BYZANTINE EMPIRE. For more than a thousand years after Rome, " the Eternal City," had fallen before the hordes of northern barbarians, the Byzan tine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, stood as a bulwark protecting Europe from similar or worse floods of invasion from the East. There the learning and culture of ancient Greece and Rome were preserved for later generations. There, too, commerce was kept alive until barbarism and feudal anarchy were things of the past, and commercial cities had arisen in Italy, France, and Germany to carry on the torch of progress.
Why Constantinople Astonished the Crusaders When the Crusaders from western Europe arrived on the shores of the Bosporus, at the close of the 11th century, they were astonished to find Constan tinople an enormous city of a million inhabitants at a time when no town of the West had more than a few thousand population. They were amazed at the paved and lighted streets, extensive public parks, hospitals, and homes for orphans. They found order kept by a well-organized police force, and theaters and circuses maintained by the state for the amuse ment of the people. There were flourishing schools in which the pupils studied not merely the elementary subjects taught in the West, but also those of law, medicine, and science. Art and learning were far in advance of what the West could boast, and the Byzantine nobles lived in magnificent palaces, beautifully decorated in mosaics and containing libraries of illuminated manuscripts. Even the artisans were comfortably housed, and worked to gether in great factories producing the rich stuffs which were so rare and so highly prized in the West.
In 330 A.D. the emperor Constantine had removed his capital from Rome to Constantinople, but the real history of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire did not begin until 395, when the division of the Roman Empire into an eastern and a western half became permanent. At the time of its greatest glory under the emperor Justinian (537-565)—famed for his codi fying the Roman law—the Byzantine Empire ex tended from southern Spain in western Europe to the Tigris-Euphrates valley in Asia, and from the Danube River on the north to upper Egypt on the south. But a decline soon set in. In the centuries after Justinian, ruler followed ruler in rapid succes sion. Egypt, Syria, and most of Asia Minor were lost to the newly-risen Mohammedan power.
Treachery of Crusaders and Decline of the Empire In 1204 the Fourth Crusade, at the suggestion of Venice, was openly turned against Constantinople.
The Crusaders deposed the emperor, terribly sacked the city, and there set up a fleeting Latin empire in place of the Greek one they overthrew. It was at this time that many of the great works of art, such as the four bronze horses which still adorn St. Mark's Church in Venice, were carried from Constantinople to western Europe.
After some 50 years the people of the Byzantine Empire were able to drive out their so-called friends and restore their own ruler. For about 200 years more they held at bay the Turks, who were urged on by religious zeal to the conquest of Europe. But neither the splendor nor the power of the Eastern Empire were ever again what they had been before the treacherous attack of the Fourth Crusade.
For a hundred years the Mohammedan Turks, after over-running all Asia Minor, slowly closed in on the doomed city of Constantinople. At last on May 29, 1453, a breach was made in the walls and the emperor Constantine XIII was killed as he defended the last rampart of his capital. The Otto man Turks then took the city, and the crescent of the Mohammedans replaced the cross on the church of St. Sophia. The Byzantine Empire was at an end.
After the reign of Justinian, Greek was the official language of the Byzantine Empire, and even Justinian found it necessary to publish his later laws in Greek rather than in Latin, his mother tongue. No great literature thereafter was produced in either language.
The writers of the empire had lost their originality and produced chiefly huge encyclopedias made up of con densations of the ancient learning. In this way classical learning was preserved, but after it had been stored in the encyclopedias writers paid little attention to the old manuscripts and many of the most valuable ones were lost.
Byzantine Art and Architecture At the same time that literature lost its originality, Byzantine art became stereotyped. Because the pagans in their worship used images, the stricter Christians of the East refused to sculpture the human form, and it was not until about 1000 A.D. that small reliefs and icons of ivory, gold, and silver were made.
Since they could not express themselves in sculpture, the artists of the Byzantine Empire turned to archi tecture. Situated between the East and the West, Byzantium borrowed from both. It contributed as its own device the numerous bulbous domes such as are seen on the churches of St. Sophia at Constan tinople, St. Mark's in Venice, at Ravenna, and the modern churches of Russia.
But the splendor of Byzantine art lay chiefly in its oriental use of color. Byzantine paintings are stiff and inexpressive, but are richly colored; while the gorgeous red, blue, and gold used in illuminating the missals and other religious books make them superb works of art. The vestments of the clergy were also splendidly embroidered with gold and silver thread and even jewels. And on the walls of the churches and public buildings Bible scenes were depicted in wonderful mosaics, in which gleaming figures, made up of hundreds and thousands of red, blue, green, and white stones and bits of glass of many hues, shone against a golden background. Never in all the won derful architecture of the Mohammedan world— where such gems as the Taj Mahal in India are plenti ful—has such a brilliant concept been embodied as St. Sophia, with its domes and gorgeous mosaics.