Well it’s more complicated then that… The “proper” romans of that time were the greek, the core ethnicity of the empire, but most of the tribes and nations compromising the state would have a sense for belonging to the roman empire and many were proud to not only call themselves Cappadocians or Syrians etc. but also Romans. It signified superior culture opposed to the barbarians outside of the light of the empire.
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During most of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Rhōmaîoi (Ῥωμαῖοι, “Romans” so it’s just another word for Greek.
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Ottomans defeated Eastern Roman Empire not Byzantine Empire. Byzantine Empire is simply Roman Empire. Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet 2 The Conqurer see him self and historians see him as Kayzer.
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ugh this meaningless debate made its way into the forums.
Both terms are historiographical and Byzantines also never called themselves “eastern roman empire”, and most certainly they never called themselves ‘Rome’ either. In fact, at the starting dates of the other civs in this game, Byzantines knew very well what Rome was to them; A city of Latin heretics that were more often than not labeled as barbarians. Terms like Rhomania and Basileia Rhomaion were used as correctly mentioned by Lupin above.
Byzantine Empire is fine imo for the needs of this game, it’s analytical and includes the roman identity as well. I wish to see the Byzantine Empire.
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Eastern Rome picked up the Greek language and cultural elements, while Western Rome maintained Latin as a language. Once the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, the East continued to rule under the Byzantine Empire, which fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
My suggestion is to make you be able to choose which path you want to play as when you age up with the different landmarks, western or eastern style and game-play to respect both sides of the Empire.
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I’m not sure what they called themselves. but I believe they considered themselves Roman not byzantine and they were the eastern part of the Roman Empire. So I think ERE is the best choice.
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Well they will be called Byzantine Empire because in Russian civilisation section of this site they are mentioned as Byzantines.
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I prefer Byzantine Empire over ERE because we already have one Roman Empire in game, that correct one 
Byzantine Empire sounds far, FAR cooler than “Eastern Roman Empire”.
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Sometimes civilizations don’t get to be named the way they chose to name themselves. Sentiment might have changed. They considered themselves still a Roman Empire, but they never got control of rome back (only for a very short time). It was their ambition to be Romans but they couldn’t live up to it. So they are given a different name when entering medieval times. No Rome, no Roman Empire.
Sometimes a given name might just sound stupid. Teutons in their language likely meant “people with arms”. Quite unspectacular. Why go back there? Teutons - Wikipedia
The problem is that at that time there were no longer the Romans as such, the Byzantine Empire was mostly Greek, besides, Germany declared the right to the title of the Roman Empire, since the German King Charles the Great was crowned by Pope Adrian I, which set the status Eastern Roman Empire in question. When Germany declared itself the heir to the Roman Empire, along with these events, the status of Rome as such disappeared, when the “barbarian” German became the emperor. Accordingly, there is no reason to call Byzantium the Eastern Roman Empire.
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Could have said to simply call them the Roman Empire but alas , they named the Germans as HRE ):
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As far as I know , they called themselves Romans till sometime after Palailoginan Restoration .
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Actually greeks called themselves Romans pretty much up until the 19th and even in the 20th century. No joke. There was big debate if the should call themselves Hellenes or Romans as they always would in common conversation, but Hellenes was deemed more marketable to western powers for support against the ottomans.
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Exactly! At that time the Greeks considered themselves as Romans ( Ρωμαίοι, Rhomaioi) but it wasn’t the same as the Romans from the Roman Empire prior to the Byzantine empire.
Greeks, hellenic or Romans of the Byzantine area is the same thing. I hardly see anyone talk about this so thank you for also pointing it out.
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Dang. I already voted for ERE but after reading this it does seem like it would be confusing to have both the Eastern Roman Empire (formally Roman) and the Holy Roman Empire (which wasn’t actually Roman at all) in the game. I suppose Byzantine makes the most sense, which is kind of funny considering which one was actually formally Rome.
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It should be called Roman Empire (Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, Basileía Rhōmaíōn).
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I find it sad that there is even the question of whether the Byzantines spoke Latin. Not only since the 7th century but the entire history of the Eastern Mediterranean was traced and influenced by the Hellenic or Greek presence that never saw a Latinization or Romanization.
It was those same Hellenized peoples of the East including Greece and the Greeks themselves that would transform and shape the Byzantine empire for its almost 1000 years of history centered on the Hellenistic East. One only has to see the massive Hellenization of Bulgaria and how it was reorganized into “Demes” and “Strategai” following Seleucid administrative models by Basil II to realize that this was not the Roman Empire of Augustus.
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I call it what i want, mate
After the great chism, it should be called byzantines of course
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What many people don’t understand is that the term “Byzantine” is just like the term “Eastern Roman”, a modern denotation for the Greeks who shaped the Byzantine Empire for a thousand years. In many cases it would be better if they were called “Politeia” or “Basileia” without much more detail since they were the two main ways of referring to their state.
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