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132-570: The Byzantine historian Procopius identified Abraha as the former slave of a Roman merchant who conducted business in Adulis , while the Muslim historian al-Tabari says that he was related to the Aksumite royal family. Later, Abraha was either one of the commanders or a member of one of the armies led by King Kaleb of Axum against Dhu Nuwas. In al-Tabari's history, Abraha is said to have been

264-462: A sensational victory against Bulgaria and the Kievan Rus' in 971. John in particular was an astute administrator who reformed military structures and implemented effective fiscal policies. After John's death, Constantine VII's grandsons Basil II and Constantine VIII ruled jointly for half a century, although the latter exercised no real power before Basil's death in 1025. Their early reign

396-694: A church in Najran for Bani Al-Harith , the House of Al-Lat in Taif for the tribe of Banu Thaqif , the House of Yareem and the House of Ghamdan in Yemen . To counter the decline of Mecca as a pilgrimage center, the people of North Arabian tribes, specifically the Kināna and the nasaʾa (those responsible for intercalation) desecrated Abraha's church. In response to this act, Abraha resolved to launch an assault on Mecca with

528-467: A combination of external threats and internal instabilities caused the Roman state to splinter as regional armies acclaimed their generals as "soldier-emperors". One of these, Diocletian ( r.  284–305 ), seeing that the state was too big to be ruled by one man, attempted to fix the problem by instituting a Tetrarchy , or rule of four, and dividing the empire into eastern and western halves. Although

660-645: A considerable increase in the size of urban settlements, together with a notable upsurge in new towns. Trade was also flourishing; the Venetians, the Genoese and others opened up the ports of the Aegean to commerce, shipping goods from the Crusader states and Fatimid Egypt to the west and trading with the empire via Constantinople. Manuel's death on 24 September 1180 left his 11-year-old son Alexios II Komnenos on

792-464: A contested legacy to Roman identity and to associate negative connotations from ancient Latin literature. The adjective "Byzantine", which derived from Byzantion (Latinised as Byzantium ), the name of the Greek settlement Constantinople was established on, was only used to describe the inhabitants of that city; it did not refer to the empire, which they called Romanía —"Romanland". After

924-649: A dichotomy between the Greek East and Latin West . These cultural spheres continued to diverge after Constantine I ( r.  324–337 ) moved the capital to Constantinople and legalised Christianity . Under Theodosius I ( r. 379–395 ), Christianity became the state religion , and other religious practices were proscribed . Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use as Latin fell into disuse. The empire experienced several cycles of decline and recovery throughout its history, reaching its greatest extent after

1056-478: A hostage while he Amr had been set up as governor over Ma‘add [Abraha] returned from Haliban with Rahmanan’s might, in the month of dhu-‘allan [September] six hundred and sixty-two. Abraha's last notable inscription celebrates the consolidation of power over a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula and enumerates the various regions and tribes that submitted to him. This inscription, known as Murayghān 3,

1188-595: A large number in Venice. According to chronicler Niketas Choniates , a prostitute was even set up on the patriarchal throne. When order had been restored, the crusaders and the Venetians proceeded to implement their agreement; Baldwin of Flanders was elected emperor of a new Latin Empire , and the Venetian Thomas Morosini was chosen as patriarch. The lands divided up among the leaders included most of

1320-512: A lengthy conflict against Sasanid Persia and ended in 363 with the death of his son-in-law Julian . The short Valentinianic dynasty , occupied with wars against barbarians , religious debates, and anti-corruption campaigns, ended in the East with the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Valens's successor, Theodosius I ( r.  379–395 ), restored political stability in

1452-531: A letter to the Himyarite king ordering him to assemble an army of Himyarite soldiers and from Ma'ad under the leadership of a king of the nation of Ma'ad named " Kaisus " (Qays), in order to attack the borders of the Sasanian Empire , and then approved the leader of Ma'ad as a king on the region. A diverse group of pre-Islamic Arabic poets (including Ghassanid and Christian ), and compositions in

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1584-651: A line through the Adriatic Sea and south to Cyrene, Libya . This encompassed most of the Balkans , all of modern Greece, Turkey, Syria , Palestine ; North Africa, primarily with modern Egypt and Libya ; the Aegean islands along with Crete , Cyprus and Sicily , and a small settlement in Crimea . The landscape of the Empire was defined by the fertile fields of Anatolia , long mountain ranges and rivers such as

1716-445: A more formal recognition under Kaleb's successor in return for nominal tribute. Stuart Munro-Hay , who proposes a 518 date for the rise of Dhu Nuwas, dates this event to 525, while by the chronology based on Dhu Nuwas coming to power in 523, this event would have happened about 530, although a date as late as 543 has been postulated by Jacques Ryckmans. The reign of Abraha is documented in six inscriptions, four of which were recorded by

1848-511: A reference to the Judham tribe. In addition to the inscriptions, Abraha’s military achievements and his influence over the Arabian Peninsula are also reflected in authentic poetry from the period. The 8th Century poet Musayyib bin al-Rîfl, a descendant of Zuhayr ibn Janab of the tribe of Banū Kalb , composed verses that testify to the enduring reverence held for Abraha long after his rule. According to French scholar Christian Robin , this poetry

1980-769: A result, Southern Arabia and Yemen came under the control of the Sassanid Empire. Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire , also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire , was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred in Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages . The eastern half of the Empire survived the conditions that caused the fall of the West in the 5th century AD, and continued to exist until

2112-450: A small fleet of 100 ships to defend the capital, but other than that he was indifferent to the populace. He was finally overthrown when Isaac II Angelos , surviving an imperial assassination attempt, seized power with the aid of the people and had Andronikos killed. The reign of Isaac II, and more so that of his brother Alexios III , saw the collapse of what remained of the centralised machinery of Byzantine government and defence. Although

2244-417: A speedy and marked improvement. Gradually, however, Andronikos's reign deteriorated. The aristocrats were infuriated against him, and to make matters worse, Andronikos seemed to have become increasingly unbalanced; executions and violence became increasingly common, and his reign turned into a reign of terror. Andronikos seemed almost to seek the extermination of the aristocracy as a whole. The struggle against

