The Elusive Byzantine Empire (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The Elusive Byzantine Empire (2019)

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69 pointsdiodorus33 comments

I don't understand why it's called 'elusive' since we have a lot of its history well written and generally it's not trying to hide itself. There was a certain animosity in early historians (hence why it was called Byzantine, even though it s basically the christian period of the Roman empire), but that was centuries ago. It's elusive only because people ignored it

>To begin at the beginning is tricky. Did the empire begin when the emperor Constantine moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople in 324? When the city was consecrated by both pagan and Christian priests in May 330? Or did it begin in 395 when the two halves of the vast Roman empire were officially divided into East and West, or even later in the late 5th century when Rome was sacked, conquered and governed by the Goths, leaving Constantinople and the East as the sole heir of the empire?

The article explained this here. It is elusive, when the Romans stop being Roman and start being Byzantine is a line drawn in the sand.

The "Byzantines" considered themselves roman until the very end. The name Byzantine was post humous

The ottomans also considered themselves Roman but doesn't mean they should be historically

One is not like the other. Constantinople was formally established as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It never stopped being that until it fell to the Crusaders in the 13th century. Its citizens called themselves Roman simply because that's what they were. After the Western Empire fell, they were the only "Romans" left (i.e., of the empire). On the other hand, the Ottomans considered themselves Roman simply because they _conquered_ "Rum" (Constantinople) in the 15th century - the Ottomans recognized which empire Constantinople actually was. And, the Romanovs in Russia considered themselves Roman because they married into the family. The concept of "Byzantine" as something distinct that Constantinople "changed" into is an invention of Roman Catholic and Holy Roman Empire scholars after Constantinople had fallen and finally after all those years no longer stood in the way of the Vatican's claim to a temporal empire which they felt inherited the "Roman Empire" glory.

Ottomans never considered themselves Roman. They did consider themselves the rulers of the Romans, i.e the Greek speaking Christians.

Romans never called themselves Byzantine. What nonsense. There was the Roman Empire founded by Augustus and that entity survived continuously. The people who lived in these areas called themselves Romans for 1000+ years.

The term 'roman' was still very much in use during the Greek Revolution.

The capital had not been in Rome for a while, the capital going to Constantinople doesn't change anything. Neither does becoming Christian.

Yes, the Romans never called themselves Byzantine and personally I prefer sticking with the term "later Roman," "Eastern Roman", etc. but if you're speaking English with other English speaking people in the US then the term "Byzantine" is all they're going to understand. I collect Roman coins from the Republic, through the Imperial period, Dominate, later Roman, and into the late Eastern Roman stuff, my favorite that I'm working on is the Macedonian dynasty. I just got back from a trip to Istanbul and I was thrilled at seeing the Roman stuff, the Hagia Sophia is incredible, but even there in Istanbul the later Roman stuff was sometimes labelled "Byzantine" in write ups with English text. When I go looking for later Roman coins, I hit the "Byzantine" section. When I want to read more about the history of the Eastern Roman Empire after Constantine, the books I read usually have "Byzantine" or "Byzantium" in the title. While I personally avoid the term, one should be realistic about the world you live in and choose to communicate clearly rather than ideologically. With me, "Roman" is better, but in general parlance, it's not necessarily cut and dry.

I said that the term "Byzantine" is a line drawn in the sand to emphasize that it's an arbitrary term that's not grounded in anything specific, for what it's worth.

The way you phrased it indicated that the Romans drew this line. Hence my response.

From reading Alf Henriksson's "Byzantinsk Historia", I gather that one problem with writing a history of Eastern Rome is that they wrote about war and politics and lots and lots about christian doctrine but precious little on other subjects, so we know all we care to know about various christian sects and which emperor assassinated which, but not much about art, science or daily life.

Being emperor wasn't something you did for your health, by the way. The book ends by saying that only 34 out of 107 emperors died of natural causes.

typical by roman standards

I wouldn’t say it’s ignored. Among the general population, the best known polities in the world from 500-1000 (which is a huge stretch of time) are probably the Byzantine Empire, the Tang Dynasty, the Carolingian Empire and the Caliphates.

I would argue it continues to be elusive, because it's hidden from plain view. For example byzantine ruins are often not restored, and not in demand by tourists. They are often removed to get to the classical bones beneath, or restored to a pre-byzantine state because that's where the interest lies. Western European funds and institutions have played a large role in archaeological activities in the eastern Mediterranean, and the byzantine period has little resonance with the philhellenes.

Worth checking out is the excellent and comprehensive History of Byzantine podcast:

https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

Robin (the podcaster) specifically modeled this podcast on Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast. I highly recommend both.

Currently reading "Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire" by Judith Herrin[0]

It's very interesting, a sort of missing piece of history from my point of view. At school those centuries was just skipped as 'the dark ages.'

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Herrin

The Byzantine Empire was pretty much the sole focus of my history education for years in school. Such a fascinating period, that gets overlooked so much.

Which country did you go to school?

Greece.

A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich is a good overview of the empire if you'd like to learn more about it.

The reign of Justinian is often regarded as one of the worst periods to be alive. In 532 AD, the Nika riots erupted, followed by the devastating plague of Justinian in 541-542 AD, which claimed nearly half of the population. This era was further marred by the famine resulting from the volcanic eruption in 536 AD.

I’m reading a history of the eastern Roman empire where the author points out that history keeps going after the plague without the consequences one would expect, which wouldn’t be true if it were as bad as some ancient writers claimed. So, it’s unclear but possibly somewhat exaggerated?

I have it on good authority (twitter) that, in fact, 2024 is actually the worst period to be alive.

Not to mention that Justinian largely bankrupted the state's coffers that Anastasius had so carefully built up in his misguided attempt to reconquer the western part of the empire then proceeded to blame everything on his general Belisarius.

Why was it 'misguided'. Saying it was 'misguided' is only evident historically. The Roman empire had fractured many times before. And has always been put together. So why would the Roman government think it couldn't be done again?

And he was also pretty successful in doing it, returning North Africa, parts of Spain and most of Italy.

Its just that further Germanic invasion came and reversed some of those gains. And the Persian were a contentious problem as well.

The Gothic Wars left Italy devastated and earned the long term enmity of people living on the peninsula who sometimes preferred the Germanic warlords to the bloodless sociopaths ruling out of Constantinople, opening a wedge that would continue to sow division over the centuries. Those wars depopulated the remnants of Rome that had persisted through the prior sacks, and left Italy even more defenseless against future invasions. Justinian had to destroy Rome to save it.

All statements about what people there wanted is pretty much speculation. And often these statements were later simply asserted by later historians.

The initial invasion didn't actually depopulate the Peninsula. It was reconquered but then new invasion from new Germanic people started again. And of course the Roman Empire is gone try to defend Rome and Italy.

Again, this is only obvious in retrospect and had it worked, we would remember it differently. And it had worked many times in the past.

You really don't need to make excuses for Justinian's incompetence, but if you want to, have at it.

Given the amount of wars he won and the territory they still had after he was done, he clearly wasn't incompetent. Africa remained an important part of the empire for centuries for example.

The overextension of Byzantine territory under Justinian led to later collapse, and in the end harmed the Romans and (along with the brutality of the Roman tax farmers) was one of the key steps that paved the way towards the Caliphate's conquests. Justinian did valuable things, his legal work left a constructive lasting mark. His architectural work was lovely but left Rome bankrupt and his foolish conquests (pursued under false pretexts and open lies) left Rome worse off by any humane measures. He was a disaster for the Romans who suffered through his reign and past it. Justinian planted the seeds of both Rome's expansion and collapse and his policies in the Italic peninsula were catastrophic.

That a narrative. And a hard one to make. Between Justinian and the Arab conquest there is a lot of time and multiple emperor, many of those emperors made a lot of mistakes as well. To draw a direct line between Justinian and the Arab conquest is great for a grand narrative book, but I don't think its that clear.

Southern Italy and Africa turned out to be important in the fight with the Persian and the Arabs. Thinks like 'planted the seeds for collapse' isn't a strong argument for me.

Even with money issues its not clear that the empire was worse off when he left the scene.

Like many emperors he spend a lot of money and went on offensive wars to reunite the Roman Empire. He wasn't as successful as some, but more then many.

And the empire after him was strong enough to fight many wars against strong enemies, in the Lombards, the Avars and the Perians. So the empire clearly wasn't weak for the next century. The loss to the Arabs had more to do with Persian Wars that went on for decades.

Somewhat related, a while back Cappella Romana, a vocal ensemble choir with some researchers had tried to recreate the sounds of Hagia Sophia. They mapped the interior to model the reverberations properly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/arts/music/hagia-sophia-a... (https://archive.is/VHf8d)

Example of their performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VrJ8XOwJzw

> Most will think of Constantinople, which used to be Byzantium and is now Istanbul

When I think of "Byzantium," I always think of Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Atherton, for some reason...

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