Byzantine Empire

• The Byzantine Empire (284-1453 CE) was the Greek speaking Eastern half of the Roman Empire. From 293 CE onwards, it was governed by a series of Emperors who ruled from the Capital at Constantinople, now Istanbul.
• After the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the west in 476 CE, the Byzantine Empire continued to be one of the most powerful Empires in the Mediterranean for the next 1,000 years.

Etymology

• The Eastern Roman Empire continued to refer to itself in all State documents as the ‘Roman Empire’ and to its citizens as ‘Romans’.
• However, in order to distinguish between the two Roman Empires, historians refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire.
• It was ruled by a series of Emperors who continued to use the Roman Legal System.
• The State continued to be Latin speaking until 610 CE, when Latin was replaced by the Greek language.
• In 629 CE the Title of Emperor was replaced by ‘Basileus’ meaning Monarch or King.

Brief Synopsis

• The first unofficial split between the Eastern and Western Roman Empire occurred under Valerian (253-260 CE), when he gave his son command of the Rhine and Danube armies in the west to repel the Goths. Valerian then went East with his armies to reconquer the East and campaign against the Parthians.
• The Roman Emperor Diocletian was the first Roman Emperor to officially split the Roman Empire into East and West, during the Tetrarchy (293-c.324 CE).
• Constantine I then moved the Capital from Rome to Byzantium in 330 CE and renamed it Constantinople.
• The Latin speaking Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 CE, but the Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist for another 977 years, until 1453 CE.
• The Byzantine Empire differed from the Western Empire in two respects:
  1. The population was Greek speaking, although Latin continued to be used by the Government and the Military until 610 CE.
  2. Beginning in 451 CE at the Council of Chalcedon, the Eastern Orthodox Church started to break away from the Roman Catholic Church with the final separation in 1054 CE.
• The Byzantine Empire was involved in a series of major wars against the Sassanid Empire (Persia) between 295-637 CE).
• The Byzantine Empire fought a twenty-two year war against the Rashidun Caliphate between 634-656 CE. The Byzantine Empire eventually lost all of its eastern Provinces to the Rashidun Caliphate and lost its naval domination of the Mediterranean.
• The Byzantine Empire also conducted wars against various Germanic Tribes, and later against the Holy Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire and finally against the Ottoman Empire.
• The Byzantine Empire ended when Constantinople was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE.

How the Greek language finally replaced Latin by 610 CE

• Justinian I (527-565 CE)
  • He was the last Eastern Emperor whose first language was Latin.
  • He has been referred to as the ‘Last Roman Emperor’.
• Tiberius II Constantine (578-582 CE)
  • He was the first Greek speaking Emperor of the East.
• Maurice (582-602 CE)
  • Although this Emperor’s first language was not Latin, he wrote a Work on warfare called the ‘Strategikon’ which was in use for the next 1,000 years.
  • The Strategikon reveals that Latin was still the official language of command in the Byzantine Army in 600 CE, 124 years after the collapse of the Latin speaking Western Empire.
    
• Heraclius (610-641 CE)
  • In 610 CE, Heraclius finally changed the official language of the Eastern Empire from Latin to Greek.
  • In 629 CE, he also changed the Title of the Roman Emperor from Augustus or Imperator to the Greek ‘Basileus’ meaning ‘monarch’.

Constantinople (Istanbul)