When you say "And what is the implication here? That no other Roman emperor after Justinian was ambitious? That would certainly be a mistake to claim." I am given the impression you ignored what I wrote. I didn't imply anything about other Roman emperors after Justinian lacking ambition, lol. I said Justinian's ambition was clearly Roman in nature; other later emperors had ambitions of different hues (in Alexios' case, it was about reforming a badly shaken economy and army, not about reclaiming the territories of the former Western Roman Empire--Byzantium was in far too much a shambles by then for that).
How could you omit the very last sentence of my paragraph which you quoted, which directly refutes your argument here? I literally said that ambitions of Roman emperors changed accordingly as in the flow of history limited the ambitions an emperor could realistically have. Thus, if you only recognize an ambition as "Roman" (which doesn't make sense anyway) when it comes to down to conquering all of the western half of the empire, you disregard the limitations of the ambitions of other emperors which could comparatively be called as equally if not more ambitious due to their much more dire situation.
Disagree. None of your statements reflect what I've read in English sources. Actual historians do talk about Roman and Greek culture in the context of Byzantium quite a bit, and indeed, as historians are want to do, generalize about cultural (and other) shifts in the empire leading into the 11th century. I never said there was a lack of continuity between the Roman Empire of yore and Byzantium--it's fairly obvious Byzantium always saw itself as heir to the earlier empire.
That's not what the point of the paragraph was. I was clearly talking about the concept of quantifying "Roman-ness" and trying to depict some figures as more or less Roman than others. That is in fact quite inane and a practice in absurdity. The cultural divergence of the eastern portion of the empire from the western isn't a matter of being less or more Roman, it's about cultural evolution as a whole and has no such connotations as your initial claims propose.
You are far too frequently misunderstanding "mutually exclusive" to use it as often as you've been in the past two quotes. Being Greek and Roman are distinct, not mutually exclusive. The later Byzantine Empire considered itself Roman while being Greek in language and culture to a significant extent. But it's clear the shift from Latin to Greek reflected cultural changes. Korea doesn't remain Korean if the lingua franca becomes Japanese, though I also note I never claimed it was language alone that reflected the Byzantine Empire's shift to becoming more Greek culturally.
Mutually exclusive means that you can't be both at the same time. You literally stated multiple times that the Byzantine empire was more Greek culturally, therefore less Roman by extension. How is that not suggesting that they are mutually exclusive cultural identities? If you are not suggesting that, then you have to admit to the fallacy of assuming Latin-speaking Roman emperors are more Roman than the Greek-speaking ones.
I have frequently cited historians in my rebuttals with you, and notably several sources with regards to Heraclius and Justinian. Especially on Heraclius the sources I cited refuted your "doubt" over Heraclius ever signing a letter giving up sovereignty to Byzantium to Khosrow.
This has nothing to do with what you said. The part of my post which you quoted explicitly refers to you implying that historians would criticize my use of modern terms to describe ancient events and occurances. It has nothing to do with your post altogether or criticism in regards to other details of the conversation.
Please, just read the part which my posts responds to before you start typing a response.
I take this opportunity to point out to all reading this the ignorance and blatant disregard for LGBT rights movements here. The term "gay" is politically charged in part because it's used as a pejorative (you may encounter this in multiplayer game lobbies where people insult each other and the statements they make as "gay" even if they have nothing to do with sexuality. Re: historical figures, the term "gay" is almost always inappropriate. The concept of "gay" did not exist in Alexander's time, for example, so to call him "gay" is both historically misleading and/or inappropriate. Arguing semantics for the sake of it is what you do when you pick minor points and blow them up into mountains, as you've done so far with everything from the use of titles to whether the US is less secular than other Western nations. And as I'll get to later, there's one particular point in your post which demonstrates you fixation on semantics.
TIL: Using "gay" as a substitute for "homosexual" is being ignorant and disregarding LGBT rights movements (even though those 2 are contradictory, but I digress). Γηράσκω αει διδασκόμενος.
Also, the irony here is so massive that it's ready to pour out of my screen. You have literally just posted an entire paragraph explaining your problem with using allegedly politically charged words such as "ethnic cleansing" or "gay" and then you accuse
me of arguing semantics? Do you understand what arguing semantics means?
Any stats on the non-rebel civilians vis-a-vis the actual rebels? I don't see how you can say "most" victims were not rebel civilians. Procopius is quite clear--he says the majority of the Samaritans made cause with the rebels and accordingly were slaughtered. Implying that those who didn't join, at least in not insignificant part, lived (which makes sense, as later they existed to make Justin II rescind the restoration of rights Justinian gave to the Samaritans).
The estimates for the casualties on the Samaritan side number around 200K-300K. If you honestly think that even half of those were actively involved as rebels/combatants, then it's futile to even try to convince you of ethnic cleansing happening.
The problem is you don't elucidate how they are different
Except that I did in my previous post.
Blatant speculation, unsubstantiated, and contrary to Justinian having restored Samaritan rights before Justin II could take them away later.
Except that no. Have you read any of the source which I linked to you? (Obviously not, but this is a rhetoric question).
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan definitely had permanent demographics damage against certain peoples.
Read what I wrote again and come back and tell me whether that contradicts what you just said.
I enjoy your speculation on what the Samaritans did afterward, but I consider it irrelevant and blatantly speculative in an attempt to be more negative towards Justinian in this regard than extant evidence on the aftermath would allow.
You understand that my "speculation" was just me being sarcastic, right? The point was that thousands of Samaritans were expelled from their actual property and then you come and say that Justinian "gave them property rights" (as f they didn't use to have them before). What I'm essentially saying is that Samaritans possibly not having property rights while exiled would be so much of a yoke, that you might just as well say that they could have been chained and marched through Anatolia if Justinian wasn't so "merciful".
And by the way, thousands of Samaritans were also sold into slavery as a result. So yes, quite literally, some Samaritans would have been marched chained up by their new masters.
"Ethnoreligious fusion kind of way" is another example of your fluffy use of terms.
Just because you are not familiar with the concept of ethnoreligious identity, as in a fusion of ethnic identification with the religious one, that doesn't make the term fluffy. You could alternatively, I don't know, look it up.
I did point out that you were not using the term "ethnic cleansing" in a clear way cohering to a particular definition. I never said you deluded yourself, I said the discussion of ethnic cleansing appeared a red herring.
I will explain this one last time: You accuse me of using the ethnic cleansing discussion as a red herring. What this infers is that I am either disingenuous because I know that Alexios and Basil did the same (spoiler alert: they didn't) or that I am deluding myself into thinking that they are different cases, hence using double standards. Either implication is deeply insulting.
This is because you are inordinately fixated on the Samaritan putdown being an ethnic cleansing despite acknowledging other Byzantine emperors you appear to like more (Basil II, Alexios Komnenos, etc) are also guilty of atrocities (On a related note, Basil II's particular reputation for cruelty, and Alexios' own religious persecution against the Bogomils (
whose leader he had burnt to death in the Hippodrome of Constantinople) are also important to note.). If all of the Byzantine emperors are guilty of significant atrocities (you've often said Justinian was no "exception" to others in this regard), then the ones you prefer as indicated in this thread are also. Hence, your accusations of Justinian committing atrocities of his own seems a moot point. Basil II engaged in cruel and unusual punishment that Justinian did not, and both Basil II and Alexios violently put down rebellions in their own time. We've alluded to all this before and yet you still focused on the ethnic cleansing element. Hence my red herring comment.
I have addressed almost every single thing you have said here several times before. Everything that I have said is readily available for you to go back and read (properly this time).
The only thing that has not been addressed the the Bogomil heresy in particular, in which case you are once again committing to a false equivalency fallacy. Again, Samaritans weren't just victims of perpetuated religious persecution, they were targets of widespread slaughter and mass exile. Aside from both these things being religious persecution in nature and involving atrocities, everything else is miles apart: context, historical background, series of events etc.
I never put words in your mouth about what academia should say. Rather, I rebutted your points by indicating what specific sources (academic and otherwise) DID say.
Here is the line of exchange up until your final post prior to my response:
but it's certainly true Justinian saw legal reforms as a religious as well as political undertaking, as discussed in the BBC In Our Time podcast on the Code, with scholars who notably don't appear to share your view that Justinian was somehow overpraised for the Code.
Why would they claim he is overpraised for the Code if they between them keep a much more tame view on his role in this undertaking? It would make sense to mention it if someone made claims akin to much of the many people who do in fact overrate Justinian's part in this.
The idea that any ruler is "overpraised" is hardly something serious historians care about. It's in many respects a contrary opinion just to have a contrary opinion. When people say Charlemagne or Sejong are "overpraised", I roll my eyes at such generalistic conclusions, and at the necessarily subjective (rather than objective) focal point of such a statement. A fluffy naysayer can use such a statement, backed by historical facts of foibles or not, and still take little away from the ruler's reputation among scholars for greatness and importance. I can see we are talking in circles around your point about Justinian being "overpraised" as a result.
You brought it up, I didn't say anything here. You said that the historians in that link didn't express the things I did about Justinian's contributions to which I replied "why would they mention he is overpraised?", mostly due to the lack of reason to point that out among themselves. I wasn't invoking the idea that historians should mention how historical figures are overpraised or not.
You never said Justinian being overrated should be a matter of discourse in academia, I agree. But you cited historical arguments against people who thought him a good ruler (both as to my posts and to others in this thread), so you should not be too surprised when I raise historical points in my rebuttal.
In short:
1) You brought up the concept of a figure being overpraised as a possible thing academia would mention in the context of its absence and therefore supposed proof that somehow "no historian you know of" shares my views.
2) I respond that they need not mention it among themselves when they in fact have a more impartial standard for Justinian to begin with.
3) You go on a tangent about the concept of "overpraised" in general.
4) I mention that you brought it up in the first place and that I didn't claim that historians should mention how figures are overpraised.
5) You acknowledge that I never said such a thing by claiming you were offering a rebuttal.
Your initial post which started this exchange has no rebuttal, that's an entirely different part of the conversation. The only rebuttal is you initially using the BBC podcast to indicate how those historians don't share my view by openly talking about him being overpraised. By extension, you imply that for my case to hold water or at least to counter this "rebuttal", there have to be historians openly claiming Justinian is overpraised. That I clarified later as something I don't actually agree with as there is no necessity to do so. By going on a tangent on the concept of overpraised and the things said there that directly come back to me as the opposing side of this debate, it made it seem that you thought I was somehow advocating for historians to use the term more and elaborate on it. If not, then why mention how historians barely care about that concept?
This is the semantic statement you made which I allude to earlier as an example of your fixation on semantics.
This is not by any stretch of the imagination a semantic statement. What I said has zilch to do with arguing semantics. Frankly, I get the impression you are not very familiar with what "arguing semantics" really means.
In the context of what you've posted here, you signposted a more negative attitude towards Justinian more recently, and your constant discussion of a supposed ethnic cleansing is a clear example.
No, I didn't, my attitude is as critical as it has ever been, your assertion is entirely baseless.
And my "constant" discussion of a "supposed ethnic cleansing" is not an example of what you are saying. First of all, because it's a discussion, it's a two-way street and you are just as responsible for perpetuating it as I am. I wouldn't have to keep mentioning it and elaborating on it if you didn't try to refute it or at the very least respond to Secondly, because I've made it abundantly clear that this is not what "ruins" Justinian (nothing does in that sense, really). It's just one of the negatives and the one you apparently are keen on not accepting, hence proving my point that most people do in fact not know all of Justinian's serious faults and shortcomings.
