A question for Byzantine experts

I've just read an article that states the Persians were encamped at Chalcedon for 'more than ten years', during which time the Avars made an appearence and had to be bought off.
 
There were three important factors:

3) Khazars!

3. The Khazars - do they and the Byzantines really have a "special relationship?" There are big gaps where there is little contact.

I wrote my M.Phil thesis on the Khazars and Byzantium c630-965 C.E. at Oxford University in 2000.

In it, I argued that the "special relationship" of the Khazars with the Byzantines was largely a myth constructed by later historians - there was as much conflict as there was cooperation between these two powers. You can make an equally strong case that the real "special relationship" was between the Khazars and the Caliphate (or its local successor Emirs in the Darband and Shirvan region).

So, I am afraid I don't think that the Khazar point can stand.
 
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What about the livestock ranching areas in Greece, weren't Thessalay and Macadonia flat(ish) livestock raising areas and core Imperial territory? IIUC the Komnenos had cavalry tagmata raised from these areas.
 
It makes me wonder how Greece , the homeland of Hellenism was De-hellenized so utterly . The same goes for Macedonia and Thrace. Somehow ,I'm reminded of a Mongol General's proposal for China after conquering the North - slaughter the peasantry , and convert the land into pasture . Did the Slavs who overran the Balkans did something similar?
 
To further prove my point about the extent of eastern expansion in the period roughly corresponding to the time of the Macedonian Dynasty, here's a quick map showing the approximate frontiers in 850 (black line) and 1050 (red line). At the very least, in the south east I can see expansion of about 225 miles, while from Cappadocia to Armenia it's more like 400 miles! The scale is at the bottom left of the screen.

Huh? You can't measure the distance between two diagonal lines in a straight line, otherwise it's like measuring a square from corner to corner and saying that's it's width. The actual distance advanced was a little over 100 miles.
 
It's unrelated from the OP, but I stand by the statement that Timur excepted, the Ottomans never really faced an enemy that was their equal until the 18th century. Hungary and the Hapsburgs were both very distracted by European politics and lacked the superb centralised organisation of the Ottoman state, and Safavid Persia lacked the resources available to the Ottomans. So I stand by the fact that the Ottomans (and the classical Romans too) in their golden age did not face any really dangerous opposition to their hegemony, in contrast to the medieval Romans and the later Ottomans, both of whom managed to cling on for far longer than they should have done due to a mixture of luck and ingenuity. This, you should note, is not overrating the Ottomans- I believe that their empire was a unique and dynamic one that really did better than it should have done, due to the genius of their administration and rule.

The Hapsburgs had a massive empire in the 16th c, and the Safavids were at their peak at the same time. The Ottomans had to contend with both simultaneously, as well as the very serious Portuguese power and everyone else over an expanse of theaters ranging from Algeria to Poland to the Caspian to the Sudan. In addition they had the very serious ideological threat of Shiism that threatened their hold on even eastern Anatolia.

By the 17th c, not the 18th, the Hapsburgs were a giant threat, and the Russians rising as well.

The population of the Hapsburg domains at this time were greater than the entire Ottoman Empire. It was only a superior organization and tactical system that allowed the empire to survive.
 
You make a good case but looking over the wiki article it is clear that the narrative is VERY confused. Wiki also depends on Kaegi, who is generally too trusting of the sources.

Also there are vast swathes of Asia Minor that are not even mentioned, particularly the south-west. The Persian Wars cannot account for urban decline here.



I agree with your central point - Asia Minor/Anatolia undoubtedly was poor until into the 10th C was poor but also the core of the empire. I think you need to rate the advance as an 867-1054 phenomenon rather than a 400 year event. It's still not fast of course.

I disagree with the details of your case though.

1. The Arabs held the passes until the 10th C. The Byzantines were therefore on the back foot.

2. This seems out of date, and seems to suggest the mass peasant mobilisation described by Ostrogorsky. This definitely was not the case. The purpose of the themes was to produce gentry heavy cavalry. The Byzantine advantage was due to internal unity/bureaucratic organisation.

3. The Khazars - do they and the Byzantines really have a "special relationship?" There are big gaps where there is little contact.

