A Surviving Roman Empire

[Grand Admiral Cho]

Suppose a sort of a Roman Empire had survived, not necessarilly constantly but as in China with periods of disunity. What would for instance would have served as a unifying ideology, could stoicism fulfill the role Confucianism did in China?

[Straha]

No industrial revolution.

[RBC]

What defines the Roman Empire. Turkophiles might argue that it survived into the twentieth century.

[Valdemar I]

Originally Posted by RBC

What defines the Roman Empire. Turkophiles might argue that it survived into the twentieth century.

...and they are wrong, Germany has a better claim as pathetic as that is. I would argue that the Roman Empire died with the sack of Constantinoble, and everything afterward, was at best as Roman as Ostrogoths.

[Chris]

Well, yes - we do need to define what 'Roman Empire' actually means before we answer the question. The Roman Empire went through a number of different phases before it collasped.

Chris

[Nikephoros]

I personally like using 1204 as the death of the Roman Empire. Mostly because I'm not an Ottomanophile.

[Valdemar I]

Originally Posted by Chris

Well, yes - we do need to define what 'Roman Empire' actually means before we answer the question. The Roman Empire went through a number of different phases before it collasped.

Chris

Personal I think the Christian institutions was a so integrated part of the late Roman Empire, that foreign conquerors who force another religion on the empire more or less are disqualified from being seen as successors. There simply comes a natural split, because it aren't a natural evolution as the move from Paganism to Christianity were. If the Ottomans had been Othodox at the conquest and only later had converted to Islam I would see it differently. But as I see it the empire endfed in either 1204 or 1453 and the Ottomans wasn't just a new dynasty.

[Straha]

I like to use 1923 as the death of the Roman Empire. Mostly because I'm not a byzantine fanboy.

[boynamedsue]

Originally Posted by Straha

I like to use 1923 as the death of the Roman Empire. Mostly because I'm not a byzantine fanboy.

Never died. Catholic church.

[RBC]

Originally Posted by Nikephoros

I personally like using 1204 as the death of the Roman Empire. Mostly because I'm not an Ottomanophile.

Well, in some ways. the Eastern Roman Empire was like a Zombie empire; one minute it was dead, the next it was devouring neighboring statelets.

[Mirza Khan]

Originally Posted by Straha

I like to use 1923 as the death of the Roman Empire. Mostly because I'm not a byzantine fanboy.

I'd have to say I agree more with Valdemar on this one-the Ottomans did pick up a lot of influences from the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, but their high culture was much more a product of Turco-Persian than Byzantine civilization. The Ottomans were Muslim, they spoke Persian as a court language, they wrote caligraphy as an art form, their governmental institutions largely came from those of Turkish-ruled Iran-in short, the Ottomans were not so much an evolution of the Byzantine Empire as an evolution of the Seljuks and Abbasids.

In general, if you want a surviving Roman Empire, just have 1204 not happen (its really easy-the Sack of Constantinople by the crusaders occurred due to the combination of a whole series of unique events that can easily be undone). Then, give Byzantium a run of good emperors so it can recover some of its position in the Balkans and be in a good position to make gains in Anatolia once the Mongols smash up the Rum Seljuks in the 1260s. From there, its pretty easy to have a Byzantium that survives up until modern times.

[RBC]

It would be interesting to have the Empire dominate the Balkans, but be absent from Asia.

[Straha]

Originally Posted by RBC

It would be interesting to have the Empire dominate the Balkans, but be absent from Asia.

So the ottomans fail to conquer arabia but manage to get involved in the ukraine/balkans?

[RBC]

Originally Posted by Straha

So the ottomans fail to conquer arabia but manage to get involved in the ukraine/balkans?

I meant a post-1204 Byzantine Enpire, but that works too.

[Straha]

Mohammed going monophysite and ending up being the founder of a new arabic dynasty for the eastern roman empire would have amusing possibilities. Imagine a roman empire that at the dynasty's height in the late 8th and 9th century has the old Roman empire at it's maximum extent, persia, nestorian central asia, northern India, nubia, ethiopia, Yemen, the arabian peninsula and northern/western India.

[Pascal]

Ugh. Rome fell in 1453. End of story. Everything else are just pretenders, but the East Roman Empire did have a direct continuity. The Eats Roman Empire was the Late Empire, the Dominate, continued all through the middle ages. Really, if you say the East Roman Empire was not Roman, you would have to discount everything after Domitian, too.

[LSCatilina]

Well, as Andorra is the last surviving carolingian county to have survive feudalism, post-feudalism, liberalism, industrialism and post-industrialism, technically still relevant from the Emperor's will...Roman Empire (Carolingian) still exists.

No really, since Heraclius and the end of the latin use for byzantine administration, there is no Roman (you know, the latin thing) Empire in east

[Nimrod]

I tend to use the Death of Augustulus as the end of Rome; as the Byzantine Empire was pretty much a different nation/empire.

[Pascal]

No, it was NOT. In fact the ERE had a better claim to succession to the united Roman Empire than the WRE. The last Emperors of the united Empire all stayed in Constantinople, and Constantinople was the centre of the administration, the church, the culture, everything. Hence why there is a direct continuation. You can make no cut between Roman and Byzantine Empire, or only highly artifical ones. The so-called "Byzantine Empire" was the Roman Empire, the original Roman Empire.

[RBC]

Originally Posted by Pascal

No, it was NOT. In fact the ERE had a better claim to succession to the united Roman Empire than the WRE. The last Emperors of the united Empire all stayed in Constantinople, and Constantinople was the centre of the administration, the church, the culture, everything. Hence why there is a direct continuation. You can make no cut between Roman and Byzantine Empire, or only highly artifical ones. The so-called "Byzantine Empire" was the Roman Empire, the original Roman Empire.

I accept this, but only to 1204. The "restored" empire, which regained Constantinople in the 1260's was at best a shell of its former self.