Early European History Part 62

The Roman Empire in the East, though often menaced by barbarian foes, long continued to be the leading European power. Its highest degree of prosperity was reached between the middle of the ninth and the middle of the eleventh century. The provinces in Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula produced a vast annual revenue, much of which went for defense. It was necessary to maintain a large, well-disciplined army, great fleets and engines of war, and the extensive fortifications of Constantinople and the frontier cities. Confronted by so many dangers, the empire could hope to survive only by making itself a strong military state.

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

The merchant ships of Constantinople, during the earlier part of the Middle Ages, carried on most of the commerce of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The products of Byzantine industry, including silks, embroideries, mosaics, enamels, and metal work, were exchanged at that city for the spices, drugs, and precious stones of the East. Byzantine wares also found their way into Italy and France and, by way of the Russian rivers, reached the heart of eastern Europe. Russia, in turn, furnished Constantinople with large quant.i.ties of honey, wax, fur, wool, grain, and slaves. A traveler of the twelfth century well described the city as a metropolis "common to all the world, without distinction of country or religion."

CHARACTER OF BYZANTINE ART

Many of the Roman emperors from Justinian onward were great builders.

Byzantine architecture, seen especially in the churches, became a leading form of art. Its most striking feature is the dome, which replaces the flat, wooden roof used in the basilican [15] Churches of Italy. The exterior of a Byzantine church is plain and unimposing, but the interior is adorned on a magnificent scale. The eyes of the worshiper are dazzled by the walls faced with marble slabs of variegated colors, by the columns of polished marble, jasper, and porphyry, and by the brilliant mosaic pictures of gilded gla.s.s. The entire impression is one of richness and splendor. Byzantine artists, though mediocre painters and sculptors, excelled in all kinds of decorative work. Their carvings in wood, ivory, and metal, together with their embroideries, enamels, and miniatures, enjoyed a high reputation throughout medieval Europe.

INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE ART

Byzantine art, from the sixth century to the present time, has exerted a wide influence. Sicily, southern Italy, Rome, Ravenna, and Venice contain many examples of Byzantine churches. Italian painting in the Middle Ages seems to have been derived directly from the mosaic pictures of the artists of Constantinople. Russia received not only its religion but also its art from Constantinople. The great Russian churches of Moscow and Petrograd follow Byzantine models. Even the Arabs, in spite of their hostility to Christianity, borrowed Byzantine artists and profited by their services. The Mohammedan mosques of Damascus, Cairo, and Cordova, both in methods of construction and in details of ornamentation, reproduce Byzantine styles.

LITERATURE AND LEARNING

The libraries and museums of Constantinople preserved cla.s.sical learning.

In the flourishing schools of that city the wisest men of the day taught philosophy, law, medicine, and science to thousands of students. The professors figured among the important persons of the court: official doc.u.ments mention the "prince of the rhetoricians" and the "consul of the philosophers." Many of the emperors showed a taste for scholarship; one of them was said to have been so devoted to study that he almost forgot to reign. When kings in western Europe were so ignorant that they could with difficulty scrawl their names, eastern emperors wrote books and composed poetry. It is true that Byzantine scholars were erudite rather than original. Impressed by the great treasures of knowledge about them, they found it difficult to strike out into new, unbeaten paths. Most students were content to make huge collections of extracts and notes from the books which antiquity had bequeathed to them. Even this task was useful, however, for their encyclopedias preserved much information which otherwise would have been lost. During the Middle Ages the East cherished the productions of cla.s.sical learning, until the time came when the West was ready to receive them and to profit by them.

119. CONSTANTINOPLE

POSITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

The heart of Byzantine civilization was Constantinople. The city lies on a peninsula between the Sea of Marmora and the s.p.a.cious harbor called the Golden Horn. Washed on three sides by the water and, like Rome, enthroned upon seven hills, Constantinople occupies a site justly celebrated as the n.o.blest in the world. It stands in Europe, looks on Asia, and commands the entrance to both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. As a sixteenth century writer pointed out, Constantinople "is a city which Nature herself has designed to be the mistress of the world."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, VICINITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE]

CONSTANTINOPLE AS A NATURAL CITADEL

The position of Constantinople made it difficult to attack but easy to defend. To surround the city an enemy would have to be strong upon both land and sea. A hostile army, advancing through Asia Minor, found its further advance arrested by the long, winding channel which the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles combine to form. A hostile fleet, coming by way of the Mediterranean or the Black Sea, faced grave difficulties in attempting to penetrate the narrow strait into which this waterway contracts at each extremity. On the landward side the line of defense was so short--about four miles in width--that it could be strongly fortified and held by a small force against large numbers. During the Middle Ages the rear of the city was protected by two huge walls, the remains of which are still visible. Constantinople, in fact, was all but impregnable. Though each new century brought a fresh horde of enemies, it resisted siege after siege and long continued to be the capital of what was left of the Roman Empire. [16]

MONUMENTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Constantine had laid out his new city on an imposing scale and adorned it with the choicest treasures of art from Greece, Italy, and the Orient.

Fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, eight public baths, and several triumphal arches are a.s.signed to the founder of the city. His most stately building was the Hippodrome, an immense structure devoted to chariot races and all sorts of popular gatherings. There new emperors, after their consecration in Sancta Sophia, were greeted by their subjects; there civic festivals were held; and there the last Roman triumphs were celebrated.

Theodosius the Great built the princ.i.p.al gate of Constantinople, the "Golden Gate," as it was called, by which the emperors made their solemn entry into the city. But it was Justinian who, after Constantine, did most to adorn the new capital by the Bosporus. He is said to have erected more than twenty-five churches in Constantinople and its suburbs. Of these, the most beautiful is the world-famed cathedral dedicated by Justinian to "Holy Wisdom." On its completion the emperor declared that he had surpa.s.sed Solomon's Temple. Though nearly fourteen hundred years old and now defaced by vandal hands, it remains perhaps the supreme achievement of Christian architecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SANCTA SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE Built by Justinian and dedicated on Christmas Day, 538 A.D. The main building is roofed over by a great central dome 107 feet in diameter and 179 feet in height. After the Ottoman Turks turned the church into a mosque, a minaret was erected at each of the four exterior angles. The outside of Sancta Sophia is somewhat disappointing, but the interior, with its walls and columns of polished marble granite and porphyry, is magnificent. The crystal bal.u.s.trades, pulpits, and large metal disks are Turkish.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE THREE EXISTING MONUMENTS OF THE HIPPODROME, CONSTANTINOPLE.

These three monuments preserve for us the exact line of the low wall or _spina_, which divided the race course and around which the charioteers drove their furious steeds. The obelisk was transported from Egypt by Constantine. Between it and the crumbling tower beyond is a pillar of three brazen serpents, originally set up at Delphi by the Greeks, after the battle of Plataea. On this trophy were engraved the names of the various states that sent soldiers to fight the Persians.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, CONSTANTINOPLE]

HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Excepting Athens and Rome, no other European city can lay claim to so long and so important a history as Constantinople. Her day came after theirs was done. Throughout the Middle Ages Constantinople remained the most important city in Europe. When London, Paris, and Vienna were small and mean towns, Constantinople was a large and flourishing metropolis. The renown of the city penetrated even into barbarian lands. The Scandinavians called it Micklegarth, the "Great City"; the Russians knew of it as Tsarigrad, the "City of the Caesars." But its own people best described it as the "City guarded by G.o.d." Here, for more than eleven centuries, was the capital of the Roman Empire and the center of Eastern Christendom.

STUDIES

1. Compare the area of the Roman Empire in the East in 395 A.D. with its area in 800 A.D. (maps between pages 222-223 and facing page 308).

2. Compare the respective areas in 800 A.D. of the Roman Empire in the East and Charlemagne's empire.

3. On the map, page 338, locate Adrianople, Gallipoli, Nicaea, the Bosporus, Sea of Marmora, and Dardanelles.

4. Who were Belisarius, Chosroes II, and Heraclius?

5. In your opinion which of the two rival imperial lines after 800 A.D.

had the better t.i.tle to represent ancient Rome?

6. Why has Justinian been called the "lawgiver of civilization"?

7. Why was it necessary to codify Roman law? Is the English Common law codified?

8. Compare the work of Alexandrian and Byzantine scholars in preserving learning.

9. "The Byzantines were the teachers of the Slavs, as the Romans were of the Germans." Comment on this statement.

10. The Byzantine Empire was once called "a gigantic ma.s.s of mould, a thousand years old." Does this seem a fair description?

11. "The history of medieval civilization is, in large measure, the history of the Roman Empire in the East." Comment on this statement.

12. Show that Constantinople formed "a natural citadel."

13. On the map, page 340, trace the successive walls of Constantinople.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The fall of the empire came in 1453 A.D., when Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks.

[2] See pages 311-312, 317-318.

[3] See page 245.

[4] See page 300.

[5] See page 244.

[6] See the map, page 301.

[7] Roman law still prevails in the province of Quebec and the state of Louisiana, territories formerly under French control, and in all the Spanish-American countries.

[8] In Greek, _Hagia Sophia_, "Holy Wisdom."