The term "Byzantine Empire" is a creation of modern historians. The "Byzantines" called themselves Romaioi ("Romans") and their empire the Basileia ton Romaion ("Empire of the Romans"). They see themselves as part of a long historical continuum that stretches back to the kingdom of the Old Testament and that found its fulfillment in the creation of the Roman Empire and its conversion to Christinanity. The Byzantines saw no fundamental break with the past, continuing to refer to Constantinople as "New Rome" and to themselves as "Romans" until the conquest of the empire by the Turks and even long afterward. The Latin West designated the empire as Romania; the Muslims as Rum.
The term Hellene, while it means a Greek, connotes a pagan, and was never used by the Byzantines themselves. A faction within the Order has adopted the term as a recognition of their Greek pride, and their pagan sympathies.
Following modern convention, and to make things easier for the reader, the term Byzantine will be used throughout. It is up for the troupe to decide whether to use the proper term of Roman or the anachronistic term of Byzantine.
The Byzantine empire is the continuation of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. Chronologically it spans the period from about 330 to 1453, and at its height included the lands from the Euphrates in the east to the Straight of Gibraltar in the west. Ethnically, the empire was diverse, its subjects including Greeks, Armenians, Slavs, Arabs, Egyptians and Latins, although its culture, from the seventh century on, was predominantly Greek. Politically, the empire was an autocracy in which the emperor is seen as the viceregent of God. The empire is viewed as having been established by God to last until the end of the world. Among its primary characteristics were cultural and political continuities with ancient Greece and Rome and a Christian ethic that permeated nearly every institution and aspect of life. The center of the empire, in both cultural and political terms, is Constantinople, the site of the court of the emperor, with its many bureaus and complex ceremony and the seat of the patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of Byzantine Christianity.
The Byzantine Empire stands as a bridge between the ancient world and the medieval and modern worlds. When much of western Europe was plunged in the depths of barbarism, the Byzantine Empire maintained a high level of civilization and political order. It preserved and then transmitted many of the ideas of ancient classical civilization, first to the Arabs and later to the Slavs and western Europeans. Much of medieval commerce, science, and learning would not have existed without the Byzantine contribution. Yet the Byzantine Empire was much more than a conduit, passively transmitting the fruits of classical experience to willing receivers. It had a life of its own and a set of ideas that borrowed heavily from the classical tradition but selected and combined those elements according to its own needs and interests. The Byzantines had a highly integrated view of life that saw clearly the relationships among God, the emperor, and his people, and that witnessed deep penetration of the human sphere by the supernatural. The value system of the Byzantines was not the same as that of the largely warrior societies with which the empire came into contact in the later Middle Ages. Thus, Western misunderstandings of Byzantine society were largely responsible for the reputation for perfidy and intrigue that Byzantium has held since medieval times and that has caused the Byzantine Empire to be little understood even in modern times.
A saga in Byzantium lends itself to the themes of the glory of continuity and opportunity from crisis. Glory from continuity since the Byzantine Empire has an unbroken connection with the past glories of Greece and Rome. Texts lost to the Western world are a common occurrence here including texts lost to us today. This connection to the past permeates all aspects of life here, and in the Order which celebrates its own past such links are even more strongly felt.
Opportunity from crisis is a recognition of the fact that Byzantium is in decline. A decline that gives intrepid magi many opportunities for power and growth. Perhaps they can even wrest the empire from its inevitable death. Byzantium is an empire in the grasp of winter.
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Last modified: Thurs Dec 10, 1998