The Byzantine Empire, also called Byzantium, was the eastern half of the Roman Empire, based at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) that continued on after the western half of the empire collapsed.
Byzantium continued on for nearly a millennium until Constantinople itself fell in a siege carried out by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The golden age of the empire came during the reign of Justinian (A.D. 527-565) during which the empire’s territories extended as far as Western Europe, and the emperor’s builders constructed the Hagia Sophia, a great cathedral that still stands today.
Throughout their history, the people of Byzantium continued to refer to themselves as “Romans” writes Timothy Gregory, a professor at Ohio State University, in his book “A History of Byzantium” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
They referred to themselves as Romans even though the Byzantines rarely controlled Rome, spoke mainly Greek, and in A.D. 1204 were betrayed when crusaders from the west sacked Constantinople in an attempt to gain money.
