I want to learn more about the history of best Rome. Any ideas, directions, books?

The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham. It's not about Byzantium specifically, also covers the other Roman territories, and only goes up to 1000, but does a great job of putting Byzantine empire in its context.

What if Rome had lost the war to some foreign invading force and raped out of existence? What suitable name could we give it?

Oh that's right...

Byzantine """empire""".

All your jokes suck.

t. Constantinopoulos Papadopoulos Hippopotamus

Best Rome is the early republic
youtu.be/ItwGz43a_ak

Anything Averil Cameron, Peter Brown, AHM Jones, Wickham etc. is worth reading.

i've heard "Osman's Dream" is a pretty detailed book about the subject

Avoid Norwichs 3 book series about the Byzantine Empire.

That guy is literally an armchair historian, nothing wrong with being an upper class brit faggot who likes to read and write about byzabooistan. But I'm sick and tired of faggots here who think he is an academic and faggots who present his book as an evidence.

Its pop-history and should have the same value as an abu dan al-imnotahistorian carlinee podcast.

>Eastern Roman Empire
>continuation of Rome since 475
>inherited Roman political system and developed it over time

>holy >roman >empire
>not a continuation of rome
>literally barbarians who conquered previous roman territories

>>The guy who banned Pagan philosophy
Christianity was state religion long before Justinian

>>The guy whose wars ravaged Rome's old heartland Italy
>taking back Italy from barbarians is bad

>>The guy who emptied the empire's treassury while destroying said land
Other emperors payed moeny to Sassanids too

>>The guy who let himself get bossed around by a whore
He was about to die of plague

I'm not him but allow me to debate you, with no sources, we are armchair historians after all. Mind you these are just my personal opinions.

Persecution of Pagans expanded tremendously under Justinian. Theodosius I for example was lenient on pagans, even when the pagan roman senate rebelled against him, he preferred reconciliation. He also tried to keep the zealous monks in check. The same leniency or apathy was also seen in both the previous and successor emperors up until Justinian. Justinian Persecuted pagans in a far wider scale than ever before. Pre Justinian Emperors put stability above religious disputes (for the pagans not for heretical/different branches of Christianity) with Justinian conversion and banning of religion take an active stance even at the cost of Stability. There were riots in Gaza and do read about John of Ephesus and his conversion efforts if you have time. We also know Justinian persecuted Pagan Senators in Constantinople which was a breakoff from Don't ask don't tell policy that was seen before. Sorry for not pulling resources out my ass as I lack the books-library access now but if you are curious about this subject do your own research. Justinian did not continued the official state policy, it shifted the polciy from passive apathy to active persecution. Constantine even Theodosius can be seen as bleeding ass liberals compared to his policies. But you might attribute this to Christians becoming a true majority and thus having the power to persecute. Some scholars (Kenneth Harl from my mind) think that Christians become >%50 of the Empire during or just before the time of Justinian, in order words persecuting pagans under Theodosius might get you huge riots, instability while persecuting under justinian wouldn't be that much of a problem.

Regarding the Invasion of Italy, I do believe Justinian miscalculated a lot of things. But I run out of space so I'll continue on next post

Continung on with Italy. His distrust to Belisarius, his assumption of people would be resenting Goths and be very sympathetic to the invaders and his assumption of invasion paying itself off in long term were all wrong. There was a paper who claimed that justinian got this impression from merchants-ships who moved in and out of cities, and by nature were more pro roman due to trade but I don't know. What I know his it was one thing to take clay from vandals who were hated by locals and another where local elite made it peace and even integrated a little bit with the Goths. Take a look at the epistles written by the secretary of Theodoric, who was very respective towards the senatorial elite. Also remember the fact that Belisarius had to restrain pope due to his good relations with them. Again not even talking about the distrust he recieved and the future miscalculation of Italy paying itself off. If anything the treasury was worse off after the invasion. Though this might also be attributed to things out of his control like plague.

Now With regards to treasury, you cannot fault Justinian due to the plague that fucked the empire up. You might forgive him a little bit due to his wrong prediction of conquered provinces paying themself off. But you should blame him for his lavish spending and his extravagant building programs, yes Hagia Sophia is nice I'm sure you have thousands of pictures of it in your pc with minarets photoshopped off, but it was a strain to treasury. He miscalculated the invasion he spend lavislhy on building programs and he had the plague, the combination of these ruined the Treasury that Anastasius built from ground up.

You should not brush off his financial mistake by oh well had to pay jizya to sassanids. No, Anastasius left him a treasury full and he ruined it. I always think how would the empire change if Heraclius had inherited the empire of Anastasius rather than the Empire of Justinian. We'll never know.
cont..

12 byzantine emporer podcast was actually very good

With Regards to Theodora, As Justinian wooded him before the plague started. And he was a pussy even before the Plague as it was Theodora who convinced him to stay. More and more writings of Procopius are considered to hold far more truths than mere slander. Given the public reaction to his marriage to Theodora I do believe Justinian was in love and this clouded his judement on more than one occasion. I do think Theodora was a double edged sword sometimes she was very benefical to his reign but in some parts she was very dangerous. Regardless of whether good or bad she deffinetly influenced Justinian more than an Emperress ever should and this started pre plague.

> "Empire"

> Gets its ass kicked by literally every European power

> No legitimate claim, and no Ottoman ruler bothered with the title after Mehmed the faggot.

> Inb4 "hehe le Tr0lled XDXDXD"

>guys gives a book recommendation
>hurr byzantine durr ottoman
I love when butthurt balkanfags and turkroaches get triggered for no reason.

> All these faggots making shitty jokes based on gibbons and his "research"

As for recommendations, Byzantine wars is excellent as well as The History of Byzantium Podcast.

> Assuming my nationality

Thats were your wrong kiddo (at least partially)

Also these are all my posts, so I did answer OP's question.

>partially
Of course, must be around those parts, romanian to armenian to leb, who have that much of a neckbeard level rage.

Nope, Amerishart with Serbian ancestry, and your right I should probably ignore "Turks" but they keep posting this in every Byzantine related thread when I just want to have a nice intellectual discussion about the empire and its history.

The guy just recommended a book, its you who got triggered due to the name osman. I highly doubt he was trolling.

stop taking things seriously, aanyways.

Gibbon is actually a great writer for the whole Byzantine period.

The man claimed that the Komnenian army was mostly mercenaries when in reality thats more accurate of the late Macedonian dynasty as the themes were neglected. He is also the creator of the "decedent Byzantines" meme, the guy is a laughing stock.

john julius norwich tbqh senpai

the heraclius chapter is downright tragic

>Hippopotamus
Kek
Well memed

Justinian didn't ban Pagan philosophy, he just shut down the academy to please political supporters.

History of Byzantium Podcast