I didn't say it was Greek, neccessarily; I just said that the original Roman (Post-Diocletian) structures died out reasonably soon and were replaced by others which were more informed by the traditions of Constantinople/The East. The only effective continuity was in the position of the Emperor; although there was also significant advancement there over time as well. All polities change over time, and I think that there was a sufficent change in Byzantium to mark it as a significantly different composition from the Later Roman Empire. Whether you call it a Greek state or Byzantium or whatever is essentially a semantic point. But the institutions weren't 'Roman' in the sense that word would be understood by most people. They were innovations.
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Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Latin survived as a language until not long ago. Does that mean that British intellectuals were actually ethnic Romans? Jews in Turkey STILL speak a dialect of Spanish. Portuguese is the language of Brazil. Are Brazillians actually Romans? Their language has direct continuity with classical Rome.
Language does not equal ethnicity. There is virtually nothing in common between classical Greece and modern Greece. The languages are not mutually intelligible, the food and music is Ottoman, Greece was depopulated during the Avar invasions and recolonized and re-Byzantinized from Anatolia, the systems of government, music, law, religion, every possible yardstick of cultural and ethnic measurement, with the single exception of language, are completely different. Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc are utterly modern constructions that have absolutely nothing to do with the disappeared medieval states they pretend to be contininuations of, much less a direct descendent of Classical Greece! Not even the Greeks believed that, until they started to buy into their own nationalist propaganda. Bulgaria was Turkic the last time it existed, for Chrissakes!
Language does not equal ethnicity. There is virtually nothing in common between classical Greece and modern Greece. The languages are not mutually intelligible, the food and music is Ottoman, Greece was depopulated during the Avar invasions and recolonized and re-Byzantinized from Anatolia, the systems of government, music, law, religion, every possible yardstick of cultural and ethnic measurement, with the single exception of language, are completely different. Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc are utterly modern constructions that have absolutely nothing to do with the disappeared medieval states they pretend to be contininuations of, much less a direct descendent of Classical Greece! Not even the Greeks believed that, until they started to buy into their own nationalist propaganda. Bulgaria was Turkic the last time it existed, for Chrissakes!
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
There's a difference between "having and interest in" and "being the direct continuation of". Greeks care more about this history because its part of their nationalist ideological historiography. Turks claim the Hittites as ancestors. Why not? It's about as realistic as a claim of direct continuity between modern Greece and classical Greece.
I doubt there is much genetic continuity between classical and modern Greeks at all - except insomuch as the Pontic Greeks that were sent to Greece after WWI were probably the closest relations to the classicals.
I doubt there is much genetic continuity between classical and modern Greeks at all - except insomuch as the Pontic Greeks that were sent to Greece after WWI were probably the closest relations to the classicals.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I would really like to hear your explanation of this. While the empire made a transition to the use of Greek instead of Latin, the institutions themselves were not changed. Absolutist divine monarchy was not, for instance, particularly treasured in classical Greece. ALL the political institutions of the Byzantine Empire were purely Roman. Which of them do you feel were not, and were instead "Greek"?
MrP
Banned
They still speak it, too. Dad once got and responded to an order from an Italian fella who didn't speak any English, so wrote in Latin. Great to get faxes in Latin.
Yes, they are.
I'm not going to get into the big argument (since I know nothing!), but they are mutually intelligible. There are definitely significant variations, the one I always trot out is that the modern word for bus stop means unrest/civil war in ancient; there are definite changes. But by and large one can make oneself understood when speaking ancient if one uses modern pronunciation. Actually, even if one forgets and pronounces it all ancient, the Greeks will look at you, then comprehension will slowly dawn. That said, I think that if one tried pronouncing words with all of ancient's tonal stuff, then the modern Greeks would look at one pretty odd. Are you kidding me? There was huge institutonal change. The old Roman magistracies went very early on, and the Senate eventually disapeared slightly later. The post-Diocleatian administrative setup eventually went; you have the introduction of the Themes and similar developments in place of things like the Praetorian Prefectures; New ministries and court functions develop. The Patriarchate develops politically. I could go on. Even if you accepted absolutely no institutional change, you'd have to surely realise that the way institutions operate does not remain in a vacuum.
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Depends what you mean by 'classical Greece'. A lot - if not all - of the divine and theatrical nature of monarchy which would infiltrate Rome was developed by Hellenistic monarchs. It was not, needless to say, a Roman invention, which was much more steeped in republicanism than Greece tended to be. (Although it's probably unfair to group all of Greek culture, which was often highly varied, en-bloc.)
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A Patriarch for a religion based around the son of a Jewish Carpenter doesn't seem very Greek, either.
You could make a claim that divine monarchy is a Greek tradition, and it is, to an extent. But it had been used by Roman Emperors since Augustus.
Moreover, even divine kings such as Alexander made noises about the sanctity of the polis, which doesn't exist at all in Byzantium.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I didn't say that institutions didn't change, of course they did. But there was still direct continuity with ROMAN practice, not classical Greek. In other words, Byzantine institutions were evolutions of Roman institutions, not a sudden break with the Roman past and return to classical Greekdom.
The Themes and Tagmata developed out of existing Roman institutions - they weren't pulled out of thin air.
If you had asked a Byzantine if he considered himself the inheritor of the classical Greek tradition, he would proabably challenge you to a duel, and a 19th c Greek would have just stared at you in incomprehension.
The Themes and Tagmata developed out of existing Roman institutions - they weren't pulled out of thin air.
If you had asked a Byzantine if he considered himself the inheritor of the classical Greek tradition, he would proabably challenge you to a duel, and a 19th c Greek would have just stared at you in incomprehension.
Doesn't seem terribly Roman either, now you come to mention it. They were, after all, the people who had a hand in his execution. But, you know. Shit happens.
Oh, and in many ways Christianity was heavily Greek influenced, but let's not get into that debate.
Eh? The early Principate was only importing/drawing on a pre-existing Eastern/Hellenic tradition. It wasn't something that just sprung out of the air from centuries of previously impeccable republican sentiment.
Political neccessity, for the most part. Alexander had to say that.
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Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
I'd agree with you, for the most part. But I wouldn't conclude that this means that A) there was no Greek cultural influence, which you seem to contend - this would be impossible, since Byzantium was a culturally Greek setting - or B) this means that Byzantium was idenitial to the Roman Empire in it's form - it was an evolved and unique entity of it's own right and deserves to be treated as such.
Eventually it did, in the essentials. There was a slight revival after Justinians time, (IIRC) but then it quickly went back into decline. By the time of the the Komneni, it was effectively dead. It was certainly not, on the whole, an effective part of the polity which it had been at various points in Roman times, however slightly - certainly not at the time of Psellus. There was simply no need of it. Most of the effective offices of the Senate were already dead by Justinian's day and the Consulship went during his reign.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
In the first quote I meant they weren't EXchanged for Greek institutions.
I have never said there was no Greek cultural influence - I just don't think it was all that much greater for Byzantium, since Greek influence was already present in the Roman Empire.
Constantinople was NOT a paricularly Greek setting - it was settled by diverse peoples, including a whole lot of people from Rome.
I do not thing the Byzantine Empire deserves to be treated as a "unique" entity, as the term Byzantine is just a convenience added by later historians that would have been meaningless to the actual "Byzantines". Diocletian's empire was closer to Leo III's than it was to that of Augustus - you seem to be viewing it as something that was constant until it suddenly and completely transformed into the Byzantine Empire.
In short, I think the Byzantine Empire was not a separate empire, it was a continuation of the Roman Empire. After 1204 I don't really think it was an empire anymore, and just became a medieval principality, so if you want to call that a non-Roman entity, I won't argue.
I have never said there was no Greek cultural influence - I just don't think it was all that much greater for Byzantium, since Greek influence was already present in the Roman Empire.
Constantinople was NOT a paricularly Greek setting - it was settled by diverse peoples, including a whole lot of people from Rome.
I do not thing the Byzantine Empire deserves to be treated as a "unique" entity, as the term Byzantine is just a convenience added by later historians that would have been meaningless to the actual "Byzantines". Diocletian's empire was closer to Leo III's than it was to that of Augustus - you seem to be viewing it as something that was constant until it suddenly and completely transformed into the Byzantine Empire.
In short, I think the Byzantine Empire was not a separate empire, it was a continuation of the Roman Empire. After 1204 I don't really think it was an empire anymore, and just became a medieval principality, so if you want to call that a non-Roman entity, I won't argue.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Most of the effective offices of the Senate were dead in Augustus' day. The Senate had its ups and downs, and in many periods of Byzantine history was not just theater. You are really generalizing a lot about a state that endured for millenia.
Not at all. There was no magic event that transformed it from one into the other. But there was sufficent change and I'm happy to conclude that the one was sufficently different (but not estranged) from the other.
Are you honestly denying that, on the whole, the Senate did not decline in importance between, say 1A.D and 1000 A.D? It is a completely obvious and truthful generalisation to say that it did. I've already said that the Senate had a slight revival of status at various points. But the overall pattern was one of decline and increasing irrelevancy.
Oh, and no, they weren't. The Senate was still very much alive in Augustus' time and Senatorial offices were still the workhorses of the administrative structure, and accorded great prestige to those who held them. A completely different situation to that under Byzantium, I might add.
My issue is that you keep raising this as some Roman/Greek dichotomy. Sure, maybe the principate drew upon Greek ideas four centureis before Constantinople fell, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't important and thoroughly Roman by that point. The Byzantines saw themselves as Roman in the heirs of Trajan and Caesar, not descendents of Socrates.
Ibn Warraq
Banned
Point taken. The French may claim kinship with the Gauls and French History textbooks begin with the phrase "our ancestors, the Gauls" but I think historian and archaelogists are in unanimous or near unanimous agreement that there is not "direct continuation" between modern Frenchmen and ancient Gauls.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
No, I'm not denying it, but the Senate declined way before 1,000 AD.
While Senatorial offices may have retained prestige, they didn't retain power. All the offices that did were embodied in the Emperor.
In the late Roman Empire, the Senate was just theater. The Emperor didn't even reside in the same city.
You are increasingly alone in your opinion that the Byzantine and Roman Empires were seperate things. I'm curious to hear when you think the magic dividing line begtween the two was. For instance, it's pretty easy to pinpoint when the Roman Empire ended and was supplanted by the Ottoman. Can you do that for the Byzantines?
While Senatorial offices may have retained prestige, they didn't retain power. All the offices that did were embodied in the Emperor.
In the late Roman Empire, the Senate was just theater. The Emperor didn't even reside in the same city.
You are increasingly alone in your opinion that the Byzantine and Roman Empires were seperate things. I'm curious to hear when you think the magic dividing line begtween the two was. For instance, it's pretty easy to pinpoint when the Roman Empire ended and was supplanted by the Ottoman. Can you do that for the Byzantines?
Yeah thats a hard question to answer, where and when does the Roman empire morph into the Byzantine empire. There are three potential points: A. when Constantine founds Nova Roma or Constantinople and thus divides the empire into Eastern and Western halves. B. When Odoacer conquers Italy and Romulus Augustus the last Emperor in the West is put to death or C. When Heraclius comes to power and the last vestiges of Latin culture are pushed aside thus acknowledging the reality that Greeks are the predominant culture in the east. I would favour the last one, because at that point the empire is officially and effectively Greek and the culture has changed so much that Augustus if he were to see what became of what he had created would be left wondering how and why?