From Rome to Byzantium: The Fifth Century AD / Edition 1

by Michael Grant

Overview

Byzantium was dismissed by Gibbon, in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,and his Victorian successors as a decadent, dark, oriental culture, given up to intrigue, forbidden pleasure and refined cruelty. This great empire, founded by Constantine as the seat of power in the East began to flourish in the fifth century AD, after the fall of Rome, yet its culture and history have been neglected by scholars in comparison to the privileging of interest in the Western and Roman Empire. Michael Grant's latest book aims to compensate for that neglect and to provide an insight into the nature of the Byzantine Empire in the fifth century; the prevalence of Christianity, the enormity and strangeness of the landscape of Asia Minor; and the history of invasion prior to the genesis of the empire.
Michael Grant's narrative is lucid and colourful as always, lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps. He successfully provides an examination of a comparatively unexplored area and constructs the history of an empire which rivals the former richness and diversity of a now fallen Rome.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415147538
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/12/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Accustomed to a travel-oriented lifestyle due to his military upbringing, Michael Grant picked writing as a career because it wouldn’t tie him to one place. He is the co-author of the bestselling middle-grade science fiction series Animorphs and Everworld. Grant is also the solo author of the enormously successful Gone series for young adults.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Rome and Other Cities; Chapter 2 The Divided Empire; Chapter 3 Constantinople; Chapter 4; Chapter 5 Finance and the Armies; Chapter 6 East and West; Chapter 7 The Eastern Emperors; Chapter 8 Empresses; Chapter 9 Religion; Chapter 10 Literature; Chapter 11 Architecture; Chapter 12 The Human and Divine Form;

Editorial Reviews

'This is a paella of a book: tasty bits for those who know what they want.' - Spectator

'Impressively erudite and characteristically well researched, and provides a fresh perspective on a century that was truly the best and worse of times.' - Kirkus Reviews

'This provides a fine, accessible history of the period, including photos and maps as it examines and reconstructs the Byzantine Empire's history. College-level students will find it an appealing study.' - The Bookwatch

'The general student and specialist can read From Rome to Byzantium with interest and profit.' - Speculum-A Journal of Medieval Studies

From the Publisher

The great popular classical historian (Greek and Roman Historians, 1995; Constantine the Great, 1994; etc.) here meditates briefly on the century that saw the death agony of the Roman Empire and the birth pangs of the "new Rome" of the East, a civilization that would persist, against great odds, for almost a thousand years. Since before the age of Constantine the Great (c. 272þ337 a.d.), the Roman Empire had been divided for administrative convenience into eastern and western halves. Constantine unified the empire, but his achievement was short-lived: After Theodosius I died, in 395 a.d., the two halves became permanently riven into eastern and western empires. The eastern empire, based in Constantine's old capital of Constantinople and held together by vigorous rulers, an all-powerful bureaucracy, and a vital citizen-army, repelled repeated barbarian invasions and gradually coalesced into the Byzantine Empire. Meanwhile, as Grant shows, the old locus of Roman imperium in the West quickly slid into desuetude: Alaric and his Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 a.d. Ganseric and the Vandals repeated this humiliation four decades later. By 476 a.d. petty principalities. Grant deftly sketches the distinctive cultural achievements of the early Byzantines in church architecture and in the visual arts; in literature, Grant points out, the Byzantines were not as accomplished as their western counterparts. In conclusion, Grant laments the sparse attention given the important eastern empire in historical scholarship and credits the Byzantines with the preservation of Western culture during Europe's Dark Ages. So brief as to seem superficial at points, Grant's study nonetheless isimpressively erudite and characteristically well researched, and provides a fresh perspective on a century that was truly the best and worst of times. (44 b&w photos, 6 line drawings, not seen)

Kirkus Reviews