The Byzantines never achieved anything of value in their entire 1,000 year history?

[bigdaddy1204]

In the book Destiny Disrupted - a history of the world through Islamic eyes by Tamim Ansary, the author makes some pretty damning criticisms of the Byzantine Empire and its society. I think it would be worth exploring these further.

"The Byzantine Empire's subjects spoke Greek, and its philosophers...well, let us not speak too much about its philosophers. Almost any well-educated westerner knows of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, not to mention Sophocles, Virgil, Tacitus, Pericles, Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caeasar, Augustus and many others; but apart from academics who specialise in Byzantine history, few can name three Byzantine philosophers, or two Byzantine poets, or one Byzantine emperor after Justinian. The Byzantine Empire lasted almost a thousand years, but few can name five events that took place in the empire in all that time".

I have to say i am inclined to agree with the author. I cannot think of a single Byzantine philosopher other than Plethon, nor even one Byzantine poet. The Byzantines wrote in an affectation of fifth century BC Attic Greek, plagiarising the work of people who lived over a thousand years earlier while not producing a single new idea between them. What achievements in science, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, art and architecture did the Byzantines produce? Was there a single innovation worthy of note in their entire 1,000 year existence? Where is the great Byzantine poetry to rival Rumi or Shams of Tabriz or Omar Khayyam or Hafez Shirazi? It seems to me the Byzantines did nothing to further human civilisation. What forward progress did they bring?

Discuss.

[Bruno_Magno]

They defended the west from the islamic expansion for 1000 years. This is a great achivement by itself. Without Byzantines acting as a shield i doubt the western cristianity would have developed so much.

[bigdaddy1204]

They defended the west from the islamic expansion for 1000 years. This is a great achivement by itself. Without Byzantines acting as a shield i doubt the western cristianity would have developed so much.

I agree their survival was a heroic feat of endurance and remarkable as a military achievement. The theme system was a work of administrative genius.



But (from a science and cultural perspective) thats not much of an achievement, considering Islamic civilisation at the time was far more innovative, creative and enlightened.

[Bruno_Magno]

But (from a science and cultural perspective) thats not much of an achievement, considering Islamic civilisation at the time was far more innovative, creative and enlightened.

I agree with you, the Muslim civilization really made great achievements in the areas of science and the arts. However, this is easy to do when you find yourself on the path of connection between distant parts of the world, controlling global trade, generating great wealth for Muslims.
In the meantime Byzantium had to use its resources to defend itself against this rich and powerful civilization, so there was not much left to invest in the arts or sciences.
It is enough to see that when the Albuquerque fleet skirted Africa, defeated the Persian fleet and started trading directly with India, Islamic civilization rapidly deteriorated, even reducing scientific and astistic achievements.After that, Western civilization gradually became the greatest innovator in the fields of science, the arts, and philosophy, because they controlled a significant part of global trade.

[Mamlaz]

considering Islamic civilisation at the time was far more innovative, creative and enlightened.

It was more advanced, but not that much.

However, the main pillar of difference is that the Islamic Golden Age ended and the Muslim world threw itself into their dark ages, culminating in centuries of stagnation until this day, where, with over 1.5 billion people, they are barely even noticeable in the scientific development.

So the Romans did defend against this happening elsewhere instead of Europeans picking up where Muslims left off with the renaissance.

As to the main question of the thread, is perhaps flawed.

Perhaps the reason nobody knows is because nobody cared enough, and medieval Roman history was swept under the rug or thrown in a corner, rarely to be looked upon by most.

[Kyriakos]

Indeed. Muslim golden age lasted a few centuries, after which it became savage, by having some scholar attack greek philosophy and science. Byz empire also managed to sort of build a few large and imposing buildings, though i cannot readily think of one.

[Abdülmecid I]

Every civilisation and religion experiences a movement hostile towards scientific achievements, so I don't think that Middle-eastern backwardness should be explained by the appearance and propagation of the Hanbali School of Jurisprudence. Perhaps the Byzantine equivalent could be Gregory Palamas, an obscurantist monk, a fundamentalist monk with rather reactionary views, in contrast to his ideological opponent, Barlaam. Anyway, the decline of the Middle East began long before the victory of the Portuguese Navy against the Mamluk Egyptian (and not the Persian) fleet, although I agree that the loss of the Silk Trade Route certainly did contribute significantly. In my opinion, it probably has more to do with climatic change (hotter temperatures and more frequent droughts) and the Mongol-Turid invasions, which decisively undermined the prosperity of urban centers. The irrigation in Iraq hasn't still recovered from the destruction caused by the Mongol hordes, unaccustomed at governing an empire, not to mention the numerous massacres and the ridiculously harsh taxation systems. Similarly, Middle East's prosperity before 1000 A.D. should be interpreted as a result of the region being the cradle of civilisation, while Western Europe's thin level of urbanisation, thanks to the Roman domination, abruptly collapsed, when trade and political unity were disrupted by Germanic invasions and Saracen raids.

Anyway, more on the subject, Byzantine Empire produced many intellectuals, like the poet and author Michael Psellos, whose general obscurity should be explained more by the West not being acquainted with the East and not by the quality of his work. Certainly Byzantium hasn't influenced modern science as much as its Roman and Greek predecessors, but let's not forget that it existed in difficult times, when economy shrank and great cities reduced both in numbers and in size. Of course, the intellectual domain being mainly monopolized by the often bigoted clergy didn't help much, but again the Medieval Ages were characterized by religious intolerance and doctrinal fanaticism. Finally, a small side-note. Hadn't been for Photius' summary of ancient works, such as Ctesias' Persica, our knowledge about ancient history would be severely limited and we would probably even ignore the existence of even some Achaemenid monarchs.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-ancien...ia-severe.html

[Roma_Victrix]

Anyway, more on the subject, Byzantine Empire produced many intellectuals, like the poet and author Michael Psellos, whose general obscurity should be explained more by the West not being acquainted with the East and not by the quality of his work. Certainly Byzantium hasn't influenced modern science as much as its Roman and Greek predecessors, but let's not forget that it existed in difficult times, when economy shrank and great cities reduced both in numbers and in size. Of course, the intellectual domain being mainly monopolized by the often bigoted clergy didn't help much, but again the Medieval Ages were characterized by religious intolerance and doctrinal fanaticism. Finally, a small side-note. Hadn't been for Photius' summary of ancient works, such as Ctesias' Persica, our knowledge about ancient history would be severely limited and we would probably even ignore the existence of even some Achaemenid monarchs.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-ancien...ia-severe.html

Thank you for mentioning Michael Psellos and Barlaam of Seminara. However, there are a number of others we could mention, even if these individuals and achievements are dwarfed by those of Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman Greece, if not the Islamic World during its "Golden Age" of the 8th to 11th centuries AD (you could probably extend that to the 13th century AD, right up to the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols). The Han Chinese were perhaps the most advanced after that, although they were definitely superseded by late Renaissance Europe and certainly by the time of the Enlightenment in the West.

In either case, here's a humble list of Byzantine inventions and individuals worth noting:

* Shipmills (with waterwheels attached to riverboats) were invented by Belisarius in the 6th century AD, during the 537/538 AD Siege of Rome, as recorded by the Byzantine historian Procopius.
* The Corpus Juris Civilis of the 6th century AD, during the reign of Justinian, had a huge impact on later legal jurisprudence.
* Although they obviously didn't invent the original arch bridge, the pointed arched bridge is a Byzantine invention of the 6th century AD.
* Although the earlier Romans and other civilizations had domes, the Byzantines invented the pendentive dome for a rectangular floor plan.
* Greek fire, using a now uncertain chemical compound, was used with primitive flamethrowers by the Byzantine navy during the 7th and 8th centuries
* Although the traction trebuchet existed in Warring States China as far back as the 4th century BC, the counterweight trebuchet was undoubtedly invented by the Byzantines, an artillery piece first recorded by the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates in the 12th century, when it saw immediate use by Byzantine forces during sieges.
* Leo the Mathematician (790-869 AD) --> a mathematician, astronomer, poet, logician, and medical physician who translated various ancient works and compiled a large medical encyclopedia.
* Manuel Chrysoloras (1355-1415) --> a Byzantine Greek humanist of the Italian Renaissance, who translated the works of Plato and Homer, in addition to writing the Erotemata, a groundbreaking grammatical treatise on the Greek language that was keenly studied in Western Europe.
* Gemistus Pletho (1355-1454 AD) --> a Byzantine Greek humanist who was one of the key figures in the Italian Renaissance, notable for reintroducing Neoplatonism to Western Europe and establishing the Platonic Academy in Florence. He also penned works on geography and musical notation.
* Theodorus Gaza (1398-1475 AD) --> another Byzantine Greek humanist of the Italian Renaissance who translated various works into Latin, including many by Aristotle.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

If you want someone to blame for putting letters in math, it was the Byzantines Romans. Leon the Mathemetician did it in the 800's AD, just before the Arabs took the idea and ran with it, creating a significant portion of the basis for modern algebra.

They did a lot of other little stuff like that. Technically they invented the University, although the University of Constantinople didn't have a corporated student body like the later medieval universities that modeled themselves after it.

Liquid fire is a tricky subject, and most modern historians think that it was actually a name applied to several mixtures used for different applications, but the version that burned on water is still unknown to us.

[Copperknickers II]

Here's an interesting question: military dominance and wealth go hand in hand, indeed the one is often the primary aim of the other. It's rare that a major military power hasn't amassed a lot of wealth, if indeed it has ever happened. Architecture and public art are often a sign of wealth and power, because generally speaking great rulers want to make their mark and impose their identity and dominance on history, as well as on their subjects. There are huge exceptions to this however, such as the Mongols, who contributed to my knowledge no major buildings or artworks of any kind in any place that survive to the present day, notwithstanding their later Muslim ancestors. And then we have science and technological progress, with which philosophy can perhaps be joined. These are often desirable things however they are not universal in wealthy and powerful societies, there are many examples of major empires which contributed relatively little in the way of practical progress of this kind. And then of course you have the empires which did make science and tech progress, but it didn't spread to the rest of the world, viz. the great civilisations of ancient India and Mesoamerica.

And finally you have literary and non-public arts. Every society in the world has literature and artwork so the situation with these is a little different. Of course there are different types: almost every culture has its great epic poems and creation myths and religious literature. And also every country has its indigenous musical and secular poetic/folk tale traditions. There's some justification for arguing that sponsorship of the arts does lead to an increase in the amount of artwork produced, and an increase in the amount of time and effort put into it, and thus the sophistication of the output (personally I'm a big fan of folk literature and I think it has a lot to recommend it over dry and pretentious Latin or Greek or Persian or Shakespearean poetry but that's just me). Nevertheless, it's hard to argue after a certain point which literatures and artistic works are 'better' than others since these things are highly subjective.

And so, it seems to me that it's not the quality of the artwork per se but the power and wealth of the society: art pretty much just piggy-backs on the real accomplishments of steel and sweat. Which is why everyone has heard of Shakespeare and Cervantes and nobody has heard of African or Korean or Indonesian poets outside those areas. In fact to be honest, I don't think the average non-Muslim has ever heard of Rumi or Omar Khayyam any more than they have heard of Byzantine poets. So the question is, was there actually a lack of Byzantine poets and philosophers, or do we just not know who they are because they weren't lucky enough to have their books brought on campaign to foreign lands? Well a quick Google tells me there were plenty of Byzantine poets and there were also philosophers of sorts, albeit mainly theologians. So I think it's more to do with their position in the medieval and modern world rather than the quality of their output that we haven't heard of them.

Incidentally, I don't think plagiarism is a great explanation for poor quality of literature, some of the best literature in history is blatant plagiarism of earlier works: the Aeneid is blatant plagiarism of the Trojan War cycle, and Dante's Inferno is blatant plagiarism of the Aeneid Book 6, and half of Shakespeare is plagiarised.

[Roma_Victrix]

Here's an interesting question: military dominance and wealth go hand in hand, indeed the one is often the primary aim of the other. It's rare that a major military power hasn't amassed a lot of wealth, if indeed it has ever happened. Architecture and public art are often a sign of wealth and power, because generally speaking great rulers want to make their mark and impose their identity and dominance on history, as well as on their subjects. There are huge exceptions to this however, such as the Mongols, who contributed to my knowledge no major buildings or artworks of any kind in any place that survive to the present day, notwithstanding their later Muslim ancestors. And then we have science and technological progress, with which philosophy can perhaps be joined. These are often desirable things however they are not universal in wealthy and powerful societies, there are many examples of major empires which contributed relatively little in the way of practical progress of this kind. And then of course you have the empires which did make science and tech progress, but it didn't spread to the rest of the world, viz. the great civilisations of ancient India and Mesoamerica.

And finally you have literary and non-public arts. Every society in the world has literature and artwork so the situation with these is a little different. Of course there are different types: almost every culture has its great epic poems and creation myths and religious literature. And also every country has its indigenous musical and secular poetic/folk tale traditions. There's some justification for arguing that sponsorship of the arts does lead to an increase in the amount of artwork produced, and an increase in the amount of time and effort put into it, and thus the sophistication of the output (personally I'm a big fan of folk literature and I think it has a lot to recommend it over dry and pretentious Latin or Greek or Persian or Shakespearean poetry but that's just me). Nevertheless, it's hard to argue after a certain point which literatures and artistic works are 'better' than others since these things are highly subjective.

