I don't know about the rest of you lot but I do not accept the date of 330CE as the starting place for the 'Byzantine Empire' (a phrase not coined until the 1500's when it no longer existed).

I may take a very cynical view of things Constantinopolitan for having studied the fall of the Western Empire, I thought that Constantine was chiefly to blame for changing the Roman army at a fundamental level and changing Roman strategy from the preclusive (keep them out) to the 'defeat them when the get in' strategy of defense in depth.

I got the impression that Constantine founded the 'Second Rome' as a way to make sure his name would be remembered for a long time (a possible reason behind his 'conversion' at Milvian Bridge), not to move the centre of the empire to a more defenseable position.

So when would I put the foundation of the Byzantine/Eastern Empire I hear you ask?

Well, it could be pointed to the split of the empire between his two sons by Theodosius I. When he died he gave the east to his eldest son Arcadius and the west to Honorius, but this had been done before (Constantine and his sons) and was by no means meant to be permanent. But that is what happened. With only a brief period during the reconquests of Justinian (Belisaurius and Narses if we are going to be fair), Rome and Constantinople would never be part of the same empire.

I think the final split arises when Arcadius and other eastern emperors failed to help the west defend what were still Roman borders. The real beginning of an East and West Roman Empire IMO comes with the campaigns of Stilicho who was trying to defeat Alaric the Goth who was holed up in Greece. The great western general moved into Greece, which was eastern territory, to stop this threat. The eastern government issued a reprimand and told him to get out of their territory before he could get the job done properly, for despite several Stilicho inflicted defeats Alaric was able to escape time and again. In comparison, the east barely lifted a finger to the Gothic sending only token forces against the future sacker of Rome.

To say that the true death of the world's greatest ever empire was caused by personal enmity towards Stilicho and the inaction of the stronger eastern half is to my mind more than a little depressing... but unfortunately the truth (not that I'm saying what I suggest is fact) can be depressing

PFS