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What do we get wrong about the Byzantine Empire?
- anovikov 3y agoTwo counterpoints: - They were no longer properly Roman after they stopped speaking Latin, which they did almost immediately because majority of territories remaining under their control after initial Arab conquest were Greek-speaking. - Written cultural heritage of Byzantine, unlike Roman, is negligible, mainly because they intentionally tried to be as un-original as possible, which is a paradox: they valued not writers or poets who could write new stuff that sounded fresh, but those who could imitate particular ancient authors's style as precisely as possible.
- justinzollars 3y agostopped speaking? The Eastern Empire never spoke Latin. There was always a cultural divide.
- aleksiy123 3y agoEastern?
- mr_toad 3y agoBasically all the Mediterranean east of the Adriatic was either a Greek speaking colony or conquest, especially after Alexander had marched across it. In Egypt for example the Ptolemaic dynasty spoke Greek (Cleopatra was the first to even learn Egyptian) and it was still widely used in Roman times.
- aleksiy123 3y agoThey edited the comment it used to say. "The Western Empire never spoke Latin."
- mcv 3y agoWhat about Romania? That's a Romance language, which presumably means it's derived from Latin. I have no idea how it ended up that far east, but it being a Latin-speaking part of the Eastern Roman Empire sounds plausible to me. Not to mention that according to the article, that eastern Roman Empire also called itself Romania.
- throw_pm23 3y agoYeah, it is significantly more complicated than the parent post implies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jire%C4%8Dek_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jire%C4%8Dek_Line
- navane 3y agoEvery time some peoples came from the east to trample Europe, they came trough this patch of land and scorched it. Romania's longing to Roman history is mostly a nation building effort. Romania was a buffer territory between the Ottomans, Habsburgs (austria-hungary) and Huns for many centuries. It was so hard to get people to live there, because there would always come an army to torch everything to the ground. They lured Germans to live there and civilize the country in return for city rights.
- throw_pm23 3y agoThat's all fine and good, but a population of 25 million that speaks a Romance language still popped out of somewhere.
- psunavy03 3y ago"Properly Roman" according to what formal certifying authority of "proper Romans?" They considered themselves Roman up until Constantinople fell to Mehmed II. And even then, the Ottoman Turks took the title Kayser-e-Rum, literally "Caesar of Rome." And even before them, as the Muslims first expanded out of Mecca and Medina, they referred to the Byzantines as "Rum" or "Rome."
- canjobear 3y agoWould you say the Holy Roman Empire was really Roman?
- coldtea 3y ago>They considered themselves Roman up until Constantinople fell to Mehmed II. Not as much, especially after the first 4 centuries. They claimed a different heritage then (the local one). Besides the western barbarians that took down Rome proper also called themselves Roman ("the Holy Roman empire") for "legitimacy" purposes (as a claim to the expanses of the empire). The same reason Mohamed the conqueror adopted the "Ceasar of Rome" title.
- sapphicsnail 3y agoYou could say that the Latin-speaking Romans tried to be as unoriginal as possible. Most "Golden Age" Latin literature is a deliberate copy of something that exists in Greek.
- rdtsc 3y agoMany educated Romans spoke both Greek and Latin. Greek had always remained the spoken language in the Greek islands, though it looked quite a bit different than the Greek used today. Egypt spoke Coptic. Punic was the other language.
- jprd 3y agoCalling it Byzantine instead of Roman would be #1
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThe first paragraph is >The first thing we get wrong is that we use made-up terms. ‘Byzantium’ and ‘the Byzantines’ were invented by western European scholars to deny the identity of this state and its people, who were Roman, no less so than Caesar and Hadrian. But this is now widely recognised, so I will move on.
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- joegibbs 3y agoI would disagree with the point that they're no less Roman than Caesar or Hadrian - you could say they were still Roman but you've got to consider that by the middle and end stage they had very little in common with their earlier predecessors. For the biggest differences: by the time of Basil II they were speaking Greek instead of Latin, they were Christians instead of pagans, they didn't have control over the city of Rome or any more than a foothold in Italy, they had totally different styles of art and their government and military were run entirely differently. If you asked Caesar or Hadrian they would've considered it a totally foreign country. Sure they might have considered themselves Romans still, but it's like the Ship of Theseus, all those changes add up over time. A lot of civilisations went through smaller changes yet they're still considered entirely different to their predecessors - no one would say that the modern Russians are still Norse.
- graemep 3y agoAny entity changes over that sort of timescale. Modern England is very different from what Æthelstan unified in the 10th century but we call both by the same name.
- joegibbs 3y agoYes but Aethelstan's England at least shares a lot more in common with modern England - you could easily recognise that it comes from the same source (same religion, both have a king, controls almost the same territory, speaks a language that's closer to modern English than any other modern language except Scots). Even some civilisations that control the same territory aren't regarded as the same - for example modern Egypt and ancient Egypt are both called the same thing, yet wouldn't be regarded as the same civilisation due to their lack of commonalities.
- graemep 3y agoNot really: * same religion: most people say they are non-religious (thought some have Christian beliefs), some who say they are Christian really do not know the right term for their actual beliefs (moralistic therapeutic deists), those who are Christian are of different denominations. * both have a king: the western empire of Hadrian's time and the Byzantine both had an emperor. modern England is a constitutional monarchy, an executive drawn from parliament, and parliament is very different from its predecessors that existed at the time. The king is also king of a lot of other countries. * controls almost the same territory: true of England alone, but England is not an independent entity, but part of a larger union, and that union has a lot of overseas territories. * speaks a language that's closer to modern English: we are talking about the same era as Beowulf. That was a very different language, so no more comprehensible than related modern languages which at least have some common vocabulary (including loan words). Does this look recognisably like modern English? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-eng... I agree with you about Egypt but it has been invaded multiple times, had a complete change of culture, etc. There is no political or cultural continuity (except the copts?) so it is fair to say it is another thing that happens to occupy roughly the same territory.
- taupe- 3y agoIf anyone is interested in further reading on this topic, 'Byzantium' by Judith Herrin is apropros.
- frozenport 3y agoI would disagree with the point that they're no less Roman than Caesar or Hadrian When Belisarius invaded Italy, the actual Romans slurred them as "Greek invaders".
- bastawhiz 3y agoOne thing the article doesn't mention is a misconception about the efficiency of the Byzantine military. Their generals actually had a TON of issues coming to a consensus on whether to mount an attack or not.
- DinaCoder99 3y agoHah!
- acjohnson55 3y agoBitcoin solves that ;)
- thsksbd 3y ago"Unlike the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church was not bothered by liturgy being celebrated in different languages." Well that's just plain wrong. Sure, Rome (not the "Catholic", the East calls itself Catholic too) preferred Latin, but it was never universal. Anyway, the rite wasn't standardized to the rite of St Francis (but not imposed) until the Council of Trent, 100 years after the fall of Constantinople (hardly an empire by then). When exactly did Rome object to other languages? The first 1000 years when East and West were in communion and Greek was the primary language of the Western Church?
- menchauser 3y agoI believe, before the time of Cyril and Methodius there were the idea that western churches shared the logic that it is possible to perform religious services only in three languages: Aramaic (Biblical Hebrew), Latin, and Greek. Cyril actually had to convince the Roman Pope that his translation of Bible to slavonic language is legit, only after that the tri-lingual restriction was considered as wrong. Some sources could be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilingual_heresy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilingual_heresy
- elcritch 3y agoI was traveling in Greece and heard a story about the modern Greek independence fighters in the ~1850's. At the time the soldiers were traveling around the various Greek islands to gain support. According to the story on one small island, the local children asked who the soldiers were. They said "we're Greek, like you!" The children were confused and answered "no, we're Romans!".
- philoinvestor 3y agoI don't think what you say translates the way you think it does :) "Romios" or "Romiosyni" (the act of being a Romios) is considered in many instances parallel to being Greek. Remember that the Roman Empire dumped Latin and went with the Greek language.
