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Justinian & Theodora - VII: The Cracks Begin to Spread - Extra History (Patreon)

Published:
2016-01-22 08:11:13
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Justinian & Theodora are back! In Italy, their general faces fierce opposition... but not from the enemies he expected.

Files

Previews only

Justinian & Theodora - VII: The Cracks Begin to Spread - Extra History

Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon Grab your Extra Credits gear at the store! http://bit.ly/ExtraStore Subscribe for new episodes every Saturday! http://bit.ly/SubToEC --- (Episode details below) Watch the Justinian and Theodora series! http://bit.ly/1J89hPd Play games with us on Extra Play! http://bit.ly/WatchEXP Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): http://bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/ECFBPage Get our list of recommended games on Steam: http://bit.ly/ECCurator ____________ Belisarius had broken the siege around Rome. Now he wanted to push on to the Ostrogothic capital in Ravenna, so Justinian sent fresh troops with new commanders: Narses and John. Belisarius ordered John to take his cavalry north and secure the route the Ravenna, but John bypassed several cities that seemed too difficult until he was offered a willing surrender by the people of Ariminum. When Belisarius ordered him to return to the main army, John refused, and soon found himself surrounded by the same forces he'd declined to fight earlier. Narses insisted that they rescue him, so Belisarius devised a plan and tricked the Ostrogoths into thinking his force was larger than it really was, so they fled without joining battle. John gave all the credit for his rescue to Narses, and a divide grew between the old guard loyal to Belisarius and the new troops loyal to Narses. Even though Belisarius had a letter from Justinian giving him sole control of the army, Narses argued over the semantics of the order and continued to do as he liked. He roped Belisarius into besieging Urbinus, then decided to abandon his own plan and return to Ariminum. Belisarius took Urbinus by a stroke of luck and wanted to send reinforcements to the Ostrogoth-besieged city of Mediolanum, supposedly under Roman protection, but John would only accept orders from Narses and stalled until after the city fell. When Roman troops finally arrived in Mediolanum, they found the entire city butchered and burned to the ground. ____________ ♫ Get the intro music here! http://bit.ly/1EQA5N7 *Music by Demetori: http://bit.ly/1AaJG4H ♫ Get the outro music here! http://bit.ly/23isQfx *Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/1LBy9zh

Comments

RMS Oceanic

Mediolanum delenda est, it seems. I'm really reminded of Carthage's fate. An ignoble end for the one-time capital of the Western Empire. And like Admiral Yi, Belisarius is having to deal with politics that maybe he isn't suited for. I may be getting a picture of why, lack of information about the Byzantines beside, he's not as celebrated in the annals of military history.

The Brit Git

Seems a shame Narses couldn't just bribe the Ostrogoths into surrendering XD... No seriously, he's only come up once in the tale, and that was to bribe people into surrender!

GrayMorality

Makes me feel bad for Belisarius. Who would have thought that getting reinforcements was the worse thing that could have happened

Hariman

The fault here lies with Justinian and Narses. Justinian sent a political schemer in where a military commander, and Narses failed to realize that fracturing the army and its loyalties as much as he did would cause more problems down the line. Also, seriously, John had better have actually been ill, and not faking it. Otherwise, he's an utter bastard who let a town die for petty politicking.

Cosimo McCaffrey

why did Justinian send Narses in the first place? I can't make any sense of it

Indigo

Walpole @ 6:07. Now I'm incredibly curious how this event relates to him.

Michael Waisfeld

Competition and miscommunication between generals... tale as old as time

Colin

Awesome! I'm so glad to you guys continuing this series! Looking forward to seeing what happens next. It's depressing to see things going so poorly for the Romans though...

Michael Jebbett

Political ambitions sabotage the benefit of the collective. A story as old as man.

Chase Denecke

Do we have any record of how John the Incompetent ended up in charge of 2000 cavalry? Did he get there through political connections or did he actually have some leadership abilities? Also, why didn't Belisarius send messages to Justinian asking for clarification that he was in charge? Did Belisarius believe that Narses was right, and that his actions weren't in the best interest of the state? Why wasn't John relieved of command after they broke him out of Ariminum? BTW, illustrations in this one were great. Especially Belisarius and John talking on the tin can telephone.

Aaron hutchinson

I guess when it rains it pours, I'm waiting to see what's possibly going wrong back in Constantinople.

Hung Nguyen

Goddammit, why does brilliant generals always have to be hindered by some bureaucrat? Military officers should take command of battles and civil officers should focus on the state. If it only was so easy.

RMS Oceanic
>>1256955

Generals are perfectly capable of screwing up without bureaucratic interference. I'm currently reading the Guns of August - about the first month of WW1 - and in the first two weeks the French General Joffre is indeed failing because in part he won't broach bureaucratic interference.

Bottas Heimfe
>>1256955

you make a good point. Military leaders have to deal with bureaucrats to get things done properly. its sad as I think bureaucrats mess up everything, but i remember a quote, "the only thing that will save us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency" which i assume means there isn't anything better and when something does, it will replace bureaucracy.

ExtraCredits
>>1250869

Yeah, although it's a shame he's not more famous than he is. For one, he accomplished an amazing amount with very limited resources, and for two, he's got a really bad-ass-sounding name.

ExtraCredits
>>1251121

I'm sure he would have tried if he thought it would be more efficient than beating them up!

ExtraCredits
>>1252427

Narses was actually a competent military commander as well, and succeeded in conducting other campaigns. It was more that putting the two of them in the same place, and asking Narses to submit tamely to that arrangement, was kind of like throwing two angry cats in a bag.

ExtraCredits
>>1252687

Narses was a very able military commander - in a perfect world, he and Belisarius could have cooperated to bring the battle to an even swifter end. But it wasn't in either of their natures to get along, as it turned out.

ExtraCredits
>>1252816

Perhaps Walpole was descended from Vitiges! (He wasn't - that we know of - but being Walpole you never really know...)

ExtraCredits
>>1253110

We started doing that in the Yi series (referring to Hanseong as Seoul), but the original Justinian and Theodora series came before that so we're being consistent with the way we referred to things there. That being said, it's always a debate when this comes up. We're currently dealing with it in the case of Istanbul/Constantinople for the Suleiman series - both names were in use at the time, and Istanbul is its name today, but Constantinople is both famous enough to be recognized still and what we've been calling it throughout the Justinian series. We don't want to give people the impression that the Ottomans changed the city's name as soon as they moved in (they didn't - it was Konstantiniyye in their formal documents and didn't formally change to Istanbul until the 1900s) but then again we do want them to start recognizing modern Istanbul as the location where all these things happened... I've talked myself in circles but you get an idea of how complicated names can be.

ExtraCredits
>>1253322

True as it can be! Barely even friends, then nobody bends, and the Goths kill everybody... That's how the song goes, right?

ExtraCredits
>>1254236

Justinian's reign was... an arc. The first part of the series showed him climbing to the top of the arc. I'm afraid things do not get better from here.

ExtraCredits
>>1254900

If I remember correctly, John the Incompetent (I'm adopting that moniker for him now) was connected to Justinian by marriage. I don't quite remember the details on that, though, so maybe someone can double check me. In any case, you wouldn't think he could get himself into too much trouble with only a small force of cavalry, especially when he was supposed to just obey Belisarius's commands. But emphasis here goes on "supposed to be..." and the fact that Narses allied with him meant he had protection from any retribution on Belisarius's part. As for the clarification, Belisarius could have asked for clarification, but a message would have taken a lot of time to travel to Justinian and then return with his command. In that time, action needed to be taken, and Belisarius opted to let Narses have his way rather than make the argument between them even more public.

ExtraCredits
>>1256955

Bull-headed generals who don't listen to anyone and charge into battles they have no business fighting have just as bad a track record as bureaucrats who meddle in affairs they don't fully understand. Basically, human arrogance is everywhere you look, regardless of station!

Hariman
>>1252427

Hmm. Indeed. I'm glad to hear that Narses was a competent military commander.

ExtraCredits
>>1253110

Not to worry, plenty of other folks were sticklers about the Korean names, so your stickler brethren helped cover the gap there! We are doing some coverage of the Hungarian conquest, so if you'd be interested in helping with the names, send me a PM on here and we'll do our best to butcher the pronunciation anyway! <3

Robbie the Gnome
>>1253110

The Istanbul not Constantinople always makes me the of the cover They Might Be Giants did of that song.

Robbie the Gnome
>>1253322

Certain as the sun rising in the Eastern Empire. Mediolanum set on fire. Pillaged and full of deceased.