Posted by Powee Celdran

WARNING: THIS IS TO BE MY LONGEST ARTICLE SO FAR, IT MAY TAKE DAYS TO READ SO I SUGGEST READ IT PER PART, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ALL IN ONE ARTICLE ON ROMAN/ BYZANTINE CULTURE!! ANYWAY ENJOY!!

Previous Article on the comparison series: Roman and Byzantine armies (Part1)

Previous article on the comparison series: Emperors and the Imperial System (Part2)

Welcome back to another Byzantium Blogger article and part3 of the Roman and Byzantine Empire comparison series! This will be the final part of the 3-part comparison series and my longest ever article so far. In the last 2 articles of this series I have gone through the topics first on the evolution of the Roman army to the Byzantine army and in the next one about the imperial systems of Rome which had continued onto the life of their successor, the Byzantine Empire. Now this is the third and final part of this series, and will be the longest of the 3, I will now move on to the last but not the least important element of the Roman and Byzantine worlds, their culture and life in those empires as after all you cannot really tell the story of these ancient empires by just explaining how the empire was ruled or what kind of armies they had but by the way the empire as whole operated and how people lived in it. The last 2 articles have been extremely long ones as it had documented the whole stories of both empires from 753BC to 1453AD, though this one too will go on explaining the whole story within that long period of time, though cultural traditions compared to army structures and changes of emperor after all take centuries to evolve. Basically, before starting off the article, of course the Byzantine Empire is just another name for the Roman Empire continued in the Middle Ages all the way up to the 15^th century, the only difference is the name mainly because the Byzantine Empire which was the Eastern Roman Empire was in the east and not based in Rome, and only for a short amount of time controlled Rome. Despite being a different empire in name, the Byzantines took with them almost all traditions from the Roman world before them including the Christian religion which grew in the times of the Roman Empire with great challenge until being tolerated and eventually the official state religion in the 4^th century, though the biggest difference the Byzantines had from their predecessors, the Romans was language as the Romans of old used Latin and the Byzantines after them at first used it but shortly after would completely turn into a Greek speaking empire but the people of the empire despite speaking Greek and being mostly Greek in blood called themselves Rhomaioi which is Greek for “Romans”. Back to the beginning in fact, in the early days of Roman civilization, a lot of their ideas and traditions came from the ancient Greeks possibly due to their proximity as both civilizations were in the Mediterranean, and in fact the Romans had even claimed that they have originated from the ancient Greek city of Troy. Ideas of government, mythology and religious practices, war, and architecture were among some of the many things Rome borrowed from the Greeks and their neighboring Italian civilization, the Etruscans but over centuries, Rome became its own city state expanding its rule all over Italy and once it had control of Greece, Greek cultural influences have influenced Rome even more. From 27BC onwards, Rome would grow as a global empire controlling the entire Mediterranean as a “Roman lake” and spanning north to south from Britain to Egypt, west to east from Portugal to Iraq with roads and sea trade routes connecting it from end to end and with armies garrisoned all over the borders to keep the peace and progress within the empire known as the Pax Romana. Within the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, many people of different races have inhabited it including Italians, Gauls, Celts, Iberians, Germans, Africans, Punics, Egyptians, Jews, Syrians, and Greeks meaning several languages were spoken but Latin remained the official language of the state while Greek on the other hand especially in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire was the commonly used language. Why the Greek language became the highly spoken language in the east which was not only in Greece but in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt was because of another great empire that existed there before, the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great which was built up in only a quick amount of time during his short reign (336-323BC) but despite his large empire under him lasting only for 13 years until being divided by his generals after his death in 323BC, Greek customs, language, and people expanded out of Greece and Macedonia into Egypt, Syria, Persia, and all the way to India and for centuries these lands would take in the Greek culture. For instance, Egypt would end up becoming a Greek kingdom known as the Ptolemaic Kingdom and what was once the powerful Achaemenid Persian Empire would become the Greek Seleucid Empire until its fall to the new Persian Parthian Empire in the 1^st century BC. In the east, Greek culture had become dominant while in the west the Romans expanded their territory even more after winning the Punic Wars against Carthage (North Africa) in the 2^nd century BC but had also started expanding east conquering the Greek world, but at the end the saying was “Rome conquered Greece but Greece conquered Rome” which meant that despite the Romans taking over the Greek world, they did not destroy the Greek culture but instead embraced it and learned from it to build their empire culturally. When building their empire, the Romans learned new things from the civilizations they conquered and brought their culture and rule to them at the same time but the one thing the Romans did that helped them keep their empire alive for centuries unlike other empires before them which just simply fell without leaving much of a legacy was that they (the Romans) adapted to the changing of times when they needed to such as in the 3^rd century with the weakening of their empire, barbarian invasions from the north, and the threat of the Persians in the east, the Romans had to adapt by changing the structure of their army and earlier on because of civil wars that could bring down Rome itself, the Romans had to adapt so therefore the republic was reformed into the empire with the emperor beginning with Augustus Caesar as its supreme leader, although still keeping institutions from the centuries old republic such as the senate. Now in the 4^th century after a long period of chaos, Rome once again survived thanks to the civil and military reforms of the emperor Diocletian and in the long reign emperor Constantine I the Great (306-337), things changed even more with Christianity now made an official religion after a long period of operating in hiding and later century even fully becoming Rome’s official religion fully replacing the old Pagan religion and the old gods. The year 395 draws the line where the eastern and western Roman worlds would separate after the death of the emperor Theodosius I, the east which was the Greek speaking part of the Roman world then would go on as Byzantium for the next 1,000+ years and the west would only last very quickly and quietly vanish away. Many would put the year 476 as when the Roman civilization had ended and the start of the Middle Ages but that was only the year the Western Roman Empire quietly died out as the east survived under many more emperors as the Byzantine Empire going through a non-linear history of increasing and decreasing in power and influence lasting all the way up to 1453 living through the entire Middle Ages. Throughout its existence, the Byzantine Empire had preserved the ancient knowledge of the Greeks and Romans by maintaining a highly civilized and educated society compared to the rest of Europe in their time after the Roman Empire faded away turning into many kingdoms having to survive on their own and only in the Renaissance in the 15^th century did Europe start discovering the knowledge of the past but this rediscovery did not come out the blue, the Byzantine Empire too was responsible for it as they preserved the old knowledge bringing it to Western Europe when the Byzantines fled they lost their empire to the Ottomans in 1453. Of course it has hard to think of the Byzantine Empire in the east as the continuation of imperial Rome in the Middle Ages when the Byzantines spoke Greek instead of Latin and adopted oriental fashions and practices, but behind it all, they kept the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome from science and architecture to philosophy and art as well as the imperial systems from Rome. Nowadays it is obvious to see that Rome was such an advanced civilization with their roads, aqueducts, and structures that you can still see today as well as the knowledge we know of their armies and strong government systems but little do we know that the Romans learned from others in order to make their civilization such an advanced one and little do we also know that these superior systems the Romans had lived on in the Middle Ages in Byzantium while they have mostly been forgotten in Western Europe which was under Rome’s control too; also in the Middle Ages the west such as France and Britain may seem so far away from Constantinople wherein back then centuries ago they were under one empire but because many kingdoms arose and so did the immigrations of many races, these worlds started to seem further apart from each other. For such a long time, the Romans have left their mark in 3 continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa and till today it is obvious to see Rome’s legacy with the Roman numerals we still use, the alphabet many of us use depending where, the calendar and the planets of the Solar System named after Roman gods, and the languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian spoken by many which were languages that were derived from Latin; the language of imperial Rome and these languages that come from Latin today are not only spoken in Europe but in many parts of the world as well including countries in the Americas and Africa which had been colonies of these European countries that had Latin based languages. Now with Byzantium, the successor of Rome they had both kept the knowledge of Ancient Rome but had also developed their own culture that they had influenced to most of Eastern Europe including Russia. Now this article will be very long as it will cover 5 topics to discuss: the extent of the Roman and Byzantine worlds and how far they have left their mark, Roman and Byzantine architecture, arts and fashion, entertainment, and education and languages of the Roman and Byzantine worlds and will not anymore go through the imperial systems or military history as these have been discussed in the 2 previous articles of this series. If this article may be too long for you readers, you can skip to which section of it you would like to read by scrolling down. Also, this took me some time since the last one to write it basically because in the past weeks I have been quite busy finishing the new Byzantine Lego epic film I made “War of the Sicilian Vespers” set in the late 13th century: you can click here watch it. Anyway, let’s begin with the last and final part of this 3 part comparison series.

Related Articles (Byzantine life articles) from The Byzantium Blogger :

7 Reasons to be Interested in Byzantium

The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

The Ravenna Mosaics and What to Expect

Byzantine Science and Technology

Byzantine Crime and Punishment

Foreign Lands and People According to the Byzantines Part1

Foreign Lands and People According to the Byzantines Part2

A Guide to the Byzantine Empire’s Themes

15 Byzantine Related States Part1 (1-7)

15 Byzantine Related States Part2 (8-15)

12 Turning Points in Byzantine History

Constantinople: The Queen of Cities and its Byzantine Secrets

Ethnic Origins of the Byzantine Emperors

The many sieges of Constantinople

Story of 3 plagues across centuries- COVID-19 Related

Thoughts on quarantine, self-isolation, and social distancing- COVID-19 Related

Related Read:

Roman Empire at its height (from Imperium Romanum).

Related Videos:

Ancient Rome in 20 Minutes (from Arzamas).

Daily life in the Late Roman Empire (from Eastern Roman History).

 

I. Extent of the Roman and Byzantine Worlds and Globalization

It is a known fact that for a time Rome controlled most of the known world but it did not happen in an instant as Rome itself before expanding had to fight its way from a small insignificant city state to the dominant city of Italy. The early history of Rome though is shrouded in mystery and its origins are mostly legends; and as legend claims the Romans were descendants of the ancient Greek city of Troy in Asia Minor and as the city fell to the Greeks of the mainland after the 10-year-long Trojan War, in the famous story The Aenid by Virgil, the Trojan leader Aeneas, the demigod son of the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Trojan Anchises escaping Troy sailed down the Mediterranean and found himself in Italy where he would found the city of Alba Longa in Latium which is now the region of Lazio where Rome is located and his descendants from Alba Longa, the twins Romulus and Remus who were the demigod sons of the Roman god of war Mars would be the ones to establish the city in the 7 Hills which would be named Rome after Romulus after he killed Remus and became Rome’s first king. The early history of Rome though wherein from 753 to 509BC it was ruled by 7 kings remains unclear but a known fact is that Rome began as a small but growing settlement that was founded by immigrants and run-away criminals from all over Italy running away from their government making Rome be built as a haven for fugitives wherein they could restart their lives, the same way Australia was founded some centuries ago. In the early days of Roman history, Rome was basically only the city itself including surrounding areas and the port of Ostia while the rest of Italy was inhabited by different peoples such as the Italic tribes of the Samnites, Sabines, Umbrians and others occupying the central parts, the powerful Etruscan kingdom of Etruria occupying the lands north of Rome including Tuscany, Greek colonists at the south including in the island of Sicily, and in the north of Italy were the Gauls who were identified as Celts. Rome was though governed by a senate consisting of the patrician families of the city who were in that position because of their importance and heritage while the rest of the people even if they were as rich as patricians belonged to the class known as the Plebs which did not have the same rights or privileges as the patricians until later on when they would and the Plebs as they were citizens were allowed to enter the senate and have political positions. By the 3^rd century BC, the Romans now restructured their army from the traditional phalanx formation of the Greeks to their own Manipular army structure consisting of 3 lines of differently armed and armored soldiers which enabled Rome to expand its control over Italy defeating all neighboring tribes and the Etruscans as well, also fighting off the Gauls who in 390BC attacked Rome, then Rome too took the south from the Greeks. Now at this time, Rome now being a regional power would engage in a series of 3 wars known as the Punic Wars with the Mediterranean naval superpower, Carthage and in 146BC, Rome became the dominant Mediterranean power after fully defeating Carthage as well as taking over Greece. When conquering Italy, the Romans had done conquests differently as when they conquered the people there, they gave them citizenship as a way to make a diplomatic alliance with conquered peoples in order to grow their army and have new members enter the senate so over time the Roman army and senate would not only consist of Romans but of people from beyond Rome especially from Italy while the people they conquered from lands beyond Italy who were bitter enemies to Rome were mostly enslaved when conquered. Meanwhile, in the 4^th century BC when Rome was still expanding its rule over Italy, it was the Greeks who had dominated most of the world, particularly the east, this was under the empire of Alexander the Great, the king of the Greek kingdom of Macedonia built within only 13 years (336-323BC) with him personally commanding the armies and with them at all times to expand his empire. At his early death in 323BC, Alexander’s Empire stretched from Greece all the way to the Indus River, which was the border of India, but almost all his wars to build his empire were fought against the once powerful Achaemenid Persian Empire and after defeating it, Alexander took over the entire territory of Persia including Egypt but right after his death, he did not leave behind any dynasty that would continue to rule the vast empire he conquered, instead his empire was divided among his generals who formed their own empires such as Seleucus Nicator who created the Seleucid Empire building Antioch as its capital consisting of what was once Persian territory in the Middle East and the general Ptolemy Soter taking Egypt forming the Ptolemaic Kingdom with Alexandria as its capital. The Romans on the other hand coming from the “center” of what was the known world conquered both east and west and in the 1^st century BC, the Romans themselves defeated the long lasting successor empires of Alexander the Great first defeating the Seleucid Empire in the east taking the Eastern Mediterranean, although the new Persian power known as the Parthians helped destroy the Seleucids from the east before engaging in a centuries long war with Rome beginning with their defeat at the Battle of Carrhae in 53BC, although 10 years before this the Romans began their conquest of the east under the general Pompey Magnus who had also captured Jerusalem in 63AD making Judea and the Levant under Roman rule. In the west meanwhile, the Greeks and Phoenicians have already made colonies along the Mediterranean coasts of France and Spain which include Massalia (Marseilles) and Cadiz but the Romans went further not just taking the coast but the inland parts as well conquering Spain and Portugal from the Iberian tribes and France from the Gauls, it was in the 50s BC when the Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar annexed the entire Gaul (France) as part of Roman territory. After Caesar’s death in 44BC the now large extent of Rome’s Empire was fought between his adopted successor Octavian and the general Mark Antony who made an alliance with Ptolemaic Egypt. Octavian won though and in 30BC after the defeat and deaths of Mark Antony and the Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt Cleopatra VII following the Battle of Actium in 31BC, the descendant of Ptolemy Egypt was annexed as a Roman province and particularly the emperor’s personal province as it proved to be a rich one and a strategic position in terms of trade as it linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea which enabled access for the Romans to trade with lands as far as Africa and India where they could obtain rare luxuries such as ivory tusks, tortoise shells, and wild animals, but also Egypt supplied the Roman people heavily with grain as it had large amount of land and water to grow wheat and reeds for papyrus for scrolls.

Now in 27BC, Octavian became the first emperor Augustus Caesar and the Roman Empire was born and so was “Pax Romana”, the term used for Roman globalization wherein the vast extent of land was under one ruler and under Rome which was the Caput Mundi or “capital of the world” and under this Pax Romana, the whole empire would be connected by efficient roads and sea routes, trade would function all over it, and its legions would be stationed along the borders from end to end. With such a vast empire, the Romans would subdivide it into provinces, though these provinces turned out to be as big as actual countries and some countries today originated as Roman provinces (like Portugal which was once the province of Lusitania); some would be under the rule of the senate which included Italy, Greece, Southern Gaul and Spain, Asia Minor and North Africa while others such as Egypt, the rest of Gaul, Judea, Syria and later Britain were imperial provinces directly under the emperor wherein the emperor himself appointed the governor in charge while in senatorial provinces the senate managed it and appointed its governor, basically the senatorial provinces were Rome’s more “peaceful” and “civilized” provinces which already had existing cities while the imperial provinces were the less peaceful or provinces in risk of invasion which needed more military presence. In the reign of Augustus (27BC-14AD), the empire’s natural borders were drawn and like many empires of the ancient days, Rome used natural borders to define their territory, these borders were then known as the Limes; in the north under Augustus the rivers Rhine which flowed out to the North Sea and Danube which flowed east into the Black Sea were set as the Roman borders of continental Europe while in the east the Euphrates River was set as the border with the Parthian Empire and in the southeast it was the Arabian desert, then in Africa the Sahara Desert was set as the border and in the west it was no other than the Atlantic Ocean as the Romans had no idea yet what existed beyond it. The land borders had permanent fortresses across it and would be built to station the legions in charge of protecting the borders, these fortresses called Castra especially the ones in Germany and Britain would evolve into existing cities today like York in England and Cologne in Germany, and these new settlements built by the Romans at the frontiers would be called Colonia while even in the Sahara, the Romans too built fortresses, though in some places like in the east where empires had already existed before, the Romans made these old fortresses theirs. In 43AD, the emperor Claudius I (r. 41-54AD) would annex Britain as a Roman province making it the farthest Rome reached to the north as well as adding the rest of North Africa which is today’s Morocco known as Mauretania and Thrace to Roman rule but it was under the emperor Trajan (r. 98-117) that Rome was at its largest extent after annexing Dacia beyond the Danube (today’s Romania) with the Carpathian Mountains as the new borders there, as well as annexing Armenia all the way to the Caspian Sea, and Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) all the way down to the Persian Gulf with the Tigris River now the eastern border, then in the reign of Trajan’s successor Hadrian (r. 117-138), Rome’s imperial borders would be clearly defined and the wall in Britain built from coast to coast not to keep away the barbarian invaders from Caledonia (Scotland) but to stop Roman territory from further expanding, although a further wall would be built afterwards in Scotland known as the Antonine Wall by Hadrian’s successor Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161) in whose long peaceful reign was when the Pax Romana was fully in effect wherein wars or rebellions were very rare. Another part of the world under Roman rule though a client kingdom which had its own king who served Rome was the large area in the Crimea (today’s Ukraine) above the Black Sea which was the Greek speaking Scythian Bosporan Kingdom. Though the Romans controlled such a large territory, some parts of it were barely inhabited or were easily conquered as its inhabitants called barbarians did not have great cities the way things were in the east but were rich in resources as the provinces in Germany had wood from the forests, Dacia had gold mines, Gaul and Spain were rich in farmland, and Britain in wool while the eastern provinces were home to advanced ancient civilizations already having large cities such as Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem that had existed for much longer whereas the west just had wooden settlements rather than full cities. Rome’s mission though when being control of the west and north belonging to barbarians was to “civilize” them by building roads and cities as the east was already highly civilized so in the west the Romans built cities or Colonias that began as trading posts along the roads that connected the empire, these trading posts would later become the cities of Milan in Italy, Lyon, Marseilles, and Paris in France, London in Britain, and another one being Sirmium in Serbia (today’s Sremska Mitrovica) which would be more important in the late Roman age. The east meanwhile was more crucial as it produced grain and made the empire rich also in the trade of spices, jewellery, and luxury goods that came from there while Egypt had turned out to be the most crucial province for Rome as said earlier giving Rome access to the Red Sea which allowed Rome to trade east with India and even with China and to the south with Africa and as trade passed Egypt particularly the capital Alexandria, Rome earned more from the taxation of trade when goods passed Egypt and Alexandria grew to be a rich and important city because of this making it also the 2nd most populated city in the empire next to Rome. Egypt meanwhile would be used as a kind of personal province for Roman emperors meaning they were the ones basically in charge of it and not the senate as it was the source of riches for the empire, therefore emperors wanted to be in charge of it and its riches which means it was the emperor who personally assigned the governor of Egypt which was a position of great importance and senators too were not allowed into Egypt without the emperor’s consent as it could mean wanting to take control of it. Also Egypt provided a lot of income to Rome from tourism as citizens were fascinated with Egypt, the pyramids, and its exotic ancient culture and there they could buy books on ancient magic the Egyptians made if tourists were interested. Basically, the soldiers in charge of protecting the borders would secure trade within the empire both in land and sea routes, and although provinces along the borders despite the Roman peace were not peaceful places, the Roman peace was effective as Rome remained not only peaceful but because of the trade all over the empire, a hub where goods from all over the world could be seen and bought, in fact even obelisks and a pyramid from Egypt was brought to Rome in order to display Rome as the “center of the world”. The popular saying “all roads lead to Rome” may be true in some ways but not entirely true; it is true because most roads led to Rome and trade in the empire usually passed Rome and as the center Rome was the hub of trade but saying is not entirely true as well as Roman roads went across the empire wherein some did not even pass Rome and because roads connected the whole empire goods could be brought from one end to another which is why you could find eastern perfumes and jewellery or exotic Asian or African animals as far as Gaul and weapons from Gaul as far as Egypt. Looking at the map of the Roman Empire, you would see roads (called Via in Latin) connecting the empire with many of them in Britain and Gaul but not much in North Africa but today many of them still stand such as the Via Appia from Rome down to Brundisium (Brindisi) in Southern Italy and the Via Egnatia in the Balkans which stretched all the way from today’s Albania to Thrace and into Asia Minor and along these roads, milestones were found along the way which told you how far you were to Rome, also they pointed the direction to Rome and to nearby cities. The Romans being masters of measurement math built these highways not only in a systematic way wherein they connected to other roads but built them as if they were meant to last by building first a 1m ditch covering it with sand and stones before putting the actual layer of the stone road and at the side of it was a ditch wherein water would flow, something like a sewer, later on this article will discuss more on Roman architecture. The roads meanwhile were used to make trade around the empire easier and a long them there were inns for travellers to stop in and guards patrolled it as well and so were there signs that advertised products like modern billboards- an early form of marketing the Romans developed, though road travel took much longer and was often times not that safe especially due to bandits and wild animals so sea travel was much quicker and efficient which is why the Romans had sea routes for ships as well and provinces like in North Africa would be more connected to the rest of the empire by sea routes than roads as after all the entire Mediterranean Sea was controlled by Rome as a “Roman lake” known to the Romans as Mare Nostrum meaning “our sea”. The Pax Romana was then effective in keeping trade running across the empire as well as keeping standard currency all over the empire but it could not be kept forever as the Roman Empire grown too big and expensive to manage, plague had killed many of its inhabitants, and in the late 2^nd century the empire would be too difficult to run as the emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180) spent the rest of his reign traveling across the empire defending its borders, also the peace was not fully existent as Rome and Parthia at the east were constant wars and neither empire could conquer each other. Then later on, without much people left as citizens, the emperor Caracalla in 212 granted citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire but to add more to the population, immigrants started coming in mostly barbarians from the north entering as soldiers in the Roman army known as the Foederati until eventually seeing Rome’s politics was weak, they would plan taking over the empire. In the 3^rd century, Rome went through a long decline with weak emperors and military takeovers especially from the scheming Praetorian Guard and because of the Pax Romana and citizenship granted to anyone in the empire in this 3rd Century Crisis, emperors who came to the throne would no longer be Romans or Italians but provincials who gained experience in the army and were usually from the Balkans while at the same the borders were threatened by the Germanic Goths and Franks in the north and Sassanid Persians in the east who have defeated the Parthian Empire in around 225. At this time, in 260 the empire was at its lowest point as the emperor Valerian was defeated by the new enemy at the east, the Sassanid Persians who had defeated the Parthians, thus central Roman rule was weakened and from 260-274, the empire was even divided whereas 2 independent empires were proclaimed; the Gallic Empire consisting of Gaul, Britain, and Germania as well as Spain at one point and Syria becoming its own with Palmyra as its capital because Rome itself couldn’t defend the eastern borders from the Persians and northwest from barbarians though in the reign of the emperor Aurelian (270-275) both breakaway empires were added back to the main Roman Empire, also at this point the farthest province of Dacia was abandoned to further protect Rome. In 286, the Roman Empire under the emperor Diocletian would be for the first time divided into two official halves each ruled by an official emperor or Augustus appointed by the emperor and in 293 it was divided into 4 halves this would be known as the Tetrarchy as a way to make the empire easier to govern wherein one emperor does not have to run everything yet the emperors running it were all official and not usurpers, the 2 senior emperors would be known as Augustus, one in charge of the east and the other in the west and his junior emperor would be called a Caesar, though the highest in rank of the 4 emperors was the Augustus Diocletian who would take the easternmost of the 4 parts with Nicomedia as his capital acting as the most senior of the 4, from here on the east would be meant to last. At this point, Rome would no longer be the capital rather the capital would be where the emperor was which were in parts closer to the borders so in the east it was Nicomedia for Diocletian and his Caesar or junior emperor Galerius had Sirmium, in the west the Augustus Maximian had Milan and his Caesar Constantius I had Trier in Germany. Not long after, Constantine I the Great the son of Constantius I gained full control of the whole Roman world in 324 and in 330 established the port of Byzantium in the Bosporus between Thrace and Asia Minor as the new capital calling it Constantinople after him, from then on Byzantine history would begin.

Watch this to learn the history of Rome (from Fire of Learning).

Watch this to learn about the history of the Fall of Rome (from Fire of Learning).

 

From 330 onwards, the Roman world would change with Constantinople (Greek: Konstantinoupolis, Latin: Constantinopolis) now being the dominant city in the east and the new “Caput Mundi” also known as Nova Roma or “New Rome” and compared to Rome it was in a much more strategic position in the waterway known as the Bosporus between Asia and Europe and in a location that was hard to attack, Christianity then was once illegal became the dominant religion, also the structure of the provinces would change from larger regions to smaller ones which was the new system under Diocletian’s Tetrarchy where each emperor of each of the 4 parts had their own provinces; in this case of the empire divided into 4 in the original Tetrarchy, Diocletian had control of the whole east and Egypt, Galerius had Greece and the Balkans, Maximian had Italy, Spain, and North Africa except Egypt, and Constantius I had Gaul, Germany, and Britain. Under Constantine I (306-337), the empire was whole again until split between his 3 sons after his death, afterwards the empire would remain this way always split between east and west with different emperors in joint-rule to make managing easier, though also at this time large waves of Germanic immigrants especially Goths came flooding into the Roman Empire as their homeland consisting of today’s Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Romania, and the Baltic countries were in danger from Hun invasions from the east. It was in 395 however after the death of Emperor Theodosius I who was the last to rule the full Roman Empire north to south from Britain to Egypt west to east from Portugal to Syria, the Roman Empire was fully and formally divided between east and west acting as their own independent empires; the east passed on to his older son Arcadius (r. 395-408) and the west to the younger son Honorius (r. 395-423). In the west, in less than a hundred years, Roman rule would disappear as barbarian tribes from all over Europe who had immigrated into Roman territory began declaring their own kingdoms, first were the Visigoths under Alaric who sacked Rome in 410 and established his own independent kingdom in Spain afterwards, the Vandals then would travel into North Africa building their own kingdom with Carthage as its capital, thus in 455 after building a navy would again sack Rome. Britain too would be abandoned by the Romans who needed their troops there to fight off more barbarian invasions in Europe particularly the Franks who later beat the Romans and took over the north of Gaul, but the deadliest enemy came from the east (probably today’s Kazakhstan) these were the Huns, however they had posed more of a threat to the eastern empire than to the west but the west still did not live long enough. In 476, the barbarian general in the Western Roman army Odoacer after being denied territory given to him deposed the last Western Roman emperor the boy Romulus Augustus in the Western Roman capital which was Ravenna with a barbarian army, and instead of becoming the new emperor Odoacer decided the age of the emperors are done and instead made himself king of Italy and acknowledged the emperor in the east Zeno based in Constantinople as the real emperor. Not long after, in 493 was Odoacer overthrown and the Ostrogoths under their king Theodoric took over Italy. In the east meanwhile, things were far more stable, that the empire had all it needed to survive as it still had the rich provinces of Syria and Egypt and the old Roman roads connecting it, it had Greece and the Balkans as well and also Asia Minor which was vital in providing food supply as their main focus was in fighting the mortal enemy in the east, the Sassanid Empire; then as the new capital, Constantinople continued growing stronger and richer as the powerful 3-layered fortification was built under the emperor Theodosius II (r. 408-450), laws too were published, and a university too was built in the capital, though the only problem with them was having scheming barbarian generals particularly Goths in their army using the emperors as their puppet, which was one way to easily make the empire fall to barbarian invasion. However, the eastern emperor Leo I (r. 457-474) was able to end barbarian influence and his successor Zeno (r. 474-491) helped keep the east free from falling to barbarians the way the west did by keeping them out of the east and paying them to attack the west instead believing the west was no longer needed; then Zeno’s successor Anastasius I (r. 491-518) in his long stable reign made the eastern empire or Byzantium rich enough to take back the fallen west for the Romans. After 476, it was never though of that the Romans would once again rule the a large reunited empire with western parts that had fallen to barbarians but in the reign of the ambitious eastern emperor Justinian I the Great (527-565) it did actually happen that the Romans (Byzantines) with his ambitious project Renovatio Imperii helped the empire expand westwards and it was only under him and no one else that the Byzantines actually managed to do it. Justinian I meanwhile came at the right time to do such an achievement of in a way restoring the old Pax Romana, this was because the empire was rich after Anastasius I’s financial reforms, politically stable at the same time, and with the enemy, which were the Sassanid Persians, peace was made. In Justinian I’s long reign, his successful general Belisarius took back North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Ostrogoths placing them under Byzantine rule and not to be viewed as conquerors but liberators. However after these conquests, plague hit the Byzantine Empire hard in 542 and most of the hard work of Justinian was undone but not long after, things recovered again, the rest of Italy put back to Roman rule and later on the Southern coast of Spain too recaptured; aside from this Rome was once again under Roman rule but no longer as important as it was, instead it was just symbolic that they had Rome as the pope was now in charge of the city; also the Mediterranean was again a “Roman lake”. At Justinian I’s death in 565, the Roman world was again once more larger than ever spanning north to south from the Crimea in Ukraine to Egypt, west to east from Spain to Syria, but this moment of glory wouldn’t last long especially at this time, Europe was now in the dark ages, barbarian invasions became constant, and in the east Persia was still hungry for conquest, before all this tings looked bright for Byzantium but after Justinian I’s death in 565 it would never remain this way always. Justinian I’s successor Justin II (r. 565-578) could not live up to his uncle’s successful rule and as the new invaders, the Germanic Lombards began invading Italy he went mentally insane being unable to manage such a large empire that he abdicated making his adopted successor Tiberius II (r. 578-582) manage the empire for him. Under the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) the golden age of Justinian began falling apart as a new enemy rose from the north, the Slavs who began raiding the Danube frontier at the Balkans, Italy too began falling to the Lombards and Spain back to Visigoths and imperial territory was too much to handle that Maurice turned Byzantine Italy and North Africa into 2 semi-autonomous empires under the emperor known as Exarchates, however he also made peace with Persia after helping his Persian ally Chosroes II become king in Persia. Maurice however was constantly pressured by the Slavic invaders in the Balkans that his armies had to constantly fight even if their payment would be cut off because too much had already been spent in war. The soldiers though were not happy and in 602 they proclaimed the centurion Phocas as emperor and Maurice and his sons were executed, thus the Persian king with his friend dead saw it as an excuse to attack the Byzantines and because of this, Phocas pulled the army out of the Balkans to fight the Persians in the east allowing the Balkans to fall to the Slavs and Avars, and soon enough the Byzantines began to loose to the Persians. In 610, the Exarch of Africa’s son Heraclius after rebelling against Phocas sailed to Constantinople, overthrew and killed Phocas, and became emperor but the empire was now in ruins especially with the Persians swiftly taking Syria and Egypt as well. Heraclius however fought back, raised an army, and marched into Persian territory and in 628 after the king Chosroes II was deposed, the Byzantines won the war except it was not at all a great victory, many soldiers died, resources ran out, and instead of taking over Persia, the Byzantines and Persians returned to the same borders before the war that began in 602. Not so long after would the Byzantine Empire be again ruined, Heraclius in his last years in power saw another threat rise, this time of all people, the Arabs from the deserts of the south who had taken the new religion of Islam swearing to take the Roman world for themselves. After Heraclius’ death in 641, the Romans would now lose Egypt and Syria to the Arabs and this time for good seeing that they could not longer hold these places anymore especially since the Arabs threat was too strong and nothing familiar to them, before that the Romans and Greeks knew the Arabs existed in the deserts at the south but never knew they would rise and make their own empire, at the same time they were unfamiliar with the warfare of the Arabs as it was never thought they would be such a strong naval or military power. From then on, the Byzantine Empire would for the next 3 centuries have to fight on the defensive side against the Arabs and also the Slavs and Lombards, now during the reign of Heraclius’ grandson and successor Constans II (r. 641-668), the empire gave up the old system of Roman provinces and introduced the new governing system known as the “Themes” which were smaller provinces across the empire beginning in Asia Minor, the new heartland of the empire; these Themes were made to increase military presence and to recruit locally as Byzantium needed more soldiers to defend the borders, also each of these Themes had to provide food for the army and resources for the empire and both civil and military administration of each Theme would fall to one person, the Strategos which was a military or naval governor. Also with the loss of Egypt and Syria to the Arabs, which had for such a long time provided the Roman world with a lot with grain and resources, the Themes were needed to be created to increase more space for planting grain but at least Asia Minor had a lot of land for, also compared to Roman times in Byzantine times, with more immigrations into empire and new cities built, populations grew more, therefore people were needed to be moved around to different Themes across the empire to balance population. Several Themes created in Asia Minor (Turkey) were vital in producing grain and food for the empire while the naval Themes created among the Greek islands in the Aegean and Ionian Sea were to supply Byzantium with ships, sailors, and ship equipment like ropes, anchors, and nets. In the reigns of the emperors Constans II (641-668), Constantine IV (668-685) and Justinian II (685-695), Byzantium would now have fight on the defensive side, borders now had shrunken in the east that the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor became the new eastern border with the Arab states, and most of Greece except for the coastal areas slipped away into Slavic control, however Italy still remained under Byzantine control although most of it had already fallen to the Lombards and North Africa would soon be entirely taken by the Arabs and so was Spain. However, in 681 a new enemy came in, the Bulgars coming from the Eurasian Steppes and after winning over the Byzantines in a battle, the emperor Constantine IV surrendered giving up Byzantine territory in Thrace (which is today’s Bulgaria) to them, thus the Bulgarians established their own kingdom becoming both an enemy and ally to the Byzantines. At this time, the Arabs attacked Constantinople twice, once from 674-678 and another from 717-718, but in both times the defending Byzantines won with the help of a new weapon invented, Greek Fire. Although within this time as well, Byzantium in 695 fell into what would be known as the “20-year-Anarchy” wherein there would be a change of 7 emperors within 22 years (695-717) that had weakened the empire so much that in 717 it seemed that the empire would easily be ended by the Arabs until in 718 both the Byzantines and their Bulgarian allies won a great victory forcing to the Arabs to retreat and never attack Constantinople again. Here, the general Konon who became Emperor Leo III (r. 717-741) restoring order after a long period of anarchy, and in his reign he continued to successfully fight against the Arabs pushing them away from Asia Minor and continued expanding the Theme system; his son and successor Constantine V (r. 741-775) did the same too also taking back most of the Balkans from the Bulgarians but Italy would eventually be ignored by the Byzantines causing the Lombards to further grow as a threat capturing Ravenna in 751 limiting Byzantine control to only Sicily and southern Italy, the pope in Rome would no longer trust the Byzantines as allies, instead he turned to the Franks who ruled France for support and with the help of the Franks, the Lombards were taken care off and Rome and its surroundings became independent under the rule of the pope becoming the Papal States. With the pope and the Franks allied, the pope in 800 crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as “Roman Emperor” with the title Augustus or better known as the “Holy Roman Emperor” but this shocked the Byzantines who were really the successors of Imperial Rome while Charlemagne was a Frank and not at all Roman but Charlemagne and the Franks did not see Byzantium at all as an empire and their ruler not at all the Roman emperor basically because in 800, the Byzantine ruler was a woman, the empress Irene (r. 797-802) and the Franks saw that a woman could never rule, though Irene planned to marry Charlemagne to unite both empires and in a way restore Roman rule to most of the world that was once Roman, but instead the people of Constantinople lost faith in her especially in agreeing to marry a barbarian so in 802, she was overthrown and the finance minister Nikephoros I (r. 802-811) took over; though as emperor he refused to even acknowledge Charlemagne as western emperor and chose to instead destroy the Bulgarians once and for all, although in 811 his plan failed and the war with Bulgaria ended in total disaster with Nikephoros I dead and his skull turned into the Bulgarian king’s drinking cup. Byzantium would once again enter chaos especially facing war with the Bulgarians, but within this time period, emperors worked hard in developing the army and further increasing military rule across the empire. In the reign of Michael II the Amorian (820-829), the empire stabilized again despite Crete and Sicily falling to the Arabs and under his son and successor Theophilos (829-842), things had improved by a lot as the Theme system proved to be highly effective and a beacon system as built in equal distance from each other built across mountain tops or towers stretching from the Taurus Mountain borders to Constantinople, this was made to signal every Theme in time of war, but also to let the emperor be informed when the Arabs are raiding and to give a message to the Themes to send their army to help another Theme in danger. Now Byzantium would come out of its dark ages and once again enter another period of rebuilding the glory of the past under the long-lived Macedonian Dynasty beginning with its first ruler Basil I (r. 867-886), originally a peasant from Macedonia who as a wrestler usurped the throne in 867 and rebuilt Constantinople back into a glorious capital and began expanding east fighting the Arabs turning Byzantium from fighting on the defensive side back to fighting on the offensive. The next emperors after Basil I would do the same turning the tide of war against the Arabs pushing them back to deserts from where they came allowing the Byzantine Empire to live in peace once again like how things were in the “Pax Romana” under the Roman Empire in the past. The 10^th century saw the Byzantine Empire become the most powerful and invincible army in the Middle Ages allowing Constantinople to grow rich and for emperors to now not only focus on the protection of the empire but in growing the empire culturally. At this time emperors like Leo VI the Wise (r. 886-912) and Constantine VII (r. 913-959) focused on writing books, establishing universities, building up the art scene of the capital, and making the imperial court as lavish as possible. While at this time as well, Byzantium’s borders began to expand again under capable military emperors like Romanos I (r. 920-944) who began pushing the Arabs out of Asia Minor, Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963-969) who as a general in 961 took back Crete from the Arabs and as emperor reclaimed parts of Syria and the rest of Cyprus from the Arabs, then his successor John I Tzimiskes (r. 969-976) who once again returned parts of the Middle East to Byzantium after 3 centuries of Arab rule while also he took back most of Bulgarian territory. However it was during the successful reign of Basil II (976-1025) that the Byzantine Empire again reached its fullest extent of territory but not as large as it was in Justinian I’s reign; under Basil II known as “the Bulgar-Slayer”, the whole Bulgarian Empire was defeated and the rest of the Balkans was brought back to Byzantine rule, Armenia too was annexed but through diplomacy and not war, by his death in 1025 Byzantine territory stretched from Southern Italy to Armenia, the Crimea to Syria wherein at this point Byzantium had the most number of Themes, and all their neighbors came to respect Byzantium as culturally superior and fear attack them or else they would suffer the same way Bulgaria did being wiped off the map. However Basil II’s empire did not live that long and just right after his death, things would slowly fall apart again under a series of weak emperors. The rest of the 11^th century after golden age of Basil II would be known as the “11^th Century Crisis” which was similar to Imperial Rome’s “3^rd Century Crisis” which was a period of turmoil that followed a period of great success, but for the Byzantines things got worse especially when another new Islamic enemy, and not Arabs but Seljuk Turks from Asia Minor this time started raiding into Asia Minor and in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Byzantine army led by Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1068-1071) was defeated allowing the Seljuks to takeover most of Asia Minor ending Byzantine rule which had been there for centuries. The Byzantines losing both Asia Minor to the Turks and Italy to the Normans, as well as most of the Balkans to the Pecheneg raiders still did not give up and could not afford to lose Asia Minor in which was vital in providing food resources for the empire and as the general Alexios I Komnenos came to the throne in 1081, he immediately set off in crushing Byzantium’s enemies at all sides, first dealing with the Normans who had invaded the Balkans and though later beating them was still unable to take back Italy, the Pechenegs too would be dealt with, and so would the Turks although Alexios I needed help from the west for the Seljuk threat but instead of a support army from the kingdoms of Western Europe, the 1^st Crusade was launched which at the end did not help Byzantium and give back their lost territories but instead turned on them and took lost territories for themselves all the way down to Palestine. At this time at the end of the 11^th century, Western Europe began to rise and the Crusades had begun, though it did not fully harm Byzantium, as when taking the Levant, they would instead focus on defending it from the Muslim armies leaving Byzantium to their own business. Alexios I died in 1118 with Byzantium much more stable than when he came to power, though his son and successor John II (r. 1118-1143) did even more than his father could by restoring most of Asia Minor to Byzantine rule and making the new Crusader states of Westerners acknowledge the supremacy of Byzantium in the east. It was under the reign of John II’s son and successor Manuel I (1143-1180) that Byzantium would see its last golden age and largest extent of territory as well as a time of great wealth and culture at the capital. Under Manuel I, Byzantine rule was restored to most of Asia Minor, Antioch was put under their rule as a vassal kingdom, and most of the Balkans still remained theirs, however Manuel I was a bit too ambitious that he still thought he could take back Italy and Egypt for the Byzantines but at the end his army was heavily defeated by the Seljuks at 1176, he then died in 1180 which mark the start of another decline, which happened mostly because of his spending but also because he trusted the west too much, the people began to grow unhappy. The next emperor, Andronikos I (r. 1183-1185), Manuel I’s cousin who took the throne after killing Manuel I’s son Alexios II (r. 1180-1183) would begin tensions with the west after the massacre of thousands of Italians in the capital but in 1185, the brutal emperor was killed by the same mob that put him in power when they turned their support to his rival Isaac Angelos who was crowned Emperor Isaac II (r. 1185-1195), but his reign was no better, he grew more and more suspicious of the west and had no other solution to improve the empire than raising taxes and neglecting the army making the Bulgarians rise up again and declare once again a new Bulgarian Empire in 1185 in which the Byzantines would never be able to beat. In 1195, Isaac II was suddenly overthrown by his older brother Alexios III (r. 1195-1203) and his reign was even much worse that the army devolved to the point of uselessness that when the 4^th Crusade arrived to attack Constantinople in 1203, he could not do anything but flee making the Crusaders put Isaac II’s son Alexios IV in power, thus Isaac II though blind was released and put in the throne with his son, however both father and son did not have the amount of money needed to pay back the Crusaders and could not live up to their promises to help the Crusaders by providing an army so the people of Constantinople deposed and killed them in 1204 but still without the money to pay back the Crusaders, the Crusaders after months camping outside the city attacked while the Byzantines were defenseless, so as it happened Constantinople fell to the Crusades and the Latin Empire was established, most of Greece would be under different Latin states and Crete under Venice. The Byzantines however did not see it as the end, in the city of Trebizond in the Black Sea, a new empire was formed but did not really become a world power, and then in the city of Nicaea the Byzantines from the capital made it their empire in exile waiting to take back Constantinople. The Balkans and Asia Minor as well as Greece turned into a constant warzone wherein the Latin Empire, the Byzantines of Nicaea, Bulgarians, and the rogue Byzantine state of Epirus fought for control of but the Latins in Constantinople were too poor to actually keep their empire running so in only a few decades, the Byzantines surrounded them to only Constantinople but unable to breach the walls. However in 1261, in a great stroke of luck as the Latin forces left the city on a raid, a small Byzantine army from Nicaea which now had become a strong empire in Asia Minor even though in exile in one night took back Constantinople and their leader Michael Palaiologos was crowned emperor. Michael VIII (r. 1261-1282) was the first one to rule a restored Byzantine Empire once again in Constantinople after only 57 years of Byzantium’s absence, but not all was well anymore, the army had grown smaller, most of the old Themes were gone and when focusing on keeping the Latins away, Byzantine rule in Asia Minor began collapsing as the Turks started taking over, the people too were disunited and unwilling to submit to the pope and Catholicism even if that could help them. Michael VIII ended his reign tragically being hated by his own people for trying to save his empire by Church Union even if he took back the capital, but he still saved the Byzantines again from being taken back by the Latins in 1282, by the time the age of the Crusades too were over and during the reign of Michael VIII’s son and successor Andronikos II (r. 1282-1328), a new enemy rose in Asia Minor in 1299 this time to finish Byzantium for good, this was the sultan Osman beginning the Ottoman Empire. For the next years, the Byzantines would forever be fighting on the defensive again, this time against the Ottomans, however there was only one short period of revival under Andronikos III Palaiologos (r. 1328-1341) where the Byzantines became the dominant rulers of Greece only but were only still at the same level of power as their Balkan neighbors Serbia and Bulgaria. What would really be the death blow for Byzantium was the civil war of 1341-1347 between Andronikos III’s son John V and general John Kantakouzenos wherein John VI Kantakouzenos won with the help of the Ottomans giving them their first territory in Europe. By the end of the 14^th century, Byzantium was now only limited to Constantinople which was a shadow of its old glories, and Southern Greece the rest already falling to Ottomans rule, Serbia and Bulgaria too were defeated by the Ottomans but the emperor then Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391-1425) despite being only emperor within the walls of the city still managed to keep Byzantium alive and through diplomacy weakened the Ottomans by starting civil wars among them. However, in 1402 Byzantium would be saved when the Mongol ruler Timur (Tamerlane) defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara giving the remains of the Ottoman Empire time to recover while Byzantium too recovered and was able to live for 50 more years. Both Manuel II’s sons John VIII (r. 1425-1448) and Constantine XI (r. 1449-1453) were the last emperors but still managed to keep their empire from falling, however in 1451 the young Mehmed II became the Ottoman sultan and swore to take Constantinople and finish Byzantium for good so he also asked Constantine XI if he could just surrender the city and he would spared but he disagreed saying he would instead fight to the death so in 1453, Mehmed II laid an army of about 100,000 to besiege Constantinople and within 6 weeks, the Ottomans won and Constantinople fell once and for all. Now for the Byzantine Empire from the fall of Western Rome in 476 to its fall in 1453, it may have lived a long life longer than its predecessor but its life was much more turbulent than Imperial Rome. Imperial Rome had enjoyed a long time of stability within the empire for more than 2 centuries from Augustus’ rise to power in 27BC to 193AD known as the “Year of the 5 Emperors” whereas for the Byzantines their “golden age” was on and off as it was only at its height of power in Justinian I’s reign (527-565) but where the actual golden age would take place was at the middle of its existence under the Macedonian Dynasty from Basil I to Basil II (867-1025), this is when the empire enjoyed stability and peace within the empire allowing the Byzantines to have a revival of arts and culture while the armies won several victories against their enemies, the Arabs and Bulgars. Before this, life in the Byzantine Empire for centuries since the 7^th century was a hard one, invasions were constant and military presence was needed more, therefore Byzantium could not enjoy the same stability Imperial Rome had as the empire went on for 3 centuries of fear and martial law, but this gave time for Byzantium to develop their army into a powerful killing machine. The last centuries of Byzantium though would be a very different story, here the proud army they once had no longer meant anything as emperor thought it was too much to spend on them. The Byzantines on the other hand at least inherited all the hard work Rome had built including roads, aqueducts, and cities making the Byzantines able to keep their empire running. The only difference basically was the foreign situation, the Romans before did not face enemies as numerous and powerful as the Byzantines did, the Romans too did not see kingdoms in Europe become powerful the way the Byzantines did, while the Byzantines had to keep reforming systems including military structure, taxes, and economic to adapt to the changing of times.

Watch this to learn the history of the Byzantine Empire (from Fire of Learning).

Watch this to learn the history of the Fall of the Byzantine Empire (from Fire of Learning).

 

II. Roman and Byzantine Architecture and Engineering

One of the things the Romans were best known for was their architecture that was not only spectacular but meant to last, but this unforgotten legacy of theirs was not entirely their own but something they borrowed from both the Greeks and the Etruscans. First of all ancient civilizations even before the Greeks such as the Egyptians and Babylonians have already built spectacular and massive structures in which some can be seen today like the pyramids in Egypt or the Gates of Babylon (which can be seen as a rebuilt version) but the Greeks have built actually more practical and sturdier structures in which many are still visible today even if they remain in ruins like the Parthenon in Athens, though what the Romans did that outdid the architecture of previous civilizations was that they built their structures not so much for show but to be meant to work and last for centuries. The one architectural element developed by the Romans was putting more use to the arch in all forms of public work as a way to strongly support structures as before that civilizations like the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians used the arch but very limitedly, although the Romans had learned the technique of the arch from the Etruscans, but the Romans took the use of the arch to even higher levels which was in making larger structures such as high-rise amphitheaters, bridges, and aqueducts. The kind of architecture the Romans basically used was Classical architecture consisting mainly of columns, marble, brick, and triangular roofs which was the architecture of the Greeks too. Of course since Rome just began as a small city state, they did not come up with all those ideas on architecture and engineering which is the science of building on their own, rather they learned techniques of engineering from the Italian neighbor, the Etruscans who had already built trenches called a Cuniculus to irrigate land but over centuries the Romans further improved the engineering techniques the Etruscans once had making their own structures actually work so close to structures with modern engineering. Another thing the Romans had over centuries that remains one of their greatest legacies was constructing cities from scratch, especially in Western Europe where back then people weren’t as civilized compared to the east where there were actual cities. As Rome expanded its borders towards Europe (Gaul, Germany, Britain), they built simple army camps with wooden walls, which later involved into actual settlements with stone walls, roads, houses, and shops, which later became towns and trading posts along the highways that connected the empire. Some of these towns even grew to become cities like Lutetia Parisiorum which became Paris, Londinium which became London, and Mediolanum which became Milan. These Roman settlements in the rest of Europe since being built from scratch had a distinct yet simple layout of a grid pattern for streets wherein the roads intersected at right angles wherein engineers would use a tool called a Groma to measure street corners at exactly right angles, also longer diagonal main roads went across them, and the city was usually in a square or rectangular shape being surrounded by a wall, although these Roman settlements despite having already a large population did not necessarily have an actual stone wall the way larger cities like Rome did with the Aurelian Walls built between 271 and 275 that surrounded all of Rome’s 7 hills, rather they were just protected by a wooden wall, though a highway passed through them connecting them to the rest of the empire. On the other hand it is quite ironic that the new cities the Romans built across their empire especially in Europe were laid out in a simple grid system while the capital, Rome was not all laid out that way, this was because Rome’s structure was never planned and back in the past no one knew it would grow into such a large imperial metropolis. In the case of Rome, over centuries the city just kept on expanding in size as more people migrated from not just Italy but all over the empire as it kept growing, which meant nothing was really planned so over years and centuries buildings were just built here and there without much of a system. At the time of the republic however, the Romans being simple and practical people just built structures usually for practical uses such as theatres for entertainment, a forum for people to gather and shop, and a Basilica for government meetings to be held; meanwhile in Republican Rome the most important buildings in the city happened to be where the Roman Forum was, this was of course where the senate hall was where the Roman state was based in, also in the area of the Forum was where the Capitoline Hill was, the location of the Capitolium, the temple of Rome’s 3 major gods Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. However after Rome’s conquest of Greece in the mid-2^nd century BC, things began to change in Roman culture and it could be seen in their architecture; although long before that the early Romans adopted a lot of architectural elements from the Greeks who had also settled in Southern Italy, but after the conquest of Greece, the Romans started learning to have a more sophisticated lifestyle including constructing more extravagant than practical structures such as elaborate temples, triumphal arches, and triumphal columns with highly detailed sculptures, although triumphal arches had dated back to the Etruscans and triumphal columns began out as Obelisks with the Ancient Egyptians, in which the Greeks adopted later on. During the time of Rome’s first emperor Augustus Caesar, Rome had already grown into a congested and densely populated imperial capital, also buildings kept on being built without any height regulations and sometimes some buildings built as flats to house common people could be more than 6 floors high which were rectangular or square with a central courtyard, and sometimes if these buildings were not strongly built as many of them were built with only wood and clay, they could collapse killing people. For safety measures, Augustus as emperor had to issue a law to limit the height of buildings in Rome and other cities to 6 floors, however people too had complained about the congestion and traffic jams due to Rome’s narrow streets, irregular buildings, and warm climate which makes people want to be out more than indoors especially those living in cramped flats known as Insulae, so rulers beginning with Julius Caesar who was not emperor but dictator issued a law that horse drawn vehicles could only move at night to decongest the streets, although horses had also made it hard for people on foot to move around and their dung could cause disease so to deal with it, the emperor Claudius I (r. 41-54AD) forced people not only in Rome but in the other crowded cities of Roman Italy to walk on foot. In city life in Rome as well as in other cities all over the empire, streets were usually lined with shops specializing in certain products as in Ancient Rome there were no supermarkets that sold everything, instead shops sold their own particular goods such as meats from a butcher, olive oil and wine from their own shops, and some shops even sold specialty goods from the far parts of the empire and beyond such as ivory tusks and tortoise shells from Africa and perfumes from the Near East, also signs were placed outside stores to advertise what they sell. Meanwhile, Rome in the 2 centuries of the Pax Romana from the reign of Augustus (27BC-14AD) to the end of the 2^nd century, Rome had 500,000 to 1 million people living in it from all parts of the empire and was in fact smaller in size compared to the great cities in the east like Antioch and Alexandria which meant in Rome houses were definitely packed and everything was very dense which meant it was in high risk of fires and disease to spread and true enough fires were very common and could just be started if someone’s candle fell, therefore it would scatter very fast especially since houses or flats of commoners and poor citizens were not only cramped but made of wood and clay while the houses of the rich were isolated and had more space including courtyards; the poet Martial even said that “there’s nowhere a poor man can get any quiet in Rome” in response to the cramped living conditions in the city. Rome though had a firefighting force that also served as a police force for the city known as the Vigiles which was created under Augustus who in his long reign spent a lot of time remodelling Rome although it still remained congested, though when talking about his reign, Augustus said he “founded Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble”, and true enough he was responsible for many of Rome’s construction projects one of them being his forum in the center of Rome and the original structure of the Pantheon, the temple to all the gods which will be discussed later. One of the greatest feats of ancient architecture found in Rome is its sewer system known as the Cloaca Maxima or the “greatest sewer” which has been there ever since the beginning said to have been around since 600BC according to legend when Rome was under the rule of its Etruscan kings though it began as an open-air sewer wherein the waste from the drains of houses flowed into it and the sewer system flowed out into the Tiber River; the sewer system though got a major overhaul in 33BC by the general and architect Marcus Agrippa, the friend of Augustus before Augustus’ coronation as emperor in 27BC. It turns out many houses in Rome though not having modern plumbing at least had toilets connected to the sewage system, though many houses didn’t so people threw their waste down communal drains; meanwhile in other cities around the empire the Romans too developed them further by building sewer systems in them. Aside from the sewer systems, one of the greatest achievements of Roman architecture and engineering are aqueducts which were massive bridges that carried water above it and the waterline above was supported by a series of arches sometimes going up to 3 levels high depending on the elevation of the ground; the water here came from springs in mountains and hills and travelled for miles sometimes intersecting each other. At one point Rome had 11 aqueducts supplying water to its fountains and bathhouses, however not only Rome but the rest of the empire too had aqueducts which supplied water directly to other cities in the empire, although in the final days of Rome after the 5^th century, the invading barbarian tribes destroyed many of these aqueducts to cut water supply to Rome and other cities but still many of these Roman era aqueducts can be seen today most notably the one in Segovia, Spain. Speaking about water, the Romans had taken it very seriously that they built up many fountains and entire buildings as bathhouses as well as communal public lavatories in their cities and not only in Rome but of course the grandest of these water related structures were in Rome although around the empire there were many bathhouses (called Thermae in Latin) that still exist today like the Roman Baths of Bath in England which gets its water supply from natural hot springs which people used for healing purposes. In Rome, one of the best examples of a Roman bathhouse is the Baths of Caracalla built between 212 and 216 with a heating facility underneath the heated baths which consisted of boilers (Hypocausts) beneath the tiled floor of the pools. Rome at the time of the empire wasn’t all just a congested and overpopulated city but supposed to be the grandest city of the world as after all it ruled the empire that controlled most of the known world so it had to have some of the grandest buildings in which emperors put a lot of attention to building. Some of the grandest structures Rome ever had in its imperial age was no other than the Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheatre built under Emperor Vespasian (r. 60-79AD) and opened under his son and successor Titus (r. 79-81AD); it was so large that it could seat up to 60,000 people to watch gladiator games and other shows, and it is so massive that most of its structure today remains intact; though this will be discussed later together with the Circus Maximus, another great work of architecture. Another of the grandest structures Rome had was Trajan’s Forum built under Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117AD) who in his reign Rome was at its height of territory which meant this forum would be where people could see and buy products all over the vast expanse of the empire and at the center of it was his triumphal column showing his military campaigns and victory over Dacia (today’s Romania) from 101-106, the column which is still intact today shows in perfect detail what Roman army units looked like and how they fought and lived also showing many scenes of the emperor Trajan. This column aside from the Column of Marcus Aurelius near it also shows detailed sculptures of the Roman army but aside from columns the Romans in Rome particularly built triumphal arches made for victorious generals, which at first were in the Via Appia heading to Rome but inside the city in the Forum exactly today are 3 triumphal columns still standing; one made for Emperor Titus when crushing the Jewish Revolt of 70AD as a general, the 2^nd for Emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193-211) built to commemorate his victories over Parthia, and the other one for Constantine I the Great (r. 306-337), and these arches depict scenes of battle too and not only in Rome can you find these arches but across the empire as well and as late as 19th century Paris, the Arc de Triomphe was built to resemble a Roman triumphal arch while the column of Place Vendome to resemble a triumphal column. And lastly within Rome another grand imperial structure being one of the most impressive and still very much intact today is the Pantheon, built originally by Marcus Agrippa under Augustus but highly renovated under Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) which was built as a temple to all the Roman gods but the most impressive part of it is its domed roof being one of the earliest versions of a dome and in its time the largest dome in the world, within the high dome were symmetrical squares in the ceiling with stars in them made to represent the sky while above the dome was a large open hole where sunlight entered and despite it being open 24/7 rain water did not enter as the air inside from the marble floor pushed water out, another fine example of Roman engineering. Outside Rome there were several structures built to represent the power of Rome and many of them built by Hadrian such as his villa in Tivoli which had artificial lakes and Greek statues making the villa look like the complete edition of a luxury Roman villa built by the same emperor who built the architectural feat of a coast-to-coast wall in Britain. The Roman countryside on the other hand was far different from the congested cities but people there complained usually about crop failures and some about high rents they had to pay to the landowners who lived in the cities and not in the farm. However, the Roman countryside too shows sophisticated examples of Roman architecture which were not only found in large scale buildings like temples and theatres but in villas especially in the western parts which had a layout having a central courtyard surrounded by rooms and halls and usually consisted of 2 floors but the unique thing Roman villas had was an indoor pool known as an Impluvium for water supply underneath an open roof that gave it rain water and beneath the floors the same Hypocaust steam room as in the baths to heat it. Meanwhile, the Romans had highly improved the structure of ports by making them have artificial enclosed harbors with concrete structures built into the sea as well as a lighthouse to keep ships safe from the rough waters of the sea and a road leading directly to the city from the port, in fact Rome’s port of Ostia has 2 enclosed harbors the first one circular and the inner one hexagonal; although before the Romans the Greeks and Carthaginians had already built this kind of structure for their ports which most notably ancient Carthage had. Now as for other cities in the empire that had already been built up long before like Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria they already had sophisticated structures most notably Alexandria built under the Ptolemaic kings as their capital making it have a massive library, a main promenade street at the middle of the city, canals, and outside it at the seaside a towering lighthouse known as Pharos still there. However some cities in the east had already existed but grew to importance when being under the Romans such as Ephesus in Asia Minor which was another busy metropolis with a main promenade, a large library, and temple making it one of the largest cities in the empire for a time, then in North Africa (today’s Libya) the city of Cyrene rose to importance under Rome as intellectual center known for its medical school, then in Syria there was Palmyra which was an oasis city in the middle of the desert that rose due to its location as a major stopover in the trade route between the Roman Empire and Persia. Other mega cities were built by emperors over the existing town they were born in, these include Leptis Magna in Libya built by Emperor Septimius Severus and Philippopolis in Syria built by Emperor Philip I. Now basically why a lot of Roman structures still stand today is because for construction, the Romans in the 2^nd century BC developed the material of concrete made of volcanic ash mixed with limestone and water made to be as hard as rock and with it they built their structures including roads. Today some of the best still intact Roman landmarks and feats of their architecture include the Maison Carrée in Nimes, France dating back to 2AD which shows the standard structure of a Roman temple, the Lighthouse of Hercules in the far end of northwestern Spain known as the “edge of the earth”, and in Rome aside from the Pantheon the Curia Julia in the Forum. Within the Roman world, seeing their landmarks as far as Spain or Britain shows that they built their influence all the way up to those far reaches, though on the other hand some far off places like Dacia in today’s Romania or Lusitania (Portugal) may have been under Roman control but you wouldn’t see much of their structures still standing possibly because it was too far away or emperors did not care much about these far off lands. Also by constructing villas and buildings such as temples in the Classical architecture shows in parts as far as Gaul and Britain shows that the Romans were interested to conquer those parts and bring “civilization” there. For the Romans to make such grand structures that are still visible today, they must have needed a lot of slaves to build it for them but also, all the knowledge they borrowed from the Greeks and Egyptians in terms of building were put into use with these structures.

Watch this to see what Ancient Roman architecture and life really looked like (from New Historia).

Watch this to learn about 5 still intact Ancient Roman structures (from Kings and Things).

Read this article for news on a newly discovered Roman grid pattern foundation of a town (from Sky News).

 

In Rome’s successor Empire, the Byzantine Empire in its earlier years, they very much kept the same architecture their predecessors the Romans had which meant that they built their cities in the same way the Romans did which meant that the Eastern Roman cities which they had built in their Balkan territories or updates on earlier cities had the same Roman layout including streets in a grid formation, a public market or forum, a basilica for government offices, public baths, and a theatre either an amphitheater or racetrack or sometimes both while at the same the Byzantines when building structures retained Classical Roman architecture elements like columns and arches. However most of the cities the Byzantines had were already existing Roman cities like Ephesus, Antioch, Nicaea, and Nicomedia in Asia Minor, Thessaloniki and Athens in Greece, and in the earlier part of their imperial era they still had the 3 most important cities of the east Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem; though what the Byzantines had different which was now common after 4^th century Romans was that instead of building temples to the gods they replaced them with Christian churches, also many old Pagan Temples were destroyed or converted into Christian churches, even the Parthenon in Athens became a Byzantine Christian church, but aside from churches, Byzantines built numerous monasteries and libraries as well. Of course the city the Byzantines would put most of their attention to was their capital Constantinople, and like Rome it was also built on 7 hills in which you would notice today when going to Istanbul, and surprisingly it only took 6 years for Constantine the Great to turn the port town of Byzantium which originates to the 7^th century BC founded by the Greek colonist Byzas of Megara into an imperial metropolis, and according to legend Constantine marked the city’s borders himself using his spear. Why Constantine chose this location out of everything else as Rome’s new capital was because it was in a strategic position between 2 continents (Europe and Asia), hard to attack as it was on a peninsula unlike Rome which was only surrounded by hills, also since 284 Rome was no longer the imperial capital and had been too overcrowded and decadent for a serious emperor to rule in it. However, before Constantine, the port of Byzantium was already quite populated as it was a port and it even had an Acropolis being the first hill with a temple above it and a Hippodrome or racetrack that had been there since the 190s built by the emperor Septimius Severus when he rebuilt the city after destroying it in a civil war, though Constantine when building the city to make it instantly an imperial metropolis by looting cities around the empire and taking its structures to the new city and moving several families from Rome and all over the empire into it, also he created a new senate there and a marble senate house resembling the one in Rome and outside it a large open air public square called the Augustaeum surrounded by roofed colonnades on all 4 sides and within the area was the Great Palace, later a large column with a statue of Emperor Justinian I on his horse would be built here. When Constantinople was built, it used the same architecture the Romans used for their cities including a systematic structure of streets whereas in Constantinople, a main boulevard known as the Mese (Greek for “middle street”) ran through the city starting at the 4 arched landmark known as the Milion or the dead center of the new Roman world beside the Augustaeum then passing through the city’s Praetorium or law court and through the Forum of Constantine, a large oval-shaped forum which was the city’s main square with the triumphal column of Constantine the Great at the middle which was made of the precious purple stone known as porphyry from Egypt and built by Constantine himself to commemorate the foundation of the city, today it is the oldest structure in Istanbul if not for the Hippodrome. The Forum of Constantine meanwhile had the other senate house and was surrounded by another set of colonnades going around in a circle, another Byzantine architectural feat surpassing that of the Romans, and aside from this, most of the Mese too was lined with covered colonnades on both sides. Now for architecture, the Byzantines like the Romans before them relied heavily on columns to support their structures and arches, though for columns the Byzantines heavily used the composite style ones which were used a lot in imperial Roman structures which were a mix of the Classical Greek style Ionic and Corinthian columns, and these columns can be seen a lot in Byzantine churches. Now for churches, the Byzantines built them in the unique layout of a Greek cross, which was square in shape but had 4 edges sticking out forming 4 naves and at the middle was where the dome was and this here is the layout of what was the largest cathedral in the world found in Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia. The original structure of the Hagia Sophia built under Constantine the Great’s son Constantius II (r. 337-361) was in the shape of a Roman basilica being rectangular in shape with a courtyard outside and inside the 2 sides lined with colonnades and the roof was simply just made of wood but this was later destroyed in a riot and rebuilt again but when being fully destroyed in the Nika Riot of 532, the emperor Justinian I in only 5 years had it rebuilt into the grandest cathedral ever with a dome 56m high with a diameter of 140m, also it surpasses the Pantheon’s dome in height but not so much in width, though this dome was built using the technique of penditives to support it as well as 3 semi-domes. The Hagia Sophia was constructed by the 2 greatest architects of Justinian’s time the Greeks Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, and only within 5 years as construction of it happened 24/7 with 5,000 workers and slaves from all over the empire building it per shift in which it was 2 shifts a day. Although 5 years was just for the construction of the main structure as the rest of it took years and years to decorate with its mosaics, marble and porphyry columns, and precious stones brought in from all over the empire including Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Greece. The Byzantines after the Hagia Sophia and even before it built structures similar especially for churches and many of them having domes, the other famous one being the Hagia Eirene Church in Constantinople in which its dome is not as high and round as the Hagia Sophia but from inside it surely is shaped like a semi-sphere, this is because of its outer layer which is higher vertically than it is inside, also the Byzantines commonly used small arch shaped windows all over the walls of their churches as well as arched facades and rows of columns. In later centuries beginning with the Macedonian Dynasty (867-1056), Byzantine church architecture evolved into a narrows cross-shaped layout with a central dome, later this evolved to a style with multiple domes, particularly 4 smaller domes with the central one being the largest, this could be seen in other Byzantine era churches of Constantinople like the Pantokrator church and the Chora church as well as the Church of the Holy Apostles which does not exist today in its original form, though the Holy Apostles church is what inspired the architecture of the famous St. Mark’s basilica in Venice, though overall the Byzantines have left behind hundreds of churches in the capital which almost all became mosques under the Ottomans. Now when it came to building structures, the Byzantines like the Romans before them relied heavily on brick and in their area the bricks they used were mostly red bricks compared to the brown ones used in Italy and to construct them, plaster was used; although marble too was highly used by the Byzantines but mostly for columns and for palaces including palace floors and church floors. When it comes to palace architecture, the Byzantines also used marble for the colonnaded facades, which was possibly how the exterior of the Great Palace and seaside Boukoleon Palace of Constantinople along the Marmara Sea looked like. However today, there is not much proof of what a Byzantine era palace looks like but when looking at the church mosaics in Ravenna, Italy one panel shows in good detail the imperial palace of Ravenna which was late in Roman and early Byzantine architecture showing it having Classical architecture with colonnades, arches, and sliding roofs. Byzantine cities like Constantinople and all others basically had similar architecture with the same brick houses, red roofs which were either sloping or flat, as well as villas for the rich population, which were usually 2 floors high like the typical Roman villa though its small windows which were round, square, or octagonal usually faced its inner courtyard rather than the busy street outside, meanwhile these city villas too had its own stables, animal sheds, storage rooms, and its own cistern or Impluvium where rain water is collected. City houses meanwhile usually had balconies as residents used them to get fresh air and if not balconies they used their flat roofs for that, though balconies had become very popular so at one point the emperor Zeno (r. 474-491) passed a law that balconies cannot block the views of others houses and also cannot block from others the view of the sea, also they had to be 10ft apart from the neighbors house and 15ft above the ground. The balconies however also created porticos on the street to give pedestrians protection from rain, snow, or heat, and later on the upper floors of houses rather than having balconies protruded out from above the ground floor. Many of the wealthier houses were made of brick and some even of marble and many having mosaic floors, also they would have their own enclosed private gardens, fountains, central heating underneath the floors or Hypocaust, a private chapel, and a connection to the draining system of Constantinople which flowed out into the Bosporus and Marmara Seas, same as in Rome where it flowed out into the Tiber River, though other Byzantines cities too had a sewer system as they were also Roman built. Like in ancient Rome, Constantinople too had busy streets lined with shops and traffic of people but horses, wagons, and carriages. The lower class people though like in Rome also lived in the cramped Insulae, which in Constantinople went from 5-9 floors high, meanwhile these flats which were so densely packed were the perfect place for fires and plagues to spread especially since they were made of weaker material like clay and wood and people in them kept their chickens or pigs. Other lower class workers of Constantinople had lived in shacks or hovels in some areas of the city, which were the dangerous parts wherein plague and fire as well as revolts could spread and rise up from. When it came to burying, the Byzantines who replaced the Roman burial pattern of cremation with burial in the ground buried their dead outside the city as the city was a place for life not death but also the dead bodies could be a source of disease, and only the imperial families could be buried within the city. Now aside from innovative houses, Constantinople had some of the grandest and most massive landmarks of their day for centuries and not only was this the Hagia Sophia but its massive oval marble Hippodrome which could sit up to 400,000 people and at the Spina in middle of it wherein chariots turned around were 3 columns, 2 Egyptian obelisks and the Serpent Column from Delphi in Greece as a way to show that Constantinople was the hub of the empire and all things met there, the same way Rome was. When it came to water, Constantinople at first did not have adequate fresh water supply nearby so emperors had to build cisterns to store water for the city and aqueducts to supply water all the way from Thrace into the city, which flow down into the cisterns. Constantinople then had 3 major aqueducts supplying it water and combined they measure up to 592km, longer than all the 11 aqueducts of Rome combined, the most famous Byzantine aqueduct being the one built by Emperor Valens (r. 364-378) which still stands today, though this is one of the only things he would be best known for. As for the cisterns, Constantinople had hundreds scattered all over the city, some underground and some open air, and more creatively the Byzantines did not just make them look like water storage plants but decorated them with recycled columns from all over the empire, one cistern being the Cistern of Philoxenos had over a thousand columns but the best known cistern is the Basilica Cistern across the Hagia Sophia which has 336 columns and had supplied water to the imperial palace, also the Byzantines used Roman engineering to connect the cisterns to supply water to fountains and houses. Constantinople and other cities meanwhile had a distinct pattern of the Mese running through several forums or public squares but also the city had several public parks for people to enjoy. Constantinople though was not built like the other symmetrical square Roman colonias as it was not on flat land but rather on a hilly peninsula sticking out into the Bosporus so the city had a triangular shape with a colony across it from the inlet known as the Golden Horn but most impressive of all were the 3-layered walls that surrounded all 3 sides of the city, the larger part of these walls being on the land on the west side while the other sides were surrounded by walls that were built into the seashore. These walls known as the Walls of Theodosius II built during his reign (408-450) was one of the greatest works of military architecture having 3 layers, first a moat, then an outer wall, and higher walls and in fact these walls were so strong that no medieval army could breach them except for the 4^th Crusade in 1204 though they only breached through the lower and weaker sea wall, and only were the cannons of Sultan Mehmed II in 1453 were able to breach it. The entire span of the walls had 192 towers making it the walls mark the entire area of Constantinople making it the same size as Rome surrounded by the Aurelian Walls though the Theodosian Walls were much stronger and made of stronger stone and brick having the right amount of towers to station soldiers to guard it, also the Theodosian Walls have protected the city for about a thousand years and even in Ottoman times it was still in use and today most it still stands wherein you can really see it was built in perfect symmetry and not only does it look strong but it looks quite stunning as well in color with red bricks lining certain portions going on for kilometers. Other Byzantine cities too built walls like this and some can still be seen today like the walls of Thessaloniki, which also shows the same layout of a Byzantine city with columns, arches, and forums, but Constantinople was till the grandest of all Byzantine cities especially in the reign of Basil II (976-1025) that even the Varangian Rus mercenaries said no other city could like that and when returning to their native Scandinavia they called Constantinople no other than “the city” after seeing the walls, Hippodrome, forums, and Hagia Sophia. Throughout the empire no matter how far away from Constantinople, the Byzantines left their mark in their architecture particularly in churches and monasteries and some of the most notable Byzantine structures today include the churches of Ohrid in today’s Republic of Macedonia though some were built under the Bulgarians who adopted Byzantine architecture, then Thessaloniki in Greece and Sofia in Bulgaria too show many Byzantine churches, in Greece the monasteries in Mt. Athos and Meteora and in Eastern Turkey the Sumela Monastery of Trebizond dating back to the late 4th century show how talented the Byzantines were in building monasteries above high rocks and cliffs, and as far as the Sinai Peninsula you could see the walled Monastery of St. Catherine in the middle of the desert which was founded all the way in 565 by Emperor Justinian I. As for the Byzantine countryside compared to Western Rome where villas were scattered all over, in the east stone village communities with churches, baths, forums, streets, barns, and fountains were common whereas in the west by the 5^th century onwards, people had already abandoned their farm villas to live in fortified settlements. The Byzantine countryside in Greece and Asia Minor too had many villas wherein the landowners had lived in, and usually communities would grow around it. In the west however, Byzantine style structures built in the late Roman age can still be seen like the Palace of Diocletian in Split, Croatia and the gates of Trier in Germany but the most impressive ones in Ravenna which include the churches with the most impressive mosaics on the walls and apses, some dating back to the 5^th century Western Roman Empire but the most impressive of them being the Basilica of San Vitale dating back to the Byzantine era founded by Justinian I. The rest of Western Europe though falling into the Dark Ages still would not forget the architecture and building techniques of the Romans that in fact in the capital of Charlemagne’s empire which was Aachen in Germany, the churches and palaces were built resembling late Roman and Byzantine ones and some centuries later the west would improve on previous architecture building structures and churches in the impressive Romanesque and Gothic styles in which their spires and vaulted ceilings surpass the architectural wonders of the Romans and Byzantines, one of the largest and most impressive medieval structures in the west was the Romanesque style St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome long before it got its Renaissance dome, this structure in fact dates back to the late Roman Empire built under Constantine I. The medieval Europeans despite not enjoying the stability of Imperial Rome still focused on building impressive and strong structures even if losing the formula of making concrete the way the Romans did, but not only were these churches but castles wherein it required a lot of military engineering, basically the west after the fall of Rome did not forget the building techniques of the past, especially since they needed to use them for military purposes. In the early modern age, some countries would revive the Byzantine architecture of arches and domes for some buildings the same way they have revived Classical Roman architecture for government buildings and palaces with the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical architectures. Meanwhile, countries that took in Byzantine culture like Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia too built their churches in Byzantine style.

 

III. Roman and Byzantine Art and Fashion

Now when it came to the arts, the Romans over centuries developed many techniques, although their art forms weren’t originally theirs but borrowed from the peoples they conquered, most particularly the Greeks and Etruscans known for developing Classical art, which depicts humans in realistic forms, the preferred art form being sculpture although pottery and portraits were popular art forms too. As a republic, Rome valued austerity and practicality so art wasn’t as important except to decorate their building and depict their leaders or consuls, for this they used the art form of sculpture. However, early Rome’s neighbor the Etruscans did develop sophisticated art forms including sculptures of mythological figures and gods using terracotta and frescos on their walls which used paints made from natural dyes like charcoal, chalk, and rusted iron to make black, white, and red to depicting the gods and their daily lives, also the Etruscans developed the art form of painting red clay pottery with black the way the Greeks did, these pots known as Amphorae would later would be one of the most valued trade items in the Mediterranean under the Roman golden age of the Pax Romana not only because they looked attractive but they had a lot of purposes especially for storing wine, olive oil, and other liquids. It was after Rome’s conquest of Greece in the 2^nd century BC wherein Rome really took in the art culture that the Greeks have left behind in Greece and the near east following the expansion of Greek civilization under Alexander the Great; in Rome this meant that the aristocrats showed a lot of interest in collecting Greek art but Roman artists such as sculptors took inspiration from the Greek style of sculptures, Greeks in the Roman Empire too worked as sculptors and artists. Roman sculptors from then on had produced many busts and statues particularly of important officials and later emperors making them either out of marble, iron or bronze, terracotta, or the precious reddish-purple stone known as porphyry usually crafting them to look as realistic as possible showing the body parts and movements in precision. Generations of Roman sculptors learned the sculpture technique of the Greeks and Etruscans and would pass down the craft to their children. In the imperial age beginning with Augustus, emperors commissioned artists to sculpt them and their family members to look as realistic as possible but some statues depict the emperors in more unrealistic ways such as the famous statue of Augustus where he is depicted to look more god-like to emphasize the idea of the emperor as a god, although other statues and busts of Augustus show him looking more human and in another case, the horseback statue of Marcus Aurelius shows him as a strong general when in reality he was a quiet philosopher. Some Roman marble sculptures happen to look so intricate like the one of the emperor Commodus (r. 180-192) wearing lion skin that looks very realistic. Other forms of sculpture where you could see human figures carved into a friezes and reliefs used to decorate facades of buildings, arches, tombstones, and columns the most detailed and impressive Roman reliefs show miniature figures of soldiers and battles in Trajan’s column. Another form of art was cameo carving wherein profile images particularly of emperors and imperial family members were carved into layered stone or sometimes even in expensive precious stones which were brought in from trade with the east. Another way emperors were depicted were in coins people used all over the empire and the reigning emperor’s face was minted into coins to show the people they ruled what they looked like, though coin images of emperors were not as accurate as sculptures of them. Some drinking cups the Romans used were highly and elaborately decorated including silver cups that were sometimes lined with precious stones or had intricate carvings on them but on the other hand, colorful blown glass which was a product of the east especially from Syria were popular in the empire and all over it there were hot and uncomfortable workshops that produced glass items in all sorts of shapes and sizes, although glass became mass produced therefore it was a cheap houseware product, but glass wasn’t only for houseware equipment but for art as well as the Romans have produced some glass sculptures too the most notable being the opaque white Augustan glass vase carving known as the Portland Vase. From the Etruscans, the Romans borrowed the art of colorful fresco painting in which many decorated the walls of their houses with, the ones that survive to today are in the ruins of the houses of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy which after being buried in the ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD were left untouched. Here the frescos show actually realistic depictions of daily life, the Italian countryside, some show trees and plants, some show the town or the sea, and some even show portraits of the house owners while some even erotic art, some also depict the gods while surviving frescos from the catacombs in Rome and other Italian cities where Christians went into hiding show early forms of painted Christian art. Portraits of people were common too in the Roman Empire in which these were painted over wooden panels and depict human quite accurately, the most notable ones being the Fayum mummy portraits from Egypt which depict the Roman-Egyptians who are buried there while their portraits were found next to their tombs; another kind of panel art was called a Tondo, which was a round wooden panel with portraits on them. The most impressive Roman art form though has to go to the mosaics cause not only are they colorful but they were labor intensive and took so many craftsmen just to make a small one; these mosaics or tiled art like pottery and sculpture were crafted in tight workshops around cities and in these workshop workers cut sandstone and colored marble or glass into tiny cubes called tesserae which they would use to patch up actual patterned mosaics by placing them over mortar. Mosaics weren’t as popular by the era of the Roman Empire until the 3^rd century as this was a labor-intensive craft but many houses of the Roman nobility had mosaic flooring, though mosaics after the 3^rd century would grow very popular especially with the late Romans and their successors the Byzantines.

Roman art, particularly portraits actually do show a clear image of what Roman fashion styles looked like including clothing, hair, and accessories but clothing in ancient Rome was slow to evolve and remained the same for centuries from the time of the republic to the empire. Roman male fashion was very similar to Ancient Greek male fashion with the tunic is the basic garment, a single rectangular fabric woven into a shirt mostly made of linen or wool unlike the Greek version of a tunic called a Chiton which was just a piece of fabric pinned around the body. The Roman version of the tunic added sleeves and depending on social class, the length varied; for workers and many plebs they wore short tunics above the knee while senators or other upper-class men wore longer and looser tunics, although most Romans wore a belt to keep up their tunic. Roman women too wore tunics, although for them they wore it in the Greek style of wrapping it around their body and pinning it up in their shoulders. For undergarments men and women wore a Subligaculum beneath their tunics for the waist while women wore a piece of cloth wrapped around the chest called a Strophium, although there is not much evidence for this except for a mosaic showing women wearing while exercising, which shows they most probably used it only for exercising activities. Roman children too wore tunics as their basic outfit, although girls wore longer tunics that touched their feet while boys wore shorter ones though both held them up with belts at the waist, meanwhile both boys and girls also wore a type of toga called Toga Praetexta over their tunic until they came of age and together with it they also wore an amulet to keep of evil spirits, for boys it was the Bulla and for girls the Lunula. Togas meanwhile were the formal outfit for Roman men to be worn over their tunics, and every year Roman boys turning 14 attended a ceremony when they would enter manhood and exchange their childhood clothes for an adult’s tunic and toga. Roman citizens then wore toga for formal occasions and were color coded depending on their rank in society, many ordinary citizens would wear a plain colored toga, senators, consuls, governors, and other officials wore a white toga with a purple stripe wrapped around their white tunic with a purple stripe, while purple togas were only reserved for emperors, though purple togas were first worn by victorious Roman generals as Tyrian purple was an expensive dye made of the Murex shell, though if not for purple, the other popular Roman colors for togas that was also associated with the empire were red and dark blue. Togas meanwhile were not always worn because it could be easily dirtied and they were usually heavy, hot, and uncomfortable because they were not sewn but wrapped around the body as sewing was difficult and expensive so they were usually worn at times of year when the weather was cooler. Married women who were Roman citizens wore a piece of cloth pinned over their tunic with a Fibula called a Stola and sometimes would put another thin layer of cloth over it which could be used as a hooded cloak or veil called a Palla and women’s clothing were usually loose, then the Vestal Virgins of Rome in charge of guarding the eternal flame were dressed in white and mostly covered up with a large veil which was similar to the Roman bridal dress which was topped at their head with a metal wired cap or Apex. Roman male priests including the Pontifex Maximus or chief priest wore hooded togas while freedmen and slaves only wore tunics and freedmen too were forbidden from wearing togas so when outdoors they would usually wear a cloak. For footwear, Romans wore leather sandals called Caliga, the same sandals soldiers wore or sometimes wore leather or cloth boots. For soldiers, tunics were usually uniform and dyed with the available dyes but the material for their tunic underneath their armors varied depending on the regions they served as those in the warmer Mediterranean worse linen tunics which were usually white and those in the north wore wool tunics and for color red was the common one for the land army as it was the color associated with Mars, the god of war while naval soldiers or marines wore blue as it was associated with Neptune, the god of the sea. Pants however were looked down on by civilized Romans as they were barbarian clothing and Greeks and other Mediterranean people did not wear them, rather it was something more common with the Persians and barbarian tribes in Europe, although Roman soldiers in the north wore them because of cold climate. Now because of the trade that went on easily around the empire, people all over it wore accessories from different parts of the empire such as jewellery from the eastern provinces which were worn by women, sometimes the rich women even wore products that came from beyond the empire but were shipped in from the intercontinental trade, these included the expensive silks and cotton from China and India that were worn by men and women at times and it is said that the emperor Elagabalus (r. 218-222) was the first to wear everything silk; then gold earrings from Dacian gold, and Amber necklaces were other luxury items which came from the Amber from the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe through trade with Germanic tribes. In imperial Rome, women especially from the upper classes were very vain and would follow various trends apart from using perfumes and makeup which usually came from Arabia and Syria; these trends then included curling up their hair into a large nest of hair or dying it blonde, and slaves would take hours styling women’s hair. Men meanwhile dressed much simpler except for emperors in which many of them like Caligula (r. 37-41AD) and Nero (r. 54-68AD) were vain; although men’s hairstyles in Ancient Rome were very the same for a long time as in the republican era and in the early empire men preferred to have shorter hair and to be clean shaven and men would also go to specialty barber shops for shaves and fixing their hair, though being bald seemed quite unacceptable for Romans. Hairstyles though would change depending on the era as emperors would also be the ones setting the trends for men’s styling; for example for the longest times beards were rare among Roman men but during the reign of Hadrian (117-138), beards and large curly hair became fashionable up until the reign of Caracalla (211-217), afterwards beards still were common but hairstyles became shorter, though the clean-shaven look would become popular again under Constantine I (306-337).

Read this article on news on newly uncovered intact Roman mosaics in a vineyard in Italy (from My Modern Met).

 

Late Roman art from the 3^rd century onwards was mostly characterized by detailed tiled mosaics depicting people, houses, animals, and patterns which would be the art form of the Roman Empire’s successor at the 4^th century, the Byzantine Empire when the capital had moved to Constantinople. Byzantine art would mostly be Christian art and this kind of art had originated with the Christians of Imperial Rome who have been practicing their faith when hiding in the catacombs, though after Emperor Constantine I’s Edict of Milan 313, Christianity became legal, thus Christian art became more dominant. With the rise of Christianity, mosaic art became more and more the dominant Roman art but so was ivory carvings in which images of Christ and saints were made, and so was the Chi-Rho (PX) symbol on the mosaics representing the initials of Christ in Greek, at the same times crosses were a popular subject in Byzantine art. The major cities of that time which were Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople became the major artistic centers of the early Byzantine Empire and in the early 5^th century, Ravenna too became an artistic center but after the fall of Alexandria and Antioch to the Arabs in the 7^th century, Constantinople became the dominant Christian art center in the east. Byzantine art was in some ways similar to Classical Roman art as the Byzantines still used the same art methods as their predecessors including realistic sculpture, mosaics, and carvings on stone or metal though the biggest difference between Classical Roman and Byzantine art was that Byzantine art emphasized more heavily on religious matters and rather than depicting religious figures in the realistic way Roman gods were portrayed, the Byzantines depicted Christ and Christian saints looking less natural and more godlike in a distinct way that they do not look like they come from earth but from a parallel dimension, this change of art happened because this was the way the early Christians in Imperial Rome who were mostly Greeks depicted their saints and as Christianity became the official religion, this became the dominant art form. As early as the 5^th century, the late Romans (Byzantines) were already masters of mosaics compared to the Romans before them as by then they were able to fill up entire ceilings with tesserae to make mosaic patterns; samples of these very detailed and colorful mosaics that fill up entire walls and ceilings and even in the curved apse; these can be seen in the Church of Sant’apollinare Nuovo and the Mausoleum of Empress Galla Placidia which are both in Ravenna, Italy and the mausoleum shows some of the most impressive mosaics of a star sky ceiling on 4 sides and some parts even show realistic looking movements. In the 6^th century, under Emperor Justinian I (527-565), religious and imperial art came into an all new level as they began to look more regal with the addition of gold backgrounds and samples of this can be seen in the Hagia Sophia’s 6^th century mosaics and in Ravenna the perfect place to see these regal looking 6^th century mosaics is at the Basilica of San Vitale which depicts the emperor Justinian I and his court surrounded by a gold background and across him his wife Empress Theodora and her court with a gold background and here both the emperor and empress have a halo on their head to emphasize them as the rulers of the world, but other than these figures the mosaics include intricate figure like rivers, plants, and lions. However, today only 2 large panel mosaics depicting Byzantine emperors and their courts can be found and both are in Ravenna, the first one being the panels of Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora and the other one at the Church of Sant’apollinare in Classe being the panel depicting Emperor Constantine IV (r. 668-685) with his 2 brothers and his son who would be his successor Justinian II (r. 685-695) as well as the bishop of Ravenna and priests on his right side. Meanwhile since Byzantium was a more autocratic society than Imperial Rome, emperors from looking like real human beings were made to look more godlike from another dimension which can be seen in how sculptures depict them as early as the Missorium of Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-395); classical Roman busts and statues too were still common in early Byzantine art and many early emperors too like Constantine I, Constantius II, Valens, Theodosius I, Theodosius II, and Leo I had realistic looking busts and statues lined the streets of Constantinople, the most notable statue being the one of Constantine I above his column; also in terms of sculpture, the Byzantines mastered the art of intricate patterns on facades and column capitals. The next Byzantine emperors for the longest time after the 5^th century would not have much portraits depicting them, possibly they have been lost but surviving evidence that suggests what they look like are the Byzantine imperial coins (Solidus) minted during their reign to show their subjects what they looked like, however some Byzantine coins do not depict emperors in much detail especially the later ones where only their robes and crowns are visible in the coin. Other earlier Byzantine figures and emperors too like Emperor Anastasius I (r. 491-518) and his wife Empress Ariadne are depicted on ivory carvings, the panel of 2 called Diptychs and 3 called Triptychs. For mosaics depicting emperors, there are very few left standing, so only the emperors Constantine I, Justinian I, Leo VI (r. 886-912), Alexander (912-913), Constantine IX (1042-1055) with his wife empress Zoe, John II (r. 1118-1143) and his wife empress Irene are those that are left showing them accurately in full color which they can all be seen at the Hagia Sophia. However, to see a more accurate depiction of the faces of the Byzantine emperors, the manuscript Mutinensis gr. 122 shows miniatures of all Roman emperors from Augustus to the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (r. 1449-1453) all with their imperial crowns. Other illuminated manuscripts that depict emperors include the cover of Basil II’s Menologion from 1000 which shows Emperor Basil II at the cover again looking more godlike than human, here he is in his imperial armor standing over the Bulgarians he defeated in battle. Another famous piece of Byzantine art is the Byzantine era comics known as the Madrid Skylitzes found in the national library of Madrid, Spain showing illustrated colored images of Byzantine life including the emperors and their reigns and battles spanning from 811 to 1057 drawn by the court official John Skylitzes (1040-1101), though an important guide showing medieval Byzantine life, figures here appear somewhat like childish drawings. The most well-known Byzantine art form were no other than religious icons hand-painted over wooden panels like the Roman portraits of Fayum, except Byzantine icons show saints on them looking like they are from another dimension and not like real humans with emotions, this tradition of icon painting dates all the way back to the early days of Christianity with St. Luke being known as the first icon painter. Icons including mosaics and any art depicting faces however from 730 to 787 and again from 815 to 843 became illegal so icons all over the empire were destroyed and owning them became illegal while priests, monks, and artists who supported icons too were imprisoned or even killed; this was under the Iconoclast emperors who thought icons brought doom to the dying empire, though these emperors like Leo III (r. 717-741) and his son Constantine V (r. 741-775) wanted Byzantium to be a militarized state under martial law wherein art would mean anything, although these emperors replaced mosaics depicting faces with simple art forms such as crosses being inspired by the Islamic art form of not using any images as it was a violation of the 2nd Commandment. In 843, the empress regent Theodora once again and forever legalized icons making them acceptable by the Orthodox Church too, and from then on, Byzantium went through an artistic renaissance under the Macedonian Dynasty beginning with Basil I in 867; here art was taken even to a higher level, new mosaics were made in the new churches built looking more impressive than before adding some emotions to the figures painted on them, some of the most impressive of the era found in the Monastery of Hosios Loukas in Greece, also detailed ivory carvings returned and instead panels entire ivory caskets were made. A new kind of Byzantine art form emerged at this time too, which were frescos painted all over the interior church walls and a lot of these can be seen in many Byzantine churches in Greece and Turkey and also in Byzantine influenced countries like Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia, and Russia. Byzantine church frescos were made to look dark with dark blue backgrounds and at this time since Byzantium was a military power, emperors or those who commissioned these churches wanted to show saints depicted as soldiers with weapons and armor, this was to show that the Byzantine Empire was there to protect the world from the enemies of Christianity, the Muslims. Byzantine churches with mosaics and frescos were also built to be dark with small windows, mainly because this was to keep the harsh sunlight away from entering the churches which could lead to burning the paintings or mosaics especially since the sunlight could reflect on the mosaics. Under the Komnenos (1081-1185) dynasty and after the mass destruction of the 1204 4th Crusade, the Palaiologos (1261-1453) dynasty saw a renaissance of new arts developed especially fresco art and in the late Byzantine age another detailed illuminated manuscript was produced, this being the Alexander Chronicle in the 14^th century which depicts the life and conquests of the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in Byzantine style including Byzantine costumes. In 1261 when the Byzantine Empire was restored to Constantinople after 57 years of Latin rule, the emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos seeing Byzantium could no longer be an imperial power chose to focus the empire on the arts instead although he wasn’t an artistic person but a soldier and statesman, he commissioned artists to redecorate the city and revive the arts of the past, although it was actually his wife Empress Theodora and son the next emperor Andronikos II that focused their time on the arts, at this time the Byzantines had ow begun adapting to paint frescos and make mosaics depicting landscapes with humans on it mostly religious figures except this time these figures were no longer on plain backgrounds and had shown more movement and emotion, this kind of art can be seen at the Chora Church of Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire existed up to when the Renaissance art movement was starting in Western Europe that the Byzantine emperor John VIII (r. 1425-1448) was depicted in a Florentine Renaissance tapestry looking more realistic, though Byzantium did not adapt to this realistic style as for them, they chose to make figures in their art not look like real humans with emotions but more like gods watching over you.

Now Byzantine art too is the best place to see what Byzantine fashion actually looked like. Roman fashion was slow to change but in the 3^rd century there were major changes to Roman fashion, here the toga which was commonly used earlier became only in use for ceremonial occasions as the old Roman toga was difficult to wear and uncomfortable, instead the toga for everyday use was replaced with the large cloak called a Paludamentum which was before that a cloak used by soldiers and their commanders in which it would be pinned on their shoulder, this cloak was equivalent to the Greek Chlamys. The old basic Roman tunic in the 3^rd century for men too was replaced with the larger and loose tunic called a Dalmatica that was either knee or ankle length and held up at the waist with a belt which would be the basic clothing piece throughout the Byzantine era, this unlike the Roman tunic had long and wide sleeves and was embroidered with patterns at the bottom part and at the shoulders and men too would from now one wear pants beneath this tunic. The Dalmatica was now the standard outfit for almost everyone from common people to soldiers and even to emperors; the soldiers at this point would now abandon their old Roman armor and tunics and instead wear the Dalmatica tunic beneath their new version of scaled armor and in fact the military unit of the Limitanei or border guards did not need any armor, rather they just wore the Dalmatica with a cloak over it when on duty. For footwear, the late Romans and Byzantines would still wear leather sandals but boots would end up becoming more common and nobles who wore low cut shoes wore high cut socks with them, though headwear would become more popular with the late Romans and Byzantines, particularly the flat cap known as the Pileus. From the 3^rd century onwards, Roman fashion had become more “barbarian” and less Roman in look especially with the use of pants and large cloaks, but also the clothes of the wealthier people began looking more oriental like Sassanid Persian clothing with the use of more colorful silks. Clothing in the Western Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire were one and the same as they originated from the same empire so people in both wore the Dalmatica as their basic outfit and sometimes would wear an inner tunic, also depending on social class or profession their clothes came in different colors. Common citizens usually wore plain colored tunics and cloaks, although there is not much evidence on what common Byzantine clothes looked like seen in images, but most likely commoners wore these kinds of outfits for centuries up until the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Now in Byzantium there were 4 rival political factions; the reds, whites, blues, and greens so in events like chariot races, people of these factions would wear tunics and cloaks of their respective faction. When it came to colors, purple was only reserved for emperors and empresses and the mosaic of Justinian I in Ravenna shows him wearing a large purple cloak with gold embroidery over a white embroidered tunic which suggests this is what early Byzantine emperors wore, also the emperors of Byzantium wore full crowns lined with jewellery unlike in Imperial Rome where it was just a gold laurel wreath because the emperor wasn’t supposed to look like an absolute monarch in which a full crown displays, however the Roman emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305) replaced the wreath with an actual crown known as a Diadem to shows the emperor had absolute power. Byzantine senators like in Republican and Imperial Rome wore white except instead of a toga they wore a white cloak with a purple stripe over their long white tunic as seen in the Justinian mosaic too, though consuls sometimes wore a silk sash wrapped around their tunic looking similar to a Roman toga. After the fall of the western empire in 476, the rest of Western Europe entered the Dark Ages and fashions drastically changed to simpler wool or linen outfits when these people were now under barbarian leaders but in the east, fashion still remained sophisticated. Silk though was expensive for the longest time as they were imported all the way from India or China but in 552 during the reign of Justinian I, 2 Byzantine monks journeyed to China and smuggled silk worms back to Byzantium and because of this, Justinian I established silk manufacturing in the empire in order for the Byzantines to produce their own silks without having to get them all the way from China. Silk however would still remain expensive because it was hard to manufacture so only the rich, nobility, and generals could afford to wear it but when produced in Byzantium, craftsmen had sewn golden patterns like eagles into silk robes which nobles would wear as seen in some Byzantine manuscripts. Byzantine records though only usually show what generals or nobles wore and not so much common people like workers or merchants but it is highly likely that these common people stuck to the same fashion for centuries which was that of the Dalmatica and cloak which was definitely more sophisticated than the outfits of commoners in medieval Western Europe during Byzantine times. Byzantine women meanwhile wore clothing similar to Roman women except making them more modest so women most particularly nobles extended their tunics making them long sleeved while the Stola would still be in use over a woman’s tunic but the necklines which had been low-cut in Roman times became less revealing and closer to the neck in Byzantine times; women too in Byzantium preferred to cover their hair so they usually wore veils and sometimes a cap over it; manuscripts of empress meanwhile show them fully covered up in long tight silk robes with wide sleeves and sometimes with veils, meanwhile female dancers in Byzantium wore sleeveless tunics. The imperial costume from the large purple cloak over a white tunic would change possibly during the reign of Justinian II (685-695), the old costume then was replaced with the Loros consisting of a purple robe wrapped around with a long golden embroidered sash similar to a toga, and for the next 8 centuries onwards this would be the standard imperial outfit. Imperial family members too wore this same kind of robe except purple was reserved for emperors so family members wore blue silk robes instead with the same gold embroidery but for shoes imperial family members wore blue ones while the emperor wore purple shoes. Byzantine nobles in the late era wore the same silk robes, though in the last centuries of Byzantium, nobles particularly generals wore large hats, some being in the shape of a turban. Commoners and soldiers too wore turbans that were wrapped around the head as well as padded cushioned vests called a Kavadion. Like in Imperial Rome, jewellery too was popular among the Byzantine nobility especially women while Byzantine crowns compared to Roman ones were decorated with precious stones not only on the crown but in the Stemma or beads that were attached to the crown, though women wore jewellery more and took time fixing their hair too like in Imperial Rome. Meanwhile, priests and bishops in Byzantium wore a single vestment over their tunic called a Chasuble, this was the same outfit of patriarchs as well although patriarchs wore a gold one; priests meanwhile in the later Byzantine era wore black including a tall black headpiece, though Byzantine Orthodox priests and monks usually kept their hair long and had beards. In Byzantium, emperor’s set the trends for men’s appearances and hairstyles; in the early Byzantine era beginning with Constantine the Great, men kept their hair in a neat bowl-shape wherein the back part was longer, Constantine the Great too brought back the old Roman look of being clean-shaven and emperors all the way to the Byzantine emperor Leo I (r. 457-474) kept it this way except one emperor in this time Julian the Apostate (r. 361-363) chose to keep his beard rather than shaving it as he was a Pagan and he associated clean-shaven faces with Christianity and beards with Paganism. In the 5^th century, men had their beards kept short which is seen in the image of Justinian I although others like the general Belisarius (500-565) kept a full beard, however it was during the reign of the emperor Phocas (602-610) when beards would be forever brought back and some emperors like Constans II (r. 641-668) is depicted in his coin with a very large beard. In the era of the Macedonian Dynasty beginning with Basil I in 867, Byzantine men would especially emperors preferred to have long hair and long beards, emperors later on even styled their beards with curls or splitting the ends in two parts. For the Byzantines, the beards ended up becoming a symbol of authority but also it was sign of being rich as it was probably expensive to maintain a beard.

Watch this to learn the history of Byzantine art (from BBC).

Watch this to learn about the Byzantine-Chinese silk trade (from Kings and Generals).

 

IV. Roman and Byzantine Entertainment

Public entertainment played a very major role in Roman society not only in Rome among the people they conquered in their empire that even when being from far off lands away from Italy like Britain or Egypt, you could be not Roman in blood but in spirit if you enjoyed public entertainment. The Satires written by Juvenal in the early 2^nd century says “two things only Roman people desire are bread and the games of the circus”; in this case the Roman government especially in the time of the empire usually gave their people free bread as the empire controlled Egypt that could produce an unlimited supply of grain for bread, therefore giving away people bread was done to make them content with their government no matter how corrupt or dysfunctional their government could be. Roman government officials ever since the beginning knew the masses (Plebs) were troublemakers and could plot to overthrow the Patricians at the senate so these officials thought that giving them free entertainment whether plays, music, other kids of shows, chariot races, or gladiatorial games could solve their anger and keep them distracted, and ever since the time of the republic the government had already been giving Roman people free entertainment. Rome and other major cities around the empire had an arena for gladiator games or shows, sometimes a Greek style open theatre which had already been built up by the Greeks in Greek cities of the empire for plays, and a hippodrome for chariot races; in Rome during the imperial era emperors would host and pay for games or other forms of public entertainment as well while in the provinces the local governments particularly the provincial governors (Proconsuls) paid for it. One of the most popular but most savage forms of entertainment were gladiator shows in which were fights to the death and had highly entertained people and this here was one of the many Etruscan influences on Rome. For the Etruscans, when a noble died, his slaves often challenged each other on a fight to the death for everyone to see and when the winner slays the loser, the winner too would later be executed. This tradition was later taken in by the Romans who had conquered the Etruscans north of them and for the Romans, they would usually hold these fight-to-the-death games on celebrations of the emperor’s birthday or like the Etruscans in commemorating the death of a deceased imperial family member. Gladiator fights became popular in Rome by the time Julius Caesar was dictator (48-44BC) wherein hundreds of gladiators who were slaves fought each other to the death, although at this time the massive Colosseum of Rome hadn’t been constructed yet. During the reign of Vespasian (69-79AD) the Colosseum of Rome made especially for gladiator games was constructed and in its completion in 80AD under Vespasian’s son Emperor Titus, the Colosseum being opened was celebrated with games going on for 100 days. The colosseum could sit up to 60,000 spectators and part of the multi-layered seats was the imperial box for the emperor and his family while below the ascending seats was where the sporting equipment was stored and was where the gladiators came out from. Many would think all gladiators that fought in the arena were slaves forced to fight to death while the winner would earn his freedom, although true enough many of them were slaves from all parts of the empire but some gladiators were freedmen or ex-soldiers who enjoyed fighting, also not all were men as some female slaves together with men were trained at fighting academies in different parts of the empire to fight as gladiators in various arenas around the empire, although female gladiators were not as popular as men as women were seen as inferior so in 200 Emperor Septimius Severus banned female gladiators. Sometimes senators would fight in the arena just to show off, while emperors like Caligula (r. 37-41AD), Titus (r. 79-81AD), Hadrian (r. 117-138) were known to fight in the arena although only as a quick act while the emperor Commodus (r. 180-192) was known to notoriously fight in the Colosseum in Rome and enjoyed doing it that in his reign he took gladiator fights more seriously than running the empire, a strange thing for an emperor since in Ancient Rome gladiators were seen as the bottom of society. In the Colosseum, Commodus was known to dress up like Hercules with a lion skin over his head and when fighting was known to have slain wild animals himself including a giraffe but when it came to fighting humans he did it the easy way as he went up against wounded soldiers or disabled people. Gladiators who were usually slaves came from all parts of the empire which means they were of different races but in the arena there were organized into different types of warriors with their own weapons and armor; the most famous and stronger types were the Murmillo which was a barely clothed warrior except for a full helmet, Scutum shield, a short Gladius sword, and an arm guard or Manica while the other type was the Thraex meaning “Thracian” which had the same equipment as the Murmillo except this one had a small square or round shield and a short curved sword, though despite its name, these did not necessarily come from Thrace although many Roman gladiators were in fact slaves from Thrace (northeast Greece). Other gladiator types came into the arena on horseback or chariots, another one known as the Dimachaerus fought with 2 small swords, and the famous Retiarius was barely clothed and equipped except for metal arm protection, a fisherman’s net, and trident. Many would also think that gladiators simply just died fighting to the death, but in truth despite gladiator games having no rules at all, when one combatant was wounded people would usually vote to spare him but sometimes with the “thumbs-down” they voted to kill him, but promoters disliked the gladiators being killed unnecessarily since it cost a lot to feed and train them, although some prisoners were just mercilessly killed in the arena by wild animals like the Christians who were persecuted under the emperors Decius (r. 249-251) and those during the Persecution of Diocletian in 303. Wild animals brought into arenas all over the empire through Rome’s wildlife trade included lions, leopards, hyenas, and rhinoceroses which were hunted down in Sub-Saharan Africa beyond Roman borders, tigers from Asia, wolves from Scotland, and bears from Germany and Russia; the Romans in fact in this trade have hunted down so many animals and in inaugural games of the Colosseum in 80AD, over 9,000 animals were killed 100 days and in the 123 day games of Emperor Trajan in the early 2^nd century, more than 11,000 wild animals were killed that these animal killings in the arena had gone as far as wiping out some animal species like the Barbary lion of Saharan Africa. Gladiators on the other hand were not always the bottom of society as those who were known for their strength in numerous games ended up becoming celebrities among the common Roman people that terracotta sculptures of them were made as action figures the same way athletes today have action figures. Gladiator fights had indeed cost so much money to be held that during the celebration of Rome’s 1000^th birthday in 248 known as Ludi Saeculares, the emperor Philip I had spent so much which ended up in thousands of gladiators and animals killed that this partly led to Rome’s economic downfall in the Crisis of the 3^rd Century. Other than staging gladiatorial combats, the Romans in the imperial era staged another type of spectator sports which were mock naval battles known as a Naumachia wherein they would bring actual ships into a lake or body of water and make them fight each other, some evidence even say that the Romans filled up an entire arena with water to make a basin for ships to fight on, although only the arenas in Verona in Italy and Merida in Spain were known to be filled with water for these events. The first known mock naval battle in Ancient Rome happened in 46BC when Julius Caesar was dictator, here a basin in the Campus Martius of Rome was dug up with water from Tiber filled in it and actual warships fought in it with prisoners of war as combatants wherein some had even died in it, again in 52Ad the emperor Claudius I hosted another Naumachia this time in the Fucine Lake in Italy, then in 85AD Emperor Domitian held one in the Colosseum itself. Gladiator games in arenas were another way Roman people got entertainment seeing public executions, though in Roman Spain to substitute violent gladiator fights of humans killing humans, the emperor Claudius I was said to have introduced bullfighting which is still practiced in Spain today, but another less lethal but still dangerous form of entertainment the Romans enjoyed was chariot racing, a form of entertainment the ancient Romans had most probably borrowed directly from the ancient Greeks since in Ancient Greece, chariot racing was a popular sport and even held at the Olympics. In Rome, the racetrack known as the Circus Maximus found in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills was said to been around ever since Romulus founded Rome in 753BC, although its founding date is not clear except that in 50BC Julius Caesar renovated it and enlarged it making it able to seat up to 250,000 people and those who watched races mostly did it for money as they paid betting on different racers and depending on which team won, those who betted for that team make money. In Ancient Rome there were at first only 2 teams for chariot racing, the reds and whites but later on there would 4 with the addition of the blues and greens though in the reign of Domitian (81-96AD) 2 new teams the golds and purples were added but after his death were phased out. Each team had their own racers and chariots and racers wore tunics of the color of their team and so did their supporters, each team too could have up to 3 chariots per race and these chariots either had 2 or 4 horses attached to it. Races consisted of 7 laps around the Spina of the racetrack (circus) which were found in major cities of the empire and not just Rome although the most famous one being in Rome, however these races could get dangerous as chariots when close to each other clashed or if it crashed into the spina, though the winner would be the chariot that made it full-circle at the 7^th lap, even if the driver had fallen off and died that chariot still won but if the winning driver was still standing, the emperor or whoever hosted the race crowned him with a laurel wreath and if a slave won it, then he gained enough money to buy his freedom but at the same time chariot racing had even caused actual fights to the death among supporters of different teams. Like in the arenas, the emperor too had his own private box in the hippodrome called a Pulvinar which in Rome was connected to the imperial palace at the Palatine Hill. Other sports Romans enjoyed included their version of boxing called Pugilatus where boxers wore leather gloves and unlike in today’s boxing, Roman boxers could punch each other at any part of the body, then other sports people enjoyed were wrestling and Pankration which was a Greek sport being a combination of both boxing and wrestling without much rules. There were also more peaceful ancient Roman sports like hoop or discus throwing, ball games, foot racing, and javelin throwing and even when Greece was under Roman rule, the Olympics at Olympia, Greece meant to be an event to celebrate the god Zeus among Greeks as it’s said to be since 776BC was held either every 2 or 4 years. For sports, many wealthy Romans at cities commissioned their own gymnasiums at their villas for them to enjoy doing sports and exercising privately, in fact a mosaic shows young women exercising while only wearing their underwear to keep healthy. The emperor Nero (r. 54-68AD) was a patron of sports as he commissioned many sports complexes in Rome and around the empire for common people to exercise as before that sports was only a status symbol for the rich. Sports complexes were also found in bath complexes in cities which were another popular form not only of entertainment but for people to keep clean and healthy that in fact all towns in the empire had to have at least one bathhouse while cities had several for the health of their people as hospitals were only reserved for wounded soldiers. In Rome, the two largest bathhouses are the Baths of Caracalla and Diocletian which got their water supply from the aqueducts and had 3 bathing areas: a lukewarm pool, steam bath, and cold bath but not only did these bathhouses have baths, they too had a gymnasium, massage room, library, gardens, and shops; the Baths of Caracalla in Rome were said to at least take 1,600 bathers a day. Like in Ancient Greece, theatre too was a major public entertainment for Romans that in fact at first they performed Greek plays translating them to Latin as well as using masks for actors in dramatic roles, though the Romans would develop the style of acting using mimes for comedy plays wherein women would act in them too, the emperor Nero as well was said to be an actor acting in his own plays even singing in them and making monologues and would not allow any of the audience to leave or sleep while he performed yet the people loved him for being an actor and musician.  At home, Romans had different kinds of board games to keep themselves entertained such as their own kind of Chess called Ludus Latrunculorum which was a military strategy game, a dice game called Tesserae, and checkers called Calculi while at home people particularly the rich entertained themselves playing musical instruments like pipe instruments like horns usually for celebrations, lyres, lutes, drums, clappers, and organs. The rich meanwhile enjoyed having feasts wherein they would eat facing downward on couches eating food from the table across them usually with their hands and for these feasts slaves from the east were in great demand as they prepared their exotic dishes. There is a saying that the rich fell ill from overeating and the poor from not eating enough, though this topic on food will be saved for another future article. Roman men meanwhile enjoyed life in sex even if too much sex was looked down upon by Roman virtues as it was only seen for creating children that emperors like Augustus even passed laws to limit this kind of degeneracy. However, both men and women took pleasure in sex that brothels were found all over cities especially near arenas or circuses wherein men could hire prostitutes as prostitution in the empire was legal, frescos in fact show erotic scenes of Roman life in brothels. In the imperial age, the decadence of too much sex and feasting turned Rome into degeneracy especially during the reign of Caligula (37-41AD) and the early part of Claudius I’s reign his wife Messalina was known to cheat on him challenging a prostitute on a sex competition wherein she won sleeping with most men but the most degenerate time was during Elagabalus’ reign (218-222) where his focus was mostly on sexual activities and mostly with men. Beginning with Diocletian in 285, history of decadence and degeneracy made Rome become abandoned as the capital and this decadence was one of the factors that led to Western Rome’s fall.

 

With the Roman Empire moved to the east becoming the Byzantine Empire based in Constantinople, many of Rome’s entertainment traditions would still remain however many of it would change especially with Christianity now becoming the official religion. Under Constantine I the Great in the 4^th century, gladiator games would be phased out as they were seen as highly Pagan and not Christian however the emperor who would phase out almost all Pagan practices was Theodosius I (r. 379-395) and in 394 with the last Olympic Games he finally put an end to more than a thousand years of the Olympics in Greece, also he had destroyed Pagan Temples all over the empire both east and west and ended Rome’s long lasting Pagan institutions including the Vestal Virgins order finally extinguishing the eternal flame of the goddess Vesta also in 394 in order to make Christianity now the official religion. In the year 404 with the Eastern Empire under Theodosius I’s son Arcadius and Western Empire under the other son Honorius the gladiator games would finally end in its last game, however the end of the gladiator games was not only due to Christianity being the new official religion but also because they cost a lot and the empire no longer had that much funds the way they did before. In the Byzantine Empire, theatre plays the same way the Ancient Greeks and Romans were popular as well although unlike today where actors and actresses are global celebrities living luxurious lifestyles, there they were seen as the bottom of society as well while actresses were in fact equivalent to prostitutes which was the case with Justinian I’s wife Theodora who was an actress and circus performer who earlier on in life travelled the empire to perform shows, though history sometimes saying she was a prostitute means that being an actress was equivalent to that but true enough she was born poor in Cyprus despite travelling the empire. In the east in Roman times all the way up to Byzantine times when the empire moved east, circus performances with wild animals including bears and lions became popular and in fact it is said that Theodora’s father Akakios was a bear trainer and her mother a dancer. In Constantinople and in the Byzantine Empire the Roman factions in chariot racing still remained though eventually the reds and whites would be phased out and only the blues (Venetoi) and greens (Prasinoi) would remain but both would end up becoming political factions fighting each other on social issues sometimes even to the death. Constantine I who thought gladiator games were not Christian preferred chariot racing as the sport emperors should host and from then on it would be while the Church also did not go against it since races were meant to celebrate the emperor’s power. Back in Ancient Rome animal hunts were an entertainment form but since it as seen as Pagan, the emperor Anastasius I (r. 491-518) banned them while the emperor Leo I before him (r. 457-474) issued a law banning all forms of entertainment even music on Sundays. Now back to the races, in Constantinople it had become highly popular especially for people expressing their political opinions and during races they would fight over it as charioteers represented their faction’s political ideology, although in Byzantium the 7 laps of the race turned into 5. In 532, both rival greens and blues came together declaring the emperor Justinian I- although a supporter of the blues- their common enemy and rose up against him in a massive riot known as the Nika Riots lasting for a week wherein both greens and blues wanted Justinian I deposed and replaced with Hypatios, a nephew of the former emperor Anastasius I but when the crowds started to attack Justinian, he fled to the palace using the passageway that led from the imperial box to the palace though he still tried to convince the rioters to calm down or could have threatened to kill them but in a meeting at the palace, his wife Empress Theodora stepped up and decided it was better to kill off the rioters to save herself and Justinian so the army trapped the rioters in the Hippodrome and ended up killing 30,000 rioters. A similar incident like this happened in the Hippodrome of Thessaloniki in 390 when the emperor Theodosius I ordered his Goth Foederati soldiers to massacre the citizens who had previously killed the Goth commander in charge of the city and because of this, Theodosius had to do an act of penance before the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. Although after this bloody massacre in 532, emperors would discourage chariot racing as it could lead to this kind of violence but emperors from then on would still prefer it as a way to entertain foreign guests showing them the sophistication of Byzantium and also Byzantine emperors at their birthdays celebrated it by giving free races for the people, this was also done when celebrating the birth of an imperial heir. Chariot racing in Constantinople’s Hippodrome found next to the Great Palace would be around until the city fell to the 4^th Crusade in 1204. While Western Europe fell into the Dark Ages, the Byzantine Empire at least still enjoyed some public entertainment though when things drastically changed in the 7^th century as the Byzantines now had to face constant war with the Arabs, entertainment became less and people now worrying about the survival of the empire began to care less about entertainment. At this point, only the nobles of the empire would enjoy themselves with new kinds of ways to enjoy life which not only included feasting or music but bride shows for imperial heirs wherein they would choose their wife and sports like Polo which was introduced to Byzantium from Persia back in the 5^th century; in fact a Polo field was built at the edge of the Great Palace of Constantinople near the waterfront and emperors like Theodosius II (r. 408-450), Alexander (r. 912-913), John I Tzimiskes (r. 969-976), and Constantine VIII (r. 1025-1028) were said to be skilled Polo players, though Byzantine Polo was known as Tzykanisterion. People including emperors of Byzantium played board games at home like in Ancient Rome, and the most popular ones included Backgammon then called Tabula being one of the world’s oldest boardgames originating in Ancient Mesopotamia and in Byzantium it is said that the emperor Zeno (r. 474-491) enjoyed playing it. The game of Chess which began earlier on probably in India or China spread to Sassanid Persia during the reign on the Persian king Chosroes I (r. 531-579) and from Persia, the game was brought into Justinian I’s Byzantium wherein it would first appear as a circular form of Chess, though from Byzantium, Chess would be introduced to Western Europe. The people then would at least have Byzantine church music as entertainment as the Orthodox Church had sophisticated music using instruments like lyres and organs and the organ would also be one of the many things Byzantium introduced to the west as it in the 8^th century it was first seen in the Frankish kingdom being given as a gift from Byzantium and in the 10^th century, the Byzantine princess Theophano introduced the fork as an eating instrument to Western Europe after marrying the German emperor Otto II in 972, although at first the fork was seen as unnecessary by the west. Later on, the Byzantines would take in many western influences during the Komnenos era (1081-1185) these included using the crossbow as a weapon and for entertainment having jousts at the Hippodrome the way western knights did; in fact, the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-1180) held jousts at the Hippodrome taking part in it himself disgusting the people as jousting was seen as a barbaric sport. It is rather unclear if other cities around the Byzantine Empire still held chariot races until 1204 or 1453 but Constantinople did until 1204 as when Byzantium was restored in 1261, the empire had grown too poor to actually fund large scale entertainment events for the public, rather the money they had was spent to decorate buildings and churches with art. In fact in the year 1330, the 1000^th anniversary of Constantinople’s founding by Constantine the Great in 330, there is no record of the emperor Andronikos III (r. 1328-1341) hosting a millennial celebration and possibly he didn’t as he forgot about the founding day or the empire was just too poor and war-torn at this point to have a large scale celebration. Although in the later years of Byzantium, the kind of entertainment common people got were acrobatics especially from Romany and Turkish immigrants in Constantinople who were said to be skilled acrobats; the Romanies were skilled at performing it above the cables connecting the masts of ships while the Turks entertained the people with their skill in walking tightropes.

Watch this to learn more about the Nika Riots of 532 (from Invicta).

 

V. Roman and Byzantine Languages and Education

Ever since the earliest days of Rome, society had 3 classes of citizens: the patricians or the “fathers” which were Rome’s important families, then the equites or businessmen, then the plebeians or commoners, though a plebeian even if as rich as a patrician at the beginning did not have the same rights or privileges patricians had like being part of the senate, though later the plebeians did get their representation in the Republic and were allowed to become part of the senate. As the Romans began their conquests out of Rome, many of the people they conquered were lucky enough to become Roman citizens especially since the Romans needed taxes and granting citizenship was the best solution for more taxes and citizens they could not only join the army but end up in a political position and even become emperor even if they were from as far away as Africa or Syria. However, not all inhabitants of the empire were citizens and these mostly included provincials (foreigners) or slaves though the biggest difference here between citizens and non-citizens of the empire here was that citizens had to pay certain amounts for taxes while non-citizens were usually exempted from taxes except they would have to pay an annual tribute which was not necessarily in the form of money as it could be produce sometimes. On the other hand, many of the prisoners of war from the lands the Romans conquered like North Africa, Greece, Egypt, Gaul, and Britain were turned into slaves, some ended up working in labor-intensive construction projects, some in mines, some in the fields, and some in homes as assistants of their masters. However, in Ancient Rome being a slave wasn’t the same as being a slave in modern empires that were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas to work on fields, as in Ancient Rome some slaves rose up to importance as some of them especially Greek slaves were valuable as teachers or doctors and if these slaves proved their loyalty to their master, they could earn their freedom using the name of their former master (example: Marcus Antonius Pallas) thus becoming a freedman and even a citizen; in fact the 2 closest political advisors of the emperor Claudius I (r. 41-54AD) were liberated Greek slaves and so was the father of the emperor Pertinax (r. 193). Now as the Roman Empire expanded and with many becoming citizens, the Roman household tradition would become the household tradition and structure among almost all Roman citizens in the empire and so was the Roman system of education and the use of Rome’s language, Latin. In a Roman household since the earliest days, the father known as the Paterfamilias despite their social class was the complete authority over his family and slaves, and though men legally controlled women, women still advised their husbands and when unhappy with their marriage, they could file a divorce on their husbands, though when a couple divorced, the children would usually be under the care of the father. Women then were also not completely without rights as they were also citizens but did not have equal rights as men so women could not be in the senate or take any government position, neither could they vote on elections but they could work as shopkeepers, priestesses, midwives, and doctors but it was the primary duty of a Roman woman to take care of the house and family and bring up the children while the father worked either in a political, military, or religious career. When it came to children, Roman families usually had many children while wealthier families especially the imperial families in the era of the empire always had many children and sons were always preferred as they could carry the family name while for the imperial family sons were highly valued especially to be imperial heirs. Men in Ancient Rome usually had 3 names in their whole name (example: Marcus Tullius Cicero), the first being their first name or Praenomen, next was their family name, and the 3rd was their Cognomen in which they would be recognised as, but for those generals who conquered an entire place they would add a victorious title at the end of their name using the name of the place they conquered like Africanus or Germanicus. Children back then though usually died before they reached 7 or earlier due to sickness, while 15 was usually the average age for a person to live but if they lived beyond it, they would live a long life. Sometimes, if parents gave birth to a defective child, they would be abandoned and exposed to die, a practice that was common in Ancient Sparta though the Romans would not take this practice as seriously as the Spartans did. As children grew up, it was preferred that they were to be educated although in Ancient Rome education was not free and only the wealthier families despite social class could afford to send them to school or if they were extremely rich, they could hire a tutor (particularly) a Greek one for their children while those who could not afford were educated the hard and practical way by their parents who taught them their craft so they could follow their parent’s footsteps and these young men who had learned this way when grown up would sometimes join the army as a way to get out of their boring life and travel the empire; though only Roman citizens all over the empire could become the elite soldiers or legionnaires while those who were not citizens became Auxiliaries or support soldiers but after serving for 25 years would become citizens, while the legionnaires when retired after 25 years could be married and start a family after received a large benefit which was a villa and plot of land to retire to. For children in the empire, their education system was based on the Greek one and though some learned in actual schools where classes for boys and girls were divided, the influential Romans learned it more practically in a discipleship system following their Greek tutors, although these teachers could beat their students if students did not listen. The first stage of education came when children reached the age of 6 and here they would begin by learning letters, numbers, writing, and reading in which they would begin by reading the Greek classics of Homer and Hesiod as the Romans had less literary works compared to the Greeks until the golden age of literature under Augustus which was the age of the famous literary patron Maecenas and the poets Virgil and Horace; from their parents children  learned basic moral values which was Pietas or “duty”, for boys it would be duty to the Roman state and people and for girls to their family. Secondary education came at age 11 but only for boys as girls only learned the basics of reading, writing, and math and by 11 they would be trained to run a home while boys would begin learning the grammar or Latin and Greek, history, geography, geometry, astronomy, music, and philosophy again learning the teachings of the great Greek scholars of the past but would also learn about what the rest of the known world like the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians contributed to these fields. At 14, boys now at the age of manhood would pursue what would be their college education and if they wanted a career in politics or law, they would have to learn rhetoric or public speaking, others would use their rhetoric education to get career as a philosopher and writer, but others after finishing rhetoric education would pursue a military career. Those who pursue a political career would go through the Curus Honorum or “ladder of offices” where they would go step-by-step up the political ladder and end up becoming a Legate (general) or consul even if they had come from humble origins, though later on some especially having a military career would go up the ladder from a common citizen to general to emperor, which was the case of Emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79AD) and the emperors of the 3^rd century like Diocletian (r. 284-305). In Ancient Rome, illiteracy was high especially in the countryside but in cities literacy would be higher especially with the presence of more schools but in countryside communities, at least one person per community was literate while the rest were not so much due to lack of education but because their hard life didn’t require them education as they could learn to deal with life the hard way by already working the fields or workshop from a young age. For learning, no matter where, children would always have to copy down their notes somewhere so the media for copying notes could be in papyrus scrolls from Egypt which could be turned into documents and books or through a notebook made of wax tablets, while a bone stylus was used as a pen. For citizens all over the empire, Latin was of course the official language of learning and was the official language of government, however it was in the western parts of the empire, west of Illyria (the Balkans) which included Italy, Germania, Gaul, Spain, Northwest Africa, and Britain where Latin would be the common language people would understand as in the west of Illyria, the common language was Greek, which was the legacy of Alexander the Great’s Empire. People depending on what part of the empire despite learning in Greek and Latin if they were educated would speak their own tongues among each other and these languages included the Hispanic Celtic dialects spoken among the Iberian people of Spain, Gallic among the Gauls, Britonnic in Britain, Punic which originated from the Phoenician language among the Phoenician descended people of Carthage and North Africa, Coptic in Egypt, Aramaic and Syriac among Jews and Syrians, and Thracian in Thrace. In Greece and Asia Minor, Greek was the major language while in Italy it was Latin as older language like Etruscan had become outdated while the emperor Claudius I was said to be the last speaker of it. In terms of alphabet the Romans have developed the Latin one many countries use today, although this had such a long history being influenced by the alphabets of other cultures like the Phoenicians and Greeks. Other than creating a simple alphabet, the Romans too developed a numbering system though not as practical as the Arabic one many of us use, although compared to Greek numerals which substitute their letters for numbers, the Romans used actual figures for numbers which we also still use today and coming up with a numeral systems shows how the Romans were skilled in practical math especially the math to do with building and measurements. With an empire so large, being Roman wasn’t all about Rome or coming from Rome but about the whole empire itself so all cultures, languages, and religions were added to the Roman world and as conquerors the Romans were quite tolerant as they learned the skills and beliefs from other cultures especially the Greeks so they can use it to develop their own. In 212, the emperor Caracalla issued citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, here Rome would be now about the empire as whole so this enabled these soldiers from the Balkans to become emperors especially since the empire needed rulers more familiar with the frontiers than with the capital. The Roman Empire may have been very large but the Romans themselves knew lands far beyond their empire such as Scotland, the Baltic Sea, Sub-Saharan Africa, Persia, India, and China especially since the Romans traded with these places and vice-versa, however as seen in a 2nd century map, the Romans had thought Scandinavia was an island without connection to mainland Europe, also they had no idea what was below Sub-Saharan Africa as well as the Southern Hemisphere and the Americas across the Atlantic, so they would have no concept of products like tomatoes or potatoes until the 16th century. 

When it came to religion and religious practices, these were shared across the Mediterranean through centuries of trade which is why Greek, Roman, and Phoenician gods were the same in their abilities in which people sought after but different in name and appearance. For example, the Greek gods Zeus, Hera, and Athena in the Roman Pantheon were renamed Jupiter (or Jove), Juno, and Minerva but in appearance they were almost the same and had the same abilities; meanwhile, the Romans too had patron gods such as Mars who was the patron god of Rome and Vesta the patron goddess of homes. However compared to the Greeks who came up with all sorts of bizarre mythological stories about their gods, the Romans basically just copied the same stories from the Greeks as after all the Romans were said to be descendants of the Greeks of Troy, however the Romans created different kinds of gods for everything like Janus the god of entrances and exits, but what both had the same was that their superstitious beliefs in making animal sacrifices to the gods in order to receive their blessings as well as consulting oracles who spoke from the gods and priests (called Augurs) who interpreted omens by examining the innards of dead animals or studying the flight or eating patterns of birds. In Roman society, religion and political affairs were not divided but one mainly because they did not have much knowledge of science and medicine as much as we do so they would always turn to the gods for help. In the imperial age beginning with Augustus, the emperor was not only the ruler of the Roman world but the highest religious authority of the empire using the title of Pontifex Maximus or “chief priest” and when emperors died, it was tradition that their successor makes them a god which happened to Augustus after his death in 14AD, though emperors like Caligula (r. 37-41AD) and Elagabalus (r. 218-222) saw themselves as living gods, and Vespasian before dying in 79AD already knew he would become one, though the people still worshiped their emperors creating the “Imperial Cult”. As the empire expanded, the Romans however did not only stick to their gods or force their religion among the people they conquered- like the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires- rather, they both introduced their gods to the people they conquered and took in the gods all of the people around the empire and made them theirs such as the Egyptian goddess of heaven and earth Isis who would be worshiped in Rome too and the Persian bull-slayer god of wisdom and light Mithras who would be a cult god among Roman soldiers. The emperor Elagabalus in his short-reign though had scandalized the Romans by introducing the abstract Syrian son god Elagabal without any physical form where he got his name from replacing the old Roman gods with this god, though his quick death in 222 ended this religious scandal. Though in 274, the sun god would return becoming the most powerful among all gods, but this time using the Latin name Sol Invictus in which the emperor Aurelian (r. 270-275) made an official cult of. The Romans controlling the Mediterranean tolerated its religions and absorbed them basically because they understood their gods and were similar to Roman gods, though the people of Gaul, Britain, and Germania worshiped either nature or different kinds of gods but since they did not speak Greek or Latin the Romans left them be as they did not know their language so they could not see their religion as a threat as in the Roman Empire you were free to practice your own faith as long as you shared it and worked hard, followed the laws of Rome, and paid taxes. However, despite the Romans’ tolerance to other religions, there were two that were highly suppressed by the Romans, Judaism and Christianity basically because of suspicion as the Jews from Judea since day one of Roman occupation in 63BC they resisted and worshiped privately not sharing their faith in their one God and were actively rebellious against Roman rule, meanwhile Christianity having the same God also was born in Judea and had spread around the empire through Christ’s apostles in the 1^st century even reaching Rome but because Christians only lived among each other and being mostly Greek speaking people mostly slaves could be understood by the Romans therefore were thought to be plotting to overthrow the emperor as they only interacted amongst themselves. In 64AD, a large fire spread across Rome and the emperor Nero blamed the Christians for starting it and so began the first great persecution of Christians, here the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul were both martyred in Rome. Over the next centuries, Christianity would be allowed to grow even if living in secret in the catacombs and but times be persecuted such as under the traditionalist Roman emperor Decius (r. 249-251) but it still grew quick because many provincials and slaves in the empire wanted to convert to a faith that had a strict set of doctrine and promised a sure afterlife. The last major persecution of Christians happened in 303 which was decreed by Emperor Diocletian in his capital Nicomedia after he and his co-ruler Maximian declared themselves a gods and asked all people of the empire to sacrifice to the gods as he was desperate to save his empire from economic crisis, but the Christians resisted so the last massive persecution began. At this time the empire was divided into 4 parts, the Tetrarchy with 4 official rulers so in the east the rulers Diocletian and Galerius heavily persecuted Chrisitians torturing and killing them using any kind of means but many chose to die than give up their faith though in the west the emperor Maximian in charge of Italy, did not take the persecutions as seriously while his junior emperor Caesar Constantius I instead protected Christians in his area (Gaul and Britain). However Christianity had grown so fast by this time and spread all over the empire as far as Britain that you couldn’t tell who was a Christian anymore so in 311, Galerius put an end to the persecutions of Christians as he was seeking salvation from his sickness before he died and only 2 years later, Constantine the Great who in 312 received a divine vision of a cross had become sole ruler of the west and his eastern co-emperor Licinius fully legalized Christianity in the Edict of Milan, though with Christianity accepted Constantine himself had to clarify issues especially with growing heresy of Arius and the belief in the Holy Trinity at the Council of Nicaea in 325 establishing the official Nicene Creed, then in 380 Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity the Roman Empire’s official religion, now beginning to purge the old Roman Pagan religion.   

