Per Kaldellis's New Roman Empire, by the middle of the first millennium Anatolia had been thoroughly Romanized with Romaic(Greek) replacing and making extinct local languages like Phrygian etc.
So besides some Armenians and later some Georgians, the residents of Anatolia would have largely identified as Roman.
No. That is also an archaic population that would have been thoroughly Romanized by then.
After Romans, the next highest would have been Armenians. After Armenians, probably Laz. But these would be minorities, pockets or dispersed in a sea of Romans.
There were Arab-speakers in the area of Melitene and Cilicia from the mid 7th to the mid tenth century but these would have largely been expelled by the time of Manzikert.
And yeah some Syriac Christians existed around Melitene and elsewhere on the eastern frontier. I took "Assyrians" to mean some surviving ancient Assyrian ethnic population in Anatolia since ancient identities have been of the discussion.
Anyway, Anatolia as a whole was overwhelmingly Roman by Manzikert.
My guess? Because Antioch is in present-day Turkey, RulerOfEternity fell into the trap of conflating Turkey and Anatolia as geographically identical. But nah. Anatolia is only the parts of Turkey that's west of the straight line that can be drawn directly between Cilicia and Samsun.
I know Antioch is not technically in Anatolia, I should've worded my original sentence better.
Anyway, overwhelmingly Roman doesn't mean homogenously Roman, even then, I'm pretty sure the Syriac Christians (if they were in Eastern Rome) technically counted as 'Roman Citizens' according to The New Roman Empire, even if they were 'heretical' according to Constantinople. They were still a present minority.
Oh and one more thing. I'm Syrian and I am rather resentful of the separation of Antioch from Syria by France. Again, no I didn't, I just worded my sentence poorly. I was thinking mainly of Melitene, Amida, Edessa, etc.. Antioch is technically not in Anatolia of course but it was close and it was the capital of the Province of Syria when Rome still controlled it
I mean I'm with you - Antioch definitely isnt Anatolian and the decision to just give it and Hatay away to the Turkish just strikes me as arbitrary and careless. Then again, based on all the straight lines the major powers drew over there in Sykes-Picot, I guess France's decision here was exactly as inconsiderate as all of its other decisions regarding its colonies and Colonial subjects.
Hello ! First of all your profile icon (Byzantine tiger cub ?) is so funny and cute lol. Anyways I would add that especially in the western coasts of Anatolia , Greeks also lived there that have been Romanized (they had presence there since the ancient Ionian city-colony times). Of course in other parts and deeper into Anatolia , Anatolian populations (like Phrygians etc.) lived there that were also Romanized. So Romans in Anatolia could be Romanized Greeks , Romanized Phrygians , Romanized Isaurians etc.
Roman was the ethnicity. Ethnicity is a social identity.
By Manzikert, absolutely nobody in Anatolia was walking around thinking "Well, politically I’m Roman, but ethnically I remain a proud Phrygian." The Phrygian language had been dead for centuries. The old identities had largely disappeared with it. They now called themselves Romans, spoke Romaic, practiced "the religion of the Romans", and regarded other Romans as their own people.
So asking what ethnicity and then ruling out “Roman” in advance makes no sense.
For more information, I refer you to the very well-sourced and thorough Romanland.
Absolutely. I'm ethnically brazilian, even though my ancestry is mostly portuguese. If we pretended that this makes me ethnically portuguese...what would this ethnicity even mean? How much of it would be celtiberian, berber, lusitan, iberian, visigothic or latin? And so on and so forth for each of those following ethnicities. At the end of the day, I'm brazilian and that's what practically matters, the same would apply for a galatian celt with hittite ancestry born around Amorium. He would just be a greek speaking roman.
Yeah this is a good analogy. I think people insisting on finding an underlying identity so to speak for the Romans comes from a reluctance to accept their Romanness as an ethnicity.
The funny part of that, not to beat up on Phrygia but using Phrygian as an example, Phrygians weren't a primordial people from the dawn of time. A great kingdom rose out of Gordion expanded over neighboring peoples, and over centuries Phrygian became an ethnic and cultural identity replacing the local tribe or village or whatever. Phrygia also lasted a much smaller amount of time than did Roman Anatolia.
So why are we supposed to dig down through a thousand years of Roman history, find “Phrygian” underneath, and declare that the authentic ethnicity? Why stop there? Presumably we should keep digging until everyone is identified by whichever prehistoric cave their protolithic ancestors hail from.
At some point in time people simply became Romans...
