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<p>[QUOTE="Suarez, post: 18425535, member: 99239"]Call me old school but I don't buy into the "Roman Empire through the fall of Constantinople" crowd. For one, the Eastern provinces never fully assimilated into the Roman fold. Despite appearing to us through the lens of time as being equivalent to a country to the Romans themselves the "real" Romans were in the West and on the other side were the Greeks (and to the south the Africans).</p><p><br /></p><p>The Byzantine rulers kept the titles and to a certain extent the legal framework of their ancient colonists because it was politically expedient (as it always is when it comes to dynasties). However, as a people they were through and through their own distinct culture and would have regarded actual Rome-born, Latin-speaking Romans as foreign to them as Egyptians or Persians.</p><p><br /></p><p>The closest modern analogy I can think of would be something like Puerto Rico or Samoa; nominally part of America and whose inhabitants are US citizens but most of whom would find being called an "American" as comical, if not insulting.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think the whole effort to rebrand the Byzantines as ordinary Romans is done either out of a Romantic notion to lend further grandeur to this civilization we're all so fond of or pedantic historical revisionism based on technicalities or, worse, a misguided attempt at political correctness in the flawed view that somehow being termed 'Byzantine' is a pejorative. None of these are compelling arguments.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rasiel[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Suarez, post: 18425535, member: 99239"]Call me old school but I don't buy into the "Roman Empire through the fall of Constantinople" crowd. For one, the Eastern provinces never fully assimilated into the Roman fold. Despite appearing to us through the lens of time as being equivalent to a country to the Romans themselves the "real" Romans were in the West and on the other side were the Greeks (and to the south the Africans). The Byzantine rulers kept the titles and to a certain extent the legal framework of their ancient colonists because it was politically expedient (as it always is when it comes to dynasties). However, as a people they were through and through their own distinct culture and would have regarded actual Rome-born, Latin-speaking Romans as foreign to them as Egyptians or Persians. The closest modern analogy I can think of would be something like Puerto Rico or Samoa; nominally part of America and whose inhabitants are US citizens but most of whom would find being called an "American" as comical, if not insulting. I think the whole effort to rebrand the Byzantines as ordinary Romans is done either out of a Romantic notion to lend further grandeur to this civilization we're all so fond of or pedantic historical revisionism based on technicalities or, worse, a misguided attempt at political correctness in the flawed view that somehow being termed 'Byzantine' is a pejorative. None of these are compelling arguments. Rasiel[/QUOTE]
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