Rossan Silver Age

The Rossan Silver Age broadly refers to the decades-long period between the Spirit Revolution and the Silver Crisis or, more strictly, the years between 106 TT and 1 PC. It has largely been characterized by great scientific achievements, rapid social progress and an avant-garde turn in artistry. It represented a period of greater societal individualism, a softening of the aristocratic system, and the building of wealth among people of non-noble backgrounds. Mass urbanization, greater than ever before, led to large population growth of cities, with the island reaching a total population of over 5,000,000 citizens by the end of the period.

The source of the period's name is contested between historians, although it is believed to have originated from Padeno, a literary novel written by author Mateo S. Zampa in 94 TT, marked by themes of urban life, industrialization and loss of meaning. The passage "And yet they glimmer, these silver years, shining as jewelry, illuminating with blinding light so bright, radiating in moments more than all of the eternal House of Miglio." is believed to have been the source of the phrase, although it had to have been modified or misremembered prior to wider adoption among historians, and later the populace.

Social Changes

The adoption of machinery and automation, a process which had already begun in the century prior, gave rise to a new class of wealth, distant from the aristocratic background of the old nobility found in the Six Families. Although independently acquired wealth was not an entirely uncommon phenomenon historically, its emergence not as a isolated incident but as a general rule of the time period would greatly change the island's society. Wealth, however, was not evenly spread, and in large part became concentrated among a class of the new rich, which came to complement the old dynasties in power and compete with them in influence. Bolstered by the recent democratic reforms, the new factory owners, company managers and investors would begin to compete for power in areas both financial and political. Following the loss of two Advisorship seats (previously held by the Six Families) in the year 76 TT, the Families would begin to increasingly court the new rich in securing their own power and prosperity, often promising favorable outcomes to their backers in underhanded deals and negotiations. Creating an environment of lax regulatory practices that allowed the new rich to expand unabetted. This led to an environment of self-serving state-market cooperation, where businesses in good spirits with the ruling aristocracy received additional backing from the government. As such, the Silver Age, despite its high rate of societal progress, also came to be considered in the lens of corruption and abuses of power facilitated by the state. The practices proved highly successful, as the Families continued to hold the position of Dux until the demise of the aristocratic system in La Denunzia.

Following the Padeno bank run of 60 TT, which caused a 3-year recession following a flight of investors after the collapse of a number of speculative industrial investments, newly placed regulations over the national banking system would come to constrain the power of individual investors for the sake of economic cohesion of the growing markets. Although the overall structure of power during the period did not fundamentally change (with a new class of the rich working in unstable cooperation with the aristocratic elite), the balance of power would shift back towards the old aristocrats, and remain there for the rest of the historical period leading up to their overthrow.