Why is Veeky Forums so pro-byzantine?

Why is Veeky Forums so pro-byzantine?
PD: Venice dindu nuffin and the ottoman empire is the true heir of rome

Fuck you

Byzantines were pretty based when you think about and really on get a bad wrap cause Gibbons was an HREboo

Also Moscow was the real third Rome

Got this book from Veeky Forums Library of Alexandria user.

It's fucking amazing what them Byzantines did for so long with barely any military power.

Years of memes

It sounds poetic. Constantinople does too.

>hungarian crown
it's in east roman style, but still

There's no such thing as the "heir of Rome". The Byzantine Empire was literally the Roman state. It was Rome. There simply isn't any way to argue around this.

This, although it wasn't like they brought any glory to it.

After Justinian bankrupted the empire it was nothing but painful and steady decline, mixed with nostalgic drunkenness; ending in the most ignominious way possible, defeat by the T*rks.

>it was nothing but painful and steady decline
What was the Macedonian renaissance
What was the Komnenian restoration
What was the Palaiologos dynasty

All entirely irrelevant desu

Enrico Dandolo did nothing wrong

>It was Rome
How can it be Rome if it's not in Rome?

Protip: The Roman "capital" stopped being Rome 250 years before the end of the Western Roman Empire. Does that mean that the Western Roman Empire stopped being Roman? Are you implying that barely urbanised, borderline barbarian western part of the Roman Empire was 'more Roman' than the eastern part?

wtf I hate the Western ""Roman"" Empire now

>western """""""""""roman""""""""""" empire

I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to call them Romans if they're not actually from Rome. It's not my fault no one called them out on their shit when they decided to move the capital.

GTFO out of here, pre roman western peoples dotted Europe with towns, cities, and road networks.

The Britons cobbled their own roads before Rome came.

New Rome was a fresh start, a new city built to Christian requirements whereas Rome itself degenerated into a pagan shithole.

because turks

>I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to call them Romans if they're not actually from Rome. It's not my fault no one called them out on their shit when they decided to move the capital.

If only you had been there to tell them oh wise one, then they would not have been so ignorant. When they moved they did not lose their Roman citizenship. They did not lose their superior outlook and disdain for plebs. Too bad they overlooked the only thing that mattered, a 21st century neet's opinion!

>their superior outlook and disdain for plebs

stop talking anytime fella

A common theme in Rome is that you dont have to physically be from Rome to be a Roman. Aeneas was a Greek, Numa was a Sabine, and a whole host of early kings were Etruscan. In fact, there are far more emperors who were indeed not from Rome or even Italy than not.
Ergo, being Roman is more of an abstract concept and doesn't necessarily require (or even request) being from the city of Rome.

>mfw a 'true' 'roman' from Istanbul tries to talk to me

please stop coming round my palazzo

WE

To be honest I think it's because people equate those times and the Ottoman empire itself as a time of barbarism and sacrilege. Byzantium was just barely holding on for such a long time, fighting back as hard as they could {by hiding behind their walls} the last remnant of the empire. Even though they didn't have much clout at the time, when the city finally fell, it was a huge blow to the west, and the christian world. For centuries to come writings and texts were influenced to not look kindly upon what they did. I think in the end, whoever finished them off would have gotten a really bad name from it. Same with Venice. Long story short, I think many people hate the Ottomans because they finished off the remnants of one of the greatest empires on earth.

Awesome book.

Because it's an extremely interesting civilization, provided you actually have a sincere interest in them and aren't just LARPing and being an idiot (I've seen many self-proclaiming "Byzaboos" who claim to like the Byzantines simply because they're reactionaries and believe that "muh Konstantinopolis belongs in Christian hands!!111!!", but don't particularly know any in-depth Byzantine history).

For one, they were the only state in Europe and the Middle East to retain a functional bureaucracy after the Roman Empire. It sounds like nothing now, but that's an incredible achievement. All of Europe devolved into feudalism, but the Byzantines were able to maintain their administrative framework that, among other things, allowed them to conduct military campaigns more efficiently (because they had bureaucratic ministries dedicated to logistics rather than just getting their army's supplies from pillaging), allowed them to gather intelligence from their neighbors (the Byzantines were the first to have what we would call an intelligence agency in modern times - they had an entire ministry-bureau dedicated to intelligence gathering), and allowing them to maintain large cities such as Constantinople and Thessalonika and Smyrna, because of their efficient public administration.

They're a very interesting state.

I personally don't care if Constantinople isn't in Greek hands. I'm not a reactionary edgelord, or a Christfag.

reminder that the Byzantines represent the dynastic, cultural, and civilisational continuation of the Roman empire
hre are just larping barbarians

Not to mention turning one of the greatest Christian Cathedrals in the world into a fucking Mosque.

>barely any military power
Luttwak seriously fucks up his estimates of byzantine troop sizes throughout the book, user.

WE

FIRE!

>Mediterranean and Near Eastern peoples are different from the peoples of Gaul, Germany, Brittany and Scandinavia
Gee, ya think!

whoosh

Because we're all secretly moderate non so nationalist Slavs who praise Byzantium and France

Because we look at the stain of Islam today on the territories that once belonged to Byzantium, and dream of a parallel universe where the Byzantine Empire survived and preserved places like modern Turkey, Egypt, and Syria for Christendom.

hey there

>biggest empire in Europe
>in decline for 80% of their history
>had to keep paying to other nations to not attack it

Seriously, what is so good about Byzantium?

Luttwak is distinctly overrated in my view. He isn't a scholar of Antiquity and his works on the subject show it. His original Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire was destroyed by Isaacs and an entire generation of writers since.

The idea that the Roman Empire was conceptually capable of long-term strategic planning is a joke concocted by pattern seeking modern people. Even at its most sophisticated Romans could barely work out where one thing was in relation to another without modern cartographical methods, dedicated generals trained in strategic theory in army schools etc.

shouldn't have diverted Goths towards Rome ya bunch a salty dogs

WRE still possessed Rome, even if it wasn't the capital

Veeky Forums is infested with LARPing /pol/yps

...

Veeky Forums secretly wishes the Byzantine Empire could have kept Islam from sweeping into the Near East, which would mean we don't have Islamist sectarian violence in Syria today, and Turkey isn't falling under Sharia law.

this, plus the romantic notion of a roman empire that still exists and is basically a greek version of spain, kind of broke and sleepy nowadays but stomping muslims back in the day.

i imagine muslims feel the same way about the iberian caliphates, and look to the alhambra in the same way christians look to the st sophia - a great example of their religion coopted by the adherents of the enemy religion.

Russian detected

"Eastern Roman Empire".

This is very difficult to say while keeping a straight face. I wonder who can, because indeed it is hard.

"Eastern", you say, grinning like Procopius did. "Eastern", it is its name. But when thinking of "Eastern", you think about how Rome was located in the West. You think about all those who succeeded Rome in the West. You think about how the Catholic Church continued Roman political system in the West.

But then, the funniest is coming: "Roman". Yes, now, you cannot contain your laughter. "Roman" it is called, despite the fact that this "Roman" body is standing on Greece, a land so harsh and poor that it took the Legions of Rome 66 years to set foot in it. A Greek-speaking and non-Roman Catholic people, yes, but still calling themselves "Roman".

And now, here is the end of the fun: "Empire". Now you fell on the ground, laughing so hard you can't breathe. An "Empire", a body made of dozens of pretenders to the throne, all fighting for themselves, giving strange names to their position, full of Despots or Autokrators. An "Empire" who will stay divided and eventually ruled by Turks , while the great powers of Europe create colonies all around the world.

>Eastern
>Roman
>Empire

Byzantine Empire is the literal embodiment of failure.

Unlike other Empires, the Byzantines didnt reach their territorial peak through conquests and hard efforts. They were spoonfed all their territories from Rome at their beginning. And from the start the Byzantines always kept going down, getting cucked by legitimately everyone with one of the weakest militaries in history. If not for the Theodosian walls the Byzantine Empire would have been wiped out by Atilla or if not him the hordes of Muslims that sieged the capital.

>They were spoonfed all their territories from Rome at their beginning.
No, they were literally Roman.

unfortunately the Byzantines were Greek. (please keep it that way or Rome's legacy will be stained)

There was no cultural distinction made between Greeks and Romans, they didn't see each other as different in the slightest. They just spoke a slightly different language. It wasn't until far after the fall of Constantinople during the age of nationalism that a Greek identity even began to emerge.