Professor Peturrson
Western Civ 1
10/12/15
During the 17th to 18th century, The Roman Empire had gone through a cultural and religious metamorphous. Throughout this time, the roles of religion in the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds altered the period of 600-750 with their similarities adhering to monotheism for one, and differences in regards to perspectives. These three cultures were all pretty diverse but they also share some of the same roots and became heritors of the Roman Empire, built on different ideologies. These different ideologies consisted of different founders, places, and elements of worship. Religion was prominently central to governmental and social structures in these areas, because of the large …show more content…
While arguments over religion had still been occurring, the Byzantine Empire had far surpassed Western Europe in trade and economics and political unity. Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire had very diverse government foundations. The Byzantine Empire was ruled by an Emperor and instead of direct rule, used “civil service” to adequately run the empire. Western Europe had also an agriculture based economy which led to little trading anywhere outside of Europe itself. The Byzantine Empire on the other hand became the richest empire in Europe. This was because Constantinople was the bridge between Europe and the rest of the world, which became the center of east to west trading, not only because of its location but various population as well. Therefore, religion was indeed again proved to have been central to governmental and social structures …show more content…
For example, Cato, a famous politician, had “thundered against the influence of the “weakling” Greeks on the “sturdy” Romans,” (Cato 159). Through this quote, it is implied that if the Romans ever procreate Greek values, they would ultimately lose their power. Knowing this, Romans did not mirror the Greeks war tactics, as they were considered to be mediocre. But all in all, their strategies correlated with their own destruction because they became too cocky and took more land than they could handle. Rome expanded to control vast territories because it brought in outsiders. The downfall to this is, a militia can only control so much territory at once and the Roman Republic definitely exceeded their limits aiding to the collapse of the Roman Republic. Rome‘s controlled territory had grown to such an extent that the existing political system could not be effectively controlled or ran. For example the Making of the West had written, “fear of attacks and the desire for wealth propelled roman imperialism” (151). Through this quote, it is seen that Rome was indeed on edge, but still somehow remained greedy. The Senate was unfortunately more concerned with boosting and maintaining its own power, disregarding all other important aspects. Once the soldiers returned home they found that their homes had been taken over by wealthy senators,