IMHO it's kind of a Ship of Theseus question. Not much about the later Empire would have looked familiar to an Augustan era Roman. But that's fine. Societies and cultures change over time and should not be expected to remain static. The people of the late Empire still called themselves Roman and did so centuries after 1453.
To be fair, I don’t think I’d recognize the culture in my own city in 1500 years even without a direct change in language
but I love how appropriate it was to use a Greek analogy haha
And the reason I understood that reference?
Greece > Rome > Christian Romans speaking Greek > Christian European medieval Monks who read and wrote Greek > The Renaissance, classical resurgence, and European Dynasties with leaders named things like “Czar” and “Kaiser” > western modernity
wait… am I… am I a Roman?
edit: hell, I’m not even sure I’d be speaking English without Rome
Go with me for a second here- in that if I had to bet and such a thing could be tested, I’d bet you never get the British Empire without Rome landing on that wee island. And without the British Empire and her 20th century reboot across the pond that everyone loves to hate, English never becomes the new lingua Franca
How much of the Augustan era would be recognized by the early Republic? Like you say: they still called themselves Roman and saw the culture as continuous. Byzantium not being Roman is an invention of scholarship that wanted to center Charlemagne and other "Latin" figures in a time when Constantinople was Ottoman
I mean it could also be argued that not much of the United States today would look familiar to George Washington, yet it's still in an essential sense considered the same nation-state that it was in 1786.
I think they main issue is, when the average person thinks about Rome, they visualize 1st/2nd century era Rome, so anything from the final millennium of Roman history seems radically different.
True and that is clearly by design. Kind of like how the History of European Music completely ignores Byzantine chant. They cherry pick what they want to include as belonging to "Western" civilization.
If you take that view then the English Crown today is not the English grow of William the conquer. An emire and nation can change and evolve in time. The Chinese are given the credence of being the same continuity of the Chinese han empires that lasted for thousands of years, yet China today has nothing in common with the Chinese Empire of 2k years ago.
I always feel like this is a discussion of a historian perspective against a non-historian perspective.
Both perspectives are right for their target audience, and that's why it makes so little sense to argue.
Which is to say: of course, historically and administratively, the Byzantine empire was the Roman empire. There was a continuity of government.
But also, of course, everyone understands that it wasn't the Roman empire for your daily conversations.
Both of these things can be true at the same time.
For a contemporary example, of course Taiwan is the Republic of China, historically and administratively. There is a continuity of government; the institutions are preserved; the people themselves say it.
But also, of course, everyone understands that Taiwan isn't China for our daily conversations. If people go on vacation to Taiwan, they won't say "I'm going to China". If someone says "My girlfriend is from China", I will not assume she lives in Taiwan.
Taiwan is China, historically and administratively; and it is not China. Both of these things are true.
And Taiwan is more similar to China than the Byzantines were to the Romans: they are still majority ethnically and linguistically Han Chinese! Maybe a better (though more farfetched) example would have been, say... the Free France government-in-exile during the second world war. Imagine a world in which the government-in-exile never managed to liberate mainland France... Based in Algerie, speaking Arabic, majority muslim... at some point surely we would have stopped calling that future Free France "France" -- even if it would historically and administratively still be an unbroken continuation of France.
What it comes down to is that these are "political facts" and historical/historiographical narratives. Was XYZ a "legitimate continuation of/successor to the Roman Empire" is not a serious historical question. Such a thing does not exist in any truly objective sense. There is also no objective God-given definition of what the Roman Empire even is or what it means for that to exist.
What we can discuss seriously is how these concepts have been understood throughout history by various people and what they have meant to people or what the prdominant beliefs have been. That doesn't make those views "correct" or "incorrect," they just are.
Could you go a little more in depth into this? I thought I provided a sound definition of what it meant to be Roman and how they characterized it. Their ideals, institutions etc. What's your take?
I don't need to have "a take." I think your points are generally reasonable, but if a republican era Roman does not recognise Byzantium or Byzantine society in any way and it is as foreign to him as Persia, is he wrong?
I don't think we can assert that any view is "correct" or "incorrect." Rome is a social construct and is in some sense whatever people believe it is. The continuity and discontinuity between states, regimes and nations is entirely up to our narrative assertions. It's an exercise of storytelling, and has little to no objective truth value. Stories are simply ways we arrange facts (and omit others) into a larger interpretation.
If someone asserts that Byzantium is very distinct from Classical Rome to the point it shares very little in common and is basically a completely different country and society, well, the facts are there to support it. It's not a narrative that is wrong.
If someone asserts that Byzantium is continuous with the Roman Empire and the Republic, that there is considerable institutional and cultural continuity in a long historical transformation, well, that's also not wrong.
Two things are true at the same time, and there's not any objective standard by which we can unambiguously put one story and one interpretation above the other.
If someone said nations and our idea of their continuity is also basically fake and the fact that we call 1000 AD France and modern France the same thing is frankly misleading because they're completely foreign societies to one another, that wouldn't be exactly wrong either.
> if a republican era Roman does not recognise Byzantium or Byzantine society in any way and it is as foreign to him as Persia, is he wrong?
This doesn't make sense
For starters, the scenario itself is moot. People recognize "Roman Empire" as "Roman Empire" due to multitudes of reasons, and personal approval is just one among many, the lack of which does not dismantle the argument. It's akin to proclaiming "one plus one does not equal two", and saying "not wrong" because the person in question's term for "two" is "er", it violates the spirit of the question for pure technicality of... what?
For example, the Pope does not recognize the Basileus as Roman Emperor, despite on a few occasions acknowledging basileus' approval of Holy Roman Emperor as "co-emperor", that does not mean Basileus is not the Roman Emperor whenever the Pope says so
A society that evolved and no longer recognizable compared to its first iteration is no different from a potato that has been chopped and fried. Is it still a potato? It most definitely is.
On the topic of Roman Empire specifically, I think it is wrong to argue on the basis of "culture and society", because that's not talking about Roman Empire the political entity, that's talking about Roman society instead, which is a separate issue entirely
Even when you say we shouldn't use "culture and society" and argue the Roman Empire is a "political entity" or institution, you're now imposing a standard by which to measure.
Even if this becomes the stabdard and most widely accepted standard, the only thing a historian could conclude from this is that "In the early 21st century people generally emphasised the Roman Empire as being a political institution, rather than from other perspectives such as analysing it more as a proto-nation state, thereby the predominant view that developed was one of institutional continuity, which considered the changes from Augustus to the Palailogos dynasty to be a continuous and organic development of the institution of empire as a response to historical developments."
> you're now imposing a standard by which to measure.
The very fact that you understand what I said is you imposing a standard by which to measure: that the words mean what you think they mean, based on dictionaries stating what they mean
It is not reasonable to proclaim that Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire are two separate entities simply because they're different in the sense of Roman vs Greek, which is what cultural and societal angle would inevitably take. The Roman Empire, owing to its vast territories would of course have wildly different cultures in it, and which one is dominant has nothing to do with whether it's "Roman Empire" the political entity or not.
Moreover, it's not like the Roman citizens do not understand what it means to be a citizen of the Roman empire. Even if they do not have "nationalism" as of yet, they understand the differences between being in Roman lands vs in say Persian lands. This collective understanding is what brings about the continuation of "Roman Empire", the acknowledgement that this administration is the direct continuation of the previous one.
The modern separation of "phases" of the Roman Empire is a convenience tool because anything with vast history inevitably requires categorization for no other reason than it reduces confusion. It is so much easier to recognize which period of Japan you're talking about when you mention "Imperial Japan" despite the fact that Japan has had an unbroken chain of Emperors for so many centuries where leaders nominally draw power from the Emperor (and thus technically it was and is, "Imperial" Japan)
The hostilitys not really warranted man. Not sure if you're having a bad day or something but all I wanted was your opinion.
