Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, Episode 300, the 10 Greatest Byzantine Empress.

When I realized episode 300 would fall outside of the narrative, I decided to do something special.

And as you can imagine, listening to Anthony Cordellis,

Rank emperors for four hours, got me itching to deliver my own verdict.

Why am I doing this now? Why not after 1453?

What are my criteria? Why am I not interviewing Dan Carlin instead? I realized when thinking

about this episode that the preamble would take quite a while if I tried to explain why I am

giving you this list now.

And you know, who wants that?

I think most of you just want to know who number one is

so you can start disagreeing with me.

So why don't we cut straight to the content?

And if you want the preamble, it'll now be a post-amble.

All I will say for now is thank you. Thank you so much for supporting the show to get to episode 300.

I really appreciate all the kind emails, comments and reviews and to those of you who reached into your

wallet as well you have changed my life forever and I am forever grateful.

At number 10 is Nysephyrus Focus, 963 to 969.

Focass is the best general that I've covered on the podcast, meticulous, tough, disciplined, a master of strategy,

as well as tactics but he only became emperor halfway

through his career of conquering while emperor he captured solicea, Cyprus and

Antioch as well as pushing the Roman border into Armenia.

He was a terrifying figure to his enemies and he was an efficient and effective military

...