Byzantium

This guy?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Gritti

Andrea Gritti?

>he doesn't know about the 10th century revival
kek
st-andrews.ac.uk/history/undergrad/modules/med/ME4852.htm

I love the byzantine crown jewels.

>Good art didn't exist when Enrico "Man"dolo lived
True, but there are later paintings and engravings meant to depict him, like what you posted or pic related, so there's no need to usurp poor Gritti's face.

So dignified.

So basically it's fucking nothing?

>The tenth century witnessed the political and cultural revival of Byzantium following two centuries of dour military struggle, impoverishment and introspection
Byzantine cuties were made for Venetian Dick

Yeah, he is my favourite doge of Venice. He is resposible for Padua becoming a part of the Republic once again and he signed a treaty with a Spanish king which allowed Venice to stop fighting in the Italian wars.

But that picture is executed in High Renaissance Venetian Colore, making it Venetian to the core, and the austere face looks like it belongs to the Madman who leads a pillaging squad at 90.

Didn't he first lose everything that he later "gained"?

>No Ottoman garbage allowed.
You wouldn't dare utter that heretic phrase if the Sultan was still around, kaffir.

Well I do agree Gritti's portrait certainly does fit the image of Dandolo just as well. After all Gritti was a pretty similar character, both were multitalented diplomats/politicians/generals who achieved badass feats.

Saracens wouldn't be saying anything, if the Catholic Heretics had helped us, instead of chimping out in every Crusade

No? Mostly because he didn't really gain anything, he fought defensive wars only.
Padua wasn't a new conquest (first joined the republic in 1405), it had just been occupied by the enemy during the war of Cambrai.

Remember when the people of the Balkans and Central Europe launched a crusade to help you, and then you DIDNT JOIN THE FUCKING CRUSADE?

Remember when polish, hungarian, croatian, bohemian, lithuanian, wallachian, moldavian, bulgarian, teutonic, all of the germanics, and the papal armies came to help you, and you didn't join the effort, instead preferring to trade with the Ottomans, the enemy?

I do. I remember. Byzantium fell LAST, of all the christians in the area, and with the least fighting, to the last moment bribing and trading.
t. Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz

Well, you see, Byzantium is small, and if it sent armies out to fight, there'd be no one left at home to man the walls.

It was assumed that all the Slavs and Heretics would win, and Byzantium could just chill. You lost, so whatever.

t. Alexios Pappaouliou: King of the Greeks

The hungarian warlord took Nis and Sofia before the crusade even started, the ottomans were losing commanders left and right, and the byzantine were supporting them with supplies and trade instead of aiding the effort to expel them.

Perfidious byzo, pls go. Nobody wants you here.

History of the Byzantine state by George Ostrogorsky

What's a Bulgarian doing here? Can't you see that this is a thread about the Byzantines?

Yeah, it so much nothing that there a college course and books about it.
>Byzantium took advantage of a fragmented Muslim polity to push eastwards, seizing territory
LITERALLY NOTHING NEVERMIND THE REINSTALLATION OF CONTROL IN THE BALKANS LOL I LIKE MEMES

>By 1025, the date of Basil II's death, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Armenia in the east to Calabria in Southern Italy in the west.[93] Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of Bulgaria to the annexation of parts of Georgia and Armenia, and the reconquest of Crete, Cyprus, and the important city of Antioch. These were not temporary tactical gains but long-term reconquests.[86]

>Bulgarian resistance revived under the rule of the Cometopuli dynasty, but the new emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025) made the submission of the Bulgarians his primary goal.[99] Basil's first expedition against Bulgaria, however, resulted in a humiliating defeat at the Gates of Trajan. For the next few years, the emperor would be preoccupied with internal revolts in Anatolia, while the Bulgarians expanded their realm in the Balkans. The war dragged on for nearly twenty years. The Byzantine victories of Spercheios and Skopje decisively weakened the Bulgarian army, and in annual campaigns, Basil methodically reduced the Bulgarian strongholds.[99] At the Battle of Kleidion in 1014 the Bulgarians were annihilated: their army was captured, and it is said that 99 out of every 100 men were blinded, with the hundredth man left with one eye so he could lead his compatriots home. When Tsar Samuil saw the broken remains of his once formidable army, he died of shock. By 1018, the last Bulgarian strongholds had surrendered, and the country became part of the Empire.[99] This victory restored the Danube frontier, which had not been held since the days of the emperor Heraclius.[93]

Why do you feel the compulsion to cite later victories, as if they undo earlier defeats?
Nothing lasts forever, that doesn't mean it never happened.

