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by tici_88 3358 days ago
As a side note, the term "Byzantine empire" does not reflect how people called it or thought of it at the time of its existence at all. They referred to it as the (Holy) Roman Empire of the East and they considered and called themselves Roman citizens.

In fact the city Byzantium didn't even exist during the time of what we call the "Byzantine" empire. Byzantium was an Greek then Roman city that existed right until Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) was founded within a few kilometers from Byzantium by Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD. Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in large part due to the new town's strategic and uniquely defensive position. Constantinople was built fresh though - there were no prior settlements on its location.

Byzantium as a city ceased to exist in name and otherwise as everything that was worth moving over got moved over and the new capital of the Roman empire took over as the main city in the vicinity in the area.

I suspect the name "Byzantine empire" got coined to imply that the Roman empire's 'holy', 'god-given' and 'ancestral' lineage does not go East but is rather 'subsumed' by the empires in the West that ended up forming much later from the vestiges of the Rome-based Roman empire in the middle ages.

2 comments

It's also interesting to note that Mehmed II claimed the title of Caesar after his conquest of Constantinople and that geographically there was a lot of overlap between the greatest extent of Eastern Roman and Ottoman territory. Oh, and not only did a Constantine found the city, but it was the 11th Constantine that died losing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)#Ottoman_Empire

Another related historical fact: After Ottomans conquered Constantinople they started to copy Hagia Sophia's architecture to build their mosques. Therefore still the architecture of mosques in old Ottoman lands is similar to Byzantine while the architecture in other muslim world (North Africa, Asia etc.) is pretty different. Ottomans positioned themselves basically as the muslim version of Byzantines. Actually the root of Ottoman Classical Music (now called as Turkish Classical Music) goes to Byzantine music.
Not sure your suspicion is accurate... Constantinople was a deliberate break from Rome, given that it's people spoke koine Greek and not Latin, and that before falling to the Turkish invaders was attacked and ransacked by the Crusaders who carried the banner of the Holy Roman Empire.
Constantinople were deliberate attempt to move the capital of the empire, but it was still the same empire, and they still considered themselves Romans.

The Holy Roman Empire did not really have the same continuity from the Roman Empire, it was just a title chosen for the prestige.

The Holy Roman Empire is only so named because Charlemagne managed to get a Pope to crown him the Holy Roman Emperor of the West.

The Roman Empire was so large that at some point they needed two-four emperors to run it (Senior and Junior emperors)

The reason for the name split is probably due to Gibbon who moralised about the decline and fall and tied the fall to the rise of the Church

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