Posted on 11/27/2002 2:58:42 PM PST by Destro
The Roman Empire still dominates global space
By Dominic Odipo
The Roman Empire in the East which, for a thousand years, was centred upon the great city of Constantinople, has officially been dead for five hundred years.
Yet, in so many ways, this empire, the greatest the world has ever seen, still lives. Its architecture dominates our perceptions of space and structure; its political philosophy determines the manner in which we regulate the relationships between our peoples and our nation states; and its law and jurisprudence are still taught and read in all the universities of the Western world.
In fact, it is virtually impossible to understand and truly appreciate the modern world if we do not understand the legacy of the Roman Empire, especially that branch of it which was ruled from Constantinople.
During the rule of Emperor Justinian (527 565 A.D), life in Constantinople revolved around the city’s great circus, where passions soared over the chariot races that absorbed the minds of the citizens.
Rival factions - the Blues and the Greens- yelled themselves hoarse in support of their favourite charioteers, like crowds at a modern soccer cup tie, but with a difference.
Their rivalry over these charioteers was carried into every branch of life. The Blues and the Greens took sides on every issue under the sun and their differences often paralysed the great city.
This lunatic attitude of the population once nearly drove Emperor Justinian out of the city; only the rare courage of his wife, Theodora, persuaded him to stay and quell the rioters.
Justinian re-built the great and lovely cathedral of Santa Sophia and, through Tribonian, the Roman lawyer, he collected into one great system all the laws and legal precedents that had grown up with the Roman state.
The days were at hand when the world was to have little use for law; Justinian secured that it would not be altogether lost, and that, when men should grow tired of the rule of force, they should find in his codes the record of a better way.
Today, St. Sophia still stands in Constantinople, now the Turkish city of Istanbul. No longer a church, St. Sophia still looms into the sky, glowing tribute to the soaring imagination and grandeur of Emperor Justinian.
Cyril, the humble Greek priest and missionary, probably symbolises the greatest work of the Empire of Constantinople. Sent in 863 A.D to convert the millions of barbarian Slavs living in the north, Cyril performed one of the noblest feats known to Christendom.
Finding that the Slavs had no alphabet and therefore could never read and write in their own tongues, Cyril invented one, which quickly spread throughout the Balkan lands.
The Bible and church services were quickly translated into Slavic and today the Cyrillic alphabet is still used by the majority of the Slavonic peoples.
Then, in 1000 A.D, Vladimir, the strongest of the Russian overlords, sent envoys to Constantinople to find out about the beliefs of their Orthodox church. They returned with glowing tales of the splendour of the domed basilica of St. Sophia and how they had been dazzled by the church services in the great city.
“There is no such spectacle on earth”, they exclaimed in awe, “nor one of such beauty! We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth. It is not possible to describe it, but we know that there God dwells in the midst of men.”
Mesmerised by these reports, Vladimir asked the emperor in Constantinople to send him missionaries, architects, lawyers and teachers of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Thus it came to pass that Russian learning and civilisation, which were later to catapult the former Soviet Union into a super power, were launched from Constantinople.
When we peer at these portraits and vignettes of Roman history through the mists of time, we see many different things. We see how entire civilisations were constructed around the life and work of single individuals. We see how great and visionary leaders effectively continue to rule the modern world from their graves.
We see how history lives in our everyday lives and how our ideas and world view have been shaped by men and women of whom we know nothing.
For us who happen to inhabit the lower parts of the African continent, we wonder what happened to our history or whether or not we ever had any history to speak about.
And we begin to ask a few questions. When Justinian was building St. Sophia and his great castles and palaces along the Danube, what were our ancestors in Africa doing?
Why is it that there is hardly anything which can show that we even existed a thousand years ago?
When the Blues and the Greens were shouting themselves hoarse in the pavilions of Constantinople, what were we doing down here in Kenya, Congo or Angola? Where were our pavilions and our circuses and, if they were not there, why were they not there?
When Cyril, the Greek missionary, was inventing a fresh new alphabet for the Slavonic peoples, what were our thinkers and writers doing? Surely we must have had among us some great thinkers, engineers and architects! Or did we not?
If we had, why were we unable to keep any of their monuments or records of them for posterity? Where are our Santa Sophias and our Cyrillic alphabets?
History is bunk, Henry Ford used to say. No wonder he decreed that his company could produce motor cars of any colour as long as they were black. History is not and has never been bunk.
When, a hundred years hence, we peer back at the first 40 years of independent Kenya, what shall we see? Hardly anything. But then that will not be surprising. We just don’t seem to exist. Could there be a missing link somewhere?
The Standard Limited,
Likoni Road, P.o. Box 30080,
Nairobi-Kenya. email: editorial@eastandard.net Tel: +254 2 552510/552516/552520/552522/552526/552533 Fax: +254 2 553939, 552617 Town House, (Newsroom) Tel: +254 2 332658/9/0 Fax: +254 2 337697 Bruce House (Advertising) Tel: +254 2 332088-95, 222282 Fax: +254 2 214048, 218965. email: standard.ads@swiftkenya.com
His questions go un-answered by Afro-Centrics.
Regards, Ivan
Christians ought never to enter serious business on a Tuesday, so as to remember this great tragedy for ever.
Your ancestors were living a Stone Age existence; having no written language thus no precise written record of your history. Africans were steeped in tribalism and superstitions, content to watch the world go by as long as game was easy to hunt and food plants easy to gather.
To be fair, there is evidence of ancient metal working (jewelry) and iron smelting in blast furnaces and of course "primitive" art work such as wood carvings (desired by many people today) and cave drawings.
But concerning any technological civilization on par with the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, Greece or Rome, there is none. It just never happened.
As I recall, Byzantium tried, over a period of 900 years, to mend the fences with Rome. Justinian, to name just one emporer, negotiated with Rome for 38 years. The sticking point, as it was until the fall of Byzantium, was the question of authority.
Rome maintened then, as it sort-of does today, that Jesus made Peter the head of the Church. Peter was the first bishop in Rome - note that he did not found the church in Rome, there was a large Church there already. With Peter as the first Bishop, the Church of Rome maintains that it has the sole authority to define what constitutes Christianity.
In Justinians time, the Patriarch of Constantinople thought that was rather presumptious, since the Church of Rome in the sixth century war rather small and poor in comparison. Even the Churches in Syria and Egypt at that time dwarfed the Church of Rome.
An example of Muslim intolerance of other religions.The orthodox christian icons are painted over in black paint.
If it hadn't fallen, the trade routes to India would have remained open to the western Europeans -- who then probably wouldn't have sent guys like Columbus out there sailing in the other direction.
On balance, I'd say it worked out for the better...
Incidentally, the ties between Russia go far deeper than this article suggests (simply knowing of the relationship at all is impressive). The Russians tried several times to conquer Constantinople fairly early in its history, and failed. Later, they became allies of a sort, and after the Eastern Empire fell, the Byzantine royal line lived on in the Russia nobility. It is a stretch, but not too great a one, to say that Byzantium lived on after a fashion in Russia. One has only to glance at the architecture of the Kremlin to appreciate the deep relationship between the two powers.
Thanks for posting the piece, the contributions of the Eastern Empire to European culture and civilization are vastly underappreciated.
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.