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Here's the complete documentary series, all 4 parts in one video.
The fall of the Roman Empire took place in the 5th century. Or did it not? Well, in fact, half of that Empire survived for 1000 more years in the east, although it became Greek and Christian.
While European civilization collapsed in the West and fell into the Dark Ages, it was untouched in the East and continued thriving with renewed energy becoming the first Empire who tried to rule the earth keeping its eyes in heaven and, at its prime, it spread from Spain to the Middle East.
Today it is known as Byzantium, and for ten centuries it became the light of Europe, until the troops of the Ottoman Empire put its flame out forever in 1453. Nevertheless, its legacy still lives on in half Europe, and Western culture itself was heavily influenced by it. In the centre of it all, Constantinople, and in the very heart of the city Saint Sophia, the greatest building civilization had seen so far.
Discovery channel, honouring its name, will help you discover one of the greatest civilizations from the past, and probably one of the least known too. Byzantium, where ancient Rome and Greece melted together in the fire of Christianity, is sure to seduce you.
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
Most people consider the Roman Empire fell in the year AD 476, but that's a very Western-centric point of view. Before that, in AD 284, the Empire had been divided in two parts: Western Roman Empire (which spoke Latin, capital in Rome) and Easter Roman Empire (which spoke Greek, capital in Byzantium, later called Constantinople). It is the Western part which fell under the Germanic invasions in 476, but the Eastern part was left intact. In fact, while the Western part had been decaying for 2 centuries, the Eastern part was thriving and changing rapidly, but the new Christian culture in the East was a natural evolution of the Roman Empire, not a new culture, so the Byzantine Empire (as historians call it now) always was the Eastern Roman Empire. This Empire fell under the Ottoman arms in 1453, when its capital, Constantinople, was captured, but before that, a piece of the Empire had made its own kingdom by the southern coast of the Black Sea. This forgotten Byzantine kingdom, called Trebizond, was the last part of the Byzantine culture which survived to the Ottomans attack, finally being conquered by them in 1461. At that moment, the Byzantine Empire (and so, the last remain of the Roman Empire) ceased.
For dynastic and cultural reasons, Russia then claimed to be the spiritual heir of the Byzantine Empire, proclaiming Moscow "the New Rome" (or "the Third Rome", being Constantinople the second one), but that new Empire would be to Byzantium like the Holy Roman Empire to Rome, just a Barbarian imitation of its glory, though it is true that by the time of the Byzantine collapse, Russia had assumed much of its culture and civilization. Nevertheless there's a difference, the Germanic peoples in the West tried to revive the Roman Empire creating a new Empire 500 years after the city of Rome had fell and gone, whereas Russia had been deeply "byzantinied" by the time Constantinople fell and was ready to claim continuity (in Russian, "Tsar" means "Caesar").
Nonetheless, if we accept Russia's historical claim over Byzantine heritage, we then could consider that even though Byzantium politically disappeared in 1453 (or 1461), it's civilization somehow survived until the Russian revolution of 1917, when Russia, and soon all the rest of nations with a Byzantine heritage, fell to communism and much of their old culture and traditions destroyed.
So if you have ever wondered what Europe would be if the Roman Empire had lived on for 1000 more years, now you know the answer: Byzantium.
This video will probably help you know much better one of the greatest and most fascinating old civilizations. Strangely enough, most people know so little about Byzantium that we can call it, appropriately, THE LOST EMPIRE.
SUMMARY OF ALL 4 EPISODES:
The ancient, legendary empire of Byzantium - also known as the Eastern Roman Empire - outlasted the demise of Rome by a thousand years. A new order rose to become the last classical civilization of world history, sheltering the vestiges of Western learning during the Dark Ages, thriving off the silk and spice trade from the East, and eventually succumbing to the ruthless advance of crusaders and Ottomans. Pass through the gates of Constantinople, the eye of the world, where East still meets West. Explore the magnificent mosque of Hagia Sophia. Visit the treasury of St. Mark's in Venice and see antiquities never before filmed for television. Historian John Romer leads a fascinating journey back in time to discover the wondrous treasures of a fallen, haunted and forgotten realm.
Part1: Building the Dream:
"The procession was led by the great Roman Emperor, Constantine. And he brought with him a bunch of priests, pagan and Christian ones, and they were all holding an incredible collection of relics. There were twelve baskets filled with crumbs, the residue it was said of our Lord's miracle of the loaves and fishes. There was the very axe that Noah made the Ark with and there was a statue that the Emperor himself had brought secretly from Rome, the statue of the Greek god, Paris. And at the exact moment prescribed by astrologers, they buried their relics just over there, at the foot of the column. And Constantine renamed the city Constantinople and claimed it as the capital of his grand new empire. For forty years, he killed foes and family alike and when he died, people were so frightened of him that no one touched his body for a week."
Part2: Heaven on Earth:
"Look! Here is Jupiter. This is a pagan book illustrating pagan poetry, and it's a picture of Jupiter the king of the gods, and he's got a halo just like Christian saints will have in their pictures. And he's holding a globe just like Christ will in a thousand churches. And he's sitting under the arc of heaven as Christ does, and he's king of the stars and the moon and the sun. This is a pose which says to you,"KING". You can't have Jesus king of the world unless he looks like a king. That's where they're getting their iconography from - straight from the pagan faith. But When Christianity took over the Roman Empire, it attacked and swept away all these signs. Now these signs were as old as man himself, and Christianity was pretty poorly supplied with alternatives. After all, it was a language of books and words. But unless it was to fail, it had to develop and develop quickly a whole new set of images for the world. The trick, the genius, wasn't just to swap this ancient chaos with ten thousand pagan signs and symbols for a single set of Christian images, but to find a quick way of spreading these Christian images and pictures right through the ancient Mediterranean. Books - books were the answer. Books were invented at the same time that Christianity started."
Part3: Envy of the World:
"The dream that lasted for a thousand years, a dream shattered by the armies of the West, the fame of Byzantium, traveled from Iceland to China, from Ethiopia to Russia, to every kingdom on the earth. And, at its center, Constantinople, the world's great marketplace: its fabled wealth, its gold, its emeralds, its palaces, its glittering churches. A legend so rich it caused its own destruction. In 1204, the Venetians managed to divert a cutthroat army of Crusaders from their sacred vows to capture Palestine for Christendom. Promising them the plunder of Byzantium, they provided lists of the treasures and the holy relics inside Constantinople. On the thirteenth of April, Venetian war galleys sailed up to the city walls and the knights of France and Germany, of Italy and England, jumped from the boats onto the battlements. Over the next fifty years half of Constantinople was boxed up, crated, and shipped out of the city to Venice and the West."
Part4: Forever and Ever:
"On the last day of Byzantium, an eerie quiet fell over the city. Mehmet had told the Turks to rest, for a whole day, before the last assault. He gave the emperor time to walk with all that was left of the armies and nobles of Byzantium, once again into the great church, and there, after all their arguing in Florence, the Greeks and the Latins joined together in a last service, and the emperor went to the altar and was given the last rites. Then, he walked back to the palace, and there he made a speech to his commanders. A speech, you might say that it was the last speech of the ancient world. Byzantium was not a kingdom of this world. It was a belief in the inevitability that the world came, had a beginning, will come to an end. So when the emperor went onto to the walls and took with him the most ancient icons of his faith, and he knew that he would die, he also knew that he was right."
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