How Byzantium Inherited the Political Tradition of Roman Empire

Although the culture and language of Byzantium are mostly Greek, Byzantium regards itself as a Roman, which is not contradictory to the Romans in East Rome. Their language is Greek, and their culture has been Greek for many centuries, but by the 7th century, their official language was Latin. The countries around them (Persian Empire and Arab Empire in the East, European countries in the West and Russia in the North) all call them Romans. If someone calls them "Greeks", it is an insult to them, because "Greeks" means "primitive people". This empire was not called Byzantine Empire until17th century.

Many political traditions of the Roman Empire were also inherited by Byzantium, such as the Senate and the policy of co-governing the emperor, which greatly weakened the imperial power and adopted the Roman military region system militarily. This division of military regions simplified the military management of the huge empire, and at the same time enabled the leaders of military regions to master the military power, which caused the instability of Byzantine politics. Therefore, the Byzantine emperor was transferred to the throne for no more than four generations. Successful emperors can make the empire strong through centralization, while mediocre emperors will perish. So arnold toynbee said, "Byzantium is only a worship of short-lived system."

Question 2: After the establishment of the Roman Empire, the contradiction between civilians and nobles became increasingly acute. Under the pressure of the civilian struggle, the Roman nobles were forced to agree to formulate the Law of Twelve Bronze Tables, which was the starting point of the development of Roman written law. The compilation of the most important code in ancient Rome was completed during the reign of Justinian. At the beginning of his accession to the throne, he began to organize large-scale codification activities, and his achievements were called "Justinian civil law encyclopedia" by later generations. The Code of Justinian Law compiled by him (also translated into the Complete Works of Laws of Various Countries) is the first systematic and complete code in European history, and it is also the basis for the legal development of most European countries. It is regarded as a model of the laws of slave countries, but this does not mean that the Roman code only applies to slavery. As the spirit of law, it is applicable to all kinds of societies and different historical times, and has had a great influence on the legal thoughts of later western countries.