re: #141 Irenike

I’m no historian. It’s late. I’m ready to sleep.

But, wasn’t the Byzantine empire that the Muslims conquered in 1453 a Christian empire, since Constantine had converted to Christianity and forced all of his subjects to convert as well?

To my mind, a Christian Byzantine empire is way different from the pagan Roman Empire that fell in the late 300’s or early 400’s. That was my quibble with Malik’s claim that Mohammed “challenged the Roman Empire.” Rome had been sacked long before old Mo was even born.

The Western Roman empire was a “Christian” Empire de jure by the early 300s and I believe, mostly Christian de facto before that anyway. It didn’t fall until the late 400s when Christianized German tribes began carving it up into their own kingdoms with a bunch of Emperor pretenders who patted the real empire in Ravenna on the head and said “isn’t he cute thinking he’s Caesar.”