Byzantine society was extremely diverse, encompassing Christian Greeks, Slavs, Armenians, Georgians, Coptics, and the Jewish populations, among others, but are the Byzantines considered Roman, Greek, or both?
During the Byzantine Golden Age under Emperor Justinian, the Byzantine Empire stretched around the Mediterranean Sea into Italy, Greece, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East.
Founded by Roman Emperor Constantine in 330 AD, the Roman Empire later split into eastern and western halves. Constantine then moved the capital of the empire to the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, and it was renamed Constantinople in his honor.
The Greek-Roman identity of Byzantine
The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans, the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire, of Constantinople, and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and parts of the Southern Balkans. They also made up large minorities in the coastal urban centers of the Levant and Northern Egypt.
Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks identified as Romans, but they are typically referred to as Byzantine Greeks in modern historiography. Latin speakers of the era identified them simply as Greeks or called them “Romaei.”
The Greek language was already widely spoken in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire when Constantine moved its capital to Constantinople. Latin, however, was the official language of the imperial administration. Nonetheless, from the reign of Emperor Heraclius (610-641 AD), Greek was the predominant language among the populace and also came to replace Latin in administration.
To begin with, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but, following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces as a result of the 7th century Muslim conquests, it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks. They inhabited the heartland of the later empire of modern Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Sicily, as well as parts of Southern Bulgaria, Crimea, and Albania. Over time, the relationship between them and the West, especially with Latin Europe, deteriorated.
Relations were further damaged by the schism between the Catholic West and Orthodox East. This resulted in the Byzantine Greeks being labeled as heretics in the West. In the later centuries of the Byzantine Empire and especially after the imperial coronation of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne (768-814 AD), in Rome in 800 AD, the Byzantines were not thought of by Western Europeans as heirs of the Roman Empire but rather as part of an Eastern Greek kingdom.
The question of Roman-ness
The inhabitants of the empire, generally termed Byzantines, thought of themselves as Romans. Similarly, their Islamic neighbors called their empire the “land of the Romans,” but the people’s of medieval Western Europe preferred to call them Greeks, a term at the time holding connotations of effeminacy and deception.
The word “Byzantine,” which came from Byzantion (Latinized as Byzantium), the name of the Greek settlement Constantinople was established on, was only used to describe the inhabitants of that city. It never referred to the empire, which they called Romania, or “Romanland.”
Following the fall of the empire, early modern scholars referred to it by several names, including the “Empire of Constantinople,” the “Empire of the Greeks,” the “Eastern Empire,” the “Late Empire,” the “Low Empire,” and the “Roman Empire.”
The growing use of “Byzantine” and “Byzantine Empire” likely began with the 15th-century historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles, whose works were widely disseminated. “Byzantine” was used alongside terms like “Empire of the Greeks” until the 19th century. It has now become the primary term, used to refer to all aspects of the empire. Some historians believe that, as an originally prejudicial and inaccurate term, its use should be stopped.
A combination of Greek and Roman cultures in Byzantine
The social order of the Roman Empire and the sense of belonging to the Roman homeland in the Byzantine world were underpinned by an appreciation and adoption of Greek culture. The Byzantines believed ancient Greek literature belonged to them as well, and the ideological differences between Byzantine Romanism and Hellenism did not prevent the preservation of ancient Greek heritage. Ancient Greek texts were not destroyed but copied and redistributed.
Greek literature continued to be the most important part of the Byzantine school curriculum, and the educated man had to read and know Homer and Euripides. Different cultures blended together to form a new culture.
Today, that culture is known as Greco-Roman. For example, the Byzantines enjoyed public baths, swimming pools, and chariot racing, much as the ancient Romans did. However, most Byzantines spoke Greek, so Greek was the language of everyday use. Because of that, even emperors learned Greek.
Over time, the empire became less Roman and more Greek. That rich blending of cultures led the Byzantines to develop one of the most advanced civilizations in the world between 500 and 1200 CE.
Divisions in the Church
The divisions that did exist in the empire were not just based on geography. In addition to having separate capitals, Rome in the West and Constantinople in the East, there was one other significant difference between the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire. That difference occurred within the Christian Church.
Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 380 AD, but the practice and expression of the faith developed differently in the western and eastern parts of the empire. In the eastern half, the church leader was called the patriarch and was appointed by the emperor. Thus, it was really the emperor who was the head of the Church. In the western half, Christians believed the pope was the head of the Church.
In the Byzantine Empire, the emperor had power over Church and government, whereas in the West—where after the fall of Rome in 476 AD there was no longer an emperor—the pope eventually claimed authority over all the governments and churches in Europe.
These differences went on for hundreds of years and were so serious that, in 1054 AD, the respective church leaders excommunicated each other. This resulted in a schism between the two churches that exists to this day.