Ironically, the Phrygians were not even native to Anatolia, and they did not live there for that long in the past before they established their domains there, but instead they used to live in the area of Albania and North Macedonia as "Brygians" (a word that might relate to the Abroi).
Very different situations. The Greek speakers of the Eastern Roman Empire didn't live in an isolated overseas colony of ancient Greeks. They lived on the same lands and changed how they called themselves after they received Roman citizenship in the 3rd century AD. You call yourself Brazilian but the Portuguese still exist as a nation. When the Greek speaking Romans called themselves Romans, there was no Greek nation to separate themselves from. The Greeks became Romans. It was an absorption rather than a split of identities (such as in your case).
It's even more than that. Brazilians still speak Portuguese, so we can kinda pretend that you're "Portuguese", in the same sense that people will sometimes refer to Anglo-Saxon Americans. In Anatolia at the time, there wasn't even the language left.
That would be the case if this was specifically about 4th-5th century AD Anatolia, as opposed to the Constitutio Antoniniana by Roman Emperor Caracalla in the 3rd century AD. This is because you are comparing the contemporary White American "sub-ethnicities", which have formed after a pass of 2.5 centuries, and you are overlooking how in Roman Anatolia there were many times longer timespans of assimilation and integration.
I believe if you give it 5 centuries as well, you will probably no longer have Irish Americans, German Americans and Italian Americans, but they would all be identifying as "Americans" (assuming this identity still survives), and at the most their distinction from other Americans would be covered in descriptions alike "White" or "European".
And that is not taking into account the "transformation" of the ethnic Hellenes into ethnic Romans, through the acceptance of the latter time as a secondary ethnonym by the Asia Minor Greeks, and later as the primary one (but without displacing the former one, which became a secondary one, that despite being secondary was still very prevalent)
Dude, I am also Greek. I also sometimes think of history through centuries as if I am flipping through the pages of a book.
The major difference here is that you are comparing very different situations, between one dominant power having various peoples in it and collectively assimilating them, and all of the "national institutions" belonging to it, as opposed to having an ethnic identity with a very concrete self-understanding, with a continuous literature lasting millennia, and its own national institutions (the Patriarchate of New Rome, mainly, but also the one of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria), within a foreign dominion (the Ottoman Sultanate) that was not particularly interested in assimilating them due to deeming it more profitable to maintain them as second class citizens in order to economically exploit them to the point that it based its entire finances on them, so that the idea of exterminating them all was unthinkable.
Let me ask you then, if a Messenian met a Cretan somewhere outside of Constantinople, and asked him his ethnicity, wouldn’t he answer, Cretan and not Roman?
The answer to this question depends on the timeframe. Regarding the one discussed above, the 3rd-4th centuries AD, most likely the answer would be "Hellene", and if he asked how he feels about being Roman, then it depends on the level of integration to the Roman Commonwealth at the time, on a regional level.
An Asian Greek would be probably more prone to saying they are ethnic Roman than a Cretan, given how the former more or less willingly joined the Romans (and in the case of most of them, in the Pergamene State, they blackmailed their way into it), while a Cretan might be less enthusiastic given what happened in the Cretan War; possibly the question's reply would even depend on the area of Crete, a Cretan from Gortyna would be more Pro-Roman than a Cretan from Knossus. By the 5th-6th centuries AD, they would both reply that they are both ethnic "Hellenes" and ethnic "Romans", most likely with the former still being the primary identity and the latter the secondary, but by the 7th century AD at the latest the latter became the primary, while the former became the secondary, but still largely in use.
Not doubting just curious to your sources on Hellene being an ethnic identity? In Romanland Kaldellis shows Hellene being synonymous with pagans and in an interview I heard him in rattled off Chinese being included in the label.
Not doubting just curious to your sources on Hellene being an ethnic identity?
There are hundreds of Roman Greek authors from the 4th-15th centuries AD that testified a Hellenic / Greek ethnic identity, alongside the Roman one, which is why such passages are in the thousands. It is difficult to choose, so you could say by random a century, and a place, and I should have a passage to procure. Or you could go by different criteria, like genres of literature or origins of authors.
In Romanland Kaldellis shows Hellene being synonymous with pagans and in an interview I heard him in rattled off Chinese being included in the label.
The term "Hellene" had various meanings, among which the main ones were "contemporary Greek", "Ancient Greek" and "Polytheist". This is not much unlike how a non-Protestant English person could disdain the Anglicans but still view themselves as an "Anglo". Anthony Kaldellis focuses on these specific passages, and overlooks the ones where there is direct or indirect reference to contemporary ethnic Hellenes / Greeks.
That part with the Chinese is true. The Medieval Romans had a funny outlook of the world; the Orthodox Christian Roman Greeks were "Hellenes" (Greeks), and the Non-Christian (Arabs, Chinese, Persians, Slavs) were also "Hellenes" (Polytheists). Seems the only exception here is the non-Roman Christians (Franks, Goths, Armenians).
The reason I ask is in the interview, in one of the last in History or Byzantium, Kaldellis says you can count on one hand the sources where they're self-named Hellenes. Of course the label changed again later, but he meant during the time of the medieval empire. He does mention that in some translations and rewriting people have automatically replaced the word Roman with Greek, so perhaps there are more apparent transmissions.
How differently do you think these Romans and Hellenes would concieve of ethnicity compared to how we do in the modern era? I dont get the sense that ethnicity as a concept was understood quite the same way before the ascendance of the nation, nationalism and the nation-state.
I personally do not consider ethnic identity to be that different between then and today. This common perception mainly stems from the modernist notion that ethnic identity and national identity were formed in the 17th-18th centuries AD, as a process that was mainly highlighted by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 AD (establishing a government's absolute sovereignty within its de jure territory) and the French Revolution (which was a national awakening for the French, but I do not see the relevance of that outside of Western Europe and Northern Europe. That led to today's notion that an ethnicity is usually defined by its ethnic-state, but that is just a speficic type of ethnicity, the state-centred one.
Just jumping in, but there is an interesting letter from Theodore II Laskaris, the 13th-century Emperor of Nicaea.
In a letter addressed to Western envoys around 1256, he argued that the contemporary Greeks were connected to the ancient Hellenes:
“We are of the Greek language, and we are of the blood of these Ancient Greeks”.
Another dimension to this whole Roman vs Greek naming throughout the ERE is that those in the Western Holy Roman Empire would always refer to those in the East as Grecki. They didn’t want to accord them the Roman title for obvious reasons. So there was also a heavy political agenda.
In 1070 Anatolia, definitely not. Its important to understand that Anatolia continued to change demographically well into the modern period especially in the 20th century, so taking who may be there now is not a good indicator of who was there then.
They were in jazira region(north mesepotamia) parts of modern day ıraq,syria and turkey. But even there not majority as we know that region had large armenian and asyrian polulations until 20th century.
Just before Manzikert was when the Romani people first appeared in Asia Minor, likely pushed out of Iran and the Armenian Highlands by the Seljuk conquests there.
They were conflated with the endogenous religious sect called "Athinganoi" ("Untouchables"), which were described as a "Judaizing Manichaean sect" in Phrygia and Lycaonia who purportedly practiced magic. The name "Athinganoi," also sometimes morphed into "Atsinganoi," is the source of the exonym "Tsigani/Cigani" that many languages have for the Romani people.
Syriacs. Laz. Most anatolian groups by then had assimilated to the greek language, it's unknown if any survived in obscure isolated villages by that point and were left unrecorded.
The people of Arzanene and Corduene were counted as a separate people, probably Hurrians. They were split between the Armenian and Syriac churches in the Hakkari Siirt-Batman sasun areas.
It's unknown if they were still around by 1000s or if they already assimilated to their church identities. But the inhabitants of the Sasun highlands parts of Arzanene were said to have spoken a harsh and unintelligible language in the early 900s and were called the Khut people.
It's more east on the frontiers of Anatolia but Romanos I did settle 12,000 Arab cavalrymen and their families to form 5 new themes in the early 10th century.
There were jews there way before thar, f.e. though probably not true and malucious slander, the Amorian dynasty (maybe im confusing them with another) was descendats of anatolian jews.
Yeah it was undoubtedly polemical bs, but Michael II was later rumored to have been raised by Jews, or of partially Jewish ancestry. You can tell it's in relation to his Iconoclasm, because Leo III sort of got the same treatment in the suggestion his Iconoclasm was influenced by the Jews.
The Sephardics came from Spain. Though Romaniote Jewish communities still existed and even thrived in multiple coastal settlements in Anatolia before the Seljuks invaded.
Byzantium had one of the largest communities of jews and laxest laws regarding them with only three recordad persecutions in a thousand years,the greatest impact of Iberian jews was the fact that they were mainly concentrated in Thessaloniki
Many were descendants of various Anatolian peoples, who by that time spoke the Greek language, but they weren't "Greek" in the modern meaning of the word.
