An Empire That Never Called Itself Byzantine
Here is a strange twist. The people of the Byzantine Empire never called themselves Byzantines. The name was coined only after the empire was gone. Its citizens called their state the Roman Empire and called themselves Romans, or Romaioi in Greek. They named their land Rhomania, which means "Romanland".
Their neighbors agreed. Islamic writers of the time called it the "land of the Romans". Only after 800 did Western Europe start calling them "Greeks", because the pope and German emperors claimed to be the true heirs of Rome.
The word "Byzantine" comes from Byzantion, the old Greek town on which Constantinople was built. Back then it only described people from the city. Today it is the main term, though some historians think it should be dropped because it began as an unfair label.
A New Rome in the East
The story starts with Constantine I. In 324 he took full power, and over the next six years he rebuilt the city of Byzantium as a new capital. He called it "New Rome". Later it became known as Constantinople. He also created the gold solidus, a coin that gave the empire a stable currency.
Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion. He was also the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern halves of the empire. After his death, the West grew unstable while the East thrived. In 476, the warlord Odoacer removed the western emperor Romulus Augustulus, but the eastern half carried on.
Over time, Greek replaced Latin for official use. By the mid-6th century, Greek was the native language of about one-third of the people, and 80% of the upper class spoke it.
Justinian's Big Dreams and Hard Times
The empire reached its largest size under Justinian I, who ruled from 527 to 565. He briefly won back much of Italy and the western Mediterranean coast. He also rewrote Roman law into one clear code and rebuilt much of Constantinople, including the huge church of Hagia Sophia.
Then trouble arrived. A plague began around 541 and killed a large share of the population. At its peak in 540, the empire had as many as 27 million people. By 800, that number had fallen to about 12 million.
In the 630s and 640s, Arab armies took Syria and Egypt for good. Losing these rich lands cost the empire up to three-quarters of its income. Yet it held on. In the 670s, defenders used Greek fire to stop Arab efforts to take Constantinople.
Forks, Chariot Races and the First Real Hospitals
Daily life in the empire left a mark we still feel. By the 10th century, diners moved from lying on couches to sitting at tables with clean linen. The Byzantines also helped spread the fork and salad dressing made with oil and vinegar, which later shaped Italian and Western eating. Baklava and feta cheese were on the menu too.
For fun, people watched chariot races. These ran from the early days until 1204, making them one of the longest-running sporting events in world history.
The empire was also inventive. It used the riding stirrup, a special horseshoe and the lateen sail. It pioneered the hospital as a place that offered care and the hope of a cure, not just a place to die. One of the architects of Hagia Sophia even compiled the works of Archimedes, which helps explain why the Archimedes Palimpsest is known today.
Sacked, Restored and Finally Gone
For centuries, Constantinople was the largest and richest city in Europe. Only in the 13th century did Paris overtake it. Then came disaster. In 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade, who were meant to head for Egypt, sacked the city instead and carried off its wealth. The empire broke into rival pieces.
In 1261, Michael VIII won back Constantinople. But the restored empire was only a regional power. Over the next two centuries, the Ottomans slowly took its lands. On 29 May 1453, Sultan Mehmed II captured the city, and the empire ended. By then, only about 50,000 people lived there, one-tenth of its size at its peak.
Its legacy lived on. Byzantine law codes shaped legal systems across Europe, Russia and Latin America. It is also credited with the Glagolitic alphabet, which later grew into the Cyrillic script.
