BYZANTINE
97
BYZANTINE
employed to designate this Eastern survival of the
ancient Roman Empire. The subject will be here
treated under the following divisions: I. Byzantine
Civilization; II. Dynastic History. The latter divi- sion of the article will be subdivided into six heads in chronological order.
I. Byzantine Civilization.— Al the distance of many centuries and thousands of miles, the civiliza- tion of the Byzantine Empire presents an appearance of unity. Examined a i closer range, however, firstly the geographical content of the empire resolves itself into various local and national di- visions, and secondly the growth ol the people in civilization re- veals several clearly distinguish- able periods. Taking root on Eastern soil, flanked on all sides by the most widely dissimilar peoples < Irientals, Finnic-Ugri- ans, and Slavs — some of them dangerous neighbours just be- yond the border, others settled on Byzantine territory, the em- pire was loosely connected on the "est with the other half of the old Roman Empire. And so the development of Byzan- tine civilization resulted from three influences: the first Alex- andrian-Hellenic, a native prod- uct; the second Roman; the third Oriental. The first period of the empire, which embnaces the dynasties of Theodosius, Leo I, Justinian, and Tiberius, is po- litically still under Roman influ- ence. In the second period the dynasty of Heraelius, in conflict with Islam, succeeds in creating a St. Helena, Mother distinctively Byzantine State. of Constantino .,., ., ■ , * . / ., . c ., c , no <,i * m, from fhe third period, that of the Sy- MS., l\ Century, rian (Isaurian) emperors and of in Bibliotheqoe I c onoclasm, is marked by the attempt to avoid the struggle with Islam by completely orientalizing the land. The fourth period exhibits a happy equilibrium. The Armenian dynasty, which was Macedonian by origin, was able to extend its sway east and we t, and there were indications that the zenith of Byzantine power lose at hand. In the fifth period the centrifugal . which had long been at work, produced their inevitable effect; the aristocracy of birth, which had been forming in all parts of the empire, and gaining political imluence, at last achieved its linn establish- ment on the throne' with the dynasties of the Com- neni and Angeli. The sixth period is that of decline; the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders hail disrupted the empire into several new political units; even after the restoration, the empire of the Palaeologl is only one member of this group of states. The
- ipansion of the power of the Osmanli Turks pre-
pares tie- annihilation of the Byzantine Kmpire.
Geographically and ethnographically, the Roman Empire was never a unit. In the western section, comprising Italy and the adjacent islands, Spain, and Africa, the Latin language and Latin culture were predominant. Of these territories, only Africa, Sicily, and certain part- of Italy were ever under Byzantine '1 for any length of time. To the south-east. the Coptic and Syriac, and, if the name i- permitted,
the Palestinian nation assumed growing importance and finally, under the leadership of the Arabs, broke the bonds that held it to tie- empire. In the East proper (Asia Minor ami Armenia) lay the heart of the empire. In the south-east of Asia Minor and on the southern spurs of the Armenian mountains the population was Syrian. The Armenian settlements III— 7
extended from their native mountains far into Asia
Minor, and even into Europe. Armenian colonies are
found on Mount Ida in Asia Minor, in Thrace, and
Macedonia. The coast lands of Asia Minor are
thoroughly Greek. The European part of the empire
was the scene of an ethnographic evolution. From
ancient times the mountains of Epirus and Illyria
had been inhabited by Albanians; from the beginning
of the fifteenth century they spread over what is
now Greece, down towards southern Italy and Sicily.
Since the days of the Roman power, the Rumanians,
or Wallachians, had established themselves on both
sides as well of the Balkan as of the Findus moun-
tains. This people was divided into two parts by
the invasion of the Finnic-Ugrian Bulgars, and
the expansion of the Slavs. They lived as wan-
dering shepherds, in summer on the mountains, in
winter on the plains. In the fifth century the Slavs
began to spread over the Balkan Peninsula. At the
beginning of the eighth century Cynuria, in the east-
ern part of the Peloponnesus, was called a "Slavic
land". A reaction, however, which set in towards
the end of the eighth century, resulted in the total
extermination of the Slavs in southern Thessaly and
central Greece, and left but few in the Peloponnesus.
On the other hand, the northern part of the Balkan
Peninsula remained open to Slavic inroads. Here
the Bulgars gradually became incorporated with the
Slavs, and spread from rhrmus far to the west, and
into southern Macedonia. The valleys of the Vardar
and the Morava offered the Serbs tempting means of
access to the Byzantine Empire. After the Greeks
ami Armenians, the Slavs have exercised most in-
fluence on the inner configuration of the empire.
The Greeks of the islands best preserved their na-
tional characteristics. Moreover, they settled in
compact groups in the capital of the empire, and
on all the coast lands, even to those of the Black Sea.
They gained ground by hellenizing the Slavs, and by
emigrating to Sicily and lower Italy.
In point of civilization, the Greeks were the pre- dominant race in the empire. From the second half of the sixth century, Latin had ceased to be the lan- guage of the Government. The legislation eventually became thoroughly Greek, both in language and spirit. Beside the Greeks, only the Armenians had developed a civilization of their own. The Slavs, it is true, had acquired a significant influence over the internal and external affairs of the empire, but had not established a Slavic civilization on Byzantine soil, and the dream of a Roman Empire under Slavic rule remained a mere fantasy.
In the breaking of the empire on ethnographic lines of cleavage, it was an important fact that at least the Greeks were more solidly united than in former centuries. The dialects of ancient Greece had for the most part disappeared, and the Koini of the Hellenic period formed a point of departure for new- dialects, as well as the basis of a literary language which was preserved with incredible tenacity and gained the ascendancy in literature as well as in official usage. Another movement, in the sixth Century, was directed towards a general and literary revival of the language, and, this having gradually spent itself without any lasting results, the dialects, unfortunately, became the occasion of a further split in the nation. As the later literary language, with its classic tendencies, was stiff and unwieldy, as well as unsuited to meet all the exigencies of a colloquial language, it perforce helped to widen the breach between the literary ami the humbler classes,
the latter having already begun to use the new dia- lects. The social schism which had rent the nation, since the establishment of a distinctively Byzantine landed interest and the rise of a provincial nobility, was aggravated by the prevalence of the literary language among the governing classes, civil and