I don't get 21 century nerds being salty about a long dead state enough to throw (alleged) crimes against humanity and genocide at memes, such hatred and bile.
You didn't even quote the bulgarian memes, you got the venetian ones. I guess all the citrus in your eyes blinded you.

I was referring to who stated that Byzantium lingered for 800 years which is factually wrong. I don't really care about what you read into my post beyond that statement since Byzantium is very far from being my major field of interest.

Death spasms

The level of entitlement in your posts made me glad it fell tbqh

You'd think after the first few centuries of spasms other states would've figured out what was up, yet it took until 1204 hmm

Not that I agree with the death spasm bullshit, but it's not like 1204 was the only example of the empire getting rekt by westerners, it was just the worst instance because of the city's sack. Venetians, normans and others already had been tearing the adriatic and aegean sides of the empire to shreds since the early 11th century after all, it just usually ended with the empire capitulating and paying a tribute rather than the capital getting sacked (which only happened because there was no money to pay tribute with)

A Greek Orthodox homosexual Byzantine Emperor and violent usurper was teaching a class on Manuel Komnenos, known heretic.

"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Manuel Komnenos as the most majestic Roman Emperor the world has ever known, even greater than Constantine the Great!".

At this moment a brave, chivalrous pro-Catholic Frankish Knight who had vanquished 1500 Muslims on a Crusade and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the Pope stood up and held up a fresh Septuagint.

"Who compiled this Bible, greek?".

The treacherous Emperor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied "The Roman scribes, you stupid barbarian".

"Wrong. It's been 1,000 years since the Roman Empire fell. If it is 1,400 years old and Greece, as you say, is the home of the Romans, then why don't you possess the Eternal City of Rome itself".

The Emperor was visibly shaken, and dropped his gaudy icon and copy of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. He stormed out of the room crying those Greek crocodile tears. The same tears Greeks cry for the "disgraced Romans" when they jealously try to claw justly earned land from the deserving Crusaders. There is no doubt that at this point our Emperor wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and more strictly enforced the East-West Union as agreed upon at the Council of Florence. He wished so much that he had the Imperial Sword to kill himself from embarrassment, but he himself had pawned it off to the Venetians!

The students applauded and all joined the Holy Roman Empire that day and accepted Pope Eugene IV as Christ's Vicar on Earth. A double-headed eagle named "Church and State" flew into the room and perched atop the Imperial Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. Dies Irae was sung several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a church tithe across the country to renovate St. Peter's Basilica.

The Emperor lost Constantinople and was killed beneath its walls the next day.

That's Sviatoslav of Kiev. The Pechenegs killed him and made his head into a cup.

Thats a fake skull cup sold in Sofia.
Actual pecheneg and bulgarian skull cups were made of the top part of the skull, not the bottom, and were shallow bowls, as was fashionable at the time.

The implication of that replica being sold is that its from the roman emperor who died invading Bulgaria some time ago, since his head is said to have been used as a drinking vessel by the bulgarian leader, so he can inherit the emperor's wisdom.

>Normans
Got their asses kicked out of Greece in the end

>Venetians
Couldn't do jack shit by themselves

There was no Byzantine army at that stage. There was the capital garrison, and nothing else. Even that wasn't enough to properly defend the whole circuit. Of the 7,000 men who fought the Ottomans in 1453, 2,000 were Italians, and a significant number of the remaining 5,000 Greeks were peasants, monks, and servants.

Enrico Dandalo is directly responsible for the rise of the Ottoman Empire, and thus the Islamization of Europe, which continues to this day. But that doesn't matter, does it? So long as you can bash the Greeks for past failures, it doesn't matter that the Muslims are pushing against your borders, right?

And before you mention the Massacre of the Latins, let me point out to you the riot between the Venetians and the Genoese which burned down a large part of Constantinople in 1171. Emperor Manuel I responded by deporting all Venetians. The Venetians responded by declaring war, sending a fleet to attack Byzantine possessions in the Aegean. They overran Byzantine Ancona, and sponsored Serbian resistance groups in the Balkans. The Venetians got what they deserved.

t. Imperium Europa.