2376-499: A study where he detailed how the Aksumite kingdom used elephants for war and had access to them during the 6th century when the expedition is said to have taken place. It should also be noted that while 2 Maccabees mentioned elephants as war beasts and a foiled military expedition, it did not mention any flying creatures. However, angels as protective flying creatures foiling an elephant army can be found in 3 Maccabees 5 and 6:18-21. Munro-Hay dates his death to some time after 553 based on

2508-484: A tribe, for whom Ma'ad ibn Adnan is its eponymous founder. In pre-Islamic sources, the term refers not to a tribe but to a particular class of Arabs who shared common features in terms of their social organization, cultural tradition, geopolitical range, and more. According to traditions, Ma'ad is the son of Adnan , the father of a group of the Ishmaelite Arabs who inhabited West and Northern Arabia. Adnan

2640-517: A two-month siege on 29 May 1453. The final Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos , was last seen casting off his imperial regalia and throwing himself into hand-to-hand combat after the walls of the city were taken. The Empire was centred in what is now Greece and Turkey with Constantinople as its capital. In the 5th century, it controlled the eastern basis of the Mediterranean running east from Singidunum (modern Belgrade ) in

2772-711: Is believed by Arab genealogies to be the father of many Ishmaelite tribes along the Western Hijaz coast of the Arabian Peninsula and Najd . Ma'ad is reported to be Adnan's first-born son, born in 598 BCE. When the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II attacked the Qedarite Arabs during the time of Adnan , Ma'ad was sent away by his father, and after the defeat of the Qedarite and

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2904-499: Is believed to have been created after the previous inscription (Ry 506). Two significant facts are stated in this inscription. Firstly, it indicates that Abraha had lost control of the great tribal confederation of Ma'add . Abraha commends himself for successfully reconquering Ma'add. Secondly, it highlights the conquest of a substantial portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The inscription reads as: The king Abraha ZYBMN, King of Saba' and Dhū-Raydān and Hadramōt and Yamanāt and their Arabs of

3036-541: Is evidence that some Komnenian heirs had set up a semi-independent state in Trebizond before 1204. According to the historian Alexander Vasiliev , "the dynasty of the Angeloi, Greek in its origin, ... accelerated the ruin of the Empire, already weakened without and disunited within." In 1198, Pope Innocent III broached the subject of a new crusade through legates and encyclical letters. The stated intent of

3168-547: Is impossible to precisely date the foundation of the Byzantine Empire. In a series of conflicts between the third and first centuries   BC, the Roman Republic gradually established hegemony over the eastern Mediterranean , while its government ultimately transformed into the one-person rule of an emperor . The Roman Empire enjoyed a period of relative stability until the third century AD , when

3300-449: Is no consensus on a "foundation date" for the Byzantine Empire, if there was one at all. The growth of the study of "late antiquity" has led to some historians setting a start date in the seventh or eighth centuries. Others believe a "new empire" began during changes in c.  300   AD. Still others hold that these starting points are too early or too late, and instead begin c.  500 . Geoffrey Greatrex believes that it

3432-539: Is not mentioned in the inscription. On the other hand, Daniel Beck claims that there are several issues with the story, and that African war elephants hadn't been used in the region for over 600 years. It is also difficult to explain how Abraha would have obtained African war elephants in Arabia. He also claims that surah al-Fil appears to be in reference to 2 Maccabees and 3 Maccabees , and not referencing any expedition on Abraha's part. However, Michael Charles published

3564-473: Is remarkable because it reveals that Abraha continued to enjoy great respect in some circles more than a century after the advent of Islam . In a fragment of five verses, Musayyib explicitly boasts that his ancestor Zuhayr was entrusted by Abraha with the governance of the tribes of Bakr and Taghlib . The final two inscriptions from Abraha's reign discuss the last repairs to the Marib Dam , and potentially

3696-513: Is reported to have eventually crossed through Taif, where the Banu Thaqif provided a guide named Abū Righāl to accompany him. As they approached al-Mughammas, a short distance from Mecca , Abū Righāl died and was laid to rest there and his grave would later be stoned by the Arabs (who were mostly pagans at the time) after the failure of Abraha's expedition. Hisham ibn al-Kalbi mentions one of

3828-656: Is said to have given the Prophet Muhammad some kind of weapon as a gift. Abraha sent an expedition to subjugate the Azd tribes to his army and also to open the road to Mecca, but Abraha's army was defeated by an Azdi leader named Abd Shams Ibn Masruh, so Abraha was forced to take another route to Mecca. The memory of the Mecca campaign is encapsulated in "The Year of the Elephant," typically dated to 570 CE, which serves as

3960-715: The Tactica , a military treatise; and the Book of the Eparch , which codified Constantinople's trading regulations. In non-literary contexts Leo was less successful: the empire lost in Sicily and against the Bulgarians , while he provoked theological scandal by marrying four times in an attempt to father a legitimate heir. The early reign of that heir, Constantine VII , was tumultuous, as his mother Zoe , his uncle Alexander ,

4092-536: The Catalan Company ravaging the countryside and increasing resentment towards Constantinople. The situation became worse for Byzantium during the civil wars after Andronikos III died. A six-year-long civil war devastated the empire, allowing the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan to overrun most of the empire's remaining territory and establish a Serbian Empire . In 1354, an earthquake at Gallipoli devastated

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4224-706: The Council of Clermont and urged all those present to take up arms under the sign of the Cross and launch an armed pilgrimage to recover Jerusalem and the East from the Muslims. The response in Western Europe was overwhelming. Alexios was able to recover a number of important cities, islands and much of western Asia Minor. The Crusaders agreed to become Alexios' vassals under the Treaty of Devol in 1108, which marked

4356-633: The Council of Piacenza in 1095, envoys from Alexios spoke to Pope Urban II about the suffering of the Christians of the East and underscored that without help from the West, they would continue to suffer under Muslim rule. Urban saw Alexios' request as a dual opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Roman Catholic Church under his rule. On 27 November 1095, Urban called

4488-475: The Danube , he pushed his troops too far in 602—they mutinied, proclaimed an officer named Phocas as emperor, and executed Maurice. The Sasanians seized their moment and reopened hostilities ; Phocas was unable to cope and soon faced a major rebellion led by Heraclius . Phocas lost Constantinople in 610 and was soon executed, but the destructive civil war accelerated the empire's decline. Under Khosrow II ,

