Byzantine Sentence Examples
In 456 it was seized by Genseric. It was retaken Byzantine period.
The Byzantine army captured fifteen thousand prisoners.
It appears to be completely ignored by the Byzantine chroniclers.
Philomelion was probably a Pergamenian foundation on the great Graeco-Roman highway from Ephesus to the east, and to its townsmen the Smyrniotes wrote the letter that describes the martyrdom of Polycarp. Cicero, on his way to Cilicia, dated some of his extant correspondence there; and the place played a considerable part in the frontier wars between the Byzantine emperors and the sultanate of Rum.
The cathedral, a large, modern structure, is devoid of architectural merit, but some of the smaller, ancient, Byzantine churches are singularly interesting and beautiful.
The whole is still enclosed by the Byzantine walls, which follow the line of the cliffs and are carried along the sea-face; and the upper part of the level, which is separated from the lower by an inner cross wall, forms the castle; while at the highest point, where a sort of neck is formed between the two valleys, is the keep which crowns the whole.
Odoacer, a chief of the Herulians, deposed Romulus, the last Augustus of the West, and placed the peninsula beneath the titular sway of the Byzantine emperors.
In 93 1 he entered the service of King Hugo of Italy as page; he afterwards rose to a high position at the court of Hugo's successor Berengar, having become chancellor, and having been sent (949) on an embassy to the Byzantine court.
The Byzantine style prevailed in Venice during the 11th and 12th centuries.
In this quarter, some distance back from the river, is the new and richly decorated Vladimir cathedral (1862-1896), in the Byzantine style, distinguished for the beauty and richness of its paintings.
AdvertisementChurches and convents of Byzantine architecture are scattered about the island.
Many Christian catacombs and Byzantine rock-cut villages, churches and tombs have been explored of recent years.
The Church architecture of the "middle ages," then developed naturally and without a break, through the Byzantine and Romanesque styles, out of the secular and religious architecture of Greece and Rome.
Its connexion with that empire - or, in other words, its dependence upon Constantinople - lasted for more than 200 years, during which period, under the rule of Narses and his successors the exarchs, Ravenna was the seat of Byzantine dominion in Italy.
It resembles a very large and elaborate mausoleum, built in Byzantine style, with Moorish arabesques.
AdvertisementIn 553 he interdicted the use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more intolerant regulations.
There were Jews in the Byzantine empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate.
It continued to form part of the Byzantine empire till the 9th century, when it fell into the hands of the Saracens (823).
Not far from Suczawa lies the monastery of Dragomirna, in Byzantine style, built at the beginning of the 17th century.
Though the Turks have profoundly affected the whole of eastern Europe, the result of their conquests has been not so much to plant Asiatic culture in Europe as to arrest development entirely, the countries under their rule remaining in much the same condition as under the moribund Byzantine empire.
AdvertisementDespite his adoption of these barbarous Byzantine methods, Coloman was a good king and a wise ruler.
It was he who, in 1776, sketched the plan for the conquest of the Crimea which was subsequently realized; and about the same period he was busy with the socalled "Greek project," which aimed at restoring the Byzantine Empire under one of Catherine's grandsons.
This laudation, both of the Goths and of their Byzantine conquerors, may perhaps help us to understand the motive with which the Getica was written.
Shortly before his death he was forced to sign an agreement whereby the Byzantine empire undertook to pay tribute to the sultan.
This many-named and enigmatical tribe was of considerable importance in the history of India and Persia in the 5th and 6th centuries, and was known to the Byzantine writers, who call them 'E40aXiroL, Ei)Owytroi, NecbOaAtroc or 'A(3b€Xoi.
AdvertisementThe dome is the leading idea or motif in Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture; the domes are placed over square, not circular apartments, and their bases are brought to a circle by means of pendentives.
Pietro Orseolo and his successors rebuilt the church on a larger scale in the form of a basilica with three eastern apses and no transept, and Byzantine workmen were employed.
There can be no doubt that Byzantine artists had a large share in the work, but it is equally certain that Lombard workmen were employed along with the Orientals, and thus St Mark's became, as it were, a workshop in which twd styles, Byzantine and Lombard, met and were fused together, giving birth to a new style, peculiar to the district, which may fairly be called Veneto-Byzantine.
It is composed of figures of Christ, angels, prophets and saints, in Byzantine enamel run into gold plates.
Fine examples of Venetian Byzantine palaces - at least of the façades - are still to be seen on the Grand Canal and in some of the small canals.
The Byzantine palace seems to have had twin angle-towers - geminas angulares turres - such as those of the Ca' Molin on the Riva degli Schiavoni, where Petrarch lived.
The remains of a Byzantine façade now almost entirely built into a wall in the Rio di Ca' Foscari offer us excellent illustration of this decorative work.
We find it retaining some traces of Byzantine influence in the decorated surfaces of applied marbles, and in the roundels of porphyry and verd antique, while it also retained certain characteristics of Gothic, as, for instance, in the pointed arches of the Renaissance facade in the courtyard of the ducal palace designed by Antonio Rizzo (1499).
The grey column is surmounted by a fine bronze lion of Byzantine style, cast in Venice for Doge Ziani about 1178 (this was carried off to Paris by Napoleon in 1797, and sent back in pieces in 1816; but in 1893 it was put together again); and in 1329 a marble statue of St Theodore, standing upon a crocodile, was placed on the other column.
The cardinal therefore obtained a bull from Pope Paul II., permitting him to recall his original donation, and in a letter dated from the baths of Viterbo, May 13th, 1468, he made over his library to the republic. The principal treasures of the collection, including splendid Byzantine book-covers, the priceless codices of Homer, the Grimani Breviary, an early Dante, &c., are exhibited under cases in the Sala Bessarione in the Zecca or mint where the library has been installed.
But the empire was vast and weak, and its capital lay far away; in practice, no doubt, the lagoon population enjoyed virtual independence, though later the Byzantine claim to suzerainty became one of the leading factors in the formation of the state.
He did so, and expelled the exarch Paul, who took refuge in Venice and was restored to his post by the doge of the Heraclean or Byzantine party, Orso, who in return for this assistance received the imperial title of hypatos, and trading rights in Ravenna.
Pietro has Byzantine frescoes.
It remained in the hands of the Byzantine emperors until it was taken by Robert Guiscard in 1068.
The town is situated on a rocky promontory, crowned by a Byzantine fortress, and has a growing trade.
The Corinthian Li LJi and (also at Corcyra) and the of Byzantine coins are other adaptations of the same symbol.
The town was so heavily taxed by the Hamdanid princes at Mosul that the Arab tribe of the Banu Habib, although blood relations of the Hamdanids, migrated into Byzantine territory, where they were well received, accepted Christianity, attracted other emigrants from Nisibis, and at last began to avenge themselves by yearly raids upon their old home.
The fanaticism of the caliph Hakim destroyed the church of the Sepulchre and ended the Frankish protectorate (Ioio); and the patronage of the Holy Places, a source of strife between the Greek and the Latin Churches as late as the beginning of the Crimean War, passed to the Byzantine empire in 1021.
In either case there is an importation of Western feudalism into a country originally possessed of Byzantine institutions, but affected by an Arabic occupation.
They threatened at once the debris of the old Latin empire in Greece and the archipelago, and the relics of the Byzantine empire round Constantinople; they menaced the Hospitallers in Rhodes and the Lusignans in Cyprus.
The Crusades - a movement which engaged all Europe and brought the East into contact with the West - must necessarily be studied not only in the Latin authorities of Europe and of Palestine, but also in Byzantine, Armenian and Arabic writers.
Of these the Byzantine authority, the Alexiad of Anna Comnena, is most important, partly from the position of the authoress, partly from the many points of contact between the Byzantine empire and the crusaders.
The Byzantine point of view is presented in the 'Excro,cn of Cinnamus, the private secretary of Manuel, who continued the Alexiad of Anna Comnena in a work describing the reigns of John and Manuel.
The various continuations of William of Tyre above mentioned represent the opinion of the native Franks (which is hostile to Richard I.); while in Nicetas, who wrote a history of the Eastern empire from 1118 to 1206, we have a Byzantine authority who, as Professor Bury remarks, "differs from Anna and Cinnamus in his tone towards the crusaders, to whom he is surprisingly fair."
The Chronicle of the Morea (as this work is generally called) is written from the Frankish point of view, in spite of its Greek verse; and the Byzantine point of view must be sought in Nicetas.'
After the death of Charlemagne the Moravian princes took advantage of the dissensions of his successors to enlarge their territories and assert their independence, and Rastislaus (c. 850) even formed an alliance with the Bulgarians and the Byzantine emperor.
The monuments of the Byzantine epoch have latterly occupied a prominent place in its investigations.
The history of Athens for the next four centuries is almost a blank; the city is rarely mentioned by the Byzantine chronicles of this period.
Like the rest of Greece, Athens suffered greatly from the rapacity of its Byzantine administrators.
The columns and capitals were all taken from ancient buildings, Egyptian, Roman and Byzantine, and they carry arches of different forms, semicircular, pointed and horseshoe.
At this period the state of the Byzantine Empire was such as to render its powers of resistance insignificant; indeed the length of time during which it held out against the Turks is to be attributed rather to the lack of efficacious means at the disposal of its assailants than to any qualities possessed by its defenders.
After the conquest of the imperial city the sultans began to adopt the pomp and splendour of eastern sovereigns, and largely copied the system, ready to hand, of the Byzantine emperors.
See Iconoclasts; Image-worship; Byzantine Art.
Perhaps the remarks of the Byzantine historian Priscus may refer to Meroveus.
In the 9th century it was captured by the Bulgarians, and held by them until the beginning of the 11th century, when the Byzantine emperor Basil II.
The municipal picture gallery contains a collection of pictures, and among them are some primitive frescoes, attributable to the 12th century, which still retain traces of Byzantine influence.
The Arabic invasion at the end of the 7th century destroyed the Byzantine towns, and the place became the haunt of pirates, protected by the Kasbah (citadel); it was built on the substructions of the Punic, Roman and Byzantine acropolis, and is used by the French for military purposes.
Daux, discovered the jetties and the moles of the commercial harbour, and the line of the military harbour (Cothon); both harbours, which were mainly artificial, are entirely silted up. There remains a fragment of the fortifications of the Punic town, which had a total length of 6410 metres, and remains of the substructions of the Byzantine acropolis, of the circus, the theatre, the water cisterns, and of other buildings, notably the interesting Byzantine basilica which is now used as an Arab cafe (Kahwat-el-Kubba).
Reconquered by Belisarius in 534, Africa formed, under the name of praefectura Africae, one of the great administrative districts of the Byzantine empire.
The country is covered with Roman and Byzantine remains.
Heron de Villefosse, who has laid bare a beautiful temple of Jupiter, a triumphal arch of Caracalla, a Byzantine basilica and the gate of the Byzantine general Solomon.
Andrea have "Byzantine" domes.
Like that of other Byzantine writers, Chalcondyles' chronology is defective, and his adherence to the old Greek geographical nomenclature is a source of confusion.
Castamon became an important city in later Byzantine times.
The Sienese school of painting owes its origin to the influence of Byzantine art; but it improved that art, impressed it with a special stamp and was for long independent of all other influences.
Opposite are the Queen Victoria Markets, a striking Byzantine erection, capped by numerous turrets and domes.
Petrus Hispanus had predecessors, however, in William of Shyreswood (died 124 9 as chancellor of Lincoln) and Lambert of Auxerre, and it has been hotly disputed whether the whole of the additions are not originally due to the Byzantine Synopsis of Psellus.
In Dalmatia the Venetians III were too strong for her; but she helped materially to break up the Byzantine rule in the Balkan peninsula by assisting Stephen Nemanya to establish an independent Servian kingdom, originally under nominal Hungarian suzerainty.
Bela endeavoured to strengthen his own monarchy by introducing the hereditary principle, crowning his infant son Emerich, as his successor during his own lifetime, a practice followed by most of the later Arpads; he also held a brilliant court on the Byzantine model, and replenished the treasury by his wise economies.
With the disappearance of the Scythae as an ethnic and political entity, the name of Scythia gives place in its original seat to that of Sarmatia, and is artificially applied by geographers, on the one hand, to the Dobrudzha, the lesser Scythia of Strabo, where it remained in official use until Byzantine times; on the other, to the unknown regions of northern Asia, the Eastern Scythia of Strabo, the "Scythia intra et extra Imaum" of Ptolemy; but throughout classical literature Scythia generally meant all regions to the north and north-east of the Black Sea, and a Scythian (Scythes) any barbarian coming from those parts.
Like the Scyths they were pressed towards the west by yet newer swarms, and with the coming of the Huns Scythia enters upon a new cycle, though still keeping its old name in the Byzantine historians.
The latter visited the Paulician fortress Tephrike to treat for the release of Byzantine prisoners.
For the next 50 years they continued to raid the Byzantine empire, although Sergius condemned retaliation.
The Byzantine school of medicine, which closely corresponds to the Byzantine literary and historical schools, followed closely in Galen's footsteps, and its writers were chiefly compilers and encyclopaedists.
But the most prominent figure in Byzantine medicine is that of Paul of Aegina (Paulus Aegineta), who lived probably in the early part of the 7th century.
Something was borrowed even from the school of Salerno, and thus the close of Byzantine medicine is brought into connexion with the dawn of science in modern Europe.
A Gothic style has been most commonly adopted in building modern churches; but of these the most notable, the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral (see Westminster), is Byzantine, and built principally of brick, with a lofty campanile.
This is of glass of a greenish hue; on the upper part is represented, in relief, the chase of a lion by two men on horseback accompanied by dogs; the costume appears to be Byzantine rather than Roman, and the style is very bad.
This is decorated with circles of rosettes of blue, green and red enamel, each surrounded by lines of gold; within the circles are little figures evidently suggested by antique originals, and precisely like similar figures found on carved ivory boxes of Byzantine origin dating from the II th or 12th century.
Edward Dillon (Glass, 1902) has very properly laid stress on the importance of the enamelled Saracenic glass of the r3th, 14th and r 5th centuries, pointing out that, whereas the Romans and Byzantine Greeks made some crude and ineffectual experiments in enamelling, it was under Saracenic influence that the processes of enamelling and gilding on glass vessels were perfected.
Invited to Tuscany by the Countess Matilda, he convoked a council at Piacenza in March 1095, attended by so vast a number of prelates and laymen that its sessions were held in the open air, and addressed by ambassadors of Alexis, the Byzantine emperor, who sought aid against the Mussulmans.
And as they were under ban from Rome and out of communion with the Byzantine Church the Persian government welcomed them as a political ally, though the religious opposition of the Magi was still largely retained.
Ibn Ali Talib, anxious to perpetuate their severance from the orthodox church and the Byzantine empire, confirmed these privileges by charter and in 762 the patriarchate was removed to Bagdad.
They have been identified with the AKarcpoc (perhaps AkKhazari, or White Khazars) who appear upon the lower Volga in the Byzantine annals, and thence they have been deduced, though with less convincing proof, either from the AyetOvpvoc (Agathyrsi) or the Kariapoc of Herodotus, iv.
Simultaneously, and no doubt in concert, with the Byzantine campaign against Persia (589), the Khazars had reappeared in Armenia, though it was not till 625 that they appear as Khazars in the Byzantine annals.
The khakan, who had defied the summons sent him by the invaders, now aided the Byzantine patrician -in the defence of Armenia.
At the Byzantine court the khakan was held in high honour.
Under the Byzantine dominion Pisa, like many other of the maritime cities of Italy, profited by the weakness of the government at Constantinople to reassert its strength.
The inhabitants of the Cape Bon Peninsula show evident signs of Greek blood arising from Greek invasions, which began in prehistoric times and finished with the downfall of the Byzantine Empire in North Africa.
Amathus still flourished and produced a distinguished patriarch of Alexandria (Johannes Eleemon), as late as 606-616, and a ruined Byzantine church marks the site; but it was already almost deserted when Richard Coeur de Lion won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191.
The Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, or court-church, is in the Byzantine style, with a Romanesque facade.
The church of Santa Maria Maggiore, built in 1627-1682, is a characteristic specimen of Jesuit architecture; the church of Sant' Antonio Nuovo, built in 1827-1849, is in the Greek style, as also the Greek Orthodox church, built in 1782, which is one of the handsomest Byzantine structures in the whole of Austria.
A second and slightly divergent list from the hand of a Byzantine rhetorician has been incorporated in the works of Philo of Byzantium.
In later Roman and Byzantine times it must have been a large and wealthy city.
The Hermus valley began to suffer from the inroads of the Seljuk Turks about the end of the 11th century; but the successes of the Greek general Philocales in 1118 relieved the district for the time, and the ability of the Comneni, together with the gradual decay of the Seljuk power, retained it in the Byzantine dominions.
Finally in 1390 Philadelphia, which had for some time been an independent Christian city, surrendered to Sultan Bayezid's mixed army of Ottoman Turks and Byzantine Christians, and the Seljuk power in the Hermus valley was merged in the Ottoman empire.
The church erected by the French is a fine building in the Byzantine style.
They are a very interesting survival of the almost classical Roman style of painting, and appear to be quite free from the generally prevalent Byzantine influence.
In Byzantine times a new settlement took its place under the name of Arta.
This rearrangement gave place in turn to the Byzantine system of military districts (themes).
In spite of his partial failures, Heraclius must be regarded as one of the greatest of Byzantine emperors, and his early campaigns were the means of saving the realm from almost certain destruction.
Syrians by race and Arab-speaking, they are descendants of those "Melkites" who took the side of the Byzantine church in the time of Justinian II.
They may thus be said to have hollowed out the imperial, or Byzantine, possessions in Italy, the interior being under their power, and the coast remaining to the imperial officers.
Of his separate publications, the most important are his lives of Cromwell (1888), William the Silent, (1897), Ruskin (1902), and Chatham (1905); his Meaning of History (1862; enlarged 1894) and Byzantine History in the Early Middle Ages (1900); and his essays on Early Victorian Literature (1896) and The Choice of Books (1886) are remarkable alike for generous admiration and good sense.
Old Corinth passed through its various stages, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Turkish.
The limestone pavement, with long porches on either side, was found to stop at the foot of a marble staircase of thirty-four steps of Byzantine construction, underneath which appeared a Roman arrangement of the two flights with a platform halfway up. The top flight led up to the propylaea.
In Byzantine times five columns, of various diameters, with no two bases of the same size, bearing Corinthian capitals, were set up about 6 ft.
In Augustus' time Tegea was the only important town of Arcadia, but its history throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods is obscure; it ceased to exist as a Greek city after the Gothic invasion of 395.
Educated at the Byzantine court, where he had been compelled to seek refuge, he was fortunate enough to win the friendship of the brilliant emperor Manuel who, before the birth of his own son Alexius, intended to make Bela his successor and betrothed him to his daughter.
Under the Byzantine empire Chersonesus was an administrative centre for its possessions in Taurida.
Isaac's great aim was to restore the former strict organization of the government, and his reforms, though unpopular with the aristocracy and the clergy, and not understood by the people, certainly contributed to stave off for a while the final ruin of the Byzantine empire.
A better prospect opened in the confusion in Byzantine affairs which followed the death of Manuel Coinnenus (1180), and William took up the old design and feud against Constantinople.
It was partly rebuilt during the Byzantine occupation and became a centre of Christianity.
In 961 it became the capital of the Bagratid kings of Armenia, and when yielded to the Byzantine emperor (1046) it was a populous city, known traditionally as the "city with the I oor churches."
There is a vast difference in national character between these young peoples and the successors of the Hellenes; and it is therefore all the more significant to find that both the Church and religious sentiment should in their case have fully preserved the Byzantine character.
From these and other indications it seems probable that what we have is only an epitome of the original work, made by an anonymous Byzantine writer of much later date.
But though the plan shows no imitation of the great Byzantine church, the decorations of the interior (mosaics, frescoes, &c.) do indicate direct Byzantine influence.
Under the Byzantine empire Bithynia was again divided into two provinces, separated by the Sangarius, to the west of which the name of Bithynia was restricted.
It is mentioned from time to time in the Byzantine annals, and on the establishment of the lordship of Epirus by Michael Angelus Comnenus Ducas, it became his capital.
The principal prose authors were Thucydides, parts of Plato and Demosthenes, with Aristotle, Plutarch's Lives, and, above all, Lucian, who is often imitated in the Byzantine age.
The scholars of the Byzantine age cannot be compared with the great Alexandrians, but they served to maintain the continuity of tradition by which the Greek classics selected by the critics of Alexandria were transmitted to modern Europe.
The year 690 is regarded as the date of the temporary extinction of Greek in Italy, but, in the first quarters of the 8th and the 9th centuries, the iconoclastic decrees of the Byzantine emperors drove many of the Greek monks and their lay adherents to the south of Italy, and even to Rome itself.
Taking a wider range of place and time, the Roman libra has an average variation of 1/50 in the examples of better period (43), and in those of Byzantine age 1/35 (44).
Roughly dividing the Roman weights, there appears a decrease of 1/40 from imperial to Byzantine times (43).
The idealism of the new philosophy was too heavenly to be naturalized in the Byzantine empire, which stood more in need of police officials than of philosophers.
He built the opera-house in Renaissance style, the new museum and picture gallery, and a Byzantine synagogue.
It is to this that Venice owes its origin, under Byzantine protection, early in the 9th century A.D.
He also assisted in August Bekker's edition of the Byzantine historians, and delivered courses of lectures on ancient history, ethnography, geography, and on the French Revolution.
The outsides of the principal doorways and their pointed arches are magnificently enriched with carving and coloured inlay, a curious combination of three styles - Norman-French, Byzantine and Arab.
The design, execution and choice of subjects all appear to be of Byzantine origin, the subjects being selected from the Menologium drawn up by the emperor Basilius Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century.
The most interesting object is the church of St Paraskeve, which was once the chief church of the Venetians; it dates from the Byzantine period, though many of its architectural features are Western.
Though the direct results of these unions were the restoration of prestige to the absolutist papacy and the bringing of Byzantine men of letters, like Bessarion, to the West, the outcome was on the whole disappointing.
The town contains also a Byzantine castle, built on the lofty site of the ancient citadel; a palace belonging to the Greek metropolitan; a number of mosques, synagogues and churches, the most remarkable being the church of the Virgin of Consolation, founded in 819.
The Christian Byzantine and Roman emperors, from Valens onwards, enacted strict laws against the Manichaeans.
But it still continued to exist elsewhere, both in the Byzantine Empire and in the West, and in the earlier part of the middle ages it gave an impulse to the formation of new sects, which remained related to it.'
Vodena is the see of a Greek archbishop, and possesses numerous churches and mosques, besides unimportant remains of Roman and Byzantine buildings.
In addition the church of the Rosary, a rich building in the Byzantine style, was erected in front of and below the basilica from 1884 to 1889.
In the centre of this court stands the catholicon or conventual church, a square building with an apse of the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed narthex.
A determined opponent of the Latin church and an enthusiastic admirer of the Byzantine empire, Anna Comnena regards the Crusades as a danger both political and religious.
In addition to writing numerous articles for the Leipzig Acta Eruditorum, Bergler edited the editio princeps of the Byzantine historiographer Genesius (1733), and the letters of Alciphron (1715), in which seventy-five hitherto unpublished letters were for the first time included.
He also brought out editions of the Byzantine historians, John Cinnamus and John Zonaras, as Joannis Cinnami historiarum de rebus gestis a Joanne et Manuele Comnenis (Paris, 1670) and Joannis Zonarae Annales ab exordio mundi ad mortem Alexii Comneni (Paris, 1686).
On the isthmus are distinct traces of the canal cut by Xerxes before his invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. The peninsula is remarkable for the beauty of its scenery, and derives a peculiar interest from its unique group of monastic communities with their medieval customs and institutions, their treasures of Byzantine art and rich collections of documents.
Apart from the illuminated MSS., the mural paintings, the mosaics, and the goldsmith's work of Mount Athos are of infinite interest to the student of Byzantine art.
The same spirit of conservatism is manifest in the architecture of the churches, which are all of the medieval Byzantine type.
He was one of the weakest and most vicious princes that occupied the Byzantine throne.
The name Corfu is an Italian corruption of the Byzantine Kopvcd, which is derived from the Greek Kopvy5ai (crests).
Soon after, in 468 B.C., Tiryns was finally destroyed through the jealousy of the Argives, and the site has been deserted ever since, but for a brief occupation in Byzantine times.
Its decline dates from the local disorganization of the empire in the 3rd century A.D.; and though a bishopric, it was not an important military or commercial centre in Byzantine times.
On the Byzantine side his hands were less tied; but here he had to reckon with the theory of the five patriarchates which had been a force since Justinian.
According to Byzantine ideas, the Church was governed - under the supreme authority, of course, of the emperor - by the five patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
This dissidence Islam was to complete, and by actually suppressing the patriarchate of Jerusalem to reduce Byzantine Christendom to the two patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople.
On these different occasions the pope, ignored in ordinary times, was made use of by the Byzantine government to ratify measures which it had found necessary to adopt in opposition to the opinion of the Greek episcopate.
Byzantine Church, and the authority of the patriarchate of Constantinople, around which centred all that survived of Christianity in those regions.
In the time of St Gregory there subsisted only what lay in Byzantine Italy, the Lombards having confiscated the property of the Church as well as the imperial domains.
During the quarrels between the papacy and the Byzantine Empire her domains in lower Italy and Sicily also disappeared as time went on, and the territorial possessions of the Roman Church were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Rome.
Rome, together with such of the Byzantine territories as still subsisted in her neighbourhood, was considered as a domain sacred to the apostle Peter, and entrusted to the administration of his successor, the pope.
The higher places in the government were 'occupied ', by the clergy, who for matters of detail made use of the civil and military officials who had carried on the administration under the Byzantine rule.
This ceremony was at first celebrated in the Lateran, but from Byzantine times onwards it took place at St Peter's.
It was also under the Byzantine regime that the condition was imposed that the pope should not be consecrated until the emperor had ratified his election.
This had not 'been required under the old Latin emperors nor under the Gothic kings, and it disappeared of its own accord with the Byzantine regime.
With him, as with all his successors, the idea of a collective expedition of Europe for the recovery of the Holy Places was always associated with the sanguine hope of extinguishing the schism at Constantinople, its very centre, by the substitution of a Latin for a Byzantine domination.
The Norman adventurers in possession of Palermo and Naples perpetually tended to look for their aggrandizement to the Byzantine Empire.
This contingency explains the vacillating and illogical character of the papal diplomacy with regard to the Byzantine problem, and, inter slid, the opposition of Eugenius III.
He suspended an archbishop of Sens (1136) who had neglected to take into consideration the appeal to Rome, summoned an archbishop of Milan to Rome to receive the pallium from the pope's hands, lavished exemptions, and extended the right of appeal to such abnormal lengths that a Byzantine ambassador is reported to have exclaimed to Lothair III., Your Pope Innocent is not a bishop, but an emperor."
With joy and pride he welcomed the Byzantine East into the circle of vassal peoples and kingdoms of Rome bound politically to the see of St Peter, and with the same emotions beheld the patriarchate of Constantinople at last recognize Roman supremacy.
The principal obstacle, however, was the incompatibility of the popes' Byzantine and Italian policies.
The popes were in favour of Charles of Anjou and his dynasty, but Charles was hostile to the union of the two Churches, since it was his intention to seize the Byzantine Empire and substitute himself for the Palaeologi.
It was a centre of Greek civilization, devoted especially to the worship of Artemis, and producing famous teachers, of whom Stephen the Byzantine mentions Ariston, Kerykos and Plato.
A ridge of limestone hills - whose principal summits, Hagios Elias and Hagios Simeon, are crowned by old Byzantine churches - runs through the island; for about 2 m.
The Iberians still reverence as saints the Armenian doctors of the 5th century, but as early as 552 they began to resent the dictatorial methods of the Armenians, as well might a proud race of mountaineers who never wholly lost their political independence; and they broke off their allegiance to the Armenian see very soon afterwards, accepted Chalcedon and joined the Byzantine church.
In 813 and again in 1206 it was sacked by the Bulgarians, but it continues to appear as a place of considerable note in later Byzantine history.
After the division of the empire, Lemnos passed under the Byzantine emperors; it shared in the vicissitudes of the eastern provinces, being alternately in the power of Greeks, Italians and Turks, till finally the Turkish sultans became supreme in the Aegean.
Erzerum is a town of great antiquity, and has been identified with the Armenian Garin Kalakh, the Arabic Kalikale, and the Byzantine Theodosiopolis of the 5th century, when it was a frontier fortress of the empire - hence its name Erzen-er-Rum.
Near the palaestra on the south a - Byzantine church forms the central point in a complex group of remains.
The architectural members of some of the treasure-houses have been found built into the Byzantine wall, or elsewhere on the site, as well as the terra-cotta plates that overlaid the stonework in some cases, and the pedimental figures, representing the battle of the gods and giants, from the treasure-house of the Megarians.
In front is a beautiful quadrangular court (112 by 102 ft.), surrounded by arcades formed of twenty-eight ancient pillars mostly of granite from Paestum, and containing twelve sarcophagi of various periods; the middle entrance into the church is closed by remarkable bronze doors of 11th-century Byzantine work.
The chief modern' buildings, such as the Athenaeum, with its Ionic facade and Byzantine dome, are principally on the quays and boulevards, and are constructed of stone.
The Orthodox Greek churches are generally small, with very narrow windows, and are built of brick in a modified Byzantine style.
The most conspicuous building of the town is the Episcopal palace, in Byzantine style, built in 1864-1875, which is adorned with a high tower and possesses a magnificent reception hall.
This church was erected on the site of the cathedral in the beginning of the 12th century; it was built in the Byzantine style and was burnt down by the French in 1761.
During the Byzantine period there must still have been a considerable population; for the ruins contain a large number of buildings belonging to the Byzantine style, and Christian sepulchres are common in the neighbourhood.
In the tribune are fine mosaics of the 9th century, which, Burckhardt remarks, completely break with Byzantine tradition.
After the first overthrow of the Byzantine empire Aetolia passed to a branch of the old imperial house (1205).
It deals chiefly with the struggles of the Byzantine army, under the command of the eunuch Narses, against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians.
In reconstituting the Byzantine Empire Michael restored the old administration without endeavouring to correct its abuses.
By debasing the coinage he hastened the decay of Byzantine commerce.
He entered into relations with the eastern empire, and swore a "perpetual peace" with the emperor Heraclius; and it is probable that the two sovereigns took common measures against the Slav and Bulgarian tribes, which ravaged in turn the Byzantine state and the German territories subject to the Franks.
All the columns are Roman or Byzantine, and are the spoil of many ancient cities.
In all the mosque contains 439 columns, including two of alabaster given by one of the Byzantine emperors.
Prof. C. Krumbacher, who has edited the works of Romanos from the best (the Patmos) MSS., regards him as the greatest poet of the Byzantine age, and perhaps the greatest ecclesiastical poet of any age.
It was very popular in the Byzantine period, and was read and commented on very frequently; the collection of scholia by Isaac and John Tzetzes is very valuable, and the MSS.
Its chief buildings are the citadel and many mosques, one of which is an ancient Byzantine basilica, originally a 1 Prince von Billow was credited with suggesting in his correspondence on the question of the Bundesrath that a tribunal of arbitration should be instituted to deal with all questions of capture.
It was during this reign that, by the surrender of Ban (1071), the Byzantine empire lost its last hold upon Italy.
His literary activity was considerable, his most important work being a Byzantine history in 13 books, in continuation of that of Georgius Acropolita from 1261 (or rather 1255) to 1308, containing the history of the reigns of Michael and Andronicus Palaeologi.
It contains large mosaics of the 12th century, strongly under Byzantine influence; those on the west wall represent the Resurrection and Last Judgment.
It possesses one church, of the Byzantine period, which is mentioned in 13thcentury documents as even then of great age.
Among many fine pieces of jewellers' work preserved in the ecclesiastical treasuries may be mentioned the silver statuette of San Biagio, and the reliquary which contains his skull - a 17th-century casket in filigree and enamels with Byzantine medallions of the 11th or 12th century.
The exact extent of the reconquest is uncertain; Byzantine writers claim the deliverance of the whole island; but it is certain that the Saracens never lost Panormus.
In Italy they overthrew the Byzantine dominion; their own rule was perhaps not worse, but they were not deliverers.
As in the Saracen conquest of Sicily, as in the Byzantine recovt.y, so in the Norman conquest, the immediate occasion was given by a home traitor.
And, if any element, Latin or akin to Latin, had lingered on through Byzantine and Saracen rule, it would of course be attracted to the new Latin element, and would help to strengthen it.
Occasional notices we of course have in the Byzantine writers, and Archbishop Eustathius's account of the taking of Thessalonica is more than occasional.
During the dark ages, in the Byzantine East, as well as in the West, Hellenism had become little more than a dried and shrivelled tradition, although the closer study of Byzantine culture in latter years has seemed to discover more vitality than was once supposed.
In the north of the Delta wherever salt marshes have prevented cultivation in modern times, the mounds, such as those of Pelusium, still stand to their full height, and the more important are covered with ruins of brick structures of Byzantine and Arab date.
Offices, with new Byzantine names, were now almost hereditary in.
An attempt was made in the year 645 with a force under Manuel, commander of the Imperial forces, to regain Alexandria for the Byzantine empire; the city was surprised, and held till the summer of 646, when it was again stormed by Amr. In 654 a fleet was equipped by Constans with a view to an invasion, but it was repulsed, and partly destroyed by storm.
Its great natural strength and situation, not far from the mouth of the Sis pass, and near the great road which debouched from the Cilician gates, made Anazarbus play a considerable part in the struggles between the Byzantine empire and the early Moslem invaders.
Remains of ancient fortifications still exist, though it seems uncertain whether they are of Greek or of Byzantine origin (Notizie degli Scavi, 1899, p. 70).
Napoleon thought him a " shifty Byzantine," and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part.
The distinction between the Serbs of the more central region and the Croats of the north-west, was first drawn by the early Byzantine chroniclers, and was well established by the 12th century.
In the wild and mountainous interior, however, the Byzantine Church had few or no rivals and the Orthodox creed prevailed.
At the beginning of this movement the Byzantine empire was in actual or nominal possession of all the regions south of the Danube; the greater part of the native ThracoIllyrian population of the interior had been romanized and spoke Latin.
The despotate of Epirus succumbed in 1449, the duchy of Athens in 1456; in 1453 Constantinople was taken and the decrepit Byzantine empire perished; the greater part of Bosnia submitted in 1463; the heroic resistance of the Albanians under Scanderbeg collapsed with the fall of Croia (1466), and Venetian supremacy in Upper Albania ended with the capture of Scutari (1478).
In spite of the long neglect, wilful vandalism and ill-judged restoration which the Alhambra has endured, it remains the most perfect example of Moorish art in its final European development, - freed from the direct Byzantine influences which can be traced in the cathedral of Cordova, more elaborate and fantastic than the Giralda at Seville.
The Capella Palatina, at Palermo, the most wonderful of Roger's churches, with Norman doors, Saracenic arches, Byzantine dome, and roof adorned with Arabic scripts, is perhaps the most striking product of the brilliant and mixed civilization over which the grandson of the Norman Trancred ruled.
From the Greek authors only a few notices have been preserved, especially by Justin (and in the prologues of Trogus) and Strabo; for the later times we get some information from the Byzantine authors and from Persian and Armenian sources; cf.
It is a 4th-century Greek building of rich Ionic style, and was still unfinished at the time of the earthquake, then cleared and partially rebuilt, and finally used as a water reservoir in the Byzantine period.
Almost the whole of Byzantine Phrygia is now included in the vilayet of Brusa, with the exception of a small part of Parorius and the district about Themisonium (Karayuk Bazar) and Ceretapa (Kayadibi), which belong to the vilayet of Konia, and the district of Laodicea and Hierapolis, which belongs to Aidin.
The boundaries of the two Byzantine Phrygias were not always the same.
The Hermus drains a small district included in the Byzantine Phrygia, but in earlier times assigned to Lydia and Mysia.
Aeginium is described by Livy as a strong place, and is frequently mentioned during the Roman wars; and Stagus appears from time to time in Byzantine writers.
Donato, of the Lombard period, with Byzantine capitals, is interesting; Giosue Carducci has written a fine ode on the subject (La Chiesa di Polenta, Bologna, 1897).
Under the later Roman Empire the name was revived by the Byzantine emperors as the title of a new order of nobility.
Among the former it appears to have become a sort of ex officio title of the Byzantine vicegerents of Italy, the exarchs of Ravenna; among the barbarian chiefs who were thus dignified were Odoacer, Theodoric, Sigismund of Burgundy, Clovis, and even in later days princes of Bulgaria, the Saracens, and the West Saxons.
According to the legend given by Metaphrastes the Byzantine hagiologist, and substantially repeated in the Roman Ada sanctorum and in the Spanish breviary, he was born in Cappadocia of noble Christian parents, from whom he received a careful religious training.
It was ranked by Philostratus the third city of Pamphylia, and in Byzantine times seems to have been known as Primopolis, under which name its bishop signed at Ephesus in A.D.
This structure was probably put to some ecclesiastical Byzantine use, as certain mutilated heads of saints appear upon it; and later it became a fortress and received certain additions.
In the year before Constantine's death the remnant of the Byzantine possessions in Italy was finally lost to the empire, and the chief town, Bari, taken by the Normans.
The extension of the name of Palestine beyond the limits of Philistia proper is not older than the Byzantine Period.
This division, it may be added, also seems to leave its mark upon the lengthy archaeological history of Palestine from the earliest times to the Byzantine age.
Not till 611 do we find any event of importance in the uninteresting record of Byzantine sovereignty.
The gorgeous Pala d'oro, still in St Mark's at Venice, a gold retable covered with delicate reliefs and enriched with enamels and jewels, was the work of Byzantine artists during the 11th century.
The technical skill of these Byzantine metal-workers was soon acquired by native Italian artists, who produced many important works in bronze similar in style and execution to those of the Byzantine Greeks.
Though something in the grotesque dragons of the base recalls the Byzantine school, yet the beauty of the figures and the keen feeling for graceful curves and folds in the drapery point to a native Italian as being the artist who produced this wonderful work of art.
Unlike England, Germany in the 10th and iith centuries produced large and elaborate works in cast bronze, especially doors for churches, much resembling the contemporary doors made in Italy under Byzantine influence.
