The Vatican City=the heir of the Roman Empire?

[Damien]

Mussolini used to say that Italy was the heir of the Roman Empire and wanted to recreate it;luckily his dream hasn't come true n moreover i don't think Italy is the heir of the Roman Empire;I think the Vatican City is the only political heir of the Roman Empire(papal lands contained central Italy till 1866),culturally,the whole western world is the heir of the Roman Empire.Kinda ironic for the smallest state on earth to be the heir of one of the greatest Empire ever,isn't it?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

IMO Russia was more of a political/cultural/military heir to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire lasted until 1453 in the guise of the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire). After which, the Russian Tsars claimed to inherit the mantle of the Byzantine Emperors, being the strongest Orthodox entity in the aftermath of the fall of the Byzantines.

Moscow was known as the Third Rome, so claimed the Tsars(Constantinople being the Second Rome). The Byzantine double-headed eagle remained a Tsarist insigna and had returned today with the fall of the Soviets.

 

[Rodgers]

I suppose when you think of what it is trying to acheive in the broader sense, the EU is the closest there is to an heir to the Roman Empire

 

[Damien]

Knight-Dragon,the Byzantine Empire was more greek(everybody spoke greek there),there always was a diffrence between the eastern side which was hellenized n the western side.Everybody in the roman empire was far from speaking latin.And Moscow,well i don't c it as the heir of the Roman empire.
The European Union yes.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Hmm, well Damien, your dead wrong, Knight-dragon is 100% correct, till the day the Turks broke through it's walls, the Byzantines called themselves Roman, and the Orthodox church was split between the occupied portion in Greece and the free portion in Russia.
That they spoke and acted in Greek fashion means nothing, the entire empire was heavily Hellenized by 300 AD, before Constantine's time.

The Tsar is a big hint, it's a form of "Caesar".

The Lombards had nothing in common with the western empire, and they inherited Italy.

The modern EU is nothing like Rome, Rome was built on slav labor and conquest coupled with tribute, the EU has none of that.

 

[Sodak]

The Vatican is the seat of the catholic church, not necessarily a Roman remnant. I'd say it's just what it is, not an heir to the Roman empire. Besides, those 'papal lands' were not papal because of the Vatican - it allied with a line of Germanic nobles who actually owned those lands. Between the Roman empire's collapse and the rise of the Holy geRoman Empire, the Vatican had nothing but itself. After the HRE's demise, the same story. The vatican is just a central church authority that has married itself to several political and military powers over the ages. Heir? Only because it's been widowed a few times.

Culturally, the western world owes more to the ancient Hellenes than Rome, methinks. The Romans themselves openly honored the greeks as their own source of glory and culture. The greeks were maybe not even the originators themselves - they just wrote it all down first to get the credit.

 

[Damien]

Well,i'm talking of true roman culture,G.W.Bush could say he's Caesar's heir i wouldn't believe him .
Rome had many cultural traits from the greeks,who it is believed borrowed writing from the phoenicians who borrowed it from Filistines,another name for Minoeans who fled the invasions of Greeks+maybe the eruption of a volcano-that will give birth to the Atlantis myth- n that will provoke an ebb in a sea to be mistranslated as the Red Sea while Moses was to c it as God's action.
Incredible how incredible history can be
And about barbarian invasions...barbarians got assimilated in one century.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Hmm, the Greeks, rather the Dorians taught the phonecians, the word alphabit is Greek in origin, the Mycaneans, Dorians and Thracians all predate the Phonceans, and all three had written languages.

There is no proof the Minoan culture is the phillistines, this is only supposed.

The Lombards were never assimilated into Greek or Roman culture, they and their Gothic brothers absorbed the Roman culture into them.

 

[SKILORD]

The Catholic control during fuedal times made it the apparent heir then, and i have often considered that. But really the British are the heirs to Roman supremecy and America the heirs to theirs.

 

[Damien]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
The Lombards were never assimilated into Greek or Roman culture, they and their Gothic brothers absorbed the Roman culture into them.

Isn't it the same thing?Most germanic tribes became latin as they adopted the latin customs.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

But they didn't adapt Latin customs, the Roman west adapted Germanic tribal ways, like heraditary kings, trial by jury of peers, Germanic common law, and Germanic language.

There are several languages that have latin roots, the Romance languages, but these bare little resemblence to Latin as it's written or spoken in Roman text.

The German tribes also wern't big on organized slavery, this virtually vanishes in Europe (the fuedal serf is centuries away, during the early centuries the landed peasant didn't have as strong a place in Europe as it later would).

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by SKILORD
The Catholic control during fuedal times made it the apparent heir then, and i have often considered that. But really the British are the heirs to Roman supremecy and America the heirs to theirs.

The British, the true heirs to Rome?

Amazing that the mystique of the Roman Empire still has such a hold that the modern-day descendants of the Germanic tribes who swamped the western Roman provinces argued over who were the true 'heirs' to Rome. Formidable indeed.

 

[Damien]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
But they didn't adapt Latin customs, the Roman west adapted Germanic tribal ways, like heraditary kings, trial by jury of peers, Germanic common law, and Germanic language.

There aren't many words steming from germanic languages in Latin Languages.Latin languages stem from the latins that were spoken by common folks.french stem from gallo-roman(bad latin spoken in Gaul) for example.
The linguistic boundary between lat.n germ.languages in Europe doesn't correspond to the borders of the roman empire.If the barbarians were awed by roman culture,they adopted it,if not they didn't not.It depended on barbarians.Burgunds,Lombards did,Alamanii didn't.Hence the linguistic boundaries in Switzerland whereas the whole country was under roman occupation(Rumantsch is spoken by the descendants of Rhetes who spoke latin n took refuge in high mountains when barbarians arrived).

They didn't adapt latin political customs because at the time they arrived,they existed only nominally.Rome was under control of german mercenaries who did n undid emperors from the end of the 2nd century to Diocletian(at the end of the 3rd century) and then emperors became christian n the empire would never recover its former glory.From the 2nd century ad,the institutions were only fake.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

and then emperors became christian n the empire would never recover its former glory.From the 2nd century ad,the institutions were only fake.

The Romans did continue and in grand fashion - in the East. Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, Greece had always been the most prosperous and populous parts of the Empire. Esp Egypt. It wasn't known as the Granary of Rome for nothing. Just cause the West entered a Dark Age didn't mean the entire Empire just collapsed.

Were it not for plagues, the Germanic tribes would not find it so easy to storm into the Western empire IMHO. Were it not for a plague, I think Justinian and his Byzantines might probably roll back the Germanic tribes and retake the West.

 

[Damien]

The Antiquity is very important for europeans as "everything" was nearly already thought at that time(communism,aristocracy,etc) and was wasted for more than 1000 years.It's a re-discovery:intrigues,politics,slavery,etc...it can be thought that nothing haven't really changed n debates n systems changed in apparence only.(landowner-tenant system among other things).Of course it's false..many things have changed luckily.

 

[Damien]

Yes but the East wasn't really roman but greek.I don't think the East had a senate,a praetorian guard etc.Moreover Slavs n more barbarians poured into the Empire ,Persians attacked n Arabs spread Islam.Constantinople was many times besieged.If it hadn't have its 3 great city walls,it would've fallen a thousand years earlier.

 

[Gandalf13]

Actually, the eastern half of the roman empire was a combination of greek and roman culture. From the time the emperors took power in Rome, the senate was useless. It served only a symbolic function and had no actual power. Also, the Praetorian Guard was abolished before the fall of the western half of the empire. Thirdly, the Persians were kept in check by the Roman (byzantine) emperors and were defeated in battle after battle. The Arabs did not spread Islam in the eastern roman empire. They were easily defeated by the Byzantine troops, the best of their day, until the battle of Manzikert, when the Byzantine army was stripped of funds by a government fearful of a military coup. Only with the defeat at Manzikert did the Arabs begin making any real progress against the Byzantines.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by Damien
Yes but the East wasn't really roman but greek.I don't think the East had a senate,a praetorian guard etc.Moreover Slavs n more barbarians poured into the Empire ,Persians attacked n Arabs spread Islam.Constantinople was many times besieged.If it hadn't have its 3 great city walls,it would've fallen a thousand years earlier.

Culturally they might be Greek but they were still the Roman Empire regardless, the Eastern Empire. Even earlier the Romans had always been heavily influenced by the Greeks. What's your point? Empires changed and evolved, esp a long-lived one like the Romans'.

Most other points had been answered by Gandalf.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by Gandalf13
Only with the defeat at Manzikert did the Arabs begin making any real progress against the Byzantines.

Even then, the Byzantines recovered and managed to roll the Arabs out of Anatolia. However they didn't march further south although they could, as it would further impose a greater burden on the empire to defend the south too.

The decline of the Byzantines only really began when Constantinople was sacked and captured by Western knights during one of the Crusades in the 12th century. The Byzantines never recovered fr it and still they hanged on until 1453 before the Ottomans finally captured Constantinople.

And then, all Europe laid bare before the Ottoman Islamic onslaught.

 

[SKILORD]

Today is actually stupid quotes day for me..... i should have stayed home, and definately out of this forum.