Slitherine

Greetings

Just seen the announcement on the FoG site on 'Eternal Empire' and 'Decline and Fall' the former being Ottomans and the latter Byzantines.

I'm not convinced about the names - 'eternal empire' and can't work out where 'Decline and Fall' comes in as the Byzantine lists therein seem to end with the Nikephoran which is more like resurgence than fall - although if they cover Manzikert there might be an argument here.

The lists look interesting though.

Regards

Nikeforian does indeed go through to Mazikert - although even that is more of a nasty trip and stumble than a fall

nikgaukroger wrote:Nikeforian does indeed go through to Mazikert - although even that is more of a nasty trip and stumble than a fall

I've always heard Manzikert described as the battle thatbroke the Byzantine Empire. Not immediately of course, but the loss of the Themes was fatal in the long term.

Regards

Dave M

You have no idea of the pain involved in selecting names for books and games!

davem wrote:
I've always heard Manzikert described as the battle thatbroke the Byzantine Empire. Not immediately of course, but the loss of the Themes was fatal in the long term.

Myriokephalon (excuse spelling) may actually have been more important although there is a good argument that the fragmentation following the 4th Crusade was what actually pushed the whole thing past the crucial point and into irriversable decline.

If you do want to see Manzikert as the significant turning point again it is probably the effect of the capture of the emperor and the following civil wars and disruption that did the damage. In the aftermath of the battle Alp Arslan did not invade the empire - he had far more important things to do - instead there was an unofficial incursion of Turkomen that ended up occupying most of Anatolia, if the empire had been united it would probably have seen these off and remained fairly intact.

To pick up on a description of the western empire used by Guy Halsall - it actually looks like Roman empires tended to accidentally commit suicide rather than be killed off

nikgaukroger wrote: To pick up on a description of the western empire used by Guy Halsall - it actually looks like Roman empires tended to accidentally commit suicide rather than be killed off

Although the sack in 1204 also did a pretty good on the Empire.