Byzantine History of Greece

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A brief reference to the Byzantine History

Constantine decided to found a new Rome, and in AD 324 he moved the capital to the East, to the Greek city Byzantium on the Bosporus. He named the city Constantinople after himself. The empire was still Rome, though, and the inhabitants called themselves Romans or Romei in Greek.

The Byzantine, or East Roman, Empire covered today's Balkan Peninsula, plus western Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt and east Libya. Most people spoke Greek, but other languages such as Latin, Armenian and Coptic were also spoken.

There was a close relationship between the emperor and the church, and it was during the Byzantine period that many standards were set for the Orthodox Church. Most land was owned by the emperor and the church, and the empires major economical factor was agriculture but also trade.

In the 5th and 6th century the Byzantine armies had to fight both the invading Huns and Goths, but managed to secure the Empire.

Of the most famous Byzantine rulers was Justinian I and his wife Theodora. They wanted to restore the Roman empire in all aspects, including the geographical borders and intellectual spheres. For 31 years, starting in 534, Justinian took back North Africa, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and parts of Spain. This, of course, put great strain on the empire, plus the fact that many public buildings such as the Hagia Sofia were built, and plagues were tormenting the people.

Byzantium suffered invasions from the Germanic Lombards and Turkish Avars, and during the 7th century huge areas of the Balkans had been lost to the Turks and the Slavs.

The Emperor Maurice was assassinated in 602 after twenty years of rule, and this led to both civil war and war with external factors. In 610 Heracilus came to the throne, and he managed to defeat the Persians in 628 after years of wars. Although this was an important victory, returning Syria, Palestine and Egypt to Byzantium, the Empire was seriously weakened. Internally it suffered conflicts between different Christian fractions, and together with the weakened economy after so many wars, the Byzantine empire was to suffer many setbacks from the invading Arabs.

The Arabs were now Muslim, and the new religion had given them inspiration to expand, and they took large parts of the Byzantine empire, including Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia and large parts of Asia Minor.

The Byzantine armies were reorganized in order to control the empires financial doings, with one general per district that would control his area. The infrastructure was losing ground fast, and almost everywhere the commercial market degenerated. Education and agriculture declined, and people left the cities.

Sometime around 730 the iconoclastic dispute started when Leo III forbade the use of icons in worship. This conflict was to go on for a span of a century, and set many rules for art in Orthodox Christianity.

The Byzantine empire was to regain strength from the 9th to the 11th century, getting back areas in Asia Minor as well as in Greece and Macedonia.

Basil I was the founder of the Macedonian dynasty, which was to rule in Byzantium for 214 years. The dynasty strengthened the empire, and gave emphasis to classical Greek aspects of Art and Literature. Unfortunately, the empire's land was gradually coming into the exclusive hands of a few noble families and the church.

Basil II both expanded the empire and crushed a Bulgarian rebellion, but did not manage to do anything about the way the land was distributed. Byzantium continued to grow economically even after he died, but the internal development was obstructed by the new emperors neglect of new technologies and economical developments that happened around the empire, both in Europe and Turkey, and the Byzantine army was getting weaker.

From the Turkish victory at the Battle of Manzikert on, the Byzantine empire was to lose ground totally. The Turks conquered more and more of the empire, and the West distanced itself because of the Christian schism of 1054 resulting in the western church becoming the Catholic and the Eastern the Orthodox.

The continuous Turkish invasions forced the emperor Alexius I Comnemus to beg the Pope for help, and the First Crusade was set in 1096 against the Turks. This seemed at first to help, but when the Italian merchant cities got special privileges, they slowly took control of the Byzantine commerce.

Even though the empire was coming up a little bit during these times, the benefit mainly came to the Venetians and crusaders.

Constantinople was sacked by the crusaders in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. A Latin Empire of the East was established, only to fall when the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus seized power in 1261. The Palaeologan house was to rule for almost 200 years, but the empire was basically on the verge of total bankruptcy by this time. The Ottoman Turks invaded parts of the empire, and in 1453 they conquered Constantinople, thus ending what we call the Byzantine period.
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