Made with iOS IbisPaint. Track used near the end is the Byzantine Atomic theme from the Civilization VI OST, I don't own the rights to this track. Blog post (with text) here remembermylord...
Made with iOS IbisPaint. Track used near the end is the Byzantine Atomic theme from the Civilization VI OST, I don't own the rights to this track. Blog post (with text) here remembermylord.com/2021/11/08/byzantine-or-roman/
Really? All your given reasons why it should be called Byzantine can be resolved by calling them Eastern Romans. This name reflects their own self-identification (Roman) and the differences from the first century Empire of Augustus ( Eastern ).
No, you’ll find the debate out there is very much all or nothing. Completely Roman or not. Also the contrast you’re talking about is probably more medieval / ancient than eastern / western. And at the end of the day ‘Eastern Roman Empire’ technically expired when the Western Empire fell. Calling them the Eastern Romans does seem like a good compromise (I like to use it too) but a) it doesn’t fit their self identification because they didn’t call themselves Eastern Romans, just Romans, and b) the implication is that there must then be a Western Empire. Only that ended in 476. Unless we mean the HRE is the Western Empire, which it isn’t. Either way ‘Eastern Empire’ still doesn’t do much to address the issue
@@foojer Nah, it does not imply that the Western Empire still existed, only that the origins of the Eastern Empire were in the Eastern half of the whole Empire. What you stated does not follow with strict necessity from the title Eastern empire, thus is just your interpretation. This is not geometry, it is history, where the phenomena are way more complex, and thus alternative views may be as valid.
I take your point that we see it as the eastern portion of the Empire. They didn’t though, they just called themselves Romans, not Eastern Romans. Calling them Byzantines might even carry more merit than calling them Eastern Romans, since at least they referred to Constantinople as Byzantium. Arguably ‘Eastern Roman’ doesn’t cause any more confusion than Byzantine vs Roman, but I dont think it does much to settle the debate either Edit: plus the ERE was an actual administrative term at one point, we do need to work with its boundaries. It existed only because the WRE existed at the same time.
@@foojer Funny that you say they called themselves Roman and then say it is more appropriate to call them Byzantines. It is the only historical entity where this type of argument is made. There was even a time, if I remember correctly after the year 1000, when they called their realm Romania. This is kind of funny for me because I am Romanian born in modern Romania and this does sound confusing and would be if it would be used to describe Eastern Rome or Byzantium if you will with that name. However in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages even south of the Danube there was a Latin/Romance speaking population that was part of the Empire until the year 602 when the area was overrun by the Avars and Slavs. Well, the Huns under Attila exterminated part of that population in their campaigns in the 440’s, which allowed Slavs even during Justinian’s time to populate some of those lands. Sadly even the later Empire would call their descendants not Romans but Vlachs, which is a Germanic exonym for all Roman citizens or their descendants (see the current term Wales which is derived from the same Germanic exonym. I find it interesting that you limit the term Eastern Roman Empire to the administrative unit between 395 and 476. No was not just the administrative unit, because it had all the organization and trappings of an empire with its separate Emperor, which made it very easy for “that administrative unit” to survive after the fall of the Western part of the Empire. If it was just an administrative unit it might not have survived as easily when the West fell, but it would have been dragged down along with it.
Rome was all about adopting and changing with the times. Rome took the model of centralized empire from the east. They took the heavily armed swordsman idea from the celts. They took the senate from the Greeks. The fact that they did change was the most Roman part of the Eastern empire.
I found out fairly recently as well that the "Byzantines" were Romans. I think that the name Byzantine should be replaced either by the term Roman or by Romeic Empire. The term Byzantine was adopted by western Europeans to hide the Roman nature of the eastern empire. It is not a desirable trait in academia.
Technically they used this name because again westerners are biased dudes that just don't want their precious name used by people that they seen not from the Italian or western part of Rome to use it.
In the words of Anthony Kaldellis, the guy who literally wrote the book on byzantine-Roman identity, "These were not Greeks pretending to be Romans, but Romans who spoke Greek". The so called Byzantine-Romans were what was left of the dream that was Rome. They were Romans and they carried the dying torch of Rome, just as Emperor Constantine intended when he built Nova Roma on old Byzantium.
My biggest issue with “Byzantine” is that it doesn’t emphasise the Roman aspects of the Empire. When I was first made aware of it when I was younger, it took me a fairly long time to realise that they were in any way descended from the Roman Empire. I prefer using “Eastern Roman” since I do agree just using “Roman” is kind of vague, but I still feel that placing some emphasis on the Roman aspects of the Empire is necessary for clarity
I remember my teacher mentioning the fall of the “Byzantine Empire” as the point at which the Modern period begins, and the whole class was fine with this mysterious name. Only I asked who these guys were, since they sounded so important but we had never heard of them. Of course the answer made no sense because we had never been taught about the partition of the Empire.
It is a great look at the Byzantine empire of that time but even so the Roman factor was equally weakened in all aspects: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_bureaucracy_and_aristocracy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_law
@@mathy4605 exactly. I was introduced to the ERE through Medieval 2: Total War. I had only a passing knowledge of medieval history at the time and when I encountered the faction in the campaign I had no idea what it is. I assumed “Byzantine” was its actual name and that it was just some random empire.
I mean, we already make the distinction between Republican, Principate and Dominate Rome, so why not add one more distinction with the Eastern Romans? I think using the term ”Byzantine” is derogatory and should be avoided.
I think 'Eastern Roman Empire' is the best compromise term, as it resolves most of the issues you get with "Byzantine Empire" or just "Roman Empire", I wish you'd touched on that in the video too. Eastern Roman Empire still maintains the Roman character of the empire, and makes it clear to the listener that it is Roman. But the Eastern prefix allows for specificity, as in we're talking about the period the Roman Empire was geographically further east. It's also more consistent. We don't call the Holy Roman Empire the Frankfurt Empire, we call it the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy prefix specifying that we're talking about the HRE. Eastern Roman Empire is specific to the time period, making it semantically useful, but it doesn't mislead or confuse the audience like "Byzantine" does (which is why I think Byzantine is a bad term, because it doesn't actually help clear up anything).
There can be doubt however much certain western Europeans try to rewrite history. They were Romans. Byzantine is a misnomer. If a time traveler could go back to 850 AD and ask a citizen who are they, they would flatly say Roman. Not Byzantine or anything else.
Nice, fun video. But they were not Byzantines. They were not Greeks. They were just Romans. They advertised themselves as Romans, not as Greeks or even Byzantines. So they were Romans, and we have to honor their right as a people to self-determination. The Patriarch in Istanbul still officially calls city as "New Rome" the name by which Constantine referred to his prized city. It was not a Greek empire but a Roman Empire.
I cannot believe that this is a serious debate. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, then it is a duck. No matter how much Heironymus Wolf wanted to deny it, they were Romans.
I see them as Romans, as did most of their contemporaries in both the east and the west. The term Byzantine was not even in widespread use in Europe until the 19th century, and it only was introduced as a way of hindering the newly minted Kingdom of Greece from expanding its nationalism. The Greek nazionalistics who roam UA-cam claiming that Eastern Rome was Greek are using the Roman Empire for nazionalistic reasons.
One thing that I do not fully understand is the argument that Byzantine Romans chose to speak Greek, thus they could not be Romans. What about the millions of Roman citizens in the early republican and imperial times who were speaking Greek? Was Julius Caesar also not a Roman because his mother tongue was Greek rather than Latin? Or does speaking Latin make Julius Caesar a Roman? Which brings me to another point. The offspring of western Europe does not like the idea of Romans speaking Greek. But to a classical Roman, anyone who did not speak Greek was not a true Roman in the educated sense at least. There was not a single wealthy Roman who did not know Greek, and those who refused to learn it were criticized as we saw in the case of Maxentius. To the Romans, Latin and Greek were both the cultural propriety of being nationally Roman.
Julius Caesar was born in rome, italy, from an ancient roman family and was as italian as you cold be! in fact most early roman emperors, with the notable exceptions of Trajan and Hadrian, were italians only it the third century the emperors started be provincials ,again wit the exception of Valerian and his son Gallienus.
I see the argument for 'Byzantine' as very weak. But while I prefer 'Roman', I think it's useful to also keep the use of 'Byzantine' not as the name of the empire, but as a convenient shorthand for the medieval period of the Roman Empire, in the same way we use today the term "Weimar Republic" to refer to the democratic state of Germany between world wars, with full knowledge that we're talking about the same Germany, and not some un-German successor state.
Definetly how I view it as well. Byzantine or a similar term should be used as an era for the Romans rather than a separate state as it is commonly done ie kingdom - Republic - principate - dominate - byzantine
"Byzantine" isn't useful in any way. Historically speaking,the westerners at the time mostly referred to the Romam Empire as "Imperium Constantinopolitanum" because Constantinople was the center of it,so even the term "Byzantine" doesn't make sense in this context
Even a concept like Western and Eastern Rome wasn't firmly adopted let alone something called "Byzantine" It's 'Imperium Romanum' from 27 BC to 1453 AD end of.
@@ThomasGazis The only false narrative here is yours.... Your viewpoint of calling the eastern Romans 'Byzantine Greeks' is anachronistic. My proof of that is the hoard of videos and forums on which every week, ask the question "Why are we still calling them Byzantines instead of Romans"?
@@MagisterMilitumBelisarius5365 there is no falsification from my part! I am writing here using my true name and surname (you are using a nick), my UA-cam channel is full of content (yours has no content at all), I am providing ample info about me - you are providing none! So, if there is a falsifier here that is probably you! Regarding my "false narrative" as you call it, I am providing you here some arguments proving that my "Byzantium was not Roman but predominantly Greek" narrative is true! Where are your own arguments? """For the eastern people the Eastern Roman empire was considered as a Greek empire. For the Armenians, Georgians and other people of the near and middle east the byzantines were called as yoni, Javan and yavani, which means Greeks. In many islamic sources the Byzantine empire is also called Ighrigiyah and yunaniyun. In one passage of the history of Ibn Zabala which was written at 814 AD it is mentioned that the king of the Greeks sent to Αl-Walid help, for the reconstruction of Mohamed's mosque in Medina. The Arab historian and Geographer Ali al-Mascuch reffering to the period of Emperor Romanus Lekapenus and his policy, he characterizes the empire as homeland of the Greeks and the emperor as king of the Greeks. Al-Tabari calls the Byzantine emperor as lord of the Greeks.At the same period , the Arab geographer Shams ad Din, also known and as Mukaddasi, writes "we will exclude now the description of Tarsus city and its periphery because for now is at the hand of the Greeks".Tarsus was capured by Emperor Nikiphorus Phokas at 965 AD. For Pope Gregory the great, Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Liutprand of Cremona, Paul the Deacon the chronicler of the lombards, wiliam of Tyre and many others the eastern Roman empire was Greek and all the western documents call the empire as Imperium Graecorum which means a Greek empire. Leo the Mathematecian (790-870 AD) calls himself a Greek through one of poems with the title"To myself who is called Greek" And he describes himself as a modest person who doesnt desire fame or riches. Already from the 11th century Anna Comnene ("The Alexiad") uses the name Greeks as a national identification for the people of the empire. Anna Comnene "The Alexiad" Nicetas Choniates insisted on using the name "Hellenes", he states that he cannot continue in writting history, which is one of the greatest inventions of Hellenism and he stressed out the outrages attacks of the "Latins" against the "Hellenes" in the Peloponessus. Nicetas Choniates, "The Sack of Constantinople", 9 '¦Å, Bonn, pp.806 Emperor John III Ducas Vatatzes (1192-1254 AD), wrote in a letter to Pope Gregory IX about the wisdom that "rains upon the Hellenic nation"and states that Constantine's heritage was passed on to the Hellenes, so he argued, and they alone were its inheritors and successors. John Vatatzes, "Unpublished Letters of Emperor John Vatatzes", Athens I, pp.369--378, (1872) Theodore II Lascaris (1222-1258), was eager to project the name of the Greeks with true nationalistic zeal. He made it a point that "the Hellenic race looms over all other languages" and that "every kind of philosophy and form of knowledge is a discovery of Hellenes... What do you, O Italian, have to display?" Theodore Lascaris, "Christian Theology", 7,7 & 8 In the 14th cent AD Nikolaos Kavasilas calls Greeks the scholars of Thessaloniki, and the city as "house of Hellenism". Nicephorus Blemmydes referred to the Byzantine emperors as Hellenes. Theodore Alanias (in 1204) wrote in a letter to his brother that "the homeland may have been captured, but Hellas still exists within every wise man". Nicephorus Blemmydes, "Pertial narration", 1, 4 Theodore Alanias, "PG 140, 414" The famous Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras wrote after a trip he took "in the country of Trivallon" (Serbia): "I am happy that I am Greek and not a barbarian"! Leone, Epistulae II, 32α, 242-3 The neo-platonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon (15th cent AD) stated "We are Hellenes by race and culture". George Gemistus Plethon, "Paleologeia and Peloponessiaka", pp.247 The scholar, teacher, and translator, John Argyropoulos (15th cent AD) calls John VIII Palaiologos as a Greek king and addresses him as "Sun King of Hellas". Makrides, Vasilios (2009). Hellenic Temples and Christian Churches: A Concise History of the Religious Cultures of Greece from Antiquity to the Present. New York, New York: New York University Press. Two days before the fall of Consantinople the Emperor Constantine Paleologos calls the city as "The joy and hope of all Greeks". Sphrantzes, George (1477). The Chronicle of the Fall."""
Agreed. There was only the Roman Empire and it ended in 1453 AD, thanks to Mehmed II. Byzantine Empire is a smear campaign of western European Catholics who wanted to be the only Romans.
You can call it the Eastern Roman Empire. This term may include the reign of Diocletian, but it won't be long since the inauguration of Constantinople (Byzantion) in 330. The Eastern Romans never gave up their plans to recover and reunite the Empire with the West, given the right circumstances. Manuel I (12th cent.)made serious efforts and spent a huge amount of gold to promote the reunification of the East with the West, something the Venetians and the Germans saw as a big threat. Would it work? I don't know, but it's highly indicative of how the Eastern Romans viewed themselves as the true Romans and that they considered the westerners as usurpers of the Roman Imperial title, which they never recognized. It's very true that the Neo-Platonists savants and scholars of the Palaiologean renaissance were pressing the Monarch to style himself as King and Emperor of the Hellenes, (just like the Laskarid dynasty did) instead of the stressful and "outdated" one of the Romans. They were arguing that the title alone (!!!) will lead them to victory against the evil heathen Turks, and save once more the "genus of the Greeks" from the... Persian (!!!) aggression just like in Marathon 2.000 yrs ago... Their plea was apparently overruled. The last Palaiologos would fall as " Constantine XI, faithful in Christ the God, Basileus and Autokrator of the Romans"
As a Greek i would like to shed some light .The Greek identity was enforced to us by westerners after the independence and the fact that we didnt retake constantinople , we are as roman as greek its just a fact . Greek was an official language in ancient rome alongside latin legionaries in france could take their oath in greek if the wanted to . Greeks who are strongly against their roman identity are most of the time ill educated and think that by saying roman they cant indentify as successor of ancient greece they dont get how they are both . In conclusion even that people understand that romios means greek that is a term still used in modern greece. Roman identity is to big to be claims by only one nation but we greeks are infact as greek as we are eastern roman
The most common thing i hear by Modern Greek Nationalists is that "The Romans enslaved the Greeks, Byzantium was bad, we are Greeks". Ignoring completely the fact that our people has been identifying as Roman for thousands of years and that we have culturally nothing with the Ancient Greeks of old.
