pt. 1. The invention of Byzantine strategy -- Attila and the crisis of empire -- The emergence of the new strategy -- pt. 2. Byzantine diplomacy : the myth and the methods -- Envoys -- Religion and statecraft -- The uses of imperial prestige -- Dynastic marriages -- The geography of power -- Bulghars and Bulgarians -- The Muslim Arabs and Turks -- pt. 3. The Byzantine art of war -- The classical inheritance -- The strategikon of Maurikios -- After the strategikon -- Leo VI and naval warfare -- The tenth-century military renaissance -- Strategic maneuver : Herakleios defeats Persia -- Conclusion: Grand strategy and the Byzantine "operational code" -- Appendix: Was strategy feasible in Byzantine times? -- Emperors from Constantine I to Constantine XI -- Glossary.