Despite the fall of the Western Roman Empire to invading tribes, the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire, flourished for nearly a millennium after. The longevity of the Byzantine Empire can be attributed to Constantinople, and the reforms of the Emperor Justinian. The city of Constantinople gave the Byzantine Empire stable rule, made the Empire a formidable military power, and created immense wealth; moreover, the city’s architecture imparted an invaluable Greco-Roman identity onto the Byzantine Empire, uniting its citizens, and enabling the empire to survive on. On the other hand, the reforms of Justinian created a fair, orderly society that discouraged separatism and increased contentment amongst the people of the Byzantine Empire.
The foremost reason that the Byzantine Empire survived so long was the physical situation of its capital. As a result of the imminent collapse of Rome, Constantine decided to move the seat of Roman power to a new city. He identified that Rome’s primary problem as a capital was that it was too far from the imperial frontiers; the decline of the Western Roman Empire occurred because the territorial boundaries of the Roman Empire had expanded too far for it to be controlled by Rome. Therefore, Constantine chose to build his new capital at the supposed centre of the world: the site of the old Greek city Byzantion. As it was positioned on the Bosporus River, Constantinople would benefit from having the natural defence of the Marmara and Black Seas, only faced by land on one side. Constantinople’s status as a port city made attacks less favourable, ensuring that the seat of Byzantine power was under no serious threat for a millennium, enabling stable rule.In stark contrast, Rome, the old capital, was surrounded on most fronts by land – optimal for enabling invaders. The vulnerability of Rome to land invasion was exemplified in the 410 Sack of Rome. Led by King Alaric, on the 24th of August 410 AD, the Visigoths marched on and sacked the city of Rome, despite their inferior military training, in comparison to Roman troops[1]. Nevertheless, Rome’s physical situation caused its demise. Given that the Visigoths were a Germanic people who resided in the northern region of the Empire, Rome would have been impenetrable had it been situated at sea. The geographical features of Constantinople protected the Byzantine seat of power from attack; it was only breached due to Renaissance technology. Hence, the Empire was ensured stable rule, unaffected by constant threat of invasion.
Furthermore, the physical situation of Constantinople meant that the city was a major commercial centre. Given that Constantinople was built straddling the Bosporus, it was a natural meeting point for trade. While Rome is often thought to be the western terminus of the Silk Road, University of Washington historian Daniel C. Waugh described Constantinople as “the ‘Rome’ to which all roads led in the Mediterranean world.”[2] While trade was often disdained by the city’s elite (Emperor Theophilos once burned a cargo ship at sea once he learned that his wife was involved in commerce), trade was essential to the city’s economy. The high volume of trade at Constantinople enriched the city; World Bank economist Branko Milanovic calculated that, at its economic peak, the Byzantine Empire had a gross domestic product per capita of 680 US dollars (1990 money).[3]This is equivalent to 1386.1 US dollars today, meaning that Byzantium in 1000 AD was of similar wealth to the wealthiest European nations five hundred years later.[4] This great wealth invited great migration to the capital, Constantinople; by the 8th century, some estimates ascertain that the city had half a million residents. The physical situation of Constantinople ensured stable rule and immense wealth for Byzantium, enabling it to survive for so long.
Moreover, Constantinople’s elaborate fortification also contributed to deterring attacks on the city, and protecting the seat of government when attacks did occur. Constantinople endured nearly forty sieges over its millennium-long history, necessitating a strong defence system. The impressive defensive structure surrounding Constantinople can be primarily attributed to Emperors, Constantine the Great, who built the city, and Flavius Anthemius, who was the de facto ruler of the Byzantine Empire while Theodosius II was still a child. When Constantine arrived at Byzantion in the early 4th century, the city had very little in the way of a defensive structure; Constantine expanded the city westwards and built walls to protect a new area of six square kilometres. However, about half a century later, during the reign of Theodosius II, a new problem arose. Due to the fast-improving economic situation of Constantinople, the city was growing in population, and thus, there were settlements nearly two and a half kilometres away from the walls built by Constantine.[5] As Theodosius was not yet of age to rule, Anthemius, a Praetorian Prefect, ordered the construction of what are now called the Theodosian Walls.
Stretching from coast to coast, the first line of defence was a moat, “sixty feet wide and twenty-two feet deep.”[6] If the moat failed to stop invaders, a tower of twenty-seven feet in height, manned by men with Greek fire, was sure to stop invading forces in the first millennium.[7] Additionally, Constantinople was protected by an inner wall that was up to six metres thick and twelve metres high; this resulted in the city having one of the most elaborate defensive structures in ancient times. The significance of the Theodosian Walls in why the city of Constantinople survived for so long was their utility in defending the seat of Byzantine power and wealth from attack. Attila the Hun, who plundered Europe in his lifetime, was famously stopped by the walls of Constantinople. This demonstrates how effective the walls were in contributing to the longevity of the Byzantine Empire.
