Byzantine diplomacy
Historian Dimitri Obolensky asserts that the preservation of civilization in Southern Europe was due to the skill and resourcefulness of the diplomacy of the Byzantine Empire, which remains one of Byzantium's lasting contributions to the history of Europe and the Middle East. == Challenges and goals == After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the key challenge to the Eastern Roman Empire was to maintain a set of relations between itself and its sundry neighbors, including the Persians, Georgians, Iberians, the Germanic peoples, the Bulgars, the Slavs, the Armenians, the Huns, the Avars, the Franks, the Lombards, and the Arabs, that embodied and so maintained its imperial status.