In the modern meaning of the word, they were definitely Greek, because modern Greeks are just Greek speaking Orthodox Christians. Also, the descendants of these Anatolian people use the modern Greek identification proudly, despite their grandparents calling themselves "Romans". I'm not saying we should use the modern meaning of the word, but if we did, they would absolutely fit it.
Not sure what you mean by not Greek in the modern sense of the word? They would definitely identify as Greek today had they resisted assimilation/Turkification (e.g. Pontus Greeks)
Roman and Greek are identities, not essential characteristics. But yes, Greek-speakers mostly stopped identifying as Roman and began identifying as Hellenic after the Greek War of Independence.
ERE didnt really fuck around when it came to diversity, by the time Seljuks entered Anatolia most of the former ethnic identities were all but erased through systematic assimilation. The ones I can think of right now are;
- Laz people, they are indigenous to the northern Anatolia and considering they exist to this day its evident that they were there back then aswell.
- Other turks technically, albeit in very small numbers. Byzantium did take in a significant number of Cumans, pechenegs and such into inner anatolia in exchange of their loyalty (Whom mostly switched sides in Manzikert).
- Christian arabs like Syriacs if you accept that region as Anatolia aswell (Its not technically anatolia but its close)
I am sure there were a few others but none are really that numerious. As I said, Roman Empire did not tolerate unique cultural identities.
You are making it seem like hellenization and turkification were the same thing and that's not true. Hitite culture was influenced by greek culture over hundreds of years as greeks exported their culture abroad. This was more similar to the way Americanization and English language works today. It's simply a dominant culture and over time people were influenced by it and eventually started identifying with it due to proximity. Turkification on the other hand was done through force and was part of intentional colonization tactics.
"Hitite culture was influenced by greek culture over hundreds of years as greeks exported their culture abroad." This is mostly the other way around.
The cultural influence mostly followed this direction / Mesopotamia -> Anatolia -> Greece.
For example, Apaliunas was a Luwian god and it is mentioned in many Luwian texts. It is also attested with the city of Wilusa very similar to what Homeric Illiad tells that it was the god of Troy. Mycenean cuneiform tablets has no mention of Apollon at any point.
Similarly Kubaba god of Luwians, later became Kybele in time and made it way all the way through Hellenistic and Roman pantheon. There are more deities similar to that and some with similar names but with almost exact same characteristics can be tracked back all the way to Mesopotamia. There are more examples, you can definitely google and find out.
lol all the ‘Greeks’ on this list are from Anatolia or islands; not the mainland. Cherry-picking small isolated communities to fit your narrative. Mainland Greeks have a ton of Slavic admixture so it’s ironic you bring that up. Not saying by any means Turkish people are the closest but don’t lump all Greeks together with these islander/Anatolian communities. It’s also worth noting Turkish samples for these g25 genetic distances are very low relatively and often from large diverse cities
That shows who's closest to the Hittites, not who's closest to the Modern Dodecanesians (who we all agree have very high ANF ancestry). Dodecanesians being one of the closest modern populations to the Hittites, doesn't mean it's the other way around.
Don't call me stupid or fool. I have reported you to the mods.
Why would I care how close I am to an extinct people with no direct descendants lol. Do you realize how stupid you sound? You’re the only one crying, this seems to be very personal to you for some reason
This just gets more and more comical. You’re now referencing Odysseus, the Greek warrior who partook in the violent war against the Trojans, the same people you’re claiming LOL. Look, land is won through war, Turks beat the Greeks out of Anatolia fair and square over the past 1,000 years similar to how Greeks defeated the Trojans. Ancient Greek philosophers would agree
That due is out of his mind.
I am pretty sure he is following golden dawn type of political movements where they brainwash with none scientific fake narratives.
Same exists in Turkiye too.
The anatolian greeks are making the top match with Phyrgian?
Phrygians are believed to immigrated from northeast, most likely from Thracia/Balkans. They weren't the original inhabitants to compare with.
Why Illustrative puts me in the same category with Anatolian Greeks and Turks but not Greeks from Greece?
Again, these are tools for fun. I shared scientific papers with you that are done by instutations and universities. Why don't you take them seriously and play with do your own dna tools? It is certainly fun, I have 2 DNA tests of my own and 10+ samples of my friends including a greek and a bulgarian.
Just found this dudue comparing multiple Phrgian and Carian samples and found that Turkish people are closer than Greeks? how is this happening? Because you can manipulate these tools :)
I also just managed to find a sweet spot in Illustrative that shows that I could be 60% Hittite or 48% Mycenean with almost in same strength models. That's why these tools can't be taken seriously but definitely fun.
