Question regarding German emperors in ancient Rome

And why does this only matter in the 4th and 5tg century? Pardon me if I am missing something here, but why did being "ethnic roman" as you call it not matter in previous or subsequent centuries? It just makes no sense.
 
I am going to take the time, to actually reply to this yet again. But for the last time; since you continue to evade what doesn’t suit your points, and keep on moving the goalpost.
That's the stupidest bunch of nonsense I've ever heard.
I never said that, it's an outrageous lie of yours.
That's what I said:
There was never a law, a constitution or whatever stating that "a non-Roman has no right to become a legitimate Roman emperor".
It was just a rule, a 'sacred tradition' which everybody knew and followed but it was never written down.
And on the other hand there was never a clear rule who could be considered a 'pure thoroughbred ethnic Roman'. In theory an ethnic Roman was a man whose both parents were ethnic Romans.

But, you also said:
No, it was not the rule "barring Germans from taking on the purple".
It was the rule barring non-Romans from taking on the purple.
Someone might be a 'Roman citizen' but if he was not an 'ethnic Roman' he could not become a 'legitimate Roman emperor'.
One thing for sure:
- if your father was a 'pure ethnic German' you are not an 'ethnic Roman' at all; and you must not even dream about taking the imperial purple.
And I presume that was because it was some kind of 'unwritten law', imperial tradition, the rule which everybody knew and followed.

I don’t know what you understand by rule, legitimacy, unwritten law, and imperial tradition that everyone knows and follows. If it’s public and so obvious, then tell us what it should be called.

***​
I never said anything about individuals, raised in a highly Romanized area. Where did you get it from? Can you quote me?
It is a product of your fevered imagination. No wonder you are befuddled
But, you did say:
If the Roman emperors were from "lots of places" it doesn't necessary mean that these were "non-Roman" emperors. Mostly these guys were ethnic Romans who were born outside the city of Rome and outside Italy.
But by the AD IV century everybody inside the Roman Empire became citizens, it was even obligatory for everybody for fiscal purposes. So it no longer served as a criterion.
But there was another criterion. It was a degree of Romanization.
So, we have ethnic Romans outside of Italy. But their "ethnicity" (by the 4th century, as you like to stress) was contingent on their Romanization. Romanization of the individual? Or...?

***

Now, with regards to what I said earlier about your paramount obsession with "ethnicity." This is the progression of your point:
For example, an Englishman in the XIX-th century might be born in India but that didn't make him an Indian. He stayed a pure-bred Englishman (on condition that both his parents were English of course).
24And on the other hand there was never a clear rule who could be considered a 'pure thoroughbred ethnic Roman'. In theory an ethnic Roman was a man whose both parents were ethnic Romans.
When Elfwine said:
Although beyond the boundaries of Rome the city, I'm not sure what an ethnic Roman is.
The reply was:
I guess you are not.
But there was such thing as an ethnic Roman nevetherless*.
With the answer proven insufficient, you were cornered into stating:
What I would define as an ethnic Roman:
- that is a person whose father was an ethnic Roman and whose mother was an ethnic Roman (and he'd better be brought up by his parents to be sure).
Moving on:
In short Western Latin elites and Eastern Hellenized elites differed in their conception of 'being true Roman' since the beginning of the AD IV century. The West more accentuated on 'blood' than the East.
When Archimedes asked:
Okay; at this point it would be nice to see some documentary evidence for Russian's oft-reiterated claim -- that what kept Germanic-descended folk from the throne was about ethnicity, that it affected the emperorship and nothing else, and that it somehow started in the IV century. I don't exactly doubt that it's true; I just want to know more about it.
The expected reply:
I am not sure what kind of evidence you want to see...
I cannot show you a 'Constitution of the Western Roman Empire' because there was nothing like that. There were no succession laws, dynastical rules or whatever.
But we've got the hystorical fact -
in the WRE in AD IV-V centuries there were no 'ethnic Germanic emperors on the throne though the Germans often actually were at the very top.
* Even if some Germanic guy had a 'Roman ethnic' mother - he did not qualify, he needed a 'Roman ethnic' grandmother from his father's line to be a 'legitimate' emperor.
And this fact asks for explanation. And I presume that was because it was some kind of 'unwritten law', imperial tradition, the rule which everybody knew and followed.
Then, we have:
So we finally came to the term "ethnic Roman", the definition of 'ethnic Roman' in the Western Roman Empire AD IV-V century-
that is a person who was born in the family with a high degree of Romanization; as opposed to a person who was born in the family with a less degree of Romanization (or not Romanized at all).
And:
So 'being ethnic Roman' is about your ancestry as well among other things.
A "true/genuine Roman" is a person who is fully "culturally Roman" and was born by the parents who were "true/genuine Romans" as well. This person self-identifies himself as a "true/genuine Roman" and everybody else consideres him/her as a "true/genuine Roman".
* An average person of that time could not trace his genealogy back more than for several generations. So if 2-3 generations of your ancestors were "true/genuine Romans" that was enough for you to be considered a fully 'legitimate Roman'.
I am sorry, but I am speaking only about the WRE A.D. 4-5 century.
And in this period and on that territory only "highly Romanized" individuals made it to the throne.
Before that things were different. And after that (in the East) things were different as well. But it is irrelevant.
Finally:
Romulus Augustus was close to being pure ethnic Roman. At least three out of his four grandparents were ethnic Romans. That was good enough.
(His father had an ethnic Roman mother and Romulus' mother was an ethnic Roman. So he qualifies.)
Constantius Chlorus and Valentinian I were the ethnic Romans of humble origin.

