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New Video: Byzantine Golden Age!
🕑 Added 2020-01-31 16:01:02 +0000 UTCNormally when people talk about the Byzantine empire they talk about Constantine and Justinian, and then fast forward about one thousand straight years to talk about how it got ganked by the Ottomans. But I dare say that middle bit is some of the most interesting stuff, and cuts to the core of what makes the Byzantine Empire so wildly unique while simultaneously so clearly the same old mess of a Roman Empire we know and adore.
Next up from me is a Valentine's Day Special, taking a look at some of history's most spectacular power-couples.
-B
Comments
Bill Lemmond
Thank you for such a wonderful thumbnail sketch of the eastern Roman empire. I would love more detail on how so many people blamed each other, and did not nearly enough to help. Those seem appropriate lessons for our day.
Megabyte01
Thanks for another great history video! This will date me, but I confess I've been a Byzantine history nerd since listening to a podcast series in college called 12 Byzantine Rulers. I've read John Julius Norwich and I'm still trying to get through Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I say all that because, before this video, I didn't have a strong grasp on the dark age of the Byzantines or how they recovered from it, sort of. When you described the regional governors system that the Byzantines employed, it reminded me of both classical Roman citizen soldiers and of medieval lords for some reason. With both individual soldiers and local 'lords' gaining financial and political stakes in the empire, it sounds like a system that grants political power without the need to form a consensus - i.e. a system that fractures political unity. I think I now better understand why half the army would consider deserting at Manzikert. Now I am curious if they were simply not considering the long-term consequences, or if they actually felt more in common with the Seljuk Turks than their Byzantine countrymen - a loaded question to be sure! What further reading would you suggest on this period of history? Do you have any recommendations from the perspective of the Turks?
