Explaining the Byzantine Empire

[DarthHoosier]

My Syrian ancestors have been living in Syria as Orthodox Christians since the Byzantines. I’m descended from a branch that immigrated over during the Ottoman persecution of WW1. Love the Byzantines 😃

[federicovonhollrath-mainzh]

28:22 My brother in Christ, Emperor Justinian was not an ethnic slav, but rather a Latinized Thracian. The northern balkan border of the Eastern Roman Empire was thoroughly Romanized and was Latin speaking rather than greek because of the quantity of roman armies that were stationed there for many centuries, hence the origins of the Romanians, a latin roman people in a sea of slavs.

[svg]

“Warfare in the Middle Ages depended heavily on how many aggressive barbarians inside your own boarders you could recruit for your army.” Exactly why I love this era and one of my favorite whatifalthist quotes.

[obiwankenobi]

Bro blended the story of Justinian with Heraclius lmaoo

[aasifazimabadi]

As a Muslim, I think it is wrong that the Ottoman Turks made the Hagia Sophia, the greatest Orthodox church in world history, into a masjid (mosque). It was not right for Mustafa Kemal to make it a museum in the 1930s or for Erdogan to restore the jamii masjid in 2020 either. One day, Inshallah (God willing), the Greeks will have their church back in Istanbul (Constantinople).

[notsocrates]

I humbly await your presentation of "Explaining Judaism".

[JojoBojob]

LOL! Homie mixed up the era of Justinian with the era of Heraclius.
That is such a huge fuck up that one should seriously consider remaking the whole video.

[alecradtke]

Okay people he calls it turkey to establish the place in a modern context . He didn’t at any point say it was called turkey back then. Jesus 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[okplay]

You missed out on a lot of stuff in the Balkans. Mainly, the relations between the byzantines and the bulgars, who were sometimes in war, but other times - allies. Bulgars fought during the siege of Constantinople in 721 against the arabs. Also, Bulgaria got christianized in 864 (150 years before being conquered by Byzantium), at which point the bulgar knyaz had very good relations with byzantine nobility. His son, Simeon, defeated Byzantium in several key battles (I think he married a Byzantine princess?) and declared himself "king of bulgars and byzantines", also the Byzantines were forced to pay a tribute. In 1018 Bulgaria is ultimately conquered by Byzantium.

(Yes I'm bulgarian, how did you know?)

[grandeur]

I remember playing Age of Empires 2, the byzantines had the most technologies and were also the only defensive civ, they're still my favourite. But i had no idea who or what they were, I looked online and didn't understand them.

[georgios_]

28:24 Justinian was definitely not a Slav, he was a Dacian or a Thracian who was Greek and Latin speaking and a devout Christian

[lourencoxbfragoso]

Rather than saying that the Byzantine Empire was a story of a slow decline (not untrue) the important point is that they are the ultimate survivors from classical antiquity and that their tools of survival were exactly a distinctive roman political culture, military and diplomacy which was completely lost in the West and had to be reinvented.

[Chadwick-kx]

You are really downplaying the importance of the "Byzantine Empire".

Firstly, the term "Byzantine" is a modern invention and is historically inaccurate. It is the Eastern Roman Empire, and after the "fall" of the WRE, it simply was THE Roman Empire, all the way up until the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in the 15th century.

Secondly, the ERE was not "Greek", at least not at the level of authority and societal elites. By the time Constantinople was founded in 324 AD, Greece had already been a part of the empire since 146 BC. At the point of the official split between East and West (in 395 AD), the culture of the elites was thoroughly "Greco-Roman". They all spoke both Latin and Greek. They were mostly Christian. The two cultures were completely and inseparably intertwined. In fact, the ERE (as most of the notable and wealthy Italian elites had already emigrated permanently to the East by the end) was MORE Roman than the WRE by its downfall, as since after "Crisis of the Third Century" and Diocletian's military reforms the Western Roman elite were essentially roaming warlords with very little connection to the common people and had their own "legionary culture" as they were a completely separate military caste at that point.

The Eastern Roman Empire shielded Europe for a millennium (literally). If not for the bulwark of Constantinople, the Sassanids, Bulgars, Arab-Muslims, Mongols...all could or would have conquered the Balkans and attempted to push farther into Western Europe far, far before the Turks were able to do in the 15th-18th centuries. Without the defense and leadership (Roman emperor Alexios Komnenos initiated the First Crusade) of Eastern Rome, the West as we know it would never have form as quickly and relatively peacefully as it did, or very well could have been overrun.

[AdeptusDesu]

The Balkan population wasn't exterminated by the Huns, the average South Slav has 50-60% pre-Slavic ancestry. The Dinaric phenotype which was common in the Balkans for thousands of years is still the predominant phenotype, especially along the Dinaric Alps.

[TheodoreRooseveltFighter]

Do the First Persian Empire, Achaemenid Empire of Persia or the Achaemenid Empire plz 🙏

[IoannisPowell]

11:10 I’m glad you mentioned that. It’s the ultimate irony that the eastern or Greek Orthodox Church has way less to do with Plato or Aristotle than the Catholics.

[georgHAN]

Stop calling the land "Turkey", if speaking in the historic times. Nowadays Turkey was always called minor Asia. Western half was always inhabitant by Greeks until 100 years ago.

[koboldgeorge]

The way this guy just uncritically uses these arbitrary categories cracks me up 😂 calling the byzantines a "mixed capitalist and socialist" economy is fucking nuts, like they were some kind of medieval scandinavia



Ive listened to most of these podcasts up to this point, and i have to say i see why this guy is popular. He does a good job relating the broad strokes of a nations and period in a way where it feels relevant to the modern day. What ive noticed is that on the topics where im not so knowledgeable (spanish empire, or wwi for examples), he sounds very informed and persuasive, but when i listen to him talk about things im more knowledgeable in, such as rome, byzantium or ancient greece, it comes across as nearly childish caricature.

From what i know, this guy's main thing is political commentary, so id like to share a couple things id like to see from this channel if the goal is really to provide quality historical information. 1) i do think that the self professed goal bridging of anthropology and history is a worthy one. To that end, id like to gear more about the anthropological frameworks youre working in, so that when youre discussing history i can see how youre putting the pieces together. 2) be more specific about the history youre discussing. In most of these videos, you only mention figures by name when they do something significant, and you reify trends and processes as though they just magically transpire. Usually historians illustrate trends by talking about specific individuals or events that illustrate or exmplify the process theyre talking about. This is also a great way to tie in the anthropology angle! 3) the guy """interviewing""" beeds to do some level of preparation. Any level. At all. In all these videos i dont think ive heard him ask a single question, he just kind of nods and moves you along to the next thing. Give him an outline of what youll be lecturing on beforehand, have him read the wikipedia page of the topic, anything just so that theres actually some kind of dialogue going on

I think you two honestly have good chemistry, and i think you personally have a good presentation style, but these are some pretty glaring problems in my opinion. I took the time to write this because i like the idea behind this channel, and its something that not many other people are doing, in terms of trying to draw together these big picture historical images.

[vicpso]

The plague did not kill half the empire. About 20 % of Constantinople.... Which was urban so a high percentage there and in fact came from Asia and Persia. And spread throughout Northern Europe and eventually China.. Urban trading areas were aways hardest hit.

[orthotuber]

Can we get a Pre-Islamic Persia episode please?