Byzantine Empire
Satnam Grewal
History4A
12/20/13
Mr. Castillo

Byzantine Empire
The word Byzantine came from Byzantium, an old Greek colony founded by a man named Byzas, the origins of this great civilization of Byzantine can be traced to 330 A.D(history.com 2013)as when Constantine the roman emperor split the Empire, the eastern Roman Empire was now known as the Byzantine Empire. “This empire flourished during the reign of the Macedonian Emperors and lasted for more than thousand years giving life to rich tradition of art, literature and learning and having a huge military force”(history.com,2013).
One of the most important and significant thing about the Byzantine Empire was it lasted more than a decade. “it was the only organized state west of China to survive without interruption from ancient times until the beginning of the modern age” (history.com, 2013). The Byzantine Empire had some great rulers that are one of the reasons the Empire was so powerful. “The ruler Justinian who took power in 527 and ruled until his death in 565, he was the most successful ruler of the Byzantine Empire. During the years of his reign, the empire including most of the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, and also part of the former Western Roman Empire”(history.com,2013) “Many great monuments were built under Justinian, including the dome church of holy wisdom it was one of the biggest monument built by Justinian” (history.com 2013). The church is also known as the Hagia Sophia (532-37 A.D) one of the “reasons that Justinian is known as one of the greatest rulers of the Empire is because he did not just build monument he help reform the Roman law and establishing a Byzantine legal code that would endure for centuries and help shape concept of the state” (history.com 2013).
The church (Hagia Sofia) was one of the biggest and most beautiful churches built of its time. Where it stood then it is now called Istanbul you could see it from miles away it was well known it had four columns with pointed tips on them like they were the outer security for the church the dome in the center of it was what it was most known for, people use to go just to look up through the center of it. It was one of the many projects that took place under Justinian rule. .Justinian used the church to help gain power he believed god was living through him and used that to keep his people under him and that also scared them because god at the time was the highest power. Under The Justinian rule there were a lot of significant achievements were made
Which to the present day is carried out .Art, literature and architecture were the areas where the emperor made significant strides in.
The Byzantine empire survived for such a long time due to the strategic location it was in, “Constantinople was located in a strait and it was very difficult to break thru the capital defenses and it was true that the eastern section had a much shorter common frontier with Europe” (history.com, 2013) thus it made the capital to be more stronger in the administrative center and also created a stable internal political setting for the Byzantine Empire. The main religion in the Byzantine was Christianity and language spoken was Latin, but Greek was widely spoken and students studied Greek history, culture and literature.
“When Christianity got control and was well organized, the church was led by five patriarchs and they resided in Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople and last one was Rome” (Ancient History Encyclopedia 2011). “The Council of Chalcedon, (451, CE) decided that the patriarch of Constantinople was to be in the second number in hierarchy and the Pope was the most superior” (Ancient History Encyclopedia 2011). Also the cultural aspect was that “since the age of the great Edward Gibbon the Byzantine Empire had held a reputation of great luxury and corruption”(Ancient History Encyclopedia 2011). The culture in the Byzantine at the time was very