The Greek identity existed during the entirety of the byzantine and ottoman period as we can see both from the byzantine sources and the Greek sources during the years of the ottoman empire . So what you said about westerners enforcing a greek identity after the independence as if Greeks didn't already have one isn't supported by the surviving primary sources. No matter what, even if you haven't read byzantine sources, intinuating that people that existed for thousands of years waited for the westerners to tell them about their own isn't only illogical but condescending as well.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 Byzantine culture (and modern Greek culture) are the evolution of the ancient Greek culture so what you said doesn't make much sense.
@@gilpaubelid3780 Greek identity existed but was going alonside with Roman identity and in fact more people used the word Romios to identify than hellene after 1821 they tried to extract and cut out the roman part of the greek identity thats why i meant not they didnt knew about their ancient identity . Constantine Palaiologos the last emperor in his last speech to boost the morale he reminded people that they are the descendants of ancient Greeks and Romans but the two were combined , in fact greek region was roman many centuries more than italian region
@@gilpaubelid3780 It was the evolution of the Hellenistic culture which was intertwined with the Roman one, but it certainly wasn't the continuation of the Ancient Greek one. Now as for the identity, the Byzantines identified as Rhomaioi which was in the beginning a citizenship title and developed into an ethnic term after the 800's when the state came into dispute with the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic church who claimed it to be Greek and not Roman. In fact the term Greek became synonymous to the meaning of "latin slave" after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 during the crusade. For this reason alone the Byzantines never adopted the term Greek. As for the term Hellene, it once met pagan in late Antiquity as the church and Greek Christians were in conflict with those who still followed the Pagan faith. It was restored into the High and Late Medieval periods by the several academics of the time and it was used by the last Emperors of the Laskaris and Palaiologos dynasties but it never replaced the Roman term.
I don't remember when I first heard the term "Byzantine Romans" but I think it was back in the 80s, anyway that term has stuck with me ever since, simply because it easily differentiates between the two major eras of the Roman empire as a whole but without implications of the arguments presented in the video.
I call them byzantines because I studied under byzantinists in school and it's a term that lets people know what you mean immediately. however, i consider them roman, as much as any previous era of the "true" roman empire. there is no "real" roman empire with a set of perfectly identifying characteristics because rome was in a constant state of change/flux for its entire existence. the monarchy would have been as unrecognizable to a citizen of the high empire as the republic would have been to a citizen of constantinople from the 1100s. we like to think of historical political entities as unchanging, definite monoliths, i think because it gives us a comforting sense of stability/security. but in reality, everything is changing and evolving all the time, and there is no single "moment" when rome was "the most" rome. it was in constant flux, and it was ALL "rome," from 753 to 1453
The "Byzantine" Empire was the inheritors and medieval continuation of Classical (Greco-Roman) Civilization. I think the modern Greeks should embrace both identities, both Greek and Roman.
The Ancient Greeks should be embraced for their culture and for what they left behind, honestly. But as the people of Modern Greece descend from the Byzantines, they should embrace more the Byzantine side of history and culture. There is no reason for nationalists to roam around and claim descend from figures such as Leonidas honestly.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 There's no reasons Nationalists should say anything honestly These retards are good at one thing and that's making interest in Byzantine history instantly seem suspicious and racist
"The modern terms used for identity, "Hellene" and "Romios", have the same meaning. But they are not interchangeable. The classic term is "Hellene". From 1822 onwards it has been used in all official texts, in which since 1974 the name of the Greek state has been included as the Hellenic Republic. On the contrary, the term "Romios" does not appear in any passport or official document. From the beginning of the 19th century, this term became the unofficial most familiar way for Greeks to refer to themselves and very often to each other. "Hellene" is the term for external use, it defines the Greek for the foreigner. The word "Romios" has an emotional charge." Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, 2019, pp. 34-35
I applaud you for the video, but whole of it is an exercise in mental gymnastics. The so called "Byzantines" were the Roman Empire, they had Roman culture and they were possessed of a strong Roman national identity. I cannot for the life of me understand why this particular legacy should be denied to them. The argument that they stopped speaking Latin also stands on shaky ground. National cultures can and do change over large timespans. There are quite a few historical examples on which we can fall back on for making an analogy to the Eastern Roman Empire. One example of this phenomenon other than the Eastern Romans is the tribe of the Franks, who once being a Germanic-speaking folk, borrowed the Latin dialect of their Gallic subjects after they had invaded into Roman Gaul. Roman Gaul which refused to let go of its Roman national identity for centuries until about the 8th century whereupon Roman Gauls began to call themselves Franks and France. Eventually the Germanic-ruling class fully adopted the language of its subject base, and a new nationality, the French was born. In much a very similar way, the same thing happened to the Roman-ruled Greek-speaking East. The Roman ruling class borrowed the language of its subject base, but in turn the Greek subjects accepted a Roman national identity. I have also likened Eastern Roman ethnogenesis to French ethnogenesis. They have many parallels.
I like to call them Byzantines so I can annoy Romaboos who for some reason are offended by calling them Byzantines. Never have I seen more nationalism for such a long dead empire.
That's because you live in the west and you only had the teachings that rome collapsed in the 5th century and that's it. Just like what happened to me and surely tons of others.
That's because when we're saying "Romans" today we mean the ancient/Latin Romans while back then the term "Roman" was used by every ethnicity in the empire that had obtained Roman citizenship after the edict of Caracalla (212AD). Byzantines were mostly Greeks and hellenized people and since medieval Greeks had Roman citizenship they were also Romans (according to the definition that the term had during the byzantine period). As for the Latin Romans they were still at the western part that was lost.
I just use ancient and medieval roman to differentiate the two. Edit: Also most greeks that dislike the "roman" term for the medieval period dont really understand the roman identity. They were ethnically greeks, while their nationality was roman. When Rome conquered greece the spartan, macedonian, and athenian greeks just became roman greeks.
You are so wrong in that! The French were conquered by the Germans in WWII. Does this mean that their nationality (let alone their identity) became German? Actually, the ancient Greeks were despising the Latin Romans, seeing them as some brute and culturally inferior people!
@@ThomasGazis That isnt a good analogy, the germans occupied the french. They didn't annex them and give them citizenship. Ill explain it in depth, the greeks were still ETHNICALLY greek. Their nationalities however varied depending on the government that ruled them. Athenian greeks, Spartan greeks, macedonian greeks, pontic greeks, and so on. When the romans conquered them and later gave them all citizenship following the edict of caracalla in the 200s, they eventually became Roman greeks. Hence why they called themselves Romans. Think of it like the United States. (assuming you are a greek) as a greek if you were to move to the USA and become a citizen. Would you not be considered an American at that point? A greek american? Same in the case of the greek romans in the medieval period.
@@romainvicta8817 you go to great lenghts just to prove at any cost that the Byzantines were Romans (even your nick is revealing that that's your ultimate goal) but once again you are wrong! To make another analogy, the Ottoman Turks annexed Byzantium and gave Ottoman citizenship to all the Byzantines! The modern Greeks, the pontic Greeks etc. are the descendants of the Byzantines. Do you know any modern Greek being proud of his "Ottoman identity", of his "Ottoman citizenship"? Why then the Greeks should be proud of their (non existent even during the Byzantine times, especially from the 7th century onwards) "Romanitas"?
@@ThomasGazis The christians of the ottoman empire are notoriously known for being second class citizens. Also, the ottomans called greece "rumelia" meaning land of the romans. The only people who didn't call the medieval romans "Romans" were the catholic westerners because they didn't want to believe that the medieval orthodox greeks were the true romans and that the holy roman empire was the true heir. You are giving into the propaganda. Everyone else whether it was from eastern europe, the middle east, eastern asia would have called the greeks romans at that time, and that isn't a bad thing. They were greco-romans. greek as their ethnicity, and roman for their nationality. Just because the western half of the roman empire fell didnt mean the eastern provinces just stopped being the roman government.
@@romainvicta8817 The ethnicity of Byzantine Romans was all random, not only Greeks. Remember back in the Middle Ages, Europeans in the West learned Latin because it was a scholarly and religious language. The Byzantine Romans called the 4th-Crusaders 'Latins' because they were using this language for intercommunication in their armies. In reality, Western European ethnicity varied all over the place. Likewise in a similar fashion, western Europeans called the Byzantines Romans 'Graeci' in order to deny them any association with Roman heritage. The reality there was that the Rhomaioi consisted of multiple ethnic groups united in Orthodoxy, and they spoke Greek as a national language. Eastern Romans in 13th century were Greek-speaking, not ethnically Greek.
There are Byzantine coins of the 11th century that still have Latin on them and Constantinople was called New Rome and there are examples of the people of the empire being called the "children of New Rome". Personaly I use the term Eastern Roman Empire or New Rome and they definately deserve the term "Roman" unlike the HRE. I am Greek and this rise of "Greek not Roman" nationalism (most of whom don't even know they were called Romans) is a result of poor education on Greece's part (influenced by the west) on the middle ages and the identity of the Eastern Romans and allthough Greek speaking they fail to recognise the different ethnicities the empire had even on its final days, such as Illyrians, Vlachs, Armenians and Slavs. Even many of the "Greeks" were descedants of neighbor nations that through thousands of years lost their language in favour of Greek. When it comes to modern Greece I do believe we can be both Hellenes and Romans.
Hello from Russia! I don’t know why, but in Russia the term “Rhomaion Empire” has taken root quite well. Not Roman, no - Rhomaion (in Russia it's more like romean or ромейская). And for some reason, people understand what it's about. I think the problem is that for the West there is no established synonym - Rhomaion. Hell, even the translator from whom I write continues to stubbornly edit everything into Roman. That's funny). But I think that any scientific or non-scientific research should be presented in a clear and well-formed language. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to use a variety of established options. And therefore, for me, the terms Byzantine and Rhomaion are equivalent synonyms, although I like the term Rhomaion Empire more.
The term Roman in English is mostly associated with the Classical Romans of Italy, who spoke Classical Latin as we know. It is kinda wrong to attach the same term to the Byzantines-Eastern Romans as they were culturally Greek or Hellenic and also followed the Chalcedonian creed of Christianity. The term Rhomaios-Rhomaioi-Romei (Greek Ρωμαίοι) is what they actually used to refer to themselves and that actually remained a thing for the Greek speaking populations up until the 20th century.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. By the way, a citizen of Hellas, tell me - how do you teach history and in general, how much attention is paid to the Byzantine period? It seems to me that history lessons in Greece should be extremely entertaining and unusual.
@@Крэйден_х Well history is teached in a similar structure to that of the other European countries. However regarding the Byzantine period we are getting teached only a few things mostly regarding Justinian's time as an Emperor and the creation of Hagia Sophia. Then it's followed by the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 but there is little detail regarding the culture and character of Byzantium as a whole. The history books tend to focus more on the Ancient Greek period and Antiquity as the Hellenic Republic and the Greek people are named after the Ancient Greeks so much more attention is paid there. Despite that there is a little reference to the Greeks of Anatolia known as Rum-Romans but they are still referred to as Hellenes and not as Romei, as they identified historically.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 I like the term Rhomaion Empire better than Byzantine. But I see a problem in your logic. The term Rhomaios in Greek is just the simple rendition of Latin Romanus from which English Roman hails. When the Byzantine Romans were calling themselves Rhomaioi, they did not do so with the intention to cut themselves off from the classical Latin Romanus past. Rhomaios just means Roman to the Byzantine Romans. So there is no problem in English with calling them either Romans or Rhomaioi, they mean the same thing.
@@MagisterMilitumBelisarius5365 It might have started as a rendition of the term Romanus (which became a citizenship title to all the citizens of the Empire after the reign of Emperor Caracalla) but the term Rhomaios received ethnical characteristics by 800 AD. The Roman ethnos which Anna Komnena tells us about was formed by adopting the Greek language( also known as Rhomaika), Hellenistic education and membership to the Orthodox creed. Don't act like the Eastern Romans remained the same. They went through a lot of changes between the Late Antiquity and throughout the Medieval period. This is why the term Byzantine was founded in the first place, to differentiate the Medieval Romans from their Ancient counterparts with the difference being that the term Roman used in English today refers to the Classic Romans of the Ancient Antiquity, while the term Byzantine refers to the Rhomaioi(Greek speaking Romans), of the Eastern Roman Empire. I don't know why most people tend to become annoyed with the term Byzantine. Did you know that the citizens of Constantinople used it as a means of identification?.
I think the idea of Byzantine Romanity led them to unconsciously de-Romanize themselves and anything genuinely Roman. Whenever a Byzantine historian or emperor expressed his desire to restore the glory of the Roman empire, they did not speak of one of Trajan or Augustus but one of Justinian who saw various Greek colonies and Greek and eastern officials settle throughout the Mediterranean as It happened with the Byzantine papacy in Italy. Just as every time they wished to express their desire to educate all barbarians in the "Roman" language, they did not refer to the Latin language but to the Koine Greek of their time. According to them "Romanization" was actually a "Hellenization" this is clearly expressed in the treatment of their political and legal institutions, they unwittingly adopted Hellenistic concepts of governance and Hellenistic legal interpretations through the Christian canons of great fathers in the church from the Eastern Mediterranean such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Philo of Alexandria who promoted an absolute Theocratic government with the emperor as God's viceroy that was eventually adopted in Byzantium and made it virtually unrecognizable from the Latin Roman Empire, originally more republican in contrast. To all this it should be added that in the conscience of any Byzantine citizen, they were clear that his ancestors were not Italians but Greeks and people from the east, a memory shared by all. "Let us remember of what men we are descendants of, and if one wishes to refer to our oldest ancestors, refer to the old Hellenes....and refer to the ancient Romans, from whom we are named after....However our origins lie in both of these genes...we are the heirs of Alexander the Great and his successors" -Manuel Chrysochloras, Byzantine Ambassador and scholar, from his book "Peri tou Basileus ton Romaion" Epistule XLIX "So, of is the Hellenes, many earned great glory, having demonstrated great and praiseworthy deeds, some of us in Europe and even in Africa, even reaching Gagges and Oceanus and the Caucasus, and in those lands had come before us many others, like Hercules, and even earlier Dionysus, the son of Semele, and afterworlds the Lacedaimonians and the Athenians, and after them the king of Macedonians, and those that succeeded him in power..."-Laonikos Chalkokondylis, Greek Historiographer of the 15th century , from his book "de origins ad rebus estis turkorum" 04-0.
