Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale, asks why the Eastern Roman Empire survived the fifth century collapse that destroyed the West. He opens with Procopius' Secret History, a scathing insider account of Emperor Justinian's reign, then traces the structural advantages, greater urbanization, wealth, and geographic stability, that kept Byzantium intact while barbarian kingdoms carved up the West. The lecture covers the empire's seventh century decline under pressure from Persia, then from Slavs, Avars, and the newly expanding Arab armies. Freedman devotes substantial time to the Christological controversies of Nestorianism and Monophysitism that split the Eastern Church, and closes with the rise of Iconoclasm in the late seventh century and its destabilizing effect on both church and state. Part of Yale's open course The Early Middle Ages, 284-1000, recorded in fall 2011, with chapter markers covering introduction through conclusion.