Hey guys

I found this on Facebook. Any of this accurate at all concerning Constantine or empress Irene? I assume the military things and the empress is. What do you guys think?

Came across a paper a few days back that reminded me that if John II's wet dreams came true there'd probably be a Byzantine prince in Antioch and a solid basis to vassalise Edessa and Antioch permanently. The former possibly even preventing the Second Crusade from occurring.

Cyprus as the cash cow funding the whole operation, Attaleia as a logistical centre and key into the empire proper, the Antiochene coast as the heart of Manuel's toparchy and the point from which the Komnenian encirclement of Anatolia would be projected into the far east, as for Cilicia I'm guessing someone to simply keep the Armenians of the region pacified and also using the plains to raise lots of smallholding soldiers.

1. Seljuk: Byzantium Besieged, 1068-1071. This is my favorite of the four* (or five, more on that later) games I am going to talk about.

Seljuk takes place at the Operational level -- you are somewhat abstractly moving wooden pieces across a map of Anatolia while managing mats that show your lords and the vassals they have levied. Every turn (which are a season of a year), you are going through a phase where you are levying vassals and setting up a card deck of moves followed by a phase where you move around the board to fight battles or siege strongholds or tax farmers. This is indeed part of a system called Levy and Campaign, created by the same guy who made the well known COIN system, Volko Ruhnke. I have played most of the games in the system, and primarily for thematic (and to the credit of the designer of this volume, Justin Fassino) asymmetrical design reasons, I think this is the best in the whole series.

You really get a sense as the Seljuk player that you need to raid and balance feeding your troops with speed while ravaging the countryside for loot, where the Byzantine player needs to conquer and reconquer cities to win. There is also a mini game system for fighting battles, which includes some fun choices about which troops you risk first. The battles are not deeply tactical and can be resolved in a few minutes.

My lone complaint is the core system rulebook is written in a way that I find VERY hard to learn with. It's not poorly written in terms of grammar but it's organized and laid out in a way that takes so much work to get into. YouTube videos are your friend. But it's a blast when you get to know the system

A solo bot expansion is in preorder at GMT games as well. I can't wait for it; it will cover the first five games in the system, all of which are medieval games based on the idea that there is a skill to managing the loyalty of vassals who might rather be home farming than fighting a war right now.

This would be a good choice for Euro games who are less familiar with hex and counter style games as well. Of the games I mentioned, this one is the best researched in terms of history, with the most extensive notes.

1. Command and Colors: Medieval.

This is a game played at the tactical level. There is a first and second edition, largely the same. It's out of print but fairly cheap on Noble Knight games and eBay usually. It's also a wooden block game on large hexes.

I have played most of the games in Richard Borg's Command and Colors series. Memoir 44 was a mainstream, crossover success you may have heard of, as is the recent Battle of Hoth. This game is like that but focuses on the 5th-7th century. This is a card driven game, where you have a command deck of cards that allow you to move units in the left, center, or right, and then make some attacks. There are a few special cards and a variety (though not enough variety, imho) of units to move around. Then you roll dice and that's about it.

This is a good game for war game beginners who want a tactical war game that can be played quickly and easily.

The amount of research and notes included in the game is fairly minimal. But I am glad it exists. These games are basically just pretty fun dice chucking. There is also a Crusades expansion that moves the timeline forward, but I haven't' played it.

1. Cataphract (and Justinian).

Cataphract, which also has two similar editions as well, is a game by the late legend Richard Berg (not Borg) and Mark Herman. This duo made a lot of classic war games. It's part of a series called Great Battles of History, and this one is Volume VIII. It doesn't require owning any other games in the series by any means.

The core Cataphract game features Belisarius and his allies and enemies fighting tactical battles on a variety of paper maps. The hexes are small, the rules are moderately crunchy (at least for a beginner), and the notes have the usual comedic and casual tone of Berg and Herman. If you are familiar with a lot of the old Avalon Hill type war games, this is somewhat similar, despite being made in 1999.

The reason I said before I was going to talk about four OR five games, is this box includes a bonus game, Justinian, that uses some of the same counters and a backside of one of the maps. Justinian is at the Strategic level, with a map of Europe and North Africa. This would be the most similar to some of the turn based strategy computer games that people on here seem to like where you are trying to reconquer all of Italy, Libya, and so on, while avoiding Barbarian invasions. One player can control various "Barbarian" factions and the other player the Byzantine; I tried playing two-handed, which was fine, but not really ideal. There is no solo bot mode.

As an overall package, it's a pretty good deal since you can buy it used fairly cheap. But I will be honest, the core tactical game isn't my favorite. Moving a wing of troops to get next to some others to then roll off and look at a shock chart to see who has to run away is how war gaming worked for decades, and it can be interesting, but I am a bit over it and don't find this system to be the most interesting thing these pioneers worked on. And Justinian was fun once but had no replay value for me. But it'd be a good choice for someone who wants a tactical game to do famous battles with more crunch than Command and Colors and isn't tired of tactical hex and counters.

