Eastern Orthodox Civilization

Abstract

THE GREAT Germanic migrations that during the course of the fifth century brought the western provinces of the Roman Empire under the control of Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Vandals had comparatively little effect on the eastern provinces. Although the provinces south or the Danube were fearfully ravaged, the Germans made no permanent settlements there; and Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were essentially untouched. When Romulus Augustus (475–76) the last emperor resident in the West, was deposed, his colleague Zeno (474–91) continued to rule in Constantinople. Zeno and his successor were barely able to hold their own in the East and could do nothing to recover the western provinces; but in 518 control of the empire passed into the hands of a man of unusual ability, Justinian (527–65) who first as the deputy of his uncle, and later as Emperor, ruled for forty-seven years.