"Rome Never Fell!” - The Hidden Roman Empire, the Vatican & Crusades - Anthony Kaldellis (Video)

In this 13 November 2026 published video, host Julian Dorey talks with Anthony Kaldellis, a Greek-American historian and Byzantinist who serves as the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Chicago.

Kaldellis explains why the term “Byzantine” was invented by later Western historians. The empire’s Greek-speaking citizens identified as Romans, maintaining continuous Roman statehood and law until 1453. The discussion covers Constantine’s conversion, the founding of Constantinople, and how administrative divisions eventually led to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire while the East endured. Kaldellis examines Emperor Justinian’s reconquest of Italy, the growing divide between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Western papacy, and the historical records held in the Vatican archives. The episode breaks down the complex relationship between East Rome and Western Crusaders, from Emperor Alexios I’s call for aid to the devastating sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

https://youtu.be/WBkGYpYtGRI

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Lesvos, Sappho, Athens’ growth, WWII, physics to philosophy
10:53 – Ancient vs. modern Greek, Thucydides, Rome to Byzantium
24:26 – Roman, Greek & Christian society, church HR, Byzantine term
37:49 – Roman melting pot, East vs. West, year 212, Zorro
47:55 – Caracalla, Nazis & Byzantine law, Constantine, naming Italy
58:09 – Constantine’s conversion, Chi-Rho, Roman peak, East vs. West
1:12:36 – Roads from Rome, absent emperors, Julian, mobile Rome
1:23:28 – Romania, Carthage, another Rome, Egyptomania & tourism
1:35:00 – Obelisk damage, tetrarchy, East-West drift, fall of the West
1:49:20 – Unplanned cycles, fast empire collapse, wrapping it up
2:01:45 – Armies, crisis & unity, America’s culture war, 9/11
2:11:06 – Baghdad, petitioning for leniency, suffering as rhetoric, taxes
2:21:38 – Taxes & armies, billionaires, the self-made myth
2:24:58 – Elite separation, provincial emperors, Julian, Justinian, Vatican archives
2:41:46 – Church split, Justinian’s Italy invasion, Byzantine legacy
2:51:44 – Byzantines & Crusades, Alexius, Fourth Crusade, Trabzon
3:03:27 – Slow Latin recovery, Orthodoxy, the light bulb joke
3:08:01 – Anthony’s Work