Which state do you think did the best job of copying or imitating the Roman Empire in terms of society, government, and culture?
Inspired by my term paper.
Inspired by my term paper.
Another "successor of the Romans" poll
- Thread starter AmericanCataphract
- Start date
Rex Romanum
Banned
Well...I won't be surprised if "Byzantine Empire" option get at least fifty percent (or more) of the total votes...
Well, as far as they were concerned, they were Romans.
Excactly... Remove it from the list. it just takes 100% of the votes...
Well, they were the eastern half of the roman empire...Well, as far as they were concerned, they were Romans.
Remember there was no such thing as the Byzantine Empire. There was a Roman Empire that had its capital in Byzantium but it still traced itself back in an uninterrupted line to Romulus and Remus. If you had asked a citizen of Constantinople what was life like in the Byzantine Empire he would have had no idea what you were talking about. As far as he was concerned he was a Romanoi.
Quite so; the term "Byzantine Empire" was never even used by anyone until more than a century after it had fallen, and that was solely by Western European historians.
Well, as far as they were concerned, they were Romans.
At the risk of provoking a debate, not, it is worth pointing out, exclusively. Especially so as 1453 hoves increasingly into view on the horizon.
Is that aimed at me?
Well wikipedia has a fairly well-written and sourced section on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Greeks#Revival_in_the_meaning_of_.22Hellene.22
'Greek' etc seems to have become especially fashionable in Byzantine intellectual circles after 1204 in particular, for fairly obvious reasons. (Kind of hard - not to say schizophrenic - to despise Latins and proudly exclaim your Roman identity, even for a Byzantine)
But yeah, the idea that the Byzantines exclusively called themselves 'Romans' is a complete myth. The 'Romanness' of the empire on a political/official level was closely held to, but not so ethnically, where the labels were more diverse.
I don't want to be too mischevious, but the increasing acceptability of the Greek labels also roughly corresponds with the increasing intellectual revival of the empire from about the 11th/12th centuries onwards.
Well wikipedia has a fairly well-written and sourced section on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Greeks#Revival_in_the_meaning_of_.22Hellene.22
'Greek' etc seems to have become especially fashionable in Byzantine intellectual circles after 1204 in particular, for fairly obvious reasons. (Kind of hard - not to say schizophrenic - to despise Latins and proudly exclaim your Roman identity, even for a Byzantine)
But yeah, the idea that the Byzantines exclusively called themselves 'Romans' is a complete myth. The 'Romanness' of the empire on a political/official level was closely held to, but not so ethnically, where the labels were more diverse.
I don't want to be too mischevious, but the increasing acceptability of the Greek labels also roughly corresponds with the increasing intellectual revival of the empire from about the 11th/12th centuries onwards.
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Byzantine Empire is not a successor of the Roman empire: Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire