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This is why Wikipedia is bad! (Destiny)

by Anna Komnene, Friday, September 16, 2022, 13:16 (788 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by Anna Komnene, Friday, September 16, 2022, 13:50

Because actual historians will tell you that the "Byzantine" empire never really existed. It was just the Roman Empire.

In her Alexiad, Anna made no distinction between the Roman Empire her father ruled and the one that circumscribed the entirety of the Mediterranean. She called it βασιλείᾳ Ῥωμαίων in the original Greek text, or Basileia Romaion, which translates to "Kingdom of the Romans," with 'kingdom' having the same connotations as 'empire.'

The first reference to a "Byzantine Empire" came about 100 years after the collapse of the Roman Empire in 1453. The term "Byzantine," outside its usefulness of referencing a certain era of the Roman state, is actually the result of what can probably be called historical colonialism, whereby Western Europe sought to deny the identity and heritage of a people (something they also did to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire after its western half collapsed).

Anna considered herself Roman. So did her father and the people who lived in the "Byzantine Empire." She was a Roman.

This has been your history lesson for the day.


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