 

One event in 312, Constantine the Great’s vision of a cross and his dream of a god more powerful than all other gods of the Roman Pantheon would change everything for when dreaming it, his interpretation was that god was no other than the God of the Christians and seeing the vision of the cross he saw the words In hoc signo vinces (en toutoi nika in Greek), he knew that this symbol would bring victory, and he knew it meant the cross Christ was crucified on so he had the Greek initials of Christ (Chi-rho) painted on his soldier’s shields as a sign that he was now going to accept Christianity. For Constantine, turns out his mother St. Helena was a Christian and his father the emperor of the west Constantius I though not a Christian protected Christians in his part when his other co-rulers Diocletian, Galerius, and Maximian persecuted them. In 324, as Constantine gained the whole Roman Empire for himself, everything would change from now on, especially since Christianity would now become the dominant religion, but not yet the official one but of course it was facing many doctrinal problems or heresies, this one particularly the belief if whether Jesus Christ was God or not as the Arians led by the theologian Arius believed Christ was not God but a man created by the father, though Christianity back then had no written beliefs so it was here at the Council of Nicaea in Asia Minor organized by Constantine I himself where the official doctrine was set known as the Nicene Creed and still the belief of Christians today but religious debates and problems did not end here and Christianity was still torn between the Orthodox belief or Nicene Christianity and Arianism, yet many bishops like St. Athanasius of Alexandria and St. Nicholas of Myra strongly defended the faith of Orthodoxy while Arian Christianity also spread. Constantine on the other hand was only baptized before his death in 337 ironically by an Arian bishop while his son and successor in the east based in Constantinople Constantius II was an Arian. Constantius II died childless in 361 leaving the whole empire to his cousin Julian who though was born a Christian turned his back on Christianity returning to Paganism which makes him known as “Julian the Apostate” and in his short 2-year reign he tried to return Paganism but it was useless as Christianity already outnumbered the Pagan one, though Julian believed that Christianity meant decadence and would bring down the empire while the old Pagan virtues would bring back the old glory of Rome. Julian however despite wanting to return Paganism did not persecute Christians as that could only double the number of Christians as it did before; though died in 363 in battle against the Sassanid Persians being the last Pagan Roman emperor, from then on, all emperors would be Christian. It would be in the reign of Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-395), the last emperor of the unified empire when all things would change and not only because Orthodox Christianity was made the official religion in 380 but the old Pagan religion and culture of Rome would be finished off while the Roman world especially in the west would become more ethnic as more barbarian tribes from Europe migrated to serve in the Roman army as the Foederati and many of these barbarians would become generals while many sought to destroy the empire and declare their own kingdoms within Roman territory. At this point, Roman society not only became Christian but more foreign in influence, in the west more barbarian and the east more oriental with influences from Persia and the east but more than that, the east had a strong Classical Greek revival, but also as Roman rule was stronger in the east, Greek would become more and more the dominant language. In Rome’s successor, the Byzantine Empire society would still be the same with the patricians running the government and under them the plebs, but in the Byzantine Empire it was common for commoners to rise up and achieve important positions in government especially if they pursued a military or political career. Some poor commoners in the Byzantine Empire achieved the rank of emperor like Justin I (r. 518-527) who originated as a peasant in Macedonia before joining the army which enabled him to become emperor, then Leo III (r. 717-741) was originally a shepherd who became a spy and soldier before being appointed a general in which he would take the throne, Basil I (r. 867-886) also originated as a peasant but rose up to power by luckily ending up in the imperial court, and Michael IV (r. 1034-1041) who originally a commoner in Asia Minor became emperor by working his way up in the imperial court. Byzantine families were basically were Roman families continued in structure, the only difference being that Byzantine families were Christian; here the father was still the head of it while his wife still could have a say in things and could ask to divorce her husband if he was cheating on her. For Byzantine males, especially after Greek becoming the official language after the 7th century, the eldest son of the family usually takes his paternal grandfather’s first name which seen in the case of the alternating order of the names of the Byzantine emperors (John V- Andronikos IV- John VII). Byzantine families around the empire meanwhile also preferred sons over daughters since sons could carry the family name and when having sons it was ideal Byzantine families had 3 sons as one son would pursue a military career since the empire needed more soldiers, one pursued a political career which would make him a court secretary or lawyer, and the other one would pursue a religious career and become a priest and if possible he could rise up and become a bishop or even the Patriarch of Constantinople. With daughters, they would usually be educated at home and be trained to run the household in the future but when wealthy Byzantine boys or girls chose to pursue a religious career, it could sometimes shock their parents with the thought that they would choose a life of poverty over their own wealthy lifestyle. In terms of education, things in Byzantium were done almost the same way in Republican and Imperial Rome learning through practical means being a disciple of their tutor and taking 3 stages of education, the first stage lasting 3-4 years where children learned to read, write, and do basic math, then the second stage where they learned Greek and Latin grammar, astronomy, and the last stage where they would pursue their career. Byzantine education though would focus more on Christian theology and morals but since it was based on Classical Greek and Roman education, it still had to find ways to include Greek and Roman classics with Christian teaching, and as it turned out, Byzantine education did cover both Classical Greek and Roman as well as Christian teachings as it the classics could also help in understanding the Christian faith. Byzantine Constantinople although had more schools and universities established compared to imperial Rome, though most of these universities were to train people to be court officials such as secretaries or lawyers, basically they were more of finishing schools; these universities were mostly in Constantinople and the known ones were established by emperors like Theodosius II (r. 408-450), Justinian I (r. 527-565), Constantine VII (r. 913-959), and Constantine IX (r. 1042-1055) and not only in Constantinople were the universities founded in as in the earlier days of Byzantium before the dark ages of the 7^th century, universities were founded in the intellectual centers of the empire which included Athens, Berytus (Beirut), Alexandria, and Antioch. In medieval Byzantium compared to medieval Europe, education was more accessible but still not affordable or free so only those who could afford to did it, though Byzantium had a more literate society than medieval Western Europe especially due to the presence of more cities and learning centers, but also because at monasteries people could learn a bit of reading and writing from the monks while in Western Europe only the nobility and churchmen could be educated, however in the later Byzantine era during the reign of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) education in Byzantium became free. For those in the empire especially living in the countryside like in Asia Minor or rural Greece, children were educated by their parents in practical matters and were trained to continue their business, but many young men in the countryside when grown up would join the army seeing it as a life of opportunity but also because they wanted to defend their empire and Christianity, while army service which was for Byzantium 12 years compared to Rome’s 25 years offered a lot of pay and land to retire to, eventually those soldiers who rising up to power through the army by the 8^th century would form the Byzantine military elite known as the Dynatoi. In Byzantine society, soldiers were often one of the most paid while generals basically ran the empire so compared to Rome’s society which was ran by those who were of noble lineage, in Byzantium it depended on those who were strong meaning military families to run the empire. In the time of the Byzantine Empire, people like in Ancient Rome could rise up to power and influence no matter who they were as long as they were a citizen of the empire and pursued a career especially a military one that could get them up the social ladder while in Western Europe then, many people had the same life being peasants tied to their land without much of a possibility to get out of it. Also, for someone to become an emperor in the Byzantine world, they have to be at least born in the empire even if not necessarily Greek which is why many emperors were in fact definitely not Romans of Italy anymore but not Greek as well but instead Syrian, Armenian, Thracian or of other descent. When it came to language, at the beginning when Constantinople was established as the new Roman capital, Latin was surely used as the official language of government but in that part people usually spoke Greek as the common language, and very shortly after Greek would become more and more dominant especially beginning with Emperor Leo I (r. 457-471) who was a Thracian and spoke Greek as his common language. Justinian I would be the last Latin native speaking emperor as he came from the western part of the Balkans where Latin was more spoken than Greek and as emperor he compiled his famous code of laws Corpus Juris Civilis in Latin which would be the basis for Byzantine law and would be more consistent than Imperial Roman law which was not codified in one book, this too would become one of Byzantium’s best remembered legacies, later on Emperor Leo VI (r. 886-912) updating it with the Basilika translated it to Greek adding in new laws as well. After Justinian I, the empire now more focused on the east became more and more Greek especially in language while emperors too like Maurice (r. 582-602) a Cappadocian and Heraclius (r. 610-641) an Armenian spoke Greek as their common language, therefore the empire would take in Greek as its official language. From the 7^th century onwards, the Byzantine Empire became completely Greek speaking, people’s names and titles were changed from Latin to Greek, but in Church services the language of Byzantine Orthodoxy was always Greek as it was the common language among early Christians and only in the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5^th century did Latin become the language of the Church. In the earlier part of the Byzantine Empire before the 7^th century when it was still in control of Syria and Egypt, Aramaic, Syriac, Punic, and Coptic languages were still common but afterwards Byzantium would be more Greek in speaking when only controlling the Greek parts, though Latin and other barbarian languages would still remain in Byzantine Italy, and from the the 7^th century onwards Greek would be Byzantium’s official language. When the empire was forced into exile at Nicaea (1204-1261), the Byzantines realized their Greek heritage was stronger than their Roman one so from then on till the fall of the empire in 1453, Byzantines would put more emphasis on being Greek. At the next time Byzantium was at its height in the 10^th and 11^th centuries, it was plainly more a Greek Empire but of course not everyone was Greek as many foreigners with different languages lived in it such as Armenians, Jews, Slavs, Arabs, and Turks especially since they were neighbors of the empire while others were moved around the empire by the emperors to balance population. The Byzantines tolerated foreigners who lived in their empire or in Constantinople as the empire wasn’t so much about Constantinople or the Greeks but about the empire as a whole although Jews in Byzantium were a large population especially when losing their native land (Judea) after their rebellion against Roman rule during Hadrian’s reign (117-138), on the other hand Jews were quite looked down on by the Christian Byzantines and were not permitted in the army as the army was made for Christians willing to die for their faith, though Jews would mind their own business being traders and craftsmen. Slaves were seen around the Byzantine Empire too but not so much in the Roman Republic or Principate (early empire), though most Byzantine slaves consisted more of Slavs (in which they get their name from being slaves) rather than by prisoners captured in war.

In the Byzantine Empire, if the empire wasn’t constant war with their neighbors or facing civil wars, their minds were on constant religious debates. Like in Ancient Rome, religion and political matters were not separate worlds, Church and State were not separate as Byzantine emperors were in charge of the Church of Constantinople and could appoint its patriarch, also like in Ancient Rome where emperors deified their predecessor, for the Christian Byzantines some dead emperors depending on their deeds and achievements were canonized and made saints. In Byzantine society, religion and theology was not something only reserved for scholars or priests to debate on, it was something common people like merchants and traders at the street were interested about talking to their customers, though of course there would be many disagreements on religious matters. Ever since the 4^th century, disagreements on religious beliefs have been frequent beginning with the question whether Christ was the Son of God or not which is what started the Arian Heresy and this belief would be popular with the barbarian tribes that took control of the Western Roman Empire. In the 5^th and 6^th centuries, the biggest religious debate was whether Christ was fully human or fully divine or in the middle which is still a confusing topic, then in the 8^th and 9^th centuries it was whether painting icons of religious figures was acceptable or not. From 730 to 843, the Byzantines legalized breaking icons and made icons illegal which shocked the Western Church and the pope in Rome beginning the split between Byzantine Orthodox and Latin Catholic Churches which would from then on never be resolved. In 1054, the final blow came that forever split Byzantine and Latin Churches which was on the debate on where the Holy Spirit came from, whether from the Father or the Son, this move led the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope in Rome to excommunicated each other and the with the same divide of the eastern and western Roman Empires, the west became Catholic under the pope and the east became Orthodox but in 150 years, the west got back at Byzantium for it by attacking and capturing Constantinople in the 4^th Crusade. After 1204, the Byzantines would no longer trust the west after all the trauma and destruction the Catholic Crusaders caused on Constantinople though in 1261, the Byzantine Empire was restored in Constantinople but it was not over yet. Ironically, the emperor who restored Byzantine rule Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1261-1282) more than 10 years after returning the imperial capital to Orthodoxy just thought it would be better to just convert his empire to Catholicism and answer to the pope especially since this could mean support from the armies of the west if Byzantium would be under the threat of a Mongol invasion, which was at that time. The people however were unhappy with this that the hero who liberated their city from the Latins became a villain as the Byzantine people would prefer to die for Orthodoxy rather than give up their faith and answer to a foreign religious leader, who was the pope. When Michael VIII died in 1282, the Byzantine Church plainly showed they were against his plan so they did not allow him to be buried a proper Christian burial in Constantinople, instead his son and successor Andronikos II buried him outside the city in an unmarked grave, and as emperor Andronikos II cancelled his father’s proposed union and till the empire’s end in 1453 it would remain Orthodox, although twice in 14^th century the Byzantine emperors John VIII and Constantine XI tried to unite the two churches to get support in fighting the Ottomans but this move was still opposed by the people with riots in the street. If the Byzantines had not left so much a mark with their empire physically, they have left behind a great deal of religious influence especially in Eastern Europe as in Serbia and Bulgaria as well as in Russia, their Orthodox faith is based on the Byzantine one even if they are not under the Patriarch of Constantinople. Back in the mid 9^th century, 2 Byzantine Greek monks Constantine renamed (St.) Cyril and St. Methodius were sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople Photios to convert the Slavs north of the empire to Christianity and they did reaching as far as Central Europe; this move was not to force them to convert to Christianity but to gain more allies as converting them would be a way to gain their trust, and doing this the patriarch Photios though it better that their native Slavic languages should be used to convert them and when doing this, St. Cyril the monk developed a new alphabet based on Slavic and Greek letters. Up to this day, the Slavic countries including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia use this alphabet which was a Byzantine influence. In the Eastern Europe, Byzantine influence can still be heavily seen in the Russian Orthodox church as well as in Serbia and Bulgaria with its art and religious services. In the west however, Byzantium did not have much a religious influence but in terms of reviving the Greek and Roman classics it did, as the Renaissance in Italy partly began with the Byzantine scholars fleeing Constantinople which fell to the Ottomans bringing their knowledge of the Classical Greek and Roman past with them, while some others brought it with them to Russia as well, therefore making Russia be Byzantium’s imperial successor.

Watch this to learn the story of Emperor Julian the Apostate (from Milán Seres).

Watch this to learn more about the Foederati barbarian soldiers in the Roman army (from Kings and Generals).

Watch this to learn more about the Great Schism and split of Christianity (from Kings and Generals).

 

Well, now I’ve finally after so long come to the very end of this extremely long article! However before finishing this, when writing it I have just made os many discoveries on the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire. At this modern day even if the Roman and Byzantine Empire have been long gone, we can see so much of it in today’s society, how today’s governments work, and on how people are entertained, like in Roman times when food and entertainment was the best solution to distract the people and make them content, today it is very much the same with us. With the Byzantines, we can see them a lot in our modern world especially in the solutions emperors dealt with problems and with how we can use other means such as diplomacy or cold war with other countries rather than just declaring a full bloody war. On the other hand, Roman civilization itself took years to evolve and was influenced by so many different civilizations across the Mediterranean before creating its own and being at its height for 2 centuries. Like all empires, the Roman Empire as the historian Edward Gibbon said “had fallen because it simply existed too long”, that may have been the case but of course the age of such prosperity doesn’t forever, and too much spending had bankrupted the empire, also because Rome ended having too many external enemies and an unstable succession system. However, all these problems the Roman Empire faced in the 3rd century did not completely bring it to end, but the salvation of the empire came at cost, it had to be divided between east and west wherein the west would eventually fall and the east continuing the legacy of Imperial Rome for more than a thousand years. Looking back, the Roman Empire in all its centuries put all its effort to pursue one goal, which was to control the entire known world and with all their hard work and virtues such as Pietas or duty to Rome, the Romans did achieve their dream that was their divine destiny, which was that indeed they controlled the known world. The legacy of the Romans controlling such a vast empire would be forever remembered that modern empires long after their time like the British, Spanish, Russians, and Austrians and rulers like Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Mussolini would all base their imperial systems on imperial Rome. However, Imperial Rome’s real successor tends to be overlooked on, which is the Byzantine Empire and true enough they were the ones to continue Rome’s imperial legacy while Western Europe fell into the dark ages. Now, if the Roman Empire was meant to control the known world civilize the uncivilized, its successor the Byzantine Empire was there to continue everything Imperial Rome was, protect Christianity, and continue bringing stability, this is why the Byzantine Empire lived on so long and why the Byzantines themselves spent so much time developing their armies and constantly to war, this was not so much because of emperors not wanting to lose their throne, it was because they had a great imperial legacy worth fighting for. For me, I would say the Byzantine Empire among all empires is my favorite one not because of how unique they were but more because of their perseverance to live through such hard times and yet they have survived it but also because no empire other than them had such a great responsibility that they would keep with them throughout the centuries, which was to protect Christianity and continue Rome’s great imperial legacy when Western Europe had lost it. But like the Roman Empire and all other empires, the Byzantine Empire still had to end this was also because it had lived on for too long but of course with their situation of being attacked constantly on all sides, it is sure that they would fall but through their creativity, the Byzantines were able to turn their enemies away and through innovation they were able to highly improve their armies and if the situation of Byzantium on being attacked on all sides happened to another empire, especially those in the ancient days before Rome, they were sure to have fallen. I could also say that the Byzantine Empire is surely the real “Holy Roman Empire”, holy because their mission was in defending Christianity which they highly took seriously, Roman because they came directly from the Roman Empire and was in fact the continuation of the Roman Empire but just not based in Rome, and an empire because it did control vast territory and was under the rule of one emperor. At this day, even if the glories of imperial Rome back then such as gladiator fights, staged naval battles, aqueducts, and stone highways are gone they have evolved into a much higher level now with our modern aqueducts, highways, railroads, and skyscrapers but still, all this would have not been possible without a basis, so thanks to the Romans for giving us a basis on how to build cities in orderly grid patterns as well as giving us the basis for a system that could make us be able to transport water from such a long distance. Though what’s more to thank Roman civilization for is for introducing not only the foundations of new cities but to the rest of the world the Latin language that would be a basis for the languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian that are spoken in Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia, in fact even English gets a lot of influences from Roman Latin especially due to the Roman occupation of Britain, but the most we can thank Rome for is the use of the simple alphabet many of us still use as well as the Roman numeral system. Now for Rome’ successor, the Byzantine Empire, despite them being less known than their predecessor, there is still a lot we can thank them for big small from giving us a basis for many legal systems countries use today, to introducing us to using the fork, and for giving us such great works of art such as walls and ceilings filled with mosaics that even today seems impossible to do. However, the bigger things that Byzantium had influenced to the world today can be seen most especially in Eastern Europe through the Orthodox faith and Cyrillic alphabet. At this day, I can say for myself that among all empires in history, the Roman and Byzantine Empires are the two that we can surely relate to and because they were imperfect societies with imperfect leaders, they are fascinating to study and can very much relate to today’s world. Overall what Imperial Rome and Byzantium had in common was their history and the fact that common people could rise up to be the most powerful person in the empire, this is also an analogy to how Rome beginning simply as a small irrelevant city-state going all the way to becoming the ruling city of the known world. Of course if the Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire lived on much longer, they could have achieved even more possibly reaching the Americas and having colonies all over world, therefore we could all say we have a trace of imperial Rome, but even if the Romans had not conquered the whole world, we still have a lot of them in terms of their legacy in introducing an early form of globalization. Well, now finished my longest article so far and yet it is so long that it took me about 3 weeks to complete all this, but also I have been finishing a new Byzantine Lego epic which now out there online for all of you to watch. Also, at this point quarantine season has ended so before it had ended there was quite a lot time to do this 3 part series, though now after 2 months in the making of this 3-part series, it all ends. So this has been another article from the Byzantium Blogger, for now I’ll be taking a quick break before I return again on an article which I promised, which would be on Roman and Byzantine women and the next about food and feasting. Also no matter how long this article was, I wasn’t able to include topics like philosophy, science, literature, or expand more on religious because this would end making this article much longer but also i would need to do more research on those subject matters. Anyway, now that it’s all done… thank you all for viewing this article and the rest of the Roman-Byzantine Empires comparison series.