The Significance Of Emperors In The Byzantine Survival
...the western portion of that empire succumbed to the Germanic invaders. In the Greek-speaking eastern half, the Byzantine Empire stood for a thousand years as a citadel against the threats of expansion by the Muslims.”
Through the later Middle Ages, however, Byzantine both gradually declined politically and became more isolated from the rest of Europe. While the last centuries of the European Middle Ages saw the consolidation of the idea of Europe and the incorporation of European cultures into a larger, overarching European monoculture, Byzantine was left out of this new European concept. By the beginning of the modern period, when "Europe" had become a solid, cultural idea, Byzantine had come to an end with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
Byzantine history, then, stretches in a continuous line from the latter centuries of Rome to the very beginning of the modern period. It transmitted the classical culture of Greece and Rome but it also developed a unique historical and cultural character based on a synthesis of Greek, Roman, European, and Islamic elements.
Byzantine survived more that 1,000 years because of the Byzantine Empire’s comparatively prosperous economy, its single-centered society composed of centralized authority and the union between church and state, and its strong military power. But, among these causative factors, its emperors ultimately make its survival became reality. This paper holds the opinion that emperors played significant roles in the survival of Byzantine Empire after the collapse of Western Roman Empire.
2. The Roles of Emperors in the Byzantine Survival
In the Western Roman Empire, emperors tended to soften the political color of their dictatorship by acclaiming themselves merely as “imperator”, or military leaders. But in Byzantine Empire, “basil” found its way in its usage as the main title for Byzantine...
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