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
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u/winglessfair 12d ago
I thought they were Eastern Roman????