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Roman identity in Byzantium: a critical approach

Article · July 2014

DOI: 10.1515/bz-2014-0009

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 DOI 10.1515/bz-2014-0009 BZ 2014; 107(1): 175–220

Ioannis Stouraitis

Roman identity in Byzantium: a critical

approach
Abstract: Collective identity in the so-called Byzantine Empire is a much-debat-
ed issue that has drawn a lot of attention over the years. The current paper at-
tempts a critical assessment of the hitherto main lines of thinking about Byzan-
tine identity, focussing on the period between the seventh and the thirteenth
centuries. By proposing an alternative view on source material based on a com-
prehensive theoretical framework, I argue that a conceptualization of the collec-
tive identity of this medieval imperial social order with its constantly fluctuating
geopolitical and cultural boundaries needs to be disconnected from essentialist
and reifying views on perennial ethnicity as well as from the modern phenom-
enon of the nation-state.

Adresse: Dr. Ioannis Stouraitis, Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik der Universität
Wien, Postgasse 7/1/3, A-1010 Wien; [email protected]

One could plausibly argue that the problem of decoding Byzantine identity lies
in the fact that the term ‘Byzantine’, commonly used in the present to define the
state and the subjects of the Christian Roman Empire (either since the time of
Constantine I or alternatively since the post-Justinianic period), is a terminus
technicus, a retrospective construct of scholars of the Early Modernity in Western
Europe.¹ This terminus technicus removes the spotlight from this society’s norma-
tive self-designation, i. e. Roman, and thus imposes upon the modern historian a
latent bias, namely the bias that this society’s collective identity must be called
and therefore understood differently from what its name denotes.

This paper was concluded within the framework of the research project „Ideologies under
scrutiny: a study on differentiated perceptions of Roman imperial ideals in Byzantine society,
th–th c.“ (P), supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). For stimulating discus-
sions on the subject that helped me to elaborate my argument, I would like to thank Johannes
Koder (Vienna), John Haldon (Princeton) and Zachary Chitwood (Berlin). I am also thankful to
the two anonymous reviewers for their perceptive remarks.
 Cf., e. g., C. Mango, Byzantium. The Empire of New Rome. New York , , ; I. Ka-
rayannopoulos, Το Βυζαντινό Κράτος, Ι: Κρατική οργάνωση και κοινωνική δομή. Athens ,
.

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176 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

The main lines of thinking in the research on medieval Eastern Roman iden-
tity could be roughly summarized as follows: The first, extensively influenced by
the retrospective Modern Greek national discourse, approaches this identity as
the medieval form of the perennial Greek national identity.² The second,
which could be regarded as preponderant within the field, albeit by no means
monolithically concordant in its various utterances, speaks of a multi-ethnic im-
perial state at least up to the twelfth century, the average subject of which was
self-identified as Roman.³ The third, and more recent, approach dismissed the
supposition of a multi-ethnic empire and suggested that Byzantium should be
regarded as a pre-modern Nation-State in which Romanness had the traits of na-
tional identity.⁴
In the pages that follow, I shall attempt a critical approach to these three
lines of thinking, focusing on the period between the seventh and the thirteenth

 On prominent utterances of this line of thinking, see A. Vakalopoulos, Byzantinism and

Hellenism. Remarks on the racial origin and the intellectual continuity of the Greek Nation.
Balkan Studies  ()  – ; P. Charanis, The formation of the Greek people, in: S.
Vryonis (ed.), The “past” in medieval and modern Greek culture. Malibu ,  – ; S.
Vryonis, Recent scholarship on continuity and discontinuity of culture: classical Greeks, By-
zantines, modern Greeks, ibid.  – ; idem, The Greek identity in the Middle Ages, in:
Byzance et l’hellénisme: L’identité grecque au Moyen-Âge. Actes du Congrès International tenu à
Treste du er au  Octobre . Études Balkaniques  ()  – ; B. Papoulia, Das Ende
der Antike und der Beginn des Mittelalters in Südosteuropa, in: Ελληνικές Ανακοινώσεις στο Εʹ
Διεθνές Συνέδριο Σπουδών Νοτιοανατολικής Ευρώπης. Athens ,  – .
 On various versions of this approach, see indicatively: J. Koder, Byzanz, die Griechen und die
Romaiosyne – eine “Ethnogenese” der “Römer”?, in H. Wolfram (ed.), Typen der Ethnogenese
unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bayern, Teil . Vienna ,  – ; idem, Grie-
chische Identitäten im Mittelalter – Aspekte einer Entwicklung, in A. Abramea/A. Laiou / E.
Chrysos (eds.), Βυζάντιο – Κράτος και Κοινωνία. Μνήμη Νίκου Οικονομίδη. Athens ,  –
; idem, Byzantium as seen by itself – images and mechanisms at work, in: Proceedings of
the nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies Sofia,  –  August , I. Plenary
Papers. Sofia ,  – ; P. Magdalino, Hellenism and nationalism in Byzantium, in idem,
Tradition and transformation in medieval Byzantium. Aldershot , Variorum, XIV; E.
Chrysos, The Roman political identity in late antiquity and early Byzantium, in K. Fledelius
(ed.), Byzantium. Identity, image, influence. XIXth International Congress of Byzantine Studies,
Major Papers. Copenhagen ,  – ; C. Rapp, Hellenic identity, romanitas, and Christianity
in Byzantium, in K. Zacharia (ed.), Hellenisms. Culture, identity and ethnicity from antiquity to
modernity. Aldershot ,  – .
 A. Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: the transformations of Greek identity and the re-
ception of the classical tradition. Cambridge , passim; idem, From Rome to New Rome,
from empire to nation-state: reopening the question of Byzantium’s Roman identity, in L. Grig /
G. Kelly (eds.), Two Romes. Rome and Constantinople in late antiquity. Oxford/New York ,
 – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 177

centuries, and I shall propose an alternative view on source material based on a

concrete theoretical framework. The arguments presented here are suggestive
rather than conclusive, and aim primarily at a clarification of methodology.

1. Revisiting Byzantine Society’s Roman Origins

The premise that “Byzantium around the year 1000 had become a medieval
Greek Empire”⁵ has been refuted with the plausible argument that the Byzantine
élite did not identify itself as Greek, whereas Arabs, Armenians, Bulgars, Slavs
and other ethno-cultural collectivities resided within the borders of the Empire
in this period, the members of which were regarded as Roman subjects.⁶ This
plausible thesis has been complemented by a comprehensive statement on the
self-identification of the Byzantines, according to which “the average Byzantine
understood him/herself beyond any doubt as Roman, their language and litera-
ture was Roman (i. e. Greek), their cultural and religious centre was also beyond
doubt New Rome, namely Constantinople”.⁷
This preponderant view on Byzantine society as a multi-ethnic society in
which Roman self-identification was, nevertheless, predominant, raises some
questions. First of all, did the average Byzantine who identified himself as
Roman and correspondingly understood his political, religious and “education-
al” culture as undeniably Roman also apply to the average member of all afore-
mentioned ethno-cultural collectivities, at least some of which (e. g. Slavs) were
further subdivided internally in sub-ethnies?⁸ Or did it primarily refer to a Greek-
speaking population in the territorial core that was almost continuously until
1204 under the Roman imperial rule of Constantinople?
In the first case, a reconsideration of the empire’s multi-ethnic character
seems necessary. If the average inhabitant of the medieval Eastern Roman Em-
pire identified himself as Roman in a politico-cultural sense, what space was
left for ethnic diversity? In the second case, the fact that ethno-cultural collectiv-
ities such as Bulgars, Armenians, and Slavs were in the longue durée perspective
not permanently under Roman imperial rule as a result of territorial and demo-
graphic changes the empire had to undergo over the centuries, points to a dis-

 Papoulia, Das Ende der Antike (as footnote  above) .

 Koder, Ethnogenese (as footnote  above) .
 Ibid. .
 About the Slavs as a non-monolithic group, see F. Curta, Still waiting for the Barbarians? The
making of the Slavs in ‘Dark Age’ Greece, in idem (ed.), Neglected Barbarians. Turnhout ,
 – .

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178 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

tinction between a (Greco‐)Roman ethnic identity of a core population and a

Roman political label of the rest of the populations that found themselves for
longer stretches of time under the rule of Constantinople through the centuries.
In either case, the view on the politico-cultural identity of the average Byzantine
as undeniably Roman implies, deliberately or not, a homogenizing discourse of
identity similar to the one of nationhood. This could be regarded as reason
enough to open the discussion on Byzantine Romanness as a pre-modern nation-
al identity; especially, if we take into account the revisionist views in the field of
sociology of identity, which have argued for the potential existence of nations
under certain pre-conditions even before the watershed of modernity.⁹
Anthony Kaldellis opened this discussion a few years ago in his monograph
“Hellenism in Byzantium”. There he argued for the transformation of the so-
called Byzantine Empire into a Nation-State up from the seventh century on-
wards, in which the Roman political culture had assimilated the masses and ab-
rogated ethno-cultural diversity within the state-frame to create a Roman na-
tion.¹⁰ Although many may probably feel a priori inclined to reject the latter
argument, on the grounds of the still valid and preponderant sociological
axiom about the modernity of nations and national identities,¹¹ this should
not be dismissed without discussion. Not least because it raises some important
issues about the theoretical background of identity research in pre-modern times
and in Byzantium in particular. These issues can help us to re-think generalizing
and sometimes oversimplifying approaches to post-seventh century Eastern
Roman social order and its collective identity.
From a theoretical perspective, the argument about the abrogation of ethnic
diversity through the gradual configuration of Roman nation-ness falls under the
concept of the state-framed nation or Staatsnation,¹² since it points to the Roman
imperial state and its political culture as the main factors that configured mass
Roman nationhood.¹³ The latter is presented as the outcome of a longue durée

 See the extensive discussion of all relevant theories in A. D. Smith, Nationalism and mode-
rnism. A critical survey of recent theories of nations and nationalism. London / New York ,
 – .
 Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above)  – .
 A. Ichijo / G. Uzelac (eds.), When is the nation? Towards an understanding of theories of
nationalism. London / New York , ; D. Conversi, Mapping the field: theories of natio-
nalism and the ethnosymbolic approach, in A. S. Leoussi / S. Grosby (eds.), Nationalism and
ethnosymbolism. History, culture and ethnicity in the formation of nations. Edinburgh , ;
Smith, Nationalism and modernism (as footnote  above) xii.
 On the state-framed nation as an alternative term to Meinecke’s Staatsnation, see R. Bru-
baker, Ethnicity without groups. Cambridge, Mass. ,  – .
 Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above)  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 179

process which began in the second century CE, but was completed only in the
end of Late Antiquity (seventh century).¹⁴ Thus, the argument focuses predomi-
nately on the collective identity of the subject populations of the post-seventh
century de-Latinized Eastern Roman imperial power of Constantinople.
The premise about gradual nation building in the Roman Empire capitalized
on an innovative approach to the most-debated concept of Romanization as a
process of ideological assimilation of provincial populations to the rational-
legal aspects of the Roman political order.¹⁵ This approach attributes the longev-
ity of the Roman Empire to provincial loyalty as the result of universal consensus
and self-identification of provincial masses with the Roman system of govern-
ment, instead of power relations between centre and periphery. The theoretical
background of this argument has been subject to criticism, the arguments of
which cannot be simply overlooked if we mean to use it as a starting-point to as-
sert the gradual configuration of mass Roman nation-ness.
The major critical argument pertains to Ando’s understanding of ideology as
a homogenizing discourse functioning on a purely individual basis and having
no relation whatsoever to social stratification and power relations.¹⁶ This theoret-
ical approach favours an interpretation of source evidence, which extensively
downplays or even ignores the role of social position, level of literacy and polit-
ical power in differentiating the potential of the members of regionally and
ethno-culturally de facto diverse communities to self-identify with the political
and cultural discourse of the Roman ruling élite. As a result, images of an
ideal Roman imperial order in historiographical sources and panegyrics are
taken to also reflect the perceptions of the masses. Such a methodological ap-
proach needs to be considered with caution. These sources were mainly written
by and circulated among the members of an empire-wide politico-intellectual
upper stratum, thus reflecting in the first place this stratum’s assimilation to
the normative political discourse of the Roman imperial power.
From a sociological point of view, the role of social stratification in the con-
struction of collective identity in a pre-modern imperial order cannot be simply
ignored. As it has been stressed, the political system of territorial empire was
founded on the configuration of an empire-wide extended Roman ruling class

 Ibid. .
 C. Ando, Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman empire. Berkley / Los
Angeles / London , passim; cf. Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above) , note .
 On a thorough review of Ando’s theoretical construct (cf. Ando, Imperial ideology, as before,
 – ), see P.W. Rose, Divorcing ideology from Marxism and Marx from ideology. Arethusa 
()  f. On a comprehensive approach to ideology critique, see T. Eagleton, Ideology: an
introduction. London / New York , passim.

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180 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

that incorporated local élites in the conquered provinces.¹⁷ This class was able to
develop a common identity due to vested economic and political interests in the
Roman imperial system as well as to high level of literacy that made access to a
quasi-uniform education based on a shared language possible (predominately
Latin for the West and Greek for the East).¹⁸ Instead, the largest part of the com-
mon people in the provinces, in particular the illiterate masses of the country-
side,¹⁹ were fully excluded from this process of cultural assimilation, i. e. from
the uniform ‘Greco-Roman’ culture growing within the social élite. Moreover,
they were fully excluded from the structures of ‘civil society’ as the political sys-
tem’s powerless actors. This exclusion was circumscribed by the increasing eco-
nomic pressure that both the state and the landlords exercised upon the peasan-
try through the parasitic dependence of the urban core, as the place of residence
of local élites, upon the broader countryside.²⁰ Within this socio-economic
framework, widespread economic or political/ideological interaction on a
supra-local level among provincial peasantry masses was practically impossible.
Given the centripetal and hierarchical structures of territorial empire, per-
sonal dependence and allegiances on a local level in conjunction with coercive
policing by governors on a provincial level, i. e. the imperial administration’s om-

 See M. Mann, The sources of social power, I: A history of power from the beginning to A.D.
. New York ,  – ; cf. K. Hopkins, The political economy of the Roman empire, in
I. Morris / W. Scheidel (eds.), The dynamics of ancient Empires. State power from Assyria to
Byzantium. Oxford ,  – . By focusing on the political and ideological assimilation of
local élites in the Roman system of government, Mann’s account provides a balanced theoretical
approach to the roles of coercion and ideology in the Roman empire’s longevity. The choice to
ignore the role of local power élites in the system of empire has been a central point of critique
to Ando’s approach; see, T. D. Barnes’ review on Ando’s Book, in The International History
Review / ()  – ; cf. C. Ando / T. D. Barnes, ‘Correspondence’. The International
History Review / ()  – .
 Mann, Sources (as footnote  above)  – . On the ‘Greco-Roman’ culture of the em-
pire’s élites cf. R. Mellor, Graecia Capta: the confrontation between Greek and Roman identity,
in Zacharia, Hellenisms (as footnote  above)  – .
 Only around  % of the empire’s population (of an around  million total) is estimated to
have resided in urban centers, cf. Hopkins, The political economy of the Roman empire (as
footnote  above)  and , note .
 A. M. H. Jones, The Later Roman Empire,  – , II. Oxford ,  – ; G. E. M. de
Ste. Croix, The class struggle in the ancient world. Ithaca ,  – ; C. Welss, The Roman
empire. Stanford ,  – . On the increasing dependence of peasants upon the ma-
gnates during the late Roman (or early Byzantine) period, cf. P. Sarris, Social relations and the
land: the early period, in J. F. Haldon (ed.), A social history of Byzantium. Oxford ,  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 181

nipresent ability to employ physical violence,²¹ exerted the necessary symbolic

power/violence that could tacitly and arbitrarily legitimize regional and supra-
regional relations of domination.²² It follows that the absence of systematic re-
bellion by provincial/ethnic populations against Roman imperial rule in a longue
durée perspective need not have been the result of a universal ideological iden-
tification of the masses with the Roman political culture,²³ whereas it can hardly
be highlighted as evidence of it. The political and ideological assimilation of the
intellectually and politically powerful agents of provincial populations establish-
ed the relations of domination between centre and periphery, and secured their
reproduction, i. e. the longevity of Roman territorial empire.
The key role of ideology and consensus in the function of the imperial order
should rather be sought in the transition of charismatic power from the person to
the office of the emperor during the time of the Principate.²⁴ The fact that this
office was gradually opened to persons of all provincial/ethnic backgrounds ce-
mented the allegiance of the extended ruling class, i. e. of the integrated provin-
cial/ethnic élites, to the system of empire, since it made imperial power accessi-
ble to them as well. However, even on the level of politically-assimilated
provincial élites it was not mere ideological belief that kept the system together.
Insofar as the imperial office was accessible to any member of the upper class
who could work his way up to positions of power through the senate or the
army, the risk of rebellion made politically/practically much more sense if it
took place within the system of empire, using the resources of Roman power
to aim at the imperial throne, rather than against it. Movements of regional sep-
aratism that would rely on provincial allegiances and resources were doomed to

 On public violence to the body as aimed to instil fear and impose subjectivity, see M.W.
Gleason, Truth contests and talking corpses, in J. I. Porter (ed.), Constructions of the classical
body. Michigan , ; cf. J. E. Lendon, Empire of honour. The art of government in the
Roman world. Oxford / New York ,  – .
 On the ideological and symbolic connotations of public slaughter in the amphitheatre of the
Roman town, see Wells, Roman empire (as footnote  above)  – . On symbolic violence
as a means for the maintenance and reproduction of relations of domination in pre-modern
societies, see P. Bourdieu, An outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge ,  – .
 This is the main point of departure in Ando, Imperial ideology (as footnote  above) .
 On this, see Ando, Imperial ideology (as footnote  above)  f. Apart from Ando’s ten-
dency to overstate the role of ideology in the longevity of the Roman imperial order, his research
provides significant insights into the various means of propaganda, by which Roman imperial
power claimed legitimacy; Ando, ibid., esp.  – .

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182 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

face the concentrated military power of the imperial legions and, therefore, to
fail.²⁵
Within this framework, the integration of ethnic élites into the Roman ruling
class represents the crucial factor that prevented them from instrumentalizing
ethnic ideologies and regional allegiances to promote policies of political sepa-
ratism.²⁶ Nevertheless, this hardly prevented ethno-cultural diversity from re-
maining a salient social discourse within the empire, as the systematic use of
ethnonyms in the sources demonstrates. The ethno-cultural categorization of
provincial populations through ethnonyms certainly does not represent evidence
of common people’s mass ethnic self-identification in a subjective manner.²⁷ As
far as illiterate or semi-illiterate masses were concerned, self-identification must
have referred primarily to regional micro-cultures, whereas notions of belonging
to a broader collectivity of shared cultural markers may have defined, only sec-
ondarily, the identity of segments of the provincial populations. Nevertheless,
the de facto existence of broader cultural cleavages provided people with the po-
tential to distinguish who they were not in the empire’s multicultural environ-
ment.
In light of this, the premise that seeks to casually relate the empire’s longev-
ity with a process of abrogation of ethno-cultural diversity in favour of a homog-
enizing Roman national discourse suggests a biased theoretical background. The
latter tends to conflate the concepts of ethnie and nation by selectively attribut-
ing to the former features of modern nationalism and national identities.²⁸ Thus,
discourses of ethno-cultural contradistinction are understood as a priori deter-
mined to lead to political/national autonomy, and therefore to be a cause of con-

 A characteristic example is the crushing of the Jewish so-called bar Kokhba revolt ( –
) by the emperor Hadrian’s legions. On the revolt indicatively, see W. Eck, The Bar Kokhba
revolt: the Roman point of view. The Journal of Roman Studies  ()  – .
 Cf. W. Pohl, Introduction: strategies of distinction, in W. Pohl / H. Reimitz (eds.), Strategies
of distinction: the construction of ethnic communities,  – . Leiden , : “Romanness,
even for those who reached this goal, did not cancel regional and ethnic identities. But it swiftly
imposed a political discourse in which asserting these particular identities could not become a
basis for legitimate rule over a civilised res publica. Only Barbarians strove for power in the
name of ethnic communities, and they did so as enemies of the Roman order.”
 On a comprehensive definition of ethnic groups as cultural collectivities, see A. D. Smith,
National identity. London ,  – . Cf. also the comments in the third part of this paper.
 On a critical approach to this theoretical bias, see W. Pohl, Archaeology of identity: In-
troduction, in W. Pohl / M. Mehofer (eds.), Archaeology of identity/Archäologie der Identität.
Vienna ,  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 183

flict and separation, when they exist.²⁹ On this theoretical basis, the fact that
provincial masses did not seek for ethno-political autonomy through rebellion
is taken as proof that common people appreciated the benefits of centralized tax-
ation by a pacifying imperial power and, therefore, came gradually to self-iden-
tify with its superior political culture in a national manner.³⁰
At this point, Benedict Anderson’s theory is employed in a rather cursory
manner to define the Roman nation as an imagined political community of
deep horizontal comradeship.³¹ The major objection to raise here is that a king-
dom or an empire can be equally perceived and presented as an imagined com-
munity in the writings of a literate élite without, at the same time, being per-
ceived by this élite, and even less so by its culturally- and politically-
marginalized masses, as a national community or to constitute one.³² Anderson
is well aware of the inherent vagueness of his definition and seeks to overcome it
by specifying the nation as a particular kind of imagined community which, as
opposed to kingdoms or empires, is not conceived in a centripetal and hierarch-
ical, but instead in a boundary-orientated and horizontal manner.³³ As the main
precondition for the configuration of this new vision of community and for mass
self-identification with it, Anderson emphasizes the emergence of mass vernac-
ular literacy which created monoglot mass-reading publics on the basis of a na-
tional print-language.³⁴
This aspect, burdensome for a pre-modern case, is tacitly left aside in the
premise about the gradual configuration of the imagined community of the
Roman nation, due to the evident absence of both political intention by the
Roman ruling élite as well as relevant mechanisms for the creation and promo-
tion of a common, broadly-shared vernacular culture within the empire. Thus,
the focus is exclusively directed to the Roman imperial state and its political cul-

 See Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above)  – ,  – , whose whole account is
pervaded by an obscuring attribution of nationalistic traits to ethnic identities.
 Ibid. .
 Ibid. ; On the nation as a particular type of imagined community, see B. Anderson,
Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London / New York

,  – .
 Smith, Nationalism (as footnote  above) , has focused his critique to Anderson’s de-
finition of the nation as an imagined political community on the danger of the trivial application
of such a definition to characterize as nations different kinds of communities, such as a city-
state, a kingdom or even a colonial empire with a single lingua franca; cf. the critical remarks on
vague definitions of the nation in E. Gelner, Nations and nationalism. New perspectives on the
past. Oxford ,  – .
 Anderson, Imagined communities (as footnote  above)  – , .
 Ibid.  – .

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184 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

ture as the main means that instilled all Roman subjects with a national vision.
Here, we are dealing with an approach that, while it correctly rejects essentialist
and reifying views on ethnicity, it is, at the same time, prone to adopt an essen-
tialist and reifying view on political culture and political identity within a pre-
modern, highly stratified imperial social order. Through a quasi “natural” proc-
ess of universal internalization of the superior Roman political culture, political
identity is regarded to have become predominant and to have abrogated the hith-
erto horizontal politico-cultural cleavage between the masses of common people
and the Roman ruling class as well as the vertical cleavages between culturally
diverse populations.
Even though the empire’s economic system maintained large parts of the
provincial masses above the margin of subsistence,³⁵ the evidence of the sources
about the highly coercive manner of tax-collection and the relevant resentment
that this caused among provincial populations cannot be tacitly skipped
over,³⁶ when it comes to the lived experiences of regionally and ethno-culturally
de facto diverse masses of common people. Similarly, even though a strict dis-
tinction of state-apparatuses between ideological and repressive does not even
apply to modern-day states,³⁷ the function of the Roman imperial power’s appa-
ratuses (e. g. army, garrisons, tax-collectors) cannot be seen as predominantly
ideological, i. e. assimilative. These mechanisms had a distinctively repressive
function for the masses on behalf of a politically remote and culturally exclusive
ruling élite. As a result, they could hardly promote by themselves mass Roman
self-identification in a national manner.
In light of this, Caracalla’s decision in 212 CE to give an end to the de jure
exclusion of the largest part of the empire’s population from an – at least nom-
inally – equal political status in the imperial order cannot overshadow the lack-
ing potential of politicization of provincial masses due to the complete abroga-

 Mann, Sources (as footnote  above)  – .

 On the uneven and coercive manner of taxation, see Hopkins, The political economy of the
Roman empire (as footnote  above)  – ; M. Mazza, La fatica dell’uomo. Schiavi e liberi
nel mondo romano. Catania ,  ff.; A. Giardina, The transition to late antiquity, in W.
Scheidel / I. Morris / R. Saller (eds.), The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world.
New York ,  – ; Jones, Later Roman Empire (as footnote  above)  – ; Ch.
Wickham, Framing the early middle ages. Europe and the Mediterranean  – . Oxford /
New York ,  – ; Cf. Mann, Sources (as footnote  above)  – ,  – .
 L. Althusser, Ideology and ideological state apparatuses, in: Lenin and Philosophy and
other essays. New York/London ,  – ; N. Poulantzas, State, power, socialism.
London / New York ,  – ; on a definition of the state in a pre-modern context, see J. F.
Haldon, The state and the tributary mode of production. London / New York ,  – ; cf.
Wickham, Framing (as footnote  above)  – , esp. .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 185

tion of the functions of the res publica within the centripetal and hierarchical
structures of a vast territorial empire.³⁸ This lacking potential is reflected in
the progressive substitution of the term citizen (cives) by the term subject (sub-
jectus) in the late Roman period to legally define everyone under the rule of the
Roman emperor.³⁹ Universal citizenship could neither underpin an, allegedly al-
ready before 212 CE evolving, national Romanization of provincial masses nor set
in motion such a process thereafter.⁴⁰

2. Multi-Ethnic Empire vs. Nation State

The fall of the western parts of the Roman Empire to the Germanic peoples in the
fifth century set in motion certain political, social and cultural developments.
These refer to the continuance of Roman imperial structures in the East, the
gradual linguistic Hellenization of the imperial administration, and the appa-
rently increased cultural homogeneity. The latter refers to the conclusion of
the process of Christianization in the sixth century as well as to the survival
of only one lingua franca (Greek) within the contracted Eastern Empire after
the seventh century. These developments seem to represent a better starting
point for the formation of a state-framed national identity, or alternatively of a
(Graiko‐)Roman ethnic identity among a core population,⁴¹ within the post-sev-
enth century Eastern Roman imperial order.
In this regard, one needs to scrutinize the premise that Constantinople’s
realm after the seventh century represented a Nation-State rather than the do-
main of an imperial city-state, and that the political ideology of Roman ecumen-
ism played no significant role in the Eastern Roman vision of community.⁴² The
dismissal of Roman ecumenism as a main trait of Eastern Roman identity is here
obviously preconditioned by the need to adapt the Byzantine vision of commun-
ity to the traits of the nation. The nation as an inherently limited and boundary-

 Mann, Sources (as footnote  above)  – , .

 Cf. Chrysos, Roman political identity (as footnote  above)  – .
 On the lack of broadly shared notions of Roman patriotism among the empire’s masses, cf.
W. Liebeschuetz, Citizen status and law in the Roman empire and the Visigothic kingdom, in
Pohl/Reimitz, Strategies of distinction (as footnote  above), . On an approach to Roman
identity as dynamically developing from legal to geopolitical and then to religious notions, see
H. Inglebert, Citoyenneté romaine, romanités et identites romaines sous l’Empire, in idem
(ed.), Idéologies et valeurs civiques dans le monde romain. Hommage à Claude Lepelley. Paris
,  – .
 On this approach see Koder, Ethnogenese (as footnote  above)  f.
 Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above)  – .

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186 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

orientated imagined political community is closely related with the notion of a

territorially-limited ‘fatherland’, i. e. a fairly stable territory, to which the com-
munity of the people is notionally attached and within which it develops a
solid geographically bound politico-cultural identity.⁴³ This notion of the na-
tion’s ‘fatherland’ proves, however, extremely problematic in the case of the al-
leged Eastern Roman nation. The information of the sources demonstrates that
the post-seventh century Eastern Roman ruling élite, the main bearer of
Roman identity, was neither politically nor ideologically committed to the notion
of limited Roman ‘fatherland’.
The period of radical contraction of the empire’s borders from the late sixth
to the early eighth century was followed by a period between roughly the mid-
eighth to the early eleventh century, during which the imperial power incremen-
tally expanded its territories and almost doubled the number of its subjects.⁴⁴
Large parts of the Greek peninsula that had been occupied by Slavic tribes
since the late sixth century came slowly under imperial authority after the
mid-eighth century. This re-assertion of territorial rule meant the integration of
a new subject population that built a distinct ethno-cultural category within
the Eastern Roman order.⁴⁵ During the tenth and eleventh centuries, the borders
of empire were rearranged through the occupation of parts of Mesopotamia,
northern Syria, and the annexation of parts of Armenia and Iberia in the
East⁴⁶ as well as through the subjugation of the Bulgar Kingdom and the exten-
sion of imperial authority over the Slavic political entities in the northern Balkan
Peninsula.⁴⁷ The populations of these territories were integrated into the imperi-
al state’s homogenizing Roman political discourse.
These practises of territorial expansionism and subjugation of ethno-cultur-
ally diverse populations by the Roman élite of Constantinople resulted from the

 This notional binding of the nation to a limited ‘fatherland’ is interrelated with the fact that
the potential stretch of the nation as an imagined political community, as opposed to other
kinds of imagined communities (e. g. empires or religious systems), is inherently limited; cf.
Anderson, Imagined communities (as footnote  above) , who observes that “no nation
imagines itself coterminous with mankind. The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a
day when all the members of the human race will join their nation”.
 W. Treadgold, A history of the Byzantine state and society. Stanford , ; idem, A
concise history of Byzantium. Basingstoke , ; J. F. Haldon, The Palgrave Atlas of
Byzantine history. New York ,  – .
 F. Curta, The Edinburgh history of the Greeks, c.  to . The early middle ages.
Edinburgh ,  – .
 Cf. C. Holmes, Basil II and the governance of empire ( – ). Oxford ,  – .
 Cf. P. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier. A political study of the Northern Balkans,
 – . Cambridge ,  f.,  f.

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 187

latter’s ideological and political commitment to the vision of territorial empire,

the limits of which could be extended any time that the Constantinopolitan im-
perial city-state was in a position to impose its political authority through mili-
tary means. The ideology of expansion was founded on the Roman power’s pre-
rogative to claim former parts of the ecumenical Roman Empire. This prerogative
was, in turn, informed by the Roman imperial office’s historical myth. The latter,
as presented by Byzantine chroniclers, focused on two major political events:
First, the emergence of territorial empire under the Roman emperor Augustus
that had pacified the Oecumene through the subjugation of the different ethne
(peoples); second, the reunification of the ecumenical empire under the imperial
monocracy of Constantine I, founder of New Rome (i. e. Constantinople) and first
Christian emperor.⁴⁸
Within this ideological framework, the representation of the Eastern Roman
notion of ‘homeland’ in the writings of the élite had very little to do with the land
of origin of the Roman people as a community of common culture. Instead, it
consistently referred, at least up to the late twelfth century, to the extensive
and vague territorial boundaries of the Roman Oecumene, the traditional orbis
romanum, as the historical ‘homeland’ of the Roman imperial power’s political
culture of imperial monocracy.⁴⁹ For instance, in the mid-tenth century Constan-
tine VII juxtaposed the contracted territorial borders of the Roman power’s rule

 Cf. E. M. Jeffreys, The attitudes of Byzantine chroniclers towards ancient history. Byzantion
 () ,  – , ; R. Macrides / P. Magdalino, The fourth kingdom and the
rhetoric of Hellenism, in P. Magdalino (ed.), The perception of the past in twelfth-century Eu-
rope. London / Rio Grande ,  – ; Rapp, Hellenic identity (as footnote  above) ; J.
Koder, Die räumlichen Vorstellungen der Byzantiner von der Ökumene (. bis . Jahrhundert).
Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften / ()
 – ; I. Stouraitis, Krieg und Frieden in der politischen und ideologischen Wahrnehmung in
Byzanz (.–. Jahrhundert). Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber, Ergänzungsband . Vienna
,  – .
 On the ideal of ecumenism in Byzantine political thought, see Th. M. Fögen, Das politische
Denken der Byzantiner, in: Pipers Handbuch der politischen Ideen, Bd. : Mittelalter. Munich
,  – ; Koder, Ökumene (as footnote  above)  – ; G. Dagron, L’œcuménicité
politique: Droit sur l’espace, droit sur le temps, in E. Chrysos (ed.), Το Βυζάντιο ως Οικουμένη.
National Hellenic Research Foundation/Institute for Byzantine Research, International Symposia,
. Athens ,  – ; G. Schmalzbauer, Überlegungen zur Idee der Ökumene in Byzanz, in
W. Hörandner/ J. Koder/ M. Stassinopoulou (eds.), Wiener Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik: Bei-
träge zum Symposion Vierzig Jahre Institut Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik der Universität Wien
im Gedenken an Herbert Hunger (Wien, .–. Dezember ). Byzantina Neograeca Vi-
donbonensia, . Vienna ,  – . On an alternative view about a ‘limited Oecumene’,
see T. Lounghis, Die byzantinische Ideologie der “begrenzten Ökumene” und die römische
Frage im ausgehenden . Jahrhundert. BSl  ()  – .

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188 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

in his times to the broader borders of the past, as these had been achieved
through the wars of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Constantine I and Theodo-
sius I.⁵⁰ In a similar manner, Anna Komnene stated around the mid-twelfth cen-
tury that the Roman power was by nature the ruler of the ethne (peoples)⁵¹ and
that, had her father Alexios I not been hindered by unfavourable circumstances,
he would have rightfully restored Roman rule (i. e. extended the Roman political
community) over the whole former orbis romanum up to the limits of the Atlantic
Ocean in the West and India in the East.⁵²
Kekaumenos, a member of the empire’s provincial élite in Eastern Asia
Minor in the second half of the eleventh century, testifies to those mechanisms
of political dependence upon the imperial office and assimilation to its political
culture that configured the solid Roman identity of the empire-wide extended
ruling class, as primarily an identity of status within a centripetal and hierarch-
ical imperial order. His text is pervaded by the image of a faithful servant (dou-
los) of the divinely-ordained emperor who stood above the law.⁵³ Apart from his
knowledge of and active participation in the hierarchical political system of em-
pire, his Roman identity was characterized by ideological assimilation to the im-
perial power’s political vision of territorial empire. This is indicated by his
knowledge of the imperial office’s historical myth, i. e. the unification and pac-
ification of the former orbis romanus through the military activities of the emper-
ors of Rome and Constantinople.⁵⁴

 Costantino Porfirogenito. De thematibus, (ed.) A. Pertusi. Studi e Testi, . Vatican City
, I  – : Ὅτε οἱ βασιλεῖς μετὰ τοῦ λαοῦ ἐπεστράτευον καὶ τοῖς ἀνταίρουσι τὸν τῆς Ῥω-
μαϊκῆς δουλείας ζυγὸν ἐπετίθεσαν καὶ μικροῦ δεῖν πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐπολιόρκουν ἀτα-
κτοῦσαν καὶ ἀντιλέγουσαν, ὡς ὁ Καῖσαρ Ἰούλιος, ὡς ὁ θαυμαστὸς Αὔγουστος, ὡς ὁ Τραϊανὸς
ἐκεῖνος ὁ περιβόητος, ὡς ὁ μέγας ἐν βασιλεῦσι Κωνσταντῖνος καὶ Θεοδόσιος…Καὶ εἰς τοῦτο
κατέληξεν ἡ τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴ μέχρι τῆς σήμερον. Νυνὶ δὲ στενωθείσης κατά τε ἀνατολὰς καὶ
δυσμὰς τῆς Ῥωμαϊκῆς βασιλείας καὶ ἀκρωτηριασθείσης ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς Ἡρακλείου τοῦ Λίβυος.
 Anna Komnene (Anna Comnenae Alexias, ed. D. R. Reinsch/A. Kambylis. CFHB, . Berlin
) XIV , : φύσει γὰρ οὖσα δεσπότις τῶν ἄλλων ἐθνῶν ἡ βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων ἐχθρωδῶς
διακείμενον ἔχει τὸ δοῦλον, καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἐπιδράξαιτο καιροῦ.
 Ibid. VI , : ἦν μὲν γὰρ ὅτε οἱ ὅροι τῆς τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίας αἱ ἀμφότεραι στῆλαι ἦσαν
ἀνατολὴν καὶ δύσιν περιορίζουσαι, ἐξ ἑσπέρας μὲν αἱ τοῦ Ἡρακλέος ὀνομαζόμεναι, ἐξ ἕω δὲ αἱ
ἀγχοῦ που ἱστάμεναι τοῦ ἰνδικοῦ πέρατος αἱ τοῦ Διονύσου (κατὰ γὰρ πλάτος οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν
ὅσον ἦν τῆς τῶν Ῥωμαίων βασιλείας τὸ κράτος), … καὶ ἂν εἰς τὴν προτέραν εὐδαιμονίαν τὴν
βασιλείαν ἀνενεώσατο, εἰ μή γε οἱ ἐπάλληλοι ἀγῶνες καὶ οἱ πυκνοὶ πόνοι καὶ κίνδυνοι (ἦν γὰρ καὶ
ἀμφότερα ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ μεγαλοκίνδυνός τε καὶ πυκνοκίνδυνος) τοῦτον ἀπέστησαν τοῦ
ὁρμήματος.
 Strategikon I  – , IV  – , V  (Sovety i Raaskazy Kekavmena, ed. G. Litavrin socinenie
vizantijskogo polcovodca XI veka. Moscow ,  – ,  – , ).
 Ibid. V ,  –  ( Litavrin).

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 189

In light of this, it is evident that the post-seventh century Eastern Roman

élite did not and could not imagine or, for that matter, propagate a limited ‘na-
tional’ territory. The geographical term Romania that was contingently employed
to designate the emperor’s realm did not refer to a notionally circumscribed ‘fa-
therland’, but to the fluctuating boundaries of the Roman imperial power’s ter-
ritorial authority. The notion of Roman ecumenical rule, a common topos in the
writings of the post-seventh century Eastern Roman ruling class, was, of course,
not intended to promote, and by no means reflects, the strategic aims of Eastern
Roman imperial policies.⁵⁵ It simply demonstrates those mentality patterns that
conditioned the form and the content of the Byzantine élite’s Roman identity for
several centuries after Rome’s fall. Knowledge of the history of the empire and
allegiance to the vision of Constantinople’s imperial rule over territories and
peoples was not meaningless rhetorical fiction, but rather represented one of
the main features that, at least up to the twelfth century, informed the Roman-
ness of the political and literate élite, the main bearer of Eastern Roman identity.
This identity was founded on a vision of centripetal and hierarchical imperial
community to which any people or group could potentially be included as
Roman subjects.
The absence of a notion of Roman ‘fatherland’ represents a useful point of
departure to address the question as to whether a core population of the post-
seventh century Eastern Roman imperial state could have developed a Roman
national identity. This question concerns primarily the indigenous Greek-speak-
ing masses of the territorial core, and it is interrelated with the post-sixth century
linguistic Hellenization of the Roman imperial administration. The issues to pose
pertain to: 1) whether the Eastern Roman political system favoured some kind of
politicization of the masses of the empire’s territorial core after the end of Late
Antiquity; and 2) whether the Eastern Roman ruling élite sought to attach its
Roman identity discourse to the Greek ethno-linguistic group within the empire.
Beginning with the first question, it is particularly important to bear in mind
that, as opposed to the West, in the East the geopolitical structures of empire did
not experience a radical break after the end of Late Antiquity. The political sys-
tem of the contracted Eastern Empire was marked by the complete deterioration
of the superficial political role of the senate, the fading-away of the senatorial

 On the role of the ecumenical ideal in justifying pragmatic war policies after the seventh
century, see I. Stouraitis, ‘Just war’ and ‘holy war’ in the middle ages: rethinking theory
through the Byzantine case-study. JÖB  ()  – .

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190 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

aristocracy, and the gradual extinction of large civic centres.⁵⁶ The new Eastern
Roman ruling class that incrementally emerged after the seventh century was ex-
tensively dependent upon the emperor for titles and revenues.⁵⁷ This fact made
its self-identification with the Roman order a matter of close relationship with
and allegiance to the political culture of the imperial office, as the aforemen-
tioned case of Kekaumenos demonstrates. These relations of dependence and
subservience secured the maintenance of Constantinople’s firm control over
most of its provinces, even in times of great crisis such as the period from the
mid-seventh to the mid-eighth century, but also strengthened the autocratic ten-
dency of the political system.⁵⁸ Within this framework, nothing indicates that
any change occurred in regard to the de facto political exclusion of provincial
masses from the structures of ‘civil society’.
A counter-argument to this latter view seems to be posed by H.-G. Beck’s
theory on the Byzantine political system. According to his argument, the pre-
dominant political ideal within Byzantine society was not the ideal of imperial
autocracy as propagandized by the imperial office, but the ideal of the res pub-
lica as represented in latently outlived, quasi-constitutional norms.⁵⁹ These
norms promoted a preponderant image of the emperor among his subjects as
a simple administrator of the Roman res publica, a primus inter pares, elected
and controlled by the Roman people with regard to the normative fulfilment
of his administrative duties.⁶⁰ Within this framework, Beck suggested that the
political phenomenon of tyranny (usurpation) was related with and in part re-
sulted from the preponderant ideal of ‘quasi-constitutional’ monarchy (Wahlmo-

 On senatorial aristocracy cf. T. K. Lounghis, Δοκίμιο για την κοινωνική εξέλιξη στη διάρκεια
των λεγόμενων “σκοτεινών αιώνων” ( – ). Athens ,  – ; on urban centers, see
W. Brandes, Die Städte Kleinasiens im . und . Jahrhundert. BBA, . Berlin ,  – .
 On the structure and character of the Roman ruling class in post-seventh century Byzantium,
see F. Winkelmann, Quellenstudien zur herrschenden Klasse von Byzanz im . und . Jahr-
hundert. BBA, . Berlin , passim; J. F. Haldon, Social élites, wealth, and power, in idem
(ed.), A social history of Byzantium. Oxford ,  f. (with detailed bibliography); on the
issue of dependence upon the imperial office for social status and revenues cf. idem, Tributary
mode (as footnote  above)  f.
 Winkelmann, Quellenstudien (as footnote  above)  f.
 H.G. Beck, Senat und Volk von Konstantinopel. Probleme der byzantinischen Verfas-
sungsgeschichte. Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos.-hist.
Klasse, Heft . Munich , passim; idem, Res publica Romana. Vom Staatsdenken der By-
zantiner. Munich , passim; idem, Das byzantinische Jahrtausend. Munich ,  – ;
cf. I. Karayannopoulos, Η πολιτικη θεωρία των Βυζαντινών. Thessaloniki ,  – .
 Cf. Kaldellis, Hellenism (as footnote  above) .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 191

narchie) that induced the Roman people to depose an emperor who did not
stand up to the norms of the res publica. ⁶¹
Certainly, it cannot be denied that the Roman res publica is contingently ref-
erenced as a political model in some writings of – admittedly – few members of
the Byzantine literate élite; a fact that testifies to a rival theoretical stance to the
imperial ideal of divinely-ordained autocracy.⁶² However, an interpretation of
this rival line of thinking not as a theoretical discourse of some intellectual au-
thors, but as a dominant operative ideology within the Eastern Roman social
order seems to me to celebrate the utopian element in the political thought of
certain well-educated individuals against the abundant source evidence that tes-
tifies to the actual socio-political role of the predominant idea of imperial autoc-
racy within the framework of the élite, the main holder of political power.⁶³
In pre-1204 Byzantium tyranny, expressed through a coup or a ‘civil war’,
ended with the political extinction, and often also the physical death, either
of the usurper (in most cases) or of the reigning emperor (in the fewest cases).
Either way, the political assertion of the usurper or the emperor as the (new) le-
gitimate ruler was exclusively dependent upon the outcome of the power strug-
gle. The effort to dethrone an emperor was normally initiated, by a faction or fac-
tions of the ruling class or the army.⁶⁴ Usurpers could only rarely, and under
certain preconditions, also rely on the support of the people of Constantinople
to take over power. The side that won the conflict could celebrate and propa-
gandize its leader as the divinely-ordained (new) legitimate ruler, whereas the
leader of the defeated side was condemned to public defamation as either a tyr-
annical usurper or a “bad administrator” of the state, analogous to the initial po-
sition of the contenders. The predominant ideal of divine selection, which equal-
ly legitimized the re-assertion of power by a reigning emperor or the
enthronement of a usurper after the end of a coup or a ‘civil war’, amplified

 Beck, Jahrtausend (as footnote  above) ; Karayannopoulos, Πολιτικη θεωρία (as
footnote  above)  – .
 Cf. D. Angelov, Imperial ideology and political thought in Byzantium,  – . New
York ,  – .
 On critique to Beck’s approach, see Fögen, Das politische Denken (as footnote )  – .
above
 On the preponderant role of the ruling class and the insignificant role of the common people
respectively in the struggles over the imperial throne, see Winkelmann, Quellenstudien (as
footnote  above)  – ; J.-C. Cheynet, Pouvoir et contestation à Byzance ( – ).
Byzantina Sorbonensia, . Paris ,  – ; A. E. Laiou, Peasant rebellion: Notes on its
vocabulary and typology, in M.Th. Fögen (ed.), Ordnung und Aufruhr im Mittelalter. Historische
und Juristische Studien zur Rebellion. Studien zur Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, . Frankfurt
, , .

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192 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

the inherent arbitrariness of the Byzantine political system. The recurrence of

usurpation neither resulted from, nor was legitimized by, an active quasi-institu-
tional role of the Roman people in the dethronement of a bad administrator of an
alleged res publica. It was rather the product of a political system which made
imperial power accessible to anyone with the means to organize a coup or a re-
bellion and which allowed for the ideological legitimization of the outcome of
power struggles, i. e. the assertion of autocratic power, as God’s inscrutable
judgement.⁶⁵
This becomes evident if we take a closer look at both a successful and a
failed usurpation example. The emperor John I Tzimiskes (969 – 976) needed
only a handful of loyal associates to murder his predecessor Nikephoros II Pho-
kas (963 – 969) and usurp power. The documented reactions to his coup demon-
strate that he had managed to secure in advance the support of important army
officers and units under their command. This enabled him to immediately put
the most significant members of the Phokas clan under arrest.⁶⁶ After the suc-
cessful outcome of his coup, Tzimiskes’ primary concern was to achieve his cor-
onation by the Patriarch in order to legitimize his accession to the throne as di-
vine will.⁶⁷ This was the main ideological means through which he could
entrench his control over the army and legitimize his position in the eyes of
the other members of the ruling class as well as, secondarily, of the Constantino-
politan mob. The provincial masses were fully excluded from any active role in
this act of tyranny that deposed the emperor. It follows that the dethronement of
Phokas could hardly be interpreted as reflecting the collective political will and
action of the Roman subjects, especially of the provincial masses, within the
socio-ideological framework of a medieval res publica.
In the ‘civil wars’ between 987 and 989, the dynastically legitimate emperor
Basil II was able to defeat the usurper Bardas Phokas by relying on a large for-
eign force of Varangians,⁶⁸ while the usurper had the larger part of the Roman

 Cheynet, Pouvoir (as footnote  above)  – ; I. Stouraitis, Bürgerkrieg in ideo-
logischer Wahrnehmung durch die Byzantiner: Die Frage der Legitimierung und Rechtfertigung.
JÖB  ()  f., esp.  – .
 Β. Blysidu, Αριστοκρατικές οικογένειες και εξουσία (ος–ος αι.). Athens ,  – ,
,  – ; Cheynet, Pouvoir (as footnote  above) .
 Leonis diaconi Caloensis Historiae libri X., ed. C. B. Hase. CSHB. Bonn ,  – ; cf. A.-
M. Talbot / D. F. Sullivan (transl.), The History of Leo the Deacon. Byzantine military ex-
pansion in the tenth century. Washington, D.C. ,  – ; Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis
historiarum, ed. I. Thurn. CFHB, . Berlin ,  – ; cf. J. Wortley (transl.), John Sky-
litzes, A synopsis of Byzantine history  – . Cambridge ,  – .
 A. Poppe, The political background to the baptism of Rus. DOP  ()  – , here
 – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 193

military forces on his side.⁶⁹ If we were to suppose that the support of the largest
part of the “Roman people’s” army for the usurper reflects the provincial masses’
political stance and implies their active participation in a movement that sought
to dethrone a bad administrator of the res publica, then the outcome of the
power struggle provides solid evidence of the common people’s powerless status
in the political system. Basil II not only managed to defeat the allegedly ‘chosen
one’ of the provincial masses, but also to reign for another thirty-six years as the
‘chosen one’ of God over those masses that had supposedly sought for his de-
thronement.
In fact, this ‘civil war’ demonstrates that tyranny had nothing to do with the
political stance of the empire’s masses and any collective action that might have
resulted from that. Phokas rebelled because he was in a position of power that
secured him the support of various factions of the ruling class that he used to
take control over the largest part of the field armies of the tagmata. Basil II,
on the other hand, relied on his diplomatic skills that provided him with an
equally competitive foreign mercenary force. The internal armed conflict was
purposefully sacralised by the emperor who employed religious symbolism to
justify his military actions against the rebellious Christian-Roman army. This
practice facilitated the retrospective justification of his triumph over the usurper
as divine will.⁷⁰
The aforementioned examples underline the need for a cautious approach to
the premise that the phenomenon of tyranny indicates a mass ideological assim-
ilation of Roman subjects to notions of quasi-participatory res publica. Insofar as
the outcome of the power-struggle was primarily, if not exclusively, a matter of
support by powerful factions of the élite and/or field army units (mainly indig-
enous, but potentially also foreign), tyranny was there neither to end the com-
mon people’s exclusion from the political system nor to threaten the autocratic
tenet of the imperial system. It only determined the faction of the ruling class
and its representative that would perpetuate it.⁷¹ Public propaganda of divine le-
gitimization sought to arbitrarily circumscribe and, thus, to compel the euphe-
mistic consensus of the politically excluded masses. The ceremonial participa-
tion of at least one of the three institutions (army, senate, demoi) in the
emperor’s acclamation reflects the imperial office’s strategies of symbolic

 Michael Psellos, Chronographia I ,  (Michele Psello, Imperatori di Bisanzio [Cronografia],

ed. S. Impellizzeri. Milano , ).
 Cf. Stouraitis, Bürgerkrieg (as footnote  above) .
 Cf. J. Haldon, Byzantine praetorians: an administrative, institutional, and social survey of
the Opsikion and tagmata, c.  – . Poikila Byzantina, . Bonn , ; Winkelmann,
Quellenstudien (as footnote  above) .

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194 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

power, through which the politically and ideologically preponderant autocratic

tenet of the imperial system was euphemized and thus perpetuated.
The argument about the exclusion of the provincial masses from the struc-
tures of ‘civil society’ is further supported by the revisionist approaches to
older views on the Byzantine imperial state as a ‘bureaucratic state’ that exten-
sively intervened and organized provincial social order.⁷² As it has been argued,
the organization and maintenance of order in the provinces was, to a great ex-
tent, conceded to the arbitrary will of local lords, whereas the imperial power
was primarily interested in maintaining firm control over the territory in military
terms as well as in collecting taxes.⁷³ This provincial reality can hardly have pro-
moted images of a well-organized centralized res publica that would induce com-
mon people to identify themselves with the political interests of the Roman im-
perial power of Constantinople. The Life of Saint Antony the Younger, written in
the second half of the ninth century, provides an interesting insight into the view
of the Roman imperial order from the provinces.
The saint was a deputy-governor (ek prosopou) in Attaleia, a coastal city of
south-western Asia Minor, in the 820s when it is reported that an Arab naval
force attacked the city. According to the author of the Life, Antony succeeded
in preventing the attack through negotiations with the Arab commander.⁷⁴ The
reported incident took place in the empire’s territorial core, the population of
which is often premised to have had a solid (even national) Roman identity,
and not on some vague periphery. In view of this, it is interesting that the nar-
rative of the Life fully deviates from the norms of Constantinopolitan discourse,
which projected an image of the empire’s population as a solid Roman commun-
ity in both a religious (‘Chosen People’) and a political sense (Romanness). In
the negotiations between the Roman official and the Arab commander the latter
is said to have justified the attack against the city as a measure of retaliation
prompted by the Byzantine army’s raids in Syria. In his response, Antony is pre-
sented to draw a clear line between the population of his town and the actions of
the emperor’s army on the Eastern frontier. He points out that the local popula-
tion could not be made responsible for the imperial army’s activity, since “the

 R.-J. Lilie, Die Zentralbürokratie und die Provinzen zwischen dem . und dem . Jahr-
hundert. Anspruch und Realität. BF  ()  – ; J.-C .Cheynet, Point de vue sur
l’efficacité administrative entre les xe et xie siècles. BF  ()  – .
 L. Neville, Authority in Byzantine provincial society,  – . Cambridge ,  –
; cf. Haldon, Social Élites (as footnote  above)  – ; on provincial order in medieval
Greece, cf. Curta, History (as footnote  above)  – .
 A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Βίος και πολιτεία τοῦ ὁσίου Ἀντωνίου τοῦ Νέου, in: Συλλογή
παλαιστινιακής και συριακής αγιολογίας, I. St. Petersburg ,  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 195

emperor of the Romans commands whatever he wants to his officers and this
must be done. He sends fleets and arms his forces to fight against those who re-
sist his own power irrespective of whether we want that or not”.⁷⁵
The narrative testifies to the absence of a strong garrison that would effec-
tively defend this provincial town and its inhabitants. For this reason, civilians,
among them also young women, were mingled with the soldiers on the city-walls
to mislead the enemy about the strength of the defending force.⁷⁶ The author had
no interest in presenting these provincials as the “Chosen People” fighting
against the infidel or as the defenders of the superior Roman political order fight-
ing against barbarians to protect a broader patria communis. Instead, he testifies
to their pragmatic need for local defence in the absence of effective protection
from the political center. The image of the Roman state of Constantinople and,
in particular, of the Roman emperor has nothing to do with the image of a
well-organized res publica and its administrator respectively. It rather refers to
a remote, absolute power which managed its power-political affairs according
to its own interests that did not identify with the interests of the common people.
In the discourse of the Life, the soldiers of the Arab army are not the barbarians
that threatened the divinely-ordained Roman political order, but rather outsiders
that had come to threaten the lives of the local population and the peace of their
local community. The author clearly presents the ‘Romans’ of this provincial
town as engaged in a war that was not really theirs; it was rather imposed
upon them by the power-political interests of the imperial city-state of Constan-
tinople.⁷⁷
This discrepant identity between political center and provincial periphery
provides the ground on which to approach the potential role of evident vertical
social mobility in the construction of collective identity in Byzantium.⁷⁸ In the

 Ibid. : ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς τῶν Ῥωμαίων τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ ἄρχουσιν ὅτι θέλει κελεύει καὶ γίνεται,
καὶ στόλους ἐκπέμπει, και στρατόν ἐξοπλίζει πρὸς πόλεμον τῶν ἀντιτασσομένων τῇ αὐτοῦ
βασιλείᾳ, κἂν θέλωμεν ἡμεῖς, κἂν μὴ θέλωμεν.
 Ibid. : ἐκέλευσεν οὖν πάντας ἀνελθεῖν ἀσπιδοφόρους ἐπὶ τοῦ τείχους, οὐ μόνον ἄνδρας,
ἀλλὰ καὶ γυναικῶν τὰς νεάνιδας, μεταμφιασαμένας εἰς ἀνδρικὸν σχῆμα πρὸς τὸ πολυοχλίαν
φανῆναι τοῖς πολεμίοις.
 Cf. the insightful comment in R.-J. Lilie, The Byzantine-Arab borderland from the seventh to
the ninth century, in: F. Curta (ed.), Borders, barriers and ethnogenesis. Frontiers in late anti-
quity and the middle ages. Studies in the Early Middle Ages, . Tournhout , .
 On vertical social mobility, see Beck, Jahrtausend (as footnote  above)  f.; A. Kazh-
dan / G. Constable, People andp ower in Byzantium: an introduction to modern Byzantine
studies. Washington, D.C. ,  – . On the potential role of vertical social mobility in
configuring a relatively common identity between upper stratum and lower strata, see J. Koder,

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196 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

medieval Eastern Roman social order, access to the social élite was open to peo-
ple of common origin either through acquisition of higher education that facili-
tated a career in the imperial administration or the church, or alternatively
through a high-ranking post in the army (usually restricted to sons of upper-
class families). Nevertheless, for any single person that was able to make the so-
cial breakthrough from the masses into the upper stratum there were many tens
of thousands that remained excluded from this stratum’s politico-cultural men-
tality. The fact that social stratification was not a matter of birth does not mean
that the post-seventh century Eastern Roman social order was not marked by a
horizontal cleavage between a small upper stratum of common literate culture
and participatory political identity, and the politically excluded masses of illiter-
ate or semi-illiterate common people.⁷⁹ This aspect is often either downplayed or
tacitly skipped over in present-day debates about Eastern Roman collective iden-
tity,⁸⁰ even though it is of central significance for the evident lack of interest on
the side of the Byzantine élite to share its higher culture with the masses and to
promote some kind of political participation in order to create a broadly shared
vision of the Eastern Roman community as a political community of common
culture.
The Eastern Roman provincial masses’ high degree of illiteracy was comple-
mented by both regional and ethnic linguistic diversity.⁸¹ The latter was crucial
in maintaining vertical cultural cleavages in the absence of an established mass
public culture. Indicatively, it has been postulated that during the tenth century
the persons intellectually capable of producing and reading literary and historio-
graphical texts can be estimated at around three hundred.⁸² Even if we revise the
estimated number of such persons to have been ten times as much, it still dem-
onstrates the vast cultural gap between the literate upper stratum and the mass-

Byzantinische Identität – einleitende Bemerkungen, in Fledelius, Byzantium (as footnote 

above) .
 On the role of this cleavage in the collective identity of pre-modern social orders, see
Gelner, Nations (as footnote  above)  – .
 Cf. the critical remarks in C. D. Smythe, Byzantine Identity and Labelling Theory, in Fle-
delius, Byzantium (as footnote  above),  – .
 G. Dagron, Formes et fonctions du pluralism linguistique à Byzance (IXe–XIIe siècle). TM 
()  – ; Mango, Byzantium (as footnote  above)  – , esp.  – ; cf. idem, The
availability of books in the Byzantine empire, A.D.  – , in: Byzantine books and bookmen.
A Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium. Washington, D.C. ,  – ; J. Koder, Sprache als Identi-
tätsmerkmal bei den Byzantinern (Auf ‐isti endende sprachenbezogene Adverbien in den grie-
chischen Quellen). Anzeiger der philos.-hist. Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissen-
schaften / ()  – .
 Rapp, Hellenic Identity (as footnote  above) .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 197

es within an empire, the demographic peak of which at the end of this century is
estimated at roughly eighteen million inhabitants.⁸³ This argument is comple-
mented by the information of the Tactica of Leo VI about illiteracy in the Eastern
Roman army of the early tenth century. The author of the book refers to the tour-
march, the second high-ranking officer of a field army unit (thema) under the
strategos (general), and observes that, if possible, these officers should be
able to read and write.⁸⁴ If we take this information to represent an approximate
indication regarding the level of literacy within society, then by the most opti-
mistic approach the empire’s population with some degree of literacy cannot
be estimated at more than 15 – 20 %.
In addition to that, the author of the Tactica advises his generals that the
heralds of each bandon (sub-unit) who were responsible to encourage the sol-
diers with oral messages before battle should preferably speak many languag-
es.⁸⁵ This is an indication that a good knowledge of the Greek koine as a lingua
franca should not be taken a priori for granted even for segments of the peasant
masses of the territorial core that made up the largest part of the army of the Tac-
tica. These were mostly illiterate people that may have spoken only a regional
dialect. Moreover, knowledge of the Greek koine cannot be a priori considered
as highly pervasive by the illiterate Armenian, Slavic, Syriac (by that time Ara-
bic-speaking⁸⁶), and Bulgar peasant masses that represented the largest ethno-
linguistic groups on the empire’s provincial periphery in the tenth and eleventh
centuries.
The identity gap between the social élite and the masses in Byzantium is
made salient if we look behind the homogenizing Roman identity discourse in
the writings of the literate élite. Anna Komnene, a distinguished representative
of the ruling élite of the twelfth century, regarded anyone outside the emperor’s
realm as barbarian (foreigner), i. e. not Roman, from a political point of view.
From a cultural point of view, however, the barbarian could be both inside
and outside the limits of imperial rule. In her report on the orphanage establish-
ed by her father Alexios I in Constantinople, she mentions that “one can see a

 Cf. the estimations in D. Stathakopoulos, Population, Demography, and Disease, in E.

Jeffreys / J. F. Haldon / R. Cormack, The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford/New York
,  – .
 Leonis VI Tactica (The Tactica of Leo VI, ed. G.T. Dennis. CFHB, . Waschington, D. C.
) IV : νῦν δὲ τῇ συνηθείᾳ καλούμενοι τουρμάρχαι· καὶ τούτους φρονίμους καὶ εὐτάκτους
εἶναι καὶ ἐναρέτους καὶ ἐμπείρους, εἰ δυνατόν, εἰδότας καὶ γράμματα, καὶ μάλιστα τὸν τοῦ μέσου
μέρους, τὸν λεγόμενον ὑποστράτηγον.
 Ibid. IV ; cf. Dagron, Formes (as footnote  above)  – .
 Koder, Byzantium (as footnote  above) .

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198 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

Latin being educated and a Scythian learning the Hellenic language and a
Roman studying the literature of the Hellenes and the illiterate Hellene learning
to speak correct the Hellenic language”.⁸⁷ As it has been insightfully suggested,
Anna presents here the Greek, the Scythian and the Latin as equally barbarian in
culture, since none of them knew or spoke the Greek language correctly.⁸⁸
The most striking, and fairly puzzling, point in the statement is the juxtapo-
sition of the term Roman to the term Hellene in a contemporary sense. The latter
term can hardly be taken to have the function of a toponym here, meaning the
inhabitant of the province of Hellas.⁸⁹ Apart from the fact that no notion of a re-
gion Hellas is documented in Anna’s text, the context of the phrase indicates the
use of the term as a classicizing ethnonym analogously to the other ethnonyms.⁹⁰
This is further supported by the paratactic employment of the terms hellenes, hel-
lenezein, hellenon syngrammata. By using the classicizing term Hellenes in a con-
temporary manner next to the term hellenon syngrammata, obviously meaning
the writings of the Ancient Hellenes, the author actually alludes to an ethno-cul-
tural link between the Ancient Hellenes and the Greek-speaking Roman subjects
of her times that made up the largest part of the imperial state’s masses.⁹¹ At the
same time though, she also points to those common illiterate Greeks’ total lack
of cultural potential that would enable them to make such an ideological link
and to self-identify ethno-culturally as members of a historical Hellenic ethnie.
Moreover, this ethno-cultural categorization of the Greek-speaking masses
by Anna, as a member of the Roman élite, was hardly intended to imply an his-
torical identification of this élite with the Ancient Hellenes. The purposeful jux-
taposition of Roman to Hellene in her statement demonstrates that her intention
was, in fact, the opposite. Through this juxtaposition, she explicitly sought to
distinguish the Roman élite from the contemporary illiterate Greek masses and
thus to maintain it free of any ethnic self-classification as Greek. In Anna’s
view, knowledge of the Greek koine as well as of Attic Greek was an integral
part of Roman identity and the main means to achieve a higher education

 Anna Komnene (as footnote  above) XV , : καὶ ἔστιν ἰδεῖν καὶ Λατῖνον ἐνταῦθα παιδο-
τριβούμενον καὶ Σκύθην ἑλληνίζοντα καὶ Ῥωμαῖον τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων συγγράμματα μεταχειρι-
ζόμενον καὶ τὸν ἀγράμματον Ἕλληνα ὀρθῶς ἑλληνίζοντα.
 R. Beaton, Antique nation? ‘Hellenes’ on the eve of Greek independence and in twelfth
century Byzantium. BMGS  ()  – .
 For this interpretation, see D. R. Reinsch (transl.), Anna Komnene. Cologne , .
 See G. de Boel, L’identité “romaine” dans le roman Digénis Akritis, in H. Hokwerda (ed.)
Constructions of Greek past. Identity and historical consciousness from antiquity to the present.
Groningen , ; Beaton, Antique nation (as footnote  above) .
 Anna uses the term Hellene as an ethnonym also in other parts of her text, cf. Anna
Komnene (as footnote  above) XIII , .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 199

that could lead to a higher social status within the Roman order. The fact that, as
opposed to the illiterate Greek, she presents the Roman in her statement as al-
ready having a good knowledge of the Greek language that enabled him to
study the writings of the Ancient Hellenes implies the latter’s higher status.
Through the contradistinction between Roman and Greek, Anna subtly points
to politico-cultural Romanness as an identity of higher status that stood above
the ethno-cultural identities of semi-barbarian Roman subjects, in particular
those belonging to the predominant Greek ethno-linguistic collectivity. This dis-
course of distinction fully corresponds with and complements Anna’s view that
the Roman ruling élite was determined to rule over ethne (peoples) and that the
Roman emperor had the right to reconquer the whole former orbis romanus and,
thus, to make all peoples living in those areas Roman subjects again.⁹²
Anna’s approach to Romanness as an identity of status that was free of eth-
nic connotations and therefore could not be reduced to Greek ethnicity, reflects
the Eastern Roman ruling élite’s response not only to its hetero-classification as
Greek by the Latins, but also to an ongoing process of internal change in regard
to the Eastern Roman identity’s form and content during the long twelfth centu-
ry, to which I shall refer in detail in the third part of this paper. Anna’s identity
discourse did nothing more than to adhere to the genuine features of imperial
Roman identity. This had always been an identity of political culture, which en-
compassed ethno-cultural diversity at the bottom and subjugated it to a homog-
enizing Roman discourse on the level of the élite, which was based on political
participation and shared literate culture. As a result, the Latin, the Scythian and
the Greek could equally become Romans despite their ethno-cultural back-
ground. For this reason, they enjoyed the Roman emperor’s benevolence and
had the potential to acquire a proper Hellenic education in his orphanage.
Anna’s discourse pinpoints those social mechanisms that for centuries construct-
ed a relatively homogenous Roman politico-cultural identity on the level of the
social élite and distinguished it from the various identities of the masses of com-
mon subjects.
A similar discourse of distinction is documented in the writings of other
members of the literate social élite. Theophylaktos of Ochrid refers to his Bulgar
flock as semi-barbarian in the twelfth century.⁹³ The Bulgars were by that time
already for almost a century Roman subjects. This means they were Romans

 Cf. footnotes  and  above.

 M. Mullett, Theophylact of Ochrid. Reading the Letters of a Byzantine Archbishop. Bir-
mingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs, . Aldershot ,  – ; cf. P. Stephenson,
Byzantine conceptions of otherness after the annexation of Bulgaria (), in D.C. Smythe
(ed.), Strangers to themselves: the Byzantine outsider. Aldershot ,  f.

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200 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

and not barbarians, in the sense of foreigners, in regard to their position in the
Roman political order, the so-called politeia. Moreover, their Christian identity
meant that they were not considered as barbarians in a religious-cultural
sense as well. The discrepancy between their culturally semi-barbarian identity
and the author’s Roman identity was primarily a matter of higher political and
cultural status that de facto differentiated his and their potential of self-identifi-
cation with the Roman political order. Michael Psellos points to a similar dis-
crepancy with regard to the common Greek-speaking Romans of his time (label-
led Hellenes) whom he describes as semi-barbarian in culture.⁹⁴ The same
attitude is attested by Michael Choniates’⁹⁵ and George Tornikes’⁹⁶ in regard to
the Athenian provincials, whom both intellectuals viewed as culturally inferior.
This discourse of distinction was by no means confined to the intellectuals
of the eleventh and twelfth century, as the case of the early seventh-century em-
peror Phokas (602– 610) makes evident. Phokas came to power as a humble
Roman centurion through a revolt of the field army against Maurikios that
found support in Constantinople. His humble social status and the relevant
lack of education made him a mixobarbaros (semi-barbarian) in the eyes of
élite authors like Theophylaktos Simokattes.⁹⁷ Even though Phokas reigned as
a divinely-ordained Roman emperor for eight years, Heraclius’ revolt against
him was not depicted as an illegitimate act of tyranny against the legitimate
ruler, as it was usually the case in Byzantine sources. This was due to the fact
that the usurper was a member of the provincial Roman élite that sought to re-
store the proper order of things after the interval of an illegitimate semi-barbar-
ian on the imperial throne.⁹⁸
A look behind the homogenizing normative Roman discourse of Constanti-
nopolitan historiography points to the social effects of the discrepancy between
the Roman identity of the élite and the identities of provincial masses with no
strong sense of belonging to the Roman political order. John Kinnamos and Ni-
ketas Choniates, writing during the transitional period of the late twelfth century,

 Michaelis Pselli oratoria minora, ed. A. R. Littlewood. Leipzig , ,  – . Cf. the
detailed analysis of this passage in the third part of this paper.
 Μιχαήλ Ἀκομινάτου τοῦ Χωνιάτου τὰ σωζόμενα, ed. S. Lampros. Athens  – , II ; cf.
Stephenson, Conceptions of otherness (as footnote  above) .
 Georges et Dèmètrios Tornikès, Lettres et discours, ed. J. Darrouzès. Paris ,  – .
 Theophylacti Simocattae historiae, ed. C. de Boor/ P. Wirth. Stuttgart , VIII , .
 On reign and image of Phokas, see D. M. Olster, The Politics of usurpation in the seventh
century: rhetoric and revolution in Byzantium. Amsterdam ,  – ; cf. Lounghis, Δοκίμιο
(as footnote  above)  – . M. Meier, Kaiser Phokas ( – ) als Erinnerungsproblem, BZ
 ()  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 201

report on an incident at Lake Pousgouse (Beyşehir Gölü) in central Asia Minor

during John II Komnenos’ reign (1118 – 1143). During a campaign against the Sel-
juk-Turks of nearby Ikonion (Konya), the emperor sought to win over the support
of the population of the lake islets. The latter not only were unwilling to support
the Roman army in the fight against the barbarian and infidel enemies of the
Roman order, but also resisted fiercely.
Kinnamos categorizes the people of the lake as Romans in an ethnic manner
against the normative Roman political discourse that traditionally confined Ro-
manness within the territorial boundaries of the Roman imperial rule.⁹⁹ His
stance testifies to a process of gradual emergence of ethnic notions of Roman-
ness during the twelfth century on the level of the literate élite.¹⁰⁰ Choniates, in-
stead, seeks to remain faithful to the imperial office’s normative approach to Ro-
manness and names the people of the lake Christians (sic) who looked upon the
Romans (sic) as enemies.¹⁰¹ Nevertheless, his discourse also implies an ethnic
perspective, if we take into account his statement that “custom strengthened
by time is stronger than peoplehood (genos) and religion”.¹⁰²
The fact that the indigenous (probably Greek-speaking) Christians of the lake
had become accustomed to living harmoniously with the enemies of the Roman
order due to long-term co-existence and interaction was hard to realize for
Choniates as a member of the Constantinopolitan upper stratum with a solid po-
litical and cultural Roman consciousness. Until few decades ago, the inhabitants
of the lake were Christians by religion and Romans by political culture from a
Constantinopolitan point of view. The fact that they were not anymore subjects
of the Roman emperor and that they had no interest in being reintegrated into
the Roman political order could not deprive them of their religious identity. It
did deprive them, though, of their Roman label, since Romanness was primarily
understood and propagated by the Constantinopolitan ruling élite as an identity
of allegiance/submission to the Roman political order.
Certainly, both reports of Kinnamos and Choniates can tell us very little
about the actual identity of the lake community’s members, which at the time
probably did not go beyond local or regional self-identification. However, the au-

 Ioannae Cinnami epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke.
CSHB. Bonn , .
 There are two further reports in Kinnamos’ text on Romans outside the emperor’s realm,
see ibid., , .
 Nicetae Choniatae historia, ed. J. van Dieten. CFHB, . Berlin , ,  – .
 Ibid. ,  – : οὕτω χρόνῳ κρατυνθὲν ἔθος γένους καὶ θρησκείας ἐστὶν ἰσχυρότερον. Cf.
the analysis in G. Page, Being Byzantine. Greek identity before the Ottomans. Cambridge ,
.

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202 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

thors’ quasi ethno-political stance demonstrates, obviously beyond their own in-
tensions, the discrepancy between the solid Roman politico-cultural conscious-
ness of the Constantinopolitan élite, which the normative identity discourse of
Constantinople attributed in a homogenizing manner to all provincial masses,
and the latter’s identities. Any effort to decode the content of this formerly
Roman population’s identity cannot overlook its reaction against the Roman
army. As opposed to the ideals of Constantinopolitan authors, these people
did not seek for their liberation from the infidel and barbarian Seljuk-Turks by
the representatives of the superior Roman order, the emperor and his soldiers.
Here we are dealing with a provincial community that resided in the em-
pire’s former territorial core and had been for several centuries a part of the
Roman polity. Since the 1170’s, it was not any more under Roman rule, but
was under the overlordship of the Seljuk-Turks of nearby Ikonion. The commun-
ity’ members had not been islamicized, whereas the imperial state of Constanti-
nople was still standing as an active, resonant center of Roman-Christian polit-
ical and religious culture. Nevertheless, their reaction demonstrates that they
hardly shared a notion of belonging to the Roman political community or main-
tained strong collective memories of cultural/religious allegiance to the Constan-
tinopolitan city-state that would mobilize ethno-political reflects and motivate
them to seek their liberation, even when this was offered to them by the re-con-
quering activity of the Roman order’s army. This incident demonstrates that,
even though the long twelfth century was admittedly a period of gradual transi-
tion from imperial to ethnic notions of Romanness on the level of the social élite,
one should still be very cautious before attributing Roman ethnic solidarity to
broader segments of the provincial masses.
In light of the evidence presented so far, one could plausibly argue that up to
the twelfth century the Eastern Roman ruling élite neither promoted a vision of
national community nor sought to attach Roman identity discourse (politically or
culturally) to the Greek ethno-linguistic group within the empire. The eastern Ro-
mans may have officially spoken only graikisti or ellenisti, i. e. Greek, after the
seventh century,¹⁰³ but within the non-stable territorial frame of the imperial
city-state, a Roman subject was not only the native Greek-speaker, whereas on
a politico-cultural level being Roman was much more than, and fairly different
from, being a semi-barbarian native or non-native peasant that could speak
Greek.
The role of the Church in promoting the allegiance of Christian subjects to
the divinely-ordained rule of the Roman emperor of Constantinople can certainly

 Koder, Sprache als Identitätsmerkmal (as footnote  above)  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 203

not be overlooked.¹⁰⁴ The significance of religious identity in underpinning Con-

stantinople’s hegemony, i. e. the supra-regional relations of allegiance/submis-
sion within the fluctuating territorial boundaries of the imperial state, is reflect-
ed in the imperial power’s systematic effort to intensify the religious aspect of its
ideological discourse from the early seventh century onwards. This refinement
becomes evident in the imperial office’s effort to assimilate all those sources
of ideological power (e. g. the cult of the Virgin, cults of local saints) that
could direct attention, and consequently social power, away from the imperial
power.¹⁰⁵
Nevertheless, the normative conflation of Romanitas with Christianitas in an
ethno-political manner in the Constantinopolitan imperial propaganda does not
a priori testify to an ethno-political self-identification of subject Christian masses
with the Roman political order. The aforementioned source examples from the
Life of Antony the Younger and the histories of John Kinnamos and Niketas
Choniates¹⁰⁶ demonstrate that, as opposed to the normative hegemonic dis-
course of the imperial office, the Christian identity of provincial populations
in the empire’s (from a cultural point of view allegedly homogenous) territorial
core hardly predetermined their ideological allegiance to the Roman imperial
state of Constantinople and its ruling élite’s vision of community.
The historiographical narratives about the imperial state’s military expan-
sion in the tenth and the early eleventh centuries, in which expansionary war-
fare is justified as liberation of former Roman lands but not of enslaved Ro-
mans,¹⁰⁷ point to the limits of the normative ideological conflation of Roman
and Christian identity on a social level. Due to its inherent imperial–ecumenical
trait, Romanness as an ideological discourse was designed to align with the
boundaries of the Roman emperor’s realm, which were by no means stable,

 On the Church as the main ideological apparatus of the medieval state, cf. Althusser,
Ideology (as footnote  above)  – .
 J. F. Haldon, Ideology and social change in the seventh century: military discontent as a
barometer. Klio  ()  f.; A. Cameron, Images of authority: élites and icons in late sixth-
century Byzantium. Past and Present  ()  – ; P. J. Alexander, The strength of empire
and capital as seen through Byzantine eyes. Speculum  ()  f.
 See footnotes ,  and  above. Cf. also the indicative incident of voluntary migration
of Roman subjects to cities under Turkish rule in Asia Minor during the reign of Alexios III
( – ): Niketas Choniates (as footnote  above) ,  – , .
 On Byzantine legitimizing discourse of expansionary warfare, see Stouraitis, ‘Just war’
(as footnote  above)  f.; idem, Krieg und Frieden (as footnote  above)  – ; idem,
Conceptions of war and peace in Anna Comnena’s Alexiad, in J. Koder/ I. Stouraitis (eds.),
Byzantine war ideology between Roman imperial concept and Christian religion. Ver-
öffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, . Vienna ,  – .

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204 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

and to function in a centripetal manner as an identity of allegiance/submission

to the imperial office. Instead, Christian identity travelled well beyond the terri-
torial limits of the imperial state and aligned with regional and ethnic identities.
The absence of a national ideological perspective by the Roman ruling élite
functioned against an identification of Christianitas and Romanitas beyond the
state-frame in an ethno-religious sense. From the élite’s point of view, the Chris-
tian populations in former Roman territories, whether native or new, were broth-
ers in faith that would be designated as Roman (subjects) in a homogenizing
manner only after the re-occupation of their territory and their integration in
the imperial order.¹⁰⁸ This practice fully reflects the top-down ideological mech-
anisms of identity building within the empire’s hegemonic discourse, that is, the
way in which the élite perceived its own identity and, at the same time, sought to
normatively circumscribe the collective identity of subject masses within a de
facto multi-cultural socio-political context.
In this regard, one could plausibly argue that up to the twelfth century Ro-
manness as a politico-cultural discourse of self-identification concerned mainly
the members of a social upper stratum, whose social status and literacy enabled
their active participation in the political system as well as access to a literate cul-
ture that was produced and circulated on the level of the élite,¹⁰⁹ the two main
means that configured a solid Roman identity/ideology. This is certainly not to
say that provincial populations in the emperor’s realm did not have any sense
of normative collective identity, as this was promoted by the Constantinopolitan
hegemonic discourse. The term regnal identity, coined by Susan Reynolds to con-
ceptualize the collective identity of the subjects of western medieval regna,¹¹⁰
could be considered as a potential conceptual alternative. Nevertheless, one
should bear in mind the evident differences between Byzantium and the western

 The fact that the members of the local élites in those areas where often willing to declare
allegiance to the Roman imperial power and represent themselves as Romans after their sub-
jugation hardly testifies to a similar self-identification of the masses in those territories. Cf.
Koder, Byzantium (as footnote  above) , on the case of the Syriac Melkite élite in the late
tenth century.
 Cf. the comments on Byzantine historiography as a product of a literate élite addressed to
the members of a literate upper stratum in B. Croke, Uncovering Byzantium’s historiographical
audience, in R. Macrides (ed.), History as literature in Byzantium. Papers from the Fortieth
Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, April . Society for the
Promotion of Byzantine Studies, Publications, . Farnham ,  – .
 S. Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe,  – . Oxford ,
 – , esp. ; on the differences between medieval regnal identity and national identity,
see A. D. Smith, The Genealogy of Nations: An Ethno-Symbolic Approach, in Ichijo/Uzelac,
When is the Nation? (as footnote  above), .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 205

medieval regna as communities of common law, custom and descent up to the

twelfth century.
The post-seventh century Eastern Roman ruling élite maintained the ideolog-
ical and socio-political structures of territorial empire, in which the ethno-cultur-
al and regional diversity of subject populations remained a social reality sup-
planted by the hegemonic Roman political discourse. This diversity was
underpinned by the consistent (re‐)integration of large cultural collectivities
into the state-frame that were included in the homogenizing discourse of regnal
Romanness. In relation to this, the Roman élite did not subscribe to and propa-
gate a vision of the Eastern Roman community as a community of (notional)
common descent, either with historical reference to the Latin Romans or to
the Ancient Hellenes.¹¹¹ It follows that for the largest part of the empire’s provin-
cial masses, especially those of the countryside, Roman regnal identity can hard-
ly have pertained to much more than a notion of submission, which was, to a
certain extent, voluntary but by no means participatory in political terms.
One could plausibly argue that before the late eleventh century the geopol-
itical and ideological structures of territorial empire in Byzantium neither fav-
oured the existence of full-blown ethnic communities nor the crystallization of
a Roman ethnic or, for that matter, national discourse. The ideological hegemony
of the political discourse of the imperial city-state Constantinople¹¹² promoted
the acculturation of provincial élites and the nominal transculturation of illiter-
ate and semi-illiterate masses within the imperial realm where regional and
ethno-cultural diversity remained a matter of lived experience and cognition
for the largest part of provincial populations rather than of ideological discours-
es. If we were to attempt a classification of the multiple identities of common
people in the provinces according to their degree of importance, local and re-
gional identity should, beyond doubt and by far, be considered as the most sig-
nificant for the self-identification of the majority of the masses,¹¹³ whereas reli-
gious identity should rather be seen as the more solid collective identity within
the empire.
In light of this, the source information on ideals of patriotic loyalty, focused
upon the imperial city-state of Constantinople, can hardly be taken to testify to
the notions of the largest part of provincial populations and to have defined their
political self-identification. These ideals, as presented in historiographical and

 Cf. Magdalino, Hellenism (as footnote  above) .

 On the mentality of imperial city-state in Byzantium, see Magdalino, Hellenism (as foot-
note  above) ; cf. J. Wickham, From the ancient world to feudalism. Past and Present 
() ; Koder, Griechische Identitäten (as footnote  above) .
 On local–regional identity, cf. Koder, Byzantium (as footnote  above)  – .

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206 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

other narratives informed by the mentality of the ruling élite, are evidence of the
distinct Roman identity of the upper class. The latter was not defined by a notion
of belonging to a horizontal and boundary-oriented political community of
Roman people, but by a notion of allegiance to the hierarchical order of the Con-
stantinopolitan city-state and the political culture of its imperial office. It follows
that present-day arguments about a kind of pre-modern ‘nationalism’ in Byzan-
tium¹¹⁴ deprive the modern term of its literal meaning¹¹⁵ in order to conceptualize
quasi-patriotic practices of a social élite of service, which reflect the latter’s loy-
alty to the centripetal territorial rule of the Constantinopolitan city-state.

3. Rethinking the Greek “Riddle”

In view of the previous analysis, any effort to overcome the polarization of atti-
tudes as to the issue of Greek identity in the Eastern Roman imperial order after
late antiquity cannot ignore two facts: First, the Eastern Roman ruling élite did
not employ Greek ethnic discourse to circumscribe its self-identification up to
the thirteenth century; second, the ruling élite’s top-down identity discourse en-
compassed ethno-cultural diversity and promoted mass regnal Romanness as an
identity of allegiance/submission to the political order of Constantinople.
Based on this, I shall use as a point of theoretical departure Anthony Smith’s
comprehensive definition of ethnic groups as cultural collectivities which are
distinguished by attributes such as a collective proper name, a myth of common
ancestry, shared historical memories, one or more differentiating elements of
common culture, a historic ‘homeland’ and a sense of solidarity for significant
sectors of the population.¹¹⁶ This ethno-cultural perspective relates ethnic self-
and hetero-classification primarily to differentiating elements of common cul-

 On notions of Byzantine nationalism, see H. Ahrweiler, L’ideologie politique de l’Empire

byzantin. Paris ,  – ; cf. Magdalino, Hellenism (as footnote  above) .
 A. D. Smith, Chosen peoples: sacred sources of national identity. Oxford , : “Na-
tionalism: An ideological movement for the attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity and
identity on behalf of a population, some of whose members deem it to constitute an actual or
potential ‘nation’.”; cf. J. Breuilly, Dating the nation. How old is an old nation?, in Ichijo/
Uzelac, When is the Nation? (as footnote  above) , who prefers the term ‘political’ instead of
‘ideological’ movement.
 Smith, National Identity (as footnote  above)  – ; cf. idem, The cultural foundations
of nations. Hierarchy, covenant, and republic. Malden, MA. , . According to Smith, “the
more a population possesses or shares these attributes (and the more of these attributes that it
possesses or shares), the more closely does it approximate the ideal type of an ethnic community
or ethnie”.

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 207

ture, which in part have an objective and historical character (language, religion,
customs, and pigmentation).¹¹⁷ The difference between pre-modern ethnies as
non- stable and non-coherent named groups of population from modern nations
is better reflected in the former’s typology¹¹⁸: 1) ethnic category (the group is het-
ero-designated as such and its members may have a sense of who they are not,
but not of who they are); 2) ethnic network or association (a shared consciousness
of collective identity is evident among the members of the élite); 3) ethnic com-
munity or ethnie (the sense of belonging to the group is also shared by segments
of the population beyond the limits of the élite).¹¹⁹
This theoretical framework pays due heed to the fact that populations are
systematically classified as cultural collectivities through ethnonyms in the his-
toriographical narratives, but also that these narratives mainly represent the
views of literate social élites and do not, therefore, a priori reflect the identities
of broader segments of the named populations. This anticipates the dangers of
groupism and reification of ethnicity.¹²⁰ Moreover, as opposed to primordialism,
ethnicity is here seen as a social construct that comes and goes.¹²¹ The historical
persistence of some ethnic identities, as opposed to others, over time refers not
to an essentialist approach of linear continuity of the group, but to the recur-
rence of notions of historical ethnic culture (usually among the members of lit-

 ibid.,  – . On the apolitical characteristics of pre-modern ethnic identities that diffe-
rentiate them from national identities, see J. Breuilly, Approaches to nationalism, in G. Bala-
krishnan (ed.), Mapping the Nation. London / New York  – .
 Regarding Smith’s elaborated ethno-symbolist approach to the concept of the ‘nation’ as
predating the ideological movement of nationalism and modernity, the stance adopted here is
that pre-modern ethnic groups and ethnic identities are distinguishable from nations and na-
tionhood as mass phenomena, the emergence and configuration of which was conditioned by
the watershed of modernity; cf. Breuilly, Dating the nation (as footnote  above) ; Ichijo/
Uzelac, When is the Nation? (as footnote  above)  – ; S. Maleševic, The chimera of
national identity. Nations and Nationalism / () . On criticism to Smith’s definitions
of the nation, see M. Guibernau, Anthony D. Smith on nations and national identity: a critical
assessment. Nations and Nationalism  (/) ()  – ; cf. the response in A. D. Smith,
Ethnosymbolism and nationalism: a cultural approach. London / New York ,  – .
 Smith, Cultural foundations (as footnote  above)  – . idem, When is a nation.
Geopolitics / ()  – ; idem, National identity (as footnote  above)  – .
 On critique to Smith’s definitions of ethnicity as prone to reification, see S. Maleševic,
Identity as ideology: understanding ethnicity and nationalism. New York ,  – ; cf. the
response in Smith, Ethnosymbolism and nationalism (as footnote  above)  – . On
critique to reified ethnicity as ‘groupism’ cf. Brubaker, Ethnicity without groups (as footnote 
above)  – ,  – .
 Smith, National identity (as footnote  above) ; idem, Nationalism and modernism (as
footnote  above) .

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208 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

erate élites) which can be marked, nonetheless, by deep changes and ruptures
with regard to ethnic symbols, values and customs.¹²²
In light of this, there are certain facts that need to be borne in mind when it
comes to the most debated issue of Greekness in the post-seventh century East-
ern Roman social order. After the Christianization of the empire the ethnonym
Hellene was gradually substituted by the semantic equivalent Graikos in denot-
ing the member of the ethno-cultural collectivity due to the religious discourse
that identified Hellenism with paganism.¹²³ The fact that Graikos is translated
as Hellene in the lexica of the Byzantine period leaves little doubt that the liter-
ate Eastern Roman élite was well aware of the historic-cultural signification of
the employed ethnonym.¹²⁴ Moreover, the post-seventh century evidence demon-
strates that the ethnonyms Graikos or Hellene, the second being a classicizing
recurrence in the writings of the intellectual élite in the late eleventh and twelfth
centuries, were employed by Byzantine authors equally to other ethnonyms
when these authors contradistinguished Roman subjects in an ethno-linguis-
tic/ethno-cultural manner.
For instance, Constantine VII reports in De administrando imperio that “in
the reign of the emperor Nikephoros I (802– 811) the Slavs in the theme of Pelo-
ponnese decided to revolt and first begun to sack the houses of their Greek (Grai-
koi) neighbours”.¹²⁵ This statement refers to the use of ethnonyms for an ethno-
cultural categorization of Roman subjects from within, from the Roman élite. In
this respect, it reflects the function of normative Roman political discourse in the
post-seventh century imperial order. The fact that the Slavs are presented as a
part of the local population of the administrative unit of Peloponnese, i. e. as in-
siders that revolted, demonstrates that these were considered as bearers of

 Smith, National identity (as footnote  above)  – ; idem, Nationalism and modernism
(as footnote  above) ; idem, Ethnosymbolism and nationalism (as footnote  above) .
 Cf. J. Koder, Anmerkungen zu Γραικοω, in: Gedenkschrift I. E. Karayannopoulos. Byzantina
 (),  – ; idem, Griechische Identitäten (as footnote  above) ; Magdalino,
Hellenism (as footnote  above) .
 On the universal interpretation of the ethnonym Graikos as Hellene in the Byzantine lexica,
see Hesychii Alexandrini lexicon I, ed. K. Latte. Copenhagen , ; Stephani Byzantii
Ethnica, vol. I: Α–Γ, ed. M. Billerbeck. CFHB, /. Berlin ,  – , ; Suidae
lexicon I, ed. A. Adler. Lexicographi Graeci , . Leipzig , gamma .
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De administrando imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik. CFHB, I.
Washington, D.C. , ,  – : Νικηφόρος τὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων σκῆπτρα ἐκράτει, καὶ οὗτοι ἐν τῷ
θέματι ὄντες Πελοποννήσου ἀπόστασιν ἐννοήσαντες, πρῶτον μὲν τὰς τῶν γειτόνων οἰκίας τῶν
Γραικῶν ἐξεπόρθουν.

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 209

Roman regnal identity by the ninth century.¹²⁶ From the point of view of the
Roman ruling élite both the Slavs and the Greeks were Roman subjects and
their ethno-cultural categorization was not intended to distinguish the Romans
(Greeks) from the non-Romans (Slavs), but rather two collectivities with certain
cultural differences within the imperial power’s realm, as seen by the political
and historiographical discourse of Constantinople.
If we follow Bourdieu in arguing that the best way to bring something into
existence in a socio-political context is to name it,¹²⁷ the Greeks remained a
named population in contradistinction to other named populations (e. g. Arme-
nians, Bulgars) within the top-down homogenizing Roman discourse of the post-
seventh century Greek-speaking Roman ruling élite. After the radical demo-
graphic rupture caused by the Slavic infiltration of the Greek continental core,
this population was maintained in parts of its historic ‘homeland’ (which con-
sisted of all territories around the Aegean basin) and also beyond that. The illit-
erate and semi-illiterate masses of Greek-speakers formed a non-stable and non-
coherent collectivity, the boundaries of which were horizontally delineated
through the social élite with its ethnically neutral Roman identity discourse
and vertically through those cultural markers that defined notions of otherness
among the empire’s masses (the most important of which for common people
should have been native language or regional dialect).¹²⁸
Within the framework of the dominant Roman regnal discourse, the social
function of the ethnonym referred to the contradistinction between members
of the Greek ethno-linguistic collectivity and members of other ethno-linguistic
collectivities in the empire.¹²⁹ On a conceptual level, the post-seventh century
Greeks can hardly be regarded as anything more than an ethnic category. The
complete integration of the Hellenic intellectual and power élites into the
Roman ruling class had already for several centuries suppressed an ethnocentric
ideology that would promote a myth of common ancestry and shared notions of
historical affinity with the Ancient Hellenes. In this regard, the role of Christian-

 On the Slavs as a non-coherent broader collectivity that was internally sub-divided in
various groups, Curta, History of the Greeks (as footnote  above)  f.
 P. Bourdieu, Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA , .
 Cf. the Barthian axiom about ethnic boundaries as socially constructed through self-clas-
sification as well as classification of and by others: E. Barth, Introduction, in idem (ed.), Ethnic
groups and boundaries. The social organization of cultural difference. Boston , .
 In this regard, it is notable that members of the Constantinopolitan ecclesiastical élite
employed the ethnonym Graikos as self-identification in their writings; see, e. g., Theodoros
Stoudites Epist. ,  – , in: G. Fatouros (ed.), Theodori Studitae Epistulae. CFHB, .
Berlin , ; cf. Magdalino, Hellenism (as footnote  above) .

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210 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

ization after the fourth century CE must be regarded as determinant in the pro-
gressive abrogation of notional links with the pagan Hellenic culture.
It is in this light that we have to attempt to decode in historic-contextual
terms the evidence of the sources regarding the gradual recurrence of notions
of Hellenic ethnic identity within the literate upper stratum from the mid-elev-
enth century onwards. Michael Psellos is probably the first and most distinguish-
ed member of the Byzantine intellectual élite that testifies to notions of ethno-
cultural Hellenism in his writings during the second half of the eleventh century.
In his Chronographia, he reports on a revolt in the court of empress Theodora
and states about the court attendant (therapon) Constantine Kabasilas that “by
birth (genos) he was not Hellene, by character (ethos) though he belonged to
the most distinguished kind (genos), a man of heroic nature who was respected
due to his noble origin”.¹³⁰ Here, the meaning of the classicizing ethnonym Hel-
lene is certainly not religious (i. e. pagan). Consequently, it can only have been
employed by the author to either denote higher level of literacy or ethnic de-
scent.
The first option is, however, hardly supported by the context of the state-
ment. Psellos reports, in a praising manner, on the court attendant’s action to
lead the city mob in order to defend the empresses Theodora and Zoe during
a coup. Why should the philosopher consider it important and relevant in this
context to underline that this person was lacking a Hellenic (that is higher) ed-
ucation? As opposed to that, in the first part of the phrase the author employs
the term genos in a standardized form, through which Byzantine authors usually
denoted a person’s origin from an ethnic group.¹³¹ In the second part of the
phrase, the term is disconnected from the ethnonym and obviously acquires a
more abstract meaning denoting a category of men of noble character.
Psellos’ understanding of the term Hellene as an ethnonym that was em-
ployed to denote ethno-cultural categorization is further documented in two
other passages from his writings. The first refers to an uprising of a group of peo-
ple in Constantinople supported by the patriarch Michael Keroularios during the

 Michael Psellos, Chronographia (as footnote  above) I , ,  – : Ὁ τοίνυν δῆμος, ὥς
μοι λέλεκται, κατὰ τοῦ τυραννεύσαντος στασιάσας … ἀλλ’ ἕνα τῶν πατρῴων αὐτῇ θεραπόντων
ὥσπερ τινὰ στρατηγὸν τῆς ἑαυτοῦ προστήσας τάξεως, ἄνδρα τὸ μὲν γένος οὐχ Ἕλληνα, τὸ δὲ
ἦθος τοῦ καλλίστου γένους, ἡρωϊκὸν δὲ τὸ εἶδος, καὶ τὸ σεβάσμιον ἐξ ἀρχαίας εὐτυχίας
κεκτημένον. Cf. Koder, Griechische Identitäten (see footnote  above) .
 The standardized form is genos plus ethnonym in the singular or plural; e. g., see Scylitzes,
Synopsis (as footnote  above) ,  – : ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ Νικολάου στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ
Κωνσταντῖνος ὁ τῆς μεγάλης ἑταιρείας ἄρχων, εὐνοῦχος ἄνθρωπος, ἐκ Σαρακηνῶν ἕλκων τὸ
γένος καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ ὑπηρετήσας πρὸ τῆς βασιλείας καὶ πίστιν τηρῶν ἐς αὐτόν.

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 211

reign of Michael VI. Among the classicizing references to the various identities of
the participants, the philosopher employs the term Hellenic phylon, which hardly
denotes literacy or religion here.¹³² It is rather meant to ethno-culturally catego-
rize common Greek-speaking Romans. In his praise of John Italos, Psellos refers
to the latter’s effort to defend his Hellenic paideia through the argument that the
wisdom of the Hellenes had been neglected by its rightful heirs in its own ‘home-
land’, the whole of Hellas and the colonized Ionia, and had been left to slip away
in the hands of the Muslims in the East.¹³³
Italos’ response to his critics reproduced a view that was a commonplace
among Muslim intellectuals since the tenth century, but the whole statement
as presented by Psellos points to an ethno-cultural understanding of Hellenism
in a contemporary context. The philosopher testifies to a full-blown notion of
‘homeland’ of the historical Hellenic culture among the intellectuals of his
time, which included the whole of Hellas and the colonized Ionia, i. e. the
lands around the Aegean basin. Furthermore, he testifies to the use of the
term Hellene as an ethnonym to denote the Ancient Hellenes (τὴν δὲ τῶν Ἑλλή-
νων σοφίαν) and, at the same time, to categorize ethno-culturally, always in a
classicizing manner, contemporary native Greek-speakers (ὡς βαρβαρίζειν μὲν
τοὺς Ἕλληνας), those inhabitants of Hellas and the whole land on our side, the

 Michaelis Pselli orationes forenses et acta, ed. G.T. Dennis. Stuttgart , I  –
:διὰ τί δὲ τὰς πύλας τοῦ νεὼ τοῖς συνομωμοκόσιν ἠνέῳξε; συνδεδραμηκότας δὲ διὰ τί μὴ
βραχύ τι διαπειλησάμενος ἐκεῖθεν ἀπήλασεν; οὐ γὰρ κατὰ πλῆθος εὐθὺς εἰσῄεσαν, ἀλλὰ
συνεκκαίδεκα ἢ βραχεῖ τινι πλείους. εἰ δὲ βούλεσθε, δῶμεν μηδένα τῶν πάντων ἀπολελεῖφθαι,
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅσον ἐν Πέρσαις καὶ Βαβυλῶνι καὶ ὅσον Ἑλληνικὸν φῦλον Αἰθίοπάς τε καὶ Ἄραβας
ἐκεῖσε συνεισδραμεῖν καὶ τῶν βασιλέων καταβοᾶν.
 Michaelis Pselli oratoria minora, ,  –  (as footnote  above): τὴν δὲ τῶν Ἑλλήνων
σοφίαν προθέμενος (scil. John Italos) ἐπαινεῖν ἀπολοφύρεται ὡς εἰκὸς ὅτι, δέον τοὺς γνησίους
τοῦ λόγου κληρονομεῖν, τὸ βάρβαρον καὶ ἀλλότριον τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς σοφίας οὐδὲν προσήκοντα
διεδέξατο καὶ ἡ μὲν Ἑλλὰς σχεδὸν ἅπασα καὶ ἡ ἄποικος Ἰωνία τῶν πατρῴων ἀκριβῶς ἐξε-
κόπησαν, ἐς Ἀσσυρίους δὲ καὶ Μήδους καὶ Αἰγυπτίους ὁ κλῆρος μετωχετεύθη καὶ τοσοῦτον ἡ
τάξις ἀντέστραπται, ὡς βαρβαρίζειν μὲν τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἑλληνίζειν δὲ τοὺς βαρβάρους. καὶ
Ἕλλην μὲν ἀνήρ, οὕτω συμβάν, ἐς Σοῦσαν ἢ Ἐκβάτανα ἀφικόμενος, τὰ πάλαι τοῦ Δαρείου
ἀνάκτορα, καὶ Βαβυλωνίοις συγγενόμενος ἀκούσεται περὶ ὧν ἑλληνίζων οὐκ ἤκουσε, καὶ θαυ-
μάσεται τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἕκαστον καὶ τότε πρῶτον ἴσως γνώσεται ὅτι σοφία τοῦ παντὸς
καθηγήσατο· ἀλαζὼν δέ τις εἰς ἡμᾶς παραγενόμενος βάρβαρος καὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι καὶ τῇ καθ’
ἡμᾶς ἁπάσῃ ἠπείρῳ εἰς ὁμιλίαν ἐληλυθὼς οὐδ’ ὡς ἡμιόνοις τοῖς πολλοῖς συγχωρήσειεν, ἀλλ’
ὄνοις ἄντικρυς. On a systematic investigation of Psellos’ writings regarding the issue of Greek
identity, see Th. Papadopoulou, Συλλογική ταυτότητα και αυτογνωσία στο Βυζάντιο. Συμβολή
στον προσδιορισμό της αυτοαντίληψης των Βυζαντινών μέσα από την λόγια γραμματεία τους
(ος αιώνας – αρχές ου αιώνα). Ionian University Corfu , unpublished dissertation. I
would like to thank her for providing me with a copy of her text.

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212 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

majority of whom had a knowledge of Greek language and culture, which equal-
led that of donkeys!
In view of this evidence, it can hardly be doubted that an intellectual faction
of the Eastern Roman élite of this period shared a notion of Hellenic ethnie, i. e.
of a named population that resided in its historic ‘homeland’ and was linked
through cultural markers to its ancestors, i. e. the Ancient Hellenes. Nevertheless,
Psellos’ utterances also demonstrate that the ethnic labelling of contemporary
common Greek-speaking Roman subjects as Hellenes by members of the literate
élite hardly provides evidence that these shared similar notions of affinity to and
self-identification with the historical Hellenic culture. The downgrading of the
majority of the contemporary (mostly illiterate) Greeks to barbarians due to
their ignorance of their own culture actually provides further evidence of the
given identity gap between literate social élites and the masses of common peo-
ple within Byzantine society.¹³⁴
In this light, Psellos’ notion of a Hellenic ethnie within the framework of
Roman political discourse can hardly be taken to either document the existence
of a full-blown Greek ethnic community or, for that matter, of an intellectual
movement of proto-nationalism that envisaged a substitution of Roman political
discourse through Greek ethno-political discourse in late eleventh-century By-
zantium. His statements point, instead, to a process of gradual recurrence of no-
tions of belonging to a historical community of common culture within a circle of
intellectuals. This process was well under way among members of the literate
élite during the twelfth century, as Ioannis Tzetzes’ statement about his Hellenic
descent on his father’s side indicates.¹³⁵ The latter was a native of Constantinople
which was territorially included in the aforementioned ‘homeland’ of the histor-
ical Hellenic culture, i. e. of the historical Hellenic ethnie. ¹³⁶
The cultural capital of individuals of the likes of Psellos and Tzetzes provid-
ed them with the potential to make the ideological link between their cultural
identity and the identity of the Ancient Hellenes, and to utter an ethno-cultural
self-classification in their writings. Moreover, they disposed of the necessary
knowledge of history that made them aware of the distinct historical starting-

 Cf. the similar stance of Anna Komnene regarding the ignorance of the illiterate Greeks, as
footnote  above.
 Ioannis Tzetzae epistulae, ed. P. L. M. Leone. Leipzig , VI ,  – ; Ioannis Tzetzae
historiae, ed. P. L. M. Leone. Naples : Chiliades V ,  – .
 On some other utterances of Greek ethno-cultural identity during the twelfth century, see
Pseudo-Luciano, Timarione, ed. R. Romano. Byzantina et Neo-Hellenica Neapolitana, . Naples
, ,  – ; Georges et Dèmètrios Tornikès, ,  –  (as footnote  above); Μιχαὴλ
Ἀκομινάτου τοῦ Χωνιάτου τὰ σωζόμενα (as footnote  above) I , , I , , I , .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 213

points of the Roman political culture and the historical Hellenic culture. For in-
stance, Tzetzes juxtaposed in a letter to Isaakios Komnenos around the mid-
twelfth century his culturally superior Greek identity to the barbarian identity
of the Ausonians, i. e. the Latin Romans of the past, within the framework of a
reference to their war customs, with which he considered the members of the
Comnenian élite to be well familiar.¹³⁷
This gradual recurrence of Greek ethno-cultural identity within a circle of
well-educated individuals after the late eleventh century was facilitated by the
inherent openness of Roman political discourse to ethno-cultural diversity.
Such individuals could distance themselves from an ethno-cultural self-identifi-
cation with the Latin Romans of the past while, at the same time, they hardly
considered this distancing to make them less Roman in regard to their political
culture. Psellos, for instance, could reproduce notions of a Hellenic ethnie and,
at the same time, declare his allegiance to the Roman imperial order. In a speech
addressed to Constantine IX, he praised the expansionary policies of Basil II,
through which New Rome, i. e. the imperial city-state of Constantinople, was
able to rule over many ethne (peoples) and cities in his own time.¹³⁸ Psellos
was perfectly capable of imagining the empire, i. e. the territorial extension of im-
perial authority over cities, regions and ethno-culturally diverse populations, in
a centripetal and hierarchical manner. He hardly imagined, though, a Roman or,
for that matter, a Greek nation as a political community of horizontal comrade-
ship.
The resurgent Greek ethno-cultural discourse in the writings of well-educat-
ed individuals during the long twelfth century had nothing to do with the impe-
rial office as the principal ideological source that normatively circumscribed the
form and content of Roman identity. The Komnenian ruling élite’s ideological
disposition in regard to Romanness is reflected in the aforementioned identity
discourse of Anna Komnene.¹³⁹ This ruling élite remained the main bearer of im-

 Ibid. VI ,  – , . On the emergence of a militarized aristocracy of birth under the
Komnenian emperors, which was extensively inspired by the warlike ideals of Roman culture
and less by the intellectual ideals of Hellenism, see P. Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I
Komnenos,  – . Cambridge ,  f.; A. Kazhdan / A.W. Epstein, Change in By-
zantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Berkeley ,  – ; A. Kazhdan,
The aristocracy and the imperial ideal, in M. Angold (ed.), The Byzantine aristocracy IX to XIII
centuries. Oxford ,  f.
 Michaelis Pselli orationes panegyricae, ed. G. T. Dennis. Stuttgart , ,  – :
Ἐντεῦθέν σοι, ὢ νέα Ῥώμη, τὸ πολλῶν μὲν ἄρχειν ἐθνῶν, πολλῶν δ’ ἐπικρατεῖν πόλεων καὶ τῶν
θρυλλουμένων ὑπερκεῖσθαι ἐπαρχιῶν. ἐντεῦθέν σοι τὰ Ἀβασγῶν κατεδουλώθη φρονήματα, καὶ ἡ
Σκυθῶν ὑποπέπτωκε, καὶ τἆλλα, ἵνα μὴ καθ’ ἕκαστον λέγω.
 Cf. footnote  and the relevant arguments above.

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214 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

perial Romanness as an identity of political culture and status, which was con-
structed to serve the imperial system by encompassing ethnic diversity at the bot-
tom and absorbing it into a fairly homogenous political discourse at the top.
Thus, it continued to facilitate the integration of newcomers into the Constanti-
nopolitan system of empire from the ethnic élites on the empire’s geopolitical pe-
riphery along with the populations controlled by those élites. This is reflected in
the policies of John II and particularly Manuel I Komnenos. These were marked
by the practice of granting Roman offices and access to the Roman ruling class to
non-natives¹⁴⁰ as well as by systematic efforts to expand the imperial rule over
non-Greek-speaking populations in the East and over parts of the Italian penin-
sula.
In light of this, one could discern a latent ideological tension within the
framework of the Byzantine social élite in regard to the form and the content
of Eastern Roman identity during the long twelfth century. The ruling élite ad-
hered to the imperial-ecumenical trait of Romanness as an identity that was pri-
marily conditioned by allegiance or submission to the political authority of the
imperial office of Constantinople. This diachronically predominant, normative
stance was confronted with gradually emerging notions of ethnic Romanness
as an identity of shared cultural markers. This development was circumscribed
by the aforementioned recurrent notion of historical Greek ethnicity among
the literati.
The undergoing change of identity discourse during this period cannot be
interpreted separately from geopolitical and social changes.¹⁴¹ The imperial
state’s territorial contraction in the last quarter of the eleventh century approx-
imately to the limits of the ‘homeland’ of the historical Hellenic culture (as pre-
sented in the aforementioned text of Psellos) set in motion a process of transition
from the geopolitical structures of territorial empire to those of medieval regnum.
The Roman imperial rule was thereafter (apart from the period under John II and
Manuel I Komnenos) confined to a much smaller number of subjects, the major-
ity of whom belonged to the Greek ethno-linguistic group. The close encounter
with Seljuk-Turks, Normans and Latins re-arranged the political and cultural in-
terface of the contracted Eastern Roman community. The conquest of Constanti-
nople by the Crusaders sealed these developments and consolidated the vision
of a Roman ethno-cultural collectivity.

 Niketas Choniates (as footnote  above) ,  – , ,  – .
 Cf. Macrides/Magdalino, The Fourth Kingdom and the rhetoric of Hellenism (as footnote
 above)  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 215

Niketas Choniates’ History offers an outline of the ongoing change of iden-

tity discourse during the transitional period of the twelfth century. In the early
part of his narrative, in the report on John Komnenos’ effort to restore imperial
control over Lake Pousgouse in central Asia Minor,¹⁴² the author contradistin-
guished the native Christian inhabitants with the Romans due to the fact that
the former were currently not under Roman imperial authority and, also, not
willing to be re-integrated into the Roman political order. In this case, the author
subscribed to the traditional normative imperial discourse that defined Roman-
ness not by certain cultural markers, but as a regnal identity of allegiance and
submission to the Roman emperor’s political order. Later in his narrative, he
was keen to criticize Manuel I for promoting foreigners instead of native Romans
in state offices or for privileging them regarding the acquisition of military land
(pronoia).¹⁴³ In this case, he favoured an opposite discourse, according to which
the Romans were not to be distinguished from the non-Romans by regnal iden-
tity, i. e. position within and allegiance to the Roman political order, but primar-
ily by native cultural markers.
Choniates circumscribed this ethno-cultural aspect of Romanness through
historical Greek ethnicity, as demonstrated by his use of the ethnonym Hellene
(or Graikos when it came to strong religious connotations) to identify the Eastern
Romans in his text.¹⁴⁴ It is notable that most of these statements of Greek ethno-
cultural self-classification are documented in the last part of the ‘Historia’, which
was written after 1204 when the author was free of the normative political dis-
course of the Roman imperial office.¹⁴⁵ Choniates finished his historiographical
work in the State of Nicaea when the Eastern Roman ruling élite needed to dis-
tinguish itself from the Latins in Constantinople.
The integration of Hellenic ethnic discourse into the normative Roman polit-
ical discourse of the Nicaean imperial office by the mid-thirteenth century testi-
fies to the culmination of the process of change of the Eastern Roman identity’s
form. The outline of historical Hellenic ethnicity of the Eastern Romans in the
writings of the emperors John III Doukas Batatzes and Theodore II Laskaris¹⁴⁶

 Cf. footnote  above.

 Cf. footnote  above.
 Niketas Choniates (as footnote  above) ,  – , , ,  – , , , ,  –
, ,  – , ,  – , ,  – , ,  – , .
 On the phases of composition of the ‘Historia’, see A. J. Simpson, Before and after : the
versions of Niketas Choniates’ “Historia”. DOP  ()  – .
 V. Grumel, L’authenticité de la letter de Jean Vatatzès, empereur de Nicée au Pape Grégoire
IX. EO  ()  – ; Theodori Ducae Lascaris Epistulae CCXVII, ed. N. Festa. Florence
,  – ; cf. M. Angold, Byzantine “nationalism” and the Nicaean empire. BMGS 

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216 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

points to the potential of ruling élites to reshape the normative form and the con-
tent of collective identities respectively. John Batatzes’ utterance in his letter to
the Pope Gregory IX about his own people, the Hellenes, being the rightful
heir of the Roman political culture that had been inherited to them by Constan-
tine I¹⁴⁷ represents an inversion of the ideological disposition that, after the lin-
guistic Hellenization of the Roman imperial power during the late sixth century,
had maintained Eastern Romanness free of Greek ethnic discourse.
In the mid-tenth century, Constantine VII claimed the Byzantine’s exclusive
right to Romanness by referring to the Latin language as the ancestral language
of the Eastern Roman ruling élite.¹⁴⁸ This reference implicitly denounced a clas-
sification of the Eastern Romans as Greeks, as this was put forward by the Latin
political discourse. In the mid-thirteenth century instead, John III Batatzes em-
phasized his Hellenic ethnic descent to serve exactly the same cause. The differ-
ent socio-political conditions that configured the differentiated contents of the
Eastern Roman élite’s identity in each time are evident. What needs to be
stressed, though, is that neither of the two emperors stated a false identity.¹⁴⁹

()  – ; R. Browning, History, language and literacy in the Byzantine world. Nor-
thampton , ; Koder, Griechische Identitäten (as note  above)  – ; D. Angelov,
Byzantine ideological reactions to the Latin conquest of Constantinople, in A. Laiou (ed.), Urbs
capta: the Fourth Crusade and its consequences. Réalités Byzantines, . Paris ,  – ;
idem, Imperial ideology (as note  above)  – .
 John III Ducas Vatatzes, Epistula ad Gregorium papam,  – , in I. Sakellion, Ἀνέκδοτος
ἐπιστολὴ τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος Ἰωάννου Δούκα Βατάτση πρὸς τὸν Πάπαν Γρηγόριον. Πηγές τῆς
Ἱστορίας τοῦ Νέου Ἑλληνισμοῦ. Thessaloniki ,  – : Ἐσήμαινε δὲ τὸ τοιοῦτον γράμμα, ὅτι
τε ἐν τῷ γένει τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡμῶν ἡ σοφία βασιλεύει, καί, ὡς ἐκ πηγῆς, ἐκ ταύτης πανταχοῦ
ῥανίδες ἀνέβλυσαν· … Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡμετέρου γένους ἡ σοφία καὶ τὸ ταύτης ἤνθησεν
ἀγαθόν, καὶ εἰς τοὺς ἄλλους διεδόθη, ὁπόσοι τὴν ἄσκησιν αὐτῆς καὶ κτῆσιν διὰ πολλῆς τίθενται
φροντίδος, τοῦτο ἀληθῶς εἴρηται. Ἐκεῖνο δὲ πῶς ἠγνοήθη, ἢ καὶ μὴ ἀγνοηθέν, πῶς ἐσιγήθη, τό,
σὺν τῇ βασιλευούσῃ παρ’ ἡμῖν σοφίᾳ, καὶ τὴν κατὰ κόσμον ταύτην βασιλείαν τῷ ἡμῶν προ-
σκεκληρῶσθαι γένει παρὰ τοῦ μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου, τοῦ τῇ χριστωνύμῳ κλήσει τῇ ἀρχῆ
περιποιησαμένου τὸ σεμνόν τε καὶ τίμιον; Τίνι καὶ γὰρ ἠγνόηται τῶν πάντων, ὡς ὁ κλῆρος τῆς
ἐκείνου διαδοχῆς ἐς τὸ ἡμέτερον διέβη γένος, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν οἱ τούτου κληρονόμοι τε καὶ
διάδοχοι; cf. Grumel (as footnote  above)  – : “Cette lettre déclarait que dans notre
nation grecque la sagesse règne, et de là, comme d’une source, répand partout… et nous ne
réclamerons pas à notre tour que vous considériez et reconnaissiez le droit qui nous appartient
au pouvoir et a l’empire de Constantinople, droit qui a pris naissance au temps de Constantin, a
progressé ensuite par les nombreux princes ses successeurs qui sont de notre race…”.
 Costant. Porfirogenito, De thematibus I  –  (as footnote  above).
 On the premise that Roman identity before  should be considered as a false identity,
see P. Gounaridis, Η εξέλιξη της ταυτότητας των Ελλήνων στη Βυζαντινή Αυτοκρατορία, in:
Byzance et l’hellénisme: L’identité grecque au Moyen-Âge. Actes du Congrès International tenu à
Trieste du er au  Octobre . Études Balkaniques  ()  – , esp. .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 217

For Constantine VII, as for all post-seventh century emperors up to 1204, Roman-
ness was an identity of political culture that supplanted ethnic ideologies, i. e.
the politicization of ethnicity. As a result, the emperor could adhere to the
Latin cultural past of the Roman ruling élite that now spoke Greek and ruled
over peoples that had no cultural potential to self-identify with a Latin-Roman
cultural past.
The limits of this ideological discourse on a socio-political level had been
made evident already since the early ninth century. On the occasion of the un-
successful imperial intermarriage between the daughter of Charlemagne and
Constantine VI, Theophanes the Confessor stated that the future bride “should
be taught the letters and the language of the Greeks and should be educated
in the customs of the Roman reign”.¹⁵⁰ Theophanes’ statement testifies to the
socio-political effect of the break with the Latin cultural content of imperial Ro-
manness after the seventh century. Constantine VII’s statement sought to reserve
this cultural past as a part of the Eastern Roman imperial power’s political myth.
Both statements represent the two faces of the same coin as products of a polit-
ical discourse that aimed to circumscribe the exclusiveness of Eastern Roman-
ness against Western claims.
Within this framework, the emperors of Nicaea were not seeking to distance
themselves from the Roman identity of their Constantinopolitan predecessors.
Their choice to redefine the normative Roman political discourse by binding it
to a, for centuries suppressed, myth of Hellenic ethnic descent was not intended
to invent or construct a new identity. The notion of Greek ethnicity was not in-
strumentalized to marginalize Romanness in favour of Greek nationhood, but
to define the bearers of the historic Hellenic culture as the only worthy heirs
of the Roman political culture, that is, the only ‘true’ Romans.¹⁵¹ This change
of normative discourse capitalized on two facts: 1) The Eastern Roman élite
had for centuries maintained and carried forward important elements of Hellenic
culture (language, script, writings), even though strictly deprived of any ideolog-
ical connotations of ethnic self-identification; 2) Notions of Greek ethno-cultural
consciousness had set in among members of the literate élite since the late-elev-
enth century. The politicization of ethnicity had been for several centuries irrel-
evant to the political discourse of the Roman imperial office and, therefore,
downgraded to a barbarian practice. In the new post-1204 geopolitical condi-

 Theophanis chronographia, ed. C. de Boor. Leipzig , ,  – : τὸ διδάξαι αὐτὴν
τά τε τῶν Γραικῶν γράμματα καὶ τὴν γλῶσσαν, καὶ παιδεῦσαι αὐτὴν τὰ ἤθη τῆς Ῥωμαίων
βασιλείας.
 Cf. J. Irmscher, Nikäa als “Mittelpunkt des griechischen Patriotismus”. BF  ()  –
.

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218 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

tions, the rehabilitation of the political role of ethnicity was the main means to
distinguish the Eastern Romans from the Western barbarians. This made a myth
of ethnic descent salient again. The fourth century translatio imperii within the
Roman world was now presented not only as a matter of geographical spheres
(West – Rome, East – New Rome), but of ethno-cultural content (Latin –
Greek) as well.
In light of this, the politicized ethnic discourse of the Nicaean emperors had
indeed very little to do with a movement of Greek proto-nationalism that intend-
ed to promote a vision of revival or establishment of the (ancient) Nation.¹⁵² This
was due to the fact that a vision of national community was absent from the
worldview of the territorially- and politically-divided Eastern Roman élite.¹⁵³
This lack of national imagery is indicated by this élite’s intensive controversy
over exclusive rights to imperial Romanness and its military antagonism over
the recapture of Constantinople.¹⁵⁴ For this reason, the Nicaean emperors pur-
posefully confined the notion of ethnic Hellenism to their political realm in
order to underpin their notion of imperial Romanness also against the claims
of the despots of Epirus.¹⁵⁵ Roman identity remained traditionally bound to a vi-
sion of centripetal and hierarchical imperial community. This inherent political
trait of Romanness continued to undercut the notion of ethnic community
after 1204 and thus contained the Eastern Roman élite, the main bearer of
Roman identity, from envisioning the political reunification of the Roman people
as a community of common culture. This élite’s political vision remained focused
on the goal of revitalization of the Constantinopolitan imperial city-state and the
Roman imperial tradition.¹⁵⁶
This vision of community imposed the regression of Hellenic ethnic dis-
course by the normative political ideology of the imperial office after the recap-
ture of the imperial city Constantinople in 1261.¹⁵⁷ The change of identity dis-
course between the writings of Choniates, the Nicaean emperors and the post-
1261 historiographers pinpoints the ruling élite’s potential to circumscribe nor-

 On a definition of ‘nationalism’ cf. footnote  above.

 On the lack of ethno-political perspective by the Greek-speaking masses, cf. of the case of
Frankish Morea in Page, Being Byzantine (as footnote  above)  – .
 On this ideological controversy, see A. Stauridou-Zaphraka, Νίκαια και ήπειρος τον ο
αιώνα. Ιδεολογική αντιπαράθεση στην προσπάθειά τους να ανακτήσουν την αυτοκρατορία.
Thessaloniki , passim.
 Cf. Angold, Byzantine “nationalism” (as footnote  above) .
 Angelov, Ideological reactions (as footnote  above)  – .
 Ibid.  – ; R. Macrides, The new Constantine and the new Constantinople. BMGS 
()  – .

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 I. Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium 219

mative perceptions of Eastern Romanness according to its political interests

within a malleable geopolitical environment. The ethnic classification of the
Eastern Romans as Greeks by Choniates mainly took place in the last part of
his ‘Historia’, written in a period when imperial normativity had faded out
along with the imperial city-state of Constantinople. His identity discourse cap-
italized on the recurrent notions of Greek ethnicity among the literati since the
late eleventh century and was followed by the normatively politicized Greek eth-
nic discourse of the Nicaean emperors. The recapture of Constantinople marked
the regression of the political discourse of historical ethnicity in favour of impe-
rial Romanness.¹⁵⁸ The historiographical works of this period were informed by
this latter change. In this regard, it is important to bear in mind that no historio-
graphical text was composed in the court of the Laskarids, since George Akropo-
lites, who had lived there and dedicated his history to the State of Nicaea, com-
posed his text in Constantinople after 1261.¹⁵⁹
Nevertheless, the imperial office’s normative discourse of regnal Romanness
was now emphatically contradicted by the social reality of a politically fragment-
ed ethno-cultural collectivity of Romans that existed beyond Constantinople’s
realm.¹⁶⁰ The effort of Constantinopolitan historiographers to maintain imperial
normativity in the representation of Roman identity was marked by evident in-
consistency.¹⁶¹ In this light, the relationship between Romanness and Hellenism
after 1204 needs to be soberly addressed in regard to the role of the Hellenic
past: 1) in entrenching élite notions of historical ethnicity within and aside the
normative Roman discourse of the imperial office¹⁶²; and 2) in corroborating dis-

 A full-fledged notion of Greek ethnicity became salient again in the discourse of the im-
perial office only in the reign of Constantine XI shortly before the Ottoman capture of Con-
stantinople, see: Anonyma Palaeologica, Panegyricus ad Manuelem et Joannem VIII Palaeolo-
gum, in S. P. Lampros, Παλαιολόγεια καὶ Πελοποννησιακά, Γ. Athens , ,  – ;
Joannes Argyropulus, Monodia in imperatorem Joannem Palaeologum, ibid. ,  –  and  –
, ,  – ; idem, Oratio consolatoria pro imperatore Constantino ad mortem matri suae, in
S. P. Lampros, Ἀργυροπούλεια. Athens , ,  – ; idem, Βασιλικὸς ἢ περὶ βασιλείας πρὸς
τὸν αὐτοκράτορα Κωνσταντῖνον τὸν Παλαιολόγον, ibid. ,  – , ,  – , ,  – ;
idem, Oratio consolatoria ad Constantinum imperatorem Peloponneso venientem et accipientem
sceptra Ioannis morientis, ibid. ,  – , ,  – .
 On the time of the composition of the work, see R. Macrides (transl.), George Akropolites,
The History. Oxford / New York , .
 On the argument about a consolidated Roman ethnic community after , see Page,
Being Byzantine (as footnote  above) passim, especially  – ,  – , ,  – ,
 – .
 Ibid.  – ,  – .
 On utterances of Greek ethnicity in the writings of the late Byzantine élite, see A. Laiou,
From Roman to Hellene, in N. M. Vaporis (ed.), The Byzantine Fellowship Lectures at Hellenic

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 220 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 107/1, 2014: I. Abteilung

crepancy between the Roman identity of the social élite and the popular Roman-
ness (ethno-religious/ethno-linguistic) of those segments of the illiterate and
semi-illiterate masses that shared notions of belonging to a Roman ethno-cultur-
al collectivity.

College, I. Brookline Mass. ,  – ; Koder, Griechische Identitäten (as footnote  above)
 – ; Gounaridis (as footnote  above)  – ; Vryonis, Greek Identity (as footnote 
above)  – ; Angelov, Ideological reactions (as footnote  above)  – , .

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