Byzantines

The Eastern Roman Empire (later called Byzantines) had Constantinople as its capitol. This empire consisted of the Balcans, Greece, Anatolia, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt with Libya. The Eastern Roman Empire is commonly known as the Byzantine after the Arab conquest of most of the ancient territories in the 7th century. The Byzantines, having lost of most of ancient Roman and Christian world to Muslim invasions, withstood several Arab attacks on Constantinople itself. The Byzantines recovered in the 10-11th centuries but when the newly Islamized Turks attacked in the 1070s the end of the Empire seemed near at hand. Despite a slight recovery until the mid 1300s, the Ottoman Turks finished off the Byzantines during the next century with the conquest of Constantinople itself in 1453 as the final blow. As such, the Eastern Roman Empire survived almost 1000 years longer than its Western counterpart.