# Byzantine Empire The **Byzantine Empire** — the eastern Roman state, conventionally dated from the fourth century to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 — held the western terminus of the overland Silk Road and spent much of its existence managing the commercial and military consequences of that position. Its central Silk Road episode is the sericulture theft of around 552, when, according to Procopius, monks smuggled silkworm eggs to Justinian in hollow canes and broke China's monopoly. The motive was strategic rather than commercial: Byzantine payments for silk were financing the Sasanian armies the empire was fighting, and repeated Persian embargoes on the trade had escalated into open war. Constantinople remained the great transfer point between Asian supply and European demand until the [[Ottoman Empire]] took it in 1453. See Sasanian Empire. > [!note] Stub > Spine stub. Expand: the Justinianic reconquest and the plague, the themes and the long Arab wars, the schism of 1054, the Fourth Crusade, and the fall.