Eastern Roman? Or the Byzantine?

Today Turkish people call the Greek as Rum, and the language of the Greek as Romaic. The Turks ran into Greeks, let’s better say the people of Eastern Roman Empire for the first time when they entered Anatolia. At those times, the land was called as the Roman country (“Country of the Rums”). The people living on that land called themselves as Romans, i.e., “Romaioi”, and the land they lived on (today’s Anatolia) as the Roman country, “Romania”.

However, it is interesting that; we call these people who called themselves as Romans, Byzantine and their country which they called as the (Eastern) Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. These people had never called themselves or their countries as Byzantine, indeed. I don’t even believe that they had ever heard a word like that. Until the invasion of their country in 1453, they had been Romans living in the Roman Empire. I guess they would be so surprised if they knew they would be referred to as Byzantine in the future.

Hieronymus Wolf 1516-1580
Eponym of Byzantine

The Eastern Roman Empire must be the only country in the world whose name was changed after it had been destroyed. At least to my knowledge… The story began with the German historian and researcher Hieronymus Wolf’s being assigned as the manager of the new Augsburg library founded in 1537. His main area of interest was the ancient and middle-age Greek works. He translated around 100 Greek handwriting works that had come from Venice, into German, and thus, made them accessible for contemporary Europeans.  In 1557, he published the great work he had written on Greek history, under the name of “Corpus Historiae Byzantinae”. He was the first to define the Eastern Roman Empire as Byzantine. There, he intended to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire whose capital was Constantinople. He chose an interesting way to tell this. Instead of using Eastern Roman Empire, he made up a new word from the historical name of the city Byzantium, and called it Byzantinae.

In early 17^th century, French King Louis the 14^th ordered that all known works of the Eastern Roman Empire were collected. He had experts on Roman history from all over the world come together to do this. The study yielded a great piece consisting of 34 volumes and it was given the same name. Thus; the name Byzantinae became official.

Montesquieu 1689-1755
He identified Western Roman Empire with virtue

And Eastern Roman Empire with conspiration

 Montesquieu was among the leaders of the enlightenment era. ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ he wrote in 1548 greatly inspired the American Constitution, and ‘Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline’ inspired Napoleon’s utopic objective like combining the whole world under a single empire like Rome. In all his works, Montesquieu linked the concepts about rise with the west, and the concepts about fall with the east. Just like him, the enlightened author Edward Gibbon concluded in his work named ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ mostly due to Christianity that; all the wise and greatness gathered together in the West, and conspiration and fall in the East.



Both enlightened authors and the others they stood as a leader made pioneering studies about political philosophy in a time when monarchy gave way to democratic parliamentary system in Europe. They attributed the renaissance of state management to the virtues of the Western Roman Empire, whereas they attributed its fall to the increasingly Christianizing Eastern Roman Empire. Just like the Historian Prof. Clifton R. Fox stated in “What if anything is a Byzantine?”… As they thought that the word stemming from Greek, Latin or Roman did not fit the empire whose capital city was Constantinople, the first name of the city, Byzantium came up. Thus; the virtue and success of the Roman Empire which the western thought was based on started to be referred as Rome in the west, and its fall and corruption were referred as Byzantine in the east in order to whitewash the name of the Greeco-Roman culture. It is somewhat possible to understand the enlightened. It is quite natural that they took the Pagan side of Rome instead of the Christian side in their rightful struggle against the arm-in-arm monarchy and Catholic Church. Yet, it would have been better if they hadn’t done that in such an unfair way against the East that they even changed its name.

Edward Gibbon 1737-1794

Regarding that the Roman Empire was founded in 44 B.C., capital city was moved to Constantinople from Rome in 322, it was separated as Eastern and Western in 395, the Western Roman Empire fell and the Eastern Roman Empire remained as a single empire in 475 (Rome’s invasion by the Visigoth) and it fell in 1453 A.C.; I believe it lived its most powerful albeit fluctuating military, commercial and cultural years in its 1500 years of history, between 332-1453, in times when its capital was Constantinople. It cannot be ignored that the empire was quite downsized in its last years, it became weak and collapsed at the end. However; these do not justify the fact that all these negativities were attributed to the Eastern Roman Empire. While the contemporary Europe remained in the dark, Constantinople was the capital of Science, Culture and Art around the Mediterranean, with a population around 500.000. Unfortunately, the Byzantine name is remembered with the words conspiration and corruption almost in all languages.

The Million Stone



The Million Stone, The Mile Stone

When you walk up the Sultanahmet Square from Eminönü, you see a small stone pillar of 18-20 meters high on your right once you pass the entrance of the Basilica Cistern. The Million Stone is next to this stone pillar. It is a 4-5 meters high relic in the form of a rectangular prism. It is a part of the Million Stone found during the archeological excavations made in 1967-68 and it was erected again to represent the original Million Stone. The stone tower next to it was constructed in 16^th century. It was a water gauge that had survived from the Ottoman period. It is probable that; the pillar was regarded to have been an obstacle for the builders of the water gauge, so they totally destroyed the already damaged pillar. The pillar remained lost for 400 years. If you know about the history of this pillar, you may feel a little bit disappointed by its present state. Istanbul Municipality must have the same feeling so that they wrote; "This stone pillar is all that remains from a Byzantine triumphal arch from which road distances to all corners of the empire were once measured.” in front of it.



"This stone pillar is all that remains from a Byzantine triumphal arch from which
road distances to all corners of the empire were once measured”. Date 4^th  century AD



Constantine the 1^st, His mother and in the middle,

 the true cross Js. Christ was believed to have been

crucified with ("True Cross")

The monument was erected by Constantine the 1^st in the 4^th century. Constantine was the first Roman emperor who accepted Christianity. He thought that; Rome, which was identified with its Pagan past, would not be suitable as the capital city of the empire he would found, thus, he chose another capital he would be able to Christianize. This was the Byzantium, which was the small Greek town geographically located just in the middle of Eastern Roman Empire, which possessed the name of its founder, the Mgeran commander Byzas. Constantinople chose this small town as the new capital the Roman Empire and called it the New Rome (“Nova Roma”), Constantinople (City of Constantine). When the capital of the empire was Rome; in forum, which was the center of Rome, there was this golden milestone called Milliarium Aureum erected by the Emperor Augustus. The monument was accepted as the milestone, and distances to significant cities of the empire were written on it. At those times, states apart from the Roman Empire were mostly unable to make infrastructural investments like roads and aqueducts that could be regarded as basic criteria of civilization. The roads made by the Roman Empire to all over their country leaded to the capital, Rome and gathered together in forum, in front of this monument located in the middle of the city.

The saying “All roads lead to Rome” comes from this.

Just like that; a monument was erected in the center of the Roman Empire, i.e. “in the center of the World” in New Rome, Constantinople, on which the distance of the empire to its significant cities were written. I guess these cities were Rome, Ravenna, Salonika, Athens, Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem and Alexandria.

Milliarium Aureum, Relics of the Million Stone’s

conjugate in Rome

The main road (the way to Divan in the Ottoman period, today’s Turgut Özal Boulevard) of the Constantinople city, Messe, which stemmed from the monument divided into various roads in Y shape and leaded to the gates of Topkapı, Edirnekapı or Yedikule in city walls, then got distributed all over the Mediterranean. This point was regarded as the center of both the city and the World, as a milestone. This isn’t surprising when you bear in mind that, the Roman Empire was deemed to be the greatest country in the World. The capital of such a country would also be the center of the empire and the World, and the monument in its square would be the milestone for the measurement of all distances. In ancient Greek, “mile” means “thousand”. In ancient Rome, one mile length measured a thousand of double steps. This is so much close to today’s mile, indeed. It corresponds to 0.9 mile, that is, 1480 meters. So, it can be said that; the distances written on it, were quite similar to today’s mile.

The structure is a four legged triumphal arch: It consists of four legs, for arches connecting these together and a dome at the top. It is made of marble. Architecturally, it is much more complicated and magnificent than its column shaped conjugate found in Rome. On it, there are the portrays of the Emperor Constantine the 1^st, his mother Helena (this is the reason why Yalova’s ancient name was Helenapolis), born in Yalova, who found the “True Cross” believed to have been used in the crucifying of Js. Christ and brought that to Constantinople, in between them, there was the statue of the True Cross, and behind them, the Goddess Tyche (“Fortuna” in Roman mythology), who was the protector of the city according to Greek mythology.

In 6^th century, a sundial was added to the front side of it by Emperor Justinianos. At first, as  traces of its Pagan past, its walls hosted the statue of the God Of Sun, Zeus-Helios drawn by four carriages, bronze statue of emperor Theodosius the 2^nd on a horse, and embossings of Hadrian and Trajan. In 8^th century, the pictures of oecumenic council were drawn. In the iconoclastic period when all kinds of religious pictures were abolished, all religious depictions were erased, and embossings of the horse races in hippodrome were put on them.

You can find the 3D reconstruction of the Million Stone in the web-site Byzantium1200 ( http://www.arkeo3d.com/byzantium1200/milion.html ), which provides the 3d reconstructions of the monuments of the Byzantine period as of year 1200.


The statue of Tyche found in today’s Düzce

The Goddes of Wealth, Pluto is in her arms.

Istanbul archeology museum



 

Before I start...

I’m just writing this blog in order not to forget what I have learnt and thought. I make it public for the ones interested in. I’m an engineer who is fond of history and philosophy. I have not received any academic education on these subjects. If there are people who find errors that need to be corrected, I’d be pleased to hear about their warnings, so that I can learn new things and correct what I wrote.