Love me some late Roman history! You can also get your hand on some Byzantine Bois with 20% off Victrix Miniatures: www.victrixlimited.com/invicta?bg_ref=SuTPaZ6Jx0
Maybe but I notice the media and viewers love off the Vikings takes away so much from other people groups of the period such as the Magyars. I believe Byzantium suffers the same fate as do the Sasanids a little earlier and the Turks or Khazar khaganate and later Turkic groups. It's a shame really
Agreed. Justinian gets covered a lot but that's about it. Like the iconoclast vs iconiphile thing was a big part of Irene's reign but it doesn't really get talked about. And after Irene they basically get ignored altogether other than the 4th crusade and generic "they were a slowly dying nation" comments.
True. Even in Bulgaria Byzantine history used to be studied in greater detail in the past and it's a tendency I do not like despite all the wars that took place... That's all history.
Loved working on this. It's always so cool to see the final work and the art/animation is improving with every new video. Recorded back in January, it just goes to prove how much work goes into creating these great documentaries. So, well done to all and thanks to the audience for supporting the team and its vision. Guy
Man I love your voice acting its so perfectly fit for this stuff, I wonder if you ever get asked to do a video and get sucked into what you're talking about and like do your own research on it
If you loved working on it as much as you imply, please go back and properly change the title and references of Byzantium to Rome as Byzantium never existed, No roman would have ever called themselves that, and it was a name/term created after there fall. I find it shameful that "so much work" can go into a historical account of something and then someone like the name of the empire and people is wrongfully used.
If only basileus Constantine 11th had the help he request right before the fall they would’ve won , they had the power and faith but were out numbered 200,000 to 2 million or even more the king even removed his metals and dressed like a normal soldier and famously said “I’m going to god”
Well, lovely to see that Victrix are doing well enough to do sponsorships! They do make some lovely stuff, and their plastics are very easily workable, so it's easy to mod them. I'm on-and-off working on a battle of Argentoratum army using their miniatures. The discount comes rather conventiently, considering I will need to get both more infantry, and eventually have a crack at their Cataphacts.
These super detailed true size documentaries are absolutely indispensable to my fifty plus years of studying Roman military history. Truly grateful for your hard work and dedication. Thank you!!
thank you so much, Invicta; I had been looking for characteristics of the Byzantine army in the 10th century and having such a reliable source such as you make a documentary about the Byzantine army as a whole saves me so much time
One of the best series on YT. Really happy that we got a Byzantine Army added to this! Would love to see a breakdown for any of these as well! Tang Dynasty, Rashidun/Umayyad, Gupta Empire, Manchu/Qing, Timurids, large Viking Fleet, Axumite Invasion Force of Yemen (early 6th Century), Carolingian, Attila's Royal Hunnic + Germanic Force, Magyar Army, Ottoman, Mughals, and or (First) Crusader Army. Might even be able to get Jackmeister to collab on an Army of the Golden Horde as well Keep up the great work!
Victrix folks are awesome and I definitely want to do more with them. If I could I'd have them sponsor 100% of our videos. But thats only possible if you guys end up making purchases of the minis. Which I think is definitely something you should consider cause they are genuinely awesome!
Imagine a modern army unit having a 500 year lineage. I cant. Going from knight to pike and shot things changed so much, and then going from pike and shot to musketeer things changed so much, and then going from musketeers to modern riflemen things changed the most. Outdated organization would see you scythed down in the world wars.
Some existing units do claim such a long lineage, such as the Spanish 1st Infantry Regiment, the UK's Yeomanry of the Guard. But yeah, it's undoubtedly impressive.
There's a regiment mentioned in De Thematibus that might be from the 2nd century, but scholars are unsure what unit it's referring to. A lot of Roman units survived later than originally thought. The Invicti Seniores from the Western Roman Empire are still attested by Agnellus in the early 700s and he claims they're still in Ravenna in the 840s.
Maybe the reason of why the early Imperial Roman Army had a strong tradition of an excellent NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) Corps. This theoretical NCO corps within the early Imperial Roman Army would have had fostered strict discipline and order within the ranks.
byzantin army had 0 discipline compare to Roman Empire, it was very close to feudal system, since they became land owners. Also heavy infantry often had bows because they were afraid to fight in close battle. Same shit was in late middle ages between spanish tertia
@@fatmanul18Those land owners were the Themata only for defensive warfare and repel invasion. Tagmata are the professional standing troops stationed in Constantinople who are equally if not even more disciplined than Classical era Legionaries. Heavy Infantry didn’t have bows they have a mini dart launcher to use like a pistol in case of medium range before clashing like Legionnaires use their Javelins before Melee battle . Read some stuff before you spew your made up fantasy theory.
I do think one part of the Byzantie army that is not studied enough is the infantry. The infantry could definitely hold their own. Basil II the Bulgar Killer recognized this and based a lot of his tactics around strong infantry.
Yes!! Thank you, I love learning about the Byzantine empire. I knew about thematic troops being farmers, but I had never heard about their rotation system. Makes sense though.
Great video! The organization of the Byzantine arny during 900 AD was almost identical to the Byzantine army during Emperor Maurice s time as described in Maurice s strategikon. Keep up the great work!
Great video as always! Just a pointer about pronunciation. Anywhere in Greek you see "oi" like in "moira" its just pronounced as "i". So just Mira not Moira :) I've noticed it in olden videos too. But great work!
It's so interesting to see the smallest group being the kontoverniai, which feels like a direct 'greekification' of contuberium, and has a very similar number of soldiers. It's like seeing just some hints at Roman origins, but through Greek language.
How can you say that when skirmishers (psiloi) have a direct link to the Ancient Greek psiloi which we in all forms and practice are same as the Byzantine psiloi. It’s not just Roman lineage it’s also Greek. Another example is Greek fire. Both the Roman republic and Roman Empire didn’t utilize pyromancy, it was the Thebans and Athenians who had experimented with fire which is the ancestor of the Byzantine Greek fire.
@@ChronosHellas I don't mean development wise, I meant linguistically. Kontoverniai feels eerily similar to the Latin contubernii, just 'greekified.' According to this video, they're apparently used in the same context and mean roughly the same thing.
Something else to add to this very in depth video (well done) is how the strategy changed with the army’s composition: Early imperial legions were very aggressive and could handle defenses well with the right commander (like Julius Caesar at Alesia vs Crassus in Parthia) but were far more focused on expanding Roman power rather than defending what they already had. Late imperial shifted to defensive. If the border guards were overrun the main army would confront them. It worked at the risk of the foreigners winning and setting up their own power within Roman territory (such as the Goths killing Valens). They were capable of reconquest with examples like Majorianus or Belasarius but clearly were not meant for expansion but strict defense. Then with the Byzantines the plan was to allow their enemies to invade and they would harass them until confronting and hopefully defeating them. Then harass them as they leave . Placed way too much power in the Themes as they made the armies that were no longer standing all year
As their resources dwindled, the Byzantines probably just didn't have the capacity to use offensive-based army tactics the way the early Roman Empire did.
@@OhioDan Basil II and a coupled of Emperors managed to do so tho (i.e. The First Bulgarian empire). They probably learned the harsh lesson of overextending from the Classical era and Justinian’s reconquest. By then Europe and old Roman territories were turned into minor nations ruled by lords and kings so it would be difficult to deal with so it’s better to maintain peace and focused on defending the east.
That's likely the biggest reason for the much larger support train troop numbers compared to early Roman units. That many horses require a LOT of feed.
Not a sponsor I'd have expected to see, but a welcome one! Fireforge Games also have a lovely range of Byzantine cavalry and infantry. Also in plastic!
Thanks a lot for this great insight of a medieval byzantine army! :-) Your animations are on top and it is very easy to follow your narrator. Keep going like this. And please do more about the Byzantine Empire :-)
many of the names are greek psiloi means stripped possibly in luck of armor to move fast toxotai is archers in greek kavallaria its greek also roman means cavalry while skutatoi its total roman word and katafraktoi in greek means fully armored
Victrix makes great looking figures. Their Ancient Gauls are amazingly fun to paint. Their newer late Roman stuff is top drawer all the way. Glad to see they know their customers so well! lol.
Just a heads up for pronouncing greek words whenever you see "oi" in the end of a word its pronounced *"ee"* and when you see an "ai" its pronounced *"eh"*
The term, "east Roman Empire" is right there, but okay. If you haven't come across it already, I would recommend having a read of Anthony Kaldellis's recent monograph, "The Case for East Roman Studies".
Someone could say that when the wrong term is used for convenience reasons is much better than when the correct term is used in order for revisionist theories to be promoted.
They "Byzantine Roman Greeks" never called themselves the eastern part of anything and practically while their Rome in Constantinople existed, the Italian Rome had fallen so, they were the only Rome.
@@gilpaubelid3780except those are not theories and not a revisionism. It is "Byzantine terminology" and entire ideology connected with it what is perfect example of revisionist theories.
@@paprskomet Most people that use the term "byzantine" do it for convenience reasons, in order for others to understand when they're talking about medieval Greeks with Roman citizenship/byzantines and when they're talking about ancient Romans. On the other hand I have noticed that fans of Kaldellis insist on using the term "roman" in an effort to mislead people that don't know much about byzantine history into accepting Kaldellis' revisionist theories. Using the correct term while the ultimate goal is to distort its meaning is much worse than using the inaccurate term in order to make things easier, don't you think?
@@gilpaubelid3780 I'm not saying that because of Kaldellis and Kaldellis in fact use Byzantine terminology quite often(and not only in negative sense) . He don't like it though and describes in detail why. Most of his works propagates this and nothing is wrong on doing that. It is serious work of serious scholar and it is regarded so among scholars. Word "revisionism" is often used nowadays as if it is some dirty word while discipline of history always was about revisionism, about rev-aluating views and concepts of the past and exchanging them for, what that or that group felt, more correct.Revisionism can go both in good and bad way. Today(as example) western society often tend to misuse revisionism to enforce modern believes on times where the same believes were not shared and yet pretending that it was the same although it was not. That is example of bad revisionism. Also Byzantine terminology and concepts arising from it are nothing else but revisionism. In this Light it is strange that you consider Kaldellis as revisionist for opposing revisionism.
Great video ! However, you should have mentionned that the numbers you depicted could vary greatly from a droungos to another. I don't remember who the autor was (I think it's Nikephoros Phokas, because that's the one book I had the opportunity to read entirely, and only got hints and summary of the many other books they wrote by that time, but I'm not sure about that), but he advised his drongarios to not standardize the size of their military units to complicate the task of "counting" the army size for ennemy spies. If your drongos is always 3000 men, then it is very easy to estimate the size of an army. However, if a drongos is 2400 men, another one is 3000, the next 3200 and the last 2000, the ennemy spy will have to spend much more time counting the troops, which allows for time to find him or establish other counter measure, or even to take the initiative on the field. Also, the Byzantine army on the asian border was mostly composed of lightly armored troops when campaigning, because steel and iron armor are not practical in this environnement. Moreover, iron and steel reflect the sunlight, and wars on the eastern borders were usually based on guerrilla tactics with small units looting and ambushing ennemy forces. For that one however, I'm sure I read it in Phokas, which wrote it later during the Xth century, so maybe I'm also talking of stuff coming in a little bit after the time period of the video.
I would love to see a video similar to your bronze age collapse (if mentally feasable) about the evolution of "rome" and "world city"/"world leader", following babylon, ashurbanipal, to carthage, to rome, to byzantium, all the way to the many claims to be "new rome" all the way to the american empire
Constantinoupolis was the " New York " of Medieval period, Byzantines were so wealthy that they were paying huge amounts of gold to mercenaries, the main territories of the Empire were Greek after a period and at least half of the total population were Greeks, generally the eastern parts of the Roman Empire even before Great Constantine were greek in culture and language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Ostrogoths and other Germanic tribes many Romans came to East seeking settler. So the reason that Byzantine history is so underrated by western historians, is that Byzantium or better Eastern Roman Empire WAS the only true Roman State left and was the only True descendant of the ancient Grecoroman World
Excellent! Now I have a much better idea of how the Eastern Roman/Byzantine operated, and how they survived for ~1000 years (~2000 years total for the Roman Empire)
11:30 Interesting that a Vanda had many fewer “servants” or “logistical troops” than an earlier Roman army, which had about 1/5 of it’s manpower dedicated to logistical troops. Especially with so many spare horses to take care of. Was it because of the need for horses that restricted the number of extra men, or some kind of better technology or techniques that allowed them to operate with fewer logistics troops? Or did the soldiers themselves just do more logistics work? *edit* Nevermind, I didn’t get to the part about the extra artisans and ambulancers
It always boggles my mind on how these large expansionist empires handle this logistical nightmare considering they move thousands of humans across countries. Like how Aurelius just go back and forth dealing with Palmyra. Thank god for the roads and aqueducts they've built
Hi can you please do a True size of an imperial gaurdsman regiment video ... and the example you can use is the Cadian regiment since they are arguably considered in Warhammer 40k canon as an exemplary model regiment please and thank you
The most annoying thing is the nationalist Greeks saying they weren't Romans. But technically speaking, Greece was territory occupied by the Romans for 1600 years.
@@viniciusdomenighi6439but that doesn't mean they became culturally latins. Sure, they were absolutely a core part of the roman empire as a state, but I wouldn't say they became "Romans" (as latins) in culture. Now... If a nationalist greek would say that they never really became a core 100% integrated part of the roman empire (as state, not culture). Yeah thats kinda stupid. (Also. Of course Greek culture changed thanks to the open borders and partial occupation by latins and time, I just say that they never became the same thing)
Byzantine is modern term. When British troops made it to the interior of Anatolia after WWI, the local Christian populations there notably called themselves Roman.
Oh my gosh I'm so sick of Byzantine fanboys. WE ALREADY KNOW... Byzantine isn't used as some derogatory nonesense. It's used to distinguish the surviving eastern Roman empire from the empire before. Everyone already knows this except for y'all. Christ I'm surprised I managed to get here before some "herr derr muh Voltaire quote" nonesense at this point because y'all say the exact same thing every.single.time. Yea, the Byzantine Empire was the surviving Roman Empire. Yea, Justinian was a pretty cool dude. But also yes: the Holy Roman Empire WAS in fact holy, it WAS in fact Roman, and it WAS in fact an empire. Nobody is claiming that they are the western Roman Empire. Nobody is claiming that they're "the real Romans". But for some reason Byzantine fans flip their lid any time they get mentioned.
