Relatively homogenous is itself definitely relative. Even after the Arab defeats, Byzantium held pockets of Italy, the Illyrian coast, non-Greek Balkan ...
Actually, a fair amount of the army at Chalons was Celto-Roman. And, a fair portion of the "barbarians" had been federates for at least one full generation....
Adrianople occurred in 378, prior to the division of the Empire and inception of an essentially new Greek empire. It was only from that point on that its ...
It would seem to me, that an exploratory military campaign would be more of a probe into unknown territory. Its main function being, searching out resources, ...
If what you posit below is the case, that patrotism, or some ancient version of 19th century ideas of elan vital or Schopenhauerian "will" was the key ...
It is correct that the Muslims were kept at bay in the 8th century, along the Taurus Range, a natural mountain barrier that had served the earlier united Roman...
Badon is usually dated around 517, Camlamm around 537-39. So it does apprear a resistance by a pro-Roman party continued till then. There is also the ...
I think that the model of Rome as a corperation is a valid one if applied to the late Republic and this includes a faid amount of coporate backstabbing. that...
True, "ethnic purity" is not a prerequisite for patriotism-America is a far better example than Switzerland-but in the absence of an effective common...
The Byzantine army eclipsed that of the Western Empire in size and strength long before the time of Justinian. Most of the western(barbarian) army actually ...
I don't think "pro-Roman party" is an apt characterization so long after the disappearance of Roman authority in the West. Roman relics may be better....
I don't know if you missed post 1508 in which I discussed the structure of the Byzantine army, and its obligatory multi-ethnic composition. as has been said ...
A civilisation is indeed not a single organism, but it is a creation of people and reflects their personalities. When I suggest that the "Roman order" aged to...
On the 18th March 2002 the imperial rome club will have been in operation for a year. It would be nice to to celebrate that fact in some way and Since we are...
Mostly when faced by the name Brutus we tend to think about Marcus Junius Brutus that 'noblest Roman of them all' however the name belonmgs to a very old ...
Yet the bulk of the Roman army was composed of Italians or Romanized provincials until the fourth and fifth centuries, when barbarians, often under their own ...
But what about the bulk of the Byzantine army? Romans long had German bodyguards and foreign numeri but they were secondary to the Italian core of the army. ...
You just don't want to give up or modify your view, do you? I have no problems seeing "patriotism," or something akin to it, as **part** of the difference...
I think I, and other members of this group, have offered a number of counterarguments to your claims about "Greek purity," as well as to your claims against...
But I addressed those counterarguments e.g. the unwillingnes of the rich in the West to pay taxes, and the extreme scarcity of anyone other than untrustworthy ...
The "Greek" character of the Byzantine Empire, in particular, was underscored by westerners who competed with it, both in religion and in politics. That was ...
Well, I in general don't like reducing comparisons of major changes, whether history, philosophy or whatever, to single causes. I don't see the world as...
