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Oh god. HOW is this thread still ongoing with over two thousand replies. Oh god. Let's add one more.
This thread deserves it. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. Resistance is futile.
But you know he's ethincally 100% Ghanaian? And received Italian citizenship when he was 18 even though he was born in Palermo?
If you know then congratulations, you've just confirmed that people can be granted citizenship. Just as Ghanaian boy Mario Balotelli became Italian (what you've just admitted) - those "Greeks" became Romans in 212 thanks to the edict of Caracalla. Same thing, no matter how much you dislike or disagree with it. At that moment (almost) all those "Greeks" became Roman citizens and, in time, "Romans".
You know what's funny? Some people here seemed to believe that roma/byzaboos are "offended" when someone doesn't agree with "Romanness of the Byzantines". And we post here to "defend some legitimacy of the long dead state". It's far from truth, but they were still using that argument.
However somehow under their radar have slipped you, because you seem to be offended that "those filthy Greeks try to usurp my great legacy they did not deserve!!!!!! It belongs only to Romans - that is the modern inhabitants of the city of Rome, Lazio, Italy!!!!!!!"
By the way - I've just started to wonder what nationalities are those people who oppose the "Romanness of the Byzantines" the most. It'd be funny if, after accusing byzaboos of "being emotionally attached to a long dead polity", most of them turned out to be Italians, mad about "Greeks stealing their ancient glory".
Of course I do. First when I write, then again when I try to find and fix mistakes and then again when I noticed some of them after I hit "post reply" and I have to edit it. Everything I write has its purpose. I'm just confused by your extraordinary way of thinking and wanted to determine if you consider "Romans" only people who live in Rome, or maybe the same Italians as you and with similar ancestry, but living few kilometers away.
So, if that's not based at all by ancestry then, as others (and me) already pointed out - it's not really something extraordinary since everyone can become such "Roman" by just moving to the city (which is possible for millions of people, be it legally or illegally). And because of that I'm not sure it's a proper argument about "who can and who can't be considered Roman", especially since we're talking about ancient and medieval Romans here, not modern ones.
Unfortunately we have some people trying to take away the legacy of an empire to make the one they dislike seem worse. Fortunately they are only a very loud minority and the fact that this empire have suprassed the western one by almost 1000 years is quite telling who's more "adequate".
Only today? Basically that's how it works. If I'll lose a leg - that leg is still my leg. Lying in a pool of blood on the ground, not attached anymore, but that doesn't make it someone else's leg. Unless some cartel in a third world country is involved, but that doesn't matter now, let's keep things simple.
After WWII Germany was rightfully split into Western and Eastern Germany. Both were "German". If, somehow, one of them disappeared completely - the other one would still be German, the most German Germany in the world. And since it would be the only Germany left, it could drop the "western/eastern" part and would be, simply, Germany.
Unless you think that they would become Chinese instead, just because the other half of it ceased to exist as a state. But I don't think you'd think that.
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You are probably correct, if one of the Germanys got swallowed up we'd likely just call the remaining one Germany because it's simplest. But, in 1000 years if people decided to make a distinction between United Germany, Western, and Eastern Germany by giving them different names that's totally fine. Language is a tool for the people using it, the political concerns and identities of people long dead are rarely a consideration. Unless you think that the Persian/Chinese people changed their cultural identities every time their ruling dynasty changed.
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Of course the Balkan thread one-ups the thread geared towards Romaboos, Byzaboos, and Ottomanboos.
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As long as they won't start claiming things like "no, [that one particular part] wasn't German at all!" or "no, they should NOT be called Germans!" or "the game set in this ancient setting really, really, really shouldn't use the name GERMANY!" because that would be like trying to falsify history, wouldn't it?
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Wow, I didn't understand you were a racist. Balotelli is ethnically italian, full stop and reporting you.
You can't have a discussion about hystory without spouting some fascist nonsense? I'm not even reading the rest of your post
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How would it be falsified? They were given a name referring to the group in a specific time and place. Using that name isn't incorrect even if it doesn't match how they saw themselves. Any more than our practice of describing long running states by their imperial dynasties is wrong. The people of Shun, Sasanian Empire, Mamluk Sultanate would have seen themselves as Chinese/Iranian/Egyptian but we use those terms not to erase their history but to reveal it. To highlight the unique aspects of those periods in their history. Byzantium is not the same as the unified Roman Empire and by giving it a unique name we do for Rome what we do for China/Iran/Egypt.
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Report for what now? LOL
His verified instagram account:
Or
"Italian-born Ghana forward Mario Balotelli declined the chance to switch his allegiance to represent the Black Stars because felt more Italian
The 28-year-old was born in Sicily in Italy to a Ghanaian father, Thomas Barwuah and Ghanaian mother Rose Barwuah"
Mario Balotelli's brother explains why he rejected Ghana's Black Stars for Italy
Corrado Balotelli has revealed why his brother, Mario, decided to commit his international future to Italy instead of the four-time African champions Ghana.
sportsbrief.com
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But they're dead (remember, this is 1000 years in an alternate future). They aren't calling themselves anything. And if we're being ultra pedantic they were probably calling themselves Deutsch anyway. So by your logic, German is already incorrect.
