Social Sciences and History / Unit 5 SSH 0424 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Byzantium and Persia, Aksum and Himyar
Captions available
The idea
Byzantium and Sasanian Persia were Late Antiquity's two superpowers. Justinian built, codified Roman law, and reconquered parts of the west; the Sasanians made Zoroastrianism their state religion. Aksum's Ezana converted to Christianity in the fourth century; Arabia's Himyar to Judaism in the fifth.
In practice
War, then peace and exchange, between the two empires.
Where people slip
Both were exhausted when the Arabs came.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it