Byzantine Empire

Eastern Roman Empire Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων Basileía Rhōmaíōn Imperium Rōmānum
395–1453
Standard Emblem
Motto: Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων Basileus Basileon, Basileuon Basileuonton ("King of Kings, Ruling over Rulers")
Territorial development of the Empire
Status	Provinces of the Roman Empire administered by the Emperor of the East
Capital	Constantinople 41°0′0″N 29°0′0″E
Common languages	Latin¹ (395–620) Greek² (620–1453)
Religion	Christianity (395–1054) Orthodox Christianity (1054–1453)
Government	Autocracy
Emperor
• 395–408	Arcadius (Emperor of the East after the final division of the Roman Empire)
• 1449–1453	Constantine XI
History
• Constantine I declares Constantinople the new capital of the Roman Empire	May 11 330
• Final division of the Roman Empire into East and West	January 17, 395
• Great Schism between East and West	July 24, 1054
• Fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade	April 12, 1204
• Reconquest of Constantinople	July 25, 1261
• Final fall of Constantinople	May 29 1453
Area
4th century	2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi)
Population
• 4th century	34,000,000
• 11th century	18,000,000
• 13th century	3,000,000
Currency	Nummus (3rd to 7th c.) Byzantine solidus (4th to 11th c.) Hyperpyron (11th c.–1453)
Preceded by Succeeded by Roman Empire Ottoman Empire Latin Empire Second Bulgarian Empire
¹ Latin was the official language of the Byzantine Empire until the 7th century. ² Greek was the official language of the Byzantine Empire from the 7th century, replacing Latin.

The name Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is given to the eastern part of the Roman Empire that survived throughout the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. This empire was located in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its capital was Constantinople (in Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις, present-day Istanbul), whose oldest name was Byzantium, an important city of Greek Thrace founded in 650 BC. The Byzantine Empire is also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, especially when referring to its first centuries of existence, during Late Antiquity, a time when the Western Roman Empire still existed. Given that the Roman Empire had established that the language throughout the territory was to be Greek, historians generally agree that the Byzantine Empire was a Greek empire in political alliance with Rome.

Throughout its long history, the Byzantine Empire suffered numerous setbacks and losses of territory, especially during the Roman–Sasanian wars, the Byzantine–Norman wars, the Bulgarian–Byzantine wars and the Arab–Byzantine wars. Although its influence in North Africa and the Near East had gone into decline as a result of these conflicts, it remained an important military and economic power in Europe, the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean for most of the Middle Ages. After a final recovery of its former power during the era of the Komnenos dynasty, in the 12th century, the Empire began a prolonged decline during the Ottoman–Byzantine wars that culminated in the capture of Constantinople and the conquest of the rest of the territories under Byzantine rule by the Turks, in the 15th century.

During its millennium of existence, the Empire was a bastion of Christianity, and it prevented the advance of Islam into Western Europe. It was one of the main commercial centers of the world, establishing a stable gold currency that circulated throughout the Mediterranean area. It had a decisive influence on the laws, political systems and customs of much of Europe and the Middle East, and thanks to it many of the literary and scientific works of the classical world and of other cultures were preserved and transmitted.

Inasmuch as it is the continuation of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, its transformation into a cultural entity different from the West can be seen as a process that began when Emperor Constantine the Great moved the capital to the ancient city of Byzantium (which he then renamed New Rome, and which would later be called Constantinople); continued with the final split of the Roman Empire into two parts after the death of Theodosius I, in 395, and the subsequent fall in 476 of the Western Roman Empire; and reached its culmination during the 7th century, under Emperor Heraclius, with whose reforms (above all, the reorganization of the army and the adoption of Greek as the official language) the Empire acquired a character markedly different from that of the old Roman Empire. Some scholars, such as Theodor Mommsen, have stated that up to Heraclius one can properly speak of the Eastern Roman Empire and thereafter of the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until 1453, since Heraclius replaced the old imperial title of "augustus" with that of basileus (a Greek word meaning 'king' or 'emperor') and replaced Latin with Greek as the administrative language in 620, after which the Empire had a marked Hellenic character.

In any case, the term Byzantine Empire was created by the Enlightenment scholarship of the 17th and 18th centuries and was never used by the inhabitants of this empire, who always preferred to call it the Roman Empire (in Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, Basileia Rhōmaiōn; in Latin: Imperium Romanum) or Romania (Ῥωμανία) throughout its existence.

The term "Byzantine Empire"

Eastern Roman Empire in 480.

The expression "Byzantine Empire" (from Byzantium, the ancient name of Constantinople) was a creation of the German historian Hieronymus Wolf, who in 1557 —a century after the fall of Constantinople— used it in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae to designate this period of history in contrast to the Greek and Roman cultures of classical Antiquity. The term did not come into frequent use until the 18th century, when it was popularized by French authors such as Montesquieu.

Nineteenth-century judgment on Byzantium:
Of the Byzantine Empire the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed [...] There has been no other enduring civilization so absolutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness [...] Its vices were the vices of men who had ceased to be brave without learning to be virtuous [...] Slaves, and willing slaves, in both their actions and their thoughts, immersed in sensuality and in the most frivolous pleasures, they emerged from their apathy only when some theological subtlety or some feat of chivalry in the chariot races stirred them to frantic riots [...] The history of that Empire is a monotonous account of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs and women, of poisonings, conspiracies, ingratitude and continual fratricides.

— History of European Morals, by W. E. H. Lecky (1869).

The success of the term may bear some relation to the West's historical refusal to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the legitimate continuation of Rome, at least since, in the 9th century, Charlemagne and his successors wielded the apocryphal document known as the "Donation of Constantine" to proclaim themselves, with the connivance of the papacy, Roman emperors. From this time on, in the western lands the title Imperator Romanorum ('Emperor of the Romans') was reserved for the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, while the Emperor of Constantinople was called, somewhat disparagingly, Imperator Graecorum ('Emperor of the Greeks'), and his dominions Imperium Graecorum, Graecia, Terra Graecorum or even Imperium Constantinopolitanus. The emperors of Constantinople never accepted these names. In fact, the Byzantines were the continuation in the East of the Roman Empire, and the emperors of Constantinople prided themselves on an unbroken lineage going back to Augustus.

"Byzantine Empire" is a modern term that would have seemed extremely strange to its contemporaries, who considered themselves Romans and their Empire the Roman Empire. The original Greek name was Romania (Ρωμανία) or Basileía Romaíon (Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων; Roman Empire), a direct translation of the Latin name, Imperium Romanorum. It was called the "Greek Empire" by its Western European contemporaries (owing to the predominance within it of the Greek language, culture and population). In the Islamic world it was known as روم (Rûm, 'land of the Romans') and its inhabitants as rumis, a label that by extension came to be applied to Christians in general, and especially to those who remained faithful to their faith in the territories conquered by Islam.

The adjective "Byzantine" later acquired a pejorative sense, as a synonym for "decadent", owing to the work of historians such as Edward Gibbon, William Lecky or Arnold J. Toynbee himself, who, comparing Byzantine civilization with classical Antiquity, saw the history of the Byzantine Empire as a prolonged period of decadence. This assessment was surely also influenced by the point of view of the crusaders from the kingdoms of Western Europe who visited the Empire from the end of the 11th century.

The view of the Byzantines as subtle and frivolous men survives in the Spanish expression "discusión bizantina" ('Byzantine discussion'), referring to any passionate dispute over an inconsequential question, surely based on the endless theological controversies sustained by Byzantine intellectuals.

Identity, continuity and consciousness

Byzantium can be defined as a multiethnic Empire that emerged as a Christian state and ended its more than 1,000 years of history in 1453 as a Greek Orthodox state, acquiring a truly national character. The Byzantines identified themselves as Romans, and continued to use the term when it became synonymous with Hellenes. They preferred to call themselves, in Greek, romioi (that is, Christian Greek people with Roman citizenship), while developing a national consciousness as residents of Romania.

Patriotism was reflected in literature, particularly in songs and in poems such as the Digenis Acritas, in which the frontier populations (of fighters called akritai) took pride in defending their country against invaders. Over time, patriotism became local, because it could no longer rely on the protection of the imperial armies. Even though the ancient Greeks were not Christians, the Byzantines took pride in these ancestors.

Even in the centuries following the Arab and Lombard conquests of the 7th century and the consequent reduction of the Empire to the Balkans and Asia Minor, where a very powerful and superior Greek population resided, this multiethnic character continued. Nevertheless, from the 9th century onward the process of identification with ancient Greek culture intensified.

As the Middle Ages advanced, they went from referring to themselves as romioi ('Romans') to helenoi (which had pagan connotations as much as romios) or graekos ('Greek'), a term that was frequently used by the Byzantines for their ethnic self-identification, especially in the last years of the Empire.

The dissolution of the Byzantine state in the 15th century did not immediately undo Byzantine society. During the Ottoman occupation, the Greeks continued to identify themselves as romioi and Hellenes, an identification that survived until the beginning of the 20th century and still persists in modern Greece.

History

Main article: History of the Byzantine Empire

Origin

The demographic and geographic partition of the Eastern Roman Empire has much to do with the physiognomy acquired by the legacy left by the conquests of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). After his death, the Hellenistic empire was fragmented into Greece, Anatolia, Media, and Egypt. The heirs (diadochi) maintained confrontations for more than 100 years. The constant struggles ended up weakening all the kingdoms in question; turning to Rome as mediator between the respective parties, they were gradually occupied and then invaded between the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. What took Alexander the Great twelve years, Rome did in 150 years: they all became Roman provinces (with the exception of Persia and eastern Media). The characteristic features of all the regions were their multiethnic origin, religious plurality (the polytheism of each region predominated), and a great diversity of languages. The city founded by the Macedonian, Alexandria, stood out above all as a center for the spread of knowledge and science. Rome itself chose to leave "everything as it was", but imported economic resources, engineers, scientists and thinkers to work for its empire.

To secure control of the Roman Empire and make its administration more efficient, Emperor Diocletian, at the end of the 3rd century, instituted the system of government known as the Tetrarchy, consisting of the division of the Empire into two parts, governed by two augusti emperors, each of whom had an associated "vice-emperor" and future heir, the caesar. After Diocletian's abdication the system lost its force and a period of civil wars began that did not end until the year 324, when Constantine the Great unified both parts of the Empire.

Constantine rebuilt the city of Byzantium as a new capital in 330. He called it New Rome, but it was popularly known as Constantinople or Constantinopolis ('The City of Constantine'). The new administration had its center in the city, which enjoyed an enviable strategic location and lay at the junction of the most important trade routes of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Religious changes

Constantine was also the first emperor to adopt Christianity, a religion that was decreed official and compulsory (on pain of death otherwise) by Emperor Theodosius I in the year 380 AD after he promulgated the Edict of Thessalonica, which led to strong resistance and a long series of religious confrontations. The regions that had for so many centuries been subordinate to an imperial regime that allowed religious freedom and the cultural practices proper to each ethnic group were now under a long list of new prohibitions.

Division of the empire

On the death of Emperor Theodosius I, in 395, the Empire was definitively divided: Flavius Honorius, his younger son, inherited the West, with its capital in Rome, while his elder son, Arcadius, received the East, with its capital in Constantinople. For most authors, it is from this moment that the history of the Byzantine Empire properly begins. The history of the Western Roman Empire ended in 476, when the young Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the German (of the Herulian group) Odoacer. By contrast, the history of the Byzantine Empire continued for almost another millennium.

Early history

While the Western Empire was collapsing definitively, the successors of Theodosius were able to ward off the successive invasions of barbarian peoples that threatened the Eastern Empire. The Visigoths were diverted toward the West by Emperor Arcadius (395–408). His successor, Theodosius II (408–450), reinforced the walls of Constantinople, making it an impregnable city (in fact, it would not be conquered by foreign troops until 1204), and managed to avoid the invasion of the Huns by paying tribute until they broke up and ceased to pose a danger after the death of Attila, in 453. For his part, Zeno (474–491) averted the invasion of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great, directing him toward Italy, against the kingdom established by Odoacer.

Religious unity was threatened by the heresies that proliferated in the eastern half of the Empire, and which highlighted the doctrinal division among the four main eastern sees: Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. As early as 325, the Council of Nicaea had condemned Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. In 431, the Council of Ephesus declared Nestorianism heretical. The most lasting crisis, however, was the one caused by the Monophysite heresy, which held that Christ had only one nature, the divine. Although it too was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, it had won numerous followers, above all in Egypt and Syria, and all the emperors failed in their attempts to restore religious unity. This period also saw the beginning of the close association between the Church and the Empire: Leo I (457–474) was the first emperor crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople.

At the end of the 5th century, during the reign of Emperor Anastasius I, the danger posed by the barbarian invasions seemed definitively averted. The Germanic peoples, already settled in the vanished Western Empire, were too busy consolidating their respective monarchies to take an interest in Byzantium.

The age of Justinian

Main article: Recuperatio Imperii

Map of the Byzantine Empire in 550 AD under the reign of Justinian

During the reign of Justinian I (527–565), the Empire reached the apogee of its power. The Emperor set out to restore the borders of the old Roman Empire, for which purpose, once the security of the eastern frontier had been restored after the victory of the general Belisarius against the Persian expansionism of Khosrow I at the Battle of Dara (530), he undertook a series of wars of conquest in the West:

Between 533 and 534, after victories at Ad Decimum and Tricamarum, an Army under the command of Belisarius conquered the Vandal kingdom, located in the former Roman province of Africa and the islands of the Western Mediterranean (Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands). The territory, once pacified, was governed by an official called the magister militum. In 535 Mundus occupied Dalmatia. That same year Belisarius advanced toward Italy, reaching Rome in 536 after occupying southern Italy. After a brief recovery by the Ostrogoths (541–551), a new Byzantine army, this time led by Narses, once again annexed Italy, and the Exarchate of Ravenna was created. In 552 the Byzantines intervened in internal disputes of Visigothic Hispania and annexed to the Empire extensive territories in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, calling it the Province of Spania. The Byzantine presence in Hispania lasted until the year 620.

Justinian in the mosaics of the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna.

The age of Justinian stands out not only for its military successes. Under his reign, Byzantium experienced a period of cultural splendor, despite the closure of the Academy of Athens, with, among many others, the figures of the poets Nonnus of Panopolis and Paul the Silentiary, the historian Procopius, and the philosopher John Philoponus. Between 528 and 533, a commission appointed by the Emperor codified Roman law in the Corpus Iuris Civilis, thus allowing the transmission to posterity of one of the most important legacies of the ancient world. Another legislative compilation, the Digest, directed by Tribonian, was published in 533. The splendor of the age of Justinian finds its best example in one of the most celebrated architectural works in the history of Art, the Church of Hagia Sophia, built during his reign by the architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus.

Within the capital, the power of the circus factions was broken; there, chariot races had become a popular entertainment that aroused passions. In fact, they were used politically, with the color of each team expressing religious divergences (an early example of popular mobilizations using political colors). The Church recognized the Lord of Constantinople as King-priest and restored relations with Rome. A new Church of Divine Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) arose as a sign and symbol of magnificent and majestic splendor.

Justinian's campaigns in the West and the cost of these acts of imperial splendor exhausted the imperial treasury and plunged the Empire into a crisis that would reach its peak at the beginning of the 7th century. The need for more funding allowed his hated finance minister, John the Cappadocian, to impose greater and new taxes on the citizens of Byzantium. The Nika revolt (532) nearly caused the Emperor to flee, which was prevented by Empress Theodora with her famous phrase "the purple is a glorious shroud", or beautiful shroud, or good shroud. Procopius, in his Secret History, reproduces Theodora's words as follows:

... whoever has received sovereign power must not live if he lets it be taken from him. You, Caesar, if you wish to flee, nothing is easier... as for me, God forbid that I should abandon the purple and appear in public without being greeted as Empress. I greatly cherish this ancient saying: "The purple is a glorious shroud".

Likewise, a disaster loomed over the Empire in the year 543 AD: the Plague of Justinian. It is believed to have been caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis, also known as "the Black Death". It was undoubtedly a key element that contributed to worsening the serious economic crisis the Empire was already suffering. It is estimated that a third of the population of Constantinople perished because of it.

The retreat of Byzantium

The 7th and 8th centuries constitute a kind of "Dark Age" in the history of Byzantium, about which very little information is available. It is a period of crisis, with tremendous external difficulties (the harassment by Islam, which conquered the richest regions, the continual attacks of Bulgarians and Slavs from the north, and the resumption of the struggle against the Persians in the east) and internal ones (the struggles between iconoclasts and iconodules, a symbol of the internal confrontations between temporal and religious power). In spite of this, the Empire emerged from this period transformed and strengthened.

Justin II tried to follow in his uncle's footsteps, and his very mind succumbed under the intolerable burden of administering an Empire threatened on several fronts. His successor, Tiberius II, abandoned Justinian's military policy and allowed Italy to fall to the Lombards and the barbarians to occupy the Tiber, and withdrew to Africa. Maurice managed to make a favorable treaty with Persia (590) and turned once more to the defense of the northern frontiers, but the Army refused to endure the hardships of the campaign and Maurice lost his life along with his throne. Under Phocas, the invasions of the Persians and of the barbarians and the internal struggles nearly destroyed the Empire. However, the revolution of some provinces managed to save it.

External threats

From Africa, where the Latin element was strongest, Heraclius set sail to rescue the last remnants of the Roman Empire. This voyage was in his eyes a religious undertaking, and throughout his reign that concern was paramount. The 7th century began with the crisis caused by the spectacular offensive of the Persian Monarch Khosrow II who, with his conquests in Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor, came to threaten the very existence of the Empire. This situation was exploited by other enemies of Byzantium, such as the Avars and Slavs, who laid siege to Constantinople in 626. Emperor Heraclius was able, after a long and exhausting war, to ward off this danger, repelling the assault of the Avars and Slavs and definitively defeating the Persians in 628. In his war against the Persians, Heraclius was able to push them back into the heart of their homeland and weaken them to the point that they were unable to survive the subsequent Arab attack. In his mission to save the Empire and consolidate it he had great support from the Church.

However, barely a few years later, between 633 and 645, the rapid Muslim expansion wrested forever from the Empire, exhausted by the war against Persia, the provinces of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. But the Empire of Heraclius survived the Arab attacks (although losing almost all its Roman character and taking on completely Hellenistic characteristics in the Balkan-Anatolian area), while the Persians were completely conquered by the Arabs.

By the middle of the 7th century, the borders had stabilized. The Arabs continued to press, even threatening the capital, but Byzantine naval superiority, reinforced by its magnificent naval fortifications and its monopoly of "Greek fire" (a chemical product capable of burning on water), saved the Byzantine Empire from destruction.

On the western frontier, from the time of Constantine IV (668–685) the Empire was forced to accept the creation within its borders, in the province of Moesia, of the independent kingdom of Bulgaria (see First Bulgarian Empire). In addition, Slavic peoples were settling in the Balkans, reaching as far as the Peloponnese. In the West, the invasion of the Lombards made Byzantine rule over Italy much more precarious.

The iconoclast controversy

Between the years 726 and 843 the Byzantine Empire was torn apart by internal struggles between the iconoclasts, supporters of the prohibition of religious images, and the iconodules, opposed to that prohibition. The first iconoclast period lasted from 726, the year in which Leo III (717–741) suppressed the veneration of images, until 783, when it was restored by the Second Council of Nicaea. The second iconoclast stage took place between 813 and 843. In that year orthodoxy was definitively restored.

It was not a simple theological debate between iconoclasts and iconodules, but an internal confrontation unleashed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, supported by Emperor Leo III, which sought to put an end to the concentration of power and political and religious influence of the powerful monasteries and their territorial support (their importance can be imagined by seeing how Mount Athos, founded more than a century later, in 963, has survived to the present day). According to some authors, the iconoclast conflict also reflects the division between state power —the emperors, most of them supporters of iconoclasm— and ecclesiastical power —the Patriarchate of Constantinople, generally iconodule—; it has also been pointed out that while in Asia Minor the iconoclasts formed the majority, in the European part of the Empire the iconodules were more predominant.

Transformations

The recovery of imperial authority and the greater stability of the following centuries also brought with it a process of Hellenization, that is, of recovery of the Greek identity as opposed to the official Roman character of the institutions, something more feasible then, given the geographical limitation and homogenization produced by the loss of the provinces, which allowed a militarized and more easily manageable territorial organization: the themes (themata), with the soldiers established in them bound to the land, which produced forms similar to Western feudalism. By the beginning of the 9th century, the Empire had undergone several important transformations:

• Cultural and religious uniformity: the loss to Islam of the provinces of Syria, Palestine and Egypt resulted in greater uniformity. The territories the Empire retained in the middle of the 7th century were fundamentally Greek in culture. Latin was definitively abandoned in favor of Greek. As early as 629, during the reign of Heraclius, the use of the Greek term basileus instead of the Latin augustus is documented. In the religious sphere, the incorporation of these provinces into Islam brought the Monophysite crisis to an end, and in 843 the triumph of the iconodules finally brought religious unity.
• Territorial reorganization: in the 7th century —probably in the time of Constans II (641–668)— the Empire was given a new territorial organization to make its defense more effective. Byzantine territory was organized into themata, military districts that were at the same time administrative divisions, and whose governor and military commander, the strategos, enjoyed broad autonomy.
• Ruralization: the loss of the southern provinces, where crafts and trade had reached their greatest development, meant that the Byzantine economy became essentially agrarian. The irruption of Islam into the Mediterranean from the 8th century onward hampered the trade routes. The population and the importance of the cities within the Empire as a whole decreased, while a new social class, the landholding aristocracy, began to develop, especially in Asia Minor.

Most of these transformations came about as a consequence of the loss of the provinces of Egypt, Syria and Palestine, which passed to Muslim rule.

Macedonian Renaissance (867)

Main article: Macedonian Renaissance

The end of the iconoclast struggles marked an important recovery of the Empire, visible from the reign of Michael III (842–867), the last Emperor of the Amorian dynasty, and, above all, during the almost two centuries (867–1056) in which Byzantium was ruled by the Macedonian dynasty. This period is known to historians as the "Macedonian Renaissance".

Foreign policy

During these years, the crisis into which the Abbasid Caliphate, the Empire's main enemy in the East, had sunk considerably weakened the Islamic offensive. However, the new Muslim states that emerged as a result of the dissolution of the caliphate (mainly the Aghlabids of North Africa and the Fatimids of Egypt) fought hard against the Byzantines for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Over the course of the 9th century, the Muslims definitively wrested Sicily from the Empire. Crete had already been conquered by the Arabs in 827. The 10th century was a time of important offensives against Islam, which made it possible to recover territories lost many centuries before: Nikephoros II Phokas (963–969) reconquered northern Syria, including Antioch (969), as well as Crete (961) and Cyprus (965).

The great western enemy of the Empire during this stage was the Bulgarian state. Converted to Christianity in the middle of the 9th century, Bulgaria reached its apogee in the time of Tsar Simeon I (893–927), who had been educated in Constantinople. From 896 the Empire was obliged to pay tribute to Bulgaria, and, in 913, Simeon came close to attacking the capital. On the death of this monarch, in 927, his kingdom comprised a large part of Macedonia and Thrace, along with Serbia and Albania. The power of Bulgaria, however, declined during the 10th century, and at the beginning of the following century Basil II (976–1025), called Bulgaroktonos ('Bulgar-slayer'), invaded Bulgaria and annexed it to the Empire, dividing it into 4 themes.

Map of the Empire during the reign of Basil II.

One of the most decisive events of this period, and one with the most lasting effects, was the incorporation of the Slavic peoples into the cultural and religious orbit of Byzantium. In the second half of the 9th century, the monks of Thessalonica Cyril and Methodius were sent to evangelize Moravia at the request of its monarch, Ratislav I. To carry out their task they created, starting from the Slavic dialect spoken in Thessalonica, a literary language, Old Church Slavonic or liturgical Slavonic, as well as a new alphabet to put it in writing, the Glagolitic alphabet (later replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet). Although the mission in Moravia failed, in the middle of the 10th century the conversion of Kievan Rus' took place, thus bringing under Byzantine influence a state larger and more extensive than the Empire itself.

Relations with the West were tense from the coronation of Charlemagne (800) and the claims of his successors to the title of Roman emperors and to dominion over Italy. Throughout this stage, despite the loss of Sicily, the Empire continued to have enormous influence in southern Italy. Tensions with Otto I, who sought to expel the Byzantines from Italy, were resolved through the marriage of the Byzantine Princess Theophano, niece of the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes, to Otto II.

Religion: Separation of the Eastern and Western Christian Church (1054)

After the resolution of the iconoclast conflict, the religious unity of the Empire was restored. Nevertheless, it had to confront the heresy of the Paulicians, which in the 9th century became widespread in Asia Menor, as well as its resurgence in Bulgaria, the Bogomil doctrine.

During this period the Bulgarians were evangelized. This expansion of Eastern Christianity aroused the suspicions of Rome, and in the middle of the 9th century a serious crisis broke out between the Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, and Pope Nicholas I, who excommunicated each other, producing the definitive separation of the Eastern and Western churches. In addition to the rivalry for primacy between the sees of Rome and Constantinople, there were some doctrinal disagreements. The Photian Schism was, however, brief, and by around 877 relations between East and West returned to normal.

The definitive break with Rome was consummated in 1054, known as the East–West Schism, on the occasion of a new dispute over the text of the Creed, in which Latin theologians had included the Filioque clause, thereby signifying, contrary to the tradition of the Eastern churches, that the Holy Spirit proceeded not only from the Father, but also from the Son. There was also disagreement on many other minor issues, and underlying it all, above all, was the confrontation over primacy between the two old capitals of the Empire.

Decline of the Empire (1056–1261)

Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180).

After the period of splendor represented by the Macedonian Renaissance, in the second half of the 11th century a period of crisis began, marked by its weakness in the face of the appearance of two powerful new enemies: the Seljuk Turks and the Christian kingdoms of Western Europe; and by the growing feudalization of the Empire, accentuated when the Komnenian emperors were forced to make territorial grants (called pronoia) to the aristocracy and to members of their own family.

On the eastern frontier, the Seljuk Turks, who until then had focused their interest on defeating Fatimid Egypt, began to make incursions into Asia Minor, where most Byzantine soldiers came from. With the unexpected defeat at the Battle of Manzikert (1071) of Emperor Romanos IV at the hands of Alp Arslan, sultan of the Seljuk Turks, Byzantine hegemony in Asia Minor thus came to an end. The later attempts of the Komnenian emperors to reconquer the lost territories would be completely fruitless. Moreover, a century later, Manuel I Komnenos would suffer another humiliating defeat against the Seljuks at Myriokephalon in 1176.

In the West, the Normans expelled the Byzantines from Italy in a few years (between 1060 and 1076), and conquered Dyrrhachium, in Illyria, from where they intended to make their way to Constantinople. The death of Robert Guiscard in 1085 prevented these plans from being carried out. However, a few years later, the First Crusade would become a problem for Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. It is debated whether it was the emperor himself who requested the help of the West to fight against the Turks. Although they had theoretically committed themselves to placing the subdued territories under the authority of Byzantium, the crusaders ended up establishing several independent states in Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli and Jerusalem.

The situation in the first half of the 13th century

The Germans of the Holy Roman Empire and the Normans of Sicily and southern Italy continued to attack the Empire during the 12th century. The Italian city-states and republics such as Venice and Genoa, to which Alexios I had granted trading rights in Constantinople, became the targets of anti-Western sentiment owing to the existing resentment toward the Franks or Latins. The Venetians in particular were greatly vexed by these manifestations of the Byzantine people, bearing in mind that their fleet of ships was the basis of the Byzantine navy.

Frederick I Barbarossa (Holy Roman Emperor) tried unsuccessfully to conquer the Empire during the Third Crusade, but it was the fourth that had the most devastating effect on the Byzantine Empire in centuries. The express intention of the Crusade was to conquer Egypt, and the Byzantines, believing there was no chance of defeating Saladin (sultan of Egypt and Syria and main enemy of the crusaders settled in the Holy Land), initially decided to remain neutral, although in the end they offered two hundred thousand silver marks and all the means for the crusaders to reach Egypt. However, the greed of the Venetians and the crusader leaders for the treasures of Constantinople led the Venetians and crusaders not to respect the agreement and to take Constantinople by storm on April 13, 1204. After three days of pillage and the destruction of important works of art, for the first time since its foundation by Constantine I, more than eight hundred years earlier, the city had been taken by a foreign army, giving rise to the short-lived Latin Empire (1204–1261).

