"Late Roman or Byzantine?" Topic

What is the difference?

Depends on which period of Byzantine history you are discussing…

Byzantines a historians construct, IMO. Byzantines called themselves Roman. Conveniently categorising a continuum is what historians often do, it helps make sense of history.
IMHO in a wargaming context, the move from a dominance of infantry with HTW, javelin, dart and shield, to an army with cataphracts, EHI long thrusting spears and second rank bows , Late Roman – Byzantine :).
Highly recommend History of Rome podcast/App.

Romans have standards. Byzantines have flags.

+1 to Sillypoint's not silly point! Although I would say mounted army rather then just cataphracts. Byzantine armies were cavalry heavy forces that had a mixture of cavalry types that formed the core of the army. Infantry became an auxiliary force at best.. Although Byzantine cavalry did fight dismounted from time to time. A late Roman army was still, basically, an infantry based force where theupdated legionnaires were still the decisive arm of the army.

Belisarius ' army wouldn't look out of place in a LR setup.

I am thinking early say 5th century early 6th maybe.

What's the difference? Infantry are place holders, cavalry is the decisive arm.

All the name generals have personal troops, usually the strike force of the army. The best cavalry have bows and lance. Discipline is weaker in the whole army. Armies are small but so are enemy armies.

In the West, it's quite convenient to call the period before the Vandal and Gothic conquests "Roman", that after Justinian's reconquests "Byzantine".

Last Western Roman Emperor was 476AD. Before then, technically there was still a 'Roman' Empire administered in two halves. After then, the Eastern Empire was technically all alone.

So my date for the change would be 476AD.

Silly point is right.. They are one and the same.

The rome catholic church started to promode the wording of byzantine to reduce the importance of the roman empire and tell they had no succsesion rights. The word byzantium was first used in 1557 after it was long gone. Before everone called them the romans or the greeks or the east romans.

So Byzantines is only a wong label put on the romans by their enemies. Some kind of changing history afterward like in 1984…

Greetings

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I think GarrisonMiniatures has it right. With the fall of Rome Byzantium was the remaining authority so a change to calling it Byzantine would be sensible. Although I guess the Byzantine Emperors would see it differently

Thanks.

Eastern Roman is the only proper term and Byzantine is a political term ,

Also, bearing in mind the city was called Constantinople, why call them Byzantines, as Byzantium was long gone, shouldn't they be known as Constantinoplians? 8^)

A real poblem occurs if the Eastern Romans dno not have a separate name from the Western Romans. In 536 Justinianinvades Italy so his troops under Beliasririus are keeting Romans who live in the G othic kingdom. They are differentiated from the invading 'Romans' which makes it sensible to call Belisarius' army Byzantines.

Eastern Roman is the only proper term and Byzantine is a political term

The only proper term for Germans is Deutsch. German is a political term.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Constantinopolitans, don't you think?

Romans all around. Later on the "Eastern" Romans were sometimes referred to as "Greeks", but they still considered themselves Romans. In fact, there was always a desire to try and reclaim the "lost" Roman lands in Italy, Gaul, etc.

Byzantine is a name given to them after the empire was long gone. It is a word they never used, nor would likely have considered for themselves. It's simply an historian's term for setting an arbitrary date for other historians to argue over regarding an illusory partition of Roman history.

Heavens, it's the same as our referring to "Early" "Middle" and "Late" Imperial Rome. Or Republican vs Marian vs Caesarian, etc.

The Romans just considered themselves as Romans throughout their history. the other labels are our artificial constructs to divide up their history into what we consider more manageable historical and/or political periods.

Actually, the last Emperor in the West was Julius Nepos, driven from Ravenna by Orestes, Romulus father. Julius, recognized by the Eastern Emperor, held court from Dalmatia until his death in 480, after which Odoacer, the Western Patrician, held general authority, agreed to by the Eastern Emperor.

I'd say roman is to Byzantine as English is to Victorian.

Back when I was grabbing all the medieval historical fiction I could find, one of the main benchmarks I learned to use to distinguish between good historical fiction and crap historical fiction was the author's use of "Byzantine" within his characters' purview. If the word "Byzantine" did not show up at all, then there was at least a good chance that the story would contain accurate historical details, e.g. Alfred Leo Duggan's work, which I have also held up as the gauge by which other historical fiction is judged. YMMV, but it works for me.

Byzantium in antiquity, Constantine creates a new capital upon the site, expands it enormously both physically and politically in importance, it gets his name, then the empire divides jurisdictionally into East and West, centered upon Constantinople and Rome respectively.

The Church remains united for centuries after the political split, and loss of Rome (The City) and its surrounding territories. Justinian's feckless effort to regain the western half of the Empire illustrates how important the homeland of "Romans" was, but it was not to be: too expensive and fraught with political undertones – Belisarius' success there only got him killed in the end. Nobody placed as an "emperor of Rome" could be tolerated, ergo the repossession of The City was impossible because instant rivals (it was feared) would arise there to threaten the ascendency of Constantinople, etc.

The Church finally split (although it wasn't known at the time because future failures to reunite were, well, yet future) in 1053. Rome and Constantinople became religio-political centers like never before. Those pesky Roman Catholics insisted upon precedence, which is odd, considering that politically Rome The City had stopped being important since the sixth century. "Romans" only existed in the East Empire, and all "Romans" from there knew it. Their detractors and enemies disparagingly referred to them as "Greeks", and only as "Romans" when they wanted to work in with the "Byzantines" and not insult them, etc.

Militarily, the last of the West Romans resembled their contemporaries in the East in all except proportions. Western armies were closer to a fifty to fifty split, infantry to cavalry, sometimes/often being more infantry than cavalry. In the East by that time, cavalry (being faced by largely cavalry enemies) dominated more and more as the "dark ages" progressed.

But "Byzantine" armies always used more infantry than cavalry when required by circumstances, they were never slavishly devoted to cavalry-dominated armies. Arguably, the army of the tenth century (before the worst political infighting of a century later, and before the corruption of the thematic militia system), was the apogee of the Roman army in its state of development: when infantry was the best equipped and as well-drilled as any "classical era" Roman legion ever was, and the cavalry was second to none in the known "Roman" world. Combined arms units of pikemen (scutati) and archers (psiloi), with the pike screen also armed with darts (martiobarbuli), were an almost unbeatable combination of aggression and defense, while the cavalry horse archers and lancers (also armed with martiobarbuli) were so disciplined and well trained/equipped that no other army in the world could compare.

The potential downfall of "Byzantine" armies was limited manpower. They always had to be very careful to win without undue casualties, because replacement was both expensive and took years to get back. That is why at Manzikert (1071), when the core army was lost with the emperor, followed by over ten years of civil war, the "Byzantine" army never fully recovered. A century later at Myriocephalon (1176, the "second Manzikert"), a similar defeat and loss of the army that had been rebuilt slowly by the Comneni, was never replaced: the "Byzantine" empire simply did not have the resources and manpower to rebuild the regular army, which became subsequently a largely foreign mercenary force: better drilled than those troops were "at home", because of "Roman" drilling methods, but not "Roman" in any sense of the word.

By 1453, the tiny "Roman" army was down to a few thousand palace guards and garrison troops with ancient names that did not suit the original units in any way, and again, were largely not even "Greeks" at all, but various composites of Europeans ("Franks", mostly Italians) and "Turks", i.e. Western Steppes auxiliaries moved more or less permanently into residence in or nearby "The City", and had been for generations. There were no native, that is to say, "Greek" units of note, because long before (after Myriocephalon) the "Greeks" had grown accustomed to hiring foreigners to do all their fighting for them. The last "emperors" were therefore not generals of "Romans", even though they insisted upon the title until the last "Roman" emperor died in battle outside his city, and the Ottomans changed Constantinople into "Stanbul", "The City"….

the original Ottoman Turk state was tiny. The Normans that conquered S Italy and Sicily were a few hundred men. The Byzantines in 1200 had a state that comprised most of Modern Turkey and a fair chunk of the Balkans. They certainly had more land and men than Philip of Macedon, or Alexander and probably more than Hannibal.

