Byzantine decline after Basil II

What was the reason of the Empire's decline?

I often hear that aristocrats were accumulating wealth and this weakened the state, but is it really true? Also, was the conflict between civil aristocracy and military one during the X century a cause or symptom of the decline?

Also, why was the theme system abandoned?

Calling all byzantophiles for help :p
 
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The information I've gathered was that after Basil II,the empire came under the rule of a series of highly incompetent emperors and empresses.They pretty much depleted the treasury either because of luxurious spending,paying large pensions to bribe aristocrats or built a lot of vanity projects like churches to shore up their position.To further consolidate their position,they cancelled a good number of tax laws for the landowning elite,such as the one that forces them to pay the taxes of their poorer neighbors.All of this caused a budget imbalance.This caused a series of problems that included paying theme soldiers with debased coinage,which meant that theme soldiers would probably be poorer equipped and less motivated to fight.At this point,they also had a number regular army units which is also pretty expensive to pay.I didn't find out if they actually disbanded a number of regular army units to save money,but apparently,a solution was found by simply recruiting mercenaries on a short-term basis(I can't remember if this is accurate,but that's as far as I can remember).There's also the problem of occupying Armenia.The conquest of Armenia meant that the ERE effectively removed a strong buffer state between themselves and the Turks and this created a vacuum in the area around Armenia that they themselves are unable to fill(e.g. actually garrison the place) due to all the financial problems.The theme system fell because of pay difficulty and the fact that the army was much more offensively based,and was built around regular army units and mercenaries.The soldiers in the theme pretty much joined the army simply to get a piece of land and a nice supplementary pay.

As mentioned,these are only what I remember,the information I mentioned may not be accurate.
 
The information I've gathered was that after Basil II,the empire came under the rule of a series of highly incompetent emperors and empresses.They pretty much depleted the treasury either because of luxurious spending,paying large pensions to bribe aristocrats or built a lot of vanity projects like churches to shore up their position.To further consolidate their position,they cancelled a good number of tax laws for the landowning elite,such as the one that forces them to pay the taxes of their poorer neighbors.All of this caused a budget imbalance.This caused a series of problems that included paying theme soldiers with debased coinage,which meant that theme soldiers would probably be poorer equipped and less motivated to fight.At this point,they also had a number regular army units which is also pretty expensive to pay.I didn't find out if they actually disbanded a number of regular army units to save money,but apparently,a solution was found by simply recruiting mercenaries on a short-term basis(I can't remember if this is accurate,but that's as far as I can remember).There's also the problem of occupying Armenia.The conquest of Armenia meant that the ERE effectively removed a strong buffer state between themselves and the Turks and this created a vacuum in the area around Armenia that they themselves are unable to fill(e.g. actually garrison the place) due to all the financial problems.The theme system fell because of pay difficulty and the fact that the army was much more offensively based,and was built around regular army units and mercenaries.The soldiers in the theme pretty much joined the army simply to get a piece of land and a nice supplementary pay.

As mentioned,these are only what I remember,the information I mentioned may not be accurate.

Nice, it's similar to what i've concluded. but i think that the decline of the theme system started already in the X century, because the army switched from many regional/defensive armies to the tagmata (an expensive and offensive one). This, combined with the enstablishment of too little themes on the eastern provinces (such themes couldn't defend themselves properly from a major invasion, only from skirmishes).

From wikipedia:

"This strategy was effective against small-scale local threats, but the concurrent neglect of the thematic forces reduced the state's ability to respond effectively to a major invasion that succeeded in penetrating the frontier buffer zone. The decline of the part-time thematic armies and the increasing reliance on a large array of permanent units, both indigenous and mercenary, was based not only on the greater military effectiveness of the latter in the more offensive Byzantine strategy of the era, but also on their greater reliability as opposed to the thematic troops with their local ties."

So i think that the thematic system decline was caused by a switch in priorities (from defensive to offensive). This wasn't a bad thing per se, but when the seljuks came and penetrated deep in Anatolia after defeating the main army, there was little that the weakened themes could do.

I agree on the XI century incompetent emperors, but i don't think it's the main cause of the loss of Anatolia.
 
There's also the infighting after Manzikert, which prevented any proper government response to the Turkish incursions.

Basically, I think both factors had to be in place for the Empire's collapse: the lack of central response wouldn't have been so bad if the themes were still in good enough shape to defend themselves, and the lack of themes wouldn't have been such a problem if the central government had been able to get its collective ass in gear and raise fresh troops to stop the Turks.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
The Emperors between 1025 and 1066 were not necessarily completely incompetent(though they weren't fabulous either). They merely tried to emulate Basil II's ruling style, which was dependent on the man himself, while not truly understanding how it worked.

They also starved the military of funding due to fear of a Military Adventurer attempting to usurp the throne. This wasn't entirely unwarranted as Isaac Komenos overthrew the Emperor in 1057.
 
The Emperors between 1025 and 1066 were not necessarily completely incompetent(though they weren't fabulous either). They merely tried to emulate Basil II's ruling style, which was dependent on the man himself, while not truly understanding how it worked.

They also starved the military of funding due to fear of a Military Adventurer attempting to usurp the throne. This wasn't entirely unwarranted as Isaac Komenos overthrew the Emperor in 1057.

This, I'd say.

From what I understood, there was also some big pressure from the Normans Kingdom?

Hmmm... not so much, I don't think. The Normans were from the 1040s nibbling away at Italy, but Italy was really a peripheral region from the perspective of Constantinople, where imperial power had frequently waxed and waned in the past. The Normans started only to be a serious threat from the 1070s onwards, with the Empire in turmoil, and Norman control over southern Italy and Sicily secured.
 
IIUC during Basils reign the law was changed so that the qualification to have to provide a cataphract for the army went from families holding land to the value if 1 pound of gold to families holding land to the value of 4 pounds of gold. This went hand in hand with the Emperors encouraging or at least not stopping rich nobles from buying out their smaller neighbours which lead to a change in land use that went hand in hand with the decline of Themata and rise of Tagmata that was encouraged by Basil. The rich nobles were allowed to buy out their smaller neighbours and consolidate their land holdings into large livestock ranches. Over a period of more than a century Anatolia was changed from a place with lots of medium mixed farms supporting a good number of people and 'military peasants' into a place with way less ranches supporting many less people and producing way less variety of products. In fact this change made Anatolia more attractive to the nomadic herding Turks, who pretty much moved into what was for them a perfect place. Of course this meant that there wasn't the militarised population available to fight them off.
 
Shocking as it may sound, dynasties sometimes repeat names.:p

Actually I misread it and thought he was talking about Alexios. :eek:

Also, all dynasties should be required to come up with new names for every family member. Actually, all countries should have to come up with new names for people who become king. No more numbers. :p
 

Deleted member 67076

IIUC during Basils reign the law was changed so that the qualification to have to provide a cataphract for the army went from families holding land to the value if 1 pound of gold to families holding land to the value of 4 pounds of gold. This went hand in hand with the Emperors encouraging or at least not stopping rich nobles from buying out their smaller neighbours which lead to a change in land use that went hand in hand with the decline of Themata and rise of Tagmata that was encouraged by Basil. The rich nobles were allowed to buy out their smaller neighbours and consolidate their land holdings into large livestock ranches. Over a period of more than a century Anatolia was changed from a place with lots of medium mixed farms supporting a good number of people and 'military peasants' into a place with way less ranches supporting many less people and producing way less variety of products. In fact this change made Anatolia more attractive to the nomadic herding Turks, who pretty much moved into what was for them a perfect place. Of course this meant that there wasn't the militarised population available to fight them off.
This sounds odd, considering Basil II is thought to have basically weakened the nobility during his reign.
Actually I misread it and thought he was talking about Alexios. :eek:

Also, all dynasties should be required to come up with new names for every family member. Actually, all countries should have to come up with new names for people who become king. No more numbers. :p

I agree. :D
 
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