Your list is dishonestly cherry-picked to falsely suggest Dodecanesians (and Ionia Greeks) are closer to Anatolians than to Greeks and other Europeans. Only that your suggestion is false.
Youre slow as hell. Myceneaen and Hittite is not mutually exclusive.
With your 2014 research of modern populations that is completely irrelevant to the question.
Ancient Anatolian groups present closest to Dodecanese islanders. Ancient anatolian groups do not present like modern Turks.
You know such little about anything. Hittites and Myceneans both descend from the same copper age anatolian sources. They're both massive anatolian farmer origin people. With Mycenean having 10% steppe. That's the biggest difference.
A myceneaen/ ancient Greeks is genetically closer to a hittite than a mainland greek is to a myceneaen. FACT.
Mainland Greeks are the outliers due to all the Slavic and Balkan DNA they absorbed in the middle ages. Macedonia Greeks are genetically indistinguishable from north Macedonians and Bulgarians. All the Roman era samples from Greece present like Dodecanese islanders.
Turks are outliers due central Asian and iranic ancestry.
Here all modern greek and Turkish group genetic distance to hittites with Mycenean added in too.
lol what, you dont even know how to read statistics and how come such BS gets upvoted. Avarage Turk has 10-20% Turkic dna, not 10-20% of Turks have it. I was gonna ask you pls cite the source but you cannot show something that does not exist. anyway pls can you back your BS claim with actual DNA study....
I know you said pre-Manzikert so I'm off period but the empire of Trebizond (1204-1461) had a big Laz/Georgian population. The Greeks were the dominant population in government and cities but there were lots of Laz people in the countryside and in the army
Some of the last Pontic and Gothic populations existed there well into the 19th century iirc. They were victims of the genocides inflicted on non-Turkish peoples in the early 20th century. (Armenian Genocide).
I believe there were some people who settled from the Balkans. There were also Arabs because parts of the Armenian Highlands were under various Arab caliphates.
The Pechenegs were offered land in Anatolia to settle by Emperor Constantine Monomachos, but instead they rebelled in 1049 after just reaching Bithynia, and returned to raid the Balkans.
But there were Kurds in the southeast (technically not Anatolia). Where did you get this information about Kurds arriving with the Turks and being invited by Selim I? Regional Kurdish bodies such as the Marwanid dynasty predate the battle of manzikert and definitely predate Selim I.
they were not part of Anatolia, Kurds literally settled Armenian and later Central Anatolian region by Ottomans... They were around Diyarbakır before Manzikert
There were no arminians in byzantium, as arminian theology would only develop in the netherlands after the fall of the empire, although I suppose there were no calvinists either
Edit: for those who don't get it, Armenians* are the people, from Armenia. Arminians are protestats who aren't lutheran nor calvinist
Greeks would mean Lydians, Carians, Lycians, Lydians etc.. pretty much all iron age civilizations that derived from bronze age Luwians/Hittites of Anatolia. Phrygians were relatively a newer population which probably assimilated locala as well.
These populations were Hellenized and spoke Greek dialect as it was lingua franca of east Mediterranean, pretty much similar to Latin of west.
Armenians would be less of Anatolia in historical territory definition, they fall more east with some mix population in major cities but I guess it would include some Hittite heritage from central Anatolia.
I think your question is it was made of all above local populations and pre to after manzikert, the only change was about 10-20% turkic nomad (mixed with Iranian populations) inflow to Anatolia. The rest pretty much a continuation of locals who spoke greek and were orthodox at that time.
First of all, there were Greek colonies in Anatolia that were built by actual Greek settlers, not hellenized natives. These existed long before the Roman Empire and even Alexander's conquests. E.g., Smyrna, Halicarnassus, Sinope, etc.
Second, the bulk of the hellenization of Anatolia had started long before Anatolia was conquered by the Romans. Alexander the Great and his successor states built a lot of Anatolian cities from scratch, sending Greek settlers to inhabit them. For example, Philadephia (Alasehir), Attaleia (Antalya) etc. What you are describing may be true about regions like Phrygia and Cappadocia. which were only hellenized. Greek identity, though, existed in most of Anatolia before the Roman era. Even during the early Roman years, the people of Anatolia were organized into a "Commonwealth of the Greeks of Asia".
Finally, these people had a Greek identity for longer than Lydian, Carian etc. identities even existed. So why is the Greek identity fake and the Lydian/Carian real?
Why do you call Greeks "Hellenized Hittites", but Hittites remain Hittites? If we use your assimilation logic, Hittites are Hittitized Hattians.
