The Significance of Emperors in the Byzantine Survival

1. Introduction

“When we speak of the fall of the Roman Empire, we should not forget that in fact only the western portion of that empire succumbed to the Germanic invaders. In the Greek-speaking eastern half, the Byzantine Empire stood for a thousand years as a citadel against the threats of expansion by the Muslims.”

Through the later Middle Ages, however, Byzantine both gradually declined politically and became more isolated from the rest of Europe. While the last centuries of the European Middle Ages saw the consolidation of the idea of Europe and the incorporation of European cultures into a larger, overarching European monoculture, Byzantine was left out of this new European concept. By the beginning of the modern period, when "Europe" had become a solid, cultural idea, Byzantine had come to an end with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.

Byzantine history, then, stretches in a continuous line from the latter centuries of Rome to the very beginning of the modern period. It transmitted the classical culture of Greece and Rome but it also developed a unique historical and cultural character based on a synthesis of Greek, Roman, European, and Islamic elements.

Byzantine survived more that 1,000 years because of the Byzantine Empire’s comparatively prosperous economy, its single-centered society composed of centralized authority and the union between church and state, and its strong military power. But, among these causative factors, its emperors ultimately make its survival became reality. This paper holds the opinion that emperors played significant roles in the survival of Byzantine Empire after the collapse of Western Roman Empire.

2. The Roles of Emperors in the Byzantine Survival

In the Western Roman Empire, emperors tended to soften the political color of their dictatorship by acclaiming themselves merely as “imperator”, or military leaders. But in Byzantine Empire, “basil” found its way in its usage as the main title for Byzantine emperors. “Basil” was used in the ancient Greek literature and daily conversation to call the Greek kings who were considered to be the supreme rulers. It is obviously discerned from the above contrast that Byzantine emperors began to possess supreme power in the imperial state.

As a result, in the historical development of the Byzantine Empire, the ebb and flow of dynasties was emblematic of the prosperity and decline of the empire. If the emperors were still at work, the dynasties could still survive and the empire was not doomed to fall. So emperors acted as the very pillar of the whole dynasty, for they virtually controlled the fate of Byzantine Empire.

“There existed all together 93 emperors in the historical development of Byzantine. As the token and controller of the highest power, they had played a pivotal role in the historical development of Byzantine. Byzantine was the country that had the longest history of holding emperors as the supreme ruler in its social pinnacle. Since 330 B.C., Constantine Ι began to change the Roman Empire’s tradition for the accession to the throne. From the beginning of Constantine reign, the family-domination politics had been set up in the political arena of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine emperors thus incorporated into themselves various kinds of social power ranging from politics, economy, military, jurisdiction to religion. They managed to take control of the internal politics and external diplomacy by virtue of establishing orderly central and local bureaucratic bodies. The unquestionable supremacy of the Byzantine emperors was the core of the complicated political life in the Byzantine Empire.” So it is not exaggerated to say that Byzantine emperors held power de jure and de facto. And this paper holds the opinion that the Byzantine emperors at least play dominant and important roles in the survival of the Byzantine Empire for 1, 000 years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Their roles in the Byzantine survival can be subdivided as follows:

2.1 Unity between Church and State

Since Christianity became the state religion of the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine emperors began to exert their supremacy to control the church. This supremacy was naturally formed when the early Byzantine emperors served as the protector of the then fledgling church. The most outstanding feature of Byzantine religion is the unity between church and state.

After Constantine I successfully unified the empire and established the centralized authority, he began to carry out his policy of Christianization, the pivot of which is to preserve the achieved unification, smooth the religious conflicts, prevent uprising from happening and strengthen the centralized