Survival of Eastern Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and Emperor Justinian the Great

There are several reasons why the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, was able to survive after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Some historians suggest that the Eastern Roman Empire was simply more urbanized, had better leaders and overall was in a better position geographically to deal with threats. Additionally, Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was founded in a wealthier and more urbanized region of the empire.

Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, is an ancient city in modern-day Turkey. It was first settled in the seventh century B.C. and developed into a thriving port thanks to its prime geographic location between Europe and Asia and its natural harbor. In 324, after the Western and Eastern Roman Empires were reunited, the ancient city of Byzantium was selected to serve as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and the city was renamed Nova Roma, or “New Rome”, by Emperor Constantine the Great. On 11 May 330, it was renamed Constantinople, and dedicated to Constantine. Constantinople is generally considered to be the center and the "cradle of Orthodox Christian Civilization”.

 

There were many famous Byzantine emperors throughout the history of the Eastern Roman Empire. Some of the most notable ones include Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, who was perhaps the most popular and highly-regarded emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Other notable Byzantine emperors include Heraclius, Basil II, and Alexios I Komnenos

 

Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 527 to 565. He is known for his many accomplishments, including his administrative reorganization of the imperial government and his sponsorship of a codification of laws known as the Code of Justinian (Codex Justinianus; 534). He also constructed the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia, which became a symbol of Byzantine culture and architecture. These are just a few examples of his many achievements.

 

The Code of Justinian, also known as the Codex Justinianus, was a collection of laws and legal interpretations developed under the sponsorship of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It was issued in 534 and was intended to be a complete and clear statement of the law. The Code of Justinian was based on earlier Roman law and included laws from the time of Hadrian to the time of Justinian himself. It was one of the most significant legal works in history and had a major influence on the development of law in many countries, including those in Western Europe.

 

Hagia Sophia is a place of worship built in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in the 6th century CE under the direction of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is considered to be the most important Byzantine structure in the world and one of the world’s great monuments. The name “Hagia Sophia” means “Holy Wisdom” in Greek, and the building was originally constructed as a cathedral for the Eastern Orthodox Church. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it was converted into a mosque, and then into a museum in 1935. In 2020, it was reconverted into a mosque

Queen Nefertiti of Egypt. The beautiful one has arrived to Amarna’s frist monotheism

Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as Neferneferuaten after her husband’s death and before the ascension of Tutankhamun.

 

The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the later half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten (‘Horizon of the Aten’) in what is now Amarna. It was marked by the reign of Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC) in order to reflect the dramatic change of Egypt’s polytheistic religion into one where the sun disc Aten was worshipped over all other gods. The Egyptian pantheon was restored under Akhenaten’s successor, Tutankhamun.

 

Nefertiti and Akhenaten are known to have had at least six daughters together, including Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten (later called Ankhesenamun when she married Tutankhamun), Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre

 

Soon after Akhenaton’s 12th regnal year, one of the princesses died, three disappeared (and are also presumed to have died), and Nefertiti vanished. The simplest inference is that Nefertiti also died, but there is no record of her death and no evidence that she was ever buried in the Amarna royal tomb. Some historians suggest that she may have become her husband’s official co-regent under the name Neferneferuaten.

Chinese Relations With Rome

  

Sino-Roman relations started first on an indirect basis during the 2nd century BCE. China and Rome progressively inched closer with the embassies of Zhang Qian in 130 BCE and the military expeditions of China to Central Asia, until general Ban Chao attempted to send an envoy to Rome around 100 CE. Several alleged Roman embassies to China were recorded by a number of ancient Chinese historians. The first one on record, supposedly from either the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or the later emperor Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 CE.

Preceding History

 

The rapid growth of Roman commerce with ancient China likely would not have been possible without two major preceding developments, first by Alexander the Great and the ancient Greeks, and second by the spread of embassies of the Han Dynasty into Central and Western Asia.

 

Development of Trade Links

 

The first major step in opening trade links between the East and the West came with the expansion of Alexander the Great deep into Central Asia, as far as the Fergana Valley at the borders of the modern-day Xinjiang region of China, where he founded in 329 BCE a Greek settlement in the city of Alexandria Eschate "Alexandria The Furthest", Khujand (also called Khozdent or Khojent - formely Leninabad), in the modern state of Tajikistan. The Greeks were to remain in Central Asia for the next three centuries, first through the administration of the Seleucid Empire, and then with the establishment of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Bactria. They kept expanding eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus I (230-200 BCE), who extended his control to Sogdiana, reaching and going beyond the city of Alexandria Eschate. There are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Xinjiang, possibly leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 200 BCE. The Greek historian Strabo writes that "they extended their empire even as far as the Seres (China) and the Phryni" (Strabo XI.XI.I).

 

Zhang Qian's Embassy

 

The next step came around 130 BCE, with the embassies of the Han Dynasty to Central Asia, following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Qian (who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiong-Nu, but in vain). The Chinese emperor Wudi became interested in developing relationships with the sophisticated urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia: “The Son of Heaven on hearing all this reasoned thus: Ferghana (Dayuan) and the possessions of Bactria (Daxia) and Parthia (Anxi) are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed homes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, but with weak armies, and placing great value on the rich produce of China “ Hou Hanshu (Later Han History).

 

The Chinese subsequently sent numerous embassies, around ten every year, to these countries and as far as Seleucid Syria. Thus, more embassies were dispatched to Anxi (Parthia), Yancai (who later joined the Alans), Lijian (Syria under the Seleucids), Tiaozhi (Chaldea) and Tianzhu (northwestern India). As a rule, rather more than ten such missions went forward in the course of a year” Hou Hanshu (Later Han History).

 

Chinese Silk in the Roman Empire

 

Trade with the Roman Empire followed soon, confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese silk (supplied through the Parthians) from the 1st century BC, even though the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees:

 

   “ The Seres (Chinese), are famous for the woolen substance obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves... So manifold is the labor employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman maiden to flaunt transparent clothing in public.”

    -(Pliny the Elder (23- 79, The Natural History)

 

The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral:

 

   “ I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes... Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.”

    -(Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BCE- 65 CE, Declamations Vol. I)

 

The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, included Seres (perhaps the Chinese), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BCE and 14 CE:

 

    “Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus, even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth , it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours.

    -("Cathay and the way thither", Henry Yule).

 

A maritime route opened up between Chinese-controlled Jiaozhi (centred in modern Vietnam, near Hanoi) probably by the 1st century CE. It extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern coast of the Red Sea. The Hou Hanshu records that a delegation of Roman envoys arrived in China by this maritime route in 166 CE; this may well have been an exaggeration, by the envoys or the scribe, of a party of Roman merchants.

 

Castaways

 

Pomponius Mela (Book III,Chapter 5), copied by Pliny the Elder, wrote that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, proconsul in Gaul, 59 BCE, got 'several Indians' (Indi) as a present from a Germanic king. The Indians were driven by a storm to the coasts of Germania (in tempestatem ex Indicis aequoribus):

 

    Metellus Celer recalls the following: when he was Proconsul in Gaul, he was given people from India by the king of the {Sueves}; upon requesting why they were in this land, he learnt that they were caught in a storm away from India, that they became castaways, and finally landed on the coasts of Germany. They thus resisted the sea, but suffered from the cold for the rest of their travel, and that is the reason why they left.

 

It is unclear whether these castaways were people from India or Eastern Asia, since "Indians" designated all Asians, Indian and beyond, during Roman times. Pomponius is using these Indi as evidence for the Northeast Passage and the northward strait out of the Caspian Sea (which in Antiquity was usually thought to be open to Oceanus in the north). Edward Herbert Bunbury suggests that they were Finns. There are also some speculations that they may have been American Indians castaway across the Atlantic.

Some confusion may be suspected in this passage since Metellus Celer died before taking up his proconsul- ship, thus leaving it free for Julius Caesar.

 

Roman Soldiers in the East

 

There are several known instances of Roman soldiers being captured by the Parthians and transfered to the East for border duty. According to Pliny, in 54 BCE, after losing at the battle of Carrhae, 10,000 Roman prisoners were displaced by the Parthians to Margiana to man the frontier (Plin. Hist. Nat. 6. 18).

The Chinese have kept an account (by Bau Gau) that some of these soldiers were enlisted by the Hun chief Jzh Jzh against the Chinese  Han Dynasty. Some of them were blond with blue eyes, and fought in "fish-scale formation" (possibly the Roman testudo formation). These men were captured by the Chinese and were able to found the city Liqian (Li-chien), the Chinese transliteration of "Alexandria", in the Gansu region of western China.

A Roman inscription of the 2nd-3rd centuries CE has been found in eastern Uzbekistan in the Kara-Kamar cave complex, which has been analyzed as belonging to some Roman soldiers from the Pannonian Legio XV Apollinaris.

 

The Expedition of Ban Chao

 

In 97, the Chinese general Ban Chao crossed the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains with an army of 70,000 men in a campaign against the Xiongnu. He went as far west as the Caspian Sea and the region of Ukraine, reaching the territory of Parthia, upon which event he reportedly also sent an envoy named Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). Gan Ying left a detailed account of western countries, although he only reached as far as Mesopotamia. He intended to sail to Rome through the Black Sea, but some Parthian merchants, interested in maintaining their profitable role as the middleman in trade between Rome and China, told him the trip would take two years at least (when it was actually closer to two months). Deterred, he returned home.

Gan Ying left an account on Rome (Daqin in Chinese) which may have relied on second-hand sources. He locates it to the west of the sea:

 

    “Its territory is covers several thousand li [a li is around half a kilometer], it has over 400 walled cities. Several tens of small states are subject to it. The outer walls of the cities are made of stones. They have established posting stations... There are pines and cypresses.”

    -(Hou Hanshu, cited in Leslie and Gardiner).

 

He also describes the adoptive monarchy of the Emperor Nerva, and Roman physical appearance and products:

 

   “ As for the king, he is not a permanent figure but is chosen as the man most worthy... The people in this country are tall and regularly featured. They resemble the Chinese, and that is why the country is called Da Qin (The "Great" Qin)... The soil produced lots of gold, silver and rare jewels, including the jewel which shines at night.. they sew embroidered tissues with gold threads to form tapestries and damask of many colors, and make a gold-painted cloth, and a "cloth washed-in-the-fire" (asbestos).”

    -(Hou Hanshu, cited in Leslie and Gardiner).

 

Finally Gan Ying determines Rome correctly as the main economic power at the western end of Eurasia:

 

    “It is from this country that all the various marvelous and rare objects of foreign states come.”

    -(Hou Hanshu, cited in Leslie and Gardiner).

 

The Chinese army made an alliance with the Parthians and established some forts at a distance of a few days march from the Parthian capital Ctesiphon and held the region for several years. In 116, after the conquest of Dacia's gold and silver mines in year 106, the Roman Emperor Trajan advanced into Parthia to Ctesiphon and came within one day's march of the Chinese border garrisons, but direct contacts never took place.

 

First Roman Embassy

 

With the expansion of the Roman Empire in the Middle-East during the 2nd century, the Romans gained the capability to develop shipping and trade in the Indian Ocean. Several ports have been excavated on the coast of India which contain Roman remains.

Several Romans probably traveled farther to the East, either on Roman, Indian or Chinese ships. The first group of people claiming to be an embassy of Romans to China is recorded in 166, sixty years after the expeditions to the west of the Chinese general Ban Chao. It came to Emperor Huan of Han China, "from Antun (Emperor Antoninus Pius), king of Daqin (Rome)". Although, as Antoninus Pius died in 161, while the convoy arrived in 166, if genuine, it may have been from Marcus Aurelius, who was emperor in 166. The confusion arises because Marcus Aurelius was formally adopted by his predecessor and took his names as additional names.

The mission came from the South, and therefore probably by sea, entering China by the frontier of Jinan or Tonkin. It brought presents of rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shell, which had probably been acquired in Southern Asia. About the same time, and possibly through this embassy, the Chinese acquired a treatise of astronomy from Daqin (Chinese name of the Roman Empire).

The existence of China was clearly known to Roman cartographers of the time, since its name and position is depicted in Ptolemy's Geographia, which is dated to c. 150. It is located beyond the Aurea Chersonesus ("Golden Peninsula"), which refers to the Southeast Asian peninsula. It is shown as being on the Magnus Sinus ("Great Gulf"), which presumably corresponds to the known areas of the China Sea at the time; although Ptolemy represents it as tending south-east rather than north-east. Trade throughout the Indian Ocean was extensive from the 2nd century, and many trading ports have been identified in India and Sri Lanka with Roman communities, through which the Roman embassy passed.

 

Other Roman Embassies                                                                                       

 

Other embassies may have been sent after this first encounter, but were not recorded, until an account appears about presents sent in the early 3rd century by the Roman Emperor to the Emperor Taitsu of the Kingdom of Wei (reigned 227- 239) in Northern China. The presents consisted of articles of glass in a variety of colors. While several Roman Emperors ruled during this time, the embassy, if genuine, may have been sent by Alexander Severus; since his successors reigned briefly and were busy with civil wars.

Another embassy from Daqin is recorded in the year 284, as bringing "tribute" to the Chinese empire. This embassy presumably was sent by the Emperor Carus (282- 283), whose short reign was occupied with war with Persia.

Prince Klemens von Metternich, an architect of the 19th century Europe

Prince Klemens von Metternich was a conservative Austrian statesman and diplomat who was at the center of the European balance of power known as the Concert of Europe for three decades as the Austrian Empire’s foreign minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821 until the liberal Revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation.

 

 Metternich was a champion of conservatism . He believed that the best government was absolutism, but that it was best because it guaranteed equal justice and fair administration for all. In the Habsburg monarchy and in the Italian governments he saved from revolution, he advocated reforms that would provide good government for the people . He was a confident leader who put little faith in popular opinion or sentiment because he believed that the common man was too fickle in his loyalties and too inept to understand the magnitude of foreign policy.

 

The Congress of Vienna (September 1814–June 1815) was the climax of Metternich’s work of reconstruction. The very fact that it was held in Vienna was in itself a great success for him . He had precise ideas about the basis for a new order in Europe, after the napoleonic wars, but knew from the start that he would have to modify them substantially if he was to salvage even a small part of his plans against the opposition of self-interested princes. He wanted to secure Austria’s predominance by forming two confederations, one German and the other Italian, with Austria as the leading power in both. Within Germany, he proposed the creation of a hereditary German imperial title, and he thought that Austria and Prussia should share the task of protecting Germany’s western frontier. Friendship with Prussia on the one hand and with Bavaria on the other thus seemed to him to be the prerequisite of success. Supported by the British foreign secretary, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Metternich sought to prevent the elimination of France, which he saw as a necessary counterweight against Russia. Likewise, he resisted the territorial aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia and objected in particular to Prussia’s designs for annexing all of Saxony .

 

After the Congress of Vienna, Metternich continued to play a significant role in European politics. He was able to create a common front of Austria, England, and France that held Russia and Prussia in check. Metternich’s moderation produced a long-lasting European order . He continued to serve as Austria’s foreign minister until 1848 and was a key figure in the Concert of Europe, a series of international meetings aimed at maintaining the balance of power in Europe and preventing the spread of revolution. He was also instrumental in the formation of the German Confederation, a loose association of German states dominated by Austria and Prussia.

 

The Concert of Europe was a general consensus among the great powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence . It was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. The Concert of Europe, also known as the Congress System or the Vienna System after the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), was dominated by the five great powers of Europe: Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The more conservative members of the Concert of Europe, members of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and Prussia), used the system to oppose revolutionary and liberal movements and weaken the forces of nationalism.