The Empire around the year 1265 ended up being almost a geographical representation of the Classical Greece of the 5th century BC

Byzantine power became permanently weakened. At this time, Serbia, under Stefan Dušan, of the Nemanjić dynasty, grew stronger by taking advantage of the collapse of Byzantium, beginning a process that would culminate when the Serbian Empire was constituted in 1346.

Three Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire remained outside the orbit of the newly created Latin Empire: the Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus. The first, controlled by the Palaiologos dynasty, reconquered Constantinople in 1261 and defeated Epirus, revitalizing the Empire, but paying too much attention to Europe when the growing penetration of the Turks into Asia Minor was the main problem.

The end: the Turkish siege (1453)

The history of the Byzantine Empire after the reconquest of the capital by Michael VIII Palaiologos is one of prolonged decline. On the eastern side, the Turkish advance reduced the Asian dominions of the Empire almost to nothing, and at some stages the Empire became a vassal of the Ottomans, while in the Balkans it had to compete with the Greek and Latin states that had arisen in the wake of the conquest of Constantinople in 1204. In the Mediterranean, Venetian naval superiority left very few options to Constantinople. In addition, during the 14th century the Empire, reduced to being just one more of the numerous Balkan states, had to face the terrible revolt of the Almogavars of the Crown of Aragon and two devastating civil wars.

For a time the Empire survived simply because the Seljuks, Mongols and Safavid Persians were too divided to be able to attack it, but finally the Ottoman Turks invaded everything that remained of the Byzantine possessions, with the exception of a few port cities. The Ottomans —the original nucleus of the future Ottoman Empire— came from one of the sultanates split off from the Seljuk state, headed by a chief named Osman I Gazi, who would give his name to the Ottoman or Osmanli dynasty.

The Byzantine Empire around 1400 was no longer an empire: it ended up reduced to Laconia, Thessalonica and Constantinople, isolated from one another.

The Empire requested help from the West, but the various states set as a condition the reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Byzantine rulers studied the union of the Churches and occasionally even imposed it by decree, but the Orthodox did not accept it. Some Western fighters came to the aid of Byzantium, but many preferred to let the Empire succumb, and did nothing when the Ottomans conquered the remaining territories.

Constantinople at first seemed impregnable owing to its powerful defenses, but, with the advent of cannons, the walls —which had been impenetrable for more than a thousand years except to the members of the Fourth Crusade— no longer offered adequate protection against the Ottomans. The fall of Constantinople finally took place on May 29, 1453, after a two-month siege carried out by Mehmed II. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was last seen entering combat with the Janissary troops of the Ottoman besiegers, who overwhelmingly outnumbered the Byzantines. Mehmed II also conquered Mistra in 1460 and Trebizond in 1461. The last holder of the Crown of the Byzantine Empire, Andreas Palaiologos, nephew of Constantine XI, sold his imperial title to Ferdinand II of Aragon and V of Castile and Isabella I of Castile before his death in 1502. However, there is no record of any Spanish monarch having used the Byzantine imperial titles.

Byzantine world

Demography

There are very few data that allow us to calculate the population of the Byzantine Empire. J. C. Russell indicates that at the end of the 4th century the total population of the Eastern Roman Empire was about twenty-five million, spread over an area of approximately 1,600,000 km². By the 9th century, however, after the loss of the provinces of Syria, Egypt and Palestine and the population crisis of the 6th century, it is believed that around thirteen million people inhabited the Empire in a territory of 745,000 km².

By the 13th century, with the significant territorial losses suffered by the Empire, it is unlikely that the basileus governed the destinies of more than four million people. From then on the territory of the Empire —and, therefore, its population— shrank rapidly until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

The greatest concentrations of population were always in the Asian part of the Empire, especially on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor.

As for the cities, the growth of Constantinople was spectacular in the 4th and 5th centuries. While the capital of the West, Rome, had declined considerably since the 2nd century (it came to have a million and a half inhabitants, which it retained until the 5th century), Constantinople, with only about one hundred thousand —at the time of its foundation it had barely thirty thousand inhabitants—, reached four hundred thousand in the time of Justinian.

But Constantinople was not the only great city of the Empire. The population of Alexandria at that same time has been estimated at around three hundred thousand inhabitants, somewhat larger than that of Antioch (a quarter of a million). These were followed in size by other smaller cities such as Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Trebizond, Edessa, Nicaea, Thessalonica, Thebes and Athens.

The 6th century saw a significant setback in urbanization owing both to wars and to an unfortunate succession of epidemics and natural disasters. In the following century, after the loss of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Carthage, only two great cities remained in the Empire: the capital and Thessalonica. It seems that the population of Constantinople decreased considerably during the 6th and 7th centuries (because of, among other reasons, the plague) and only began to recover in the middle of the 8th century. Its population is estimated to have been three hundred thousand inhabitants during the Macedonian Renaissance, and no less than half a million under the Komnenian dynasty.

In the last period of the Empire the cities suffered a pronounced decline. It is estimated that, at the time of its conquest by the Turks, the population of the capital was around fifty thousand inhabitants, and that of the second city of the Empire, Thessalonica, was about thirty thousand.

Economy

As in the rest of the world in the Middle Ages, the main economic activity was agriculture, which was organized in latifundia in the hands of the nobility and the clergy. They grew cereals, fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs. The main industry was the textile industry, based on state silk workshops, which employed large numbers of workers. The Empire depended entirely on trade with the East for its supply of silk, until in the middle of the 6th century some unknown monks —perhaps Nestorians— managed to bring silkworm cocoons to Justinian. The Empire began to produce its own silk —mainly in Syria—, and its manufacture was a jealously guarded secret, unknown in the rest of Europe until at least the 12th century.

The great importance of trade must be emphasized. Because of its geographical location, the Byzantine Empire was a necessary intermediary between the East and the Mediterranean, at least until the 7th century, when Islam seized the southern provinces of the Empire. The position of the capital was especially important: it controlled the passage from Europe to Asia and, by dominating the Bosphorus Strait, the exchanges between the Mediterranean (from which Western Europe was reached) and the Black Sea (which connected with Northern Europe and Russia).

There were three main routes linking the Mediterranean with the Far East:

1. The shortest route crossed Persia, and then Central Asia (Samarkand, Bukhara). It is known as the Silk Road.
2. A second route, much more difficult, avoided Persia, and went from the Black Sea, through the ports of Crimea, to the Caspian, and from there to Central Asia. This route was opened in the time of Justin II.
3. By sea, from the coast of Egypt, through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, taking advantage of the monsoons, to Sri Lanka. This sea route made possible not only trade with India, but also with the Kingdom of Aksum, in present-day Eritrea. A detailed account of the vicissitudes of this route is found in the work of the traveler Cosmas Indicopleustes. Byzantine trade along this route disappeared when the southern provinces of the Empire were lost in the 7th century.

Byzantine trade went into decline during the 11th and 12th centuries, because of the ruinous concessions made to Venice and, to a lesser extent, to Genoa and Pisa.

