Best Byzantine Emperor

Heraclius or Maurice. But since they were extremely unlucky in what happened to them I'll go with Basil II. He destroyed the Bulgarian Empire, beat the Fatimids and expanded the Empire's territory greatly.

What? The Turks were getting pushed out of Anatalotia pretty easily during the Komnenian restoration. It's only after the fall of the dynasty and the subsquent civil wars that ruined them. Same as it ever was.

Bitches don't know bout my Anastasius I. The only bad thing he did was choose Justin as his successor, because it led to Memustinian.

While Justinian was certainly not a great emperor, I don't get this meme of him being a bad one. The bubonic plague that hit his empire was not something he could have predicted. He could have easily reconquered the WRE if it wasn't so.

>Justinian
>not literally the best emperor of the Eastern empire

He was good other than marrying a whore.

>Best Byzantine Emperor
Simeon I Dulo.

>Shitting on Theodora, despite her influence because she was an actress

>actress
>>actress
>>>actress

>the plague meme
>the best emperor outright lie
His conquests were unsustainable whether plague hit or not. The ERE could have held let's say Italy for twenty or maybe even thirty years, but the thing is that it simply required a huge Greek garrison to keep the Romans and Lombards in check, it was an overall deficit to the empire, and after the Gothic War it was completely devastated due to Justinian's incompetence in choosing his generals/listening to the whore empress.

His stupidly high taxes and overambitious building program led to twenty years of almost constant here-and-there attempted usurpers against his rule. I think the only reason nobody rebelled in the latter half of his reign is because the plague killed so many people off. He bankrupted the state while raising taxes, and other than a cultural legacy in buildings and artwork, he didn't leave much behind. Certainly he knew jack shit about using the resources available to him to the fullest.

There are at least a good dozen emperors better than him, including Constantine IV, John Tzimiskes, Nikephoros II, maybe even Nikephoros I, Romanos Lekapenos, etc.

Procopius pls.

Yes, she was an actress. I know that the profession entailed sexual favours and varying levels of lewd acts on stage. It's precisely what I meant. That doesn't erase the facts that without her, the Nika revolt would have ended Justinian's rule and that important legislations (including measures against prostitution) wouldn't have been implemented.

Italy and Africa would have been integrated easily into the empire without the plague and would have been useful and profitable. If Khosrau I hadn't attacked he could have literally re conquered the entire empire

>procopius
>the only source
Please go read a book or two.

>without her Nika revolt would have ended Justinian's reign
>without her prostitution legal so more free market economy
How are either of these things bad. Justinian lived way too long. And you didn't even mention her fanatical monophysitism, you would think that such an urbane and political empress would give up tiny bullshit doctrinal differences.

Africa was indeed implemented fairly well, but I don't think that Italy could have been at this point. Already the doctrinal differences between East and West were causing tension, the Romans in Italy didn't know what the fuck to think of the Greeks from the east, and the Franks were too strong to be reconquered. Best case scenario barring Alexander-level bullshit is Justinian reconquers Spain, Narbonensis, Morocco, and southern Italy in addition to his actual reconquests.

>Africa was indeed implemented fairly well, but I don't think that Italy could have been at this point. Already the doctrinal differences between East and West were causing tension, the Romans in Italy didn't know what the fuck to think of the Greeks from the east, and the Franks were too strong to be reconquered. Best case scenario barring Alexander-level bullshit is Justinian reconquers Spain, Narbonensis, Morocco, and southern Italy in addition to his actual reconquests.

Actually Italy was pretty easily conquered and the ERE held onto the Italian territories for quite some time later. The Ostrogoths were quite heavily Romanized by then and they even offered Belisarius the title of Western Roman Emperor and help him recover the lost territories. They pretty much considered themselves part of Rome.

The reason that Italy was lost was mainly because of the plague that devastated the peninsula and JUSTianian's army.

This.

