Best of us all the best

he be leic,

go go, Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the

support of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London and the LEMU in Munich, online at

History of Philosophy.net. Today's episode, The Empire Strikes Back. Introduction to Byzantine philosophy.

There almost was no Byzantine philosophy.

In fact, there was almost no Byzantine Empire, at least not in the sense we usually

think of it. If the capital city of Constantinople had fallen to a year-long siege laid by Arab forces from 717 to 718, then we would not bother to speak of Byzantium at all, but just say that the Eastern

Roman Empire collapsed somewhat later than the Western Empire.

And we might well be saying it in Arabic.

If it hadn't been for the Byzantine's holding the line against the armies of Islam, those

armies would have made their way into Europe. Probably, they would have brought their religion

and language into Central Europe and perhaps as far as the English Channel in the North Sea,

just as they brought it to all of Northern Africa, Spain, and Central Asia.

That this alternate history did not occur, was thanks above all to the fortifications of Constantinople, built generations

earlier at the behest of Emperor Theodosius.

They surely rank as one of history's most successful building projects, and would be finalists in a most important ever

walls competition alongside the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, the Berlin Wall, and an album by

Pink Floyd. The Theodosian walls would be needed many times because the

Byzantine's were surrounded by enemies and not infrequently driven by internal conflict.

For all the details I recommend checking out the History of Byzantium podcast presented by Robin Pearson,

whom you might remember me interviewing back in episode 215.

...