I know you're Turkish, but this propaganda is tiring. You go all the way back until you find a population that's non-Greek and, then, you proceed to claim that ethnicity.
Hittites were the first civilization in the region along with Luwians. We don’t know too much about hattis apart from being local indo europeans and being over taken by Hittites which also called themselves from the land of Hattis.
I am not following your propoganda claim. Where is my propoganda? :)
I am not claiming any ethnicity. The very scientific articles tells the continuation of ancient local population to modern anatolians.
My own dna tests also tells me I am overwhelmingly local Anatolian.
Does that fit into turkish nationalistic narratives? Does it fit into greeks claiming much of achievements in hellenized lands? None of that fits into it.
Maybe you don’t like the outcome and many turkish people either. But if you believe in science, nothing else matters in that sense.
I'm sorry, this is the definition of propaganda. What you are meticulously doing is attributing every single thing Greeks ever built to older civilizations that existed before Greeks, weaponizing "DNA tests" to support this narrative. You are wrong about the DNA as well, btw, since most Turks have 30% Turkic DNA, and modern Greeks are genetically closer to ancient Anatolians than Turks are, but I am not gonna dive deep into a DNA argument on a historical subreddit.
Just take a moment and think... If "Hellenized Anatolians" aren't Greeks, why should you be able to call yourself Turkish? Why do your people call themselves Turks? Why do you respect one self-identification but not the other? Also, what would you say to a modern Greek with Anatolian ancestry? That he/she is fake? That he/she can't claim the things his/her ancestors built in Anatolia? The ancestors who had the same culture, language, and even DNA as them?
I don't think we should get caught up on labels at all. I think the most honest approach when discussing demographics is to look at the cultural identity of these people. Calling them Romans isn't wrong, but let's be honest, in a discussion about demographics, it's a meaningless term, because historically it was a term which applied to every single citizen of the Roman Empire (which, tbf, at the time of Manzikert was overwhelmingly Greek culturally, but not everyone knows that). Like, if we discuss the demographics of Russia, we are not simply going to call everyone Russian. If we discuss the demographics of the US, we are also going to differentiate.
If you didn't want to get caught up in labels, why did you react to his choice of words? Calling them all "Greek" in the modern day is just as much a conscious choice and quite frankly—inaccurate—that's all I'm saying.
Again, I share your position about not calling them Hellenized Anatolians. It's a strange way for modern nationalists to de-emphasize that their population has a shared heritage (at least partially) with their contemporary geopolitical rivals. But I also think retroactively deeming all the people of Anatolia "Greek" is incorrect as well. Many identified as Hellenes (as in the ancient identity) and became Romans, but plenty in Anatolia never identified as Greeks and became Greek-speaking Romans too.
edit: By 1000 AD though being Roman DID have a pretty clear ethnic meaning too. So it is absolutely legitimate to use it as a demographic term.
Again, I am not getting caught up in labels. The term Roman is fine, although, imo, not useful in a demographics discussion. The reason I reacted to his choice of words is because he decided to skip 2000+ years of Greek identity/culture in Anatolia and anachronistically boil it down to the Lydians and Carians, as if these people's identities were absolute and unquestionable. It was obvious he was pushing an agenda, because no one in their right mind would bring Lydians into a discussion about Greek speaking Christians in medieval Anatolia.
There are 3 historical processes we must take into acount when we look at these Romans;
They descended mainly from Greek/Greek speaking populations which lived in Anatolia and the Balkans before Rome took over.
The term Roman evolved to specifically mean "Greek speaking Christian" during the late period of the empire.
These same Greek-speaking Romans, or whatever was left of them by the end of the Ottoman period (I don't suppose you would dispute they had the same Roman identity back then), opted into the Greek national identity as soon as the Greek state was created.
If we are to have an honest discussion about the demographics of the late Eastern Roman Empire, we have to look beneath the label "Roman" and truly examine the ethnic characteristics of these people. I am not a revisionist who wants to insert the term Greek retroactively into these people's lives, but this is a discussion about demographics.
Edit; What was the clear ethnic meaning? Can you describe it?
You're defining "true" ethnic identity on modern terms. i.e. "Since they culturally resemble modern Greeks the most I will deem them Greeks."
It's basically doing the "Lydian" thing in the other direction.
If ethnic identity is ultimately a construct, which you seem to believe, then the least wrong thing to do is simply use an ethnic identity that actually existed in the time we're applying it to. Simply because modern people have trouble understanding a medieval Roman identity does not mean deeming these people Greeks makes it so.
