Discuss Byzantine classicism and Byzantium's educational system and how both contributed to a distinct culture and society.

While in the Latin west, the "fall" of the Roman Empire is normally marked by by two important dates, the sack of Rome in 410 and Odoacer deposing the Emperor Romulus in 476, the history of the Greek east is one marked by continuity rather than decline. The Graeco-Roman system of education and culture remained relatively intact, and even, according to some scholars, ossified, until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

The major transition from the classical to the Byzantine era in the east is marked by the establishment of Christianity as the imperial religion under Constantine, and a growing intolerance of heresy and paganism, culminating in Justinian's closing of the Platonic academy in Athens in 529 A.D. This also marked a shift of the educational center of the Greek learning from Athens, Alexandria, and Rome to Constantinople. A second major shift was the decline of the Latin language in Greek education. While the Latins had always been more prone to learning Greek than vice versa, the importance of the Latin west and its legal system had made knowledge of Latin necessary for at least some of the elite, as evidenced in the complaints of the fourth-century teacher Libanius about schools of Latin and law. According to the sixth century John Lydus, by his own period knowledge of Latin had become an increasingly rare accomplishment.

The Byzantines generally retained the ancient tripartite system of education, with students starting with basic literacy and numeracy. Secondary education covered the enkyklios paideia, or "well-rounded education" of the seven liberal arts (music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric). This differed from the classical model mainly in adding the Psalms and other Christian materials to such established readings as the Iliad. Tertiary education, centered in Constantinople and often based in schools endowed by the Emperor, included the ancient disciplines of rhetoric, philosophy and law, a limited amount of tertiary Biblical study, and professions such as medicine and architecture, often taught through an apprenticeship system. Unlike the Latin west, the Greek east did not seem to develop elaborate theological schools. 

Culturally, this educational system produced a sense of continuity with the ancient past. The Byzantine Empire considered itself the Roman Empire, and valued tradition over innovation. In religion, for example, the Orthodox church of "the Seven Councils" saw itself as preserving an undiluted faith in contrast with Roman Catholic innovations. Much of Byzantine scholarship was focused backwards, producing editions of and commentaries on classical figures.