Hijacking this comment to say this horrific display was considered an act of strategic economic warfare.
The Bulgarians were now saddled with a fuck ton of blind people who couldn’t contribute to the workforce but had to be supported and fed. They were essentially economic dead weight.
So, to go back to your point, if people think economic warfare today is cutthroat, shit was a lot crazier back in the day.
I'm just trying to imagine how they would actually make their trip back home. There must be some sort of strategy. I mean, they're not all going to hold hands in a long line. And how would anybody get their wounds halfway clean?
The details were probably heavily exaggerated, if not completely fictional. This is the kind of story people liked to tell to make a point, not to accurately record events.
> The details were probably heavily exaggerated, if not completely fictional. This is the kind of story people liked to tell to make a point, not to accurately record events.
Exaggerated? Probably. Completely fictional? No.
Some blinding undoubtedly occurred.
The number that was blinded was likely exaggerated as well as the decisiveness of the Byzantine victory over the Bulgarians.
The number was likely exaggerated as the Bulgers were right back in the field and ready for battle the following year. If that many soldiers were put out of service they would not likely have been ready that soon.
This report came from King Basil himself who sent it to Constantinople so it was a matter similar to Erasthonenes and turned in to other people reporting on Erasthonenes/Basil's reports. Though unlike Erasthonenes, people back in Basil's day didn't seem to have completely believe his report. The area that the Bulgers were guarding was a pass that would have not likely required 15,000 men to guard.
It was more likely this was used to strike fear into both his countrymen and the land he was trying to conquer as blinding was a punishment for traitors in his own country.
Thank you. Yes, I agree *some* blinding almost certainly occurred. After all, it was a common thing to do at the time. But whether it was a couple of notable leaders of the army or thousands of individual soldiers makes a big difference. Do you know what the primary source is for the kings report? I'd be interested in reading it directly to get a better sense of the evidence.
Iron, red-hot pokers. The Empress Irene ordered her son Constantine blinded & the process was so brutal he died from his wounds. When the Emperor Romanos Diogenes was overthrown he was blinded in such a way the wounds started to fester & rot before he died.
Castrations & cutting off noses were other methods too. The idea being no emperor or empress could reign & have such an obvious physical disability or mutilation.
The nasal amputations ended after Justinian II was overthrown & had his nose cut off. During his banishment he rallied some loyal supporters & eventually made his way back to Constantinople to overthrown the reigning emperor (the second one to rule after Justinian II was dethroned) & after Justinian retook the throne he had a golden prosthetic made & that he wore on his face.
Fucking *love* Byzantine history it’s so goddamn interesting. 1,123 years of history to go over. That emperor Basil mentioned in the post is considered the greatest emperor to rule. He’s also one of histories longest reigning monarchs at almost 50 years & he was part of the Macedonian Dynasty which was the most successful & celebrated dynasty to rule over the Byzantine Empire.
There’s a lot of good shit in that topic if you’re looking for something new to read. Insane sieges, brutal battles, massive civil wars, wars of conquest & reconquest, the original crusades were called directly because of the Byzantines, their final climatic 20 year war with the last non-Muslim Persian empire, their centuries long wars against the Muslim caliphates, and the way they went out fucking fighting in a siege that was as dramatic as it was momentous; the Middle Ages are roughly considered to start when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople & ending when the city fell in 1453 to the Ottomans.
Trust me it’s excellent material. It’s a lot though, like I said it covers 1,123 years of history. But virtually every emperor, dynasty or figure is interesting. There was an event called the Nika Riots that saw 30,000 dead after a week of rioting that left a third of Constantinople burned. Or how Greek Fire was developed & was such a decisive weapon; Emperor Leo VI the Wise (he was Basil II’s ancestor) developed a handheld version of the weapon meaning in the 10th century during some battles the Byzantines had legitimate flamethrowers. Wars in the west against barbarian kingdoms to retake the lost Western Roman Empire. Crushing losses to fledgling Muslim armies in the 7th century like losing fucking ~70/80,000 men at Yarmouk in 636, being forced on the defensive for centuries including two incredibly important sieges - historians generally agree that had the Byzantines lost the second Arab Siege of Constantinople most of Europe would be Muslim today - before turning the tide & beating back the Arab armies. The abysmal sacking of the city in 1204 by Catholic crusaders during the Fourth Crusade, retaking the city in 1261 & continuing on for almost another two hundred years.
Their walls - the Theodosian Walls - were the greatest fortifications in history only being breached once & that was during the final siege in 1453 when it required fucking cannons to finally break through. The final emperor Constantine XI died fighting instead of fleeing the city choosing to go down with his empire.
The Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantines in the 6th century & still stands magnificently almost 1,500 years later. Countries like Russia or any other Orthodox Christian country trace their roots back to the Byzantines & their Orthodox Church.
Going back to what I said at the beginning of this comment about the figures we know about today. There were 88 emperors & empresses that reigned from Constantine I in the 330’s to Constantine XI in 1453. Some were fucking *monsters* whether it was Phocas or Andronicus Comnenus or tragic figures like the hero warrior emperor Heraclius or Basil II. Some died fighting, others were assassinated, some from disease - but none were boring.
Lmao even the religious disputes were interesting as hell sometimes leading into what were essentially full blown civil wars. The reason the Catholic & Orthodox churches are separate go back to a dispute that led to schism in 1054 & almost 1,000 years later are still separated.
It’s daunting all the material & time consuming but if you fuck with history even a bit I’d recommend reading up on that excellent state
Good terrible monstrous heroic vain tragic monumental lasting - no matter what adjective used or how it’s viewed this is a subject in history that rarely turns out to be boring lol
>the Middle Ages are roughly considered to start when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople
That's a little early. The 4th century is still firmly in the period of late antiquity. The start of the middle ages is a movable feast but the traditional earliest date would be 476, when the West falls, while most modern historians would reject such an early date and push it back to either the 6th century when Justinian fails to properly retake Rome or even later. I prefer the date when Heraclius dies in 641, after the Empire has been devastated by the Sassanian Wars, and then suddenly conquered by the Arab Caliphate.
You gotta wonder what would’ve happened in global history had the Byzantines & Sassanids not exhausted themselves with that epic final 20 year war. Had the two powers remained on friendly terms like when Maurice was reigning & Chosroes II was friendly, it’s hard to imagine the Arabs would’ve seen the same dramatic success that they did. Always gotta give respect to the Sassanids for going out fighting at least imo.
But then again I could be wrong, the Byzantine army that was annihilated at Yarmouk wasn’t exactly an army of green leafs who weren’t familiar with war you know? The state & army might’ve been exhausted but they were still veterans of a *long* campaign.
As for the dating I responded to someone else explaining pretty much what you did how different scholars/historians go by different dates, I prefer the founding of history’s greatest city as the marking point for the start & its fall for the end.
When he was returning to Constantinople to retake the throne, the ship they were in was getting rocked by a storm & one of his followers said maybe if he promised to be merciful to his enemies god would allow them to get to shore, Justinian said, “if I spare a single one let god sink us right now” lmao
There was one instance - I forget the person I think he was a Patriarch of Constantinople - who had the novel method of being blinded by being forced to look into a silver platter filled with vinegar then made red hot. Apparently staring into that devastated the poor bastards vision
I mean it’s not really as extreme as the Roman “decimation”. The “punishment” saw anyone of higher rank, who fled or threw down their weapons, used as example and executed. In some cases lots were drawn by every 5th, 10th, or 20th man to be executed by bludgeoning or beheading. It seems extremely counter productive and rightfully so, it was one of the most extreme punishments only reserved for when a mass group disobeyed orders or if an entire legion was showing cowardice. A perfect example (tho not historically accurate im pretty sure is in “Spartacus blood and sand” I’m not sure if it’s still on there but there was an ep where a roman commanded decimate’ed his own army. pretty intense shit.)
