What were the Byzantines called?

[Plushie]

The Byzantine Emperor could rightly continue to call himself Roman Emperor so long as he was sovereign of Rome. Once he lost Rome, continuing to call him "Roman Emperor" was not only illegitimate, it was confusing. The switch to "Greek" was natural and clarifying. It wasn't a plot. The eastern church used it as much as the western.

In that case they never lost Rome. New Rome, that is. Constantine purposely founded Constantinople as a Second, Christian Rome. The West was already in decline at that point, the capital had started its drift northwards, and the most valuable parts of the Empire were in the east.

Honestly, I can't tell exactly what you're trying to get at. You're being stubborn as a damned mule over something that's obviously untrue -- when Constantine moved his capital to Nova Roma and then when the remnants of the West fell to Odacer did the ERE cease to be 'Roman'?

And the Roman Emperor hardly derived his power from the SPQR after very long. In fact, he derived his power from one source and one source alone: the army. Other parts played their role, but ultimately no Emperor was Emperor without the Roman Army behind him.

 

[Skarion]

And the Roman Emperor hardly derived his power from the SPQR after very long. In fact, he derived his power from one source and one source alone: the army. Other parts played their role, but ultimately no Emperor was Emperor without the Roman Army behind him.

Actualy. No. That was tried a few times but didn't work. What works is to have God on your side.

Theocracies are the longest surviving and most stabile governments, including the emperor dominatesystems that the Romans practiced until 1453.

To have only a army on your side usualy don't survive for long.

Though you are completly right about that the Greek move was intentional, wasn't that he somehow lost Rome which was the point but rather that the Greeks were seen as a better people then the Roman plebs and it was much easier to adopt to the eastern territories then to try to bring Rome to the east.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Well Abdul, the Ottomans never conquered the CITY of Rome, but with the fall of Constantinople they claimed to be Caesar of all Roman Lands. Greeks are still called Roman (Rum) in Turkish and Arabic. Byzantines are undisputably the heirs to the Roman Empire as Roman Emperor Constantine moved his capital to Byzantion and named in NOVA ROMA. They changed the name Nova Roma to Constantinopolis later on.

Well, after the "revivalism" of 1080 and esp. after 1200, I'm not holding my breath. But such was not the case before.

And yes the Byzantine Empire (as we call it today) ruled many other non-Greeks aside from Armenians. Bulgars, Slavs, Arabs, Kurds, Georgians, Albanians, and even Turks. None of these people considered themselves Helenes.

Not around the time when it lost Rome. Most of these folks were not part of the empire then. It covered the Hellenic cultural zone quite neatly.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Honestly, I can't tell exactly what you're trying to get at. You're being stubborn as a damned mule over something that's obviously untrue -- when Constantine moved his capital to Nova Roma and then when the remnants of the West fell to Odacer did the ERE cease to be 'Roman'?

Given they never surrendered sovereignty, no. The authority was still there.

And the Roman Emperor hardly derived his power from the SPQR after very long. In fact, he derived his power from one source and one source alone: the army. Other parts played their role, but ultimately no Emperor was Emperor without the Roman Army behind him.

No. Whatever the practical details of their selection, the legal authority all the Emperors professed was that of SPQR from the beginning to the end. That never ceased.

 

[unmerged(41978)]

when Constantine moved his capital to Nova Roma and then when the remnants of the West fell to Odacer did the ERE cease to be 'Roman'?

Yes, actually I think they did.
Let me try to explain why. If the people who lived there (Constantinople) no longer identified themselves with the old Roman empire. Which I find little evidence that they actually did. They where as far as I'm concerned devout Christians. And Romans killed Jesus. Or atleast beat him nearly to death. Why would they identify themselves with that? Being a very pious people, why wasn't this their exact thinking? It's a simplistic way of thinking. But it asks a very valid question. Why didn't they think themselves Roman until very late in their history?

It seems to me they didn't want to be identified with being Roman. There was nothing linking them back once they lost control of Rome. They might have continued to identify themselves as such until maybe 500-600. But after that it wouldn't make any sense for them to see themselves as Roman. Now, I can't quote any direct evidence to that. But it seems logical in my eyes atleast.

 

[Plushie]

Yes, actually I think they did.
Let me try to explain why. If the people who lived there (Constantinople) no longer identified themselves with the old Roman empire. Which I find little evidence that they actually did. They where as far as I'm concerned devout Christians. And Romans killed Jesus. Or atleast beat him nearly to death. Why would they identify themselves with that? Being a very pious people, why wasn't this their exact thinking? It's a simplistic way of thinking. But it asks a very valid question. Why didn't they think themselves Roman until very late in their history?

What? They ceased to be Romans because they were Christians? What about the estimated 25% of the Roman population in the late 4th century in the Western Empire? Was Theodosius not a Roman Emperor?

