Chapter 6

• Cleopatra's ambitions


  Political, she had the courage and intelligence to try to achieve them
• Cleopatra was not merely motivated by hopeless love as modern playwrights and filmmakers would have us believe
• Cleopatra depended first on Caesar to accomplish her goals


  He was assassinated
• Cleopatra then depended on Antony


  He weakened at the end
• Cleopatra had been "the Queen of Kings"
• With Cleopatra's passing, nearly three centuries of Greek rule in Egypt came to an end, and Egypt became a Roman province


  30 BC
• Several names have been used by historians referring to or regarding the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (formerly Byzantium)
• The reader of Greek history is led to other questions: What exactly was the involvement of the Greeks in the Eastern Roman, or the Byzantine, Empire? To which Greeks do we refer, the Greek people of the nation we now call Greece, or Greeks that settled many centuries before in Asia Minor and the East? How does the history of the Byzantine Empire bear on that of the Greek people?
• Byzantine Empire


  A relatively modern name for what was then known as the Eastern Roman Empire
• The name was first used by French scholars only in the seventeenth century, to mark the historical change when the capital of the Roman Empire was transferred from Rome to the site of the old Greek colony of Byzantium (in Greek, Byzantion), which city lent its name to an empire just as the city of Rome had done earlier
• Being Greek in culture dating from the influence of Alexander the Great and the successor kingdoms over a period of three centuries, the occupation of this region by imperial Rome and the addition of its own influence, made it into the Graeco-Roman civilization
• Rome having taken possession of the eastern areas either by war or by peaceful means starting in the second century BC, it is obvious that the early eastern emperors would be Romans
• Starting with Theodosius I, when he was enthroned in 379, succeeding emperors came from all parts of the eastern empire; but, in spite of the strong Greek tradition, there was a consciousness of the continuity with the Roman emperors of the past
• The people called themselves (in Greek) Romaioi - Romans, not Graikoi -Greeks, and never Hellenes
• The Hellenes were the people of classical Greece, not the people of the empire in the east
• Any reference to Byzantines is strictly modern usage
• Since 212, when an edict was issued by Roman Emperor Caracalla, Roman citizenship was conferred on all free people who lived in organized communities in his vast domain
• This meant that all Greeks as well as other minorities residing within the empire were considered Romans
• The dominant culture of the entire eastern empire, together with its language and literature, was Greek
• The Hellenization process had already transformed what was to become the Eastern Roman Empire into a Hellenized world
• The process systematically continued, developed, and strengthened over the centuries
• In addition, the people of other foreign nations such as the Latins, Germans, and Russians called the people in the eastern Roman area "Greeks," because their culture and language - even their race- had dominated the area
• This Hellenization and the subsequent Christianization of the Eastern Roman, otherwise known as the Byzantine, Empire, are the keys to the Greekness of the area
• This eastern Byzantine Greekness is distinct from the classical Hellenism of antiquity on the peninsula, and yet they are two halves of a whole
• Whether of direct Greek heritage or not, the people of the Byzantine Empire greatly respected their classical Greek heritage, and took pride in its continuation and development
• The events described should be seen as a part of the overall history of the Greek people wherever they resided independently for centuries
• The efforts of the modern Greek nation to unite that heritage with the Byzantine period led to many of its problems, as described and as summarized in the Epilogos
• Hellenization


  1. Took a giant step forward during the reign of Heraklios (AD 610-641), when he made Greek the official language of the Byzantine state

  2. Up to now Latin was still the official language of the government, while Greek was the spoken and written common tongue

  3. Heraklios did away with this cumbersome two-language system, and favored the language which was primary, the Greek

  4. The church had also been a strong influence on this decision, Greek having been used as its language from its inception

  5. The knowledge of Latin was lost within a single generation, except for some scholars
• The Roman Empire had reached its maximum area from Spain to Armenia and north Africa about the beginning of the second century AD, and was able to maintain its hold on this vast territory for at least three centuries, always having to defend its borders against many attackers
• During the next hundred years the empire was overwhelmed, especially in the west by Germanic tribes, and in the Balkan area by the Huns and Slavs
• Emperor Justinian, installed in 527, won back the western territories of Italy and southern Spain, but these were lost again over the next century or so
• In the middle of the seventh century, the conquering Arabs reduced the empire yet more in the east as well as in North Africa, and the Slavs and Bulgars invaded the western empire from the north
• These were again pushed back, as were the Arabs in the east, and Crete was again recovered during the reign of the dynamic Byzantine Macedonian Dynasty (867-1057)
• At the beginning of the eleventh century, internal power struggles in Constantinople between the bureaucrats and the military reached serious proportions
• Because of this the countryside was deprived of its armies at a time when the area was being subjected to constant raids from warrior Turkic tribes attacking the eastern and northern edges of the empire
• These raids gradually grew bolder, being largely unopposed, and the Turks began to take some eastern towns and cities as well, where the booty was greater
• The Byzantine army had been substantially dismantled in an effort by the bureaucrats to gain power over the military
• Now they had to rely on less loyal mercenary troops for protection against the growing menace, and the frequent discontent of these foreigners only added to the chaos
• A number of victories against the Turks stiffened the resolve of the Byzantines, but this also led to the more orderly organization of a large army of Seljuk Turks under a very able leader, Alp Arslan ("Valiant Lion")
• It was inevitable that a major battle would take place, and this occurred in August, 1071, near Manzikert, on the shores of Lake Van in eastern Anatolia