Byzantium: between West and East

In 395, after Emperor Theodosius died, his sons divided the Roman Empire into the Western (capital Rome) and the Eastern (capital Constantinople). The Eastern Roman Empire was later called Byzantium, after Byzantion, the ancient city on whose site Constantinople stood; its people thought of themselves as “Romans”. The empire included the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and Greek became the dominant language. Its stability rested on free peasants and irrigated farming; cities such as Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch were centres of trade and crafts, and the gold coin, the nomisma, was trusted as an international currency for centuries. The state was ruled by the basileus, with officials and a senate (synkletos) below him, and talented children of ordinary people could reach high office. Under Justinian I (527–565) the empire reached its peak: the general Belisarius destroyed the Vandal kingdom in 534, a long war was fought with the Ostrogoths in Italy and southern Spain was taken; the church of Hagia Sophia was also built in his time. In the 7th century the Arabs took Syria and Egypt.