10-15-2012, 08:00 PM
Lets reduce the issue to basics:
- There was never any 'Roman' tribe, or 'Roman ethnic group' or 'Roman nation' nor there was ever any Roman state in the strict sense we give today so as to note its start and its finish date. Speaking of the Greek-named city of Rome, since its inception in archaic times, this was a union of nearby towns and their various populations ranging from the more numerous local Latins to the northern neighbours Etruscans and southern colonists Greeks with the last two being incorporated in the local upper classes forming a new overclass ruling over the locals, later expanding to include others.
- It is this caste power-formation which defined Rome and its ascension in international to power over a painstaking more than 3 centuries to establish an Empire. Still today we view it in a monolithic way and we think it was all about military conquests when it had been precisely all about Roman internationalized aristocracies using expert diplomacy extending their oligarchical links with all neighbrouring ones. Today we colour the map of the Roman Empire when back then everything was relative. Even in the heyday between 100 BC to 200 AD, you had inside states with full self-governance, others that did not pay taxes, others that even minted their own coinage and others that even maintained own armies - i.e. everything to tell us that there was no universal state law, thus in a very basic way no precise Empire in the sense we give it today and it is our definitions that are raising the trouble. We should thus rather see it more as the 'Roman system'.
- In this sense, there is absolutely no clear end to the Roman Empire, i.e. of the 'Roman System'. The finance and the power was almost since the beginning based in the East and by late 3rd AD century the capital of the Empire had already moved repeatedly in the East, and by early 4th century AD Constantine moved it permanently in Constantinople, i.e. at the Empire's most strategic position. By then, so much was by then the divide between the East and West that a few decades later, when the western parts including Rome were overrun by northern germanic trines, there was minimal (for the event) fuss among Eastern Romans while there was a huge negative reaction 2 centuries later to Justinian's efforts in the West.
Effectively this very Roman power-system continued uninterrupted up to 1204. Yes it had already changed religion. Yes it was not Latin Romans manning and ruling it but Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians for the most among others. Yes it even discarded Latin language sticking to the popular Greek (native of ethnic Greeks who constituted about half of the population). But then this was nothing new for Rome - it had happened again - as Greek was the initial language of Roman high castes till the 5th century BC prior to reforms.
We thus do talk about the very Roman power system going on throughout all these centuries up to the early 13rth AD century, when, in 1204 the Venetians (themselves effectively formed by renegade oligarchies out of the very Eastern Roman Empire) led an army mostly of Franks against Constantinople tearing it down and destroying it permanently. After this - no matter the whatever Despotates the continuity of this power-system was over thus we may speak of the end at 1204 as it being the only date on which we may speak of a technical end. 1453 is thus out of question. There was no Empire, nor a System there anymore.
- There was never any 'Roman' tribe, or 'Roman ethnic group' or 'Roman nation' nor there was ever any Roman state in the strict sense we give today so as to note its start and its finish date. Speaking of the Greek-named city of Rome, since its inception in archaic times, this was a union of nearby towns and their various populations ranging from the more numerous local Latins to the northern neighbours Etruscans and southern colonists Greeks with the last two being incorporated in the local upper classes forming a new overclass ruling over the locals, later expanding to include others.
- It is this caste power-formation which defined Rome and its ascension in international to power over a painstaking more than 3 centuries to establish an Empire. Still today we view it in a monolithic way and we think it was all about military conquests when it had been precisely all about Roman internationalized aristocracies using expert diplomacy extending their oligarchical links with all neighbrouring ones. Today we colour the map of the Roman Empire when back then everything was relative. Even in the heyday between 100 BC to 200 AD, you had inside states with full self-governance, others that did not pay taxes, others that even minted their own coinage and others that even maintained own armies - i.e. everything to tell us that there was no universal state law, thus in a very basic way no precise Empire in the sense we give it today and it is our definitions that are raising the trouble. We should thus rather see it more as the 'Roman system'.
- In this sense, there is absolutely no clear end to the Roman Empire, i.e. of the 'Roman System'. The finance and the power was almost since the beginning based in the East and by late 3rd AD century the capital of the Empire had already moved repeatedly in the East, and by early 4th century AD Constantine moved it permanently in Constantinople, i.e. at the Empire's most strategic position. By then, so much was by then the divide between the East and West that a few decades later, when the western parts including Rome were overrun by northern germanic trines, there was minimal (for the event) fuss among Eastern Romans while there was a huge negative reaction 2 centuries later to Justinian's efforts in the West.
Effectively this very Roman power-system continued uninterrupted up to 1204. Yes it had already changed religion. Yes it was not Latin Romans manning and ruling it but Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians for the most among others. Yes it even discarded Latin language sticking to the popular Greek (native of ethnic Greeks who constituted about half of the population). But then this was nothing new for Rome - it had happened again - as Greek was the initial language of Roman high castes till the 5th century BC prior to reforms.
We thus do talk about the very Roman power system going on throughout all these centuries up to the early 13rth AD century, when, in 1204 the Venetians (themselves effectively formed by renegade oligarchies out of the very Eastern Roman Empire) led an army mostly of Franks against Constantinople tearing it down and destroying it permanently. After this - no matter the whatever Despotates the continuity of this power-system was over thus we may speak of the end at 1204 as it being the only date on which we may speak of a technical end. 1453 is thus out of question. There was no Empire, nor a System there anymore.
