No if your soucres come from Harvard/massachusetts i rather stick with Greek/European ”Scholors” .But yes you are right Pulling out the ”Dumb Americans” Card was not a smart move. Sorry.
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Byzantium
- Thread starter BadOrc
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I mean, many of the best academics in the world teach at Harvard, including many from Europe! While being geographically closer to the source material is no doubt an aid in study of the Byzantine Empire, I'm very certain that the faculty at major American universities have about the same understanding of European history as Europeans do. It's not as if European history has some unknowable aura that only Europeans can decode. This is why there are experts on American history in Europe!
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I know this is a sensitive debate to many, we all have our opinion on the matter, but let's remain civil.
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Last time I checked Oxford was in Europe: https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/oxford-centre-byzantine-research
Is Greece itself close enough?: http://en.phil.uoa.gr/the-faculty/d...s-of-the-department/taxiarchis_kolias_en.html
Now please stop it.
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Historians have long referred to the eastern half of the Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire due to its cultural, linguistic, and political differences with the Roman Empire of the Principate and Dominate periods. That usage has filtered down into the popular historical lexicon. The Roman Empire was that empire centered on Rome as the metropolis, while the Byzantine Empire is that empire centered on Byzantium as its metropolis.
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On the other hand, Byzantium became Constantinople a whole millenium before the game's timeframe, and the name started to be used over a century after said empire died. Which is, i guess, the reason why using that name makes a lot of cringe.
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My earlier post was a little flippant, I figured we needed a little levity in the post.
But to answer the OP for real, you are correct. The eastern Roman empire considered themselves to be the Roman Empire. Justinian spent years and vast sums of men and gold trying to recapture Italy and Rome from the Goths to bring them back into the Roman Empire.
But this is the 21st century. Almost any history book you look at calls the Eastern Romans after the fall of Ravenna the Byzantine Empire to differentiate between them and the Western Roman Empire based in Rome/Ravenna. Linguistically, culturally, socially, and religiously by 500 AD the eastern empire was vastly different from the west. Modern historians created a break point to separate the two empires and colloquially now the Eastern Romans are considered the Byzantines. What they were called over 1000 years ago is pretty irrevelant as far as the game is concerned. To call them otherwise in game would probably just confuse people with only basic historical knowledge.
But to answer the OP for real, you are correct. The eastern Roman empire considered themselves to be the Roman Empire. Justinian spent years and vast sums of men and gold trying to recapture Italy and Rome from the Goths to bring them back into the Roman Empire.
But this is the 21st century. Almost any history book you look at calls the Eastern Romans after the fall of Ravenna the Byzantine Empire to differentiate between them and the Western Roman Empire based in Rome/Ravenna. Linguistically, culturally, socially, and religiously by 500 AD the eastern empire was vastly different from the west. Modern historians created a break point to separate the two empires and colloquially now the Eastern Romans are considered the Byzantines. What they were called over 1000 years ago is pretty irrevelant as far as the game is concerned. To call them otherwise in game would probably just confuse people with only basic historical knowledge.
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If they are called ”Byzantine” i think someone should tell them, they did not get the Memo
My understanding is that there are two major historical perspectives on the Roman Empire; East and West.
In Western(ish) Europe, the Roman Empire fell with the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD.
In Eastern Europe, the Roman Empire fell with the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century AD.
This fits well with Charlemagne's claim to be 'Holy Roman Emperor' around 800 AD, and the central European successor we all know that exists EU4. They all had a Latin perspective of Roman history, rather than Greek.
The Ottoman Turks (or at least the Seljuk Turks before that) also had claims on the Roman imperial legacy. Isn't there a 'Sultan of Rum' achievement somewhere?
Everyone wanted to be Roman.
While we're at it...
[edit: in Baltic countries, such as Estonian, it's Saksamaa (based on the Saxon tribe), and to the east such as the Czech language it;s Německo - which apparently means mute/foreigner.... wikipedia-link ]
For me, this is kind of fun. I like looking at the different perspectives.
In Western(ish) Europe, the Roman Empire fell with the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD.
In Eastern Europe, the Roman Empire fell with the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century AD.
This fits well with Charlemagne's claim to be 'Holy Roman Emperor' around 800 AD, and the central European successor we all know that exists EU4. They all had a Latin perspective of Roman history, rather than Greek.
The Ottoman Turks (or at least the Seljuk Turks before that) also had claims on the Roman imperial legacy. Isn't there a 'Sultan of Rum' achievement somewhere?
Everyone wanted to be Roman.
While we're at it...
Deutschland is called 'Germany' in English (thanks perhaps to the Latin descriptions of the tribes). However in French they're called 'Allemagne', which is comes from the Germanic 'Alemanni' federation, which was based in northern Switzerland and Southern Germany.
[edit: in Baltic countries, such as Estonian, it's Saksamaa (based on the Saxon tribe), and to the east such as the Czech language it;s Německo - which apparently means mute/foreigner.... wikipedia-link ]
For me, this is kind of fun. I like looking at the different perspectives.
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We have Byzantium in the game for the same reason we have Tibet and not Bod. Hungary and not Magyaroszag. Germany and not Deutschland. Different languages have different names for different countries. This has been the case for as long as languages and countries have coexisted together. The common name for the Eastern Roman Empire in English is the Byzantine Empire. It's clean and when you say it, everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. The Germans, Greeks, Russians, and Turks cannot all be Romans at the same time. That's lame and it would inevitably confuse people.
If English is causing you anxiety, you'd lose your mind if you were ever exposed to Mandarin where most country names are just made up and have nothing to do with actual etymology. The U.S. is Beautiful Country. The U.K. is Brave Country and so on like that.
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Some byzantine historians used "Byzantion" for the city and "Byzantinoi" for its inhabitants, in the manner of classicizing anachronism, similar to calling the Bulgarians "Triballoi", for an ancient tribe that inhabited the area.
Is this a language barrier issue? What on Earth does this have to do with what the rest of the thread is about?
Respectfully, I think you are not approaching this discussion rationally.
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Point is they call them selfs Romans. They where the Romans. The term ”Byzantium” is made up by Envy Catholics in the west over a 100 years later. The song was to point out that Greek/Romans was United as one. Change the name tag.
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Did you read my explanation of the usefulness of the term "Byzantine" in histography? The Roman Empire of 1444 AD was almost unrecognizable as the Empire of 1 AD. They had totally different power bases, a more Greek-centric cultural tradition, not to mention more obvious things like "They didn't control Rome". Nobody is arguing they are not the Roman Empire.
The point is that Byzantium is the most commonly recognized term for the state in question in both academia and in the popular conscious. While you CAN draw a direct line from the unified Roman Empire to the Empire in 1444, it's fair to say the state is SUBSTANTIALLY different. An important distinction should be made here, notwithstanding any nationalistic bravado in Greece to the contrary.
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As was discussed in the thread on North American natives recently, the names for tags are the common English terms for the tag. And for the later Eastern Roman Empire, that is Byzantium. This is for practical reasons.
If you don’t like it, you can mod it. I would think you can do it while maintaining iron man compatibility, but not certain.
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They did. Not for long but they did. And we are talking about the Roman empire It lasted over a thoused years ofc its goona have dramatic changes. Let me put it this way, what if change the name of the soviet union when the year is 3005 to Novgorodian federation.
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Right up until 1453, the Byzantines were still often calling themselves the Roman Republic (Politea ton Rhomaion), even though there was clearly nothing republican about the state. What they called themselves doesn't matter.
Localization files aren't written based on what dead skeletons in a crypt somewhere may have wanted. English localization files are written for the benefit of English speakers in 2020. That's what matters.
This narrative about "envious Catholics" and such is petty. Also, I don't think they're too envious. I mean, they got to keep having fun is western Europe while the Greeks endured 400 years of Ottoman occupation. What's there to be envious of? "Gosh, I wish our living empire could be dead and occupied, like the Byzantine Empire." I don't think anyone has ever said that, ever, actually. lol
People have been fighting this battle on and off for more than a decade. You're relatively new here so you didn't know this. I remember old EU3 topics about this subject. The developers have never taken it seriously. Not one time. Not ever. They have never shown a single sign of budging on this issue. You are wasting energy.
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I was aware that every country surrounding Germany calls it a different name based on which ancient tribe was closest to them. It only seems to prove my point further.