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Byzantine Empire: Middle East
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The Byzantine Empire now stretched from Azerbaijan and Armenia in the east, to Calabria in Southern Italy to the west. Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of Bulgaria, to the annexation of Armenia, to the total annihilation of an invading force of Egyptians outside Antioch. Yet even these victories were not enough; Basil considered the continued Arab occupation of Sicily (it had been lost to the Arabs c.902AD), to be an outrage. Accordingly, he planned to reconquer the island, which had belonged to the empire for over three hundred years (c.550-c.900AD]]. However, his death in 1025AD put an end to the project. Basil's reign was the culmination of over three hundred years of desperate struggle, which had seen the Byzantine empire fighting for its very survival, and reaching the nadir of its fortunes with two sieges of Constantinople in 674-78, and 717-18 AD.
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After 550, it is possible to begin to speak of a medieval Byzantine, rather than an ancient East Roman, empire. Of the four traumas that eventually transformed the one into the other--namely, pestilence, warfare, social upheaval, and the Arab Muslim assault of the 630s--the first two were features of Justinian's reign.
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A close link between church and state, with the state giving the lead, becomes a characteristic of the eastern or Byzantine empire. But Theodosius discovers, in a famous clash, that western bishops have authoritarian ideas of their own.
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