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Whether or not they thought of themselves as Roman, they weren't. When your people haven't lived in the city of Rome for a millennium or so, calling yourself "Roman" is not remotely accurate. Put it this way - Taiwan considers themselves to be Chinese (and the legitimate Chinese government at that), but nobody else does. Possession matters.
No, what happened is what it is to be Roman simply changed. In the beginning it meant living in the city and surrounding area of Rome, then it denoted a status being a citizen of the empire, and after that it became essentially a sort of super-ethnic category that rested atop more specific ethnicity, much like “Latino” or “Arab” or “Desi”.
They went through a process of ethnogenesis. It’s a historically common process, ethnic groups don’t just spring from the earth.
After the 3rd century or so Rome wasn’t even the most important Roman city anymore in any given year.
I don't agree with that at all. To be Roman without involving the city of Rome is a completely incoherent idea. It didn't change.
I’m sorry to say, but you’re simply wrong about this, and any level of cursory knowledge of the Roman Empire would reveal this to you.
Literally millions of people living outside of Rome were considered Roman, even by the people living in Rome. They had the rights of citizens, they called themselves Roman, and other people called them Roman, including their enemies.
Contributions to Roman philosophy, literature and poetry frequently came from outside the city of Rome.
They followed and were subject to Roman law, practiced Roman rites of religion, when the empire converted to Christianity they did too, they had a “Roman way of life” that was particular to them ie culture.
It’s like thinking someone who lives in Dallas isn’t American just because at one point Texas was part of Mexico.
I'm willing to agree that people living in the Roman empire count as Roman. But once the polity doesn't include Rome, it isn't the Roman empire any more. Perhaps not immediately, but by the time the Byzantine empire collapsed it is absurd to call them "Roman" as they haven't had any relation to Rome for something like a thousand years.
Again, by your logic Taiwan is China - but they aren't, and if you refer to "China" nobody thinks you mean the little island of Taiwan too. Possession matters and you can't just ignore it.
If you take your argument here seriously, what's your opinion on Zionism? The jews didn't own Judaea for a very long time after all.
I mean, I don't think anyone is trying to claim that the nation of Israel existed all these years. Or at least I haven't seen people claiming that. Obviously it exists now, but that doesn't mean it did the whole time.
Yes, but I'm saying that your argument also means that they don't get to call themselves jews or count as Jewish if their polity doesn't include Judah, which it didn't for most of recorded history.
I'm not aware of "Jewish" ever being a term referring to a specific place the way "Roman" is, I guess. As far as I'm aware it refers to the name of the religion, not a place. Perhaps I am misinformed but either way it hasn't been on my radar as a result.
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It’s actually the reverse; by the time the Roman Empire was split the eastern portion of the empire had far outstripped the western portion of the empire in terms of wealth, power, population and prestige for more than a century.
In the Taiwan / China analogy, which I do t think even applies very well to premodern empires, you’re the one insisting Taiwan is China.
No I'm not, because I'm basing my argument on continuity with the location, not the line of succession for government. I have no idea how that isn't clear. Thus:
The Byzantine Empire could reasonably call themselves "Roman" at first, because they were the eastern part of the Roman Empire. At some point after the city of Rome fell, there was no Roman Empire because such an empire would have to include Rome. The prestige, power etc is irrelevant.
Taiwan is not China, even though the people are originally from China and consider themselves Chinese, because they don't occupy China. The prestige, power etc is irrelevant.
It doesn't matter what people call themselves, where they came from originally, or whether they are stronger than some other group. It is purely the location which matters.
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I’m not sure this supports the point you’re trying to make.
It is obviously true that (modulo a small population of foreigners and Taiwanese aboriginals) virtually all inhabitants of Taiwan today are descended from people who came from China. And if you’ve ever paid a visit to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, you’d know that there’s a very real sense in which the people of present-day Taiwan are the heirs to, and the custodians of, the Chinese civilizational patrimony. Perhaps not uniquely so—the overseas Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore, and of course the mainland Chinese, have similar claims, with varying degrees of plausibility—but then again, no one said that the Romanians or the inhabitants of minor outlying islands in the Aegean were the only surviving Sons of Romulus, either.
The difference is that the PRC only really cares about the KMTs dispute of continuity of government from the 1911 Xinhai revolution, which is the theoretical successor to the Imperial China polity and its associated territorial claims. Cultural successors to different time/regions of China include the San Francisco and Flushing Chinatowns which practice the Cantonese ways of the 1800s, the Thai Chinese who practice a syncretic Thai-Teochew pattern of especially gaudy taoism (other southeast Asians are migrants who hold little affection for the mainland), and even the Joseon who at one point proclaimed they were the successors/avengers of Ming China following the Manchu conquest of the Han. Yet all of these are unimportant to the PRC because no one else claims legitimacy over the mainland.
The KMT are in fact colonizers in the truest sense, being a foreign people (KMT nationalist government, soldiers and displaced Nanjing intellectuals) that displaced the local power structures and cultures (Ainu/Japanese colonial subjects+local bureaucrats) while acting as a disputed successor to a foreign regime that had not ruled over Taiwanese for half a century. These putonghua speaking nobles ran roughshod over the minnanyu speaking islanders who cared not for the squabbles of the mainland. That the KMT was entertaining thoughts of reclaiming mainland China through an Operation Revival style invasion of the Inner Sphere was the maim reason for the continual dispute between the PRC and ROC.
Fast forward about 60 years and a LOT of cultural upheavals roiling the world, and the PRC obsession with the ROC seems less like actual intra-Chinese dynastic succession politics that basically characterized the vast majority of Chinese imperial history and more a consequence of a heavily interconnected world with a force of first resort actually able to project power to its vassals. The eastern roman themes draped the livery of Constantinople on their standards, but no levy of Aleppo trained with a Hellenic muster. By contrast the Taiwanese Armed Forces practically beg to be placed under the command and responsibility of their US friends, for force competency and blame absolution purposes. Whether this assessment is accurate or even shared by the PRC is unknown, but it certainly seems that Taiwans irredentist claims to the Qing holdings would not be maintained if Taiwan did not have the US 7th fleet nearby.
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Sure I would agree that the people in Taiwan are descended from the Chinese (as the Byzantines were from the Romans). But that doesn't make them Chinese, any more than Australians are English because most of the population is descended from English convicts. Like I said, possession matters. Perhaps the first generation or even second generation of the Byzantines after the fall of Rome could legitimately claim to be Roman. But at some point, it doesn't hold water any more.
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