Was reading Kaldellis’ “New Roman Empire” and he made the argument that Julian can be considered the first true “Byzantine” emperor: born in Constantinople, inherited a disastrous war against the Persians, spoke Greek as his first language… I’m not sure if I agree but curious to hear thoughts.

Greatest Byzantine Emperor-Generals

1. Constantine I: again, he could be swapped with 2 and 3! Undefeated in battle, almost always outnumbered, he fought his way to becoming emperor masterfully and was one of the greatest Roman/ Byzantine generals of all time.
   
2. Ioannes II: a master of combined arms warfare - using his light cavalry and shock Varangian infantry to remarkable effect at Haram (combined with a riverine flotilla) and Beroia. The best of the Komnenoi by far and surely one of the greatest medieval generals of all time. The combo of sieges, long front lines and pitched battles plus the perfect record is why he beats Basileios II for me.
   
3. Basileios II: these big three are completely interchangeable honestly. I’ve put Basileios third simply because the top two were undefeated in battle, whereas Trajan’s Gate complicates his record somewhat: that and he was a very cautious and conservative commander unwilling to take risks - even Xiphias’s flanking manoeuvre at Kleidion unsettled him. That being said, Basileios is the uber soldier emperor and could be ranked higher on anyone else’s list.
   
4. Nikephoros II: a brilliant general whose reforms to the kataphraktoi were arguably what created the Macedonian military resurgence. He doesn’t make top three simply because the extent of his conquests are more limited than theirs.
   
5. Ioannes I: one of the best Byzantine soldier emperors, but many of his successes are sieges and drawn out campaigns with long front lines rather than pitched battles. The lack of range is what caps Tzimiskes at 5, I think.
   
6. Herakleios: this was such a hard call and I hate myself for it, but the reality is that by the end of his reign the Arabs had trounced him militarily and he knew it. If he had dropped dead right after his Persian campaign, he might even make number one: because that dark ages blitzkrieg was unbelievably good.
   
7. Leo III: again, not higher due to our lack of knowledge but what we know is extraordinary. From defeating a massive Umayyad force at Akroinon to the 717 siege, the ramifications of his victories through history are monumental.
   
8. Konstantinos V: low because our knowledge of his tactical and strategic brain is so low, but clearly a very capable and aggressive leader.
   
9. Alexios I: I’m putting him ninth purely because of how much he lost. And he lost a heck of a lot. However… Kalavrye, his sheer tenacity and eventual learning of Norman tactics to defeat Bohemond makes him a very strong contender. The others are just stronger.
   
10. Maurikios: a highly skilled general, clearly, and his Strategikon alone puts him in the top ten. But the failure to pay his troops and forcing them to winter when they didn’t want to was a military failing, not an imperial one.