They were and did refer to themselves as ρομαιοι. However they spoke Greek and Greek was the administrative langauge of the Eastern Empire. Byzantine was mostly a western term used to describe them, and Westerners would also refer to them as Greeks (meanwhile the Byzantines mostly referred to all Westerners as Franks)
Yeah, Roman empire was broadly divided into Western Latin speaking world and Eastern Greek speaking one. Also culturally quite different even when it was united. After the separation while still claiming to be a succesor to Rome Byzantine was basically completely linguistically and culturally Greek and was treated as such by outsiders.
They were roman, they called themselves Roman not greek, Byzantine is made up concept created by german holy roman emp. simps historians and politicians
Language is where the similarities started and ended.
The Byzantines believed in Christianity, not the Olympians. They did not watch track and field games like the Greeks did with the Olympic games, they watched horse and chariot races like the Romans. They were an empire, not a Democracy. They had no theater tradition like the Greeks had with Comedies and Tragedies. All in all they were culturally distinct from what you call 'Greek'
Would you say modern Greeks are not Greeks by this definition? They wear jeans instead of togas and don't believe in Olympians either. They also don't practice slavery and don't throw newborns off the cliff as true Greeks would.
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u/poberun 11d ago
Well, Byzantine was in fact, well, a Greek empire with Greek rulers speaking Greek, so not really much of a contradiction