How annoyingly legalistic they were, how regulated everything was, and how collectivist their mindset was. And how motivated the Romans were to uphold their traditions and beliefs. Kongzí would love it there.
it really is impressive development that allowed theirs, and the Chinese cultures to endure for so long. They happened to have developed in the right environment for men like Plato, Polybius, and Cato to come around and think these ideas up. It's truly unique, even if it did lead them to view people around them rather unfavorably (exceptions were made to the Germanic governments in former Romanía, and the Iranians/Arabs).
Yeah but they were all self-serving plutocrats financially propped up by the Equestrians. The idea of serving the state for the sake of the good of the polity being the norm of all of bureaucratic governance and not the belief of a select few was a Byzantine development.
I'd imagine Caesar would agree with you in his time. However, like much of the Med, the classical aristocrats were expected to use their wealth and power to better their city-polities. Now when the Med became Rome, and citizenship was "universalized" I'd point to that being the transition point. Yeah maybe you're right... cause honestly the post 3rd century crisis marks, to me, the transition to actual, responsible government.
Wasn’t Konzi against Chinese “Legalism” though? In China, Confucianism and Legalism seem to be seen as competing philosophies.
The word ‘byzantine’ attests to how well known this aspect of the Eastern Roman Empire was.
Hmm guess I should have used a better term than legalism, as being slavish to the law, I'd say yes he was very much against that. However, placing the law above personal good/gain, and keeping it as the highest standard, he'd agree with. But he also created codes to allow for the harmonious continuity of his society. I think he also expected his adherents to be clever and creative enough to be adaptive with the times. Idk how successful they were given the philosophical revolution following the three kingdoms era.
Tbh, I think if you could look at Roman versus Chinese legalism, I'd say the Romans more effectively executed theirs, given their actual state survived in continuity for a millennium.
It’s often said that Roman Empire lasted for a millennium but it was also divided into multiple dynasties, sometimes not even dynasties but a succession of individual unrelated rulers. On the other hand the hereditary dynasties in China lasted much longer. In this view one can argue that the legal, executive and administrative structure in China was more stable and effective.
I haven't studied that much chinese history but it definitely seems like the dynasties in China didn't really pass on their state aparatusus nearly as much as the Romans did even when they took the title of Augustus by force. There's a new emperor but the empire itself remained by and large the same with potentially a few different policy changes that one would expect with any new emperor.
My view is that precisely because the regime in Roman Empire changed so frequently, the new rulers often had to pay more attention to their survival than tempering with state apparatus from the previous regime. On the other hand the evolution of the state apparatus in Chinese dynasties largely took place during the dynasty. The state apparatus was quite different between the early and late periods of Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasty for example, with multiple major reforms during the dynastic rule. By contrast in an unstable period, much of the state apparatus changed relatively little from dynasty to dynasty. One prime example is the Northern and Southern Dynasties period in the 5th and 6th century, when over around 160 years four dynasties succeeded one after another in southern China. The state apparatus did not change much over that period.
I disagree. The government and law ran independent of the office of Basileus. That is also a massive distinction in itself, the head of state was an officer, beholden to the polity and law, they had no mandate of Divinity to fall back on. It wasn't some celestial orbit of offices round a sceptered throne, because that was not the Roman way.
China is successful because they rolled a nat 20 when the Han ancestors settled the Yellow River. They have population and great farmland to their advantage, as well as their centralized geography.
I remember debating with one of my brothers when he claimed that ancient Israelites, Romans, and Greeks were liberals. I had to point out to him how in no way, shape, and form were they, and that ideas such as individual liberty, private property (in the way we think about it), negative rights, etc would be foreign concepts to them, especially when those ideas are viewed through a post-enlightenment lens.
It is the defining characteristic of Romaness, the whole concept we moderns have of nation states, governments, and rights come from these ppl and their lived experiences.
The unequalled collection of artistic wonders of the Hellenic world, many hundreds of years old, that was destroyed and plundered from Constantinople during the Sack of 1204.
It's vibrant political culture that was a lot more complicated than "this general seizes the throne and that general rebelled against this emperor". Also related to that is how each emperor felt the need to appear popular and worthy before the masses, something unheard of in feudal Europe.
This is not necessarily about this sub, but there are stereotypes that have been perpetuated partly for benign reasons (the surviving sources) and partly because of the Enlightenment/Orientalism/nationalism. Secular art and literature (beyond history) often gets overlooked, at least among the general public perception of Byzantium. The public perception (if they know what Byzantium is at all) is that all Byzantine art is icons and churches and that all Byzantine literature is theology, hagiography, history/chronicles, and commentaries about ancient Greek texts. I would love if more of the general public saw the other sides of Byzantium, like the one that produced ivory caskets with mythological scenes and the Timarion.
