70 Fun Facts About Byzantine Empire

What did the citizens of the Byzantine Empire call themselves?

Romans they remained in their own eyes for over a thousand years; the label 'Byzantine' was coined by historians only after the empire had fallen.

'Byzantine' comes from Byzantion, which was what?

The Greek settlement on which Constantinople was built lent its name only to that city's residents; nobody called the whole empire 'Byzantine' until after it had fallen.

What did Constantine I call his new eastern capital, rebuilt between 324 and 330?

New Rome was his name for it, but the city soon became known by his own name instead: Constantinople, the city of Constantine.

Constantine legalised Christianity, but which later emperor made it the state religion and was the last to rule the whole empire?

Theodosius I left the empire to his two sons when he died in 395, one ruling from each capital, and no single emperor ever held east and west together again.

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

Diocletian judged the empire too big for one ruler and shared it among four; in 305 he became the first Roman emperor to step down of his own accord.

The eastern emperor Valens died at which battle in 378?

Adrianople cost Rome two-thirds of an army in an afternoon; Valens's body was never found, and his successor had to let the Goths settle inside the empire.

Which invader ravaged the Balkans in the 440s until Constantinople bought him off with a huge yearly tribute in gold?

Attila later turned on the weaker western empire instead, and his own realm broke apart within years of his death in 453.

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

Odoacer spared the boy-emperor and sent him to live in Campania on an allowance, then ruled Italy as king without naming a successor.

Which Ostrogothic king did Emperor Zeno encourage to take Italy from the warlord who had deposed the last western emperor?

Theodoric invited his rival to a banquet in Ravenna in 493 to seal a power-sharing deal, killed him with his own hands, and then ruled Italy for 33 years.

By what name is the imperial legal code rewritten and enacted between 529 and 534 now known?

Corpus Juris Civilis is a title given centuries later; studied in Europe's universities from the 11th century, Justinian's compilation became the basis of many modern legal systems.

Which two chariot-racing factions joined forces against Justinian in the Nika riots of 532?

Blues and Greens were usually bitter rivals, but they united after Justinian refused to pardon one man from each side; the week-long revolt ended with some 30,000 dead.

Which former actress became empress and urged Justinian to stand firm during the Nika riots of 532?

Theodora. Roman law barred senators from marrying actresses, so Justinian's uncle, the emperor Justin I, changed it, and she was crowned beside her husband in 527.

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

Belisarius. He shattered the Vandals in two battles within months, then brought their king Gelimer back to Constantinople as a captive to walk in his triumph.

What brought down Hagia Sophia's first dome in 558, some twenty years after the church was finished?

An earthquake. The replacement dome was built taller and steeper, so more of its weight pressed straight down instead of pushing the walls outward.

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

A museum. Atatürk's secular republic closed the mosque and reopened it as a museum, until a Turkish court annulled that decision in 2020 and it became a mosque again.

The pandemic that reached Constantinople in 542 and is named after Justinian was an outbreak of which disease?

Plague. DNA from 6th-century graves shows the same bacterium that later caused the Black Death, and Justinian caught it himself in 542 but recovered.

Which relic, seized by the Persians at Jerusalem in 614, did Heraclius later restore to the city?

The True Cross. The Persians carried it off when they took Jerusalem, and their collapse after his victory forced them to hand it back, so Heraclius restored it to the city.

Heraclius defeated the Sasanians decisively in 627 at which battle?

Nineveh. Heraclius is said to have killed the Persian general in single combat, and soon afterwards the Persian king was overthrown and killed by his own son, who sued for peace.

On which strait between Europe and Asia did Constantinople stand?

The Bosphorus. Constantine chose the site because it was almost surrounded by water and easy to defend, and every ship leaving the Black Sea had to pass beneath its walls.

Which Byzantine arrangement, begun in the 7th century, stationed armies in set districts under military governors?

The theme system. Each district's general commanded its troops and governed it too, and that standing local defence let Anatolia outlast yearly Arab raids without being occupied.

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

Greek fire. Sprayed from tubes on the ships' prows, it kept burning on water, and its recipe was guarded so closely that it has since been lost.

Which emperor repelled the great Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–718?

Leo III. Crowned only months before the Arabs arrived, he held the walls while an unusually hard winter, famine and disease wore the besiegers down until they withdrew in August 718.

What name is given to the Byzantine emperors' 8th- and 9th-century drive to remove religious images from churches?

Iconoclasm. From 726 emperors feared that honouring icons had become idolatry, and the images returned for good only in 843, a restoration Eastern churches still celebrate each year.

Which empress ruled the Byzantine Empire alone when the pope crowned Charlemagne emperor in 800?

Irene. She had overthrown her own son to rule alone, and two years after the coronation a marriage between her and Charlemagne was reportedly discussed.

Which Greek mountain has been home to a self-governing republic of Orthodox monks since Byzantine times?

Mount Athos. Its first great monastery was founded in 963 with an emperor's money, and its twenty monasteries still govern themselves and still bar women from the peninsula.

By which epithet is the long-reigning emperor Basil II, who died in 1025, remembered?

The Bulgar Slayer. As a young emperor he was routed by the Bulgarians at Trajan's Gate, and he spent the following decades avenging it until their state was annexed in 1018.

What is Basil II said to have ordered done to thousands of prisoners after Kleidion?

They were blinded. Chroniclers, perhaps exaggerating, say one man in every hundred kept an eye to lead the rest home, and that their ruler Samuel died of shock at the sight.

The Varangian Guard, the Byzantine emperors' elite bodyguard, was first recruited mainly from which people?

Vikings. The first 6,000 were Rus warriors sent from Kiev to help Basil II keep his throne, and Anglo-Saxons from England later filled the ranks beside them.

In modern English, what is a set of rules described as 'byzantine'?

Overly complicated. English borrowed the empire's name for anything as intricate and scheming as the imperial court at Constantinople was reputed to be.

At which battle in 1071 did the Seljuk Turks capture the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV?

Manzikert. The sultan freed his captive within days in return for territory, but Romanos came home to find himself overthrown, and the Turks went on to take most of Anatolia.

Emperor Alexios I asked the pope for mercenaries against the Seljuks and instead set off which campaign?

The First Crusade. Whole armies arrived where Alexios had wanted hired soldiers, so he made their leaders swear to hand back any imperial land they retook from the Turks.

On first seeing the finished Hagia Sophia, Justinian is said to have boasted that he had outdone which biblical king?

Solomon. 'Solomon, I have surpassed thee,' he reportedly said of a church built in under six years after rioters burned down its predecessor.

The Fourth Crusade planned to reach Jerusalem by first invading which country?

Egypt. The plan was to break the sultan's power on the Nile before marching on Jerusalem, but the army could not pay for its ships and was steered elsewhere to settle the debt.

Which maritime republic, led by its blind and aged ruler Enrico Dandolo, steered the Fourth Crusade against Constantinople?

Venice. The crusaders could not pay for the fleet it had built them, so Dandolo had them work off the debt, first against Zara and then against Constantinople itself.

Which emblem of the Palaiologoi, the last Byzantine dynasty, still appears on Russia's coat of arms?

A double-headed eagle. Moscow's grand prince Ivan III took it up after marrying Sophia Palaiologina, niece of the last emperor, and Albania's flag carries one too.

Which Greek successor state recaptured Constantinople from the crusaders in 1261?

Empire of Nicaea. A scouting force of about 800 men found most of the city's garrison away in July 1261, got inside the walls and took it almost without a fight.

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?

The Catalan Company. After the co-emperor had its leader Roger de Flor assassinated in 1305, it ravaged Thrace for two years and went on to seize Athens for itself.

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

Timur. He took Bayezid prisoner at Ankara, and the sultan's sons then fought an eleven-year civil war, a reprieve that let Constantinople survive another half-century.

Greek scholars fleeing Constantinople's fall in 1453 carried their learning west, helping feed which movement?

The Renaissance. Italian humanists had already been seeking out Byzantine teachers to help them read ancient Greek texts, so the refugees found pupils waiting.

Which Ottoman sultan captured Constantinople in 1453?

Mehmed II. Aged just 21, he made the conquered city his capital and ordered thousands of households from across his empire to move there and refill it.

Which weapon did the Hungarian engineer Orban build for the Ottoman sultan after the emperor could not afford his price?

Giant cannon. The biggest hurled huge stone balls more than a kilometre at the land walls, but the heat of each shot limited it to about seven firings a day.

What did Constantine XI stretch across the mouth of the Golden Horn in 1453 to keep out the Ottoman fleet?

A great chain. It held, so the sultan had his ships hauled overland behind Galata and launched into the harbour on the far side of it.

Children born to a reigning Byzantine emperor, in a palace chamber lined with porphyry, were said to be 'born in the' what?

Purple. Purple dye was so costly that law and custom reserved it for royalty, and the title porphyrogennetos, purple-born, went only to children born after their father took the throne.

Which western city overtook Constantinople as Europe's largest during the 13th century?

Paris. The crusaders' sack gutted Constantinople just as Paris was growing into the most populous city of the medieval West.

What is the 1054 break between Rome's and Constantinople's churches called?

The Great Schism. The pope's envoys laid their bull on the altar of Hagia Sophia, the patriarch answered in kind, and the two sentences were lifted only in 1965.

Which brothers devised the Slavs' first alphabet?

Cyril and Methodius. The Byzantine missionaries devised Glagolitic in the 9th century to put church texts into Slavic; their followers in Bulgaria later built a new script on Greek letters, and that one took Cyril's name.

Where in Constantinople did Justinian's troops trap and cut down the Nika rioters in 532?

The Hippodrome. The rioters were in the chariot-racing arena crowning a rival emperor of their own when the troops stormed in.

Which Chinese secret did two monks smuggle to the court of Justinian, ending the empire's costly dependence on imports?

Silkworm eggs. Persia had controlled the overland trade and its prices; once the worms were hatching at home, silk-making became an imperial monopoly.

Which gold coin did Constantine institute as a stable currency?

Solidus. It kept its weight for some seven centuries, until 11th-century emperors debased it and Alexios I replaced it with a new coin; western Europe knew it as the bezant, after Byzantium.

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 arose in Russia after Byzantium's fall to present Moscow as the empire's successor?

Third Rome. Rome and Constantinople had both fallen, a monk of Pskov wrote to the grand prince, so Moscow now stood as the third, and there would be no fourth.

Which Italian church holds the famous gold mosaics of the emperor Justinian and his court?

Basilica of San Vitale. A local banker paid for the Ravenna church, finished in 547 after Justinian's armies had taken the city; his court fills one wall of the apse and the empress's the other.

Which title did Simeon of Bulgaria take in rivalry with the Byzantine emperors?

Tsar. The word is a Slavic form of 'Caesar', so taking it was a claim to stand level with the emperor in Constantinople; Ivan IV made it Russia's title in 1547.

Which ruler of Kiev was baptised a Christian around 988 and married the sister of the emperor Basil II?

Vladimir the Great. The bride was his price for sending soldiers to prop up Basil's throne, and his baptism drew Kiev and its people into the Byzantine church.

Hagia Sophia honours no saint called Sophia, so what does its Greek name mean?

Holy Wisdom. The name refers to Christ as the Wisdom of God, not to a woman called Sophia, and the Ottomans kept it when they turned the church into the mosque Ayasofya.

In 1439 the emperor John VIII accepted church union with the pope at a council in which city?

Florence. The council had opened in Ferrara and moved there, and the union was proclaimed on 6 July 1439, yet Constantinople fell to the Ottomans fourteen years later.

Justinian, a Balkan peasant's son, grew up speaking which language rather than the Greek of his capital?

Latin. He owed his rise to his uncle Justin, a soldier who climbed from the ranks to the throne and adopted him, and his great law code was composed in his mother tongue.

Which horseback sport from Persia did the Byzantine nobility play under the name tzykanion?

Polo. It began in Persia as a training game for the king's cavalry before becoming a pastime of nobles, and the Byzantines took it up in its Persian form.

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

The fork. A Byzantine princess who married into Italy in the early 1000s ate with a golden one, and half a century later a churchman was still condemning it as sinful luxury.

The Byzantine condiment garos most resembles what modern product?

Fermented fish sauce. Garos was Rome's garum under its Greek name, and a bishop sent as envoy to Constantinople in 968 grumbled that the emperor's table served dishes steeped in the stuff.

At its height under Justinian, the Byzantine Empire once again held lands around most of which sea?

The Mediterranean. His generals retook North Africa and Italy, but within a decade of his death the Lombards had overrun much of northern Italy and the gains began to slip.

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

50,000. That was about a tenth of what the city had held in its prime, and it could muster only a few thousand soldiers to man its walls.

The Nika riots of 532 took their name from the crowd's chant of 'Nika', a Greek word meaning what?

Conquer. Fans normally screamed it at the charioteer they backed, as in 'Win!'; in 532 the rival factions joined forces and turned the chant on Justinian.

Tavli, a board game the Byzantines loved and Greeks still play, is a form of which game?

Backgammon. One 5th-century emperor had such a disastrous dice throw that a historian wrote the position down, which is why the game can still be reconstructed today.

Which 9th-century poet is said to have lost an emperor's bride show by out-arguing him?

Kassia. As chroniclers tell it, he remarked that evil came into the world through a woman, she answered that better things did too, and he chose another bride; she became a nun whose hymn is still sung each Holy Week.

Hagia Sophia's designer Isidore of Miletus is credited with first compiling the works of which ancient Greek mathematician?

Archimedes. A copy made in Constantinople some 400 years later was scraped and overwritten as a prayer book, and that reused parchment, the Archimedes Palimpsest, still holds his text.

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.

Which medical institution is the Byzantine Empire credited with pioneering in its modern form?

The hospital. Rome had kept sick-houses only for soldiers and slaves; the Byzantine church opened them to the public as an act of charity, aiming to send patients home cured.

Which historian praised Justinian's wars and buildings in public but savaged the emperor in his unpublished 'Secret History'?

Procopius. He had spent years on the staff of Justinian's chief general, so the man who wrote the official praise from the inside also wrote the most scandalous attack.