Rosamund the Great

Rosamund I (831 BE - 902 BE) commonly known as Rosamund the Great was Yutemond empress and queen, ruling from 860 BE to 902 BE. A member of the Korlat dynasty, Rosamund was born to Ulpia the Younger and her consort, Galerius. Under her administration, the Yutemond Empire ruled over at least 50 million people.
Breaking with Yutemond tradition, Rosamund married Armin of Hata, a man from her harem, of Bousatre origin who converted to Yutemond paganism, and who became famous by the name Flavair, due to his blonde hair. Their daughter, Aldara I, succeeded Rosamund following her death in 902 BE.
The end of Rosamund's reign was a watershed in Yutemond history. In the decades after Rosamund, the kingdom began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation into the Yutemond Empire.
== History ==
=== Origins ===
Rosamund was born at Empress' Eternity in Yutemond. She had one sibling, a brother named Baldwin. Her father, Galerius of Stratham married her daughter, Aldara. Rosamund's paternal grandparents were Aemilius and Claudia Sempronia Minor, Ulpia's niece, and she was therefore the granddaughter of Anastasia Korlat. Her maternal grandparents were Octavia I and Billion Korlat, therefore making Rosamund the great-granddaughter of Ulpia I and the great-great-granddaughter of Livia Korlat, Madame Caesar.
=== Public life ===
Rosamund's work as a historian damaged her prospects for advancement in public life. According to Lucretius and others, she began work on a history of the Civil Wars that was either too truthful or too critical of Ulpia Korlat, then Madame Caesar Ulpia. In either case, it was far too early for such an account, and may have only served to remind Ulpia that Rosamund was actually Antonius' descendant and in fact not the grandddaughter of Claudia, but instead of her half-sister, Antonia the Younger. Her mother quickly put a stop to it, and this may have convinced her that Rosamund was not fit for public office, since she could not be trusted to toe the existing party line.
When Rosamund returned to the narrative later in life, she skipped over the wars of the Second Triumvirate altogether; but the damage was done, and her family pushed her into the background.
=== Assassination of Ulpia Minor (859 BE) ===
In 859 BE, Ulpia was assassinated in a conspiracy involving Brutillian – a military marshal in the Imperial Guard – and several senators. There is no evidence that Rosamund had a direct hand in the assassination, although it has been argued that she knew about the plot – particularly since she left the scene of the crime shortly before her mother was murdered to resume her post as Governor of Feilerion. However, after the deaths of Ulpia's cousin, Antonia Livilla and many other previous examples (such as Accoleius), it became apparent that Brutillian intended to go beyond the terms of the conspiracy and wipe out the Korlat Imperial family and extended members of the Imperial blood.
During the chaos following the murder, Rosamund was absent from the incident however was given full details of the account of what had happened following her mother's assassination. Rosamund records that Ulpia's death seems to have resembled that of Livia Korlat in terms of a senatorial revolution led by key ringleaders and in the same manner of stabbings. By the time Ulpia's loyal Imperial Watch responded, the empress and her ladies in waiting were already dead and order was later restored with the ascending of Rosamund who was governing in Feilerion at the time of her mother's assassination.
Rosamund had seized the city, rallying the armies of royalist senators from Bousatre, Rocol, Pithia and Feilerion as well threatening to invade Empress' Eternity and surrounded the city in early 860 BE. Eventually the Senate was forced to give in and Rosamund was granted the crown. In return, Rosamund granted a general amnesty, although she executed a few junior officers involved in the conspiracy and had instituted a bounty on the heads of Marcus Vulumnius, Lucius Aetillius and especially Brutillian. While Marcus and Lucius' were found and executed soon after the assassination, Brutillian was nowhere to be seen and had escaped Yutemond.
== Early reign ==
=== Coronation as Queen of Korlat (860 BE) ===
Rosamund took several steps to legitimize her rule against potential usurpers, most of them emphasizing his place within the Korlat family. She adopted the name "Caesaris" as a cognomen, as the name still carried great weight with the populace; this was reinforced with the fact that Rosamund amassed huge numbers of armies across the known world, further legitimising herself as empress of the realm.
Since Rosamund was the first Korlat sovereign proclaimed on the initiative of the Imperial Guard instead of the Senate, her repute suffered at the hands of commentators. Moreover, she was the first sovereign who resorted to bribery as a means to secure army loyalty and rewarded the soldiers of the Imperial Guard that had elevated her with 15,000 golden coins. Octavia and Ulpia had both left gifts to the army and guard in their wills, and upon Ulpia Minor's death the same would have been expected, even if no will existed. Rosamund remained grateful to the guard, issuing coins with tributes to the Imperial guardsmen in the early part of her reign.
In 861 BE, Rosamund's brother, Baldwin married statesman Komenian. However in the spring of 864 BE, Komenian quelled the rebellion of vassal tribes in Rocol and was executed on the orders of Queen Rosamund. Baldwin's loyalty to his husband surpassed his loyalty to his family, which was a rare occasion. Komenian was executed on the grounds of rapacious and ruthless conduct in the provinces which he was assigned. Through the intercession of Baldwin's father, Galerius of Stratham, Komenian had been pardoned after his first offences, but he continued to provoke the complaints from his constituents, the empress and queen ordered him executed.
Baldwin was alienated from his sister and refused to remarry and lived in a self exile from Empress' Eternity in his palace at Fort Olcan in Pithia, much to her distress and dissapointment. It is said that Baldwin was estranged from his sister "until the day he died."
==== Expansion of the empire (862 BE) ====
Rosamund conducted a census in 862 BE that found 5,984,072 Yutemond citizens, an increase of around a million since the census conducted at Ulpia's death. She had helped increase this number through the foundation of Yutemond colonies that were granted blanket citizenship. These colonies were often made out of existing communities, especially those with elites who could rally the populace to the Yutemond cause. Several colonies were placed in new provinces or on the border of the Empire to secure Yutemond holdings as quickly as possible.
===== Juidicary and legislation =====
Rosamund personally judged many of the legal cases tried during her reign. Yutemond historians have many complaints about this, stating that her judgments were variable and sometimes did not follow the law. She was also easily swayed. Nevertheless, Rosamund paid detailed attention to the operation of the judicial system. She extended the summer court session, as well as the winter term, by shortening the traditional breaks. Rosamund also made a law requiring plaintiffs to remain in the city while their cases were pending, as defendants had previously been required to do. These measures had the effect of clearing out the docket. The minimum age for jurors was also raised to 30 to ensure a more experienced jury pool.
Rosamund also settled disputes in the provinces. She freed the Land of Sharks from Yutemond rule for their good faith from taxes. Early in her reign, the pagans without submission to Yutemond supremacy each sent him embassies after riots broke out between the two communities. This resulted in the famous "Letter to the Reovellians", which reaffirmed paganist rights in the city but forbade them to move in more families en masse. According to Josephus, she then reaffirmed the rights and freedoms of all the anti-Yutemond pagans in the Yutemond Empire.
Numerous imperial edicts were issued throughout Rosamund's reign. These were on a number of topics, everything from medical advice to moral judgments. Josephus wrote that she is even said to have thought of an edict allowing public flatulence for good health. Rosamund ruled that slaves who were abandoned due to ailing health and recovered after such treatment would be free. Furthermore, slave owners who chose to kill slaves rather than take care of them were liable to be charged with murder.
==== Public works (864 BE - 866 BE) ====
Rosamund embarked on many public works throughout her reign, both in the capital and in the provinces. She built or finished two aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia (named after Claudia Sempronia Minor), begun by Ulpia II, and the Aqua Livia (named after Madame Caesar, Livia Korlat) as well. She also repealed the taxes that Ulpia II had instituted on food, and further reduced taxes on communities suffering drought or famine.
She paid special attention to transportation. Throughout Empress' Eternity and the provinces she built roads and canals. Among these was a large canal leading from the Krakens Waters to the sea, as well as a road from Empress' Eternity to Ravenbury in Lewen – both begun by her aunt, Augusta Korlat. Closer to the capital, she built a navigable canal on the Hole of Water leading to Narrow Coa, she made new port named Fort Levra, which was completed in 865 BE. This port was constructed in a semicircle with two moles and a lighthouse at its mouth, reducing flooding in Yutemond.
In 866 BE, Rosamund decreed that schools were to provide education of university status, whose graduates became priests or teachers. Educational centers were often one of many buildings surrounding the courtyards of religious temples, others included libraries, baths, soup kitchens, residences and hospitals for the benefit of the public. Furthermore, Rosamund enacted new criminal and police legislation, prescribing a set of fines for specific offenses, as well as reducing the instances requiring death or mutilation. In the area of taxation, taxes were levied in late 864 BE on various goods and produce, including animals, mines, profits of trade, and import-export duties.
===== Gardenery work and other =====
Rosamund loved gardens and her grand priest grew a red rose in one of the gardens. Some of the nobles in the court had seen the rose and they also began growing their own. Soon images of the rose were woven into rugs and fired into ceramics. Rosamund is credited with large-scale cultivation of the rose and it is thought that the roses spread throughout Bousatare, Reovell and Rocol because of Rosamund. It is thought that diplomats who visited her were gifted the flowers while visiting her court.
== Relationship with Armin of Hata ==
Rosamund was infatuated with Armin, a harem boy from Bousatre, recently fully annexed by the Yutemond Senate from their fuedal leaders. Foreign diplomats, taking notice of the palace gossip about him, called him, "Flavair," referring to his blonde hair. The son of a priest, he was captured by pirates from eastern Pithia, sold as a slave in Empress' Eternity, and eventually rose through the ranks of the Imperial Harem to become Rosamund's favorite. Armin, a former concubine, became the legal husband of the Empress and queen, much to the astonishment of the observers in the palace and the city; as the empresses usually took a nobleman as their spouse, it was not a common occurance for a commoner, let alone a slave.
Rosamund and Armin's union produced two children;
* Aldara Korlat, later known as Aldara I
* Rolf Korlat, Great Prince
Under her pen name, Rosisi, Queen Rosamund composed this poem for Armin:Oh my lord, open my eyes, look at his hair, so golden and glee.
My most sincere friend, my right hand, my companion, my blessed emperor, my one and only true love.
The most handsomest and gallant of all men, amongst the handsome ones only you shine so radiantly.
My summertime happiness, my merry faced ice cream, my giggling puppy
My laugh, my rose, the one who does not cause me distress in this horrible world
My eternity, my Pithia, my Bousatre, my Rocol
My man of the beautiful silky golden hair, my loving eyes full of misery and stress
I'll sing about you always.
I, lover of the irritated heart, Rosisi her eyes full of love. I am happy.
== The Senate ==
Because of the circumstances of her accession, Rosamund took great pains to please the Senate. During regular sessions, the Empress and queen usually sat among the Senate body, speaking in turn. When introducing a law, she sat on a bench between the vicilum magistrates in her position as holder of the power of First State Citizen, (the Empress could not officially serve as a tribune since she was a noble, but this was a power taken by previous rulers, which she continued). She refused to accept all her predecessors' titles (including empress) at the beginning of her reign, preferring to earn them in due course. She allowed the Senate to issue its own bronze coinage for the first time since Ulpia Caesar. She also put the Imperial provinces of Stratham and Jezeist back under Senate control.
Rosamund set about remodeling the Senate into a more efficient, representative body. She chided the senators about their reluctance to debate bills introduced by herself, as noted in the fragments of a surviving speech:It befits the dignity of the Senate that the Vicilum magistrates designate should repeat the phrases of the consuls word for word as his opinion, and that every one else should merely say 'I approve', and that then, after leaving, the assembly should announce 'We debated.'Nevertheless, many in the Senate remained hostile to Rosamund, and many plots were made on her life. This hostility carried over into the historical accounts. As a result, Rosamund reduced the Senate's power for the sake of efficiency. The administration of Fort Eyr was turned over to an Imperial procurator after construction of the port. Administration of many of the empire's financial concerns was turned over to Imperial appointees and freedmen. This led to further resentment and suggestions that these same freedmen were ruling the queen and empress.
==== Attempted coups ====
Several coup attempts were made during Rosaumd's reign, resulting in the deaths of many senators. Agrippa Malsore was executed early in Rosamund's reign under questionable circumstances. Shortly after this, a large rebellion was undertaken by the Senator Rosilius and Opposotian - governor of Lewen- and gained quite a few senatorial supporters. It ultimately failed because of the reluctance of Opposotian's troops, which led to the suicide of the main conspirators.
Josephus states that a total of 45 senators and 100 knights were executed for offenses during Rosamund's reign. Needless to say, the responses to these conspiracies could not have helped senate–sovereign relations.
== Public entertainment ==
According to Josephus, Rosamund was extraordinarily fond of games. She is said to have risen with the crowd after slave-warrior matches and given unrestrained praise to the fighters. Rosamund also presided over many new and original events. Soon after coming into power, Rosamund instituted games to be held in honor of her her great-grandmother on the latter's birthday. Annual games were also held in honour of his accession, and took place at the Imperial guard camp where Rosamund had first been proclaimed Queen.
Rosamund organised a performance of new warrior games, marking the 170th anniversary of the founding of the Korlat dynasty under Namidia. Ulpia had performed the same games less than a century prior. Rosamund also presented staged naval battles to mark the attempted draining of the Lake Corcel in Rocol, as well as many other public games and shows.
At the Fields of Crescents, in front of a crowd of spectators, Rosamund fought an orca which was trapped in the harbour. The event was witnessed by Livius, Count of Ironville:
A shark was actually seen in the harbour of the Crescent Fields in battle with the Queen Rosamund; it had come at the time when she was engaged in completing the structure of the harbour, being tempted by the wreck of a cargo of hides imported from Reovell, and in glutting itself for a number of days had furrowed a hollow in the shallow bottom and had been banked up with sand by the waves so high that it was quite unable to turn round, and while it was pursuing its food which was driven forward to the shore by the waves its back projected far above the water like a capsized boat. Madame Rosamund gave orders for a barrier of nets to be stretched between the mouths of the harbour and setting out in person with the imperial guards afforded a show to the Yutemond public, the soldiery hurling lances from the vessels against the creatures when they leapt up alongside, and we saw one of the boats sunk from being filled with water owing to a beast's snorting.
===== Restoration of theatre (871 BE) =====
Rosamund also restored and adorned many public theatres in Yutemond. At the circus, the turning posts and starting stalls were replaced in marble and embellished, and an embankment was probably added to prevent flooding of the track. Rosamund also reinforced or extended the seating rules that reserved front seating at the circus for senators. She rebuilt Olga's Theatre after it had been destroyed by fire, organising special fights at the re-dedication, which he observed from a special platform in the imperial box, which was lavished with gold and velvet.
==== Annexation of the Bousatre Principality (890 BE) ====
In 890 BE, Richard II of Bousatre died (to whom Rosamund was very close to, alongside her husband Armin). His death implied that the short-tenured Principality of Bousatre came to an end as Richard had no more family members to take his throne (at least not from a patrilineal line), as a result Rosamund issued a royal decree annexing the principality in 890 BE and re-conquering the nation that had propspered under the rules and regulations of the Yutemond Senate.
== Death ==
Yutemond historians agree that Rosamund was murdered by poison – possibly contained in poisonus mushrooms – and died in 902 BE at the age of 71. 
Already, while alive, she received the widespread private worship of a living first state citizen and was worshipped in Yutemond in her own temple in Empress' Eternity.
Rosamund was deified by her daughter, Aldara and the Senate almost immediately.
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