 Many parts of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire are considered Western today but were considered Eastern in the past.However, in the past it was also the Eastern Roman Empire that had many features now seen as "Western," preserving Roman law, which was first codified by Justinian in the east, as well as the traditions of scholarship around Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid that were later introduced to Italy during the Renaissance by Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople.Thus, the culture identified with East and West itself interchanges with time and place (from the ancient world to the modern).