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at burrow.com/A-Cast. INTRO

0:56

Hello everyone and welcome to the

0:58

History of Byzantium, episode

1:00

280, The New

1:03

Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldelis. Part

1:05

3. Narrative The

1:10

bulk of Professor Kaldelis' new book is,

1:12

of course, a narrative of the entire

1:14

history of Byzantium. It's a

1:16

comprehensive walkthrough of all the major

1:18

political and cultural developments, with footnotes

1:20

leading you to all the latest

1:22

scholarship on the subject. In

1:25

parts 1 and 2, we talked about

1:27

aspects of the book's introduction, which sets

1:30

up who and what Byzantium was. Today

1:33

we get into the narrative. I

1:35

picked out the topics I thought would be most interesting

1:38

to you, the listeners, and so

1:40

I asked him about Justinian, Heraclius,

1:42

the Arab invasions, and then on

1:44

to more recent quote-unquote

1:46

events like the collapse of the Comnenian

1:48

system of government and the Fourth

1:50

Crusade. At the end of

1:53

the interview, we put out a call for your questions.

1:56

In our next episode, I will

1:58

put your questions to Professor Kaldelis. You

2:00

can ask anything you like and we'll do our best

2:02

to get to as many of them as possible. Post

2:05

them on social media, on

2:07

the website, Patreon, or email

2:10

me [email protected]. Don't

2:12

dawdle though, as we will record again in a

2:14

couple of weeks' time. For now,

2:16

enjoy the interview. Professor

2:20

Anthony Koldellis, hello again. Hello, Robin.

2:24

Thank you for having me. It's a

2:26

pleasure, as always. We

2:29

have covered the

2:31

structure of government and Christianity,

2:35

quizzing you on your new history of

2:39

the new Roman Empire. We haven't

2:41

actually talked about New Rome itself, because your

2:44

book begins with the founding

2:46

of Constantinople. I

2:49

thought that was a good place to start with today's

2:51

episode, where I want to jump

2:53

through the narrative, because obviously the bulk of

2:55

your book is a narrative of

2:58

the whole of the history of Byzantium,

3:01

as we call it on this podcast. I

3:05

just want to pick and choose the bits I found

3:07

most interesting, and I think the listeners will too. Let's

3:10

start with Constantinople. In

3:13

your introduction, you talk about the founding of the

3:15

city and what

3:18

Constantine was aiming to achieve and so on. I

3:21

thought something I'd never fully taken

3:24

in was that

3:27

the Roman capital was

3:29

a megalopolis, a huge city

3:32

by design. I kind

3:34

of assumed, as I imagine many listeners did, that capital

3:37

is a large city, because capitals are large cities,

3:39

and the Roman Empire is a

3:41

large empire. But actually, you make the case that this

3:44

was by design, that this was engineered. Can

3:47

you talk about why that was? Yes,

3:50

it's very important to, first of all, see

3:52

this as a problem, because we're

3:54

so attuned to seeing

3:56

the Roman Empire as an empire of cities. to

4:00

have a capital such as Rome, that

4:02

we take it for granted. But in fact,

4:05

the Roman emperors in the third

4:08

century had shown that an emperor

4:10

doesn't necessarily need to have a

4:12

large city functioning as

4:15

his capital, right, in order to be the

4:17

emperor of the Roman world. They were itinerant,

4:19

right? So they moved around the frontiers a

4:21

lot. They were, but they needed, were armies.

4:24

Cities, yeah, kind of, I mean, capital

4:26

cities, kind of optional, right? So

4:30

making something like Constantinople, or New Rome,

4:32

and making provisions for it to expand

4:34

to the size that it did, is

4:37

a decision. And we have to explain that

4:40

decision because it didn't have to be taken.

4:43

And it's not

4:45

clear that we actually have all the answers

4:48

here. So we need more research on this,

4:50

right? There are

4:52

small scale factors such as, you know,

4:54

all emperors wanted to have cities named

4:56

after them. And Constantine was

4:59

someone who liked to name things after him.

5:02

He needed to wipe out the memory of

5:04

Licinius, who was his rival. And

5:07

Licinius had made his mark on

5:09

Byzantium. And so kind

5:11

of re-founding it as Constantinople was kind

5:14

of the equivalent of what

5:16

Constantine had done in Rome, where

5:18

he had taken over the monuments

5:20

of his rival there, right, Maxentius,

5:23

and reappropriated them for himself. So he's doing

5:25

the same thing in Byzantium that's kind of

5:27

wiping out Licinius, and founding

5:29

a city named after him. And all of that would

5:31

have been standard Roman

5:34

Emperor stuff. But

5:37

then he takes it to the next level. And I

5:40

think the evidence is pretty conclusive that

5:42

he intended this to be a new

5:44

kind of Rome, an other Rome, a

5:46

sister Rome. Eventually,

5:48

the name kind of

5:50

settles on New Rome, and that he made

5:53

provisions for it to expand dramatically. So

5:57

that's the decision that needs to be explained.

6:00

And not only that decision, you know

6:02

the weird thing is that for 50

6:04

years after Constantine, emperors

6:06

mostly did not reside there. Like,

6:09

they continued to be itinerant and

6:11

they didn't

6:13

settle down there until really like around 380 when

6:16

Theodosius was there, and

6:18

even he spent about half his time there,

6:20

though that is significant in itself. But

6:23

all the while, all those emperors

6:25

who were not residing in Constantinople,

6:27

right, Consentius II and Julian and

6:29

Valens, they were still funding and

6:31

expanding it. So

6:34

like they seem to have been invested in this project

6:36

of keeping this Constantinian megalopolis growing to

6:38

the point where the court could settle

6:41

down there eventually. And

6:44

so this is what we need to explain,

6:46

and in the book I offer some ideas

6:48

about why a city like

6:51

this was necessary. And I

6:54

mean, some

6:57

of this is conjectural, but it has to do with

6:59

the tendency of

7:01

the Roman Empire to break

7:04

at precisely that point. So

7:07

if you look at Roman civil wars, with

7:09

increasing frequency during this third

7:11

century, the

7:13

empire tends to break there. And so

7:15

one rival is controlling all of like

7:17

the Balkans to Byzantium, and the another

7:19

is controlling Asia Minor. And there are

7:22

a lot of battles that take place

7:24

in and around the Bosphorus

7:26

or that point. And

7:29

there are also proposals

7:31

about, you know, rival emperors

7:33

dividing the empire up at that

7:35

point and so forth. So I

7:38

think that there was a strategic function

7:40

in sort of clamping the

7:43

Balkans and Asia Minor together as sort

7:45

of one unit so that this

7:48

would not happen in the future. And

7:50

by and large it succeeded. That is exactly what Constantinople

7:52

did for the next thousand years. So

7:55

it provided this kind of strategic bridge.

8:00

It wasn't just strategic, it was also

8:02

political. In other words, you get all

8:04

of the elites from the main cities

8:07

of Greece

8:10

and Asia Minor and Syria invested

8:13

in Constantinople, and so they're less

8:15

likely as a group to break

8:17

into rival factions. Should I

8:19

just jump in? I've got a question. Just

8:21

jumping in to put flesh

8:23

on the bones of what you're saying, some listeners

8:26

need the memory jogging. What

8:29

we think of as the crisis of the third century

8:31

saw at one point Palmyra

8:34

out in the desert running what we

8:36

would think of as Byzantium, the whole eastern

8:39

empire, and like a garlic empire in

8:42

Western Europe and then a kind

8:44

of Italy and Balkans empire in the middle.

8:48

The fact that some elites way away

8:50

from Rome could actually run the whole

8:53

east on their own is

8:55

kind of what's in the back of

8:57

the mind of this idea. Three

9:03

times within living memory there

9:05

had been Roman civil wars fought exactly

9:07

there. Once between Constantine

9:09

and Licinius, I'm going backward in time, and

9:12

then twice between Licinius and Maxim and Diah.

9:16

That was like the ground

9:18

zero for these kinds

9:20

of wars. People

9:23

were affixed to that problem.

9:25

That's one factor. The other is the

9:29

kind of built-in structural imperative

9:32

that emperors have to be surrounded

9:34

by large groups

9:36

that provide legitimacy. That

9:39

can be the army, though. How much of an army

9:41

can you have with you at any one time is

9:45

a question. A

9:48

city can have a much larger validating

9:51

population, which can

9:54

then be invested with the role of the

9:56

populist Romanos. In

9:58

fact, The

10:00

people of Constantinople in the early laws

10:02

fourth and fifth century are called Populus

10:04

Romani Populus Romanus or the

10:07

Romani and so forth in other words.

10:09

There's this kind of cycle where emperors

10:11

create a population

10:13

that then validates and legitimates

10:15

them through like acclimations and

10:18

whatever So

10:20

there's a function of Roman

10:22

emperorship that it it

10:24

tends to thrive when

10:27

it has that kind of audience to project

10:29

itself on to and So

10:31

emperors are always you know, even the itinerant

10:34

emperors are always creating little palaces with hippodromes

10:36

next to them You

10:38

know Galerius had done the same thing into

10:41

Salonee key and so forth because they want

10:43

to have these crowds that that chance for

10:45

them because remember they don't have elections right

10:47

they don't have Legitimacy

10:50

through heredity So that's

10:52

how they get it Which

10:54

is a brilliant sort of alien idea to us,

10:57

isn't it that we think democracy

10:59

comes from the people Overthrowing

11:01

rulers and demanding this is how we're going to

11:03

be ruled and you're saying Constantine said in order

11:05

for me to rule I need to bring a

11:08

population to me to cheer me and say

11:10

aren't you doing a great job? You're the

11:12

person we want something like that.

11:14

Yeah. Yeah, it's a real cycle of

11:19

It's neither a vicious site cycle nor a

11:21

virtuous one It's it's just a it's

11:24

a circular kind of argument of Roman

11:26

legitimacy like who is authorizing whom and

11:28

they anyway that yeah But that is

11:30

how it works. That's how the circus

11:33

maximus had functioned in in old

11:35

Rome This

11:38

is how emperors Sound

11:40

out the mood of their

11:42

subjects, right? I'm Constantine had

11:44

even issued these laws that asked

11:47

for Acclamations in the provinces to

11:49

be recorded and sent to him so that he

11:51

could get a sense of what people were saying

11:53

about his officials So

11:56

yeah, there is a concern for public opinion and

11:58

and I think a big

12:00

city is one

12:03

thing that can create

12:05

that and like right there, right outside the

12:07

palace. And

12:10

one of the points you make in the book, going

12:13

back to the Palmyra example, is I

12:17

don't want someone who's rich and powerful

12:19

living in Palmyra. I

12:22

want them to live in Constantinople.

12:25

They can still have riches in

12:27

Palmyra, but I want them at the court asking

12:30

me for their next

12:32

favor, their next appointment. So

12:35

if I don't have a capital, they

12:37

will stay in Palmyra and then they can take

12:40

provinces from me. Yeah,

12:42

you're centralizing the richest people, most

12:45

influential people from the eastern provinces.

12:47

And in fact, Constantinople was almost

12:49

an investment scheme because

12:52

initially these new senators had

12:55

to live in Constantinople. They were required to.

12:59

And so it was a way of getting

13:02

them to invest their money. They had to

13:04

bring up a large part of it to

13:06

Constantinople and promote

13:08

its construction and expansion. Initially,

13:11

Constantine had built some manners

13:15

for these Roman elites, including from Italy.

13:17

So he transferred some people from Rome

13:20

to or invited

13:22

them to do so. And

13:25

it's the funniest, I said, you have a

13:27

city that has houses and

13:29

buildings before it has a population. But

13:32

yeah, that's how it was made. And

13:35

I did the math in the book about

13:37

who these people were. So like if you

13:39

assume the senatorial class in

13:41

Constantinople expands to about two, two and

13:43

a half thousand people within

13:46

a century. And

13:49

these are aristocratic types,

13:52

wealthy. Assume

13:54

a minimal household of about 30

13:56

people. For

13:59

old Rome, we're astounded. So, 30 is very conservative. These

14:04

are small compared to the Western aristocracy. It

14:06

could have been much higher for all we

14:08

know. And if you do the

14:10

math and you add families

14:12

and attendants and servants and whatever, you

14:14

end up with a large

14:16

chunk of the original population of

14:19

Constantinople. And 100,000 people might just

14:21

be the domestics

14:23

and the clients

14:25

and people supported by the

14:28

senatorial aristocracy there. Yeah,

14:32

it's just so interesting that

14:34

I just had never understood that dynamic

14:36

before. And the other thing you

14:38

talked about that I thought was very interesting was part of

14:42

the reason the population needs to be big is

14:44

that people are going to die off. If

14:47

you don't reach a certain level and

14:50

keep new people coming in, the

14:53

city will never sustain itself. Yeah,

14:57

so this is

14:59

the death trap

15:02

view of pre-modern cities. Actually, a lot

15:04

of the data comes from London, like

15:07

early modern London. And

15:10

I don't know if early modern London

15:12

is more or less sanitary than ancient. I

15:15

don't know. But the

15:17

going theory is that large, dense

15:20

concentrations of urban

15:22

populations in pre-modern times

15:25

lose about 1% to 3% of

15:28

their population per

15:31

year through disease

15:33

and fires and

15:35

so forth. In Rome, you

15:37

have malaria. It's a very prominent cause of death. And

15:40

so in order to maintain a steady

15:42

population, you have to import 1% to

15:44

3%. So

15:48

that means to get from whatever

15:52

ancient Byzantium might have been, at most

15:54

25,000, to

15:58

Justinian's half a million. million, that

16:02

is an enormous increase. So

16:05

you need mass immigration,

16:07

not just

16:09

to reach that level, but also to sustain it,

16:12

right? So you're having a few thousand

16:14

people need to move to Justinian's Constantinople,

16:17

just to keep the population at that level,

16:20

then the plague changes

16:22

the demographic calculus altogether, right?

16:26

But that means that

16:28

there is this internal

16:31

migration going on in

16:34

the Roman Empire that's in aggregate, by

16:36

the way, is larger than the barbarian

16:38

invasions, right?

16:41

Barbarian invasion, the

16:43

largest ones were something

16:45

like 80,000 population, like

16:48

the Vandals or whatever, with a

16:50

army of maybe 15,000

16:54

men in that population. Occasionally,

16:59

like Gothic groups and whatever. So

17:01

the growth of Constantinople actually involved

17:04

more people moving than that. Yeah,

17:09

it's just a really fascinating part of the

17:11

introduction that I'd never because I hadn't studied

17:14

that period, I'd never thought about. The

17:16

one thing listeners will be familiar with is that people,

17:21

particularly with hindsight, think, well, Constantine chose

17:23

such a great defensible site. That's why,

17:25

you know, what a

17:27

great choice for a city. And then you look into it

17:29

and you go, there's no river there. There

17:32

are very few good

17:34

supporting towns and harbors nearby and so on. And

17:37

you find all these reasons why actually, it's

17:39

quite a hard site to build a mega

17:41

city. And so you need a lot of work, obviously,

17:44

these gigantic aqueducts, to

17:47

keep a population going. Yes,

17:49

the water was a problem. And

17:52

that's why we have all of those cisterns,

17:55

right? Some of them very famous in

17:57

the movies and so forth. They're still there.

18:00

they're not used for that purpose, but

18:02

you needed to have large capability

18:05

for storing water and

18:07

bringing it from those forests

18:09

out in Thrace. So

18:12

Constantinople ended up with more miles of

18:15

aqueduct than ancient Rome just

18:17

for this purpose. So

18:19

water is one thing and grain

18:22

is the other. So you have to

18:24

feed these people and

18:26

that comes mostly from Egypt

18:28

in this period, in the

18:30

early period. And we're

18:32

talking at its peak, we're

18:34

talking about like fleets

18:37

of ships arriving on an

18:39

hourly basis because the

18:42

grain had to be brought in during

18:44

the sailing season, which was like late

18:46

spring to early to fall. And

18:50

if you know if you do the math, it's

18:52

a lot of ships coming in two

18:55

times a year. I don't know if they

18:57

could have managed three times. So

18:59

just back and forth and back and forth.

19:02

There is probably, you know, imagine a row

19:04

of ships waiting to

19:06

dock and unload and go back.

19:09

Just like you would in a major harbor

19:11

today, you look out and you see these big tankers and

19:14

whatever, whatever, and they're sitting there and you wonder why

19:16

they're sitting there. What are they doing? Anyway,

19:20

so these ships are constantly coming in and

19:22

they of course have Egyptian sailors. Egyptian

19:25

sailors, you know, come out, they have

19:27

shore leave and sometimes it

19:29

doesn't go very well. They get

19:32

into brawls at the locals, they,

19:34

you know, interfere in theological controversies

19:36

when their bishop is at odds

19:38

with the bishop of Constantinople. So

19:41

yeah, this is a massive

19:43

scale logistics kind of

19:45

industrial supply for this

19:47

city. I mean, it's

19:49

not just something that was, you know,

19:52

there. It was something that needed

19:54

to be maintained at incredible cost.

19:58

It's a really, anyway, it's a really interesting part of the book. And

20:00

obviously, you

20:02

then get into all sorts of narrative following

20:04

on from that that listeners may be less familiar with, because

20:06

I haven't covered that. This podcast

20:09

began in 476. So I

20:12

would very much recommend reading that

20:15

whole period, because it was really fresh to

20:17

me. But I want

20:19

to jump ahead now in the narrative to the

20:21

next question, which

20:24

was Justinian, who

20:26

came fairly early on in the narrative

20:28

I covered. And

20:31

I just wanted to pick up on something we talked

20:33

about him in the top 10 emperors podcast where he

20:35

did not feature. And

20:39

which I was pleased with, because

20:41

my own conclusion was slightly negative on

20:43

Justinian. But you made this very interesting

20:45

comment, because we, of all

20:47

the emperors in Byzantium, we probably know

20:49

him the best because of the amount,

20:52

I mean, whether we can ever know someone, but you know, the amount of

20:56

sources we have and the

20:58

laws that he approved, if he

21:01

didn't write them himself and so on. And

21:03

you said at one point, I'm not

21:05

sure I like the way his mind worked.

21:08

And I'm not sure you could have said that about any other emperor,

21:10

because we just don't know. So what

21:12

did you mean by that? Well,

21:15

Robin, I mean, to

21:17

a certain degree, political leaders in

21:20

all times are kind of interconvertible

21:22

in a way. Would

21:25

you be happy having that guy as the

21:27

head of your government? I

21:30

suppose it depends what state my

21:32

society was in. You

21:34

know, he definitely

21:37

has his good points. Let's

21:40

start with those. What do

21:42

you think they are? That

21:44

he's very hardworking

21:46

and dedicated and intelligent. And

21:49

I forget if you

21:51

said this, but both a good

21:53

delegator and a relentless micromanager. So

21:55

he's not incompetent.

22:00

not disinterested. That's right. I

22:04

think he is very egotistical but at the same

22:06

time that means he's investing

22:08

in lots of things in a good way.

22:10

And if

22:13

you agree with the gist of what he's doing

22:15

then you'll be pleased by the

22:17

efforts he's making to push

22:20

things in a certain direction. He's

22:24

optimistic which could be a

22:26

good thing. Lots of other

22:28

emperors would never have touched

22:31

the vandals and you

22:33

could say that's a great thing or depending

22:35

on your perspective. So those I'd

22:37

say are the positive. Yes,

22:39

I think you hit them pretty well and

22:43

let's add some of the specific

22:46

policies that we might admire which is

22:48

that much of his

22:50

legislation favors groups

22:54

that had less

22:56

power. So he

22:58

intervened in marriage law and inheritance

23:00

law and so forth to benefit

23:02

women, daughters, other

23:07

sort of marginal groups. It

23:11

seems he didn't set too much

23:13

store by one's birth

23:16

judging by the choice

23:18

of people. He married but

23:20

also had in his cabinet

23:22

and in his legislation. There

23:25

are also a number of

23:28

laws where you can

23:30

sympathize with him because he's

23:33

clearly trying to do what he

23:35

thinks is best. Sometimes when you

23:37

agree with him you

23:40

like to see him fighting the good fight

23:43

there and he's clearly up

23:45

against some shenanigans

23:49

and he's constantly having to close

23:51

loopholes and every law opens more

23:53

loopholes and he gets frustrated. He's

23:56

clearly frustrated at what people are doing

23:58

to get around his laws. And

24:00

so he's more issues more laws right and that's

24:03

how we end up with all these hundreds and

24:05

hundreds of laws from him But

24:07

he's trying to close all these loopholes that enabled

24:10

corruption and exploitation Okay,

24:14

so There there are

24:17

things to like there And

24:20

I don't have a personally. I

24:22

don't know that you know taking North

24:24

Africa and Italy was You

24:27

know Worth it or I don't

24:29

even know how to assess that but anyway On

24:33

the other hand they're

24:36

clearly things that just so

24:40

the Intolerance is

24:43

probably one of the worst So

24:46

when you have someone who's hard-working And

24:50

very very powerful and

24:53

hates everyone who deviates from his idea of

24:55

what a proper Christian

24:57

Roman should be that's a very

25:00

dangerous combination and for the legal And

25:05

You couple that with beliefs such

25:07

as that Homosexual activity

25:09

causes earthquakes, which he's on the

25:12

record as saying and

25:15

it and it gets He

25:17

makes life much more dangerous for a

25:19

lot of people right and

25:24

the biggest group he went after They

26:00

think that this is something characteristic of like

26:02

medieval Islam or something where apostasy is punishable

26:04

by death But now there's a lot of

26:07

thinking about that if you go Christian and

26:09

you go back. It's death penalty and

26:15

He was also like

26:17

his commitment to social engineering No

26:21

matter the cost to the people who had to

26:23

bear, you know The the burden of it is

26:26

also very off-putting and

26:29

you know So the

26:31

way his mind processes

26:35

Ideological commitments via

26:38

bureaucratic procedures is sort of terrifying

26:40

and I don't like to see

26:42

that part of it when when

26:44

it's on the page Right or

26:47

in history because we

26:49

have accounts, you know of what he did So

26:53

this is what I meant when I said I don't

26:55

like the way his mind works sometimes it's too

26:58

inflexible a commitment to ideological

27:00

priorities that you know, sometimes good

27:02

and sometimes bad But

27:05

you know, you always have the sense that when they were good

27:08

He like Marginally moved the needle

27:10

to benefit those groups that when they were

27:12

bad like it was really bad. I don't

27:15

know Did I

27:17

cover what you? Yeah, don't

27:19

like about her. Well, I

27:21

was just thinking it's interesting that a lot

27:24

of scholars like I forget Who'd made the

27:26

comparison originally but a comparisons to Stalin on

27:28

a right? Yeah, yeah It's

27:32

interesting because I remember someone saying it's like

27:34

a McCarthyist witch hunt his early administration I

27:36

was like it's interesting you can be compared

27:38

to communists and anti-communist

27:40

in the same period but

27:44

Well, I reflect now on I am very

27:46

narrative based in my assessments, which I suppose

27:48

makes sense because that's Sort

27:50

of the business of the podcast My

27:53

sense with him was he such a true

27:55

believer that he

27:57

puts the you

28:00

He puts the needs of how he thinks the state should

28:02

be ahead of the needs of how the state is So

28:05

he sends troops to spain Which

28:08

I don't see how he can think

28:10

he'll have any hope of controlling or

28:13

really Keeping

28:16

while there's lots of

28:19

Slavic groups moving into the Balkans. There are

28:22

Bulgars raiding the Balkans and i'm like, do you

28:24

not see a danger there? And again, I can't

28:26

divorce myself from the hindsight, of course of knowing

28:29

the Balkans is going to be a trouble

28:32

spot. So maybe he had a you

28:34

know He had a sense that everything

28:36

would be all right and the Avars were

28:39

not the threat they'd become and I don't want

28:41

to judge him too harshly but um Yeah,

28:45

so there's our our hindsight and there's

28:47

also his hindsight and his hindsight was

28:49

that North Africa and Italy at least

28:51

until 540 Had paid off

28:54

spectacularly with very little cost And

28:58

that you never know when

29:01

an intervention In

29:03

a distant place like Spain might

29:06

seem far-fetched at first, but you just

29:08

never know because these barbarian

29:10

regimes right those sort of barbarian kingdoms

29:13

in the west Are

29:15

it turns out much more

29:17

fragile than they had appeared to be? Which

29:20

makes sense because they're just governed by a military

29:23

aristocracy. That's pretty thin on the

29:25

top And if you can split it

29:29

You have chances of grabbing a lot

29:31

of you know territory and local influence

29:34

Or if you can just destroy him in a battle You

29:37

take over the whole thing And so

29:39

I think the intervention in Spain, which

29:41

was precisely an intervention in a gothic

29:43

civil war Must

29:45

have sparked the following kinds of thinking well And

29:48

the vandals were kind of divided and it worked against

29:50

them When we intervened there

29:53

So who knows maybe we can intervene in

29:55

Spain and grab a good chunk of it Maybe

29:57

then the goth will just fight each other we

30:00

can take the next. That

30:02

didn't happen. So now

30:04

you've got this chunk of territory in the south. Well, you're

30:06

not just going to give it up because it didn't

30:09

go like all the way. You just

30:11

keep what you have. And that's what

30:13

they did. So

30:16

you can understand how he got himself

30:18

into that situation. But you're

30:20

entirely right that he

30:23

was, didn't

30:27

calculate risk very well, especially

30:30

in the Balkans and the east. In

30:32

other words, those western

30:35

conquests, they required moving

30:37

armies from the east to the west.

30:40

And that left the east unprotected. It clearly

30:42

did. It did in 540. And

30:45

right when the Persians burst in and

30:47

sack everything, and it led

30:49

to a long-term military

30:51

deficit in the east because

30:54

armies are limited. You can't just raise an infinite

30:56

number of soldiers, especially when the

30:58

plague is making it hard

31:00

both for revenue and manpower and

31:04

also in the Balkans. So in

31:06

a certain sense, there's a zero-sum

31:09

game going on among all of

31:11

the different frontiers. And

31:13

so he creates one in North Africa. He creates

31:15

one in Italy. He creates one in Spain at

31:20

precisely the time when the east and

31:22

the Balkans are becoming riskier and riskier.

31:25

So that whole calculation strategically, I

31:27

think, was bad.

31:30

And it had very long negative consequences.

31:32

Now, there are historians

31:34

who are defending Justinian on that. And

31:37

you can definitely push a lot of

31:40

the blame onto his successors. But I

31:42

think the context of increased risk

31:45

is something that he left to them. Yeah.

31:50

Well, we could talk about Justinian all

31:52

day, but let's move on to

31:57

the next headline-grabbing figure, Heraclius.

32:00

This was the one, as I warned

32:02

you at the time, that most listeners were surprised

32:04

didn't feature in the top ten

32:06

list because most

32:08

listeners think pulling

32:12

the eastern provinces back from such

32:14

a point of

32:16

collapse is an amazing

32:18

achievement. And again, I

32:20

think this is a case where the

32:23

narrative is so exciting and

32:25

the then loss to

32:28

Islam seems like a kind of bolt of lightning

32:30

that he can't be held accountable

32:32

for, that they

32:35

think, well, Heraclius is up there. Now,

32:38

what's your assessment against why

32:42

is his achievement not at that

32:44

level? I don't

32:46

disagree with what you just said. I

32:49

mean, it's all true. The basic outlines of the

32:51

narrative are well known. But

32:54

that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about

32:56

whether that merits a place in the top ten. And

33:00

in that context, if

33:02

that's the achievement, I

33:04

would have at least expected at a

33:07

minimum for him to have kept those provinces.

33:10

Right now, granted, the

33:13

Arab invasions were unforeseeable.

33:18

They came from a direction where

33:20

Roman strategic planning had not invested

33:23

in defenses from that direction. Why

33:25

would they? And

33:29

your both empires, Roman and

33:31

Persian, are exhausted, destroyed. So

33:35

we understand why what happened happened.

33:39

But again, the question

33:41

is whether you put someone in the

33:43

top ten. I mean, I'd also that

33:46

he had contributed significantly to the

33:48

bad state of the east when

33:51

he took over by forcing

33:53

the three-year civil war that

33:56

really mauled some of the few armies that

33:58

the Romans had left. So,

34:03

okay, you might argue this is a

34:05

sovereign question about who rules in a

34:07

civil war. Everything is on

34:10

the table, but

34:13

A, he was considerably responsible

34:15

for that bad state, and B,

34:17

he didn't manage to keep it

34:19

afterwards. Again,

34:21

you can excuse every one of

34:24

those decisions. You can excuse the man, you can do

34:26

all of that, but I still don't think that

34:28

that merits being put in the top 10, especially

34:31

because let's look at his accomplishment

34:36

as such. It really

34:38

consists of two campaigns,

34:41

right? Now,

34:43

I mean, they lasted for more than a year each,

34:46

but there were two campaigns. And

34:48

one was this Caucasian

34:50

adventure, where

34:55

we don't have a reliable,

34:59

coherent narrative. There's some real debates about

35:01

how you reconstruct the movements of the

35:03

armies. But

35:06

either way, no matter how you read it, it was

35:09

brilliant in the

35:11

sense of tactics and maneuvering, but

35:14

it accomplished nothing, the first one. Like, Heraclius

35:18

was chased around the Caucasus

35:20

by two Persian armies, most

35:23

of the time, managed to defeat them,

35:25

elude them, move very, very quickly, and

35:28

get out without suffering losses, which

35:31

is amazing. But it accomplished

35:33

nothing. Didn't shift the borders,

35:35

the strategic balance or anything.

35:39

And then there was a second one, which drove

35:41

straight for the heart of the Persian

35:44

regime, the agricultural base

35:48

of the Iranian aristocracy. And

35:51

that's the one that shattered Khusro's

35:53

regime. But

35:55

I'm pretty convinced that this

35:58

was a joint Roman-Turkish regime.

