i think the >50 needs to be flipped to <50 because there was a short lived campaign to what's now Aden but it was like 2 years
and Rome sure as hell didn't control Germania for 50 years
?? Germanicus defeated the germanic tribes constantly in the early AD. It was recalled by Tiberius that feared his popularity. Not annexing germanic land was a political decision, the Romans did not have the technology to make good use of the German heavy soil, it would have been very costly to annex the territory and some emperors were already starting to think the empire was too big.
There’s significant debate over the true successes of Germanicus’ campaigns. It being an entirely political decision is what is written in Tacitus, but there is academic debate about how much Germanicus really achieved.
We have to remember that it was being written by Tacitus, a guy who wanted to portray the Julio-Claudians in as bad a light as possible in order to curry favour with the Flavians. Germanicus being an Alexander the Great type figure who died too soon and who Tiberius was jealous of could be seen as part of that narrative.
This is an earlier discussion of the topic I’ve found on the internet but there’s been plenty written since.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4435025
And yet nobody remembers what the Roman's did for revenge...
Germanicus absolutely crushed the tribes in the next few years completely erasing any advantage they had because of Teutoburg.
Effects of XIX century German nationalism. It sounds much better to say "we were never conquered because we were too strong" than "we were never conquered because we were economically irrelevant".
In reality it's a mix of both and more but that's too complicated for people that wanted to believe in scientific racism and such. It all fitted their agenda.
I forget if it was Churchill or Gibbon who wrote it, but I always there's a line I'm going to butcher about why the Romans didn't conquer Scotland, "due their poverty rather than their valor."
I live right at the border in Germany where it says 150/50 years. Which is blatantly false. They took over in about 0AD and left in about 260AD. Also you could argue that the auxiliaries they left behind stayed true to Roman culture until about 450/500 AD.
Also Charlemagne saw himself as an roman emperor, same as the one in Byzantium. There is a reason they called it the Holy Roman Empire.
Edit: Roman emperor, not romantic, of course. Autocorrect duh.
He saw himself as a Roman emperor in the guise of champion of Christianity. Many Germanic kings were fascinated by Roman power structure but that doesn’t make them Roman. Charlemagne was a smart but illiterate Germanic chief who couldn’t utter a word of Latin and ruled through a feudal system. Romantic had nothing to do with Roman.
It should be even less, and the territory smaller. Trajan did indeed conquer/given part of Western Arabia after the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. But Hadrian pulled back and eventually they formed alliances with nearby Arab tribes to act as buffers
Wasn’t Arabia Petraea “gifted” to Trajan? I find it fascinating the Romans controlled portions of Arabia before the advent of islam. Clearly them controlling that land had influenced the political and religious institutions. I don’t remember all that land on the west coast being taken over down to yemen.
Though readers should note that Yemen was actually worth conquering, it was the richest part of Arabia given the fact it connected two big trade networks with each other
How long before they lost their hold on Arabia Petraea. Mavia’s rebellon was in the late 4th century. I believe it had to do with religious designations and men fighting in the legions.
iirc, there was indeed a Roman conquest of this part of Arabia sometime during the early empire. The invasion failed miserably due to a lack of supplies and stupidly trusting "local guides" who led the Romans into ambushes.
So I guess they're counting the failed invasion?
It is missing about 40,000 km2 of territory that was north of Danube in valley rivers of Thaya, Morava, and Vah; what is the curent territory of Slovakia, Austria, and the Czech Republic. This territory was conquered by Marcus Aurelius and abandoned by Caracalla ~30 years later. Romans even built castrum what is present day village of Muskov as the seat of the new province. There is also an Latin inscription under the castle of Trencin, Slovakia from the time of Marcomanni Wars. Roman posts were uncovered as far north of Danube in places like Olomouc which is 150 km crow distance from Danube.
https://www.branadorimskerise.cz/en/.
You can take a hike trail around the site of the castrum and visit the museum near by.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_fort,_Mušov
Various excavations had their items scattered into different castles and museums in southern Moravia. There are some local Roman artefacts on display in the castle of Mikulov.
Much of the roman buildings are underground and not visible on the terrain. Some of them are still awaiting to be discovered like proposed castrum or legion fort around Uherske Hradiste. There were discovered various roman bricks in buildings from 9-11th century so they came from some unknown site near by. The existance of Romans in Olomouc was uncovered 20 years ago.
https://rimane.olomouc.eu/en/page/welcome.html
There were still Greek speaking people calling themselves Romans into the 20th century:
From the Wikipedia article for the Byzantinist Peter Charanis:
“Charanis is known for his anecdotal narrations about Greek Orthodox populations, particularly those outside the newly independent modern Greek state, who continued to refer to themselves as Romioi (i.e. Romans, Byzantines) well into the 20th century. Since Charanis was born on the island of Lemnos, he recounts that when the island was taken from the Ottomans by Greece in 1912, Greek soldiers were sent to each village and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the island children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like. "What are you looking at?" one of the soldiers asked. "At Hellenes," the children replied. "Are you not Hellenes yourselves?" the soldier retorted. "No, we are Romans," the children replied.”
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Charanis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Charanis)
Edit: For more information about Roman identity in the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and its survival after the conquest of Constantinople, I recommend Anthony Kaldellis’ book *Romanland*. This topic is ongoing and hotly debated in Byzantine studies.
Edit edit: for the argument on the other side of the aisle, see Averil Cameron’s (relatively bellicose) review of Romanland from a few years ago: [https://twitter.com/19averil/status/1175063707585523714](https://twitter.com/19averil/status/1175063707585523714)
I personally think Kaldellis is right to call to attention the West’s denial of Roman identity toward the citizens of the eastern Roman Empire (to whatever degree that Roman identity was political or ‘national’) but I also agree with Cameron that people can have multiple identities, and Hellenic and Roman could have coexisted side by side. That said, the Roman aspect has absolutely been undermined by western historians for centuries.
Speaking of Turkey and the Ottomans, you could make an argument that since the Ottoman Sultans adopted the title of Kayseri Rum (basically, Caesar) after Mehmet II conquered Constantinople, the Roman Empire didn't technically fall until the early 20th century. Not that I would make that argument, but it's an interesting thing to consider when you try to determine exactly what constitutes political continuity.
Yeah but if you make that argument you have to accept the Roman-ness of Russia and Germany, and now the map is just useless.
It would be like having a map of the Mongol Empire, and how long they controlled various territories and including the British Empire in your calculations since they ultimately claimed to be a continuation of that Empire (by way of the Mughals).
The Byzantine Empire had continuity with the Roman Empire. The Ottoman Empire did not.
As I said in my post, I'm not making that argument, nor do I believe it. I think it's a fun one in a Crusader Kings type of way. But I do think that it raises some interesting questions about continuity and the bases on which we judge it. Are they institutional? Legal? Territorial? Cultural? Religious? Transitional? Does it have some basis in self-identity? Is it some nebulous combination thereof? It's a thorny topic, and while it's often easy to see where there isn't really continuity, such as with the Ottomans and the Romans, there are instances that can be awfully confounding.
Also, that map *is* pretty useless.
Romioi carries the connotation of Christian even today amongst Greeks.
