A bit meta: what is a Roman Empire?

MAlexMatt

Banned
Ultimately the problem with all these silly distinctions is that they're entirely artificial. They completely ignore the process of Romanization that left the 'original' Romans and, indeed, Rome itself behind over the course of the first few centuries AD. The Roman Empire went from being a narrow possession of an individual city-state to being a universal empire. Romanity went from being a narrow linguistic and (mildly) ethnic identity to being a broad, universalist, religious identity. Regular Greek-speakers in Asia Minor were calling themselves Romans right on down to the 20th century.

I mean, to use the American analogy, would say you must be a WASP with colonial origins to be an 'American'? Many modern Americans certainly aren't speaking the King's English that the US was founded on. Even further, many people who would be considered quintessentially Roman were fluent, frequent speakers of classical Greek. The Roman Empire stopped being entirely about Rome and Latin speakers long before 476. In fact, part of the process that created this new identity is what led to the downfall of the Republic. One of Caesar's major reforms was supposed to be representation of the provinces in the Senate.

The common people across the Mediterranean littoral called themselves Romans for more than a millennium after the deposition of Romulus Augustus (whose regalia, and right to rule, was transferred to the Eastern capitol, by the way). Who the hell do you people think you are to tell them they're wrong? I mean, it's one thing to laugh in the face of pathetic, distant claims of marriage and cultural influence like the claim of the Tsars to being the Third Rome, when such a thing was the claim of a few dozen individuals whose entire basis for making such a claim was pretension. The Rhomaoi of the Eastern Empire considered themselves Romans because they were granted citizenship by a Roman Emperor in the Roman polity and they were adherents of the Roman state religion. Calling countless millions of such people wrong is arrogant to the greatest degree.
 
Huh. Lot of responses.

Personally, I find the Latin-to-Greek transition not particularly troublesome: I'd consider the Pagan-to-Christian transformation a far more fundamental change, myself. 1st century AD Romans were a different bunch, culturally speaking, from the world of the Orthodox Christian middle ages. If one can identify the Empire of the 10th century with the empire in the first in spite of that, a little industrial revolution isn't that much to swallow. :D

Bruce
 
Ultimately the problem with all these silly distinctions is that they're entirely artificial. They completely ignore the process of Romanization that left the 'original' Romans and, indeed, Rome itself behind over the course of the first few centuries AD. The Roman Empire went from being a narrow possession of an individual city-state to being a universal empire. Romanity went from being a narrow linguistic and (mildly) ethnic identity to being a broad, universalist, religious identity. Regular Greek-speakers in Asia Minor were calling themselves Romans right on down to the 20th century.

I mean, to use the American analogy, would say you must be a WASP with colonial origins to be an 'American'? Many modern Americans certainly aren't speaking the King's English that the US was founded on. Even further, many people who would be considered quintessentially Roman were fluent, frequent speakers of classical Greek. The Roman Empire stopped being entirely about Rome and Latin speakers long before 476. In fact, part of the process that created this new identity is what led to the downfall of the Republic. One of Caesar's major reforms was supposed to be representation of the provinces in the Senate.

The common people across the Mediterranean littoral called themselves Romans for more than a millennium after the deposition of Romulus Augustus (whose regalia, and right to rule, was transferred to the Eastern capitol, by the way). Who the hell do you people think you are to tell them they're wrong? I mean, it's one thing to laugh in the face of pathetic, distant claims of marriage and cultural influence like the claim of the Tsars to being the Third Rome, when such a thing was the claim of a few dozen individuals whose entire basis for making such a claim was pretension. The Rhomaoi of the Eastern Empire considered themselves Romans because they were granted citizenship by a Roman Emperor in the Roman polity and they were adherents of the Roman state religion. Calling countless millions of such people wrong is arrogant to the greatest degree.

And people do it all the time with regard to the Kaysar-i-Rum of Constantinople.....
 
Top