However Justinian is entirely to blame for summoning Belisarius back to the capital because of his paranoia, leaving the Italian campaign deprived of leadership right before it was wrapped up, which allowed the Lombards to retake everything they'd lost.

Ostrogoths* not Lombards, I'm retarded

To my knowledge the Roman administrative apparatus was more or less intact in Italy. Really without the plague everywhere except France would have been reconquered and reintegrated into the state

Unironically Stefan Dusan.
>tfw no Slav-Greek Empire from Bosnia to the Peloponnese

Anastasius , didn't conquer shit and instead focused on building huge amounts of shekels and handling the Sassanids. ie he wasn't a retard.

Where is a good place to start learning about the byzantine era? Does anyone have a good book to recommend that isn't just what I already saw on wikipedia? I've picked up a lot of bits and pieces, but this is a confusing era for a variety of reasons.

This, massively underrated emperor

My favourites are Alexios, John and Manuel, Basil II, there was a Michael well renowned for being artistic that I like but am too drunk to remember atm, and Justinian, though that's mainly because of Baelisarius.

John Julius Norwich is a good place to start. He wrote a three volume history of Byzantium, then condensed it into a highly readable "Short History of Byzantium".

History of the Byzantine Empire by Charles Diehl

>Leo III the Isaurian, also known as the Syrian (Greek: Λέων Γ΄ ὁ Ἴσαυρος, Leōn III ho Isauros, (c. 685 – 18 June 741), was Byzantine Emperor from 717 until his death in 741.[1] He put an end to the Twenty Years' Anarchy, a period of great instability in the Byzantine Empire between 695 and 717, marked by the rapid succession of several emperors to the throne. He also successfully defended the Empire against the invading Umayyads and forbade the veneration of icons.[2]

>Responsible for the complete mess that was Iconoclasm

Nah

>John Julius Norwich is a good place to start. He wrote a three volume history of Byzantium,

Just found a used copy for $6.00. Thanks.

>History of the Byzantine Empire by Charles Diehl

Found a copy of that as well in hardback I believe. Thanks, this should keep me busy.

Not sure if it should be the first thing you should read, but anything by Warren Treadgold is fantastic; that guy gets it.

>implying iconoclasm isnt based
waaa stop destroying our inanimate objects!! theyre so precious to us!!!

>Implying he wasn't right

Africa, yes. Italy outside of Sicily was a boondoggle that bankrupted the empire.

>hurr durr I don't understand intrinsic value so it's bad

Justinian

He restored Rome, without the crappy places that didn't matter like Gaul and Britain

Yeah, they should've just refused to take the loss and keep fighting out in the open like the Persians. That worked well for them, right?

Belisarius restored Rome, not Justinian. Justinian was the idiot who kept based Belisarius on a leash and kept him from conquering and solidifying even MORE of old Rome.

>Beat Goths in two continents
>kicked Persian ass in the East
Justinian was lucky to have a god tier general

can't tell if Heraclius was real good or real bad. he beat back the Persians, restored the True Cross, etc. but then was impotent against the Arabs

Emperor Maurice. He pushed the Avars out of the Balkans, reconquered large amounts of Italy and northern Africa, and even managed to install Khosrau II as an ally on the Sassanid throne. However, he was overthrown by a general named Phocas, leading to Khosrau declaring war against the Byzantines to avenge him. The war dragged on for almost three decades, weakening both empires enough to make the Rashidun armies a serious threat.

AND YOU COULD HAVE IT ALL.

Justinian did the Hagia Sophia and reformed the law system. That was good.

>Anatolia was lost

They recovered massive parts of Anatolia over the next two centuries though. Then the 4th Crusade fucked them for about another two centuries.

The Byzantines were basically afk for 200 years and the Turks still couldn't do shit. Honestly the fact the Byzantines lost is some bizarro world shit. It'd be like ISIS actually taking over the Middle East.

