Cry for Byzantium

Hello!  This post is going to be permanently stuck to the first page of the blog so everyone who comes here will see this first.

The first thing you need to know is the Twitter address: http://twitter.com/CryForByzantium.  Follow it now!

What’s going on here? On the Twitter feed, I’m going to be microblogging the history of the Byzantine Empire, 140 characters at a time.  Four times a day, the Twitter feed will update with another post that will present to you, in chronological order, a snippet of the history of the Empire.  We’re beginning with the accession of Constantine I (Constantine the Great) in 306, and hopefully will continue all the way through the final collapse of Constantinople in 1453.

What’s this blog for? The Twitter feed is the main thing, but I hope to use this blog to post on various issues related to it, announce things, comments and links related to what’s going on on the feed, etc.  I may also archive the old tweets here if I can figure out how to do it.

Do I have to know anything about history to follow the Twitter feed? No.  You can pick up at any time, and after a few posts you’ll probably pick up the gist of what’s happening.  The tweets are short (obviously) and to the point.  Some are preceded by a date, so by going back through the previous tweets you will soon pick up when the events are happening.

Whose “voice” is speaking in each tweet? Usually the “person” speaking will be the Emperor.  He (and occasionally she) will explain in brief terms what’s going on.  When there’s a change of emperor, the Twitter feed will update with “New Emperor” and the name of the new ruler.

Who is the Emperor now? (updated 25 January 2010) Maurice.

What source material are you using to create the tweets? I am a tremendous fan of Lord Norwich’s 3-volume Byzantium series, which I find is the best-written modern summary of Byzantine history, but I also draw from numerous other sources (I am, for instance, also a big fan of Dr. Warren Treadgold’s books).  Email me (cryforbyzantium@gmail.com) if you want to know more.

What does [OFF STORY] mean? Announcements on the feed from me which are not intended as part of the history will be preceded with [OFF STORY].  Any “I” or “me” reference in an [OFF STORY] post comes from Sean (me), the creator of this madness!

When did CryForByzantium start? The first tweet went live at 3:00 PM on Sunday, July 12, 2009.  I have no idea how long it will take to get through the whole history of the Empire or how far we’ll make it, but we’ll give it a shot.

Why are you doing this? A–because it’s fun.  B–because almost no one knows anything about medieval history these days, and I thought Twitter would be a cool, fast, low-key way to present it.  I’m also curious if there will be any interest out there.  (Probably not).  We have 0 followers now and it’ll probably take a long time to get any signifcant ones.  [Update 25 January 2010: We now have 282 followers.] But, we’ll see!  This is a pilot project that I’m launching as an idea on how to present history in a fun and interesting way.

That’s all you need to know.  Any more questions, email me.  Enjoy!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a status blog.  Due to my other projects January has been a very busy month, and much of the time I’ve been fighting sort of a rear-guard action to make sure that CFB doesn’t run out of material (meaning, that there are constantly tweets scheduled and I don’t have to play catch-up).

Unfortunately there have been a couple of glitches this month, all technical.  You may have noticed a few updates going at odd times and some gaps between them.  If you’ve read past blogs you know that since about September or so the tool I’ve used to schedule the tweets is Twaitter (www.twaitter.com).  I have set my personal Twitter account (which follows CFB) to notify me via SMS/text when CFB updates.  That way, no matter where I am, on the computer or off somewhere, I can see if the site is proceeding normally.  Well, during January there have been two separate issues.  One is that for a few days in the middle of the month my cell phone service provider couldn’t connect with Twitter at all, which meant I didn’t receive updates and couldn’t find out without actually logging onto the site whether they had gone at all or not.  Second, this past weekend Twaitter has been introducing a new version of their site, and I can’t sign into their site.  Tweets that were scheduled seemed to be going at the proper times, but I couldn’t log on to the site to upload more, which meant CFB was scheduled to “run dry” beginning yesterday at noon.

Until I can log back on to Twaitter I’ve been trying out some other future-tweet services.  This week I’m trying Futuretweets.com which seems to work okay for now.  I’d really like to get back to Twaitter because I’m used to it and I have a large archive of previous tweets built up there, but we’ll see if they can roll out their new version.  Hopefully so.

Substantively, we’re in a dark period of Byzantine history, the chaotic decades between the death of Justinian and the rise of Heraclius.  I confess I had a little fun with Justin II, who actually did go crazy midway during his reign and had to be replaced in matters of state by his wife.  The movie buffs among you may have recognized some of Justin’s crazy rantings as quotes from Col. Kurtz (the Marlon Brando character) in Apocalypse Now.  These transitional emperors all had relatively short reigns, so you’ll see the throne turning over several times before we get to Heraclius.

CFB continues to attract followers, though at a slower pace than in November and December, but welcome all, and I always like to add that I do read all direct messages and @ replies.  Thanks especially to those who have begun mentioning CFB in their Follow Fridays!

See you next month.

Welcome to all the new followers!  CFB continues to gain followers, and our graphs on TwitterCounter keep showing a steady increase.  With hundreds of years of history still to come I’m curious to see how this project grows over the next several months.

We’re coming into the Christmas season, and I thought long and hard about how to handle CFB for Christmas.  Ultimately I decided that there will be no updates on December 25–not for religious reasons, but largely because I don’t think a lot of people are going to be glued to their computers or Blackberries on Christmas Day reading Byzantine history on Twitter, and taking a hiatus will avoid having people to click back through and see what they missed while their kids were furiously tearing open their gifts.  The tweets will resume at midnight Dec. 26.  Also as a nod to our Greek Orthodox friends, there will be a “Merry Christmas” message that goes up at midnight on January 7, the day the traditional Greek Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas.  (The Greek Orthodox Church did not adopt the Gregorian calendar at the end of World War I as most Orthodox countries did.  Therefore, December 25 falls on what is January 7 for the rest of us).

There have been some fascinating things happening lately.  The Nika riots went up around Thanksgiving, and this week will see a grim time in Byzantium, that being the Plague of Justinian in 542.  That’s pretty bad when history names a terrible pestilence after you, even if you had nothing to do with causing it, isn’t it?  It’s very interesting how I feel I’ve come to know Justinian as a personality by trying to write the tweets as if he was saying them.  It’s rare that you ever get a sense of personality from figures in medieval history, but Justinian’s is one of the few who comes across.  You may also notice a softening of his more ruthless tendencies as his reign continues.  He was cruel and bloodthirsty at the beginning of his reign, but he seems to have moderated his behavior toward the end.  I hope that comes through on the tweets.

Thanks again for following.  As always, I read all direct messages and @ replies.  Have a great holiday season!

Hello all, and welcome especially to the new followers of CFB!  We’ve gained an incredible 99 followers in the last 30 days, and judging from the RT’s and @ replies, there is an increasing level of interest in the project and in Byzantine history.

I try not to clutter up the story/timeline with extraneous stuff, but the other day I did make a plug for CFB, promising some cool and interesting things ahead.  Some of the most fascinating episodes in all of Byzantine history will be coming up on the timeline over the next month (conveniently during the holidays).  It’s no coincidence that such momentous events as the Nika Riots of 532, the construction of the new St. Sofia cathedral, the Plague of Justinian and the short-lived reconquest of Rome are happening in the reign of Justinian I.  If Justinian wasn’t the most consequential emperor in all of Byzantine history he’s definitely in the top 5, and his reign is one of the most fascinating features in the whole story.  Despite his undeniable brutality and cold-bloodedness, Justinian is a surprisingly humanizing character from this difficult-to-understand period in history, and that’s in no small measure due to the influence of Theodora.  On CFB we’ve already been through how Justinian met and fell in love with Theodora, and you’ll soon see the huge impact she had on his reign, literally saving it at one crucial juncture.  It’s not often that a real-life love story turns historians into romance writers, but it’s not just Hollywood-sounding hyperbole to say that the relationship of Justinian and Theodora was one of the grandest romances in history.

Technically CFB is still functioning pretty well.  Just today (Nov. 23) there was an inexplicable flub and one of the updates did not go from Twaitter as expected, but I was at my computer at the time and managed to post it manually within a few minutes.  Hopefully that won’t happen again.

As always, I read all the @ replies and direct messages.  Thanks again for following, and enjoy the story as it progresses!

Sorry I haven’t posted a blog on this earlier, but I’ve been very busy (doing things such as writing and uploading the new tweets!)  I did want to make mention of some recognition that the CFB project has recently gotten, from Medievalists.net, who are also on Twitter (@Medievalists).  Read the full blog post here:

http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2009/10/history-of-byzantium-one-twitter-post.html

Medievalists conducted a fun little email interview with me, and I really appreciate their interest in the project!  You can get some fascinating insight on a great deal of medieval history from browsing their blog and their terrific site (www.medievalists.net).

Every mention of CFB on a blog drives followers to sign up, and a lot of new people have started following the project as a result of this exposure.  Welcome everybody!

Thanks again to Medievalists for their interest.

I haven’t been on much lately, sorry about that, but my inattention has at least proven that the CFB concept works.  I’ve been out of town (and the country) for most of the last month.  During that time I checked the feed once in a while, but I don’t think I ever had to repost a tweet manually until after I returned home this week.  Twaitter handled the load admirably during my long period of inattention and the updates kept coming regularly, right on schedule.

This week Twaitter has had a few hiccups, for instance just now when I had to manually post today’s 12PM update.  But usually those problems resolve on their own after a few hours.  Other than this, there’s not much to report.

We’re now into the reign of Zeno, and just today we’re covering the “fall” of Rome (that being the abdication of Romulus Augustus, the last Roman emperor, in September 476).  This brings us into an exciting period in Byzantine history, which is the time that Byzantium began to stand alone as its own empire and not merely a continuation of Rome as it had been.  That means that very soon we’ll be beginning the reign of Justinian, who is one of the giants of Byzantine history and a very fascinating figure in his own right.

Thanks for following.

CFB had a few tweets this week delayed due to a sporadic lack of communication between Twitter and Twaitter (the service I use to queue up the tweets and send them out).  I posted the delayed tweets manually so no part of the story has been affected, but you might have noticed two or three tweets going at odd times.

Also, last night, September 19-20, I quite suddenly got an influx of over 20 followers, all (according to the email notification) at precisely 12:18 AM.  Of course I welcome followers and hope that the visibility of CFB continues to spread.  I am curious, however, how I got so many at one time–such bulk follows would seem to be the result of a bot of some sort.  I don’t use any of the myriad “Get More Followers!” services advertised on Twitter or the web, so I’m not sure how this came about.  But, in any event, I hope the new followers enjoy the story.

Well, there is not much to report, and for that I’m glad.  Technically CFB has been working extremely well since the changeover to Twaitter.  For the first time in about a month I wrote and queued up some new tweets.  As of today (13 September 2009) we are in the reign of Theodosius I.  The tweets I have written and queued up will take us up to the fall of Rome in 476, and those will be broadcast in October.

Theodosius is a transitional emperor.  There’s a legitimate dispute about when and with whom Byzantium can be said to have “started.”  I chose to begin the narrative with Constantine the Great (as did Norwich, who wrote the books that are the primary source material for this project) but some historians believe that Arcadius was the first truly Byzantine emperor.  We will be into the reign of Arcadius in a little over a week, so then we’ll be indisputably in Byzantine territory.

CFB now has 73 followers.  Thanks so much for the support and recognition!  We continue to gain followers from Greece and Turkey, and more within the religious community.  While the focus of this project is not specifically religious, it does not surprise me that people in both the Catholic and Orthodox worlds have been drawn to it.  Theology is not my strong suit, and I’ve already been called out once by a (former) follower who disagreed with the way I’ve presented certain religious aspects, but also keep in mind that the “viewpoints” expressed in the tweets themselves are not mine, but those of whichever emperor or empress is “speaking.”  Some emperors were very pious and devoted, while others were much more cynical about the faith they were supposed to be espousing.  I don’t believe my own personal religious beliefs are germane to this project at all, so I am not trying to espouse any opinion on religious matters, at least not consciously.

I’ve received a couple of direct messages and I keep track of all the @ mentions, even if I do not respond to them on the public Twitter page itself.  (I don’t want to break the flow of the story except when absolutely necessary, so that’s why I don’t respond to @’s publicly).  I will occasionally direct message someone who has said something I’d like to repond to.  Reading the @ mentions is always interesting, as some followers occasionally argue with the emperor who’s speaking!  It’s all in good (educational) fun, so feel free to @ to your heart’s content.

Some others have also re-tweeted posts they find interesting, which is great.

Thanks everybody for following!

One of my followers, a schoolteacher from Greece, gave me a link to a blog she wrote about the CFB project.  Here it is:

http://mcsotos.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/κραυγή-για-το-βυζάντιο-cryforbyzantium/

It’s in Greek (obviously), but considering a large number of followers have come from Greece and Turkey in the past week alone, I’m grateful for the mention!

I perused a rudimentary English translation of the blog.  (Run the text through Babelfish and you’ll at least get the gist of it).  I think it’s great that people are taking notice of the potential for Twitter as a teaching tool.  My efforts have been rewarded!

Thanks very much for the mention, and I hope you continue to enjoy the history on CFB.

Now that we’re working the kinks out of the system, the question has presented itself in my mind: should CFB move faster?

Currently, the way the auto-feed is set up, CFB updates every 6 hours, with a new cycle beginning at midnight and continuing until 6PM.  However, since it’s automated, I can set it up to go at any time I want, assuming I’ve got the tweets written out ahead of time.  Do you want more content moving faster over the course of the day, say, every 4 hours or even 2?  At the rate of 4 tweets a day, given the detail I’ve gone into, 1100 years of history is going to take me literally decades to get through!

Leave your comments as @ replies. While I do not generally respond to @ replies on Twitter (because they would break the flow of the story), I DO READ EVERY ONE OF THEM.  If you want to speed it up, I can gladly do so.

So, reply with your choice: Yes, CFB should move faster, or No, I like the frequency as it is. Or, comment on this blog.

Enjoy!

UPDATE:  Most of those who responded said that the 6-hour time schedule was fine with them, and some expressed concern that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the story if it moved any faster.  Consequently, I’m not planning to change the frequency of the tweets.  Thanks for your opinions!

This week (Aug. 16-23) has been a good one for the CFB project.  We’ve gained over 20 followers on Twitter in the course of one week!  There have been some prominent mentions of CFB on Twitter by various people, especially those from the Greek community.  Today I sent a special welcome (in Greek) to those new followers.  I don’t speak Greek, but Twaitter, a Twitter scheduler I’m considering switching to, has a neat “translate” function.  It has all the limitations of web translators, but it must work well enough because I got a response back in Greek from @byzantinist!

Lots happening in the story this week too, as we have been lately in the reign of Julian the Apostate, who, if you’re reading, was fatally wounded by a spear during the disastrous retreat from Ctesiphon in June 363.  As I said in an off-story post earlier this week, this is a good time to join!

I want to give a special shout out to @JQAdams_MHS, which is the Massachusetts Historical Society’s feed of John Quincy Adams’s diaries.  It’s a project very similar to CFB and definitely worth your follow.  Jeremy at MHS also put me on to Twaitter (www.twaitter.com) which, if it works as well as it seems to, could be a replacement for the cumbersome auto-feed system I use now.

Technically CFB did well this week.  I think one or two tweets got missed over the course of the week, but those of you following shouldn’t have noticed much difference.

Keep following, and enjoy the tweets!