byzantines

It could be just payment for fighting against Muslims from the Byzantines (whether indirect as booty in war or as direct payment from the Byzantines).

The Byzantines managed to do so by cutting military spending during a series of wars they were losing.

Oh that worked out real well with the Ottomans, they didn't turn on the Byzantines at all.

Armored cavalry, pikemen, archers dominated the battlefields in 1500 CE; all familiar to Byzantines and Sassanids 1000 years before.

The Byzantines managed to 3D print the Hagia Sofia in three years nearly seventeen centuries ago, and it's still standing.

Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism; the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth.

The workings of the US government would make the Byzantines scratch their heads.

The counter argument is that the Byzantines refused them promised supplies leaving them no option but to take them by force or starve.

Our civilization today is as alien to that of the late 19th century americans as, say, the ancient romans were to the late-stage byzantines.

Perhaps I'll do 40 maps on the Byzantines at some point in the future.

The Byzantines considered themselves a continuation of the Roman Empire.

(Romans & Byzantines saw themselves as the same, whereas Americans and English see themselves as different...

Now, considering that the Byzantines (or "Eastern Romans") were in conflict with Slavs since long before the brothers were born, it's unlikely for their family to be of Slavic background and at the same time for their father to be in a prominent military position (droungarios).

But to describe the US Federal tax code as Byzantine would be to give too much credit for obfuscation to the Byzantines.

The Germanic Tribes were probably as much, if not more Roman by the 6th Century than the Eastern Empire (Byzantines) were.

The arabs got their texts from them and the Spanish from them and the Byzantines.