@@thegodfather_8455 I mean genghiz khan gained a reputation for his brutality as well but we can't deny he was a genius. Attila was a good commander but the only reason he got that rich was bc europeans had never saw something like that before.
@@onurcavusoglu1689 but doing shit against roman empire at that time required alot of courage.. I mean it is an empire whom folk thought was invisible but he did it
@@ahmadnaser8172 but at that point in time Roman empire is nothing more than a shadow of it's former self. Full of internal and external conflict. Atilla and the Gothic tribes were the final nail in the coffin, for the western part at least.
@@zekun4741 Yeah, duh, I mean the city means nothing without the Empire. The Emperor has to save all of his territories, not just one city. Thay paid him off to save the Balkan territory of the Empire or he'd continue raiding it till it was razed to the ground.
I guess in the most technical sense that's true, but in reality, the cannons were rather ineffective during the siege itself. They took a long time to reload, and in between each volley the Romans were able to repair whatever section of the walls had been damaged.
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography Well at that point it was more of a Greek empire than roman I would say roman empire as Latin language, influence and Latin emperors were from the beginning meaning from 330 a.d to around 602 a.d where Phocas became the emperor but even though he was ethnic hellenic, it was Heraclius that began the hellenic influence, language and hellenic emperors until 1453. But they still called themselves romans, just a little confusing.
@@christoforospapakonstantin3409 Incorrect: The eastern empire was ALWAYS Greek. It didn’t just flick a switch after Justinian - this is the catholic narrative and simply not true. Claudius stated Roman and Greek were “both our empire’s languages”. The east ditched Latin because it was useless since Constantinople was the only one giving the orders. Parts of the east were only ever partially Latin, but this did degrade over time. Just remember, the Eastern Roman Empire being the true successor directly debunked the Pope’s emperor crowning and thus it was always a catholic priority to make crowning emperors to role of the Pope, who wanted to be the sole ruler of Christianity. The entire world called them Romans. Even the Latins in 1204, dubbed the division of the Roman Empire’s lands.
@@arkcliref Did you mean all of Constantinople sieges, all the sieges to Byzantine cities or all sieges in general? Also, you could say the siege wrecks the countryside, even if it spares the city.
mostly as i think of Roman's strategy code of subjegation. That if you surrender now you will come to no harm at all and no plundering, to just be left in peace and be accepted as part of the roman people as full citizenship. But if our ram comes at your gate and makes the first hit on your gate and you have not surrendered till then, than we will destroy and plunder and ra** your whole city.
@@JonatasAdoM that is true, especially since most people really has the appetite to plunder areas outside the walls, though it is easy to fix imo so it still count as little damage, plus Constantinople has sea access so unless there's a blockade they can still get something from the outside
Turkey did lose Constantinople briefly during the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922, the city was under the control of the Agglo-French and some Greeks entered Hagia Sofia to finish the liturgy that was happening during 1453 when the city fell.
@@javiernoruego6572 it wasn't really close. There was no real army, the brits and French didn't want to give the Greeks constantinople anyhow, it was simply too valuable. Similarly Britain also never wanted to give Cyprus to Greece. The allied forces already occupied the territory and a conflict almost broke out when Greece wanted constantinople. But there was no Turkish army worthy to speak of at the time, they were busy fighting back the Greeks in mainland anatolia.
@@TheHunterOfYharnam hahahahahahaha nice one. Please don't bro. If you ever were to try that even nato would fight you instead of protecting you. And even if you exclude nato, Turkeys army is a couple times stronger than anything the Greeks could deliver. So if you don't like giving up on Greek Islands as peace negotiations or have parts of your country invaded, you really should not even dare to wish for it. Last time the Greek ultra nationalists overestimated themselves they lost a big chunk of Cyprus and gained lots of copium
Honestly if you say the Roman republic is the same as the Roman Empire, then I think it’s fair to call the Byzantine empire the same as the Roman Empire, and you can fight me on this. It was a direct continuation as it never fell to invading barbarians, and continued to use the same government, something that changed drastically by the time Tiberius died.
yes, and many people there are descendants of Romans who settle in the Eastern part of the empire having kids with Greeks; etc so ye many Senators and emperors have Roman blood in them. I don't understand why people acknowledge the HRE as Roman while its rulers were a bunch of Franks and Germans who got proclaimed by the pope in Rome. If you tell me who is more "Roman" a Greco-Roman or a Frank/German, I'll choose the Greco-Roman.
@@meow-chan9062 Every German I spoke to has said the HRE was a special title given to a German Emperor who ruled over German people. The “holy Roman” part just refers to the Pope in Rome’s blessed Emperor of Germany. The people are not considered Romans, just the ruler. Same goes for Charlemagne
@@JonatasAdoM they were just called “the empire”. Any mention to being Roman in the west was just the Pope fighting for relevance and power. This idea the Germanic tribes were screaming to become the empire they defeated is ludicrous and disrespectful to the great franks and goths
Eastern Rome never recovered from the Sack of 1204. By the time Constantinople was re-taken by the Romans in 1261 , the empire's boundaries shrunk even more. The city was no longer the commercial hub it once was, and many parts of Constantinople were abandoned. When the Ottoman Turks conquered the city, they got the crumbs of what was once the grandest city in Europe.
ottomans or rather turks defeated eastern rome several times even before 11-12th century. Entire anatolian and most of asia minor fell to the hands of turks. That constantinople could even survive this long was due to external indicators. Kinda ironic that the christians themselves destroyed the orthodox church.
Tbf the Ottomans restored Constantinople made it beautiful and important again but still with cannons and the discovery of the New world it became way less relevant.
