too large and too distant from Ravenna to control. It was in this light that Supreme Consul Ludoviciu Medices, with the Senate, sent instructions to establish a Roman settlement to connect New Rome to "those Roman islands on the eastern end of Messicu... and to search out other suitable arrangements for Romania."

Camillu Martelles was given the task directly from Ludoviciu and sent to Hesperia with them. The Equites Martelles was the elder brother of Ludoviciu Medices' wife, Minerva, who the Supreme Consul was very fond of. It is in this light that we may see the favoratism granted Camillu in this order.

Martelles set about establishing Terra del Sole in 2296 after getting a reading of this new world. The location had been scouted already by the numerous Roman forays around the region and the destination was confirmed by Martelles after he surveyed it. Named in honor of the Conquering Sun, he remained at the site to oversee the new colony and would linger here for over a year while it grew. Martelles was delayed the following year due to illness from the new environment. The Equites set out after recovery, choosing to sail up the Seric side of the coastline. This choice may have been multifaceted. The eastern side had been fairly thoroughly scouted by the Romans at this point. Destinations further south weren't particularly sought after due to the mistaken belief that Malian territory was very close (the distances weren't understood yet). Mali was a powerful realm and the Roman preferred keeping them as trade-allies. North proved to be fruitful to trade, but not for settlement.

The Hesperians of the east were firmly established and had a better handle on the weaponry technology and stone-walled of settlements. The reports issued to Martelles likened their level of martial ability as that of the "thulean region (far northern) of Europe or that of the deserts of Libia" and we know that the Hesperians here had complex realms developed, the use of steel, and lamellar armor. In other words, as reported to Martelles, these weren't people who could be bullied or, if need be, fought off for a potential bit of land. The Seric Ocean remained an unknown, however, and the enticing of idea of reaching Sina from that direction was a plus.

Western Hesperia

The Seric Ocean had not been left alone naturally enough. Three Roman expeditions sailed north around 2200 as far as a land he dubbed Fornixia, from the Romanian word fornàxe (furnance) in reference to the scorched land they saw. Further expeditions sailed forth from Roman Messicu for a time, but the distance traveled remains unknown.

Martelles sailed beyond Fornixia and made landfall at what he dubbed the Bay of All the Gods (modern day Calanca de Totus Deus in Concordia). The deep-water bay was envisioned as an ideal port, a good distance from New Rome, and so the spot was determined as the first settlement by Martelles. The party consisted of numerous (the number is unknown) ships, carrying building material, animals, and colonists. The inhabitants of the area, the Kamia, comprised several autonomous bands with 30 patrilineal clans. They evidently fled the area on Roman landfall but would approach the camp in the next days. Martelles delivered to them an official announcement of Roman claim and opened trade. The nuances of what occurred are, of course, lost to time, but we know that food goods and other trinket-items were 'given as gifts' to the Kamia who were essentially swindled into selling land, engaging in an activity they had no understanding of. Kamia bands would ultimately set up on the outskirts of the colony and would become a boon to local language and customs to the Calanca as it grew. The non-native, invasive flora, and domestic animals and disease brought by the Romans would have a dire impact. It is estimated that there were around 9,000-12,000 Kumia at the time of the Roman arrival, where 1,300 remain today.

Martelles would set north again after a month at Calanca. His next location he would name Fumasia, originally calling it the Bay of Smoke, he would combine the word smoke (fumu) with the inhabitants group name he met ashore, the Chumash. A small group was left on the Limuia islands off the coast, though there is evidence no colonists were among them but probably soldiers only. Trade was established with Fumasia and Martelles sailed on. The small band left behind by Martelles found themselves approach and, with a Kumian translator, were able to determine that there were two warring provinces, "Jejo ruled by an "old woman", and Jucu" as was written down by the head of the party. Jejo was requesting aid from the strangers but any more detailed has been lost, so the result remains unknown.

The next stop was at the Gulf of Pines (Colfu de Pinus). Martelles was enamored with the area as his own writing suggests. He established a significant number of the ships here. The same scenario that occurred with the Kumia repeated itself here. The region inland and around the gulf was named Meacia after the self-designation of the indigenous inhabitants. Martelles remained here for over a week before the arrival of a small Roman ship from Limuia. The Roman group left in Fumasia were in duress and requested aid. Martelles returned south to discover the island under attack by a tribe whose name is written down as "Cij" (pronounced keej). This is believed to be the ancestors of the modern Toviscanians. Martelles stepped out of his boat and splintered his shin when he stumbled onto a jagged rock while trying to rescue some of his men from attacking Cij warriors. The injury became infected and developed gangrene, and he died on November 3. The expedition came under the command of Augustíne Ferralzu.

The Cij attack was repulsed and the Romans left on Limuia islands were taken aboard and the entire group set up on the mainland. Ferralzu debated with his fellow expedition leaders and the decision was reached to winter at Fumasia and establish a colony here instead. The settlement was named Martellia, after their beloved expedition leader, Camillu Martelles.

Ferralzu spent the winter on a mad frenzy of retribution. The exact numbers are unknown, but Ferralzu roamed great distances north and east from Martellia and left great slaughter in his wake. The incident came to be known among Roman circles as the Slaughter of the Innocents and Ferralzu earned a bloody reputation. The Cij were beaten back but the real damage came to surrounding tribes, innocent of any wrongdoing. Speculation is varied as to why Ferralzu was so relentless in his revenge. A leading, and popular, theory follows that Ferralzu and Camillu Martelles were lovers.

Ferralzu would lead the expedition north six months later, leaving behind all colonists and materials save for those they might need for small forts. He arrived at the Takelma river in what is now Tsinucia. Ferralzu made note that the inhabitants were called Takelma, whence the river name comes. He noted further that they were being encroached upon from the north by the Tsinucan realm. Ferralzu, in his extensive notes, records the Takelman people lived as foragers. They collected plant foods and insects, fished and hunted. The Takelma cultivated only one crop, a native tobacco. The Takelma lived in small bands of related men and their families. Ferralzu indicated that the Takelman were "of a level comparable to that of those Hesperian barbarians to our present locations south and north of Messicu", disparagingly commenting on his belief of their lower technological level. Ferralzu also waxes about the Hesperians of the western coast and their being "men left over from the Golden Age. Utopian and ignorant in their utopia, living a life with the earth that we have fallen from".

Ferralzu made a further voyage north, leaving none behind. The next location he was met with the Tsinucan people who he commented upon as being "altogether different" from those of previous encounters. He noted their tradition of flattening their heads as well as their use of steel and lamellar armor, though noted an absence of fortified settlements. Ferralzu described them as expansive and war-like, hinting abundantly that there would be no viable land here. Ferralzu next made landfall at Tseuitzen, a budding village and not yet a city at that time. Ferralzu called the place Anian, believing it to be a land that was the result of mistaken identity from a misreading of an old map likely indicating Sinaean-land rather than Anian. Ferralzu noted that the Anians were much the same as the Tsinucan and suggesting that they sit atop a waterway that would lead to eastern Hesperia and the Atlantic. Trade was established and a Roman presence remained in Tseuitzen to foment this, but diplomatically and minimally - there was no intent on land grabbing in this area. Ferralzu returned south to Martellia after overwintering in Tseuitzen then proceeded to New Rome, Boriquen, and ultimately ended up in Ravenna.

The arrival of Sinti slaves in Martellia, along with horses, would play a crucial role in the future of Hesperia. There is no exact date given to the first release of horses from Roman control. It could have been escaped animals, traded animals, stolen, maybe a combination. The Sinti certainly escaped in some numbers and began a tradition of migratory herding, horses in tow, across Hesperia not long after their arrival.

Eastern Hesperia

The success of Roman settlement in western Hesperia were not repeated in eastern Hesperia, though not for want of trying. In 2277 Janu Verrasane plied the eastern coast, mapping much of it and establishing extensive trade contacts. Born in Greva, Tuscia Province, Janu was an experienced sailor and explorer. Janu left a detailed account of his voyages in Hesperia, but little is known about his personal life. After 2259, he settled in the port of Dieppa in Francia, where he began to fruther his career as a navigator. In 2276 Janu was offered by the Senate to lead an exploratory and trade-mission to Hesperia - one of many offered - and he took the opportunity. Within months, four ships set sail for Boriquen, from where they would bank north and explore. On route to Boriquen a violent storm and rough seas caused the loss of two ships. The damaged ships were forced to return to Europe and landed in Letavia, continental Cambria. Repairs were completed in the final weeks of the year, and they set sail again, now with a swelled crew with added Cambrians. They arrived in Boriquen around March and set north mere days after. Sailing along the eastern coast, heading north, the Roman ships first encountered the Stapabans. Janu listed it as slightly more advanced than "the islanders" (presumably the Taino and Caribs) and after bartering he moved on. The next encounter Janu had was with the Mascogans who he was evidently altogether more impressed with, implied by his much more extensive notes on them. Their level of developement was markedly higher than their southern neighbors and the islanders. Janu noted walled towns and steel weapons but suggested a disorderly band-oriented military, "easily overcome" as he put it. Janu established trade contact and sailed on, making further north before stopping in the sound he would later call Pamoi Sound, after the inhabitants. The Pamoii were under the dominion of the Issians, the dominate kingdom in the area. At the bequest of the Pamoi Janu would establish himself here. Serendipitously a Roman, stranded years prior, was a member of the Pamoi, trusted, and able to translate for both parties, living in the city Raudauqua freely. It was in this light Janu was able to determine the way the winds blew and likely resulted in his decision to accept the offer. Janu would ramp up the bargain and obtained a plot of land for the Romans, if they would aid the Pamoi in breaking away from Issian control. It seemed an echo of the situation that happened when first coming upon the Meshican Empire.

