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The empire later labeled Byzantine never used that name: its people called themselves Romaioi and their state Romania. In 330 AD Constantine I moved the capital to Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, close to the rich provinces of Egypt and Syria and astride the routes between Europe and Asia, and the East survived the fall of the West in 476. Justinian I, ruling from 527 to 565, issued the Corpus Juris Civilis, rebuilt after the Nika Riots with the Hagia Sophia, and sent Belisarius to retake Italy and North Africa, but the Plague of Justinian from around 541 and wars with Sasanian Persia left the treasury empty.

The Arab conquest of Egypt and the Levant in the 630s and 640s cost up to three quarters of state revenue, so the empire created the theme system of soldier farmers in Anatolia and broke sieges of Constantinople in the 670s and 717 with Greek fire. Basil II, ruling from 976 to 1025, crushed the landed families and conquered Bulgaria but left no heir, and an army built on mercenaries lost at Manzikert in 1071. The Fourth Crusade, in debt to Venice, sacked Constantinople in 1204, the Palaiologos dynasty retook it in 1261, and on May 29, 1453, the army of Mehmed II breached the walls.

• Western European scholars coined the name Byzantine after the empire fell, to claim the Roman legacy for the West.
• In the 8th century iconoclast emperors had icons smashed and church walls whitewashed to win back divine favor.
• After Basil II, power passed to his nieces Zoe and Theodora amid decades of coups and civil wars.
• Genoa’s walled, tax-free colony at Galata across the Golden Horn drew shipping away from imperial tolls.
• Fewer than 8,000 men defended Constantinople in 1453, and scholars who fled carried Greek manuscripts to Italy.