An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
Ouch, Italy really isn't doing very well.
I dearly hope that the Romans revitalise their ancient cradle, however. Soon enough Rome will be just too significant to leave as a mediocre provincial town. Regardless of the strategic advantages of Rome as a Roman foothold in central Italy and on the western Mediterranean, antiquarian interests would be well revived by the 18th century. I daresay that the Romans would, by then, have some cash to spend to upgrade their namesake city.
Maybe drain the Pontine marshes for both eradicating malaria and making moar farmland?
Additionally, some kind of Roman-focused Grand Tour for upper-class young adults developing by the 18th century is not out of the question either, maybe starting in Constantinople, then visiting the sights of Greece, then westwards to Venetia, Rome, Naples and the other sights of southern Italy, then swinging east to Anatolia, Syria and finally Egypt.
I dearly hope that the Romans revitalise their ancient cradle, however. Soon enough Rome will be just too significant to leave as a mediocre provincial town. Regardless of the strategic advantages of Rome as a Roman foothold in central Italy and on the western Mediterranean, antiquarian interests would be well revived by the 18th century. I daresay that the Romans would, by then, have some cash to spend to upgrade their namesake city.
Maybe drain the Pontine marshes for both eradicating malaria and making moar farmland?
Additionally, some kind of Roman-focused Grand Tour for upper-class young adults developing by the 18th century is not out of the question either, maybe starting in Constantinople, then visiting the sights of Greece, then westwards to Venetia, Rome, Naples and the other sights of southern Italy, then swinging east to Anatolia, Syria and finally Egypt.
That what's a Greek nation state for practical purposes in 1640 will be thinking of Rome as its cradle is a little beyond me. But hey we can see literature TTL emphasizing how Rome was Greek too, pointing to the ancient sources calling it a Greek city, how the Romans took part in the Olympics and how they had the same gods and followed the oracle of Delphi like every other Greek city. 😛😇
Well the ancient Akkadian kings in later stages of the Akkadian empire had the titles of king of Sumer and Akkad so maybe in the future the title could basileus of the romans and greeks
In this instance, Roman is an umbrella term for citizens of the empire. So Greeks, Armenians, Turk, etc see themselves as Roman.
Roman, the Hellenised form Ρωμιός/Ρωμαίος was used practically interchangeably and indiscriminately with Greek sure. Hell it still does to the modern day in OTL. But what does Roman mean in this context? The Christian empire of the east post Constantine. Remus and Romulus and the old republic? The average peasant outside Trebizont hasn't even heard of them unlike say... Alexander. The more educated classes? They know of them but got educated in Greek and the Greek classics. Again they draw their Roman legitimacy from Constantine (who was Greek mate, really! Don't you know Saint Helen his mother was Greek?
) although I fully expect some mental gymnastics to prove the old Romans were if not outright Greek then at least very closely related. The dynamic in question was after all underway already well before the POD already at the time of the Comnenes and earlier and Theodore II being one of its major champion hardly hurts its prospects TTL...Where this puts the minorities in the core empire? They are and feel Roman of course. But unless I much miss my guess with the exception of the Armenians who have a strong literary tradition of their own, are not Greek Orthodox and on top of that are geographically distinct in Old Armenia, the rest are probably into a vice grip of gradual Hellenization even without the White Palace being conscious or deliberate about it...
At what point would the Roman hero's of the republican, early principate be irrelevant or forgotten? Those characters still played a role in the creation of the Roman world, regardless of when the capital was moved. The citizens of the empire don't see themselves as a Greek nation-state, at least that's what I have gathered. Even when it was the first empire, the concept of being a Roman citizen was flexible, with the children of auxiliaries and freedmen gaining it. What I think we are both circling around though is Romanitas, what is the Roman way of life?Roman, the Hellenised form Ρωμιός/Ρωμαίος was used practically interchangeably and indiscriminately with Greek sure. Hell it still does to the modern day in OTL. But what does Roman mean in this context? The Christian empire of the east post Constantine. Remus and Romulus and the old republic? The average peasant outside Trebizont hasn't even heard of them unlike say... Alexander. The more educated classes? They know of them but got educated in Greek and the Greek classics. Again they draw their Roman legitimacy from Constantine (who was Greek mate, really! Don't you know Saint Helen his mother was Greek?
Where this puts the minorities in the core empire? They are and feel Roman of course. But unless I much miss my guess with the exception of the Armenians who have a strong literary tradition of their own, are not Greek Orthodox and on top of that are geographically distinct in Old Armenia, the rest are probably into a vice grip of gradual Hellenization even without the White Palace being conscious or deliberate about it...
This discussion does bring up the age old wound of who is the real heir to Rome. We all know it's the seat of the White Palace, but Northern Europeans have a different tilt to that question in this.
Romania is not just a Greek nation-state in my opinion. It is true that the Greek language and Greek history, culture and traditions are part of the Roman identity, but even now the Romans haven't forgotten their Italian (I hesitate to say Latin due to its later connotations) heritage. We don't even need to recall Romulus, really; I'm sure educated Romans remember Julius Caesar and Augustus, to name but a few.
I don't quite remember who exactly it was who said it, but some Roman had said, in response to some Latin critic saying that the modern Romans are but a bunch of Greek slaves, that what makes the modern Romans great is that they have the blood of both the Greeks and the Romans (and the Trojans through them). Greekness is a part of Romanness, but it isn't all of it.
I do think that the Romans would like to emphasize the Greek links of classical Rome, especially in how the Latin alphabet descended from the Greek (conveniently forgetting the Etruscans, but no one knows much about them in the 1600s anyway), how the earliest Roman literature worth the name was written in Greek, how much of the Roman pantheon was basically borrowed from the Greek, and so on.
The idea that Ρωμαίος = Greek TTL would probably be more of a Latin idea than a Greek one. After all, TTL the Greeks haven't spent centuries stuck as a minority that their overlords kept calling Roman. In the Roman context, I daresay the Greeks still subscribe to a multiethnic but mostly Eastern Christian (basically Orthodox and Armenian) conception of Romanness, in contrast to the Latin Catholic West and the Muslim East.Roman, the Hellenised form Ρωμιός/Ρωμαίος was used practically interchangeably and indiscriminately with Greek sure. Hell it still does to the modern day in OTL. But what does Roman mean in this context? The Christian empire of the east post Constantine. Remus and Romulus and the old republic? The average peasant outside Trebizont hasn't even heard of them unlike say... Alexander. The more educated classes? They know of them but got educated in Greek and the Greek classics. Again they draw their Roman legitimacy from Constantine (who was Greek mate, really! Don't you know Saint Helen his mother was Greek?
Where this puts the minorities in the core empire? They are and feel Roman of course. But unless I much miss my guess with the exception of the Armenians who have a strong literary tradition of their own, are not Greek Orthodox and on top of that are geographically distinct in Old Armenia, the rest are probably into a vice grip of gradual Hellenization even without the White Palace being conscious or deliberate about it...
Considering the Greek classics... from a literary perspective they must be wonderful, but from a political perspective I don't need to remind you that before the Romans came to Greece, the place spent centuries as a bunch of squabbling city-states and post-Alexandrian warlord kingdoms, a situation which in my opinion would draw an uncomfortable parallel to literally any of the civil wars in recent Roman history, and especially the post-1204 situation.
I'm not saying that they would ignore the Greek part of themselves, but I am saying they wouldn't have forgotten the Roman part either. Rome as a city, especially now that it is popeless, still has some sentimental value to them.
To stick to pre-POD lets see John III Vatatzes writing to pope Gregory IX
Ἰωάννης ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ πιστός βασιλεύς καί αὐτοκράτωρ Ῥωμαίων ὁ Δοῦκας τῷ ἁγιωτάτῳ πάπᾳ τῆς πρεσβυτέρας Ῥώμης Γρηγορίῳ σωτηρίας καί εὐχῶν αἴτησιν…»
…Ἐσήμαινε δέ τό τοιοῦτον γράμμα , ὅτι τε ἐν τῷ γένει τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡμῶν ἡ σοφία βασιλεύει , καί, ὡς ἐκ πηγῆς ταύτης παναταχοῦ ρανίδες ἀνέβλυσαν· καί δέον ἐστίν ἡμᾶς, τῇ ἀπό ταύτης λαμπούμενου διακρίσει, τήν τοῦ σοῦ θρόνου μή ἀγνοεῖν ἀρχαιότητα·
…Εἶτα σύ μέν ἀπαιτεῖς ἡμᾶς μή ἀγνοῆσαι τόν σόν θρόνον καί τά τούτου προνόμια·
ἡμεῖς δέ οὐκ ἀνταπαιτήσομεν σε διαβλέψαι τε καί γνῶναι τον προςόν ἡμίν δἴκαιον ἐς τήν ἀρχήν τε καί τό κράτος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, ὅ τήν ἀρχήν μέν ἔλαβεν ἀπό τῶν χρόνων του μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου, διά πλείστων δέ ὁδεύσαι τῶν ἀρξάντων μετ’ ἐκεῖνον ἐκ τοῦ ἠμετέρου γένους, καί ἐς ὅλην χιλιετηρίδα παραταθέν, ἄχρι καί ἡμῶν ἔφτασεν;
Αὐτίκα οἱ τῆς βασιλείας μου γενάρχαι, οἱ ἀπό το γένος τῶν Δουκῶν καί Κομνηνῶν, ἵνα μή τους ἐτέρους λέγω, τούς ἀπό γενῶν ἑλληνικῶν ἄρξαντας· οὗτοι γοῦν οἱ ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ γένους, εἰς πολλάς ἐτῶν ἐκατοστύας τήν ἀρχή κατέσχον τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως·
What his majesty is writing here?
First John, faithful to Christ basileus and autokrator of the Romans"
Then "in our race of the Greeks widsom rules"
Then "it is right that the rule of the state of Constatinople, which received the rule from the time of Constantine the Great, and ruled my many of our race after him for a whole millennium, came to us.
Then "the ancestors of my reign, from the Dukas and Comnenos families, I won't mention the others from Greek families who ruled, as the former are my own family, for many centuries held the Rule of Constantinople"
Well the emperor himself puts it quite clear from where his legitimacy of being Roman emperor stems from (Constantine the great and ruling Constantinople) and that he himself is Greek.
Yes, but John Vatatzes was writing from a different situation than our Romans here. His was a realm besieged, whose capital had been sacked, whose borders had been reduced greatly, which was facing invasion from every side, which had been reduced to but one piece of the Greek lands.
The Romans now spent 400 years since a great resurgence, a resurgence which required and in many cases celebrated the help and cooperation of Turks, Armenians, Vlachs and so on, integrating them very well into Roman society and incorporating them into popular culture.
Heck, for even the current emperors to say that they are Greek would not be completely true, many of their post-PoD predecessors had Turkish blood, and the current Sideros family is literally descended from Timur!
Moving on, I don't deny that Constantinople and Constantine loom extra-large in Roman legitimacy, but now that Romania has reached a level of success and stability unseen in centuries, and especially since things will probably remain quiet in matters of domestic war for some time and interest in antiquity is very likely to rise in anywhere between a few decades to a century, I wager we will see the Romans draw more and more of an intellectual connection with their ancient past, maybe take pride in being one of the oldest "continuous" states in the world, and do much mental gymnastics to separate classical Rome from the barbarian Latins who sacked it and settled into its ruins.
The Romans now spent 400 years since a great resurgence, a resurgence which required and in many cases celebrated the help and cooperation of Turks, Armenians, Vlachs and so on, integrating them very well into Roman society and incorporating them into popular culture.
Heck, for even the current emperors to say that they are Greek would not be completely true, many of their post-PoD predecessors had Turkish blood, and the current Sideros family is literally descended from Timur!
