Isaac's Empire 2.0

[Basileus Giorgios]

Bloody Hell. Well, that's about right. Bloody indeed.

Not exactly the most sane of Kings, is he? Was the plan for England in this new Edition to be similar to what it was in the first edition of this wonderful universe. Gallic Empire, United England-France.

He's not, and to the English of later generations he'll always be known as "bloody king Richard" or sometimes just "the tyrant". You can't blame him though- father dead at the age of twelve, manipulated by his great uncle, betrayed by his brother and forced to marry a woman a decade older than him. I think anyone would turn out a bit mad in such circumstances. At least Richard is effective as a monarch. His son Robert II will be a rather more balanced, but perhaps something less of a "magnificent bastard".

Yes, that's the plan, though we'll get there rather a via different route to that of IE 1.0.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

New chapter finished. To be published shortly.

 

[cimon]

New chapter finished. To be published shortly.

About time BG,you have stared another Thread and neglected this one?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Chapter Eight: Out with the Old​

"I, Basilios, servant of Emperors, place my tomb at my Palace of the Ox. I served the Empire without rest, and so, reader, reward my exertions with your prayers"​

Inscription on the tomb of the Parakoimomenos Basilios​

John II Komnenos[1] had already been the power behind his father’s throne for over a decade before he came to the throne at the age of forty eight. The contrast between Manuel and Isaac II was marked. Whereas they had been large, domineering men, John was a slight figure, who spoke in a distinctly quiet voice and whose eyes, we are told[2], would often fill with tears at a particularly moving sermon. Any traces of the roughness of the “Italians” were nowhere to be seen in the figure of the new Emperor. Instead, John seemed to resemble closely his other grandfather, Alexios Komnenos, whom had doted on him as an infant. It need not have been a bad prognosis. John II had inherited much from his illustrious relatives; military talent, theological vigour, and an unusual, penetrating intelligence. Amongst the highly cultured courtiers of Constantinople, men raised by the Parakoimomenos Basilios, the death of John’s father Manuel must have seemed like a relief.

But Basilios did not have long to savour this new reign of bookish intellectualism. Up until the death of Manuel Komnenos he had remained active and energetic, imperiously dismissing the attempts by a younger protégé of his named Andronikos of Lakonia[3] to increase his own power. Time, though, could not be held off forever, even by the most permanent feature of the Imperial court. For Basilios had now long since passed his ninetieth birthday. He was magnificently, almost imposingly ancient, a landmark of court life who seemed as ancient as the Imperial Palace itself. Basilios, by 1152, was certainly the last man in a position of power in Constantinople to remember the days of the first Isaac Komnenos- he may even have been the last subject of that Isaac’s great-great-nephew to have been born in an age before the House of Komnenos had even come to supreme power.

It could not go on. For the first months of John’s reign, the eunuch was as indispensable as ever, organising the coronation of John’s wife Theodora of Hungary[4], and his son George, and so bringing the entire family onto the Imperial throne. Rumblings of discontent from Jordan of Aversa’s men in Antioch were dealt with promptly by Basilios, whose old alliance with the Norman generalissimo continued to hold firm into the new reign. It was while drafting a letter to Jordan in November 1152 that time finally caught up with the Parakoimomenos. According to his aghast personal secretary, a rather pallid young man by the name of David Bringas[5], the great eunuch had collapsed at his desk, sending bottles of outrageously expensive ink spilling across the marble floor of Basilios’ luxuriant palace. Frantic attempts to wake the old man eventually met with success, but the Parakoimomenos was now a broken man. Bound to bed, he quickly divested himself of his great offices of state, and hobbled off to monastic confinement, joining there the half forgotten figure of Theodosios Komnenos, John’s half-brother by Manuel’s second marriage[6]. By January 1153, Basilios was dead.

With him died the balance of power that had for so long kept the House of Komnenos in power unchallenged. Almost immediately, rumours began to circulate around Constantinople that Theodosios, despite his age and obscurity, was considering making a play for power; an outrageous rumour to be sure, and one that the bastardised monk was quick to dispute, but it continued to rumble. Basilios’ replacement as John’s most senior minister, a nobleman named David Angelos[7], attempted to restore calm by pointing out that Theodosios’ mother Yvantia had been a Lombard barbarian, but as things turned out this was wounding to the Emperor in more than one way. First, doubts were immediately cast onto the legitimacy of John II, the product of a dubious marriage between cousins. And more dangerously still, they opened the door to a new possibility. If someone like Theodosios could be considered a semi-legitimate monarch but still a “barbarian”, then it meant the path could potentially be clear to an altogether more threatening opponent. At Antioch, Jordan of Aversa lurked ominously, at the head of a superbly drilled army of thousands upon thousands of men, men who were more often than not hostile to the imperial pretensions of John Komnenos[8].

