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70 free Byzantine Empire trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Byzantine Empire trivia quiz covers the eleven centuries of the Eastern Roman Empire, from Constantine's founding of New Rome on the site of Byzantium to the last stand of Constantine XI on 29 May 1453. It moves through the great reigns and crises: Justinian, Theodora and Belisarius, the Nika riots and Hagia Sophia, the plague and the Persian wars, Heraclius and the Arab conquests, Greek fire and the sieges of Constantinople, iconoclasm, the Macedonian renaissance, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, Manzikert, the Komnenian restoration, the Fourth Crusade's sack of 1204, Nicaea and the Palaiologan twilight. There are also questions on how the empire worked and lived: the theme system and the Varangian Guard, the Corpus Juris Civilis, the solidus, the Hippodrome and its Blues and Greens, silk and imperial purple, the Theodosian Walls, the schism with Rome, Cyril and Methodius, and why the word 'Byzantine' was never used by the Byzantines themselves. Some questions suit anyone who has stood inside Hagia Sophia; others will test serious students of the medieval world. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on the empire, its emperors and its battles, and each explanation adds one further detail. For the successors, try our Ottoman Empire quiz.
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Q 01What did the citizens of the Byzantine Empire call themselves?
Romans
The term 'Byzantine' was coined only after the empire's fall; they called their state Rhomania, 'Romanland'.
Q 02The adjective 'Byzantine' derives from Byzantion, which was what?
The Greek settlement on which Constantinople was built
In the empire's own day the word described only inhabitants of the city, never the state.
Q 03What did Constantine I call the city he rebuilt as his new capital between 324 and 330?
New Rome
It was later named Constantinople after him; he also introduced the gold solidus as a stable currency.
Q 04Which emperor last ruled both halves of Rome and made Christianity the state religion?
Theodosius I
After his death in 395 the West faltered while the East thrived under civilian administrators.
Q 05Which emperor divided the empire into eastern and western halves under the Tetrarchy?
Diocletian
The Tetrarchy quickly failed but the division proved enduring.
Q 06The eastern emperor Valens died at which battle in 378?
Adrianople
His successor Theodosius made peace by letting the Goths settle inside the empire.
Q 07The great land walls of Constantinople were built in the early 5th century by which praetorian prefect?
Anthemius
Finished in 413, the double walls stood 2 km west of Constantine's wall and held until 1453.
Q 08Which warlord deposed the last western emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476?
Odoacer
After Julius Nepos was murdered in 480 he abolished the office of western emperor altogether.
Q 09Which emperor persuaded Theodoric the Ostrogoth to seize Italy from the warlord who deposed the last western emperor?
Zeno
Anastasius, who followed him, abolished the hated chrysargyron tax.
Q 10What was the name of the rewritten legal code enacted from 529 to 534?
Corpus Juris Civilis
The Code, the Digest and the Institutes were meant to be the sole source of law.
Q 11The Nika riots of 532 grew out of the rivalry between which two chariot-racing factions?
Blues and Greens
Nearly half of Constantinople burned and tens of thousands were killed before Justinian crushed the revolt.
Q 12The empress who steeled her husband during the Nika riots of 532 had earlier worked as what?
An actress and courtesan
Procopius gives starkly different portraits of her in his public writings and his Secret History.
Q 13Which general conquered the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in 533?
Belisarius
He did it in nine months and then invaded Ostrogothic Italy.
Q 21Constantine IV repelled Arab attacks on Constantinople in the 670s using what weapon?
Greek fire
Its recipe was a closely guarded state secret and is lost, though most scholars think it was petroleum-based, like napalm.
Q 22Which emperor repelled the Arab siege of 717-718, the first serious check on Arab expansion?
Leo III
He and his son Constantine V were effective rulers later vilified for supporting iconoclasm.
Q 23Byzantine iconoclasm banned what?
Religious icons
The First Iconoclasm ran from about 726 to 787 and the Second from 814 to 842.
Q 14Hagia Sophia, completed in 537, was designed by which two engineer-architects?
Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles
It was the world's largest interior space and among the first with a fully pendentive dome.
Q 15What was Hagia Sophia's status between 1935 and 2020?
A museum
It was a church from 360 to 1453, a mosque with added minarets after the conquest, and was redesignated a mosque in 2020.
Q 16Which Sasanian king sacked Antioch in 540 while Constantinople was preoccupied with the West?
Khosrow I
A devastating plague struck the empire the following year.
Q 17Which emperor was overthrown and executed in 602 when mutinous troops proclaimed Phocas?
Maurice
Phocas in turn lost Constantinople to Heraclius in 610.
Q 18Heraclius defeated the Sasanians decisively in 627 at which battle?
Nineveh
The triumph was short-lived; the Arab conquests soon took the Levant and Egypt.
Q 19After Heraclius' death in 641, roughly what share of its revenue did the empire lose with the East?
Three-quarters
Syria and Egypt were permanently lost to the Rashidun Caliphate.
Q 20What structure allocating troops to defend specific provinces evolved from Constans II's reforms?
The theme system
It let Anatolia survive annual Arab raids without permanent occupation.
Q 24Which empress, regent from 780, eased the iconoclasm controversy but saw the pope crown Charlemagne in 800?
Irene
She was overthrown by Nikephoros I in 802.
Q 25Leo VI's Basilika was what?
A Greek translation of Justinian's legal code with new laws
He also produced the Tactica and the Book of the Eparch, and married four times seeking an heir.
Q 26Basil II earned what epithet after his decades-long war ended at Kleidion in 1014?
The Bulgar Slayer
He never married and refused to delegate; on his death in 1025 the empire ran from the Danube and Sicily to the Euphrates.
Q 27What did Basil II order done to thousands of Bulgarian prisoners after Kleidion?
They were blinded
The battle capped a half-century struggle with the Bulgarian emperor Samuel.
Q 28The Varangian Guard was constituted in 988 after Vladimir of Kiev sent Basil II how many warriors?
6,000
Its recruits were mainly Norsemen, later joined by Anglo-Saxons from England.
Q 29How many Byzantine emperors ruled only through their connection to Empress Zoe in the mid-11th century?
Four
Romanos III, Michael IV, Michael V and Constantine IX; her sister Theodora chose Michael VI.
Q 30At the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuks captured which emperor?
Romanos IV Diogenes
The same year the Normans took Bari, the last Byzantine town in Italy; a decade of civil war followed.