Janu left a bulk of his men, who got about building a fort, and the explorer sailed north. Șesepice Sound (from the local name 'Chesepioc') was entered and explored briefly, with Janu noting a number of budding towns. Janu next stopped among the Renapian, the exact town however is unknown. Here the Romans encountered a Vinlandic party of merchants and noted the size of the Renapian settlement and the further level of development in building material, weaponry, and architecture. The communication was eased via a Scandian who was among the Cambrian crew. He was able to roughly translate the Vinlandic and the Vinlanders in turn the Renapian. It was via the Vinlandic Renappland, which the Romans turned into Renapia. Janu indicated this was a small but sturdy Kingdom. Trade was established and the Vinlanders agreed to journey north with Janu. The next stop was in what the Vinlanders told the Romans was the territory of the Maikanders, called Maikland, thus termed Mahicania. Noted as a very small realm, the Romans established trade contact and moved on. The next stop they were informed by the Vinlanders would be a powerful Kingdom they called Skræland (whence the Roman name Scralia), Janu noted this realm as very prominent and prosperous "with a great many fortresses". Janu would ultimately arrive in Vinland where he would winter and a portion of his Cambrian crew remained before he sailed on, deciding to see if he could make a circular trip back to Romania, and this he did.

The return of Janu from the north was highly regarded in European circles. The continent had been aware of Vinland and received trade goods from the land they inhabited via Scandian and Vinlandic traders, but this was a mere trickle and the bulk of the items were furs, fish, and "unicorn horns" (narwhal teeth). An occasional item of southern Hesperian origin has shown up from earlier dates, but this appears rare. Vinlandic merchants did not move beyond Șesepice Sound; evidently shying away from the areas south of this from disastrous expeditions in the past. Though explorers from Vinland may have reached the Seric Ocean, and certainly sailed Sweet Sea, they didn't make a habit of it for the dangers. The smaller exchange area they inhabitant was lucrative enough. It was in this light that none in Europe were certain that the lands the Roman had come upon were connected to Vinland - the Vinlanders were uncertain of this as well. Janu ultimately proved it to be so.

The explorer would return to Pamoi Sound and his men he left behind, sailing a direct route, in 2280. Storms drove him further south and he arrived not far south, along the Azalea Coast. Janu found the situation surprisingly unaltered, save for a completed fort and that some of his men had taken local wives. He was updated with a report of an Issian armed 'diplomatic' mission who treated the foreigners with a great deal of respect. This occured mere days before Janu's arrival. The Issians had mistook the Romans as Vinlanders at first and, so Janu was informed, supposed this was a possible Renapian attack, the two being chief allies. When it was revealed this was not so, all was well with the Issians. Janu suspected ulterior motives and so settled down to aid in the forts construction.

The suspected attack did arrive, two weeks later. The combined Pomoi and Roman force repelled the attack with relative ease and the Pomoi "held a great celebration, heralding us as deliverers from above" notes Janu. Janu made no attempt to extend his territories and appeared to work with the Pomoi, emphasizing respect and agreement between the two groups, in stark contrast to the situation in western Hesperia. Janu named the new fortress Hellenia, in honor of his religion, and the area around it he claimed as New Gallia.

Janu Verrasane's demise arrived in 2281, after his voyage south from Hellenia to Boriquen. Exploring south this time, Janu anchored out to sea and rowed ashore, probably on the island of Karukera (it is presumed this island as it was an "island outside of the Roman sphere, only just south of that"). He was killed and eaten by the native Carib inhabitants. The fleet of two or three ships was anchored out of gunshot range, and no one could respond in time.

The Massacre of Pomoia

Hellenia would prosper for a time, expanding and absorbing Raudauqua. In 2293 an expansive Roman expedition would set out with a force of Pomoii, sacking Issian towns along the way and establishing way-forts. It was an exploratory and military expedition, Senate supported, that would ultimately set the situation for Hellenia's fall. Ariu Vadu led the expedition, the second son of a minor patrician family in Hispania. His movement snaked through Issian land and continued into Tsalagia, despite Pomoii warnings to not. The Pomoii objective was both retribution and certainty of independence from Issia, with the added benefit of annexing new lands. Pomoi had, rather smoothly and beneath their very feet, become a Roman territory. even so, to bring down Tsalagia into the conflict was not hoped for by the Pomoi. Vadu was intent, however, to gobble the entire thing up.

Vasu established a fort at Ilasi, a small castle taken by his men. Approaching the Shaconage Mountains, Vasu sacked the city of Juara, the capital of the Cosan, a tributary realm of Tsalagia, and established soldiers there, as in Ilasi. Moving on, across the mountains, he turned south and would ultimately arrive at the fortified city of Mavila, part of Mascoga. A lengthy siege began that resulted in a Pyrrhic Roman-Pomoii victory. Tascalusa, the Mascogan king, met the Romans after their conquest. The Battle of Atahachi witnessed another Pyrrhic victory for the Romans. Vasu was well aware at this point that he needed to hurry east, dropping his original plan of making for the Sibonean Sea before turning east. The party made haste, harassed along the way, until the Atlantic was sighted. The party turned north from here, arriving eventually in Issian territory. The journey further north was largely uneventful, though the force was much depleted upon arrival in Hellenia in 2295, two years later. The Issian realm and that of the Mascogans would begin to rebuild and plan. Vasu set back out not long after resettling in Hellenia, making for Ilasi and Juara and the Romans who remained there.

Juara and Ilasi suffered a number of assaults over the years but the two fortress-settlements remained unbroken. As the years progressed settlers rolled in and the land up to Juara, just beyond the foothills of the Shaconage Mountains, became part of the Pomoia Province.

In 2319 Juara would fall to a massive Tsalagian, Mascogan, and Issian force. Juara had grown extensively, settled heavily by the Romans, with a growing Pomoi town adjacent. The siege was extensive but the outcome nearly certain due to the competing numbers. The inhabitants were slaughtered regardless of age or gender and particular savagery was reserved for the Pomoi. Those who managed to survive arrived in Ilasi with the dire news. Aid would not make it to the second city in time, which fell in a repetition of the Juara. Pomoia was invaded from three directions and the Roman garrison was too meager - the Province was peripheral to the Romans and nearly neglected. Hellenia suffered the same fate as her two sister cities. Those who escaped fled to the north for refuge in Renapia, from where they found ships to carry them south to Boriquen.

There was no Roman reprisal and no desire for another attempt at eastern Hesperia. The Pomoi were destroyed by the Issians completely - the name of the Pomoi Sound and the city Raudauqua (reverting from Hellenia) are essentially all that remains.

The Medices Dynasty
Ludoviciu Medices was the descendant of Duce Alfredu Medices, a martyr in Roman eyes who was killed in the Anatolian campaign by 'treacherous Grecians' in 2061. The son of Alfredu Medices had taken his father's place as a Provincial Count (Comes de Provìntsia) for Italia, a post of extraordinary honor and reputation. The Medices family would veritably hold this post hereditary with a few changes off and on through the decades, but the Florentine family continued to hold a prominent patrician position. It was via this influence that the Medices family gained the Supreme Consulship and would hold it through several generations, essentially becoming a sort of elected monarchy or dictatorship, without the official trappings of being such. Ludoviciu was the first Medices to be granted the title Supreme Consul, but the first of what would be four.

The Medices would see Romania through a time of prosperity called the Golden Time, with a flourishing of art fueled by the greatly increasing wealth from the Hesperian trade-monopoly and the trade links with Sina to the east.

Fifth Age - Modern Era (AUC 2500 to Present)
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Society
Romania is a modern, advanced society, shaped by a plurality of lifestyles and regional identities. Broad acceptance of diversity and religious plurality is the expected norm in Romania and the country is placed placed highly on tolerance rankings globally. Romania established one of the highest levels of gender equality globally, promotes disability rights, and is legally and socially tolerant toward homophiles.

Certain contemporary global issues, such as abortion and homophile rights, are non-issues within Romania on account of their historical culture acceptance. Broadly held and accepted same-sex and intersex rights permeate modern Romania and the nation is rated highly in these arenas. Abortion, a similar global issue, remains fully legal in Romania and has largely had little fluctuation throughout history, remaining an issue that does not arise among Romans.

Romans enjoy among the highest standards of living globally, surpassed only by Ganonsia and Bakitara by some estimates and comparable to Cambria and Sina.

The Roman state protects and supports the economic and social well-being of the citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of  the means of wealth via the distribution of the means of production to as many as possible. Romania has more small businesses and land owners than any other state as a result. The Guild System is highly entrenched in the country.

The guiding philosophies of the Roman state are Republicanism and Corporatist-Distributism.

History of Roman Women from the Second Age through Fourth Age
The historic stance of Roman women, from the Classical Era through the Post-Classical Era, was strict in many areas and liberating in others. The Roman household was considered a collective (corpus, a "body") over which the pater familias had mastery. The legal standing of daughters differed little if at all from that of sons. The pater familias had the right and duty to find a husband for his daughter and first marriages were normally arranged. Technically, the couple had to be old enough to consent, but the age of consent was 12 for girls and 14 for boys, though in practice boys seem to have been on average five years older. Among the elite, 14 was the age of transition from childhood to adolescence, but a betrothal might be arranged for political reasons when the couple were too young to marry, and in general noble women married younger than women of the lower classes.

Most Roman women would have married in their late teens to early twenties. An aristocratic girl was expected to be a virgin when she married, as her young age might indicate. A daughter could legitimately refuse a match made by her parents only by showing that the proposed husband was of bad character. It is believed that the restrictions for women in non-aristocratic families was less and their marriage options more open.

Family and Law
A daughter kept her own family name for life, not assuming that of her husband (a tradition unchanged in modern Romania). Children usually took the father's name. In the Imperial period, however, children might sometimes make their mother's family name part of theirs, or even adopt it instead.

