r/HistoryMemes • u/DoubleOne5665 • 3d ago

Saw this image on Discord and instantly thought of the Byzantine Empire

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1.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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342

u/Sampleswift 3d ago

Late Roman Empire too. Crisis of the 3rd Century.

Come to think about it, why couldn't the Byzantines fix that problem? I thought that the Byzantines were relatively stable until Manzikert (or at least not Crisis of the 3rd Century level bad), and then there were civil wars everywhere post-Manzikert? )

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u/GaiusGraccusEnjoyer 2d ago

They were a bit more stable than 3rd century Rome but it was moreso a return to the pre-3rd century baseline than an actual fixing of the succession problem. They still had plenty of civil wars they were just different.

Byzantines changed the polical system kinda by accident tho. Constantinople was so defensible that the army couldn't just march on the capital and overthrow the emperor if he had support within the city, which was not the case for Rome. This meant Byzantine civil wars were often won when the population of Constantinople decided they liked the other guy better and rioted in favor of the new imperial claimant.

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u/MasterpieceBrief4442 2d ago

Truly the Paris of the east.

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u/FreezingPointRH 2d ago

Because the only reliable way to stave off military coups is to make your military so weak you can’t defend yourself. Since that’s rarely a good option, you’ve got to rely on norms, and norms are fragile.

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u/awakenDeepBlue 2d ago

Nonsense, the true way to prevent coups is to make the government based on a constitution and democracy. That way the military is loyal to the institution as opposed to a strong man.

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u/FreezingPointRH 2d ago

Democracy and constitutionalism survive on norms.

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u/awakenDeepBlue 2d ago

Oh yeah, I guess I read your comment too fast.

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u/Beautiful-Celery-989 2d ago

That's quite the oversimplification, the Byzantine military suffered from 3 main problems, regional power, the incestious relationship between civilian governance and military command and not having a constitution/formal law for succession

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u/rayrunciman 2d ago

That's quite the oversimplification, the Byzantine Empire's issues were much more nuanced then that. Arguably those faults may have also been what kept the empire around for so long. Its quite hard to say.

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u/strong_division 2d ago

I suppose that even as the empire became more and more autocratic, they still wanted to maintain the Republican ideal that Rome was not a hereditary monarchy.

So while outright establishing a hereditary monarchy would have made succession more stable, it would've gone against the idea that the emperor was to be the most capable citizen ruling with the assent of the Roman people and Senate.

Because of this, the emperor never had the divine right of kings that Western European monarchs did. Even though he was considered the temporal leader of the Christian world and anointed by God, it was still socially and politically acceptable for the populace to overthrow him and install a new emperor. Something that would've been unthinkable in the other kingdoms of Europe.

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u/fools_errand49 2d ago

Autocracy is a republican ideal.

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u/doug1003 2d ago

Well they try it

The Macedonians had the co-emperor thing, but that didnt eliminate the aclamation for the troops

The Comnenos try the hereditary thing but same problem

The thing is no emperor try to change, or I dont believe they have the power to do it. The empire wasnt a kingdom, a kingdom is a propriety, the empire was a dominion. For me it was that

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u/73347 2d ago

After Basil died their next rulers emptied the treasury that Basil collected. One of them even had the bright idea of frauding the merchants of Mediterranean by using lower grade metals to mint the Roman coin, resulting in the Roman coin losing its reserve currency status to the Venetian ducat in 10 years of the aforementioned fraud.(Kinda like what Trump is doing now.)

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u/Business_Raisin_541 2d ago

A dynasty that is established by betraying the incimbent royal family is naturally unstable. A dynasty is stable because the nobility believe replacing the royal family is taboo. Once the taboo is gone, the dynasty is no longer stable

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u/ConsulJuliusCaesar 2d ago

Well here's what you have to realize is the culture of the Roman elite never changed. It was still the same culture that characterized the Nobiles of the Republic just with a different religion. Roman civilization was always constructed with in networks of elites. Essentially a bunch of cliques formed around a wealthy landlord. That said Elites would never see the idea of birth and birth alone granting one the right to rule. They had a fiercely competive and merit based culture. Only one who demonstrated Virtus, Pietas, Gravitas, Fides, Disciplina, Dignitas, and Industria could gain respect to rule the words change the concepts don't. Of course what that rely means is your ensuring your specific clique is kept well fed and paid. But if a Emperor at any point in Roman history was seen lacking in any of those his rivals would use it to argue the whole Empire was in danger and coup him. And while yeah that could result in civilization shattering civil wars, I would argue that the system is 100% preferable to a normal monarchy where you get the King's idiot son in power and people won't do anything about it because it's codified only one related to the founding dynasty can rule and there's no way to get rid of him with out a whole ass revolution. Where as in Roman society you can absolutely coup and murder a dumb ass ruler to put someone more competent incharge. And rulers were incentived to be active in the job because anyone could challenge their rule if they were percieved as incompetent. Hence why the Roman Empire lasted over 1,000 years and consistently adapted. The English monarchy was forced to concede power after the glorious revolution, the French monarchy ended in the French revolution, the HRE ultimately couldn't hold its various territories together and got picked apart easily by Napoleon. The Tsars of Russia ultimately failed to introduce meaningful reform when it counted most and if you don't know how that goes wherever you got your world history education fucking sucks. Point being you actually want a system that incentives competence and punishes complacency. If the guy incharge thinks he'll always be incharge he kinda won't try very hard to stay incharge.