I love me the good smell of Western centrism in the morning Cultural differences between Western and Eastern Romans always existed explaining the rapid rise of religious debates for example, an activity more prevalent in the old Greek world that composed Eastern Rome Trajan and Augustus weren't mentioned maybe because for the Romans of 600 or after, they weren't relevant for them The Late Christian Roman Empire was the product of Diocletian and Constantine not the old Pagan Emperors that Americans loves to dream about Trying to separate Greekness from Romanity appart from being incredible egoistical and again western centric, ignores the process from which the Greeks, Macedonians, Anatolians, Egyptians and others slowly through cultural changes became Romans too, Romans who were perfectly valid ones unlike what some believe Furthermore you Roman enthusiasts needs to realize the significance of time, just realize for a moment the gap between the Greek colonization of the East and Justinian's reign A whole Millennia had passed by then So to conclude, Western centrism needs to fuck off and anyone can be a perfectly valid Roman so long as the way of behaving like one is preserved (which it was for long after the West became its own thing)
@@maude7420 Yes. Your point of view is very limited, still people like you should pay attention to the consequences of said periods before discarding them due to their longevity. The Hellenistic colonization had been a millennium ago, but does this affect the socio-cultural environment of the Eastern Mediterranean? You are right and that is that the number of people who think of this empire as a continuation of the legacy of Augustus and Trajan had very little to do with their prowess, the Eastern Roman Empire in question agreed to carry and adopt the Roman legacy and more importantly , what it meant to be Roman but they interpreted it through the flow of Christianized Greek civilization which was undeniably a major contrast to earlier Roman culture as well as contemporary Roman Catholic culture
@@maude7420 Romanity and Hellenity could coexist in the self-identification of the Byzantines themselves, that is why on many occasions the two are used as synonyms as when Constantine Porphyrogennetos described the Greek populations of the Peloponnese
Greek nattionalism is a crazy thing, is it not? What utter nonsense. The Byzantine Romans made multiple references to classical Romans of antiquity. It is unbelievable just how many references to classical Latin Romans that you can find if you actually read the Byzantine works. Just read Michael Psellos for starters. He talks about Cicero, many Roman emperors and claims to be descended from Romulus and Remus. Michael Attaletiates talks about how Michael VII tries to imitate Emperor Trajan but does a bad job at it. He also discusses how the Roman Empire of this time had not lived up to the image of the Roman Republic. He talks a lot about Marcus Aurelius, too. Emperor Constantine the PurpleBorn refers a great deal to Emperors like Augustus Caesar, Diocletian, and calls Julius Caesar "the divine one". And the historian Bryennios makes up a fictional geneology for the Doukas Dynasty, claiming that they are descended from Rome. Nicephorus II Phocas is made out to be a descendant of the Flavian house of ancient Rome. When Heraclius returned victorious from his campaigns against the Sassanids, he was hailed as "Scipio Africanus" by the crowds of Constantinople. Then we have multiple other references to historical Roman figures, and of course the Byzantine Romans called themselves "Ausones", meaning Italians. So much for Byzantine-Romans not talking about ancient Romans....
Why not just call them Rhomaios? It means Romans, it's what they used to describe themselves, and it can be helpful in differentiating them from their Classical Roman Ancestors for academic reasons.
I think it’s fair to call it the Eastern Roman Empire after 395 and until the Arab invasions, since that includes Justinian’s conquests and the final Latin emperors, and is a time when the empire still held control over most of the Mediterranean. and then the Byzantine empire empire after the Arab invasions because that’s when it became a Greek speaking regional power
"It may be said, however, that despite its multi-national character, three forces tended to give it unity. One was Orthodoxy, the other a common language, and the third the imperial tradition. The first and the second were Greek and to the extent that they were Greek the Empire was Greek also. The third was Roman, and to that extent the Empire was also Roman." The Transfer of Population as a Policy in the Byzantine Empire Author(s): Peter Charanis Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 3, No. 2, (Jan., 1961), pp. 140-154 Published by: Cambridge University Press
@@aidandavies6164 It was the Singular Roman Empire under one Emperor. Both the Senates of Rome and Constantinople recognized that the co division was over When Nepos died as Zeno kept the western Regalia and Sigil as now Sole Emperor of the Empire after Odoacer sent it to him. It’s why the Visigoths and Ostrogoths switched from minting coins of Western Emperors to ones of the Emperors in Constantinople until Justinian’s invasion It’s an important distinguisher that helps understand why the Pope declared Charlemagne successor to the recently deposed Constantine VI as Roman Emperor and not Romulus Augustus/Nepos as Western Roman Emperor. Justinian used this very fact of Being Sole Emperor of the Entire Empire to legitimize his reconquest of the West.
@@tylerellis9097 I'm not claiming that isn't what happened, the East was the sole Roman empire, but it was still based in the east, this does not mean it is any less Rome too be clear. I personally fully believe that the eastern empire was Roman, but in a historical sense, the Roman empire lasted so long, that it can be necessary to have a different name for it after 476. I personally believe Roman (whilst the most accurate) can make history more confusing, while Byzantine as a name seeks to distance the later empire from early, which is very false
@@aidandavies6164 I get what your saying but how is that different from the United Empire under Emperors like Julian or Constantine who ruled from Constantinople? Personally I prefer using Byzantine Roman or Medieval Roman. With Eastern Roman reserved for the period of 395-480. But I’m not against using Byzantine either
Before the final reunification of Greece during the Balkan Wars, there were some minor islands in the Aegean Sea that were some of the last places to be brought back into the Greek fold. When the soldiers announced to the local populace "We have rescued you; You are Greeks as we are!" the populace replied "We are not Hellenes, we are Romans!" I don't know if this is myth, but considering Gothic was spoken in Crimea until the 16th Century, I find it highly plausible.
hellene was a term only educated people knew back them and it is a fabricated identity forced on us before 1821 all greeks called themselves romios meaning roman .We are the succesors of ancient greece and eastern Roman empire both are part of our history
That's because the Anatolian Greeks still identified as Romans. The Hellenes of the 19th century Greece also identified as Roman before the creation and formation of the Kingdom of Greece in 1827. Both of them are ethnically Greek or descending from the populations of the Byzantine Empire. So this argument between "Romans" and "Hellenes" is dumb, considering they are culturally the continuation of both.
You are not mistaken. Until the creation of the modern Greece, Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued calling themselves as "Romans". And even after independence, informally many Greeks continued calling themselves as "Romans". Until the late 1900s (like 1970s, 80s, 90s) there were people (usually old) who kept using the term "Roman". So Greeks didn't drop the term "Roman" as far back in history, as some people might think.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 By saying "Pontic Greeks", do you mean Greeks who are currently living in Trabzon (Turkey), or their descendants living in Greece?
"In his »Comparison of the Old and the New Rome«, addressed to emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1391-1425), Manuel Chrysoloras presented Rome as the mother and Constantinople as the daughter which was founded by the two most powerful and wise peoples of the world, the Romans and the Hellenes, who had come together there in order to create a city that would be able to rule over the whole world. In a sermon to the same emperor, he stated that the Rhomaioi were the offspring of the Romans and the Hellenes, thus being ENTITLED TO USE BOTH NAMES." Yannis Stouraitis, pp. 86-87, "Reinventing Roman Ethnicity in High and Late Medieval Byzantium" medieval worlds • No. 5 • 2017 • 70-94
"With the collapse of the empire in the west, its eastern counterpart became, in reality, an entirely new and independent state, at once Greek by language and Roman in name: 'A Greek Roman empire'." Roderick Beaton, "The Greeks: a global history", New York: Basic books 2021, pp. 212
The Qur'an includes the Surat Ar-Rum, the sura dealing with "the Romans", sometimes translated as "The Byzantines," reflecting a term now used in the West. These Romans of the 7th century, referred to as Byzantines in modern Western scholarship, were the inhabitants of the surviving Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Since all ethnic groups within the Roman empire had been granted citizenship by 212 AD, these eastern peoples had come to label themselves Ρωμιοί or Ῥωμαῖοι Romaioi (Romans), using the word for Roman citizen in the eastern lingua franca of Koine Greek. This citizenship label became "Rûm" in Arabic. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire traced its origin as an institution to the foundation of Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330 by Constantine the Great. The Byzantine Empire survived the 5th century, when the Western Roman Empire fell, more or less intact and its populace continually maintained that they were Romaioi (Romans), not Hellenes (Greeks), even as the empire's borders gradually became reduced to in the end only encompassing Greek-speaking lands.
Finally, after tens and tens of luxury videos that are blindly (and apparently deliberately) calling Byzantium "Roman", a more objective video, with some critical thinking in it. When Byzantium was "born", the populations in Asia Minor (the main Byzantine land - modern Turkey by now) were highly imbued by a Greek-Hellenistic identity - and they were quite proud of it. So, the narrative that in a single night (when a few thousand Roman soldiers and administrators arrived in Asia Minor, which had an indigenous population of probably 20.000.000 back then) in a single night the Asia Minor populations dropped out their Greek-Hellenistic identiny in favor of the Roman one - keeping their "Romanitas" intact up untill the 15th century - is simply preposterous! Coming to modern Greeks, most of them are claiming that Byzantium was Greek, not out of some nationalistic fanatism but out of mere evidential experience. You see, many modern Greeks are of Byzantine descent (I have never heard any Italian Roman being of Byzantine descent). I am a Greek of Byzantine descent. We are keeping in my family documents, books, ikons, heirlooms going back several centuries. All of them are loudly telling me that my ancestors were feeling Greeks and not Romans at all! The only Greeks claiming that Byzantium was "Roman" are some "leftist", nation-nihilist people, constituting a minority within the Greek population. By the way, you are wrong when you are claiming that only the western Europeans were deliberately calling the Byzantines "Greeks". There is ample historical evidence that the Arabs, the Persians, the Bulgarians etc. were also calling the Byzantines Greeks!
The writer uses the ambiguous term “Hellene,” which generally means “pagan” in Byzantine Greek. Plethon and his followers used the term almost to the exclusion of all others when referring to their own countrymen. Nagy., 2003. Modern Greek Literature. Taylor & Francis, p.30.
My take: Byzantine Romans: All Byzantines were Romans, but not all Romans were Byzantines, just like all Illinoisans are Americans, but not all Americans are Illinoisans. Just because someone calls me Illinoisan doesn't mean they are denying my American identity. Likewise, calling them Byzantines doesn't deny their claim to being Roman. Peace
Byzantines were Greeks and other Balkan people who called themselves Roman, that didn’t make them Romans. Most people, including historians make the big mistake of implying that being a Roman was just a citizenship, and that it’s wrong because it erases the original Romans, because, yes, there were ethnic Romans, they were one of the Latin tribes (eventually they absorbed all the other Latin tribes into their realm) from Latium, modern Lazio in Central Italy, the people of Rome were never replaced, the fact that they gave citizenship to everyone in the empire they created didn’t erased their ethnicity or identity, not even the rest of the people in the Italian peninsula were ethnic Romans, they were Latinized just like many other people in other parts of the empire, even today the people from Rome (the city) call themselves Romans, they never stopped calling themselves as such, and they are truly the real descendants of the Romans, not like Greeks of Istanbul who still call themselves Ῥωμαῖος (Rhomaîos) Roman, while being ethnically Greek, here in Italy we identify ourselves first with our region/city, as Ligurians, Lombards, Neapolitans, Romans, Venetians, Sicilians etc, it was like that in ancient times too, so if we still have such a view of our identity, I imagine that the people back them did too, because such identity was inherited from them, we are Italian because we are citizens of Italy, not because there is such a thing as an Italian ethnicity, take for example modern multicultural nations like Germany for example, everyone with German citizenship is a German, even Turks there, but that doesn’t mean that ethnic Germans doesn’t exist, same for Russia were there are two terms for Russians, “Россиянин” which refer to a Russian citizen, and “Русский” which applies to an ethnic Russian, so to say that the people of the Eastern Roman Empire were simply Romans because they called themselves as such it’s not accurate, Greeks knew they were Greeks, they were just proud of living in such a powerful state like the Roman Empire, like Americans of different ethnic backgrounds are proud of living in the most powerful country in the world, to imply that there was no distinction between the Western empire centered in Rome and the Eastern empire centered in Constantinople is denying the Latinness and the Greekness of both entities respectively regardless of how they called themselves, it is ok to use the term Byzantine for the Eastern Roman Empire, we know they didn’t called themselves as such but calling them just Romans has erased the Latin Romans from history so much to the point that they think that Roman was just a citizenship/ cultural thing, and that is even more wrong than calling Eastern Romans “Byzantines”. Yes, people of different ethnicities contributed to the greatness of the Roman Empire, especially Greeks in the Eastern part but let’s please remember the people that created the empire (the Latin Romans) with respect by making a distinction between them and the rest.
Identity The Byzantine ruling elite faced the outside world and its unending dangers with a strategic advantage that was neither diplomatic nor military but instead psychological: the powerful moral reassurance of a triple identity that was more intensely Christian than most modern minds can easily imagine, and specifically Chalcedonian in doctrine: Hellenic in its culture, joyously possessing pagan Homer, agnostic Thucydides, and ir reverent poets-though Hellene was a word long avoided, for it meant pagan; and proudly Roman as the Romaioi, the living Romans, not without justification for Roman institutions long endured, at least sym bolically. But until the Muslim conquest took away the Levant and Egypt from the empire, this triple identity was also a source of local disaffection from the ruling Constantinopolitan elite, for of the three only the Ro man identity was universally accepted. To begin with, the speakers of Western Aramaic and Coptic, who accounted for most of the population of Syria and Egypt, including the Jews in their land and beyond it, did not partake in the Hellenic cul ture-except for their own secular elites, which were organically part of the Byzantine regime and were indeed often attacked by nativists as "Hellenizers." For the rest, the masses either did not know that Homer ever lived, or were easily led by unlettered fanatical priests to vehe mently hate what they were too ignorant to enjoy. Moreover, the zone that rejected Hellenism, as it had rejected the Roman habit of bathing as too sensual, also rejected the excessively intel lectual Chalcedonian definition of the dual nature of Christ, both human and divine, insisting on the more purely monotheistic conception of the single, divine nature of Christ. Luttwak, E., 2011. Grand strategy of the byzantine empire. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard, p.410 The word ' Hellene ' in the Byzantine period just meant ' pagan ' . The Byzantines called themselves ' Romaioi ' , the successors of the Roman empire ; they did not want to have anything to do with the ancient pagan Greek religion . Hokwerda, H., 2021.. Constructions of greek past. Groningen: Forsten, p.261. in a letter addressed to John VIII as 'Emperor of Hellas'. We have come a long way from the days when the ambassador Liudprand of Cremona was thought unfit to be received at the Court because his credentials were addressed to the 'Emperor of the Greeks'. But 'Graeci' was never an acceptable term. George Scholarius, the future Patriarch Gennadius, who was to be the link between the old Byzantine world and the world of the Turcocratia, often uses 'Hellene' to mean anyone of Greek blood. But he had doubts about its propriety; he still retained the older view. When he was asked his specific opinion about his race, he wrote in reply: "Though I am a Hellene by birth, yet I would never say that I was a Hellene. For I do not believe as the Hellenes believed. I should like to take my name from my faith and, if anyone asked me what I am, to reply "a Christian". Though my father dwelt in Thessaly,' he adds, 'I do not call myself a Thessalian, but a Byzantine. For I am of Byzantium.' It is to be remarked that though he repudiates the name of Hellene he calls the Imperial City not New Rome or Constantinople, but by its old Hellenic name. Runciman, S. (1970). IMPERIAL DECLINE AND HELLENIC REVIVAL. In The Last Byzantine Renaissance (The Wiles Lectures, pp. 1-23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In contradistinction to a Julian, an Alexander Severus, a Marcus Aurelius and even a Hadrian, who felt themselves more Greek than Latin, Justinian wished to be a Latin Roman Emperor. He was confirmed in these feelings by his horror of Hellen ism. A Roman Emperor, Justinian was also a Christian Emperor. He considered himself the pillar of the Christian orthodox faith. The Hellenic spirit is profoundly pagan and Justinian abominated it. For him, as for his contem poraries and successors, Hellene was synonymous with pagan and to call anyone by this term was to insult him. The Greek peoples themselves assumed the name Pauaio (Romans). Even to-day Romios is still used by the common people. Hellene is an artificial term revived in the nineteenth century. The capital of the Empire is called Roum by the Arab and Turkish peoples of Asia. Lot, F., 2013. End of the Ancient World. Routledge. Many diverse peoples and languages coexisted within the Byzantine empire (Laiou and Maguire (eds.) 1992), and although Greek was the language of government and high culture and the terms 'Hellene' and even 'Greek' were sometimes applied to themselves by educated members of the elite in Constantinople from the Comnenian period onwards (Stouraitis 2014), Byzantium was not a Greek empire and Greek was never the only language spoken. Nevertheless the Byzantines' sense of themselves rested on a shared mythology of universalism and superiority. Linehan, P., Nelson, J. and Costambeys, M., n.d. The medieval world.
"Byzantine" is good as long as you admit to it being a purely historiographical term that denotes the obvious differences between the height of the Roman Empire and Eastern Rome in the Middle Ages. Saying Byzantines is also way shorter and rolls off the tongue easier than saying "Eastern Romans" or, God forbid, "Eastern Roman Imperials." The state was Rome, they were Romans, we just call them Byzantines.
The Byzantines called themselves Romans to the very end. They were Greek speaking and the knew they were Greek not only becaiuse they spoke Greeek but because they were living in the roman empire where the majority were actually Greek. They knew they were the successors of the Romans state-wise. Fun facrt: the modern Greeks still call themselves Romans (Romioi / Ρωμιοί).
If you think about,the name "Byzantine" doesn't even make sense. Byzantium and the Byzantines technically refers to the city and its inhabitants before Constantine transferred the imperial capital. So if anyone wants to denote the Roman aspect of the Roman East,the term "Constantinopolitan" should be used as this was how the empire was usually referred after 800 A.D.
Eastern Romans is the most appropriate name, they described themselves as Romans with a Roman Emperor in the Roman Empire long past even the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The only reason Byzantine was coined further west was because the Pope and Holy Roman Emperors contested the succession of Rome, so couldnt let another nation have the name especially when that nation had never accepted new western emperors, seeing themselves as the unified empire
At the end of the day, they were the true continuation of the Roman civilization and an argument can be plausibly constructed that the Greek language itself, being so indispensable to the ancient Romans in so many different ways, was a Roman cultural element that was retained by the Christian Romans of Byzantium. They prided themselves on being Romans, so I prefer to respect their right to self-determination.
If we look in terms of administrative continuity, the Byzantines are the legal heirs of the Romans. Also, their culture was Greek, and it is the closest culture to the Roman culture , the only thing that can be used against them being Romans is the eastern influence on them , especially by the Persians
In my opinion, i have settled with eastern rome to acknowledge the roman identity but keeping it clear that we are speaking of the 'byzantine' period, i still see them as roman because at once constantinople was romes capital, and why should we see them as non roman as they dont hold rome when for example we call turkey turkish even though turkey doesnt hold the land the turks origionated from. Also as rome attemped to romanise their empire and saw eastern rome as roman, that would mean the 'byzantines' are roman as the 'true romans' saw them as other roman people.
They are romans through and through but the subsequent change of geography, religion and Language created a complicated juxtapose against that to Rome(Italy) and western europe. ironically speaking troy which is modern day western anatolia is practically the homeland of the romans (Aeneas) if we follow the Myth then The anatolian heartland is practically the roman heartland.
Very good point. The Byzantine Romans were well aware of what you refer to, and so they called themselves on many occasions 'Ausones' meaning Italians, as they believed themselves to be descended from the ancient Romans of Italy. One particular author, Hesychios the Illustrious, a senator of Constantinople bearing the rank of Illustris, talks about this in the Patria Constantinopolitan. So the Byzantine Romans were aware of the Trojan myth and that Anatolia was the supposed homeland of the Romans.
Eastern rome/ Byzantines and byzantium, = greek. You can argue, debate, and call it roman all you want, we have scriptures and artifacts from the byzantine empire that are all written in greek. they even had the area of modern greece. Search up byzantine scripture/battle art, you will find one from the medieval era written in greek.
"It is undoubtedly now known, regardless of national goals, that the Byzantine state is the organic continuation of the Roman Empire, that its art owes a lot to the Hellenistic achievement and the Eastern experience of those times, but as a cultural continuation (and not only linguistic) Byzantium is registered only as an experience of Hellenism." How much Greek is Byzantium - How Byzantine are the Neo-Greeks? Glykatzi - Ahrweiler Eleni
Byzantine Empire was not, especially then, a national Greek state but had a broadly international character, despite the fact that Greek was the official language. In that state the Bulgarian element was preserved and could develop. Daskalov, R., 2021. Master narratives of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria. Leiden: Brill, p.114.
‘…That in the race of us the Hellenes, wisdom reigns’ ‘ὅτι τε ἐν τῷ γένει τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡμῶν ἡ σοφία βασιλεύει’ Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (1193-1254) to Pope Gregorio IX
"Let us remember of what men we are descendants of, and if one wishes to refer to our oldest ancestors, refer to the old Hellenes....and refer to the ancient Romans, from whom we are named after....However our origins lie in both of these genes...we are the heirs of Alexander the Great and his successors" Manuel Chrysochloras, "Peri tou Basileus ton Romaion" Epistule XLIX
Hellenes as they were called, were persecuted by the enforcement of these general rules; Justinian endeavored, above all things, to deprive them of education, and he had the University of Athens closed in 529; at the same time ordering wholesale conversations. The Cambridge Medieval History volumes 1-5 by John Bagnell Bury, Paul Dalen (Goodreads Author) (Editor)
The problem with this kind of logic is that it stands on shaky ground. The loss of the Levant and Egypt did not create a 'Byzantine' Empire. It was the continuation of the Roman Empire until 1453. As can be witnessed in the writings of post 14th-century eastern Byzantine Romans like Michael Ducas, Sphrantzes Theodore Metochites and Nicephorus Gregoras, they all considered Rome to have fallen in 1453. There are no mentions of Greece having fallen or Byzantines, just Rome.
Biggest problems with the Byzantine-Roman devate is that people just look at the Ceasar and Augustus's Rome and then Basil and Alexios' Rome without bothering to analize anything in between.
Rome in 753 BC is nothing like Rome in 400 B.C. or Rome in 120 AD. What it meant to be Roman changed. It is like asking what it means to be American or what it means to be French.
"Under the pressures of Great Power Politics and the geopolitical tensions emerging from the Crimean War (1853-56), “Byzantine Empire” displaced “Greek Empire” as the favored formulation for many European scholars. Kaldellis underscores how this terminological change reflected ideological anxiety: the fear among many Europeans that the history of the “Greek empire” might legitimate the irredentist ambitions of Greek nationalists and Russian imperialists to recover Constantinople. The term Byzantium, Kaldellis argues, enabled scholars to avoid the slippage between an acceptable Greek nation and an intolerable Greek empire, while also walling it off from problematic associations with imperial Rome. This invention of Byzantium remained an ideological imposition, but one that granted the young discipline the independent status its Western devotees craved." Aschenbrenner And Ransohoff, The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, introduction, 2021, pp 21
Modern greek historians traditionally see the term "byzantine" as a useful historiographic term to make the distinction between latin/pagan period and the christian/greek period. But in modern times it seems to have a limitation. Not because it does not emphasize the roman character of byzantine empire (as someone may assume). But because the real endonym of modern greeks is "romei" (rhomaioi). In the consciousness of greeks when you call byzantines "romans" you hellenize more than you rominize them. And then you can see an identity of some 2000 years (from roughly early christian times).
@@MessiniaGreece Be careful about assuming that an identity 1500 years ago is the same as the one that your people had in the '70s. Here is a real-life case-study. Imagine comparing the ethnic identity of the Kieven Rus to the ethnic identity of modern Ukrainians and Russians, who are both descended from the Rus. Eastern Romans had a much stronger Roman identity than modern Greeks. I have yet to meet or to see a modern Greek say that they are the descendants of Augustus Caesar. Several eastern Romans made that claim, or stated to be descended from Marcus Aurelius.
@@locomotivebearingdown5381 The Greeks have the same national character since Homeric times. Any change didn't occur due the romanization but rather the christianization. The Christianity of course matched with the hellenic humanocentric civilization but certain aspects of their worldview and their moral values did change. Byzantines had first and foremost orthodox christian identity and they were closer to the early Christians than the pagan Romans up to the 3rd century.
@@locomotivebearingdown5381 If you read Plato on the original as a Greek is like reading a newspaper. If you read Homer's epics you will realize the the homeric era greeks have the same family values as today. But on the same time Apostle Paul to an orthodox christian sounds like a toady's saint of the Orthodoxy. If you read the life of the Saints of 1st or 4th century you will realize that is the same exact civilization. And Russians since their cristianization did not change as much for over 1000 years as they change during the cristianization on 10th century. Byzantines did kept the practice of commemorate the stories of classical Romans but their idea of self (especially the common people) is Us, Orthodox Christians , in this state in the center of the world, surrounded by foreigners. Also the demotic songs are the same exact tradition as the akritic songs (to the point to not be able to tell one of another apart if it was not of it's theme).
Or you'll just call them (medieval) greeks like they were called in the west in the middle ages. This is where the "greek fire" comes from. Not byzantine or roman fire. Also the greek language in the middle ages was called rhomaika. So basically "rhomaion" meant not only roman but mainly greek.
Just can't imagine how long the Roman empire lasted since the founding of Imperial Rome under Caesar and Augustus (Octavian) to Constantine IX. The length of time span is about 1500 years, making it the longest lasting empire in history. If we were to trace back our current time of 2022 to 522 AD that is 1500 years back, we are looking at the time of Justin I, or the uncle of future Roman/Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great. That is like 6 or 7 epochs away. Late Antiquity + Early Medieval + Medieval + Renaissance + Enlightenment + Modern. To trace from Constantine IX's time. Classical Antiquity + Late Antiquity + Early Medieval + Medieval + Renaissance (just snuck into the period). That is 4 eras of human history that the Roman empire lasted since Caesar. Absolutely extraordinary.
"The Byzantine empire was clearly, despite its multinational dimension, a GREEK empire while its neighbours considered it so, and whose unity was based on the power of authority, in the dominance of Orthodoxy and the use of Greek as the official language." Sylvain Gouguenheim, "La gloire des Grecs", 2017, pp. 73
![True Size of a Byzantine Army [c. 900 AD] 3D DOCUMENTARY](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jE48hMEGlPI/mqdefault.jpg)
Made with iOS IbisPaint. Track used near the end is the Byzantine Atomic theme from the Civilization VI OST, I don't own the rights to this track.
Blog post (with text) here remembermylord.com/2021/11/08/byzantine-or-roman/
Really? All your given reasons why it should be called Byzantine can be resolved by calling them Eastern Romans. This name reflects their own self-identification (Roman) and the differences from the first century Empire of Augustus ( Eastern ).
No, you’ll find the debate out there is very much all or nothing. Completely Roman or not. Also the contrast you’re talking about is probably more medieval / ancient than eastern / western.
And at the end of the day ‘Eastern Roman Empire’ technically expired when the Western Empire fell. Calling them the Eastern Romans does seem like a good compromise (I like to use it too) but a) it doesn’t fit their self identification because they didn’t call themselves Eastern Romans, just Romans, and b) the implication is that there must then be a Western Empire. Only that ended in 476. Unless we mean the HRE is the Western Empire, which it isn’t. Either way ‘Eastern Empire’ still doesn’t do much to address the issue
@@foojer Nah, it does not imply that the Western Empire still existed, only that the origins of the Eastern Empire were in the Eastern half of the whole Empire. What you stated does not follow with strict necessity from the title Eastern empire, thus is just your interpretation. This is not geometry, it is history, where the phenomena are way more complex, and thus alternative views may be as valid.
I take your point that we see it as the eastern portion of the Empire. They didn’t though, they just called themselves Romans, not Eastern Romans. Calling them Byzantines might even carry more merit than calling them Eastern Romans, since at least they referred to Constantinople as Byzantium. Arguably ‘Eastern Roman’ doesn’t cause any more confusion than Byzantine vs Roman, but I dont think it does much to settle the debate either
Edit: plus the ERE was an actual administrative term at one point, we do need to work with its boundaries. It existed only because the WRE existed at the same time.
@@foojer Funny that you say they called themselves Roman and then say it is more appropriate to call them Byzantines. It is the only historical entity where this type of argument is made. There was even a time, if I remember correctly after the year 1000, when they called their realm Romania. This is kind of funny for me because I am Romanian born in modern Romania and this does sound confusing and would be if it would be used to describe Eastern Rome or Byzantium if you will with that name. However in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages even south of the Danube there was a Latin/Romance speaking population that was part of the Empire until the year 602 when the area was overrun by the Avars and Slavs. Well, the Huns under Attila exterminated part of that population in their campaigns in the 440’s, which allowed Slavs even during Justinian’s time to populate some of those lands. Sadly even the later Empire would call their descendants not Romans but Vlachs, which is a Germanic exonym for all Roman citizens or their descendants (see the current term Wales which is derived from the same Germanic exonym.
