LightSpectra
me autem minui
They called themselves the Roman Empire. The word "Byzantine" means "inordinately complicated," and it was given to them in order to demean their accomplishments compared to the Western Empire.
Is the Byzantine Empire a continuation of the Roman Empire?
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LightSpectra
me autem minui
Byzantium is the name of the province in which Constantinople resided. It was called that before Constantine built the city, and not after; and never (as far as I know) during the era of the Roman Empire.
This is false. The word Byzantine comes from Byzantium, the Greek city that Constantine built Constantinople over. The meaning of the word 'Byzantine' in English is based upon the Byzantine Empire's inordinately complicated bureaucracy. The word was most certainly not used as an insult to the East Roman Empire; it didn't even bloody exist outside of the direct context of the East Roman Empire for centuries after it became part of the English lexicon.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Firstly, let me make sure you agree that the ERE was never called, nor called themselves, "the Byzantine Empire" in their own day; and that the term was invented very long after-the-fact.
Secondly, I couldn't tell you who the first historian to refer to the ERE as "the Byzantine Empire" would be. But, I can say that the term didn't catch on until Edward Gibbon, who had a very obvious bias against everything Roman after their conversion to Christianity, and demeaned all of their accomplishments thereof.
History buff33
Warlord
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I say it started out as a continuation, then kind of became it's own thing. So i say more desended then continued.
Of course I agree that they never called themselves the Byzantine Empire. It's an Anglicised form of Byzantium.
Gibbon was a biased twit, yes, and he may well have been the first historian to use the term 'Byzantine" to refer to the ERE (I don't think so, but you're right about him popularising the term, so it doesn't really matter). But that doesn't change the fact that the meaning of the word - or, for that matter, the word itself - in English, never existed until after its use to refer to the ERE. The word is used to insult people for being inordinately complicated by comparing them to the Byzantine Empire, with its legendarily complex bureaucracy. It was not used as an insult to the East Romans by calling them inordinately complicated.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
What if the chronology went like this?:
1) The word originally referred to the province of Byzantium;
2) It came to be used as an insult by being a comparison to the ERE's complex bureaucracy;
3) Gibbon used the term "Byzantine Empire" as a reference to #2. Thus it caught on with the connotation of being an insult.
That's possible, but I think the order is more: 1,3,2. I can't be sure of that without a tonne of research though. I still think my order is correct though, since I have never once heard the term used as an insult to the ERE, outside of Gibbon. I've heard it used as an insult towards people for acting like the ERE (superficially) plenty of times though. I even used it myself on a girl at Centrelink once, only to see her stare blankly at me with glazed over eyes, unable to comprehend anything other than the absolute black-and-white interpretation of what she was looking at.
Although the medieval greek empire used the term "Romaion Basileia" (Kingdom of the Romans), i quite like the sound of the word "Byzantine". In greek it is "Byzantion", which is identical to what the ancient colony of the Megarians was called.
It might even sound more mystical in english, since there is no obvious connection to a greek name there (Byzas).
It might even sound more mystical in english, since there is no obvious connection to a greek name there (Byzas).
(Referring to some earlier post)
Byzantines called their empire Romania, which was a term first time used in late IV century by Ammian Marcellinus (allegedly). They did consider themselves Roman and they had every right to it. It's true that Roman Empire from 1st century and XV century had different culture, different religion, different language, different army, different geographical location... but what one would expect after 1,5 millenium... and all these changes didn't happen at the same time, but during at least 0,5 millenium. We call France France, despite that they speak different language, occupy different geographical location, have different religion etc than Franks. We call Bulgaria Bulgaria, though the location, language, religion etc is different than original Bulgaria.
Byzantines called their empire Romania, which was a term first time used in late IV century by Ammian Marcellinus (allegedly). They did consider themselves Roman and they had every right to it. It's true that Roman Empire from 1st century and XV century had different culture, different religion, different language, different army, different geographical location... but what one would expect after 1,5 millenium... and all these changes didn't happen at the same time, but during at least 0,5 millenium. We call France France, despite that they speak different language, occupy different geographical location, have different religion etc than Franks. We call Bulgaria Bulgaria, though the location, language, religion etc is different than original Bulgaria.
Actually, Byzantines sometimes refered to Constantinople as Byzantium. "Byzantines" ment citizens of Constantinople.
Lysimachus
Chieftain
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When exactly? Wasn't Byzantium the original Greek settlement, and Constantinople was that of which was created by emperor Constantine in his namesake?
Well, when Constantine created it, it was called New Rome. "Constantinople" was itself a nickname.
We don't delete threads or auto-lock them. You can find the very first threads on the site if you poke around. Normally, however, resuscitating an old thread for no good reason is a rather pointless thing to do.
I'm sure "Byzantine" took on negative connotations only after being used in a neutral way to refer to the later Roman empire. However, "Byzantine" has negative connotations only in certain contexts - e.g. when referring to bureaucracy - and it has positive connotations in other contexts - e.g. art.
We don't delete threads or auto-lock them. You can find the very first threads on the site if you poke around. Normally, however, resuscitating an old thread for no good reason is a rather pointless thing to do.
I'm sure "Byzantine" took on negative connotations only after being used in a neutral way to refer to the later Roman empire. However, "Byzantine" has negative connotations only in certain contexts - e.g. when referring to bureaucracy - and it has positive connotations in other contexts - e.g. art.
But the bump sparked an interesting debate between myself and LightSpectra, which is reason not to lock it. If the bump resulted in nothing worthwhile, Plotinus or another mod would likely lock a necroed thread like this.
I thought Romania was the term used to describe the Latin Empire of Constantinople? Or was it used at different periods to describe both?
Actually, LightSpectra is correct about the meaning of the term in English. 'Byzantine' genuinely does mean "inordinately complex." If you ever see the word spelt without a capital 'b,' as in byzantine, it's used in that fashion, usually pejoratively. Unless it's a typo, of course.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Romania is the usual term in the Latin of the Western Europe for the "Byzantine Empire"; it also can mean "Anatolia" in medieval Latin.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
That is true, though the context is classicizing terminology. By the same token, the "Byzantines" often referred to the French as "Keltoi", this being the Greek word for the people the Latins called Galli, Gauls. Turks got called "Persians", Russians "Scythians", and so on.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
The Roman Empire didn't fall. That should be gotten out of your head. Byzantium was the Roman Empire just as England in Tudor times was England, as it was in Stuart times.
"Roman" was not an ethnic term. Paul of Tarsus was a Roman and a Jew, who wrote in Greek ... he was born in 5BC. Roman was not a narrow ethnic term. And Latin was not the only language of empire in the east. That was Greek too, though Latin was the favoured military language (for the same reasons most later medieval Islamic soldiers spoke Turkic). Latin's role only got reduced because of the Slavic invasions, which largely replaced the Balkan Latins with Slavic speakers confining the Latins to pastoral (Vlachs) and coastal (Dalmatians) niches. Prior to the 7th century (and probably prior to the 10th) Latin was spoken all the way from Slovakia and Hungary (e.g. Martin of Tours) to Thessaly and Macedonia.
Later, because of these changes, "Roman" did become an ethnic term, meaning what we'd mean by Greek ... but not ancient Greek. In the modern west we tend to think we have more in common with the classical era than the medieval era, and so we call modern Greeks Greeks. But really for more realistic continuity we should call them Romans, just as we call Slavs of Thrace and southern Moesia "Bulgarians" (originally non-Slavic nomads from the Steppe).
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