Seriously why everyone want to be rome so bad? Like its okay to just be the leader of your own big murderous empire without having to rip off Caesar again
Seriously why everyone want to be rome so bad? Like its okay to just be the leader of your own big murderous empire without having to rip off Caesar again
Serious answer is that in an Western European/Mediterranean context, the Roman Empire essentially set the foundation — culturally, administratively and judicially — for what would coalesce into 'Western Civilization' and many statelets derived their legitimacy from being, in some form, a 'heir' to Rome and making such allusions were a tempting way to either consolidate rule or viscerally claim hegemony.
Some points to consider:
I. The popular notion of unwashed barbarians rolling over a decadent Roman Empire and putting to the torch centuries of progress is a fantasy primarily concocted and perpetuated by those with an unnuanced, chauvinistic view of history. Odoacer, who deposed the 'last Roman Emperor' Augustus Romulus was a Foederati (allied, semi-autonomous non-Roman auxiliaries/mercenaries) whose army included not just Germanic warriors, but a very large contingent of the Italic Roman military. When Odoacer seized Rome, he claimed to be acting on behalf of the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno and to a lesser extent, the exiled Julius Nepos in Dalmatia. He retained the Roman Senate, paid lip-service to Zeno and even minted coins bearing himself and Nepos, took Roman titles and essentially preserved every practical and aesthetic fixture of the old Roman governance.
When Odoacer grew too unruly, Zeno would compel Theodoric — an Romanized Goth raised in the Imperial court —to supplant him. Once again, Theodoric preserved what was still essentially Roman governance in Italy and operated under the pretenses of essentially being a Viceroy of the Emperor in Constantinople. While his settled Goths would be subject to different laws than Romans, when Theodoric's ambitions and pretensions ran contrary to Constantinople, it was not a up-jumped barbarian seeking to shed a charade but rather a ruler who desired an quintessentially Roman primacy: Theodoric would restore Roman infrastructure, architecture and don the purple robes traditionally associated with Emperors.
The actual Western Roman Senate would last into the 7th century and it's titles as honorary dignities for centuries longer.
II. Though Post-Antiquity/Early Medieval histography is really vague and suffers from a lack of sources or really any defined knowledge whatsoever (for instance, nobody knows what the fuck really happened with or who ruled in post-Roman Britain for like a period of two hundred years until the Anglo-Saxons consolidated power, beyond conjecture and legend, it's wild) there's evidence to suggest that Western European feudalism and it's aristocracy may have been a direct evolution of remaining Roman administration rather than entirely replacing it.
The titles of 'Count and Duke' for instance, derive etymologically from the military stations of Comes and Dux. As late as the 6th century, the historian Procopius reports that the Limitanei (Roman garrison troops who may or may not been the nucleus of what would later become the feudal levy, subject of dispute) retained visible Roman heraldry and military traditions to the point where they could even be 'recognized as belonging to the Legions they were assigned when they served in ancient times.'
III. As stated previously, claiming the mantle of Emperor was a manner through which to solidify legitimacy and firmly establish a sort of semi-universal hegemony over Christendom. Most infamously, Charlemagne would be crowned Emperor by the Pope and after the Carolingian Frankish Empire collapsed, the Imperial title would be tossed between a series of local Italian magnates who essentially extorted/'protected' the Pope, until Otto I, King of Germany, would conquer swaths of Italy and receive the imperial dignity, which was also another useful way to control the powerful church as the Emperor was (arguably) seen as senior to the Pope until the Investiture Controversy. The Kings of Leon and Castille would also proclaim themselves as 'Imperator totius Hispanie' or Emperor of all Spain, but wouldn't really be taken seriously and the title gradually fell out of disuse.
IV. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire remained one of the most powerful states in Europe and it's periphery for centuries and it's influence would be extensive. Many powerful Viking and Anglo-Saxons served in the Varangian Guard, such as Harald Hard-Ruler of 1066 fame, disseminating their ideals and notions of 'Roman-ness' further. Orthodox Christianity and Byzantine cultural influence would come to Russia by virtue of it's Viking rulers, who came into contact by raiding, trading and fighting as mercenaries for the Byzantines.
The ruling Russian dynasty would be tied to the Byzantines by blood, via several Imperial marriages, and faith. When Constantinople was annexed by the Ottoman Empire, Ivan IV (the Terrible) would emphasize the power of his burgeoning state — which had already adopted Byzantine, and thus Roman, titles, ceremony and symbols such as the famed double headed eagle — would proclaim himself Tsar, which literally translates to 'Caesar' which had long shifted from meaning from simply being the name of Julius Caesar but a title synonymous or even identical to Emperor.
Moscow would become a 'Third Rome' as the successor to the Byzantines in primacy of the Eastern Orthodox world which fed mutually into their claims of Roman Imperial status.
The Ottoman Sultans took the title of Kayser-i Rum, moreso to denote their dominion of the Greeks and other peoples of the Balkans (who still identified as such) though the degree to which they viewed themselves as 'successors' to Rome were disputed even contemporarily, and the title eventually fell out of active use and became lost in the sea of self-important appellations ascribed to the Sultan.
spoiler
"Sultan (given name) Han, Sovereign of The Sublime House of Osman, Sultan es Selatin (Sultan of Sultans), Khakhan (Khan of the Khans), Commander of the faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the lord of the Universe, Custodian of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Kouds (Jerusalem), Kayser-i Rum (Caesar of Rome), Padishah of The Three Cities of Istanbul (Constantinople), Edirne (Adrianople) and Bursa, and of the Cities of Châm (Damascus) and Cairo (Egypt), of all Azerbaijan, of the Maghreb, of Barkah, of Kairouan, of Alep, of the Arab and Persian Iraq, of Basra, of El Hasa strip, of Raqqa, of Mosul, of Parthia, of Diyâr-ı Bekr, of Cilicia, of the provinces of Erzurum, of Sivas, of Adana, of Karaman, of Van, of Barbaria, of Habech (Abyssinia), of Tunisia, of Tripoli, of Châm (Syria), of Cyprus, of Rhodes, of Crete, of the province of Morea (Peloponnese), of Bahr-i Sefid (Mediterranean Sea), of Bahr-i Siyah (Black Sea), of Anatolia, of Rumelia (the European part of the Empire), of Bagdad, of Kurdistan, of Greece, of Turkestan, of Tartary, of Circassia, of the two regions of Kabarda, of Gorjestan (Georgia), of the steppe of Kipchaks, of the whole country of the Tatars, of Kefa (Theodosia) and of all the neighbouring regions, of Bosnia, of the City and Fort of Belgrade, of the province of Sirbistan (Serbia), with all the castles and cities, of all Arnaut, of all Eflak (Wallachia) and Bogdania (Moldavia), as well as all the dependencies and borders, and many others countries and cities."
V. Influence of the Church, which was one of the few persuasive entities that gave European states a common foundation. The Roman Catholic church has it's foundation as we know it with the rise of Constantine I who would make it the official state religion of Rome. It spoke Latin, which disseminated as the Lingue Franca, carried on customs derived from Rome and leveraged this continuity by exercising the power to crown (in the West) Roman Emperors.
VI. The Renaissance would see a renewal of interest in Roman culture, arts and architecture. Rulers would pose for portraits depicted in Roman-style cuirasses, prize Neo-Hellenic style marble works, and Kingdoms as far flung as Poland and Sweden which had never been under Roman rule or even shared a border would mint coins bearing the visages of their ruler with Latin text and in a Roman style.
Roman history would become increasingly politicized, especially as the era of European colonialism approached. Edward Gibbon would be the progenitor of the myth that Christianity caused the fall of the Roman Empire, not as a jab at the faith itself but the Catholic Church, as he hailed from the Protestant England. European Kingdoms asserted to be successors of Rome not just in titles, heraldry, culture and law, but as inheritors of the torch of 'civilizing' duty which it leveraged to justify imperialism. It became useful, in the Western European cultural narrative, to frame the fall of Rome as a clean wipe in 476 and themselves as direct successors rather than acknowledging the Eastern Roman Empire and the less-romantic reality.
tl;dr:
The Roman Empire in the West didn't fall in 476 to begin with so much as had their institutions co-opted and continued to materially exist for centuries afterwards before said institutions eroded. The Church was pervasive and benefitted from perpetuating Roman derived language and customs long after it's fall, and the most powerful rulers did the same and claimed the Imperial dignity. Neighboring territories never apart of the Empire adopted much of this due to osmosis. The Renaissance and similar 'intellectual revival' movements threw more fuel onto the Roman fetishism fire.
The confluence of these factors would essentially result in an entire continent of Roman-clout chasers.
Dictator of the Proletariat: I sleep
Dictator of the Praetorian: Lenin shit
Wait, the Tsar really did try to claim to be the third
reichRoman Empire? That's beyond funny, I hope his death was painful.-7DeadlyFetishes
Not specifically Nicholas II calling himself the third Roman emperor. Russia had been calling themselves Rome 3 for centuries at that point
Oh wow, that's cringe as fuck lul.
-7DeadlyFetishes
It was their basis for their claim on the city of Constantinople and why they went to war with the Turks like every 2 years in the second half of the 19th century.
Sorry, but this is bad history.
Russia never called itself the Third Rome. The city of Moscow was called the Third Rome and by a few church figures sucking up to the Tsar in the 15th/16th centuries after the Ottomans took Constantinople, but despite this Russia acknowledged the Patriarch of Constantinople (then a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan) as the leader above the Patriarch of Moscow, though its church acquired autocephaly (autonomy).
Then some scholars in the 19th century revived the idea while Russia was already expanding at the expense of the Ottomans and trying to claim the right to defend the interests of the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire, but it remained an idea in literature, not a literal title or diplomatic claim.
