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Isn’t it wild that the Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s, only to finally fall to the Ottoman Empire? But as the Empire fell, a large set of manuscripts were

Isn’t it wild that the Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s, only to finally fall to the Ottoman Empire? But as the Empire fell, a large set of manuscripts were brought by the great Plethon to Cosimo d’Medici. Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Greek classics into Latin—like the complete works of Plato and the Hermetica—helped kindle the European Renaissance as we know it.

wrp 5y ago
>...the Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s, only to finally fall to the Ottoman Empire The Byzantine empire was in decline for several centuries, starting with the Islamic expansion. By the time Constantinople fell to the Turks, it had been reduced to a city-state.
- bwanab 5y ago
  That isn’t really accurate. The Roman Empire of the several centuries after the Arab conquests had its down period in the 800s, but came back strongly for several centuries from 900 through 1200 during which time they were the most powerful of all the states of Europe and Western Asia.
dan-robertson 5y ago
One thing to note is that the Greek works likely could not have survived medieval Europe if they had left Constantinople a lot earlier. There were two great advantages to renaissance scholars: 1. The works were still in their original Greek (rather than translations into Latin done long ago, or the translations from Greek to Arabic (and then to Latin) that came in through moorish Spain). 2. Religious attitudes allowed the works to be studied close to their original form. Early Christians were basically of the opinion that if a book disagreed with the bible it was heresy and should be destroyed, and if it agreed with the bible it was unnecessary and could be destroyed. That was less the case in the eastern side of the church and of course a big exaggeration too: there were old Latin translations of eg Plato however they had been quite bastardised to conform with Christian theology (I understand Aristotle was a little less bastardised as early Christian theology was itself quite Aristotelian). By the renaissance less bastardisation was required (if translating to Latin rather than the vernacular). Without being transferred so late to the west, the works may never have made it to modern times in such a complete form.
- Keysh 5y ago
  Medieval Christians weren’t nearly as hostile to pagan works as you imply. Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil were regularly copied and read. (And the enthusiasm with which Arabic translations of pagan Greeks like Aristotle and Ptolemy — and Muslim thinkers as well — were translated into Latin in the 12th Century certainly doesn’t reflect some “nothing but the Bible” mentality.) The problem with Greek works is that they were no longer readable (since literacy in Greek disappeared with the fall of the Western Empire), and so there was no interest in copying them.
- User23 5y ago
  I think you’re underestimating the deleterious effects of the Turkish naval domination of the Mediterranean on intellectual communication. The enlightenment was made possible by Lepanto.
  - Keysh 5y ago
    Uh, no. The Enlightenment -- which was a phenomenon of Western and Central Europe, not the Mediterranean -- was in no way affected by Turkish naval control of the (Eastern) Mediterranean.
    - User23 5y ago
      Uh, yes. The Near East, both before and after the Muslim conquests, was the most culturally, philosophically, artistically, and scientifically advanced region in western Eurasia if not the entire world. Turkey controlled both the overland and maritime trade routes. Given the high odds of ending up a galley slave or worse, there was little cultural exchange between West and East. The Battle of Lepanto smashed Turkish naval dominance and suddenly the West had easy access to trade with the East. The Enlightenment would probably never have happened and certainly not with the rapidity that it did were it not for access to all of that knowledge.
      - Keysh 5y ago
        Uh, no. 1. You're way overestimating the wealth of the Near East in the time period we're talking about. If you look at Maddison's estimates of historical GDP (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...), you can see that circa 1000, "Western Europe" had a GDP of about 10.9 billion (1990) USD, slightly below "West Asia's" 12.4 billion. But by 1500, Western Europe has ballooned 44.2 billion, while West Asia has fallen to 10.5 billion. 2. Italian merchants had regular access to the Near East throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, so "suddenly the West had easy access to trade with the East after Lepanto" is not even remotely true. 3. Lepanto's significance even in the context of the 16th Century Mediterranean is highly debatable; arguably, the most it did was to halt further westward expansion by the Ottomans, while they solidified their hold over the Eastern Mediterranean (they did, after all, rebuild their fleet within a year). See, e.g. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/how-important-was-battle-lepanto https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/how-important... 4. The most significant transfers of "knowledge" happened earlier, during the 12th Century Renaissance (translation of Arabic works and Arabic translations of Greek works) and the Italian Renaissance (translation of additional Greek works); continued transfer is evident in the apparent presence of 14th and 15th Century Arabic mathematical and astronomy texts in early 15th Century Italy, where they influenced Copernicus. And, of course, the transmission of other forms of knowledge and technology (compasses, paper, new agricultural products like citrus fruits, rice, and sugar, etc.) occurred throughout the period.
throwawaycities 5y ago
Well there was also The Holy Roman Empire (Translatio imperii) following the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire and currently the See of Rome where the Pope holds title as bishop of Rome as just 1 of a handful of absolute monarchs recognized under international law.
canjobear 5y ago
Why was it hard for people in Western Europe to get Greek manuscripts before the fall of the Byzantine Empire? It's not that far from Rome to Athens. Seems like you could just ride down to Brundisium and then get on a boat, get to Athens and ask around. Before 1054 there wasn't an East-Wests schism so the clerics in Greece wouldn't be hostile. Was the political situation really so chaotic and crazy that you couldn't take that trip? Or was no one interested?
- xavxav 5y ago
  The manuscripts weren't in Greece. These works were written centuries ago, many of them before the rise of the roman empire. As books were expensive back then, they would often be found in wealthy cities like Rome, Alexandria or Constantinople and often taken as spoils after conquests. The fall of the Western Roman empire additionally meant no one had time or resources to go collecting old dusty manuscripts, but the rising Arabic empires did. Later in the medieval period, notably after the crusades and moor conquest of spain, monks began (re)translating the arabic copies of these works, bringing them back west along with many other novel works, commentaries and inventions.
  - baud147258 5y ago
    Wasn't Roman-era writing mostly on papyrus rather than parchment? As papyrus has a much shorter shelf life when stored in more humid climate like Europe (unlike in the desert where it stays intact), if people aren't actively copying them, anything written on papyrus just get lost.
- bodhiandphysics 5y ago
  No one was particularly interested. People in Constantinople didn’t even know what manuscripts they had! (The major extent Plato manuscripts fir instance are from the 9th-11th centuries, the so called Macedonian renaissance). Westerners became really interested in classical literature after about 1200. Works were preserved, but they often didn’t circulate, to the extent that in the 14th century, Petrarch was able to discover a lost letter of Cicero. As the Turks completed their conquest of the Byzantine empire, Greeks fleeing to west ransacked libraries to find books that would sell in the west, which was mostly Classical Greek, since westerners weren’t interest in Greek tgeologians of the 8th century!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Hayvok 5y ago
Yes - it’s bizarre to think the Roman Empire almost made it to the Columbus voyages. Columbus would land in the Americas just 39 years after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks… who would themselves make it all the way into the 1900’s and fight in World War I!
- pyuser583 5y ago
  1492 was the year 7000 in the Byzantine calendar (started with the creation of the world). There was a religious “year 7000” happening in the Eastern world (Moscow, etc) just a Columbus was launching his ships.
qiskit 5y ago
> helped kindle the European Renaissance as we know it. The italian renaissance started in the 14th century for sure and maybe even in 13th century depending on who you ask. Though the exact date can be disputed, nobody disputes the fact that it started long before the fall of the byzantine empire in the mid 15th century. And the italian renaissance had more to do with direct trade opening up between europe and china/india/etc via the mongol empire ( who had an indirect role in the creation of the ottoman empire ) than anything else. Prior to the mongol empire, they had to no direct trade with either asian centers. Instead they depended on the arabs/persians who acted as middle-men between china/india and europe. It's why we call numbers, Arabic numerals, while the arabs themselves call it Hindu numerals. The arabs got the numbers from india and we got it from the arabs. It's also why europeans used to call china cathay, which is what the arabs called china. Trade increases wealth. Wealth increase arts/humanities. This is true for italy, india, china, europe, united states, mesopotamia, ancient egypt, etc. It's like how spring rain brings about floral bloom. The italians started getting ridiculously wealthy in the 13th/14th. And like magic, the renaissance was born. Interesting tidbit, the mongol empire had a significant but indirect part in the "discovery" of the americas by columbus.
- pumpkinhead 5y ago
  "Interesting tidbit, the mongol empire had a significant but indirect part in the "discovery" of the americas by columbus." So did the Ottomans. Their monopoly of the eastern routes caused the Western kingdoms to go the other direction.
  - Keysh 5y ago
    The Ottomans did not get a monopoly on eastern routes until they conquered Mameluke Egypt in the early 1500s. Western European (particularly Portuguese) attempts to go "the other direction" started in the 1400s.
- q1w2 5y ago
  If you look at a changing map of the Eastern Roman Empire over time, like the Western Roman Empire, it "collapsed" well before it fell. Many educated elites from Rome moved to Constantinople a century before Rome fell. ...and similarly, the most educated elites left Constantinople for northern Italy (and Russia!) before the Ottomans smashed down the walls over the preceding century.
bedobi 5y ago
It's kind of a fantasy but I like to think Rome never truly disappeared. (and I don't mean that necessarily in an good or nostalgic way) A lot of what happens in Brazil, the US etc today is as if lifted straight out of the late republic. What's going on in Ukraine too is also history repeating itself. The examples are countless. Many of us, especially on a western forum like this, in many ways are Romans.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  One could argue that "latino" is a person descending from Rome. This would include many Latin Americans, Italians, Spaniards, etc... even English.
  - bedobi 5y ago
    People who speak a romance language definitely have a stronger connection than many but Latin was far from the only language of the Romans. Greek was used extensively in the West and East alike, and there were regional languages like Gaulish, Aramaic and many many others elsewhere. Many of those who did speak Latin did so as a second language, with strong accents etc. So in many ways what is Roman is more about mindset, culture, institutions, aesthetic preferences etc than language. (and pretty much all of the Western world carry on Roman versions of all of the above, for better or for worse :P)
AmericanChopper 5y ago
The Holy Roman Empire is as much “The Roman Empire” as the 1400s Byzantine Empire was. So depending on where you choose to draw your historical boundaries, The Roman Empire might still be with us today. Hitler was very explicitly trying to restore the empire that Napoleon had crushed. He obviously failed to achieve that, but very shortly after his failed attempt Europe was united under a single governing entity with Germany arguably having the strongest influence over it.
rnmwfQ3f 5y ago
The Ottoman Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire, not the end of it. If you were a Greek living in the Byzantine Empire – or as they described themselves, a Roman living in the Roman Empire – the Ottomans were just the new Roman Emperors. The Roman bureaucracy, civil institutions, and daily life changed very little. People don't normally acknowledge it because both the Holy Roman Empire and the Russian Empire wanted to be recognised as successors to the Roman Empire, but the truth is that the Ottomans were the real successors. Some info on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_claim_to_Roman_succession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_claim_to_Roman_success...
- icodar 5y ago
  This is normal behavior. Some early Roman emperors also dreamed of becoming like Alexander the Great. Today Putin dreams of becoming like Napoleon Bonaparte.
- mbg721 5y ago
  Surely this is a Ship of Theseus situation, isn't it? There may have been little change from year to year, but a red-blooded Jupiter-Optimus-Maximus-fearing classical Roman citizen transplanted into the future would have been horrified at various moments, first when the Republic became an Empire, again when Christianity took over, when the Empire was split in the Tetrarchy, and when it became apparent that the Greek-speaking half was all that was left. Sure, there's a continuous line of succession much later, but for Gaius Quinctilius Budweiser, I think the traditional break when the West finally gave up is as good as any.
  - rnmwfQ3f 5y ago
    I think the same arguments could be applied to the USA
    - dr_dshiv 5y ago
      Can you imagine a USA where half spoke Spanish, half English and less than 1% both?
teleforce 5y ago
Fun facts, do you know that the fall of Roman Byzantine Empire is prophesized in a reputable Islamic tradition? According to the tradition, the general who conquered Constantinople is the best general ever and eventually the title is held by the Sultan Muhammad Al-Fatih. Also the fact that one of the first missions to conquer Constantinople is joined by Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the claimed sahabah (friend) of prophet Muhammad that hosted him when he migrated to Madinah due to the hostility of his tribes in Mecca. Legend has it Abu Ayyub (at the old age of 90s) died just outside the great wall of Constanstinople during the unsuccesful tour. Please stop the nonsense that the western world single handedly saved the Greek knowledge. Actually the Muslim scholars that performed most of the scavenging and translations to Arabic in addition to other significant knowledge contributions that later found their way to dark ages Europe, igniting their Renaissance as we know it. They did it because of the importance of knowledge and the fact that translation works are handsomely rewarded by the Caliphs with gold equivalent in book's weight. These massive Greek to Arabic translations and on top of that the more important new knowledge contributions (e.g. Khawarizmi, Avicenna, Averroes) works later found their way to Europe after the fall of Muslim Spain empire starting with the fall of Toledo (the knowledge and translation center) in the 11th CE. Most the Greek books and knowledge were lost by the literally burning of the books and libraries (e.g Alexandria library) by the later Roman Emperors.
- honkdaddy 5y ago
  I think they specifically said “helped”, you’re the one that said single-handedly. I didn’t think any of what he said was nonsense, I found it pretty fascinating, as I did yours. I doubt they meant anything inflammatory by it.
  - teleforce 5y ago
    Is this statement make sense to you, "large set of manuscripts were brought by the great Plethon to Cosimo d’Medici. Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Greek classics into Latin—like the complete works of Plato and the Hermetica". This is just one single guy compared to the two Muslim empires that thrived on the Greek and other civilizations knowledge that really contributed to the Renaissance movement. Plethon lived during 14th and 15th century before the fall of Byzantine empire and if you want to credit one guy it should be Averroes (Ibnu Rush) who lived in the 12th century, at least two centuries before Plethon. He was highly regarded by the western scholar as the next Philosopher after Aristotle but not so much in the muslim world. He definitely has access to the Greek works including by Plato and Aristotle. I would say his many translations, commentaries and original works of more than 100 books were instrumentals in re-awakening the western European interest in Greek thinkers, an area of study that widely has been abandoned after the fall of original Roman Empire (not Byzantine) [1]. These do not include the numerous Greek, Chinese and Indian translations, and further contributions of Abbasid empire's scholars (Averroes belongs to the Muslim Spain empire) that includes the well-known House of Wisdoms but later was burnt down in the 13th CE by the Mongols. It's said that the river in Baghdad turn into blue due to the inks of the disposed books. Some of the books managed to escape the utter destructions from copying and circulations in the Muslim Spain and other part of the Abbasid empire that really helped the Renaissance movement later on. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes

wrp 5y ago

>...the Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s, only to finally fall to the Ottoman Empire The Byzantine empire was in decline for several centuries, starting with the Islamic expansion. By the time Constantinople fell to the Turks, it had been reduced to a city-state.

bwanab 5y ago
That isn’t really accurate. The Roman Empire of the several centuries after the Arab conquests had its down period in the 800s, but came back strongly for several centuries from 900 through 1200 during which time they were the most powerful of all the states of Europe and Western Asia.

dan-robertson 5y ago

One thing to note is that the Greek works likely could not have survived medieval Europe if they had left Constantinople a lot earlier. There were two great advantages to renaissance scholars: 1. The works were still in their original Greek (rather than translations into Latin done long ago, or the translations from Greek to Arabic (and then to Latin) that came in through moorish Spain). 2. Religious attitudes allowed the works to be studied close to their original form. Early Christians were basically of the opinion that if a book disagreed with the bible it was heresy and should be destroyed, and if it agreed with the bible it was unnecessary and could be destroyed. That was less the case in the eastern side of the church and of course a big exaggeration too: there were old Latin translations of eg Plato however they had been quite bastardised to conform with Christian theology (I understand Aristotle was a little less bastardised as early Christian theology was itself quite Aristotelian). By the renaissance less bastardisation was required (if translating to Latin rather than the vernacular). Without being transferred so late to the west, the works may never have made it to modern times in such a complete form.