I’d like to point out to Y’all that Pricopius refers to the Empire as “Byzantium” in his histories. So it’s not really anachronistic. It’s a rare and weird term historically, but it is used, and as the commenter said above, there is solid academic reason to use it”Byzantine” as there is a distinction between the empire when it was still united and when it split, and not much of a reason to refer to the Byzantine empire as “Eastern” when there is no Western empire anymore
➡➡ The Byzantine army was the U.S. army of the Middle Ages . ‼ The army, especially at the time of 1025, was the most powerful in the world. ‼ If Basil II had lived another 20 years, he would have been able to conquer all of Europe and the Middle East. ‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼
Y'all should do "true size of a Holy Roman Empire army" too for the renaissance. Im curious what it'd be due to all the various states and such, and also how many gunners would be there and the ratio of volunteers to mercenaries to conscripts there would be
sad how justinian and theodora failed to produce a healthy off spring. Imagine the boy continuing to restore the empire (I always get this thought everytime I see the byzantine empire (roman)
Greetings From Persia's beating Heart, Tehran. Would you please do a video about Ancient Persian Armies? The Sasanids, The Parthians, The Achemanids. Thanks in Advance.
![True Size of a Samurai Army [c. 1600] 3D DOCUMENTARY](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/deV34RTyPO8/mqdefault.jpg)
![True Size of a Samurai Army [c. 1600] 3D DOCUMENTARY](/img/tr.png)
Love me some late Roman history! You can also get your hand on some Byzantine Bois with 20% off Victrix Miniatures: www.victrixlimited.com/invicta?bg_ref=SuTPaZ6Jx0
How long are these links active? I'm quite tight until the 25th...
@@Papadragon18 The promo should run for about 30 days I believe
@@InvictaHistory Aight, thank you kindly. :)
what are we to make of the ratio of 2 wagons for every mule?
Maybe but I notice the media and viewers love off the Vikings takes away so much from other people groups of the period such as the Magyars.
I believe Byzantium suffers the same fate as do the Sasanids a little earlier and the Turks or Khazar khaganate and later Turkic groups.
It's a shame really
The Byzantine period is criminally underrated in every field of study and media
Agreed. Justinian gets covered a lot but that's about it. Like the iconoclast vs iconiphile thing was a big part of Irene's reign but it doesn't really get talked about. And after Irene they basically get ignored altogether other than the 4th crusade and generic "they were a slowly dying nation" comments.
Criminally? I don’t think you understand what a criminal is.
@@michaelturner5050 I don't think you understand what exaggeration is
@@bxzidffbxzidff so he’s exaggerating when he says something is illegal or criminal when it’s not? I don’t think you know what exaggeration means.
True. Even in Bulgaria Byzantine history used to be studied in greater detail in the past and it's a tendency I do not like despite all the wars that took place... That's all history.
Loved working on this. It's always so cool to see the final work and the art/animation is improving with every new video. Recorded back in January, it just goes to prove how much work goes into creating these great documentaries. So, well done to all and thanks to the audience for supporting the team and its vision. Guy
Man I love your voice acting its so perfectly fit for this stuff, I wonder if you ever get asked to do a video and get sucked into what you're talking about and like do your own research on it
If you loved working on it as much as you imply, please go back and properly change the title and references of Byzantium to Rome as Byzantium never existed, No roman would have ever called themselves that, and it was a name/term created after there fall. I find it shameful that "so much work" can go into a historical account of something and then someone like the name of the empire and people is wrongfully used.
@@leojordan5119thanks, yes I often get sucked into a wormhole on UA-cam and end up watching loads of stuff around the subjects
Your voice is great, but the way you say things is rly fantastic. Hope to keep hearing you on these vids!
@@lukasmadrid1945very kind
A few of the ranks or unit names are still in use today in the Hellenic armed forces. Great video!
If only basileus Constantine 11th had the help he request right before the fall they would’ve won , they had the power and faith but were out numbered 200,000 to 2 million or even more the king even removed his metals and dressed like a normal soldier and famously said “I’m going to god”
@@Machoman50ta 2 million is absurd
Well, lovely to see that Victrix are doing well enough to do sponsorships! They do make some lovely stuff, and their plastics are very easily workable, so it's easy to mod them. I'm on-and-off working on a battle of Argentoratum army using their miniatures. The discount comes rather conventiently, considering I will need to get both more infantry, and eventually have a crack at their Cataphacts.