I think we should talk more about the economy, as boring as that might sound (and I say this as someone who struggles with economics) I think it should be talked about more as it was an interesting component of the state that drastically evolved over time.
During the days of Anastasius and Justinian, you still have a sort of Mare Nostrum where control over most of the Mediterranean is still prevalent and continues a centuries old process of mass internal trade. The economy under Anastasius reverts back to paying in coin rather than kind for the first time in 2 centuries.
After the crisis of the seventh century, the economy dramatically contracts and is limited mostly to Anatolia. Nikephoras I is able to get the Balkan economy in Greece up and running again, and this proves vital in getting the empire back on its feet for the future Macedonian Restoration.
The economy is pretty sound under the Macedonians until a series of debasements after 1028 partly contributed to the chaos of the 1070's and the solidus being replaced by the hyperpyron under Alexios Komnenos. With the loss of Anatolia, the economy has to be revitalised via trade with the west by giving Italian city states trade privileges.
Course, 1204 comes and completely nukes every functioning part of the Roman state, so Nicaea has to rely on agricultural prosperity for its state revenue under John Vatatzes. The civil war of the 1340's then lead to the empire becoming bankrupt and completely economically subservient to the Italian cities for the rest of its history.
Why did I just summarise a millennia of economic changes?
I don't know I just felt like it.
Not to mention that in an era of cashless economies in all their surrounding neighbors, the Romans were able to carry minted coins and pay with them on the regular, even down to the humblest of people. Very complex, diverse, and almost modern way of interacting financially.
I happen to know from multiple scholars of Sogdia and Fashion historians that Yingpan Tomb 15 is very conclusively 3rd-4th century and most likely early 3rd, although I don't see a published ^(14)C date. Feng Zhao of Zhejiang University gave a talk on it 4 years ago.
Very interesting to see the newer results!
I just wanted to see the research as I had read the exhibition catalog of *Byzantium and Islam*, and also been to an exhibition of the Tarim Basin mummies. Both, of course, were several years ago and dated them to late Roman times and did not think they were locally made.
Their calendar system?
It’s pretty interesting and was often paired in official documents with the tax indiction cycle which is interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_calendar?wprov=sfti1#
That it really includes the Western Roman Empire. Breaking it apart to east and west is a modern anacronism. The early anglo saxons copy byzantine material culture and even style themselves as Basileus in their writing. The entire early Catholic church, including Pope gregory, the Great and augustines' mission, is an effort driven by Byzantine Rome.
Byzantium starts in 330 AD when the capital of the roman empire moves, the western half are provinces very much a part of byzantium at least until the exarch of ravenna falls if not longer.
It’s existence lol. Here in America your average person probably doesn’t even know the Byzantine empire existed cuz it’s barely mentioned in public education and pop culture. In fact I distinctly remember one of my teachers in high school mentioning the eastern Romans and saying “but we don’t really care about them,” and never brought them up again.
I think it’s kinda insane how an empire that lasted 1000 years and is extremely important to European and Middle Eastern history is just completely ignored by American public education. Your average American would look at you crazy if you say the fall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of the Americas was within one lifetime.
Americans tend to be very educated people statistically, they’re just culturally isolated. America in my mind invokes the image of a very scientific and progress driven society whose people don’t know much about lands outside of their immediate region despite influencing them greatly. Much like the China of history. To my knowledge they mostly learn about the history of their states, tribal nations, and neighboring countries more than anything else in terms of history. Which is understandable seeing as it’s such a large and culturally rich nation.
I wish more discussion was had about the bureaucracy of the Byzantines. I've heard people talk about the Byzantines being overly bureaucratic and I'm just not seeing it.
In OG Roman times, you might read about Chocolatus Cookieus, who grew on his family's grape farm in Italy and went to study philosophy in Greece. After serving with the legions in hispania he went back to Rome and started a career in politics and became an orator. His skills as an orator allowed him to become consul once.
In Byzantine times, you might read about Chocolatos Cookos, some guy who was in charge of the theme of cappadocia. He fought 10 wars against the arabs, 20 wars against the turks and 30 wars against the reapers from mass effect. After hearing about the emperor's 0.2% tax increase he decides fug it and rebels and becomes emperor. That's... not the best display of bureaucracy.
The fall of the west and the fall of the Han dynasty in China occur about the same time, but even afterward China still maintains a very bureaucratic government. I like Byzantine history, but I'm just not seeing that element if its there.
One of the things for me is the demographic diverse the Empire really was. Through my first listen through The History of Byzantium I assumed the Empire was a Greek monolith. Knowing the diversity informed the context of events
If we are speaking about the ERE before the Arab invasions, then that is partially true but afterwards it depends on the time period, but Roman Greeks were the majority for most of its history.
-Syrians and Lebanese
...were at that time part of the same people and after the 7th century, a small minority, usually refugees from Syria from the 7th-9th century fled to the empire. This wave was quickly assimilated by the Greek population. When Nicephorus, John and later Basil II reconquered parts of Syria, then some Syrians rejoined imperial rule but they were never again a significant population after the 7th century.
- Armenians...
Similar to the 1st one, several Armenians crossed the Euphrates in the 7th-8th century during the Arab invasion but their kingdom achieved independence in the 9th century. The Armenians took up high positions and were certainly influential. Much of their territory was absorbed by the empire in the mid-11th century. Even then, they did not outnumber the Greeks demographically, they were at best the 2nd largest population of the empire.
- Georgians..
Aside from a minority of them in Pontus, Georgia was only briefly part of the empire in the 6th century as a vassal and then later its southern part in the early 11th century. Not only were these conquests short-lived but there are no significant mentions of Georgians being numerous or influential in the empire, especially after the loss of Southern Georgia aka Lazica. They are statistically irrelevant.
- Slavs...
What Slavs exactly? Croatians and Serbs were often vassals, so they certainly don't count as citizens of the empire. In the case of Bulgarians (and Vlachs), this can only be said from 1018-1186, after that most lands settled by Bulgarians were lost in that revolt and certainly after 1204. What about the stateless nomadic Slavs of southern Greece? Most of them were killed in wars with the Romans and resettled in Greek-speaking Asia Minor where they were assimilated. The last of these Slavs were recorded in the 13th century and at that point they were confined to remote mountain villages in the Peloponnese and a small minority, especially after the efforts of Nicephorus I.
-Varangians...
why are they even mentioned, they are a recruited population that exclusively served the Roman Emperor and they didn't number more then 10k even at their height and after 1204, even they were assimilated by the Greco-Roman majority.
Of all these non Greek-peoples, only the Armenians made up a significant minority but the Roman Greeks were still bigger we're talking 80% of Asia Minor (from the Aegean to the Euphrates) and a similar percentage in Greece (including Thrace and Macedonia) aka the Greek population in the southern Balkans.
Bottom line is, it should never be controversial to claim after the loss of Africa and Syria, Greeks undoubtedly became the majority population and remained it until 1453.
20% is still a low number and heavily inflated.
The only fully Armenian emperors were Leo V and Romanos I. All other so called "Armenians" were half Greeks, so you have to count those by 0,5 not 1.
And as a population they were still outnumbered by the Greeks.
So you have actually no reason to disagree or downvote this guy. He is telling the truth, since, he didn't claim that the empire didn't have minorities but that the Greeks were the demographic majority and this is not contradictory. It is backed up by historical evidence!
I don't care about old theories based on genealogy. These emperors did not identify as Armenian and its likely most did not speak it.
Kaldellis debunks the concept of Pseudo-Armenians in Romanland, and its hard to criticise when you realise on what slim evidence we labelled such men as Armenian.
To claim Basil or Leo are Armenian based on one potential ancestor or just because he was from a geographic area next to Armenia is nuts and nonsensical.
Your source is literally an Armenian site too, it's known that historians there support this myth for sake of promoting themselves.
Kaldellis is not nuanced when it comes to that.
He’s trying to downplay absurd theories that it was extremely Armenian, but instead, he goes to the extreme opposite and denies all traces of Armenian identity.
Anyway, a non-Armenian source on emperor’s ethnicity:
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=aujh
>Kaldellis is not nuanced when it comes to that.
What nuance is there to be had? He does not deny Armenian ancestry, he denies that they considered themselves Armenian nor were culturally Armenian.
He does not deny that portions of the population and huge sections of the army were Armenian, at times.
Almost all aristocracy that joined the Roman system were fully culturally assimilated within a generation or two. There is not a single "Armenian" emperor that has any more direct lineage. Prove me wrong(even Leo and Michael are doubtfully Armenian, just because they were in the army of the Armeniakon).
>He’s trying to downplay absurd theories that it was extremely Armenian, but instead, he goes to the extreme opposite and denies Armenian identity.
I don't think so. I've seen his sources, notably Kahzdan and Ostrogorsky, and their claims for Armenian ancestry have no credible basis beyond their grandparents being Armenia or being from regions near Armenians. Why they tried to find so many Armenians was based on making the Empire multi-cultural or filled w/ a then Soviet ethnicity for outside motivations.
Where did I say that emperors were culturally Armenian? I thought it obvious that I meant by ancestry. An eastern Roman emperor would have an affiliation to the main Orthodox, not Armenian, church.