This honestly.
The amount of bullshit the Byzantines had to deal with honestly sounds like some Turkish nationalists wanky alternate history.

Well, as shit as that was, can you really blame him? During the Roman Empire and even before that many popular generals tried to overthrow the rulers or assassinate them. Belisarius loyalty was more like an anomaly.

...

-Constantine I the Great (Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus) 306-337 AD
-Theodosius I the Great (Flavius Theodosius Augustus) 379-395 AD
Majorian (Flavius Julius Valerius Maiorianus Augustus) 457-461 AD w
Leo I the Thracian (Flavius Valerius Leo Augustus) 457-474 AD
Zeno the Isaurian (Flavius Zeno Augustus) 474-475 AD, 476-491 AD
Anastasius I Dicorus (Flavius Anastasius Dicorus Augustus) 491-518 AD
Justin I (Flavius Iustinus Augustus) 518-527 AD
-Justinian I the Great (Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus) 527-565 AD
-Maurice (Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus) 582-602 AD
-Heraclius (Flavius Heraclius Augustus) 610-641 AD
Leo III the Isaurian (Leon III ho Isaurus) 717-741 AD
Constantine V (Konstantinos V) 741-775 AD
Basil I the Macedonian (Basileios o Makedon) 867-886 AD
Leo VI the Wise (Leon VI ho Sophos) 886-912 AD
Constantine VII the Purple Born (Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos) 913-959 AD
Romanos II 959-963 AD
Nikephoros II Phokas 963-969 AD
John I Tzimiskes (Ioannes I Tzimiskes) 969-976 AD
-Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer (Vasileios II Bulgaroktonos) 976-1025 AD
Isaac I Komnenos (Isaakios I Komnenos) 1057-1059 AD
-Alexius I Komnenos 1081-1118 AD
-John II Komnenos the Good (Ioannes II Komnenos Kaloioannes) 1118-1143 AD
-Manuel I Komnenos (Manuel I Komnenos ho Megas) 1143-1180 AD

From my list of greatest Byzantine Emperors, probably, I think Alexios I Komnenos was one of the best, if not the best.

Belisarius wasn't an unbeatable general, however. The Persians did manage to defeat him at times in the eastern frontier.

>Constantine VII
>46 year reign
That's really long. How good was he to last that long in power?

>How good was he to last that long in power?

Not at all. In fact he was an absolutely shit Emperor. That 46 years is counting the time he spent as co-Emperor alongside Basil II, whose reign was also very long. He only reigned for 3 years on his own I think.

That's Constantine VIII memester not Constantine the Purple-Born

Of these, Anastatius I and John I Tzimiskes were probably the best, and Theodosius I the """"""""""Great"""""""""" was the worst.

Basil II is so fucking based holy shit. Potentially one of the best emperors including the west.

>-Theodosius I the Great (Flavius Theodosius Augustus) 379-395 AD
Invited Goths into Roman territory, let them massacre the population of Thessalonika, 30 years later they'd sack Rome.

Theodosius is the most undeserving of ''the great'' title of all times. He gets favourable press by Christian writers while he did immense damage to the Empire. He's a cuck equivalent to modern day Western politicians.

Also, another little known fact about him is that by marrying his sister to Vladimir of Kiev, he basically caused Russia to become Orthodox.

And his two sons who succeeded him were absolutely fucking retarded, not even exaggerating.

>probably because he was a faggot.
Not really, he spent his teen years fucking girls.

Then he married ''the state'' and realized women could be a dead weight.
I still think he should have had kids, but he was the original MGTOW

Absolutely. It was always mindboggling how a disastrous dynasty could receive relatively positive reviews by historians. They doomed the Empire.

That's all well and good, but he would have changed his tune if he'd known what would happen to his beloved empire 50 years after his death.
All he needed was one legitimate son, and Manzikert, the civil war, the Turks and the whole Byzantine collapse at the end of the 11th century could have been averted.

