History of Byzantium - Vol 7-9 - Justinian's End Game

Pefect timing for my 12 hour night shift !

If you ever get the chance you can tell Robin I only started listening to his podcast after I watched your first videos in this series.

Was on planes all day, hit the hotel bed and back to story time and learning! GREAT way to relax the brain for me vs airports and rental car agreements! Thanks gang!

Blessed day

Your Videos are so incredible! Justian is among the giants of the East!

This series has been fantastic! You did justice to history by any standard - we are blessed considering these insights were, until recently, a once-in-a-lifetime or even once-in-a-millennia opportunity to know the full picture of. You have incidentally made the case that a historian like Procopius is arguably as rare a figure as Justinian and Belisarius, which only adds to the debt we should owe to you.

Your videos are awesome. You should have so many more subscribers. Thank you.

Fantastic work y’all! Loved the series!

Justinian is an interesting contradiction in so many ways. He sought to reconquer Italy, Africa and the lost Western Roman provinces, in turn exposing the wealthier Eastern ones to invasion from Persia as a result. He sought to violently unify the Church, yet forced many sects and pagans to side with Barbarian kings as a result. He sought to make Constantinople the greatest city in the world, yet neglected the defense of the Danube frontier, allowing steppe raiders to establish on the cities doorstep. Great energy and intelligence, genius visions of conquest and glory, yet lack of careful consolidation and overextending the army and empire, to the point it could not sustain. Such an interesting duality of a man.

Top-notch quality historical content! Tyfys!

Definitely improved my morning! Great work as always!

Fantastic as usual! Loving this series!

0:00: 😔 The Byzantine Empire under Justinian faced numerous challenges including the plague, invasions, and revolts. 10:21: 🔍 Theodora's influence and the depiction of her in Ravenna, the failed attempts to regain control of Italy, the Slavic invasion in Dalmatia, ongoing conflicts with the Lakhmid and Ghassanid Arabs, and the restoration of Byzantine protection in Lazica. 28:46: 📚 Justinian strategically selects commanders to lead the Empire's armies, successfully driving out Slavic Raiders and extending the truce with Persia. 31:03: 🏰 Italy is finally brought back into the Byzantine Empire after years of warfare and devastation. 41:02: 🌍 Justinian achieves success in Italy, Spain, and peace with Persia, but faces theological division. 51:36: 🌍 Justinian's rule faced discontent and challenges including natural disasters, the return of the plague, and threats from barbarian invasions. 1:01:26: 📜 Justinian's reign was marked by various domestic troubles and efforts to balance trade with the East and maintain parity with the Persians. 1:16:00: 👑 Justinian was a capable emperor but his pursuit of personal beliefs and desires ultimately did not benefit the empire. 1:22:37: 📚 Justinian's reign had a significant impact on the Byzantine world, marking the transition from late Antiquity to the medieval Byzantine age. Recap by

Enjoyed immensely, thanks so much for a more detailed look at this period of the Eastern Empire's history than most.

Great video and analysis as always! Apart from the plague, there is also another important economic and security factor which influenced the Roman future in the time of Justinian - The Earthquakes. Starting from 526-528 in Antiochia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/526_Antioch_earthquake) and continuing to the Great Earthquake in Constantinoupoli in 557 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/557_Constantinople_earthquake). The heart of the Empire was in ruins which encouraged the invaders in the following years in both Anatolia and the Balkans. The depopulation of the frontier provinces caused by inner migrations toward the more secure big cities (like the story of Justin himself), plague and foreign invasions left large areas in the Northern Balkans and Eastern Anatolia defenseless. The major mistake of Justinian was his firm religious policy against the Paganism. He tried to unify the Romans of course, but this policy had an unexpected boomerang effect and cause many loyal pagan Roman citizens of Greek and Latin stock and many regions in Greece, Italy and Hispania to prefer to live under the rule of pagan or religious tolerant barbarian warlords, rather than to remain under Roman authority. This effect on its turn caused the shrink of the recruitment and support base among the Romans themselves and became the major reason for the barbarization of the Roman military. As a result of the shrinking of the Roman {Greek and Latin} support base, Anatolia took the place of the main Roman powerbase peninsula, instead of Italia or the Balkans. But why the Graeco-Latin Romans of Anatolia didn't follow the examples of Greece or Italia and prefer the religiously oppressive authority of Constantinoupoli even after the forcible Christianization of more then 70,000 pagan Greeks there, by Justinian authorities? The main reason behind this was that the eastern invaders (Persian and later Arabs) of Anatolia were less tolerant toward everything Roman - Greek or Latin and Anatolia was much more ethnically diverse with large Non-Roman (Armenian, Isavrian, Assyrian, etc.) population than the other Great Roman peninsulas of the time. The Non-Roman Anatolian population followed its own religious and cultural path, which even tried to replace the Cristian Roman path with the introduction of the Iconoclasm few centuries later and caused the rift between the Greek and Latin Christianity which teared apart the Roman state itself several centuries later, during the Forth Crusade.

Man I really wish I found your channel sooner yes I love all the bigger history Creators and they have the advantage of being bigger with all those perks such as Armchair, Invicta,Kings And Generals, Oversimplified,simple history, See U in History, and obviously a lot of other guys lol cant list them all now but I been watching them for years and I’m glad Epimetheus featured you on a video I watched not so long ago about Zama the epic showdown and recently I been just binging your channel after binging epimethus as I finished watching his Bronzeage era videos to Byzantium rise and fall now I’m watching this video after finishing your Reconquista series still got a ton more to binge after this video and I’m done with your Byzantine series

Incredible documentary!

Amazing work ❤❤

When he spent so much money to conquer far away lands the, Balcans when the recruits most of his troops where left to the barbarians raiders

Can't believe you don't have more subscribers! Try and collabing with Epic History TV, or History Marche!