Byzantine culture

Hi

The icon as religious art is unique in its origin in Byzantium.

My general idea of Constantinople is that it was a lot closer to what we imagine as Arabian architecture than western architecture, since Orthodox churches tend to give me that impression.
I'm not sure how correct my assumption is, but I feel like the Ottomans were more influenced by the Byzantines than the other way around, and that as such, a fair amount of what you'd usually think of as "Ottoman culture" is a modified form of Byzantine culture. And since the Ottomans claimed to be the successors of Rome, that would seem like a reasonable assumption. Tho do correct me if this is completely wrong.

Looking for "byzantine clothing" or "byzantine soldiers" gives you some results, which are fine enough on their own, but like you say, it's hardly something as easy to imagine in a determined way as other ancient civilizations. Although games like Total War have done some effort to give us a consistent and distinctive picture of them.

Also that article is quite interesting, I had definitely never heard of such a thing. And far from it, the image that you usually get of the Byzantines is that they were the impoverished last leg of a prior empire, that struggled to survive trough it's existence, being attacked by Europeans and Middle-easterns alike. Tho maybe I should read up more on them, since this probably isn't the case necessarily.

>And far from it, the image that you usually get of the Byzantines is that they were the impoverished last leg of a prior empire, that struggled to survive trough it's existence, being attacked by Europeans and Middle-easterns alike. Tho maybe I should read up more on them, since this probably isn't the case necessarily.
This is probably accurate from the 13th century until the 15th but they were doing quite well before that

Cataphracts, greek fire, those crowns, those clothes.

Yo

>the image that you usually get of the Byzantines is that they were the impoverished last leg of a prior empire, that struggled to survive trough it's existence,

Not at all, that was only the case after the Fourth Crusade in 1204, but before that Constantinople was probably the richest, most prosperous city in the medieval world. Maybe some cities in China surpassed it, but I don't believe Bagdad ever did. It's the reason why the empire lasted as long as it did, always fighting in war, sometimes on two fronts, consistently losing lands, but somehow always managing to come out mostly okay. This was because Constantinople was never invaded, and as long as Constantinople stood, all of the wealth contained inside it would resolve the situation in the end. You should read up the Crusader's impressions of Constantinople when they passed by, one described the city as containing one third of all the world's wealth.

When the Crusaders came in 1204 and actually managed to take the city, and everything inside it, the Byzzies -never- recovered. It was only then that they became what you think of them as. The Venetians took literally, and I mean literally, everything from the city. Also look into the construction of Constantinople, Constantine brought treasures and monuments from all over the empire to decorate his city, I'm talking ancient Egyptian obelisks and shit.

Pic related are statues of horses, today in Venice, that were built in classical Rome, and were kept in the hippodrome of Constantinople until the sack of the city in 1204. One of the few pieces of metal that they didn't destroy and melt down to make into coins and shit.

Turkish, Byzantinist to be (ongoing phd in Constantinople) here, your question in one way or the other is heavily discussed among scholars, Why Eastern Rome did not received any attention or rather why it is receiving attention only now?

The answer I would say is in the history of scholarship after renaissance/humanism etc era. For Europe Byzantines were nigger tier, faggy, kniving, conspiring, decadent and may Euphoria forgive me for uttering this name: chr*stian. Compare that interest to the interest towards classical Greece and early imperial/late republican Rome. Moreover the influence of Byzantine Empire was not felt in many places, maybe with the exception of Italy (and they lost the dominance to Lombards pretty fast) so most of the germanic barbarians were exposed to classical / late antique western empire heritage than east. Sources also arrived later and were considered to be `lesser`, no Byzantine historian was a Thucydides, no Byzantine poet was Homer, no rhetoric was Cicero. A lot of the sources were discovered or moved to west in later periods compared to classical works. West also has its own christian scholarship so they were not influenced from east either. The heritage was also abandoned by many, Greeks focused on their classical heritage in 19th century, rather than the Byzantine past, modern turkish republic focused on Ottoman and pre islamic turks rather than the greco-roman heritage.

I would say only in the 20st century the Byzantine Empire suddenly began to recieve the good attention it deserved. Looking into relatively unknown and unresearched subjects became popular. Maybe classical fields were saturated by then. But Late Antiquity, Byzantines, Sassanians etc all began to raise into prominence in fields dominated by Imperial period, classical greece, achamenid Empire.

cont.
I'm happy that ERE is getting a surge in popularity and interest (I don't like people thinking Norwich as a Byzantinist scholar and not an amateur writer but oh well you can't have it all) Yet it is very interesting most of the foreign interest come from far right, who are very religious (if they are religious) conservative and hateful towards non Europeans. I had too many funny conversations, in real life and online, when these bunch learned that I'm a Byzantinist and a Turk.

I suppose the renaissance, and the later enlightenment, that did whatever was in their power to push secularism weren't too interested in giving spotlight to an empire that pride itself in being the true christian roman empire. It would make sense.
Tho you do bring a very interesting point in saying that the Byzantines weren't as influential in other cultures as the Romans and Greeks were before them. But the Byzantines themselves did seemed to share a lot in common with cultures both west and east, so I would think that either they themselves were greatly influences by their surroundings, or that they were the ones that influenced the cultures around them, either way, I guess in part that is what makes them stand out less.

Most ERE scholars and things I've seen come from Turkey, I guess it make sense since you guys assimilated the entirety of the ERE, not just a part of it (REEEEEEE) so the entirety of the Byzantine culture was assimilated into the Ottoman empire, and it wasn't spit up like it usually happens in other conquests.
And yeah there is a lot of modern bias when talking about history online. Many people forget that Anatolia was considered Europe (and still is depending on who you ask) and that the people from all the Mediterranean share basically the same blood.

Regardless i'm glad that at least some people are interested in this civilization, and that the interested started to catch up before it was too late to recover anything from them.

Byzantium for the longest time was considered 'the shield of Christendom/Europe', It's position naturally made it the bulwark of Christianity, separating civilised Europe from hordes of Saracens. The breakout of the Ottomans kind of proved that idea right.

Much more mainstream example of this nationalist mythology is the Crusades.

The racial stuff? Doesn't make sense to me really. Aside from an admixture of Turkics from the Steppes, the people of Anatolia are basically the same as the people that were there during Byzantium, Rome, Alexander, Persia....

>Well..."Greek" didn't really meant much from the roman conquest on until the XIX century
People were Roman citizens, later on you could be Greek, Latin, Copt, Punic, Celtic, German, etc and still be 'Roman'. I read somewhere the Byzantines were aware of their Greek past and actively combined that with their Roman state. Greek Byzantines were both Greek and Roman. But as the territory shrank, there were pretty much only Greeks living in it (Slavs excluded, but they seemed to always consider themselves occupied rather than truly 'Roman'.

The distinction between Greek and Roman so weak that to this day Turkey refers to anything Greek eg, the Church) 'Rum' (Roman) and in certain areas of Greece, Romoi = Greek.

>Tho you do bring a very interesting point in saying that the Byzantines weren't as influential in other cultures as the Romans and Greeks were before them.

I think I expressed myself wrongly, It was influential, and as you probably know many classical text survived due to them, I was talking about not influencing the western europe directly. You might make the argument of without Byzantine Empire europe would remain pagan etc. But I'm talking about the specific influences, a Frank was more influenced by Augustine than Ioannes Chrysostomos.

West looked to classical Rome and classical greece and Latin authors rather than Greece and Greek authors post 300 A.D.

>Most ERE scholars and things I've seen come from Turkey
Thats interesting, we are still a minority I would say. Nevertheless Its good to be a Byzantinist, everyone is happy about the increased interest.

>Byzantium for the longest time was considered 'the shield of Christendom/Europe', It's position naturally made it the bulwark of Christianity, separating civilised Europe from hordes of Saracens

I would disagree, this is a very recent development. I would say the earliest would be and this is a very very liberal quest, is the later half of 19th century. For most of the enlightenment/early modern period Byzantines were seen as a decedent empire who shouldn't have even existed in the first place. Pagan Rome and Pagan Greece was cherished while this weird chr*stian bastard child lived far longer than it should. Take a look at Gibbon, I would say he is a good example of the common views about ERE.

Even in 19th century people like Byron recited the Ancient Classical heritage of Greece for independence not the Byzantine heritage. I would say only in the post cold war era when `Islam versus Christianity` became truly apparent the Byzantines got their Gondor like reputation.

someone who is well read in Byzantine scholarship between 15-20th century can give you a better answer.

I've become such a fucking Byzaboo that it legit makes it depressed that Byzantium fell the way it did. No offense to the Turks, Ottoman Empire is pretty cool too, but the more I learn the more the whole thing feels like a wank alt history written by a Turkish nationalist. The amount of crap that went wrong is honestly so ridiculous that it feels like destiny.

>Fourth Crusade
The absolute shitshow of stupidity that led up to this is incredible.

>Manzikert
Not so much the defeat, but the fact that cunt immediately set off a civil war ruining any chance of a recovery without begging the West for aid.

>the constant fucking civil wars
Why the hell didn't they set up a proper system of secession? There was no imperial authority whatsoever.

Ah well. At least we still have the hymns

youtube.com/watch?v=4Q8i0CYs-CM

Don't undersell ERE, not many empires can boast to survive for more than thousand years (If you assume Rome become Byzantine with Constnatine). I think all calamities you shown can be also seen as incredible feats, that the empire survived and recapture Cosntantinople after 4th Crusade, that they manage to survive 400 years after Manzikert, that the state itself survived for all those inner strifes and civil wars.

t. t*rk

>I would disagree, this is a very recent development
Yeah, your're right. Bias against Byzantium still exists to this day based upon the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Not surprising since he pretty much laid the foundation of modern understanding of history, even if many of his ideas (eg Rome fell because of Christianity) have been more or less discredited.

Guess I should have replaced 'considered' with 'was'. The West legitimately didn't seem to understand the danger it would be in had Byzantium broke, hence the Fourth Crusade.

Alternating between making and smashing icons

Yeah, you're right. The Byzantines just kept on fighting to the end, that deserves respect. Even Mehmet acknowledged their stoicism (or so I've heard)...

>t. t*rk
Where do you live? I've been wanting to visit Istanbul for some time, but I've heard (aside from the Hagia Sophia) that there is very little left of Constantinople. Where can I go to see Eastern Roman Heritage?

The first time I ever heard of the Byzantine empire as a child, it was literally just as a preamble to talk about the Renaissance.
It was like a decade ago so I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was basically something along the lines of "And with the fall of Constantinople, the dark ages of Europe came to an end". Make of that what you will.

Yeah, it was a convenient marker in school. Fall of Rome = Medieval, Fall of Constantinople = Renaissance. But they barely talked about the empire itself. Just that it was the Greek Roman half and lasted another thousand years. We talked more about the rise of Islam than the ERE.

>The West legitimately didn't seem to understand the danger it would be in had Byzantium broke, hence the Fourth Crusade.

While I don't want to seen as discrediting the Byzantine effort in stopping people from entering europe, be it sassanids, arabs or turks I would say it is unlikely Arabs could conquer rule from britain to pakistan. It would become too big/too complex and would dissolve. Too big to fail is a reality in history I would say.
He did, Mehmet was very learned alongside being very machievallian/brutal, both traits are not known by many. He loved greco-roman culture, visited the tomb of achilles etc do check his sketchbooks in Topkapi palace iirc, he has scibbled lines from illiad.

Istanbul still has many attractions, Basilica Cistern, Valens Aqueduct but sadly 4th crusade destroyed/ left a lot of places to ruin and 1453 did the final blow. Also add to the fact many ottoman building were built a top of byzantine ruins. Mehmet for example intentionally build his mosque/tomb on top of Agioi Apostoloi, the burial place of Constantine and few other emperors.

Though I would suggest you can also visit Ravenna, you know the place with famous Justinian mosaic, It town is very small and you can visit most of the gothic/byzantine attractions in a day and it preserves the medieval/byzantine feel much better.
Well at least thats an accurate view of how many people viewed the empire in the past.

Basil II's borders were the most comfy.

>Istanbul still has many attractions
I've heard that part of the Hippodrome still stands. It's a park now or something, near the Blue Mosque.

Despite being a Byzaboo, Mehmet was a fantastic leader, probably one of the best in the world. At least the Turks left the city in a better state than they found it. Can't say the same for the Latins.

>That's pretty cool. Is it accurate?
Apparently the guy spent years and years in Istanbul and reading descriptions to reconstruct Constantinople. Even then he says he had to 'guess' with a lot of it (locations especially). More famous buildings (Hippodrome, Bucoleon, the sea walls and of course the Hagia Sophia itself) are accurate.

There are no remains so I wouldn't call it 'standing' its just open ground.
Latins looted better I would say, leaving turks with scraps. There is a Veeky Forums joke about this, made me kek irl when I first read it:
>If you want to see Byzantine artifacts go to venice

The problem is, a lot of Byzantine era stuff has been lost to time, it was constantly under siege.

I remember once someone asking why there wasn't any large castles and palaces in Eastern Europe like there was in the West. There were plenty, they were just used right up to the point where they became obsolete. The reason France and Britain have so many castles and chateaus is because their territorial integrity remained intact for most of history.

We can only really guess base on snippets, here's a video reconstruction of the city on the eve of the Fourth Crusade:
youtube.com/watch?v=uX4UJv-eIjQ

The last East Europe fortresses were being used right up until WW1. It was for the people of their time like the area of the middle-east is for us today.

He mentioned it assumed every building was in pristine condition. At that point, jsut before the sacking, a lot of places had already fallen into ruin since it wasn't as rich as it was under the Macedonians (unsurprising, they'd lost a fair amount of land to the Seljuks.
He hasn't updated anything since 2011 though (reeeeeeeeeeee), still hanging out for Galata. Hope he isn't dead.
Lel that's the exact same video that made me a Byzaboo.

This is a quality bread. Haven't seen something like this on Veeky Forums since the early days.

A lot of their designs were still Greco-Roman. The Magnaura (entrance to the eastern senate) for example.
>through the gate you can contrast old Roman styles with Byzantine architecture

>the magnaura itself

Most of what I see regarding the Byzantine Empire is stuff that's going on in Constantinopole.
It really shows that the empire was very centralized, most people lived on Bosphorus's coast, traded dare, rode chariots to please the Basileus and all the other shit mentioned above.

But the ERE was more than just one fucking city, for the most part they controlled all of Asia Minor and Greece, meaning they had the most prosperous former roman provinces/greek citie states under their control. Wasn't Greece a richer province than Italy?

The way I see it the ERE had the richest most well developed land in the medieval world, or at least Europe where the germanics were building on ruins and looted countrysides. Yet there's never any talk of how prosperous Athens was, or how they had aqueducts and shit, it's always about Constantinopole - one city, in a big empire.

>Wasn't Greece a richer province than Italy?
I don't think so. There was no single 'Greek' province, it was divided into several provinces (Macedon, Epirus, Thracia). Egypt was the richest province. Greece experienced a lot of Slavic raids which wrecked most cities except for Thessaloniki, and after the Arab raids asides from the Peloponnese, the walls of Thess and what's now Albania, the whole thing was lost until things stabilized in the 8th century.

Anatolia was always the core of the Eastern Empire.

Truth. But when you are talking about the Byzantine identity, it's probably what makes the most sense.

When people imagine Greece or Egypt they imagine their classical periods. And for good reason, a lot of the cities in those regions AFAIK manage to retain their cultural heritage, and you'd associate them more with that than with their Byzantine rulers.

I think probably the only exception would be Greco-Roman Egypt, that developed a mixed culture for a while. The Muslim arabic influences have sort of melted into the classical or modern Egypt culture in the minds of most people.

>Byzantine
>low quality
pick one

After the rise of Islam, most of the biggest cities that weren't Constantinople (Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem) were lost. Other big cities (Ancyra, Cesarea) were constantly raided and their populations shrunk. Thessaloniki and Smyrna became more important (100K people each vs 500K in Con., while Ancyra and Antioch were 200K before).

There are still lots of Byzantine era buildings outside of Constantinople, though.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleochristian_and_Byzantine_monuments_of_Thessaloniki

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Athens#Byzantine_Athens

A lot have been lost because like said, constant warfare.

Kaldellis has a very recent work about Byzantine Athens.

Still can't shake the feeling that they all look rather Ottoman.

It makes this post a lot more relevant tho. I bet there are a lot of byzantine structures still standing and in better shape outside of Istanbul/Constantinople

Been a while since I've seen a Byzzie thread desu. Veeky Forums just seems to be 90% &humanities (aka /pol/ lite) now.

Is it called the Christian Parthenon?

>they all look rather ottoman
Ottomans were heavily influenced by the Byzantines. Like another Turkanon said, Mehmet was a lover of all things Hellenic. Many mosques in Turkey are modeled on the design of the Hagia Sophia.

For everyone who likes podcasts, "The History of Byzantium" podcast is really good. It's being done by someone as a sequel to the history of Rome, so he goes chronologically, but it's much better. He goes through a lot of detail in a grand narrative of the Byzantines. Justinian's plague, the Empress Irene, the early Church fathers, the war of Heraclius with the Persians, the grind of annual jihad from the Arabs. It's all really great stuff.

He also covers how the Byzantines felt themselves Roman, how the Romans compared with the Carolingians, what happened to the Christians in lands conquered by the Arabs, and the origins of Islam. It's really wellzresearched and touches all the books and crannies of Byzantine history.

There are a few paywalled episodes but the vast majority (140+ episodes) are free. Right now he's in the middle 900's when the Romans are reconquering Armenia, it's very comfy. Strong recommend to anyone interested.

The Teaching Company has a great series on Byzantium by Kenneth Harl.
You can pirate it as well, but it's audio only. Also, I recommend all of Harl's lecture courses, spanning from such as Vikings and Steppe nomads to the Crusades.

also, the guy has a course on the transformation of Rome from a pagan to a Christian empire. TLDR the conversion was mainly a conversion of the empire's greek speaking jews, who existed as a consequence of hellenism.

Lesser known podcast is 12 Byzantine Rulers. Haven't listened to much yet, but he's already talking about the cultural evolution of Rome to Byzantiu,

Fuck, dunno what happened there.
Anyway, can't recommend History of Byzantium enough, great series.

>Did the Byzantines/late eastern roman empire had anything that made them stand out from other empires or powers?
Forks.

They invented the Hand-trebuchet and used it as artillery in the open field. They also were the first European Empire to use the counter-weight trebuchet.

You know how you grew up with Jurassic Park looking dinosaurs? And then you read about how there's this whole debate about dinosaurs being colorful birds with feathers?

That's the Byzantine Empire.

We know Rome wasn't this sea of pristine white marble, lorica segmentata, and classical statues, but fuck if we're not resistant to the idea of a Rome where everyone is wearing gaudy purple and pink dresses with 10 pounds of pearl headdresses and everything is a flat tile mosaic.

Seems like the Byzantines made good use of all those Greek engineers in warfare as well as architecture.

kek I can kind of see that. But unlike that whole disappointment, the Byzantine empire does not inherently destroy the image of classical Western Rome.

Isn't there an asscreed game that takes place in freshly conquered Constantinople?

Most Byzantine ''discussion'' on Veeky Forums is just autistic screeching between byzaboos, veniceboos, turks, deus vult posters and hreboos.

Russia was still asking to get Constantinople in the 1910s. Some wounds don't heal easily.

>We live in the timeline where Turkey was destroyed and Constantinople ripe for Christian reconquest but the British cucks let the Turks remain

It hurts. A lot.

Boi, i'm sure that won't start any arguments.

Let me speak as a Romanian. My ancestors have fought against and for the Turks for 5 centuries. Rivers of blood have been spilled and this conflict has shaped the very birth and existence of our nation. As historical revenge, I am sorry Tsarigrad has not fallen in the hands of a Christian nation and it is not the centre of Orthodoxy this religion may need. That being said, we Orthodox folks are religious enough without the legitimacy and manifest religion like behaviour a major nation like Russia or a rejuvenated Greece pushing for more and more religious law and using the Patriarch as a weapon to bludgeon dissent and opposition. Plus, there's like 15 million Muslims living there now. It's theirs.

Rounded Basilicae and roof mosaics.

It was too late, even then. The city has been thoroughly islamized and turkified and much of its Byzantine past was either carried off by crusaders, left to rot because of a lack of funds, or just straight up destroyed by Turks.
I'm not sure there has ever been a great civilization thats been bulldozed as hard as the ERE

Carthage

Carthage was the leader of a federation rather than a centralized empire and Byzantium existed for over 1,000 years yet we have so little of it.
Definitely feel bad for Carthage though, they got done dirty by generations of Scipios

The turks seemed to swallow up a lot of Byzantine culture.

Can't hate them too much when they had that decency.

They reappropriated Byzantine architecture but added other elements as well.
They also destroyed a lot, like whatever remained of the hippodrome in Istanbul was just built on top of multiple times.

