Byzantine Empire

Greek was the predominant language spoken in the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman). Despite Romans establishing the empire, Latin was always ranked second. The lands that Alexander the Great dominated during his conquests in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa...

  The ancient Greeks, or Hellenes, have contributed significantly to the foundation and development of various academic disciplines. It has been said that the Greeks were masters in the art of legal subtlety, but they lacked a legal science, as...

Belisarius is the much underrated military commander of the Byzantine Empire who led the armies of Justinian I in reclaiming enormous swathes of the former Western Roman Empire from northern Africa to the Italian peninsula. Much of Belisarius' early military...

Irene of Athens was the first Roman empress to rule in her own right as regent, between 797 and 802 AD. Although she ruled solely for only five years, she left a lasting impact on the foreign policy and...

Digenes Akritas (Διγενής Ακρίτας) is one of the only surviving epic poems from the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire. It tells the story of the titular character, Basileios, dubbed Digenes Akritas, meaning "two-blood border lord." The epic poem is part of the...

Under Byzantine (Eastern Roman) rule, the inhabitants of Constantinople faced many threats. The Avars, Sassanids, Slavs, Crusaders, and Ottomans all laid siege to the legendary capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, there was one threat lurking in the waters...

For centuries the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire stood as Christendom's bulwark against the invasions of the Muslims, first of the Arabs and then of the Turks. Nowhere was this clash between the Muslim and Christian worlds more constantly apparent...

The ancient Greek ideal of world unity is manifested in the conquests of Alexander the Great and the expansion of his great empire, aiming to Hellenize the world. The notion that kings were divinely chosen was not limited to Greek...

Barbarian invasions in Greece during the Byzantine era were common, with mostly Albanian and Slav tribes settling in the fertile plains of Thessaly

The Code of Justinian (in Latin, Codex Justinianus) is a substantial collection of laws compiled under the sponsorship of Justinian I, a ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Justinian ruled from 527 to 565, and his legal code, one of...