What Is Your Favorite Reason For Why The HRE Is A Bad Idea

[Gaius Octavius]

I don't think we're on the same page, calgacus. The authors I listed pretty openly regard Rome as having ended in the 5th century, although as we all agree the East survived until 1453.

Peter Heather, The English Historical Review, Vol. 110, No. 435. (Feb., 1995), pp. 4-41:
"While the western Empire did not die quickly or easily, a direct line of historical cause and effect nonetheless runs from the barbarian invasions of the late fourth and early fifth centuries to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus."

The clear implication is that something dramatic happened, not a simple, peaceful transformation into Germanic rule in the west, as the Late Antique view often tends to take. Heather openly argues for the barbarian invasions as the primal cause of the collapse of the west, and therefore, as the "assassins of Rome," so to speak. It is true that Roman administrators continued to manage the former territories of the Empire under their new Gothic overlords; it is equally true that some of the new barbarians (Theodoric particularly comes to mind) tried to style themselves and their reign as a continuation of the Roman state. That in no way implies that Rome somehow prevailed ultimately, however, or that it did not truly fall.

Ward-Perkins does a good job of addressing the subtleties of the barbarian invasions and their aftermath in his book, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. It wasn't simply a matter of a power shift to Constantinople; there were real changes in the lifestyle of the average citizen. He points to things such as the disappearance of fine pottery, molded coins, and even fattened cattle as archaelogical proof that it was not "business as usual." When you say that any idea of the fall of Rome would've been a surprise to 5th or 6th century citizens, you are completely wrong. It was all too evident for the western provinces that a major shift had occurred. For an aristocrat in the East, it would've been entirely different, however.

Titus001 said something to this effect in another thread: He asked why Justinian might undertake a major war in the west if he didn't regard himself as a Roman. To that I might also add, why would Justinian try to retake the west if he himself did not see it as having "fallen" to the barbarians?

The real issue here is not one of whether Rome fell, but of when. I say that Rome fell over a period of about a century, culminating symbolically in the deposition of Romulus Augustulus and the invasion of Odovacer. You say it lasted until 1453. The problem is that the Eastern Empire underwent dramatic changes during and after the 6th century: classical learning morphed into a new kind of Christian education; Plato's Academy, in operation for 900 years, was shut down in 509; Justinian's corpus iuris civilis totally reorganized the law of the Empire under a new kind of Christian worldview; Justinian's Reconquest ravaged Italy and sapped the Eastern Empire, which had a huge effect upon subsequent generations, and especially so once the Islamic conquerors started to emerge in the 600's. All this had the effect of changing irrevocably the identity of the Eastern Romans, their culture, and their outlook on life, to such an extent that while they continued to call themselves Romans, in many ways they no longer were. They were Byzantines.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I don't think we're on the same page, calgacus. The authors I listed pretty openly regard Rome as having ended in the 5th century, although as we all agree the East survived until 1453.

Peter Heather, The English Historical Review, Vol. 110, No. 435. (Feb., 1995), pp. 4-41:
"While the western Empire did not die quickly or easily, a direct line of historical cause and effect nonetheless runs from the barbarian invasions of the late fourth and early fifth centuries to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus."

The clear implication is that something dramatic happened, not a simple, peaceful transformation into Germanic rule in the west, as the Late Antique view often tends to take. Heather openly argues for the barbarian invasions as the primal cause of the collapse of the west, and therefore, as the "assassins of Rome," so to speak. It is true that Roman administrators continued to manage the former territories of the Empire under their new Gothic overlords; it is equally true that some of the new barbarians (Theodoric particularly comes to mind) tried to style themselves and their reign as a continuation of the Roman state. That in no way implies that Rome somehow prevailed ultimately, however, or that it did not truly fall.

Ward-Perkins does a good job of addressing the subtleties of the barbarian invasions and their aftermath in his book, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. It wasn't simply a matter of a power shift to Constantinople; there were real changes in the lifestyle of the average citizen. He points to things such as the disappearance of fine pottery, molded coins, and even fattened cattle as archaelogical proof that it was not "business as usual." When you say that any idea of the fall of Rome would've been a surprise to 5th or 6th century citizens, you are completely wrong. It was all too evident for the western provinces that a major shift had occurred. For an aristocrat in the East, it would've been entirely different, however.

Titus001 said something to this effect in another thread: He asked why Justinian might undertake a major war in the west if he didn't regard himself as a Roman. To that I might also add, why would Justinian try to retake the west if he himself did not see it as having "fallen" to the barbarians?

The real issue here is not one of whether Rome fell, but of when. I say that Rome fell over a period of about a century, culminating symbolically in the deposition of Romulus Augustulus and the invasion of Odovacer. You say it lasted until 1453. The problem is that the Eastern Empire underwent dramatic changes during and after the 6th century: classical learning morphed into a new kind of Christian education; Plato's Academy, in operation for 900 years, was shut down in 509; Justinian's corpus iuris civilis totally reorganized the law of the Empire under a new kind of Christian worldview; Justinian's Reconquest ravaged Italy and sapped the Eastern Empire, which had a huge effect upon subsequent generations, and especially so once the Islamic conquerors started to emerge in the 600's. All this had the effect of changing irrevocably the identity of the Eastern Romans, their culture, and their outlook on life, to such an extent that while they continued to call themselves Romans, in many ways they no longer were. They were Byzantines.