An important element in the economy of the Empire was its currency, the Byzantine solidus and the bezant, of widespread prestige in the world trade of the time.

The emperor

The supreme head of the Byzantine Empire was the emperor (basileus), who directed the Army and the Administration and held religious power. Each emperor had the power to choose his successor, whom he associated with the tasks of government by conferring on him the title of caesar. At one point in the history of Byzantium (specifically, during the reign of Romanos I Lekapenos) there were as many as 5 caesars at the same time.

The successor was not necessarily the Emperor's son. In many cases, the succession went from uncle to nephew (Justinian, for example, succeeded his uncle Justin I and was succeeded by his nephew Justin II). Other figures reached the imperial dignity through marriage, such as Nikephoros II or Romanos IV.

Although the Emperor chose his successor, many came to power by being proclaimed emperors by the Army (such as Heraclius or Alexios I Komnenos), or thanks to court intrigues, sometimes seasoned with numerous crimes. To prevent deposed emperors and their relatives from claiming the throne, they were frequently blinded and, on occasion, castrated, and confined in monasteries. A peculiar case is that of Justinian II, called Rhinotmetos ('Cut-nose'), whose nose was cut off by the usurper Leontios and who was sent into exile, although he later recovered his throne. These atrocious crimes were extremely frequent in the history of the Byzantine Empire, especially in periods of political instability.

The coat of arms of the Byzantine Empire, when the Palaiologoi ruled, refers to the political and religious role of the Emperor; the double-headed eagle holds in one claw an orb or a cross (the Church); and in the other, a sword (State).

The figure of the Emperor was especially connected with the Church, which became a stabilizing factor, and especially with the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Byzantine monarchy had a caesaropapist character —one of the Emperor's titles was Isapostolos ('Equal to the Apostles'), and certain prerogatives of his office recall the Rex sacerdos ('King-priest') of the Israelite monarchy—. The Emperor and the Patriarch had a relationship of mutual interdependence: although the Emperor appointed the Patriarch, it was the latter who sanctioned the Emperor's accession to power through the coronation ceremony. There were many moments of tension between the two in the history of Byzantium, since the interests of the State sometimes differed from those of the Church. In the last stage of the Empire, for example, when the emperors, in order to obtain the help of the West against the Turks, tried to restore the religious unity of their Church with that of Rome, they met with the stubborn resistance of the patriarchs.

One of the Emperor's main assets was his control over an efficient administration, which was governed by the Corpus Iuris Civilis, compiled in the time of Justinian. Territorial organization was based, from the 7th century, on the themata ('themes'), provinces under the command of a strategos or general.

Army

Main article: Byzantine army

The Byzantine Army was for centuries the most powerful in Europe. A continuation of the Roman army, in the 3rd and 4th centuries it was substantially reformed, developing above all heavy cavalry (cataphracts), of Persian origin.

The Byzantine navy played a preponderant role in the hegemony of the Empire, thanks to its agile vessels, called dromons (dromos), and to the use of secret weapons such as "Greek fire". Byzantium's naval superiority gave it dominion over the Eastern Mediterranean until the 11th century, when it began to be replaced by the incipient power of some Italian city-states, especially Venice.

At first there were two types of troops: the limitanei (frontier garrisons) and the comitatenses. From the 7th century the Empire was organized into themata, both administrative and military divisions headed by a strategos, whose existence substantially improved the defensive capacity of Byzantium against its numerous external enemies.

The skillful diplomacy of its emperors played an important role in the defense of Byzantium. The payment of tributes kept the enemies of the Empire away for a long time, and its espionage service managed to save situations that seemed desperate.

One of the weaknesses of the Byzantine Army, which became more pronounced over time, was the need to resort to mercenary troops of doubtful loyalty. Among the best-known mercenary corps is the famous Varangian Guard. The most terrible crisis that mercenaries caused in the Empire was surely the revolt of the Almogavars, in the 14th century.

The art of strategy flourished greatly in the Byzantine era, and several emperors, as in the case of Maurice, even wrote treatises on the military art. These doctrines extolled stealth, surprise and the leadership of commanders.

Religion

One of the most characteristic features of Byzantine civilization is the importance of religion and of the ecclesiastical estate in its official ideology. Church and State, emperor and patriarch, were progressively identified with each other, to the point that attachment to the true faith ("orthodoxy") was an important factor of political and social cohesion in the Byzantine Empire, which did not prevent numerous heretical currents from arising.

Early Christianity developed much more rapidly in the East than in the West. It is very significant that the Council of Chalcedon recognized in 451 five great patriarchates, of which only one (Rome) was western; the other four (Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch) belonged to the Eastern Empire. Of all of them, the principal one was the Patriarchate of Constantinople, whose see was in the capital of the Empire. The other three sees gradually separated from Constantinople, first because of the Monophysite heresy, harshly persecuted by several emperors; then, as a result of the invasion of Islam in the 7th century, the sees of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem fell definitively under Muslim rule.

During the 7th century, there were some attempts by the Orthodox Church to win over the Monophysites through intermediate religious positions, such as Monothelitism, defended by Heraclius and his grandson Constans II. However, in the years 680 and 681, at the Third Council of Constantinople, there was a definitive return to orthodoxy.

The Orthodox Church suffered another important crisis with the iconoclast movement, first between the years 730 and 787, and then between 815 and 843. Two religious groups confronted each other: the iconoclasts, supporters of the prohibition of the veneration of images or icons, and the iconodules, who defended this practice. Icons were prohibited by Leo III, who ordered the destruction of all representations of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and all the saints, thus beginning the bitterest disputes. This was not resolved until Empress Irene convened the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which reaffirmed icons. This empress considered a marriage alliance with Charlemagne that would have united both halves of Christendom, but it was rejected.

The iconoclast movement resurfaced in the 9th century, being definitively defeated in 843. None of these internal conflicts helped resolve the schism that was taking shape between West and East.

In the 9th century the figure of Patriarch Photius stands out; for the first time he rejected the primacy of Rome, opening a history of disagreements that would culminate in 1054 with the so-called East–West Schism. Photius also strove to make the power of the Patriarch equal to that of the Emperor, postulating a kind of diarchy or shared government.

The schism contributed, however, to the transformation of the Orthodox Church into a national Church. This was further reinforced by the humiliation suffered in 1204 through the invasion of the crusaders and the temporary transfer of the patriarchal see to Nicaea.

During the 14th century an important religious current developed, known as hesychasm (from the Greek hesychía, which can be translated as 'stillness' or 'tranquility'). Hesychasm advocated inner recollection, silence and contemplation as means of drawing closer to God, and spread above all through monastic communities. Its foremost representative was Gregory Palamas, a monk of Athos who would become Archbishop of Thessalonica.

From the end of the 13th century there were several attempts to return to religious unity with Rome: in 1274, in 1369 and in 1438, in order to obtain Western help against the Turks. However, none of these attempts succeeded.

Culture and art

Language and literature

Main article: Byzantine literature

At the origins of the Byzantine Empire there was a situation of diglossia between Latin and Greek. The former was the language of the state administration, while Greek was the spoken language and the main vehicle of literary expression. The Church and education also used Greek. To this it must be added that some regions of the Empire used other languages, such as Aramaic and its variant, Syriac, in Syria and Palestine, and Coptic in Egypt.

