The Byzantine government, as all governments, became extremely bureaucratic and corrupt. The culture divided into what we would call a right and left wing system of politics. The roots of this real divide grew out of sports and rival competing teams. These team associations grew and had become a focus for various social and political issues within the Eastern Roman Empire that was primarily Greek. This rivalry combined every aspect that to a large extent it was the classic poor v rich resentment that has always torn society apart at the seams.
In this respect, this classic difference embraced street gangs that would rob those with anything as well as small business owners. This resentment even filtered into political parties, taking positions on current issues, that then spread into theological differences. This idea that God created all men equal has been used by the “poor” to justify taking the possessions of anyone they deem to be “rich”, which is defined as anyone having more than they do. Adopting Christianity did not help for they ignored the Ten Commandments that prohibited coveting their neighbor’s goods in favor of this concept it is not fair for anyone to have something more than average. This is the typical equality battle cry that has echoed throughout the centuries and still dominates politics to this day.
We often find violent arguments in religion and the Byzantine Empire, while pretending to be Christian, was anything other than love their brother. During the fifth and sixth centuries, these religious disputes became exceptionally violent. This dispute filtered even into support or dislike for claimants to the throne as we saw in England between Protestants and Catholics. Byzantium, despite its Christian claims, was anything but a place that followed such a creed.
