For 1,000 years after the Western Roman Empire fell, the Eastern Empire of Byzantium stood strong. Ancient and powerful, the Byzantine court soon became known as a warren of intrigue and secrets. No one was safe, and no one could be trusted.

10Assassinations

Since the Byzantines always felt that an unpopular ruler could be replaced, a number of emperors died violent deaths.

Constans II was clubbed to death with a soap dish while resting in his bath. Michael III lost both his hands trying to block a sword. Nikephoros Phokas was warned of a plot and ordered a search of the palace, but his wife had hidden the assassins in her bedroom, which no guard would dare to search. They stabbed him to death that night.

At least, Leo the Armenian went out in style. Ambushed on Christmas Day by assassins disguised as a choir of chanting monks, he seized a heavy cross from the altar and battled them around the Hagia Sofia until his arm was cut off and he was struck down. Less romantically, the killers then threw his corpse into a toilet.

9Mutilation

The Byzantines believed that disfigurement disqualified candidates for the throne. As a result, emperors often mutilated their rivals rather than killing them outright. Blinding was popular, as was cutting off noses and tongues. In later years, castration became the most common practice.

In some ways, mutilation was considered kinder than execution. John IV Laskaris lived for 40 years after being blinded. But it was undoubtedly brutal. Empress Irene had her own rebellious son blinded in the room where she had given birth to him. The youth died of his wounds a short time later.

However, it was sometimes possible to come back from mutilation. Basil Lekapenos was castrated as a boy to prevent him from causing trouble when he grew up. With the throne closed to him, Basil became a powerful courtier and ruled through a series of puppet emperors.

8The Noseless Emperor

The terrifying Justinian II was first overthrown in AD 695. The rebels cut off his nose and slit his tongue down the middle before exiling him to the Crimea. Undeterred, Justinian escaped to the land of the Khazars and began plotting a return to power. The new emperor bribed the Khazars to murder their guest, but Justinian was warned and personally strangled the assassins before escaping to Bulgaria in a fishing boat.

Forging an alliance with the Bulgarian khan, Justinian returned to Constantinople and led an army through the sewers and into the city where he took a terrible revenge on his enemies. Regaining the throne, he ruled for another six years, wearing a golden nose and using an interpreter to translate the gurgles from his ruined tongue.

His cruelty eventually grew too much, and he was overthrown again in 711. This time, they killed him.

7Intrigue

Today, the word “Byzantine” can refer to an atmosphere of confusion and intrigue, and that was certainly true of the court in Constantinople. There, eunuchs and courtiers jockeyed for influence and emperors ruled through powerful favorites.

In one ninth-century example, the eunuch Staurakios helped Empress Irene overthrow and blind her own son. Staurakios himself was soon forced from power by the eunuch Aetios, who schemed to make his brother emperor. But Aetios failed to guard against the finance minister Nikephoros, who orchestrated a coup and reigned as emperor until the Bulgarians converted his skull into a drinking cup.

This atmosphere of intrigue lasted until Constantinople fell. Even as the Ottomans massed outside the walls, Grand Duke Loukas Notaras was reportedly scheming to secure lucrative court positions for his sons.

6Civil War

In the ninth century, Michael I was forced to resign by a trio of his generals: Leo the Armenian, Michael the Amorian, and Thomas the Slav. Leo became emperor. But when he fell out with Michael, the Amorian’s followers infiltrated the Christmas service and hacked Leo to death. Thomas the Slav rose in revolt against Michael, sparking a massive civil war which badly weakened the empire against the Arabs.

Similar problems arose in the 10th century when Bardas Phokas’s rebellion was put down by General Bardas Skleros. When the eunuch Basil Lekapenos schemed against Skleros, he started his own revolt in self-defense. Lekapenos countered by releasing Phokas from prison and putting him in command against Skleros.

