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Byzantine Empire
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And should there exist someone endowed with the beauty of a statue and the lyrical eloquence of a nightingale in song, gifted, moreover, with ready wit, then the wearer of the crown can neither sleep nor rest, but his sleep is interrupted, his voluptuousness suppressed, his appetite for pleasure lost, and he is filled with grave apprehensions; with wicked tongue he curses the creator nature for fashioning others suitable to rule and for not making him the first and last and the fairest of men.
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― O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates
― O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates
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In this sense, Byzantine culture embodies the French historian Fernand Braudel's notion of the longue durée, the long term: that which survives the vicissitudes of changing governments, newfangled fashions or technological improvements, an ongoing inheritance that can both imprison and inspire.
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― Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
― Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
