Join Byzantium Novum in protesting the destruction of the ancient Roman Hospital of Galen!

Byzantium Novum has begun an international campaign save the archaeological site of the ancient Roman "Hospital of Galen" from destruction by the Turkish Government.

An article on this situation can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/2fkmcj7


We are encouraging people worldwide to send a polite letter or email to the Turkish Embassy in their country, reminding them that this is not a sound financial decision. This well known ancient site is worth more money to Turkey than their proposed destructive public works project would be!

Byzantium Novum has started a Facebook campaign to get the word out:

http://www.causes.com/causes/532756/about?m=ba32d54d

And we are also asking people with a Facebook account to join this cause and forward it to their friends.

Please help Byzantium Novum stop this project! If it cannot be stopped forever, it should at least be halted until the proper archaeological study and preservation recommended by the scientific archaeological community can be done!

State of the Nation - September 2010

Greetings all,

September has been a very good month for Byzantium Novum. The most important news is that we have passed our first big milestone, and now have over 100 official Citizens! Our Citizen Map at http: //www.communitywalk.com/byzantium_novum/map/543922 is starting to fill up with points. The official Citizen count stands at 103 so we're on our way toward 200... :)

We now have 1,350 Facebook contacts, which means we continue to be seen and maintain a positive and growing public presence. Not only will we continue to gain Citizens from that forum, it provides us with a means of getting news out should it be needed.

The Byzantium Novum Senate has been more active. Currently we have been discussing the organization of local Provinces and Themes. It has been agreed that we will be going with Greek terminology for the most part, and Senator Badvila has translated all terms into Latin and English as well. His chart on Province organization will be up on the website soon!

This month our micronation received a very fair writeup in a Medieval blog: http://vaultingvellum.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-byzantium-micronation-now-on.html which shows that our advertising on Craig's List has continued to be seen. Once again I would like to thank *everyone* who has volunteered to post ads for Byzantium Novum in the Groups section for their areas Craig's List! Each time we do that new people see that Byzantium is alive and growing again. Getting the word out in this way is one of the most effective ways any of us can help rebuild Byzantium. THANK YOU for your help...

October should be a good month for Byzantium Novum. The seasonal weather will mean more people are inside and on the Internet - so more people will see us and our forums will get more traffic.

Continuing to build "on the Internet" now will help us to gain enough "critical mass" to start local chapters going and get out into the physical world with gatherings and events. That is really what we're working toward - our "virtual" community is fun and interesting, but everything will become much more meaningful and rewarding once we're meeting face to face! :)

I wish everyone a healthy and happy Autumn. Hail Byzantium!

-Marcus Cassius Julianus
Senator, Byzantium Novum

State of the Nation - August 2010

Greetings all,


Byzantium Novum has continued to do very well through the month of August. We currently have 92 Citizens, an increase of 16 Citizens in the last month! This is excellent and steady growth, and hopefully it will even increase as we get into the Fall and Winter months and people take more time online! :)

We currently have 1,277 "Facebook Friends," which is another indication that people are "seeing" us and are interested enough to stay in contact. We will try for a new membership push this next month after people have settled into the new school year routine...

I am very pleased to announce that two new Senators have been voted into the Byzantium Novum Senate; Badvila Chalkeus and Exarch Matyas.

Both of these Citizens have remained interested and active on the lists, and have good organizational backgrounds. I am sure that the will be assets to the Senate and that the extra assistance there will be important for building new infrastructure for Byzantium Novum.

Please do join me in welcoming Badvila and Exarch Matyas as Byzantium Novum's latest Senators!

An interesting occurrence in August was that we had our first (and happily minor) disagreement on the main list. We have been over seven months without a single harsh word being spoken among our Citizens, which is a testament to the great people that are finding us! Happily the situation was over quickly and we've been able to prove that we can weather a storm. :) Many thanks to everyone that helped to keep the list friendly and on topic!

September should be an active month. With the new Senators we should be able to easily field a quorum for business, no matter how busy people get. It is "back to school" time in many places, but usually that means more Internet activity and that is hopefully a good thing.

We have even started talking about the possibility of a local gathering, which is a great thing to be able to even discuss in our first year!

Many thanks as always to everyone who has helped advertise Byzantium Novum in the "Groups" section of Facebook. We're doing everything we can to get the word out, and obviously it's working!

I look forward to seeing everyone on the lists in September. Long live Byzantium!

-Marcus Cassius Julianus
Senator

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

State of the Nation - June 2010

Greetings all,

Here is the Byzantium Novum status report for June, 2010:

Although the Summer months are traditionally the slowest for the Internet, Byzantium Novum is continuing to do well.

We currently have a total of 65 Citizens, which is an average of 11 Citizens per month since our official founding. That number is well above average for micronational projects. With that number of citizens and our stable and growing infrastructure (including a professional web site, active forums, and professional advertising) we're easily already in the top 25 percent of the most successful MicroNations in world history. Not bad for our first six months!

Our biggest success in the last month has been Citizen participation in advertising Byzantium Novum in their local area on Craig's List. This has raised our public profile considerably and we've gained several new Citizens as a result. THANK YOU to everyone who has been willing to participate! Byzantium Novum will continue to grow if we continue to do this... :)

We have continued to advertise in other places as well, and as of this morning Byzantium Novum has 1,090 "friends" on Facebook. We're doing what we can to get the word out that Byzantium is coming back to life!

There will be at least some small updates to the main website shortly, and I'm working on getting a map up to show where we now have Citizens all over the world.

In other good news we have Citizens working on forming at least three Provinces now. Effort is continuing to bring Byzantium Novum into the "real world". Local, face-to-face Byzantine community is crucial to all of this so it's great to see interest in building locally. It is my sincere hope that by this time next year, local gatherings and meetings will be happening regularly in some of our Byzantine Provinces!

In closing I'd like to give my sincere thanks to everyone who is participating, and just as importantly, to everyone who is continuing to be patient as Byzantium Novum grows. We grow and become a bit stronger every month... but we're still in a precarious position. Our community still exists mostly on the Internet, where "instant gratification" is the standard. It has been wonderful to see that folks here understand that building a community takes time and regular participation. Thank you all! :)

-Marcus Cassius Julianus
Senator

New Militarium Sodalitas

Byzantium Novum now has a Militarium Sodalitas, which is being run by Senator Marcus Minucius Audens who holds the position of Praefectus Castorum in the Militarium.

The Sodalitas Militarium is dedicated to the study and historical reenactment of the military aspects of the Byzantine empire. Join today - Byzantium Novum needs YOU!

The Militarium list is located here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ByzantiumNovumMilitarium/


The Militarium page of Byzantium Novum is here:

http://www.byzantiumnovum.org/militarium.htm

New Latin Language Sodalitas

Byzantium Novum now has a Latin Sodalitas (special interest group): Sodalitas Latinas Byzantia, located at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SodalitasLatinaByzantia/

This Sodalitas is for people wanting to learn, study, read and share the Latin Language in a group setting.

The ancient Eastern Roman Empire was primarily Greek - however it's governmental language was Latin. Latin was also used throughout Byzantine history for communicating with the West, and one was not considered fully educated until they knew both Greek and Latin.

This first language group is an excellent addition to the cultural content of Byzantium Novum, and we hope that Citizens will make use of this wonderful resource!