The Komenos dynasty is largely responsible for the decline of the Empire up til 1204 because they let the navy fall apart. After the key role the navy played in defeating the three sieges of the Constantinople during the Persian and Arab wars, you think they'd have realized its importance. The Komenoi focused only on the army, and even then, they did a half ass job. They entrusted the defense of the state to mercenaries and ignored the themes. A strong army supported by a strong navy would have been able to hold the coasts of Anatolia without much difficulty. Pushing into the interior was always going to be difficult, but it could be done. Had Manuel avoided the mistakes made by Romanos Diogenes at Manzikert by splitting his army up into three or four divisions and setting advance scouts, his army wouldn't have been caught by the Turks with its pants down and destroyed in a mountain pass.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

why would you be a Byzaboo when a far superior Empire existed

no Ottoman shit please

Why did they have to nerf Cataphracts (and heavy cavalry/horse archers in general) into oblivion?

My inner min-maxer keeps going full NK-mode at the start and making the entirety of the Byzantine Empire Scottish, Italian, or Russian.

The first two because their retinues kick ass, the third because I like Russian portraits and having my character's title be "Tsar" makes my peepee feel good. And because their retinues are "OK."

>Veeky Forums hating on the Eastern Roman Empire because they're cringy contrarians and Crusader LARPers

Greek "Empire" *

>Eastern
It was the Eastern part of the Roman Empire
>Roman
Greeks were considered Roman citizens, therefore Romans
>Empire
It was a centralized nation ruled by an Emperor, therefore an Empire

HREfags BTFO

>These were not temporary tactical gains but long-term reconquests.

Funny, considering the Norman and Seljuk invasions that followed right after.

>Of the 7,000 men who fought the Ottomans in 1453, 2,000 were Italians, and a significant number of the remaining 5,000 Greeks were peasants, monks, and servants.

As well as Ottoman Turks.

This board really shows its idiocy when you get meme posters like this trivialising hundreds of years of interesting history just because they don't like the nation the history involves.

I was surprised when I saw there were Ottomans who fought alongside the Byzantines in 1453. For what purpose?

Literally my grandfather...

t. Mehmet

Not to mention how Basil II backstabed F. Barbarossa during 3th crusade, fucking cunts attacked crusaders and worked together with Saladin. Shame

>calling the byzantine polity a 'nation'
>complaining about the low quality of other posters

kys

It was a general term, you nitpicking cretin. I'm not too concerned about semantics in a thread/post that doesn't otherwise concern it.

It wasn't very glorious. Nearly a full 1000 years spent being beaten by Muslims or bribing Muslims not to beat them any more.

Even what might be called glorious (the brief reconquest of Italy&N.Africa) had disastrous long term effects.

...

>general term
>nation in the medieval era

nope, you're an idiot

Ottomans stole it from the Byzzies you imbecile.

I am aware that the modern concept of nations didn't come into existence until the 18th/19th century or so. I used nation as a general term because:

1) The semantics used are irrelevant to the discussion at hand

2) It was the best fitting term that came to mind at the time, the term "polity" didn't come to mind and I wasn't exactly brainstorming for alternative words to use because everybody still understood what I was referring to and I didn't expect nit-picking autists to throw a tantrum because of the use of one word

3) I was in a hurry because I have better things to do than argue with autistic children on a website.

Not sure why I'm even responding in the first place, you're just baiting in the first place.

you're right, by pointing out your obnoxious hypocrisy i must have been baiting

whatever

Was the Byzantine Army particularly good? All I know is that they kept losing territory since the Roman Empire split.

...

Cataphracts used to kick ass until Paradox hit them with the nerf bat.

X/X would Deus vult

>mainly Sassanid losses

>city of several hundred thousand people
>multiple periods of cultural Renaissance

The Angeloi were utterly retarded.

The Byzantines often became involved in Ottoman civil wars. They would support whatever side promised them control over Greece. When their allies lost, they took them in.

>selling lead roof titles because the Pope hates you

You forgot the centuries of the pope sucking Frankish dick for the privledge of living in the medieval equivalent of a collapsed barn a.k.a. Rome. In 1054 the Pope was too embarrassed of being an unwashed barbarian cuck to personally tell the richest and most prestigious man in Europe he wasn't allowed in his church/pyramid scheme any more that he had to send a bitch to do it. Even then he was so scared of being excommunicated by the true Roman Empire he died before his bitch could return home.

first ruler of ottomans orhan was married to daughter of byzantium governor.

unlike popular opinion, ottomans and byzantium were not eternal enemies.

What does Veeky Forums think of this book? Thinking about getting it on pay day.

I was not aware people this legitimately delusional/retarded existed. I get that people don't like the Byzantines because of Gibbon/Because of bitterness at the fall, but how the hell can you pervert that disappointment into such a virulent hate as to favour the Latins.