Gaius, I think you're misinterpreting Heather or me if you believe he's contradicting what I'm saying. I've little problem with his theory about the Huns or his political narrative about the disintegration of Roman power in the West. Loss of most of the territory in the western half of the Empire is not in dispute, and no-one would dispute I don't believe that events where dramatic in the provinces affected.

Emphasizing the dramatic affects of barbarian invasions on the already semi-barbarian West though is not an excuse for overplaying the political or cultural significance of the Barbarian invasions. Maybe you're thinking I'm using the continuation of Roman culture in lost provinces as an argument for political continuity in the West, which of course would be absurd by itself. It is simple fact, however, like it or not, that the Roman state continued IN TOTAL ABSOLUTE UTTER continuity to exist until 1453, and all barbarian invaders until the Arabs adopted the Roman religion. Where you are misunderstanding Brown (and I think you should read my last post more carefully) is that he puts the semi-barbarian West in its place mostly by ignoring it (I refer here to the World of Late Antiquity). The "Eastern Empire", containing as it did 2/3rds of the population and about 90% of the entire Empire's wealth, saw off the Germans and Huns (mainly by deflecting it to the weak, peripheral and less important West), continued on politically and reconquered Italy and Africa and the south of Spain, the only western provinces of any worth. These had fallen into the temporary political control of Germanic speaking warlords, no denying it, but most Romans continued until the 7th century to live under the control of the Roman Emperor, with the same capital they had in the 330s.

As for the minor cultural changes you describe ... in essence all societies slowly change over time. Suffice it to say, the eastern Roman world of the 4th century AD had more in common culturally and politically with the eastern Roman world of the 7th century than with the 1st century. I'm not really sure what your argument is supposed to be? Are you saying that the Eastern Romans ceased to be real Romans, and were deluded in there own identity? Well, these Eastern Romans were Roman, and thus their culture, no matter how much it differed from 7th century bc Rome, was Roman by definition. England did not cease to be English after the 8th century AD. Cricket and tea were unknown to the "Anglo-Saxons" (another artificial unhistoric neologism), but are now part and parcel of English identity. Roman identity did not fossilize either. Christianity, the religion of the Romans, continued to form the core of Roman and Romanizing identity, but other things came and went. Identities do not fossilize except when people 1500 years later try to pick one part of history and make it the true exemplar of an identity. Unlike Roman identity, the identity of the medieval Roman Empire, there was simply no such thing as Byzantine identity until centuries after the last Constantine died unsuccessfully defending the ancient Roman capital against the non-Christian, non-Roman Turks. Even under Ottoman rule the inhabitants continued to be identified as Rum by their rulers. It wasn't until the rise of Western Byzantinist scholarship that the term "Byzantine Empire" (or any non-English equivalent) entered any language. To the medieval Romans this term would have been as absurd as the term "Kingdom of Londinium" would be to contemporary Englishmen.

 

[Titus001]

Gaius, I think you're misinterpreting Heather or me if you believe he's contradicting what I'm saying. I've little problem with his theory about the Huns or his political narrative about the disintegration of Roman power in the West. Loss of most of the territory in the western half of the Empire is not in dispute, and no-one would dispute I don't believe that events where dramatic in the provinces affected.

Emphasizing the dramatic affects of barbarian invasions on the already semi-barbarian West though is not an excuse for overplaying the political or cultural significance of the Barbarian invasions. Maybe you're thinking I'm using the continuation of Roman culture in lost provinces as an argument for political continuity in the West, which of course would be absurd by itself. It is simple fact, however, like it or not, that the Roman state continued IN TOTAL ABSOLUTE UTTER continuity to exist until 1453, and all barbarian invaders until the Arabs adopted the Roman religion. Where you are misunderstanding Brown (and I think you should read my last post more carefully) is that he puts the semi-barbarian West in its place mostly by ignoring it (I refer here to the World of Late Antiquity). The "Eastern Empire", containing as it did 2/3rds of the population and about 90% of the entire Empire's wealth, saw off the Germans and Huns (mainly by deflecting it to the weak, peripheral and less important West), continued on politically and reconquered Italy and Africa and the south of Spain, the only western provinces of any worth. These had fallen into the temporary political control of Germanic speaking warlords, no denying it, but most Romans continued until the 7th century to live under the control of the Roman Emperor, with the same capital they had in the 330s.

As for the minor cultural changes you describe ... in essence all societies slowly change over time. Suffice it to say, the eastern Roman world of the 4th century AD had more in common culturally and politically with the eastern Roman world of the 7th century than with the 1st century. I'm not really sure what your argument is supposed to be? Are you saying that the Eastern Romans ceased to be real Romans, and were deluded in there own identity? Well, these Eastern Romans were Roman, and thus their culture, no matter how much it differed from 7th century bc Rome, was Roman by definition. England did not cease to be English after the 8th century AD. Cricket and tea were unknown to the "Anglo-Saxons" (another artificial unhistoric neologism), but are now part and parcel of English identity. Roman identity did not fossilize either. Christianity, the religion of the Romans, continued to form the core of Roman and Romanizing identity, but other things came and went. Identities do not fossilize except when people 1500 years later try to pick one part of history and make it the true exemplar of an identity. Unlike Roman identity, the identity of the medieval Roman Empire, there was simply no such thing as Byzantine identity until centuries after the last Constantine died unsuccessfully defending the ancient Roman capital against the non-Christian, non-Roman Turks. Even under Ottoman rule the inhabitants continued to be identified as Rum by their rulers. It wasn't until the rise of Western Byzantinist scholarship that the term "Byzantine Empire" (or any non-English equivalent) entered any language. To the medieval Romans this term would have been as absurd as the term "Kingdom of Londinium" would be to contemporary Englishmen.

WELL SAID!!

 

[Ishon]

1. The HRE = Germany.

2. The HRE has no Civ wonder and no great people.

3. The full name of the HRE was the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

4. There is a much stronger candidate in Europe that is not included in the game (Poland).

5. We have no Italy, we have no USSR and no Great Britain. For the same reason we should have either no Germany or no HRE.

6. It will feel totally dumb to have both HRE and Germany in the same game.

7. Let's see what city names will the HRE get so that they don't double the German (or even French) names.

8. Having both the HRE and Germany in the XX century sounds so much disgusting that most educated players will probably attempt to get rid of the HRE and put something else, namely Poland, in its place.

The HRE has been implemented for the least educated citizens of the United States who like its cool, three-letter name and the word "Empire" in it.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The HRE is among the 5 most stupid ideas in Civ ever.

what are the other five? (Boadicea is one, right?)

 

[Ishon]

Cybrxkhan:

Ok, I didn't want to sound too radical and state the truth that it is the worst one . Ok, the "quests" are sick too, but I'm sure we'll be able to turn them off. We won't get to turn the HRE off though...

Ok, "Native Americans" as a civ (with their Unique Totem) would also make it to the Top 5. I wish Sid had more say in Firaxis now.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Ok, the "quests" are sick too, but I'm sure we'll be able to turn them off. We won't get to turn the HRE off though...

Theoretically, you could go in the XML and get rid of the HRE. its actually not the hard, as long as you have about one to two hours at hand.

and i think the quest will be fun! what more fun then trying to find the holy grail or something or something or... whatever.

 

[Ishon]

Some guy in another thread here said:

"I am extremely upset at Firaxis' continued refusal to add the following important civs: Liechtenstein, Vatican City, Barbados, Scientist in Antarctica, Disputed Territory, Sealand, the Weimar Republic, the German Confederation, the Third Reich, West Germany, East Germany, the Unholy Roman Empire, Prussia, Deutschland and the Free City of Danzig."

I think this is the best and smartest comment on the HRE issue.

Why is the German Confederation and the Weimar Republic missing in Civ, I think we could make a separate poll regarding this issue.

I know we can remove it from the game and I'm sure somebody will quickly provide us with detailed instructions here. I'd rather have Canada here than the HRE, even though I'm very much against Canada in Civ lol.

 

[NYHunter]

The Weimer Republic was a pathetic era for the Germans. Holy Roman Empire was actually a huge empire that was important in it's day. In never bacame a colonial power but it lasted a long time and at one point was the largest empire in Europe.

 

[Soneji]

some nice history in this thread!

 

[Ishon]

Just like Poland was, for a longer time though. The difference being that Germany ALREADY IS IN THE GAME!!!

What about the Third Reich, that was a huge empire with a great leader and a Unique Building. It didn't last for a long time, but it had a lot of impact on our history!

 

[Angst]

The Moche must be in! Imagine the possibilities for innuendo and rude phallic jokes...

My favourite reason why the HRE is a bad idea is because it could stand for 'Happy Ramadan Everyone'. OMG MUSLAM CONSPIRACY!!!!!1

ROFL I've never laughed more

5. Charlemagne never leaded the HRE
6. The HRE isn't a East-Europe civ
7. The HRE isn't Poland
8. THe HRE isn't Vietnam and didn't invent Pho.
9. Firaxis was too lazy to make a new civ they just took some stuff from a scenario.
10. Creates spam threads.

HAHAHA

Btw, MENZIES, dude, chill!!

 

[cybrxkhan]

8. THe HRE isn't Vietnam and didn't invent Pho.

wheres that guy.... I'LL GET HIM!!!

 

[dragodon64]

The great guardian of Pho

 

[HolyRomanEmpire]

Stop . .. .. .. .. .ing and get over it. Jesus Christ you really have nothing better to do than yell about how the Holy Roman Empire is Germany and shouldn't be in the game. Its a freakin game! Did you ever think you could substatute the Holy Roman Empire for both france and germany(going on the assumption that its based on charlamagnes empire) to open up room for more civs in a game. And for anyone who thinks they should put poland in the game just shut up, lets go over polands history gets crap kicked out of it by mongolians, gets taken over by Germany, gets recreated after world war 1, get invaded by Nazis and Soviets, get recreated again. Very impressive. And to anyone who wants to still complain explain the reason for puting in the byzantine empire, you already have rome and greece.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

Um, looks like they were stopped for two days

 

[TheLastOne36]

Yes but Byzantines have done alot more then the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[Titus001]

I got over the fact that the "Holy Roman" and the "Byzantines" are in the expansion. Hell, I think my first game I will be the Byzantines just to try them out. Maybe I will like playing as the Byzantines online. Something different since most of my games I'm either Rome or Greece. I will just change the name of course to Roman empire or Eastern Roman empire over "Byzantines" because the people after 476 AD in the eastern side after the fall of the west were still calling themselves Roman and the Roman empire all the way till 1453 AD. Obviously Firaxis forgot to add that important part to civpedia.

I will just destroy Charlemagne in any game he's in. I will buy the expansion the first day in comes out!

 

[Gaius Octavius]

“I’m Spartacus!”
“No, I’m Spartacus!”

“I’m a Roman!” -- A Roman
“No, wait, I’m a Roman!” -- A Byzantine

I’ve been gone for several days now, but I feel I must return to respond to what you said, calgacus.

You are completely ignoring what I have said time and time again, and instead choose to see “no point” in my arguments. You also just repeated the same things Titus001 and others have said ad infinitum, which I have never, at any point, disagreed with. I never said at any time, or in any conversation, that the Eastern Roman Empire somehow dropped off the map, or was dissolved, or was discontinued when the West fell in the 5th century A.D. Never. Anybody with a good knowledge of history understands this to be true. That is not our point of contention.

You ask, why did I spend so much time discussing the barbarian invasions of the west? Is it because I somehow see the east as falling around that time, too? Not at all, as I just said in the preceding paragraph. Why do I repeatedly drive home my emphasis on the invasions? Because some people in the Late Antiquity school of thought (that’s not all of them, but some) want to downplay the western invasions as simple transformations to Germanic rule, not as what they really were--the end of an empire. You have sort of done this implicitly, even if it was unintended.

People who downplay the fall in the west usually say the very same thing you said: “Oh, the Roman Empire didn’t fall! Look here! It’s alive in the east! Only the western provinces were lost.” The problem with this way of looking at it is that it doesn’t give you the full story; when you start to say Rome didn’t fall in 476 (or pick any other 5th century date you like; the specific year is not all that important) and that it lasted until 1453, you miss out on half the story, as much as people who minimize the Eastern Byzantine contributions do. To put it another way, if I were to say Rome fell in 476, and that was it, done, finis, no more, I’d be missing half the story, too. Both are errors of oversimplifying complex historical events. The great Edward Gibbon, in writing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, did not limit himself to the West--the entire second half of his work is dedicated to the fall of the East. Which is Rome? Well, they both are.

“The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation of the seat of empire but this history has already shown that the powers of Government were divided rather than removed. The throne of Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the legions and provinces.” --Edward Gibbon

Both are Roman, and both have their own equal inheritance of the Roman legacy. So I am right to say Rome fell in 476, and you are right, too, to say it fell in 1453. We’re just talking about different facets of the same thing.

Another thing that is popular to do is to downplay the strength of the Western Empire, saying that all the real wealth was centered in the East. While it is true that most of the major cities and trade was concentrated there by this time (no one would dispute that), there is a grave danger in this argument. By making the West seem backward in comparison, people (not necessarily you) make it sound like the West was too underdeveloped for its own good. Why, it almost sounds as if the Romans would be glad to be rid of those Western territories! You quoted Brown as saying the East had 90% of the wealth. I cannot say if this is true, though I have no doubt he said it; I wish I had my books on this subject because I’d be interested in reading about that (I have The World of Late Antiquity). This is precisely one of the points where Heather and Ward-Perkins diverge from Brown’s narrative.

I remember the first time I read Ward-Perkins’ claim that the West was actually stronger than the East when the invasions began. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always been taught that the East was stronger, and the West simply was not able to defend itself in the face of the onslaught. However, Ward-Perkins argued that the West was better able to defend itself, citing such evidence as Adrianople (which took place in the East) vs. the successes of Stilicho in the West not twenty years later. Again, I wish I had the book with me to cite his specific remarks, but I don’t. (I recognize that wealth and defense are not synonymous, but the implication here is that lack of one led to the downfall of the other.)

My point in raising this issue is to say that there is a real, living debate going on this very day between two strikingly different views of how the Roman Empire fell. Did the barbarians cause it, or was the Roman state destined to collapse under its own weight? These authors are representative of the two views. I’ve studied this a lot as of late and to be honest, I’m not sure where I stand. It’s complex. So when you say things like, “I think you're misinterpreting Heather or me if you believe he's contradicting what I'm saying,” take another look and understand that it’s not the one comment per se, but the broader scheme of things that I’m invoking here. At the very least, I was simply responding to the typical Late Antique approach and giving my own thoughts--it’s not necessarily all about Byzantium. On a more humorous note, I once asked my professor of classical studies and ancient history, after a lecture on the fall of Rome, what he thought of Heather’s claims, since everything he’d said in the last hour was basically the opposite of what Heather says. He responded by saying what I just said--that there is an ongoing debate about this, and that he was sure there were plenty of English gentlemen running around Oxford and Cambridge “politely stabbing each other in the back”!

I’m sorry to take up so much space discussing that, because now I have to make an equally long statement about the actual Byzantines!

As for the minor cultural changes you describe ... in essence all societies slowly change over time.

I nearly laughed when I read this. So they’re “minor cultural changes,” are they? But you are right when you say all societies change, and the point is well taken; however, that is precisely one reason civilizations rise and fall, and one of the driving influences on the Roman-Byzantine transformation. Rome itself drastically changed between 509 B.C. and the time of Augustus; yet the fundamental institutions were still there: the same offices of the Republic, the Senate, and the Plebeian Tribune were still there; the traditional religions were still practiced, e.g. the cult of Vesta; the customs of the ancestors were still venerated. Can you say the same for the Byzantine Empire of 500 AD and 1500 AD? Not to the same degree.

So to you it is simply a “minor cultural change” and does not matter that the Medieval Roman Empire was not centered in Rome, its inhabitants did not speak the Roman language, Latin, and did not worship the Roman deities, the Empire itself did not have the have the same structure as the classical Roman Empire, the military was not the same organization as it was with its classical counterpart, and the art, literature and education were all dissimilar?

This is the point of contention. You believe that the differences are not sufficient to distinguish between the Romans and Byzantines. To you, Rome is Byzantium, and Byzantium is Rome. I believe, as I have said more times than I care to count, that the differences in cultural, political, and religious identity are sufficient to warrant a distinction between the classical Romans and the Medieval Romans. The fact that they called themselves Romaioi instead of Byzantines is not in question; honestly, I don’t really care what historians prefer to call them--you could just as easily call them the Eastern Romans. Either way, they are not the same civilization as the classical Romans based in Italy.

I am actually surprised you did not bring up one of the most important factors in ancient Roman identity: that of being a subject of Roman law. Did not Roman law survive with the Byzantines? Wouldn’t this be one of the critical definitions of what is/is not a Roman? Of course, one could make the argument that the law was so reorganized with Justinian and beyond that being a subject of it took on an entirely new meaning. The new Romanness would be what we’d call “Byzantine-ness.” But still, I think this might be your best argument. And I don’t necessarily disagree.

You say Christianity was the “religion of the Romans.” Only at the end. From the mythical date of 753 B.C. until the 300’s A.D. Rome was a pagan state. Constantine is usually given the honor of converting the Empire but it really did not occur until Theodosius banned paganism later that century. For 1,000 years Rome was not a Christian state. Rome was the “whore of Babylon,” which was “drunk on the blood of the saints.” Even when the Empire did finally convert, the Christianity of the West was a markedly different kind from that of the East (though not at first). Once again, the differences assert themselves.

I find interesting parallels with America and England. During the colonial age, before 1776, the American elite thought of themselves culturally as English gentlemen, but the English didn’t exactly agree. They looked down on the colonists. And as we all know, America would forge a new, separate cultural identity in the years after it split from England. The irony is the America and England actually have more in common than Rome and Byzantium did! We at least speak the same language, share Protestantism as the dominant religion, and even have many of the same holidays and customs (Rome and Byzantium did at first, but not later on). Even today, when people ask me what my ethnicity is, I still stay “English.” (On a side note: I once said this to a British friend of mine, who promptly asked, “British English or American English?” The differences still remain. I could see this kind of conversation playing out between an Italian Roman and a Byzantine Roman.)

One might imagine that had England fallen in the early 1800’s, the people of America would consider themselves the rightful heirs of English civilization. So it is with Byzantium: are they Romans? Sure, in a sense. But what does Roman mean? Words change. The “Romans” after the 5th century were of a markedly different brand than their forebears. After a while, being Roman also necessarily entailed being Christian, and a very particular kind of Christian at that. The problem with the Eastern Roman Empire is the age-old East/West split; it didn’t just happen because the West fell. The differences were always there, as we see even in the days of Octavian and Marc Antony.

You can’t just place civilizations in static categories, because things change. So I recognize how you might object that I’m placing undue restrictions on what it means to be Roman. I understand. The problem I have is, where do you draw the line? Once you’re willing to concede that the Roman Empire was no longer based in Rome, did not use Latin officially after Justinian, did not have the same religion (and therefore, religious hierarchy) as its western twin, did not have the same organization and military structure, can it be said that that empire is still thoroughly Roman? If you say yes, I won’t fault you for it, because between Byzantium and the Germanic kingdoms of the West, there’s no contest which is “Roman.” This is a healthy and ongoing debate, and to be honest we’re not going to solve it here. As for me… I would say that though the East may have been Roman, it morphed into a new kind of Roman… what we call today, “The Byzantines.”

In conclusion to this long tirade, let me just say that I have no problem with much of what you are saying, and I agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of what you and Titus001 are trying to do: to get people interested in Roman history, and to avoid the mistake of thinking in black-and-white terms on the fall of Rome. In the end, the most fair and historically accurate way to describe Rome’s demise is this: the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century, if not in actuality then symbolically in 476 A.D., and the Eastern Roman Empire continued to last for 1,000 years until the capture of Constantinople in 1453.

I offer the following links for those interested in further study:

http://www.byzantium.ac.uk/

http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/index.htm

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/wola.html

http://byzantium.seashell.net.nz/index.php

My apologies for a ceaselessly long post. I should also say that if we wish to continue this debate, we should do it in the thread Titus started, so as not to derail the HRE discussion here. Just please don’t quote my entire long post in your reply!

 

[Pangur Bán]

“I’m Spartacus!”
“No, I’m Spartacus!”

“I’m a Roman!” -- A Roman
“No, wait, I’m a Roman!” -- A Byzantine

I’ve been gone for several days now, but I feel I must return to respond to what you said, calgacus.

You are completely ignoring what I have said time and time again, and instead choose to see “no point” in my arguments. You also just repeated the same things Titus001 and others have said ad infinitum, which I have never, at any point, disagreed with. I never said at any time, or in any conversation, that the Eastern Roman Empire somehow dropped off the map, or was dissolved, or was discontinued when the West fell in the 5th century A.D. Never. Anybody with a good knowledge of history understands this to be true. That is not our point of contention.

