Skip to main content

Exploring the Byzantine Empire: A Comprehensive Quiz

This quiz provides an engaging way to test your knowledge of the Byzantine Empire, covering key events, figures, and cultural aspects.

#Byzantine Empire #History #Quiz #Culture #Art #Christianity

1 Numerous Rus' served in the Byzantine army as mercenaries, most notably as the famous ________.

2 By the mid-550s, Justinian had won victories in most theaters of operation, with the notable exception of the ________, which were subjected to repeated incursions from the Slavs.

3 In artistic terms, there was a revival in mosaic, and regional schools of ________ began producing many distinctive styles that drew on a range of cultural influences.

4 What era did the Byzantine Empire belong to?

5 What region does the Byzantine Empire belong to?

6 Following the pattern set by ________, the Byzantines viewed the Emperor as a representative or messenger of Christ, responsible particularly for the propagation of Christianity among pagans, and for the 'externals' of the religion, such as administration and finances.

7 [26] Pope Agapetus I was sent to Constantinople by the ________ king Theodahad, but failed in his mission to sign a peace with Justinian.

8 Although, the Normans were driven out of Greece, in 1186 the Vlachs and Bulgars began a rebellion that was to lead to the formation of the ________.

9 What does the following picture show?  The frontispiece of the Vienna Dioscurides, which shows a set of seven famous physicians.   Byzantine Empire in violet, c.1180, at the end of the Komnenian period.   The Empire under Basil II   Kievan Rus' under the walls of Constantinople (860).

10 [25] In 532, attempting to secure his eastern frontier, Justinian signed a peace treaty with ________ agreeing to pay a large annual tribute to the Sassanids.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Christian Byzantine Emperor Leo V performed pagan rituals in Constantinople at the signing of a peace treaty in 815 with the Bulgarians.
  • the Byzantine general Vitalian led a large-scale revolt against Emperor Anastasius I, was pardoned and named consul by his successor, Justin I, and was murdered seven months into his consulship.
  • the Moscow Kremlin's Church of the Deposition (pictured) is named after a Byzantine tradition that the robe of the Virgin Mary was taken to Constantinople.
  • the Mosque of Bodrum (pictured) in Istanbul represents the first example of a private burial church of a Byzantine Emperor.
  • the chrysargyron tax forced some Byzantine families to sell their children into slavery and prostitution.
  • the Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602–628 critically weakened both the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, allowing the rapid Muslim conquest of Persia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
  • the Byzantine general Belisarius held the last Roman triumph ever to be awarded to a private citizen for his victory in the Vandalic War.
  • the Byzantine corps of the Optimatoi originated as an elite Gothic cavalry regiment, but was downgraded to a corps of mule-drivers after participating in the failed revolt of Artabasdos.
  • the 7th century Arab Islamic palatial complex of Al-Sinnabra at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee was originally thought to be a Byzantine-era synagogue.
  • the 13th–14th century Byzantine romance, Belthandros and Chrysantza, is considered by some critics to be superior in imaginative power to the Niebelungenlied.
  • the Byzantine Empire and the Mongol Empire formed an alliance in 1263, and 4,000 Mongol soldiers were dispatched in 1282 to help defend Constantinople.
  • the Byzantine court title of protospatharios had such high prestige that an aged cleric once purchased it for over 19 kilograms (42 lb) of gold.
  • the Byzantine Komnenian army was deployed in places as far-ranging as Italy, Hungary, and Egypt, and was instrumental in the Komnenian restoration of the empire.
  • the Massacre of the Latins occurred in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 1182.
  • the Milion (pictured) of Constantinople was the origin of all the roads into the European cities of the Byzantine Empire.
  • the history of the late Roman and early Byzantine empires published by British historian Arnold Hugh Martin Jones in 1964 is still considered the definitive narrative of that period.
  • the founder of Byzantine studies in Germany is Hieronymus Wolf who, approximately 100 years after the fall of Byzantium, began to edit and translate Byzantine literature.
  • the original name of Euphemia, empress consort of Justin I of the Byzantine Empire, was 'Lupicina', which led historian Alexander Vasiliev to associate her with she-wolves and prostitution.
  • the silver stavraton replaced the gold hyperpyron as the Byzantine Empire's chief coinage during the last century of its history.
  • three Byzantine emperors ended their lives as monks of the Studion, the largest monastery of Constantinople.
  • the establishment of the quaestura exercitus by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I helped to economically secure the lower Danube region.
  • the defeat of his army in the Siege of Berat ended Charles of Anjou's designs to invade the Byzantine Empire over land.
  • the praetorian prefecture of Africa, a Byzantine province established after the Vandalic War, saw continuous warfare and two major military mutinies during its first 15 years of existence.
  • the Nine Saints were a group of Christians from the Byzantine Empire who took part in converting areas of what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia in the late fifth century AD.
  • the Hetaireia, the Byzantine guards unit responsible for the safety of the emperor on campaign, was composed chiefly of foreigners.
  • the Song of Armouris, is among the oldest surviving examples of Byzantine heroic poetry.
  • the arrest of the Ghassanid ruler Al-Mundhir ibn al-Harith in 581 provoked a two-year revolt by his sons against the Byzantine Empire.
  • right after the Byzantine capital of Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, the rulers of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea called upon the Ottomans to suppress their own peasant revolt.
  • remnants of a mill and dam, originally built in late Roman/early Byzantine period, can still be seen at the place of the depopulated Palestinian village of Al-Mirr.
  • Ras Ibn Hani, a small cape located 8 km north of Latakia, Syria, was occupied almost continuously from the late Bronze Age until Byzantine times.
  • New England used to be part of the Roman Empire, and China is still part of Japan.
  • Tong Yabghu, khagan of the Western Turkic Khaganate, campaigned with the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the Caucasus Mountains.
  • a turma signified a cavalry squadron of 30 men in the Roman army, but evolved into a regiment of up to 6,000 men in the Byzantine Empire.
  • according to John of Ephesus, in 583, Empress Constantina, consort of Maurice, gave birth to the first heir born to a reigning Byzantine Emperor in over 100 years.
  • Leo the Mathematician, called by some the cleverest man in 9th-century Byzantium, invented a system of beacons to warn of Arab raids and a fabled levitating throne for the emperor.
  • Andronikos Kontostephanos was the leading general of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, and that his career took him from Hungary to Egypt.
  • Byzantine official Peter the Patrician may have been responsible for the murder of Ostrogothic queen Amalasuntha, despite being instructed to secure her safety by emperor Justinian I.
  • Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos created the Metropolitanate of Lithuania, which was later regarded as an "anomaly" by the Byzantine authorities.
  • Istanbul's Vefa Kilise Mosque (pictured) is an example of a Byzantine church since converted into an Ottoman mosque.
  • medieval Bulgarian military leader Ivan the Russian defended Plovdiv in a four-month Byzantine siege only for the citizens to let the Byzantines in while he was away.
  • Sviatoslav of Kiev was invited by the Byzantine Empire to attack Bulgaria in order to force them to make concessions, but ended up conquering the country.
  • after the destructive Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, the treasury of the Byzantine Empire contained "nothing but the atoms of Epicurus".
  • although the Byzantine megas doux Alexios Apokaukos (pictured) owed his rise to the patronage of John VI Kantakouzenos, he instigated the Civil War of 1341–1347 against him.
  • in the 840s, the emir of Malatya, Umar al-Aqta, gave refuge to the Paulicians who were being persecuted by the Byzantine Empire, and gave them territory where they founded their own state.
  • in 1261, Caesar Alexios Strategopoulos reconquered Constantinople from the Latins, thereby restoring the Byzantine Empire.
  • in the Battle of Lalakaon in 863 AD, three Byzantine armies, marching from different directions, converged on time to surround an Arab army.
  • in the Battle of Prinitza, 300 Achaean soldiers defeated a far superior Byzantine army, allegedly numbering 15,000 men.
  • noblemen in the Byzantine Empire were often mutilated to make them ineligible to be Emperor.
  • in 878, the Byzantines lost Syracuse in Sicily to the Arabs because the imperial fleet was occupied with transporting marble for the construction of the Nea Ekklesia cathedral.
  • in 874, Byzantine admiral Niketas Oryphas hauled his ships overland over the Isthmus of Corinth in order to catch an Arab fleet by surprise and defeated it.
  • before the Bagratids unified Georgia, Caucasian Iberia was ruled by a succession of princes under the influence of the Byzantines, the Persians and the Muslim Caliphate from the 6th to the 9th centuries.
  • an alliance was formed in the 8th century between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Frankish Carolingian Empire against the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Umayyads of Spain.
  • despite serving the Chalcedonian Byzantine Empire, the Ghassanid ruler Al-Harith ibn Jabalah actively contributed to the revival of the monophysitic Syriac Church.
  • during the 976-9 civil war in the Byzantine Empire, military support provided by Georgian prince David III of Tao was crucial to Emperor Basil II's continued reign.
  • in 1018, Byzantine general Eustathios Daphnomeles entered the stronghold of Ibatzes of Bulgaria and blinded and captured him, thereby ending Bulgarian resistance to the Byzantine conquest.
  • Byzantine general Peter Phokas was originally born a slave and made a eunuch, but rose to become one of the senior-most commanders of the Byzantine Empire in the 960s and 970s.
    • Previous Quiz Next Quiz

    Related Quizzes

    Key Events and Figures of the 13th Century: A Quiz

    #13th century #history #Mongol Empire #Crusades #European culture #Franciscan order #Cambridge #Boyana Church

    Discovering the 14th Century: A Historical Quiz

    #14th Century #History #Renaissance #Ming Dynasty #Hundred Years' War #Petrarch #Military History

    Exploring the 16th Century: Events, Figures, and Discoveries

    #history #16th century #exploration #Renaissance #Conquistadores #art #politics #religion

    Exploring the 17th Century: Key Events and Figures

    #17th century #history #empires #Mughal Empire #Ottoman Empire #Persian Empire #Taiwan #Hudson's Bay Company #Kara Mustafa #French history

    Exploring the 18th Century: A Historical Quiz

    #18th century #history #quiz #education #literature #philosophy #politics

    Significant Events of 1904

    #1904 #history #events #quiz #education

    Significant Events and Figures of 1906

    #1906 #history #chess #astronomy #civil rights #swimming #biochemistry

    Significant Events and Figures of 1911

    #1911 #history #events #figures #Nobel Prize #aviation #fire incidents #education #composers