70 Fun Facts About Byzantine Empire

What did the citizens of the Byzantine Empire call themselves?

The term 'Byzantine' was coined only after the empire's fall; they called their state Rhomania, 'Romanland'.

The adjective 'Byzantine' derives from Byzantion, which was what?

In the empire's own day the word described only inhabitants of the city, never the state.

What did Constantine I call the city he rebuilt as his new capital between 324 and 330?

It was later named Constantinople after him; he also introduced the gold solidus as a stable currency.

Which emperor last ruled both halves of Rome and made Christianity the state religion?

After his death in 395 the West faltered while the East thrived under civilian administrators.

Which emperor divided the empire into eastern and western halves under the Tetrarchy?

The Tetrarchy quickly failed but the division proved enduring.

The eastern emperor Valens died at which battle in 378?

His successor Theodosius made peace by letting the Goths settle inside the empire.

The great land walls of Constantinople were built in the early 5th century by which praetorian prefect?

Finished in 413, the double walls stood 2 km west of Constantine's wall and held until 1453.

Which warlord deposed the last western emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476?

After Julius Nepos was murdered in 480 he abolished the office of western emperor altogether.

Which emperor persuaded Theodoric the Ostrogoth to seize Italy from the warlord who deposed the last western emperor?

Anastasius, who followed him, abolished the hated chrysargyron tax.

What was the name of the rewritten legal code enacted from 529 to 534?

The Code, the Digest and the Institutes were meant to be the sole source of law.

The Nika riots of 532 grew out of the rivalry between which two chariot-racing factions?

Nearly half of Constantinople burned and tens of thousands were killed before Justinian crushed the revolt.

The empress who steeled her husband during the Nika riots of 532 had earlier worked as what?

Procopius gives starkly different portraits of her in his public writings and his Secret History.

Which general conquered the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in 533?

He did it in nine months and then invaded Ostrogothic Italy.

Hagia Sophia, completed in 537, was designed by which two engineer-architects?

It was the world's largest interior space and among the first with a fully pendentive dome.

What was Hagia Sophia's status between 1935 and 2020?

It was a church from 360 to 1453, a mosque with added minarets after the conquest, and was redesignated a mosque in 2020.

Which Sasanian king sacked Antioch in 540 while Constantinople was preoccupied with the West?

A devastating plague struck the empire the following year.

Which emperor was overthrown and executed in 602 when mutinous troops proclaimed Phocas?

Phocas in turn lost Constantinople to Heraclius in 610.

Heraclius defeated the Sasanians decisively in 627 at which battle?

The triumph was short-lived; the Arab conquests soon took the Levant and Egypt.

After Heraclius' death in 641, roughly what share of its revenue did the empire lose with the East?

Syria and Egypt were permanently lost to the Rashidun Caliphate.

What structure allocating troops to defend specific provinces evolved from Constans II's reforms?

It let Anatolia survive annual Arab raids without permanent occupation.

Constantine IV repelled Arab attacks on Constantinople in the 670s using what weapon?

Its recipe was a closely guarded state secret and is lost, though most scholars think it was petroleum-based, like napalm.

Which emperor repelled the Arab siege of 717-718, the first serious check on Arab expansion?

He and his son Constantine V were effective rulers later vilified for supporting iconoclasm.

Byzantine iconoclasm banned what?

The First Iconoclasm ran from about 726 to 787 and the Second from 814 to 842.

Which empress, regent from 780, eased the iconoclasm controversy but saw the pope crown Charlemagne in 800?

She was overthrown by Nikephoros I in 802.

Leo VI's Basilika was what?

He also produced the Tactica and the Book of the Eparch, and married four times seeking an heir.

Basil II earned what epithet after his decades-long war ended at Kleidion in 1014?

He never married and refused to delegate; on his death in 1025 the empire ran from the Danube and Sicily to the Euphrates.

What did Basil II order done to thousands of Bulgarian prisoners after Kleidion?

The battle capped a half-century struggle with the Bulgarian emperor Samuel.

The Varangian Guard was constituted in 988 after Vladimir of Kiev sent Basil II how many warriors?

Its recruits were mainly Norsemen, later joined by Anglo-Saxons from England.

How many Byzantine emperors ruled only through their connection to Empress Zoe in the mid-11th century?

Romanos III, Michael IV, Michael V and Constantine IX; her sister Theodora chose Michael VI.

At the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuks captured which emperor?

The same year the Normans took Bari, the last Byzantine town in Italy; a decade of civil war followed.

Which emperor's appeal to Pope Urban II around 1095 helped trigger the First Crusade?

He wanted help against the Seljuks and did not anticipate the scale of the western response.

Manuel I's invasion of Anatolia was crushed in 1176 at which battle?

His Sicilian invasion had already been defeated by William I in 1156.

What was the Fourth Crusade's original target before it sacked Constantinople in 1204?

Isaac II's son Alexios Angelos lured the crusaders with promises of a huge tribute.

Which Venetian doge redirected the Fourth Crusade to attack Zara in lieu of payment?

Venice had contracted in 1201 to build the fleet, and the crusaders could not pay.

Who was crowned first ruler of the Latin Empire in Constantinople after 1204?

The Latin Empire suffered a crushing defeat by the Bulgarians in 1205.

Which of the three Greek successor states after 1204 recaptured Constantinople in 1261?

Michael VIII Palaiologos usurped the Laskarid heir and founded the empire's last dynasty.

Michael VIII staved off Charles of Anjou partly by aiding which 1282 uprising?

He also recognised papal primacy at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, to the disgust of his subjects.

Which band of mercenaries, hired in the 1300s, turned on the Byzantines?

Andronikos II had also dismissed the fleet in 1285, another critical mistake.

Which conqueror's defeat of Sultan Bayezid I in 1402 saved Constantinople from an Ottoman siege?

Manuel II then enjoyed two decades of peace while the Ottomans fought a civil war.

On what date did Constantinople fall to the Ottomans?

The siege had lasted 53 days; the last emperor Constantine XI died in battle.

Which Ottoman sultan captured Constantinople in 1453?

He was nicknamed 'the Conqueror' and made the city his new capital in place of Adrianople.

How heavy were the largest cannonballs the Ottoman guns fired at the Theodosian Walls in 1453?

They were fired over 1.5 kilometres and heralded a revolution in siege warfare.

What did Constantine XI order placed across the mouth of the Golden Horn to keep out Ottoman ships?

It was strong enough to stop any Turkish ship entering the harbour.

Constantine XI, the last emperor, was the son of Manuel II and a noblewoman from which people?

Helena Dragaš gave him his second name, Dragases.

Which city overtook Constantinople as Europe's largest and wealthiest in the 13th century?

Constantinople had held the title through the Komnenian restoration.

The separation between the Byzantine and Roman churches culminated in which year's East–West Schism?

The split had been developing since at least 597.

Byzantine missionaries are credited with developing which alphabet, ancestor of Cyrillic?

It later evolved into the Cyrillic script and Old Church Slavonic.

Until what year were chariot races held in Constantinople, one of history's longest-running sporting events?

The Fourth Crusade's sack ended them.

Byzantine silks were often dyed in what prized colour?

Illuminated manuscripts and purple silks became highly popular in Western Europe.

Which gold coin did Constantine institute as a stable currency?

It underpinned the imperial economy for centuries.

What were the Byzantine warships equipped with the empire's secret incendiary weapon called?

They made the empire the dominant power of the eastern Mediterranean.

Which doctrine did Russia develop as the sole sovereign Orthodox state after Byzantium's fall?

It emphasised a cultural heritage distinct from Western Europe.

The gold-ground mosaic style is a hallmark of Byzantine art. Which Ravenna church is a famous example?

Mosaics adorned churches, the Hippodrome and the Great Palace alike.

Islamic contemporaries called the Byzantine Empire what?

After 800 Western Europe called the Byzantines 'Greeks', claiming true Roman identity for itself.

Which two 10th-century soldier-emperors conquered Cilicia and Antioch and beat Bulgaria and the Rus'?

John Tzimiskes was also an astute administrator who reformed the army and finances.

Which of these does NOT belong to the three Greek successor states formed after 1204?

Achaea was a Latin principality in southern Greece; Trebizond lost Sinope in 1214 and faded from the main struggle.

Byzantine emperor John VIII reconciled with the Catholic West at a 15th-century council held where?

It did nothing to stop the empire's steady shrinking before 1453.

The emperor who built Hagia Sophia was born in the hamlet of Tauresium, in what is now which country?

The site of Gradište lies about 20 km southeast of Skopje.

Which Persian-style sport, brought by the Crusaders, was played by the Byzantine nobility in later centuries?

Jousting arrived from the West at the same time, while board games such as tavli grew ever more popular.

Which Byzantine dining innovation later shaped Italian and Western table habits?

By the 10th century diners had also moved from reclining to sitting at tables with clean linen.

The Byzantine condiment garos most resembles what modern product?

Other foods that survived from the era include feta cheese, dolmades, tiropita and the soup trachanas.

Roughly how many people lived in the empire at its peak around 540?

The figure fell to 12 million by 800 and to about 2 million by 1312.

About how many people were living in Constantinople when it fell to the Ottomans in 1453?

That was a tenth of the city's population in its prime.

From the 9th century, Byzantine provinces called themes were each governed solely by whom?

The old praetorian prefectures had been abandoned after the 7th century as constant war centralised power.

Byzantine chant melodies were governed from the 8th century by a framework of how many modes?

The system, the Oktōēchos, gave each mode preset motivic formulae for composing hymns and psalms.

Which female hymnographer is credited with championing the short chant form called the sticheron?

Romanos the Melodist popularised the longer kontakion and Andrew of Crete developed the kanōn.

Which Hagia Sophia architect compiled the works of Archimedes, helping preserve them for later scholars?

Leo the Mathematician later folded that compilation into formal courses, which is why the Archimedes Palimpsest survives.

Which rig design credited to the Byzantines improved a ship's responsiveness to the wind?

Other military innovations included the riding stirrup and a specialised horseshoe.

The Byzantines pioneered which institution as a place of medical care and possible cure, not merely a place to die?

Their scholars also passed on Dioscorides' pharmacology and Ptolemy's astronomy to the West.

Which epic poem about a frontier hero typifies the Byzantine literature of roughly 1000–1250?

Writers of the era such as Michael Psellos turned toward mysticism, humour, love and the individual voice.