76So, this German guy is a 'Roman' if he is a subject of the Empire and if he is free; (as every free male on the territory of the Roman Empire is a 'Roman' citizen).
You may even call him a 'cultured Roman' if he is highly Romanised of course.
But he is not an 'ethnic Roman' and never will be. Till his very death he will be 'a Roman of Barbarian (Germanic) origin'. The 'real Romans' would call him 'this Germanic guy' , something like that.
* But in two or three generations the descendants of 'this Germanic guy' will be proud 'true Romans', or what we'd better call 'ethnic Romans'. That's how Roman ethnogenesis works.

Just what Elfwine, as always choosing the best terms, called it; anything but pure tautology.

Summing up, to be an “ethnic” Roman:
  1. Father and mother need to be ethnic Romans.
  2. That a Germanic individual could not be an “ethnic” Roman, since he needed to have an ethnic Roman grandmother on his father’s side.
  3. That is a person born into a family with a high degree of Romanization.
  4. That being ethnic Roman is about your ancestry.
  5. That a true/genuine Roman is born from true genuine Romans and is a cultural Roman.
  6. If 2-3 generations of your ancestors were true/genuine Romans, you were a legitimate Roman.
  7. Romulus Augustus was close enough to an ethnic Roman, because three out of his four grandparents were ethnic Romans.
  8. A Germanic, non-“ethnic”-Roman, man could expect his grandson to be an “ethnic” Roman.
Under scrutiny, point 1, 4, 5 are the same. And they don’t tell you what an “ethnic” Roman is; just that it has to be born from more “ethnic” Romans. As I said before, that is but a never ending circle you are running on. Point 6 runs fairly close to this concept as well: if 2-3 of your ancestors were true Romans, then you are a true Roman. That still does not account for how those generations made the leap.

Point 3 might enlighten us a little on the matter, however. For once, you leave the “blood” out. It is a person born into a family with a high degree of Romanization. That, my friend, is something far more tangible, explainable, and plausible than genealogical charts stretching back ad infinitum. So what is it then: a never ending spiral of genealogical purity? Or cultural assimilation?

Point 8 just goes against the blood rules of 1,4,5,6. Why?

Lastly, the complicated formulas you’ve come up with, in points 2 and 7, are, once again, reminiscent of highly racist societies. Which Rome was not.

Assumptions and suppositions cannot hold water when confronted with evidence. You claim an exception for the 4th and 5th century; there is not any. Before Rome enthroned Emperors of different backgrounds; afterwards, it continued to do so. During the time you’re playing “happy place” with, the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties reigned the longest. Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Valentinian, and Valens were from the Danube border. They were not “ethnic” Romans by your definition. The children of shopkeepers, peasants, and market vendors, in an area that was renowned for being the recruiting grounds of Illyrian, non-ethnic-Roman, soldiers, and had just endured half a century of Germanic invasions, were Emperors during the 4th century, in direct refutation of your idea. If you choose to convert them into “humble ethnic Romans,” do whatever makes you happy.

And then, the same goes for Romulus. We don’t know who Tatulus’ wife was; we don’t know who Orestes parents were. But even with what we do know; Romulus Augustus does not live up to the rigid rules you’ve been advocating in the majority of your posts. If you choose to change your story as of late, and hand wave him into an “ethnic” Roman, again, be my guest.