From the start of the Roman republic, there was a high emphasis placed on a woman's virginity. A woman's sexual life began with the consummation of her marriage in her husband's cubiculum, or private room where slaves did not enter. In Roman houses it was common for men and women to each have their own cubicula, allowing potential for them to engage in sex lives separate from each other.

Roman women could own land, write their own wills, and appear in court. An emancipated woman legally became sui iuris, or her own person, and could own property and dispose of it as she saw fit. If a pater familias died intestate, the law required the equal division of his estate amongst his children, regardless of their age and sex. A will that did otherwise, or emancipated any family member without due process of law, could be challenged. From the late Republic onward, a woman who inherited a share equal with her brothers would have been independent of agnatic control.

Roman marriage was, in the Roman ideal, one of mutual loyalty, in which husband and wife shared interests, activities, and property. In the earliest periods of Roman history, Manus Marriage meant that a married woman would be subjugated by her husband, but that custom had died out by the AUC 650s, in favor of Free Marriage which did not grant a husband any rights over his wife or have any changing effect on a woman's status. Free marriage usually involved two citizens, or a citizen and a person who held Latin rights. In a free marriage a bride brought a dowry to the husband: if the marriage ended with no cause of adultery he returned most of it. So total was the law's separation of property that gifts between spouses were not recognized as such; if a couple divorced or even lived apart, the giver could reclaim the gift. Divorce was a legal but relatively informal affair which mainly involved a wife leaving her husband’s house and taking back her dowry. Divorce was socially acceptable if carried out within social norms (mos maiorum). By the time of Cicero and Julius Caesar, divorce was relatively common and "shame-free," the subject of gossip rather than a social disgrace.

Women and Sexuality
A concubine was defined by Roman law as a woman living in a permanent monogamous relationship with a man not her husband. There was no dishonor in being a concubine or living with a concubine, and a concubine could become a wife. Gifts could be exchanged between the partners in concubinage, in contrast to marriage, which maintained a more defined separation of property.

Roman law did not allow any domestic abuse by a husband to his wife, but as with any other crime, laws against domestic abuse can be assumed to fail to prevent it. Cato the Elder said, according to his biographer Plutarch, "that the man who struck his wife or child, laid violent hands on the holiest of holy things. Also that he thought it more praiseworthy to be a good husband than a good senator." A man of status was expected to behave moderately toward his wife and to define himself as a good husband. Wife beating was sufficient grounds for divorce or other legal action against the husband.

Roman wives were expected to bear children, but the women of the aristocracy, accustomed to a degree of independence, showed a growing disinclination to devote themselves to traditional motherhood. Most elite women avoided breast-feeding their infants themselves, and hired wet-nurses. Since a mother's milk was considered best for the baby, aristocratic women might still choose to breast-feed, unless physical reasons prevented it. If a woman chose to forgo nursing her own child she could visit the Columna Lactaria ("Milk Column"), where poor parents could obtain milk for their infants as charity from wet nurses, and those who could afford it could choose to hire a wet nurse. Breastfeeding by elite matrons was idealized as a practice of the virtuous old days. The extent to which Roman women might expect their husbands to participate in the rearing of very young children seems to vary and is hard to determine. Family-values traditionalists such as Cato appear to have taken an interest: Cato liked to be present when his wife bathed and swaddled their child and the father was additionally understood to be a primary educator. Large families were not the norm among the elite, though they were among the commoners.

Daily Life
Aristocratic women managed a large and complex household. Since wealthy couples often owned multiple homes and country estates with dozens or even hundreds of slaves, some of whom were educated and highly skilled, this responsibility was the equivalent of running a small corporation. In addition to the social and political importance of entertaining guests, clients, and visiting dignitaries from abroad, the husband held his morning business meetings (salutatio) at home. The home (domus) was also the center of the family's social identity, with ancestral portraits displayed in the entrance hall (atrium). Since the most ambitious aristocratic men were frequently away from home on military campaign or administrative duty in the provinces, sometimes for years at a time, the maintenance of the family's property and business decisions were often left to the wives.

Women appear as much engaged in business and as interested in speculations as Roman men. They work their estates, invest their funds, lend and borrow. We find one among Cicero's creditors, and two among his debtors. Although Roman society did not allow women to gain official political power, it did allow them to enter business. Even women of wealth were not supposed to be idle ladies of leisure. Among the aristocracy, women as well as men lent money to their peers to avoid resorting to a moneylender. Women also joined in funding public works, as is frequently documented by inscriptions during the Imperial period. Because women had the right to own property, they might engage in the same business transactions and management practices as any landowner. As with their male counterparts, their management of slaves appears to have varied from relative care to negligence and outright abuse.

Men argued firmly to block women from engaging in the public sphere. The political system in Rome involved men exclusively—from senators to magistrates. Women were even prevented from voting. They were not seen as fit to be part of the political sphere as men believed them to be only suited for "elegance, adornment, and finery."

Women were present at most Roman festivals and cult observances. Some rituals specifically required the presence of women, but their participation might be limited. Women priests played a prominent and crucial role in the official religion of Rome and with later Hellenism. Although the state colleges of male priests were far more numerous. Wealthy women traveled around the city in a litter carried by slaves. Women gathered in the streets on a daily basis to meet with friends, attend religious rites at temples, or to visit the baths. The wealthiest families had private baths at home, but most people went to bath houses not only to wash but to socialize, as the larger facilities offered a range of services and recreational activities, among which casual sex was not excluded. There is clear evidence of mixed bathing from the late Republic through the Post-Classical Era. Both women of lower-class women bathed with men and women of the highest social classes could be seen naked at the baths. Hadrian prohibited mixed bathing, but the ban did not endure, existing through the Post-Classical Era. Most likely, customs varied not only by time and place, but by facility, so that women could choose to segregate themselves by gender or not. For entertainment women could attend debates at the Forum, the public games (ludi), chariot races, dinner parties, and theatrical performances. Conservatives such as Cato the Elder considered it improper for women to take a more active role in public life; his complaints indicated that indeed some women did voice their opinions in the public sphere. Though the practice was discouraged, Roman generals would sometimes take their wives with them on military campaigns. Wealthy women might tour the empire, often participating or viewing religious ceremonies and sites around the empire.

Appearance
Women in Romania took great care in their appearance, though extravagance was frowned upon. They wore cosmetics and made different concoctions for their skin. Women used rouge made of lead or carmine to add color to their cheeks as well as using lead to highlight their eyes.

Based on Roman art and literature, small breasts and wide hips were the ideal body type for women considered alluring by Roman men. Large breasts were mocked as humorous or a sign of old age. Young girls wore a strophium secured tightly in the belief that it would inhibit the growth of breasts, and a regimen of massaging the breasts with hemlock, begun while a woman was still a virgin, was thought to prevent sagging. The breast was associated primarily with nursing infants and a woman's role as a mother and subsequently a powerful symbol. In times of extreme emotional duress, such as mourning or captivity in wartime, women might bare their breasts as an apotropaic gesture.

Modern Gender Equality in Romania
In the arena of gender equality Roman society began an early move, compared to most nations of the world (albeit miles behind Ganonsia or Bakitara, for example), toward giving women a voice in society. The move toward full equality in the modern era has its roots in AUC 2407 with the establishment of the Rhea Silvia Society by Màrias Guidu after her travels around Ganonsia and the inspiration she found. Though suffrage and the status of women have been enshrined for some time, there are many in society who argue that Romans have not gone far enough and indicate Ganonsia and Bakitara as prime examples of areas where Romania is lacking even still.

Women’s rights in Romania are considered broad and the country is often highly rated in this arena. In Romania there is broad acceptance of open public breastfeeding, regarded as a norm, and, as with men, certain areas (parks, beaches, etc) are free to toplessness for both men and women. The pay gap in Romania is considered largely non-existent and women are open to all occupations and have largely been integrated as such. Maternal care and maternal leave are among the highest in the world (45 weeks with no pay loss), violence against women is low and when it occurs is taken very seriously. Abortion rights are fully in place and divorce as well.

Nevertheless, Romania is regarded by some as suffering from Pedestal Sexism or Ambivalent Sexism. Cultural norms embedded from the past remain in play among Romans, with dyadic power reflecting the notion that men depend on women to fulfill certain goals, such as heterosexual intimacy and childbearing. Roman men's dependence on women is what fuels benevolently sexist attitudes, leading to idolization and the placing of women on a pedestal. In Romania paternalism reflects views of women as underdeveloped adults or care-taking mothers, providing justification for men to be authoritative and monitor, protect, and make decisions on women's behalf. Gender differentiation promotes the assumption that biological differences between males and females justify the strict adherence to socially prescribed gender roles and, even if officially beyond this, Roman culture has not quite let go of this notion. The long held views of women as sexual objects for men's pleasure and objects of perfection romanticizes women as having sexual purity and views romantic intimacy as necessary to complete a man. The continued obsession with beauty pageants, the fashion industry, the general objectification of women are each examples of this.

In the words of the prominent Roman feminist and mayor of Milan, Tiadora Floris, “Romania continues to suffer from what we call Pedestal Sexism. The embedded endearment to beauty pageants, fashion models, the lingering tunnel view of women as perfection in motherhood, the continued obsession with long standing ideas of physical perfection and beauty - all of this and more erodes Roman attempts at true gender equality. I can certainly pat my fellow Romans on the back for the leaps made toward equality over the decades, but if one is going to be honest then we have to say that Romania continues to fall short.”

