DÜNYA MEDENİYETLERİNE GİRİŞ - Deneme Sınavı - 4

The Normans drove out the Byzantines from southern Italy; the Hungarians conducted raids throughout the Balkan region; and the Turks defeated the imperial armies in 1071 and captured the Emperor Romanus IV.

Only when the capital city was attacked and defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE did the Commonwealth of Byzantium fall. Doğru cevap A'dır.

The emperor at Constantinople played two roles simultaneously: the role of the emperor and the role of pope. This became known as “caesaropapism”. Doğru cevap C’dir.

To this day, the Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian, and Armenian Christians continue their religious practices as Monophysites, not the African Americans. Doğru cevap E’dir.

Books were widely circulated and read among the Byzantines. Much of the population was educated. In the early years of the empire the greatest university was at Athens. The university was moved from Athens to Constantinople by Emperor Justinian in the sixth century because of his concern over the strong pagan traditions of Athens. Further, the men who filled the ranks of the empire’s bureaucracy, of the Byzantine church and of the court system, generally were learned graduates, men who had studied at the university. The cultural emphasis, as seen in the literature, was on philosophy, astronomy, geometry, rhetoric, music, literature, grammar, law, medicine, and arithmetic. Doğru cevap D’dir.

In the Byzantine era, the term was used to refer to one of four chariot-racing factions, the Reds, the Blues, the Greens, and the Whites. Doğru cevap C’dir.

In Constantinople, the Church called Santa Sophia, which is known today by the appellation Hagia Sophia – or Divine Wisdom – was dedicated by the Emperor Justinian in 537 CE. Doğru cevap B’dir.

The city was either a terminus or a port of call to which ships came from around the globe. From the Black Sea came furs and hides, grain, salt and wine. From India, Ceylon, Syria and Arabia came spices, precious stones, and silk. From Africa, and from Scandinavia and Russia, came slavery and ivory, and from the West, especially Italy, came merchants to buy these products. Doğru cevap E’dir.

The Byzantine Empire, an extension of the old Roman Empire, lasted for eleven centuries. Doğru cevap A’dır.

In 306 CE Constantine succeeded Diocletian as the emperor of the old Roman Empire. In so doing he re-united the Western and the Eastern Roman empire and became the sole emperor of both. Doğru cevap C’dir.

In 610 Heraclius became emperor and temporarily possessed Mesopotamia. Doğru cevap C’dir.

In 306 CE, Constantine became emperor of the entire Roman empire, east and west, and decided to move the capital city from Rome to an old fortress city on the Bosphorus, then called Byzantium. He wanted it to be called New Rome but the city gradually adopted the name of Constantinople in his honor. The correct choice is B.

Society was divided into political factions and these were seen especially at chariot races where the Blues, representing the wealthy and supporters of Orthodoxy in religion, raced against the Greens, representing the rest of the population, mostly heterodox in religion. The correct answer is C.

Unlike in the old Roman Empire, in the Byzantine Empire the emperor was absolute ruler of both church (Christianity) and state under a system called “caesaropapism.” The emperor himself presided over major theological debates and conferences, such as the Council of Nicaea. The correct answer is E.

The Council of Nicaea (Iznik) was a meeting to which bishops and other leaders from all the major churches of the Christian faith and as far away as Britain were invited in 325 CE to resolve a theological dispute. The issue under debate was the church attitude toward the views of a group, the Arians, followers of a priest from Alexandria named Arius (250- 336 CE) who emphasized the uniqueness of God the Father and maintained that Jesus had been a man like all other men, not a part of God himself. Opposed to that view was one which maintained that Jesus Christ had been simultaneously both human and divine. The Council of Nicaea attendees decided to opt for the latter view, ruling that God was coeternal and begotten from the same substance as God the Father. The correct answer is C.

The controversy over the nature of Christ, the relationship between what was human and what divine in Christ caused disputes in the Byzantine world. It weakened permanently the Byzantine society’s cohesiveness. This contributed to weakening of the imperial defenses against the Muslims. The new theological controversies, which ran from the fourth century CE to the late seventh century CE, eventually led to the loss of the eastern provinces of the empire. As for choices B, C, and E, even though the latifundia system worked well at the beginning, it caused the landowners to gain excess power while the number of free military peasants decreased since the latter became serfs to rich land owners. Hence, the military of the empire weakened as soldiers became workers for the rich. The armies possessed by the wealthy posed a threat to the throne. On the other hand, even though Latin was the official language of early Constantinople, as it was of the entire Roman Empire, that language was replaced by Greek after the sixth century CE. Greek, which had long been the vernacular in Constantinople anyway, became the language of government in Byzantium. The Byzantine Empire was profoundly influenced by the Greek language, religious elements, literature and classical culture. As time went by Byzantine scholars and religious figures did not have to, nor did they tend to, learn to read Latin. While Greek culture had been central to the ancient Romans, and while the pagan religion of the Greeks had been adopted almost wholesale by the Romans, as Greek speakers located near Greece, the Byzantines were inspired much more deeply by the philosophy and literature of classical Greece than they were affected by the thinking and writing of classical Rome. Over time, Greek became the main language used. The Byzantines called themselves Romans but the language that was the medium in their empire became Greek. Therefore, although it had begun its work in the Latin language, it moved to Greek without causing major conflicts. The correct answer is D.

The church called Santa Sophia is known today by the appellation Hagia Sophia, which means ‘Divine Wisdom.’

The Arabs served the world as great transmitters of knowledge. The Byzantines preserved world knowledge of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and other great Greek thinkers; their writings were copied by hand through generations and then passed down to us via the Arabs. The correct choice is A.

The Digest was a codification of laws before Hadrian. Pax Romana means Roman Peace. Basilics was a new collection of laws at a later period (896-912 CE) under Leo, initiated by Leo’s father Basilius. Demes were the two rival parties the Blues an d the Greens. The correct answer is E, Codex Justinianus.  This immense work of codification named Codex Justinianus, later known as the Code of Justinian or, after a printed edition of 1583, appeared as the Corpus Juris Civilis. This became the basis for civil law throughout Western Europe.

While all of the facts in the choices were true for the Byzantine Empire, the reason for the Niki revolt was that the members of the Blues and the Greens had come together in the Hippodrome to compel Emperor Justinian to be merciful to two escaped criminals. Emperor Justinian would not agree to the request.  The crowds rose in revolt against the emperor; they burned down many public buildings in the city, including Saint Sophia. Peasants who had fled their farms as result of heavy taxation joined that day with the demes in what became a major crowd movement, a sort of revolution. The correct answer is B.