What began to emerge over the fevered summer of 1154 was an elaborate conspiracy theory, developed above all by John’s powerful Empress Theodora, who was not herself immune from accusations of barbarism[9]. According to Theodora, Basilios had in his dying days involved Theodosios in a fiendish plot, involving the old monk seizing the throne at the head of the armies of Jordan of Aversa, and accepting the hand in marriage of Jordan’s beloved daughter Pulcheria. The new regime would then promptly engage in an orgy of violence against what Theodora considered the legitimate ruling elite of Constantinople. The bad old days of provincial soldiers swaggering about the capital would be restored, and any veneer the Komnenoi had kept up of civilian pretensions would be swept away for good[10].

As a piece of stage management, it worked wonders. The Empress found herself feted in the street by the ever-xenophobic Byzantines[11], and the marriage of her son George to Anastasia Angelina, (daughter of the same David Angelos who had caused much of the trouble in the first place) was a triumphant occasion that did much to silence the whispering campaign against John. Still, Jordan could not be ignored forever. The Domestikos himself sent a number of furious letters to Constantinople, demanding that the allegations against his good name be withdrawn, but these only served to inflame the situation still further[12]. John, under the influence of his wife, now started to indicate to David Angelos and others (notably Philotheos of Thebes) that Jordan’s term in military authority in the East was to be brought to an end soon.

For the army of the East, all this rumbling was deeply damaging to morale, and, sure enough, early in 1155, consequences were felt. Smbat, prince of Syunik[13], who had been placed on the throne as an infant by Manuel Komnenos twenty years earlier had survived a terrifying childhood to become a fearsome warlord, and, understandably, no friend of the Empire. An attempted invasion of Syunik by the Saljūq Sultan of Baghdad[14] in 1153 had been breezily defeated with astonishingly heavy Muslim casualties. The Sultan Maḥmūd[15], impressed by the Armenian prince, opted not to continue his war, but to assimilate young Smbat by friendship, sending the Armenians gold and men to build up their army. In 1154, Armenian raids began over the fertile Imperial territories of the upper Euphrates. Late in the year, an army caught Melitene unawares, and was able to extract huge amounts of ransom booty from the terrified city[16]. Jordan of Aversa, despite the threatening noises coming from Constantinople, immediately despatched an army of perhaps 10,000 men[17] to deal with the problem.

The Armenians, though, were tired of retreating. As the Imperial army approached their position around the town of Chozanon[18], Smbat’s men opted to set the stage for a devastating ambush. In open battle, the disciplined soldiers of the Tagmata had no real rivals, but, caught in rough terrain and unawares by a mixed force of light infantry and Turkish cavalry, they stood no chance. A chaotic retreat was called, led by Andreas Skleros[19], but still, the casualties were every bit as crippling as they had been for the Turks two years earlier. Harried all the way by horse archers, less than a fifth of Jordan’s army made it back to safety in one piece.

Jordan’s perilous position desperately required conclusive victory at Chozanon. The defeat, even if it was caused by factors well outside of his control, sent him sliding towards the edge. Andreas Skleros, that heroic commander who had brought back the remnants of the Imperial army found himself detained at Melitene en-route to Antioch by the young George Komnenos, who had sped to the East at all haste as soon as the news of the defeat had reached Constantinople[20]. Jordan, meanwhile, found himself isolated and friendless in Antioch, as his junior officers and eunuchs deserted him one by one. In the end, it was his new son-in-law[21] Constantine Nafpliotis who informed the Norman that the game was up. The Emperor John, who had advanced to Ikonion, was inclined to mercy for the “crimes” of his Domestikos. Jordan, accompanied by his fearsome Armenian wife Miriam of Kars, was stripped of his rank and titles, and retired in disgrace to a small portion of his estates in Sicily. The rest were forcibly confiscated and passed on to Pulcheria, adding through her to the already considerable portfolio of the House of Nafpliotis[22].

