Byzantium is the name given to both the state and the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire in the middle ages. Both the state and the inhabitants always called themselves Roman, as did most of their neighbors. Western Europeans, who had their own Roman Empire called them Orientals or Greeks, and later following the example of the great French scholar DuCange, Byzantines after the former name of the Empire's capital city, Constantinople.
Byzantium Through The Ages - A Timeline
INTRODUCTION: BYZANTIUM In the early fourth century, the emperor Constantine established a new capital for the Roman empire. This capital was situated on the site of a Greek colony called Byzantium. Thus, Constantine laid the foundations for the Byzantine -- or East Roman -- empire which, at its greatest extent in the sixth century, stretched from southern Spain in the West to the borders of Sassanian Iran in the East. This spectacularly diverse combination of ethnic groups, languages, cults, and creeds was bound together by a Greco-Roman economic, political and cultural matrix.
Salve (and welcome) On this page, you will (eventually) find links and information about the Byzantine empire, until the coming of Islam. Why interest in the Byzantine Empire? What is the Byzantine Empire? What am I doing on this page? Do the links on this page take you to more information? (Well, yes, they do).
Welcome! This site is devoted to the fabulous medieval civilisation of Byzantium. The Byzantine Empire (330-1453) represents a 'missing link' in the history of Eastern and Western Europe, as well as the Middle East.
Constantine the Great The Roman emperor, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, or Constantine I, was born at Naissus, in Upper Moesia. He was the eldest son of Constantinus Chlorus and Helena, and first distinguished himself as a soldier in Diocletian's Egyptian expedition (296), and then under Galerius in the Persian war.
Justinian the Great Justinian began his life in Bulgaria, a former Roman province, as a poor shepherd boy. The only connection he had with Constantinople was his uncle that he had heard about.