The Byzantines never achieved anything of value in their entire 1,000 year history?

[Condottiere 40K]

1. They gave us the word Byzantine.

2. Arab expansionism gave them control over vast regions and their sedentary populations; they co-opted the bureaucrats and academics to help them run and build a new empire; the academics secondary pursuits included preserving their libraries and translating them for their new overlords.

3. Money and generosity attracts academics.

4. One thing the West was better at was in telling stories, whether they were true or not; that's why we have great epics to inspire us. The public relations machinery of the Byzantine Empire needed work; there might be sympathy, but no empathy for them.

[Kyriakos]

I am happy that the web - and computer games - have helped the Byz empire become a lot more known than it was through school. I have to say, even in Greece the history lessons about the byzantine empire were very little (only lasting 2 years i think; maybe even one...), and ending highschool i was under the impression this was some kind of occupying force

Which is sad, really :/

But byz is cool, mostly due to monuments. Cultural achievements include the encyclopedia and university, both first in Europe anyway. Yes, greek philosophy was persecuted after a while, and iirc Justinian even closed down the famous philosophical academy in Athens, yet compared to the incredibly barbarous everything else in Europe and the middle east... the Byz empire was still a light of civilization.

[hellheaven1987]

It wasn't futile; the Byzantines did gain a degree of diplomatic respect and acceptance from the Arabs for many centuries. They could be regarded as civilised, even if misguided. I recall reading that one historian noted that there were two states that mattered: the caliphate and the empire. Also their resistance allowed Greek language and religion to survive to the present (Persian language survival even after Arab conquest indicates Greek may have survived anyway). There was a fair bit of movement between the two as well, notably the Byzantine scholars who fled persecution in Byzantium to join the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

Right, until illegal Muslim immigrants overran ERE.

another which links to a Wikipedia article with no clear relevance to the topic

Well it is a big and complex topic about Byzantine influence on that three Medieval evolution, but I can give an example - the Western Frankish cavalry, which became the "Western knights" we familiar with during High Middle Age, was an instrument created by Charles Martel. Frank did have tradition of horse riders but those were largely mounting infantry which dismounted during combat. Charles Martel changed that by introducing Byzantine cavalry training, using Byzantine training manual and tactical doctrine. The change was difficult and did not bear fruit until Charlemagne time, but once it was rooted it change the Latin warfare completely, to the point we today forget Western knights were actually a Byzantine product.

[LinusLinothorax]

It wasn't futile; the Byzantines did gain a degree of diplomatic respect and acceptance from the Arabs for many centuries. They could be regarded as civilised, even if misguided.

What an incredibly arrogant statement. Together with Persia the Byzantine Empire was the very founding father of your celebrated "Islamic civilization".

[bigdaddy1204]

Creating the Slavic Alphabet.

This is a good one. Did they add new letters to create sounds that are in the Slavic languages? The influence of Byzantium on Russia and other Slavic nations is an interesting topic that could be explored further.

What's special about John Chrysostom?
(Yes i know i could just read the link but a brief summary would be useful)

1. They gave us the word Byzantine.

Haha! This is brilliant. An excellent reason, i agree.

Although technically, i suppose we must thank the ancient Greek king Byzas who first founded the town.

I am happy that the web - and computer games - have helped the Byz empire become a lot more known than it was through school. I have to say, even in Greece the history lessons about the byzantine empire were very little (only lasting 2 years i think; maybe even one...), and ending highschool i was under the impression this was some kind of occupying force

Which is sad, really :/

But byz is cool, mostly due to monuments. Cultural achievements include the encyclopedia and university, both first in Europe anyway. Yes, greek philosophy was persecuted after a while, and iirc Justinian even closed down the famous philosophical academy in Athens, yet compared to the incredibly barbarous everything else in Europe and the middle east... the Byz empire was still a light of civilization.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I first encountered the Byzantines in Age of Empires II. They had increased hitpoints on defensive structures, cheaper skirmishers, camels and pikemen, their unique unit was the cataphract and they could advance to the imperial age more cheaply than other civilisations. They were my favourite civ! I also liked playing them in Medieval Total War (2002). They were depicted far better in the original game than in M2TW, imo.

Right, until illegal Muslim immigrants overran ERE.

I suppose that is one rather anachronistic way of describing the Turks. Although notably they also settled areas of Persia which subsequently changed from primarily Persian culture to Turkic, such as Azerbaijan and what's now Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Those areas had previously been Iranian-speaking. So arguably Islam had little to do with it, except as a by-product of something else, namely horse nomad movements.

Also if western knights were a Byzantine product, that raises the question why the Byzantines found them so novel and devastating at Dyrrhachium in 1081 and other engagements?

What an incredibly arrogant statement. Together with Persia the Byzantine Empire was the very founding father of your celebrated "Islamic civilization".

It's certainly fair to comment the huge influence of Persia, which is true. I think Byzantine influence was less, perhaps mainly due to the Byzantine capital and heartlands never falling under Arab rule. By the time the Turks did enter Rum in Anatolia, Islamic civilisation was already well-established.

The Greek concepts of Neoplatonism and rationalism did have a big influence on the mutazila faction in the time of al Mamun, but eventually they lost out in Sunni Islam. However, their influence was more enduring in Shia Islam, particularly among the Ismaili sect which still exists today. Neoplatonism and the need for logic and reason are more prominent in Shia ijtihad, even down to the present.

In one of the more surprising twists of history, one of the best known Ismaili groups was the Nizari, who are perhaps better known as the Assassins, a deadly sect who had their headquarters in the Alborz mountains of northern Iran. They are the subject of many legends, including Marco Polo's tales of gardens, beautiful girls and drugs, primarily hashish. However, modern academic historians dismiss such stories as folktales spread by their enemies; there is no evidence that the Nizari ever used hashish, nor that the garden described by Marco Polo ever existed. (The castle at Alamut does exist, however, and can still be seen today).

[Kyriakos]

Hm, wait, your point was that the islamic civ was superior to the byz one?
Got to say i actually thought you were trolling

Although Byz never did anything of note. Others at the time were far more civilized.



λολ

[bigdaddy1204]

What a beautiful picture. Is this from the Byzantium 1200 project? Is that the hippodrome?

My point? Mainly to shine some light on the claim made by the author of the book mentioned in the OP. While in general i do think other cultures were more innovative, i did hope that this thread would result in some posts in defence of the Byzantines, hopefully revealing some of their contributions. From this, i hoped to come to a balanced assessment of their achievement and whether it was indeed negligible or whether it was more historically significant than previously thought.

So far it has worked quite well, i have been most impressed by the Slavic alphabet, which i think is a really good point when combined with Byzantine influence on their culture.

I'm still dubious about their scientific achievements, though. One person mentioned ship building, but i'd like to see something more specific. Also the Hagia Sophia was impressive, but it does belong to the 6th century which is more Late Antiquity period. I'd be more impressed by an example of Byzantine architecture any time after 700 or so.

[LinusLinothorax]

It's certainly fair to comment the huge influence of Persia, which is true. I think Byzantine influence was less, perhaps mainly due to the Byzantine capital and heartlands never falling under Arab rule. By the time the Turks did enter Rum in Anatolia, Islamic civilisation was already well-established.

The Turks only finished the Jihad. As you surely know, the Arabs still plundered and conquered a huge chunk of Byzantine lands before the Turks:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

75-80% of the entire land mass seems like a good guess, and probably not much less of the entire population. And the Byzantine influences on the "Islamic civilization" are obvious: The very symbol of Islam, the minaretted and domed mosque, is a direct copy of Byzantine architecture. The bathing culture, with which not few Muslims try to mock Europeans when claiming that Muslims were the cultural lightbringers to Europe, is directly inherited from the Greco-Romans. Early Muslim coinage is a direct copy of Byzantine coinage. The Arabs copied the moisac and fresco artistry (Even if it came out of use quickly). And last but not least, the whole "Islamic Golden Age of science" wouldn't have happened in that amount without Christian Syrians translating essential Greek works into Arabic.

Considering all these points I find it extremely cheeky to hail Islamic culture while writing that Byzantines "could be regarded as civilised". Without its and Persias contributions Islamic culture would still be the one of illitarate, plundering and religious fanatical bedouins it began with.

[neoptolemos]

I have posted some examples of Byzantine excellence, as people tend to forget that the Byzantine hymns are a form of poetry. Some of the lyrics in the hymns are really touching. Of course we should not forget the female composer Kassiani.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyxcaSLEix0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da9FeNoFIm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOwz3XVJJyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIHXj9LCcSw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...man_inventions

https://www.britannica.com/art/Greek...ine-literature

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_literature

https://library.nd.edu/byzantine_stu...krumbacher.pdf

Also hugely important:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_medicine

[hellheaven1987]

Also if western knights were a Byzantine product, that raises the question why the Byzantines found them so novel and devastating at Dyrrhachium in 1081 and other engagements?

I am not familiar with Byzantine military evolution after theme system, but from my partial understanding, it seems that Byzantine military during Basil the Bulgar-Slayer increasingly became more mercenary-origin that focused on specialty. Latin knights in 11th Century were medium/generic cavalry that aimed to fulfill multiple role - shock, scout, range support (in fact First Crusade would show Latin knights were pretty good in range too), foot soldier, etc, which were more similar as the cavalry in Strategikon of Maurice (a work which students in Charles Martel's royal academy would be familiar too).

[Kyriakos]

What a beautiful picture. Is this from the Byzantium 1200 project? Is that the hippodrome?

My point? Mainly to shine some light on the claim made by the author of the book mentioned in the OP. While in general i do think other cultures were more innovative, i did hope that this thread would result in some posts in defence of the Byzantines, hopefully revealing some of their contributions. From this, i hoped to come to a balanced assessment of their achievement and whether it was indeed negligible or whether it was more historically significant than previously thought.

So far it has worked quite well, i have been most impressed by the Slavic alphabet, which i think is a really good point when combined with Byzantine influence on their culture.

I'm still dubious about their scientific achievements, though. One person mentioned ship building, but i'd like to see something more specific. Also the Hagia Sophia was impressive, but it does belong to the 6th century which is more Late Antiquity period. I'd be more impressed by an example of Byzantine architecture any time after 700 or so.

There is also byz Thessalonike, which i am currently 3d modelling ^^

Local architects model:



The above is from the age of Galerius, ie a little before the byz era.

[Copperknickers II]

4. One thing the West was better at was in telling stories, whether they were true or not; that's why we have great epics to inspire us. The public relations machinery of the Byzantine Empire needed work; there might be sympathy, but no empathy for them.

This is an interesting point. I think perhaps this was down to religion. There was certainly a lot of literature that came out of the Middle East during Pagan times but it seemed to dry up after the coming of Christianity. I just think people weren't interested in that kind of story because of the focus on religion, in the same way as modern literature seems to be going downhill because of hyper-capitalism. In ancient times, literature was an important part of education, but in the early medieval period it fell out of fashion somewhat in favour of scriptural studies. So we get hagiographies and theological works, but not much in the way of secular literature of any note. The same is true to some extent in the Arab world. With the exception of 1001 Nights, well-known Arabic literature that is not related to religion is really non-existent, almost all other Islamic literature in the popular consciousness is Persian. Although this is another example of the subjectiveness of literature, because there are plenty of poorly known Arabic literary works.

Although Wikipedia makes the good point that, surprisingly, Arabic was often not as prominent a language as you would think, since for most of the last 1500 years, since Baghdad was home to thousands of Persians during the Abbassid period as well as Arabs, and then came the Turks, so there was a dearth of the kind of Arab political dominance that might have led to Arabic being more of a prestige literary language from the end of the Fatimid Caliphate until modern times.

[Rinan]

Not the issue of art or science, but a related issue: I'm wondering if we could blame the Byzantines/ERE, specifically emperor Justinian, for causing the "Dark Ages". In Procopius, we can read that the war in Italy ruined the country. Likewise, in Africa we find a declining economy after the Byzantine reconquest: the 2nd half of the 6th century AD is generally marked by a substantial decrease in African Red Slip pottery and settlement occupation. And that while scholarship now assumes Vandal Africa was quite prosperous!

In my opinion at least, the Ostrogoth Kingdom and the Vandal Kingdom were basically "Roman" states, now with a militarized elite. The Wars of Justinian cut their lives short, otherwise either of them could've become a continuation of the WRE.

An alternative explanation could be that it was the Bubonic plague of the 6th century that ultimately was the final death-blow, so I'm not completely decided yet.

Hm, wait, your point was that the islamic civ was superior to the byz one?

[picture]

It's a beautiful drawing, but it's probably meant to represent 6th century Constantinople. Remember, by the 6th century, many provincial cities in the Eastern Mediterranean were fundamentally changing their shape and form. Overall smaller populations, public spaces built over by private housing, shops or industry. Constantinople itself lost much of its population through the 7th and the 8th, so overall by the time Baghdad reached its peak, Constantinople looked a little bit less "glorious" than in that drawing

What a beautiful picture. Is this from the Byzantium 1200 project? Is that the hippodrome?

The artist is Antoine Helbert, it's another guy than the Byzantium 1200 project. Here's the rest of his amazing drawings: http://www.antoine-helbert.com/fr/po...hitecture.html

[Kyriakos]

^Bagdad itself looked a little less glorious when it was overrun by the mongols
And iirc Antoine features several landmarks known to be from later eras, including - i think - a palaiologan palace. So it doesn't seem he had in mind the justinian era.

[LinusLinothorax]

Not the issue of art or science, but a related issue: I'm wondering if we could blame the Byzantines/ERE, specifically emperor Justinian, for causing the "Dark Ages". In Procopius, we can read that the war in Italy ruined the country. Likewise, in Africa we find a declining economy after the Byzantine reconquest: the 2nd half of the 6th century AD is generally marked by a substantial decrease in African Red Slip pottery and settlement occupation. And that while scholarship now assumes Vandal Africa was quite prosperous!

In my opinion at least, the Ostrogoth Kingdom and the Vandal Kingdom were basically "Roman" states, now with a militarized elite. The Wars of Justinian cut their lives short, otherwise either of them could've become a continuation of the WRE.

True. Except of the changed ruling elite and a small economical decline the Romano-Germanic states were direct continuations of the Roman empire in basicaly every regard. Only region which significantly declined in terms of culture was the Merovingian kingdom.

[bigdaddy1204]

I think the worst affected area was Britannia. The Roman culture disappeared completely; the language changed from Latin to Germanic and the religion from Christianity to Paganism. Christianity had to be re-introduced 200 years later by missionaries from the mainland and also from Ireland.

Bryan Ward Perkins wrote a very interesting book called The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation in 2006. It contains some great charts and discussion of economic decline in the post-Roman world. Notably, society in Britannia regressed to a level more primitive than it had been even before the Romans, due to the need to build everything from the beginning once more.

As for the Byzantines, Ward Perkins data suggests the Aegean region entered its own dark age abruptly in 600AD with the Persian war and the loss of the Balkans, in which virtually every major city and town was sacked and destroyed. It was only in the period after 900 that the economy really got going again.

[alhoon]

One person mentioned ship building, but i'd like to see something more specific.

