Romans after Belisarius

[sylla]

The implicit premise of the Imperial characters and population suddenly and almost magically becoming non-Romans after Justinian and Belisarius is simply unhistorical and plainly absurd.

[sonic]

The implicit premise of the Imperial characters and population suddenly and almost magically becoming non-Romans after Justinian and Belisarius is simply unhistorical and plainly absurd.

 

I agree - to a point. I call him the last of the Roman generals because he is probably the last general that earlier generations, especially in the Principate, would acknowledge as being their descendant, and was probably the last natural Latin speaker that rose to high rank. After him, and especially with Narses, there is a distinct switch to a more Eastern culture, despite the fact that they thought of themselves as 'Romans'. I can't really believe that, for instance, Augustus, Caesar or Trajan would have been impressed with the idea of an eunuch at the head of the Imperial armies.

Edited April 28, 2009 by sonic

[sylla]

The implicit premise of the Imperial characters and population suddenly and almost magically becoming non-Romans after Justinian and Belisarius is simply unhistorical and plainly absurd.

 

I agree - to a point. I call him the last of the Roman generals because he is probably the last general that earlier generations, especially in the Principate, would acknowledge as being their descendant, and was probably the last natural Latin speaker that rose to high rank. After him, and especially with Narses, there is a distinct switch to a more Eastern culture, despite the fact that they thought of themselves as 'Romans'. I can't really believe that, for instance, Augustus, Caesar or Trajan would have been impressed with the idea of an eunuch at the head of the Imperial armies.

They would probably have been as impressed as Scipio Africanus with Septimius Severus, Cicero with Maximinus Thrax, Cato Maior with Philip the Arab, even the pious Augustus with the fanatic Theodosius or Justinian himself ... or George Washington with Colin Powell. All societies and nations evolve; so?

The main reason why the Roman population of the Roman state of any time considered themselves as Romans (without quotation marks) was that they were so: the same state, population and culture in constant evolution, from Romulus to Constatine XI.

The weight of the proof rests on anyone who pretends that, at any arbitrary point, the Romans stopped being Romans just to support Montesquieu and Gibbon.

If I'm not mistaken, we have here two main criteria of unromanliness:

I'll leave aside the extraordinary idea of that Eastern trait (Parthian? Athenian? Armenian? Chinese?) of the (Roman) soldiers

[Northern Neil]

It must be said that Belisarius (under Justinian) was the last general who made significant territorial gains in the name of the Empire, even though they were reconquests. The brief reconquests by the Comnene dynasty in the 10th cenury were paltry in comparison. Therefore I hold with Sonic's view that he is probably the last general who can be equated with figures from the Principate.

 

That the Byzantine Empire was the same state as the one set up by Augustus is beyond doubt, and even the Franks of the Crusader period acknowledged this. However, they noted also that it was now run by Greeks. Furthermore, Constantinople - especially under Justinian - had a policy of distancing itself from its pagan, classical heritage. It is generally considered that by the end of the sixth century there had been a big enough cutural and linguistic shift to regard the Roman Empire of Constantinople as a different entity to the classical Empire of Ancient Rome.

[sylla]

It must be said that Belisarius (under Justinian) was the last general who made significant territorial gains in the name of the Empire, even though they were reconquests. The brief reconquests by the Comnene dynasty in the 10th cenury were paltry in comparison. Therefore I hold with Sonic's view that he is probably the last general who can be equated with figures from the Principate.

If military conquests are the Roman-defining criterion, the eunuch Narses was as Roman as Belisarius, while most Emperors between Trajan and Justinian would have been "Byzantines". In any case, the military deeds of the Macedonian dynasty were equiparable with any general of the Principate.

 

That the Byzantine Empire was the same state as the one set up by Augustus is beyond doubt, and even the Franks of the Crusader period acknowledged this. However, they noted also that it was now run by Greeks. Furthermore, Constantinople - especially under Justinian - had a policy of distancing itself from its pagan, classical heritage. It is generally considered that by the end of the sixth century there had been a big enough cutural and linguistic shift to regard the Roman Empire of Constantinople as a different entity to the classical Empire of Ancient Rome.

The Empire has been run by Spaniards since Trajan, Africans since Severus and Greeks at least since Diocletian; the "Greeks" that ruled the Empire after the VI century came from any province: Armenia, Phrygia, Syria or Africa. The distancing from the pagan, classical heritage was inherent to the Christian rule from the very first moment.

No one ever called "Byzantine" the Roman Empire; unsurprisingly, the Romans were identified as Romans by all of their neighbors, from China to the Franks themselves. Only occasionally some western chroniclers had any objection, when they futilely tried to support the incredibly absurd idea that the Pope was able to select not just the new "Roman Emperor", but even the new "Roman Empire".

The bizarre schizophrenic idea of a "Byzantine Empire", not only different from but supposedly opposed to the Classical Roman Empire, was simply a cheap invention from XVIII and XIX centuries' historians; revisionism of the worst kind. In the context of the preceding post, "it is generally considered" means by those that considered that the I Reich, the so-called "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" had anything remotely Roman within its nature.

Edited April 29, 2009 by sylla

[Ingsoc]

I have a different way on looking on the subject, unlike the western provinces (Hispania, Gaul, etc.) who didn't have a common culture and were ready to absorb the Latin and Roman one the eastern provinces were radically different - they had the common culture of the Greek Hellenism, which was consider equal if not superior to the Roman Latin culture (even by the Roman themselves), hence the east never receive the Latin Roman culture and instead view itself as Roman but this was a different kind of Romans than the west. so in fact there were two Roman nations: The Latin Romans in the west and the Greco-Hellenistic in the east.

 

As the empire was split and the western empire eventually collapse, the eastern empire (while still viewed itself as "Romans") began to be more and more Greek.

[sylla]

I have a different way on looking on the subject, unlike the western provinces (Hispania, Gaul, etc.) who didn't have a common culture and were ready to absorb the Latin and Roman one the eastern provinces were radically different - they had the common culture of the Greek Hellenism, which was consider equal if not superior to the Roman Latin culture (even by the Roman themselves), hence the east never receive the Latin Roman culture and instead view itself as Roman but this was a different kind of Romans than the west. so in fact there were two Roman nations: The Latin Romans in the west and the Greco-Hellenistic in the east.

 

As the empire was split and the western empire eventually collapse, the eastern empire (while still viewed itself as "Romans") began to be more and more Greek.

As your description is exact, I really find amazing that you still justify the use of the quotation marks; unsurprisingly, Romans from anywhere always viewed themselves as Romans.

- The Romans profited from their Hellenic cultural heritage both in the West and in the East; you simply can't imagine a Seneca or a Cicero without their Greek background. The Roman culture was as Greco-Hellenistic in west as in the east; just think about the divinization of the Imperial family.

- Most of the cultural production of the Roman Empire came always from the Eastern side; even more, most of the scholars of the principate that wrote in Greek (Strabo, Ptolemy, Plutarch, Josephus, Galen, Cassius Dio, Appian, even the Church fathers) has always been considered Roman and Greek at the same time; even by Gibbon.

- The Romans wrote in Greek long before writing in Latin. And a lot of what the bona fide Italian Imperial ruling elite left us was in Greek. Maybe Fabius Pictor and Marcus Aurelius should be considered "Byzantines".

- But the most important fact is that, by your own description, essentially nothing changed. The Eastern side was Greek before the Romans came, was Greek up to the Fall of the Western Empire, and was Greek for centuries afterwards. How could they have become even more "Greek"?

Edited April 29, 2009 by sylla