So I don't really buy GWA's long list of excuses for their failure to reconquer the lands that the Arabs ripped away from them or to hold the Balkans against Bulgars, Serbs and Croats. The byzantines (East Romans if you prefer) are a great wargames army. They are described, by themselves, as having well equipped and well drilled troops, but why do they do so relatively badly in the real world?
I wonder if we are dazzled by the manuals and if, with the brief exception of Nicephorus Phocas and Tzimisces their armies are just not that well equipped or well motivated. Again if the Nikephorians are so good then why is the area they reconquer so paltry.?

What Sillypoint said. They are Romans from the Eastern side of the Empire.

@Lewis: I think the failure is because of corruption at all levels. Yes, their military manuals are impressive, and the armies to go with them are often impressive, but the human element vitiates the campaigns and even ruins them often. Then you have simple human folly and hubris: Myriocephalon was entirely the fault of hubris. It didn't help that the "Franks" had a severe dose of "empire envy" and distrusted the "Greeks" for shifty schismatics, barely better than infidels. Later, the history ruined all efforts to rejoin the two major halves of Christianity: too much bad blood and distrust prevented the "West" from coming to the rescue of the "East"; not that it would have done any lasting good, the Ottoman empire was already too big to stop by holding Constantinople….

And there we have it: Gattamalata knows stuff. Thanks for the input. I make bloated contributions to threads when I know a thing (and sometimes "or two"), hoping to spark a response by someone who knows more and will share….

My comment about the Byzantines not being as good as their manuaos suggest was meant to run from the Arab Conquest to the 14th century, not just the final years of the Empire :-))
I don't disagree withthe Cat's analysis that they had plenty of opportunities to turn the situation, but failed and I think we all and particularly the rule and army list writers, see the Tagmatic army as better than the Thematic army, though of course there were always household troops who were better armed, trained, kitted than provincials.
My point is really that the Byzantines benefit from a halo effect engendered by the Nikephorians and their manuals, to get a very good wargames army. Interestingly reading Leo the Deacon shows the tenth century Byzantines to be good, but not all conquering.
Savvas Kyriakidis , in Warfare in Late Byzantium, is of the opinion that a major problem fir the Later Byzantines is that they lack good infantry and thus their victories are ephemeral.
I think that we have bought into their own propaganda where defensive strategies and battles are good enough. I recall it is Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire that makes this point. They are concerned to wage defensive wars and do not push their victories to the point of retaking territory in a way that ensures its re Romanisation. So they beat the Bulgars, but after a couple of generations the Bulgars rise again. Same with the Serbs. As to the performance of the army , its not better than the Arabs or the Turks, it is not really better than the Crusaders and as a state they lak will and ruthlessness….and cruelty, which they had a plenty, though not uniquely, is not ruthlessness.

Gattamalata wrote:

By 1200, Bulgaria and Serbia had broken off and the coffers were depleted due to Manuel's campaigning. What was left on the map was still impressive on paper, but there was plenty of discontent – Cyprus had seceded and later annexed by Richard I.

I would argue that even from the time of Justinian, the Emperor's actual hold on the entire empire was tenuous at best. One the empire became Christian, it was "Katy Bar the Door!" and the armies were constantly engaged in putting out religio-political brush fires between this and that sect, from Alexandria, all the way back to Rome and Constantinople, and all points in between.

To my mind, the miracle of the Roman Empire, post Constantine, was not how well they held it together and for how long, but that they were able to hold it together at all.

I think the Comneni are getting a bit of a bad press here, the old Byzantine army was nonexistent after the civil wars, they had to cobble together a heath robinson army while they had barbarians pressing at every gate.

I find Byzantine a useful term to differentiate between the Infantry based Eastern Late Roman army and the emerging cavalry based one – but most of the models I have are useable in either force for the late 4th/5th/6th centuries, its just the relative percentages of each.

In a High Medieval context, I try to stick with East Roman as a happy balance between what they called themselves (Roman), and any need to distinguish them from the citizens of the Italian city.