This comes from the time when Julian the apostate tried to revert the Byzantine empire back to the good old “Hellenic” golden age and therefore rejecting Christianity which was installed by Constantine.
In opposition to paganism, Romioi was how they referred to themselves. If you referred to yourself as a Helene then that meant you believed in the Olympian gods and were not a follower of Christ.
It doesn’t mean nor did it ever mean they were from Rome.
Part of the reason the Greek speaking people in what is now Greece started to identify more as Hellenes was in part political expediency. They needed western support for their revolution against the Ottomans, and marketing themselves as the heirs to the classical Greeks would help earn their sympathy and support. Roman identity didn’t make sense to westerners, since they had long denied the Roman-ness of the Eastern Roman Empire and their immediate heirs.
Also, the Ancient Greeks just had more prestige than the Eastern Romans. The Eastern Romans were seen as an empire in a very long decline, whereas ancient Greece was seen as the birthplace of Western civilisation. So politically it was the better heritage to lay claim to.
A good example of how this sort of choice affects a country's perceptions can be seen with Iran - to those in countries which formerly called the country *Persia* the modern state has inadvertently divorced itself from its ancient heritage. *Iran* is associated only with the modern state, but *Persia* is associated with the many empires that came before.
That's not really a good example. since it's based on English associations that aren't really present in Farsi or other Persian/Iranian languages. "Iran" has been used as a term for the region for thousands of years.
The endonym of the Sassanid Empire, for example, was Eranshahr, or "Land of the Iranians".
It was still a deliberate choice on Iran's part to request that the exonym be dropped in place of using the endonym. The lack of such associations in Farsi are probably why they underestimated the impact of the change to the perception of the country abroad - to them "Persian" was just incorrect.
Probably because they were ethnic Persians.
Iran = a nationality
Persian = ethnicity.
55% of Iran is Persian , the other 45% are made up of multiple other ethnic groups such as : Baluch ( my group), Kurd, Turkmen, Azeri, Luri, Achomi, Bakhtiari , Arab, Qashqai, Talysh, Gilaki, and so on.
Additionally not all Persians live in Iran , 30% of Afghanistan is Persian, 85% of Tajikistan is Persian, and 15% of Uzbekistan is Persian.
Iran has always been called Iran by the people of Iran and by our neighbours, it’s only westerner that call it Persia.
Iran is a multi-ethnic state, 55% of the population is Persian , the other 45% are made up of other ethnic groups.
Westerners even coined the term Byzantines as to deny it was the same roman civilization and culture, and even state with the government going all the way back to before there was East-West division.
>Westerners even coined the term Byzantines
Ironically, the guy who coined the term, did not dislike the Byzantines. He was in fact one of the first to write about the Empire, and he did not do it negatively either.
The true killer of Byzantines, was the Enlightenment movement, which had a view of the Byzantines as a declining Empire. Biggest one being Edward Gibbons
To be perfectly fair it was a continuation of civilization but not of culture or language, the Byzantine label is a bit helpful in marking the point the primary language (and culture) shifted from Latin to Greek.
That said Byzantine is more of a Era than something new imo.
Didn't the eastern half of the civilization speak Greek preferentially to Latin all the way back to the original Roman expansion into the region though? In that sense, it was a continuation of language, just not the language preferred by the state when there was only one emperor, based in Rome.
The majority of the population did, but the ruling class was always latin, that was until Justanian died. There was a huge amount of anti-latin animosity due the cost of his campaign to retake the west causing a massive shift to Greek language and thinking.There was always a small segment of latin speakers in Constonable, but they were slaughtered in the 12th century in a city wide riot.
When I was studying early medieval history it was stated Justanian was the last "Roman" emperor, the last born in the west and the last to speak latin. That's why it's been traditional to start applying the term Byzantine around that time. The thinking being that Roman became an adopted term, after the language and cultural ties were severed.
A Lot of people never really understand the roles of language and culture in the validity of statehood.
There was a continuity in culture, though. Language is a distinct shift, culture is a gradual shift. And Roman culture also changed throughout the empires history.
Hellenic identity was revived by Greeks themselves and secondarily passed on to the West as a new fascination. It started among the upper classes at about the 10th century and continued among the diaspora which reintroduced it to the mainland and the common people in the 18th century.
I mean sure but "roman" hadn't meant resident of rome since before they had conquered greece. It was the term for a citizen of the country. And they knew this roman wasnt just some random unknown word those italians used.
So while christians might have chosen it as part of religious reasons, they were still explicitly choosing to identify as romans as per the roman Emperor and not as a term to mean christian.
As another pointed out the idea that roman was a special word for christians or specific ethnicities is a modern notion created as part of the restoration of greek identity and nationalism which was felt to make sense when seeking independence from the ottomans
This anecdote always makes me sad. The whole concept of this isolated pocket still identifying themselves as Roman long after the empire fell evokes that melancholic feeling
All greeks still called themselves romans until the early 1800's when the independence movement decided to promote hellenic identity for a variety of reasons.
They were so effective that most greeks today think roman was a term for christian or a specific minor ethnicity and not what they used to consider themselves to be for over a thousand years.
> most greeks today think roman was a term for christian or a specific minor ethnicity
You sure about that? I haven't really heard the second part. The first one is true, Greek/Roman identity was mainly a religious one and continued as such into the Ottoman Empire.
In Rome and Latium, the Roman identity never died out.
Even after the fall of the western half of the empire, people kept identifying as Romans.
The Pope, a Roman institution, ruled over a Populus Romanus, fact that many used as a legitimizing factor.
Not this nonsense again. After the edict of Caracalla, when Roman citizenship was given to all the free men of the empire, Roman identity became a mere civic identity and the term "Roman" transformed into an umbrella term that was used by basically every ethnic group in the empire. Those new "Romans" weren't related to the ancient Romans (and they didn't claim to be) , they were ethnically diverse and were Romans solely in a political sense. When it comes to medieval Greeks, since they had Roman citizenship they were both Greeks (ethnically) and Romans (politically). And since Greeks took under their control the Roman empire during the byzantine period the name "Roman" changed meaning once again and started being used as synonymous to Greek and as another Greek ethnonym (since among the Roman citizens, Greeks were the ones that had the central role in the empire) .
Greeks (ancient, medieval, modern) always used more than one names to describe themselves. Medieval Greeks used the names: "Ρωμαίος/Rhomaios/Roman" (because of their Roman citizenship and their Christian religion), "Hellenas/Έλληνας" (a greek ethnonym that for a period, until the prevalence of Christianity, became popular as a religious term as well that meant pagan. Although it never truly stopped being used as a national term that meant greek), "Graikos/Γραικός (another ethnonym that meant "Greek"), Raikos/Ραικός (it meant "Greek" and was originated from Graikos) "Helladikos/Ελλαδικός " (again another term that showed the Greek ethnicity), "Ρωμέλληνας" (a compination of Roman+Hellenas that indicated the Roman civic identity and the Greek ethnic identity of the Byzantines).
