How did the Byzantines deal with conflicts that arose between themselves and the people on their frontiers?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. Dealing with conflicts: Basil II
1. Basil dealt with the most troublesome of Byzantium's satellite peoples,
the Bulgars, by blinding—so it was said—14,000 of their captured
warriors and cowing them into submission
2. he followed up his terror stroke by conciliation, cooperating with the
native elite, appointing a Bulgar as the local archbishop
3. in Greece, in contrast, he relied on repression, forcing the empire's
religion and language on immigrant Slavs
4. on the southern front, he made peace with the Arabs
B. Dealing with conflict: the Normans
1. threatened the Byzantine emperor's remaining possessions in southern
Italy and Sicily
2. chose not to help Rome or the pope in their fight with the Normans
3. patriarch of Constantinople closed the churches of the city's Latin-
speaking congregations
4. relations between the Eastern and Western churches never fully
recovered
C. Dealing with conflicts: Romanus IV Diogenes
1. in the west, the Normans threatened Byzantium's last possessions in
Italy
2. in the east, Turks were penetrating Armenia and Anatolia, stealing the
empire's vital food-producing zone
3. feuding at Constantinople between aristocratic factions paralyzed the
government and allowed the Turks to overrun much of Anatolia
D. Dealing with conflicts: the Crusades
1. Byzantines had already begun to recover the lost ground on their own
2. newcomers arrived already embittered by the religious squabbles that
had divided the churches of Rome and Constantinople
3. crusaders kept reconquered Byzantine territory for themselves and
blamed "Greek treachery" for their failures
4. Byzantines were convinced of their own moral and cultural superiority
over impious, greedy Westerners
5. crusaders might have saved Byzantium, as the Turks saved the Islamic
World but they undermined the empire
LO 1