Byzantine Empire
▶ Explore on the mapThe Byzantine Empire was the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire: Greek-speaking, centred on Constantinople and lasting from the founding of that city in 330 to its fall in 1453. Its people called themselves Romans, and the name Byzantine is a later scholarly label. Under Justinian I the law was compiled in the Corpus Juris Civilis, Hagia Sophia was rebuilt after the Nika riots, and Belisarius recovered North Africa, Italy and part of Spain, though plague and war with Persia soon strained the state. Heraclius made Greek the language of administration and took the title basileus. The seventh-century loss of Syria, Egypt and the Balkans to Arab armies shrank the empire to Anatolia and fragments of Italy, but the theme system, a militia of soldier-farmers, allowed recovery, and the Arabs failed to take the capital in 717 and 718. The Macedonian dynasty brought a second golden age, and the missions of Cyril and Methodius carried Orthodox Christianity and Byzantine culture to the Slavs. After 1025 the empire declined, Manzikert in 1071 opened Anatolia to the Turks, and the Fourth Crusade sacked the city in 1204. The Palaiologan emperors ruled a reduced realm until Constantine XI died defending the walls on 29 May 1453.