of the Byzantine Empire. Louis II was bemused by the error in Latin within a letter from the Byzantine emperor, and wrote a critical letter accusing the "Greeks" for turning their backs on the city of Rome, the Roman people, and the Roman language (i.e., Latin), and thus were unworthy of being Roman emperors. Although the Arab Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates were powerful geopolitical competitors, and indeed had conquered large areas of Byzantine territory, the Arabs did not challenge Byzantium's Roman identity, but instead claimed to be the heirs of Antiquity. The Basilika also presents itself as a connection back to earlier times before the period of Iconoclasm, lending the Macedonian dynasty a sense of religious legitimacy. This began with Basil I and his desire to distance himself from the Iconoclasts, and to connect himself and his sons with their Great Predecessor, Justinian I. Structure of the Basilika The sixty books of the Basilika have had a profound impact on the scholarship of the Byzantine Empire because they preserved many legal documents. Within the sixty books of law, in addition to the preservation of Justinian's Codex, new legal customs were also included which had evolved in the centuries. It also included works of law initiated by Basil I, including the Prochiron (a handbook of civil laws and customs which excluded those no longer in use) and the Epanagoge (an expanded Prochiron which included an introduction and summary) as well as numerous decrees of the Iconoclast Emperors. However, the Code still followed the tradition of the Corpus Juris, beginning with ecclesiastical law, sources of law, procedure, private law, administrative law, and criminal law. It greatly differed however in its use of commentaries (scholia), which were pieces of juristic works from the sixth and seventh centuries as well as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Previously, Justinian I had outlawed commentary on his set of laws, making the scholia on the Basilika unique. The actual format of the books themselves vary greatly. Some are represented in one manuscript, which may or may not contain scholia or full parts of other juristic works which have been mentioned. Likewise, some books have been lost entirely. Implications of the Basilika Unlike Justinian's Codex which continued to have an impact in the West as the continuation of Roman Law, the Basilika'''s influence was limited to the Eastern Empire. This included having a lasting impact on Greece's modern