Thanks for your response Edyz. I'm glad the little grammar slip wasn't held against you. It shouldn't be.

It seems to me that losing a large and valuable territory will damage an empire's tax base and military capability with or without pronoia. Still, I take your point. The pronoia system's disadvantages tie in with the corruption and greed you mentioned in your essay.

So religious strife did not cause Armenian disloyalty. What about the Arab invasion of Egypt in the 7th century? Allegedly the Egyptians did not resist because they were fed up with heavy taxes and religious persecution. Do you happen to know if that is true, or just another myth?