Yeah, that's a good point. Even though Latin had diverged to the point that reading Cicero required explicit schooling — the post-476 Romans did consider themse

Yeah, that's a good point. Even though Latin had diverged to the point that reading Cicero required explicit schooling — the post-476 Romans did consider themselves Roman and fully the descendants of the late Republican / early Imperial period. I'm mostly arguing that people overindex on the political changes and don't see the ground level continuity. Map color changed != they're not Roman any more. Regardless, I do enjoy asking "what made Rome Rome?" — I like the idea of the Byzantines being Roman in 1453 even though at that point it was tenuous.