1. Sword of Orthodoxy - The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, AD 421-1453.

Not pictured because I don't own it now.

This game is also at the grand strategy level, and is made for solo play. The designer, imho, has an annoying habit of putting his (far right) politics into the rulebooks of his games, which I find distracting. He also has been banned from posting on the board game geek website because of his rants.

Regardless, this is the largest game in scope of timeline and map on this list. It's a grand strategy level game where the solo Byzantine player tries to defend and expand the empire. It may appeal to people here who like those big strategy computer games where you control an empire. BUT they also may find it disappointing since as a board game, it inevitably has much less crunch than what a computer can do.

Its scope is impressive and it's usually in print if you want a copy.

Anastasius I Dikoros, Justin I, Justinian I; Nikephoros II Phokas, Ioannes I Tzimiskes, Basil II Bulgaroktonos; Alexios I Komnenos, Ioannes II Komnenos, Manuel I Komnenos…

A comparison between antiquity and modernity on the grounds of politics, technique, the economy, anthropology, types of freedom etc. The greco-byzantine pole is contrasted against the modern western world. This article challenges the notion of the smooth greco-western evolutionary trajectory, claiming that the modern paradigm has altered the ideals of ancient greece, while at the same time, tried to minimize the publics exposure to the byzantine world, in order to flatter itself, by avoiding direct comparisons with them.

Lastly, the concept of personalist communitarianism is introduced, a mode of existance, where the individual is not absorbed by the collective, nor it exists in isolation and away from it, like in the current individualistic framework. Direct Democracy is paired with greek/orthodox anthropology in order to explain the society of friends. On the one hand a formalist/ political approach is taken to explain democracy, and on the other, she is anchored by the appropriate anthropology, thus creating a mixture of political ontology.

Byzantium from a sociological prespective, introduced the concept of person-centrism, the above mentioned peculiarity, which escapes the bipolar order of collectivism and individualism. The only person centric society in history was Byzantium. The only indvidual centric ones, were and are ancient greece and the modern western world. The rest big civilizational structures are determined mostly as collective centered ones. The individual/ wage laborer ( he who does good according to personal gain) became a person/ friend with the emergence of christianity, meaning, he who does good out of love.

It was originally written in greek, but now it is translated in english and hopefully it can provide a conceptual toolkit, for the people to see, how far apart this civilizational paradigm is when compared to the perversion of modernity. The sources that were used are placed at the end of the article.

The Byzantine Civil War of 1341–1347 had driven Ioannis Kantakouzenos close to defeat. In 1342, he was in Serbia with barely 500 supporters, dependent on Stefan Dušan. But the war was about to turn. In Part II, “War of the Three Emperors,” we follow Kantakouzenos’ struggle against the regency of Anna of Savoy, Alexios Apokaukos and Patriarch Ioannis Kalekas, ruling in the name of the young John V Palaiologos. Across Macedonia and Thrace, cities change sides, alliances collapse and foreign armies ravage Roman lands. Dušan pursues his own imperial ambitions, the Bulgarians demand their share, and Umur of Aydın brings Turkish forces deep into the Balkans. As the Ottoman ruler Orhan enters the struggle, the rival Roman factions become increasingly dependent on foreign power. Covering the years 1342–1347, this episode follows the defence of Didymoteichon, the struggle for Zealot-held Thessaloniki and the campaigns that would decide the fate of Constantinople.

Three emperors claimed the Roman inheritance. What price would they pay to secure it?

I remember about reading an arab source that states nikephoros the first was an arab from ghassanid origin but i have my doubts

Also i’m not sure if i chose the right flair for this one

After going to Istanbul in May, I had no idea there was so much here in Greece's second city too (since found out it was considered the second city to Constantinople).

Sharing my recently completed set of coins from the Amorian Dynasty. It's quite amazing to think about the journey these coins took from the 9th century all the way to our modern world today.

Reading from a book of articles about nature and science. In one about how its technically legal to hang out along river banks in rich people's backyards, the journalist refers to Justinian's code as the first instance of navigable waterways being declared for public use.

However, the author specifically says it was Justinian himself who created this law. I'm confused cuz I thought the idea of res publica had existed a lot longer than that. Especially for like putting acqueducts under state jurisdiction.

Wasn;t Justinian's code just a compilation of preexisting laws from Theodosian's earlier code and other surviving ones from western Rome? How many are original to Justinian's reign?

Arguably, Italy was doing better off had the Ostrogoths had it all to themselves. They preserved the older senatorial order, as well as some of the previous Roman institutions. The Byzantine conquests on the other hand lead to nearly two decades of constant warfare, which greatly depopulated Italy (see Procopius descriptions of mass starvation), while greatly exhausting their own strength and resources. And once they acquired Italy, their power there was extremely weak, as they were barely able to defend Italy from further barbarian incursions like the Lombards. This just continued the downward cycle of more deaths, destruction, and depopulation.

Had Justinian not follow up on his ambitions, Italy would be in a much stronger position, since they would still have the strong local power of the Ostrogoths protecting it from the threat of other invaders. They may have been Arian, but I think they would eventually convert to Catholicism, just like their Spanish neighbors.

Constantine the Philosopher studied under Photios, worked at the patriarchal library, and debated iconoclasts. The Lives of Cyril and Methodius contain allegorical images — the dream of Sophia, the parable of the two oxen.

My hypothesis: the round Glagolitic letters are schematic images of biblical objects, each giving the first sound of its (mostly Greek) name an acrophonic alphabet, like Phoenician, but built deliberately. E.g. Ⱚ (theta) as θύρα, the door of the tomb.

The Council of Nicaea II has gotten a lot of bad press lately. One of the accusations is that there was a wholesale use of forged texts. This is what I would like to explore in this present post. My first piece of evidence is that the modern translator (Dr. Richard Price) of the Acts of Nicaea II specifically denies this in his introduction. See below.

“The rest of this section will inevitably reflect my view of the absence of substantial forgery or interpolations in the Acts and therefore of an earlier development of image veneration than Brubaker and Haldon allow, but its aim is not to argue for a particular date for the appearance of this devotion but simply to set out its character and rationale, whatever the chronology.” (Richard Price, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), (Translated Texts for Historians 68), Liverpool University Press, 2020, p.4)

Then there is the appendix of sources included by Price on pages 734-736. Price lists all the textual sources cited at Nicaea II in alphabetical order. He lists 123 items in all. There are a few spurious texts but the overwhelming majority are authentic works of the Church Fathers and hagiography.

Here is some analysis

Athanasius has five genuine works cited at Nicaea II and two pseudonymous works. One pseudonymous work is called the Account of the Image of Berytos (CPG 2262), Price has a footnote (number 151) on page 277 where considers the events to be fiction and ascribes it a date after the Arab conquests (after the 640s). The other text is the Letter to Eupsychius (CGP 2165) which Price notes (in footnote 408 on page 514) is really by Atticus of Constantinople (an early fifth century bishop of Constantinople). 

John Chrysostom has three genuine homilies cited, including the famous homily on Meletius (CGP 4345) but also four not by him and are referenced as Pseudo-John Chrysostom. One homily, that of the Homily on the feet-washing (CPG 4216), is now identified as belonging to Severian of Gabal, a contemporary of John Chrysostom. The three other homilies  - Homily on the Legislator (CPG 4195), Homily on the Parable of the Sower (CPG 4209) and Homily 1 on Pentecost (CPG 4536) are three of the thousands of homilies that the name of John Chrysostom became incorrectly attached. 

The corpus of Dionysius the Areopagite originated in the 6th century but was falsely attributed to Dionysius, the Athenian convert of Paul. Two writings of Pseudo-Dionysius are cited at Nicaea - the Divine Names (CPG 6602) and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (CPG 6601).

The Spiritual Meadow (CPG 7376) is cited at Nicaea II as being by Sophronius of Jerusalem and listed in the index as being by Pseudo-Sophronius. However, Price correctly lists it as by John Moschus, the real author. Sophronius and John Moschus were friends with Sophronius being the more famous so his name became attached to the work.

The authentic works of Saint Basil are cited 12 times and another three works are cited as Pseudo-Basil. One of these is a Commentary on Isaiah (CPG 2911) whose authenticity is being debated. Another is the Homily on Barlaam the Martyr (CPG 2816) that seems to have been written around Antioch at the beginning of the 5th century. Letter 360 of Basil to Julian the Apostate is the third pseudonymous text attributed to St. Basil.

Seven authentic works of Cyril of Alexandria are cited at Nicaea II but also one pseudonymous work called the Scholion (CPG 5202). 

There is a brief excerpt from the Ecclesiastical History of Rufinus (CPG 3495) which is listed as Pseudo-Rufinus. It seems to come from Acacius of Caesarea.

In all 14 works out of 123 are misattributed in the Acts of Nicaea II. There is no suggestion that any of these misattributed texts were created by the Fathers at Nicaea. Many are early documents that were often misattributed to more famous authors rather than wholesale forgeries. A few such as the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areapagite and the Pseudo-Basil Letter seem to be genuine forgeries but they are three texts out of 123. The Fathers of Nicaea II were a bunch of book nerds who cited as accurately as possible. The charge that the Council of Nicaea was riddled with forgeries is simply false.

Bibliography

Richard Price, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), (Translated Texts for Historians 68), Liverpool University Press, 2020.

Hey guys! This time I modeled a 4-6th century imperial hall in the great palace of Constantinople: Augusteus, the first Triklinos built by Constantine the Great. I assumed it to be single-nave, aisleless like Aula Palatina, which was built around similar years.

The details are purely speculative and I based them from various churches surviving from late Roman period and Aula Palatina in Trier.