History
The Byzantine Empire was the end result of centuries of Roman rule and bureaucratic growth. During this era, a combination of growth of the aristocratic class, the difficulties of administering an increasingly expanding Roman republic led to a complex and opaque system of government that no one who had not grown up inside it had much hope of understanding.
It was so complex that Byzantine complexity has come to refer to any overly complex system.
Read more about this topic: Byzantine Complexity
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)