Roman Empire/Byzantine/Romanion

[Onasander]

Belisarius for sure. And don't give me that Byzantine not Roman stuff, the Pope greated him friendly when he re-entered Rome, and he was under the command of a legitimate Roman Emperor reclaiming roman lands in the west. He is undisputibly as much a Roman General as any other.

[Virgil61]

Belisarius for sure. And don't give me that Byzantine not Roman stuff, the Pope greated him friendly when he re-entered Rome, and he was under the command of a legitimate Roman Emperor reclaiming roman lands in the west. He is undisputibly as much a Roman General as any other.

 

I don't think he's "undisputibly" as much a Roman general in the same sense. There are major differences between the Romans of the Republic or the Principate and the Eastern Roman Empire that would argue he shouldn't be included in this particular list.

[Onasander]

Their are significant differances between Revolutionary War generals in the US to the Civil War, and even more so from then to know. We've been under two constitutions and forms of government. But would someone deny George Washington or General Tommy Franks from list? Nations change, and beyond a reasonable doubt, Belasarius was a roman general, even more so in my opinion than some during the civilwars in Rome who broke off and set up thier own territories. Nobody denies them of being Roman Generals.

 

He served with honor to the Roman Emperor and to the pope in Rome and patriarch in Constantanople in the reconquering of lost Imperial lands, what more can be asked of a Roman General? (Don't forget, the Romans lost the city of Rome before and retook it.)

[Virgil61]

I think the differences between the Republic/Principate and the Eastern Empire are of a greater magnitude. The Romans were, well, roman. Their origins were in Italy, their culture was Italian, their language was latin they were tied to Rome and Italy by this. The Eastern Romans were to a large extent Greek who spoke that language rather than latin, who's main population base in Asia Minor and Greece was Greek speaking with little cultural connection with Roman culture and while they maintained an adherence of sorts to their Roman legacy they were arguably a different entity by Belisarius' time. This is a much greater difference than the one between Revolutionary War generals and contemporary ones.

[Onasander]

no, the roman culture was more greek than italian, italy was heavily influenced by greek culture.

Soon, many part of the United States may very well change it's official language to Spanish.... will this mean they will no longer be a part of the United States?

 

Most important of all, who sent the telegram to the Eastern Emperor telling him he was no longer Roman? If it's mearly a question of possessing the city of Rome as the official capital, then I'll have to place the end of the Roman empire during the reign of Constaintine, for at the time, he was the only official Emperor, and his capital was Byzantium...... and the city wouldn't lose this title uncontested till the crusades. If I'm to take this arguement, Rome died then, and Byzantium was born.

 

I keep thinking of Boethius, the last of the Western Romans. He always looked towards the east.

[Hamilcar Barca]

By Roman I meant western Rome i.e. till 476AD, thats why Belisarus and Narses are left out. I would have listed more generals but the polls only allows 10 max, thats why I put in "other". Others which I would like to have represented would have been:

 

Marcus Claudius Marcellus

 

Pompeius Magnus

 

Trajan

 

Claudius Gothicus

 

Theodosius

 

Stilicho (part Roman)

 

Aetis

 

... Others will hit me soon...

[Virgil61]

no, the roman culture was more greek than italian, italy was heavily influenced by greek culture.

Soon, many part of the United States may very well change it's official language to Spanish.... will this mean they will no longer be a part of the United States? 

 

Most important of all, who sent the telegram to the Eastern Emperor telling him he was no longer Roman? If it's mearly a question of possessing the city of Rome as the official capital, then I'll have to place the end of the Roman empire during the reign of Constaintine, for at the time, he was the only official Emperor, and his capital was Byzantium...... and the city wouldn't lose this title uncontested till the crusades. If I'm to take this arguement, Rome died then, and Byzantium was born.

 

I keep thinking of Boethius, the last of the Western Romans. He always looked towards the east.

