Byzantine history

“ CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY [3] The Byzantine peninsula has been regarded from a very early date as an ideal situation for a capital city. Placed at the junction of two great seas which wash the shores of three continents, and possessed of a safe and extensive anchorage for shipping, it might become the centre of empire and commerce for the whole Eastern hemisphere. Yet, owing to an adverse fate, the full realization of this splendid conception remains a problem of the future. Byzantium as an independent city was little more than an outpost of civilization ”

“ The Byzantine Empire of this period is in itself an important study. It must be regarded more as the offspring than the direct continuation of the great East-Roman Empire of Arcadius and Justinian; for with the centuries which had intervened the great changes in polity, internal geography, external neighbors and lastly the continual geographical contraction, present us with an entirely new series of relations. It is this geographical contraction which concerns us most vitally, for with it the frontiers of the empire conform more and more closely to the ethnic limits of the Greek nation. ”

“ Science, which demands before all things the free action of an untroubled mind, suffered a complete eclipse throughout this phase of intolerance.
War, the bitterest theology, and the usual vices of mankind constituted Byzantine life of those days. It was picturesque, it was romantic; it had little sweetness or light. When Byzantium and Persia were not fighting the barbarians from the north, they wasted Asia Minor and Syria in dreary and destructive hostilities. Even in close alliance these two empires would have found it a hard task to turn back the barbarians and recover their prosperity. ”

“ The later Byzantine Empire was, therefore, essentially a Greek Empire, and as such it appeals most vividly to the national consciousness of the Greek of our own time. The restoration of this empire, with the little kingdom of free Greece as the nucleus, is the vision which inspires the more aggressive and venturesome school of modern Greek politicians. In the twelfth century the bulk of Asia Minor had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire by the Turks, but it was the Crusaders, not the Turks, who overthrew the first empire. ”

“ The discovery that in spite of all display of violence the Byzantine court must end by yielding, as soon as the Eastern church or even part of it sided in earnest with the see of St. Peter, first made in the dogmatic disputes of the fourth and fifth centuries, once more stood revealed.
Now for the second cause. Amongst the Byzantines there arose a great man, capable of gathering all elements favourable to the cause of ecclesiastical liberty, hitherto dispersed over the whole of the Eastern Empire, into one centre, and thus bringing them into practical touch with Rome. ”

“ The manner of building and painting, the tradition of jewellery, metal work and decoration that we call Byzantine, are so closely connected with the history and liturgy of the Orthodox Eastern Church, that we ought not to pass them over here without some notice. The Byzantine question is one of those that are most disputed by archaeologists. When the Romans had come under the influence of Greece, they, or their Greek artists, covered the Empire with the buildings and statues that we call Roman-Greek. ”

“ Even before there had been riots with the “democracy in rags,” the poor people, joining the monks and abbots to make certain that the old-time religion of the Byzantines was kept true and pure even if this made the empire fall.
Nevertheless the old-time Orthodox Byzantine faith did not come into being just as it was and all at once. Since religion was so important, and since the Greeks loved to argue, the whole history of the Byzantines is filled with violent discussions and bitter differences of opinion about exactly what a man was supposed to believe. ”

“ The noble productions of the ancients had, however, been cast aside with contempt for the homilies of the Fathers, and arguments concerning the miraculous virtues of images, together with daily riots and chariot-races, engaged the attention and amused the leisure of the weak and pusillanimous Byzantine, whose character, deformed by abject vices, had long since forfeited all right to the honored name of Roman. ”

“ In the turn of the ages we are confronted by new Pagans who adhere to an obsolete religion; and the philosopher can only hope for an era when every one will have sufficient sense and science to think according to the laws of nature and civilization.
The history of the disintegrating and moribund Byzantine Empire has been explored by modern scholars with untiring assiduity; and the exposition of that debased political system will always reflect more credit on their brilliant researches than on the chequered annals of mankind. ”

“ Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most dexterous and diligent of nations; their country was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation; and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. ”

“ After the recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks in 1261, Byzantine politics entered into a new phase; the feeble and distracted empire, unable to make head against the Turks, was compelled to lean for support upon the European powers, which it sought to obtain by patching up the long-standing religious schism. Greeks and Latins, however, were equally resolved to concede nothing save in appearance, and the history of the time is to a great extent that of hollow negotiations, meant only to deceive. ”

“ In spite of this, since all the work from the 4th century till the Lombards came to Italy (568) forms, together with Eastern work, as much one style as any in history, and since one must have a name for this style, the word Byzantine will do as well as any, and is far more reasonable than most such names of periods. We are here concerned with what was Byzantine in every sense, the local manner of Constantinople. From Constantine to Justinian is the period of formation. The city was begun in 328, dedicated on May 11, 330. Very little of the work of this first period remains. ”

“ But the subjects of the Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of Greeks and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices, which are neither softened by the weakness of humanity, nor animated by the vigor of memorable crimes. ”

“ Commerce must have done much to draw them together, and to create ties of friendship. There were, doubtless, close intimacies between many Athenian and Byzantine citizens. Still, Byzantium, in the year 356 B.C., joined in a hostile movement against Athens, which caused that state extreme perplexity and serious loss. This was the Social War, as it is called, or the revolt of the allies of Athens. The blow was one from which Athens never really recovered, and which left her too weak to carry on with needful vigour the struggle against Philip of Macedon. ”

“ Another thing the Byzantines did was to insist on education. Even the mighty French emperor Charlemagne had a hard time if he wanted to spell his way through a book and sign his name. Most Byzantine emperors could not only read and write but were thoroughly educated. Theophilus studied everything from Greek to natural history. Leo the Philosopher composed poems, sermons, and a life of his father. Constantine Born-in-the-Purple was famous for his books on the barbarians and on his empire. ”

“ The importance of Byzantine culture and literature in the history of the world is beyond dispute. The Christians of the East Roman empire guarded for more than a thousand years the intellectual heritage of antiquity against the violent onslaught of the barbarians. They also called General significance of Byzantine literature.into life a peculiar medieval culture and literature. They communicated the treasures of the old pagan as well as of their own Christian literature to neighbouring nations ”

“ Such were the hardships the Byzantine population had to suffer as a consequence of the obligations imposed on them directly by the Imperial government, but these were largely aggravated by their being forced to minister to the private needs and even lustful passions of all those in power throughout the Empire. ”

“ It took a century to work away from the Byzantine style, so deeply was it rooted. In fact, from the year 1226, that of St. Francis’s death, to about the end of the century, such artists as Guido of Siena, Coppo di Marcovaldo, Giunta of Pisa, Jacopo Torriti, Giovanni Cosma, Duccio, and Cimabue chiefly restudied the old Byzantine manner. They wished to learn how to build creditably before they began to tear down. Such reverent experiment extending over two generations only proved that the breach with Byzantine formalism was inevitable.
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Fig. ”

“ Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to despise the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. 93 In the love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine historian. ”

“ Byzantium was certainly strong and skilfully fortified, but it had wisely and generously given liberal aid to its sister and neighbour Perinthus, and now, as the result, its garrison was not by any means adequate to man its walls on the required scale. It needed trained soldiers to resist such a foe as Philip, and could hardly entrust its defence to volunteer citizens. The average Byzantine had not the moral stamina to take his turn at military duty in the trenches or on the walls. ”

“ Byzantium might be in decadence, her provinces falling away, her glory wasting; the follies of the court and emperors, the best manhood of the empire lost in cloisters and hermitages, the preference of the nobility for intrigue and diplomacy might be all working their deplorable results—nay, the results might be at hand! Still the passion of the people for fetes and holidays remained. Tastes are things of heredity. In nothing is a Byzantine of this day so nearly a classic Greek as in his delicacy and appreciation where permitted to indulge in the beautiful. ”

“ Byzantine, equally with Italian art, sprang from the last floraison of Roman Art, and grew up at Constantinople, the New Rome, but much modified by Greek and Syrian influences. At first the culture of the two Empires was so linked together, that it is the merest shade which distinguishes Roman Art in the East and West. The division widens, and the two branches stretch out, one, the purely Latin, soon to wither and almost perish, and the other to grow into that spreading tree of Byzantine Art, whose branches have scattered fruit in every part of Europe and the Levant. ”

“ He will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; 72 ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. ”

“ The term Byzantine as applied to art is commonly used to denote the style which was developed in the Eastern empire soon after Constantine had transferred the seat of government from Old to "New Rome," or Constantinople as it was also called instead of Byzantium, which was the ancient name. ”

“ The more ancient a nation is, the more liable is it to be overwhelmed by this dreadful evil. The Byzantine empire, during a thousand years of civilisation and opulence, did not produce one work of original thought; five hundred years after the light of Athenian genius had been extinguished, the schools of Greece were still pursuing the beaten paths, and teaching the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. ”

“ Theology accordingly, in literature too, occupies the chief place, in regard to both quantity and quality. Next to it General character of Byzantine literature. comes the writing of history, which the Byzantines cultivated with great conscientiousness until after the fall of the empire. All other kinds of prose writing, e.g. in geography, philosophy, rhetoric and the technical sciences, were comparatively neglected, and such works are of value for the most part only in so far as they preserve and interpret old material. In poetry, again, theology takes the lead. ”

“ There was an empire, but it was now a Latin empire and no one but the crusaders recognized it. Even they did not leave it all its territory. Venice took over a third of Constantinople and most of the Byzantine islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas. Every knight or baron who wanted it was given a fief or a principality in southern Greece. Besides that, three Byzantine “governments in exile,” each claiming to be the real one, sprang into being. ”

“ All but twelve of their forty-eight grand viziers were either Byzantines or from former Byzantine provinces such as Albania, Dalmatia, or Greece.
Byzantine civilization affected much more of daily life than merely ceremonies and government, however. It entered into every phase of life. It was the Byzantines who invented the fork. From Constantinople it was taken to Italy, and medieval English tourists brought it back to Britain. But for a long time a man was considered sissy and affected if he used one instead of his fingers. ”