Varangian Chronicler
@Varangian_Tagma
Medieval stories from Europe’s eastern frontier
The fact that the Byzantines basically forgot they ruled Sardinia will always be funny to me.
Never kill yourself
And then all of a sudden
Dry title, but compelling story of how the monetisation of the Middle-East was driven by war. Alexander's successors feverishly minted coins as the only reliable method of raising troops: polities were too unstable to offer land-grants, & natives weren't trusted for conscription.
But after almost a decade of failed solutions, the worsening problem of vagrant Greek exiles & mercenaries had become acute. There were now so many of them, the risk of potentially sparking all of Greece into revolt was preferable than allowing the status-quo to fester.
Emperor Basil II is best known for being a conqueror & disciplinarian. However, Psellos gives us a window into Basil’s personality, certainly informed by those who knew Basil personally. His description of Basil rounds out the character of this ever-bellicose Byzantine.
The Fourth Crusade was basically a bunch of dudes ransacking a jewelry store with their taxi driver to pay him for the ride.
I wonder what Plato would think of how much time & effort has been invested in uncovering a kingdom he made up as a literary device.
They're saying Atlantis was in Spain.
Little known fact; every man who lived before 1500 AD wore leather vambraces all the time. Also, they didn’t figure out how to wear anything but brown until about 1960.
The Iranian Renaissance continues - images from the Byzantine season of the TV show "Salman the Persian", due to air in 2026. Imagine if a Western studio would do something similar...they even got the armor (more or less) right It s not the 1st century, that one is for sure...
