
A very long way from home: early Byzantine finds at the far ends of the world - diodorus
http://www.caitlingreen.org/2017/03/a-very-long-way-from-home.html
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tici_88
As a side note, the term "Byzantine empire" does not reflect how people called
it or thought of it at the time of its existence at all. They referred to it
as the (Holy) Roman Empire of the East and they considered and called
themselves Roman citizens.

In fact the city Byzantium didn't even exist during the time of what we call
the "Byzantine" empire. Byzantium was an Greek then Roman city that existed
right until Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) was founded within a few
kilometers from Byzantium by Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD.
Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to
Constantinople in large part due to the new town's strategic and uniquely
defensive position. Constantinople was built fresh though - there were no
prior settlements on its location.

Byzantium as a city ceased to exist in name and otherwise as everything that
was worth moving over got moved over and the new capital of the Roman empire
took over as the main city in the vicinity in the area.

I suspect the name "Byzantine empire" got coined to imply that the Roman
empire's 'holy', 'god-given' and 'ancestral' lineage does not go East but is
rather 'subsumed' by the empires in the West that ended up forming much later
from the vestiges of the Rome-based Roman empire in the middle ages.

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wutangson1
Not sure your suspicion is accurate... Constantinople was a deliberate break
from Rome, given that it's people spoke koine Greek and not Latin, and that
before falling to the Turkish invaders was attacked and ransacked by the
Crusaders who carried the banner of the Holy Roman Empire.

~~~
olavk
Constantinople were deliberate attempt to move the capital of the empire, but
it was still the same empire, and they still considered themselves Romans.

The Holy Roman Empire did not really have the same continuity from the Roman
Empire, it was just a title chosen for the prestige.

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stinkytaco
When I was growing up and devouring things on the Romans and Middle Ages I was
led to believe that these were isolated societies, with no knowledge of the
outside world. People lived in their village, never left it, and believed
there were monsters beyond the horizon.

Many years and many words later I wonder if our understanding of the world has
changed or if mine was just unsophisticated. Do kids still learn what I
learned? The ancient world was incredibly mobile, considering the limitations.
Not just traders moving overland between east and west, but within societies
and craftsmen and scholars moving for work and opportunities. I find that
quite comforting, in some ways.

~~~
13of40
In the past century, at least in the Western world, we've developed a
completely new concept of mobility. We live in a world where pretty much
anyone with a passport and $2000 can spend a week on the other side of the
earth, but the caveat to that is you're depending on being able to travel
quickly (who can take the time off work?) being able to depend on the physical
security of the society you're traveling in, at least to some extent, and
having a global financial and communication network to take care of you while
you're abroad. Go back a hundred years ago and most of that's out the door. Go
back 1000 years, and all of Europe was still living in walled cities. I think
people traveled back then, but it was far fewer individuals doing it. (And
probably a lot more walked out into the hills than ever came back...)

~~~
Fricken
I was travelling in Lombok a couple years ago, it's an island 70 km across,
next to Bali in Indonesia, and stayed with a family. The woman of the house
had never been off the island, and had only travelled to the capital city of
Mataram (about a 45 minute drive from her village) on a handful of occasions.
It's not uncommon for people in poorer parts of the world, even today.

~~~
paganel
My grand-mother lives in a mountainous valley in the Carpathians Mountains,
she's now in her mid-80s. She has only ventured 50+ miles outside of her
village I think only 2 or 3 times in her life. On the other hand, she used to
have two brothers-in-law (who had grew in the same village as her) one of whom
had studied at the Leningrad Polytechnic (I think that's ~2,500 km away) and
the other one who had lived and worked as a secret agent in East Berlin in the
mid-'50s. The world is a complicated place, always has been.

