Byzantium

For over 500 years, the Roman empire brought a unique way of life to a vast area of land. But in 476 the western half of the empire collapsed, overrun by invading German tribes. In the east, Roman rule continued to flourish under what is called the Byzantine empire.

The old Greek city-port of Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul in Turkey) was the centre of the Byzantine (eastern Roman) empire. Renamed Constantinople after the first Byzantine emperor, Constantine, it became the seat of the Byzantine emperors and the centre of the eastern Christian Church. Within the byzantine empire, Greek and Roman arts and learning were preserved. Byzantine churches, such as Hagia Sophia, contained detailed frescoes and mosaic pictures that were made from hundreds of pieces of glass or stone.

The Byzantine empire reached its peak in the 500s, under the emperor Justinian and his general Belisarius. It included Italy, Greece, Turkey, parts of Spain, North Africa and Egypt. Justinian’s powerful wife, Theodora, helped him govern.

Justinian issued a code of laws on which the legal systems of many European countries were later based. Constantinople was a busy port and meeting place for traders from as far away as Spain, China and Russia. But invaders from the east – Avars, Slavs and Bulgars – threatened this last Roman empire. After Justinian’s death in 565, Byzantium was weakened by many wars and eventually fell to the Turks in 1453.