eugyppius

Next thred will be about Monophysites. Why anyone care, were they just eastern 'nationalists,' did they overlap with the Green football hooligans, what about the theology tho, etc After then I promise we get to conspiracies.

Peter Heather’s Rome Resurgent (mediocre) claims that Greek Fire was used during the time of Anastasius I. No citation so far as I can tell though. Just wrong?

There are sporadic attestations in the ancient world for the tactical use of naphtha (a petroleum substance), during sieges and so forth. Greek Fire (the crusaders' term for it, actually) as a particularly naval weapon, consisting of some kind of pump/flamethrower apparatus ...

... mounted on Byzantine ships, is first attested in AD 671, in the great naval battles against the Arab fleets. I'd need to look into what exactly Heather's talking about, but I'd guess he just means some earlier use of naphtha.