Orthodoxy have its very deceptive attitude since it deliberately concealed the fact they rebranded Hungarian-MacAr-Scythian rulers as somehow they own Orthodox figures which is how Béla 3rd Hungarian king got rebranded as Alexios Jewnanistani king just as the entire Cuman-Coman dynasty, Varangiai Urak-Rurik as Kijewish Rus etc
wtf? This is splitting hairs argument, they can be both? I don't think we need to reinvent nameplates, anyone who knows what a byzantine is knows they were roman.
i cracked the case, the Pagans are the True Romans and the Christians are illegal usurpers ....thus the Empire fell with Maxentius...... the Pagans slowly withered away over the coming centuries
In Bulgaria, our teachers refer to the byzatines as "romeis" (ромеи) and thought us that they are basically romans (which makes the fact that we waged war for centuries against romans super cool), but still separated them from the "real" romans. Which is confusing for adults, let alone kids
@@RomabooRamblings Mostly covered the wars between the two states and the intricate politics between them, which in itself is a ton. Obviously, we all know about Basil II
@@Dian_Borisov_SW Probs to Bulgaria for Teaching Basil II it is always a hard Topic to talk about someone who won a Decisive War against your Home Country . (Im Italian So Obvisouly I Like Basil II)
We still call and name them ''Roman/Rum'' in Turkiye but official history teaching reffering them as ''Byzantion'' after a point. So far we call almost the whole Balkan region as ''Rumeli'' which literally means ''Roman soil'' in Turkish. The city of ''Erzurum'' literally means ''Roman land'', also. Non-muslim natives of the western Turkiye are called ''Rum'' which means ''Roman''. Only western narrative classify them as Byzantion etc. to seize that title of ''Rome'' and legitimize themselves as the continuance of it.
Correct. They say there are still some 10 million Serbs in Turkey today - some from Janissaries, other from before Turks in Phrygia, Lycia, etc... Have you heard of anything like that?
@@borisfrlic Can not say something like "10 million Serbians" but there are quite some "millions" of people descendants of the Balkan region in general spread across the modern Turkiye. Some from Janissaries some from convertions in general and some know some doesn't know their heritage as usual.
We Greeks called ourselves Romans interchangeably with Greeks as late as the 70s. You see it even in old movies. Only lately the term is not that common. However, people of Greek descend outside of Greece like in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon call themselves Rum up until today!
Yet you still have issues with Macedonia's international name. Probably Romans (the Latin ones) had the same issue with Late Antiquity Greeks (Eastern Romans).
@@Theophanis_Ketipidis Well, they inhabit parts of Ancient Macedonia, they embrace the Macedonian symbols and declare themselves Macedonians. After centuries of Roman occupation a resurgent Macedonian state in the Balkans would be normal to expect.
@@danielradu3212 Not really, other than the Greeks there were no other people identifying themselves as Macedonians before WW1 so why would one find normal to expect a Macedonian state?
"The Tang Dynasty wanted to steal R-words. Raviolis." -Romaboo Ramblings, when talking to Dovahhatty. In all seriousness, the Byzantine word is in a similar situation as the Spartans, who weren't called Spartans but Lacedaemonians. @Spectrum has already covered it in his video about that misconception.
"Byzantine" is purely a useful historical academic term to describe this Greek speaking eastern extension of the Roman empire - the term has its drawbacks but that's no different to other useful historical academic terms like "Merovingian", "Carolingian" Plantagenet," "Angevin" "Dutch", "Holy Roman Empire", "Viking" and many many more.
That's true, kinda reminds me of the Mamluk Sultanate, in reality it never called itself that. Its rulers were a turkic people and so the name of their state was literally "the state of the turks", but that would be incredibly confusing because they ruled over Egypt and Syria, not to mention their greatest rivals were the Ottomans, also Turks. Because of that, "Mamluk" is a useful historical term that makes it easier to communicate what you're talking about. The term "byzantine" is no different
Constantinople WAS the new capital and almost all split governments before that had the primary Augustus in the East. From the early 4th Century onward, New Rome was the capital until the 4th Crusade robbed the empire of its resources to defend itself and ultimately fall to Mehmed II, who crowned himself Caesar of Rome in tribute to the conquest.
@@genovayork2468 the amount of wealth Constantinople had at the time was hundreds of years of valuables, priceless artifacts that date back to Classical Rome and even to the BC era. The wealth was used by the state to get out of disastrous wars
@genovayork2468 the citizens thought it was a civil war. Business went on as usual though much of the fighting. The seizure of the city was a betrayal by Christians that humiliated the Pope and doomed the Crusader states. From here on we'd see increasingly pointless civil crusades and the Ottomans had an easy run, killing far more Christian life. The 4th Crusaders were doomed to hell by their evil leaders who lied and manipulated them into multiple excommunications, which is horrible for those at that time, clearly holy men to be there in the first place.
Certainly there's a difference between the Roman Empire before Constantine and the Roman Empire after Constantine. It's useful to have some sort of shorthand to refer to the different time period being discussed. The word “byzantine” has the negative connotations as meaning “scheming” or “convoluted,” so I understand the resistance to using it to describe the post-Constantine Roman Empire. However, personally, “Byzantine” immediately conjures up the qualities of the later empire- its style of art and architecture, its manner of dress, its court customs, etc. More neutral terms might be the “Medieval Roman Empire”, “Later Roman Empire”, or “Orthodox Roman Empire” “Eastern Roman Empire” seems to be the main alternative, but I find that to be a little misleading because the Empire regained large parts of the West, and held on to Southern Italy into the 10th Century.
All empires changes. The Roman Republic were different from the Roman Empire later. It is laughable that we moderns are determining the identitity of ancient people . They are not here to tell their side of the story. I will go by what the ancient people wrote. From the Emperor , Patriach , bishops diplomat, chroniclers and foreign enenmies Arabs Turks Bulgarians Serbians Persians even all the way to India and China call the Empire centred in Constantinople Roman. All of them called that Empire Rome and the inhabitants Roman. The only people not calling them Romans were the Latins , Franks and their cultural descendants. No one would have given two hoots what these Latins and Franks thought or call of the Constatipnople Romans if not the fact that they went on to have the renaisance 18th century enlightenment and the Industrial revolution to conquer the world and imposed their world view and scholarship on the rest of us. The Byzantium Empire did not exist. Only Roman. And even though th Empire was gone by 1453. Romans and Roman lands still existed until early 20th century.
In what sense though? This makes absolutely no sense! The Roman Empire of Theodosius and Constantine was certainly very different from that of, Augustus Caracella and Aurelian. The Roman polity lasted a very long time, shifting from an Republic, to an Empire (but even by the late Republican period it was an Empire) to a nation-state (after Caracella gave universal citizenship), each era with different laws, political ideals and perceptions of what constituted "Roman" (over a 700 year period in the West). Do we consider those times any less Roman because of those changes? Of course not! This argument is a non-sequiter because it makes no logical sense when you stop looking at this from a surface level. Were the English any different from the English now at the time of Alfred the Great, Charles I, Oliver Cromwell or George V? Even though they went through various changes in that time-span legally, linguistically or politically? The answer is no, and the Roman case isn't any different!
@@BorninPurple Byzaboos clawing their damn nails to the bone trying to maintain the slightest relation to Rome lmao. Cry harder, The Roman Empire (Western Rome) thought of the Byzantines as a bunch of LARP'ing dorks
@@BorninPurpleI like where you were going with your comment, but a huge flaw is in the last bit of your point. The English were very much different during Alfred’s time versus Cromwell, Charles, George etc. They were very much Anglo-Saxon rather than English. From 899 to 1066 they weren’t English like we know them. It wasn’t till Henry IV that even our rough conception of English identity form. That’s why there is something to say about the shift in terminology when describing the Eastern Romans/ Byzantines. Roman is a fickle thing because one is not wrong saying a person in Gaul in 300 AD was very much Roman, as were the folk in Constantinople. But while the Skelton of Roman identity remained one can’t argue that the religion, culture and even spoken/ written word no longer was that of the Romans of Constantine. Their was no unified church across the Mediterranean, Latin was not spoken nor used in documents. The ERE evolved into a Greek empire naturally. This flower sprouted from Rome but became a “cross-pollinated” plant with elements of the inherent Greek culture that was in the proverbial soil. Side note- the ‘Byzantines’ saw and called themselves Roman, they were the children of Rome. At the end of the day they were Roman, but a variation that evolved into a Greek empire due to the culture that existed in this side of the empire removed from the anarchy of the Germanic kingdoms. They are Schrödinger Roman’s, both are and aren’t at the same time, it’s just easier to use a Byzantine when teaching the subject/ discussing it.
A very interesting historical fact. In the late Ming Dynasty in China, a military book recorded that a Lumi(噜密) ambassador brought a matchlock with a special long barrel. This was different from the original matchlock in China. Its power could A little larger than the Spanish and Chinese matchlocks.Lumi is actually the transliteration of Roma, but when we look at the illustrations printed in the book, you will find that there is an Ottoman with a turban on it.🤣 It should be said that at that time, both the Arab world and China referred to all people in Asia Minor as Romans. BTW, the book name is 《神器谱》written by 赵士祯.
We still call ourselves Ρωμιοί. It was more popular prior to 1821. Also the term Ἕλλην during the Byzantine period (the period could be called Byzantine, but the empire itself can only be called Roman) was a taboo, because those who identified with it were often pagans.
The entire “Hellenic” revival is Phanar scheming and imperial ambitions. Ofc Phanar only pretend to be Christian and the serve Satan, so they love little boys, etc... this was part of the “Hellenic revival” You know that almost all the Greeks in Thrace up / north are hellenised Serbs, Vlahs, and Albanians? Then later some Romans proper were brought in with the population échange with Turkey. Phanar must be destroyed. Emperor Dušan went to kick them out of Constantinople after becoming Autocrator of join Serb / Roman Empire, and the poisoned him on the way there.
Yes, we still call ourselves Ρωμιοί/ Romans. It means "Greek" in the greek language and it's a definition that the term "Roman" obtained during the byzantine period. Due to the fact that, among the people with Roman citizenship, Greeks were the ones that had become the core and rulers of the empire during the medieval period the term "Roman" started to be associated with them and came to mean the ethnically Greek. With this definition we're using the word Ρωμιοί for ourselves till this day. As just another word that means Greek (like Γραικός and Ελληνας), not as a different non-greek identity. We don't claim that we have some kind of connection with the ancient romans whenever we're using the term Ρωμιοί. Our connection is solely with the medieval Greeks/byzantines. Ελλην was never a taboo (it was used during the entirety of the byzantine period the same way that the rest of the greek ethnonyms were used). It just had two definitions. It was used as a national term that meant "Greek" or as a religious term that meant "pagan". Identifying as Greek wasn't considered a taboo (that's how Byzantines self-identified), identifying as pagan on the other hand wasn't considered as something good.
In what way did the Italians win!? Genetic and cultural - mixture of Germanic (Goths, Langobard, Arab Muslims in Sicily and later Normans as well Spanish (Gothics, Barberish Arabs as well as Hellenic in the Sicily).... As well as Punic (Cartagenian origin) as well ignoring the fact that the teachers of young nobles were Greek- speaking community
Wow, imagine an Irish historian referring to something as "the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed" while discussing something on the other side of the channel.
byzantine can also mean “of byzantium”, that is, the state based in byzantium/constantinople/istanbul, which IS very descriptive of a core characteristic throughout its existence. That it was a state whose lynchpin was that city. Its also practical given that Rome itself, mostly through Papal power, was an active polity doing its own thing throughout the period. Kind of like how we retroactively use the term “Octavian” when he didnt go by that name in his life. or more extremely callinging china china even though that was the name of a single dynasty. Saying that it wasn’t the roman empire would be wrong, but byzantine is also a very descriptively useful way to refer to it as too. its a pragmatics thing.
In the Arab world we still colloquially refer to the Byzantines as ‘Romans’. In fact we use the term Roman to describe Greek Orthodox Christians instead of Roman Catholics (we just call them Catholics). There’s a whole chapter in the Quran called ‘The Romans’ talking about the Byzantine’s war with the Sassanids which was happening in the background of the Prophet Muhammad’s preaching
Not calling the Roman Catholics with the Pope in Rome 'Roman Christians', but using 'Roman Christians' to describe the Christians who at this point are predominantly in Russia sounds like an incredibly convoluted naming system.
@@legateelizabeth It has nothing to do with the city of Rome but with how we perceive the Roman Empire. We see the Byzantines as the continuation of the Roman Empire (like they did) so we call people affiliated with their (Greek Orthodox) church Roman Christians. Note that Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox are two separate groups with separate churches.
@@legateelizabethyou guys aren’t actually Roman, you’re Frankish. It would make more sense to simply go by Frankish Catholics who have the Patriarch of Rome since you refer to the other 4 patriarchs in Orthodoxy “Greek”
@@nel7105 Well I'm a British Buddhist so I'd certainly hope I'm neither Frankish, nor Roman, nor Catholic or I'd be having quite the identity crisis. :D
@@legateelizabeth Ironically, us Catholics don't refer to ourselves as "Roman Catholics" usually. That's actually a term more used by Protestants. We just call ourselves Catholics and that's that.
Its actually really common to call historical peoples something other than what called themselves. For example in the english civil war the terms cavalier, roundhead and puritan are all slanderous names given by their enemies. The puritans called themselves “the godly” or “philosophers” and I don’t think anyone thinks we should start using those.
A interesting point, but in this case the self-identification is actually relevant, and not the type of titular self-aggrandizing for a creed, as in your example about the puritans. Because if Eastern Rome is seen as a legitimate successor (which is very hard to argue against), then the self-identification becomes an important point of contention. Had they not identified as roman, there would have been a good argument against their 'romanness'. But they did. So it's important to take it into consideration in the debate.
Definitely think we should start calling the Puritans "the godly". "The godly" vs "the quasi-papists" is much more accurate than "cavaliers" vs "roundheads", which makes it sound like long-haired cavalry officer Oliver Cromwell should have been on the "cavalier" side.
Octavian the emperor is another channel relivent example. China is another as its a name for a single dynasty that came and went. Others are cato the elder/younger.
The "Democratic Republican" Party of early US history called themselves Republicans, but were only distantly related to the current Republican Party founded in the 19th century. It's another good example of a term applied retroactively by historians for clarity.
it's not about the term call it whatever you want the problem is when people think it's not the Roman empire and it's something separate from it or trying to imitate the Romans.
I am from Jordan, and I used to hear the word “Byzantine” from TH-cam, and our educational curricula call the Byzantines “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)" and after that they started writing “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)” in parentheses, the Byzantine state, Our fathers & grandfathers & a few of the current generations still call the Byzantine Empire “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)" & The Byzantine land is called "Bilad al-Rum (the Romania/Roman land)", and fact some still called the Mediterranean Sea the "Bahr Rum (Roman Sea)". I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes.
China was not Buddhist when it was founded. Is it still Chinese? Old English is incomprehensible, were Elizabeth I and Athelstan both monarchs of England? The United States has changed almost every aspect of our election system, our senators are now directly elected, we have completely rewritten the electoral college rules, and we have modified how our representatives are allocated by eliminating the 3/5 compromise, are we still the United States? Every country changes, just like the Roman Empire did. I agree, there is no clear point to say where the Eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantine empire. They are the same empire, just like how Biden and Washington are both Presidents of the United States.
Although "Empire of Constantinopolitans" was never used, one of the names Western Europe used for the Medieval Roman Empire in the 13th Century was the "Empire of Constantinople". It was your duty to attend to the business of your legation and to give careful consideration, not to the capture of the Empire of Constantinople... --Pope Innocent III on the Fourth Crusade.
Also it's worth to note that "Latin empire" wasn't the name of the state, it's emperor it had three official variants of the title "Emperor of Romania (land of the Romans)", "Emperor of Constantinopole" and "Emperor of Romans"
@@vladprus4019 I think this is a pretty interesting point. Since Latin Empire is also a later name given by historians, should we also just call it Roman Empire? I think the historiographical name is useful, when you read "Latin Empire", you immediately know which sixty year period it refers to.
@@RomabooRamblings You can see why the term Byzantine Empire came into common usage. It's just a slightly different (shorter) rendering of Constantinopolitan Empire
Man, these videos are so well made that they enrich my taste buds and quench my thirst for historical questions I wanted answered, but never manage to fully visualise what it is that I want to know. History is so cool man...
This video honestly deserves more attention. The second half focusing on how the Romans in 'Byzantium' saw themselves and how there was actually a clear difference between 'ethnic' Romans and 'citizen' Romans is fascinating in regard to understanding the whole thing.
As a Greek myself: in short, we call ourselves Romans (Romaioi, Romioi). This is how we identify ourselves, even to this day, even by a decreasing rate. Does that mean we're the actual Romans themselves? No, everyone knows we're Greeks. We're just identifying as Romans, because the ERE passed into our hands for 1123 years. And before 330, Greeks, due to Caracalla, could call themselves Roman citizens. That's why being a "Rhomaios" is an integral part of Hellenic identity. Because the Roman Empire was basically handed down to us, and we continued it. Through this alone, it shows that even if all other aspects of the empire were Greek (except law), it didn't stop being Roman.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
@ThomasGazis the Ancient Greeks did, early medieval Greeks who had been ruled by the Romans for centuries took pride in their roman influence, a lot can change in a thousand years
5:45 The Holy Roman Empire did control and rule over Romans. Not even the ones of Rome, the Romansh, of southern Switzerland (at the time part of the HRE) were and still are a group of Romans who have continued to identify as Roman up until the present.
I do still find it crazy that "Romans" actually still existed into the early 20th century like when Greece took Lemnos a couple children encountered the greek soldiers and the conversation went like this Some of the children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like. ‘‘What are you looking at?’’ one of them asked. ‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the children replied. ‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ a soldier retorted. ‘‘No, we are Romans." the children replied. Like that actually crazy Romans still existed in the 1910s and 20s.
For God's sake, why is everyone repeating that anecdote? This comes from the personal account of Panagiotis Peter Charanis, a Byzantinologist Greek-American who was born in Lemnos in 1906-1908, and was just 4 years old when the Greek State liberated Lemnos from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. Having not even started grade school at the time, I think we should not base a rift of Hellenic and Rhomaic Identity on the mistake of a little child. We Modern Greeks still call ourselves not only "Hellenes" and Greekness as "Hellenesmos", but also as "Rhomeoi" and Greekness as "Rhomeosene", that means "Modern Romans" and "Modern Romanness".
Turks still refer to Greek speaking muslims in Turkey and Cypriot Greeks as "Rum". Cypriot Greeks refer to themselves still as "Romioi" (being Greek Cypriot myself)
Gypsies refer to themselves as roman. I know it's supposedly refers to a different word, but it sounds exactly like "roman" in some languages. It makes me wonder why they picked that word out of all words. Romanians named their nation after Rome.
The best point raised in this video is the statement that "having one identity does not bar you from having another one". Being Greek in culture does not also stop you from being a Roman, who adheres to Roman laws, traditions and customs as much as a Latin-speaking Italian from the Republican era. It is true that Greek learning was the main form of education in the Eastern Roman Empire and the average student would learn Sophokles or Plato over Latin writers such as Plautus or Cicero, but these students still embraced their Roman identity. Hellenism as a thing didn't really start until the 11th or the 12th century, among the Komnenian literati when the Empire came into much contact with the Latins, who claimed the Roman identity for themselves and degraded the Eastern Romans as "effeminate Greeks", so the Komnenian scholars developed their Ancient Greek heritage as an anti-Latin reaction, and this identity strengthened even more after the Latin conquest of Constantinople. The Hellenic identity increased over time in the later years of the Empire, but the Romans as a whole (not counting just a few individuals) never dropped the Roman identity either, as best exemplified in the final speech of Constantine XI Palaiologos ("descendants of the Greeks and the Romans").
Also he said " we will win just as we fought Carthage, Gaul, the Bulgars " or something like that, clearly stating that the idea of being the Roman Empire and being Roman citizens was the main one
In the Medieval Byzantine context, saying that Greeks aren't Romans is about as silly as saying Californians aren't Americans or Texans aren't Americans.
It's not really the Greek vs Roman identity that people care about; identities can co-exist if they compliment each other. It's the Pagan vs Christian divide that mainly trashes the culture of the empire, robbing it of the martial vigor that defined the Roman polity & pacifying the state. "Byzantine" has become a by-word for pointless rituals and ceremonies which have no real world impact; there's a reason for that.
