The Byzantine Empire

330 CE O.S. – 1453 O.S.73 items

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Justinian and his court, with Archbishop Maximian, in the apse mosaic of San Vitale, Ravenna, 540s. Photo: Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Justinian and his court, with Archbishop Maximian, in the apse mosaic of San Vitale, Ravenna, 540s. Photo: Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

New Rome on the Bosporus, 330–1453

For eleven centuries the Roman Empire went on in the East, ruled from the city Constantine dedicated on the Bosporus in 330. It lost the West, then Syria and Egypt, came back under the Macedonian emperors, was sacked by fellow Christians in 1204, and fell to the Ottomans on 29 May 1453. Its people never called themselves Byzantines: they were Rhomaioi, Romans. A German scholar, Hieronymus Wolf, made “Byzantine” the usual label in 1557.

Julian dates, as Byzantium kept them

Every date here is in the Julian calendar, the calendar the empire used to its last day; the Gregorian reform came 129 years after the fall. The Byzantines themselves counted years Anno Mundi, from the creation of the world, which they put in 5509 BCE, with the year starting on 1 September, and they tagged each year with its place in the fifteen-year tax cycle, the indiction. To them the city fell in the year 6961.

How it is laid out

  • Dynasties as bands (tag dynasties), from the Constantinians to the Palaiologoi, with Nicaea as the empire in exile from 1204 to 1261. Gaps between bands are reigns no dynasty claims, such as Phokas (602–610).

  • Other periods: Justinian’s reconquest, the plague, the two waves of Iconoclasm, and the great sieges of the city.

  • Threads to filter by: sieges, religion, war, women, architecture and crusades.

  • It overlaps Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire from 330 to 476; this one stays in the East.

We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty. — the envoys of Vladimir of Kiev on the liturgy in Hagia Sophia, in the Russian Primary Chronicle

Items

  1. Constantinian dynasty

    ≈ 33 years

  2. Constantinople dedicated

    Column of Constantine (Çemberlitaş), Constantinople

  3. Constantine baptised on his deathbed

    Near Nicomedia (İzmit)

  4. Julian dies in Persia

  5. Theodosian dynasty

    ≈ 78 years

  6. First Council of Constantinople

    Hagia Irene, Constantinople

  7. The empire divided between two sons

    Milan

  8. The Theodosian Walls

    Theodosian land walls, Constantinople

  9. The walls rebuilt in two months

    Theodosian land walls, Constantinople

  10. Council of Chalcedon

    Chalcedon (Kadıköy)

  11. Leonid dynasty

    ≈ 61 years

  12. The West’s regalia sent to Constantinople

    Ravenna

  13. Justinian dynasty

    84 years

  14. Justinian becomes sole emperor

    Great Palace, Constantinople

  15. The Nika riots

    5 days · Hippodrome (Sultanahmet Square)

  16. Justinian’s reconquest of the West

    ≈ 21 years

  17. Belisarius enters Carthage

    Carthage

  18. Justinian’s Digest is issued

  19. Hagia Sophia consecrated

    Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

  20. Belisarius takes Ravenna

    Ravenna

  21. The Plague of Justinian

    ≈ 1 year · Constantinople (Istanbul)

  22. San Vitale consecrated at Ravenna

    Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

  23. Monks smuggle silkworms

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  24. Heraclian dynasty

    ≈ 101 years

  25. Avar and Persian siege of Constantinople

    9 days · Theodosian land walls, Constantinople

  26. Heraclius defeats Persia at Nineveh

    Near the ruins of Nineveh

  27. Battle of the Yarmouk

    Near the Yarmouk river (the field is argued)

  28. The last Byzantine troops leave Alexandria

    Alexandria

  29. Kallinikos brings Greek fire

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  30. First Arab siege of Constantinople

    4 years · Constantinople (Istanbul)

  31. Justinian II returns without his nose

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  32. Isaurian dynasty

    ≈ 85 years

  33. Second Arab siege of Constantinople

    ≈ 1 year · Theodosian land walls, Constantinople

  34. First Iconoclasm

    ≈ 61 years

  35. Leo III’s edict against icons

    Great Palace, Constantinople

  36. Council of Hieria

    Palace of Hieria (Fenerbahçe)

  37. Second Council of Nicaea

    Hagia Sophia, Nicaea (İznik)

  38. Irene rules alone

    Great Palace, Constantinople

  39. Krum kills the emperor Nikephoros

    A pass in the Balkan Mountains (the site is argued)

  40. Second Iconoclasm

    ≈ 27 years, 8 months

  41. Amorian dynasty

    ≈ 47 years

  42. Triumph of Orthodoxy

    Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

  43. Cyril and Methodius go to Moravia

  44. Macedonian dynasty

    ≈ 189 years

  45. Antioch retaken

    Antioch (Antakya)

  46. Vladimir of Kiev is baptised

    Chersonesos (Korsun), Crimea

  47. Basil II’s victory at Kleidion

    Kleidion pass, near Klyuch

  48. Basil II dies

  49. Zoe and Theodora rule together

    Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

  50. The schism of 1054

    Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

  51. Doukas dynasty

    ≈ 19 years

  52. Battle of Manzikert

    Near Manzikert (Malazgirt)

  53. Komnenos dynasty

    104 years

  54. Venice gets free trade in the empire

  55. Nicaea surrenders to Alexios

    Nicaea (İznik)

  56. Anna Komnene writes the Alexiad

  57. Massacre of the Latins

    Italian quarters on the Golden Horn

  58. Angelos dynasty

    ≈ 19 years

  59. Laskarid Nicaea: the empire in exile

    ≈ 57 years

  60. The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople

    3 days · Sea walls on the Golden Horn, by the Petrion

  61. The Komnenoi take Trebizond

    Trebizond (Trabzon)

  62. Palaiologos dynasty

    192 years

  63. Constantinople recovered

    Gate of the Spring (Silivrikapı)

  64. The Zealots rule Thessalonica

    8 years · Thessalonica

  65. The Black Death reaches Constantinople

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  66. The Ottomans take Gallipoli

    Gallipoli (Gelibolu)

  67. Manuel II spends Christmas in England

    Eltham Palace, Kent

  68. Union of the churches at Florence

    Florence Cathedral

  69. Constantine XI proclaimed at Mystras

    Mystras, in the Morea

  70. Rumeli Hisarı finished

    Rumeli Hisarı, on the Bosporus

  71. The siege of 1453

    1 month, 23 days · Theodosian land walls, Constantinople

  72. Ottoman ships dragged over land

    Overland route behind Galata (approximate)

  73. The fall of Constantinople

    Gate of St Romanus (Topkapı)