The eastern half of the Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, survived for nearly 1,000 years after the western half of the empire collapsed.
At its peak, the Byzantine Empire controlled territory from southern Spain to Syria.
The Byzantines spoke mostly Greek during their time in Rome. Timothy Gregory, professor of History at Ohio State University, wrote in the book A History of Byzantium that the people of Byzantium continued to refer to themselves asRomans. Even though it rarely controlled Rome, the broader empire was considered a Roman empire.
The Byzantine Empire flourished and experienced a "golden age" during the reign of Justinian, during which the empire&s territories extended into Western Europe.
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The Byzantine Empire lost territory after the death of Justinian. The Byzantines were betrayed during the Crusades when Constantinople was sacked in an attempt to gain money.
The Byzantine Empire fell after Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.
The Roman Empire covered a large area from northern England to Syria. In A.D. 293, the emperor introduced a system known as the tetrarchy because it was difficult to govern. The empire was split into four regions, two of which were ruled by emperors and the other two by their heir. Constantius rose to be augustus in the west after being named one of the caesars. The army declared his son as augustus after his death.
The western half of the Roman Empire was taken over by Constantine after he defeated Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge. According to legend, Constantine had a religious experience that led to him warming to Christianity. Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire after winning the Battle of Chrysopolis in what is now Turkey against Licinius, the emperor in the east.
The foundations of the Byzantine Empire were laid when Constantine brought in a number of important changes.
The most significant of these changes were the emergence of Christianity as the favored religion of the state and the creation of Constantinople as the new urban center of the empire on the shores of the Bosphorus.
Constantinople was built on the site of Byzantium, an urban center that had a long history of prior occupation. The writer Sozomen claimed that God directed Constantine to build the city where he did.
Constantine wasbaptized before his death. The death of Constantine led to a number of successors. The last Roman emperor was Theodosius I. The empire was split into two after his death.
The end of the western half of the Roman Empire would happen in the fifth century. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 after losing territories to barbarian groups and being plagued with infighting.
Although its people still considered themselves Romans, the Eastern Roman Empiresurvived, becoming what we today call the Byzantium Empire.
I became emperor in 527. He was the nephew and adopted son of Justin I, who had been a palace guard. Many historians say that the golden age of Byzantium occurred during his reign, but it didn't start off very promising.
The official religion of the Byzantine Empire was further solidified by the reign of Justinian. By the time of his accession to the throne, traditional Greco-Roman religions were largely banned. The school where students learned about the works of ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato, was closed by Justinian.
Constantinople was hit by the Nika riots just five years into his rule. Constantinople, along with other imperial cities, was split into two groups according to the writings of the ancient writer Procopius. The author James Grout wrote that the chariot races were popular at the time and were entwined with imperial power.
The Byzantine authorities sentenced several members of both groups to be executed prior to the unrest. Supporters of the Blues and Greens were angry at the high taxes that Justinian had imposed. When the demands for the release of the arrested members were ignored, they united and tried to overthrow the emperor.
Fire was applied to the city as if it had fallen under the control of the two warring groups, after the members of the two groups came together and declared a truce.
The riots lasted several days, and Justinian had to call in troops to put down the rioters. According to Procopius, 30,000 people were killed as a result. The riots caused widespread damage, but Justinian took advantage of the situation to build something grand. He ordered a new cathedral to be built at the site of the destroyed Hagia Sophia church.
Thedimensions ofgia Sophia are formidable for any structure not built of steel. The cathedral is about 270 feet long and 73 feet wide. The crown of the dome is 180 feet above the pavement, and it is 33 meters in diameter.
The Hagia Sophia is said to have been built around 537, and the quote "Solomon, I have outdone thee" may have been apocryphal. Many Byzantine emperors were christened at the cathedral's great baptistry, which may have recently been uncovered by archaeologists.
Justinian oversaw a major territorial expansion of the empire, winning back territory in North Africa, Italy and parts of Western Europe.
The intellectual achievements of Justinian were significant, as well as the synthesis of Roman law that has served as the basis of the legal systems of much of Europe up to the present day.
Filippomaria Pontani wrote in the book " History of Ancient Greek Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End" that these achievements happened despite the fact that Justinian provided little direct support for art or literature.
The long reign of emperor Justinian saw a flourishing of poets, jurists, architects and historians, but the direct patronage of him in the specific field of letters was limited. Pontani noted that a large-scale burning of books occurred in 562.
A plague tore through the empire of the emperor, but he survived. Many of his countrymen did not, and some scholars have argued that as much as one-third of Constantinople's population died from the disease.
A food shortage brought about by cooler weather conditions occurred around the same time, making matters worse. It has been suggested that a volcanic eruption contributed to the cooler climate.
I died in 565. The centuries after the death of Justinian are sometimes referred to as the Byzantine Dark Age, as a series of misfortunes befell the empire.
In the west, much of the territory that had been captured was lost. Much of Italy was under Lombard rule, Gaul was in Frankish hands, and the coastal regions of Spain were soon to fall to the Visigoths.
Between 630 and 660, the eastern territory of the empire, including Egypt, was conquered by Arab kingdoms. The Byzantine position was weakened due to the radical upheaval and the persistent aggression of the Arabs against the remaining Byzantine lands and the incursions of Slavs and peoples hailing from the central European steppe into the Balkans.
The cities had lost much of their social and cultural significance by the end of the 7th century.
Recent research has shown that trash-disposal services were stopped in some Byzantine cities, and that Elusa, in Israel, was the last one.
The Byzantine Empire experienced iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries. Byzantine religious artwork was destroyed during this time.
The golden age of Byzantium never came back. By the 11th century, Byzantium had regained a lot of territory that it had lost.
By the time of Emperor Basil II's death in December 1025, Byzantium was the dominant power of the Balkans and Middle East, with apparently secure frontiers along the Danube, in the Armenian highlands and beyond the Euphrates.
Byzantium was struggling for its existence after 50 years. All of its frontiers were violated. By this time, the Normans had taken control of the Byzantine Empire's Italian territories.
The empire regained some semblance of stability once again.
On July 16, 1054, a papal legate excommunicated Constantinople's leader. A new pope had not been selected at that time. The patriarch excommunicated Humbert after he refused to give up power. The church at Constantinople and the church in Rome split due to this.
Philip Kennedy, a Senior Research Fellow in theology at the University of Oxford, wrote in his book "Christianity: An" that Michael I Cerularius brought in rules stating that all churches in Constantinople should follow Greek customs. The legates were sent to Constantinople with a letter of protest from the Pope. Kennedy wrote that after Pope Leo IX died, Humbert decided to excommunicate Cerularius.
Over the centuries, there were a number of differences in customs between western churches and Greek churches. The Greek churches used leavened bread while the churches in Rome used unleavened bread. The Nicene Creed is a statement of faith. Greek churches allowed married priests, but there were other differences in priestly celibacy.
When the Normans invaded Sicily in the early 11th century, they forced Greeks to adopt religious customs from Rome, something that annoyed church officials in Constantinople.
A short-lived line of rulers was installed in 1204 after Constantinople was sacked.
The idea of Christians crusading against other Christians was not normal in the Middle Ages. There are many reasons why it happened. The Great Schism of 1054 and the subsequent decades of separation between the Orthodox Church and the church in Rome was a significant factor according to John Giebfried, an assistant professor of history at East Georgia State College and Kyle Lincoln, a special lecturer at Oakland University. The people from the west were massacred in Constantinople in 1182.
In 1203 Alexius Angelos, a Byzantine prince who encouraged the crusaders to travel to Constantinople, was willing to hear out cash- strapped crusaders who were looking for money to finance a military expedition to Egypt.
Alexius Angelos promised to pay 200,000 marks, give them all the supplies they needed and provide an army of 10,000 men if they helped to restore him in Constantinople. The Greek Orthodox Church would be placed under the authority of the papacy, according to an article written by a professor.
The Byzantine military was in bad shape by this time. Fifty-eight rebellions or uprisings took place across the empire between 1180 and 1204.
The Byzantine throne was replaced by a new line of Latin kings from the west in 1204. The rulers would remain in place until a Greek general named Michael Palaeologus was crowned Michael VIII in 1261.
Constantinople was once again under the control of a Greek ruler. The emperors lost their importance in favor of religious officials as the empire struggled on into the 15th century.
The Byzantine emperor has a great place in the church for he is not like other rulers or governors of other regions. He said that the emperors established and confirmed the true faith in all the inhabited world.
The end of the Byzantine Empire was caused by the Ottoman Empire, which had been expanding into Byzantine territory since the 14th century. The city of Constantinople is still considered to be a crossroads between Europe and Asia despite the fact that the Byzantine Empire is long gone.
Owen Jarus updated the article on May 10, 2022.
The warriors of the Byzantine Empire fought many battles. A 14th-century soldier's broken jaw was healed with gold thread. In this article, you can learn about the rare Byzantine swords. There are some examples of Byzantine era wrecks in this photo gallery.
Byzantium: Church Society, and Civilization seen through Contemporary Eyes was published in 1984.
Theotokis and Meko wrote "War in Eleventh-Century Byzantium".
A History of Byzantium was written by Gregory.
The Remaking of the Medieval World was written by John Giebfried and Kyle Lincoln.
Kennedy, Philip, is the author of Christianity: An introduction.
The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople was written by J.Phillips.
The fourth-crusade-and-sack-constantinople can be found in the archives.
Byzantium in the Mirror: The Message of Skylitzes Matritensis and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was written by E. Piltz.
The History of Ancient Greek Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Byzantine Age was written by Pontani.
The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire was written by J. Shepard.
Constantine I is the new emperor of the western half of the Roman Empire.
Constantine became the sole ruler of the Roman Empire after the Battle of Chrysopolis. Constantinople is a second capital of the Roman Empire after this.
Constantine died after converting to Christianity.
Theodosius I was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire. Constantinople is the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire after this.
The last emperor of the Western Roman Empire is deposed.
The Byzantine Empire has a new emperor.
In Constantinople, the Nika riots lead to widespread destruction. The construction of the Hagia Sophia begins in their wake.
A volcanic eruption or collision with a piece of a comet may have caused the temperature to cool.
The Hagia Sophia is finished.
Up to one-third of the population of Constantinople dies from plague.
A person dies. The years following his death are considered to be the Byzantine Dark Age, as the empire's territory decreases and its power weakens.
Arab invasions resulted in the loss of Egypt.
Basil II died in 1025. The Byzantine Empire regained territory in the Balkans and Middle East by this time.
The Orthodox Church breaks away from the Roman Catholic Church, creating a religious schism between the Byzantine Empire and western Europe.
People from western Europe are killed in Constantinople.
The Fourth Crusade results in Constantinople being sacked and a short-lived line of rulers installed.
A Greek general named Michael VIII takes Constantinople and becomes emperor.
The Byzantine emperor is still important according to a speech given by the patriarchal Anthony. The territory and influence of the Byzantine Empire has been weakened by this point.
Constantinople is captured by the Ottoman army in 1453.
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