@Monkey:
….and the areas that make up modern Greece. Especially the northern tier (Macedonia, Thrace) like I listed. And that Anatolian control was again less so in the interior. More focused on the coasts (all three of them). And was itself more focused on the Marmara region.
Salonika (Thessaloniki) was the second city of the empire in this period after all, and that's in Macedonia.
You really have to look at the evolution of the Byzantine state. Through the 7th to the 9th, maybe even 10th centuries, the power of the state in the territory of modern Greece was weak and restricted to small coastal areas, like Attica. The same applies to the rest of the Balkans, with territorial control in Thrace being restricted to roughly the territory controlled nowadays by Turkey, for quite a while. When I mentioned Macedonia being a dream, I meant to say that control over that territory had completely slipped and for a couple of centuries, its reconquest was but a dream. Thessalonica was a Hellenic island swimming in a slavic sea for quite some time. Which didn't mean that it was constantly besieged, it actually fostered good relations and influenced the culture of the immigrant tribes quite a lot.
Also islands are assuredly not useless in terms of geopolitics. Cyprus was and is considered prime real estate for any power in that region, and even powers NOT from the region who are interested in the area. Crete and Rhodes have also been hotly contested matters.
You're right about this, but that's not what I meant exactly. I mean that in the aftermath of the first arab conquests, the roman hold in places like Sicily, Crete and Cyprus was not an important factor in terms of contribution for the central state's financing and military assistance against the Caliphate, which was almost the single focus of the Romans, at the time. In that sense, their control of the islands (especially far away Sicily) was rather unimportant in geopolitical terms.
What is your understanding of "Anatolia"? You seem to be emphasizing it as a tight contained unit, but even now its not. With the exception of Ankara and Eskisehir, even in modern Turkey there's a vast social and cultural difference between the Anatolian interior and the coastal cities.
When you're saying that the Byzantines had Anatolian focus…what are you saying? You need to be more specific because either I agree, or I disagree.
Otherwise though you're not actually disagreeing with me in saying what you're saying. The Byzantines lost influence in eastern Anatolia, and lost control of the interior Balkans to the Slavic kingdoms yeah.
But that doesn't just leave Anatolia, that also leaves most of modern Greece. And the center of that influence in that area would have been in the northern edge of this area, again this is Macedonia and Thrace. Which are directly adjacent to the Istanbul/Marmara area.
I meant the entirety of the Anatolian landmass, from the Mediterranean/Aegean/Pontic coasts up until Armenia. That formed the core territorial unit of the empire for some 3 centuries, constituting the main tax source, recruiting ground, military stronghold and buffer between the all-important capital and the mortal enemy in the middle east. The little influence left in the european holdings played a really small role in the history of the empire between the 7th and 10th centuries and that's understandable. They had to contend with surviving a constant onslaught, yearly jihad in their east frontier, constant giant raids with many of them intending to be a launch pad towards the full conquest of the capital. Meanwhile, the Balkans were a treacherous, mountainous land, filled with new tribes outside of imperial control, which would take a long time and resources in order to bring back into the fold. And by Balkans, I also mean mainland Greece and even the Peloponnese.
Being invaded and suffering doesn't suggest depopulation. The Peloponnese wasn't a major area, heck south Greece in general wasn't the biggest of anything during the Byzantine era. I didn't claim it was.
Slavic invasions were problems for Macedonia and Thrace, and they changed hands some times yes. But they were never firmly Slavified like the interior Balkans were. Macedonia here you have to remember as being a region focused around Thessaloniki, and not think about the modern country Macedonia. Thrace too is larger than the areas that fell under Bulgarian control.
Macedonia is a region of Greece, its basically the north central zone. And Thessaloniki is the heart of it, and was in the latter half (post Arabs) the second biggest and most important Byzantine city. You have to grasp Thessaloniki to understand that area post-Byzantium.
Because it was so important in this period, and retained that important afterwards under the Ottomans, it actually commands a sort of greater sense of importance to Greeks than Athens. And around the period where Balkan countries were becoming independent from the Ottomans most of those people also were obsessed with it (the Serbs and Bulgarians both).
Its in the same category as Istanbul for them as a historic cultural capital, also Smyrna (Izmir). Though that city was less important in the late Byzantine Empire and regained importance under the Ottomans.
So you really can't lose sight of that as an important part of Byzantine heritage and cultural memory.
When actual Greeks talk about "Macedonia" this is more what they mean, and not so much anything to do with Alexander the Great.
This also helps to understand the current silly scuffle over the name between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. The hinterland of Macedonia became Slavic, and the core region around Thessaloniki remained largely Hellenic.
