
The Elusive Byzantine Empire - diodorus
https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/elusive-byzantine-empire
======
geowwy

        > 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?
    

It's tricky to define the beginning the Byzantine Empire because the Byzantine
Empire is a construct invented by Western historians.

The Byzantine Empire is just the Roman Empire.

~~~
jcranmer
Yes and no. The Byzantine Empire is _a_ continuation of the Roman Empire, but
it is not _the_ continuation of the Roman Empire. Saying that the Byzantine
Empire is just the Roman Empire masks the fact that it really is a Ship of
Theseus situation: in terms of administration, culture, military practices,
etc., there is rather more discontinuity between the Roman Empire of 200 and
the Byzantine Empire of 800, although the changes were gradual and not sudden.

A good comparison is to Chinese history. The Chinese tend to argue that they
have a continuous empire stretching back to the Xia dynasty (or the Qin
dynasty, depending on how much credence you give to the historicity of Xia,
Shang, and Zhou dynasties), albeit broken up into distinct dynasties. Yet this
is similarly not quite so truthful--China was often fragmented into warring
polities with no clear hegemon, and there are times when even the Chinese
historians couldn't maintain the pretense that there was on (say, the Three
Kingdoms period).

Western historiography does emphasize the discontinuity rather than the
continuity, and it is wrong, but so is emphasizing the continuity and ignoring
the discontinuity.

~~~
ozgune
It's worth noting that the term Byzantine was invented in late 16th century,
way after the empire collapsed.

Between 330-1453 AD, it was called the Roman Empire. To this day, the Greek
ethnic minority living in Istanbul call themselves Rum, meaning Roman.

After the Ottomans invaded Istanbul, they claimed themselves as the legitimate
successors to the Roman Empire. Those in Western Europe weren't too happy. So
they coined the term Byzantine to discredit the Roman Empire's legitimacy.
Byzantine was the name given to Istanbul prior to the Roman Empire, in 657 BC.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium)

If you ask some Rums living in Istanbul today, it was a big PR campaign to
discredit the Roman Empire's legacy post 330 AD. It worked nicely.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> To this day, the Greek ethnic minority living in Istanbul call themselves
Rum, meaning Roman.

That's all Greeks. We all call ourselves "Romioi", i.e. "Romans". We also call
ourselves Hellenes, like in ancient times and "Graikoi", which is also an
ancient word for "Greek".

We call ourselves lots of things. It proves nothing.

------
khrbrt
For those interested, the excellent History of Byzantium podcast[0] is
covering the entire history of the empire, from the fall of the western
empire, up to the sack of Constantinople. It gets pretty in-depth, with each
episode covering a distinct event or topic, and stops every century to give a
survey of what's going beyond the empire's borders and broad changes in the
lives of its people and their culture.

0: [https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/](https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/)

~~~
Dylanfm
I really enjoyed the 12 Byzantine Rulers podcast too, along with the
accompanying book Lost To The West

[https://12byzantinerulers.com](https://12byzantinerulers.com)

------
acjohnson55
The rise of the caliphate at the expense of the Romans (and Persians) seems a
lot less shocking after listening to the History of Byzantium. The Romans
thought the deserts were a natural southern border. But they became a giant
highway in the face of unifying desert tribes.

It's quite similar to how the Vikings inverted the strategic safety of the sea
and rivers in the north.

------
girzel
That's the second Byzantine-related posting I've seen today. I'll chime in
with Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler, which I'm reading because I'm organizing
some author events for him in China. Seems very well researched and well
written; a popular account rather than a historical deep dive, but lots of fun
to read.

------
gumby
> ...infamous wife, Theodora

What an odd aside. I would hardly call her 'infamous' \-- she was influential
and charitable!

------
woodandsteel
Great article, told me a whole lot I didn't know about the Byzantine empire

Articles like this are good because most people mistakenly believe that the
Roman Empire ended with the fall of Rome, and don't realize the Eastern branch
lived on for another thousand years, and with enormous impact.

------
rubayeet
I would also recommend Season 2 of Tides of History podcast series.

