History / Golden Horn / Emperors / Religion / Art

Constantine was the first emperor shrewd enough to see that Christianity, with its power to sway the minds of men and harness their loyalty, was the one force that could save empire. In 313 A.D. he declared that Christianity was to be tolerated throughout its lands - though he was not baptised himself until 25 years leter. Constantine and Justinian - these two emperors, both born at Naissus (Nish) in Serbia (Yugoslavia), set Byzantium on the path to greatness. Constantine presided over some 250 bishops assembled at Nicaea for the first of seven ecumennical, or universal, councils that forged the Orthodox faith. Constantin gave Byzantium its spiritual focus.

Justinian (527-65A.D.) gave it its greatest temporal sway. He reconquers much of former western Roman Empire and rebuilds cities, monasteries, and 700 fortifications, including Constantinople and St. Sophia. The most important and enduring of Justinian's achievements was the orderly system of law which he drew up, and which has been a major influence on the legal structure of most nations of the Western world. Justinian tried to keep Latin, the traditional language of the Roman Empire, as the language of the court, but he recognised that Greek was the tongue of the people.

Soldier-emperor Heraclius (610-41) fails to stem the Arab threat, and Africa, Spain and N. Italy are lost. Religious controversy divides the empire when Leo III bans icons in 726. Their use is restored in 843, under the regency of Theodora, mother of Michael III (842-67), known as Michael the Drunkard. He had gained a bad reputation in his youth for wild drinking and horse-racing parties, but settled down to become a good ruler, advised by his uncle, Bardas. Later Michael Chose good generals who organised major campaigns to recover Byzantine land in the east of Asia Minor. Michael was murdered by one of his grooms, who became Basil I (867-86).

In 867 Basil I founds a new dynasty and revives Byzantine power. He began the successful Macedonian dynasty, which held the throne of Byzantium for the next two centuries. Basil's successors extended the empire's boundaries to the Euphrates, and made considerable inroads into Bulgaria. The empire's revival continues under Basil II (976-1025). But pursuit of military success overstrains the economy; in 1071 Anatolija falls to the Seljuk Turks, and S. Italy and Sicily fall to the Normans. Crusaders sack Constantinople and set up an empire (1204-61); East-West relations never recover. Michael VIII (d. 1282) recovers the capital and revives the empire. The Black Death ravages the Balkans (1334-6).

Stephen Dusan of Serbia takes Byzantine territory. He bases a law code on Justinian's, and Serbian and Bulgarian arts copy Byzantine styles. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, fell fighting with his troops at the St. Romanus Gate - Constantinople. He fell together with his city.

Surrounded by would-be usurpers and assassins, no incompetent emperor remained God's vicar on earth very long. Of the 88 emperors from Constantin I to XI, 13 took to a monastery. Thirty others died violently - starved, poisoned, blinded, bludgeoned, strangled, stabbed, dismembered, decapitated.

The skull of Nicephorus I ended up as a silver-lined gobled from which Khan Krum of the Bulgars toasted his boyars.

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History / Golden Horn / Emperors / Religion / Art