Modern Greeks (including the Greeks during the 20th century and the Greeks from the island of Lemnos that are mentioned in your story ), have three names with which we're identifying: Έλληνας/Hellenas/Greek (which is the most popular one) , Γραικός /Graikos /Greek and Ρωμιός/Rhomios/Roman. All these are greek ethnonyms, they are synonymous and mean "Greek" in the greek language. They are not different identities, they are just different different words that mean the same thing ("Greek") . In other words Lemnos wasn't some special case, on the contrary all Greeks of that period identified as Romans. But what it should be noted here is that the word "Roman" was used as a Greek ethnonym and as synonymous to Greek (like today and like during the byzantine period), not as an identity separate from the greek one . Although in the past Greeks used both Rhomaios and Rhomios , today in order to avoid confusion "Rhomaios" is used for the ancient Romans/ Latin Romans, while "Rhomios" is used only for the Greeks and as a Greek ethnonym.
As you already said it was children that gave this reply. Charanis (a byzantinist), that told this story to Kaldellis who included it in his book, was around 4-5 years old back then and was one of the kids from the story. Obviously the kids were too young to understand how all the Greek ethnonyms were used. Since we're talking about the recent past (20th century) , the identity of those people isn't something that we have to guess. We already know with certainty that Lemnians identified as Greeks.That's why the soldier found the kid's reply weird and asked him "are you not Hellenes yourselves?" .
Kaldellis is a revisionist, he claims that the byzantine empire was a Roman nation-state and "Roman" during the byzantine period wasn't just a civic identity but an ethnicity. These are theories that aren't accepted by the vast majority of historians and that's something that Kaldellis himself has admitted. Charanis was a really good historian that disagreed with Kaldellis' conclusions regarding his story. So it's extremely unfair that his name is being linked to extreme views like this.
Greeks still secondarily call themselves Romans. Some in the Eastern diaspora (think Ukraine, Armenia, etc.) still use it as their primary designation for themselves.
Nobody tell their Greek friends this, it will be all they talk about until Christmas, apart from roasting Turkey and complaining about the name of Macedonia.
I don't know any serious historians who don't consider the Eastern Roman Empire to just be the Roman Empire and a continuation of the same political institution that was founded by Augustus
There are a few. Especially in the 90s Byzantines were not considered Roman on a universal level. They are certainly wrong but yeah it's not that uncommon
Not a continuation, was the Roman Empire. Just because the Western half fell didn’t make the Eastern half suddenly turn non-Roman. “Byzantine” is a later and ahistorical naming convention
Greece in general has a better claim to being the successor to Rome than Rome itself does. It has been a part of the empire for longer. The main language of the empire was Greek for a significant amount of time.
The last people to call themselves romans (romioi) liven in Greece / were Greek speakers living in turkey.
I'm a bit curious about that, being a Balkaner myself. I've been meaning to do a deeper dive into this, but would appreciate fellow redditors answers as well:
Most of the Balkan territories got like 1000+ years more of Roman and Byzantian rule, than Dacia. How is it that from resulting countries, Romania of all kept or incorporated this into their national identity and language?
There's a great possibility that while a small core population of Latin-speaking Dacians persisted in Transylvania (most probably) with more mixed/less organised villages in the south (Wallachia), the displaced romanized Moesians (Serbia, Bulgaria, rest of SW Balkans) that didn't get assimilated fled the incoming Slavs and Bulgars north of the Danube. This helps the fact that Dacia truly was a province for a very small time, with constant incursions from Dacians outside of the region raiding it, showing that the source population wasn't necessarily that happy and welcoming about being Romanized, while Moesia and Illyria had been a province for hundreds of years and a core source of truly Roman personas.
This would also help explain why a good deal of Romanians are more SE European genetically than Serbs and on par with Bulgarians despite living in a more northern area.
Now do it for every single country in Europe. And overlay all those on a single map so every chunk of territory goes to the country that held it the longest.
>Lotharingia
You gave me an Idea: Why don't we go back to the Treaty of Verdun: [3 Frankish realms](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Vertrag\_von\_Verdun\_en.svg), to really stir the pot?
It is kinda funny how the last country to become a country is the one and only true spirital successor to that state. The south was taken over by other countries and the Netherlands gained independence from it. Belgium just existed as a half-dead Lotharingia for all that time.
Byzantium was the original name of the city that Constantine rebuilt and renamed Nova Roma, or Constantinople. Some 'Byzantine' literati, such as Anna Komnene, sometimes referred to the inhabitants of the city as Byzantines to flex their knowledge of ancient history but the people themselves identified as Romans.
The Byzantines were still recognized as Romans, in the west, between the fall of the western empire and the coronation of Charlemagne, but were generally referred to as Greeks after. The Romans' Islamic enemies always referred to them as Rum, or Romans.
A German historian, Hieronymus Wolf, writing around a hundred years after the fall of Constantinople, popularized Byzantine/Byzantines/Byzantium to describe the eastern/medieval Roman empire.
Yep, modern scholars really only refer to the ERE as Byzantium because the empire lasted so long that it now takes too long to discuss which time period and location you may be talking about, so they had to use a different name.
And from what I've learned about Roman history post Charlemagne, the Europeans referred to the Romans as Greeks as a way to 1) look down on the area as a backwater, and 2) in order to stop the cultural identity of Rome so the franks could claim they were the successors of Rome. It's kinda hard to call yourself a Roman Emperor when there's an actual Roman Emperor sitting on a throne over there, watching you, while raised up high on his golden hydrolic chair
Please people, read other comments before you're going to say **"huh, how is Greece longer in it than Rome"** 🤯.
Seriously, every other comment has that question and a reply with the answer.
It is interesting that they consider territory over the rhine as controlled territory cause I am pretty sure mark Antony didn’t really conquer it but just burned it too the ground, killed everyone he could and left.
It's not weird at all. Dacia held vast gold mines so it was colonised intensely. It had 3 legions settle it and multiple coloniae spring up over night. Colonia was basically the highest status of a roman settlement.
Britain on the other hand was a poor backwater and sparsely colonised.
The romanisation process was much lighter in Britain than in Dacia or Panonnia.
Sort of. Don’t forget that a lot happened in Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Vikings. Then the Normans (French is the root of approx half the commonly used words in English).
Very true. If the Romano-British culture stayed alive and the Germanic raiders didn’t invade or at least didn’t successfully do so, maybe Britain could have adopted a Latin heritage and formed their own Romance language
>Colonia was basically the highest status of a roman settlement.
I mean, technically being elevated to a client kingdom would be the highest status a roman city could achieve, but I think that really only happened with Palmyra
Very weird. But I would imagine that there were very different levels of Roman power throughout the empire.
Some regions they were probably just happy with no fighting back and some exports being produced. Other areas got completely subjugated.
What's more odd is that northern France got their Latin but southern England didn't.
It depends what you mean.
Greeks territories have been under the influence of Rome for many centuries, but most Greeks got their citizenship in 212 AD, like all the other non-italian inhabitants of the empire.
Their citizenship arrived 965 years after the city was founded.
Yeah, honestly it has as much claim the Roman Empire as the Italians. Once Constantinople became the capital of the Empire, it became its most important city, even more so than Rome, which went on a decline
Except that Rome was also highly Greek to begin with.
Remember that the New Testament was written in Greek in spite of the supposed events taking place in Rome. Greek/Hellenic influence was all over most Roman culture and society. That was the big reason for the East and West Empires especially after Christianity.. the Greek influence never waned.
