Originally posted by herbivore
Well, there is a conspiracy of silence and wrong facts in all "historical" books regarding Romeic Empire. You may have been taught that this Empire
was Greek, and it was not. They were Roman empire, the strongest in the history of the world (lasted a 1000 years). Please watch the video (I watched
it several times, enjoying every time). Listen carefully, as every word has importance.
[edit on 6-1-2010 by herbivore]
Ah Byzantium my old buddy, yes it is underrated.
You do need to read up more on it though, than just watch a you tube video...
it was not the greatest, depends how one decides what is the greatest.
The Religion of Chritianity adopted by Contanitine changed the Roman Empire religion.
Rome fell to plague and invaders and moved the capitol to the Bospherous. The fact that filth and invaders made their way to Rome suggests that it was
not so great anymore...
The Church was Greek Orthodox in Constantinople.
There was a schism in the church and Rome maintained Latin tradition (Roman Catholic) and Constantinople became the Greek Orthodox Church. They
spoke Greek in the government and church of Byzantium
In that time their art, aquaducts and sanitation did not match the skill of old Rome or Greece, with the exception of Brick making which is argued to
have advanced in the Byzantine period.
The Ottomon empire was more reaching than Byzantium......
Religion ruled Art and we saw beautiful 2 dimensional mosaics, but no classical sculpture etc until the Renaissance (meaning rebirth of learning)
where they learnt from ancient Rome and Greece.
Ravenna in Italy rose for a while as a power base during this time.
It fell to the the Selcuks in the 13th century, and they took over Hagia Sophia ( the great Chruch) and made it a mosque as they did with most
Byzantine edifaces.
Whilst it is one of my favourite historical periods, it certainly did not match earlier periods for realsitic art, sanitation and architecture (the
first Hagia Sophia collapsed in a earthquake). Though it did keep the hellenistic traditions and learnings (from Arabs mathemeticians and writers )
going in Europe when the west went into the dark ages. It should be credited for keeping humanism teachings alive when the other side silenced or lost
it.
Quite frankly Im finding all these threads lately of "this culture was the strongest and greatest" a little tiresome, Appreciate a period in history
for its contribution to our human collective, and not use it as a nationalistic rant.
It is also now called Istanbul, just as Croatia is no longer called Illyria.
As Rome covered all north Africa, should we call it all Rome also still?...very silly thread concept you have here
[edit on 7-1-2010 by zazzafrazz]