At which point did the Roman Empire really end?

[Nikolai]

I like the Byzantines, I really do. But Rome ended when Rome fell. So the fall of the Western Empire is my vote.

[Traianvs]

The end of the Byzantine empire (which was the Roman empire), but otherwise 330, when Constantinople became the capital. In effect it wasn't really the 'Roman' empire anymore, because Roman means the city Rome. During the heydey of of the empire, Rome was most important while everything else was subservient

[Odin]

Originally posted by Traianvs
The end of the Byzantine empire (which was the Roman empire), but otherwise 330, when Constantinople became the capital. In effect it wasn't really the 'Roman' empire anymore, because Roman means the city Rome. During the heydey of of the empire, Rome was most important while everything else was subservient

I agree. The Eastern "Roman" Empire post-Justinian was "Roman" in name only, it was a Greek-dominated state. Once North Africa and the Levant had fell to the Arabs, and Dalmatia and Moesia fell to Slav barbarians, Byzantium was basically a successor state of the Roman Empire, what they called themselves doesn't matter.

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by Traianvs
The end of the Byzantine empire (which was the Roman empire), but otherwise 330, when Constantinople became the capital. In effect it wasn't really the 'Roman' empire anymore, because Roman means the city Rome. During the heydey of of the empire, Rome was most important while everything else was subservient

I agree.

"Eastern Roman Empire" was a GREEK theocratic totalitarian empire.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by One_more_turn


"Eastern Roman Empire" was a GREEK theocratic totalitarian empire.

How could it have failed?

BTW Totalitarian? Are you serious? And theocratic goverment wasn't that rare in those days.

[Will9]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_

tehocratic

LordTehva would be proud.

[Alexander I]

It depends, really. How many successor states that have claimed Rome's authority do you want to count as valid?

We all know about the Western Empire's Fall in 476, that's the traditional one.
But did it fall with Charlemagne's original dynasty in 929?
How about with Constantinople and the Byzantines in 1453?
Or with the Holy Roman Empire in 1806?
How about the fall of the Papal States in 1870?
With the great empires after the First World War in 1917/8?
Or the Third Reich in 1945?
Or even the Soviet Union in 1991?
Some same that America is Rome's imperial heir even today.

Regardless, the Romans created a new idea of empire that every subsequent generation of westerners has tried to resurrect. The Roman Empire will never truly die as long as their ideology remains intact somewhere.

[OzzyKP]

Byzantium didn't just claim to be Roman like the others. There was a clear and interrupted succession/evolution. Who cares that they spoke Greek and no longer controlled Rome? Are states not allowed to evolve and change over 2,000 years?

If the United States ends up speaking Spanish a thousand years from now, do we cease to be the United States? If all our land east of the Mississippi breaks away or gets conquered, but the western half of the country continues to function, do they become a different nation?

[Traianvs]

Yes actually. That is because states or nations never last eternally. That's the whole point of history. An empire usually has a rise, peak, and decline after which a different entity evolves. It's not because you give it the same name that it's the same thing.

Belgium is called after the ancient Belgae, but they were totally different people. They were a mixture of Gaulish and German tribes. Many of them were wiped out by Caesar or evolved into different societies after the Roman rule. Or the Flanders that we call Flanders nowadays is not the historical Flanders from the Middle Ages (even though we celebrate the win vs the French knights in 1302 every year ). Flanders back then was the 2 western parts of nowaday Flanders, and the whole of northern France. Today the French part has gone French, and tracts of land as far as near Germany are now Flanders, even though they were connected with Dutch Limburg in the Middle Ages. Now they're separated.

That's just an example

[Traianvs]

But back on topic with the Roman decline: when christianity and Constantinople really started kicking in, then Rome and their old beliefs were becoming more and more irrelevant (their importance was not so great anymore) so that begs the question were they really still 'Roman' if the old traditions, customs, orientation towards the divinized Roma etc disappeared?

The christian monks that passed Roman knowledge to Charlemagne for example also spoke Latin and were imbued with so called Roman knowledge, but are they Roman then (the Roman empire was back according to the pope after all )? I don't think so

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Alexander I
... The Roman Empire will never truly die as long as their ideology remains intact somewhere.

What ideology is that, hitting people with short little swords?

[Odin]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Byzantium didn't just claim to be Roman like the others. There was a clear and interrupted succession/evolution. Who cares that they spoke Greek and no longer controlled Rome? Are states not allowed to evolve and change over 2,000 years?

If the United States ends up speaking Spanish a thousand years from now, do we cease to be the United States? If all our land east of the Mississippi breaks away or gets conquered, but the western half of the country continues to function, do they become a different nation?

A better comparison to the US would be to hypothesize that the US annexes Western Europe (equivalent to how Rome took over Greece), then hypothesize that English-speaking North America was conquered and carved into successor states, while at the same time Europeans still call thier rump state "the US" even though it is not culturally or geographically American.

The Eastern Roman Empire evolved very quickly culturally, institutionally, and militarily in the 2 centuries following the death of Justinian. The period could be said to be when the eastern half of Graeco-Roman civilization evolved into Orthodox Christian civilization, paralleling the transition of the Western part of Graeco-Roman civilization into Western Civilization. The ERE came close to being wiped off the map by the Arabs, Slavs, and Bulgars and the stable Graeco-Anatolian state calling itself the Roman Empire that emerged was quite different from the ERE of Justinian. British historian A. J. Toynbee labeled Emperor Leo III as an Eastern equivalent of Charlemagne; only much, much more successful.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
What ideology is that, hitting people with short little swords?

Basically. The whole hegemony idea. Thinking their own way was best for everybody in the world, and making everyone else live that way. (Even Alexander the Great wasn't that arrogant. He copied the Persians and the Egyptians because he liked their ways better than the Greeks'.)

Keeping their fingers in everyone else's pie. And being able to do so. Hubris.

Here's an example:

A great empire defeats a distant land in a war, humbling its ruler. When the ruler begins to get uppity a few years later, the son of the great empire's last sovereign returns to the distant land, exacting his revenge on the kingdom in fire and blood. The rebellious ruler is removed and, amidst civil war, a client state is set up which is loyal to the great empire.

No, doesn't sound like the Roman Republic/Empire to me at all.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Alexander I


Here's an example:

A great empire defeats a distant land in a war, humbling its ruler. When the ruler begins to get uppity a few years later, the son of the great empire's last sovereign returns to the distant land, exacting his revenge on the kingdom in fire and blood. The rebellious ruler is removed and, amidst civil war, a client state is set up which is loyal to the great empire.

No, doesn't sound like the Roman Republic/Empire to me at all.

Eh I don't understand that part. You mean the son of the last sovereign of the defeated land returns some years later exacting a revenge on the great empire... and that son is the rebellious ruler you mean?

If that's what you mean, that's not really what the Romans did when they took control of Asia Minor for example. They did relatively little 'true conquering' there. It's more the case that lots of kings there favoured the Romans by putting into their will that the kingdom will go to Rome if they die. It was a perfect protection against assassination attempts.
The various kings and rulers were in effect client-kings though, but they seldomly installed them in Asia Minor through warmongering, because that was not necessary anyway

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Traianvs


Eh I don't understand that part. You mean the son of the last sovereign of the defeated land returns some years later exacting a revenge on the great empire... and that son is the rebellious ruler you mean?

No, I mean the son of the previous sovereign of the great empire. You could say Casear Jr. finishing Caesar Sr.'s work. He's putting down the last rebellion of his father's old enemy and turning it into a client kingdom. Sorry to be confusing. But do you see what I was getting at?

I was trying to tell the story of the current administration's Iraq War in an ambiguous way, showing how it reflects on the imperial behavior of the late Roman Republic.