Byzantine+Empire

The death of [|Theodosius I] in 395 created a division of the empire between his two sons. The [|Western Roman Empire] disintegrated into a mosaic of warring Germanic kingdoms in the fifth century, making the [|Eastern Roman Empire] in Constantinople the legal successor to the classical Roman Empire. After Greek replaced Latin as the dominant language, historians refer to the empire as "Byzantine." Westerners at the time referred to it as "Greek." By the early eighth century, Constantinople remained the largest and the wealthiest city of the Christian world, notwithstanding the shrinking territory of the empire. The population of the imperial capital fluctuated between 200,000 and 500,000 as the emperors undertook measures to restrain its growth. The only other large Christian cities were Rome (50,000) and [|Salonika] (30,000).. Even before the eighth century was out, the Farmer's Law signalled the resurrection of agricultural technologies in the Greek Empire. As the 2006 [|Britannica] noted, "the technological base of Byzantine society was more advanced than that of contemporary western Europe: iron tools could be found in the villages; water mills dotted the landscape; and field-sown beans provided a diet rich in protein".