I'd like to implore everyone here to remember something; Byzantium/ The ERE, just like every other state had it's ups and downs. The vast majority of states throughout history have collapsed, and Byzantium is notable for lasting as long as it did. Many anti-byzantines here seem to think that the collapse of Byzantium was somehow fast, or pathetic. It is worth remembering that maintaining what was held was remarkable.

The central part of this entire debate, it seems, is in narrative. To those who happened to learn Byzantine history first empathized with the Byzantines first, and consider their narrative over others. As a result, they see the other states taking part as the villains in their story. On the other hand, many learned "Latin", Turkic/Ottoman or Venetian history first, and see those narratives as their own. The arguments between the sides are so emotionally charged because most of the participants empathized with their civilizations, almost identifying with the people they study, while those who have studied others do not have the same empathy or know the same aspects of the narrative.

The only reason any of you is arguing is because of how passionate you are about your own favoured people, culture or civilization, and that is a remarkable thing in itself. I think we're wasting our time arguing over which was the best, because at the end of the day both sides are far too entrenched to shift.

The narrative of history is massive and branching, and I'm sure we'd all be a lot wiser for contemplating all of it, empathizing with the general human story than with individual civilizations alone. Learning about civilizations, cultures, religions and people is like collecting the pages of the larger book, and it should be the aim of the historian to gather together and interpret as many pages as possible, not to argue aimlessly over which page is prettier. After all, the book is more beautiful than it's pages.

she is so fucking cute I want to fuck her rn

That was in reference to the campaigns against the Bulgar state, which wouldn't reestablish itself until the Angeloi dynasty. Basil II never "gained" land in Southern Italy or Anatolia, those lands were already in Byzantine hands before his reign.

But the Frankish inhabitants of Constantinople deserved the Massacre of the Latins, in exchange for the Venetian Crusade of the 1120's.

>Nearly a full 1000 years spent being beaten by Muslims or bribing Muslims not to beat them any more.

What is the Macedonian dynasty? What is the Komnenian Restoration?

Constantinople you mean Istanbul?

The great Ottoman Empire will be built again, with all Europeans as it's slaves!

I fully support what the Ottomans did to the people of Constantinople it was completely just and the Byzantines deserved it.

A) The pope excommunicated the Crusaders for taking Zara not Constantinople
B) Yes, it was the fault of the Greeks because of the massacre
C) It was also because of retarded Greek politics concerning the emperor's son

so I agree basically.

Anybody who is white and doesn't suicide bomb for Allah is a dumbass. Ottoman is faith. Ottoman is love. RESTORING THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE SHALL BRING OUR SALVATION! SUPPORTING EUROPE WILL BRING OUR DAMNATION!

For the Ottomans the siege of Constantinople was just target practice for their new seige cannon.

How about that Armenian Genocide, though? Best Ottoman action ever, am I right?

Damn the Entente to hell for destroying the glorious Ottoman Empire!

I don't understand why the it is called the Armenian Genocide. It was a lot of work for the Ottomans to rack up that kill count

Remember when you promised to help the 1st Crusade kick the Arabs out then just kept your army behind theirs and tried to cut deals with the Turks behind their back and then when their leaders found out what you were doing and refused to give you Antioch back you chimped out on him and attacked the crusaders over the Turks?

Fuck off Ottoman Empire for life! Allahu Akbar.

Byzantium was nothing but a bunch of niggers that are really the Roman Empire.

Remember when you asked the Pope for help, and instead of a competent army, all you received was a bunch of illiterate and disorganized rabble that proceeded to pillage your own countryside because they didn't even have an idea of how logistics worked, all the while hungrily eyeing your capital city like hungry dogs?

>It was a centralized nation ruled by an Emperor, therefore an Empire

The right proper definition of empire, before everyone and their dog started calling themselves one, was that it is THE ruling state.
So if you have two empires, none of them are actually empires.
There can only be ONE empire, which is THE empire, with THE emperor in charge. The rest are kings playing emperor.

And Byzantium was never such an empire.

Anyone? ;_;

I was a Byzaboo too, not anymore though, the magic is gone and I don't andmire any particular historical state anymore tbqh
Well outside of the US of course.

>book has multiple prints and editions
>author has published many books about the subject
>he is an active academic and teaching at a university

This is enough to justify owning it.
Keep in mind that the guy is also a historian of christianity, so the book won't be entirely "secular", so to speak.