Empire527 CE – 600 CE · 73 years
Byzantine Empire (Justinian–Maurice)
The eastern half of the Roman Empire that quietly outlasted the western half by a thousand years.
What it was
Centered on Constantinople, Byzantium combined Roman law, Greek language, and Orthodox Christianity. It absorbed waves of Persian, Arab, Bulgar, and Turkish pressure for a millennium before finally falling to the Ottomans in 1453.
Why it mattered
It preserved classical Greek learning through the European Dark Ages and Christianized the Slavic world; the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian Orthodoxy are direct downstream consequences.
From Wikipedia
The Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty began in 518 AD with the accession of Justin I. Under the Justinian dynasty, particularly the reign of Justinian I, the empire reached its greatest territorial extent since the fall of its Western counterpart, reincorporating North Africa, southern Illyria, southern Spain, and Italy into the empire. The Justinian dynasty ended in 602 with the deposition of Maurice and the accession of his successor, Phocas.
Wikipedia: Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty·CC BY-SA 4.0
Borders & accuracy
Solid borders are reconstructed from canonical historical-basemap data or hand-crafted from scholarly atlases.
- SOURCEaourednik / historical-basemaps
- DETAILhistorical-basemaps (Ourednik)
- SNAPSHOT600 CE
- POLITY TYPEstate
Wars of this empire25
Conflicts whose belligerents name this polity, best-documented first.
- Vandalic War533–534 CEMajor conflict
- Byzantine-Lombard Wars535–554 CESignificant · 500K dead
- Lombard Wars568–774 CESignificant · 200K dead
- Moorish Wars (Byzantine)534–548 CESignificant
- Avar–Byzantine wars568–626 CESignificant
- Battle of Dara530 CERegional
- Battle of Callinicum531 CERegional
- Battle of Constantinople532 CERegional
- Nika riots532 CERegional
- Stotzas's Mutiny536–545 CERegional
- Battle of Antioch, Syria540 CERegional
- Battle of Dara540 CERegional
- Battle of Faventia542 CERegional
- Battle of Petra551 CERegional
- Battle of Sinigaglia551 CERegional
- Battle of Casilinum554 CERegional
- Battle of Melanthius559 CERegional
- Battle of Dara573 CERegional
- Battle of Melitene576 CERegional
- Battle of Sirmium580 CERegional
- Battle of Solachon586 CERegional
- Battle of Thessalonica586 CERegional
- Battle of Martyropolis588 CERegional
- Battle of Araxes589 CERegional
+ 1 more in the atlas.
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 527 CE and fits the map to these borders.
Cite as: Byzantine Empire (Justinian–Maurice) (527 CE – 600 CE). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/e/byzantine-justinian · Sources & methodology