PAUL FREEDMAN: Alright, so
today the question we're going to deal with is
the survival of the Roman Empire in the East. Why did
the Empire, based in Constantinople, survive,
whereas, as we saw last week, the Western Empire based,
nominally, in Rome-- at times in Milan, at times
in Ravenna-- collapsed in the
fifth century? We're going to take a long view
of survival in the East - that is, from the
fifth century to the mid-ninth century. After the mid-ninth century,
the Eastern Roman Empire flourishes and has a period,
that we will discuss in a few weeks, of great splendor
and prosperity. But this long view is justified
by the fact that for 400 years, or so, this Eastern
Roman Empire faced tremendous threats of invasion, sieges,
difficulties dealing with all sorts of nations and peoples,
and, at the same time, internal division, because
of religious controversy. Or what the people who
won, called heresies. I remind you that while we
call it the Eastern Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire,
they called themselves the Roman Empire no adjective,
no qualification. They were the successor to-- and if they were the only
successor, tough luck-- the empire of Augustus, the
empire of Diocletian, the empire of Constantine. In their base, before the
seventh century, they were, as you see on the map. The map really shows them, more
or less, at their height. Eastern Roman Empire-- notice
that it goes as far as Spain in the Mediterranean. This was the accomplishment of
Justinian, and emperor of the sixth century, whose reign
marks a kind of apogee, a height of power of this
empire, within in this period of crisis. So while I'm saying that we are
dealing with about four century's worth of sieges and
crises, there is this period in the sixth century, in the
reign of Justinian, who represents a kind of brief, but
very important, reconquest of the West. And that's partly
what you're seeing, at least the leftovers of it, in this
map, that shows you the Byzantine or Eastern Roman
Empire in the year 600, extending-- including Spain, North Africa,
the coast of what's now Libya, Egypt, the Mediterranean
Middle East-- that is modern Israel,
Syria, Lebanon-- Anatolia-- that is to say Asia Minor,
modern Turkey-- and the Balkans, Greece,
and the Aegean Islands. This empire was held together
by Constantinople, which, as you see, and as we've already
spoken about, is strategically placed to control access between
Europe and Asia, across the Bosporus Straits,
and also between the Black Sea, which is the access point
to Central Asia and the Mediterranean Sea. This city, modern Istanbul,
still has the walls built by Theodosius II, in the
early fifth century. The so-called Theodosian
Walls-- rather nastily restored
recently-- are an incredible monument,
still, in their ruined state, to the power of Constantinople,
as they were built on the landward side. Constantinople-- very difficult to attack from
the sea, and, because of the walls, very difficult to
attack from the land. Until very recently, that is, I
would say, until the 1980s, the Theodosian walls were
not reached by the urban agglomeration of Istanbul. That is, they were so big and so
far from the main center of the city, that only in recent
decades has Istanbul, which is one of the fastest growing and
most prosperous cities in the region, has the city leapfrogged
over the walls, and the walls are now in
the kind of midst of a new part of the city. Nevertheless, extremely
impressive accomplishment. And the period we're dealing
with is mostly sieges of Constantinople and heresies. And if you just hold that in
your mind, this, somewhat, "one event after another, that
I never heard of," quality, that this will have, I think
will be, if not alleviated, at least rendered comprehensible. Before we go on, let
me just say a few words about Procopius. Who has read the Secret
History before? OK. So not too much. You should have started it. I should've warned you. It has disturbing, even weirdly
pornographic parts. It is a diatribe against
the Emperor Justinian. I don't think I'm giving
anything away by saying that Procopius' theory about
Justinian is that he's a demon, a devil, a representative
of hell. What makes this text
interesting, is it's an intimate portrayal, even if it
may not be an accurate one. But we will pay a certain
price-- we are willing to pay a certain price for intimacy,
for immediacy, for the sense of an extremely sinister
court. It's a little bit like reading
about Stalin, or some other capricious, extremely powerful,
hard-working, but bloodthirsty ruler. I think what you have to ask
yourself is, how could a ruler of this particular time and
polity, not be bloodthirsty? What seems to be Procopius'
problem? And we'll elucidate some
answers on Wednesday. Procopius, in part, is
interesting, because all of this other works are lavish in
their praise of Justinian. This is an historian who
knows nothing between panegyric and diatribe. Nothing between lavish servile
praise and the harshest imaginable criticism. The two go together. The two are phenomena, again,
