How Much Tribute did the Eastern Romans Pay?

Kings and Generals historical animated documentary series on the history of the Romans and the Eastern Roman Empire continues with a video in which we talk about the practice of tribute paying so popular in the Byzantine diplomacy, as we discuss how much tribute was paid to the enemies, like Huns, Avars, Arabs, Sassanids as we try to explain the modern equivalent of the tributes.

Artwork: Vadym Berkutenko
Script: Dimitris Koutsoumis

Music courtesy of EpidemicSound

#Documentary #RomanEmpire #byzantine

00:00:00 - Introduction to Byzantine Wealth and Power
00:00:31 - Geopolitical Advantages and Challenges
00:02:24 - Byzantine Tribute to the Huns: A Costly Relationship
00:08:16 - The Sassanid Persians: Tribute and Warfare in the East
00:11:52 - Facing the Avars, Arabs: Tribute Payments Skyrocket
00:14:06 - Calculating the Cost of Byzantine Tributes in Modern Terms

[James-rltj]

"The same weight in gold as 38 fully grown grizzly bears." K&G confirmed American

[LOLquendoTV]

Eastern Rome to its enemies : "Im gonna pay you 100 dollars to fuck off"

[wyatt]

Short answer: War is much more expensive

[sirunklydunk]

Byzantines are the Batman of ancient empires. Their superpower is money

[Ethans]

3:35 "an alliance proposal, which the romans can purchase in yearly tribute in gold." - the OG peace as a subscription service.

[caniblmolstr]

The Byzantines operated in a manner similar to Chinese imperial dynasties. Truly epitome of civilization

[penzorphallos]

11:40 "21, 690 pounds, or 48 Shaquille O'Neals"
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

[SinningsValor]

I wish this was a long video but its understandable why it was shortened. In addition given that they spent 3.8 billion in tribute is insane even though there is so much more. Now I'm just thinking about all the money they needed to pay their troops and handing out favours in gold. It's just wild how much gold the byzantine's had in their coffers over the hundreds of years.

Edit: woah thanks for the 105 likes! I wasn't expecting this.

[Kili]

It is also interesting to note that the Byzantines never spoke of tributes to their enemies, but of “gifts”. In the Roman self-image, with its formal claim to world domination, it would not have worked to submit to another power.

[ElBandito]

Clearly it was a good policy, judging by the fact the ERE survived over 1000 years...

[ISAF_Ace]

The vast wealth of Eastern Rome, the lifeblood of the empire and the beating heart of medieval Europe.

[Askorti]

One suggestion: When talking about amounts of money, it would be nice to also compare them to yearly revenues if possible. X thousand pounds of gold can sound like a lot, but whether it actually is, depends on how much gold actually comes into the treasury that year.

[matthewneuendorf]

When the empire pays, it's a subsidy. When it receives, it's tribute.

Paying a subsidy is often significantly cheaper than paying for a war, especially when you include the costs of raids, plunder, and sacks. They could often get the money back through trade, as well. Subsidies also mean the empire isn't creating a vacuum which some new and unknown threat will inevitably fill.

[braddonovan]

I love the Grizzly bear/Shaquille O'Neil exchange rate.

[BernardoTorres-we]

All of that gold speaks really well of the Byzantines for it shows that their empire was very prosperous, which in turn means that it was well administrated, something that is admirable anywhere but even more for those times .

[DannySikkema]

This video reminds me a lot about the 3rd scenario in the Attila the Hun campaign in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, where you as the player need to stockpile 10k Roman gold and the blue AI player (Constantinople) is constantly complaining about you extorting them. Sweet memories. <3

[Karsuuue]

How many currency formats do you want in one video?
K&G: Yes

Shaq killed me...

[damianm]

Giving shiny yellow rocks to save the lives of your people seems like a worthy trade to me

[Azizbek-gwll]

Without a doubt, more of this kind of content would help us understand economic sides of clashes between countries at that time. Great job!

[benimtelefoncaliyordk]

Prokopios rigidly accuses of the north politics of the Justinian regime in his Secret History; his book of Wars also contains the same dissatisfaction without directly targeting Justinian.1 As usual, “although they (Kutrigurs) receive many gifts from the emperor every year, they still cross the Danube River and overrun the emperor’s land, being both at peace and at war with the Romans.” (Prokopios, 2014, p. 471)