Byzantine Empire and Byzantium 139devastated by almost 30 years of destructive warfare. The
longest-lasting result of these campaigns was the strong
Greek religious and cultural presence in southern Italy
for centuries afterward. This reconquest was beyond the
resources of an empire also attacked by SLAVSin the
Balkans and battered by major plagues and major earth-
quakes in its richest cities.
A century after Justinian, the emperor Herakleios I
barely fought back the AVARSin the west and narrowly
won a long, desperate, and debilitating war with the Per-
sians, only to be faced by the Arabic invasions that imme-
diately and apocalyptically deprived the empire of the
rich provinces of SYRIA,PALESTINE, and EGYPT. From then
for the next two centuries, the Byzantine Empire was
under almost constant siege by Islamic armies and addi-
tional migrant peoples in the Balkans, perhaps only saved
by its impregnable walls and by Muslim disunity. Many
institutions and religious practices changed during this
anxious period. In popular and official religiosity, the
empire was troubled by a bloody dispute over the appro-
priateness of the worship of icons themselves or the
images of holy people they represented. Many were killed
as the result of this struggle over ICONOCLASM.
THE MEDIEVAL STATEOver the course of the seventh and eight centuries the
frontiers with Islam were slowly stabilized in eastern
ANATOLIA. The military was reformed and became much
more effective and began to dominate imperial politics
and succession. In the western provinces, northern Italy
was lost to the Lombards and all of Africa and southern
Iberia to the Muslims. SLAVSand BULGARSestablished
states just to the west of the city of Constantinople itself.
More unified in religious orthodoxy but still almost con-
stantly troubled by the dispute over icons, the empire’s
urban and rural populations continued to decline. The
economy in general suffered as the once lucrative trade
routes to the east were cut or became much less followed
and prosperous.
There were considerable military successes, even as
the reforms in supply and organization of armies were
taking hold. Of the soldier emperors of the ISAURIAN
dynasty, Leo III (d. 741) the Isaurian managed to defeat a
Muslim siege of Constantinople itself in 718, and Con-
stantine V (741–775) turned back a powerful Arab army
in Anatolia in 741. At the same time they were still
ardently persecuting dissidents in order to stop the wor-
ship of images and destroy icons. This trend lasted well
into the ninth century.
From the late eighth century, and especially in the
10th century, a demographic revival, a revived rural econ-
omy, a reformed and trustworthy currency, an expansion
of towns and trade, and an architectural building boom
occurred. These events coincided with the rule of
the MACEDONIAN dynasty, which for two centuries
(867–1056) established political stability, religious peace,
and competent government. The empire’s borders
expanded again as the Bulgars (by BASILII), Slavs, and the
Muslims were defeated or pacified, even pushed back as
far north as the Danube and as far east as the Euphrates.
After internal disorder and dynastic conflict at the
end of the Mecedonian period, a general, ALEXIOSI Kom-
nenos, restored order and founded a new dynasty. This
was also the era of the GREATSCHISM OF1054 between
the Eastern and Western Churches. Since then differences
about papal power have remained intense between the
two churches. At the same time the empire was under
attack from new quarters, such as the NORMANSnow
established in Italy, the nomadic Petchenegs in the north-
ern Balkans, and the SELJUKTurks in eastern Anatolia.
The Turks won an enormous victory at MANZIKERTin
1017 and poured into eastern Anatolia, never to be dis-
lodged again. Alexios called for mercenaries to help him
but got nearly uncontrollable and fanatic crusaders.
These often large armies from western Europe over the
next few decades had mixed success in the eastern
Mediterranean and probably were of assistance in pre-
serving a Byzantine Empire in the 12th century. The flood
of Italian merchants traveling east also greatly assisted a
revival in trade that produced economic benefit to the
empire. This situation changed dramatically, however,
when the city was sacked and looted during the Fourth
Crusade. A Latin Empire temporarily took control of the
city and many of the surrounding provinces. The city and
empire were never the same again; nor were the seriously
deteriorating relations with the West and the papacy.THE LATE EMPIRE
An empire was partially reconstituted from the provinces
of western Anatolia in 1261, when Michael VIII
(r. 1258/59), the founder of the last Byzantine dynasty, the
PALAEOLOGI, retook Constantinople. This remnant state
now faced ambitious and aggressive Latin states in Greece
and the Balkans, and the OTTOMANS, pushed westward,
and pursued into Anatolia by MONGOLS. This situation
was made all the more difficult for these financially
strapped emperors who ruled over small territories that
produced little tax revenue. The economy of the empire
was almost drained of wealth because commerce had
passed almost completely into the hands of Italian mer-
chants, especially those from VENICE and GENOA. The
civil wars of the first half of the 14th century further
doomed this now diminutive essentially small Balkan
State, which had been set up around 1340, after the
Ottomans nearly surrounded it by crossing in mass into
Europe to establish their capital in ADRIANOPLEor Edirne
behind the city of Constantinople. Form the mid-14th
century, Byzantium had become a small city-state doomed
in many ways, disputed among Serbia, Czar STEPHEN
DUSˇAN, and the Ottomans. Attempts at compromise over
dogmatic matters and papal authority in order to effect
ecclesiastical unity and obtain military assistance from the