The 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

The 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.