State of the Nation - July 2010

Greetings all,

Here is the Byzantium Novum status update for July 2010:


Our new nation continues to do well. As of today we have a total of 76 official Citizens! Our steady growth is a good sign, and means that our Internet presence is continuing to expand.

Currently on Facebook we have 1,180 "friends", which means we continue to be seen by more people with an interest in "things Byzantine" each month.

The big news for this month is that Lars Brownworth, author of "Lost to the West" has become a Citizen of Byzantium Novum! This is a wonderful thing since he's rather a hero around here... the Literature Sodalitas has been studying his book! His "Byzantine name" is Theophilos, and hopefully he'll get a chance to visit the forums from time to time. He also has an excellent website up at http://www.larsbrownworth.com/, and his blog is at: http://www.larsbrownworth.com/blog/ . It looks like he does speaking engagements... perhaps as our numbers grow and we're able to put on events we might be able to hire him to speak at a convention!

In other news, we have located a discussion group for living descendants of the Komnenos dynasty. There has been no discussion with them as yet, (and there likely will be none until we've grown substantially) but it is amazing to know that there are people out there from this august Byzantine lineage. This is yet another sign that Byzantium is indeed not "gone" but has simply been dispersed.

Summer weather and activities have continued to take their toll on the Internet forums - July was a quiet month for the various lists. This happens all over the Internet of course, and we can expect a renewed flow of traffic at the end of August as people get forced indoors. In the meantime, we are working on some new infrastructure, including a visual redesign on the Byzantium Novum website. Hopefully we'll be able to get the updates online soon!

-Marcus Cassius Julianus
Senator, Byzantium Novum