Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium PDF
Preview Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium
Romanland Romanland ETHNICITY AND EMPIRE IN BYZANTIUM Anthony Kaldellis The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Cambridge, Mas sac hu setts London, England 2019 Copyright © 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca First printing Jacket image: Ken Walsh ©Getty Images. Circus and Hippodrome of Constantinople, after an engraving in the Imperium Orientale, sive Antiquitates Constantinopolitanae, an eighteenth century work by Anselmo Banduri based on medieval Greek manuscripts. Jacket design: Annamarie McMahon Why 9780674239692 (EPUB) 9780674239708 (MOBI) 9780674239685 (PDF) The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Names: Kaldellis, Anthony, author. Title: Romanland : ethnicity and empire in Byzantium / Anthony Kaldellis. Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018038001 | ISBN 9780674986510 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Romans— Byzantine Empire. | Romans— Ethnic identity. | Byzantine Empire— Civilization— Roman influences. | National characteristics, Roman. | Byzantine Empire— Ethnic relations. | Cultural pluralism— Byzantine Empire. | Byzantine Empire— History. Classification: LCC DF553 .K35 2019 | DDC 305.8009495/0902— dc23 LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018038001 Contents Preface i x Part I J Romans 1 1. A History of Denial 3 2. Roman Ethnicity 38 3. Romanland 81 Part II J Others 1 21 4. Ethnic Assimilation 123 5. The Armenian Fallacy 155 6. Was Byzantium an Empire in the Tenth Century? 1 96 7. The Apogee of Empire in the Eleventh Century 2 33 Conclusion 269 ABBREVIATIONS 279 NOTES 281 BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 25 INDEX 363 Preface In modern languages, the term empire follows the adjective Byzan- tine with the same ease off the tongue that democracy follows Athe- nian. But the parallel ends at that superficial level, and the prob lems begin. For the ancient Athenians r eally did call themselves Athe- nians, and they called their state a democracy. When they wanted to refer to their power (or “empire”) over non-A thenians, they called it their hegemony or tyranny. The Byzantines, however, did not call themselves Byzantines and did not call their state an empire. Instead, they consistently called themselves Romans, and they called their state variously the monarchy, polity, power, or public affairs “of the Romans.” They also had a proper name for their state, Romanía (i.e., Romanland), which is absent from most modern discussions. It is de- batable which—if any—of these terms might have meant “empire” and in what context. This prob lem of terminology, moreover, hides a deeper historical one: Does the primary evidence establish whether or to what degree Byzantium actually was an empire? We call it that all the time, but it has never actually been proven or even systemati- cally studied, and here is why. Let us begin with empire. In plain En glish, as well as in many scholarly fields that have recently taken up the topic with vigor, “em- pire” refers to the domination exercised by one ethnic, ethnoreligious, or ethnopo liti cal group over a range of o thers that are perceived ix
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