The Byzantine Empire

Constantinople was a bastion of Western culture and society right on the boss for us. It codified Roman law, the Justinian law code,. And it built Hagia Sophia, the greatest church in the world for 900 years. They had Greek fire that was kind of a precursor to napalm; they could shoot out of pressurized tanks as flame throwers. The city was like no other with the rise of the Seljuk Turks and then the who became the Ottomans but they couldn't take it.