Why do people say the late Roman Empire was weird?

>>1668566

Because it doesn't fit their aesthetic expectation. People identify Rome only with the late-Republic, early-Empire period.

>>1668566
[spoiler]Stefan Molyneux[/spoiler]

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Most people's exposure to the Roman Empire is the late Republic and early Empire and when they find out it wasn't always that way they get a bit weirded out.

The idea of a Christian Rome also bugs some people a lot more than it should. I've seen the "Byzantine Empire wasn't really Roman" attitude even extend to "the late western Empire wasn't really Roman". (thanks, Gibbon)

>>1668582
not an argument

>>1668566
it accepted adopted and finally embraced its celtic origins
>t pan germanic

The aesthetics were all wacked out, the foundation of the citizen-solider has deteriorated, and they were Christian.

Popular stereotypes of Rome are:
>Latin speaking
>plumed helmets
>Warlike and expansive
>Pagan
>decadent bath houses and the like
>Scutum and Gladius

Late empire became more and more Greek until eventually it was just Byzantium and militarily, socially, and artistically it had changed quite a bit.

>>1668604
>Celtic
>Pan Germanic
How does that work?

>>1668652
icbf typing out doggerland but it was implied
14000 years stronk

late roman aesthetics werenp. cool, so were the byzantines until post 1204

>>1668566
Because they expect the Roman Empire to follow the look that they have been shown in fiction, with the plated armour and thunderbolt scutums. The idea of trouser wearing, spear wielding Romans is terrifying to most history plebs.

>>1668686
There were no Indo-Europeans, let alone Celtic or Germanic peoples in Northwest Europe until 3000 years after Doggerland flooded

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Late Romans were the best looking.

>>1668613
>He thinks bath houses are 'decadent'

>>1669147
I said it was a stereotype. I know that bath houses were just community centers.

>>1668566
Because they looked like what modern people think the germanics looked like. Which is retarded, since it's the germs who copied the romans, but whatevs.

>>1668613
>He thinks the Romans were always pagan

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>>1669194
You know he is talking about that as a stereotype?

>>1668613
>Late empire became more and more Greek
This is such a meme. The byzantine empire was more different to hellenistic Greece than it was to imperial Rome. Just because the language shifted to greek, doesn't mean the culture did.

>>1669236
I wasn't referring to Greece in the classical Athenian sense. Just that the focus of the empire shifted towards Greece and indeed the language was replaced with Greek.

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>>1668566
Everyone from 16th Fucking Century Europe to Hollywood thinking about Rome in terms of what this cunt here >>1668587 said: late republic/early empire.

Pic related, a 16th Century Fresco replete with Roman Memes.

>>1669290
But see that's not true either. The focus of the empire became Anatolia, Syria and Egypt. Greece was absolutely irrelevant compared to Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, etc.

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>>1668566
Its hard to believe that the country that the Turks captured in 1453 AD is the same country that raped the Sabines in 750 BC.

>>1669320
Constantinople is Greece 1453 never 4give/get