Byzantine
Old Depiction of a Dromon (Dromond)
After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire the struggle on the Mediterranean Sea was held between Byzantine and the Arab world. The dromon became the main type of ships at that time and besides, both opposing sides used them. She was a war ship who dismissed biremes and liburnas. Firstly the dromon was launched about the 6th century A.…
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Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 717–718
Date: August 717–15 August 718. Location: on the Sea of Marmara, modern Istanbul. Forces Engaged: Byzantine: unknown. Commander: Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Muslim: 210,000. Commander: Maslama. Importance: Defeat of Muslim forces in their first serious attempt to overpower the Byzantine Empire led to another seven centuries of Christian power in…
The Sixth-Century Army of Justinian
The sixth-century army of Justinian’s era, like its earlier counterparts, was an entirely professional force, but it no longer conformed to the patterns of the Roman army of Caesar or Augustus: overwhelmingly a force of heavy infantry, divided into legions composed of Roman citizens supported by non- Roman auxiliaries. The…
First Crusade: Siege of Nicaea and the Battle of Dorylaeum 1097Â AD
Nicaea Most significantly for the course of future crusades, during Bohemond’s stay in Constantinople he took a vow of allegiance to the emperor that resembled very closely a feudal oath of homage. Then he cajoled, bullied and browbeat many of the other princes who had been arriving at the city’s…
The Byzantine Successor States, 1204-1261
The Fourth Crusade left the Byzantine world in utter confusion. Since the empire had never been a Greek national state and violent successions were nothing new, at first many provincials failed to see that what had happened was a foreign conquest, and not a somewhat irregular revolution. The Crusaders promptly…
The Recapture of Constantinople
The Latin Empire, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus-the borders are very uncertain. Between 1254 and 1261, the Latin Empire comes to an end, and the Byzantine Empire is restored Half a century before, Byzantium had splintered into four mini-kingdoms and faded from sight. For…
The Byzantine Recovery of Africa I
On 1 April, 536, three months after Sicily had fallen to the victorious army of Belisarius, Justinian issued a law on the administration of the province of Cappadocia. Its provisions do not concern us, but its codicil does, for there Justinian refers both to the cost of his wars, and…