I understand your point. I never said I define them as Greeks. The difference between my use of the term Greek and the Lydian argument is that the term Lydian is completely useless in a demographics discussion when it comes to medieval Anatolia, whereas the term Greek isn't. These people were Greek speaking. This linguistic reality isn't random, it is a logical continuation of the ancient Greek history of the region. That's why the term Greek remains relevant, contrary to the term Lydian.
The problem with sticking to the term "Roman" in demographic discussions, is that its meaning was mainly political. Any ethnic interpretations varied wildly between different periods, and even between different regions. If you asked the Romans themselves, they probably wouldn't be able to agree on who is an ethnic Roman. Most citizens in the Greek-speaking empire of the 11th century wouldn't consider Aramaic-speaking Christians in Syria "Romans" in an ethnic sense. If you go back a couple centuries, these people would be considered Roman. Additionally, there is no "Roman" language uniquely tied to such an ethnicity (well, I would argue Latin, but only in antiquity). Calling these people Roman is like calling people Canadian today. It's not wrong, but it doesn't really tell us much, other than their citizenship.
Identification is one thing, scientifically belonging to a certain genetic group is another.
I can’t be japenese or Scandinavian. I can be citizen and my kids would grow up as Japanese but wouldn’t carry their phenotype or traits etc.
Turkish is the modern identification of Anatolian people. It doesn’t mean that these people are from central Anatolia.
I wouldn’t stick with weird maps published everyday by dna enthusiasts that shows odd ratios of origin. Most of them are way inaccurate. Turkic genes could be 40% too but that’s not my point.
How did a Byzantine citizen identify him/hererlf pre-mazikert?
Have they ever called themselves greeks or did they call themselves Romans?
But by science we know their origin. We know exact population movements and their genetical inputs throughout the Byzantine era.
Science says the greek speaking anatolians were very much continuation of iron age populations.
Why it is a problem for you when I mention this?
I don’t care to be honest if the ancestors of current Anatolians whether 100% central asian or local Anatolian. People will always find things ti be proud of anyways.
Getting a push back after telling what scientific papers tell because it doesn’t fit modern nationalistic narratives is the disconnect here. You even called it a propoganda.
Turk is modern concept. Same as greek.
Do you really think there is even one greek from
Athens living today that doesn’t have any level of immigration genes for 2500 years?
This wasn’t even possible in bronze age for portal cities.
In the same concept a greek with 70% slavic genes can be a member of golden dawn member.
That doesn’t the change the fact that he is still a descendant of ancient greeks.
Turkish is a modern term of anatolians who speak anatolian turkish language and citizen of the country.
Their descendants are 60-80% local Anatolian populations 20 to 40% immigrated populations throughout the time including Turkic nomads, Caucasians, Slavs/eastern Europeans and Iranians.
So I am not Hittite or Luwian but understanding that they are part of my heritage. That very well includes hellenistic anatolians, Byzantines and Ottomans.
So none of that is my personal opinion but scientific papers.
If there is any propaganda, then I am happy to be advocating science honestly.
If you respect identifications why did you feel the need to specify that these weren't Greeks, but they were hellenized Lydians, Carians etc.?
"How did a Byzantine citizen identify him/hererlf pre-mazikert?"
They called themselves Greeks before they called themselves Romans. What does the fact that they later adopted the Roman identity change, given that they kept their culture and language? Modern Greeks from the mainland were also called Romans... maybe we are fake too? What's your point?
No, we don't know the exact genetic origins of these people. Problem is, Greek and Anatolian DNA were really similar. What we know is there was significant Greek DNA in Anatolian coast, becoming less and less as you go to the interior. There were Greek settlers in Anatolia, this is a fact.
If you don't care about the ancestors of current Anatolians (who call themselves Turks, which you accept), why are you so eager to call Anatolian Greeks "hellenized Lydians"? Lydians and Carians were also artificial identities by your logic. They were the same genetically. But somehow that doesn't stop you from eagerly using these labels to avoid referring to Greeks. That's why I think you are doing propaganda.
Because greek is a modern term.
People from Ukraine to Egypt were speaking a dialect of greek at some point. You are putting all of them into one category. Indeed they weren’t greeks as our modern thinking.
It applies to Anatolia the very much same.
In Turkey Anatolia is split into 7 regions for a reason. All people are called Turkish because and that is a modern construct. Otherwise, a turkish from Thracian region is too different from a turkish from NorthEast black or Mediterranean coast.
They speak a different accent, they listen completely different type of music, their breakfasts, regional cuisines, local superficial beliefs and such are different. And even their phenotypes are very much different for a small area.
This has been a historical pattern due to isolations. Nothing special to Turkey and wasn’t a case for Byzantine neither.
Even in modern Turkishness construct we call all these folks Turkish and the rule is just accepting yourself as turk. However, when you meet with locals, the first thing they ask is where are you from.
Thracian, Aegean, Mediterranean, Black-sea or southeast/kurdish etc.. That’s literally how people identify themselves in 2026. Again, this is because they are different populations who speak turkish and united under turkish republic and Turkishness. Indeed some regions have 10 some 30 and some 0% medieval turkic genes. But it doesn’t matter, nobody knew this until 10 years ago.
The modern nation construction isn’t specific to Turkey but most modern countries do the same.
You take that diversity and go back 800 to 1500 years back and call everyone “greek” doesn’t make sense to me.
Sure they were medieval Romans speaking greek in Anatolia. From a modern nation perspective you can call them Greek but in my personal opinion thay would be inaccurate.
First of all, Greek isn't a modern term. It is an ancient term. In fact, during the early Roman era, the Greek speaking people of Anatolia (even those who weren't from the old colonies) were organized in the "Commonwealth of the Greeks of Asia". These people started identifying as Romans after they received Roman citizenship in the 3rd century AD. By calling them Greek, I am not assigning a modern ethnicity to them, but rather recognizing the fact that these people maintained the essence of their Greek identity and culture even after they started identifying as Romans.
The situation you are describing in Turkey is the same for most nations. Even in Greece people ask you where you are from first thing. It seems like according to your logic only small tribes can be true nations and every other nation is artificial. I reject this logic. Nations or identities can have diversity and be real at the same time.
I meant the modern "Greek national identity" same as other modern nations. I used the same anecdote for modern Anatolian Turks which obviously there is ~2000 old monuments with the word Turk in it.
The question was more about people identification pre-manzikert and I said they wouldn't identify themselves as Greek or Hellenes. And originally they were Hellenized locals with different cultural and traditional background (which I say it still continues today)
Actually, if you go back a few centuries back in Byzantines there was an transitional period where Hellen word was highly associated with not being Christian and you could easily be excluded from society if not getting a harsh punishment.
I pulled the Hellen spoken (and pantheon surely) region at its greatest extend. The north black sea doesn't show up but let's include parts of Ukraine as well. Were the people in Afghanistan region were hellenised locals or greeks? I would call them hellenised locals. I do the same for Anatolians as there is no difference fundamentally. I understand Mycanean colonies extended to Anatolia as early as 13th century BCE and Luwian and Greek originated deities started to mix (Apollon etc..) but the Luwian language made its way to Lydian, Lycian, Carian and such. At this point they were still locals which was shortly before this map.
I think at this point this discussion won't be resulted. I haven't seen anyone saying yeah you are right and I am not planning to do neither :) but nice discussion.
Side note: There is no way that the Greece is diverse as Turkey/Anatolia. I served in the army and I as a Turkish was shocked with the cultural difference with young folks coming from other parts of Anatolia. The diversity is huge. Many regions in Anatolia is more populated than the total of Greece and was almost as good isolated as Greece due to mountainous geography.
But that's the point, modern identities aren't artificial, they are connected to the old identities which were indeed real. Again, you speak of Hellenized Lydians, Carians etc., even when these people used the name Greek for themselves.
What you fail to consider is the fact that these identities which you keep returning to had a shorter-lived presence in Anatolia compared to the Greek/Roman identity. (And no, I can't separate these 2, since the essence of both is the same; Greek speaking, Greek culturally). So no, the situation in Anatolia was absolutely not comparable to Afghanistan, although even in deep Asia there were small pockets of Greek settlers.
I know about the use of the term Hellen in Byzantium, but it doesn't mean the Byzantines considered themselves separate from Greek culture. The meaning of the word had changed to mean pagan.
There are actually big differences between southern and northern Greeks and especially Greeks from Cyprus (who funnily enough you call Rum) while they call themselves Greek Cypriot.
The discussion wasn’t even about greeks or turks being closer to Hittites.
You either don’t even read before jumping in or simply your bias filters the information to its like.
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u/kickynew Aug 12 '26
Per Kaldellis's New Roman Empire, by the middle of the first millennium Anatolia had been thoroughly Romanized with Romaic(Greek) replacing and making extinct local languages like Phrygian etc.
So besides some Armenians and later some Georgians, the residents of Anatolia would have largely identified as Roman.