Heraclius was considered one of the greatest generals romans had ever seen after what he did to Persia and the fact that he only lost Egypt and the Levant (compared to Persia losing literally everything) is pretty miraculous.

Not really. The empire was pretty much recovered by the end of the Komnenians but fell again due to the usual retarded civil wars that the Byzantines inherited from Rome.

Although Alexios and John II saved the empire, it wasn't anywhere near as economically healthy or powerful as the empire of the Macedonian dynasty. The Komnenians were of the dynatoi - the military aristocracy - and Byzantium became almost feudal under them. They also relied far too heavily on mercenaries, and the standing army of the Tagmata no longer functioned after Alexios. After Manuel took over with his wastefulness and retarded impatient foreign policy, it was just another ticking time bomb until a Fourth Crusade type disaster arrived.

That image isn't even Alexios I, OP. It's John II.

Well, I never said it was as powerful, I just said that it wasn't lost after the Macedonian dynasty and had every chance of surviving and recovering everything that was lost. Furthermore even if Manzikert hadn't happened the Byzantines still would have fucked themselves up with the civil wars that they constantly had. They had to reform their system, it just wasn't working and it cost them everything.

>Childhood when you idolise Alexios I
>Adulthood is realising Andronikos I makes more sense

Yeah fair enough, they could have easily got their shit together right up until 1204. Still, I think the Komnenid period was one of stagnation at best, more halting the decline than a restoration so to speak. Whereas the decline after Basil II was just so ludicrous and entirely avoidable.

Not the best emperor, but Constantine XI will always be my favourite.

>"The City is lost, and I am still alive."

>Andronikos
Compared to all the deaths that many deposed Byzantine emperors and nobles faced, Andronikos had the worst

He was a total badass who did the best he could. It's a good feel to know that the last Roman emperor died an honorable death.

The unsung hero of Byzantine history. He literally did nothing wrong. By the end he basically just wanted to completely exterminate the aristocracy, which would have done wonders for the empire.

Instead they got the fucking Angeloi dynasty.

I've noticed that people don't seem to talk about post-1204 emperors other than Constantine XI. John III Doukas Vatatzes is especially a good one, he BTFO the Latins, established long-lasting peace with Bulgaria and the Sultanate of Rum and also helped Nicaea experience economic prosperity under his reign.

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a top tier choice.

>childhood is idolizing John II
>adulthood is realizing Anna makes more sense

>tfw no renaissance led by Anna Komnenos

Flavius Claudius Iulianus

Reading accounts of the progression of the siege is absolutely heartbreaking. There are so many points where it looks like they might actually survive.

And then the you know whos get up to their old tricks.

The last Byzantine emperor was Fatih's little stepfather Murat Bardakçı wrote ... Constantine Paleologos, the last emperor of Byzantium, would have been the stepfather of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. Constantine had sued one of the widows of the Second Murad, the Serbian Princess Mara, and this marriage could be done, and Fatih would probably not fight against the country where the stepmother's husband was ruler, so he would not conquer Istanbul and history would be otherwise written. Constantine Paleologos, the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire, married Fatih Sultan Mehmed, who conquered Istanbul and destroyed the Byzantine, with a stepmother. Constantine had lost two wives he married before he ascended the throne. As an emperor, he wanted to have a third marriage, a woman who longed for him and finally aspired to the Serbian Princess Mara, one of the ladies of the second Murad, the father of Fatih who was no longer alive at the time.

He had potential but completely fucked up the Persian campaign

The fact that the Byzantines lost the middle-east in the first place is some bizzaro world shit. I mean what are the odds that some arab warlord would unite all the tribes under a new religion just after a decades long war against the Persians? The Byzantines were simply unlucky.

It was the Christians yo, they backstabbed poor ol' Julie. Otherwise he would've marched to the Indus.

Someone studied his Byzantine history

and the correct answer for this thread is Anastasius

Purple Born's reign ended 20 years before Basil II became Emperor.