I find it interesting that you limit the term Eastern Roman Empire to the administrative unit between 395 and 476. No was not just the administrative unit, because it had all the organization and trappings of an empire with its separate Emperor, which made it very easy for “that administrative unit” to survive after the fall of the Western part of the Empire. If it was just an administrative unit it might not have survived as easily when the West fell, but it would have been dragged down along with it.
They were Romans, but in a changed way. After hundreds of years, no culture stays exactly the same.
Rome was all about adopting and changing with the times. Rome took the model of centralized empire from the east. They took the heavily armed swordsman idea from the celts. They took the senate from the Greeks. The fact that they did change was the most Roman part of the Eastern empire.
I found out fairly recently as well that the "Byzantines" were Romans. I think that the name Byzantine should be replaced either by the term Roman or by Romeic Empire. The term Byzantine was adopted by western Europeans to hide the Roman nature of the eastern empire. It is not a desirable trait in academia.
Technically they used this name because again westerners are biased dudes that just don't want their precious name used by people that they seen not from the Italian or western part of Rome to use it.
In the words of Anthony Kaldellis, the guy who literally wrote the book on byzantine-Roman identity, "These were not Greeks pretending to be Romans, but Romans who spoke Greek". The so called Byzantine-Romans were what was left of the dream that was Rome. They were Romans and they carried the dying torch of Rome, just as Emperor Constantine intended when he built Nova Roma on old Byzantium.
My biggest issue with “Byzantine” is that it doesn’t emphasise the Roman aspects of the Empire. When I was first made aware of it when I was younger, it took me a fairly long time to realise that they were in any way descended from the Roman Empire. I prefer using “Eastern Roman” since I do agree just using “Roman” is kind of vague, but I still feel that placing some emphasis on the Roman aspects of the Empire is necessary for clarity
I remember my teacher mentioning the fall of the “Byzantine Empire” as the point at which the Modern period begins, and the whole class was fine with this mysterious name. Only I asked who these guys were, since they sounded so important but we had never heard of them.
Of course the answer made no sense because we had never been taught about the partition of the Empire.
It is a great look at the Byzantine empire of that time but even so the Roman factor was equally weakened in all aspects:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_bureaucracy_and_aristocracy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_law
@@mathy4605 exactly. I was introduced to the ERE through Medieval 2: Total War. I had only a passing knowledge of medieval history at the time and when I encountered the faction in the campaign I had no idea what it is. I assumed “Byzantine” was its actual name and that it was just some random empire.
I like to alter between the two names depending on my point and the context
I mean, we already make the distinction between Republican, Principate and Dominate Rome, so why not add one more distinction with the Eastern Romans? I think using the term ”Byzantine” is derogatory and should be avoided.
I think 'Eastern Roman Empire' is the best compromise term, as it resolves most of the issues you get with "Byzantine Empire" or just "Roman Empire", I wish you'd touched on that in the video too.
Eastern Roman Empire still maintains the Roman character of the empire, and makes it clear to the listener that it is Roman. But the Eastern prefix allows for specificity, as in we're talking about the period the Roman Empire was geographically further east. It's also more consistent. We don't call the Holy Roman Empire the Frankfurt Empire, we call it the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy prefix specifying that we're talking about the HRE.
Eastern Roman Empire is specific to the time period, making it semantically useful, but it doesn't mislead or confuse the audience like "Byzantine" does (which is why I think Byzantine is a bad term, because it doesn't actually help clear up anything).
There can be doubt however much certain western Europeans try to rewrite history. They were Romans. Byzantine is a misnomer. If a time traveler could go back to 850 AD and ask a citizen who are they, they would flatly say Roman. Not Byzantine or anything else.
Nice, fun video. But they were not Byzantines. They were not Greeks. They were just Romans. They advertised themselves as Romans, not as Greeks or even Byzantines. So they were Romans, and we have to honor their right as a people to self-determination. The Patriarch in Istanbul still officially calls city as "New Rome" the name by which Constantine referred to his prized city. It was not a Greek empire but a Roman Empire.
They were Greeks with the Roman identity, after Latin died in the empire in the 7th century, you can see everything becoming more and more Greek
Greek empire now keep sniffing that copium on the UA-cam comments m.
I always thought of it as Roman. They were claiming until their end in 1453 that they were Romans.
I cannot believe that this is a serious debate. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, then it is a duck. No matter how much Heironymus Wolf wanted to deny it, they were Romans.
There was no break in continuity, so it WAS the Roman Empire. In our hearts and minds they will always be Romans. Nothing else will do but ROME.
I see them as Romans, as did most of their contemporaries in both the east and the west. The term Byzantine was not even in widespread use in Europe until the 19th century, and it only was introduced as a way of hindering the newly minted Kingdom of Greece from expanding its nationalism. The Greek nazionalistics who roam UA-cam claiming that Eastern Rome was Greek are using the Roman Empire for nazionalistic reasons.
When I see "Eastern Roman Empire", I click.
They were ROMAN.
No such thing as a Byzantine Greek Empire.
Nevertheless, great stuff as usual.
By that logic the latin empire should also be called the roman empire not latin
Eastern Roman Empire is fair enough.
For sure we know who is not Roman: the turks.
One thing that I do not fully understand is the argument that Byzantine Romans chose to speak Greek, thus they could not be Romans. What about the millions of Roman citizens in the early republican and imperial times who were speaking Greek? Was Julius Caesar also not a Roman because his mother tongue was Greek rather than Latin? Or does speaking Latin make Julius Caesar a Roman? Which brings me to another point. The offspring of western Europe does not like the idea of Romans speaking Greek. But to a classical Roman, anyone who did not speak Greek was not a true Roman in the educated sense at least. There was not a single wealthy Roman who did not know Greek, and those who refused to learn it were criticized as we saw in the case of Maxentius. To the Romans, Latin and Greek were both the cultural propriety of being nationally Roman.
Julius Caesar was born in rome, italy, from an ancient roman family and was as italian as you cold be!
in fact most early roman emperors, with the notable exceptions of Trajan and Hadrian, were italians only it the third century the emperors started be provincials ,again wit the exception of Valerian and his son Gallienus.
Eastern Romans are how I refer to them.
I see the argument for 'Byzantine' as very weak.
But while I prefer 'Roman', I think it's useful to also keep the use of 'Byzantine' not as the name of the empire, but as a convenient shorthand for the medieval period of the Roman Empire, in the same way we use today the term "Weimar Republic" to refer to the democratic state of Germany between world wars, with full knowledge that we're talking about the same Germany, and not some un-German successor state.
Definetly how I view it as well. Byzantine or a similar term should be used as an era for the Romans rather than a separate state as it is commonly done ie kingdom - Republic - principate - dominate - byzantine
Interesting
I too like the term Byzantine, but dislike saying Byzantine Empire
@@maude7420 Agreed. Byzantine Roman Empire is a solution. But Byzantine Empire is very disingenuous....
"Byzantine" isn't useful in any way. Historically speaking,the westerners at the time mostly referred to the Romam Empire as "Imperium Constantinopolitanum" because Constantinople was the center of it,so even the term "Byzantine" doesn't make sense in this context
Even a concept like Western and Eastern Rome wasn't firmly adopted let alone something called "Byzantine" It's 'Imperium Romanum' from 27 BC to 1453 AD end of.
I've heard someone make the argument that it's better to call it Byzantium rather than Eastern Rome
That's your false narrative!
@@ThomasGazis The only false narrative here is yours.... Your viewpoint of calling the eastern Romans 'Byzantine Greeks' is anachronistic. My proof of that is the hoard of videos and forums on which every week, ask the question "Why are we still calling them Byzantines instead of Romans"?
@@MagisterMilitumBelisarius5365 there is no falsification from my part! I am writing here using my true name and surname (you are using a nick), my UA-cam channel is full of content (yours has no content at all), I am providing ample info about me - you are providing none! So, if there is a falsifier here that is probably you!
Regarding my "false narrative" as you call it, I am providing you here some arguments proving that my "Byzantium was not Roman but predominantly Greek" narrative is true! Where are your own arguments?
"""For the eastern people the Eastern Roman empire was considered as a Greek empire. For the Armenians, Georgians and other people of the near and middle east the byzantines were called as yoni, Javan and yavani, which means Greeks.
In many islamic sources the Byzantine empire is also called Ighrigiyah and
yunaniyun. In one passage of the history of Ibn Zabala which was written at
814 AD it is mentioned that the king of the Greeks sent to Αl-Walid help, for the reconstruction of Mohamed's mosque in Medina.
The Arab historian and Geographer Ali al-Mascuch reffering to the period of Emperor Romanus Lekapenus and his policy, he characterizes the empire as homeland of the Greeks and the emperor as king of the Greeks.
Al-Tabari calls the Byzantine emperor as lord of the Greeks.At the same period , the Arab geographer Shams ad Din, also known and as Mukaddasi, writes "we will exclude now the description of Tarsus city and its periphery because for now is at the hand of the Greeks".Tarsus was capured by Emperor Nikiphorus Phokas at 965 AD.
For Pope Gregory the great, Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Liutprand of Cremona, Paul the Deacon the chronicler of the lombards, wiliam of Tyre and many others the eastern Roman empire was Greek and all the western documents call the empire as Imperium Graecorum which means a Greek empire.
Leo the Mathematecian (790-870 AD) calls himself a Greek through one of poems with the title"To myself who is called Greek" And he describes himself as a modest person who doesnt desire fame or riches.
Already from the 11th century Anna Comnene ("The Alexiad") uses the name Greeks as a national identification for the people of the empire.
Anna Comnene "The Alexiad"
Nicetas Choniates insisted on using the name "Hellenes", he states that he cannot continue in writting history, which is one of the greatest inventions of Hellenism and he stressed out the outrages attacks of the "Latins" against the "Hellenes" in the Peloponessus.
Nicetas Choniates, "The Sack of Constantinople", 9 '¦Å, Bonn, pp.806
Emperor John III Ducas Vatatzes (1192-1254 AD), wrote in a letter to Pope Gregory IX about the wisdom that "rains upon the Hellenic nation"and states that Constantine's heritage was passed on to the Hellenes, so he argued, and they alone were its inheritors and successors.
John Vatatzes, "Unpublished Letters of Emperor John Vatatzes", Athens I, pp.369--378, (1872)
Theodore II Lascaris (1222-1258), was eager to project the name of the Greeks with true nationalistic zeal. He made it a point that "the Hellenic race looms over all other languages" and that "every kind of philosophy and form of knowledge is a discovery of Hellenes... What do you, O Italian, have to display?"
Theodore Lascaris, "Christian Theology", 7,7 & 8
In the 14th cent AD Nikolaos Kavasilas calls Greeks the scholars of Thessaloniki, and the city as "house of Hellenism". Nicephorus Blemmydes referred to the Byzantine emperors as Hellenes. Theodore Alanias (in 1204) wrote in a letter to his brother that "the homeland may have been captured, but Hellas still exists within every wise man".
Nicephorus Blemmydes, "Pertial narration", 1, 4
Theodore Alanias, "PG 140, 414"
The famous Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras wrote after a trip he took "in the country of Trivallon" (Serbia): "I am happy that I am Greek and not a barbarian"!
Leone, Epistulae II, 32α, 242-3
The neo-platonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon (15th cent AD) stated "We are Hellenes by race and culture".
George Gemistus Plethon, "Paleologeia and Peloponessiaka", pp.247
The scholar, teacher, and translator, John Argyropoulos (15th cent AD) calls John VIII Palaiologos as a Greek king and addresses him as "Sun King of Hellas".
Makrides, Vasilios (2009). Hellenic Temples and Christian Churches: A Concise History of the Religious Cultures of Greece from Antiquity to the Present. New York, New York: New York University Press.
Two days before the fall of Consantinople the Emperor Constantine Paleologos calls the city as "The joy and hope of all Greeks".
Sphrantzes, George (1477). The Chronicle of the Fall."""
Agreed. There was only the Roman Empire and it ended in 1453 AD, thanks to Mehmed II. Byzantine Empire is a smear campaign of western European Catholics who wanted to be the only Romans.
I feel like we need to replace Byzantine into eastern Rome to differentiate the eras of the Roman Empire the Latin phase and the Greek phase
It's been a while
What about East Rome
You can call it the Eastern Roman Empire. This term may include the reign of Diocletian, but it won't be long since the inauguration of Constantinople (Byzantion) in 330. The Eastern Romans never gave up their plans to recover and reunite the Empire with the West, given the right circumstances. Manuel I (12th cent.)made serious efforts and spent a huge amount of gold to promote the reunification of the East with the West, something the Venetians and the Germans saw as a big threat. Would it work? I don't know, but it's highly indicative of how the Eastern Romans viewed themselves as the true Romans and that they considered the westerners as usurpers of the Roman Imperial title, which they never recognized.
It's very true that the Neo-Platonists savants and scholars of the Palaiologean renaissance were pressing the Monarch to style himself as King and Emperor of the Hellenes, (just like the Laskarid dynasty did) instead of the stressful and "outdated" one of the Romans. They were arguing that the title alone (!!!) will lead them to victory against the evil heathen Turks, and save once more the "genus of the Greeks" from the... Persian (!!!) aggression just like in Marathon 2.000 yrs ago...
Their plea was apparently overruled. The last Palaiologos would fall as " Constantine XI, faithful in Christ the God, Basileus and Autokrator of the Romans"
As a Greek i would like to shed some light .The Greek identity was enforced to us by westerners after the independence and the fact that we didnt retake constantinople , we are as roman as greek its just a fact . Greek was an official language in ancient rome alongside latin legionaries in france could take their oath in greek if the wanted to . Greeks who are strongly against their roman identity are most of the time ill educated and think that by saying roman they cant indentify as successor of ancient greece they dont get how they are both . In conclusion even that people understand that romios means greek that is a term still used in modern greece. Roman identity is to big to be claims by only one nation but we greeks are infact as greek as we are eastern roman
The most common thing i hear by Modern Greek Nationalists is that "The Romans enslaved the Greeks, Byzantium was bad, we are Greeks". Ignoring completely the fact that our people has been identifying as Roman for thousands of years and that we have culturally nothing with the Ancient Greeks of old.
The Greek identity existed during the entirety of the byzantine and ottoman period as we can see both from the byzantine sources and the Greek sources during the years of the ottoman empire . So what you said about westerners enforcing a greek identity after the independence as if Greeks didn't already have one isn't supported by the surviving primary sources. No matter what, even if you haven't read byzantine sources, intinuating that people that existed for thousands of years waited for the westerners to tell them about their own isn't only illogical but condescending as well.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 Byzantine culture (and modern Greek culture) are the evolution of the ancient Greek culture so what you said doesn't make much sense.
@@gilpaubelid3780 Greek identity existed but was going alonside with Roman identity and in fact more people used the word Romios to identify than hellene after 1821 they tried to extract and cut out the roman part of the greek identity thats why i meant not they didnt knew about their ancient identity . Constantine Palaiologos the last emperor in his last speech to boost the morale he reminded people that they are the descendants of ancient Greeks and Romans but the two were combined , in fact greek region was roman many centuries more than italian region
@@gilpaubelid3780 It was the evolution of the Hellenistic culture which was intertwined with the Roman one, but it certainly wasn't the continuation of the Ancient Greek one. Now as for the identity, the Byzantines identified as Rhomaioi which was in the beginning a citizenship title and developed into an ethnic term after the 800's when the state came into dispute with the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic church who claimed it to be Greek and not Roman. In fact the term Greek became synonymous to the meaning of "latin slave" after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 during the crusade. For this reason alone the Byzantines never adopted the term Greek. As for the term Hellene, it once met pagan in late Antiquity as the church and Greek Christians were in conflict with those who still followed the Pagan faith. It was restored into the High and Late Medieval periods by the several academics of the time and it was used by the last Emperors of the Laskaris and Palaiologos dynasties but it never replaced the Roman term.
I don't remember when I first heard the term "Byzantine Romans" but I think it was back in the 80s, anyway that term has stuck with me ever since, simply because it easily differentiates between the two major eras of the Roman empire as a whole but without implications of the arguments presented in the video.
Agree, "Byzantine Romans" still keeps their Roman nature intact but it also differentiates the time periods.
Why not Eastern Romans?
Maybe the real late roman empire was the friends we made along the way
So cute
I just call them the Eastern Roman's and call it a day!
I call them byzantines because I studied under byzantinists in school and it's a term that lets people know what you mean immediately. however, i consider them roman, as much as any previous era of the "true" roman empire. there is no "real" roman empire with a set of perfectly identifying characteristics because rome was in a constant state of change/flux for its entire existence. the monarchy would have been as unrecognizable to a citizen of the high empire as the republic would have been to a citizen of constantinople from the 1100s. we like to think of historical political entities as unchanging, definite monoliths, i think because it gives us a comforting sense of stability/security. but in reality, everything is changing and evolving all the time, and there is no single "moment" when rome was "the most" rome. it was in constant flux, and it was ALL "rome," from 753 to 1453
Nice said. You are practical but also analytical.
The "Byzantine" Empire was the inheritors and medieval continuation of Classical (Greco-Roman) Civilization.
I think the modern Greeks should embrace both identities, both Greek and Roman.
The Ancient Greeks should be embraced for their culture and for what they left behind, honestly. But as the people of Modern Greece descend from the Byzantines, they should embrace more the Byzantine side of history and culture. There is no reason for nationalists to roam around and claim descend from figures such as Leonidas honestly.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 There's no reasons Nationalists should say anything honestly
These retards are good at one thing and that's making interest in Byzantine history instantly seem suspicious and racist
"The modern terms used for identity, "Hellene" and "Romios", have the same meaning. But they are not interchangeable. The classic term is "Hellene". From 1822 onwards it has been used in all official texts, in which since 1974 the name of the Greek state has been included as the Hellenic Republic. On the contrary, the term "Romios" does not appear in any passport or official document. From the beginning of the 19th century, this term became the unofficial most familiar way for Greeks to refer to themselves and very often to each other. "Hellene" is the term for external use, it defines the Greek for the foreigner. The word "Romios" has an emotional charge."
Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, 2019, pp. 34-35
I applaud you for the video, but whole of it is an exercise in mental gymnastics. The so called "Byzantines" were the Roman Empire, they had Roman culture and they were possessed of a strong Roman national identity. I cannot for the life of me understand why this particular legacy should be denied to them. The argument that they stopped speaking Latin also stands on shaky ground. National cultures can and do change over large timespans. There are quite a few historical examples on which we can fall back on for making an analogy to the Eastern Roman Empire.
One example of this phenomenon other than the Eastern Romans is the tribe of the Franks, who once being a Germanic-speaking folk, borrowed the Latin dialect of their Gallic subjects after they had invaded into Roman Gaul. Roman Gaul which refused to let go of its Roman national identity for centuries until about the 8th century whereupon Roman Gauls began to call themselves Franks and France. Eventually the Germanic-ruling class fully adopted the language of its subject base, and a new nationality, the French was born. In much a very similar way, the same thing happened to the Roman-ruled Greek-speaking East. The Roman ruling class borrowed the language of its subject base, but in turn the Greek subjects accepted a Roman national identity.
I have also likened Eastern Roman ethnogenesis to French ethnogenesis. They have many parallels.
I like to call them Byzantines so I can annoy Romaboos who for some reason are offended by calling them Byzantines. Never have I seen more nationalism for such a long dead empire.
ROOOOOOOMMAA
I'm 31 and had no idea the Byzantines were Romans until just recently
That's because you live in the west and you only had the teachings that rome collapsed in the 5th century and that's it. Just like what happened to me and surely tons of others.
That's because when we're saying "Romans" today we mean the ancient/Latin Romans while back then the term "Roman" was used by every ethnicity in the empire that had obtained Roman citizenship after the edict of Caracalla (212AD). Byzantines were mostly Greeks and hellenized people and since medieval Greeks had Roman citizenship they were also Romans (according to the definition that the term had during the byzantine period). As for the Latin Romans they were still at the western part that was lost.
no, the Byzantines were predominantly Greeks and not latin Romans! That they were Romans is a rather new, "leftist", nation-nihilist, false narrative!
@@ThomasGazis falsification of history but ok
I just use ancient and medieval roman to differentiate the two.
Edit: Also most greeks that dislike the "roman" term for the medieval period dont really understand the roman identity. They were ethnically greeks, while their nationality was roman. When Rome conquered greece the spartan, macedonian, and athenian greeks just became roman greeks.
You are so wrong in that! The French were conquered by the Germans in WWII. Does this mean that their nationality (let alone their identity) became German? Actually, the ancient Greeks were despising the Latin Romans, seeing them as some brute and culturally inferior people!
@@ThomasGazis That isnt a good analogy, the germans occupied the french. They didn't annex them and give them citizenship.
Ill explain it in depth,
the greeks were still ETHNICALLY greek. Their nationalities however varied depending on the government that ruled them. Athenian greeks, Spartan greeks, macedonian greeks, pontic greeks, and so on. When the romans conquered them and later gave them all citizenship following the edict of caracalla in the 200s, they eventually became Roman greeks. Hence why they called themselves Romans.
Think of it like the United States. (assuming you are a greek) as a greek if you were to move to the USA and become a citizen. Would you not be considered an American at that point? A greek american? Same in the case of the greek romans in the medieval period.
@@romainvicta8817 you go to great lenghts just to prove at any cost that the Byzantines were Romans (even your nick is revealing that that's your ultimate goal) but once again you are wrong! To make another analogy, the Ottoman Turks annexed Byzantium and gave Ottoman citizenship to all the Byzantines! The modern Greeks, the pontic Greeks etc. are the descendants of the Byzantines. Do you know any modern Greek being proud of his "Ottoman identity", of his "Ottoman citizenship"? Why then the Greeks should be proud of their (non existent even during the Byzantine times, especially from the 7th century onwards) "Romanitas"?
@@ThomasGazis The christians of the ottoman empire are notoriously known for being second class citizens. Also, the ottomans called greece "rumelia" meaning land of the romans.
The only people who didn't call the medieval romans "Romans" were the catholic westerners because they didn't want to believe that the medieval orthodox greeks were the true romans and that the holy roman empire was the true heir. You are giving into the propaganda. Everyone else whether it was from eastern europe, the middle east, eastern asia would have called the greeks romans at that time, and that isn't a bad thing. They were greco-romans. greek as their ethnicity, and roman for their nationality. Just because the western half of the roman empire fell didnt mean the eastern provinces just stopped being the roman government.
@@romainvicta8817 The ethnicity of Byzantine Romans was all random, not only Greeks. Remember back in the Middle Ages, Europeans in the West learned Latin because it was a scholarly and religious language. The Byzantine Romans called the 4th-Crusaders 'Latins' because they were using this language for intercommunication in their armies. In reality, Western European ethnicity varied all over the place. Likewise in a similar fashion, western Europeans called the Byzantines Romans 'Graeci' in order to deny them any association with Roman heritage. The reality there was that the Rhomaioi consisted of multiple ethnic groups united in Orthodoxy, and they spoke Greek as a national language. Eastern Romans in 13th century were Greek-speaking, not ethnically Greek.
There are Byzantine coins of the 11th century that still have Latin on them and Constantinople was called New Rome and there are examples of the people of the empire being called the "children of New Rome". Personaly I use the term Eastern Roman Empire or New Rome and they definately deserve the term "Roman" unlike the HRE. I am Greek and this rise of "Greek not Roman" nationalism (most of whom don't even know they were called Romans) is a result of poor education on Greece's part (influenced by the west) on the middle ages and the identity of the Eastern Romans and allthough Greek speaking they fail to recognise the different ethnicities the empire had even on its final days, such as Illyrians, Vlachs, Armenians and Slavs. Even many of the "Greeks" were descedants of neighbor nations that through thousands of years lost their language in favour of Greek. When it comes to modern Greece I do believe we can be both Hellenes and Romans.
Hello from Russia!
I don’t know why, but in Russia the term “Rhomaion Empire” has taken root quite well. Not Roman, no - Rhomaion (in Russia it's more like romean or ромейская). And for some reason, people understand what it's about. I think the problem is that for the West there is no established synonym - Rhomaion. Hell, even the translator from whom I write continues to stubbornly edit everything into Roman. That's funny).
But I think that any scientific or non-scientific research should be presented in a clear and well-formed language. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to use a variety of established options. And therefore, for me, the terms Byzantine and Rhomaion are equivalent synonyms, although I like the term Rhomaion Empire more.
The term Roman in English is mostly associated with the Classical Romans of Italy, who spoke Classical Latin as we know. It is kinda wrong to attach the same term to the Byzantines-Eastern Romans as they were culturally Greek or Hellenic and also followed the Chalcedonian creed of Christianity. The term Rhomaios-Rhomaioi-Romei (Greek Ρωμαίοι) is what they actually used to refer to themselves and that actually remained a thing for the Greek speaking populations up until the 20th century.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
By the way, a citizen of Hellas, tell me - how do you teach history and in general, how much attention is paid to the Byzantine period? It seems to me that history lessons in Greece should be extremely entertaining and unusual.
@@Крэйден_х Well history is teached in a similar structure to that of the other European countries. However regarding the Byzantine period we are getting teached only a few things mostly regarding Justinian's time as an Emperor and the creation of Hagia Sophia. Then it's followed by the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 but there is little detail regarding the culture and character of Byzantium as a whole. The history books tend to focus more on the Ancient Greek period and Antiquity as the Hellenic Republic and the Greek people are named after the Ancient Greeks so much more attention is paid there. Despite that there is a little reference to the Greeks of Anatolia known as Rum-Romans but they are still referred to as Hellenes and not as Romei, as they identified historically.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 I like the term Rhomaion Empire better than Byzantine. But I see a problem in your logic. The term Rhomaios in Greek is just the simple rendition of Latin Romanus from which English Roman hails. When the Byzantine Romans were calling themselves Rhomaioi, they did not do so with the intention to cut themselves off from the classical Latin Romanus past. Rhomaios just means Roman to the Byzantine Romans. So there is no problem in English with calling them either Romans or Rhomaioi, they mean the same thing.
@@MagisterMilitumBelisarius5365 It might have started as a rendition of the term Romanus (which became a citizenship title to all the citizens of the Empire after the reign of Emperor Caracalla) but the term Rhomaios received ethnical characteristics by 800 AD. The Roman ethnos which Anna Komnena tells us about was formed by adopting the Greek language( also known as Rhomaika), Hellenistic education and membership to the Orthodox creed. Don't act like the Eastern Romans remained the same. They went through a lot of changes between the Late Antiquity and throughout the Medieval period. This is why the term Byzantine was founded in the first place, to differentiate the Medieval Romans from their Ancient counterparts with the difference being that the term Roman used in English today refers to the Classic Romans of the Ancient Antiquity, while the term Byzantine refers to the Rhomaioi(Greek speaking Romans), of the Eastern Roman Empire. I don't know why most people tend to become annoyed with the term Byzantine. Did you know that the citizens of Constantinople used it as a means of identification?.
I think the idea of Byzantine Romanity led them to unconsciously de-Romanize themselves and anything genuinely Roman.
Whenever a Byzantine historian or emperor expressed his desire to restore the glory of the Roman empire, they did not speak of one of Trajan or Augustus but one of Justinian who saw various Greek colonies and Greek and eastern officials settle throughout the Mediterranean as It happened with the Byzantine papacy in Italy. Just as every time they wished to express their desire to educate all barbarians in the "Roman" language, they did not refer to the Latin language but to the Koine Greek of their time.
According to them "Romanization" was actually a "Hellenization" this is clearly expressed in the treatment of their political and legal institutions, they unwittingly adopted Hellenistic concepts of governance and Hellenistic legal interpretations through the Christian canons of great fathers in the church from the Eastern Mediterranean such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Philo of Alexandria who promoted an absolute Theocratic government with the emperor as God's viceroy that was eventually adopted in Byzantium and made it virtually unrecognizable from the Latin Roman Empire, originally more republican in contrast.
To all this it should be added that in the conscience of any Byzantine citizen, they were clear that his ancestors were not Italians but Greeks and people from the east, a memory shared by all.
"Let us remember of what men we are descendants of, and if one wishes to refer to our oldest ancestors, refer to the old Hellenes....and refer to the ancient Romans, from whom we are named after....However our origins lie in both of these genes...we are the heirs of Alexander the Great and his successors" -Manuel Chrysochloras, Byzantine Ambassador and scholar, from his book "Peri tou Basileus ton Romaion" Epistule XLIX
"So, of is the Hellenes, many earned great glory, having demonstrated great and praiseworthy deeds, some of us in Europe and even in Africa, even reaching Gagges and Oceanus and the Caucasus, and in those lands had come before us many others, like Hercules, and even earlier Dionysus, the son of Semele, and afterworlds the Lacedaimonians and the Athenians, and after them the king of Macedonians, and those that succeeded him in power..."-Laonikos Chalkokondylis, Greek Historiographer of the 15th century , from his book "de origins ad rebus estis turkorum" 04-0.