The traditional view on this is that the old, pagan Roman Empire 'redeemed itself' when it Christianized and became a New Rome. That's part of the reason Constantine founded Constantinople in the first place (others being its extremely well-placed trade and defensive position, its centrality in the economically more powerful Eastern end of the empire, its nearness to previous capitals in Nicaea and Nicomedia, etc).

It seems to me they didn't want to be identified with being Roman. There was nothing linking them back once they lost control of Rome. They might have continued to identify themselves as such until maybe 500-600. But after that it wouldn't make any sense for them to see themselves as Roman. Now, I can't quote any direct evidence to that. But it seems logical in my eyes atleast.

There was everything linking them back.

Let's look at things the way the Romans looked at it. They called their 'state' Imperium Romanum. We translate this as Roman Empire, but what it actually means is the extent of Roman Power. Basically, the area over which the Roman state had control. When it gets split into the eastern and western Imperium they don't see it as a split of the state, but rather a split of the office of Imperator, the source of 'power' in the Roman state. The source of sovereignty in the Roman world shifted with the Dominate. When the primary title of Emperors shifted from princeps to imperator you get the beginnings of a monarchical state as opposed to the de jure popular state of the old Principate.

The 'office' of Roman Emperor never ceased to be occupied in Constantinople until 1204. The idea that the 'Roman-ness' or something flowed from the SPQR would have been a funny in-joke that nobody mentioned in the 1st and 2nd centuries and a serious error that no one would find funny anymore in the late 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. After the Constitutio Antoniniana in the 3rd century every] freeman in the Roman Empire was a Roman citizen. You guys seem to be missing the fundamental shift in culture and law that occurred over the course of the 3rd and 4th centuries.

 

[Fornadan]

Among the Lombards, the term "Roman" was derogatory, characterized as "perfidious, feminine, backstabbing and oriental" because that's what the Lombards thought of central Italians.

Or to quote more fully:

we can call our enemies nothing more scornful than Roman-comprehending in this one thing, that is in the name of the Romans, whatever there is of contemptibility, of timidity, of avarice, of luxury, of lying: in a word, of viciousness.

I do not get the impression from reading that text though that "Romans" is used in the very narrow sense you claim, that is "those living in the city of Rome", but rather that "Romans" is used as the name of a people, and that, or at least so the emperor claimed, with the transfer of nobility from Rome to Constantinople, that city became "Roman"

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

The idea that the 'Roman-ness' or something flowed from the SPQR would have been a funny in-joke that nobody mentioned in the 1st and 2nd centuries and a serious error that no one would find funny anymore in the late 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. After the Constitutio Antoniniana in the 3rd century every] freeman in the Roman Empire was a Roman citizen.

A "citizen"? What is the meaning of this word - "citizen" - in this alleged absolute monarchy, this self-referencing imperial sovereignty, you're painting? Monarchies don't have "citizens"; they have "subjects". Surely that is what you mean to say, right? Because a "citizen" implies an underlying republican civitas. And if, as you say, SPQR is an anachronistic joke and an error, then so is "citizen".

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I do not get the impression from reading that text though that "Romans" is used in the very narrow sense you claim, that is "those living in the city of Rome", but rather that "Romans" is used as the name of a people, and that, or at least so the emperor claimed, with the transfer of nobility from Rome to Constantinople, that city became "Roman"

Not sure what text you're referring to here.

 

[motiv-8]

They where as far as I'm concerned devout Christians. And Romans killed Jesus. Or atleast beat him nearly to death. Why would they identify themselves with that? Being a very pious people, why wasn't this their exact thinking?

Your mistake is thinking that being Christian precluded being Roman, or vice-versa. Until Augustine wrote City of God, this was not at all the case for most people in the empire. It existed, they reasoned, to provide a vessel for Christendom's flourishing and expansion, with the emperor enthroned at God's discretion.

 

[unmerged(45754)]

You typoed - not Constantine, Augustine.

 

[Plushie]

A "citizen"? What is the meaning of this word - "citizen" - in this alleged absolute monarchy, this self-referencing imperial sovereignty, you're painting? Monarchies don't have "citizens"; they have "subjects". Surely that is what you mean to say, right? Because a "citizen" implies an underlying republican civitas. And if, as you say, SPQR is an anachronistic joke and an error, then so is "citizen".

'Citizenship' is hardly relegated to Republican institutions. It merely describes a member of a certain state with certain rights and obligations above those of a non-citizen. Citizens could be taxed at a different rate, could be eligible for certain forms of military service and officer ship, could hold certain offices of state, etc.

Frankly, I think you need to prove to me this wild claim that citizenship means republic.

 

[motiv-8]

You typoed - not Constantine, Augustine.

Oops, I sure did! :wacko: Thank you.

 

[Zaleukos]

Yes, actually I think they did.
Let me try to explain why. If the people who lived there (Constantinople) no longer identified themselves with the old Roman empire.

Procopius referred to Belisarius expeditionary force as "the Romans" in his account of the war in North Africa during Justinian's reign in the 6th century, so it seems likely that identification with the old empire still was a factor at that point of time.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

'Citizenship' is hardly relegated to Republican institutions. It merely describes a member of a certain state with certain rights and obligations above those of a non-citizen. Citizens could be taxed at a different rate, could be eligible for certain forms of military service and officer ship, could hold certain offices of state, etc.

Frankly, I think you need to prove to me this wild claim that citizenship means republic.

A certain "state"? You mean a certain "city". It's in the etymology - "cives" from "civitas", city.

"Citizens" are those free men of the city endowed with civil and political rights. By that I mean, they necessarily participate in the political life of the city, are eligible to vote and stand for office (suffragium et honores). The status of "citizen" is intimately tied with a republican arrangement.

There are other classes of people - "freeborn men" - who are may reside within the jurisdiction of the city and be protected by its laws, indeed, enjoy all the privileges of citizens except one - political rights. But these aren't "citizens". They were called latini (if Italian) or peregrini (if in the provinces). They were not cives, they did not have the status civitatis, defined by its entitlement to political participation.

And then there are a whole class of others - "freedmen" (ex-slaves) and slaves naturally, who had no autonomous protection of the law.

Prior to the Caesars, Romans took the definition of citizenship very seriously. Even citizens outside the city walls of Rome were not allowed to exercise those political rights except inside the city walls.

But you're right. Citizenship was degraded and debased by the caesars, and the distinction among free men between citizens, latins and pilgrims, diminished precisely because special republican basis of "citizens" was undermined by their tyranny. The caesars were happy enough to make anyone a citizen, with full rights to political participation, since it didn't matter - the practical ability to exercise that right was null. Everyone was, de facto latins/pilgrims. The "extension" of citizenship (notably Caracalla's decree) was a meaningless exercise since the label conferred no more practical rights of suffragium and honores than you already had as a latin/pilgrim. But notionally you are now a citizen of Rome (not a citizen of the "empire"'; imperium =/= civitas) and endowed with republican political rights.

That said, let me address one thing you mentioned: the subjects of the Byzantine empire were, funny enough, not "citizens", in fact or in law. Nowhere in the Justinian code or the institutes do we find the status of "citizen" defined or distinguished. Everyone was either "subjects of Caesar" or "slaves" (although note: not before that). So I suppose you are correct in asserting that it was a monarchy, that SPQR became meaningless in the east.

But that is hardly encouraging. For it also makes it glaringly obvious that the Byzantines were no longer Romans in any sense of the word. For by obliterating citizenship, they had severed the ultimate connection, the only string of continuity to the Roman polity.

 

[joak]

I have an opinion about what the Byzantines should be called in 20th century English, but no definite knowledge about the different words they used themselves.

But I had a question--I've heard it said here many times, quite passionately, that no self respecting Byzantine would picture themselves as "Greek." Since I've seen it, I've paid more attention to quotes from primary documents in the histories I've read, and I've definitely seen Greek and Hellenic pop up. So at hand I have passage from a 12th century bishop contrasting "Hellenes" (good) and "Barbarians" (bad), and 13th century Emperor's tutor (named Blemmydes) talking about the superiority of "Hellenic" culture and wisdom over that of others, especially the Latins.

Is the claim from those who are pro-Roman-self-identification and have read primary documents that these are just sloppy translations for clarity? It's conceivable, but it strikes me as weird phrasing in that case (if the "real word" was "Roman," I can see the author thinking that would be confusing, but why "Hellene" as a substitution? If they just wanted a colloquial English word, why not use "Greek" or "Byzantine", which is what the author uses in the main original text?)

 

[Plushie]

The 'Hellenes' association started disappearing by the 10th/11th century because there were no longer any pagans around for the term to be associated with. I think it might even have been used as early as the Alexiad as a national term.

 

[unmerged(41978)]

The SPQR disconnect and the Justinian code raises the question.

Did they really consider themselves as a nationality or just subjects of a ruler?

 

[unmerged(102705)]

A certain "state"? You mean a certain "city". It's in the etymology - "cives" from "civitas", city.

Doesn't civitas mean society, rather than city?
The most common words for city were urbs, urbis or oppidum (if it was a fortified town).
Of course that's rather classic Latin, so it might've changed later on.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Doesn't civitas mean society, rather than city?
The most common words for city were urbs, urbis or oppidum (if it was a fortified town).
Of course that's rather classic Latin, so it might've changed later on.

IIRC, Caesar used "civitas" also in the context of Gaulish tribes. In Bello Gallico he talked of this and that Gaulish civitas, meaning a socially somewhat advanced tribe which had a nobility, held assemblies and elected war-leaders.