835-889 CE (Superpowers)

Middle Tyrian Dynasty: 1514 (761)-1588 (835)

Reign of Cassius: 1588 (835)-1642 (889)

Reign of Calvinus: 1642 (889)-1669 (916)

Rome weathered the viking storm and learned a lesson in geopolitics - know your geopolitical region. One of the driving forces in the Senate after Caesar Illyrio ended the Scandinavian Wars was the mapping of the world immediately surrounding the empire. States in Africa were being discovered by these expeditions while other Romans prepared for forays to the Far East. Diplomacy with Indian states had not been maintained lately but some voices in the Senate were keen to reverse the trend. Meanwhile, the political conflict between provincial and imperial interests was coming to a head after another provincially sympathetic emperor came to power. Rome was overextending itself through support of its provincial citizens and had made itself vulnerable to a potential fiscal disaster.

Caesar Cassius (835-889)

Only a young senator when he was adopted, Cassius Pius was raised as the son of the most politically influential family in the Roman Empire, with a patriarch serving as Censor to uphold the interests of citizens who lived outside Rome. By a narrow margin, Cassius had been chosen by the Senate in the wake of an ambiguous succession. His election was a major victory for the foederalis faction of senators over the patricianis faction. As a result, the Senate and Caesar were forced to continue selling the public land (ager publicus) to sustain the spending required to provide services to the public.

Steel market

Some blacksmiths in the mid-9th century had spent their entire careers working with steel. These uncommon artisans apprenticed under master smiths who had decades of experience forging norica pistoriana (crucible steel) and devoted their entire lives to developing their skills with the new metal. As a result, there existed metalsmiths throughout the Roman Empire who could make steel tools of the same apparent complexity as the ferrum (iron) or cuprum (copper) products of other blacksmiths. While early steelsmiths were limited to simple shapes, this new generation of smiths could create steel armor and steel trinkets.

Rome took advantage of this dissemination and development of metalworking skills by transitioning to steel plate armor for all of its legionaries. Before 840, most legionary armor was made from noric steel but by 870 the majority of legionaries were outfitted with finely crafted pistorian or crucible steel forged with ridged patterns for deflecting blades and arrows. The significance of this progress to the effectiveness of the Legion is difficult to overstate but suffice to say that a legionary in the late-9th century could withstand countless blows from the weapons of contemporary kingdoms.

At the same time, the Legion had long been ordering steel gladius swords and steel arrowheads for its soldiers, giving the already professional army the additional advantage of drastically superior technology. The Roman arrowhead for its sagittarii was a wide-bodied, hardened piece of steel with four edges for added durability and difficulty to remove. Roman swords were becoming increasingly elaborate as steelworking improved but the overall design of the gladius remained largely unchanged. Without altering the weight, the scutum (rectangular shield) was redesigned with an outer layer of steel, removing the central metal boss.

A kataphractos of the equestrian order was outfitted with the heaviest steel plate armor by the mid-9th century, covering him from his head to his feet. Although Cassius reduced their numbers to 300 for each legion, their effectiveness in the new steel armor was definitively superior to their more numerous noric steel armored predecessors. This reduction in numbers was part of a gradual but continuous demilitarization implemented by Cassius, resulting in the disbanding of four legions by 873. In general, the year 873 was a milestone set by the emperor to reduce the size of the Legion in the wake of the Scandinavian Wars and in the face of the crushing deficits that could only be matched by selling valuable public land.

In any case, the difference between pistorian steel and other varieties of steel is difficult to overstate. This crucible steel is forged with a remarkable purity between 1-2% carbon content. Normally, highly brittle structures form in the steel at this level of purity but Pistorius Mica used repeated forging cycles to group this brittle material into thin lines. In many ways, the complicated forging of this steel may be Mica's greatest and most complex invention. Blades forged from this process could hold a sharper edge or point than with other metals and armor forged using this steel was nearly impossible in practice to penetrate and did not permanently deform as easily as other plate armor (although it had a tendency to deform slightly with heavy blows).

Due to the exotic forge and skill requirements of pistorian steel, only a small percentage of Roman ironsmiths were able to forge ingots or objects of such high quality metal. However, the Legion was guaranteed a steady supply of arms and armor from local smiths with the right capabilities. Although pistorian steel was expensive, the costs saved in transporting equipment from Noricum, the only source of earlier noric steel, to the frontiers made the transition to pistorian steel only marginally more expensive.

One of the most important applications of steel by the Legion was in its artillery. The elasticity of pistorian steel combined with its durability made it ideal for the arcs of polytrahoi (semi-automatic artillery), manuballistae (handheld long-range crossbow), and plumballistae (heavy compact artillery). In general, steel crossbows were a major advancement in weapons technology that gave the Legion an advantage against the Germanic kingdoms and the Arabian caliphates. However, the Romans were aware that the Fatimid Caliphate armed its heavy infantry with Indian steel which had a reputation of its own. In reality, Indian steel was very similar to pistorian steel, although the processes of their creation and their compositions differed. The former was slightly more durable than the latter but could only be produced by smelting ores from a particular region whereas pistorian steel could be made by any ironsmith with the proper forge and the necessary skills.

African Warfare

Expeditions into Africa accelerated after the Senate opened trade relations with the Kingdom of Ghana (Regna Gana). While the Lyceum ran a number journeys into the Desertum Africanum, the Roman Senate was the main patron of exploration. In 854, an exploration party discovered another African city by following the word of Ghanaian caravans that traded with the west. The city was the heart of an empire even more powerful than Ghana. From Ghanaian merchants, Romans learned some information about this land and took to calling the city Gaum and its empire the Regnum Gauum (Kingdom of Gao).

Some Gao merchants spoke a few words of bastardized Latin but communication with the locals was generally difficult. Seeing an opportunity, the Senate slowly urged Ghana toward war with Gao. As incentive, the Senate shipped tens of thousands of steel manuballistae to Ghana, in exchange for about 5 tonnes in gold and twice that value in other commodities (an order of magnitude more than the weapons were worth). Arming commoners with these easily used crossbows, the Ghanaians went to war against Gao in 871, accompanied only by 500 praetorians for holding their flank and a praefectus praetorianus as an observer.

Rome learned a great deal about Ghanaian and Gao military tactics before the war ended with the capture of Gao in 876 and its ally of Ghana added several thousand kilometers of territory, alongside an impressive bounty in gold and slaves. Although Rome had empowered Ghana, the war only served to solidify diplomatic relations between the two powers.

Before the shipment of weapons, West African kingdoms did not use crossbows in warfare. This conflict changed that situation, as Ghanaian artisans emulated the design of the manuballista to create their own less elaborate wooden crossbows. Once the supply of manuballistae had decayed, the Ghanaians mostly armed scouts with crossbows, rather than using it as a frontline weapon. The crossbow also became a popular hunting tool over the next few centuries of dissemination, particularly with small poison-tipped arrows instead of the heavy metal arrowheads in Roman or Chinese crossbow bolts.

Roman influence

On the whole, Roman influences in West Africa continued to rise throughout the 9th century. Trans-Saharan trade dominated the trade routes along the coast of Africa while the Kingdom of Ghana slowly became an imperial puppet of Rome, receiving senatorial recognition as a foederatus (vassal state) in 884 as part of a major diplomatic event between the two societies. At the same time, the regional power of Ghana grew until it annexed the city of Gao in 889, effectively dissolving the Gao Empire in the process.

Using its position in Ghana, the Senate weakened the already scarce East-West trade in Africa, isolating Ghana from the Islamic influences that were dominating Somalia. This situation reached a head when the city-state of Maqadishah joined the caliphate of Arabia in 849, as a means of integrating itself into the Ummah (Nation of Islam) represented by the Umayyad Caliphate. The land of Maqadishah was ruled as the Sultanah Maq'ad-i-Shah, through a local leader acting as an effective king. Using this foothold, the presence of the caliphate expanded with the conquests of its third Sultan during the late-9th century. Although Rome noticed the aggressive policies of the Sultanate of Maqadishah, it did not involve its legions in these regional affairs. The focus of Rome was on West Africa and Eastern Europe, alongside its escalating internal problems.

