did western and east roman empires fight against each other?

Originally posted by Komnenos ...The western part collapsed shortly after.

And yet get's all the glory...

(refering to how the East is generally ignored)

ok, it's just like the han empire in the east where there were lots of civil conflicts between different interest groups fought for being the emperor.

In 423, after Emperor (of the West) Honorius' , son of Theodosios the Great, death, a Roman noble Johannes, who was not a member of the royal family, seized the throne. The East Roman Emperor Theodisios II sent an expedition force to Italy which besieged, took and sacked Ravenna, then capital of the West Roman Empire. The usurper Johannes was captured and executed, and Valentinian III, nephew of Honorius and cousin of Theodosios was installed on the West Roman throne.

I'm pretty sure they never fought each other at all.  The Eastern Emperors did, with their vast sums of gold, pay off Hunnic and Germanic tribes that were harassing the Danube frontier from Pannonia to the Black Sea to leave them alone and go off somewhere else.  This somewhere else was the Western Empire.

Even after the fall of the Western Empire, the Eastern Emperors still tried to play a diplomatic games between the Germanic kindoms playing them off against each other.  This went as far late as the arrival of the Avars in the 6th century.

 

Originally posted by coolstorm it's even later here in ma. i thought emperor justinian's conquest of italy and the west took place after east roman empire collapsed. they basically fought the barbarians. tell me if i'm wrong.

You are correct here. 

But one point:  Emperor Zeno (I think) enlisted Theodoric the Ostrogoth to get rid of Odovacer, who was then in Italy.  The Ostrogoths were in the western Balkans.  Theodoric did this in the name of the Eastern Empire, but soon took controls of things himself once he settled in Italy.  There is some thought that Zeno only encouraged this move of the Ostrogoths to Italy to get them out of the Balkans (again, away from the Eastern Frontier) and hoping that Odovacer and Theodoric would wear each other out in Italy.  The latter was able to win quite quickly.

Hi Coolstorm
It is late here in Washington State so my brain is mush but I know under Emperor Justinian the Byzantine Empire made an attempt to reconquer the west and even reclaimed parts of Italy but that would take a little time and research.
John Julius Norwhich is a great historian.
I suppose you could do an internet search but I am careful about sources from the internet.