Lessons From An Overlooked Empire

While many history classes overlook the Byzantines, their influence is around us. So to are lessons we can learn from them as our world becomes ever more interconnected and complex.

History is full of triumphant empires and all have shaped our modern world. Their tentacles of influence are woven throughout our civilization today, some more appreciated and respected than others. As for the Byzantine Empire, a dominant empire geographically positioned between Western Europe and the Middle East that arose from the fall of Roman Empire, its influences may not be as heralded, but it doesn’t mean that there not around. 

To understand why the Byzantine Empire’s impacts often go overlooked, one could read Voltaire’s harsh reflections on their empire, or look through the curriculum of general history classes and how they seamlessly flow from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance Period with little mention of the in between. 

The Byzantine Empire, considered a continuation of the Roman Empire in its Eastern Provinces, outlived the fall of the Western Roman Empire for a thousand years. During that time, Europe had no other that could match its economic, military, and cultural powers.  Centered around Constantinople, those in the Byzantine considered themselves Roman; however, theirs was a rule that brought forth a great deal of inclusion of multiple ethnicities and religions. 

The melting pot of Christian and Greek cultures, as well as Islamic, Coptic, Armenian, and Persian cultures to its Latin-roots from the Roman Empire brought about the seeds of significant impacts to modern day Europe and in Czarist and modern Russia. Seeds whose fruits would become more and more influential following the decline of Byzantine.

For over ten centuries, the Byzantines withstood regular ebbs and flows. It’s patterns of growth and decay not unique to an empire of its size. Nor was their downfall unique to successful empires of the past. Looking back on the decline of the Byzantines, you’ll find economic struggles, disintegration of a formal military “theme,” and of course growing social and religious tensions - all of which manifested themselves violently in the form of several civil wars.

Many historians agree these civil wars would lead to an internal weakening that would lead to the eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire. The crescendo of its downfall coming at the hand of the Ottomans, who ironically during a prior civil war had been hired as mercenary forces by the Byzantines. The Ottomans seized on an opportunity to take a crumbling Constantinople - and on 29 May 1453, the legendary Byzantine capital fell. 

When looking back on the Byzantine Empire, some view their reign as a representation of spirituality, exoticism and absolutism. Others reference Byzantine as a decadent, complex bureaucracy, with notable repression. Regardless of opinion, one cannot deny its impact on the coming Renaissance in Western Europe, as well as the foundation of Slavic-Orthodoxy culture that can be found today in Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Russia. 

Czarist Russia embraced Byzantine principles, and often referred to themselves as a third Rome. And though the Romanov dynasty would fall ushering in the rise of Soviet Russia, the Byzantines are revived in Russia as we know it today. One only needs look at the resurrected double-headed eagle, a symbol from the Byzantine empire that can be found on the country’s hockey jersey as well as its coat of arms.  Even Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule is similar to the Byzantine emperors of old.

Or if one were to look to the foundations of civil law, you would find that Corpus Iuris Civilus, issued by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the early 530s AD would be adopted in northern Italy as standard legal text. It would only be a matter of time before its principles spread throughout Europe and most of South America establishing the framework of the predominant civil law system that can be found throughout today. Even the United States is not without Byzantine law influence as the state of Louisiana operates under a mix of English common law and Roman civil law.

Finally, if one has the opportunity to see the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, you will quickly realize that the Byzantine’s unique and impressive architecture is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Littered throughout Turkey and Greece, you will find churches proudly defying time and portraying the power and wonder of the Byzantines.

Though the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine empire occurred over 550 years ago, this overlooked empire has influenced our modern day in more ways that many may truly appreciate. They are also a tremendous lesson of caution. As a remarkably diverse civilization, they demonstrated success and growth and found ways to embrace differences for the better. Inversely, they also showed the vulnerability and internal fracturing that can occur when diverse groups are unwilling to accept or tolerate others. No matter how powerful and dominant a society, if the stress and strain from within become too much, there is no one immune from a great fall.