So, as with much in history - it's the reverse of how it looks on the surface: the ideological follows the material. Russia wasn't trying to take Constantinople because of some medieval claim, but rather it had been gobbling up Ottoman possessions for centuries, the strategically located Constantinople being a chief prize, and then sought to legitimize this process with some scholarly discourse after the fact.
From what I understand, it was based on some intermarriage between their aristocracy, the Russians adopting the Roman (byzantine) religion and becoming the center of the Church after the fall of Constantinople.
Wait, the Tsar really did try to claim to be the third reich Roman Empire? That’s beyond funny, I hope his death was painful.
Your American education is showing comrade...it's okay to be embarassed though.
There's a reason Moscovites still like to call their city "the Third Rome". (And y'all American are living in the next Rome...I mean the next fall of Rome, ha-haa!)
Your American education is showing comrade…it’s okay to be embarassed though.
Aight dude I get it you've read books and watch a couple of animated history youtube videos but you don't have to be an passive aggressive history buff about it
-7DeadlyFetishes
Tsar, Czar, Kaiser, they're all trying to claim Rome as a foundation for their legitimacy.
I dunno, I think the Ottoman Empire makes a pretty good endcap to the Rome Trilogy. Rome 1 Rome is best, ERE Rome is in decline, Ottoman Empire Rome is flying high again.
Oh the ERE makes for a much better story! But you cant claim that it isn't ultimately anything other than a long decline punctuated by moments of victory.
I am not saying it is less than any other empire, I am saying that the sheer length of its existence makes for an exciting story or contraction. The fact that it managed to survive as a sociocultural formation after the fall of egypt is quite amazing from my perspective. I honestly have a pet theory that Basil II was actually one of the worst emperors in terms of the long term survivability of the empire as a social unit.
He also worked to systematically undermine the local elites in the frontiers which left them much more fragile to social co-option. He then took the power that the local elites had wielded and centralized it in himself, but made no institutional provision to insure that this system of social control could be propagated beyond this death.
The aesthetics of Rome 1 were much cooler and more unique than Rome 2 though. Rome 1 had so many fascinating, advanced designs in their cities and societies, while Rome 2 was quite similar to other medieval kingdoms except they were Greek and Orthodox. What I'm saying is if the Byzantines invented like airships they would live up to the hype, but they didn't
Everyone hates on the Holy Roman Empire but I personally find the structure of power and inter political relations between the constituent dukes pretty interesting. A very interesting area of medieval history.
Dysfunctional, especially in the later years? Definitely. Interesting as fuck to learn about? Also definitely.
revival of the franchise, truer to form than any of the other pretenders
I wonder if there's any modern day cringe empires that use the iconography of the romans :thinkin-lenin:
Seriously why everyone want to be rome so bad?
speak for yourself AmeriKKKan
If Alexander's Empire is considered a prequel, why isn't the Achaemenid Empire? Alexander was more or less a sequel to the Persians.
the Holy Roman Empire was the rightful heir to the legacy of Rome
For all the faults of the brits, they're not Rome fetishists in the same way that a lot of other European empires were.
Are you familiar with the Brittanica Great Books? That’s the entire point- that a straight line of “The Classics” goes from Homer to Virgil to Chaucer to Shakespeare and eventually the Empire.
There is a difference between claiming yourself to be a successor of Rome and studying the classics. The Romans also studied Greek literature and philosophy (much to the chagrin of early Romans I'm sure), but they didn't claim to be the successors to Alexander or Greece, they were measuring sticks much like Alexander kept being for every two bit general. This would change slightly towards the end of the Empire when they weren't really latin anymore, but still.
Compare this to the HRE, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, France and let's not forget the USA who decided to build faux Roman temples all over the place.
All in all, I think they're probably the least Rome fucking of the European empires.
Here's King William depicted as a Roman Emperor with Queen Mary on a coin minted from gold supplied by the Royal African Company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_and_Mary_Two-Guineas.jpg
A statue of King Charles II in Roman regalia.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Rhc-charles2.jpg
And, as I linked earlier, the whole 'Emperor of India' thing.
Hence, the title Kaisar-i-Hind was coined in 1876 by the orientalist G.W. Leitner as the official imperial title for the British monarch in India.[9] The term Kaisar-i-Hind means emperor of India in the vernacular of the Hindi and Urdu languages. The word kaisar, meaning 'emperor', is a derivative of the Roman imperial title caesar (via Persian, Turkish – see Kaiser-i-Rum), and is cognate with the German title Kaiser, which was borrowed from the Latin at an earlier date.
They're all simps for Rome, I'm afraid.
Edit: Not to mention the whole 'Britannia' thing which featured a Helleno-Roman personification of the British Empire prominently in colonial propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia
I'm not sure why you're such a stickler for Kaisar-I-Hind when emperor is derived from Imperator. The moment someone claims to be an empire in romance or Germanic languages, there is some rome fucking in there.
