"...Vsevolod Long-Arms, Prince of Crimea in his youth, was perhaps the most aggressively expansionist Emperor the Byzantines had seen in a long time. At the head of the strongest state in Europe, he launched wars at any target of opportunity, without much regards to religion of the opponent. He strengthened the institution of the guard tagmata and partially replaced feudal obligation with a tax in men (which would be trained and armed by the state) in order to create a more reliable infantry component to the Byzantine army. His generals conquered or brought into Constantinople’s orbit places as distant as Provence, Sicily and Denmark, Lithuania and the Alan lands in the Caucasus. He rewarded his war-leaders with grants of land and rulership of semi-independent states – the Tzardoms (after