Welcome to my blog
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Hello everyone, welcome to my just started blog about the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. Beginning in 395, and lasting until 1453, the Eastern Roman Empire was an incredibly complicated and diverse entity, at times encompassing nearly the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline. The Eastern Roman Empire was an important conduit of classical and antiquity learning, knowledge, and literature. Many of the works of ancient Rome, Greece, and the many peoples they encountered were copied by the Byzantines and passed on to the Arabic world and the Italian renaissance, giving us much of our understanding of antiquity. This blog, once fully up and running, is designed to be a place for discussion of historical, political, economic, social, philosophical, and religious issues related to the Roman world, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, the early contacts between Islam and Christianity, and quite frankly anything fellow travelers in the world of history care to talk about. I only ask that we keep the discussion here civil. There is no shortage of places to find on the internet for ferocious web battles, but this forum is not designed for that. That being said, if you disagree with a fellow commenter about history, then by all means, have at each other in a civil fashion.
About the bloghost-
My name is Ian Fromme. I am an undergraduate in Education and History at University of Wyoming. As you may have guessed, I can’t stop thinking about the Romaioi, which is how the Byzantines would have referred to themselves. I am also attempting to learn the Romaioi dialect of Greek, so at some point in the future this blog may have a discussion on Greek linguistics. Additional subjects that will probably feature regular rotation on this blog is the history that the Romaioi focused on, notably the Diadochi period of Hellenism and the Principate period of Roman history.
This is a mosaic of Theodora, from OrthodoxWiki. Theodora will be featured in more detail later, because I think she is incredible. Our friend Procopius, who we will also talk about later, may have disagreed.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Theodora_(wife_of_Justinian)
This is The Alexiad, with a mosaic of either Anna or Alexius Comnena. Sources disagree as to who is being depicted here. The lack of beard implies it is Anna, as other mosaics of Alexius have a beard. Anna Comnena is one of the first female author/historians whose writings survive to us, and is another Romaioi who I find fascinating. Her brother John (and fellow claimant to the throne) may have disagreed.
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