Age of Empires

[hellheaven1987]

...who then absorbed Chinese culture and the language rather than the other way around. I don't see the Roman empire...where is it?

Holy Roman Empire?

Despite Chinese propoganda Chinese language is never the same in different dynasty; Mandarin was merely a local dialect that spoke in north-east part of China before it was pushed to whole country through uniform education during Republic of China time (in other words, merely a hundred year). In fact, it is known the "official" languange spoke in Tang court probably is more close to some today's southern dialect, such as Hakka.

[Copperknickers II]

The reason the Roman people no longer exist is because the Ottomans did their best to suppress nationalism during the development of the concept around the rest of the world. A big problem with many people's perspectives of history is that the concept of a nation or an ethnicity didn't exist until the 17th century.

In the Greek war of independence the British officers were horrified to find many Greeks referred to their country and themselves as "Romans" but the leaders of the revolt had taken a Greek identity because it was far more likely to garner international support from the Kings of Europe. They then impressed this identity upon the various Greek citizens and most of the Roman identity was wiped out. You can still find a couple groups of Greek speaking villages in South Italy, Greece, South Bulgaria/FYROM, and Pontic Turkey that call themselves Romans and their language Romeika (Roman Greek). But we're talking a combined population in the hundreds.

And some people in this thread would probably try to claim that the modern country of Greece is actually a continuation of the Roman Empire, if that hadn't been the case and the Hellenic Republic was named the Roman Republic. Just because a cat barks doesn't make it a dog.

[KEA]

Those parameters are really silly, why are you are using the foundation of Rome (the city) and the capture of Constantinople (capital of an empire that had long lost Rome) as the markers for the begining and end of an empire?

Strictly speaking, hardly any of the here named "empires" seriously stretched beyond their homelands and therefore wouldn't qualify as empires at all. Best example would be the "Empire of Japan" which, save for two very brief periods, never included more than the island of Japan itself. Insofar there would be no reason to say that in the case of the Roman Empire the possession of certain amount of land or holding the city of Rome would be the requirement to qualify as empire.

Could the kingdom, the republic and the empire really constitute the same entity?

Latest from the foundation of the republic, we have an unbroken political continuation to the end of the Roman empire, which of course lastet in the east (see above) beyond the fall of the city of Rome.

[athanaric]

And some people in this thread would probably try to claim that the modern country of Greece is actually a continuation of the Roman Empire, if that hadn't been the case and the Hellenic Republic was named the Roman Republic.

I agree with that. It might be worth while to point out that a nation state and an empire are two very different things, even though Britain and France never really got that message.
And just like Greece shouldn't try to be the Roman (or Ottoman, or Antigonid) Empire, neither should Italy, or Turkey. All of which are modern nation states.
In fact, any Greek claim on cultural heritage in the region, such as the Hagia Sophia, should be culturally based. They should seek the backing of the UN, especially the UNESCO, over this.

Just because a cat barks doesn't make it a dog.

Actually...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Ludicus]

The reason the Roman people no longer exist is

We were talking about empires.Whatever the reason, the Roman empire come to an end.China is still there, that's my point.

A big problem with many people's perspectives of history is that the concept of a nation or an ethnicity didn't exist until the 17th century

Well-or even before, Historical development of statehood (TWC thread) - but I fail to see a connection between theoretical concepts of a collective identity/nations/sovereignty/states and the prosaic end of an empire.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

And some people in this thread would probably try to claim that the modern country of Greece is actually a continuation of the Roman Empire, if that hadn't been the case and the Hellenic Republic was named the Roman Republic. Just because a cat barks doesn't make it a dog.

I'm not arguing that, even if they had chosen to call themselves Romans they would be a modern nation-state, not any sort of continuation of the Empire.

The difference is that "Byzantium" is, flat out, the Roman empire. Same culture, same government. There is no sound argument that it was not a continuation of the Roman state.

The Empire just took a different direction when the West collapsed, and the Greek language dominated. Much of "Byzantine" culture would have occurred in the West even had the West survived. Just look at court dress: all of Europe's court dress was modeled off of Roman fashion during the middle ages, at least until the decline started again in 1071, and even then it remained highly influential. The entire concept was called Imitatio Imperii. Icons and Iconoclasm both existed in the West during the Migration Era. The West was already moving towards the Maurician Army alongside the East when the Roman military collapsed. Heck, were it not for Marcian effectively beating him to the punch, resulting in Aetius forcing Valentinian III to recognize his legitimacy, Valentinian III probably would have ruled both halves of the Empire after Theodosius II died.

[Condottiere 40K]

Byzantine seems like Taiwan.

They may be the legitimate government of China, but they lost when it counted, and winners write history and shape public perception.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

But the Romans wrote literally like all of the History...

[Cyclops]

...
The difference is that "Byzantium" is, flat out, the Roman empire. Same culture, same government. There is no sound argument that it was not a continuation of the Roman state. ...

Very true, this cannot be overstated. So many people blindly assume there was a new empire founded in 330 AD its not funny. Justinian may have been more Hellenised than Theodosius or Septimus Severus but he's closer to them politically and culturally than he is to later ERE emperors, even perhaps Heraclius.

The adoption of a new capital in no way marked a new state: there had been eastern and western capitals established several times, at Sirmium, Augusuta Treverorum etc. and these do not signal new empires being founded either. if shifting the seat of government marks a new polity then medieval states must have been in a constant state of recreation as the King moved his court around the country.

Byzantine seems like Taiwan.

They may be the legitimate government of China, but they lost when it counted, and winners write history and shape public perception.

That's sort of funny, but the analogy would only work if Taiwan had more than half the population of the old Chinese empire and the vast majority of sophisticated cities and ancient cultural centres.

[Copperknickers II]

Very true, this cannot be overstated. So many people blindly assume there was a new empire founded in 330 AD its not funny. Justinian may have been more Hellenised than Theodosius or Septimus Severus but he's closer to them politically and culturally than he is to later ERE emperors, even perhaps Heraclius.

The adoption of a new capital in no way marked a new state: there had been eastern and western capitals established several times, at Sirmium, Augusuta Treverorum etc. and these do not signal new empires being founded either. if shifting the seat of government marks a new polity then medieval states must have been in a constant state of recreation as the King moved his court around the country.

Agreed. At one point the capital of Portugal was Rio De Janeiro, it was still called the empire of Portugal not the empire of Brazil. But I think it would be stretching things a little to call Brazil 'Portugal' when there is another, original Portugual which is now no longer part of the same polity as Brazil. That however is the situation in the Roman Empire, when the 'Romans' no longer ruled the city of Rome. I personally would set the date of the end of the Roman Empire and the start of the Byzantine Empire at some point in the late 5th century when the political connection to the city of Rome was lost temporarily with the fallof the Western Empire, until it was recaptured in 552.

But I think once we get to the final loss of Rome by the 'Romans' when it was conquered by the Franks, we have very little basis for describing the Byzantines as 'Roman' any more since other than political continuity there was very little that was Roman about them - yes they preserved some Roman institutions and culture but no more than many Italian city states and Western European kingdoms. At the end of the day 'Roman' is a demonym based on the city of Rome and it's an insult to basic semantics not to recognise this fact.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Roman, despite it being a demonym, was also the equivalent of the term American in many senses where it was a status of citizenship with a unifying superculture.

[Condottiere 40K]

That doesn't actually work out; you're either naturalized or born an American, or you're a subject of The Greater New World Co Prosperity Sphere.

[Ludicus]

Despite Chinese propoganda.

I'm not Chinese
China is a special case: wait for my next post,I just don't have much time right now.

Edit,
History of the World, J. Roberts,

The most striking fact of China’s History is that it has gone for so long. For about 2500 years there has been a Chinese nation using a Chinese language.
…China has had a continuous experience of civilization and this is the key to Chinese historical identity. China’s nationhood is much cultural as political.
Culture made unified government easier. Somehow, at a very early date, it crystallized certain institutions and attitudes which were to endure because they suited its circumstances. Some of them seem even to transcend the revolution of the twentieth century.

…the Chinese language grew and evolved, but remained essentially within the pictographic framework. Already under the Shang, moreover, the structure of the language was that of the modern Chinese – monosyllabic and depending on word order, not on the inflection of words, to convey meaning. The Shang, in fact, already used a form of Chinese.

…It was if enormous importance as a unifying and stabilizing force because written Chinese became a language of government and culture transcending divisions of dialect, religion and region. Its use by the élite tied the country together.

"Civilizations", Armesto

Civilizations have to open to a range of influences ot they wither or become inert.... Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations dwindled, and what survived of their heritage was transmitted via successor civilizations : that of the Greece and Rome in the Egyptian case, and Persia in the Mesopotamian...
The Harappan (India) sites look like they had been obliterated. The sense of utter devastation with which one beholds their ruins is unrelieved by the sight of any other wreckage of the past.

In China, on the other side, the lands where civilization started are inhabited still; not only has occupation been continuous, but the civilization has never flagged....the continuities of Chinese history have been traditionally overestimated in some aspects, but the general claim to a uniquely enduring achievement commands assents.

The Cambridge Illustrated History of China

After the unification of China under the Qin (221-206BC) and the Han (201 BC-AD220), successors regimes were overwhelmed, like Rome, by nomadic people of the northern frontiers and by infusion of a foreign religion.

But China, unlike Rome, was to rise again into a centralized, universal empire under the Tang (618-906).

Many of the Han imperial institutions were revived. The aristocracy, powerful since the late Han, still retained its influence, but it recognized a universal sovereign with real authority... …..with the spread of lineage organizations during the Ming and Qing, Confucian social ethics grew to be recognized as norms on which the government of China depended.

There are more than a billion Han Chinese – more than the entire population of Eastern and Western Europe and North America put together. How can so many people see themselves as sharing a common culture?

Why haven’t differences in dialect, religion, or way of life led them to divide up into mutually suspicious groups the way so much of the rest of the world’s population has?

How can a single government cope with ruling so many people?

China is an extraordinarily complex society that has been in the making for several thousand years.

It is essentially accidental that the Shang developed a logographic script rather than a phonetic script like most of those that became dominant elsewhere in Eurasia. This accident, however, had momentous consequences for the way Chinese civilization developed. It shaped the nature of the elite: the difficulty of mastering this script made those expert in it an elite possessed of rare but essential skills.

Because the Chinese logographic script did not change to reflect differences in pronunciation, the literate elite easily identified with others whose writings they could read, including predecessors who lived many centuries earlier and contemporaries whose spoken languages they could not comprehend.

Just as crucially, this script also affected the processes of cultural expansion and assimilation. People on the fringes of Chinese culture who learned to read Chinese for pragmatic reasons of advancing or defending their interests were more effectively drawn into Chinese culture than they would have if China had a phonetic script.

Reading and writing for them could not be easily detached from the body of Chinese texts imbued with Chinese values, making it difficult for them to use their literacy to articulate the vision of a local population defined in opposition to China

At one point the capital of Portugal was Rio De Janeiro, it was still called the empire of Portugal not the empire of Brazil. But I think it would be stretching things a little to call Brazil 'Portugal' when there is another, original Portugual which is now no longer part of the same polity as Brazil. That however is the situation in the Roman Empire...

Good point.

[Rinan]

But I think once we get to the final loss of Rome by the 'Romans' when it was conquered by the Franks, we have very little basis for describing the Byzantines as 'Roman' anymore since other than political continuity there was very little that was Roman about them - yes they preserved some Roman institutions and culture but no more than many Italian city states and Western European kingdoms. At the end of theday 'Roman' is a demonym based on the city of Rome and it's an insult to basicsemantics not to recognise this fact.

I don't understand this point of view, what does "Roman" even mean to you? Is Roman culture, 753 BC., the same thing as Roman culture in the time of Julius Caesar? And is that the same "Roman" culture as in the time of Constantine? If "Roman" has to do with the city of Rome, is then a Syrian slave living in the city of Rome in the year 200 A.D. more Roman than the Emperor Severus? And what do we do with the Early Medieval West, when Roman practically meant "Catholic"?

In brief, I think you are conflating a cultural definition of of Roman with an institutional one. Culture changes all the time, is utterly contingent and variable. However, when we look at the political, institutional history, there is clear continuity. There is never any formal break in the transition from the"Roman" to the "Byzantine" Empire. The only reason to make the distinction is for cultural reasons. And even then, it's only after their losses in the 7th century that the culture of the "Byzantine" Empire changes from a Late Antique "Roman" culture to a Medieval "Byzantine"/Orthodox culture (see Judith Herrin, Byzantinium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, part 2). Byzantine might then be a helpful term to distinguish between the Roman Empire of the classical and late classical world, and the Roman Empire of the Medieval world.

But it in no way means any institutional break whatsoever.

If the change of capital cities would form a decisive break, then why don't the third century capitals (Milan, Trier, Nicomedia, etc.) count? If having seperate courts form a decisive break, then what about all of the civil wars; the Third Century Crisis?; the Tetrarchy; the division after Constantine? Clearly, the division into ERE/WRE forms part of a longer established pattern.

It did until 751 AD.


That opinion doesn't come about until after the beginnings of the Justinianic plague and the devastation of the Gothic wars that tore Italy to shambles. The initial conquest was met with very little public dissatisfaction, it was the extended war that brought it about.

Actually, I disagree there. I think the Italians already had double feelings at the beginning of the war. For example, when Belisarius approached Napels, there was lots of discussion in the town whether to back the Ostrogoths or Belisarius. They chose to back the Ostrogoths. Also, I recall a letter from Cassiodorus where he sneers at the 'Graeci'. Having said that, I don't think these cultural differences means the Byzantine Empire wasn't the Roman Empire, so I fully agree with you on the rest of your points.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

On the topic of why a Roman national identity doesn't exist today, check out this paper:

https://www.academia.edu/5803544/Pat...teenth_Century