Byzantine Empire DBQ

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Roman Emperor Constantine I founded the Byzantine Empire in 330 CE as a continuation of the Roman Empire in the east. The characteristics of the empire led to the modern definition of “Byzantine,” which means “strangely complicated.” This was true, as in the Byzantine Empire was very chaotic, complex, and strange at times, but it was very massive and influential worldwide. The empire heavily influenced modern religion, laws, and engineering making it worthwhile learning about the empire. Our ideas about laws and philosophy are borrowed from those of Justinian’s code, which was the main set of laws of the empire. For example, the Declaration of Independence says the “unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Doc. D) This is similar to the “maxims of law... to live honestly, to hurt In 2010, the Eastern Orthodox population consisted of 250,000,000 people. (Doc. C) A lot of people are still Orthodox Christians, showing that the religion has carried on from the Byzantine Empire. Also, “Had the [Arabs] captured Constantinople in the seventh century...all Europe - and America - might be Muslim today. (Doc. A) This displays that the Byzantine Empire heavily influenced how the world turns out today, and if the Arabs had the power of the Byzantine Empire civilization would mostly be Muslim. In conclusion, the Byzantine Empire vastly shaped how the contemporary world turned out to be with its religion, engineering, and ideas about law. With this is mind, we, as society as a whole, are creating a foundation for captivating innovations and scientific discoveries in the subject of technology for practical purposes, along with the study of essential nature of knowledge, reality, human behavior and purpose, and existence that the human species will regard and acknowledge collectively in the period of time to

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