It's always possible to use more local resources for defense than an attacker can send on campaign, if you're organized. I don't recall Ostrogorsky saying that there was massive peasant mobilization, but that's not what I'm saying.

I don't think the Khazars and the Byzantines had a "special relationship", but it must certainly have helped to have a nearby second counterweight to the Caliphate, especially one with which it had far fewer sources of conflict.
 
I wrote my M.Phil thesis on the Khazars and Byzantium c630-965 C.E. at Oxford University in 2000.

In it, I argued that the "special relationship" of the Khazars with the Byzantines was largely a myth constructed by later historians - there was as much conflict as there was cooperation between these two powers. You can make an equally strong case that the real "special relationship" was between the Khazars and the Caliphate (or its local successor Emirs in the Darband and Shirvan region).

So, I am afraid I don't think that the Khazar point can stand.

I'm not sure where this "special relationship" line is coming from - I don't think I said anything of the sort. But there was certainly not the same level of conflict, or even potential for conflict, with them as with the Caliphate, whereas the Caliphate had a more direct line of confrontation with the Khazars, making the latter a useful counterbalance to have around for the Byzantines. It also helped the Byzantines hugely that the Mongols showed up, but nobody's claiming that was any sort of special relationship.
 
I'm also inclined to think that plague was exaggerated, no-one has ever discovered a 6th century plague pit.

Eh....

There are other possible explanations for that. And it's pretty clearly yersina pestis that was mucking about in Europe.

Ingrid Wiechmann and Gisela Grupe, ‘Detection of Yersinia pestis DNA in two early medieval skeletal finds from Aschheim (Upper Bavaria, 6th century A.D.)’, Am. J. Physical Anthropol., 2005, 126: 48–55.

And of course, we didn't find a plague pit in Athens until 1996.

Constance Holden, "Athenian Plague Probe," Science 274 (22 Nov 1996) 1307.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
I'm gonna leave Ottoman comparisons aside because it really has no relevance, although I probably hold a mostly opposite position on that versus our only true source of Ottoman information;).

Anatolia was the core merely because it was held as a contiguous territory. The plateau was pastoral after the devastation of the region by the Persians/Arabs. The Balkans have mountain ranges as well, but were devastated going back to the Goths and Huns, with the Slavs and Avars doing the most damage.

Whether Anatolia was devastated by the Persians or the Arabs isn't really relevant.

Western Anatolia was the breadbasket of the post Muslim conquest Byzantine Empire. But compared to Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was very little. The Roman population growth before the fall of Rome was in no small part due to Egyptian grain. With that taken away by the Muslim caliphate, the population was bound to shrink. In fact, Heraclius's first actions to sieze the throne was to take Egypt. He denied the grain that would have made up for the Persian ravaging of the coast. With that source gone, the population rapidly shrunk.

I don't doubt the plague of Justinian, but I'm not convinced that the plague was as destructive as suggested by the primary sources.

As for military resources, the Byzantines weren't that far ahead of Western Europe. They just happened to be very organized.
 
How long does it take after a re-conquest for the land to be productive again? I'm thinking of the Komnenos regaining western Anatolia during the Crusdades.

Apparently the Seljuks devastated a wide swathe of territory on their side of the frontier so that an army crossing it would have to carry and use its own supplies, and by the time it crossed would be weakened and ripe for harrassment. IIUC this was a major problem for the 1st and 1101 Crusades. But by 1149, 50 years later the 2nd Crusade used what would have to had been this very swathe of territory as a source of supply, indicating that it had largely recovered from its use as a dead zone for crossing armies within a couple of decades of re-conquest.
 
How long does it take after a re-conquest for the land to be productive again? I'm thinking of the Komnenos regaining western Anatolia during the Crusdades.

Apparently the Seljuks devastated a wide swathe of territory on their side of the frontier so that an army crossing it would have to carry and use its own supplies, and by the time it crossed would be weakened and ripe for harrassment. IIUC this was a major problem for the 1st and 1101 Crusades. But by 1149, 50 years later the 2nd Crusade used what would have to had been this very swathe of territory as a source of supply, indicating that it had largely recovered from its use as a dead zone for crossing armies within a couple of decades of re-conquest.

