The Forgotten Empire – A review of “Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization” by Lars Brownworth
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If someone in a history
class, or just an overly nerdy friend, asked the question: “when did the Roman Empire
end?” the answer to the question is likely to be varied. Some may say that the
empire ended in AD 476 when the commander Odoacer
deposed Romulus Augustulus (the last
Roman Emperor) and proclaimed himself King of Italy. Others may trace it even
earlier to AD 410 when the Visigoth king Alaric
sacked Rome and put paid to the myth of Roman invincibility. Others may
even have more “out there” choices for a date of the empire’s demise. What is
not very likely is that many people will say the Roman Empire ended in 1453 (a millennium
after) when Constantine XI Palaiologos died
defending Constantinople (present day Istanbul) during Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II’s conquest of the
city. However, that choice is probably the closest to being the most factually
correct answer, as it was technically the Western Roman Empire that fell in the
5th Century AD. The eastern half of the empire lived on for another millennium
until it was overthrown by the Ottoman Empire, which itself ended at the end of
the First World War. That many history buffs will miss the date of the de
The author’s decision
to adopt a personality-driven historical narrative was a brilliant decision.
Telling the history of an empire through the lives, actions and circumstances
of its emperors certainly made the book a more engaging read than a
straightforward chronological work would have been. The author’s thrilling
narrative transports the reader back to an age largely lost to common memory,
when men with large armies and even larger egos played geopolitics in such a
way as to make even the most scheming 21st century statesman seem
like some dowdy old matron. The author describes colorful men such as Justinian the Great, the 6th
century emperor who reclaimed huge swathes of the lost western empire and ruled
over a kingdom stretching from Constantinople to Rome and parts of present-day Gibraltar,
Portugal and Spain. Not only did Justinian conquer vast lands and enact a
uniform code of Roman law that still serves as the basis of civil law in many
European states, he also embarked on massive building projects including the
world famous Hagia Sophia: a building
which served as a Greek Orthodox church for almost a thousand years, a Roman
Catholic church for half a century, a mosque for about 500 years and a museum
since 1935. We also meet Justinian’s most illustrious general, Belisarius: a man who is probably the
most successful military commander in all of antiquity. A widely successful and
popular man whose exploits on the warfront was perhaps only matched by his
unwavering loyalty and commitment to a scheming emperor and bureaucracy that
often tried to sabotage his best efforts.
One of my favorite stories
is that of Leo III the Syrian, the
man we have to thank for the word “iconoclast” (literally translated as “icon
breaking”). This was a man so wedded to a puritanical and fundamentalist reading
of the Christian scriptures that he sought to rip out all graven images and
icons in his empire and have them destroyed. Leo III and his band of original
iconoclasts were so successful in their quest that they effectively tore apart
their church and retarded the arts and culture of their society so badly that
it took a very long time after the death of Leo III and his son for some
semblance of the fine arts to germinate again in the empire.
Surprises also abound
in this engaging read. Probably the most intriguing is that of Emperor Basil I “Basil the Macedonian”, if only because his rags to riches story is
not something one would associate with monarchy. Born into a peasant family, he
ended up ingratiating himself (due to his wrestling prowess) with the ne’er do
well and perpetually drunk Emperor Michael
III. Once in the emperor’s good graces, he merrily proceeded to murder the
emperor’s uncle (obviously with the dim-witted emperor’s support). Since someone
of Basil’s ambition could not possibly be expected to contend himself with getting
rid of just an uncle of an emperor, he proceeded to dispatch the emperor in a
particularly gruesome murder and usurped a throne for which he did not even
have the most tenuous of legitimacy. Despite this particularly inauspicious
start to his reign, Basil turned out to be a particularly effective emperor.
Ruling for 19 years, a long time by Byzantine standards, he established a
dynasty that was so enduring that over two centuries later one of his direct
descendants still occupied the throne of Byzantium. Another interesting
character was Basil II “the Bulgar Slayer”,
who probably gets honors for having the most interesting nom de guerre of all
the emperors. Orphaned at age five, Basil II spent most of his youth being
pushed around by courtiers with the general consensus being that he was another
timid and ineffective emperor in the making. However, upon managing to secure
control he became a very effective emperor who ruled for almost 50 years. If
Basil II had a fault, it was his penchant for excessive display of force and a
ready willingness to be crushingly brutal towards its opponents. During a campaign
against the Bulgarians (the source of the grotesque “Bulgar Slayer” nickname)
he captured 15,000 prisoners and proceeded to blind 99 out of every 100,
sparing the sight of only 1 man out of 100 so the “lucky” man could have the
necessary task of leading his blinded colleagues back home to further inflict
terror in the civilian population.
Reading this book is to
become engrossed in the dozens of these stranger-than-fiction stories that showed
how rich and tragic the history of this most fascinating empire is. All things
considered, I found this book to be a very engaging and accessible introduction
to the history of a place and era that I knew nothing about.
