Thanks CondoleezzaProtege.
Posted on 11/04/2019 11:21:03 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
“Le grand absent—c’est l’Empire”
C. Dufour, Constantinople Imaginaire
Everywhere Western man longs for Constantinople and nowhere has he any idea how to find her. To do so is to reclaim, at last, the meaning of an empire that once defined a hierarchy of imagination long ago abandoned by our civilization; of an eleven-century political, religious and cultural struggle that sought to reconcile Christianity and Antiquity, transforming the Western spirit into a brilliant battleground between Latin and Greek, Augustus and Basileus, reason and faith, ancient and modern. Yet to unearth this Byzantium, this “heaven of the human mind”, as Yeats dreamed her, is not to go searching through histories and legends, glorious ruins or immortal poems. It is, instead, to be found retracing the evolution of a new and profound conflict in Western thought that began with the mysterious conversion of the first Constantine and ended, at the gates of the marble and gold City called ‘the world’s desire’ by the sons of that city, with the unconquerable faith of the last Constantine—himself heir to the great Palaiologoi who resurrected the dormant title of Hellene to describe their own noble line of descent.
When we set out to locate this forgotten world... One speaks of the Western roots of the Eastern empire but what of the Eastern roots of the Western empire? “The intercourse of two worlds”, wrote Norman Baynes of the empire, “the Greek and the Roman, one current carrying the armed power of Rome to the East, the other carrying the culture of the Greeks to the West—Byzantine civilization could call upon both”.
(Excerpt) Read more at intellectualtakeout.org ...
I have them its great!
Michael Grant has a good study too!
I need to study up on this. It’s a huge Terra Incognita in my mind.
Yes, that’s what I thought. Thanks.
It still is. The Holy Orthodox Christian Church lives on, carrying on the ancient tradition from apostolic times up to today.
As for ignorance, don't feel so band. It seems like western society doesn't want us to know about it. Or else western society thinks so highly of itself, it doesn't consider the 1,000 years of Byzantium worth looking at. Or maybe it's because it's impossible to look at Byzantium without staring CHRIST in the face.
My recollection of high school history is that you learn about ancient (pagan) Greece as a mere setup for Rome. Then when Rome falls, you get a brief mention of the split, but then rather than follow the trail of the eastern empire, it's immediately forgotten, and we skip ahead to Charlemagne, and follow the Roman/Germanic narrative, to the exclusion of the rest of the civilized world.
Meanwhile, Byzantine (Orthodox Christian) culture moved north into slavic lands -- Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Serbia. The west, if you haven't noticed, seems quite prejudiced against those lands and peoples. They get treated like the white trash of the world by the western nations. But that's OK. I'm sure it will all work out in the end. Forgive me for running on.
There are amazingly good documentaries on Amazon Prime on this subject.
Can you suggest a good basic book or website or summary I can use to get me started?
I am personally very fond of certain Syriac Christians --- St. Ephrem in particular. There is a book by Sebastian Brock called The Luminous Eye which is a great book about St. Ephrem's poetic theology.
The founding of monasticism -- St. Anthony the Great of Egypt and St. Pachomius. The writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. John Chrysostom's homilies on the epistles of St. Paul. There is a book by Timothy Ware (now Bishop Kallistos Ware) called The Orthodox Church which is well regarded as a historical overview.
I do hope you delve into the early Eastern church -- it's a treasure beyond measure.
Sorry I can't be of more constructive help. Just go back a thousand years and turn right -- can't miss it! :-)
Thanks CondoleezzaProtege.
Sadly, no. It was on borrowed time since Manzikert
We in the U.S. “forget about them”, but the Byzantines considered themselves The Roman Empire.
What we forget is that Constantine had moved the capital city of the Empire to Byzantium/Constantinople before Rome fell.
Rome was just the regional capital of the Western Empire when it fought the Visigoths for its very survival.
Rome and the West fell, but the Empire rolled along in the East for another 1,000 years.