It really depends. If a region is rain-watered, it can recover very fast, especially if it is primarily agricultural. If irrigation is necessary, damage can be permanent, and pastoral economies can be destroyed permanently if herds can't be moved to safer locations.

Western Anatolia is richer and largely rain-watered and so can recover faster than the plateau, which requires irrigation, and even worse, manpower-intensive terraced irrigation (this is a reason why Ottoman armies were so good at defense - every soldier was an expert digger and took great pride in trench works), so an army laying the area to waste could destroy difficult to replace infrastructure, or even just temporarily displace the population, which would lead to collapse.

Also, recovery to the point where horses can feed is a lot easier (just grass and shrub) than actual agriculture.
 
Eh....

There are other possible explanations for that. And it's pretty clearly yersina pestis that was mucking about in Europe.

Ingrid Wiechmann and Gisela Grupe, ‘Detection of Yersinia pestis DNA in two early medieval skeletal finds from Aschheim (Upper Bavaria, 6th century A.D.)’, Am. J. Physical Anthropol., 2005, 126: 48–55.

And of course, we didn't find a plague pit in Athens until 1996.

Constance Holden, "Athenian Plague Probe," Science 274 (22 Nov 1996) 1307.

It was a freakin' long time ago - a lot of "plague pits" would be pretty deep. The early Byzantine level of Istanbul is leagues underground - it takes an army of archeologists to clear the way for subway projects.

I'm a little taken aback that anyone would be doubtful the plague happened - it's amply covered by contemporary historians and commentators over the whole Mediterranean world, and there's even emergency legislation to deal with the impossible quantity of inheritance suits. Polities across Europe were disrupted at this time and the Classical world finally buried.
 
Is there a good source for following the reconquest of western Anatolia by the Komnenos? Was the region taken in chunks or in one fell swoop? Where was the 1147 border, and how long had that line been established? (maps tend to be very vague)

I'd think that 10 years after reconquest fruit trees, vines, houses, fords etc would be well established again, depending on what is meant by the term 'devastated'. For example it might be possible to rebuild burnt-out and damaged stone buildings rather than start totally afresh.
 
Is there a good source for following the reconquest of western Anatolia by the Komnenos? Was the region taken in chunks or in one fell swoop? Where was the 1147 border, and how long had that line been established? (maps tend to be very vague)

I'd think that 10 years after reconquest fruit trees, vines, houses, fords etc would be well established again, depending on what is meant by the term 'devastated'. For example it might be possible to rebuild burnt-out and damaged stone buildings rather than start totally afresh.

The Byzantines retained a little along the Marmara coast, but had even lost Nicaea, which is about 50 miles from Constantinople.

The Western part of Anatolia was actually recovered thanks to the First Crusade. But note that it wasn't until John's reign when the routes to the coastal areas were secured that agriculture began to recover - a period of 60-70 years.
 
It was that strip of Mamara coast that the 1st crusaders were ferried to, and from there they captured Nicea. Maps show the Empire holding about a third of the plateau and virtually all of the coast, which is a big jump from Nicea and I'm guessing a touch optimistic. What I'd really love to see is a nice big map showing Byzantine advances during the Crusades, and the routes taken by the crusading armies through Anatolia. Maps that squeeze the entire Eastern Med into 4"x4" suck dogs balls.
 
The fact that the Nicaean state established in the aftermath of 1204 was fully viable is evidence that by that time the area had recovered and become self-sustaining.

Byzantine Anatolia was recovering, but it took time and - above all - security, which was cut short by political instability and a lack of attention from the Emperors after Manuel I.
 
The fact that the Nicaean state established in the aftermath of 1204 was fully viable is evidence that by that time the area had recovered and become self-sustaining.

Byzantine Anatolia was recovering, but it took time and - above all - security, which was cut short by political instability and a lack of attention from the Emperors after Manuel I.

As I mentioned, the rain-watered coastal regions were capable of much faster recovery than the plateau, which didn't until the 20th c. The Nicaean State contained mostly the coastal regions.
 
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