ABSTRACT
The long endurance of the Byzantine Empire is in itself impressive. Undoubtedly the chief reason for this long history was the physical situation of the capital. Justinian's western wars preserved the Roman contacts of the Byzantine Empire and prevented it from becoming a wholly Asiatic state. There was Slavonic turbulence in the Balkan hinterland. In addition new barbarians came out of Russia, the Bulgarians, and a people of Finnic or Tartar stock. All the Asiatic territory of the Empire was lost except western Asia Minor, together with the rich port of Alexandria and the wheat-growing fields of the Nile. The Empire was reduced to the Balkans, Greece, the Egean Islands, Lower Italy, Carthaginian Africa and part of Asia Minor. This bold usurpation deeply offended two elements within the Empire: the army, in which the spirit of iconoclasm was still strong, especially in the Asiatic regiments; and the magnates, or great landowners.
