Byzantine Greece

Byzantine Greece

Byzantine Greece has a history that mainly coincides with that of the Byzantine Empire itself. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Greece continued under the purview of the Byzantine Empire and is believed to have remained relatively prosperous and largely unaffected by the Migration Period. Greek culture became increasingly privileged in the early seventh century, during which time Greek became the empire's official language and Slavs were expelled from the Greek peninsula. Resettlement continued under Nicephorus I, who relocated Greek speakers from Anatolia to the Greek peninsula. The Macedonian dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire from 867 to 1056, and during their era, many prominent aristocrats emerged from Greece's themes. This period also saw towns and cities flourish within Greece; Thessalonica is hypothesized to have reached a population of 100,000, and other cities are believed to have had over 10,000 residents. After the Norman conquest of Sicily, Western Europeans came to be a regular threat to Greece. Several Greek cities were captured or looted during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This pattern culminated in the Fourth Crusade; after seizing Constantinople in 1204 and founding the Latin Empire, the crusaders established several vassal states on the Roman peninsula. Byzantine control over most of these territories was ultimately restored by Michael VIII later that century. The fourteenth century subsequently saw the early Ottomans begin raiding Greece, and by the fifteenth century, the Ottomans were conquering portions of the peninsula outright. The last remaining Byzantine territory in Greece, the Despotate of the Morea, fell to the Ottomans in 1460.

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Elijah.

Ballantine and Gardiner.

Byzantine Greece

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