The Byzantine Empire: How Rome’s Eastern Heir Preserved and Transformed the Ancient World

For more than a thousand years, an empire centered on Constantinople survived invasions, religious conflicts, economic crises, territorial losses, and repeated struggles for the throne. Its inhabitants called themselves Romans, its rulers claimed an unbroken line of Roman imperial authority, and its institutions preserved and transformed laws, administrative practices, religious traditions, and artistic forms inherit

The apse mosaic of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in Hagia Sophia, unveiled after the restoration of icon veneration.

ed from antiquity. Modern historians usually call this state the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire was neither a frozen remnant of ancient Rome nor simply a medieval Greek kingdom. It changed profoundly between the foundation of Constantinople in 330 CE and the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. Latin gradually gave way to Greek in government, Christianity became central to imperial identity, and the empire adapted its armies, taxation, diplomacy, and provincial administration to new conditions. At different moments, it ruled much of the Mediterranean; at others, it survived as a reduced regional power surrounded by stronger rivals.

Its influence extended far beyond imperial borders. Byzantine law shaped later legal traditions, missionaries carried forms of Christianity and literacy into eastern Europe, merchants connected the Mediterranean with Eurasian trade networks, and artists created mosaics, icons, manuscripts, and churches that influenced Christian cultures from Italy to Russia. Yet its history also included persecution, civil war, forced displacement, social inequality, and destructive conflicts over religion and political authority. Understanding Byzantium therefore requires separating its documented achievements from romantic claims about a perfect guardian of civilization.

What Was the Byzantine Empire?

The term “Byzantine Empire” is a modern historical label for the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire. The empire’s own citizens generally identified themselves as Rhomaioi—Romans—and their state as the Empire of the Romans. Constantinople had developed from the ancient settlement of Byzantion, which explains the later scholarly name “Byzantine.” However, the people who lived under the emperors in Constantinople did not normally use that term as the official name of their state.

This distinction matters because describing the empire as Byzantine can create a false break between ancient Rome and its medieval eastern continuation. Imperial government did not suddenly restart under a new civilization. Roman offices, taxation, law, military command, urban institutions, and political ideas continued while changing over centuries. Modern scholarship debates how best to name and periodize this history, but there is broad agreement that Byzantine society understood its empire as Roman.

There is no universally accepted starting date. Some histories begin in 284 CE with the administrative reforms of Diocletian, in 324 or 330 with Constantine’s establishment of Constantinople, in 395 with the division following the death of Theodosius I, or in 476 when imperial rule ended in the western provinces. These dates represent different stages in a long transformation rather than the sudden birth of a completely new state.

The final date is clearer. On May 29, 1453, the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, bringing the imperial government based there to an end. Even this event did not erase Byzantine cultural influence. Orthodox Christian communities, legal traditions, artistic practices, and political memories continued in the Ottoman world and across eastern Europe.

Constantinople: The Strategic Heart of an Empire

Constantine I selected Byzantion for an imperial residence and formally dedicated Constantinople in 330 CE. The city stood beside the Bosporus, the waterway connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. Its position allowed rulers to monitor maritime movement, communicate with the Balkans and Anatolia, and participate in trade linking the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and routes farther east.

Geography alone did not make Constantinople powerful. Emperors invested in harbors, aqueducts, cisterns, palaces, churches, public spaces, and defensive walls. The Theodosian Walls, expanded in the fifth century, combined ditches and multiple lines of fortification on the vulnerable landward side. These defenses helped the capital resist numerous attacks, although they were not invincible. The city fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and, after imperial restoration in 1261, finally to the Ottomans in 1453.

A historically informed reconstruction of Constantinople’s land walls, which protected the Byzantine capital for centuries  

 

Constantinople was also a ceremonial landscape. The Great Palace, the Hippodrome, imperial forums, churches, processional routes, and public monuments presented the emperor as the defender of Roman order and Christian faith. Political messages were communicated through architecture, ritual, clothing, coins, public acclamations, and religious ceremonies.

The city’s population changed greatly across time, and precise numbers remain disputed because medieval evidence is incomplete. At its height, however, Constantinople was one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world. It depended on complex systems of food supply, shipping, storage, taxation, and distribution. Its survival was not merely the result of strong walls but of administrative organization and access to regional resources.