In the same way that we often refer to living groups of people by names other than what they use for themselves, we can also refer to ancient people by names other than what they'd have used for themselves. Neither of these is dehumanizing or incorrect. It's just how words work. I see no reason to treat Rome/Byzantium any differently to China/Qing or Iran/Sasanian.
To pretend that Byzantium didn't become it's own unique entity deserving of it's own unique historiagraphic name is silly. We can quibble about when it happened, but that it happened is obvious. Everything from religion to language to art changed, calling that combination Byzantine is both appropriate and useful.
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Slightly related offtopic from this offtopic... while we are German and call ourselves deutsch/deutsche, inside Europe Germany has the lowest rate of people identifying with their nation first while identifying strongest with region/city. (i "blame" football) of course.. no clue HOW the question was asked in the first place, but I found that interesting.
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My fault of simplification.
By denying anyone the right to call them Deutsch.
That's probably better.
As I said before - it's not that much about using those names, but denying others the right to use original ones and saying it's somehow wrong. In your "1000-years into the future" scenario we'd have people discussing on an interplanetary forum that "Deutsch is a wrong term and absolutely shouldn't be used when referring to the ancient XX century state of Deutschland, because in the XXVIII century we just decided to call Deutschland "Berlinia". Therefore in our game Adolf H. will always refer to his state as "Berlinia", never as "Deutschland".
That would be quite ridiculous from our perspective and would be falsifying history.
"Eastern Roman Empire". "Empire of the Romans". "Medieval Roman Empire".
Notice that I am using "unique historiographic names" as well. Simply better ones than "Byzantine", because they are more rooted in history and better represent the medieval Roman reality.
And maybe it would prevent those few from claiming that "Byzantines" were NOT Romans, because they would never get that silly idea from the beginning.
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Interesting. I'd probably blame the HRE. 1000 years of fragmentation that only ended 150ish years ago and all that. And perhaps a bit of post WW2 in there as well, turning away from toxic ultra-nationalism with a bit of regional pride. But I'm not a sociologist or a German, so who can say.
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Oh no, I also think that that other guy is a bit bonkers by saying that “Romanness is an idea” or whatever. I do think that the modern-day inhabitants of the city of Rome are indeed Romans in the most literal sense of the word (“that which belongs or is related to Rome”), and medieval inhabitants of the city also called themselves “Roman”.
Though I don't really care about “the great legacy” of Rome (the city) or whatever, nor do I care about medieval Greeks stealing the “glory” of Ancient Rome. That's not really my argument, I am not defending any historical polity any more than other.
My point is that “Romanness” meant different things to different people. The Byzantines considered themselves Romans, because they were citizens of the Roman Empire, because their emperor was the Emperor of the Romans, because their polity was continuous with the classical Roman state. And they had every right to call themselves so!
What I am defending here is that Western conceptions of Romanness were also valid. Both the “Westerners” and the ”Easterners” culturally descend from Rome, and just as it was unfair for later Western historians to deny the Byzantine Empire's Romanness, it is also wrong for random internet people to want to hypercorrect and repeat that fake Voltaire quote that really grinds my gears about the HRE not being holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire (or just generally say that the HRE was pretending or LARPing).
Western conceptions of “Romanness” came to differ from Eastern ones, and that is fine. What was considered “Roman” was different during the Kingdom, the Republic, and the Empire. Rome has an incredibly long history (something you're very probably keenly aware of). For Westerners, Rome was connected to the idea of a universal empire; that which comandeered the respect of other nations, and was intrinsically linked to Christianity (keep in mind that the whole thing of Dei gratia first applied to Roman Emperors, before the Empire fell!). In this sense, they were Roman, and did indeed consider themselves Roman!
Then, my own support for the name “Byzantine Empire” comes, not because I don't think that this medieval polity was Roman (in fact, I think it perfectly legitimate to call it “Rome” or “Roman Empire” up until its fall in 1453!), but because this is an already-established historiographical name, and everyone knows what it means. The term “Byzantine” is routinely used to refer to this particular medieval polity, and thus, as they say, “if it ain't broken, don't fix it”.
By the way, if you're wondering about my nationality and citizenship: I'm a Spaniard, ethnically Catalan
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What is even going on in this thread anymore? Chill before a mod locks it lol it's supposed to all be in good fun (as much as a Balkan discussion can be) - we're discussing the name of a polity that's been dead for 6 centuries in the context of a video game.
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It was about seeing if and how the mods will lock it when it reaches 1453. That didn't happen. Not sure what is the purpose now.
I got it! The post count before lock is the year to which PC will have content for Byzantium. They'll only bother to create content up to the expected day of demise. The longer the thread, the more there will be missions, events and such. Make it past game's end date and it'll begin a count for Roman Empire (the Western one, reunited by Byz or recreated by someone else) content. Am I right or am I right?
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Modern Roman status isn't an ethnicity (if it even was in the Republic or Empire period when first Latins and Etruscans would be involved and eventually exotic groups like Roxolanni even had some of their group become Roman).
Modern Roman status is a function of either living in or having been born in Rome. Its being from a municipality, not ethnicity....which would be Italian or some sub-slice of Italian perhaps.
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Wait, I thought it was the continuation of Troy, so Hellenic in its origins and Hellenic to the end
Troy Hellenic......wow......no need to start that fight here though, lol.
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Eastern Roman Empire name good. Byzantine Empire name good too.
All other names bad.
All other names bad.
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