How do you guys know where they are from? This makes him the third Portuguese RU-vidr that does English videos that I know of. The other being a channel about Lego and the other a gaming channel. I'd say RU-vid is up to something; but then again RU-vid also thinks I speak Spanish, Russian and German or Japanese.
I would argue that any force that could not shut the golden horn and the bosphorous down wasn't actually besieging the city. They were basically having an armed camping trip outside the Theodosian walls.
@@AustonMatthewsFitnessOfficial he doesn’t as he is the one who created the Republic today, but he was an Ottoman Paşa so if you wanna rank him you can in that category. Let me tell you the worst Sultan, IMO, Bayezid the Second son of Mehmet the Conqueror. While Mehmet was progressive and saw the future of his empire as European his son was very backwards. He even threw Mehmet’s portrait out of the place calling it “haram” or some shit. So yeah pretty idiot.
based spectrum i'm just the average viewer. like most people that came to your channel, I saw the roman emperors ranked video. but still, your stuff is great and I would love to see more. please continue working, we love this mate!
Do you think the proposed canal in Constantinople is going to change geopolitics in the region? Turkey is in a very interesting place on the world stage, and I think the additional canal would be a massive step towards Mediterranean commerce and would spell disaster for the burgeoning Russian presence. I know that this isn't technically in your historical speciality, but I'm interested in what you think regardless haha
Definitely out of my area of expertise, but if I were to guess its effects, Turkey would gain a significant advantage in commerce. I'm not entirely sure how Russia's situation would be, it depends a lot on how the current war against Ukraine would end.
Great video man loved it and such a great topic I think a lot of people dont grasp how crazy it is if constantinople had survived just another 300 years we could have seen remnants of the roman empire in history books along side the American revolutionary war french revolution hell the discovery of the new world was only 20 or so years later definitely one of crazy what it's love history!
The bulgarian empire under simeon the great actually came very close to taking constantinople in the first of the three sieges. It was only through the intervention of the patriach of constantinople, that a truce was negotiated, where Simeon would be recognized as "Emperor of all Bulgarians" (And romans, but that part was only recognised by Bulgaria) Furthermore, Simeon was made regent of the young Constantine VII.
@@Vasilefs_Terranorum if you knew much of that time you would know that byzantium was in total chaos this was basically one of the very good orputunities of taking the city then there are the fatimids who almost allied the bulgars
@@yoghurtmaster1688 true there was quite a bit of court intrigue going on in the aftermath of the death of Leo VI, but they weren't exactly in crisis. They were certainly unlikely to leave their greatest defences unmanned. Besides, soon Romanos I became the senior Emperor and restored stability anyway so it is a moot point.
@@Vasilefs_Terranorum emperor Constantine VII was quite unpopular and dominated by regents... and the siege was well quite some years before romanos I became senior, patriarch Nicholas at least gave the romans some breathing room and he got kicked out as a result
I haven’t finished watching the Video but at 4:35 your map shows that Dacia is still a province during the tetrarchy(which started around 293) when the province was abandoned by the CHAD (optimus princeps imho) Aurelian the Restitutor Orbis sometime between 271-275
I love how Attila the hun, the scourge of god and destroyer of hundreds of cities. Saw Constantinople and was like "nah even I will not f**k with that" XD
Unfortunately you forgot two during the Crisis Of The Third Century where the Goths tried to besiege Byzantium and failed horribly, they tried the exact same thing again and failed horribly again.
12:50 "Empire of Thessalonika" lol I know the era is confusing but the crusaders took a much bigger chunk of the empire and Thessalonika was a crusader Kingdom.
I believe the Empire of Thessalonika is actually a version of the Despotate of Epirus, as the Epirote Despot briefly came close to re-taking Constantinople from the Latins when he conquered the Latin kingdom of Thessalonica, but then he was defeated by the Bulgarians and it all fell apart.
Little but significant nitpick, there was no Empire of Thessalonica after 1204 or, really ever. Thessalonica and the surrounding area were made into a crusader kingdom under the nominal rule of the Latin Emperor. What you're probably thinking of is the Despotate of Epirus, which was Byzantine, ruled by Doukid claimants, and smashed Thessalonica and took its land after only about 20 years. Not an Empire of Thessalonica, but they did conquer Thessalonica, although they would never have had the borders you portrayed, those were from the Latin kingdom.
Everything else aside I can't help but believe if Constantine the Great could come back for a day and see the city he had built upon old Byzantium as it is today, the most populous city in all of Europe, he'd have to say to himself....damn, ya did good.
In the end the sheer number of sieges is big but understandable. It was the crossroad between Europe and Asian. The crossroad between great powers and Idiots ( 4th crusaders)
Should be hard with all the generals and usurpers lol. We'll have Julio Claudian,Flavian, Nerva Antonine then the entire crisis of the third century...
@@BritishRepublicsn Julio Claudians had like 2 good emperors out of 5. The heraclian Dynasty was probably the most competent one that were also an actual.gamily without usurpers
Title a little wrong: not a siege of Constantinople, but of Byzantium until made the capital of the Roman Empire. Then on, it was Constantinople in its own right...
@@azisbers4645 I understand why some people have reservation about calling it the fall of Constantinople, but in my opinion, it marked the end of the Roman Empire and its civilization with it, after more than two thousand years of existance, that warrants the usage of the word 'fall'.
Never got sieged again. In ww1 they tried to pass through dardanelles to siege it but failed. After ottomans lost the war, allied forced just entered the city without any siege. In the turkish war of independence (1919 - 1923) Turks got the city back without any siege. Never been sieged after 1453.
