Byzantines

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reddit: the post

This. But instead of unifying against an avalanche of threats, they decended into endless scheming, infighting, and dangerously high levels of autism (iconoclasm).

Was it autism?

It wasn't his fault, the plague killed his empire

Was the plague responsible for his military expeditions and fancy building projects as well?

Iconoclasm was a very different thing. It was a popular movement that made a ton of sense to a lot of people, akin to the Reformation. It has very little in common with other political and dynastic infighting that was common in the empire, other than it provided them with another excuse for it.

Christianity, plagues, internal strife massive invasions.
All served to weaken the eastern roman Empire.
To be fair Times strength came from its Republican values. Before the split the Empire was already undergoing a steady vitiation of its institutions due to an atrophied culture.
That's why it became "too difficult to manage" and necessitated a split in the first place.
Eastern roman culture was even more degraded due to Christianities rise and it's Greek ethnicity.

Mostly because of the plague which killed 2 out three people.
Also prolonged wars.
This weakened them enough to be overrun by the Bedoins

>Muslims in the east, no explanation needed
>Bulgarians and various other groups in the north
>Catholics in the west, not exactly enemies (except for that unfortunate thing with the eternal veneto and a few hungry crusaders), but not the most reliable allies either.

Of course they had their share of internal problems, plagues, badly timed invasions etc. etc. as everyone, but what really set them aside against their enemies is how isolated they were culturally and religiously.

>>Catholics in the west, not exactly enemies (except for that unfortunate thing with the eternal veneto and a few hungry crusaders), but not the most reliable allies either.
be too autistic to get along with rome
sell catholics to turks
"why do they hate us?"

...and then the Turks arrived lmao.

Neither the popes nor anyone besides a few autistic venetians really wanted to see it gone btw. (the pope forbid the sack during the 4th crusade), they just didn't care enough to send proper aid. Which may or may not be considered to have bitten them in the ass what with the turks all over the balkans, but that's how it was.

sack it again, based Mehmed

Literally Human Sin

The thematas were a good ides but they devolved into Feudalism in the end.

Because they were swarthy Jude-loving m*diterrenean subhumans LARPing as Nordics (Romans) and relying on Nordics (Varangians) to protect them

i meant that the fact that chrstianity had to split is byzantine fault too
they constantly shat on group of people who were the only ones not 100% hostile against them
even going as far as 15 century where some byzantine envoys were send to ask hungarian king for help but they somehow ended up insulting him for being a barbarian because he was wearing pants instead of robe so he told them to fuck off

good post
byzantine emperors knew that they needed strong heir so some of them would let varangian captains impregnate their wives but it usually ended with new dynasty because greeks were jealous of nordic genes

Fuck are you talking about?

>Justinian Plague
>Retarded political intrigues
>Absolutely retarded christian religious intrigues between Miaphysitism, Iconoclasm, Maronite etc.
>Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628
>Unavoidable invasions of avars, arabs, slavs, bolgars and eventually the turks
>Incopetent Emperors
>Western traders spreading corruption and economic turmoil in Constantinople and aegean sea.
>Populist niggers like Andronikos I Komnenos who ended the Komnenos Golden Age
>Hedonistic faggots like Alexios III Angelos who drained Komnenos treasury.
>The Fourth Crusade
>The civil wars which basically ended what was remained of the empire and any chance of Palaiologos revival...
Being a Byzaboo is so tiresome...

Bull shit. The Poped pulled the filioque out of his as expecting that a whole empire would submit to him, then they were the first to sperg out against the Orthodox in Rome. Saying they dindu nuffin is retarded.

You forgot Justinian alienating the Western Catholics by forcing the pope to denounce some christians by force (literally put the pope under house arrest)

> why did they fail lads?

Because Issac II Angelos was an utter retard who gambled away an alliance with both Bulgaria and Frederick Barbarossa.

Like with the Roman empire, mos of the time there was a lack of leadership and how a succession should proceed. Despite being a fairly centralised state with its fair share of bureaucracy there really weren't any rules on who should be Emperor, the crown was a revolving doors to sometimes the most incompetent or mischievous backstabbers. This unsurprisingly continued up until the very end with the Katakouzinos versus Palaiologos dynastic feud.

