Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/307

LEFT BYZANTINE EMFIBE 265 BYZANTINE EMPIRE rally Constantinople, a city established by Constantine in 330 as the new capital of the whole Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire, then comprising Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Thrace, Moesia, Macedonia, and Crete, fell to Theodosius* elder son Arcadius, through whose weakness and that of sev- eral of his immediate successors it suf- fered severely from the encroachments of Huns, Goths, Bulgarians, and Per- sians. In 527 the celebrated Justinian succeeded, whose reign is famous for the codification of Roman law, and the vic- tories of his generals, Belisarius and Narses, over the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Italy, which was henceforth governed for the Eastern Empire by an exarch residing at Ravenna. But his energy could not revive the decaying strength of the Empire, and Justin II., his successor (565-578), a weak and av- aricious prince, lost his reason by the indeed he overthrew. But a far more dangerous enemy to the Byzantine Em- pire now appeared in the Moslem power, founded among the Arabians by Moham- med and the caliphs, which gradually extended its conquests over Phceniciaj the countries on the Euphrates, Judea Syria, and Egypt (635-641). In 641 Heraclius died, nor was there among his descendants a single prince capable of stemming the tide of Moslem invasion. The Arabians took part of Africa, Cy- prus and Rhodes (653), inundated Africa and Sicily, penetrated into Thrace, and attacked Constantinople by sea. The Empire was in sore straits when Leo the Isaurian (Leo III.) general of the Army of the East, mounted the throne (716), and a new period of com- parative prosperity began. Some writ- ers date the beginning of the Byzantine Empire proper, and the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, from this era. ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE reverses encountered in his conflicts with plundering Lombards, Avars, and Per- sians. Tiberius, a captain of the guard, succeeded in 578, and, in 582, Mauricius; both were men of ability. In 602 Pho- cas, proclaimed Emperor by the army, succeeded, and produced by his incapac- ity the greatest disorder in the Empire. Heraclius, son of the governor of Africa, who headed a conspiracy, conquered Constantinople, and caused Phocas to be executed (610). He was an excellent general, and finally succeeded in repress- ing the Avars and recovering the prov- inces lost to the Persians, whose power Numerous reforms, civil and military, were now introduced, and the worship of images was prohibited. Leo repelled the Arabians or Saracens from Constanti- nople, but allowed the Lombards to seize the Italian provinces, while the Arabians plundered the Eastern ones. Constantine V. (741) recovered part of Syria and Armenia from the Arabians; and the struggle was carried on, not un- successfully, by his son, Leo IV. Under his grandson, Constantine VI., Irene, the ambitious mother of the latter, raised a large faction by the restoration of image worship, and, in conjunction with