Over time, Latin was definitively displaced by Greek, which, in the first half of the 7th century, also became the language of the imperial administration. It is significant that already in the time of Heraclius the title of Augustus, in Latin, was replaced by that of basileus, in Greek. Latin, however, continued to appear in inscriptions and on coins until the 11th century.

The invasion of Islam and the loss of the eastern provinces favored a greater Hellenization of the Empire. The Greek spoken in the Empire was the result of the evolution of Hellenistic Greek, and is usually called Medieval Greek or Byzantine Greek. There were great differences between the literary language, deliberately archaic, and the spoken language, the popular koine, very rarely used in literature.

Literature, like Byzantine culture in general in all its aspects, is characterized by three elements: Hellenism, Christianity and Eastern influence. Hellenism, because it continues the tradition of classical Greece despite the Romanizing attempts of Justinian, whose mother tongue was Latin, and of his nephew Justin II, which reached only the law. Christianity, because from Constantine onward that was the religion of the Empire, despite intellectual opposition until well into the 6th century; Eastern influence, because of the close relationship with Asian and African peoples.

Byzantine literature includes an epic poem in popular Greek, the Digenis Akritas, and first-rate lyric poets such as Theodore Prodromos. It has some characteristic genres, such as bestiaries, volucraries, lapidaries and Byzantine novels (Eustathios Makrembolites: The Loves of Isinia and Ismino; Theodore Prodromos, The Loves of Rodante and Dosicles; Niketas Eugenianos, The Adventures of Drusilla and Charicles; and Constantine Manasses, Adventures of Aristander and Callithea). It was especially prolific in theological (such as, for example, Aeneas of Gaza), Christological and hagiographical writers. The story of Barlaam and Josaphat, spread throughout the West, in which allusions to the life of Buddha are found, had a particular impact on Western literature.

History had eminent representatives, such as Procopius of Caesarea, who was secretary to the celebrated general Belisarius during the reign of Justinian and at the same time a panegyrist of the Emperor in the six books of his Histories and his detractor in the so-called Secret History. In lyric poetry the genre of the epigram stands out, with figures such as Paul the Silentiary and Agathias, the latter an anthologist and historian of the period that followed Justinian. George of Pisidia composed epic poetry and epigrams. There is an interesting travel book by Cosmas Indicopleustes. From the 7th century a historian stands out, Simocatta, who did not reach the importance of Procopius; in this century the poet Romanos the Melodist, author of religious hymns, became famous. Between the 8th and 11th centuries the aforementioned national epic Digenis Acritas was compiled, composed in a semi-learned language; epics were also produced about the deeds of Alexander the Great, and encyclopedias were composed, such as the Suda, not always of unimpeachable accuracy. The most important corpus of Greek epigrammatic poetry that survives, the Palatine Anthology, was compiled in this period. Christianity entered the traditional pagan genre with the work of the monk Theodore the Studite and of the nun poet Kassia. Some emperors devoted themselves to letters, such as Leo VI the Wise, who was a poet, as was his son, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Saint John of Damascus composed theological and polemical treatises in an obscure style; the aforementioned Theodore also wrote on the iconoclast question, as well as ascetic and exegetical works.

In the last period, from the end of the 11th century, there is a large amount of religious polemical literature, but Photius and Michael Psellos also wrote on more varied subjects, and a revival of Greek letters was fostered, a revival that passed to Europe with the dispersal of Byzantine scholars throughout the Italian peninsula after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans. In Italy the study of Greek and Humanism would be reborn, and from there it would pass to the rest of the world. Tzetzes wrote didactic and learned poems. The epigram reached its heights with Christopher of Mytilene or John Mauropous. Novels were written in Greece and bestiaries and lapidaries proliferated, as did chronicles such as the celebrated Chronicle of Morea, which the grand master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Juan Fernández de Heredia, had translated into Medieval Aragonese. The restless and nonconformist poet Theodore Prodromos wrote four satirical poems in the popular language and wrote his Catomyomachia, or the Battle of the Cats against the Mice as an epic parody. There are excellent historians who left testimony of the Crusades, such as the brothers Michael and above all Nicetas Acominatus, Pachymeres, Nikephoros Bryennios or his wife Anna Komnene, imperial princess and author of The Alexiad, a history of her father Alexios I Komnenos. During the era of the Palaiologoi literature went into decline, but afterward philology emerged with force.

Byzantine architecture

Main article: Byzantine architecture

Byzantine architecture is the heir of Roman architecture and Early Christian architecture. It is an essentially religious architecture, although important civil buildings were not lacking. It shows a marked predilection for brick as a building material (though concealed by stone slabs on the exterior and by sumptuous mosaics in the interior). Although it uses the column (the replacement of the abacus by the impost block is notable), its most characteristic innovation is the systematic use of vaulted roofing. The most widely used types of vault are the barrel vault and the groin vault, but above all the dome stands out, with its characteristic base on pendentives (although the dome on squinches was also occasionally used). As for the ground plan, the most frequent in churches is that of the Greek cross, with a dome at the intersection of the naves. It is common for churches, in addition to the main body of the nave, to have an atrium or narthex, of Early Christian origin, and the presbytery preceded by an iconostasis, so called because the painted icons were placed on this openwork screen.

In the history of Byzantine art and architecture three periods or "Golden Ages" are usually distinguished. The First Golden Age has its most representative moment in the time of Justinian, and its most outstanding buildings are the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, the Church of Hagia Irene and, above all, the Church of Hagia Sophia, all of them in Constantinople.

The Second Golden Age coincides with the Macedonian Renaissance (9th, 10th and 11th centuries). The domed central-plan church remains the fundamental model. Churches with a Greek cross plan inscribed in a square are common, with the arms of the cross covered by barrel vaults, and five domes, one in the center and four others at the corners. The prototype was the New Church (Nea) built by Basil I, now vanished. Some notable churches are the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, Saint Catherine of Thessalonica, the cathedral of Athens and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.

The Third Golden Age begins after the recovery of Constantinople in 1261. It is a period of diffusion of Byzantine forms, both toward the North (Russia) and toward the West. The novelties of this period are more decorative than structural. Notable churches include Saint Mary Pammakaristos in Constantinople, the churches of Mount Athos and the group of churches of Mistra, in the Peloponnese.

Sculpture

Main article: Byzantine sculpture

The Byzantine style became defined from the 6th century onward. Previously the late Roman style dominated, even in Constantinople itself, as evidenced by various statues erected throughout the city. Nevertheless, other monuments of the time already initiated the Byzantine taste, such as the Disc of Theodosius in Madrid, which displays in bas-relief the figures of the Emperor and his court (393).

The Byzantine style in sculpture should be considered a derivation of the Roman, under Asian influence. It is characterized, in general, by a certain mannerism, uniformity and rigidity or lack of naturalness in the figures, together with gravity, which usually consists of enamels, imitations of stones and strings of pearls, geometric lines and stylized foliage or foliage devoid of naturalness.

Byzantine art cultivated sculpture in the round very little, but it abounded in reliefs on ivory, silver and bronze and did not entirely abandon the use of cameos and intaglios in fine stones. In reliefs, as in paintings and mosaics, the figures are presented facing forward.

Mosaics

From Roman culture Byzantium inherited decoration by means of mosaics, which reached their greatest splendor with this empire. Mosaics were figures formed by small pieces of colored stone or glass (also called tesserae). They followed strict rules to illustrate passages from the lives of the emperors and religious scenes. The latter covered the walls and ceilings of churches.

From this skill attained with respect to mosaics arose the interest of the glassmakers of Byzantium in the imitation of precious stones, in which they came to achieve such great skill that it was quite difficult to distinguish them from genuine ones.

Painting

Main article: Byzantine painting

Particularly noteworthy are the religious-themed altarpieces known as icons.

Music

Main article: Byzantine music

Byzantine music, normally religious in character, was closely related to Gregorian chant.

Legacy

The Byzantine Empire was a multicultural Empire, which was born as Christian and heir to the Roman tradition, comprising the area of the East, and which disappeared in 1453 as a Greek Orthodox kingdom. The British writer Robert Byron described it as the result of a triple fusion: a Roman body, a Greek mind and an Oriental soul.

Byzantium was the only stable power in the Middle Ages. Its influence served as a stabilizing factor in Europe, acting as a barrier against the pressure of the conquests of the Muslim armies and as a link to the classical past and its ancient legitimacy.

The fall of the Empire was traumatic, so much so that for a long time 1453 was considered the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The Ottoman conqueror, Mehmed II, and his successors considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the Byzantine emperors until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the role of the Byzantine Emperor as head of Eastern Orthodoxy was claimed by the grand dukes of Moscow, beginning with Ivan III. His grandson Ivan IV the Terrible would become the first tsar of Russia (the title of tsar comes from the Latin caesar, 'caesar'). His successors supported the idea that Moscow was the legitimate heir of Rome and Constantinople, the Third Rome — an idea maintained by the Russian Empire until its own end at the beginning of the 20th century.

From the commercial point of view, Byzantium was the starting point of the Silk Road, the economic axis that linked Europe with the Orient, importing luxury goods such as silk and spices. The interruption of this route as a result of the disappearance of the Byzantine Empire prompted the search for new trade routes, with Spaniards and Portuguese reaching America and Africa in search of alternative routes. The Portuguese, who finished the Reconquista earlier and had the necessary resources in advance, created an Atlantic empire that made it possible to reach India by circumnavigating Africa. The Spaniards, later, would sponsor Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors, who would bring about the creation of an empire that would transform Spain into the leading world power.

Byzantium played an invaluable role in the preservation of classical texts, both in the Islamic world and in Western Europe, where it would be key for the Renaissance. Its historiographical tradition was a source of information about the achievements of the classical world. So much so that it is believed that the cultural, economic and scientific revival of the 15th century would not have been possible without the foundations laid in Byzantine Greece.

The influence of Byzantium on matters such as theology would be vital for European thinkers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Likewise, it should be mentioned that the Empire was key in the spread of Christianity, which would define Europe for centuries. Of the four largest centers of this religion, three (Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople) were located in its territory, and until the Eastern Schism occurred it was its greatest spiritual center. It was also responsible for the evangelization of the Slavic peoples, thanks to missionaries as celebrated as Cyril and Methodius, who evangelized the Slavic peoples and developed a writing system that is still used today in many countries, the Cyrillic alphabet. Finally, its influence on the Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian Churches is notable.

See also

• Byzantium
• Timeline of the Byzantine Empire
• Roman Empire
• Western Roman Empire
• Titles and offices of the Byzantine Empire
• Byzantine emperors
• Roman–Sasanian wars
• Ottoman–Byzantine wars
• Arab–Byzantine wars
• Empire of Nicaea
• Empire of Trebizond
• Despotate of Epirus
• Duchy of Athens
• Duchy of Neopatras
• Fall of Constantinople
• Ottoman Empire
• Byzantine dress
• Cuisine of the Byzantine Empire

Bibliography

In Spanish

General histories

• CABRERA, Emilio: Historia de Bizancio. Editorial Ariel, 1998. ISBN 84-344-6599-X.
• NORWICH, John Julius: Breve historia de Bizancio. Editorial Cátedra, 2000. ISBN 84-376-1819-3.
• OSTROGORSKY, Georg: Historia del Estado Bizantino. Editorial Akal, 1983 (original German title: Die Geschichte des bizantinischen Staates, 1963). ISBN 84-7339-690-1.
• TREADGOLD, Warren: Breve historia de Bizancio. Editorial Paidós, 2001 (original English title: A concise history of Byzantium). ISBN 84-493-1110-1.

The Byzantine world

• BRAVO GARCÍA, A.; SIGNES CODOÑER, J.; RUBIO GÓMEZ, E.: El imperio bizantino: historia y civilización: coordenadas bibliográficas. Ediciones Clásicas. Madrid, 2001. ISBN 84-7882-195-3.
• BAYNES, Norman H.: El Imperio bizantino. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1996 (seventh reprint). ISBN 968-16-0720-1.
• CHRYSOS, Evangelos: El imperio bizantino, 565–1025 (Enciclopedia del Mediterráneo, 21). Editorial Icaria, 2005. ISBN 84-7426-755-2.
• WALKER, Joseph M.: Historia de Bizancio. Madrid, Edimat, 2005. ISBN 84-9764-502-2.

Popular works

• ASIMOV, Isaac: Constantinopla. Alianza Editorial, 1982 (original English title: Constantinople — The Forgotten Empire, 1970). ISBN 84-206-1886-1.
• ZWEIG, Stefan: Momentos estelares de la humanidad, ed. Acantilado, Barcelona (2002). ISBN 84-95359-92-8.

In other languages

• AHRWEILER, Hélène: L'idéologie politique de l'Empire byzantin, Paris 1975.
• AHRWEILER, Hélène: Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, Harvard University Press, 1998.
• LEFORT, Jacques: Géométries du fisc byzantin, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-283-60454-0.
• LEFORT, Jacques: Les villages dans l'Empire byzantin, IVe – Xve siècle, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-283-60461-3.
• LILIE, Ralph-Johannes: Byzanz und die Kreuzzüge, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-17-017033-3.
• GIANNOPULOS, Panagiotes A.: La société profane dans l'empire byzantin des VIIe, VIIIe et IXe siècles, Univ., Publ. de Louvain, 1975
• NORWICH, John J.: Byzantium (3 volumes), Viking, 1991.
• TREADGOLD, Warren: A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, 1997.

External links

• Atlas of the Roman Empire

In Spanish

• Historia del Imperio bizantino by A. A. Vasiliev, volume I (324–1081)
• Historia del Imperio bizantino by A. A. Vasiliev, volume II (1081–1453)
• Plate on Byzantine art.

In French

• Cantacuzene: History of the Emperors Andronikos.
  • Bilingual Greek–French text, with electronic index, on the site of Philippe Remacle (1944–2011).

In English

• Byzantium: studies on Byzantium on the Internet
• "What is a Byzantine?" by Prof. Clifton R. Fox
• "Twelve Byzantine leaders", by Lars Brownworth
• Rome and Romania, 27 BC–1453 AD, an extensive page with abundant maps and family trees.