Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Defending Byzantium
Al-Ahram ^ | 20 - 26 November 2008, Issue No. 923 | David Tresilian

Posted on 11/24/2008 3:55:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv

Lasting some 11 centuries from the foundation of the city of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium by the Roman emperor Constantine in 330 CE to its final defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, at its height the Byzantine Empire took in the whole of the eastern Mediterranean and stretched from Anatolia and the Balkans to Egypt and north Africa. It always styled itself the heir of the Roman Empire and of classical civilisation as a whole.

Examples of Byzantine architecture can still be seen in Istanbul in the shape of the Hagia Sophia, the church of the holy wisdom, built by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century CE, and in the ruins of the Byzantine city walls. Memories of the empire are scattered across the Mediterranean, from the mosaics of the Byzantine emperors in the churches of the Italian coastal city of Ravenna to the traditions continued by the monks of St. Catherine's Monastery in the Egyptian Sinai.

However, Byzantium has sometimes suffered from a bad press, at least in western Europe, and this is summed up in views expressed by the 18th- century English historian Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "In the revolution of ten centuries" of Byzantine history, Gibbon wrote, "not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind."

...Anyone interested in the history of the eastern Mediterranean, of Christianity, or of relations between Byzantine, Arab and Ottoman Turkish civilisations can not fail to learn from visiting this exhibition.

(Excerpt) Read more at weekly.ahram.org.eg ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: byzantium; godsgravesglyphs; greece; hagiasophia; turkey
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last
To: keats5

Thanks!


21 posted on 11/24/2008 6:33:17 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, October 11, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Cincinna

Thanks. My pleasure. :’)


22 posted on 11/24/2008 6:43:13 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, October 11, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Billthedrill

:’) There’s a quarter of the city called Stamboul (something like that), I’ve often wondered what the connection is.


23 posted on 11/24/2008 6:46:36 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, October 11, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

Byzantium by Steve Lawhead Byzantium
by Steve Lawhead

24 posted on 11/24/2008 6:49:27 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, October 11, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: tbw2

Their link is from the marriage of the “first” Tsar Ivan III or Ivan the Great. He married Sophia Paleologue who was the niece of Emperor Constantine XI, last Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. She eventually convinced Ivan to style his court after the Byzantium fashion and many of the palaces and government buildings still in use today were built by him.


25 posted on 11/24/2008 10:35:52 PM PST by neb52 (Go Frogs!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: keats5
I read a great book, entitled, “Byzantium,” by Stephen Lawhead. If you enjoy historical fiction, I would recommend it.

One of my favorites! Think I'll read it again. Thanks for the reminder.

26 posted on 11/25/2008 8:34:21 PM PST by Scothia (Sarah! Anyone else would Palin comparison.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

If it wasn’t for the Later Roman (or Byzantine) Empire, it is a virtual certainty that Europe would have been absorbed into Islam. It took 400 years from the Arab invasion of the Holy land uintil the Muslims first pushed the Byzantines back into Asia Minor, and 300 more years until they first entered Eastern Europe. The final extinction of the Empire took another 150 years. If Islam had arrived in the Balkans at the same time as the Moors were entering France from Spain, Europe would have died before Charlemagne.


27 posted on 11/26/2008 3:03:21 AM PST by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson