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bywords for decadence, duplicitous politics and complex bureaucracy, and there was a strongly negative assessment of Byzantine civilization and its legacy in Southeastern Europe. Byzantinism in general was defined as a body of religious, political, and philosophical ideas which ran contrary to those of the West. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, have seen attempts by historians in the West to understand the Empire in a more balanced and accurate fashion including its influences on the West, and as a result the complex character of Byzantine culture has received more attention and a more objective treatment than previously.
If the existence of the Ancient Roman Empire (including the Western Roman Empire) and that of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire be added, the whole Roman Empire had existed for 1480 years.