Byzantium, Byzantine Empire and Khazaria

[Astronuc]

First of all, the history is fascinating with the Byzantine Empire juxtaposed between the Roman Empire and the Middle East (Asia Minor) and Central Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city-state, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas. The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original Thracian-Greek name Byzantion (Βυζάντιον; see also List of traditional Greek place names).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

Byzantine Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων) is the term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. In certain specific contexts, usually referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it is also often referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire. There is no consensus on the starting date of the Byzantine period. Some place it during the reign of Diocletian (284–305) due to the administrative reforms he introduced, dividing the empire into a pars Orientis and a pars Occidentis. Others place it during the reign of Theodosius I (379–395) and Christendom's victory over paganism, or, following his death in 395, with the division of the empire into western and eastern halves. Others place it yet further in 476, when the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate, thus leaving sole imperial authority to the emperor in the Greek East. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine I inaugurated his new capital, the process of further Hellenization and increasing Christianization was already underway.

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire#Early_history


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

Byzantium was at the cross-roads of the world in it's time. Parallel to its history is the westward migration of various nomadic tribes from central Asia.

 

[Astronuc]

I picked up a book yesterday at Soy Sefirim book sale at Yeshiva U. The book is "The Jews of Khazaria" by Kevin Allan Brook. It is as fascinating as the history of Byzantium.

Some background on Wikipedia -

The Khazars (Heb. sing. "Kuzari" כוזרי plur. "Kuzarim" כוזרים; Arab. خزر; Turk. sing. "Hazar" plur. Hazarlar; Greek Χαζαροι; Russ. Хазары; Tat. sing Xäzär plur. Xäzärlär; Pers. خزر; Latin "Gazari" or "Cosri") were a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia, whose ruling class converted to Judaism. The name 'Khazar' seems to be tied to a Turkic verb meaning "wandering" ('gezer' in modern Turkish). In the 7th century AD they founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea, where over time Judaism became the state religion. At their height, they and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, large portions of the Caucasus (including Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, etc.), and the Crimea.

The Khazars were important allies of the Byzantine Empire against the Sassanid empire, and were a major regional power at their height. They fought a series of successful wars against the Arab Caliphates, probably preventing an Arab invasion of Eastern Europe. By the end of the tenth century, their power was broken by the Kievan Rus, and the Khazars largely disappeared from history. The theoretical Khazar contribution to the bloodline of modern Ashkenazi Jews proposed by some historians is politically sensitive. Current genetic studies show that "Jewish Y-DNA tends to come from the Middle East, and… studies that take into account mtDNA show that many Jewish populations are related to neighboring non-Jewish groups maternally". While these studies also show that some Ashkenazim have non-Jewish, Eastern European ancestors, they contradict claims that the Ashkenazim were primarily descended from Khazars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

 

[Astronuc]

History of Byzantium: 306-1453 (Blackwell History of the Ancient World) by Timothy Gregory

the first sentence

The Byzantine Empire does not have a proper "beginning" since it was, in fact, the continuation of the Roman state, which had begun (according to tradition) in 753 BC.

Book Description
This book is a concise narrative of Byzantine history from the time of Constantine the Great in AD 306 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The author presents Byzantium as a vital society, important in its own right, but also one that served as a bridge between East and West, and ancient and modern society. A History of Byzantium uses the chronological political history of the empire as a narrative frame, but balances politics with a consideration of social and economic life and the rich culture of Byzantium. Visual documents, such as photographs of art, architecture, and implements from daily life, are used alongside the text to raise questions about life in the Byzantine Empire. The book is based on the latest scholarship and discusses the major historiographical questions for each period. At the same time, it is written in clear, narrative prose, making this fascinating period accessible to a wide readership.

About the Author
Timothy E. Gregory is Professor of Byzantine History at Ohio State University where he is also Adjunct Professor of Anthropology. He is the author of Isthmia (1993), The Corinthia in the Roman Period (1993), and Vox Populi (1979) and editor of the textbook Exploring the European Past: Texts and Images (2002), among other publications. He also has considerable experience in online teaching. He has served on the editorial board of journals such as Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies and the American Journal of Archaeology. He has extensive archaeological fieldwork experience in Greece and Cyprus and is the director of the Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Perhaps a good addition to one's history library.

http://isthmia.osu.edu/teg/50501/chron.htm by Gregory

And perhaps -

The Oxford History of Byzantium (Hardcover) by Cyril Mango

From Publishers Weekly
The Byzantine Empire receives a wide-ranging but unfocused treatment in this volume of essays by U.S. and U.K. academic historians. Several chapters provide a comprehensive if somewhat rushed chronicle of the empire, from the founding of Constantinople to its conquest by the Ottomans in the 15th century. Others discuss aspects of Byzantine Christianity, social life and literature, while Byzantine art and architecture are abundantly represented in the many photos and full-color plates of castles, monasteries, mosaics and icons. Individual essays are intelligent and clearly written, but also somewhat dry and noncommittal; while broadly representative of contemporary scholarship, they do not quite add up to a compelling portrait of Byzantine civilization. Writers complain of the paucity and unreliability of Byzantine sources, and sometimes shy away from decisive historical interpretations. Political history chapters, . . .

From Library Journal
Editor Mango, professor of Byzantine and modern Greek language and literature at Oxford from 1973 to 1995, has assembled many of the world's leading scholars of Byzantine studies to contribute essays for this ambitious volume, which can best be described as a narrative history by diverse hands. The subject is enormous, and these essays attempt to illuminate the course of Byzantine history and focus on key political and cultural issues in under 400 pages. This is a remarkable achievement, considering that Byzantine civilization endured over 1100 years. In his excellent itntroduction, Mango addresses the question of when Byzantium, as a distinct political and cultural identity, came into being. . . .

 

[Integral]

Edward Gibbon treated the Byzantine Empire as a continuation of the Roman empire. His Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

 

[Astronuc]

I think subsequent, or more accurately, modern scholars treat the Byzantine Empire as distinct from the Roman and Holy Roman Empires.

 

[EnumaElish]

The Turkic name for the Caspian Sea is (K)hazar Sea. (I think this is how the Iranians refer to it too.)

Also interesting is how the Turks adopted the Byzantine administrative machinery after they conquered Constantinople in the 15th century.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I think subsequent, or more accurately, modern scholars treat the Byzantine Empire as distinct from the Roman and Holy Roman Empires.

The Holy Roman Empire was not connected with the Roman Empire.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

Voltaire
The Byzantine empire, on the other hand, was so connected.

The end of the Roman Empire is traditionally, if not strictly accurately, placed at 4 September AD 476, when the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was deposed and not replaced. However, Diocletian, who retired in AD 305, was the last sole Emperor of an undivided Empire whose capital was the City of Rome. After the division of the Empire by Diocletian into East and West, each branch continued to style itself as "The Roman Empire." The Western Roman Empire declined and fell apart (see Decline of the Roman Empire) in the course of the 5th century. The Eastern Roman Empire (which would later adopt Greek as its main language), known largely today as the Byzantine Empire, preserved Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions along with Hellenic and Orthodox Christian elements for another millennium, until its eventual collapse at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

Roman Empire

 

[Astronuc]

The Holy Roman Empire was not connected with the Roman Empire.

I don't think that is entirely accurate. One has to look at what was preserved and carried forward during the Dark Ages to see the connection.

From the Wikipedia articles, the order seems to be:

Roman Republic (509 BC – 27 BC)
Roman Empire (31 BC – 1453) - but the Empire split in the third century - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
* Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) - 330 – 1453
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_...ire_-_Byzantine_Empire_.28395.E2.80.931453.29
and the link in the OP.
* Western Roman Empire - 286 – 476 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire

Certainly the Byzantine Empire represented a more or less contiguous history/culture, as opposed to the Western Empire which was caught up in tribal wars and instability

So in the west, one has a succession:

Kingdom of Italy (476–493) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy_(476-493)
Ostrogothic Kingdom (493 – 553) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic_Kingdom
Visigothic Kingdom (369-721?) - based on a succession of kings - Therving kings, Balti kings, and non-Balti kings - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigoths
Burgundian Kingdom (411-534) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundians#The_Burgundian_Kingdoms
Vandalic Kingdom - (435-534) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals
Kingdom of the Sueves - (409-585) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suebi

Frankish Empire - Merovingians (481–751), Carolingians (751–887)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire

There is some debate about Charlemagne (Karl de Grosse) being the first Holy Roman Emperor.

324 years after Odoacer abdicated Romulus Augustulus, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as King of the Romans, and as Imperator Augustus, attempting to revive the empire in the west. The Holy Roman Empire was a conscious attempt to resurrect the Western Roman Empire, which is considered to have ended with the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476. The Emperors thought of themselves as continuing the function of the Roman Emperors in defending, governing and supporting the Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire#Revival_in_the_west_-_Holy_Roman_Empire_.28800-1806.29

Holy Roman Empire (10th cent CE - 1806) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

Now after the third century there was the Valentinian dynasty - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_Dynasty

The Valentinian Dynasty, consisting of four emperors, ruled the Western Roman Empire from 364 to 392 and the Eastern Roman Empire from 364 to 378.

western emperors:
Valentinian I (364-375)
his sons Gratian (375-383) and Valentinian II (375-392)
the eastern emperor(s):
Valentinian I's brother Valens (364-378).
Valentinian's daughter's husband Theodosius I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valens

What's interesting is that Valentinian I and Valens were born in Cibalae (Cibalis, now Vinkovci, Croatia) in Pannonia in 321 and 328, respectively.

Valens was Roman Emperor (364-378), after he was given the Eastern part of the empire by his brother Valentinian I. But he lost it all when his forces were defeated at the Battle of Adrianople and he was killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople

Valentinian lived on in the west until 392.

I don't like relying on Wikipedia, but its articles are consistent with various texts on the Middle Ages, which I have been reading.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

One has to look at what was preserved and carried forward during the Dark Ages to see the connection.

I have to admit that I was extravagant when I said there was no connection between the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. One has merely to look at a map to see that they were both on the same continent and even a cursory glance at a history book will show that they both were gone before the 20th century began. As you correctly point out, there are many other connections as well. It would be better to avoid fuzzy language such as mine. I would say that the Roman Empire did not really go out of existence until 1806 when it was dismantled by Napoleon, but that would imply that there was no connection between the Holy Roman Empire and modern Germany at least up til 1945, the end of the so-called "Third Reich". Reich means empire in German, and the Holy Roman Empire was the first reich. Let us not forget also the many connections between modern Germany and Brooklyn, NY which continues to exist to this very day.

 

[Astronuc]

In case anyone's interested.

Byzantium: The Lost Empire
Starring: John Romer

Product Description
For more than 1,000 years, the Byzantine Empire was the eye of the entire world – the origin of great literature, fine art and modern government. Heir to Greece and Rome, the Byzantine Empire was also the first Christian empire. Now, after a year of filming on three continents, TLC unlocks this ancient civilization, spanning 11 centuries and three continents. Pass through the gates of Constantinople, explore the magnificent mosque of Hagia Sophia and see the looted treasures of the empire now located in St. Marks, Venice.

The reviews are mixed.

It's unfortunate because I enjoy a good history program, and I would like to see more scholarly works available to the general public.