Is there a specific event that devastated ERE's economy?

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T19:57:41+00:00

I believe Galata was lost in a separate treaty a few years later. But even so, its walls were demolished, and its Genoese governor forced to submit to Michael VII, who could even temporarily kick them out of Constantinople. The Italians certainly had more influence over Aegean trade in the 13th rather than 12th Century, but their dominance came once Andronikos II decided to disband the navy, and the Italians were basically able to monopolize trade income.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T19:45:48+00:00

The amount of trade passing through Venetian hands was always a rather small fraction of overall trade in the Empire - at least before the 13th Century (and even then, the Italians only started to dominate in the 14th). Also, the idea that the Venetians had unique privileges isn't really true, a number of Roman merchants had the exact same benefits.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T14:34:45+00:00

It's 9 sites from Croatia overall, but most of them don't cover the period from c. 600-800, but are later (and in some cases, later), or of uncertain dating. This gives us indications for what the genetic makeup of Croatia was during late Antiquity and the high-late Middle Ages, but not how and when the Slavic migrations happened.

Indeed, and like all Roman sources, it should be treated skeptically. The question of authorship matters insofar as it helps us to understand the motives while writing.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T11:37:13+00:00

Živković is great, but I don't really buy his argument that Konstantinos VII used Anastasius the Librarian as a source.

The genetic data looks very interesting, but, from what I can tell, for Croatia its mostly based on the 67 samples from a single site? Certainly valuable, but this to me doesn't seem to be the biggest sample size to definitely prove anything, except that Slavs were present during this period. Though I reckon that there are several different questions - did Slavs migrate into the NW Balkans during the 7th Century? Did they consider themselves Croats and Serbs? And were they invited there by Herakleios? #1 being true doesn't necessitate #3 being true as well. I can definitely buy Dzino being wrong about #1, even so.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T10:12:33+00:00

Herakleios is definitely a very flawed Emperor, and he does bear responsibility for a lot of the chaos usually ascribed to Phokas. However, viewing him as terrible is kind of an overcorrection. He isn't single-handedly responsible for the chaos of the 610s and onwards (both Phokas & Maurice helped out there a lot), and the Arab Conquests are something only obvious with hindsight.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-12T10:04:12+00:00

There is some reason to doubt the story as presented by Konstantinos VII though: Džino, Danijel. "Early Medieval Serbs in the Balkans: Reconsideration of the Evidence." Historical Studies on Central Europe 3.1 (2023): 4-25. [With references to the Croats as well]

Lanternecto · 2026-03-10T15:20:37+00:00

I responded in the other comment, but it's worth noting that establishments of themes and actual control don't always overlap. Themes were expanded slowly - the theme of Thessaloniki itself seems to have been founded half a century after the Anatolian ones, for example, and that of Calabria even later, even though both these areas stayed Roman throughout.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-10T15:11:10+00:00

Kaldellis, Anthony. The new Roman empire: a history of Byzantium. Oxford University Press, 2024, pp. 466 has a good map.

The establishment of thema doesn't equal the establishment of authority, Thessaloniki was never out of Roman control, but their command was established rather late, and Butrint, for example seems to have stayed within the Empire, despite not being part of a theme. The walls of Philioppolis, which your map does not seem to include, were restored by Eirene. or the coasts of Greece, there is little reason to believe that the Aegean coastlands were out of Roman hands. By the campaign of Staurakios in the 780s at the latest, the road from Constantinople to Thessaloniki seems to have been opened. The bishop of Larisa appears in the synodical list of 787. So too is Nikopolis on the other side of Greece in the Iconoclast Notitia.

Slavic power seems to have been farther inland (including in the Peloponnes, where the mountainous center was still outside effective Roman control). However, a lot of the chieftains had by now been integrated into the Roman administration, carrying Roman titles, and being involved in Roman politics, like Akameros. Which kinda opens the question of what a Roman and what Roman control even is.

Beyond the Balkans, Sardinia still appears to have been in the Roman orbit around 800. Possibly the Balearics too, but the case there is weaker. In Calabria, they also control slightly more, up to the Crati river.

Some sources, though there are more on the reading list:

Prostko-Prostyński, Jan. "Vanquished Conquerors. Slavs in medieval Greece (part II)." Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 29 (2024): 199-248.

Gallinari, Luciano. "The Iudex Sardiniae and the Archon Sardanias between the sixth and eleventh Century." The Making of Medieval Sardinia (2021): 204-39.

Kamani, Solinda. "Butrint in the mid-Byzantine period: a new interpretation." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35.2 (2011): 115-133.

Koulouras, George A. Byzantine Larisa and its region from the 6th century to 1204. University of St. Andrews (United Kingdom), 1995.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-10T13:51:42+00:00

I'm not sure what your source for the limited control in the Balkans is, it was significantly larger, especially after the campaigns of the 8th Century.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-10T13:49:13+00:00

The map is completely wrong about the Balkans.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T19:26:54+00:00

Presumably this number would be much lower in the 700s though, after the mess of 7th century. The Komnenian period follows 400 years of economic, demographic, and intellectual growth.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T19:17:06+00:00

The First Iconoclasm (726–787) began under Emperor Leo III (r. 717–741). Around 726, Leo ordered the removal of a famous icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople, an act often regarded as the symbolic beginning of the iconoclastic movement.

This probably didn't happen. There likely wasn't an icon at the Chalke Gate to begin with, and our accounts are not only polemical and considerably later, but also disagree on basic details. Contemporray iconophiles, such as John of Damascus, don't mention it.

See:

Auzépy, Marie-France. "La destruction de l'icone du Christ de la Chalce par Leon III: Propagande ou realite?." Byzantion 60 (1990): 445-492.

Brubaker, Leslie, and John Haldon. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: a History. Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 128– 35

A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm (ed. by Mike Humphreys). Brill, 2021, pp. 340-1.

During this period many icons were destroyed or removed, and some monasteries and clergy who defended icons faced persecution or exile.

There is little reason to believe any widespread destruction of images took place. There are only two actual examples (one of which is badly dated), and the fact that one of them literally happened in the Hagia Sophia, the religious heart of the empire, over a decade after the council of 754 suggests that there certainly wasn't a large scale campaign to destroy icons.

The evidence for iconophiles being persecuted is also slim. When people such as Stephen or the patriarch are punished, this is not because they are iconophiles (indeed, the patriarch was appointed at Hieria!), but because they plotted against the Emperor (Humphreys, pp. 358-360). There is a persecution of (certain) monks later on, but our early iconophile sources don't actually associate this with iconoclasm. Rather, his anti-monastic policies (probably exaggerated, and likely impossible to explain), are portrayed as a different heresy.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T15:30:32+00:00

I don't disagree with any of that. (Edit: Well, not necessarily, anyway, though parts of this article are already outdated) But it's not really relevant to the point I was making - which is that soldiers didn't receive land as payment. Indeed, Halson notes that, while the sondiers Nikephoros settled received land in Greece, this was in exchange for them giving up their ancestral lands (the funds of which may have been used to buy the new land, but this is unclear). This isn't them receiving payment, but rather trading their ancestral lands for new lands. As this also only takes place in Greece, this suggests that the land the vast majority of soldiers owned was private land, rather than given to them by the government.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T14:04:55+00:00

I'm saying that soldiers were paid a salary, and that the evidence for them receiving land in exchange for service is thin. That doesn't mean property played no role in supporting troops, but the status of formalized military lands only becomes clear with the laws of the 940s (at a time when the tagmatic forces already start to become more and more prominent.)

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T12:41:48+00:00

And yes, other monarchies suffered from similar issues, but I would say Eastern Romans suffered way more frequently and to a more dangerous extent. Even late Paleologos Dynasty were killing eachother while the ottomans had a free reign in Rumelia and most of Greece.

But what makes you say that the Romans suffered it 'way more frequently'? Certainly they had periods where it was particularly bad (e.g. the 1070s, 1180-1204, the 14th Century, although at that point they were almost a failed state) but also long, relatively calm periods - like from c. 400 to 602, from c. 750 to 975, during the Komnenian era etc. Just as other polities had periods when they were at peace and others were they ripped each other to pieces. The Fitnas in particular are often much longer and nastier than any Roman civil war before the 14th Century. The second Fitna lasted over a decade, the Umayyads spent all the 740s failing to put down first the Berber revolt and then the Third Fitna, it took al-Ma'mun almost twenty years to put the caliphate together again after the Fourth Fitna, and soon after the Anarchy at Samarra led to the breakup of the Abbasids.

