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Byzantine Empire: Roman Empire
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The Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire which remained in existence after the fall of the western section. The life of the empire is commonly considered to span AD 395 to 1453. During the thousand years of its existence, it was known simply as the "Roman Empire." The Byzantines considered themselves to be Romans (Rhomaioi) and the legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire. Even though much of its, language, and culture was Greek, this posed no contradiction for the Romans of the Eastern Empire. Greek had been their language, and their culture had been Hellenistic for centuries.
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A key strength of the Byzantine Empire was its generally superior army that drew on the best elements of the Roman, Greek, Gothic, and Middle Eastern experience in war. The core of the army was a shock force of heavy cavalry supported by both light infantry (archers) and heavy infantry (armored swordsmen). The army was organized into units and drilled in tactics and maneuvers. Officers received an education in military history and theory. Although outnumbered usually by masses of untrained warriors, it prevailed thanks to intelligent tactics and good discipline. The army was backed by a network of spies and secret agents that provided information about enemy plans and could be used to bribe or otherwise deflect aggressors.
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At the distance of many centuries and thousands of miles, the civilization of the Byzantine Empire presents an appearance of unity. Examined at closer range... firstly the geographical content of the empire resolves itself into various local and national divisions, and secondly the growth of the people in civilization reveals several clearly distinguishable periods. Taking root on Eastern soil, flanked on all sides by the most widely dissimilar peoples — Orientals, Finnic-Ugrians and Slavs — some of them dangerous neighbours just beyond the border, others settled on Byzantine territory, the empire was loosely connected on the west with the other half of the old Roman Empire. And so the development of Byzantine civilization resulted from three influences: the first Alexandrian-Hellenic, a native product, the second Roman, the third Oriental.
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Badly damaged by the sack of Constantinople at the hands of Roman Catholic invaders in 1204 and diminished in size, the Byzantine Empire fell to Muslim invaders in 1453. As a result the Christians in the Ottoman Empire became a tolerated minority and the church was firmly subjected to the will of its Muslim overlords. Patriarchs were found who would do the bidding of sultans and the administration of the church was often corrupt. Following the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Orthodox held that the leadership of the Orthodox Church had passed to Moscow, which came to be called the "Third Rome."
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The term Byzantine Empire was never used during the Empire's lifetime. The Empire's native Greek name was Ρωμανία, Rōmania, or Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων, Basileia Rōmaiōn, a direct translation of the Latin name of the Roman Empire, Imperium Romanum. The descriptor Byzantine was introduced in western Europe in 1557, derived from Byzantium, the earlier name of Constantinople, by German historian Hieronymus Wolf about a century after the fall of Constantinople. Hieronymus had taken it from the writing of 15th century Byzantine historian Laonicus Chalcocondyles. He presented a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, in order to "distinguish ancient Roman from medieval Greek history without drawing attention to their ancient predecessors".
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The Byzantine Empire, founded when the capital of the Roman Empire was transferred from Rome to Constantinople in 324, existed in the eastern Mediterranean area until the fifteenth century. The arts and culture of this "New Rome" continued the pan-Mediterranean traditions of the late antique Greco-Roman world, setting the standard of cultural excellence for the Latin West and the Islamic East. The results of the cultural development of the Byzantine Empire during these centuries has had a lasting impact on such modern nations as Albania, Armenia, Belorus', Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Rumania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Syria, Ukraine, and Turkey.
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