36:00

operation and their

36:03

which now Heraclius is writing back to Constantinople

36:05

and he wants to present this as a

36:07

Roman operation something that only he's doing but

36:10

even in those missives he slips up sometimes

36:12

and you can you can tell that

36:16

it's possible that the Turks were

36:18

the larger army and

36:21

so this was you know he

36:23

was happy to accompany them on

36:26

this reigning expedition

36:28

into Mesopotamia which

36:32

is now a feat

36:34

of Roman diplomacy that they managed

36:36

to organize that for

36:38

both of these armies to be operating

36:40

very far from their you know

36:43

base it's something

36:45

that Constantinople had

36:47

been working on since

36:50

right after Justinian so you

36:53

know forging these ties with the Central Asian

36:55

Turks that ultimately paid off

36:57

this is a global

37:00

scale right geostrategic

37:02

alliance where

37:05

both Turks and Romans had an interest

37:08

in attacking the Persian empire at that moment

37:10

so I think it was

37:12

a bigger achievement of diplomacy

37:15

that had been put together

37:17

by Heraclius's predecessors in

37:20

particular Justin II than

37:24

a military achievement that he

37:27

accomplished so that's

37:30

my response to the

37:32

pro-Heraclius crowd and if

37:36

they want to write back or push

37:38

back against any of these points I'm happy

37:40

to continue the conversation I mean

37:43

I think that it's why I was so pleased

37:45

with your top tens because your

37:47

approach is different to a

37:50

lot of listeners which I think again is very

37:53

narrative based so Isaac

37:57

the second Anglos you

38:00

ranked as one of the worst emperors and I think

38:02

narratively there's a lot of

38:05

sympathy for him but you said

38:07

but this is what he achieved so

38:09

that's the result and it's similar with Herakles

38:11

again Herakles gets a huge amount of sympathy

38:15

and so that sort of excuses failings

38:17

in people's assessment but

38:20

let me add that Herakles

38:22

has been heroized in western

38:24

tradition especially in

38:26

connection with the crusades at

38:29

the time in medieval western Europe

38:31

as a kind of proto crusader

38:34

and both because of

38:36

his own propaganda which at

38:39

the time right had elements such

38:41

as like duels and

38:43

you know heroic warfare and

38:46

speeches to his army about the

38:48

sovereignty of the Roman people and

38:51

the independence of Rome

38:53

and things like that that

38:56

invested in with this kind of

38:58

like aura of you know a

39:00

sort of noble crusader in distant

39:02

lands and whatever whatever it's a

39:04

long tradition that

39:07

is still kind of shaping how he's

39:09

remembered so

39:12

you know he where his wars against

39:14

the Persians kind of blur into crusading

39:16

anti-muslim wars and all of that we

39:18

we got to pick that all apart

39:22

that's not a real achievement uh

39:26

really interesting and the

39:29

heart of the book that was most

39:31

unfamiliar to me was

39:34

when you covered life

39:36

under Sassanid occupation in the

39:39

eastern provinces because obviously

39:41

my research level particularly

39:44

at that time was much less

39:46

than it is now but much less obviously than

39:48

the level you work at so i couldn't find

39:50

anything about the occupation the

39:52

only comment people

39:55

made was that oh all

39:58

the monophysites in Syria and Egypt

40:00

might not have been too bothered that they

40:03

were being lifted out of the persecution

40:05

of, you know, Telcedonian

40:09

constant and the pelotence, which, hmm,

40:11

we come back to that. So

40:13

can you tell the listeners where

40:16

you found information about life

40:18

in the empire during that

40:21

the Herakian Wars and what

40:24

the occupation seemed to be like? So

40:28

this was fascinating to me too, because I

40:30

had never looked into this in detail. And

40:32

when I did, and I found all that I

40:34

found, for a while I

40:37

was thinking, wow, this requires a

40:39

separate book. I

40:41

was trying to entice a colleague who

40:43

also works on, like, Middle Persian and,

40:46

you know, get some Sasanian

40:48

expert to do it together. So

40:53

to be clear, we're not talking

40:55

about the war here, like

40:57

the military maneuvers. We're talking

40:59

about what it

41:01

was like to live, for all of these

41:03

millions of Romans in the Eastern provinces, what

41:05

it was like to live under the Persian

41:07

occupation for however long they did. Some

41:10

of them for,

41:12

you know, 25

41:14

years plus, some for just 10. And

41:19

Robin, I gotta ask you. So

41:21

when you're reading history books,

41:24

especially scholarship, do

41:27

you often come across, because I

41:30

do, the following kinds

41:32

of statements about imperial

41:35

expansion, often

41:37

at the expense of the Eastern Roman Empire, but

41:39

it's something like this. Such

41:42

and such foreign, you know, invader,

41:44

you know, conquers these lands, but

41:47

the people on the ground barely notice

41:50

that their masters have been changed and

41:52

they just go from one exploitative

41:54

regime to another. And

41:58

in fact, they might have actually. even

42:00

like to not be ruled by

42:02

Constantinople because maybe the Persians

42:06

slash devars slash turks

42:09

slash whatever You

42:12

had maybe lighter taxes or whatever. Okay

42:16

I've seen this so much that it's now

42:18

become like a trope them

42:21

sensitive to and It's

42:24

often coupled with the following idea

42:27

Most of these people are peasants and they

42:29

don't care about their the government is distant

42:32

and just oppressive all the government is to

42:34

them is Someone

42:36

who comes along and takes taxes from them often

42:38

by beating them every once in a while And

42:42

so they're sometimes even happy to see those people

42:44

get their comeuppance Okay Because

42:47

these are apolitical types who often don't

42:49

have any identities because that's that's

42:52

just all the elite stuff in Constantinople This

42:55

is kind of narrative and I think it is utterly

42:58

and completely wrong It's

43:01

not even like misleading which is the you

43:03

know, nice way of putting the theory you

43:05

don't agree with it's just out

43:07

and out false on on

43:11

every level but it

43:14

It depoliticizes the majority of the

43:16

population and treats them as ignorant

43:18

and indifferent Which did

43:20

not it can't possibly have been the case

43:24

And That has

43:26

happened in some recent scholarship with the

43:28

Persian occupation There's

43:30

some scholarship which is oh, this is no

43:33

big deal. This is quote

43:35

a bump in the road But

43:40

all of the evidence suggests that that's not the

43:42

case Not

43:44

only was the the

43:47

the invasion itself so

43:49

the the behavior of the conquering

43:51

armies very

43:53

very harmful destructive

43:58

Lots of killing and slaughter with

44:00

it, but also

44:02

mass deportations. So

44:05

the one thing that, and

44:08

the Persian shahts had always done this,

44:10

every time they invaded they just carted

44:12

off as many prisoners as they could

44:14

because there was like a manpower shortage

44:16

I think always in the agricultural estates

44:18

in Mesopotamia. So they would

44:20

just cart away tens of thousands and hundreds

44:22

of thousands of people and they did this

44:25

as soon as they got their hands on

44:27

this population in the Eastern provinces they started

44:30

transporting them down

44:32

Mesopotamia to all of these estates

44:35

and settling them on these

44:39

agro communities to whatever.

44:43

There's that. Then they strip all

44:45

of the gold and silver that they can find,

44:49

especially the silver is a Persian economy, preferred

44:52

silver. So the churches just get

44:54

stripped, you know, they hunt

44:56

for treasures and money everywhere that they can.

45:00

There is a lot of evidence

45:02

that the occupation authorities were violent,

45:06

but also, and here's the key problem,

45:08

they were unaccountable. So

45:11

in the Roman system, the

45:13

Roman imperial system by this

45:15

point has lots of

45:18

options. It offers a lot of

45:20

opportunities to subjects to contest what

45:24

authorities are doing, either

45:26

by appealing, by suing, or by

45:28

complaining, or by petition. And

45:31

you may or may not win, though

45:34

the evidence is that the system was responsive.

45:36

This is a key part of the book

45:38

that the imperial

45:41

government at this time understands

45:44

itself very self-consciously to be responsive

45:46

to the needs of its subjects.

45:49

And conversely, that its subjects

45:52

know that it's trying

45:54

to project and cultivate that sort of

45:56

personality, and they take advantage of

45:58

that. So the government is giving

46:00

them tools with which to resist

46:04

abusive officials and that

46:06

local populations, yes peasants, are actually

46:09

both aware of these and are

46:11

using. We have lots

46:13

of evidence to this effect. Now maybe

46:16

you win, maybe you don't, maybe

46:18

the system protects its own people, well

46:20

whatever. It's not different from any legal

46:23

system in any country even today in our

46:25

democracies. You go try suing Exxon. This

46:30

relationship did not exist with the Persian

46:32

authorities. Appeal

46:34

to whom? And

46:39

so there are papyri

46:42

from Egypt and

46:44

also Astraka, anyway texts that are

46:47

sort of, you know, temporary documentary

46:49

texts that talk about abuses. People

46:54

couldn't petition the local political authorities because

46:56

they'd been sort of decapitated and symbolically,

46:58

I mean that, by the Persians. So

47:01

they were like writing to local holy men

47:03

and bishops and abbots and saying, my

47:06

husband disappeared when the Persians arrived?

47:08

What am I supposed to do

47:10

with the whatever? Like, I can't,

47:12

you know, there's enormous

47:15

displacements, so populations who fled

47:17

from the Persians, they

47:20

moved west, they went to Constantinople.

47:23

You know, ultimately your Archbishop

47:25

of Canterbury, Theodore of

47:27

Tarsus is among the people displaced.

47:31

So this had ramifications

47:33

extending to England, right?

47:37

Maximus the Confessor, a native

47:39

of the east, he fled, he had to go

47:42

to North Africa to avoid the barbarians, he said.

47:45

So the

47:48

way I put it in the book is that if business

47:51

as usual, I don't know, I mean,

47:55

apart from the invasions and the

47:57

slaughters and the deportation and the

48:00

Confiscation of goods and the disappearance

48:02

of people in the mass flight and

48:04

the fact that you're subject to an kind

48:06

of arbitrary Occupation authority that can take what

48:08

it wants to fund a war effort against

48:11

other Christians. Yeah apart from that. It

48:13

was business as usual And

48:16

I mean it yeah, it really I mean I

48:18

really recommend people read that whole bit because it

48:21

was so interesting And

48:23

it's kind of no wonder That

48:26

down in Arabia Lots

48:30

of people were saying The

48:32

Roman world's over like or you know that the

48:36

the stable order we're all let's say

48:38

merchants heading into Syria or Palestine

48:42

Everything's disrupted. Everything's gone all

48:44

the people I used to deal with have disappeared.

48:47

I'm having to deal with new people it's chaos

48:49

there and and so

48:51

on and that was the

48:53

next thing I found interesting because the that The

48:56

origins of Islam and the rise of

48:58

the Arab caliphate I

49:01

did find a lot of sources and

49:03

obviously it's bewildering and yeah, I'm literally

49:05

fascinating field But

49:09

the one thing that stood out to me was that lots

49:11

of scholars seem to suggest a lack

49:14

of centralization in

49:16

the early Attacks on

49:19

Roman territory not

49:21

necessarily they were proposing another narrative Just

49:25

that they were questioning Whether

49:28

the attacks were centrally directed by

49:30

an authority operating in You

49:34

know, what happened northern Saudi Arabia we would now think

49:36

of it sort of area and

49:39

that questioning whether that was all retrofitted by

49:43

Islamic histories when they were working out

49:46

The the you know the correct order

49:49

of caliphs and and who did what

49:51

and so on but you and your

49:53

narrative Felt

49:55

no these were centrally directed attacks

49:57

leading up to the Battle of

49:59

the Yarmouk and so on and

50:02

the Caliphs were in charge. Is that

50:04

a fair characterization? Yes. Now,

50:08

it depends on what we

50:10

mean by the early Arab raids. So early,

50:13

early, yeah, there were raids and there

50:15

were minor things. So the

50:18

way it usually works is that there's

50:20

raiding going on that's decentralized,

50:23

kind of random. You're testing

50:25

for soft targets. You're finding

50:27

where the weaknesses are. That

50:30

doesn't have to

50:33

be planned. In fact, sort

50:35

of many empires before

50:38

they expand, before we see the

50:40

real armies move in, there is

50:42

this phase of, yes, sending some

50:44

raiders out. And in fact,

50:46

this doesn't have to be centralized because

50:49

the problem you're facing when you're creating a

50:52

new empire in, let's say Asia, is

50:55

that you suddenly attract too

50:57

many people, get interested in what

50:59

you're doing and you don't necessarily have something

51:01

for them to do. You can't reward them

51:04

properly is what I mean.

51:06

And yet you don't want them to cause

51:08

trouble. And so you say, hey, why don't

51:11

you guys go see what's going on over

51:13

there? And you

51:15

know, go test those cities in like, you

51:17

know, Palestine or whatever and go, you know,

51:19

and come back and tell us

51:22

what you find. So off

51:24

they go. And that's

51:26

before you get your armies together. But when

51:29

we get to the point in the

51:32

630s, when you're having battles

51:34

between the Arab armies and

51:36

the imperial armies, those are

51:39

very clearly coordinated.

51:41

And I'm relying here in

51:43

part on Fred Donner's work

51:46

on this, which is excellent reconstruction of the

51:50

military logistics and numbers and so on. And

51:52

his estimate actually based on the sources, the

51:55

Arab sources is that they maybe had something

51:57

between 20 and 24,000 soldiers,

52:01

which you might think was not much. And

52:04

no, it's not. But

52:06

you have to remember that the

52:09

Eastern Roman Empire is operating

52:11

with very diminished military capacity

52:14

after that long war with Persia. And

52:17

our calculations in

52:20

our separate book on the field armies of

52:22

the Eastern Roman Empire that Marion Cruz and

52:24

I wrote, and we talked about it in

52:27

a separate episode

52:29

on my podcast,

52:33

tally very nicely with that. In other

52:35

words, we estimate that that's pretty much

52:37

also what Heraklias had in

52:40

the East. And so,

52:42

yeah, that's about

52:44

one and a half field

52:46

armies. And by

52:49

the way, independently, it's also about

52:51

what the Avar Khan had. And

52:55

we have some indications the size of his army,

52:57

it's about 20, 20

52:59

plus thousand. So the numbers

53:01

independently kind of check out that that these

53:03

are that this is the order of magnitude

53:05

that we're talking about. But here's the thing.

53:09

The Arab armies are usually

53:11

operating in smaller groups under

53:14

the command of different

53:17

generals. But

53:19

whenever necessary, they're they pull together

53:21

into one force, and

53:23

the whole way in which they're moving

53:26

and the coordination of the

53:28

war in Palestine, Syria and

53:30

Mesopotamia, because they're concurrently taking

53:32

on these two broken

53:35

empires, indicates coordination at

53:37

the center, like in other words, every

53:40

time there's a crisis in one of the two fronts,

53:42

the armies from the other move there and then back

53:44

again. And so you

53:47

can't that's not a bunch of independent

53:49

warlords who are just kind of freelancing

53:51

it. Yeah, it's really

53:53

interesting. It's also a matter of

53:55

perspective, isn't it? Because I'm now researching the post

53:57

1204 period where an

54:00

army of 2,000 can capture 20-25 cities. And so the idea of

54:02

an army of 24,000, it

54:07

seems big to me at the moment. Yeah, go

54:09

back to Trajan and look at the numbers there. Yeah.

54:12

That's frightening. Absolutely.

54:14

So I mean, again, another really interesting part of

54:17

the book, obviously

54:19

an area where scholarship could one

54:22

day explode with all sorts of new information,

54:24

but we wait. So

54:31

let's move forward in

54:33

time. The next period

54:35

I kind of, I'm skipping largely

54:37

because I followed your work for a lot

54:41

of it. So this was less

54:43

surprising to me what came out, but you made

54:45

a comment. So jumping all the way to Basil

54:48

II, just

54:50

to remind listeners, this is obviously the caliphate

54:53

has gone into permanent decline and the

54:55

Romans have now retaken all these border

54:58

cities that had been used to raid them.

55:00

And so Basil II comes to the throne

55:03

with the Romans as the kind of dominant

55:05

power in the region again. And he has

55:07

to deal with these big, long civil

55:10

wars against his

55:12

generals, Bardus Focus and Bardus

55:14

Cleiros. And you made

55:17

a really interesting parallel with earlier periods of

55:19

Roman history. And I thought the

55:21

listeners might be interested in that comparison. Well,

55:24

I think I compared it to the late

55:26

Republic, right? Yeah. Yeah.