Also if that's the relativist position you're going to take then none of it has any meaning and all of it is arbitrary. Either we have a standard to go by or we don't.
The measurement I was using was the one you referenced. But I'm not denying two things can both be true.
You can call it "relativist" if you want, but anything else is ideology, not history, so in a subreddit dedicated to history I see it as kind of off topic in the form presented. It's the kind of thing people on r/roughromanmemes would concern themselves with
Ideology lol. Relativism is an ideology dude. You should think before you speak. Everyone has a standard by which you see things and apply your determinations. Saying anything else is ideology assumes that your position is the only correct one which, by nature, defys your own logic. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with sound metrics. You can take the relativist approach, (not what I'm calling it, that's the definition of what you're saying so own it) that's perfectly valid. But it's just one of many positions each with their own strengths and shortcomings. You can say it's off topic and doesn't belong here if you like, but historians have their own standards they apply. It's called historiography. They certainly don't think the way you seem to.
"Relativism" as a position is something that makes sense in terms of like "moral relativism" or something, which is not even something I believe in, what we're talking about here is descriptivism.
Sciences, including social sciences, seek to describe things as they are (or were), and this extends to history. In history we do not assert what should be considered legitimate or who "should have won" or anything like that. A historian will not tell you whether the rightful king of England is one pretender or another. That is the realm of politics. A politics far removed from our time perhaps, but politics all the same. Thus a historian might describe what different factions believed or said or the effects of a civil war or who did win and why or what narratives were told historically, but these are on some level morally neutral descriptive statements. (Insofar as anything at all can ever truly be apolitical)
You may have seen at some point the meme chart for why Finland is the true heir to the Roman Empire. If people genuinely believed that, then historians and sociologists would simply have conclude that the logic was seen as sufficient and the claims were seen as legitimate by the people of the 21st century. Since they are not, it will probably go forgotten.
You're wrong though. Here's the definition of relativism. Not moral relativism as you're understanding it.
Relativism is the philosophical view that truth, morality, or knowledge is not absolute, but rather subjective and dependent on the person, culture, or situation. It holds that no single point of view is universally correct.
"Epistemological (Cognitive) Relativism is the idea that there is no absolute knowledge or objective truth. Knowledge and truth are tied entirely to how different individuals, languages, or conceptual frameworks perceive the world."
"Cultural Relativism often used in sociology and anthropology, this is the principle of understanding a culture or its beliefs on its own terms rather than judging them by the criteria of one's own culture"
So there are multiple different kinds. It is used within the sciences. Also history is not considered one of the sciences, I don't know if you knew that. My point is that you seem to think there is no valid standard by which we can apply truth statements. Not absolutes, but assertions that follow sound logic. That's Relativism. You can have views with merit and without if you follow the core tenants of the Laws of Thought. If a + b = c, then that's a logical statement. But if c contradicts d and arrives at e, then is illogical because its structure is compromised by falsehood.
Your position is perfectly valid. But you don't seem to even realize what your position is simply because you don't like the label applied to it. So I reiterate. What you're saying is fine to a point. But your assertion that all other metrics are arbitrary is not.
As I said to another user, I'm not a historian I'm a layman. I am saying what ought to be. Historians do that all the time. Not in the sense of describing events as they were but their opinions after the fact. If that's not the case then the historical consensus wouldn't be that the Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire. That's an ought to be statement right there. And that is the consensus. If you don't believe me I can link several historians and organizations that say so. You'd be hard pressed to find any who argue against.
Edit: Look up descriptive history vs. normative judgements. The two 100% must be kept separate but historians still make normative statements.
Edit 2: also there are counterfactuals. These are factors which are important while not exactly established fact.
The ideal in modern historical scholarship is:
Use evidence to determine what happened.
Use evidence to explain why it happened.
Clearly distinguish those conclusions from personal views about what should have happened.
That doesn't mean historians are without values. Rather, a good historian makes it clear when they are moving from historical analysis to moral or political opinion.
I think theft fundamental issue I have with your claim of relativism is that doesn't fit my epistemology at all, at least not in any general sense.
I am also not a cultural relativist, I'm a neomodernist if anything.
I do think there are things which are in a sense "not real" and therefore have no objective truth value, but I would guess everyone believes that of something and similarly such relativism does not in any way allow us to dismiss material facts.
Thus if we're talking about a kind of relativism, it is only within a very constrained space in an overall empiricist framework. More or less at those limits where we reach abstract man-made concepts where it is impossible to ascertain objective truth. We can still objectively describe man-made and abstract concepts of course, but this is necessarily a more meta level description of these phenomena and how they're percieved or what their causes and effects are.
>But also, of course, everyone understands that it wasn't the Roman empire for your daily conversations.
I agree with this, but not for the reasons you've listed. While I have no problem using the term for historiographic convenience, i.e. using it as a term to refer to a period of the empire's history like Principate and Dominate (similar to how we'd refer to Elizabethan and Victorian England), I think it's wrong to characterize it as a mere rump state as you have.
>Taiwan is China, historically and administratively
I do not think we can equate China and Rome here. Ever since the Qin united the warring states and established the concept of Tianxia (literally all under heaven, practically just China proper), China has had a rather consistent geographical identity/definition associated with it (again, China proper). In order to truly call yourself the emperor of China or call your state China, you needed to rule this territory.
As you said, Taiwan is politically the same Republic of China that once held this distinction, but ever since they were kicked off the mainland they were reduced to a rump state and ceased to truly be China.
The same way the Yuan ceased to be China after they were kicked out of China proper by the Ming. Or the way the Ming ceased to be China when the Qing took over. Both of these dynasties were indeed the political entities that once ruled China, but no longer were China once they lost that territorial control.
And while we can define the Roman Empire geographically by its complete hegemony over the Mediterranean, it has no means been a consistent thing we can point to. Ever since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no one save for the Romans themselves (as the "Byzantines" under Justinian) have come even close to reestablishing Mediterranean hegemony.
In lieu of that, the only Romans we can point to are the ones with political and institutional continuity with the original Roman state.
And even if we were to use territorial control to define Rome, I still think it'd be wrong to claim it was a rump state after 476. Until 1204, it was still quite a powerful state that controlled a lot of territory and exerted a lot of influence. It still held the empire's capital, and many of its wealthiest and most urbanized areas. Its influence was diminished, sure, but not to the extent that the Northern Yuan or Taiwan were.
>Maybe a better (though more farfetched) example would have been, say... the Free France government-in-exile during the second world war. Imagine a world in which the government-in-exile never managed to liberate mainland France... Based in Algerie,
I don't think this would be a good comparison either. The capital and center of power of the empire had been moved centuries before it lost control of its western provinces, and even longer before the empire actually lost Rome when the Exarchate of Ravenna fell in 751.
>speaking Arabic,
The fact that medieval Romans mainly spoke Greek did not make them any less Roman. Some of the very first people to receive Roman citizenship outside of the city itself were Greek speaking inhabitants of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy. Caesar was known to speak Greek, and is reported by Plutarch to have said "Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος" ("Let the die be cast") when crossing the Rubicon. Suetonius reports that Claudius referred to Latin and Greek as "our two languages". Marcus Aurelius' personal writings and reflections (which we know today as Meditations) were written in Greek, despite him being born in Rome, raised in Rome, and ruling from Rome during the Pax Romana. When the Apostle Paul wrote his Letters to the Romans with the purpose of spreading his faith across the Roman Empire during the Pax Romana, he chose Greek to accomplish this.
It's wrong to pretend like the medieval Romans just started speaking Greek out of nowhere, as it had always been one of the languages of the Roman Empire, especially in the eastern provinces where it had been the lingua franca there since the conquests of Alexander. Because of that, Latin never caught on the way it did in the west.
>majority muslim.