 

You're confusing being influenced by Greek culture with being Greek. Rome was an Italian and a Latin culture with influence from the Greeks but not "more Greek" than Italian. In it's language it was latin and in it's ethnic affinity it was a member of the Italic tribes. During the later Republic and Principate Greek was used as the language of the learned, but that didn't make them Greek any more than an English gentleman speaking and writing in Latin in the 15th century was Roman.

 

Although influenced by the cities of Maegna Grecia, especially in religion, early Roman culture was as strongly shaped by their common origins with the Latins and the odd culture of the neighboring Etruscans [which itself was influenced by Greek culture]. The real era of Greek influence really come into fruition in the 2d century BC during the Punic Wars when the Romans began to become involved politically and militarily with Greece and Macedonia. But Greek culture influenced everyone, from the Egyptians under the Ptolemies, to the Parthians and the Persians, all of whom borrowed freely, in one degree or other from the Greeks. That's when Cato's famous backlash against Greek cultural influence happened.

 

As important, the people of the Eastern Empire weren't biologically related to the Romans although they still retained influence. That's why historians call them Byzantine or Eastern Roman; to highlight and focus the differences. Sending a telegram to inform an Emperor he isn't Roman isn't the issue; it's dissecting and analyzing Roman civilization as a historian, anthropologist or archeologist would and segmenting it according to cultural, linguistic, ethnographic and other classifications.

 

While your analogy isn't bad a better analogy to this issue is this; the U.S. ceases to exist one day, a portion of the Southeast or Florida that is Spanish-speaking remains viable and still calls itself the United States. While technically a continuation, a future political scientist or historian in addressing U.S. history would apply to it a different label or additional label to it than just the "United States" to seperate it in relation to the U.S. of the first 225 years.

 

Your argument is with the majority of generations of historians who've made the logical distinction between the Republic, the Principate, the Tetrachy of the 4d-5th centuries and the later Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. To get back to the original comment, I think the guist of this board and more specifically, this thread of the Greatest Roman General is of the Republic and Principate or Classical Rome, not the Rome of later Antiquity or Byzantium. Notice the forum reserved for discussion of the post-Roman history such as that of the Byzantine Empire.

[Tobias]

I would also argue that being "Roman" is more of an ideal than a culture. Up to the 20th century many Greeks in former Byzantine territory still called themselves "Rhomaioi", or Romans. But it is a bit off topic, i was just adding a little bit lol.

[Onasander]

It says greatest roman general. I replied who it was.

 

the U.S. ceases to exist one day

 

Your arguement is stacked. You already proclaimed the US not to exsist. If the Federal Government and state government continued to presever constitutionally, they would still be American, no amount of arguement could prove otherwise. Some chinese historian a thousand years from now on living on moon infatuated with the American Civil War would still be wrong, even if he had the full support of the academic community of his time, in claiming that America would cease to exsist, if it turned out infactual that it did exsist. The survivors in conquered New Jersey would be of American decent, but would undoubtedly look towards the Federal Government down south as the original government.

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The Eastern Empire was still going quite strong. The US has lost half of it's territories before, but nobody claimed it ceased to exsist then or now.

 

As to ethnicity, their were a good many latins in the east, and a good many non-latins in the west. Latins are not inherently Roman, it was citizenship that made a Roman, and the bulk of the East had it at the time of the collapse of the Westerners. The empire lost it's claim to exclusive ethnicity once it starting building colonies, intramarrying and granting citizenship to everyone. My ancestors are german, but I'm definately American... more so than the Anglo-Saxon Canadians to our north who are the original conquering race of America. Are historians going to revoke America if the Pennslavania Dutch gain a majority in the 2008 elections?

 

I quiet frankly couldn't care if a thousand generations of historians say otherwise, the only people who count in this are the Romans and their contemporaries. The westerners thought the Eastern Empire was Roman, the conquering goths thought the easterners were Romans, Boethius... the last Roman in the West, never doubted their authenticity. They say they are Roman, and they had considerably more authority in saying this than we do hundreds of years later. History has vetoed the historian.

