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Is the thing you're listening to talking about the Western Romans or Eastern? If Eastern, which particular battles is he referring to?
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Is the thing you're listening to talking about the Western Romans or Eastern? If Eastern, which particular battles is he referring to?
Blazin
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Could easily be different time periods, I'm specifically referencing 610+
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chaos
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Yeah there's a good chance I'm just misunderstanding what he is saying, then. The information gets pretty dense.
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Also the sources for that time period are... not great. A lot of things are written from the information given by some muslim historian in the 900's. Which isn't to say it's wrong, it just might not have the level of detail you might like and a lot of things might be speculation.
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Olscratch
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Even then they brought in a Hungarian white guy engineer (Urban) to build them basically the Paris gun in cannon form (Dardanelles Gun) to siege Constantinople. He offered his services to the Byzantines first but they couldn't afford him.
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Aaron
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The thing is, sometimes major historical events seem to simply just boil down to plain old "luck" (for lack of a better word. The stars align, so to speak, and shit happens. It is usually a combination of the right leaders being around at the right time, while the enemy, even a strong one, is caught with it's pants down. Cases such as the aforementioned Muslim Arab conquest, Alexander the Great, even Napoleon and Hitler, all "technically" should not have been possible, but did happen. Again, sometimes things just seem to "work out" with a huge number of factors combining to create a recipe for success (or disaster, depending on who's side you're on).
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chaos
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Yeah that's one of the things that really interests me, how much random chance there seems to be in a lot of these stories. Julius Caesar's story was the first one that I really took notice of that phenomenon.
So I am catching up on the Byzantine history, trying to reinforce the podcast with some reading, even if it's just Wikipedia, seems to help with understanding quite a bit. I then have a podcast on the history of England I want to dig into, that's like 170+ episodes, then the audio book of Rubicon because Big J Dawgs is the shit.
I'm looking for a good reference on Greek history, I got some from Dan Carlins King of Kings series but I am looking for a deeper dive, specifically into Alexander but hopefully something that can give a full picture.
So I am catching up on the Byzantine history, trying to reinforce the podcast with some reading, even if it's just Wikipedia, seems to help with understanding quite a bit. I then have a podcast on the history of England I want to dig into, that's like 170+ episodes, then the audio book of Rubicon because Big J Dawgs is the shit.
I'm looking for a good reference on Greek history, I got some from Dan Carlins King of Kings series but I am looking for a deeper dive, specifically into Alexander but hopefully something that can give a full picture.
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yerm
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Islam had several advantages that often get overlooked. Most people note the incredible drain that their crushing Persia had. It runs far deeper than just depleted manpower - it includes depleted finances, and it is all underscored by incredible religious division brewing in the Empire. The common perception of Muslim armies is also generally off; Roman cataphracts would shit on arabian horses. It wasn't some kind of cavalry (or even camel) advantage.
First, militarily, the biggest advantage Arabs had was logistics. Part of this was the luck of having great generals, but it would be silly to just refer to it as purely luck. Khalid Ibn al-Walid pissed off Abu Bakr by executing a man, accused of doing it to steal his wife. In Byzantine circles he'd be done, then and there, no exceptions. There was a deep fear that a skilled general exerting personal authority would just claim the purple. This kind of (honestly quite legitimate) paranoia had a recurring problem of keeping some of the most capable Byzantine generals from exercising their full potential. In contrast, Abu Bakr was reasonably more able to trust his top men, clean up Mohammed's succession and re-unite Arabia, and move on. If Heraclius had a man of his caliber on his own side, the man was likely either suppressed in the middling ranks or was executed.
The other key aspect to logistics is finances. Too much of early medieval warfare dismisses the impact this has. When you read or hear the accounts, take note of how often "volunteers" or "converts" and others fight on the Arab side, note of how often they are fed while their enemy is hungry, and note how locals quickly submit and cooperate. Primary accounts will credit Allah; I'm sure you agree with me that's nonsense. It's currency. The Arabs could march into hostile territory and the locals would come TO THEM and sell their goods. They could hire soldiers. They could bribe administrators. This may be one of the biggest differences between the two over anything else: Arab armies had ample supplies because they could buy whatever they wanted, Roman armies were lucky if just the soldiers themselves saw pay.
The other big and crucial issue to their spread was timing. Persia obviously had just been thoroughly dismantled so that one is easy to explain. They had not just lost the war and their strength, this was a hit to the legitimacy of their rule and the validity of their beliefs. Part of the war aim had been to recover the True Cross, so picture it as somewhat akin to losing to crusaders for them. Their religious leaders were made into fools just as a far more organized religion was coming in.
It wasn't just Persia though. Heraclius I consider one of the best rulers in human history, stuck with some of the worst luck anyone could face (akin to Hannibal). He didn't just smash Persia and deplete the armies and treasury. He cracked down hard on religious controversies to try to stop the fracturing in society. He pressed for Greek at the expense of the clinging to Latin. He was reforming an Empire that had been stuck as a rump state into a modern power, and it meant incredible short-term instability as a consequence. It made total sense once Persia went down; nobody expected the rich Arab spice traders to unite and expand north. When they did they found places like Jerusalem absolutely fed up with the central Constantinople government and a population sick of oppression and ready to welcome someone who would merely tax them and let them worship as they pleased. Islamic scholars, even while totally shitting on him and how Allah defeated him and granted Islam victories... all note that he's this wise and just and capable foe.
First, militarily, the biggest advantage Arabs had was logistics. Part of this was the luck of having great generals, but it would be silly to just refer to it as purely luck. Khalid Ibn al-Walid pissed off Abu Bakr by executing a man, accused of doing it to steal his wife. In Byzantine circles he'd be done, then and there, no exceptions. There was a deep fear that a skilled general exerting personal authority would just claim the purple. This kind of (honestly quite legitimate) paranoia had a recurring problem of keeping some of the most capable Byzantine generals from exercising their full potential. In contrast, Abu Bakr was reasonably more able to trust his top men, clean up Mohammed's succession and re-unite Arabia, and move on. If Heraclius had a man of his caliber on his own side, the man was likely either suppressed in the middling ranks or was executed.
The other key aspect to logistics is finances. Too much of early medieval warfare dismisses the impact this has. When you read or hear the accounts, take note of how often "volunteers" or "converts" and others fight on the Arab side, note of how often they are fed while their enemy is hungry, and note how locals quickly submit and cooperate. Primary accounts will credit Allah; I'm sure you agree with me that's nonsense. It's currency. The Arabs could march into hostile territory and the locals would come TO THEM and sell their goods. They could hire soldiers. They could bribe administrators. This may be one of the biggest differences between the two over anything else: Arab armies had ample supplies because they could buy whatever they wanted, Roman armies were lucky if just the soldiers themselves saw pay.
The other big and crucial issue to their spread was timing. Persia obviously had just been thoroughly dismantled so that one is easy to explain. They had not just lost the war and their strength, this was a hit to the legitimacy of their rule and the validity of their beliefs. Part of the war aim had been to recover the True Cross, so picture it as somewhat akin to losing to crusaders for them. Their religious leaders were made into fools just as a far more organized religion was coming in.
It wasn't just Persia though. Heraclius I consider one of the best rulers in human history, stuck with some of the worst luck anyone could face (akin to Hannibal). He didn't just smash Persia and deplete the armies and treasury. He cracked down hard on religious controversies to try to stop the fracturing in society. He pressed for Greek at the expense of the clinging to Latin. He was reforming an Empire that had been stuck as a rump state into a modern power, and it meant incredible short-term instability as a consequence. It made total sense once Persia went down; nobody expected the rich Arab spice traders to unite and expand north. When they did they found places like Jerusalem absolutely fed up with the central Constantinople government and a population sick of oppression and ready to welcome someone who would merely tax them and let them worship as they pleased. Islamic scholars, even while totally shitting on him and how Allah defeated him and granted Islam victories... all note that he's this wise and just and capable foe.
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Lithose
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I'm not sure what you know from the podcast, but this first part is a brief overview of the Persians, which is really important in understanding how martial history, power and money flowed to the Arabs, and also created a huge opening for them due to a crippling Roman/Persian conflict that lasted centuries.
It's been a while, I can try to recall the sources for you but this is what I remember. You have to go pretty far back, but the gist is, the Arabs and the Persians mixed a lot--and the Persians had a large Empire for as long as the Romans. Also, the Empires, like Egypt, had Western martial influences because they were set up from thee Alexandrian Split.
At the point where Islam began to coalesce into the first Caliphates, it was kind of a perfect storm in that area. As you said, Rome was pretty firmly in charge until the end of the Pax Romana, when a series of plagues crippled it, especially the Western half. But it wasn't like they were fighting people completely beneath them. I'm not sure what your Podcast brought up, but by that point Rome had been fighting the Persians for centuries. (Which I know are different from Arabs, but they controlled provinces of Arab territory and depended on the Arab tribes so a lot of exchange happened). In fact, most likely the plague came from the conflict with the Persians, as Roman armies took a lot of new territory in the second century that had been experiencing plague.