The reforms of the Emperor Justinian were vital in ensuring that the Byzantine Empire was able to survive for so long. Justinian’s great leadership resulted in a standardisation of the legal code, a considerable public infrastructure project, and a vast revamp of the military. However, great spending was necessary to accomplish this. When Justinian took over the Byzantine Empire, it was marred by ineffective and unfair taxation. The empire’s wealthy elite often avoided taxation, and the poor masses had very little to act as substitute. In order to resolve this issue, Justinian enlisted John the Cappadocian to overhaul and standardise the tax collection system. John was ruthless in his tax collection, in History of the Later Roman Empire, historian J.B Bury describes John as a man who “always has his eye on the interests of revenue, and does not pretend to disguise it.”[8] John the Cappadocian introduced new taxes; one being a tax called the “air-tax”.[9] This name suggests it was a tax on high buildings. He streamlined the tax collection process in the Byzantine Empire, by taking the power to collect taxes away from regional officers; these officers were often subject to bribery, and thus enabled corruption. Among his more controversial methods involved torturing the rich to force them to pay their taxes. John’s reforms made him vastly unpopular; Emperor Justinian was forced to temporarily sack him from his role as Prefect due to riots among the populace, and he was forced into exile by Theodora, the Empress. Nevertheless, John’s efforts were effective; his novel air-tax brought in about 3,000 pounds of gold every year to the treasury.
John the Cappadocian’s “eye on the interests of revenue” gave Justinian the funds necessary to fulfil his desires of overhauling and replacing the legal system; recovering the old Western Roman Empire; and building great architectural works. Although disregarded by his contemporaries, John’s efforts were essential in the Byzantine Empire surviving for so long. The vast sums of wealth yielded by John’s taxes granted Byzantium with a strong military, which aided the defence of Constantinople while also aiding the conquest of surrounding territories. Moreover, the immense size of the treasury enabled the standardisation of the legal code; a key component in ensuring law and order within the expanding Byzantine Empire.
When Justinian was crowned Emperor in 527 AD, there was no central source for Roman law. Laws had been legislated and repealed for hundreds of years without a central book detailing them all. The various, often conflicting, legal codes gave way to corruption within the legal hierarchy; judges could be easily bribed into enforcing certain laws over others, where contradictions arose. The inconsistency within the legal system posed the threat of invasion to the Byzantine Empire, as the people might be easily persuaded by outwards forces which promised more secure rule. Therefore, Justinian enlisted Tribonian, one of Byzantium’s greatest legal scholars, to collate and centralise the numerous legal codes used into a singular Corpus Iuris Civilis or Body of Civil Law. In the timespan of little over a year, Tribonian’s Corpus was ready to supersede every other Roman constitution, including Codex Theodosianus, an attempt by the Emperor Theodosius to compile the legal code.
Corpus served two vital roles in ensuring that the Byzantine Empire would survive for so long. Foremost, Corpus reduced corruption in Byzantium’s legal courts. The foundation of the Byzantine legal code was now succinct; it was just fifty books long, where Roman law had previously consisted of over a thousand books.[10] The concision of the legal code was less permitting to corruption as the laws were obvious to anyone who was literate. The secondary function of the legal code was in its cultural significance. Corpus secured Christianity’s status as the state religion, by suppressing paganism and purging pagans from positions of power within Byzantium.[11] Justinian ended the centuries of religious conflict between Christians and pagans, and culturally uniting the Byzantine Empire. By culturally unifying the Empire, Justinian discouraged dissent, making the chance of regional secession less likely, and ultimately, contribute to the survival of the Byzantine Empire.
Contemporary writers describe Justinian as a prolific builder. Procopius, a contemporary of Justinian, wrote Buildings, a book detailing his expansive building projects.[12] Among Justinian’s work was a vast infrastructure project, which included the construction of the Hagia Sophia, a cathedral. While aesthetically pleasing, in a similar fashion to Corpus, the Hagia Sophia acted as a cultural unifier. The defunct Roman Empire had suffered greatly from religious conflict, both within Christianity (the Council of Nicea), and concerning Christian-pagan relations. The Hagia Sophia solidified the Byzantine Empire’s Christian identity, and thus discouraged secession based on religion. Justinian’s work as a builder not only made Constantinople one of the most visually pleasing cities of his age; it acted as an implicit reminder of who the Byzantines (or Romans, as they called themselves) were.
The Byzantine Empire survived for so long because of the strength, wealth and situation of its imperial city, Constantinople. Had it been smaller, poorer, or less fortified, it would likely have fallen to one of the great generals of that era. The fact that Constantinople was eventually breached in 1453 by the Ottomans is only testament to how extraordinary the city was at the time; it took the might of Renaissance technology to conquer a city that was built in the “Dark Ages”. Furthermore, Justinian’s reforms secured the imperial finances, secured the military and secured the legal system. His reign’s work of ensuring an orderly empire created an enviable millennium-long empire. He rightfully earned himself the title of “the last Roman”.
[1] James Grout, The Sack of Rome, 2004
[2] Constantinople, 2004, Daniel C. Waugh
[3] Branko Milanovic, An Estimate of Average Income and Inequality In Byzantium Around Year 1000, 2006
[4] Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy 1-2008 AD would
[5] Deborah Deliyannis et al, “The Triple Walls: Constantinople, Early Fifth Century.” Fifty Early Medieval Things: Materials of Culture in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages , 2019
[6] Lars Brownworth, The city of walls: Constantinople, 2012
[7] Stephen Turnbull, The Walls of Constantinople AD 324–1453, 2004
[8] J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire: From Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.) (page 334), 1889
[9] Procopius, Anecdota (page 243), 550 AD
[10] Frederick W. Dingledy, The Corpus Juris Civilis: A Guide to History and Its Use, 2016
[11] Christian Wildberg, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (page 316) 2005
[12] Procopius, Buildings, 557 AD
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