Why the Eastern Roman Empire managed to survive for 1000 years after the fall of the western roman empire?

[Dromikaites]

I think you are missing my point. My point is that the Eastern Emperors seems to have a much easier time in consolidating their influence and control over vital aspect of the Empire, such as the army as opposed to the West.

Geographically ERE was easier to defend. What wasn't easy to defend wasn't too valuable either: the Balkans, most of Greece (except for Thessaloniki which was valuable being a major European city of that period) and the Anatolian plateau.

This meant even a mediocre emperor or relatively small armies could defend what was really worth defending.

This might have also worked as a deterrent to some extent for the local potentates: when rebelling they needed to make considerable more efforts to really take control of the vital parts of the empire compared to a 3rd or 4th century WRE self-proclaimed emperor. Constantinople itself was a much tougher nut to crack than Rome.

However the list of rebellions and Byzantine coups shows such deterrent was not strong enough to discourage both the successful and the unsuccessful generals who attempted to grab the imperial purple.

The fact that the East could ensure that the majority of the army are willingly to remain loyal to the Emperor even after they killed influential generals like Aspar should be highlighted. Even under Theodosius II, the Empire did not face huge amount of rebellion as a result a Emperor that has little to no actual influence in running the Empire.

First of all, Aspar was killed in Constantinople, far away from his troops. Belisarius was also blinded in Constantinople by Justinian I, also because he could not have his troops at hand.

Why couldn't any of those powerful generals bring their armies to Constantinople?

Because that was illegal and by marching his army on Constantinople (just like marching on Rome) one would place himself outside the law.

It was OK to do that if the emperor was unpopular and nobody else was willing to come to his defense (this is why unpopular emperors could not hind effectively behind the formidable city walls). But marching with his army on Constantinople in times of relative calm (and even some idiotic emperors still managed to remain relatively popular) was a very risky business both for the general and for his troops. The emperor would have been able to defend the city walls with the local garrison and with the help of the population while other generals would come to the rescue. And those generals would come to the rescue for the simple reason there was only one throne and too many generals. So why that thorne should belong to that rebel? (just like in the WRE where many emperors did find supporters among the other generals).

The equation was really simple: a successful coup would require an unpopular emperor (even though he might have been an otherwise military competent one, like Maurice or Nikephoros II Phokas) so nobody would feel like coming to his aid and preferably some "commando" already inside Constantinople.

My issue is that when it became harder and less desirable for good and competent leaders/generals to grab the throne, and fully consolidate their power, it makes it harder for the Empire to be well run and be held together in times of crisis.

Well, the opposite seems to have been true if we take a look at the Catholic kingdoms. Once it was established by law only those from the royal blood can become kings or queens and clear rules of succession existed for those of royal blood, the rivalries among the generals where capped. Competent people kept doing their best in exchange for royal favors even though they could not get the throne anymore.

Yes, having an incompetent or a too inexperienced king did damage the kingdom on occasions (sometimes leading to its demise - like the Hungarian Kingdom which only survived on paper after the battle of Mohacs 1526 or like the Balkan kingdoms facing the Ottomans in the 14th century).

However statistically the kingdoms with clear rules of succession proved more resilient. Not only because they've lasted roughly as long as the Byzantine empire (they were set up in the 8th - 11th century and lasted till nowadays), but because the same experiment ("let's see how much punishment this kingdom can absorb from its incompetent leaders and from its sworn enemies") was run on much more "samples" (several kingdoms as opposed to a single empire) and was generally successful.

While "let the best man be the emperor/king/president" sounds good, it only works in societies where the middle class is the largest section of the population. This is why it could only work in the relatively small city-states in the Ancient and Middle-Ages times and nowhere else (though those "democracies" where not exactly democratic by our standards).

This is why it didn't work in South America until the end of the 20th century and this is why it doesn't work in some parts of Asia and Africa even in the 20th century. If most of the people are relatively poor and the faster track to a better life is having a weapon in hand, "the best man" means whatever warlord or general is better at the job of eliminating his armed competitors.

And there's only one way to find that out: not by elections. By civil war.

The ERE could absorb more civil wars and coups than the ERE just because it was richer and better protected by natural obstacles than its western counterpart. For the rest, it was a mess, with every 3rd emperor on average being overthrown, blinded or killed.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

You can't say that. That's an ignorant statement. Just like how Albanians say that modern Greece has nothing to do with ancient Greece and that today's Greeks are a bunch of "Asians/Africans/Anything else but Greek."

Who believes the Albanians?

[Dromikaites]

Who believes the Albanians?

Their claim is based on the distorted interpretation of the re-colonization of Greece with Greek-speakers from Asia after the elimination of Slavic states (end of the 8th century) who had taken over most of the territory.

However given the descendants of the Ionian Greeks were the geographically closer than anybody else and that the Anatolian plateau was less populated than the coastline, it's quite likely most of the 8th century relocated populations were "real Greeks".

Besides it's quite unlikely the Slavs had massacred the majority of the population when they've invaded. It's more likely they did what they did in the rest of the places they have settled: intermarried with the locals.

This means most of the Anatolian Greek-speaking colonists were "real Greeks" and the Slavic-speaking population they intermingled with were also 6th to 10th -generation descendants of the "real Greeks" (the Byzantines didn't massacre all the Slavic-speaking populations from Greece either because dead men don't pay taxes - they did need to alter the ethnic/linguistic structure of the population in order to make sure the newly liberated provinces remain stable, hence the re-colonization).

So yeah, the nowadays Greeks are not "pure-blood" anymore, they have Slavic and Asian blood running through their veins. But who really cares? (Besides racist idiots, of course)

[Odovacar]

First of all, Aspar was killed in Constantinople, far away from his troops. Belisarius was also blinded in Constantinople by Justinian I, also because he could not have his troops at hand.

Belisarius wasn't blinded, that's a legend.

[Dromikaites]

Belisarius wasn't blinded, that's a legend.

It could be a legend indeed because Belisarius' secretary Procopius doesn't mention the episode. Given he was not exactly a fan of Justinan I there was no reason for him to cover this up.

On the other hand Procopius wasn't painting a flattering portrait of his former boss either. That led some people to speculate there had been tensions between him and Belisarius. Because of that he (Procopius) might have had something to do with Belisarius being arrested for corruption, put to trial and thrown in jail. It's easier to convict somebody of corruption if his own secretary testifies against him, isn't it?

Justianian I pardoned Belisarius and released him from prison. But if Procopius really had something to do with it, then his silence about Belisarius losing his eyesight in the process is understandable. It may be very well that Belisarius simply went blind (if he went blind) because of either old age (he was 62 at the time) or because of a blood vessel bursting during what must have been a very stressful experience. If he came out of the prison blind (even due to "natural causes"), that would have given wings to the legend.

Anyway the essence of the story still remains: any powerful man was vulnerable in Constantinople as long as he didn't have a very solid "insurance policy". He could not bring his army with him and therefore he was generally at the mercy of the emperor who could blind him, throw him in prison or force him to become a monk.

[ivan_the_terrible]

Homogeneous population and religion.

I can think of several important ethnic divisions, and even more important religious ones.

[city17citizen]

Overall the centralization helped since Constantinople was the trade hub of various highly profitable trade routes and grew into the medieval metropolis. In the West the significance of Rome dwindled and one could say the only reason all the tradelanes went to Rome were because it was the Roman capital and not beause it was a natural crossroads for trade like Constantinople. I would guess this immensely helped Eastern Rome's finances if alot of money could be made or lent in the immediate surroundings of the capital. The control of the sealanes also gave good connections to alot of the territories of the Eastern empire, in the west this was only true for parts of Gaul and Spain and Africa while at the same time alot of the routes were longer or more exhausting.

City of Rome was an economic center of the entire Western Empire well into first part of the fifth century. Here are some important events that directly caused decline of the city.

First, political marginalization - happened when late empire faced frequent "barbarian" raids into its territory. Moreover, devastating civil wars had their beginning in one of distant provinces too often.
In order to deal more effectively against these threats, imperial court was established north, first in Milan and later in Ravenna.
As a result, Senate lost contact with the emperor and good deal of empire-wide, political influences with it.

Second, economic simplification - Peace with Vandals resulted in loss of rich northern Africa. This region was essential to the economy of the city. Most of Rome's food supplies were coming from there.
Once transport of grain from Africa declined, population of Rome shrunk rather quick.

There is also high probability that some parts of Italy, including Rome, suffered greatly from devastating warfare during conquests of Justinian in the 6th century.