Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rise & Fall of Empires

Anthony Kaldellis begins by challenging the premise that Byzantium was a different state from Rome. His argument rests on continuity in the sources: the eastern state called itself Roman, its inhabitants were Roman citizens, and their self-description survived even the state’s end. He places the burden of proof on historians who posit a rupture. Western habits of ending Roman history in the fifth century, he argues, excluded the surviving eastern half from a preferred cultural genealogy.

The long chronology moves from legendary kings to an aristocratic republic with popular participation, then to imperial monarchy under Augustus. The subsequent movement of power from Rome to Constantinople was a prolonged transition rather than an instantaneous replacement. Kaldellis likewise treats 395 and 476 as conventional markers of longer processes. He distinguishes them from consequential personal decisions, such as Constantine’s conversion, that cannot simply be reduced to gradual structural change.

Three exceptionally damaging shocks punctuate the eastern story: Arab conquests in the 630s, Seljuk gains in the 1070s, and the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Kaldellis contrasts those rapid losses with longer periods of consolidation and modest growth. His Ship of Theseus analogy explains identity through a continuous political narrative: institutions, language and religion can change without the community experiencing itself as a wholly new people. This is a claim about a polity, unlike a religious or literary tradition that can exist across states.

Fridman asks whether Roman pride explains endurance, but Kaldellis warns against projecting modern nation-building onto ancient societies. A sixth-century ambassador’s insistence on the weight of the Roman name demonstrates elite pride, not the outlook of an entire population. Literate elites produced most surviving texts. For broader participation, Kaldellis therefore looks for observable conduct—paying taxes, remaining in the polity, or attempting rebellion—rather than assigning a shared emotion to everyone.

Similarity across time also depends on whom one compares. A senator and a poor contemporary Roman might share less daily experience than two educated emperors centuries apart. More concrete continuities emerge from soldiers’ oaths and Roman law. Kaldellis cites Jewish women who brought property disputes to Roman rather than rabbinical courts because the former offered greater rights. His point is not that every Roman experience was identical, but that institutions created meaningful connections across profound social differences.

Imperial government presented itself as responsive, accountable, proactive and tireless. Laws, petitions, public proclamations and praise circulated that persona. The claim of sleepless service was not merely decorative: subjects were offered legal routes to challenge oppressive officials, and petitioners expected an answer, though not necessarily a favorable one. Fridman presses the crucial distinction between this rhetoric and actual conduct, setting up the question of why a powerful ruler would have incentives to honor such promises.

Kaldellis argues that imperial service was generally more than empty rhetoric, while explicitly acknowledging corruption and abuse. The incentive was vulnerability: no ruler possessed an unconditional right to the throne. Unlike a dynasty that founded its state, Roman emperors emerged inside a preexisting republic and had to legitimate their position. Augustus could not turn military victory into durable peace simply by destroying every rival institution; coercion could invite another civil war.