So what exactly is it about Byzantium?

The other ancient superpowers will be china in the east. Like Rome, it has been split and conquered many times. Yet somehow the infrastructe of the chinese government surive till this day.

Arguably China is a more geographically natural unit, Persia also. I think it would be hard to argue that they have significantly more continuity than Western Europe does from the Roman Empire, extensive use is still made of Roman legal concepts, language and to an extent philosophy.

battles, but by throwing legion and legion at enemies while losing battles, because they "always" had more reserves. At least until they really needed them. It's a mistake to consider the residents of the formerly western Roman lands the descendants of the Romans. The barbarian invaders didn't assimilate into Roman culture, firstly, and they replaced the Romans (although the Goths did keep some Roman infrastructure intact). The inhabitants of Italy aren't Romans; they're Germanic Lombards with a bit of an Arab twist.
This is simply not true, the Romans never ran out of manpower. They ran out of land and money and properly trained and equipped men.

Aside from the fact that the population of the Empire would not have been "roman" in any ethnic sense it is quite clear that the Romans did integrate with the invaders, landowners would usually lose about 1/3-1/2 their land to barbarian leaders and gradually a merged ruling elite emerged
 
The other ancient superpowers will be china in the east. Like Rome, it has been split and conquered many times. Yet somehow the infrastructe of the chinese government surive till this day.

Arguably China is a more geographically natural unit, Persia also. I think it would be hard to argue that they have significantly more continuity than Western Europe does from the Roman Empire, extensive use is still made of Roman legal concepts, language and to an extent philosophy.

battles, but by throwing legion and legion at enemies while losing battles, because they "always" had more reserves. At least until they really needed them. It's a mistake to consider the residents of the formerly western Roman lands the descendants of the Romans. The barbarian invaders didn't assimilate into Roman culture, firstly, and they replaced the Romans (although the Goths did keep some Roman infrastructure intact). The inhabitants of Italy aren't Romans; they're Germanic Lombards with a bit of an Arab twist.
This is simply not true, the Romans never ran out of manpower. They ran out of land and money and properly trained and equipped men.

Aside from the fact that the population of the Empire would not have been "roman" in any ethnic sense it is quite clear that the Romans did integrate with the invaders, landowners would usually lose about 1/3-1/2 their land to barbarian leaders and gradually a merged ruling elite emerged
 
Mainly because the countries are not under roman control at all...they are not a former roman province...

The thing about China and Iran or persia as compared to rome is the fact that the revolution leads to a new government, but the civilization is intact.

Like any modern democratic country, the next admistration does not mean the empire or nation was replaced or etc. It simply means that the admistration is under a different group of people.

When the Mongols and Manchu managed to take over china, instead of saying china is PART of THEIR empire, they claim that they are the suceeding emperor of china, and encomparate their nation into china.


Manchuria for example, they managed to conquer china, but the irony is...less than 1%(may be wrong, but it is a small percentage) of the Manchu considered themselves to be Manchu or being able to speak Manchu. MOst of them claim that they are chinese instead.


The invading Goths claim that the western empire was destroyed, instead of claiming to be the new leaders of western roman empire. They did not claim that their native lands is part of the NEW roman admistration.

Furthermore, the point remains that when the areas declared indepedence, they did not use the original name.

For example, using Italy to describe their new nation instead of rome.
 
Which kind of weird that there ISN'T a new rome despite having so many people wanting to see rome lasting till today like china.

The other ancient superpowers will be china in the east. Like Rome, it has been split and conquered many times. Yet somehow the infrastructe of the chinese government surive till this day.

Hmm maybe we can include Iran as well, technically it is the remant of the persian empire.

Even with the end of the dynasty era in china, the current communist china can be politicaly traced back to several thousand years, the same goes to Iran.


Yet the Romans did not rise up in rebellion to rebuild their civilization...I wonder what is the cause of that? Hell, the main lands that is considered truly roman, which is Italy was unified under the name Italy instead of rome...

The same goes to the eastern roman empire, Byzantium empire. Why didn't the people of the Byzantium empire rise up in rebellion to rebuilt a eastern roman civilization?

The Italians did kinda try it in WWII. And got their asses kicked.

The Byzantines were simply displaced by the Turks. So they couldn't rise up even if they wanted to. Greece might be argued as a revival and they did want to get Constatinaople after WWI (or atleast I think they did)

Also Iran and China (imo) don't count, considering they have radically different governments compared with the past and don't really respect or follow the empereor or shah. They are strongly opposed to them in fact.
 
First treaty after WWI gave Greece some lands in Asia Minor back but they couldn't hold them when Antante powers refused to help Greece defend them from Ataturk.
 
There's a certain romance to them. The Byzantine Empire with it's roots in Rome and the Hellenistic world- and acutely aware of that- is the closest thing Western civilisation has to a level of cultural continuity (even if it's mostly illusory) akin to that of China.

It's just the idea of these Emperors ruling a strange and mighty empire with it's roots a thousand years in the past and the somewhat gothic idea of its inevitable decay.

The Flocc has now been Flocced.
 
Also Iran and China (imo) don't count, considering they have radically different governments compared with the past and don't really respect or follow the empereor or shah. They are strongly opposed to them in fact.

While each succeeding dynasty does not really like the previous dynasty, the new dynasty will always claim to be leaders of china. The same as the roman dynasty.

The basic infrastructure of china remains intact, and it is not split up or absorbed by other culture.

The Manchu adopted the chinese culture after they conquered china, same as the mongols...which is a main difference between china and rome.

If the Osgoths claim that they are given citizenship rights, and declare their native land and rome to be rome althogether....maybe the roman civilization may have a chance of surivial.
 
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