Name ______Date ______Pd ______

Engineering an Empire – The Byzantines

  1. The ancient Greek city-state of Byzantium was founded in the late 7th century B.C. It was located on the Strait of ______. This site was chosen because it connects two continents – ______and ______, and two important bodies of water – the ______and the ______.
  1. Nine hundred years later in the early 4th century A.D. the city was re-built by the emperor ______. Although it was built to be ______(New Rome), it was named after its founder and was called ______.
  1. The new city did not reflect the heritage of the old Greek and Roman pagan gods; instead it reflected ______, the religion of its founder.
  1. What practical problem faced the growing population of Constantinople, and what solution was constructed during the reign of the Emperor Valens to address this problem?
  1. Indicative of the architectural legacy of the Roman Empire, the most significant architectural feature of the aqueducts was the ______.
  1. The subject matter of the symbols and carvings on the Byzantine aqueducts was different those carved on the aqueducts of Classical Rome. Discuss how this difference reflected a fundamental difference between the old Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire.
  1. When threatened by attacks from the Huns, the emperors and engineers of Constantinople constructed a concentric series of ______to repel enemy troops. The engineers used limestone mortar in the construction to provide a slight amount of flexibility in case of a devastating ______.
  1. Like the later Mongols (and Comanche of the western plains) the Huns were experts in fighting on ______.
  1. After the “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in A.D. 476 the Eastern Roman Empire continued. The emperor ______tried to re-create the glory of the Roman Empire. Upon taking the throne as the new emperor, Justinian named his wife ______to be a co-ruler.
  1. The high taxes and strict laws of Justinian prompted the people of Constantinople to riot after a sporting event (chariot races) at the ______. The supporters of the colorful teams (Reds/Greens/Whites/Blues) took the riots to the streets resulting in ______. (Name of that guy that falls off the roof fixing the antenna in the All State commercials).
  1. Although he was going to flee for safety, Justinian listened to his wife Theodora and stayed. What was his response to the riots a week later?
  1. The riots burned a large part of the city. Within a few weeks of the riots (and the massacre) Justinian started construction of the Church of Holy Wisdom, called ______. The dominant architectural feature of the Church is a massive ______that was enlarged after it first collapsed.
  1. The costs of the building and military campaigns left the Byzantine Empire in ______that lasted for hundreds of years.
  1. The story of the ByzantineEmpire jumps almost 400 years to the 10th century A. D. A strong Byzantine emperor ______suffered a military defeat early in his reign at the hands of the Bulgarian king.
  1. After many years on the throne the emperor wanted to seek revenge on his neighboring enemy – the Bulgarians. In 1014 the Byzantine emperor defeated the Bulgarians and captured 14,000 prisoners. He ______all of them. Leaving every 100th man with one eye.
  1. Why didn’t he just kill them?
  1. The Byzantine Empire continued another 500 years. The territory of the empire decreased in size because of enemy attacks, but the city of Constantinople was protected by its walls until 1453 when the Ottomans used ______to bring down the wall.
  1. The name of Constantinople changed to ______after the Muslims took control of the city.

Big Picture Questions: (not directly stated in the video – apply your thinking)

  1. How did the expansion of the Byzantine Empirehelp encourage Trans-Eurasian trade (trade from Europe to Asia) as new peoples were drawn into their conqueror’s economies and trade networks?
  1. Following the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire, how did the Byzantine Empire combine traditional sources of power (patriarchy, religion, land-owning elites, etc…) and legality with innovations (new methods of taxation, tributary systems, adaption of religious institutions, etc…)?

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