The empire to the east

Over the next few weeks I want to review the Byzantine Empire, the third of the great Mediterranean political entities, along with the Franks and the Arabs. As a prelude let’s outline the basic history, some geography, and a list of emperors. That will make it easier to talk about what was happening in the eighth century. There are plenty of histories of Byzantium available, everything from mighty tomes to Wikipedia. Here’s my version.

The Roman empire spanned an immense geographic area, an area so large and diverse that (for a variety of reasons) cracks and fissures inevitably broke out across the realm. Barbarians spilled in from the east, known as Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks(!), and others. Political and economic power concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and eventually fighting for control of Rome became the all-consuming past time of the elite, while the rest of the empire was left to fend for itself.

By the fourth century the locus of power had shifted to the east, and the emperor Constantine established Constantinople as the capitol of the “Eastern Roman Empire” and made Christianity the official religion of the state. The “Latin West” and the “Greek East” maintained an uneasy alliance. By the fifth century the western empire had largely collapsed under barbarian assaults, while Rome remained as the center of western Latin church.

The sixth century saw the reign of Justinian the Great, a Greek ruler who, during his 38 years on the throne, restored the empire to an extent that rivaled the realm of the Caesars. Things began to slide after that, particularly with the rise of the Islamic caliphs in the seventh century. The Arabs seized two of the richest Byzantine provinces, Syria and Egypt, which put a crimp in Constantinople’s grain supply. Muslim expansion culminated in a four-year siege of Constantinople that began in 674. While that attack was eventually repulsed, the effort required a shift of resources from other areas of the empire. Soon the Balkans were being taken over by the Slavs. As the eighth century dawned the empire was being nibbled away.

It’s worth taking a minute to review the geography of the empire as our epoch opens, just to get our bearings. Wikipedia has most helpfully provided a map. Note that the bulk of the Byzantine empire lay to the east of Italy. There are a few western outliers, including Carthage in north Africa, and all of the big islands in the central Mediterranean. Don’t forget Ravenna, near Venice, which was part of the Lombard-Frankish-Papal disputes of the mid-eighth century. Travel between east and west required either a difficult overland passage, through some very sketchy neighborhoods, or a long sea voyage, with all of those attendant perils. Nonetheless communications between the Franks and the Eastern emperors did occur, with one very surprising example, which we will come to later.

Before we jump into the details of eighth century Byzantine-Frankish relations, let’s outline the emperors. It’s much easier to talk about events in reference to the rulers.