Hey, we... were kinda taught that in school. Here. Dromons were nice and effective and later the Italians made better galleys. But regardless, when the dark ages descended the Byzantines (and Arabs) were the ship-building Empires.

Chrysostomos, was very influential for the Orthodox Christianity (and since he was around at 4th century, that means probably most of Christianity).

I am disappointed you didn't count the theology and organizing of religion the Byzantines did for centuries as an achievement though...

[Rinan]

Bryan Ward Perkins wrote a very interesting book called The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation in 2006.

Ward-Perkins' Fall of Rome is a very good read. Overall, I disagree with some of his conclusions though. His view is overall too bleak for me, in the sense of: economic decline = catastrophe. But no doubt, Britannia declined much further than most other regions of the Empire. Even Gaul is a mixed bag, by the way. Southern Gaul stayed more urbanized for a long time.


To play the what-if game (it's fun...): we know that the Visigothic kingdom became dependent on the Ostrogothic kingdom for a period, esp. the Gallic part IIRC.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

​Wikipedia: The two branches of the nation were soon brought closer together; after he was forced to become regent of the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse, the power of Theodoric was practically extended over a large part of Gauland over nearly the whole of the Iberian peninsula.

So, what if Justinian never had had illusions of grandeur and invaded the Ostrogothic kingdom, but instead retained the traditional diplomatic attitude of recognising the Ostrogoths as legitimate representation of Roman power. Then, the Ostrogoths might have established hegemony over the Western Mediterranean and kept Clovis away from southern Gaul. The biggest competitors would, of course, have been the Vandals, who had Africa as an economic powerbase behind them, but the Ostrogoths the prestige of Rome... Justinian might then ally with one or the other, and help recreate a stable WRE. This WRE, while not stretching as far into Europe as the High Empire, would still control the core Mediterranean regions. Meanwhile, the ERE has not ​drained itself from all its resources, and can continue to stand off against the Sassanids. The mutual war of destruction in the 7th century never happens, and the Arabs never succeed in toppling the two giants.

(Obviously, this means Christianity never loses ground, and by the year 2000 AD we all live in a spacefaring Byzantine theocracy, but heretic schismatics on Mars refuse to pay their taxes...).

Ok, it's all speculative of course, but I think it shows the impact of Justinian's wars. To my current understanding, these wars and the plague may have been the final nail in the coffin of a united Roman Empire.

^Bagdad itself looked a little less glorious when it was overrun by the mongols
And iirc Antoine features several landmarks known to be from later eras, including - i think - a palaiologan palace. So it doesn't seem he had in mind the justinian era.

Tbh, I think they're meant to represent different eras. Some drawings are 4th, and others 12th century AD.

[antaeus]

Seems like a lazy provocation thread to me.

For starters there wasn't really a separation between Roman and East Roman. They were continuous. So in effect the topic should read "Did the later Romans never achieve anything?" Rephrasing the question pretty much answers it too. The latter Romans built on a tradition that went back to the dawn of Roman history. They didn't see themselves as different or separate. For example - As mentioned the Corpus Juris - work on civil law done under Justinian built on a thousand years of Roman and Greek legal thought. It was a new Byzantine document made from a reordering and organising of an unbroken legal tradition that went back centuries. It was assembled very quickly in the 6th century and without it the legal systems of modern countries as different as Mexico, Turkey and China wouldn't exist in the forms they do. It was probably one of the most influential collections of work of any sort in history. Certainly, it is probably the most influential assemblage of written work that isn't wholly religious in nature. I'm struggling to think of any other body of work that was important to the development of civilisation. Maybe the US constitution or the Magna Carta?

Any google search will pull up literally hundreds of books, research papers, archaeological surveys etc etc which catalogue the influence of Eastern Roman residents over the centuries. The OP writer doesn't need us to list them all. They're just interested in stirring.

[Slytacular]

Next trigger topic: The Holy Roman Empire never achieved anything.