You ask, why did I spend so much time discussing the barbarian invasions of the west? Is it because I somehow see the east as falling around that time, too? Not at all, as I just said in the preceding paragraph. Why do I repeatedly drive home my emphasis on the invasions? Because some people in the Late Antiquity school of thought (that’s not all of them, but some) want to downplay the western invasions as simple transformations to Germanic rule, not as what they really were--the end of an empire. You have sort of done this implicitly, even if it was unintended.

People who downplay the fall in the west usually say the very same thing you said: “Oh, the Roman Empire didn’t fall! Look here! It’s alive in the east! Only the western provinces were lost.” The problem with this way of looking at it is that it doesn’t give you the full story; when you start to say Rome didn’t fall in 476 (or pick any other 5th century date you like; the specific year is not all that important) and that it lasted until 1453, you miss out on half the story, as much as people who minimize the Eastern Byzantine contributions do. To put it another way, if I were to say Rome fell in 476, and that was it, done, finis, no more, I’d be missing half the story, too. Both are errors of oversimplifying complex historical events. The great Edward Gibbon, in writing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, did not limit himself to the West--the entire second half of his work is dedicated to the fall of the East. Which is Rome? Well, they both are.

“The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation of the seat of empire but this history has already shown that the powers of Government were divided rather than removed. The throne of Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the legions and provinces.” --Edward Gibbon

Both are Roman, and both have their own equal inheritance of the Roman legacy. So I am right to say Rome fell in 476, and you are right, too, to say it fell in 1453. We’re just talking about different facets of the same thing.

Another thing that is popular to do is to downplay the strength of the Western Empire, saying that all the real wealth was centered in the East. While it is true that most of the major cities and trade was concentrated there by this time (no one would dispute that), there is a grave danger in this argument. By making the West seem backward in comparison, people (not necessarily you) make it sound like the West was too underdeveloped for its own good. Why, it almost sounds as if the Romans would be glad to be rid of those Western territories! You quoted Brown as saying the East had 90% of the wealth. I cannot say if this is true, though I have no doubt he said it; I wish I had my books on this subject because I’d be interested in reading about that (I have The World of Late Antiquity). This is precisely one of the points where Heather and Ward-Perkins diverge from Brown’s narrative.

I remember the first time I read Ward-Perkins’ claim that the West was actually stronger than the East when the invasions began. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always been taught that the East was stronger, and the West simply was not able to defend itself in the face of the onslaught. However, Ward-Perkins argued that the West was better able to defend itself, citing such evidence as Adrianople (which took place in the East) vs. the successes of Stilicho in the West not twenty years later. Again, I wish I had the book with me to cite his specific remarks, but I don’t. (I recognize that wealth and defense are not synonymous, but the implication here is that lack of one led to the downfall of the other.)

My point in raising this issue is to say that there is a real, living debate going on this very day between two strikingly different views of how the Roman Empire fell. Did the barbarians cause it, or was the Roman state destined to collapse under its own weight? These authors are representative of the two views. I’ve studied this a lot as of late and to be honest, I’m not sure where I stand. It’s complex. So when you say things like, “I think you're misinterpreting Heather or me if you believe he's contradicting what I'm saying,” take another look and understand that it’s not the one comment per se, but the broader scheme of things that I’m invoking here. At the very least, I was simply responding to the typical Late Antique approach and giving my own thoughts--it’s not necessarily all about Byzantium. On a more humorous note, I once asked my professor of classical studies and ancient history, after a lecture on the fall of Rome, what he thought of Heather’s claims, since everything he’d said in the last hour was basically the opposite of what Heather says. He responded by saying what I just said--that there is an ongoing debate about this, and that he was sure there were plenty of English gentlemen running around Oxford and Cambridge “politely stabbing each other in the back”!

I’m sorry to take up so much space discussing that, because now I have to make an equally long statement about the actual Byzantines!

Most of this isn't relevant to this point, though I understand what it's like to enjoy a subject and to stop oneself writing when we get in the flow. Suffice it to say, it's not a case of one Rome falling and the other ... lesser Roman is what you prolly think ... suriviving. No, the core area of the Empire continued on, the backward lesser parts got trimmed off by Barbarians. Now, I'm the first one to appreciate the kind of society which constituted the provinces lost permanently in the 5th century, but those provinces weren't in the Empire in the days of the Punic War (but those Romans I presume you regard as Romans), and were frankly economically, culturally and politically peripheral to an Empire whose heartland had always been in the Mediterranean, and whose capital (not been Rome for centuries) had been located at Constantinople for more than a century and a half; that's why the alleged cultural differences which people here like to exaggerate had no effect on the identity of the Roman Empire. It'd be like England losing the area north of the Humber; no-one to the South would think for a second anything but a political disaster had occurred. The loss of the West was just that, a political disaster for the Roman Empire. No more than that. It would experience further political disasters to the Arabs, Central-Asian led Slavs, the Turks and Franks, before it eventually came to an end.

