The Byzantines were an eastern empire, not a western one - more aligned with the Orient than with Europe. That said, pretty much the moment Islam appeared, they ripped Egypt and the Levant out of Byzantine hands - reducing the "Byzantine empire" from "empire" to "regional kingdom that will eventually get sacked". Less than a century after Islam started, they were laying siege to Constantinople. Over the next couple of centuries, Constantinople lost 90% of its population.
Basically, they only lasted meaningfully for a few centuries, between the fall of the western empire and the rise of the Islamic empire. If you count the transition from the original Islamic conquest to the Ottoman empire as a single continuous system (as you're doing with the western Roman empire and the Byzantine empire), then the Islamic empire lasted for north of 13 centuries, finally dying only in the 20th century, the end of WWI.
The Byzantines were as aligned with the "Orient" as Alexander was. They held onto territory in Italy until a full 600 years after the West fell (once Belisarius recaptured it in the 600s). They had active diplomacy with the Holy Roman Empire and other states in the West up until the 4th Crusade, basically.
You've completely glossed over the Renaissance of the empire around 1000 AD (550 years after the West fell) under John Tzimiskes, Basil II, etc. You can blame this on the decline of Abbasid power if you want, but even if the caliphate _technically_ held territory in Syria/Lebanon, there was no question as to military superiority. The Byzantines raided with impunity and got tribute from the local emirs.
Constantinople lost 90% of its population after the plague of Justinian, and a recurring series of outbreaks over the next centuries, plus a loss of manpower after the desperate end of the Sassanian wars under Heraclius (which Heraclius technically won, but both empires were so diminished that they were easy prey for the new caliphate). It rebounded. Never to its maximum, but it was back near 750000 under the Macedonians.
So, the empire was ok until 660, lost territory, rebounded in the 10th century, and was arguably at its best organizationally and culturally until the real decline started during Manzikert.
It lasted 1000 years. Please read something other than Gibbon, or at least listen to The History of Byzantium (which follows on where The History of Rome left off). History is not a static field, and the Byzantines are rapidly becoming rehabilitated as more documents come up.
I'd also argue that Alexander was an oriental emperor, and even Rome had a lot more in common, economically and culturally, with the middle east than they ever had with northern/western Europe. Note the extent of the Roman empire in the east, relative to the west - they pretty much ignored everything north of the Mediterranean.
The rebound of the Byzantines is a good point, but they never really reclaimed their former glory. Still, point taken.
edit: Actually, going further with this, the modern "European-ness" of classical Roman and Greek culture is largely a retcon of actual history. The culture of western Europe had very little to do with the culture of ancient Greece, relative to, say, Egypt or Syria.
I'd disagree that the Romans had more in common with the Middle East than northern/western Europe purely on the basis that a substantial part of the feudal organization, religion, and law of northern/western Europe comes directly from the latter Empire. That's unfair as an argument, because we don't really know what was there before that (lack of Celtic writings), but it's also hard to disagree with. The Goths and Vandals were Romanized to a significant degree before they even came West.
I don't think it's fair to say that Roman culture being European is a "retcon". Sure, for the Greeks, but the Romans were the forebears of virtually all European institutions, and any argument that the society Europe consciously modeled itself upon was somehow not European falls apart.
Yeah, I can see that. Certainly, the Celts and Germans had plenty of contact with the Romans, and Roman bureaucracy and aristocracy (not to mention Roman-distributed Christianity) directly informed their institutions. But in a lot of ways, it's not so much an inheritance as a cargo cult, but it's still a valid connection.
I commented elsewhere, but Roman culture was distinctively not Greek. The Romans valued virtue, filial duty, martial strength, etc. While the Eastern empire gradually became more "Greek" (in the same sort of cultural syncretism which "Sinocized" the Ming), this wasn't true of the Romans as a whole.
The Goths in Rome explicitly modeled their state after Rome, to the point where they considered the Western half to have survived. The organization of early Frankish kingdoms is a direct result of Roman estates, as experienced administrators were all... Roman. Rinse and repeat. It's not so much that it "informed" their institutions as that dux->duke, because they were the same position, and Diocletian's dioceses obviously survived as organizational units, along with Diocletian's organization of the empire (of which feudalism is a direct result).
During the Renaissance, ideas of liberty and democracy aped the Romans, but none of this was a cargo cult, as the ideas spread in the Renaissance drew directly from Roman historical sources (including arguments for why they did/did not work) rather than any cargo cult mythology.
I mean, not really. The Romans, as always, picked and chose the parts they liked and integrated them into their own mythology. The Roman pantheon was a superset of the Greek pantheon (among others), as evocatio was used as a final part of conquest. The Romans also stole the gods of their foes, and more than just the Greeks.
Roman culture, though, was heavily focused on superstition and virtue, rather than logic, and is not in any way a retread of Greek culture.
Republican Romans would have lynched you for calling them "Greek". Romans were well aware of their Archaic history and there was very much a sense of Greeks being overly pompous, fanciful, dissolute foreigners, albeit somewhat related.
The spurts of Greek (and later Persian and Egyptian) fashion in Rome existed precisely because they found it exotic. Otherwise Roman and Greek myths link at several levels purely and simply because they shared the same root. Romans didn't really "snatch" Gods from Greece, they were already theirs. And they "enriched" their existing archetypes with new attributes from outside as the Empire grew to pacify the subjugated peoples.
> the Islamic empire lasted for north of 13 centuries
I mean if you count the Ottomans, Abbassids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Umayyads, and Rashiduns as one single entity, sure. By that measure you'd also have to consider the Romans and Byzantines (and maybe even the HRE) to be a single contiguous entity as well.
Rome and Byzantiums are a continued empire in every sense of the word. The people there didnt consider it different. It was totally contiois for a long time.
This is totally different for the islamic empires. The invovled massive chamges of the leading elites, internal organisation, sometimed completly know peoples.
Saying the Ottomans were continues with the older empires is ridiculus assertion.
I guess we agree to disagree. I just don't like calling them the "other" Romans, or even referring to them as the Byzantines who were carrying on the torch, when they never considered any such thing, and would never have referred to themselves as such.
Then again, despite being an engineer by trade, I'm a historian specializing in Late Roman Antiquity (specifically, the Eastern Empire from Leo the Isaurian to Alexios I, so I'm probably a little pedantic about it.
Don't conflate manifest destiny/religious destiny and culture. The caliphate(s) eventually gave up on sieging Constantinople after the utter failure of 717. But before that, they were essentially a collection of tribes which rapidly expanded, and whose opponents fell so quickly they felt they were destined to bring Islam to the entire world, with Constantinople as a prophecied conquest.
This is less than 100 years after the Rashidun caliphate sprang into existence, and the Islamic Golden Age lasted for centuries after that.
Beyond which, you should not assume that they were not peaceful just because they conquered their neighbors. The laws of the caliphate(s) were extraordinarily generous to believers of other religions, and the caliphate was internally peaceful, enforced charity, successful as a gateway for trade between the East and West, and, yes, actively preserved/translated the writings of previous civilizations until ~1100
Potato/potato. Do you consider the Pax Romana to be peaceful? Arguably, if your neighbors are "barbarians" or "infidels", the most peaceful thing you can do is conquer them to put an end to their incessant warring and impose civilization.
Remember that the Arabs (prior to the caliphate) were used as proxy troops/mercenaries by the Persians/Romans for centuries under the guise of the Ghassanids and Lakhmids. This has repercussions.
You can make the argument that the jizya made them second-class citizens who were tolerated, but you cannot make the argument that they were not tolerated, which stands in stark contrast to the various persecutions of other religious groups under Julian the Apostate, assorted Byzantines who decided that Arianism/whatever was heretical, Zoroastrianism's (well, the Sassanid rulers' interpretation of it) treatment of nonbelievers, etc. I'm not arguing that sharia is a modern, progressive system of law. In the context of 650 AD, though, it definitely was.
> Yea, but I haven't been there or responded to anything with "implying implications" for years, so forgive me this indulgence.