While it was no longer the Paganism that the empire once practiced, Christianity was prominent throughout all parts of the empire by the time of Constantine and the state religion by 380. The religion they practiced was very much Roman.
And unlike Algeria, which was a mere colony, Greece and Anatolia were very thoroughly integrated and Romanized parts of the empire. They may not have been ethnically identical to the Romans on the Italian peninsula, but culturally they were just as Roman as anyone else.
The only state I can think of that has something analogous to what the Roman Empire underwent would be the Fatimid Caliphate moving its powerbase to Egypt, then losing its homeland of Tunisia. It didn't culturally change, nor was it diminished enough to be considered a rump state.
Thank you. It wasn't meant for historians, but rather, anyone interested in pop history who may have been misled or misinformed. I see the steelman argument touted alot of Reddit in particular.
"For the sake of clarification I will refer to the Medieval era of Roman history as Byzantine."
That is why the Byzantine empire has a different name. Students of history know it is a continuation of the Roman Empire but, as you discovered, it gets hard to talk about without a distinct name.
That is a matter of convenience, not a statement of fact. What's interesting to me is that the people living in that area at that time considered themselves Roman. And honestly, I consider their opinion on the matter somewhat more convincing than "number of angels dancing on the head of a pin" arguments from historians living 500 years later.
Beyond their sultans having Kayser-i-Rûm (Caesar of Rome) as one of their titles, no, not really. That's like looking at how the British kings once had Emperor of India as one of their titles and saying that they considered themselves Indian. Or how the Roman Emperors once had pharaoh as one of their titles and thinking they considered themselves Egyptian. They ruled over Roman people in their empire and assumed the title of their old leader, but that did not mean they considered themselves Roman.
And insinuating that this was just a matter of mere self identification is completely wrong. After the Romans lost their western provinces in 476, they continued to be universally recognized as the Roman Empire by their contemporaries. Everyone from western Europe to the Middle East saw the "Byzantine" Empire as the same Roman state that had been around for centuries.
If you asked the Sassanids who they were fighting in 590 and 627, they'd tell you they were fighting the Romans, the same Romans their predecessors the Parthians and Seleucids fought. If you asked the Arabs who they were fighting in the 7th century, they'd say they were fighting the Romans. If you asked the Ottomans who they conquered in 1453 they'd tell you they conquered the Romans.
Even the barbarian kingdoms that took over in the wake of the Western Roman Empire continued to recognize the guy in Constantinople as the Roman Emperor, and continued to mint coins in his name for a while. Like it or not, they were the Romans.
I'd even argue that the only reason why some people still believe that it's a different empire or a mere successor state is because of Charlemagne's coronation as "Roman Emperor" in 800. What followed that was literal centuries of propaganda attempting to portray it as the "Greek Empire" in an attempt to legitimize Francia's (and later, East Francia's) ludicrous claim that they were somehow actually the Roman Empire.
Some argue that, yes. Although usually it is stated that there was a Roman province within the Ottoman Empire. Much like someone can say they are a New Yorker and an American.
And then there is the fact that the Ottoman Sultans openly claimed that they were the Roman Emperor.
So while I understand you are trying to be cute, there really is an argument to be made that Rome survived up until WW1. It's not clear and dry, but I rather like it.
I think it's fine to refer to them as the Byzantines as long as we recognize them as Romans. But the name itself has it's origins in Western writers who wanted to draw a distinction between the Greek Christians and their claimed legacy. For reasons of politics. So it's not without it's own set of problems. Recently, modern historians have begun to see the errors of that and so have come around to the idea of Byzantium being a continuation of the Roman Empire.
Though it certainly bears mentioning that even among people who don't disagree, there is almost an implicit reading in a lot of texts that it really wasn't.
How many general histories have been written about the Roman Empire that just outright ignore the later history and arbitrarily stop at the 5th Century?
How many wacky theories about the Fall of the (Western) Roman Empire have you seen that outright ignore everything post-476, even when it directly debunks the theory in question?
Eastern Roman history always gets relegated to the sidelines when talking about general Roman history. Even when a book or documentary acknowledges it, it's just left as a brief footnote at most. Like it doesn't matter or isn't important, thereby carrying the connotation that it isn't really Roman history, but something else.
The idea that it wasn't really the Roman Empire is fading in recent history. But the way we tell and discuss Roman history still carries with it these old tropes that leave Eastern Roman history on the sidelines.
This is a settled matter of history. "Byzantine" is just a name applied retroactively by historians. They called themselves the Roman Empire. They thought of themselves as Romans. And from 476-1453CE they were the only Roman Empire. In some parts of Greece people still identified themselves as "Roman" as late as the early 20th century.
Genuinely, I agree with your case. I hazard a guess that the vast majority of this sub and historians probably agree with your case. In fact most people, once explained would probably agree with your case.
And yet....
> For the sake of clarification I will refer to the Medieval era of Roman history as Byzantine.
...is the primary reason for the ongoing use of the nomenclature, which you just demonstrated so well.
I agree. But the problem with what you just said is that because it's referred to as the Byzantine Empire the following assumption then is that it was an entirely separate entity from the Rome of antiquity. Which it wasn't. Therefore, we can use Byzantium to refer to its medieval stage but we also need to recognize its roots and continuity from its original state.
Fair enough. I tend to use eastern roman empire in my online musings, as do want to advocate for this switch for these very reasons ( and in particular- where does the roman empire end and the 'byzantine' begin? It seems absurd to see justinian as byzantine for example).
However get that there's a case for use of byzantine empire for some disabiguation purposes so im not overly critical of others use of it.
I personally would agree with the other camp on this point. That is, the full transition into Greekophilia began when Heraclius dismantled the last vestiges of the Latin legacy. I used Byzantine because it's colloquial and causes the least amount of confusion but I always do so in combination with the word Roman. Also I think Justinian was the last true, "Latin" emperor. He spoke it as a first language and couldn't imagine a Roman Empire without the city of Rome in it.
There was no Byzantine Empire. The name was given by German historian Hieronymus Wolf in 1557. The citizens and rulers of the empire called themselves Romans (Rhomaioi). Western Europeans wanted to claim Holy Roman Empire as legitimate succesor. The funny thing is Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman. Typical European centric perspective, proclaimed self-importance. Also Constantinople never fell. It was conqured and cherished by Turks.
I'm not going to argue whether or not the Turks had in any way continued the legacy of Rome. I haven't done enough research on that. But I do know that in Byzantium (colloquial term) the tradition, institutions, law, and government continued unbroken since the fall of the West in 476CE. How that continues under the Ottomans I don't know but I doubt it was a matter of Greek simply being replaced by Asiatic and everything remained intact.
If an argument could be made that the empire's mercenaries went rogue, then do the Empire's mercenaries taking over the state reflect a change or a continuation? I mean the whole "(insert country here) is the continuation of the Roman Empire" argument always gets very Ship-of-Theseus-esk.
Yes I was aware of the Ottoman claim to the succession of Rum. Personally, I've always viewed it the same as Russia's claim to be the Third Rome or Odacer's claim to be continuing the Empire in the West. I'm open to having my mind changed but I find the claim to be somewhat dubious.
It would depend on how they kept the traditions and institutions intact. That's a good question, I'm not really sure. I'd have to really think about it.
They kept one of the most important ones - having a royal guard force that also liked to play kingmaker. But on a more serious note, the Ottoman empire kept a lot of Roman (and Persian) bureaucratic and administrative elements in place (which later resulted in the same corruption and bloat we saw in the late Roman period). They also had a blood tie since Orhan married a Byzantine princess. IMO the big thing that throws people off is the religion aspect, but Rome isn't inherently Christian, it spent just as much time if not more being pagan
Ngl my main thing is the relationship to power. There is a clear obligation by the roman rulership to the people understood by the people, at least nominally Res Publica. So already the relationship the Ottoman ruler had with the people was distinctly un-roman. Next, there was hardly an attempt at restoration of the empire. The ottomans were clearly their own thing, absorbing the mantle of rome rather than becoming it. They did not seem to restore the senate to my knowledge.
While I think the Ottomans do raise a reaction for being muslim, we cannot at once say they are delegitimized by this while the very christian Latin empire is similarly spurned.
You beautiful person!
I have studied a little bit of Roman history but am still very much a beginner. Recently my young son found an old copy of the game Rome:Total War, and that has launched us (me for him) on a huge cram course of Rome and its history. Obviously the game takes massive liberties (okay, outright misleads) with history, but the core Roman-ness has completely grabbed him (he’s 8). So I started by correcting what I could from my own knowledge and studies. Then we moved on to searching for information online (kids questions can be horribly specific). But the eastern vs western Empire thing has always been unknown territory for me. I found your explanation really interesting and helpful, and it also raised some questions. I’m so glad you included some references as I was reading through your post wondering if anyone could recommend me some good books on the Eastern Empire.
I don’t know how much popularity your post will gain, but it has made a massive difference to at least one person.
If you’re not aware, Rome Total War has an expansion called Barbarian Invasion which takes place literally right at the beginning of the split between east and west.
Thank you. I actually have that and the Alexander one, but in my limited gaming time (coupled with my insanely micromanaging mindset - why would anyone let AI control your hard won towns??), even the original campaign is keeping me occupied. And it has so much replayability.
I'm so glad! That's awesome. I'm happy I could help you and your son in some small way. The New Roman Empire is an excellent read and reflects the new and modern consensus among historians on this topic. As others have pointed out, my take is not "controversial," in that it says anything new. Only, it is meant to counter many of the claims made on Reddit by pop. history buffs that claim Byzantium wasn't Roman or (St. Mary's teeth) that the Holy Roman Empire had more of a claim.
I'm not OP, but I don't think we can equate China and Rome here. Ever since the Qin unified the warring states and established the concept of Tianxia (literally all under heaven, practically just China proper), China has had a rather consistent geographical identity/definition associated with it (again, China proper). In order to truly call yourself the emperor of China or call your state China, you needed to rule this territory.
Taiwan is politically the same Republic of China that once held this distinction, but ever since they were kicked off the mainland they were reduced to a rump state and ceased to truly be China. The same way the Yuan ceased to be China after they were kicked out of China proper by the Ming. Or the way the Ming ceased to be China when the Qing took over. Both of these dynasties were indeed the political entities that once ruled China, but no longer were China once they lost that territorial control.
And while we can define the Roman Empire geographically as a state with hegemony over the Mediterranean, that has by no means been a consistent definition we can point to throughout history the way we can with China. Ever since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no one save for the Romans themselves under Justinian have come even close to reestablishing Mediterranean hegemony.
In lieu of that, the only Romans we can point to are the ones with political and institutional continuity with the original Roman state.
And even if we were to use territorial control to define Rome, I still think it'd be wrong to claim it was a rump state after 476. Until 1204, it was still quite a powerful state that controlled a lot of territory and exerted a lot of influence. It still held the empire's capital, and many of its wealthiest and most urbanized areas. Its influence was diminished, sure, but not to the extent that the Northern Yuan or the Republic of China were.
As an aside, it's important to note that the Republic of China increasingly sees itself as its own thing, Taiwan. They no longer have any real aspirations to reclaim the mainland the way they did decades ago, and its people increasingly see themselves as just Taiwanese.
The only reason Taiwan still officially has its claim to be the legitimate government of China is that ironically, dropping it would be seen as them declaring independence and give the CCP a casus belli to invade them. For now, they're content with maintaining this weird status quo, and maintain the fiction they're the legitimate mainland government to maintain peace, even if they know it isn't true and don't have any interest in making it true.
I would say it's disputed. Considering the Qing dynasty fell, and with it, 3500 years of tradition, I would say who has the right to be the governing body of the Middle Country is up in the air. The communists rule through right of conquest and had, at one point, the support of the people (how much they have now I'm not certain.) Taiwan is the exiled government of the Kuomintang who founded the Republic of China. IF you consider the Republic of China the rightful heir to the Mandate of Heaven then one might go with that. But the question remains, what determines the legitimate party? Unbroken tradition? Will of the people? Right of might and with it de jure control? I really can't say for sure. I don't have a dog in that fight. I think both sides have good arguments for why they're the, "real" China.
The eternal debate. Eastern Europeans will say it was the Roman empire, Western Europeans will call it the Byzantine Empire. Some Western Europeans would much rather call the Holy Roman Empire the continuation of the Roman Empire. Of course, the Catholics and the Orthodox like to weigh in. Russians like to call Russia the third Rome.
I think it is all semantics. Personally I find both the Byzantine and HRE to be different enough that they seem like New Empires to me. However, I'm not going to argue strongly, because I really don't care since a name is just a name.
Unless I’m about to learn something (in which case great) you have a typo when you say the senate lasted till 1473 rather than 53
Also where was the senate during the period when the empire didn’t hold Constantinople? I assumed it desolved and reformed but you seem to say that’s not the case
>Unless I’m about to learn something (in which case great) you have a typo when you say the senate lasted till 1473 rather than 53
I would point on this that the Despotate of Morea continued under Palaiologos administration until 1460, and this land was considered part of the Empire.
It would also be debatable on whether the Empire of Trezibond (under the Konmenos) and the Principality of Theodoro could be considered a continuation of the Roman Empire, in which case you could stretch the fall until 1475.
Did either have the senate? The line I was addressing was "The Senate persisted, unceasingly, from the founding of Rome to it's fall in 1473CE" not merely any continuation specifically an unceasing senate.
No Roman continuation really had a functioning Senate after 1204 outside ceremonial roles, even the one in Constantinople has it's last recorded meeting around 1341, a whole century before the city fell.
This said, both the main empire and the rump states that existed along it kept the senatorial class as a purely honorific position.
Thank you! I missed that. Yes, the surviving senators split off into the Empire of Nicea and the Despotate of Epirus until Michael took back Constantinople. You could argue that the Senate broke continuity in this particular situation I suppose. But the tradition remained intact albeit absent a functioning institution within the capitol.
Snoutysensations | a day ago
IMHO it's kind of a Ship of Theseus question. Not much about the later Empire would have looked familiar to an Augustan era Roman. But that's fine. Societies and cultures change over time and should not be expected to remain static. The people of the late Empire still called themselves Roman and did so centuries after 1453.
teladidnothingwrong | a day ago
and how easily would you recognize your home country if you were transported hundreds of years of time?
PepeTheElder | a day ago
To be fair, I don’t think I’d recognize the culture in my own city in 1500 years even without a direct change in language
but I love how appropriate it was to use a Greek analogy haha
And the reason I understood that reference?
Greece > Rome > Christian Romans speaking Greek > Christian European medieval Monks who read and wrote Greek > The Renaissance, classical resurgence, and European Dynasties with leaders named things like “Czar” and “Kaiser” > western modernity
wait… am I… am I a Roman?
edit: hell, I’m not even sure I’d be speaking English without Rome
Go with me for a second here- in that if I had to bet and such a thing could be tested, I’d bet you never get the British Empire without Rome landing on that wee island. And without the British Empire and her 20th century reboot across the pond that everyone loves to hate, English never becomes the new lingua Franca
padgettish | 22 hours ago
How much of the Augustan era would be recognized by the early Republic? Like you say: they still called themselves Roman and saw the culture as continuous. Byzantium not being Roman is an invention of scholarship that wanted to center Charlemagne and other "Latin" figures in a time when Constantinople was Ottoman
chrisdont | 20 hours ago
I mean it could also be argued that not much of the United States today would look familiar to George Washington, yet it's still in an essential sense considered the same nation-state that it was in 1786.