55:29

So there are a couple of things

55:31

that suggested that to me. One was

55:33

that the context is rather similar. In

55:35

other words, these

55:37

are Roman civil wars

55:39

that are occurring right

55:41

after a period of massive

55:44

expansion of territory, relative

55:47

to the size of each state, right? We're not talking

55:49

about all of Gaul, Caesar

55:52

conquered, but All

55:54

of like, you know, northern Cilicia, northern

55:56

Syria, the Caucasus, and all of Bulgaria.

55:58

That's pretty large. So

56:01

right after a bout of military

56:03

expansion said Myburgh areas not yet

56:06

at the time, the Civil Wars.

56:08

but yeah, but mother was thinking

56:10

about it. And

56:13

you suddenly have these are civil Wars

56:15

am so that was structurally similar. Because.

56:18

Those civil wars create. I'm

56:20

armies. Large armies arm

56:23

and wells that. Are

56:25

you know these rival generals? I

56:28

can. Use. To

56:30

promote their political careers. And it's also

56:32

when you start to have. I'm

56:35

like the focus. The forecast

56:37

family. Starts. To like

56:39

build up. It's. Said. With it's

56:41

own client network within the armies. Of

56:44

such that they can. Just by

56:46

virtue of the prestige of their name. Command

56:50

loyalty in the otherwise state army's

56:52

out. Which reminds me of things

56:55

that I the Palm Bay to

56:57

inherited armies from his father in

56:59

a way. And ah yes, Caesar

57:02

passing the loyalty onto the. Anthony

57:04

or in Octavian, it's over. It's to It

57:07

reminded me a little bit of that kind

57:09

of context. But. The same time

57:11

was interesting that. He. Suddenly set

57:13

to have these very large personalities that

57:16

you know from a number of different

57:18

sources. And I thought those

57:20

were interesting to. I mean. I'm

57:23

Basel the seconds to the unique

57:25

Chamberlain Basel there, but I can.

57:28

ominous also. and they're focused since

57:30

the last and all of these

57:33

people. You have

57:35

Arabic sources in Georgia and sources and

57:37

and Greek and Latin ones and suddenly

57:39

they like. They. Have

57:41

acquire this. Have larger

57:43

than vice. Presidents. In

57:46

some of these sources which I thought reminded

57:48

me a little bit of the the kind

57:50

of the The Salas and Caesar's in Palm

57:52

based on the again sat on the same

57:54

level I'm not saying that. There.

57:56

is rather reminiscent in terms of

57:59

service from for a narrative. Yeah.

58:03

That's interesting. And there's almost a

58:06

sense in which what's

58:08

the Roman state going to be after this

58:11

about those civil wars? And this

58:13

may be overstating it, but I

58:15

think it's Mark. Mark Whittle's book

58:19

focuses on that idea that would

58:21

a focus or a Skiros have gone

58:24

on expanding or attacking or the

58:27

idea that Nikki Forrest's forecast

58:29

would make Roman

58:32

armies more crusader or

58:34

jihad minded in terms

58:37

of what that sort

58:39

of thought is going around of what

58:41

might the state be or

58:44

is the state going to stay in

58:46

Constantinople and Orthodoxy and those things? Oh,

58:49

sure. I don't think there was ever a real

58:51

possibility that those things would change. This

58:53

is a difference from the Republican-Roman

58:55

civil wars, which

58:57

is that back then, the

59:00

nature of the regime was in

59:02

question. Because the

59:04

senatorial aristocracy and that whole what

59:06

we call the Republic was falling

59:09

apart. The wheels were coming off. It was clear at

59:11

the time. Whereas I

59:13

don't think that anything like that was

59:16

in play in the 10th century. The

59:19

nature of the regime was solid. I

59:21

don't think any of the contestants here

59:23

had any mind to

59:26

change the fundamentals. It was mostly

59:28

a question of who's in charge.

59:33

So that is a major difference, which

59:36

is why I would never argue that these

59:38

wars had the same significance as

59:40

those, because those were the inauguration

59:43

of the imperial monarchy. Whereas

59:46

I don't think that forecast would have changed. In

59:48

fact, I don't even think that there were

59:51

great differences of policy about conquest.

59:55

I think there was a kind of

59:58

consensus about how much the conquer

1:00:00

and at what point the

1:00:02

conquest would become counterproductive.

1:00:06

You reach a point of diminishing

1:00:08

returns where you get more problems

1:00:10

than assets. And I think

1:00:12

they had all realized that they reached that point.

1:00:16

What are you going to do? Going to Mesopotamia and do

1:00:18

what? Anyway,

1:00:23

so I don't think there was that much at

1:00:25

stake. However, because of the

1:00:27

recent conquests, they

1:00:30

had these large armies and

1:00:32

it was brutal. There's

1:00:35

the same levels of brutality. If

1:00:38

you look at the way that

1:00:40

sometimes Basil II punished his enemies,

1:00:42

it sort of reminds me of Sulla or

1:00:44

something like that. It's kind

1:00:46

of a structural similarity. Once you reach

1:00:49

your goal, civil war follows because

1:00:51

the armies are turning up

1:00:54

ready to conquer more. They're getting more to conquer, so

1:00:56

they turn on each other in pursuit

1:01:00

of the goals of their generals. Right,

1:01:02

because the generals, I mean, in both cases,

1:01:04

there's a structural similarity here is that what

1:01:08

do the generals do? Go back

1:01:10

to civilian life? After

1:01:13

you've been master of the whole

1:01:15

East and then you're

1:01:17

like, okay, your term is up. Now go home

1:01:19

and I'll send someone else. And

1:01:21

a lot of people are like, no, that's

1:01:24

not going to happen. It's

1:01:27

a really interesting comparison

1:01:29

point. It's one that I

1:01:31

think no one else has made because of that divorce

1:01:34

between Byzantine history and Roman history

1:01:36

and so on. So

1:01:40

let's jump forward to the

1:01:42

modern era of the podcast, the Comnenian

1:01:44

period. And this was actually

1:01:47

several listeners asked me this question, but I'm passing

1:01:49

it on to you, which

1:01:51

was about the Byzantine Republic.

1:01:54

Now these questions came in before we did our recent

1:01:56

episodes on government, where you kind of talked about the

1:01:58

monarchical. public and we talked about

1:02:00

it. We've talked

1:02:02

a lot about how the government was responsive and we've

1:02:07

talked in the past about how emperors have

1:02:10

to manage a coalition of support and to

1:02:12

some extent get elected at times. So

1:02:16

listeners were asking, does that concept

1:02:20

change at all in the Commonanian period where

1:02:23

Alexis Commoninus changes

1:02:26

the system

1:02:28

of hierarchy at the

1:02:30

court to be based on sort

1:02:33

of who's

1:02:36

related to him?

1:02:39

And does

1:02:43

that affect the government's sense of responsiveness

1:02:48

to the people given that you're

1:02:50

sort of saying we are

1:02:52

the elite and we can't

1:02:55

be changed in theory because we are

1:02:57

related to the emperor and it's a

1:02:59

status that can't

1:03:01

be removed in the way an unpopular official can be

1:03:03

simply moved aside. That's

1:03:06

the question that's coming up. Not

1:03:08

necessarily that's the argument but yeah.

1:03:12

No, I don't think it changes because the concept

1:03:15

of the Byzantine Republic is not about the

1:03:17

shape of the government. It's

1:03:19

not about the

1:03:21

shape of court titles or

1:03:24

even necessarily who gets them. It's

1:03:26

about how the government

1:03:29

or the people holding

1:03:31

those positions understand their function

1:03:35

and to what degree they are

1:03:41

in a dialectical relationship with the majority

1:03:43

of the population in terms of the

1:03:45

role of the government

1:03:47

is to protect and promote

1:03:49

the interests of the Romans

1:03:51

and nothing

1:03:54

about that changes under Alexis. In fact

1:03:57

Alexis himself makes some of the most

1:04:00

strong declarations of

1:04:02

that principle Now

1:04:04

you can argue that he does so because

1:04:07

he's being criticized and

1:04:09

he was being criticized a lot about the

1:04:11

this To

1:04:15

which I can say yes, I mean these are

1:04:17

crisis years under Alexios

1:04:20

and so he had to do certain things that

1:04:23

were ultimately successful,

1:04:25

but unpopular in the moment

1:04:27

and this

1:04:29

is the the

1:04:31

dynamic that plays out under the Komneni With

1:04:35

regard to their popularity not not Yani's

1:04:38

coming knows not John the second that

1:04:41

guy was mostly just doing

1:04:44

campaigns and was fairly successful

1:04:46

and And

1:04:49

was personally, you know kind of

1:04:51

attractive or you know from neutral to

1:04:53

attractive those kinds of emperors are

1:04:55

safe They don't have much to fear from

1:04:58

the the body politic as

1:05:00

it were You know

1:05:02

if you're keeping the borders safe if

1:05:04

you're not raising taxation too much if

1:05:07

you're not involved in scandals or you

1:05:09

know Ecclesiastical controversies or

1:05:11

whatever as he wasn't in any

1:05:13

of those things You're

1:05:16

relatively Safe and

1:05:18

one indication of that is that we don't have very

1:05:21

many sources from his reign there

1:05:24

Anyway, in other words,

1:05:26

it didn't spark controversies and it's controversies that

1:05:28

produce the text Alexis's reign

1:05:31

produced a lot of controversy and a lot

1:05:33

of text because he had to do things

1:05:35

that were very unpopular I mean confiscating church

1:05:37

played or like all of that which

1:05:39

then forced him to Take

1:05:42

all of these measures like you

1:05:44

know Poses the champion

1:05:46

of Orthodoxy by cracking down on

1:05:49

some work philosopher somewhere as I'm

1:05:51

poor heretic over there Right. These

1:05:53

are like public relations gestures that

1:05:55

he's constantly having to do those

1:05:58

gestures are sure sign

1:06:00

that an emperor is trying to

1:06:02

cultivate public support. And

1:06:04

he's doing it a lot. All of the hair-shirt

1:06:07

wearing and the constant

1:06:09

apologies he's apologizing profusely

1:06:11

for everything that he's

1:06:13

done, that's

1:06:16

not some kind

1:06:18

of aloof, hereditary

1:06:22

family government that doesn't care

1:06:24

what people think. Normally

1:06:27

like Western monarchs who are hereditary don't

1:06:29

have to do those kinds of things.

1:06:33

They just say, hey, what are you talking about? I'm the son

1:06:36

of the previous guy, go away. And

1:06:39

also by the way, Alexis's inner circle

1:06:41

was not all family based. This is

1:06:44

a bit of a misconception, but for

1:06:46

most of his reign, it wasn't. It

1:06:48

was an odd assortment

1:06:50

of other

1:06:52

families. There's a

1:06:54

coalition of families that he had to put together

1:06:57

which was very tense. Sometimes

1:07:00

he couldn't know he's trust these people. There

1:07:02

are a bunch of foreigners. There's this Georgian

1:07:05

guy, Pakurian Nos, there's

1:07:08

a Frank guy who's

1:07:10

literally called the son of Humbert. And

1:07:13

so it's this odd thing. He

1:07:16

reigned for so long that eventually

1:07:18

the second generation of Khumneni managed

1:07:21

to mature during his reign, and

1:07:23

he was young enough when he

1:07:25

took power that he was

1:07:27

then able to put them in positions. And

1:07:31

that continues. But

1:07:35

you can always tell that there's

1:07:37

this kind of probationary sense that

1:07:39

they're being evaluated. Manuel

1:07:41

II, we talked about, he plays the

1:07:43

game so well

1:07:46

that he was given some

1:07:49

leeway. Not too much,

1:07:51

but he was given leeway

1:07:53

in two areas that are

1:07:55

significant. One is the the

1:08:00

expedition to Italy, which

1:08:03

is a, like, he had vanity wars. Let me just

1:08:05

put it like that. He had these vanity wars in

1:08:07

Italy and Hungary and all of these things that cost

1:08:10

money, very little return, if

1:08:12

any. And

1:08:14

nevertheless, they were sort of tolerated,

1:08:16

though you can tell occasionally,

1:08:18

they're telling him, okay, all right, wrap it up. And

1:08:22

also his sort of theological hobbies.

1:08:27

Those were also kind of like, he

1:08:29

was given some leewith. And

1:08:31

the reason for that is because of what

1:08:33

I think is his popularity, something that he

1:08:36

also cultivated a great deal, is very, very

1:08:38

successful at it. So

1:08:40

we don't see in his case, the

1:08:42

government overreaching in some way that would

1:08:44

indicate that it had kind of detached

1:08:46

itself from that, you know,

1:08:48

very close inspection that quote, the body

1:08:51

politic or the Republic is

1:08:53

always visiting on emperors. And

1:08:56

then, you know,

1:08:58

once he's removed from the picture, and

1:09:00

the whole communion system comes under stress,

1:09:03

like, literally, as soon as he dies,

1:09:05

you immediately see the people coming out into

1:09:08

the streets and occupying, like, it's all there.

1:09:10

It's just there was no reason for them

1:09:12

to do anything. So the

1:09:14

structure of court titles and who gets them and

1:09:16

this shift

1:09:19

to, which is true,

1:09:21

by the way, so anyone who wants to

1:09:23

raise this is correct, that

1:09:26

the inner circle around the emperor and a

1:09:28

lot of the top positions were going, were

1:09:30

going more to relatives and had been the

1:09:33

case in the past is

1:09:35

definitely true. And it's something that troubled

1:09:38

a lot of people. At the time, you

1:09:40

see this in Zonaras and

1:09:42

Honyates and others and

1:09:44

Yannes Oksipis, a patriarch of Antioch who

1:09:47

complained to Alexis about this. In

1:09:49

other words, the pushback

1:09:51

against that was there. And

1:09:55

as soon as the regime revealed

1:09:58

itself as very, very weak. or

1:10:01

susceptible to the likes of Andronicus

1:10:03

I, you

1:10:06

know, they all just burst out again. In other

1:10:08

words, they didn't reinvent kind of Republican politics in

1:10:10

1183. It was all there. It is just that

1:10:16

the context has to be right. And

1:10:20

I would remind our audience that when

1:10:23

the Latins are about to

1:10:25

take the city for the second time

1:10:27

in 1204, Konyantis, who was

1:10:29

no populist, admits that

1:10:32

it was the people of Constantinople

1:10:34

led by Alexios V who

1:10:36

were taking up the fight against the foreigner

1:10:39

after they'd sort of been abandoned essentially by

1:10:41

the leadership of their elites. So

1:10:43

it was all there.

1:10:45

I don't think anything meaningfully

1:10:47

changed. So

1:10:50

is it more of a cultural change that

1:10:54

after a century of good

1:10:56

emperors all named Konyinos

1:10:59

all marrying sort

1:11:03

of whatever you would

1:11:05

say 2030 or aristocratic families that

1:11:07

that just has created a new currency in

1:11:09

the culture that if you are blood

1:11:12

related to someone in that the

1:11:14

ruling clan that is the leg up in

1:11:16

power now, that doesn't change the fundamentals of

1:11:19

how people see their

1:11:21

state. It just is a new part of

1:11:23

the culture that didn't exist in Justinian's day

1:11:25

when people

1:11:27

could rise from nowhere. And it didn't matter who

1:11:30

you're related to, if you were picked by the

1:11:32

emperor to serve in

1:11:34

a particular role. Oh, people

1:11:36

could still rise from nowhere under the Kony

1:11:38

that I don't think that goes away. There's

1:11:41

probably less scope for

1:11:43

it at the top echelons. I would say

1:11:45

that it's not something that goes away. We

1:11:47

know of people. In fact, I

1:11:50

think it was Timothy Miller who found

1:11:52

that one of the top officials, the

1:11:54

finance officials of manual that was

1:11:56

raising an orphanage. And Yeah,

1:12:01

there are people like that. They always are.

1:12:04

But at the same time, yeah, you

1:12:07

can see these

1:12:10

top families monopolizing

1:12:12

a lot of

1:12:16

the positions. Yeah. In other words, yes, there

1:12:18

is a kind of shift in the culture.

1:12:20

You do start to have the emergence of

1:12:22

a kind of aristocratic, a more aristocratic culture.

1:12:26

Some of this has been exaggerated. So, for example,

1:12:29

there's a reference, I

1:12:31

think it's in Balsamon, a canon,

1:12:34

well, a patriarch,

1:12:36

but mostly a legal

1:12:39

scholar in the church, to

1:12:42

someone who is punished for marrying

1:12:44

into some segment of

1:12:47

the aristocracy without imperial permission. And

1:12:50

I think this has been exaggerated to

1:12:53

mean that there

1:12:55

were marriage restrictions,

1:13:00

like the elite is cutting

1:13:02

itself off from everyone

1:13:04

else, even by marriage. But I

1:13:06

don't think that that's what that means. All

1:13:09

marriages that had political or

1:13:11

international diplomatic significance

1:13:14

of possible impact, they

1:13:17

all had to be approved by the court. And

1:13:22

that wasn't anything new. That was in the

1:13:24

past. And so I think

1:13:26

that's what that means. I don't think

1:13:29

it means some kind of restriction of

1:13:32

marrying into the elite. And

1:13:36

does provincial separatism, as it's

1:13:39

usually called, fit into this

1:13:41

picture at all? Or

1:13:44

is that an entirely contingent development around

1:13:47

the sort of 1195-ish bit before onwards, where

1:13:55

rebels stop marching on the capital and they

1:13:57

just start staying in their own province and

1:14:00

saying, you know, something's

1:14:02

broken here with our connection to the court, so we'll

1:14:04

just stop interacting with the court.

1:14:07

So I've now come to believe that this

1:14:09

didn't really exist. And

1:14:13

you know, we can discuss it case by case, but I

1:14:16

mean, there are clear cases, like, for example,

1:14:18

Bulgaria. But

1:14:20

that's not what we mean. I mean, this is

1:14:22

an occupied foreign state

1:14:24

and people who had tried already twice

1:14:26

before to regain independence and did so

1:14:29

this time. You

1:14:31

can count that as provincial separatism, but it's

1:14:34

a very distinct kind of thing. And that's

1:14:36

not what people mean. They mean things like

1:14:38

Cyprus in like 1185 or something like that.

1:14:42

But Alicia Simpson has recently

1:14:45

argued, I think correctly, that

1:14:47

Cyprus is not a breakaway province.

1:14:50

It was a failed rebellion that stalled.

1:14:52

In other words, what

1:14:54

happens when you have a situation when

1:14:56

you have a

1:14:59

rebel who wants to take the throne,

1:15:01

just like every other rebel from within

1:15:03

the family, kind of leveraging his communion,

1:15:06

whatever, who

1:15:08

fails to take the capital, but at

1:15:10

the same time, the capital who

1:15:13

takes measures to suppress him fails to do

1:15:15

that. It just kind of results in

1:15:17

a stalemate of them looking at each other. And

1:15:20

they're both Vasileps and Romain and mint

1:15:23

and coins. That's what that was. So

1:15:26

in the past, those kinds of things resolved

1:15:28

themselves by time, in this case,

1:15:31

resolved by Richard Lionhearts, which

1:15:34

is an unusual kind of thing

1:15:36

to show up in East Roman history. But

1:15:39

there you have it. I've

1:15:42

also looked into the case of Léonze

1:15:44

Gouros more closely. So this is this

1:15:47

local column, whatever you want,

1:15:50

wannabe warlord in southern Greece who

1:15:53

takes over the Peloponnese and part of central

1:15:55

Greece and is marching north when he's pushed

1:15:57

back by the march of Greece. key

1:16:00

of, well, by that point, King

1:16:02

of Thessalonica or whatever, you know, there's

1:16:04

no evidence that

1:16:10

he began that movement before

1:16:12

the Crusaders arrived and

1:16:15

every indication that he was

1:16:17

doing it as a loyalist

1:16:19

of Alexios III, whose

1:16:21

daughter he marries during the whole business and

1:16:24

he was, in other words,

1:16:26

Alexios III, after he fled Constantinople in

1:16:28

1203, is going around sort

1:16:32

of maintaining his

1:16:34

network of loyalists as the

1:16:36

legitimate emperor and Zuaros is just one

1:16:38

of those. So there's no provincial

1:16:41

split or anything like that. You

1:16:44

can possibly make the case for

1:16:46

this interesting character

1:16:49

named Manga Phas in Philadelphia

1:16:51

in Asia Minor. And

1:16:55

it's a tantalizing case. He

1:16:57

keeps going back and forth between the Romans

1:16:59

and the Turks, the Seldruks, right, in Asia

1:17:01

Minor. And it's not clear,

1:17:03

you know, what the

1:17:06

attitude of the most of the people

1:17:08

in Philadelphia are. They seem

1:17:10

to be willing to be reabsorbed when

1:17:13

that possibility exists. So

1:17:17

with that sole reservation,

1:17:20

that case of Philadelphia, which is

1:17:22

right on the border between Roman

1:17:24

and Turkish controlled parts of Asia

1:17:26

Minor, I would

1:17:28

say that the provincial separatism has

1:17:31

been exaggerated too much. It's

1:17:36

a really interesting thing because we don't really, most

1:17:38

of these things are just mentioned by Kaniartis. We don't

1:17:40

know specifics.

1:17:43

There seemed to me to be, I don't know,

1:17:45

three or four other figures who rebel either

1:17:48

in brief or

1:17:50

thrace or in Anatolia. And

1:17:55

it makes me think, had this central

1:17:57

court and army just become so weak?

1:18:00

rebels were saying well I'm a rebel

1:18:02

and just hoping events would

1:18:04

sort of go their way an army will be

1:18:06

sent to put them down and they'll turn the

1:18:08

army into their army you know

1:18:10

what I mean that I

1:18:12

think there's a there's a weak case there that they're trying to

1:18:15

separate like a province right in the

1:18:17

middle of Roman territory but

1:18:19

are they just thinking the court seems really

1:18:22

weak these armies are not even reaching me

1:18:24

so let's see what I can

1:18:26

get from this so you're

1:18:28

thinking of the warlords appointed

1:18:30

by Alexis the third in

1:18:32

the ball in the various

1:18:34

he's given various Balkan forts like all these

1:18:37

Evans and people like

1:18:39

that yeah there was a couple of roman then

1:18:41

there's you know the guy who founds the state

1:18:43

of Epirus Michael

1:18:46

but this is all okay hold on even

1:18:48

when he's in Anatolia Hebrew

1:18:50

bells and go yeah the Turks you

1:18:52

know just little you know you wonder what are they

1:18:54

up to because they're clearly not going to take Constantinople

1:18:57

with their tiny theme army yes

1:18:59

so these are people who and

1:19:02

we unfortunately we don't have

1:19:04

much information about what they thought

1:19:06

they were doing right

1:19:08

but they seem

1:19:12

to be moving between across the

1:19:14

border going to getting some aid

1:19:16

from the Sultan

1:19:18

there whatever going on raids it's

1:19:21

unclear what their goals are

1:19:24

but these are

1:19:26

individuals there's

1:19:29

no way to project what they're

1:19:31

doing you know whatever you imagine

1:19:33

that their goals are onto provincial

1:19:35

populations and say there's

1:19:37

provincial separatism here the normal

1:19:41

response to that kind of situation on the

1:19:44

part of the provincial population is like don't

1:19:48

get in trouble you

1:19:50

don't have to fight back like there's no

1:19:52

sense that you know every

1:19:54

little city or town or whatever has to like fight

1:19:56

to the death in the name of the Emperor no

1:19:58

no the Emperor doesn't even want that. The Emperor

1:20:01

wants you to stay safe. Like

1:20:03

do what you have to, you get by and then

1:20:06

ideally the Imperial armies will come back

1:20:08

and restore things as they did in

1:20:11

that case. Alexis III shows up and

1:20:13

he drives Michael Dukas away

1:20:16

and then everything is restored. So the problem

1:20:18

comes down to what's up with these

1:20:20

Kamen-O-Dukai people. Like what are they doing?

1:20:23

But that's a separate problem. That is

1:20:26

a problem of the disintegration of the

1:20:28

Kamenian system. It's expectations

1:20:30

that it had built up and

1:20:32

it's inability to deliver on those

1:20:34

expectations in the context of

1:20:36

the late 12th century kind of collapse.

1:20:40

But it doesn't have anything to do

1:20:42

with provincial separatism. I'm not aware of

1:20:44

populations that just voted with their feet

1:20:46

and like we're out of here.

1:20:50

Some guy shows up with some Turks. You keep

1:20:53

your head down and wait for the Roman army

1:20:55

to show up. Yes, absolutely. That always makes me think,

1:20:59

what a different world where someone comes

1:21:01

back and starts attacking you in the

1:21:04

expectation that you'll go, okay, you're our Emperor

1:21:06

now. Like stop stealing all my stuff. That's

1:21:10

what seemed to be going on anyway in

1:21:12

Anatolia. Let's go to

1:21:14

the final question then. Sadly,

1:21:16

which is the Fourth Crusade, I

1:21:22

followed Michael Angold's logic

1:21:25

on this, which is that

1:21:27

all the history, all reputable history, spend

1:21:30

ages talking about the great lengths

1:21:33

that Enrico Dandolo goes to to

1:21:35

plan this Egyptian campaign, to get everyone in

1:21:38

Venice to agree to it. So

1:21:40

the idea that then he's on

1:21:42

the way to Egypt and goes, oh

1:21:44

yeah, let's divert to Constantinople. I'll just

1:21:47

make that decision on the

1:21:49

hoof. It seems

1:21:51

completely implausible to me. It seems

1:21:53

like Boniface comes

1:21:55

to him with this idea when they're still in Venice and

1:21:58

it's on the table and he must have. known

1:22:01

this is a likely

1:22:03

option. Otherwise, you know, how

1:22:06

can he operate one way and then switch

1:22:08

everything? So I was

1:22:10

suitably harsh on the Latin for their hypocrisy

1:22:14

and their behavior.

1:22:16

But then I read your history and I thought,

1:22:18

oh, I wasn't harsh enough. I

1:22:20

felt you took them to

1:22:22

task with even greater ferocity. I don't

1:22:28

have a specific question to set you up. But do

1:22:30

you want to just talk

1:22:32

about the Fourth

1:22:34

Crusade and how it was conceived to

1:22:37

go to Constantinople? Well, first,

1:22:39

I'll address the topics,

1:22:41

the question that you just raised, because I

1:22:43

think this is important. The,

1:22:46

let's say, conspiracy view of the Fourth

1:22:48

Crusade, by the way, is absolutely a

1:22:51

conspiracy. 100%, even our own sources, the

1:22:53

Western sources, describe it as such. By

1:22:56

which I mean, a collusion among part

1:22:58

of the leadership of the Fourth Crusade

1:23:01

to lead it there without explaining it

1:23:03

to their own soldiers or to the

1:23:05

Pope, what they

1:23:07

were going to do, but to kind of

1:23:09

manipulate the army in that direction. That's

1:23:12

their own narrative about it. You don't

1:23:14

have to, this

1:23:18

isn't, you have to theorize to

1:23:20

make it a conspiracy theory. It is a

1:23:22

conspiracy in black and white. What

1:23:24

makes it also a crime is that

1:23:27

some of these people, especially the Venetians,

1:23:29

had just sworn an oath to

1:23:32

defend the interests of Ramania and

1:23:34

Alexis III in making

1:23:36

a treaty with him, which

1:23:38

was a very generous treaty for

1:23:41

them. So

1:23:43

all of this business about the

1:23:46

honor of the Crusaders and all

1:23:48

the hard decisions that they had

1:23:50

to make and ringing in modern

1:23:52

scholarship about the tough choices that

1:23:54

these noble Crusaders were facing is

1:23:56

all bullshit from beginning to end.

1:24:00

However, one

1:24:02

of the problems with the conspiracy view

1:24:05

of the crusade is to blame it

1:24:07

on the Venetians. I

1:24:09

think that's wrong. I don't think the

1:24:11

Venetians were behind, and there's no evidence that

1:24:14

the Venetians were behind the

1:24:16

diversion. They

1:24:18

were moved into that because I think they had no

1:24:21

choice. To

1:24:24

answer your question specifically, why

1:24:27

would they prepare an

1:24:29

invasion fleet for Egypt?

1:24:33

There's some evidence, by the way, just in

1:24:35

terms of nautical technology, that

1:24:37

the fleet that they built for

1:24:39

the crusade was specifically for an

1:24:41

Egyptian campaign, not a consent napolitan

1:24:44

one. I agree

1:24:46

that that makes sense. Why

1:24:50

would they change? Well,

1:24:52

because the situation

1:24:54

changed dramatically between

1:24:56

the contract, and

1:24:58

so the Venetians getting to work on the fleet, and

1:25:01

the situation that they were facing when

1:25:03

they had to set out, which

1:25:06

was there were two key factors here.

1:25:11

One, they didn't have enough soldiers

1:25:15

to make an Egyptian expedition

1:25:17

plausible. In other words,

1:25:21

the organization had been botched because

1:25:24

they made this contract that

1:25:27

the Venetians invested a lot of money

1:25:29

in building this fleet, but

1:25:32

they didn't make

1:25:34

the effort to ensure that all the

1:25:37

potential crusaders in Western Europe would

1:25:40

go through Venice. A lot

1:25:42

of them just went off on the crusade. They said,

1:25:44

okay, we'll just head off on our own and get

1:25:46

passage on a ship or whatever, and

1:25:48

we'll meet with the army when it shows up there.

1:25:51

But that means that they're not then there to pay

1:25:53

their fee or toll or

1:25:55

whatever to the main army. So,

1:25:58

A, they don't have... They

1:26:00

don't muster a large enough army

1:26:02

in Venice to make Egypt possible

1:26:04

and also in exactly

1:26:07

that year Egypt

1:26:09

was taken over by Saladin's brother a character

1:26:12

we called Safadin Who

1:26:15

was a real badass and

1:26:18

known to be that so suddenly

1:26:20

Egypt which for? you

1:26:22

know the around in 1200 looked like a Target

1:26:26

that you know was right for the plucking

1:26:29

Suddenly became much much more

1:26:31

formidable a prospect

1:26:33

So those are the two

1:26:35

reasons why the Venetians were willing to

1:26:37

reconsider The

1:26:40

target But the

1:26:42

conspiracy was actually hatched among a

1:26:45

different set among the leadership

1:26:49

Um, especially the marquee we mentioned

1:26:51

Boniface and one of our main

1:26:54

historians Joffrey of the Arduan the

1:26:56

the marshal of champagne and and

1:26:58

others who By

1:27:02

their own admission were angling

1:27:05

for Constantinople before

1:27:09

It was known before these

1:27:11

problems were known they

1:27:13

were pushing for it and And

1:27:16

even trying to like maneuver the Pope

1:27:19

into it who said no And

1:27:21

then when the original plan

1:27:25

Fell apart. They were

1:27:27

already there pushing for Constantinople So

1:27:30

it was a hundred percent of conspiracy And

1:27:33

in the way it was carried out a crime. Well,

1:27:35

can I jump in there? Sorry? So because

1:27:39

I Boniface, you know

1:27:41

without having to go through the whole history

1:27:44

He had family connections to Constantinople. He's ambitious

1:27:46

and so on so I can see his

1:27:48

motivation and I think the Venetians They're

1:27:52

the ones providing the intelligence right

1:27:54

on the situation in Constantinople saying

1:27:57

We could take the city Where

1:28:00

are the French in this? What's

1:28:02

their motivation and what

1:28:04

do they know about Constantinople?

1:28:06

The Venetians are not the only

1:28:08

source. The

1:28:11

problems that Constantinople was facing were well,

1:28:13

well known. In fact, we have a

1:28:16

report from before the crusade that

1:28:20

one of the key admirals,

1:28:23

probably one of the most important guys in

1:28:25

naval warfare, the turn

1:28:28

of the century there, this guy called

1:28:30

Margariton, he actually

1:28:33

was the guy who had

1:28:35

basically confiscated the imperial

1:28:37

fleet on Cyprus in

1:28:40

a failed attempt by the Constantinople

1:28:42

to retake it from the person we

1:28:45

mentioned, Isaacios Cominoss, the rebel whom they

1:28:47

never managed to spread. And

1:28:49

he told the king of France that by

1:28:51

the way, Constantinople is like you can really

1:28:53

easily take it if you have a fleet,

1:28:56

like it's not a difficult target

1:28:59

anymore. So this

1:29:01

is pretty well known that Constantinople was

1:29:03

weak. It

1:29:05

didn't need to be based on Venetian

1:29:07

information. Yeah,

1:29:11

so the French were very well aware of this.

1:29:13

And in fact, they

1:29:17

seem to... Anyway, let's

1:29:20

back up. In the

1:29:22

second half of the 12th century, there's

1:29:24

increasing proliferation of voices in the West

1:29:27

in literature, in letters, in chronicles, whatever,

1:29:29

that, hey, at some point we need

1:29:31

to take Constantinople. There's

1:29:34

a prophecies about this, right?

1:29:36

And a number of Western monarchs,

1:29:39

kings of France, sometimes even the

1:29:41

German emperors are beginning to

1:29:43

toy with the idea of taking Constantinople

1:29:45

and absorbing its titles into their own

1:29:48

and acquiring

1:29:50

the whole Roman imperial prestige that

1:29:53

they thought that would bring because

1:29:55

it still had that kind of

1:29:57

cachet. So this

1:29:59

was an idea. that was going around. It

1:30:02

doesn't have to be focalized on specific

1:30:04

people though, as you said,

1:30:06

the ones that we happen to know are

1:30:09

connected to Constantinople. They do have family

1:30:11

contacts there, so they also

1:30:13

know what's going on. Alexis

1:30:15

III is embattled, you know,

1:30:17

he himself is a usurper from his

1:30:21

brother who was himself a usurper. They

1:30:24

happened also to have a willing,

1:30:27

pliable puppet in

1:30:29

the form of Alexis IV, who

1:30:31

was there, right? So we

1:30:35

have to completely rewrite this narrative

1:30:37

of Alexis somehow instigating this for

1:30:39

his own purpose. He was completely

1:30:42

powerless. As far as we

1:30:44

know, he didn't even have any titles from

1:30:47

Constantinople. So he

1:30:49

was the puppet, he was

1:30:51

the one being used by

1:30:54

the crusade. It's completely implausible

1:30:56

to believe this narrative that

1:30:59

Vilar Duane pushes, but also a number

1:31:02

of modern scholars, like they really

1:31:05

shouldn't be taken in by this. Thinking,

1:31:07

like you read these accounts and they go

1:31:09

something like follows, ah, these

1:31:11

crusaders, you know, they really want

1:31:13

to go to the holy land, but their

1:31:16

honor compels them to defend

1:31:18

the rights, quote, rights of

1:31:21

Alexis IV. So they're going to go on

1:31:23

this detour to put him back on his

1:31:25

throne. By the way, he'd never been on

1:31:27

the throne. He had no

1:31:29

royal imperial titles at all, like never had.

1:31:33

And even the Pope called them out

1:31:35

on this. You have no

1:31:37

right to decide who is and who is not the

1:31:39

emperor in Constantinople. He told them that you will not

1:31:41

go there, you will go to the holy land or

1:31:43

Egypt or close enough. So

1:31:46

no, Alexis is not a, he's a non-entity here

1:31:48

and he proved himself to be a non-entity once

1:31:50

they put him on the throne. Do

1:31:53

you think the French leaders talk

1:31:56

themselves into this being? a

1:32:00

religious matter or do you think they were just

1:32:02

completely cynical? I mean

1:32:05

obviously the two are not completely

1:32:08

separate. Oh no, no, I don't think those two are separate

1:32:10

at all. That

1:32:13

they were cynical when they, in

1:32:17

the way that they informed the

1:32:20

file and rank. Yes. The

1:32:22

rank and file about their

1:32:25

decision, yes, because they definitely

1:32:27

knew that a

1:32:31

lot of Western soldiers were prejudiced

1:32:33

against the Greeks and

1:32:35

they made that into the central

1:32:38

argument for, you know, we have

1:32:40

to punish the Greeks, quote,

1:32:42

restore them to obedience to Rome. These

1:32:44

are heretics and schismatics and they've undermined

1:32:46

crusading since the beginning and will never

1:32:49

succeed in the Holy Land and us,

1:32:51

we first take care of those Greeks

1:32:53

and so on and so forth. By

1:32:56

the way, it's interesting that to their credit, many

1:32:58

of the soldiers didn't buy it,

1:33:01

didn't left or

1:33:03

grumbled or whatever. They were, but for

1:33:06

the majority, you're like, you're so far

1:33:08

in at this point that you've gone

1:33:10

way beyond the

1:33:15

point where you can pull out and

1:33:17

you're thinking, well, if they're saying it

1:33:19

and, you know, Constantinople has riches and

1:33:21

so maybe I'll recoup what I've

1:33:24

invested so far and come home, which

1:33:26

a lot of them did afterwards. So

1:33:29

they were very cynical about how

1:33:31

they manipulated their own army. In

1:33:34

a sense, that army is

1:33:36

as much the victim of the conspiracy

1:33:38

among the leadership, you know, as anyone.

1:33:42

Yeah. So pure, pure

1:33:44

speculation then. They

1:33:47

restore Alexios Angelus. He

1:33:49

says, oh, you know, I've looked down the back of

1:33:51

the sofa, turns out I do have all the money

1:33:54

and I haven't bankrupted the state. Here's the money.

1:33:56

Do you think

1:33:58

they go? Well,

1:34:01

you have to bring 10,000 men to Egypt now. Oh,

1:34:06

you can't do that right. Well, we're going to take the city

1:34:08

for like, do you think they would have just found an excuse

1:34:10

to take the city regardless of how

1:34:12

much he fulfilled what he

1:34:14

promised? It's hard to know,

1:34:17

but I tend to suspect

1:34:19

that yes, that their

1:34:21

goal was to take over the city. But

1:34:25

again, it's hard to know. So I'm not going

1:34:27

to assert that categorically. I don't have proof that

1:34:29

that was their intention. But

1:34:35

their strategy doesn't

1:34:38

make sense if you

1:34:40

think that they're really planning on leaving. In

1:34:42

other words, they keep extending

1:34:45

this quote contract that they have

1:34:47

with him to be his like,

1:34:49

you know, protection force or whatever. And

1:34:54

they are the last in

1:34:56

a long line of Western

1:34:58

warlords that had dreamed

1:35:00

of this, that had even tried to do

1:35:02

it. And quite a few Normans had tried

1:35:05

to do this. And

1:35:07

you're thinking, okay, like, so what

1:35:09

were the Normans? What, you know,

1:35:11

what was Robert Giscard or Beaumond

1:35:14

or any of these other

1:35:16

people? What were they planning

1:35:18

on doing when they were marching on

1:35:20

Constantinople with their puppet emperors? They all

1:35:22

had their puppet emperors, right? So

1:35:25

you know, they knew

1:35:27

that they needed to have a puppet Roman

1:35:30

ruler because the Romans would never accept anything

1:35:33

else. Because at this time,

1:35:35

they're not planning on just like liquidating the whole state

1:35:37

and putting their own in its place, which they did

1:35:39

later. So you have

1:35:41

a puppet emperor and you're his army

1:35:43

and you would then force him

1:35:46

to distribute his lands to you as feeps.

1:35:48

I think that's the that's the goal. So

1:35:50

you keep a puppet

1:35:52

in Constantinople, but all he has is

1:35:54

a city and the rest

1:35:57

of the empire you divide up into

1:35:59

fiefdoms. which is what a lot of them wanted. So

1:36:02

I think that's the

1:36:04

likeliest scenario, assuming that he

1:36:06

could pay them. It's

1:36:08

very mafia-like. It's very

1:36:11

like we've got a gambler here, we'll just rack

1:36:13

up his debts to the point where he'll

1:36:16

forfeit and we just take over his business and

1:36:18

then take all the assets out

1:36:20

of the business and then it'll clear our bankruptcy

1:36:22

and we've enriched ourselves

1:36:25

and we move on. They had operated that

1:36:27

way many times. This isn't the first time

1:36:29

they're doing it. This is how you describe

1:36:31

the Normans when they first appear in Italy.

1:36:33

Yeah. Oh yeah. But

1:36:35

kind of using legalistic pretexts to

1:36:38

seize things and then extort

1:36:40

the population and so on and so on and until

1:36:43

you are the lords of this place that you came

1:36:46

in as mercenaries. That's exactly how

1:36:48

it works. And any of our listeners

1:36:51

who have gotten into a contract

1:36:53

that it turned out long-term wasn't

1:36:55

as advantageous as they thought, knows

1:36:57

exactly how this works. And

1:37:00

when it comes to the enforcement of contracts,

1:37:03

there's usually a stick somewhere.

1:37:07

You can't just say, oh, I'm just gonna pull out of this

1:37:10

now. So do you think, last

1:37:13

question, that some modern scholars, whether

1:37:16

they mean to or not, are taken in by

1:37:18

the Christian

1:37:21

rhetoric of it that ultimately a

1:37:23

crusade is a Christian mission for

1:37:25

a good purpose, therefore this

1:37:28

can't be just a cynical enterprise

1:37:31

by our standards? Well,

1:37:35

I mean, there's Christian rhetoric on both sides, but you

1:37:38

mean specifically Western medieval Christian?

1:37:41

Because the crusade is a spiritual idea that

1:37:43

the way they write about it, they

1:37:47

can't fully divorce the idea that it's because it

1:37:49

has a noble purpose on some level. I

1:37:53

can't write about it in purely

1:37:55

cynical terms, even just the leadership, I

1:37:57

don't know. certainly

1:38:00

seem to be able to do it about many

1:38:02

other wars and including wars in our own time.

1:38:05

I mean, who believes that George

1:38:08

Bush waged a feminist war in

1:38:10

Afghanistan? But I remember that that's

1:38:12

how it was pitched to me. Well,

1:38:17

this gets us into the modern

1:38:20

interpretations of the Crusades. And for

1:38:23

a long time, down to

1:38:25

the 1980s, the cynical view was

1:38:27

the dominant view. If you

1:38:30

read like Ronsimin on the Crusades,

1:38:32

which is an excellent and very,

1:38:35

very well written account, Ronsimin

1:38:37

is by

1:38:39

no means an

1:38:41

ideology of any kind. And

1:38:44

he has considerable admiration for a lot of

1:38:46

the personal qualities of many of the Crusaders.

1:38:48

And he spins a romantic tale

1:38:50

and it's a great deal of fun. But deep

1:38:53

down, he was very, very cynical about what they

1:38:55

were doing. And that changed toward

1:38:58

the end of the 20th century with a

1:39:01

school of interpretation that was very pro-Crucade, in

1:39:04

fact, apologetically pro-Crucade and developed

1:39:06

all kinds of other models,

1:39:08

which pushed

1:39:11

the idea that the Crusades are this spiritual,

1:39:14

religious, devotional decision

1:39:18

that individuals made. It had nothing to do with

1:39:21

profit or gain or anything like that. Anyway,

1:39:23

and now we're seeing the pushback against that school,

1:39:25

which was dominant for a

1:39:30

generation or more, that it

1:39:33

added considerable insight and nuance

1:39:35

into the whole movement and how

1:39:40

many people perceived

1:39:42

it at the time and chose to engage

1:39:44

in it. But it's certainly not the

1:39:47

only story. And

1:39:49

the more cynical players were always

1:39:52

there, and especially in the Fourth Crusade. That

1:39:54

one is one of the hardest ones to justify. And that's

1:39:56

the one that I think to

1:40:00

treat that way. Nevertheless, there

1:40:03

has been, I mean, most of the

1:40:05

recent scholarship on the Fourth Crusade is

1:40:07

deeply apologetic in this way. It always

1:40:10

sees things through the eyes of the

1:40:12

Crusaders, is always trying to justify

1:40:15

their decisions and see them in the

1:40:17

best possible light. And,

1:40:21

you know, you have a liberal

1:40:23

use of the passive tense. It's kind of

1:40:26

like, well, mistakes were made.

1:40:29

It's like you're reading a Pentagon

1:40:31

briefing about some botched campaign in,

1:40:33

you know, Indochina or, you know,

1:40:35

the Middle East. You

1:40:38

know, it's exactly like

1:40:41

that. In fact, the way Vietnam was

1:40:43

talked about in the US by establishment

1:40:45

types is like, well, our noble intentions

1:40:47

went wrong, or mistakes were made, or,

1:40:50

you know, we didn't quite appreciate the

1:40:52

response of the local population, which they

1:40:54

also said about the Iraq War. Like,

1:40:57

it's always the same kind of thing.

1:40:59

So when scholars

1:41:01

of the medieval Crusades are

1:41:03

sounding exactly like Pentagon spokesmen,

1:41:07

you gotta start thinking, wait a minute.

1:41:11

Brilliant. Well, I very much encourage people

1:41:14

to read the book. And for people who are

1:41:16

interested to learn more, to follow the footnotes, to

1:41:19

learn about all these

1:41:21

periods. But if

1:41:23

you have your own question for

1:41:26

Professor Calder, his incredible generosity with his

1:41:28

time means we'll do one

1:41:30

more episode where we will put your

1:41:32

questions to him. Thanks. AMA,

1:41:35

ask me anything. Yeah.

1:41:39

Yeah, my only advice would be if you think the answer

1:41:41

could last an hour and a half, we may not

1:41:43

ask it because we'd like to get to as many as

1:41:45

possible. But ask anything you like and

1:41:47

we'll go through them and see what we can do. Email

1:41:50

me, [email protected].

1:41:52

And we

1:41:55

will see you in, we'll give you a few weeks

1:41:57

to get them in and then we'll

1:41:59

go through them. So yeah,

1:42:02

Professor Cole does. Thank you so much.

1:42:04

You can call me Anthony. I'm very

1:42:06

sycophantic when I'm on air. But anyway,

1:42:08

I see. Well,

1:42:10

I was wondering depending on which of

1:42:12

our media lasts longer, the

1:42:15

podcast or the print. In

1:42:18

the long in the distant future, I might be known

1:42:20

as that guy who appeared on Robin Potts. That's right.

1:42:30

And what a dream that would be.

1:42:32

Anyway, I'm hedging my bets here. You

1:42:35

see, right till next

1:42:37

time. All right. Take care. Get

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