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World History 1

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	While the Islamic world was undergoing the devolution of Abbasid power, the <OpenstaxTerm>Byzantine Empire</OpenstaxTerm> could not take advantage of its weakness. The Byzantines had experienced an earlier period of cultural and military dominance under the powerful Macedonian dynasty (867–1025), whose warrior-emperors had been able to push back against Muslims to the east and Slavic peoples to the west. The resulting stability had brought a period of cultural production and innovation sometimes called the <OpenstaxTerm>Macedonian Renaissance</OpenstaxTerm>. Its artwork later influenced Italian art and anticipated developments in the Italian Renaissance (<a href="#fig-00005">Figure 13.15</a>).
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00005" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/d23de13f7a071d5db580335a95b449242427144f" alt="An image of a faded and worn painting is shown. The frame of the painting is gold with red and blue designs and squares in all the corners with an “X” shown inside. The painting shows people and animals on a light brown landscape with bluish-white mountains and a city in the background. A large green pine tree stands in the background behind the people. At the forefront a small blue stream flows with three small brown animals drinking and walking across the water. Two black animals with long, thin, wavy horns stand to the right next to the stream. A larger brown dog sits behind the other animals while another dark horned animals and a white animal stand to its left. In the right forefront a dark skinned man is seated on a low platform wearing a green robe around his waist that fans up over his head. He has no shirt, is barefoot, and wears a leafy lariat on his head of dark curls. Behind him are large stone slabs. Behind the stone slabs a person with brown hair hides behind a white column with a red scarf tied around it. A gold pot sits atop the column. In the middle of the image a person in red and white robes with gold trim sits on a gray stone in white socks and long brown hair. He plays a harp-like instrument while a person behind him also sits on the stone. They wear a red turban, blue, brown, and gold cloths and sandals. One of their hands rest on the shoulder of the figure playing the instrument." mediaType="image/jpg" width="901" height="1003" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="901">
	<strong>Figure 13.15</strong> This image is from a tenth-century illuminated manuscript made in Constantinople and called the Paris Psalter (for its current location). It depicts the biblical King David (seated with harp) composing psalms or sacred songs. The realism of the setting and the individualized faces and postures were innovations of the art of the Macedonian era. (credit: “Paris Psalter” by Bibliothèque nationale de France/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	At the end of the Macedonian period, the Byzantine emperor’s ability to navigate the economic and military situation deteriorated. Ineffective rulers and conflict over successors to the Macedonian dynasty rendered the empire less militarily capable. The Byzantines also lost control of their overseas territories, especially southern Italy and Sicily, which had been sources of trade and revenue. Islamic and Italian navies began to dominate trade in the Mediterranean. As direct trade between the Christian West and the Islamic world increased, the economic position of the Byzantine Empire as an intermediary began to decline. Byzantine rulers attempted to establish marriage alliances with Slavic rulers and even Norman adventurers who were active in Sicily and southern Italy. Although such allies were eager to associate themselves with the prestige of the Byzantine Empire, they were just as likely to gain it by attacking the empire and carving out a state for themselves. All around them, the Byzantine emperors saw inconstant allies and ferocious enemies.
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	The challenges the Byzantine Empire faced were not limited to external rivals. Its rulers faced the same problem as the Abbasid caliphs: powerful actors within their own empire who sought to exploit the weaknesses of the rule to enrich their families. Macedonian emperors such as <OpenstaxTerm>Basil II</OpenstaxTerm> had issued legislation to curb the power of these elites, called the <OpenstaxTerm><OpenstaxEm>dynatoi</OpenstaxEm></OpenstaxTerm>, by ensuring they were taxed heavily, and their massive estates were broken up and distributed to the peasants who served in the armies. Basil was succeeded by less competent or less secure emperors who were compelled to rely on the <OpenstaxEm>dynatoi</OpenstaxEm> for support and reversed his policies. This harmed the peasant backbone of the army and emboldened the elite, who rewarded the patronage of the emperors with schemes to control or replace them. Like the Abbasids, the rulers then had to balance external threats and challenges with internal ones in a complex search for stability.
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	One of the <OpenstaxEm>dynatoi</OpenstaxEm> became Emperor <OpenstaxTerm>Romanos IV</OpenstaxTerm> in 1068. Romanos was a capable general who wanted to reverse the empire’s losses to the Seljuks. The neglect of the army by previous emperors meant that he had to rely on foreign mercenaries, who did not get along with each other and who plundered Byzantine territory if they were not paid on time. Romanos had some earlier successes against the Seljuks, whose raids under <OpenstaxTerm>Alp Arslan</OpenstaxTerm> had become bloody and bitter affairs. He hoped to take back strategic areas in eastern Anatolia while Alp Arslan was fighting the Fatimids.
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	Alp Arslan was not as far away as Romanos had hoped, however, and the armies met near the town of Manzikert. Some of Romanos’s mercenaries abandoned him before the battle, and at a decisive moment, he was betrayed by his own aristocratic rivals who failed to protect the army during a retreat. Romanos was then captured by the <OpenstaxTerm>Seljuks</OpenstaxTerm>, and instead of executing him—the typical fate for one considered a dangerous foe—to humiliate him, Alp Arslan spared the emperor’s life and set him free, after he agreed to concede territory and pay a hefty ransom.
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<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The military defeat might not have been disastrous, but problems within the empire exacerbated the loss. Romanos was deposed and killed by his own aristocracy, and for the next twenty years, the Byzantine rulers struggled to restore order to their empire. One of Romanos’s successors, <OpenstaxTerm>Alexios I</OpenstaxTerm>, called on the popes for assistance against the Seljuks. He was expecting a mercenary force, but instead Pope <OpenstaxTerm>Urban II</OpenstaxTerm> framed the conflict between Byzantine and Seljuk as a fight between religions, culminating in the crusading movement.
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13.2.3 The Battle of Manzikert and the Call from the East

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome