The Byzantine Empire: A Short History

Beginnings

    I am writing this paper to tell a fraction of the Eastern Roman Empire's story (from its beginning to Justinian) and to show why it was one of the most influential nations to exist.

     The tale of the Byzantines is also the tale of the Romans as they are just the eastern half of the Empire so it is appropriate to start on how the Empire was split in twain or in this case four, as the Empire is now just that, four separate regions united as one. The setup is that we have two Augustii and two Caesars, the Augustii are the true emperors and they have full control of the Caesars.

    This was founded by the man named Diocletian who inherited the Empire during a particularly turbulent time so his idea to stabilize the Empire was to split the Empire into four. So he did this, he made himself "Emperor of the East" and made a man named Maximian the "Emperor of the West" though they still considered themselves the same nation sharing much. These Augustii both appointed their own Caesar, for Diocletian this was Galerius and for Maximian this was Constantius. Diocletian, though also a tyrant, stabilized the Empire and he put his system to the test as his plan was that when one of the Augustii either, A) stepped down, or B) died, the other would also leave his post and their chosen Caesars would then become the Augustii and appoint their own Caesars. With this, after he felt tired of ruling, Diocletian stepped down and as expected Maximian stepped down as well. Also as expected Galerius and Constantius both became Augustii and chose their Caesars.

    Though when Constantius died it caused the system to collapse. When he died he was up fighting in York (North England) with his son, and on his deathbed he suggested to the army, which had been exceptionally loyal, that Constantine should be successor. With this the Legions that Constantius had been commanding and other Legions in England took up the banner of Constantine and thus began a civil war as the state of affairs descended into chaos. This eventually ended with Constantine fully victorious becoming Emperor of both the East and West.

    During his reign Constantine took the step of moving the capital to the East to an ancient city named Byzantium, though he renamed it to Nova Roma or New Rome. Though it would later be known as Constantinople. This caused a trend where to be part of the Eastern part of the Empire was considered more and more frequently to be the better half. Reasons being from this point on the West would only get more and more unstable comparatively. Economically the East was much more prosperous much of this due to stability and being closer to trading with the Eastern Empires such as those in India and occasionally when not in conflict the Persians. On top of that the West was already facing a migration crisis as groups such as the Huns had come in forcing many Germanic peoples to flee. With a lack of options many of them would end up going into the Western half of the Empire and with the Western Empire lacking the monetary capacity to fully deal with them they ended up starting to make the army more Germanic. While the Eastern half of the Empire also dealt with such migrations and had Germanic soldiers, they stayed more traditional keeping their old disciplines alive and keeping nationalism in the army high, a problem the West had as Germanic soldiers started to be loyal not to the country, but to their commanders causing more internal strife.

    Now we skip ahead tothe actual beginning of the Byzantines when the Empire about to lose control ofRome and Italy in general. The fall ofItaly that officially begins the Byzantines began at about the late 400s andthe Empire had two Augustii again. Theone in the West named Augustulus and in the East Zeno. Note that Augustulus was young (15-16) and theWest was under attack as a man named Odoacer attacked it to become King ofItaly. Odoacer won and and made himself technicallya vassal to the Byzantines but mostly acted independently. Now some time passes and after Odoacer diesand Italy passes on to Theodoric and this caused them to officially not be partof the Byzantines.

NOTES:   

Commonly now known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, which we will be now using from now not because it is correct but because it is easy

     Always assume Roman is the culture title of the empire (Western Empire = Western Roman Empire etc.), unless it is specified as a different culture eg. Persian, Norman

Caesars are to Augustii as generals are to field marshals

Making this much like the system that occurred between (insert years) where the Emperors were all good Emperors and all were chosen through adoption, so in essence this tried to mimic this by having the Augustii do the same, chose the best candidate for the job as Caesar so you have a competent ruler when you die

He was originally supposed be the successor but due to some dealings between Galerius, Maximian and Diocletian that fell through and a man named Severus became Caesar.