And so, it seems to me that it's not the quality of the artwork per se but the power and wealth of the society: art pretty much just piggy-backs on the real accomplishments of steel and sweat. Which is why everyone has heard of Shakespeare and Cervantes and nobody has heard of African or Korean or Indonesian poets outside those areas. In fact to be honest, I don't think the average non-Muslim has ever heard of Rumi or Omar Khayyam any more than they have heard of Byzantine poets. So the question is, was there actually a lack of Byzantine poets and philosophers, or do we just not know who they are because they weren't lucky enough to have their books brought on campaign to foreign lands? Well a quick Google tells me there were plenty of Byzantine poets and there were also philosophers of sorts, albeit mainly theologians. So I think it's more to do with their position in the medieval and modern world rather than the quality of their output that we haven't heard of them.

Interesting argument. I would tend to agree for the most part were it not for some strong exceptions. For instance, although Hellenistic Greek civilization certainly benefited from the resource-rich lands of the Ptolemies and Seleucids, the minor powers such as the city-states of Syracuse and Rhodes managed to produce some of the most profound thinkers, mathematicians, astronomers, inventors and engineers of the ancient world. For Syracuse, look no further than the colossal intellectual and inventor Archimedes, and for Rhodes the invention of the Antikythera mechanism (most likely of Rhodian provenance), if not the engineering of the Colossus of Rhodes. I suppose Athens had its own little empire with the Delian League, so perhaps it shouldn't be cited as a minor power, but it certainly wasn't as powerful as the Kingdom of Macedonia, which produced very little in comparison aside from some historians, poets, and artists.

As for your example of Korea, I would also tend to agree, although some Korean writers and philosophers have been appreciated in nearby China and Japan. Some are even treasured by modern Sinologists around the world; for instance, the 15th-century travel literature of Choe Bu. His near contemporary King Sejong the Great is known for various achievements, including the sponsored establishment of the Korean alphabet, and the 16th-century Admiral Yi Sun-sin is generally admired by maritime and naval historians, not just Koreans.

the Aeneid is blatant plagiarism of the Trojan War cycle, and Dante's Inferno is blatant plagiarism of the Aeneid Book 6

Indeed, although a bit of blatant plagiarism in fiction wasn't exactly frowned upon in ancient and medieval times (whereas modern copyright laws will hound you for such an offense). I think people in pre-modern times simply viewed previous sources as inspirational material that could be cherry-picked at will. Medieval chronicles certainly did that sort of thing all the time, sometimes whole passages word for word.

and half of Shakespeare is plagiarised.

I'm assuming this is a veiled reference to Christopher Marlowe, right?

If you want someone to blame for putting letters in math, it was the Byzantines Romans. Leon the Mathemetician did it in the 800's AD, just before the Arabs took the idea and ran with it, creating a significant portion of the basis for modern algebra.

I'm glad that someone else besides me thought to mention Leo.

[Cyclops]

OP is nonsense, there was a mutual resentment between the barbaric Franks and the East Romans which has come down to us via bigoted French historiography which tries to paint the East Romans as effete, over-cultured and devious. Curiously this is the same smear our US friends try to spread on their old allies the French. Plus ça change...

Claiming "Islamic civilisation at the time was far more innovative, creative and enlightened" is nonsense when we are talking about a thousand year span and "Islamic civilisation" did not exist for the first few centuries of that period. The many cultural achievements of Islam may add up to a greater amount than those of the ERE, but it has lasted longer and spread to more areas. Comparing them is meaningless in such a vague way.

Islam and Christendom became the major religions in many civilised lands and inherited from antique civilisations a great burden of learning which both did less with than might be expected. If the East Roman literati had an intellectual fault it was an over reverence for the past and a tendency to epitomise and reduce the learning of the past into manageable pellets and endlessly rearticulate it in flowery rhetoric.

If the scholars of the may areas of Islam had a fault it was the decision to subordinate reason to faith. Some adventurous souls strode against the stern boundaries of received Hellenic and Middle eastern wisdom sand the word of the prophet (eg Ulug Beg daring to go beyond Ptolemy's ideas about the universe) but in general Islamic civilisation was bounded in its four cardinal points by the covers of the Q'ran.

Both the many phases of Islam and the East Roman Empire represent massive cultural achievements and developments in their era.

