Greeks always fought outnumbered?

[Nikanor]

That would explain your comment. However, I doubt that the Heruli and Gothic forces were so much smaller than the Hun, Avar or Bulgar armies that I mentioned.

The Hun-Avar-Bulgar raid in Greece was both swift and with non-lasting effects, mostly provoked by the total absence of the Imperial army – in the end it was solved swiftly which gives the impression of having been of the order of the earlier Heruli and Alaric’s raids. The really big invasions that created a lot of trouble and which reduced the prosperity of the Greek peninsula were the Slavic invasions of the following centuries and for the most of it the later Bulgarian invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. Bulgarians were coming from "just next door", possessed big armies and raided extensively by dispersing their armies all over the place conducting in the latter campaign of Samuel what can be seen as an effort to genocide the local Greek population, a feat possible only by larger armies. I thus get the impression that these were the big raids that had long-lasting effects, the previous ones were successful pirate-raids with non-lasting effects.

My initial thought was that you had some anti-Greek policy in mind – glad to hear that that was not the case.
Your comments about Christianity continue to mystify me.

No, I am not the type of commenter that searches all "evil" coming from Christianity and such. In fact above I show my position that the transition from paganism to Christianity while violent and troublesome, did not really disrupt the prosperity of the Greek peninsula which was also the case of Minor Asia. My reference is more on the way the Christians rose to power from being only a minority religion in the previous century and to the fact that you could find in % many more Christians among the invading barbarians than the largely pagan locals all while the main victorious ruling classes in Constantinople and by then in Rome too were Christian. There is room for a lot of suspicion here. I do not claim to have found the answer – it is my “geopolitical” soul that speaks here, do not think I am vertical on my positions on these matters so I propose no black and white picture. Here I do take the most "possible" case. It is a case we have seen again and again – check for example how the Byzantine plutocratic oligarchies invested in Venice and welcomed the destruction of the Empire 1000 years later. Or how the Arabs were led by Byzantine oligarchs when invading in Sicily and Crete. I even heard in an online history lecture a year ago that the guides of Jenkis Han were... Venician (!), which I do personally feel the need right now to search since this can get extremely interesting, given the fabled-Marco Polo history (Marco as a figure was apparently a literary creation). The reality is that behind most raids of barbarians into Empires there is more often than not the finger of Imperial oligarchies. The example of endo-imperial oligarchies opening doors and welcoming in enemies of the state, raiders and even conquerors is not new nor unheard. Stating that Roman oligarchies used the Gothic invaders as a tool against citizens is easy to pinpoint by bringing examples such as that of the massacre of Thessaloniki. One could say that foreign troops were cheaper, which is true for a campaign army but certainly not true for a city-guard.

Stilicho was a Roman. Of Germanic descent, sure, but fully raised as a Roman. Don’t be fooled by his name or later propaganda. Stilicho never wanted to become an emperor, he knew his limits. He instead meant to set up his daughter as spouse of an emperor.

Totally agree. Stilicho was half-Vandal from father side but even his father had to be of Roman allegiance and himself was raised as a Roman citizen. I did not refer to doubts about his allegiances and his relation to the "Germanic" Goth Alaric (because this suggestion has been also played by some) but rather in relation to his own ambitions, i.e. playing his own political game but also being played around by the roman oligarchies both at Constantinople and Rome.

If we’re going into a discussion about Greeks and Christianity, I’d love to open a new thread btw.

Better not, people will accuse me of bringing foreign topics in a weapons/tactics related forum!!

Nikos (Νικόλαος)