Great Earthquake

Calamity struck the empire when the capital experienced an earthquake in 847 CE. Although nowhere near the magnitude of the recent quake in Antioch, Rome was ill-prepared for the devastating event, which far exceeded the rumblings that struck 46 years earlier. A majority of residents of the capital lived in insulae (apartment blocks) and repairs on many buildings after earlier quakes were of a poor quality. Large sections of the Domus Augustana and Domus Flaviae collapsed, killing the emperor's chief of staff (magister officium) and dozens of servants, while other buildings on the Collis Palatinus and around the city center suffered a similar fate (especially the Basilica Aemilia on the Roman Forum, Basilica Ulpia in Trajan's Forum, and Flavian Amphitheater southeast of the Roman Forum). Overall, nearly 90,000 citizens died in the wake of the quake while another 80,000 were left with no home, the majority of which were poor citizens living in apartments near the Forum. With the palace in ruins, the capitol a mess, and the central residential area in shambles, Rome was in a sorry state. In the same year, Antioch suffered an earthquake of its own but buildings were designed in preparation of such an event, mitigating the death and destruction in Syria. Nevertheless, the other earthquake was an unwelcome diversion for funds during an already tumultuous time for the empire. As a staunch provincialis, Cassius refused to divert funds from health care and other benefits in the provinces to afford reconstruction in the capital. Since there was also not enough buyers for public land to sell more land each year, the only option was to start to incur public debt to the Banca Romae (Bank of Rome).

Under this policy, Cassius only allowed the Senate to borrow enough to rebuild houses. For the rest of his reign, Cassius became the "Caesar outside Rome", running his administration from the imperial residences on Capri. With his distance from the capital, Cassius had his adopted son, Lucius Caelus Calvinus, receive clients outside the Curia Petra (Senate House). For this reason, Calvinus became popular with the public of the capital and was associated by the public with the rebuilding done by Cassius.

Despite Cassius's efforts, large sections of Rome were left in ruins for the rest of his reign. The Flavian Amphitheater continued to be used but only about two-thirds of its seating areas were accessible to the public. Meanwhile, the markets in Trajan's Forum were only partially restored, largely by the efforts of merchants who owned stalls that had been damaged. The various public buildings (basilicae) that had collapsed were only sectioned off from the street by wooden barriers, without repairing any of the damage. However, the most egregious problem was that residential blocks were also left in ruins, since building new houses on the outskirts of Rome was cheaper than clearing rubble before building a new structure.

Perhaps the one expensive program of reconstruction that Cassius allowed was the rebuilding of aqueducts. Many of the capital's aqueducts were damaged or severed in the earthquake. Thousands of business relied on their water for hydropower and even more citizens needed the water for bathing and drinking. There was no choice for the Senate but to rebuild aqueducts feeding into the same parts of Rome as before but the way this was done deserves a great deal of praise.

Instead of constructing more freestanding aqueducts, the Senate commissioned architects to have the new distribution system for water integrated into buildings. This practice had been done throughout the empire but many of the aqueducts in the capital were old enough to predate this format by centuries. Although not perfect, the integration of aqueducts into buildings and the city wall in Rome made them an almost invisible feature of the city, once the new network was completed in 871.

Cassius has not been treated kindly by history for his inability to restore Rome after the earthquake, despite fiscal challenges of the time making such action effectively impossible without drastic reform. Negative reactions from his contemporaries are likely a major reason that his adopted son changed his stance between provincialis and patricianis partway through his life. When he became the Emperor of Rome, the requisite changes in administration would be made to implement a complete reconstruction of the capital.

Sailing technology

With the Senate focused on exploring Africa, motivated by the profits coming its way through trade, other Romans were exploring the world on their own initiative. Many of these journeys were motivated somehow by the publication in 812 CE that speculated on the direction of the next great threat to the empire.

On these headings, one expedition left from Caledonia (Scotland) and another from Gallia Lugdunensis (Northern France) in search of the land of Thule. Records from the 1st century CE and earlier spoke of an island farther north than Britannia and some Romans believed that this might be an ancestral land for the Boreanari (Northmen). The first expedition returned in 855 without finding anything while the second never returned. News of their failure dissuaded further attempt to discover Thule, although it is probably that other people made attempts with no record left behind of their journey.

At the same time, a few Romans set out from the coast of the Oceanus Atlanticus to find the "middle kingdom" postulated by the above publication. Out of three attempts, only one returned in 883 after spending several months at sea. Two of these expeditions employed recent developments in sailing technology, passed onto Rome from the Kingdom of the Swedes (Regnum Sueonum). Northern longships were exceptional craft which resulted from unprecedented developments in shipbuilding.

First, the hull of a longship consisted of overlapping planks as opposed to joining planks of wood by inserting tenons on one plank into a mortise cavity on another. This clinker build allowed for a lighter and more durable hull. By 870, river boats in Germany and Gaul were mostly clinker-built and the design was occasionally employed in seafaring vessels. Second, the northmen rigged their primary sails using horizontal spars connecting perpendicularly to the mast of the ship. This square-rigging allowed a ship to have larger sails for catching more wind, permitting higher speeds on the open sea. However, unlike the popular lateen-rigging, a square rig could not sail upwind by beating, limit its use under less ideal conditions.

Together, these two new technologies would not produce the most impressive ocean-going vessel but the inventino that changed navigation forever was the fusion of square-rigging and lateen-rigging into one vessel. Shipwrights in Germania Inferior created a ~19 meter long clinker-built ship whose central mast or mainmast was square-rigged and whose rear mast or mizzenmast was lateen-rigged. This vessel operated completely without rowing but still resembled the larger decareme and quinquereme galleys used by the navy since behind the masts was a massive aftcastle for additional crew quarters. Due to its unique sails and large size for merchant vessels, ships of this new design came to be referred to as amplaves (s. amplavis) by Roman sailors.

[no ship design in OTL exactly compares with a Roman amplavis but its mast arrangement resembles a carrack's with a hybrid of foremast and mainmast offset forward from the center and a mizzenmast in the rear while its body resembles a hybrid of a viking longship with a Roman quinquereme, including the peculiar aftcastle characteristic of Roman warships]

An amplavis built in Silurum (Newport, Wales) made an attempt to cross the Atlantic in 873 but never returned while the only ship that came back after a long journey deep into the Atlantic was an amplavis setting out in 869 from Lissipona (Lisbon, Portugal). After the latter mission, no serious attempts were made to cross the Atlantic Ocean and some Romans even wrote that the waters between Asia and Europe must truly be empty. Nevertheless, one writer in Rome who clung to the idea of a "middle kingdom" gave this undiscovered land the name Cassiopeia, both in honor of the long-reigning emperor and in reference to the constellation.

Cassiopeia would be one of the many names ascribed to the New World throughout Roman history. As the land in the middle of the Atlantic, the senator writing in 812 who first speculated on its existence had simply given it the name of Atlanta. Neither name would ultimately be used to designate the continent once discovered but each would find application there on a lesser scale.

Overall, hybrid rigging in ships was a revolutionary development for navigation. While merchants throughout the Atlantic provinces gradually adopted the design over the 9th century and early 10th century. However, the Senate was in too much turmoil in the 9th century to react to these improvements in naval technology. Unfortunately, it would take future emperors to take advantage of the amplavis for the Roman navy. Nevertheless, clinker-builds and square rigging snuck into the work of shipwrights for the navy near the mid-9th century, creating sturdier cursores (runners) and faster quinqueremes. Of course, runners continued to use the lateen rig since that had advantages for maneuverability and speed when compared to square rigs.

Statistics for the Roman Empire of 889 CE

More than 700 years after the PoD, the world has drastically changed from OTL. First, the Roman Empire survives throughout more than only Greece and Anatolia. Second, the Muslim Caliphates have been restricted from the Mediterranean Sea and are moving slowly through their proselytization of Africa. Third, the threat of vikings to Europeans has been nipped in the bud by a strategic invasion at various points during the 9th century CE. Finally, technology and culture in Western and Eastern Europe have taken completely different directions, with the inklings of an early age of navigation being already in the making.

Population: 171 million (39.7% of humans)

Area: 9,037,000 km²

GDP: 15.3 billion denarii (~$260 billion US)

Treasury: 4 million denarii (~$68 million US)

Government revenue: 1.11 billion denarii (~$18.8 billion US), 7.25% of GDP

Military spending: 360 million denarii (32.4% of revenue or 2.35% of GDP)

Military size: 166,400 legionaries (26 legions), 216,000 auxiliaries, and 10,000 praetorian guards

Legislature: 1,000 senators

Christianity: >99% of citizens

Middle Tyrian Dynasty: 1514 (761)-1588 (835)

Reign of Cassius: 1588 (835)-1642 (889)

Reign of Calvinus: 1642 (889)-1669 (916)