Proof that the Byz Army was INVINCIBLE!

[Zauba'a]

I bought John Julius Norwich's "Short History of Byzantium" a few days ago, and I just came upon this little section about an EARLY Byzantine victory... (sometime around 356 AD)

"The following year near Strasbourg, his (Julian the Apostate) 13,000 legionaries smashed a Frankish enemy of 30,000 or more, leaving some 6,000 dead on the field at a cost of just 247 of their own men."

Just imagine the look on the Byzantine generals' faces when they got the final count. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif "HOW MANY???"

[Rosacrux]

If you are impressed by that, you should check out the battles of Belissarius... he squashed the Vandals and the Goths, and his army losses were less than minimal.

But, again, Belissarius is one of the greatest tactical geniouses of all times...

[Zauba'a]

Around what year was Belissarius?

[Rosacrux]

He lived 505-565 I believe and was the leader of the Byzantine "reconquista" of the Northern African and Italian provinces, plus he fought succesfully against the Persian and suppressed several rebellions @home, with most prominent of the latter being the "Nika" incident.

[Hakonarson]

Julian can't really be considered "Byzantine" either - since the Empire had only split 50 yrs before and was still divided into senior and junior halves IIRC.

however check out the battle of Chaeronea, 86BC, Sulla vs Archaelus - circa 15,000 Romans vs manybe 90,000 enemy, of whom almost all are killed

[deejayvee]

Is there a specific date when the Roman Empire is considered to have become the Byzantine Empire?

We all know there was no actual date because the Byzantines considered themselves Roman, but I was wondering what the scholarly accepted time was.

[Rosacrux]

Not a particular line there, but generally it is accepted that after the late 7th century AD the eastern empire was hellenized. The turning point might also be defined during the reign of Heraclius, if you are looking for a particular emperor, when the empire lost the easternmost provinces to the Arabs.

The empire was hellenized fully in the beginning of the 9th century.

[Teutonic Knight]

however was not called "Byzantine" until two centuries after it's fall. It was called the Eastern Roman Empire, or to them just the Roman Empire, actually they called themselves Romeioi (can't spell it right with this keyboard...)

[Rosacrux]

Actually, the term byzantine was introduced by a french professor of history in the 18th or even 19th century... of course they called themselves Romei or even plain Hellenes after the 10th century (most were Greeks, anyway).

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

Interesting stuff guys cheers. Was thinking about the new game, if it plays up to when the Empire splits in half, do you think you could attack the other half at all? And would the other Empire ever attack you because it was being run by the computer? Interesting questions I think.

Was there anytime when a conflict might have occured between them?

[Rosacrux]

Well, as far as what is known, we won't be able to play for such a prolonged period... prolly we'll get late Republic, early imperial and that's it.

But... there might be an expansion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Longshanks]

Quote[/b] (Toda Nebuchadnezzar @ Feb. 14 2003,17:44)]Interesting stuff guys cheers. Was thinking about the new game, if it plays up to when the Empire splits in half, do you think you could attack the other half at all? And would the other Empire ever attack you because it was being run by the computer? Interesting questions I think.

Was there anytime when a conflict might have occured between them?
The Romans loved to fight civil wars amongst themselves, so it should be a possibility in any game. Both Eastern and Western Empires at this period were still Roman as well, the Eastern Empire had not yet become Greek one, as it did later on. I don't think there were any wars between the two after they were truly split though.(I could be wrong though)

I would imagine that if there were, the winner would have declared himself Emperor of both the Eastern and Western Empires.

[Hakonarson]

Absolutely - after about 200 AD almost every time an emperor died all the Remaining generals of field armied declared themselves Emperor and went at each other in huge wars

The first such one was a bit earlier - 69 AD - the year of the 4 Emperors Recounted in great details in Tacitus' "Annal of Rome" published by Penguin IIRC - should be available at any university book shop or similar.

Large areas were independant for quite long periods of time - IIRC there was an "empire" based in most of Gaul for a decade or 2 in the 200's.