Byzantium: Rome in the east

questions to consider

• what continuities are there between previous emperors’ and Justinian’s reigns?

• what is a ‘Byzantine Empire‘? Is it different from the Roman Empire?

• how did the East maintain unity when the West did not?

• what does the perseverance of a Byzantine Greek presence in Italy tell us about divisions between East and West?

the eastin the mid-fifth century

• military equilibrium

  • Balkans

  • Sassanian Persia

• politics

  • Theodosius II (r. 402-405)

    • Theodosian code 438

• tensions between emperors and patriarchs

  • John Chrysostom (404)

  • Nestorios (431)

• religious councils

  • Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (4the 51)

  • Monophysite Christians

the late fifth-century East

• political hegemony in Balkans

• challenges from strongmen

  • Aspar (Master of the Military 457-71)

  • Emperor Leo I (457-74)

• Zeno (7. 474-5; 476-491)

  • political rivalries

  • Huns and Goths

equilibrium and stability in the sixth-century East

• Greek language and culture

  • Leo I (r.457-474)

• Anastasius I (491-518)

• efficient bureaucracy and tax collection

  • funded by public works and state armies

• urbanization

• long-distance commerce

the emperor under Justinian (r. 527-565)

• legal reforms

  • 525 -revival of Theodoian Code

  • 529-534 - Corpus Iuris Civilis

• challenges to his reign

  • religious policies

    • closure of Platonic Academy (529)

    • Second Council of Constantinople (533)

  • Nika Riots (532)

  • wars with Persia (527-32; 540-45)

• Urban Renewal in Constantinople

  • Hagia Sophia

desire to reclaim Rome

• important to see the Byzantine attempt to reclaim the West not as an Eastern conquest

• it was less than 100 years since Odovacan was crowned King of Italy

• it was a reclamation and revival of Old Rome

• The City of Rome was central to the idea of empire despite strategic unimportance

General Belisarius (c. 500-565) and the reconquest of the west

• conquest of Vandal North Africa in 534

• Sicily

• Southern Italy

  • Totila (r. 541-552)

  • destruction of economy

• took Rome and Ravenna by 554

• Visigothic Spain 550s

Rome and the East

• Ravenna capital of the West

• rome’s city politics are not central to the imperial government

• rome’s bishops not yet imperial figures

sith-century Ravenna: a Byzantine outpost in the west

• background

  • Western capital in 402

  • capital of Ostrogoths

  • Gothic War (535-554

• Lombard interlude (568-751)

• exarchate of Ravenna (584-751)

  • exarch

  • ties with Rome’s bishops

conclusions

• the West and East were now two different political spheres

• we can still speak of a Mediterranean unity (sort of)

• while Rome did not fall, it looked very different from the Rome of Augustus

• it will face new challenges in the seventh century