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May 6, 2024 · The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire, and it survived over a thousand years after the western half dissolved. A series of regional traumas—including pestilence, warfare, social upheaval, and the Arab Muslim assault of the 630s—marked its cultural and institutional transformation from the Eastern Roman Empire to the ...
- Istanbul
Istanbul, largest city and principal seaport of Turkey....
- Byzantine Empire Summary
Byzantine Empire, Empire, southeastern and southern Europe...
- Constantine I
Constantine reigned during the 4th century CE and is known...
- From 867 to The Ottoman Conquest
Byzantine Empire - 867-1453, Constantinople, Eastern Roman...
- The 6th Century
Byzantine Empire - East Rome, Christianity, Constantinople:...
- The Age of Iconoclasm
Byzantine Empire - Iconoclasm, Religion, Empire: For more...
- Diocletian, Constantine, Reforms
Byzantine Empire - Diocletian, Constantine, Reforms: The...
- The Successors of Justinian: 565–610
Byzantine Empire - The successors of Justinian: 565–610:...
- The Last Years of Justinian I
Byzantine Empire - Justinian I, Constantinople, Legacy:...
- Pillars of Heracles
Pillars of Heracles, two promontories at the eastern end of...
- Istanbul
- Byzantium
- Byzantine Empire Flourishes
- Eastern Roman Empire
- Council of Chalcedon
- Justinian I
- Iconoclasm
- Byzantine Art
- The Crusades
- Fall of Constantinople
- Legacy of The Byzantine Empire
The term “Byzantine” derives from Byzantium, an ancient Greek colony founded by a man named Byzas. Located on the European side of the Bosporus (the strait linking the Black Sea to the Mediterranean), the site of Byzantium was ideally located to serve as a transit and trade point between Europe and Asia. In A.D. 330, Roman Emperor Constantine I cho...
The eastern half of the Roman Empire proved less vulnerable to external attack, thanks in part to its geographic location. With Constantinople located on a strait, it was extremely difficult to breach the capital’s defenses; in addition, the eastern empire had a much smaller common frontier with Europe. It also benefited greatly from a stronger adm...
As a result of these advantages, the Eastern Roman Empire, variously known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, was able to survive for centuries after the fall of Rome. Though Byzantium was ruled by Roman law and Roman political institutions, and its official language was Latin, Greek was also widely spoken, and students received education in Gre...
In terms of religion, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 officially established the division of the Christian world into separate patriarchates, including Rome (where the patriarch would later call himself pope), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Even after the Islamicempire absorbed Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in the seventh century, the Byzan...
Justinian I, who took power in 527 and would rule until his death in 565, was the first great ruler of the Byzantine Empire. During the years of his reign, the empire included most of the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, as Justinian’s armies conquered part of the former Western Roman Empire, including North Africa. Many great monuments of t...
During the eighth and early ninth centuries, Byzantine emperors (beginning with Leo III in 730) spearheaded a movement that denied the holiness of icons, or religious images, and prohibited their worship or veneration. Known as Iconoclasm—literally “the smashing of images”—the movement waxed and waned under various rulers, but did not end definitiv...
During the late 10th and early 11th centuries, under the rule of the Macedonian dynasty founded by Michael III’s successor, Basil, the Byzantine Empire enjoyed a golden age. Though it stretched over less territory, Byzantium had more control over trade, more wealth and more international prestige than under Justinian. The strong imperial government...
The end of the 11th century saw the beginning of the Crusades, the series of holy wars waged by European Christians against Muslims in the Near East from 1095 to 1291. With the Seijuk Turks of central Asia bearing down on Constantinople, Emperor Alexius I turned to the West for help, resulting in the declaration of “holy war” by Pope Urban II at Cl...
During the rule of the Palaiologan emperors, beginning with Michael VIII in 1261, the economy of the once-mighty Byzantine state was crippled, and never regained its former stature. In 1369, Emperor John V unsuccessfully sought financial help from the West to confront the growing Turkish threat, but he was arrested as an insolvent debtor in Venice....
In the centuries leading up to the final Ottoman conquest in 1453, the culture of the Byzantine Empire–including literature, art, architecture, law and theology–flourished even as the empire itself faltered. Byzantine culture would exert a great influence on the Western intellectual tradition, as scholars of the Renaissancesought help from Byzantin...
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centered in Constantinople during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The strategic and highly defensible (due to being surrounded by water on almost all sides) location of Byzantium attracted Roman Emperor Constantine I who, in AD 330, refounded it as an imperial residence inspired by Rome itself, known as Nova Roma.
- 667 BC
- Origins. Constantine I took control of the Roman Empire after winning the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October of A.D. 312. The events before the battle are steeped in legend, but Constantine is said to have had some sort of religious experience that resulted in his warming to Christianity.
- Justinian I. Justinian I became emperor in 527. While it is said that the golden age of Byzantium occurred during his reign Justinian's rule certainly did not start off as golden.
- The Byzantine Dark Age. The centuries after Justinian’s death are sometimes referred to as the Byzantine “Dark Age” and for good reason, as a series of misfortunes befell the empire.
- Byzantine comeback? Byzantium never returned to the “golden age” it had reached during Justinian’s rule. Nevertheless, the military situation stabilized in the ninth century and by the 11th century, Byzantium had gained back a considerable amount of territory that it had lost.
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centered in Constantinople during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