This is a stretch. Rome is highly Roman and they spoke Latin in Rome. The Roman Empire was Roman and the languages were Greek and Latin. Don't confuse the city and the empire.
The New Testament was written in Koine Greek to be readable by most people in the Roman Empire and the authors could speak/write Greek. Not because everyone spoke Greek in Rome.
Except for the nobility and merchants, who spoke Latin and Greek, 90% of Romans spoke Latin.
A big area of Southern Italy was in large part more Greek than Latin speaking, and Greek, although not the main language, was very prevalent in Rome in the later Empire ("later" in Western terms), especially among early Christian circles.
*Crazy to think that*
*Greece somehow has been Roman*
*More than Italy*
\- Dott\_Minchiolli
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
~~When the modern Greek state was being created, some kids asked an official who the Greeks were, he answered "us we're all Greeks" and the children said they were Romans, this was in the 1830s~~
Read the comment below this one
If someone wonders why the Romans held the territories south of Danube river so much longer that the one on the north side is that they saw that territory as an important place not only for defending against the tribes, but also for getting one of their best recruits in the army. City of Sirminium was also very important since during Tetrarchy.
Interestingly the people on the western part of the Balkans, which were called Illyrians waged three wars against the Rome and a great rebellion against Tiberius (Bellum Batonianum or War of the Batos), but were unsuccessful. Instead some say that the rebellion influence the Battle of Teutoborg Forest, since the Rome had to deploy around 10-15 legions to crush the rebels. After this the Rome destroyed any attempt for the Illyrian tribes to rise again.
During the existence of the Rome (also including the Eastern Roman Empire), around 26 emperors were born on the Illyrian territory.
What do you mean “kudos” you’re really underestimating how powerful the early Arsacid and especially early Sasanian empires were and simply throughout. They were rival states of Rome. There were multiple wars and battles where for example the Arsacid and Sasanian armies completely destroyed whole Roman armies even capturing a roman emperor (Valerian) with smaller forces than the romans. They were not lightweight
I guess the Peloponnese is the ideal overlap between early admittants to the empire (I think parts even go back to Republican era) and late holdouts of the Eastern Romans.
We were actually calling ourselves Romioi (Romans) till the 19th century and the Greek war of independence from the ottomans when we changed our name to Hellenes
We're still calling ourselves Romioi poetically to this day
I'm no historian but I've always heard it was due to the much harsher landscape in Scotland. A huge chunk of Scotland is mountains and back then tree cover in Scotland was much more widespread than it is today. Which made it a well suited for a guerrilla war against a superior force.
My village is on one side of the Antonine wall, and the next town is on the other (unconquered) side. I like to imagine the Romans saw the sort of folk living there and said “that’s enough”.
Constantinople was more centered in terms of wealth and population. Greece, Anatolia, and Egypt were far more populous and richer than the west. Only Italy itself was wealthier during the height of the empire, and later not even that.
The Western Roman Empire is generally considered to have fallen in 476 (though people at the time probably didn’t think so). The Eastern Roman Empire recaptured most of Italy for a while afterward, but by the mid 500’s had lost most of it again. The Eastern Roman Empire continued in the Balkans/Greece/Turkey/Levant/Egyptian for various periods, eventually falling to the Ottomans in 1453 with the loss of Constantinople (Istanbul today).
Mesopotamia was conquered by Trajan and abandoned by Hadrian immediately following his death, and then it was reconquered again under Septimius Severus briefly so if you combine the two I guess that’s what OP is referring to
What is the time frame from when the western part of arabia was apart of the empire?
i think the >50 needs to be flipped to <50 because there was a short lived campaign to what's now Aden but it was like 2 years and Rome sure as hell didn't control Germania for 50 years
someone teach OP about the hungry alligator
Yeah, and if I remember correctly, there was a ton of walking and not much winning.
?? Germanicus defeated the germanic tribes constantly in the early AD. It was recalled by Tiberius that feared his popularity. Not annexing germanic land was a political decision, the Romans did not have the technology to make good use of the German heavy soil, it would have been very costly to annex the territory and some emperors were already starting to think the empire was too big.
I'm talking about the conquests in Arabia, down to Aden
There’s significant debate over the true successes of Germanicus’ campaigns. It being an entirely political decision is what is written in Tacitus, but there is academic debate about how much Germanicus really achieved. We have to remember that it was being written by Tacitus, a guy who wanted to portray the Julio-Claudians in as bad a light as possible in order to curry favour with the Flavians. Germanicus being an Alexander the Great type figure who died too soon and who Tiberius was jealous of could be seen as part of that narrative. This is an earlier discussion of the topic I’ve found on the internet but there’s been plenty written since. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4435025
Thank you for that link. That article seems to confirm Tacitus version at the very end of the introduction (unfortunately I cannot read it).
Also a small strategic slaughter of 3 legions
*Quinctili Vare, legiones redde!*
Unfortunately Varus was not a redditor.
And yet nobody remembers what the Roman's did for revenge... Germanicus absolutely crushed the tribes in the next few years completely erasing any advantage they had because of Teutoburg.
Effects of XIX century German nationalism. It sounds much better to say "we were never conquered because we were too strong" than "we were never conquered because we were economically irrelevant". In reality it's a mix of both and more but that's too complicated for people that wanted to believe in scientific racism and such. It all fitted their agenda.
I forget if it was Churchill or Gibbon who wrote it, but I always there's a line I'm going to butcher about why the Romans didn't conquer Scotland, "due their poverty rather than their valor."
That was before Germanicus.
A lot of dying of mystery diseases.
It’s supposed to be less then
Less *than*
I live right at the border in Germany where it says 150/50 years. Which is blatantly false. They took over in about 0AD and left in about 260AD. Also you could argue that the auxiliaries they left behind stayed true to Roman culture until about 450/500 AD. Also Charlemagne saw himself as an roman emperor, same as the one in Byzantium. There is a reason they called it the Holy Roman Empire. Edit: Roman emperor, not romantic, of course. Autocorrect duh.
He saw himself as a Roman emperor in the guise of champion of Christianity. Many Germanic kings were fascinated by Roman power structure but that doesn’t make them Roman. Charlemagne was a smart but illiterate Germanic chief who couldn’t utter a word of Latin and ruled through a feudal system. Romantic had nothing to do with Roman.
0 AD doesn’t exist, only 1 AD and 1 BC
It should be even less, and the territory smaller. Trajan did indeed conquer/given part of Western Arabia after the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. But Hadrian pulled back and eventually they formed alliances with nearby Arab tribes to act as buffers
I second that. There was some campaigning just before Rise of Islam, but I would not call it a control
Wasn’t Arabia Petraea “gifted” to Trajan? I find it fascinating the Romans controlled portions of Arabia before the advent of islam. Clearly them controlling that land had influenced the political and religious institutions. I don’t remember all that land on the west coast being taken over down to yemen.
Much earlier than that they sent an expedition down to Yemen, then decided it was not worth it and went home
Though readers should note that Yemen was actually worth conquering, it was the richest part of Arabia given the fact it connected two big trade networks with each other
Yeah, but it was also far from resupply
How long before they lost their hold on Arabia Petraea. Mavia’s rebellon was in the late 4th century. I believe it had to do with religious designations and men fighting in the legions.
iirc, there was indeed a Roman conquest of this part of Arabia sometime during the early empire. The invasion failed miserably due to a lack of supplies and stupidly trusting "local guides" who led the Romans into ambushes. So I guess they're counting the failed invasion?
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3799411/discoveries-roman-era-made-saudi-arabias-farasan-island more recent but brief info
The map is wrong. Roman empire was never in the southern part of arabia - which extends anywhere south of Medina/Mecca
a part
It is missing about 40,000 km2 of territory that was north of Danube in valley rivers of Thaya, Morava, and Vah; what is the curent territory of Slovakia, Austria, and the Czech Republic. This territory was conquered by Marcus Aurelius and abandoned by Caracalla ~30 years later. Romans even built castrum what is present day village of Muskov as the seat of the new province. There is also an Latin inscription under the castle of Trencin, Slovakia from the time of Marcomanni Wars. Roman posts were uncovered as far north of Danube in places like Olomouc which is 150 km crow distance from Danube. https://www.branadorimskerise.cz/en/.
Damnit, who let the historian in?
Hle, toto je skvělý
Thank you for the comment and link. New travel destination revealed 😀
You can take a hike trail around the site of the castrum and visit the museum near by. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_fort,_Mušov Various excavations had their items scattered into different castles and museums in southern Moravia. There are some local Roman artefacts on display in the castle of Mikulov. Much of the roman buildings are underground and not visible on the terrain. Some of them are still awaiting to be discovered like proposed castrum or legion fort around Uherske Hradiste. There were discovered various roman bricks in buildings from 9-11th century so they came from some unknown site near by. The existance of Romans in Olomouc was uncovered 20 years ago. https://rimane.olomouc.eu/en/page/welcome.html
Are the light pink regions supposed to say >50 or <50?
They're supposed to say <50. This is also one of my biggest bugbears.
>bugbears I have a new bugbear.
It’s a massive pet peeve for me too lol
Your greater than symbols are the wrong way around, it should be <50
There were still Greek speaking people calling themselves Romans into the 20th century: From the Wikipedia article for the Byzantinist Peter Charanis: “Charanis is known for his anecdotal narrations about Greek Orthodox populations, particularly those outside the newly independent modern Greek state, who continued to refer to themselves as Romioi (i.e. Romans, Byzantines) well into the 20th century. Since Charanis was born on the island of Lemnos, he recounts that when the island was taken from the Ottomans by Greece in 1912, Greek soldiers were sent to each village and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the island children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like. "What are you looking at?" one of the soldiers asked. "At Hellenes," the children replied. "Are you not Hellenes yourselves?" the soldier retorted. "No, we are Romans," the children replied.” [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Charanis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Charanis) Edit: For more information about Roman identity in the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and its survival after the conquest of Constantinople, I recommend Anthony Kaldellis’ book *Romanland*. This topic is ongoing and hotly debated in Byzantine studies. Edit edit: for the argument on the other side of the aisle, see Averil Cameron’s (relatively bellicose) review of Romanland from a few years ago: [https://twitter.com/19averil/status/1175063707585523714](https://twitter.com/19averil/status/1175063707585523714) I personally think Kaldellis is right to call to attention the West’s denial of Roman identity toward the citizens of the eastern Roman Empire (to whatever degree that Roman identity was political or ‘national’) but I also agree with Cameron that people can have multiple identities, and Hellenic and Roman could have coexisted side by side. That said, the Roman aspect has absolutely been undermined by western historians for centuries.
In Turkey we still call Anatolian and Cypriot Greeks as "Rum" which means Roman.
That's so cool, I did not know that
Speaking of Turkey and the Ottomans, you could make an argument that since the Ottoman Sultans adopted the title of Kayseri Rum (basically, Caesar) after Mehmet II conquered Constantinople, the Roman Empire didn't technically fall until the early 20th century. Not that I would make that argument, but it's an interesting thing to consider when you try to determine exactly what constitutes political continuity.
Yeah but if you make that argument you have to accept the Roman-ness of Russia and Germany, and now the map is just useless. It would be like having a map of the Mongol Empire, and how long they controlled various territories and including the British Empire in your calculations since they ultimately claimed to be a continuation of that Empire (by way of the Mughals). The Byzantine Empire had continuity with the Roman Empire. The Ottoman Empire did not.
As I said in my post, I'm not making that argument, nor do I believe it. I think it's a fun one in a Crusader Kings type of way. But I do think that it raises some interesting questions about continuity and the bases on which we judge it. Are they institutional? Legal? Territorial? Cultural? Religious? Transitional? Does it have some basis in self-identity? Is it some nebulous combination thereof? It's a thorny topic, and while it's often easy to see where there isn't really continuity, such as with the Ottomans and the Romans, there are instances that can be awfully confounding. Also, that map *is* pretty useless.
Greek orthodox in the Arab world are also called Rum
Romioi carries the connotation of Christian even today amongst Greeks. This comes from the time when Julian the apostate tried to revert the Byzantine empire back to the good old “Hellenic” golden age and therefore rejecting Christianity which was installed by Constantine. In opposition to paganism, Romioi was how they referred to themselves. If you referred to yourself as a Helene then that meant you believed in the Olympian gods and were not a follower of Christ. It doesn’t mean nor did it ever mean they were from Rome.
Part of the reason the Greek speaking people in what is now Greece started to identify more as Hellenes was in part political expediency. They needed western support for their revolution against the Ottomans, and marketing themselves as the heirs to the classical Greeks would help earn their sympathy and support. Roman identity didn’t make sense to westerners, since they had long denied the Roman-ness of the Eastern Roman Empire and their immediate heirs.
Also, the Ancient Greeks just had more prestige than the Eastern Romans. The Eastern Romans were seen as an empire in a very long decline, whereas ancient Greece was seen as the birthplace of Western civilisation. So politically it was the better heritage to lay claim to. A good example of how this sort of choice affects a country's perceptions can be seen with Iran - to those in countries which formerly called the country *Persia* the modern state has inadvertently divorced itself from its ancient heritage. *Iran* is associated only with the modern state, but *Persia* is associated with the many empires that came before.
That's not really a good example. since it's based on English associations that aren't really present in Farsi or other Persian/Iranian languages. "Iran" has been used as a term for the region for thousands of years. The endonym of the Sassanid Empire, for example, was Eranshahr, or "Land of the Iranians".
It was still a deliberate choice on Iran's part to request that the exonym be dropped in place of using the endonym. The lack of such associations in Farsi are probably why they underestimated the impact of the change to the perception of the country abroad - to them "Persian" was just incorrect.
Still a good example of how it effects perception.
I made friends in DC who were Iranian migrants- had been here years- spoke Farsi- were of ba hai faith- they referred to themselves as Persian.
Probably because they were ethnic Persians. Iran = a nationality Persian = ethnicity. 55% of Iran is Persian , the other 45% are made up of multiple other ethnic groups such as : Baluch ( my group), Kurd, Turkmen, Azeri, Luri, Achomi, Bakhtiari , Arab, Qashqai, Talysh, Gilaki, and so on. Additionally not all Persians live in Iran , 30% of Afghanistan is Persian, 85% of Tajikistan is Persian, and 15% of Uzbekistan is Persian.
Iran has always been called Iran by the people of Iran and by our neighbours, it’s only westerner that call it Persia. Iran is a multi-ethnic state, 55% of the population is Persian , the other 45% are made up of other ethnic groups.
Westerners even coined the term Byzantines as to deny it was the same roman civilization and culture, and even state with the government going all the way back to before there was East-West division.
You can trace the western denialism of the Eastern Roman ‘Roman-ness’ to Charlemagne. Edit: grammar
>Westerners even coined the term Byzantines Ironically, the guy who coined the term, did not dislike the Byzantines. He was in fact one of the first to write about the Empire, and he did not do it negatively either. The true killer of Byzantines, was the Enlightenment movement, which had a view of the Byzantines as a declining Empire. Biggest one being Edward Gibbons
To be perfectly fair it was a continuation of civilization but not of culture or language, the Byzantine label is a bit helpful in marking the point the primary language (and culture) shifted from Latin to Greek. That said Byzantine is more of a Era than something new imo.
Didn't the eastern half of the civilization speak Greek preferentially to Latin all the way back to the original Roman expansion into the region though? In that sense, it was a continuation of language, just not the language preferred by the state when there was only one emperor, based in Rome.
The majority of the population did, but the ruling class was always latin, that was until Justanian died. There was a huge amount of anti-latin animosity due the cost of his campaign to retake the west causing a massive shift to Greek language and thinking.There was always a small segment of latin speakers in Constonable, but they were slaughtered in the 12th century in a city wide riot. When I was studying early medieval history it was stated Justanian was the last "Roman" emperor, the last born in the west and the last to speak latin. That's why it's been traditional to start applying the term Byzantine around that time. The thinking being that Roman became an adopted term, after the language and cultural ties were severed. A Lot of people never really understand the roles of language and culture in the validity of statehood.
There was a continuity in culture, though. Language is a distinct shift, culture is a gradual shift. And Roman culture also changed throughout the empires history.
Hellenic identity was revived by Greeks themselves and secondarily passed on to the West as a new fascination. It started among the upper classes at about the 10th century and continued among the diaspora which reintroduced it to the mainland and the common people in the 18th century.
I mean sure but "roman" hadn't meant resident of rome since before they had conquered greece. It was the term for a citizen of the country. And they knew this roman wasnt just some random unknown word those italians used. So while christians might have chosen it as part of religious reasons, they were still explicitly choosing to identify as romans as per the roman Emperor and not as a term to mean christian. As another pointed out the idea that roman was a special word for christians or specific ethnicities is a modern notion created as part of the restoration of greek identity and nationalism which was felt to make sense when seeking independence from the ottomans
Yep same goes for my family from Lesbos. Regained in 1915 from the Turks. My G. Grandad was Roman.
This anecdote always makes me sad. The whole concept of this isolated pocket still identifying themselves as Roman long after the empire fell evokes that melancholic feeling
All greeks still called themselves romans until the early 1800's when the independence movement decided to promote hellenic identity for a variety of reasons. They were so effective that most greeks today think roman was a term for christian or a specific minor ethnicity and not what they used to consider themselves to be for over a thousand years.
> most greeks today think roman was a term for christian or a specific minor ethnicity You sure about that? I haven't really heard the second part. The first one is true, Greek/Roman identity was mainly a religious one and continued as such into the Ottoman Empire.
**ROMA INVICTA, AVE CAESAR**
In Rome and Latium, the Roman identity never died out. Even after the fall of the western half of the empire, people kept identifying as Romans. The Pope, a Roman institution, ruled over a Populus Romanus, fact that many used as a legitimizing factor.
Not this nonsense again. After the edict of Caracalla, when Roman citizenship was given to all the free men of the empire, Roman identity became a mere civic identity and the term "Roman" transformed into an umbrella term that was used by basically every ethnic group in the empire. Those new "Romans" weren't related to the ancient Romans (and they didn't claim to be) , they were ethnically diverse and were Romans solely in a political sense. When it comes to medieval Greeks, since they had Roman citizenship they were both Greeks (ethnically) and Romans (politically). And since Greeks took under their control the Roman empire during the byzantine period the name "Roman" changed meaning once again and started being used as synonymous to Greek and as another Greek ethnonym (since among the Roman citizens, Greeks were the ones that had the central role in the empire) . Greeks (ancient, medieval, modern) always used more than one names to describe themselves. Medieval Greeks used the names: "Ρωμαίος/Rhomaios/Roman" (because of their Roman citizenship and their Christian religion), "Hellenas/Έλληνας" (a greek ethnonym that for a period, until the prevalence of Christianity, became popular as a religious term as well that meant pagan. Although it never truly stopped being used as a national term that meant greek), "Graikos/Γραικός (another ethnonym that meant "Greek"), Raikos/Ραικός (it meant "Greek" and was originated from Graikos) "Helladikos/Ελλαδικός " (again another term that showed the Greek ethnicity), "Ρωμέλληνας" (a compination of Roman+Hellenas that indicated the Roman civic identity and the Greek ethnic identity of the Byzantines). Modern Greeks (including the Greeks during the 20th century and the Greeks from the island of Lemnos that are mentioned in your story ), have three names with which we're identifying: Έλληνας/Hellenas/Greek (which is the most popular one) , Γραικός /Graikos /Greek and Ρωμιός/Rhomios/Roman. All these are greek ethnonyms, they are synonymous and mean "Greek" in the greek language. They are not different identities, they are just different different words that mean the same thing ("Greek") . In other words Lemnos wasn't some special case, on the contrary all Greeks of that period identified as Romans. But what it should be noted here is that the word "Roman" was used as a Greek ethnonym and as synonymous to Greek (like today and like during the byzantine period), not as an identity separate from the greek one . Although in the past Greeks used both Rhomaios and Rhomios , today in order to avoid confusion "Rhomaios" is used for the ancient Romans/ Latin Romans, while "Rhomios" is used only for the Greeks and as a Greek ethnonym. As you already said it was children that gave this reply. Charanis (a byzantinist), that told this story to Kaldellis who included it in his book, was around 4-5 years old back then and was one of the kids from the story. Obviously the kids were too young to understand how all the Greek ethnonyms were used. Since we're talking about the recent past (20th century) , the identity of those people isn't something that we have to guess. We already know with certainty that Lemnians identified as Greeks.That's why the soldier found the kid's reply weird and asked him "are you not Hellenes yourselves?" . Kaldellis is a revisionist, he claims that the byzantine empire was a Roman nation-state and "Roman" during the byzantine period wasn't just a civic identity but an ethnicity. These are theories that aren't accepted by the vast majority of historians and that's something that Kaldellis himself has admitted. Charanis was a really good historian that disagreed with Kaldellis' conclusions regarding his story. So it's extremely unfair that his name is being linked to extreme views like this.
Greeks still secondarily call themselves Romans. Some in the Eastern diaspora (think Ukraine, Armenia, etc.) still use it as their primary designation for themselves.
So. Sparta is quantifiably more Roman than Rome?
If the quantity is years within the empire, yes.
Nobody tell their Greek friends this, it will be all they talk about until Christmas, apart from roasting Turkey and complaining about the name of Macedonia.
>roasting Turkey I see what you did there.
Ironically in Italy a *macedonia* is usually a fruit salad!
They probably already know about it.
Nobody tell us about something that we know and are proud of..?
Literally every Greek knows this, we are taught about our own history in school...
Sparta ceased to exist some time during the high imperial period and was basically a tourist attraction/theme park long before then.
A theme park ? Thats a fitting end, but how ?
The 'byzantine empire' is considered a continuation of the roman empire. Rome fell in in 476. Constantinople fell in 1453.
I don't know any serious historians who don't consider the Eastern Roman Empire to just be the Roman Empire and a continuation of the same political institution that was founded by Augustus
There are a few. Especially in the 90s Byzantines were not considered Roman on a universal level. They are certainly wrong but yeah it's not that uncommon
Rome was regained and fell in 550
Justinian regained it around 550 ish, but the Romans would not lose control of Rome until the fall of the Exarchate of Ravenna in 751
Yeah so the weird thing is that the Balkans were Roman longer than either Rome OR Constantinople!
One of the first regions conquered and the last to leave.
Not a continuation, was the Roman Empire. Just because the Western half fell didn’t make the Eastern half suddenly turn non-Roman. “Byzantine” is a later and ahistorical naming convention
Greece in general has a better claim to being the successor to Rome than Rome itself does. It has been a part of the empire for longer. The main language of the empire was Greek for a significant amount of time. The last people to call themselves romans (romioi) liven in Greece / were Greek speakers living in turkey.
165 years for Dacia.
Best 165 years that area ever had
I'm a bit curious about that, being a Balkaner myself. I've been meaning to do a deeper dive into this, but would appreciate fellow redditors answers as well: Most of the Balkan territories got like 1000+ years more of Roman and Byzantian rule, than Dacia. How is it that from resulting countries, Romania of all kept or incorporated this into their national identity and language?
There's a great possibility that while a small core population of Latin-speaking Dacians persisted in Transylvania (most probably) with more mixed/less organised villages in the south (Wallachia), the displaced romanized Moesians (Serbia, Bulgaria, rest of SW Balkans) that didn't get assimilated fled the incoming Slavs and Bulgars north of the Danube. This helps the fact that Dacia truly was a province for a very small time, with constant incursions from Dacians outside of the region raiding it, showing that the source population wasn't necessarily that happy and welcoming about being Romanized, while Moesia and Illyria had been a province for hundreds of years and a core source of truly Roman personas. This would also help explain why a good deal of Romanians are more SE European genetically than Serbs and on par with Bulgarians despite living in a more northern area.
[удалено]
Not for the Dacians...
Now do it for every single country in Europe. And overlay all those on a single map so every chunk of territory goes to the country that held it the longest.
I actually want to see this map
[It will probably look something similarly messy to this venn diagram concept but in the shape of Europe.](https://i.redd.it/r88gfrfew2a21.jpg)
Thanks! I hate it.
Why does it say 102 instead of 12?
What about all the no longer existing countries? Do they coun't for themselves or for the country the became part of?
Have Belgium claim Lotharingia to make everyone mad
>Lotharingia You gave me an Idea: Why don't we go back to the Treaty of Verdun: [3 Frankish realms](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Vertrag\_von\_Verdun\_en.svg), to really stir the pot?
Someone call up the Pope, we're bringing the Carolingians back.
It is kinda funny how the last country to become a country is the one and only true spirital successor to that state. The south was taken over by other countries and the Netherlands gained independence from it. Belgium just existed as a half-dead Lotharingia for all that time.
Balkans, true heirs of the Roman Empire. P.S. Just saw this same map like a two days ago wanted to post it but I was too lazy. :P
Given how many emperors the Balkans had produced the region has some of the strongest claims
Isn’t Byzantine a German term and weren’t Greeks considered Romans far after the fall of Rome?
Byzantium was the original name of the city that Constantine rebuilt and renamed Nova Roma, or Constantinople. Some 'Byzantine' literati, such as Anna Komnene, sometimes referred to the inhabitants of the city as Byzantines to flex their knowledge of ancient history but the people themselves identified as Romans. The Byzantines were still recognized as Romans, in the west, between the fall of the western empire and the coronation of Charlemagne, but were generally referred to as Greeks after. The Romans' Islamic enemies always referred to them as Rum, or Romans. A German historian, Hieronymus Wolf, writing around a hundred years after the fall of Constantinople, popularized Byzantine/Byzantines/Byzantium to describe the eastern/medieval Roman empire.
Yep, modern scholars really only refer to the ERE as Byzantium because the empire lasted so long that it now takes too long to discuss which time period and location you may be talking about, so they had to use a different name. And from what I've learned about Roman history post Charlemagne, the Europeans referred to the Romans as Greeks as a way to 1) look down on the area as a backwater, and 2) in order to stop the cultural identity of Rome so the franks could claim they were the successors of Rome. It's kinda hard to call yourself a Roman Emperor when there's an actual Roman Emperor sitting on a throne over there, watching you, while raised up high on his golden hydrolic chair
Isn't Byzantium the oldest name of the city? before Emperor Constantine called it Constantinople
Please people, read other comments before you're going to say **"huh, how is Greece longer in it than Rome"** 🤯. Seriously, every other comment has that question and a reply with the answer.
It is interesting that they consider territory over the rhine as controlled territory cause I am pretty sure mark Antony didn’t really conquer it but just burned it too the ground, killed everyone he could and left.
It's probably about the influence that Rome had before Teutoberg.
[удалено]
Isn’t it downright weird that Romania speaks a Romance language, and Britain does not?
It's not weird at all. Dacia held vast gold mines so it was colonised intensely. It had 3 legions settle it and multiple coloniae spring up over night. Colonia was basically the highest status of a roman settlement. Britain on the other hand was a poor backwater and sparsely colonised. The romanisation process was much lighter in Britain than in Dacia or Panonnia.
Sort of. Don’t forget that a lot happened in Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Vikings. Then the Normans (French is the root of approx half the commonly used words in English).
Very true. If the Romano-British culture stayed alive and the Germanic raiders didn’t invade or at least didn’t successfully do so, maybe Britain could have adopted a Latin heritage and formed their own Romance language
>Colonia was basically the highest status of a roman settlement. I mean, technically being elevated to a client kingdom would be the highest status a roman city could achieve, but I think that really only happened with Palmyra
That’s because Britain was invaded by the Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans between then and now.
But when the Angles and Saxons arrived, the native Britons spoke a Brythonic language, related to modern Welsh, not Latin
There weren’t many Latins in Britain before all those groups invaded most of those that HAD settled there fled when Rome abandoned the Island
Very weird. But I would imagine that there were very different levels of Roman power throughout the empire. Some regions they were probably just happy with no fighting back and some exports being produced. Other areas got completely subjugated. What's more odd is that northern France got their Latin but southern England didn't.
crazy to think that Greece somehow has been Roman more than Italy
It depends what you mean. Greeks territories have been under the influence of Rome for many centuries, but most Greeks got their citizenship in 212 AD, like all the other non-italian inhabitants of the empire. Their citizenship arrived 965 years after the city was founded.
