- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So in that sense, Medieval Athens might look like Macedonia to the Ancient Attics indeed: A population going "bar bar bar", ruled by an elite trying to appear as Greek as possible. And, well. Macedonia only really got "accepted" by the Greeks once they no longer could ignore its military, heh.
Well, actually I think this one is especially interesting, because its ruling class is specifically doing the opposite of being Greek. La Roche (as with many other Frankocratic Crusaders) completely dismantled the Greek-speaking bureaucracy because he didn't trust them, replacing them with the Burgundian-style feudalism with which he was familiar, leading to a massive decrease in taxation, trade, customs and the general ability to mobilize resources. This, I think is actually the biggest threat to Athens at early- namely the very obvious barbaros nature of the La Roches, a monarchy )i.e. already not well-seen in Greece) that is in fact doing its very best to establish power through the use of non-Greek-speaking Rhomans and their seemingly complete incapability to marshal resources to stop themselves from constantly falling into debt and almost comedic levels of fiscal incompetence. They are capable of giving any Greek army a run for their money, but if they're incapable of actually funding anything in their state, they may very well soon find themselves ousted - and in this world, they have no Vatican or Venice to loan them money.
Actually, I believe the language of sophistication, culture and high class will be Epic Greek- the variant found in the Homeric texts, not what we would call "Classical" Greek, which never really existed as a single language but was a dialect continuum comparable to say, German dialects in the early 19th century.
Well, the problem is that the ancient Greeks are simply not very good at laying siege and would be attempting to lay siege to the premier harbour in Greece - which even during Constantinopolitan times was the second-greatest harbour and was largely spared the excesses Constantinople was faced with - with fortresses that so thoroughly put any fortress in ancient Greece and indeed I believe the whole entire world to shame that it is almost comedic while also facing against cavalry far superior to their own. How will they effectively establish cavalry superiority and foraging parties to pillage the surrounding countryside when the men-at-arms and horsemen of the Duchy are more than equal of the Thessalians and better armoured too? And again, who would be attacking them and why? More likely, people will be taking the opportunity to pick apart the Delian League and sending out feelers if the new Athenians are effective allies in some new coalition. Certainly, Lakedaimon will be far more pleased with a monarchic state that is easier to make agreements with than the fickle and war-hungry rower democracy of classical Athens and will be in no hurry to declare war on them any time soon.
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