A new settlement was now hammered out in the East. Andreas Skleros, who had feared for his life, was instead made godfather to the newborn son of George Komnenos (in the event, the child died within a few weeks) and set up as Doux of Antioch, holding in actual fact many of the powers of the Domestikos of the East, an office entrusted by the Komnenoi to the ever present nonentity Constantine Nafpliotis[23]. A rare period of calm descended upon the East, with Smbat of Syunik being granted a generous tribute. To celebrate the moment, Constantine chose to call his daughter “Eirene”, after the peace. In time, of course, the baby girl would decisively eclipse her feeble father. The blood of the tragically wronged Jordan of Aversa flowed in her veins, and, soon enough, the Norman’s granddaughter would have her revenge on the House of Komnenos[24].

__________________________________________________

[1] Obviously not OTL’s John II Komnenos.

[2] Mostly by Jordan of Aversa.

[3] Lakonia is the region around Sparta in the Peloponnese, probably the richest area of Byzantine Greece.

[4] The daughter of King Solomon II, Theodora was born as Erzsébet (Elizabeth) and sent to Constantinople in 1131, at the age of seventeen, to marry John Komnenos as part of the peace treaty after the Serbian war discussed in the previous chapter.

[5] A name from IE 1.0. Perhaps this is just a coincidence?

[6] Manuel’s second wife and Theodosios’ mother, was a Lombard lady called Yvantia. She died in childbirth in 1100.

[7] The rise to power of the OTL House of Angelos was wrapped up with the success of Alexios Komnenos- their founder, Constantine, married Alexios’ daughter Theodora. Here, I’m assuming they still succeed, but later than IOTL.

[8] John’s provocative behaviour in the East in the early 1140s has not been forgotten by the largely Monophysite armies under Jordan’s command.

[9] She is after all, horror of horrors, the descendent of steppe nomads.

[10] A bit hypocritical, as the Komnenoi are themselves at heart “provincial soldiers” and Theodora is of course even worse, but that’s medieval politics. Anyway, the regime of John II is very “civilian”, at least at this stage.

[11] This is the only strictly legitimate use of the term “Byzantine”, for the inhabitants of Constantinople. These were the only inhabitants of the Empire who called themselves Byzantine.

[12] Jordan is unable to resist being rather... threatening. The claim that Alexios Komnenos viewed him as a son is trotted out, which doesn’t please John, as the Emperor identifies very closely with his grandfather.

[13] See Chapter Eight.

[14] After the doldrums of the later eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the Saljūqs have been able to consolidate Mesopotamia and Iran, and are now eyeing expansion again.

[15] A very effective ruler who’s ruled his empire for the past twenty years with all the pomp and grandeur of a Sasanian king of kings.

[16] This was quite common- rather than going to the trouble of capturing and sacking a city, invading armies would simply demand treasure from it. See, for example, the treatment of Edessa at the hands of John Kourkouas in 944.

[17] Numbers are difficult to estimate. 10,000 men is probably a good guess for a large-ish Byzantine army in the field in our period.

[18] Modern Hozat, in Turkey.

[19] Last of an illustrious line, the noble name will die with Andreas.

[20] George really has moved very, very quickly. Then again, Andreas Skleros’ progress has been burdened by his battered rump of an army.

[21] Jordan married Pulcheria to Nafpliotis as soon as he heard the accusations against his daughter, thinking that marrying her to a man favoured by the Komnenoi would protect her. By and large, the gambit works.

[22] They’re now amongst the Empire’s largest landowning families.

[23] Nafpliotis too is busy living the good life on his favourite estates in Thrace to actually command.

[24] And how!

 

[Tongera]

I love the update, but it has been such a while that i will need to re-read the chapters preceding it. But overall, very good.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

I love the update, but it has been such a while that i will need to re-read the chapters preceding it. But overall, very good.

Agreed. I had to re-read the whole thing three or four times as I wrote, but, hey. Glad you enjoyed.

 

[cimon]

Great update, wonderfully formatted. Always love these, too:



I have a few questions about Jordan's defeat; how was it achieved? Were the Romans merely caught in a valley and surrounded accordingly, or chopped up piecemeal by horse archers in the open? The wording is somewhat vague in this regard.

Further,where were the byzantine impact and missile cavalry to help the army conduct an organized retreat? The eastern army of Comnenoi
had a preponderance of cavalry and always defeated the Arabs and Turks in the open,since there are great open spaces and the Byzantines were
accustomed to fighting in the open.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Great update, wonderfully formatted. Always love these, too:



I have a few questions about Jordan's defeat; how was it achieved? Were the Romans merely caught in a valley and surrounded accordingly, or chopped up piecemeal by horse archers in the open? The wording is somewhat vague in this regard.

Thanks!

It's a typical defeat of a heavily armed, primarily infantry army, at the hands of light and fast moving enemy men in rugged terrain. The main commander of the army, one of Jordan's deputies, is killed in the opening stages of the battle, and morale is in any case low thanks to political unrest coming from the Bosphoros. Andreas Skleros is able to manage some sort of fighting retreat, but really, it's one of the worst defeats the Empire's suffered in the East for generations, as can be seen from the exceptionally favourable peace tribute given to Smbat. Constantinople paying tribute to an Armenian princeling is quite shocking.

In terms of raw casualties, Chozanon is probably a worse defeat than OTL's Manzikert was, actually. That said, there are still other large Imperial armies in Anatolia to hold the situation, and John II Komnenos is (now) a much more secure Emperor than Romanos IV ever was.

As for your comments, Cimon, remember that this isn't the Komnenid army of OTL. The army that's developed ITTL has much less Turkish influence, for example, in a world where the Turks have never entered Anatolia in any great numbers. It's still an army well suited to scaring off large armies from Persia or Hungary, but not so good at fighting small, raiding bands. Especially when caught in an ambush.

Further comments?

 

[Archangel]

Good update, BG!

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Good update, BG!

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Basileus444]

Good update. I wasn't expecting an Armenian warlord, but I like it. Much different than the typical Turkish warband.

That said, this confused me.

In open battle, the disciplined soldiers of the Tagmata had no real rivals, but, caught in the open and unawares by a mixed force of light infantry and Turkish cavalry, they stood no chance.

The image I get in my head is that the Armenians ambushed the Romans on an open plain, which is rather difficult. Perhaps if you specifically mentioned hilly, rough terrain, where the Romans were surprised and couldn't fully deploy and use their numbers.
But other than that, nice work.

 

[Tongera]

Out of curiosity, since you said there would be some differences in this timeline and since i didn't read the other timeline, i have several questions:

1. Would Nationalism happen in this timeline? If it does, how badly could it affect the empire and other countries?

2. What is the demographics of the empire at this time? Total population etc?

3. What would be considered the homeland of the Turkish people, since they didn't settle in Anatolia?

4. How much of the natural population in the Balkans (Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians etc) and people in the Middle East (Syrians, Armenians etc) will assimilate into Greeks?

5. Would the Greek Empire still be considered the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire and be proper Romans? The reason is that Greeks don't speak Latin and they are based in the Balkans and Anatolia, while the Romans were Latin and based in the Italian Peninsula.

That is all the questions for all and thanks for any answers.

 

[cimon]

Thanks!

It's a typical defeat of a heavily armed, primarily infantry army, at the hands of light and fast moving enemy men in rugged terrain. The main commander of the army, one of Jordan's deputies, is killed in the opening stages of the battle, and morale is in any case low thanks to political unrest coming from the Bosphoros. Andreas Skleros is able to manage some sort of fighting retreat, but really, it's one of the worst defeats the Empire's suffered in the East for generations, as can be seen from the exceptionally favourable peace tribute given to Smbat. Constantinople paying tribute to an Armenian princeling is quite shocking.

In terms of raw casualties, Chozanon is probably a worse defeat than OTL's Manzikert was, actually. That said, there are still other large Imperial armies in Anatolia to hold the situation, and John II Komnenos is (now) a much more secure Emperor than Romanos IV ever was.

As for your comments, Cimon, remember that this isn't the Komnenid army of OTL. The army that's developed ITTL has much less Turkish influence, for example, in a world where the Turks have never entered Anatolia in any great numbers. It's still an army well suited to scaring off large armies from Persia or Hungary, but not so good at fighting small, raiding bands. Especially when caught in an ambush.

Further comments?

