How to Murder a Byzantine Emperor
medievalists.net
medievalists.net
Apparently, after the success of the Byzantine Generals paper, his Paxos paper was written as the description of an ancient Greek democracy. Paxos is not initials as I thought but the name of the island described in the paper. His editor didn't like the humor and didn't publish, and the paper was only published years later, after it reached some other researchers and had a lot of impact on the field, in the guise of a "recently rediscovered ancient manuscript".
http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/pubs.html#lamport-paxo...
For all HN readers that don't know Mickens yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905536
...I shall not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I may surely observe, that their condition, of all others, is the most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope.
-- Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
In just a few days of writing - a few hours of reading - six hundred years have passed, and the life or reign of a king seems but an instant. Death is ever present, and the criminal who seizes the throne immediately loses it. From our remote position we look down on the rapid passing of sixty dead kings, who together barely make an impression on us. We might be surprised at their ambition for a throne that seems to bring nothing but death. But that surprise is lessened by the fact that the ambitious turn up everywhere and always. Nonetheless we might wonder why there is this constant desire to rule.
...I won't bore you with a long discussion of how miserable it is to be king, but it's clear that they are pretty miserable.
(For all practical purposes, England has been a republic since the XIII century, hiring and terminating rent-a-kings at will.)
Eh?
Way back when, the Roman aristocrats killed their king and instituted a wildly successful senatorial republic which lasted some five centuries. Later, the English aristocrats, going with the flow of the times, had their republic based on the Magna Carta - which kept a nominal king, serving at the pleasure of Parliament.
Those kings were hired and fired at will, sometimes with loss of head, like Charles I, or just the threat of it, like James II. Long before multinational corporations, there was international recruiting for the job, which is why German aristocrats had to change names for WWI.
Copywriters write advertisements, which is how governments get picked nowadays. They put a shiny gloss on unpleasant facts, or make the audience believe claims which are hard to prove with facts. Industrial manufacture of consent, or advanced belief production, whatever, it works.
(Since you asked. But do your own reading.)
- Boiling alive in a large cauldron (as recently applied to journalists in Uzbekistan).
- Being rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses (presumably two things nomadic Mongols always have available).
- Pouring molten silver into the ears and eyes.
Rome is at one point divided into two empires, West and East.
West Empire collapse, but East Empire keeps going with its capital at Constantinople. East Empire becomes the Byzantine Empire now.
East Empire actually ALMOST reunites with the West, and Justinian's top general, Belisarius, actually captures Rome in the mid 500's. He fails to hold the Italian peninsula for a variety of reasons, and Western Europe slips away.
The Turkish Empire then begins rising around the 1300's, one of many many trends driven by the Mongols and their invasions.
In the 1440s the Turkish Empire (the Ottomans basically), wipe out the kingdoms of Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe actually has a really rich history but unfortunately has had the thankless task of saving Europe over and over by being a "bullet sponge" for the powers on either side.
In 1453 the Ottomans capture Constantinople and begin their empire.
By the 1800s the empire falls into disrepair, and is now regarded as the "sick man of Europe". This is further compounded by choosing the wrong side in World War I. At the end of the war the Ottoman empire is dissolved by various treaties.
This leaves the remaining core of Turkey. Interestingly it also puts Iraq, Iran, and Palestine into the hands of the British, beginning a long road to the revolution in Iran, the various Israeli / Palestinian negotiations, and eventually, the war in Iraq.
TL;DR: Basically you can trace the fall of the Roman empire in the 500's to ISIS today somewhat simply.
The Holy Roman Empire. Roma. Mussolini. And they all have one thing in common. They are not Roman.
Well, actually Mussolini might be a hard one to pin, but modern day Italians who significantly developed their culture through the Renaissance are definitely not the same as Ancient Romans.
Wonder if this is the norm in kingly assassinations, a coincidence that they were chosen or a tendency of ancient schoolers to ascribe bad events to women.
Other historians have serious doubts on the veracity of this story. By crossing with other sources, though none is as detailed as Skylitzes' romantic prose, they try to distinguish the (probable) facts from the pure inventions (and the reality-inspired inventions). See "The Conspiracy of Michael Traulos and the Assassination of Leo V: History and Fiction", Dmitry Afinogenov, 2001 : the paranoia of King Leo seems more realistic than a conspiracy by Michael.
It's historians hard work to separate the fiction from the facts, and to learn even from the fiction. One can try the same today: most modern media are less emphatic than John Skylitzes, but they can't always be right and neutral. Yet it's often very hard and time-consuming to find when a reporter stated a fact and when he exaggerated or wrote what he wished or was told.
12 byzantine emperors is a great podcast.