Byzantine Empire

>>2867156
Nah, during those times, it was only Citizenship that mattered. As far as everyone was concerned, every citizen was Romaioi

They thought of themselves and were Romans not Greeks.

Greek national identity doesn't really start up until the 13th century, and then dies down again pretty fast until the 15th. They all called themselves Romans and regarded each other as such.

>>2867156
yes
they lynched a bunch of people from western europe and then they bitched when they got invaded in retaliation

>>2867210
>wanting barbarians inside your empire
because it worked out great for the WRE

>>2867156
Do you know what barbarian means

>>2867160
All roman citizens were important, but not all people were citizens

>>2867212
>becomes more powerful than Rome ever was
>bad

>>2867223
>becomes more powerful
>Vandals in north Africa and Ostrogoths in Italy get Belisarius'd

>>2867156
I'm curious about this as well. Were non-Greek speakers allowed in the administration? Bulgarians and Armenians specifically come to mind.

>>2867156
The Byzantine Empire was not Greek, it was founded by a Serbian

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>>2867223
>More powerful than Rome ever was.
>Couldn't even last its first Emperor before collapsing.

There were a ton of emperors who were Isaurian, Armenian, Illyrian and some with obvious western European heritage due to dynastic intermarriages, there was even a German emperor at some point called Apsimar. In general I would say,minorities like Bulgars, Slavs, Illyrians, Armenians and Jews were treated equally and fairly in times of peace.

Discrimination against western europeans only starts after 1100 after the first crusade, when Venice began blackmailing the Byzantines for the Golden bull. After the fourth crusade, the Byzantines became more insular and begun to see themselves as more "Greek" than Roman, and there was a revival in interest for paganism, neo-platonism, the classics, alchemy, and everything ancient greek.

>>2867210
>muh 4th crusade was justified lel

>By 1180 the Emperor Manuel I died. He had opposed Venice and so favored Genoa and Pisa but after his death his widow Maria of Antioch (a princess from a French family in the Catholic crusader states) ruled as regent for his infant son Alexios II and she had a pro-Italian, pro-Catholic policy. That was not tolerated for long and in April of 1182 she was overthrown by Andronikos I who came to power on a wave of anti-Italian xenophobia.

>Byzantine mobs charged into the Italian concessions and began massacring everyone in sight. The new Emperor did nothing at all to stop them or to restore order and the result was butchery on an unimaginable scale. Some of the Italians, sensing the danger, managed to escape before the attack but the vast majority of the 60,000 were trapped and helpless in the face of the Byzantine rampage. Men, women and children were killed in horrific fashion. Homes were destroyed, Catholic churches desecrated, even charitable houses were looted. Priests were tortured and murdered, women and girls were raped and the papal legate was decapitated and had his head tied to a dog and chased through the streets. Sick and dying people were stabbed to death in their hospital beds. It was savagery on an unbelievable scale. Those who were not killed in the bloodbath were sold into slavery to the Muslim Turks. They may well have envied the dead. The boys might have been forced into any number of forms of servitude, the men as well, perhaps serving as galley slaves, the women and girls had it worst of all, many forced into sexual slavery in the harems of the powerful.

Byzzieshit had it coming desu, people like to forget that 4th crusade was justified

>>2867344
it's quite convenient that you didn't mention the constant Latin chimpouts in Constantinople

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>>2867233
>Byzantine Empire
>Serbian

just because Constantine, a ROMAN emperor, came from Illyria province, it doesn't mean that Slavs can claim the paternity of the Medieval Roman Empire

>Byzantine
>Roman

Love this meme

>>2867156
>greeks

You mean Romans who spoke greek.

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>>2867223
Ah yes, the glorious "roman" greek empire

>>2867370
>got cucked in Constantinople not once but TWICE
>then broke into various smaller Caliphates

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>>2867361

I love it too! think that there are still idiots out there who think that the so-called "Byzantines" were part of a "Greek Empire", an entitiy completely different from the Roman Empire

>fucking plebs

>>2867370
what is this pic trying to prove?

>>2867223
>more powerful than rome
>entire history is them getting fucked by bulgars, arabs, latin and turks

Byzantine history is pathetic desu its like watching a suffering, dying dog that somehow managed to stay alive for too long

>>2867378
>Constantinople

Dont you mean istanbul? Lmao How do byzzieboos deal with the fact that all their holy city are now mudslime and will never ever be orthodox again

>>2867400
>Bulgars
Basil'd
>Arabs
only because they took advantage of an already weakened Byzantium
>Latin
yeah ok, let's forget that the 4th crusade happened because of political clusterfuck
>Turks
Manzikert was a fluke and even then they couldn't overwhelm the Byzantines until after 1267

>>2867156
It was more about city states during those times, since there wasn't a strong national identity (or even any). If you were a citizen, you were A-okay. Most of these citizens, of course, happened to be Greek. Even colonies outside of Greece were mostly comprised of the descendants of the settlers and were not extremely open to immigration.

>>2867357
Hol up so u be tellin me Constantine was Albanian n shit?

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>>2867370
dunno what your image is supposed to prove, other than that you know how to use Google. this doesn't even include the capture of Crete, Cyprus or Antioch or the near constant Roman raids into Syria post Nikephoros.

>>2867160
>>2867161
>>2867205
The Greeks of the Byzantine Empire were aware of their Greekness. By the end of the Byzantine Empire many Greeks had even started to turn towards classical Greece - like some kind of proto-renaissance. Roman was never more than a political title.

Byzantium was not some kind of liberal society where citizenship was the only thing that mattered. People divided and judged each other by tongue and religion as they've always done.

>>2867495
Lol, saved. didn't know the Byzantines won so many battles desu

>>2867495
>arcadiopolis
Ouch. hope that hurt.

>>2867514
Hang on, that's not a Muslim battle?

>>2867495
>when you your opponent's debuff ends

>>2867520
Yeah, sorry, I didn't make it. reminds me of another battle in Cilicia with Nikephoros where the Arabs were crushed with minimal losses though. none of those battles (like I said, Crete, Antioch, Cyprus) seem to be on Wiki.

HoB mentioned it recently though.

>>2867529
962-963 campaign in Cilicia. That was when the Romans straight up slaughtered everyone IIRC, even prisoners and civilians.

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>>2867520
shows the byzantines reforming their army back into a capable offensive force again after decades of being on the defensive against the caliphate

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>>2867160
this meme again

the only romans were patrician families who originated from rome, close to rome or married into a patrician family in the past, plebeians who either were romans or looked like romans. The rest were considered savage peoples who were uplifted by the roman civilization, much like negroes are uplifted from their primitive wildlife ways to atleast semi-civilization due to the western built infrastructure and technology that they were given

>>2867541
Yeah, but they won plenty of other battles against the Bulgarians in that period. Seems like its inclusion was a mistake.

Ah well, gets the point across.

>>2867370
t. Saddam

>>2867542
Your definition of Roman stopped being relevant ever since Caracalla said that everyone in the Roman Empire is considered Roman. Deal with it.

>>2867542
Depends on what you mean by "close to Rome". In the early empire most places in Italy only qualified you as a Latin.