What Tamurlane said. Ok, we’ve got an empire…it’s big…stretches from Britain to Africa, from Spain to Syria and Arabia. On the borders of the Empire, the imperial hand sits lightly…most of the power is held by large landowners, with the only imperial presence a tax collector and an Imperial garrison. This is especially true in the north-west…the empire has mainly focused on exploiting the rich lands around the Mediteranean. Most of those who sit on the imperial throne aren’t qualified to rule. An emperor takes the throne with the help of the military and pretorian guard, and then in a year, or a few years, he himself is overthrown by the same military and same pretorian guard. Meanwhile, the east is resentful of the west…the richest towns of the empire lie in the east…Byzantium, the gateway to the Black Sea, Alexandria, guardian of the Nile, Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus…the eastern cities have come to resent the west, their riches syphoned off to fight the civil wars of the west…to pay for plot and counterplot…and to pay for mercenaries. Oh, the mercenaries! The Roman soldier is no longer Roman. How can a general recruit men for his armies from Roman citizens when too many of them work on the lands of the large landlords…how can he trust that their loyalty to Rome is greater than their loyalty to their masters? Barbarian mercenaries are hired, because they have no political ties, but mercenaries cost money. Facing the risk of revolt from the East, the Emperor agrees to split the empire up into two administrative districts, with the western capital in Rome and the eastern one in Constantanople, which Byzantium has been renamed. This helps to pacify the east, but it deprives the west of revenue. Meanwhile, on the steppes of what will become Russia, the tribes are stirring. Poor rains have caused some to abandon their ancestoral grazing lands, moving west, where they run into other tribes who are themselves displaced. This domino effect continues, until tribes spill into the Empire itself, sometimes warlike, sometimes peaceful, but always hungry, always envious of the wealth of the empire, and always aware of their children, who cry out with hunger. Sometimes they raid, and sometimes they become mercenaries themselves, but either way, they strain the empire’s capacities. Complicating things further is the question of religion. The empire has become Christian, but what kind of Christianity will it be? Dissent thrives, as people come up with new conceptions of G-d and the role of the church, and the Empire declares them heretics. The empire is about to break, and finally, over a period of time, it does, as soldiers are withdrawn either to fight the barbarians or support some would-be emperor, and more and more barbarians pour into the empire, striking the unstable, defenseless western empire. Seeing this, the east withdraws further into itself and waits…it has neither the desire, nor the resources to help. It will survive for a thousand years more, but finally fall to its own barbarians, as out of the deserts of Arabia a new religion forms, and send out armies that hope to conquer the world in the name of their G-d.
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