It is not supportable to baldly state "the Byzantines never achieved anything of value in their entire 1,000 year history" when they did achieve a lot, their history is more than a thousand years and they weren't Byzantines.

[hellheaven1987]

ERE actually played a key role in the development of Western society during Middle Age.

[TheDarkKnight]

but apart from academics who specialise in Byzantine history, few can name three Byzantine philosophers, or two Byzantine poets, or one Byzantine emperor after Justinian. The Byzantine Empire lasted almost a thousand years, but few can name five events that took place in the empire in all that time".

To be fair, the Byzantine Empire is VASTLY overshadowed by the Roman Empire in the teachings of American schools (not sure about European schools). Even in college I had to go out of my way to learn about the Byzantines.

Hell I can barely remember the paper I wrote on the Byzantine military and it was one of the better papers that I wrote in college.

So I'm not surprised that people don't know much. I did my best to teach my students about the Byzantines this year and few of them remember anything outside of the Istanbul/Constantinople song I showed them in class.

[hellheaven1987]

So I'm not surprised that people don't know much. I did my best to teach my students about the Byzantines this year and few of them remember anything outside of the Istanbul/Constantinople song I showed them in class.

You should focus on their futile effort of stopping Islam Hivemind.

[TheDarkKnight]

Sidenote: I taught something dangerous this year...I told my students that the god that is worshiped in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the same god.

That was a fun discussion

As for stopping the Islamic caliphate(s), I did mention that, as to how both the Byzantines and the Franks were responsible for (mostly) stopping the spread of Islam into the heart of Europe. My Hispanic students were very interested in learning that they had North African/Middle Eastern blood in them because of the Moorish occupation.

[hellheaven1987]

My Hispanic students were very interested in learning that they had North African/Middle Eastern blood in them because of the Moorish occupation.

Tell them about Carthaginian Iberia then.

[Darios]

...there was a mutual resentment between the barbaric Franks and the East Romans which has come down to us via bigoted French historiography which tries to paint the East Romans as effete, over-cultured and devious.

This sums up this thread perfectly. The Eastern Roman Empire has had a very bad rep in the West since the crowning of Charlemagne. You even saw it during the 19th century when Western philhellenes were far more interested in portraying modern Greece as the successor of classical pagan Greece rather than the successor of the Orthodox Christian Eastern Roman Empire due to a "East-West rivalry" over the legacy of the classical Roman Empire.

Make no mistake about it, the East Romans were usually swamped in defending the empire, dealing with religious fanaticism, and proud of their Greco-Roman heritage to the point where science and the arts indeed stagnated a bit. There was a general decline in artistic quality from Late Roman realism to East Roman medieval art. However, they did do a really good job of preserving their academic heritage and even pushed it into the Renaissance. To the mind comes the geographer Maximos Planudes who discovered a copy of Ptolemy's Geographia in a library in Constantinople. He republished the maps in Greek and from there they passed over to Italy from where you see the earliest "modern" Latin translations.

[bigdaddy1204]

You should focus on their futile effort of stopping Islam Hivemind.

Despite the obvious troll post, i'll bite.

It wasn't futile; the Byzantines did gain a degree of diplomatic respect and acceptance from the Arabs for many centuries. They could be regarded as civilised, even if misguided. I recall reading that one historian noted that there were two states that mattered: the caliphate and the empire. Also their resistance allowed Greek language and religion to survive to the present (Persian language survival even after Arab conquest indicates Greek may have survived anyway). There was a fair bit of movement between the two as well, notably the Byzantine scholars who fled persecution in Byzantium to join the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.



The subject of this thread though is what achievements the Byzantines brought. So far you have made three posts in this thread, one of which is completely off topic, another which links to a Wikipedia article with no clear relevance to the topic, and another clearly intended to raise religious controversy. Please consider improving the quality of your posting. Thank you.

[alhoon]

I agree their survival was a heroic feat of endurance and remarkable as a military achievement. The theme system was a work of administrative genius.


But (from a science and cultural perspective) thats not much of an achievement, considering Islamic civilisation at the time was far more innovative, creative and enlightened.

Oh, come on!
From the top of my mind:

Greek fire. Both science and means of survival.
Innovations on ship building.
Architecture and engineering achievements (Hagia Sophia and several other Greek Orthodox cathedrals)
Theological advancement (Chrysostomos comes to mind) and the Organization of Religion with Synods to decide what is canon and what is heresy.
Creating the Slavic Alphabet.