Wasn't really an empire for that entire time. Byzantine never became the behemoth the Roman Empire was. And it was destroyed for pretty much the same reasons as Rome. Inner religious conflicts weakened it to a point where it couldn't defend itself anymore from the Muslim invaders.

How singularly bad are Jews

Gee, I wonder.

The synagogue is worse than a whorehouse. It is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts… the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults… the refuge of debauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews… a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a den of thieves, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and an abyss of perdition. I would say the same things about their souls. ~ St. John Chrysostom

All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially farmers [and] working class people. Their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live. ~ Pope Clement VIII, Caeca et Obdurata

The Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty-thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them. Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer selfglory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them. Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus they live from day to day, tighter with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as archthieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security. However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. ~ Martin Luther; Table Talk of Martin Luther, p. 43; William Hazlet

Besides usury, through which Jews everywhere have sucked dry the property of impoverished Christians, they are accomplices of thieves and robbers. ~ Pope Saint Pius V, 1566-1572

Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies and haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathers’ faith, advocates of the devil, a brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, the leaven of Pharisees, a congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, haters of goodness! ~ St. Gregory of Nyssa

[Jews are] everywhere on the side of oppression, assisting tyranny in its fiscal extortions; and everywhere they are bitter foes of those popular rights and liberties. It is amongst masses of debt and misery that they thrive, as birds and beast of prey get fat in times of pestilence. ...This race appear always to have been instruments in the hands of tyrants for plundering their subjects; they were the farmers of the cruel taxes; they lent a support to despotism, which it could not otherwise obtain. ~ William Cobbett; Good Friday: or the Murder of Jesus Christ by the Jews

Both Israel and Saudi Arabians are much more dangerous enemies to the United States than the Iranians are. The Congress is crazy for war with Iran. Senator Graham and Senator McCain and Joe Lieberman–they‘re owned by the Israelis. The Israelis and the Saudis would love to see our money and our young men and women being killed to fight their enemies in Iran. When you look at the bottom line, who this benefits if it leads to military action against Iran, it only benefits the Israelis and Saudi Arabia. And there's a precedent for it, we've already fought two wars against Iraq in favor of Israeli interests and Saudi interests. So we’re always being pushed to get our people killed for their interests. ~ Judge Andrew Napolitano; Freedom Watch; February 2012, cancelled after this program

The Jews were destroying both Greeks and Romans. They ate the flesh of their victims, made belts for themselves out of their entrails, and daubed themselves with their blood… In all, 220,000 men perished in Cyrene and 240,000 in Cyprus, and for this reason no Jew may set foot in Cyprus today. ~ Dio Cassius

The other practices of the Jews are sinister and revolting and have entrenched themselves by their very wickedness. Wretches of the most abandoned kind–who had no use for the religion of their fathers–took to contributing dues and free-will offerings to swell the Jewish exchequer; and other reasons for their increasing wealth my be found in their stubborn loyalty and ready benevolence toward brother Jews. But the rest of the world they confront with the hatred for enemies. ~ Cornelius Tacitus; The Histories, Book Five

I fear the jewish banks with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America. And use it to systematically corrupt modern civilization. The jews will not hesitate to plunge the whole of Christendom into wars and chaos that the earth should become their inheritance. ~ Otto von Bismarck

This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. ~ Winston Churchill, February 8, 1920

It is interesting–but not surprising–to note that in all the words written and uttered about the Kennedy assassination, Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned. And yet a Mossad motive is obvious. ~ Representative Paul Findley; The Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs; March 1992

The Boer War occurred 37 years ago. Boer means farmer. Many criticized a great power like Britain for trying to wipe out the Boers. Upon making inquiry, I found all the gold and diamond mines of South Africa were owned by Jews; that Rothschild controlled gold; Samuels controlled silver, Baum controlled other mining, and Moses controlled base metals. Anything these people touch they inevitably pollute. ~ H. H. Beamish; New York speech; October 30, 1937

All of the other people have committed crimes; the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race. [Jews] are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blonde hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race. ~ Voltaire; Letters de Memmius a Ciceron; 1771

The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As commonly encountered, they lack many of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. ~ H. L. Mencken; Treatise on the Gods

Can fanaticism alone account for the persecution of the Jews? It is now my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.

In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter 47. We have all read the story of the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and now Joseph with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts of the poor, and human liberty–a corner whereby he took away the nation’s money to the last penny; took a nation’s livestock all away, to the last hoof; took a nation’s land all away, to the last acre. Then he took the nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, leaving nothing, a corner so stupendous that by comparison with it, the most gigantic corners in subsequent history are but baby things; for it dealt in hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits were reckoned by the hundreds of millions of dollars. It was a disaster so crushing that its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt even today, more than 3,000 years after the event.

Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which survived long in Egypt, and in time would his name be familiarly used to express that character–like Shylock’s? It was hardly to be doubted. Let us remember that this was centuries before the Crucifixion. In the US cotton states, after the war, the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negroes’ wants on credit, and at the end of the season was the proprietor of the negro’s share of the present crop and part of the next one. Before long the whites detested the Jew.

The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant stood no chance against his commercial abilities. The Jew was always ready to lend on a crop. When settlement day came, he owned the crop, and the next year he owned the farm, like Joseph. In the England of John’s time, everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands. He was the King of Commerce. He had to be banished from the realm. For like reasons, Spain had to banish him 400 years ago, and Austria a couple of centuries later.

In all ages, Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a trade, the Christian had to retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to get at something else. The law had to step in to save the Christian from the poorhouse. Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways to make money. Even to get rich. This history has a most sordid and practical look. Religious prejudices may account for one part of it, but not for the other nine.

Protestants have persecuted Catholics–but they did not take their livelihoods from them. Catholics have persecuted Protestants–but they never closed agriculture and the handicrafts against them. I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world’s attitude toward the Jew; the reasons for it are much older than that event. I am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not in any large degree due to religious prejudice. No, the Jew is a money-getter. He has made it the end and aim of his life. He was at it in Rome. He has been at it ever since. His success has made the whole human race his enemy.

You will say that the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. When I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica that the Jewish population of the United States was 250,000, I wrote to the editor and explained to him that his figures were without doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. People told me that they had reason to suspect that for business reasons, many Jews did not report themselves as Jews. It looks plausible. I am strongly of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America. I am assured by men competent to speak that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics… ~ Mark Twain

It is a mystery.