When the Roman Empire was divided in two, the eastern empire was called the Byzantine Empire in the A.D. 500s. It stretched from the Balkan Peninsula to Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Scholars have called the empire Byzantine after the ancient name of its capital, Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire, but to creation and in official vocabulary of the time, it was simply Roman, and its subjects were Rhomaioi. The capitol of Byzantine was Constantinople, which had many cultures. Constantinople became a capital of the Roman Empire in 330 after Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, founded again the city of Byzantium and named it after himself.
Between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1200 the Byzantine civilization was one of the most advanced in the world. The ruler of the Byzantine Empire was Justinian who was from the Western Empire. Justinian's wife, Theodora persuaded Justinian to issue a decree giving a wife a right to own land.
English: The Roman Empire in 500 AD.
English: The extent of the Eastern (Byzantine) and...
English: Byzantine Empire emblem. The double heade...Justinian dreamed of uniting the Roman Empire. He had received threats from the Sassanian Emprie of Perisa.
Mosaics were the favored medium for the interior adornment of Byzantine churches. The small cubes, or tesserae, that composed mosaics were made of colored glass or enamels or were overlaid with gold leaf. The luminous effects of the mosaics, spread over the walls and vaults of the interior, were well adapted to express the mystic character of Orthodox Christianity. A commission was made up of 10 scholars and was headed by a Tribonian. The commission recorded the Corpus of Civil Law. As a result it became the basis of most European legal systems. Ever since A.D. 300 the Eastern and Western Churches have disagreed on the number of religious and political issues. Things became worse between the Eastern and Western Empires when Germanic Lombards...