The fall of the Theme system is given most commonly as another reason, and why the Byzantines went on to lose anatolia. The Byzantine empire nearly collapsed during the late 9th century due to the expanding Arabs, Bulgars and slavs occupying varying parts of Greece, they still recovered and reclaimed all that they lost because of Anatolia and the military that was stationed there. shortly before Manzikert there people in Anatolia no longer had great loyalty to the empire because the imperial army was non-existent there. They started using mercenaries and during the Komnene dynasty created a pseudo-feudal system known as the Pronoia, this upset the imperial power balance in terms of military influence because it gave to rich families and nobles too much power.

The third reason is that of political isolation. While they were very successful in converting the slavs, this did not secure any alliances or loyalty from them. Byzantium became more and more politically and culturally isolated after the schism. The Byzantines remained politically shortsighted because if you are surrounded by enemies , you should at least forge alliances to someone closests to you. While it is impossible to say in what way could have changed in terms of relations, it is obvious that the initial cultural gap turned into hateful enmity.

desu he shiuld have just been content with northern africa, and maaaybe southern italy. going fully after all of italy and even spain were really poor choices

>fpbp

>The third reason is that of political isolation. While they were very successful in converting the slavs, this did not secure any alliances or loyalty from them. Byzantium became more and more politically and culturally isolated after the schism. The Byzantines remained politically shortsighted because if you are surrounded by enemies , you should at least forge alliances to someone closests to you. While it is impossible to say in what way could have changed in terms of relations, it is obvious that the initial cultural gap turned into hateful enmity.
This is flat out ridiculous. The Byzantines had the most advanced diplomatic operation in the western hemisphere going on. Almost never did they go to war all by themselves.

When the fuck did this label start

How in Gods Glorious Christendom does the Eastern Roman Empire resemble Reddit?
Reddit:
>a blog posting main stream social media website
>full neckbeards, atheist, and fags who use the word normie even though they are normies for saying normies
The ERE
>a literal empire
>Orthodox Christian
>all the cool romans went here
>a underated enitity
>strong boom of power early on
>saw huge decline in its late middle ages and completely irrelevant in the early modern era.
If anything The ERE is MySpace and the ottomans were facebook.

islamic jihad(arab and turkish invasions) + Sassanian persian empire.

even without the forth crusade the byzantines wouldve lost to the mongols and the Timurids.

Neither had the staying power to deliver the death blow tho.

>empire where political adversaries were regularly blinded and castrated while patriarchs were forced go to a monastery to be replaced if they didn't nod at everything the emperor said
>Gods Glorious Christendom

>Mongols would be against Byzantines
Byzantines actually had great relations with Mongols, even making an alliance because they shared the same enemy turks.
Mongols didn't really desire to conquer any Byzantine lands maybe except Trebizond because it Ilkhanate was already overstretched and Khans like Hulagu who had sympathies with other christians.

If Byzantines managed to survive through failed Fourth Crusade and handled Bulgarian uprising, there might be a good chance for them and Mongols together dividing Rum territories.
Same goes for Timurids if Timur doesn't decide to conquer Constantinople himself.

I'm honestly not sure Timur could even make it to Constantinople.

how good it feels to be a nordic superman

asia minor would've still been a major target for the turco mongol hordes.

> Childs guide to understanding Roman history

But Italy and Spain were territories that in one way or another were part of the Greco-Roman world from the days of the Ancient Greek colonies. It would have seemed imperative to regain them but it would have also been incredibly important in financial terms as these were rich lands. Finally, not allowing the barbarians to keep them would stop barbarian kingdoms from thriving off these fertile lands and growing stronger.

This is true. Pic related is ag reat book on the subject

Majority of asia minor was under control of Turkish Sultanate of Rum and after the defeated them at "Battle of Köse Dağ" made them their vassals and left it like that for a while until they decided to simple cuck Rum and created other turkish emirates like the Ottomans.