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Byzantine
(redirected from Byzantines)

    Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
(jargon, architecture)Byzantine - A term describing any system that has so many labyrinthine internal interconnections that it would be impossible to simplify by separation into loosely coupled or linked components.

The city of Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople and then Istanbul, and the Byzantine Empire were vitiated by a bureaucratic overelaboration bordering on lunacy: quadruple banked agencies, dozens or even scores of superfluous levels and officials with high flown titles unrelated to their actual function, if any.

Access to the Emperor and his council was controlled by powerful and inscrutable eunuchs and by rival sports factions.

[Edward Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"].
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When it was related to Amr ibn al-As--a Companion of the Prophet and victorious commander in the Byzantine wars--that the Prophet had prophesied that al-Rum (specifically the Byzantines but understood, in this context, as a general reference to Europeans) would predominate at the end of time, Amr responded to his informer:
Islam and the Cultural Imperative by Abd-Allah, Umar Faruq / Cross Currents
The Byzantines dubbed him "Ho Dialogos," piquant in view of his inability to master Greek.
'Minor' Fathers in the West by Baldwin, Barry / Catholic Insight
The everyday lives of the Byzantines describes transport, housing, technology and society of the times.
Thomson/Gale by Children's Bookwatch
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