Nicephorus is the author of a valuable compendium (Breviarium historicum) of Byzantine history from 602 to 770, of a meagre Chronologia compendiaria from Adam to the year of his own death.
Left to themselves, the Christians henceforward defended themselves only in isolated cases in the fortified cities; for the most part they witnessed the disappearance of the Byzantine power without regret.
To him was committed the conduct of the war against the Byzantine emperor, which he continued with energy, at first only on land, but later, when the caliph had at last given in to his urgent representations, at sea also.
Up to the year 693 the Moslems had no special coinage of their own, and chiefly used Byzantine and Persian money, either imported or struck by themselves.
When the news of the death of Abu`1-Abbas reached Abdallah, who at the head of a numerous army was on the point of renewing the Byzantine war, he came to Harran, furious at his exclusion, and proclaimed himself caliph.
The numerous efforts of Mamun to put them down had been all in vain, and they were now in alliance with the Byzantine emperor.
In the year 905 the Greek general Andronicus took Marash, and penetrated as far as Haleb (Aleppo), but the Moslems were successful at sea, and in 907 captured Iconium, whilst Andronicus went over to the caliph's side, so that the Byzantine emperor sent an embassy to Bagdad to ask for a truce and an exchange of prisoners.
Under the Byzantine emperors they were the representatives in all causes of the central power.
The flight of Byzantine scholarship westward in the 15th century revealed, and finally, that the philosophic content of the Scholastic teaching was as alien from Aristotle as from the spirit of the contemporary revolt of science, with its cry for a new medicine, a new nautical astronomy and the like.
At length the line of battle was formed, and the Gothic army, probably greatly inferior in number to the Byzantine was hopelessly routed (July 552), the king receiving a mortal wound as he was hurrying from the battlefield.
Three miles east of Boli, at Eskihissar, are the ruins of Bithynium, the birthplace of Antinous, also called Antinoopolis, and in Byzantine times Claudiopolis.
These people became "Greeks" as being subjects of the Byzantine empire and members of the Eastern Church.
But its greatest importance dates from the time when it became, in 852, a seat of the Saracen power, and in 885, the residence of the Byzantine governor.
In the later Byzantine times it was believed that Peisistratus was aided by seventy grammarians, of whom Zenodotus and Aristarchus were the chief.
In Byzantine times it became a bishop's seat, and to judge by its later name "Hellas" it served as a refuge for the Greeks from the Slavonic immigrants of the 8th century.
After the Macedonian conquest of Syria Hamath was called Epiphania by the Greeks in honour of Antiochus IV., Epiphanes, and in the early Byzantine period it was known by both its Hebrew and its Greek name.
It must, however, have been subject to the Byzantine authorities, as inscriptions testify to restorations of its walls by Byzantine officials.
They are enclosed by a Byzantine wall.
Many Byzantine churches, both cruciform and basilican, have been excavated.
The fact that the site has not been inhabited since the 14th century makes it important for our knowledge of Byzantine life.
Of the Byzantine period little remains but the ruins of the castles of St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara; and a magnificent series of gold ornaments and silver plate, found near Kyrenia in 1883 and 1897 respectively.
The island was recovered by the Greek emperors and, though again conquered by the Arabs in the reign of Harun al-Rashid (802), it was finally restored to the Byzantine empire under Nicephorus Phocas.
An inscription found on the site shows it to have had a considerable Jewish population in early Byzantine times.
Of these the coins are chiefly Roman and Byzantine gold pieces of the 5th century, the bracteates copies of Roman coins of the same period.
The Persian Empire under Hulagu and his descendants extended from the dominions of Jagatai on the north to that of the Egyptian dynasts on the south, and from the Byzantine Empire on the west to the confines of China.
He died in 1265 and was succeeded by his son Abagha or Abaka, who married the daughter of Michael Palaeologus, the Byzantine ruler.
After Constantinople became the capital of the empire Nicaea grew in importance, and after the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders became the temporary seat of the Byzantine emperor; the double line of walls with the Roman gates is still well preserved.
The last successes opened a new period of Byzantine domination in southern Italy.
Its material was then quarried extensively for the construction of the great cathedral of St John Theologos on the neighbouring hill (Ayassoluk), and a large Byzantine building (a church?) came into existence on the central part of its denuded site, but did not last long.
Here interesting inscriptions and Byzantine architectural remains were found.
During the Byzantine period it served as a place of refuge against foreign invaders, and from the 10th century became a centre of the new silk trade.
This attitude, which was that of most educated Byzantine laymen, has in particular cases made it possible for him to arrive at very free judgments.
Even granting that some feeble remains of antique reserve may have contributed to this, and even although some of it is certainly to be set down to his disposition and temperament, still it was his religious passivity that here determined the character of Socrates and made him a typical example of the later Byzantine Christianity.
This indeed is characteristic of his Byzantine Christian point of view; church history becomes metamorphosed into a history of the emperors and of the state, because a special church history is at bottom impossible.
She introduced many Byzantine customs into the German court.
The Taj alone is well worth the journey."' The Taj was designed by Ustad Isa, variously described as a Byzantine Turk and a native of Shiraz in Persia.
Christianity never succeeded in establishing itself here in the Byzantine period, though there was a bishopric of Tiberias, and a church built by Constantine.
The date of the arrival of the Cechs in Bohemia is very uncertain, and the scanty references to the country in classical and Byzantine writers are rather misleading than otherwise.
The chief building is the Church of Scotland church, a fine red brick building, a mixture of Norman and Byzantine styles, with lofty turrets and white domes.
The relation of the Byzantine Church to the Roman may be described as one of growing estrangement from the 5th to the 1 ith century, and a series of abortive attempts at reconciliation since the latter date.
The negotiations at the council of Lyons (1274) were, strictly speaking, between the pope and the Byzantine emperor, and were more political than ecclesiastical.
It was really suggested by the political weakness of the Byzantine empire and the dread of the approach of the Turks.
The patriarch has the assistance and support of a large household, a survival from Byzantine times.
The matter is well arranged, the style (modelled on that of Xenophon) simple, and on the whole free from the usual florid bombast of the Byzantine writers.
In later times it seems in some sort to have been revived under Byzantine protection, and from time to time Byzantine officers built fortresses and exercised authority at Bosporus, which was constituted an archbishopric. They also held Ta Matarcha on the Asiatic side of the strait, a town which in the 10th and iith centuries became the seat of the Russian principality of Tmutarakan, which in its turn gave place to Tatar domination.
