The
Empire of “Corruption”
A
Note
The Late Byzantine Empire c. 1280 C.E. |
The Byzantine Empire is one of those
historical oddities that defy easy explanation and in the end refute simplistic
notions about how societies work. Traditionally portrayed in much of
literature has hopelessly corrupt, weak and ineffectual its very longevity
refutes indeed confounds the naysayers.
For the empire did indeed last a
longtime. If the date is selected from the reign of Constantine the Great (Died
337 C.E.), than the empire lasted over 1,100 years (324-1453 C.E.), or if you
take the time period to be from the definite division of the Roman Empire in
395 C.E to 1453 C.E. Further it outlasted the Western Roman Empire, (Fall 476
C.E.), by over 900 years.1
Such longevity requires an explanation
and common conceit in the past of decrying the empire for its corruption and
decadence does not help in explaining its longevity but in fact make its
survival inexplicable and incomprehensible. So too did diatribes like the
following:
Of that
Byzantine Empire the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes,
without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that
civilisation has yet assumed . . . There has been no other enduring
civilisation so absolutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness
... Its vices were the vices of men who had ceased to be brave without learning
to be virtuous . . . Slaves, and willing slaves, in both their actions and
their thoughts, immersed in sensuality and in the most frivolous pleasures, the
people only emerged from their listlessness when some theological subtlety, or
some chivalry in the chariot races, stimulated them to frantic riots . . . The
history of the Empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests,
eunuchs and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of
perpetual fratricides.2
Such hysterical moralizing is from a
historical point of view worthless and do not in the slightest help us to
understand the Empire’s survival.
Since it would seem that such a long
survival of a political state would seem to indicate that the state had certain
strengths it is obvious that the common old image of the empire as a corrupt
cesspool whose survival was “accidental" is simply wrong.
So what can we say about the nature of
the empire? Well perhaps the most important thing we can say about the nature
of the Empire was that it was “Greek”. By this I do not mean “Greek” ethnically
for except near the end most of the population of the empire was in fact
non-Greek ethnically. What I mean is that the predominate cultural tone of the
Empire was a Hellenized one. Now it wasn’t so much the classical culture of
Greece has the Hellenized culture created by Hellenistic states in the
aftermath of the career of Alexander the Great.
In other words it was a strongly
Orientalized Hellenistic culture. In fact the defining attribute of that
“Oriental” influence was the massive impact of Christianity which was
ultimately derived from the Middle Eastern culture of the Jews. And of course
Christianity was not the only “Oriental” influence that the Empire took over.
In many ways the political system duplicated that of the Zoroastrian Empire of
Persia.3
The “loss” of the Western Roman Empire
meant the loss of the Latin based culture of the West in the East. The Roman
Empire had been the creation of the Romans who although they admired greatly
the Hellenistic Greek culture tended to keep non-Romans in their “place”. In
the West Latin became the Lingua Franca, whereas in the East Greek had since
Alexander the Great had become the Lingua Franca. Despite the Roman domination
this practice continued under the Romans whereby Latin and Greek were used
together in the East, with, in everyday terms Greek dominating. Still Latin
dominated administration and the highest governing elites tended to be Latin
speakers from the west, especially Italy.4
What happened was the gradual
transformation in the East of the Roman Empire into a Greek “Roman” Empire. For
it should not be forgotten that the Byzantines considered themselves and their
Empire to be fundamentally “Roman”. This then is one of the secrets of the
survival of the Byzantine state. The state survived by transforming itself from
a “Latin” “Roman” based culture to one that was fundamentally “Greek”
“Hellenistic”.
Part of that transformation was the
Orientalizing effect of the adoption of Christianity, which helped to make the
state if anything even more different from the early Roman Empire. In fact one
of the most telling indications of the transformation is how when the Western
Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century C.E., how superficial and
indeed still “pagan” was much of the Empire. In the East by 600 C.E.,
Christianity had permeated politics, and culture down to the most basic ground
root level. The Empire was not just officially Christian it was organically
Christian.5
The same is true of the gradual dominance
of an Orientalized Hellenism. It simply wasn’t just the gradual spread of Greek
into the top reaches of power until it became the sole Lingua Franca, but the
concurrent eclipse and disappearance of Latin. And it wasn’t just Latin speech
that had disappeared it was the Latin literary culture. For the Greek speakers of
the east had little interest in the large corpus of classical Latin literature
and little interest in reading it. To them “true” literature was Greek and
perhaps Coptic and Syriac writings. The large Latin literature of the West was
of little interest to them and such interest got less and less has time went
by.6
The result was a ‘Greek” Empire with
significant “Oriental” features.
In other words the Empire was
transformed from the Latin based, “Roman” model into a “Greek” one. In fact an
example of the transformation was the so called “crisis” of the Empire that
began c. 600 C.E., and did not end until nearly 800 C.E. During this period the
Empire lost the great majority of the Balkans including most of Greece; all of
Syria, Palestine and Egypt and also Armenia. The Empire was nearly destroyed by
the Persian Empire and then by the emerging Muslim Caliphate. During this period
the capital Constantinople was besieged numerous times including three great
sieges in 626, 672-677, 717-718 C.E. During this time period the Empires cities
seriously declined in population and were largely abandoned, further the
population of the Empire declined significantly even in areas that remained
under the Empire’s control.7
Astoundingly the Empire survived and was
even able to have a revival. That was due to the efficiency of its military and
the Imperial bureaucracy, which despite corruption was the glue that held the
Empire together. Basically the survival of the Empire was due to the fact that
the state was able to marshal the administrative, financial and military
resources to survive and that in the end depended on a relatively efficient
bureaucracy. And that bureaucracy worked surprisingly well right to the end.8
Culturally the Empire is often dismissed
as conservative and uncreative. Certainly Byzantine scholarship can seem pretty
pedantic and dull. And actual “living” Byzantine literature, with its endless
Saints lives and dull as dishwater theological treatises is definitely not for
everyone. Still Byzantines produced some fine historical works and maintained a
living and vibrant historical tradition right to the end. A lot of belief in
the “deadness” of Byzantine literature is in fact simply an indication of lack
of familiarity, which is reinforced by the serious lack of modern editions of
many of the works unlike the Classics from antiquity.9
When the Empire emerged from the
so-called Byzantine Dark Age it was no longer the Ancient Roman Empire with its
classical urban centres. It was instead a semi-feudal, bureaucratic Christian
Empire. Instead of being urban centred like the old Roman, it was rural
centred and the aristocracy was no longer the old class of urban dwellers, but
a collection of bureaucrats and rural landowners. The state was Medieval. By
being able to transform itself it was able to survive.10
The transformation was enough of a
success that the state was able to survive until 1453.
As for culture; in the past the art of
the Empire was often disparaged for being “crude”, “primitive” and
“conservative”. Certainly it is quite different from the art of the classical
period and high Roman Empire, (30 B.C.E. – 200 C.E.). The art of the Byzantine
Empire especially its high style however displays a vitality that can be
appreciated if you pay attention to the conventions of the style and how one
worked within it. Certainly the art of
the Byzantine Empire did not display the degeneration that afflicted the Roman
Empire after 200 C.E. and even affected the eastern part until the
transformation into the Byzantine Empire transpired.11
Perhaps the best indication of the
curious vitality of the Empire culturally in what happened during its last
phase. Despite severe economic problems and general political decay. Constantinople
remained a place of Scholarship and further in the last two centuries of the
Empire a sort of artistic renaissance took place with some of the best of
Byzantine art, scholarship and historical writings.
In the Greek Peloponnese, The Byzantines
maintained right to the end a small province. There in the capital of Mistra
flourished, art architecture, and yes scholarship. Some of the very best of
Byzantine mosaics and icons were produced for Mistra’s many churches. As it was
dying the Empire was having one last cultural flowering.13
In the end the Empire we call Byzantine;
the Byzantines themselves never used the name, exhibited to the end a curious
sort of vitality, amidst, the rigid rules, the stifling orthodoxy and
corruption. It was perhaps the fact that beneath the surface, the basis was sound
that enabled the state to survive. After all few realms have lived 1,100 years.
So that rather than wondering how such a supposedly corrupt state and system
could survive perhaps it might be better to look at and for the sources of
strength that enabled the state to survive. And has mentioned above the state
was able in the face of incredibly formidable challenges to transform itself
fundamentally. That is in and of itself is remarkable.
I mentioned the existence of a
centralized bureaucracy has one of the factors that enabled the Empire to
survive and an essential factor it was. It was large enough and centralized
enough to prevent the different parts of the Empire from going off on their
own. In the West the gradual decentralization of the state caused a decrease in
the ability of the central government to control the provinces and gradually
they slipped outside of Rome’s ambit and thus fell under Barbarian Control. The
local Aristocracy having broken all links to the central authority and was thus
perfectly willing to accept the control of Barbarians who promised security
which the central government no longer could. This did not happen in the
Eastern part of the Empire. A process of decentralization did not lead to the
disintegration of central authority. The bureaucracy was able to make itself
felt throughout the Empire and thus to preserve what was left of it.14
So it is perhaps fitting that the
Byzantine Empire perished not with a whimper like the Western Roman Empire, in
476 C.E., but with a bang when in 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks.
1. For histories of the Byzantine Empire
see Treadgold, Warren, A History of the
Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, 1997,
and Norwich, John Julius, Byzantium: The
Early Centuries, Penguin Books, London, 1988, Byzantium: The Apogee, 1991, Byzantium:
Decline and Fall, 1995.
2. Lecky, W. E. H., from his History of
European Morals, (1869), quoted by Norwich in Byzantium: The Early Centuries, in the Introduction, (Electronic
Edition s. 11.5)
3. Treadgold, pp. 126-136.
4. IBID, pp. 103-147, Jenkins, Romilly, Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries AD 610 - 1071,
University of Toronto Press, 1987, pp. 1-14.
5. IBID, Treadgold, pp. 534-581,
Jenkins, pp. 375-387.
6. Diehl, Charles, Byzantium: Greatness and Decline, Rutgers University Press, New
Brunswick NJ, 1957, pp. 227-260.
7. This is the so called Byzantine dark
ages. It is covered in the following books, Treadgold, 1997, pp. 286-416, and
in Treadgold, Warren, The Byzantine Revival,
Stanford University Press, Stanford NJ, 1988, pp. 1-58, Norwich, 1988, (Electronic Edition 638.7-936), Jenkins, pp.
15-105. The best near contemporary source describing the “dark age” is by
Theophanes, see The Chronicle of Theophanes,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 372-663. See also The Chronicle of Theophanes, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadephia PA, 1982. (This volume only has the part of Theophanes that covers
the “dark age” period.)
8. Diehl, pp. 64-78.
9. IBID, 227-258.
10. Treadgold, pp. 371-416.
11. Footnote 8.
13. See Runciman, Steven, Lost Capital of Byzantium, TTP, London,
1980.
14. See Grant, Michael, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The
Annenberg School Press, Radnor PA, 1976, pp. 324-325.
Pierre Cloutier
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