The Empire That Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640–740

Carl Newell Jackson Lectures

by John F. Haldon

The eastern Roman Empire was the largest state in western Eurasia in the sixth century. Only a century later, it was a fraction of its former size. Surrounded by enemies, ravaged by warfare and disease, the empire seemed destined to collapse. Yet it did not die. In this holistic analysis, John Haldon elucidates the factors that allowed the eastern Roman Empire to survive against all odds into the eighth century.

By 700 CE the empire had lost three-quarters of its territory to the Islamic caliphate. But the rugged geography of its remaining territories in Anatolia and the Aegean was strategically advantageous, preventing enemies from permanently occupying imperial towns and cities while leaving them vulnerable to Roman counterattacks. The more the empire shrank, the more it became centered around the capital of Constantinople, whose ability to withstand siege after siege proved decisive. Changes in climate also played a role, permitting shifts in agricultural production that benefitted the imperial economy.

At the same time, the crisis confronting the empire forced the imperial court, the provincial ruling classes, and the church closer together. State and church together embodied a sacralized empire that held the emperor, not the patriarch, as Christendom s symbolic head. Despite its territorial losses, the empire suffered no serious political rupture. What remained became the heartland of a medieval Christian Roman state, with a powerful political theology that predicted the emperor would eventually prevail against God s enemies and establish Orthodox Christianity s world dominion."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History

432 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2016

About the author

John Haldon is Shelby Cullom Davis '30 Professor of European History, and Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies. He has been Director of Graduate Studies for the History Department since July 2009. His research centers on the socio-economic, institutional, political and cultural history of the early and middle Byzantine empire from the seventh to the eleventh centuries. He also works on political systems and structures across the European and Islamic worlds from late ancient to early modern times and has explored how resources were produced, distributed and consumed, especially in warfare, during the late ancient and medieval periods. Professor Haldon is the author and co-author of more than two dozen books. His most recent books are The social history of Byzantium (Blackwell, Oxford 2008) and Byzantium in the iconoclast era: a history, with L. Brubaker (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011).

Professor Haldon is the director of the Euchaita/Avkat Project - an archaeological and historical survey in north central Turkey. As well as traditional methods of field survey and historical research, this long-term project employs cutting edge survey, mapping and digital modeling techniques to enrich our understanding of the society, economy, land use, demography, paleo-environmental history and resources of the late Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk/Ottoman periods. Further information on the Euchaita/Avkat Project is available through the following links.

He is also co-director of the international Medieval Logistics Project - an international project deploying Geographical Information Systems and sophisticated modelling software to analyze the logistics of East Roman, early medieval Western European and Early Islamic warfare and structures of resource allocation.

A native of Northumbria, England, Professor Haldon has worked at the Universities of Athens and Munich, at the Max-Planck-Institut for European Legal History in Frankfurt, and at the University of Birmingham, where from 1995 he was Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies and from 2000-2004 Head of the School of Historical Studies. He came to Princeton University in 2005. From 2007-2013 he is a Senior Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington D.C. He is a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and a member of the editorial boards of several scholarly journals in Europe and the USA.

Reviews

[Ryan Denson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haldon's book attempts to tackle a simple, yet monumentally challenging question. Given the myriad existential challenges facing the Byzantine empire in the seventh century, how did the empire manage to hold on? In the introduction, Haldon notes five sets of factors that may have contributed to the survival of the Byzantine polity: "The role of beliefs and identity, the nature of the empire's elites, strategic geography, climate and environment, and organizational factors." These factors are then dealt with thematically for the remaining chapters of the book. It is phenomenally well researched and Haldon does a fairly good job of explaining much of the technical things like the climatic research and geographical aspects. My only qualm is that there could have been more done to tie everything together than the short conclusion at the end. There is a lot of information being covered here and it is easy to lose sight of the overarching topic. The thematic organizational structure was probably the best way to tackle this question, but better summaries at the end of chapters and relating information to things covered in previous chapters may have helped. Overall, though, it is a fascinating work and a must read for anyone interested in late antique or Byzantine history.

[David Usharauli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tries to explain how the eastern Roman Empire also known as Byzantium managed to survive the Arab invasions between 640 and 740 A.D.

By 640 A.D. after prolonged but ultimately victorious war with Persians Byzantines under the emperor Heraclius recovered all the eastern territories lost previously to Persia. However, both empires were quite exhausted from constant warring.

It was at this time that tribes from Arabian peninsula became united under the new faith called Islam and started a blitzkrieg to spread it. Within next 100 years, Arabs conquest reached France to the west and China to the east. The speed of Arab conquest was simply unbelievable. North Africa, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, all Byzantine territories with strong Christian population quickly fell to Arabs. Anatolia, the only remaining eastern portion of the Empire was under constant threat of invasion. In Persia collapse of the state was so complete that it did not recover its own statehood until 16th century.

In contrary, Byzantines recovered from initial shock and by 740 A.D. Arabs stopped to represent an existential threat to their survival.

So, how Byzantines achieved it? While it is very import to ask the right questions it is more important to have the right answers which here the author failed to do it in my view. I think to understand this question one needs to compare and contrast the fate of Byzantine and Persian Empires following Arab invasions. Why Byzantines survived but Persians lost their state and even their identity and ancient religion, Zoroastrianism? It is clear from the book that Byzantines benefited tremendously from civil wars between different factions of Arab nobility that occurred periodically after initial expansion of Arab state. But what about military capabilities of Byzantines and Arabs? What determined Arab's success in the field? I did not learn anything about it reading this book. First chapter was good by introducing the concept and overall situation but the rest of the book lacked any clear direction.

posted by David

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