How 'Roman' was the Roman Empire?

[satalexton]

If you just insert Romaioi barbaroi in your sig it would save you all the time you spend writing.

~Fluvius

Nah, there are times when the romaioi are not being barbaric. When they're dead, for example. Of course, better still, a dying Romaioi that tells you where the rest of his mates are!

[Alsatia]

Nah, there are times when the romaioi are not being barbaric. When they're dead, for example. Of course, better still, a dying Romaioi that tells you where the rest of his mates are!

[Macilrille]

Hmmm... I am trying had to remember the last time Sata contributed a useful post, and I am failing. I seem to recall some strategical advice sometime in the past, but it is all distant in the spam of "Hail Makedonia" and "Down with Rome" posts. Maion contributes usefully and despite a bit of a temper is a nice enough fellow, you Sata...

Using your time here spamming and annoying people instead of useful contributions, perhaps time to revise your ways? You probably have lots to contribute with- I think- so please do so, for your own opinion of people spending their time being a nuisance is probably not too high is it?

I do not know if you care, but you are close to my ignore function. Which is hard to get, only other person there is IrishHitman who called me a liar.

Useful posts please...

[Alsatia]

Well...

Forgive my spam and let's continue the suject.

The Roman empire was in theory, a singular body. In my opinion, I think that each province is practically its own nation and the "Empire" is just a union, saying who has what. The Govenors had almost complete rule and all they had to do was declare loyalty to rome. It is as if the provinces were treated ad allied states.

The romans, as I have said before, were Influenced by other peoples, notably the greeks. The romans had used modified greek architecture. The romans have copied many of the statues of the city states. They even used the sword of another nation (Gladius Hispanesis). By the time the roman empire started to decline, it was considerably different politically and militarily from the republic. The Empire was just a evolution that aquired many infuences, even though the customs of the natives were trampled by it's own.

[Maion Maroneios]

Not to mention the fact that later Byzantine Greeks still called themselves Ρωμιοί or Ρωμαίοι, which means "Romans". This is just a small example on how well the Romans were able to absorb other people into their growing Empire. Basically, what the Romans did was to allow some kind of autonomy and slowly introduce "Roman" customs. Sometimes this inevitably caused a future rebellion, but there was always the fear of a Roman Legion.

Maion

[Skullheadhq]

Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων wasn't Ῥωμαίων at all, more Αχαιων

[Maion Maroneios]

Hardly. The Roman society was well-integrated into what we call "Byzantine Empire" today. The very word "Byzantine" is something only we use to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, while they themselves still viewed themselves as Romans. Not to mention their customs and fighting techniques, which were clearly Roman. The only Greek was probably the official language of the State, as even the local populance spoke a hodge-podge of Greek, Slavic, Latin etc.

Maion

[Skullheadhq]

Hardly. The Roman society was well-integrated into what we call "Byzantine Empire" today. The very word "Byzantine" is something only we use to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, while they themselves still viewed themselves as Romans. Not to mention their customs and fighting techniques, which were clearly Roman. The only Greek was probably the official language of the State, as even the local populance spoke a hodge-podge of Greek, Slavic, Latin etc.

Maion

If they are Roman, why didn't they speak Latin?
Romans without Rome aren't Romans,

[Maion Maroneios]

That doesn't count as an argument in my book. Constantinople was officially called "Nova Roma", which means "New Rome". And as I said, Greek was indeed the official language after some point. But that is mainly because the majority of the population was more familiar with Greek, especially in Greece where the population spoke some kind of Greek dialect and where the Empire itself was based.

Oh, and just for you to know, during the years of the Republic or early years of the Empire (at least that's the extend of my knowledge on the specific subject) cities like Athens and Alexandria still used Greek. Not to mention a "good" education of any Roman included Greek after some point. It's called influence. Not to mention the fact that Latin was probably only used as an official language in writing and quoting laws etc., local languages of conquered tribes especially in very autochthonous areas probably outlived any Latin influence long after the split and disintegration of the Empire.

Maion

[Macilrille]

Maion, you are right on point.

As I said at the start of this thread, numerous good books has been written on the subject. I would suggest enlightenment by reading these instead of limited posts in an I-net forum however informative they are.
Nothing compares to books.

In fact when you install EB you agree to do just that; read more history.

[Maion Maroneios]

I couldn't agree more to that.

Maion

[Macilrille]

Plus, it is damn fascinating and interesting.

[Maion Maroneios]

That's subjective, I guess.

Maion

[DionCaesar]

Back on initial topic:

It is known that Julius Caesar tried to stimulate the melting pot effect. He wanted his veterans to settle in foreign lands, to make sure that the local population got used and mixed up with the Romans. (That's why Caesar was ahead of his time: he thought in terms of Empire and provinces and not in terms of the city).

Secondly, Romans always let the conquered civilizations keep their gods, and add them to the Roman '' book of gods ''. This way, even religion mixed, which is again proof for the statement that Romans tried to mix up cultures as much as possible.

[Traveler]

I am Romanian , proud member of the only nation that kept this name (Romani in Romanian) for 2000 years.Also, Romanian is considered the language with the most arhaic latin vocabulary and the closest to old vulgar latin spoken all over the emmpire.
My opinion is that the Roman empire was Roman all over the provinces in what concerns the state institutions : administration and the army.
Latin language imposed itself as lingua franca through the presence of roman administration and of roman legions on the ground.
Three factors were very important : Administration,Army and Culture.
Barbarian tribes took fast the benefits of roman culture and language - Spain,Gaul, Trace.
Advanced cultures like Greeks all over the east were good enough for roman use, so they werent imposed roman language in administration, greek was also in use.

Roman legions were very present in Provincia Dacia during 106- 274 AD , short time, but at times even 4 legions were serving...the reason was the huge gold mines from the Western Carpathians, modern day transilvania.
The gold was the reason for Trajan's 2 campaigns of 101-102 and 105-106 AD which led to the distruction of the Dacian kingdom. Well, there was also a barbarian habit of these Dacians to invade and plunder all the way from Danube to Greece :D .
Roman settlers were installed in the province, which hapens to be the center of old greater Dacia streching from river Tisa to the river Nistru. Even after the withdrawal of 274, the Romanised population spread the latin language all around the carpathians, leading to the romanisation of all Dacians outside the empire. So now you have no Dacian remainents , like the Gauls or Basc minority in Spain.

Unlike Romania, modern Albania (Iliria) kept their language which is related to the tracian-dacian because the roman army was not concentrated there , an interior pacified long time province.

I think that all the succesor nations are actually local populations turned into Romans by mean of cultural asimilation.

A branch of the Romanian people live in the Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, they call themselves Arm'ni , meaning Aromani, Aromanians, but they also call themselves "Makidoni" and they cherish the flag of ancient Macedonia, the red sun and have songs about it in their tradition, songs about Alexander and so on.

This tells me that they are local Macedonian shepards turned into Romans by language 2000 years ago.

Same with Romanians, our tradition, folk , old stories are of mountain shepards, not of roman colonists. We are Dacians talking a latin language. There is even an old story talking of the union of a Troian (Trajanus ?) and an old lady called Dokia (Dacia ? ) Oral tradition talking of roman conquest as a colaboration kept alive for 2000 years.



Example of similar words in Romanian and Italian:

Italian- Romanian-English

Casa-casa-House
Uno,due, tre, quatro - Unu,Doi,Trei, patru = one, two, three
Monte negro - Munte negru - Mountain black

[Maion Maroneios]

modern Albania (Iliria)

That's about the only part I disliked strongly about your entire post. And one of the most unbased and unconsidered posts I've seen in general. Plus that thing about "Macedonian" shephards turning Roman or blahblahdieblahblah something. Oh, and it's Illyria.

Maion

[Saldunz]

Well, I think there's an interesting and worthwhile question behind this thread, if you can manage to sift through all the... *ahem*, spam-posts. It's a shame you need to sift through all of that at all. But in any case, here's some points that I can add on what's been said.

Ethnically speaking, I don't recall any great movements by the Roman Senate or the later Emperors to promote inter-marriage between different ethnicities. In fact, I would say that the Roman ethnic footprint left across the Empire and the world today is rather small. The Iberians, French, Italians and Romanians all have different ethnic compositions that can vary quite heavily from region to region even within their own countries (for example, in the skin tones of the Northern French vs. the Southern French).

Linguistically, Latin's impact on the world is staggering! But I do wonder how much of it is *really* thanks to the Romans themselves. In the context of EB's timeframe it's almost weird to think of the "Barbarian" tribes just dropping their languages in favour of Latin so that they might profit from it. Undoubtedly there was a great usefulness in knowing and speaking Latin. With Latin, a Celtiberian could travel to the eastern Spanish coastline and speak with the Iberian-speaking people there, or head north to the Aquitanians and, again, communicate with them in Latin. Knowing Latin didn't just let you, as an individual, communicate with the Roman elites but also with people of any other ethnicity who needed to do so as well. Just for the sake of comparison, I remember having to translate an administrative document from Ptolemaic Egypt, concerning an Egyptian man's complaint of being treated unlawfully because he did not Hellenize - meaning, he did not speak Greek. There was clearly an advantage to knowing Greek under the Ptolemies, but still it had trouble catching on.

I think the Roman Empire's linguistic influence is being overestimated by many of the posts here. The influence of Latin on Europe came from the advent of Judaeo-Christianity. The religion effectively "conquered" the Roman Empire, and the religion ascribed great importance to the written word. I think Christianity is what marked Latin's transition from being a useful language to being an absolutely vital language. Under the pre-Christian Roman Empire, Latin was probably primarily a language of trade - but still a second language to many of its subjects. Christianity is what would've really changed this.

As for culturally, well, I think I'll have to defer back to my paragraph on ethnicity. With the exception of the Italic peoples, non-Roman subjects probably did not so much assimilate to Roman culture as they did absord it into their own. Most of Europe's greatest cities are pre-Roman after all. And as far as I remember, the Romans were not keen of urbanizing the provinces. Rather, they sought to exploit them of their resources. Portugal, Spain, France, Romania and even some parts of Italy (like Sicily) are largely descended from slave-populations.

So I guess my supposed answer to the questions is "not very 'Roman' at all, at least not until Christianity popped up".

[Traveler]

The Roman Empire was Roman in language only, no major population movements or intermariages.

The chrurch did play an important part in protecting the linguistic influence of the former empire with one exception, Romanian , which was under the Orthodox Church of slavonic language. So the church language was not an esential factor.
Latin was the church language in Britain, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Baltic lands without turning them into romanised nations, not even Austria and Hungary.

The essential factor in the creation of Romance languages and nations was how Romanised in language was the region before the ending of the Empire.

[Saldunz]

English and German, though not descended from Latin, both have undergone considerable Latin influence because of Latin's importance in religion and later in scholarship.

Romanian may very be an exception, but I have to admit that the development of Romanian national identity (and language) is not terribly well understood by me. I'd imagine Thraco-Dacians speaking populations were still active in Romania and the rest of the Balkans during the middle period of the Empire though. And though Romania is presently an Orthodox nation, at the time it had fallen under the influence of Latin, whereas the souther Balkans had fallen under the influence of Greek. This situation of course changed by the Dark Ages.

[Subotan]

Why is Romainian so close to Latin, or even have any relationship at all, considering most of it was not under Roman rule for very long? You'd think something Slavic or Avar would be more dominant.

[option]

Why is Romainian so close to Latin, or even have any relationship at all, considering most of it was not under Roman rule for very long? You'd think something Slavic or Avar would be more dominant.

It mostly stems from the fact that Trajan didn't want another Decebalus-type incident, so after he conquered the region, he enslaved or relocated almost the entire population and replaced them with Roman settlers.

[Companion Cavalry]

It mostly stems from the fact that Trajan didn't want another Decebalus-type incident, so after he conquered the region, he enslaved or relocated almost the entire population and replaced them with Roman settlers.

Couple that with the relative inaccessibility of the region's heartlands to foreign influence due to mountain chains, the danube, and so on, and you have the reason why Romanian preserved (vulgar) Latin almost wholesale, except for phonetic changes. On the other hand the early Italian, Spanish, and French dialects of Latin were greatly influenced not only by Germanic lexicon, but also by the native languages that outlasted the Romaioi.

If you ask me, it would've been much easier if everyone stuck with Kione. Then we wouldn't have all these bastard offspring of early Germanic and mutated Greek.

[Megas Methuselah]

I am Romanian , proud member of the only nation that kept this name (Romani in Romanian) for 2000 years.Also, Romanian is considered the language with the most arhaic latin vocabulary and the closest to old vulgar latin spoken all over the emmpire.
My opinion is that the Roman empire was Roman all over the provinces in what concerns the state institutions : administration and the army.
Latin language imposed itself as lingua franca through the presence of roman administration and of roman legions on the ground.
Three factors were very important : Administration,Army and Culture.
Barbarian tribes took fast the benefits of roman culture and language - Spain,Gaul, Trace.
Advanced cultures like Greeks all over the east were good enough for roman use, so they werent imposed roman language in administration, greek was also in use.

Roman legions were very present in Provincia Dacia during 106- 274 AD , short time, but at times even 4 legions were serving...the reason was the huge gold mines from the Western Carpathians, modern day transilvania.
The gold was the reason for Trajan's 2 campaigns of 101-102 and 105-106 AD which led to the distruction of the Dacian kingdom. Well, there was also a barbarian habit of these Dacians to invade and plunder all the way from Danube to Greece :D .
Roman settlers were installed in the province, which hapens to be the center of old greater Dacia streching from river Tisa to the river Nistru. Even after the withdrawal of 274, the Romanised population spread the latin language all around the carpathians, leading to the romanisation of all Dacians outside the empire. So now you have no Dacian remainents , like the Gauls or Basc minority in Spain.

Unlike Romania, modern Albania (Iliria) kept their language which is related to the tracian-dacian because the roman army was not concentrated there , an interior pacified long time province.

I think that all the succesor nations are actually local populations turned into Romans by mean of cultural asimilation.

A branch of the Romanian people live in the Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, they call themselves Arm'ni , meaning Aromani, Aromanians, but they also call themselves "Makidoni" and they cherish the flag of ancient Macedonia, the red sun and have songs about it in their tradition, songs about Alexander and so on.

This tells me that they are local Macedonian shepards turned into Romans by language 2000 years ago.

Same with Romanians, our tradition, folk , old stories are of mountain shepards, not of roman colonists. We are Dacians talking a latin language. There is even an old story talking of the union of a Troian (Trajanus ?) and an old lady called Dokia (Dacia ? ) Oral tradition talking of roman conquest as a colaboration kept alive for 2000 years.



Example of similar words in Romanian and Italian:

Italian- Romanian-English

Casa-casa-House
Uno,due, tre, quatro - Unu,Doi,Trei, patru = one, two, three
Monte negro - Munte negru - Mountain black

Lol, you're funny.

[Holysahib]

There's a related thing that occasionally comes to my mind, especially when pushing the "enslave" button, something I call "The Great Roman Sperm Machine"
Whenever the Romans conquered a city I imagine the entire legion being allowed to take personal spoils, i.e. raping the shit out of everything. In a time before condoms or survivable abortion, there would be a lot of half breed popping up, anyone have any ideas on this?
Would these "children of the legion" be treated in any different way, perhaps even form the first wave of "civilisation"?
What would the effect be on a community to be conquered first and then have your son resemble the guy that killed your husband?

[Maion Maroneios]

Children that were the product of rape were universally considered bastards. I don't know any society that actually welcomed them or treated them like the rest of the population. And if you think of it, half-breeds were generally (and sometimes still are) viewed with suspicion. I myself am a halfbreed, but due to the fact that my father is Greek I'm respected. At University, I have a fellow student whose father if african and mother Greek. I hear only racist remarks from people who don't know him (and he's a fairly nice and quitet guy, BTW).

It's sad, but it's true. Even more so back those days when race and tribe played an important role and xenophobia was generally more the norm than the exception. I hardly doubt the best way to integrate a newly conquered area is to "rape the shit out everything". This would only lead to a deep hatred against the conquering force, creating a "wound" that may take many generations to heal. The best way to integrate and absorb a conquered area, is to allow them autonomy and slowly introcuce [non violent] customs of your own. Slowly expose them to your culture, until they are deeply affected by it.

Maion

[Holysahib]

I hardly doubt the best way to integrate a newly conquered area is to "rape the shit out everything". This would only lead to a deep hatred against the conquering force, creating a "wound" that may take many generations to heal. The best way to integrate and absorb a conquered area, is to allow them autonomy and slowly introcuce [non violent] customs of your own. Slowly expose them to your culture, until they are deeply affected by it.

Maion

I don't think the meeting between an army and a newly conquered area has much to do with exchanging non-violent customs. Looting and raping is always a part of war, I think. On the other hand, this has little to do with long term integration. Romans weren't that fanatical about colonizing were they? Legions recieved lands mostly in Italy and all fame and political influence lay in Rome, so how much actual contact was there between Romans and the people they subjucated?

Then again, what is a Roman? Someone exclusively from Rome, or also people from the rest of Italy? Pontius Pilate was Samnite, most of Caesar's troops Spaniards. Rome's great power was it's adaptability (is that a word?) so the definition of Roman changes through time.
The ideal Roman was probably a cheap, sour faced old farmer on a moralist's trip.

I don't think that in any empire there is a singular culture that obliterates all others. Both conqueror and conquered change in the contact, look at ol' Megas Alexandros, he brought hellenic culture to Persia, but became half Persian in the process.

Anyway, these are just some barely historically founded thoughts, I wonder what you think of it, or just continue bitching against romaioi

[Maion Maroneios]

There is a huge difference between peaceful intermingling between people (conquered and conquerors) and "raping the shit out of everything" as you put it in the beginning. Of course looting and raping is a part of war, uneducated soldiers tend to focus a lot on satisfying their more "carnal" and materialistic needs. Good generals are those who think of the needs of their soldiers.

As for the definiton of "Roman" and the nationality of large empires, I agree completely with you. Large empires either find a way to integrate their people so that there is a sense of unity between them, or face rebellions in the long run. Especially when the "hard times" come (and those are plentiful), when less loyal subjects always seek to gain their freedom again.

Maion

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

It's important to notice that Roman coin did a far better work in "convincing" local populations than any Roman legion ever did. The masters of lies, the Romaioi, were always keen on bribing people into submission before resorting to arms .

Also, take in mind that unlike Alexander's, the Roman conquest was more of an accident (which I will try to portray in my AAR). There was no "grand plan" or ambition, for most of the earlier time it was simply due to political necessity and for stability that certain patches of land were annexed (such as to prevent enemies like Carthage from getting too large and strong again, the reason why Iberia was invaded), and also only because many times local resistance was too pathetic, as when Pompey conquered the East. Whenever the Romans met strong resistance, as in Carrhae, the prospect of conquest was immediately left behind, more so when Caesar died and with him the imperial dream - The Romaioi then just became content at settling down at a well defined boundary and getting their eagles back.

[Maion Maroneios]

While I agree with some parts, take into mind there are many people who probably disagree with what you say. Saying Roman conquest was an accident and that they abandoned the prospect of conquest upon meeting strong resistance is something I personally disagree with. Carthaginians, Gauls, Britons, Iberians and Dacians are bright examples of people who resisted them but were ultimately conquered. Partly or totally.

Maion

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

That is true, there are always exceptions as there was sometimes a plan to deliberately annex this or that land, but that was not the case many times. It took many battles and two wars before they considered permanently annexing Macedonia, and ditto for Carthage. It was never in the intention of many, including P. Cornelius Scipio, to deliberately erase Carthage off the map after they had been definitely weakened by war - It was only Cato's antics about an external threat that built a respectable following around it, and so much later they conquered Carthage once and for all.

Notice the important part here: whenever there was a visible threat, like in Hannibal or Mithridates, the Romans didn't spare efforts, but conquering merely for the sake of it was often done later and by private individuals seeking fortune, e.g. Caesar in Gaul, Crassus in Parthia, Pompey on the East and so on. If the Gallic resistance to Caesar had been more fierce and succeeded as the German one did later, then it is doubtful on whether Gaul would be a part of the Republic at all.