Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire did not get that name until a century after its fall. The empire was known at the time as the following:

• the "Roman Empire" or the "Empire of the Romans" (Latin: Imperium Romanum, Imperium Romanorum; Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn, Ἀρχὴ τῶν Ῥωμαίων Archē tōn Rhōmaiōn),
• "Romania" (Latin: Romania; Greek: Ῥωμανία Rhōmania),^{[n 1]}
• the "Roman Republic" (Latin: Res Publica Romana; Greek: Πολιτεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Politeia tōn Rhōmaiōn),
• "Graecia" (Greek: Γραικία meaning "land of the Greeks"),^[4]
• "Rhōmais" (Greek: Ῥωμαΐς).^[5]

 

In 324, Roman Emperor Constantine I moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. By the 5th century, the Roman Empire had lost its territories in the west, and the Western Roman Empire had been taken over by Germanic peoples during the Migration period. The surviving parts of the Roman Empire became known as the Eastern Roman Empire and is now called the Byzantine Empire.

The Eastern Roman Empire tried to take back Rome and the rest of Italian Peninsula from the Germanic peoples. Between 530 and 555 AD, the Byzantine Greeks won many battles and took back Rome.

The Byzantines controlled Rome for a long time. Eventually, more Germanic peoples came, and Italy was lost again. Later, Avars and Slavs took parts of Southeast Europe from the Byzantines. After the 560s, invaders slowly conquered the Balkans except for parts of modern Greece and Albania. Bulgars from the steppes formed the First Bulgarian Empire north of the Byzantine Empire. At first, both the Avars and the Bulgars were Turkic peoples. They ruled over the Slavic people, who were called Sklavinai, and slowly absorbed the Slavic language and culture.

After Rome had been captured by the Germanic peoples, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to control what is now Egypt, Greece, Palestine, Syria and Turkey. However, another empire, known as the Persian or the Sassanid Empire, tried to take the lands for itself. Between 224 and 628, the Greco-Romans and the Persians fought many battles, and many men were killed in the fighting. Eventually, the Persians were defeated in 627 by Emperor Heraclius in what is now Iraq, near the ancient city of Nineveh, which allowed the Byzantines to keep those lands.

The centuries-long struggle between the Byzantines and the Persians shaped the political and religious landscape of the Middle East, leaving behind a complex legacy that continues to influence the region today.

Then, another enemy appeared, the Arabs. The Byzantines did not have much money to spend on war because of their battles with the Persians and so they could not withstand the Arabs. Palestine, Syria and Egypt were lost between 635 and 645 by Heraclius. However, the Byzantines defended Asia Minor (now in Turkey), and the Arab advance stopped there. Heraclius ordered the use of Greek as the only language of the empire, erased forever the name "Eastern Roman Empire" and cut the last links with Rome.

In 718, the Arabs were defeated but left the Byzantines very weak. In the west, the Byzantines fought the Bulgarians many times. Some battles were successful, but others were not. Many emperors died fighting. Over time, the Byzantine Empire weakened as it lost land to outside invaders.

Between 1007 and 1014, Emperor Basil II ambitiously attacked Bulgaria many times and eventually won a great victory. Later, he fully recaptured Greece and recovered it for the empire. He then went on to take over Bulgaria, which was fully conquered in 1018.

In the east, the Arabs once again became a threat to the Byzantines. However, Basil II kept attacking and won many more victories. Much of Syria was restored to the empire, and Turkey and Armenia were secured. After 1025, the Arabs were no longer a threat to the Byzantines.

After Basil II died, many unskilled emperors came to the throne, wasted the empire's money and reduced its army. This meant that it could not defend itself well against enemies if they attacked. Later, the Byzantines relied on mercenaries, soldiers who fought for money, not for their country. That made them less loyal and reliable and more expensive. The mercenaries allowed military generals to come to power and to grab it from the elaborate bureaucracy, a system of administration in which tasks are divided by departments.

A large number of people, known as the Turks, rode on horseback from Central Asia and attacked the Byzantine Empire. The Seljuk Empire took most of Anatolia from the Byzantines by 1091. However, they received help from people in Western Europe in what is known as the First Crusade. Many knights and soldiers left to help the Byzantines and to secure Jerusalem for the Christians. The city wad then controlled by the Muslims.

The Byzantine Empire survived and, with the help of the European empires, took back half of Anatolia from the Turks, who managed to hold the other half of the region. The Byzantines survived due to three primarily good emperors in a row, that allowed the empire to recover from their recent conflicts.

The next few emperors ruled poorly and spent much of the existing treasury on many mercenary soldiers.

In the west, the Western Europeans betrayed the Byzantines and attacked their capital, Constantinople in in 1204. The Byzantines did not take it back until 1261. They were then divided into many smaller Greek states, which fought one another for control.

After the Byzantines had taken back Constantinople, they were too busy fighting the Europeans who had betrayed them and so they could not find enough soldiers or money to fight the Turks' new Ottoman Empire. All of Asia Minor had been lost by 1331, and in 1369, the Turks crossed over from Turkey and into Greece. They took over much of Greece between 1354 and 1450.

The Byzantines lost so much land, money and soldiers that they became very weak and begged for help from the Western Europeans. Italy and the Pope sent soldiers and ships to help the Byzantines when the Turks attacked Constantinople in April 1453. The Byzantines were badly outnumbered, however, and the walls of Constantinople were very damaged by cannons used by the Turks. In late May 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople by entering through one of the gates along the walls, and the empire came to an end.

The city was plundered for three days. In the end, the people who had not been able to escape was deported to Edirne, Bursa and other Ottoman cities. There was nobody in the city except for the Jews of Balat and the Genoese of Pera. Constantinople was later renamed Istanbul and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. After the empire fell in the 1900s, the Turkish capital was moved to Ankara, a city in Asia Minor.

The Byzantines had many achievements:

• They protected Europe from eastern invasions.
• They blocked the Islamic conquest of Christian Europe by the Arabs.
• They initially blocked the second Islamic tentative to conquer Christian Europe by the Turks (until 1453).
• They preserved the Greek language and culture.
• They preserved many Roman political traditions that had been lost in Western Europe.
• They kept a lot of knowledge that can be read about today.
• They produced much fine art with a distinctive style.
• They were the protectors and sponsors of the Eastern Church, which later becomes the Orthodox Church.
• They used good architecture that is still used.
• They had cities with plumbing, which is still in use.
• They built many beautiful churches, some of which are now mosques, in what are now Turkey and Greece. They are made from or inspired by Byzantine buildings.
• They made several inventions like the flamethrower and "Greek fire", a kind of napalm.
• They made advances in many fields like political studies, diplomacy and military sciences.

• Byzantine art
• Byzantine Greeks

• Ahrweiler, Helene (1975). L'Ideologie Politique de l'Empire Byzantine [The Political Ideology of the Byzantine Empire] (in French). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Baynes, Norman Hepburn; Moss, Henry St. Lawrence Beaufort (1948). Byzantium: An Introduction to East Roman Civilization. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Cartwright, Mark (13 April 2018). "Byzantine Government". Ancient History Encyclopedia.
• Cinnamus, Ioannes (1976). Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus. New York and West Sussex: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04080-6.
• Clover, F. M.; Humphreys, R. S. (1989). Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299120009.
• Constantelos, Demetrios I. (2001–2002). "Μαρτυρίες για την Ταυτότητα των Βυζαντινών και των Ρωμιών σε Ελληνικές Πηγές". Πεμπτουσία (in Greek).
• Fossier, Robert; Sondheimer, Janet (1997). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26644-0.
• Lemerle, Paul (1971). Le Premier Humanisme Byzantin [The First Byzantine Humanism] (in French). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Linnér, Sture (1994). Bysantinsk kulturhistoria [History of Byzantine Culture] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Norstedt. ISBN 978-9-11-941512-7.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Byzantine Empire.

• World History Encyclopedia: Byzantine Empire
• Roman Emperors (De Imperatoribus Romanis)
• 18 Centuries of Roman Empire: A Cartography by Howard Wiseman
• 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire (Lars Brownworth)
• 18 centuries of Roman Empire by Howard Wiseman (Maps of the Roman/Byzantine Empire throughout its lifetime).
• Byzantine & Christian Museum
• Dumbarton Oaks: Byzantine Studies
• Byzantium: Byzantine Studies on the Internet Archived 2014-10-08 at the Wayback Machine
• Translations from Byzantine Sources: The Imperial Centuries, c. 700–1204
• De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History
• Medieval Sourcebook: Byzantium Archived 2014-08-14 at the Wayback Machine
• Bibliography on Byzantine Material Culture and Daily Life (University of Vienna)
• Constantinople Home Page
• Byzantium in Crimea: Political History, Art and Culture.
• Byzanzforschung: Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences