Why the Byzantine empire is the Roman empire

[ray245]

My time at Total war center was interesting so to speak. However, I am appalled by the amount of people down there who believe that the Byzantine empire is not the Roman Empire. People who believed that the Byzantine empire is a different and separate empire. Others believe the Byzantine empire under Justinian is still the Roman empire, however, after that period, there is nothing Roman about the Byzantine empire.

Moreover, there are also people who believe the moment Greek replaced Latin as the official language means the Byzantine empire broke off from the Roman empire and the later day Byzantine emperors are not of Roman descent.

Some Roman empire fans seems to believe the Byzantine empire is an un-pure version of the Roman empire, hence they could not be counted as the Roman empire.

The intention of this thread is to discuss the reasoning and rational why the Byzantine empire is the Roman empire. The very fact that the political lineage was unbroken from the time of Augustus to Justinian and beyond means the Roman empire did survive into the middle ages.

Moreover, being different from the Roman empire under Trajan does not mean the Roman empire is gone. It is important to know that the Roman empire during the classical age did experience political reforms.


Several examples of those threads:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... pire+greek

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... pire+greek

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost4224351

[Stark]

So... what? Some people disagree with you, and you think we care? It's TWC for fuck's sake, it is NOT a place for discussion or debate.

Is your issue that you think declaring the BYZ not the Roman empire makes it less good in some way? Even if it isn't the Roman empire it significantly outlasted it (700 vs 500) so even if you were some kind of fanboy, why would you care if someone thought they weren't contiguous (even though they pretty obviously are)?

[ray245]

So... what? Some people disagree with you, and you think we care? It's TWC for fuck's sake, it is NOT a place for discussion or debate.

Is your issue that you think declaring the BYZ not the Roman empire makes it less good in some way? Even if it isn't the Roman empire it significantly outlasted it (700 vs 500) so even if you were some kind of fanboy, why would you care if someone thought they weren't contiguous (even though they pretty obviously are)?

Nope, I'm simply opening this issue up for debate. What is your view on this issue stark?

[ray245]

Sorry about this post: I waited too long to edit it.

Also, I'm sorry I did not notice your view on this issue in this post. By right, I would have created this topic in the debating help section. However, given that the debating help section is meant for Science and moral issues, I think that it is better to create this thread here, in the history forum.


I'm simply opening this issue up for discussion on this forum.

Declaring the Byzantine empire not the Roman empire does not make it less good, nor does it make it less bad in any way at all.

The reason why I do not disagree with those people is due to the fact that I view their theory or ideas as a wrong idea. The exact same reason why I would disagree with people who believe in creationism.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Well yea, the Byzantine Empire was somewhat of a misnomer. It was placed on the Empire by historians of a later date to describe the eventual cultural evolution of the Eastern Roman Empire through the high and late middle ages as compared to the western classical "pure" culture historians of the time celebrated. The Eastern Romans had "eastern influences" which was looked down upon. Most Byzantines considered themselves Roman citizens, not Byzantines, and the imperial court considered itself a continuation of Roman lineage. They legitimately were. It was, after all, the Eastern Empire from which Roman rulers continued governing the Empire. Slowly, in the 4th century, the balance of power was shifting East and Constantinople became the dominant capital.

It's true that the Empire changed administratively and culturally, but that's because it was a different cultural region. The language was primarily Greek, not Latin, and it began to have greater influences of Asia.The political changes--administrative and financial--were necessary to keep the Roman Empire alive. The Eastern portion of the Empire survived partly because they learned from the mistakes of the Western empire's practices. But I don't see, and most modern historians I have read don't see, why this would make them "not Roman." It was simply a different iteration of Rome.

It is true, though, that toward the late middle ages and 15th century that the Empire looked very different from old classical Rome, but it was still the Roman entity as much as the United States is still the same basic entity continuously throughout its history, despite culturally, technologically, religiously, and administratively different faces. Unless one wants to say that it's not the same entity and that we are not a continuation of the American nation. We have a different, modified government, culture, and philosophy, just like Eastern Rome. The Empire already had a Greek flavour very early during the reign of Diocletian, though, so it wasn't entirely new, even while the West was still around.

This source indicates:

It is not possible to effectually distinguish between the later empire in Rome and the Byzantine empire centered around Constantinople. For the Byzantines were the Roman Empire, not simply a continuation of it in the East. The capital city, Constantinople, had been founded as the capital of Rome by the Emperor Constantine, but a uniquely Greek or Byzantine character to the Roman Empire can be distinguished as early as Diocletian.

A lot of historians dislike the term Byzantine because it's misleading and implies something it's not.


http://wsu.edu/~dee/MA/BYZ.HTM

[PeZook]

Ultimately, it's a discussion about names: what does it mean if a country from year Y "is" itself from year X? The answer to the question posted above is meaningless without defining what "being the Roman Empire" means. Does it mean its citizens considered themselves romans? Or that they retained Roman traditions and language? What if it abandoned the language and retained many of the traditions? The other way around?

[Thanas]

A debate about this really is pointless - there is nobody in the field who I know that uses the term Byzantine and does not believe they are the legitimate continuation of the empire.

In the end, it is a lot of pointless discussion about a technical term that does not really mean anything more than "Roman empire after the death of Justinian (or Heraclius)".

Precision is necessary, but there is such a thing like a pointless debate and this is it.