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By Root 1078 0

waves of vicious persecutions continued, and members of the rival Armenian Orthodox Church were condemned to death by burning. Justinian's excesses were so egregious—Gibbon claims he let his own mother be scourged by one of his chief advisors—that his nose was cut off after he was deposed, earning him the name Justinian Rhinotmetus, meaning “slit-nose.” By the mid-eighth century, the Byzantine Empire was a shadow of its former self, most of its lands having been conquered by the Arabs.

The rise of the great religious empires of Christendom and Islam—along with the costs of their monotheistic zeal—will be discussed in Part Two. For now, however, suffice it to say that the largest powers of Europe and the Middle East from 600 to 800 were organized around their respective orthodoxies, “each secure in the conviction that unbelievers could offer nothing of importance to followers of the true faith.” The rigidity of these societies contrasted sharply with the far “looser-textured” and less dogmatic Tang dynasty, in which “China attained perhaps the most vigorous and variegated cultural efflorescence of her long history.”25

Unlike virtually every other Chinese dynasty, the Tang rulers took a keen interest in contemporaneous empires and sought to inform themselves about daily life in foreign cities. Tang imperial documents include surprisingly detailed descriptions of Byzantium, called Fu Lin by the Chinese:

Fu Lin is the ancient [Roman Empire]. It is situated on the Western Sea. To the south-east it borders Persia, to the northeast is the territory of the Western Turks. The land is very populous, and there are many towns. The walls of the capital are of dressed stone, and more than 100,000 families reside in the city. There is a gate 200 feet high, entirely covered with bronze [the Golden Gate]. In the imperial palace there is a human figure of gold decorated with glass and crystal, gold, ivory, and rare woods. The roofs are made of cement, and are flat. In the heat of summer machines worked by water power carry up water to the roof, which is used to refresh the air by falling in showers in front of the windows.

Twelve ministers assist the King in the government. When the King leaves his palace he is attended by a man carrying a bag, into which any person is free to drop petitions. The men wear their hair cut short and are clothed in embroidered robes which leave the right arm bare. The women wear their hair in the form of a crown. The people of Fu Lin esteem wealth, and they are fond of wine and sweetmeats. On every seventh day [the Christian Sunday] no work is done.

From this country come byssus, coral, asbestos, and many other curious products. They have very skilled conjurers who can spit fire from their mouths, pour water out of their hands, and drop pearls from their feet. Also, they have skilled physicians who cure certain diseases by extracting worms from the head.

Similarly, Tang accounts describe Arabia and the origins of Islam as follows:

[Arabia] was formerly part of Persia. The men have large noses and black beards. They carry silver mounted swords on a silver girdle. They drink no wine and have no music. The women are white and veil the face when they leave the house. There are large halls for worship which can hold several hundreds of persons. Five times daily they worship the god of Heaven. Every seventh day [Friday] their King [the Caliph] seated on high, addresses his subjects, saying: “Those who die in battle will be reborn in Paradise. Those who fight bravely will obtain happiness.” Therefore their men are very valiant soldiers. The land is poor and cannot grow cereals, they hunt and live on meat, and collect honey among the rocks. Their dwellings are formed like the hoods of a cart [tents]. They have grapes which are sometimes as big as a hen's egg.

In the Sui period … a man [Mohammed] of the western peoples (hu), a Persian subject, was guarding flocks in the mountains near Medina. A Lion-man [The Archangel Gabriel] said to him: “To the west of this mountain, in a cave there is a sword and