Thread by @haravayin_hogh

Finally finished re-reading this great fat tome about a week ago. Didn't bother excerpting to 𝕏, was purely for pleasure, a well-known topic, & many Byzantine-themed accounts exist here already.
There was one argument by Treadgold that really stood out to me this time however:

Namely his explanation for Byzantium's sudden & incredibly steep decline. Over a mere century it went from Basil II's tightly-run & unified realm, ringed by either vassals or cringing & defeated enemies, to one on the verge of collapse, riddled by corruption & political anarchy.

Byzantium's rapid internal degeneration as the Macedonian Dynasty ended is especially striking, because on Basil II's death, the Empire was in extraordinarily good financial shape, whilst its traditional enemies had declined to a contemptibly weak state.

Treadgold posits a cause for Byzantium's turn in fortunes both ancient, yet eerily contemporary: Its elites simply lost interest in expansion or great projects. Deprived of constructive outlets & without external danger, the state's newfound wealth only tempted corruption, fostered inequality, bred disloyal magnates, and allowed the army to atrophy.

Basil II's gross irresponsibility in indifference to producing any heir didn't help, but the state had weathered many such crises before. The weak puppet emperors promoted by a venal bureaucracy were then a new phenomenon produced by lack of direction. Again, very contemporary.

Byzantium's strange interlude of what seemed like unprecedented prosperity combined with state neglect, venality & purposelessness couldn't last, and it didn't. Eventually reality returned with the catastrophe of Manzikert.

Turkmens were a primitive enemy that should have been trivial to fight off only a generation ago. Instead Greek factional squabbles allowed, and even actively facilitated, their initial flooding into Anatolia - dooming Byzantine society.
We see identical elite behaviour today.🧵