From Rome to Byzantium: The Fifth Century ADByzantium was dismissed by Gibbon, in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,and his Victorian successors as a decadent, dark, oriental culture, given up to intrigue, forbidden pleasure and refined cruelty. This great empire, founded by Constantine as the seat of power in the East began to flourish in the fifth century AD, after the fall of Rome, yet its culture and history have been neglected by scholars in comparison to the privileging of interest in the Western and Roman Empire. Michael Grant's latest book aims to compensate for that neglect and to provide an insight into the nature of the Byzantine Empire in the fifth century; the prevalence of Christianity, the enormity and strangeness of the landscape of Asia Minor; and the history of invasion prior to the genesis of the empire. Michael Grant's narrative is lucid and colourful as always, lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps. He successfully provides an examination of a comparatively unexplored area and constructs the history of an empire which rivals the former richness and diversity of a now fallen Rome. |
Contents
1 Rome and other cities | 1 |
2 The divided empire | 8 |
3 Constantinople | 11 |
4 The fall of Rome | 17 |
5 Finance and the armies | 30 |
6 East and West | 37 |
7 The eastern emperors | 49 |
8 Empresses | 60 |
11 Architecture | 81 |
12 The human and divine form | 105 |
Epilogue | 118 |
Appendices | 122 |
Notes | 141 |
Lists | 179 |
Bibliography | 184 |
| 197 | |
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Common terms and phrases
A.H.M. Jones Aelia Eudoxia Alaric Alexandria Anastasius Anthemius Antioch Appendix Arcadius Arian army Asia Minor Attila Augusta barbarian basilica Baynes became building Byzantine Architecture Byzantine empire Byzantium capital centre Chapter Christian and Byzantine Cilicia coins con Constantine Constantinople Council of Chalcedon death diptych Early Byzantine Churches Early Christian Art eastern emperor Zeno eastern empire Egypt empress Ephesus fall of Rome fifth century Figure frontier Gaiseric Galla Placidia Gaul German Gibbon Gold solidus Gough Grant Greek Henotikon historian History Honorius ibid imperial Isauria Italy Jerome Justinian Koch Krautheimer Late Antiquity Later Roman Empire Latin literature Mango Marcian Master of Soldiers Mediolanum Meryemlik military monks Monophysitism mosaics north Africa Odoacer Origins of Christian pagan period Persians Pope R.M. Haywood Ravenna reign religion remained Ricimer Roman World Rome’s Santa Sophia solidus Stilicho survived Syria Theoderic Theodosius Thessalonica Valentinian Valentinian III Vandals Visigoths walls western Roman wrote Zeno’s