Byzantine Empire

Also known as: Eastern Roman Empire.

Date: 330-700 c.e.

Locale: Turkey and Asia Minor, Greece and other Balkan countries, at one time reaching from Spain to Persia

Byzantine Empire

“Byzantine” is a term derived from the provincial Greek town of Byzantium, which Constantine the Great, who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire from 324 to 337 c.e., chose as his capital. He greatly expanded and improved this relatively insignificant town, renaming it Constantinople after himself. Strategically located on the Bosphorus, the strait that separates Europe from Asia, Constantinople soon became Europe’s largest and most significant city.

History

By 324 c.e., when Constantine the Great became ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Roman Empire was already in decline and nearing collapse. Diocletian, who ruled from 284 to 305 c.e., realized that the Roman Empire as it then existed was unwieldy and had divided it into the eastern and western empires.

When Diocletian died, civil war erupted, pitting east against west. Constantine defeated his western opponents in 313 c.e. and eleven years later became emperor, marking a distinct turning point in European history. Constantine was a devout Christian who resolutely renounced the Romans’ pagan gods and swore allegiance to the Christianity that was sweeping the Roman Empire. Only one of the emperors succeeding him was not a Christian.

Constantine chose Byzantium, not Rome, as his capital because he was disenchanted by the paganism he witnessed during two visits to Rome. Founded in 657 b.c.e. by Greek sailors, Byzantium was small and provincial. Constantine enlarged the city, creating new public areas remarkably similar in design to those of Rome and building fortifications for its protection.

The most revered part of Constantinople was the first milestone, the Milion, with its four triumphal arches that formed a square to support a cupola, above which was Christianity’s most cherished relic, the True Cross. Constantine made this holy place the center of the world. All distances in his empire were measured from it.

When Constantinople was dedicated on May 11, 330 c.e., after forty days of festivities, Constantine marked the occasion by attending a high mass in the church of Saint Irene. Simultaneous pagan celebrations were held in various temples throughout the area.

The united empire that Constantine had ruled again proved too large and disparate to be controlled as a single entity. Theodosius the Great, ruling from 379 to 395 c.e., was the last emperor of a single Roman Empire. On his death, the empire was redivided into east and west. During the following century, the western part of the Roman Empire was unable to withstand the assaults of barbarians from the north. In 476 c.e., after being ruled by a series of ineffective emperors, the Western Empire collapsed.

The Eastern Roman Empire, with its well-placed capital on the Bosphorus, prospered while its western counterpart faded into obscurity. It became wealthy and was ideally situated for trade with the East. When the Germanic Ostrogoths threatened it in 493 c.e., they were persuaded instead to attack the Western Empire, where they established their kingdom. The Eastern Empire defended itself successfully in its frequent conflicts with Persia.

Nevertheless, the Eastern Empire had its problems, many of them resulting from conflicts between its Christian orientation and the Islamic orientation of the Near East, whose religious convictions were at loggerheads with Christianity and whose native cultures were drastically different from those of Greece and Rome, which prevailed in the Byzantine Empire. The General Councils of the Christian Church considered the religious beliefs of Syria and Egypt heretical. A schism grew when the pope declared himself the supreme head of the entire Christian Church, within which opposing factions were creating a split that led to a division into the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Justinian I ruled the Eastern Roman Empire from 527 until 565 c.e. Under his rule, assisted by two great generals, Belisarius and Narses, Justinian reconquered the Western Empire, including Italy, southern Spain, and North Africa. He could not, however, control the incursions of Slavs, who crossed the Danube and wreaked havoc wherever they went. Justinian also fought a war with the Persians that resulted in a standoff and a tenuous truce.

Justinian presided over significant building projects, including the churches of Haghia Sophia in Constantinople and San Vitale in Ravenna. Under his rule, many public works were undertaken. His most lasting achievement, however, was his codification of Roman law, which served as a model for the legal systems of much of Europe and subsequently of the New World. Justinian is counted among the greatest of the Byzantine emperors, although his projects imposed such heavy taxation on the Byzantine citizenry that civil unrest ensued.

The Byzantine Empire eventually was at war with Persia, whose armies defeated Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Asia Minor and twice very nearly captured Constantinople. In 610 c.e., Heraclius came to Constantinople and declared himself emperor. He ruled until 641 c.e., rebuilding the empire during his first decade as emperor. After religiously zealous Arabs attacked the Near East in 633 c.e., the Byzantine Empire lost much that Heraclius had regained. By 641 c.e., it had lost most of what he had won. All North Africa fell before 700 c.e. The empire was in shambles.

Government and law

The Byzantine Empire was governed by emperors who had virtually absolute authority, although they were often under threat of rebellion by the citizenry when taxation reached insupportable levels. Roman law had ancient origins. It and Hellenistic law, which was monarchical, became the law of the Byzantine Empire. It was codified by Justinian I in the first half of the seventh century c.e.

From the time of Constantine, it was popularly assumed that the emperor was God’s chosen representative, his earthly regent. Imperial rule was equated with the celestial rule of God. It was presumed that the Roman emperors had a God-given mandate to rule the world. The world’s rulers were considered a family or hierarchy of rulers with the Byzantine emperor at its top. Although emperors were theoretically elected by the senate, such elections were for show. In practice, powerful aristocrats or the army decided who would rule the Byzantine Empire.

The emperor was the lawgiver in Byzantium. Changes in the law came through imperial edicts. Legal commissions were sometimes charged with codifying and revising existing laws, but their alterations were subject to imperial approval. Justinian’s Digesta (533 c.e., also known as Pandectae; The Digest of Justinian, 1920), with its supplements called the Novellae, remained the law of the Byzantine Empire until the ninth century c.e. when Basil I initiated a substantial revision.

War and weapons

Given its geographical situation and its vast extent, the Byzantine Empire maintained both a strong army and a substantial navy, manned by natives as well as by mercenaries. Ready naval, infantry, and cavalry forces were sustained by giving men farms and salaries as recompense for their service in the armed forces. The military obligation of each such soldier or sailor passed on, along with the land, to the eldest son, which helped to sustain a stable army and navy.

Groups of men were stationed in the provinces, living there cultivating the land they had been granted but ever ready for combat. The best troops, however, were stationed in and around Constantinople and at the Long Wall, thirty miles outside the city. The very top echelon of recruits, who formed the imperial guard, were given special privileges and extra remuneration for performing their important and sensitive duties.

The heavy cavalry was the mainstay of the army. It engaged in hand-to-hand combat and supported the infantry. The navy that guarded the empire’s huge coastline consisted of large ships with as many as three hundred oarsmen arranged on two levels. These large, somewhat cumbersome ships were supplemented by smaller, more maneuverable ones that were considerably faster than the larger vessels. The navy gained a reputation for its so-called Greek fire, a mix of sulfur, saltpeter, and naphtha, which was shot by catapults into enemy boats.

Language

Latin was the language of the Roman Empire until it began its decline. It was used officially long after most of the citizens of Byzantium could understand it. By Diocletian’s time, Greek was increasingly the language of Byzantium, and it remained so for many years. Around 430 c.e., the praetorian prefect of Constantinople wrote his decrees in Greek, the first Roman prefect to do so. Two centuries later, around 640 c.e., Heraclius declared Greek, the language of both the people and the Church, the official language of the Byzantine Empire.

Architecture and city planning

When Constantine the Great transformed sleepy Byzantium into his capital, he essentially created a city laid out in ways reminiscent of Rome. The Long Wall that protected Constantinople to the west was suggestive of China’s Great Wall or of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. Justinian was perhaps the greatest builder in the Byzantine Empire, erecting not only such churches as the Haghia Sophia and San Vitale but also building ornate public baths, aqueducts, and public meeting halls. So great was the building program launched by Justinian that it drained from his empire the very resources it would later need to defend itself adequately.

Religion and ritual

Under Constantine, the Christian religion became firmly established in the Byzantine Empire. The First General Council met in Nicaea in 325 c.e. at Constantine’s behest. Out of it grew such declarations of faith as the Nicene Creed. Eventually, however, Christianity in Byzantium was to come into conflict with the Islamic beliefs of the Near East, particularly Persia. There was also a significant philosophical conflict within Christian circles, with one group supporting Monophysitism, a doctrine contending that Jesus Christ’s only nature was divine, whereas the orthodox belief was that Christ had both a human and a divine nature. These opposing doctrines led to a split between the Roman and Eastern churches that lasted for thirty-five years and was resolved only when Justin I became emperor in 518 c.e. Eventually the Eastern Church split from the Roman Church and has, to the twenty-first century, continued a separate existence.

Economics

Trade and manufacturing in the Byzantine Empire were overseen by guilds that protected manufacturers, merchants, and their customers. Sales of such mundane items as fish and bread were carefully regulated. Even more carefully monitored was the sale of the fine silks (an important product of the empire after silk worms were smuggled from the east) and brocades produced throughout much of the empire. The best of these could not be sold outside the empire but were reserved for the imperial family and its retainers.

Imports were also regulated and could enter the country only through specified channels. The Russians had trade agreements with the Byzantines and sold their wares, including furs, honey, wax, and indentured servants, in Byzantium.

One of the most fruitful sources of income came from land taxes levied on farmers, who lived in fear of the tax collector and often faced financial ruin if a crop failed or if some of their herd died. If they fled to avoid paying their taxes, their tax burden became the responsibility of their neighbors. This arrangement led many small farmers to become tenant farmers rather than landowners.

Current views

The adjective “byzantine” is often used today to describe devious behavior marked by intrigue. This connotation suggests that modern views of the Byzantine Empire are somewhat jaded. Certainly most contemporary people look upon the Byzantine era as one that ended badly because it diminished individuals, whose value it demeaned. Byzantium was characterized by a xenophobia based on the notion that outsiders had no individual importance except to the extent that they could advance or retard the purposes of God for his earthly realm.

Bibliography

Brown, Peter Robert Lamont. Late Antiquity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Cameron, Averil. Changing Cultures in Early Byzantium. Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1996.

Moorhead, John. Justinian. New York: Longman, 1994.

Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Early Centuries. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.

Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997.