And again, the problem with different historical periods. The Peloponnese, for example, was the major centre of Hellenism and of the empire itself by the last century or so of the empire, after the 4th crusade and the constant ripping apart of the territory by the italians and turks. The era of Thessalonica only begins in earnest after the romans embark on the large scale reconquest of the Balkans and I think you're underestimating the time it took from the initial Arab conquests in the middle 600s until the empire was again strong enough to undertake such a monumental project. When that city remained isolated and accessible only through sea, it's impossible for it to have had such an importance. Only by the 10th century does it start to acquire such a status, which it will retain until the fourth crusade or so (and then regain it under the Ottomans). I think the problem is that while the Arab conquests can be considered to be an early event in the grand scheme of Byzantien history (unless you consider it in the entire scope of Roman history), there is an entire era that succeeds those events, dominated by Anatolia/Armenia, which is perfectly reflected in the Iconomachy. The fight between Iconoclasts and Iconophiles was a crucial part of Byzantine history. Absolutely huge. Around 2 centuries dominated by this controversy, that was more than a religious dispute (like most religious disputes, really). It was a profound introspection on the Roman identity as a result of such losses against the Muslim Arabs. It was almost a recreation of said identity, with the civilization that emerged after it distinct in many aspects from what it was before, and increasingly estranged from the western europeans/Franks. And much of this controversy was a fight between the Hellenic urban element of Constantinople and that not-as-much-Hellenic rural populations of inner Anatolia/Armenia. And believe me, this reached huge proportions. That's why I say that the 7th-10th centuries were markedly Anatolian and Armenian for the Byzantine Empire, there was a lot of people from these areas entering the service of the capital and ruling for many years. That's why we have the Isaurian and Amorian dynasties (both locations in inner Anatolia), with Leo the Armenian (who filled the bureaucracy with his countrymen) in between.
I fail to see the problem. Greece (and Anatolia) are in some ways comparable to your own Portugal. A land of rough interior. And here lots of that is topographic, Greece and Anatolia are both very craggy and mountainous not far (or immediately) into the land off the coast.
Greece is more or less a land OF coastal civilization, and always has been. Anatolia isn't even very different from that either.
Until the Arab invasions, which is fairly early in Byzantine history all things considered. Thessaloniki never had to be reconquested btw. It got sacked sure, but I don't think it was conquered. Major cities popping up in Anatolia is an exception, not a rule. Even today's Ankara and other large cities (Konya etc) are recent phenomena.
You're right about this. But when the empire was so reliant on eastern Asia Minor for survival, it was a different situation. Again, that's why Amorium was the second most important city during the 2 centuries post-Arab conquests. It was indeed kind of an oasis city that prospered due to military needs, becoming a huge stronghold and the only city which was worth mention by the Arabs besides the capital for a long time (well into the Abbasid period, until its sack). By the way, that description of Portugal is only valid above the river Tagus. The south, called Alentejo (lit. Beyond-the-Tagus) is mostly plane.
You need to get more geography in your history. Anatolia is a dryish plateau surrounded by mountains, it is not a first candidate for population density just by nature. Even the major cities that do pop up there tend to be more like oasis cities, acting as intermediates in trade routes in lonesome fertile spots. That prosper as waypoints. The rim areas are mountains around that. Meanwhile the coast was easy access with some low lying spots that favored population. Eastern Anatolia is super mountainous even compared to the west. Warfare has its role, but only so much.
Yes, I know about that. The Balkans are roughly the same, that's what made them so hard to reconquer. Hell, that's what made Anatolia impossible to conquer for the Arabs. They only managed to get the flat land of Cilicia but the Taurus mountains proved impenetrable. It's only after the decay of Muslim power in the east that the Romans feel at ease to reorient their policies towards the west, to northern Greece and the rest of the Balkans. And that's when the estrangement of the mountainous eastern Asia Minor began, I would think.
Except we're talking in the later contexts when Turkic migrations and invasions were around. Definitely after the Arab conquests at least. The earlier periods are less distinctly Hellenic to begin with then the latter times.
Yeah, I think it all comes down to this and to what I said in a preivous message/post: there is no assumption that can be applied to the entire duration of the Byzantine era of the Roman Empire. Not even the most true of them: "Constantinople was the be-all and end-all of the Empire" (after the fourth crusade, things became more messy than that). Simply because it was soooo long and so everchanging that it's impossible to do that. So in the end, I'm the one at fault because we began by talking about the Turkish relation towards Greece and that begins in the 11th century, while I went and picked up stuff from earlier centuries (though that doesn't mean this stuff can be disregarded).