Did the Byzantine's create any statues of marble like the ancient romans and hellenic states?

well the byzantines really liked gouging people's eyes out

that's all i can think of

Ottoman music:

youtube.com/watch?v=Z82zpm0rWcw

Byzantine music:

youtube.com/watch?v=9_8aSrsTlCE

This isn't neceddarily for comparison / contrast, just two that I like.

I wasn't aware Byzantine non-ecclesiastical music existed today.

They were very feminist

Constantinople was built on the cheap, Constantine looted the empire (Athens and Egypt especially) of statues and monuments and brought them to his new city. Even the gigantic statue of Constantine on the pillar was a statue of Zeus or something with the head lopped off and his own put in its place.

The Byzantines themselves seemed to prefer making chalke (copper/bronze) statues over marble, most of which were melted down or looted by the Latins in 1204. The bronze horse statues (now called the Horses of St. Mark) outside the Hippodrome are now in Venice, for example.

Greek fucking fire

It continued burning on water, and they used siphon tubes to shoot it at enemies like a modern flamethrower
plus nobody knows exactly what it was made of

also I understand the ERE had a very complex court hierarchy and system of titles that I cannot comprehend

>It's theirs

>too late

It changed before, it could change again though.

Why was russia begging for it and not the greeks?

They hired Vikings to be their elite guard (Varangians). You will hear that the Russian apocryphal at best, legend at the worst, story of how the Russians were the "third Roman Empire".

TECHNICALLY that is correct given the Rurikid Dynasty frequently intermarried with the Byzantine royal family(ies).

But it got into WE WUZ territory after the fall of Ivan the Terrible where the next dynasty called themselves the ROMANovs (roughly "or Romans).

It would not be seen as legitimate by most governments and would probably cause a lot of turmoil. Not particularly worth it when most of the really interesting pre-turkish stuff doesnt even exist there anymore

Mehmet II was closely related to the Byzantine royal family as well, probably closer than the Tsars were.

>Why was russia begging for it and not the greeks?

1. "Third Rome" we-wuzery in which they saw themselves as the eminent Orthodox nation and successor to the Byzantine (and thus Roman) Empire. see here2. Geopolitical reasons. Constantinople was/is a very strategically important city because of the Black Sea-Mediterranean connection; something that is especially important for Russia, which despite all its territory lacks non-frozen sea access.

There is no such thing as Byzantine Culture ! Byzantium was alway multicultural ! Greeks must embrace their Turkish heritage !

t. Emmanuelos Makourios

Never heard non-church Byzantine music. Interesting.

More from that album:
youtube.com/watch?v=fQ9R2V96jk4

Nice.

Bump

They would bamboozle a couple of people if they were talked about more often, seeing as they were ultra catholic and yet more "progressive" than most other civilizations of their time.

Ultra Christian*

They weren't really 'progressive' (until they had to be to avoid rebellions) I know the Latins were shocked to see a mosque in Constantinople, and they burned it down in the Fourth. But before that, the Byzantines could afford to not be tolerant. See what they did to the Paulicians, for example.

They were a weird lot.
They killed all the Muslim Arabs in Cilicia and Antioch, but then settled it with monophysites, then they conquered Aleppo but let the Muslims stay because they couldn't spare the men for settlement.

Oh, they were extreme Christians no doubt, but I know they had a lot of reforms that made people on the empire more "equal". Particularly womyn.

Well, russians tend to claim every piece of laand that they can, that's how they work.
No, seriously, Tzar Peter's will, that states that the Russian Empire must secure the 2 straits that allow exit to the Mediteranean, that guy realized he needed access to the world ocean to be able to project power via a strong navy, since the northern ocean ports are shit and the pacific side of the empire really doesn't count
Plus, the already mentioned We-Wuzery , but to a much lesser extent reaally

So does iconoclasm

You forgot to mention the effects of the iconoclast conflict in the Orthodox Church that in pretty certain had a rather drastic effect on the lack of existing arts and reliquary of the arch culture of the Byzantines

>frontiers back at the Danube

Oh mama.

Reminder that if it wasn't for this fucking dickhead getting overthrown and being responsible for the Twenty Years Anarchy, the Byzzies could easily have held onto Carthage, likely hindering the Muslim advance into Iberia and their piracy in the western Med, as well as allowing for greater expansion when they finally got their shit together in the 9th century.