Periodic Revival or Continuation of the Ancient Military Tradition? Another Look at the Question of the Katáfraktoi in the Byzantine Army

This article discusses the question of origin and identity of katáfraktoi – heavy-armoured cavalry in Byzantium. In the specialist literature on the subject, there is a widespread opinion that the heavily-armoured elitist cavalry, defined as catafracti and clibanarii had existed from the Hellenistic period until the end of Late Antiquity. Whereas a comparison of the construction, material and use of the individual elements of weapons and armour used by the Byzantine heavy cavalry from the sixth century and the first half of the seventh century with those of the ancient catafracti and clibanarii, allows us to draw the conclusion that the Byzantine heavily armed cavalry was its continuation, not necessarily in respect of the identity of the formations and their tactics, but more so in respect of the used arms and other elements of equipment. The term catafracti was not used at that time. Classifying the Byzantine cavalry from this period as catafracti, despite the fact that it is not usually defined in this way is based on the opinion of emperor Leo VI, expressed in Tactica, in accordance with which the chief element which distinguished catafracti and clibanarii units from other types of cavalry, was the complete armour of both the horse and rider. In spite of the fact, that the Romans, in response to the Sasanid heavy horsemen created their own mailed cavalry described by names catafracti or clibanarii, the influence of the Steppe people (principally the Huns and Avars) was more pronounced in the next centuries. Their weapons and tactics completely transformed the Byzantine way of war. In particular, this development concerned the cavalry – the main striking force of Byzantine army at this time. As we have seen, a disappearance of the ancient terms catafracti and clibanarii and their tactics (fighting in wedge-column order) was linked with this process of change. In the 10th century, in contemporary military treatises the term katáfraktoi appeared once again, a fact that can be connected with a usage typical for the “Macedonian renaissance”. At this time, the elitist formations of this type constituted a force marginal as compared to other cavalry units making up the Byzantine forces. However, the appearance of the 10th century katáfraktoi were a practical effect of the revival of ancient traditions in the Byzantine culture: they were not a formation which was only modeled on its ancient predecessor, but its constituted a continuation of the ancient patterns. The horsemen were equipped with similar protective armour as their ancient forerunners. They also applied the same tactics, for instance by fighting in the wedge-column order, which is ascribed to the ancient cavalry of this type. Sources mentioned above indicates, that this kind of battle array was reintroduced at this time. Moreover, the katáfraktoi were also present as a main striking cavalry force in the Comnenian army, which indicates, that heavy-armoured cavalry was still necessary. There is no reason to accept the opinion that there was no continuous tradition of heavy-armoured cavalry in the Byzantine Empire

Reasoning with visual knowledge in an object recognition system

The impact of artificial intelligence on computer vision has provided various perspectives and approaches to solving problems of the human visual system. Some of the symbolic processing and knowledge-based techniques implemented in vision systems represent a meaningful extension to the low-level, algorithmic processing which has been emphasized since the advent of the computer vision field. The higher-level processes attempt to capture the essence of visual cognition, specifically by encompassing a model of the visual world and the reasoning processes that manipulate this stored visual knowledge and environmental cues. This thesis includes a discussion of existing computer vision systems surveyed from a high-level perspective. The goal of this thesis is to develop a high-level inference system that implements reasoning processes and utilizes a visual memory model to achieve object recognition in a specific domain. The focus is on symbolically representing and reasoning with high-level knowledge using a frame-based approach. The organization and structuring of domain knowledge, reasoning processes and control and search strategies are emphasized. The implementation utilizes a frame package written in Prolog

Simulational realism : playing as trying to remember

In this text, I describe a specific way of addressing the past in video games which are set in historical times but at the same time deliberately undermine the facticity of their virtual worlds. By grounding my argument in analyses of two blockbuster productions - Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft, 2007) and Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision, 2010) - I introduce and define the notion of "simulational realism". Both games belong to best-selling franchises and share an interesting set of features: they relate to historical places, events, and figures, establish counter-factual narratives based around conspiracy theories, and - most importantly - display many formal similarities. Like most AAA games, Assassin’s Creed and Black Ops intend to immerse the player in the virtual reality and, for this purpose, they naturalize their interfaces as integral elements of reality. However, in the process of naturalizing simulation, objectivity of the past becomes unthinkable. In my considerations, I situate this problem in two contexts: 1) of a cultural and epistemic shift in perceiving reality which was influenced by dissemination of digital technologies; 2) Vilém Flusser’s prognosis on the effects of computation on human knowledge. According to Flusser’s theory of communication, history - as a specific kind of human knowledge -emerged out of writing that was always linear and referential. Consequently, the crisis of literary culture resulted in the emergence of new aesthetics and forms of representations which - given their digital origin - dictate new ways of understanding reality. As history is now being substituted by timeless posthistory, aesthetic conventions of realism are also transformed and replaced by digital equivalents. Following Flusser’s theory, I assert that we should reflect on the epistemological consequences of presenting the past as simulation, especially if we consider the belief shared by many players that games like Assassin’s Creed can be great tools for learning history. I find such statements problematic, if we consider that the historical discourse, grounded on fact, is completely incompatible with the aesthetics of sim-realism which evokes no illusion of objective reality

The lives and afterlives of a Soviet misfit: Volodymyr Ivasiuk, the emotional crisis of late socialism, and the anti-Soviet turn in Ukrainian popular culture

This article examines how Soviet Ukrainian cultural artefacts acquired anti-Soviet meanings between the 1970s and the 1990s. It explores the life and posthumous commemoration of the pop composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk through the prism of the history of emotion. Although Ivasiuk promoted his Ukrainian-language music on Soviet radio and television in the 1970s, he turned into a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Soviet rule after his premature death. The article frames this anti-Soviet turn in Ukrainian popular culture as a rebellion against state-sponsored emotional norms. In contrast to the more widely studied nonconformist circles, Ivasiuk's life and afterlives illuminate the experiences of misfits who tried but failed to find happiness and self-fulfilment within the boundaries of mainstream Soviet society. For a brief moment in the late 1980s, memories of Ivasiuk fuelled new visions of Ukrainian identity which underpinned attempts to push the limits of permissible emotional expression in the Soviet Union

Rola religii w armii Cesarstwa Bizantyjskiego w świetle traktatów wojskowych

The article examines the impact of religion on the combat capacity of the army of the Byzantine Empire. By examining the military treatises which reveal a lot of interesting information on the subject the author captures a number of differences between the civilisation of Byzantium and that of the West as far as the attitude of religion to war and bloodshed is concerned. In the Byzantine Army, religion offered the spiritual benefit but it also had the pragmatic significance, thus influencing the military strategy and the discipline in the army