We forget Byzantium because we are children of the West, Latin and Germanic speaking, and Rome is where we look to for our history. We either battled Rome or we were part of them. Or both. Hail Caesar.
Hey, if they'd had Bactine back then, it would have meant a whole different slogan.
Justinian undermined the finances of everyone under his rule via massive taxation to bankroll his dream of reuniting the Roman Empire. By contrast, Basil II "the Bulgar-slayer" evolved into a great military leader in his own right, but left no children. The city managed to maintain itself despite its changing fortunes in the provinces, through oceangoing and even overland trade, even after Mad Mo the pedophile and his bloodthirsty cutthroat followers swept across N Africa and overthrew the Parthians.
To expand.
The Roman Empire (That’s the proper name - the term “Byzantine empire” was coined by 18th century western europeans to disparage the east) lost its economic based in the ARab invasions of the 600s.
What is interesting is that the parts of the Roman world lost to the Arabs were Afro-Asiatic in language (meaning speaking either Semitic languages like Aramaic or Babylonian or were speaking Egyptian or Berber - remember that St. Augustine was a BErber)
The Greek speaking Romans alienated these peoples and the Christians of that region actually supported the ARab invasions. That’s because initially the “Arab religion” was a Christian heresy before they made up the idea of a separate “Arab prophet”
Anyway, so they lost their economic base which was Egypt and Syria.
anatolia was rich as well, but with 60% of your economy gone, you have to fight a rearguard war.
Then Anatolia was lost to the Turkic peoples and Constantinople remained a city lost from its hinterland.
The 4th “crusade” hastened the fall, but it woudl have fallen by 1500 unless Western Europeans got their act together (which didn’t happen as they themselves got divided through the reformatting)
The beginning of the Roman Empire was the annexation of Ostia, which (thanks to the Gauls burning the city and its written records) wound up being a prehistoric event, but it took place about 396 BC; Rome was sacked in 410 AD, but the last Emperor was deposed in 476 AD, a period of 872 years. This doesn't account for the various poorly documented territorial gains during the preceding generations, both before the last Etruscan king was booted around 509 BC and the period of slightly more than a century until Ostia's annexation.
Calling the realm of Constantinople an empire after the loss of Anatolia to the muzzie onslaught, and the piratical raids by the muzzies thereafter, isn't realistic imho. After the death of Boris II early in the 11th c, there was a more or less steady erosion of control over the eastern territories, mismanagement, tax increases, and the reemergence of what we might recognize as the Deep State.
Small successor states tottered on for a time (a decade?) even after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, but they'd already gained territory in the 14th c via seagoing invasion of parts of the Adriatic coast of Balkan territory.
On a side note, I've often guffawed at the term "Byzantine" to refer to the eastern Roman Empire.
That and of course battle of Yarmouk.
I agree with other observations on this thread that we in the West have tended to neglect study of the Empire after the fall of Rome. Whatever it’s called, I find it a fascinating world, lost to the predations of the barbarians from deserts and steppes. I also agree with the observation that by the time the Venetians sacked Constantinople the Empire was really not an Empire anymore. But, if you want to see some of the most beautiful objects from old Constantinople, they can be found in St. Marks, Venice.
Just out of the reach of living memory, the Depression exposed fundamental weaknesses in America's financial system. To a measure at least, FDR and the New Deal helped to combat them, while Reagan came to power in 1980 and Trump in 2016 on pledges to reverse the excesses of the New Deal and to battle the entrenched power of elites reliant on federal power. Notably, both FDR and Reagan also dealt successfully with major foreign challenges and secured American military strength as second to none.
Despite Byzantium's accomplishments and long survival, it is most useful for us as a cautionary tale that supreme wealth, power, and technical competence are no guarantee of success and survival. Every civilization and system of government must still meet the challenges they face or perish. So, a tip of the cup toward Byzantium -- and three cheers for Donald Trump!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
