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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Pavlos, post: 6685350, member: 96635&quot;]I realized there are a lot of separate opinions regarding this. Yes it was the Roman Empire and the Hellenic world became merged with the Roman world and the ethnic Greeks called themselves <i>Rhomaioi</i> until the very end. However there has formed a distinct culture over the year, heavily influenced by the orthodox religion and different from the Roman Imperials. After the end of the &quot;dark ages&quot; (ca. 7 to 8th centuries) the Empire took the &quot;character&quot; that western historiography calls &quot;Byzantine&quot;, different from the Western Romans, and the predominance of the Greek language against Latin was almost total. The ethnic Greeks still recognized themselves as descendant from the Hellenics and the Latin language never replaced Greek as the language of communication among people, of philosophy, science and the church. Was the Byzantine Empire a direct continuation of the Roman Empire when looking at my last sentence? I would say no, that is I think the reason historians &quot;invented&quot; the term Byzantine Empire since there is a clear distinction.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;They were Romans i.e. Citizens of Rome, being part of the Roman Empire (eventhough after the 7--8th century it got a complete different character), but still ethnic Greeks and still they considered themselves descendant of the Hellenics. You should also not forget, Hellenics were pagans, those orthodox Greeks did not want themselves to be considered a pagan, and being a Hellenic was a dirty term as an Orthodox Christian.</p><p>During the Ottoman Empire, all Orthodox people in Greece and the Balkans (including Bulgarians, Albanians, Vlachs, Georgians and Serbians) were all called &quot;Rum&quot; i.e. Romans part of the &quot;Rum Millet&quot; i.e. Roman Nation. For that reason ethnic Greeks by default continued to call themselves Romans after 1453. There were so many different ethnics in that millet, yet the Ottomans consider them all birds of a feather.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regarding people calling themselves Rhomaioi after WW1/Balkan wars is because the nationalistic awareness started in the 19th century, all around the beginning of the Hellenic state. Places like Lemnos (where this 1912 quotation is from ‘‘No, we are Romans.&quot;)&nbsp; were not part of this &quot;Hellenic state&quot; until 1912. The locals were not fully consciousness raised and the the children fell back on the Byzantine and Ottoman default. They just did not know yet those &quot;Hellenics&quot; were actually the same people as them, the nationalist consciousness just took a while to propagate and did not reach Lemnos until 1912.</p><p>I have a unique family name from Epiros and a book is written about it by one of my family members and there they called themselves a Roman as well all the way till the liberation from the Ottomans. I recall Greek quotation as in &quot;I will die as a Roman&quot; or &quot;I will die as a Greco&quot;. It was not just Lemnos, but all parts that were still under Ottoman rule after 1821. The Ottoman empire still existed yet in 1827, the Greeks at the third national assembly at Troezen established the <b>Hellenic</b> State (Eλληνικὴ Πολιτεία). They were not any different then all the other people living in the Ottoman ruled Greek parts in that time.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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