Why is the Eastern Roman Empire considered less Roman than the Western? Is it just because it wasn't ruled from Rome...

the
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wanted to be the true Romans

Because they didnt speak Latin and broke away from the authority of the Catholic Church

Because it was hellenistic

>Modern historians, and by extension the general public.
Which historians?

>when they're the ones responsible for oppressing our Celtic and Germanic ancestors?
Speak for yourself? I'm Italian.

It literally wasnt the Classic Roman empire in any way shape or form just like you wouldnt consider teh Holy Roman Empire to have much relation to the original. Nothing compares to the Roman empire. From what I gathered, the Byzantine empire was just a remaining chunk of The Original but not a continuation of it.

"Roman Empire" is just a name to the state that grew around Rome, even the WRE stopped using Rome as a capital during its last days. The ERE wasn't even a successor state, it was literally the same state

>my post was uneducated as hell

sidenote: Justinian I known as "the last roman" for trying to restore it to its former terretorial glory as seen in OPs map.

The rest I can work an angle out for, but Jews of all people why? Did you add them just for the comedic effect that all conspiracies should include Jews?

If anything, Jews at the time were more oppressed in the West.

Because everyone in Europe identified with the first "pan-European Christian" state. Considerations such as muh Celto-Germanic didn't become more important until much later (don't bring up Liutprand or something here).

>they didnt speak Latin

"utraque lingua" "uterque sermo noster". Not a requirement either way, if anything speaking Greek was more associated with being Roman later on than speaking Latin when the two Empires came about. I'll take the Catholic Church thing as bait.

Practically everyone since Gibbon and probably before focuses on the fall of the WRE as the end of the Roman Empire and considers the ERE to be something like a Greek successor state. I would suggest that in reality, the founding on Constantinople shifted the seat of true Roman rule to the East and left the WRE floundering to morph into a series of Germanic successor states.

As a Protestant I recognize they were the actual Roman empire, and frankly most protestants probably don't give a fuck. It's the Catholics who push the Roman equals Latin meme.

Because Jews hate Christendom and love to talk about a fictional "Christian dark age" which evaporates when you realize the Christian Roman Empire lasted longer than the Pagan one.

*average Protestant

HOW DARE DEM GREEK PAGANS PUT DEM TRADITION OVER MUH KANG JAMES.

>Rome is literally founded on Latins trying to ape Greek culture
>Roman pagan pantheon is completely copypasted from Greek pantheon
>Roman philosophy and art is copypasted Greek philosophy and art to the point we talk about "Greco-Roman culture"
>Both Greek and Latin are the official languages of the Empire, every edict and document in Latin is automatically translated into Greek
>emperor Claudius refers to Latin and Greek as "our two languages"
>the official religion of the late empire, Christianity, is based on texts written in Greek for a Greek audience
>Constantinople is the official imperial capital even before the two empires split

Then a few centuries later some retarded Kraut tells you that Byzantines couldn't be Romans because they weren't Latins. Just top kek.

Don't equate the average protestant with the average American.

>>Roman pagan pantheon is completely copypasted from Greek pantheon
t.doesn't understand Indo-European pantheons share a common root.

If you think their only similarity dates as far as PIE culture then you're beyond uneducated, even an elementary wikipedia article on the matter would manage to enlighten you. Even the story of the mythical founder of Rome is based on a Greek epic poem.

>Modern historians, and by extension the general public.
Such as?

I personally refer to the Byzantine Empire as a separate entity from Rome because it didn't have the actual city of ROME in its borders.

And before you interject with "m-muh Justinian", let me ask you how long they HELD the Eternal City.

I don't call the HRE Roman for the same reason, as hard as that fact might have burned in their Frankish vaginas.

See:

Nice Trips.

The name Roman Empire just refers to the fact that it began in Rome. If Trajan's empire suddenly lost control of Rome would it no longer be the Roman Empire?

>ask for examples
>get linked to post with no examples
that's not how you convince people user

that was post republic you mong, the vast majority of romes religion is indo european and separate from greek. byzantines werent romans ethnically, they may have been cultural inheritors but thats it.

Probably, considering they'd have lost the political capital and all of the bureaucratic infrastructure. The legions would still be fighting in the provinces or whatever but if a force could smash into the beating heart of the empire and take control of it, it'd probably be a foregone conclusion that the Empire would be dissolved within a generation. There aren't a lot of examples of empires bouncing back after their capitols are taken, held, and subjugated.

Alaric's sack of Rome was just that, a sacking. They didn't try to conquer the city or maintain their power there, they just were fed up with Honorius being retarded from behind the safe walls of Ravenna. But they left once they had broken everything of value.

I mean if Trajan set up his capital in a different city and let Rome be independent, would it be the Roman Empire?

Mainly because of Gibbons.

I suppose it would be in that case, yeah.

So why would the Empire in the east not be the Roman Empire?

then yes we'd be arguing about how the Eastern Sicilian Empire wasn't really part of the Sicilian empire.

Empires are based on geography as well as culture. Everything has got to start somewhere.

Most of the ERE had been part of the Roman Empire for centuries.

It is, it's just easier to refer to it as a separate entity. Especially later.

Also

This. Gibbons poisoned the world's view of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire. His work with the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire mainly slanders the Byzantines and constantly shits on them as well as Christianity in general.

His form of historiography has poisoned how the mainstream looks at the Eastern Roman Empire for centuries now.

Culturallly it had shifted significantly since the glory days of old Rome so people don't really see it as being "Roman", even though there's no factual reason to think of it as not being Rome.

Rome is just Caesar and the old Mars/Venus/Jupiter etc pantheon in the mind's of most people.

Also as other's have said the Schism is the biggest reason this seperation between Rome and Byzantium exists in people's minds. During the Medieval period "Rome" was the Papacy. The Byzantines were just the weird Greek cousins who nobody really liked so giving them any prestige by associating them with Rome wasn't the thing to really be doing.

>recieves the benefits but acts like he's not one of us.

you're one of us.

Yeah, saying "Greek isn't Roman", is like saying "Scottish isn't British".

Both Greek and Latin fall under the umbrella of "Roman" pretty much.

I geuss my argument would be that even though it's technically the same empire, it FEELS like a separate entity.

It's like the difference between a donut and a donut hole, They were both made of the same thing at the same time but once separated they feel different.

By the end of the WRE Rome wasn't even really the seat of power. It was centered in Ravenna and Milan.

I dunno bro, I figured Gecian glory came a bit before that of Rome. I guess the 4th dimension is optional here.

Didn't one of the Emperors move the capital to Milan for a period of time? Was Rome not the Roman Empire during that period in your mind?

You're getting to obssessed with names and semantics rather than what things actually are. You say the Roman Empire had to control Rome to be considered the Roman Empire simply because it was called "The Roman Empire". If it had been called something else would you place so much importance on the city where the Empire was founded?

>Why is the Eastern Roman Empire considered less Roman than the Western?

For the same reason Prussia is considered german and not baltic.

Ravenna, Milan, and Trier.
Trier was the military center of the empire

Because they didnt even own fucking Rome for fucks sake. You couldnt be for example a American empire and not hold and land in america

What I dislike about Gibbon's approach is that it radically underplays how central Greek culture was to the WRE, both before and after the fall. Many of the most renouned Roman authors and scholars wrote primarily or sometimes even wholly in Greek.

So did they re-become the Roman empire when they held rome?

but they quickly lost it and didn't regain the former territory around it.

But they had it
Were they the Roman empire while they had it?

>werent romans ethnically
There's no such thing as an ethnic roman you retard.

No

they were the western roman empire that captured rome
not THE Roman Empire.
Too much has changed.

That's retarded
Certainly a lot had changed from Romulus to Julius Nepos, but it's still Rome

Prussia was germanized. The situation with WRE and ERE is much more complicated as this thread clearly demonstrates.

That isn't necessarily true. The founders of Rome were a distinct ethnic group who gave their name to the language, for instance.

>gave their name to the language
the language is called Latin not Roman

Yes, and the name of the group that settled the city was the Latins.

Roman Empire

Byzantine Empire = Roman Empire Jr

Rome was settled by Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans
The original curial committee had equal seats for the three groups

Fair enough, didn't know that.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all Romans were Latins. The Social War resulted in all Italians becoming Roman citizens, and Caracalla declared all free Roman subjects to be citizens. There was no single defining ethnic group of the Roman Empire, especially in its later stages. The biggest distinguishing factor rather is the political system, and in that respect, the Byzantines/ERE were the continuation of that.

The idea that the ERE somehow didn't count came about in the Middle Ages. One of the driving ideas of the time was that there could only be one "true" empire at a time. With the scism in the church and it in the interest of Rome to keep the German kingdom on their side, Rome declared the German Kingdom to be the "true" empire. This also led to some interesting correspondences between the HRE and ERE, with both sides referring to eachother by technically correct titles without calling the other emperor.

The WRE was run by ethnic latins and the ERE/Byzantine was run by ethnic Greeks.

>Ethnic latins
the WRE had been run by latinised barbarians for centuries

Why not? Ruled from Greece, mostly Greek speaking, culturally different from the traditional Roman Empire or even the WRE up until the fall. It'd be like if the British Empire fell with Britain being conquered and the British Royal Family and Parliament being executed but managed to survive in India and Burma with the citizens pretty much being Asian culturally but still calling themselves British. You wouldn't really consider it the "British Empire" at that point despite what they claim.

I honestly don't think there's any harm in considering the Byzantine Empire something different that grew out of the Roman Empire. Otherwise why not consider the Sassanids simply the Parthian Empire under new leadership? Or the Ottomans the Roman Empire as well considering they conquered it, Mehmed II claimed the title of Roman Caesar (and descent from the Komnenos) and the claim was recognized by Eastern Orthodox Church.

Even ignoring all of that it effectively stops being the "Roman" Empire and becomes its own thing after the failure of Justinian to truly integrate the old territory back into the Empire and it breaking off for good.

Greece was considered an integral part of the Empire and Greek culture and the language were considered completely Roman

If, when the United States had the Philippines as a colony, the entire United States proper was conquered by, let's say, Britain (via Canada) and the government of the United States and all of its continental territory was absorbed into Britain leaving the governor of the Philippines in control who then decrees control over other American territories not (i.e. Alaska, Hawaii, etc.) as belonging to him and not Britain and that he is now the President of the United States would you consider that the legitimate United States?

That's a poor example because the Empire had already been divided before the West fell. It wasn't like Zeno just claimed the title in 476, he could trace it back to Theodosius

that's a terrible comparison. Replace the Phillipines with a nation even richer than the United States and with far deeper cultural ties and you have it closer, but it's still a shitty argument.

If the capitol of the US shifted to LA, and a few hundred years later the South officially became a separate country to be a national refuge for black people, which would be the real United States? The one ruled by barbarians from the former seat of the US government? Or the one ruled by Americans from the most relevant area of the country?

Niether
they'd be two new separate states made from the remains of the one original nation.

Does that mean Australia became a different country when the federal capital moved from Melbourne to Canberra?

It stopped being the same stick when you broke it in half

Why do you assume everyone here is a Germanic ape like you exactly?

I'm actually Mediterranean, it just sounded good rhetorically.

They founded the orthodox faith? Are you retarded? It was one church that split into two, it already existed, you are literally implying they made it after the catholic church. Theynwerent a successor, they were Rome, if the eastern part of the US falls, and the west doesnt, they are still the US regardless of who controls DC. The eastern part of Rome was always Greek speaking, a while after the fall of Rome they dropped Latin because most people didn't speak it.

>that pic

Holy shit my sides were not ready for this

Historical scholarship is slowly phasing out the term "Byzantine Empire". 15 years ago there were hundreds of instances of the term in a Greek and Roman studies journal I edited. In a more recent edition of the same journal talking about the Byzantine Empire about as much, a colleague tells me there were 7 uses of the word "Byzantine", and one of them was used in the context of a complicated bureaucratic system. Everyone just calls it the "Roman Empire" or "Medieval Rome" now. I don't edit myself anymore but I've noticed even just in casual reading and sometimes, miraculously, in pop history books, people more often describe it as the Roman Empire.

In 50 years I predict that nobody will call it the Byzantine Empire anymore except when talking about the use of it in early historiography.

I'm not saying the Greeks themselves have a lot of influence on why it's called one way or another, but what I've gathered by talking to many Greek people is that they do consider it a different thing completely from the Roman Empire. Hell, I've talked to Greeks (who were in college) who had never heard the term "Eastern Roman Empire". For them it's always Bizantium, which means Greece (although of course also Alexander was Greek and Macedonia never existed).

They're just wewuzing

>non Roman culture
>unaesthetic as fuck
>doesn't even contain Rome
>literally helped cause the fall of the Roman Empire

Splitting the empire was a mistake. East just looked after itself and sent barbarians over to the west.

>Everyone just calls it the "Roman Empire" or "Medieval Rome" now.

Over my cold dead body.

Its rare to see someone being this wrong

>unaesthetic as fuck
Um try again sweetie ;)

The Roman empire wasn't Roman either, opposition to monarchy was a cornerstone of Roman culture, as was piety and honor. An empire filled with larping barbarians prating to Mithras, Isis and Sol Invictus is as non Roman as Greek speakers ruling from new rome

This, there is nothing uglier than lorica segmentata

Fucking disgusting

Byzantine shills kys

The SPQR was also very hellenistic

>present day italians are romans
Face it, you're from germanic stock

>yeah I'd like the Total War(tm) edumacashun please

So was Constantine the last Roman emperor who died trying to defend Constantinople from the Turks

That means WRE isnt the roman empire either bub

Think of it like this:

The state administered from Constantinople was the very same state that was "founded" by Augustus, minus a bunch of land. The people living there weren't actual Romans, from the city of Rome, but they were citizens of the state of Rome. Thus, they may have been Greeks, but their nationality was Roman.

If one of the founding fathers came to 2017 they wouldn't recognize their country. The United States has changed dramatically in its geographical make up, its culture, the style of dress, they way of speaking, the ethnicities tha inhabit the country. But it's still the same polity that was founded in 1776.

What? You clearly do not know anything. Whether you were a roman had nothing to do with where you lived.
A roman was a citizen of the roman republic, and later, the empire. It did not matter if he was born in aegyptus, africa or italia. As long as he was born to a roman citizen, or gained citizenship from fighting in the army, he was a roman.