What was the Byzantine Empire?

Was the Byzantine Empire the Roman Empire? Or was it something else entirely?

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Music: Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012

#byzantine #byzantineempire #romanempire #constantinople

[Breakfast_of_Champions]

I guess one important point of distinction was the offical switch to the Greek language, I think after Justinian.

[GotYourWallet]

Oh boy, looks like I'm going to watch 14 videos in a row.

[papafurankku]

Your channel is amazing! Keep up the good work!

[dz]

Just stumbled upon this channel. Time to watch every video.

[glorbockthedestroyer]

I just fell in love with your videos! Like historia civilis!

[EdMateosG]

Nice channel, keep up the good work!!

[Georgios]

How the Medevial Roman Empire became (defacto) the Greek Medevial State.

After 212 every free man of the empire became Roman citizen, the name Hellene(Greek)was synonymus to idolater and after Constantine the Great we stoped calling our selfs Greeks(idolater)and called our self what we were Romans.
Α common misunderstanding is that Hellene(greek) ment the nation of the Greeks, yes in the classical period but not in the Middle Ages, Hellene meant everyone that worships the old religion and Roman meant the civilized Christian citizen of the Empire. All this ofcourse after the Christianazation of the Empire by Constantine the Great.
There is the Early Roman Empire
(27BC -284ΑD) called Principate the
Late Roman Empire(284AD-476AD) called Dominate and the
Medevial Roman Empire(476AD-1453AD)
wrongly called Byzantium by the West.
Τhis is how the Medevial Roman Empire changed from a mixed Greek-Latin based culture empire to a Greek one, how Greeks became Roman and why Greeks are the sole inheritors of Medevial Rome:
By 330AD Rome wasn't the city it was the Empire.
The Roman empire started at 27BC and ended 1453AD the only difference is that the Greek culture part survived and the Latin culture part fell. Rome wasn't the city and Romans were not the citizens of Italy that spoke Latin, Rome by then was the civilized world and Roman the civilized man. The reasons that the Greeks are the heirs of Constantine
(who was half illyrian half Greek) are:

1. From 330AD Hellene(Greek) was the idolater the man that worships the idols so the proud Greco-Roman
(ethnically Greek but Roman citizens)
Christians stop calling them selfs Greeks because this title was synonymous to idolater and gave emphasis on what they the really were, ROMANS
( civilized Christian citizens of the Empire).

2. By moving the capital of the Roman Empire to the heart of the Greek world in the city of Byzantium ethnic Greeks immediately start to gain governmental positions and influence in politics.

3. By 500AD all the Romans in the west had gone extinct because the Barbarians conqered them,
The Huns commit a genoside on the Illyrians and thus the only Romans(civilized people) that now existed were the hellenized citizens of Eastern Rome and as a result Latin culture began to disappear.
(The barbarians gave to Emperor Zeno all the titles of the Western empire and recognised his authority over them and him as the only Roman Emperor and his state the only Roman Empire)

4. Up until the 640s the Empire had many nationalities Greeks, Lombards, Armenians, Assyrians,
Copts, Jews and north Africans in Libya all these were Romans that had 2 things in common they were predomently Hellenized
(spoke greek as 1st or 2nd language & had a greek based culture) and all of them were and called them selfs Romans meaning civilized Christian man and not by any other name. 
When I say Hellenized I historically mean Romanized cause after the fall of the Latin West, Hellenic culture became the Roman culture.
After 640s and 50s places like Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt were conquered, the Slavs migrated in the Empire lands and half of the Balkans were lost and by 700 North Africa was finally taken by the muslims, so the only Romans(civilized people)of the Empire that were not conqered were the ethnically Greek citizens of the Empire. Who again didn't call them selfs Greeks because at that time and up until the 14th century Greek was the idolater that worships the idols and was almost an insult,
they called them selfs:
Ρωμαίοι(Romaioi, Romans)and the Greek language was called the Roman language.

5. By 717AD and the Isaurian dynasty Greeks were 75% of the population of the Empire and from that point we can say that the Roman Empire basically formally adopted Greek Culture and Language with overwhelming ethnically Greeks as its citizens and as thus the Roman culture became identical and insepable with Greek culture. Again the ethnically Greeks citizens called the selfs Romans their language Romaic and their state was the
*Empire of the Romans* and the only difference it had from the age of Augustus and Constantine was that it had only one large nationallity instead of many nationalities the empire had before.

6. One thing we must say is that the Medevial Roman Empire wasn't a Greek empire like the Hellenistic empires of the Ptolemys and the Seleucids it was the part of the Roman Empire that was Hellenized instead of Latinized and slowly found itself having ethnic Greeks as the majority of its citizens and as a result became part of Greek History and Heritage.
Last but not least, the Greeks keep calling them selfs Ρωμαίοι(Romans) up until the 20th century and the Greeks that are now in
Turkey are not called Yunan(greeks) but Rum(romans) by the Turkish state.

[Ment]

It is our fault that the Seljuk Turks settled Anatolia, because they invaded through Iran, then there was a Samanid and Saffarid empire, forgive us for not being able to stop the onslaught of the Turks, if they could, Anatolia would now be part of Greece and the eastern part of Armenia. 🇮🇷🇬🇷🇹🇯🇦🇲🥺🙏🏻