What is the basis of claims like “European civilisation regressed a thousand years when Rome fell” and “we’d be travelling in starships if Rome didn’t fall”, “all knowledge was lost in the Dark Ages” etc, when Rome literally existed during all of the Dark Ages and well into the Renaissance? No knowledge or technology was lost in the Eastern Roman Empire. Life went on literally unchanged. People went to elaborate baths, watched plays, made sculpture. The Dark Ages was a local, tiny West European phenomenon. Why do people just ignore Byzantium?
That’s true but what the fuck does it have to do with Byzantium
why should i accomodate truths to your deluded expectations?
youre the one saying rome continued to exist (as if the name is all that matters)... and then you even threw in the byzantium in there just because
What do you mean? All I claim is that the civilisation and knowledge of Ancient Rome didn’t disappear in the Dark Ages, it survived in the Eastern Roman Empire. What is delusional about that?
The civilization was changed significantly into Byzantium which, while continuing some Roman traditions was Greek in culture, Greek in ethnicity, Greek in language, Greek in sensibility, and Greek in territory.
>Rome literally existed during all of the Dark Ages and well into the Renaissance
cringe
opinion forever discarded
Elaborate
It's usually anti-Christian seethers that come up with this sort of retarded nonsense.
People simply don't realise that a medieval army could beat Rome. Late Rome was chronically incompetent and earlier Rome didn't have things like stirrups or cavalry tactics that would destroy Roman infantry when combined with better quality materials and advances in fortification engineering.
>The Dark Ages was a local, tiny West European phenomenon. Why do people just ignore Byzantium?
Because Western Europe eventually surpassed the East and became the most influential part of the world for centuries
The Eastern Roman Empire crashed and burned in the 7th century.
What remained after was a medium power rump state that didn't resemble the Roman Empire at its height in any way shape or form.
This thread is about civilisation and literacy, not military might
The total population declined, urban centers declined, literacy probably declined.
Even the OG Romans did jack shit when it came to advancing scientific theory. The Byzantines copied and commentated but did little original work. In some cases they even regressed.
Cosmas Indicopleustes for example was a literal flat earther.
>thread about Dark Ages
>it IMMEDIATELY devolves into Russia vs Ukraine shitflinging
This is a new low even for sighsee
Were people still walking around in togas during the age of Hagia Sofia?
Yes.
Byzantine society was unfortunately not very innovative or dynamic
Neither was ancient Roman society. The Byzantines were just as unimaginative, stagnant, petty, and banal as their predecessors.
Well, Romans did invent plumbing and aqueducts. Also manufacturing at scale.
They got these things from the Etruscans and Greeks. But they were able to produce things at a much larger quantity than others, although you could also say the same for Byzantines.
I agree the Romans were overrated culturally and intellectually. However, they managed tremendous feats of civil engineering that allowed the places they went to prosper in a way they had never seen. The Byzantines did manage to build some cool stuff, but were to busy trying not to die to pull things of the same scale.
It depends on the era of the Byzantines, prior to the Arab conquests they essentially functioned the same. They had a seemingly infinite supply of slaves to build for massive ego projects, they didn't have any serious enemies that could destroy them (Khosrow II was the outlier).
Once the Byzantines managed to recover in the 11th century, they did some of the things they did before. This includes large building projects, having a diminished supply of slaves for said projects, and launching annual imperialistic wars against their neighbors without much of an objective.
the people making those claims are usually either Western Europeans or come from their dependencies in the Americas, so the local experience looms very large even if it didn't hit everywhere.
the romans had batteries, central heating, and indoor plumbing
>romans had batteries
Gifted to them by Yakub?
Beautiful Constantinople
It really is underrated.