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Comment by sspiff | Hacker News Reader

A great summary, but I find it annoying people always only mention the Eastern Roman Empire in passing or as a footnote. It was a continuation of the Roman Empire in every way.

They were called "the Roman empire" or "romans" by themselves and the rest of the world. And they lasted another 1000 years, many of those as the dominant regional power, bringing the total lifetime of the Roman state up to a staggering 2181 years.

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The Greek-speakers of the East kept on speaking Greek after they were folded into the Roman political model, and kept many of their other cultural and economic institutions, rather than being dragged off as slaves. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Greek civilization lasted from 776 BC to 1453 AD, under various political models. A co-operative system born from the hilly Greek peninsular and jagged Aegean coastlines meeting the hierarchical system of the Romans co-existing.

The Roman culture was - for a very significant part - a carbon copy of the Greek. So in a sense, the Romans continued the Greek culture as much as they succeeded it.

I realize that the there are significant differences in the ancient Greek political model, and the Greek and Roman culture, and that the Eastern Roman Empire was for most of its lifetime Greek speaking. But it was still a continuous evolution of the Roman Empire, even if it tilted more towards Greek influences most of the time.

In a sense, you could indeed say the Greeks persisted for the entire era, as they had some form of local self-governance etc during the Roman era, and they dominated Roman politics for the last half of their empire.

I agree with you in general, but I had to pick some limits to make the piece manageable. Perhaps I'll do 40 maps on the Byzantines at some point in the future.

I understand, and as I said earlier, it's a great summary, especially considering how much you managed to cram into it while keeping it easy to digest.

When we think of Kings and Queens today, certain images pop into our minds that would not exist without the Byzantine emperors. The Byzantine emperors, starting with Constantine, were emperors in the most absolute sense of the word. They utterly dominated their empire to an extent few emperors of Rome ever did. Their rule and the iconography that sprang up around it were copied wholesale by royalty throughout Europe, which is why Europe's kings are so often portrayed, in art, in ways that are so similar to the Byzantine emperors. Constantinople gave the world the mold that all absolute rulers ever since have been cast in.

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