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HISTORY
A
GREAT EMPIRE: THE BYZANTINES
In the year 395, when the Roman emperor Theodosum I divided
the empire and placed his son Arcadius at the head of the
Eastern side and his other son Honorius on the throne of
the Eastern side, he could not have known what kinds of
effects this action was to have on the future. The
Western Roman Empire, with Honorius at its head, was to
have a short life. The Eastem Roman Empire, however, was
to last almost one thousand years until it was finally
put to an end by the Ottoman Empire Mehmet II when he
conquered the city of Istanbul in 1453.
The city of Byzantium was chosen to be the capitol of the
Eastern Roman Empire. Sixty five years later, however,
the name of the city was changed to Constantinople in
honor of its founder, Constantine. Even though this
radical change was made in the concept of the empire, the
Byzantines always referred to themselves during their one
thousand year long history as the Roman Empire and their
nation as the Nation of Rome. After the collapse of the
empire, however, historians began to refer to this empire
as the "Byzantine" Empire and so it is remembered today.
This empire began in 330 and lasted until 1453, for 1123
years. A struggle between Moslems and Christians began to
arise in the Middle Ages. Those warriors known as the
Crusaders were the most concrete example of the struggle
between these two major religious beliefs.
The most important change made when the Roman Empire evolved
into the Byzantine was the change in religion. While Rome
was a polytheistic society, the Byzantines accepted
monotheism as the basis for their religious belief. The
second greatest change that occurred in the empire was
the change in language. The Roman Empire used a number of
languages, but Latin was the official language of its
government. Latin was used increasingly less after the
founding of Byzantium and Greek began to take its place
as the official language. Naturally, this change also
brought with it major political changes.
The Byzantine Empire began with the Emperor Constantine who
reigned for thirteen years; a total of 88 emperors were
to reign during the course of the empire. These emperors
came from various family lines. The leading groups were
from Heraclion, Syria, Phrygia, Macedonia, Commenos,
Angelos, and Palaiologos. Although the Byzantines began
their empire with a vast territory of land inherited from
the Roman Empire, they soon lost the territories around
the Northern and Eastem Mediterranean and they became an
empire with generally Aegean territory. By the time of
the collapse of the Empire, Byzantium merely consisted of
the city of Istanbul and its immediate surrounds.
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