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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I GREEKS, ROMANS, AND CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUITY
- 1 “We too are Greeks!”: the legacies of Hellenism
- 2 “The world a city”: Romans of the East
- 3 “Nibbling on Greek learning”: the Christian predicament
- Interlude: Hellenism in limbo: the middle years (400–1040)
- PART II HELLENIC REVIVALS IN BYZANTIUM
- General conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - “The world a city”: Romans of the East
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I GREEKS, ROMANS, AND CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUITY
- 1 “We too are Greeks!”: the legacies of Hellenism
- 2 “The world a city”: Romans of the East
- 3 “Nibbling on Greek learning”: the Christian predicament
- Interlude: Hellenism in limbo: the middle years (400–1040)
- PART II HELLENIC REVIVALS IN BYZANTIUM
- General conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It is well known that the people we call Byzantines today called themselves Romans (Romaioi). In the middle period of Byzantium's history, with which the second and more narrative part of this study will be chiefly concerned, this “national” label appears or is pervasive in virtually all texts and documents (excluding the strictly theological) regardless of the geographical and social origins of their authors, which, in Byzantium, were diverse. (“Byzantines” were for them only the residents of Constantinople, archaically styled after the City's classical name.) These Romans called their state Romania (Ῥωμανία) or Romaïs, its capital New Rome (among other names, titles, and epithets), and its rulers the basileis of the Romans, whom we call “emperors.” This Roman identity survived the fall of the empire and Ottoman rule, though it was greatly changed by those events. While in Byzantium the Romans were a highly unified nation, under the Porte they were redefined so as to encompass a multi-ethnic and linguistically diverse religious community. Later, with the foundation of the modern Greek state, romiosyne came to represent the orthodox and demotic aspects of the new Hellenic national persona, complementing the classical and idealistic aspect that was projected abroad. Continuity and change are alike illustrated in a story remembered by Peter Charanis, born on the island of Lemnos in 1908 and later a professor of Byzantine history at Rutgers University.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hellenism in ByzantiumThe Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition, pp. 42 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008