What was the Byzantine Empire?

The Byzantine Empire — a name coined by later historians; the Byzantines called themselves Romans — was the direct continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Rome's western half in 476 CE. Centered on the magnificent city of Constantinople, strategically located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the empire endured for over a millennium, from the founding of Constantinople in 330 CE to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

Constantinople was the key to Byzantine survival. Protected by the massive Theodosian Walls on the landward side and the Bosporus on the other, the city resisted siege after siege for centuries. It was the largest and wealthiest city in the medieval world, a center of trade, art, and learning when Western European cities were small and impoverished by comparison. The Hagia Sophia, completed under Emperor Justinian in 537, was the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.

The Byzantines made lasting contributions to world civilization. Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis codified Roman law and became the foundation of European legal systems. Byzantine missionaries, particularly Cyril and Methodius, brought Christianity and a written alphabet (Cyrillic) to the Slavic peoples. Byzantine art — particularly the icon and the mosaic — influenced artistic traditions across the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. Orthodox Christianity, shaped by Byzantine theologians, remains the dominant faith in Russia, Greece, and much of Eastern Europe.

The empire's long decline, accelerated by the devastating Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204, ended with the Ottoman conquest in 1453. But by then, Byzantine culture had already been transmitted to its spiritual heir, Russia, which would call itself the 'Third Rome.'