These super detailed true size documentaries are absolutely indispensable to my fifty plus years of studying Roman military history. Truly grateful for your hard work and dedication. Thank you!!
thank you so much, Invicta; I had been looking for characteristics of the Byzantine army in the 10th century and having such a reliable source such as you make a documentary about the Byzantine army as a whole saves me so much time
One of the best series on YT. Really happy that we got a Byzantine Army added to this! Would love to see a breakdown for any of these as well! Tang Dynasty, Rashidun/Umayyad, Gupta Empire, Manchu/Qing, Timurids, large Viking Fleet, Axumite Invasion Force of Yemen (early 6th Century), Carolingian, Attila's Royal Hunnic + Germanic Force, Magyar Army, Ottoman, Mughals, and or (First) Crusader Army. Might even be able to get Jackmeister to collab on an Army of the Golden Horde as well
Keep up the great work!
Great suggestions!
Finally an amazing sponsor for one of these videos!!
Victrix folks are awesome and I definitely want to do more with them. If I could I'd have them sponsor 100% of our videos. But thats only possible if you guys end up making purchases of the minis. Which I think is definitely something you should consider cause they are genuinely awesome!
@@InvictaHistory I told all my friends who are into it about them for ya, shared your link. Might get you a bit of custom.
@@InvictaHistory Sup Invicta, i definitely plan on buying tons of their figures, I Litteraly get 60 FIGURED FOR 37 DOLLARS, That's an amazing deal.
They were MY choice of civilization in EVERY AoE2 multiplayer campaign no lie. That orthodox chant intro got me hype every time.
Imagine a modern army unit having a 500 year lineage. I cant. Going from knight to pike and shot things changed so much, and then going from pike and shot to musketeer things changed so much, and then going from musketeers to modern riflemen things changed the most. Outdated organization would see you scythed down in the world wars.
Some existing units do claim such a long lineage, such as the Spanish 1st Infantry Regiment, the UK's Yeomanry of the Guard.
But yeah, it's undoubtedly impressive.
There's a regiment mentioned in De Thematibus that might be from the 2nd century, but scholars are unsure what unit it's referring to. A lot of Roman units survived later than originally thought. The Invicti Seniores from the Western Roman Empire are still attested by Agnellus in the early 700s and he claims they're still in Ravenna in the 840s.
The Swedish Livgardet was created 1521 and 503 years later still protects the royal family.
@@ae-jo5gc Its not a military unit tho. If they where sent to the front they wouldnt have any of the heavy weapons a modern army needs.
The Papal Swiss Guard was established in the 1500's and is still operating today
More eastern Roman videos! Great video too!
This is such a solid channel, loving it.
Invicta at it's best..... Thanks again for all your work
Hey, just wanted to say keep up the great work!
Maybe the reason of why the early Imperial Roman Army had a strong tradition of an excellent NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) Corps. This theoretical NCO corps within the early Imperial Roman Army would have had fostered strict discipline and order within the ranks.
byzantin army had 0 discipline compare to Roman Empire, it was very close to feudal system, since they became land owners. Also heavy infantry often had bows because they were afraid to fight in close battle. Same shit was in late middle ages between spanish tertia
@@fatmanul18Those land owners were the Themata only for defensive warfare and repel invasion. Tagmata are the professional standing troops stationed in Constantinople who are equally if not even more disciplined than Classical era Legionaries. Heavy Infantry didn’t have bows they have a mini dart launcher to use like a pistol in case of medium range before clashing like Legionnaires use their Javelins before Melee battle . Read some stuff before you spew your made up fantasy theory.
Just watched Cathapracts . What a treat to have a continuation right away!
I hope Victrix becomes a long time partner for the channel. I'm very much broke atm but I would love to get that deal again in the future
Thank you for the video and the work that went into it!
I do think one part of the Byzantie army that is not studied enough is the infantry. The infantry could definitely hold their own. Basil II the Bulgar Killer recognized this and based a lot of his tactics around strong infantry.
Yes!! Thank you, I love learning about the Byzantine empire. I knew about thematic troops being farmers, but I had never heard about their rotation system. Makes sense though.
Great video! The organization of the Byzantine arny during 900 AD was almost identical to the Byzantine army during Emperor Maurice s time as described in Maurice s strategikon. Keep up the great work!
Great video as always! Just a pointer about pronunciation. Anywhere in Greek you see "oi" like in "moira" its just pronounced as "i". So just Mira not Moira :) I've noticed it in olden videos too. But great work!
Hey invicta epic work as always
Note that if you see N + T in Hellenic is makes the sounds D
So Kentarchion is pronounced Kedarchion
Also if you see D in Hellenic it makes a sound that doesn't exist in english but its like dthu
what about Vanda - Banda pronunciation?
A very good book about this topic
"Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth; Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century"
by Eric McGeer
It's so interesting to see the smallest group being the kontoverniai, which feels like a direct 'greekification' of contuberium, and has a very similar number of soldiers. It's like seeing just some hints at Roman origins, but through Greek language.
