A theory about empires and frontiers

[Sandman]

Most areas of an empire are 'frontier' - if we just assume that the distribution of new empires is random, it's hardly surprising that most of them emerge in ex-frontier areas.

[chequita guevara]

The ERE was at its most powerful when it was not a frentier empire, when it's borders reached from Anatolia to Tunis, from Yemen to the Pruth. When it was reduced to a frontier state (not soon afterwards), it could do little but hang on for a thousands years before being usurped and reinvigorated by the Ottomans.

Nor is it an example of a ethnic fault line, as Anatolia was mixed and the Balkans were completely mixed, without clear clevages between groups.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Albert Speer

Note that it was Macedon to the north which consolidated and formed an empire... Macedon which was pseudo-Hellenic, clearly on the frontier of the Hellenic culture, long having had conflict with Scythians and other peoples, and also having been occupied by the Persians... Macedon was where solidarity built up and was sustained with exposure to other cultures on this Hellenic frontier and Macedon was where an empire formed.

Very good point, I have noticed that states that develop at the edge of a civilization (The early Roman Republic, the US, Macedon, The Chinsese principality of Chin, Austria, Ancient Persia, Russia, etc.) tend to leave the states of the old core in the dust.

[BeBMan]

Dunno if it makes sense to speak of a frontier empire as such - an empire has center and periphery, where the frontier zones to others are.

Since anything outside of an empire is ....umm....non-empire to said empire any empire would be a frontier empire (unless there are natural barriers as oceans or so). But to call something like the Imperium Romanum at the height of it's power a frontier empire is misleading, since most of the core areas weren't directly affected by circumstances in the frontier zones.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The ERE was at its most powerful when it was not a frentier empire, when it's borders reached from Anatolia to Tunis, from Yemen to the Pruth. When it was reduced to a frontier state (not soon afterwards), it could do little but hang on for a thousands years before being usurped and reinvigorated by the Ottomans.

I see the ERE before the Slav and Arab invasions and after as totally different beasts. the ERE of Justinian was the dying remainant of Graeco-Roman Civilization, the empire post-Heraclius was the core state of a new civilization, Orthodox Christendom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

The Empire's loss of territory was offset to a degree by consolidation and an increased uniformity of rule. Emperor Heraclius fully Hellenized the Empire by making Greek the official language, thus ending the last remnants of Latin and ancient Roman tradition. The use of Latin in government records (Latin titles such as Augustus and the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome) fell into abeyance, which allowed the empire to pursue its own identity.

Many historians mark the sweeping reforms made during the reign of Heraclius as the breaking-point with Byzantium's ancient Roman past. It is common to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine" instead of as "East Roman" from this point. Religious rites and religious expression within the empire were now also noticeably different from the practices in the former imperial lands of western Europe.
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Constans II (reigned 641–668) subdivided the empire into a system of military provinces called themes in an attempt to improve local responses to the threat of constant assaults. Outside of the capital, urban life declined while Constantinople grew to become the largest city in the Christian world.
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In his landmark work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon depicted the Byzantine Empire of this time as effete and decadent.[3] However, an alternative examination of the Byzantine Empire reveals a military superpower in the early Middle Ages. Scholars point to the empire's heavy cavalry (the cataphracts), its subsidy (albeit inconsistently) of a free and well-to-do peasant class forming the basis for cavalry recruitment, its extraordinarily in-depth defense systems (the themes), and its use of subsidies to make its enemies fight each other. Other factors include the empire's prowess at intelligence-gathering, a communications and logistics system based on mule trains, a superior navy (although often under-funded), and rational military strategies and doctrines (not dissimilar to those of Sun Tzu) that emphasized stealth, surprise, swift maneuvering and the marshaling of overwhelming force at the time and place of the Byzantine commander's choosing.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Albert Speer

I don't see how you could argue Byzantium wasn't a frontier empire! It is actually Turchin's strongest arguement. Why there, instead of all the rest of the decaying Roman Empire, did a new empire start in Thrace?

It didn't "form in Thrace".
The core of the empre for a couple of centuries were Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, and after that - Asia Minor.
In Thrace, there was just Constantinople.

The Empire's loss of territory was offset to a degree by consolidation and an increased uniformity of rule. Emperor Heraclius fully Hellenized the Empire by making Greek the official language, thus ending the last remnants of Latin and ancient Roman tradition.
The use of Latin in government records (Latin titles such as Augustus and the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome) fell into abeyance, which allowed the empire to pursue its own identity.

Greek was the language of most of roman administration in the east ever since RE conquered these lands. The use of latin was very much reduced, it was perhaps the most used in the army.
That's why, as prof. Swiderkowna pointed out at one of her lectures I've attended, Mel Gibbson's Passion made a big mistake - they wouldn't speak in Latin there, they would in greek. It's also what I've read in many books. It is also ABSOLUTELY not true that "the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome" fell into abeyance - Byzantines considered themselves Romans up to the very end.

Many historians mark the sweeping reforms made during the reign of Heraclius as the breaking-point with Byzantium's ancient Roman past. It is common to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine" instead of as "East Roman" from this point. Religious rites and religious expression within the empire were now also noticeably different from the practices in the former imperial lands of western Europe.
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the differences grew by centuries. They weren't introduced at some specific point.

Also, we actually don't know who introduced themes. We just know it took place somewhere in VII century.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Albert Speer

the little known Etruscans didn't even speak an Indo-European language and had a very different pantheon than the Graeco-Roman

The second part isn't exactly true, since the Romans adopted Etruscan deities, as they also did with the Greek Apollo, and as they went on to do with Celtic, Iranian and Egyptian deities.

One of the advantages of being polytheistic I imagine.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Heresson


It is also ABSOLUTELY not true that "the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome" fell into abeyance - Byzantines considered themselves Romans up to the very end.

Absolutely- as the Seljuk Turks (the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum) considered themselves inheritors of the Roman realm. Hence Jalaluddin Rumi...

[chequita guevara]

Heck, when Mehmet conquored Constantinople, he called himself Kaiser y Rum, Caesar or Rome. When the Venetians wrote to him, they said he was the successor of the Roman Empire.

[Ecthy]

But that has nothing to do with structural theories. You guys got dragged away there onto a lower level

[Patroklos]

If Egypt remained on an ethnic border then it should have remained strong and solidified for some time

This contradicts the fracturing of the "imperial core" idea you put forwars.

Whatever the impetus for the reemergence of Egypt, it was always centered around the Nile. Over 3000 years it went North and South, but there are a good dozen rebirths in there, Egypt core stayed in tact.

Similarly the Tigris/Euphrates core stayed constant, and even a better counter example because it wasn't a case or rebirth, but different empires using the same core over and over.

Constantinople and Asia Minor remained the core of the Ottoman Empire after the Byzantine collapse.

Despite the apparent lack of territorial unity, it was no mistake that Catholicism retained Rome as its capital after the Schism. Obviously the Roman core retained some importance.

Too many exceptions for this theory to be more than an observation of coincidences.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
But that has nothing to do with structural theories. You guys got dragged away there onto a lower level

It's all in the details.

Meta-theories get skimpy on the nuts and bolts in favour of grand generalizations.

[Heresson]

molly, I've always been curious: what is your avatar, exactly?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Heresson
molly, I've always been curious: what is your avatar, exactly?

It's a subliminal ad from Call To Power.

[Heresson]

play civ2 and my scns