Justinian I: Reconquest, Law, and Imperial Ambition

The reign of Justinian I, from 527 to 565, is one of the most intensively documented and debated periods of Byzantine history. Justinian sought to strengthen imperial government and recover territories formerly ruled from Rome. His armies, led by commanders including Belisarius and Narses, defeated the Vandal kingdom in North Africa, conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy after a destructive war, and gained territory in southern Spain.

The celebrated mosaic of Emperor Justinian I at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, dating to the sixth century.

منThese conquests temporarily restored imperial control over large parts of the Mediterranean, but they came at enormous financial and human cost. Warfare devastated regions of Italy, while later invasions and administrative pressures made many reconquests difficult to maintain. Justinian’s project should therefore be understood as an ambitious but incomplete restoration, not as a permanent rebuilding of the ancient Roman Empire.

His most durable political legacy was the compilation now known as the Corpus Iuris Civilis, or Body of Civil Law. Imperial commissions collected, organized, and revised centuries of Roman legal material. The project included the Codex, the Digest, the Institutes, and later laws called the Novels. These texts were created to serve the needs of sixth-century imperial government, but their later study profoundly influenced civil-law traditions, especially after their revival in medieval western European legal education.

It would be inaccurate to claim that Justinian invented Roman law or that modern legal systems descend from his work without interruption. His jurists selected and reorganized a much older tradition, and its later influence varied by region and historical period. Nevertheless, the compilation preserved a vast body of Roman jurisprudence that might otherwise have survived only in fragments.

Justinian’s reign also witnessed the Nika Revolt of 532, when unrest associated with circus factions expanded into a major political rebellion in Constantinople. The uprising was violently suppressed. The event demonstrates that imperial grandeur existed beside severe political tension, popular protest, and coercive power.

Hagia Sophia and Byzantine Architectural Innovation

After the Nika Revolt damaged an earlier church, Justinian commissioned a new Hagia Sophia, meaning Holy Wisdom. Designed by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, the building was inaugurated in 537. Its vast interior combined a longitudinal basilica with a centralized domed space. Pendentives transferred the load of the central dome toward massive supporting piers, creating an impression of a canopy suspended above a luminous interior.

The monumental interior of Hagia Sophia reflects the architectural ambition of Justinian’s sixth-century Constantinople.

The present structure reflects repairs and alterations made after earthquakes and across later Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern periods. It should not be treated as an untouched sixth-century building. Its changing mosaics, liturgical arrangements, buttresses, minarets, inscriptions, and conservation history document successive communities that used and reinterpreted the monument.

Hagia Sophia became an influential architectural model for churches and, later, mosques. UNESCO describes it as a major component of Istanbul’s World Heritage landscape and recognizes the wider influence of Constantinople’s monuments on architecture and art in Europe and the Near East. Its historical importance comes not only from size or engineering, but also from the interaction of architecture, light, marble, mosaic, ceremony, music, and imperial ritual.

Byzantine architecture was never limited to one building or one fixed style. Domed churches, basilicas, monasteries, palaces, fortifications, cisterns, houses, and workshops varied by region, function, patronage, and date. Archaeological sites such as Mystras in Greece preserve late Byzantine churches that reveal continued architectural experimentation centuries after Justinian.

Government, Army, and the Ability to Adapt

The longevity of the empire did not result from an unchanging bureaucratic system. Byzantine institutions repeatedly adapted to territorial losses, new enemies, fiscal pressures, and internal conflict. Emperors relied on officials, courts, tax collectors, military commanders, church leaders, and provincial elites, but the balance among these groups shifted over time.

During the seventh century, the empire lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to Arab armies after exhausting wars with the Sasanian Persian Empire. These losses removed wealthy provinces and forced major changes in strategy and administration. The imperial state became more concentrated in Anatolia and the Balkans, while Greek became increasingly dominant in administration.

The system conventionally called the “themes” connected provinces with military commands and became an important feature of the middle Byzantine state. Historians have revised older theories that imagined the entire system appearing suddenly through one reform. Evidence suggests a gradual development whose organization and social effects changed over time.

