The Ultimate "Continuations of the Roman Empire" Poll

[Socrates]

I know what the Dominate was, but it was the main Roman Empire, still ruled from Rome, not a continuation.

I don't see any difference between those things. A "continuation" means the "same thing continuing"? A continuation is not a sequel.

I'd put both the Dominate and the Byzantine Empire as the same thing. I actually hate the name "Byzantine Empire" because of how anachronistic the name is. It WAS the Roman Empire. If you need to distinguish it, just call it the "Eastern Roman Empire".

I also put the Papal States down as, while not as clear cut as the other two, it was a direct continuation of the state religious apparatus of the Western Empire.

 

[Alligator]

I don't see any difference between those things. A "continuation" means the "same thing continuing"? A continuation is not a sequel.

I'd put both the Dominate and the Byzantine Empire as the same thing. I actually hate the name "Byzantine Empire" because of how anachronistic the name is. It WAS the Roman Empire. If you need to distinguish it, just call it the "Eastern Roman Empire".

I also put the Papal States down as, while not as clear cut as the other two, it was a direct continuation of the state religious apparatus of the Western Empire.

The Byzantines occasionally did call themselves Byzantines (byzantioi) to refer to the importance of their capital city, even though they usually called themselves romaioi.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

That does not change the fact that the lingua franca of half the empire was Greek and that by the 5th century everything in the east was translated into Greek.

The eastern half was basically a load of Roman subjects, and the reason the Roman governors spoke Greek was so that they could boss these peoples around more efficiently. Even then, lots of official business (e.g., laws, Imperial constitutions) was done in Latin.

The western half of the Roman empire wasn't more Roman than the eastern half.

Really? I'd have thought it pretty obvious that the part of the Empire which contained the Roman heartland and the city itself and spoke the original Roman language would have set the standard of Romanitas, not the part which was basically made up of Rome's tributaries and subjects.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

The Byzantines occasionally did call themselves Byzantines (byzantioi) to refer to the importance of their capital city, even though they usually called themselves romaioi.

They called themselves Greeks (Hellenes) as well, but only in the last century or so.

 

[Tom Colton]

A continuation is not a sequel.

I think this is the main thing that people fail to grasp in this big huge debate, with a healthy serving of the Ship of Theseus Problem (or "When is an Australopithecine no longer no Homo?").

 

[PBJ]

Alright, how in the hell do people think the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, an Ottonian re-construction of Charlemagne's slapdash legitimization of his own conquests, was a successor to Rome? And how do they think its more Roman than the Ottomans (not even the slightest bit Roman, still more Roman than the HREGN) and the Russians (also not Roman, but still more Roman than the HREGN)

And yeah, people must have forgotten what the Dominate was...

I voted for the HRE because I thought this was just another joke poll. Had I been serious, I would've voted for the United States.



/s

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

San Marino will have its day.

 

[Francisco Fernando]

Argentina because the majority of the population is Italian and Italian heritage permeates in the country. They speak a Latin language called Spanish and are of Roman Catholic faith. Argentina's territory is the size of the Roman Empire. Buenos Aires is the Constantinople of South America because it is in an important water trade route. It is the most visited city in South America. The Rio de la Plata basin is similar to the Bosporus Strait. Argentina is home to many European ethnic groups since it's a product of 19th Century European Immigration. Argentina is truly an extension of the Italian nation. An Argentine is someone who is Italian who speaks Spanish who is cultured French. Italians, Spanish, and French were the main immigrant groups and composed the Western Roman Empire.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

The eastern half was basically a load of Roman subjects, and the reason the Roman governors spoke Greek was so that they could boss these peoples around more efficiently. Even then, lots of official business (e.g., laws, Imperial constitutions) was done in Latin.

If you are a Roman citizen, you are a Roman. Everyone in the Roman empire was a Roman citizen after 212. Also, claudius, not known for his philhellenism, referred to Greek and Latin as "our two languages".

Really? I'd have thought it pretty obvious that the part of the Empire which contained the Roman heartland and the city itself and spoke the original Roman language would have set the standard of Romanitas, not the part which was basically made up of Rome's tributaries and subjects.

Oh FFS. Rome the city stopped having any importance during the 3rd century. Constantine founded Constantinople as New Rome. The last time Rome was used as a capital was before the third century crisis. Domitian famously disliked the city.

Also, after 212, everyone in the Roman empire was a Roman. They were not Roman subjects or tributaries. They were every bit as Roman as anyone else in the empire.

 

[Faeelin]

I'm still of the opinion Rome had something Byzantium hadn't.
This spirit to conquer the known world and to hold it for 400 years.

So, Constantine wasn't Roman because he didn't conquer anyone?

 

[St. Just]

The spirit of conquest does not exist.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

If you are a Roman citizen, you are a Roman. Everyone in the Roman empire was a Roman citizen after 212.

Legally speaking, sure. In terms of culture, language, outlook, etc., not really.

Also, claudius, not known for his philhellenism, referred to Greek and Latin as "our two languages".

Even with all their Greek education, the Roman elite still talked to each other in Latin, at least if the surviving epistles (of Cicero, Pliny, etc.) are any guide.

Oh FFS. Rome the city stopped having any importance during the 3rd century. Constantine founded Constantinople as New Rome. The last time Rome was used as a capital was before the third century crisis. Domitian famously disliked the city.

Also, after 212, everyone in the Roman empire was a Roman. They were not Roman subjects or tributaries. They were every bit as Roman as anyone else in the empire.

The city still retained huge ideological importance -- the Empire continued calling itself Roman, the inhabitants of the city still had special privileges (grain subsidies etc.), the Senate still met there, Emperors celebrated their Triumphs there, and the sack of Rome was greeted with far more dismay than the sack of any other city in the Empire had been. Rome might not have been where the Emperors spent most of their time, but it most emphatically was not just another town.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

This isn't quite the same debate.



So the 80% of citizens that were rural farmers of the 3rd through 5th classes, the thousands of citizens too poor to even belong to a class, the huge amount of Italian (the vast majority) and other non-Greek slaves who did all the farming, mining, building, etc., the millions of men who served in the legions throughout the centuries from the 2nd BC to the AD 5th, none of them mattered?

There was also a vast majority of Syriac speakers in the east, does that mean that the Roman Empire in Syria was Syriac or a Semitic polity? No, most definitely, it was a Hellenic-Latin state.

Also the whole argument of successor based on language is silly and is only trumpeted in regards to Rome. If we use that same logic then the Achaemenids who used Syriac as its administrative language is the only Persian empire and the Parthian and Sassanid are not because they used old Iranian and Avestan.

 

[Timaeus]

Really? I'd have thought it pretty obvious that the part of the Empire which contained the Roman heartland and the city itself and spoke the original Roman language would have set the standard of Romanitas, not the part which was basically made up of Rome's tributaries and subjects.

Caracalla's edict extended the chain of Romanitas to all free men of the Empire, and when the West burned and fell, the chain continued in the East.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Legally speaking, sure. In terms of culture, language, outlook, etc., not really.

Yes, really. In terms of culture, Roman culture had been influenced by Greek culture since Rome's earliest decades. Most of the best Roman works were written in Greek. Roman engineering and architecture was based on earlier Greek innovations. Roman science and medicine was hardly improved from the scientific and medicine knowledge gained during the Hellenistic era. Roman elites were taught by Greeks, read the Greek classics, and often learned philosophy and rhetoric in Greece. Roman religion was heavily influenced by Greek, and the most popular religions during the imperial period-the cults of Isis and Mithras, were Hellenistic religions. The principle Roman philosophy, Stoicism, was Greek. Domitian and Caligula early on tried to model the principate off of traditional Hellenistic monarchy, and Diocletian did just this when he established the Dominate.

Furthermore, Roman elites were effectively bi-lingual, and since the time of Augustus, all Roman officials in the east were required to be fluent in Greek.

 

[Timaeus]

Yes, really. In terms of culture, Roman culture had been influenced by Greek culture since Rome's earliest decades. Most of the best Roman works were written in Greek. Roman engineering and architecture was based on earlier Greek innovations. Roman science and medicine was hardly improved from the scientific and medicine knowledge gained during the Hellenistic era. Roman elites were taught by Greeks, read the Greek classics, and often learned philosophy and rhetoric in Greece. Roman religion was heavily influenced by Greek, and the most popular religions during the imperial period-the cults of Isis and Mithras, were Hellenistic religions. The principle Roman philosophy, Stoicism, was Greek. Domitian and Caligula early on tried to model the principate off of traditional Hellenistic monarchy, and Diocletian did just this when he established the Dominate.

But is there a reverse of that? Is there a Latinization of the Greeks? Did the Greeks learn anything from the Latins?

Because saying that only makes people think that the Byzantine Empire is not Roman, because it is not Latin. That seems to be the root of the dispute against the Byzantines being Roman. It feels like the people in Rome remain more Roman than the citizens of the Empire.

 

[Tom Colton]

Did the Greeks learn anything from the Latins?

That question answers itself: The superior Greeks obviously had nothing to learn from their weak and atrophied western half.

 

[Napoleonrules]

I think the reason the Dominate has less votes is because people don't know what it is. I would imagine that anyone who did not vote for it does not realize it is the period from Emperor Diocletian to the fall of Rome and the last Western Roman Emperor (Romulus Augustulus), I can't imagine anyone saying that after Diocletian divided the Empire that the Western portion failed to be a continuation of the Empire. Frankly don't think that should be labelled as the Dominate and instead "Roman Empire in the West"

 

[Timaeus]

That question answers itself: The superior Greeks obviously had nothing to learn from their weak and atrophied western half.

Heh.

But seriously, the Roman Empire was a single culture, even if the Greeks dominated the eastern half. Its military equipment was adapted from its old enemies, its religions and cults and philosophies it got from the east, and its law was its greatest innovation which it spread to the corners of its empire.

And so, when one says that the Byzantines are legally Romans, they are Romans in truth, Romans by the very legal culture they inherited. It is their law which is Roman, and they kept the line of succession of power from Augustus, and so they are Roman, regardless of language.

In contrast, the Empire in the West died, conquered by Germanic tribes. The polity in the west died, and what came after it was no longer Roman, though yes, it was heir to the Latin tongue and the northern two-thirds of the Italian peninsula.

 

[Faeelin]

Caracalla's edict extended the chain of Romanitas to all free men of the Empire, and when the West burned and fell, the chain continued in the East.

"“Whether we drink of the Rhine or the Orontes, we are all one people."