I love me the good smell of Western centrism in the morning
Cultural differences between Western and Eastern Romans always existed explaining the rapid rise of religious debates for example, an activity more prevalent in the old Greek world that composed Eastern Rome
Trajan and Augustus weren't mentioned maybe because for the Romans of 600 or after, they weren't relevant for them
The Late Christian Roman Empire was the product of Diocletian and Constantine not the old Pagan Emperors that Americans loves to dream about
Trying to separate Greekness from Romanity appart from being incredible egoistical and again western centric, ignores the process from which the Greeks, Macedonians, Anatolians, Egyptians and others slowly through cultural changes became Romans too, Romans who were perfectly valid ones unlike what some believe
Furthermore you Roman enthusiasts needs to realize the significance of time, just realize for a moment the gap between the Greek colonization of the East and Justinian's reign
A whole Millennia had passed by then
So to conclude, Western centrism needs to fuck off and anyone can be a perfectly valid Roman so long as the way of behaving like one is preserved (which it was for long after the West became its own thing)
@@maude7420 Yes.
Your point of view is very limited, still people like you should pay attention to the consequences of said periods before discarding them due to their longevity. The Hellenistic colonization had been a millennium ago, but does this affect the socio-cultural environment of the Eastern Mediterranean? You are right and that is that the number of people who think of this empire as a continuation of the legacy of Augustus and Trajan had very little to do with their prowess, the Eastern Roman Empire in question agreed to carry and adopt the Roman legacy and more importantly , what it meant to be Roman but they interpreted it through the flow of Christianized Greek civilization which was undeniably a major contrast to earlier Roman culture as well as contemporary Roman Catholic culture
@@ΘΕΟΦΑΝΩΚΟΜΝΗΝΟΣ That's fair but their view of romanity was just as valid as the Classic view of romanity in my eyes
@@maude7420 Romanity and Hellenity could coexist in the self-identification of the Byzantines themselves, that is why on many occasions the two are used as synonyms as when Constantine Porphyrogennetos described the Greek populations of the Peloponnese
Greek nattionalism is a crazy thing, is it not? What utter nonsense. The Byzantine Romans made multiple references to classical Romans of antiquity. It is unbelievable just how many references to classical Latin Romans that you can find if you actually read the Byzantine works. Just read Michael Psellos for starters. He talks about Cicero, many Roman emperors and claims to be descended from Romulus and Remus.
Michael Attaletiates talks about how Michael VII tries to imitate Emperor Trajan but does a bad job at it. He also discusses how the Roman Empire of this time had not lived up to the image of the Roman Republic. He talks a lot about Marcus Aurelius, too.
Emperor Constantine the PurpleBorn refers a great deal to Emperors like Augustus Caesar, Diocletian, and calls Julius Caesar "the divine one".
And the historian Bryennios makes up a fictional geneology for the Doukas Dynasty, claiming that they are descended from Rome.
Nicephorus II Phocas is made out to be a descendant of the Flavian house of ancient Rome.
When Heraclius returned victorious from his campaigns against the Sassanids, he was hailed as "Scipio Africanus" by the crowds of Constantinople.
Then we have multiple other references to historical Roman figures, and of course the Byzantine Romans called themselves "Ausones", meaning Italians.
So much for Byzantine-Romans not talking about ancient Romans....
Why not just call them Rhomaios? It means Romans, it's what they used to describe themselves, and it can be helpful in differentiating them from their Classical Roman Ancestors for academic reasons.
the byzantines after ca. 600 were greeks, they were romans as the french are franks.
Great answer! You don 't serve though the anti Greek-Byzantine atzzennttaa and you are not getting many likes...
Francia and France don't have any continuity,while Rome and Constantinople had. Big difference
13:42 Napoleon eliminated """Holy"""Roman"""Empire""" too in 1806.
Roman Empire from 27 BC to 1453 AD. Byzantine is a misnomer, a term invented for the sake of revisionism.
I think it’s fair to call it the Eastern Roman Empire after 395 and until the Arab invasions, since that includes Justinian’s conquests and the final Latin emperors, and is a time when the empire still held control over most of the Mediterranean. and then the Byzantine empire empire after the Arab invasions because that’s when it became a Greek speaking regional power
That’s my approach too
I agree
"It may be said, however, that despite its multi-national character, three forces tended to give it unity. One was Orthodoxy, the other a common language, and the third the imperial tradition. The first and the second were Greek and to the extent that they were Greek the Empire was Greek also. The third was Roman, and to that extent the Empire was also Roman."
The Transfer of Population as a Policy in the Byzantine Empire Author(s): Peter Charanis Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 3, No. 2, (Jan., 1961), pp. 140-154 Published by: Cambridge University Press
I tend to feel Eastern Roman is the best fit, as it acknowledges the changes and continuities. Although it is a bit longer to say
But doesn’t recognize that the co division was ended in 480.
@@tylerellis9097 I mean it was still the eastern Roman empire after the fall of the west
@@aidandavies6164 It was the Singular Roman Empire under one Emperor. Both the Senates of Rome and Constantinople recognized that the co division was over When Nepos died as Zeno kept the western Regalia and Sigil as now Sole Emperor of the Empire after Odoacer sent it to him.
It’s why the Visigoths and Ostrogoths switched from minting coins of Western Emperors to ones of the Emperors in Constantinople until Justinian’s invasion
It’s an important distinguisher that helps understand why the Pope declared Charlemagne successor to the recently deposed Constantine VI as Roman Emperor and not Romulus Augustus/Nepos as Western Roman Emperor.
Justinian used this very fact of Being Sole Emperor of the Entire Empire to legitimize his reconquest of the West.
@@tylerellis9097 I'm not claiming that isn't what happened, the East was the sole Roman empire, but it was still based in the east, this does not mean it is any less Rome too be clear. I personally fully believe that the eastern empire was Roman, but in a historical sense, the Roman empire lasted so long, that it can be necessary to have a different name for it after 476. I personally believe Roman (whilst the most accurate) can make history more confusing, while Byzantine as a name seeks to distance the later empire from early, which is very false
@@aidandavies6164 I get what your saying but how is that different from the United Empire under Emperors like Julian or Constantine who ruled from Constantinople?
Personally I prefer using Byzantine Roman or Medieval Roman.
With Eastern Roman reserved for the period of 395-480.
But I’m not against using Byzantine either
Before the final reunification of Greece during the Balkan Wars, there were some minor islands in the Aegean Sea that were some of the last places to be brought back into the Greek fold. When the soldiers announced to the local populace "We have rescued you; You are Greeks as we are!" the populace replied "We are not Hellenes, we are Romans!"
I don't know if this is myth, but considering Gothic was spoken in Crimea until the 16th Century, I find it highly plausible.
hellene was a term only educated people knew back them and it is a fabricated identity forced on us before 1821 all greeks called themselves romios meaning roman .We are the succesors of ancient greece and eastern Roman empire both are part of our history
That's because the Anatolian Greeks still identified as Romans. The Hellenes of the 19th century Greece also identified as Roman before the creation and formation of the Kingdom of Greece in 1827. Both of them are ethnically Greek or descending from the populations of the Byzantine Empire. So this argument between "Romans" and "Hellenes" is dumb, considering they are culturally the continuation of both.
You are not mistaken. Until the creation of the modern Greece, Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued calling themselves as "Romans". And even after independence, informally many Greeks continued calling themselves as "Romans". Until the late 1900s (like 1970s, 80s, 90s) there were people (usually old) who kept using the term "Roman". So Greeks didn't drop the term "Roman" as far back in history, as some people might think.
@@kabodra It's still used today predominantly by the "Pontic Greeks" who sometimes also refer to the Greek language as Romaika.
@@demetriusstiakkogiannakes1326 By saying "Pontic Greeks", do you mean Greeks who are currently living in Trabzon (Turkey), or their descendants living in Greece?
"In his »Comparison of the Old and the New Rome«, addressed to emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1391-1425), Manuel Chrysoloras presented Rome as the mother and Constantinople as the daughter which was founded by the two most powerful and wise peoples of the world, the Romans and the Hellenes, who had come together there in order to create a city that would be able to rule over the whole world. In a sermon to the same emperor, he stated that the Rhomaioi were the offspring of the Romans and the Hellenes, thus being ENTITLED TO USE BOTH NAMES."
Yannis Stouraitis, pp. 86-87, "Reinventing Roman Ethnicity in High and Late Medieval Byzantium" medieval worlds • No. 5 • 2017 • 70-94
"With the collapse of the empire in the west, its eastern counterpart became, in reality, an entirely new and independent state, at once Greek by language and Roman in name: 'A Greek Roman empire'."
Roderick Beaton, "The Greeks: a global history", New York: Basic books 2021, pp. 212
The Qur'an includes the Surat Ar-Rum, the sura dealing with "the Romans", sometimes translated as "The Byzantines," reflecting a term now used in the West. These Romans of the 7th century, referred to as Byzantines in modern Western scholarship, were the inhabitants of the surviving Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Since all ethnic groups within the Roman empire had been granted citizenship by 212 AD, these eastern peoples had come to label themselves Ρωμιοί or Ῥωμαῖοι Romaioi (Romans), using the word for Roman citizen in the eastern lingua franca of Koine Greek. This citizenship label became "Rûm" in Arabic.
The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire traced its origin as an institution to the foundation of Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330 by Constantine the Great. The Byzantine Empire survived the 5th century, when the Western Roman Empire fell, more or less intact and its populace continually maintained that they were Romaioi (Romans), not Hellenes (Greeks), even as the empire's borders gradually became reduced to in the end only encompassing Greek-speaking lands.
Nicol 1992, p. ix.
Pusuda mı bekliyorsun?
Seeing English translations of the Quran using the word Byzantine is very very awkward honestly
That's wrong! There is ample evidence that (most of) the Byzantines were having a Greek identity and they were feeling Greeks!
Finally, after tens and tens of luxury videos that are blindly (and apparently deliberately) calling Byzantium "Roman", a more objective video, with some critical thinking in it.
When Byzantium was "born", the populations in Asia Minor (the main Byzantine land - modern Turkey by now) were highly imbued by a Greek-Hellenistic identity - and they were quite proud of it. So, the narrative that in a single night (when a few thousand Roman soldiers and administrators arrived in Asia Minor, which had an indigenous population of probably 20.000.000 back then) in a single night the Asia Minor populations dropped out their Greek-Hellenistic identiny in favor of the Roman one - keeping their "Romanitas" intact up untill the 15th century - is simply preposterous!
Coming to modern Greeks, most of them are claiming that Byzantium was Greek, not out of some nationalistic fanatism but out of mere evidential experience. You see, many modern Greeks are of Byzantine descent (I have never heard any Italian Roman being of Byzantine descent). I am a Greek of Byzantine descent. We are keeping in my family documents, books, ikons, heirlooms going back several centuries. All of them are loudly telling me that my ancestors were feeling Greeks and not Romans at all!
The only Greeks claiming that Byzantium was "Roman" are some "leftist", nation-nihilist people, constituting a minority within the Greek population.
By the way, you are wrong when you are claiming that only the western Europeans were deliberately calling the Byzantines "Greeks". There is ample historical evidence that the Arabs, the Persians, the Bulgarians etc. were also calling the Byzantines Greeks!
Constantinians.
Why cant we just compromise or find a middle ground? Byzantium romans or Romanic Byzantines or Rozantines or Byzmans 😂 jks jks great video
Roman.
🙂
The writer uses the ambiguous term “Hellene,” which generally means “pagan” in Byzantine Greek. Plethon and his followers used the term almost to the exclusion of all others when referring to their own countrymen.
Nagy., 2003. Modern Greek Literature. Taylor & Francis, p.30.
I like your pictures... I usuaely painted soldiers in basic windows painting :-D ...
I agree with something Fire of Learning said. It's OK to call them Byzantine so long as the intention is to not de-Romify them.
My take: Byzantine Romans: All Byzantines were Romans, but not all Romans were Byzantines, just like all Illinoisans are Americans, but not all Americans are Illinoisans. Just because someone calls me Illinoisan doesn't mean they are denying my American identity. Likewise, calling them Byzantines doesn't deny their claim to being Roman. Peace
Byzantines were Greeks and other Balkan people who called themselves Roman, that didn’t make them Romans.
Most people, including historians make the big mistake of implying that being a Roman was just a citizenship, and that it’s wrong because it erases the original Romans, because, yes, there were ethnic Romans, they were one of the Latin tribes (eventually they absorbed all the other Latin tribes into their realm) from Latium, modern Lazio in Central Italy, the people of Rome were never replaced, the fact that they gave citizenship to everyone in the empire they created didn’t erased their ethnicity or identity, not even the rest of the people in the Italian peninsula were ethnic Romans, they were Latinized just like many other people in other parts of the empire, even today the people from Rome (the city) call themselves Romans, they never stopped calling themselves as such, and they are truly the real descendants of the Romans, not like Greeks of Istanbul who still call themselves Ῥωμαῖος (Rhomaîos) Roman, while being ethnically Greek, here in Italy we identify ourselves first with our region/city, as Ligurians, Lombards, Neapolitans, Romans, Venetians, Sicilians etc, it was like that in ancient times too, so if we still have such a view of our identity, I imagine that the people back them did too, because such identity was inherited from them, we are Italian because we are citizens of Italy, not because there is such a thing as an Italian ethnicity, take for example modern multicultural nations like Germany for example, everyone with German citizenship is a German, even Turks there, but that doesn’t mean that ethnic Germans doesn’t exist, same for Russia were there are two terms for Russians, “Россиянин” which refer to a Russian citizen, and “Русский” which applies to an ethnic Russian, so to say that the people of the Eastern Roman Empire were simply Romans because they called themselves as such it’s not accurate, Greeks knew they were Greeks, they were just proud of living in such a powerful state like the Roman Empire, like Americans of different ethnic backgrounds are proud of living in the most powerful country in the world, to imply that there was no distinction between the Western empire centered in Rome and the Eastern empire centered in Constantinople is denying the Latinness and the Greekness of both entities respectively regardless of how they called themselves, it is ok to use the term Byzantine for the Eastern Roman Empire, we know they didn’t called themselves as such but calling them just Romans has erased the Latin Romans from history so much to the point that they think that Roman was just a citizenship/ cultural thing, and that is even more wrong than calling Eastern Romans “Byzantines”.
Yes, people of different ethnicities contributed to the greatness of the Roman Empire, especially Greeks in the Eastern part but let’s please remember the people that created the empire (the Latin Romans) with respect by making a distinction between them and the rest.
Identity
The Byzantine ruling elite faced the outside world and its unending dangers with a strategic advantage that was neither diplomatic nor military but instead psychological: the powerful moral reassurance of a triple identity that was more intensely Christian than most modern minds can easily imagine, and specifically Chalcedonian in doctrine: Hellenic in its culture, joyously possessing pagan Homer, agnostic Thucydides, and ir reverent poets-though Hellene was a word long avoided, for it meant pagan; and proudly Roman as the Romaioi, the living Romans, not without justification for Roman institutions long endured, at least sym bolically.
But until the Muslim conquest took away the Levant and Egypt from the empire, this triple identity was also a source of local disaffection from the ruling Constantinopolitan elite, for of the three only the Ro man identity was universally accepted.
