On the Byzantine Empire...

[cranberriesboy]

"Ever since our rough crusading forefathers first saw Constantinople and met, to their contemptuous disgust, a society where everyone read and wrote, ate food with forks and preferred diplomacy to war, it has been fashionable to pass the Byzantines by with scorn and to use their name as synonymous with decadence."

--Steven Runciman

Comments

[mysticactive]

interesting. my only familiarity with the use of the term "byzantine" is in terms of the idea of something being complex in an almost ritualistic way, intricate. a "byzantine" government system etc...

[cranberriesboy]

That's because the western world has always had a negativ view of the Byzantine Empire... it seems to me in a jealous way. Byzantium was far more advanced than the West which was in a dark Age.