Rome’s Successors: Byzantium, Islam, and the Germanic West 121though the emperor had the power to appoint and re-
move judges, he rarely if ever ignored their opinions.
A massive bureaucracy, established originally by
Diocletian and greatly expanded in the centuries after
his death, carried out the imperial commands. It regu-
lated every aspect of economic, political, and religious
life. Prices and wages were fixed by law, and movement
within the empire was controlled by a system of inter-
nal passports designed to prevent people from leaving
their homes or hereditary occupations. An effective po-
lice system unlike anything in the medieval west main-
tained order in town and countryside, while a fleet of
galleys patrolled the seas to keep them free of pirates.
Other officials managed state-owned factories, the
mines, and the distribution of water.
Many of these people, especially at the higher lev-
els of the bureaucracy, were eunuchs—men who had
been castrated in youth. Eunuchs were excluded from
the imperial office by law, and their inability to produce
heirs prevented the establishment of administrative dy-
nasties, much less the kind of hereditary aristocracy
that encouraged political decentralization in the me-
dieval west. Emperors thus trusted them, and their em-
ployment made a substantial contribution to Byzantine
stability. Ambitious parents sometimes had their sons
castrated to advance their careers, not only in the
church or civil service, but also in the army.
The Byzantine military, like the civil service,
evolved from Roman precedents modified by experi-
ence in the east. The army was composed of heavy ar-
mored cavalry (cataphracti) supported by archers and by
a heavy infantry armed with shields and swords or axes.
“Greek fire,” a kind of napalm whose composition re-
mains secret to this day, was used on both land and sea,
and siegecraft was a highly developed art. Though the
Byzantines prided themselves on their superior grasp of
strategy, they preferred whenever possible to rely upon
negotiation. Their diplomacy was known for its sub-
tlety as well as for its lavishness. They believed that
even massive subsidies were cheaper than a war. Mag-
nificent gifts were given to prospective enemies, and if
such people chose to call it tribute, what else could one
expect from barbarians?
The Byzantines paid heavily for all of this security
and regulation. A land tax fell upon every property in
the empire, including monasteries and the imperial es-
tates. Reassessment took place every fifteen years. If a
farmer could not pay, his obligation had to be assumed
by his neighbors under a system known as epiboli.A
head tax also was imposed. Levies on farm animals,
business inventories, imports, and exports were supple-
mented by surtaxes in times of special need.
Few governments have been more efficient in their
extraction of surplus wealth, but some of the proceeds
were spent on alleviating poverty. Though regular dis-
tributions of grain to the poor stopped at the beginning
of the seventh century, officials were expected to pro-
vide food in times of scarcity and to administer a host
of orphanages and other charities. The heavy taxes may
have permitted only a few to rise above the poverty
level, but fewer still were destitute.The Economic and Social Structures
of Byzantine Society
In time, the autocratic and intrusive character of the
Byzantine state produced a social structure that had few
parallels in the medieval world. Asia Minor and the
Balkan Peninsula formed the heartland of the Byzantine
Empire even before the Muslims took Syria, Egypt, and
North Africa in the seventh century. Both are rugged
lands whose narrow valleys and small plateaus are cut
off from one another because of geography and because
their inhabitants come from different ethnic groups with
long histories of mutual conflict. It would be hard to
imagine a site less likely to encourage social equality and
weak kinship ties, but that is what happened.
In the face of overwhelming imperial power, social
distinctions receded. Below the throne, everyone was
equal. Variations were seen in wealth, but Byzantine so-
ciety had absorbed Christian teachings so that it did
not regard money as a measure of virtue. Prestige de-
pended primarily upon bureaucratic rank, and rank de-
pended upon merit or on the bureaucrat’s usefulness to
the emperor. The widespread employment of eunuchs
and the principle that all wealth could be appropriated
to the service of the state inhibited the growth of those
elaborate social hierarchies characteristic of the me-
dieval west. As a result, social distinctions were fluid
and relatively minor. The empress Theodora was not
the only great personage to come from the lowest lev-
els of society (see illustration 7.1).
Even ethnic distinctions became largely irrelevant.
The Byzantines were remarkably free of prejudice,
though they sometimes persecuted Jews on religious
grounds and may, in the early years, have looked down
upon the Germans who were found in disproportionate
numbers among their slaves and household servants.
The imperial court embraced Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars,
Armenians, Cappadocians, and a score of other ethnic
groups without distinction; the ordinary citizen could
do no less.