The same were repeated, and because of the painter's fear of making mistakes it was natural that the same figures should be repeated too.

Thus, whatever the subject pictured, a tradition was formed in each locality for the grouping and general arrangement of the figures, and the most authoritative tradition for such typical groupings was preserved in Constantinople or Byzantium, from which city the 'Byzantine' school of painting takes its name.
Before 1200, Byzantium had been a centre of residence and the civilizing influence of trade for eighteen centuries.

It had been the capital of the Roman Empire, and less civilized peoples from the north had never conquered the town, destroying the Greek and Roman traditions, as happened elsewhere in Europe.

You have read how the Romans had to withdraw their armies from England to defend Rome against the attacks of the Goths from the north, and then how Britain was settled by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes, who destroyed most of the Roman civilization.
A similar though much less complete destruction took place in Italy a little later, when Goths and Lombards, who were remotely akin to the Angles and Saxons, overwhelmed Roman culture.

But next to Constantinople, Rome had the best continuous tradition of art, for the fine monuments of the great imperial days still existed in the city.