History: An Imperial Letter From Süleyman the Magnificent to Dom João III

[The_J]

The Twitter user paisley_trees, who is a history reseacher at Yale, has put our attention to this letter, which was sent by Süleyman the Magnificent to Dom Joao III of Portugal, who are both leaders in Civ6.

This letter actually concerns a trade agreement between both countries. Both Ottomans and Portugese had some confrontations regarding the domination of the Indian Ocean. After multiple failed confrontations from both sides, Süleyman the Magnificent wanted to make peace, and suggested a trade: They wanted 250 000 kg of pepper in exchange for 5-15 years of peace and 3 800 tons of wheat.

The Portugese made a counter offer, 125 000 kg of pepper in exchange for at least 15 years of peace, 7 600 tons of wheat, free passage for trading, and a demand to the Ottomans not to construct galleys suitable for the Indian Ocean.

The relevant letter here is Süleyman The Magnificent addressing Joao’s last request, rejecting it, and asking again for the first terms.

The whole letter is sadly not freely available, but most of it (without further discussion in the research paper) can be seen for free on the first page, and it is possible to download it after a free registration.

You can find this letter, with the full title "An Imperial Letter From Süleyman the Magnificent to Dom João III Concerning Proposals for an Ottoman-Portuguese Armistice" here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41104901 .


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I have to say that I find this very fascinating. I had never considered that some of the Civ leaders were contemporaries, and could have talked to each other. While I guess that there is plenty of correspondence between the Civ4 leaders FDR, Churchil and Stalin, this here is a lot older, and I find it very precious to have.
It's also interesting that this is actually a trade agreement, like the ones you can find in the Civ series.
I just like this .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's also interesting that this is actually a trade agreement, like the ones you can find in the Civ series.
I just like this .

Ah, but notice that the Treaty/agreement indicated in this correspondence is only partly possible in Civ VI: you can't ask anyone to not build a ship in X body of water, and the length of 'truces' or 'cease-fires' is Fixed, not negotiable.

On the other hand, note the multiplicity and intricacy of the terms they used to address each other, and you realize how bland the conversations between Civ VI's Leaders really are:
Why can't I refer to some Leader as
". . . trailing trains of majesty and dignity, the master of fame and glory, the King of ___, may his ultimate results be terminated with success . . ."?

 

[Zaarin]

The late 16th century is a gold mine for fascinating leaders who were all contemporary: Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, Elizabeth I of England, Philip II of Spain, Ferdinand I of the HRE, Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, Henri II and CdM in France, Ivan IV the Terrible of Russia, Tahmasp I of Persia, Akbar the Great of the Mughal Empire--many of them have been in Civ already and all of them would make excellent leader choices. In particular, I want Elizabeth I back in Civ7, and I'm crossing my fingers for Sigismund II Augustus to lead Poland next time around. (Ivan IV would be fine, but I'd prefer Ivan III myself. I wouldn't say no to Akbar, either.)

 

[Uberfrog]

Suleiman wasn’t the only civ leader to write to João III — Mvemba a Nzinga, aka Afonso I of Kongo wrote many letters to the Portuguese kings, including a complaint that Portuguese slavers were taking Kongolese people into slavery.

I’ve mentioned this on these forums before, but my favourite real life civ leader correspondence is the exchange of phonographs between Victoria and Menelik II.

 

[Zaarin]

Suleiman wasn’t the only civ leader to write to João III — Mvemba a Nzinga, aka Afonso I of Kongo wrote many letters to the Portuguese kings, including a complaint that Portuguese slavers were taking Kongolese people into slavery.

To clarify, he protested that the Portuguese slavers were taking nobles of his court, including members of the royal family. He wasn't so upset when they were just taking ordinary subjects.

 

[The_J]

Suleiman wasn’t the only civ leader to write to João III — Mvemba a Nzinga, aka Afonso I of Kongo wrote many letters to the Portuguese kings, including a complaint that Portuguese slavers were taking Kongolese people into slavery.

I’ve mentioned this on these forums before, but my favourite real life civ leader correspondence is the exchange of phonographs between Victoria and Menelik II.

Both very nice, great .
I love this old stuff, and even more amazed that "voice messages" have been recorded .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

My favorite "old diplomatic correspondance". which I ran across over 40 years ago, was an exchange recorded between the Byzantines and the Pechenegs, a Scythian-successor group of pastorals in southern Russia/Ukraine. The Pechenegs were proverbially dense (Pecheneg Jokes took the place of modern jokes about unsophisticated hicks), and the Byzantines suggested that they should attack the Bulgars, who were giving the Byzantine state quite a bit of trouble at the time.
The Pecheneg answer was anything but dense: They pointed out that the Bulgars were "both numerous and Fierce" and that they would be very happy if the Byzantines never mentioned this idea again!

 

[Zaarin]

Not precisely diplomatic, but one of my favorite historical correspondences is the letter Joan of Arc wrote to the Hussites threatening to break off her war with England to teach the Hussites some orthodoxy at sword point if they didn't abandon their heresy. (She never got around to carrying out her threat as she was captured by the Burgundians shortly thereafter.)

I also love knowing that John Milton and Galileo Galilei were pen pals. Considering either one of them would have happily told you that he was one of Europe's leading intellectuals (neither would be wrong; it's just not generally considered "the thing to do" ), it's probably for the best that their two egos were never assembled under one roof...

 

[Snowygerry]

My favourite historical Civ moment recently was this one :

When they had sailed past Wonderstrands, they landed the
Scots and told them to run southwards and see what the
country had to offer, but to return before three days were
past. They were dressed in garments which they called
" kjafal " [Irish cabhail]. These were made with a hood
on top, were open on the sides, sleeveless, and fastened
between the legs with a button and a loop. Otherwise the
Scots were naked.

A Scottish worker in a galley used as scout in the VOYAGES TO VINLAND saga

Full text of "Voyages To Vinland The First American Saga Newly Translated And Interpreted" (archive.org)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Back in the late 1970s - ealry 1980s Steve Allen largely wrote and hosted a show on PBS called Meeting of Minds. Each show had 4 historical characters debating each other, with as much as possible the entire script composed of actual quotes from or attributed to the characters. It won numerous awards for the acting and scripts, and once upon a time I actually had a paper copy of some of the scripts that had been bound into a book.

To give an example of the kind of combinations, one of the first episodes had Sun Yat-Sen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Niccolo Machiavelli and Aristotle, and one of my favorite episodes had Marie Antoinette, Sir Thomas More, Karl Marx and Ulysses S. Grant. They were some of the most original shows ever put on TV anywhere.

 

[Luxerne]

Another interaction between in-game leaders: Catherine de Medici and Henry II arranged for their daughter Elisabeth to be married to Philip II of Spain.

 

[canadamufc]

Yet another interaction: A very old Victoria met a very young Wilhelmina in the United Kingdom. Victoria later complimented her in her diary, saying that she was "very intelligent and cute".

 

[skunkpuppy]

The famous letter between the Qianlong Emperor of the Great Qing and King George II of Great Britain, refusing to trade, signing off with the famous words: "Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!" Which I should end all my emails with.

https://china.usc.edu/emperor-qianlong-letter-george-iii-1793

 

[Bibor]

My favourite correspondence is between Güyük Khan and the Pope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cum_non_solum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Güyük_Khan_to_Pope_Innocent_IV

Both Ottomans and Portugese had some confrontations regarding the domination of the Indian Ocean.

Understatement of the year
Aggressive expansion and european piracy in the Indian ocean were a thing long before the Caribbean. Somehow europeans were not in the mood of understanding that they were the butt of the joke in the global economy (that already existed).

Compared to India, China and indeed the muslim world, european seafaring nations including Portugal started off their careers as backwards barbarians.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Compared to India, China and indeed the muslim world, european seafaring nations including Portugal started off their careers as backwards barbarians.

EVERYBODY started off their careers as 'backwards barbarians' - and it could be argued that some are regressing back to that state as fast as they can . . .

One of the many fundamental things that most 4X and especially Civ games miss is that everybody in every part of the world "progressed" at different rates, and were at different stages of Technological, Sociological, and Civic development all the time. Even after "instantaneous" communication would seem to make it possible for all rates of advance to be uniform, even in the present day it would invite well-deserved ridicule to state that in any way all countries of the world have equal access to technology, equal application of technology (which is far more important) and have reached the same stage of equitable, open, 'fair' and agreeable governance, social policy, or civic establishment. Both the amount of change and the rates of change in everything measurable have varied throughout history (and probably pre-history).

By contrast, Civ puts everyone into a race with everyone else All The Time. Fall behind in Science or Military developments, and you are Doomed. The progress is linear and better be rapid or it's Game Over. This is one of the prime reasons that 'Dark Ages' and 'Golden Ages' aren't. If they were really 'Dark' in the usually-understood meaning, they would be permanently crippling; really 'Golden' and nothing else would be acceptable to the competitive Gamer. Any setback: Plague, Civil War, Revolution - cannot be included as long as the game punishes severely any loss of competitive 'edge' - or would punish if it had a semi-competent AI . . .