Úmarth
Megalomaniac
This really needs a source because it's completely the opposite to every history book, documentary or historian I've ever read says.
Legitimate successors of the Roman empire
- Thread starter Úmarth
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3Miro
Deity
Everything I eve read about the WRE and ERE is as Umarth says. ERE was way richer and way more powerful then the west. ERE was invaded many times, Arabs, Bulgars and pretty much any tribe that made it to the west went trough the east first. Barbarians were not strong enough to conquer the ERE the way they with the WRE.
Latin is the language of say Medicine, however, Greek is the language of Math. Greek dominates even the modern math theories, long after the Greeks lost their edge in Math.
As to the Catholic vs Orthodox churches, the official year of the Great Schism is 1054, long after the death of the WRE. The two churches existed for long as one united Christian church. The archbishops of Rome (the Pope) and Constantinople (the Patriarch) we constantly fighting with each other (for more power and more influence), but they were considered one institution. (btw there were many patriarchs in the ERE for many years, one Jerusalem one in Alexandria one in Antioch all equal to the one in Constantinople and respectively the Pope)
Latin is the language of say Medicine, however, Greek is the language of Math. Greek dominates even the modern math theories, long after the Greeks lost their edge in Math.
As to the Catholic vs Orthodox churches, the official year of the Great Schism is 1054, long after the death of the WRE. The two churches existed for long as one united Christian church. The archbishops of Rome (the Pope) and Constantinople (the Patriarch) we constantly fighting with each other (for more power and more influence), but they were considered one institution. (btw there were many patriarchs in the ERE for many years, one Jerusalem one in Alexandria one in Antioch all equal to the one in Constantinople and respectively the Pope)
blizzrd
Micromanager
Q: Who called the rulers from Constantinople/Byzantium the Eastern Roman Empire?
A: Only historians writing from western Europe, including parts of the former Roman lands which were being overrun by various Germanic tribes.
Arabs, Indians and Slavs all continnued to call the rules of Constantinople/Byzantium Romans (in their own languages and dialects) well after the demise of Roman civilisation in western Europe.
Oh now this did make me laugh. One of those good ol' side-splitting laughs.
Which came first, Latin or Greek? Latin was born out of the Greek alphabet and language.
From wikipedia:
"Latin is a member of the Italic languages and its alphabet is based on the Old Italic alphabet, derived from the Greek alphabet."
AgnosticTheocra
Chieftain
The previous two posters already addressed the more absurd statements, but it's odd to have my intelligence questioned by someone who apparently doesn't know much about Byzantine History. It would be nice if you could keep it civil.
No, it's not. It's not really a very funny statement, unless I'm missing something. Or did you have a critique you would like to share?
This analogy still illustrates that language and culture do not define Empire. An example of a nation where the Capital changed many many times is Germany. Even in Modern times.
Nope, again, not really anything funny about this as far as I can see. The emperor Zeno ruled, having came to power peacefully after a stint as co-emperor with Leo II, from 474-491, with a brief year-and-a-half hiatus during which a general seized power. You don't honestly think a short-lived coup, where the original emperor regained power, can honestly qualify as a major change in leadership?
This would be like someone saying,
"Man, please get the facts straight...
btw things don't fall because of gravity, they fall because tiny angels push them to the ground."
Read any book about the late Empire and they'll contradict you.
No, it's not. It's not really a very funny statement, unless I'm missing something. Or did you have a critique you would like to share?
This analogy still illustrates that language and culture do not define Empire. An example of a nation where the Capital changed many many times is Germany. Even in Modern times.
Nope, again, not really anything funny about this as far as I can see. The emperor Zeno ruled, having came to power peacefully after a stint as co-emperor with Leo II, from 474-491, with a brief year-and-a-half hiatus during which a general seized power. You don't honestly think a short-lived coup, where the original emperor regained power, can honestly qualify as a major change in leadership?
This would be like someone saying,
"Man, please get the facts straight...
btw things don't fall because of gravity, they fall because tiny angels push them to the ground."
Read any book about the late Empire and they'll contradict you.
AnotherPacifist
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Does it make sense for onedreamer's assertions to be so bold (as to contradict most historians) because he's Eye-talian?
Ajidica
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Onedreamer: On almost all your points are wrong, but the main one is about Justinian. He was trying to RESTORE the Empire, not conquer it. In addition, would you say that Modern Italy is not the Sucessor to the Italian City-States? In effect, that is what you are saying. The Byzantine Empire may have changed culturally, lingusticly, governmentaly, militarily from its Roman source, but is still the SUCESSOR to the Roman Empire. It is not THE Roman Empire (even though the citzens of Byzantium thought so), that ended when Rome fell, but the ideals and the torch of Imperialism passed onto the remnent of Rome in the East. The name change was just cosmetic. Example: If Italy changed its name to Mediterainian Country, would it not still be Italy? My final point is that Byzantium beared the torch of Roman Imperialism for a thousand more years. Its culture and language may have evolved, but what doesn't? History doesn't exist in a vacume, it is influeced by human values and everything under the sun. Even if a country existed in a vacume, its culture would be different in a thousand years. Byzantium, for 1000 years was the crossroads of the world. It may have been influeced by Arabs, Persians, Magyars, but at its core, was Roman Values.
After establishing himself as the Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium. The Empire itself didn't cease to being the Roman Empire at that time and magically transform into the Byzantine Empire. The lines of Emperors that ruled from Byzantium (Constantinopolis), whether hereditary or no, were still the Emperors of the Roman Empire. The same Roman Empire of Augustus Caesar.
Even after the fall of the city of Rome itself to the barbarian invasions, the eastern portion of the Empire was still the Roman Empire, just minus the western parts from earlier centuries.
Constantine was not the first Byzantine emperor, nor the last Roman emperor, he was just another Roman emperor and there were a good 1000 years of Roman Emperor's that followed him afterwards, irregardless of the fall of the city of Rome and it's inclusion in the Roman Empire.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me really, I don't get what the fuss is about. Clearly , what history refers to as the Byzantine Empire is just another name for what used to be referred to as the Roman Empire. Regardless of the Language differences they had, the differences in culture, art , architecture and religion.
At the founding of the Roman Empire, they were all polytheistic worshippers religiously, later emperor and polytheistic worshippers and after that Christians....yet all of these peoples, and the Empire that contained them throughout its history , were ROMAN.
People, languages, cultures all change over that much time, still, despite all of the vast changes over said period, the citizens of the large empire of the Meditteranean were ROMAN, even after the city itself fell into outside hands.
Even after the fall of the city of Rome itself to the barbarian invasions, the eastern portion of the Empire was still the Roman Empire, just minus the western parts from earlier centuries.
Constantine was not the first Byzantine emperor, nor the last Roman emperor, he was just another Roman emperor and there were a good 1000 years of Roman Emperor's that followed him afterwards, irregardless of the fall of the city of Rome and it's inclusion in the Roman Empire.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me really, I don't get what the fuss is about. Clearly , what history refers to as the Byzantine Empire is just another name for what used to be referred to as the Roman Empire. Regardless of the Language differences they had, the differences in culture, art , architecture and religion.
At the founding of the Roman Empire, they were all polytheistic worshippers religiously, later emperor and polytheistic worshippers and after that Christians....yet all of these peoples, and the Empire that contained them throughout its history , were ROMAN.
People, languages, cultures all change over that much time, still, despite all of the vast changes over said period, the citizens of the large empire of the Meditteranean were ROMAN, even after the city itself fell into outside hands.
Úmarth
Megalomaniac
Does it make sense for onedreamer's assertions to be so bold (as to contradict most historians) because he's Eye-talian?
Yes, yes it does.
jessiecat
Divine Monarch
blizzrd
Micromanager
Given that the rulers in Constantinople/Byzantium never called themselves the Eastern Roman Empire, it is not possible to use the fact that historians writing from countries in the former west of the Roman empire used the name Eastern Roman Empire as a reason to disconnect history of Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean with the fall of Rome to the Goths.
I've thought of a good analogy as to this situation from the 20th century: China in 1949.
When the Kuomintang (Nationalists) under Chiang Kaishek were finally ousted by the Communists under Mao Zedong, Chiang Kaishek and his followers fled to the island of Taiwan where they ruled for the next 20 years or so. The regime in Taiwan called itself "China", but anyone with the slightest bit of perspective could see that the real China was (and always had been) not Taiwan but the mainland. (This didn't stop the United States and their various fawning allies from refusing to acknowledge the existence of the real nation of China for several decades during the Cold War - they referred to the regime in Taiwan as China steadfastly throughout this period).
My point in all this is that names used to describe regimes/empires/whatever are not what defines them. The use of nomenclature as a point of argument in this discussion therefore has no basis.
Legendre
Chieftain
Pardon me if I abridge this ridiculous rant, but it is these first few ungrammatical sentences that bother me the most. You realize that Charlemagne wasn't around till the mid 700s right? Justinian's reconquest of Italy was not to last; however, for most of the time up until Charlemagne's ascension in the West, the Popes looked to the Byzantine Emporer as their protector, and I can most assuredly say that the Popes referred to the Eastern Roman Emporer as the Emporer of the Romans. If people are going to dispute this, I will find first hand documents. Furthermore, Greek was not adopted as the official language in the East until the reign of Heraclius - which is most obviously seen in his adoption of a new Greek title, Basileus. I would ask people to get their facts straight before they post nonsense.
onedreamer
Dragon
If you want to communicate in italian I'm fine with it, otherwise stop trolling with this sort of comments and just accept my limited english, which is more than enough for a correct communication.
Please do. I am the only one in this thread to have backed up my arguments with references, even if simply Wikipedia. All the others have just rewritten their own history for pages and pages without any reference. I'd be happy to see at least one.
I don't see how I said anything contradicting this. Maybe YOU should get facts straight before trolling, thank you.
blizzrd
Micromanager
I recall posting in this thread and quoting a reference (also wikipedia). This statement is simply incorrect.
Indeed.
Legendre
Chieftain
First of all, you should read what you have written. This is very simple first order logic - you used the negation of a the universal qualifier in "never." Hence, it is sufficient for me to provide a single counter example to disprove your arguement. The best example that I have been able to find was in one of my medieval thought books, and it was in a letter from Pope Gelasius I to Emporer Anastasius regarding the duo sunt or separation of temporal and divine power. The latin text goes:
... Imperator Auguste, quibus principaliter mundus hic regitur, auctoritas sacrata pontificum et regalis potestas, in quibus tanto gravius pondus est sacerdotum quanto etiam pro ipsis regibus hominum in divino reddituri sunt examine rationem. nosti etenim, fili clementissime ...
I don't have the full text untransalated unfortunately, but Gelasius refers to Anastasius as Emperor and Augustus. This is not exactly what I claimed to be able to produce since I was not entirely familiar with the formal address used in those times; however, I believe that it can be inferred rightly from the context of the situation and what is written in the Latin that he is referring to Anastasius as the Roman Emporer.
Secondly, my point of discussing the adoption of the Greek as the official tongue of the Byzantine court was to emphasize the fact that there was a period of time between the collapse of the West and evolution of the East into what we generally think of as Byzantine. People should realize that the Byzantine empire lasted for a thousand years, and making these blanket statements regarding its entire existence is in my opinion very silly. If you limited your statements to a later period I would have to agree with comments along the lines of noone thinking of the easterners as Romans, but you didn't make any such qualifications.
As for the trolling, I found some of the previous remarks you were attempting to pass of as fact to be rather infuriating. My apologies. I'm a mathematician by training (my current research involves relating Euler's equation to calculating the geodesic spray on the infinite dimensional manifold of volume preserving diffeomorphism or symplectomorphisms - anyone else here do applied mathematics/PDEs?), but I love classical and medieval history.
AnotherPacifist
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Just a simple layman like me googling found this interesting site on the 4th Council of Constantinople (869):
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum08.htm
in which the Emperor Basil and his predecessors were just named as emperor (there was no other empire to refer to explicitly other than the Roman empire, even though Charlemagne already had his empire). It begins:
The holy, great and universal synod, which was assembled by God's will and the favour of our divinely approved emperors Basil and Constantine, the holy friends of Christ, in this royal and divinely protected city and in the most famous church bearing the name of holy and great Wisdom, declared the following.
and subsequently multiple references to the emperor were made. That is probably the last time a general council referred to the emperor as such.
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum08.htm
in which the Emperor Basil and his predecessors were just named as emperor (there was no other empire to refer to explicitly other than the Roman empire, even though Charlemagne already had his empire). It begins:
The holy, great and universal synod, which was assembled by God's will and the favour of our divinely approved emperors Basil and Constantine, the holy friends of Christ, in this royal and divinely protected city and in the most famous church bearing the name of holy and great Wisdom, declared the following.
and subsequently multiple references to the emperor were made. That is probably the last time a general council referred to the emperor as such.
Ajidica
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"Please do. I am the only one in this thread to have backed up my arguments with references, even if simply Wikipedia. All the others have just rewritten their own history for pages and pages without any reference. I'd be happy to see at least one."
I may not have cited my sources, but I used the Byzantine books by John Julius Norwhich, Proffessor of MEdieval Studies in Oxford.
Onedreamer: You do know that it was mainly the Italians that resented the schism and the title of the Emperor? Most other European Countries just sort of accepted it. Venice was generally on decent terms with Byzantium due to trade rights. 4th crusade is an isolated incedent. ALso, Wikipedia is not a always correct source. I have found quite a few errors in wikipedia. It said Basil the Macedonian was Macedonia. That isnt true, he was Armenian and could barely speak Greek. If you can have an educated discussion, please continue. But otherwise, please don't keep saying biased things with no real basis in history. For the last 2-3 pages, all you have done is take people posts, take a few isolated sentances, and contradict them.
I may not have cited my sources, but I used the Byzantine books by John Julius Norwhich, Proffessor of MEdieval Studies in Oxford.
Onedreamer: You do know that it was mainly the Italians that resented the schism and the title of the Emperor? Most other European Countries just sort of accepted it. Venice was generally on decent terms with Byzantium due to trade rights. 4th crusade is an isolated incedent. ALso, Wikipedia is not a always correct source. I have found quite a few errors in wikipedia. It said Basil the Macedonian was Macedonia. That isnt true, he was Armenian and could barely speak Greek. If you can have an educated discussion, please continue. But otherwise, please don't keep saying biased things with no real basis in history. For the last 2-3 pages, all you have done is take people posts, take a few isolated sentances, and contradict them.
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