The Roman Empire was a state founded on the Italian Peninsula and rose with astonishing speed to control the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Established and initially ruled by the Latin peoples of Rome, it was the greatest empire of the ancient world. Rome grew from being founded as a single city-state in about 753 BC to controlling an entire region (Italy) by 264 BC. This early success encouraged the outside attacks of rival powers. This struggle to maintain its independence saw Rome’s early armies developed and trained. After victory over Carthage in the 3rd century BC, Rome turned its attention to further expansion, gradually conquering Spain, Gaul, Greece, Asia Minor, North Africa, Switzerland, and parts of Germany and the British Isles. By 27 BC, it controlled almost the entire Mediterranean Basin [1].
1. Introduction to the Roman Empire and its Peak
The Empire was at its peak in AD 117, under the emperor Trajan, ruling around 70 million people in western Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. This represented about a quarter of the world’s population at the time. The Empire brought peace and unity across vast regions. The establishment of the Pax Romana allowed trade to flourish. With the construction of roads, seaports, and bridges linking cities across countries, wealth spread from provincial capitals to Rome and to each other. Facilities and infrastructure built by the empire’s engineers remained little changed for 2000 years.
2. Internal Factors Leading to the Decline of the Roman Empire
A vast number of peoples were assimilated into the Roman Empire and became collectively known as the “Roman Nation.” At the height of Roman power in the mid-second century A.D. in the period of the Antonines, the Empire was, in territorial extent, about equal to the marital renown of Louis XIV of France. Its economic powers, under the Pax Romana, were unchallenged by international rival or competitor. Its cultural influence reached to the margins of Germany, the forested wastes of Scotland, and the deserts of North Africa. However, the fifth century witnessed a fundamental redirection of power in Europe. The disappearance of the Roman Empire was an epochal event in world history, perhaps the first great turning point of record.
There is a consensus today that, by the fifth century A.D., Rome was an empire in troubles. Many of the causes of decline were exterior to the Empire. Barbarian invasions transformed itself into a backstage world; by the years 410 and 476, the Empire had succumbed to repeated incursions of Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths, the last overthrowing the emperor and ruling in his place. Examination of the empire’s condition at the end of the fourth century, however, uncovers a wealth of internal factors that contributed to the success of the barbarian attacks, enabling them to succeed where the Pagans’ attempts had failed a century before. What were these factors? There were many ills infesting the body polity it had to battle with before it came even to contend with the barbarians: political instability and corruption, economic challenges, social decay to name but a few. In many respects these maladies work to the disadvantage of the Empire. Before the very real wars and external pressures and invasions could even be considered, it was necessary to delve into the complexities within, these increasingly hampered the Empire’s ability to operate effectively even before outside onslaught began, finally setting the stage for the outside to take advantage of this internal turmoil.
2.1. Political Instability and Corruption
Political instability and corruption contributed to the decay of the once-mighty Roman Empire. Rome was a markedly expansionistic polity, acquiring empire treasures and attendant slaves through military conquest. Nevertheless, after A.D. 9, that expansionism ceased, as the availability of skilled inhabitants to conquer and assimilate into the Empire reduced [2]. Although the causes of that decline have been much debated since antiquity, a synthesis of both manpower and taxation arguments is proposed here, with particular emphasis on the ways both the political means of expansion and Rome’s external geography adapted poorly to the markedly changing style of warfare following the German conquests of Central Europe.
Rome’s means of expansion did not adapt well to the changes in its external geography and the concomitant changes in styles of warfare. The means by which that expansion occurred were similar in the Republic and Empire. In essence, Rome obtained dominion over states or territories employing a strategy well described by the sociologist Charles Tilly. First, Rome induced the state in question to enter any one of a number of alliances. Next, if cooperation with the terms of that alliance was not forthcoming, Rome militarily conquered the state in question. Once conquered, the state was compelled to become a client ally (foederatus) and its resources (especially manpower and treasure) heavily exploited. Such a summary generally understates the ingenuity of Roman statecraft and the considerable liberties subsequently permitted to well-behaved client states. At the Empire’s height ca. A.D 117, it covered 2,000,000 square miles with about 60,000,000 (at least 4,000 cities) inhabitants. That civilization was characteristically urban, with the city as the natural and indispensable center of the political, artistic, and daily economic life of the citizen. The native economy was competitively industrial and agricultural. From one perspective, the ancient economy can be described as a quasi-socialist economic system.
2.2. Economic Decline and Overreliance on Slavery
A combination of factors contributed to the economic decline of the Empire of Rome. Speaking generally, there was an effective population decline. Commodities and talent seemed to be drained away from regions within the Empire and rerouted to regions outside of the Empire. This was especially true of the Europeans within the Empire. When summering the environmental circumstances, it can be said that the Empire of Rome was like a failing farm being drained of its lifeblood. With the decline in resources, the sustainability of the Empire was jeopardized [2].
More specifically, all evidence suggests that reliance upon conquered peoples and, ironically, barbaric nations for man-power was a key factor in the overextension of the Empire of Rome. At its peak, the Empire of Rome employed and abused a vast number of slaves. In these terms, the system was booming. The key to Rome’s fundamental success resided in its ability to supply artificially low human labor prices in the form of an abundance of concentration camp-like conditions of the particular conquered peoples. The more individuals that became slaves bred a cyclical self-perpetuating conditionality–the more slaves equated to vices such as gluttony, and drunkenness on the part of those ruling them. Furthermore, the more slaves bred a costly system with the construction of lavish living conditions for some of the slave owners and millions of parties and games. However, even this can be seen as a distinct trigger of decline. The existence of so many slaves steered the course of civilization in such a fashion that would only bring about ruin.
2.3. Social Decay and Decline in Civic Virtue
Focusing on the social aspects of the empire, there were two main facets or attributes of society that underwent a significant decline which would create very serious social problems for the empire. These two matters are civic virtue or the political awareness, interest, and commitment of the citizenry and related to this, the willingness of the citizenry to defend the empire’s territory from foreign invasion.
Nothing illustrates the decline in civic virtue better than the so-called change in the composition of the Roman army. The Roman army was a citizen army. Legionnaires were required to have a certain amount of property. The first effort to increase the size of the army by considering the poor population occurred during the late Republic, and this only exacerbated social tensions. It was during the 2nd c. AD that the military was opened to all free members of the population, and by the early 3rd c. AD, soldiers were no longer even required to serve beyond the Praetorian Guard. After the blaze at the Circus Maximus, Tacitus narrated how with “great effects the emperor removed the fire to the pleasures of the circus, and, surrounded by a multitude of common men, horsemen, and gladiators, he gave games” [2]. Instead of trying to narrow the gulf between the local aristocracy and the townspeople, he reinforced the division by bringing the emperor down to the level of the commonest sort of men. The incident, which must have been a common spectacle, indicates how far the political interest of the population had decayed. To the free towns of Italy were given commissions to form a new militia under their own prefects, and to share the expenses of keeping it with the imperial treasury.
3. External Pressures and Invasions
Along with economic troubles and overreliance on slave labor, the Roman Empire faced external pressures that it could not manage. Frequently, barbarian peoples would invade, and at times sail across the Mediterranean to attack the empire’s coastal cities. In times of stress, the empire would offer bribes to keep allies allied, and fights with rivals would be fought to a stalemate at the very worst, but on occasion, those deals would fail. Over the course of two hundred years from 250 onward, these attacks would become commonplace, with cities being sacked or destroyed. These invasions would become more extensive in the later third century. In the heartland of the empire, cities destroyed around 250, like Carthage and Alexandria, would remain permanently ruined. In the provinces, the effects would be catastrophic, especially in Gaul, which had suffered from raids since the early third century. [2] Entire regions would be depopulated, while the Roman economy would plummet from an age of wealth to one of poverty.
Throughout the empire lands on the Danube were ravaged and the focus of hundreds of invasions by various barbarians from the North, and in Egypt, lands to the South were laid waste twice by Nubian invasions. In Gaul lands across an area stretching from the lower Rhine to the Pyrenees were ravaged at least four times, and in all occasions with the bulk of the Roman military empire being at hand, while in Italy itself, following the sacking of the city by the Gauls some 218 years earlier, it was assailed by the West Goths and Alans in 410, an event that left most of central and southern Italy in ruins [3]. Events of this nature left Rome unable to defend itself other than through increasingly barbarous mercenaries.
3.1. Barbarian Invasions and Military Challenges
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late fifth century, a new society took form in its remnants, developing vastly different characteristics from classical Roman civilization. The newly emerging societies from the ruins of the Empire would dominate the fate of European civilization for the next millennium. The development and rise of that new society were influenced by many factors, both internal and external, and the following discussion will focus specifically on the barbarian invasions and military challenges [2]. After establishing their own kingdoms, the barbarians continued to threaten and even conquer some remaining parts of the Roman Empire.
At the time of the inauguration of Nero as Emperor of Rome in 54 AD, Rome dominated the Mediterranean basin and the lands touching upon it, stretching from the valley of the Euphrates in the East to the coasts of modern Spain and Morocco in the West. In addition to lands further afield, the Empire ruled around 60 million subjects, the vast majority of whom lived in conditions of slavery, taking no part in public life. In the years following Nero’s death in 68 AD, the Empire was torn apart by a civil war during which four men (one of whom was succeeded for only three months) were proclaimed Emperor and killed, two under their fellow commander Servius Sulpicius Galba as himself took power in blood. The Empire would eventually rise from those bloody events under the grasp of one of its greatest Emperors, Augustus.
3.2. The Sack of Rome by the Visigoths
In AD 410, Rome was sacked by the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe led by their king Alaric. Alaric had previously served as a commander in the Roman army, but after a series of failed negotiations with the emperor, he rebelled and invaded Italy. The sack of Rome was a profound shock to the inhabitants of the empire, particularly to the upper class, as it was a brutal, but relatively moderate rule. Alaric allowed the population to leave the city, and only churches were spared destruction [4].
This event is a clear symptom of the empire’s weakening power and shrinking influence. After the sack, Rome had shrunk to a small city of impoverished palaces and churches, a mere shadow of its former glory, and the capital of the empire was moved to Ravenna. Eventually, the Visigoths wanted permanent land of their own within the empire, leading to the establishment of a Visigothic kingdom in southern Gaul and Iberia.
4. The Division of the Roman Empire
The long decline of the Roman Empire in the West set in motion a series of events that culminated in the formation of a new empire, the Byzantine Empire, in the East. The process that began with civil wars and barbarian invasions developed over the course of three centuries. The division of the empire in two halves, the West and the East, by Diocletian marked the crucial turning point that allowed for the survival and continuation of the fallen empire in the West into Byzantium in the East.
The Roman Empire spanned Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East during its height. However, in the 200s AD, it began to be challenged and attacked by a series of external foes. Invasions by Germanic tribes in the West and the Sassanid Empire in the East, coupled with increasing internal strife, corruption, and economic mismanagement, brought the empire to the brink of collapse. Having shared similar fates as its predecessors, the Julio-Claudian, the Four Good Emperors, and the Severan dynasties, a new dynasty appeared in 284 AD. Its founder, General Diocletian, reorganized the empire from the ground up and ruled uncompromisingly. His reforms proved crucial in the continued existence of the empire but ultimately were not able to fully stave off its decline.
In 293 AD, after sweeping reforms during the previous decade, Diocletian announced the establishment of the Tetrarchy, or “rule of four”. The division of power among four rulers was intended to curb the usurpation of hapless emperors and ensure that at all times at least one emperor was able to fight back a foe. Additionally, it sought to deal with a similar lack of administrative control both in Europe and Asia Minor. The empire’s vast extent proved unmanageable by a single ruler, and Diocletian had previously made significant territorial rearrangements of the provinces to better fit the situation. All provinces were divided into smaller units under the control of a new office, the Vicarius, forming 12 dioceses and thus creating a hierarchical administrative structure similar to that in the Church. These new divisions were undeniably effective in closing the gap between the emperor and the provinces, but they also weakened the authority of the Senate and local aristocracies.