Great video ! For history enthusiasts, some monumental works by three experts of the Greek Byzantine Empire include; Warren Treadgold; “A Concise History of Byzantium”, “A History of the Byzantine State and Society”, “Byzantium and Its Army, 284-1081”, “The Byzantine Revival, 780-842”. Gustav Schlumberger; “Un empereur byzantin au dixieme siecle: Nicephore Phocas”, “Byzance et les croisades”, “Récits de Byzance et des croisades”, “ Le siege la prise et le sac de Constantinople par les Turcs en 1453”. Sir Steven Runciman; “Byzantine Civilization”, “The Fall of Constantinople 1453”, “The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence”, “Byzantine Style and Civilization”, “The Last Byzantine Renaissance”. All epic. Truly, an academic treasure.
"And because there are two natural lords in the world - one secular, and one spiritual - that this little island had: the Basileus of Constantinople and the patriarch of the great Antioch, before the Latins took it. Because of that, it was of use to know perfect Rhomeika* to send scriptures to the Basileus, and good Syriac**. And this is how their children would learn, and how the secretary business would carry on with Syriac and Rhomeika, until the Lusignans took over the place, and they would learn Frankish*** thereafter. And Rhomeika barbarized****, as things are today, and we write Frankish and Rhomeika, since in the world they don't know what we're speaking." *Greek, **Aramaic (possibly liturgical), ***Middle French, ****they got mixed (vocabulary-wise) - Χρονικόν [Κύπρου] (Chronicle [of Cyprus], Leontios Machairas, c. 1458
You forgot to mention thet the midle Byzantine citizen was fully educated in Homer ( ancinet greek text, not the common Hellinistic Greek !) , and in the other ancient greek studies, espessialy more , from the first European univercity , for centuries , the ''Pandidactirion ''( Πανδιδακτήριον ..) . For you, western People, it is in deed quite difficult to understand the identity of the Byzantines. For as the Greeks, it is us simple us we know our parents... Our ansestors who liberaterd Greece in 1821, they - not just considerd- but they were naturally knew that they were liberating the ethnos of Ρωμιών after 400 years of slavery.. And the ultimate purpose was to liberate the capital of the ''Rum'' ''Ρωμιων - Ελλήνων'''' Greeks'' The Constantinople... '' Romios '' and Greek - Hellene - was and is until today in the consius of all Greeks the same name meaning .. ( Ρωμιός - Έλληνας ) . But .. only whoever is Greek Christian Orhodox has this consius stroger inside him!!! .... The great misunderstanding became almost immediately after the liberation, by the ideas which came from western Europe, were saying that the knew Greeks shoud be looking for their past only in the antiquity !!!! ..... ... '' But it was never the truth .. becouse it was always seperating the Greek soul into two !!!! ... That was the consern of the westerns !! We were always feeling the ancients as the grandfathers, But, we were the Byzantines ! the Rum ! The Romioi ! the Ελληνες ! Because the Byzantines were the fathers ... And the last emperor Constantine Palaiologos, fell fighting in the gate of saint Romanos... He did not gave the City to the turks..... In his last speech , which has being saved by his close secretary Georgios Fratzis, Constantine adressing toy the people, said '' We are descentans of Romans and Greeks ! - Ρωμαίων και Ελλήνων. After the failure of liberating Constantinopole ,during the Balcan wars and after, and also after, the catastrofy of the Romios Greeks ( Ρωμιους - Ελληνες ) in Minor Asia in 1922 for the first time after almost ..3000 years ! ... a total sadness a kind of catathipsy came to the consius of the Greek soul for the unfinished liberation ...either in space...nor in culture....
Thank you for saying this, aderfe mou. As the Saint Emperor Ioannes Vatatzes said: only the Greeks are the inheritors of the Roman empire. One can be both Greek and Roman at the same time. Westerners are still using the same flawed logic as before: they think if you are Roman you can't be Greek or if your Greek you can't be Roman!
In Egypt and i think also the entire arab world, we use roman for the byzantine empire when it controlled egypt and the levant and north africa, once it lost it we just called it byzantium, or just idk we use it interchangeably
I personally strictly avoid using the word Byzantine. No fucking shit the word was invented by Germans to pretend Germans are Roman do to holy Roman Empire. and only idiots would seriously call Germans as Roman in the dumbest intellectual deficiency. So I avoid the term Byzantine to my own. And would prefer saying Roman. That's how I do it.
@@compatriot852 if the United States lost lands the people and government doesn't cease to be American. The Roman Empire likewise doesn't cease being Roman. Say the "Anglo" culture of America is diminished and the capital DC and the original 13 colonies lost and Spanish gains predominance, the citizens are still American and the culture while changed still has influence from the foundation. There's to acknowledge it gain Mexican Spanish influence. If we compare a US and Mexico relationship to Greco-Romans. My analogy has flaws and isn't perfect but it's what I'm saying
More on the "They spoke Greeeeek not Latin so not Roman!" The upper-class Romans even in the late Republic in the 1st century bc spoke Greek as a second language. So does that mean Julius Caesar wasn't Roman since he also spoke Greek? Eastern Rome ruled over Latin speaking lands in it's history such as southern Spain southern Italy and Sardinia and parts of the Balkans. When the Romans conquered the Greek lands was it not part of the Empire? Same with Gaulish lands when the subjects spoke Gaulish? Even Romans in Rome referred to Greek and Latin as "their languages."
I mean also early Rome fought wars against the Latins and denied them citizenship for a long time. Even in the time of Cicero, since he was not literally from the city of Rome, but from latinum he was often called a foreigner. So it's not like Roman identity was synonymous with speaking Latin
Perfect tl:dl summary at 28:00. They are Byzantines because the western European powers had their own agenda in denying the "Romaness" of the Eastern Roman Empire.
YES!! AMAZING JOB!! THANK YOU!! You have said everything that I have been thinking and more! Thank you for saving me the trouble of debunking all these arguments myself, and doing a better job at it than I would’ve ever done! It might be the first time I get so excited over a TH-cam video. It was simply incredible; it was as if you had been reading my mind. In a way it’s not too surprising, since we have been reading the same book! “Romanland“ is one of my favorites. I have already shared this video with over a dozen friends. God bless you!
@@RESIST_DIGITAL_ID_UK The connection is obvious: the Byzantines claimed to be Christian but they were heretics for the reason I gave which is in a very long list.
@@SiGa-i1r Completely irrelevant and ignorant comment. If you have anything of essence that would like to say that’s actually on the topic, I am listening.
No one calls it Turkish. The Ottoman rule came by after brutal conquest and brought massacres and discrimination to those who called themselves «Roman ». they had a different culture, religion, language, all foreign to anything Roman. They were a foreign invading people from Central Asia. Calling the Turks Roman is pure stupidity.
@@olbiomoirosNot supporting the ottomans claim and neither their empire but, come on. Rome did the same to many populations, Carthage was yeeted out of history, Gauls genocided, Jews expelled and so on. The negative view of the ottomans come mainly becaude they were muslims. And ofc their actions from ww1
People are just too biased/clouded by modern countries. "greece is like ancient greece and italy is rome", when in truth it's far more complicated and obviously the statement is fundamentally wrong. people who actually research will eventually see that "greeks" and "romans" are parts of the same bronze age tribes. modern people/historians just like to make things simpler even if it means being wrong for the sake of politics and clinging on to false identities.
Imo as an italian, I also always thought of other romance speakers to have as much roman heritage as italy does, I don't understand why people narrow it down to Italy. Italy was the center for many years, but in many years it also wasn't, plus then Italy came under the control of different cultures, Franks, Lombards, Eastern Romans themselves, so is much more like a mosaic than a single color itself. Of course today I see how Greece and many countries around the Balkans have roman heritage, but many people do not!
100% agreed. If your Turkish, it's the Ottomans, if you're Iranian it's the Achaemenids, if you're Lebanese it's the Phoenicians. I think people just pick the oldest coolest national power that had vaguely the same ethnic heritage to point to to be like "See? We had a cool ancient empire too!!"
It is called continuity , I think , and some nations around the world can, without any doubt, claim it as their documented history. There's nothing wrong with that.
@@jonmiller6787 Turkey is a direct successor of Ottomania in every sense of the word "direct". And the Achaemenid Empire and modern Iran have the same name and are inhabited by the same people.
The simple answer is that being Roman meant different things over time, much like being Egyptian or Persian or German or Chinese or Indian. All those areas and the Mediterranean have seen a lot of ethno-cultures who identify with a particular name or origin or modern occupation, but its all just lines on a map dictacted by military posture and political clout. Every two hundred or so years of Roman history there's enough change that some from the early Republic wouldn't like the middle Republic, who feel the same about the early Principate. Being "Roman" used to mean you were a wealthy landowner who lived in the original boundaries of Rome, but Caracalla extended that identity to anyone who wanted within the pre crisis imperial borders. Being Roman is not one thing because if you brought a 200 BCE era Roman to the height of the Principate, he would be horrified to see barbarians (non Italians) in the legions, the Senatorial class neutered, and obscene displays of decadence, wealth and excess. If they saw the era of Constantine he'd die of an aneurysm. Every Republican would look upon the Roman world with shame, the same way the Greeks looked upon the post Phillip/Alexander Hellenic era.
A roman is a citizen of the roman state. Italians and latins were also not initially romans until they were granted citizenship. The southern italians were greek by the way and acquired citizenship earlier than other greeks.
All the empires you listed will almost always have an additional name tacked on to denote the change in time or ruling government. For instance, the Achaemenid Persians were the ones with Cyrus and Darius, while the Parthian and Sassanid Persians were the ones who fought against Rome. The 25th Dynasty of Egypt was ruled by Nubians while Ptolemaic Egypt was ruled by Greeks. The German Empire had the Kaiser, while Weimar Germany was what came after. If somebody wants to use Byzantine as a descriptor of the Roman empire after the loss of Rome and transition to a Greek-speaking, orthodox christian empire, they'd have a pretty good foundation for doing so.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
I mean, if we consider that an earlier Roman emperor granted citizenship to all subjects of the emoire. And that many of these emperors weren't exactly of Latin stock, like Aurelian who was Dacian and Julian the Apostate who straight up considered himself Greek. Then it is completely reasonable to accept that Byzantines, though they may speak Greek (not all of them, there were Latins in the Eastern Roman Empire, particularly on the Balkans) and be in a different land, were Romans all the same.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
@@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER The Romans from the Italian Peninsula were much germanized by Goths, Lombards, Franks, Germans, for about 1000 years, until the Renaissance Italian Republics.
Love the conclusion to the B-word. Its really ez to use as the b-word is easier to write than Eastern Roman Empire as the b-word already references the medieval roman period of the remaining eastern Roman Empire. I do think i have still lingering negative feels about the word as its often used to deny the "Byzantines" the romanes they lay litterally decent from (using the Theseus analogy ofc)
Would love you to do a video on how the Roman state viewed Italians and the papal states after charlemagne, whether they were still Romans in their eyes or increasingly foreign like the franks.
In the later stages of the Byzantine empire Latin sort of evolved to be equivalent of Barbarian. Also it was common across the western Mediterranean to call all Western Europeans Franks regardless of who they actually were.
Nah, the Roman consider the Papal state as barbarian because...they were literally decendence of Goth and Lombards from Germany. All the Popes were not ethnically Italian.
Charlemagne was a Frank and never intended for the Roman title to be significant. His son only inherited it by accident since the brothers died. Italy was already absorbing Germanic influence before the west fell
@@wewenang5167 If we ignore the fact that the italians (both medieval and modern) speak the most latin language, are culturally closest to classical latin, base their laws off roman law, practice the same christian rite as they did as subjects of rome and are genetically the closest to classical romans, then you might be correct in calling italians germanic. Just because they were conquered by a small band of barbarians doesnt mean the romanness of the italians was lost.
The name Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire is a Greek theme.And since the Greeks use both names, this is what is accepted. Rome is a Greek word means power,strength. In ancient Greek texts the word is written with ω ,Ρώμη = Rome ,and not Ρόμη as it would be written if the word was not Greek. Check out the script ΡΩΜΗ on a 5th century BC marble inscription. in the Vatican museum Rome- power , follows the displacement of power. Constantinople = New Rome, Moscow = the third Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, the Sultanate of Rum, etc. The Greek meaning of the word Rome is also the reason why citizenship was invented for the first time in history calling the citizens Romans, Romoioi , Rum, giving them the "power" =the Roman citizenship. The granting of citizenship to allies and the conquered was a vital step in the process of Romanization. This step was one of the most effective political tools and (at that point in history) original political ideas. These are the names of the 7( 8 ) kings of Rome. Romulus,(Titus Tatius), Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, Tarquinius Superbus. Romulus =Troian origin , Titus Tatius = sabine from Lacedemonian origin ,Numa Pompilius =sabine from Lacedemonian origin ,Tarquinius Priscus =Etruscan from paternal corinthian(Demaratus of Corinth) Doric origin ,Servius Tullius son of Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus gran son of Tarquinius Priscus . Demaratus was a Dorian nobleman and a member of the Corinthian Dorian house of the Bacchiadae. Facing charges of sedition, in 655 BC he fled to Italy with his Royal court,, according to tradition settling in the Etruscan city of Tarquinii, where he married an Etruscan noblewoman. Demaratus (Greek: Δημάρατος), frequently called Demaratus of Corinth, was an ancestor of Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the first consuls of the Roman Republic. Three important Roman gentes claimed descent from Demaratus; the Junii, through the first consul; the Mamilii, who came to Rome from Tusculum in the fifth century BC; and the Tullii, through Servius Tullius Every attempt to dissociate Rome and Roman empire from Greek influence is doomed to failure.
Funny to me how Western Europeans called the Byzantines "The Greek Empire" in order to justify the HRE's claim to be Rome's successor even though the HRE had way less of a real cultural claim to the Roman Empire.
Well said! My take is this. The nation and state is Rome. The period in which Constantinople was the capital of Rome is called "Byzantine Period". Noone thinks that the Napoleonic Empire isn't French because we call it Napoleonic France. "Byzantine Rome" could refere to Rome during the Byzantine Period, the third period of Roman history (fourth counting the shirt monarchy).
I've always made this equivalent: Let's say in the future, America decides to move the capital from the East Coast to the West Coast. Let's also say that the government decided to split administratively, and we now had two Presidents, one in DC, and one in L.A. Let's also say that throughout the years, the Western half allows for more immigration, and they also start speaking Spanish more than English, because it's easier, and because they have hybridized their culture and become more latino-focused, and even the majority of the populace becomes Catholic. The years go by, and the Western part of the country becomes richer, and more important, now bear in mind, that they are all still part of the same entity. So years pass, there's a lot of instability that happens in the East. Then, suddenly, after hundreds of years, let's say that Canada invades and dismantles the entirety of the US east of the Mississippi, but the Los Angeles centered Western US stays standing. Would that make the remaining Western, Catholica, Spanish-speaking US not the US? Or would it simply be that the US lost territory to an invading force?
Moving further forward, what if, over time, the Western Half collapses and LA is dominated by Canadians (who also now consider themselves Americans). To further distinguish themselves, the Western Americans decide to also embrace an ancient Indigenous identity. After the fall of LA, are the Westerners still Americans? Either that or we acknowledge that identities are ephemeral and ever-changing.
One thing I want to add to this great video, the Byzantium/Byzantine usage, I'm a "Byzantine" Catholic. Though officially, we use the Constantinopolitan Rite, it's usually just abbreviated as Byzantine Rite. My specific church in the US, uses the term Byzantine to stress our difference from the Roman Catholics BUT to keep the ethnic tones out, we don't like to use Greek Catholic or even Ukrainian Greek Catholic, since the Byzantine Empire is Roman, and thus, comprised of more than just a single ethnicity. Attempts at changing the name have had some weird results. I was once attending liturgy at another one of my church's churches, like in direct jurisdiction, but it used the name "Eastern Catholic" and we had a family of Romans on vacation visit and they had NO IDEA what we were doing. I remember the mother saying "We thought it was Eastern Catholic as in eastern United States." FURTHERMORE, this is unique to my city I think, in like 2019, a massive priest abuse scandal was discovered in the Roman clergy, and our archbishop issued an order for us to use Byzantine as a term more, and for our priests to stop dressing like Roman priests and return to the Constantinople style of dress, to distance ourselves from our Roman neighbors in an attempt to preserve our Church. There was major fear that the Byzantine Catholics, the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, etc, would see protests and vandalism (like the Roman churches around here did) if they were considered "too Roman." I must also mention, my hometown is the capital of all "Byzantine" Catholics in the US, after the Soviet Union destroyed our original HQ in Ukraine, the clergy fled here and set up shop and the word Byzantine was specifically chosen to avoid the nationalistic tone that an ethnicity would have and Constantinopolitan was avoided because it's way too long and would just confuse everyone since if you look up Constantinople now, you find Istanbul, and that opens another huge debate. Love the video, I use the term Byzantine with extreme pride, to me, the first Byzantine emperor is Augustus Caesar, as there is an unbroken line from him all the way to Constantine XI. I've seen the term Romano-Byzantine Empire used, because calling it the Eastern Roman Empire sometimes makes people think its an offshoot, like the Holy Roman Empire was, rather than the actual empire itself, just like 1/2 of it, or by the like 800s, 1/5th of it. I do want to add, the idea that the Roman state changes over time but still remained Roman, can be paralleled to China. China went through many dynasties, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, etc, etc, and they didn't stop being Chinese. The language transitioned from ancient Chinese, to Classical Chinese, to modern Mandarin. The laws changed and so did the structure. The Qin had a powerful prime minister and a militarily active emperor, the Han had 3 high officials, with divided abilities, and an emperor uninvolved in military affairs, and the last two dynasties, the Ming and Qing, had exceptionally large bureaucracies, large complex militaries, but the Qing was massive due to being expansionistic, while the Ming was more nationalist and decided to stay in China's preexisting borders for the most part. All those dynasties are STILL Chinese, just like all the transitions of the Romans are still Roman, as I said, unbroken line from Augustus to Constantine XI.
Byzantines were Greeks in everything and typically Romans only by name! 🤫 The Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization a Greek society. Bulgarians were Turkic or Slavs?Rus were Swedish or Slavs? Holy Roman Empire was Roman or Germanic empire?Moghuls were Turkic or Indians?Safavids were Turkic or Persians? Byzantines were Romans/Italics or Greeks? I can give many examples were a nation have a different origin from its initial name: 1)Bulgarians were initially a Turkic nation but gradually Slavicised so nowadays they consider themselves a Slavic and not a Turkic nation , 2)Moghuls had a Turco-Mongolic name but it was an Indian Empire in language, ethnicity and culture, 3)Russians name is derived from the Rus' people, who were a Swedish tribe, and where the three original members of the Rurikid dynastry came from but nowadays they are an East Slavic nation! 4)Safavids were initially a Turkic/Kurdish dynasty but gradually their nation and whole dynasty became fully persianised! 5)Holy Roman Empire was an empire made by Germanic people, who they talk Germanic dialects and had a Germanic culture, so the were "Romans" typically only by name! Same way the 6)Eastern Roman Empire initially was a Roman Empire but gradually fully Hellenized in every aspect like language, culture and also main ethnicity. Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean, spoken natively in the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor, and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Southern Italy, the Black Sea, Western Asia and North Africa. At the beginning of the Byzantine millennium, the koine (Greek: κοινή) remained the basis for spoken Greek and Christian writings, while Attic Greek was the language of the philosophers and orators. Byzantine was generally known to many of its Western contemporaries as the Empire of the Greeks. This was because of the dominance of the Greek language, culture, and population. Greek was not only the official language but also the language of the church, literature, and commercial transactions. Most historians agree that the defining features of their civilization were: 1) Greek language, culture, literature, and science, 2) Roman law and tradition, 3) Christian faith. The Byzantine Greeks were, and perceived themselves as, heirs to the culture of ancient Greece, the political heirs of imperial Rome, and followers of the Apostles. The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and portions of the southern Balkans, and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt. Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi), but are referred to as "Byzantine Greeks" in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei. Use of the Greek language was already widespread in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire when Constantine moved its capital to Constantinople, although Latin was the language of the imperial administration. From the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641), Greek was the predominant language amongst the populace and also replaced Latin in administration. At first, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks, who inhabited the heartland of the later empire: modern Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Sicily, and portions of southern Bulgaria, Crimea, and Albania. Over time, the relationship between them and the West, particularly with Latin Europe, deteriorated. Byzantine Greeks weren't Latin/Romans. You should know the period when Byzantines with Belisarius reconquered Italian peninsula. They even ruled Rome itself for more than 220 years. This period is well known for its Greek Popes! They called those Popes Greeks for a reason! Simply because they were GREEKS!🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷 Ethnicity is not always connected to religion. Ksekolla to mualo sou. You probably has zero knowledge about the ancient Indo-Greek Kingdom who converted to Buddhism. Is that means that after their conversion they ceased to be Greeks? Of course no, they were still Greeks! th-cam.com/users/shortsgicXr7WsTyE?si=XqvhmcCiiyZyNHMq Ancient Greek Buddhist Kingdoms. They still considered themselves as Greeks and not Indians. If you still don't understand that then you are a moron. Same way the Byzantines Christians were Greeks and NOT italic-latin-romans. th-cam.com/video/Etrr0E59g1A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=tYUSkcV7xrZS1j4K
@@GrecoByzantine1821 first I'm aware of Greco-Bactrians, second Romans aren't an ethnicity, they're a citizenry. Emperor Caracala I think is the one to extend citizenship to all in the empire. I'm having a hard time understanding your thesis statement because it doesn't sync up with my thesis statement. Also the Mughals are Mongols, direct descendants of Genghis Khan. The Safavids are multi ethnic, at least in their ruling family, since they had Kurdish, Azeri, and Pontic Greek heritage. I don't remember calling you a moron as I don't even know who you are or how your comment connects to mine. You seem to really be caught up on a modern concept of ethnicity. Or did you interpret my statement as anti Greek? Also, the Bulgarians are not Turkic, the Bulgars are. You cannot assign ethnicity so quickly to a people who took a few centuries to form. Like the Macedonian Slavs, they're historically protean. You seem real hung up on the Greekness of the Byzantines/Eastern Romans, which is fine but they can't be exclusively Greek, empires cannot be mono-ethnic states. Which is why Roman and Byzantine are not ethnic terms. If we look at the Byzantine Empire by the time Emperor Basil II died, you have a state that includes Greeks, Bulgarians (the Slavic people who have assimilated the Turkic Bulgars), Italians, Croatians, Bosnians, Albanians, Georgians, Armenians, assuredly some Turkic tribes that were migrating into Anatolia, assuredly Arabs that got left behind when the Caliphate retracted, Jews, and Vlach/Aromanians, and that's just naming the ones that come to mind. The Emperor of the Romans is not not the Emperor of the Greeks, if he was just that, the others ethnicities wouldn't be too thrilled to take orders from him. Did you even watch our man's video or did you just come here to fight in the comments lol. Straight up, I don't even know if you're replying to my message specifically or replying to the video and accidentally commented through mine. Our topics aren't even the same lol.
A very interesting historical fact. In the late Ming Dynasty in China, a military book recorded that a Lumi(噜密) ambassador brought a matchlock with a special long barrel. This was different from the original matchlock in China. Its power could A little larger than the Spanish and Chinese matchlocks.Lumi is actually the transliteration of Roma, but when we look at the illustrations printed in the book, you will find that there is an Ottoman with a turban on it.🤣 It should be said that at that time, both the Arab world and China referred to all people in Asia Minor as Romans.
@@개고기수프 I've actually heard this story before, yeah, Lumi is close to Luoma, which is modern Mandarin for Romans. And yeah, the western portion of Anatolia has been called Rum for a while. The Balkans were further called Rumelia, if I am spelling that correctly. Thus, it would be easy to say that most of the Balkans people have a claim to the Romano-Byzantine legacy, since empires cannot be mono-ethnic.
@@Rudero3 "second Romans aren't an ethnicity, they're a citizenry." That's a bit too easy. They were both a citizenry and, at least initially, a people (or a subset of the Latin people) with their own language, religion, traditions, etc. All of these were encapsulated in the "mos maiorum" that kept defining Roman self-perception well into the empire. Also, pointing to the fact that the emperors kept extending the citizenship infinitely as proof that Romanness was merely an administrative matter (as the argument seems to be) is a bit of a one-sided approach, as it ignores the internal opposition that did exist against this liberal approach to citizenship and identity, most notably from the Senate. It was the policy of the emperors, and they won, but the fact that they won does not necessarily make their more pragmatic, maybe even cynical, perspective on what it meant to be Roman the only valid one.
Is Roman something we should refer to as blood or as a nation? As Stilicho was a Latin Vandal. Many emperors we're Latin and Illyrian. The foederati was supposed to be a assimilation idea for turning barbarians into "Romans".
As a big fan of the Eastern Roman Empire, I use both. I know some people use "Byzantium" as an insult, but when I say it I just think of it a word for the Romans once Byzantion became their centre of power. And practically, in writing there is something called "graceful variance", which is where you use a different word for the same thing for the sake of variety. Saying "Eastern Roman Empire" every time is not only longer but can be repetitive
5:23 Another issue with a "Holy Roman" nationality is that the HRE acknowledged that it was not based off a single nation. "Life and victory to the army of the Franks, Romans and Germans" -Laudes Imperiale for the Holy Roman Emperor
well the Eastern Roman empire was more Greek than Latin so I guess people use the word "Byzantium" To differentiate The Greek Roman Empire from the Latin Roman Empire. Or at least that's how I see it. Yes they are Roman, but their also Greek. However I will still be using "Byzantium" as to describe the Eastern Roman Empire.
Can you do a video on what it meant to be a 'Roman'? You touched on it a little here. But what were the values that a 'Roman' held and what differentiated a 'Roman' from a barbarian and did these change? It can be race, language or ethnicity because we see those born outside of Italy, who spoke Greek and were not traditionally Roman or Italian being referred to or referring themselves as Romans.
Well done this was a geat video!! Nevertheless, I felt that you are cherry picking- You believe in the uniterupted romaness of the empire as a 'nation' or 'ethnicity' and the video presents sources and arguments from confirmation biases. The inhabitants were aware of their Greek ethnicity(at least the Greeks since the empire also included Greek speaking subjects). You did not present the emergence of Christianity as a pivotal moment for 'Romaness'. Roman was a political and religious term- Roman adheres to the political and military prowess of Western Rome which the Eastern Romans maintained as favourable but it also meant being Greek or Greek speaking AND Orthodox. Do not forget that Christianity shaped though the Greek world and language. Because Hellene meant Pagan the Greeks sought to show their Christian ideals through the concept of Romaness. In the late stages of the empire many Easter Romans emphasized their Greek ethncicity ( see last speech of Constantine the last emperor-the Alexiad the letter of John Vatages to the pope ("Apostolos Vacalopoulos notes that John III Ducas Vatatzes was prepared to use the words 'nation' (genos), 'Hellene' and 'Hellas' together in his correspondence with the Pope. John acknowledged that he was Greek, although bearing the title Emperor of the Romans: "the Greeks are the only heirs and successors of Constantine", he wrote. In similar fashion John’s son Theodore II, acc. 1254, who took some interest in the physical heritage of Antiquity, was prepared to refer to his whole Euro-Asian realm as "Hellas" and a "Hellenic dominion). In their schools the Easter Romas had as their main readings the Heliad and the Odyssey and NOT the Eniad which modern italians are being taught in their schools even to this day. I could say more but I will stop it here- Kaldellis is only but one source -you could have compared him with Vacalopoulos, Runciman and other byzantinologists who have very opposing ideas. Sorry for the long message!! and sorry for my disagreement it is well intended!!
For the part, which you say that "Roman" during the ERE didn't mean Greek... It basically did mean that. Because in the segment in which you, rightfully, cite all these excerpts indicating that Romans *did* ethnically distinguish themselves ethnically and racially from all other nations... The Greeks aren't mentioned. They're not mentioned because they're extinct. Far from that. But because "Rhomaios" did eventually come to mean "Hellenas" or "Greek". It might not have been used interchangeably, as others claim, but "Rhomaios" did come to mean "Greek". Which again, survives to the present day amongst some Greeks. And in the 19th century, we used "Rhomaios" or "Romios" to identify ourselves.
6:47 This point doesn't make much sense when applied to living things. Dinosaurs probably best fit this analogy. Now let's say Dinosaurs are Romans. They are a diverse group across the known world. Now after the extinction, we only have a small group of Dinosaurs (Birds) that survived. Birds (Byzantines) are technically dinosaurs (Romans) via direct lineage, but they've changed so much, are the only surviving member, and they are only distantly related to their other dinosaur relatives, which is why we use the term bird (Byzantine) as it helps signify this change No longer rulers of the world, but rather now Chicken Roma slowly carved up
BTW the Roman Empire was never a nation it was always an Empire (multicultural & multireligious) Even the early Roman republic was not a nation state between Etruscans, Greek polities and different Italic tribes.
@@corpi8784 we know that Andronikos III had latins around him and John VI allowed cuman refugees to settle in the empire there were also venetians and geonese settled permanently in biggest cities if Andronikos III didn't died prematurely I can see Archea, Rhodes and duchy of Archipelago reintegrated into the empire with their greeko-frank populations
The problem with the term nation is related to the fact that its meaning has changed over time, while for other languages it is a neologism (new word). In my native language, Romanian, the Latin natio would have been translated as "nație", which, until the 18th century, meant ethnicity, not nation. If other peoples who continued to use Latin in one form or another inherited the word nation, I think its meaning changed. It has changed from ethnicity to the modern sense of nation, which corresponds to a nation state.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
A question to this: we often overlook I believe the fact that even in ancient times pagan times the Roman mythology was born out of the Greek one. Not only the gods but also the myth of the very founding of the city of Rome itself. Meaning that Ancient Greece gave birth to Ancient Rome in its mythological aspect . Meaning that Palaiologos was not only a Roman emperor but that also even Sulla or Numa stood in a direct context with Achilles or Alexander the Great . Romans and Greeks were bound to each other from the very beginning onwards
Edit: I mean by that , that we can’t by example view the Athens of the 14 century differently from the Athens of the 1 century bc . In opposite of that, it is not correct to claim that the Augusta treverorum was able to legitimise the holy Roman emperors heritage . Greece was always without a doubt a elemental part of Roman culture history and mythological understanding . Never would had Vergilus put the newly conquered Germania minor into the same status of Romanitas as he would do so with the country from which his Minerva derived from
Let me give you a personal experience, my grandmother's nationality identification was British. My grandmother was born in Russia and immigrated to Australia in her forties during the late 1940s. She was not a Christian, did not speak English much or well, she not even like English food or culture. Never went to the United Kingdom yet she consistently self-identified as British. This was quite common at the time.
A nation is a group of people; groups of people are often named for the location, and when a new people move in, they 'take' the name despite not being of that group of people. But virtually all Europeans are apart of the same 'family' with virtually all of them being from Germanic tribes; Celts and Gauls were just earlier Germanic tribes.
The United Kingdom doesn't exist. Dumbocracy and Kingdom are mutually exclusive. A king is a man with the final word, and maximum authority, among mortals. Modern so-called monarchs are more like jesters on par with the Burger King. But dumb people want the glory of the past while gullibly accepting the stupidity of the present; in this case, that bandwagon fallacy, demoncracy. Liberalism is poison.
@@pyropulseIXXI While true that all Europeans have a shared ancestry saying Celts and Gauls (Gauls are Celts, so odd to differentiate them) were germanic tribes is wrong. Germanic is contemporary to Celts in ethnic history and quite far away from the common ancestor.
For those wondering about Anthony Kaldellis' top 10 Eastern Roman Emperors 10. Theodosius I 9. Leo III 8. Alexios I 7. Basil II (Yes, really) 6. Manuel I 5. John I 4. John III 3. Anastasius I 2. Constantine V 1. Constantine I Source: History of Byzantium Podcast Episode 265 I don't necessarily have any problem with the Emperors he chose, but their placement does kinda suck.
My own list would be somewhat similar with a few tweaks: 10) Manuel Komnenos 9) John I Tzimiskes 8) Alexios Komnenos 7) Basil II 6) Leo III 5) John II Komnenos 4) John III Doukas Vatatzes 3) Anastasius 2) Constantine V 1) Constantine the Great
Imo its best to still call it the roman empire but the people greco-roman. That way there is still the distinction of their unique culture while also not ignoring their romanità (like byzantine) or denying the italians theirs (like just using roman)
One of your best videos to date. Relevant to the subject is this clip from a Greek TV documentary on the Greeks of Corsica, some 40 years ago. The old lady by the name Justine is asked by the Greek where she's from, to which the lady responds: "Ime Rhomaia!" ("I'm Roman!") Parts that weren't liberated by the Greek Army in the 20th century, still had their residents self-identify as Rhomaioi (Romans), calling their language "rhomeika". Yet Westerners, as well as neo-Greeks, still like to insist that the term "Rhomaios" was simply a self-identification on a purely citizen level Makes you wonder Link for the clip: th-cam.com/video/QFFl5ZjAODk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-XDM05iieHZSSU2h&t=340
I don't know if you're Greek or not but Greeks called themselves Roman and Greek interchangeably until recently and I still know many fellow Greeks who do, including myself. It's not a dialectic, it can be both. Unlike this video, most people called them Greeks outside of the Frankish West. The Rus used Greki, the Bulgars Graikos, (Chalatar inscription), the Armenians used both Roman and Greek (Horrom and Yuna) (Emperor Romanos was addressed as Kaysrn Yunats' Romanos: Caesar of the Greeks Romanos) and the Georgians used exclusively Berdzen and their land Saberdzneti which also referred to Ancient Greece, and the Greeks....though it was used (at least once) to refer to Ancient Romans (Hadrian and his Roman-Armenian alliance), but the berdzulita the Berdzuli language, always meant Greek, as opposed to hromaelebrita, the Roman language aka Latin. One can be both Greek and Roman. Even Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitos describes the Maniots as Hellenes only in reference to their recent pagan past, but ethnically as "ancient Romaioi" clearly using Roman to mean Greek. It wasn't always a synonym, but it very much could be.
@@achilleuspetreas3828 I am Greek, but I know how our Greco-Romans ancestors saw themselves; and they saw themselves as Romans. You have to take into consideration the average, everyday man, who called himself "Roman" not because he thought that he descended from the ancient Romans, but because that's what was handed down by his forefathers. Our Rhomaioi ancestors though of Constantine the Great as the leader of their nation, New Rome-Constantinople was their capital, and Rhomania (Land of the Romans) was their fatherland. And no, they didn't use the name Greeks and Romans interchangeably. I could point that the Arabs called us Rum, and they made a very clear distinction between the Yunan (ancient Greeks) and the Rum (Romans - "medieval Greeks"). If we always used it "interchangeably", then people even in the early 20th century would respond that they are "Rhomaioi" when asked by the Greek liberating soldiers. Whether we like it or not, our forefathers became romanised in consciousness, and they retained it even after the Greek Revolution of 1821, hence why they referred themselves as such in the Ottoman occupied lands. You couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman, since Hellene denoted that someone was a pagan, the second worst thing after heretic. And for that daemonisation responsible is the Church. That's just how it is. Changing your national identity doesn't mean that the ancient Greeks vanished. People change their national identity when their old one dies out for various reasons. It's human nature to adapt in order not only to survive, but to thrive. You have to remember, that no matter how the others call you, you have to take into consideration how a population calls itself and how it self-identifies, how it sees itself. And whether we like it or not, our forefathers saw themselves as new Romans.
@@jasoncassios7114 I think we agree more than disagree, aderfe. To the point of identifying as Roman, yes, sometimes they appear synonymous but I don't believe it to be an actual synonym. I see it in the same way as a father (Rome) and mother (Greece) with their son ("Byzantium"). The son takes on the identity, legacy, and name of his father, but his mothers influence is seen in many ways from running the house, from food and music to teaching him to speak. Constantine the Great is a real mythological character being an anthropomorphized version of Constantinople and the empire itself, having a Latin speaking father and a Greek mother. I also think of the Church. As much as I value our philosophical tradition in our faith, I know that our faith is descended from the Jews, and if anyone challenges that and says we have a "Greek" faith and not one descent from Judaism, that angers me, even though I am proud of my Greek. On your point of the Arabs, yes, they called them Rum, but during times of war they used that as in insult in the same way that the West used Greek as an insult. To the Arabs, they would confirm the Rum as being descendant of the Yunan at times of friendliness but would say that the Rum were not because they don't deserve it because to them, it was Christianity that made them abandon the sciences of the ancient Greeks. I'd recommend the book: Byzantium Viewed By The Arabs by Nadia El Cheikh for more on this topic. She does not come from a philhellene or Greek nationalist point of view on the topic. The point of the Greek liberators, I'll quote someone in the comments who summed it quite well, "that comes from the personal account of Panagiotis Peter Charanis, a Byzantinologist Greek-American who was born in Lemnos in 1906-1908, and was just 4 years old when the Greek State liberated Lemnos from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. Having not even started grade school at the time, I think we should not base a rift of Hellenic and Rhomaic Identity on the mistake of a little child." "You couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman, since Hellene denoted that someone was a pagan, the second worst thing after heretic. And for that daemonisation responsible is the Church." Yes, until the 11th century whereabouts, you couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman because yes, it meant pagan, but once that connotation was lost, we see the word slowly being used again, because the meaning of the word shifted and no longer had the same stigma. We see this in Procopius' history of wars where he says that more than once that Hellene was now the word used for the "old faith". "ἀλλὰ τριβώνιον ἐνδιδυσκόμενος ἱερεῖ πρέπον τῆς παλαιᾶς δόξης ἣν νῦν Ἑλληνικὴν καλεῖν νενομίκασι," "but he clothed himself in a coarse garment appropriate to a priest of the old faith which they are now accustomed to call Hellenic" When I mean Greek identity I don't mean the use of the word Hellene Έλληνες solely, but to mean that the people recognized their shared culture and ancestry (however much, even if only partly) from those people along side their (Patriarchally) Roman one, whether that be in the form of Γραικος or something else, just as Achaeans was used before Hellene. That the two identities of Roman and "Greek" became thoroughly one, something that cannot be (or shouldn't be) separated or "divorced" so to speak. As Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitos said in Chapter 49 of De Administrando Imperio: Νικηφόρος τὰ τῶν Ρωμαίων σκῆπτρα ἐχράτει, καὶ οὗτοι ἐν τῷ ϑέματι ὄντες Πελοποννήσου ἀπόστασιν ἐννοήσαντες, πρῶτον μὲν τὰς τῶν γειτόνων οἰκίας τῶν Γραικῶν ἐξεπόρϑουν Nicephorus was holding the sceptre of the Romans, and these Slavs who were in the province of Peloponnesus decided to revolt, and first proceeded to sack the dwellings of their neighbours, the Greeks, He uses Γραικῶν to refer to the Peloponnesian Greeks, but then when talking about the Maniots aka the descendants of the Spartans, he says this in the following chapter. Ιστέον, ὅτι of τοῦ κάστρου Μαΐνης οἰκήτορες οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῶν προρρηϑέντων Σκλάβων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τῶν παλαιοτέρων Ῥωμαίων, οἵ καὶ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν παρὰ τῶν ἐντοπίων Ἕλληνες προσαγορεύονται διὰ τὸ ἐν τοῖς προπαλαιοῖς χρόνοις εἰδωλολάτρας εἶναι καὶ προσκυνητὰς τῶν εἰδώλων κατὰ τοὺς παλαιοὺς Ἕλληνας, οἵτινες ἐπὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ ἀοιδίμου Βασιλείου | βαπτισϑέντες Χριστιανοὶ γεγόνασιν. The inhabitants of the city of Maina are not of the race of the aforesaid Slavs, but of the ancient Romans, and even to this day they are called ‘Hellenes’ by the local inhabitants, because in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes; and they were baptized and became Christians in the reign of the glorious Basil. This shows not only that Hellene was still used to mean pagan at the time, but why did he use Rhomaioi to refer to ancient Greeks? Why wouldn't he just use Graikos? Just as it's a dialectic to say that Roman only meant Greek in the Hellenic sense at this time period, it is still a dialectic to say that it had nothing to do with what it meant to be Greek either. It's fascinating but I think it's a little more nuanced than both sides like to believe it was.... Thank you for being civil, my friend. Very rare on the internet lol
@@jasoncassios7114The name Romeos which became ethnonym for Greeks does not mean descendant of Rome. Romeos probably means a Hellen Roman citizen and especially a Christian Hellen in the era of the transition from polytheism to christianity
@@mikel3359 The name "Rhomaios" literally means "of Rome". And for that case, New Rome, Constantinople. There's no "probably" in it. They called their own country "Rhomania", "Land of the Rhomans" The word "Hellene" was the second worst thing someone could call you, (the first was "heretic"), since it denoted paganism. Rhomaios = the romanised Christian Greek. I don't get why you keep denying the roman character of the Greek of these times. It's as if people don't change consciousnesses...
Graikos and ellin might be used similarly to how greeks today use different terms to refer to greeks and mainland greek as ellines (greek) and elladites (grecians)
Eternal glory to our formidable Byzantine ancestors. For preserving and delivering the Ancient Greek legacy and for blending it majestically with our splendid Christian Orthodox tradition. 🇬🇷 ☦️
4:22 No. The historians, those who make their living from the study of Roman history, should be the first to demand the change of their titles and academic seats. After all, this is only in line with the discovery and publication of historic truth. Doing otherwise would contravene that so how could they then reconcile their professional ethics' imperative when their very job title proclaims them as liars?
In Croatian, "bizantinski" (a.k.a. byzantine) can mean sneaky, corrupt and untrustworthy. Having said that, we were taught the usual nomenclature of eastern empire until the time of Heraclius and Byzantine afterwards. It also fits neatly with the settlement of the Slavs in the area and the start of our own national history.
7:44 this is actually a terrible analogy, because neither of those examples resultsnin a different thing, but the roman and later eastern roman/bizantine empire, are totally different. An early roman empire citizen, would not recognize the later eastern empire as roman.
I tend to use it interchangeably with the proper name of the Eastern Roman Empire or Roman Empire. Partially becuase Byzantium rolls of the tounge better than Eastern Roman Empire (which is lowkey a mouth full)
If the ship was rebuild each time from the same person, then it's still HIS ship. Genetics also have the same question, every 10 years we have replaced all cells in our body, are we still we?
Well that’s a good question though. ARE we the same person we were 10 years ago? You’ve probably got a whole different worldview, social circle, and like you said body. Would you say you’re the same person? Or is that continuity of experience and the name you apply to it just useful to mark yourself as the new person built on top of the old one?
I think historiographical terms are useful for avoiding confusion and categorizing as long as they aren’t taken as the actual historical name for the state.
It's a bit like referring to pre-imperial Augustus as "Octavian". Okay, the name he was known by was Julius Caesar - but that's just confusing when discussing that period. Byzantium is in a similar (if less necessary) situation.
@@gurigura4457 Except Octavian did not transform into a wholly different being upon taking the name Augustus. He didn't suddenly start believing in a new god, start speaking a different language, swap out the location of the palace, abandon Roman fashion & aesthetics, etc. so the comparison falls a bit flat.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no Acting like there was a sudden shift between the older Roman way of doing things and the Byzantine way of doing things is just silly. Also, Christianity was establish in Rome long before Byzantium was left as the rump state.
This argument is the same as France. French love claiming their medieval and dark ages heritages as the same nation but refuse to say the romans are still romans. Nations culture can change doesn't change its identity
I've always supported this theory, and the evidence brought by Kaldellis is quite indisputable. There once was a national group called "Rhomaioi", predominant in the Southern Balkans and Anatolia, that doesn't exist anymore. The modern Greeks carry on their cultural heritage, but it is not a madness to think that the Turks also genetically descend from them (the old turkic invaders mixed with the locals, who adopted their language, religion and culture).
exactly 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 the closest cultural relatives of the medieval romans are the greeks, and turks share an ancestry of the med. romans in anatolia that stayed in the Turkish dominion. The westerners ( Romance speakers, Germans and so on ) are the cultural evolution of the romans who stayed under germanic dominion. Of course is more complex than this, but the idea of a Byzantine empire is just BS
It does exist! no ethnicity is pure and most Turks does carry Helenic blood. Every nation consists of different ethic groups identifying them selves as a single group. Think it like this; your Nation might be French but you ethnicity wise can carry Breton blood.
@@MerdumgrizThe turkified Hellenic Romioi have lost their right to identify & claim any of that! PERIOD. This is just a goody methods for turks to try to hijack History because of their inferiority complex. They take great pride in destroying anything related to the Hellenes & Romioi, including using their temples & shrines as sideshows! There is ZERO spiritual connection & very little genetic connection & zero linguistic connection & definitely doesn’t follow the organic Religious roadmap either! ZERO
I left my first comment below to introduce you to how western Europeans viewed both ancient and medieval Greek history and how with the term "Byzantine" there was an attempt to discredit the Roman heritage of the medieval Roman Empire and how, today, the introduced term "Eastern Roman Empire" is often used as an attempt to discredit the Greek nature of the Empire and the fact that this was basically an Empire of Greeks as Greeks by means of geographical selection inherited the Roman Empire. Now I have seen the whole video and can comment - and even if the video makes some good points, I have found some errors, culminating in the 24:34 where it says that "people of the Eastern Roman Empire traced their cultural ancestry to the Roman Empire". This is woefully wrong and I am left wondering how one who studies can do such an error. The answer of course is what I mentioned in my first comment, i.e. a selective reading of sources and isolation of bits and parts that validate the bias, the preconceived idea. So as per the video maker, the medieval Romans were referring to "their ancestors, the Romans (i.e. the Latin Romans), and the aristocratic families were claiming coming from illustrius old Latin families, and various Emperors, politicians, clergymen were making references to ancient Latin generals and politicians such as Scipio. That is a blatant lie, one that is not permissible from someone who supposedly researches these issues. The fact that there are such references is no surprise at all in a state that claimed, and rightfully so, to be a continuation of the old Roman Empire. The ancestries to illustrious Latin families of course come from 1-2 texts (some 8-9 centuries after disappearance of these Latin famiiles, LOL! ) and resemble the fake ancestry of Emperor Basil I to the Armenian Arsacid kings just to give him an aristocratic lineage (it was fake of course, Basil I was a Greek from North Thrace). These fake lineages appear precisely in apologetic texts that were supposedly combating contemporary Latin (i.e. medieval Italian) claims of illegitimacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. The reality however is only revealed when one sits down and actually does the work. There is a Greek site, "cognoscoteam", which was created precisely by Greek history students, particularly by byzantinologists, people with Phds, post-doctorates, academic careers, people who can read medieval Greek history in their own language - thus far more knowledgeable than your average Harvardian and Oxfordian professor. So one of them wanted to answer this question and sat down and measured the totality of references to ancient people in general and to ancient people as ancestors. He found that for all the reverence to Orthodox Christianity, the Saints, and excluding Jesus (who was mentioned naturally often as he is God), the references to ancient Greeks by far surpass the references to any Saints, the New Testament or Old Biblical stories. These religious references would appear only when fitting. However the references to ancient Greeks were abundant and appeared all over the place, said by all sorts of people, Emperors, aristocrats, soldiers, commoners, poor people, including also clergymen. So many more were the references to ancient Greeks that they were about double the references to New/Old Testament for all the religiosity of medieval Romans. As for the references of old Latins, like the.... handpicked-cherrypicked references here shown in the video these were not even up to the 1/10th in comparison to the reference to ancient Greeks and were almost always, with the exception of fake aristocratic lineages (LOL!) referring merely to the foundation of the Roman state. Latins were never really seen as their ancestors, but just as the founders of the Roman state. Now this could be a case of western European and North American academics merely by-passing obscure texts and sticking only to the ones they know. In Greece, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire is done in far more depth and Greeks thus are naturally far more knowledgeable on the matter. But then this error done here is inexcusable. That the Eastern Romans referred to ancient Greeks vastly more frequently than to ancient Romans is actually a widely known fact as much as the fact that Eastern Roman kids were learning how to read on Homer's Odyssey. The fact that the likes of Seneca and Suetonius are hardly ever mentioned in Eastern Roman texts and pretty much nobody gave importance to their writings but everyone was reading Plato and Aristotle and all other ancient Greek philosophers whose texts were saved, is a known fact. The fact that nobody (apart a few academics of the time) read the likes of Livy or Pliny but everyone copied Herodotus and Thucydides even imitating their styles shows clearly whom they considered as their ancestors - even more so when the references to Herodotus and Thucydides often come so randomly and suggest that the readers/audience were all knowledgeable of Herodotus and Thucydides' works in detail. The fact that almost nobody have a single F about Augustus (rarely mentioned and merely as the founder of the Roman state) but then we have plenty of depictions of Alexander the Great, including Alexander the Great with Olympias being depicted next to Jesus and Virgin Mary... what seemed to had been a common theme. This was an honour held for absolutely no old Roman Emperor. All these are known things. So why manipulate the facts? Why cook the data? To pas the narrative of a "Roman nation"? LOL! Yes, there existed a Roman nation back then and these were the ethnic Greeks, none else. There is no mystery about it. The term Roman may had started as a citizen term in late antiquity and then in Eastern Roman Empire evolved gradually and increasingly after the 7th-8th century crisis to mean the ethnic Greek and only the ethnic Greek. All those Isaurians, Syrians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbians etc. who were at various point Roman citizens, when were they mentioned as "Romans"? Why weren't they mentioned as such even if they may had an actual Roman citizenship? The term Roman denoted the ethnic Greek and that is what it was back then. The video referred to marginal tribes such as the Galatians in central Minor Asia becoming "Romans"....and sneakily pushing that as an "argument" that there was a different ethnic Roman identity. This is completely false. Galatians were described as "Romans" because Romans then were the Greeks and because Galatians had become Greek, i.e. they adopted the Greek language, the Greek customs, the Greek religion (i.e. Orthodox Christianity) and above all they had lost their own consciousness and memory as descendants of Galatians. I.e. they were fully Hellenised, thus Roman. And we even have the term Helleno-Galates in early Eastern Roman texts. As for the term "Greeks" and "Hellenes", these are found extremely frequently even in earlier Eastern Roman eras. It is just that academics are too lazy to search for these. Luckily, there are people who sit down and do the actual work and don't cherry pick to construct a narrative.
But in my opinion, The Eastern Rome was a true Rome in some 5-6th centuries in the times of Justinian and Maurice, when it almost restored the old great Rome, but in the 7-8th centuries when it lost Levant, North Africa and most of Italy including the Ethernal City itself, and Latin was not used as an official language, it was a Byzantine Empire as a successor state. Do you think that Kingdom of Soissons was also the real Roman Empire? And the Barbaric Kingdoms that were also reffering to themselves as the balkanized Roman states?
I think I'm cool with using it interchangeably. Since it is a bit of an alternative term, kinda like calling the Portuguese Lusitanians. In my opinion, yeah, the empire changed. But it changed because of practical reasons. It carried it with itself the history and conscience and continuity of the old Roman world. I have read the Alexiad, and I understand that Anna did read the ancient historians and philosophers of Rome, and completely saw the Empire as an uninterrupted continuation of that tradition.
I remember being floored when I found out that after the fall of Rome the entire eastern empire still thrived for so long. And for a short time even threatened to reconquer much of the western empire. Including Rome. The Byzantine Empire has always fascinated me. I even did the Byzantine campaign in Total War. Lol.
I have an analogy for the “Byzantines” Imagine the Roman Empire as a ship at sea. From its founding until 476, it was always captained by a Latin from Italy, eventually with a Greek as first mate. In 476, the Latin captain abandoned ship. The Greek first mate said “Well, I guess I’m in charge now” and took the wheel until 1453.
The other half of this question is what exactly is different about Italy for it to surrender the Roman name? The Goths ultimately learnt latin and converted to catholicism. The Senate kept meeting until the 8th century and Roman emperors kept being crowned by the pope.
In my school we called it Byzantium because it's just much more convenient than saying "Eastern Roman Empire". We regonised them as the true heirs of Rome (since we're Georgian), but called them by the B-word regardless.
For anyone curious, here's the top 10 list of Anthony Kaldellis 1. Constantine I 2. Constantine V 3. Anastasius I 4. John III Vatatzes 5. John Tzimiskes 6. Manuel Komnenos 7. Basil II 8. Alexios Komnenos 9. Leo III 10. Theodosius I I don't think Manuel I, Constantine I or Theodosius I belong on it, better substitutes would be John II, Maurice or Theodore I. Overall, don't disagree with most of the names included, really happy with the inclusion of Constantine V (G.O.A.T.) actually, maybe just the ordering of it.
he also didn't include Justinian I because Totilla dared to be a very competent commander therefore prolonging the pacification of the ostrogoths and Heraclius because "only few succesful battles and nothing else"
@@TrajGreekFire However much you may dislike him it's pretty ridiculous not to include Justinian. He's obviously way more important than Anastasius. And if you're going to include Tzimisces as a military emperor you can't exclude Heraclius. We probably shouldn't take these lists too seriously.
because unlike you, he actually has some knowledge of history rather than falling for the lame, false and tired epikk voltaire meme that microdick pop-history fanboys love to shill
@@jebbush2527 le ebin voltaire meme is peak reddit: uneducated pop-history nonsense with no basis in reality, peddled by downs syndrome crayon-eaters that have deluded themselves into thinking they're smart because they have access to wikipedia. Cry harder.
I usually mention it as the Eastern Roman empire, as a synonym of the Byzantine empire, but change over to the latter, saving myself an extra word :)) But medieval Roman empire is a nice term as well. Years ago I found the term 'Byzantine commonwealth' used by e scholar from the university of Texas. It opens the door to a new reality and explains quite a bit.
Think in terms of a river. Is the Nile still the same as when Nefertiti was alive? Many small but cumulative changes have occurred over time, the water itself is different as is the people who live alongside it and yet the name is the same. There's an old saying "you can't cross the same river twice" But from another perspective you certainly can and we do it all the time. In the end this whole question of Byzantine Rome is in my opinion much ado about nothing.
From the West's viewpoint, Rome was massively important and a huge influence, while Byzantium wasn't. The Byzantine empire had neither the city of Rome, nor did they speak Latin for most of the empires history, so the notion that it was an "Eastern Roman Empire" seems somewhat perverse. It's like calling Hong Kong the Eastern British Empire. I can imagine Eastern Europe views Byzantium with much greater importance, as the center of Orthodoxy.
The Eastern half was generally considered more important and more prosperous, and the centre of power was already in the East. When the West 'fell' no one would have thought, "oh, that's the end of the Roman Empire". It was a significant loss of territory and a sign of the diminishing prospects.
@@maozedong69420 As it turns out, the East pretty much fizzled out like a fart after a hundred years or so. The main story of the Eastern Roman Empire was a story of decline and relying on the Roman Catholic Church sending Crusaders to bail out the failing Eastern Roman Empire. I do love the story of the 4th Crusade, when the crusaders got smart and just sacked the failed and mostly worthless Eastern Empire.
@@dancahill9585 This is such a bad viewpoint that I’m amazed you havn’t been crucified by Byzaboos yet. The east had always been more productive and prosperous than the west, and its different language wasn’t uniquely “Byzantine”. The only reason they spoke Greek was because of its location, and the Roman east had always spoken Greek. Caesar spoke Greek, as did basically every educated Roman during the republic and empire. The East did not simply “fizzle out” after 100 years. It was the strongest power in the Mediterranean by a long shot during the early 11th century. Saying that it was a story of decline is one of the most brain-dead takes regarding any power’s fall, let along one that lasted 1000 years and lad multiple comebacks. Furthermore, comparing the Roman east to Hong Kong is also a garbage analogy. It’s like if you compared just the city of Constantinople to the entire Roman Empire. Much more apt would be about half the British empire.
I think it makes sense to say the eastern empire became Byzantium with the ascension of Heraclius. A new dynasty is established out of a provincial governor. They stop trying to reconquer the western territories. Their primary threat shifts from Iran to the Arabs. And shortly thereafter, the western empire is restructured under foreign rulers with no Roman heritage. The Roman Empire was The Empire. The Byzantine empire was just one power amongst a multitude.
Yes it is nuanced. And no, Byzantium around 1000 AD is NOT the same eastern Roman Empire of 500 AD. You just don't shrug 500 years of change off like that. Sadly it is the best we have in terms of Heirs to the Imperial Heritage as all other "Romes" were Imposters.
![Ranking Periods of Roman History [Part 1: Old Rome]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7j_mhC4lxV4/mqdefault.jpg)
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Orthodoxy have its very deceptive attitude since it deliberately concealed the fact they rebranded Hungarian-MacAr-Scythian rulers as somehow they own Orthodox figures which is how Béla 3rd Hungarian king got rebranded as Alexios Jewnanistani king just as the entire Cuman-Coman dynasty, Varangiai Urak-Rurik as Kijewish Rus etc
With Surfshark and Romaboo, we can all say "Ecce Romani!" ;)
wtf? This is splitting hairs argument, they can be both? I don't think we need to reinvent nameplates, anyone who knows what a byzantine is knows they were roman.
i cracked the case, the Pagans are the True Romans and the Christians are illegal usurpers ....thus the Empire fell with Maxentius...... the Pagans slowly withered away over the coming centuries
Dare I say, it's quite a byzantine question.
Poor Byzantium... didn't they already endure enough name changes??
@@matthewmagda4971 being called strange exonyms can be funny sometimes. Greeks still to this day call my country "Gallia", "Gaul".
@@Duke_of_Lorraine Yes, because calling it France and calling you Franks sounds like an insult to Modern Greek ears.
@@gregoryheers2633 I've heard it's because of that cursed 4th crusade.
@@Duke_of_LorraineMost in Greece are Slavs who wish they were Greek. See "Greeks, Latins, Iberians and Jews were, and are, NOT Blond!"
In Bulgaria, our teachers refer to the byzatines as "romeis" (ромеи) and thought us that they are basically romans (which makes the fact that we waged war for centuries against romans super cool), but still separated them from the "real" romans. Which is confusing for adults, let alone kids
How much Byzantine history do they teach in Bulgaria?
I'm pretty sure the Arabs and Muslims do that too. For the same reasons
@@RomabooRamblings Mostly covered the wars between the two states and the intricate politics between them, which in itself is a ton. Obviously, we all know about Basil II
@@Dian_Borisov_SW Probs to Bulgaria for Teaching Basil II it is always a hard Topic to talk about someone who won a Decisive War against your Home Country . (Im Italian So Obvisouly I Like Basil II)
@@Dian_Borisov_SW How does Bulgaria address the 160 years of Byzantine rule?
Where do Byzantine cultural and institutional influences stand?
We still call and name them ''Roman/Rum'' in Turkiye but official history teaching reffering them as ''Byzantion'' after a point. So far we call almost the whole Balkan region as ''Rumeli'' which literally means ''Roman soil'' in Turkish. The city of ''Erzurum'' literally means ''Roman land'', also. Non-muslim natives of the western Turkiye are called ''Rum'' which means ''Roman''.
Only western narrative classify them as Byzantion etc. to seize that title of ''Rome'' and legitimize themselves as the continuance of it.
Always good to get the non western point of view. Helps me in understanding history.
@@georgezissis9244 One of the most important thing about the history is it is written by the victors :)
As a Greek when I first found out about this it blew my mind.
Correct. They say there are still some 10 million Serbs in Turkey today - some from Janissaries, other from before Turks in Phrygia, Lycia, etc...
Have you heard of anything like that?
@@borisfrlic Can not say something like "10 million Serbians" but there are quite some "millions" of people descendants of the Balkan region in general spread across the modern Turkiye. Some from Janissaries some from convertions in general and some know some doesn't know their heritage as usual.
We Greeks called ourselves Romans interchangeably with Greeks as late as the 70s. You see it even in old movies. Only lately the term is not that common. However, people of Greek descend outside of Greece like in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon call themselves Rum up until today!
Most in Greece are Slavs who beLIEve they're Greek.
Yet you still have issues with Macedonia's international name. Probably Romans (the Latin ones) had the same issue with Late Antiquity Greeks (Eastern Romans).
@@danielradu3212 30' video and yet you still have no clue what you are talking about. What relation do the southern Slavs have with Macedonia?
@@Theophanis_Ketipidis Well, they inhabit parts of Ancient Macedonia, they embrace the Macedonian symbols and declare themselves Macedonians. After centuries of Roman occupation a resurgent Macedonian state in the Balkans would be normal to expect.
@@danielradu3212 Not really, other than the Greeks there were no other people identifying themselves as Macedonians before WW1 so why would one find normal to expect a Macedonian state?
"The Tang Dynasty wanted to steal R-words. Raviolis."
-Romaboo Ramblings, when talking to Dovahhatty.
In all seriousness, the Byzantine word is in a similar situation as the Spartans, who weren't called Spartans but Lacedaemonians. @Spectrum has already covered it in his video about that misconception.
"Byzantine" is purely a useful historical academic term to describe this Greek speaking eastern extension of the Roman empire - the term has its drawbacks but that's no different to other useful historical academic terms like "Merovingian", "Carolingian" Plantagenet," "Angevin" "Dutch", "Holy Roman Empire", "Viking" and many many more.
That's true, kinda reminds me of the Mamluk Sultanate, in reality it never called itself that.
Its rulers were a turkic people and so the name of their state was literally "the state of the turks", but that would be incredibly confusing because they ruled over Egypt and Syria, not to mention their greatest rivals were the Ottomans, also Turks.
Because of that, "Mamluk" is a useful historical term that makes it easier to communicate what you're talking about. The term "byzantine" is no different
Constantinople WAS the new capital and almost all split governments before that had the primary Augustus in the East. From the early 4th Century onward, New Rome was the capital until the 4th Crusade robbed the empire of its resources to defend itself and ultimately fall to Mehmed II, who crowned himself Caesar of Rome in tribute to the conquest.
If looting the capital means robbing the empire of its resources, then that empire is not a too functional country.
@@genovayork2468 the amount of wealth Constantinople had at the time was hundreds of years of valuables, priceless artifacts that date back to Classical Rome and even to the BC era. The wealth was used by the state to get out of disastrous wars
@@Muramasa1794 Yes, did I say it wasn't?
@genovayork2468 the citizens thought it was a civil war. Business went on as usual though much of the fighting. The seizure of the city was a betrayal by Christians that humiliated the Pope and doomed the Crusader states. From here on we'd see increasingly pointless civil crusades and the Ottomans had an easy run, killing far more Christian life. The 4th Crusaders were doomed to hell by their evil leaders who lied and manipulated them into multiple excommunications, which is horrible for those at that time, clearly holy men to be there in the first place.
@@nikusja5864 No, Egypt was more longevive. Also stick to topic.
Certainly there's a difference between the Roman Empire before Constantine and the Roman Empire after Constantine. It's useful to have some sort of shorthand to refer to the different time period being discussed.
The word “byzantine” has the negative connotations as meaning “scheming” or “convoluted,” so I understand the resistance to using it to describe the post-Constantine Roman Empire. However, personally, “Byzantine” immediately conjures up the qualities of the later empire- its style of art and architecture, its manner of dress, its court customs, etc.
More neutral terms might be the “Medieval Roman Empire”, “Later Roman Empire”, or “Orthodox Roman Empire”
“Eastern Roman Empire” seems to be the main alternative, but I find that to be a little misleading because the Empire regained large parts of the West, and held on to Southern Italy into the 10th Century.
Something changed
All empires changes. The Roman Republic were different from the Roman Empire later. It is laughable that we moderns are determining the identitity of ancient people . They are not here to tell their side of the story. I will go by what the ancient people wrote. From the Emperor , Patriach , bishops diplomat, chroniclers and foreign enenmies Arabs Turks Bulgarians Serbians Persians even all the way to India and China call the Empire centred in Constantinople Roman. All of them called that Empire Rome and the inhabitants Roman. The only people not calling them Romans were the Latins , Franks and their cultural descendants. No one would have given two hoots what these Latins and Franks thought or call of the Constatipnople Romans if not the fact that they went on to have the renaisance 18th century enlightenment and the Industrial revolution to conquer the world and imposed their world view and scholarship on the rest of us. The Byzantium Empire did not exist. Only Roman. And even though th Empire was gone by 1453. Romans and Roman lands still existed until early 20th century.
In what sense though? This makes absolutely no sense! The Roman Empire of Theodosius and Constantine was certainly very different from that of, Augustus Caracella and Aurelian. The Roman polity lasted a very long time, shifting from an Republic, to an Empire (but even by the late Republican period it was an Empire) to a nation-state (after Caracella gave universal citizenship), each era with different laws, political ideals and perceptions of what constituted "Roman" (over a 700 year period in the West). Do we consider those times any less Roman because of those changes? Of course not! This argument is a non-sequiter because it makes no logical sense when you stop looking at this from a surface level.
Were the English any different from the English now at the time of Alfred the Great, Charles I, Oliver Cromwell or George V? Even though they went through various changes in that time-span legally, linguistically or politically? The answer is no, and the Roman case isn't any different!
@@BorninPurple Byzaboos clawing their damn nails to the bone trying to maintain the slightest relation to Rome lmao. Cry harder, The Roman Empire (Western Rome) thought of the Byzantines as a bunch of LARP'ing dorks
@@BorninPurpleI like where you were going with your comment, but a huge flaw is in the last bit of your point. The English were very much different during Alfred’s time versus Cromwell, Charles, George etc.
They were very much Anglo-Saxon rather than English. From 899 to 1066 they weren’t English like we know them. It wasn’t till Henry IV that even our rough conception of English identity form. That’s why there is something to say about the shift in terminology when describing the Eastern Romans/ Byzantines.
Roman is a fickle thing because one is not wrong saying a person in Gaul in 300 AD was very much Roman, as were the folk in Constantinople. But while the Skelton of Roman identity remained one can’t argue that the religion, culture and even spoken/ written word no longer was that of the Romans of Constantine. Their was no unified church across the Mediterranean, Latin was not spoken nor used in documents. The ERE evolved into a Greek empire naturally. This flower sprouted from Rome but became a “cross-pollinated” plant with elements of the inherent Greek culture that was in the proverbial soil.
Side note- the ‘Byzantines’ saw and called themselves Roman, they were the children of Rome. At the end of the day they were Roman, but a variation that evolved into a Greek empire due to the culture that existed in this side of the empire removed from the anarchy of the Germanic kingdoms. They are Schrödinger Roman’s, both are and aren’t at the same time, it’s just easier to use a Byzantine when teaching the subject/ discussing it.
A very interesting historical fact.
In the late Ming Dynasty in China, a military book recorded that a Lumi(噜密) ambassador brought a matchlock with a special long barrel. This was different from the original matchlock in China. Its power could A little larger than the Spanish and Chinese matchlocks.Lumi is actually the transliteration of Roma, but when we look at the illustrations printed in the book, you will find that there is an Ottoman with a turban on it.🤣 It should be said that at that time, both the Arab world and China referred to all people in Asia Minor as Romans.
BTW, the book name is 《神器谱》written by 赵士祯.
I think there is a wrong understanding of modern greek culture . Greeks today see both ancient greeks and eastern romans as their ancestors .
i am greek can confirm
They do see themselves as ancestors but genetically modern greeks are middle eastern
@@captainmccuckin2698 well as far as i know the opposite is true
@@marshallsilverstar9636 yes because the study on it is banned in Greece and there are not many copies
@@captainmccuckin2698 What study is that? (I mean it's characteristics )
We still call ourselves Ρωμιοί. It was more popular prior to 1821. Also the term Ἕλλην during the Byzantine period (the period could be called Byzantine, but the empire itself can only be called Roman) was a taboo, because those who identified with it were often pagans.
The entire “Hellenic” revival is Phanar scheming and imperial ambitions.
Ofc Phanar only pretend to be Christian and the serve Satan, so they love little boys, etc... this was part of the “Hellenic revival”
You know that almost all the Greeks in Thrace up / north are hellenised Serbs, Vlahs, and Albanians? Then later some Romans proper were brought in with the population échange with Turkey.
Phanar must be destroyed. Emperor Dušan went to kick them out of Constantinople after becoming Autocrator of join Serb / Roman Empire, and the poisoned him on the way there.
Yes, we still call ourselves Ρωμιοί/ Romans. It means "Greek" in the greek language and it's a definition that the term "Roman" obtained during the byzantine period. Due to the fact that, among the people with Roman citizenship, Greeks were the ones that had become the core and rulers of the empire during the medieval period the term "Roman" started to be associated with them and came to mean the ethnically Greek. With this definition we're using the word Ρωμιοί for ourselves till this day. As just another word that means Greek (like Γραικός and Ελληνας), not as a different non-greek identity. We don't claim that we have some kind of connection with the ancient romans whenever we're using the term Ρωμιοί. Our connection is solely with the medieval Greeks/byzantines. Ελλην was never a taboo (it was used during the entirety of the byzantine period the same way that the rest of the greek ethnonyms were used). It just had two definitions. It was used as a national term that meant "Greek" or as a religious term that meant "pagan". Identifying as Greek wasn't considered a taboo (that's how Byzantines self-identified), identifying as pagan on the other hand wasn't considered as something good.
@@Ragnarok__ You can't be that ignorant so you are probably a troll. I'm not interested in wasting my time with trolls.
In what way did the Italians win!? Genetic and cultural - mixture of Germanic (Goths, Langobard, Arab Muslims in Sicily and later Normans as well Spanish (Gothics, Barberish Arabs as well as Hellenic in the Sicily).... As well as Punic (Cartagenian origin) as well ignoring the fact that the teachers of young nobles were Greek- speaking community
@@gilpaubelid3780absolutely correct
Wow, imagine an Irish historian referring to something as "the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed" while discussing something on the other side of the channel.
oh well the potato boy got mad that his ancestors greatest achievement was to put bombs in cars
you losers just read single quotes and think you have an undersetanding. Modern history is a joke; it believes in literal fairy tales as truth
@@DimitriterrormanNo.
@@DimitriterrormanIncas are potato boys. The Irish are leprechauns.
@@DimitriterrormanDamn, savage
byzantine can also mean “of byzantium”, that is, the state based in byzantium/constantinople/istanbul, which IS very descriptive of a core characteristic throughout its existence. That it was a state whose lynchpin was that city.
Its also practical given that Rome itself, mostly through Papal power, was an active polity doing its own thing throughout the period.
Kind of like how we retroactively use the term “Octavian” when he didnt go by that name in his life. or more extremely callinging china china even though that was the name of a single dynasty.
Saying that it wasn’t the roman empire would be wrong, but byzantine is also a very descriptively useful way to refer to it as too. its a pragmatics thing.
In the Arab world we still colloquially refer to the Byzantines as ‘Romans’. In fact we use the term Roman to describe Greek Orthodox Christians instead of Roman Catholics (we just call them Catholics). There’s a whole chapter in the Quran called ‘The Romans’ talking about the Byzantine’s war with the Sassanids which was happening in the background of the Prophet Muhammad’s preaching
Not calling the Roman Catholics with the Pope in Rome 'Roman Christians', but using 'Roman Christians' to describe the Christians who at this point are predominantly in Russia sounds like an incredibly convoluted naming system.
@@legateelizabeth It has nothing to do with the city of Rome but with how we perceive the Roman Empire. We see the Byzantines as the continuation of the Roman Empire (like they did) so we call people affiliated with their (Greek Orthodox) church Roman Christians. Note that Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox are two separate groups with separate churches.
@@legateelizabethyou guys aren’t actually Roman, you’re Frankish. It would make more sense to simply go by Frankish Catholics who have the Patriarch of Rome since you refer to the other 4 patriarchs in Orthodoxy “Greek”
@@nel7105 Well I'm a British Buddhist so I'd certainly hope I'm neither Frankish, nor Roman, nor Catholic or I'd be having quite the identity crisis. :D
@@legateelizabeth Ironically, us Catholics don't refer to ourselves as "Roman Catholics" usually. That's actually a term more used by Protestants. We just call ourselves Catholics and that's that.
Its actually really common to call historical peoples something other than what called themselves. For example in the english civil war the terms cavalier, roundhead and puritan are all slanderous names given by their enemies. The puritans called themselves “the godly” or “philosophers” and I don’t think anyone thinks we should start using those.
Philosophers? Lol wtf
A interesting point, but in this case the self-identification is actually relevant, and not the type of titular self-aggrandizing for a creed, as in your example about the puritans.
Because if Eastern Rome is seen as a legitimate successor (which is very hard to argue against), then the self-identification becomes an important point of contention. Had they not identified as roman, there would have been a good argument against their 'romanness'. But they did. So it's important to take it into consideration in the debate.
Definitely think we should start calling the Puritans "the godly". "The godly" vs "the quasi-papists" is much more accurate than "cavaliers" vs "roundheads", which makes it sound like long-haired cavalry officer Oliver Cromwell should have been on the "cavalier" side.
Octavian the emperor is another channel relivent example. China is another as its a name for a single dynasty that came and went. Others are cato the elder/younger.
The "Democratic Republican" Party of early US history called themselves Republicans, but were only distantly related to the current Republican Party founded in the 19th century. It's another good example of a term applied retroactively by historians for clarity.
I am all for using terms "byzantine" and "eastern roman" interchangeably in every youtube video covering the subject.
Agree considering history is already confusing as it is.
@@YapsiePresentswith even a small amount of interest or study you would really have to try to be confused by the subject
Neither are correct
it's not about the term call it whatever you want the problem is when people think it's not the Roman empire and it's something separate from it or trying to imitate the Romans.
Aw shit here we go again
I am from Jordan, and I used to hear the word “Byzantine” from TH-cam, and our educational curricula call the Byzantines “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)" and after that they started writing “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)” in parentheses, the Byzantine state, Our fathers & grandfathers & a few of the current generations still call the Byzantine Empire “dawlat al-rum (the Roman state)" & The Byzantine land is called "Bilad al-Rum (the Romania/Roman land)", and fact some still called the Mediterranean Sea the "Bahr Rum (Roman Sea)".
I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes.
China was not Buddhist when it was founded. Is it still Chinese? Old English is incomprehensible, were Elizabeth I and Athelstan both monarchs of England? The United States has changed almost every aspect of our election system, our senators are now directly elected, we have completely rewritten the electoral college rules, and we have modified how our representatives are allocated by eliminating the 3/5 compromise, are we still the United States?
Every country changes, just like the Roman Empire did. I agree, there is no clear point to say where the Eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantine empire. They are the same empire, just like how Biden and Washington are both Presidents of the United States.
Although "Empire of Constantinopolitans" was never used, one of the names Western Europe used for the Medieval Roman Empire in the 13th Century was the "Empire of Constantinople".
It was your duty to attend to the business of your legation and to give careful consideration, not to the capture of the Empire of Constantinople...
--Pope Innocent III on the Fourth Crusade.
True, it's even in the title of the Liudprand's account of his embassy
Also it's worth to note that "Latin empire" wasn't the name of the state, it's emperor it had three official variants of the title "Emperor of Romania (land of the Romans)", "Emperor of Constantinopole" and "Emperor of Romans"
@@vladprus4019 I think this is a pretty interesting point. Since Latin Empire is also a later name given by historians, should we also just call it Roman Empire? I think the historiographical name is useful, when you read "Latin Empire", you immediately know which sixty year period it refers to.
@@RomabooRamblings
You can see why the term Byzantine Empire came into common usage.
It's just a slightly different (shorter) rendering of Constantinopolitan Empire
Man, these videos are so well made that they enrich my taste buds and quench my thirst for historical questions I wanted answered, but never manage to fully visualise what it is that I want to know.
History is so cool man...
This video honestly deserves more attention. The second half focusing on how the Romans in 'Byzantium' saw themselves and how there was actually a clear difference between 'ethnic' Romans and 'citizen' Romans is fascinating in regard to understanding the whole thing.
This makes me think maybe "the byzantine period/age of the roman empire" could be a decent phrasing to keep things clear.
As a Greek myself: in short, we call ourselves Romans (Romaioi, Romioi). This is how we identify ourselves, even to this day, even by a decreasing rate. Does that mean we're the actual Romans themselves? No, everyone knows we're Greeks. We're just identifying as Romans, because the ERE passed into our hands for 1123 years. And before 330, Greeks, due to Caracalla, could call themselves Roman citizens. That's why being a "Rhomaios" is an integral part of Hellenic identity. Because the Roman Empire was basically handed down to us, and we continued it. Through this alone, it shows that even if all other aspects of the empire were Greek (except law), it didn't stop being Roman.
You definitely are wrong! The Greeks despised the Romans, seeing them as illiterate brutes!
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
Romanians have entered the chat
@ThomasGazis the Ancient Greeks did, early medieval Greeks who had been ruled by the Romans for centuries took pride in their roman influence, a lot can change in a thousand years
5:45 The Holy Roman Empire did control and rule over Romans. Not even the ones of Rome, the Romansh, of southern Switzerland (at the time part of the HRE) were and still are a group of Romans who have continued to identify as Roman up until the present.
The flaw in this logic is considering the swiss people
Add to this list the Greek speaking population of Istanbul who still call themselves Romans and of course the Romanians.
So did the Franks, and the Goths, and the Arabs, and the Lombards, and numerous other empires.
@@giannisa134 yeah, just talking about the ones living in the HRE. Iirc the Greeks of Ukraine/Russia will also still call themselves Romans
@@giannisa134Greeks, not greek-speaking.
I do still find it crazy that "Romans" actually still existed into the early 20th century like when Greece took Lemnos a couple children encountered the greek soldiers and the conversation went like this
Some of the children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like.
‘‘What are you looking at?’’ one of them asked.
‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the children replied.
‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ a soldier retorted.
‘‘No, we are Romans." the children replied.
Like that actually crazy Romans still existed in the 1910s and 20s.
For God's sake, why is everyone repeating that anecdote? This comes from the personal account of Panagiotis Peter Charanis, a Byzantinologist Greek-American who was born in Lemnos in 1906-1908, and was just 4 years old when the Greek State liberated Lemnos from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. Having not even started grade school at the time, I think we should not base a rift of Hellenic and Rhomaic Identity on the mistake of a little child.
We Modern Greeks still call ourselves not only "Hellenes" and Greekness as "Hellenesmos", but also as "Rhomeoi" and Greekness as "Rhomeosene", that means "Modern Romans" and "Modern Romanness".
LARP is apparently all that's needed to claim legitimate identity in history lol
Turks still refer to Greek speaking muslims in Turkey and Cypriot Greeks as "Rum". Cypriot Greeks refer to themselves still as "Romioi" (being Greek Cypriot myself)
Gypsies refer to themselves as roman. I know it's supposedly refers to a different word, but it sounds exactly like "roman" in some languages. It makes me wonder why they picked that word out of all words.
Romanians named their nation after Rome.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no That's exactly how cultural identity works, yes
The best point raised in this video is the statement that "having one identity does not bar you from having another one". Being Greek in culture does not also stop you from being a Roman, who adheres to Roman laws, traditions and customs as much as a Latin-speaking Italian from the Republican era. It is true that Greek learning was the main form of education in the Eastern Roman Empire and the average student would learn Sophokles or Plato over Latin writers such as Plautus or Cicero, but these students still embraced their Roman identity. Hellenism as a thing didn't really start until the 11th or the 12th century, among the Komnenian literati when the Empire came into much contact with the Latins, who claimed the Roman identity for themselves and degraded the Eastern Romans as "effeminate Greeks", so the Komnenian scholars developed their Ancient Greek heritage as an anti-Latin reaction, and this identity strengthened even more after the Latin conquest of Constantinople. The Hellenic identity increased over time in the later years of the Empire, but the Romans as a whole (not counting just a few individuals) never dropped the Roman identity either, as best exemplified in the final speech of Constantine XI Palaiologos ("descendants of the Greeks and the Romans").
Also he said " we will win just as we fought Carthage, Gaul, the Bulgars " or something like that, clearly stating that the idea of being the Roman Empire and being Roman citizens was the main one
In the Medieval Byzantine context, saying that Greeks aren't Romans is about as silly as saying Californians aren't Americans or Texans aren't Americans.
It's not really the Greek vs Roman identity that people care about; identities can co-exist if they compliment each other. It's the Pagan vs Christian divide that mainly trashes the culture of the empire, robbing it of the martial vigor that defined the Roman polity & pacifying the state. "Byzantine" has become a by-word for pointless rituals and ceremonies which have no real world impact; there's a reason for that.
@@viperking6573source?
plenty of greek culture fanboys from even the legend of the creation of rome. they believed they were trojans
Great video ! For history enthusiasts, some monumental works by three experts of the Greek Byzantine Empire include;
Warren Treadgold;
“A Concise History of Byzantium”,
“A History of the Byzantine State and Society”,
“Byzantium and Its Army, 284-1081”,
“The Byzantine Revival, 780-842”.
Gustav Schlumberger;
“Un empereur byzantin au dixieme siecle: Nicephore Phocas”,
“Byzance et les croisades”,
“Récits de Byzance et des croisades”,
“ Le siege la prise et le sac de Constantinople par les Turcs en 1453”.
Sir Steven Runciman;
“Byzantine Civilization”,
“The Fall of Constantinople 1453”,
“The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence”,
“Byzantine Style and Civilization”,
“The Last Byzantine Renaissance”.
All epic. Truly, an academic treasure.
"And because there are two natural lords in the world - one secular, and one spiritual - that this little island had: the Basileus of Constantinople and the patriarch of the great Antioch, before the Latins took it. Because of that, it was of use to know perfect Rhomeika* to send scriptures to the Basileus, and good Syriac**. And this is how their children would learn, and how the secretary business would carry on with Syriac and Rhomeika, until the Lusignans took over the place, and they would learn Frankish*** thereafter. And Rhomeika barbarized****, as things are today, and we write Frankish and Rhomeika, since in the world they don't know what we're speaking."
*Greek, **Aramaic (possibly liturgical), ***Middle French, ****they got mixed (vocabulary-wise)
- Χρονικόν [Κύπρου] (Chronicle [of Cyprus], Leontios Machairas, c. 1458
You forgot to mention thet the midle Byzantine citizen was fully educated in Homer ( ancinet greek text, not the common Hellinistic Greek !) , and in the other ancient greek studies, espessialy more , from the first European univercity , for centuries , the ''Pandidactirion ''( Πανδιδακτήριον ..) .
For you, western People, it is in deed quite difficult to understand the identity of the Byzantines. For as the Greeks, it is us simple us we know our parents...
Our ansestors who liberaterd Greece in 1821, they - not just considerd- but they were naturally knew that they were liberating the ethnos of Ρωμιών after 400 years of slavery.. And the ultimate purpose was to liberate the capital of the ''Rum'' ''Ρωμιων - Ελλήνων'''' Greeks'' The Constantinople...
'' Romios '' and Greek - Hellene - was and is until today in the consius of all Greeks the same name meaning .. ( Ρωμιός - Έλληνας ) . But .. only whoever is Greek Christian Orhodox has this consius stroger inside him!!! ....
The great misunderstanding became almost immediately after the liberation, by the ideas which came from western Europe, were saying that the knew Greeks shoud be looking for their past only in the antiquity !!!! ..... ... '' But it was never the truth .. becouse it was always seperating the Greek soul into two !!!! ... That was the consern of the westerns !!
We were always feeling the ancients as the grandfathers, But, we were the Byzantines ! the Rum ! The Romioi ! the Ελληνες ! Because the Byzantines were the fathers ... And the last emperor Constantine Palaiologos, fell fighting in the gate of saint Romanos... He did not gave the City to the turks.....
In his last speech , which has being saved by his close secretary Georgios Fratzis, Constantine adressing toy the people, said '' We are descentans of Romans and Greeks ! - Ρωμαίων και Ελλήνων.
After the failure of liberating Constantinopole ,during the Balcan wars and after, and also after, the catastrofy of the Romios Greeks ( Ρωμιους - Ελληνες ) in Minor Asia in 1922 for the first time after almost ..3000 years ! ... a total sadness a kind of catathipsy came to the consius of the Greek soul for the unfinished liberation ...either in space...nor in culture....
Thank you for saying this, aderfe mou. As the Saint Emperor Ioannes Vatatzes said: only the Greeks are the inheritors of the Roman empire. One can be both Greek and Roman at the same time. Westerners are still using the same flawed logic as before: they think if you are Roman you can't be Greek or if your Greek you can't be Roman!
In Egypt and i think also the entire arab world, we use roman for the byzantine empire when it controlled egypt and the levant and north africa, once it lost it we just called it byzantium, or just idk we use it interchangeably
I personally strictly avoid using the word Byzantine.
No fucking shit the word was invented by Germans to pretend Germans are Roman do to holy Roman Empire. and only idiots would seriously call Germans as Roman in the dumbest intellectual deficiency.
So I avoid the term Byzantine to my own. And would prefer saying Roman. That's how I do it.
Makes sense. When the Byzantine empire lost most of its land, Latin had stopped being widely used, the entire governmental system changed, etc.
@@compatriot852 if the United States lost lands the people and government doesn't cease to be American.
The Roman Empire likewise doesn't cease being Roman. Say the "Anglo" culture of America is diminished and the capital DC and the original 13 colonies lost and Spanish gains predominance, the citizens are still American and the culture while changed still has influence from the foundation. There's to acknowledge it gain Mexican Spanish influence. If we compare a US and Mexico relationship to Greco-Romans.
My analogy has flaws and isn't perfect but it's what I'm saying
More on the "They spoke Greeeeek not Latin so not Roman!" The upper-class Romans even in the late Republic in the 1st century bc spoke Greek as a second language. So does that mean Julius Caesar wasn't Roman since he also spoke Greek? Eastern Rome ruled over Latin speaking lands in it's history such as southern Spain southern Italy and Sardinia and parts of the Balkans. When the Romans conquered the Greek lands was it not part of the Empire? Same with Gaulish lands when the subjects spoke Gaulish? Even Romans in Rome referred to Greek and Latin as "their languages."
I mean also early Rome fought wars against the Latins and denied them citizenship for a long time. Even in the time of Cicero, since he was not literally from the city of Rome, but from latinum he was often called a foreigner. So it's not like Roman identity was synonymous with speaking Latin
Also you had emperors of Byzantium like Justin and Justinian who's first language was Latin
@@jaydenburgher2651 Justinian himself recognized Greek as the Modern Roman language and labeled Latin “their ancestral language”
@@jaydenburgher2651 Because they were Thraco-Romans, literally the Romans of the Proto-Romanians
@@tylerellis9097 Where is that?
>implying the HRE reassembled the original boards to start with? It had the same exact changes you applied to "Byzantium"
It is very satisfying to see that Adam Conover has become the catchall mascot for midwits.
Perfect tl:dl summary at 28:00. They are Byzantines because the western European powers had their own agenda in denying the "Romaness" of the Eastern Roman Empire.
YES!! AMAZING JOB!! THANK YOU!! You have said everything that I have been thinking and more! Thank you for saving me the trouble of debunking all these arguments myself, and doing a better job at it than I would’ve ever done! It might be the first time I get so excited over a TH-cam video. It was simply incredible; it was as if you had been reading my mind. In a way it’s not too surprising, since we have been reading the same book! “Romanland“ is one of my favorites. I have already shared this video with over a dozen friends. God bless you!
God doesn't side with Mary idolaters. "Queen of heaven" is irrefutably a goddess title. Satan counterfeited the "church."
@@SiGa-i1r
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything but that’s low-key based. Catholics worship Mary more than they do Jesus.
@@RESIST_DIGITAL_ID_UK The connection is obvious: the Byzantines claimed to be Christian but they were heretics for the reason I gave which is in a very long list.
@@SiGa-i1r Completely irrelevant and ignorant comment. If you have anything of essence that would like to say that’s actually on the topic, I am listening.
Bc Catholicism is only christian on paper
Better we keep it Byzantine rather than calling it turkish history
Historical accuracy and truths are important than your prejudices. “Byzantine” empire is the real Roman Empire.
No one calls it Turkish. The Ottoman rule came by after brutal conquest and brought massacres and discrimination to those who called themselves «Roman ». they had a different culture, religion, language, all foreign to anything Roman. They were a foreign invading people from Central Asia. Calling the Turks Roman is pure stupidity.
It’s Roman. Its official name was Βασίλειον τῶν Ῥωμαίων (Kingdom of the Romans). End of story. The term Byzantium is nothing but an anachronism.
I think he implies that turks are going to start apropriating it like they try to do with the anatolian peoples like the hittites and the trojans
@@olbiomoirosNot supporting the ottomans claim and neither their empire but, come on. Rome did the same to many populations, Carthage was yeeted out of history, Gauls genocided, Jews expelled and so on. The negative view of the ottomans come mainly becaude they were muslims. And ofc their actions from ww1
People are just too biased/clouded by modern countries. "greece is like ancient greece and italy is rome", when in truth it's far more complicated and obviously the statement is fundamentally wrong. people who actually research will eventually see that "greeks" and "romans" are parts of the same bronze age tribes. modern people/historians just like to make things simpler even if it means being wrong for the sake of politics and clinging on to false identities.
Imo as an italian, I also always thought of other romance speakers to have as much roman heritage as italy does, I don't understand why people narrow it down to Italy. Italy was the center for many years, but in many years it also wasn't, plus then Italy came under the control of different cultures, Franks, Lombards, Eastern Romans themselves, so is much more like a mosaic than a single color itself. Of course today I see how Greece and many countries around the Balkans have roman heritage, but many people do not!
@@viperking6573Greeks are the Heirs of the Hellenes & Romioi! That is undeniable & we laugh at anyone that tries to prove otherwise! 🤣
100% agreed.
If your Turkish, it's the Ottomans, if you're Iranian it's the Achaemenids, if you're Lebanese it's the Phoenicians.
I think people just pick the oldest coolest national power that had vaguely the same ethnic heritage to point to to be like "See? We had a cool ancient empire too!!"
It is called continuity , I think , and some nations around the world can, without any doubt, claim it as their documented history.
There's nothing wrong with that.
@@jonmiller6787 Turkey is a direct successor of Ottomania in every sense of the word "direct". And the Achaemenid Empire and modern Iran have the same name and are inhabited by the same people.
The simple answer is that being Roman meant different things over time, much like being Egyptian or Persian or German or Chinese or Indian. All those areas and the Mediterranean have seen a lot of ethno-cultures who identify with a particular name or origin or modern occupation, but its all just lines on a map dictacted by military posture and political clout. Every two hundred or so years of Roman history there's enough change that some from the early Republic wouldn't like the middle Republic, who feel the same about the early Principate. Being "Roman" used to mean you were a wealthy landowner who lived in the original boundaries of Rome, but Caracalla extended that identity to anyone who wanted within the pre crisis imperial borders. Being Roman is not one thing because if you brought a 200 BCE era Roman to the height of the Principate, he would be horrified to see barbarians (non Italians) in the legions, the Senatorial class neutered, and obscene displays of decadence, wealth and excess. If they saw the era of Constantine he'd die of an aneurysm. Every Republican would look upon the Roman world with shame, the same way the Greeks looked upon the post Phillip/Alexander Hellenic era.
You could have just said that culture changes over time, and the meaning of belonging to a particular culture changes as the culture changes.
A roman is a citizen of the roman state.
Italians and latins were also not initially romans until they were granted citizenship.
The southern italians were greek by the way and acquired citizenship earlier than other greeks.
All the empires you listed will almost always have an additional name tacked on to denote the change in time or ruling government. For instance, the Achaemenid Persians were the ones with Cyrus and Darius, while the Parthian and Sassanid Persians were the ones who fought against Rome. The 25th Dynasty of Egypt was ruled by Nubians while Ptolemaic Egypt was ruled by Greeks. The German Empire had the Kaiser, while Weimar Germany was what came after. If somebody wants to use Byzantine as a descriptor of the Roman empire after the loss of Rome and transition to a Greek-speaking, orthodox christian empire, they'd have a pretty good foundation for doing so.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
I mean, if we consider that an earlier Roman emperor granted citizenship to all subjects of the emoire.
And that many of these emperors weren't exactly of Latin stock, like Aurelian who was Dacian and Julian the Apostate who straight up considered himself Greek.
Then it is completely reasonable to accept that Byzantines, though they may speak Greek (not all of them, there were Latins in the Eastern Roman Empire, particularly on the Balkans) and be in a different land, were Romans all the same.
Citizens of the empire yes, romans no. The only romans are the italians of today.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
Just sounds like identity politics, Greeks larping as their conquerors. “Ey yo Popadapaulis, we wuz Romans n’ shiet”
@@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER The Romans from the Italian Peninsula were much germanized by Goths, Lombards, Franks, Germans, for about 1000 years, until the Renaissance Italian Republics.
Love the conclusion to the B-word. Its really ez to use as the b-word is easier to write than Eastern Roman Empire as the b-word already references the medieval roman period of the remaining eastern Roman Empire. I do think i have still lingering negative feels about the word as its often used to deny the "Byzantines" the romanes they lay litterally decent from (using the Theseus analogy ofc)
Would love you to do a video on how the Roman state viewed Italians and the papal states after charlemagne, whether they were still Romans in their eyes or increasingly foreign like the franks.
In the later stages of the Byzantine empire Latin sort of evolved to be equivalent of Barbarian.
Also it was common across the western Mediterranean to call all Western Europeans Franks regardless of who they actually were.
Nah, the Roman consider the Papal state as barbarian because...they were literally decendence of Goth and Lombards from Germany. All the Popes were not ethnically Italian.
Charlemagne was a Frank and never intended for the Roman title to be significant. His son only inherited it by accident since the brothers died. Italy was already absorbing Germanic influence before the west fell
@@wewenang5167 If we ignore the fact that the italians (both medieval and modern) speak the most latin language, are culturally closest to classical latin, base their laws off roman law, practice the same christian rite as they did as subjects of rome and are genetically the closest to classical romans, then you might be correct in calling italians germanic. Just because they were conquered by a small band of barbarians doesnt mean the romanness of the italians was lost.
They were considered barbarians and were hated.
With all that old historian bashing imagine if he dared to criticize Majorian while defending Ricimer, that would be pretty cool
He is right though
@@Michael_the_Drunkard Gibbon? nah
The name Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire is a Greek theme.And since the Greeks use both names, this is what is accepted.
Rome is a Greek word means power,strength.
In ancient Greek texts the word is written with ω ,Ρώμη = Rome ,and not Ρόμη as it would be written if the word was not Greek.
Check out the script ΡΩΜΗ on a 5th century BC marble inscription. in the Vatican museum
Rome- power , follows the displacement of power. Constantinople = New Rome, Moscow = the third Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, the Sultanate of Rum, etc.
The Greek meaning of the word Rome is also the reason why citizenship was invented for the first time in history calling the citizens Romans, Romoioi , Rum, giving them the "power" =the Roman citizenship.
The granting of citizenship to allies and the conquered was a vital step in the process of Romanization. This step was one of the most effective political tools and (at that point in history) original political ideas.
These are the names of the 7( 8 ) kings of Rome.
Romulus,(Titus Tatius), Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, Tarquinius Superbus.
Romulus =Troian origin , Titus Tatius = sabine from Lacedemonian origin ,Numa Pompilius =sabine from Lacedemonian origin ,Tarquinius Priscus =Etruscan from paternal corinthian(Demaratus of Corinth) Doric origin ,Servius Tullius son of Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus gran son of Tarquinius Priscus .
Demaratus was a Dorian nobleman and a member of the Corinthian Dorian house of the Bacchiadae. Facing charges of sedition, in 655 BC he fled to Italy with his Royal court,, according to tradition settling in the Etruscan city of Tarquinii, where he married an Etruscan noblewoman.
Demaratus (Greek: Δημάρατος), frequently called Demaratus of Corinth, was an ancestor of Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the first consuls of the Roman Republic.
Three important Roman gentes claimed descent from Demaratus; the Junii, through the first consul; the Mamilii, who came to Rome from Tusculum in the fifth century BC; and the Tullii, through Servius Tullius
Every attempt to dissociate Rome and Roman empire from Greek influence is doomed to failure.
Funny to me how Western Europeans called the Byzantines "The Greek Empire" in order to justify the HRE's claim to be Rome's successor even though the HRE had way less of a real cultural claim to the Roman Empire.
Now I want to hear more about Kaldelis hot takes
He's one of those contrarians that doesn't think Justinian wasn't a top 10 emperor, which falls appart the more you learn about his reign.
He's the most interesting Byzantinist currently writing.
The late/medieval Roman army was, in his opinion, better than the one of the middle and late Republic period.
Well said!
My take is this.
The nation and state is Rome.
The period in which Constantinople was the capital of Rome is called "Byzantine Period".
Noone thinks that the Napoleonic Empire isn't French because we call it Napoleonic France. "Byzantine Rome" could refere to Rome during the Byzantine Period, the third period of Roman history (fourth counting the shirt monarchy).
I've always made this equivalent:
Let's say in the future, America decides to move the capital from the East Coast to the West Coast. Let's also say that the government decided to split administratively, and we now had two Presidents, one in DC, and one in L.A. Let's also say that throughout the years, the Western half allows for more immigration, and they also start speaking Spanish more than English, because it's easier, and because they have hybridized their culture and become more latino-focused, and even the majority of the populace becomes Catholic. The years go by, and the Western part of the country becomes richer, and more important, now bear in mind, that they are all still part of the same entity. So years pass, there's a lot of instability that happens in the East. Then, suddenly, after hundreds of years, let's say that Canada invades and dismantles the entirety of the US east of the Mississippi, but the Los Angeles centered Western US stays standing. Would that make the remaining Western, Catholica, Spanish-speaking US not the US? Or would it simply be that the US lost territory to an invading force?
Moving further forward, what if, over time, the Western Half collapses and LA is dominated by Canadians (who also now consider themselves Americans). To further distinguish themselves, the Western Americans decide to also embrace an ancient Indigenous identity.
After the fall of LA, are the Westerners still Americans?
Either that or we acknowledge that identities are ephemeral and ever-changing.
Would you call that country the United States?
How much of the local population considered themselves Romans instead of say Spartan, Athenian, Anatolian, Syrian, Egyptian etc..
One thing I want to add to this great video, the Byzantium/Byzantine usage, I'm a "Byzantine" Catholic. Though officially, we use the Constantinopolitan Rite, it's usually just abbreviated as Byzantine Rite. My specific church in the US, uses the term Byzantine to stress our difference from the Roman Catholics BUT to keep the ethnic tones out, we don't like to use Greek Catholic or even Ukrainian Greek Catholic, since the Byzantine Empire is Roman, and thus, comprised of more than just a single ethnicity. Attempts at changing the name have had some weird results. I was once attending liturgy at another one of my church's churches, like in direct jurisdiction, but it used the name "Eastern Catholic" and we had a family of Romans on vacation visit and they had NO IDEA what we were doing. I remember the mother saying "We thought it was Eastern Catholic as in eastern United States."
FURTHERMORE, this is unique to my city I think, in like 2019, a massive priest abuse scandal was discovered in the Roman clergy, and our archbishop issued an order for us to use Byzantine as a term more, and for our priests to stop dressing like Roman priests and return to the Constantinople style of dress, to distance ourselves from our Roman neighbors in an attempt to preserve our Church. There was major fear that the Byzantine Catholics, the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, etc, would see protests and vandalism (like the Roman churches around here did) if they were considered "too Roman." I must also mention, my hometown is the capital of all "Byzantine" Catholics in the US, after the Soviet Union destroyed our original HQ in Ukraine, the clergy fled here and set up shop and the word Byzantine was specifically chosen to avoid the nationalistic tone that an ethnicity would have and Constantinopolitan was avoided because it's way too long and would just confuse everyone since if you look up Constantinople now, you find Istanbul, and that opens another huge debate.
Love the video, I use the term Byzantine with extreme pride, to me, the first Byzantine emperor is Augustus Caesar, as there is an unbroken line from him all the way to Constantine XI. I've seen the term Romano-Byzantine Empire used, because calling it the Eastern Roman Empire sometimes makes people think its an offshoot, like the Holy Roman Empire was, rather than the actual empire itself, just like 1/2 of it, or by the like 800s, 1/5th of it.
I do want to add, the idea that the Roman state changes over time but still remained Roman, can be paralleled to China. China went through many dynasties, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, etc, etc, and they didn't stop being Chinese. The language transitioned from ancient Chinese, to Classical Chinese, to modern Mandarin. The laws changed and so did the structure. The Qin had a powerful prime minister and a militarily active emperor, the Han had 3 high officials, with divided abilities, and an emperor uninvolved in military affairs, and the last two dynasties, the Ming and Qing, had exceptionally large bureaucracies, large complex militaries, but the Qing was massive due to being expansionistic, while the Ming was more nationalist and decided to stay in China's preexisting borders for the most part. All those dynasties are STILL Chinese, just like all the transitions of the Romans are still Roman, as I said, unbroken line from Augustus to Constantine XI.
Byzantines were Greeks in everything and typically Romans only by name! 🤫
The Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization a Greek society.
Bulgarians were Turkic or Slavs?Rus were Swedish or Slavs? Holy Roman Empire was Roman or Germanic empire?Moghuls were Turkic or Indians?Safavids were Turkic or Persians? Byzantines were Romans/Italics or Greeks?
I can give many examples were a nation have a different origin from its initial name:
1)Bulgarians were initially a Turkic nation but gradually Slavicised so nowadays they consider themselves a Slavic and not a Turkic nation , 2)Moghuls had a Turco-Mongolic name but it was an Indian Empire in language, ethnicity and culture, 3)Russians name is derived from the Rus' people, who were a Swedish tribe, and where the three original members of the Rurikid dynastry came from but nowadays they are an East Slavic nation!
4)Safavids were initially a Turkic/Kurdish dynasty but gradually their nation and whole dynasty became fully persianised!