[Virgil61]

It says greatest roman general. I replied who it was. 

 

Your arguement is stacked. You already proclaimed the US not to exsist. If the Federal Government and state government continued to presever constitutionally, they would still be American, no amount of arguement could prove otherwise. Some chinese historian a thousand years from now on living on moon infatuated with the American Civil War would still be wrong, even if he had the full support of the academic community of his time, in claiming that America would cease to exsist, if it turned out infactual that it did exsist. The survivors in conquered New Jersey would be of American decent, but would undoubtedly look towards the Federal Government down south as the original government.

 

 

You completely missed my point. I don't know what "your argument is stacked" means; it was a clear analogy to what had happened at the end of the Roman Empire and the continuation of the Eastern, later Byzantine. The secret to argument by analogy, by the way, is to use them sparingly and keep them short. They have effective but limited value as tools of argument.

 

The point is that by the time of Justinian the Eastern Empire, while Roman on some levels, had effectively changed enough to deserve the application Byzantine rather than Roman. It was becoming a predominately Greek culture with vestiges of Roman political trappings.

 

The Eastern Empire was still going quite strong. The US has lost half of it's territories before, but nobody claimed it ceased to exsist then or now.

 

As to ethnicity, their were a good many latins in the east, and a good many non-latins in the west. Latins are not inherently Roman, it was citizenship that made a Roman, and the bulk of the East had it at the time of the collapse of the Westerners. The empire lost it's claim to exclusive ethnicity once it starting building colonies, intramarrying and granting citizenship to everyone.

 

 

Now you're getting close to the answer; by intermarrying, building colonies etc. the nature of Roman-ness began to change. This forum is primarily concerned with the Republic and the Principate not the Byzantine Empire. Those are the eras when ethnic Roman-ness was the predominant driving culture behind what was Rome. As the Principate developed and citizenship was granted this began to change. By the time of the Tetrarchy and Dominate the political culture had changed so that many of the political institutions of classical Rome were discarded. By the time of the fall of the Western Empire, the home of the classical Romans with their culture, language, et al., the Eastern had retained vestiges of what was Roman- the name and trappings which had quite an allure- but for all intents and purposes Rome was dead.

 

 

I quiet frankly couldn't care if a thousand generations of historians say otherwise, the only people who count in this are the Romans and their contemporaries. The westerners thought the Eastern Empire was Roman, the conquering goths thought the easterners were Romans, Boethius... the last Roman in the West, never doubted their authenticity. They say they are Roman, and they had considerably more authority in saying this than we do hundreds of years later.  History has vetoed the historian.

 

 

N is for knowledge.

 

You don't have to like or even agree with historians, but to just make a blanket, dismissive and anti-intellectual statement like you've done about them is pretty ignorant. Apparently you dismiss other historians like Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Livy and Polybius as well.

 

Think rationally. It's a question setting Rome along a spectrum of ancient and early medieval history, and then including the archeological evidence, military history, art history, architectural changes, changes in the political system, in demographic makeup, culture, linguistics, et al., and then making relationships between the respective eras. Fairly basic stuff for the amateur history buff or professional historian.

[Onasander]

You atarted your anology stacked because you automatically assumed the US in the anology to of disappeared. You stacked it on the very begining without giving a rational explaniation explaining why it would disappear... why what's left wouldn't be legit. It was a poor analogy.

 

At first, I took offense at what you said about my statements being anti-intellectual, but after thinking about it, I accept it the title, but not it's negativity. It is a attack against the intellectual activity of our modern historians who have wasted the times of school children in the western world for for the last few generations argueing a history the that the people of the time would have ZERO understanding of it. It's like a bunch of Marxists rewriting a history of the French and Indian wars in North America.... if you could send thier history book back in time to the people who fought the war, they would stare at it really confused for a good long time trying to make sense of it in relationship to the real reality.

 

I am, however, not ignorant (one can, unfortunately, be ignorant and intellectual at the same time), and history has vetoed the historian. Reality is the only constitution for the historian, and what really happened is against today's theories. Now the question should be, why do we think today that the Roman Empire ceased to exsist at the fall of the Western Empire in the west? What are our weaknesses in apporaching history?

[Virgil61]

Reread the analogy, it stated that a portion of the U.S. would remain. I should of wrote more clearly using "while the U.S. as we know it ceased to exist" although it was obvious by the context of the sentence that was the case. I'm sorry you had difficulty with it. It didn't quite rise to the level of Chinese historians on the Moon I'll admit.

 

Of course people of the time wouldn't always recognize their history. Part of the pupose of history is to shine an analytical light on what occurred after the fact. The Industrial Revolution wasn't understood in context until a hundred years later. The average person of the late 19th century wouldn't have understood the essence of capital formation and that occurred that allowed investment to take place. The victims of the Black Plague wouldn't have understood the nature of the virus that caused the devastation. An Anglo-Saxon of the 11th century wouldn't have understood the linguistic and social after effects of the Norman invasions which are key to understanding the development of England.

 

Start a new thread on the end of the Roman Empire, this one's about over I think.

 

History has vetoed the historian.

 

Someone needs to tell Tacitus, Livey, Cassius Dio and Polybius.

[Primus Pilus]

While I'm enjoying the discussion, I must interject that this line goes completely against anything related to ancient history. Not only would our history of the Romans be limited without such historians as those mentioned, but without the modern historian (and everyone in between) there would have been noone to study history at all. Where would our knowledge come from? We wouldn't have any, because nobody would've taken the time to study it. However, I can also see the facetious nature of the statement in trying to allude to another point, so I'm taken it with an open mind

 

Anyway, this line of discussion truly has nothing to do with 'Rome's Greatest General', so I'll split the topic.

[Lex]

However, the Eastern Romans were always ideologically Roman. Wouldn't it be reasonable to say that Roman culture merely evolved over a period of over 1500 years? Let's remember that the Eastern Romans existed in a completely different world to that of the Western Romans. Europe had entered the Dark Ages and the Eastern Romans merely evolved and adapted to the changing conditions of the Medieval world.

 

Across Europe the languages changed, cultures changed, fashions changed, systems of government changed and so did the laws. It would be impossible for the Roman Empire to perpetually stay the same and I only see it as natural that it evolved over such an immense period of time.

 

Take the diadem for example, it started off as a simple band of pearls with gold tied around the head but ended up as a large conical type of crown with pearls dangling down the sides. It was very different yet still symbolised the same thing and went by the same name. It simply evolved according to the styles of the time.

 

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Apparently Stilico once refered to the Eastern Roman Empire as "those provinces usurped by the Greeks" but there was probably quite a lot of animosity at the time since the Eastern Empire was prpbably trying to divert the Barbarians to the West and wasn't really helping them against the Barbarians either.

[Northern Neil]

Until about 1450, French was the official language of the English Royal Family. Roman catholicism was the official religion of England until the reign of Henry VIII. The act of union between Scotland and England in the 18th century gave rise to 'Britain'. The army fielded by Wellington in 1815 was radicaly different than the army that went to Iraq, but it is the same army. In 1948 the independence of India marked the end of the British 'Empire'. Despite the many differences between William I'st Norman kingdom of England and modern day Britain, most Brits are adamant that it is the same state. In just the same way, The Roman Empire of Constantinople was the same political entity that was founded by Augustus. Perhaps it is more useful to regard the empire as passing through the Republican, Imperial, Dominate, East Roman and Byzantine culrtural phases, rather than perpetuate the -in my view- stale argument that an arbitrary date, based on hindsight, can be given as the end of the Roman Empire and the start of the Byzantine. In any case, which one do we go for? 325? 476? 625 0r 1204?