foundations+of+byzantine

The great Emperor Constantine Trade routes used by the Byzantine empire. people converting to Christianity when Constantine built the new capital.
 * The Byzantine Empire was formed in the 4th century before the fall of Rome when the Romans had set up their eastern capital in Constantinople. With Latin as the court language.
 * It became the most vigorous center of the otherwise fading imperial structure.
 * Emperor Constantine built a host of elegant building that included Christian churches that were based on the foundations of the previous modest town of Byzantine.
 * Emperors from the east ruled from this Metropolis even before the western part of it was captured by the German invaders.
 * Invading Huns were warded off and they enjoyed a solid tax base in the peasant agriculture of the eastern Mediterranean.
 * Was responsible for the Balkan Peninsula, the Northern Middle East, the Mediterranean coast and North Africa.
 * Official language became Greek and it enabled scholars to read freely in the ancient Athenian philosophical and literary classics and in the Hellenistic writing and scientific treatises however, Latin then became considered an inferior barbaric language.
 * Benefited a great deal from trade that had already established in the eastern Mediterranean but as Hellenized Egyptians and Syrians who were originally excluded from the Roman administration moved to Constantinople and entered the expanding bureaucracy of the Byzantine rulers.
 * Even though the empire didn’t have a lot of pressure put on them like the Germanic tribes were doing to the west, they had a lot of foreign enemies and so they recruited armies in the Middle East and didn’t rely on barbarian troops.
 * Complex administration around a remote emperor was surrounded by elaborate ceremonies that defined the empire’s political style.