To begin with, the speakers of Western Aramaic and Coptic, who accounted for most of the population of Syria and Egypt, including the Jews in their land and beyond it, did not partake in the Hellenic cul ture-except for their own secular elites, which were organically part of the Byzantine regime and were indeed often attacked by nativists as "Hellenizers." For the rest, the masses either did not know that Homer ever lived, or were easily led by unlettered fanatical priests to vehe mently hate what they were too ignorant to enjoy.
Moreover, the zone that rejected Hellenism, as it had rejected the Roman habit of bathing as too sensual, also rejected the excessively intel lectual Chalcedonian definition of the dual nature of Christ, both human and divine, insisting on the more purely monotheistic conception of the single, divine nature of Christ.
Luttwak, E., 2011. Grand strategy of the byzantine empire. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard, p.410
The word ' Hellene ' in the Byzantine period just meant ' pagan ' . The Byzantines called themselves ' Romaioi ' , the successors of the Roman empire ; they did not want to have anything to do with the ancient pagan Greek religion .
Hokwerda, H., 2021.. Constructions of greek past. Groningen: Forsten, p.261.
in a letter addressed to John VIII as 'Emperor of Hellas'. We have come a long way from the days when the ambassador Liudprand of Cremona was thought unfit to be received at the Court because his credentials were addressed to the 'Emperor of the Greeks'. But 'Graeci' was never an acceptable term. George Scholarius, the future Patriarch Gennadius, who was to be the link between the old Byzantine world and the world of the Turcocratia, often uses 'Hellene' to mean anyone of Greek blood. But he had doubts about its propriety; he still retained the older view. When he was asked his specific opinion about his race, he wrote in reply: "Though I am a Hellene by birth, yet I would never say that I was a Hellene. For I do not believe as the Hellenes believed. I should like to take my name from my faith and, if anyone asked me what I am, to reply "a Christian". Though my father dwelt in Thessaly,' he adds, 'I do not call myself a Thessalian, but a Byzantine. For I am of Byzantium.' It is to be remarked that though he repudiates the name of Hellene he calls the Imperial City not New Rome or Constantinople, but by its old Hellenic name.
Runciman, S. (1970). IMPERIAL DECLINE AND HELLENIC REVIVAL. In The Last Byzantine Renaissance (The Wiles Lectures, pp. 1-23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In contradistinction to a Julian, an Alexander Severus, a Marcus Aurelius and even a Hadrian, who felt themselves more Greek than Latin, Justinian wished to be a Latin Roman Emperor. He was confirmed in these feelings by his horror of Hellen ism. A Roman Emperor, Justinian was also a Christian Emperor. He considered himself the pillar of the Christian orthodox faith. The Hellenic spirit is profoundly pagan and Justinian abominated it. For him, as for his contem poraries and successors, Hellene was synonymous with pagan and to call anyone by this term was to insult him. The Greek peoples themselves assumed the name Pauaio (Romans). Even to-day Romios is still used by the common people. Hellene is an artificial term revived in the nineteenth century. The capital of the Empire is called Roum by the Arab and Turkish peoples of Asia.
Lot, F., 2013. End of the Ancient World. Routledge.
Many diverse peoples and languages coexisted within the Byzantine empire (Laiou and Maguire (eds.) 1992), and although Greek was the language of government and high culture and the terms 'Hellene' and even 'Greek' were sometimes applied to themselves by educated members of the elite in Constantinople from the Comnenian period onwards (Stouraitis 2014), Byzantium was not a Greek empire and Greek was never the only language spoken. Nevertheless the Byzantines' sense of themselves rested on a shared mythology of universalism and superiority.
Linehan, P., Nelson, J. and Costambeys, M., n.d. The medieval world.
Why not just call them the medieval Roman Empire?
"Byzantine" is good as long as you admit to it being a purely historiographical term that denotes the obvious differences between the height of the Roman Empire and Eastern Rome in the Middle Ages. Saying Byzantines is also way shorter and rolls off the tongue easier than saying "Eastern Romans" or, God forbid, "Eastern Roman Imperials." The state was Rome, they were Romans, we just call them Byzantines.
The Byzantines called themselves Romans to the very end. They were Greek speaking and the knew they were Greek not only becaiuse they spoke Greeek but because they were living in the roman empire where the majority were actually Greek. They knew they were the successors of the Romans state-wise. Fun facrt: the modern Greeks still call themselves Romans (Romioi / Ρωμιοί).
The EMPIRE continued in its political, military,& ideology AS "Roman" !
If you think about,the name "Byzantine" doesn't even make sense. Byzantium and the Byzantines technically refers to the city and its inhabitants before Constantine transferred the imperial capital. So if anyone wants to denote the Roman aspect of the Roman East,the term "Constantinopolitan" should be used as this was how the empire was usually referred after 800 A.D.
They’re Romans through and through they referred themselves as Roman’s throughout their whole history, they’re Romans simple as that
Eastern Romans is the most appropriate name, they described themselves as Romans with a Roman Emperor in the Roman Empire long past even the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The only reason Byzantine was coined further west was because the Pope and Holy Roman Emperors contested the succession of Rome, so couldnt let another nation have the name especially when that nation had never accepted new western emperors, seeing themselves as the unified empire
At the end of the day, they were the true continuation of the Roman civilization and an argument can be plausibly constructed that the Greek language itself, being so indispensable to the ancient Romans in so many different ways, was a Roman cultural element that was retained by the Christian Romans of Byzantium. They prided themselves on being Romans, so I prefer to respect their right to self-determination.
I'm just happy you pronounce Byzantine properly (instead of "Bizzanteen")
If we look in terms of administrative continuity, the Byzantines are the legal heirs of the Romans. Also, their culture was Greek, and it is the closest culture to the Roman culture , the only thing that can be used against them being Romans is the eastern influence on them , especially by the Persians
In my opinion, i have settled with eastern rome to acknowledge the roman identity but keeping it clear that we are speaking of the 'byzantine' period, i still see them as roman because at once constantinople was romes capital, and why should we see them as non roman as they dont hold rome when for example we call turkey turkish even though turkey doesnt hold the land the turks origionated from. Also as rome attemped to romanise their empire and saw eastern rome as roman, that would mean the 'byzantines' are roman as the 'true romans' saw them as other roman people.
They are romans through and through but the subsequent change of geography, religion and Language created a complicated juxtapose against that to Rome(Italy) and western europe. ironically speaking troy which is modern day western anatolia is practically the homeland of the romans (Aeneas) if we follow the Myth then The anatolian heartland is practically the roman heartland.
Very good point. The Byzantine Romans were well aware of what you refer to, and so they called themselves on many occasions 'Ausones' meaning Italians, as they believed themselves to be descended from the ancient Romans of Italy. One particular author, Hesychios the Illustrious, a senator of Constantinople bearing the rank of Illustris, talks about this in the Patria Constantinopolitan. So the Byzantine Romans were aware of the Trojan myth and that Anatolia was the supposed homeland of the Romans.
Eastern rome/ Byzantines and byzantium, = greek.
You can argue, debate, and call it roman all you want, we have scriptures and artifacts from the byzantine empire that are all written in greek. they even had the area of modern greece. Search up byzantine scripture/battle art, you will find one from the medieval era written in greek.
How I wish we have more shows, videogames and movies about Constantinople and the ERE. It's always Rome.
Rome is better
But Byzantine is also good
You forgot to “mention “ that its European “heart land “ was always, Greece .
"It is undoubtedly now known, regardless of national goals, that the Byzantine state is the organic continuation of the Roman Empire, that its art owes a lot to the Hellenistic achievement and the Eastern experience of those times, but as a cultural continuation (and not only linguistic) Byzantium is registered only as an experience of Hellenism."
How much Greek is Byzantium - How Byzantine are the Neo-Greeks? Glykatzi - Ahrweiler Eleni
Byzantine Empire was not, especially then, a national Greek state but had a broadly international character, despite the fact that Greek was the official language. In that state the Bulgarian element was preserved and could develop.
Daskalov, R., 2021. Master narratives of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria. Leiden: Brill, p.114.
I prefer calling them "Eastern Romans"
An Italian youtuber with a comedic streak came up with the term "romantine". I like it, seriously
‘…That in the race of us the Hellenes, wisdom reigns’
‘ὅτι τε ἐν τῷ γένει τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡμῶν ἡ σοφία βασιλεύει’
Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes (1193-1254) to Pope Gregorio IX
"Let us remember of what men we are descendants of, and if one wishes to refer to our oldest ancestors, refer to the old Hellenes....and refer to the ancient Romans, from whom we are named after....However our origins lie in both of these genes...we are the heirs of Alexander the Great and his successors"
Manuel Chrysochloras, "Peri tou Basileus ton Romaion" Epistule XLIX
An entertaining and informative video. Thanks for this interesting debate!
Hellenes as they were called, were persecuted by the enforcement of these general rules; Justinian endeavored, above all things, to deprive them of education, and he had the University of Athens closed in 529; at the same time ordering wholesale conversations.
The Cambridge Medieval History volumes 1-5 by John Bagnell Bury, Paul Dalen (Goodreads Author) (Editor)
The hegemony thing is stupid ngl
As far as I'm concerned, it was 'Eastern Rome' until it lost the Levant and Egypt and then The Byzantine Empire afterwards.
The problem with this kind of logic is that it stands on shaky ground. The loss of the Levant and Egypt did not create a 'Byzantine' Empire. It was the continuation of the Roman Empire until 1453. As can be witnessed in the writings of post 14th-century eastern Byzantine Romans like Michael Ducas, Sphrantzes Theodore Metochites and Nicephorus Gregoras, they all considered Rome to have fallen in 1453. There are no mentions of Greece having fallen or Byzantines, just Rome.
Biggest problems with the Byzantine-Roman devate is that people just look at the Ceasar and Augustus's Rome and then Basil and Alexios' Rome without bothering to analize anything in between.
Rome in 753 BC is nothing like Rome in 400 B.C. or Rome in 120 AD. What it meant to be Roman changed. It is like asking what it means to be American or what it means to be French.
Rome est la ou est née rome, une legende.
Constantinople la ou rome est mort.
La ou l'ame de rome est morte
"Under the pressures of Great Power Politics and the geopolitical tensions emerging from the Crimean War (1853-56), “Byzantine Empire” displaced “Greek Empire” as the favored formulation for many European scholars. Kaldellis underscores how this terminological change reflected ideological anxiety: the fear among many Europeans that the history of the “Greek empire” might legitimate the irredentist ambitions of Greek nationalists and Russian imperialists to recover Constantinople. The term Byzantium, Kaldellis argues, enabled scholars to avoid the slippage between an acceptable Greek nation and an intolerable Greek empire, while also walling it off from problematic associations with imperial Rome. This invention of Byzantium remained an ideological imposition, but one that granted the young discipline the independent status its Western devotees craved."
Aschenbrenner And Ransohoff, The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, introduction, 2021, pp 21
Can you do pirates
Welcome back Foojer!
Modern greek historians traditionally see the term "byzantine" as a useful historiographic term to make the distinction between latin/pagan period and the christian/greek period. But in modern times it seems to have a limitation. Not because it does not emphasize the roman character of byzantine empire (as someone may assume). But because the real endonym of modern greeks is "romei" (rhomaioi). In the consciousness of greeks when you call byzantines "romans" you hellenize more than you rominize them. And then you can see an identity of some 2000 years (from roughly early christian times).
In what universe do Greeks still call themselves Romans in 2022 exactly?
I thought it died the last century
@@maude7420 It's not very common today but until 70s it was on every day language. And still any Greek knows what Romios/Romia means.
@@MessiniaGreece Be careful about assuming that an identity 1500 years ago is the same as the one that your people had in the '70s. Here is a real-life case-study. Imagine comparing the ethnic identity of the Kieven Rus to the ethnic identity of modern Ukrainians and Russians, who are both descended from the Rus. Eastern Romans had a much stronger Roman identity than modern Greeks. I have yet to meet or to see a modern Greek say that they are the descendants of Augustus Caesar. Several eastern Romans made that claim, or stated to be descended from Marcus Aurelius.
@@locomotivebearingdown5381 The Greeks have the same national character since Homeric times. Any change didn't occur due the romanization but rather the christianization. The Christianity of course matched with the hellenic humanocentric civilization but certain aspects of their worldview and their moral values did change. Byzantines had first and foremost orthodox christian identity and they were closer to the early Christians than the pagan Romans up to the 3rd century.
@@locomotivebearingdown5381 If you read Plato on the original as a Greek is like reading a newspaper. If you read Homer's epics you will realize the the homeric era greeks have the same family values as today. But on the same time Apostle Paul to an orthodox christian sounds like a toady's saint of the Orthodoxy. If you read the life of the Saints of 1st or 4th century you will realize that is the same exact civilization. And Russians since their cristianization did not change as much for over 1000 years as they change during the cristianization on 10th century. Byzantines did kept the practice of commemorate the stories of classical Romans but their idea of self (especially the common people) is Us, Orthodox Christians , in this state in the center of the world, surrounded by foreigners. Also the demotic songs are the same exact tradition as the akritic songs (to the point to not be able to tell one of another apart if it was not of it's theme).
Sound reasoning and a good conclusion!
I really enjoyed this longer video, lots of what you said I had vaguely heard of and I never really got the big picture of the Byzantines.
Good job! 👍
Romans, not Byzantines.
Great video.
Both. (:
Or you'll just call them (medieval) greeks like they were called in the west in the middle ages. This is where the "greek fire" comes from. Not byzantine or roman fire. Also the greek language in the middle ages was called rhomaika. So basically "rhomaion" meant not only roman but mainly greek.
Nope, Rhomaion meant Roman, not Greek.
Just can't imagine how long the Roman empire lasted since the founding of Imperial Rome under Caesar and Augustus (Octavian) to Constantine IX. The length of time span is about 1500 years, making it the longest lasting empire in history.
If we were to trace back our current time of 2022 to 522 AD that is 1500 years back, we are looking at the time of Justin I, or the uncle of future Roman/Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great.
That is like 6 or 7 epochs away. Late Antiquity + Early Medieval + Medieval + Renaissance + Enlightenment + Modern.
To trace from Constantine IX's time. Classical Antiquity + Late Antiquity + Early Medieval + Medieval + Renaissance (just snuck into the period). That is 4 eras of human history that the Roman empire lasted since Caesar. Absolutely extraordinary.
"The Byzantine empire was clearly, despite its multinational dimension, a GREEK empire while its neighbours considered it so, and whose unity was based on the power of authority, in the dominance of Orthodoxy and the use of Greek as the official language."
Sylvain Gouguenheim, "La gloire des Grecs", 2017, pp. 73
You should call someone by their name.
My name is Conan, hence you should call me Conan.
If you called me Bob you are just plain wrong.