Byzantine: the Mixture of Greek, Roman and Oriental Culture

Christ, from the Deesis in the North Gallery, Byzantine Mosaic, 12th Century

18 in. x 24 in.

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The rise of Mohammedanism in the seventh century, cutting off western Asia from Europe, did not destroy the advantages which its unique position gave to Constantinople. On the contrary, it tended rather to accentuate those advantages. For while the fleet and its engineers were able to foil the Saracens in 673-677 and again in 718, the fall of its rivals, Antioch and Alexandria, gave the Black Sea route once more something of the significance which it had held for the Greeks of the Aegean. The city itself developed that mixture of Greek, Roman and Oriental culture known as Byzantine, and, even under degenerate rule, was able to draw sufficient vitality from its commerce to rival the splendor of the lords of Asia. Its strategic position was such that it did not fall to the Turk until long after he had swept beyond it and held Europe to the Danube.

It was not the Moslem, however, but the trading cities of Italy who forced upon Byzantium the "Question of the Straits" in its mediaeval form. In the eleventh century these cities, especially Pisa, Genoa and Venice, won their way across the Mediterranean by defeating the Mohammedan corsairs, and began their career of commerce. Reaching Constantinople, they sought for their merchants' privileges, as foreigners, of marketing and of free passage beyond to the ports of the Black Sea. But each city sought them solely for itself. There was no idea of an "open door" in mediaeval commercial theory. And commercial exclusiveness in foreign markets was reflected in political history at home; in constant war and mutual destruction.

The chief rivals at Constantinople, the Pisans, Genoese and Venetians, were constantly at war. The great stroke of Venice was to turn the fourth crusade against the Greek Empire itself, and hold the city from 1204 to 1261, from which time it assumed an overlordship of the Black Sea, forcing both Pisa and Genoa to accept its terms. But the Genoese had their revenge when they helped the Greeks to recover their capital, and received as reward, in addition to the confirmation of their commercial privileges, an exclusive control of the Black Sea trade. All enemies of Genoa--meaning mainly Venice--were to be denied the ports or markets of the Empire. As a result, Genoa pushed its trade on the Euxine and its colonies--of which Caffa, emporium of slaves (Slavs) and Oriental produce, was the most important--and formed a sort of colonial dominion on the northern and eastern shores.

The details of the Byzantine period lie outside the scope of this history, but it is interesting to note that through it all the conflicts which these policies of commercial exclusiveness engendered spread back to Europe and led to long disorders. The development of Italy, and, with it, of Europe as a whole, was retarded for centuries by the struggle of the jealous states of the Mediterranean to seize, each for itself, the monopoly of markets and the control of seas which, had they been open, would have brought prosperity to all.

The question of the Straits was obviously a European question from the beginning of European states.

Roman Period, Nicomedia, Izmit, founding of Constantinople

The control of the Straits was clearly a vital matter for the sea-going Greeks, centered in the Aegean. The interest of Rome in Mediterranean trade lay rather in the south and east, in Egypt and Syria. It collected its toll on the Black Sea trade at Abydos on the Dardanelles; but it was also in control of other more important routes to the Orient. The fundamental point, however, was that, by the time it had reached the Euxine, it had no rivals to exclude. After seagoing Carthage had been destroyed and Pompey had swept the eastern Mediterranean of those free-booting traders whom the Romans viewed as pirates, the maritime as well as the land empire of Rome was universal. For many reasons, too, the gate to the Oriental trade lay through Egypt and Syria rather than by the Black Sea; while the grain of Africa and other more readily accessible parts of the Empire reduced proportionately the importance of that element so vital to Athens. It is therefore evident that there could be no "Question of the Straits" under the Roman Empire.

A new era began, however, with the division of the Empire at the close of the third century A.D. The capital which Diocletian chose for the eastern world was Nicomedia, now Izmit, on the south-eastern gulf of the Sea of Marmara. Already the center of gravity was shifting to the Straits when Constantine the Great in 330 chose the site of old Byzantium for his new capital. The reasons for the founding of Constantinople were primarily political and strategic rather than commercial, since it lay like a fortress at the ferry on the land route between Asia and Europe. In Constantine's day it was these land routes, and not the sea-ways, which held the Roman world together. The naval engineers had no such triumphs to record as those who built the Roman roads. But in the succeeding years, when the barbarians broke through the outlying defenses on the frontiers and cut the line of march from east to west, it was the maritime strategic value of the city that held so well the key to the eastern seas, which kept the name of Rome a symbol of empire in the East until 1453. For Constantinople, planted as a fortress and a political capital, became a port and a commercial city--the only great port which kept alive the traditions of antique culture during the dark ages. This role it owed in part to the strength of its walls, which time and again defied the invader, but also to its fleet, which was able to control the Straits much more successfully than its armies the surrounding provinces.