The Byzantine Army, Dark To Golden Age

[Aspar]

Eastern Roman Empire only became Greek after Maurice or at the beginning of the 7th century...
Since that point it was ruled mainly by Anatolian Greeks and Armenians while the Greek was the official language.
Before that, the empire was a Balkan Empire, mainly from Constantine The Great until the beginning of the 7th century AD, was ruled mainly by Balkan non-Greek people like Justinian, Constantine The Great and others and the official language was the Latin language!

So, if anything, the timeline of the Eastern Roman Empire can be divided on two periods that should distinguish the Greek-Byzantine period from the Eastern Roman-Balkan one!
Roughly from the start of the Constantine's rule till the break up of the Danube defense structure in the first half of the 7th century is the Eastern Roman-Balkan period when the Empire was mainly ruled by people of Thraco-Illyrian descent and the Latin was the official language!
We even have an account from Theophylact Simocatta and the famous "Torna Torna Fratre" about the usage of the Latin language in the Eastern Roman army!

Only after that period comes the Byzantine Greek one!

[Papastratosels26]

I agree with you here almost. Indeed the Latin was the official language back then but the lingua franca was Greek. I read somewhere (I will try to find the source later) that the Justinian was the last Latin speaking emperor!

Later I will post about the Ecumenical councils especially the first which the Great Constantin had a translator which he needed to understand the Greek during the counsil.

[Papastratosels26]

The sun rose ove the wasteland
As far as the eye can see
Sand fills the vast plains of Serkland
It's vultures jeering at me
But they can circle until they drop dead
I have not come this far
To end, but to pursure my own thread
To join the Varangian Guard!
Guards of glory and of might
Red as blood and black as night
Flies our banner as we march
In the East, for the king of the Greek
There's men of the cross and the hammer
A few of the moon crescent
Men simply searching for glamour
Some concealing their royal descent
The axe-bearing foreigners they have aptly named us
All we've come from afar
Diversity is what unites us
We are the Varangian Guard!
Guards of glory and of might
Red as blood and black as night
Flies our banner as we march
In the…

[Papastratosels26]

@Aspar,Before the division of the Empire first into the four parts known as theTetrarchyunder Diocletian in 293 CE and then into two (simply an Eastern and a Western section), the second century CE RomanEmperor Marcus Aureliuswrote his meditations in Greek, following the affectations popular with philosophers. By this time, however, in the West, Latin had gained a certain cachet. A bit later, a contemporary of Constantine, Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330-395 CE), from Antioch,Syria, but living in Rome, wrote his history not in his familiar Greek, but in Latin.

The first century CE Greek biographer Plutarch went to Rome to learn the language better. (p. 85 Ostler, citing Plutarch Demosthenes 2)

The distribution was such that Latin was the language of the people to the west and north of a dividing line beyond Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus down to northern Africa west of western Cyrenaica. In rural areas, the uneducated would not have been expected to know Greek, and if their native language were something other than Latin -- it might be Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, or some other ancient tongue -- they might not even have known Latin well.

Likewise on the other side of the dividing line, but with Greek and Latin reversed In the East, they probably knew Greek in rural areas, to the exclusion of Latin, but in urban areas, like Constantinople, Nicomedia, Smyrna, Antioch, Berytus, and Alexandria, most people needed to have some command of both Greek and Latin. Latin helped one advance in the imperial and military service, but otherwise, it was more a formality than a useful tongue, beginning at the start of the fifth century.

[Papastratosels26]

@Gezda you will love this

Last of the Romans

The so-called "Last of the Romans," Constantinople-based EmperorJustinian(r. 527-565), who was an Illyrian by birth, was a native Latin speaker. Living about a century after the Edward Gibbon-driven date of 476 for the Fall of Rome, Justinian made efforts to regain sections of the West lost to European barbarians. (Barbarian was a term the Greeks had used to mean "non-Greek speakers" and which the Romans adapted to mean those who spoke neither Greek nor Latin.) Justinian may have been trying to retake the Western Empire, but he had challenges closer to homesince neither Constantinople nor the provinces of the Eastern Empire were secure.

There were also the famous Nika riots and a plague (seeLives of the Caesars). By his time, Greek had become the official language of the surviving section of the Empire, the Eastern (or later, Byzantine) Empire. Justinian had to publish his famous law code, theCorpus Iuris Civilein both Greek and Latin.

[Hellenas]

Thracians lived in Europe when Greeks lived in Anatolia (that's what Greek historians say).

When Thracians were mining Gold in Thasos, Ionians were sailing around Cyclades looking for a way to make a landfall.

So no, Greeks only influenced already established Balkan Civilization namely children of Tiras/Tirak son of Japheth who lived there since the earliest time and Illyrians who observed
Greeks with disgust and contempt. (Like people today observe Migrants)

1. Greeks were in Greece and Anatolia since the times of the Pelasgians.

2. You can not even compare Ionian civilization with Thracian "civilization".

3. There were the Greek Thracians and the barbarian Thracians(in best case Balkanians have something to do with those barbarian non-civilized Thracians), except the Bulgarized Greeks of Eastern Rumelia (south Bulgaria).

4. There is not any "Balkan civilization", there is only Greek civilization. All Greeks observed the barbarian non-civilized tribes of the Balkans(Thracians, Illyrians and so on) as what they were, some barbarians, something similar to animals. Thanks to the Greek civilization we made, you are now "civilized".

5. Mirmidons and Achilles were not "Bulgarians" neither today Bulgarians are them.

6. Balkanians can have no claims on Greek civilization 'cause of the barbarian Thracians or the barbarian Illyrians or every other weird theory comes to their steal-thinking minds.

7. A Muslim philo-Turk and anti-Greek Bosniak sounds funny by trying to give pseudo-historical lessons to Greeks.

As I said, I have no interest to your weird theories. Please don't quote me again.

[Hellenas]

Before that, the empire was a Balkan Empire, mainly from Constantine The Great until the beginning of the 7th century AD, was ruled mainly by Balkan non-Greek people like Justinian, Constantine The Great and others and the official language was the Latin language!

So, if anything, the timeline of the Eastern Roman Empire can be divided on two periods that should distinguish the Greek-Byzantine period from the Eastern Roman-Balkan one!
Roughly from the start of the Constantine's rule till the break up of the Danube defense structure in the first half of the 7th century is the Eastern Roman-Balkan period when the Empire was mainly ruled by people of Thraco-Illyrian descent and the Latin was the official language!Only after that period comes the Byzantine Greek one!

Nonsense. After Macedonia now Balkanians have claims on the Eastern Roman Empire by calling it "The Balkan Empire". Same claims with those they have on Roman Empire and the Roman Emperors of Illyrian origin. You took Rome, you took Macedonia, now you want Eastern Roman Empire and the next is to claim ...the World! Lol!

1. There is not such thing "Balkan Eastern Roman Empire".

2. Eastren Roman Empire having some Emperors from Balkans or Armenia doesn't turns into "Balkanian" or "Armenian". Same goes for the Roman Empire, there never was a "Balkan-Rome".


Justinian I

Justinian was born in Tauresium,[10] Dardania,[11] around 482. A native speaker of Latin (possibly the last Roman emperor to be one[12]), he came from a peasant family believed to have been of Illyro-Roman[13][14][15] or Thraco-Roman origins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I


Junstinian was Dardanian Illyrian/Thracian-Italian, not a pure Balkanian.


Constantine the Great

Flavius Valerius Constantinus, as he was originally named, was born in the city of Naissus, (today Niš, Serbia) part of the Dardania province of Moesia on 27 February,[29] probably c. 272 AD.[30] His father was Flavius Constantius and was born in the province of Moesia (later Dacia Ripensis), .[31][32][33]

Constantine's mother was Empress Helena, a woman of low social standing from Helenopolis of Bithynia.[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great


Flavius Constantius

Born in Dardania, Constantius was the son of Eutropius, whom the Historia Augusta claimed to be a nobleman from northern Dardania, in the province of Moesia Superior, and Claudia, a niece of the emperors Claudius II and Quintillus.[6] Modern historians suspect this maternal connection to be a genealogical fabrication created by his son Constantine I,[7] and that his family was of humble origins.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantius_Chlorus


Helena

Helena's birthplace is not known with certainty. The 6th-century historian Procopius is the earliest authority for the statement that Helena was a native Greek of Drepanum, in the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_(empress)


Constantine the Great had a father who was born in Dardanian and an Anatolian Greeks mother. Neither he was a pure Balkanian.


Stop having claims on the Roman and the Eastern Roman Empire just 'cause of some Balkanian blood of some Emperors.

America had Barack Obama, there is not such a thing "African American Empire" though.

[kleenex]

Hey I want to apologize to anyone I personally insulted on this thread. I really didn't mean to offend anyone and I know that Greeks are Greeks regardless which region they're from (it's a far encompassing sphere). I'm not trying to separate continental Greeks from Pontic or Anatolian Greeks in a cultural or historical sense (if you're Greek you're Greek no questions/no debate). i do think that Greece is a Western country (as the birthplace of anything Euro) with strong hints of Eastern influence and that's a good thing.Genetics is a non cultural issue. I'll leave it at that.

[FinalFlash]

You've only been a Christian for like a week so you must be really dedicated.

Lol no holds barred

[HungryLion]

we have always been between the east and the west..
That means a lot of wars...