- epilys 3y agoThe intricate matter of the name of the Greeks :) To be pedantic, the soldiers might have probably said Hellenes, not Greek (γραικοί). But Roman was also a common ethnonym back then, used by the Ottoman society. In Greek (Helleneke) it was spelled Ρωμιός https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%A1%CF%89%CE%BC%CE%B9%CF%8C%CF%82 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%A1%CF%89%CE%BC%CE%B9%CF%8... . The point of confusion was probably that, I suppose? I grew up in Greece, no one uses any name other than Hellene anymore. To the point that "Greek" sounds more English than Greek to a native Greek speaker.
- BerislavLopac 3y agoAlso Rumelia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumelia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumelia
- geye1234 3y agoI have also heard that the barbarian kings of the fifth century onwards considered themselves, technically, vassals of the Emperor in Constantinople. And that this continued until Charlemagne. Unfortunately I don't remember the source for this.
- teleforce 3y agoFun facts, there is a chapter in the Quran (Chapter 30) that is named Ar-Rum or The Roman, correctly refering to the Byzantine Empire at the time. It also correctly predicted the eventual loss of Persian Empire in one of the longest conflict world has ever witnessed that lasted for more than 600 years [1]. The prediction was against the run of events due to the fact that at the time of the revealation, Persian was on a winning streaks. The pagans of Mecca were rejoicing and mocking the Muslim on the defeats of the Roman, since they considered the Persian as idolators similar to them. The Roman eventually won the war as predicted and victorious over the Persian in 627 AD under Emperor Heraclius in Nineveh, and at the same time the people of Madinah (at the time called Yathrib) were defeating their enemies of Arab alliances by digging the trench (khandaq) in Madinah using a military tactic made popular by the Persian. During the the khandaq war according to tradition, it was prophezied that the capital of Rome (Byzantine) at the time namely Constantinople will falls to Muslim. Eventually after more than 700 years of conflicts surpassing the duration of Roman–Persian Wars, and after many campaigns that started as early as 674 AD, Constatinople fell to Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD under Sultan Muhammad Al-Fatih [3],[4]. [1] Roman–Persian Wars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars [2] 627 AD: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/627 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/627 [3] Siege of Constantinople (674–678): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(674%E2%80%93678) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(674... [4] Fall of Constantinople: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople
- wavefunction 3y agoYou're saying the pagans were mocking muslims and zoroastrians as idolaters? Forgive me but this seems like a strange claim especially with no evidence?
- teleforce 3y agoThe pagans were siding and rooting for the Persian to win the Byzantine/Roman - Persian war since they considered the Persian similar to them in practising idolatory by the latter fire worship. When the Byzantine was in the losing streaks and at the brink of defeat, the pagans were mocking the Muslim at the time since they considered Byzantine similar to Muslim due the Abrahamic root with their practise of Cristianity (Nasrani). According to tradition Ishmael and his mother Hajar, the second wife of Abraham were migrated to a barren land (Mecca/Bakka) under God commandment. The event are recorded in both Quran and the Bible (Old Testament), and the Muslim yearly pilgrimage to Mecca is commemorating and reflecting this event. After the verses predicting the Byzantine/Roman victory were revealed, however the Byzantine finally overcome the Persian in a very short time within a few years [1]. Eventually, both Persian and Byzantine/Roman (two of the major superpowers at the time) were conquered by the rapidly expanding Muslim Empire, and the rest is history. [1] Surah Ar-Rum: https://quran.com/surah/ar-rum/info https://quran.com/surah/ar-rum/info
- svilen_dobrev 3y agofrom wikipedia on 674-678 siege: > the mounting Bulgar menace hah. At that time, everyone there has been "friend" for a while then "enemy" for a while, then again. +-10 years, repeat. That has been like schoolyard's everyday play. But Arabs.. No, thanks. That "Bulgar menace" Khan Tervel went and helped Byzantians get-arabs-off-the-lawn completely.. no matter was-it-friend-or-foe. Then went back to schoolyard's games/wars as usual. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(717–718) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(717...
- janmarsal 3y agoAs the "bysantium bureaucracy" is becoming more and more commonplace in the united states and the european union, it has become a priority to convince the population that it's actually a good thing. It's for the common good guys.
- euroderf 3y agoIt's kind of awe-inspiring to think that Constantinople was more or less the capital of the Western world for like one thousand years.