If you have managed to read all of this, I commend you. But let me remind you, I will not reply anymore, to uninformed, confused assumptions. Unless there are some clear, non-contradicting ideas forthcoming, as well for the evidence you claimed to have read on “books;” this will be it.
 
I am going to take the time, to actually reply to this yet again. But for the last time.
I sincerely hope that you are the man of your word and this is the last time you reply to my post.

You are so obsessed with my posts you scare me.

By the way, there is such thing as 'Ignore List':
- User CP
- Edit Ignore List
- paste my name Russian and click Okay.
 
Nice job countering his argument...

Ye, ye, I am a bad loser.
And you, boys, are proud winners, no doubt. You won! Pururauka had the last word!


Actually, I enjoyed this argument and I want to thank all the participants. I mean it.
If anyone does not agree with me - I can live with that, I will survive :)
.
.
And why does this only matter in the 4th and 5tg century? Pardon me if I am missing something here, but why did being "ethnic roman" as you call it not matter in previous or subsequent centuries? It just makes no sense.
I somehow feel that I owe you an essey on the Roman ethnogenesis since the foundation of Rome till 'the fall of the Western Roman Empire'.
I can't promise anything but I'll try to do it this month. :)
 
I think I'm going to join Pururauka on this.

I had hopes that this could lead to a reasonable discussion.

Sadly, no such luck.
 
your paramount obsession with "ethnicity." ...anything but pure tautology... uninformed, confused assumptions.
I hate you too :)


So, we have ethnic Romans outside of Italy. But their "ethnicity" (by the 4th century, as you like to stress) was contingent on their Romanization. Romanization of the individual? Or...?
Romanization of the individual.

Summing up, to be an “ethnic” Roman:
1. Father and mother need to be ethnic Romans.
Sorry, that was a mistake of mine. I almost immediatelly corrected it.
But as you yourself quoted me it was said in the context of speaking about 'ideal' 'perfect ' “ethnic” Roman purity. So in theory a perfect ethnic Roman was a direct descendent of founding fathers of Rome. But in practise most of the 'ethnic' Romans were descendents of the peoples conquered by Rome and culturally assimilated by the Romans, romanized.

So what is it then: a never ending spiral of genealogical purity? Or cultural assimilation?
Cultural assimilation.

Point 8 just goes against the blood rules of 1,4,5,6. Why?
A Germanic, non-“ethnic”-Roman, man could expect his grandson to be an “ethnic” Roman if he marries an 'ethnic' Roman woman; and his son marries an 'ethnic' Roman woman as well.
There are no blood rules as I have already explained. These are cultural assimilation rules.

Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Valentinian, and Valens were from the Danube border. They were not “ethnic” Romans by your definition...
If you choose to convert them into “humble ethnic Romans,” do whatever makes you happy.
They were “ethnic” Romans of humble origin.


And then, the same goes for Romulus. We don’t know who Tatulus’ wife was; we don’t know who Orestes parents were. But even with what we do know; Romulus Augustus does not live up to the rigid rules you’ve been advocating in the majority of your posts. If you choose to change your story as of late, and hand wave him into an “ethnic” Roman, again, be my guest.
All our sources tell us that there was some Germanic 'blood' only in one of his grandfathers. All his other grandparents were 'clean', no hint on Barbarian ancestry.
So I hand wave him into an “ethnic” Roman.


If you have managed to read all of this, I commend you
I have.
Thank you.


I will not reply anymore... Unless there are some clear, non-contradicting ideas forthcoming.
There will be only uninformed, confused assumptions and no clear, non-contradicting ideas forthcoming. I promise.
Pururauka, do not reply anymore. Ple-e-ease :)

You make it too personal. You might have a heart attack.
 
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I give up. You keep redefining ethnic ROman.
No, I do not.
It is an out-and-out lie of yours.
You cannot prove it.

I just explained all the details and problems of this complicated notion. You see it is not a simple and clearcut matter, no doubt.You cannot define it in two words even if you try.
 
Russian is right with most of what he said, except for that weird thing about an American ethnicity. Also, Romans wouldn't have objected to a Germanic-father Roman-mother pairing--Stilicho had a Roman soldier Vandal father and a provincial mother and look how powerful he got.


LSCatilina explained something of the sort a while ago. A Germanic foederatus (or immigrant, I guess) could become king. But not Emperor. King was a Germanic title, Emperor was a Roman title. It just didn't make sense for a full German to declare himself an Emperor, it would be like Baldwin of Boulogne calling himself Malik of Jerusalem.

Even if they could, it would be more convenient to be a king of <insert tribe> while having the Emperor and Senate as puppets.

King Ataulf of the Visigoths could have declared himself Emperor and tried to subjugate Italy, but didn't. Rather, he married Galla Placidia in hopes that his son Theodosius could become a legitimate emperor.

If full Germanics/total non-Romans could become an Emperor, or saw it as a viable option, then we would see Theodoric as the first Emperor of the Ostrogothic dynasty, rather than the King of Italy.

And there was a general conception of an ethnic Roman. Not in the modern terms of ethnicity, but certainly in the sense that there were Romans and non-Romans. Theodosius II, Stilicho, Ardaburius, Honorius, or Arcadius would be Roman. Ataulf, Theodoric, Alaric, Clovis, Hermeric, or Yazdegerd II would not.


That comparison between the US presidential requirements and that of being a Roman Emperor was actually a pretty good comparison, unlike most comparisons between the US and ancient Rome. I would go further to compare, say, the early 400s Roman Empire with the 1900 US. The Indian reservations would be the foederati/Germanic kingdoms. Anybody born in the country/empire could (legally) become president/emperor, unless they were born in a reservation/Germanic kingdom. Though the comparison's not perfect--for the Romans it wasn't a law just a precedent/tradition, while in the US, the law was actually more open than the reality (only a white man could have become president back then, in reality, even though law would allow for any non-native non-immigrant). Still it represents the situation fairly well. And wealthy Americans just like wealthy Romans would have had an advantage in becoming president and emperor respectively, as would war heroes.
 
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If that logic held true, there would have never been a Holy Roman Emperor. Men like Stilicho and Oedaecer very much considered themselves an integrated part in the Roman Empire. Nothing was stopping them from declaring themselves emperor, except for the practical reasons: It was easier for Stilicho to control Honorius, and Odaecer would be less likely to face war with the ERE if he proclaimed himself king instead of emperor.


If Odaecer was confident he would not be facing an invasion on his hands if he were to declare himself emperor, or if he thought he could win in said invasion, he would have declared himself emperor more than likely.
 
I stumbled upon the book which might be interesting to those who has read this thread -


editors
Ton Derks & Nico Roymans
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2009


The book touches upon some issues of ethnicity in the Roman Empire.

I will quote some extracts from researches of different authors:

‘Ethnography is a discourse in anxious flux’. (Amory)


Ethnicity refers to the collective identity of an ethnos, i.e. a tribe or people whose members subscribe to a perceived common origin.

Ethnicity is first of all about people’s perceptions of their roots, or to quote a more scholarly definition by a Dutch anthropologist, ‘ethnicity is a discursive, subjective construction of group difference’. This is not to say that ethnicity is simply bipolar. If ethnic categorisations are ethnocentric by default, group difference is located on both sides of the boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Although ethnic groups generally present themselves as bounded entities that never change, in reality they are shown to be dynamic and subject to change.

The idea of kinship through birth, one of the key notions that even today underlies much ethnic thinking. In the Roman empire origin was indeed hereditary rather than territorially defined.

What is most striking then is that despite their civitas having been promoted to the rank of municipium in the early 2nd century, and despite the fact that most Batavian auxiliaries had Roman citizenship from the 2nd century on, they continued to express their roots in terms of tribal affiliation… In other words, if municipalisation and enfranchisement normally contributed to the dissolution of traditional ethnic bonds, insofar as the epigraphic evidence can tell us, this was not the case with the Batavi and Tungri.

Whereas ethnic or tribal affiliations were common throughout the Lower Rhine frontier during the conquest and pacification of the early Imperial period, under the Pax Romana these were generally replaced by formulae using geographical provenance or politicaladministrative inscription in a certain civitas; by contrast, after the collapse of the limes and the civic system of administration, tribal or ethnic identity once again became important in the later Empire.

The material construction of identity. Written and spoken language is not the only medium for constructing identities; others are gestures and material culture. The way that people dress in specific situations, that pots are shaped, food is eaten, houses are built, settlements are organised and landscape is shaped may convey messages about the identity – including the ethnic identity – of a person, a family, or a group. However, the symbolism is complex and, by definition, open to multiple interpretations, in both the past and the present. Trying to understand the rhetoric of material culture in relation to the creation of identities is a hazardous undertaking.

(1) that ethnicity is not the same as culture, let alone an identifiable material culture; and to believe otherwise produces teleological ‘ethno-histories’ and ‘acculturation studies’; (2) that ethnic groups are self-ascriptive, mutable and context-based in history, often producing ethnic labels in periods of conflict; the frontiers they establish, consequently, are non-exclusive, and porous; (3) that ethnic groups, although primarily political and social systems, nevertheless have a built-in or ‘essentializing’ tendency to invent feelings of common descent, common religion, common icons, however mythical; (4) that ethnicity is not simply an invention of colonial powers to exercise bureaucratic control or to create martial units, although both can encourage symbols of unity

Romanization is, of course, a modern word. But used in an ideological and ethnic sense, the term is revalorized. ‘Being Roman’ should not even be expected to mean uniformity or acculturation (even if that happened sometimes), much less the adoption of a specific material culture. If Weber was right that, ‘It is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organized, that inspires belief in a common ethnicity.

It is hardly worth pausing over the truism that being Roman was not a claim to cultural uniformity. It is obvious that Seigneur Julius, the elegant villa owner who appears on the mosaic at Carthage and Q. Apuleuis Maxssumus (sic), a Libyan farmer who has left his semi-literate inscription in the Tripolitania Gebel, were worlds apart. But both were Roman citizens and this is the important, specific fact of Romanization. We are not talking here about general uniformity, and certainly not about a uniform material culture. Nor did a Roman identity preclude other ethnic ascriptions, chosen according to the context. I noted earlier a bilingual from northern Algeria recording in the Libyan language a man as a member of the local Misiciri people, but who in the Latin version called himself C. Julius Gaetulicus, advertizing himself as an ethnic, Gaetulian veteran and a Roman citizen. The importance of communication through self-ascription and incorporation is stressed in all analyses of ethnicity, which was also peculiarly well suited to the Roman epigraphic habit. The public and private use of language and onomastics was a tool in Italian and provincial societies to assert local or Roman ethnic identity, sometimes simultaneously. On tombs in Lepcis Magna for example, the exterior inscriptions were in Latin for public recognition, but the underground container was inscribed in neo-Punic as a private claim.

civitas in Africa was the Roman bureaucratic instrument to bridge the gap between the urban, citizen elites, and the attributed ethnic gentes, so that they, too, might become Roman after ‘a long standing claim’ - as many of them did by the 3rd century. If Roman civitas was essentially, like all ethnic devices, intended to promote a social and political system, there is no shortage of evidence of ‘essentializing’ symbols and myths that the state and communities invented to create feelings of common descent and solidarity.

Later antiquity witnessed an expansion of the meaning of ‘Romanus’ all over the empire, while gentes both internally and externally took on new ethnic definitions that coincided with a new political consciousness. But being Roman was an ever more changing situational construct, especially among army groups who served both emperors and themselves, or among immigrants who settled within Roman territory.
 
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If that logic held true, there would have never been a Holy Roman Emperor.

A position that only came about because the pope thought he could name someone Roman (not yet holy - that seems to have started only in the 12th and 13th centuries) emperor.

Not sure it reflects the situation in ancient Rome.
 
If that logic held true, there would have never been a Holy Roman Emperor.
As Elfwine said, the HRE is not comparable to 5th-century Rome.

Men like Stilicho and Oedaecer very much considered themselves an integrated part in the Roman Empire. Nothing was stopping them from declaring themselves emperor, except for the practical reasons: It was easier for Stilicho to control Honorius, and Odaecer would be less likely to face war with the ERE if he proclaimed himself king instead of emperor.

If Odaecer was confident he would not be facing an invasion on his hands if he were to declare himself emperor, or if he thought he could win in said invasion, he would have declared himself emperor more than likely.
Stilicho was half-Roman, and a Roman 'patriot'. Odoacer served in the Roman military.

Stilicho could have declared himself a Roman Emperor but didn't.

While Odoacer, if it made sense for a non-Roman like him to be proclaimed emperor, would have done so by imprisoning Romulus or Nepos until they could be made to back him. He also had the support of the Senate, who could have helped him in that regard. He did come into conflict with Zeno despite never declaring himself emperor, yet he didn't do so then--even though he had nothing further to lose.

Theoderic, Odoacer's successor, was treated quite favorably by the Eastern Emperor, but did not become an emperor. He was made a consul, because he couldn't be emperor (rather, it just wouldn't make sense) and because 'consul' barely meant anything anymore.