Keysh 5y ago
Medieval Christians weren’t nearly as hostile to pagan works as you imply. Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil were regularly copied and read. (And the enthusiasm with which Arabic translations of pagan Greeks like Aristotle and Ptolemy — and Muslim thinkers as well — were translated into Latin in the 12th Century certainly doesn’t reflect some “nothing but the Bible” mentality.) The problem with Greek works is that they were no longer readable (since literacy in Greek disappeared with the fall of the Western Empire), and so there was no interest in copying them.
User23 5y ago
I think you’re underestimating the deleterious effects of the Turkish naval domination of the Mediterranean on intellectual communication. The enlightenment was made possible by Lepanto.
- Keysh 5y ago
  Uh, no. The Enlightenment -- which was a phenomenon of Western and Central Europe, not the Mediterranean -- was in no way affected by Turkish naval control of the (Eastern) Mediterranean.
  - User23 5y ago
    Uh, yes. The Near East, both before and after the Muslim conquests, was the most culturally, philosophically, artistically, and scientifically advanced region in western Eurasia if not the entire world. Turkey controlled both the overland and maritime trade routes. Given the high odds of ending up a galley slave or worse, there was little cultural exchange between West and East. The Battle of Lepanto smashed Turkish naval dominance and suddenly the West had easy access to trade with the East. The Enlightenment would probably never have happened and certainly not with the rapidity that it did were it not for access to all of that knowledge.
    - Keysh 5y ago
      Uh, no. 1. You're way overestimating the wealth of the Near East in the time period we're talking about. If you look at Maddison's estimates of historical GDP (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...), you can see that circa 1000, "Western Europe" had a GDP of about 10.9 billion (1990) USD, slightly below "West Asia's" 12.4 billion. But by 1500, Western Europe has ballooned 44.2 billion, while West Asia has fallen to 10.5 billion. 2. Italian merchants had regular access to the Near East throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, so "suddenly the West had easy access to trade with the East after Lepanto" is not even remotely true. 3. Lepanto's significance even in the context of the 16th Century Mediterranean is highly debatable; arguably, the most it did was to halt further westward expansion by the Ottomans, while they solidified their hold over the Eastern Mediterranean (they did, after all, rebuild their fleet within a year). See, e.g. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/how-important-was-battle-lepanto https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/how-important... 4. The most significant transfers of "knowledge" happened earlier, during the 12th Century Renaissance (translation of Arabic works and Arabic translations of Greek works) and the Italian Renaissance (translation of additional Greek works); continued transfer is evident in the apparent presence of 14th and 15th Century Arabic mathematical and astronomy texts in early 15th Century Italy, where they influenced Copernicus. And, of course, the transmission of other forms of knowledge and technology (compasses, paper, new agricultural products like citrus fruits, rice, and sugar, etc.) occurred throughout the period.

throwawaycities 5y ago

Well there was also The Holy Roman Empire (Translatio imperii) following the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire and currently the See of Rome where the Pope holds title as bishop of Rome as just 1 of a handful of absolute monarchs recognized under international law.

canjobear 5y ago

Why was it hard for people in Western Europe to get Greek manuscripts before the fall of the Byzantine Empire? It's not that far from Rome to Athens. Seems like you could just ride down to Brundisium and then get on a boat, get to Athens and ask around. Before 1054 there wasn't an East-Wests schism so the clerics in Greece wouldn't be hostile. Was the political situation really so chaotic and crazy that you couldn't take that trip? Or was no one interested?

xavxav 5y ago
The manuscripts weren't in Greece. These works were written centuries ago, many of them before the rise of the roman empire. As books were expensive back then, they would often be found in wealthy cities like Rome, Alexandria or Constantinople and often taken as spoils after conquests. The fall of the Western Roman empire additionally meant no one had time or resources to go collecting old dusty manuscripts, but the rising Arabic empires did. Later in the medieval period, notably after the crusades and moor conquest of spain, monks began (re)translating the arabic copies of these works, bringing them back west along with many other novel works, commentaries and inventions.
- baud147258 5y ago
  Wasn't Roman-era writing mostly on papyrus rather than parchment? As papyrus has a much shorter shelf life when stored in more humid climate like Europe (unlike in the desert where it stays intact), if people aren't actively copying them, anything written on papyrus just get lost.
bodhiandphysics 5y ago
No one was particularly interested. People in Constantinople didn’t even know what manuscripts they had! (The major extent Plato manuscripts fir instance are from the 9th-11th centuries, the so called Macedonian renaissance). Westerners became really interested in classical literature after about 1200. Works were preserved, but they often didn’t circulate, to the extent that in the 14th century, Petrarch was able to discover a lost letter of Cicero. As the Turks completed their conquest of the Byzantine empire, Greeks fleeing to west ransacked libraries to find books that would sell in the west, which was mostly Classical Greek, since westerners weren’t interest in Greek tgeologians of the 8th century!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Hayvok 5y ago

Yes - it’s bizarre to think the Roman Empire almost made it to the Columbus voyages. Columbus would land in the Americas just 39 years after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks… who would themselves make it all the way into the 1900’s and fight in World War I!

pyuser583 5y ago
1492 was the year 7000 in the Byzantine calendar (started with the creation of the world). There was a religious “year 7000” happening in the Eastern world (Moscow, etc) just a Columbus was launching his ships.

qiskit 5y ago

> helped kindle the European Renaissance as we know it. The italian renaissance started in the 14th century for sure and maybe even in 13th century depending on who you ask. Though the exact date can be disputed, nobody disputes the fact that it started long before the fall of the byzantine empire in the mid 15th century. And the italian renaissance had more to do with direct trade opening up between europe and china/india/etc via the mongol empire ( who had an indirect role in the creation of the ottoman empire ) than anything else. Prior to the mongol empire, they had to no direct trade with either asian centers. Instead they depended on the arabs/persians who acted as middle-men between china/india and europe. It's why we call numbers, Arabic numerals, while the arabs themselves call it Hindu numerals. The arabs got the numbers from india and we got it from the arabs. It's also why europeans used to call china cathay, which is what the arabs called china. Trade increases wealth. Wealth increase arts/humanities. This is true for italy, india, china, europe, united states, mesopotamia, ancient egypt, etc. It's like how spring rain brings about floral bloom. The italians started getting ridiculously wealthy in the 13th/14th. And like magic, the renaissance was born. Interesting tidbit, the mongol empire had a significant but indirect part in the "discovery" of the americas by columbus.

pumpkinhead 5y ago
"Interesting tidbit, the mongol empire had a significant but indirect part in the "discovery" of the americas by columbus." So did the Ottomans. Their monopoly of the eastern routes caused the Western kingdoms to go the other direction.
- Keysh 5y ago
  The Ottomans did not get a monopoly on eastern routes until they conquered Mameluke Egypt in the early 1500s. Western European (particularly Portuguese) attempts to go "the other direction" started in the 1400s.
q1w2 5y ago
If you look at a changing map of the Eastern Roman Empire over time, like the Western Roman Empire, it "collapsed" well before it fell. Many educated elites from Rome moved to Constantinople a century before Rome fell. ...and similarly, the most educated elites left Constantinople for northern Italy (and Russia!) before the Ottomans smashed down the walls over the preceding century.

bedobi 5y ago

It's kind of a fantasy but I like to think Rome never truly disappeared. (and I don't mean that necessarily in an good or nostalgic way) A lot of what happens in Brazil, the US etc today is as if lifted straight out of the late republic. What's going on in Ukraine too is also history repeating itself. The examples are countless. Many of us, especially on a western forum like this, in many ways are Romans.

asimpletune 5y ago
One could argue that "latino" is a person descending from Rome. This would include many Latin Americans, Italians, Spaniards, etc... even English.
- bedobi 5y ago
  People who speak a romance language definitely have a stronger connection than many but Latin was far from the only language of the Romans. Greek was used extensively in the West and East alike, and there were regional languages like Gaulish, Aramaic and many many others elsewhere. Many of those who did speak Latin did so as a second language, with strong accents etc. So in many ways what is Roman is more about mindset, culture, institutions, aesthetic preferences etc than language. (and pretty much all of the Western world carry on Roman versions of all of the above, for better or for worse :P)

AmericanChopper 5y ago

The Holy Roman Empire is as much “The Roman Empire” as the 1400s Byzantine Empire was. So depending on where you choose to draw your historical boundaries, The Roman Empire might still be with us today. Hitler was very explicitly trying to restore the empire that Napoleon had crushed. He obviously failed to achieve that, but very shortly after his failed attempt Europe was united under a single governing entity with Germany arguably having the strongest influence over it.

rnmwfQ3f 5y ago

The Ottoman Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire, not the end of it. If you were a Greek living in the Byzantine Empire – or as they described themselves, a Roman living in the Roman Empire – the Ottomans were just the new Roman Emperors. The Roman bureaucracy, civil institutions, and daily life changed very little. People don't normally acknowledge it because both the Holy Roman Empire and the Russian Empire wanted to be recognised as successors to the Roman Empire, but the truth is that the Ottomans were the real successors. Some info on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_claim_to_Roman_succession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_claim_to_Roman_success...

icodar 5y ago
This is normal behavior. Some early Roman emperors also dreamed of becoming like Alexander the Great. Today Putin dreams of becoming like Napoleon Bonaparte.
mbg721 5y ago
Surely this is a Ship of Theseus situation, isn't it? There may have been little change from year to year, but a red-blooded Jupiter-Optimus-Maximus-fearing classical Roman citizen transplanted into the future would have been horrified at various moments, first when the Republic became an Empire, again when Christianity took over, when the Empire was split in the Tetrarchy, and when it became apparent that the Greek-speaking half was all that was left. Sure, there's a continuous line of succession much later, but for Gaius Quinctilius Budweiser, I think the traditional break when the West finally gave up is as good as any.
- rnmwfQ3f 5y ago
  I think the same arguments could be applied to the USA
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    Can you imagine a USA where half spoke Spanish, half English and less than 1% both?

teleforce 5y ago

Fun facts, do you know that the fall of Roman Byzantine Empire is prophesized in a reputable Islamic tradition? According to the tradition, the general who conquered Constantinople is the best general ever and eventually the title is held by the Sultan Muhammad Al-Fatih. Also the fact that one of the first missions to conquer Constantinople is joined by Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the claimed sahabah (friend) of prophet Muhammad that hosted him when he migrated to Madinah due to the hostility of his tribes in Mecca. Legend has it Abu Ayyub (at the old age of 90s) died just outside the great wall of Constanstinople during the unsuccesful tour. Please stop the nonsense that the western world single handedly saved the Greek knowledge. Actually the Muslim scholars that performed most of the scavenging and translations to Arabic in addition to other significant knowledge contributions that later found their way to dark ages Europe, igniting their Renaissance as we know it. They did it because of the importance of knowledge and the fact that translation works are handsomely rewarded by the Caliphs with gold equivalent in book's weight. These massive Greek to Arabic translations and on top of that the more important new knowledge contributions (e.g. Khawarizmi, Avicenna, Averroes) works later found their way to Europe after the fall of Muslim Spain empire starting with the fall of Toledo (the knowledge and translation center) in the 11th CE. Most the Greek books and knowledge were lost by the literally burning of the books and libraries (e.g Alexandria library) by the later Roman Emperors.

honkdaddy 5y ago
I think they specifically said “helped”, you’re the one that said single-handedly. I didn’t think any of what he said was nonsense, I found it pretty fascinating, as I did yours. I doubt they meant anything inflammatory by it.
- teleforce 5y ago
  Is this statement make sense to you, "large set of manuscripts were brought by the great Plethon to Cosimo d’Medici. Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Greek classics into Latin—like the complete works of Plato and the Hermetica". This is just one single guy compared to the two Muslim empires that thrived on the Greek and other civilizations knowledge that really contributed to the Renaissance movement. Plethon lived during 14th and 15th century before the fall of Byzantine empire and if you want to credit one guy it should be Averroes (Ibnu Rush) who lived in the 12th century, at least two centuries before Plethon. He was highly regarded by the western scholar as the next Philosopher after Aristotle but not so much in the muslim world. He definitely has access to the Greek works including by Plato and Aristotle. I would say his many translations, commentaries and original works of more than 100 books were instrumentals in re-awakening the western European interest in Greek thinkers, an area of study that widely has been abandoned after the fall of original Roman Empire (not Byzantine) [1]. These do not include the numerous Greek, Chinese and Indian translations, and further contributions of Abbasid empire's scholars (Averroes belongs to the Muslim Spain empire) that includes the well-known House of Wisdoms but later was burnt down in the 13th CE by the Mongols. It's said that the river in Baghdad turn into blue due to the inks of the disposed books. Some of the books managed to escape the utter destructions from copying and circulations in the Muslim Spain and other part of the Abbasid empire that really helped the Renaissance movement later on. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes