When did the Byzantine Empire become a joke?

He was also the one that laid the seeds of its decline in Anatolia. He weakened the eastern defenses by incorporating Georgian and Armenian principalities instead of propping them up as buffer states.

>implying the Byzantines didn't make a serious comeback in the 10th and 11th centuries against Muslims
Look up Nikephoros II Phokas (The Pale Death of the Saracens) and John I Tzimiskes. They kicked major ass for a state with hardened arteries compared to their robust neighbors.

>I am not aware of the eastern empire being anything less than the bulwark against Islamic expansion.
This. Byzantium and the Khazars (who are sorely overlooked) prevented Islamic expansion into Europe for centuries.

>It was the fourth crusade, creature of the Doge of Venice, that destroyed the Empire.
This was the critical blow that shattered Byzantium into successor states, but the damage was already done in 1025. Everything from Basil II's death to the 4th Crusade was the slow yet steady decline. The Komnenians tried to stem it, but they missed their chance in reconquering Anatolia, pissed off the West with their duplicitous diplomacy, and gave too many trade concessions to Venice which undermined their financial base.

After Justinian stretched the empire to its maximum and exhausted too many resources. That's when they couldn't even compete with other powers anymore.

THIS

Why the fuck would you waste precious money and manpower reconquering shit that's not even worth the cost? North Africa, at least, is valuable for its grain and that was arguably Belisarius' greatest triumph.

>the Khazars (who are sorely overlooked)
B-but only the leaders were Jewish

The fact that a mere city state could have rekt it implies it was already an enormous joke before the crusade.

>Why the fuck would you waste precious money and manpower reconquering shit that's not even worth the cost?
Because the glory of Rome.

They had French Crusaders with them.

There were 10k crusaders and 10k venetians. The empire could only field 15k troops total. Are you telling me that an empire that can only field 150% as many troops as a fucking city isn't a joke?

The fact that a group of steppe-based nomads settled down, became a thriving mercantile civilization, and converted to Judaism (so that they could freely travel and trade into Christian and Muslim lands without obeying a centralized leader like a pope, caliph, or patriarch) is fascinating as fuck.

Even the Arabs stopped bothering the Khazars when they got BTFO in the Caucasus.

They were already very weak by the time.
The Holy Roman Empire was the only Empire at the time.

>Holy
>Roman
>Empire

Heraclius got his shit kicked in by the Arabs.

>100k
>Byzantine "strength"
>Persian "strength"
>100k
>citations "medieval arab sources/citation required"

Not even once.

Do we need to have this fuckin thread every single day ?

>byzaboos in denial

It was because of Khalid

It was the will of Allah tho.

>Singlehandedly prevent total Islamic conquest of Western Europe dozens of times
>lol wat a joke

This picture looks very inconsistent.

Going medieval when clearly you're a late antiquity type of empire.

>minarets

>Holy
The Emperor was crowned by the Pope
>Roman
The HRE's claim was officially recognized by the Byzantine Empire
>Empire
em·pire
ˈemˌpī(ə)r/
noun
noun: empire; plural noun: empires

1.
an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

This.
Listen to this fag, cause he knows what he's talking about. And please cut this national geographic crap about Justynian. It's like explaning the 476 C.E. with punic wars.

omen for the glorious future, you dopes

>The HRE's claim was officially recognized by the Byzantine Empire
When? In 14xx?

Still waiting for those citations and sources.

Also
>Byzantineboo
Nope.

citations from chronicle of theophanes the confessor, byzantine source on the battle of yarmouk.
"In this year the Saracens—an enormous multitude of them—(setting out from) Arabia, made an expedition to the region of Damascus. When Baanes had learnt of this, he sent a message to the imperial sakellarios, asking the latter to come with his army to his help, seeing that the Arabs were very numerous. So the sakellarios joined Baanes 338 and, setting forth from Emesa, they met the Arabs. Battle was given and, on the first day, which was a Tuesday, the 23rd of the month Loos, the men of the sakellarios were defeated. Now the soldiers of Baanes rebelled and proclaimed Baanes emperor, while they abjured Herakleios. Then the men of the sakellarios withdrew, and the Saracens, seizing this opportunity, joined battle. And as a south wind was blowing in the direction of the Romans, they could not face the enemy on account of the dust and were defeated. Casting themselves into the narrows of the river Hiermouchthas (yarmouk), they all perished, the army of both generals numbering 40,000. Having won this brilliant victory, the Saracens came to Damascus and captured it, as well as the country of Phoenicia, and they settled there and made an expedition against Egypt."

Sauce: Theophanes, Chronicle (Oxford University Press: 1997), 469-470.

this is not counting the unknown numbers of the arab christian allies (ghassanids). gibbons says it was 60.000 though

man that guy's life was pretty tragic, just before that he was returning the glory of empire, finally beating the persian's and recovered the true cross.

and then arabs happened

>One battle
Where's the others?

>Gibbons
Discarded.

Khalid ibn Walid (radiallahu anhu)

Bump

Bumpity bump

Are you saying one should not read Gibbons?

>Eastern
>Roman
>Empire

I'm not him, but Gibbons was inaccurate and a fedora.

Gibbons material is pretty controversial for his research methods, argumentation, and beliefs as well as how his bias in general are being challenged all the time now.

Not you, but Gibbons used primary sources and invented the use of citations

>he thinks all the soldiers you have teleport to the battle

we wuz romans n sheiitt

Considerable amount of his writing are narratives directed at influencing events he wrote about being centric around his bias with Christianity in the Roman Empire, so the water's over the bridge on him.

I reckon you can find the seeds of it's ultimate decline in the final years of the reign of Manuel Comnenus who, like his father and grandfather, was an otherwise excellent emperor. At the Battle of Myriokephalon he lost a seriously large amount of soldiers, land, money and prestige in the eyes of both the Muslims and Westerners. There had also been a significant amount of nepotism and corruption during his reign, and he'd given up a significant amount of money over frivolous pursuits when he should have been following the prudent policies of his immediate forebears. Both Alexius and John Comnenus had their own plans, which they single-mindedly followed, even when it meant that they would have lost prestige in the eyes of the Franks. And you know what? It worked, and the Comnenoi restoration was a generally glorious time for the inhabitants of the Empire thanks to the rationality of their leaders, and their conservatism. Manuel spent far too lavishly on the Crusaders, who were generally ungrateful, proved to be bad investments, and were rapidly losing land. Andronicus Comnenus ended up controlling an awful state, with a significantly diminished coffer, and an overly powerful nobility. He may have been too cruel, but something had to be done about the aristocracy. After he was hacked to death by his citizenry, the next two Emperors were pretty incompetent, and unable to mitigate the incoming disaster.