byzantium didn't develop shit. it was a regressive shithole of retarded clerics starting a heresy controversy every 100 years and was needlessly bureaucratic and inefficient. it only took the mantle of "civilization" because it was technically - technically - the same nobility group of people that led the eastern roman empire right before the roman empire's collapse.  but by no means can you claim that the empire of augustus fucking caesar has some kind of continuity of celibate men killing each other because some egyptian monk said that jesus's humanity dissolved into his divinity.
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