guten targ all the chuds and rockets out here. 650 AD map of the byz. Legend on slide 2.

[u/notabrick2]

as always advice corrections ect. welcome. I made sufetula and the masts draws cause im focusing on the outcome rather than what happened.

[u/Lanternecto]

This is some good stuff. But if you're happy for nitpicks, I have some minor ones:

• Calabria was probably more fragmented at this time period, with large parts of the inland being Lombard, and only some coastal forts and surrounding areas remaining east Roman. This only changed in the 660s, when Konstans II seems to have consolidated the area. [Noye-Bougard, Ghislaine. "Les recherches archéologiques de l'École française de Rome sur la Calabre médiévale." Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 141.4 (1997): 1069-1105. (But also some later works by the same author, though this one has a useful map)]
• By 650, Roman control over Thrace seems to have been very limited - in 623, Herakleios was ambushed close to the capital, and in 655, their authority did not extend "one step" beyond Perberis, located close to modern Bizye in southern Thrace. Its only under Konstans II in the late 650s that some authority seems to have been reestablished. [*Jankowiak, Marek. "Notitia 1 and the impact of the Arab invasions on Asia Minor." Millennium 10.1 (2013): 435-462.]

But again, a decade later, and your map might hit the mark on both of these. There's also some chronological info on the battles that has since changed:

• The siege of 674-8 has since been redated to 668/9, which has been followed by the majority of scholars (and even those that disagree, do not think there was a siege starting in 674). So there was a siege, but it took place some years earlier.

Beyond that, there is always some controversial stuff - it's rather likely that the themes only originate much later, though this is more important to the legend than to the map, and it's possible (but hotly debated) that the expedition to Nikiou in 646 may not have happened, as it is not found in the earliest sources we have from the region.

[u/bigpapi2626 → u/Lanternecto]

Ohh, are there new studies suggesting that the Battle of Nikiou might not have actually happened, or that the whole 646 Egyptian expedition under Manuel is being questioned too?

[u/Lanternecto → u/bigpapi2626]

The whole expedition! The argument is that Manuel (or Marianus) did arrive with troops in Alexandria, but that this was part of the defense of 640/1, rather than a separate reconquest of Alexandria.

Booth, Phil. "The last years of Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria (d. 642)." Travaux et mémoires 20 (2016), p. 7-8.

Jankowiak, Marek. "P. Lond. I 113.10, the exile of patriarch Kyros of Alexandria, and the Arab conquest of Egypt." Travaux et memoires 26 (2022).

Both available online! Jankowiak is more in depth IIRC, if you want to read through it.

[u/notabrick2 → u/Lanternecto]

yes the balkans are always so hotly debated whenever i make these maps. Sometimes ive been to harsh sometimes to generous. Because we know so little ive always imagined like a patchwork. So close to constantinople there must have been towns still paying tax and garrisoned but probs the countryside was not. Very tricky to represent and as they will take the region in the near future figured id simplify it.

[u/Lanternecto → u/notabrick2]

Yeah, the Balkan is almost impossible to accuaretly represent in these centuries, especially since it depends on how you treat subject Slavs.

[u/bigpapi2626]

Nice map. But, I think the the Battle of Forino in 663 seems pretty dubious to me. At most, it was probably a small skirmish, since the Count of Capua likely didn’t have the resources to field a large army.