Byzantium's history was her dismemberment by the Muslims

=(

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879250)

Economically they were at their heights under the Komnenos iirc - when London was just a town of 20K, when Paris was barely a city Constantinople housed like 400K

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879300)

All the wealth from the East was being used to defend the West at the time, especially as the border farmlands became barren and unused by the 4th century

Rome itself did not have an emperor since the 3rd century b/c it was just a terrible location for post 3rd century crises emperors, who were basically all Illyrian soldiers.

It was a natural progression of what had been going on for over a century by that point - Emperors were increasingly stationed in the frontlines, and to make it easier, Diocletian just made official what had been happening, creating multiple "emperors" that'd take care of a given region of the empire.

Before Constantine, during the Tetrarchy, Constantius (Constantine's father) ruled from Trier.

Diocletian (the "senior" emperor) ruled from Nicomedia (right across the Bosphorus from what would later be Constantinople).

Galerius ruled from Sirmium (his territory was the most idiosyncratic actually - normally when the empire had different emperors they usually divided it along the Balkans and have Greece be part of the Eastern front but Diocletian just put the most important line of defense that costs the most $$ for defense w/ 0 production - the Balkans - to Galerius and only gave him Greece and Thracia to work with)

Maximian, the Western Augustus ruled from Milan

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879371)

THere was a distinct Mediterranean civilization - until the Mediterranean became a border, not Mare NOstrum.

You probably felt like you were in the same civilization going from Rome to Carthage.

Can't say the same for Rome to....whatever Forest druidshit they were doing up in Berlin at the time.

Grain supply from Alexandria fed the proles of Rome, and Antioch/Alexandria were the richest areas of the Empire.

Britain was a festering TTT in decline, and especially after the 3rd century, a lot of the farmlands by the Rhine and the Danube frontier in the Western provinces were abandoned from the constant invasions.

In essense the wealth from the East basically paid for the defense in the West by the 5th century - which is why the West on its own just simply could not hold on while the East could pay off the Huns with massive amts of gold

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879901)

The difference of course being that the Romans actually conquered Greece.

Maybe somewhat relevant is the Nomadic tribes that conquered china becoming "more Chinese than the Chinese themselves"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36905548)

Instead of focusing on the Anatolian heartlands, the Komnenian emperors- Alexios, Ioannes & Manuel - focused on re-capturing the Holy Land & Europe (especially Sicily & Italy although it failed bigtime) rather than try to shorten the line of defense by re-capturing the Anatolian heartlands that was the basis for the Theme system that was the core of the Byzantine army during the Macedonian era.

The result was that although the Empire recovered from the fallout from Manzikert in a short time, it would never have the defensive position it held at the time of Basil II and had virtually little defense for the coastal towns that prospered under the Komnenian restoration

(Byzantium when Alexios I came to power:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Byzantiumforecrusades.jpg)

(Byzantium after Manuel's reign - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Byzantium_in_1170%283%29.PNG) - you could see that although they managed to recapture a lot of the more important towns, the jutting mass of Turkic Rum Sultanate in the middle of Anatolia was to pose a huge military problem for the empire.

Why? Because of the cultural hold that both Antioch and Jerusalem had for CHristendom

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#39009245)

what does this refer to? polite fictional characteristics attributed only to the royals of the manchu qing dynasty? to my knowledge it was NOT claimed by, or of, any of the other steppe dynasties

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36930800)

The numerous tribes that invaded during the 4th century that now cease to exist, especially the Northern Dynasties.

Especially the Tang

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#37384669)

They kept the Christendom safe from Muslims.

Without victory in Constantinople in 717 Europe was DONEHERE

Also Basil II, Ioannes Tsmiskes and Nikephoros II Phokas ("The White Death of Saracens") were pretty 180.

They even at one point retook Antioch, and even invaded Egypt under Manuel I Komnenos

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879287)

Like Tolkien's Elves vs. the Orcish onslaught

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879296)

What really ended it was the 4th Crusade.

From the Macedonian Dynasty until Battle of Manzikert was the 1st resurgence after the rise of Islam, and its 2nd resurgence was under the Komnenos.

Too bad Manuel died without a real heir - if he'd won at Myriokephalon history would be a lot different

And if you think about it Rome itself was on the defensive since... Augustus really (ok after Trajan)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879312)

They reconquered much of the West under Justinian, lost a ton of territory to the Muslims and Bulgarians then regained it under the Macedonian emperors, lost Anatolia to the Turks then regained much of it under the Komnenoi. The dagger that made any real recovery hopeless was the Fourth Crusade. Before that they were still a great power or at times the strongest power in Europe/the ME.

There's a ton of cool history with them too. Their interactions with the barbarian empires that would be come modern Western Europe are fascinating. The story of Heraclius insane comeback against the Persians is cool as fuck. Anything involving Alexios is great. Like the rarely talked about wars against invading Norman conquerors and how those same people would eventually pass through Constantinople on the way to the First Crusade).

History of Byzantine State and Society by Warren Treadgold is a good book. It goes emperor by emperor discussing politics, society, day to day life, military campaigns etc. He's on the Byzophile side of things relative to most Byz scholars, so he puffs them up a bit. But it's a good book.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879355)

Been reading Anthony Kaldellis recently actually

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879377)

Do check it out.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36928079)

But instead, Heraclius turned the tide, came back, and after decades of war, decisively crushed the Sassanid Empire. Things promptly fell back into decline, but that's beside the point. For a thousand years, the tides of history ordained that Byzantium would be swept aside, forever, but they battled back over and over again, going down in a blaze of glory in the process. The Muslims conquered for thousands of miles in every direction, sweeping up Africa, Spain, Persia, Central Asia, half of India...but for 800 years, Byzantium plugged them from entering Eastern Europe. Slavic hordes swarmed across the Danube, but could never go the last ten yards and conquer Thrace. They suffered a catastrophic defeat at Manzikert, but battled back for 150 years and undid virtually all the damage, until the 4th Crusade sacked their capital. And they STILL came back from that, got back the capital, and limped on for another TWO HUNDRED FIFTY years, longer than the US has existed, before finally actually falling.

That's inspiring, imo.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879515)

But they come back from all that.

Now imagine being Heraclius though, and you bring back the True Cross to Jerusalem, revive the Empire after that long war w/ teh Sassanids when Rome really should've fallen then.

Then you see Khalid ibn al Walid lead his army into Yarmouk....

The feeling of loss and hopelessness after losing the Levant/Egypt must've been some next level shit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879540)

Yet China after 3 centuries of warfare managed to reunite, while Byzantines never reconquered the Levant, Egypt, NA and Gaul/Spain.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879858)

They think this is a natural progression - but why? There certainly were points of diversion when there could've been distinct civilizations w/ one centered around the Yangtze vs one up in Huabei

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879920)

literally forever henceforth the major warlords of any given chinese era will be thinking about unification, and any leader of a unified china, about the empire splitting up. derrida!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36881320)

I'm not so sure the warlords from 4th-6th centuries necessarily felt that way, especially early on as these nomads had a different character in dealing w/ the Hans as did later nomadic invasions did (although there's been some SCHOLARSHIP done on this with the whole Sino-Barbarian Synthesis thing).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36883755)

A century before the Western Roman Empire fell, Jin also collapsed in a similar manner, and like 5 different states were set up in the northern plains while the Jin dynasty moved east to what is now Nanjing and only held the Yangtze River area + Jingzhou while the nomads took every land up north

These nomads had little experience ruling Han people, and were quite different in character from later dynasties like Liao - most didn't even use the title Emperor (huangdi) but used "Celestial King" (tian-wang).

These kingdoms you could probably compared to the Germano-Roman kingdoms like Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia, Vandal Africa, Ostrogothic Italy (Theodoric could probably be compared to Shi Le) and the Frankish Kingdom - barbarian leaders, native bureaucracy creating a hybrid culture.

Remember that after Han fell, China had multiple kingdoms for ~340 years if you take out the 30 years of unified Jin. Certainly enough time for an entirely new political tradition to form

Yet china still reunited. Why?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36886856)

Will read some of it but my main crux of argumet isn't about Han-xiongnu, it's basically about post-Han - xianbei/di/qiang etc relations

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36887872)

Really get the whole situation when Crusaders showed up as Alexios had to double time them to ensure that they were reconquering Byzantine lands, not carving new fiefdoms

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36879846)

I recommend CK2 if you really want to know more about the byzantines

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36881281)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36881279)

If you like it, go deeper.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36928187)

"On 8 October 1912, during the First Balkan War, Lemnos became part of Greece. The Greek navy under Rear Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis took it over without any casualties from the occupying Turkish Ottoman garrison, who were returned to Anatolia.

Peter Charanis, born on the island in 1908 and later a professor of Byzantine history at Rutgers University recounts when the island was occupied and Greek soldiers were sent to the villages and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like.

‘‘What are you looking at?’’ one of them asked.

‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the children replied.

‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ a soldier retorted.

‘‘No, we are Romans.""

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#39009263)

A lot of it changed in the 7th century (really the shock of the Sassanid Wars and the Islamic Invasions in the 7th century gave a systemic shock to the empire. Essentially it ended the "city" in a legal sense in the empire, Athens was only a small town and people only libe by the Acropolis as they needed firm defenses, lots of the prominent Latin speaking elites in Constantinople, primarily from the era of Constantine himself, all but disappeared and was replaced by Greek speakers. Some Roman institutions remained like rhe consulship or the senate but its roles were diminished greatly or just were changed to Greek names. Augustus became Sebastokrator later in the 11th? 12th? Centuries. The provinces after the shock of Yarmouk qas reorganized into Themes- a self sufficient armies that basically was supposed to farm their lands and be self sufficient. Greek replaced the language- after around Heraclius, the title Imperator became Basileus. (althiugh recent scholarship has pointed to a more gradual process instead of attributing all the BIG CHANGES to Heraclius himself. Also note that Basileus had been used in the east to denote the emperor for centuries as well.)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36929244)

Interestingly Latin's apex in the east was during the LATE Roman empire. During the Pax Romana Greek worked just fine as the lingua franca of the eastern empire, but one of Diocletian's reforms was an emphasis on the use of Latin throughout the empire, which is perhaps the only reason the eastern empire bothered to use it at all after Italy fell.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36930929)

im well aware of the 180 exploits of the byzantine empire. but OP does have a point when he says its sad how they just slowly faded into nothingness

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#36929487)

i.e. the things we gave up, for the trivialities that we're still stuck on to this day

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4086319&forum_id=2#46224303)