lol atleast the byzantines aren’t giving other greek civs the cataphrac
unlike the Aztecs, which for some reason the devs tougth it was a good idea to add eagle warriors to both mayas and incas (Which are historically an AZTEC warrior only)
I see nothing wrong with this suggestion. They can use the greek voice lines from age of mythology.
I don’t really support the idea of Greek medieval civilization yet in a new DLC (having Byzantines is enough I believe).
But in case they would think about it, then the Greek options they have are the below:
- Empire of Trebizond (Pontic Greeks also a few Georgians) Actually this can be a nice combo with an Georgian/Armenian DLC
- Empire of Nicaea (Greeks of Minor Asia)
- Despotate of Epirus (Epirote+Macedonian Greeks)
- Despotate of Morea (Peloponnesian Greeks)
Other states consisted partially of Greeks (However they didn’t have the upper hand on these states)
1)Principality of Achaea. A petite state in Peloponnese consisted mostly of French settlers and local Greeks or mixed families (Gasmouloi).
2)Duchy of Athens and Neopatras. Duchy located in central Greece consisted mostly of Catalans and Greeks.
3)The Great Wallachia. State in Thessaly consisted mostly of Wallachians and Greeks.
4) Duchy of the Archipelago. A maritime state in Cyclades islands consisted mostly by Venetians and Greeks.
There are many other minor states and duchies in the Ionian/Aegean islands of mixed population (mainly Greeks and Italians) but they are not worth mentioned for a potential DLC.
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I think Latin is accurate enough that it doesn’t warrant creating an entirely new language pack for one civ. The founding and administrative language was Latin for hundreds of years, so I would say it’s actually the most correct choice for “dark age” Byzantines. Latin remained dominant in the Byzantine portions of the Italian peninsula until ~700AD and was still regularly used in trade/correspondence with the west and in study of religious texts until at least ~900AD, so it was relevant for a while.
In any case, it’s one of the less glaring inaccuracies in the game, and players have been used to the Latin pack for 20+ years. It’s almost like changing the BGM tracks for me, lol.
Not really, that’s just a wrong decision from their part.
First of all, since the term Byzantine is used conventionally, there’s also no consensus among historians on the starting date of the Byzantine empire. So you have to clarify what’s the period exactly that you talk about and call Byzantine? Several transitional periods are proposed, going as early as the times of Diocletian and as late as the reign of Heraklios. I think you realize the vast differences.
If we decide to pick the latter as the starting date of the Byzantine empire then Latin was actually never official language.
If on the other hand, we even dare to pick the former and earliest one -which is insane- then we still have 3.5 centuries of Latin being official language and 8.5 centuries of Greek being the official language untill 1453.
So this reasoning doesn’t really make any sense.
In any case, assuming that we speak strictly about the eastern half of the Roman empire with Constantinople as its capital then Greek had always been the dominant language and culture, particularly on the territorial and urban core. While Latin was restricted inside administrative structures as a second language.
It is definitely not a minor issue as the language and culture of the Byzantines came to shape their forms of self identification and their ethnic self ascription in the later centuries as a distinct group of people of shared language, shared religion and a shared way of life that was placing them apart from others.
Considering how Latins came be perceived as barbarian heretics and enemies of Byzantium at some point, seeing the Byzantines themselves speak Latin is at least painful and absurd.
So, in the same manner that I expect Bulgarians to speak Bulgarian, Italians to speak Vulgar Latin or an Italo-Dalmatian variance, Franks to speak Frankish and so on, I expect Byzantines to speak Greek as they should and as is historically correct.
I’ll post another map that gives a rough idea at still a relatively early date as the 600AD.
I am not saying that you guys are 100% wrong at what you’re saying but you just seem to be referring to a restricted Byzantine period during the early-middle ages or even late-antiquity that is not representative at all of its 11 centuries of existence.
The empire undertook drastic changes during its lifetime and eventually came to be more characteristically Greek in its language, religion, population and other cultural phenomena.
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I don’t deny that Greek is a more accurate choice and far more representative of the Byzantine empire as a whole, it definitely is, just that in terms of inaccuracies in the game it’s far from the worst instance. Part of my reasoning is that when you play against the AI, several of the emperor/general names chosen for them precede Heraclius, and they all (probably) spoke Latin while ruling. Heraclius, who transitioned the empire to Greek, is also an AI player option. So if you assume you’re starting in the AoE concept of the “dark age” for the Byzantines, which is… let’s just say vague, Latin isn’t a bad choice.
Of course, the common people nearly always spoke Greek (and other non-Latin languages) outside of the Italian peninsula regardless of time frame, so it makes little sense for the villls. But for military, monks, and kings, it at least makes sense some of the time.
Monks never spoke or chant in latin in byzantium. All chants and prayers were in greek even the terms of music theory have greek names and a big part of it was taken from pythagoras musical system. Monks couldnt have talked latin since they were “villagers” who were going to become monks. Priests might spoke latin with other officials but in churches greek was the language used to praise God.
Check
Britannica
Byzantine chant, monophonic, or unison, liturgical chant of the Greek Orthodox church during the Byzantine Empire (330–1453) and down to the 16th century; in modern Greece the term refers to ecclesiastical music of any period. Although Byzantine music is linked with the spread of Christianity in Greek-speaking areas of the Eastern Roman Empire, it probably derives mostly from Hebrew and early Syrian Christian liturgies (see Syrian chant). Various types of hymns were prominent, among them those called troparion, kontakion, and kanōn (qq.v.). The music is unrelated to that of ancient Greece and Byzantium.
Documents with Byzantine neumatic notation date only from the 10th century. Earlier, there was in use an “ecphonetic” notation based on the accent marks of Greek grammarians from Alexandria, Egypt, giving only a vague direction of upward or downward voice movement; the intoned readings to which the signs were added were learned by oral transmission for centuries.
Wiki
According to the chant manual “Hagiopolites” of 16 church tones (echoi), the author of this treatise introduces a tonal system of 10 echoi. Nevertheless, both schools have in common a set of 4 octaves (protos, devteros, tritos , and tetartos ), each of them had a kyrios echos (authentic mode) with the finalis on the degree V of the mode, and a plagios echos (plagal mode) with the final note on the degree I. According to Latin theory, the resulting eight tones (octoechos) had been identified with the seven modes (octave species) and tropes (tropoi which meant the transposition of these modes). The names of the tropes like “Dorian” etc. had been also used in Greek chant manuals, but the names Lydian and Phrygian for the octaves of devteros and tritos had been sometimes exchanged. The Ancient Greek harmonikai was a Hellenist reception of the Pythagorean education programme defined as mathemata (“exercises”). Harmonikai was one of them. Today, chanters of the Christian Orthodox churches identify with the heritage of Byzantine music whose earliest composers are remembered by name since the 5th century. Compositions had been related to them, but they must be reconstructed by notated sources which date centuries later. The melodic neume notation of Byzantine music developed late since the 10th century, with the exception of an earlier ekphonetic notation, interpunction signs used in lectionaries, but modal signatures for the eight echoi can already be found in fragments (papyri) of monastic hymn books (tropologia) dating back to the 6th century.[5]
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My god I can’t believe all these wall texts because of such a trivial thing.
I have been on the internet for quite a while, but you guys still awe me.
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if you enjoy reading or studying history it’s fun. If you don’t it’s not.
There’s a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much. "Noam Chomsky
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Your arguments make me cry
It might be kind of cool if the Byzantines spoke Latin for Dark and Feudal age, before swapping to Greek for Castle and Imp, to symbolize the switch of language.
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