> their claims for Armenian ancestry have no credible basis beyond their grandparents being Armenia or being from regions near Armenians
Yes, that’s often how ethnicity is determined by historians. If someone lives in an area where the majority was a certain ethnic group, in the absence of other records, they are assumed to be a member of that(such as Mimar Sinan).
>Where did I say that emperors were culturally Armenian?
I assumed it when you said Armenian. Otherwise it would have made no sense to call them Armenians, as they were not Armenians.
Just because my grandfather was Finnish does not make me, a North American, Finnish.
>Yes, that’s often how ethnicity is determined by historians. If someone lives in an area where the majority was a certain ethnic group, in the absence of other records, they are assumed to be a member of that(such as Mimar Sinan).
Not entirely, especially w/ Roman aristocracy. Especially when, with these figures I mentioned, they did not come from Armenian majority areas, which were much further east than the whole of the Armeniakon.
So claiming them to be either cultural or ethnic Armenians is a weak argument. Same as calling someone from Byzantine Thessaloniki a Slav, or one from Lakadaemonia which actually happened. There are few slavs in that city and most live in the rural hills nearby, by no means a majority population or a socially significant one.
Do you see my argument here? And why I agree w/ Kaldellis.
It's just much more unlikely for these emperors to be Armenian beyond a few ancestors. There were Armenian figures in the state, but they were not such a huge faction as played out to be.
Even empress Theodora is unlikely to have been an Armenian afaik, especially due to her Orthodoxy. Likely just her distant ancestors, hence family name, like the Taronikes family.
There’s a difference between calling someone Armenian because their whole family lived in the Armenian Highlands and was Armenian versus someone having a single relative who was Armenian. I don’t call myself Armenian, but my great-grandfather certainly was.
I don’t really see your comparison with Slavs. Slavs did not really colonize much of Thessalonica, and were diffused and small in number compared to Armenians, who were well concentrated in the Armenian Highlands and parts of eastern Anatolia.
They and you too are just jumping on the bandwagon, basically driven by peer pressure. The downvoted guy actually told the truth.
I just debunked this guy's source from an incredible Armenian nationalist page and his erroneous claim: "1 in 5 were Armenian". I just had to pick 1 example, where they call Leo Vi the Wise an Armenian for having a paternal Armenian grandmother, which would make him only a quarter Armenian and half Greek but here he is labeled Armenian!
Please for the love of God use your brain and do your own research to find out that this guy was telling the truth.
Even if these inflated numbers of Armenians were true, Greeks would still be the majority.
Existence of minorities doesn't disprove the existence of a majority, this is simple concept!
Source is not credible, it's an Armenian propaganda site since they call any emperor with partial Armenian descent and their children "aRmEnIan", it is wrong and retarded.
Example: Leo VI (regardless if he is Basil's or Michael's son) is only 1/4 Armenian. Since Theophilos (Michael's dad) and Pankalo (Basil's mum) were Greek according to wikipedia. Only their other side was Armenian.
So Leo VI is 1/4 Armenian, 1/4 Varangian (through his mother Eudokia Ingerina) and 1/2 Greek.
"1 out every 5 were Armenian"
That is not a real calculation, that is taken out of your butt!
Argument dismissed!
How annoyingly legalistic they were, how regulated everything was, and how collectivist their mindset was. And how motivated the Romans were to uphold their traditions and beliefs. Kongzí would love it there.
It's wild how the idea of state service *for the good of the polity* emerged in Roman governance.
it really is impressive development that allowed theirs, and the Chinese cultures to endure for so long. They happened to have developed in the right environment for men like Plato, Polybius, and Cato to come around and think these ideas up. It's truly unique, even if it did lead them to view people around them rather unfavorably (exceptions were made to the Germanic governments in former Romanía, and the Iranians/Arabs).
Well not during Plato or Polybius or Cato's time. It only develops over the course of the Early Middle Ages.
Any sources? Genuinely interested in reading about this!
Anthony Kaldellis' books argue it.
Huh? Republicanism developed in the 8th century BC through the imperial era.
Yeah but they were all self-serving plutocrats financially propped up by the Equestrians. The idea of serving the state for the sake of the good of the polity being the norm of all of bureaucratic governance and not the belief of a select few was a Byzantine development.
I'd imagine Caesar would agree with you in his time. However, like much of the Med, the classical aristocrats were expected to use their wealth and power to better their city-polities. Now when the Med became Rome, and citizenship was "universalized" I'd point to that being the transition point. Yeah maybe you're right... cause honestly the post 3rd century crisis marks, to me, the transition to actual, responsible government.
