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Onasander

Roman Empire/Byzantine/Romanion

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It makes it especially difficult for me to disregard the east as roman since Boethius is one of my favorite philosophers, and just studying the east west relations of that time make it near impossible for one knowledgeable of that time period to concent to the belief the the Easterners suddenly stopped being Roman. Nobody in the West thought that, be it barbarian or Roman.

 

I did a lot of archeology when I was a kid, volunteering for every dig nearby. A lot of people had a lot of theories, and the use of scientific methods was the only reliable means discrimination.

 

Our question is one of politics, politics of the ancient world, and the politics of the modern. Our cultural memory of the Romans died in the West; the tribes and later nations looked upon the east with the distrust of a competitor; after the east-west schism of the church, they had even more reason to view them as alien. But this, this is a politically motivated view, one that has marched up through the centuries to the modern day. Of all the nations of tje field that have taken the field against rome, no matter how great the hate, none tried to deny them of being Roman. Now that they are gone, we mock their institutions, deny them their history and idenity, their place in their world during thier times. Things that we can assertain with concrete facts and overwhelming historical evidence by it's very nature should rip to threads the threries and labels of outsiders a thousand years later living in an alien culture.

 

I will someday die as an American Citizen of the Republic of the United States of America. What person has the right a thousand years after my death to change this? It can be proven scientifically I am what I am, nothing more, nothing less; and with this alone, all theories contrary should be set aside.

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Hate to break the news to you, but the United States is far from a republic. To be technical it is a constitutional democracy and is even slipping away from that as power is more and more being put into the executive branch. Enough of the politic discussion as PP and I have had our disagreements about this in the past, leave the American politic discussions to the Off Topic Forum.

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Until about 1450...

 

...Perhaps it is more useful to regard the empire as passing through the Republican, Imperial, Dominate, East Roman and Byzantine culrtural phases, rather than perpetuate the -in my view- stale argument that an arbitrary date, based on hindsight, can be given as the end of the Roman Empire and the start of the Byzantine. In any case, which one do we go for? 325? 476? 625 0r 1204?

 

The Byzantines were Romans based on a political inheritance, they weren't related to the Rome of Cicero with the similar cultural and ethnic continuity that connects Tony Blair's United Kingdom to Henry VIII's England. The English remained English in geographic, literary, linguistic, genetic and cultural terms and are core of Britain even today. The Greeks of Constantinople and Anatolia were influenced by Roman civic and political culture and inherited the mantle. They were administratively Roman and they were Romanized, but they weren't the Romans of Cincinnatus or Augustus.

 

I hate getting sucked down 'analogy-alley', but what you see in the Byzantine Empire would be reflected in the fall of the island of Gr. Britain, the setting up of a Parliament and Kingdom in India [a commonwealth country], then having that kingdom call itself the U.K. Technically speaking it is; An anglicized India that could call themselves "British". But any sensible historian would see, label it and study it as a somewhat different entity; the essence of being a "Brit" would be a substantially different. In this context Henry VIII's and Tony Blair's kingdoms have a more self-contained relationship in the same manner that ethnic Romans vis-a-vis the Republic and Principate. But I agree with you that there is a spectrum along the line that this is happening with no definite dates marking the periods.

 

The Classical Romans of Caesar/Augustus spread Roman civilization across the Mediterranean, other cultures acquired aspects of the culture and became Romanized as opposed to Roman. Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople by virtue of location and defense. The Greek speaking peoples of the Aegean/Anatolia were able to continue the administrative departments and political rule of the Romans.

 

Of course the Byzantines called themselves Romans, and others did as well; the Western Empire had fell, Constantinople held a valid political claim to the title and the era was a time of turmoil. To not understand the importance of the allure of the title of "Roman" and the symbolism that went with it is to not quite understand the tempo of those times; see also Charlemagnes Empire, The Czar [Caesar in Russian], the Holy Roman Empire or even Mehmed II who called himself Caesar after the conquest of Constantinople in the 15th century. The historical evidence in fact gives strong support to the claim that the Later Eastern Roman Empire was a political continuation but an ethnological and cultural hybrid of Greek speaking peoples inheriting Roman political trappings rather than a simple continuation of Rome.

 

The answer might be a two-tier definition of a Roman. The first a "classical Roman", ethnically and culturally related to those Romans of the plebes and patricians. Those latin speakers and holders of that peculiar familial and social structure who spread out throughout the Mediterranean.

 

The second definition is the Cosmopolitan Roman, those who made their first appearance when the first Gallic tribe received the right to have a Senator, who took to certain aspects of Roman civic culture and who's numbers spread until Caracalla gave full citizenship in the 3rd century. The Eastern Romans fall into this second definition, combining the Greek culture of the Aegean/Anatolia with Roman civic values of the later Empire.

 

It may be a difficult concept or even unromantic concept for those of us who are drawn to Roman civilization, but I think most people get the gist of it if looked at dispassionately. You may not agree, but they're strong arguments. A historian's task is to get to the truth of the matter whether economic, linguistic, military, religious, political, etc., even if it goes in the face of notions he'd rather have come true. The Byzantines look like a [Roman] duck, but walk and squawk like something slightly different.

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Personally I don't really see it as an issue that the culture was different. I reckon the importance was that they were still ideologically Roman, the Emperor still wore the diadem and the imperial purple, the Empire still followed Roman Law and its institutions were still Roman. And most importantly the Emperors considered themselves as the lawful successors to Augustus and no one could dispute this from a legal standpoint, not even the popes of the time.

 

So, even the popes recognised them as the lawful successors of the Roman Empire and had to create a forgery to crown the 'Holy Roman Emperor' of the West in the hope that the Eastern Romans would lose their claims to the West and to Italy.

 

I aslo believe that because Rome was no longer part of the Empire didn't make much of a difference since for more than a hundred years before the fall of the West, the city had lost signifigance and was basically just a relic of ancient monuments and institutions that were almost forgotten. Constantinople had become the most powerful city of the Empire and this was now where it's future lay and it was already the senior partner long before the West fell. So long before the fall of the West, Constantinople in my opinion, was the de facto capital of the Empire.

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Shoot, Arles became the administrative capital of the Western Empire during Consta)ntine's reign.

And as with the Indian analogy, they might judge it a little different if you take on a couple of hundred extra years of British presence in India (putting it, say, around the year 2400) with it's own independen branch of the British Monarchy ruling over full citizens equal to any other part of the empire. Look at England today, it's absolutely saturated with Indians.... not exactly the population Henry the VIII would of recognized. Could you imagine what their racial characterists would be in the 25th century?

 

And the east had plenty of Romans as well.

 

A better anology would be Brazil, first during the Napoleonic Wars. The Royal family looked at the map, saw how undefendable their position was, and how secure Brazil was, and moved the government their, turning Portugual into a province. Now, Brazil Ethnically, culturally, and linguistical can't match Portugual. Later, when the royal family returned, one of the sons stayed behind and succeeded, proclaiming the Empire of Brazil (peacefully, no blood shed). He chosed not just independance, but to succeed from the empire. The romans differ in this; though they choose to create two seperate administravive halves to their empire, both retained their idenity as roman! They were still the same commonweath, equal in authority to one another, but limited to their own spheres. One was no better than the other.

 

Now, did the Romans in the west maintain their genetic purity once the germans and iranians started setteling? (Cicero wasn't a roman by decent. His ancestors were conquered by the Romans)

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Shoot, Arles became the administrative capital of the Western Empire during Consta)ntine's reign.

And as with the Indian analogy,...

 

...(Cicero wasn't a roman by decent. His ancestors were conquered by the Romans)

 

I picked India because it had a long cultural legacy and occupied by Britain; Brazil had no similar cultural legacy, the Greeks did [surprisingly the CIA factbook states the 2001 census of Great Britain shows an Indian population of only 1.8%]. My purpose was to show the adoption of certain civic values by one culture and the melding of them with indigenous ones and point out how in a similar fashion those in the East- and finally- the Greek speaking populace adopted Roman civic values. Certainly there were Romans in the East, but they assimilated into the culture.

 

Barbarian influence did change the culture of the Italy and the rest of the West as well; that legacy is the Middle Ages. Cicero's family is Italian, and I wouldn't restrict 'Roman' to just those living in the City, but also those in Italy who by virtue of proximity and sometimes shared heritage succumbed almost totally to Roman culture to become culturally Roman in the way the Greeks of the East didn't. He was a Roman enough to be accepted in the Senate years before the first non-Roman was given the honor.

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Personally I don't really see it as an issue that the culture was different...

 

...So long before the fall of the West, Constantinople in my opinion, was the de facto capital of the Empire.

 

If I was discussing a new wargaming scenario I wouldn't care much about culture [Victor Hanson might disagree]. But if I'm discussing history in with a serious eye I'd never deny culture a central focal point, it has a major role in determining the civilization being addressed. Some would say it is the civilization. [Read what I'd written earlier about the Classical and Cosmopolitan types of Romans.]

