The Byzantine Empire ranks up there as one history’s greatest survivors. When one thinks about the life cycles of empire, one notices a pattern. The Empire begins with great energy, stagnates and then withers away after incompetence. Some empires defy such definitions such as the Chinese Imperial System and the Roman Empire. In comparison to the Mandate of Heaven in Imperial China which saw the rise and fall of many dynasties, the Byzantine Empire operated on the principle of maintaining the Roman government that began under Augustus and was reformed under Constantine. With its capital in Constantinople, the Roman Empire would transform into a Greek-speaking and Christian oriented state. It would sustain an empire that would last until 1453 AD when Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II conquered the city after the usage of his bombard cannons and skilled Janissaries to conquer the once unconquerable metropolis which had been home to many emperors who had ruled the successor state of Rome.
Why was it able to rule for so long in comparison to other Empires? Here is why,
1. Constantinople’s Geographic Advantage: A Key to the Byzantine’s revival in the Middle Ages.
Constantinople could not have been in better spot for the capital of a large empire. When Constantine chose Constantinople as the site of his new Christian Empire, it was a choice that would have ripple effects across history of the Roman state. Constantinople is located between East and West; between Europe and Asia. It also provided easy access to both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean which give them a premier place on the spot on the Silk Road and allowed for the economy to flourish. Unlike Rome, which had to rely on the Tiber River, Constantinople was able to rely on multiple waterways to allow for the movement of goods and ideas into the Empire.
It also had another important advantage and that was the ability to protect the empire from multiple enemies seeking to invade the empire, Unlike in the classical Roman Empire, where the Alps no longer were the formidable obstacle that they were in the past, Constantinople was much harder to invade and capture. Due to the fact that the city was surrounded on three sides by water. Every opposing empire either had to have a competent navy that could challenge the Byzantines or have an army besieging the land walls. It was only in the mid 15th Century, with the rise of gunpowder and more powerful cannons was the mighty city of Constantinople not able to withstand the onslaught of the Ottoman armies.
2. Constantinople’s Vital Role on the Silk Road in the Middle Ages
This is a continuation of the previous point but with an emphasis on the trade routes that started in China and ended in Constantinople. This allowed for the empire to continue relying on outside resources even when its own core regions were under threat. This was also important in allowing the Byzantines to establish trade relations with China. It was also an important aspect in the diplomacy between the Muslim Arabs who were controlling the trade routes going into Byzantium. This would prove useful in allowing for the Byzantine state to survive and then thrive in the High Middle Ages.
With the trade going through Constantinople, the Byzantines had some leverage in being able to communicate with the Muslims to cooperate in the years they were not raiding, especially after the Umayyad Caliphate was transformed into the Abbasid Caliphate. With its exclusive access, the Byzantine Empire was able to use this to its advantage as a way of showing themselves as part of an important economic link which benefited both empires. While there was always a theological and secular reason for conquering Constantinople, the positioning of the Empire allowed for it to have some advantage in negotiations, allowing for Christian Rome to flex its soft power over needing a massive army like in the Pagan Empire.
3. The Byzantine Empire’s religious uniformity and stability
In the early days of the Eastern Roman Empire, there was much religious diversity that often was the cause of much disorder in the empire. The Empire had many types of Christians who were in conflict over the nature of Christ. Some Emperors, such Emperor Anastasius were, supporting unorthodox versions of Christinity.
When the Sassanids were invading the territory of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early 7th Century, many Jews, angered by the treatment by the Christians, revolted and allowed for the conquest of Jerusalem by the Persians.
Once Islam had taken over after the 630s, the Eastern Romans had to find ways to consolidate their state and survive. The issues of Icons would be next area of contention in the Empire. The Byzantines would go through two phases of Iconoclasm and the state would finally reach a consensus.
By reaching a consensus, the Empire under Emperor Basil II was more secure and stable than that of Justinian. Under Emperor Justinian, he had to contend with the many unsettled questions that were dividing the Christian church At that time, Justinian was contending with Christendom which wasn’t united but was divided into an Arian sphere and that dominated by the main Orthodox sphere.
Many early Byzantine Emperors had to convene councils with the clergy to discuss how to resolve these theological issues. This took up the government’s time and was also a source of many conflicts in the Byzantine Empire. Those conflicts mostly out of the way and were externalized such conflicts to the Latin Church. This provided the Empire with a great amount of stability that it did not have in time of Heraclius.
4. Smart Monetary Policy
In spite of the Byzantine Empire still being a highly agrarian economy, it did have a highly monetized economy. Emperor Anastasius and later Emperor Alexios were impressive leaders in monetary policy.
Emperor Anatasius was responsible for helping to helping to introduce three new denominations of gold coins. These helped to revive the monetary system which had been suffering problems in the mid 5th century. This monetary system was kept in place until Emperor Alexios.
After the dislocations caused by the Battle of Manzikert and the capture of Emperor Romanos IV in 1071 by Seijuk Emperor Alp Arslan, Emperor Alexios and his political clan began reforming the government and transforming the coinage system in the Empire. He was responsible for retiring the Solidus which had been in circulation since the times of Emperor Constantine after several experiments beginning with the Emperor Diocletian. He would introduce the Hyperpyron in 1092 and they would remain in circulation until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 AD by Sultan Mehmed II.
5. The Spread of Urbanization in the Byzantine Empire
Urbanization in the modern age is often seen as the source of all ills. However, there is something to be said about the building up of human settlement in an empire in a pre-industrial era. These places, while seen by historians as population sinks due to diseases and sanitation issues, were centers of culture and economic activity that enhanced the economic power of an empire.
The Byzantine Empire when it began under Emperor Constantine was among one of the most urbanized empires on the planet and was home to multiple important cities and urban centers that allowing for the empire to continue growing and thriving even when there were many threats against it.
The Eastern Roman unlike the Western Roman Empire had multiple urban areas that allowed for its economy to distribute resources across the empire. Important places in the Western Roman Empire, such as Trier and Milan were too far apart and divided up by mountain ranges. Due to the slowness of non-mechanized land transport in Classical Antiquity, the Western Roman Empire was not able to recapture the efficiency that had been so delicately built up under Augustus. The barbarian tribes literally setting up their own nations in the Empire and also fighting the Romans, the Huns and themselves. This was not conducive to an Empire that would be able to maintain its borders and its power to bring these tribes as hegemonic state.
Constantinople was center of commerce at the European start of the Silk Road. As a result of the economic development in the city, the Empire was able to survive many calamities that would have damaged many other empires and prevented them from being able to recover.
The city of Constantinople itself was a fortress and city was well built in many ways that would shame the builders of many modern cities. The city had many public spaces where the rituals of empire were carried out and the marketplaces were conveniently located in the center of the city as well near the city’s many docks in order to create that reciprocal relationship between consumer and producers.
However, the Byzantines were able to maintain considerable resources in the capital and then use that to encourage urbanization in other areas. Thessaloniki was the second city of the Empire just as Barcelona was to Spain’s Madrid. Thessaloniki’s strategic positioning in the empire allowed for the ships coming from Constantinople to have a safe harbor to resupply and continue on their journeys in the Aegean Sea.
Under the Komnenians, the Urbanization of the Byzantine Empire would continue even after the calamities of the late 11th Century. Constantinople would continue to be an important part of the Silk Road and Greece would start having an urbanization spurt of its own. Cities such as the legendary city of Thebes would be centers of production of Silk, which had been smuggled into the empire from China under the reign of Justinian. With the rise of these cities, specialized production could take more importance in the empire, and the Byzantines were better able to showcase their power to other empires and cultures.
6. The Empire’s legitimacy in Latin West in the Early Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire still had a reputation for being the legitimate heir to the classical Roman legacy. While the Germanic tribes may have invaded Rome and established their own kingdoms, they were still willing to recognize the Empire as part of a continuation of that Imperial construct that their ancestors had dealt with for many generations.
The spread of the Roman Solidus played an important as well. As result of the highly monetized nature of the Byzantine economy, many of the Germanic tribes were able to integrate themselves into a relationship with the Eastern Romans that proved a vital role in maintaining contact with these tribes and assisting greatly in diplomacy with these peoples in order to give the Empire allies to use in their armies and bureaucracy in Constantinople.
This proved quite important with allowing the Empire to continue receiving respect from the Catholic Church on theological issues until the Schisms of 1054 which would split the Eastern and Western Churches apart. Once this split occurred, it meant that there was always going to be some tension between the Latin West and Eastern Christians.
7. The Byzantine Navy and its role in maintaining Empire.
More so than its Army and themes, the Byzantine Navy played an important role in helping the Byzantine Empire stave off invasions from the Muslims for many centuries. The Roman naval traditions would continue into the Byzantine Navy and would play an important role in the conquests of Justinian.
The Navy under Belisarius would be involved in the construction of ship mills which would use the power of water in order to mill grain and get it ready to be used in the production of grain which would then be able to turned into flour which could make bread for the citizens of Rome under the siege of the Ostrogoths.
Most importantly, the navy would used in the defense of Constantinople in 626 AD and 717 AD which help ensure that the empire would be able to survive.
The navy’s innovation in Greek Fire, was also able to give the Byzantines the edge in maintaining the Empire in time where the old binaries of Byzantine and Sassanids was no longer able to be maintained anymore.
The Navy would continue to important in helping protect the sea lands of the empire until it was able to rebuild its offensive capacity under the Macedonian Dynasty.
It was under this dynasty that the fortunes of the empire would swing back towards expansion. The Macedonians would utilize the navy for the invasion of Crete and its conquest by Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas.
This navy would peak around Emperor Basil II and would start entering a state of decline and dependency upon the Venetians and other Italian maritime republics such as the Republic of Genoa. Not having a strong navy was one of the reasons why the economic growth under the Komnenian dynasty was reliant on the relations with those Maritime Italian Republics. Once the Byzantine Empire began persecuting Latins due to their prominence in the economy, this would lead them to betraying the Empire and setting up for the Fourth Crusade in 1204, which would result in the Byzantine state being conquered by the Latins. As result, the Byzantine Navy would remain small and the empire would be reduced to a regional power amongst the ascendant Ottomans, Bulgarians and the Serbians.
8. The Walls of Constantinople stood strong for a Millenium
The construction of the Theodosian Walls in the early 5th Century were important because they allowed for the empire survive multiple sieges that would have severely damaged any other ordinary capital city without the geographic advantages that were present in the area of Constantinople.
The Theodosian Walls were instrumental in being able to further reinforce the strength of Constantinople’s aura across Europe. The double set of walls made the city almost impenetrable to anyone seeking to attack it on the land side of the city. This meant any opponent of the Byzantine Empire had to now have a strong navy as well as a competent army that would be able to handle a long siege. As many armies in the Middle Ages were not professional, many soldiers were simply conscripts who did not want to be away from home on campaigns in hostile nations and empires. This gave the Byzantine Empire a great advantage in being able to stave off its opponents through the sheer might of its defenses in the capital city.
The Byzantine Empire’s success helped to maintain the historical link with Classical Antiquity
The Byzantine Empire’s success was important as it maintained much of classical knowledge and history. As result of their great efforts, we are able to enjoy the classics.
Byzantine-Empire.com 