 

Klemens von Metternich died on June 11, 1859, in Vienna, Austria at the age of 86. He had outlived his generation of politicians and was keen to maintain the balance of power, particularly by resisting Russian territorial ambitions in Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Queen Ahhotep I of Egypt, the fearsome warrior

Queen Ahhotep I was an ancient Egyptian queen who lived circa 1560 – 1530 BC, during the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the daughter of Queen Tetisheri and Senakhtenre Ahmose, and was probably the sister, as well as the queen consort, of Pharaoh Seqenenre Tao II . She had a long and influential life, ruling as regent for her son Ahmose I for a time. Her titles include Great Royal Wife and “Associate of the White Crown Bearer”

 As regent, Queen Ahhotep I played a crucial role in the resistance against the Hyksos. She raised and trained an army, which was led by her son, and provided financial support for the war effort. She also served as an ambassador, negotiating with foreign powers and securing alliances against the Hyksos 1. It is believed that she herself rallied the troops to fight against the Hyksos and was a major source of influence in defeating them. After ousting the Hyksos, it was under her control and guidance that Egypt was unified into one country.

 The term Hyksos, which comes from the Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt (hekau khasut), meaning “ruler(s) of foreign lands”, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC) . The Hyksos were a group of people of probable West Semitic, Levantine origin who took control of Lower and Middle Egypt up to Cusae . While they were portrayed as invaders and oppressors by the Greco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho in the 3rd century BC, this interpretation is questioned in modern Egyptology. Instead, it is thought that Hyksos rule might have been preceded by groups of Canaanite peoples who gradually settled in the Nile delta from the end of the Twelfth Dynasty onwards and who may have seceded from the crumbling and unstable Egyptian control at some point during the Thirteenth Dynasty .

The Hyksos had a significant impact on Egyptian society, culture, and conceptions of kingship. They introduced powerful new weapons, such as the horse-drawn chariot, which revolutionized the Egyptian military . They also integrated their pantheon of Gods into the Egyptian religion, leading to a greater diversity of worship . The archetype of New Kingdom Egypt, considered the apex of ancient Egyptian society, would not have been possible without the influence of these West Asian immigrants or the rule of the Hyksos

 The exact circumstances of Queen Ahhotep I’s death are not known. However, it is believed that she may have died at an advanced age during the reign of Thutmose I . When her son Ahmose I was old enough to rule by himself, Ahhotep I retired to the temple of Karnak and it is believed that she lived there until her death .

King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweeden, the great strategist

King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, also known as Gustavus Adolphus, was a major figure in the Thirty Years’ War. He is widely commemorated by Protestants in Europe as the main defender of their cause during the war . In July 1630, he landed in the Duchy of Pomerania to intervene in favor of the German Protestants.

 

The Thirty Years’ War was a series of wars fought by various nations for various reasons, including religious, dynastic, territorial, and commercial rivalries. It lasted from 1618 to 1648 and was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history . Its destructive campaigns and battles occurred over most of Europe, and when it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the map of Europe had been irrevocably changed.

 

 King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweeden in June 1630, landed in Germany, marking the Swedish intervention in the war . He had an army of unusual quality, fighting in a style new to Germany, and he combined tactical innovations with a grander concept of strategy than Europe had seen for many years . By reducing the size of the tactical unit, by opposing a flexible linear formation to the cumbrous massive formations of his opponents, by solving (at least for his time) the perennial problem of combining infantry and cavalry, missile weapons and shock, and, lastly, by producing the first easily maneuverable light artillery, he completed the transformation of the art of war begun by the Dutch commander Maurice of Nassau earlier in the century . In September 1631, at Breitenfeld, the Swedish-Saxon forces shattered Tilly’s army in a battle that was a landmark in the art of war and a turning point in the history of Germany.

 

King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden died at the Battle of Lützen on November 6, 1632. He was leading a cavalry charge when he was separated from his fellow riders and killed by several shots in the thick mix of gun smoke and fog covering the field . Although the Protestants won the battle, they lost a great leader . Gustavus Adolphus Day is celebrated in Finland and Sweden on November 6 every year to commemorate his death .