History of the Byzantine Empire essays

History of the Byzantine Empire essays The Byzantine Empire is sometimes referred to as the East Roman Empire. The word Byzantine, in fact, comes from "Byzantium," which is the Greek name for a city on the Bosphorus. It was established with the foundation of Constantinople, the capital. The Empire included parts of both southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and northern Africa. The ancient Roman Empire having been divided into two parts, an East and West with the east being the Byzantine. It was around between 312-1453AD and it reached its most powerful point in the 500's A.D. People of the Empire called themselves Romans, although they weren't really Romans; they were descendants of various ancient people. They were a mixture of mainly Greeks and Latin The Byzantine Empire was greatly influenced by the Greeks, who colonized the area, in the mid 600's BC. When Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed after himself Constantinople, in 330 AD, When the Empire began to grow in number and power. The Empire lasted close to 1250 years until the Ottoman Turks came in and beat Constantine the Great and renamed it Istanbul, which it is known as today. Christianity influenced the culture of Byzantine including art, music, and architecture. Being that Constantinople was the capital of the Empire it was where everyone would go to read and write the language of ancient Greece. This period made many beautiful works of arts and fine poetry. Visual arts also flourished, too. Most of the artist worked as servant s of the court or belonged to religious orders, and they remained anonymous, which explains why most Byzantine artwork has no artist, so one or many people could have made these great works, and we would never know. The artworks on churches were also very popular the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, known to the Byzantines as the Church of the Resurrection at the order of Emperor Constantine probably took ten years...