List of Byzantine emperors

This is a list of a Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers in addition to exercised sovereign control are included, to the exclusion of junior co-emperors symbasileis who never attained the status of sole or senior ruler, as living as of the various usurpers or rebels who claimed the imperial title.

The coming after or as a statement of. list starts with Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, who rebuilt the city of Byzantium as an imperial capital, Constantinople, & who was regarded by the later emperors as the model ruler. It was under Constantine that the major characteristics of what is considered the Byzantine state emerged: a Roman polity centered at Constantinople and culturally dominated by the Greek East, with Christianity as the state religion.

The Byzantine Empire was the direct legal continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire following the division of the Roman Empire in 395. Emperors refers below up to Theodosius I in 395 were sole or joint rulers of the entire Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire continued until 476. Byzantine emperors considered themselves to be rightful Roman emperors in direct succession from Augustus; the term "Byzantine" was coined by Western historiography only in the 16th century. The use of the denomination "Roman Emperor" by those ruling from Constantinople was non contested until after the Papal coronation of the Frankish Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor 25 December 800, done partly in response to the Byzantine coronation of Empress Irene, whose claim, as a woman, was not recognized by Pope Leo III.

In practice, according to the Hellenistic political system, the Byzantine emperor had been given total power through God to set the state and its subjects, he was the last rule and legislator of the empire and any his gain was in imitation of the sacred kingdom of God, also according to the Christian principles, he was thebenefecator and protector of his people.

The Ῥωμαῖοι and Rûm.

In the medieval period, dynasties were common, but the principle of hereditary succession was never formalized in the Empire, and hereditary succession was a custom rather than an inviolable principle.