Byzantine Fantasy
I’m reading Lord of Emperors, sequel to Sailing to Sarantium, and I just think Byzantine history is neat!
At its height it’s a bastion of science, entertainment, civil life, wealth, technology, and of course military imperialism, the still strong lineage of the Roman Empire marching on. No one called them the Byzantines until historians in the 20th century decided to for the sake of reference (and possibly through some Western bias). They were Romans, simply. Although the West fell in 476 CE, as we take to be the true end in western thought, the Roman Empire really continued right on existing for another thousand years, until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1453. And hey, wanna have your mind blown? If you consider the Ottomans a Roman Dynasty, and they did call themselves such at first, the Roman Empire existed from 27 BCE to 1922 CE.
But I digress. Let’s talk about 6th century Eastern Rome. It was still the Roman Empire, but the dynamics did shift from the history in the west, of course. Much of their history is entangled in what we now call the Middle East, dealing with the many peoples throughout Arabia, the eastern Mediterranean, western and Central Asia. Their long time rivals were the Persians, who had their own great empire we never speak or think of in western culture. They had close ties to the Balkans, Slavic groups in Eastern Europe, back in Italy. It was famously a major destination for Scandinavians, making their way all the way through Europe to see The City in Constantinople. It was a center of the world, but shifted differently, east of the map we’re used to seeing in our European-focused games and media.
Thinking of Eastern Rome, it’s this feeling I can’t quite describe like… it’s half familiar, bridging into the unfamiliar. It’s just on the Eastern edge of the European world, the pivot between them and the west Asian world. It’s sort of our medieval fantasy, but with all these other aspects tied in. It’s a way to branch from our familiar fantasies into a wider world. It’s known and unknown, a chance to be exposed to something fascinating we’ve left ignored.
Anywho, would love to play a game in this setting or one inspired by it. Such a cool time and place that goes very underutilized in our Western European-centric imaginary.