Why the Byzantine Empire Never Existed

We frequently talk about the Eastern Roman Empire as if it were some separate empire from the Roman Empire, when in fact, in a lot of ways, the Roman and Byzantine Empires were really the same empire.

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[bobbyferg]

The European powers were squabbling as to which of them was the most Roman while Eastern Rome was sitting in the corner saying “but guys I AM Rome”.
Everyone just looked at East Rome and just said Byzantine

[CoffeeSuccubus]

Ataturk renamed Constantinople, not the Ottomans.

The Ottomans renamed it to Konstantinyye. Which is the Turkish way of saying it.

[Newidhan]

Bottom line is, "Rome" isn't an ethnicity, there were millions of non-Latin, non-Italian Romans.

[konstantinoskotsomytis]

Greeks from Constantinople are calling themselves "Ρωμιοί", which means "Romans" even to this day.

[johni]

3:12 It wasn't the Ottomans who renamed it to Istanbul. It was Turkey.

[Art-ujjv]

The first Roman Empire: The parent figure

The Byzantines: The eldest child

HRE: The adopted child that nobody takes seriously

The Russian Empire: The youngest adopted child that is somehow bigger than everyone else

The Ottomans: The homeless guy that forced himself to live in Byzantium's room, and has never truly left ever since

[georget]

The official name of the state we now call Byzantine Empire, was Rhomani'a. This is how it was called by its residents and in the official documents and international treaties.
It was a multi ethnic empire. Its residents spoke Greek (however, the majority was not ethnic Greeks. Though, in those years ethnicity did not mean much. Religion and language were shaping politics and identities).
The Greeks, up until their independence used to call themselves as 'Rhomios' which means 'Roman'. The term was used interchangeably with the term 'Greek', as they were considered equivalent.
The empire was not the successor state of the Roman Empire. It was the Roman Empire itself.
It was the part that survived up until the 15th century.
The empire kept on using the Latin language as its official language until the 8th-9th century. Then, it was replaced by Greek, as fewer and fewer spoke Latin, while the majority of the population spoke Greek.

[timothymclean]

It's probably worth noting that the term "Byzantine empire" came into popularity not long after the last remnants of the Roman Empire were conquered by the Ottomans. I wonder if that was a contributing factor in said remnants not being rebranded until then...

[imrukiitoaoffire]

The Byzantine Empire in proper Middle Greek was called the Basileia tôn Rhōmaion, the Empire of Rome.

[Littlegoatpaws]

I usually refer to Byzantium now as "Medieval Rome" and "Greco-Rome" while the old Western pagan influenced empire of antiquity I'll usually refer to as "Classical Rome" and "Old Rome."

[headedtasman]

It was the Roman Empire. The Romans technically never split, so when the west fell, the east stayed rome.

[generalmichaelconstantine]

They didn't just start speaking Greek out of nowhere, they already spoke Greek since most inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean were Greeks. It's just that they translated the laws and other scripts and documents, since most people spoke Greek it was pointless to have those in Latin. Also the Byzantines never experienced the dark ages. They had universities, education and knowledge, which spread around Europe from Byzantine Greek scholars who migrated there after the fall of Constantinople, triggering the Renaissance.

[Carloshache]

Greece was actually called "Romania", well into the modern times - this was reflected in the Ottoman name "Rumelia". The then very important Greek city Nafplio is named "Napoli in Romania" in old maps.

[dieterhofner]

The fact that the ottomans called themself the third rome is extremely insulting.

[luciancelestine]

Of course the Byzantine Empire always called itself the Roman Empire, a historian coined the term Byzantine, after the fall of Constantinople sometime in the 16th century.

[Vitalis]

The reneissance and especially Englightment went out of their way to prove how bad the Middle Ages were, simply because people were staunch belivers back then and they wanted to separate themselves from that.

While in reality, most themes we assiociate with the Medieval era were a Renaissance thing. Torture, Inquisition, Witch trials weren't a thing (maybe torture was, somewhat) until the Reneissance. Hell, medieval people had bathouses in every cities, but after the Black Plague, there was a stigma against washing yourself. During the Enlightment the perfumes were used precisely because people often shat themselves and didn't wash at all.

[V-man]

The thing is we might as Greeks gave the Romans our culture and civilization but what they gave us in exchange is also very important. That's unity, because they ancient Greeks technically never united and kept fighting and killing each other like they were different countries, which they were in a sense, that's why it was difficult for them to unite under one kingdom or empire

[yiannicart]

"The Byzantine Empire never existed"
*my Greek heart stops
"Okay, it existed"
*Greek heart begins to pump blood again

[misterrenso]

In Greece we call it "Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων" which translates to Imperium Romanum, my father calls it "Ρωμανία", Romania in english (nothing to do with modern Romania, as the spelling differs in Greece), but our history books writes it as Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire.

[chm]

We should start refering to " the Eastern Roman Empire in Greek speaking Constantinople, labelled as the Byzantine Empire by the west in order to distort history"