>No clear succession system power is assumed by anyone with enough support of an army or bureaucrats >Dysfunctional armyonly capable of winning under exceptionally good leadership, most of Byzantine battles were lost (Dyrachium, Myriokephalon, many of Manuel's lost campaigns)>stagnant science,Greek fire and thats it, with all resources it had, and battle for survival it was in, they should have achieved more>Stagnant art.European art surpassed Byzantine art in 13th century
>>16854698They were insanely lucky and their enemies usually took themselves out through internal conflict or a new steppenigger group would come and replace their old enemy allowing them some breathing room.
>>16854698everything you described is just rome post plague of the 4rd century. As for succession the roman empire literally never had any. It was its single biggest weakness. So nothing changed for 1400 years
>>16854698>Dysfunctional state that existed for +- a thousand years while losing every single fightI know you want to make a point but cmonIf other countries had to deal with the same amount of migrating hordes, raiding nomads and opportunistic invaders they wouldn't hold for a century much less a millennium
>>16854873>they wouldn't hold for a century much less a millenniumYou act like the borders remained the same for a thousand years when they shrank as time passed with some slight periods of recovery and then an even bigger crash. The Balkans kept shifting in and out of byzantine control even when the empire was strong. They also did not have most of anatolia and greece for 300 years near the end. They also lost control of greece except the coastline during the slavic migrations/invasions into the balkans for 2 centuries
>>16854972Oh and half of anatolia until the collapse of the caliphate. They also lost some of their remaining anatolian territory like cicilia to armenian refugees who established their own kingdom. They also lost cyprus after this. The byzantine empire really was just constaninople. They could not be assed to properly defend their other territory. It's no wonder that the romans of the balkans were absorbed into bulgaria, serbia, and other balkan identities. Same applies to the anatolians who became turks
>>16854980>>16854972Tldr; byzantines only cared about constaninople and directed 99% of their resources into it ensuring they would lose surrounding territory bit by bit
Does this empire really deserve to have survival as an achievement? It constantly lost territory. And you can see that all recovery it experienced had no foundation as it tended to lose even more territory a mere couple of years later. The seemingly stable macedonian dynasty contracted after its last strongman died. And the Komnenoi who emerged afterward recovered some chunks of land but never went beyond that. The Angelos collapsed completely and the eventual restoration controlled Thrace, some anatolia coastline and some parts of greece. they would then proceed to lose this. Can you really consider this as survival?
>>16855028>641 Justinian's fault. He gutted the balkan defences for his larp conquests. More than half of this was lost at this point too.>717Jesus. Slavs in the Peloponnese. >800 finally take back some control over mainland greece. Lost most of italy. Fucking Justinian man. >813>864>1025losing a lot of their remnant outer territory but consolidated into proper hegemony over Greece and Anatolia. Outer balkan expansion is a bit shaky since most of it was suzerainty instead of actual byzantine administration. >1081oh wait they just lost anatolia. Well that's 200 years of effort down the drain. At least they still have hegemony over south eastern europe>1173okay they regained anatolia coast and western anatolia. Crusaders are waiting in the wings though>1204 (before 4th crusade)oh the empire just collapsed. Balkan revolts melted away 2 centuries of byzantine. That's the problem of expanding but never going beyond getting the slavs to proclaim you as hegemon. neverminded it was a foundation built on sand but they can still dig in their feet and stabilize greece and western anatolia>1214 post 4th crusadewell it collapsed. Greece is mostly crusader controlled. Constantinople is gone. Just Epirus, Nicaea, and trebizond>1261hey they managed a comeback and took back constaninople and thrace and kept the western anatolia against all odds. Maybe they can weather the storm>1453it was a sham. Lost western anatolia soon after getting Constantinople back. Lost thrace to bulgars and serbs after the most retarded series of civil wars. Only plus is reconquering the Peloponnese. Turks then swat the other balkan powers aside and now they surround you on all sides. yeah it's fucking over.
>>16855028>>16855055this empire had like 300 good years >verification not required.
