I dont know of too many examples of Byzantine architecture although Im sure theres tons of it in the Middle East and Europe. But I do love Roman history. People tend to forget that the Byzantine Empire is an extension of the Roman Empire of antiquity and its quite fascinating. Constantinople was of course founded by Constantine 1st, one of the histories most influential people and important in my opinion. Without him, Christianity probably wouldnt have spread like it did, for better or worse. And, with him founding Constantinople, or formerly known as Byzantium, Islam wasnt able to spread to Europe. And with a little help from the Visigoths in the early 700s, Islam was defeated in Hispania and pushed back to Northern Africa. Its also interesting to note that during the mid 500s the Eastern Roman Empire reconquered Rome, although they didnt really care for the Latins, as the Eastern Empire was Greek, anyways, during the mid 500s under Justinian 1st the Mediterranean Sea was once again a Roman lake, although, that didnt last too long thanks to the first wave of the plague and because the Byzantines didnt learn their lesson from why the original Roman Empire fell. You shouldnt spread your troops and territory out too much, especially when Europe was still sore over The Western Empire and defeating it not even 75 years earlier. Anyways, the Greek based eastern empire was much like America today. They viewed the Latins as backwards, "redneck", and ignorant. The Greeks thought of themselves as open minded, progressive, etc. Its very interesting, anyways, sorry I got off topic, I just love Roman history!
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