People here like to talk about Greek and Latin, as if Latin is truly Roman and Greek not. Besides the fact that language was a minor part of identity in that era ... besides that ... these Greeks had been Romans for seven centuries. Seven centuries! Think about that for a second. The Scots have only been British for three, the US has only existed for two and a half. Being Roman meant something to them ... it was their identity; if you think about how proud the Aramaic speaker Paul was of being a Roman and Roman citizen way back in the early 1st century, think about what it was like by the fifth ... let alone by the ninth!!! Just because modern nationalists, or western classicalist Hellenophiles like to emphasize that doesn't mean they did. To them the word "Greek" meant only "pagan".

And besides the fact that Greek was only a minority language of elites and cities until the Arab invasions, Greek had been used by Italian Roman elites since the Punic Wars, was spoken fluently often predominantly by almost every Roman emperor; Latin was also only ever used in Asia/eastern North Africa as a formal language of law, AND Latin continued to be used for government purposes there until 1453 and beyond (the Ottomans still made use of it). So, in addition to the other points I've made in other parts of this thread .... even the cultural case for two separate civilizations at each side of your imaginary line is pretty unsustainable. Frankly, the only separate civilizations that emerged from Roman political decline between the fifth and eighth centuries were the Romano-Germanic, Christianizing civilization in the far West, and Romano-Arab Islamicizing civilization in the far east. Christian Rome continued on with relative cultural purity, since the only cultural changes that took place happened due to internal changes, not because some Germans or Arabs took them over.

I nearly laughed when I read this. So they’re “minor cultural changes,” are they? But you are right when you say all societies change, and the point is well taken; however, that is precisely one reason civilizations rise and fall, and one of the driving influences on the Roman-Byzantine transformation. Rome itself drastically changed between 509 B.C. and the time of Augustus; yet the fundamental institutions were still there: the same offices of the Republic, the Senate, and the Plebeian Tribune were still there; the traditional religions were still practiced, e.g. the cult of Vesta; the customs of the ancestors were still venerated. Can you say the same for the Byzantine Empire of 500 AD and 1500 AD? Not to the same degree.

This is just really nonsense. You essentially see see pagan Rome as the real Rome (the only non-pagan thing you mention is the Senate, which was unaffected by any Christianization or barbarianism), and the Christian one as a fake one. Well, you're deluding yourself. The later Roman Empire was a Christian civilization ... for outsiders Romanitas and Christianitas were essentially identical. This may be difficult to see if you move into Late Antiquity from Classical History, but if you do Early Medieval or Late Antiquity, it is take for granted. And BTW, if you think Ancestor worship stopped ... for all that's worth ... read (dare I mention that bogey man again ) Brown's Cult of Saints.

I nearly laughed when I read this. So they’re “minor cultural changes,” are they? But you are right when you say all societies change, and the point is well taken; however, that is precisely one reason civilizations rise and fall, and one of the driving influences on the Roman-Byzantine transformation. Rome itself drastically changed between 509 B.C. and the time of Augustus; yet the fundamental institutions were still there: the same offices of the Republic, the Senate, and the Plebeian Tribune were still there; the traditional religions were still practiced, e.g. the cult of Vesta; the customs of the ancestors were still venerated. Can you say the same for the Byzantine Empire of 500 AD and 1500 AD? Not to the same degree.

So to you it is simply a “minor cultural change” and does not matter that the Medieval Roman Empire was not centered in Rome, its inhabitants did not speak the Roman language, Latin, and did not worship the Roman deities, the Empire itself did not have the have the same structure as the classical Roman Empire, the military was not the same organization as it was with its classical counterpart, and the art, literature and education were all dissimilar?

This is the point of contention. You believe that the differences are not sufficient to distinguish between the Romans and Byzantines. To you, Rome is Byzantium, and Byzantium is Rome. I believe, as I have said more times than I care to count, that the differences in cultural, political, and religious identity are sufficient to warrant a distinction between the classical Romans and the Medieval Romans. The fact that they called themselves Romaioi instead of Byzantines is not in question; honestly, I don’t really care what historians prefer to call them--you could just as easily call them the Eastern Romans. Either way, they are not the same civilization as the classical Romans based in Italy.

I am actually surprised you did not bring up one of the most important factors in ancient Roman identity: that of being a subject of Roman law. Did not Roman law survive with the Byzantines? Wouldn’t this be one of the critical definitions of what is/is not a Roman? Of course, one could make the argument that the law was so reorganized with Justinian and beyond that being a subject of it took on an entirely new meaning. The new Romanness would be what we’d call “Byzantine-ness.” But still, I think this might be your best argument. And I don’t necessarily disagree.

You say Christianity was the “religion of the Romans.” Only at the end. From the mythical date of 753 B.C. until the 300’s A.D. Rome was a pagan state. Constantine is usually given the honor of converting the Empire but it really did not occur until Theodosius banned paganism later that century. For 1,000 years Rome was not a Christian state. Rome was the “whore of Babylon,” which was “drunk on the blood of the saints.” Even when the Empire did finally convert, the Christianity of the West was a markedly different kind from that of the East (though not at first). Once again, the differences assert themselves.

I find interesting parallels with America and England. During the colonial age, before 1776, the American elite thought of themselves culturally as English gentlemen, but the English didn’t exactly agree. They looked down on the colonists. And as we all know, America would forge a new, separate cultural identity in the years after it split from England. The irony is the America and England actually have more in common than Rome and Byzantium did! We at least speak the same language, share Protestantism as the dominant religion, and even have many of the same holidays and customs (Rome and Byzantium did at first, but not later on). Even today, when people ask me what my ethnicity is, I still stay “English.” (On a side note: I once said this to a British friend of mine, who promptly asked, “British English or American English?” The differences still remain. I could see this kind of conversation playing out between an Italian Roman and a Byzantine Roman.)

One might imagine that had England fallen in the early 1800’s, the people of America would consider themselves the rightful heirs of English civilization. So it is with Byzantium: are they Romans? Sure, in a sense. But what does Roman mean? Words change. The “Romans” after the 5th century were of a markedly different brand than their forebears. After a while, being Roman also necessarily entailed being Christian, and a very particular kind of Christian at that. The problem with the Eastern Roman Empire is the age-old East/West split; it didn’t just happen because the West fell. The differences were always there, as we see even in the days of Octavian and Marc Antony.

You can’t just place civilizations in static categories, because things change. So I recognize how you might object that I’m placing undue restrictions on what it means to be Roman. I understand. The problem I have is, where do you draw the line? Once you’re willing to concede that the Roman Empire was no longer based in Rome, did not use Latin officially after Justinian, did not have the same religion (and therefore, religious hierarchy) as its western twin, did not have the same organization and military structure, can it be said that that empire is still thoroughly Roman? If you say yes, I won’t fault you for it, because between Byzantium and the Germanic kingdoms of the West, there’s no contest which is “Roman.” This is a healthy and ongoing debate, and to be honest we’re not going to solve it here. As for me… I would say that though the East may have been Roman, it morphed into a new kind of Roman… what we call today, “The Byzantines.”

In conclusion to this long tirade, let me just say that I have no problem with much of what you are saying, and I agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of what you and Titus001 are trying to do: to get people interested in Roman history, and to avoid the mistake of thinking in black-and-white terms on the fall of Rome. In the end, the most fair and historically accurate way to describe Rome’s demise is this: the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century, if not in actuality then symbolically in 476 A.D., and the Eastern Roman Empire continued to last for 1,000 years until the capture of Constantinople in 1453.

These arguments are essentially popular cliches. It doesn't matter is you want to fossilize Roman-ness in the Age of Julius and Augustus, being a Roman had nothing to do with Rome even by the time of the Severans (or Hadrian for that matter), not to mention by the time when Constantine made Constantinople the capital.

And you are deceiving yourself you know. Gravely. I will repeat, "Byzantine" is just a term invented by an early modern inhabitant of the Holy Roman Empire. It is just a word which meant absolutely nothing to anyone until then. It has been perpetuated because the continued existence of the Roman Empire contradicted the models of history already erected in the West ... ie. Rome, Barbarians-Dark Ages, Renaissance. The West has still not overcome the fact ... and this is a serious historiographic problem in many other areas ... that its model of Universal History was constructed solely with reference to Western Europe. This model has since been imposed on other areas clumsily, resulting in the current debate. Trust me, if it weren't for this kind of what one might style Western historiographic or intellectual imperialism, we wouldn't even be having this debate; Romans would be Romans, even in the Middle Ages, and Byzantine would be what it always should have remained, an adjective for a small Greek pagan town. Efforts here (not really by yourself as much) to insist that the Roman Empire, of which the West ceased to be part, take the Western model when it is of no relevance has further caused the perplexity which exists, as evidence here, about this problem. The "Late Antique" school and guys like Brown, who you dismiss so contemptfully without understanding or even reading him (he never says the things people say he said about underplaying devastation), are trying to fix this ... in fact have fixed it, by coming up with periodizations which are truly more relevant.

Let me repeat, "Byzantine" is a neologism ... it is a nonsense word when used as the basis of any civilizational argument. I'm not sure you are really grasping the significance of that. Sure, it is useful to use it for education, grouping source material, creating journal specialisms, teaching people from schoolchildren to undegraduates in order to help them process information and study something with a managable start and end; but ultimately ... in the grander scheme of things ... the word itself by its nature only obscures history (as this thread demonstrates quite nicely). Cultural changes, sociological changes, usually continuous, sometimes abrupt, involve small elements of peoples lives evolving, differences emerging in how things are done; that's what happens! But to draw an arbitrary line, however thick, and say "one side is Roman, the other Byzantine" is quite meaningless on any deeper level. The "Byzantines" were Romans; if they were different from your beloved Augustan pagans, then that means Romanness was different. Please read that sentence again, it is important; failure to pick up on that important point caused you to waste quite a lot of your own time telling me about things that existed in the period of time which occupies true Romanness in your own head, and which you thought (wrongly in some cases) to have ceased to later.

Just as watching the BBC ... something unknown to any Englishman before the 20th century ... is part of modern English live, it doesn't make either the English before that or the English after that less or more English. So long as the English think of themselves as English, then they are; and so long as the English maintain a position in a historic continuum, like the medieval Romans, then no-one can dispute it, because the identity itself is the substance-location of the word; no arbitrary set of lines can ever muster the intellectual coherency to contradict that. Maybe if you go and ask God, he might tell you "real Romans are the Latin speaking people who existed between 753 and 476"; but until you do that, or something equally marvellous, you have nothing.

PS, maybe he wouldn't say that, maybe he'd say "real Romans are the Basque people who lived in Rome between 680 and 550 BC, and were erased from history by Italic invaders".