>>16855028>spend hundreds of years slowly reconquering territory>lose it the territory you reconquered decades or even a few years later in some cases One must imagine Sisyphus happy
They survived the rise and fall of many nations and empires that bordered them, but whenever a neighbor grew weak, it would just be gobbled up and replaced by a new superpower, while Byzantium was always limping along with institutions it had inherited from a previous age that had to rapidly be adapted to new circumstances. For example, their history with the Arabs is centuries of the Byzantines being battered, eventually outlasting the Caliphate, but then not getting to enjoy a new era of peace, because the Arabs were conquered and their place was then taken by the Turks. We would view that history differently if there had been a longer period of the Arabs being dysfunctional while the Byzantines flourished, but instead geopolitics shifted so there were always new enemies who were on their A-game.Also, modern scholarship is revising the "empire" aspect and they're now viewed as more of a nation-state. They saw themselves as being superior to other peoples but they didn't have crazy irredentist ambitions aside from Justinian. Instead, they conquered when 1. there were pragmatic reasons of state security, such as conquering the border territories across the Arab frontier, or 2. uniting with other Greek-speaking Christians, which is why they shifted their focus to Sicily even when the Middle-East presented opportunities for conquest, or 3. when it was an easy opportunity, such as gobbling up Armenia by making a show of force and then negotiating for princes to surrender up their territories.You never get the sense of the Byzantines going on the offensive because of some grand macro-historical strategy of restoring the empire to its former peak. Instead, they were always shaping their present to be more ideal and maybe recovering some things that had been lost only a generation ago. But that mean that when times were good, they proceeded cautiously and slowly, but when times were bad, they would lose things a lot faster than they could ever be recovered.
>>16855236copium the post
>>16854698>>No clear succession systemJust go study byzantine history by yourself, faggot>>Dysfunctional armyLeo III defeated an army of over 100.000 muslims besieging Constantinople in 717-718 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(717%E2%80%93718)Byzantines sacked and burned Damietta in 853 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Damietta_(853)Nikephoros Phokas recaptured the islands of Crete and Cyprus, that halted muslim pirate raids for centuries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikephoros_II_PhokasThe normans were completely raped at the Battle of Demetritzes without even a strong emperor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Demetritzes>European art surpassed Byzantine art in 13th centuryEuropean art only surpassed byzantine art in the renaiscance, thanks to several byzantine schoolars who fled the ottoman turks. Medieval europoids don't even had running water by that time.
>>16854698>the Roman Empire was a dysfunctional stateWow great take OP, it’s almost like maybe that’s why it disintegrated
>>16854972>borders remained the sameThat's my point you fucking retardThey were always threatened by something and each century it got worse and worse for them(because new enemies formed on their territories)They initially had to deal with>Invading nomad hordes from north>Ancient empire that hated their guts from the east>Germoid tribes in the westJust a few centuries later>Arabs in the south>Nomads in the east>Slavs joining nomads in the north>Latino-germoid mutts and arabs in the westAnd they didn't catch a rest especially after fourth crusade when it got exponentially worse(and they didn't control their fucking capital for half a century)There wasn't a century of peace, wasn't a time when capital wasn't threatened, there was nothing good but empire still stoodAnd you're retarded for not understanding this
>>16854698>Manuel's lost campaignsbecause Manuel was retarded, he inherited full treasury and he immediately began spending it on retarded shit like trying to reclaim Sicily from the Normans, when it had already been lost like 200 years ago and was regularly invaded by HRE.So, even if he had been able to defeat the Normans and occupy all of Sicily, it would have been lost very quickly.
>>16855262>European art only surpassed byzantine art in the renaiscance, thanks to several byzantine schoolars who fled the ottoman turks. Medieval europoids don't even had running water by that time.Sad cope. byzos didnt won a single war against westeners from the 11th Century onwards.Western Kingdoms were also much more stable thanks to their clear succession system Its indicative that from that exact Century Western Europe stopped importing Byzantine cultural habits, while the exact opposite phenomenon started (komnenian semi-feudalism)
