Byzantine Empire (World on Edge)

The Roman Empire, most commonly know as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, and sometimes rarely referred to as the Empire of the Greeks or the Empire of the Romans, is a country in southeastern europe and one of the major world powers.

Byzantium is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Situated on the Aegean Sea, it controls the Balkans, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Syria.

Etymology
The first use of the term "Byzantine" to label the later years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources. The term comes from "Byzantium", the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre(Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae), and in 1680 of Du Cange's Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of "Byzantine" among French authors, such as Montesquieu.[8] However, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world.