Relieved of the danger of invasion by a Latin force which had defeated him in 1204 but was recalled to Europe by a Bulgarian invasion, he set to work to form a new Byzantine state in Asia Minor, and in 1206 assumed the title of emperor.
Though there is no proof of higher qualities of statesmanship in him, by his courage and military skill he enabled the Byzantine nation not merely to survive, but ultimately to beat back th?
The sovereigns of Spain, too, made use of the same material; and in the Byzantine empire leaden bullae seem to have been universally employed, not only by emperors and state officials but also by private persons.
On special occasions golden bullae were issued by the Byzantine emperors, by the popes, FIG.
On the south side of the building is the detached mausoleum of Bohemund, son of Robert Guiscard, who died in 1 r i 1, constructed partly in Byzantine, partly in the local style.
During the early centuries of the Christian era Bessarabia, being the key to one of the approaches towards the Byzantine empire, was invaded by many successive races.
Nicola in the village contains a remarkable staurotheca of the Ilth (?) century, and a wooden triptych in imitation of the Byzantine style with enamels of the 13th century.
He endeavoured to restore by force of arms the predominance of the Byzantine empire in the Mediterranean countries, and so was involved in conflict with his neighbours on all sides.
The subsequent rapid collapse of the Byzantine empire was largely due to his brilliant but unproductive reign.
They are in the Byzantine style and the colouring is gaudy.
In the centre of each court is a small church built in the Byzantine style.
Of later date, during the Byzantine period, there is a large series either in museums or in the cloisters of the Italian churches.
Bentley, as early Christian Byzantine, and the material is mainly red brick outside, and yellow London brick inside.
Living during the most melancholy period of Byzantine history, Psellus exhibited the worst faults of his age.
Its first member known in Byzantine history is Manuel Eroticus Comnenus, an able general who rendered great services to Basil II.
For information upon this period, and upon the subsequent centuries of Roman or Byzantine rule, see Dacia.
Some of the members even cherished the fantastic hope of restoring the ancient Byzantine empire.
The so-called Chronicle of Hurul is a modern forgery, and up to the 14th century the only valid authorities are Slavonic, Hungarian and Byzantine chroniclers.
One by Pavel Danovici contains the history of the world told in the style of the Byzantine chroniclers; it includes the legend of Troy, the history of Pope Sylvester and the description of the various church councils; and it concludes at the year 1636.
Next comes the legend of Constantine, of his town and his exploits - a remarkable collection of purely Byzantine legends.
The church of St John the Baptist, founded in 717, is a good example of the early Byzantine style.
In 967 it was captured by the Russian prince Sviatoslav, whom the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus Phocas had summoned to his assistance.
The Byzantine Greeks manufactured several out of the poems of Homer, among which may be mentioned the life of Christ by the famous empress Eudoxia, and a version of the Biblical history of Eden and the Fall.
The law of the Greek Church was in reality rather the work of the Byzantine emperors.'
How long after this it was before infant baptism became normal inside the Byzantine church, we do not exactly know, but it was natural that mothers should insist on their children being liberated from Satan and safeguarded from demons as soon as might be.
Under Roman and Byzantine rule industry and commerce were undisturbed, its chief export at this time being the Arvisian wine, which had become very popular.
The town was captured in 836 by the Saracens, and destroyed by them; but was rebuilt in the 11th century by Lupus the protospatharius, Byzantine governor.
The earliest existing buildings date from the time of the Norman kings, whose palaces and churches were built in the Saracenic and Byzantine styles prevalent in the island.
Alongside of the churches of this Christian-Saracen type, there is another class which follows the Byzantine type.
There are several mosques, none of them remarkable, and many interesting Roman and Byzantine remains, especially a magazine of the emperor Justinian (483-565), a square castle and tower attributed to Bayezid I.
This was in accordance with the Byzantine principle that in the case of two or more co-regnant basileis only one governed.
In Byzantine times the two last hills were named respectively the hill of Blachernae and the Xerolophos or dry hill.
The name is an ignorant translation of Exakionion, the corrupt form of the designation Exokionion, which belonged in Byzantine days to that quarter because marked by a column outside the city limits.
Accordingly, in 413, in the reign of Theodosius II., Anthemius, .then praetorian prefect of the East and regent, enlarged and refortified the city by the erection of the wall which forms the innermost line of defence in the bulwarks whose picturesque ruins now stretch from the Sea of Marmora, on the south of Yedi Kula (the seven towers), northwards to the old Byzantine palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Tekfour Serai), above the quarter of Egri Kapu.
It is the finest specimen of Byzantine civil architecture left in the city.
Labarte and Paspates have attempted to reconstruct the palace, taking as their guide the descriptions given of it by Byzantine writers.
With the accession of Alexius Comnenus, the palace of Blachernae, at the north-western corner of the city, became the principal residence of the Byzantine court, and was in consequence extended and embellished.
So much did the race-course (begun by Severus but completed by Constantine) enter into the life of the people that it has been styled " the axis of the Byzantine world."
The aqueduct of Justinian, the Crooked aqueduct, in the open country, and the aqueduct of Valens that spans the valley between the 4th and 3rd hills of the city, still carry on their beneficent work, and afford evidence of the attention given to the water-supply of the capital during the Byzantine period.
Byzantine Constantinople was a great commercial centre.
In their architecture, the mosques present a striking instance of the influence of the Byzantine style, especially as it appears in St Sophia.
At the same time, when viewed from the exterior, the main dome rises large, bold and commanding, with nothing of the squat appearance that mars the dome of St Sophia, with nothing of the petty prettiness of the little domes perched on the drums of the later Byzantine churches.
The reservoirs in the forest of Belgrade have been enlarged and increased in number, and new aqueducts have been added to those erected by the Byzantine emperors.
The town remained till late Byzantine times the toll station of the Hellespont, its importance being transferred to the Dardanelles, after the building of the "Old Castles" by Sultan Mahommed II.
On this embassy Bar Sauma started in 1287, with Arghun's letters to the Byzantine emperor, the pope and the kings of France and England.
According to the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the emperor Heraclius (610-640) invited the Serbs to come over to settle down in the devastated north-western provinces of the Byzantine empire and to defend them against the incursions of the Avars.
One of the important consequences of this new vassalship to the Byzantine empire was that the entire Servian people embraced Christianity, between 871 and 875.
In 931 Chaslav, one of the princes of the Visheslav dynasty, liberated the largest part of the Servian territory from Bulgarian domination, but to maintain that liberty he had to acknowledge the Byzantine emperors as his suzerains.
The task was difficult enough, as the Byzantine empire, then under the reign of the energetic Manuel Comnenus, regained much of its lost power and influence.