4620-750: The Danube . In the north and west were the Balkans, the corridors between the mountain ranges of Pindos , the Dinaric Alps , the Rhodopes and the Balkans . In the south and east were Anatolia, the Pontic Mountains and the Taurus - Anti-Taurus range, which served as passages for armies, while the Caucasus mountains lay between the Empire and its eastern neighbours. Roman roads connected

4752-636: The Empire of Trebizond , was created after Alexios I of Trebizond , commanding the Georgian expedition in Chaldia a few weeks before the sack of Constantinople, found himself de facto emperor and established himself in Trebizond. Of the three successor states, Epirus and Nicaea stood the best chance of reclaiming Constantinople. The Nicaean Empire struggled to survive the next few decades, however, and by

4884-577: The Ghassanids came to Marib. The reason for this conference is not known. The second inscription of Abraha, dated 552, mentions military campaigns in central Arabia. Two columns of Arab auxiliaries tasked with suppressing a rebellion by Banu Amir , while Abraha himself went to Haliban, approximately 300 km southwest of Riyadh . The Ma‘add tribe was defeated, and they pledged allegiance and handed over hostages. While, Nasrid ‘Amr, son of al-Mundhir , offered his own son, who had previously served as

5016-641: The Komnenian restoration , and Constantinople would remain the largest and wealthiest city in Europe until the 13th century. The empire was largely dismantled in 1204, following the Sack of Constantinople by Latin armies at the end of the Fourth Crusade ; its former territories were then divided into competing Greek rump states and Latin realms . Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261,

5148-697: The Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr , along with other Arab nation from North, Central-West and South Arabia. From some of the reports of about the relations between the Lakhmids and the nation of Ma'ad, it can be concluded that the kings of the Northern Arab kingdoms feared them and viewed them as mighty opponent because of their powerful war tactics, even when they conquered them, they treated their kings with high respect as important people, and gave them large conquered colonies to rule, as reported in

5280-528: The Mu'allaqat , describe Ma'ad more regularly than they do Adnan, his father, demonstrating his veneration and greater importance to them. For some poets, it was a "disgrace" not to descend from either Ma'ad or Adnan and Ma'ad's glory alone outweighed the rest of that of the history of Arabia. Some poems imply that the Ma'ad tribe were the vast majority of pre-Islamic Arabis. Other poems celebrate Ma'ad's victory against

5412-590: The Namara inscription . Such views are also supported by the Classical Arabic writings. The nation of Ma'ad was mentioned by the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea (c. 500 CE – c. 565 CE) in his historical record of the wars of Justinian I . He mentioned that a Saracen nation named " Maddeni " (Ma'ad) were subjects with the kingdom of the " Homeritae " ( Himyarites ), and that Justinian sent

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5544-632: The Normans who arrived in Italy at the beginning of the 11th century. During a period of strife between Constantinople and Rome culminating in the East-West Schism of 1054 , the Normans advanced gradually into Byzantine Italy . Reggio , the capital of the tagma of Calabria, was captured in 1060 by Robert Guiscard , followed by Otranto in 1068. Bari , the main Byzantine stronghold in Apulia ,

5676-581: The Pechenegs , who were caught by surprise and annihilated at the Battle of Levounion on 28 April 1091. Having achieved stability in the West, Alexios could turn his attention to the severe economic difficulties and the disintegration of the empire's traditional defences. However, he still did not have enough manpower to recover the lost territories in Asia Minor and to the advance by the Seljuks. At

5808-405: The Quraysh , al-Ḥarith ibn Alqama, who was a hostage of the Quraysh was handed over to Abraha the Abyssinian. The Quraysh surrendered him to Abraha, who agreed in return not to sever the commercial relations between his kingdom and Mecca. The need for the surrender of hostages arose after some merchants from Abraha's country had been robbed in Mecca. Another hostage with Abraha, ʿUtbān bin Mālik of

5940-461: The Renaissance . The fall of Constantinople is sometimes used to mark the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the early modern period . The inhabitants of the empire, now generally termed Byzantines, thought of themselves as Romans ( Romaioi ). Their Islamic neighbours similarly called their empire the "land of the Romans" ( Bilād al-Rūm ), but the people of medieval Western Europe preferred to call them "Greeks" ( Graeci ), due to having

6072-407: The Roman papacy . In 780, Empress Irene assumed power on behalf of her son Constantine VI . Although she was a capable administrator who temporarily resolved the iconoclasm controversy, the empire was destabilized by her feud with her son. The Bulgars and Abbasids meanwhile inflicted numerous defeats on the Byzantine armies, and the papacy crowned Charlemagne as Roman emperor in 800. In 802,

6204-409: The adoption of state Christianity , and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin , modern historians continue to make a distinction between the earlier Roman Empire and the later Byzantine Empire . During the earlier Pax Romana period, the western parts of the empire became increasingly Latinised , while the eastern parts largely retained their preexisting Hellenistic culture . This created

6336-421: The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world . The term "Byzantine Empire" was only coined following the empire's demise; its citizens referred to the polity as the "Roman Empire" and to themselves as "Romans". Due to the imperial seat's move from Rome to Byzantium ,

6468-457: The sea walls of Constantinople , overhaul provincial governance, and wage inconclusive campaigns against the Abbasids. After his death, his empress Theodora , ruling on behalf of her son Michael III , permanently extinguished the iconoclastic movement; the empire prospered under their sometimes-fraught rule. However, Michael was posthumously vilified by historians loyal to the dynasty of his successor Basil I , who assassinated him in 867 and who

6600-499: The "People of the Elephant" were Abraha's troops who assaulted the Kaaba. Abraha had a troop of about 13 war elephants in the expeditionary forces. Muhammad's paternal grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib , put the battle in God's hands, realising that he could not take on the forces of Abraha. As Abraha's forces approached the city, the story goes: The next day, as they prepared for battle, they discovered that their elephant (called Mahmud) refused to approach Mecca. Even worse, birds came from

6732-510: The 532 Nika revolt he rebuilt much of Constantinople, including the original Hagia Sophia . Justinian took advantage of political instability in Italy to attempt the reconquest of lost western territories. The Vandal Kingdom in North Africa was subjugated in 534 by the general Belisarius , who then invaded Italy ; the Ostrogothic Kingdom was destroyed in 554. In the 540s, however, Justinian began to suffer reversals on multiple fronts. Taking advantage of Constantinople's preoccupation with

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6864-408: The Arab efforts to capture Constantinople in the 670s , but suffered a reversal against the Bulgars , who soon established an empire in the northern Balkans . Nevertheless, he and Constans had done enough to secure the empire's position, especially as the Umayyad Caliphate was undergoing another civil war . Justinian II sought to build on the stability secured by his father Constantine but

6996-408: The Byzantine administration's policy of heavy taxation and abolishing of the levy. The weakening of Georgia and Armenia played a significant role in the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071. Basil II is considered among the most capable Byzantine emperors and his reign as the apex of the empire in the Middle Ages . By 1025, the date of Basil II's death, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Armenia in

7128-419: The Christian viceroy appointed by Kaleb, with the support of dissident elements within the Aksumite soldiers who were eager to settle in South Arabia , then a rich and fertile land. An army sent by Kaleb to subdue Abraha decided instead to join his ranks and killed the commander (perhaps a reference to 'Ariat), and a second army was defeated. After this, Kaleb had to accord Abraha de facto recognition; he earned

7260-415: The Empire by land, with the Via Egnatia running from Constantinople to the Albanian coast through Macedonia and the Via Traiana to Adrianople (modern Edirne ), Serdica (modern Sofia ) and Singidunum. By water, Crete, Cyprus and Sicily were key naval points and the main ports connecting Constantinople were Alexandria, Gaza, Caesarea and Antioch. The Aegean sea was considered an internal lake within

7392-432: The Empire. The emperor was the centre of the whole administration of the Empire, who the legal historian Kaius Tuori has said was "above the law, within the law, and the law itself"; with a power that is difficult to define and which does not align with our modern understanding of the separation of powers. The proclamations of the crowds of Constantinople, and the inaugurations of the patriarch from 457, would legitimise

7524-411: The Mongol invasion also gave Nicaea a temporary respite from Seljuk attacks, allowing it to concentrate on the Latin Empire to its north. The Empire of Nicaea, founded by the Laskarid dynasty , managed to recapture Constantinople in 1261 and defeat Epirus . This led to a short-lived revival of Byzantine fortunes under Michael VIII Palaiologos , but the war-ravaged empire was ill-equipped to deal with

7656-405: The Normans were driven out of Greece, in 1186 the Vlachs and Bulgars began a rebellion that led to the formation of the Second Bulgarian Empire . The internal policy of the Angeloi was characterised by the squandering of the public treasure and fiscal maladministration. Imperial authority was severely weakened, and the growing power vacuum at the centre of the empire encouraged fragmentation. There

7788-440: The Quraysh, despite their small number, quickly rose to prominence in the following years, evidenced by the great fair of Quraysh, held in al-ʿUkāẓ, as well as the ḥums cultural association, which associated members of tribes of Western Arabia with the Mecca sanctuary. Gajda accepted the dating of the expedition to 552 CE, thus not coinciding with the birth of the Prophet, traditionally dated to 570 CE. It also observed that Mecca

7920-401: The Sassanids occupied the Levant and Egypt and pushed into Asia Minor, while Byzantine control of Italy slipped and the Avars and Slavs ran riot in the Balkans. Although Heraclius repelled a siege of Constantinople in 626 and defeated the Sassanids in 627, this was a pyrrhic victory . The early Muslim conquests soon saw the conquest of the Levant , Egypt , and the Sassanid Empire by

8052-413: The Tetrarchy system quickly failed, the division of the empire proved an enduring concept. Constantine I ( r.  306–337 ) secured sole power in 324. Over the following six years, he rebuilt the city of Byzantium as a capital city , which was renamed Constantinople . Rome , the previous capital, was further from the important eastern provinces and in a less strategically important location; it

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8184-414: The Thaqif tribe, was from Taif, east-southeast of Mecca. Al-Kalbi also provides some details about Abraha's offspring. Rayhana, "daughter of al-Ashram al-Ḥabashī [the Abyssinian]," is said to have given birth to Abraha ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, "king of Tihamah [along the Red Sea coast]". His brother was Khayr ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ. Another daughter of Abraha, sister of Masruq, was Basbāsa. A nephew of al-Ashram, named Yaksūm,

8316-426: The Turkish invaders at the Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir , brought troops from the capital and was able to gather an army along the way, a sign that the Byzantine army remained strong and that the defensive program of western Asia Minor was still successful. John and Manuel pursued active military policies, and both deployed considerable resources on sieges and city defences; aggressive fortification policies were at

8448-401: The Upper Country and on the coast, wrote this inscription when he returned from the land of Ma'add, when he seized the Arabs of Ma'add from Mundhir and drove out 'Amr, son of Mundhir, and he seized all the Arabs of Ma'add and Hagar and Khatt and Tayy and Yathrib and Guzām . The different locations have all been positively identified, except for "Guzam," which Christian Robin believes is

8580-486: The West, Khosrow I of the Sasanian Empire invaded Byzantine territory and sacked Antioch in 540. Meanwhile, the emperor's internal reforms and policies began to falter, not helped by a devastating plague that killed a large proportion of the population and severely weakened the empire's social and financial stability. The most difficult period of the Ostrogothic war, against their king Totila , came during this decade, while divisions among Justinian's advisors undercut

8712-401: The West. Zeno ( r.  474–491 ) convinced the problematic Ostrogoth king Theodoric to take control of Italy from Odoacer, which he did; dying with the empire at peace, Zeno was succeeded by Anastasius I ( r.  491–518 ). Although his Monophysitism brought occasional issues, Anastasius was a capable administrator and instituted several successful financial reforms including

8844-429: The Western provinces to achieve an economic revival that continued until the close of the century. It has been argued that Byzantium under the Komnenian rule was more prosperous than at any time since the Persian invasions of the 7th century. During the 12th century, population levels rose and extensive tracts of new agricultural land were brought into production. Archaeological evidence from both Europe and Asia Minor shows

8976-522: The abolition of the chrysargyron tax . He was the first emperor to die with no serious problems affecting his empire since Diocletian. The reign of Justinian I was a watershed in Byzantine history. Following his accession in 527, the law-code was rewritten as the influential Corpus Juris Civilis and Justinian produced extensive legislation on provincial administration; he reasserted imperial control over religion and morality through purges of non-Christians and "deviants"; and having ruthlessly subdued

9108-401: The administration's response. He also did not fully heal the divisions in Chalcedonian Christianity , as the Second Council of Constantinople failed to make a real difference. Justinian died in 565; his reign saw more success than that of any other Byzantine emperor, yet he left his empire under massive strain. Financially and territorially overextended, Justin II ( r.  565–578 )

9240-418: The aid of an elephant , with the intention of destroying the Kaaba. The elephant was supposedly provided by the Negus . Abraha's army is said to have included forces from South Arabian tribes, including the 'Akk, al-Ashʿar, and Khath'am . On his way north, Abraha is said to have passed through the settlements of various Arab tribes from which he took prisoners who were forced to act as his guides. Abraha's army

9372-568: The aristocracy turned into wholesale slaughter, while the emperor resorted to ever more ruthless measures to shore up his regime. Despite his military background, Andronikos failed to deal with Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus, Béla III of Hungary who reincorporated Croatian territories into Hungary, and Stephen Nemanja of Serbia who declared his independence from the Byzantine Empire. Yet, none of these troubles compared to William II of Sicily 's invasion force of 300 ships and 80,000 men, arriving in 1185 and sacking Thessalonica . Andronikos mobilised

9504-492: The birth of Muhammad and his progeny was on Monday, 11 April 572 (12 Rabī‘ al-Awwal 51 BH). The earliest Islamic reference to Abraha's attack on Mecca is found in the Al-Fil (Quran 105 ), which describes a divine intervention against the "People of the Elephant". God was said to have thwarted their wicked scheme, sending flocks of birds to rain down stones upon them, reducing them to "straw eaten up". Muslim scholars concur that

9636-764: The building of the famous Al-Qalis Church , although this is uncertain and may have been construction work at Ghumdan palace . It is dated to 559/560, making it the last known dated Himyarite text. Abraha is best known in Islamic accounts for his infamous attempt to attack the Kaaba in Mecca. He aimed to replace the Kaaba by constructing a grand church named the Al-Qalis (from the Greek Ekklesia ) in Sanaa . He also built

9768-495: The capital, and Alexios Angelos was elevated to the throne as Alexios IV along with his blind father Isaac. Alexios IV and Isaac II were unable to keep their promises and were deposed by Alexios V . The crusaders again took the city on 13 April 1204 , and Constantinople was subjected to pillage and massacre by the rank and file for three days. Many priceless icons, relics and other objects later turned up in Western Europe ,

9900-469: The city had collapsed so severely that it was now little more than a cluster of villages separated by fields. On 2 April 1453, Sultan Mehmed 's army of 80,000 men and large numbers of irregulars laid siege to the city. Despite a desperate last-ditch defence of the city by the massively outnumbered Christian forces (c. 7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were foreign), Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans after

10032-477: The commander of the second army sent by Kaleb of Axum after the first, led by 'Ariat, failed. Abraha was reported to have led his army of 100,000 men to successfully crush all resistance by the Yemeni army and then, following the suicide of Dhu Nuwas , seized power and established himself at Sanaa . However, he aroused the wrath of Kaleb by withholding tribute. In response, Kaleb sent his general 'Ariat to take over

10164-603: The crusade was to conquer Egypt , the centre of Muslim power in the Levant. The Crusader army arrived at Venice in the summer of 1202 and hired the Venetian fleet to transport them to Egypt. As a payment to the Venetians, they captured the (Christian) port of Zara in Dalmatia , which was a vassal city of Venice, it had rebelled and placed itself under Hungary's protection in 1186. Shortly afterward, Alexios IV Angelos , son of

10296-477: The death of both Adnan and Nebuchadnezzar II , many Adnanites who were not forced to live in Mesopotamia have fled away to Yemen , but Ma'ad, as the successor of his father, ordered them to return to Hijaz and Northern Arabia . The defeat and displacement of the people of Ma'ad seemed to be viewed by Pre-Islamic Arabs as a disastrous event, so that it was used as a proverbial measure in describing

10428-504: The deposed and blinded Emperor Isaac II, made contact with the Crusaders. Alexios offered to reunite the Byzantine church with Rome, pay the Crusaders 200,000 silver marks, join the crusade, and provide all the supplies they needed to reach Egypt. The crusaders arrived at Constantinople in the summer of 1203 and quickly attacked , starting a major fire that damaged large parts of the city, and briefly seized control. Alexios III fled from

10560-475: The east by allowing the Goths to settle in Roman territory; he also twice intervened in the western half, defeating the usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius in 388 and 394 respectively. He actively condemned paganism , confirmed the primacy of Nicene Christianity over Arianism , and established Christianity as the Roman state religion . He was the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern halves of

10692-433: The east to Calabria in southern Italy in the west. Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of Bulgaria to the annexation of parts of Georgia and Armenia, and the reconquests of Crete , Cyprus , and the important city of Antioch . These were not temporary tactical gains but long-term reconquests. At the same time, Byzantium was faced with new enemies. Its provinces in southern Italy were threatened by

10824-537: The emperor's role as the leader of the Christian world, John marched into the Holy Land at the head of the combined forces of the empire and the Crusader states; yet despite his efforts in leading the campaign, his hopes were disappointed by the treachery of his Crusader allies. In 1142, John returned to press his claims to Antioch, but he died in the spring of 1143 following a hunting accident. John's chosen heir

10956-533: The empire's eastern defences. The emergency lent weight to the military aristocracy in Anatolia, who in 1068 secured the election of one of their own, Romanos Diogenes , as emperor. In the summer of 1071, Romanos undertook a massive eastern campaign to draw the Seljuks into a general engagement with the Byzantine army. At the Battle of Manzikert , Romanos suffered a surprise defeat against Sultan Alp Arslan and

11088-496: The empire's fall, early modern scholars referred to the empire by many names, including the "Empire of Constantinople", the "Empire of the Greeks", the "Eastern Empire", the "Late Empire", the "Low Empire", and the "Roman Empire". The increasing use of "Byzantine" and "Byzantine Empire" likely started with the 15th-century historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles , whose works were widely propagated, including by Hieronymus Wolf . "Byzantine"

11220-552: The empire, gaining only short-term success. To avoid another sacking of the capital by the Latins, he forced the Church to submit to Rome, again a temporary solution for which the peasantry hated Michael and Constantinople. The efforts of Andronikos II and later his grandson Andronikos III marked Byzantium's last genuine attempts to restoring the glory of the empire. However, the use of mercenaries by Andronikos II often backfired, with

11352-468: The empire; after his death, the West would be destabilised by a succession of "soldier-emperors", unlike the East, where administrators would continue to hold power. Theodosius II ( r.  408–450 ) largely left the rule of the east to officials such as Anthemius , who constructed the Theodosian Walls to defend Constantinople, now firmly entrenched as Rome's capital. Theodosius' reign

11484-522: The end of the Norman threat during Alexios' reign. Alexios's son John II Komnenos succeeded him in 1118 and ruled until 1143. John was a pious and dedicated emperor who was determined to undo the damage to the empire suffered at the Battle of Manzikert half a century earlier. Famed for his piety and his remarkably mild and just reign, John was an exceptional example of a moral ruler at a time when cruelty

11616-620: The enemies that surrounded it. To maintain his campaigns against the Latins, Michael pulled troops from Asia Minor and levied crippling taxes on the peasantry, causing much resentment. Massive construction projects were completed in Constantinople to repair the damage of the Fourth Crusade, but none of these initiatives were of any comfort to the farmers in Asia Minor suffering raids from Muslim ghazis. Rather than holding on to his possessions in Asia Minor, Michael chose to expand

11748-472: The fall of the west during the reign of Justinian I ( r. 527–565 ), who briefly reconquered much of Italy and the western Mediterranean coast . The appearance of plague and a devastating war with Persia exhausted the empire's resources; the early Muslim conquests that followed saw the loss of the empire's richest provinces— Egypt and Syria —to the Rashidun Caliphate . In 698, Africa

11880-584: The former Byzantine possessions. Although Venice was more interested in commerce than conquering territory, it took key areas of Constantinople, and the Doge took the title of " Lord of a Quarter and Half a Quarter of the Roman Empire ". After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Latin crusaders, two Byzantine successor states were established: the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus . A third,

12012-554: The fort, allowing the Ottomans (who were hired as mercenaries during the civil war by John VI Kantakouzenos ) to establish themselves in Europe. By the time the Byzantine civil wars had ended, the Ottomans had defeated the Serbians and subjugated them as vassals. Following the Battle of Kosovo , much of the Balkans became dominated by the Ottomans. Constantinople by this stage was underpopulated and dilapidated. The population of

12144-642: The governor of Ma‘add. The inscriptions reads as: With Rahmanan 's might and that of His Messiah , King Abraha Zybmn, king of Saba’, of dhu-Raydan, of Hadramawt, and of Yamnat, and of their Arabs in the Upper-Country and on the Coast, inscribed this text when he raided Ma‘add for the fourth time, in the month of dha-thabatan [April], when all the Banu Amir had revolted; the king sent Abu Jabr with Kinda and ‘Ali, and Bishr son of Hisn with Sa‘d and Murad ;

12276-420: The governorship of Yemen. One version of what then happened was that Abraha fought a duel with 'Ariat which resulted in 'Ariat being killed and Abraha suffering the injury which earned him the sobriquet al-Ashram "Scarface." It was also said that Abraha's nose had either been lost in battle or had been severely damaged due to a disease. According to Procopius, Abraha seized control of Yemen from Sumyafa Ashwa ,

12408-488: The heart of their imperial military policies. Despite the defeat at Myriokephalon, the policies of Alexios, John and Manuel resulted in vast territorial gains, increased frontier stability in Asia Minor, and secured the stabilisation of the empire's European frontiers. From c.  1081 to c.  1180 , the Komnenian army assured the empire's security, enabling Byzantine civilisation to flourish. This allowed

12540-459: The horror of their later defeats. Ma'ad is said to have fathered four sons: Nizar , Quda'a , Qunus and Iyad. Quda'a was the first-born and so Ma'ad ibn Adnan was known by his Kunya "Abu Quda'a." According to the Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah of Ibn Ishaq , Muhammad's lineage can be traced back to Ma'ad. Ma'ad was mentioned by name in the Namara inscription as a nation that was conquered by

12672-682: The inscription at Murayghän. Islamic tradition places his death immediately after his expedition to Mecca. Between 570 and 575 a pro-Persian group in Yemen made contact with the Sassanid king through the Lakhmid princes in Al-Hirah . The Sassanids then sent troops under the command of Wahriz , who helped (the semi-legendary) Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan drive the Aksumites from Yemen and Southern Arabia. As

12804-521: The king himself. The most detailed is dated to 548 CE and commemorates the suppression of a rebellion by the governor of Kinda , Yazid, and Sabaean as well as Himyarite princes. It also recorded the restoration of the Marib Dam , and the hosting of an international conference in which delegations from the Kingdom of Aksum , the Sasanian Empire , the Byzantine Empire, the Lakhmid Kingdom , and

12936-726: The later part of his reign, John focused his activities on the East, personally leading numerous campaigns against the Turks in Asia Minor. His campaigns fundamentally altered the balance of power in the East, forcing the Turks onto the defensive, while retaking many towns, fortresses, and cities across the peninsula for the Byzantines. He defeated the Danishmend Emirate of Melitene and reconquered all of Cilicia , while forcing Raymond of Poitiers , Prince of Antioch, to recognise Byzantine suzerainty. In an effort to demonstrate

13068-418: The measures he took to reform the government of the empire have been praised by historians. According to the historian George Ostrogorsky , Andronikos was determined to root out corruption: under his rule, the sale of offices ceased; selection was based on merit, rather than favouritism; and officials were paid an adequate salary to reduce the temptation of bribery. In the provinces, Andronikos's reforms produced

13200-655: The mid-13th century it had lost much of southern Anatolia. The weakening of the Sultanate of Rûm following the Mongol invasion in 1242–1243 allowed many beyliks and ghazis to set up their own principalities in Anatolia, weakening the Byzantine hold on Asia Minor. Two centuries later, one of the Beys of these beyliks, Osman I , would establish the Ottoman Empire that would eventually conquer Constantinople. However,

13332-546: The most capable Byzantine emperors, withstood continued Arab attacks, civil unrest, and natural disasters, and reestablished the state as a major regional power. Leo's reign produced the Ecloga , a new code of law to succeed that of Justinian II, and continued to reform the "theme system" in order to lead offensive campaigns against the Muslims, culminating in a decisive victory in 740 . Constantine overcame an early civil war against his brother-in-law Artabasdos , made peace with

13464-586: The new Abbasid Caliphate , campaigned successfully against the Bulgars, and continued to make administrative and military reforms. However, due to both emperors' support for the Byzantine Iconoclasm , which opposed the use of religious icons , they were later vilified by Byzantine historians; Constantine's reign also saw the loss of Ravenna to the Lombards , and the beginning of a split with

13596-466: The newly-formed Arabic Rashidun Caliphate . By Heraclius' death in 641, the empire had been severely reduced economically as well as territorially—the loss of the wealthy eastern provinces had deprived Constantinople of three-quarters of its revenue. The next seventy-five years are poorly documented. Arab raids into Asia Minor began almost immediately, and the Byzantines resorted to holding fortified centres and avoiding battle at all costs; although it

13728-569: The outset of his reign, Alexios faced a formidable attack from the Normans under Guiscard and his son Bohemund of Taranto , who captured Dyrrhachium and Corfu and laid siege to Larissa in Thessaly . Guiscard's death in 1085 temporarily eased the Norman problem. The following year, the Seljuq sultan died, and the sultanate was split due to internal rivalries. By his own efforts, Alexios defeated

13860-521: The patriarch Nicholas , the powerful Simeon I of Bulgaria , and other influential figures jockeyed for power. In 920, the admiral Romanos I used his fleet to secure power, crowning himself and demoting Constantine to the position of junior co-emperor. His reign, which brought peace with Bulgaria and successes in the east under the general John Kourkouas , was ended in 944 by the machinations of his sons, whom Constantine soon usurped in turn. Constantine's ineffectual sole rule has often been construed as

13992-410: The pope and Western Christian kingdoms, and he successfully handled the passage of the crusaders through his empire. In the East, Manuel suffered a major defeat in 1176 at the Battle of Myriokephalon against the Turks. These losses were quickly recovered, and in the following year Manuel's forces inflicted a defeat upon a force of "picked Turks". The Byzantine commander John Vatatzes , who destroyed

14124-551: The ports of southern Italy, he sent an expedition to Italy in 1155, but disputes within the coalition led to the eventual failure of the campaign. Despite this military setback, Manuel's armies successfully invaded the southern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1167, defeating the Hungarians at the Battle of Sirmium . By 1168, nearly the whole of the eastern Adriatic coast lay in Manuel's hands. Manuel made several alliances with

14256-441: The reconstituted empire would wield only regional power during its final two centuries of existence. Its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans in perennial wars fought throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 ultimately brought the empire to an end. Many refugees who had fled the city after its capture settled in Italy and throughout Europe, helping to ignite

14388-500: The rule of an emperor. The senate had its own identity but would become an extension of the emperor's court, becoming largely ceremonial. Ma%27ad ibn Adnan Ma'ad ibn Adnan ( Arabic : مَعَدّ ٱبْن عَدْنَان , romanized :  Maʿadd ibn ʿAdnān ) is an ancient ancestor of Qusai ibn Kilab and his descendant the Islamic prophet Muhammad . He is featured in ancient Arabic literature. The term Ma'add can also denote

14520-526: The sea, each of which brought three small stones, which they dropped on the soldiers of Abraha. Everyone hit by these stones was killed. Abraha was hit repeatedly and slowly dismembered . By the time he reached Sanaa, he was nothing but a miserable stump of a body. His heart burst from his chest, and he died. So the year of the War of the Elephant was a year of death. But it was also a year of life, for in that same year Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him and his progeny

14652-538: The starting point for Mecca's pre-Islamic history chronology. Some traditions link Muhammad's birth with this year, while others place his birth either 23 or 40 years after the Year of the Elephant, suggesting a date range between about 530 and 547 CE. Scholars Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed el-Wakil state that the week of the attack according to the Muslim commentaries began Sunday, 14 February 572 (13 Muḥarram 51 Before Hijrah ) and

14784-480: The story as a later Islamic tradition designed to explain the "Men of the Elephant" in Qur'an 105 . However, recent findings of Himyaritic inscriptions describe an hitherto unknown expedition by Abraha, which subsequently led Iwona Gajda to identify this expedition as the failed conquest of Mecca. In addition, scholar Christian Julien Robin notes that the historicity of a failed expedition is completely plausible, given that

14916-548: The throne. Alexios was highly incompetent in the office, and with his mother Maria of Antioch 's Frankish background, his regency was unpopular. Eventually, Andronikos I Komnenos , a grandson of Alexios I, overthrew Alexios II in a violent coup d'état . After eliminating his potential rivals, he had himself crowned as co-emperor in September 1183. He eliminated Alexios II and took his 12-year-old wife Agnes of France for himself. Andronikos began his reign well; in particular,

15048-425: The two chiefs of the army began to battle against the Banu Amir, Kinda, and Ali in the valley of dhu Murakh, and Murad and Sa'd in a valley at the water hole of Turaban , and they slew, took prisoners, and seized booty in abundance; the king held an assembly at Haliban and they pledged allegiance, the rebels of Ma‘add who surrendered hostages; following this, Amr, son of Mundhir submitted to [Abraha], he gave his son as

15180-442: The unpopular Irene was overthrown by Nikephoros I ; he reformed the empire's administration but died in battle against the Bulgars in 811. Military defeats and societal disorder, especially the resurgence of iconoclasm, characterised the next eighteen years. Stability was somewhat restored during the reign of Theophilos ( r.  829–842 ), who exploited economic growth to complete construction programs, including rebuilding

15312-571: The verses of another poet, an "ingenuous test" is mentioned, wherein God's armies compelled the Quraysh to withdraw with regret after pelting them and covering them with dust. Only a few of them reached their homes, and Ṭufayl al-Ghanawī's poetry mentions a place near Mecca where "the elephant disobeyed his masters". Outside of later Islamic tradition, there is no mention of Abraha's expedition at Mecca, including from Abraha's own inscriptions. Historians see

15444-463: The west, the warlord Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476, killed his titular successor Julius Nepos in 480, and the office of western emperor was formally abolished. Through a combination of luck, cultural factors, and political decisions, the Eastern empire never suffered from rebellious barbarian vassals and was never ruled by barbarian warlords—the problems which ensured the downfall of

15576-422: The zenith of Byzantine learning , but while several works were compiled, they were largely intended to legitimise and glorify the emperor's Macedonian dynasty . His son and successor died young; under two soldier-emperors, Nikephoros II ( r.  963–969 ) and John I Tzimiskes ( r.  969–976 ), the Roman army claimed numerous military successes, including the conquest of Cilicia and Antioch , and

15708-604: Was besieged in August 1068 and fell in April 1071 . About 1053, Constantine IX disbanded what the historian John Skylitzes calls the "Iberian Army", which consisted of 50,000 men, and it was turned into a contemporary Drungary of the Watch . Two other knowledgeable contemporaries, the former officials Michael Attaleiates and Kekaumenos , agree with Skylitzes that by demobilising these soldiers, Constantine did catastrophic harm to

15840-512: Was born. Earlier mentions appear in pre-Islamic poetry, particularly in some qaṣīdas considered of unquestionable pre-Islamic origin, such as Abū Qays Ṣayfī bin al-Aslat's. This poet praises God for His help "on the day of the elephant of the Abyssinians" and narrates the elephant's defiance when the Abyssinians tried to force it forward with hooks and knives. God sent a wind showering pebbles from above, causing them to retreat in disarray. In

15972-560: Was captured. Alp Arslan treated him with respect and imposed no harsh terms on the Byzantines. In Constantinople a coup put in power Michael Doukas , who soon faced the opposition of Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros III Botaneiates . By 1081, the Seljuks had expanded their rule over virtually the entire Anatolian plateau from Armenia in the east to Bithynia in the west, and had established their capital at Nicaea , just 90 kilometres (56 miles) from Constantinople. The Komnenian dynasty attained full power under Alexios I in 1081. From

16104-561: Was given credit for his predecessor's achievements. Basil I ( r.  867–886 ) continued Michael's policies. His armies campaigned with mixed results in Italy but defeated the Paulicians of Tephrike . His successor Leo VI ( r.  886–912 ) compiled and propagated a huge number of written works. These included the Basilika , a Greek translation of Justinian I's law-code which included over 100 new laws of Leo's devising;

16236-581: Was his fourth son, Manuel I Komnenos , who campaigned aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and east. In Palestine, Manuel allied with the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and sent a large fleet to participate in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt . Manuel reinforced his position as overlord of the Crusader states, with his hegemony over Antioch and Jerusalem secured by agreement with Raynald , Prince of Antioch, and Amalric of Jerusalem . In an effort to restore Byzantine control over

16368-546: Was invaded annually, Anatolia avoided permanent Arab occupation. The outbreak of the First Fitna in 656 gave Byzantium breathing space, which it used wisely: some order was restored in the Balkans by Constans II ( r.  641–668 ), who began the administrative reorganisation known as the " theme system ", in which troops were allocated to defend specific provinces. With the help of the recently rediscovered Greek fire , Constantine IV ( r.  668–685 ) repelled

16500-690: Was lost to the Umayyad Caliphate , but the empire subsequently stabilised under the Isaurian dynasty. The empire was able to expand once more under the Macedonian dynasty , experiencing a two-century-long renaissance . This came to an end in 1071, with the defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert . Thereafter, periods of civil war and Seljuk incursion resulted in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The empire recovered during

16632-564: Was marked by the theological dispute over Nestorianism , which was eventually deemed heretical , and by the formulation of the Codex Theodosianus law code. It also saw the arrival of Attila 's Huns , who ravaged the Balkans and exacted a massive tribute from the empire; Attila however switched his attention to the rapidly-deteriorating western empire , and his people fractured after his death in 453. After Leo I ( r.  457–474 ) failed in his 468 attempt to reconquer

16764-406: Was not esteemed by the "soldier-emperors" who ruled from the frontiers or by the empire's population who, having been granted citizenship , considered themselves "Roman". Constantine extensively reformed the empire's military and civil administration and instituted the gold solidus as a stable currency. He favoured Christianity , which he had converted to in 312. Constantine's dynasty fought

16896-506: Was occupied by conflicts against two prominent generals, Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas , which ended in 989 with the former's death and the latter's submission. Between 1021 and 1022, following years of tensions, Basil II led a series of victorious campaigns against the Kingdom of Georgia , resulting in the annexation of several Georgian provinces to the empire. Basil's successors also annexed Bagratid Armenia in 1045. Importantly, both Georgia and Armenia were significantly weakened by

17028-441: Was overthrown in 695 after attempting to exact too much from his subjects; over the next twenty-two years, six more rebellions followed in an era of political instability . The reconstituted caliphate sought to break Byzantium by taking Constantinople, but the newly crowned Leo III managed to repel the 717–718 siege , the first major setback of the Muslim conquests. Leo and his son Constantine V ( r.  741–775 ), two of

17160-519: Was soon at war on many fronts. The Lombards , fearing the aggressive Avars , conquered much of northern Italy by 572. The Sasanian wars restarted that year, and continued until the emperor Maurice finally emerged victorious in 591; by that time, the Avars and Slavs had repeatedly invaded the Balkans , causing great instability. Maurice campaigned extensively in the region during the 590s, but although he managed to re-establish Byzantine control up to

17292-766: Was the norm. For this reason, he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius . During his twenty-five-year reign, John made alliances with the Holy Roman Empire in the West and decisively defeated the Pechenegs at the Battle of Beroia . He thwarted Hungarian and Serbian threats during the 1120s, and in 1130 he allied himself with Lothair III , the German Emperor against the Norman King Roger II of Sicily . In

17424-415: Was used adjectivally alongside terms such as "Empire of the Greeks" until the 19th century. It is now the primary term, used to refer to all aspects of the empire; some modern historians believe that, as an originally prejudicial and inaccurate term, it should not be used. As the historiographical periodizations of " Roman history ", " late antiquity ", and "Byzantine history" significantly overlap, there

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