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Some Aspects of Byzantine Civilisation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

At the outset the question may well be raised whether there is any real justification for the inclusion of a paper on such a theme in the programme of a Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Is Byzantine civilisation—in any true sense of the word—Roman at all? To judge from not a few modern studies of the life of the East Roman Empire, the answer to that question could only be in the negative. Take what is perhaps the best known brief presentment of Byzantine history—that of Professor Diehl of Paris—and the reader will not long be left in doubt. The preface proclaims the character of the Empire: Byzantium very quickly became, and was essentially, an oriental monarchy. In the sixth century, before Justinian's accession, one could well believe that the dream of a purely oriental empire was near its realisation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright ©Norman H. Baynes 1930. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 9 note 1 Alexandria and Constantinople: A Study in Ecclesiastical DiplomacyThe Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 12 (1926), 145156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 10 note 1 Kulturgeschichte des Altertums, p. 93.

page 10 note 2 The conception of East Roman civilisation defended in this paper is that of my little book on The Byzantine Empire published in the Home University Library.

page 11 note l Jews and Christians in Egypt, British Museum, 1924, pp. 137Google Scholar.