Byzantine warfare combined fortified cities, field armies, naval forces, intelligence, diplomacy, tribute, marriage alliances, and efforts to divide hostile coalitions. Diplomacy was not proof of military weakness; it was an essential tool for managing multiple frontiers. The empire interacted with Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, Slavs, Rus’, Pechenegs, Normans, Crusaders, Turks, and many other peoples through both conflict and negotiation.

One famous military substance, commonly called Greek fire, was used by Byzantine forces, especially at sea. Historical sources describe an incendiary weapon that could continue burning under difficult conditions, but its exact composition remains uncertain. Modern recipes confidently claiming to reproduce the secret formula should be treated as hypotheses rather than established fact.

Trade, Coinage, Agriculture, and Urban Life

The Byzantine economy rested primarily on agriculture, taxation, and labor, while cities, crafts, shipping, and long-distance trade connected different regions. Grain, wine, olive oil, textiles, ceramics, metals, timber, livestock, and luxury products moved through local and international networks. Constantinople’s location helped it function as a major market, but economic life extended across provincial towns, villages, estates, ports, and monasteries.

Imperial coinage provided a widely recognized medium of payment and a tool of political communication. The gold solidus, introduced before the period normally called Byzantine, maintained remarkable prestige for centuries. Coins displayed emperors, crosses, Christ, saints, inscriptions, and dynastic messages. Their designs and metal content changed in response to religious policies, political priorities, and economic conditions.

Silk became one of Byzantium’s most celebrated luxury products. Silk and silk-making knowledge moved through complex connections with Central Asia, Persia, and China. Byzantine workshops produced textiles associated with the imperial court, diplomacy, religious institutions, and elite display. The popular story that two monks secretly carried silkworm eggs to Justinian’s empire is preserved in a later historical account, but its details should not be accepted without caution. Silk production developed through wider networks of knowledge, raw materials, skilled labor, and state involvement.

Archaeology complicates older narratives of continuous urban decline. Some cities contracted or changed dramatically, while others remained active or developed new forms of settlement. Ceramic finds, coins, workshops, churches, housing, burials, and agricultural installations reveal regional diversity. There was no single Byzantine economic experience shared equally across a millennium.

Christianity, Imperial Authority, and Religious Conflict

Christianity became fundamental to Byzantine political culture, but the relationship between church and emperor was neither simple nor permanently harmonious. Emperors convened councils, supported doctrines, appointed or influenced senior officials, funded churches, and punished opponents. At the same time, bishops, monks, theologians, local communities, and rival church traditions could resist imperial policies.

Doctrinal controversies concerned questions that participants considered essential to salvation, worship, and communal identity. Councils produced creeds and definitions, but political enforcement sometimes deepened division. Christian communities in Syria, Egypt, Armenia, and elsewhere did not all accept the same formulations supported in Constantinople. Describing these disputes as meaningless arguments over words ignores their religious, social, and political consequences.

The relationship between the churches of Constantinople and Rome also changed over centuries. Differences in authority, theology, language, ritual, and politics accumulated gradually. The events of 1054 are often called the Great Schism, but historians caution against imagining that eastern and western Christianity separated completely on one day. Estrangement was a long process, intensified by later conflicts—especially the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204.

Religious uniformity was often promoted by the state, and this could lead to restrictions or persecution affecting pagans, Christian dissenters, Jews, and other communities. The empire’s religious history therefore includes both cultural creativity and coercion.

Icons and Iconoclasm: What the Evidence Shows

Icons—sacred images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, and holy events—became central to Byzantine devotion and visual culture. They appeared in churches, monasteries, homes, processions, and acts of prayer. Believers distinguished between worship owed to God and veneration directed through a sacred image, although opponents disputed whether such practices could avoid idolatry.

During the eighth and early ninth centuries, imperial policies against certain religious images generated the conflict known as Byzantine Iconoclasm. Traditional narratives often describe uniform destruction throughout the empire. Surviving texts and archaeology offer a more complicated picture. Some images were destroyed, removed, or plastered over, particularly in Constantinople and other centers, but enforcement and local responses varied.

The controversy unfolded in separate phases and was shaped by theology, imperial authority, monastic interests, military politics, and regional conditions. Scholars continue to debate the relative importance of these factors. Simple explanations—such as claiming that military defeat automatically caused Iconoclasm or that all iconoclasts rejected art—go beyond what the evidence can securely prove.

The restoration of icon veneration in 843 became a defining event in Orthodox memory. The period that followed witnessed major artistic production in manuscripts, ivory, enamel, metalwork, mosaic, and church decoration. Yet relatively few portable icons survive from the earliest centuries, partly because of destruction, reuse, decay, and the historical accidents of preservation.

Language, Education, and the Preservation of Ancient Knowledge

Latin remained important in the early eastern empire, especially in law and administration, while Greek was already widely spoken and written in the eastern Mediterranean. Over time, Greek became the principal language of imperial government and intellectual life. Other languages—including Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Slavonic, and Hebrew—were used within or around Byzantine territories and participated in broader networks of translation and scholarship.

Byzantine scribes copied works of ancient Greek literature, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, history, and rhetoric. Scholars studied authors such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and classical historians, often within educational traditions shaped by Christian priorities. Manuscript copying was selective: texts valued by teachers, patrons, readers, and institutions were more likely to survive, while countless other works were lost.

Byzantine scribes preserved selected works of Greek literature, philosophy, medicine, and history through manuscript copying.

It is therefore reasonable to credit Byzantine copyists with preserving many ancient Greek texts, but misleading to say they preserved the whole classical heritage alone. Knowledge survived through multiple communities and languages. Scholars writing in Arabic translated, studied, criticized, and expanded Greek scientific and philosophical works. Latin scholars, Syriac Christians, Jewish intellectuals, and others also participated in the transmission of ancient learning.

After the later medieval period, Greek manuscripts and scholars contributed to intellectual life in Italy and western Europe. This movement was important, particularly around and after 1453, but the Renaissance did not begin suddenly because Constantinople fell. Contacts, translations, trade, migration, and teaching had linked Byzantine and Latin worlds long before the final Ottoman conquest.

Art, Symbols, and the Visual Language of Power

Byzantine art communicated theology, authority, identity, and memory. Gold-ground mosaics could place sacred figures in an apparently timeless realm, while imperial portraits connected rulers with divine protection. Crosses, Christograms, halos, monograms, eagles, saints, and images of the Virgin appeared on buildings, coins, seals, manuscripts, jewelry, textiles, and funerary objects.

These symbols did not have one universal meaning independent of context. A cross on a coin served a different material and political function from a cross in a church apse or on a grave marker. An eagle could draw on Roman imperial traditions, biblical imagery, or later heraldic associations. Archaeologists interpret such objects by examining date, location, material, accompanying inscriptions, and patterns of use.

The double-headed eagle is widely associated today with Byzantium, but its history is often simplified. Double-headed birds appeared in cultures long before the Byzantine Empire, and the emblem became especially prominent in late Byzantine and post-Byzantine political traditions. Claims that every ancient double-headed eagle marks a Byzantine imperial site are not archaeologically reliable.

Likewise, crosses and monograms carved into stone should not automatically be classified as treasure signs. Many were devotional marks, ownership indicators, masons’ marks, funerary symbols, boundary signs, or later additions. Their meaning depends on archaeological context rather than modern treasure-hunting charts.

Expansion, Crisis, and the Transformation of the Empire

Byzantine borders changed repeatedly. After the territorial losses of the seventh century, emperors gradually stabilized a smaller state. During the Macedonian dynasty, especially from the ninth to eleventh centuries, the empire experienced military expansion, economic activity, missionary work, and artistic production. Byzantine influence reached neighboring societies through diplomacy, marriage, law, art, and Christianity.

The conversion of rulers and communities in Bulgaria and the lands of the Rus’ connected them with forms of Christianity associated with Constantinople. The missions traditionally linked with Cyril and Methodius helped establish Slavic literary culture, although the development of the Cyrillic alphabet involved their followers and later centers rather than the two brothers simply inventing the final script in its familiar form.

In 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert. The battle was important, but it did not instantly destroy Byzantine control of Anatolia. Political civil wars, competing claimants, military disorganization, local arrangements, and Turkish settlement contributed to the longer transformation that followed. Presenting Manzikert as a single-day collapse hides this complex process.

The Komnenian emperors restored some military and diplomatic strength during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Their period also overlapped with the Crusades, producing cooperation, suspicion, trade, and conflict between Byzantines and Latin Christians. Relations cannot be reduced to a permanent clash between “East” and “West”; alliances and rivalries shifted with political circumstances.

The Fourth Crusade and the Capture of Constantinople

In 1204, the Fourth Crusade captured and looted Constantinople. Crusaders and Venetians established a Latin Empire in the capital, while Byzantine successor states emerged at Nicaea, Epirus, and Trebizond. The conquest caused deaths, displacement, destruction, and the removal of relics and works of art. Objects taken westward can still be identified in European collections and churches.

The capture was not caused by religious hostility alone. Crusader debt, Venetian interests, Byzantine dynastic politics, disputed agreements, and escalating violence all contributed. No single explanation fully accounts for the diversion of a crusade intended for the eastern Mediterranean toward the largest Christian city in the region.

Michael VIII Palaiologos recovered Constantinople in 1261, restoring an empire that remained politically and economically weakened. The Palaiologan period nevertheless produced significant art, scholarship, diplomacy, and religious debate. Political decline did not equal cultural disappearance.

The events of 1204 permanently altered Byzantine power. The empire faced competing regional states, expanding Turkish powers, Serbian and Bulgarian ambitions, and the influence of Italian maritime republics. Its reduced territory and resources made long-term recovery increasingly difficult.

The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

By the fifteenth century, Byzantine rule had contracted largely to Constantinople and limited territories. The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the surrounding region. Sultan Mehmed II prepared a major siege using land forces, naval pressure, and large cannon. Emperor Constantine XI led the defense with a much smaller force that included Byzantine and foreign soldiers.

After weeks of siege, Ottoman forces entered the city on May 29, 1453. Constantine XI died during the final defense, although the precise details of his death remain uncertain. Later traditions transformed him into a legendary figure, making it important to distinguish contemporary evidence from stories that developed afterward.

A historically informed reconstruction of the final Ottoman assault on Constantinople in May 1453.

The conquest ended the Byzantine imperial state centered on Constantinople, but it did not produce a total cultural break. Mehmed II made the city an Ottoman capital, and its population, buildings, institutions, and religious communities entered a new political order. Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, while Orthodox ecclesiastical life continued under Ottoman authority in altered form.

Historians sometimes use 1453 as a symbolic boundary between the medieval and early modern worlds. Such dates are useful for organizing history but should not be mistaken for universal transformations experienced everywhere at once.

What Archaeology and Written Sources Can—and Cannot—Prove

Knowledge of Byzantium comes from chronicles, laws, letters, theological writings, saints’ lives, military manuals, tax documents, seals, coins, inscriptions, manuscripts, buildings, burials, ceramics, shipwrecks, environmental evidence, and excavated settlements. Each category answers different questions and carries different limitations.

Chronicles may arrange events to defend an emperor or express a religious interpretation. Court writers could praise rulers, while hostile authors could exaggerate scandal and failure. Saints’ lives reveal religious values and social settings but were not written as neutral biographies. Laws describe what authorities wanted to regulate, not necessarily what every person actually did.

Archaeology can test written narratives by revealing settlement patterns, diet, trade, building phases, destruction, repair, and daily objects. Yet an absence of excavated evidence does not always prove that an activity never occurred. Sites are unevenly preserved and studied, and older excavations often focused on monumental churches or palaces while overlooking ordinary housing and production.

Responsible history therefore compares different forms of evidence. The Byzantine Empire was too geographically diverse and chronologically long to be described through one city, one emperor, or one religious controversy.

Why the Byzantine Empire Still Matters

The Byzantine Empire matters because it demonstrates that Rome did not simply disappear from the Mediterranean world in the fifth century. Roman political identity, law, government, and imperial culture continued in the east while adapting to medieval conditions. This continuity changes the familiar story of a sudden “fall of Rome.”

Its legal compilations influenced later civil law; its missionaries and religious institutions shaped Orthodox Christianity; its artists and architects affected traditions across Europe and the Near East; and its manuscripts preserved works that remain central to the study of antiquity. Constantinople also served as a political and commercial meeting point among Mediterranean, European, and Asian societies.

But Byzantium should not be remembered only as a bridge carrying older achievements to other civilizations. Byzantine people created new theology, literature, historical writing, music, diplomacy, military institutions, art, and architecture for their own world. Describing the empire merely as a warehouse for Greek and Roman knowledge undervalues its originality.

Its history also warns against simplistic civilizational categories. The empire could be Roman, Greek-speaking, Christian, Mediterranean, Balkan, and Anatolian at the same time. These identities changed without erasing one another. Byzantium’s greatest historical lesson may be that civilizations survive not by remaining unchanged, but by repeatedly redefining inherited traditions.

Conclusion

The Byzantine Empire was Rome’s eastern continuation and one of the most adaptable states in medieval history. From Constantinople, its rulers maintained Roman claims while governing an increasingly Greek-speaking and Christian society. Its armies and diplomats confronted changing rivals; its administrators reorganized taxation and provinces; its jurists preserved and revised Roman law; and its artists created a visual culture of extraordinary reach.

The empire experienced no simple path from glory to decline. It expanded and contracted, fractured and recovered, destroyed images and later celebrated them, lost its capital in 1204 and regained it in 1261, then continued for almost two more centuries. Its final conquest in 1453 ended the imperial government but not the traditions shaped under Byzantine rule.

To understand Byzantium accurately, we must see both continuity and change. It inherited Rome without merely copying it, preserved ancient knowledge without preserving everything, and influenced neighboring cultures without existing in isolation from them. Its legacy remains visible in law, language, churches, manuscripts, icons, cities, and the enduring idea of Constantinople as a meeting place between worlds.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Byzantine Empire

Did the Byzantines Call Themselves Byzantine?

Generally, no. Most inhabitants identified themselves as Romans, and their rulers claimed Roman imperial authority. “Byzantine Empire” is a modern scholarly label derived from Byzantion, the ancient name associated with Constantinople’s location.

When Did the Byzantine Empire Begin?

There is no single universally accepted date. Common choices include Constantine’s establishment of Constantinople in 330 CE, the division after Theodosius I in 395, and the end of western imperial rule in 476. The transformation from Roman antiquity to medieval Byzantium was gradual.

Was the Byzantine Empire Greek or Roman?

It was the Roman Empire centered in the east, while Greek gradually became its dominant language and Greek literary culture remained highly influential. Calling it exclusively Greek or exclusively identical to ancient Rome oversimplifies a society that changed across many centuries.

What Was Justinian’s Most Important Legacy?

His reign produced military reconquests, Hagia Sophia, and major administrative projects, but the Corpus Iuris Civilis became his most enduring global legacy because it preserved and reorganized Roman law and later influenced civil-law traditions.

Why Were Byzantine Icons Controversial?

Supporters regarded icons as legitimate sacred images that directed honor toward the person represented. Opponents feared that their use violated prohibitions against idolatry. The conflict also involved imperial authority, institutions, and regional politics.

What Caused the Fall of the Byzantine Empire?

No single event caused it. Long-term territorial losses, civil wars, economic pressures, the Latin conquest of 1204, regional rivals, and Ottoman expansion all weakened the empire. Constantinople finally fell to Mehmed II in 1453.

Did Byzantium Preserve Ancient Greek Knowledge?

Byzantine scholars preserved many important Greek texts through copying and education, but preservation was selective and involved other intellectual traditions as well. Arabic, Syriac, Latin, Jewish, and other scholars also transmitted and developed ancient knowledge.

References and Further Reading

1. Anthony Kaldellis, The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press, 2023.
2. Cyril Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press, 2002.
3. Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton University Press, 2008.
4. Averil Cameron, The Byzantines. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
5. Cambridge University Press, “Did the Byzantines Call Themselves Byzantines?” Cambridge Core.
6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Byzantium (ca. 330–1453).” Metropolitan Museum of Art.
7. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Icons and Iconoclasm in Byzantium.” Metropolitan Museum of Art.
8. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Historic Areas of Istanbul.” UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
9. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Archaeological Site of Mystras.” UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
10. Library of Congress, “The Codex of Justinian: A New Annotated Translation.” Library of Congress.
11. Library of Congress, “The Civil Law System: Global Legal Collection Highlights.” Library of Congress.
12. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Studies. Dumbarton Oaks.