There Was No Such Thing As The Byzantine Empire
We should call it what it was — the Roman Empire
“Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out”
— Anonymous
In 395 CE, the Roman empire split into eastern and western halves. This split in the empire happened due to Theodosius the Great separating the empire. The western half would fall after the split, but the eastern half persisted until 1453 CE. This eastern half of the Roman empire is often called the Byzantine empire because its capital city of Constantinople was near the ancient city Byzantium before Roman control.
Coined in the 1550s, the word Byzantine described the late Rome Empire around one hundred years after it fell. Calling the Romans Byzantine is a spit in the face of the Roman people. Most nations, at the time of the fabrication of the word, called the empire Byzantine because many countries at the time believed they were the inheritors of Rome. The Roman Empire had just fallen; it wasn’t there to defend themselves.
Referring to the area near Constantinople as Byzantine is thought to be old, but in reality, it did not gain widespread use until the 1800s. Before that, historians just referred to the Byzantine empire as the Eastern Roman Empire, or merely the Roman…