all of absolutist courts from that of Louis XIV to that of
twentieth century dictators. The same kind of enforced praise
can create a kind of humiliation and rage that comes
out in other forms. A Secret History had to be
secret, because had the authorities read a few words of
this, Procopius would have not died in bed, as,
indeed, he did. We know this from one manuscript
in the Vatican found in the seventeenth
century. OK. So that's my introduction
to Procopius. When we talk about survival of
the East, we're talking about survival under several
different kinds of circumstances. So our first concern is, how did
the East survive the fifth century, which destroyed the
Western Roman Empire? Part of the answer
is geography. The East was easier to defend,
especially, as I've just said, the position of Constantinople,
both as an impregnable site and as a
commercial city with very, very extensive trade, and as a
base to defend the two core territories of the Empire. By core territories, I mean
that, really, the essential parts of this empire, which
are the Balkans-- including Greece under that
rubric, for the moment-- and Asia Minor. And, of course, Constantinople
is ideally placed to protect both of them. Other advantages of the
East over the West-- a bit richer, more urbanized,
produced more taxable revenues than the West. It's army
didn't fall apart. It's civilian structure of administration remained intact. With the exception of Justinian,
very few these emperors are that outstanding
in their abilities. But their subordinates were very
capable, the government worked well, and the East
survived a number of powerful threats from the outside. "From the outside" meaning it
had the same problem as the Roman Empire, in an, admittedly,
smaller and more defensible space. It had an eastern frontier and
it had a northern frontier, both of which were fragile. The eastern frontier
with Persia-- we already talked about them-- and the Northern frontier, along
the Danube River, more or less, with all sorts of
different peoples, from the Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, all
sorts of nations that would attack it. It also had the disadvantage of
internal religious dissent. And we're going to be talking
more about this. These problems, eventually, did
affect the East adversely. It would have a period of pretty
radical decline, not so different from that of the West.
Beginning in the seventh century, this decline can be
seen in the abandonment of many cities, or their much
smaller population-- we've already seen that as
a feature of the West-- in the loss of territory. We're going to be talking
about Islam and the Arab conquests. But they begin in the seventh
century, and, very quickly, result in the loss, from the
Byzantine point of view, of Egypt and the Mediterranean
Near East. But unlike the West, the
Byzantine, or East Roman government, never collapsed in
the face of these threats. Although, it is a kind of period
of cultural decline. Certainly, a period of military
defeats, of sieges, of political problems, and
of religious dissent. Nevertheless, the Empire
would survive. In general, during this period,
what unites these 400 years-- we're talking about,
roughly, 450 to 850-- is the ability of the empire
to resist invasions, its willingness to accept the loss
of certain provinces, while protecting others, and its
domination of Constantinople over its region. At the opening of our period,
cities like Alexandria and Antioch are extremely
important. Their importance within the
Byzantine Empire declines. But in order to understand
that some of the internal problems, we're going to have
to talk about heresies. I think I already apologized
for having to talk about heresies, and I think I already explained why it's important. Questions, remarks,
denunciations? OK. Representatives of the
iconoclast defense fund want to claim equal time? OK. This is just a selection
of heresies, right? I mean, it's the proverbial
tip of the iceberg, the proverbial icing on the
cake, the proverbial-- what do you call it-- crust on the chocolate
pudding. But having said that, these
two are what are called Christological controversies. They're about the nature of
Christ. The relationship of his human to divine nature. And, grossly, to oversimplify,
the Nestorians emphasize Christ's divine nature, and
the Monophysites, Christ's human nature. [correction: the nestorians
emphasize Christ's human nature; the Monophysites
His divine nature]. The beginning of this
controversy is with the Nestorians, named after the
patriarch, Nestorius, the bishop, Patriarch of
Constantinople. Nestorius seemed to teach --
and he's patriarch in the 420s, and the stories
would be deposed in for 431, as patriarch. His followers seemed to teach
that Christ was fully human and that his divine nature was
either separate from is human nature, or it was nonexistent
or irrelevant. I should remind you that the
problem is posed by Christ being God, and yet, being
crucified and suffering and dying. So this is a problem that,
logically, arises out of an understanding of who Christ is
and what he does for humanity. Nestorius was deposed by the
Third Ecumenical Council of Constantinople-- I'm sorry, the Third Ecumenical
Council, which meets in Ephesus, on the western
shore of Asia Minor. Council of Ephesus, Ecumenical
Council-- the third one in 431. The first two had dealt
with Arianism. I remind you that Arianism is
a different problem, because it deals not with the nature
of Christ, but the relationship of Christ
to God the Father. Here, we're now just
concentrating on Christ. The Monophysites, in opposing the
Nestorians, naturally emphasized Christ's divine
nature, as the Nestorians had, in their opinion, overemphasized the human nature. But from the point of view of
the group that we can call Orthodox, the people who
believe neither in Nestorianism nor Monophysitism,
both sides were extremists. The Monophysites over did
Christ's divine natures. If the Nestorians taught that
Christ had two nature's, a kind of fully human one and a
fully divine one, that were separate, the Monophysites
seemed to be teaching, or did teach, that Christ had
one nature, and that, essentially, divine. The relationship of the human
and divine natures in Monophysitism was denounced by
their opponents as if you threw a bucket of water
into the ocean. The bucket of water representing
the human part. What's at stake in this, and
why it's important, is how Christ saves people. If he is too human, then he's
just a human, elevated by God, like some kind of ancient-world
hero. And he doesn't seem, then, to
have the power to save people from the devil, hell, original
sin, all of these terrible things that God has saved the
followers of Christ from. If he's divine, completely
divine, then what's the point of distinguishing him
from God the Father? And then, how did he suffer
on the cross? Was his suffering real? Can God, with no human
elements, suffer? Questions about this so far? We understand the difference,
then? And we, sort of, understand
what's at stake? Sort of, because maybe
we are thinking-- I hope not, because you're not
in a medieval frame of mind, if you're thinking this-- You may be thinking, though,
none the less, "Well, why don't they just agree to
disagree?" Or something like, "Hey, you can believe in one
nature, I'll believe in two." Or, "You can believe in two
separate natures, I'll believe in two natures coexisting. And God will reward your
good intentions." That's really the problem, is
that we live in a society in which, at least, so
we may think. enlightened people don't really
impose their beliefs, in detail, on others. We're not really interested
in theology that much. But the Bible, I've got to
admit, does say that it is important to have the
right belief. The Bible, particularly, but
not exclusively, the Old Testament, is very bad on
rewarding good intentions. The further back you go in the
Bible, the less are good intentions rewarded. Lot's wife was told
not to look back. She looked back. She was turned into
a pillar of salt. Nobody said, "Oh, OK, you didn't
mean to look back" or you know, "human weakness."
That's just it. Or the guy-- now I'm betraying
my ignorance-- who stumbles as they're carrying
the tabernacle back to Jerusalem, from captivity
with the Philistines. Is it Usiah? Well, anyway, I shouldn't
get started on things I'm not sure of. But the guy stumbles, and
God strikes him dead. He stumbled. Nobody asks him, "Oh, I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to stumble," or "a little rabbit
ran in front of me." He stumbles: he dies: that's it. God wants you to understand
what's going on. Insofar as you don't
make errors. Therefore, the right
understanding of Christ's nature is important. It's not just a matter of
convincing other people that one band is better than another,
or one kind of game is better another, or one team
is better than another. It is crucial. Gregory of Nyssa, himself a
theologian, writes, about 500 AD or so, that the mood of
theological controversy is so great, that if you go into a
shop, and you ask about your change, he says, the shopkeeper
philosophizes about the begotten and
the unbegotten. If you inquire about a loaf of
bread, the baker will reply, that the Son is inferior, and
the Father is superior. And if you ask if your bath is
ready, the attendant says that the sun is made out
of nothing. Now, all of this is a satiric
remark about the way in which ordinary people are caught up in
this religious controversy. It is not, exclusively,
a matter of intellectuals or clergy. But it's a political problem as
well, and that's the reason that it really preoccupies us. In the Council of Chalcedon
in 451-454. So Ephesus, 431, Chalcedon,
451 to 454. Chalcedon, also on the other
side of Constantinople on the Asian side of what's
now Turkey. The Council of Chalcedon
denounced the Monophysites. It basically says that Christ
has two natures. They are both perfect,
they are indivisible, but they are separate. Two natures, one person,
one hypostasis. A "hypostasis" is a thing that
exists in its own right. This solution was suggested
by Rome, by the pope. The same Pope Leo
the Great, who'd negotiated with the Huns. The West had the advantage of