5)Holy Roman Empire was an empire made by Germanic people, who they talk Germanic dialects and had a Germanic culture, so the were "Romans" typically only by name!
Same way the 6)Eastern Roman Empire initially was a Roman Empire but gradually fully Hellenized in every aspect like language, culture and also main ethnicity.
Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean, spoken natively in the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor, and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Southern Italy, the Black Sea, Western Asia and North Africa. At the beginning of the Byzantine millennium, the koine (Greek: κοινή) remained the basis for spoken Greek and Christian writings, while Attic Greek was the language of the philosophers and orators.
Byzantine was generally known to many of its Western contemporaries as the Empire of the Greeks. This was because of the dominance of the Greek language, culture, and population. Greek was not only the official language but also the language of the church, literature, and commercial transactions.
Most historians agree that the defining features of their civilization were: 1) Greek language, culture, literature, and science, 2) Roman law and tradition, 3) Christian faith. The Byzantine Greeks were, and perceived themselves as, heirs to the culture of ancient Greece, the political heirs of imperial Rome, and followers of the Apostles.
The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and portions of the southern Balkans, and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt. Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi), but are referred to as "Byzantine Greeks" in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei.
Use of the Greek language was already widespread in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire when Constantine moved its capital to Constantinople, although Latin was the language of the imperial administration. From the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641), Greek was the predominant language amongst the populace and also replaced Latin in administration. At first, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks, who inhabited the heartland of the later empire: modern Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Sicily, and portions of southern Bulgaria, Crimea, and Albania. Over time, the relationship between them and the West, particularly with Latin Europe, deteriorated.
Byzantine Greeks weren't Latin/Romans.
You should know the period when Byzantines with Belisarius reconquered Italian peninsula. They even ruled Rome itself for more than 220 years. This period is well known for its Greek Popes! They called those Popes Greeks for a reason! Simply because they were GREEKS!🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷
Ethnicity is not always connected to religion. Ksekolla to mualo sou. You probably has zero knowledge about the ancient Indo-Greek Kingdom who converted to Buddhism. Is that means that after their conversion they ceased to be Greeks? Of course no, they were still Greeks! th-cam.com/users/shortsgicXr7WsTyE?si=XqvhmcCiiyZyNHMq Ancient Greek Buddhist Kingdoms. They still considered themselves as Greeks and not Indians. If you still don't understand that then you are a moron. Same way the Byzantines Christians were Greeks and NOT italic-latin-romans.
th-cam.com/video/Etrr0E59g1A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=tYUSkcV7xrZS1j4K
@@GrecoByzantine1821 first I'm aware of Greco-Bactrians, second Romans aren't an ethnicity, they're a citizenry. Emperor Caracala I think is the one to extend citizenship to all in the empire.
I'm having a hard time understanding your thesis statement because it doesn't sync up with my thesis statement.
Also the Mughals are Mongols, direct descendants of Genghis Khan. The Safavids are multi ethnic, at least in their ruling family, since they had Kurdish, Azeri, and Pontic Greek heritage.
I don't remember calling you a moron as I don't even know who you are or how your comment connects to mine. You seem to really be caught up on a modern concept of ethnicity. Or did you interpret my statement as anti Greek?
Also, the Bulgarians are not Turkic, the Bulgars are. You cannot assign ethnicity so quickly to a people who took a few centuries to form. Like the Macedonian Slavs, they're historically protean.
You seem real hung up on the Greekness of the Byzantines/Eastern Romans, which is fine but they can't be exclusively Greek, empires cannot be mono-ethnic states. Which is why Roman and Byzantine are not ethnic terms. If we look at the Byzantine Empire by the time Emperor Basil II died, you have a state that includes Greeks, Bulgarians (the Slavic people who have assimilated the Turkic Bulgars), Italians, Croatians, Bosnians, Albanians, Georgians, Armenians, assuredly some Turkic tribes that were migrating into Anatolia, assuredly Arabs that got left behind when the Caliphate retracted, Jews, and Vlach/Aromanians, and that's just naming the ones that come to mind. The Emperor of the Romans is not not the Emperor of the Greeks, if he was just that, the others ethnicities wouldn't be too thrilled to take orders from him.
Did you even watch our man's video or did you just come here to fight in the comments lol. Straight up, I don't even know if you're replying to my message specifically or replying to the video and accidentally commented through mine. Our topics aren't even the same lol.
A very interesting historical fact.
In the late Ming Dynasty in China, a military book recorded that a Lumi(噜密) ambassador brought a matchlock with a special long barrel. This was different from the original matchlock in China. Its power could A little larger than the Spanish and Chinese matchlocks.Lumi is actually the transliteration of Roma, but when we look at the illustrations printed in the book, you will find that there is an Ottoman with a turban on it.🤣 It should be said that at that time, both the Arab world and China referred to all people in Asia Minor as Romans.
@@개고기수프 I've actually heard this story before, yeah, Lumi is close to Luoma, which is modern Mandarin for Romans. And yeah, the western portion of Anatolia has been called Rum for a while. The Balkans were further called Rumelia, if I am spelling that correctly. Thus, it would be easy to say that most of the Balkans people have a claim to the Romano-Byzantine legacy, since empires cannot be mono-ethnic.
@@Rudero3 "second Romans aren't an ethnicity, they're a citizenry." That's a bit too easy. They were both a citizenry and, at least initially, a people (or a subset of the Latin people) with their own language, religion, traditions, etc. All of these were encapsulated in the "mos maiorum" that kept defining Roman self-perception well into the empire. Also, pointing to the fact that the emperors kept extending the citizenship infinitely as proof that Romanness was merely an administrative matter (as the argument seems to be) is a bit of a one-sided approach, as it ignores the internal opposition that did exist against this liberal approach to citizenship and identity, most notably from the Senate. It was the policy of the emperors, and they won, but the fact that they won does not necessarily make their more pragmatic, maybe even cynical, perspective on what it meant to be Roman the only valid one.
Is Roman something we should refer to as blood or as a nation? As Stilicho was a Latin Vandal. Many emperors we're Latin and Illyrian. The foederati was supposed to be a assimilation idea for turning barbarians into "Romans".
As a big fan of the Eastern Roman Empire, I use both. I know some people use "Byzantium" as an insult, but when I say it I just think of it a word for the Romans once Byzantion became their centre of power. And practically, in writing there is something called "graceful variance", which is where you use a different word for the same thing for the sake of variety. Saying "Eastern Roman Empire" every time is not only longer but can be repetitive
Perfectly said
I use Rhomania
@@orrorsaness5942 Which is wrong, the "h" is futile, it is Romania.
@@genovayork2468 ok!
Romania
5:23 Another issue with a "Holy Roman" nationality is that the HRE acknowledged that it was not based off a single nation.
"Life and victory to the army of the Franks, Romans and Germans"
-Laudes Imperiale for the Holy Roman Emperor
well the Eastern Roman empire was more Greek than Latin so I guess people use the word "Byzantium" To differentiate The Greek Roman Empire from the Latin Roman Empire. Or at least that's how I see it. Yes they are Roman, but their also Greek. However I will still be using "Byzantium" as to describe the Eastern Roman Empire.
Can you do a video on what it meant to be a 'Roman'? You touched on it a little here. But what were the values that a 'Roman' held and what differentiated a 'Roman' from a barbarian and did these change? It can be race, language or ethnicity because we see those born outside of Italy, who spoke Greek and were not traditionally Roman or Italian being referred to or referring themselves as Romans.
Well done this was a geat video!! Nevertheless, I felt that you are cherry picking- You believe in the uniterupted romaness of the empire as a 'nation' or 'ethnicity' and the video presents sources and arguments from confirmation biases. The inhabitants were aware of their Greek ethnicity(at least the Greeks since the empire also included Greek speaking subjects). You did not present the emergence of Christianity as a pivotal moment for 'Romaness'. Roman was a political and religious term- Roman adheres to the political and military prowess of Western Rome which the Eastern Romans maintained as favourable but it also meant being Greek or Greek speaking AND Orthodox. Do not forget that Christianity shaped though the Greek world and language. Because Hellene meant Pagan the Greeks sought to show their Christian ideals through the concept of Romaness. In the late stages of the empire many Easter Romans emphasized their Greek ethncicity ( see last speech of Constantine the last emperor-the Alexiad the letter of John Vatages to the pope ("Apostolos Vacalopoulos notes that John III Ducas Vatatzes was prepared to use the words 'nation' (genos), 'Hellene' and 'Hellas' together in his correspondence with the Pope. John acknowledged that he was Greek, although bearing the title Emperor of the Romans: "the Greeks are the only heirs and successors of Constantine", he wrote. In similar fashion John’s son Theodore II, acc. 1254, who took some interest in the physical heritage of Antiquity, was prepared to refer to his whole Euro-Asian realm as "Hellas" and a "Hellenic dominion). In their schools the Easter Romas had as their main readings the Heliad and the Odyssey and NOT the Eniad which modern italians are being taught in their schools even to this day. I could say more but I will stop it here- Kaldellis is only but one source -you could have compared him with Vacalopoulos, Runciman and other byzantinologists who have very opposing ideas. Sorry for the long message!! and sorry for my disagreement it is well intended!!
For the part, which you say that "Roman" during the ERE didn't mean Greek... It basically did mean that. Because in the segment in which you, rightfully, cite all these excerpts indicating that Romans *did* ethnically distinguish themselves ethnically and racially from all other nations... The Greeks aren't mentioned. They're not mentioned because they're extinct. Far from that. But because "Rhomaios" did eventually come to mean "Hellenas" or "Greek". It might not have been used interchangeably, as others claim, but "Rhomaios" did come to mean "Greek". Which again, survives to the present day amongst some Greeks. And in the 19th century, we used "Rhomaios" or "Romios" to identify ourselves.
Always love your use of nuance. Another great video 🎉
6:47 This point doesn't make much sense when applied to living things. Dinosaurs probably best fit this analogy. Now let's say Dinosaurs are Romans. They are a diverse group across the known world. Now after the extinction, we only have a small group of Dinosaurs (Birds) that survived.
Birds (Byzantines) are technically dinosaurs (Romans) via direct lineage, but they've changed so much, are the only surviving member, and they are only distantly related to their other dinosaur relatives, which is why we use the term bird (Byzantine) as it helps signify this change
No longer rulers of the world, but rather now Chicken Roma slowly carved up
BTW the Roman Empire was never a nation it was always an Empire (multicultural & multireligious)
Even the early Roman republic was not a nation state between Etruscans, Greek polities and different Italic tribes.
It's up to debate how much on an empire it was in the later Byzantine perios
@@RomabooRamblings It was up to the 12th century
The final phase after 4th crusade/ 1204 AD sure is debatable
@@corpi8784 we know that Andronikos III had latins around him and John VI allowed cuman refugees to settle in the empire
there were also venetians and geonese settled permanently in biggest cities
if Andronikos III didn't died prematurely I can see Archea, Rhodes and duchy of Archipelago reintegrated into the empire with their greeko-frank populations
@@RomabooRamblingsthey had an emperor as their head. That makes them an empire in the traditional sense
The problem with the term nation is related to the fact that its meaning has changed over time, while for other languages it is a neologism (new word). In my native language, Romanian, the Latin natio would have been translated as "nație", which, until the 18th century, meant ethnicity, not nation. If other peoples who continued to use Latin in one form or another inherited the word nation, I think its meaning changed. It has changed from ethnicity to the modern sense of nation, which corresponds to a nation state.
As they said Culture is more important than DNA... Because there is no such thing as pure race, Europeans especially in Mediterranean are mostly mixed European Hunter gatherers DNA, Neolithic Anatolians farmers DNA etc... And the East Romans is just like that, but they represent and enriched the Hellenic civilization not Latin, Albanian, Bulgarian culture and traditions.... That's the hard reality
14:56 surely it can't be that terri- SWEET JESUS, WHAT THE HELL?!
A question to this: we often overlook I believe the fact that even in ancient times pagan times the Roman mythology was born out of the Greek one. Not only the gods but also the myth of the very founding of the city of Rome itself. Meaning that Ancient Greece gave birth to Ancient Rome in its mythological aspect . Meaning that Palaiologos was not only a Roman emperor but that also even Sulla or Numa stood in a direct context with Achilles or Alexander the Great . Romans and Greeks were bound to each other from the very beginning onwards
Edit: I mean by that , that we can’t by example view the Athens of the 14 century differently from the Athens of the 1 century bc . In opposite of that, it is not correct to claim that the Augusta treverorum was able to legitimise the holy Roman emperors heritage . Greece was always without a doubt a elemental part of Roman culture history and mythological understanding . Never would had Vergilus put the newly conquered Germania minor into the same status of Romanitas as he would do so with the country from which his Minerva derived from
Let me give you a personal experience, my grandmother's nationality identification was British. My grandmother was born in Russia and immigrated to Australia in her forties during the late 1940s. She was not a Christian, did not speak English much or well, she not even like English food or culture. Never went to the United Kingdom yet she consistently self-identified as British. This was quite common at the time.
A nation is a group of people; groups of people are often named for the location, and when a new people move in, they 'take' the name despite not being of that group of people.
But virtually all Europeans are apart of the same 'family' with virtually all of them being from Germanic tribes; Celts and Gauls were just earlier Germanic tribes.
The United Kingdom doesn't exist. Dumbocracy and Kingdom are mutually exclusive. A king is a man with the final word, and maximum authority, among mortals. Modern so-called monarchs are more like jesters on par with the Burger King. But dumb people want the glory of the past while gullibly accepting the stupidity of the present; in this case, that bandwagon fallacy, demoncracy. Liberalism is poison.
@@pyropulseIXXII am not Germanic. "Virtually all" is like saying virtually all Mongoloids are Chinese.
@@SiGa-i1r All white people come from ancient Germanic tribes
@@pyropulseIXXI While true that all Europeans have a shared ancestry saying Celts and Gauls (Gauls are Celts, so odd to differentiate them) were germanic tribes is wrong. Germanic is contemporary to Celts in ethnic history and quite far away from the common ancestor.
For those wondering about Anthony Kaldellis' top 10 Eastern Roman Emperors
10. Theodosius I
9. Leo III
8. Alexios I
7. Basil II (Yes, really)
6. Manuel I
5. John I
4. John III
3. Anastasius I
2. Constantine V
1. Constantine I
Source: History of Byzantium Podcast Episode 265
I don't necessarily have any problem with the Emperors he chose, but their placement does kinda suck.
My own list would be somewhat similar with a few tweaks:
10) Manuel Komnenos
9) John I Tzimiskes
8) Alexios Komnenos
7) Basil II
6) Leo III
5) John II Komnenos
4) John III Doukas Vatatzes
3) Anastasius
2) Constantine V
1) Constantine the Great
You can call them as you like, but they are my ancestors not yours. I am from Mystras and i am a Greek.
Imo its best to still call it the roman empire but the people greco-roman. That way there is still the distinction of their unique culture while also not ignoring their romanità (like byzantine) or denying the italians theirs (like just using roman)
One of your best videos to date. Relevant to the subject is this clip from a Greek TV documentary on the Greeks of Corsica, some 40 years ago. The old lady by the name Justine is asked by the Greek where she's from, to which the lady responds: "Ime Rhomaia!" ("I'm Roman!")
Parts that weren't liberated by the Greek Army in the 20th century, still had their residents self-identify as Rhomaioi (Romans), calling their language "rhomeika". Yet Westerners, as well as neo-Greeks, still like to insist that the term "Rhomaios" was simply a self-identification on a purely citizen level
Makes you wonder
Link for the clip: th-cam.com/video/QFFl5ZjAODk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-XDM05iieHZSSU2h&t=340
I don't know if you're Greek or not but Greeks called themselves Roman and Greek interchangeably until recently and I still know many fellow Greeks who do, including myself. It's not a dialectic, it can be both. Unlike this video, most people called them Greeks outside of the Frankish West. The Rus used Greki, the Bulgars Graikos, (Chalatar inscription), the Armenians used both Roman and Greek (Horrom and Yuna) (Emperor Romanos was addressed as Kaysrn Yunats' Romanos: Caesar of the Greeks Romanos) and the Georgians used exclusively Berdzen and their land Saberdzneti which also referred to Ancient Greece, and the Greeks....though it was used (at least once) to refer to Ancient Romans (Hadrian and his Roman-Armenian alliance), but the berdzulita the Berdzuli language, always meant Greek, as opposed to hromaelebrita, the Roman language aka Latin.
One can be both Greek and Roman. Even Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitos describes the Maniots as Hellenes only in reference to their recent pagan past, but ethnically as "ancient Romaioi" clearly using Roman to mean Greek. It wasn't always a synonym, but it very much could be.
@@achilleuspetreas3828 I am Greek, but I know how our Greco-Romans ancestors saw themselves; and they saw themselves as Romans.
You have to take into consideration the average, everyday man, who called himself "Roman" not because he thought that he descended from the ancient Romans, but because that's what was handed down by his forefathers. Our Rhomaioi ancestors though of Constantine the Great as the leader of their nation, New Rome-Constantinople was their capital, and Rhomania (Land of the Romans) was their fatherland.
And no, they didn't use the name Greeks and Romans interchangeably. I could point that the Arabs called us Rum, and they made a very clear distinction between the Yunan (ancient Greeks) and the Rum (Romans - "medieval Greeks").
If we always used it "interchangeably", then people even in the early 20th century would respond that they are "Rhomaioi" when asked by the Greek liberating soldiers.
Whether we like it or not, our forefathers became romanised in consciousness, and they retained it even after the Greek Revolution of 1821, hence why they referred themselves as such in the Ottoman occupied lands.
You couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman, since Hellene denoted that someone was a pagan, the second worst thing after heretic. And for that daemonisation responsible is the Church.
That's just how it is. Changing your national identity doesn't mean that the ancient Greeks vanished. People change their national identity when their old one dies out for various reasons. It's human nature to adapt in order not only to survive, but to thrive.
You have to remember, that no matter how the others call you, you have to take into consideration how a population calls itself and how it self-identifies, how it sees itself. And whether we like it or not, our forefathers saw themselves as new Romans.
@@jasoncassios7114 I think we agree more than disagree, aderfe.
To the point of identifying as Roman, yes, sometimes they appear synonymous but I don't believe it to be an actual synonym. I see it in the same way as a father (Rome) and mother (Greece) with their son ("Byzantium"). The son takes on the identity, legacy, and name of his father, but his mothers influence is seen in many ways from running the house, from food and music to teaching him to speak. Constantine the Great is a real mythological character being an anthropomorphized version of Constantinople and the empire itself, having a Latin speaking father and a Greek mother.
I also think of the Church. As much as I value our philosophical tradition in our faith, I know that our faith is descended from the Jews, and if anyone challenges that and says we have a "Greek" faith and not one descent from Judaism, that angers me, even though I am proud of my Greek.
On your point of the Arabs, yes, they called them Rum, but during times of war they used that as in insult in the same way that the West used Greek as an insult. To the Arabs, they would confirm the Rum as being descendant of the Yunan at times of friendliness but would say that the Rum were not because they don't deserve it because to them, it was Christianity that made them abandon the sciences of the ancient Greeks. I'd recommend the book: Byzantium Viewed By The Arabs by Nadia El Cheikh for more on this topic. She does not come from a philhellene or Greek nationalist point of view on the topic.
The point of the Greek liberators, I'll quote someone in the comments who summed it quite well, "that comes from the personal account of Panagiotis Peter Charanis, a Byzantinologist Greek-American who was born in Lemnos in 1906-1908, and was just 4 years old when the Greek State liberated Lemnos from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. Having not even started grade school at the time, I think we should not base a rift of Hellenic and Rhomaic Identity on the mistake of a little child."
"You couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman, since Hellene denoted that someone was a pagan, the second worst thing after heretic. And for that daemonisation responsible is the Church."
Yes, until the 11th century whereabouts, you couldn't be both a Hellene and a Roman because yes, it meant pagan, but once that connotation was lost, we see the word slowly being used again, because the meaning of the word shifted and no longer had the same stigma. We see this in Procopius' history of wars where he says that more than once that Hellene was now the word used for the "old faith". "ἀλλὰ τριβώνιον ἐνδιδυσκόμενος ἱερεῖ πρέπον τῆς παλαιᾶς δόξης ἣν νῦν Ἑλληνικὴν καλεῖν νενομίκασι,"
"but he clothed himself in a coarse garment appropriate to a priest of the old faith which they are now accustomed to call Hellenic"
When I mean Greek identity I don't mean the use of the word Hellene Έλληνες solely, but to mean that the people recognized their shared culture and ancestry (however much, even if only partly) from those people along side their (Patriarchally) Roman one, whether that be in the form of Γραικος or something else, just as Achaeans was used before Hellene. That the two identities of Roman and "Greek" became thoroughly one, something that cannot be (or shouldn't be) separated or "divorced" so to speak.
As Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennitos said in Chapter 49 of De Administrando Imperio:
Νικηφόρος τὰ τῶν Ρωμαίων σκῆπτρα ἐχράτει, καὶ οὗτοι ἐν τῷ ϑέματι ὄντες Πελοποννήσου ἀπόστασιν ἐννοήσαντες, πρῶτον μὲν τὰς τῶν γειτόνων οἰκίας τῶν Γραικῶν ἐξεπόρϑουν
Nicephorus was holding the sceptre of the Romans, and these Slavs who were in the province of Peloponnesus decided to revolt, and first proceeded to sack the dwellings of their neighbours, the Greeks,
He uses Γραικῶν to refer to the Peloponnesian Greeks, but then when talking about the Maniots aka the descendants of the Spartans, he says this in the following chapter.
Ιστέον, ὅτι of τοῦ κάστρου Μαΐνης οἰκήτορες οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῶν προρρηϑέντων Σκλάβων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τῶν παλαιοτέρων Ῥωμαίων, οἵ καὶ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν παρὰ τῶν ἐντοπίων Ἕλληνες προσαγορεύονται διὰ τὸ ἐν τοῖς προπαλαιοῖς χρόνοις εἰδωλολάτρας εἶναι καὶ προσκυνητὰς τῶν εἰδώλων κατὰ τοὺς παλαιοὺς Ἕλληνας, οἵτινες ἐπὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ ἀοιδίμου Βασιλείου | βαπτισϑέντες Χριστιανοὶ γεγόνασιν.
The inhabitants of the city of Maina are not of the race of the aforesaid Slavs, but of the ancient Romans, and even to this day they are called ‘Hellenes’ by the local inhabitants, because in the very ancient times they were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes; and they were baptized and became Christians in the reign of the glorious Basil.
This shows not only that Hellene was still used to mean pagan at the time, but why did he use Rhomaioi to refer to ancient Greeks? Why wouldn't he just use Graikos?
Just as it's a dialectic to say that Roman only meant Greek in the Hellenic sense at this time period, it is still a dialectic to say that it had nothing to do with what it meant to be Greek either. It's fascinating but I think it's a little more nuanced than both sides like to believe it was....
Thank you for being civil, my friend. Very rare on the internet lol
@@jasoncassios7114The name Romeos which became ethnonym for Greeks does not mean descendant of Rome.
Romeos probably means a Hellen Roman citizen and especially a Christian Hellen in the era of the transition from polytheism to christianity
@@mikel3359 The name "Rhomaios" literally means "of Rome". And for that case, New Rome, Constantinople. There's no "probably" in it. They called their own country "Rhomania", "Land of the Rhomans"
The word "Hellene" was the second worst thing someone could call you, (the first was "heretic"), since it denoted paganism.
Rhomaios = the romanised Christian Greek. I don't get why you keep denying the roman character of the Greek of these times. It's as if people don't change consciousnesses...
Graikos and ellin might be used similarly to how greeks today use different terms to refer to greeks and mainland greek as ellines (greek) and elladites (grecians)
B word is Germ cope
You cant convince me otherwise
Eternal glory to our formidable Byzantine ancestors. For preserving and delivering the Ancient Greek legacy and for blending it majestically with our splendid Christian Orthodox tradition. 🇬🇷 ☦️
Φῦλον* is a tribe, φύλλον is a leaf.
4:22 No. The historians, those who make their living from the study of Roman history, should be the first to demand the change of their titles and academic seats. After all, this is only in line with the discovery and publication of historic truth. Doing otherwise would contravene that so how could they then reconcile their professional ethics' imperative when their very job title proclaims them as liars?
In Croatian, "bizantinski" (a.k.a. byzantine) can mean sneaky, corrupt and untrustworthy. Having said that, we were taught the usual nomenclature of eastern empire until the time of Heraclius and Byzantine afterwards. It also fits neatly with the settlement of the Slavs in the area and the start of our own national history.
Based Croatians lmao
Coastal serb moment
7:44 this is actually a terrible analogy, because neither of those examples resultsnin a different thing, but the roman and later eastern roman/bizantine empire, are totally different. An early roman empire citizen, would not recognize the later eastern empire as roman.
And early Roman republic citizen would not have recognized the early empire citizen as Roman
I tend to use it interchangeably with the proper name of the Eastern Roman Empire or Roman Empire. Partially becuase Byzantium rolls of the tounge better than Eastern Roman Empire (which is lowkey a mouth full)
So true and when you say Byzantium people automatically know you are talking about Purple Christian Rome
@@DonnellGreen To be fair, I'd say that awareness mostly came relatively recently (at least for those who don't study and/or follow Roman history)
If the ship was rebuild each time from the same person, then it's still HIS ship. Genetics also have the same question, every 10 years we have replaced all cells in our body, are we still we?
Well that’s a good question though.
ARE we the same person we were 10 years ago? You’ve probably got a whole different worldview, social circle, and like you said body. Would you say you’re the same person? Or is that continuity of experience and the name you apply to it just useful to mark yourself as the new person built on top of the old one?
I think historiographical terms are useful for avoiding confusion and categorizing as long as they aren’t taken as the actual historical name for the state.
It's a bit like referring to pre-imperial Augustus as "Octavian". Okay, the name he was known by was Julius Caesar - but that's just confusing when discussing that period. Byzantium is in a similar (if less necessary) situation.
Just imagine having to write Eastern Roman Empire everytime instead of Byzantium, it is an historiographical term for a reason
@@gurigura4457 Except Octavian did not transform into a wholly different being upon taking the name Augustus. He didn't suddenly start believing in a new god, start speaking a different language, swap out the location of the palace, abandon Roman fashion & aesthetics, etc. so the comparison falls a bit flat.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no Acting like there was a sudden shift between the older Roman way of doing things and the Byzantine way of doing things is just silly. Also, Christianity was establish in Rome long before Byzantium was left as the rump state.
@@Galahad_Du_Lac If by "established in Rome" you mean carried by the whispers of slaves & peasants in back-alley provinces, then sure.
This argument is the same as France. French love claiming their medieval and dark ages heritages as the same nation but refuse to say the romans are still romans. Nations culture can change doesn't change its identity
I've always supported this theory, and the evidence brought by Kaldellis is quite indisputable. There once was a national group called "Rhomaioi", predominant in the Southern Balkans and Anatolia, that doesn't exist anymore. The modern Greeks carry on their cultural heritage, but it is not a madness to think that the Turks also genetically descend from them (the old turkic invaders mixed with the locals, who adopted their language, religion and culture).
exactly 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 the closest cultural relatives of the medieval romans are the greeks, and turks share an ancestry of the med. romans in anatolia that stayed in the Turkish dominion. The westerners ( Romance speakers, Germans and so on ) are the cultural evolution of the romans who stayed under germanic dominion. Of course is more complex than this, but the idea of a Byzantine empire is just BS
It does exist! no ethnicity is pure and most Turks does carry Helenic blood. Every nation consists of different ethic groups identifying them selves as a single group. Think it like this; your Nation might be French but you ethnicity wise can carry Breton blood.
@@viperking6573Absolutely NOT !!! The turkified Greeks have lost ALL rights to their Ancient Hellenic & Romios Identity! PERIOD
@@MerdumgrizThe turkified Hellenic Romioi have lost their right to identify & claim any of that! PERIOD. This is just a goody methods for turks to try to hijack History because of their inferiority complex. They take great pride in destroying anything related to the Hellenes & Romioi, including using their temples & shrines as sideshows! There is ZERO spiritual connection & very little genetic connection & zero linguistic connection & definitely doesn’t follow the organic Religious roadmap either! ZERO
Nah, as an Eastern Roman I will now be responsible of giving people B word passes.
my super sexy solid argument for naming it Byzantium is:
Its sounds cool.
source: It is known.
I left my first comment below to introduce you to how western Europeans viewed both ancient and medieval Greek history and how with the term "Byzantine" there was an attempt to discredit the Roman heritage of the medieval Roman Empire and how, today, the introduced term "Eastern Roman Empire" is often used as an attempt to discredit the Greek nature of the Empire and the fact that this was basically an Empire of Greeks as Greeks by means of geographical selection inherited the Roman Empire. Now I have seen the whole video and can comment - and even if the video makes some good points, I have found some errors, culminating in the 24:34 where it says that "people of the Eastern Roman Empire traced their cultural ancestry to the Roman Empire". This is woefully wrong and I am left wondering how one who studies can do such an error. The answer of course is what I mentioned in my first comment, i.e. a selective reading of sources and isolation of bits and parts that validate the bias, the preconceived idea.
So as per the video maker, the medieval Romans were referring to "their ancestors, the Romans (i.e. the Latin Romans), and the aristocratic families were claiming coming from illustrius old Latin families, and various Emperors, politicians, clergymen were making references to ancient Latin generals and politicians such as Scipio. That is a blatant lie, one that is not permissible from someone who supposedly researches these issues.
The fact that there are such references is no surprise at all in a state that claimed, and rightfully so, to be a continuation of the old Roman Empire. The ancestries to illustrious Latin families of course come from 1-2 texts (some 8-9 centuries after disappearance of these Latin famiiles, LOL! ) and resemble the fake ancestry of Emperor Basil I to the Armenian Arsacid kings just to give him an aristocratic lineage (it was fake of course, Basil I was a Greek from North Thrace). These fake lineages appear precisely in apologetic texts that were supposedly combating contemporary Latin (i.e. medieval Italian) claims of illegitimacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The reality however is only revealed when one sits down and actually does the work. There is a Greek site, "cognoscoteam", which was created precisely by Greek history students, particularly by byzantinologists, people with Phds, post-doctorates, academic careers, people who can read medieval Greek history in their own language - thus far more knowledgeable than your average Harvardian and Oxfordian professor. So one of them wanted to answer this question and sat down and measured the totality of references to ancient people in general and to ancient people as ancestors. He found that for all the reverence to Orthodox Christianity, the Saints, and excluding Jesus (who was mentioned naturally often as he is God), the references to ancient Greeks by far surpass the references to any Saints, the New Testament or Old Biblical stories. These religious references would appear only when fitting. However the references to ancient Greeks were abundant and appeared all over the place, said by all sorts of people, Emperors, aristocrats, soldiers, commoners, poor people, including also clergymen. So many more were the references to ancient Greeks that they were about double the references to New/Old Testament for all the religiosity of medieval Romans. As for the references of old Latins, like the.... handpicked-cherrypicked references here shown in the video these were not even up to the 1/10th in comparison to the reference to ancient Greeks and were almost always, with the exception of fake aristocratic lineages (LOL!) referring merely to the foundation of the Roman state. Latins were never really seen as their ancestors, but just as the founders of the Roman state.
Now this could be a case of western European and North American academics merely by-passing obscure texts and sticking only to the ones they know. In Greece, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire is done in far more depth and Greeks thus are naturally far more knowledgeable on the matter. But then this error done here is inexcusable. That the Eastern Romans referred to ancient Greeks vastly more frequently than to ancient Romans is actually a widely known fact as much as the fact that Eastern Roman kids were learning how to read on Homer's Odyssey. The fact that the likes of Seneca and Suetonius are hardly ever mentioned in Eastern Roman texts and pretty much nobody gave importance to their writings but everyone was reading Plato and Aristotle and all other ancient Greek philosophers whose texts were saved, is a known fact. The fact that nobody (apart a few academics of the time) read the likes of Livy or Pliny but everyone copied Herodotus and Thucydides even imitating their styles shows clearly whom they considered as their ancestors - even more so when the references to Herodotus and Thucydides often come so randomly and suggest that the readers/audience were all knowledgeable of Herodotus and Thucydides' works in detail.
The fact that almost nobody have a single F about Augustus (rarely mentioned and merely as the founder of the Roman state) but then we have plenty of depictions of Alexander the Great, including Alexander the Great with Olympias being depicted next to Jesus and Virgin Mary... what seemed to had been a common theme. This was an honour held for absolutely no old Roman Emperor. All these are known things. So why manipulate the facts? Why cook the data? To pas the narrative of a "Roman nation"? LOL! Yes, there existed a Roman nation back then and these were the ethnic Greeks, none else.
There is no mystery about it. The term Roman may had started as a citizen term in late antiquity and then in Eastern Roman Empire evolved gradually and increasingly after the 7th-8th century crisis to mean the ethnic Greek and only the ethnic Greek. All those Isaurians, Syrians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbians etc. who were at various point Roman citizens, when were they mentioned as "Romans"? Why weren't they mentioned as such even if they may had an actual Roman citizenship? The term Roman denoted the ethnic Greek and that is what it was back then. The video referred to marginal tribes such as the Galatians in central Minor Asia becoming "Romans"....and sneakily pushing that as an "argument" that there was a different ethnic Roman identity. This is completely false. Galatians were described as "Romans" because Romans then were the Greeks and because Galatians had become Greek, i.e. they adopted the Greek language, the Greek customs, the Greek religion (i.e. Orthodox Christianity) and above all they had lost their own consciousness and memory as descendants of Galatians. I.e. they were fully Hellenised, thus Roman. And we even have the term Helleno-Galates in early Eastern Roman texts. As for the term "Greeks" and "Hellenes", these are found extremely frequently even in earlier Eastern Roman eras. It is just that academics are too lazy to search for these. Luckily, there are people who sit down and do the actual work and don't cherry pick to construct a narrative.
Easrern Rome, Roman Empire or Medieval Roman Empire, anything else is an insult.
But in my opinion, The Eastern Rome was a true Rome in some 5-6th centuries in the times of Justinian and Maurice, when it almost restored the old great Rome, but in the 7-8th centuries when it lost Levant, North Africa and most of Italy including the Ethernal City itself, and Latin was not used as an official language, it was a Byzantine Empire as a successor state. Do you think that Kingdom of Soissons was also the real Roman Empire? And the Barbaric Kingdoms that were also reffering to themselves as the balkanized Roman states?
I think I'm cool with using it interchangeably. Since it is a bit of an alternative term, kinda like calling the Portuguese Lusitanians.
In my opinion, yeah, the empire changed. But it changed because of practical reasons. It carried it with itself the history and conscience and continuity of the old Roman world.
I have read the Alexiad, and I understand that Anna did read the ancient historians and philosophers of Rome, and completely saw the Empire as an uninterrupted continuation of that tradition.
I remember being floored when I found out that after the fall of Rome the entire eastern empire still thrived for so long. And for a short time even threatened to reconquer much of the western empire. Including Rome. The Byzantine Empire has always fascinated me. I even did the Byzantine campaign in Total War. Lol.
I have an analogy for the “Byzantines”
Imagine the Roman Empire as a ship at sea. From its founding until 476, it was always captained by a Latin from Italy, eventually with a Greek as first mate.
In 476, the Latin captain abandoned ship. The Greek first mate said “Well, I guess I’m in charge now” and took the wheel until 1453.
The other half of this question is what exactly is different about Italy for it to surrender the Roman name? The Goths ultimately learnt latin and converted to catholicism. The Senate kept meeting until the 8th century and Roman emperors kept being crowned by the pope.
Catholicism was made on a forged document so that the pope would have more political power and no longer have to answer to the Roman Emperor.
In my school we called it Byzantium because it's just much more convenient than saying "Eastern Roman Empire". We regonised them as the true heirs of Rome (since we're Georgian), but called them by the B-word regardless.
Just so.
There is a certain amount of ideological contamination around this name, but it's still a useful one.
For anyone curious, here's the top 10 list of Anthony Kaldellis
1. Constantine I
2. Constantine V
3. Anastasius I
4. John III Vatatzes
5. John Tzimiskes
6. Manuel Komnenos
7. Basil II
8. Alexios Komnenos
9. Leo III
10. Theodosius I
I don't think Manuel I, Constantine I or Theodosius I belong on it, better substitutes would be John II, Maurice or Theodore I. Overall, don't disagree with most of the names included, really happy with the inclusion of Constantine V (G.O.A.T.) actually, maybe just the ordering of it.
he also didn't include Justinian I because Totilla dared to be a very competent commander therefore prolonging the pacification of the ostrogoths and Heraclius because "only few succesful battles and nothing else"
@@TrajGreekFire
However much you may dislike him it's pretty ridiculous not to include Justinian.
He's obviously way more important than Anastasius.
And if you're going to include Tzimisces as a military emperor you can't exclude Heraclius.
We probably shouldn't take these lists too seriously.
i have no idea how you can say the unholy germanoid league has any similarities to Rome
If nothing else, HRE shares some continuity in ideals of universal monarchy with late Roman empire.
because unlike you, he actually has some knowledge of history rather than falling for the lame, false and tired epikk voltaire meme that microdick pop-history fanboys love to shill
Redditor
@@jebbush2527 le ebin voltaire meme is peak reddit: uneducated pop-history nonsense with no basis in reality, peddled by downs syndrome crayon-eaters that have deluded themselves into thinking they're smart because they have access to wikipedia. Cry harder.
germanoid lmfao
I usually mention it as the Eastern Roman empire, as a synonym of the Byzantine empire, but change over to the latter, saving myself an extra word :)) But medieval Roman empire is a nice term as well. Years ago I found the term 'Byzantine commonwealth' used by e scholar from the university of Texas. It opens the door to a new reality and explains quite a bit.
Because we all know if the Byzantium Empire had surfshark they wouldn't have been moved by the turks
Think in terms of a river.
Is the Nile still the same as when Nefertiti was alive?
Many small but cumulative changes have occurred over time, the water itself is different as is the people who live alongside it and yet the name is the same.
There's an old saying "you can't cross the same river twice"
But from another perspective you certainly can and we do it all the time.
In the end this whole question of Byzantine Rome is in my opinion much ado about nothing.
Wow, amazing analogy!
Just like england. The people, language, religion and culture was so different 1000 years ago yet its the same england.
Not as bad as the debate around the term Feudalism though.
From the West's viewpoint, Rome was massively important and a huge influence, while Byzantium wasn't. The Byzantine empire had neither the city of Rome, nor did they speak Latin for most of the empires history, so the notion that it was an "Eastern Roman Empire" seems somewhat perverse. It's like calling Hong Kong the Eastern British Empire.
I can imagine Eastern Europe views Byzantium with much greater importance, as the center of Orthodoxy.
The Eastern half was generally considered more important and more prosperous, and the centre of power was already in the East. When the West 'fell' no one would have thought, "oh, that's the end of the Roman Empire". It was a significant loss of territory and a sign of the diminishing prospects.
@@maozedong69420 As it turns out, the East pretty much fizzled out like a fart after a hundred years or so. The main story of the Eastern Roman Empire was a story of decline and relying on the Roman Catholic Church sending Crusaders to bail out the failing Eastern Roman Empire.
I do love the story of the 4th Crusade, when the crusaders got smart and just sacked the failed and mostly worthless Eastern Empire.
@@dancahill9585
This is such a bad viewpoint that I’m amazed you havn’t been crucified by Byzaboos yet.
The east had always been more productive and prosperous than the west, and its different language wasn’t uniquely “Byzantine”. The only reason they spoke Greek was because of its location, and the Roman east had always spoken Greek. Caesar spoke Greek, as did basically every educated Roman during the republic and empire.
The East did not simply “fizzle out” after 100 years. It was the strongest power in the Mediterranean by a long shot during the early 11th century. Saying that it was a story of decline is one of the most brain-dead takes regarding any power’s fall, let along one that lasted 1000 years and lad multiple comebacks.
Furthermore, comparing the Roman east to Hong Kong is also a garbage analogy. It’s like if you compared just the city of Constantinople to the entire Roman Empire. Much more apt would be about half the British empire.
They had Rome for two centuries
I think it makes sense to say the eastern empire became Byzantium with the ascension of Heraclius. A new dynasty is established out of a provincial governor. They stop trying to reconquer the western territories. Their primary threat shifts from Iran to the Arabs. And shortly thereafter, the western empire is restructured under foreign rulers with no Roman heritage.
The Roman Empire was The Empire. The Byzantine empire was just one power amongst a multitude.
Yes it is nuanced. And no, Byzantium around 1000 AD is NOT the same eastern Roman Empire of 500 AD. You just don't shrug 500 years of change off like that. Sadly it is the best we have in terms of Heirs to the Imperial Heritage as all other "Romes" were Imposters.