[nonethewiser]

It would be like if the US moved the capital to DC, replaced Christianity with Islam, switched English to French, no longer contained NY, Boston, Pennsylvania, and foreign powers stopped calling it the United States.

Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.

[hollandheese]

It really isn't more complicated. These are mostly the excuses that 19th century Western European scholars used to deny the Eastern Romans their Romanness, because they wanted to place themselves as the inheritors of Rome.

First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.

Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.

Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.

Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.

Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.

Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.

[teleforce]

>the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves.

Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.

> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum

Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.

There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules inviting him and his subjects to Islam [3]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated by him [4].

[1] Ar-Rum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar-Rum

[2] Epistle to the Romans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans

[3] The Holy Prophet’s letter to Heraclius:

https://www.alhakam.org/holy-prophets-letter-to-heraclius

[4] Diplomatic career of Muhammad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_career_of_Muhammad