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Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

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Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#51

Post by MichaelZuo »

kmlx wrote: post #39
ptsneves wrote: post #21

Byzantine history is so important to understand the modern world. It gives us the context for the orthodox/west divide; it gives us an example of a economic and intellectual superpower needing to live with the realities of barbarian neighbors, and being destroyed! It shows us great statecraft lasting a thousand years. It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs and how the next best thing was…

one random tidbit that struck me was that the term "Byzantine Empire" was actually an invention from the 1500's. the "byzantine" people actually called themselves Romans, and the empire was called "Roman Empire".

A good compromise is to call it the Eastern Roman empire, though some folks in the Vatican would undoubtedly be annoyed.

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#52

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #28
ptsneves wrote: post #21

Byzantine history is so important to understand the modern world. It gives us the context for the orthodox/west divide; it gives us an example of a economic and intellectual superpower needing to live with the realities of barbarian neighbors, and being destroyed! It shows us great statecraft lasting a thousand years. It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs and how the next best thing was…

The religious parts of this I'm not sure I can agree with really.... I'm orthodox if it matters or seems relevant. The catholic/orthodox differences are largely just because of a thousand years of divergence, of speaking different languages and having relatively little interchange, of each individually having movements in response to internal pressures and trends not experienced by the other. Not going to get into a…

Oh yes, the Ottomans very mighty sophisticated. They just didn't know how to build cities, so they took other peoples'.

Orthodox? Which kind? I grew up Greek Orthodox but then I grew up more atheist.

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#53

Post by throwaway6734 »

ptsneves wrote: post #21

Byzantine history is so important to understand the modern world. It gives us the context for the orthodox/west divide; it gives us an example of a economic and intellectual superpower needing to live with the realities of barbarian neighbors, and being destroyed! It shows us great statecraft lasting a thousand years. It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs and how the next best thing was…

The author of this book was a guest on the History of Byzantium podcast. It's a great listen that picks up where the History of Rome left off.

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#54

Post by m00dy »

kmlx wrote: post #39
ptsneves wrote: post #21

Byzantine history is so important to understand the modern world. It gives us the context for the orthodox/west divide; it gives us an example of a economic and intellectual superpower needing to live with the realities of barbarian neighbors, and being destroyed! It shows us great statecraft lasting a thousand years. It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs and how the next best thing was…

one random tidbit that struck me was that the term "Byzantine Empire" was actually an invention from the 1500's. the "byzantine" people actually called themselves Romans, and the empire was called "Roman Empire".

and then the Ottomans came...

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#55

Post by epilys »

kmlx wrote: post #39
ptsneves wrote: post #21

Byzantine history is so important to understand the modern world. It gives us the context for the orthodox/west divide; it gives us an example of a economic and intellectual superpower needing to live with the realities of barbarian neighbors, and being destroyed! It shows us great statecraft lasting a thousand years. It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs and how the next best thing was…

one random tidbit that struck me was that the term "Byzantine Empire" was actually an invention from the 1500's. the "byzantine" people actually called themselves Romans, and the empire was called "Roman Empire".

They were the Roman Empire. The distinction we make today is mainly of two reasons:

- In the East side of the empire, Constantine, the Roman emperor who moved the capital to Byzantium ("New Rome") was half-Greek, and the Greek element in the East meant this half of the Roman Empire had a stronger Greek ethnic presence.

- In the West side, the local Roman elite along with newly arrived Germanic peoples (the Franks) were Christianized and established the Papal states, of whose the Pope was king, the Catholic church, and realms that continued from the Roman Empire that was split into West and East. To make their claim over the Roman Empire stronger, there were fabrications of legitimacy (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine ) and a lot of religious infighting with the East.

In short, in terms of a continuum of emperors the Eastern empire was essentially uninterrupted.

Even before the breakup of the empire, Romans were a bit obsessed with lineage and being descendants of powerful Romans. This cultural element carried over in the next two millennia by many people claiming the role of the Emperor of Romans, until the victories of Napoleon forced the rest of Europe to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 to prevent Napoleon from claiming the title for himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Holy_Roman_...

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#56

Post by badpun »

mach1ne wrote: post #30
drcode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do find it curious that not that much science came out of the Byzantine empire- Yes there was some, but (with my admittedly limited knowledge) it does seem to pale in comparison to the earlier stuff from Greece, Rome or even the Arab Caliphates with their scholars in Mathematics and Physics. It seems like it was intellectual, but didn't have a proportional output of science or art that has stood the test of time. F…

Well, Christianity is a big reason. It was so successful for so long in part because it aggressively repressed any ideologies which could have threatened its hegemony. Since the Church considered the ’scientific’ domain to be part of its curriculum, new science was generally a threat.

> Since the Church considered the ’scientific’ domain to be part of its curriculum, new science was generally a threat.

I don't think that's true. Church only opposed science that was in contradiction with the Bible, which was a small minority of all science discoveries. Church never had any qualms with Newton laws or laws of conservation of mass (in chemistry) etc.

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#58

Post by drcode »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #49
drcode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do find it curious that not that much science came out of the Byzantine empire- Yes there was some, but (with my admittedly limited knowledge) it does seem to pale in comparison to the earlier stuff from Greece, Rome or even the Arab Caliphates with their scholars in Mathematics and Physics. It seems like it was intellectual, but didn't have a proportional output of science or art that has stood the test of time. F…

I’m impressed by how you manage to disparage both the very real intellectual achievement of both the Byzantine empire and the Abbasid Caliphate in such a short comment. It’s even more amusing that you do that while comparing them to the Greek achievements without realising that the main reasons you know about them is due to translations made by intellectuals of the Byzantine empire and especially of the Caliphate.

It seems like you're just kind of arguing that every culture everywhere at all times was the most awesome culture ever and had the most awesome scientific achievements and saying that relative comparisons are possible is uncouth

Even though I'm an oaf, I do think it's nice that they maintained copies of the Greek stuff

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#59

Post by ogogmad »

mach1ne wrote: post #30
drcode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do find it curious that not that much science came out of the Byzantine empire- Yes there was some, but (with my admittedly limited knowledge) it does seem to pale in comparison to the earlier stuff from Greece, Rome or even the Arab Caliphates with their scholars in Mathematics and Physics. It seems like it was intellectual, but didn't have a proportional output of science or art that has stood the test of time. F…

Well, Christianity is a big reason. It was so successful for so long in part because it aggressively repressed any ideologies which could have threatened its hegemony. Since the Church considered the ’scientific’ domain to be part of its curriculum, new science was generally a threat.

Citation?

Re: Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

#60

Post by giraffe_lady »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #52
giraffe_lady wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The religious parts of this I'm not sure I can agree with really.... I'm orthodox if it matters or seems relevant. The catholic/orthodox differences are largely just because of a thousand years of divergence, of speaking different languages and having relatively little interchange, of each individually having movements in response to internal pressures and trends not experienced by the other. Not going to get into a…

Oh yes, the Ottomans very mighty sophisticated. They just didn't know how to build cities, so they took other peoples'. Orthodox? Which kind? I grew up Greek Orthodox but then I grew up more atheist.

I'm american and my parents were converts so I don't think of myself as being particularly affiliated with any of the ethnic jurisdictions. I usually just find a parish where I like the people and the services are in english.

Often that's OCA (russian-tinged american) but in the past it has been serbian or greek. As you're probably aware it's all technically the same church so there's no barrier or ritual to changing. The differences are mostly just musical style and other aesthetic traditions.

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