[ElfinTrousers]

Totally...although it makes sense in context. The Byzantine court was notorious for conspiracies, cabals, backroom deals, logrolling, and other shady political manuvers. The Eastern emperors were also presumably aware of the history of the Praetorian Guard in the Western empire, so their choice of bodyguard would probably have been a matter they thought carefully about. The logic, then, was to bring in a bunch of foreigners, from further away the better, with no ties to Rome and no interests there besides getting paid. All the better if these foreigners were immense badasses with uncanny pale skin and enormous beards.

[fakedang]

Exactly. The Turks never destroyed Byzantium. The Byzantines destroyed themselves, and made life shitty for most of Europe in the process (a la the Crusades).

[ElfinTrousers]

Right--the Turks were just in a good position, literally, to pick up the pieces afterwards.

[fakedang]

I mean, it started with Manzikert, where the Turks just did their usual nomad stuff, which the Byzantines could have averted - if they weren't busy fighting amongst themselves and deserting the army.