Which country should be classified the 4th Rome?

[onedreamer]

When, why, and how did the Roman Empire cease to be called the Roman Empire and take on a different name of which its inhabitants knew nothing for a thousand years?

And even then, nobody contemporarily called it the "Eastern" Roman Empire; it was the Roman Empire, and its leader was one of the two Roman Emperors. Like the word "Byzantine", "Eastern Roman" is a relatively modern historical convenience. That doesn't make it wrong, of course.

Dachs I call myself God and call you ignorant of Roman History, but perhaps this doesn't make it true. I bet you agree on this point if I put it in this terms? You need to get some facts straight:
1) the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire didn't call themselves anything. The emperors did.
2) NONE in Western Europe would call the ERE Roman Empire and its citizens Romans after the fall of the WRE.
3) Even assuming that what you claim is true, it still makes me right in criticizing the thread. In case you missed the OP, it states that the Byzantine Empire was the 2nd Rome, but you are stating that there is no fracture between the Roman Empire and the ERE after the fall of the WRE, which means the ERE isn't the 2nd Rome.
4) With "contemporarily" you hopefully meant "at the time", anyways we are talking of a time period after the fall of the WRE, not during the existance of WRE and ERE, since in this time the ERE did not have any reason to call itself the 2nd Rome, since this division was administrative.

Yes, they were the Eastern Roman Empire, and they called themselves as such till 1453.

They attempted to restore the Western Roman Empire, which had been conquered by Germans.

Strange, Dachs while agreeing with you, states that they called themselves Romans (which they did) while you state they called themselves Eastern Romans. Do I spot some confusion here? And why is it relevant how they called themselves but how the people of the former WRE called them is not relevant? Last but not least, Germans did not conquer the WRE, your confusion is at the top here. First of all, GERMANIC tribes aren't "The Germans", second they didn't conquer but invade and occupy causing the collapse of the Empire, third they weren't a united horde, fourth the first peoples to successfully occupy the italian peninsula were the Ostrogoths, which weren't even germanic.

 

[Dachs]

Dachs I call myself God and call you ignorant of Roman History, but perhaps this doesn't make it true. I bet you agree on this point if I put it in this terms? You need to get some facts straight:
1) the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire didn't call themselves anything. The emperors did.
2) NONE in Western Europe would call the ERE Roman Empire and its citizens Romans after the fall of the WRE.
3) Even assuming that what you claim is true, it still makes me right in criticizing the thread. In case you missed the OP, it states that the Byzantine Empire was the 2nd Rome, but you are stating that there is no fracture between the Roman Empire and the ERE after the fall of the WRE, which means the ERE isn't the 2nd Rome.
4) With "contemporarily" you hopefully meant "at the time", anyways we are talking of a time period after the fall of the WRE, not during the existance of WRE and ERE, since in this time the ERE did not have any reason to call itself the 2nd Rome, since this division was administrative.

1) ...? Actually, they did call themselves various things, ranging from given names to regional constructs to religious identifications to, yes, 'Rhomaioi'.
2) Except they did, going from Odovacar, Thiudareiks, Clovis, and the other sundry rulers of the west, all of whom defined their authority in relationship to the Empire, to post-Justinianic modes of communication, where 'Roman' and 'Greek' were both used, the latter more often as time went on.
3) And I'm not saying anything about that; I think this is a stupid thread, too. The Byzantines didn't call themselves the second Rome, because as far as they were concerned it was still the first one all the way up to 1461. The whole thing is an invention of a random Muscovite monk that was eagerly adopted for ceremonial purposes by the Rurikovich tsars.
4) ...yes?

 

[Traitorfish]

1) ...? Actually, they did call themselves various things, ranging from given names to regional constructs to religious identifications to, yes, 'Rhomaioi'.

In fact, didn't they prefer to be known as "Romans" rather than as "Hellenes", because the latter was associated with paganism?

 

[Theige]

Strange, Dachs while agreeing with you, states that they called themselves Romans (which they did) while you state they called themselves Eastern Romans. Do I spot some confusion here? And why is it relevant how they called themselves but how the people of the former WRE called them is not relevant? Last but not least, Germans did not conquer the WRE, your confusion is at the top here. First of all, GERMANIC tribes aren't "The Germans", second they didn't conquer but invade and occupy causing the collapse of the Empire, third they weren't a united horde, fourth the first peoples to successfully occupy the italian peninsula were the Ostrogoths, which weren't even germanic.

I never said they called themselves Eastern Romans. I called them what we, in modern times, call them. They were the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.

Nor did I ever say "the germans," were a united horde. They were Germanic tribes, yes, Germanic peoples, Germans. Obviously not Germans as in "citizens of the modern nation-state of Germany". You're nitpicking here.

Also, "invading and occupying," is different from "conquering"? Various Germanic peoples invaded and established various kingdoms throughout the former WRE, and dominated much of its former lands for centuries. That isn't conquering?

Lastly, the Ostrogoth's weren't Germanic? Do you have a source for that?

 

[Dachs]

The Ostrogoths were dubiously "Germanic"; they, like most other supposed "barbarian" groups to have seized political control of regions during the collapse of the WRE, almost certainly transcended any linguistic boundaries and included plenty of Romans, Huns, and others.

In fact, didn't they prefer to be known as "Romans" rather than as "Hellenes", because the latter was associated with paganism?

More so in the earlier centuries. Eventually you get philosophers like Gemistos Plethon openly pining for the days of Kleomenes III of Sparta, good Hellenic civilization, and a decent top-down revolution to better organize for war against the Turk. That was more limited to the upper crust, especially guys from the Peloponnese, though.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Eventually you get philosophers like Gemistos Plethon openly pining for the days of Kleomenes III of Sparta, good Hellenic civilization,

And Laonikos Chalkokondylos with his "Hellenes", "Byzantium" as the name for the city, etc. Though wasn't Laonikos a disciple of Plethon once?

 

[Theige]

The Ostrogoths were dubiously "Germanic"; they, like most other supposed "barbarian" groups to have seized political control of regions during the collapse of the WRE, almost certainly transcended any linguistic boundaries and included plenty of Romans, Huns, and others.

Really? That may be true for the "tribe" as a whole, but was the ruling elite not Germanic?

 

[Dachs]

The guys in charge claimed to be Goths of some kind, buuuuuut...that's about all we have reliably. Plus, putting an ethnic line there on the basis of honestly very scanty evidence save tropes that were in everybody's interests to promote ex post facto doesn't really tell you anything about why the people acted the way they did.

 

[Perfectionist]

The whole thing is an invention of a random Muscovite monk that was eagerly adopted for ceremonial purposes by the Rurikovich tsars.

Not even that. Third Rome formulation appears only one time in an official document, and that's the establishment of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Before and after that it appears that even the Church didn't accept it. There's no evidence that it was ever used as a justification for governmental policy, and indeed it pretty much seems that nobody thought much of it until long afterwards. That's unsurprising, since initially it wasn't referring to the Muscovite state at all, but to the Russian church. The whole thing was actually explicitly anti-Moscow - Filofei was Pskovian, and 'Tale of the White Cowl' was written, probably, by Novgorodians. The point was 'you're transgressing your legitimate authority and you should back off and listen to your churchmen, and specifically to your Novgorodian churchmen'.

 

[Dachs]

Get your ass on IRC, dude.