How can you say that when skirmishers (psiloi) have a direct link to the Ancient Greek psiloi which we in all forms and practice are same as the Byzantine psiloi. It’s not just Roman lineage it’s also Greek.
Another example is Greek fire. Both the Roman republic and Roman Empire didn’t utilize pyromancy, it was the Thebans and Athenians who had experimented with fire which is the ancestor of the Byzantine Greek fire.
@@ChronosHellas I don't mean development wise, I meant linguistically. Kontoverniai feels eerily similar to the Latin contubernii, just 'greekified.' According to this video, they're apparently used in the same context and mean roughly the same thing.
That's because they are Romans. And they'd have likely slain you for suggesting otherwise. The washing of history won't happen on my watch.
Something else to add to this very in depth video (well done) is how the strategy changed with the army’s composition:
Early imperial legions were very aggressive and could handle defenses well with the right commander (like Julius Caesar at Alesia vs Crassus in Parthia) but were far more focused on expanding Roman power rather than defending what they already had.
Late imperial shifted to defensive. If the border guards were overrun the main army would confront them. It worked at the risk of the foreigners winning and setting up their own power within Roman territory (such as the Goths killing Valens). They were capable of reconquest with examples like Majorianus or Belasarius but clearly were not meant for expansion but strict defense.
Then with the Byzantines the plan was to allow their enemies to invade and they would harass them until confronting and hopefully defeating them. Then harass them as they leave . Placed way too much power in the Themes as they made the armies that were no longer standing all year
As their resources dwindled, the Byzantines probably just didn't have the capacity to use offensive-based army tactics the way the early Roman Empire did.
@@OhioDan Basil II and a coupled of Emperors managed to do so tho (i.e. The First Bulgarian empire). They probably learned the harsh lesson of overextending from the Classical era and Justinian’s reconquest. By then Europe and old Roman territories were turned into minor nations ruled by lords and kings so it would be difficult to deal with so it’s better to maintain peace and focused on defending the east.
That is some insane amount of horses overall. Feeding that consistently would be a complete nightmare when on campaign.
Gras?
That's likely the biggest reason for the much larger support train troop numbers compared to early Roman units. That many horses require a LOT of feed.
The Byzantines were always one of my favorite empires in history, so it's great to have a video about their military.
Eastern Roman Empire* stop washing history.
@alexanderrahl482 It's the same thing. Plus I'm not the only one who called them the Byzantines in the comments here.
@@alexanderrahl482 How the hell does using a historiographical term "washing history"?
Not a sponsor I'd have expected to see, but a welcome one! Fireforge Games also have a lovely range of Byzantine cavalry and infantry. Also in plastic!
This was a great watch! I'll definitely be returning to watch it several more times.
Oh god, I'm buying those victrix sets very soon!!!
These cross overs are getting crazy 😂 love both invicta and victrix
Great presentation!
First producer that will make historical blockbuster taking place in Byzantium will hit his mark.
Its a rare day when the sponsor is as imteresting as the content, i will check it out👍
Wow, that's the spot I am missing in my knowledge of history. Very well produced documentary, thank you!
It’s great to see an ad from a company whose products I buy. I hope other miniature companies follow suit!
3.3k likes vs 7 dislikes? Wow If that isn't proof of how good this channel is I don't know what is...
Wow, hard to think of a more appropriate sponsor for a channel and even specific video.
Thanks a lot for this great insight of a medieval byzantine army! :-) Your animations are on top and it is very easy to follow your narrator. Keep going like this. And please do more about the Byzantine Empire :-)
awesome presentation
True Size of Pike And Shot Armies Next PLEASE!!!
Am I the only one who think that the number of servants in the Byzantine army was absurdly low?
Byzantine is going to be a great topic! Thanks for covering it!
Fun fact, Victores was the only regiment that still using the same shield pattern according to Notita Dignitatum well into 10th century.
True size of American Civil War Army next please. I love your true size contents ❤️❤️❤️
Liking for algorithm, will watch later
Make sure to watch later
Excelent vídeo ! Please do a video like this talking about The Byzantine army of The Kommenian period please !
the most mind blowing thing is the amount of horses! how did they feed them all and maintain them!
ERE was really really rich.
I believe it would be amazing for you, Invicta, to create a video on the Bulgarian army under Simeon the great during the 10th century.
Awesome video! Asked about a year ago and I'm asking again : true size of Alexander's army at the start of the Persian invasion
Ive been waiting for this for months. thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
many of the names are greek psiloi means stripped possibly in luck of armor to move fast toxotai is archers in greek kavallaria its greek also roman means cavalry while skutatoi its total roman word and katafraktoi in greek means fully armored
The Skutatoi name is coming from the word Scutum which was the shield of the legionnaires in the antiquity period of the Roman Empire ...