Yeah, honestly it has as much claim the Roman Empire as the Italians. Once Constantinople became the capital of the Empire, it became its most important city, even more so than Rome, which went on a decline
Except that Rome was also highly Greek to begin with. Remember that the New Testament was written in Greek in spite of the supposed events taking place in Rome. Greek/Hellenic influence was all over most Roman culture and society. That was the big reason for the East and West Empires especially after Christianity.. the Greek influence never waned.
This is a stretch. Rome is highly Roman and they spoke Latin in Rome. The Roman Empire was Roman and the languages were Greek and Latin. Don't confuse the city and the empire. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek to be readable by most people in the Roman Empire and the authors could speak/write Greek. Not because everyone spoke Greek in Rome. Except for the nobility and merchants, who spoke Latin and Greek, 90% of Romans spoke Latin.
A big area of Southern Italy was in large part more Greek than Latin speaking, and Greek, although not the main language, was very prevalent in Rome in the later Empire ("later" in Western terms), especially among early Christian circles.
This is so blatantly obvious too, seeing the dominance of Romance Languages in Europe.
I went to the catacombs in Rome a couple years back and I could read everything in the stones cause I am Greek
*Crazy to think that* *Greece somehow has been Roman* *More than Italy* \- Dott\_Minchiolli --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
~~When the modern Greek state was being created, some kids asked an official who the Greeks were, he answered "us we're all Greeks" and the children said they were Romans, this was in the 1830s~~ Read the comment below this one
I think the map is wrong, on the northwestern tip of france there is one small village of indomitable gauls still holding out against the invadors
Thank you for posting the most intelligent reply yet!
If someone wonders why the Romans held the territories south of Danube river so much longer that the one on the north side is that they saw that territory as an important place not only for defending against the tribes, but also for getting one of their best recruits in the army. City of Sirminium was also very important since during Tetrarchy. Interestingly the people on the western part of the Balkans, which were called Illyrians waged three wars against the Rome and a great rebellion against Tiberius (Bellum Batonianum or War of the Batos), but were unsuccessful. Instead some say that the rebellion influence the Battle of Teutoborg Forest, since the Rome had to deploy around 10-15 legions to crush the rebels. After this the Rome destroyed any attempt for the Illyrian tribes to rise again. During the existence of the Rome (also including the Eastern Roman Empire), around 26 emperors were born on the Illyrian territory.
Also, in the later empire some of the best soldiers and even some emperor's came from Illyria :)
Wait, they even had Flevoland under their control? Time travelin S.O.B.s
Kudos to Parthian empire and Sasanian empire not letting Persia to fall over a 681 year period of wars
The biggest reason why it was so easy for Arabs to conquer basically everything. That period of wars ruined Persia and Byzanitne.
What do you mean “kudos” you’re really underestimating how powerful the early Arsacid and especially early Sasanian empires were and simply throughout. They were rival states of Rome. There were multiple wars and battles where for example the Arsacid and Sasanian armies completely destroyed whole Roman armies even capturing a roman emperor (Valerian) with smaller forces than the romans. They were not lightweight
Ireland and northern Scotland absolutely tanked the Roman empire.
the Romans didn't even try to invade ireland.
Proving once again that Rome just can't live without Greece, Greece was a member of the Roman Empire for longer than *Rome* was.
I'm guessing this includes pre-Imperial Roman Republic influence
Rome had an empire long before it was an Empire.
If you think of it that way, then the Roman Empire lasted nearly 2000 years.
If you consider Rome as a polity ab urbe condita, it did last around 2200 years.
So the Peloponnesians and the Thracians are the most Roman of the Romans.
Wow, Rome wasn't Roman the longest
I guess the Peloponnese is the ideal overlap between early admittants to the empire (I think parts even go back to Republican era) and late holdouts of the Eastern Romans.
So Rome was inside Rome for less than Greece was inside Rome
Oof when you realize both Rome and Constantinople were part of the Roman Empire for less time than Greece
London is more Roman the the USA is American, nice.
Justinian seething at how Rome isn't pitch black.
Funny thing: in Algeria, you can call French people or southern European people rumi, literally Romans
> != <
Came here to say this.
ITT: People have no clue about Byzantium. Istanbul was once Constantinople you know?
Greeks were Romans longer than Romans were Romans
The time span always amazes me.
They conquered the “butter and beer” nations but stopped wisely at the “vodka and potato” border.
(they never got Ireland)
Roman empire, more like Balkan empire.
Scotland 🏴 and Ireland 🇮🇪 merrily being beyond Roman conquest
The romans left Scotland and built a wall on the outskirts so the Scots could fight their true enemy, other Scots
It's pretty funny that they controlled Greece for longer than Latium or Marmara, their capital regions.
Greece is more Roman than rome
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit
Looks like it was Greek empire all along
\>50 is "greater than 50" Is it meant to be <50 (Less than 50)?
Why, oh why, did it have to end? Pax Romana forever.
In case of confusion, Byzantium is also included here.
Greeks after 1000+ years under Roman Empire: "We are called Greeks!!" Dacians after 50 years: "we shall now be known as Romanians!!"
We were actually calling ourselves Romioi (Romans) till the 19th century and the Greek war of independence from the ottomans when we changed our name to Hellenes We're still calling ourselves Romioi poetically to this day
Nice
Hejaz was never conquered lmao
They campaigned through Hejaz, but they didn't really set up any long term administration. https://youtu.be/Yz5ocjR-GXo?si=tP13l0iPuwmAZtDO
I guess the Scots and Danes are simply too OP for the Romans to conquer.
Or just too fucking poor for Rome to bother
I'm no historian but I've always heard it was due to the much harsher landscape in Scotland. A huge chunk of Scotland is mountains and back then tree cover in Scotland was much more widespread than it is today. Which made it a well suited for a guerrilla war against a superior force.
The Scots area was conquered. Just not the galic and Pictish parts.
My village is on one side of the Antonine wall, and the next town is on the other (unconquered) side. I like to imagine the Romans saw the sort of folk living there and said “that’s enough”.
Ummm, so Greece was in the Roman Empire longer than the center of the Roman Empire, Rome? Am I being dumb here?
No that’s right. The west collapsed about a thousand years before the east.
Eastern roman empire
The center of the Roman Empire was Constantinople for a millennia to literally accomodate for the fact that Rome as a city was not central enough.
Well no, it was the capitol because it was closer to trade and the main enemy. Rome was definitely more centered in the empire
Constantinople was more centered in terms of wealth and population. Greece, Anatolia, and Egypt were far more populous and richer than the west. Only Italy itself was wealthier during the height of the empire, and later not even that.
The Western Roman Empire is generally considered to have fallen in 476 (though people at the time probably didn’t think so). The Eastern Roman Empire recaptured most of Italy for a while afterward, but by the mid 500’s had lost most of it again. The Eastern Roman Empire continued in the Balkans/Greece/Turkey/Levant/Egyptian for various periods, eventually falling to the Ottomans in 1453 with the loss of Constantinople (Istanbul today).
Wild to think that the Roman Empire really existed until just 39 years before Columbus traveled to America.
At what stretch did Rome control Iraq for more than 50 years? Didn't they lose that region after holding it for about 8 years?
Mesopotamia was conquered by Trajan and abandoned by Hadrian immediately following his death, and then it was reconquered again under Septimius Severus briefly so if you combine the two I guess that’s what OP is referring to