end of the saga

[vyacheslav]

The 21 year old wonderkid of history has finally had enough of me. And now she's stooped to insulting me! As she says "You don't understand the written word and you don't think." Big talk for someone who never heard of Constantine XI. She also mocks me for my intense interest in this, as she says "And yes, I meant you should move out of your

Comments

[kjkexmachina]

The Ρωμαιοί were decidedly not Romans from a cultural standpoint, and although they shared many governmental and militaristic traditions with the Roman Empire (much less with the more Italic res publica), so did the Gothic and Frankish kingdoms that subsumed the Empire

[vyacheslav]

First of all, if Byzantines were not Roman after all, why did the term byzantine need to be created 100 years after the fail of said empire? 'Byzantines' called themselves Romans, the government call itself roman, and the rulers ruled as roman emperors. And this is not a case of a group of people, say the Russians, who decided that they were going to become the Romans and adopt their titles. The title that Constantine XI held until his death at the hands of countless turkish jannisaries was the same title that Caesar Augustus fought to create

[kjkexmachina]

First of all, if Byzantines were not Roman after all, why did the term byzantine need to be created 100 years after the fail of said empire? 'Byzantines' called themselves Romans, the government call itself roman, and the rulers ruled as roman emperors. And this is not a case of a group of people, say the Russians, who decided that they were going to become the Romans and adopt their titles. The title that Constantine XI held until his death at the hands of countless turkish jannisaries was the same title that Caesar Augustus fought to create.

The title is quite meaningless, and it should be seen as such after Mehmed II took on the title of Caesar. Emperor was also given by the Pontifex Maximus to Carolus Magnus. History isn't about titles and empires and geists. Do you really care whether the United States has a President or a King or a Prime Minister, granted they have the same powers of the executive and we the same bill of rights ? We are an extension of the British Empire whether we like it or not. In fact, we're more British

[vyacheslav]

To begin, I forgive your use of byzantine. I know it makes things a little easier, though I try to say medieval roman.

The title is quite meaningless...The point I was trying to make was that the imperial title that Constantine held was the same as the original. It was passed down and there was never a period of time in which the title did not exist. An example of this would be if from 300-500 ad the land of the romans was completely dismantled and then finally some greek guy came along and decided to start the new roman empire. I would agree that they may call themselves romans but they are not romans. This is the difference between the Holy Roman Empire and the real medieval Roman empire. In the case of the real Romans, Constantine the Great moved the capital to the east and called it Nova Roma. Clearly he intended that Constantinople would be the new center of the Roman world, not some greek case study that eventually tried to claim roman heritage. Maybe if the name Nova Roma had stuck people would feel that