@@LONGINVS_XXXIII thnks for the info
@@LONGINVS_XXXIII Yes, it's funny how some of the names are hellenised latin words! Kavallaria, scutatoi, kontoverniai (contubernia)... 😄
I wish this had come out a bit earlier as I just spent quite a bit buying more Victrix models. I could've used the discount. XD
Best one of these yet!!
awesome video
Fantastic Video as Always!
Victrix models are really detailed.
Victrix makes great looking figures. Their Ancient Gauls are amazingly fun to paint. Their newer late Roman stuff is top drawer all the way. Glad to see they know their customers so well! lol.
Just a heads up for pronouncing greek words whenever you see "oi" in the end of a word its pronounced *"ee"* and when you see an "ai" its pronounced *"eh"*
EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS
You guys should look at an army of Imperial China next. Maybe the Manchu bannermen?
How comes, there is not a SUPER like button on youtube????
Thank you for the video ⚔️
The term, "east Roman Empire" is right there, but okay. If you haven't come across it already, I would recommend having a read of Anthony Kaldellis's recent monograph, "The Case for East Roman Studies".
Someone could say that when the wrong term is used for convenience reasons is much better than when the correct term is used in order for revisionist theories to be promoted.
They "Byzantine Roman Greeks" never called themselves the eastern part of anything and practically while their Rome in Constantinople existed, the Italian Rome had fallen so, they were the only Rome.
@@gilpaubelid3780except those are not theories and not a revisionism. It is "Byzantine terminology" and entire ideology connected with it what is perfect example of revisionist theories.
@@paprskomet Most people that use the term "byzantine" do it for convenience reasons, in order for others to understand when they're talking about medieval Greeks with Roman citizenship/byzantines and when they're talking about ancient Romans. On the other hand I have noticed that fans of Kaldellis insist on using the term "roman" in an effort to mislead people that don't know much about byzantine history into accepting Kaldellis' revisionist theories. Using the correct term while the ultimate goal is to distort its meaning is much worse than using the inaccurate term in order to make things easier, don't you think?
@@gilpaubelid3780 I'm not saying that because of Kaldellis and Kaldellis in fact use Byzantine terminology quite often(and not only in negative sense) . He don't like it though and describes in detail why. Most of his works propagates this and nothing is wrong on doing that. It is serious work of serious scholar and it is regarded so among scholars.
Word "revisionism" is often used nowadays as if it is some dirty word while discipline of history always was about revisionism, about rev-aluating views and concepts of the past and exchanging them for, what that or that group felt, more correct.Revisionism can go both in good and bad way. Today(as example) western society often tend to misuse revisionism to enforce modern believes on times where the same believes were not shared and yet pretending that it was the same although it was not. That is example of bad revisionism. Also Byzantine terminology and concepts arising from it are nothing else but revisionism. In this Light it is strange that you consider Kaldellis as revisionist for opposing revisionism.
I just love these videos!
Great video ! However, you should have mentionned that the numbers you depicted could vary greatly from a droungos to another. I don't remember who the autor was (I think it's Nikephoros Phokas, because that's the one book I had the opportunity to read entirely, and only got hints and summary of the many other books they wrote by that time, but I'm not sure about that), but he advised his drongarios to not standardize the size of their military units to complicate the task of "counting" the army size for ennemy spies.
If your drongos is always 3000 men, then it is very easy to estimate the size of an army. However, if a drongos is 2400 men, another one is 3000, the next 3200 and the last 2000, the ennemy spy will have to spend much more time counting the troops, which allows for time to find him or establish other counter measure, or even to take the initiative on the field.
Also, the Byzantine army on the asian border was mostly composed of lightly armored troops when campaigning, because steel and iron armor are not practical in this environnement. Moreover, iron and steel reflect the sunlight, and wars on the eastern borders were usually based on guerrilla tactics with small units looting and ambushing ennemy forces. For that one however, I'm sure I read it in Phokas, which wrote it later during the Xth century, so maybe I'm also talking of stuff coming in a little bit after the time period of the video.
I would love to see a video similar to your bronze age collapse (if mentally feasable) about the evolution of "rome" and "world city"/"world leader", following babylon, ashurbanipal, to carthage, to rome, to byzantium, all the way to the many claims to be "new rome" all the way to the american empire
Constantinoupolis was the " New York " of Medieval period, Byzantines were so wealthy that they were paying huge amounts of gold to mercenaries, the main territories of the Empire were Greek after a period and at least half of the total population were Greeks, generally the eastern parts of the Roman Empire even before Great Constantine were greek in culture and language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Ostrogoths and other Germanic tribes many Romans came to East seeking settler.
So the reason that Byzantine history is so underrated by western historians, is that Byzantium or better Eastern Roman Empire WAS the only true Roman State left and was the only True descendant of the ancient Grecoroman World
Love it thank you❤
So the byzantines had mounted archers? I never knew that! That probably is part of what helped them last so long against the turkic peoples.
Should've used Total war Attila to add up spiceness of the video. But still nice video.
I had to stop what I was doing to come watch this 😂
Cataphracts are pretty cool looking not gonna lie.
I love these videos
Excellent!
Now I have a much better idea of how the Eastern Roman/Byzantine operated, and how they survived for ~1000 years (~2000 years total for the Roman Empire)
Can't wait to see these guys cover the English Civil War.
11:30 Interesting that a Vanda had many fewer “servants” or “logistical troops” than an earlier Roman army, which had about 1/5 of it’s manpower dedicated to logistical troops. Especially with so many spare horses to take care of.
Was it because of the need for horses that restricted the number of extra men, or some kind of better technology or techniques that allowed them to operate with fewer logistics troops? Or did the soldiers themselves just do more logistics work?
*edit* Nevermind, I didn’t get to the part about the extra artisans and ambulancers
this is great work. how do you make these?
Shout to Christian Cameron's Traitor Son series for having a relatively accurate (not) Byzantine army.
I dare you to go one episode without using the phrase “let us”.
Can you please make the videos on nepoleonic cavalry and artillery forces
It always boggles my mind on how these large expansionist empires handle this logistical nightmare considering they move thousands of humans across countries. Like how Aurelius just go back and forth dealing with Palmyra. Thank god for the roads and aqueducts they've built
Can you do a video on the size of the Abbasid army
nomismata is plural.
❤I love Victrix❤
Hi can you please do a True size of an imperial gaurdsman regiment video ... and the example you can use is the Cadian regiment since they are arguably considered in Warhammer 40k canon as an exemplary model regiment please and thank you
So early that Romans were still called Romans and not anachronistically as ‘Byzantines’
The most annoying thing is the nationalist Greeks saying they weren't Romans. But technically speaking, Greece was territory occupied by the Romans for 1600 years.
@@viniciusdomenighi6439but that doesn't mean they became culturally latins.
Sure, they were absolutely a core part of the roman empire as a state, but I wouldn't say they became "Romans" (as latins) in culture.
Now... If a nationalist greek would say that they never really became a core 100% integrated part of the roman empire (as state, not culture). Yeah thats kinda stupid.
(Also. Of course Greek culture changed thanks to the open borders and partial occupation by latins and time, I just say that they never became the same thing)
Byzantine is modern term. When British troops made it to the interior of Anatolia after WWI, the local Christian populations there notably called themselves Roman.
Oh my gosh I'm so sick of Byzantine fanboys.
WE ALREADY KNOW... Byzantine isn't used as some derogatory nonesense. It's used to distinguish the surviving eastern Roman empire from the empire before. Everyone already knows this except for y'all.
Christ I'm surprised I managed to get here before some "herr derr muh Voltaire quote" nonesense at this point because y'all say the exact same thing every.single.time.
Yea, the Byzantine Empire was the surviving Roman Empire. Yea, Justinian was a pretty cool dude.
But also yes: the Holy Roman Empire WAS in fact holy, it WAS in fact Roman, and it WAS in fact an empire. Nobody is claiming that they are the western Roman Empire. Nobody is claiming that they're "the real Romans". But for some reason Byzantine fans flip their lid any time they get mentioned.
I’d like to point out to Y’all that Pricopius refers to the Empire as “Byzantium” in his histories. So it’s not really anachronistic. It’s a rare and weird term historically, but it is used, and as the commenter said above, there is solid academic reason to use it”Byzantine” as there is a distinction between the empire when it was still united and when it split, and not much of a reason to refer to the Byzantine empire as “Eastern” when there is no Western empire anymore
impressive how long the byzantine(eastern roman empire) survived
➡➡ The Byzantine army was the U.S. army of the Middle Ages . ‼ The army, especially at the time of 1025, was the most powerful in the world. ‼ If Basil II had lived another 20 years, he would have been able to conquer all of Europe and the Middle East. ‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼
Than how did it lost the battle of manzikart
nah. the byzantine army had equal strong opponents
I was wondering if you could do a video on the true size of both the Union and Confederates armies during the american civil war.
Y'all should do "true size of a Holy Roman Empire army" too for the renaissance. Im curious what it'd be due to all the various states and such, and also how many gunners would be there and the ratio of volunteers to mercenaries to conscripts there would be
what are these beautiful chants in the backround?
so early it's criminal
When are you guys gonna do the sequel To the usmc special operations video that was a year ago when Will we get the Marine raiders back
awsome
sad how justinian and theodora failed to produce a healthy off spring. Imagine the boy continuing to restore the empire (I always get this thought everytime I see the byzantine empire (roman)
Can you do caliphate armies
Greetings From Persia's beating Heart, Tehran.
Would you please do a video about Ancient Persian Armies? The Sasanids, The Parthians, The Achemanids.
Thanks in Advance.
Can someone tell me what the music in the background is in the intro. Sounded cool