The Byzantine Empire

In the centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, three different civilizations developed in the region of the former Roman Empire, which were all shaped and influenced by the classical legacy of Greece and Rome - The Greek Byzantine Empire and the Arabic Islamic states in the former region of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Germanic kingdoms in the former Western Roman Empire. Modern historians have used the term "Byzantine" to describe the empire that emerged from the ruins of the Eastern Roman Empire since at the center of this empire was the great city of Constantinople, which Constantine founded over the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. Greek was the predominant language spoken in this empire throughout its history, even though the people within it referred to themselves as "Romans".

The Eastern Roman Empire survived the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century CE due largely to its geographical location. The city of Constantinople was well fortified and virtually impregnable, so that the city shielded the rich provinces of Asia Minor from invaders from beyond the Danube River, approaching Asia Minor through the Balkans. The Eastern Roman Empire could therefore draw from the resources of these provinces to defend itself. The Eastern Roman Empire also bordered the Sassanid Persian Empire on the east. Roman emperors could therefore negotiate with this one empire to secure peace, unlike Roman emperors in the Western Roman Empire, who had to deal with a host of Germanic chieftains and their warriors. Another factor in the survival of the Roman Empire in the East was its recruitment of loyal troops from within the empire. Instead of relying on untrustworthy German mercenaries from outside the empire, as did the Western Roman Empire in its closing days, the emperor Leo I (457-471 CE) dispensed with German mercenaries and recruited Isaurians from the mountainous region of southeast Asia Minor to serve in his armies.

The most influential Byzantine Emperor was Justinian I (527 - 565). His uncle Justin (518-527) was an illiterate peasant from Illyria who had risen up the ranks of the army to become emperor. Justin made sure that his nephew and successor Justinian received a suitable education to prepare him to become emperor. Justinian desired to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory under one emperor, one church and one law. Justinian was largely unsuccessful in this quest with one exception. He did succeed in codifying Roman law into the Justinian Code. Justinian spoke Latin and this code was written both in Latin and Greek. Consequently this code was studied in Western Europe where Latin survived as a language of the church and scholarship. Due to the Justinian Code, Roman law strongly influenced the development of legal systems all across Europe.

Justinian was less successful in uniting the Christian Church and restoring the Roman Empire. In 451 at the Church Council at Chalcedon the Bishops gathered there rejected the doctrines of the Monophysites ("one nature") as heretical. Monophysite Christians maintained that Jesus possessed one divine nature. Jesus was simply God with a human body. At this conference the Bishops affirmed as orthodox the doctrine that Jesus was God, but that he also possessed a human soul along with his human body. Emperors after this council officially supported the Orthodox Church, but they didn't prevent new Monophysite churches from springing up across the empire. Justinian, however, was intent on shutting down these Monophysite churches as well as all churches other than the one Orthodox Church, even though his wife Theodora was a Monophysite Christian. This policy alienated large areas of the Empire where Monophysite churches were popular. In the countryside of Egypt, the Monophysite Christians there were in open revolt against the Empire by the end of Justinian's reign. Later in the seventh century , when Egypt was invaded by Arabs, the Egyptian peasants welcomed the Arabs as liberators due to this persecution of their churches. So that Egyptians peasants could read Holy Scripture in their own language,the Monophysite Church in Egypt developed a written script, Coptic, for the native Egyptian language, which employed modified Greek letters and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The Coptic Church in Egypt today is descended from this Monophysite church.

Justinian also sent his armies to North Africa (modern Tunisia) against the Vandal Kingdom and to Italy against the Ostrogoth Kingdom to reclaim these areas for the Roman Empire. At the close of the fifth century CE, Theodoric and his Ostrogoth warriors (East Goths) had invaded from the Balkans and conquered Italy. Justinian's army quickly overthrew the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. However, his armies only destroyed the Ostrogoth Kingdom in Italy after decades of warfare. These wars brought death and destruction to Italy. Under Theodoric and his successors, Italy had enjoyed peace and prosperity under Ostrogoth rule. After these wars Italy was exhausted and open to another invasion at the close of the sixth century by a different Germanic tribe, the Lombards, who settled in Northern Italy and gave their name to the region (Lombardy).

Justinian's constant wars to restore the Roman Empire exhausted the state treasury and overstretched the resources of the army. In the late sixth century and early seventh century, the Byzantine Empire in this weakened state almost collapsed under the weight of a new wave of invasions. The Avars a nomadic people originally from Central Asia, crossed the Danube River and raided the Balkans along with the Slavs, who may have originally inhabited the Carpathian Mountains located today in northern Romania and southern Poland. Meanwhile the armies of Sassanid Persia occupied Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. At this time of crisis, the emperor Heraclius (610-641), whose family was native to North Africa, rose to the challenge and drove the Avars and the Slavs back to the Danube. He also defeated the Persians and sacked the Persian capital city of Ctesiphon in central Mesopotamia. Toward the end of his reign, the empire faced a new enemy as Arab armies occupied Syria and Egypt in 635 and 641. These provinces were permanently lost to the empire.

By 717 Arab armies had occupied Asia Minor and were besieging Constantinople itself. Under the leadership of emperor Leo III the Byzantine army and fleet successfully ended this siege thanks to their use of a secret weapon, Greek Fire, which allowed the Byzantine navy to hurl flames at Arab ships, like a modern flame-thrower. Leo III founded the Isaurian Dynasty of emperors (717-802), and under these emperors Byzantine armies drove back the Arabs and reoccupied Asia Minor. The Byzantine Empire of the eighth century was very different than the empire of Justinian. First, it was much smaller, consisting of primarily Greece and Asia Minor. Second, Greek, not Latin was the language of the government, the church, and the majority of the population. Third, years of warfare had destroyed all large cities in the empire with the exception of Constantinople. In addition, Byzantine emperors beginning with Heraclius had reconstructed the imperial bureaucracy. The Empire was divided into military districts (Themes), each under the command of a governor appointed by the emperor. In each of these districts, emperors provided land to soldiers in return for serving as the local militia. Emperors even settled soldiers as farmers in these districts who were from outside the empire such as Armenians, Slavs, and even Arabs. The Greek epic poem, Digenes Akritas, was composed and sung originally in the eighth century and tells the tale of a great warrior with an Arab father who fights for the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire experienced peace and prosperity under the Macedonian Dynasty of emperors (867-1056). Over this period, the Arab threat from the east subsided, but the Byzantine Empire faced new enemies from the north, the Bulgars and the Rus. The Bulgars were a Turkish tribe from the steppes of Central Asia. By the eighth century, they had migrated westward and settled among Slavic peoples just south of the Danube River in Eastern Europe in Bulgaria (Bulgarian is a Slavic language). The Rus were Varangians or Vikings from Scandinavia, who by the ninth century had sailed down from the Baltic Sea along such rivers as the Dniester, the Bug, and the Volga and settled among the Slavic peoples who lived in these river valleys in an area that became known as Russia (Russian is a Slavic language). The emperor Basil II (976-1025) neutralized successfully these threats. Basil II made an alliance with the Rus chieftain, Vladimir of Kiev in 987, who agreed to convert to Christianity. Afterwards Byzantine armies, now allied with the Rus, attacked and defeated the Bulgarians. Basil II became known as the "Bulgar-Slayer".

Under the Macedonian Dynasty, the Byzantine government neglected its military. The government allowed large landowners to seize the lands of farmers who had made up the local militias of the military districts. Consequently the size and effectiveness of these militias declined. The Byzantine Empire therefore relied for its defense on untrustworthy foreign mercenaries such as Vikings from Scandinavia. This policy proved disastrous in 1071 when the empire faced an invasion from Sejuk Turks. At the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the professional soldiers proved unreliable and the Seljuk Turks won the battle. Afterwards, these Turks from the steppes of Central Asia occupied most of Asia Minor (Turkey). After 1071, the Byzantine Empire was limited to the city of Constantinople and Greece. This "empire" however endured for nearly another four centuries. In 1453 another group of Turks, the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople and finally brought this empire to an end.

Byzantine civilization had a long and powerful influence on surrounding cultures whether they be Franks to the west, Arabs to the east and south, or Bulgarians and Russians to the north. The political system in the Byzantine Empire inherited the Dominate from the Late Roman Empire as its system of government. The emperor received his authority to govern from the Christian God. The emperor served as the head of state, but also as the head of the Orthodox Church; he appointed governors and military commanders as well as Bishops. Historians refer to to this political arrangement as Caesaropapism since the Byzantine emperor was the Caesar as ruler of the state, but also the Pope, as the head of the Church. In theory, the emperor was a autocrat since he was all powerful in the state. but in practice there were limits to the emperor's power. The Emperor Leo III and his successors in the Isaurian Dynasty in the eighth century wanted to end the practice of venerating icons. Icons were painted images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints or holy men that were venerated especially by monks in the Byzantine Empire since they believed that meditating on these images would result in a elevated spiritual state. These Iconoclast ("Icon attackers") emperors maintained that venerating icons was idolatry and an offense against God. Monasteries however were not under the authority of the emperor as were bishops, and the monks refused to surrender their icons. Eventually the Byzantine state relented, and a Church Council at Nicaea in 787 decided that venerating icons was a godly spiritual practice.

Byzantine civilization influenced surrounding cultures through the Orthodox Church since this church and the Byzantine state sent missionaries to convert neighboring peoples to Christianity. Through these efforts, Boris the king of Bulgaria in 864, and Vladimir of Kiev in 987 converted to Christianity. When these kings and their subjects converted, they not only adopted the Christian faith of the Orthodox Church, but also Byzantine law and government as well as Byzantine art and literature. Byzantine missionaries also invented a script for the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe so that they could read the Bible in their native language. In the ninth century two of these missionaries, the monks, Cyril and Methodius , traveled to Moravia (modern Czech Republic) to preach the Gospel. Together they adapted Greek letters for the Slavic language and created the Cyrillic alphabet. Afterwards Slavic peoples who converted to the faith of the Orthodox Church, such as the Serbians and the Russians, adopted the Cyrillic alphabet to write their language.

Both the Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church that emerged in western and central Europe believed in the Nicene Creed or statement of faith that was issued by the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, but over the centuries the two churches were different in their practices. The Nicene Creed in the Roman Catholic Church was slightly different. The church service in the Roman Catholic Church was in Latin whereas it was in the vernacular or local language (usually Greek) in the Orthodox Church. In the Roman Catholic Church, all clergy practiced celibacy, whereas in the Orthodox Church celibacy was only expected of monks and bishops. The greatest difference after 1000 was in their organization. The Pope or Bishop of Rome claimed to be the one and only spiritual leader of all Christians, whereas the Patriarch or Bishop of Constantinople maintained that bishops were coequal leaders of Christians. In 1054 the Pope and the Patriarch excommunicated or banned each other from the church, resulting in a schism or break between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. This schism impacted European cultures since cultures that followed one church over the other tended to work together and distrust the followers of the other church. For example Russians with their Orthodox Church historically have viewed themselves as separate from Roman Catholic Western Europe. In the Balkans Croats converted to the Roman Catholic faith in the ninth century and adopted the Roman alphabet. Around the same time, the Serbs converted to the Orthodox faith and adopted the Cyrillic alphabet. Even though Serbs and Croats both speak the same Slavic language and are geographically neighbors, the two peoples have hated and distrusted each other. As late as the 1990's ethnic conflict between Serbs and Croats claimed thousands of lives.

Another important legacy of Byzantine civilization was the preservation of works by ancient Greek authors. In the Byzantine Empire both government and church officials were expected to be knowledgeable of the classic works of ancient Greek poets, historians, and philosophers. Byzantine scholars not only collected and copied these works and preserved them, but they also wrote commentaries on these works. The Greek spoken in the days of the Byzantine Empire was very different from the Greek spoken centuries earlier by Plato or Homer. Byzantine scholars prepared commentaries and lexicons (dictionaries) so that readers of their day could understand and appreciate these classic works. Eustathius of Thessaloniki (around 1150) in northern Greece was a bishop and a scholar who prepared commentaries of the works of Homer. His contemporary, John Tzetzes, was a government official and teacher in Constantinople who also prepared such commentaries on Homer and other ancient Greek poets. When the Ottoman Turks were threatening Constantinople in the 15th century, many of these scholars fled the Byzantine Empire and settled in Italy, bringing their Greek manuscripts with them. Historians see the arrival of these scholars as one of the sparks of the Italian Renaissance.