Forgive me, but are you telling me that Justinian is the last Roman and after him the Romans no longer existed? if this is what you are saying I must correct, but it is wrong the Byzantines were called this way by the inhabitants of Western Europe (and also us moderns), but they called themselves Romans (Romaioi) the exact title of the Byzantine Emperor is " Autokrátor Kàisar Àugustos, Basilèus ton romàion" which means "Imperator Caesar Augustus, Imperator Romanorum" (Basilèus means king, but in this case it is understood as emperor) and undoubtedly the title is given that the Byzantine state has existed with continuity since subdivision into western and eastern parts until the fall of Constantinople they had good reason to define themselves as Romans more than the Holy Roman Empire and more than the Ottoman Empire which succeeded itThey used the term, but after Justinian I (sometimes called by historians, "the Last Roman") they were definitely becoming something else, in all meaninful ways.
TheGrayFox said:
2) The difference is that I understand historical context and know that most educated people in the Roman Empire already spoke Greek before the split in the empire and that Greek as a langauge had been the lingua franca of the Roman Empire's east since before it was even conquered. The fact that the state administratively shifted official langauges to reflect the demographics it ruled specifically (while Latin still remainng a common langauge learned among the elite in east) really doesn't mark a sudden shift in the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire. They concerned themselves Romans, They were considered Romans by all their neighbors but Catholic/Germanic West. They were Roman citizens, followed Roman law, had Roman entertainment, it's social, religious, cultural, and archetcetural are a direct continuation of their late Roman tradition.. The emperor changing first langauge of the state alone doesn't immediately make Eastern Romans a completely different cultural group.
"But they will be unable to do it as their own culture, in the Modern Era, which was the point."But they will be unable to do it as their own culture, in the Modern Era, which was the point.
I'd have to comment that the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic was way more of a cultural divide between the two, than maybe the language that was spoken. So, I wouldn't necessarily say that religious practices were a direct continuation. Pre-Christian Rome was even less so.
I didn't understand this part, can you explain it better?
However what Mr. says. Grayfox I find it quite fair, From a certain point of view the Roman Empire can be considered bilingual, since its origins Rome came into contact with the cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily and enthusiastically absorbed their culture since the times of the Scipios, after all there were emperors like Nero and Hadrian who were crazy about Greek culture and many of the writers, scientists etc... were of Greek origins or culture like Galen, Arrian of Nicomedia, Gaius Asinius Quadratus etc. After all, language alone is enough to define a civilization. To give a much more recent example, you know that Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (who was the prime minister of the kingdom of Sardinia which created a united Italy) wrote, spoke and perhaps even thought in French better than Italian, but when he was young and traveled a lot, especially in France, someone advised him to take that citizenship and he refused
Regarding this statement
"I'd have to comment that the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic was way more of a cultural divide between the two, than maybe the language that was spoken. So, I wouldn't necessarily say that religious practices were a direct continuation. Pre-Christian Rome was even less so."
More than cultural, the division was political, the problem was that the Patriarch of Constantinople was under the control of the Emperor of the East, in practice an official a bit like the Patriarch of Moscow with the Tsar (or as now with Putin) while since the Fall of Western Empire the Pope acquired (or usurped) some of the powers of the Western Roman Emperor such as the power to issue Edicts and you can be sure that if the Western Roman Empire had survived there would have been no State of the Churches