Homophile Rights
Romans have historically regarded marriage as a male–female union for the purpose of producing children; Roman law throughout the Classical Era and Post-Classical Era did not recognize marriage between males. Sexual relations between same sex couples was, however, not forbidden. The conquest mentality and "cult of virility" shaped same-sex relations. Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status, if they took the dominant or penetrative role. Acceptable male partners were slaves and former slaves, prostitutes, and entertainers. The relationships of women are less well documented, though there is enough evidence to suggest a similar situation throughout the Classical and certainly the Post-Classical Era. In the late AUC 1200s the Greek Emperor Ioustinianós declared same-sex relations illegal in Greece and they ultimately became punishable by death. It may be trough this lens that we see the official legalization of same-sex relations in Romania via the Roman law enacted by Emperor Vitalius. We subsequently see no actual change in Romania – male prostitution remained legal as before and same-sex relations remained nonpunishable though they carried social stigma if a man took the ‘feminine’ position.

This status remained unchanged until AUC 2729 which witnessed the legalization of same-sex marriage in Romania. The legalization came upon the back of widespread global movements for inclusiveness of homophile members of society. In Romania this was reflected not only in the marriage law but in movements for an abandonment of cultural shaming of the ‘feminine’ position in a relationship. Romania was the third nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

Romania is largely regarded as very tolerant of same-sex couples and transgender citizens, witnessing very little discrimination according to self-reported statistics and watch-dog statistics. The largest homophile-pride parade takes place yearly in Milan.

Racism in Romania
Racism in Romania has gone through episodes of increase and decrease and is, according to experts, on an increase at present.

The peoples of Romania prided themselves on an absence of overt racial enmity and the country, in the broadest scope, is regarded as one of anti-racism, showing acceptance and diversity. Romania remains among the top globally for societal racial tolerance, though this position has taken numerous blows over history and presently and many have pointed out hypocrisies in such as claim. In 2764, a report by World Rights Watch pointed to growing indications of a rise in xenophobia within the Roman society and Bakitaran Foreign Minister Kahamba Kutesa has publicly expressed concern after the election of Aeliana Berninu as First Consul. In a desire to reduce global and racial antagonism, widespread student movements inside Romania have witnessed a grassroots movement to draw Romania closer to Persia, their historic rival, and have gone through great lengths to combat entrenched cultural racism within Romania.

Historic racism can be seen in the anti-Semitism rooted in the Classical Era. Relationships between the Jewish people and the Roman Empire were at times antagonistic and resulted in several rebellions. The emperor Tiberius expelled from Rome Jews who had gone to live there while the destruction of the Temple and sacking of Jerusalem was the culmination of this anti-jewish stance. Ultimately the Emperor Hadrian would change Judaea province's name to Syria Palaestina in an attempt to destroy this regions identity. The Post-Classical Era witnessed a rebirth in anti-semitism following the status of Judea as a chief Persian ally and 'all Jews' as under the Shah's protection. With the re-sparked rivalry between Romania and Persia came a rise in anti-semitism. The Jews of Romania began to be viewed suspiciously, as potential enemies from within. Flare ups of anti-semitic violence tended to follow the Roman-Persian wars throughout history henceforth. The Great World War witnessed the latest anti-semitic behaviour, with a number of Jewish Romans forced out of the country via violence. During the Great World War the destruction of the Third Temple and abuse of Jerusalemites was stopped only by the intervention of Roman General Bachis Sanna.

Historically held anti-Persian views have permeated Roman society since the Classical Era. Numerous anti-Persian stereotypes abound in Romania, popularized throughout the previous decades with a peak during the Great World War and the emergence of the Tepid War, just under a decade after the GWW's conclusion. Romanians tend to view Persian as their natural enemy and as their opposite. The Romanian film industry has been criticized for its excessive and continuous use of Persians as villains. Persia is stilled viewed broadly in Romania in a negative light, though there have been numerous attempts, particularly among student-movements, at bridging the gap between the two powers. The term fàcifócu (an ethnic slur targeting Persians that means fire-face) continues to show up during international sporting events, particularly football matches.

The Sinti have perhaps suffered the most from racial prejudice within Romania. The historical enslavement of the Sinti spurred a lasting handicap on the Sinti community that has lasted to the present day. In Post-Classical Romania slavery remained widespread and almost all slaves originated in eastern Europe, northern Libia, Hibernia, or western Asia before being completely supplanted by the mass enslavement of the Sinti, henceforth the exclusive source of chattel. AUC 2609 witnessed the full emancipation of the Sinti but the broad anti-Sinti sentiment never faded. Job and housing discrimination abounds and many Sinti faced violence during the chaos of the GWW. A report issued by the Society of Conscience in 2764 claims that "systematic discrimination is taking place against the Sinti in Romania. The organization has documented the failures of the government to live up to their obligations." Roman Professor Dionìsi Nigellu has written articles stating that Sinti are culturally inclined toward theft and use their minority status to 'blackmail' the majority. According to the latest Society of Conscience Survey, Sinti routinely suffer assaults in city streets and other public places as they travel to and from homes and markets as well as routine police abuse. Housing discrimination has led to a great number of Sinti living in unofficially Sinti exclusive housing communities, often left in a state or disrepair.

Historically Sub-Saharan Libians (particularly West Libians via the Asante markets) were broadly purchased as rowing slaves aboard Roman ships in the Post-Classical Era and the ethnic slur, remagena (a union of the word 'rematòre', rower, and the word 'melangena', eggplant), has lingered to the present day. Some racist incidents have been noted during football and gymnastic sporting events targeting Sub-Saharan Libians. Libian migrant communities have noted some discrimination against them in Romania, though the incidents are recorded less often than those toward Sinti. This is attributed to a less hostile view towards Libians overall by Romans, although the lesser numbers by the Society of Conscience are attributed to there simply being fewer Libians in Romania and they do note the increase in racial prejudice that is accompanying climate refugees from Libia. A survey among Libian migrants suggests a fairly open society however. Libian and Libian-Roman's have a broadly satisfactory experience living in Romania, according to reports, and the lot of Libian and Libian-ancestral people in Romania remains fairly positive.

The Persian author Afiveh Felfeli is quoted as saying, "The Romans hide from their own misdeeds by shielding themselves with the errors of others. They hold up the evil deeds of the Persians that we might not see the evil done by Romans to their fellow men. The self-righteousness that Romania declares for bringing to justice those responsible for the plight of the Armenians is belittled by the suffering of Sinti, Jew, Meshican, Antillian, Abyssinian, or Miamean at the hands of Romans.

National Image
The internal and external evaluation of Romania's national image is significantly and repeatedly highly ranked. Globally assessed, the country's reputation in terms of culture, politics, exports, its people and its attractiveness to tourists, immigrants and investments, has remained among the highest in the world. Romania has been named the world's third most valued nation among 50 countries in 2763, behind Cambria and Sina. With an expenditure of £70 billion on international travel in 2761, Romans spent more money on travel than any other country. Romania garners global popularity in sports, beauty pageants, cinema, science, and education – regarded as a leader in these categories as well as others.

The global status of Romania has fallen in recent years due to the ongoing wars in Abyssinia and Miame. Persia, among other nations, is of the opinion that Romania is a global autocrat, cultural imperialist and bully.

Geography
Mainland, or European, Romania stretches from the Iberian peninsula in the west to the eastern Alps in the east. Significant features include the Alps centrally, the wide ranging Selva Négru forest in the north, the Apennines in the south, and the Cantabrians in the west. Significant rivers include the Danube, the Rhine, the Liger, the Tigus, and the Rhone.

Western Romania has an Oceanic climate, southern Romania has a Mediterranean climate, and central-eastern Romania is classified as having a Continental climate. Four seasons occur in most of Romania away from the Mediterranean. The coastal lowlands near and on the Mediterranean Sea, have more of a wet and dry season pattern, with winter the season of most rainfall, and summers a time of few rainy days.

Romania includes 11 overseas territories. Most are insular climates, including equatorial climates, while a few warm-arid, bordering on desert.

Administrative Divisions
Romania is subdivided into 22 Provinces and, above this, five Prefectures. The country is further divided into 16 metropolitan cities and 11 Overseas Departments.

Government of Romania
The Government of the Roman Republic was established in AUC 2569 after the deposition of the last Emperor.

The Roman government is divided in three – executive, legislative, and judicial. It is composed of five elements: Assembly, Tribunal, Senate, Council, and Consulate. The executive branch of government consists of the Consulate and the Council. The legislative branch of government consists of the Senate. The judicial branch consists of the Tribunal. Lastly is the population at large, with all legal citizens of the Roman Republic considered the Assembly.

Executive Branch
The executive branch has a makeup as follows: The Consulate consists of the Consuls, the two heads of state and government of the Roman Republic. One consul is elected via popular vote by what is termed the Assembly, constituting all eligible voters in Romania. The other consul is elected by the Senate from among their own members. Both consuls serve a three-year term. Both consuls are considered equal in power and a balance to one another. The Assembly-elected (popular vote) consul is the principal chief diplomat for the republic and in charge of foreign affairs, assigns ambassadors (they must be approved by the Council and co-consul), submits to the Senate the annual and pluriannual Budget Law, as well as the relevant financial statements of the State and of State Corporations, accompanied by the necessary reports (the Senate is required to approve). The Senate-elected consul appoints Tribunal members (though they must be approved by the Council and co-consul) and traditionally acts as the commander-in-chief of the Roman military – a role that is not constitutional only traditional. Each consul rotates as head of the Senate each month, residing over meetings and acting as the tie breaker in votes. Both consuls have full veto power over one another and the Council. The Consulate can order immediate execution, under its own responsibility, of urgent and unpostponable measures, which are subject to the preventive control in conformity with the provisions in force. The consuls can draft laws, though they must be passed by the Council, then the Senate, and are eligible for veto by the public via referendum. Consuls may be elected twice in their life but may not exceed two terms.

