Legitimate successors of the Roman empire

Not really related to RFC, but the discussion here got me wondering what people thought on this issue.

Personally I see the Byzantine Empire as a direct continuation of the Roman Empire and the other claims as no more than attempts to attach the glory of Rome to new empires.

I selected Byzantines, but by the thread title, they don't quite fit. They are the continuation of the Roman Empire, not the successor to.

The empire at Byzantium or Constantinople, that is, the Byzantines. The Holy Roman Empire was given legitimacy by the Pope, not somebody with temporal authority to determine succession.

I'd say none of the above. I'm not even sure what to think of the Eastern Roman Empire in it's day. In my opinion once the Western Empire disbanded, the legitimacy of the emperors went with it.

So Constantine wasn't a legitimate Roman Emperor?
IMO the East has more claim as his successor than the West.

Byzantium was the sucessor to the Roman Emperor. They could trace their emperors back to Julius Ceasear. (Not Bloodline). They also called themselves Rhomaioi, Roman in Greek. They only considered themselves Greek in the last 15 years of the Empire. The reason they did that was at the time, Europe was facinated with Greek culture, and the Byzantines hoped that by attaching themselves to the glory of greece, europe would help them.

One other note, the Russians and Ottomans claims are both as the successor to the Byzantines (one through marriage/religion, the other through conquest).

Úmarth;6707176 said:

Personally I see the Byzantine Empire as a direct continuation of the Roman Empire and the other claims as no more than attempts to attach the glory of Rome to new empires.

Click to expand...

Well yes, your views are pretty evident since you omitted the real answer to the question and sided Byzantium with other fabulous options.
The real answer is clearly none, the last Roman Emperor is Romulus Augustus, and the bloodline was seriously undermined in both Republican and Imperial Rome. Talks of bloodline and succession don't apply much with Rome.

When Rome was thaken by the Ostogoths, the king sent the imperial symbols to the byzantine emperor. Most king of those times saw themselfs as vassals to the Byzintine Emperor, much like the foederatii were vassals of Rome before the fall of Rome. But, as there were more than one emperors during the final days of the Roman empire, but after the fall of Rome, only one claimed the title. For some time, only the Byzintines could claim to be the Successors of the Roman emperors.

When Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus, or Karel in Frankian) was crown emperor of the West Roman empire, the Roman empire had now back 2 emperors, whom have as much reason the claim to be the successors of the Roman emperors. In this way, both the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Emperor can both claim to be the legitimate Roman emperor, as the late Roman Empire had a eastern and a Western Emperor.

Russian Tzars claimed the Imperial crown for them after the fall of Byzantium, as the had the support of the othodox church, like the emperors of Byzantium did when it was a christain empire. But there culture was not much influnence by the Roman empire, not even with the nobility, whom were often barbarian beasts. I will never see them as legitimate Roman emperors.

The Turkish leaders will never see them selfes as Romans. The titles Sultan has nothing to do with any Roman titles, as fas as I know. Emperor (French : Empereur) is derived from latin Imperator, German: Kaiser and Dutch: keizer (Ducth and German are modern versions of the Frankian language, the language of Charlemagne) and the Ruaasian :Tzar are derived from the name Caesar, the first Roman Emperor (Gaius Octavianus Caesar AKA Augustus). And the Titles of the Bysantine Emperors was the greek versian of Imperator. Also, in the late Roman empire, the titles was mixed up with Christanity, and Muslim leader would not clain a christian title.

What defines empire? Imperium means "territory." The Imperium Romanum was literally "territory of the Romans." Since the Romans ceased to exist as a defined cultural and ethnic group since it's fall--displaced by either Greek or "barbarian"--there was no longer such a thing as an Imperium Romanum because there was no longer such a thing as "Romans."

Byzantium was a Greek Empire built upon the political foundations of Rome; it was composed of territories belonging to or subservient to the culturally and ethnically Greek.

The Holy Roman Emperors were given "Roman" in their title to invoke the former Roman Empire--sort of like invoking "Sid Meier" in every Civ game despite his decreasing importance in the actual programming.

The Popes have less ties to the Romans and more ties to the Slavs, Greeks, and Ethiopians. They were never around during the Roman times, and they were only important to the Holy Roman Empire because the idiot Franks made it important for the Pope to name an Emperor. Imagine, if they didn't do that, claims to the title would be settled not by a solemn Popely word but with blood and tears.

The Russian Tsars were just "inheriting" the Byzantine Empire by virtue of marriage and its defeat. It inherited a title from the Byzantines, who inherited a title from the Romans, but they're an empire of Russians with a Roman name (The Third Rome).

The Turks are Turks. They are farther away from Romans than everyone else combined.

If you have anything to contest, contest my definition of Empire. It really depends on what definition you use, and I used the basest, most literal one.

What defines empire? Imperium means "territory." The Imperium Romanum was literally "territory of the Romans." Since the Romans ceased to exist as a defined cultural and ethnic group since it's fall--displaced by either Greek or "barbarian"--there was no longer such a thing as an Imperium Romanum because there was no longer such a thing as "Romans."

Click to expand...

Your definition does not hold up. If it's a matter of ethnicity then either the "fall" of the Roman empire was much earlier than the fifth century - the first Emperor not born in Italy was Trajan (he was Iberian) and there were many after that, by the time of Romulus Augustus Rome wasn't even the centre of government - or you accept that the territories Rome conquered, in Italy and beyond, were Romanised and formed part of an updated Roman culture/ethnicity. One of those Romanised groups were of course the Greeks.

Well yes, your views are pretty evident since you omitted the real answer to the question and sided Byzantium with other fabulous options.
The real answer is clearly none, the last Roman Emperor is Romulus Augustus, and the bloodline was seriously undermined in both Republican and Imperial Rome. Talks of bloodline and succession don't apply much with Rome.

Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I realised I should have put "none of the above" after I posted but you can't edit polls. Anyway, I'm curious as to why you think the Western Roman Empire had primacy over the east, because it's capital was Rome itself? At what point do you judge the Eastern Emperors as stopping to be Roman?

Byzantium is the sucessor to the Roman EMpire becasue they were the Roman Empire. After Diocletian split the empire, the Eastern Empire went on to become Byzantium. I don't know when or why the name change occured. But the Byzantines were Romans. ALso, until Manzikert, their army had desceded directly from the Legions.

The Byzantine Empire = The Roman Empire

The name change never happened. "Byzantine" is just a term historians use to confuse the common people. Byzantine was used because (1) the Empire's culture was different from Roman culture but (2) they still used "Roman Empire" as their official name. Of course, describing something as the "Roman Empire" when it was clearly un-Roman would be confusing, so they made up some name based on its capital. "Byzantine" because "Byzantion" or "Byzantium" was the old Greek name for Constantinople's site.

@Úmarth: When people start accepting that their cultures are just not Roman, then it's not. When Rome fell, it's culture lingered on but eventually the realities of life set in and those barbarians and Greeks simply realized that they can't hold up the farce of using Latin and wearing togas all the time. Breeches came in, and they liked it. Greek was used, and they liked it. And they eventually accepted that it simply wasn't Roman.

The Turkish leaders will never see them selfes as Romans. The titles Sultan has nothing to do with any Roman titles, as fas as I know. Emperor (French : Empereur) is derived from latin Imperator, German: Kaiser and Dutch: keizer (Ducth and German are modern versions of the Frankian language, the language of Charlemagne) and the Ruaasian :Tzar are derived from the name Caesar, the first Roman Emperor (Gaius Octavianus Caesar AKA Augustus). And the Titles of the Bysantine Emperors was the greek versian of Imperator. Also, in the late Roman empire, the titles was mixed up with Christanity, and Muslim leader would not clain a christian title.

Click to expand...

Upon the conquest of Constantinople Mehmed II claimed the title of Caesar.
I am not sure if his successors continued to claim the title or not, though.

Byzantines are the direct continuation of the Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire can be considered the successor to the Western Empire in that it was granted the title and became, at least for a while, the dominant power in the West.

Russia has a claim to be the successor of the Byzantines in that they became the core of Orthodoxy.

The popes best claim would be for their time ruling Rome. But I also don't believe that they made such claims.

So any option other that the Pope, you can make a decent argument for, simply because of the word successor. In this sense, you could say that any dominant power is a successor to the Roman Empire, though.

Ukraine

The real answer is clearly none, the last Roman Emperor is Romulus Augustus, and the bloodline was seriously undermined in both Republican and Imperial Rome. Talks of bloodline and succession don't apply much with Rome.

Click to expand...

Having a single emporer really went out of fashion with Diocletian and his tetrarchy I thought. If memory serves me correct, Theodosius I was the last singular emporer and Theodosius II was the legitimate Emporer of the East and coemporer with Romulus Augustulus. Also, talks of bloodline and succession are cogent when speaking of Rome and Constantinople as there were many many dynasties, though few lasted more than 3-4 generations.

The Byzantines were the successors to the Romans. The Byzantine Empire was part of the Roman Empire that wanted to make the administration easier, so the empire was divided and the west was conquered. The eastern part survived for more than a thousand years. The Roman Empire ended in 1453.

Russia was the successor state to the Byzantines because it carried on the Orthodox tradition. Without Russia, Orthodox Christianity would probably not of survived as most of the Orthodox lands were conquered by the Ottomans. Also, the Grand Duke of Moscow married the niece of Constantine the IX, the last Byzantine emperor, which means that Russia was the successor to the Byzantines and the Romans. Russia was also powerful enough be be considered as the Third Rome.
The Roman Empire = The Byzantine Empire = The Russian Empire

The popes best claim would be for their time ruling Rome.

Click to expand...

Well yes that was that was why I included it, they ruled Rome for pretty much all of the time from the fall of the WRE to unification. Also even now the Popes are Pontifex Maximus... an office with an unbroken line of succession going to Augustus and beyond.

There are a lot of good pope leaderheads around here. Look at this and this.