Snoutysensations | 20 hours ago
Very true. Cultures and societies change.
I think they main issue is, when the average person thinks about Rome, they visualize 1st/2nd century era Rome, so anything from the final millennium of Roman history seems radically different.
chrisdont | 20 hours ago
True and that is clearly by design. Kind of like how the History of European Music completely ignores Byzantine chant. They cherry pick what they want to include as belonging to "Western" civilization.
rootbeersudz | 19 hours ago
If you take that view then the English Crown today is not the English grow of William the conquer. An emire and nation can change and evolve in time. The Chinese are given the credence of being the same continuity of the Chinese han empires that lasted for thousands of years, yet China today has nothing in common with the Chinese Empire of 2k years ago.
Kippetmurk | a day ago
I always feel like this is a discussion of a historian perspective against a non-historian perspective.
Both perspectives are right for their target audience, and that's why it makes so little sense to argue.
Which is to say: of course, historically and administratively, the Byzantine empire was the Roman empire. There was a continuity of government.
But also, of course, everyone understands that it wasn't the Roman empire for your daily conversations.
Both of these things can be true at the same time.
For a contemporary example, of course Taiwan is the Republic of China, historically and administratively. There is a continuity of government; the institutions are preserved; the people themselves say it.
But also, of course, everyone understands that Taiwan isn't China for our daily conversations. If people go on vacation to Taiwan, they won't say "I'm going to China". If someone says "My girlfriend is from China", I will not assume she lives in Taiwan.
Taiwan is China, historically and administratively; and it is not China. Both of these things are true.
And Taiwan is more similar to China than the Byzantines were to the Romans: they are still majority ethnically and linguistically Han Chinese! Maybe a better (though more farfetched) example would have been, say... the Free France government-in-exile during the second world war. Imagine a world in which the government-in-exile never managed to liberate mainland France... Based in Algerie, speaking Arabic, majority muslim... at some point surely we would have stopped calling that future Free France "France" -- even if it would historically and administratively still be an unbroken continuation of France.
GalaXion24 | a day ago
What it comes down to is that these are "political facts" and historical/historiographical narratives. Was XYZ a "legitimate continuation of/successor to the Roman Empire" is not a serious historical question. Such a thing does not exist in any truly objective sense. There is also no objective God-given definition of what the Roman Empire even is or what it means for that to exist.
What we can discuss seriously is how these concepts have been understood throughout history by various people and what they have meant to people or what the prdominant beliefs have been. That doesn't make those views "correct" or "incorrect," they just are.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
Could you go a little more in depth into this? I thought I provided a sound definition of what it meant to be Roman and how they characterized it. Their ideals, institutions etc. What's your take?
GalaXion24 | a day ago
I don't need to have "a take." I think your points are generally reasonable, but if a republican era Roman does not recognise Byzantium or Byzantine society in any way and it is as foreign to him as Persia, is he wrong?
I don't think we can assert that any view is "correct" or "incorrect." Rome is a social construct and is in some sense whatever people believe it is. The continuity and discontinuity between states, regimes and nations is entirely up to our narrative assertions. It's an exercise of storytelling, and has little to no objective truth value. Stories are simply ways we arrange facts (and omit others) into a larger interpretation.
If someone asserts that Byzantium is very distinct from Classical Rome to the point it shares very little in common and is basically a completely different country and society, well, the facts are there to support it. It's not a narrative that is wrong.
If someone asserts that Byzantium is continuous with the Roman Empire and the Republic, that there is considerable institutional and cultural continuity in a long historical transformation, well, that's also not wrong.
Two things are true at the same time, and there's not any objective standard by which we can unambiguously put one story and one interpretation above the other.
If someone said nations and our idea of their continuity is also basically fake and the fact that we call 1000 AD France and modern France the same thing is frankly misleading because they're completely foreign societies to one another, that wouldn't be exactly wrong either.
doublecandybar | a day ago
> if a republican era Roman does not recognise Byzantium or Byzantine society in any way and it is as foreign to him as Persia, is he wrong?
This doesn't make sense
For starters, the scenario itself is moot. People recognize "Roman Empire" as "Roman Empire" due to multitudes of reasons, and personal approval is just one among many, the lack of which does not dismantle the argument. It's akin to proclaiming "one plus one does not equal two", and saying "not wrong" because the person in question's term for "two" is "er", it violates the spirit of the question for pure technicality of... what?
For example, the Pope does not recognize the Basileus as Roman Emperor, despite on a few occasions acknowledging basileus' approval of Holy Roman Emperor as "co-emperor", that does not mean Basileus is not the Roman Emperor whenever the Pope says so
A society that evolved and no longer recognizable compared to its first iteration is no different from a potato that has been chopped and fried. Is it still a potato? It most definitely is.
On the topic of Roman Empire specifically, I think it is wrong to argue on the basis of "culture and society", because that's not talking about Roman Empire the political entity, that's talking about Roman society instead, which is a separate issue entirely
GalaXion24 | a day ago
Even when you say we shouldn't use "culture and society" and argue the Roman Empire is a "political entity" or institution, you're now imposing a standard by which to measure.
Even if this becomes the stabdard and most widely accepted standard, the only thing a historian could conclude from this is that "In the early 21st century people generally emphasised the Roman Empire as being a political institution, rather than from other perspectives such as analysing it more as a proto-nation state, thereby the predominant view that developed was one of institutional continuity, which considered the changes from Augustus to the Palailogos dynasty to be a continuous and organic development of the institution of empire as a response to historical developments."
doublecandybar | a day ago
> you're now imposing a standard by which to measure.
The very fact that you understand what I said is you imposing a standard by which to measure: that the words mean what you think they mean, based on dictionaries stating what they mean
It is not reasonable to proclaim that Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire are two separate entities simply because they're different in the sense of Roman vs Greek, which is what cultural and societal angle would inevitably take. The Roman Empire, owing to its vast territories would of course have wildly different cultures in it, and which one is dominant has nothing to do with whether it's "Roman Empire" the political entity or not.
Moreover, it's not like the Roman citizens do not understand what it means to be a citizen of the Roman empire. Even if they do not have "nationalism" as of yet, they understand the differences between being in Roman lands vs in say Persian lands. This collective understanding is what brings about the continuation of "Roman Empire", the acknowledgement that this administration is the direct continuation of the previous one.
The modern separation of "phases" of the Roman Empire is a convenience tool because anything with vast history inevitably requires categorization for no other reason than it reduces confusion. It is so much easier to recognize which period of Japan you're talking about when you mention "Imperial Japan" despite the fact that Japan has had an unbroken chain of Emperors for so many centuries where leaders nominally draw power from the Emperor (and thus technically it was and is, "Imperial" Japan)
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
The hostilitys not really warranted man. Not sure if you're having a bad day or something but all I wanted was your opinion.
Also if that's the relativist position you're going to take then none of it has any meaning and all of it is arbitrary. Either we have a standard to go by or we don't.
The measurement I was using was the one you referenced. But I'm not denying two things can both be true.
Tyg13 | 21 hours ago
What hostility?
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | 20 hours ago
>I don't need to have a "take."
Suggests a bad attitude towards a simple question which was in no way phrased to be combative. It's all about the tone man.
GalaXion24 | a day ago
You can call it "relativist" if you want, but anything else is ideology, not history, so in a subreddit dedicated to history I see it as kind of off topic in the form presented. It's the kind of thing people on r/roughromanmemes would concern themselves with
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
Ideology lol. Relativism is an ideology dude. You should think before you speak. Everyone has a standard by which you see things and apply your determinations. Saying anything else is ideology assumes that your position is the only correct one which, by nature, defys your own logic. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with sound metrics. You can take the relativist approach, (not what I'm calling it, that's the definition of what you're saying so own it) that's perfectly valid. But it's just one of many positions each with their own strengths and shortcomings. You can say it's off topic and doesn't belong here if you like, but historians have their own standards they apply. It's called historiography. They certainly don't think the way you seem to.
GalaXion24 | a day ago
"Relativism" as a position is something that makes sense in terms of like "moral relativism" or something, which is not even something I believe in, what we're talking about here is descriptivism.
Sciences, including social sciences, seek to describe things as they are (or were), and this extends to history. In history we do not assert what should be considered legitimate or who "should have won" or anything like that. A historian will not tell you whether the rightful king of England is one pretender or another. That is the realm of politics. A politics far removed from our time perhaps, but politics all the same. Thus a historian might describe what different factions believed or said or the effects of a civil war or who did win and why or what narratives were told historically, but these are on some level morally neutral descriptive statements. (Insofar as anything at all can ever truly be apolitical)
You may have seen at some point the meme chart for why Finland is the true heir to the Roman Empire. If people genuinely believed that, then historians and sociologists would simply have conclude that the logic was seen as sufficient and the claims were seen as legitimate by the people of the 21st century. Since they are not, it will probably go forgotten.
My point is simply not to mix up ought with is.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | 23 hours ago
You're wrong though. Here's the definition of relativism. Not moral relativism as you're understanding it.
Relativism is the philosophical view that truth, morality, or knowledge is not absolute, but rather subjective and dependent on the person, culture, or situation. It holds that no single point of view is universally correct.
"Epistemological (Cognitive) Relativism is the idea that there is no absolute knowledge or objective truth. Knowledge and truth are tied entirely to how different individuals, languages, or conceptual frameworks perceive the world."
"Cultural Relativism often used in sociology and anthropology, this is the principle of understanding a culture or its beliefs on its own terms rather than judging them by the criteria of one's own culture"
So there are multiple different kinds. It is used within the sciences. Also history is not considered one of the sciences, I don't know if you knew that. My point is that you seem to think there is no valid standard by which we can apply truth statements. Not absolutes, but assertions that follow sound logic. That's Relativism. You can have views with merit and without if you follow the core tenants of the Laws of Thought. If a + b = c, then that's a logical statement. But if c contradicts d and arrives at e, then is illogical because its structure is compromised by falsehood.
Your position is perfectly valid. But you don't seem to even realize what your position is simply because you don't like the label applied to it. So I reiterate. What you're saying is fine to a point. But your assertion that all other metrics are arbitrary is not.
As I said to another user, I'm not a historian I'm a layman. I am saying what ought to be. Historians do that all the time. Not in the sense of describing events as they were but their opinions after the fact. If that's not the case then the historical consensus wouldn't be that the Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire. That's an ought to be statement right there. And that is the consensus. If you don't believe me I can link several historians and organizations that say so. You'd be hard pressed to find any who argue against.
Edit: Look up descriptive history vs. normative judgements. The two 100% must be kept separate but historians still make normative statements.
Edit 2: also there are counterfactuals. These are factors which are important while not exactly established fact. The ideal in modern historical scholarship is:
Use evidence to determine what happened.
Use evidence to explain why it happened.
Clearly distinguish those conclusions from personal views about what should have happened.
That doesn't mean historians are without values. Rather, a good historian makes it clear when they are moving from historical analysis to moral or political opinion.
GalaXion24 | 22 hours ago
I think theft fundamental issue I have with your claim of relativism is that doesn't fit my epistemology at all, at least not in any general sense.
I am also not a cultural relativist, I'm a neomodernist if anything.
I do think there are things which are in a sense "not real" and therefore have no objective truth value, but I would guess everyone believes that of something and similarly such relativism does not in any way allow us to dismiss material facts.
Thus if we're talking about a kind of relativism, it is only within a very constrained space in an overall empiricist framework. More or less at those limits where we reach abstract man-made concepts where it is impossible to ascertain objective truth. We can still objectively describe man-made and abstract concepts of course, but this is necessarily a more meta level description of these phenomena and how they're percieved or what their causes and effects are.
strong_division | a day ago
>But also, of course, everyone understands that it wasn't the Roman empire for your daily conversations.
I agree with this, but not for the reasons you've listed. While I have no problem using the term for historiographic convenience, i.e. using it as a term to refer to a period of the empire's history like Principate and Dominate (similar to how we'd refer to Elizabethan and Victorian England), I think it's wrong to characterize it as a mere rump state as you have.
>Taiwan is China, historically and administratively
I do not think we can equate China and Rome here. Ever since the Qin united the warring states and established the concept of Tianxia (literally all under heaven, practically just China proper), China has had a rather consistent geographical identity/definition associated with it (again, China proper). In order to truly call yourself the emperor of China or call your state China, you needed to rule this territory.
As you said, Taiwan is politically the same Republic of China that once held this distinction, but ever since they were kicked off the mainland they were reduced to a rump state and ceased to truly be China.
The same way the Yuan ceased to be China after they were kicked out of China proper by the Ming. Or the way the Ming ceased to be China when the Qing took over. Both of these dynasties were indeed the political entities that once ruled China, but no longer were China once they lost that territorial control.
And while we can define the Roman Empire geographically by its complete hegemony over the Mediterranean, it has no means been a consistent thing we can point to. Ever since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no one save for the Romans themselves (as the "Byzantines" under Justinian) have come even close to reestablishing Mediterranean hegemony.
In lieu of that, the only Romans we can point to are the ones with political and institutional continuity with the original Roman state.
And even if we were to use territorial control to define Rome, I still think it'd be wrong to claim it was a rump state after 476. Until 1204, it was still quite a powerful state that controlled a lot of territory and exerted a lot of influence. It still held the empire's capital, and many of its wealthiest and most urbanized areas. Its influence was diminished, sure, but not to the extent that the Northern Yuan or Taiwan were.
>Maybe a better (though more farfetched) example would have been, say... the Free France government-in-exile during the second world war. Imagine a world in which the government-in-exile never managed to liberate mainland France... Based in Algerie,
I don't think this would be a good comparison either. The capital and center of power of the empire had been moved centuries before it lost control of its western provinces, and even longer before the empire actually lost Rome when the Exarchate of Ravenna fell in 751.
>speaking Arabic,
The fact that medieval Romans mainly spoke Greek did not make them any less Roman. Some of the very first people to receive Roman citizenship outside of the city itself were Greek speaking inhabitants of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy. Caesar was known to speak Greek, and is reported by Plutarch to have said "Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος" ("Let the die be cast") when crossing the Rubicon. Suetonius reports that Claudius referred to Latin and Greek as "our two languages". Marcus Aurelius' personal writings and reflections (which we know today as Meditations) were written in Greek, despite him being born in Rome, raised in Rome, and ruling from Rome during the Pax Romana. When the Apostle Paul wrote his Letters to the Romans with the purpose of spreading his faith across the Roman Empire during the Pax Romana, he chose Greek to accomplish this.
It's wrong to pretend like the medieval Romans just started speaking Greek out of nowhere, as it had always been one of the languages of the Roman Empire, especially in the eastern provinces where it had been the lingua franca there since the conquests of Alexander. Because of that, Latin never caught on the way it did in the west.
>majority muslim.
While it was no longer the Paganism that the empire once practiced, Christianity was prominent throughout all parts of the empire by the time of Constantine and the state religion by 380. The religion they practiced was very much Roman.
And unlike Algeria, which was a mere colony, Greece and Anatolia were very thoroughly integrated and Romanized parts of the empire. They may not have been ethnically identical to the Romans on the Italian peninsula, but culturally they were just as Roman as anyone else.
The only state I can think of that has something analogous to what the Roman Empire underwent would be the Fatimid Caliphate moving its powerbase to Egypt, then losing its homeland of Tunisia. It didn't culturally change, nor was it diminished enough to be considered a rump state.
neutron240 | a day ago
I’m don’t think this is too controversial amongst historians in this field, but a well written post nonetheless.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
Thank you. It wasn't meant for historians, but rather, anyone interested in pop history who may have been misled or misinformed. I see the steelman argument touted alot of Reddit in particular.
soundisloud | a day ago
OP you said it yourself --
"For the sake of clarification I will refer to the Medieval era of Roman history as Byzantine."
That is why the Byzantine empire has a different name. Students of history know it is a continuation of the Roman Empire but, as you discovered, it gets hard to talk about without a distinct name.
bremidon | a day ago
That is a matter of convenience, not a statement of fact. What's interesting to me is that the people living in that area at that time considered themselves Roman. And honestly, I consider their opinion on the matter somewhat more convincing than "number of angels dancing on the head of a pin" arguments from historians living 500 years later.
rookieseaman | a day ago
Ottomans also considered themselves Roman, so guess they’re Roman now too.
strong_division | 22 hours ago
Beyond their sultans having Kayser-i-Rûm (Caesar of Rome) as one of their titles, no, not really. That's like looking at how the British kings once had Emperor of India as one of their titles and saying that they considered themselves Indian. Or how the Roman Emperors once had pharaoh as one of their titles and thinking they considered themselves Egyptian. They ruled over Roman people in their empire and assumed the title of their old leader, but that did not mean they considered themselves Roman.
And insinuating that this was just a matter of mere self identification is completely wrong. After the Romans lost their western provinces in 476, they continued to be universally recognized as the Roman Empire by their contemporaries. Everyone from western Europe to the Middle East saw the "Byzantine" Empire as the same Roman state that had been around for centuries.
If you asked the Sassanids who they were fighting in 590 and 627, they'd tell you they were fighting the Romans, the same Romans their predecessors the Parthians and Seleucids fought. If you asked the Arabs who they were fighting in the 7th century, they'd say they were fighting the Romans. If you asked the Ottomans who they conquered in 1453 they'd tell you they conquered the Romans.
Even the barbarian kingdoms that took over in the wake of the Western Roman Empire continued to recognize the guy in Constantinople as the Roman Emperor, and continued to mint coins in his name for a while. Like it or not, they were the Romans.
I'd even argue that the only reason why some people still believe that it's a different empire or a mere successor state is because of Charlemagne's coronation as "Roman Emperor" in 800. What followed that was literal centuries of propaganda attempting to portray it as the "Greek Empire" in an attempt to legitimize Francia's (and later, East Francia's) ludicrous claim that they were somehow actually the Roman Empire.
bremidon | 15 hours ago
Some argue that, yes. Although usually it is stated that there was a Roman province within the Ottoman Empire. Much like someone can say they are a New Yorker and an American.
And then there is the fact that the Ottoman Sultans openly claimed that they were the Roman Emperor.
So while I understand you are trying to be cute, there really is an argument to be made that Rome survived up until WW1. It's not clear and dry, but I rather like it.
Anthemius_Augustus | a day ago
>That is why the Byzantine empire has a different name.
Why does the Holy Roman Empire not have a different name then?
Really makes you think...
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
I think it's fine to refer to them as the Byzantines as long as we recognize them as Romans. But the name itself has it's origins in Western writers who wanted to draw a distinction between the Greek Christians and their claimed legacy. For reasons of politics. So it's not without it's own set of problems. Recently, modern historians have begun to see the errors of that and so have come around to the idea of Byzantium being a continuation of the Roman Empire.
Ok_Attitude55 | a day ago
Is there a contention it wasn't?
Anthemius_Augustus | a day ago
Depends really.
Though it certainly bears mentioning that even among people who don't disagree, there is almost an implicit reading in a lot of texts that it really wasn't.
How many general histories have been written about the Roman Empire that just outright ignore the later history and arbitrarily stop at the 5th Century?
How many wacky theories about the Fall of the (Western) Roman Empire have you seen that outright ignore everything post-476, even when it directly debunks the theory in question?
Eastern Roman history always gets relegated to the sidelines when talking about general Roman history. Even when a book or documentary acknowledges it, it's just left as a brief footnote at most. Like it doesn't matter or isn't important, thereby carrying the connotation that it isn't really Roman history, but something else.
The idea that it wasn't really the Roman Empire is fading in recent history. But the way we tell and discuss Roman history still carries with it these old tropes that leave Eastern Roman history on the sidelines.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
On reddit there certainly is
Jorost | a day ago
This is a settled matter of history. "Byzantine" is just a name applied retroactively by historians. They called themselves the Roman Empire. They thought of themselves as Romans. And from 476-1453CE they were the only Roman Empire. In some parts of Greece people still identified themselves as "Roman" as late as the early 20th century.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
And the banner of Byzantium still flies from Mt. Athos today as it has for centuries
Jorost | a day ago
Mt. Athos is definitely on my bucket list.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
My brother is a Greek Orthodox convert and the experience changed him deeply.
elbapo | a day ago
Genuinely, I agree with your case. I hazard a guess that the vast majority of this sub and historians probably agree with your case. In fact most people, once explained would probably agree with your case.
And yet....
> For the sake of clarification I will refer to the Medieval era of Roman history as Byzantine.
...is the primary reason for the ongoing use of the nomenclature, which you just demonstrated so well.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
I agree. But the problem with what you just said is that because it's referred to as the Byzantine Empire the following assumption then is that it was an entirely separate entity from the Rome of antiquity. Which it wasn't. Therefore, we can use Byzantium to refer to its medieval stage but we also need to recognize its roots and continuity from its original state.
elbapo | a day ago
Fair enough. I tend to use eastern roman empire in my online musings, as do want to advocate for this switch for these very reasons ( and in particular- where does the roman empire end and the 'byzantine' begin? It seems absurd to see justinian as byzantine for example).
However get that there's a case for use of byzantine empire for some disabiguation purposes so im not overly critical of others use of it.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
I personally would agree with the other camp on this point. That is, the full transition into Greekophilia began when Heraclius dismantled the last vestiges of the Latin legacy. I used Byzantine because it's colloquial and causes the least amount of confusion but I always do so in combination with the word Roman. Also I think Justinian was the last true, "Latin" emperor. He spoke it as a first language and couldn't imagine a Roman Empire without the city of Rome in it.
bimmerang | 20 hours ago
There was no Byzantine Empire. The name was given by German historian Hieronymus Wolf in 1557. The citizens and rulers of the empire called themselves Romans (Rhomaioi). Western Europeans wanted to claim Holy Roman Empire as legitimate succesor. The funny thing is Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman. Typical European centric perspective, proclaimed self-importance. Also Constantinople never fell. It was conqured and cherished by Turks.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | 20 hours ago
I'm not going to argue whether or not the Turks had in any way continued the legacy of Rome. I haven't done enough research on that. But I do know that in Byzantium (colloquial term) the tradition, institutions, law, and government continued unbroken since the fall of the West in 476CE. How that continues under the Ottomans I don't know but I doubt it was a matter of Greek simply being replaced by Asiatic and everything remained intact.
LamppostBoy | a day ago
Do you think there's a similar continuity extending to the Ottoman era?
timoc90 | a day ago
If an argument could be made that the empire's mercenaries went rogue, then do the Empire's mercenaries taking over the state reflect a change or a continuation? I mean the whole "(insert country here) is the continuation of the Roman Empire" argument always gets very Ship-of-Theseus-esk.
soundisloud | a day ago
OP, you would find this subject interesting if you're not already aware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_claim_to_Roman_succession
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
Yes I was aware of the Ottoman claim to the succession of Rum. Personally, I've always viewed it the same as Russia's claim to be the Third Rome or Odacer's claim to be continuing the Empire in the West. I'm open to having my mind changed but I find the claim to be somewhat dubious.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
It would depend on how they kept the traditions and institutions intact. That's a good question, I'm not really sure. I'd have to really think about it.
Erlik_Khan | a day ago
They kept one of the most important ones - having a royal guard force that also liked to play kingmaker. But on a more serious note, the Ottoman empire kept a lot of Roman (and Persian) bureaucratic and administrative elements in place (which later resulted in the same corruption and bloat we saw in the late Roman period). They also had a blood tie since Orhan married a Byzantine princess. IMO the big thing that throws people off is the religion aspect, but Rome isn't inherently Christian, it spent just as much time if not more being pagan
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
It's certainly a good thought experiment. I'd love to see arguments for and against
Hairy_Technician1632 | 16 hours ago
Ngl my main thing is the relationship to power. There is a clear obligation by the roman rulership to the people understood by the people, at least nominally Res Publica. So already the relationship the Ottoman ruler had with the people was distinctly un-roman. Next, there was hardly an attempt at restoration of the empire. The ottomans were clearly their own thing, absorbing the mantle of rome rather than becoming it. They did not seem to restore the senate to my knowledge.
While I think the Ottomans do raise a reaction for being muslim, we cannot at once say they are delegitimized by this while the very christian Latin empire is similarly spurned.
FlatSpinMan | a day ago
You beautiful person! I have studied a little bit of Roman history but am still very much a beginner. Recently my young son found an old copy of the game Rome:Total War, and that has launched us (me for him) on a huge cram course of Rome and its history. Obviously the game takes massive liberties (okay, outright misleads) with history, but the core Roman-ness has completely grabbed him (he’s 8). So I started by correcting what I could from my own knowledge and studies. Then we moved on to searching for information online (kids questions can be horribly specific). But the eastern vs western Empire thing has always been unknown territory for me. I found your explanation really interesting and helpful, and it also raised some questions. I’m so glad you included some references as I was reading through your post wondering if anyone could recommend me some good books on the Eastern Empire.
I don’t know how much popularity your post will gain, but it has made a massive difference to at least one person.
RecognitionHeavy8274 | a day ago
If you’re not aware, Rome Total War has an expansion called Barbarian Invasion which takes place literally right at the beginning of the split between east and west.
FlatSpinMan | a day ago
Thank you. I actually have that and the Alexander one, but in my limited gaming time (coupled with my insanely micromanaging mindset - why would anyone let AI control your hard won towns??), even the original campaign is keeping me occupied. And it has so much replayability.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
I'm so glad! That's awesome. I'm happy I could help you and your son in some small way. The New Roman Empire is an excellent read and reflects the new and modern consensus among historians on this topic. As others have pointed out, my take is not "controversial," in that it says anything new. Only, it is meant to counter many of the claims made on Reddit by pop. history buffs that claim Byzantium wasn't Roman or (St. Mary's teeth) that the Holy Roman Empire had more of a claim.
Handitry_Banditry | a day ago
Following this train of thought do you consider the Republic of China or the People’s Republic of China to be the “legitimate” nation if China?
strong_division | a day ago
I'm not OP, but I don't think we can equate China and Rome here. Ever since the Qin unified the warring states and established the concept of Tianxia (literally all under heaven, practically just China proper), China has had a rather consistent geographical identity/definition associated with it (again, China proper). In order to truly call yourself the emperor of China or call your state China, you needed to rule this territory.
Taiwan is politically the same Republic of China that once held this distinction, but ever since they were kicked off the mainland they were reduced to a rump state and ceased to truly be China. The same way the Yuan ceased to be China after they were kicked out of China proper by the Ming. Or the way the Ming ceased to be China when the Qing took over. Both of these dynasties were indeed the political entities that once ruled China, but no longer were China once they lost that territorial control.
And while we can define the Roman Empire geographically as a state with hegemony over the Mediterranean, that has by no means been a consistent definition we can point to throughout history the way we can with China. Ever since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no one save for the Romans themselves under Justinian have come even close to reestablishing Mediterranean hegemony.
In lieu of that, the only Romans we can point to are the ones with political and institutional continuity with the original Roman state.
And even if we were to use territorial control to define Rome, I still think it'd be wrong to claim it was a rump state after 476. Until 1204, it was still quite a powerful state that controlled a lot of territory and exerted a lot of influence. It still held the empire's capital, and many of its wealthiest and most urbanized areas. Its influence was diminished, sure, but not to the extent that the Northern Yuan or the Republic of China were.
As an aside, it's important to note that the Republic of China increasingly sees itself as its own thing, Taiwan. They no longer have any real aspirations to reclaim the mainland the way they did decades ago, and its people increasingly see themselves as just Taiwanese.
The only reason Taiwan still officially has its claim to be the legitimate government of China is that ironically, dropping it would be seen as them declaring independence and give the CCP a casus belli to invade them. For now, they're content with maintaining this weird status quo, and maintain the fiction they're the legitimate mainland government to maintain peace, even if they know it isn't true and don't have any interest in making it true.
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
I would say it's disputed. Considering the Qing dynasty fell, and with it, 3500 years of tradition, I would say who has the right to be the governing body of the Middle Country is up in the air. The communists rule through right of conquest and had, at one point, the support of the people (how much they have now I'm not certain.) Taiwan is the exiled government of the Kuomintang who founded the Republic of China. IF you consider the Republic of China the rightful heir to the Mandate of Heaven then one might go with that. But the question remains, what determines the legitimate party? Unbroken tradition? Will of the people? Right of might and with it de jure control? I really can't say for sure. I don't have a dog in that fight. I think both sides have good arguments for why they're the, "real" China.
DJC_Kowalski | 12 hours ago
The eternal debate. Eastern Europeans will say it was the Roman empire, Western Europeans will call it the Byzantine Empire. Some Western Europeans would much rather call the Holy Roman Empire the continuation of the Roman Empire. Of course, the Catholics and the Orthodox like to weigh in. Russians like to call Russia the third Rome.
I think it is all semantics. Personally I find both the Byzantine and HRE to be different enough that they seem like New Empires to me. However, I'm not going to argue strongly, because I really don't care since a name is just a name.
Countcristo42 | a day ago
Good post thanks for writing it up.
Unless I’m about to learn something (in which case great) you have a typo when you say the senate lasted till 1473 rather than 53
Also where was the senate during the period when the empire didn’t hold Constantinople? I assumed it desolved and reformed but you seem to say that’s not the case
Al-Pharazon | a day ago
>Unless I’m about to learn something (in which case great) you have a typo when you say the senate lasted till 1473 rather than 53
I would point on this that the Despotate of Morea continued under Palaiologos administration until 1460, and this land was considered part of the Empire.
It would also be debatable on whether the Empire of Trezibond (under the Konmenos) and the Principality of Theodoro could be considered a continuation of the Roman Empire, in which case you could stretch the fall until 1475.
Countcristo42 | a day ago
Did either have the senate? The line I was addressing was "The Senate persisted, unceasingly, from the founding of Rome to it's fall in 1473CE" not merely any continuation specifically an unceasing senate.
I ask not as a gotcha but because I don't know.
Al-Pharazon | a day ago
No Roman continuation really had a functioning Senate after 1204 outside ceremonial roles, even the one in Constantinople has it's last recorded meeting around 1341, a whole century before the city fell.
This said, both the main empire and the rump states that existed along it kept the senatorial class as a purely honorific position.
Countcristo42 | a day ago
Interesting thank you
[OP] TheByzantineEmperor | a day ago
Thank you! I missed that. Yes, the surviving senators split off into the Empire of Nicea and the Despotate of Epirus until Michael took back Constantinople. You could argue that the Senate broke continuity in this particular situation I suppose. But the tradition remained intact albeit absent a functioning institution within the capitol.