Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium. Episode 245 means and ends.

Only once before have I recorded an extra episode just to assess the reign of an emperor,

and that was for Justinian. Justinian is widely believed to be one of the greatest Byzantine

emperors, but that was not my experience of his reign. Looking back I actually wasn't

harsh enough on Justinian. I didn't realize then that every other emperor who faced

a neka-style uprising had the decency to abandon the throne. Only Justinian concluded that

he should commit mass murder to keep his position intact. Manuil Comlinos is not nearly

as famous as Justinian, and their reigns have little in common, but his legacy is comparably

disputed. I think what connects them is that a generation after their deaths, the Byzantine

Empire suffered a major collapse. In neither case is it obviously their fault, but inevitably

we look at their reigns for signs of decline. Questions will always linger about whether they

could have done things differently. I still feel justified in going after Justinian,

whereas I felt quite guilty about criticizing Manuil. As I mentioned last time, Manuil's

reign is unlike any Byzantine emperor I've had to deal with, well, since Justinian.

He and God involved in events in Italy, Africa, Spain, just as Manuil spent so much of his

reign concerned with far off places. This just hasn't been the case for a long time.

Byzantine history is actually quite easy to understand, between 650 and 1050. Constantinople

is essentially a city-state, whose armies march out either east or west to put down enemies

who might one day reach the boss for us. Their troops can either march to the Adriatic,

the Danube, or the Taurus Mountains. They don't really go beyond that very often, and

as long as the areas in between are quiet, then the government in Constantinople can just

hum along quite nicely for a long, long time. Once the second crusade was over, I fully

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