Byzantine diplomacy

Imagine you have a big group of friends that you want to play a game with. But some of your friends don't get along with each other and they don't want to play the game with each other. This is kind of what it was like for the Byzantine Empire when they were trying to make friends with other countries.

The Byzantine Empire was a big group of people who lived in a big area that's now called Turkey and Greece. The people who lived there had their own ideas about what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be friends with. Sometimes they didn't agree with each other, and that made it hard for the Byzantine Empire to talk to everyone.

So the people who lived in the Byzantine Empire came up with a plan. They called it "Byzantine Diplomacy." It was like a game where the people who lived there tried to be friends with as many other countries as possible. They did this by sharing their ideas and resources with others.

But since some of the other countries didn't like each other, the people who lived in the Byzantine Empire had to be very careful about what they said and how they acted around each country. They had to be sneaky and clever so that they could be friends with everyone without causing any arguments.

Byzantine Diplomacy was like a big group project that the people who lived in the Byzantine Empire had to work on together. They had to share information and ideas, and work together to make sure that everyone was happy and got what they wanted.

In the end, Byzantine Diplomacy helped the people who lived in the Byzantine Empire make friends with lots of other countries and become very powerful. It was like a big puzzle that they solved by being sneaky and clever.