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History / Evolution of Civilization
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Prof.Dr. Halit Hami ÖZ
Kafkas Üniversitesi/Kafkas University
Kars,Turkey
[email protected]
Byzantium

For convenience sake, historians divide history up into three
major periods, the ancient period, the medieval period and
the modern period.

The first 2/3 of this course we spent on the ancient
period. We now move on to the medieval period. Once
again, for convenience sake, we divide the medieval period
into three phases:
The Early Middle Ages (AD 325-AD 1000)
 The High Middle Ages (AD 1000-1300)
 The Late Middle Ages (AD 1300-15000)


Today, we'll talk about the first important great society to
arise during the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire.
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
The Byzantine Empire probably should be thought of simply as the
Eastern Roman Empire, a direct continuation of the empire of
Augustus and his successors. So how does this empire get it's
start?

You will remember that, in the 3rd century, Rome was in
tremendous trouble, no longer able to provide physical security,
ethical guidance, and emotional fulfillment the way that it once had.

The emperor Diocletian started to get things on track again, but,
shortly after his reign, civil war and confusion broke out again.

In the midst of all these struggles came the great surprise, the rise
of Christianity.
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
Christianity gave Roma a new lease on life.

Particularly in the east, the Christianized Roman Empire, what we
call the Byzantine empire, remained strong for centuries.

But the Byzantine empire wasn't always quite as Christian as it
might have been, nor was Christianity always as helpful as it might
have been.

The key figure in establishing the Byzantine empire was
Constantine.

Constantine became co-emperor in 313 AD, and sole emperor in
324.

He continued to rule until his death in 337 AD.
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
Constantine faced enormous challenges, and he realized he was
going to have to make major changes if Rome was to survive.

But old Rome was not the place to do this.

The entrenched Roman bureaucracy (led by the senators) was not
going to be easy to get on board with any significant changes.

So Consantine decided to create for himself a new capital.

He chose the old Greek city of Byzantium for this capital, calling it
"New Rome."

Later, the city was called Constantinople, the city of Constantine,
and today that same city is called Istanbul.
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
Constantinople was well situated for dealing with some of
the most important threats to Roman security, e.g., invasion
across the Danube and across the Euphrates.

Also, the new capital gave Constantine the chance to appoint
new senators, senators who would support his changes
rather than stand in the way.

It was a perfect place from which to Christianize the
empire. Perhaps 50% of the population in that region was
Christian already, and that proportion soon increased.

Constantine favored Christianity, building beautiful churches
and subsidizing Christian clergy.
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
The latter was particularly important in trying to restore Roman morality.

Consantine, like earlier emperors, issued laws designed to restore Roman morals.

Now you've all heard people say you can't legislate morality.

Thats' a phenomenally stupid thing to say.

All law is legislated morality.

Legislating against murder is legislating morality.

Passing laws to help the poor is legislating morality.

As we've talked about "ethical guidance" in the various societies we've studied, we end up
again and again looking at the laws of those societies.
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
But there is a small element of truth in the "can't legislate morality" view.

One can't get a moral people *only* through legislation.

New Kingdom Egypt is a great example. There were many laws with lots of harsh
penalties, but ethical standards still collapsed.

In addition to law, one needs something else. People must internalize the values of their
society. And here's where Constantine had a great advantage.

His moral legislation wasn't much different than that of earlier emperors, but it was a lot
more effective because he had the help of Christian preachers in getting people to
internalize sound ethical precepts.
And many of Rome's ethical problems did begin to disappear. Marriages became more
stable. Infanticide comes to and end. Reliance on slavery decreases as well. Consantine
also influences morality by a change in entertainment emphasis: no longer the bloody
gladiatorial shows, but now entertainments in the hippodrome--chariot races!

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
Further, Christianity helped Constantine unify his people. Christians regarded him as a
13th apostle, a man who had done as much as Simon, Andrew, James, John and the rest to
further the gospel.

And, in many ways he did. Within a few decades, 90% of people in the empire were
Christians, at least nominally.

This gave Constantine and his successors a fervent core of supporters. More than that,
Constantine had found a tremendous force for unity in the empire.

The old idea of a god-leader had sometimes worked to unify people, but it carried with it
enormous problems as well.

Christianity taught people to respect leadership ("There is no power but of God," says
Paul, "and the powers that be are ordained of God.") But now the leader can have peoples
allegiance without the psychological baggage of being a God-man.
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
Now this didn't completely solve the instablility problem.

In the thousand-plus years of Byzantine history, there were
88 emperors, 29 of whom were assassinated.

Not so good, but much better than the 25 out of 26
emperors assassinated during the 235-284 AD period!

Constantine's reforms meant that civil war was far less of a
problem, and, while Constantine himself was alive, he kept
outside invaders pretty well in check.
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
After Constantine's death, however, the invasions resumed.

Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals invaded,
plundering the eastern empire, and occupying the west.

But here, too, Christianity helped somewhat.

Each of the Barbarian groups converted to Christianity, and,
once converted, they could be absorbed into the empire.

Rome had for a long time been a sort of melting pot, but
Christianity makes it even more effective, giving it an
exceptional ability to assimilate people from all kinds of
backgrounds
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
Once assimilated, those with barbarian heritage could
play important roles in the empire.

They were often recruited for the army, defending the
empire against new waves of invaders.

The family of the emperor of Justinian is a good
example.

Barbarian in background, they convert to Christianity,
rise up through military service, and end up running
the whole show!
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
Justinian (emperor between 527-565) at first looked like he was going to be a failure.
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When he took over, the Western empire had already fallen to wave after wave of invasion.

There were riots in Constantinople as well, riots touched off by disputes among the
sports fanatics.

Fans of the "greens" and the "blues" were engaged in violent altercations, and Justinian
tried to bring these to an end and restore unity.

His plan sort of worked. When Justinian arrested the leaders of both the Green and Blue
factions, the two sides did indeed come to an agreement.

They both agreed that Justinian had to go! More ritots with a new slogan: Long live the
merciful Greens and Blue!
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
Justinian would have abdicated, but his wife Theadora convinced
him to gut it out.

Thirty thousand people died in the Nika riots, but, in the end,
Justinian was in control of his capital.

And, from there, he set out to rebuild the empire once again.

He reqconquered much of what had been lost, winning back Italy,
N. Africa, and much else.
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Not only that, Justinian rebuilt much of the infrastructure of the
empire: roads, canals, harbors, etc.

He built beautiful churches including Hagia Sophia.
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
Justininian, however, is probably most famous for his law code.
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By the time of Justinian, Roman law was a confused jumble.

There were laws passed by the senate, laws passed by the assemply,
laws issued by emperors.

Justinian had his lawyers take this mess and come up with a
coherent, consistent code.

In addition, his jurists came up with a philosophy of law to go with
the code--using, in part, Christian teachings to do so.

Here's another way, then, that Christianity was helping rome get a
new lease on life.
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
It's important to understand also that Byzantine
Christians trulty believed in their society.

"Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven," says the Lord's Prayer, and the
Byzantines certainly had the sense that they were
doing God's will on earth.

Could there be a better source of emotional
fulfillment, i.e., of reasons to believe your society
is a good one?
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
Did they succeed in putting Christ's teaching into practice? To a large extent, they
did. But the Byzantines could occasionally be cruel.


The empress Irene blinded her own son in order to keep power in her own hands.
And then there's Basil the Bulgar slayer--a successful emperor and general. But note this
comment from Wikipedia:

"Finally, on July 29, 1014, Basil II outmaneuvered the Bulgarian army in the Battle of
Kleidion, with Samuil separated from his force.

Having crushed the Bulgarians, Basil was said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and
blinded 99 of every 100 men, leaving 150 one-eyed men to lead them back to their ruler,
who fainted at the sight and died two days later suffering a stroke.

Although this may be an exaggeration, this gave Basil his nickname Boulgaroktonos, "the
Bulgar-slayer" in later tradition."
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
But though the Byzantines were
occassionally cruel, in many ways no society
on earth has lived more closely to the
teaching of Christ--except in one major
respect.

Christ had prayed that his followers would
be one--and the Byzantine Christians just
couldn't seem to stay unified, at least as far
as doctrine was concerned.
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