Just How 'Greek' Was The Byzantine Empire???

[Carlin]

Languages gone extinct around the Mediterranean [from Hattic (1800 BC) to Sabir (1800 AD)]

https://twitter.com/SonerCagaptay/status/1581685964216602624

https://twitter.com/byzantineprof/status/1582001118367739904?cxt=HHwWgMCj6dTosvQrAAAA

[Carlin]

"I am shocked at the passionate response to my tweets about the Byzantine Empire being the Roman Empire. So today, a related issue: not recognizing the #Roman identity of the #Byzantine Empire creates problems for our understanding of the early Middle Ages."

https://twitter.com/byzantineprof/status/1580182407088459776?cxt=HHwWgMCi7d3h9-0rAAAA

[Carlin]

Greek fire 🔥 another lie/misrepresentation. The so-called "Byzantines" never used the term. ROMAN FIRE was one of many terms that was used in original sources.


"Although usage of the term "Greek fire" has been general in English and most other languages since the Crusades, original Byzantine sources called the substance a variety of names, such as "sea fire" (Medieval Greek: πῦρ θαλάσσιον pŷr thalássion), "Roman fire" (πῦρ ῥωμαϊκόν pŷr rhōmaďkón), "war fire" (πολεμικὸν πῦρ polemikňn pŷr), "liquid fire" (ὑγρὸν πῦρ hygrňn pŷr), "sticky fire" (πῦρ κολλητικόν pŷr kollētikón), or "manufactured fire" (πῦρ σκευαστόν pŷr skeuastón)."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

[Carlin]

Procopius of Caesarea (cca 500-570) noted that the Scholarii, the palace guards of the Emperor, were selected from amongst the bravest Armenians. Armenians were regarded as the main constituent of the medieval Roman infantry since the mid-5th century CE.

[Carlin]

Constantinople received its final boost on native Latin speakers around 554 CE, when the Emperor Justinian resettled the final batch of old senatorial families from Rome, in recognition of their suffering due to the three sieges of Rome that occurred during the Gothic War.

[Carlin]

1) "The presence of Christians in Tripolitania is attested until the early eleventh century: in the necropolis of En-Gila to the south of Tripoli, a dozen Latin texts dating between 945 and 1003 were discovered."

URL - "Byzantine Churches Converted to Islam?":

https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_RHR_2293_0325--byzantine-churches-converted-to-islam.htm#re66no66

2) i) "Thus, on the capture of Carthage in 698, there was a huge exodus to Sicily, Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean. This exodus especially affected the educated elite, including churchmen, many of whom were not of native Berber origin, but were descendants of the Latin-speaking settlers of Roman times. This emigration continued in the eighth century. Some were even to settle as far north as Germany, as is mentioned in a letter of Pope Gregory II (715-731) to St Boniface."

ii) "The old Orthodox culture of North-West Africa was disappearing. True, even after the eleventh century, isolated survivals continued. Thus a Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. In the mid-twelfth century an Africanized Latin was still being spoken by Orthodox in Gafsa in the south of Tunisia - at a time when Latin was nowhere spoken in Western Europe. And in 1194 a church and community dedicated to the Mother of God is recorded in Nefta, in the south of Tunisia."

URL - "THE LAST CHRISTIANS OF NORTH-WEST AFRICA: SOME LESSONS FOR ORTHODOX TODAY":

http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/maghreb.htm

[Carlin]

Ethnic Roman Bucellarii on an Egyptian papyrus of 612 AD

This is an interesting papyrus from 612 AD from Egypt containing a list of payment receipts for Roman army Bucellarii.

Some Bucellarii gave a plain name, most gave their name and patronymic ("I am X the son of Y"), some gave their name and place of origin ("I am X from the place Y" ) and, finally, some were identified ethnically ("I am X from the Y ethnicity"). Among those Bucellarii who were identified ethnically: "the Persian", "the Goth" two people, "the Saracen", "the Slav", "the Armenian"; there are five Bucellarii who self-identified as the Roman.

(In an earlier similar document from 561 AD, two Bucellarii are ethnically identified as "Bessi", indicating that the Bessian-Thracian ethnic identity still survived in the 6th century.)

A description of this interesting papyrus can be found in the following recent article by Antonis Kaldellis which you can read online here, starting on p. 21:

https://www.academia.edu/44506116/Proceedings_of_the_7th_International_Symposium_Days_of_Justinian_I_ed_Mitko_B_Panov_Skopje_INI_2020_keynote_lecture_Anthony_Kaldellis

Anthony Kaldellis, ‘Byzantine Identity Interrogated, Declared, Activated,’ in M. Panov, ed., Identities: Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium “Days of Justinian I,” Skopje, 15-16 November, 2019 (Skopje 2020) 21-36.





Bucellarii:

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

[Carlin]

- The very first Roman coin was minted in bronze in 326 BCE, and had a single inscription in Greek rather than Latin - PΩMAIΩN (ROMAION).

- Nova Roma (Νέα Ῥώμη) was the alternative name for Constantinople since the city became the capital of the Roman Empire. After the Council of Chalcedon the name became a part of the Patriarchal title (Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch). Medieval Roman capital was also the City of many names. The Vikings called it Miklagarđr (Big City), in Arabic it was called Rūmiyyat al-Kubra (Great City of the Romans), in Persian it was Takht-e Rum (Throne of the Romans), and the Slavs called it Tsargrad (City of the Caesar).

- Both capitals of the Roman state, the ancient & the medieval one, were known as the City on the seven hills. The significance of 7 comes from the Septimontium, an ancient pre-urban festival celebrated by montani, residents of the 7 (sept-) hill communities that would became Rome.

[tchaiku]

Modern Greek legends about ancient Greeks.

Here’s what the villagers near Delphi thought, for instance (“page 39”):

"The Mylords (= English aristocrats on the Grand Tour) are no Christians: nobody has ever seen them make the sign of the cross. They are descended from the old pagans, the Adelphians, who kept their treasure in a fortress called Adelphi “Brothers”, named after the two brother princes who had built it. When the Virgin Mary and Christ came to this land and all the people around became Christians, the Adelphians thought it best if they left; and they left for the West and took all their riches with them. The Mylords are their descendants, and that’s why they come now on pilgrimage to these stones."

FOKIDA (Delphi), 19th c.
Source: HN Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen, p. 123 et seq.

-----

The name of the Greeks still lives on the shepherds around the temple of Apollo in Vassa. With this name they characterize everything that is believed to be heroic and gigantic. For themselves, they are anything but brave enough to be the heirs of the glory of the old inhabitants. The simplistic thinking of these shepherds considers the Greek ancestors of the Franks, foreign craftsmen who once held this place. This explains why Europeans travel to these places and pay so much attention to what is left of them.


ARKADIA, 19th c.
Source: O.M. von Stackelberg, Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arkadien, 1826, p. 14.

[Carlin]

"Many other Ragusans studied elsewhere in Italy and even in Paris, and their contribution to Dubrovnik’s culture was certainly quite substantial.

Some of these people became prominent not only in Dubrovnik but in the Western world as well. Three among them deserve special mention: Ivan Stojković, Ivan Gazul, and Benko Kotruljević. All were born about 1400. Ivan Stojković (Johannes de Staiis), son of a poor shoemaker, became a Dominican friar and was sent on a government scholarship to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. His performance was excellent, and he managed to ascend rapidly in the ecclesiastical ranks. Having become first an important figure at the papal court at Rome, he later played one of the leading roles in the Basle Council and also greatly helped the Ragusans in obtaining the concession for navigation to Egypt and Syria (see Chapter II).

As envoy of the Basle Council, Stojković traveled to Constantinople to seek the union of the Eastern and the Western churches. He was certainly picked for this job because of his knowledge of the Slavic language and of the Balkan situation. Stojković profited by his two-year stay in Constantinople by having theological and classical Greek works copied for him which he carried back to Basle. In Constantinople, Stojković had discussions with Patriarch Joseph II, a Bulgarian by origin, with whom he spoke Slavic. The Ragusan government profited by Stojković’s stay in the Byzantine capital and asked him to intervene with Emperor John VIII to obtain commercial privileges for Dubrovnik."

- Dubrovnik in the 14th and 15th centuries: A City Between East and West, By Bariša Krekić

[tchaiku]

OK, but how does that contradict the fairytale of Greek villagers near Delphi, especially considering they associated old Greeks with the Westerners.

Even old Greeks attributed some of their works of their Bronze Age predecessors to Cyclopes:
''There still remain, however, parts of the city wall [of Mycenae], including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns. (2.16.5) Going on from here and turning to the right, you come to the ruins of Tiryns. ... The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together.(2.25.8)''

[Amphipolis]

Did the lower class (i.e the vast majority of Greece) knew about the grandeur of ancient Greeks in 1821?

Certainly YES. The real question is WHAT EXACTLY they knew about it.

It becomes more complicated if you see this video with modern (forcibly educated) Greeks, with full free acccess to all knowledge, information and data, that cannot find Greece in the world map. Their answers (why do you think you cannot find it?) are even more showing on their stupidity and ignorance.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etrFkxe1eSY

[tchaiku]

Did the lower class (i.e the vast majority of Greece) knew about the grandeur of ancient Greeks in 1821? Many of those myths might have roots in the Dark Ages when ''Hellene'' was used as an inslut for a pagan.

I am pretty sure you could find some few people in Trebizond indentifying with the old Greeks, not only in the Ottoman Period but also in the Medieval times but it does not change the fact that the ethnic compostion of the Empire was in fact overwhelmingly Lazo-Armenian and even the Greek speakers (that were to become) had a Roman indentity.

[Amphipolis]

the term Hellene/Greek denoted strictly a pagan, and this meaning of the word has been preserved[/B], e.g. in some areas of Crete, right to the end of the 20th century: If one talks about Hellenes (Greeks) in Sfakia in Crete, what he means is idolaters. The word Hellene is documented in Albanian as well: Elin-I, a designation for a heathen."

And then you check the article and you find out these most impressive and unbelievable parts are the ones with no references. The first part is impossible for 20th Century Sfakia, for... there are no "idolaters" anymore and no one would call them Hellenes in Greece anyway.

I can't speak Albanian, but the second part, for some reason, smells bullshit too.

Very briefly, the average person – up to and including the beginning of the 20th century – believed that the Hellenes were an ancient, idolatrous population of giants. This is the way they also explained the existence of the oversized monuments that used to abound in our land.

These ancient people were admired for their strength (in 19th-century Cephalonia island, Kakrides mentions that the inhabitants had an expression “hey, this guy is like a Hellene!”), but they certainly did not identify themselves with them. Besides, the author referred to them as “Hellenes” and not “Ancient Hellenes”, obviously because there was no chance that they would be confused with another contemporary nation."

Hell no! The exact phrase

"Very briefly, the average person – up to and including the beginning of the 20th century – believed that the Hellenes were an ancient, idolatrous population of giants"

is not just wrong, or 99% wrong, but 100% wrong. The era of (around) 1900 is well recorded, and there was nobody who believed that... ancient Greeks were giants. There are ancient Greek myths and there were indeed legends in antiquity including giants, but that is a totally different thing than the above phrase.

People DID believe in the grandeur of ancient Greeks and their... (not gigantic) but bright achievement, they didn't believe in the existence of giants.

[tchaiku]

I am all for removing crap from Wikipedia for as along it's done equally for everyone.