4.1. The Tetrarchy and Diocletian’s Reforms
In 284, a Roman officer named Diocletian was elevated to the purple by the officers of the army stationed in the province of Moesia [5]. An apparent and willing conspirator in the overthrow of Carinus, the son of Carus and, for that reason, emperor since 283, he proved to be a vigorous and able soldier. He had risen from the ranks and as far as background could be judged, was a typical officer of the low kind who had built up a career under the army policy of the emperors of the third century. But whatever were his personal qualifications and the institutional defects that had made possible the promotion of a low soldier to the imperial dignity, Diocletian rose to the occasion and devoted all of his concern, creativity, and energy to effecting a thorough reorganization of the empire, in view of his perception of its needs and his own ideas as to how these needs should be satisfied. His work in this effort, not all of which was intended for and some of which failed, did, however, significantly improve the situation of the state and the whole population.
The first thing to be done, as Diocletian perceived it, was to put an end to civil strife and recover the provinces in the hands of usurpers. To this end, a display of strength calculated to intimidate the enemies of the state was arranged through parades of army units in the streets of cities and large gatherings of troops, arms, and horses in their forum. The display of military might was dramatic although the problems would hardly be solved without further orders. The restoration of unity was to be followed by partitioning the powers and the territories of the empire with colleagues in authority, a decision similar to that of Augustus after Actium and of the four emperors before the civil wars begun by Nero. The safety of the empire was thought to be best assured from disintegration and civil strife through this internal structural reorganization of office and authority. It cannot be doubted that this partitioning was partly prompted by considerations of the emperor’s personal safety and was indeed the outbreak of an internal fight for power between colleagues who soon turned into rivals and aimed at each other’s downfall.
5. The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
In 476, in response to the secession of the Mediterranean Sea provinces from the West, Roman Emperor Julius Nepos installed a general named Odoacer to command the forces stationed in Italy. Odoacer enjoyed a clever ascendancy and removed Nepos from power within the same year, forcing him to flee to Dalmatia (modern Croatia). Odoacer then declared himself King of Italy and quickly moved against the Western Empire’s nominal ruler in Sicily, the last remaining part of the Empire still loyal to Nepos’s authority. Napus dispatched a young military commander, the Vandal general and nephew of general Aspar, Flavius Basiliscus, to defeat Odoacer, but he failed [6]. In 480, Nepos was assassinated in Dalmatia by his own soldiers, and Odoacer turned against the pawn he had once installed on the throne, the naive Romulus Augustulus, whose deposition by Odoacer on September 4, 476 marks the conventional date for the end of the Western Empire.
Odoacer sent Romulus’s imperial regalia to the Eastern Emperor Zeno so that he might receive recognition for his conquest, declaring in his letter: “I have taken possession of the city and the Empire which the most noble [Western] Senate, at the instance of your Serene Highness, had intrusted to an infant, a boy of fourteen years, without experience in affairs, and ill-suited to rule a great Empire…. I restore the Republic; let there be one Emperor for both parts of the Empire.” In taking the throne and adopting a title without the Emperor’s sanction, Odoacer, like his contemporary general, Ricimer, had clearly intended to become the true Western Emperor in his own right. Zeno, however, sought to avoid the greater danger of a barbarian warlord with imperial aspirations, and instead appointed Odoacer as patrician, duke, and governor of Italy, and restored Roman sovereignty. This cunning move, while honoring the Senate and the Western aristocracy, brought about a dramatic and historical change: there was to be no more Western Emperor, and the Western Empire as an autonomous state in its own right ceased to exist. Its provinces were all made subordinate to the Eastern Empire, and its local senatorial aristocracy became the pawns of a hereditary barbarian kingship under Odoacer.
5.1. The Deposition of Romulus Augustulus and the End of the Western Empire
In September of 476, a teenage boy named Romulus Augustulus was deposed as emperor of the Western Roman Empire. His reign lasted less than a year. Romulus was exiled in Campania and disappeared from history, along with the Western Roman Empire. The final act of a thirteen-year-old boy whose job was little more than to serve as a figurehead was also the end of a great empire and of an age, both of which had endured for a thousand years. He was the last of a succession of emperors, most of them usurpers or puppet rulers installed by their powerful generals and servants. Five years prior to Romulus, the greatest of the Western Emperors since the death of Theodosius I had been overthrown. Flavius Orestes, whose name confirms his desire to restore the fortunes of the empire, had once been a general in the service of Attila the Hun, then a senator at court in Constantinople. Orestes was a commander of high reputation. In 475, aided by the Germanic chieftains, he overthrew the young emperor Julius Nepos and established his own son, the adolescent Romulus Augustulus, on the throne.
This deposition severed the last link between the two halves of the empire. During the first decade of his reign, Orestes had been heavily reliant on an army of foederati consisting primarily of Herulians, who had settled in Italy the year before. The West, desperate for troops, had been forced to grant them land. When Orestes refused their demand for a large sum of land, they revolted under their leader, the chieftain Odoacer and marched on Rome. Orestes went to plead with them for mercy but was taken prisoner. The soldiers paraded him through the streets, then executed him on the other side of the city. Romulus then went on the street, dressed as a schoolboy and bearing a barbaric yoke named ‘The child of the Fates’. Afterwards, he was sent into exile in Campania with a generous pension. The four-hundred year long history of the Western Empire concluded with this obscure event. It is remarkable how little we know about it. The contemporary chroniclers did not shed light on the event in any detail.
The security of the Roman Empire had depended on the careful management of tribal groups living in the wastelands between it and the barbarians. Many groups were forced, one at a time, to submit to Rome and take on the burden of a treaty which sought to manage inter-tribal warfare and prevent attack on Roman territory. This treaty could easily become a burdensome pledge. The imperatives of tribal leadership were brutal and compelling: the pressure to raid, to steal, to acquire wealth, would test the dignity and authority of any barbarian chieftain entering into a treaty with Rome. The Romans always preferred to make treaties with tribes which were too powerful to be easily subjugated. Banded together, they could be useful allies and mercenaries. At the same time, tribes which effectively signed treaties became clients of Rome and under obligation to forsake the plunder.
6. The Survival of the Eastern Roman Empire
The Fall of Rome in 476 did not signify the demise of the Roman Empire. The Imperial Palace in Constantinople continued to function as it had before. For the tenacious Mosaics of Jonh VI Kantakouzenos and other emperors it would have been useless to have mosaics of emperors who were subjects of the Pope King of the Franks. The Mediterranean remained a “Roman” lake in which the Byzantine (“Greek”) Empire maintained tranquility and secured peace from the incursions of Berber pirates to the west and Slavs, Avars and Arabs to the east in exchange for a tribute received. Thus, the provinces of North Africa, Spain and Italy populated by Romans, Carthaginians, Greeks and Numidians became Hispanic and later Latin speaking while the provinces of Lyonn, Orleans and Provence became fully Greek in language. The fall of the Western Empire faded thus “the memory of the Roman Power” even before its fall. Unlike the West which saw the obliteration of all traces of ancient civilization, towns, aqueducts, orphanages, pre-Imperial Latin was transformed beyond recognition in the Southern Gaul Baronies ruled by simple vassals of the counts of Paris, that stormed them when considered “enemies of the State”, the Eastern Empire continued to be the continuation of the “Imperial City”. Henceforth, the remnants of the province of Asia did not fall under the control of barbaric kings as in the West but were conquered by a fellow Christian state – the Pagan Turks. The death of an Emperor and the transfer of power to a kinsman would be as usual in the East. The situation notwithstanding was complex and demanded statesmanship on the imperial level as the integrity of Empire, cities, diocese and jurisdiction was jeopardized by the break-up of areas into separate kingdoms ruled by petty barbaric chieftains. By wars waged over centuries, Byzantium lost to the hands of Osman I’s heirs Syria, Palestine, and most towns of Asia Minor. Nonetheless, Constantinople restored this territory and before the great plague was capable of maintaining an Empire up to the commendation of Alexander the Great. The grandiosity of the Empire would hardly resonate with the townsmen populating the Hellenistic Kingdoms [7].
6.1. Constantinople as the New Capital
In the year 324, Constantine the Great, before being vigorously persuaded to adopt Christianity, planned to build a new capital for the Empire. A multitude of cities were considered for relocation, but eventually, in November of that same year, Constantine formally elected the city of Byzantium on the Bosporus as the new capital of the Empire. The Roman city was situated where the European continent meets the Asian continent and increased the surface of the settlement, thus reshaping a pole of economic and strategic importance in the Roman Empire that offered an important number of advantages [8]. The geographical position of the city at the intersection of the main north-south (Danube-Mediterranean) and west-east (Aegean-Marmara-Caspian) trading routes allowed for Byzantium to grow economically and politically. Besides, the city had three good natural harbors: the Bosporus Straight with its mouth at the Black Sea was the most protected maritime route and an important reliever for military actions. A siege of the city from the sea was unlikely, as no attack-admiralty in the world possessed the necessary naval equipment for this. The building and reshaping of the city lasted almost six years and, at a first phase, the city development was completed on 21st of May 330. On this mythical date, the city was inaugurated by Constantine under the name of the ‘City of ransom’ (Rea, in Greek meaning the ‘gathering of a multitude’) and ‘Constantinople’ was commonplace. In addition, the Roman Empire was re-defined as a Christian Empire, whose aim was to spread the message of Christianity throughout the entire world and where the Emperor became the Christ’ Vicar on Earth and the protector of the Christian Church [7].
6.2. Justinian I and the Byzantine Reconquests
Flavius Belisarius is a general best known for his campaigns during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527-565). Belisarius led the Byzantine Empire in its reconstruction of the Eastern Roman Empire and notable victories against the Persians and Vandals. He was instrumental in the great campaign against the Goths, although, through political intrigue at court, he fell from favor. He was later restored to prominence but died in obscurity, recording a tragic decline in power following the great successes with which he first became known. Of the soldiers and commanders in Byzantine service, Belisarius remains most widely known, alongside generals such as Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes and Manuel Komnenos, who led campaigns from 500 to 1204. Belisarius is remembered as one of the finest commanders in military history, a man capable of defeating much stronger opponents who enjoyed greater strategic advantages [9].
After having suppressed the Nikā riots in 532, rebuilding the city of Byzantium and its aqueducts, churches, fortifications, and public buildings, Justinian sought to restore the empire’s majesty and territory. He was encouraged by the prophetic words of the monk Aïtius and by the rhetoric of the consul Salvius: “Being coerced no longer, the Romans will recover the lost provinces of the Empire,” meaning Africa and Italia, as well as the islands of the Bruttian Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Adriatic Sea. So it came to be that many victors of the Byzantine navy sat in chains at the imperial palace during the celebrations after the great naval battle off Drepanon against the Vandals [10].
7. The Transition from the Roman Empire to the Byzantine Empire
The Roman Empire spanned several continents on the planet and lasted for thousands of years. It is tempting to think that with its collapse came the end of Roman civilization, but that is not so. Much of what was Rome, survives, and continues on today. This explicit materializes in the Byzantine Empire, a state with a history that spanned from the early days of Christianity all the way into the early Renaissance, ruled, like her predecessor, from a capital in the east—Constantinople; an empire in which were used the same culturally and linguistically, Greco-Roman (Hellenic) orientations, and in which Christianity, like in Rome, played an extremely important role. The Byzantine Empire consists of the following elements: the extension, continuity and rupture of the Roman Empire, Byzantium as a Christian State, the Eastern Orthodox Church, a direct continuation of the Christian church established within the Roman Empire; Byzantium as a Cultural Unit with respect to the Latin West and a Latin Unit with respect to the Islamic World; and the Emergence of Modern National Identities out of the Medieval Christian. The Byzantine Empire is not simply a pale extension of the Eastern Roman Empire, nor should it be confounded with a single national entity. The Byzantines viewed themselves as Rhomaioi (Romans), much like their counterpart the Franks in the West viewed themselves as Christian with respect to Muslim others [9].
That said, a review with respect to the cultural orientations that prevailed through the Byzantine State is similarly important. Many would assume, at first glance, that the transition from the Roman Empire to the Byzantine Empire would have spurred a significant cultural shift, and indeed, according to some historical views, it did. The modern local Christian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romanian identities have their roots in the Medieval Christian nations created during the winning and consolidation of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire, viewed by the Byzantines as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ Himself. For this reason, the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) State was Christian by nature and considered itself and the Emperor as a continuation of the Roman Empire (with the Pope in Rome being considered a heretic) [7].
7.1. Cultural Continuity and the Eastern Orthodox Church
After the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, a remnant of the imperial state continued on for almost a thousand years in the eastern part of the empire. Known to historians as the Byzantine Empire, this polity was not seen as distinct from Rome by its inhabitants, who explicitly referred to it as the Roman Empire [7]. Yet there were many facets of the Byzantine Empire that were different from its predecessor. Focusing specifically on cultural continuity and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Byzantium was shaped by enduring traditions and religious factors that set it apart from the previous Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire is most often viewed in terms of politics and law. However, many aspects of Byzantine culture, most importantly art, literature, and education, endeavored to defend orthodoxy while simultaneously being integrated into the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome.
As such, the influence of the classics never dimmed. Byzantine apologists celebrated the ancient past of their civilization while contending that it was theirs and theirs alone. It is a testament to the lasting nature of Greek and Roman literary forms and tropes that they were adopted by the very culture that brought about their downfall. Because these facets of Byzantine culture had been first perfected, they became emblematic of civilization itself. What was at stake, fundamentally, was nothing less than the very nature of humanity. Those who accepted the Greek language and philosophy and practiced its rites, it was argued, shared in the divine Logos and were therefore fully human. Those who did not were unregenerate or barbarians. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Eastern Orthodox Church continued largely unchanged as the Christian faith of most inhabitants of the former Byzantine Empire.
References:
[1] E. A. Tomlinson, “The Great European Empires: British and Roman Rule,” 2013. [PDF]
[2] W. Richard and J. Stephens, “The Fall of Rome Reconsidered: A Synthesis of Manpower and Taxation Arguments,” 2009. [PDF]
[3] F. Baratte, J. M. Carrié, W. Pohl, and G. Ripoll, “Une question en débat : la transformation du monde romain et le rôle des barbares,” 2019. [PDF]
[4] L. Cilliers, “SOME THOUGHTS ON THE DEMISE OF ROMAN INFLUENCE IN NORTH AFRICA, 5th/ 6th CENTURY AD,” 2012. [PDF]
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[6] F. W. Jenkins, “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” 2018. [PDF]
[7] A. N. D. R. E. I. TINU, C. A. T. A. L. I. N. BOBOC, A. N. D. R. E. I. S. E. B. A. S. T. I. A. N. DUMITRESCU, and V. I. O. L. E. T. A. IOSEFIDIS-SERGHEI, “AUGUSTINIAN MODEL IN THE BYZANTINE POLITICAL THINKING. CASE STUDY: THE ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL AUGUSTINISM IN THE CURRENT ROMANIAN MENTALITY,” 2012. [PDF]
[8] S. C. Nedelcu, “The Libraries in the Byzantine Empire (330-1453),” 2016. [PDF]
[9] M. W and I. I. I. Kruse, “Narses and the birth of Byzantine Egypt : Imperial policy in the age of Justinian,” 2008. [PDF]
[10] J. Morris, “Byzantine Foreign Policy During the Reign of Constans II,” 2014. [PDF]