Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 172, The Roman Army, in 1025 AD.

This past century has been the most successful period for the Byzantine military in their entire history.

Though Justinian is remembered for reconquering large parts of the empire, his campaigns were rushed and poorly followed up on.

They also provoked attacks from the sassanids that led to decades of pointless conflict.

By contrast, between 912 and 1025, the Romans conceived and executed the plan to rid themselves of the dangers on their borders.

Leo VI maintained and expanded his father's client network in Armenia.

Romanus Lecapinos entrusted this network to his general John Corcuas, who led them to demolish the Emirates based in Theodosiopolis and Melatine.

Constantine VII demoted John and promoted the Focuss family instead, but maintained the same Focuss and Goals.

And the results were spectacular.

Crete and Cyprus were brought back into the empire, Celicia and Antioch conquered, Gihad silenced for the first time in 300 years.

The Corcuas family then overthrew the Focads, but again the aims of Byzantine high command did not change.

John Zimiske's held the Eastern front down, while also driving the Rus from the Danube.

Although a series of damaging civil wars followed, the result of them was to create in-basel the second a hybrid of all the leaders that had come before.

A military commander whose records stood comfortably against any magnate, but also the legitimate product of the palace with a clear vision of what the empire needed.

He refused to get bogged down in Syria, was relentless in pursuing the Bulgarians, and finally brought his great, great grandfather's work to completion by fully absorbing the Armenian world into the empire.

Since the soldier Focuss had murdered Maurice, Romania had been a punching bag.

A city-state based on Constantinople whose provinces were continuously raped and pillaged by their neighbors.

Now Roman soldiers stood atop the watchtowers in the Balkan, Armenian and Taurus mountains ready to destroy those who would invade.

Don't skip ahead. Don't think about the Turks and Manzacard. Those were unimaginable events in 1025.

What the Roman army had achieved in the past century was genuinely impressive.

Key to it all was the consistency of leadership.

Only the period of civil war we recently covered with Bada's focus and Ski-Ros saw the Byzantines via from this path.

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