BYZANTINE EMPIRE 



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BYZANTINE EMPIRE 



Byron's natural force and genius were per- 

 haps superior to those of any other English- 

 man of his time, and won for him in his own 

 day a fame which it is hard for those of a 

 later day to understand. After his death his 

 work was for some time as far underrated as 

 it had been overrated during his life, and it 

 is only within the last few decades that a 

 calm judgment has been passed on his writings. 

 These will live on account of their descriptions 

 of nature, the hatred of sham which they ex- 

 press and their keen insight into the heart of 

 man. 



In his own day quotations from Byron were 

 on everyone's lips, and even to-day some of 

 them are everywhere familiar: 



No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure 



meet 

 To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. 



Man ! 

 Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear. 



A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 



Man's love is of man's life a thing apart ; 

 'Tis woman's whole existence. 



The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! 

 Where burning Sappho loved and sung. 



C.W.K. 



BYZANTINE, bizan'tin, EMPIRE, called 

 also the Eastern, Greek, or Later Roman Em- 

 pire, once played a very important part in 

 the history and civilization of Europe, for all 

 through the Dark Ages it stood as a bulwark 



BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

 Its extent during the reign of Justinian. 



against the barbarians and guarded from their 

 inroads the precious legacy of culture which 

 had been left by the ancients. 



For almost a thousand years, from the death 

 of Theodosius the Great in A. D. 395 to the fall 

 of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine Em- 

 pire existed as a separate dynasty, with its 

 capital at Constantinople. Theodosius before 



his death divided his dominions between his 

 two sons, Honorius and Arcadius, and the lat- 

 ter was the first of the Byzantine emperors. 

 He proved a weak ruler, who made few at- 

 tempts to hold his power, but let it be exer- 

 cised by ministers. His son, Theodosius II 

 (reigned 408-450), was the next emperor in 

 name, but in reality Pulcheria, his sister, was 

 the ruler. An able ruler she proved to be, 

 carrying on successful war against the Persians 

 and gaining accessions of territory by helping 

 the Western emperor, Valentinian III. Rav- 

 ages of Attila and the Huns were averted only 

 by the payment of an annual tribute. 



The emperors who followed were men of 

 ability, who placed the Empire on a sound 

 basis financially and trained an excellent body 

 of soldiery, so when Justinian came to the 

 throne in 527 he found all things for material 

 advancement ready to his hand. He proved 

 fully able to take advantage of the prepara- 

 tions which these earlier emperors had made, 

 and brought the Empire to the highest point 

 of prosperity and power that it ever attained. 

 His aim was to make his dominions one coun- 

 try in fact as well as in name,, and his com- 

 pilation of laws as well as his conquests were 

 directed toward that end. See JUSTINIAN. 



His unfortunate successor, Justin II (reigned 

 565-578), was harassed on one frontier by the 

 Persians, on the other by the terrible Avars. 

 Most of Italy was lost to the Lombards. The 

 reign of Heraclius (610-641) presented a series 

 of overwhelming reverses, retrieved later by 

 glorious victories. The Persians took Syria, 

 Palestine and Asia Minor, and the invading 

 hordes advanced to a point, within sight of 

 Constantinople. Shrewdly gaining time by a 

 humiliating treaty, Heraclius collected his 

 forces and inflicted a defeat upon the Persians 

 at Issus. But a new enemy was gathering 

 strength, whom the exhausted, outlying prov- 

 inces were too weak to resist the Mohamme- 

 dans, with their fanatical missionary zeal. Be- 

 tween 635 and 641 the latter captured Syria, 

 Judea and all the African possessions, but this 

 resulted in good rather than harm to the Em- 

 pire, which thereby became more truly a unit. 



The eighth and ninth centuries saw 'a pecu- 

 liar religious struggle the war of the Icono- 

 clasts (which see). This weakened the Empire 

 at a time when it needed all its strength to 

 oppose its enemies. One ruler tore down 

 images and closed monasteries and convents; 

 the next restored them. Not until the latter 

 half of the ninth century was the controversy 



