george

There has never been a battle between Kataphracts and western knights. The only time knights came down to battle the byzantine armies was during the 4th crusade and the the emperor had disbanded the Kataphracts 10 years prior.

HERACLIUS"S VICTORY. I believe that was the greates. Both persia and the Empire were strong countries. I mean, it was the first time the Roman Empire faced such a huge invasion by an organized and civilized country. That was must have been devastating. From what I read, Heraclius went to war with Persia a young man and he returned victorious as an old man. Fought for 20 years. Just before he died, his embassadors told him that all the Southern provinces have been conquered by Arab Muslims. He fought 20 years for these lands and now just before he died somebody came and screwed it all up again. I would deffinetally believe that he said. Oh,(edited by system) this.

At the 4th Crusade, the Byzantine Emperor was a very uncapable man. He did nothing. When he came to power, the Byzantine army had many bettalions of super heavy cavalry called Clivanoforii. But the idiot disbanded them. Thus what the Norman-Italians faced was mere light cavalry.

Chosroes wasnt on the Persian throne during Justinians time. Plus the Eastern Roman Empire was by far the most powerfull entity of that time period. If the entire Empire concentrated on the annihilation of the Persians then it would emerge victorious. It is clear that Justinians military power was immense. He was conquering in the West, fighting Barbarians in the north and defeating Persian incursions in the East. I think Justinian could destroy the Persians easily.

SCENARIO WHERE MUSLIMS ARE DEFEATED. It is clear that the western Conquests of Justinian did not bring prosperity and overal good for the Empire. The only thing Justinian and Belisarius achieved was the exchaustion of the East and the a slaughter in the West. BUT, if Justinian instead of following the Roman dream West, went to full scale war with Sassanid Persia and subsequently conquered it, then his empire would have becomed unchecked and his borders as safe as they were during early Roman Expansion. If Byzantium conquered Persia during the Justinian age then the Muslims would have no chance against the full might of the imperial armies. It would be a hard fight, but at the end it would have concluded to the extinction of the Muslim Arabs. Persia plauged Byzantium for centuries after Justinian, lowered population and economical growth, it was a true sickness for the empire. The only reason why the Arabs managed to spread so fast and conquer so many territories so fast was because of the weakness of both Persian and Roman empires after the Romano-Persian war of Heraclius. ______________________________________________________________________ SOME THINGS ABOUT THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. It is clear that Eastern Roman ways of dealing with a threat was very diferent than the ways than the Western Roman ways. A typical classical Roman goverment during the classical ages, if it became threatened by another nation, it mobilized huge armies and crushed it to the ground without any economical considerations. The Eastern Roman Empire though because of all its wealth, became accustomed into bribing its enemies most of the time in order to delay devastation. What the Eastern Roman Empire did though wasnt protecting its people, but delaying the inevitable and strengthening the enemy's resolve and power. If the Eastern Roman Empire has Western way of dealing with threats then Persia would have been conquered in a second, along with most of Eastern Europe, instead of bribing and playing it defencive.

Justinian was before Islam, mate.

JUSTINIAN WOULD HAVE DONE ALOT BETTER IF HE HADNT PAID ATTENTION TO HIS WIFE.

The answer is no. Justinian would not be able to recapture all the Westrern Roman lands. Not that he didnt have the power to subdue them all, his empire was huge, wealthy and with a huge population. Unfortunatelly, Sassanid Persia lurked on the East and during that time while Belisarious was reconquering the Roman North Africa and Italy, Justinian was trying to fend of Persian intrusions. Trully, the original ROMAN empire didnt have any enemies that could even match quarter of its military power. On the Other hand during the Medieval ages, Sassanid Persia almost matched Byzantiums military capabilities, thus it presented a great danger to the empire.

The siege by the Ottoman Turks (1453) http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...-4/ewnwerne.jpg http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...rtkjrtkrzat.jpg http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...-4/aetjartj.jpg http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...ztmjzrtmzer.jpg http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...0-4/6796794.jpg http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/chr...0-4/ilfyulu.jpg

From what I saw when I went there 3 years ago. Just the base of the colums. The scuare in front of St.Sophia cathedral is called Emperor Justinian's forum and the statue on top of that column was Justinian on horseback. Constantinople: Only some of its inhabitants called it Constantinople, the majority of the people in and our of the Eastern Roman Empire during the Medieval ages, they used to call it "POLI". Which means "The City". The Vikings called Constantintinople "milgarth" which meant for them "The Great City". The Slavs called Constantinople "TZARIGRAD" which meant "City of Ceasar" or "City of Kings". The people took great pride of their city, being by far the larges and fairest of all. During the peak of Byzantine power, Constantinople reached like Rome, more than 1 million inhabitants. "All Crusaders that came to see it from afar gazed on its might an size." That was a quote from a book about the 4th Crusade.

Sorry guys. The pictures are scanned images from a friend's magazine he bought in Greece. Yeah I know, crap. Try to copy them, this is your only chance to have em.

The square/forum in front of St.Sophia (Holy Wisdom) Cathedral. Cataphracts crush into the enemy. Byzantine soldiers 14th century. Byzantine soldiers 12th century. Constantinople docks. Varangians on the tower observing the galley testing the new weapon Greek fire. Constantinople under siege. Detailed maping of a tower from the Constantinople walls. Main gate of Constantinople. The army at the walls. The last battle of the Eastern Roman Empire, the emperor in the centre fights to the death.

The Eastern Roman Empire as you guys can see through the pictures, kept all aspects of ancient antiquitie's ideologies on war-making, equipment, dress etc. While the rest of Europe were wearing trousers and were farming for some feudal lord. The Byzantines were still wearing the togas and strolling around the forums and talking about politics, philosophy etc etc. Although the Eastern Roman Empire was a extremely powerfull state during the 12th century AD, it was stuck with the past. Most European countries by that time had already equiped their cavalrymen with heavy lances, and a hell lot of body armour. The Byzantines were very armoured but not to the extreme level of the western Europeans. The Byzantine cavalrymen still held the ancient lance used since the times of Alexander. The ancient lance was a very long spear that most of the time was held from over the shoulder. Thus the cavalryman could show more skill into the close combat fight. On the other hand the western knight was equiped with a heavy lance which was held under-arm (I am sure every is familiar with this one). The Western knight might have not been as versatile up close as a Byzantine Kataphract, but hell always broke loose when they charged in mass with the heavy lances. A normal Byzantine footman was a soldier for all purposes. He had a lance, Javelins, a sword and a bow (During Byzantiums zenith). The Byzantine army was probably the most flexible army in Europe, facing all kinds of opponents who had different fighting styles. That is why a normal footman had everything.

[obscenity deleted by Ursus. Please don't do that again] I didnt see that one. Interesting.

I saw some of u guys are interested of how a Byzantine army would have looked like. Here you go.