BG,
Probably there are certain things I don't know about AH so please correct me if I am wrong:
1) I understand that when a TTL begins (timewise) anything before it is status quo ante and it changes only if it is changed TTL.
2) The adaptation of the Byzantine army to the Eastern conditions of fighting and the subsequent increase of cavalry,not only in numbers but in formation and equipment and ditto in tactics had started in order to face the easterners mainly Persians,for example,in Tricamarum(point of ad decimum) the tactical inversion of the Byzantine catafracts broke the back of the Vandals and gave the victory to Byzantines;so the point of change in the composition of the army had started much earlier and not due to the appearance of the Turks,and it is well known that the Byzantine infantry had only a static role in the army and it was never the army in itselflease correct any errors in perception that I have made,for which I apologise beforehand

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Good update. I wasn't expecting an Armenian warlord, but I like it. Much different than the typical Turkish warband.

That said, this confused me.


The image I get in my head is that the Armenians ambushed the Romans on an open plain, which is rather difficult. Perhaps if you specifically mentioned hilly, rough terrain, where the Romans were surprised and couldn't fully deploy and use their numbers.
But other than that, nice work.

I see what you and 037771 mean there, actually. By "in the open" I meant away from any sort of fortification, but I definitely understand the confusion now! I will amend the story forthwith.

Out of curiosity, since you said there would be some differences in this timeline and since i didn't read the other timeline, i have several questions:

1. Would Nationalism happen in this timeline? If it does, how badly could it affect the empire and other countries?

2. What is the demographics of the empire at this time? Total population etc?

3. What would be considered the homeland of the Turkish people, since they didn't settle in Anatolia?

4. How much of the natural population in the Balkans (Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians etc) and people in the Middle East (Syrians, Armenians etc) will assimilate into Greeks?

5. Would the Greek Empire still be considered the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire and be proper Romans? The reason is that Greeks don't speak Latin and they are based in the Balkans and Anatolia, while the Romans were Latin and based in the Italian Peninsula.

That is all the questions for all and thanks for any answers.

1. Nationalism could happen in this TL, but I'm not planning for it to do so. In a world without the reformation and humanism, I'm thinking people will more strongly associate themselves with other things, primarily religion. In the Balkans and Anatolia, this will come down to being Orthodox subjects of the Roman Emperor, rather than Greeks/Serbs/Bulgars etc.

2. It's very, very difficult to estimate. A ballpark guess would be perhaps an empire of fifteen million, though that might be pushing it a little. Constantinople's population is probably somewhere close to the three hundred thousand mark, with Thessalonica and Antioch both perhaps a third of this (still massive cities by medieval contexts). Other large centres would include Ephesus, Corinth, Cappadocian Caesarea, Edessa and Melitene, all of which probably numbered in the tens of thousands.

3. I'd imagine the steppes will be the archetypal "Turkey", as it was in the first version. There are plenty of Turks in Syria and Palestine, but I somewhat suspect they might be absorbed by Arabs in these areas.

4. How do you mean "assimilate into Greeks"? This was a thorny issue in the first version. Broadly, I think that the majority of the Empire will be at least literate in some form of Greek by about the fourteenth century, but that natives languages will survive, particularly Bulgarian, Armenian and Arabic. If you remember from 1.0, the Empire after the thirteenth century was technically the "Empire of the Romans and the Bulgarians". I have no plans for this to change, so the Bulgarian language will probably survive for quite a while. Other Slavonic tongues won't be so lucky, though.

5. After 212, all subjects of the Roman Empire became Roman citizens, and pretty quickly referred to themselves as such. The word "Greek" ("Hellene") had become rather an insult for the majority of the populace as it had connotations of backward paganism. The majority of the inhabitants of the Empire will consider themselves simply "Christian", which is effectively synonymous with "Roman". In areas that are doctrinally different, like Armenia, a separate identity will exist for much longer than it will in the Balkans.

BG,
Probably there are certain things I don't know about AH so please correct me if I am wrong:
1) I understand that when a TTL begins (timewise) anything before it is status quo ante and it changes only if it is changed TTL.
2) The adaptation of the Byzantine army to the Eastern conditions of fighting and the subsequent increase of cavalry,not only in numbers but in formation and equipment and ditto in tactics had started in order to face the easterners mainly Persians,for example,in Tricamarum(point of ad decimum) the tactical inversion of the Byzantine catafracts broke the back of the Vandals and gave the victory to Byzantines;so the point of change in the composition of the army had started much earlier and not due to the appearance of the Turks,and it is well known that the Byzantine infantry had only a static role in the army and it was never the army in itselflease correct any errors in perception that I have made,for which I apologise beforehand

The army of the tenth and eleventh centuries was largely a heavy one, quite different in form from the armies of the eighth and ninth centuries, or the Komnenid one that arose after the wipe-out of the old armies in the Norman wars of the early 1080s IOTL. It was a very good structure for fighting long wars in Bulgaria or Syria, but much less good at defending against small and mobile armies, as can be seen by the difficulty that it had in the OTL 1060s and ITTL at repelling raiding Turkish armies.