And even if it was possible for a full German to become emperor, the fact that no one thought of it, or wanted it, or thought it made sense, and that the people who could have done so didn't think it was a good idea, is not a point in favor of Germanic emperors, it is a point against.
 
As Elfwine said, the HRE is not comparable to 5th-century Rome.

Stilicho was half-Roman, and a Roman 'patriot'. Odoacer served in the Roman military.

Stilicho could have declared himself a Roman Emperor but didn't.
Stilicho could not have become emperor according to Russian.
While Odoacer, if it made sense for a non-Roman like him to be proclaimed emperor, would have done so by imprisoning Romulus or Nepos until they could be made to back him. He also had the support of the Senate, who could have helped him in that regard. He did come into conflict with Zeno despite never declaring himself emperor, yet he didn't do so then--even though he had nothing further to lose.
He didn't want to invite an invasion.
Theoderic, Odoacer's successor, was treated quite favorably by the Eastern Emperor, but did not become an emperor. He was made a consul, because he couldn't be emperor (rather, it just wouldn't make sense) and because 'consul' barely meant anything anymore.
The eastern emperor wasn't about to let him declare himself emperor because that would put him on equal footing with him. He was content pretending he was a vassal of the empire.
And even if it was possible for a full German to become emperor, the fact that no one thought of it, or wanted it, or thought it made sense, and that the people who could have done so didn't think it was a good idea, is not a point in favor of Germanic emperors, it is a point against.
It was safer and easier to control the emperor than be the emperor. Ian Hughes goes into this in "Stilicho: The Vandal Who Saved Rome".

On the down side, it also made it easier to take power in Rome. One didn't have to overthrow the emperor any more, they just had to take the man who had control of him down-something a little easier to do.
 
why exactly the West and East were such different beasts in Late Antiquity
They were always different beasts.
They were different before the Roman conquest.
They most certainly stayed different in the first centuries after being conquered by the Romans.

And they were still different in Late Empire in the IV-V centuries A.D.
I won't explore all the aspects because the subject of this thread is ethnicity issue.
The 'West' was mostly Latin-speaking and the 'East' was mostly Greek-speaking. (As you definitely know the Greek language became even the official language of the 'East' later).

Let's take Ammianus Marcellinus for example:
he identified himself as a 'Roman' of course, that was his imperial identity, he was a Roman patriot, devoted son of the Empire.
But let's see what he writes about himself in his "Roman history" -
XVI. 9. I, a Greek by birth, and formerly a soldier
which means that his ethnic identity was Greek, not Roman.

But in the 'West' there were a lot of people who could describe themselves as 'a Roman by birth'. So their imperial identity was Roman and their ethnic identity was Roman as well. That's what the 'East' did not have.
* Here I consider the Danubian Balcan provinces to be the part of the 'West' as they were Latin-speaking.

That may be the reason why the 'East' was less concerned about the ethnicity of the Roman Emperor. The ruling majority, the elites of the 'East' were not ethnic Roman in the IV-V centuries A.D. So they were more inclined to tolerate the Roman Emperor who was not an ethnic Roman as well.
I suppose the Greeks of the 'East' thought that someone whose origin was from the territory which was the part of the Empire for a long time might qualify under certain circumstances as more or less legitimate emperor.
As the Isaurian dynasty did.

An extract from the The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus:
XII. 6. while Victor, master-general of the cavalry, a Sarmatian by birth, but(!) a man of slow and cautious temper, recommended him to wait for his imperial colleague, and this advice was supported by several other officers...
Here we see another Roman, this time ethnic Sarmatian. Though Ammianus Marcellinus unquestionably respects this particular individual but it is sure that being ethnic Barbarian was a bad thing. I think that in the eyes of a 'Greek Roman' someone like 'Sarmatian Roman' was inferior.

Again an extract from the The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus:
XVI. 8. At this time the energy and promptitude of Julius, the commander of the forces on the other side of Mount Taurus, was particularly distinguished; for when he learnt what had happened in Thrace, he sent secret letters to all the governors of the different cities and forts, who were all Romans (which at this time is not very common), requesting them, on one and the same day, as at a concerted signal, to put to death all the Goths who had previously been admitted into the places under their charge;
Here we see another definition of Romans by a Greek Ammianus Marcellinus. My guess is that Romans in this context are the imperial individuals of non-Barbarian ethnicity.
 
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