I'm just trying to apply the same standard to Rome that is applyed for modern European states. I have seen people say that the Danish state dates from the 1950s because they rewrote their constitution then.
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Why shorten it to Rome? Have Roman Republic, Roman Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, and Holy Roman Empire. That isn't any more confusing or less accurate than Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo. Or South Korea and North Korea. Its kinda funny too.
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As a OG romaboo that only really got into byzanabooism via medieval 2 tw enlightening me to its continued existance, the more the better! let there be a Roman Empire and Republic double the insane schizo larping!
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Weren't there two Romes between 395 and 476? It was possible historically, surely it should be possible in a game with many ahistorical elements.
The one controlling the city of Rome. As that's probably a requirement for forming Rome, then it's always Roman's Republic, or whoever else forms Rome.
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Would be a hoot if the game had dynamic names so if someone formed rome while byzantium was still around it became the western roman empire
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The one and only. Would my arguments be more or less persuasive if I had "that_rainbow_pony" as a nick?
ERE, obviously. It's there since the beginning (predates di Rienzo by far), has proper legacy and its existence is certain in every game. But why even think about it? There's the one and only Roman Empire and there can be a "Roman Republic". If we have Germanic "Holy Roman" usurpers, then why not another one as well?
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Game rule needed for West Rome's name too. And for who gets tyrian purple as map color.
It seems the announcement craziness thread is reaching for new lows, they're resorting to sex to increase postcount.
On a totally unrelated note. Rome of antiquity had lots of brothels, as evidenced by the phallic inscriptions in Pompeii. How was the prostitution scene in Byzantium? What are the chances of the game including brothel buildings?
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I think Christianity actually made a cultural change about prostitution. Like Roman culture changed between the time of Constantine and the time of, say, Heraclius, to where even theaters became less common.
Also did you know Roman blinding during this period was actually a progressive mercy? They used to kill people but the church was able to convince the Romans to at least not kill and maim instead. I guess that's good?
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ahem... Theodora... ahem.
Recently I've heard that prostitution was very common in the Byzantine empire. And something like "not all prostitues were actors, but all actors were prostitutes back then".
Wasn't prostitution common in medieval and reneissance Italy, including papal Rome?
Remembering my suggestion of Iconic Rome as a possible naming option for Byzantium, I was thinking whether Phallic Rome would be viable for West Rome. But yeah, perhaps only if it's pagan.
Oh, such humaneness. That gives another good naming option for Byz, Blind Rome. Or perhaps Blinding Rome, some may interpret it literally, others as bright, dazzling, etc. Oh, why not both, it's all about having so many options that everyone can be happy.
Is blinding featured in the game? It is in CK2.
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If you were not "ignorant" or could "speak latin" you would know that "millenia" is the plural of "millenium" so "a millenia" is a non-sense, Romans only lost Rome definitively only a little more than half a millenium ago at the start of the game. I am being a massive jerk, I know words change their meaning and "millenia" is now used that way, but you are ignoring the fact Roman had also changed its meaning and being one did not require living in Rome or in a state that owns Rome since a very long time. Byzantium was ruled by Romans for the Romans so it is right to call it "Roman empire".
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I'm going to try and give my opinion on all of this (again)... I do believe that there's some nuance lacking in this discussion.
(1) The Byzantine Empire was, undoubtedly, the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. There is no clear-cut event where you can say that the Roman Empire stopped being “Roman” and started being “Byzantine”. The term “Byzantine Empire” was never used during its lifetime and it is a purely historiographical invention, though this does not mean that the term is illegitimate - it's purely shorthand for “the Roman Empire during the Medieval Era”. Historiographical names are not unheard of, though - the Yuan state, after being driven out of China proper, still called itself the “Great Yuan”, though historiographically it is called the Northern Yuan.
(2) The main ethnic group of the Byzantine Empire, and the one its rulers (for the most part) were part of, called itself Ῥωμαῖοι (Rhōmaîoi, lit. “Romans”). Medieval Westerners called this ethnic group the Greeks, and not a more literal translation like Romans. Undoubtedly this is tied with the messy history with the claim of succession to Rome, but really this is also just an exonym. I don't think it's that different from the Germans being called German and not “people-ish”, despite that being the literal translation of Deutsch.
(3) Citizens of the Western Roman Empire did not cease considering themselves as “Roman” for a while, even after the demise of the WRE as an entity. However - apart from the people who lived in the city of Rome itself -, by and large (there are still some Romance ethnic groups that still call themselves “Romans” or “Latins”, like the Rumantsch in Switzerland), they stopped considering themselves as Roman after an indeterminate amount of time had passed - I would say that already by the year 800 they did not consider themselves as Romans - but as Hispanics, Gauls, etc.; though they still called their language Romance, and would continue to do so for a few centuries more.
(4) The “Barbarian Kingdoms” that occupied the territory of the WRE did not completely up-end the Roman way of life. Many of these Germanic groups had already been long in contact with Rome, and had at least been partially romanized. The Roman nobility integrated themselves into these kingdoms, and indeed the ruling non-Roman class also became more and more romanized as well. The Roman state apparatus did not disappear and was adapted and integrated into these kingdoms' administrative structures - really, the “barbarians“ adapted the Roman state apparatus that was left in their provinces wholesale. Hell, even after their independence from Rome, they still kept on promulgating new laws decreed by Byzantine emperors. All in all, the Roman administrative apparatus did not cease to exist after the occupation by the Germanic kingdoms, and indeed kept on functioning well after the conquests. I should also say that, nowadays, the term “Barbarian Kingdom” is falling out of favor in historiography.
(5) Arguing about who “the true successor” to the Roman Empire, in 2025, is kinda moot anyways. As a history student (and hopefully future historian), it's a lot more interesting to look at how historical people perceived their own world, than for us present-day people to argue about the things they argued a thousand years ago. I'm not interested in which state or nation is the true and correct successor of Rome - I'm interested in how people in the Byzantine Empire, in the Holy Roman Empire, etc. saw themselves. Also, I absolutely loathe the “not Holy, not Roman, not an Empire” quote about the HRE - it is endlessly paraded by edgy teenagers who get all their history knowledge from r/HistoryMemes. It is an incredibly simplistic way of seeing history and it drives me up the wall - unironically, it's one of my biggest pet peeves.
My own take is this: the Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire. It is wholly correct to refer to it as Rome or the Roman Empire, and I would prefer it if the game rule actually referred to it as the “Roman Empire”, instead of the “Eastern Roman Empire”, which is a bit of an absurd term in a context where there is no Western Roman Empire. However, the term “Byzantine Empire”, from a historiographical lense, is also correct.
I believe people take this too seriously, but that's not bad - I also take other minute things seriously. Though I would rather people not insult each other over a historical polity that's been dead for around 500 years.
On that note, I know that I got quite heated on some of my earlier posts in this thread, and I would like to apologize for that.
(1) The Byzantine Empire was, undoubtedly, the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. There is no clear-cut event where you can say that the Roman Empire stopped being “Roman” and started being “Byzantine”. The term “Byzantine Empire” was never used during its lifetime and it is a purely historiographical invention, though this does not mean that the term is illegitimate - it's purely shorthand for “the Roman Empire during the Medieval Era”. Historiographical names are not unheard of, though - the Yuan state, after being driven out of China proper, still called itself the “Great Yuan”, though historiographically it is called the Northern Yuan.
(2) The main ethnic group of the Byzantine Empire, and the one its rulers (for the most part) were part of, called itself Ῥωμαῖοι (Rhōmaîoi, lit. “Romans”). Medieval Westerners called this ethnic group the Greeks, and not a more literal translation like Romans. Undoubtedly this is tied with the messy history with the claim of succession to Rome, but really this is also just an exonym. I don't think it's that different from the Germans being called German and not “people-ish”, despite that being the literal translation of Deutsch.
(3) Citizens of the Western Roman Empire did not cease considering themselves as “Roman” for a while, even after the demise of the WRE as an entity. However - apart from the people who lived in the city of Rome itself -, by and large (there are still some Romance ethnic groups that still call themselves “Romans” or “Latins”, like the Rumantsch in Switzerland), they stopped considering themselves as Roman after an indeterminate amount of time had passed - I would say that already by the year 800 they did not consider themselves as Romans - but as Hispanics, Gauls, etc.; though they still called their language Romance, and would continue to do so for a few centuries more.
(4) The “Barbarian Kingdoms” that occupied the territory of the WRE did not completely up-end the Roman way of life. Many of these Germanic groups had already been long in contact with Rome, and had at least been partially romanized. The Roman nobility integrated themselves into these kingdoms, and indeed the ruling non-Roman class also became more and more romanized as well. The Roman state apparatus did not disappear and was adapted and integrated into these kingdoms' administrative structures - really, the “barbarians“ adapted the Roman state apparatus that was left in their provinces wholesale. Hell, even after their independence from Rome, they still kept on promulgating new laws decreed by Byzantine emperors. All in all, the Roman administrative apparatus did not cease to exist after the occupation by the Germanic kingdoms, and indeed kept on functioning well after the conquests. I should also say that, nowadays, the term “Barbarian Kingdom” is falling out of favor in historiography.
(5) Arguing about who “the true successor” to the Roman Empire, in 2025, is kinda moot anyways. As a history student (and hopefully future historian), it's a lot more interesting to look at how historical people perceived their own world, than for us present-day people to argue about the things they argued a thousand years ago. I'm not interested in which state or nation is the true and correct successor of Rome - I'm interested in how people in the Byzantine Empire, in the Holy Roman Empire, etc. saw themselves. Also, I absolutely loathe the “not Holy, not Roman, not an Empire” quote about the HRE - it is endlessly paraded by edgy teenagers who get all their history knowledge from r/HistoryMemes. It is an incredibly simplistic way of seeing history and it drives me up the wall - unironically, it's one of my biggest pet peeves.
My own take is this: the Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire. It is wholly correct to refer to it as Rome or the Roman Empire, and I would prefer it if the game rule actually referred to it as the “Roman Empire”, instead of the “Eastern Roman Empire”, which is a bit of an absurd term in a context where there is no Western Roman Empire. However, the term “Byzantine Empire”, from a historiographical lense, is also correct.
I believe people take this too seriously, but that's not bad - I also take other minute things seriously. Though I would rather people not insult each other over a historical polity that's been dead for around 500 years.
On that note, I know that I got quite heated on some of my earlier posts in this thread, and I would like to apologize for that.
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The best way of looking at this quote is remembering that it is attributed to Voltaire, who was French, and lived in a time where France and the Habsburgs were bitter rivals.
"not Holy, not Roman, not an Empire" is nothing more than an insult, not a description of reality.
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I'm talking more the theater went from on every day in big cities and fine to go to, to a vice that was on more sporadically. Eventually theater stopped happening, but that was well after Justinian.
Justinian was actually the first one to outright ban theater (to my knowledge) but the ban didn't stick and theater lasted another couple hundred years.
Yeah prostitution survived it was just more scandalous.
Great idea, Blinding Rome. If the devs do not add this naming option the game will be literally unplayable.
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why is this thread still going on? we have the game rule and if you want anything else you're a nerd and should mod it in
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So incredibly based. Like, if we just judge the last century of the HRE and without context we could just do the same stupid analysis with the Byzantines or any other entity: "nOt An eMpirE, sO sMAll, nOt LaTin".
I'll just say it, r/HistoryMemes makes people dumber, not more knowledgeable.
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