The Roman Empire that never died

The Roman Empire did not simply disappear when the Western Empire collapsed in the fifth century. In Constantinople, its eastern half survived for nearly another thousand years. Its people still called themselves Romans, their rulers were Emperors of the Romans, and their capital stood as the New Rome. This documentary tells the complete story of the empire we now call Byzantium—from Constantine the Great and the founding of Constantinople in 330, through Justinian and Theodora, Hagia Sophia, the wars with Persia, the rise of Islam, Iconoclasm, the Macedonian revival, Basil II, the Crusades, Manzikert, and the catastrophic sack of Constantinople in 1204. We follow the empire through restoration, civil war, plague, cultural revival, and the relentless expansion of the Ottoman state, culminating in the final siege of Constantinople in 1453 and the disappearance of Emperor Constantine XI. But this is more than the story of an empire's fall. It is the story of how a Roman state repeatedly transformed itself to survive invasion, territorial collapse, religious conflict, economic crisis, and political revolution for more than eleven centuries—and how Byzantine law, art, theology, scholarship, diplomacy, and political traditions continued to influence the world long after the empire itself was gone. From Constantine to Constantine XI, this is the extraordinary story of Byzantium: the last Roman Empire. #ByzantineEmpire #Byzantium #RomanEmpire #Constantinople #History #MedievalHistory #FallOfConstantinople #EasternRomanEmpire #1453 #HistoryDocumentary