Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

As time passed, it became clear that rather than the herald of a new and triumphant order, Justinian was instead the last fleeting glimpse of an old one. Never again would such a visionary rule the empire, nor would a man whose first language was Latin ever sit on its throne again. Despite all of Justinian’s energy and daring, the days of the old Roman Empire were gone and wouldn’t return. The bubonic plague had seen to that, killing off one-fourth of the population in its disastrous run, making Justinian’s reconquest impossible to hold. The new territory should have made the empire far richer and more secure, but instead, with the disease raging, it increased the frontiers at a time when the empire lacked the manpower or money to defend them. To maintain such an expanded empire with diminished resources would have required the ability and energy of both a Justinian and a Belisarius—two luxuries Byzantium would never have again.

^*Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 4 (New York: Random House, 1993).†The historian Procopius, who was probably there, claims rather unbelievably that only five hundred citizens were left.^*Monophysitism is the teaching that Christ was divine but not fully human.^*He may have been neglected by the emperor, but Belisarius was never forgotten by the common man. Eight hundred years later, the people of Constantinople were still singing songs and writing poems celebrating his life.†Much that we know about Justinian and Belisarius comes from the pen of the great historian Procopius. By a strange twist of fate, the year 565 saw the death of all three Byzantine giants.

11

A PERSIAN FIRE

As outwardly glorious as Justinian’s reign had been, there were few who mourned its passing. The population that gathered silently in the streets to watch the funeral procession blamed him for the miseries of high taxation and the ravages of the plague. The scheming aristocrats packed into the Church of the Holy Apostles to watch the ceremony felt only relief that their oppressor was dead, and the officiating priests gladly buried the man whose meddling wife had added so much division to the church. Even the guard of honor at his massive, porphyry tomb couldn’t bring themselves to love the man who had so often delayed the army’s pay.

Despite the empire’s problems, however, its former emperor had succeeded in making Byzantium a shining beacon of civilization. The architectural triumph of the Hagia Sophia had only been possible by sophisticated advances in mathematics, and it soon spawned a flourishing school dedicated to improving the field. In Byzantium, primary education was available for both genders, and thanks to the stability of Justinian’s rule, virtually every level of society was literate. Universities throughout the empire continued the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions that were by now over a millennium old, and the works of the great scientists of antiquity were compiled in both public and private libraries.

The old western provinces under barbarian rule, by contrast, were quickly sinking into the brutish chaos of the Dark Ages, with recollections of advanced urban life a fading memory. Literacy declined precipitously as the struggle to scratch out an existence made education an unaffordable luxury, and it would have disappeared completely without the church. There, writing was still valued, and remote monasteries managed to keep learning dimly alive. But throughout the West, trade slowed to a crawl, cities shrank, and the grand public buildings fell into disrepair.

The East, by contrast, remained a thriving hub of business, an extensive network of prosperous towns linked by the unparalleled Roman road system. Merchants carrying spices, bolts of silk from the Far East, and amber from the distant north crisscrossed busy roads to and from the bustling seaports. Artisans produced stunning works of enamel and gold filigree, jewelry and illuminations. On the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece, skilled workers harvested tiny shellfish to make a luxurious purple dye, and a new state-run industry of silk production sprang up in Constantinople.^* In the minor and major cities alike, the professional classes were divided into guilds, students gathered at the universities, and peddlers delivered wares to housewives who didn’t want to fight the crowded streets.