The Chronicle of Leon Phokas: Megas Domestikos of the East
Preface
My name is Leon Phokas, and my time on this world is a tale worth telling. My life has been a long one filled with action, intrigue and valor. I have seen our glorious nation subdued by the vile three lettered organization and I have seen her liberation by Sol Luminas himself. Many scars I bear on this old body, each with a story of their own. I went from being the 3rd son from small Dynatoi family near Kaisereia to the Megas Domestikos of the East as we speak now. But my story is less about myself and more about the nation that I have lived, fought and bleed for. To understand my life is to understand the Empire itself, I do believe. The countless struggles, the oppression, and the liberation. All of these events are packed neatly into my mind, and it is my duty for you, the reader, to unpack these events into a consumable fashion that you may be able to understand them as well as I do myself.
Some of the things I may tell you may be unbelievable to you, some of the things will seem rather mundane and others will grab hold of your heart with such a grip that is fiercer than any crocodilian. But I can assure you that nothing I will tell you is false, and that everything I say I saw with my own eyes. Come and join me, as we take a venture into my insane life, and may we both come to greater understanding of the ways of the Divines along the way. For that is the ultimate goal of every man, to come to a greater understanding of the ways and wills of the divines themselves.
Yours Humbly, Leon Phokas
Chapter I
I was born on April 17th, 1094, VTE at the Phokas Estate, outside of Kaisereia to my parents, Nikephoros and Maria. My mother came from the prominent Basiliakes family and but did not have a happy marriage to my father. She was a woman of virtue and faith, while he was a womanizer and heavy drinker, according to her. Together they had 4 children, Nikephoros the Younger, Bardas, Myself and Eudoxia. My father was a prominent and notable warrior like many of our family before him. He had risen to command a Tagma during the War of Tapinosis, fighting in the Antiochian Empire with distinction.
At the Battle of Moriapolis on August 1st, 1097, my father led the cavalry charge that won the battle and during our retreat from Antiochia, he was the one who held the rear-guard steady in the passes of the Haneru mountains and prevented the destruction of the Army in 1099. He was known to be a bold and brilliant commander and popular amongst his men for his willingness to fight alongside them and not in the back like many of other commanders did. But like many brave and charismatic commanders, he was viewed as a threat by the commander of the Southern Army, Georgios Synadenos. Shortly after the army declared Georgios Emperor, my father was killed at the age of 27 at the banquet held on the behalf of the future Emperor by Synadenos's bodyguards after he became heavily inebriated with wine. My mother was told he died from consumption, but it was later learned by us what really happened. I remember little of my father, given my age when he was killed and how often he was away from home. Oh, how I wish I got to know him in this life!
My mother, despite having no true love for my father, was devastated by his death. I remember her crying long and hard, wondering how she would be able to raise all of us without him. I had no concept of what death meant at the time, being as young as I was at the time. Sure enough, my mother's worries would be relieved when she married my Uncle Bardas, my father's younger brother a year later.
My new father-in-law, I am happy to say was a great man whom I still look up to as a pillar of virtue to this very day. I know him as my second father, and I uphold both him and my father as heroes that gave me the strength to overcome many of the challenges in my life. Bardas too, however, would continue to fight in the awful war until our bloody defeat. Unlike my father, he fought in Artava under Andronikos Doukas, and he told me many stories of those times. One time, he was leading a patrol in the desert when 30 men on camelback attacked him and his column. He barely escaped with his life along with 3 other men and was nearly executed by the wicked tyrant Andronikos Doukas for his failure. Another time, he was resting at an oasis with around 100 other men when 300 or so warriors "came from the sand itself" to attack him. This time however, he was able to form up and fight them off. He vowed never to go to a desert again after his time in Artava, and once quipped that "Only the damned themselves would live in such a land where the sand catches you like a blinding wave of death. Artava is a place where nations go to die and where fools look for gold, only to be met with death." As a man who has been to Artava myself, I wish I had heeded his words!
He fought alongside the tyrant against Georgios during his victories before taking furlough in March of 1100. He would marry her the same month, apparently, he had always had feelings for her, and they were mutual. The two would have 4 more children together, my step siblings Theophilos, Anna, Martia and Xenia. One thing I can say about their relationship was that both of them truly did love each other and that it showed in how they treated all of their children, from both my father and Bardas. We all were treated extremely well, and Bardas loved us as his own children. I can proudly state that I have been close to all of my siblings, and I credit my mother and Bardas for how they raised us for that. It is the little things like that in a land as devastated as ours was that helped me become who I am now.
When he was called back into service in July, he accepted reluctantly and fought fight at the disastrous Battle of Philippeia. He fought bravely but was captured by the future Emperor Ioannes V. Ioannes was rather kind to my step father and released him under the condition that he would not fight against him. This was the end of Bardas's time in the War of Tapinosis and truth be told, we cared little for how the war turned out by this point and when it did end, it was a relief to us all. My mother had lost two of her brothers and my father, the Phokids had lost 6 men from our ranks and several of my friends lost their fathers as well. We were known as the "Fatherless Generation" by our elders, but I find such a term insulting for the men who did raise us, like my second father. The peasants suffered worse poorly as us Dynatoi did, many children my aged were orphaned and starvation was a problem that they suffered from. I thank the divines that the conflict ended when it did because it has been said if the war had dragged on, tens of thousands would have died of starvation.
As for my life till this point personally, I will save that for next chapter. Being born into such a chaotic world makes my own tale overshadowed by those that surrounded me, but it is still worth telling in its own right.
Chapter II
I was 7 years old when the war ended and was living the life of a normal boy of my class during this time. In retrospect, we were fortunate to live where we were, as the true horrors of war that I experienced later in my life never quite reached the estate or surrounding area. From an early age, as one would expect from a Phokid, I was trained in the arts. I learned to speak 4 different languages: Proper Syndeoneian, Antiochian, Helian and Hedyronian. I read all of the classics and learned all of the schools on would expect from a young Dynatoi. From Arithmetic to Logic, and ultimately most important of all for our clan, the art of war itself.
My teacher was an old man by the name of Antiochos Lekapenos. He once was a distinguished commander in our army but had retired 10 years before the great war. He knew everything like the back of his hand and trained us boys as harsh as if he was the commander of a regiment! I once was beaten so harshly by him for failing to complete an assignment that I wailed and cried "Is this the punishment for a young nobleman or a slave?", only for him to whip me harder saying with his gravely voice "Boy, you will thank me in the future for this!" Sure enough, Antiochos was right as that was the last beating I ever took out of fear! I became a star pupil solely because of it, I often joke. But not all of us were as lucky as me, indeed, it took many beatings for one of my friends, whom I shall not name, to finally understand and comply. He may have been cruel, but Antiochos was the man who taught us everything we needed to know to become successful in life as warriors and gentlemen. We would certainly need it!
By the time I reached adulthood at 17, I had grown into quite the physical specimen. Standing at 190 cm, I towered over many of my peers and my mother always told me how much I looked like my father, and how proud he would have been to see me turn out the way I did. However, against my mother's and Uncle's wishes for me to become a bureaucrat or a Lawyer, I made a choice that would set me on a path that has for better or worse given me the life I have today. I joined the local Thematic Army, as Antiochos recommended for someone as strong and intelligent as myself. I wanted to honour my father by this way of life, but I soon would regret this decision given the state that our nation was in.
It was quite the rude awakening when I made my way to Aphrodisias and saw how the very land around me seemed to be decaying before my very eyes along the road. Farms were deserted and overgrown with weeds. Entire villages were but ghost towns where vultures pecked on the corpses of the poor souls who once inhabited them. I was aghast at it all, along with the other five young nobles that joined me. How could this possibily happen to our land, and why did no one stop this. We came across an old beggar along the roadside and asked him what is going on. He spoke nothing but nonesense, but it was on purpose as highwaymen soon attacked us as they had planned. Fortunately for us, the Highwaymen clearly bit off more than they could chew against us 6, all clad in armor and trained from youth to crush miscreants like them. We made short work of them despite the surprise and came out of it with only scratches and bloody maces. I remember dismounting and grabbing the old man by the neck, demanding to know why he was in on this wicked ploy and what happened to the villages. He merely laughed at my naivety and said "You foolish naive soul! hahaha, If you want to know what happened then ask the dead and if you want to know why I was in on this, then I will merely tell you that it is the only means for food." Disgusted at him, I smashed his head in with a mace. But he truly was right, and I did not understand this fully at the time that men were reduced to such wicked means to merely survive.
When we finally arrived at Aphrodisias, we were greeted by a city of squalor and poverty. It was scarcely 10 years since the war had ended, yet you could see the pain of our nation within the city itself. Structures that once housed artisans a decade before were abandoned, the streets were filled with excrement, rats and sludge. The people all were depressed and impovished to some degree. The sullenest mood imaginable gripped the air, and one couldn't help but feel the pain. We made our way to the dilapidated mess that was the Thematic Headquarters. Inside, we found the commander, Philippos Exazenos spending his days more with harlots and wine than trying to improve the situation. He asked us what we were doing here, and we told him we were here to serve under him as the creme of the crop of the young nobility of Kaisereia. He laughed at us, saying that even if we were the greatest the Theme had to offer, it would make little difference. "All of it is pointless boys, utterly pointless. We have no ability to defend ourselves from upstart bandits anymore, our coffers are dry and we lack even basic equipment anymore." The ultimate question of "Why?" was that there was no money nor was there hardly any motivation to continue. Us six, however, were still undetered. We demanded to join and proclaimed we would do our best to turn the situation around. Philippos, still believing this was all foolish, accepted but he gave us the ranks of Komes, which weren't even close to being qualified for, and orders to ride out to assigned villages and do our best to turn the situations around locally. I was assigned the small town of Panormos along the great Hedyphon river and about 50 km down stream from Hieropolis. I was somewhat relieved, given I had been there around 10 years before, but I truly had no clue how bad things had gotten until I reached my post later that year.