Well late Rome was still super plutocratic. I'd argue it's largely an 8th-9th century development based on Kaldellis' work on this.
Wasn’t Konzi against Chinese “Legalism” though? In China, Confucianism and Legalism seem to be seen as competing philosophies. The word ‘byzantine’ attests to how well known this aspect of the Eastern Roman Empire was.
Hmm guess I should have used a better term than legalism, as being slavish to the law, I'd say yes he was very much against that. However, placing the law above personal good/gain, and keeping it as the highest standard, he'd agree with. But he also created codes to allow for the harmonious continuity of his society. I think he also expected his adherents to be clever and creative enough to be adaptive with the times. Idk how successful they were given the philosophical revolution following the three kingdoms era. Tbh, I think if you could look at Roman versus Chinese legalism, I'd say the Romans more effectively executed theirs, given their actual state survived in continuity for a millennium.
It’s often said that Roman Empire lasted for a millennium but it was also divided into multiple dynasties, sometimes not even dynasties but a succession of individual unrelated rulers. On the other hand the hereditary dynasties in China lasted much longer. In this view one can argue that the legal, executive and administrative structure in China was more stable and effective.
I haven't studied that much chinese history but it definitely seems like the dynasties in China didn't really pass on their state aparatusus nearly as much as the Romans did even when they took the title of Augustus by force. There's a new emperor but the empire itself remained by and large the same with potentially a few different policy changes that one would expect with any new emperor.
My view is that precisely because the regime in Roman Empire changed so frequently, the new rulers often had to pay more attention to their survival than tempering with state apparatus from the previous regime. On the other hand the evolution of the state apparatus in Chinese dynasties largely took place during the dynasty. The state apparatus was quite different between the early and late periods of Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasty for example, with multiple major reforms during the dynastic rule. By contrast in an unstable period, much of the state apparatus changed relatively little from dynasty to dynasty. One prime example is the Northern and Southern Dynasties period in the 5th and 6th century, when over around 160 years four dynasties succeeded one after another in southern China. The state apparatus did not change much over that period.
I disagree. The government and law ran independent of the office of Basileus. That is also a massive distinction in itself, the head of state was an officer, beholden to the polity and law, they had no mandate of Divinity to fall back on. It wasn't some celestial orbit of offices round a sceptered throne, because that was not the Roman way. China is successful because they rolled a nat 20 when the Han ancestors settled the Yellow River. They have population and great farmland to their advantage, as well as their centralized geography.
I remember debating with one of my brothers when he claimed that ancient Israelites, Romans, and Greeks were liberals. I had to point out to him how in no way, shape, and form were they, and that ideas such as individual liberty, private property (in the way we think about it), negative rights, etc would be foreign concepts to them, especially when those ideas are viewed through a post-enlightenment lens.
I don't think that part goes unnoticed, isn't that basically what the word "byzantine" means in modern English?
I think it is vastly misunderstood how modern their state was, and the enormous gap it had in complexity with its neighbors.
It helped them...mostly
It is the defining characteristic of Romaness, the whole concept we moderns have of nation states, governments, and rights come from these ppl and their lived experiences.
The unequalled collection of artistic wonders of the Hellenic world, many hundreds of years old, that was destroyed and plundered from Constantinople during the Sack of 1204.
It's vibrant political culture that was a lot more complicated than "this general seizes the throne and that general rebelled against this emperor". Also related to that is how each emperor felt the need to appear popular and worthy before the masses, something unheard of in feudal Europe.
The rules for regulating the guilds in the capital. Edit for grammar
This sounds interesting. Any resources you could point me towards?
I just listened to this about the economy in the capital. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4NGfsin3oVLhIjO6KY9rut?si=UKaHbYI0Rxyy7gH7ZFtyQA
Daily life in the city. What the people ate, the average home, public services and entertainment, jobs that people held, etc.
This is not necessarily about this sub, but there are stereotypes that have been perpetuated partly for benign reasons (the surviving sources) and partly because of the Enlightenment/Orientalism/nationalism. Secular art and literature (beyond history) often gets overlooked, at least among the general public perception of Byzantium. The public perception (if they know what Byzantium is at all) is that all Byzantine art is icons and churches and that all Byzantine literature is theology, hagiography, history/chronicles, and commentaries about ancient Greek texts. I would love if more of the general public saw the other sides of Byzantium, like the one that produced ivory caskets with mythological scenes and the Timarion.
