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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ValiantKnight, post: 4873966, member: 44210&quot;]Meant to reply back to this very informative discussion (thanks guys!), but life got busy <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>How I see it, due to the evolution of the concept and the culture over two-thousand years, there is no one definition to what it means to be &quot;Roman&quot;. As the direct, political continuation of the empire founded by Augustus, the Byzantine Empire was, at least from a modern/legal standpoint, that very same empire, even up to 1453. By this interpretation, the Byzantine Empire&#039;s people (excluding slaves and foreigners, at least) would be appropriately be considered Roman citizens (which as already stated, is how they self-identified during the empire&#039;s existence). Going further back, we also have the 211 AD Edict of Caracalla that gave full Roman citizenship to all free-born inhabitants of the empire; before, this was restricted to Italians.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, it all just depends on how you view, define and label things (such as on how much a culture, people or state needs to change to be different enough to warrant a new label). One person&#039;s post-610 AD Greek-speaking Eastern Roman is another person&#039;s Byzantine. Ethnically, the majority of the inhabitants of the ERE were Greek, not Latin-speaking Italians/Western Europeans, but can be seen as Roman in the sense that they followed the majority-culture of the empire, which was Roman-based/influenced (itself influenced by earlier ancient Greek culture). The culture followed by the Greeks of the ERE in 1453 was very different than the Roman culture of 1 AD, but since those Greeks were technically Roman citizens of the (Eastern) Roman Empire referred to as such themselves and by contemporaries (not all, especially in Western Europe) as such, by association, would it be correct to call their culture &quot;Roman&quot; by this definition as well?</p><p><br /></p><p>Nothing new of substance added to the conversation, but just wanted to get my two folles in <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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