|
Grand Fromage posted:But why does it make them no longer Roman? Should we be calling English people something else because they don't have an empire anymore, regardless of how they see themselves? It doesn't mean they're not Roman, it's just a convenient category for modern historians to subdivide the topic into more manageable bites. It doesn't matter what they called themselves, it matters for modern discussion of them. Technically, there's only one ocean, but subdividing it into the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and so on makes it easier to talk about it more specifically. We know they're all connected.
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 16:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 06:27 |
|
|
big dyke energy posted:It was the extinguishing of the sacred fire of Vesta and disbanding of the Vestal Virgins don't @ me No, it was the first secessio plebis. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 17:06
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:It doesn't mean they're not Roman, it's just a convenient category for modern historians to subdivide the topic into more manageable bites. It doesn't matter what they called themselves, it matters for modern discussion of them. We might be talking past each other about different things, then. I'm saying the identity of the Roman people didn't change. The rise of Islam being a break point in periodization is fine and good, I agree with it. I don't agree with ever using the term Byzantine, but that's a particular windmill I tilt at.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 17:14
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:But why does it make them no longer Roman? Should we be calling English people something else because they don't have an empire anymore, regardless of how they see themselves? Hey now we still have the Falklands
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 17:16
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:We might be talking past each other about different things, then. I'm saying the identity of the Roman people didn't change. The rise of Islam being a break point in periodization is fine and good, I agree with it. I don't agree with ever using the term Byzantine, but that's a particular windmill I tilt at. "Byzantine" is a convenient shorthand for talking about the Eastern Roman Empire after the Western half had ceased to be a meaningful political entity. I don't really understand your hangup about it, but whatever.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 17:40
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:We might be talking past each other about different things, then. I'm saying the identity of the Roman people didn't change. The rise of Islam being a break point in periodization is fine and good, I agree with it. I don't agree with ever using the term Byzantine, but that's a particular windmill I tilt at. As far as "Byzantine" goes, I generally think about it the same way I do about "Octavian" or "Caligula". The words weren't typically used historically, but they're a very convenient way for modern historians to avoid calling everyone "Gaius Julius Caesar". There's some similarities there to how modern historians are fairly comfortable with defining the end of the Roman Republic with the rise of Augustus, even though this was actively disputed throughout the Principate.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 17:43
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:"Byzantine" is a convenient shorthand for talking about the Eastern Roman Empire after the Western half had ceased to be a meaningful political entity. I don't really understand your hangup about it, but whatever. Because it's just a made up term that glosses over how the people themselves viewed their country. It leads to the very discussion we are having. Periodization is fine, but couching it in terms that imply entirely separate cultures creates the situation where causal readers of history don't make the connection that the Roman state did not stop existing until Constantinople fell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 18:14
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:Because it's just a made up term that glosses over how the people themselves viewed their country. It leads to the very discussion we are having. Periodization is fine, but couching it in terms that imply entirely separate cultures creates the situation where causal readers of history don't make the connection that the Roman state did not stop existing until Constantinople fell. Not to continue this, but this is a really lame argument. Casual readers of any subject are going to get things wrong. It doesn't take much learning to connect the Byzantines with the Romans. I figured it out in about 3rd grade.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 19:07
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:We might be talking past each other about different things, then. I'm saying the identity of the Roman people didn't change. The rise of Islam being a break point in periodization is fine and good, I agree with it. I don't agree with ever using the term Byzantine, but that's a particular windmill I tilt at. I hate it too and people who are okay with it are wrong.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 19:26
|
|
|
Byzantine in a fun word to say, much more fun than Roman
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 19:28
|
|
|
What if we all agreed to call it the Basileia ton Rhomaion?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 19:30
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:couching it in terms that imply entirely separate cultures Yeah, that's something of a flattened view of a more nuanced culture but it's probably a big driver of this.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 19:40
|
|
|
Honestly, I think that the best way to look at it isn't that Rome just dead-ended at some point and was no more, it dissolved. All of the defining aspects of Rome wound up being distributed beyond the borders of the empire while plenty of formerly non-roman things came in and diluted what was left without destroying everything. The whole process goes back for at least a century before the proper "fall", and it was definitely underway by the point when most Romans had foregone their traditional gods for some levantine monotheistic cult and the bulk of their armed forces were some kind of german that would never be deemed properly integrated despite being under Roman influence for over a century. WoodrowSkillson posted:Because it's just a made up term that glosses over how the people themselves viewed their country. It leads to the very discussion we are having. Periodization is fine, but couching it in terms that imply entirely separate cultures creates the situation where causal readers of history don't make the connection that the Roman state did not stop existing until Constantinople fell. You say that, but I never see people making the same fuss when talking about historical "persian" empires. Or "China" or "Japan". More immediately relevant is that there's one big state that's one of the most influential around the world whose citizens are commonly known as "Americans" but that term is also the same one that the various peoples throughout the New World use to try to establish some kind of pan-nantional solidarity, and the prominence of the former use does not negate the latter use or its relevance. And it feels like a lot of this is relitigating an old, old argument between claimants who are centuries dead.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 20:19
|
|
|
Scarodactyl posted:Honestly one big distinction is how the art looks to a modern viewer (really different and, overall, not so hot from the ERE) and that's probably more important to most modern viewers than any political crap. When you say "modern viewer" you mean you, right? Because "some people say" type talking is usually just a way for a person to state their own opinion in a backhanded way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 20:28
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:and the bulk of their armed forces were some kind of german that would never be deemed properly integrated despite being under Roman influence for over a century. We actually have English words with Greek or Latin roots that have been around since the oldest Old English: they're words the Angles and Saxons picked up from Romans on the European mainland before they even invaded the island of Britain.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 20:31
|
|
|
Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:We actually have English words with Greek or Latin roots that have been around since the oldest Old English: they're words the Angles and Saxons picked up from Romans on the European mainland before they even invaded the island of Britain. care to share some examples? I assume time means they have changed a lot compared to later borrowings
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 20:47
|
|
|
Squalid posted:care to share some examples? I assume time means they have changed a lot compared to later borrowings Here's a list: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/greeklatinroots/chapter/16-legacy-of-latin-old-english/
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 20:53
|
|
|
The wars between Charles V and Suleiman the Magnificent were the last Roman civil war with a chance of reunifying the empire, change my mind
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 21:41
|
|
|
that article was cool. I honestly not that interested in linguistics usually but it's interesting to think about the context which brought certain words into the language.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 21:48
|
|
|
ThatBasqueGuy posted:The wars between Charles V and Suleiman the Magnificent were the last Roman civil war with a chance of reunifying the empire, change my mind Why wouldn't the Habsburg Dynasty and the Western Rum Dynasty be legitimate?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 21:50
|
|
|
The thing is pretty much every state in history has tried to legitimize itself by claiming to totes be the exact same empire as the last popular one. The Byzantines aren't Rome for the same reasons the Tang are not the Han. Just because every Chinese government pretends to be a continuation of all previous ones doesn't make it true.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 22:45
|
|
|
Personally I divide the 'United States of America' from the 'Union' which succeeded them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 22:59
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Personally I divide the 'United States of America' from the 'Union' which succeeded them. Pretty defensible tbh. there’s a truly gigantic difference between the early republic and the post-civil war state
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 23:02
|
|
|
there's still a lot of controversy over whether the post-restoration cleveland dynasty should be considered distinct from the first one
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2020 23:10
|
|
|
skasion posted:Pretty defensible tbh. there’s a truly gigantic difference between the early republic and the post-civil war state "These United States" compared to "The United States." Although really I don't know a lot in terms of discrete changes in how the government functioned before versus after.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 01:15
|
|
|
Kylaer posted:"These United States" compared to "The United States." Although really I don't know a lot in terms of discrete changes in how the government functioned before versus after. I think the plural-vs-singular thing is actually something of a myth, though I don't remember the details.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 02:29
|
|
|
skasion posted:Pretty defensible tbh. there’s a truly gigantic difference between the early republic and the post-civil war state That's bullshit Lost Cause historical revisionism created after the war to try and excuse secessionism and portray the Union as some kind of aggressor attempting to install unprecedented and un-American federal power on the poor pitiful South. Who was of course only defending it's "States Rights" and preserve the "old ways". The truth is federal power over the states ramped up from the moment the Revolution ended (often at the behest of the South to defend slavery). And there was never a clear and sudden break like the Arab Conquests or the shift from Principate to Dominate. The country still uses the same Constitution even, with the amendments since the war essentially being extensions of rights to different groups, not actual changes in how the government was organized as is what happened during the Principate>Dominate and East Rome>Byzantine transitions.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 02:44
|
|
|
The American Empire stopped being American once they introduced New Coke. The later Resurrection of original taste Coca Cola Classic heralded in a new era of a similar but still culturally distinct country which should not be considered as being the same entity but rather a successor state.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 02:49
|
|
|
galagazombie posted:The thing is pretty much every state in history has tried to legitimize itself by claiming to totes be the exact same empire as the last popular one. The Byzantines aren't Rome for the same reasons the Tang are not the Han. Just because every Chinese government pretends to be a continuation of all previous ones doesn't make it true. there was complete continuity of the state (setting aside the occasional internal struggle for the office of emperor, which can't be considered a break in the context of roman history or else the part of their history that absolutely everyone agrees is roman would be full of breaks) until the fall of constantinople. the "byzantine" emperors weren't legitimizing themselves as roman - they simply were roman. the idea that they were selling themselves as roman to legitimize their new state is ridiculous because the state was not new. the crisis of the third century is more of a break in state continuity than the "transition" from roman to byzantine - that is, it's much easier to make the argument that the post-aurelian empire is not the pre-maximinus thrax empire than it is to argue that the eastern half of the empire is somehow distinct simply because they lost half of their territory. by the time the western empire dissolved, rome itself was deeply unimportant to the empire as a whole. it's understandable how the popular conception of events came to be, but there simply was no transition in state authority because state authority hadn't been centered in the west for centuries.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 03:16
|
|
|
If you want an East Asian metaphor for Charlemagne's coronation, imagine that Genghis Khan had proclaimed the Yuan Dynasty right after his conquest of the Jin while the Southern Song were still a going concern.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 03:26
|
|
|
Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:If you want an East Asian metaphor for Charlemagne's coronation, imagine that Genghis Khan had proclaimed the Yuan Dynasty right after his conquest of the Jin while the Southern Song were still a going concern. Or if someone declared they were the People's Republic of China while there was still a Republic of China hanging out
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 03:30
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Or if someone declared they were the People's Republic of China while there was still a Republic of China hanging out Or if "Portugal" dared consider itself the true Portugal even though the REAL Portugal was never conquered by those Frankish barbarians and had unbroken continuity.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 04:17
|
|
|
galagazombie posted:That's bullshit Lost Cause historical revisionism created after the war to try and excuse secessionism and portray the Union as some kind of aggressor attempting to install unprecedented and un-American federal power on the poor pitiful South. Who was of course only defending it's "States Rights" and preserve the "old ways". The truth is federal power over the states ramped up from the moment the Revolution ended (often at the behest of the South to defend slavery). And there was never a clear and sudden break like the Arab Conquests or the shift from Principate to Dominate. The country still uses the same Constitution even, with the amendments since the war essentially being extensions of rights to different groups, not actual changes in how the government was organized as is what happened during the Principate>Dominate and East Rome>Byzantine transitions. I don’t at all agree with this lost cause business. Between 1800-1865 the US more than doubled in extent, its number of constituent states doubled also, its population quadrupled, it began to expand into the territories of its Indian and Mexican neighbors by violence whenever practicable, industrial revolution completely changed the economic hierarchy of individual states, all of which eventually meant that the system of legislation being held essentially hostage by the sectional power of slave states was turned on its head by force. Once this was done, no head of state would be elected from the slave bloc for nearly a hundred years. In the second quarter of the 19th century the economic and philosophical division of the early republic coalesced into regional factionalism and within a couple decades the two sections fought a war over control of the federal government. It’s not a question of “big government vs small government” or whatever, both sides were contesting who would hold the power of big government, talk of the sovereignty of individual states was propaganda to foment and legitimize insurrection, and while established, the CSA ruled its constituent states considerably more tightly than the USA ever had. Meanwhile to win the war, the United States introduced a draft, an income tax, the greenback, emancipation. I think these are significant changes. They are not comparable in type to the changes of the 3rd or 5th century Roman monarchies. Maybe a better antique comparison would be the change between the early Roman city-state and the Roman hegemony over Italy that went high-handedly to war with Carthage — though the social and cultural change in early 19th century America was even faster and more dramatic. The debate over whether slave-owning interests in the southern USA could continue to hold the reins of power or would instead be supplanted by non-slave-owning economic interests in the north was a real one: real enough, again, for both sides to go to fuckin’ war. In the end the side that won was politically unable to enforce all their aims. But they did enough. The sectionalists were correct to think their “old way” was under threat; their actions in causing civil war simply made the existing threat a reality within a couple years by force instead of in a couple of decades by economic logic. The disproportionate legislative authority that sectional leaders had wielded to that point to allow them to legally sanctify their slave wealth was genuinely slipping away. Their defeat did not prevent them from re-amassing disproportionate authority within a generation, nor did it put an end to the sectionalist animus — if anything, it made it a rallying cry to ensure the election of future generations of sectionalist politicians. But it was a real defeat. The clear and sudden break between the early republic and the republic of the gilded age was that the shaky understanding between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding American elites of the early republic collapsed, the balance of power shifted, and a war was fought to prove it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:08
|
|
|
You seem to be under the impression that I'm arguing that arguing the traditional Romulus Augustulus line, but I'm not arguing that. I agree that it was still the Roman Empire after the West "fell". Hell I outright stated it was acceptable to claim the Principate and Dominate were not the same state/empire. I specifically pointed out the Arab Conquests centuries after Romulus Augustulus as the point when it's no longer reasonable to say the state based out of Constantinople is "Rome". The government of Taiwan has some continuity with the ruling state of China but no one seriously claims they're the Chinese Empire. Even the Taiwanese don't believe it and only keep pretending so they don't get invaded by the PRC as part of a bizarre piece of political theatre. And I in no way intended to imply the Byzantines were "faking" or "stealing" Romaness like they were pretending or LARPing to trick gullible rubes. I simply mean there's a very sudden and abrupt break at the Arab Conquests that changes who is calling themselves "Roman" and why.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:14
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:You say that, but I never see people making the same fuss when talking about historical "persian" empires. Or "China" or "Japan". More immediately relevant is that there's one big state that's one of the most influential around the world whose citizens are commonly known as "Americans" but that term is also the same one that the various peoples throughout the New World use to try to establish some kind of pan-nantional solidarity, and the prominence of the former use does not negate the latter use or its relevance. People in this thread have argued in favor of distinguishing between the Persians, Parthians, Sassanids, and post-Arab conquest kingdoms, and have also discussed, on this very page, the differences between the various Chinese dynasties and such. Its incorrect to call the Sassanids Persians, same way its wrong to call Romans Byzantines.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:21
|
|
|
I'm confused it seems like you're agreeing with me? I was pointing out that the idea the Civil War was ever about Federal power was bunk like you just said, and you agreed with me that the country had already changed in the more than half century before the war and that the ruling class more or less remained the same before and after? WoodrowSkillson posted:People in this thread have argued in favor of distinguishing between the Persians, Parthians, Sassanids, and post-Arab conquest kingdoms, and have also discussed, on this very page, the differences between the various Chinese dynasties and such. Its incorrect to call the Sassanids Persians, same way its wrong to call Romans Byzantines. Personally I like to avoid using the term Persia at all and just say Achaemenid. That way you never have to worry about people not knowing what you're talking about.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:33
|
|
|
galagazombie posted:You seem to be under the impression that I'm arguing that arguing the traditional Romulus Augustulus line, but I'm not arguing that. I agree that it was still the Roman Empire after the West "fell". Hell I outright stated it was acceptable to claim the Principate and Dominate were not the same state/empire. I specifically pointed out the Arab Conquests centuries after Romulus Augustulus as the point when it's no longer reasonable to say the state based out of Constantinople is "Rome". The government of Taiwan has some continuity with the ruling state of China but no one seriously claims they're the Chinese Empire. Even the Taiwanese don't believe it and only keep pretending so they don't get invaded by the PRC as part of a bizarre piece of political theatre. The essential problem is that they weren't some successor state trying to give themselves the name or enrobe themselves in the dignity of days gone by. They were Rome. Even when there was a Western Empire, pre or post Theodosius, Constantinople was the senior partner. Even before Constantinople existed Diocletian made his capitol at Nicomedia. The East, the Greek speaking East, was the center of Rome even before Marcus Antonius joined the gods. And past all that, past all the historical facts and figures, the essential truth remains that "Byzantine" is just some bullshit term made up by uninformed academics centuries after the Empire went down in fire and flame. None of you all are going to argue for phlogiston theory, right? The "Byzantine Empire" term is roughly contemporaneous
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:43
|
|
|
galagazombie posted:I'm confused it seems like you're agreeing with me? I was pointing out that the idea the Civil War was ever about Federal power was bunk like you just said, and you agreed with me that the country had already changed in the more than half century before the war and that the ruling class more or less remained the same before and after? The American state was very different at the start of the 19th century and after the civil war in a lot of different ways, but especially in the geographical distribution of political power. I also think it is difficult to argue that the United States government was not more powerful after the civil war than it was before. If nothing else, it had now successfully asserted its claim that individual states were not voluntary participants in a confederation who could take their toys and leave whenever they felt politically frustrated. On account of things like this, I think it makes plenty of sense to consider the US of 1800 and the US of 1865 (even more so of 1870) as being different states. Similarly we can justify considering Byzantine Rhomania as a different state from the empire of Augustus or Trajan. Contemporaries of these states may not have considered things in this way, but that does not mean we need to accept their points of view, which were often arguable at the time in any case.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:53
|
|
|
when did the Empire of Theseus fall
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 05:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 06:27 |
|
|
Bongo Bill posted:when did the Empire of Theseus fall When it crossed the river of Heraclitus
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2020 06:04
|
|