including headings A new Rome, Constantine and his city, Three sons of Constantine, Julian the Apostate, Revival of the pagan cult, ...
In535 a fleet sails from Constantinople with orders to re-establish direct imperial rule in Italy. The campaign is under the command of Belisarius, hero of the recent African successes. He begins his task in the south, c...
In the overwhelming assault on the Byzantine empire by the Arabs during the 7th century, only one campaign is consistently unsuccessful. This is their frequently repeated attempt to capture Constantinople itself.
After the official establishment of Christianity in the Byzantine empire, in the 4th century, the Greeks themselves become more interested in theological than scientific speculation. And with the fall of classical civili...
The position of Greece, as a central region of the Byzantine empire, remains reasonably secure until the 11th century. At that time, and in the following century, there are troublesome attacks on the Greek coastline from...
The final and most destructive chapter in the rivalry between the Byzantine empire and Persia begins in an improbable way. In591 both emperors find themselves fighting on the same side. Khosrau II has fled from...
The Turks make steady inroads into Christian territory in the heartland of the Byzantine empire. They win Anatolia and then the Balkans before finally capturing the prize of Constantinople itself, in 1453. Durin...
Dynastic conflicts in the last years of the 12th century compound the troubles of the Byzantine empire, and accidentally play into the hands of Venice. In 1195 the emperor Isaac II is deposed and blinded by his brother....
During the 12th century Venetian merchants make excellent use of the exclusive trading privilege granted them in the Byzantine empire, in 1082, for their help against the Normans. But their wealth and arrogance provoke p...
The other new development of the late 11th century opens up extra routes for trade, along the coasts of the Byzantine empire and beyond. In 1096 the contingents of the First Crusade set off eastwards to recover the holy...
In 1064 the Seljuk Turks, under their sultan Alp Arslan, invade Armenia - for many centuries a disputed frontier region between the Byzantine empire and neighbours to the east. Alp Arslan follows his success here with an...
The most desirable relics are those connected with Jesus himself. The True Cross is so valuable as to provoke warfare between the Byzantine empire and the Persians. The exquisite Sainte Chapelle is built in Paris specifi...
In its strategic but exposed position, Albania is a pawn in the shifting patterns of power through the centuries. It is in the Byzantine empire, it is prey to Norman adventurers from southern Italy, it is in the Latin em...
During 1096 western Christians duly make their way in large numbers towards Constantinople. In the early autumn a plague of locusts in the Byzantine empire is seen as providing an apt portent of the arrival of the hungry...
Rum, meaning Rome, is the word used by the Turks for Byzantium (whose officials still describe themselves as Romans, in keeping with the origins of the Byzantine empire). Pressing deep into Anatolia, after the victory at...