In any case, the Parthians, while often on the losing end of conflict during the Imperial years, were "strong enough" to be rivals the Romans couldn't just wipe out easily. In fact, Crassus (The rich guy) died against the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae, which the Parthians wrecked a massive Roman army. It was one of the worst losses since Aruasio against the Germans. But unlike the Germans, the Parthians won with less numerically, which was rare for the Romans (Just illustrating the Persians were no slouches, even if they did get their shit pushed in by the Romans more often than not, it wasn't a ridiculous imbalance). By the time of the plagues alone the Persians had been fighting Rome for centuries and they had a huge martial tradition of their own. Parthians were replaced by Sasanians, and the Romans, continued fighting them, sieged their capital a few times but then the crisis of the second century and a series of bad emperors and instability from the decreased populations forced a lull.
Those conflicts heated back up in the 5th century. They were steady and costly, especially for Rome because of the Resources Eastern Rome had expended recapturing a lot of Western territory and reforging the Empire, and expanding it (And they were, generally, winning against the Persians). However, at the end of the 5th Century, under Phocas there were a series of devastating misadventures that essentially saw the Romans get their asses kicked and lost massive amounts of territory. Heraclius couldn't break the tide when he took the throne and they lost even more. But the Persians over-extended and Heraclius waited for it, and eventually crushed them--however, to do so the guy was literally selling religious symbols, and eating his empire from within to push the war. Everything had to go, nothing was more important than the war.
At the point where Islam began to coalesce into the first Caliphates, it was kind of a perfect storm in that area. As you said, Rome was pretty firmly in charge until the end of the Pax Romana, when a series of plagues crippled it, especially the Western half. But it wasn't like they were fighting people completely beneath them. I'm not sure what your Podcast brought up, but by that point Rome had been fighting the Persians for centuries. (Which I know are different from Arabs, but they controlled provinces of Arab territory and depended on the Arab tribes so a lot of exchange happened). In fact, most likely the plague came from the conflict with the Persians, as Roman armies took a lot of new territory in the second century that had been experiencing plague.
In any case, the Parthians, while often on the losing end of conflict during the Imperial years, were "strong enough" to be rivals the Romans couldn't just wipe out easily. In fact, Crassus (The rich guy) died against the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae, which the Parthians wrecked a massive Roman army. It was one of the worst losses since Aruasio against the Germans. But unlike the Germans, the Parthians won with less numerically, which was rare for the Romans (Just illustrating the Persians were no slouches, even if they did get their shit pushed in by the Romans more often than not, it wasn't a ridiculous imbalance). By the time of the plagues alone the Persians had been fighting Rome for centuries and they had a huge martial tradition of their own. Parthians were replaced by Sasanians, and the Romans, continued fighting them, sieged their capital a few times but then the crisis of the second century and a series of bad emperors and instability from the decreased populations forced a lull.
Those conflicts heated back up in the 5th century. They were steady and costly, especially for Rome because of the Resources Eastern Rome had expended recapturing a lot of Western territory and reforging the Empire, and expanding it (And they were, generally, winning against the Persians). However, at the end of the 5th Century, under Phocas there were a series of devastating misadventures that essentially saw the Romans get their asses kicked and lost massive amounts of territory. Heraclius couldn't break the tide when he took the throne and they lost even more. But the Persians over-extended and Heraclius waited for it, and eventually crushed them--however, to do so the guy was literally selling religious symbols, and eating his empire from within to push the war. Everything had to go, nothing was more important than the war.
So at the start of the 6th century both empires are in tatters from a war. Rome had defeated the Persians (Resoundingly) but it was a strain of Pyrrhic victory, the cost was enormous economically. Now here's the important thing. By this time, because their client provinces in Arab locations were wealthy? Arabs were in many positions within the Persian Empire--in fact multiple commanders of the Persian armies were Arabs from these locations. Just like the Romans leaned on their wealthy provinces during expansion for troops, and money, so too did the Persians. And just like how the Celts, or Italian allies or Hispania became "Romanized" from this effect, the Arabs ended up picking up a lot of Persian (And Greek/Roman) martial experience, economic experience--in fact, most likely these interactions are what lead to the rise of a monotheistic religion, and Islam in the area. But, of course, the bulk of Arabians didn't live in these provinces. (But they facilitated the mixing of said experiencing into the larger Arab culture after Islam unified the tribes.)
However, the real key is the fact that enormous amounts of money were used during the war between Rome and the Persians. The Arab tribes sat right on important trade routes between Africa, Persia and Rome, running both North and South and East/West. No one wanted to fuck with the Tribes because the area was an unforgiving mess (The best bits, along the coast, the Persians already made into clients/territories), so it didn't have a ton of value except for these trade routes. The Arab tribes, during the wars, became monstrously wealthy from this arrangement where no side wanted to really fight them and risk opening up another front, and both sides needed the trade routes desperately. The mercantile wealth was obscene.
The Koraysh controlled the biggest, they also ran Mecca. Now, Mecca was a "pagan" place of worship before Muhammad came along, but just like with Islam, among the Arabs it was a place where they all went to. It was deeply embedded in their mystacism/old faith. Muhammad exploited that with his evangelical routine, and took over with populist support. This gained him immense money and resources from the trading tribes, especially the Koraysh, not to mention he was now poised on the trading routes. After a time, the Persian territories (Yemen specifically) had Arab leaders who began adopting Muhammad's religion, so a lot of experience, and civic structure and martial skill flowed into the new, wealthy Arab Empire.
The Persians were helpless to do anything because of internal conflicts and being ruined from the war. A series of coups and the ear of the Arab Persian provinces allowed Muhammad to outright take those provinces. So the Arabs were rich, and unified in a new cult everyone liked, with experience/knowledge from a powerful Persian Empire available to it, and, because of the cult said knowledge/experience (As well as some Roman) could be rapidly adopted through the "holy word". This new beast also existed in a world now where both Rome and Persia were crippled. A perfect storm. The rest is history, as they say.
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chaos
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I think that's the main part of the puzzle I was missing, where did the Arabs get their money? I guess we can make assumptions about where they got the gear and tactics to fight the Roman's and Persians, given the Arab ties to Persia and the former Sassanid military dominance. But the story seems to go so quickly from "hey there are these tribal people" to " holy shit Muslims are coming".
He does talk about the speed at which this happens a bit in the podcast, but it is not really resolved. The Muslim empire (according to him) basically rises to Rome level strength and decl I nest inside of about 200 years.
I just got to Charlemagne being crowned emperor, shit got real. Really enjoying all of this, I basically knew nothing about Rome post 476 before this. The podcast tells a story of past day Anatolia being invaded in 1904 and how even then the people still identified themselves as Romans, even if the empire was long gone. Mind blowing shit.
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yerm
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Depicting them as a sort of backwards tribal people is a mistake. Similar (and worse) to how people depict most vikings versus reality. These were important trade centers as eastern Africa was developing and India was rich and progressed. Tribal people describes the groups in the interior but it really undersells the urban centers and just how much they profited by being in a key location with no alternative land nearby (it's desert).
One thing about people identifying as Roman is that the Turks identified the region as Roman. So even when the Seljuks come into the region, they call themselves the Sultanate of Rome, and the Ottoman Turks likewise piggyback off that Roman title. There was no real motivation to lose that identity of being Roman.
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Lithose
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Yeah, I think modern historians did a huge disservice to history by going along with the Byzantine name for Eastern Rome. Those people were Romans, they called themselves Romans, employed mostly Roman cultural values. Edit: Talking about the Eastern Romans, As Yerm said, though, many people use the Roman name for the status.
In any case though, yeah, trade began to really skyrocket. Not sure what era this map is from but it resembles a heat map in one of the textbooks I used to have (Essentially it was a map compiled of archeological receipts that gives us a good idea of where trade routes were moving).
With the shift of the Romans to Constantinople, to take advantage more of the West/Eastern trade because of developments in India, China, and Africa which were pouring more trade from those regions (And less around Western Rome), there was a huge increase in the use of these trade routes. Trade was less regionally contained and more of it began between regions, again, thanks to developments in the East and Africa, and the Roman shift.
One theory is that a lot of these changes, in terms of trade, and people moving? Also happened because of the mini-warm period that ended around 450. The ending of that warm period, combined with droughts, might have helped drive the Germans/Danes down in bigger numbers, and might have been one of many factors that lead to larger migratory people like the Huns or the Abaroi later. It might also have allowed for an economic spike in regions closer to the equator or in other locations (Combined with political developments in those regions, which were numerous). While also helping accelerate/maintain the depression in Western Europe (Which all together pushed trade East in Europe)
Whatever the reason (It was a confluence, disease, political, weather), trade shifted, and a lot of that shift pushed trade through Arab lands. Then the war happened, and Persia/Rome sucked down resources even faster. (We have records showing mass currency devaluation and everything, they were using A LOT), so demand grew even more (Scarcity was high in both places). And if you wanted to avoid the normal land East/West route through Syria/Iraq (Modern), because it was constantly under threat with cities along the route directly involved in conflict? Then you pretty had to default to sailing, and then dispersing your goods through the Arabian routes that gave access to both Rome/Europe and the Persians. (There was a northern route, but from what I remember it was far more difficult.)
In any case, trade had been growing along these routes for a couple centuries and now there was probably war profiteering. Potentially, too, Arabia itself might have become more hospitable thanks to the warm period ending in 450 AD. So you might have had water sources which could last longer, the capability to support more crops and people, as well as all this trade/money. Then a magic cult unifies everyone, and there is a power vacuum and shit gets crazy.
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Ok so one question I have, so the muslims were stonewalled at Constantinople due to geography. Why didn't they go up through Georgia/Armenia/Ukraine -> Europe? Who was stopping them there? I've never really seen any discussion of that area/front in the 500AD-1000AD time frame.
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