Phokas defeated Skleros in single combat and destroyed his forces. But Phokas, Skleros, and Lekapenos then teamed up against the young Basil the Bulgar-Slayer. Typically, they soon fell to infighting and Basil successfully secured power. He later became famous for blinding thousands of prisoners and sending them back to Bulgaria, where Tsar Samuel promptly died of horror.

5The Purple-Born

The Byzantines had long considered purple the imperial color, with only members of the royal family allowed to wear certain purple dyes. Eventually, the emperor built a special room with walls made of the precious purple stone porphyry.

Imperial children born in this room were dubbed porphyrogennetos (“purple-born”). They were immensely prestigious and weren’t supposed to marry outside the empire, although Vladimir of Kiev famously demanded a Purple-Born bride as the price for military aid and his conversion to Christianity.

The Purple-Born also attracted great loyalty from the common people. Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos was overthrown as a boy, but his Purple-Born status protected him and he was allowed to remain as co-emperor for 24 years.

When Basil II died, the only remaining Purple-Born were the sisters Zoe and Theodora. The citizens of Constantinople rioted at every attempt to remove them from power, and the pair dominated the empire until Theodora’s death in 1056.

4Riots

As citizens of the greatest city on Earth, the people of Constantinople were never afraid to express themselves, often through violence. In the most famous example, fans of the Blue and Green chariot racing teams united to riot against Justinian I.

The emperor was prepared to flee, but the day was saved by his wife, Theodora, who proclaimed that she would rather die an empress than live as a commoner. The rebels were subsequently massacred.

Not all riots destabilized the empire. One particularly bloody civil war was effectively ended by a prison riot. Megaduke Alexios Apokaukos was inspecting his new jail when the political prisoners ran amok and murdered him, crippling his faction.

The assertive tendencies of Constantinople’s citizenry survived the Ottoman conquest, and many a sultan cowered inside the Topkapi Palace while an enraged mob tore his vizier to pieces.

3Castration

Eunuchs served the Byzantine state in every capacity, from courtiers to priests to generals. (The eunuch Peter Phokas became famous for defeating a Scythian warlord in single combat.) They were perceived as nonthreatening because they had no children to inherit their status.

However, eunuchs like John the Orphanotrophos (manager of Constantinople’s orphanage) became notorious for leveraging their brothers into high office. John himself grew so powerful that his whole family had to be castrated and exiled by a nervous emperor.

Castration was technically illegal in the empire. As a result, many eunuchs were enslaved outside the empire as young boys and then castrated just before they were brought across the border. But it wasn’t unknown for impoverished Byzantine parents to castrate their sons in the hope that these boys would grow up to secure lucrative positions at court.

2Sex Slaves

Multiple sources from the period allege that eunuchs were frequently used as sex slaves because they maintained their youthful looks. This was officially forbidden, but the church struggled to find a way to stop it without condemning slavery (and thereby the emperor).

The problem is illustrated in the 10th-century Life Of St. Andrew The Fool, which basically puts the blame on the eunuchs. A character does point out that “if a slave fails to obey, you surely know how much he will suffer, being maltreated and beaten.”

But Andrew insists that “if the slaves do not bow to the abominable passions of their masters, they are thrice blessed, for thanks to the torments you mention, they will be reckoned with the martyrs.”

1The Zealots Of Thessalonica

In 1341, the empire was undergoing one of its regular civil wars. The new emperor was nine years old, and his father’s friend John Kantakouzenos had been appointed regent. The boy’s mother, Anna, and Megaduke Alexios Apokaukos formed an alliance to usurp the regency, sparking a massive conflict.

But this time, something different happened. In the city of Thessalonica, the common people seized control from the aristocracy. Calling themselves “Zealots,” these revolutionaries championed the rights of the poor. Accounts from the time claim that violent mobs of Zealots attacked and slaughtered the rich.

The Zealot council ruled Thessalonica for the duration of the civil war. For a time, they swore allegiance to Megaduke Apokaukos, but they remained hostile to the aristocracy and eventually asserted their independence by murdering his son.

The revolution was only put down after John Kantakouzenos became emperor. Some of the Zealots invited the Serbian king Stefan Dusan to take the city, but others found this unpatriotic and fighting broke out. Kantakouzenos took the city easily and executed the leading Zealots.

The Byzantine Empire was actually the Roman Empire, just further East. It existed from the year 330 AD all the way until 1453. Constantinople was the capital, serving as the head of Roman interest in their Easter lands because the Empire had spread so far it needed another base of operations. Travelling by land from Rome to Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul, is over 1,300 miles.

 For all the Roman influences, the Byzantine Empire did do things its own way sometimes. And some ways things were back then can be pretty shocking.

10. Political Mutilations

One way that modern society can separate itself from ancient society is how we punish criminals. In most of modern Western society we either imprison those convicted of crimes are, in a very few cases, they will be imprisoned and then executed for their crimes. Back in the day, punishing crime was like an exercise in creative sadism. The more bizarre, horrible, and unique ways you could come up with making someone pay for something, the better it seemed The Byzantine Empire was no different.

Mutilation was a favourite method of punishing criminals back in the day. However, it was also a method of settling political rivalries as well. Imagine if instead of having an election, presidential candidates went out of their way to see who could cause the most pain and suffering to the other one’s body as a method not of killing them, but just stopping them from getting in their way.

Blinding political enemies was fairly commonplace because a blind enemy certainly couldn’t lead armies. If that didn’t work, castration was also a choice. Not just for the obvious reasons, but also because they considered castration the ultimate injustice a man could suffer. It made them no longer a man, and it also prevented you from having heirs.

John Athalarichos tried to overthrow his father, the emperor Heraclius In the year 637. It didn’t go very well for him and he had his nose and hands amputated.Constantine Diogenes was accused of plotting against the emperor and was blinded before he ended up committing suicide. 

9. Chariot Racing Was Huge

You can’t deny that people love to watch sports. According to Wikipedia, of the 24 most watched broadcasts in world history have all been sports-related. That includes many Olympic Games broadcasts, World Cup soccer, and even two Muhammad Ali boxing matches. Both the London and the Rio Summer Games share a record of about 3.6 billion viewers. So it’s not surprising to learn that, during the Byzantine Empire, sports and competition were just as popular.

Roman-style chariot races were one of the biggest sports of the Byzantine Empire. And remember, chariot racing differed from a modern foot race, or even a NASCAR race. Sure there was high speed, but the potential for death and Mayhem was extremely high. Chariot Racers could be smashed against the stone pillars or dragged to death behind their horses.

The appeal of racing for the fans seems to be the adrenaline, bloodshed, and money to be made gambling. For the racers, it was the potential for fortune and freedom. Many of these charioteers were slaves, but they had the chance to win as much as 15 bags of gold for winning a single race.

The most famous charioteer in history was Diocles, and it is said that he earned 36 million sesterces over his career, which could have fed the entire city of Rome for a year. For some context, a Roman soldier might have earned about 1,200 sesterces in a year.

They were four teams in Byzantine Chariot racing, the Whites, the Greens, the Blues, and the Reds. Eventually these teams merged and became just the Greens and the Blues. And fans were so passionate about the sport and that when they weren’t throwing nail studded tablets under the track to sabotage their opponents, they were breaking into bloody riots to support their own team. At one point the Greens ambushed the Blues and killed 3,000 of them.

8. They Created Greek Fire

If you’ve never heard of Greek fire before, or maybe you at least heard of wildfire from the show Game of Thrones. Essentially a mysterious and alchemical kind of napalm, it’s fire that burns even on water. Pretty cool in a fantasy-based TV series, and also inspired by the legends of Greek fire.

Historians believe it was invented in the 7th Century in the Byzantine Empire. Greek fire could be shot out of a tube like a flamethrower or thrown in clay pots. Just like napalm or Wildfire from Game of Thrones, it was sticky and couldn’t be extinguished out with water. 

