The Byzantine Empire: History, Culture, and the 1453 Fall of Constantinople

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire that outlived Rome itself, surviving for more than a thousand years after the city of Rome fell in 476. Its capital, Constantinople, had been founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I around 330 on the site of the older Greek city of Byzantium, according to the World History Encyclopedia. The empire remained officially Christian, and Greek gradually replaced Latin as its administrative language beginning in the late 4th century under Emperor Theodosius I, according to the English-language Wikipedia entry on the Byzantine Empire.

From Constantine to Justinian

Constantinople's position on the Golden Horn gave it control over trade routes linking Europe and Asia, a geographic advantage the World History Encyclopedia cites as central to the city's long survival. The empire's best-known ruler, Justinian I, reigned from 527 to 565. Through his general Belisarius, Justinian reconquered territory in North Africa, Spain, and Italy, temporarily restoring much of the old Roman Mediterranean world, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

Justinian also commissioned the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia and issued the Corpus Juris Civilis, a codification of Roman law that remained in use for roughly 900 years and later shaped Western European legal systems, the World History Encyclopedia notes.

Later emperors and the theme system

After Justinian, Emperor Heraclius (610–641) won a decisive victory over the Sasanian Persian army at Nineveh in 627, ending the Persian threat to the empire, according to the World History Encyclopedia. From the 7th century, under Emperor Constans II, the empire reorganized its provinces into military districts known as themes, a system that allocated troops to defend specific regions, according to Wikipedia. Under Basil II (976–1025), nicknamed the "Bulgar-Slayer," the empire's territory roughly doubled through sustained military campaigns, the World History Encyclopedia reports.

The Fourth Crusade and a weakened empire

In 1204, forces of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople itself, fragmenting imperial authority into competing Greek and Latin successor states, Wikipedia states. Byzantine rulers recovered the city in 1261, but for the final two centuries of its existence the empire held only regional power, no longer commanding the resources of its earlier centuries.

The siege and fall of Constantinople, 1453

By 1453, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, who had ruled since 1449, faced an Ottoman army commanded by Sultan Mehmed II. Mehmed's decisive advantage was artillery: a Hungarian engineer named Urban had first offered his cannon-building services to Constantine XI, who could not afford them, and then to Mehmed, who paid him four times his asking price, according to the World History Encyclopedia. The largest cannon was reportedly about nine metres long with a barrel roughly one metre across, capable of firing a 500-kilogram stone ball more than 1.5 kilometres, though it could be fired only about seven times a day.

When Byzantine defenders blocked the entrance to the Golden Horn with a chain boom, Mehmed had about 70 ships loaded onto ox-drawn carts and hauled overland along a specially built road, then relaunched inside the harbor, forcing the defenders to stretch their limited forces across more of the city's sea walls, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

The siege lasted from early April to 29 May 1453. On that final day, after roughly six weeks of bombardment, Ottoman forces exploited an unguarded postern gate, the Kerkoporta, in the land walls. Janissary troops entered, raised the Ottoman flag, and opened the main gates to the rest of the army, the World History Encyclopedia reports. Constantine XI was killed in the fighting, most likely near the Gate of St. Romanos; because he had removed the insignia marking him as emperor to avoid his body being used as a trophy, his exact fate could not be confirmed with certainty at the time.

Mehmed II ordered that the Hagia Sophia, the empire's principal church, be converted into a mosque immediately after the conquest, marking the symbolic end of the city's Christian political order. Constantinople became the Ottoman capital, and the remaining Byzantine territories were fully absorbed by 1461, following the capture of Mistra in 1460 and Trebizond in 1461, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

The World History Encyclopedia notes that the eyewitness historian Georges Sphrantzes put the Ottoman force at 200,000, a figure modern historians generally regard as inflated; they instead estimate 60,000 to 80,000 fighting men. EBSCO Research Starters gives different figures for the same siege, citing more than 100,000 Ottoman troops and roughly 7,000 to 8,000 Byzantine defenders, illustrating how estimates of the opposing forces vary between sources.

Culture and legacy

• Christianity shaped Byzantine politics, law, and art, making it a defining feature of the civilization, according to the World History Encyclopedia.
• Byzantine art is known for mosaics, religious icons, and domed church architecture, exemplified by the Hagia Sophia.
• Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis influenced legal systems across Western Europe for centuries.
• The empire's Orthodox Christian tradition and Greek intellectual heritage passed into Eastern and Central Europe and Russia after 1453.

Although the political state ended in 1453, Byzantine religious, legal, and artistic traditions continued to influence Orthodox Christian communities and European institutions long afterward, a point emphasized in overviews of the empire's legacy.