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Explanation: After finishing off the Byzantine Empire, the successor state to the Roman Empire of old, the Ottoman Sultans adopted the title ‘Kayser-i-Rum’ - the Caesar of Rome, just like the Byzantines before them. The Ottoman claim was based on the fact that the imperial title had been transferred via military victory several times before in Byzantine/Roman history.
This is technically true, but if it rang a little hollow when the Christian Byzantines who spoke Greek and no longer owned any of Italy called themselves Romans, it really rang hollow when Turkish royalty who’d never owned a scrap of Italy or seen the Eternal City called themselves ‘of Rome’.
Thanks for all of the memes and interesting contexts.
I have a few disagreements here.
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Why do you consider the “Byzantine Empire” a successor state to the Roman Empire? My understanding is that what we nowadays call the “Byzantine Empire” was THE Roman Empire. We have just chosen to give the medieval Roman Empire a different name for convenience as it’s territory, ambitions, realities, and culture differed much from that of the ancient Roman Empire. So in my view, the Byzantine Empire isn’t a successor state to the Roman Empire, it’s THE Roman Empire.
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This is just subjective, but I don’t perceive this as hollow. I think it’s normal that terms and identities evolve with time, especially when speaking of centuries. People are not always thinking of the past, they didn’t have Internet and most weren’t spending time reading books about events that had happened centuries before. They were concerned, as of now, with the present, and Romans (of the Roman Empire, not inhabitants of the Roman city) in the Middle-Ages spoke Greek and were Christians. When the Turks conquered them, they effectively ruled the Romans, and as always, new rulers try to give themselves legitimacy (perhaps the only hollow part). And from the perspective of Turks, who as you say had never visited Rome and weren’t concerned with it, the territory of the Romans should naturally be called… Rum.
We have just chosen to give the medieval Roman Empire a different name for convenience as it’s territory, ambitions, realities, and culture differed much from that of the ancient Roman Empire.
So what remains of the Roman Empire, in that view?
People are not always thinking of the past, they didn’t have Internet and most weren’t spending time reading books about events that had happened centuries before.
The title was taken precisely because of its antiquity and prestige, though. It was very much rooted in an understanding of the past.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear on a crucial point. There was continuity. While the other states that we call “successor states” were founded by foreigners who conquered or were granted parts of the Roman Empire and who adopted some elements of Roman culture, the “Byzantine Empire” was just a division of the Roman Empire that lived on after the barbarian invasions. That part had been speaking Greek since the beginning, and was already Christan by then, just like the Western half.
For the Eastern Roman Empire, there was no title to take, because they already had the Roman title. For the Turks, maybe, I’d like to know why you think so. I don’t know enough. My initial assumption would be that they took it simply because they conquered the Romans, and their territory, and wanted to give their rule legitimacy before the Roman people.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear on a crucial point. There was continuity. While the other states that we call “successor states” were founded by foreigners who conquered or were granted parts of the Roman Empire and who adopted some elements of Roman culture, the “Byzantine Empire” was just a division of the Roman Empire that lived on after the barbarian invasions. That part had been speaking Greek since the beginning, and was already Christan by then, just like the Western half.
‘Continuity’ is a very vague and subjective concept. Just was we recognize a difference between the Franks and the French despite there being no clear break, and as we recognize the difference between the English monarchy and the British monarchy, despite significantly more continuity between them than between the Empire of Augustus and the Empire of Constantine XI, so too is there a difference between the Byzantines and the Roman Empire of old.
So what remains of the Roman Empire in the Byzantines of the 14th century? Not even unbroken imperial succession. Just a name, and a name unrecognized by much of the Empire’s former territories, including its heartland, and others which claim that same name.
For the Turks, maybe, I’d like to know why you think so. I don’t know enough. My initial assumption would be that they took it simply because they conquered the Romans, and their territory, and wanted to give their rule legitimacy before the Roman people.
I mean, they used the title of Kayser-i-Rum to justify a claim to Italy and Western Europe as a whole, and went in big on Classical antiquity as legitimization for their dynasty for the first ~100 years after Istanbul was taken.
‘Continuity’ is a very vague and subjective concept.
I agree.
I mean, they used the title of Kayser-i-Rum to justify a claim to Italy and Western Europe as a whole, and went in big on Classical antiquity as legitimization for their dynasty for the first ~100 years after Istanbul was taken.
Interesting, I didn’t know.
Thank you for your perspective and the context.
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Definitely not the weirdest claim to the title of Caesar. That would have to go to either the Spanish monarchy or the Romanovs.
