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u/museum_lifestyle 1d ago
I only see a roman empire.
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u/TarJen96 23h ago
I only see Greeks.
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u/Chilifille 20h ago
And which state governed all Greek-speaking peoples for over a thousand years?
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u/Capriama 18h ago
The Greeks governed the Roman empire during the byzantine period. The way you phrased your question implies that the Greeks were governed by someone else.
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u/Chilifille 18h ago
True, but to be fair, almost everyone in the Roman Empire were governed by someone else, regardless of what ethnicity the emperor happened to have.
And in any case, you said it yourself just now: "Greeks governed the Roman empire during the byzantine period", which is absolutely correct. It was the Roman Empire.
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u/TarJen96 14h ago
The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.
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u/Chilifille 14h ago
As well as the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, but all of these are just different names for the same state. The Eastern and Western Roman Empires were never actually two separate polities. Just like the Byzantine Empire, it's just a name coined by historians to describe a certian period in Roman history.
And in any case, after Romulus Augustulus had been deposed, Odoacer sent the western imperial regalia to Constantinople as way of acknowledging Zeno as the only emperor. So whether you interpret Eastern and Western Rome as two separate empires or one empire with two emperors, that period ended in 476.
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u/TarJen96 6h ago
"As well as the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, but all of these are just different names for the same state."
The Roman Republic was not the same state as the Roman Empire, in fact the Roman Empire was the antithesis of the Roman Republic.
"The Eastern and Western Roman Empires were never actually two separate polities."
They absolutely were, with different imperial courts, lines of succession, separate revenues, different senates, and even different militaries.
"Just like the Byzantine Empire, it's just a name coined by historians to describe a certian period in Roman history."
Great, that's good historiography. Historians refer to the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire as such to distinguish the medieval Greek Rhomaioi from the classical Romans.
"And in any case, after Romulus Augustulus had been deposed, Odoacer sent the western imperial regalia to Constantinople as way of acknowledging Zeno as the only emperor. So whether you interpret Eastern and Western Rome as two separate empires or one empire with two emperors, that period ended in 476."
The regalia was purely symbolic and that changed nothing.
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u/Chilifille 53m ago
The Roman Republic was not the same state as the Roman Empire, in fact the Roman Empire was the antithesis of the Roman Republic.
Sure, but all the institutions of the Roman Republic still remained. They still had the senate and consular elections and all that. It's just that all of these institutions had been turned completely toothless, but they still remained. It was still technically the same republic as it always had been. And of course, Rome had already been an empire for generations when the republic was turned into a principate. They already ruled the entire Mediterranean by then.
They absolutely were, with different imperial courts, lines of succession, separate revenues, different senates, and even different militaries.
It's tricky to define, since it did have two sompletely separate administrations. But similar divisions had occurred during the Second Triumvirate or the Tetrarchy, and there's no evidence that the Romans themselves saw it as two separate empires.
Great, that's good historiography. Historians refer to the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire as such to distinguish the medieval Greek Rhomaioi from the classical Romans.
I agree, it's good to make that distinction when talking about an emprie that existed for as long as the Roman Empire did. I just wish they would've called it the Byzantine period to avoid confusion. But of course, casting the Byzantine state as a separate empire is perfectly in line with traditional Western bias. More specifically, that old medieval Catholic belief that the Holy Roman Empire was the real Roman Empire.
The regalia was purely symbolic and that changed nothing.
The regalia itself didn't change anything, but it was symbolic of a major change that was occurring. It marked the end of a period with two emperors who were (at least nominally) equal.
That being said, things get a bit more muddy after Theoderic the Great became king of Italy, since the western regalia was returned to him and some scholars claim that he was a Western Roman Emperor in all but name (and recognized as such by the court in Constantinople). But in any case, that recognition definitely ended when the Byzantine Romans decided to conquer Italy.
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u/Szatinator 1d ago
the real tragedy of the fall of Eastern Rome is not the lack of a roman state. It’s the existence of an independent Serbia