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Initially, this larger community was the city of Rome itself, but as
the land under Roman dominion continued to increase,
citizenship was gradually granted to the various peoples under
Roman rule. The number of Romans rapidly increased due to the
creation of colonies throughout the empire, through grants of
citizenship to veterans of the Roman army, and through personal Six of the Fayum mummy portraits,
grants by the Roman emperors. In 212 AD, Emperor Caracalla contemporary portraits of Romans in
extended citizenship rights to all the inhabitants of the Roman Roman Egypt from the 1st century
Empire through his Antonine Constitution. BC to the 3rd century AD.
Roman identity in Western Europe survived the fall of the Total population
Western Roman Empire in the 5th century as a diminished but 400.000 (114 BC)[n 1]
still important political resource. It was only with the wars of the 4 million (28 BC)[n 2]
eastern Emperor Justinian I, aimed at restoring the western 6 million (47 AD)[n 3]
provinces to imperial control, that "Roman" began to fade as an
39.3 million (350 AD)[n 4]
identity in Western Europe, more or less disappearing in the 8th
and 9th centuries and increasingly being applied by westerners Languages
only to the citizens of the city of Rome. The city itself continued to Latin · Classical Greek · Other
be important to Western Europeans but this importance stemmed languages
from Rome being the seat of the Pope, not from it once having
Religion
been the capital of a great empire. In the primarily Greek-
speaking eastern empire, often called the Byzantine Empire by Imperial cult, Roman religion,
modern historians, Roman identity survived uninterrupted until Hellenistic religion, Christianity
its fall in 1453 and beyond. Related ethnic groups
Roman identity survives in a significantly reduced capacity today. Other Mediterranean Sea peoples,
"Roman" is still used to refer to a citizen of the city itself and the other Italic peoples, modern
term Romioi is sometimes (albeit rarely) used as an identity by Romance peoples and Greeks
Greeks. Additionally, the names and identities of some Romance
peoples remain connected to their Roman roots, especially in the Alps (such as the Romansh people
and the Romands) and the Balkans (such as the Romanians, Aromanians and Istro-Romanians).
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Meaning of "Roman"
Roman Republic
Political history
Roman citizenship
Roman Empire
Extensions of citizenship
Romans in Late Antiquity
Later history in Western Europe
Romans in the post-Roman west
Possibility of reunification and Justinian's wars
Disappearance of the Romans
Association with the city of Rome
Later history in the Eastern Mediterranean
Romans in the Byzantine Empire
Late Byzantine identity
Romans in the Ottoman Empire
As a modern identity
Greeks
Western Romance peoples
Balkan Romance peoples
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Cited bibliography
Cited web sources
The term "Roman" is typically used interchangeably to describe a historical timespan, a material
culture, a geographical location and a personal identity. Though these concepts are obviously related,
they are not identical. Although modern historians tend to have a preferred idea of what being Roman
meant, so-called Romanitas (a term rarely used in Ancient Rome itself), the idea of "Romanness" was
never static or unchanging.[5] What being Roman meant and what Rome itself was would have been
viewed considerably different by a Roman under the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BC and a
Roman living in Constantinople in the 6th century AD. Even then, some elements remained common
throughout much of Roman history.[5]
Crucial to understanding Roman identity is that unlike other ancient peoples, such as the Greeks or
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Gauls, the Romans did not see their common identity as one
necessarily based on shared language or inherited ethnicity.
Instead, the important factors of being Roman were being part of
the same larger religious or political community and sharing
common customs, values, morals and ways of life.[6]
Political history
1st century AD wall painting from
One of the most important Pompeii depicting a
aspects of ancient Roman life multigenerational banquet.
was warfare; the Romans
went on military campaigns
almost every year, rituals marked the beginning and the end of the
campaigning seasons and elections of chief magistrates
(commanders of the army) generally took place on the Campus
Martius ("Field of Mars", Mars being the Roman god of war). All
Roman citizens were liable for military service, with most serving
for several years during their youth. All soldiers could earn honors
and rewards for valor in battle, though the highest military reward
A graphic showing border changes of all, the triumph, was reserved for commanders and generals.[7]
of the Roman state from the 6th Roman warfare was not overwhelmingly successful for the first
century BC to the 5th century AD. few centuries of the city's history, with most campaigns being
small engagements with the other Latin city-states in the
immediate vicinity, but from the middle of the 4th century BC
onwards, the Romans won a series of victories which saw them rise to rule all of Italy south of the Po
river by 270 BC. Following the conquest of Italy, the Romans waged war against the great powers of
their time; Carthage to the south and west and the various Hellenistic kingdoms to the east, and by the
middle of the second century BC, all rivals had been defeated and Rome became recognized by other
countries as the definite masters of the Mediterranean.[8]
Although Roman technological prowess and their ability to adopt strategies and technology from their
enemies made their army among the most formidable in the ancient world, the Roman war machine
was also made powerful by the vast pool of manpower available for the Roman legions. This
manpower derived from the way in which the Romans had organized their conquered land in Italy. By
the late 3rd century BC, about a third of the people in Italy south of the Po river had been made
Roman citizens (meaning they were liable for military service) and the rest had been made allies,
frequently called on to join Roman wars.[8] These allies were eventually made Roman citizens as well
after refusal by the Roman government to make them so was met with the Social War (91–88 BC),
after which Roman citizenship was extended to all the people south of the Po river.[9] In 49 BC,
citizenship rights were also extended to the people of Cisalpine Gaul by Julius Caesar.[10]
Though Rome had throughout its history been continually generous with its granting of citizenship
than other city states, granting significant rights to peoples of conquered territories, immigrants and
their freed slaves, it was only with the Social War that a majority of the people in Italy became
recognized as Romans, with the number of Romans rapidly increasing throughout the centuries that
followed due to further extensions of citizenship.[10]
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Roman citizenship
Typically, a non-citizen could acquire Roman citizenship through five different mechanisms:
Non-citizens who served in the Roman army were typically granted citizenship.[12]
Men without citizenship could obtain it through holding office in cities and other settlements with
the Latin right.[12]
Specific individuals could be granted citizenship directly.[12]
Whole communities could receive "block grants", with all their inhabitants becoming citizens.[12]
Slaves freed by Roman citizens became Roman citizens themselves.[12]
Extensions of citizenship
The populace in the early Roman Empire was composed of several groups of distinct legal standing,
including the Roman citizens themselves (cives romani), the provincials (provinciales), foreigners
(peregrini) and free non-citizens such as freedmen (freed slaves) and slaves. Roman citizens were
subject to the Roman legal system while provincials were subject to whatever laws and legal systems
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had been in place in their area at the time it was annexed by the
Romans. Over time, Roman citizenship was gradually extended
more and more and there was a regular "siphoning" of people
from less privileged legal groups to more privileged groups,
increasing the total percentage of subjects recognized as Roman
citizens (e.g. Romans) though the incorporation of the
provinciales and peregrini.[13]
From the Principate onwards, "barbarians" (peoples from beyond Rome's borders) settled and
integrated into the Roman world. Such settlers would have been granted certain legal rights simply by
being within Roman territory, becoming provinciales and thus being eligible to serve as auxilia
(auxiliary soldiers), which in turn made them eligible to become full cives Romani. Through this
relatively rapid process, thousands of former barbarians could quickly become Romans. This tradition
of straightforward integration eventually culminated in the Antonine Constitution, issued by Emperor
Caracalla in 212, in which "all the people of the Roman world" (e.g. provinciales, peregrini and
freedmen alike) were formally granted Roman citizenship.[15] At this point, Roman citizenship in the
empire was not as significant as it had been in the republic, chiefly due to the change from a
republican to a imperial government invalidating the need for voting rights and because service in the
Roman military was no longer compulsory.[11] Caracalla's grant contributed to a vast increase in the
number of people with the nomen (name indicating familial association) Aurelius (Caracalla was a
nickname for the emperor, whose actual name was Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus).[16]
By the time of Caracalla's edict, there were already many people throughout the provinces who were
considered (and considered themselves) Romans; through the centuries of Roman expansion large
numbers of veterans and opportunists had settled in the provinces. Colonies founded by Julius Caesar
and Augustus alone saw between 500.000 and a million people from Italy settled in Rome's provinces.
Around the time of Augustus's death, four to seven percent of the free people in the provinces of the
empire were Roman citizens.[10] In addition to colonists, many provincials had also become citizens
through grants by emperors (who sometimes granted citizenship to individuals, families or cities),
holding offices in certain cities or serving in the army.[17]
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Religion had been an important aspect of Romanitas since Pagan times and as Christianity gradually
became the dominant religion in the empire, Pagan aristocrats became aware that power was slipping
from their hands as times changed. Some of them began to emphasize that they were the only "true
Romans" because they preserved the traditional Roman literary culture and religion. This view
enjoyed some support by poets and orators, such as the orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, who saw
these Pagan aristocrats as preserving the ancient Roman way of life, which would eventually allow
Rome to triumph over all of its enemies, as it had before. This movement was met with strong
opposition from the leaders of the church in Rome, with some church leaders, such as Ambrose, the
Archbishop of Mediolanum, launching formal and vicious assaults on paganism and those members of
the elite which defended it. Followers of paganism viewed Rome as the greatest city in the empire
because of its glorious Pagan past, and though Christians accepted Rome as a great city, it was great
because of its glorious Christian present, not its Pagan past. This gave Romanitas a new Christian
element, which would become important in later centuries. Though the city would be important as the
source of auctoritas and the self-perception of the imperial elite, it was not as important politically
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Theoderic was careful to maintain the loyalty of his Roman subjects (which represented the majority
of the people in his kingdom) and he deliberately likened himself to the old emperors, minting coins in
much the same way, wearing purple clothing in public and during official ceremonies and maintained
his court at Ravenna in imperial splendor. Theoderic's laws, the Edictum Theoderici, were also clearly
connected to Roman law in both content and form.[19] Emperor Anastasius I returned the Western
Roman imperial regalia, held in Constantinople since they had been sent there by Odoacer in 476, to
Italy, then ruled by Theoderic.[20] These imperial regalia appear to have been worn by Theoderic and
there are references by Roman senators to Theoderic as an emperor, indicating that the citizens of
Rome itself viewed these Barbarian kings as taking on the traditional role of the emperor. An
inscription by Caecina Mavortius Basilius Decius (western consul in 486, Praetorian prefect of Italy
486–493) titles Theoderic as dominus noster gloriosissimus adque inclytus rex Theodericus victor ac
triumfator semper Augustus, but Theoderic himself appears to have preferred to title himself simply
as "king".[22] Theoderic's unwillingness to assume the imperial title may have been mainly due to
being careful not to insult the emperors in Constantinople.[19]
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Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was not destined to develop into what
later historians have referred to as the Dark Ages. One of many possibilities for Europe's future at the
time was reunification through military action. In 510, most of Western Europe was under the control
of two Barbarian kings; Clovis I of the Franks and Theoderic of the Goths. Both of these kings were
called by the title Augustus by their Roman subjects, though neither formally adopted the title, and
they were poised to war against each other. To their contemporaries, the looming conflict between the
Goths and Franks might have looked like the next, perhaps decisive war in the struggle between the
Gallic and Italian factions which had dominated inter-imperial relations in the Western Roman
Empire in the 5th century (such as the war between Emperor Honorius and the usurper Constantine
III). Had the war happened, and been as decisive as other battles in this period typically were, it is
likely that the victorious king would have re-established the Western Roman Empire under his own
rule.[18]
The war between Theoderic and Clovis never transpired, but the idea that a powerful Barbarian king
might restore the Western Roman Empire under Barbarian rule saw the court at Constantinople
beginning to emphasize its exclusive Roman legitimacy. Through the remaining part of its thousand
year history, the eastern empire would repeatedly attempt to assert its right to govern the West
through military campaigns. A key development was what later historians have termed the "Justiniaic
ideological offensive"; a re-writing of 5th century history which portrayed the West as lost to barbarian
invasions (rather than the true situation, that the Barbarian rulers had been gradually given power by
the Western emperors themselves and worked within a fundamentally Roman framework). This
ideology is prominently seen in Procopius's Wars and Marcellinus Comes's Chronicle.[18]
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There is substantial evidence that the meaning of "Roman" changed significantly during the 6th
century. In the East, being Roman became defined not only by loyalty to the emperor but also
increasingly by religious orthodoxy (though what that explicitly meant also changed through the ages).
The Gothic Wars in Italy had split the Roman elite unto those who supported the Goths and later
enjoyed Lombard rule and those who supported the emperor and later withdrew to regions still
governed by the empire. With this, Roman identity no longer provided a sense of social cohesion. This,
combined with the abolition of the senate in Rome itself, removed groups of people who had
previously always set the standard for what "Roman" was supposed to mean. Through the centuries
that followed, the division between the non-Roman and Roman parts of the population faded in the
west as Roman political unity collapsed.[14]
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Through the early Middle Ages, the legal significance of having Roman status also faded away in
Western Europe and spoken Latin fragmented and split into what would develop into the modern
Romance languages. The unifying and sometimes contradictory Roman identity was replaced with
local identities based on the region one was from (such as Provence or Aquitania). Where Romans had
once been accepted as composing the majority of the population, such as in Hispania and Gaul, they
quietly faded away as their descendants accepted other names and identities.[14] The benefit of
abandoning the identity as Roman and reverting to more local identities was that local identities were
not binary opposed to the identity as a "Frank" or "Goth" and could exist together with them,
providing legal advantages that "Roman" no longer did.[18] Furthermore, it is possible that people who
identified as "Romans" were victims of anti-Roman prejudice, as experienced by the 7th century Saint
Goar of Aquitaine. Although Roman identity would linger on in Western Europe in some places,
mostly being restricted to a few minorities in the alpine regions, some residual meanings of "Roman"
would remain important through the Middle Ages, such as "Roman" as a citizen of the Byzantine
Empire or "Roman" as a citizen of the city of Rome or representative of the Roman Catholic
Church.[14]
The significance of being a Roman thus eventually completely disappeared in Western Europe,
together with the Roman identity itself. 8th century sources from Salzburg still reference that there
was a social group in the city called the Romani tributales but Romans at this time mostly merged
with the wider tributales (tributary peoples) distinction rather than having a separate Roman
distinction in Frankish documents. Throughout most of former Gaul, the Roman elite which had
lingered for centuries merged with the Frankish elite and lost their previously distinct identity and
though "Romans" continued to be a dominant identity in regional politics in southern Gaul for a while,
the specific references to some individuals as "Romans" or "descendants of Romans" indicates that the
Roman status of some people in Gaul was perhaps no longer being taken for granted and needed
pointing out. The last groups of Romani in the Frankish realm lingered for some time, especially in
Salzburg and Raetia, but seem to fade away in the early 9th century[14] (except for the Romansh
people in southeastern Raetia).[23]
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By 800, when Charlemagne was crowned as a new Roman emperor in Rome, the first time an emperor
was crowned in Rome itself since antiquity, self-identification as a Roman was largely gone in Western
Europe. Nevertheless, the name of Rome was to remain a source of power and prestige throughout
history, becoming associated with Europe's two most powerful figures (the Pope and the Holy Roman
Emperor) and also being invoked by later aristocratic medieval families who sometimes proclaimed
and were proud of their alleged Roman origins.[14]
After the Byzantine Empire restored imperial control over Rome, the city had become a peripheral city
within the empire. Its importance stemmed from being the seat of the Pope, one of the Patriarchs of
the Church, and the city's population was not specially administrated and lacked political participation
in wider imperial affairs except for its interactions with the papacy.[24] Under Byzantine rule, the
Popes often used the fact that they had the backing of the "people of Rome" as a legitimizing factor
when clashing with the emperors. The political implications of the name and citizenry of Rome thus
remained somewhat important, at least in the eyes of the westerners.[14]
When the temporal power of the popes was established through the foundation of the Papal States
(established through the Frankish king Pepin granting control of former Byzantine provinces
conquered from the Lombards to the Pope), the population of the city of Rome became a
constitutional identity which accompanied and supported the sovereignty of the popes. In the minds
of the contemporary popes, the sovereign of the Papal States was St. Peter, who delegated control to
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his vicars on Earth, the popes. However, the popes were too
deeply rooted in the Roman imperial system to imagine a wordly
government established only on religious relationships. As such,
the "Romans" became the political body of this new state and the
term, once used for all the inhabitants of Byzantine Italy, became
increasingly used to exclusively refer to the inhabitants of the city.
After Pepin's donations the Popes also revived the concept of
respublica Romanorum as something associated with, but distinct
from, the Church. In the new version of the idea, the Pope was the
15th-century illustration depicting lord of the Romans but the Romans themselves, as citizens of
the Sack of Rome (410) by the Rome, had a share in the public rights connected to the
Visigothic king Alaric I. sovereignty of the city.[24]
Despite this fear, the population of Rome and people in most other parts of Italy (with the exception of
southern Italy, still under Byzantine influence) saw Charlemagne and his successors as true Roman
emperors.[25] The reasons for this were many. Although the Romans accepted that there was
continuity between Rome and Constantinople, and saw the Carolingian emperors as having more to
do with the Lombard kings of Italy than the ancient Roman emperors,[25] the Byzantines were often
seen as Grieci ("Greeks") rather than Romans and were seen as having abandoned Rome, the seat of
empire, and lost the Roman way of life and the Latin language; thus the empire ruling in
Constantinople hadn't survived, but had fled from its responsibilities. This disconnect shows that the
city of Rome and the Byzantines had grown very far apart from each other.[26] To the Romans and
Italians of the 8th and 9th century, the original Roman Empire was a thing of the past. There
definitely used to be an empire, such as during the time of Constantine the Great, but it had now
transferred itself to the Eastern Mediterranean and ceased to be properly Roman, now inhabited by
"Greeks". Rome was no longer a city of emperors, but was the city of St. Peter only. A real Roman
Empire could have only one capital, Rome, and its possible existence rested on the man who ruled in
Rome, the Pope. As such, the new emperors in the West (an office that eventually developed into the
Holy Roman emperors) could be emperors only because they were crowned and anointed by the
Pope.[25] The support of what was perceived by Western Europe as the populus Romanus was a highly
important factor during Charlemagne's coronation. Charlemagne himself actively hoped to suppress
the idea of Romani as an ethnicity in an effort to avoid that the imperial title could be bestowed by the
population of Rome in the same way that the Franks could proclaim a rex Francorum (King of the
Franks).[14]
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The idea of the res publica remained an important imperial concept for centuries. In the Frankish king
Childebert II's letters to Emperor Maurice, the emperor is called the princeps Romanae reipublicae
and through the 6th and 8th centuries, terms such as res publica and sancta res publica was still
sometimes applied to the Byzantine Empire by authors in Western Europe. This practice only ceased
as Byzantine control over Italy and Rome itself crumbled and "Roman" as a name and concept became
more heavily associated by Western authors with the city itself. The use of the term Romani was
somewhat similar, usually often used in reference to the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire by early
Medieval western authors when not used for the population of the city itself. In Isidore of Seville's
History of the Goths, the term Romani refers to the Byzantine Empire and their remaining garrisons
in Spain and the term is never applied to the population of the former western provinces.[14]
References to the Romans as a gens, like the Barbarian gentes, begin to appear around the time of
Justinian's conquests. Priscian, a grammarian who was born in Roman North Africa and later lived in
Constantinople during the late 5th century and early 6th century, refers in his work to the existence of
a gens Romana. Letters written by the Frankish king Childebert II to Emperor Maurice in
Constantinople in the 580s talk of the peace between the two "gentes of the Franks and the Romans".
The 6th century historian Jordanes, himself identifying as a Roman, refers to the existence of a Roman
gens in the title of his work on Roman history, De summa temporum vel de origine actibusque gentis
Romanorum. The idea of Romans as a gens like any other didn't become generally accepted in the
East until the 11th century.[14] For instance, Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) still considered "Roman" to
be an identity that was defined as an opposite to being of a Barbarian gens.[26] Before the 11th century,
the "Romans" discussed in Byzantine texts usually refer to individuals loyal to the Byzantine emperor
who followed Chalcedonian Christianity. As such, the Romans were all the Christian subjects of the
emperor.[14]
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The population within the Byzantine Empire saw themselves as living within the Roman Empire but
were aware that their empire was no longer as powerful as it once had been. The 7th century text
Doctrina Jacobi, set in Carthage, states that the territory ruled by the Romans had once stretched
from Spain in the west to Persia in the east and Africa in the south to Britain in the north, with all the
people in it having been subordinated to the Romans by the will of God. Though the old borders were
still visible through the presence of monuments erected by the ancient emperors, the author of the
Doctrina Jacobi stated that one could now see that the present Roman realm (the Romania) had been
humbled.[29]
The losses that the empire had experienced, in particular the loss of Northern Africa and the Levant in
the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, were typically blamed on the heresy of the emperors (e.g.
iconoclasm) and the Christians who had once lived in these lost regions ceased to be recognized by the
Byzantines as "Romans". This eventually led to "Roman" being applied more to the dominant Greek-
speaking population of the remaining empire than to inhabitants of the empire in general. The late 7th
century was the first time (in the writings of St. Anastasios the Persian) that Greek, rather than Latin,
was referred to as the rhomaisti (Roman way of speaking).[29] In Leo the Deacon's 10th century
histories, Emperor Nikephoros Phokas is described as having settled communities of Armenians,
Rhomaioi and other ethnicities on Crete, indicating that Romans by this time were just one of the
groups within the empire (for instance alongside the Armenians).[30] By the late 11th century, the
transformation of "Roman" to an identity by descent rather than political or religious affiliation was
complete, with references to people as "Rhomaios by birth" beginning to appear in the writings of
Byzantine historians. The label was now also applied to Greek-speakers outside of the empire's
borders, such as the Greek-speaking Christians under Seljuk rule in Anatolia, who were referred to as
Rhomaioi despite actively resisting attempts at re-integration by the Byzantine emperors.[31]
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In the early modern period, an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish-speaker who was not a member of
the military-administrative class would often refer to himself neither as an Osmanlı ("Ottoman") nor
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as a Türk ("Turk"), but rather as a Rūmī ()ﺭﻭﻣﻰ, or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of
the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to
Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond.[35] As applied to Ottoman
Turkish-speakers, this term began to fall out of use at the end of the seventeenth century, and instead
the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it
still bears in Turkey today.[36]
Greeks
For the Greeks, the Roman identity only lost ground by the time of
the Greek War of Independence in the 19th century, when
Map of "Rumelia" in 1801. Almost all multiple factors saw the name "Hellene" rise to replace it. Among
the Balkan peninsula was called these factors were that names such as "Hellene", "Hellas" or
"land of the Romans" by the "Greece" were already in use for the country and its people by the
Ottoman Empire. other nations in Europe, the absence of the old Byzantine
government to reinforce Roman identity, and the term Romioi
becoming associated with those Greeks still under Ottoman rule
rather than those actively fighting for independence. In the eyes of the independence movement, a
Hellene was a brave and rebellious freedom fighter while a Roman was an idle slave under the
Ottomans.[39][40] Though some parts of Byzantine identity were preserved (notably a desire to take
Constantinople itself), the name Hellene fostered a fixation on more ancient (pre-Christian) Greek
history and a negligence for other periods of the country's history (such as the Byzantine period).[41]
Many Greeks, particularly those outside the then newly founded Greek state, continued to refer to
themselves as Romioi well into the 20th century. Peter Charanis, who was born on the island of
Lemnos in 1908 and later became a professor of Byzantine history at Rutgers University, recounts that
when the island was taken from the Ottomans by Greece in 1912, Greek soldiers were sent to each
village and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the island children ran to see what
Greek soldiers looked like. ‘‘What are you looking at?’’ one of the soldiers asked. ‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the
children replied. ‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ the soldier retorted. ‘‘No, we are Romans’’ the
children replied.[42] The modern Greek people still sometimes use Romioi to refer to themselves, as
well as the term "Romaic" ("Roman") to refer to their Modern Greek language.[43]
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Though most of the Romance peoples that descended from the Romans following the collapse of
Roman political unity in the 5th century diverged into groups no longer identifying as Romans, the
name of Rome has remained associated with some modern Romance peoples. Examples of this are the
Romansh people (descended from the Romani recorded in the Alps in the 8th and 9th centuries) and
the Romands.[48] Romands represent the French-speaking community of Switzerland, with French
being the native language of 20% of the Swiss people. Their homeland is called Romandy, which
covers the western part of the country. Originally, the majority of the Romands spoke the Arpitan
language (also known as Franco-Provençal), but it has been almost completely extinguished in favor of
French.[49]
On the other hand, the Romansh people are an ethnic group living in southeastern Switzerland. This
region, anciently known as Raetia, was inhabited by the Rhaetian people, with the Celtic Helvetii at
their west. The ethnicity of the Rhaetians is uncertain, but their language was probably Indo-European
with Celtic and perhaps Etruscan influences. The Rhaetians were conquered by the Romans in 15 AD.
They were seen by the Romans as excellent fighters and were included in several legions, where their
usage of Latin would start. Over the centuries, Latin would replace indigenous languages in Raetia,
with Roman culture only strongly consolidated in the province during the times of the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire. After this, Germanic tribes would settle in the province, where they would
eventually assimilate most of this Romanized Rhaetian population. The ones that resisted the
Germanic invasions evolved into the modern Romansh people, who call their language and themselves
as rumantsch or romontsch, derived from the Latin word romanice, which means "Romance".[23]
The Balkan Romance peoples have also maintained their Roman identity over the centuries, and it has
remained especially prominent in the Romanians. One of the main principles of Romanian identity
and nationalism is the theory of Daco-Roman continuity. This theory claims that Dacia, after its
conquest by Trajan, was so extensively colonized that the indigenous Dacians mixed with the Roman
settlers, thus creating a culture of Daco-Romans. These would resist the invasions of Slavs and other
peoples by hiding in the Carpathians, eventually evolving into the modern day Romanians. This theory
is not universally accepted, however.[50] One of the earliest records of the Romanians being referred to
as Romans is given in the Nibelungenlied, a German epic poem written before 1200 in which a "Duke
Ramunc from the land of Vlachs (Wallachia)" is mentioned. "Vlach" was an exonym (name employed
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by forgeiners) used almost exclusively for the Romanians during the Middle Ages. It has been argued
that "Ramunc" was not the name of the duke, but a collective name that highlighted his ethnicity.
Other documents, especially Byzantine or Hungarian ones, also mention the old Romanians as
Romans or their descendants.[51] Today, Romanians call themselves români and their nation
România.[52]
The Aromanians are another Balkan Romance ethnic group scattered in the Balkans. Their origins are
highly uncertain. Romanians often say that they originally were Romanians who migrated from north
to south of the Danube and that they are still Romanians. The Greeks, on the other hand, say that they
descend from indigenous Greeks and Roman soldiers placed there to guard the passes of the Pindus
(and that they are therefore ethnic Greeks who speak a Romance language). The debates of their
origins have been widely discussed throughout recent history, and the opinions of the Aromanians
themselves are divided. Regardless of where they come from, the Aromanians have a large number of
names with which they identify, among which are arumani, armani, aromani and rumani, all of them
derived from "Roman".[53] Another group related to the last two are the Istro-Romanians, with some
of them still calling themselves rumeri or similar names, although this name has lost strength and the
Istro-Romanians often prefer to use different terms.[54] The Megleno-Romanians, the last of the
Balkan Romance peoples, identified in the past as rumâni, but this name was completely lost
centuries ago mostly in favor of vlasi, derived from "Vlach".[55]
1. The Roman census of 114 BC records there being 400.000 Roman citizens, with other people
within Roman territory belonging to less privileged legal classes, such as provinciales (provincials)
and peregrini (foreigners).[1]
2. The Roman census of 28 BC records there being just 4 million Roman citizens in the empire
(representing about a tenth of the empire's total c. 40 million inhabitants). The sharp increase in
recorded Roman citizens between 114 BC and 28 BC may be explained by either an
undocumented switch from recording just adult male citizens to recording women and children of
citizen status or by the grant of citizenship to all of Italy and people in the provinces.[1]
3. The Roman census of 47 AD records there being just over 6 million Roman citizens in the empire.
This accounts for just 9 % of the total population of the empire (c. 70 million).[1]
4. The increase in the number of Romans by the 4th century has its basis in the Antonine
Constitution of 212 AD, which granted Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the empire. In 350
AD, there were about 39.3 million people living in the empire.[2]
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Citations
1. Scheidel 2006, p. 9. 33. Stouraitis 2017, p. 86.
2. Russell 1958. 34. Stouraitis 2017, p. 88.
3. Gruen 2014, p. 426. 35. Kafadar 2007, p. 11.
4. Darling Buck 1916, p. 51. 36. Greene 2015, p. 51.
5. Revell 2009, p. x. 37. Rigas Feraios, Thurius, line 45.
6. Woolf 2000, p. 120. 38. Makrygiannis 1849, p. 117.
7. Rich & Shipley 1995, p. 1. 39. Ambrosius Phrantzes (Αμβρόσιος Φραντζής,
8. Rich & Shipley 1995, p. 2. 1778–1851). Επιτομή της Ιστορίας της
9. Rich & Shipley 1995, p. 3. Αναγεννηθείσης Ελλάδος (= "Abridged history
of the Revived Greece"), vol. 1. Athens 1839,
10. Lavan 2016, p. 2. p. 398 ([1] (http://anemi.lib.uoc.gr/metadata/2/
11. Britannica. 5/9/metadata-39-0000531.tkl)).
12. Lavan 2016, p. 7. 40. Dionysius Pyrrhus, Cheiragogy, Venice 1810.
13. Mathisen 2015, p. 153. 41. Spyros Markezinis. Πολιτική Ιστορία της
14. Pohl 2018. συγχρόνου Ελλάδος (= "Political History of
15. Mathisen 2015, p. 154. Modern Greece"), book I. Athens 1920–2, p.
208 (in Greek).
16. Lavan 2016, p. 5.
42. Kaldellis 2007, pp. 42–43.
17. Lavan 2016, p. 3.
43. Merry 2004, p. 376; Institute for Neohellenic
18. Halsall 2018.
Research 2005, p. 8; Kakavas 2002, p. 29.
19. Hen 2018.
44. World Population Review.
20. Jones 1962, p. 127.
45. Wilcox 2013.
21. Jones 1962, p. 126.
46. Vandiver Nicassio 2009, p. 21.
22. Jones 1962, p. 128.
47. Ridley 1976, p. 268.
23. Billigmeier 1979.
48. Minahan 2000, p. 776.
24. Delogu 2018.
49. Gess, Lyche & Meisenburg 2012,
25. Granier 2018. pp. 173–174.
26. West 2016. 50. Light & Dumbraveanu Andone 1997.
27. Cameron 2009, p. 7. 51. Drugaș 2016.
28. Stouraitis 2017, p. 72. 52. Berciu Drăghicescu 2012.
29. Stouraitis 2017, p. 74. 53. Ružica 2006.
30. Stouraitis 2017, p. 79. 54. Burlacu 2010, pp. 15–22.
31. Stouraitis 2017, p. 80. 55. Berciu Drăghicescu 2012, p. 311.
32. Stouraitis 2017, p. 85.
Cited bibliography
Averil, Cameron (2009). The Byzantines (https://books.google.com/books?id=59c6PSa5JCAC).
John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-9833-2.
Berciu Drăghicescu, Adina (2012). "Aromâni, meglenoromâni, istroromâni: Aspecte identitare și
culturale" (https://www.academia.edu/5573680). Editura Universității Din București (in Romanian):
788.
Billigmeier, Robert Henry (1979). A Crisis in Swiss pluralism: The Romansh and their relations with
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Roman people - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_people
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Roman people - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_people
s70).
Vandiver Nicassio, Susan (2009). Imperial City: Rome under Napoleon. University of Chicago
Press. ISBN 978-0226579733.
Woolf, Greg (2000). Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-0521789820.
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