POLITICAL, LEGAL AND RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BYZANTIA

Abstract

Despite the fact that it represents one of the most interesting examples of a late antique state formation that survived, with significant modifications, until the Middle Ages, the Byzantine (or medieval Eastern Roman) Empire received extremely little attention from historians or theorists of the state, especially compared to the treatment that theorists had of Rome, that is, the Roman Empire, from which Byzantium arose. This situation seems to reflect the fact that historians and theorists who studied the Byzantine world were themselves very reluctant to generalize or draw broader conclusions within a comparative context, and for this reason their subject remained quite difficult, especially for laymen. Accordingly, the need to study this matter arose. The legacy of Byzantium left an indelible mark on the legal, political and cultural systems of later European states. Its legal and political models shaped government structures, while cultural and religious values enriched European civilization. Although Byzantium as a state has disappeared, its legacy still lives on in the foundations of modern European societies. It was a society of contrasts, that is, a mass of rural and provincial producers, who made up perhaps 90% of the total population during most of its history, and several large urban centers, of which Constantinople itself - the Queen of Cities, the second Rome - was by far the largest and richest, the seat of emperors, the focus of literacy and elite culture. It was a sophisticated state, with a complex fiscal system supporting an army, navy, and administrative bureaucracy that was able to preserve the basic forms of the late antique state until the High Middle Ages. It was also the heart of the Orthodox Church, and from the ninth century it became the center of a distant Christian cultural community and a network of imitative states stretching from the Balkans to the Russian principalities. It seems that traces of the influence of the Byzantine Empire can still be felt today, and for this reason, the origin of Byzantium and the analysis of the reforms that marked that period are the subject of research in this paper.