The Oxford History of Byzantium is the only history to provide in concise form detailed coverage of Byzantium from its Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople & assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Lively essays & beautiful illustrations portray the emergence & development of a distinctive civilization covering the period from the fourth century to the mid-fifteenth century. The authors
- all working at the cutting edge of their particular fields
- outline the political history of the Byzantine state & bring to life the evolution of a colourful culture. In AD 324 the Emperor Constantine the Great chose Byzantion an ancient Greek colony at the mouth of the Thracian Bosphorous as his imperial residence. He renamed the place Constaninopolis nova Roma Constantinople the new Rome & the city (modern Istanbul) became the Eastern capital of the later Roman empire. The new Rome outlived the old & Constantines successors continued to regard themselves as the legitimate emperors of Rome just as their subjects called themselves Romaioi or Romans long after they had forgotten the Latin language. In the sixteenth century Western humanists gave this eastern Roman empire ruled from Constantinople the epithet Byzantine. Against a backdrop of stories of emperors intrigues battles & bishops this Oxford History uncovers the hidden mechanisms
- economic social & demographic
- that underlay the history of events. The authors explore everyday life in cities & villages manufacture & trade machinery of government the church as an instrument of state minorities education literary activity beliefs & superstitions monasticism iconoclasm the rise of Islam & the fusion with Western or Latin culture. Byzantium linked the ancient & modern worlds shaping traditions & handing down to both Eastern & Western civilization a vibrant legacy.