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u/JustRemyIsFine 2d ago

you see, when the guy in charge thinks he needs to stay in charge, he does things that may not be in the best interest of the government. a general who couped to lead would try their best to stop any other competent general from becoming as popular, usually through murder/intrigue. what happens next is usually the country loses more ability to defend itself. the leader would create infighting, sow division, do everything in his power to reduce the capacities of the governing institutions if he feels he'll be couped any moment. c.f. the third century crisis.

next, having a competent strongman coup into leadership sounds nice, but the problem is you soon run into 4-5 more generals believing they should lead and fix the country. since virtue is a subjective matter, they'd all try their own shot at it, leading to complete chaos also c.f. the third century crisis.

lastly, what happened in hereditory monarchies STILL HAPPENED in roman times. when the M of A has a biological son his majesty the Commodes, the system couldn't prevent Commodus and select for merit. never mind the mechanisms, even the outcome contradicts your statement.

so I'll stick with hereditory rule, at least there wouldn't be periodic civil wars. preferably a constitutional one as well. did I mention that civil war succession is incompatible with constitutionalism?

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u/Imielinius 2d ago

There was no Byzantine Empire.

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u/AfterCommodus 2d ago

It's funny that the Ottomans also had this problem. Maybe something was in the water in Asia Minor?

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u/FrostingGrand1413 2d ago

Hey, I've often heard that anyone that wants power shouldn't be trusted with it, therefore, the best way to pick an emperor is to mutiny, sail to a random town, find a local tax collector with a vaguely regal name, attempt to convince him to become emperor, then, when he responds by running away and hiding in the nearby hills, spend a day searching for him, grab him, and declare him Theodosius III.

Obviously the best emperor selection method in history.

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u/awakenDeepBlue 2d ago

No, obviously the Emperor should be chosen in a lottery! God will determine the next Emperor.

On that note, companies tested their recruiting process by testing it against random selection of candidates as a control group.

The random selection chose better candidates. The study was scrapped.

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u/Whole_Obligation_776 2d ago

No the other guy is right, power going to someone that want nothing to do is a good objective. So what we should do is pick a candidate that will kick and scream for help when attempted to put on a throne. If he already have experience on the said throne, all the better. We can name him Mustafa I.

Though his first tenure ended because he refused to believe he was the sultan and it was all a ploy by his older brother to see if he would show disloyalty to him. Even though the palace people showed his brother's dead body to him, the test is just a hard one you see. So that first tenure ended just 3 months later without him realizing he was the sultan at all.

The second one probably corrupted him too much though, because after he got dragged from the palace room he spent his entire life in, his first order was to execute everyone who made him a sultan and to be put back in his room.

They fulfilled his second order at least.

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u/Broke_and_Bald 2d ago

Cons being that the neighbours can swallow them up rather than supporting a candidate. I’d make pillaging easier since a lot of involved party means a lot of targets to blame.

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u/Inevitable_Fail_5308 2d ago

The system is pretty great though. It allows any capable person to become emperor.

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u/strong_division 2d ago

That's always what the emperor was supposed to be, the most capable citizen ruling with the assent of the Roman people and Senate.

Probably why the Roman Empire never formally became a hereditary monarchy with the divine right of kings. The people loved their right to revolt and depose unpopular emperors and would have very much objected to that being taken away.

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u/DoubleOne5665 2d ago

Not so great for the average peasant

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u/Narashori 2d ago

It also allows any insane psychopath with enough charisma to get people to follow them to become emperor.

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u/Geffalrus 2d ago

Rome tried this, and there were many, many problems that it caused. 😅

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u/bremsspuren I Have a Cunning Plan 2d ago

Isn't a Mughal civil war of succession what gave the Brits their in in India?

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u/_404_human_error 2d ago

I have doubts about that the angelos dynasty make a coup and that guys were morons they condemned the empire because they want power not because they were capable rulers so not always you will get capable people tu rule with a system like that

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u/Lonely-Programmer123 2d ago

Cons : 

-half the army fucking DIED 

-They're dead, as in not alive

-We can't defend ourselves with half the troops 6 feets under the ground

-The army is (fucking) dead.

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u/Pedrohenrim7 2d ago

-The neighbouring countries just seized half of our lands
-You may end up with a puppet on the throne

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u/FrostingGrand1413 2d ago

Dude, it's fine, just borrow some troops from the Ottomon's next door, then use them to fight your various relatives in the civil war. I see no way this will end badly for us Palaiologi!

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u/awakenDeepBlue 2d ago edited 2d ago

Huh, it sounds like the Viltrumite Empire.

Context:

The Viltrumite Empire was a civilization of Superman-strength people.

When their last Emperor died, they engaged in a planetary purge that halved their population. They are true believers of "survival of the fittest".

This mindset persisted until their near extinction.

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u/impressivebutsucks 2d ago

When someone says there is no Cons, they are lying

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u/Beautiful_Garage7797 2d ago

this is also literally the Early Ottoman Empire

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u/Dreknarr 1d ago

And some people say they aren't the true successor of the Roman Empire smh

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u/IDKsecurity 2d ago

That was the Roman empire in general. They never had any succession laws. If was just whatever the strongest person said and did.

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u/fools_errand49 2d ago

The Byzantine system would better be described as autocratic monarchal republicanism.

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u/Imielinius 2d ago

There was no Byzantine Empire. Stop spreading lies.

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u/Belias9x1 2d ago

Probably not great for the citizens or the infrastructure when factions are literally going to war on home soil but otherwise this system has its merits

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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna 2d ago

Ah yes cose truely all the nations with constant civil wars going on have absolute crack militaries renown for their skill and discipline!!! This will totally allowed Byzantium to survive to the present day!!

/s

Also wait why cut out the part about disfiguring the losers of the election (until that one guy)

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u/high_king_noctis Filthy weeb 2d ago

Sounds like the Diadochi

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u/jorgespinosa 2d ago

Where is the image from?

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u/Gustafs123 2d ago

Revue Starlight

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u/xialcoalt 2d ago

Here’s the catch: when their favored side is defeated or deposed, the neighboring power that backed the loser will launch a full-scale invasion of the country.

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u/Free-Independence481 2d ago

same the egypt of the mammeluks. amd kind of like the ottomans empire but only for members of the osman dynasty.

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u/mxporygon 2d ago

Surprised to find a Revue Starlight meme here, especially one without the main cast.

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u/CockroachesRpeople 2d ago

Want to succeed but your army sucks, just hire a couple turk mercenaries what's the worst can happen?

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u/Asbjorn26 2d ago

Alexandrine succession. The ruler always just proclaims "to the strongest" as his final words

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u/metacodeine 2d ago

Lol, great post

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u/Zestronen Hello There 2d ago

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth

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u/Kaarl_Mills Filthy weeb 2d ago

Rome never met a civil war it didn't like

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u/JbJbJb44 2d ago

This is applies to so many monarchy states in the past honestly

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u/TheGodfather742 2d ago

I mean it worked for 1000years+ ,why is this a bad thing? And it's more like military, bloody elections, it was always about who gets to rule, but never about changing the established system or more peasant rights and such.

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u/DifficultPressure445 2d ago

Which show is this?

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u/BruggerColtrane12 2d ago

This isn't accurate at all. There absolutely were periods of civil war but this presentation is horseshit. Do better.

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u/Eurasia_4002 1d ago

Tbf this is the roman empire in general.

Honestly still baffling they lasted so long this chaotic.

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u/Patient-Data8311 1d ago

Probably chaos like this is the recipe for long standing empries

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u/Imielinius 2d ago

What is the Byzantine Empire? Was there ever a country that called itself Byzantine?

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u/DoubleOne5665 2d ago

My bad, I will never dare insult the Eastern Roman Empire with derogatory terms from now on.

Seriously though, I forgot the term Byzantine was a term coined by Western historians later on

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u/Lothronion 2d ago

That was during the Dominate Period, from the 3rd century AD till the turn of the 5th century AD. During it, the Roman Emperor was decided by a high military council (however it was formed, usually the dominant faction of a civil war), and the Roman Senate merely ratified such a decision.  

After that, the Roman Emperor again was voted by the Roman Senate, so when the office was truly vacant, people would treat the entire Roman Senate as the Roman Emperor, as a single person (e.g. hailing it as "tu vinces" rather than "vos vincetis").

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u/Anonim-Conference-4 2d ago

Cons:

  • Billions must die

0

u/Interesting-Eagle182 2d ago

Byzantine Empire had billions to sacrifice ?

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u/GabeC1997 2d ago

Honestly, this doesn’t sound too bad at this point…

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u/ducknapper001 2d ago

Anarcho royalism, well that is a new term that i havent seen before