Now you might expect me to start talking about the Byzantines successes with Diplomacy, this is partly true, but not what I'm mainly talking about. A Bishop on a diplomatic journey upon reaching Constantinople was summoned into the Byzantine throne Room, (such an audience was rare.) What was inside was beyond words. There was A golden tree with many unmoving golden birds chirping to a tune, when he approached the throne the brass lions atop the steps began to, (in a robotic fashion,) paw the ground and wag their tails. When he reached the throne he could see that the Emperor was on his throne which was on on a circular pedestal. The Bishop was told to bow before the Emperor, when he looked again, the pedestal was higher then before, he repeated this once again seeing it was higher then before. They asked him to bow again, when he arose, the Emperor and his throne were almost to the ceiling. Can you imagine what effect this ceremony would have on a barbarian chieftain? He would immediately swear allegiance to this Empire of marvels.
What do you guys think about it?
Secrets of the Byzantines part 3: Diplomatic Machines
A tale that is almost too fantastic to tell about.
Posted by templarnordbyzantine on
If I had a time machine I would do a similar thing to people back then. Although not everyone was stupid. People are creative, they think. Unfortunately the majority of civilization is retarded. If people got upset about the NSA they would have proved me wrong. However the majority of people don't care. The majority of people are stupid. I tried opening some of my former classmate's eyes to the truth (I practically predicted the NSA, I told them that milk was harmful, and told them about several other topics) but they just kept closing them and ridiculed me for it. I bet the that society functioned very similarly in the days of the Roman Empire as well. (The Byzantines thought of themselves as Romans if I know my history well) The majority of society is stupid. It's tragic but that is the truth and it's pointless trying to delude oneself. This blog/article somewhat relates to this issue of how society isn't what it should be. Coding2learn.org However there will always (hopefully) be a few intelligent individuals in a society. So although a rising throne would trick the average person it would an intelligent person curios to the point that they would try to understand how it functions. At least that's what I would think if I saw that with my own eyes. I would also assume that there is some mechanism that is making it work; as would (I hope) most of the people from the 21st century. Although if Tesla had shown some of his creations to the public with a good enough explanation most people even today might have called him a god. One of my friends showed me this a while ago Theoatmeal.com
Either way, it would give the Byzantines a great advantage in diplomacy. Funny how people think that the further we get in time the further we progress. I think the Byzantines had a better society then most today, acceptance was the main thing the Byzantines had over others, they accepted new ideas and people whatever their homeland and beliefs. Byzantines regarded things like that as normal, you see, they used Saracen hydraulics and Greek gear systems and put them all together to make something fantastic, kind of like the Byzantines entire culture. :) Nevertheless, the Byzantines would use almost anything to keep their people alive, after the Chieftain had sworn allegiance the Emperor probably would have tried to show him how it worked.