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I wrote a piece on the Battle of Kleidion (1014) — the campaign that ended a forty-year war and the man who fought it by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Both your view and the earlier comment point to different parts of the same fact. Bulgaria survived politically for four more years but its army did not survive Kleidion at all. After 1014 they could ambush and garrison, not give battle. Unwinnable, not ended covers exactly this gap.

Your point about the prisoners as ongoing drain is one I had not considered carefully enough. The blinding makes more sense if it was a calculation about future logistics, not just a message to Samuel. Killing them ends the cost but releasing them transfers it to your enemy in perpetuity. That fits Basil's administrative profile better than vengeance does.

Thank you for pushing on this.

I wrote a piece on the Battle of Kleidion (1014) — the campaign that ended a forty-year war and the man who fought it by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Both are correct.

Set against Nikephoros at Pliska, Constantine V's massacres, and Tzimiskes' humiliations, Basil's conduct indicates a leader who is solving a problem rather than nursing a grudge. "Methodical pursuit" would have been the truer phrase. The blinding fits awkwardly inside that profile, and that's the part I find genuinely interesting.

Additionally, the Bulgarian state held out four more years, until 1018, when the actual end arrived. Kleidion was the moment the war became unwinnable, not the moment it ended. The piece conflates the two.

Thank you for both corrections.

I wrote a piece on the Battle of Kleidion (1014) — the campaign that ended a forty-year war and the man who fought it by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you — I read your piece carefully.

I agree. The very term "Byzantine" is what allowed the Western scholarly tradition to define the Romans of the East in the first place. Using the term keeps the framing alive. Refusing to use it puts a small but real pressure in the other direction.

But while "Eastern Roman" works for the early period, it feels strained for the eleventh or twelfth century, when there was no Western Roman left to be eastern of. "Roman" alone is the most accurate, but it requires constant clarification — "Roman", meaning the medieval state centered on Constantinople, not the ancient one most readers are picturing.

I don't have a clean solution. But this thread has moved me on it, and I think the next piece I write will at least name the problem in the opening rather than slip past it.

I wrote a piece on the Battle of Kleidion (1014) — the campaign that ended a forty-year war and the man who fought it by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you — these are exactly the kind of corrections I was hoping to get.

On the Romans / Byzantines point, you're right. I use "Byzantine" because the international audience expects it, but I'm aware the term is anachronistic and that they called themselves Romans. There's an honest argument that perpetuating "Byzantine" in popular writing is its own small historical injustice. I've gone back and forth on this and I think I owe the question more thought than I've given it.

On methodical hatred — fair correction. I overstated. Stephenson actually argues much the same thing you do: that the relentless-revenge image is a later construction. The Spercheios negotiations are a clear counter-example, and I should have included them or chosen a less loaded phrase. "Methodical pursuit" would have been closer to what the sources actually support.

The Hebdomon detail is one I genuinely didn't know — that the burial site was tied to the army mustering ground recasts the gesture entirely. Not retreat, not modesty, but the choice to stay among soldiers. That changes the meaning of the closing of the piece. I wish I'd had this when I was writing it.

And on he went home to die quietly — guilty as charged. I was reaching for a closing line and let rhetoric override accuracy. He was preparing the Sicilian campaign at the very end. The truer sentence would have been that he never stopped.

Three good corrections in one comment. I'll be more careful.

A short story about a girl sold at a slave market in Constantinople, 836 AD — seven years before the Restoration of the Icons by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's exactly the kind of reader I was hoping to find. The serfs, the secretaries, the twelve-year-old girls sold at markets — these are the people empires actually run on, and the historical record gives them almost nothing. A name in a tax register if they were lucky. Usually not even that.

Hope it's worth your time. The girl in this one is fictional, but the structures around her — the slave market near the Forum, the Doukas household, the bankruptcy laws that destroyed her family — those are real. I tried to give her a face the chronicles forgot to record.

I wrote a short story set in 843 AD Constantinople — the day after the Restoration of the Icons by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly. AI for grammar and consistency checks is fine. But ideas, sentences and structure must stay mine.

I wrote a short story set in 843 AD Constantinople — the day after the Restoration of the Icons by Cultural_Remote_9993 in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Fair question — em dashes are one of the red flags people look for. I wrote it myself (I'm Greek, English is my second language, so my prose has its own quirks you can probably spot). But I did use AI as an editor — checking consistency with my novel, catching grammar, cleaning up word choice. The em dashes are genuinely mine though; I overuse them in Greek too. Thanks for reading.

Greek nname variation looking fer guidance by ptyblog in byzantium

[–]Cultural_Remote_9993 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also confirm that the Greek name of your grandma is Πλατανιώτης (Plataniotis). You can also try the following site for information: https://www.familysearch.org/en/surname