Byzantine Empire Imperium Graecorum or Imperium Romanum??

[Morte66]

I think Byzantium may have been pretty Roman in 477CE, but 75 years later everybody who personally remembered Rome was dead and they just had scrolls. By about the 8th century it was medieval Greek with a lot of Romanesque institutions and the "continuous Roman empire" thing was a marketing slogan.

The most Roman thing about them was that they were an empire, but you could equally well call that "Persian".

Those who looking at things from a historical timescale tend to forget that lives are short and societies change. E.g. I'm British, our empire essentially ended about fifty years ago, and anybody who seriously hearkens back to "the glory of empire" is a loony. But a thousand years from now, historical wargamers will think we were just the same as the British of 1880 and probably build forces for the reconquest of our rightful territories in America.

[Will_YouFight_ForME]

My personal opinion is the death of the real Roman empire is when they got rid of the old gods in favor of Christianity but thats really a very generalized reaction.

I think they saw themselves as Roman before the collapse and split making the western and eastern empire because their was that dream that was Rome - the most glorious city in the known world

and everyone wanted to claim they were part of that

but i really don't have the qualifications or knowledge to justify this


i can ask but one question, what would have happened if Imperium Romanum did not collapse?

[keravnos]

If you had to leave your country to save your life, would it still be you in the other country you found refuge?

Then, imagine some generations later the descendants of your pursuers, coming from the country you left, and claiming to be your REAL descendants, killing your very own offspring.

That's Eastern Roman Empire-Byzantium in a nutshell, in my own personal opinion.