My comment is more that:
> foo bar quuz baaz
> foo
Pick one
Is underservedly dimissive and really doesn't serve to advance the conversation. I do it also (mostly on Reddit, I guess), but the statement you were replying to wasn't obviously fallacious. There's a lot of nuance which you can't hammer away with
> Potato/potato. Do you consider the Pax Romana to be peaceful? Arguably, if your neighbors are "barbarians" or "infidels", the most peaceful thing you can do is conquer them to put an end to their incessant warring and impose civilization.
If you asked me if Rome was peaceful, I would tell you no. But no one is claiming that Rome is peaceful. Once again, there is nothing peaceful about conquering your neighbors, especially ones that didn't attack you first.
> Remember that the Arabs (prior to the caliphate) were used as proxy troops/mercenaries by the Persians/Romans for centuries under the guise of the Ghassanids and Lakhmids. This has repercussions.
Next you will argue that Russia had the right to attack UkraIne because Kievan Rus attacked the people that lived in the areas that are now Russia centuries ago.
> I'm not arguing that sharia is a modern, progressive system of law. In the context of 650 AD, though, it definitely was.
I don't know enough detail to comment on it either way. "I'm not arguing that sharia is a modern, progressive system of law." - we are on the same page then. With that, comes the idea that any comments on "peaceful" and "rightfully counter-attacking" would only, possibly apply in the context of the time.
Edit: I know it's against the rules, but I just want to note that I am not the one downvoting you, appreciate a good argument once in a while.
> If you asked me if Rome was peaceful, I would tell you no. But no one is claiming that Rome is peaceful. Once again, there is nothing peaceful about conquering your neighbors, especially ones that didn't attack you first.
Well, some would claim that Rome was peaceful, in the same way that historians may later claim that the US was peaceful. To be honest, it's virtually impossible to stay peaceful when it's kill or be killed. The Romans always had justifications for their wars (often contrived, but still), but I take the converse position.
> Next you will argue that Russia had the right to attack UkraIne because Kievan Rus attacked the people that lived in the areas that are now Russia centuries ago.
I think you're interpreting this backwards. I'm saying that the Arabs were well-aware of the rapacious appetite for war their immediate neighbors had after watching the Persians duke it out with the Romans (and Byzantines) for centuries, with firsthand experience of serving in their militaries and watching their (Arab) leaders become enriched. It's not that the Arabs themselves didn't war on the peninsula, but...
Imagine that you're someone who's watched repeated proxy wars from foreign powers, and maybe even taken part in them. For this example, let's use the American colonists. You've watched the French and British recruit your friends and neighbors, either by coercion or bribery, to fight and die for someone else. Now, they've worn each other out, and you have a chance to remove their influence once and for all to put a better society in place. To do this, you need to wipe them off the map (the Americans did this regionally, but Canada was so underpopulated and the rest of the Empire so far away that it's effectively equivalent).
Is this just? Is this peaceful, in the end? To some, yes. To the Arabs, probably.
Yes, there were religious motivations, but it's exactly the same kind of "manifest destiny" that spread the American dominion coast-to-coast. Is it externally peaceful? No. Is the end result (internally) more peaceful? Yes.
(discussions about the relative peace of First Nations elsewhere, since we really can't say what the balance of force was like before European intervention due to lack of documentation, but the loss of territory to the Americans and introduction of horses/gunpowder definitely provided conflict).
> I don't know enough detail to comment on it either way. "I'm not arguing that sharia is a modern, progressive system of law." - we are on the same page then. With that, comes the idea that any comments on "peaceful" and "rightfully counter-attacking" would only, possibly apply in the context of the time.
That's the point, really. History must be evaluated in historical context. It's easy for us to look back now and say "of course the caliphate was warlike" or "of course the Romans were warlike", but that's hindsight. To a denizen of southern Gaul living in 200AD, you'd have a hard time arguing that it was anything but peaceful, and that Rome imposing her dominion on a bunch of barbarians was the best thing that ever happened.