 

If you want a strictly legalistic definition of 'Roman', then the Eastern Empire was technically and legally the inheritor of the Empire. I have no problem with it in that sense. But if you want really want to understand history you've got to look at everthing, including the underlying culture and institutions. The truth is that it was the legal and legitimate inheritor of the word 'Roman', but in spite of Roman rule, assimilation of some Romans, etc., the Eastern Empire/Byzantium was for all intents and purposes a Greek-speaking people who'd been under Roman rule.

 

They were Cosmopolitan Romans [per my earlier distinction] who by virtue of geographical defensibility hosted the later Eastern capital, inherited the legal mantle and institutions of Rome and who's Greek populace gradually took over; but they weren't the descendents of Cincinnatus or Augustus.

 

You can call them Roman, but if you're a serious student I don't think you can ignore this. Anyway, I think I've got to the point where I'm repeating myself in posts.

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As far as defning the Roman and Byzantine Empire is concerned, i have a website which might give people something to think about. It puts forward an argument along the lines you've already stated, and it supplies maps with it. Have a look at this site:

http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~sctwiseh/Roman/R...omanEmpire.html, it really puts a good argument forward.

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I looked at all the maps on his site and the ladies, and I gotta question his whole claim for continuance of the western empire via the holy roman empire/ later papal lands. (This would pass chinese standards though for continuation of the empire & civilization, if Europe ever reunites, it can put up a claim to be the longest running empire/civilization over china, cause the chinese have been fragmented for a hundreds of years at a time under different nations and cultures.)

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Thanks for providing the link to such a fascinating site Tobias. Before I make a properly informed opinion I must still read the information on that site and the link provided on it.

 

However, at the moment I struggle to view the Holy Roman Empire as a legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire since the 'Donation of Constantine' which the Popes used as their authority to crown a Western Emperor was a forgery and the Eastern Romans never really officially acknowledged them as Emperors or as equals and were quite blatant about this.

 

Though I do believe that after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire the Popes would legally have had authority to crown an Emperor because of their positions as officers of the Roman Empire which was never taken away and of course their title of Pontifex Maximus. But while the Eastern Emperors still ruled I don't believe they any authority to crown an Emperor since only the Emperor could do this.

 

I would also like to know in what way the Holy Roman Empire actually attempted to revive Roman institutions or some of its culture? The Germans and Franks at the time, were still considered as Barbarians by the Italians and Eastern Romans and their law remained primitive for a long time. Personally I view the title of 'Holy Roman Emperor' as quite an empty one, but if anyone can give arguments against my views, I would be interested to hear them.

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Though I do believe that after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire the Popes would legally have had authority to crown an Emperor because of their positions as officers of the Roman Empire which was never taken away and of course their title of Pontifex Maximus

 

 

If the entire army and government is eradicated, am I constitutionally allowed to as a Private recruit a whole new army complete with officers and so on, and rebuild the executive branch from my own mandate?

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As to it being legal, under Roman law, well, what emperor was legal, but I think this was even more illegal of than usual; but given nobody was around to put what whould be the same as the U.S. Supreme Court making laws, it WAS legal cause at that point the pope was making the rules as he went along, and the Charlamagne went along with it, given he was soverign in charge.

 

Historically speaking though, the Holy Roman Empire clearly wasn't an continuation like the Russian Federation is of the Soviet Union, so if I was a head of state back then, I'd wouldn't go around upsetting the "roman emperor" argueing his legitimacy, but at the same time, any treaties I had with the former Roman empire would be considered void in the west, though I'ld likely would still honor them for the east.

 

Anybody remember the controversy over president Bush's plan to pull with out of the Anti-Ballistic Missle Treaty (MAD) with Russia?

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I agree, if i were a ruler of a small state near for example Charlemagne's or Frederick Barbarossa's Empires, i would not be questioning the legitimacy of their claims.

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If the entire army and government is eradicated, am I constitutionally allowed to as a Private recruit a whole new army complete with officers and so on, and rebuild the executive branch from my own mandate?

 

 

I don

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As far as defning the Roman and Byzantine Empire is concerned, i have a website which might give people something to think about. It puts forward an argument along the lines you've already stated, and it supplies maps with it. Have a look at this site:

http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~sctwiseh/Roman/R...omanEmpire.html, it really puts a good argument forward.

Interesting site, thanks. Not particularly convincing arguments, look at his definition of Rome. But he's put a lot of effort into it. But talk about missing the point and relegating the definition of Rome to a legalistic interpretation of "who's got the mandate". At least the Byzantine Empire can be defended as Roman with some semblence of logical argument but the Holy Roman Empire?

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