Rise & Fall of the Roman, Ottoman & Byzantine Empires
The Mediterranean Empires
Maybe it’s the easy access to trade routes, maybe it’s the abundance of natural resources, or maybe it’s just the abundance of wine, but for whatever reason the Mediterranean region has continuously been the focal point of many different imperial pursuits. Across time, at least three of the world’s greatest empires built their power around the Mediterranean Sea. The Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and Ottoman Empire each dominated what they called the ‘known world,’ indicating that to them the Mediterranean region was basically all that mattered. Maybe they just appreciated the climate. Whatever it was, they loved the Mediterranean.
We’ll take a look at each of these empires, their rises and then their falls. Let’s get started.
The Roman Empire
The first of the great Mediterranean Empires is that of ancient Rome. The Roman Empire ran from roughly 27 BCE – 476 CE, and in that time expanded to over a million square miles. They were one of the first truly great military machines.
Legacy of the Byzantine Empire
In the centuries leading up to the final Ottoman conquest in 1453, the culture of the Byzantine Empire–including literature, art, architecture, law and theology–flourished even as the empire itself faltered.
Byzantine culture would exert a great influence on the Western intellectual tradition, as scholars of the Italian Renaissance sought help from Byzantine scholars in translating Greek pagan and Christian writings. (This process would continue after 1453, when many of these scholars fled from Constantinople to Italy.)
Long after its end, Byzantine culture and civilization continued to exercise an influence on countries that practiced its Eastern Orthodox religion, including Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, among others.
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