not experiencing these kinds of controversies. And so Constantinople,
far more powerful than Rome in the 450s-- Rome, about to collapse
completely-- nevertheless, is beholden to
Rome for, at least what would be the majority solution, to the
problem of Monophysitism. Of course, actually, it's not
a solution, because not everybody acknowledges the
Council of Chalcedon. It provokes a split. The Patriarch of Alexandria
would be the leader of those resisting the Council, and
Egypt, Syria, and, to some extent, Lebanon and Palestine,
would be Monophysite, steadfastly. Indeed, the survivors of
the Monophysites-- that is the modern-day
representatives of this part of Christianity-- are the Copts, in Egypt, who
form ten percent of the population-- Christian Monophysites-- and the Christians of Ethiopia,
who form a little more than fifty percent of the
population of Ethiopia. The so-called Coptic Christians
are the descendants of the Monophysites. The Nestorians also have some
scattered followers in the modern world. They were very strong
in Central Asia. And if you've studied things
like the voyages of Marco Polo and other Western travelers in
the thirteenth century, the people who interpret for them,
who help them, who acquaint them with central Asia and the
Chinese Mongol Empire, are Nestorians. But we're going to leave them
out, because they're not a political problem for the
Byzantine Empire. They're, pretty much, exiled. The Copts are an internal
problem. And the Monophysites, or
Copts, do not like the Orthodox, the Byzantine
Emperors. The Byzantine Emperors try
to compromise with them. And I'll mention a couple
of these compromises. The Emperor Zeno, from 474 to
491, issued a document called the Henotikon. We're back to emperors. As with-- we saw as far back
as Constantine, emperors trying to intervene
to solve religious controversies, right? The Henotikon says, one of the
Trinity was incarnate, and we're not going to discuss
it anymore. So first, it says this rather
noncommittal statement: "One of the Trinity was incarnate."
And then it also outlaws any further discussion. Nobody liked this. Zeno was succeeded by
Anastasius, who was a Monophysite. And then, as we'll see, the
great emperor of the sixth century, Justinian, who we're
going to be looking at much more closely, was a fierce
anti-Monophysite or Chalcedonian, Orthodox. But his wife was, sort
of, semi-Monophysite. This may have been politic. Since they were both effective
rulers, the people who were Monophysite could orient
themselves to Theodora, the Empress, and the Orthodox,
to Justinian. Ultimately, this problem would
be quote, "solved," because the Arab Muslim invasion of the
seventh century would take over the Monophysite
territories. Again, I hope I'm not giving
away a secret, by saying that the most striking, sweeping,
and dramatic event of Mediterranean world or of the
Eurasian land mass, of the period that we're dealing
with, arguably, is the rise of Islam. Mohammed's Hegira is
in the 632-633-- I can't remember. Anybody know, off hand? Anyone want to look
it up, off hand? H-E-G-I-R-A. Student: 622. PROFESSOR: 622. 622. By 660, Egypt, Syria, Palestine,
Lebanon have fallen to Muslim rule. And they are extending their
power as far west as North Africa and as far east
as Afghanistan. How this happens, why this
happens, is the subject for discussion a little later. But again, if you refer to the
map in 600, this is before the Islamic takeover. And again, if you look further
east, the Eastern Roman Empire consists of all these parts,
many of which are about to be taken away from it. And the parts that were taken
away from it were pretty much the Monophysite parts. So the fifth century is the
story of the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire, despite
these religious controversies. The early sixth century, which
we'll talk about in more detail, is the story of the
expansion of the Empire to make a stab at reuniting, by
conquering the West, what had been the single Roman Empire. Justinian's empire was
overextended at least in retrospect. This is a reconquest that, at
least, consultants from a later generation would have
said was a mistake, an overexpansion Initially, the
main enemy of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian-- so in the late sixth century,
early seven century-- would be Persia. But also, at the same time,
the Byzantine Empire would start experiencing Danubian
frontier incursions, attacks from the Balkans. And here again, as
I said, it's all invaders and heresies. Invasions from Slavs and Avars
in the Balkans, and the Persians in the East. OK. In 591, a revolution toppled
the Persian ruler, who, peculiarly enough, fled to
Byzantium for refuge, where the Emperor Maurice helped
him gain his throne back. In 591, there was a peace
between Persia and Byzantium, and Byzantium seemed to have
come out of this terrible period of warfare of the
late sixth century. This allowed Maurice to turn
his attention to his other front, his Western- Northern
front, where the Avars were a tremendous threat to him. The Avars, a central Asiatic
people, who come in through Central Asia into the Balkans. And they carry with them, to
some extent, the Slavs. The conventional portrayal used to
be that the Avars sort of lead the Slavs; the latter
are kind of passive. It's a little more complicated
than that. The Avars had taken the great
cities of the Balkans. And in 492, Maurice turns to
deal with them, to push them back against the Danube. His army rebels against
him, and he's overthrown and killed. The beginning of the seventh
century is the period of the maximum danger of Byzantium. It lasts, with intermittent
flashes, from 602, the overthrow of Maurice, to
717, the Arab Siege of Constantinople. Immediately, this new emperor,
Phocas, is attacked by Persia. The Persian King claiming to
revenge the murder of his benefactor, but, in fact, simply
reopening the war with Constantinople. In 608-609, the Persians and the
Avars are allied, and the Persians are really
on the march. By 617, they have taken Egypt,
they have taken Syria, they have taken in Jerusalem, and
the relic of the Holy Cross has been taken back to
the Persian capital. The emperor, at this time,
Heraclius, whom Wickham is not very impressed by, admittedly. Heraclius leads a resistance,
as does the patriarch, to a siege that is on both sides of
the city of Constantinople. On the one side, the land side,
the Theodosian Walls, are the Avars and the Slavs
on the Bosporus. Across the city, on the
Asian side of the Bosporus, are the Persians. And what Heraclius does, is to
confide the city in the care of the patriarch, and go
off and attack the Persians from the rear. The patriarch defends the city,
not only by organizing the army, but by putting
wonder-working icons on the walls, to face the enemy. An icon is a painting
of a sacred figure. So then, it is not a statue,
but a painting. And it portrays a saint or Mary
or Christ. And in what has come to be called the
Orthodox tradition, these remain today, a figure of the
church, a very distinct kind of aspect of the piety
of the East. The Church -- patriarch ordered
that the Church melt down all of the treasures that
had been given to it, to decorate it, in order
to pay for troops. So the combination of the icons,
the money, the spirit of the populous, and military
means were able to withstand this prolonged siege-- at times a double siege-- of the
Persians on one side, the Avars and the Slavs
on the other side. After many years of fighting
in the East, Heraclius succeeded in overthrowing
the Persians. At the battle of Nineveh
in 627-- this is a seventeen-year
war or so. I'm sorry, Nineveh-- E-H. Heraclius defeats the Persians,
and the Persian Empire is virtually crippled. 627-- Byzantium would have seemed to
of have been triumphant. The first Arab attacks, however,
were in 634, twelve years after Mohammed's Hegira. By 636, Syria had been taken;
by 638 Jerusalem had been taken; and the True
Cross, again-- in this case, we lose
sight of it. Persia, itself, would
collapse in 640 and pass under Arab rule. Egypt would fall in 645. What's left of the
Empire, then, is the Balkans and Anatolia-- some Armenian, some
Slavic elements. So weak is this empire, so beset
by enemies, does it seem to be, that a successor of
Heraclius, the emperor Constans II, moved the capital
to Sicily, to the West. Constans II ruled
from Syracuse-- Syracuse, Sicily, obviously-- the original Syracuse. He would be the last emperor
to visit Rome. And he was, actually,
the first since 476. So in 662, when he moved the
capital to Sicily, we have the spectacle of a kind of ghost
emperor visiting a ghost city. Visit of Constans II to Rome,
and the severe crisis of the Eastern Empire beset, as it was
now, particularly, but not exclusively, by the Arabs. And indeed, in 674, the Arab
fleet appeared off Constantinople. In 678, we hear, for the first
time, of the weapon of the Greeks against the
Arab fleets-- a weapon called "Greek fire." Greek fire is some kind
of flaming projectile. In other words, something that
you can shoot with a catapult, or some other propulsion
device, that will burst into flame. Obviously, you can't launch it
if it's already burning. You have to have something
that--This is the essence of basic bomb throwing-- you have to have something that
will explode on impact. The Greek fire was,
particularly, effective on wooden ships and on
rigging and sails. It would set the
ships on fire. And it's a weapon that seems to
have been unique, at least for awhile, to the Byzantines But, parenthetically, how was it
that the Arabs have a navy, in the first place? These people, who decades
before, had never seen a river that flowed all year long, who
had no experience with the sea, for whom the desert
was the sea. It is an example of this kind
of very rapid adaptability that we'll emphasize,
when we come to talk about the Islamic invasion. The East did survive
even this attack. The seventh century--
we will be dealing with in more detail-- is a crucial turning point. By this time, the Eastern Roman
Empire we're talking about as the East is pretty
much a Greek empire. Justinian would be the last
emperor to speak Latin. And the truncation of the
empire, with the loss of Egypt and the Near East, means that
it is pretty much a Greek empire and, also, pretty much
an Orthodox empire. Orthodoxy is the Christian
faith that stands between Nestorianism and
Monophysitism. For the time, the Orthodox
world, in the East, and the Catholic world, in the
West, are the same. Their official break won't
come until 1054. And as you know, to this day,
the Orthodox churches of Russia, Greece, and so forth,
look very different. And they also have certain
doctrinal differences with the West. And that's not our
subject, for the time being. We do have, however, before
the close of business, one more heresy. A heresy that starts to divide
the Byzantine Empire in the late seventh century, and
that is iconoclasm. Iconoclasm, which Wickham talks
about in some detail, and which he tells us
to take seriously. What he means by that, is that
iconoclasm seems to be something that must not be about
what it seems to be. It's got to be about
something else. Iconoclasm is the belief that
images, like icons, in particular, are dangerous. And that they lead to
inappropriate worship of the image, rather than what
the image symbolizes. So the iconoclasts believe in
banning images of persons. A cross is fine but not
a picture of a saint. Even, in some circles,
pictures of Christ would be suspect. The danger of this reverence
paid to icons, is that the icons then, becomes a sacred
thing in itself, and you've fallen into idolatry. You're worshipping multiple
representatives of the divine. Now it certainly seems logical
that this must have something to do with Islam. Because Islam, in its most
monotheist manifestations, frowns on and bans the
representation of purportedly divine figures. And it, indeed, doesn't like
figural representation at all, in decoration of
sacred spaces. Lest this be interpreted as
exalting figures, even the Prophet -- especially
the Prophet himself. There are no pictures of
Muhammad for home consumption, for mosque display. And so it seems logical that
this is a response to criticism from Islam, that
Christianity is really not monotheist, that it's a form of
idolatry, because it has so many sacred figures. And that the success of Islam
and the success of the Arabs against Byzantium, might be
caused by the abandonment of monotheism-- the abandonment of the worship
of one god and the proliferation of
multiple gods. The problem is that there's
no real evidence of this. And you don't have to
have Islam to force this kind of thing. If you look around the churches
of much of Northern Europe, you will see statues
that have been decapitated by Protestants, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth century, or stained glass that was destroyed
by Protestants. Protestantism is iconoclastic in
many of its forms, in that it believed that the Catholic
Church was superstitious, paid reverence to all of these saints
and human figures, and forgot, in the process, to
concentrate on the single God. Iconoclasm is a crisis
of the empire. It is also, like these other
heresies, a recurrence of this problem of how to represent the
connection between God and human beings. What connects the divine
with the humans? Are there intermediaries? Is Christ an intermediary,
or is he God? And if he's God, how is
there intermediation? Why does God care about us? How does God care about us? How many ways are there
to approach him? It took until 843 to settle
this controversy. It had many periods of
settlement and then a recrudescence. It's a controversy that lasts,
then, something on the order of 150, 160 years. At times, it divides the Empire completely, at times not. It tends to be supported
by the emperor. If the emperor isn't iconoclastic, it tends to wane. It's supported by the emperors,
partly, as a way of trying to unify and mobilize the
Empire around the figure of the emperor, instead of
dissipating the energies around the various
saintly figures. So where are we, with this
empire, that seems to consist of only sieges and barbarian
peoples and heresies? In the ninth century, it would
seem that the cities, with the exception of Constantinople
itself, had declined to become little more than fortresses. We seem to be at the end of
classical antiquity, in some fundamental way, of that
society built around Mediterranean cities. Society even here, as in
the West, is rural. There's not a whole
lot of trade. There still are libraries, with
books in them, but they don't seem to be
read very much. We have very few texts
from this era. It's a militarized society. It's an intensely
religious one. There's very little secular
literature-- really at the end of Greco-Roman
Pagan knowledge. As it happens, however, this
period would usher in an era of surprising, at least in
retrospect, prosperity for the Byzantine Empire. And we will be talking
about that later. On Wednesday, we're going
to discuss the reign of Justinian, through Procopius,
as a thing, in itself. And then, we will turn to the
post-Roman world of the West, subsequently. Thanks very much.