Moving on, I don't deny that Constantinople and Constantine loom extra-large in Roman legitimacy, but now that Romania has reached a level of success and stability unseen in centuries, and especially since things will probably remain quiet in matters of domestic war for some time and interest in antiquity is very likely to rise in anywhere between a few decades to a century, I wager we will see the Romans draw more and more of an intellectual connection with their ancient past, maybe take pride in being one of the oldest "continuous" states in the world, and do much mental gymnastics to separate classical Rome from the barbarian Latins who sacked it and settled into its ruins.
Vatazes in that example was also writing from a position of relative weakness to the Pope, who had political interest in denying the Romanness of the Romans in favor of the HRE.
1. I think all of Mesopotamia was bequeathed to the client state (including Basra) except Mosul.Alright! so here is the updated version of the map. Areas id like people to give me their thoughts on are the middle east and India because I had to do a ton of guess work there
2. India is in a chaotic struggle between minor warlords right now now but the Sikh should have definitely expanded their borders. The Ottomans being located adjacent should have managed to obtain some of their former holdings in the Punjab. Vijayanagara landed an army in Bengal and showed no signs of leaving unlike the Romans/Persians. Not quite sure what that orange blob straddling the Indo-Gangetic plain is. Ultimately, it should coalesce in a couple of years/decades.
3. Roman Surat
4. Ethiopian Aden and Thatta
5. Zeng China has pushed to the Jade Gate, so it's borders are further west
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He was not expressing a line the Comnenes before him for example wouldn't recognise...
Blood? Who said anything or cares about blood? By blood Iskandar is a Comnene. He is Persian. Odysseus had an Ethiopian mother and his father was descended from Timur. He's still Greek, his father even went out of his way to name him after a Homeric hero. On a larger scale the dynamics in action here are no different from the ones that made frex Arvanites Greek and Muslim Cretans Ottoman/Turkish in OTL.
The map also shows the Libyan coast in the colors of Sicily. Is that accurate?
The colour of Libya does look similar to Sicily, but Sicily has a red outline while the Libyan vassal has a subtle brown outline. Other Roman vassals like Carthage has a yellowish outline while the Anizzah has a bluish/blackish one.
Essentially the tsar through cossacks. My memory of the topic is that the four Russian principalities are fairly independent and the tsar has little real power within them, but has been building up a huge personal domain in the east. It's been a long time since the government structure of Russia has come up, so please let me know if I'm wrong about anything.
Sicily and Rhomania: Pretty much see Evilprodigy’s post. Sicily derives a lot of benefits from its high-autonomous-but-connected-to-Rhomania status. There’s a bit of a drift westward, but the Sicilians wouldn’t want to break the connection even if they’re loosening it some.
The issue comes if ‘something like the status quo’ option leaves the table. If Rhomania tries to reduce its autonomy, the Sicilians if presented with the choice between centralization and independence will prefer the second. They have a tradition going back to the Sicilian Vespers of not taking kindly to irritating foreign overlords.
Germany: Yeah, Germany is not pretty. It’s not as bad as the OTL 30 Years War because the active fighting isn’t as long, but saying it’s not as bad as the OTL 30 Years War is like saying it’s not as painful as being soaked in gasoline and lit on fire.
The Greek Orthodox population of Sicily still has mass populations which are going to be in the poor demographic, in eastern Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria. They’re going to be hit hard. So while the mass death might tweak the proportions, it wouldn’t majorly shift them.
Yeah, I’m having fun with that. Romans won’t have such big billionaires and corporations, but a more stable and orderly and equitable economy.
This is definitely not even close to being fully thought and developed, but I’m liking the idea of state-run departments/companies for the likes of public necessities (health care, basic transportation, utilities) on the grounds of efficiency. It makes sense to have one trash disposal and one power company per city, and basic essentials shouldn’t be run on a for-profit basis anyway. Even thinking about the idea of a state-run grocery chain as a means to avoid food deserts and to provide cheap healthy food to the Roman public. This is because making a healthy diet easy would save money in the long run from the state health care system, because apples and carrots are cheaper than doctors.
And with something that isn’t labeled a public good, perhaps the government has to be a shareholder of a certain size (20%? To list the first number to pop into my head) once corporations get so big.
Yeah, the issues you mention that hit the Ottoman Empire are something the TTL Romans can’t escape, because they occupy the same geographical and ecological space. But they don’t have to decline as far as the Ottomans. There’s a big difference between going from the 16th century superpower to the Sick Man, to going to an equivalent of 1913 France-indisputably a great power and major player, although not the biggest one.
And sometimes I do wish that I hadn’t been so enamored of having Roman colonies in the east. Because then I would’ve had an Andreas-goes-west instead of conquering the Mamelukes, and when the dust finally settles the Roman Empire is something like Anatolia + Balkans (south of Danube) + Italy (possibly something like Italy after the end of the Italian Wars with Rhomania replacing Spain). Borders would’ve been so pretty, unlike whatever this is.
Sicily is a good compromise place for negotiations. It’s equidistant between Constantinople and Lisbon, so it’s neutral compared to having talks in one of the capitals.
Regarding Libya and the likes, I know there have been a few off-hand references to at least some of these places, but they were minor bits, not significant elements. But your comments have given me an idea regarding these areas, although not sure when exactly it’ll show up.
The City of Rome: Rome will probably get a boost later on as antiquarian interest increases, possibly as a stop on a Roman version of the Grand Tour. But for the city to really develop the Pontine Marshes need to go. This issue is that the money devoted to marsh-draining is first going to go to places like Cilicia or Thrakesia. Especially since to literally fuel the economic boom of the Flowering the Romans cut down too many of their trees, which increases soil erosion and water runoff, which tends to make swamps.
The ruling family is doing alright, but Mexico is in a population nadir at the moment. It’s at the point where the various Old World diseases have chewed through the locals, killing most of them, but the population hasn’t rebounded yet. (This is like OTL, where the native inhabitant population of Latin America seems to have bottomed out around 1650 and started climbing back up afterwards.) Mexico is huge but doesn’t have many people. England has more people than the territories that comprise OTL Mexico. (South Terranova is undergoing the same process, but is farther behind than North Terranova, so there the population is still dropping.)
Cossacks and some Russian settlers. I’m planning 1-2 updates focused specifically on Russia in the near future.
Roman and Greek: This is when I say that identities can come in different types, in layers, with people having multiple identities. I think comparing Roman to Greek is comparing apples to oranges.
That is because Roman is a political identity.
Greek however is an ethnic and cultural identity.
These are different things. The Emperor is politically Roman (he is the Emperor of the Romans, not of the Greeks) but culturally Greek. The Romans will identify as Roman as a marker of state identity, but for examples of classical rhetoric they’ll look to Demosthenes, not Cicero. And in the event they do look to Cicero, it’ll be in a Greek translation. For an example of epic poetry, it’s Homer all the way. Virgil might as well not even be in the contest.
An Arabic-speaking Arab Orthodox Christian is not called a Greek; they’re called a Melkite. But nobody would question calling themselves a Roman. Greek and Melkite are cultural designations, so they’re mutually exclusive, but since Roman is a political designation, it can double up with either of them.
I’d also note that the use of the term Roman as an ethnic designation doesn’t work in a way that Greek does. Their own mythology attests to the Romans not being some pure race but a mix of various peoples. Pre-Roman Italy was extremely diverse, with the Latins being only one group. Livy, Virgil, and Cicero all came from non-Latin Italy originally, yet they were definitely Roman. The Severan dynasty was definitely Roman (hard to argue that the Emperor of the Romans is not Roman, after all) but it was of mixed North African and Syrian ethnicity. To be Roman was a political identity that could, and was, layered on top of ethnic and cultural identities. If it’d been much more exclusive, like Greek was in the various Hellenistic kingdoms, it’s extremely doubtful the Romans would’ve had nearly as much or as long-lasting success.
Now this does present things as being neater and tidier than reality, which is much messier than theory. In classical Rome, one could be Syrian or Egyptian and also Roman, but it did involve taking cultural elements from Rome. An auxiliary that becomes a citizen after completing his service would be speaking in Latin. Romanized elites would be wearing togas and living in Roman-style villas and towns. It’s similar ITTL. To be Roman now ITTL means speaking Greek and being Orthodox Christian, but one can still do that and be Albanian or Arab.
As for what this means for the Romans and Rome, the Eternal City will have some resonance. Political Roman figures like Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, and Trajan will be famous and influential figures. However more cultural classical Roman figures like Virgil and Livy and Cicero will be distant second to Greek counterparts. So Rome will have some resonance, but not an overwhelming one.
And yes, I know this is confusing and doesn’t fit well with OTL modern views. We’re used to a match between the nation and the state in the nation-state. But here we have a Roman state paired with a Greek nation. (Rhomania is a lot like China, yes it’s a multiethnic state, but the main ethnicity far outnumbers everyone else, although TTL Greek in Rhomania isn’t at Han in China levels. But think China rather than Austria-Hungary.) It’s weird. Although I think this testifies to the amazing strength and durability of the Roman identity, since it was disassociated from its place of origin, yet was adopted and carried on by an original subject people, and that’s OTL, not me. That’s really impressive.
Finally, having said all this, this setup could open the door for the various western Europeans to claim Roman identity. “We’re culturally French/German/whatever, but politically Roman.” But the counterargument to that would be “Roman is a political identity, and the continuity of that polity was in Constantinople.”
The issue comes if ‘something like the status quo’ option leaves the table. If Rhomania tries to reduce its autonomy, the Sicilians if presented with the choice between centralization and independence will prefer the second. They have a tradition going back to the Sicilian Vespers of not taking kindly to irritating foreign overlords.
Germany: Yeah, Germany is not pretty. It’s not as bad as the OTL 30 Years War because the active fighting isn’t as long, but saying it’s not as bad as the OTL 30 Years War is like saying it’s not as painful as being soaked in gasoline and lit on fire.
The Greek Orthodox population of Sicily still has mass populations which are going to be in the poor demographic, in eastern Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria. They’re going to be hit hard. So while the mass death might tweak the proportions, it wouldn’t majorly shift them.
Yeah, I’m having fun with that. Romans won’t have such big billionaires and corporations, but a more stable and orderly and equitable economy.
This is definitely not even close to being fully thought and developed, but I’m liking the idea of state-run departments/companies for the likes of public necessities (health care, basic transportation, utilities) on the grounds of efficiency. It makes sense to have one trash disposal and one power company per city, and basic essentials shouldn’t be run on a for-profit basis anyway. Even thinking about the idea of a state-run grocery chain as a means to avoid food deserts and to provide cheap healthy food to the Roman public. This is because making a healthy diet easy would save money in the long run from the state health care system, because apples and carrots are cheaper than doctors.
And with something that isn’t labeled a public good, perhaps the government has to be a shareholder of a certain size (20%? To list the first number to pop into my head) once corporations get so big.
Yeah, the issues you mention that hit the Ottoman Empire are something the TTL Romans can’t escape, because they occupy the same geographical and ecological space. But they don’t have to decline as far as the Ottomans. There’s a big difference between going from the 16th century superpower to the Sick Man, to going to an equivalent of 1913 France-indisputably a great power and major player, although not the biggest one.
And sometimes I do wish that I hadn’t been so enamored of having Roman colonies in the east. Because then I would’ve had an Andreas-goes-west instead of conquering the Mamelukes, and when the dust finally settles the Roman Empire is something like Anatolia + Balkans (south of Danube) + Italy (possibly something like Italy after the end of the Italian Wars with Rhomania replacing Spain). Borders would’ve been so pretty, unlike whatever this is.
Sicily is a good compromise place for negotiations. It’s equidistant between Constantinople and Lisbon, so it’s neutral compared to having talks in one of the capitals.
Regarding Libya and the likes, I know there have been a few off-hand references to at least some of these places, but they were minor bits, not significant elements. But your comments have given me an idea regarding these areas, although not sure when exactly it’ll show up.
The City of Rome: Rome will probably get a boost later on as antiquarian interest increases, possibly as a stop on a Roman version of the Grand Tour. But for the city to really develop the Pontine Marshes need to go. This issue is that the money devoted to marsh-draining is first going to go to places like Cilicia or Thrakesia. Especially since to literally fuel the economic boom of the Flowering the Romans cut down too many of their trees, which increases soil erosion and water runoff, which tends to make swamps.
The ruling family is doing alright, but Mexico is in a population nadir at the moment. It’s at the point where the various Old World diseases have chewed through the locals, killing most of them, but the population hasn’t rebounded yet. (This is like OTL, where the native inhabitant population of Latin America seems to have bottomed out around 1650 and started climbing back up afterwards.) Mexico is huge but doesn’t have many people. England has more people than the territories that comprise OTL Mexico. (South Terranova is undergoing the same process, but is farther behind than North Terranova, so there the population is still dropping.)
Cossacks and some Russian settlers. I’m planning 1-2 updates focused specifically on Russia in the near future.
Roman and Greek: This is when I say that identities can come in different types, in layers, with people having multiple identities. I think comparing Roman to Greek is comparing apples to oranges.
That is because Roman is a political identity.
Greek however is an ethnic and cultural identity.
These are different things. The Emperor is politically Roman (he is the Emperor of the Romans, not of the Greeks) but culturally Greek. The Romans will identify as Roman as a marker of state identity, but for examples of classical rhetoric they’ll look to Demosthenes, not Cicero. And in the event they do look to Cicero, it’ll be in a Greek translation. For an example of epic poetry, it’s Homer all the way. Virgil might as well not even be in the contest.
An Arabic-speaking Arab Orthodox Christian is not called a Greek; they’re called a Melkite. But nobody would question calling themselves a Roman. Greek and Melkite are cultural designations, so they’re mutually exclusive, but since Roman is a political designation, it can double up with either of them.
I’d also note that the use of the term Roman as an ethnic designation doesn’t work in a way that Greek does. Their own mythology attests to the Romans not being some pure race but a mix of various peoples. Pre-Roman Italy was extremely diverse, with the Latins being only one group. Livy, Virgil, and Cicero all came from non-Latin Italy originally, yet they were definitely Roman. The Severan dynasty was definitely Roman (hard to argue that the Emperor of the Romans is not Roman, after all) but it was of mixed North African and Syrian ethnicity. To be Roman was a political identity that could, and was, layered on top of ethnic and cultural identities. If it’d been much more exclusive, like Greek was in the various Hellenistic kingdoms, it’s extremely doubtful the Romans would’ve had nearly as much or as long-lasting success.
Now this does present things as being neater and tidier than reality, which is much messier than theory. In classical Rome, one could be Syrian or Egyptian and also Roman, but it did involve taking cultural elements from Rome. An auxiliary that becomes a citizen after completing his service would be speaking in Latin. Romanized elites would be wearing togas and living in Roman-style villas and towns. It’s similar ITTL. To be Roman now ITTL means speaking Greek and being Orthodox Christian, but one can still do that and be Albanian or Arab.
As for what this means for the Romans and Rome, the Eternal City will have some resonance. Political Roman figures like Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, and Trajan will be famous and influential figures. However more cultural classical Roman figures like Virgil and Livy and Cicero will be distant second to Greek counterparts. So Rome will have some resonance, but not an overwhelming one.
And yes, I know this is confusing and doesn’t fit well with OTL modern views. We’re used to a match between the nation and the state in the nation-state. But here we have a Roman state paired with a Greek nation. (Rhomania is a lot like China, yes it’s a multiethnic state, but the main ethnicity far outnumbers everyone else, although TTL Greek in Rhomania isn’t at Han in China levels. But think China rather than Austria-Hungary.) It’s weird. Although I think this testifies to the amazing strength and durability of the Roman identity, since it was disassociated from its place of origin, yet was adopted and carried on by an original subject people, and that’s OTL, not me. That’s really impressive.
Finally, having said all this, this setup could open the door for the various western Europeans to claim Roman identity. “We’re culturally French/German/whatever, but politically Roman.” But the counterargument to that would be “Roman is a political identity, and the continuity of that polity was in Constantinople.”