“Byzantium: The Early Centuries/The Apogee/The Decline And Fall (A History of Byzantium)”, by John Julius Norwich

 

1439 pages, The Folio Society

When Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus (otherwise known as Constantine I or, better yet, Constantine the Great) wrested control of the mortally wounded Roman Empire in 323, he saw that Rome – once glorious, now decrepit and, more importantly, indefensible – was no place to rule an empire from, so he decided to build a new Rome – more glorious, young and, more importantly, defensible – on the site of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium (hence the term for the late Roman Empire, the “Byzantine Empire”). Located on the crossroads between Europe and Asia and protected by the narrow straits of the Bosphorus, Byzantium was ideally situated to rule Constantine’s Eastern dominions, as “Constantinople”, the City of Constantine (humble fellow, no?). And man, what a city: a dazzling vision in gold, porphyry and marble rose up upon the Golden Horn, an architectural splendor surpassing even the original Rome and the heart of an empire that, somehow, would endure for 1000 years, against seemingly impossible odds.

John Julius Norwich – also known as John Julius Cooper, 2^nd Viscount Norwich – was an English popular historian, travel writer and television personality. His histories span any number of subjects and were written over a span of over fifty years; his history of Byzantium – The Early Centuries, first published in 1988; The Apogee, first published in 1992; and The Decline and Fall, first published in 1995 – were collected by The Folio Society in a three-volume edition as Byzantium: The Early Centuries/The Apogee/The Decline And Fall (A History of Byzantium). This modern-day classic fills a crippling gap in the knowledge of Westerners about a long-lost country that was a bulwark against the forces that so wanted to destroy and absorb it: Arab, Mongol, Seljuk Turk and finally, Ottoman Turks, only to be betrayed by those whom it had saved time and again. Byzantium’s glory and importance for the West have been neglected for far too long, especially the military challenges and the triumphs of commanders too often starved of funds as the empire fell into its long decline.

As stated above, Norwich was a popular historian, and so Byzantium is a popular history, which means that (in the author’s words) his work “makes no claim to academic scholarship. No professional Byzantinist [?] perusing its pages will find anything that he does not know already – except, very likely, the occasional statement and opinion with which he will disagree” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This is important for the reader to keep in mind, for as a popular history, Byzantium follows his philosophy: “[a]ny self-respecting historian must try as best he can to tell his story in his own words. He may permit himself the occasional direct quotation from primary sources…but he should, on the whole, steer clear of secondary ones”. And so, he steers clear of any of the overarching theories of controversies and bedevil Byzantine scholarship amongst those in the know.

For the most part, Norwich sticks to this self-imposed restriction; the only area on potential controversy that he does cover is the workings of early Christianity, but only because this relatively new religion was such an integral part of the lives of the Byzantine emperors and their subjects, but his descriptions of the faith that was central to this empire is neither dogmatic or theological. Rather, it is described in the popular manner in which he specializes; thus, such unfamiliar and complex ideas – like the Arian and Monophysite controversies – are described and detailed in such a manner as to make them comprehensible to the uninitiated. But for all that, Norwich is still a rather old-school historian who is principally concerned with the lives of the emperors and the political and historical aspect of the Byzantine Empire, rather than on the lives of the subjects of the empire or social and economic trends.