I partly agree. But there was a period of transition from Roman to let's say 'eastern' type of government. This is actually one of my only objections to what you have said.
Well, I'm glad we agree (especially since I'm pretty sure it was you I was having this argument with on this very thread over 6 months ago, :rofl: ).
I will concede that the time between the fall of the Empire in the West and the reign of Justinian I, the nobility of the empire was still very latinized.
I would say that Justinian would have been the last Emperor of Rome as a whole, but for the fact that he was a totally absolute might-makes-right monarch who ruled through military domination of his subjects, noble and otherwise, in stark contrast with the more nuanced politics of the SPQR days. But Justinian's reign definitely marked the decline of regard for latin culture proper (not including borrowed words that found their way into Medieval Greek), and his legal reforms were definitely in the old Roman spirit.
So, even while we still see a very Roman noble culture in this period you are referring to, the political machinations had drifted quite far from the Empire of Augustus and Trajan. But this was really true of the ERE even before 400s, where it was in a disconnected state from the West and was proceeding along a much more authoritarian path.
Also, the heavy change brought on by the migration of Barbarian tribes had made such a tremendous imprint on the cultural fabric of most of the territories of the
whole Roman Empire, East
and West, that the idea of a Roman Empire was well past its' expiration date upon the coronation of Justinian I, and the fate of the Empire he left behind is well indicative of the new perceptions that vassals and neighbors of Byzantium both held for it.
This is what I mean when I say that the Empire wore the trappings and failed, though it proclaimed itself the Roman Empire, neither the major power players within or without the Byzantine Empire held the kind of regard for the Basileus that they would have for the Imperator. And I think that is a good place to draw a line between a new Empire and an old one.
Ah yes, the Republican tradition of Rome that would have been as foreign to Romans as the teachings of Confucius.
Sure it would be foreign to the average Roman. A republic is not an all-inclusive democracy, and as such only the participants in the democratic aspects of it ever really perceive it as such... But to the power players of the city of Rome, and by extension, its Empire, the Republic was a very real thing. Just look at the influence that the Senators of Rome had in choosing Emperors even in the final days of Rome... look how the greatest Emperors throughout Roman history had to struggle to obtain the respect of the senate to accomplish their goals.
