The Lost World of Byzantium

The Lost World of Byzantium is a historical survey of the Byzantine Empire from the time of Constantine to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans. The narrative is organized into chapters focused around particular representative figures or key events, including the transition from paganism to Christianity (“Twilight of the Gods”); the campaign of Justinian (526–65) to restore the historical Roman Empire (“Outpost of Empire”); the struggle of Heraclius (610–41) against the Sassanids prior to the arrival of the Arabs (“The Deluge”); the religious environment and administrative adjustments that helped ensure the existence of the new shrunken empire (“A World Transformed”); Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople known to the West mostly because of his account of his library (“The Conquest of the North”); the rise of the Phokas clan in the tenth century and their campaign against the Arabs in the East (“Paths of Glory”); the empire's resurgence under Basil II (976–1025) and its subsequent retraction under new pressures from the East (“The Long Shadow”); the arrival of the Crusaders and the “Latin interlude” after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth crusade (“The Enemy Within”); Michael VIII Palaiologos (1258–82) and the reconnection with the Greek past (“The New Constantine”); and John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–54) and the final decline of the empire at the hands of the Ottomans (“An Old Man Remembers”). There are thirty-three excellent black-and-white plates that present images of important buildings and artworks that are mentioned in the book (although there are no references to these plates in the text itself) and five maps that detail the changes that occur to the empire over the years. The narrative is swiftly paced and aesthetically pleasing, despite the flurry of names and dates, and will thus appeal to the curious reader who seeks an introduction to this fascinating era.To tell a thousand years of history in 250 pages and still say something substantive is a major challenge. There is no way to completely avoid anodyne narratives of this person setting out from his stronghold against that person and being victorious or suffering some unforeseen setback. That, after all, is the stuff of history, such as it has come down to us. Here is a short passage that is not untypical: While Ildibad was reclining on a couch, and leaning forward to take some food, one of his guards stepped up behind him and cut off his head, leaving the decapitated corpse sitting with the morsel still in its hand. A certain Eraric was then proclaimed king but within a few months he shared Ildibad's fate. Eraric's replacement was Ildibad's nephew, Totila. Leadership changes make up a large part of the book, and anecdotal details like the ones in the above passage abound as well; they are often amusing and make an otherwise lifeless account vigorous, even though many of them sound like they are more legendary than historical. The book is clearly directed at the general reader who isn't interested in the details of our sources for this material, which are not generally given except in the brief “Further Reading” section at the back. This makes the account uncluttered, and the author is a well-respected expert who is unlikely to be sneaking some crucial controversy under our noses.One of the most striking things about reading this book is the way that world-changing events in the rest of the world are brought in as minor characters, and only insofar as they actually impinge on the main lines of the story of Byzantium. Reading this account of the Crusades, for example, alongside Amin Mahlouf's The Crusades through Arab Eyes or even standard accounts of the Crusades from the West can be jarring, as figures like Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, and the Mamluks appear and disappear as quickly as Ildibad.But this procedure gives the account focus; while everyone will have their own sense of something missing, it was not the purpose of the author to tell the whole story. I knew very little about the Bulgars and Avars, for example, and found the account of them interesting and sufficient. Sometimes the focus on particular figures and their peculiarities can give the impression that the engine of history is individual fantasy or virtue, and no doubt that is true to an extent. More interesting to me are the places where Harris details various institutional changes or policies that helped sustain the empire in challenging times. These include the establishment in the seventh century of themes, semiautonomous administrative and military units, in order to defend the frontiers better; the creation in the eighth century of tagmata, elite forces stationed around the capital and loyal to the emperor, who now had to fear the commanders of the themes; the transfer of populations from one area to a border province; and new tactics to deal with Arab raids, including the use of “Greek fire” and early warning systems in the eighth century. Another important cultural practice that comes up again and again is the use of the notion of “holy war” to motivate warriors to fight, and the many mixed consequences of playing with this kind of fire.Several things about the book and the topic are interesting from a Mediterranean point of view. The peculiar position of Constantinople at the juncture of East and West guarantees it a colorful and fraught history. The Byzantines, who called themselves hoi romaioi (the Romans), saw themselves as the true heirs to the legacy of the Roman Empire, whose Latin-speaking counterpart it survived by nearly a millennium. But European history was dominated for centuries by the myth of the “Westerning” of civilization, a legacy that moves from Mesopotamia to Greece to Rome and then to Northern Europe. In such a scheme the Byzantine Empire is relegated to a vaguely “Oriental” affair with at best a handmaid role for the real heroes of history. Harris does a good job of rehabilitating the Eastern Mediterranean as a powerful source of cultural energy that was transmitted not only to the West, but to the last of the great Muslim empires that made Constantinople, now modernized as “Istanbul,” its capital.The Byzantine Empire is a great example of what Samir Amin in Unequal Development calls the “Mediterranean tributary empire,” a form of social organization and political domination that goes back as far as the Achaemenid Persians. Characteristic of such an empire is the contradiction between the periphery and the center, in which resources flow in one direction from the periphery to the center of power, while at the same time the diverse elements of the empire are affirmed and defined within a hierarchy with the capital at its center. The patent inequality of this relationship must be overcome ideologically with all the resources of art, religion, and philosophy, which seek to normalize inequality and hierarchy as an instance of a universal divine order. This is a scenario that Harris returns to many times as Constantinople—its enormous wealth collected by the exploitation of its provinces and accumulated and displayed ostentatiously behind its impregnable defenses—is constantly beset with popular generals marching to the capital to seize power on behalf of their overtaxed populace. Harris's account of the iconoclastic controversy in the eighth century and the way it meshed with various political causes and problems helps make sense of these theological differences that can seem so trivial from a distance. There is also an interesting discussion of the selection of the term “Hellenes” to replace “Romans” after the “Latin interlude,” and the way that identity politics at that time contrasted with the universalist claims of the more sprawling empire of old.Harris also views the multicultural character of the empire and its ability to absorb new populations and redeploy them in various ways as one of the keys to its long success. This sounds uncannily modern as migrant crises and nationalist fervor shake the foundations of Western democracies and their values.The text is beautifully produced, and I noticed only two very minor errors: on page 25 read monachoi, not monarchoi; and a minor dittography on page 105 (“to leave to leave”)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Byzantine architecture · Christianity · Emperor · Empire · Glory · Paganism · Roman Empire · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · History