The Seljuk Turks started to migrate west as early as the 6th century AD, but the main exodus took place in the 11th century when they were pushed by the Mongols.  In 1071 they crossed Byzantine territory (Armenia) on their way to Egypt when the imperial army under Emperor Romanus Diogenes confronted them at Manzikert.  The resulting three day battle was an almost unparalleled disaster for Byzantium.  The army was destroyed and Romanus himself was captured.  Even worse, the Seljuks (who had previously contented themselves with raiding) flooded into Anatolia, permanently wrenching it from Constantinople.  The Seljuk empire, however, didn’t hold together for long.  In 1299 a young Turk by the name of Osman broke free from the collapsing Seljuks and founded his own state which was named Ottoman in his honor.

By 1461 the Ottomans had absorbed the last remnants of Byzantium and had pushed deep into Eastern Europe.  Their empire would last until the end of the First World War, at which time it was largely carved up by the Great Powers.  The areas where the Ottomans were ethnically dominant (more or less) became the the borders of modern Turkey.

The emperors of Constantinople were fully aware of the value of their secret weapon.  In fact, they were reluctant to use it too frequently for fear that it could be reverse-engineered  or lose its psychological potency by overuse.  They were right to be worried.  Sometime before the eleventh century the Arabs managed to develop their own version, though it was far less effective.

It seems to have fallen out of favor with the Byzantines themselves by the 12th century- perhaps because they had lost control of the areas (around the eastern edge of the Black Sea) where they obtained the ingredients.  There is a mention of its use during the 4th Crusade, but whether it was actual Greek Fire or simply ships set on fire is not clear.  In any event, it’s day was done.  The spread of gunpowder made Greek Fire obsolete and it disappears from history.

Setting aside Ivan for a moment, we can dismiss the Soviet Empire entirely.  It was a reaction against the very institutions which drew their inspiration from Byzantium.  It replaced Orthodoxy with its own saints- Marx, Lenin, Stalin, etc- and did away with the traditional and political underpinnings of the Tsardom.

A better case can be made that the Russian Revolution of 1917 ended Byzantium, but there are still some serious problems with this.  For all of the similarities the Russian Empire was a unique entity.  They added their own influences into the mix and ultimately drew their inspiration from the Slavic world not the Greek one.  More importantly, they didn’t think of themselves as a continuation so much as use imperial Byzantine symbols to legitimize their own rule.  Ivan wrapped himself in the double eagle because it added to his prestige, not because he thought of himself as a new Constantine.  He was more interested in keeping Ivan alive (and in power) than in resuscitating Byzantium.  Constantinople was only important so far as it aided that goal.

A case in point is the 2009 Russian video “Death of an Empire: the Byzantine Lesson” which is narrated by Vladimir Putin’s father-confessor.  (you can watch the entire thing on youtube)  The film draws a parallel between Byzantium and Russia and the message is that the West is not to be trusted.  The Byzantine Empire is pressed into service as a surrogate Russia, and its fall is a warning not to fall into the debt of the West.  But the narrator’s call is not to restore Byzantium, it is to restore the Orthodox Russian Empire; an entity not a successor.

In his negotiations with the enemy commanders, Leo wouldn’t have needed a translator. Arabic was most likely his first language, which is one of the reasons why Islam is suspected as being an influence on him (even though it merely proves that not every native Arabic speaker was a Muslim). It’s tempting to think that the Islamic stricture against images was the inspiration for iconoclasm, but it more likely a development of Monophysitism- the Christian heresy that rejected Christ’s humanity in favor of his divinity. If Christ was purely divine then depicting him as a man was a form of heresy. Monophysitism had deep roots in Syria, and Leo wouldn’t have been the first emperor to pay lip service to Orthodoxy while harboring private Monophysitic beliefs.

Added to this natural dislike of icons was probably a bit of pique. When the Saracen army and navy showed up to besiege Constantinople Leo had been preparing for five months. It was he who had bolstered the city’s morale, intrigued with the Arab commanders outside the walls to keep them divided, incited most of the galley slaves of the relieving Muslim armada to revolt, and finally convinced the Bulgarian army to march down to Constantinople and deliver the coup de grace. And yet credit for Constantinople’s deliverance was popularly given to the icon of Mary that had made daily circuits of the city’s walls and was believed to have the city under its protection.

Leo gave a sermon thundering against Icons in the Hagia Sophia a few weeks later. When that produced no great outcry he issued his famous decree.

This is one of the most disputed topics in Byzantine history.  The word ‘theme’ was originally used to describe an army unit and only later became a political subdivision, so it’s very difficult to distinguish which of the two the sources are referring to.  Just to make things more confusing, the word “Theme” at first referred to military rolls, and the first Themes took the name of the army corps stationed there.  It’s nearly impossible to say exactly when the name of a division became the name of an area. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that it happened during the Heraclid Dynasty, but the exact emperor is unknown.  Generally Heraclius is credited (as part of his reorganization of the empire), but his son and grandson (Constantine III and Constans II) are also possibilities.  One theory even has it that the last member of the family- the disastrous Justinian II- came up with it.

The primary sources seem to favor Heraclius.  Theophanes the Confessor (8/9th C) mentions Heraclius arriving ‘in the land of the themes’, but this might be an example of attributing present day conditions to the past- like a Renaissance painting of a mythological scene that has everyone dressed in 15th Century clothes.  The 10th Century emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote a book On Themes where he says that the Themes were ‘since the time of Heraclius the Libyan (African)’.  So who developed the Theme system?  This time I think common knowledge has it right.  Probably (I follow professor Angeliki Laiou here) the first Themes were instituted by Herakleios and the full development of the system took time to mature.

First and foremost Greek culture was much more deeply rooted than the Ottoman one since it predates even Islam by more than a millennium.  There were those who adopted the prevailing faith and culture, but they were always a minority.  Perhaps given enough time ‘Greekness’ would have been drowned out but it would have taken much longer than five centuries.  For example, Constantinople- the capital of the Ottoman Empire- had a significant Greek populace and character until the population exchange of the 1920’s.  The same is true for many coastal areas in modern Turkey.  They remained Greek Christian enclaves until the exchanges of the twentieth century.

A second reason is that much of the Ottoman energy and vitality had been expended by the time the Greek heartland was taken.  For a century it appeared as if the Ottomans couldn’t be stopped, but when Suleiman the Magnificent besieged Vienna in 1532, his failure to take it marked the beginning of a 400 year decline.  The Ottoman Empire became a bloated, weak figure- christened the ‘sick man of Europe’ by the Russian Tsar.  (You know you have problems when you get a derisive nickname from Europe’s most corrupt monarch whose own empire is about to collapse)  At the same time there was a growing European appreciation of all things Greek which fueled a new wave of patriotism.  Since the ‘re-discovery’ of antiquity during the Renaissance there was a steady stream of pan-Hellenic feeling – best exemplified by Lord Byron who wrote and fought for the Greeks during the war for Independence.  If there was any question of Islamic or Ottoman culture supplanting the Hellenic one it had vanished by this point.

Constans II took the throne when he was 11 so the early victories of his reign- the brief reconquest of Alexandria and several naval battles- can’t really be credited to him.  But he was a quick learner and a talented general.  At the age of 21 he personally led the eastern army into Armenia and drove the Arabs out.  Five years later they were back and he repeated the feat in a quick campaign.  By this time the Arab world was in the midst of a civil war and the worried Caliph bought a treaty with the promise of 1,000 gold pieces, a horse, and a slave for each day that Byzantium kept the peace.

Constans took the breathing room to reorganize his army and consolidate the weakened provinces.  His most immediate concern was money.  The imperial army had a serious morale problem.  It showed a disturbing tendency to disintegrate in the east and revolt in the west- largely because its pay was so far in arrears.  To fix the problem Constans had to control North Africa- where most of the surplus revenue came from- and that meant moving his center of operations closer to the threatened province.  He transferred the government from Constantinople to Syracuse in Sicily and started to build up an army.

It wasn’t a popular move, but the emperor was determined.  No less than three full-blown revolts broke out- one involving virtually the entire eastern army allied with the Caliphate and marching on Constantinople- but Constans refused to budge.  Ultimately of course, this resulted in his embarrassing assassination.  But if he had avoided that fatal bath would he have conquered the Duchy of Benevento?  I don’t think so.  His primary concern was with Africa.  He attacked Benevento when he reached Italy for two reasons- to dissuade the Lombards from attacking him and to keep the surrounding Italians loyal.  He had done much the same against the Slavs in the Balkans- successfully weakening them to neutralize a threat instead of outright conquest.

The man had a sensible plan and may even have had the skills to carry it out.  (more about that here) Unfortunately, thanks to a soap dish, unfairly high taxes, and a disgruntled chamberlain, he never had the chance to carry it out.

Byzantium was always a polygot empire so no one modern nation can really claim to be a direct descendant although many have a piece of it.  The truest scion- some would say a living remnant of the empire itself- is Mount Athos; administratively separate from modern Greece, it still keeps Byzantine time and flies the imperial flag.

In some ways it’s easier to trace individual Byzantines.  I’ve met descendants of Basil I and Isaac Angelus, and the ex-King of Greece Constantine II traces his line back to Alexius I and John Tzmisces.  Even Prince Philip of England has some Byzantines in the closet- he’s descended from Constantine XI through the latter’s niece Sophia.  But it’s not just the high and mighty.  In Greece today there are many whose names reflect their proud Byzantine origins: Xylis, Dragazis, Kedros, Lemos, Costopouloi, Dimopouloi and Stathakopouloi among many others.

I’ll end with the words of Jacques Chirac.  In 2004 Turkey applied to join the EU and the objection was made that they were clearly not European in culture, tradition or religion.   The former president of the French Republic defended the application with a curious argument.  First he pointed out that the Ottomans had maintained Byzantine traditions, and preserved imperial chancellery habits and tax-keeping methods.  Then he concluded with a verbal flourish on what it meant to be a European:

“We are all children of Byzantium.”