The greatness of Byzantium lay in the “triple fusion” of the Roman body, the Greek mind and the mystical eastern spirit (R. Byron). The Byzantines were a highly religious society in which illiteracy was virtually absent and in which many emperors were renowned for their learning; a society which preserved much of the heritage of Greek and Roman Antiquity during those dark ages when the light of learning had almost died out in the West; and, finally, the society that created such a phenomenon as Byzantine art. Renowned British historian John Julius Norwich provides a detailed overview of the history of the Byzantine Empire from its earliest days until its tragic end. “The Byzantine Empire lasted 1123 and 18 days - from its founding by Constantine the Great on Monday 11 May 330 until its conquest by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in Tuesday 29 May 1453. The first part of the book describes the history of the empire from its founding to the formation of its Western rival, the Holy Roman Empire, including the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome on Christmas Day 800. The second part recounts the successes of Byzantium from the reign of the dazzling Macedonian dynasty to the apogee of its power under the rule of Basil II of the Bulgarians, but this part ends on a bad omen - the first of three great defeats in Byzantine history, which the empire suffered from the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The third and final part describes how fateful this defeat turned out to be. The history of the last two centuries of the existence of Byzantium, which found itself in the shadow against the backdrop of the heyday of the Ottoman Empire dynasty in Asia Minor, is filled with pessimism, and only the last chapter, with all its tragedy, once again lifts the spirit - as all stories about heroism must inevitably end.” (John Julius Norwich)