Empires. How Are They Formed?

How exactly is an Empire formed? Through government? Religion?
There have been many Empires through time, so let’s name some.
– The Holy Roman Empire
– The Byzantine Empire
– The Aztec Empire
– Babylonian Empire
– The British Empire
– The German Empire
– The Golden Horde
– The Japanese Empire
– The Mayan Empire
– The Neo-Assyrian Empire
– The Afsharid Dynasty

These are 11 of the many empires in history and many have failed, and some have gone to great lengths. I will use the Byzantine Empire as an example of how Empires are formed and destroyed.

The Byzantine Empire was the predominantly Greek-speaking continuation of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), originally known as Byzantium which is initially the eastern half of the Roman Empire. It survived the 5th century fragmentation and collapse of the Western Roman Empire and continued to thrive, existing for an additional 1000 years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both “Byzantine Empire” and “Eastern Roman Empire” are historiographical terms applied in later centuries; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire. The borders of the Empire evolved a great deal over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Justinian I going from 527–565, the Empire reached its full extent after reconquering much of the historically Roman western Mediterranean coast, including north Africa, Italy, and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries. During the reign of Maurice from 582–602, the Empire’s eastern frontier was expanded and north estabilised. However, his assassination caused a 20 years of war with Sassanid Persia which exhausted the Empire’s resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. During the 10th century Macedonian dynasty, the Empire experienced something of a renaissance, but lost much of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks after 1071.

In its own time, there was no such thing as “the Byzantine Empire,” there was just the on-going Roman Empire; the “Byzantine Empire” is a scholarly term of convenience. As a result, there is no date that marks the moment when Rome became Byzantium and no scholarly convention either. Likewise, there is no consensus on exactly what period marks either the empire’s zenith or the beginning of its decline. Like most nations and empires, the fortunes of the Romans/Byzantines ebbed with plagues, earthquakes, contested successions, and military challenges. Four distinct periods of sustained crises have been identified by historians:
– The crisis of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, which saw invasions by the Visigoths, Huns, Alans, and Vandals across the Rhine and Danube frontiers and sweeping through most of Europe.
– The crisis of the 7th Century, which saw the explosive expansion of the new Arabian Empire at the Byzantine’s expense.
– The crisis of the Eleventh Century, which saw simultaneous invasions by the Normans in Italy, the Pechenegs in the Crimea and the Balkans, and the Seljuks in Asia Minor and the devaluation of the nomisma.
– The crises of the Thirteenth Century, which followed the Sack of Constantinople and partitioning of the empire by the 4th Crusade.

Part of the reason why the Crusades were launched was to assist in the weakening Byzantine Empire. The other reason was to reopen Jerusalem to the Christian Pilgrims. Both of these reasons branch from the arrival of the Seljuk Turks whose newly found Islamic zeal and good timing resulted in a victory at Manzikert in 1071 and the fall of Jerusalem in 1076. Though the Crusades assisted Byzantium in driving back some of the Turks, it also opened up Byzantium to Latin aggression which was not always directed at Byzantium’s enemies. Most notably the Fourth Crusade, which sacked Byzantium and reduced Imperial power to the Nicaean Empire, Trebizond and Epirus. Much of the Nicaean Emperors’ efforts went into combating the Latins even after Constantinople was returned to Byzantine rule. The Empire exerted much of its efforts into defeating its Latin neighbors, whose desires to liberate the Holy Land largely faded by 1291.

The Byzantine Empire is the Continuation of the Holy Roman Empire, and is a Greek speaking nation. It fell during The Fourth Crusade. It was reduced to the capital at end and was destroyed in 1400.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire