Byzantium Is Rome: The Eastern Empire's Thousand-Year Continuation cover art

Byzantium Is Rome: The Eastern Empire's Thousand-Year Continuation

Byzantium Is Rome: The Eastern Empire's Thousand-Year Continuation

Listen for free

View show details

About this listen

 Rome didn't fall in 476 CE. That date marks the deposition of the last Western emperor — but in Constantinople, the Roman Empire kept governing, legislating, and fighting for another thousand years. This episode confronts one of history's most persistent misconceptions and asks a sharper question: what did Rome actually mean, and how long did it truly last?

The Eastern Roman Empire — the civilisation later scholars would call Byzantium — never accepted the label. Its citizens called themselves Romans. Their emperor was the Roman emperor. Their legal tradition descended directly from classical Roman law. Constantinople commanded the geographic chokepoint between Europe and Asia, giving the East a structural wealth and resilience the West never recovered. When the Western half dissolved through accumulated institutional failure across the fifth century, the East absorbed the shock and continued.

At the centre of this episode is Justinian, who ruled from 527 to 565 CE with world-historical ambition. His general Belisarius reconquered North Africa from the Vandals and reclaimed Italy from the Ostrogoths in campaigns of extraordinary strategic brilliance. But Justinian's most enduring achievement was legal: the Corpus Juris Civilis, a systematic codification of centuries of Roman law that became the foundation of legal systems across medieval and modern Europe.

The reconquest didn't hold — Italy fell to the Lombards within a generation — and the empire gradually transformed. Greek replaced Latin. Distinct theological traditions emerged. Art, administration, and military organisation all shifted. Yet the Roman identity persisted as the state's self-understanding until Ottoman forces breached the walls of Constantinople in 1453. From Rome's legendary founding to that final fall spans over two thousand years. This episode explores what it means to take the full arc seriously.

This episode includes AI-generated content. A YesOui.ai Production.

This episode includes AI-generated content.
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.