What development is most closely associated with the beginning of the Byzantine Empire?

Answer 1

The word Byzantine has been coined by modern historians. The Romans did not use it. It refers to the Eastern Roman Empire of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It outlasted the Western Roman Empire, which is said to have fallen in 476, and continued until 1453. The word Byzantine is related to Byzantium, the original Greek settlement which had been turned into the capital of the east under the name of Constantinople.

Since the Roman/Byzantine distinction is a modern convention, there is not a date which gives a cut-off point. The word has been used in writings about the reign of Justinian I (527-565) who reconquered most of westerner Mediterranean coast that had been lost during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Heraclius (reigned 610-641) radically changed the administration and army of the empire and changed the official language of the Empire from Latin to Greek.

At one level, the word Byzantine when employed in relation to the 6th century is often used interchangeably with the term Eastern Roman Empire as the term empire of the east starts to become redundant as the western empire ceased to exist. At another level, it refers to the Empire of the east becoming centred around Greece, the Greek language (though Latin was still used) and Greek art. The empire's loss of its non-Greek territories in the Middle East south of Turkey of Egypt to the Arab invaders in the early 7th century facilitated this development. The loss of control over Italy with Charlemagne's takeover of Italy in 774 severed the empire's links with the west, which made the use of the word Roman redundant. Thus, we are talking about a process of gradual change.