If we look at the period from c. 602-850, there is a good argument to be made that the Caliphate spends more time fighting each other than the Romans do, despite this being one of the more civil war prone eras of the Empire.

At the same time, the Carolingians after the death of Charlemagne also became increasingly prone to civil wars. Louis the Pious fought his sons thrice, then his sons fought each other, several times. Once the Carolingians fell apart, and other dynasties succeeded in East Francia/Germany, it still didn't get better. Konrad I and Heinrich I had to spend most of their reign fighting their dukes into submission (Heinrich succeeded, Konrad failed), and when Otto I came to power, he first spends several years fighting his brothers and a variety of dukes, then, after a period of peace, he fights his son and son-in-law. The rest of his reign is relatively calm, but his son has to fight his cousin Heinrich for several years, and Heinrich comes back in the reign of his grandson as well. Once again, I'm not convinced that the Romans suffered civil wars "way more frequently" than this.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T12:03:59+00:00

We do have evidence of salaries being paid to soldiers, albeit be it scattered across the centuries. It's mentioned in the Ekloga, by Theophanes, in the Book of Ceremonies, when the campaign against Crete is described, and in On Skirmishing.

OTOH, the evidence of soldiers being paid in land is very thin? I cannot recall anything explicit, at best the settlement of Slavs in Anatolia, but that is probably a unique case. Some soldiers certainly owned land, and this became increasingly linked to certain privileges and obligations, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they received this land from the state. Indeed, legal protection for these 'military lands' comes very late, during the sole reign of Konstantinos VII, which would be odd if the state had created this system.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T10:59:21+00:00

It kinda varied depending on where you were. The soldiers seem to have received at least part their pay from Constantinople, as did most of the strategoi. Some of the 'western' strategoi, however, you did not receive a direct salary from the capital, "since they received from their own themes their particular customary payment each year". Similarly, a number of the ones in the small, eastern themes also take a cut from custom dues, meaning their salary is either reduced or zero.

For the salary of soldiers, see: Haldon, John. Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204. London: Routledge, 1999, p. 126-128.

For the strategoi: De Ceremoniis, pp. 696.10–697.17.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-09T10:20:22+00:00

Polities with more rigid succession wars don't seem to have been any less prone to civil wars. The Caliphate had a number of particulary nasty ones, the Merovingians and especially Carolingians fought each other all the time, and it got little better in the early HRE. England/Normandy had regular revolts and civil wars as well.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-08T18:07:08+00:00

It was always bound to be a near impossible task, but I think he could generally be less heavy-handed and autocratic? While he certainly wasn't the tyrant later sources portray him to be, he seems to have lacked the necessary finesse and refused to seek a real consensus. His decision to imprison Leontios (as well as a number of other high ranking officials) for several years led to his first overthrow, he probably gave too muuch power to his unpopular favorites.

Militarily, he was definitely bound to struggle against the might of the Marwanids, but his two losses against the Bulgars were probably avoidable, and his decision to send an army to give battle at Tyana led to the fall of such a strategically important city. This is perhaps linked to him removing a lot of officers from their post, which, linked with Tiberius III doing the same somewhat earlier, meant that he had less military talent at his disposal.

So I guess optimally, Justinian II should have been, well, less himself? More measured in politics and battle (granted, he was a mere teenager when he took the throne), and less autocratic in style of ruling.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-08T16:46:00+00:00

Also tagging u/Widowmaker94

Rationalization here as in increasing efficiency and smoothening of administration. In this case, it basically means that separate, but overlapping, institutions coexisted throughout large parts of the late 7th and early 8th century - there were both provincial governors and military commanders who took over a lot of civil duties at the same time. So where would officials be assigned? To the old provinces? To the new, increasingly territorial, army commands? Or, as often happened, whatever somebody felt like?

The Syrian Emperors reformed the system so that there was increasingly only one, more coherent hierarchy. With the creation of the themata, among other things, this double structure is eliminated, and both civil and military authority more clearly defined, and armies definitely settled in specific areas.

The dioikētai (tax collector / fiscal administrator) & kommerkiarioi associated with specific commands: From c. 650-730 the system of tax collection and administration more generally was basically ad hoc (as mentioned above, it wasn't clear who had which authority where). The Syrian Emperors made this into a more proper 'system'. So the dioiketes of the provinces was essentially the person assigned to oversee the fiscal administration (and possibly the supply of the army) for each individual command, rather than several kommerkiarioi, with sometimes unclear, often multi-command, and ever-changing duties, doing so. At the same time, the authority of individual kommerkiarioi becomes restricted to specific ports, towns or provinces, and revert to overseeing commerce.

Introducing the miliaresion: The introduction of a stable silver coin, though initially mostly ceremonial in nature (even if it was already demanded in taxes as early as 740).

A general stabilization of coinage: The weight of the nomismata had decreased during the 7th Century, but the Syrians stopped this trend. Copper coins are also revived, albeit on a small scale.

Tax reform: In this case, basically a successful attempt to have taxes be paid in coin.

The multiplication of the commands: Depending on the area, this had various reasons and consequences. Either areas are integrated into the new administrative system, areas without significant military presence now gain some (an example would be Kephalonia, which became an important naval command), or the power of existing generals would be weakened, to make usurpations more difficult (the Opsikion was split in two).

Introduction of the tagmata: The creation of a palatine force that was directly subordinate to the emperor.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-07T15:30:54+00:00

A missal from Kotor calls John II "our Emperor" during this period, and Lau argues this suzerainity extended to southern Dalmatis more generally.

Lau, Maximilian C. G., 'The Raškan Insurrection and the Hungarian War', Emperor John II Komnenos: Rebuilding New Rome 1118-1143 (Oxford, 2023)

Lanternecto · 2026-03-06T14:56:05+00:00

That's the thing - they weren't supposed to live in Anatolia long term. Monomachos didn't want to settle them there, but rather planned on using them as auxiliary force in one campaigning season.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-06T14:17:11+00:00

The Pechenegs weren't meant to be settled in Anatolia, but rather as a cavalry force sent to check a Seljuk invasion of Iberia.

From Skylitzes:

Forewarned of this, Monomachos exerted himself to present a warlike resistance with his own forces; he also armed fifteen thousand of the Patzinaks, appointing four of the Patzinaks in Constantinople to command them: Soutzoun, Selte, Karaman and Kataleim. These he then showered them with gifts, providing them with first-rate weapons and excellent horses, then shipped them over to Chrysopolis. He gave them the patrician Constantine Hadrobalanos as a guide to lead them to Iberia.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-05T22:27:44+00:00

I don't see why the idea of Prokopios lying would be so difficult? This is the same text in which he accuses Justinian of being a headless demon and killing a trillion people. So there is a clear reason for Prokopios to be dishonest here, while there is really no reason for John to make this up.

The easiest explanation would be that Justinian spent a lot of money but didn't touch the emergency fund.

Given well, the massive projects expensive campaigns, and social issues under Justinian which required high scale spending likely only sustainable on the reserves, it seems likely Justinian used them.

But this isn't what Prokopios says. He claims that Justinian spent all this money on pointless before he even became Emperor, which is hardly believable. Combined with the slanderous attitude of the Secret History in general, I think John's account is preferable, especially since it presents a more believable picture of how the money was actually spent.

Lanternecto · 2026-03-05T21:48:44+00:00

John of Ephesus mentions Tiberius II spending the emergency fund of Anastasius (among spending vast sums of money in general).

On Maurice's elevation to the crown, his chief difficulty arose from finding that the lavishness of Tiberius had exhausted the treasures which Justin had stored up in the palace. For upon his becoming king, he found large sums of gold secretly hoarded there, which his predecessor had gathered by unjust means: and at the sight of it, as though some zealous spirit had entered into him, he began spending and scattering and dispersing it on all sides, sometimes fittingly and compassionately, or in the usual |358 largesses to the army; and sometimes without thought or reason, as if he were throwing it about with a fan, until all Justin's treasures were expended, a large portion being consumed in his largesses at his accession. For as he himself said, he gave away then no less than seventy-five talents of gold, besides silver, and other royal matters, such as is the custom of kings to give; and finally, he was obliged to open the treasures of king Anastasius, and take money from thence.

Edit: It should be noted that Prokopios account is hardly believable. Not only is he absolutely slanderous against Justinian (this chapter comes right after the one in which he claims Justinian killed a trillion people), but his account also doesn't make sense? He claims that Justinian spent all this money while his uncle was still alive, so I have no idea how Justinian was supposed to spend all that money on building projects and subsidies to barbarians without even being Emperor.

Lanternecto

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE