Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 133, sewing the dragon's teeth with Eric McGear.

Today we're going to explore the changes in the Roman army as they shifted from a defensive to an offensive policy on the eastern front.

As the title of this show implies, we're going to do this with the help of historian Eric McGear.

However, this won't be a straight interview episode. There is a huge amount to talk about that couldn't be included in our conversation.

So I will be interrupting from time to time to provide extra information.

As a result, this episode is going to be an hour long and it's also going to function like an end of the century show.

It seemed silly to begin describing Byzantine operations in Syria and then only get round to the mechanics of how the army functioned six months from now.

There are some basic paradigms we should establish at the start. The Roman army has been on the defensive for 300 years now.

Listeners have often asked for an update on battle tactics. But the reality was that Byzantine strategy was to avoid battle at all costs.

Gorilla warfare had dominated their thinking for generations.

When the occasion called for a pitched battle, the tactics used seemed to have been similar to those we explored before the rise of the caliphate.

In other words, the cavalry took the lead in assaulting the enemy. They were after all the professional soldiers. The infantry often recruited just for that campaign. We used in support.

Because formal engagements were so infrequent, no one wrote down any tweaks of tactics that might give us further insights.

By the time new military manuals came to be composed, such as Leo VI's Taktika, a lot of the material was just lifted from earlier works like Maurice's strategic own.

Its basic demands were still relevant, even if it lacked much contemporary insight.

Since the time of battle the first and the war with the Paulitions, the Romans have been seeking out pitched battles again.

They've also been conducting sieges and using the mountains to take Gorilla warfare to a new level.

This is where the manual on skirmishing comes in. We've talked about this before. It was commissioned by Niceferas Focus.

The man who last week in our narrative was put in charge of the army. The purpose of that work was to preserve the methods which the Romans used to defend Anatolia from Arab raids.

There are references in those pages to the actual victories won over Safa Dola.

For example, last week I described to you Leo Focus's brilliant ambush as Safesmen returned home from a successful expedition.

Leo seized the high ground, tracked the enemy's movements, blocked their path and surprised them, causing devastation.

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