Section One: A Great Empire Built from the Ground Up

    The Byzantine Empire, also known as the East Roman Empire, was
founded somewhere in the 7th century B.C.  It was one of the empires that
formed from the breakup of the massive Western Empire, around the 5th
century.  The culture of the new empire was based almost entirely on
Rome's.  For its territory consisted of the East Roman provinces.
    Constantine (the emperor) established precedents for the harmony of
the church, and imperial authorities.  These lasted throughout the life of
the empire.  Despite heavy taxation, agriculture was productive, making
itself a good building block for the empire.  Despite agriculture's
survival through the heavy taxes, much land was abandoned.  The Church of
Byzantium acquired vast landed estates, and, with the emperor himself, was
the largest landholder with the emperor himself.
    The Byzantine had a stable eastern border against the war-crazy
Persians.  Their empire was the entire Mediterranean world, and they could
not possibly hold all of that.  So, as a result of this, during the 2nd half of the 6th century AD, the Lombards gradually invaded an occupied much of former Byzantine Italy, except for Rome, Naples, and the far southern regions.  Then, to make matters worse, Mauricus, an emperor of Byzantium was murdered, causing civil and external war.
    The next emperor, Heraclius finally terminated a long series of wars with the Persians, and regained Persian-occupied Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.   Also, in the 9th century, the Muslim Offense halted on the Eastern frontier.

Section Two: The Decline and Fall of a Powerful Empire

     In the early 10th century, the Byzantine Empire began to regain territory in the Southeastern Asia Minor, and lands lost to the Slavs in Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace.  In a revival of the arts, manuscripts were recopied, encyclopedias were compiled, and math, astronomy, and literature recieved new attention.  Bulgaria declined, and was occupied by Byzantine armies in the 970's.
Then the Seljuk Turks, made devestating raids on eastern territories, crushed an imperial army, and overran most of Byzantine Asia Minor.  During that, they lost their last foothold in Italy.  And then, they were alienated from the Christian West!
Nevertheless, Emperor Alexius I appealed to the pope for aid against the turks.   Western Europe responded with the 1st Crusade (1096-1099).  It proved to be good, for short term use, but was horrible in the long run.
Italian merchant cities got special trading privileges, and gained control over mucg of the empire's wealth and commerce.  The Crusaders allied with Venice, seized and plundered Constaniople, and established their own Latin empire of Constaniople.   Emperor Micheal VIII recaptured Constaniople and founded a new dynasty, but it had limited resources.  Agriculture declined, the Turks conquered what was left of Byzantum, and finally took Coinstaniople, bringing the empire to a close in 1453.