History Summarized: Byzantine Empire — The Golden Age

What do you do when life takes away half of your empire? Well, if you're the Medieval Byzantines, you make comprehensive structural reforms to better manage a changing geopolitical landscape — And then you make an absolute crapload of mosaics.

Sources & Further Reading: John Julius Norwich's "Byzantium: The Apogee"

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

FURTHER SOURCES: "A Short History of Byzantium" by John Julius Norwich.

[galleryg]

‘With enough gold to give a Protestant a seizure’

It’s comments like this which reminds me why I’m here

[yoschiii]

“The Byzantine Empire has long maintained a delicate balance of simultaneously doing fantastic and also being constantly in peril”

Ah yes, my mental state summed up.

[typhaz]

" Which explains why the name skutatoi literally means... shield boys"

ah yes, the mighty shield boys, protecting the Byzantine Emperor from their most powerful foes.

[seatcheeks]

"Oops, all crusaders!"
Sounds like the early medieval period in a nutshell.

[Alias_Anybody]

The Middle Ages: Let's fight half a century for a small province!

The Colonial Age: Let's casually add half a continent to our glorious empire!

[michaelscott]

Byzantium, 1095: "Hey, can you help us out a bit?"
Rome:
Byzantium: "....Errors have been made."

[flaviusbelisarius]

I prefer "constantly collapsing, but collapsing in style"

[zenebean]

Byzantines weren't just balancing on a knife's edge, they were running along one. And they got further than anyone possibly should have.
They were so awesome

[merrittanimation]

11:06 "So they didn't go crusading all over his empire instead."


_Foreshadowing_

[darkpurpleinsanity]

"You'd think the Greeks would know a little thing or two about Hubris but apparently NOT!"

That burn was so hot it melted Icarus' wings off

[Artur_M.]

I'm almost impressed by how you represented Basil II, an Emperor with probably the most *metal* nickname ever - the Bulgar Slayer, as a small, green, aromatic plant.


Also, if you love the "golden disasters" so much, I think you might enjoy reading about Poland-Lithuania.

[Cherubm]

"Golden Disaster Empire"


I love how it rolls off the tongue

[turbowolf]

Ahh yes, Basil the First, with his best advisers, Pine Nuts The Third and Olive Oil the First Press.

[Alkiviadis_]

Basil II was so gentle with the Bulgarians that he was given the title "The Bulgar slayer", whenever he had Bulgarian prisoners, he would devide them into groups of 100, gouge the eyes out of 99 of them, and leave one "lucky guy" with only 1 eye, ya know, to send a message.

[ItsOnlyRocknRoll]

Fun fact: the Byzantines and Bulgarians had been frenemies basically until the end. They'd been fighting on and off again since the start and in a few cases even fought together.

[Smoothbluehero]

The struggle and perseverance of the Byzantines always makes me feel sad when Constantinople inevitably falls. I feel like “thats not whats supposed to happen”

[smoothmasterz]

"Brought to you by Bethesda"
That's a deep Oblivion-level cut. Well played.

[Self-replicating_whatnot]

"Oh boy, here we go again" - Byzantine national motto, probably.

[americana_incarnate]

"Stylized paintings with enough gold to give a protestant a seizure." As a protestant myself I find this hilarious.

[JackRackam]

Last time I was this early Istanbul was Constantinople