As for cataphracts, I believe that heavily armoured cavalry was actually quite rare in the late Roman army until after the conquest of Italy, when the technology was adopted not from the Iranians but from the Goths. IIRC, cataphracts were used a lot in the fourth century, dropped out in the fifth, and re-emerged in the second half of the sixth, before disappearing again in the seventh and re-emerging in the tenth century. Could be wrong, but I think that's the "potted history of the cataphract".

 

[Maltaran]

The majority of the inhabitants of the Empire will consider themselves simply "Christian", which is effectively synonymous with "Roman".

So what do they think about the Christians who live outside the Empire? IIRC, the German and English churches are still nominally governed by the Pope at this point.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

As for cataphracts, I believe that heavily armoured cavalry was actually quite rare in the late Roman army until after the conquest of Italy, when the technology was adopted not from the Iranians but from the Goths. IIRC, cataphracts were used a lot in the fourth century, dropped out in the fifth, and re-emerged in the second half of the sixth, before disappearing again in the seventh and re-emerging in the tenth century. Could be wrong, but I think that's the "potted history of the cataphract".

Byzantine heavily armored cavalry has much more to do with the economic status of the Empire.

Raising a force of fully armored cavalry is very very expensive and requires a massive surplus of resources, something the Byzantine state did not have after Maurice, up until the reign of Nikephoros Phokas, although the Kataphractoi might not have lasted through Basil II, who filled the treasury before he died, possibly at the expense of various portions of the army.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

So what do they think about the Christians who live outside the Empire? IIRC, the German and English churches are still nominally governed by the Pope at this point.

They'd generally be conveniently ignored, I think. Of course, Byzantine imperial ideology theoretically considers all Christians to be rightful subjects of the Emperor, so Christians outside the Balkans, Anatolia and south Italy will be thought to be a barbarous mixture of semi-heretical rebels. One way of thinking about in a modern context might be through a stereotypical US redneck about Canadians. Sure, they're residents of the continent of North American. But they're not proper Americans.

Byzantine heavily armored cavalry has much more to do with the economic status of the Empire.

Raising a force of fully armored cavalry is very very expensive and requires a massive surplus of resources, something the Byzantine state did not have after Maurice, up until the reign of Nikephoros Phokas, although the Kataphractoi might not have lasted through Basil II, who filled the treasury before he died, possibly at the expense of various portions of the army.

Indeed

Further thoughts?

 

[Elfwine]

Personally I think that if the Byzantines do expect light cavalry/raiders, they should be better prepared than this battle indicates - assuming, that is, that things work the way they're supposed to - which as every student of Byzantine history knows is not a given.

So I think that the "heavy"ness factor might be overestimated a bit - Basil seems to have trained his men to handle things other than "heavy" pitched battles as part of his maniacal focus on bringing Samuel down - but that was Basil and that was around two generations ago (a very long time as these things go, especially with them men who followed Basil*) as of the 1060s.

And outside that, without enemy light horse as a big deal, there's not much incentive to keep that arm strong.


* I'm pretty sure you've said that they've been underrated by historians, but I don't think there's any dispute that they were not focused on keeping the military at the highest possible level - why is not the point, just that the army by the 1060s is not at its best.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Indeed

Further thoughts?

Not really.

I'm running off of memory (Though I could easily crack into my books, just feel like not doing so)

Anyways, you've probably read everything else I had.

It's possible that there were Cataphract-style cavalry under the OTL Komnenoi, because the Empire's economy was better, and each cavalryman equipped himself, so they might have had a small cadre of super heavy cavalry.

 

[cimon]

Not really.

I'm running off of memory (Though I could easily crack into my books, just feel like not doing so)

Anyways, you've probably read everything else I had.

It's possible that there were Cataphract-style cavalry under the OTL Komnenoi, because the Empire's economy was better, and each cavalryman equipped himself, so they might have had a small cadre of super heavy cavalry.

Super heavy cavalry,meaning clibanophoroi?