Famously, Greek fire was used to defend Constantinople from an Arab fleet in the 670s. Weirdly enough, Greek Fire disappeared from history in the 15th century. It’s believed that a Jewish refugee named Callinicus of Heliopolis created it. They kept the recipe a strict secret, and then it seems to have been lost completely. 

These days we can make educated guesses about what Greek Fire probably was, most likely included petroleum, naphtha, quicklime and sulphur, But they are just that, guesses.

7. They Created Their Own Silk Industry

Prior to the 6th century, if you were interested in getting anything made of silk in the world, you were going to China to get it. It’s hard to conceptualize just how important and valuable silk was back in the day by today’s standards but the fact that the major trade road across the world was known as The Silk Road ought to give you some sign of how highly prized this commodity was.

Keeping the Silk Road open was a constant struggle, especially since it traveled through Persia and Persia would not allow trade during times of War. In the 6th century the Byzantine emperor Justinian became frustrated with the inconsistent silk trade and came up with a solution.

Under instructions from Emperor Justinian, two monks went to China and nabbed some silkworm eggs, which they smuggled back to the Empire hidden in their canes. Before the monks went to China, no one even knew really where silk came from. The Byzantines actually thought it came from India. The entire journey took the monks two years. And it also paid off.

They started silk factories in Constantinople and in other cities throughout the empire. They toppled the Chinese and Persian silk monopolies, and the Byzantine Empire started their own across Europe. This was a cornerstone of the entire Byzantine economy for well over half a millennium. They still produce silk throughout Turkey and Greece today.

6. The Nika Riots

As big a deal as chariot races were in Byzantium, you can’t really get an appreciation for how seriously people took them without talking about the Nika riots. The riots took place for a solid week of the year 532 AD. In modern times we’ve seen riots on television and the potential chaos that ensues when common people clash with law enforcement or groups of others with opposing viewpoints, nothing in modern history comes close to what went down to release riots. or, to put it another way, 30,000 people died, and they burned half the city to the ground in that one week.

By the time that they had separated the Chariot teams into two groups, the Greens and the Blues, loyalty to one faction or another was seriously scary stuff. The Emperor would often choose a side not because he particularly supported one came over the other, but to ensure that one team supported him so that both couldn’t join together and overthrow the empire.

Unfortunately for Emperor Justinian, he didn’t feel the need to support one faction over the other. He was trying to eliminate partisan politics from how society worked, but the general population didn’t see it that way. Along with some civil unrest because of his unpopular policies and a war in Persia, everything blended together to create a state of chaos.

Members of the Blues and Greens plead with Justinian at a race to have mercy on some of their teammates, who were set to be executed for a previous riot. Justinian declined, and the crowd shouted ‘Nika,’ which meant victory and was chanted typically at charioteers. The fuse was lit, and the riot began.

Rioters released all the prisoners from a local jail and began burning down the city. They trapped Justinian inside of his palace and both factions teamed together to declare a new emperor. It was only through the clever machinations of three of Justinian’s generals, all of whom were barbarians and had no loyalty to either faction, that they were able to sow discord between the Greens and Blues and slaughter anyone who dissented.

Ten percent of the City’s population was thought to have been killed by the time the riot was over and the would-be Emperor propped up by the Blues on the Greens was killed for his trouble.

5. Adulterers Lost Their Noses

It wasn’t just criminals or political rivals who suffered meaning in the Byzantine Empire. As part of the reforms to the legal system administered by Emperor Leo III, he put laws regarding personal relationships into place. Violating these rules could prove to be exceptionally painful.

Under Leo’s rule, a married man who committed adultery was to be corrected by a flogging of 12 lashes. There was also going to be a fine to be paid. If an unmarried man was caught fornicating, they were going to get six lashes.

If a person was found to have carnal knowledge of a nun, they were going to have their nose cut off. If a husband knew that his wife was having an affair and not doing anything about it, he was going to be flogged and exiled. However, the wife and the person she was having the affair with would both have their noses cut off.

4. The Justinian Plague

Anyone who got through the year 2020 in one piece knows what it’s like to live in a pandemic. That’s with modern technology and modern communication to help get us all through it. During the year 541 to 542 amidst the Justinian plague, things were a little different.

The plague itself ravaged the world for about 225 years but didn’t hit Constantinople until 542. Travelling thanks to rats and fleas, it moved along trade routes wherever humans travelled with goods and commodities. People migrating to escape cold weather make the situation worse, and the plague was able to spread and kill literally millions of people.

The Bubonic plague is thought to have killed about half of the population of Europe or around 50 million people when it reappeared in the 14th century. The writer and historian Procopius blamed Justinian for the plague and declared that he might actually be a devil, or at least being punished by God.

The plague spread in Constantinople for four months. Emperor Justinian caught the disease but didn’t die. The streets were said to have been filled with corpses while graveyards and tombs overflowed such that they dug trenches to handle the excess bodies. They dumped some into the sea, some were stored in empty buildings. 

Those who couldn’t afford to see doctors, or couldn’t find one because they were so busy, tried to treat the disease at home with cold baths, magic trinkets and blessings. Estimates put the death toll at 5000 to 10000 per day in Constantinople alone. Around 25% of the entire Empire was believed to have died, anywhere from 25 to 50 million people.

3. They May Have Invented Bagpipes

If someone asked you to list the things you think of when you hear Scotland, there’s a good chance your list would include things like the Loch Ness monster, haggis, and bagpipes. While the first two are certainly popular in Scotland, and there’s no denying that bagpipes are profoundly Scottish in the modern world, there’s evidence to suggest that the Byzantine Empire invented them first.

The Director of the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford believes Persia is where you should look if you want to find the historical origins of the bagpipe. He believes that Persia’s much longer history of shepherding is a good point in favour of this as bagpipes have long been an instrument of shepherds, and that the Middle East actually seems to be the origin for most instruments that became popular throughout Europe including the lute and the guitar. 

2. The First New England Was There

These days when someone references New England you know that they’re most likely talking about the Northeast United States, places like Massachusetts. That New England is not the first New England to be founded, however. The Byzantine Empire also had its own New England once, when a group of English immigrants settled there in the year 1075.

Over 4,000 English immigrants settled in the area, including a majority of them in a place they renamed Nova Anglia which means New England.

Byzantines hired English soldiers to fill out their ranks at the time, along with Scandinavians soldiers as well. English mercenaries for well-regarded by Byzantine forces. The founding of this New England happened shortly after the Norman conquest of 1066, and many of these English people would have been refugees from the war.

Normans were now at war with the Byzantine Empire, so the English would have had even more reason to side with Byzantium and have a chance to fight their enemies once again. As for that location of the Byzantine New England, that’s a mystery. Documents show that many of the English joined the armies of Constantinople, but where they may have settled has been lost to history.

1. Constantinople Fell to a Massive Cannon

There’s never been one single thing that toppled an Empire. The Byzantine Empire is no different. Many factors from economic to political and so on led to the fall of the once mighty Empire. But, when it comes to how Constantinople itself fell, you can put a heavy amount of blame on one piece of military equipment, the massive cannon commissioned by Sultan Mehmed II.

In 1,000 years the city of Constantinople had been attacked 23 times and not a single army had made it through the walls. Constantinople was already on a downturn, economically crippled and losing ground on all sides. The sultan commissioned the biggest cannon the world had ever seen to help break down the walls. What he got was a 27-foot long bronze cannon with eight inch thick walls and a barrel that was 30 in in diameter so that a man could actually crawl inside of it.

The cannon fired cannonballs that weighed about half a ton. It took 200 men and 60 oxen to drag the cannon across the countryside, 140 miles to Constantinople. They manage progress of two-and-a-half miles per day.

When the cannon finally arrived, it lived up to its promise and more. The devastation was unseen in the world before. It tore defensive walls that had stood for literally thousands of years to shreds. One single weapon had laid waste to the powerful defenses of the previously unconquerable city. Even though the massive cannon could only be fired seven times a day, the psychological impact was more than enough.