Typical terminology to differentiate the two consuls (as legally and officially both are simply called Consul) are for the consul elected by popular vote: Consul of the Plebs, popular-consul, people's consul, assemblies consul, assembly-elected consul, or popular-elected consul. For the consul elected by the Senate: Consul of the Senate, senatorial-consul, senate's consul, Number Ten (a reference to the idea that this consul acts as the tenth member of the Council), government's consul (usually derisively).

The Council consists of nine members elected from the Senate by the Senate. They act as a secondary executive, only marginally less powerful than the Consulate. Generally the elected group lasts five years as the Council, but it can be forced to resign by a senatorial vote of no confidence. Each elected Councilor is chosen for a post:

Councilor of State for Internal Affairs and Civil Defense

Councilor of State for Finance, Budget and Programming

Councilor of State for Education, Culture, University and Justice

Councilor of State for Territory, Environment and Agriculture

Councilor of State for Health and Social Security

Councilor of State for Trade and Relations with the Town Council

Councilor of State for Communication, Transport, Tourism, and Sport

Councilor of State for Industry and Crafts

Councilor of State for Labour and Cooperation

Collectively the Consulate and the Council decide on international policies for Romania, as well as international treaties and agreements concerning general international policies and matters relevant for the State’s security. They determine the general administrative policies by defining the relevant objectives and general programmes and by issuing the necessary general directives of the Public Administration. Are entrusted with the legislative initiative by drafting the laws to be submitted to the Senate for their approval; Decide on any other matter concerning the implementation of the Government programme, unless otherwise provided for in law provisions. Adopt or veto delegated decrees voted on by the Assembly (referendum laws initiated by the population and voted for); In case of need and urgency, adopts decrees having force of law and subject to ratification by Senate within three months, under penalty of nullity; Controls expenditure plans, as well as the single interventions, with a view to verifying their compliance with the approved budget and with the directives issued; Proposes administrative provisions falling within the competence of the Senate; and Adopts regulations concerning the forms and implementation modalities of laws, as well as the organisation and functioning of public offices in conformity with law provisions.

Legislative Branch
The Senate is the legislative branch of the Roman government. Elected via popular vote every five years, there are 310 senators elected from Roman constituencies (via each province by proportional representation), 10 from Roman citizens living abroad, and a nine are senators for life (senatores ad vita, also known as Il Nòve, meaning The Nine). A majority of at least 40 seats are given to the winning coalition of parties which receives an absolute majority of votes. A 3.5 percent threshold exists, together with guarantees for female candidates. The Senate approves or vetoes a number of decisions by the executive branch, appoint the Advising Commissions, and the Government Unions. The Senate also has the power to ratify treaties with other countries, co-acting and being the final arbiter for the Assembly-elected consul. The Senate is divided into six different Advising Commissions consisting of senators who examine, propose, and discuss the implementation of new laws that are on their way to being presented on the floor of the Senate. Though the Consulate may draft laws, these must go through their co-consul, the Council, and the Senate. The Senate, on the other hand, is able to draft laws which only need approval from the Senate (any law from any source may additionally be vetoed by a popular vote via referendum). Through referendums, citizens may challenge any law passed by senate or consulate and through initiatives, introduce amendments to the republic’s constitution, thus making Romania a direct democracy.

Judicial Branch
The Council of the Tribunal serves as the supreme court of the republic. The Senate-elected consul elects the Tribunal (with approval by the co-consul and the Council, with additional potential for Senatorial denial via vote), whose members remain in office until the age of 70 or via removal on the address of the Senate. The Tribunal consists of twelve members, one of which is the Supreme Tribune, the highest ranking and chief judge.

Current Issues
The principal contemporary issues facing Romania today are the global economic recession, the continued financial and life drain of Romania's two ongoing wars, a wave of anti-Sinti rhetoric sparked by the New Latin League Party, anti-immigrant stances across the country in light of climate and war refugees from Hesperia and Libia, the continued desire for Romania to see Persian global power hemmed in, with concerns about Persian activity abroad, trade-agreements with Sina and the effect that Sinaean productivity has on domestic productivity, March 2771 saw the inauguration of a new government under the popularly elected Aeliana Berninu and the senatorially elected Cassandra Bergamòne. At almost two years into their term the contemporary issues at hand include and administrative problems related to Romania's status as a close financial and trading partner within the European community. The other priority issue is to increase the transparency and efficiency of the Council. The long-standing push-and-pull between the Consulate and the Council remains a contentious issue. Consul Berninu has remained an antagonistic figure, riding into office on a wave of populism across Romania. The consul is seen by some as pushing the boundaries of the Consulship and using the office to broad excess of power. Issues which Consul Berninu road into office on include immigration issues, including a rising anti-migrant sentiment brought upon by climate and war refugees, principally from Libia and Hesperia. A wave of anti-Sinti sentiment has accompanied Berninu’s election as well, with a national conversation started by her political party, the New Latin League Party, suggesting moving the Sinti to India, a situation causing a diplomatic crisis with the Indian Republic. Claims of racism have since sparked from within the Senate and from leaders abroad, with witness to additional protest movements within Romania itself.

The Consulship has been largely cooperative, to the dismay of many in the Senate who had perhaps hoped a centre-right element in Consul Bergamòne would act as a moderating force to the farther-right of Consul Berninu. At present the principal issue between the consuls is the war in Abyssinia and the war in Miame; Consul Berninu wishes to speed up the situation with swift and aggressive force and turn these two areas into reliant states on Romania that the refugee communities might be forcibly returned to. Consul Bergamòne wishes to continue the gradual course Romania has been on and aid these two states in stabilizing themselves and subsequently protect Romanian interests at large.

Consul Berninu has recently been heavily promoting a desire to renew the contract with Kveld Company, a private military company, or mercenary organization, from Scandia. The last popularly elected Consul, Federica Mogerines, terminated Kveld's contract immediately upon entering office, citing numerous complaints from the Roman military as well as numerous reports of abuse perpetrated by the increasingly notorious organization while in Abyssinia and Miame. Aeiliana Berninu's argument is that the contracting of the ongoing wars will alleviate Romania's loss of life and financial drain, as the mercenary companies are deemed to be far more cost effective.

A continuously outspoken critic of Berninu, former Consul Federica Mogerines has been seen by many as a leader of the opposition movement. A member of the far-left Solidarity Party, Mogerines narrowly lost the popular vote for her re-election, losing to Berninu in 2770.

Political Philosophy of Romania
The guiding political philosophies of the modern Roman Republic are Corporatism, Distributism, and Republicanism; the form of government is Republicanism, the form of economic system is Distributism, while the overarching political philosophy is termed Corporatism. This is sometimes referred to as Distributist-Corporatism, or Roman Distributism.

The guiding political philosophy which Romania adheres too was largely put into place during the early 2600s by Consul Vintsente Píxea. Pixea and others developed the ideology in the preceding decades as a reaction against the increasing issues caused by the then dominant philosophy of Mercantilism.

Many of Pixea’s ideas were put into place by extensive land-divisions and settling to prop up small family producers. Additional state funding and aid went to smaller industries to broaden the field, with many arguing that this is just Mutualism and Managism with a different name. The following governments expanded on these initiatives, with international trade agreements that respected human rights, closing big business tax loopholes, ending of corporate welfare, and provided for more accountability for abuses in the finance sector, tax breaks for local farmers and family businesses, higher tariffs on goods from mega-exporters (one of the bumpiest times in the fairly smooth-friendship road between Romania and Sina occurred during this time), and more trust/cartel-busting laws.

A prominent and common business model in Romania that has resulted from this guiding philosophy is the cooperative. A prominent example of this business style is the Astùria Co-operative Corporation. With £16 Billion per year in sales making everything from muzzle-loading hunting guns to modern built-to-order factories. They operate an extensive network of social programs, schools, colleges, training institutes for apprentices and research facilities. A recent pay cut occurred in the ACC with the workers voting themselves this pay cut. They could do this because the workers are also the owners of the firm, a common occurrence across Romania. Each worker is a member of two organizations, the General Assembly and the Social Council, two guiding parts of the Guild involved.

The Cooperative Economy of Nord-Italia is another large-scale example of Roman Distributism. The Co-op is in the area around Bolona. While the ACC uses a hierarchical model that resembles a multi-divisional corporation (presuming the divisions of a corporation were free to leave at any time) the Nord-Italia model is one of networking among a large variety of independent firms. These networks are quite flexible, and may change from job to job, combining a high degree of integration for specific orders with a high degree of independence. The cooperation among the firms is institutionalized many in two organizations, The Nord-Italia Development Agency (NIDA) and the National Guild of Artisans (NAGA). NIDA provides a series of “real” service centers (as opposed to the “government” service centers) to businesses which provide business plan analysis, marketing, technology transfer, and other services. The centers are organized around various industries; one, for example, serves the fashion and textile industries, another serves construction, yet another serves earth-moving equipment, etc. NAGA serves the small craftsmen, the artisanal firms with fewer than 18 employees, and where the owner works within the firm, and adds financing, payroll, and similar services to the mix. The cooperatives supply 35 percent of the GDP of the region (Nord-Italia), and wages are 50 percent higher than much of Europe. The region’s productivity and standard of living are among the highest in Europe. The entrepreneurial spirit is high, with over eight percent of the workforce either self-employed or owning their own business. There are 90,000 manufacturing enterprises in the region (Nord-Italia).

The detailed function which the Guild performs in Romania, apart from its general function of mutual support and guarantee among men of a similar craft, are as follows: First, it guarantees workers property; it does the exact contrary. It makes property permanent and sees to it that undue competition and hostile action between the various members shall not lead to the eating up of the poorer man by the richer man. Thus, of the very first activities of the Guild is the making of laws for the conduct of its special trade by its own members, and the making of those laws so that each member may continue to be, within certain limits, a free members of the Guild and a free owner of his own means of livelihood. The Guild does not prevent the industrious man from flourishing, nor set a premium on idleness or inefficiency, but it makes rules whereby entrance into the Guild is only to be obtained on certain conditions, whereby there is a term of probation before a man becomes a full member, whereby those who desire to work in such and such a craft must belong to the Guild and whereby undue competition is checked. Second, the Guild has by charter from the State the right to deal with the matters which are the occupation of its members, and the right to such occupation is restricted to members of the Guild; but the State does not allow the Guild to exclude willing workers, still less to sell the privilege of membership. Entry to it must be open to all upon a sufficient test of efficiency in the trade concerned. Third, a Guild member must observe in his competition against other Guildsmen of his own craft certain limits. There are things he may do and things he may not do. There are rules for his professional conduct which he must obey under penalty of being turned out of the Guild and thereby losing his livelihood, and these rules are designed for two main objects, the good working of the craft and the maintaining of its members, so that each, with a certain minimum of industry and efficiency, is certain of a livelihood. Fourth, the Guild is self-governing within the limits of its charter, the charter granted to it by the public authority of the State.

According to the principal political philosophy which Romania operates Romans are supposed to follow an ideal of self-sufficient citizens of guild-organized craftsmen and farmers. The market is seen not so much an end in itself but as a means of generating wealth in order to achieve broader social goals and to maintain societal cohesion.

Roman Corporatism is viewed as demanding that the welfare of all people, especially the poor and vulnerable, must be protected because every human being has dignity.

According to the Roman philosophy of Distributist-Corporatism, property ownership is a fundamental right, and the means of production should be spread as widely as possible, rather than being centralized under the control of the state, a few individuals, or corporations. Distributist-Corporatism, therefore, advocates a society marked by widespread property ownership. A term used is co-operative economics.

Roman Distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to the spiritual life, intellectual life, and family life.

The economic order engaged in by Romania involves the guild system. Guilds are mixed class syndicates composed of both employers and employees cooperating for mutual benefit, thereby theoretically promoting class collaboration.

Under the Roman system, most people are able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way are farmers who own their own land and related machinery, carpenters and plumbers who own their own tools, programmers who own their own computers, etc. The "cooperative" approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be "co-owned" by local communities larger than a family, e.g., partners in a business. This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for humans to survive. It includes land, tools, and so on. Roman Distributism allows for society to have public goods such as parks, roads, and transit systems.

Within Romania any activity of production (which distributism holds to be the most important part of any economy) is to be performed by the smallest possible unit. This helps support Roman Distributism's argument that smaller units, families if possible, ought to be in control of the means of production, rather than the large units typical of many modern economies.

Roman Distributists believe in a society that is as self-reliant as possible. However, their remains in place a substantial welfare and social security system, with a recent raise the level of student income support payments as one small example. Extreme Distributists in Romania have argued for eliminating the welfare system, though the majority of political thinkers in Romania discard this notion.

Roman Distributism promotes a society of artisans and culture, so called. This is influenced by an emphasis on small business, promotion of local culture, and favoring of small production over mass production. A society of artisans promotes the distributist ideal of theunification of capital, ownership, and production rather than what distributism sees as an alienation of man from work. This belief system results in a more local ownership of factories and other industrial centers. Products such as food and clothing have been preferably returned to local producers and artisans instead of being mass-produced overseas.

It is widely held in Romania that the transition from Mercantilism to Distributism over the decades has been positive, though there are many detractors and setbacks. Some have argued that the increase in family-owned production has resulted in a higher workload and stress levels across Romania. It is argued that Cambria, which adheres to offshoots of Mercantilist philosophies, Marketism, has somewhat outpaced Romania’s productivity and therefore continues to grow richer while Romania begins to stagnate – albeit there is truly a global stagnation and many in Romania point out the significantly higher wages in Romania compared to much of Europe and indeed the world as well as the lower unemployment rate than Cambria. The stagnation in Romania’s finances, it is argued, is not due to their political system but rather to wasted money in ongoing wars among other factors. Many argued that Distributism was the factor in the mass starving that took place in the 2630s. Some in the business community in Romania have complained that this guiding philosophy demonizes them while the country profits from their successes – a few wealthy Romanian businessmen have relocated to Cambria and other locations due to the State’s non-preferential treatment for large corporations, and their aid to smaller ones. Many businessmen can get benefits by relocating their companies abroad – something which has spooked Roman’s with the departure of a few megacorps in recent history. An issue often raised about Roman Distributism is the inability to successfully articulate how the small cottage industries can be prevented from growing into the large-scale commercial enterprises – as many in Romania subsequently have. The counter argument there is that there is no desire for small-business to not grow large – they merely must reflect the model of the Asturia Cooperative Corporation or expect restrictions from the State. Many additionally argue that the Roman governments financial aid to small business, wage aid, and continued welfare support culminate it its being a Mutualist system which Distributists are supposedly against.

Foreign Relations
Romania is a founding member of the European Community, the League of Peace, the Global Great Power Council, and the Global League Alliance.

Romania's closest allies are its fellow GOLA states, though the closest states to Romania remain Sina, Hibernia, and Cambria. The Sino-Roman and Hiberno-Roman friendship remain the most prominent, the longest, and have been the most durable by far.

Sino-Roman Alliance
Romania's longest standing alliance remains with Sina. The Golden Alliance forms the historical backbone of the Sino-Roman pact, beginning with fair trade relations that cemented with the meeting in Melinde on the eastern coast of Libia in AUC 2183. Subsequent trade was established on the Cape of Storms at the southern tip of Libia. AUC 2198 witnessed the formal signing of the Golden Alliance with Sinaean Emperor Yingzong. Romania and Sina essentially agreed to divide the world into two halves, one to be the dominion of each.

Romania and Sina maintain a significant alliance in the modern day, with a number of preferential treaties with one another, intricate exchange of ideas and technology, and frequent military support and games together, preference for student exchanges, tourism, among other things. Both countries inhabitants have a largely favorable view of one another, though some in Romania argue that the Sinaean economic powerhouse is detrimental to Romania's production and economy, with Sina's export power combined with Sinaean mass-production of notably high quality products. Nevertheless, the Sino-Roman Alliance and friendship remains strong on all fronts. The combined military might of the Sino-Roman friendship is warily viewed by much of the world. Romania is understood to have the strongest land-based military globally while Sina is considered to have the strongest naval capability (together with Cambria) and what some consider either equal footing with Romania's land-based military or to be ranked second. The duo have subsequently been the most dominating force globally for nearly four centuries.

Infrastructure
Romania's transportation is considered among the best in the world. Historically Roman roads were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about AUC 454 through the expansion and consolidation of the First Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials, civilians, inland carriage of official communications, and trade goods. Roman roads were of several kinds, ranging from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns and military bases. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage, and were flanked by footpaths, bridleways and drainage ditches. They were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills, or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations. At the peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the First Empire's provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometres (250,000 miles) of roads, of which over 80,500 kilometres (50,000 mi) were stone-paved.

The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads across Romania (and abroad). The modern transit system is maintained thoroughly and has been intricately laid out.

Air Transportation

Romania has an extensive air transportation network. It includes five of the world's twenty busiest airports by passenger volume, including the world's third busiest, Milan Cascina International Airport. In terms of cargo, in 2768 three of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the Romania, including the world's third busiest, Barselona International Airport. Since the start of the Recession, air traffic in Romania with decreases averaging between 9 and 24% at large and medium-sized airports, respectively.

Lenardu de Vinciu's 23rd-century dream of flight found expression in several rational but unscientific designs, though he did not attempt to construct any of them. Still this is considered the birth of aviation in Romania. Roman inventor Titu Burallu built a model aircraft with four fixed glider wings in 2400. Described as "four pairs of wings attached to an elaborate 'dragon'", it was said to have successfully lifted a cat but not Burallu himself. He promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from landing the craft. His "Dragon Volant" is considered "the most elaborate and sophisticated aeroplane to be built before the modern era". In 2462 Laurentiu Burgi presented a petition to Supreme Consul Antoniu Bellucolu, begging for support for his invention of an airship, in which he expressed the greatest confidence. The public test of the machine on June 24, 2462 was recorded as a partial success, though the details of what that means are lost. Burgi was descending from eminences at the time and faded from the record.

Balloon and dirigible invention came about in Francia while Cambria led the way in fixed wing aviation, all during the mid 27th century. In 2630, Enricu Forlanellu developed an unmanned helicopter powered by a steam engine. It rose to a height of 13 meters, where it remained for 20 seconds, after a vertical take-off from a park in Milan.

Almost as soon as they were invented, airplanes were used for military purposes. The first country to use them for military purposes was Romania, whose aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights in Egypt during the Roman-Persian War of 2665.

The Capras Aviation company, founded in 2661, marked the beginning of what would be a prominent field of invention and growith in Romania and the company remains at the forefront of the aviation industry today.

Today most domestic and international flights to and from Romania are aboard Aeromana airlines, the national airline of the country. The Capras Conchordia Ca. 33 remains the predominant type of wide-body commercial jet airliner and cargo aircraft for Romanian airlines and many airlines internationally. Bicycle Infrastructure

Romania features an array of bicycle 'highways' that interconnect across the country. It is therefore possible to cycle to any point from any point. Bicycles remain an extremely common method of transit within the urban areas of Romania. Urban infrastructure is subsequently established to fulfill this large need.

Bike lanes remain easy to be found, most often adjacent to motor ways. Many urban areas include no-car zones in the city centre, advanced paths for bikes-only and bicycles for rent available across the city.

Languages
For more information, see the article Romanian

The language of the Romans, Romanian, is a Latinic language of the Indo-European language family. Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. The standard which modern Romanian derives from was adopted by the Imperial administration in the latter part of the early Third Era. Standardized and promoted by Augustus Torgodoriu in the Carta Vulgare in AUC 1823, the language was dubbed Romanian in a clear understanding of its departure from Latin. The broad homogeneity of Romanian across Romania is attributed to a number of factors: Torgodoriu’s standardization and promotion on an Imperial scale, the quality of Roman infrastructure and communication from the Classical Era onward, the myriad education reforms taken by successive emperors (it is estimated that Torgodoriu’s education reforms culminated in a 40 percent literacy rate in the Romanian populace by the time of the death of his successor – one of the highest in the world at the time). Romania’s development was also influenced, to some minor extent, by the Germanic languages of the Late Classical Era invaders.

Education
History of Roman EducationAt the height of the Roman Republic and middle era of the Roman Empire, the Roman system of education gradually found its final form. Formal schools were established, which served paying students; very little that could be described as free public education existed. Both boys and girls were educated, though not necessarily together. In a system much like the one that predominates in the modern world, the Roman education system that developed arranged schools in tiers. The educator Quintilian recognized the importance of starting education as early as possible, noting that "memory ... not only exists even in small children, but is specially retentive at that age". A Roman student would progress through schools just as a student today might go from primary school to secondary school and then to college. They were generally exempted from studies during the market days which formed a kind of weekend on every eighth day of the year. Progression depended more on ability than age, with great emphasis being placed upon a student's ingenium or inborn "gift" for learning, and a more tacit emphasis on a student's ability to afford high-level education.

Education throughout the Imperial Eras focused heavily on speaking and writing (Grammaticus), public speaking (rhetoricus), philosophy, numbers, and moral education.At the foundation of ancient Roman education was, above all else, the home and family, from which children derived their so-called "moral education". Whereas Greek boys primarily received their education from the community, a Roman child's first and most important educators were almost always his or her parents. Parents taught their children the skills necessary for living in the early republic, which included agricultural, domestic and military skills as well as the moral and civil responsibilities that would be expected from them as citizens. Roman education was carried on almost exclusively in the household under the direction of the paterfamilias. From the paterfamilias, or highest ranking male of the family, one usually learned "just enough reading, writing, and arithmetic to enable them to understand simple business transactions and to count, weigh, and measure. Men like Cato the Elder adhered to this Roman tradition and took their roles as teachers very seriously. Cato the Elder not only made his children hardworking, good citizens and responsible Romans, but "he was his (son's) reading teacher, his law professor, his athletic coach. He taught his son not only to hurl a javelin, to fight in armor, and to ride a horse, but also to box, to endure both heat and cold, and to swim well". Job training was also emphasized, and boys gained valuable experience through apprenticeships. Mothers, though, cannot be overlooked for their roles as moral educators and character builders of their children. Cornelia Africana, the mother of the Gracchi, is even credited as a major cause of her sons' renowned eloquence. Perhaps the most important role of the parents in their children's education was to instill in them a respect for tradition and a firm comprehension of pietas, or devotion to duty.

The Roman emphasis on ‘moral education’ received a religious injection via Julian the Philosopher’s Education Edict. Each of his successors would only emphasize the religious aspect of education for Roman youth, witnessing this aspect growing into an integral part of education by the height of the Post-Classical Era.

The 19th century AUC witnessed a series of revisions of the Roman education system by Augustus Torgodoriu. The first institutions generally considered to be universities were established in Romania, Francia, Hibernia, and Cambria in the 1800s AUC for the study of arts, law, medicine, and theology. These universities evolved from older religiously oriented Hellene schools and Hellene priest schools, and it is difficult to define the date on which they became true universities. Roman Emperor Torgodoriu broadened the types of education, standardized the language, and aided in the further establishment of more universities, particularly focusing on the farthest reaches of Romania. He is largely attributed with the idea of mass education, with the establishment of Minor Schools in most towns across Romania. The education here focused heavily on Hellenism, but it also allowed a broad understanding of philosophy and arithmetic as well as the Romanian language.Education was principally divided into two parts by the post-Torgodoriu reforms and remained so until the 2550s. Part of the education, a substantial element, was in the home via the paterfamilias. The local town schools furthered this with what is arguably the first compulsory state education in the world. Numbers, rhetoric, grammar, and theology were the focuses in these schools. Further education, at the universities, remained limited to wealthier families. Even so, it is estimated that 40 percent of the population was literate at this point and, notably, with no gender gap. Standardized compulsory public schooling came into place across Europe in the 2550s, their origin in Cambria via a system largely inspired by the existing model in Romania but taken many steps farther. Romania adopted this system not long after.Màrias Mòntesoriu developed what is the current standard of primary education in Romania, initiated in 2665. Her system was a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations.The process of integrating the new system was put into place over the next few Consuls and was widely embraced in Romania. It remains a unique system, globally speaking, and was one of the few systems to deviate away from the globally popular Cambria style.

Summary of Modern Roman Education

Mòntesoriu’s Method, or the Roman Educational Standard, views the child as the one who is naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a supportive, thoughtfully prepared learning environment. It attempts to develop children physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively. Mixed-age classes are arranged thus: 6–9, 9–12, 12–15, and 15–18-year-old.

Education in Romania is free and mandatory from ages six to sixteen, and consists of three stages: nursery school, primary school, and university. Of the three stages only primary school is mandatory. Schools are arranged so that they include what is often divided into primary and secondary schools in other countries, based on the Cambrian system. Instead, in Romania, primary schools include students from their first school year to their last, roughly ages six to sixteen. Schools are usually compartmentalized so ages are group as mentioned above, in regions of their schools and with classes apart. The opportunity for older children to work with younger children is a frequently used concept as well, encouraging inter-age interaction.

Romania has subsequently spent a considerable amount on education, among the highest spenders on that sector in the world, lagging only behind China, Japan, Bakitara, and Korea.

Primary School is commonly preceded by three years of non-compulsory nursery school. Primary School lasts eight years. The students are given a basic education in Romanian, Sinaean and/or Cambrian, Latin, mathematics, natural sciences, history, geography, social studies, physical education, musical arts and visual arts. In addition to this work-time, students partake in block-time. Block-time (or discovery-time or free-time) sees students explore the prepared environment and engage with materials of their own choosing. The time is meant to give them opportunities to enjoy the work they love, while also cultivating basic life skills. The intent is for students to become more independent, strengthen their ability to focus, find joy with the materials, and feel deep satisfaction with their work.

Romania ranks among the top globally for overall higher education, with six of the top 20 universities. Public education remains free while higher education has among the lowest tuition rates globally (ranges are 200 to 1,000 Lira), with many students often being exempted for payments. Private universities, mostly Hellene organizations, tend to cost a higher tuition.

In 2765, the Roman secondary education was evaluated as slightly below the OGEC (Organisation for Global Economic Co-operation) average, with a strong and steady improvement in science and mathematics results since 2756. The results that had been given in 2756 caused controversy in Romania as the country had traditionally and habitually been ranked near the top and above average. The slipping in standards remains a hot topic in Romania.

University in Romania

Prestigious schools include Bonona University, founded in AUC 1841, which is the oldest university in continuous operation in the world, The Bocconi University, Università Hellene de Flamànte Còr, University of Turin, Polytechnic University of Milan, University of Rome, and University of Milan are also ranked among the best in the world.

The Roman system follows thus: the Laurea Triennale (a three-year Bachelor's Degree), followed by the 2-year Laurea Magistrale (Master's Degree). A credit system is established to quantify the amount of work needed by each course and exam (25 work hours = 1 credit), as well as enhance the possibility to change course of studies and facilitate the transfer of credits for further studies or go on exchange in another country. Romania has an above-average output of scientific papers in space science, mathematics, computer science, neurosciences, history, and physics; the lowest, but still slightly above world-average, output in terms of number of papers produced is recorded in the psychology and psychiatry, and economics and business.

A pressing issues facing Roman universities is overcrowding. Many classes have witnessed a lack of space for the student body and students have been found sitting on the floor in stairs. This, coupled with slowly falling ratings, are considered pressing issues. The relative absence of economic and business focus is another aspect that some consider an issue and the current ruling Consul's party, the LLP, consider it paramount in order to be able for Romania to continue to compete in an increasingly global and slowly market-leaning world.

There have been calls for an increase in digitization of universities in Romania in order to alleviate some of the crowding issues.

Culture
Romania shares a broadly homogeneous culture, unified by the threads weaved during the growth of the Roman Empire via the spread of Latin culture and language. Further cemented in history via four major waves of migration from the Italian Peninsula throughout Romania.

Romania can, however, be roughly divided into five distinct, though connected, cultural regions. This division includes dialect, cuisine, folklore, genetics, and folk costume. The division is fuzzy on the edges and overlapping occurs, but can be distinguished as the following: Italian (Southern), Raetian (Northern), Gallian (Western), Hispanian (Southwestern), and Corso-Sardinian (Insular).

The cultural divisions run roughly along the Prefectures with some overlapping.

Linguistically Romania has five dialects, corresponding to said cultural regions. Each dialect is fairly unique, in particular the sound of them. Each dialect is mutually intelligible, however, and many are dissipating in the face of standard Romanian.

Cultural Regions
Italian

The Italian cultural region, also known as the Southern cultural region, encompasses nearly all of the Italia Prefecture, divided roughly along the Alps. It includes seven of the major cities of Romania, including the capital and three of the six largest cities in Romania. It is the most densely populated area of Romania, the most politically important, and is considered the central point of the country, as well as being the birthplace of Romania, the language, and the culture at large.

Italian Dialect

The Italian, or Latsian-Tuscian dialect, hardly differs from standard Romanian as the language is standardized from this dialect.

Raetian

The Raetian, or Northern, cultural region encompasses the Prefecture of Raetia. This region is not densly populated and contains two major cities, one being among the top six in Romania.

Raetian Dialect

The Raetian dialect shows influence in its vocabulary and sound from a pre-Roman substratum, Celtic and Raetic, as well as Germanic.

The region was settled by the Germanic Lombards, Alemanni, Cimbri, and Burgundians, resulting in this linguistic distinctiveness. Germanic is noticeable in grammatical constructions, which are sometimes closer to Germanic than to Romanian other Latinic languages.

Gallian

The Gallian cultural region encompasses its namesake Prefecture as well as across the Pyrenees into the Hispania Prefecture, in the Gothia Province. The region includes five major cities and two of the six largest. It is the second most populated region and is a vital element of Romania.

Gallian Dialect

The Gallian dialect of Romanian has ancestral elements from pre-Roman Celtic and this comes through in the vocabulary and the sound. Of the dialects outside of Italia, however, it is regarded as probably the closest to the standard, having been heavily influenced by it over history. Some notable features that set it apart from Romanian include the use of g as a softer sound ⟨dʒ⟩ (like 'j' in jump), and the writing of ⟨ɲ⟩ as 'gn' (written ñ in Romanian). Gallian, like Raetian, does not employ the -u ending as Romanian does but rather drops them. An example being 'nùmer' in Gallian and 'numer' in Raetian, versus 'númeru' in Standard Romanian and 'nomro' in Hispanian.

Hispanian

The Hispanian cultural region is found in the Iberian peninsula, beyond the Pyrenees. It has seen influence from North Libia, it has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon from pre-Roman times, and potentially has some substratum via the ancient Iberian peoples. The region is quite apart from its sister regions and is the least populated of Romania. Like Raetia Hispania was a military frontier zone, though unlike Raetia, this status lasted much longer in Hispania.

Hispanian Dialect

Altogether there are over 2,000 words of pre-Roman origin, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants. Additionally there are some 500 Germanic words to the lexicon via the Goths who held a Kingdom in Hispania before the Roman reconquest. Many of these Germanic words are related to warfare – such as Spora 'spur', Staca 'stake', and guerra 'war' (of the same origin as Gallian 'guèra' and Raetian 'veara'), from Gothic spaúra, stakka, and wirro respectively; the natural world, i.e., suino 'swine' from sweina, gavian 'hawk' from gabilans, vaga 'wave' from vigan'.

Hispanian has a guttural and nasal sound originating from deeper Celtic influence, something shared with Gallian though Hispanian has clearly retained that influence far more. The sound of b and v are frequently merged into one sound, resulting in both sounding like 'b'. Another distinguishing feature is any -s ending in Hispanian has a lengthy sound, like 'sh' in 'she'. Unlike Romanians use of a -u ending, Hispanian uses -o endings.

The dialect has been described as nasally and smooth. Oddly, it has been described as sounding like a Ruthenian speaking a Latin tongue, inexplicably so as no such Venetic influence is accounted for in Hispanian.

Historic Clothing
Historically the clothing of Romania went through gradual changes, divided fairly neatly into periods: Early Third Age, Late Third Age, Early Fourth Age, Late Fourth Age, Fifth Age, and Modern Era (or Fifth Age). The Late Third Age witnessed an overt influence from both Germanic and Parthian influences which altered the Classical styles of Romania. From this grew a form that was consistent throughout the Post-Classical Era (Third Age) and grew into a form during the Fifth Age which can clearly be glimpsed in the modern day folk costumes of Romania.

Clothing in the Early Third Age generally comprised a short-sleeved or sleeveless, knee-length tunic for men and boys, and a longer, usually sleeved tunic for women and girls. On formal occasions, adult male citizens could wear a woolen toga, draped over their tunic, and married citizen women wore a woolen mantle, known as a palla, over a stola, a simple, long-sleeved, voluminous garment that hung to midstep. Clothing, footwear and accoutrements identified gender, status, rank and social class.

Roman fashions underwent very gradual change. In part, this reflects the expansion of Rome's empire, and the adoption of provincial fashions perceived as attractively exotic, or simply more practical than traditional forms of dress. Changes in fashion also reflect the increasing dominance of a military elite within government, and a corresponding reduction in the value and status of traditional civil offices and ranks. In the later empire clothing became highly decorated, with woven or embellished strips, clavi, and circular roundels, orbiculi, added to tunics and cloaks. These decorative elements usually comprised geometrical patterns and stylised plant motifs, but could include human or animal figures or floral designs. The use of silk also increased steadily. Trousers — considered barbarous garments worn by Germans and Persians — achieved only limited popularity in the latter days of the empire, and were regarded by conservatives as a sign of cultural decay. The toga, traditionally seen as the sign of true Romanitas, had never been popular or practical. Most likely, its official replacement by the more comfortable pallium and paenula simply acknowledged its disuse.

The palla/shawl, drapped over the head, atop an ankle length stola was the mainstay for Roman women throughout the history of Romania and would evolve into the modern attire with adjustments as advances in clothing came about. The belt, cinched at the waist, was gradually replaced by the bodice, or corset, invented in Florentia during the Fourth Age. Men, likewise, had a fairly permanent form of dress in the tunica, thigh length, with trousers and a box shaped hat that grew in length over history; this forming the core of the Late Post-Classical Era’s costume and evolved to that of the present day.

National Costume and Folk Costumes
Folk costumes in Romania descend from the Roman style of the Post-Classical Era, or Third Age, with myriad updates involved. In turn, the clothing of the Third Age descends from that of the Classical Era with the myriad later influence of the Germanic, Parthian, and Celtic peoples during the late Classical Era.

Roman traditional clothes are a symbol of belonging to specific collective identities, as well as one of the most genuine ethnic expressions of Romania's folklore. Although the basic model is homogeneous and common throughout the country, many towns or villages have their own take or alteration of the traditional clothing which differentiates it from the others. Since the 27th century traditional clothing began to be slowly displaced in favour of the "Urban fashion" (a fashion principally influenced by London, Cambria) in the various contexts of everyday life, and their primary function switched to become a marker of ethnic identity. In the past, the clothes diversified themselves even within the communities, performing a specific function of communication as it made it immediately clear the marital status and the role of each member in the social area. Until the 18th century the traditional costume represented the everyday clothing in most of Romania, but even today in various parts of the country it is possible to meet elderly people dressed in costume.

The common theme for men involves a black skirt, descended from the chiton and the tunica, various hoods, hooded capes, a long soft cylindrical stocking cap. Likewise, women have a few constant or regular features across regions. A long dress, descended from the stolla, often fastened by the bodice, the stole (or shawl), a type of mantle descended from the palla and drapped over the head.

The declared official national costume of Romania is essentially that of the southern region of Italia, Latsia, focused around Rome.

The Roman costume, as with dialects, folklore, and minutia of culture, can be divided into areas, or regions, of five. Italian (or Southern), Raetian (or Northern), Hispanian (or South-Western), Gallian (or Western), and Corso-Sardinian (or Insular). Each of these regions can, of course, be further divided into sub-regions, each with their own distinct styles and history.

Folk Costumes of Italia Region:

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Folk Costumes of Corso-Sardinia Region:

Fashion
Romania is one of the leading countries in fashion design, alongside Francia, Cambria, Benin, Japan, and Sina. Fashion has always been an important part of the country's cultural life and society, and Romans are well known for their attention of dressing-up well; ' la bella figúra', or good impression, remains traditional.

The growth and development of the fashion industry as it is today sprung from the surrealist school of art in the 2670s. The fashion style, born in Romania, that followed this art trend of surrealist clothing birthed the fashion industry. Francia and Cambrian picked up the Roman style and it grew internationally from there.

Since the 2704–06 fashion soirées held in Florentsa, the "Roman school" started to compete with the Cambrian industry and the prominent Frankish héich moud, and labels such as Àcuxa began to contend with the likes of Cambrian fashion giant Sianel. In 2762, according to the Global Language Monitor, Milan, Romania's centre of design, was ranked the top fashion capital of the world, and Rome was ranked fourth, and Florensa entered as the 31st world fashion capital. Milan is generally considered to be one of the "big four" global fashion capitals, along with Loundres in Cambria, Ochen in Francia, Tokyo in Japan.

Italian fashion is linked to the most generalized concept of "Made in Romania", a merchandise brand expressing excellence of creativity and craftsmanship. Roman luxury goods are renowned for the quality of the textiles and the elegance and refinement of their construction. Many Frankish, Cambrian and Sinaean high-top luxury brands (such as Sianel and Vun Assche) also rely on Roman craft factories, located in highly specialized areas in the metropolitan area in central Romania (Tuscia, Venetu, and Transpadania), to produce parts of their apparel and accessories.

The nonprofit association that co-ordinates and promotes the development of Roman fashion is the National Chamber of Roman Fashion (Càmara Nassionàle della Mòda Romana). It was set up in 2711 in Milan and represents all the highest cultural values of Roman fashion. This association has pursued a policy of organisational support aimed at the knowledge, promotion and development of fashion through high-profile events in Romania and abroad. The widespread support of the industry by the government and Romans in general has allowed the industry to have a high standing in Romania.

Pageantry

The beauty pageant come about in Cambria and Japan during the 2700s and quickly garnered attention in Romania. The Roman habit, or tradition, of idealizing the human form and seemingly superficial focus on it and clothing - la bella figúra - assured a fondness for the contests by Romans. The competitions remain prominent in their places of origin - Cambria and Japan - with each of the two hosting the only two existing international competitions.

Roman participants have ultimately come to be among the dominating contestants, tied for winning the most titles of the competition Mestres Norves (in Cambrian, the working language of the competition, translated to Miss World) at 6 along with India (just ahead of 2nd place Cambria, and 4th and 5th Scandia and Bakitara). The additional competition, the Japanese Miss International (ミス・インターナショナル in Japanese) has Romania in second place with 4, behind first placed Tunda (with 6), and ahead of Wenedia, Cambria, Siam, and Meshico