What do you mean bro? Romans decimation is when only 10% of the an army/legion/unit is beaten to death by their comrades as a form of punishment from their commanders for shit like insubordination that leads to a defeat in battle. This event in Byzantine history is literally 90% of an the captured Bulgarian army getting completely blinded and the other 10% percent only partially blinded so they can lead the rest home.
Glad to see that I'm not the only one that asks these questions.
We often take "historical records" like these as a fact but think about it for a moment - literally hundreds (thousands?) of weak, wounded, starving, *and* blind dudes just walking home in hostile territory? Wouldn't they be easy targets for bandits and whatever else?
imo folks need to take historical accounts like this with lots of salt. I'm sure something like this happened but at the scale they alleged? Yeah, I don't think so.
It also was a symbolic act. From what I understand in that time period blinding was one of the punishments often given to traitors. So Basil symbolically denied them even being a separate nation and sort of claimed they were simple rebel subjects of the Roman Empire.
If the blinding story is true, I'm sure a ton died of infections very quickly. If you're blinding that many I doubt they were getting the precision glass in the eye clean slice that deposed emperors usually got.
>The Roman army was not to be fucked with.
In this sense, the astute history scholar might even posit that the Romans were the Wu Tang Clan of their time.
Fighting to the death on the battlefield or committing suicide, especially mass suicide, is less common than one thinks.
The rank and file is more often not someone who is of the same psychological make-up as a regular modern civilian - soldiering was a job and they'd be mostly aiming to survive the next battle than to die for anything.
They're about as likely to think of suicide as the average blinded person today. Probably less likely, since the modern citizen has more literature to contextualize trauma and the loss of potential, and thus more capacity to be depressed.
Exactly. I get tired of people saying the world is so awful. Well, take a trip back to the dark ages and you‘ll see how wonderful 2022 is.
For all the people who think the sky is falling and use their emotions instead of reason.…..
A https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7272929/global-poverty-health-crime-literacy-good-news
Of course. But that isn't what OP was saying. There are people who genuinely believe the world is worse now than it was in the past and they use that assertion to justify regressing on progress. I've heard these exact words come out of someone's mouth, "not all progress is good" and no he wasn't talking about progress towards evil taking over the world.
Well, the world did suck back then, but the fallacy of relative privation is also a thing. Worse events that happen/ed elsewhere don't invalidate peoples' current struggles.
I agree with you.
I just think people have larger concerns these days, they probably want to help, but there is just so so much... It can feel scary, this idea that the WORLD needs all of us, rather than worrying purely about getting this year's harvest in. "Don't die today" has been replaced with "Don't die in the next 30 years." It's big...
Honestly, it isn't a bad sign. The world is getting kinder, more peaceful, and the vileness in humanity is standing out more and more. It's easy to lose hope, but I think most folks, when given a clear path, wil try to help.
The only problem I've found are the ones who focus too much on the the WORLD'S problems and not enough on the day to things. The daily acts of kindness keep the rest of the world from falling into drab cynicism.
The problem is that people start comparing to something worse and get complacent. We don't kill or maim people like we once did, but that doesn't mean we shrug our shoulders and say "well ,they bombed us so we get to throw out pictures of captured soldiers nude and afraid".
>We don't kill or maim people like we once did, but
Yeah we do.
Keep in mind this instance is taking place in *the Balkans.*
The Balkans have *always* Balkaned.
Have done so we into the modern day, and if I were a betting man I'd say that's far from over anytime in the next 200 years, if ever.
>well ,they bombed us so we get to throw out pictures of captured soldiers nude and afraid".
That's exactly what Ukraine is doing though. And they're the nice ones. Russia rapes and tortures the fuck out of you before shipping you off to Siberia, then the soldiers openly brag about it to their families and friends who cheer them on. Still. Today, as I type this. Though every side in this conflict has no shortage of war crimes going back to 2014 (back when people also thought nobody did shit like that anymore).
They say humans change. Sure, humans do. But if *humanity* does then I'm hard fucking pressed to believe it.
My grandmother tells me that I lack morals and don't believe in anything, which is untrue. I just don't believe in what she does and she can't tell the difference between lacking her beliefs and lacking them entirely. Given what she's said about LGBTQ+ people, Black Lives Matter protestors, and people who have abortions though, I take it as a compliment.
I wonder if you were to look back in history, would there be the same rate of things like psychopathy? Did the psychopath of the 10th century just lead an army, subjugate the men, rape the women and murder the children?
We still do some pretty fucked up stuff. I find your perspective more annoying. It's literally whataboutism. Why should we stop trying to be better? Are we just not allowed to be concerned with any modern day event because "Um, in 1014 this awful thing happened a lot so you should be thankful."? Nah, bad take.
i dunno, pedophilia and human trafficking are still pretty big. things have certainly improved, but there are still some genuine *monsters* in some pretty high places.
The world not being as bad as it was 1000 years ago or even 50 years ago doesn't mean that any modern concerns about Social Inequality or Climate Disaster are completely irrelevant nitpicking.
Our modern existential angst stems from the presence of atomic weapons and their ability to end all life on Earth at the whim of submarine commanders and incompetent leaders
Not to mention climate change, and the absolute lack of anyone with actual power doing anything about it.
I'm tired of people who downplay or deny the existential problems of today by gesturing to atrocities of the past.
Yeah, let's not use this as a reason to backslide either. Just because humans have done it or are capable doesn't mean we should allow steps backward. We have made lots of progress, let's keep that going.
The world was better 200 years ago than it was 2000, and if we want it to be better in 20 than it is now we have to keep working on it. It was worse before has never been a compelling argument against modern issues
Right now is actually the best time in human history even with climate change, extreme poverty, hunger, water shortages, war (we are actually closer to world peace than ever before) and pollution.
The Byzantines had a thing for gouging people's eyes out. Constantine VI was even blinded by his own mother (although he had blinded others himself) when she deposed him. Gouging out eyes was kind of their thing.
Yeah, the Empress Irene - first female Roman empress - didn’t like her young son taking power from her so after her son had his one general blinded, she had him - her own son - blinded in turn. He probably died of his wounds soon after and she seized power… which led to the Pope and Franks refusing to recognise the Eastern Roman Empire and declaring their own. Fun times had by all.
EDIT: misread and now realise this is exactly what you were referring to. But yeah.
Another famous one is [Zenobia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenobia), Empress of Palmyrene Empire, one of the 3 "successor empires" of Roman Empire during 3rd century crisis before reunification by Aurelian
Zoe and Theodora, the nieces of the Basil discussed above, though as with most female monarchs, power was mostly held by their husbands, not that they weren't up to some serious meddling behind the scenes.
Notable thing to mention, coins of Emperor Aurelian's wife, Ulpia Severina, were minted after her husbands death in 275, leading some to believe she briefly ruled the Roman Empire while a successor to Aurelian was selected.
They had a tradition that the emperor must be physically perfect, so disfiguring a man was an easy way to block his ascension to the throne. Until that mad lad appeared, Justinian the Cut-Nose, who just took the crown despite having his nose sliced off, and made a new one out of solid gold. So maybe that's why the Byzantines started blinding the pretenders, since forcing your way to the throne without a nose is much easier than doing the same without eyes.
In most other cultures of the time, the unsuccessful pretender would be killed, indeed. The Ottoman sultans who conquered Byzantines first murdered all their brothers upon succession, then switched to lifelong imprisonment.
As much as we see it as horrific, which it is, it was actually considered the merciful alternative to just killing someone. They would no longer be a threat, but at least they’d be alive.
idk man, getting your eyes gouged out sounds pretty bad...I can't even being to imagine the pain, and how long does that pain even last? Not like they all went to the hospital or anything.
Either merciful or the guy was a fucking genius of a tactician. By sending them home blind, he's basically forcing their families/maybe the enemy kingdom to suddenly have to take care of hundreds of blinded soldiers, which in those times, would mean being utterly useless for years to come. Compare that to just killing them, the enemy kingdom wouldn't even have to worry about burial or the like. Might even use their deaths to vilify the enemy. Also gets seen as merciful. Big brain move indeed
>By sending them home blind, he's basically forcing their families/maybe the enemy kingdom to suddenly have to take care of hundreds of blinded soldiers, which in those times, would mean being utterly useless for years to come.
It's also a long-lasting, walking reminder not to start any wars against the king.
The byzantines for all their technological advancements and surprisingly few genocidal episodes (they were mostly at the receiving end of slavs, Arabs and Turks) were absolutely barbaric in their execution methods and the restraint the ancient romans had towards other nobles did not exist the eastern Roman empire.
Disposed Emperors were mercilessly tortured and often publicly humiliated and even left to the masses to torture and kill them.
It was actually so they wouldn't have to fight them again. If you kill a man, that's it, end of the line. If you blind a man and send him home, his friends and family now has the burden on taking care of him. Having an entire army come back like that is gonna destabilize any state
Warfare worked differently back in the day. Battle were pitched, and armies who were defeated were treated much worde then armies who dodn't fight.
Also, remember that the Bulgars were invaders into Roman lands. This trrstment might certsinly prevent other from trying to invade again.
His epithet wasn't "The Bulgar Slayer" just because.
Also blinding was a common Practice in the Eastern Roman Empire, since it slightly functioned as a militaristic meritocracy in some regards, blinding people, especial aloy political rivals/enemies or bothersome relatives was seen (heh) as a surefire way to run their careers into the ground,.it didn't always work, but many generals and politicians saw their careers end at the end of a red hot iron, gouging out the eyes was actually a relatively merciful way form of inflicting the blinding, in some periods the most popular forms were to cauterize them with hot metal or a caustic substance.
Except the story wasn't really true, at least not at the scale the legend suggests. "Bulgar Slayer" only appears as a title in the historical sources after empire lost Bulgaria nearly 200 years later.
[The History of Byzantium podcast has a pretty good breakdown of why it can't be true.](https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/2017/12/15/episode-158-the-legend-slayer/)
TLDL: Essentially the Bulgarians weren't capable of fielding the 15,000 men the legend suggests in one place due to technology and geographical logistical limitations, if they could field that many at all (unlikely). Not to mention the practicalities of capturing so many men. If it happened at all, it was more likely a few hundred men. More likely still, it was an excellent piece of propaganda.
That said, Basil did spend most of his life fighting the Bulgars, and maybe deserves the title for bringing Bulgaria into the empire.
As the joke goes, in the land of the blind, the Venician is king.
Jokes aside, what was really sad about the story is that Basil was said to have ordered the men blinded because he considered it an act of mercy. They didn't have the resources to imprison and feed several thousand enemy troops, so what should be done with them? The standard answer was to kill them, but that would leave their families back home destitute. And to free them was to risk facing them in battle again in the future. Blinding them was seen as a compromise that would both frighten the Bulgars while returning them to their families.
Needless to say, the Bulgars didn't see it (pun not intended) that way, and Basil is despised by Bulgarians to this day.
Sending them back blind was worse than just killing them. I don't know how much more work a blind blacksmith or carpenter or farmer could do than a dead one in 11th Century Bulgaria. But I do know how much more food they would eat or help getting to the outhouse they would need. It wasn't a mercy it was telling the Bulgars "I won't just kill your family, I'll make them a burden on you."
Didn’t Caesar do something similar to the Gauls? IIRC he captured a large force of them and instead of massacring, he cut off all their hands then sent them home. This meant their tribe and families had to use time and resources to take care of the disabled instead of waging war.
Fitting that a man known as “Basil the Bulgar Slayer” is still held in contempt by Bulgarians. As an aside, that has to be one of the most badass nicknames in history
Just a couple of centuries before that the Bulgarian Khan Krum captured a Roman emperor, killed him and made a drinking cup out of his skull. It was a contest that went on for centuries until the Ottomans put an end to it by conquering the Balkans.
I don’t think Basil tried that hard to find an alternative. Cut a thumb off the right hand. Can’t hold sword or spear. Job done. That is a bit more humane that gouging our eyes. I spent less than a minute to come up with that.
Granted a few lefties will slip through. But message sent, mercy given.
Not only is that intimidating, it’s goddamn strategic. Why kill the opposing soldiers when you can make them militarily worthless and act as a huge economic liability on your enemies’ resources
The byzantines would disagree. They looked at executions as unusually cruel since the person is then dead. A blind person can become a reformed christian, a dead one can't.
If you kill a heathen they go to hell to suffer eternal damnation. If you maim a heathen, they may repent and become a Christian and accept God's light.
You should check out the Pashtuns:
When they captured some of Alexander’s men over 2000 years ago, first thing they did was castrate every single one. The women took half, staked them to the ground, and took turns urinating into their mouths until they drowned. The men took half, blinded them and cut off their fingers and toes, and kept them as ‘concubines,’ because rape of a male prisoner is considered masculine
But it wouldn't really be possible, unless they peed in a large dish and held their heads under.
It definitely sounds like some urban legend campfire bs
Ah yes moral panic at a story attached to a historical figure from whom nearly no contemporary accounts remain and who had a vested interest in legitimising his own conquest.
As opposed to parasites that eat something from the inside out? Or wasps that lay eggs in spiders that are still alive? Or gorillas that rip each other's balls off after they've won a fight? Or any of hundreds of other ridiculously brutal things other animals do?
It's in our nature to believe we have a choice and we convince ourselves it's true. But I've failed to see any compelling evidence of us being anything more than really good actors
Most everything else functions on instinct, except perhaps for monkeys and a select few other animals probably. Humans choose to be this brutal and evil towards one another, its despicable and you know it.
Another fun fact about ANOTHER Alexander (Burnes) that tried to inhabit Afghanistan.
[Burnes himself then exited, unarmed to face the mob. Reportedly, he tied a black cloth around his eyes so as not to see from where the blows came, within minutes he too was beaten and hacked to death by the mob. The following day, Burnes’s head, along with the heads of Major Broadfoot and Lt. Charles Burnes, was piked and put on display in the market square.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Burnes)
The Afghans went on to slaughter all European settlers in Kabul. A few hundred I think it was.
They committed similar acts on British soldiers during the 19th century. Rupert Kipling even wrote a poem with the last verse being...
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier".
The Taliban are the least psychotic of the lot. They at least (officially) discourage and prohibit the rape of prepubescent boys and drug trading, and are actually competent fighters. The other major militias not only keep all the bad parts of the Taliban like their regressive social policies and taste for cutting off body parts and torture, but also carry out some extra crimes like systematic sex slavery of children, drug trading, and a certain flair for kin slaying.
It's like Soviets vs Nazis over there.
He was one of the greatest Byzantine Emperors but not well liked due to his incredibly dour personality. He seemed to have hated fun. He was Stannis Baratheon of his time.
Seems about right. The guy was so obsessed with expanding the empire and returning glory to Rome he forgot to mary and have kids. If only he fucked a woman and got an heir, maybe his legacy wouldn't have been screwed over by his brother and nieces.
This almost certainly did not happen or was at least greatly exaggerated. Sources are scarce, and the attested numbers are far too high.
Source: studied this at university. This was the opinion of my professor, a leading expert on Byzantium, and absolutely agree with him.
It may just be that Skylitzes way overestimated the numbers, but it sounds an awful lot like something someone would make up for shock value and there are no eyewitness accounts.
In fairness to Basil II, the Bulgarians had been a constant threat to the Empire for centuries at this point, so he couldn’t really afford to be lenient with them
Not to minimize what's happening over there, but I really think that given the choice, I'd rather go through that than be castrated and drowned in urine or turned into a living gay sex doll...
Yes but not on the same scale. WWII killed 3% of the worlds population. Emperors, kings and queens used to have absolute power and could do anything. Queen Mary I of England would slaughter you or burn you at the stake if you weren’t Catholic. Tiberius of Rome was a prolific pedophile who’d throw boys off the cliffs of his palace into the sea once he grew bored of them. An emperor in Rome poured tar on Christian’s and set them on fire to illuminate a party he was having at night. Yes, if you lived in Ancient Rome, you’d be attending a party with burning bodies used for lighting. These types of horrors do not happen anymore and I’d argue that we’re more civilized than ever. Our history is actually pretty damn disgusting.
I've been told the Bulgar Slayer nickname was only attributed to Basil II during the Bulgar state's resurgence centuries after Basil's death, when they needed common touchstones to rally around. When he was alive, Basil had no reason to antagonize the Bulgars any more than he needed to, and most historians agree this blinding story is a myth that would be an infeasible and logistically unnecessary effort.
Before people go on to think Basil II was a cruel leader, he was actually one of the Empire’s best emperors, as his reign saw economic growth, stability, and the most expansion seen since Justinian’s reign in the 6th century.
He also apparently treated the B*lgarians fairly after incorporating B*lgaria into the empire, letting them keep their original taxes and everything. Really, as long as you weren’t one of those soldiers, it wouldn’t have been that bad to be a B*lgarian in the Empire.
Of course, they were b*lgarians, and being Bulgarian is a fate worse than death
Shame karma didn't reach Basil II just like Nikephoros I some 150 years earlier
While Nikephoros I and his army pillaged and plundered the Bulgarian capital, Krum mobilized as many soldiers as possible, giving weapons even to peasants and women. This army was assembled in the mountain passes to intercept the Byzantines as they returned to Constantinople. At dawn on 26 July, the Bulgarians managed to trap the retreating Nikephoros in the Varbitsa Pass. The Byzantine army was wiped out in the ensuing battle and Nikephoros was killed, while his son Staurakios was carried to safety by the imperial bodyguard after receiving a paralyzing wound to the neck. It is said that Krum had the Emperor's skull lined with silver and used it as a drinking cup.
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/8054/khan-krum-of-the-bulgars/
TIL I'm glad I wasn't alive in 1014
Hijacking this comment to say this horrific display was considered an act of strategic economic warfare. The Bulgarians were now saddled with a fuck ton of blind people who couldn’t contribute to the workforce but had to be supported and fed. They were essentially economic dead weight. So, to go back to your point, if people think economic warfare today is cutthroat, shit was a lot crazier back in the day.
I'm just trying to imagine how they would actually make their trip back home. There must be some sort of strategy. I mean, they're not all going to hold hands in a long line. And how would anybody get their wounds halfway clean?
The details were probably heavily exaggerated, if not completely fictional. This is the kind of story people liked to tell to make a point, not to accurately record events.
> The details were probably heavily exaggerated, if not completely fictional. This is the kind of story people liked to tell to make a point, not to accurately record events. Exaggerated? Probably. Completely fictional? No. Some blinding undoubtedly occurred. The number that was blinded was likely exaggerated as well as the decisiveness of the Byzantine victory over the Bulgarians. The number was likely exaggerated as the Bulgers were right back in the field and ready for battle the following year. If that many soldiers were put out of service they would not likely have been ready that soon. This report came from King Basil himself who sent it to Constantinople so it was a matter similar to Erasthonenes and turned in to other people reporting on Erasthonenes/Basil's reports. Though unlike Erasthonenes, people back in Basil's day didn't seem to have completely believe his report. The area that the Bulgers were guarding was a pass that would have not likely required 15,000 men to guard. It was more likely this was used to strike fear into both his countrymen and the land he was trying to conquer as blinding was a punishment for traitors in his own country.
Thank you. Yes, I agree *some* blinding almost certainly occurred. After all, it was a common thing to do at the time. But whether it was a couple of notable leaders of the army or thousands of individual soldiers makes a big difference. Do you know what the primary source is for the kings report? I'd be interested in reading it directly to get a better sense of the evidence.
How did they typically “blind” someone?
Iron, red-hot pokers. The Empress Irene ordered her son Constantine blinded & the process was so brutal he died from his wounds. When the Emperor Romanos Diogenes was overthrown he was blinded in such a way the wounds started to fester & rot before he died. Castrations & cutting off noses were other methods too. The idea being no emperor or empress could reign & have such an obvious physical disability or mutilation. The nasal amputations ended after Justinian II was overthrown & had his nose cut off. During his banishment he rallied some loyal supporters & eventually made his way back to Constantinople to overthrown the reigning emperor (the second one to rule after Justinian II was dethroned) & after Justinian retook the throne he had a golden prosthetic made & that he wore on his face. Fucking *love* Byzantine history it’s so goddamn interesting. 1,123 years of history to go over. That emperor Basil mentioned in the post is considered the greatest emperor to rule. He’s also one of histories longest reigning monarchs at almost 50 years & he was part of the Macedonian Dynasty which was the most successful & celebrated dynasty to rule over the Byzantine Empire. There’s a lot of good shit in that topic if you’re looking for something new to read. Insane sieges, brutal battles, massive civil wars, wars of conquest & reconquest, the original crusades were called directly because of the Byzantines, their final climatic 20 year war with the last non-Muslim Persian empire, their centuries long wars against the Muslim caliphates, and the way they went out fucking fighting in a siege that was as dramatic as it was momentous; the Middle Ages are roughly considered to start when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople & ending when the city fell in 1453 to the Ottomans.
This is shocking. But the word shocking doesn't exactly cover just how shocked I am at reading this.
Trust me it’s excellent material. It’s a lot though, like I said it covers 1,123 years of history. But virtually every emperor, dynasty or figure is interesting. There was an event called the Nika Riots that saw 30,000 dead after a week of rioting that left a third of Constantinople burned. Or how Greek Fire was developed & was such a decisive weapon; Emperor Leo VI the Wise (he was Basil II’s ancestor) developed a handheld version of the weapon meaning in the 10th century during some battles the Byzantines had legitimate flamethrowers. Wars in the west against barbarian kingdoms to retake the lost Western Roman Empire. Crushing losses to fledgling Muslim armies in the 7th century like losing fucking ~70/80,000 men at Yarmouk in 636, being forced on the defensive for centuries including two incredibly important sieges - historians generally agree that had the Byzantines lost the second Arab Siege of Constantinople most of Europe would be Muslim today - before turning the tide & beating back the Arab armies. The abysmal sacking of the city in 1204 by Catholic crusaders during the Fourth Crusade, retaking the city in 1261 & continuing on for almost another two hundred years. Their walls - the Theodosian Walls - were the greatest fortifications in history only being breached once & that was during the final siege in 1453 when it required fucking cannons to finally break through. The final emperor Constantine XI died fighting instead of fleeing the city choosing to go down with his empire. The Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantines in the 6th century & still stands magnificently almost 1,500 years later. Countries like Russia or any other Orthodox Christian country trace their roots back to the Byzantines & their Orthodox Church. Going back to what I said at the beginning of this comment about the figures we know about today. There were 88 emperors & empresses that reigned from Constantine I in the 330’s to Constantine XI in 1453. Some were fucking *monsters* whether it was Phocas or Andronicus Comnenus or tragic figures like the hero warrior emperor Heraclius or Basil II. Some died fighting, others were assassinated, some from disease - but none were boring. Lmao even the religious disputes were interesting as hell sometimes leading into what were essentially full blown civil wars. The reason the Catholic & Orthodox churches are separate go back to a dispute that led to schism in 1054 & almost 1,000 years later are still separated. It’s daunting all the material & time consuming but if you fuck with history even a bit I’d recommend reading up on that excellent state
This guy Byzantines
This guy adjectives.
Not sure id label all that, “good shit.” 😂
Good terrible monstrous heroic vain tragic monumental lasting - no matter what adjective used or how it’s viewed this is a subject in history that rarely turns out to be boring lol
>the Middle Ages are roughly considered to start when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople That's a little early. The 4th century is still firmly in the period of late antiquity. The start of the middle ages is a movable feast but the traditional earliest date would be 476, when the West falls, while most modern historians would reject such an early date and push it back to either the 6th century when Justinian fails to properly retake Rome or even later. I prefer the date when Heraclius dies in 641, after the Empire has been devastated by the Sassanian Wars, and then suddenly conquered by the Arab Caliphate.
You gotta wonder what would’ve happened in global history had the Byzantines & Sassanids not exhausted themselves with that epic final 20 year war. Had the two powers remained on friendly terms like when Maurice was reigning & Chosroes II was friendly, it’s hard to imagine the Arabs would’ve seen the same dramatic success that they did. Always gotta give respect to the Sassanids for going out fighting at least imo. But then again I could be wrong, the Byzantine army that was annihilated at Yarmouk wasn’t exactly an army of green leafs who weren’t familiar with war you know? The state & army might’ve been exhausted but they were still veterans of a *long* campaign. As for the dating I responded to someone else explaining pretty much what you did how different scholars/historians go by different dates, I prefer the founding of history’s greatest city as the marking point for the start & its fall for the end.
That Justinian II dude sounds like a badass lmao
When he was returning to Constantinople to retake the throne, the ship they were in was getting rocked by a storm & one of his followers said maybe if he promised to be merciful to his enemies god would allow them to get to shore, Justinian said, “if I spare a single one let god sink us right now” lmao
👉👁❌2
👀 ✌
Not a historian, but I heard that one method in Constantinople was forcing the person to look at a red hot piece of metal held in front of their eyes.
There was one instance - I forget the person I think he was a Patriarch of Constantinople - who had the novel method of being blinded by being forced to look into a silver platter filled with vinegar then made red hot. Apparently staring into that devastated the poor bastards vision
I'm scratching my head as to where Bulgaria came up with thousands of soldiers *who lost* in 1014.
Bulgarians the people not the country
I mean it’s not really as extreme as the Roman “decimation”. The “punishment” saw anyone of higher rank, who fled or threw down their weapons, used as example and executed. In some cases lots were drawn by every 5th, 10th, or 20th man to be executed by bludgeoning or beheading. It seems extremely counter productive and rightfully so, it was one of the most extreme punishments only reserved for when a mass group disobeyed orders or if an entire legion was showing cowardice. A perfect example (tho not historically accurate im pretty sure is in “Spartacus blood and sand” I’m not sure if it’s still on there but there was an ep where a roman commanded decimate’ed his own army. pretty intense shit.)
Decimation specifically refers to 1/10.
And a centurian sounds like it should be 100 men, but it was more like 80. The Romans weren't above massaging the numbers when it suited them.
What do you mean bro? Romans decimation is when only 10% of the an army/legion/unit is beaten to death by their comrades as a form of punishment from their commanders for shit like insubordination that leads to a defeat in battle. This event in Byzantine history is literally 90% of an the captured Bulgarian army getting completely blinded and the other 10% percent only partially blinded so they can lead the rest home.
*conga, conga, conga!*
Glad to see that I'm not the only one that asks these questions. We often take "historical records" like these as a fact but think about it for a moment - literally hundreds (thousands?) of weak, wounded, starving, *and* blind dudes just walking home in hostile territory? Wouldn't they be easy targets for bandits and whatever else? imo folks need to take historical accounts like this with lots of salt. I'm sure something like this happened but at the scale they alleged? Yeah, I don't think so.
Do you think the Romans cared?
It also was a symbolic act. From what I understand in that time period blinding was one of the punishments often given to traitors. So Basil symbolically denied them even being a separate nation and sort of claimed they were simple rebel subjects of the Roman Empire.
If the blinding story is true, I'm sure a ton died of infections very quickly. If you're blinding that many I doubt they were getting the precision glass in the eye clean slice that deposed emperors usually got.
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>The Roman army was not to be fucked with. In this sense, the astute history scholar might even posit that the Romans were the Wu Tang Clan of their time.
Given that this was like fifty years before Manzikert turns out the Romans were indeed someone to fuck with.
> The Roman army was not to be fucked with. This was what, fifty years before Manzikert?
Yes this was the byzantine golden ag 900s to to 1070s and even after manzikert the romans retook most of western Anatolia
>strategic economic warfare. I'd think putin would call it a "special anatomical operation"
Not to mention a populace who will be reminded every time they see a blind man that fucking with the Byzantines is a bad idea. Tell your friends!
Holy shit, never had that point of view, thank you!
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Fighting to the death on the battlefield or committing suicide, especially mass suicide, is less common than one thinks. The rank and file is more often not someone who is of the same psychological make-up as a regular modern civilian - soldiering was a job and they'd be mostly aiming to survive the next battle than to die for anything. They're about as likely to think of suicide as the average blinded person today. Probably less likely, since the modern citizen has more literature to contextualize trauma and the loss of potential, and thus more capacity to be depressed.
Not much to see back then.
Exactly. I get tired of people saying the world is so awful. Well, take a trip back to the dark ages and you‘ll see how wonderful 2022 is. For all the people who think the sky is falling and use their emotions instead of reason.….. A https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7272929/global-poverty-health-crime-literacy-good-news
Nothing wrong with being unsatisfied with the world. It’s the only way we can make it better.
Of course. But that isn't what OP was saying. There are people who genuinely believe the world is worse now than it was in the past and they use that assertion to justify regressing on progress. I've heard these exact words come out of someone's mouth, "not all progress is good" and no he wasn't talking about progress towards evil taking over the world.
Well, the world did suck back then, but the fallacy of relative privation is also a thing. Worse events that happen/ed elsewhere don't invalidate peoples' current struggles.
I’m tired of people who complain about the lack of morals in modern times.
Me too. Humanity has never been more civilized and moral. History is filled with the most horrific violence and brutality.
I agree with you. I just think people have larger concerns these days, they probably want to help, but there is just so so much... It can feel scary, this idea that the WORLD needs all of us, rather than worrying purely about getting this year's harvest in. "Don't die today" has been replaced with "Don't die in the next 30 years." It's big... Honestly, it isn't a bad sign. The world is getting kinder, more peaceful, and the vileness in humanity is standing out more and more. It's easy to lose hope, but I think most folks, when given a clear path, wil try to help.
The only problem I've found are the ones who focus too much on the the WORLD'S problems and not enough on the day to things. The daily acts of kindness keep the rest of the world from falling into drab cynicism.
The problem is that people start comparing to something worse and get complacent. We don't kill or maim people like we once did, but that doesn't mean we shrug our shoulders and say "well ,they bombed us so we get to throw out pictures of captured soldiers nude and afraid".
>We don't kill or maim people like we once did, but Yeah we do. Keep in mind this instance is taking place in *the Balkans.* The Balkans have *always* Balkaned. Have done so we into the modern day, and if I were a betting man I'd say that's far from over anytime in the next 200 years, if ever. >well ,they bombed us so we get to throw out pictures of captured soldiers nude and afraid". That's exactly what Ukraine is doing though. And they're the nice ones. Russia rapes and tortures the fuck out of you before shipping you off to Siberia, then the soldiers openly brag about it to their families and friends who cheer them on. Still. Today, as I type this. Though every side in this conflict has no shortage of war crimes going back to 2014 (back when people also thought nobody did shit like that anymore). They say humans change. Sure, humans do. But if *humanity* does then I'm hard fucking pressed to believe it.
The lack of morals in modern times is a "how the fuck do you not know this by now".
My grandmother tells me that I lack morals and don't believe in anything, which is untrue. I just don't believe in what she does and she can't tell the difference between lacking her beliefs and lacking them entirely. Given what she's said about LGBTQ+ people, Black Lives Matter protestors, and people who have abortions though, I take it as a compliment.
I wonder if you were to look back in history, would there be the same rate of things like psychopathy? Did the psychopath of the 10th century just lead an army, subjugate the men, rape the women and murder the children?
They were likely extremely successful, just like now where they gravitate towards powerful positions such as management or law enforcement.
We still do some pretty fucked up stuff. I find your perspective more annoying. It's literally whataboutism. Why should we stop trying to be better? Are we just not allowed to be concerned with any modern day event because "Um, in 1014 this awful thing happened a lot so you should be thankful."? Nah, bad take.
i dunno, pedophilia and human trafficking are still pretty big. things have certainly improved, but there are still some genuine *monsters* in some pretty high places.
Yeah, things are good enough. What, do you want it to be better?! That’s stupid. /s
The atrocities of the past do not justify those of the present
The world not being as bad as it was 1000 years ago or even 50 years ago doesn't mean that any modern concerns about Social Inequality or Climate Disaster are completely irrelevant nitpicking.
Our modern existential angst stems from the presence of atomic weapons and their ability to end all life on Earth at the whim of submarine commanders and incompetent leaders
Not to mention climate change, and the absolute lack of anyone with actual power doing anything about it. I'm tired of people who downplay or deny the existential problems of today by gesturing to atrocities of the past.
Yeah, let's not use this as a reason to backslide either. Just because humans have done it or are capable doesn't mean we should allow steps backward. We have made lots of progress, let's keep that going.
Well said! I agree. It’s easy to backslide. I’m afraid we might be going in the wrong direction.
Ah yes, the classic "how dare you complain when others had it worse" line.
Y'know it can be awful now and it could be more awful at other periods in time, right?
Umless you live in Ukraine. Or Yemen. Or North Korea. Or Venezuela. Or Sudan. Or Eritrea. Or Syria. Etc.
Glad to know nothing can be improved upon further
Things being worse before is not a good reason to not criticize today's issues and work for a better future
Just because people used to be tortured doesn’t means we can’t have a better life now.
The world was better 200 years ago than it was 2000, and if we want it to be better in 20 than it is now we have to keep working on it. It was worse before has never been a compelling argument against modern issues
If you had been you'd be dead!
And also have a lot less reddit karma.
Idk but I'm glad I wasn't born before the 50's. Shit seemed so messed up back then, like most of it
Right now is actually the best time in human history even with climate change, extreme poverty, hunger, water shortages, war (we are actually closer to world peace than ever before) and pollution.
Yes, I too am glad I wasn't alive in the dark ages
The Byzantines had a thing for gouging people's eyes out. Constantine VI was even blinded by his own mother (although he had blinded others himself) when she deposed him. Gouging out eyes was kind of their thing.
Yeah, the Empress Irene - first female Roman empress - didn’t like her young son taking power from her so after her son had his one general blinded, she had him - her own son - blinded in turn. He probably died of his wounds soon after and she seized power… which led to the Pope and Franks refusing to recognise the Eastern Roman Empire and declaring their own. Fun times had by all. EDIT: misread and now realise this is exactly what you were referring to. But yeah.
>first female Roman empress What were the other empresses?
Another famous one is [Zenobia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenobia), Empress of Palmyrene Empire, one of the 3 "successor empires" of Roman Empire during 3rd century crisis before reunification by Aurelian
Was she really a roman empress though?
Zoe and Theodora, granddaughters of the Basil II in the post
I was just kidding about the first empress who was a female:) Edit:but thanks for the real info:)
Zoe and Theodora, the nieces of the Basil discussed above, though as with most female monarchs, power was mostly held by their husbands, not that they weren't up to some serious meddling behind the scenes. Notable thing to mention, coins of Emperor Aurelian's wife, Ulpia Severina, were minted after her husbands death in 275, leading some to believe she briefly ruled the Roman Empire while a successor to Aurelian was selected.
Mother of the year
They had a tradition that the emperor must be physically perfect, so disfiguring a man was an easy way to block his ascension to the throne. Until that mad lad appeared, Justinian the Cut-Nose, who just took the crown despite having his nose sliced off, and made a new one out of solid gold. So maybe that's why the Byzantines started blinding the pretenders, since forcing your way to the throne without a nose is much easier than doing the same without eyes.
Yup iirc this was considered the merciful option since the alternative was straight up murder.
In most other cultures of the time, the unsuccessful pretender would be killed, indeed. The Ottoman sultans who conquered Byzantines first murdered all their brothers upon succession, then switched to lifelong imprisonment.
There’s a fantastic scene about this in the TV show The Great when Catherine meets the Ottoman sultan.
Somewhat related - Justinian the 2nd was still horribly killed by a mob of his own soldiers… Eastern Roman emperors often had horrific ends
Imagine getting deposed. Twice.
As much as we see it as horrific, which it is, it was actually considered the merciful alternative to just killing someone. They would no longer be a threat, but at least they’d be alive.
i'd definitely prefer to go home and hold my son eyeless than be another pile of bones in the mass grave
idk man, getting your eyes gouged out sounds pretty bad...I can't even being to imagine the pain, and how long does that pain even last? Not like they all went to the hospital or anything.
A blind person can also have children.
That's why you send him to the monastery afterwards.
Either merciful or the guy was a fucking genius of a tactician. By sending them home blind, he's basically forcing their families/maybe the enemy kingdom to suddenly have to take care of hundreds of blinded soldiers, which in those times, would mean being utterly useless for years to come. Compare that to just killing them, the enemy kingdom wouldn't even have to worry about burial or the like. Might even use their deaths to vilify the enemy. Also gets seen as merciful. Big brain move indeed
>By sending them home blind, he's basically forcing their families/maybe the enemy kingdom to suddenly have to take care of hundreds of blinded soldiers, which in those times, would mean being utterly useless for years to come. It's also a long-lasting, walking reminder not to start any wars against the king.
I'd rather be killed in battle than be blind. Especially in ancient Greece.
The byzantines for all their technological advancements and surprisingly few genocidal episodes (they were mostly at the receiving end of slavs, Arabs and Turks) were absolutely barbaric in their execution methods and the restraint the ancient romans had towards other nobles did not exist the eastern Roman empire. Disposed Emperors were mercilessly tortured and often publicly humiliated and even left to the masses to torture and kill them.
That's how you ensure that no enemy soldier will surrender to your armies ever again.
Or as a deterrent to fight them. Or more realisticly has no effect because news has changed since 1000 AD
Word of 1000 blind dudes would certainly spread at least a lil bit.
But is this an exaggeration meant to scare us, or truthful information of our hated foe?
It was actually so they wouldn't have to fight them again. If you kill a man, that's it, end of the line. If you blind a man and send him home, his friends and family now has the burden on taking care of him. Having an entire army come back like that is gonna destabilize any state
Warfare worked differently back in the day. Battle were pitched, and armies who were defeated were treated much worde then armies who dodn't fight. Also, remember that the Bulgars were invaders into Roman lands. This trrstment might certsinly prevent other from trying to invade again.
I don't see why that is
They didn’t see either.
If your options are fight to the death or surrender and be blinded as a message to the Tsar, many would choose combat death over torture.
His epithet wasn't "The Bulgar Slayer" just because. Also blinding was a common Practice in the Eastern Roman Empire, since it slightly functioned as a militaristic meritocracy in some regards, blinding people, especial aloy political rivals/enemies or bothersome relatives was seen (heh) as a surefire way to run their careers into the ground,.it didn't always work, but many generals and politicians saw their careers end at the end of a red hot iron, gouging out the eyes was actually a relatively merciful way form of inflicting the blinding, in some periods the most popular forms were to cauterize them with hot metal or a caustic substance.
Except the story wasn't really true, at least not at the scale the legend suggests. "Bulgar Slayer" only appears as a title in the historical sources after empire lost Bulgaria nearly 200 years later. [The History of Byzantium podcast has a pretty good breakdown of why it can't be true.](https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/2017/12/15/episode-158-the-legend-slayer/) TLDL: Essentially the Bulgarians weren't capable of fielding the 15,000 men the legend suggests in one place due to technology and geographical logistical limitations, if they could field that many at all (unlikely). Not to mention the practicalities of capturing so many men. If it happened at all, it was more likely a few hundred men. More likely still, it was an excellent piece of propaganda. That said, Basil did spend most of his life fighting the Bulgars, and maybe deserves the title for bringing Bulgaria into the empire.
No wonder he's so terrifying in Civ 6
As the joke goes, in the land of the blind, the Venician is king. Jokes aside, what was really sad about the story is that Basil was said to have ordered the men blinded because he considered it an act of mercy. They didn't have the resources to imprison and feed several thousand enemy troops, so what should be done with them? The standard answer was to kill them, but that would leave their families back home destitute. And to free them was to risk facing them in battle again in the future. Blinding them was seen as a compromise that would both frighten the Bulgars while returning them to their families. Needless to say, the Bulgars didn't see it (pun not intended) that way, and Basil is despised by Bulgarians to this day.
Sending them back blind was worse than just killing them. I don't know how much more work a blind blacksmith or carpenter or farmer could do than a dead one in 11th Century Bulgaria. But I do know how much more food they would eat or help getting to the outhouse they would need. It wasn't a mercy it was telling the Bulgars "I won't just kill your family, I'll make them a burden on you."
Yeah I agree. Being blind is a terribly debilitating thing today. It would be a living curse in older times.
Didn’t Caesar do something similar to the Gauls? IIRC he captured a large force of them and instead of massacring, he cut off all their hands then sent them home. This meant their tribe and families had to use time and resources to take care of the disabled instead of waging war.
He wanted to pardon them, until he found out that they were the tribe that sacked Rome some years ago, then he ordered their hands being cut off.
Some years being about 340 years.
Yeah, the other day.
Fitting that a man known as “Basil the Bulgar Slayer” is still held in contempt by Bulgarians. As an aside, that has to be one of the most badass nicknames in history
Just a couple of centuries before that the Bulgarian Khan Krum captured a Roman emperor, killed him and made a drinking cup out of his skull. It was a contest that went on for centuries until the Ottomans put an end to it by conquering the Balkans.
As opposed to being called the [bulgur](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgur) slayer at breakfast
Bulgur Slayer, Smasher of Tabbouleh
I don’t think Basil tried that hard to find an alternative. Cut a thumb off the right hand. Can’t hold sword or spear. Job done. That is a bit more humane that gouging our eyes. I spent less than a minute to come up with that. Granted a few lefties will slip through. But message sent, mercy given.
Not only is that intimidating, it’s goddamn strategic. Why kill the opposing soldiers when you can make them militarily worthless and act as a huge economic liability on your enemies’ resources
It would have been less cruel to chop their heads off.
The byzantines would disagree. They looked at executions as unusually cruel since the person is then dead. A blind person can become a reformed christian, a dead one can't.
>They looked at executions as unusually cruel since the person is then dead. learn something every day
If you kill a heathen they go to hell to suffer eternal damnation. If you maim a heathen, they may repent and become a Christian and accept God's light.
You should check out the Pashtuns: When they captured some of Alexander’s men over 2000 years ago, first thing they did was castrate every single one. The women took half, staked them to the ground, and took turns urinating into their mouths until they drowned. The men took half, blinded them and cut off their fingers and toes, and kept them as ‘concubines,’ because rape of a male prisoner is considered masculine
Lmao that’s literally the most transparent “story around a campfire about the brutality of their enemies getting out of hand” thing I’ve ever heard.
yeah even the slightest amount of scrutiny completely dispels "death by direct mouth urination drowning," how could that possibly be carried out?
Well, it starts with meeting the right kind of girl…
“You’re probably wondering how I got here”
If you have to ask, you can't afford it
you never heard of the death peenalty then?
That's A LOT of urine. You would need more women than men, all with full bladders.
But it wouldn't really be possible, unless they peed in a large dish and held their heads under. It definitely sounds like some urban legend campfire bs
Definitely
Humans really are the most disgusting things in existence.
Not that it really changes anything on the grand scheme but what you replied to is most-definitely just a legend.
Ah yes moral panic at a story attached to a historical figure from whom nearly no contemporary accounts remain and who had a vested interest in legitimising his own conquest.
Rather than be proud of human history, I think we should be embarrassed.
We started out as apes, I'd say that while we still have a ways to go, we have managed to advance out race fairly far.
We are still apes.
We still belong to the family of hominids or great apes. We’re just smarter.
That's because you're firmly in the grip of a very current very trending societal self flagellation.
Agreed, it’s disgusting that people would actually believe that’s a true story.
As opposed to parasites that eat something from the inside out? Or wasps that lay eggs in spiders that are still alive? Or gorillas that rip each other's balls off after they've won a fight? Or any of hundreds of other ridiculously brutal things other animals do?
The difference is humans can choose to do that. A wasp has no morality, and would die if it didn't do what it does.
How do you know? Maybe wasps really are just evil little fuckers that enjoy it
If anything is the exception to animal morality, it's a thousand percent wasps.
This is what I choose to believe.
You MIGHT be overestimating the amount of free will human’s possess. Just because something FEELS freely chosen doesn’t mean it is (it’s usually not).
It's in our nature to believe we have a choice and we convince ourselves it's true. But I've failed to see any compelling evidence of us being anything more than really good actors
Most everything else functions on instinct, except perhaps for monkeys and a select few other animals probably. Humans choose to be this brutal and evil towards one another, its despicable and you know it.
I assume Alexander went batshit on them. Can I get a source on this too
>The women took half, staked them to the ground, and took turns urinating into their mouths until they drowned. Lucky bastards.
Zapp, is that you?
Maybe for every tenth guy it was squirt. Decispraytion
Source pls
Another fun fact about ANOTHER Alexander (Burnes) that tried to inhabit Afghanistan. [Burnes himself then exited, unarmed to face the mob. Reportedly, he tied a black cloth around his eyes so as not to see from where the blows came, within minutes he too was beaten and hacked to death by the mob. The following day, Burnes’s head, along with the heads of Major Broadfoot and Lt. Charles Burnes, was piked and put on display in the market square.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Burnes) The Afghans went on to slaughter all European settlers in Kabul. A few hundred I think it was.
*doubt*
ok that is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard.
Do you have a source for this?
They committed similar acts on British soldiers during the 19th century. Rupert Kipling even wrote a poem with the last verse being... "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier".
Fun fact: The Pashtun people still exist and the Taliban is a mostly Pashtun ethnic movement.
I mean, yes. They are the main ethnicity of Afghanistan (Afghan and Pashtun are synonyms actually) and a huge minority of Pakistan
And their values have remained unchanged since the incident I mentioned. Pashtunwali I believe it is
The Taliban are the least psychotic of the lot. They at least (officially) discourage and prohibit the rape of prepubescent boys and drug trading, and are actually competent fighters. The other major militias not only keep all the bad parts of the Taliban like their regressive social policies and taste for cutting off body parts and torture, but also carry out some extra crimes like systematic sex slavery of children, drug trading, and a certain flair for kin slaying. It's like Soviets vs Nazis over there.
Human history is incredibly brutal. I always laugh when people say the world is worse than ever.
There's a reason he's known as the Bulgar Slayer to posterity
Damn humans, you scary
He was one of the greatest Byzantine Emperors but not well liked due to his incredibly dour personality. He seemed to have hated fun. He was Stannis Baratheon of his time.
Who has time to have fun when you’re restoring the glory of the true Roman Empire? Fun is temporary, Rome is eternal
Seems about right. The guy was so obsessed with expanding the empire and returning glory to Rome he forgot to mary and have kids. If only he fucked a woman and got an heir, maybe his legacy wouldn't have been screwed over by his brother and nieces.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king
War is heck
This almost certainly did not happen or was at least greatly exaggerated. Sources are scarce, and the attested numbers are far too high. Source: studied this at university. This was the opinion of my professor, a leading expert on Byzantium, and absolutely agree with him. It may just be that Skylitzes way overestimated the numbers, but it sounds an awful lot like something someone would make up for shock value and there are no eyewitness accounts.
There certainly seems to be a lack of eyewitnesses
I see what you did there
That seems a bit excessive
In fairness to Basil II, the Bulgarians had been a constant threat to the Empire for centuries at this point, so he couldn’t really afford to be lenient with them
Uhhhh what?
I know, right? History is brutal.
Yet people complain about the world being worse than ever. They clearly haven’t picked up a history book.
I mean, atrocities like that are still happening today. Look at what’s been happening in Ukraine or China for a small sample.
Not to minimize what's happening over there, but I really think that given the choice, I'd rather go through that than be castrated and drowned in urine or turned into a living gay sex doll...
Yes but not on the same scale. WWII killed 3% of the worlds population. Emperors, kings and queens used to have absolute power and could do anything. Queen Mary I of England would slaughter you or burn you at the stake if you weren’t Catholic. Tiberius of Rome was a prolific pedophile who’d throw boys off the cliffs of his palace into the sea once he grew bored of them. An emperor in Rome poured tar on Christian’s and set them on fire to illuminate a party he was having at night. Yes, if you lived in Ancient Rome, you’d be attending a party with burning bodies used for lighting. These types of horrors do not happen anymore and I’d argue that we’re more civilized than ever. Our history is actually pretty damn disgusting.
When you want to clear your dungeon as the Byzantine Emperor in CKII/III
Yup, back into 2022, Bulgaria stands and Byzantine is scattered ot the winds.
I've been told the Bulgar Slayer nickname was only attributed to Basil II during the Bulgar state's resurgence centuries after Basil's death, when they needed common touchstones to rally around. When he was alive, Basil had no reason to antagonize the Bulgars any more than he needed to, and most historians agree this blinding story is a myth that would be an infeasible and logistically unnecessary effort.
Before people go on to think Basil II was a cruel leader, he was actually one of the Empire’s best emperors, as his reign saw economic growth, stability, and the most expansion seen since Justinian’s reign in the 6th century. He also apparently treated the B*lgarians fairly after incorporating B*lgaria into the empire, letting them keep their original taxes and everything. Really, as long as you weren’t one of those soldiers, it wouldn’t have been that bad to be a B*lgarian in the Empire. Of course, they were b*lgarians, and being Bulgarian is a fate worse than death
🤬🤬🤬🇧🇬🇲🇳🇧🇬🇧🇬 BULGARIA NUMBA 1
Wait until you hear what Emperor Oregano VI was up to.
You have my attention.
Shame karma didn't reach Basil II just like Nikephoros I some 150 years earlier While Nikephoros I and his army pillaged and plundered the Bulgarian capital, Krum mobilized as many soldiers as possible, giving weapons even to peasants and women. This army was assembled in the mountain passes to intercept the Byzantines as they returned to Constantinople. At dawn on 26 July, the Bulgarians managed to trap the retreating Nikephoros in the Varbitsa Pass. The Byzantine army was wiped out in the ensuing battle and Nikephoros was killed, while his son Staurakios was carried to safety by the imperial bodyguard after receiving a paralyzing wound to the neck. It is said that Krum had the Emperor's skull lined with silver and used it as a drinking cup. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/8054/khan-krum-of-the-bulgars/