> Edit: I know it's against the rules, but I just want to note that I am not the one downvoting you, appreciate a good argument once in a while.
> implying I care about internet karma points
But really, I don't. I come here to the internet for discussion
>To a denizen of southern Gaul living in 200AD, you'd have a hard time arguing that it was anything but peaceful, and that Rome imposing her dominion on a bunch of barbarians was the best thing that ever happened.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
As I said elsewhere, I'm distinguishing peaceful externally (obviously, they were very aggressive) with peaceful internally (which they were very good at).
And "second class citizens who were tolerated because they paid extra taxes" was a definite step up from the Romans (and before them, the Persians, and after them, the Crusaders).
> they felt they were destined to bring Islam to the entire world
By the sword. They would ask a city to surrender and convert to Islam, or they would take it by force and either kill or enslave it's citizens. Doesn't sound very peaceful to me.
> the caliphate was internally peaceful, enforced charity, successful as a gateway for trade between the East and West
And they were also the most prolific slave traders in all of history. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to say that the caliphates were any more or less peaceful than any other world empires.
> By the sword. They would ask a city to surrender and convert to Islam, or they would take it by force and either kill or enslave it's citizens. Doesn't sound very peaceful to me.
This differs from the common behavior of powers at the time in what way?
But it's also incredibly misleading. That's what they did to the Crusader States, centuries later, but the collapse of Byzantine/Persian power, and the absence of any strong power blocs in North Africa (after the exarchate of Carthage was established and the Vandals broken) makes this a null argument. Cities traded hands all the time. Without a field army nearby, or, if the field army was decimated, the city essentially had no choice but to surrender.
Additionally, the umma under the Rashiduns and Ummayads often lived outside the city. The caliphate was happy to simply collect taxes, and have Arab troops live among Arabs (as an external garrison).
> And they were also the most prolific slave traders in all of history. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to say that the caliphates were any more or less peaceful than any other world empires.
This is incredibly speculative. The Romans are estimated to have had anywhere from 5-8m slaves throughout the Empire, for 400 years. We really have no idea what the scale of slavery was like in most of antiquity, or even late antiquity.
You're conveniently forgetting that chattel slavery as practiced in the Americas was wholly different from slavery in the "Old World", also.
I wasn't the one to assert that the caliphate was "more" or "less" peaceful than any other world empire, and I would not. I asserted that it's was peaceful.
If you're going to pick once that is the "most" peaceful based on duration and territory held, I'd go for China, but it's the kind of "who is the best baseball player ever" argument that goes nowhere.
Exactly. It's not like the Byzantines didn't keep the writings of the Greeks. They were the Greeks. Greece still owns islands right off of Turkey, being from the very start a circum-Aegean state.
The eastern empire lost most of its territory by 800, reducing it to a dying regional power.
But yeah, totally a European perspective. Aside from the Romans, "Europe" barely comes into play in history, until Spain reached America and started bringing back enormous piles of gold.
The Byzantines controlled all of Anatolia, the Balkans, and parts of Italy around 1000 and retained much of it through the Komnenian Restoration. I wouldn't call the empire "dying" until after 1204. And remember, even at it's lowest Constantinople itself was regarded extremely highly -- most famously the Rus adopted Eastern Orthodoxy after being so impressed by the city.
There's a reason "Byzantine" when used as an adjective also has the negative connotation of "Overly complex or intricate." [1] It was not really a good successor in terms of success for the Roman Empire.
> It was not really a good successor in terms of success for the Roman Empire.
How so? Constantinople was the richest, most recognized city on the European continent from the fall of Rome to the Fourth Crusade -- over half a millenium. At it's zenith it ruled almost as much territory as the Roman Empire. There's a reason the Islamic caliphs coveted it so much.
Remember that there was a lot of distrust between the Latin and Greek worlds after the Great Schism. The whole reason we're calling them Byzantines instead of Romans (or even Greek/Eastern Romans) is because Renaissance scholars wanted to emphasize Latin Romans over (the still existing) Greek Romans.
What about the "other" Roman empire, the Byzantines? They seemed to have filled the vacuum even better.