The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 07 : $b the history of the later Roman Empire
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 07 : $b the history of the later Roman Empire
World history
But whether this Eastern principality should properly be spoken of as
the Later Roman Empire, or as the Eastern, Byzantine, or Greek Empire,
is, as has been suggested, a moot point among historians. The difficulty
is perhaps met to the best advantage if we disregard the controversial
aspects of the question and make free use of each and all of these
names; indeed, in so doing, convenience joins hands with logicality. The
empire of Arcadius and his immediate successors was certainly entitled
to be called the Roman Empire quite as fully as, for example, were the
dominions of Diocletian and Constantine. There was no sudden breach of
continuity, no thought of entrance upon a new epoch with the accession
of Arcadius. It was no new thing that power was divided, and that there
should be two capitals, one in the East and one in the West. On the
contrary, as we have seen, there had been not merely a twofold but a
fourfold division of power most of the time since the day of Diocletian.
No contemporary could have predicted that after the death of Theodosius
the Roman dominions in the East and in the West would never again be
firmly united under a single head. Nor indeed is it quite true that the
division was complete and permanent; for, as we shall see, there were
to be rulers like Justinian and Zeno who had a dominating influence
over the Western territories, and who regarded themselves as masters of
the entire Roman domain. And even when the division became complete and
permanent, as it scarcely did before the time of Charlemagne, it could
still be fairly held that the Roman Empire continued to exist with its
sole capital at Constantinople, whither Constantine had transferred the
seat of power, regardless of the fact that the Western dominion had been
severed from the empire. The fact that this Western dominion included
the city of Rome itself, which had given its name to the empire, and
hence seemed indissoluble from it, is the chief reason for the seeming
incongruity of applying the term Later Roman Empire to the dominion of
the East.
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