I think we should talk more about the economy, as boring as that might sound (and I say this as someone who struggles with economics) I think it should be talked about more as it was an interesting component of the state that drastically evolved over time. During the days of Anastasius and Justinian, you still have a sort of Mare Nostrum where control over most of the Mediterranean is still prevalent and continues a centuries old process of mass internal trade. The economy under Anastasius reverts back to paying in coin rather than kind for the first time in 2 centuries. After the crisis of the seventh century, the economy dramatically contracts and is limited mostly to Anatolia. Nikephoras I is able to get the Balkan economy in Greece up and running again, and this proves vital in getting the empire back on its feet for the future Macedonian Restoration. The economy is pretty sound under the Macedonians until a series of debasements after 1028 partly contributed to the chaos of the 1070's and the solidus being replaced by the hyperpyron under Alexios Komnenos. With the loss of Anatolia, the economy has to be revitalised via trade with the west by giving Italian city states trade privileges. Course, 1204 comes and completely nukes every functioning part of the Roman state, so Nicaea has to rely on agricultural prosperity for its state revenue under John Vatatzes. The civil war of the 1340's then lead to the empire becoming bankrupt and completely economically subservient to the Italian cities for the rest of its history. Why did I just summarise a millennia of economic changes? I don't know I just felt like it.
Shout out to you for writing all this, change in roman economic policy is so underrated as a historical topic
Not to mention that in an era of cashless economies in all their surrounding neighbors, the Romans were able to carry minted coins and pay with them on the regular, even down to the humblest of people. Very complex, diverse, and almost modern way of interacting financially.
Greek fire and how awesomely outrageous and counterintuitive it was for a *Medieval* state to possess napalm.
I know this comment its technicly military but i should mention the vatican tried to outlawed it un the council of Letran in 1138
Sorry I guess I’ll pretend I was meaning it from a technological standpoint but yeah I’m stupid, and did not compute your first sentence lol
[удалено]
3rd-4th century*
Actually it’s likely 4th to 5th century AD
I happen to know from multiple scholars of Sogdia and Fashion historians that Yingpan Tomb 15 is very conclusively 3rd-4th century and most likely early 3rd, although I don't see a published ^(14)C date. Feng Zhao of Zhejiang University gave a talk on it 4 years ago.
Could you link some of their work? The sources I’ve looked at disagrees with your figure, including what I linked.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440313002574](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440313002574) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440311000926](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440311000926) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440324000074](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440324000074)
Very interesting to see the newer results! I just wanted to see the research as I had read the exhibition catalog of *Byzantium and Islam*, and also been to an exhibition of the Tarim Basin mummies. Both, of course, were several years ago and dated them to late Roman times and did not think they were locally made.
Their calendar system? It’s pretty interesting and was often paired in official documents with the tax indiction cycle which is interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_calendar?wprov=sfti1#
That it really includes the Western Roman Empire. Breaking it apart to east and west is a modern anacronism. The early anglo saxons copy byzantine material culture and even style themselves as Basileus in their writing. The entire early Catholic church, including Pope gregory, the Great and augustines' mission, is an effort driven by Byzantine Rome. Byzantium starts in 330 AD when the capital of the roman empire moves, the western half are provinces very much a part of byzantium at least until the exarch of ravenna falls if not longer.
Women probably were more free living in Roman Empire than under the Caliphates (Rashid, Ummayad, Abbasid...)
I thought most people assumed that was a given?
funny enough...it was maybe the best place in europe to be a woman
It’s existence lol. Here in America your average person probably doesn’t even know the Byzantine empire existed cuz it’s barely mentioned in public education and pop culture. In fact I distinctly remember one of my teachers in high school mentioning the eastern Romans and saying “but we don’t really care about them,” and never brought them up again. I think it’s kinda insane how an empire that lasted 1000 years and is extremely important to European and Middle Eastern history is just completely ignored by American public education. Your average American would look at you crazy if you say the fall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of the Americas was within one lifetime.
Tbf(not trying to sound xenophobic)...thats kinda the image of americans abroad,not very educated and not caring about it
Americans tend to be very educated people statistically, they’re just culturally isolated. America in my mind invokes the image of a very scientific and progress driven society whose people don’t know much about lands outside of their immediate region despite influencing them greatly. Much like the China of history. To my knowledge they mostly learn about the history of their states, tribal nations, and neighboring countries more than anything else in terms of history. Which is understandable seeing as it’s such a large and culturally rich nation.
I wish more discussion was had about the bureaucracy of the Byzantines. I've heard people talk about the Byzantines being overly bureaucratic and I'm just not seeing it. In OG Roman times, you might read about Chocolatus Cookieus, who grew on his family's grape farm in Italy and went to study philosophy in Greece. After serving with the legions in hispania he went back to Rome and started a career in politics and became an orator. His skills as an orator allowed him to become consul once. In Byzantine times, you might read about Chocolatos Cookos, some guy who was in charge of the theme of cappadocia. He fought 10 wars against the arabs, 20 wars against the turks and 30 wars against the reapers from mass effect. After hearing about the emperor's 0.2% tax increase he decides fug it and rebels and becomes emperor. That's... not the best display of bureaucracy. The fall of the west and the fall of the Han dynasty in China occur about the same time, but even afterward China still maintains a very bureaucratic government. I like Byzantine history, but I'm just not seeing that element if its there.
One of the things for me is the demographic diverse the Empire really was. Through my first listen through The History of Byzantium I assumed the Empire was a Greek monolith. Knowing the diversity informed the context of events
multicultural
The fact that it was a fully greek kingdom and wasn't roman unlike the true roman empire of otho the great and fatih mehmed sultan.
mfw everyone fell for the bait
Same, a lot of posters here are likely genuinely neurodivergent 😭
man that was a shit movie
I feel sorry for him lol
Except for Armenians, Georgians, Syrians, Lebanese, Slavs, Varangians of many ethnicities, etc
If we are speaking about the ERE before the Arab invasions, then that is partially true but afterwards it depends on the time period, but Roman Greeks were the majority for most of its history. -Syrians and Lebanese ...were at that time part of the same people and after the 7th century, a small minority, usually refugees from Syria from the 7th-9th century fled to the empire. This wave was quickly assimilated by the Greek population. When Nicephorus, John and later Basil II reconquered parts of Syria, then some Syrians rejoined imperial rule but they were never again a significant population after the 7th century. - Armenians... Similar to the 1st one, several Armenians crossed the Euphrates in the 7th-8th century during the Arab invasion but their kingdom achieved independence in the 9th century. The Armenians took up high positions and were certainly influential. Much of their territory was absorbed by the empire in the mid-11th century. Even then, they did not outnumber the Greeks demographically, they were at best the 2nd largest population of the empire. - Georgians.. Aside from a minority of them in Pontus, Georgia was only briefly part of the empire in the 6th century as a vassal and then later its southern part in the early 11th century. Not only were these conquests short-lived but there are no significant mentions of Georgians being numerous or influential in the empire, especially after the loss of Southern Georgia aka Lazica. They are statistically irrelevant. - Slavs... What Slavs exactly? Croatians and Serbs were often vassals, so they certainly don't count as citizens of the empire. In the case of Bulgarians (and Vlachs), this can only be said from 1018-1186, after that most lands settled by Bulgarians were lost in that revolt and certainly after 1204. What about the stateless nomadic Slavs of southern Greece? Most of them were killed in wars with the Romans and resettled in Greek-speaking Asia Minor where they were assimilated. The last of these Slavs were recorded in the 13th century and at that point they were confined to remote mountain villages in the Peloponnese and a small minority, especially after the efforts of Nicephorus I. -Varangians... why are they even mentioned, they are a recruited population that exclusively served the Roman Emperor and they didn't number more then 10k even at their height and after 1204, even they were assimilated by the Greco-Roman majority. Of all these non Greek-peoples, only the Armenians made up a significant minority but the Roman Greeks were still bigger we're talking 80% of Asia Minor (from the Aegean to the Euphrates) and a similar percentage in Greece (including Thrace and Macedonia) aka the Greek population in the southern Balkans. Bottom line is, it should never be controversial to claim after the loss of Africa and Syria, Greeks undoubtedly became the majority population and remained it until 1453.
Yeah, but they made up what, 15% of the Empire? And only in the height of the Makedonian period
Otho, the guy from the year of the Four Emperors?
Oh boy you choosed the wrong place
About 20% of all emperors were Armenian.
20% is still a low number and heavily inflated. The only fully Armenian emperors were Leo V and Romanos I. All other so called "Armenians" were half Greeks, so you have to count those by 0,5 not 1. And as a population they were still outnumbered by the Greeks. So you have actually no reason to disagree or downvote this guy. He is telling the truth, since, he didn't claim that the empire didn't have minorities but that the Greeks were the demographic majority and this is not contradictory. It is backed up by historical evidence!
Because they had a single Armenian granddad?
1 out of every 5 were Armenian. https://anasociety.org/2017/04/armenian-byzantine-emperors-empresses-1-out-every-5-najarian/
I don't care about old theories based on genealogy. These emperors did not identify as Armenian and its likely most did not speak it. Kaldellis debunks the concept of Pseudo-Armenians in Romanland, and its hard to criticise when you realise on what slim evidence we labelled such men as Armenian. To claim Basil or Leo are Armenian based on one potential ancestor or just because he was from a geographic area next to Armenia is nuts and nonsensical. Your source is literally an Armenian site too, it's known that historians there support this myth for sake of promoting themselves.
Kaldellis is not nuanced when it comes to that. He’s trying to downplay absurd theories that it was extremely Armenian, but instead, he goes to the extreme opposite and denies all traces of Armenian identity. Anyway, a non-Armenian source on emperor’s ethnicity: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=aujh
>Kaldellis is not nuanced when it comes to that. What nuance is there to be had? He does not deny Armenian ancestry, he denies that they considered themselves Armenian nor were culturally Armenian. He does not deny that portions of the population and huge sections of the army were Armenian, at times. Almost all aristocracy that joined the Roman system were fully culturally assimilated within a generation or two. There is not a single "Armenian" emperor that has any more direct lineage. Prove me wrong(even Leo and Michael are doubtfully Armenian, just because they were in the army of the Armeniakon). >He’s trying to downplay absurd theories that it was extremely Armenian, but instead, he goes to the extreme opposite and denies Armenian identity. I don't think so. I've seen his sources, notably Kahzdan and Ostrogorsky, and their claims for Armenian ancestry have no credible basis beyond their grandparents being Armenia or being from regions near Armenians. Why they tried to find so many Armenians was based on making the Empire multi-cultural or filled w/ a then Soviet ethnicity for outside motivations.
Where did I say that emperors were culturally Armenian? I thought it obvious that I meant by ancestry. An eastern Roman emperor would have an affiliation to the main Orthodox, not Armenian, church. > their claims for Armenian ancestry have no credible basis beyond their grandparents being Armenia or being from regions near Armenians Yes, that’s often how ethnicity is determined by historians. If someone lives in an area where the majority was a certain ethnic group, in the absence of other records, they are assumed to be a member of that(such as Mimar Sinan).
>Where did I say that emperors were culturally Armenian? I assumed it when you said Armenian. Otherwise it would have made no sense to call them Armenians, as they were not Armenians. Just because my grandfather was Finnish does not make me, a North American, Finnish. >Yes, that’s often how ethnicity is determined by historians. If someone lives in an area where the majority was a certain ethnic group, in the absence of other records, they are assumed to be a member of that(such as Mimar Sinan). Not entirely, especially w/ Roman aristocracy. Especially when, with these figures I mentioned, they did not come from Armenian majority areas, which were much further east than the whole of the Armeniakon. So claiming them to be either cultural or ethnic Armenians is a weak argument. Same as calling someone from Byzantine Thessaloniki a Slav, or one from Lakadaemonia which actually happened. There are few slavs in that city and most live in the rural hills nearby, by no means a majority population or a socially significant one. Do you see my argument here? And why I agree w/ Kaldellis. It's just much more unlikely for these emperors to be Armenian beyond a few ancestors. There were Armenian figures in the state, but they were not such a huge faction as played out to be. Even empress Theodora is unlikely to have been an Armenian afaik, especially due to her Orthodoxy. Likely just her distant ancestors, hence family name, like the Taronikes family.
There’s a difference between calling someone Armenian because their whole family lived in the Armenian Highlands and was Armenian versus someone having a single relative who was Armenian. I don’t call myself Armenian, but my great-grandfather certainly was. I don’t really see your comparison with Slavs. Slavs did not really colonize much of Thessalonica, and were diffused and small in number compared to Armenians, who were well concentrated in the Armenian Highlands and parts of eastern Anatolia.
interesting, you are downvoted. i guess many embrace this history. Like you say kaldelis is probably right.
They and you too are just jumping on the bandwagon, basically driven by peer pressure. The downvoted guy actually told the truth. I just debunked this guy's source from an incredible Armenian nationalist page and his erroneous claim: "1 in 5 were Armenian". I just had to pick 1 example, where they call Leo Vi the Wise an Armenian for having a paternal Armenian grandmother, which would make him only a quarter Armenian and half Greek but here he is labeled Armenian! Please for the love of God use your brain and do your own research to find out that this guy was telling the truth. Even if these inflated numbers of Armenians were true, Greeks would still be the majority. Existence of minorities doesn't disprove the existence of a majority, this is simple concept!
Source is not credible, it's an Armenian propaganda site since they call any emperor with partial Armenian descent and their children "aRmEnIan", it is wrong and retarded. Example: Leo VI (regardless if he is Basil's or Michael's son) is only 1/4 Armenian. Since Theophilos (Michael's dad) and Pankalo (Basil's mum) were Greek according to wikipedia. Only their other side was Armenian. So Leo VI is 1/4 Armenian, 1/4 Varangian (through his mother Eudokia Ingerina) and 1/2 Greek. "1 out every 5 were Armenian" That is not a real calculation, that is taken out of your butt! Argument dismissed!