The Paulicians were a Christian sect whose precise origins and beliefs are somewhat obscure: Byzantine sources portray them as dualists, while Armenian sources maintain that they were an adoptionist sect.
Asbridge, however, fails to note that the recent Turkish conquests of Anatolia and southern Syria had shattered the tense but relatively stable balance of power that a somewhat revived Byzantine Empire had gradually developed with earlier Islamic powers over the course of the 10th and early 11th century.
Despite the somewhat exaggerated accounts of Byzantine writers, it was by no means a "wonder weapon", and did not avert some serious defeats.
Although the Byzantines regrouped and recovered somewhat, they never fully regained Asia Minor and were often on the defensive.
The effect is of something decorative and somewhat Middle Eastern -- graceful Persian texts or Byzantine mosaics -- spinning out of control.
His palette of silver and gold mixed with red, turquoise or purple also helps to create the impression of decorative and somewhat Middle Eastern imagery -- graceful Persian texts or Byzantine mosaics -- converted pure molecular energy (Smith).
In the western provinces they issued gold and copper pieces imitated from contemporary Byzantine coins, modifying the cross on the reverse of the latter somewhat to suit Muslim sensibilities.
It suggests simplifying the often byzantine process of contesting fines and tickets and advises, in a somewhat jargonized way, outsourcing receivables to well-capitalized commercial banks or other private vendors "to leverage emerging payment channels".
By a somewhat clumsy narrative device, Baudolino recounts the entire story of his life to the real-life Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates, at the time of the Crusaders' sack of Constantinople in April 1204.
Justinian had somewhat neglected the army in the East, and in 540 Khosrow moved into Mesopotamia, northern Syria, and Byzantine Armenia and systematically looted the key cities.
