Byzantine Empire Quotes

“Here’s her story, a tale of the bear-keeper’s daughter and the Empire: what happened to her and what happened because of her.”
― Carol Strickland, The Eagle and the Swan

“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.”
― Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

“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.”
― Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates

“Wars against the barbarians, with all their attendant trials and tribulations he was prepared to face himself, but the entire administration of affairs, the choice of civil magistrates, the accounts of the imperial revenues and expenditure he left to his mother. At this point the reader may well censure him for transferring the government of the Empire to the gynaeconitis, but had he known this woman’s spirit, her surpassing virtue, intelligence and energy, his reproaches would soon have turned to admiration. For my grandmother had an exceptional grasp of public affairs, with a genius for organization and government; she was capable, in fact, of managing not only the Roman Empire, but every other empire under the sun as well.”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad