Byzantine-Sassanian War (602-628 CE): The Last Great War of Antiquity (2023)
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Weirdly it didn't hit Persia as much outside of Mesopotamia, most historians estimate "only" ~20-30% of population died and shifted balance of power to Persian side, from almost renewed Roman Empire at 540 which most likely was getting back to ruling mediterranean world once again.
Let's not kid ourselves, the Byzantines had far more underlying problems throughout its history and only mostly survived by a.) the walls of Theodosius, and b.) bribing away potential invaders and getting others to fight their wars.
The free for all nature of the succession meant that whenever the empire was facing major difficulties (i.e. because the emperor was incompetent or due to factors he couldn’t really control) every general or noble within the eyesight of the throne thought that he should have it.
Turkish gains after Manzikert itself were limited and much of the imperial army survived. Of course it marched straight back to Constantinople for its commander to appoint a new emperor (since Romanos IV was captured by the Turks).
Then the Romans kept fighting each other for years while entire Anatolia was gradually lost.
Manzikert was a disaster but they certainly had enough resources to bounce back (i.e. it was certainly not worse than Cannea)
1204 also started as coup attempt by the Venetians to put the son of a former overthrown emperor on the thrown.
Byzantine history is full of such examples. Civil wars that last decades, never-ending internal strife, and the ever present threat from steppe tribes and caliphates. It's a wonder they survived as long as they did.
[1] A History of Zoroastrianism, The Early Period by Mary Boyce <https://archive.org/details/AHistoryOfZoroastrianismVolI>
I have been binging on the Swedish Empire recently.
Currently I'm trying to get a bit into pre-Columbus and early Colonial Americas. That's something I don't know much about because its just so separated from what some world historians call the 'Imperial Core'.
If you are interested in late medival times, I highly recommend this series on the Dutch Revolt, its among the best and most detailed series of video on any history topic I have found:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5kdplBvGykV1KKcYbH6X...
I read Layered Money, and it talked about the VoC, but I think that's a few decades after the Dutch Revolt. I'll check it out!
If you want a wild story, read about Judah P. Benjamin. He was the descendant of Sephardic Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, he was the first openly Jewish U.S. senator (representing Louisiana), eventually a Confederate Cabinet member, and finally a barrister in England. To top it all off, he was likely gay. To put things into perspective, he was a partner in sugar plantation, a slave owner, and an prominent advocate for slavery. Usually when you hear anything about the man, it's his international resume, not the fact of his slave ownership.
These sound like great places to continue reading. I really enjoyed The Ottomans by Marc David Baer. I love that history is so much weirder (and relevant) than fiction. It's easier to connect with people, and understand where they might be coming from, when you understand some history. You can't say that for a lot of sci-fi/fantasy outside of the Snow Crash and The Lord of the Rings.
Turkic tribes were always gone turn into an influential political force but they might have picked up another language along the way, as they did the religion.
The Fourth Crusade was of course a disaster, but the only way it could have been successful was because they had weakened themselves internally so much, and that wasn't because of the crusades.
Of course there was some infighting and quite a but of tension. However by Manuel I Komnenos day it seemed like it worked out pretty well. The Crusader States finally formally recognized his overlordship and West/East relations were pretty good.
However the ruling class of the empire became extremely Westernized. The emperor adopted a bunch of Latin/Western practices. Married western and appointed them to high offices. There was extreme corruption and most of (even internal) trade was outsourced to Italian city states.
This led to (somewhat genocidal) backlash after he died and several decades of chaos that culminated in 1204.
But anyway, the Crusades did save the empire and gave it an extra century or so. Even if it didn’t work out that well..
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/AnnaComnena-Alexiad00....
Bohemund didn’t renege on his oath of fealty to the emperor until a couple of years later after he got Antioch.
Then again Byzantines choosing to entirely abandon the Crusader army during the siege of Antioch did cause quite a but of longterm enmity. So it’s possible that could have been avoided.
The Normans seem to behave reasonably well in Byzantine territory during the crusade itself, though. Anna herself seems to have been really personally impressed by Bohemund himself as well.
It's reported in In 617 A. D. … The Roman Emperor sent an envoy to Khusrau, praying that he was ready to have peace on any terms, but he replied, "I shall not give protection to the emperor until he is brought in chains before me and gives up obedience to his crucified god and adopts submission to the fire god." [1]
[1] Quran's Correct Prophecy Of Victory Of Romans Over The Persians - Religion - Nairaland:
https://www.nairaland.com/3034657/qurans-correct-prophecy-vi...
> Khosrow, greatest of Gods, and master of the earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. Why do you still refuse to submit to our rule, and call yourself a king? Have I not destroyed the Greeks? You say that you trust in your God. Why has he not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, Jerusalem, and Alexandria? And shall I not also destroy Constantinople? But I will pardon your faults if you submit to me, and come hither with your wife and children; and I will give you lands, vineyards, and olive groves, and look upon you with a kindly aspect. Do not deceive yourself with vain hope in that Christ, who was not able to save himself from the Jews, who killed him by nailing him to a cross. Even if you take refuge in the depths of the sea, I will stretch out my hand and take you, whether you will or no
But its authenticity is doubtful.
Also AFAIK we don’t have any evidence about Heraclius trying to surrender. I mean.. how would that even work? He would have been just overthrown immediately.
BCE is "before the common era", and CE is "common era".
I suppose it kind of grandfathers in BC and AD, but I always find it funny that it happens to centre the birth of Jesus anyway.
Im certainly not calling u one or saying your post does anything wrong. Just pointing out this is why the internet atheists gave the rest of us such a bad rap. Championing stuff that is thinly veiled anti-christian is a bad faith motive, divisive, confusing, and demeaning of tradition that didn't need changing. If the years were different numbers, different story.
I even said "AC" i.e. "After Christ" would've been an acceptable substitute and had the advantage of matching "Before Christ" which is in English. AD and BC is a mishmash of English and Latin that always struck me as weird.
The academic world settled on CE and BCE instead. I don't care. It's unimportant.
> Let's stop using Sunday thru Saturday cuz those relate to Norse religions
Does using any of those names imply that you believe Odin is the All-father?
Interesting photos of artefacts. But no maps at all. Two or three maps would make it much more informative.
Same as with anything else. Did you ever ask "lots of posts about all programming languages on the web, but why a random one is on the first page on HN?"
Even if we would accept that their bows were better then some other steppe peoples, he still thought many people that for sure had the same bows as he did.
In fact, most of his life, he thought people who had the same technology, including the invasion of the Qara Khitai.
Then the Jin had allies that likely had the same bow technology. However it seems most of those allies just switched sides.
Only the Khwarazmian Empire and Xia likely didn't have significant troops armed the same way.
His great accomplishment was marrying that with the ability to besiege walled cities. Nobody expected barbarian horse archers to be able to do that.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140310-ge...
In terms of numbers, it's entirely possible that larger numbers of defending sedentary soldiers are needed than attacking horse-riding nomad soldiers for the former to mount an effective defense against the latter.
The early Islamic preachers in what became Indonesia and Malaysia were South Asian or Iranian in origin, and a major reason why Persianate motifs are prominent in Southeast Asian Islam. Same with much of Central Asia.
That would have not happened if the Byzantine-Sassanid War did not happen, because what became Yemen and Oman would have remained under Sassanid suzerainity and much of the Levant would have remained Byzantine. And thus, Khorasan, Gujarat, Sindh, and Punjab would have not become Muslim.
That said, I agree with you that the spread of Islam was HEAVILY dependent on trade.
There is a one thousand year old mosque in Beijing. There are ethnic Hans who converted (now the Hui minority). There was a sizeable Muslim community in Guangdong in the Tang Dynasty.
The same holds true, as far as I know, throughout South East Asia.
My point is simply that Islam could and did spread peacefully, like Christianity did before it. So it is difficult to draw drastic conclusions, IMHO.
The spread of Islam to China was only made possible through the spread of Islam first to Sogdiana, and that happened through quite violent means as we know from the written record.
Even in the 16th century if you read the Baburnama, pagans and non-Muslims were common across Central Asia and even Muslims like Babur were lax in their religiosity (drinking wine, eating pork, etc).
In most cases, religion didn't largely solidify until the 19th-20th century with the rise of the nation state and nationalism.
Religious nationalism in the modern sense (eg. Political Islam, Political Christianity, Hindutva, etc) only really began in the late 19th century when Rationalist (in the actual philosophical sense - not the tech bro bullcrap) and Enlightenment era thought began spreading.
> they were gone by approximately the year 1000 CE
Absolutely not.
Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism remained common in inner Asia until the 13th century with the Mongol invasions.
Depending on where you draw the line for Central Asia, non-Muslim religions remained significantly practiced in Central Asia well beyond that era as well.
At one point, the Tibetan empire even controlled Kabul during that era, and the Turk Shahis remained Buddhist or Hindu (depending on the leader) well beyond that era.
Even the leader of the Ghurid dynasty (Muhammad ibn Suri) was a Buddhist or Hindu Turk despite using a Muslim name.
I was talking about Sogdiana, not other regions of Central Asia, and 1000 CE is a standard cutoff date in scholarship for the end of the other world religions there.
Like, I always thought that the Umayyad elites sometimes didn't even want people to convert, lest their privilege become diluted.
The lands in the middle east changed hands so many times that you had a generation be born and grow into adulthood without having being firmly associated with one empire or the other.
You had the nomadic tribes grow rich from their mercenary work for either empire.
You also had the fact that both Christian and Zoroastrian faiths took huge blows as the true cross was stolen by the Persians and then the Roman army destroyed the most important Zoroastrian fire temple and snuffed out the eternal flame there.
And finally after the Persians were defeated by the Caliphate, you the the Romans, against their well established strategies, gather their forces for a decisive battle, and then make tactical mistakes allowing for defeat.
It was the perfect storm of the right place, at the right time, with rolling nat 20s.
Its not even clear how 'Islamic' the early armies were, they might have considerable Christian and Jewish portions. How differentiated early Islam was from certain version if Christianity is up for debated.
I also think just going with the 'right place, right time' narrative misses good coalition billing, good generalship and other things they did very well. Both Rome and Persia had thought a great number of wars in its history, and faced many 'barbarian' invasion, sometimes from forces that on paper were more impressive, that invaded during ongoing peer conflicts and despite that had been successful.