The year is drawing to a close so I thought I would do a recommendation thread for the accounts I have enjoyed interacting with the most this year!

These are all accounts dedicated to history and art free of political flim flam or AI slop!

[Thread]🧵


.@HeraldOfRome covers the history of the Roman Empire with a focus on politics, identity and the nature of power in the Roman state.

Julius Caesar wrote accounts of the most fearless soldiers under his command.

This is a thread of the men who ‘displayed a courage past defeating when they went upon any danger where Caesar's glory was concerned!’

[Thread]🧵 • Cassius Scaeva •

At the Battle of Dyrrachium where Pompey broke out of the city and attacked Caesar’s forts, one fort in particular came under attack. Caesar wrote that 30,000 arrows had been fired into it. He added that ‘in the fort, not a single soldier escaped without a wound; and in one cohort, four centurions lost their eyes’.

Plutarch wrote that ‘Cassius Scæva, who, in a battle near Dyrrhachium, had one of his eyes shot out with an arrow, his shoulder pierced with one javelin, and his thigh with another; and having received one hundred and thirty darts upon his target, called to the enemy, as though he would surrender himself. But when two of them came up to him, he cut off the shoulder of one with a sword, and by a blow over the face forced the other to retire, and so with the assistance of his friends, who now came up, made his escape.’

Suetonius’ version is that ‘Scaeva, with one eye gone, his thigh and shoulder wounded, and his shield bored through in a hundred and twenty places, continued to guard the gate of a fortress put in his charge’.

In the 8th century the fate of the world hung in the balance when a series of defeats tested the might of the Umayyad Caliphate.

From Spain to China the onslaught of Islamic Jihad was halted and pushed back!

[Thread]🧵 • Jihad •

After the death of Muhammad, his followers invaded the Roman Empire and Persia.

Both empires suffered devastating defeats at the battles of Yarmouk and al-Qadisiyyah, respectively.

The Muslims captured the Levant from the Romans and Iraq from the Persians before effectively destroying the remnants of the Persian army at Nahavand in 642.

Today in AD 627,

The centuries long rivalry between Rome and Persia came to an end with the culmination of one of the most spectacular military campaigns ever fought.

When Heraclius triumphed at Nineveh!

[Thread]🧵 By the start of the 7th century the empire had been struck by plague in 542, 558, 573, 586, and 599 and the emperor Maurice was tirelessly campaigning against the Slavs and Avars in the Balkans, having won respite against the Persians by intervening to aid the Shah Khusrow II when he was ousted.

In AD 602 the Roman field army in the Balkans rebelled and marched on Constantinople, killed Maurice and installed Phocas as emperor.

Khusrow declared war, executed Roman emissaries, and invaded.

This painting is famous the world over, but did you know it depicts the Hospitaller Knight Mathew of Clermont?

When the Muslims poured over the walls of Acre in 1291 he refused to flee and fought until he ‘was covered on all sides and glistening with blood!’

[Thread]🧵 The glory of those mightiest of Christian warriors who stormed Jerusalem in AD 1099 had long since faded and the power of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was shattered long before 1291 when the Muslims gathered outside Acre, the last stronghold of Christendom in the Holy Land.

This is a thread on the arms and armour of the Roman Army from the founding of Rome 753 BC to the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453

Over 2000 year of military innovation, indomitable spirit, and glory!

[Thread]🧵 • The Earliest Times •

The traditional date for the founding of Rome is 753 BC. At this point Rome is centuries away from being thru powerful city we know. Warfare for the next few centuries seems to be small-scale skirmishing between warrior bands. A hint of this is given in Livy when he describes the Fabii gens asking the senate to let them fight the city of Veii by themselves with 306 men.

This is a reconstruction of the earliest Roman warriors based on burial finds. However, it would be a mistake to assume that armour at this time was standard across all Romans.

Pyrrhus of Epirus had invaded Italy and defeated the Romans in battle. Peace was offered and some Romans seemed willing to accept terms.

Then the blind old Appius Claudius Caecus was led into the Senate House with a warning from the past…

[Thread]🧵 Rome had emerged the dominant power on the Italian peninsula after many gruelling years of warfare which saw the Samnites defeated and alliances made with the Greek cities of Southern Italy.

But the good times created by the hard men of the 4th and 3rd centuries were at risk when Pyrrhus of Epirus, one of the mightiest warriors ever, invaded Italy at the behest of the city of Tarentum which bristled at Roman power.

FABIVS MAXIMVS was Rome’s least likely hero in her most uncertain times!

Scorned for his guerrilla warfare strategy until vindicated by the Cannae disaster when the Romans turned to him to save them.

This is the life of Fabius Maximus, the Shield of the Romans!

[Thread]🧵 The Fabii claimed descent from Hercules and it is ironic that their least warlike son was to be their greatest member.

Fabius Maximus was born in around 280 BC, the year Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at Heraclea.

As a youth he was given the moniker Ovicula or ‘the lamb’ for his mild manner, slow speech, and long deliberation before taking decisions. Plutarch wrote that some ‘esteem him insensible and stupid; and few only saw that this tardiness proceeded from stability, and discerned the greatness of his mind, and the lionlikeness of his temper.’

Today in AD 602,

The Roman field army in the Balkans rebelled and marched on Constantinople, led by the usurper Phocas!

The emperor Maurice was forced to watch the decapitation of his five young sons before he was killed.

[Thread]🧵 In the late 6th century, the Roman Empire faced major threats from three directions; the Persians in the east, the Lombards in Italy, and threat of the Avar and Slavic peoples who had recently arrived in the Balkans. To make matters worse, the empire had been struck by outbreaks of plague

The emperor Maurice succeeded Tiberius II in AD 582 and had successfully campaigned against all of these threats, but after 20 years of rule, the impact of regular campaigning was causing problems.

One particular success was the intervention in the Persian civil war in favour of the Shah Khusrow II, which brought close relations afterward.

But the emperor was ever conscious of the financial burden of such prolonged campaigning and in 588 attempted to cut army pay by 25% which provoked a brief mutiny.

When assassins came for the Emperor Galba, all of his guards betrayed him except for one man alone…

𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐬, ‘the single man among so many thousands that the sun beheld that day act worthily of the Roman Empire’.

[Thread]🧵 Imperial legitimacy was shattered upon the death of the Emperor Nero and the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in AD 68. Once it was seen that one man could revolt and take power, other men wanted to do the same.

The first of these men was Galba, governor of Hispania, who became emperor with the support of other key figures including the legate Otho.

Galba’s reign is dated from the 8th of June, AD 68.

Mighty were the Romans, and mightiest among them was 𝐀𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧, the general who came from obscurity to rescue the empire and restore the world.

[Thread]🧵 • 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲 •

The stability of the Roman Empire faltered in the third century. Beginning with the fall of the Severan dynasty upon the murder of Emperor Severus Alexander in the aftermath of a defeat of his army by Germanic tribes who had slowly grown in strength over the preceding centuries.

The troops declared Maximinus Thrax as emperor but this led to the Year of the Six Emperors which saw all claimants killed.

In AD 1352,

In the dead of night, an English rogue named John of Doncaster led a band of men to cross the moat and scale the walls of Guînes castle in a daring attempt to seize it.

[Thread]🧵 The castle at Guînes was strong and well fortified and located just six miles south of Calais which had been taken by the English and successfully defended in 1350 from an attempt of the French knight Geoffroi de Charny to sneak a force in.

It was also used to hold English prisoners of war.

In AD 608,

The Persians were thundering into the Roman Empire, conquering all that lay before them.

When the Roman army abandoned Mardin, the defence of the city was taken up by…

The Warrior Monks of Mardin!

[Thread] In 602 the Roman army rebelled against the emperor Maurice chose Phocas, a senior military officer, as their emperor, they marched in Constantinople and killed Maurice and five of his sons.

In 603 the Persian Shah Khusrow, who had been greatly helped by Maurice after being ousted in his youth, declared war. A Roman general named Narses also rebelled against Phocas.

Today in AD 1090,

A deadly riot broke out as part of a plot to turn Rouen over to the forces of King William Rufus.

It ended with the instigator being hurled off the tower of Rouen!

[Thread]🧵 William the Conqueror had three surviving sons; Robert Curthose, William Rufus, and Henry Beauclerc.

The unprecedented nature of his conquest of England meant that he had to decide what to do with his smaller ancestral Dukedom of Normandy and his much larger and richer kingdom of England.

When he died in 1087, he left Normandy to his eldest son Robert Curthose, and England to his second son, William Rufus. To his youngest son Henry Beauclerc, he left a large sum of money.

In 321 BC,

The Romans were utterly humiliated by the Samnites who lured them into a trap and defeated them in a bloodless ‘battle’ at the Caudine Forks.

[𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝]🧵 War between the Romans and Samnites broke out after the Romans began spreading their influence southward and came up against the Samnites.

In 321 when the ‘foremost soldier and commander’ of the Samnites, Gaius Pontius, decided to set a trap on the Roman army advancing toward him.

In 4th century BC,

The peace and stability of Ancient Rome came crashing down when the city was plundered and its people driven off during…

• The Gallic Sack of Rome • The earliest deeds of the Romans are shrouded by time and other factors. Nevertheless, these stories were based on a real event.

By the early 4th century BC, the Gauls had invaded Italy and the Etruscans of Clausium called on the Romans for help.

The Romans went forth and suffered a terrible defeat at the battle of Allia. The traditional account tells that the Roman army fled to Veii and according to Livy, the Gauls were surprised by the extent of their victory and feared a trap. When no further attack came, they marched on Rome.

In Rome the people were terrified for they witnessed a Roman army leave and a Gallic army return. The presence of the army in Veii was not known to them.

Today in AD 312,

Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in one of the most consequential battles of all time!

[Thread] 🧵 In AD 305, Diocletian retired leaving the tetrarchy, the rule of four emperors, in control of the empire.

Today in AD 899,

Alfred the Great died.

He spent his life tirelessly fighting to drive out the invaders who plagued his people and in doing so laid the foundation of the English nation.

This is a thread on the greatest ever English king.

[Thread]🧵 The first Viking attacks on England were coastal raids.

The first notable example was in the Isle of Portland, and then in AD 793 when ‘the ravaging of wretched heathen men destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.’

Alcuin lamented the Viking attacks:

‘…never before has such a terror appeared as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the church of St Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments.’

The Viking raids continued until the mid-9th century when they took on a different form: conquest.

Today in AD 1415,

Henry V won possibly the greatest victory ever achieved by the men of England at…

• THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT •

[Thread]🧵 ‘𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐝𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟
𝐀𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝’

By 1410 the civil war raging in France caused by the infirmity of the mad King Charles led to both sides seeking help from England.

In AD 1413 Henry V was crowned king upon the death of his father and reasserted the claim to the throne of France that stemmed from his ‘most famed of famous ancestors’ Edward III.

It has been alleged that Alexios Komnenos betrayed the Crusaders and sat back while they fought his war for him.

But is that true?

To answer that we must look both at what he did and didn’t do during the First Crusade.

[Thread]🧵 In AD 1095, the Turks had overrun most of Anatolia, Nicea had been lost, Anatolia was in chaos, and Turkic pirates were a serious threat in the Aegean.

Alexios Komnenos, having spent so many years fighting to bring stability back to the empire, had suffered a coup attempt in light of the situation in Anatolia.

He wrote to Pope Urban to request help and the Pope gave his famous speech at Clermont. This initiated what we call the First Crusade.

When the main crusade contingents arrived, most of the leaders swore an oath to Alexios to return imperial territory they captured. The details of this oath are not known and it is likely that neither sides fully understood each other’s approach to such an oath.

Today in AD 1081,

The impetuous young emperor Alexios Komennos rushed to battle the Normans invading the Balkans and suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Robert Guiscard.

At the Battle of Dyrrhachion!

[Thread]🧵 By the mid-late 11th century the Roman Empire faltered from its medieval peak and was beset on all sides by new threats; Normans in Italy, Pechenegs and Rus on the Balkans, and Seljuk Turks in the east.

The Normans had completed their conquest of southern Italy and had invaded the Balkans in May 1081.

Just a month before, the young General Alexios Komnenos had seized power from his ineffectual predecessor by marching on Constantinople.